Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 922: Foundations - Why the Public Land Fight Should Matter to All Whitetail Hunters

Transcript

Ep. 922: Foundations - Why the Public Land Fight Should Matter to All Whitetail Hunters · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
0:09
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:14
Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
0:19
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hey everyone.
0:20
Speaker 3: I know last week I said I was going to
0:22
Speaker 3: talk about setting up for rut hunts in the middle
0:24
Speaker 3: of the summer, but I'm going to put that on
0:25
Speaker 3: hold for a week to talk about our recent public
0:28
Speaker 3: land fight, those sell off attempts, and why this issue
0:31
Speaker 3: should matter to all deer hunts. Well, if you haven't
0:35
Speaker 3: been living under a rock, you've probably heard about a
0:37
Speaker 3: specific senator from Utah named Mike Lee and his grand
0:41
Speaker 3: plan to sell off public land, which he finally pulled
0:45
Speaker 3: after a ton of pressure from you guys.
0:48
Speaker 2: This was a huge win.
0:49
Speaker 3: This issue has been front and center in the hunting
0:51
Speaker 3: community for a few weeks now, and it has been
0:53
Speaker 3: pretty wild.
0:54
Speaker 2: Now. The good news here is that a.
0:55
Speaker 3: Lot of hunters showed up for the fight, and both
0:58
Speaker 3: Cal and Mark here have had a huge impact on
1:00
Speaker 3: the issue in a truly positive way. But it's also
1:03
Speaker 3: something that might feel a little disconnected from the average
1:05
Speaker 3: whitetail hunter, which is fare, but it's not something we
1:07
Speaker 3: can or should ignore. And that's what I'm going to
1:10
Speaker 3: talk about right now. This is going to sound like
1:15
Speaker 3: me bragging a lot, but I don't mean it that way.
1:18
Speaker 3: I just want to list off something about my life
1:21
Speaker 3: to sort of contextualize this whole public land issue and
1:25
Speaker 3: make the case for why all of us deer hunters
1:27
Speaker 3: should be concerned not only with having land for all
1:29
Speaker 3: of us to hunt, but what it means to us
1:31
Speaker 3: at our core as Americans. Maybe that sounds a little
1:35
Speaker 3: grandiose or overly dramatic, I don't really care, so let
1:39
Speaker 3: me start with this. In the last ten years, I've
1:42
Speaker 3: hunted and killed whitetails on public land in my home
1:44
Speaker 3: state of Minnesota, across the river in Wisconsin northeast of me,
1:48
Speaker 3: in North Dakota, and then down in South Dakota, and
1:51
Speaker 3: in Nebraska and in Oklahoma and in Iowa. Some of
1:55
Speaker 3: those states, I hunted public because it was the best option,
1:58
Speaker 3: and sometimes it was because it was just an interesting
2:00
Speaker 3: option that I wanted to explore, and it's really nice
2:04
Speaker 3: to have options. Now that was just deer I've also
2:08
Speaker 3: turkey hunted all those states, or at least almost all
2:11
Speaker 3: of them on public land as well. And you can
2:13
Speaker 3: throw in Kansas into that list now since we're including gobblers.
2:17
Speaker 2: But then you have Western critters.
2:19
Speaker 3: I've personally a hunted and killed elk, mildeer, and antelope
2:21
Speaker 3: and a couple of Western states in that same timeframe,
2:24
Speaker 3: and I was really happy to have a place to
2:26
Speaker 3: hunt each and every time it was all on public Now,
2:31
Speaker 3: allow me to tap into my infomercial side here and
2:34
Speaker 3: say this, but wait, there's more. When it comes to
2:38
Speaker 3: following my dogs around trying to shoot some birds, I've
2:41
Speaker 3: hunted pheasants, grouse, woodcock, prairie chicken, sharp tails, bob white quail,
2:46
Speaker 3: and a whole host of ducks and geese on public
2:49
Speaker 3: land and the same timeframe, not to mention squirrels, cottontail, rabbits,
2:53
Speaker 3: and snowshoe hairs. In fact, I have plenty of private
2:58
Speaker 3: land places to hunt in a few different states, but
3:00
Speaker 3: I'd give them up in a heartbeat to not lose
3:03
Speaker 3: any public land opportunities.
3:05
Speaker 2: And I mean that too.
3:07
Speaker 3: Public land has been a ticket to a better life
3:10
Speaker 3: for me, and I'm not alone in that. Now, you
3:13
Speaker 3: don't have to hunt public I don't really care if
3:16
Speaker 3: you do or you don't. I know there are some
3:18
Speaker 3: hunters who think we don't need public land at all,
3:21
Speaker 3: and that the government shouldn't be in the business of
3:23
Speaker 3: owning idle recreational land. Now, it's no coincidence that most
3:27
Speaker 3: of those hunters, and probably all of them, if you
3:30
Speaker 3: really get down to it, have private places to hunt
3:33
Speaker 3: where they don't feel their access will ever be threatened.
3:36
Speaker 2: Okay, if you have that, good for you, that's great.
3:40
Speaker 3: But can you put yourself in someone else's camo knee
3:42
Speaker 3: highs and understand that not everyone owns land, or was
3:46
Speaker 3: born into some family land, or makes the money necessary
3:49
Speaker 3: to lease some ground. To me, that mentality is kind
3:53
Speaker 3: of like the anti car thing that you hear about
3:56
Speaker 3: largely in Europe but also in population centers in the
3:59
Speaker 3: United States.
4:00
Speaker 2: Dates.
4:00
Speaker 3: Some people who live in metro areas with walkable amenities
4:04
Speaker 3: think that no one really needs to own a car,
4:07
Speaker 3: let alone an evil, gas guzzling truck. But that takes
4:11
Speaker 3: an astounding level of cognitive dissonance to get behind. They
4:16
Speaker 3: can't imagine why someone would need a truck for their
4:18
Speaker 3: living or just their life. Or what it would be
4:21
Speaker 3: like to live in most of the country where you
4:23
Speaker 3: can't just ride a bike to the grocery store. Life
4:26
Speaker 3: doesn't work like that, and when we get that myopic
4:29
Speaker 3: of a view of something, it just doesn't jive with
4:31
Speaker 3: reality usually. So anyway, even if you don't hunt public
4:36
Speaker 3: land for deer or whatever critters, try to understand how
4:39
Speaker 3: that could be valuable to other hunters, let alone the
4:42
Speaker 3: non blood sport crowd that might enjoy some of the
4:46
Speaker 3: wild places we like to rome as well. Look, this
4:48
Speaker 3: is just me in my opinion, but I like public
4:51
Speaker 3: land because I like freedom. I think the ability and
4:55
Speaker 3: the opportunity to walk into thousands of acres of woods
4:59
Speaker 3: or cat or whatever is fundamental to us as humans,
5:04
Speaker 3: and without it we'd be missing something that makes us
5:08
Speaker 3: who we are. When I think about the animals I've
5:11
Speaker 3: hunted and all the fish I've tried to catch, either
5:13
Speaker 3: on public land or by accessing something through public it's
5:16
Speaker 3: not a running total of a body count. It's a
5:20
Speaker 3: hell of a lot of memories of getting to do
5:22
Speaker 3: what I want in the places I want to be
5:25
Speaker 3: the most. But I don't want to just live in
5:27
Speaker 3: the past, and that's the reason I love public land too.
5:31
Speaker 3: The prospect of planning hunts and fishing trips around public
5:34
Speaker 3: land is sort of the life force that keeps me
5:37
Speaker 3: and a lot of other outdoors minded people going every year.
5:42
Speaker 3: This season alone, I plan to hunt white tails in
5:44
Speaker 3: a couple of states on public and bird hunt a
5:46
Speaker 3: couple more. The planning behind that, the eat, scouting, the
5:50
Speaker 3: process of it all. I just love it so much,
5:53
Speaker 3: and that would go away if the public land did
5:56
Speaker 3: Without the setting. There is no show if you get
5:59
Speaker 3: my drift, And this is what I know about the
6:01
Speaker 3: public land that has been on and off the chopping
6:04
Speaker 3: block over the last few weeks.
6:06
Speaker 2: Once it goes away, it's gone.
6:09
Speaker 3: This is no different from a hell of a lot
6:10
Speaker 3: of hunting opportunities, and one of the reasons I think
6:13
Speaker 3: the resident non resident fight in a bunch of states
6:15
Speaker 3: is so dangerous because once an opportunity goes away, it
6:19
Speaker 3: generally just doesn't come back, no matter how much the
6:21
Speaker 3: conditions change. If this public land out there, scattered across
6:25
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of western states in Alaska had been
6:27
Speaker 3: sold off, it would be gone for good. I know
6:31
Speaker 3: that seems evident, but it's hard to understand the impact
6:34
Speaker 3: of something like that in the moment before it really happens,
6:37
Speaker 3: especially if it doesn't affect you personally. We could try
6:40
Speaker 3: to make up ground through walk in programs and tax
6:43
Speaker 3: incentivized programs, which we should every chance we can get,
6:47
Speaker 3: but the appetite usually isn't there in a meaningful way,
6:50
Speaker 3: and that means that while we can try to recoup
6:53
Speaker 3: some of those losses somehow, it's never going to get
6:56
Speaker 3: us back to baseline. It'll be a net loss, guaranteed.
7:00
Speaker 3: So what would have been the impact of losing three
7:02
Speaker 3: hundred thousand or three million or one point two million
7:06
Speaker 3: acres of public land. Well, it would have shifted more
7:10
Speaker 3: pressure to available spots, which would have degraded the quality of.
7:13
Speaker 2: The hunts on those spots to some level.
7:16
Speaker 3: It would have put more pressure on leasing prices and
7:19
Speaker 3: recreational land prices, which both favor the well healed but
7:23
Speaker 3: not so much the rest of us. So there would
7:25
Speaker 3: have been some residual loss of all hunting ground, even
7:29
Speaker 3: for some hunters who didn't hunt public land at all.
7:32
Speaker 3: That would be bad enough if this would have somehow
7:35
Speaker 3: been a magical, one off event. But the precedent is
7:38
Speaker 3: what scares the shit out of so many of us,
7:41
Speaker 3: just like that resident non resident fight I already mentioned
7:44
Speaker 3: and will again toward the end of this rant. Once
7:47
Speaker 3: some people with some power over others figure out how
7:49
Speaker 3: to use it to their advantage, it becomes almost like
7:52
Speaker 3: a contagion.
7:53
Speaker 2: You know.
7:53
Speaker 3: It might slow down at certain points, but it never
7:55
Speaker 3: seems to stop. This goes both for the general complaints
7:59
Speaker 3: and the fix, which benefits some hunters but removes opportunities
8:02
Speaker 3: from others. Once we have the template for this kind
8:05
Speaker 3: of thing, it's very repeatable and will be repeated.
8:09
Speaker 2: So this isn't a one off deal.
8:11
Speaker 3: And honestly, it's a fight that's going to keep coming
8:13
Speaker 3: up until enough people don't care about it to challenge
8:16
Speaker 3: it anymore. Is that a risk we should have taken.
8:19
Speaker 3: I don't think so, and I know a lot of
8:21
Speaker 3: you don't think so as well. There are some things
8:23
Speaker 3: that are just too valuable to some of us to
8:26
Speaker 3: let them go without a fight, and public Land is
8:28
Speaker 3: one of them. Will we lose this fight eventually, I
8:32
Speaker 3: don't know. I kind of believe so, but that's not
8:35
Speaker 3: good enough of a reason to be dismissive of it.
8:38
Speaker 2: Now.
8:39
Speaker 3: This is probably a good time to point something else
8:41
Speaker 3: up with this issue, too, which is that we are
8:44
Speaker 3: constantly actively being divided all the time. We see this
8:59
Speaker 3: political which is a huge issue in and of itself.
9:02
Speaker 3: With the public land selloff thing, you kind of just
9:04
Speaker 3: have to pick a side in it. And once we
9:06
Speaker 3: pick sides on one issue, it's human nature to paint
9:09
Speaker 3: ourselves all on one team or another, and that sucks bad.
9:12
Speaker 3: You can love public land and you can love guns
9:15
Speaker 3: and not be so tribal as to lose your voice
9:18
Speaker 3: in the fear that you'll be considered one of us
9:20
Speaker 3: or one of them. That division leaks through into hunting
9:23
Speaker 3: in a million different ways. And it's easy to throw
9:25
Speaker 3: your hands up and say that something like this doesn't
9:27
Speaker 3: really matter because it's all going to shit anyway.
9:30
Speaker 2: But it's not. And I don't care if your number one.
9:32
Speaker 3: Issue is I don't know too many wolves in your
9:34
Speaker 3: state or too much overcrowding on public land according to
9:37
Speaker 3: your standard of who should be out there, and when
9:40
Speaker 3: I don't care right now that the bird watchers and
9:42
Speaker 3: the mountain bikers don't really foot the bill for a
9:44
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff the way we do. Those issues
9:47
Speaker 3: are all real, all valid and all worth discussion and debate,
9:51
Speaker 3: But without the places to go to do the things
9:53
Speaker 3: that might be affected by those issues, it doesn't matter
9:56
Speaker 3: as much. The fight to keep the land ours should
10:00
Speaker 3: take precedence over those issues that only really exist because
10:03
Speaker 3: we have the land in the first place. Now, I
10:05
Speaker 3: know these issues aren't that simple, and I'm glossing over
10:08
Speaker 3: some of the nuance, but you get my drift. We
10:11
Speaker 3: can fight about a lot of stuff later, but for now,
10:13
Speaker 3: it's a good idea to consider what has to be
10:15
Speaker 3: done to keep this land open to all of us
10:17
Speaker 3: in the future. And it's also important to acknowledge what
10:20
Speaker 3: this means to the average white tail hunter right now.
10:23
Speaker 2: Not much.
10:24
Speaker 3: I mean that most of us wouldn't miss a beat
10:27
Speaker 3: if one point two million acres of BLM land had
10:30
Speaker 3: gotten sold out west this year, we wouldn't A handful
10:35
Speaker 3: of us will lose antelope spots or elk spots, maybe
10:38
Speaker 3: a place to hunt mule deer, but mostly it wouldn't
10:40
Speaker 3: matter to most of us at all. But how about
10:42
Speaker 3: that national forest you might hunt or a lot of
10:45
Speaker 3: the hunters in your state do hunt, but you don't
10:47
Speaker 3: because that could be next maybe not this year. Or
10:51
Speaker 3: in the next decade. But when we start placing more
10:53
Speaker 3: value on land being in private hands than in the
10:56
Speaker 3: public trust, we are going to give bad ideas to
10:59
Speaker 3: politicians all across the country. And if not the national forest,
11:03
Speaker 3: perhaps it's the state wildlife management areas. The Western stuff
11:08
Speaker 3: is sort of the canary and the coal mine here
11:10
Speaker 3: in a lot of those states, there's a lot of
11:12
Speaker 3: land and not a lot of people. When you have
11:15
Speaker 3: an abundance of something, it's easy to try to devalue.
11:18
Speaker 2: It, especially if you don't use it. But there's a
11:20
Speaker 2: slow creep to.
11:21
Speaker 3: Things like that, and it'll eventually make its way to
11:24
Speaker 3: the east, and when it does, a lot of Western
11:27
Speaker 3: politicians will have already navigated the waters enough to provide
11:30
Speaker 3: other politicians with an effective route to take on this topic.
11:34
Speaker 3: Just think about how much of a pain in the
11:36
Speaker 3: ass old Mike Lee has been with just his three
11:39
Speaker 3: recent attempts to sell off public. Imagine even a handful
11:43
Speaker 3: of politicians east of the Mississippi trying the same thing.
11:46
Speaker 3: It'll be death by a thousand paper cuts, and it'll
11:49
Speaker 3: kill off a hell of a lot of hunting opportunities. Now,
11:51
Speaker 3: even if the odds seem low right now, they aren't
11:55
Speaker 3: zero and the prospect of losing land this way should
11:58
Speaker 3: scare all of us, and you a warning and beat
12:01
Speaker 3: an absolute dead horse just a little bit more. This
12:05
Speaker 3: is one of those moments in our hunting culture where
12:08
Speaker 3: you hear the rallying cry that straight out of Pink
12:10
Speaker 3: Floyd's song Hey you, We're right at the end as
12:14
Speaker 3: they fade into the outro, Roger Waters sings united, we stand, divided,
12:19
Speaker 3: we fall, We are united in a way right now
12:22
Speaker 3: that I haven't seen in a long time over this
12:24
Speaker 3: public land issue, and it gives me a hell of
12:27
Speaker 3: a lot of hope, it really does. I honestly can't
12:30
Speaker 3: tell you how much I appreciate guys like Cal and
12:33
Speaker 3: Mark getting after this issue with their audiences and really
12:36
Speaker 3: pushing the message and how important this is while giving
12:39
Speaker 3: a simple call to action that absolutely makes a big
12:43
Speaker 3: positive difference.
12:45
Speaker 2: It's huge, truly.
12:47
Speaker 3: But remember how I said I wasn't done addressing the
12:50
Speaker 3: resident non resident issue earlier. Here's the thing. This is
12:53
Speaker 3: a Western issue first. Mostly it just is and it
12:57
Speaker 3: will be until it's not. But for now, there are
13:00
Speaker 3: a hell of a lot of us who live where
13:02
Speaker 3: the elevation is about eight hundred feet and that's it.
13:05
Speaker 3: And we called Mike Lee and left him messages telling
13:08
Speaker 3: him how important public land was to us, and at
13:12
Speaker 3: least in my case, how I was going to create
13:14
Speaker 3: a podcast to talk about how misguided he is when
13:17
Speaker 3: it comes to the issues, so that our listeners can
13:20
Speaker 3: learn about his motivations. This is because we are united
13:23
Speaker 3: right now, riding the high that comes with a big win,
13:26
Speaker 3: that feels like real, actual justice.
13:29
Speaker 2: But I wonder how long.
13:30
Speaker 3: It'll take before we get back to our old selves.
13:32
Speaker 3: As I said, this fight is going to keep coming up.
13:36
Speaker 3: Right now, we are largely in this together, But the
13:38
Speaker 3: more a lot of us are told we are no
13:40
Speaker 3: longer welcome in this state or that state to hunt
13:43
Speaker 3: this or that critter, it's going to start to wear
13:45
Speaker 3: on our unity. You want me to fight for your
13:48
Speaker 3: public land and your state, I will, A lot of
13:52
Speaker 3: us will. But when we also actively remove hunting opportunities
13:56
Speaker 3: from our fellow outdoorsman, we are actively removing some pieces
14:00
Speaker 3: of that collective voice. At some point, enough hunters who
14:04
Speaker 3: don't live where you do and who will never get
14:07
Speaker 3: to hunt the animals that you hunt, even on federally
14:10
Speaker 3: owned land, in your state, They're going to become apathetic
14:13
Speaker 3: to the cause, and when that happens, the dominoes will
14:16
Speaker 3: start to fall more often and more quickly. We can't
14:20
Speaker 3: preach unity now and then engage in so much division
14:23
Speaker 3: later without suffering some of the consequences. It just won't
14:27
Speaker 3: work long term. And while we have just won this fight,
14:31
Speaker 3: we got to pay attention to this stuff because it's
14:33
Speaker 3: not going to go away. I want to feel like
14:36
Speaker 3: I need to fight for this until I'm dead, and
14:38
Speaker 3: I want my kids to feel that this is a
14:40
Speaker 3: torch that's worthy of picking up and carrying. But I
14:43
Speaker 3: also know how easy it is to decide a fight
14:46
Speaker 3: is not your fight, especially when you've been removed from
14:49
Speaker 3: something you love because other people who love the same
14:51
Speaker 3: thing have a way to take it from you.
14:53
Speaker 2: We just have to be careful with this shit.
14:56
Speaker 3: We should use this moment to pause and at least
14:58
Speaker 3: think about our future as hunters together and what that
15:01
Speaker 3: might mean for us as far as land usage, land ownership,
15:05
Speaker 3: and general hunting opportunities. A win now is huge, but
15:10
Speaker 3: how we set ourselves up for the next fight matters too.
15:13
Speaker 2: Now.
15:13
Speaker 3: I know this sounds like wishy washy, horseshit, But I
15:16
Speaker 3: think we are better off unified in about every possible way.
15:20
Speaker 2: I know.
15:20
Speaker 3: We disagree on crossbows versus vertical bows versus traditional bows,
15:24
Speaker 3: and baiting versus not baiting, and trophy hunting versus meat hunting,
15:29
Speaker 3: and about a million other issues that at the end
15:31
Speaker 3: of the day might mean a hell of a lot
15:33
Speaker 3: to our time in the field, or might just be
15:36
Speaker 3: something we like to argue about. Because we have strong
15:38
Speaker 3: opinions on this deer hunting thing that we are so
15:40
Speaker 3: passionate about, we can argue and disagree when we have to,
15:44
Speaker 3: but we should be keenly aware of our collective voice.
15:47
Speaker 3: It's quite literally the thing that just kept that land
15:50
Speaker 3: in our hands for now, and that benefits a hell
15:54
Speaker 3: of a lot of us directly and the hell of
15:57
Speaker 3: a lot more of us indirectly. Let's try not to
16:00
Speaker 3: forget what we are capable of as a largely unified group.
16:04
Speaker 3: We as hunters are treated like clueless bubbas and heartless
16:07
Speaker 3: murderers in the media all the time. We are written
16:10
Speaker 3: off as a dying demographic, kindred to cave men and
16:13
Speaker 3: women who haven't quite evolved enough to do the ethical
16:17
Speaker 3: thing which I guess is have someone else kill animals
16:20
Speaker 3: for us in an industrial building far away from the
16:23
Speaker 3: eyes of general society, so we can eat them with
16:26
Speaker 3: a guilt free conscience. We just proved we are so
16:31
Speaker 3: much more than that, and that's amazing to me. Let's
16:34
Speaker 3: keep this momentum moving in the right direction by at
16:38
Speaker 3: least remembering what it took to get us to coalesce
16:41
Speaker 3: into the kind of group that wouldn't give up the
16:44
Speaker 3: fight and who all threw our middle fingers in the
16:47
Speaker 3: air and pointed them in the direction of a specific
16:49
Speaker 3: politician who thought he could take something from us that
16:53
Speaker 3: didn't belong to him. So wrap this up, I want
16:56
Speaker 3: to offer us sincere thanks to everyone who may aid
17:00
Speaker 3: the call to the Capitol switchboard or who did something
17:04
Speaker 3: somehow to get the word out. My kids, thank you
17:07
Speaker 3: and so do I.
17:10
Speaker 2: That's it for this week. I'm Tony Peterson.
17:12
Speaker 3: This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast, which
17:15
Speaker 3: is brought to you by First Light. As always, thank
17:18
Speaker 3: you so much for listening and for all of your support.
17:21
Speaker 3: If you want some more deer hunting advice, you know,
17:24
Speaker 3: maybe read some articles, some other podcasts, Maybe you just
17:28
Speaker 3: want to hear some good old storytelling over on the
17:31
Speaker 3: Bear Grease Speed We've got Klay's Bear Grease podcast obviously,
17:36
Speaker 3: which is amazing. But then you got Brent Reeves over there,
17:38
Speaker 3: who's a national treasure telling stories every week on This
17:42
Speaker 3: Country Life. Or the new podcast by my buddy Lake
17:46
Speaker 3: Pickle called Backwoods University, that's just fascinating. He's doing a
17:50
Speaker 3: great job with it. Go check those out. Check out
17:52
Speaker 3: the new films we're dropping whatever. We have tons of
17:55
Speaker 3: new content going down every single week at the mediator
17:59
Speaker 3: dot com.
18:00
Speaker 2: Zig in for your support.
18:05
Speaker 3: M