Latest / Conservation Stories / Fishing’s Future: Building Families, Conservation, and Outdoor Confidence

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Fishing’s Future: Building Families, Conservation, and Outdoor Confidence · Conservation Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hello, I'm Dusty Timmons with Conservation Stories, and I recently was afforded the opportunity to go to the Hunt Fish Podcast Summit held outside of Houston and interview a number of venturing people for the conservation stories that you'll be hearing over the next couple of weeks. Included in these are people from all walks of life that are involved in conservation and charitable organizations that I feel will be really interesting. I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I enjoyed recording the interviews for you.
• 0:30
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• 1:25
  Speaker A: I'm here with Michael Scherer with Fishing's Future, and I'm gonna let Michael talk a little bit about what Fishing Future is and what it does. And he's the executive director. Is that the program? I'm the program program director. I'm sorry I misread that, but Michael, tell me a little bit about Fishing's Future.
• 1:41
  Speaker C: Well, Fishing's Future, back in 2007 was founded by a young man out in South Padre island named Shane Wilson. He was a first grade school teacher and he just had this vision that, you know, one kid's great, two kids are good, three kids, four kids, five kids. Somebody's going to jail. So they needed to find something that he can educate in schools. And he came up with the idea of taking two lowercase Fs, turning them to embrace each other. The top part of the F looked like the whiskers of a catfish and down by where the Fs crisscross, put a little tail in there and looks like the dot of the redfish and it meant families forever. Fishing's Future was born. He then worked very closely with Texas Parks and Wildlife and took their program with another gentleman by the name of Kevin Rich and sent it off to Kansas to see how it would go there. Fast forward a few months now. They got 70 chapters across the United States and we do family education through family fish camps and chapters that want to do share your passion with these families. It's not really a kid event, it's a family event. Fast forward a little bit more. 20, 25, we did probably 35,000 participants just in Katy ISD alone. In Katy, Texas, we did about 14,000 kids a year in the school district. We invite their parents to come out to do this. We also, we're not a one and done type environment where we want to get the families back in to various places that we call community fishing lakes with Texas Parks and Wildlife. They're stocked with either channel catfish in their summertimes and then around Thanksgiving, we're starting to put rainbow trout in there. I was introduced to Shane Wilson by Texas Parks and Wildlife. I was a certified angler instructor, a young man by the name of Tinker Bauer. We were both very big, very heavily into the bsa, the Boy Scouts for America. Now it's Scouting America. I was heavily involved and all these different type of organizations. And Tim says, hey, why don't we get you certified? Okay, well, what is certification going to get me? Well, you know, you get to hand out material and you get to post some hours. And I think that time the state of Texas got $19 an hour, you know, for every hour I work. I said, that's cool. So I did that for a little bit, for a couple of years. And then I got a phone call from Greg Akins, who was one of the part of the communications group and the angler education side for the Houston area and other sections around Texas. And he says, michael, can I take you to lunch? And you always know something's up when somebody wants to take you to lunch. It's like, you know, okay, I'll meet you there. And he introduced me to the program. He introduced me to fishing future. He says, I need to introduce you to a young man by the name of Shane Wilson. Said, okay. Shane Wilson and I met and it was like the world tremored when both of me and him were in the same room. It's like somebody says, us, oh my goodness, they have met. They're getting ready to change everything. And we did. We took fishing's future to a whole new level. Family education in the school, education. He had another brainchild on an initiative called the I Can Initiative. I can, I will, I will again. And he found an old tritune boat that was in the storage, the gentleman who had it couldn't pay the storage, couldn't pay the get it fixed. So Shane says, you know what, we can take care of this. So he got a bunch of engineers together and they built a tritune 25 foot, 25 foot boat for mobility issue families. Now this boat can take beds, it can take any type of mobility type device. But it's not one of those where you have this chair that comes over and puts it on a boat. Our boat, South Padre island lifts to the need. The entire boat lifts to you. So it's not. If you have to be down here, we'll figure out how to get that boat down here. If you go up here and you have another type of device that needs to be rolled on, Shane can lift that boat up. Then we have just like swimming pools, they have these chairs that will lower you in the water. Because if you ask a lot of mobility issue friends about what do you want, what do you want to do when you're in the water is be free of this chair. So that way now they can get into the chair. They have full control of it. To put them into the water and just watching them relax is something else. We also have an eye catch tank which is a 2020 foot by 20 foot 5000 gallon tank. We can take fish where fish aren't supposed to be.
• 7:17
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 7:18
  Speaker C: So you know, if you want to hold the bent like we do a lot with trout. Guadalupe River Trout unlimited trout Fest every year. This year we didn't do it because they're doing mend the river, trying to get all those people's lives back together. That was just devastating. It's biblical. I can't imagine how those people are feeling, but that's going on right now. My son is watching that tank. I put it together before I came out here to the hunt fish podcast summit. He just, I just got a phone call and goes, dad, they, they delivered the fish, but they're not channel catfish, they're blues. And I'm going, oh no. Blues like live bait. But we also just got a grant. My wife and I have written a lot of grants with fishing's future. We started the Bamus a Pascar and my Spanish is no good. So that's the let's go fishing side of the thing. We did that with the 41st president, Mr. Bush, Johnny Morris with bass pro shop, Pedro Soarez out of Mexico and Bill Dance. We got to meet with all of them on the grand opening for the bamboo safest back in 2015 at the, at the library. Bush just pitched out the first. He was in a wheelchair. He hasn't been. He's a left handed fly fisherman. He threw out the first pitch for the Astros. We were with him a couple weeks after that and Shane Wilson had a Takara rod with him, a ten foot sawtooth. And we tipped it. We'd already put about 850 fish in his library pond for the this event and he caught a fish and it was like that was the coolest thing around. So we, we dabble. Like I said, we write grants. This last grant we just got with the faf, which is Fish America foundation, powered by the American Sports Fishing Association. My wife and I locked it. We locked ourselves around Christmas we went into my office. My wife is an incredible grant writer. She's an incredible, incredible writer. I had. If somebody were asking me, Michael, did you know that you were going to get this grant when you were writing it? I said yes, because if my wife is helping pull stuff out of my head, I know things are going to happen. And we did, we got the grant. And, and that's on our ambassador program, which we're educating 15 to 17 year olds. How we're actually educating them like we would do an adult. So that way that they're ready to go, they're ready to volunteer. They're ready because they got passions like no other. You know, they're in conservation clubs, they're in school groups, they're getting ready for college. But if we can get them ready to the point where when they turn 18, I can call them up and says, well, you know, Eli, I feel that, you know, you just turned 18. Would you like to become a certified angler instructor with tech sparks and wildlife and fishing's future? And they have that decision to make. Because if you do, I'm going to send you a certificate, I'm going to send you a patch, I'm going to send you a pin. And now you will get a criminal background check from the state of Texas and you'll be able to report your hours because there's still that 18 to 39 year olds, they're still making life decisions. You know, they got to go to college. Am I going to have a family? Where am I going to live? My parents are getting ready to kick me out. So there's so much there. But again, but if they're ready and they're willing, we're hoping that they'll continue. Continue to go.
• 11:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:08
  Speaker C: So that's, that's a little bit in a nutshell about what we do. And, and what we do in fishing's future and, and then the things I can't talk about that we talked about earlier.
• 11:20
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:21
  Speaker C: I'm hoping maybe next year we're going to be sitting in front of each other and I'm going just, wow, it worked. It worked.
• 11:31
  Speaker A: Well, keep an eye on fishing, fishing future. See when it comes out, and then everybody will know, then we can talk about it next year.
• 11:36
  Speaker C: Well, it's one of those things. It's so beautiful. We have so many great volunteers that share their passion. Like I said, we're very heavily involved in Katy ISD in Katy, Texas. We probably take 14,000 kids fishing a year out there.
• 11:55
  Speaker A: That's introducing kids to the outdoor, introducing families to the outdoors. Yes. You know, the, one of the things that, that, I mean, whether people want to recognize or not, that the trouble with the breakup of the nuclear family is it's traumatic for society and it's really traumatic for kids, and it just perpetuates problems.
• 12:18
  Speaker C: Well, you're exactly right, because a lot of these kids, if you teach them fishing, that's great, but you got to continue to take them fishing. You can't just say, well, here it is. We're going to. We're going to drop in a bass butt. We're going to zing through here at 70 miles an hour. You're going to have a day you'll never forget. And then, okay, what happens next month? What happens two months? What happens three months? And I've seen so many videos where kids are saying, oh, I'm great. I'm good to learn how to fish. And then you see it again, oh, when are you going to take me fishing? And their whole demeanor changes. I love what the program does. Why am I not going fishing? Because they really haven't introduced that kid. And the family, where could they go like you and me? We were talking about this earlier about. We used to get on our bicycles and we used to. We used to ride. We used to have that. You know, we're carrying our fishing pole. We got our tackle box with us. You know, we may have a. One of those, you know, little things, the sheep things. And that's the way we grew up.
• 13:21
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 13:22
  Speaker C: You know, we. I used to run my bike through sewer systems in Little Rock, Arkansas. That's the coolest thing around. You pull into a little creek or somewhere and you dig up some grubs or something, or you catch a grasshopper and you put it on a hook. You don't need these expensive poles. You just Need a stick, a line, and a hook and maybe a little spit to put a little spit on that hook and go for it. And that's what we need to teach everybody is where. Not a one and done kind of thing, but you also have to instill conservation into these people. If we're not the leave no trace philosophy, the tread lightly philosophy, all these things on the conservation, don't ruin things for others kind of thing.
• 14:15
  Speaker A: So much of the. Of the leave no trace in the con and the contrast, it stems out of first, an initial love for the sport.
• 14:23
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 14:24
  Speaker A: You know, everybody I know you don't start, let's pick a game animal. And you don't start saying, hey, I want to conserve this game animal. Just because there's a. There's an underlying love of the species, our love of the outdoors. And until you, you know, until, you know, until so many people are no longer. The outdoors is kind of. Is an odd place for them.
• 14:47
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 14:48
  Speaker A: You know, it's not. You know, when I was, you know, you and I growing up, the outdoors was normal. I mean, we were outside. I mean, my mother used to, you know, the philosophy went from me to my sister or from my parents to my sister. And I remember my sister telling their kids, y' all go outside and play and don't come in unless you're bleeding from the head. Like, nowhere else matters if you're bleeding from the head, you can come in. Other than that, hose it off, and go down.
• 15:19
  Speaker C: Well, yeah, I'm 66, and I still have that problem.
• 15:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, I know it. But you're still like, you know, but that. That connection to the outdoor that you just organically developed.
• 15:29
  Speaker C: Yeah. We weren't carrying plastic bottles to carry water in. We. We had canteen.
• 15:34
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 15:34
  Speaker C: GI Joe canteen.
• 15:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. No canvas canteen. Or, you know, if water tasted like steel.
• 15:40
  Speaker C: Yeah. Or we just pulled in front of somebody's house that had a. A sprinkler going.
• 15:45
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 15:46
  Speaker C: And you stuck your face in the sprinkler. You know, you get that big old ugly green tube that's got mud all over it, and you're just. And you. You were in high cotton.
• 15:58
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 15:59
  Speaker C: You know, you were. You were. You were somebody. Especially if you're driving a swim bicycle. You know, you gotta a cane pole. You know, if your bobber was red and white, because you. Now if you're fishing with your friends, they all have red and white bobbers, and you flip yours over so yours is white.
• 16:23
  Speaker A: I'm not. I'm not sure if it was a. It was certainly a Simpler time seems like. But you know what, there's a, you know, there's still an underlying need for an underlying interest in that.
• 16:35
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 16:36
  Speaker A: And that's the thing that, that I see is if somebody gets introduced to it and a family gets introduced to it and you can go do it. And you know, with, with most outdoors activities, the day activities are not terribly bad to get into. Now some of it, the barriers to entries are, you know, are real and true and you know, and anything you get into deep enough, it's like eventually, you know, if you start off as a 12 year old kid and your dad's taking you fishing and you're going out and you're bank fishing and you're fishing one of these community lakes that the parks and wildlife does such a good job of keeping stocked and keeping the activity going, well, that kid's gonna hit 21s one time sometime and he's gonna be like, I want a bass boat.
• 17:17
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 17:17
  Speaker A: And then, then you start talking about real barrier signature and you start off with a bass tracker that said, you know, a used bass tracker off of Facebook marketplace. And you know, the next thing you know, you turn around and you're like, you got a lot of money in it, grows in debt. But that, but as you grow in, you know, the love of the outdoors and the love of the protecting the outdoors can start with a family and with, yes, with one as a kid and then at a park. And then by the time that kid gets to, you know, grows through adulthood and he has kids and he's, he just loved, they passed that love down to it. Then you get to a point where the guy's like, you know what? I can actually give back more now. But the thing about it is that just by taking, you know, by you taking a family fishing and introducing that family to the love of the outdoors, and then that family carries it over and they just do it, just do their own thing. They don't get out, they don't get out of the wheelhouse. They're just doing their own thing. But if they've got two kids, then those two kids love it. And there's two more families.
• 18:17
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 18:18
  Speaker A: That Got it.
• 18:19
  Speaker C: And they need to know how because I see a lot of families that we don't educate. They're going for the big fish, you know, they're out there. The family, the little kids are bored senseless. You know, they're waiting for that one opportunity for that pole out in the middle of the pond. I always says bring smaller things, bring some worms, bring Something that the kids. Because most of the fish that you're going to catch is 2, 3, 4 foot in front of you. You got fish looking at you going, hey, I want to kiss, I want to kiss. Catch me, catch me. Bring some nets. You know, they can dip it in the water, they can have a good time. You know, everybody says, well, you got to be quiet. And it's so far from the truth, you know, fish don't care.
• 19:06
  Speaker A: You know, I had a guy say one time, he said, you know, what's the biggest lie you were told as a kid? And one was you had to be quiet for the fish. Said the fish can't hear. Just don't go stomping around in the boat. But if you're sitting there talking, it ain't bothering anybody but your dad.
• 19:21
  Speaker C: And you gotta be up at 3 o' clock in the morning. Yeah, I think about that all the time. I'm going, okay, maybe the tidal movement, if we're salt water, but those fish are gonna be there regardless.
• 19:34
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker C: They may move in, they move out. Because it actually has helped me come up with four things. Four. Four very simple things for a beginner fisherman to understand. And my number one is very simple to learn to fish is to learn the fish. You know, there's so many times that families are together, they need to journal. You know, what are we going to do today? What are we, you know, what, what adventure? What fish do we want to try to catch? And then number two is only cast where the fish are, don't cast where the fish are not. And that it's a. It's a funny saying, but why waste your time if you don't know the fish and what you're going for in the habitat? And that kind of locks you into, where do I start casting or putting that cane pole in or how deep these fish are? Number three, the simplest thing, even if you're a mobility issue, know before you go, don't trust pictures on the Internet, because these pictures could be. They opened up 25 years ago and they're still using those pictures when the docks look beautiful.
• 20:49
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:49
  Speaker C: Now you're taking your family. Maybe you have a loved one that's in a wheelchair or needs a little bit of assistance. And all the rails are gone, they're all bowed in. They're all, you know, make a call, know, before you go. And then the. The fourth one is so simple, if you don't know, let it go.
• 21:09
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 21:09
  Speaker C: You know, that's on the conservation side, the rules and regulations. Because one thing that we want to teach people is watersheds. We're, you know, why do we want to clean up our waterways? I have a saying I'm teaching today so we can catch one tomorrow. And if we're talking about our conservation story, we're trying to. You know, I feel so. You know, a lot of these places have no water. You know, Austin, all these. Santa Corpus Christi just hurting for water right now. They need rain. And I don't. It would have to be a biblical rainstorm over the. That area to bring a lot of this back. But I'm not a. And that's just another story. But that's what we teach on. On don't waste the water. You know, what is wasting water and stuff like that. But it's always an educational moment. For everything that we want to do, we want to put that education in there, and we also want to be there for them in the future. We want to be there. If we don't go away, we don't give you family fishing camp. We take you fishing. We don't go away. Because I have always said it, my best paycheck as a volunteer is on a Sunday afternoon. And I can wait for them. I can wait for them. Here come the text messages. You know, here are the pictures of these fish that these families have caught together. And it's never, I caught a fish fish. It's. We caught these fish today together. Yeah, that. That to me, you know, it's like, mic drop, whatever you want to do, whatever you want to call it. I've done my job. I have done everything that I need to do with. With these families. And text me if you have a problem. Text me. I've had them, you know, families go off and try to do this on their own, and they'll say, well, Michael, can you be. Can you be there? And I said, I can if you want me to. And there's a lot of times they'll text me and goes, yeah, that'd be fine. And then I get there and I says, I'm here. And they look around, they go, where are you at? I'm in the parking lot. I see you. I want you to go fishing. If you have a problem, text me or wave, and I'll come and run it. Most of the time, the wave is, we got this. Yeah, I've had families in academy, sports and outdoors. Michael, we know how to fish now. We know how to. We need to know how to shop. I was cutting my grass one time. This lady had her two kids there. And I says, okay. Which academy are at was just not more than 10 miles. I says, I'm on my way. I've been cutting grass. I was in my nasty sneaker. I probably smelled pretty, pretty bad. And I get there and we do everything and she, she slipped a card with a money order from a cat gift card into my, my truck. And the note said, Mr. Shear, thank you. I'm so sorry. You look like you really need some new clothes, But here's some money for some shoes. And Matt Fletcher, the vice president of sales with Zebco, is a good friend of ours and he's now working with Simmons distribution group. And I texted him, I said, I got a Zebco story for you. I think the lady thought I was broke or whatever, but you know, I really, I don't do it for that. Cause but it was, that was cool. You know, it was like, okay, she noticed what I was wearing and yeah, I probably smelled pretty bad. Oh, man, I wish I could write a book about this stuff. But you can't. You can't make it up.
• 25:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:09
  Speaker C: You know, you just can't make it up. But there's also sad stories to all this stuff. You know, fishing is a cure for everything. Everybody's got a story.
• 25:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:17
  Speaker C: People just need to listen to these stories.
• 25:19
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:20
  Speaker C: You know, right.
• 25:21
  Speaker A: And build your own stories.
• 25:23
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 25:23
  Speaker A: You know, get out there and get
• 25:24
  Speaker C: it and get it done. You know, get out there. We have a, we're building a memorial in Katy ISD that we will be opening up in March when two of our, two of our people that are part of fishing's future within Katy. They lost their son back in 2023. He was name is Logan. We normally, I don't have the, the shirt on, but we have Logan's logo on our right sleeve. He was a right handed fisherman and he was run down on his bicycle going to school back in 2023. They just, they just sentenced the young man last month and we, there was a gofundme. So they built this really nice place where we can weigh and measure. And then we have a tank there when the kids are bringing in everything. And we have what we call the Walt Disney Picture Center. So when all the kids and their parents are there, or the teens, teachers, or the namesakes come in from the school and got those big smiles with those big fish. But we'll have Logan's logo right on that pavilion and. Yeah, that's going to be a tough day.
• 26:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's going to be a tough day. Anytime you're honoring Someone that. That meant something.
• 26:49
  Speaker C: I love fishing.
• 26:50
  Speaker A: You know, it's. It's. It's both a. A joyous and a heartbreaking at the same time. It's.
• 26:57
  Speaker C: You lose a fan. I can't put my. Myself in those kind of shoes. Losing a family member like that, I just. But we're there. Fishing features a cure. They came in the chapter. They're a part of the Katy Anglers. I think they even made mention that the outdoor learning center and fishing's future has been so therapeutic during those bad times. Even Josh, he goes out there and he just goes. Works out around the pond, you know, just.
• 27:27
  Speaker A: Just. So are you starting to see people that you worked with, the families that you worked with, that are bringing more families in to it now and passing it on in a.
• 27:37
  Speaker C: Well, that's that thing we can't talk about until. But no, I will.
• 27:42
  Speaker A: I didn't think about that.
• 27:43
  Speaker C: Yeah, it is.
• 27:46
  Speaker A: It. It's.
• 27:48
  Speaker C: We see. And when we're doing events, we are always inviting, especially on this next grant with the Fish America foundation that started March 1st, and we'll go all the way through September 30th of this year. And a big part of that is the R3, the recruit, retain and reactivate. So while we're doing this, we start looking at all the registrations that we have done, all of our friends and all the people that we have taught their kids. Their kids are growing up, they're doing their own thing. They're doing their own fishing. We've had single mothers that had a family of three, and they'll say, michael, after we took your thing, we are now we bought a boat. We know everything about boater safety. We know to put our life jackets on. We know the difference between a life jacket and a version of flotation of advice. We get it, we get it, we get it. And those are testimonies. Testimonies, testimonies. But the recruitment, retainment, reactivation is. We're always trying to recruit new families, but we want those families, like you said, to retain what they're doing. Buying fishing license because fishing license are so important. And then reactivation. Maybe they know of a loved one or a grandpa that just gave up fishing. Well, let's get that grandpa, grandma, anybody, get them back into it.
• 29:23
  Speaker A: Get them reactivated back into it.
• 29:24
  Speaker C: You know, and in Texas, we have so many different ways of not having to buy licenses. And we have the state parks. You don't need a license in a state park unless you're actually leaving in a boat from a state park or you're leaving in a kayak. So that's number three. Know before you go.
• 29:44
  Speaker A: Right.
• 29:44
  Speaker C: Yeah. Then you have places like in Galveston State park, which have a wayside, a bayside. You know, how far can I go? You know, how far can I go out and walk weighed before I need to have. You know, you got to make a call. You got to understand the rules about what's going on. So it's. Fishing is great, but you got to remember that we do have rules, we do have regulations.
• 30:12
  Speaker A: And generally speaking, they're there for a reason. Yeah.
• 30:15
  Speaker C: Yeah. So we got the free fishing there in our state parks. If you have your private land and you're not casting with them, like the go Guadalupe river, that's free for you to fish. And a lot of the angler educators within Texas Parks and Wildlife, we can send off, like when we're doing with Derek York with the Texas Brigade's Coastal Brigade, we have some 17 year olds that go, they really need to have a license when they're. They're fishing in the state of Texas. So we can send off a form to have a waiver sent in. So you fill it out, it's signed by the executive director. I think the lieutenant gets a copy from the Texas game wardens, and then we get a copy that we can show that we're protected for that.
• 31:02
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:03
  Speaker C: So there's a lot of. I mean, but again, supporting the sport. No matter what you do, supporting the sport, be conservation. Mind. Mind it. Have that moral compass. Whatever. Whatever it is.
• 31:18
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:18
  Speaker C: That floats your boat or whatever. Gets you out there in the water. Buy a fishing license. Yep, it does so much.
• 31:26
  Speaker A: That's one of the things, like, as I was raising my kids and we were at grip, you know, I've took them hunting occasionally, fishing occasionally and stuff like that. But their number one thing, you know, we did travel baseball, which is the bane of my existence. Not to say if you, you know, if you're listening out there and you got kids in travel, baseball, God bless you. Hope you enjoy it. I spent a lot of time driving. I covered a lot of this country that I could have been covering it, you know, chasing upland game birds, chasing fishing. And I changed a baseball bat and I told my kids, I told my kids the other day, I was like, you know, if I had it to do over again, again, I said, y' all never pick up a baseball bat.
• 32:09
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 32:09
  Speaker A: And I was like, if y' all did anything, it would be, I'd give you a golf club or, you know, and like why would you do that? And I'm like, because there's no coaches. There's no other parents you got to deal with. I mean, it's you against the course. And with fishing, it's you against, you know, it's you, you and the fish, and you're going out there and if I didn't get me, I have a really good friend of mine who. But he did. His kids played, you know, virtually no team sports until they got into high school. And they just did it with the. Through the school system and. But they went fishing all the time.
• 32:38
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 32:39
  Speaker A: I mean, by the time they were, you know, laying their late in their junior and senior year of high school, they had, you know, where are your kids today? Like, I hooked up the boat and took it to the lake, you know, and they're out there fishing. You know, that's what they did. They did it forever and ever. But you know what. But even in that time frame, I still made the point to pick up. I bought a combo license every year. You know, I never, I, you know, there was many years that I never used it, but I bought it every year because that money goes to support a lot of things. And, you know, Texas Parks and Wildlife can they. A lot of people will complain about, you know, different factors, but the fact
• 33:16
  Speaker C: of the matter is they'll complain about everything.
• 33:18
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 33:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's like that's the biggest competition sport on the planet is come. Is complaining. But for the diversity of consumers that they have and the size of the state that we've got and the limited amount of public land that we've got. And we're what, 3% public land? 97. I mean, we're a monster state.
• 33:40
  Speaker C: 97 to 99% owned.
• 33:43
  Speaker A: And, you know, there's just not that many. So they do a really good job in, you know, they're hamstrung a little bit. But you know that if you don't do anything other than just buy a license.
• 33:55
  Speaker C: Yeah. Well, again, nobody's perfect. Right. I mean, we. Everybody makes mistakes. And yeah, they say some of our rules and some. That there are some rules and regulations. As an educator, I just won't even touch because again, I don't want to get into a long conversation family event about that. I always says if you have an issue with a rule and you don't understand it, do not ask your neighbor. Your neighbor is going to lie to you.
• 34:24
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 34:25
  Speaker C: Or they're going to try to decipher what they read. Everybody reads differently. I say if you Have a question. Contact Tuscaloosa Compressor Wildlife. And you write your question down. Write it down word for word. When you make that call, write down who you talking with, the time and dated, and then give the question. Don't veer. Give the question. Now, they will either turn you over to somebody to answer that question again. If you have to repeat that question word for word, write down their answer word for word. If you got to ask them 10 to 15 times or repeat themselves, write it down. And put that in your. Your. Your outdoor annual. Or put it in your pocket, put it with your license.
• 35:16
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 35:17
  Speaker C: So if somebody stops you and there's rules that are very iffy.
• 35:21
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 35:22
  Speaker C: You know, they're like, go either way. You know, can I attach a line to a tennis ball? Can wrap it up? Yeah. There's no. There's no law against that.
• 35:31
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 35:32
  Speaker C: So keep that because that keeps everybody straight.
• 35:35
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 35:35
  Speaker C: When you're doing that.
• 35:36
  Speaker A: So I'm kind of one of those weird guys that. Where we are sandhill crane hunting, some goose hunting, that kind of stuff. That's the migrant bank. And when those seasons open and mule deer season opens around Thanksgiving, we'll see an influx of game wardens that'll. There'll be a couple more coming in to help cover the cause. I mean, we're pretty spread out. We don't have a lot of game animals, so we don't have a huge presence. Like, if we were on, you know, around Lake Fork, there's plenty, you know, that. That area's got a lot of game animals. They got a lot of game, a lot of fishing stuff going on. And so the need for more game wardens is there. And this parks what they do a great job of coming up there. But I'm one of the weird people that I kind of get excited when I see the game wardens that are parked on the side of the road waiting. You know, they're like, okay, we're gonna, you know, sun's coming up. We'll get this done. I'll stop. And, you know, that's when I ask questions. Yeah. If I have ever have any questions, you know, I was fortunate enough to tell, you know, to stop the other day. It's been. Not this last. It was the 24, 25 season and I stopped and there it was. It was toward the tail end. You could tell they're waiting for the guy, the guys in this field over here, to get through with their sandhill cranes. And it was sort of telling them. They're like, well, we're just Going to wait here a little bit. They'll be done. When we start seeing them getting out, then we'll go up and we'll check everything, you know, and. Which I, I'm not going to. As a hunter, I'm not going, man, that's great, you know, because you're letting me finish and you're not breaking it up. And then, you know, I know I'm not breaking any laws, so I'm good. You know, I don't have a fear of game wardens because I, I'm.
• 37:03
  Speaker C: And you can see them. They're not. They're not.
• 37:06
  Speaker A: They're not.
• 37:07
  Speaker C: They're not in those big binoculars. And the, you know, I had a game warning says, yeah, when you see me, you're okay. It's when you don't see.
• 37:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, but I was, I was, I stopped and I talked to him and said, you know, how are you doing? You know, how's it going? You know, I introduced myself and because they're parked right on the road beside my land. And so I was talking to them and we were talking about it and I said, you know, right over there, and I pointed at less than half my way. Last week, I saw whooping crane and they like, yeah, we know. I was like, really? He's like, yeah, we're keeping an eye on it. We know where it is. But, you know, that's one of the amazing things about being outdoors. You don't know what you're going to see. You know, I've got apps on my phone that track birds. And I love. My favorite thing to do is to get a calm morning on the high plains, sitting there overlooking a native pasture and just open that app and let it listen to birds.
• 37:58
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 37:59
  Speaker A: And, you know, being able to hear, you know, my goal is to sit there and I want to hear 20 different species of birds in the morning chirping. And I've got it to 12, but I haven't bait it up. And so I've got some projects going that I'm going to try to do that. But it's. It goes back to being introduced as a. As with my, you know, from my family, being introduced to hunting and outdoors at a young age.
• 38:24
  Speaker C: And it could be everything but going back to the ball sports for a second. And I'll share with you a little thing about that is I don't know if you remember the picture that was on the sheet for all of us that are attending the hunt Fish podcast, that picture of me. What you don't see is the little Boy that's next to me. Now, we always tie in ball sports, like me and baseball. I'd go baseball and I played baseball. I love playing baseball. I was gonna go big places with baseball because I had my baseball bat, I had my glove, I had my cool hat, I had my Schwinn bike racing down the hills in Little Rock, Arkansas. And then in the back was my fishing pole. Because a lot of times you're playing games. You could be playing a game at 9 o'. Clock. You don't play again till 1:30. I'm not gonna truck up that hill and then have to come back down. I'm gonna go fishing. Yeah, okay. So that little boy that was next to me, he was playing soccer. We were in Iowa county at a T21 event for our special friend. We had the fish tank. Tank up there. We, Terry Smith, one of our chapters, his daughter Jennifer. We were, you know, bringing everybody in to fish, and this boy comes over. He goes, I love fishing. I said, it looks like you're. You're out of prison. Yeah, I just got done with a soccer game. Oh, but I love fishing. I love fishing. I love fishing. I said, well, let's go fishing. And one of our sunglass companies that are sponsoring us is flying fishermen. And when you put those glasses on, especially looking at the water, the first thing out of your mouth is, whoa. And I. And I love that word, whoa. So I have all these different sunglasses, you know, for the kids and for grownups. And I said, put these on. I was waiting for that. He goes, whoa. And I said, that's what I was looking for. And I said, why don't you keep those sunglasses and, you know, go fishing with them? One year later, that boy was playing soccer. We had the tank back up again, and he walks over. He goes, remember me? And I looked at his sunglasses. I said, of course I remember you. You still have your sunglasses. So we went fishing again. We got. We caught some. We didn't do it actually in the tank. I said, why don't we go over here? Let's. Let's go fish. I said, your parents close by. You know, we want to make sure we have two deep leadership.
• 40:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 40:47
  Speaker C: And we caught some fish together. So I'm hoping, you know, as they grow up, those ages and stages, when you see people and you see, you know, I may not know everybody's name. You know, I'm honest. I'm a human. I forgot my wife's name one time. I called her Kimberly, and her name's Elizabeth.
• 41:08
  Speaker A: But we've all been there,
• 41:13
  Speaker C: but, you know, as long as we know our fish, we're good.
• 41:16
  Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. Important things, you know, don't tell. My dear God, I hope my wife does.
• 41:22
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:24
  Speaker A: Well, it's, you know, and the thing about it is, you gave that kid. You may have given that kid his first fishing story.
• 41:30
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 41:31
  Speaker A: And it's going to be one that's going to resonate with him. And at some point in time in his life, he's going to remember that. And it may be 30 years from now, he may remember that. And like, you know what? I gotta tell my kids this story. You know, my kids do that to me all the time. They're like. Because I always like to joke that I had an odd upbringing and for a lot of different reasons. I have great parents. Both my parents are still alive. We never, you know, I don't think. I don't think I ever heard my parents argue in their life.
• 42:01
  Speaker C: In my life, maybe one or twice.
• 42:03
  Speaker A: But.
• 42:04
  Speaker B: Well.
• 42:04
  Speaker A: But usually they were arguing with me. Me at that time. So, I mean, you know, I mean, you know, it's like one of the jokes. Like, my mom is. Is. Is a great lady, and she is, you know, she is very patient. And I found the limits of my mom's patience one day.
• 42:23
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 42:24
  Speaker A: And she got. I mean, she went off and. I mean. And I, like, was, you know, being a teenager, I was, you know, I thought I knew everything. I just didn't. What I didn't know was how far my head was up in my hind parts.
• 42:36
  Speaker C: Yep.
• 42:36
  Speaker A: And so. But, you know, and so I did something and. And she just flew off. And I remember immediately, as soon as I did that and I closed the door in my room real loud. I didn't slam it because I wasn't suicidal, you know, but. But so I did that. And then I was like. And I opened the door and I said, I'm sorry. It's my fault. I deserved everything you gave me. I'm sorry.
• 42:59
  Speaker C: And I did that as an adult. When I first left the house, you know, I called my mom. Mom, I am so sorry. Because now I have to clean up from myself. Yeah, I'm a pig.
• 43:08
  Speaker A: But the thing about is that, you know, when I told him that it was, you know, my kids, my parents introduced me to that in a. In a way that not everyone gets.
• 43:16
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 43:16
  Speaker A: You know, and, you know, and yeah, I've had friends that say, well, that's white religious. Well, no, that's parental privilege. You know, I Had the head start because, you know, my parents weren't perfect. Anybody thinks any of them are perfect. And I tell my. I started off telling my kids as soon as I thought they were old enough to kind of understand, like, listen, I'm gonna screw up, but the thing is, I'm gonna apologize to you when I do, but I'm still the boss.
• 43:43
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 43:43
  Speaker A: You know, I'm. You know, I'm.
• 43:44
  Speaker C: You're.
• 43:45
  Speaker A: You're eight. I'm not. You know,
• 43:50
  Speaker C: you're eight. I'm not. I want to use that term even though my kids are grown up. And.
• 43:55
  Speaker A: But by being introduced like that, though, it gives you. You know, by being introduced as a family group and like that, it gives you a broader perspective on. On everything because. And then the sooner you get into it and the broader your. Your group is. That does it. You know, whether. You know, if it's one thing, it's you and your brother to go do it, it's nothing against you and your brother and your mom go to it. If you have the whole family and you get. And then your grandparents come into it, that the ability to spend that time together, to relax together, to bond together. And that's one of the things that I think that we've.
• 44:31
  Speaker C: We're missing out on.
• 44:31
  Speaker A: We're missing out on the bonding time that we used to have, and then it's too late. That's right.
• 44:36
  Speaker C: And then you get, you know, even after Covid and all this other stuff, you know, then it's too late. And then you're going, oh, wow, I wish I had five more minutes. Yeah, well, use that five more minutes every day, and you don't need that five more minutes.
• 44:52
  Speaker A: Well, you know, as soon as I understood, you know, you've always heard that saying, youth is wasted on the young. Well, as soon as I got old enough to understand that saying, I started telling my kids, hey, here's this saying. Here's what this saying means. You know, don't let. Don't waste your youth on it. You know, be out there and, you know, do some more things. You know, be involved with some more things. Spread that group around. Totally agree. We don't. You know, it. I think one of the things that scares me the most is the kid on a video game in his mom's basement. That's. That.
• 45:23
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 45:24
  Speaker A: That doesn't do. And it's not because, you know, I don't. Yeah. I'm not afraid of it. Anything. It's just.
• 45:29
  Speaker C: I'm afraid of snakes.
• 45:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, well, snakes. Most bugs, you Know alligators. I always joke. I was telling you, telling someone this morning. I said, you know, by. By education. I'm an agronomist. I'm a plant scientist. I. I understand plants. Part of my training was entomology, which is insects.
• 45:48
  Speaker C: I love insects.
• 45:49
  Speaker A: I freaking hate insects. Oh, my God. I'm like. I'm like everything. Like the most important thing in qu. One of the most important things. Imagine quail.
• 46:02
  Speaker C: That's like a pokey master scared of Pikachu.
• 46:05
  Speaker A: I know it. Yeah. Well, it's like. Like I tell somebody, I said, you know, I had a semester where I took genetics, I took statistics, and I took organic chemistry all in the same semester at college.
• 46:16
  Speaker C: Oh, my God.
• 46:17
  Speaker A: And I was like. And they were like, man, that was a hard semester. Yeah, but it wasn't as bad as the one that I just took, entomology. And I had to do the bug collection. That gets me. You know, it's like. It's like I will still be the guy swatting the spiders in my family's house. I just use a big shoe.
• 46:31
  Speaker C: And we teach water canaries macroinvertebrate studies in third, fourth, and fifth grade when they come out to the outdoor learning center. And we get kids that literally start crying, start crying because they don't want to touch bugs. And we teach them. And I know we've been. We could do this all day.
• 46:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, we could. We need to wrap up. I'm already. I've already run over time. I'm sorry, but sure, I made you late for your next interview, but I really appreciate.
• 46:56
  Speaker C: Appreciate it, but you know what? I. I mean, I feel like I found a new friend.
• 47:01
  Speaker A: Well, I appreciate it.
• 47:03
  Speaker C: I could probably. Well, we're going to talk. We're still going to be here.
• 47:06
  Speaker A: Well, I hope. I really am looking forward to when you can talk about what you can't talk about.
• 47:11
  Speaker C: I'm. Well, there's a lot of stuff I
• 47:13
  Speaker A: can't talk about that's going to be fun, but we'll look forward to talking to you again. And I wish Fishing Future and you all the best.
• 47:21
  Speaker C: Yep. But anyway, you can find me www.fishingfuture.org. we're on Facebook, Instagram, if you want to text me. 832-202-5221. Again, my name is Michael Shear, program director of a group called Fishing's Future. Let's get you outdoor and have fun.
• 47:34
  Speaker A: Thank you, Michael.
• 47:35
  Speaker C: Thank you.