Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #202: Backcountry Whitetail Hunting in the Boundary Waters

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #202: Backcountry Whitetail Hunting in the Boundary Waters · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host Mark Kenyon in this episode number two O
0:19
Speaker 1: two and saying the show, we're exploring the idea of
0:22
Speaker 1: a true back country white tail hunt in the Boundary
0:25
Speaker 1: Waters of northern Minnesota, and we're gonna be joined here
0:27
Speaker 1: by several members of Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters to
0:30
Speaker 1: discuss this wilderness, how to pull off a hunt here,
0:33
Speaker 1: and why this area is currently at risk. All right,
0:47
Speaker 1: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
0:51
Speaker 1: by Sitka Gear and say in the show, we are
0:55
Speaker 1: covering a very different kind of topic than usual. We
0:58
Speaker 1: are talking about back country white tail hunting. And in
1:03
Speaker 1: last week's podcast you might remember I'd hinted to the
1:06
Speaker 1: fact that this coming fall, I'm planning a canoe in
1:09
Speaker 1: back country white tail hunt into this wilderness. So today
1:13
Speaker 1: I wanted to dive much, much deeper into that topic.
1:16
Speaker 1: And you know, so much of the white tail hunting
1:18
Speaker 1: that we talked about on this podcast is focused on
1:20
Speaker 1: on just the usual, everyday agg field and wood lot
1:24
Speaker 1: type landscape that so many of us here across the
1:26
Speaker 1: country deer hunting on annual basis, and that's that's awesome.
1:29
Speaker 1: I get a kick out of it. I love it.
1:31
Speaker 1: But I've also been personally interested in kind of getting
1:34
Speaker 1: more intrigued by the idea of venturing off to some
1:37
Speaker 1: more unique places to chase my favorite game species. You know,
1:40
Speaker 1: I really want to try to find ways to stretch
1:42
Speaker 1: myself as a deer hunter, to experience new ways of hunting,
1:45
Speaker 1: explore new places, and this idea of the Boundary Waters
1:48
Speaker 1: it has been top of my list when it comes
1:51
Speaker 1: to this kind of idea so very quickly. For those
1:54
Speaker 1: not familiar, the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness is just
1:58
Speaker 1: a vast, promitive wilderness area in northern Minnesota. We're talking
2:03
Speaker 1: an area I believe it's it's over one million acres
2:05
Speaker 1: in size, and it's composed of miles and miles and
2:08
Speaker 1: miles of lakes and rivers and huge forests and rocky
2:11
Speaker 1: cliffs and escarpments and just a really rugged and impressive landscape.
2:16
Speaker 1: And the only way to get around in it, at
2:17
Speaker 1: least during the spring, summer and fall, is to hike
2:20
Speaker 1: or canoe. So my plan is to load all of
2:23
Speaker 1: my gear for a week of white tail hunting and
2:26
Speaker 1: camping in a canoe and paddling porterage deep into this
2:29
Speaker 1: wilderness until I find some deer, hopefully, And I think
2:32
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a really challenging, really interesting, really
2:35
Speaker 1: fun trip. But you know what originally brought this area,
2:39
Speaker 1: the Boundary Waters, to my tension a few years ago
2:42
Speaker 1: was the fact that not only is it special, but
2:44
Speaker 1: it's also a place facing increased risk. From everything I've
2:49
Speaker 1: read and heard and seeing, this is one of the
2:50
Speaker 1: nation's most impressive and precious wild places, but it's it's
2:54
Speaker 1: in some serious danger here. So I've been doing more
2:58
Speaker 1: and more research on what's going on here, and as
3:00
Speaker 1: I've done that, I've gotten more interested in both kind
3:02
Speaker 1: of finding a way to see it for myself and
3:04
Speaker 1: then trying to, you know, lend a hand if I
3:06
Speaker 1: can at all, to make sure this place is around
3:09
Speaker 1: and in a healthy condition so that maybe some of
3:14
Speaker 1: you folks can see it someday, maybe some of my
3:16
Speaker 1: son can see it someday. And that's kind of how
3:18
Speaker 1: this trip idea and this podcast idea finally all came together.
3:22
Speaker 1: So here, in a moment I'm going to be getting
3:24
Speaker 1: three more guys on the line with me, Dan Dan
3:26
Speaker 1: can't join us today, but we will have three guests.
3:29
Speaker 1: They're all very familiar with the Boundary Waters, and we're
3:32
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about We're gonna be talking about the
3:34
Speaker 1: will Erners in general, We're gonna be talking about what
3:36
Speaker 1: it's like to deer hunt there, and then finally we're
3:38
Speaker 1: also going to talk a little bit about what's going
3:40
Speaker 1: on there, what these dangers are that the Boundary witers
3:43
Speaker 1: are facing. So joining us here in a second is
3:46
Speaker 1: Lucas Leaf, the national Sporting director for Sportsman for the
3:49
Speaker 1: Boundary Waters, Matt Norton, the Policy director for Sportsman for
3:53
Speaker 1: the Boundary Waters, and another avid hunter and angler from
3:56
Speaker 1: the area, Darryl Spencer. So I think, regardless of you know,
4:00
Speaker 1: whether or not you ever plan on hunting or fishing
4:03
Speaker 1: or exploring the Boundary Waters yourself, I think this is
4:05
Speaker 1: a chat that everyone and anyone can enjoy and learn
4:08
Speaker 1: something from. We just cover some some very interesting things,
4:11
Speaker 1: some very different ways of deer hunting. But I do
4:14
Speaker 1: think that you know, regardless, this is the kind of place,
4:19
Speaker 1: is the kind of adventure that I think, if nothing
4:22
Speaker 1: else is fun to hear about and then daydream about
4:25
Speaker 1: in the future. I know I certainly have been doing
4:27
Speaker 1: a lot of daydream about this place too. So with
4:30
Speaker 1: all that said, let's pause here for a moment for
4:32
Speaker 1: our sickest story of the day, and then we're going
4:35
Speaker 1: to dive right into it. For this week's sick of story,
4:39
Speaker 1: we're joined by Seth Healy, who tells us about a
4:41
Speaker 1: recent goose hunt that meant a little more. Well, it
4:45
Speaker 1: was early January and my buddy Andy is his best
4:49
Speaker 1: friend and actually unexpectedly passed away, and um, you know
4:54
Speaker 1: he was. They were both big goose hunters, and um,
4:57
Speaker 1: there was three of them that really goose hutting together.
4:58
Speaker 1: I'm not a big waterfowl guy. Um, so we we
5:03
Speaker 1: decided to go out, uh the very last day of season.
5:07
Speaker 1: And you know they hadn't they hadn't hand it much
5:09
Speaker 1: since it passed away. Um, So we go out the
5:13
Speaker 1: last day of season, and the night before he had
5:16
Speaker 1: seen a goose with a white head and that was
5:19
Speaker 1: the one that Andy had wanted to shoot the most.
5:22
Speaker 1: And so I mean it's not even two minutes after
5:24
Speaker 1: shooting time and three geese come in and Skyler and
5:29
Speaker 1: I had completely missed the first one and ended up
5:32
Speaker 1: shooting the last two. Andy, which was the guy's best
5:36
Speaker 1: friend that had passed away. UM had shot that white
5:40
Speaker 1: headed goose and with his gun and his decoys, and
5:46
Speaker 1: it was just kind of like, you know, the the
5:49
Speaker 1: guy that passed away, it almost sent that bird directly
5:51
Speaker 1: to Andy. I mean, it was just an unforgettable moment
5:56
Speaker 1: and definitely an emotional hunt for you know, both of
6:01
Speaker 1: those guys that were using his stuff on seth Son
6:05
Speaker 1: Hughes wearing sick As Dakota system. If you'd like to
6:07
Speaker 1: create a Sickest story of your own, or to learn
6:09
Speaker 1: more about sitkas Technical Hunting Apparel, visit sitkagear dot com.
6:15
Speaker 1: All right with me now on the line. We've got
6:18
Speaker 1: a whole slate of folks with us again today. We
6:20
Speaker 1: have Lucas Leaf, Matt Norton, and Darryl Spencer. And rather
6:25
Speaker 1: than me trying to rattle off a big introduction of
6:29
Speaker 1: my own, I was hoping that you guys could maybe
6:31
Speaker 1: give us a brief kind of cliff notes as to
6:34
Speaker 1: who each of you are. UM, So maybe Lucas could
6:37
Speaker 1: you kick things off for us by just telling us
6:39
Speaker 1: a little bit about yourself and your involvement with the
6:42
Speaker 1: Boundary Waters. Yeah, absolutely, Mark um So, I'm the national
6:47
Speaker 1: sporting director for Sportsman for the Boundary Waters. Uh. You know,
6:52
Speaker 1: we work to protect bounty waters for two two generations
6:57
Speaker 1: currently from suft side or copper mining. But you know
7:00
Speaker 1: that's just a part of my background. I've been going
7:02
Speaker 1: up there since I was thirteen, everything from rough grouse
7:06
Speaker 1: hunts to spring open or lake drought trips, and you know,
7:10
Speaker 1: I'm a big h under an angler. I spent a
7:16
Speaker 1: lot of time up there. I'm also a chef as well,
7:21
Speaker 1: so I've been doing a lot of work, especially with
7:24
Speaker 1: the campaign that both Matt and I worked with and
7:27
Speaker 1: Darrow as well. And I'm also the current chef of
7:31
Speaker 1: Modern Carnivore, which you know we can chat a little
7:34
Speaker 1: bit about later if it comes up. But yeah, you know,
7:38
Speaker 1: my basic background is basically I spend a ton of
7:42
Speaker 1: time up in the Boundary Waters. I care about it
7:44
Speaker 1: so much. It's near and dear to my heart. You know,
7:46
Speaker 1: my dad started bringing me up there when I was thirteen,
7:48
Speaker 1: and you know it's our church, so it's it's a
7:51
Speaker 1: space that's near and dear to me, and very important
7:55
Speaker 1: for the kids I plan on having, and for everybody
7:58
Speaker 1: that I know and that I've introduced to it. You know,
8:01
Speaker 1: can you tell us a little more about modern carnivore
8:03
Speaker 1: before we move on to the rest of the guys.
8:05
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious to hear a bit more on that. Yeah,
8:09
Speaker 1: absolutely so. Um. Modern carnivore was developed as a way
8:14
Speaker 1: to introduce UM people who have not experienced hunting and
8:19
Speaker 1: angling or the idea of self sustainability and acquiring meat
8:26
Speaker 1: through means that is hunting and fishing. So basically introducing
8:30
Speaker 1: people to hunting and angling opportunities and letting them taste food,
8:37
Speaker 1: bringing them out on excursions, and also doing uh dinners
8:43
Speaker 1: and get together as were. We give them the opportunity
8:47
Speaker 1: to not only make the decision themselves, but to experience
8:52
Speaker 1: what is kind of a long standing tradition here in
8:56
Speaker 1: America and you know, across the world, which is acquiring
9:01
Speaker 1: our fil our home food by means of fishing, hunting, UM,
9:07
Speaker 1: growing your own food, so forging as well, So all
9:12
Speaker 1: things that I'm super into. You know, I'm big into foraging,
9:16
Speaker 1: mushrooms and lots of things during the spring and throughout
9:20
Speaker 1: the summer and fall, so uh, seasonality is key. It's
9:24
Speaker 1: just a lot of fun and it's very cool to
9:26
Speaker 1: see the reaction of people when they've been introduced to
9:29
Speaker 1: something that they didn't know that was right in their
9:31
Speaker 1: backyard or that they had such an easy opportunity to
9:34
Speaker 1: go and acquire themselves. Well, yeah, that's great. That sounds
9:38
Speaker 1: like a great opportunity to help engage people that. It
9:42
Speaker 1: seems more and more our opportunity to engage with new
9:45
Speaker 1: hunters and bring new people into our community is their food. Um.
9:48
Speaker 1: So that's sounds like a great deal you guys got
9:51
Speaker 1: going there. I'd love to dive more into that later too.
9:54
Speaker 1: Um but but Matt, I guess can we can we
9:56
Speaker 1: jump over to you? Matt, can you give us a
9:58
Speaker 1: quick intro to yourself? Sure? Well, Um, I'm the policy
10:03
Speaker 1: director for the campaign and sportsman for the Boundary Waters.
10:07
Speaker 1: Um I I love paddling, Um I love hunting, I
10:13
Speaker 1: love fishing. Willderness areas are important to me and being
10:17
Speaker 1: able to get a really high quality outdoor experience is
10:20
Speaker 1: important to me. And I'm, um, you know, a big
10:25
Speaker 1: fan of the Boundary Waters because it's the um incredibly
10:30
Speaker 1: accessible Uh, if you're willing to paddle, if you're willing
10:33
Speaker 1: to work and experience, it's enormous really as soon as
10:38
Speaker 1: you put in on your first lake, your experience experiencing
10:44
Speaker 1: the backcountry UM environment. And well, I've been paddling in
10:52
Speaker 1: the boundary waters uh been. I first moved here to
10:56
Speaker 1: many flota. UM. Prior paths and trips were in UM
11:04
Speaker 1: provincial parks in Canada, particularly Algonquin French Park in eastern Ontario. UM.
11:12
Speaker 1: I've got a biology background, and I came to hunting
11:18
Speaker 1: late in life. I did not go through the modern
11:22
Speaker 1: carnivore routine but UM, but I did not you know
11:28
Speaker 1: as many I guess you know higher percentages today people
11:33
Speaker 1: are growing up in households for the parents, UM don't
11:37
Speaker 1: really hunt for fish. UM. That's less true in then soota,
11:41
Speaker 1: where a huge percentage of people fish and a decent
11:44
Speaker 1: percentage of people hunt. But UM, so I came to
11:49
Speaker 1: hunting again, fishing out of my own interests and in particular,
11:55
Speaker 1: you know that opportunity to find high quality UM experiences
12:02
Speaker 1: but also high quality UM uh fish and venison. I
12:10
Speaker 1: was going to ask you a little bit more about
12:12
Speaker 1: what a policy director actually does for an organization like this,
12:17
Speaker 1: you know what does that actually mean? Sure well, UM,
12:20
Speaker 1: the effort to save the boundary waters from the biggest
12:25
Speaker 1: threat that's uh. Uh you know that's in front of it,
12:30
Speaker 1: which is sulfide or compromising of particularly UM toxic type
12:35
Speaker 1: of mining. UM. Type of mining that's never been done
12:40
Speaker 1: successfully anywhere in the US or anywhere in the world. UM.
12:46
Speaker 1: If success is defined as operating and closing without polluting
12:52
Speaker 1: surrounding surface water and groundwater with heavy levels and UM
12:57
Speaker 1: you know they're mining containments. So we've got right now
13:00
Speaker 1: a big job interacting with federal agencies, particularly the U. S.
13:08
Speaker 1: Forest Service and the Bureau Flane Management UM, and the
13:12
Speaker 1: departments above them UM US Department of Agriculture in the
13:16
Speaker 1: case of the Forest Service, and Department Interior in the
13:20
Speaker 1: case of the Bureau Flane Management. And interacting with them
13:24
Speaker 1: typically means UM if you're doing it in a formal fashion, UH,
13:30
Speaker 1: producing a fair amount of written information UH that explains
13:36
Speaker 1: what science, what factual information you've got UM, and experiential
13:41
Speaker 1: information you can convey to them to explain just how
13:47
Speaker 1: bad for how long it would be if sulfide or
13:51
Speaker 1: compermning were allowed. To begin in the watershed that's close
13:57
Speaker 1: down into the boundary waters. And I don't know if
14:00
Speaker 1: you're listeners, you know, I appreciate these are public lands.
14:06
Speaker 1: I don't hopefully just describe it a little bit as
14:08
Speaker 1: you can imagine, But this is a one point one
14:11
Speaker 1: million acre wilderness area. It's under the U. S. Forest
14:18
Speaker 1: Service management. There's more than a thousand, one seventy five
14:23
Speaker 1: lakes larger than tank acres. They are massively interconnected, and
14:27
Speaker 1: so you can paddle from lake to lake, or sometimes
14:30
Speaker 1: paddle to the end of the lake and portagees carry
14:33
Speaker 1: all your stuff the canoe and and your portage bags
14:38
Speaker 1: with your goods from one lake into another and just
14:41
Speaker 1: keep going. You could literally spend a year paddling in
14:45
Speaker 1: the boundary waters without about, you know, without repeating your track. Uh.
14:53
Speaker 1: So I write, and I read and interact with experts
14:56
Speaker 1: and make sure we make a compelling case to our
15:00
Speaker 1: for relatencies. Thought why decipe of mind should not happen?
15:03
Speaker 1: In about it sounds like um important work, obviously and
15:10
Speaker 1: uh and obviously you seem to be one who's a
15:12
Speaker 1: well cut up for it. So I'm glad we've got
15:14
Speaker 1: someone like you can dig into all the minutia of
15:18
Speaker 1: of the policies and the different issues and the and
15:20
Speaker 1: the science. UM. I've read a lot of the different
15:23
Speaker 1: paperwork and UM studies you guys have cited and different
15:27
Speaker 1: things on your website, and there's a lot of detail
15:29
Speaker 1: goes into and I imagine a lot of that is
15:31
Speaker 1: a year doing UM so. So that's impressive the level
15:34
Speaker 1: of detail you guys have gone into trying to understand
15:37
Speaker 1: what really is at stake here, what what's going to happen,
15:39
Speaker 1: what could happen, um and why we might want to
15:43
Speaker 1: put on the brakes a little bit when it comes
15:44
Speaker 1: to some of these things, and and and a little bit.
15:46
Speaker 1: I want to dive in much more deeply into into
15:50
Speaker 1: what exactly is being proposed, why the Boundary waters are
15:53
Speaker 1: at risk, why there's been so much talk about it.
15:56
Speaker 1: Um but um but but Darryl, I guess real quick,
16:00
Speaker 1: let's hop over to you real quick to finish off
16:02
Speaker 1: our introductions. What what's your story? Live in delus Minnesota.
16:06
Speaker 1: I went to school at the University of Minnesota Duluse
16:09
Speaker 1: and fell in love with the area, uh close to
16:13
Speaker 1: the Boundary Waters, close to the Superior National Forum. Its
16:17
Speaker 1: close to Chippewa National Forests and love to hunt and
16:22
Speaker 1: fish and and said I would never leave, and I didn't,
16:24
Speaker 1: and raising two boys here in the Louse and lived
16:28
Speaker 1: to hunt and small businessman always have been and right
16:34
Speaker 1: to have a business that allows me to hunt a
16:37
Speaker 1: lot and fish a lot. And so far it's worked
16:40
Speaker 1: out pretty well, smart man. That's the way. That's the
16:43
Speaker 1: way to do it. Um. So, So the reason why
16:46
Speaker 1: I originally wanted to, you know, get all you three
16:49
Speaker 1: here together to talk to me about this is because
16:51
Speaker 1: you know, I personally have become in trade with the
16:53
Speaker 1: Boundary waters over the past few years. Um. You know,
16:57
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time exploring public lands out west,
17:00
Speaker 1: and I've spent a lot of time in northern Michigan,
17:02
Speaker 1: my home state, doing a lot of things there. But
17:04
Speaker 1: I've never really spent any time in Minnesota. Um. But
17:07
Speaker 1: I think maybe it was back in two thousand and
17:09
Speaker 1: fifteen I started hearing about some of these things you
17:12
Speaker 1: alluded to, Matt, about these this uh this mind proposal
17:17
Speaker 1: and leases, and that kind of brought attention for me
17:20
Speaker 1: just to that what this place is and hearing about
17:23
Speaker 1: the paddling opportunities and the hunting opportunities and the fishing
17:26
Speaker 1: and just that wilderness experience. UM. And I've always had
17:30
Speaker 1: a little bit of a little bit of my heart
17:33
Speaker 1: has always been tied to that kind of place where
17:35
Speaker 1: you can canoe into a wild place, because I as
17:38
Speaker 1: a kid, I grew up going every summer to upstate
17:42
Speaker 1: New York to the Adirondack Mountains where my great uncle
17:45
Speaker 1: had a little cabin and I just spent you know,
17:48
Speaker 1: several weeks of summer just canoeing all over the place,
17:51
Speaker 1: and as like a ten year old, I felt like
17:53
Speaker 1: I was in the biggest wildest place you could ever see. Um.
17:58
Speaker 1: Obviously there were other boats all around me, but at
18:01
Speaker 1: times it sure felt like a pretty wild, awesome experience.
18:04
Speaker 1: And when I started looking into what the Boundary Waters
18:08
Speaker 1: you know, had to offer, I saw that same kind
18:10
Speaker 1: of opportunity to to go deep into a wild place,
18:13
Speaker 1: a quiet place, UM, and be on your own and
18:17
Speaker 1: be you know, being a a manpower type adventure. And
18:23
Speaker 1: so it's always been something I thought about. And then
18:26
Speaker 1: you know me personally, as the years have gone on
18:28
Speaker 1: as a deer hunter, UM, I've gotten more and more
18:30
Speaker 1: interested in different types of deer hunting trips. Um So,
18:35
Speaker 1: as a as a serious white tailed guy. In my
18:37
Speaker 1: everyday life, I do a lot of stuff in the
18:39
Speaker 1: farmland of the Midwest, a lot of your typical white
18:41
Speaker 1: tail hunting. But I've been intrigued with taking my love
18:44
Speaker 1: for white tails and going into bigger, wilder, woolier places
18:48
Speaker 1: and having a unique experience. And the Boundary Waters kind
18:51
Speaker 1: of jumped out to me this year as well. What
18:53
Speaker 1: a great opportunity to see something very different, to experience
18:57
Speaker 1: something very different than your typical white tail hunt, and um,
19:01
Speaker 1: you know, experience this place, learn about this place, talk
19:04
Speaker 1: about this place during a time where it needs it
19:08
Speaker 1: needs a little bit of love and care. Right now,
19:09
Speaker 1: it sounds like um So to set that stage just
19:14
Speaker 1: a little bit more. And Matt you kind of started
19:15
Speaker 1: with it. Um. But for people that aren't familiar with
19:19
Speaker 1: the Boundary Waters, I kind of want to help paint
19:21
Speaker 1: a picture for them, And I guess I'm not. I
19:23
Speaker 1: haven't been there, so I would love you guys to
19:25
Speaker 1: paint a little bit more of a picture for me.
19:27
Speaker 1: Um and Darrel, you just mentioned how much you like
19:29
Speaker 1: to hunt and fish and spend time there. Can you
19:32
Speaker 1: give us such a quick painting. How how would you
19:35
Speaker 1: what what would you say so special about the Boundary Waters?
19:38
Speaker 1: What is a what is time spent in the Boundary Waters? Like?
19:42
Speaker 1: Um kind of give us a glimpse into that kind
19:45
Speaker 1: of experience. Well. Boundary Waters is a million acres area.
19:53
Speaker 1: It extends along about UM eight ninety miles of the
19:58
Speaker 1: US border with Canada UM and it makes up most
20:05
Speaker 1: of the United States side of what's really a transnational
20:12
Speaker 1: US and Canada Lakeland Wilderness area. The totals up to
20:18
Speaker 1: be about two and a half million ache. The water
20:21
Speaker 1: in this area is some of the purest water on
20:24
Speaker 1: Earth um extremely high quality water. You can drink straight
20:31
Speaker 1: from the middle of the lake. These waters are are
20:36
Speaker 1: um and healthy for us. You know, there's there's no
20:38
Speaker 1: roads um uh no, no motors on the inside of
20:44
Speaker 1: the Boundary Waters. Only a few lakes really on the
20:48
Speaker 1: UM a couple of spots on the edges where low
20:51
Speaker 1: health coursepower motors are allowed, but the vast majority of
20:55
Speaker 1: it no motors. And you know you're you're moving around
21:00
Speaker 1: through the landscape the way people moved through that landscape
21:07
Speaker 1: centuries and thousands of years. It is. It's an incredible
21:12
Speaker 1: area tremendous habitat for um, migrating birds, UM, some incredible
21:22
Speaker 1: diversity of birds. Gray fishing, just vast, vast fisheries across
21:29
Speaker 1: these you know, uh, almost a good sized lake. UM
21:37
Speaker 1: very healthy because the relative fishing pressure is low. Just um,
21:43
Speaker 1: you couldn't you couldn't fish that area enough to really
21:47
Speaker 1: make a very heavy impact on the on the fisheries.
21:50
Speaker 1: And so it's healthy fisheries and UM. You know, planes
21:57
Speaker 1: are not allowed to land in the Worlderness area except
22:00
Speaker 1: under emergency conditions, and these four planes in the emergency conditions,
22:06
Speaker 1: and so you're willing to work for it. You can
22:09
Speaker 1: get you know, you can portage many lakes and and
22:15
Speaker 1: get into an area where you're unlikely to see uh
22:19
Speaker 1: people for days. It's really a great experience. I mean
22:22
Speaker 1: they're all, what would you what would you add to that?
22:27
Speaker 1: You know, it's me. It's it's all about travel. UM,
22:31
Speaker 1: it's all about getting back to the rhythm of life
22:34
Speaker 1: and hard work. And there's no other place like it.
22:37
Speaker 1: Maybe they add around XS like you were talking. But
22:40
Speaker 1: you know, when I was in my twenties and thirties,
22:42
Speaker 1: I went there too much. I mean I loved it
22:45
Speaker 1: to death. I'd go six to ten trips a year.
22:48
Speaker 1: I'd constantly try to find a different route. It take
22:51
Speaker 1: groups up there. I take just a friend up there.
22:53
Speaker 1: I take the little trips with my dog and a
22:56
Speaker 1: lot of them. Were testing myself to see if I
22:59
Speaker 1: could you in three days. And you know traditional routes
23:06
Speaker 1: too that the voyagers took. You know, I've done the
23:09
Speaker 1: Border route, which is basically the entire top of the
23:12
Speaker 1: Bombing Waters. I've done the Hunter's Island loop, which is
23:15
Speaker 1: two d sixty miles and up in the Canada and
23:19
Speaker 1: back around. UM. And now that I've gotten older, to
23:23
Speaker 1: be honest, I I don't like being around all the people,
23:26
Speaker 1: and so I rarely go in there unless it's uh
23:30
Speaker 1: you know, early spring, uh fall to hunt and the
23:34
Speaker 1: winner UM, and I just enjoy that. That's the best
23:39
Speaker 1: way to explain it. I just said, my son take
23:41
Speaker 1: his girl from there for the first time, and I
23:44
Speaker 1: told him, I said, I hope you feel after two
23:47
Speaker 1: to three days the rhythm of life where all you
23:50
Speaker 1: care about is work, beat to sleep. And they came
23:54
Speaker 1: back and said they did so. It was pretty cool.
23:57
Speaker 1: It's very cool. I can definitely relate to that. That
24:01
Speaker 1: UM that power that a kind of immersion in a
24:06
Speaker 1: wilderness has to help you just get your mind off
24:09
Speaker 1: of everything else. You're not thinking about work, You're not
24:12
Speaker 1: thinking about the chores at home, or paying the bills
24:15
Speaker 1: or anything. I think anytime you can get away from
24:17
Speaker 1: that for a while, it's um is woo woo and
24:20
Speaker 1: cheesy as it might sound, it really has a powerful
24:23
Speaker 1: almost spiritual effect um, at least for me. And it
24:26
Speaker 1: sounds like it sounds like this is the kind of
24:28
Speaker 1: place that has that to Um. Lucas, would you add
24:31
Speaker 1: anything to all this as far as what this place
24:35
Speaker 1: is all about? Yeah? Absolutely, Um. You know, I'm I'm
24:38
Speaker 1: kind of on the same page as Darryl is. You know.
24:40
Speaker 1: I I grew up going on uh Spring Lake trout
24:46
Speaker 1: trips up there, so you know, you're you're paddling in
24:49
Speaker 1: and and not knowing if if the ice is going
24:51
Speaker 1: to be off the lakes. And I've had experiences where,
24:54
Speaker 1: you know, especially with my dad, that you know, we've
24:57
Speaker 1: had to camp on a portage to wait for the
25:00
Speaker 1: ice to come out. And it's definitely for me, it
25:06
Speaker 1: it resonates as a place to go to to release
25:09
Speaker 1: and forget about society. And kind of reboot your batteries. Um,
25:14
Speaker 1: there's so many different opportunities, you know, as as Darrel
25:18
Speaker 1: was saying, you know, you can go up for a
25:20
Speaker 1: rough rouse hunt. You can go up you know they're
25:23
Speaker 1: going up for a white tailed deer hunt, or you're
25:25
Speaker 1: going to that Spring Lake trout hunt. You know, you
25:27
Speaker 1: get in the right space in in June and you
25:32
Speaker 1: miss people for while. I too, So UM, there's so
25:36
Speaker 1: many opportunities to go up there and experience this vast,
25:40
Speaker 1: amazing place by yourself without running into people if you
25:46
Speaker 1: hit the right spots. I mean, it is one of
25:48
Speaker 1: the most visited wildernesses in the nation, with over a
25:52
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand people every year. But it's so
25:55
Speaker 1: huge that you have an opportunity to experience something, um
26:00
Speaker 1: that doesn't exist anywhere else here. So UM, for me,
26:05
Speaker 1: it's it's it's really been about not only my own experiences,
26:11
Speaker 1: but introducing it to others as well. And I can
26:16
Speaker 1: say for for absolutely, for a fact that every single
26:23
Speaker 1: person that I've brought up and I've introduced to this
26:25
Speaker 1: place has become hooked, no pun intended, but um, it
26:30
Speaker 1: is an amazing space. Um. I wish I was there
26:34
Speaker 1: right now, So yeah, I agree, Um, what what does
26:42
Speaker 1: this place? What does the boundary bars actually look like?
26:46
Speaker 1: Lucas can you can you tell us about the terrain,
26:48
Speaker 1: the vegetation, the look and feel it of it, of
26:50
Speaker 1: it all. Um, it's very, very different from southern Minnesota, right, yeah, absolutely.
26:56
Speaker 1: I mean, you know Matt touched on it earlier. One
26:59
Speaker 1: point one acres, those interconnected lake streams, rivers, wetlands, you know,
27:07
Speaker 1: with countless different opportunities for you know, fishing, hunting, world
27:11
Speaker 1: class opportunities, mallmouth, bass, lake, trout, walleyed northern pike, rough grouse,
27:18
Speaker 1: fight sale. Um, you're really stepping into, stepping back in
27:24
Speaker 1: the time when you go up there, and that's why
27:26
Speaker 1: it's so important that you know it has been protected.
27:29
Speaker 1: That's the way it is. You're you're stepping into a
27:33
Speaker 1: into a northern forest that doesn't really exist anywhere else,
27:38
Speaker 1: you know, Stepford going up into the Cutico, which is
27:42
Speaker 1: the sister area, which is about a million acres in
27:45
Speaker 1: Canada as well. So, um, I can't express more that
27:51
Speaker 1: you know, as much as I like to, just just
27:53
Speaker 1: to describe exactly what it is. You can't know unless
27:56
Speaker 1: you experience it for yourself. The quietness, the solitude, UM,
28:03
Speaker 1: just the experience itself is just it's you can't compare
28:06
Speaker 1: it to anywhere else, you know, I'd say that, you know,
28:11
Speaker 1: I'd characterized the landscape up there. It's boreal forest mixed
28:16
Speaker 1: in with some uh with northern bits here and there
28:21
Speaker 1: of eastern broad leaf forest. Um, You've got rolling hills,
28:26
Speaker 1: You've got cliffs and uh, you know, some really precipitous
28:32
Speaker 1: cliffs and very deep lakes and places. The water is um.
28:38
Speaker 1: You know, I've already said it's clean enough to drink,
28:40
Speaker 1: but enormous amounts, enormous amounts of interconnected um lakes in
28:47
Speaker 1: a in a very healthy forested, hilly and cliffs strewn
28:55
Speaker 1: um landscape. There's really I think lakeland. A lake land
29:00
Speaker 1: wilderness is really the best way to describe it. And
29:04
Speaker 1: there really isn't any equivalent anywhere else in the US.
29:08
Speaker 1: In fact, it's the biggest wilderness area east of the
29:10
Speaker 1: Rockies and north of of the Everglades. So it's you know,
29:16
Speaker 1: for most of America, this is this is the nearest
29:20
Speaker 1: big wilderness that they've got. I was going to say,
29:23
Speaker 1: and just to touch on what Matt was saying, Um,
29:26
Speaker 1: you know there's individual lakes untouched there that produced their
29:31
Speaker 1: own ecosystems. You know, you could go from one lake
29:35
Speaker 1: to another and the lake trout what they're feeding on
29:38
Speaker 1: is completely different. Um, the color of the fish, you know,
29:44
Speaker 1: the ecosystem that they're living in. It's it's an amazing thing.
29:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I've fished a lake a quarter mile from
29:50
Speaker 1: each other, independent upon the waters that are going into
29:53
Speaker 1: each lake. Um, you have a completely different experience, different taste.
29:59
Speaker 1: It's it's just amazing. Add I'd add to it. Um,
30:05
Speaker 1: it looks like Minnesota, and the difference is it's the
30:10
Speaker 1: one place where there aren't motors. It's not logging, and
30:14
Speaker 1: there's very small amounts of motorized recreations. It's just a
30:20
Speaker 1: it's the one quiet place in Minnesota. But it it
30:23
Speaker 1: looks like a lot of other places. It looks like
30:25
Speaker 1: Secuity National Forest, it looks like Chipwa National Forests without
30:28
Speaker 1: the roads, without the a t v s, and without
30:31
Speaker 1: a lot of the people. It sounds pretty special and
30:34
Speaker 1: it sounds like, you know, what's neat about this area
30:36
Speaker 1: is that as I think it was. I think Matt,
30:39
Speaker 1: you mentioned that it's so relatively so accessible for a
30:43
Speaker 1: lot of people. You know, east of the Mississippi. A
30:45
Speaker 1: lot of people think when they think about big wilderness,
30:47
Speaker 1: they assume they have to go to Alaska or Montana
30:51
Speaker 1: or Wyoming or something like that. Um, but the Boundary
30:54
Speaker 1: Waters are pretty darn close to people in Wisconsin or
30:56
Speaker 1: Iowa or Nebraska or Illinois. It's it's within reach of
31:01
Speaker 1: a you know, day's drive and you can be in
31:03
Speaker 1: this vast, wild, quiet, special place. And I think that's
31:06
Speaker 1: kind of cool for for myself and my listeners, and
31:09
Speaker 1: and the fact that a lot of us deer hunters
31:10
Speaker 1: here in the Midwest are different parts of the country,
31:12
Speaker 1: I feel like we're so so far from these bigger,
31:16
Speaker 1: wilder places, but in this case not really. And not
31:20
Speaker 1: only that, but it's a big wild place where you
31:23
Speaker 1: can take your hunting experiences in Michigan or Illinois or
31:28
Speaker 1: Georgia and you can apply a little bit and chase
31:31
Speaker 1: white tails in the Boundary Waters, which is what has
31:35
Speaker 1: intrigued me so much. UM and Darryl, I saw some
31:40
Speaker 1: pictures you sent over of some some really beautiful looking
31:45
Speaker 1: white tail bucks that you have hunted up there, and UM,
31:50
Speaker 1: so obviously you know what you're doing it sounds like
31:51
Speaker 1: you've been out there hunting quite a bit. So I
31:53
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta ask you what is a What is
31:57
Speaker 1: deer hunting in the boundary waters like I got I'm
32:00
Speaker 1: imagining and assuming is very different from deer hunting in
32:04
Speaker 1: most other places. Um, can you walk us through a
32:06
Speaker 1: little bit about what a hunt there is? Like, what's
32:09
Speaker 1: that look like? It's it's a lot different than even
32:12
Speaker 1: hunting in northern Minnesota and in Sprra National Forests or
32:15
Speaker 1: Chippawa National Forests. My wife and I have a hunting
32:19
Speaker 1: camp up by Grand Rapids in the central part of
32:22
Speaker 1: the state and the Chipwa National Forest. It's real remote,
32:26
Speaker 1: way back in the middle of nowhere, and actually we're
32:28
Speaker 1: lucky enough to have a big non motorized area next
32:31
Speaker 1: to us. So I do a lot of sneak hunting
32:33
Speaker 1: in there, and I really like it because I don't
32:35
Speaker 1: have ohvs in there that kind of thing. Um. But
32:39
Speaker 1: you know, not too far down the road, there's guys
32:41
Speaker 1: that own land and they're building food plots and that's
32:45
Speaker 1: pulling deer even off of the national forest land. You
32:48
Speaker 1: know that I like to hunt on and it's congregating
32:52
Speaker 1: deer in that area, and the Bounder Water is just
32:55
Speaker 1: like the last place we have left to go and
32:57
Speaker 1: hunt them on their own terms. Nothing has been being
33:01
Speaker 1: manipulated to screw that up. And uh, it's pretty cool.
33:05
Speaker 1: And it's not like hunting. You know, I grew up
33:08
Speaker 1: in central Minnesota as farms. You have figured out where
33:11
Speaker 1: they betted, You figured out where they ate, and you
33:13
Speaker 1: tried to intercept him in between or in them when
33:16
Speaker 1: they're going there. The Bondy Water is not like that.
33:20
Speaker 1: They eat everywhere. They's food all over the place they're
33:24
Speaker 1: they're browsing up there. Um betting areas is there like
33:27
Speaker 1: one betting area they use, not at all. A lot
33:30
Speaker 1: of it has to do with um, just them surviving,
33:34
Speaker 1: and them surviving might mean that there might be wolves
33:37
Speaker 1: in the area and might push them out a mile
33:39
Speaker 1: this way, two miles this way, three miles this way,
33:42
Speaker 1: and and uh, and they'll just say that area if
33:45
Speaker 1: they're safe, and then if they're not safe and the
33:49
Speaker 1: people or they have wolves or you know, not enough food,
33:52
Speaker 1: then they'll move from there. And Uh, there's just a
33:56
Speaker 1: lot of it's a really cool place to hunt. There's
33:59
Speaker 1: a lot of traditional sure trails, they use, trails of
34:04
Speaker 1: the men used for hundreds of years during what they're
34:08
Speaker 1: in these places that have find that would blow your mind.
34:13
Speaker 1: And you know, we've had one one winner one hunt
34:18
Speaker 1: in the fall. We saw on the spot that had
34:22
Speaker 1: fifty strakes on the ground within two hundred yards, and
34:28
Speaker 1: so that would make you want to just sit there
34:30
Speaker 1: for a week, you know. I mean that that's quite
34:33
Speaker 1: the spot, and that's some traditional trails there too, And
34:37
Speaker 1: we ended up sitting there and we ended up shooting
34:39
Speaker 1: a big buck jack. But I've been in a lot
34:43
Speaker 1: of situations where I've I've had a good deer sign
34:46
Speaker 1: and sat there for two days and didn't see a thing.
34:48
Speaker 1: And it's just because they're getting moved around. And so
34:52
Speaker 1: I'm real big on sneak counting. I'm real big on
34:55
Speaker 1: moving and trying to find them because there's just so
34:57
Speaker 1: much land then to hide and if they're not there,
35:01
Speaker 1: they're not there. And and so I do a lot
35:04
Speaker 1: of paddling and a lot of walking. Yeah. So so
35:07
Speaker 1: I'm assuming the deer density is pretty low, is that?
35:11
Speaker 1: Is that right? And then what about the age of deer.
35:13
Speaker 1: Do you see a lot of older deer simply because
35:15
Speaker 1: there's not as many hunters, or is that not the case?
35:20
Speaker 1: The deer density is low. I mean, you know they
35:24
Speaker 1: guess on that. Um, you know, somewhere between one to
35:29
Speaker 1: five deer first square mile is what I normally here
35:32
Speaker 1: up there. Um, you gotta be tough to live up there,
35:37
Speaker 1: A tough place to live. If you see a buck,
35:39
Speaker 1: it's big, Um, if they survive up there. I mean
35:43
Speaker 1: we've had years up there where we've seen en deer,
35:47
Speaker 1: you know, sabing up more bucks and of the seven
35:50
Speaker 1: five where you know, really big bucks, big mature bucks. Wow. Um,
35:57
Speaker 1: we've had you know, I mean we always see a deer.
36:01
Speaker 1: I always no. We always tell each other you're gonna
36:04
Speaker 1: have one opportunity, and usually almost every year we have
36:08
Speaker 1: one opportunity. So I've got years where I jumped six
36:12
Speaker 1: or eight bucks, and you know, I have an opportunity
36:14
Speaker 1: to get a couple of shots off, but usually I'm
36:17
Speaker 1: lucky to get one opportunity to actually get a shot off. Mhm.
36:23
Speaker 1: How do you that? That all sounds about what I expected.
36:27
Speaker 1: And one of the biggest challenges though, just looking at
36:29
Speaker 1: this from the outside in is and you alluded to
36:33
Speaker 1: this earlier, the fact that in so many other places
36:35
Speaker 1: in White Tail Country, you know, okay, they bet here,
36:37
Speaker 1: they feed here, How do you get how do we
36:39
Speaker 1: get in between? Or how do I you know, find
36:41
Speaker 1: a pinch point during the rut and wait for them
36:43
Speaker 1: to cruise by. There's different kind of basics to deer
36:45
Speaker 1: hunting to find you know, understanding where deer are and
36:48
Speaker 1: where you need to be. But in the landscape like this,
36:52
Speaker 1: it just seems to your point, it seems they could
36:55
Speaker 1: be almost anywhere. How do you go about finding deer?
36:59
Speaker 1: Is there any kind of terrain or habitat type that
37:02
Speaker 1: you've noticed they tend to cyrate around more, or or
37:05
Speaker 1: anything that you've used to kind of figure out where
37:06
Speaker 1: your starting point is. Well, when we picked the spot
37:12
Speaker 1: where we deer hunt now, and we can't tell you
37:14
Speaker 1: where that is, we have to kill you. Of course,
37:17
Speaker 1: I would never ask you that. When we picked the spot,
37:20
Speaker 1: we you know, we use topple maps and we looked
37:22
Speaker 1: at um, you know, just general areas where we thought
37:28
Speaker 1: would hold deer. And one of the things we looked
37:31
Speaker 1: at there was a huge blowdown up there, which blew
37:33
Speaker 1: down a lot of food. And we hunt close to
37:37
Speaker 1: that blowdown area and there are more deer there than
37:42
Speaker 1: other areas of the Bondy Waters. There are areas of
37:44
Speaker 1: the Bondy Waters where there aren't many deer. Um necess
37:47
Speaker 1: area here and holds quite a few deer. So looking
37:51
Speaker 1: for those irregular features. And so I mean, we pray
37:56
Speaker 1: a lot like those Eastern trackers, you know how blood
37:59
Speaker 1: of anoit. You know, we pray for snow. We we
38:02
Speaker 1: pray for what we pray for wind. And if I
38:06
Speaker 1: can get you know, a wet ground and some wind,
38:09
Speaker 1: and I'll just go and and I'll just sneak hunt
38:13
Speaker 1: and try to sneak up to a buck and hit
38:16
Speaker 1: the habitat that has held deer in the past. If
38:20
Speaker 1: I get snow, then I will take it a step
38:23
Speaker 1: farther and try to find a good track and and
38:25
Speaker 1: get on it. Does does bow hunting up there sound like,
38:31
Speaker 1: um a crazy idea given the challenges that you've talked to?
38:36
Speaker 1: Or do people successfully ever do that? So there are
38:40
Speaker 1: people at bow hunt up there? Just crossed my mind.
38:43
Speaker 1: I bow hunts a ton around to Loose, Minnesota, and um,
38:49
Speaker 1: that's kind of my one special week that I go
38:51
Speaker 1: up there, and I since I can use a gun.
38:53
Speaker 1: I use a gun, and you know, we've shot deer
38:57
Speaker 1: at fifteen yards, We've shot deer at thirty yards, and
39:00
Speaker 1: shot deer at eight yards. Most of the shots are
39:03
Speaker 1: relatively close. Um. You know. I I use a scope
39:08
Speaker 1: that's basically designed for jump shooting. It's at two by seven.
39:12
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be afraid to use open sites either, wouldn't
39:14
Speaker 1: be afraid to go up to a muzzle utter. If
39:16
Speaker 1: the water was opened, I'd I'd go up to a
39:18
Speaker 1: open sided muzzle letter two. Um, but you could certainly
39:22
Speaker 1: both hunt up there. The big thing is just make
39:25
Speaker 1: a good shot. You don't want to be tracked, you know,
39:27
Speaker 1: an animal off there. It's easy to get lost. You
39:31
Speaker 1: don't have all those reference points to find your way back.
39:35
Speaker 1: A lot of times your reference point is a lake,
39:38
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you find yourself a mile
39:40
Speaker 1: south of that lake, and it's been tricking getting back
39:43
Speaker 1: to it, you know. And yeah, you can say you
39:46
Speaker 1: have a GPS, but and I do carry a GPS,
39:49
Speaker 1: and I use it, but I still have a compass,
39:51
Speaker 1: and I still use that compass to get me back
39:53
Speaker 1: to the general area where my canoe was, where my
39:56
Speaker 1: camp was but there's no road to hit, you know, yeah,
40:01
Speaker 1: very different. Now you mentioned sometimes you canoe around. How
40:05
Speaker 1: do you do you I had someone else semi message
40:09
Speaker 1: or something who said that his buddies just will hop
40:12
Speaker 1: in their canoe for the day and just paddle around
40:14
Speaker 1: the edges or paddle down rivers and hope to just
40:16
Speaker 1: spot one while they're paddling and then make a move
40:19
Speaker 1: in that kind of way. How do you do you
40:21
Speaker 1: do something like that at all? I've shot deer in
40:27
Speaker 1: my canoe before, not in the Bounty Waters and Chippewa
40:30
Speaker 1: National Forest. Hunting a river, a zig Zaggi river where
40:34
Speaker 1: when you know it's easy to sneak sneak up to
40:36
Speaker 1: ducks and it's easy to sneak up to deer. Um.
40:40
Speaker 1: Paddling around a lake and hoping to bump into a buck.
40:43
Speaker 1: You never know. During the rout they do dumb things. Um.
40:46
Speaker 1: You know, I've I've heard of it. Um. But that's
40:49
Speaker 1: not in general howigh hunt? I mean I pick areas
40:52
Speaker 1: where I know a whole deer, and every year are
40:56
Speaker 1: inventory of good places to hunt increases. And get up
41:00
Speaker 1: in the morning and play the wind. The wind is here.
41:03
Speaker 1: The four Spots to be good and go to those
41:07
Speaker 1: the spots and the wind changes, you might go to
41:09
Speaker 1: a different spot maybe if the day where the wind changes,
41:13
Speaker 1: and decide explore another spot. Um. But it's just a
41:18
Speaker 1: lot of alone time, which I love being in the
41:20
Speaker 1: woods by myself, being in the back country by myself
41:25
Speaker 1: and exploring new country. And I canna. I can hunt
41:30
Speaker 1: the whole day, never see a dear and come back
41:33
Speaker 1: to camp and just say, well, what a great day. Yeah,
41:38
Speaker 1: pretty special place you don't see anyone. And to be honest,
41:42
Speaker 1: I was super apprehensive about coming out here, Mark because
41:46
Speaker 1: your podcast many times. But I don't want to see
41:49
Speaker 1: you up there or everybody else up there in the
41:51
Speaker 1: back country. Um. But I don't think we will bump
41:56
Speaker 1: into each other. It's one thing to say you're gonna
41:59
Speaker 1: do it's another thing to do it. Um. And you know,
42:02
Speaker 1: it's like I said, I mean, there's a lot of
42:04
Speaker 1: places you can say you like the back country and
42:07
Speaker 1: all that, but you know, in Minnesota, you know, Chippewa
42:10
Speaker 1: National Forest, Pure National Forest. There's a lot of back
42:14
Speaker 1: country areas, but there's always a road you can reference
42:17
Speaker 1: and even if you get totally turned around and washed,
42:19
Speaker 1: you could set up camp for the day and the
42:21
Speaker 1: next morning, you know, you walk north six miles, you're
42:23
Speaker 1: gonna hit the road, but in the boundary waters you
42:26
Speaker 1: screw it up to be in Canada. And then you
42:29
Speaker 1: could set that other millionaires weldness up there and and
42:33
Speaker 1: you know you got a long walk. Uh, it's pretty
42:38
Speaker 1: serious back country travel. You better know what you're doing
42:41
Speaker 1: with a GPS and a compans um. And I just
42:45
Speaker 1: that's just something I just love to do. I like
42:46
Speaker 1: to go get lost every single day and find my
42:50
Speaker 1: way out. It's just a way for me to test
42:52
Speaker 1: and improve my skills. Yeah. I understand where you're coming
42:58
Speaker 1: from and the desire to not want to bump into
43:01
Speaker 1: anyone else. I get that. Um, if I see up there,
43:04
Speaker 1: I'll make sure it turned the other way and make
43:06
Speaker 1: sure you don't spot me. But it's to your point, though,
43:12
Speaker 1: it does seem like the kind of experience that you
43:14
Speaker 1: better be prepared for. It's not the kind of place
43:17
Speaker 1: you can just show up and take off and think
43:19
Speaker 1: it's gonna be just like driving down to the nearest
43:21
Speaker 1: wood lot and hunting back on your back forty. Um.
43:25
Speaker 1: It's funny you mentioned that just last night my buddy
43:28
Speaker 1: who who's going to go on this trip with me?
43:30
Speaker 1: You know, he's been thinking about it and doing all
43:32
Speaker 1: sorts of research and all that, and he texted me
43:34
Speaker 1: He's like, do you realize how little space is going
43:36
Speaker 1: to be left in a canoe after we load for
43:38
Speaker 1: the week? Dot dot dot stressing a bit. Probably not
43:41
Speaker 1: gonna have a hard botcase, huh. And and yeah, that
43:44
Speaker 1: seems like the logistics of pulling off something like this
43:48
Speaker 1: have got to be pretty challenging to How do you,
43:52
Speaker 1: I mean anything you could add on that, Darryl or
43:54
Speaker 1: Matt as far as the logistics of getting everything in
43:57
Speaker 1: and out, um, it seems like that's a trick in itself.
44:03
Speaker 1: All we've got each each of us have an outline
44:07
Speaker 1: of the things that we bring, and you know, we're
44:10
Speaker 1: we do this trip together. So there's things that Matt brings,
44:12
Speaker 1: there's things that I bring. We've got some mutual things
44:15
Speaker 1: we've had. We've had canvas wall camp, We've had, you know,
44:20
Speaker 1: a stainless stove, wood stove. You know, that whole set
44:25
Speaker 1: up weighed close to sixty pounds. When I was in
44:29
Speaker 1: my thirties, I just thought nothing of it and not
44:32
Speaker 1: on we've gotten older, we've lightened things up. Now we've
44:34
Speaker 1: got a got a camp that's made out of parachute material,
44:37
Speaker 1: a lot like a speak outside or kafaru. We have
44:40
Speaker 1: a company in Minnesota called Cook Custom Sewing that made it.
44:44
Speaker 1: And then we've got a titanium uh stive. The whole
44:47
Speaker 1: set up place twenty pounds, so that's pretty cool. Um.
44:51
Speaker 1: And then just you know, everything is fine too, and
44:54
Speaker 1: from your stocks to the number of underwear you need,
44:57
Speaker 1: how many gloves and when you look at the forecast
45:01
Speaker 1: and tweet it a little bit here and there. But um,
45:04
Speaker 1: you know, if if you're going there, I'd be happy
45:07
Speaker 1: to put on the phone with you and go through
45:09
Speaker 1: my list a little bit and help you out, you know,
45:12
Speaker 1: picking the right things. And we bring some luxury things
45:15
Speaker 1: that we don't have to bring, you know. In the
45:16
Speaker 1: tenth uh. You know, we have we have cots, which
45:20
Speaker 1: nice to get off the ground. It's also nice to
45:23
Speaker 1: build to store things under the cot. It makes for
45:26
Speaker 1: a lot more room in your tent um. You know.
45:31
Speaker 1: We bring a great meal. The first night or two
45:34
Speaker 1: we actually bring venice stakes the first night ballad and potatoes,
45:38
Speaker 1: and the second night we do burritos with the left
45:42
Speaker 1: left over medicine. And then from that point on we're
45:46
Speaker 1: we're just eating mountain house, which is fine. I mean
45:50
Speaker 1: you're so tired at the end of the day that
45:53
Speaker 1: you know, you eat a mountain house and you're sleeping
45:55
Speaker 1: by seven d at night. Met would you add anything
46:00
Speaker 1: on that front? Well, I, um, you know, we use
46:04
Speaker 1: a pair of canoes, so that increases our um, you know,
46:11
Speaker 1: ability to get material in and and get it out hopefully,
46:17
Speaker 1: you know, with with the buck um in the canoe
46:20
Speaker 1: with you. I think you know, having two canoes is
46:27
Speaker 1: a little bit safer. Um, Darryll, I think you know,
46:30
Speaker 1: I would agree with that. In fact, I think rather
46:33
Speaker 1: than getting a big Minnesota three or something like that
46:37
Speaker 1: to carry us in the gear, which should be close,
46:40
Speaker 1: I think Darryll recommended the taking the two solo canoes
46:46
Speaker 1: the first time we went up there. You know, go
46:49
Speaker 1: with wool and make sure that you've got you know,
46:53
Speaker 1: dry bag full of extra roll and uh and shell layers.
46:59
Speaker 1: You don't necessary you know what the weather is going
47:01
Speaker 1: to be like, and you can get into a situation
47:05
Speaker 1: where either because uh you didn't control you weren't able
47:11
Speaker 1: to control how much you're sweating um or you know,
47:16
Speaker 1: in a really bad situation if you're to roll the
47:19
Speaker 1: canoe where you need to be able to get dry
47:22
Speaker 1: um and get warm really fast. It's uh, um, tipping
47:29
Speaker 1: a canoe in November. Uh in Minnesota, northern Minnesota is
47:35
Speaker 1: not acute um thing to happen. It's uh, you're taking
47:39
Speaker 1: your life in your hands. And so yeah, make sure
47:42
Speaker 1: you've got all your all your important gear in in
47:45
Speaker 1: dry bags. The canoe thing is is a big deal. Um.
47:50
Speaker 1: The water temperature is so cold then even in mid October.
47:54
Speaker 1: I think I had heard that that's kind of when
47:56
Speaker 1: you're thinking about going. You cannot you cannot go swimming.
48:01
Speaker 1: If you do, you you might die. So you need
48:05
Speaker 1: to make sure that you know the lake is paddleable
48:09
Speaker 1: if you're you know, if you're a good canoe. That's
48:12
Speaker 1: different than if you haven't paddled a lot. I mean,
48:15
Speaker 1: if you if there's three or four footers and you
48:18
Speaker 1: have a good paddler and you're in a solo canoe,
48:20
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'd go out. We've got days
48:23
Speaker 1: where we just hunted on foot because the lake was
48:26
Speaker 1: too you know, just had there's too much wind Um.
48:31
Speaker 1: If you get a chance to rent a canoe, my
48:34
Speaker 1: opinion would be the best canoe for hunting up there.
48:38
Speaker 1: A solo canoe is a canoe called the Solo Plus
48:42
Speaker 1: made by Monona and all the outfitters and early'll have it.
48:46
Speaker 1: And it's a canoe that you can paddle with two
48:48
Speaker 1: people or it's got a sender seat, got a lot
48:51
Speaker 1: of volume to it, and it actually paddles really nice. Um.
48:57
Speaker 1: And then you know the makes you have two battles too.
49:01
Speaker 1: A lot of people that have broken the paddle or
49:04
Speaker 1: lost the paddle and umlo solo boat and they see
49:08
Speaker 1: you have two battles. That's great advice. Yeah, that extra
49:14
Speaker 1: pat the other thing, um you know you mean this
49:18
Speaker 1: probably goes without saying that. Um, it's the time of
49:24
Speaker 1: the year, particularly November when and lately we've got a
49:29
Speaker 1: lot of really normally warm um hunts. But that's not
49:34
Speaker 1: always that way. You really watch you're long term weather
49:42
Speaker 1: forecast and you know the night before you go up
49:46
Speaker 1: or the morning of, if you can print out a
49:49
Speaker 1: long term forecast, what the temperatures and what the wind
49:52
Speaker 1: directions speeds are likely to be. That's less about hunting
49:56
Speaker 1: than making sure that you know when winds are expected
49:59
Speaker 1: to drop and temperatures expected to drop, because if you
50:03
Speaker 1: paddle in UM, you know, paddle and porters and paddle again,
50:09
Speaker 1: you are in a situation where if I can't if
50:13
Speaker 1: the wind needs dropped overnight and the temperatures are in
50:18
Speaker 1: the teams, you could wake up and find that there's
50:21
Speaker 1: ice on the lake in the morning. You can't paddle
50:24
Speaker 1: sol of the new UM, you know safely even with
50:30
Speaker 1: two people, you know, breaking ice in front, not when
50:32
Speaker 1: you're loaded with gear. So you just have to be
50:36
Speaker 1: careful to make sure you can get out cats you've
50:38
Speaker 1: gotten in. But that's another important piece of equipment that
50:42
Speaker 1: we bring as the weather radio, and we're checking it
50:45
Speaker 1: all the time. And this year is the perfect example.
50:48
Speaker 1: We went to Eally on Friday morning and looked at
50:52
Speaker 1: the forecast and I said to Mattice had met the
50:54
Speaker 1: temperature drops two degrees where we're coming out, and we
50:58
Speaker 1: both wanted to go so bad. And by Saturday afternoon
51:02
Speaker 1: and we knew we're coming out in a hurry, and
51:04
Speaker 1: thank god we did because by Tuesday lakes are freezing
51:08
Speaker 1: up there well. So So considering this topic of climate
51:15
Speaker 1: and temperatures. Um, you mentioned Darryl that you guys use
51:19
Speaker 1: a tent with a with a stove. Is that kind
51:22
Speaker 1: of a mandatory thing up there? Given how cold the
51:24
Speaker 1: temperatures can get you, you probably want to have a
51:26
Speaker 1: setup that has a stove. And I guess also a
51:29
Speaker 1: safety precaution just in case you do tip in. Is
51:31
Speaker 1: that what you guys would recommend. Yeah, you know a
51:35
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. Matt talked about just drying your clothes out.
51:38
Speaker 1: I mean some there's some days where you just got
51:39
Speaker 1: bad weather and at the end of the day, you're
51:42
Speaker 1: just wet, and it's not like you've got three different
51:44
Speaker 1: outfits which you can't carry that much gear, you know. Uh,
51:48
Speaker 1: so you've got to drive that stuff out. So the
51:50
Speaker 1: wood still allows you to dry it all out. And
51:53
Speaker 1: we've got ours all rigged up so that we can
51:55
Speaker 1: have clothes hanging all over it and you know, stoked
51:58
Speaker 1: that data up at night and they're the thing was
52:00
Speaker 1: drying in the morning. So it's pretty nice to have
52:03
Speaker 1: the tents in the woodstoves, um, just you know, for
52:07
Speaker 1: safety lives survival wives. I mean, I had opening day
52:11
Speaker 1: this year. I was dead set on getting to a spot,
52:15
Speaker 1: you know, probably two miles from where our camp was.
52:18
Speaker 1: And I took off and I had all the right here,
52:21
Speaker 1: all dressed in wool, and we had just gotten like
52:25
Speaker 1: ten inches the snow up there, and there was snow
52:27
Speaker 1: on every tree and everything was just wet. And I
52:31
Speaker 1: got to the first spot that is a great spot,
52:33
Speaker 1: and I was just like, no, I really want to
52:35
Speaker 1: get to that spot. Love story short. By two o'clock
52:38
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, I was so wet that I was
52:40
Speaker 1: sitting back at camp drying my stuff off. Um. You know,
52:44
Speaker 1: I got to a point where I was like, you know,
52:47
Speaker 1: I'm not hunting for the day now, I'm gonna go
52:49
Speaker 1: back and dry my stuff out and make sure that
52:52
Speaker 1: I can hunt tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, It definitely seems like
52:57
Speaker 1: it's the kind of trip that sometimes just comes down
52:59
Speaker 1: to survival. It's it's a hunting trip, but it's also
53:03
Speaker 1: just can you can you make it out here? It's
53:06
Speaker 1: not an easy landscape, very unforgiving sounds like which which
53:10
Speaker 1: is definitely something that makes for one of those types
53:13
Speaker 1: of adventures that are so special to UM. So I
53:16
Speaker 1: have two more quick logistical questions before we move on.
53:19
Speaker 1: UM One, what's your recommended way of getting a deer
53:23
Speaker 1: out do you guys, do you guys like to quarter
53:25
Speaker 1: it up and put it in game bags like you're
53:26
Speaker 1: out west or what do you do there? We just
53:30
Speaker 1: drag it out, put in the canoe and it pictures
53:34
Speaker 1: all the way out. Pretty cool. It's like a big
53:36
Speaker 1: celebration coming out. It's a ton of work, um, but
53:39
Speaker 1: we'll drag it right across the portages and uh it's
53:44
Speaker 1: it's a ton of work, but it's just a great day. Yeah.
53:48
Speaker 1: So that was my final question then, and that's good
53:50
Speaker 1: to know that that's how you guys doing it. So
53:52
Speaker 1: the portages, I gotta imagine with so much gear in
53:56
Speaker 1: so many different things. Um, I was just curious if
53:59
Speaker 1: you have a certain process to make it as easy
54:02
Speaker 1: as possible, or a certain anything you do different or
54:05
Speaker 1: unique to handle a portage with you know, all sorts
54:09
Speaker 1: of hunting gear, rifles, stuff to live in gear, maybe
54:13
Speaker 1: a dear food, um, any way of packing things out
54:17
Speaker 1: or whatever it is to to handle those types of
54:19
Speaker 1: you know, getting from one light to one light type situations.
54:23
Speaker 1: So well we all we have you know, great gear,
54:27
Speaker 1: great bags, um. And the one thing we've learned is
54:30
Speaker 1: it's it's better to have things in a bag, you know. Yeah,
54:34
Speaker 1: you can grab six things in one hand and six
54:36
Speaker 1: things on the other hand, and it's just hard to
54:38
Speaker 1: balance and get it across the portage like that. So
54:41
Speaker 1: we'll use our bags, their canoe packs and um, you know,
54:46
Speaker 1: most of the time on the way end, it's it's
54:48
Speaker 1: three trips in on each portage. There's not a lot,
54:52
Speaker 1: you know, you just take your time and and then
54:55
Speaker 1: the way out we're looking at you know, probably three
55:00
Speaker 1: trips out with all of the year and vote and uh,
55:03
Speaker 1: and then it's a deer across um, which is uh
55:09
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, if you shoot a buck up there,
55:12
Speaker 1: set the buck up there, it's over to pound. So
55:15
Speaker 1: I think about the coste pies is a kind of work.
55:19
Speaker 1: Um yeah, yeah, I mean I don't think you'd be
55:24
Speaker 1: crazy to quarter a gear. We just have always just
55:28
Speaker 1: dug it out and uh, put in the canoes and
55:30
Speaker 1: taking pictures and sounds like a heck of an experience,
55:33
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Um. But am I am I right
55:36
Speaker 1: in assuming it's all worth it? Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely,
55:42
Speaker 1: it's worth it. Absolutely, it's worth it. Um, you know,
55:48
Speaker 1: the the first the first year uh. We Well, the
55:54
Speaker 1: first year that I hunted up there, I hunted up
55:57
Speaker 1: there with Darrel, and you know, coming out on the
56:00
Speaker 1: morning we were coming out, you got a lot of
56:04
Speaker 1: work to do, you know, packing up, breaking camp down,
56:08
Speaker 1: making sure everything's clean, leaving the jumped behind. You know,
56:11
Speaker 1: you got paddle you gotta unload everything. You know, at
56:15
Speaker 1: at the portage, you got to carry everything over the portage.
56:18
Speaker 1: You grab your canoe and carry that over the portage
56:21
Speaker 1: and you got to load it again. Um. And if
56:24
Speaker 1: you you know, the last step, if you have um,
56:28
Speaker 1: if you've got to uh a dough or a buck,
56:32
Speaker 1: the drag over is that And that is the most
56:36
Speaker 1: exhausting leg of any portage. It's absolutely exhausting. But every
56:43
Speaker 1: step of the way you get closer. You know, by
56:45
Speaker 1: the time you got everything back in your vehicle and
56:48
Speaker 1: you you're driving back. UM that year, you know, um,
56:52
Speaker 1: Darrell is nice enough to you don't have any allowing
56:56
Speaker 1: me to butcher uh the buck at his place and
57:01
Speaker 1: the good advice. And it still took me a long
57:04
Speaker 1: time to get it done, get all the meat package stuff.
57:09
Speaker 1: And you know, by the time you're done with that,
57:10
Speaker 1: it's you know late at night midnight. Maybe we've had
57:15
Speaker 1: an enormous day, the enormous amount of work, and nonetheless,
57:20
Speaker 1: even if it's the most work you ever put into
57:23
Speaker 1: uh an outdoor experience, it's it was still the most
57:26
Speaker 1: fabulous hunting engstrands I've ever had. Can there's some years
57:30
Speaker 1: with the weather we can't go. We've had a few
57:33
Speaker 1: years and my kids were grown up that I didn't
57:36
Speaker 1: go because I wanted to, uh just spend those young
57:41
Speaker 1: years with my kids in the deer stand, and I
57:43
Speaker 1: did it with both of them. My oldest is twenty
57:45
Speaker 1: and my youngest is fourteen. And now they're old enough
57:48
Speaker 1: that I had told both of them, you guys, both hunts,
57:50
Speaker 1: and just know that I'm gonna be gone for that
57:52
Speaker 1: first week of deer hunting. Is you know? My little
57:55
Speaker 1: one says, well, when can I go? I said, you
57:57
Speaker 1: can go whenever you want to go, but this is
57:59
Speaker 1: what it's all about, and so whenever you're ready for that,
58:03
Speaker 1: then you can come and I'll teach you everything that
58:06
Speaker 1: I know. And I think a little one, for sure
58:10
Speaker 1: it is going to come someday. I'm not sure when
58:12
Speaker 1: um big one might come too. So they both ask
58:17
Speaker 1: a lot of questions and have a ton of interest
58:19
Speaker 1: in it. It's just got me over here kind of
58:23
Speaker 1: chomping at the bit, just all the stories of I'm
58:27
Speaker 1: one of those types too that I'm kind of a
58:29
Speaker 1: glutton for punishment. I enjoy a good suffer fest. So
58:32
Speaker 1: it sounds like, um, this is a great combination of
58:34
Speaker 1: so many of my loves. Um But but man, it's
58:40
Speaker 1: it seems like such a unique deer hunting opportunity and
58:45
Speaker 1: any kind of outdoor experience. It sounds gonna be pretty
58:47
Speaker 1: incredible there. But from a deer hunting perspective too, that
58:49
Speaker 1: just seems like one of, if not the most unique
58:53
Speaker 1: deer hunting trip you could do in the United States
58:55
Speaker 1: compared to what most other you know, deer hunting spots
58:59
Speaker 1: are your experiences are like. So it's just got a
59:03
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of appeal to me. Um But I could
59:08
Speaker 1: I could probably rant and rave and and wonder about
59:11
Speaker 1: deer hunting in the Boundary Waters for for three hours. Um.
59:14
Speaker 1: But real quick, lucas, you I know do a lot
59:17
Speaker 1: of upland hunting out there too, and fishing. Can you
59:20
Speaker 1: give us a quick primer and what the upland and
59:22
Speaker 1: fishing is like out there before we move on, But
59:26
Speaker 1: before that, let's take a quick break for word from
59:29
Speaker 1: our partners at white Tail Properties. This week with white
59:32
Speaker 1: Tail Properties, we are joined by Justin Mason, a land
59:35
Speaker 1: specialist out of Illinois, and Justin is going to be
59:38
Speaker 1: telling us about what are some of his favorite scouting
59:40
Speaker 1: strategies for this time of year, and am I go
59:43
Speaker 1: to spot at the end of winter has to be
59:46
Speaker 1: kind of those stick betting sanctuary areas. Um, you know,
59:51
Speaker 1: Primarily I'm doing two things late winter, starting to look
59:55
Speaker 1: you know for sheds, but then also trying to figure out,
59:59
Speaker 1: you know, if I can nail down specifically more of
1:00:02
Speaker 1: the deer pattern travel patterns. So I'll usually go into
1:00:05
Speaker 1: the kind of the south facing slopes up towards the
1:00:08
Speaker 1: top of the ridge, find some of that thicker habitat
1:00:12
Speaker 1: with maybe some locust trees because oftentimes they'll go to
1:00:15
Speaker 1: those locust pods and feet on them or honeysuckle, anything
1:00:20
Speaker 1: kind of the thicker the better, so that I can
1:00:22
Speaker 1: really dive into and see how they're traveling through it,
1:00:26
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, hopefully I can score and pick
1:00:28
Speaker 1: up a shed. If you'd like to learn more and
1:00:32
Speaker 1: to see the properties that Justin currently has listed for sale.
1:00:35
Speaker 1: Visit whitetail properties dot com. Backslash Mason that's m A
1:00:40
Speaker 1: S O N man. I mean we could talk about
1:00:44
Speaker 1: the fishing opportunities up there until are blue in the face. Um.
1:00:48
Speaker 1: You know, like I mentioned before, I grew up doing
1:00:50
Speaker 1: uh doing you know, spring opener lake trout trips and
1:00:56
Speaker 1: you know it's the same the same rules apply that
1:00:59
Speaker 1: that Matt and Dare are talking about. You know, you
1:01:01
Speaker 1: have situations there where you know the water is so
1:01:05
Speaker 1: called the device is possibly coming out. You have to
1:01:07
Speaker 1: be extremely prepared. Um. You run into crazy different weather situations.
1:01:14
Speaker 1: I mean I have been stuck in camp because of
1:01:20
Speaker 1: three to four ft rollers for two days on on
1:01:23
Speaker 1: one of the larger lakes out there too, waiting for
1:01:26
Speaker 1: ice out to come out. But um, you know, the
1:01:30
Speaker 1: the rewards that way, the risk always up there and
1:01:34
Speaker 1: if you're smart about it and you're safe and diligent
1:01:38
Speaker 1: on the way you're approaching it, Um, it's it's always
1:01:42
Speaker 1: a life changing experience. Um. Again for me, you know,
1:01:46
Speaker 1: the lake trop trips are always the best. And getting
1:01:50
Speaker 1: up there and and enjoying that situation where there's not
1:01:54
Speaker 1: too many people up and having fun with your friends. Um.
1:02:02
Speaker 1: For Lake Proud, it's it's it's just one of a
1:02:05
Speaker 1: kind of experience. It's a world class experience, especially when
1:02:08
Speaker 1: you can get into um um, one of the best
1:02:11
Speaker 1: fish I've ever had as a uh you know shore
1:02:17
Speaker 1: lunch meal in camp I mean I as a chef myself.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: I can say right now that that is probably one
1:02:24
Speaker 1: of the best meals I've ever had. And my mouth
1:02:27
Speaker 1: is watering just thinking of it at the moment um.
1:02:32
Speaker 1: You know, while I in June July are are just
1:02:36
Speaker 1: it's so awesome. The colors on those fits are so
1:02:39
Speaker 1: much different again, you know, referencing back to just the
1:02:42
Speaker 1: way the ecosystem up there is is up there. It's
1:02:45
Speaker 1: just amazing. Um. You know, you have amazing pipe fishing
1:02:52
Speaker 1: opportunities depending upon how your approach, I mean fly fisherman's
1:02:56
Speaker 1: you know, this is a great opportunity for people who
1:02:59
Speaker 1: go out there and something that I just got into
1:03:01
Speaker 1: two and it's so much fun. Um. I just took
1:03:04
Speaker 1: my dad last year on a really cool small mouth
1:03:09
Speaker 1: bass trip just as the actual sponding was happening, and
1:03:15
Speaker 1: we got into him and it was so awesome. We
1:03:18
Speaker 1: were trying to outrun thunderstorms. We sat there and the
1:03:21
Speaker 1: fish were so active. We kind about sixty fish in
1:03:24
Speaker 1: about three hours to camp out on on a site
1:03:28
Speaker 1: just to wait out the storm. And got back and
1:03:31
Speaker 1: we're battling as we're paddling through as the storm was
1:03:34
Speaker 1: coming back. And got back to camp and throughout some
1:03:38
Speaker 1: bouder sets with leeches as we were making dinner and
1:03:41
Speaker 1: caught wildlife for the next morning. Um, the fishing opportunities
1:03:46
Speaker 1: up there are barn the best, the best experience I've
1:03:52
Speaker 1: ever had freshwater fishing. UM, rough rouse hunting. That's something
1:03:58
Speaker 1: a little bit newer to me. I've been doing it
1:04:00
Speaker 1: for the last handful of years. We've you know, at
1:04:04
Speaker 1: the campaign, we've been doing some really awesome you know
1:04:07
Speaker 1: media journalist trips where we're bringing people up you know,
1:04:10
Speaker 1: field and stream and uh, lots of different you know
1:04:15
Speaker 1: writers out our news. And we had a really cool
1:04:18
Speaker 1: trip in October where we went up to this lake
1:04:22
Speaker 1: called Rose Lake up the gun Flint side, which is
1:04:25
Speaker 1: the eastern side of the b w c A. And
1:04:28
Speaker 1: you know, we went out and these guys were fly
1:04:30
Speaker 1: fishing for pike and small mouth bass and awesome walk again,
1:04:35
Speaker 1: referencing what Daryl was saying earlier about the Border Route
1:04:38
Speaker 1: trail and going on a three four mile hike and
1:04:42
Speaker 1: shooting a couple of birds and bringing them back for dinner. Um,
1:04:46
Speaker 1: you know, Rougher House up there is amazing and I'm actually,
1:04:50
Speaker 1: come to think of it. You know, the first time,
1:04:52
Speaker 1: one of the first times I met darryl Um, we
1:04:56
Speaker 1: were speaking at a event that Sports and for the
1:05:01
Speaker 1: Boundy Waters is having up into Loose and you know,
1:05:06
Speaker 1: he was just talking about rough grouse hunting up there too,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: and it's just an amazing, amazing opportunity for that. And
1:05:12
Speaker 1: you you know, you can go up and do an
1:05:14
Speaker 1: awesome cast and glass up there in October as well.
1:05:17
Speaker 1: So get up and do some you know, late season
1:05:21
Speaker 1: small Mouth bath and Northern Pike and put a couple
1:05:25
Speaker 1: of rough grouts in the pan and you're pretty much
1:05:29
Speaker 1: good to go on a great cool night without the bugs. Yeah.
1:05:32
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't even begin to describe the experiences
1:05:35
Speaker 1: up there, But you know what I've always said to
1:05:38
Speaker 1: people is you won't know until you get up there yourself. Yeah,
1:05:43
Speaker 1: if I could, if I could add to what Lucas
1:05:46
Speaker 1: is saying in my twenties. That's kind of how I
1:05:49
Speaker 1: really started exploring the back country. The boundary waters is
1:05:52
Speaker 1: grouse hunting, and I did have a dog. But the
1:05:56
Speaker 1: grouse are a lot like the deer. I mean, they
1:05:59
Speaker 1: did not expect see human beings. You'll rarely wash the
1:06:03
Speaker 1: grouse and then you know, once they figure out it's
1:06:07
Speaker 1: a human being, then you might flush it. But they
1:06:10
Speaker 1: just don't expect to see people. And you know you're
1:06:13
Speaker 1: sneak hunting deer up there. They don't expect a person
1:06:15
Speaker 1: to come walk into the woods. So can you sneak
1:06:19
Speaker 1: yards from the deer? You can. They're not used to
1:06:22
Speaker 1: seeing people up there, and then when they do see it,
1:06:25
Speaker 1: they're gone. Um. But the grouse are a lot the
1:06:28
Speaker 1: same way. And if there's a lot, there are a
1:06:31
Speaker 1: lot of growth up there, and it's a great place
1:06:34
Speaker 1: to build outside it. Yeah, it really isn't you know.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: You don't want to say an untouched landscape, but you
1:06:41
Speaker 1: know it has a minimal footprint that gives you so
1:06:45
Speaker 1: many amazing opportunities to experience, uh wonderful fishing and hunting opportunities.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: So um, I'm just happy for every experience I've ever
1:06:57
Speaker 1: had up there, and you know, grateful of the people
1:07:00
Speaker 1: I've brought up, and grateful for the people that I
1:07:02
Speaker 1: know that that care about it as much as I do.
1:07:06
Speaker 1: Just hearing you guys talk about all this, I've already
1:07:09
Speaker 1: I'm already sitting here thinking to myself, is there any
1:07:11
Speaker 1: way I can get a summer trip into it? Sounds
1:07:14
Speaker 1: like there's just um, there's no shortage of reasons to
1:07:18
Speaker 1: get out there and check this place out. Um Uh.
1:07:21
Speaker 1: An October trip might not be enough, But I think
1:07:25
Speaker 1: I think we've very clearly established that this is a
1:07:29
Speaker 1: special place in a unique experiences can be had there
1:07:33
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm really excited to see and feel myself.
1:07:36
Speaker 1: But the whole reason why this whole area really came
1:07:40
Speaker 1: to my attention though, was because it's a place at risk.
1:07:43
Speaker 1: Um And Matt you you did. You touched on this
1:07:46
Speaker 1: a little bit towards the beginning, um, but I'd love
1:07:48
Speaker 1: for you to really dive in a little bit deeper
1:07:50
Speaker 1: for us and what's going on with the boundary wires.
1:07:54
Speaker 1: What's the history of of of why people first started
1:07:57
Speaker 1: getting concerned about some things going on. I think was
1:08:00
Speaker 1: maybe in twos and fourteen or fifteen where some things start.
1:08:03
Speaker 1: Some concerns were being raised, and can you walk us
1:08:05
Speaker 1: through what's happened and and then where do we stand
1:08:08
Speaker 1: most recently with some changes that we're announced at the
1:08:10
Speaker 1: end of two thousand seventeen. The the big threat to
1:08:15
Speaker 1: this place, which is a place defined by water, in
1:08:20
Speaker 1: a place that every American equally owns UM is from
1:08:26
Speaker 1: sulfide to our copper mining. And it's very very different
1:08:32
Speaker 1: from the mining that Fennosotans are familiar to with, which
1:08:35
Speaker 1: is iron mining, taconite mining, UM ullifier copper mining is
1:08:44
Speaker 1: a class of hard rock mining, and it has um
1:08:49
Speaker 1: a horrible record of polluting and it's uh the potion
1:08:56
Speaker 1: from talking about heavy metals like a snake, cadmium, mercury um.
1:09:04
Speaker 1: And and because the low grade or that you know
1:09:11
Speaker 1: now we have the the mining industry has technology to
1:09:17
Speaker 1: to mind these low grade deposits UM. They just make
1:09:20
Speaker 1: the minds bigger and they operate on slimmer margins. UM.
1:09:26
Speaker 1: There's interest in in mining a very large, very very
1:09:31
Speaker 1: low grade um deposit. It's actually a stream of horrible
1:09:37
Speaker 1: deposits that are right alongside and underneath the South Pushy
1:09:43
Speaker 1: River and Birch Lake, which are two water bodies just
1:09:48
Speaker 1: outside of the wilderness boundary, but that flow. The water
1:09:52
Speaker 1: from there flows into the into the wilderness. And these
1:09:57
Speaker 1: UM these deposits for them, three of them would be
1:10:01
Speaker 1: UH surface mines open pit mines, and two of them
1:10:03
Speaker 1: would be deeper than that underground. UM. There'd be a
1:10:11
Speaker 1: couple of square miles of surface UH infrastructure for processing
1:10:16
Speaker 1: the ore, UM storing all the materials that they would use,
1:10:21
Speaker 1: just UH UM energy infrastructure, roads, pipelines, and then there'd
1:10:29
Speaker 1: be you know, an enormous tailing space and it would
1:10:32
Speaker 1: be well, they've got seven thousand akers locked up now
1:10:36
Speaker 1: that would provide space for the tailing space and so UM.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: You know, that's more than ten square miles. So so
1:10:45
Speaker 1: this is UM. It's a very real threat. The company
1:10:50
Speaker 1: at issue is to Lean comper mining company at the
1:10:54
Speaker 1: eighth or ninth largest and copper mining company in the
1:10:57
Speaker 1: world UM, and it's called Antifagasta. UH. They have a
1:11:03
Speaker 1: record as reported in you know the newspapers and prosecuted
1:11:09
Speaker 1: in Chile UH water pollution down there, even though where
1:11:13
Speaker 1: their minds are in the high desert down they're one
1:11:17
Speaker 1: of the driest regions on the planet. Um there's very
1:11:21
Speaker 1: very little water even there, they managed to pollute water.
1:11:24
Speaker 1: And that company, Antifagasta, bought up and now completely controls
1:11:31
Speaker 1: who companies that one called Twin Metal are called Franconi
1:11:37
Speaker 1: in minerals and those two companies. You know, I have
1:11:40
Speaker 1: this plan um to build a series of you know,
1:11:45
Speaker 1: uh for minds. And given the track record that we've
1:11:50
Speaker 1: seen even with modern minds in the in the United States, um,
1:11:55
Speaker 1: they pollut. So it's a very very real threat. And
1:11:59
Speaker 1: what we're uh working to do is to first prevent
1:12:06
Speaker 1: the mining companies from getting expired leases renewed. I can
1:12:11
Speaker 1: talk about that in a little bit, because the leases
1:12:14
Speaker 1: say in the terms of them that they convey the
1:12:18
Speaker 1: right to mind. The second thing we're trying to do
1:12:23
Speaker 1: is to make sure that the federal lands just outside
1:12:27
Speaker 1: of the wilderness boundary, but in the area that drains
1:12:30
Speaker 1: into the wilderness, that those lands are put off limits
1:12:33
Speaker 1: and new mineral leasing for twenty years. We want a
1:12:37
Speaker 1: twenty year time out, and if we get that, then
1:12:42
Speaker 1: we will take the fight to Congress and ask Congress
1:12:47
Speaker 1: to pass a law permanently protecting these federal lands in
1:12:51
Speaker 1: that watershed. So the current position we're in is one
1:12:57
Speaker 1: where the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management
1:13:01
Speaker 1: are asking for input. We've got a common period that
1:13:06
Speaker 1: closes next Wednesday, February UM and Sportsman for the Boundary
1:13:14
Speaker 1: Waters has a petition up on our website and we
1:13:17
Speaker 1: ask everybody to sign that petition. That's the first thing
1:13:19
Speaker 1: that people can do to help express support for putting
1:13:23
Speaker 1: these lands off limits for twenty years. UM, express support
1:13:29
Speaker 1: for continuing the study of the proposal. You know, whether
1:13:33
Speaker 1: this is the right or the wrong place, this water
1:13:36
Speaker 1: rich environment, whether it's the right or the wrong place
1:13:39
Speaker 1: for the most polluting type of mining in the country. UM.
1:13:44
Speaker 1: And after you've signed a petition, all your U S
1:13:49
Speaker 1: Senators and call your US, your house member, your representatives
1:13:56
Speaker 1: accounishment and tell them you want a flagship wilderness area
1:14:03
Speaker 1: on national forest lands that we all own together protected.
1:14:09
Speaker 1: The only way, given the track rectors of this industry,
1:14:13
Speaker 1: the only way to protect this area is to put
1:14:17
Speaker 1: those lands off when it's de mining for twenty years.
1:14:20
Speaker 1: So that's the fight. It's a worthy cause, a worthy goal,
1:14:24
Speaker 1: and we definitely need your listeners. UH. Thank these relative
1:14:32
Speaker 1: to small actions and speak up and and sport the cause. So,
1:14:37
Speaker 1: so let me play devil's advocate here. Let's say I'm
1:14:40
Speaker 1: a I'm a guy or girl who excuse me, I'm
1:14:44
Speaker 1: a guy a girl here who says there are millions
1:14:48
Speaker 1: of acres of public land up in northern Minnesota. UM.
1:14:53
Speaker 1: I believe that you know there's nothing wrong with resource
1:14:56
Speaker 1: extraction on some of our public lands. UM. Wire you
1:15:00
Speaker 1: guys making such a big deal about just four little
1:15:03
Speaker 1: mining leases um in this area. UM. So what if
1:15:07
Speaker 1: someone is saying that to you, I'm curious what's your
1:15:11
Speaker 1: reply would be? And then also help us understand what
1:15:13
Speaker 1: if this happens? What if the leases get approved? What
1:15:15
Speaker 1: if Twin Medals goes in here and makes these minds
1:15:18
Speaker 1: um starts going through these processes. What's the what's the
1:15:22
Speaker 1: impact on the boundary waters, on the hunting and fishing? Well,
1:15:26
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the actual thing at stake here? Sure? Sure? Well, so, UM,
1:15:33
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with with resource substraction. UM.
1:15:39
Speaker 1: You know I went to forest school right now. A
1:15:42
Speaker 1: lot of the lamps that are an issue here, they
1:15:45
Speaker 1: are UM. If you know it's working forest, uh, it
1:15:50
Speaker 1: provides habitat uh. And you know the Forest Service for
1:15:55
Speaker 1: a variety of uses, and timber harvest is one of
1:15:59
Speaker 1: those uses. This proposal to put the land off in
1:16:02
Speaker 1: that's the soulified or comprom mining doesn't it doesn't affect
1:16:06
Speaker 1: that they'll still be logging. So it's not really about
1:16:09
Speaker 1: resource experianction. That's the first thing I would say. Second,
1:16:13
Speaker 1: I would say that with regard to Minnesota's uh, you know,
1:16:18
Speaker 1: number one mining activity, iron mining, tacking that mining. UM,
1:16:23
Speaker 1: this withdrawal doesn't affect that doesn't stop any of the
1:16:27
Speaker 1: attacking on minds because those attacking I minds, the iron
1:16:31
Speaker 1: minds are in they're in other locations thinking other hole UM.
1:16:37
Speaker 1: And uh so that's really important to get across UM. Finally,
1:16:43
Speaker 1: I would say that, ah, you know, hm, there is
1:16:49
Speaker 1: this idea that in the mining industry takes advantage of
1:16:53
Speaker 1: this and pretty much every state where they try to
1:16:55
Speaker 1: get a mine in where they talk about how every
1:16:58
Speaker 1: state got the best and our mental protection measures and
1:17:01
Speaker 1: laws in the nation, and they say, you know, we can,
1:17:05
Speaker 1: we can meet those laws. Well, at the same time,
1:17:08
Speaker 1: they were often at the state legislators are trying to
1:17:10
Speaker 1: roll back the laws they don't like. They're talking about.
1:17:13
Speaker 1: Of both sides of them Now. The other thing is
1:17:15
Speaker 1: mining companies exist for one reason, to return a profit,
1:17:21
Speaker 1: the greatest profit that they can to their shareholders. Uh.
1:17:24
Speaker 1: And to leave all of the risks, long term risks
1:17:29
Speaker 1: of pollution with the whole on the ground that they
1:17:32
Speaker 1: walk away from when they're done. That's what they do.
1:17:36
Speaker 1: They they sing their swants on when they try to
1:17:41
Speaker 1: woo communities to let them come in and mind, and
1:17:44
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't walk into these communities. They don't
1:17:46
Speaker 1: walk into the city hall uh, you know and say
1:17:50
Speaker 1: we'd like to come here, we'd like to take away
1:17:53
Speaker 1: the will uh and send it to our boardroom. Uh.
1:17:57
Speaker 1: And we'd like to leave you with ruined landscape and
1:18:01
Speaker 1: poluted water. It's gonna last for two years. That's not
1:18:05
Speaker 1: what they say. Now. They tell a very different story.
1:18:08
Speaker 1: But if you go and look at the communities that
1:18:12
Speaker 1: used to be major mining communities there, there would be
1:18:17
Speaker 1: Montana and other places there. They are. Um, while they
1:18:22
Speaker 1: have so many great attributes, one of them is not
1:18:27
Speaker 1: lots of beautiful uh you know lands and clean water. Um.
1:18:32
Speaker 1: That's taken away when you when you start talking about
1:18:37
Speaker 1: hard rock mining, sulfide or copper mining. That's taken away.
1:18:41
Speaker 1: But what would happen if they get in. Here's what
1:18:43
Speaker 1: we have. The sulfide or copper. The sulfide copper or
1:18:49
Speaker 1: that they dig up, very very low grade of that
1:18:54
Speaker 1: is going to stay, um, you know, in the region
1:18:59
Speaker 1: and uh, but it's not going to be the big
1:19:03
Speaker 1: block of bedrock it once was which didn't pollute. Bed
1:19:07
Speaker 1: Rock really doesn't pollute because it weathers so slowly. It
1:19:10
Speaker 1: takes millennium, it takes ages ages to weather and so
1:19:13
Speaker 1: it doesn't pollute. But when you grind that, you know
1:19:17
Speaker 1: amount of rock, you know amount of the amount of
1:19:20
Speaker 1: rock many times bigger than the US Bank Stadium where
1:19:23
Speaker 1: the world where the where the super Bowl is just played, um,
1:19:29
Speaker 1: many many times bigger than you grind that up to
1:19:31
Speaker 1: the fineness of space powder. You expose all of that
1:19:36
Speaker 1: rock to air and water, and the sulfides in it
1:19:39
Speaker 1: convert to sulfuric acid. And that's why pure acid leaches
1:19:43
Speaker 1: down through that, through that tailings through that waste rock
1:19:47
Speaker 1: leaches out the heavy metals that I talked about early,
1:19:50
Speaker 1: which are neurotoxins. They get into the fish, they get
1:19:53
Speaker 1: into the water, um. And if if you eat fish,
1:19:57
Speaker 1: they're gonna get into you. Mercure is a potent neurotoxin
1:20:01
Speaker 1: and it does damage to the developing brains of fetuses
1:20:07
Speaker 1: and young children, nursing children and kids in their grade
1:20:11
Speaker 1: school years, and it it reduces their i Q. And
1:20:15
Speaker 1: if you have a reduced i Q, you've got to
1:20:17
Speaker 1: reduce total brain capacity for your life. This is not
1:20:21
Speaker 1: just about you know, this is not some little thing.
1:20:23
Speaker 1: It's we're talking about centuries. And I don't say that widely.
1:20:29
Speaker 1: Two D five hundred years minimum of pollution would come
1:20:33
Speaker 1: from these sites and it flows, it would flow right
1:20:36
Speaker 1: into the heart of the boundary, so that you know,
1:20:40
Speaker 1: that really would do grievous damage to what is the
1:20:44
Speaker 1: absence of the boundary waters and that's clean water. But luckily,
1:20:48
Speaker 1: luckily we don't have to go this route because there
1:20:51
Speaker 1: are lots of places to mine copper. Copper is copper
1:20:55
Speaker 1: is copper. You can mind it anywhere, but there's only
1:20:57
Speaker 1: one boundary waters and people should keep that in mind.
1:21:01
Speaker 1: If your favorite resource extraction, that doesn't mean you have
1:21:04
Speaker 1: to you know, minding everyone right, right, Yeah, that's that's
1:21:11
Speaker 1: always something that I that I think about a lot
1:21:13
Speaker 1: too um Being against something like this doesn't mean that
1:21:18
Speaker 1: you're taking some full sweep against all mining or logging
1:21:24
Speaker 1: or drilling or whatever type of resource extraction at a
1:21:28
Speaker 1: question might be UM. But as a hunter, as an angler,
1:21:32
Speaker 1: as a as a hiker or a paddler, someone who
1:21:35
Speaker 1: understands these places and appreciates these places, I think it's
1:21:38
Speaker 1: pretty fair to say, um, at least from my perspective,
1:21:41
Speaker 1: that there can't we have some of these places that
1:21:44
Speaker 1: are too special to risk some of these things. Can't
1:21:47
Speaker 1: we find some areas that we can say, all right,
1:21:49
Speaker 1: you know this is a place where maybe this isn't
1:21:51
Speaker 1: the right use, Maybe this is maybe the highest use.
1:21:54
Speaker 1: Here is is wildlife habitat and recreation and and in
1:21:57
Speaker 1: a quiet space. Um to your point, there are there
1:22:00
Speaker 1: are plenty of places where you can mind copper or
1:22:03
Speaker 1: where you can do X, Y or Z. I think
1:22:05
Speaker 1: I remember, and someone's gonna email me and tell me
1:22:07
Speaker 1: I'm wrong on this, But I believe the number I
1:22:09
Speaker 1: saw was that of our federal public lands are open
1:22:13
Speaker 1: to resource extraction, etcetera, etcetera. So maybe it's okay that
1:22:17
Speaker 1: we can have a little buffer strip here around one
1:22:20
Speaker 1: of the most special places that we say no this,
1:22:22
Speaker 1: we need to be a little extra careful here. UM,
1:22:25
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem so outrageous to me at least, UM,
1:22:29
Speaker 1: given so it's not right. Yeah, I agree with you,
1:22:33
Speaker 1: it's not outrageous. I mean, we're lucky enough to have uh,
1:22:38
Speaker 1: you know, inherited this wonderful place. You know, it would
1:22:42
Speaker 1: be awfully wonderful if we were able to handle it
1:22:45
Speaker 1: down our kids and grandkids in the same condition that
1:22:49
Speaker 1: we got. M hmmm. So we're the country is you know,
1:22:55
Speaker 1: we've got a strong country, a wealthy country, and we
1:22:58
Speaker 1: can afford, um to borrow from somebody else who talked
1:23:03
Speaker 1: about this issue, we can afford to protect boundary waters. Lucas,
1:23:08
Speaker 1: would you add anything on this, given that you're obviously
1:23:12
Speaker 1: very active with this campaign as well. No, Absolutely, everything
1:23:16
Speaker 1: that uh, you know, Matt said is is completely on point,
1:23:21
Speaker 1: and it's very important that we take all measures that
1:23:25
Speaker 1: we can to you know, protect this world class hunting
1:23:29
Speaker 1: and fishing destination. You know, there's no reason these companies
1:23:32
Speaker 1: should be taking the measures that they are too extrafa
1:23:37
Speaker 1: minerals that they're looking to do. Um. We only have
1:23:41
Speaker 1: a certain amount of areas here in in this nation
1:23:44
Speaker 1: that you know support UM the opportunities that we have,
1:23:49
Speaker 1: especially the public lands that we have, and you know
1:23:51
Speaker 1: that was referenced earlier, um east of the Rockies and
1:23:55
Speaker 1: north of the other Glades, this is the largest and
1:23:58
Speaker 1: most visited wilderness in the nation. So for future generations,
1:24:05
Speaker 1: this is one of the most important areas that we
1:24:07
Speaker 1: have that's been set aside and started initially by Teddy Roosevelt.
1:24:14
Speaker 1: So we need to make sure that we do everything
1:24:20
Speaker 1: that we can and we do our due diligence to
1:24:24
Speaker 1: make sure that this exists for future generations to experience,
1:24:29
Speaker 1: and also also to support the economic driver that the
1:24:34
Speaker 1: space is in northeastern Minnesota, because it really is, and
1:24:40
Speaker 1: I mean it's a trickle down effect. You know, something
1:24:43
Speaker 1: happens where there is pollution from this type of mining,
1:24:47
Speaker 1: which is inevitable, and it will affect companies from local
1:24:55
Speaker 1: to large. It will affect the aura and fauna all
1:25:01
Speaker 1: the way from micro to macro. And we have a
1:25:06
Speaker 1: situation here where we need to make sure that we
1:25:08
Speaker 1: protect something that is so important to the future of
1:25:12
Speaker 1: everybody here in the US. So yeah, I could not
1:25:16
Speaker 1: agree more with anything that Matt just said. But you know,
1:25:21
Speaker 1: everybody should say, you know, should sign a petition that yes,
1:25:24
Speaker 1: detect this area put it awful limits mining for twenty years. Um,
1:25:30
Speaker 1: it's the wrong place for full flight or compromising. So
1:25:35
Speaker 1: that sounds like number one action item, the easiest action items.
1:25:39
Speaker 1: Go sign this petition. Make your voice heard, at least
1:25:43
Speaker 1: in that way that there are a lot of sportsmen
1:25:46
Speaker 1: women who support this place. And and I would say,
1:25:48
Speaker 1: even if you haven't been to this to this area
1:25:51
Speaker 1: yet or hat or sorry, even if you haven't been
1:25:54
Speaker 1: or don't even plan to, it's a place that I think, UM,
1:25:58
Speaker 1: that we as a hunting and community should stand up
1:26:01
Speaker 1: for it simply because of the fact that it offers opportunities,
1:26:04
Speaker 1: that offers the potential for something and having a few
1:26:07
Speaker 1: places like that left at least, in my opinion, is
1:26:11
Speaker 1: something worth having and something worth UM standing up for.
1:26:14
Speaker 1: So sign the petition, UM, and Matt, what would be
1:26:17
Speaker 1: your your number two and number three actions? I think
1:26:20
Speaker 1: you mentioned placing a phone call or email to your representatives.
1:26:23
Speaker 1: Was that number two? Yeah, I would I would say
1:26:27
Speaker 1: the number two is the just Paul both of your
1:26:31
Speaker 1: u s and whatever state you're from, and tell them
1:26:35
Speaker 1: that the Boundary Waters Canary Wilderness as Minnesota's Yellowstone and
1:26:43
Speaker 1: that they want to see it protected. Uh. That message
1:26:48
Speaker 1: will get through two people, you know. The third thing
1:26:51
Speaker 1: would be the more or less do the same thing
1:26:54
Speaker 1: with your with your member of the U. S. House,
1:26:57
Speaker 1: your congressman or a woman. Um M. It doesn't take
1:27:03
Speaker 1: anybody more than ten minutes to check all three of
1:27:06
Speaker 1: those boxes off. And um you'd be doing a great service.
1:27:11
Speaker 1: Not just you know, in case you want to use
1:27:13
Speaker 1: it in the future, enjoy it in the future, but
1:27:16
Speaker 1: if you've got kids, or if you supports the Boy
1:27:19
Speaker 1: Scouts the Girl Scouts and the Edge of the Boundary
1:27:22
Speaker 1: Waters supports the only wilderness base camp for the Girl
1:27:27
Speaker 1: Scouts in America UH and sports one of the few
1:27:32
Speaker 1: national high adventure camps UH for the Boy Scouts, the
1:27:37
Speaker 1: summers UH base Camp the Boy Scouts. So you know,
1:27:43
Speaker 1: even if you don't think you're gonna go, you may know. Um,
1:27:48
Speaker 1: you know, a kid and the Girl Scouts are Boy Scouts,
1:27:51
Speaker 1: and and they should have a chance to experience this
1:27:55
Speaker 1: place in its prime. Yeah, and absolutely well I'm excited
1:28:01
Speaker 1: to to get my own first hand experience um with
1:28:04
Speaker 1: this place this fall, and I think anyone listening, I
1:28:08
Speaker 1: gotta believe a lot of people listening have have probably
1:28:10
Speaker 1: been intrigued to maybe someday put this on their bucket
1:28:12
Speaker 1: list and experience it too. So it seems pretty clearly
1:28:16
Speaker 1: we've got our our action orders. If if we want
1:28:19
Speaker 1: to keep this place as special and pristine as it
1:28:22
Speaker 1: is right now, there's a few easy actions that we
1:28:24
Speaker 1: can take, and I'll certainly be doing that probably tonight,
1:28:28
Speaker 1: right after we finished this conversation, and I'd encourage anyone
1:28:31
Speaker 1: else listening to to do the same thing. Um, I
1:28:35
Speaker 1: guess real quick, if we have any quick final thoughts, Darryl,
1:28:38
Speaker 1: do you have any final things you want to leave
1:28:40
Speaker 1: us with before we wrap it up. I had one
1:28:42
Speaker 1: other hunting story that I wanted to tell you, just
1:28:45
Speaker 1: to get you fired up about going there. Perfect. So
1:28:49
Speaker 1: one year I shot a big buck with my bowl,
1:28:52
Speaker 1: and uh, that's all Matt. I said, yeah, I'm just
1:28:55
Speaker 1: gonna bring my dog and grouse hunts and you said, no,
1:28:57
Speaker 1: you can hunt on my day, right, said all right, Well,
1:29:01
Speaker 1: you know how big does the deer have to be
1:29:02
Speaker 1: if I fill your tag? He said, you know, ten points?
1:29:05
Speaker 1: So ah. It was a couple of days into the hunt,
1:29:10
Speaker 1: and it was kind of leading out, and I saw
1:29:13
Speaker 1: on a log to sit on, and I trimmed out
1:29:16
Speaker 1: this white spruce tree and sitting on the log, and
1:29:19
Speaker 1: it was just a beautiful afternoon, and runted a couple
1:29:24
Speaker 1: of times, and I kept sitting there. And also I
1:29:27
Speaker 1: saw this nice buck. It was an eight pointer, so
1:29:30
Speaker 1: white rack, beautiful buck, but it was eight points and
1:29:35
Speaker 1: walked off in front of me and kind of got
1:29:38
Speaker 1: into a bunch of spruce trees and I couldn't see it,
1:29:40
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, I'm gonna have some fun with it.
1:29:42
Speaker 1: So I grunted at it to see if I could
1:29:44
Speaker 1: get it to come back, and sure enough, it came back.
1:29:47
Speaker 1: And keep in mind, I'm sitting on the ground underneath
1:29:50
Speaker 1: the slight spruce tree. It never saw me, and it
1:29:53
Speaker 1: came back, and then it mosy back into the spruce
1:29:56
Speaker 1: trees again, and so I thought, I'm gonna grant one
1:29:59
Speaker 1: more time to to see if I can bring it
1:30:00
Speaker 1: back home my time. So I grunted ten seconds later,
1:30:06
Speaker 1: one of the longest, deepest grunts I've ever heard in
1:30:09
Speaker 1: my whole life. It's right behind me. I turned around,
1:30:14
Speaker 1: and over my right shoulder was the biggest bucket everything
1:30:18
Speaker 1: in my whole life, dark face, dark rack, uh, fifteen
1:30:26
Speaker 1: yards away from me, looking right at me, and we
1:30:29
Speaker 1: just stared at each other. I couldn't make a shot
1:30:32
Speaker 1: because I had to turn completely around them right handed,
1:30:36
Speaker 1: and I would have to stand up to do that.
1:30:39
Speaker 1: And I just sat and stared at it. And finally,
1:30:43
Speaker 1: after about two minutes staring at it, I decided to
1:30:45
Speaker 1: go for it, and I stood up and trying to
1:30:47
Speaker 1: make the shot. And I couldn't make the shot. But
1:30:50
Speaker 1: Matt Built this day laughed at me because I from
1:30:54
Speaker 1: that point on I carry a forty four magnet with
1:30:56
Speaker 1: me in case I've ever and have to make that
1:31:00
Speaker 1: shot at that buck. Wow, that is pretty cool. He was.
1:31:07
Speaker 1: He was a beast. And I gotta believe that big, big, dark,
1:31:13
Speaker 1: big body northern Minnesota buck puts a lot of puts
1:31:17
Speaker 1: a lot of deer across the country's shame as far
1:31:19
Speaker 1: as just pure mystique, I'd have to believe. And one
1:31:23
Speaker 1: still haunts me. That's awesome. Well, yes, you were right.
1:31:27
Speaker 1: That one definitely did get me pumped. Uh. I can't
1:31:31
Speaker 1: wait to get out there now, Lucas. Any any final
1:31:35
Speaker 1: parting words for you? Yeah? Actually, I mean I have
1:31:37
Speaker 1: a story to it, like tell um. One of the
1:31:41
Speaker 1: first years that I went up, and of course, like
1:31:44
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that my dad introduced me to the
1:31:47
Speaker 1: BBC A. We were on a lake called Tuscarora, which
1:31:52
Speaker 1: is up on the gun Flint side and out on
1:31:56
Speaker 1: our normal camp, and we knew there was a snow
1:32:00
Speaker 1: storm coming in, and we were prepared and you know,
1:32:04
Speaker 1: ready for the next morning, knowing that we were going
1:32:06
Speaker 1: to be catching some fish. In the middle of the nights,
1:32:10
Speaker 1: we saw a canoe coming from across the lake and
1:32:15
Speaker 1: we were wondering where they were going. Their original destination
1:32:20
Speaker 1: was going to an island that was about a quarter
1:32:23
Speaker 1: a mile away from where our camp was at the moment,
1:32:29
Speaker 1: and the father and son and they were ill prepared.
1:32:35
Speaker 1: They came over. We lit a fire for them and
1:32:41
Speaker 1: ried up some lake trout and had them to stay
1:32:44
Speaker 1: with us, addled them over to their camp that they
1:32:47
Speaker 1: were originally going to go to that island, that their
1:32:50
Speaker 1: original destination was. Where I'm going with it is it's
1:32:54
Speaker 1: just like we talked about, you know, you've got to
1:32:56
Speaker 1: just make sure you're prepared. Um. They learned a lesson,
1:33:01
Speaker 1: but I've been in contact with them and they've gone
1:33:05
Speaker 1: back up every year and it's been a really cool
1:33:08
Speaker 1: experience and they're really awesome people. That's great and a
1:33:13
Speaker 1: great reminder two of of how easily things could go
1:33:16
Speaker 1: wrong if you if you weren't prepared. I imagine they
1:33:18
Speaker 1: would have had a much less enjoyable night if you
1:33:21
Speaker 1: guys hadn't been there, right, Yeah, absolutely, And that was,
1:33:26
Speaker 1: you know, kind of the foundation of the way I
1:33:29
Speaker 1: look at going up there on trips now too. So
1:33:31
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Well then, UM, Matt, any final words for you.
1:33:36
Speaker 1: You've shared a lot with us on the policy standpoint.
1:33:39
Speaker 1: I don't know if you if you have anything else
1:33:41
Speaker 1: you'd like to share. None, I guess I just point
1:33:44
Speaker 1: out that, Um, you mentioned that the Boundary Waters is
1:33:49
Speaker 1: a very accessible place, UM, and Lucas has mentioned that
1:33:55
Speaker 1: it's the most visited wilderness in the country. And you know,
1:34:00
Speaker 1: pretty much any night, well not pretty much, any night
1:34:03
Speaker 1: spent in the Boundary Waters is a bad country night, UM.
1:34:09
Speaker 1: But because you know, because the paddling, because you're paddling,
1:34:14
Speaker 1: and because the the water carriers the weight of all
1:34:19
Speaker 1: your gear except on the portages. UM, it is a
1:34:24
Speaker 1: very accessible place, at least during you know, the summer months. Um,
1:34:31
Speaker 1: it's accessible to a parent or parents who want to
1:34:35
Speaker 1: take young kids in. It's doable. You can do it.
1:34:40
Speaker 1: We'll have a great time. Um. I have seen young
1:34:44
Speaker 1: parents with newborn baby in the Boundary Waters. It's actually doable.
1:34:51
Speaker 1: There are things that you could do there that you
1:34:53
Speaker 1: can't do on a long backpacking trip west. And Uh.
1:34:59
Speaker 1: I think partly it's the beauty of the place, the ability,
1:35:03
Speaker 1: depending on your time of the year, to get out
1:35:06
Speaker 1: and really experience some solitude, particularly early late seasons, that
1:35:12
Speaker 1: makes it such an attraction to so many people. And
1:35:16
Speaker 1: we've talked about hunting and fishing and some of the
1:35:19
Speaker 1: policy questions, but for a lot of people in northeastern Minnesota,
1:35:26
Speaker 1: the Boundary Waters is one of the reasons that they
1:35:30
Speaker 1: live there. It's an important place, uh, you know, to
1:35:35
Speaker 1: the to the culture of Minnesota and to the population
1:35:40
Speaker 1: in northeastern Minnesota. And it drives the economy in a way. UM.
1:35:50
Speaker 1: You know, that's it includes. But it's bigger than the
1:35:55
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing and recreation. Well, I guess guess that's it, alright, perfect, Well,
1:36:06
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing, if if nothing else has
1:36:08
Speaker 1: been achieved, here tonight. At the minimum, you guys definitely
1:36:12
Speaker 1: did a really good job of getting me fired up.
1:36:14
Speaker 1: I'm ready. I'm ready to get out there, and um,
1:36:18
Speaker 1: probably probably a few a few folks listening are too,
1:36:21
Speaker 1: so I guess I guess I gotta say, though, I
1:36:23
Speaker 1: hope for Darryll's sake that no one listening that none
1:36:26
Speaker 1: of you guys go out there, and uh, I don't
1:36:29
Speaker 1: want to see you out there either. So in all seriousness, though, UM,
1:36:33
Speaker 1: this has been just really interesting. It's neat to get
1:36:36
Speaker 1: insight into a very different kind of place then, um
1:36:39
Speaker 1: where some of us spend our time hunting and uh,
1:36:43
Speaker 1: you know, all the other things that we love to do, fishing, camping, paddling.
1:36:47
Speaker 1: It seems that this is just just top of the
1:36:50
Speaker 1: top of the line as far as what you can
1:36:52
Speaker 1: what you can get back into. So I'm excited to
1:36:55
Speaker 1: see it. I appreciate you guys sharing with us your experiences,
1:36:58
Speaker 1: your insights, um, helping us but better understand what's happening
1:37:02
Speaker 1: with this place and why it's at risk and what
1:37:05
Speaker 1: we can do about it. So this has been very helpful,
1:37:07
Speaker 1: very interesting, and appreciate you guys being a part all right,
1:37:12
Speaker 1: folks in that is going to do it for this episode.
1:37:15
Speaker 1: Um that said, I appreciate you listening. And as I
1:37:20
Speaker 1: said earlier, I think this is an opportunity for us
1:37:24
Speaker 1: as a hunting community here to step up and make
1:37:27
Speaker 1: a difference for a place that maybe we personally won't
1:37:30
Speaker 1: but a lot of people go to to enjoy, whether
1:37:33
Speaker 1: it be deer hunting or fishing, or canoeing or kayaking
1:37:38
Speaker 1: or camping. You know, it's a special place. It's close
1:37:41
Speaker 1: to a lot of us deer hunters here in the Midwest,
1:37:44
Speaker 1: and um, we can make an impact. So here's what
1:37:46
Speaker 1: I would just reiterate. As Matt mentioned, please if you
1:37:50
Speaker 1: can take a second to sign those petitions he mentioned.
1:37:53
Speaker 1: I have them both linked on the blog post for
1:37:55
Speaker 1: this So if you go to Wired Hunting dot com
1:37:57
Speaker 1: click on the blog post for this podcast episode, you're
1:38:00
Speaker 1: gonna see the petition there linked for Sportsman for the
1:38:03
Speaker 1: Boundary Waters, or you can go to Sportsman for the
1:38:06
Speaker 1: Boundary Waters dot org and sign right there. And the
1:38:10
Speaker 1: back Country Hunters and Anglers Organization also has a petition
1:38:13
Speaker 1: they're working on, so if you go to the link
1:38:15
Speaker 1: on my website you can sign that as well. UM,
1:38:17
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be posting about this on Instagram, So if
1:38:21
Speaker 1: you want to help out there, you can go on
1:38:23
Speaker 1: Instagram and repost that to your own page, share the
1:38:26
Speaker 1: link to these petitions there. I'm gonna be tweeting about
1:38:28
Speaker 1: this today and over the course of the next few days,
1:38:30
Speaker 1: retweet that, share that around, and then if you have
1:38:33
Speaker 1: the time, make a call to your senators, make a
1:38:35
Speaker 1: call to your representatives. It's a quick way that you
1:38:38
Speaker 1: can stand up for one specific place. And I think
1:38:41
Speaker 1: if we if we can come together as a group
1:38:43
Speaker 1: and help in this instance, maybe six months from now
1:38:46
Speaker 1: there's somewhere else it's maybe closer to you and we
1:38:48
Speaker 1: can all railly around that issue. And maybe a few
1:38:50
Speaker 1: months after that there's gonna be something else and we're
1:38:53
Speaker 1: gonna stand up for that too. That's that's what I
1:38:55
Speaker 1: hope for this community that we've built here with wired
1:38:57
Speaker 1: Hunt is not only do we care about our own
1:39:00
Speaker 1: personal deer hunting behind our house or in our little
1:39:03
Speaker 1: neck of the woods. Not only do we want to
1:39:05
Speaker 1: fill the freezer, not only do we want to kill
1:39:07
Speaker 1: a big mature buck, um, but we all also want
1:39:10
Speaker 1: to stand up for these places where we can hunt,
1:39:13
Speaker 1: where we can fish, where we can go adventure. UM,
1:39:18
Speaker 1: we enjoy these places. So I think because of that,
1:39:21
Speaker 1: we also have an obligation to try to speak up
1:39:23
Speaker 1: for them to at least that's the way I see it.
1:39:25
Speaker 1: And UM, I'm trying to do my best to to
1:39:28
Speaker 1: show that example and maybe we can all do that together.
1:39:31
Speaker 1: So that's the end of my sermon here today. I
1:39:34
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys hanging on for that and and tuning
1:39:37
Speaker 1: in And finally, I guess we'll just wrap it up
1:39:39
Speaker 1: with our final thank you to our partners who do
1:39:41
Speaker 1: make all this possible. So big things to sit a
1:39:44
Speaker 1: gear yetie Coolers, Matthew's Archery, Maven Optics, the White Tail
1:39:48
Speaker 1: Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and Hunt Terror Maps
1:39:51
Speaker 1: and of course and again thank you all. I appreciate
1:39:55
Speaker 1: you being listeners. I appreciate you being supporters of these
1:39:58
Speaker 1: types of causes. I appreciate at you being just genuinely
1:40:01
Speaker 1: good people. Um, this Wired Hunt community is is awesome.
1:40:05
Speaker 1: You guys are the best. I appreciate you. Until next time,
1:40:08
Speaker 1: Stay Wired to Hunt. H