Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #151: My First Black Bear Hunt, Randy Newberg, Conservation & Public Lands

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #151: My First Black Bear Hunt, Randy Newberg, Conservation & Public Lands · 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 Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan. This is episode number one one tan the show.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: We are joined by Randy Newburgh and we're discussing my
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: very first black bear hunt, Western white tales, and the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: latest in conservation and public lands issues. All right, welcome
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by sit
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Ka Gear. And today on the show, I am joined
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: by a very special guest, and that's someone we mentioned
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: just a bit last week, Randy Newburgh. And you know
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Randy as a previous guest on the podcast, I think
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: in two different episodes. But Randy is also the host
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: of the television show Fresh Tracks with Randy Newberg. He's
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the host of the Hunt Talk radio podcast and one
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of the premier spokesman and defenders of hunting, public lands
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and conservation in North America. And I was recently lucky
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to be able to head out on a public land
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: black bear hunt with Randy. So in today's episode, Randy
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: joins me to discuss our little adventure, and he's going
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: to share some spot and stock black bear one on
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: one info as well in case anyone else wants to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: try to hunt like this in the future. We also
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: talk Western white tales, and then finally we wrap up
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the show by discussing the latest events related to the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: future of hunting and public lands conservation and a few
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of our thoughts on these issues that are likely to
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: impact all of our ability to hunt and fish and
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: recreate in the outdoors in the future. So that is
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the game plan, and this one was a lot of
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: fun record. I hope you all enjoy just you know,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: half as much listening to this as we did actually
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: sitting down and recording this with the mic. So with that,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I do want to briefly pause to thank our partners
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: at Sick of Gear for the support of this podcast.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: You know, last week I mentioned that our sikest story
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: today would be related to that blackbird hunt I was
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: headed out on, and I mentioned that it might be
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: able to share some audio from that hunt. Unfortunately I
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: do not have that. So this whole episode though, really
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: is a sick of story, as both Randy and I
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: depended on Sick of Gear for this hunt and the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: experiences that were about to share with you. But I'll
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: mention one technical gear thing that that happened for me
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: on this hunt. And it was on the second day,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and it was down down the valley. It was probably
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: high sixties, really sunny, really warm, and when I was
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: loading up my pack, I had this kind of dilemma.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure how many extra warm layers I wanted
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to put in my pack, because right now was warm,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: it was hot. I didn't want to have a bunch
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of stuff in my pack. So I sat there and
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: kind of debated this for a second. But when I
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: looked at my insulating layers, I had a Kelvin light jacket.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: It's so small, also light, it packs up right into
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: its pocket. I was like, you know, what, screw it,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I'm bringing that just in case. It's so small, so light,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'm really gonna, you know, be inconvenienced
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: by this. So I threw that in the pack just
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: in case it cooled down, and lo and behold it.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Did you know? When I was high up on that
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: mountain glass and for bears, the wind came up, the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: temperatures went down, and it got really cold. Luckily I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: had that jacket. I pulled that out pulled that over
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and I can't tell you how happy I was to
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: be able to glass and be just wrapped up in
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: this blanket of warmth from that jacket. So it was
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: a great reminder of how important layering is and and
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: just knowing and having the right layers for the conditions
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you might face and be able to change out that
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: system as those conditions change. So with all that said,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: if you would like to learn more about sick Is
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Technical hunting apparel, you can visit sick gear dot com
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and just f y I. There are new two thousand
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: seventeen products have just hit their website and are now available,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: so you can head over their ACEP to check the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: is out if you're interested. And now for the rest
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: of my sick of story, my very first spring spotting
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: stock black Bear hunt. Here's myself in Randy Newburg recording
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: in Bozeman, Montana, and we are back now in studio
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: in person with Randy Newburg. Thank you Randy for doing this.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being here. Mark. I won't even charge Janny
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: rent from my studio here. That's a good deal because
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: this is nice. This is much nicer than my usual
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: digs and and really a lot nicer than where I've
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: been recording the last two weeks. Last week I recorded
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: in my truck pulled off on the side of the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: road in Livingston, and I think two weeks before that,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I was in a campground parking lot in the truck,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: using the juice off of like a little cigarette adapter
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: to keep the whole thing running. So this is a
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: big upgrade. Yeah. For those who don't know, we're sitting
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: in my c p A office here in Bozeman, Montana,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: right now, in the quiet room. This this room right here,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: because this is where we hold client conferences and it's
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: obviously confidentiality, the big deal. That's why this room has
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: sound proved, so it sounds like a studio. It's it's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: very nice, so it's it's really good. So, but there
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: are no dead animals hanging on the wall here. No,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: there's a couple of nice pictures. Yeah, but we need this.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: This room needs some dead animals. Could you bring some
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Randy Newberg flavor to it? I would like to, But
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: since my name is not out on the front door
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: anymore since I sold my partnership interest, something tells me
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: those might end up in the trash. It's uh, it's
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: how do I say this. I'm very lucky, I think,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to be here right now talking to you about this stuff,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: because you have just been incredibly generous of your time
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: this past week with me, and I just need to
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: start by thanking you for that, because this all started
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: because I was going to have coffee with you the
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: other day and we're just gonna catch up a little
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: bit and talk about, um, some local knowledge I had
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: that might be helpful to you and your son and
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: just other things. And somehow that coffee lead to multiple
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: hunts and a podcast and me just taking all sorts
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of your time. So I don't think you know what
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you're getting into way, but do you agree to get coffee?
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: You might be regretting it now. Actually, my wife said,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: don't you have something to do? And I looked up
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and I saw that Mark Kenyon was in the neighborhood.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I said, well, there's something to do. I'll take Mark
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: on some hikes every evening and and I'll take him
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: to what I pretend are my favorite bear spots and
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: we won't see a bear. I'm sorry, Mark, I don't
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: know what I did wrong. You don't need to apologize
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: one bit, because this was my very first bear hunt,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and it was a really cool experience. So what I
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: was hoping we could do here was talk about what
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: we did, how we did it, how it went. UM.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: But then I also wanted to dive a little bit
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: into the how to part of it because I've never
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: gone bear hunting before this, and so before I knew
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I was going to go with you, I was planning
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: on just going out there solo on my own. So
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I was reading every article I could find, and watching
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: YouTube videos and and just trying to figure out how
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: am I going to find some black bears on my
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: own here in the spring? UM, which was a little
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: bit done. There's not as much information online about doing
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: your own spring black bear hunts as I would have
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: thought they'd be. UM, So for anyone listening, I'm hoping
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: we can give some people kind of a one on
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: one of Hey, if you want to go out here
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and try something like this, which which I highly recommend, now, um,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: how can they do that? So I'm hoping we can
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: get into that too, And then just don't follow Randy
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Newburg around if you want to see black bears. I
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: learned that the hard way. That's cool because you came
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to Montiana, you bought your bear tag over the counter.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Our season opens here statewide April fifteen, and there's place
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't say statewide. Each there's some places that have
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: different opening dates and different closing dates, but the general
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: rule is from April fifteenth to June spring bear season
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: is open. And in Montana you can't bait and you
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: can't use hounds, Whereas if you go over to the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: border just west of here in Idaho, most of their
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: unit it's not all you can bait, and some of
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: them you can use hounds. You go south of us
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: here in Wyoming and it's just about every unit you
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: can bait, but I don't know about the use of
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: hounds in Wyoming. So but all three of those states
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: are over the counter. It's pretty cool, and it's it's
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: very very I mean it's over the counter. It's a
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: time of year where most of us don't already have
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: obligations other than if you're turkey hunting or something like that.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And it's a chance to get up in the mountains
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and it's it's beautiful. It's a great time to be
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: out there and shoot. Normally, Mark and two nights sitting
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: on those ridges we were on, I would average two
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: to three bears in the evening. But well, let's not
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: spoil it quite yet. Let's start at the beginning and
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: work our way to tell them how many bears we
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: end up seeing on these evenings. Okay, all right, so
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I'll let you lead the discussion. Yeah. Yeah, So so
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: you told me that, um, that I was welcome to
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: join you on on this bear hunt. And the first
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: one I think was last week Thursday maybe. UM. So
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: we met at a parking lot. My wife was gracious
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: enough to drive me back and forth to these things,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and uh, I had to sign a waiver that i'd
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: bring you back to one piece and you did that
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: very well. He got me back and no injuries. Um,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and I got to meet you Camerman, your two caramen,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: who are great guys, very cool. Marcus and Michael are
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: good guys. Hope that was fun. Holy smoked though. Michael,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: you're new guy. Yeah he can sweat. Yeah. Yeah. We'd
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: look back in Michael's hat. We'd be about a fourth
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: way up the hill and that dude, he's he's just
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: pouring it out. O. Man, he was too. But but yeah,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: so we we went off to this piece of public land,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and basically the game plan was to just hike, hike,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and hike up to the top of this kind of
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: glassing knob or small mountain, um, whatever you want to
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: call it, and we're gonna we're gonna watch from there.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: So so my first question for you, Randy was why there? Um.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I asked that seriously and a little bit facetiously. Why
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: they're what was what was the thought process in our
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: plan there that night there? And my thoughts, I always
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: want to get to a place that gives me the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: greatest amount of view shed how how many places can
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I glass from that spot? And as you saw, about
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the only place we couldn't glass was to our south,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to the east, the west, the north. We had this
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: huge vista for miles and yeah, some of that out
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: in front of us would have been private, some of
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: it would have been public. But the idea is when
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: when spring bears come out of their dens, and we've
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: had a pretty hard winter here, So my gut's telling
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: me maybe we're a week behind just because of how
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: cold and how much snow we had. Uh, those bears
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: have the feedback on. They're trying their best to get
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: their digestive track going again, so they're mowing on the
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: grass and the vegetation there, maybe looking for winter killed carcasses.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And when you get these stretches of warm days in
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the rockies after a long winter, it's usually in late
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: April early May. You get these three four or five
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: days where it gets up in the seventies, and that
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: is when bears seem to come out like crazy, and
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: you see them moving a lot. They're they're not that
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: stay canary in the spring. They're moving just looking for feed,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: looking for feed, And so that's why I get to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: glassing spots. You'll see a moving across the openings. You'll
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: see a moving across the hillside. And the idea is,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: once I see them, how do I get in front
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of them? Does it look like they're head in some
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: place to feed? Is there some really nice green lush
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: spot that as the snow has receded up the hill
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: up the mountain. A lot of times you get these
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: patches that are just way greener than the rest of
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the mountain, and usually they're head into those green spots,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and so I'm if I see them, I'm trying to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: get there. So that that was the method to my
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: madness and picking that spot. Okay, So so I will
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: divulge the secret now that first night we did not
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: see a bear doing any of those things you said,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: but it sure looked like a place that you could right.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I mean everything you just described there just seemed to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: be to a t. The view was incredible, the scenery,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: it was incredible. Um. The the other thing that I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: forgot to mention about what I'm looking for, Mark, I'm
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: also looking to be near calving and fawning grounds of
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: elk and deer, because when those elk calves and deer
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: fawns start hitting the ground in late May early June,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: those black bears, for them, that's like buffet time. And
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of us are like, oh, I
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: hate thinking about bears eating all these little calves and fawns. Uh,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: But that's just the reality what goes on out there.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: So these black bears are tuned into that they know
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: where these calving grounds are and where these fawning areas are.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: And how many elk did we see every night? So
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: many elk, sony elk, and deer newly's white tails. I
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: mean it was we didn't see bears, but we saw
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: so many critters. I mean, that was just fun that
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: area we went to. For whatever reason that I can't explain.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's because of fires, if it's
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: because of just the mineral content and the soils. In
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the springtime, I see way more cow alk and dough
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: meal deer and dough white tails in those basins, and
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I think that's where they fall. I think that's where
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: they have and I think that's why as that's happening,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the bears know that historically, and they're moving towards that
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: spot that I was going to ask, how can you
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: if I'm not familiar with an area already, how do
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I determine where these cat and grounds are? Is there
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: anything to look for from a habitat standpoint, or do
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I just need to figure it out by glassing and
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: walking around? And I wish I could tell you that
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I had some science to it. Fortunately for me, I
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: live here, so I spend a lot of time in
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: these hills and I see it. If I had to
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: find some characteristics to it. Uh as you know, there's
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: a huge burn there. Those burn areas generate unbelievable amounts
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: of feed, but also quality of feed and a lactating
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: elk or a lactating deer. They want the highest quality
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: food they can confine, so those burns provide that. Uh.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: But even away from the burns, there were still a
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: lot of those animals. And I I wish I could
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: tell you what makes the I can go to four
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: basins that all look the same, but for some reason,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: two of those four, the elk and deer will select those.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: The other two they'll just kind of disregard. And I'm
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: not smart enough to know why. I wish I can
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: tell you why. Is there any like elevation band like
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: you're usually seeing them at a certain height maybe or
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: anything like that. There is def And we were talking
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: about that on the mountain the other day about those
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: elevation bands seem to have the same greenness and lushness.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: And I think that's because of as the snow it's
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: somewhat dependent upon where that elevation is to the snow
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: retreating up the hill. Uh. Also just geography and geology. Uh.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: The geology of it is, you get a lot of
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: faulting and stuff in the mountains, and so you might
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: have one area that's mostly granite, one area that's mostly limestone,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and those bands of one or the other are going
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: to have different forage types. Um. A geologist friend of
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: mine taught me this where he only hunts limestone areas
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: because his experience shows that ungulates prefer feeding in areas
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: with limestone as the soil composition. And I never really
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: thought about that until I started doing it, and I'm like, whoa,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: look at that. So that is something you pay attention
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: to them. I do now I didn't then. H And
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: he's a geologist, so it's it's interesting to hunt with
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the geologist. He I'm looking at the total landscape. He's
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: looking at Oh this, we're in a good limestone stretch here.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: To me, I'm like, who cares if it's limestone, granite,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: something in between. I don't care if it's you know,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: mud and bog. Well, for him, he understands how that
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: soil composition translates into minerals being absorbed by the plant
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: communities and how the wildlife selects that. Yeah, it was.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: So there might be areas where it's a function of
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: of the elevation, but that elevation might be there just
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: because of the soil composition at that point or at
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: at that elevation. So again in the fall. It's it's
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: much more pronounced in the fall that at least for
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: meal there in hunting season, I see the the does
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and fawns heading in, the young bucks heading down lower.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Following so in August things start drying up in the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: rockies and he gets brownish colored. You see with the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: first snow often you see the doze fawns and in
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: young meal deer box head lower and then anywhere from
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: a thousand and fift feet in elevation above them, the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: mature bucks will stage, and they will stage there through
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the end of October until the first three days in November,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, the trigger comes on
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and you see him down lower with with the younger
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: bucks and the does and fawns, and and we've taken
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: where you and I were bear hunting. We've taken three
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: really nice meal deer bucks in those staging areas there,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people are like, oh, it's not
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: a good place to hunt because when the rut starts,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: all these bucks dropped down onto the private. Well, yeah,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: they do in the rut because that's where the does are,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: but they're up on the public in that pre rut
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: phase just before. It seems like that area has been
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: very productive for you. Yeah, we've We've shot a couple
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: of bears in there, We've shot some nice meal dear
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: shot a white tail, and we filmed the white tail
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: hunt in that area. Uh outcome. So it's it's a
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: it's a good spot. But one thing. And people are
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: starting to realize this with when they see our images
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: and they see our video. Uh, someone sent me an
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: email in it. That's when it kind of struck me that, oh,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: people are catching on and Randy, everything you film, every
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: picture I see of you, you guys are in burns.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: What's up with all the burns? And I don't want
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to say there aren't critters uh in areas that haven't burned,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: But in the Rockies. The Rockies are a they it
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: evolved as a fire prone ecosystem. Before man started suppressing fire,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: these places were burning every thirty years. And so if
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: you talk to the historians and the biologists, they said
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that before that our suppression of these fires happened, wildlife
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: would move to wherever these mosaic patterns of burns were at. Well,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Randy is kind of like that these what curtis, I'm
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: moving to wherever these burns are. And uh so that's
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: uh that's part part of why I think that area
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: in the last five six years has been pretty good.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Now you look at it and those burns are starting
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: to get a little bit older, they're starting to get
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: grown up with with new trees, and so I might
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: have to abandon that spot in the next few years
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and start looking for where's the next burn that's two
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: or three years old. So here's my two questions on that.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Number one, what's the time frame after burn that's best?
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: So is it one to five years or whatever that is?
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: And the number two, how do you go about finding
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: these burns? Um? Other than just being there in person?
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Can you actually find them when looking online on maps
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah. Uh, I don't know if
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I want to tell all those secrets, but I'm going
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: to uh as the first one is easy. Uh I
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: hunt burns certainly within one year after the fire. If
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: it's an early summer burn and you get fall moisture,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: I'll go and hunt that burn that fall, um, but
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: certainly the next year for the possibly up to the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: next ten years, and if there are other burns nearby
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that they can select from. That are newer burns, They're
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: gonna go select those newer areas. If it's all nothing
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: but dark timber and that burn is ten years old,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: they'll still be in that ten year old burn before
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: they'll be in that dark timber. So how long do
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I hunt them? It just a little bit depends. I
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: always like to hunt the freshest burn I can find.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Let's put it that way. As far as where to
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: find them, uh, the generic answer is there's a website
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: called inc web I n C I BU E B
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and it'll show you current status of fires. So in
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the summertime, I can be diving in and watching that.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: So am I allowed to plug a product here? You
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: can do whatever you want. Okay, you're you're outside of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: my control. I take for whatever you might do. A
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: lot of people know that I use the on X
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: map system and on their cell phone, their smartphone app,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the hunt app. It's called there's a layer called fire
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: layers goes all the way back to two thousand. I
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: can't believe I'm telling everybody, but that's it. And so
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: you add that layer on your smartphone app and it
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: will show you what year the fire was. The it'll
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: give a polygon, Uh, outline of where the fire was. Interesting. Oh,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: it's it's the if. If you're doing desk scouting like
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I am, Uh, I don't know how how you do
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: it without having that fire datus. If if you're thinking
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of coming out west, uh and in your in a
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: quandary for where to start, my default is find the
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: burns and you will find. Okay, I think we are elk,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: deer or whatever. I think we have this. We grow
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: up with this idea, and I think hunters are the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: worst because we see these hunting magazine pictures and stuff
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: of these big high meadows, beautiful dark timber around the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: edges of them. You'll never see me hunting there. I mean,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: that might look pretty, but if you're an elk or
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you're a meal there, you're like, keep right on trucking.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: There's nothing to eat there. So I'm looking at these
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: ugly burns, and the number of elk and deer bedded
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: in those burns is crazy. Most people just I think
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: visually they say that's there's not gonna be anything there,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: or if it was there, i'd see it standing up.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: They can bed in that stuff and be just about
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: and image. So it's uh, that that's kind of a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: diversion about how all of that connects to bear hunting,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: but it is somewhat connected to where I select where
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I'm in a bear hunt. Well, And on nine number
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: two of the hunt, we thought we you thought you
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: had spotted a beded bear in a burn area for
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: close to burn area. Um too, it did not try
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: him to be a bear, I don't think so either,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: or he stayed motionless for three hours or several days,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: because he was there a couple of days earlier also,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: but it did look like it certainly could have been one.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: And I got excited there for a moment because I've
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: got a bed of bear, and I'm like, all, you
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: think we can get over there in time. You're like, yeah,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go for if it's him, And so I
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: got fired up day two, We're gonna get on a bear.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I feel terrible, Mark. I was about ready to throw
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: my stuff in my pack, and it would have been about,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know what a mile and a half over there.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I would have dropped about a thousand feet elevation and
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: had to pick up another eight hundred going up the
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: other side. But we would in two hours. We would
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: have had time to move in on it, but it
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: turned out not to be a bear. It was not
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: a bear and false alarm, and that was the story
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: of the rest of night number two as well. Yeah,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: that's that's what I tell people that bear hunting in
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the spring anyhow, is two hours of hiking, uh, followed
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: by three or four hours of board just glassing with
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the hope that that boredom is interrupted by fifteen minutes
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of absolute chaos. That's that's kind of how it, dude. Yeah,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: but it's that's not too much different than tree stand
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: whitetail hunting. You know, yeah, you're probably not gonna hike
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: for two hours, but how often do you sit there thinking, oh, man,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: today's not the day, today is not to day, And
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden you turn and looked over your
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: left shoulder and there's a big Hanks standing there. You're like,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: that's instantly, big pulse of adrenaline. I kept telling myself
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the whole night last night, you know, as the clock
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: was taking down, I just kept saying, stay focused. Any second,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: like even with only five minutes left before we go,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: that black form could step out and it could be
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: game on. And it always seems to be whenever you
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: let your guard down, whenever you mentally kind of check
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: out and saying it's not gonna happen. What was me?
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: It seems like when that happens, that's when all of
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a sudden they show up and you're not ready and
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: you miss your opportunity. Um, So I'm constantly trade. It's
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: like so mental any kind of hunting is, obviously, but
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: it's always how can you stay in it? How can
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you stay positive and be focused? And many times it
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, and I struggle with that.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I get bored easily. I must have some sort of
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: attention disorder. But one of the things I found that
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: helped me through that is one to a place where
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of other wildlife. It keeps me interested
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to see, oh, wow, three three different elk I hadn't
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: seen just walked out into that opening, or wow, where'd
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that group of meal there come from? Or whatever it
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: might be in and I don't know. It just makes
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: it easier to to be encouraged and be excited and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: keep your eye on through the optics on the hillside. Yeah, So,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: as as a hunter, I think most of us are
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: just generally, you know, enjoy watching wildlife and just seeing
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: them do their thing. And that was that was a blast,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: is getting to watch something dear and elk move around,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: interact with each other, occasionally see us. There's that one
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Kyle elk on the first night that came right on
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: up the hill, right towards us. Yeah, that was weird.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Come from down wind too, Bar. I don't know if
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I can't explain why she would come that close after
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: smelling us. She had to have smelled us coming from
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: down And like, what did you think about seeing white
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: tails at I was very surprised. You just assumed that
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: these deer would be staying way down low in the bottoms,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: and it was just cool. It made me excited someday
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: want to hunt white tails up in a place like that.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: You don't think I would never think that you could
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: chase white tails way up high like that, surrounded by
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: snowcovered peaks and being up in them. Um, that is
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: really cool and it combines my love of mountains with
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: my love of white tails in the same place. Um,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: you gotta be careful, Randy, you might show up one night.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: He's that guy in that tree stand there Hey, I'll
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: watch if I see a truck with Michigan plates at
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the trailhead, you know that's trouble. I'll be like, uh,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: this guy any more in my secrets. No, it's fun
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: to go and hunt white tails and spots like that.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I have a whole bunch of spots scattered across Montana
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: like that that. I found him while outcunting, and I'm
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I'll never be able to get rid of my white
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: tail problem growing up in northern Minnesota. I think now
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I've shot twenty five bucks since I've moved to Montana,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and I think only four of those have been meal
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Dier bucks. All the rest have been white tails. And
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: you come, if you come to Montana, everyone's got the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: elk mindset. It's elk, elk elk, and they should. I mean,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: we've got great elk. But you will see guys walk
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: through some of the best white tail hunting on their
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: way out hunting, and I'm just sitting there. They think
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I'm taking a break and and being lazy. Well, I'm
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: sitting there because I know how many white tails trotting
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: through these spots. So it's uh, it's just cool where
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: you can have that because when you were out here
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: last year, you hunted a classic kind of Montana pattern
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: of a rat parian area, which that elevation there of
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: where you were hunting is probably two thousands or twenty
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: feet lower than where we were seeing these white tails
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the last few days. Yeah, and it's so cool to
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: have both of those options, to be able to hunt
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: them in either or different types of habitat um. You
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: kind of choose your own adventure. Yeah. I like that.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: There's so many of those different places. I'm already I've
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: been thinking about do I want to hunt in different
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: places coming fall for white tails in Montana? Where do
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I go back to the old spot? Because that was
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: pretty great and I just recently went shedoting there and
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: found some nice antlers. That'd be fun. But I also
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: like the idea of exploring these new places and the
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: new you know, there's there's something to be said about
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: figuring out the new area, learning the behaviors and the patterns,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: how do they use this terrain, where are they coming from,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: where are they going to? Um. That's just a part
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: of like the hunt that I really enjoy. Um. But
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: maybe it hurts my ability to kill more deer because
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I'm constantly jumping, never taking up time to what what
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: do you think of my idea of the Rocky Mountain
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: white tail trifecta. I think it's awesome, I would I
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: think that sounds like a lot of fun. So last
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: year we got we pulled off two of the three.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: We did Montana. I shot a really nice white tail
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: buck in Montana. We hopped over the border uh northern Wyoming.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: My buddy Matt side All from on x Map shot
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: a really nice white tail in Wyoming. We need to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: get if my calendar would fit it. We need to
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: get Idaho in there, because the whole month of November
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: pretty much you can hunt white tails with a rifle
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: in all three of those states, and the general population
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: of those three states they drive by all these white
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: tails looking for elk. Right, So if I was a
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Midwest guy, and I certainly if I lived in the Midwest,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to miss my peak rep period with
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: my bow. But after that you could there's so much
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: public land you could come and easily do Montana and Wyoming,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: or Montana and Idaho as two of the three pick
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: up a tag in most instances over the counter. Maybe
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: in Montana now we're getting more demand for our deer tag,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: so you might have to apply in the draw. Wyoming
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: all those good white tail spots you can usually get
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: as a leftover tag after the draw. Idaho never sells
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: out all their dear tags, so you can get that
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: over the counter. Get a watch out, because you were
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: talking to you might show up for your white We
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: can't do it. We can't do it in seventeen. I
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: think in two thousand eighteen, I can't think of a
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: better guy to do the Rocky Mountain white tail Trifecta
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: with than Mark Kenya. I would love to do that.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: That's an invitation. If you want to take it, well,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: then you've learned the hard way that when when you
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: throw these invitations out of take them. So, but we
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: do it with rifles, Mark, I'm fine with that. You're
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: okay with that. I'll just plan on killing a few
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: of the bow beforehand. I'll head out with the with
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the firearm for the trifecta and that would be a blast.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: And I would love to see the rut out west
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: here with these white tails, because you know, back home,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: in a lot of places I hunt, the number of
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: bucks is much lower. The ratio of bucks to dose
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: as much lower. The ratio of age structure here, the
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: density of deer's incredible. The age structure seems terrific, and
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: the number of bucks to dose is just crazy, crazy
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: compared to anything I've seen it. So I just cannot
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: imagine the competition for these does that must be going
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: on another It's got to be pure chaos. It is.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: If you sit in some of these Greek bottoms. And
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I told you this as we were walking off the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: mountain the other night, that even if they told me
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I couldn't hunt white tails here, that I could just
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: watch them. I would have so much fun sitting in
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: these Greek bottoms on November eight, because it is chaos.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: These bucks have to compete so hard because there's so
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: many other and they are just all day long, running
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: like crazy. You'll see him rutting that hard even into Thanksgiving,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and the tongues are hanging out, they look like they're
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: they're so withered. You wonder I was just going to
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: make the winner. Yeah, somebow they do. I would. I
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: would love love to see this, So I guess I'm
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I'm coming out. If you decided to do that, I
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: will make that work because that would just be too
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: much fun. It'd be a lot of fun. Oh my gosh, Yeah,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: we do a podcast every night. I'd be up for that.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: I think there'll be plenty of talk about. Yeah. Well,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: if each of us had a tag, that'd be six
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: tags we'd have to fill. I could do a whole
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: TV season of just white tails. That'd be pretty cool.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: A lot of good YouTube videos, at least a lot
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: of YouTube stuff that would be that would be awesome. Um,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: back to bears though, bears. Yeah, sorry, See, we get
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that's part of being white tail nutsy. Everything kind of
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: spirals down that direction, and that's really what we should
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: be talking about since this is traditionally a white tail podcast,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: But I want to cover a little of this bear
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: stuff because the bears are pretty darn cool. Um. So
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: we didn't end up seeing a bear either night. But um,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: what I want to touch on is in the future
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: next time I come out, if I'm doing us on
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: my own, or if somebody's listening and they want to
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: try this someday. We've talked a little bit about some
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: of the place to look, but what else is the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: first time black bear hunter need to know? Heading out
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: in the spring, somewhere try and do a spot in
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: stock hunt. Is there anything we haven't touched on as
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: far as where to look for him, as far as
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: when to be out there, as far as Uh, I
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: don't know specific glassing techniques or things to consider when
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: you're actually stalking at them, anything else that we need
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: to cover there. Yeah. Um, let's start with you know,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the person is just coming out who's never bear hunted before. Um,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: if you want to give yourself the best advantage, I'd
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: say come out May ten through then in across all
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: three of the states we're talking about, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Uh,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have bears that are moving around because the
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: bear breeding season starts in late May and runs through
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: about you. And so if you want to find if
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: you're really focused on, say a big boar, he's going
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: to be most active the first part of you because
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: he's searching out phemales um. The downside of that is
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: is sometimes their hide can be rubbed really really bad
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: by then, So it's it's a little bit of a
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: trade off. But usually the dumb question I'm starting to rupt,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: but being a non bear hunt when you say their
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: hides are rubbed up is that they're just rubbed up
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: on trees. It's just it's the hair their winter coat
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: is starting to shed. So it's some some of the
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: old boars. It doesn't happen nearly as pronounced as with
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the sows. The sows I think they come out of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: the den's a little earlier, and they I've seen some
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: mangy looking at the sows that just it. You look
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: at them and you think, my goodness, who would not
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: that you would? You? You select for boars anyhow, because
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: bears have a little reproductive rate, so you'd always want
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: to pass on the south if you possibly can. But
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: rubbed means they look like they rubbed against the tree.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean they're rubbing against tree. It's just
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: they're they're transitioning the kind of like your dog is shedding.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: But they don't shed smoothly that big patches and chunks
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: come out. And though usually the areas that that will
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: shed first will be the front legs and then the
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: flanks um and uh, you'll you'll know. You'll look at it,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: you're like, what's wrong with that bear? And usually it's
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: they're rubbed. So but back back to the point about
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: where to find them. If you came out May tenth through,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: you're going to catch a window there that pretty much
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: every bear is out of there DAN by that time. Uh,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a little bit dependent upon weather.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: How far up the mountain they are. UM for me,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I look for so think about in the springtime they
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: come out of the Dan. They've got to get their
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: digestive system going again. They've been hibernating for five months,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: six months, and they are hitting vegetation heavy at that point. Uh.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: They love the really succulent stuff like flowers, glacier lily, skunk,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: cabbage more so than just grasses. And a lot of
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: times you'll look up the mountain and if you take
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: your binoculars or spotting to go, you'll see some of
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: those places that have this deeper green to it, and
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: it also might have a lot of flowers looks like flowers.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: That's those are the places I look for, UM. And
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not a bear expert by any stretch. Uh. There's
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: some guys who they have it absolutely dialed in because
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: they've hunted the same mountain range for twenty years. There's
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: nothing that beats that. But you could come out in
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: most places in the Rockies. And if you find those
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: kind of spots that give you multiple places to glass,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: multiple openings, uh, lots are you're gonna encounter a few bears,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: and in that area, pay attention to what pattern or
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: what what is happening. Okay, I saw this bear at
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: nine thousand feet. Wow, yesterday I saw bears up around
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: nine thousand feet. Well, guess what, there's something at that
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: nine thousand foot level that's attracting him. Or it might
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: be the flip side. Okay there, Wow, I climbed up.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: They're all down at six so or it might be
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: all right there all on north facing slopes where the
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: snow still hasn't melted there, even right on the edge
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: of the snow. It These bear are in so many
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: different places, it's you're you're going to have a pretty
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: good chance of seeing them. Uh. One thing they do
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: like nearby usually is some shady place too bad during
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: the day. Ah, you asked me on the mountain the
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: other night, do I ever hunt in the morning, and
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: and I don't. I'm not saying that it's not good
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: bear hunting in the morning, It's just that I never
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: do it. Uh. And very few of the guys I
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: know hunt in the morning. So I've heard this a
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: lot from other people too. Yeah, they tend to focus
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: on afternoons. And I don't know if that's just I
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's a habit that we've collectively formed. Uh,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: but I've I have. When I first started bear hunting,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time hunting all day long,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: and I would say overwhelmingly the number of encounters or
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: bears I spotted were from three in the afternoon on
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: kill dark. Um. Question about location. Yeah, one thing, Um,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I want to think about chasing elk or deer out
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: west lots of times. It's how he gets far away
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: from the road as possible, get away from trailheads, get
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: away from other people. Um. Is that something you worry
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: about as much of the bear hunting or not? I do,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: because the stuff near roads and trailheads is going to
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: be hunted harder, and so your age class of bears
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: uh is going to be much lower. Ah. It's if
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: you do have a bear that came out of it's Dan.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Say he made the mistake at Dan and near a trailhead,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and when he comes out and he's first getting his
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: bearings about him, Uh, odds are he's going to get
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: picked off. So you know, I'm usually hiking a mile
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: mile and a half from a road or trailheads just
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: because I'm I know that just like elk uh. Even
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: if bears are a little bit more habituated to humans. Uh,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: and sometimes humans provide them food through garbage cans or
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: bird feeders or whatever. Uh. General rule is bears want
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: to be away from people also, So those spots where
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: we were glass and uh, you know, if we would
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: have seen bears in some of those spots, we we'd
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: hiked in about a mile and a half, we might
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: have had to run another mile and a half, so
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: we would have been three miles from a road at
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: that point. So I do I look for those kind
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: of places. What about hunting pressure during spring bearing season,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's much less than elker deer Wait wait,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: way way less? Do you still have to think about
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: it though, decent bit or yeah? I do? And I
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: know that hunting pressure is going to be really heavy
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. So if I was traveling
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: out here to do a hunt, I'd want to get
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: here on a Saturday or Sunday scout a little bit
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: and then really start my hunting Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: and you'd almost have it to yourself. That's good to know.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: And we had no problem during our weekend hunts. Yeah.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're gonna plan time to come out, ah,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: that's what I would do. I mean, there the amount
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: of hunting pressure for spring bears compared to deer now
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: because not even I don't even think it's ten. Yeah. Yeah,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: it's nice to be out there and not worried about
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: seeing people all the time. It was really nice being
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: out there. You know. Last night we were talking about
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: we were just sitting out and you know, I was
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: a little bit bumming out. We hadn't seen any bears.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: But I kind of caught myself and I was like,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: look around you. Right now, you are surrounded by hundreds
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: of thousands, if not millions, of acres of public land
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: stretching in every direction as far as the eye can see.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: That is we own title too, that we can roam it,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: walk it, hunt it, explore it. And it's just I'm
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: constantly in awe when I when I take a second
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: to step back from whatever I'm focused on, and just
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: like look out of it. This is this is incredible.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: There's nobody else out here right now. I don't think
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: there would have been a single person probably out there.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I mean there could have been, but you would never
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: know it if there was. In our two nights, we
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: did not see another. That's we saw. We saw some turkeys.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: There were a couple of hammering off. Yeah. Any of
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: you have ever taken Mark on a bear hunt when
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: there's some turkeys goblin down below, you almost have to
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: tether him to a tree. I did get excited. I
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: gotta kick out of that. That's the first time I've
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: ever seen turkeys up way up in the drainages like that.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I have no idea what they're doing up there. They
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: were gobbling because the first time you told me you
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: heard when I said, oh, that's a sand hill, Craine
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: was like, man, am I going crazy because swore that
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: was a turkey. But I trusted you. Then, even my
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: bad hearing, I'm like, whoa, that is turkey? Turkey and
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Mark can call him without a call. That was fun.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: They were responding just a little, a little yelp when
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I was doing there, but to something you mentioned a
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: second ago. I want to touch on because this is
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: one of the things I was worried about the most
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: when I was planning going on my own. You mentioned
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: the fact that we should be targeting boars and not
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: sous because the fact that they've got that low reproductive rate,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: and I had been worried, like, oh my gosh, I'm
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: not gonna screw up and misidentify. How do I tell
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the difference between a male and a female? Um? So
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I tried to watch the videos. I tried looking at
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: pictures and doing different things like that. Um, but it's
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: a little hard to do this. I was showing, But
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: what can you tell us about identifying a male versus
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: a female black bear? How did you do that? Um?
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: The the obvious one is if the sow has cubs.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Before I go after a bear, I watch it for
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: as long as I think is good because I don't
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: want I don't want to run over there get all excited.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: And then I get there and here comes a cub
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: or two little cubs walking out of the brush. Um,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: that's your first indicator that it could be a sou.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: There's cubs. Just enjoy the view and watch and observe. Uh.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: If there aren't any cubs, if I tell people, if
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: if you went to the supermarket and bought a pair
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: and laid it on its side, you'd have one side
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: of it is like tall and one side of it
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: is narrow. Well, a sow black bear kind of looks
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: like a pair from a side profile. It's rump looks
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: really big, and it gets really dainty out towards the front,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: whereas a boar he looks like a big russet potato.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: I mean he's big in the rump, he's big in
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the shoulders, he's big in the neck. It's a refrigerator
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: walking across the So if you see him at a
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: side profile and they have a smaller front end than
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: they do a back end, and just about bet that
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: it's a sow, then if you see him straight on,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: a boar is going to have these big shoulders. They
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: almost look bull legged when they're walking. I mean their
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: front legs are bow almost and and they waddle more
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: than walk. If you can see it from straight on
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: through your spotting scope and it's a sow, its shoulders
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: are gonna look very dainty and narrow, and it's gonna
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: walk almost with one foot in front of the other
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: instead of this swagger. Uh. And then as far as
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: the head, a boar is gonna have a much bigger
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: head than a sow. A sow is gonna look like
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: mostly nose and ears. A boar, a mature boar, his
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: ears are going to be over towards the side of
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: his head instead of like a sow. Her ears are
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: going to be on the top of her head. Uh.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: There's not one definitive thing, but there's a multitude of things.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: If you start looking at it. If you've got quite
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: a bit of a gap between the ears, odds are
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: you got a boar. If there's not much gap there
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: and those ears look pretty big relative to the head,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: odds already have a sow. So there's there's not an
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: absolute science to it. Uh. When you do see a
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: sow with cubs and you absolutely know that's a sow,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: observer for a long time and just try to get
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: a feel for what those traits of her body is
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: and you'll you'll quickly be able to say next time
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: that that's probably a sow. Um. So there's something just
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: about watching bears that I find so cool, Like, I
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: think they are such interesting animals that the things they
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: do or interact and I've watched a sow with cubs,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: both black or grizzly, and just seeing how they interact
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: the things they do. I don't know, there's just something
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: really neat about bears. I can sit and just watch
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: them for hours. No, I think bears are the most
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: comfortable animal. And I say comfortable. They just go about
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: their business and they really aren't like deer and elky.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: They're always like spring loaded. Uh. A bear is just
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm a big bad dude. I'm here doing what
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I'm doing. I'm making noise, I don't care. I'm tearing
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: up roots or snapping off trees or whatever. And there's
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: who I am. I own the joint. And it's kind
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: of fun to watch them. One of the things that
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: is interesting is you get towards la late may when
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: you're watching them. Uh. I've seen boars try to interact
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: with sows, and if they have cubs, those sows will
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: run those cubs up those trees immediately because uh a
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: boar he wants that saw to come into heat, so
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: he will kill. One of the greatest problems with bare
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: reproduction can be boars killing the offspring of other boars,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: so he will kill those cubs, and you'll see those
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: sALS instantly run those cubs up that tree, and she
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: is acting ornery and you'll see him come walking around
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: and she's like, he wants on this, buddy, I'm gonna
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: and uh So it's kind of funny to watch, and
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: I enjoy watching them try to interact in late May.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: It's uh, it's very entertaining. Yeah, that's the one thing
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: I'm just so bummed about. It is like I literally
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: could do what we did last night seven days in
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: a row, ten days, and I wish I had more
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: time to sit and watch and um, if I lived
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: out here, I'd be doing this. Yeah. I am lucky
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to live in a place where I get to go
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: do that for you know, last night you asked me
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: how many days will I sit on these mountains just
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: in May, and you know, just here in Montana, it's
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: probably gonna be six to ten days. This year was
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: just sitting and observing whether whether or not I'm lucky
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: enough to find a bear, I don't know. And then
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to go to Idaho in early June
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: and do the same thing. So I don't know. It's
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: it's good exercise. It's great fun. Uh And I I
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: learned a lot when I'm out there, no matter what
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: it is, I'm learning something about that species, whether it's
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: the deer, elk I'm looking at her bears, or just
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: learn something about how that landscape is being used by
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: the wildlife. If you it seems like if you open
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: your eyes to it, there's a lot that you can
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: take in from any situation like that, if you just
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: pay attention, if you notice things. So I have two
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: more kind of practical questions I'm curious about. Okay, I'm
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: an impractical guy, so it takes your chances here. I
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people when switching from being just
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: a if I've only ever hunted deer, one of the
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: things a lot of people ask is what kind of
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: firepower do I need? Do I need to change my
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: archery set up? Do I need to change my rifle
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: set up? Firearm set up? What's your recommendation there? Can
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I use my white tail gear hunt a black bear?
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I do use all my white tail gear, same stuff,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: whether it's your bow or your rifle. We've shot black
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: bears with a two seventy seven and m M O
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: eight three D wind MEG three O eight I mean
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: classic white tail calibers. You know, some people say, I
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: can't believe you'd hunting black bears with a seven mm OA.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: You know what if you hit a black bear in
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: a vital spot with a hunter and forty grain accubon
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: or good high quality bullet partition whatever it is, that
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: bears not going anywhere. If you hit that bear in
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: the vitals with a sixty pound draw weight bow with
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: a good sturdy broadhead, guess what if that broadhead sharp,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: that bears not going very far? So I I if
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I was coming out here, I wouldn't I wouldn't invest
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: an extra diamond equipment. If if I was a rifle hunter,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: I just make sure I was using some sort of
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: premium constructed bullet. Okay, well that's nice. The barrier to
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: entry again very low, very low for white tail. Bring
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: your same YEP, fine over the counter taghi of a hill,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: look around a lot and have so. Then my final
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: question would be, then I wish I had, I wish
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: I had to be dealing with this situation right now.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: But next year, next year, I will. Can you give
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: us some advice on eating black bears, some ways to
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: prepare or or make sure because some people give the
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: black bears a bad rap um, say they're greasy or whatever.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: How do you go about it? So black bears are
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: fun for the dinner table. Yeah, And for a little background,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: growing up in northern Minnesota, my dad used to set
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: out bait stations for bear hunters and that was all
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: fall bear hunting in September. So those bears have been
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: on berries all summer, and they almost had a sweet
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: taste to him. In some of those places, it was
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: hard to find a strong tasting black bear when they've
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: been on berries all summer in the springtime. I'm just gonna,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: you know, let people understand that those bears probably ate,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: probably ate an elk gut pile just before they went
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: in the dan, and they've been sleeping for four or
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: five or six months however long they've hibernated, and they've
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: just come out, they're going to be a stronger taste.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: They don't have the fat like they do in the
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: fall um, you know, just their their body hasn't been
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: circulating enough vegetation and food froom, so they're gonna the
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: spring bears are definitely stronger than a fall bear. Uh,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: you'd asked me the other night. How I prefer to
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: cook a bear. I'd prefer prefer to take a bear
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: roast and rump roast or whatever and slow cook it.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: H and a croc pot or whatever with you know,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: I I just like almost a stew type thing with carrots,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: pearl onions, some potatoes, uh, some flavors. However you prefer
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: to flavor it. Uh. Sometimes I'll cook it that way
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: and then I'll take it out real quick and I'll
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: put a little rub on it, and I might throw
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: it on the grill just for a quick sear to it. Huh.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: I don't stake my back straps on a bear like
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: I do an elk or a deer. I cook it
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: as a whole uh loin roast. Um. And the only
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: worry I always have with bears is they have a
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: pretty high incidence of trichinosis. And so depending on who
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: you talk to, most will say you want to cook
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: that thoroughly at least two hundred and sixty five degrees throughout.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I don't like well well done meat, so I will
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: with that backstrap. You know what kind of has this round?
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: It looks like a big long round cylinder of meat.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I will cut that lengthwise so that then I know
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: the interior will get cooked quicker without having to tortu
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: the outside. Um. And with those, I usually just put
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: a rub on it. Uh And for me, simpler is easier. Um.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: You know there's a lot of guys who render their
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: bear fat and stuff like that. I've never done that.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: I always worried it's going to go rant it on me. Uh. Yeah.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: It used to be in Montana that if you shot
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: a bear that fish, Wildlife and Parks would test it
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: for tricking olysis. Now that's voluntary and you have to
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: pay the expense to get it tested for trick analysis.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: We both know another guy who's been on our podcast.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: His crew ended up the meat Eater crew. They ended
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: up with trickings and they learned this the hard way. Yeah,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: even though they knew about it before. That's the that's
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the part where I'm like, you guys knew better than that.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: But I'm I've always been a little bit leary of
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: of that with bears. Um. And I've never had one
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: test positive for trick analysis. So I don't know what
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: the the frequency of trick analysis is. But if you're
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: cooking bear meat, just make sure that as a safety
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: make sure you get it above the I think most
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: would tell you one sixty. You want to get it
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: above that. I've seen that too when I was doing
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: But for me, I I cook bear a lot like
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: a cook elk. Pretty much, any elk recipe works good
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: for bear cool. Well, I'm looking forward to putting that
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: to the test a year from now. And and now
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I actually will do this, but
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. But my bear tag is
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: still good for the fall season two, right, So if
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: I fail my dear tag early, I could could go
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: bear hooting for some bears. And you will see the
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: bears here in the fall are far more concentrated than
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: they are in the spring. They are on berries. The
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: black bears, anyhow, are on berries heavy in the fall.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: And you will go into these brushy creek drainagers, and
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: if you sit there and watch, you will see these
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: bears just pulling these limbs down and mowing on anything
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: that looks like a berry, a huckleberry, choke, cherries. Where
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: we were at the last two nights, those kind of
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: purplish drainages you see, you know, those were in the fall.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Those are just laden with choke cherries. Just looked and
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many fall bears I've seen
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: in there's just going after it. So I'm not going
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: to give up my two thousand, seventy bear tag yet.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: There there could be a fall bear in my future.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe could be. That would be great. That would be cool.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: If I could get a deer. If I can draw
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: that antelope tag on a prom and then pull off
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: a bear, that would be something you do bear, whitetail,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: and prong horn in one trip. That'd be pretty wild.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: That would be really cool. It's doable, possible. I don't
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: know how likely, but possible. It's possible. So I've got
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: that to look forward to. I guess yeah, I'll be uh.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: I'll be odd elk hunting in September. If you're out
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: this way, I'll keep my eyes out for black bears,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: and if I find where one's hanging out, I'll let
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: you know I appreciate it. That is one thing in
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: the three states we're talking about is there's also grizzly bears. Uh.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Where we were last night, you saw the big signs
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: that says say Gosha grizzly bear area. Um, and there
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: definitely are grizzlies in these places. You can go to
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: other parts away from the Greater Yellowstone area that has
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: fewer grizzlies are in northwest Montana. Uh, there's grizzlies there. Um,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: I don't worry about it that much this time of year. Uh,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: grizzlies are looking for carcasses. They're still feeding on vegetation also.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: But there, now that I say this, I'll get eaten
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: by one or something. I hope not. But I've seen
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: black bear hunting. But there they seem to kind of
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: keep to themselves. Um, they're not in that state of
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: hyperphasia like they are in September and October. So they're
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: they're pretty methodical, just lumbering around doing their thing, digging
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: for rodents or eating vegetation or if you find a carcass.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: If you find a winter kill carcass in grizzly country,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: there's a good chance that a bear is going to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: be working that carcass. But don't let that scare you. Uh.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: There is a reason that I don't call bears in
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: grizzly country. My experience has been when you call for
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: bears and they come, they're coming you you almost have
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: to throw a rock at them to change their mind. Well,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: if that's a big silver tip grizzly, I don't want
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: that problem, because if I have to shoot it in
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: self defense, I've got a serious problem. Either way, I
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: may not escape without a few scratches and bite marks.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: So it's there's just all kinds of reasons and problems
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: why I don't call bears in grisly country. Some would say, oh,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: you're Chicken Newberg, but that's fine. I just don't need
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: the headache that might come with it. And it seems
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: like your current strategy works just fine most of the time,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: so I don't need to. Yeah, and uh, it would
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: have been fun if if we could have brought one
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: of the what I'll call just serious fanatic bear hunters
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: with us. I I consider myself pretty casual about the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: bear hunting. I I go and do it, but there
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: are some guys who that's what they live for. There
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: it's it's bear season and then there's the rest of
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: the year. And if we would have had one of
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: those guys with us, you would have you would have
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: seen someone who is really wired differently. You look at
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: him like, man, there's guys he's got something going on
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: with bears. So I just admit up front I've I've
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: shot my you know, share bears, but I'm not I
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: don't consider myself an expert. I just go and do
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: it a lot where I get to observe a few things. Well,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: it's been really interesting to be able to learn from
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: you and hear how you've been doing things and observe
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: and very helpful. So I'm really glad that my first
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: bear hunt, I was able to tag along and learn
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: versus I priced walking circles on the mountain by myself,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: and you would have seen as many bears than that
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: as you did with me. I guess that's possible. You
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: got to go in your first bear hikes, not bear
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: hunt this fall. All right, now, briefly, we're going to
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: pause for a weekly segment with our friends at white
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Tail Properties and producer Spencer new Hearth has a great
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: guest expert today who's going to give us some advice
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: for those who might be in the beginning stages of
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: looking for their own little piece of white tail paradise.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: This week with white Tail Properties, we have joined my
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Jeff pro a land specialist out of Northern Missouri and
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: Jeff is going to be telling us about what kinds
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: of questions you should be asking when looking at a
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: new property. Well, there's a lot of questions when it
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: comes to buying a piece of ground, particularly for hunting. UM.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: One of the most important things, uh, the key components
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: is the neighbors. Uh. It's probably the most asked question
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: I get as an agent that specializes in UH in
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: land is particularly hunting ground. UM. Obviously, if you've got
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: neighbors that aren't like minded, are you know, could be
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: bad neighbors, Uh, it's going to cause some problems for
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: you that I think the key component is to know
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood you're buying in to try to get a
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: good idea of the neighbors and what they're you know,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: what their goals, their thoughts are in terms of what
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: they're hunting or shooting excuse me. And that is probably
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: one of the key components. UM. Another another question is
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: is you know, does the farm have you know, what
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: kind of income does the farm have? Actually that may
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: be the most portant all too some folks, but you
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: know the income potential on the farm. I mean, is
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: there CRP on the farm? If so, when does that
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: CRP expire and is it you know, when does it
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: run out? Number two? Is it is there is there
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: a tillable agreement on the farm to rent the crop
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: ground out? Uh? You know, and who's the farmer? And
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: is the farmer reputable? Is he does he pay good?
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Is his his rates good? And you know what does
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: that program consists of? You know, key components to the
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: farm is obviously you want uh to have good cover
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: for betting, for security to hold the deer, and you
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: obviously need food. If you'd like to learn more and
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: to see the properties that Jeff currently has listed for sale,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: visit white tail properties dot com. Backslash probes that's p
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: r O p ST. So I want to cast switch gears, sure,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: because the other thing that's been on my mind a
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: lot while we're out here doing these bear hunts was
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: you know, the fact that we were hunting on the
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: clan and of all the people I know, there's a
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: few people I know that are more tapped into what's
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: going on with public land these days than you. Um,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: You've been a great resource for our audience, you know,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: coming on the show a couple of times and and
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: talking about kind of introducing our audience to this whole
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: threat of the public land transfer and some of these things.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: You know, back in two thousands sixteen you talked about that,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: and I think our audience UM is very well versed
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: on the basics of that now. I talked about a
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: decent bit. It's been something that I've been passionately following
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: myself now for the past few years. But can you
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: bring us up to speed on what's been going on recently?
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: What are the things? You know, we've talked about the
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: whole h R six twenty one deal, um, But I'm
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: kind of curious on your thoughts on you know, since
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: since the election, there's been all sorts of talk of
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: different things. What's what's on your mind now? What are
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: the things that have changed or might be changing, or
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: that we need need to be aware of on this issue. Yeah,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: and when I was on a year ago, UH, and
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: we talked about the whole transfer the probably glands to
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: the States. I think the level of awareness and understanding
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: of that topic has increased dramatically, not just in the West,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: throughout the country. And people now realize that the western
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: state landboards are not very hunter and shooter friendly, so
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: transferring these lands to them is a bad idea, and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: there's been so much pushback on that that you're starting
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: to hear some of these Western congressional delegates walk away
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: from that idea because we have done the hunting community
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: has done a great job of making that political poison.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Oh you want to we we have made it obvious
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: that transferring these lands as akin to preparing them to
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: sell them. And that is the reality. Now these people,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: these elected officials that have had to try to answer
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: some questions of well, what's in the details of that
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: while they stumble and fumble and look like fools. And
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: so I think that phase is starting. They're starting to
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: pivot and say, boy, that's political suicide. Let's let's not
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: let's not talk about selling the lands. We we learned
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: that in the eighties and nineties that if we talk
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: about selling them, we're going to get thumped. Now that
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: that marketing strategy strategy we had about transferring them, we're
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: getting thumped pretty hard on that also. So now it's
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: it's morphing into a more nuanced idea of let's cut
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: agency budgets, let's cut this, let's make let's do let's
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: impair the value of these lands. Let's not fund all
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: of the management actions, Let's not fund all the backlog
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: of repairs and maintenance. Let's not give the agency's money
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: to do their work, so people get frush traded with
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: the agency. Um, you and I were talking about how
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: I need public land film permits. So I've been calling
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: this forest saying I need a film permit to go
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: bear hunting, not where we were hunting, but in a
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: different state. Well, their budgets have been cut so much
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: that where there used to be one permit office, or
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: not just for film permits but all permitting, special events
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: and all kinds of stuff, one one officer per forest,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: now that person might cover four five districts. And that's
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: an example of well, if we cut their budgets, their
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: ability to do their job is less and less, and
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: people are going to get frustrated. And the more frustrated
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: the masses are, the greater the likelihood of us being
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: able to convince them to sell it, to somehow change
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: ownership to whatever. So you do think that even though
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: they may be pulling back in some of their statements
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: or proposals to a transfer or transfer or a sale,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: that's still the endgame. But it's they're going to be
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: approaching it by death by million cuts. With all these
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: different budget cuts or whatever might be, they can eventually
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: lead to maybe changing public opinion in some way so
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: they can get away with this and things like, oh, well,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: we're gonna say, we're given the four Service more money
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: this year, but we're going to give it all to
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: firefighting cost We're gonna cut their their daily work of
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: they're they're logging programs, their road programs, there, whatever program
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: it might be, wildlife programs, conservation programs, watershed programs, we're
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: gonna cut all that. We're going to give them more
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: money and firefighting, and then we can tell everybody, oh,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: look what we did. We gave the four Service more money. Well,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: that doesn't do them any good to do the things
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: that require active land management. And there it's it's again
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: part of this strategy of that I think they've hit
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: the reset button. That guess what, We're not going to
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: accomplish this in the next five years. Let's set a
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: goal of accomplishing it in the next twenty years, and
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: we will starve these agencies on the vine. And there's
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: no doubt you ask anybody, there's always places for improvement.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: But the Four Service, if I remember right, uh, and
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: I might have my numbers wrong, but in relative numbers,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: it's going to be pretty close. The Four Service had
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: UH back in the nineties, if they had fifty thousand employees,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: then they're down to thousand employees now. Well yeah, so
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: there's and what they're about half of what they were
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: in the nineties as far as employees, and so the
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: demand on them keeps growing though, Oh, we want you
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: to do this now. Oh guess what, We've gotten invasive
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: weed problem across the West. We want you to take
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: care of the invasive weeds. Oh guess what, We're having
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: more catastrophic wildfires at cross the West. As as we
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: suppress them and suppress them, the ones that pop up
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: get bigger and bigger. So there's all these growing demands
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: on them, and their budgets are getting cut and cut
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: and cut and cut and cut. So I'm all about
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: smaller government, I'm all about efficiency, But you reach a
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: point where you're no longer cutting fat, you're no longer
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: cutting meat, even you're cutting the bone. And a lot
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: of these forests, a lot of the BLM lines, a
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: lot of these federal agencies. It's impractical to think they're
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: going to be able to do all the things we
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: ask them to do. And Congress knows that. Uh, And
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: so here here's kind of the irony of it. In
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: my mind, every frustration that the public has that relates
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: to public land or public land management could be fixed
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: by Congress, every single one of them, whether it's a priority,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: whether it's a policy, whether it's a budgetary issue, and
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: what do they do the the the greatest critics right
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: now hold the Senate committees that oversee public lens and
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: the House committees that oversee public lens. And there's not
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: a single bill they've introduced to address any of these
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: supposed frustrations. We have none. Zero. They've introduced crazy bills,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: like on your podcast you talked about Congressman Chavits from
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: Utah had House Bill SI. None of those solve any
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: of the frustrations we're talking about. So are these people
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: serious about better land management? Now that they have all
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: the power and they ignore it and they keep focusing
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: on things that impair the land or go down crazy paths.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: It's hard for me to believe that they have any
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: intent of better land management. And they still have the
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: intent that someday, somehow we're going to make these lands
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: so impaired, so degraded, that the public won't have any
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: problem getting rid of them. It might take us twenty years,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: but if that's what it takes, that's what we're gonna do.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: So these types of things, it's not just even hypothetical, right,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: these types of cuts, they are happening already, Like, I mean,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: this is this is happening. How here's what I worry about.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: And I think it's probably to your point by design
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: that it's harder for the average guy or girl to
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: be able to keep track of all these different things
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: and to know, like how do I make a difference.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: Because when something came out, it was so easy. It
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: was they want to sell three point three million acres,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: And that's like a very easy thing to say, WHOA,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: that doesn't sound good, Rally people around it, and you
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: can make, you know, make a lot of noise and
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: make a difference. It's a lot harder to say, well,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: there's sixteen different cuts, and there's all these different A
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: little this deregulation here is going to hurt our water,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: and this is going to hurt whatever. I mean, how
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: do we, as hunters and anglers and sportsmen and women,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: what do we do with all this? Because it seems
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: really tricky. It is mark and that's that's what's going
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: to make it harder is when it's one big target
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: coming at you, you can dodge that bullet, you know,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: or you know right now, Congressman Amada from Nevada has
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: this bill introduced. They can't remember the number. I should,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: but I can't. But it's if you are adjacent to
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: a a piece of public land, we can sell you
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: all any of these parcels under a hundred sixty acres. Well,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of hundred and sixty acre parcels that
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: control access to ten thousand acres. He's saying, you can.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: We'll sell the public land to you if you're addressing
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, it's it's crazy bill. Um. So ones
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: like that are easy targets. Uh. And you can almost
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: look at all, right, who's behind some of these ideas
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: Like Amada from Nevada, he's you know, he's a stated Uh,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: he's a chavits rob bishop disciple. So you can kind
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: of look at some of that stuff and say, I
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: don't think they want to change this to the to
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: our benefit. Their history shows that that's not what their
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: goal is. UM. But it does require more vigilance at
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: this point because every one of these changes are going
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: to be more subtle and more nuanced the the I
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: just go back to the position of these public lands
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: are of value, and I continue to impress upon any
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: elected official I talked to these lands are important to me.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: Don't buy into this foolishness that someone may be pitching
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: you that, oh this is no good or that's no
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: good way, we don't need this or we don't need that. UM.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: When you have an approach that is so many little cuts,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: as you call it, if you try to chase every
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: one of those little rabbit trails, you'd wear yourself. At
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: this point, I think it's important for people to contact
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: their elected officials and say these public lands, this is
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: what I use them for. This is how important they are.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: Any public land issue that comes up, I hope you
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: will consider that I value these public lands. They're a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: big part of who I am, what I see America
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: to be, and I contact elected elected officials, even if
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: there's not a fire, I want them to be reminded.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: You know, every couple of weeks, maybe they get an
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: email or a phone call, or if I see them
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: at an event, Hey, you know, just want to make
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: sure you understand that all these public land things, I'm
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: about doing things to improve the value of public lands,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: not impair the value. Um and again that I always
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: worry that some of these things we ask people to
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: do goes back to you know, high school civics class.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: But there is some of that to it. Um. If
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: the say it's a congress person from Wisconsin, who really
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: you know, they have northern Wisconsin, they've got some national forest,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: but they don't have much for BLM land or whatever.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: If that person is hearing time and again, hey, I'm
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: I've you know, public lands are a priority for me.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: Public lands are are a priority for me. And they
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: hear that enough time. Even if it's not there, I
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: guess priority issue. When that topic comes up, it's not
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: going to just be rubber stamped according to Oh I'm
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: just gonna, you know, tow the party line. So it's uh,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: I wish I could tell you that you know, there's
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: this or that, but as a general rule, now it's
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: all about how do we impair these lands, how do
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: we degrade them? How do we cut agency budgets. Let's
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: not fix any of the frustrations. Let's let the frustration continue.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: Let's let the frustration build. Uh, Let's continue of the
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: attack on quote unquote the fat even though the Fed
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: is Congress is that it's them. Yeah, And I always
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: point that out to him. Make sure whenever a congress
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: person or senator complains about the FEDS, make sure and
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: remind them that they are the fact they are, you know,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: and they want to say, oh, the bureaucrat this, the
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: bureaucrat that, well, the local BLM range manager or the
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: local force service ranger. He doesn't set the policy, he
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't set the budget. He this all comes from d C.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: And in most cases that is a local person, right, Yeah,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: they're they're the person league or you know, the volunteer
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: at the fire department or whatever. They're just living in
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: the community. They got the marching orders from d C,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: and d C is counting that we continue to accept
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: the paradigm that they shouldn't be responsible and that it's
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: those damn Feds, it's they. Hope we continue to think
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: that way. I refused to think that way, and I
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: I try to encourage other people that if you have
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: a frustration about your public lands, make sure in contact
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: your congress person or your senator and say what are
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: you doing about this? Yeah, because odds are they're not
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: doing anything about it. It's it's an interesting strategy you
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: mentioned here, because to your point, these people complain or
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: make statements about these issues for which we need to
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: transfer or sell the public because the federal government can't
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: manage it. Button reality, they are the ones inhibiting that
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: management or not allowing the budgets to get there. And
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: I'm curious about another aspect of this, and I think
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: it's some of what you're referring to here. But what
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: we're seeing now in some cases is now deregulation of
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of things that impact public lands. UM and
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: regulations are such a dirty word and almost always hate
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: regulation or many people talk about you know it's um
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: we're over the regulated death lots of times we talk about.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: But in these sets of cases, are there some issues
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: of deregulation that are happening that are going to be
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: negatively impacting our public lands and leading towards these goals
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: that some of these people have UM, I mean impacting
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: clean air, clean water, guarantee. Look at the people who
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: are trying to roll back regulations on clean water. I
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: struggled to understand how the world leader, where the cradle
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: of conservation was, This where conservation was born and grew from,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: is the United States, and we're having discussions about how
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: clean our water should or shouldn't be. I'm trying to
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: figure out what's bad about clean water. You know, I'm
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: not gonna say there aren't instances where maybe some employee
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: of an agency oversteps and doesn't use common sense, but
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: to use those one in a thousand examples for purposes
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: of reducing water quality standards, I just I can't go there.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: Clean air, clean water, productive lands. That's everything my life
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: is built around is conservation. And anyone who wants to
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: get on these ideological bandwagons of you know, wow, the
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: ep of this blah blah blah. You know what, they're
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: gonna make some mistakes, every agency, every we all are
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: going to make a mistake along the way. But there's
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: a reason the Cuyahoga River isn't on fire today because
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: we have clean water standards. There's a reason that we
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: have the best drinking water, the cleanest water system that
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: that we've known in our lifetimes. Is because of these
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: regulations and because of these agencies, what do we want
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: to do? We want to go back to when whatever
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: it might be. So, so we're we're sitting right here.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: Ninety miles west of here is the largest super fun
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: site in the world. It's the Berkeley Pit in Mountana.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: Prior to clean water regulations that killed the entire river
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: from Butte, Montana down to Missoula Clark's or do we
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: want to go back to that? Right Beaute is the
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: largest city I believe in the United States that does
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: not have potable water has to bring their water in
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: over a mountain path? Is that what we want to
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: go back to? So this kind of hawk is it's
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: it just dumbfounds me that that we in the United
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: States are even having that kind of a discussion. And
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: if if anyone listening can tell me why we need
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: dirty your water, I'm I'm always open to differing opinions.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: And I some of these politicians, I said, well, tell
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: me why we need dirty your water, and they just
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: look at me like, well, uh, you know it comes
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: down to this this these party lines though, right where
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: you like if okay, if I am going to be
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: associated with with this branch or this this party, then
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: I have to agree, always, have to deregulate, always have
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: to prioritize jobs or always and if if I if
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: I disagree with this, you're afraid to say it, or
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: you're afraid you're an apologist for it. How do we
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: break out of that? Because I feel like there's there's
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: so much of that. Yeah, I don't. I don't necessarily
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: have the answer tell you how I've broke out of it.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: I am not an apologist for anybody. Uh. The only
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: thing I'm an apologist for is clean air, clean water,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: productive lands, public lands, wild places, and wildlife the rest
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: of it. You know what, if you're against that stuff,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not making any apologies for it, even if I
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: voted for you. There's a lot of times I vote
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: for somebody and then they come up with a dumb idea.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: If anybody can help sway them to the point of
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: common sense and give them, give them some confidence that, hey,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: if I bucked the system, I'm not going to lose
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: my position. It's those of us who voted for him.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: I I think we as a city, as a group collective, Uh,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: the country have fallen into this apologistic mindset that, oh,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: if I voted for the person, I can't criticize them.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: I gotta defend them. Yeah No, not me. And and
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: I think in some respects if we would fly because
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: our muscle to say, hey, we're gonna push back when
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: you tow the party liner you come up with some
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: crazy idea, then they would be more inclined to one
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: listen to us, but realize, you know what, I can
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: buck the system, and I'm going to have some support
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: out there. Uh. This whole rollback of everything as it
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: relates to clean air and clean water, it is a
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: hard one for me to understand. And I'm a pretty
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: conservative guy, but I thought the United States aspired to
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: have cleaner air and cleaner water. And none of the
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: people who I you know, I get the fortune or
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: misfortune whatever you wanna call it of being involved in
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of conference calls and other discussions of stuff
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: that's going on in d C. And none of the
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: people behind the ideas that we need to get rid
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: of cleaner air and cleaner water, none of them have
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: given me their reasons, how their or their ideas of
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: how they're gonna make our air cleaner or our water cleaner.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think they're trying to change all
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: this to make our air and water cleaner. If they are,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: their track record doesn't demonstrate them. And if there's anything
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: more basic to our life necessities of clean air and
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: clean water, I think we probably take it for granted.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: And this is where you know I'm kind of an
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: old kajer. I'm fifty two year twenty nine. I remember
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: before unleaded gasoline, you would go to a large city
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: and every city had smog, even a city of fifty
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: thou people had smog. Well, I remember the Rainy River
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: where I grew up in northern Minnesota. You didn't eat
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: the walleyes out of Rainy River because of the paper
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: mill upstream and International Falls in Fort Francis. There were
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: warnings do not eat these fish right below there. Why
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: because And it's not like at that time people said,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: oh I want to pollute the river. Some of it was.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: We just didn't know what effect it was having at
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: that time. But now through regulation, through change, through better
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: ideas that that's just an example. Water quality has improved,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: the fishing has improved, that so many things have improved
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: as a result of it is that really where we
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: want to go back to. But Randy, if you're talking
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: about the environment and stopping pollution and clean air, you're
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: you're a far left wing nut. You know, if that's
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: what people want to call me, I don't really care.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not. I I own more guns than
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: any far left wing nut. I know if you come
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: to my house, I'm sure a t F would be like, Man,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: we what this guy? This guy kind of preparing for
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: armageddon here? What? But it's fremely frustrating though if you
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: to sometimes if you say that you care about these things,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: like why can't hunter, angler, firearm owner also care about
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: these things? It's it's necessary to what we love to do.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: That's a great question mark. I almost say, how could
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: they not about it? You know? It's so critical to
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: the things we love. And I do worry that in
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: my community that I identify with the most and where
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: my most my platforms are mostly heard, is the hunting world.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: I worry that the hunting world isn't going to stand
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: up and be counted. This is this is our time,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: this is If we don't stand up, we we are
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: We want to take credit for being the the original conservationists,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: going back even before uh uh Roosevelt. We go back
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: to Grennelle, we go back to Marsh, We we go
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: back to you know, way way back Audubon. All of
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: those people were hunters and they were the ones who
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: started planning the seeds of conservation. And we want to
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: make that we want to claim that mantle today. How
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: can you claim that I am the carrier of the
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: torch of conservation? But I'm going stand silent when we
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: decide we're going to have cleaner or dirty or air
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: and dirty or water. Tell me how you can reconcile
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: that I can't. And where's our credibility when outsiders look
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: at that and we try to try to care that mantle,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: and we try to use that as something, and we,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: because of peer pressure, whatever it is, ideological pressure, we
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: become apologist for those people who want to make our
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: water dirtier or our air dirtier. We we run a risk,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: I think the hunting community, in the fishing community, we
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: run a risk of losing our credibility and our claim
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: to the mantle of conservation if we stand silent when
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: this stuff goes on. And this isn't just important for
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: the integrity of the resource, but also I think for
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: the future of the right to do what we're doing,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: because I think the big part of how we communicate
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: to the non hunting public about why hunting is relevant
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: and valuable still today is because of our role as conservationists.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: And if they look at that and say, okay, you
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: clean to be conservationist, and then they see at well,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: you only care about the three animals you want to shoot.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: You don't care about the clean air, you don't care
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: about the clean water. You're not concerned about's bigger that.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: You just want your gun and you want to be
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: able to shoot. Dear, then I don't think we don't
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: have a whole lot to stay. The rest of society
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: is way more perceptive than that, and we're going to
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: look like hypocrites. We yeah, yeah, I know that might
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: be uncomfortable for some people to have to come to
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: that conclusion, but the time is now to say, am
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: I a conservationist or am I a hypocrite? Am I
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: going to roll up my tent because someone I voted
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: for is I don't want the discomfort of my you know,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: one of my coworkers or somebody else given me grief
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: because I've yeah, I voted for the same guy. But man,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: if I stand up and speak on behalf of clean
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: air or productive lands or whatever it is, I'm gonna
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: get grief about it. Well, if that's all the h
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: if that's enough to sway you from speaking up, then
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: the question becomes, are you really committed to conservation? I mean,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt said it, the wildlife and its habitat cannot speak
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: for itself. We must, and therefore we will. I mean
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: that was a hundred and twenty years ago that he
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: said that, or d fifteen years ago, just as true today.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely true. And I've been recently, I've been in
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: my speaking presentations and some YouTube clips were working on
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: and I've told you this story the other day about
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: where you were camped that was going to be a reservoir,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: and blows my mind. I'm working on this series of
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: stories about how conservation has never been easy, it's never
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: been convenient, and it's never been comfortable. And if we
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: think now we can just bail out whenever it gets hard,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: or we can walk away because it's not a convenient time,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: or you know what, that's a pretty uncomfortable discussion. To have,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: so I'm just going to ignore it. If we do that,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: we are going to lose our credibility as the leaders
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: of conservation. It's gonna be damaging for us in the
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: hunting and angling community, and it's going to be really
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: damaging for the landscapes and the wild creatures that depend
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: on it. It's just the way it is. Even if
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: you even if you don't care about this like ideologically
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: just as a prime minist, like just thinking about the
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: just purely if you want to focus on your individual
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: future ability to do the things you like to do,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: even if you aren't super passionate about these things, but
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: you just want to. I still want to be able
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: to film my freezer. It just makes sense that we
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: need to be caring about these things and doing something
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: about these things. And to your point, and we've both
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: experienced you to a much larger degree, I'm sure than myself,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: but we've we face blowback for things we talked about
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: that's uncomfortable or outside of the party line or whatever
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: it might be. And I think to your point, we
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: have to be confident in our beliefs and uh willing
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: to stand up for these things. And you know it's
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: not always me rainbows and butterflies and big box and
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: bulls um. I mean, I spoke out pretty loud on
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: some of these things in the last week, and my
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: emails and private messages and Facebook messages have been pretty pointed.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: But that implies that I'm worried about the blowback. I
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: am not. I'm fifty two. I don't know if I've
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: got one day, one year, one decade, or thirty years
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: left on this planet. But whatever it is, I'm not
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: gonna take a leave of absence about making the landscapes better,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: more productive for my kids, my my hopefully grandkids, or
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: the next generations. I'm just not. And if that come that,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: it comes with risks, for sure, it comes with pressures.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: It comes from those days when you know someone you
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: appreciate it, you've had a friendship with cause you up
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: and says new Burgh, you off your rock. Yeah maybe
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: I am. But guess what, I'm not standing here letting
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: a political tide roll back everything that the hunters and
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: anglers before me I fought for for the last hundred
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: and fifty years. I'm not. And if that causes a
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: wrinkle in our friendship, I guess maybe we didn't have
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: as good a friendship as I thought. Yeah, it's just
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: for me, you know, someone who has platforms like you do.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: I think it's more incumbent than ever on us to
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: provide some voice in leadership to these causes, because if
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: we fold up the tent, we've we've been granted these privileges,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: these amazing lives of being spokespeople for these causes. And
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: if I decide, oh it's a little too tough of
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: sledding here, I think I'm gonna just bail out for
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: a couple of years. Well guess what, Randy, you shouldn't
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: have these platforms. Then that's that. That's my thought on it. Yeah, No,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right. So and I think to
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: all this what we've just been talking about here. You know,
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: we start our conversation with public land, so the thrust
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: public land, but some of these things we're talking about
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: more recently, this applies to whether you hunt public land
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: out west or you hunt the thirty acres behind your
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: house in New York. Um. I mean this is a
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: nationwide issue. This impact all of our hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, breathing,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: no matter where you live. Um. So I think that
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: this is one of those very clearly core issues to
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: all of us. That is, Um, it's unfortunate sometimes that we, uh,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know, because we don't want to be associated
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: with a different group, or because we're uncomfortable with the
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: same people that talk about this and march on this.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: They're different than me. But you know what, we actually
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: do care about some of the same things too, and
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: we can look past some of these differences because in
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: the end, we need a couple of core things here
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: that we all care about. There's there's a bumper sticker
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: in Montana and I'm going to get it a little
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: bit uh ah off when I say it, but it's
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: something of gay hippie laggers for Jesus, and it's it's
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: kind of the subtitle is I don't care who you are.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: You know, open minds and in different perspectives are helpful. Uh.
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: And whenever I see that bumper sticker, I kind of
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: chuckle because coming from a logging family, I kind of
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: think about you know that that that covers the whole
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: spectrum right there. Um. But it it's usually and it
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: usually has some little subtitles around it. But when you
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: were talking about how no matter who you associate with
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: or where you come from as your own kind of
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: personal beliefs on these topics. We we we got to
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: get to the point where we can say, yeah, we
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: disagree on some things, but on this topic, I don't
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: care what your opinion is on topic see on topic
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: A if if you're for uh, you know, conservation and
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: healthy landscapes and and water and clean air, We'll sort
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: out the differences on other stuff at a different time.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to run scared and hide because someone's
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: gonna say, oh, I saw you at a meeting and
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: you were talking to so and so. Yeah, I guess
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: what so and so is concerned about productive lands just
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: like I am. It's we're in that weird time where it's,
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: you know, people want to find ways to move everyone
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: over to their own little corner. It's who can build
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: the biggest army in a little corner, rather than let's
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: build big armies, big coalitions in the middle for the
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: important things. And it's easy, it's easy to completely filter
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: your whole world into these little things, like I only
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: get news from this little, tiny viewpoint, and my whole
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: social media feed is just people think exactly what I
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: do and it's really easy to get stuck in these
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: little corners. Um, maybe even you're completely unaware of it.
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: But to your point, like last night, we were talking
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: about this, and we're talking about you know, some of
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: the things you've learned over your years, um, and just
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: the importance of always trying to be open to those
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: different perspectives and getting information from all arenas, and trying
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: to look at things objectively, from different ways of looking
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: at things. I think it's increasingly rare today but ever
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: more important to do that because it's so easy to
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: get just Yeah, I don't want to live in an
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: echo chamber where everybody says the same thing I say.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: And as we were talking last night, I engage with people.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: But if if this person sent out an email to
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: a hundred people in the outdoor world, every person would
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: delete that email. Request me. I'll email them back and say,
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: what's up, Let's let's have a discussion. Let's have some dialogue.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: Even though I know I disagree with them on of
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: the issues, I want to hear their perspectives and I
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: want them to understand the perspectives of the community I
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: come from. Whereas there there's risk in that. Uh, sometimes
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: you know the people will say, I can't believe you're
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: talking to that person, Why, why would you give any
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: feedback to that group, or blah blah blah, whatever it is.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: But I'm one of those guys who I want as
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: many perspectives as I possibly can find. And I've still
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: got my values, my principles, my why you know, my
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: my life is driven by my why why do I
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: do this? Why am I here? Why? Why am I
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: spending my time on things that's never going to change.
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that if I listen to somebody
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: who has a different, different perspective, that I agree with them.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: It means that I'm trying to learn more. I'm trying
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: to understand. And it's I think we've we've gone so
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: far away from that that everybody is afraid to engage
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: and interact with those of different ring opinions. I'm not.
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: I I enjoy it. I you know, I can accept
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: it to day. You know other I'm never going to
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: agree with this person on most things, but on that
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: thing that they might add a point. I'm also interested
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: how people outside of our community of hunters and anglers
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: view us as hunters and hunters. In English That's a
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: big part of why I engage with some of these
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: groups is how is the rest of society seeing us?
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: Because we see ourselves through a lens that if you
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: grow up hunting and fishing, you are different. You are
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: never going to see the world the way people do
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: who don't hunt and fish and are connected to those
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: landscapes and hold them to a priority that we do.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: So except the fact that we are different, we see
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: the world differently. But we are only five to ten
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: of the of the world or of our country. So
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: if you want to understand on how we're going to
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: have a future when we're that small of a minority,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: you need to be listening and reaching out to figure
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: out how do the rest of our society see us?
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: At least it's it's helpful to me, and and I
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: try to try to do that and know that there's
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: gonna be risks and I'm going to take some lumps
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: along the way for doing it, but oh well, yeah,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: But to your point, it's just inherently necessary for the future.
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: If we don't if we don't pay attention to that
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: and nurture that and be thoughtful about that perception, um,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: we don't have a future. No, we we don't, uh
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: Chaane Mahoney the Elk Foundation, and you probably saw it
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: on your feeds. He did this piece called relevance. How
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: do we stay relevant when hunters are five percent of
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: the population And anyone who hasn't seen that, I'd suggest
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: that they go and read it. It's or listen to it.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: It's what is it for me? That thing that we
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: usually posted I embedded on Wired Hunting Blood should go
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: out to Wired and hunt and and see that and
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: and just think about the fact that hey, we're five
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: we in in our country five percent. Five does not
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: control the future. You fit within that in some way,
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: shape or form based on how the other accepts you
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: or views you. Know. So, how do we keep our
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: relevance because right now we're very relevant, our our history,
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: our accomplishments, what we do for wildlife and conservation is
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: more than then what the other does per capita, and
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: maybe collect maybe more than what they do collectively. I
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: got to stay true to that communicate that we need
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: to not step outside of that um terrific heritage that
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: we have and start doing some stupid things that knock
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: down all the tremendous achievements of our our forefathers and
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: the conservations and hunters and naglers before us, And there's
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of pitfalls there. Yeah, we were not
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: gonna we don't need to get into every different but man,
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: I mean there's just and I probably talked about this
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: too much on the podcast. The probably sick of me
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: talking about it. For all this stuff, it's just it's
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: important if we want to be able to talk about
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: bear hunts, if we want to be able to talk
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: about strategies for chasing elk, if we want to talk
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: about the best way to hang a trail camera to
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: you know, pattern of mature white tail buck, we need
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: to be having these conversations and we need to be
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: caring about these things. Yeah, I just think about in
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: my lifetime. I grew up in northern Minnesota, the nearest
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: big community to us with Duluth, Minnesota. St. Louis River
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: dumps into Lake Superior in the Deluse Superior, Wisconsin area,
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: And when I was growing up, nobody ever thought of
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: fishing where the St. Louis River dumps into Lake Superior.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: And there there it was the start of so many
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: invasive non native species in the Great Lakes. The Great
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: Lakes had become. I think when the Cuyahoga River started
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: on fire in Cleveland in nineteen sixty seven, I was
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: three years old. They kind of rows our collective awareness
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: about a lot of things. But even you know, growing
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: up there and seeing how the Great Lakes were looked
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: at as a little bit of a dumping ground, uh,
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: you know, taken for granted. And what thirty years, forty
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: years of hard effort, collective sacrifice prioritizing cleaning up the
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: Great Lakes. I wonder if people now take for granted that.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: I look at how many tens of millions of people
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: live within close proximity to the Great Lakes. I wonder
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: how many of them really think back of how bad
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: at it could be and how much work it took
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: to get here. Are are we gonna stand and do
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: what it takes to keep it that way? Or are
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: we going to let the hand the time roll back?
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: Are we going to put it in reverse? And to me,
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: the Great Lakes are great picture for anyone listening to
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: just think about or going You can do some quick
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: research on it and you'll see there's no environment, no
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: ecosystem that has been probably as abused as the Great
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: Lakes or has shown such remarkable response and change to
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: smart policy, hard work and just making it a priority
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: to clean it up. And one final point on all
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: this that you know, we talked about some of the
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: ideas and proposals to roll back some of these things,
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: and lots of times. The justification for that is that
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: we need to increase job growth, we need to make
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: it easier for businesses, etcetera, etcetera. I think it's very
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: clear as our community is doing better job quantifying the
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: job and economic impact that outdoor recreation and wild productive
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: landscapes have. I think it's very clear that protecting these places,
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: managing these places properly, it is good for jobs, it
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: is good for economic growth. I'm going to get the
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: number wrong, but a new economic report was just released
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: recently from taking a look at the outdoor recreation economy,
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: and maybe you know the number, but eight d seventy
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: six billion dollars sounds like what I remember seeing something
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: like that. It was almost nine hundred billion dollars. It
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: is a tremendous, tremendous driver of economic growth of jobs
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: within across the country, whether it be specifically public lands
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: or recreation, fishing, fishing, hunting, hiking. I mean, it's a
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: tremendous job grower, grower in rural communities where some of
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: the traditional um jobs are starting to change with the
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: way the world's changing. This is this is a future.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: This is something that works now. It's going to grow
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: jobs and grow the accounting in the future. And by
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: the way, it also is what allows us to enjoy
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: this way of life. And what's more sustainable than outdoor
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: related jobs. It's it's predicated on good, healthy environments, landscapes
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: that are productive for the things we love, and people
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: make a living doing it. Last I checked, that was
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: as close to the best solution policy experts could get to.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: So why are we thinking about doing things that compromise
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: that for the sake of this little job and every
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: job if it's your job, it's not this little job,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I get it. I've seen mills, clothes, I've
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: seen the mechanization display sloggers, UM, so that when it's
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: your job, it is important. But collectively we have to
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: look at that and say, all right, how how do
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: we make a true assessment about this that doesn't discount
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: all of the outdoor benefits, all the recreation, all the
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: jobs that you just mentioned and that part of the economy.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: Because the other sides do really good jobs, do a
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: really good job of converting their activity to dollars and cents.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: We've never been that good at it. We've always relied
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: on the oh, it's for this, that's cultural at social,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: and it's all that. But what we're finding is, if
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: you want to talk numbers and jobs and economics, are
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: are things that we love. We can stand toe to
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: toe and have an equally compelling economic argument as well
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: as all these other things we talked about. And to
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: something you said earlier, this caring about these types of things,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: standing up for these types of things. It's never been convenient,
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: it's never been popular, it's never been easy, And I
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: think it's kind of encouraging. Um as I've like thought
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: about these things and and uh, you know, struggled with
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: what should I do or how do I do this?
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: Or how's this going to play? Or you know, am
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: I risking the future of what I want to do?
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: And I look back at people like Teddy Roosevelt or
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: you know, George Burgernell, or Ela Leopold or Bob Marshall.
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: Are all these different people that made a significant impact
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: on whether it be just the future of productive landscapes
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: or public lands or whatever it might be. In every
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: single instance, as I've been studying the history of this,
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: there's been tremendous, tremendous controversy. There's been tremendous blowback. There,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: wildly unpopular, there's people calling them all sorts of crazy things. Um.
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: In the short term, you're gonna get that. But history
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: is the ultimate judge. And I think as as as
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt said, you know, these things need to be preserved
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: for you know, not just those today, but in the
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: womb of time fraternity. And I think if you're focus
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: on the long term, if you're focused on the future
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: of these things, if you keep that as like a compass,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: a compassy point towards and if that's part of your why, um,
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: then I think it's okay to take your lump sometimes
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: and maybe step outside of the lines of what you're
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: buddies think you should be doing, or your political party
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: or your community. UM. I agree. Mark in the history
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: shows that. So Roosevelt, and he's always the good example
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: one because we study him in history. But he got
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: thrown out of his own party. He had to go
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: start another party. But of all of his critics at
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: the time, how many of them are on the face
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: of Mount Rushmore. How many have history judge worthy of
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: being one of the four people that represent American ideas
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: to such an extent that they're on Mount Rushmore. None
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: of his critics, you can't even and no one. You
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: would have to google it to find a name of
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: one of his critics that is of memory. Yeah. So
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: he Yeah, he was president, so he had the big,
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: big pulpit. But the point of that is it wasn't
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: easy for him. He got thrown out, he got ostracized.
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: He he was looked at as the wild wing, not
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: that western cowboy dude from the Dakotas and Montana. He's
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: got these crazy ideas about hunting and fishing and conservation.
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: We need to get rid of him, and they did.
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: But history has judged him as having a much clearer
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: vision than his critics. So that always gives me a
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: comfort because I go through those days like everybody where
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh man, I know, am I out in
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: the weeds and I'm really getting a lot of heat
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: or this? But so did other people. Yeah, just comes
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: with territory. Stand in line, take a number. There you go.
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: I think this is a I think this is a
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: good place to wrap it up. So Randy both, Now
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: you've given me another couple of hours of your time,
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: and you've given me hours and hours on the mountain.
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough. It has been a privilege
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: and honor to go bear hunting with you, to you know,
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: just have conversations like this with you. Um. You know,
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: like I said last night when we were driving back
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: from the hunt, um, you are a tremendous role model
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: for young hunters and anglers and conservations to look at
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: someone like you who is willing to stand up and
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: speak out in these things. And uh, and I respect
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: that tremendously and I appreciate that. And uh, I'm very
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: glad there's people like you for people like me to
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: learn from. Well, thank you, Mark. I appreciate all that,
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: and I appreciate what you are doing there. And I
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: told you this last night. There's cadre of and you
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: can do yourself when you say it. Hey, there's this
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: cadre of younger thinkers in the conservation and public land
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: hunting fishing world that I'm give me such great comfort
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: that Hey, we're going to be on the right path.
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: And you and your listeners and your followers, I I
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: don't think that. Maybe maybe I'm wrong, but I hope
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: they understand. Maybe that's what I should say. I hope
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: your listeners understand what an impact they're having, because I
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: have seen just in the last two or three years,
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: the needle is riding the the pivot point has come,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: and it's because of people like you. You're advocause he
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: your your listeners, your group of people that are making
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: a huge difference. And you know, if I can give
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: a couple hours of my time telling bus stories to that,
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: thanks for having me. It works out pretty well all
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: the way around. So how about next time we talk, um,
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: we'll be talking about a white tailed for a fact
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: that maybe there we go. Let's do it all right,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: and there you go. Another episode is in the books
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: and some really important topics to keep in mind. There,
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: I think, and I hope you guys found this to
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: be as inspiring and motivating as I have. You know,
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: you guys and gals, the Wired hunt community, you and me.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: Let's all keep on grinding together to protect our hunting
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: heritage and our wild lands and our wild life, because
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: if we don't do it, who will. All that said,
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: before we go big Thanks to our partners at Sick Gear,
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: Yetie Cooler's, Matthew's Archery, May Haven Optics, Whitetail Institute of
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: North America, Trophy Ridge and hunt Terra Maps, and thank
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: you for listening. I appreciate and value each and every
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: one of you. You guys are an amazing group of
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: outdoorsmen and women, and I hope you have enjoyed a
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: great spring weekend and I hope you'll stay wired to hunting.
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: Got both the best to be that