Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 275: Solving the Hunter Recruitment Crisis

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Ep. 275: Solving the Hunter Recruitment Crisis · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:12
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm
0:17
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon in this episode number two and
0:20
Speaker 1: seventy and today in the show, I'm joined by two men,
0:24
Speaker 1: Hank Forrester and Charles Evans, who I believe it tapped
0:26
Speaker 1: into one of the best ideas yet for helping us
0:29
Speaker 1: solve the hunter recruitment crisis. All right, welcome to the
0:34
Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx and
0:37
Speaker 1: today an joined by Hank Forrester of the Quality Deer
0:40
Speaker 1: Management Association and Charles Evans from the Georgia Wildlife Federation
0:45
Speaker 1: to talk about one of the most critical issues facing
0:48
Speaker 1: our hunting community. Now you're probably aware of this, but
0:52
Speaker 1: if not, here's the quick scoop. Hunter numbers have been
0:55
Speaker 1: dropping dramatically over the last decade or two, and demographic
0:58
Speaker 1: trends indicate that this is just going to continue to
1:01
Speaker 1: happen as large chunks of the current hunting population reach
1:04
Speaker 1: older ages and stop hunting, and then other Americans in
1:07
Speaker 1: general continue to become more urbanized and out of touch
1:10
Speaker 1: with the hunting tradition. This means we're looking at a
1:13
Speaker 1: hunter population in the future that's going to be seriously dwindling.
1:17
Speaker 1: And we already comprise less than five percent of the
1:19
Speaker 1: American population, and that number is just gonna get smaller
1:23
Speaker 1: and smaller, and the smaller numbers get, the less influence
1:26
Speaker 1: we're going to have on the future of wild places,
1:29
Speaker 1: wild animals, and the opportunity to hunt them. This is
1:32
Speaker 1: a big, big deal, And fortunately, my guests today think
1:37
Speaker 1: they've found a way to help us stop the bleeding,
1:40
Speaker 1: and I think they're onto something. Hanky Charles has begun
1:42
Speaker 1: piloting and spreading a mentorship program they're calling Field to
1:45
Speaker 1: Fork that's helping introduce adults to shooting, hunting, and preparing
1:49
Speaker 1: wild game, and they're having some very encouraging results. And
1:53
Speaker 1: not only that, but they're also starting to gen up
1:55
Speaker 1: interest from the non hunting world too, with press coverage
1:58
Speaker 1: in places like the Waltz A Journal, Fox News, UM,
2:02
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of places that are now talking about
2:05
Speaker 1: what these guys are up to and how they're hoping
2:07
Speaker 1: new people come into our hunting community. So today I
2:10
Speaker 1: pulled Hank and Charles onto the podcast to help us
2:12
Speaker 1: better understand why this all matters, help us understand what
2:15
Speaker 1: they've created with the field before program, and finally, how
2:19
Speaker 1: all of us can help do our own part by
2:20
Speaker 1: mentoring a new hunter this year. So, man, this is
2:24
Speaker 1: some really important stuff. I hope you enjoy this chat,
2:27
Speaker 1: but I also hope you are inspired to join me
2:30
Speaker 1: in this mission. So without further ado, let's take a
2:33
Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll get to chatting with Hank
2:36
Speaker 1: and Charles. All right with me on the line now,
2:40
Speaker 1: I've got Hank Forster and Charles Evans. Thank you, gentlemen
2:44
Speaker 1: for joining me, Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you Bart. Yeah,
2:47
Speaker 1: I have wanted to talk about this topic that we're
2:54
Speaker 1: gonna cover today, hunter recruitment and all sorts of things
2:57
Speaker 1: related to what kind of generically is is labeled our three. UM.
3:01
Speaker 1: I've wanted to cover this in more depth for a while.
3:04
Speaker 1: It's something that's that's both important, UM at a macro
3:08
Speaker 1: level and then on on a micro level to me personally,
3:11
Speaker 1: it's been something that UM, I've recognized that I've been
3:15
Speaker 1: a lot of talk and not a lot of walk
3:17
Speaker 1: on them. I haven't done as good of a job
3:19
Speaker 1: as I need to when it comes to participating in
3:22
Speaker 1: these kinds of things. So I have kind of made
3:25
Speaker 1: a promise to myself this year that not only going
3:27
Speaker 1: to try to talk about this stuff a little bit more,
3:30
Speaker 1: you know, with folks like you and with our audience,
3:32
Speaker 1: but I also want to find some ways to actually
3:33
Speaker 1: get out there and do this myself. So so I
3:35
Speaker 1: guess I bring all this up to say I need
3:39
Speaker 1: some accountability partners. So Hank and Charles, can you be
3:42
Speaker 1: my accountability partners this year and make sure that I
3:45
Speaker 1: not just listen to what you guys have to say
3:47
Speaker 1: about this stuff today, but then I actually do it.
3:48
Speaker 1: Can you guys like shoot me an angry text message
3:50
Speaker 1: if I don't follow up on this stuff. We can
3:53
Speaker 1: absolutely hold you accountable. And you know that the admission
3:56
Speaker 1: is the first step to recovery. So um, you're on
4:00
Speaker 1: your way, well on your way. I appreciate the kind
4:03
Speaker 1: words to kick it off, and I guess, Hank, um,
4:06
Speaker 1: can you can you just give us a little bit
4:09
Speaker 1: of quick rundown, like a cliff Notes introduction to to
4:13
Speaker 1: who you are and what you're doing with with the
4:15
Speaker 1: q D MAY and programs like what we're talking about here,
4:17
Speaker 1: that absolutely. I'm Hank Forster. I'm the Hunting Heritage Programs
4:21
Speaker 1: Manager for the Quality Deer Management Association or q d
4:25
Speaker 1: m A, and I think most of your listeners know.
4:28
Speaker 1: You know, we're a national conservation nonprofit that specializes in
4:31
Speaker 1: white tail deer, but overseeing the hunting heritage programs. UM,
4:35
Speaker 1: you know, working on anything related to hunter recruitment are three, Um,
4:40
Speaker 1: you know, anything to educate a new hunter, to advocate
4:45
Speaker 1: for you know, first time and novice programs and programs
4:49
Speaker 1: that are members run. Um. But it's fairly an extended
4:53
Speaker 1: segment of our work at q d m A, and
4:57
Speaker 1: a really rewarding one as well. But UM, that's kind
5:00
Speaker 1: what I ever see a key you may? Okay, Charles,
5:02
Speaker 1: what about you? Charles Evans? I worked for the Georgia
5:05
Speaker 1: Wildlife Federation. I'm the George R three coordinator and we'll
5:09
Speaker 1: get into more of what that is and then I'm
5:11
Speaker 1: sure and some of the partners the position. But I
5:14
Speaker 1: got into wildlife originally because I love to hunt, and
5:18
Speaker 1: so I went through school and I got two degrees
5:21
Speaker 1: and a lot of my biology, specifically dear biology, and
5:26
Speaker 1: from there I got heavily involved in the research realm.
5:29
Speaker 1: And when this R three movement started really getting some
5:34
Speaker 1: momentum behind it and positions started popping up, I jumped
5:38
Speaker 1: at the chance to get back into the reason I
5:41
Speaker 1: got into natural resources in the first place, which is
5:43
Speaker 1: because I like to hunt. So now my position revolves
5:48
Speaker 1: around increasing hunting participation in societal acceptance of hunting, specifically
5:53
Speaker 1: in Georgia. But I worked at the national level as well. Okay, okay,
5:57
Speaker 1: So so then let's just expand on that. Then you, Charles,
6:00
Speaker 1: give us a high level overview of what you mean
6:04
Speaker 1: when you say are three. So, so what's our three?
6:07
Speaker 1: And then why is this something that's that's been particularly
6:10
Speaker 1: important recently? Yeah, So our three is recruitment, retention and
6:14
Speaker 1: reactivation um. And it's been around for quite some time now,
6:19
Speaker 1: almost ten years. I think at first it was just
6:23
Speaker 1: our two basically recommend retention, and then that reactivation was
6:27
Speaker 1: added on the backside. But our three popped up because
6:32
Speaker 1: we've seen a decline in hunting participation since about the
6:35
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties in this country. And the issue with that,
6:39
Speaker 1: I mean, aside from losing one of the most primal
6:43
Speaker 1: pastimes out there that we have left, you know, Losing
6:47
Speaker 1: hunters directly affects our conservation funding and so the wildlife
6:52
Speaker 1: conservation work that we can do on the ground around
6:55
Speaker 1: the country. And I think you talked about the funding
6:57
Speaker 1: model before on some of your podcasts. Um So that's
7:01
Speaker 1: very important. But when we say are three, we're talking
7:04
Speaker 1: about basically the process by which somebody self identifies as
7:10
Speaker 1: a hunter. So you start with that recruitment stage where
7:13
Speaker 1: you become aware and interested in hunting, and maybe you
7:16
Speaker 1: have a trial opportunity somebody like yourself take somebody out
7:20
Speaker 1: hunting for the first time, and then they would either
7:24
Speaker 1: decide to continue hunting, maybe they get another opportunity to
7:27
Speaker 1: go and they're retained with support from somebody else, and
7:30
Speaker 1: ultimately they end up being retained without support and self
7:34
Speaker 1: identify as a hunter at that point. And then you
7:37
Speaker 1: might lapse at some point where you you have a kid,
7:39
Speaker 1: or you go to school or whatever it might be,
7:42
Speaker 1: and then if you got back into hunting after lapsing,
7:45
Speaker 1: that would be what we call reactivation. Um So, that's
7:49
Speaker 1: the the whole process of it and the issue that
7:54
Speaker 1: we're running into. Uh, you know, we have this culture
7:58
Speaker 1: of hunting in the United States that was formed by
8:01
Speaker 1: a lot of the rural traditions and values that that
8:05
Speaker 1: we're traditionally held in our country. And that's still kind
8:10
Speaker 1: of the culture of hunting today, but the society, the
8:13
Speaker 1: culture of society in general the United States, has shifted,
8:16
Speaker 1: and hunters themselves it's not not really shifted with that.
8:21
Speaker 1: And so we're seeing a lot of urbanization u values
8:25
Speaker 1: changed a lot, and the culture of hunting not keeping
8:27
Speaker 1: up and not adapting with that. And so we we
8:31
Speaker 1: have a lot of people that are now raising their
8:34
Speaker 1: kids in inner cities and they didn't grow up hunting,
8:36
Speaker 1: so they're not teaching their kids how to hunt, and
8:39
Speaker 1: we lose that traditional pathway of mom, dad, your uncle,
8:43
Speaker 1: whoever it was, teaches you how to hunt from a
8:45
Speaker 1: young age and it's just part of life. I mean,
8:47
Speaker 1: you almost don't have a choice at some point right
8:49
Speaker 1: when you're growing up. And now we have we have
8:53
Speaker 1: all of these different audiences that might be interested in
8:57
Speaker 1: hunting but didn't have that avenue to pursue it when
9:00
Speaker 1: they were younger, and now they're adults and you know,
9:03
Speaker 1: they still don't have an avenue or they might be
9:05
Speaker 1: embarrassed to ask one of their friends and only five
9:08
Speaker 1: percent of the US hunts, so there's not a whole
9:10
Speaker 1: lot of people out there. Um, somebody might know that hunt.
9:14
Speaker 1: So it's run into this issue. So when we talk
9:17
Speaker 1: about our three, we're talking about all of the efforts
9:19
Speaker 1: were using to try to increase hunting participation societal acceptance
9:24
Speaker 1: of hunting. So it might be anything from just some
9:27
Speaker 1: marketing efforts to try to uh make society see hunting
9:31
Speaker 1: as an activity that might be relevant to them, to
9:34
Speaker 1: an all encompassing program like Field the Fork that we're
9:37
Speaker 1: going to talk about later, where we actually teach people
9:39
Speaker 1: how to hunt. So so, like you mentioned, this kind
9:43
Speaker 1: of idea of of our three or our two is
9:46
Speaker 1: maybe it kicked off like a decade ago or so.
9:48
Speaker 1: I feel like I've been following along um and been
9:51
Speaker 1: aware of these kinds of efforts. Do you think that
9:56
Speaker 1: are we failing when it comes to our three at
9:58
Speaker 1: a high level like this this people have known there's
10:01
Speaker 1: this demographic shift, this cultural shift. We've been talking about
10:04
Speaker 1: it for a while now, and it's not been like
10:06
Speaker 1: a secret. There's been big media outlets talking about the
10:08
Speaker 1: importance of trying to get more hunters out there and
10:11
Speaker 1: trying to do all these things, but we're still here
10:14
Speaker 1: ten years later talking about the same stuff, and that
10:17
Speaker 1: the numbers have not improved dramatically. We had a little
10:20
Speaker 1: bump up a handful of years ago with one of
10:22
Speaker 1: the surveys, but now I feel like the most recent
10:24
Speaker 1: one came out again, we're backed down. Um, how would
10:28
Speaker 1: you quantify or or qualify the efforts to this point? Um,
10:34
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna tiptoe around us one a little bit
10:37
Speaker 1: because I'm scared. Well, I'm just kidding. I mean, we
10:44
Speaker 1: are failing to an extent, and we certainly were a
10:47
Speaker 1: few years ago. Um. You know, state agencies and federal
10:51
Speaker 1: agencies are the majority of the organizations that are are
10:56
Speaker 1: handling a lot of the wildlife management and trying to
10:59
Speaker 1: recruit hunters, and the United States, at least that's that's
11:03
Speaker 1: how it was, you know. And they're the ones that
11:05
Speaker 1: manage the resource ultimately and set the regulations and the
11:09
Speaker 1: hunting licenses and everything else. And government can be extremely
11:13
Speaker 1: slow to change and adapt. Um, but they are starting
11:17
Speaker 1: to catch up. And evidence of that is is just
11:21
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm sitting here talking to you. You know,
11:24
Speaker 1: when I started this role in December, I was the
11:28
Speaker 1: first state R three coordinator to ever be hired on
11:32
Speaker 1: in the nation. And now I think there's over what
11:36
Speaker 1: forty different states tank with our three coordinators. Now that's
11:40
Speaker 1: a good question. It's it's something. It's over thirty now.
11:43
Speaker 1: But it's growing like wildfire. So this is a growing field,
11:47
Speaker 1: and organizations, including the state federal agencies and all of
11:51
Speaker 1: the industry partners and the non governmental organizations like KDUMA
11:55
Speaker 1: and George Wildlife Federation are really starting to step up
11:59
Speaker 1: to the plate and try to produce solutions to this.
12:03
Speaker 1: But we are a little bit behind on that however.
12:06
Speaker 1: You know you mentioned some of the survey data. Yes,
12:10
Speaker 1: nationally we've gone down, but in some individual states we've
12:14
Speaker 1: been going up. In Georgia's one of those examples, we've
12:17
Speaker 1: been trending upwards in participation numbers since two thousand nine. So, Hank,
12:23
Speaker 1: what would you add? I would I would say that
12:26
Speaker 1: we are failing. Um. I think we're making strides. I
12:30
Speaker 1: think there's been cultural changes within state agencies. We've seen
12:35
Speaker 1: some shifts in the way we do business, you know,
12:38
Speaker 1: in terms of hunting license cells and availability of them. UM.
12:43
Speaker 1: But currently less than five percent of Americans hunt. We
12:47
Speaker 1: but we have this culture you know, I fear and
12:51
Speaker 1: I think it's true that hunters have become insular. You
12:55
Speaker 1: talked to hunters today, and of course you're going to
12:58
Speaker 1: get the other too many hunters. You know, there's not
13:02
Speaker 1: a decline in hunters where I hunt. Um, you know,
13:05
Speaker 1: you're gonna of course get some of that. But also
13:09
Speaker 1: you get this, well everybody I know who everybody I
13:13
Speaker 1: know hunts And it's like, well, if four and a
13:16
Speaker 1: half percent of the US population, you know, sixteen or
13:19
Speaker 1: older hunt, there's no way that everybody you know hunts.
13:23
Speaker 1: So are we choosing not to discuss hunting in front
13:26
Speaker 1: of audiences that we might not know or accepting of it? Um?
13:32
Speaker 1: But you know, I think we can make great strides
13:36
Speaker 1: very quickly in the R three real if it of
13:40
Speaker 1: all hunters you know in the United States today mentor
13:43
Speaker 1: a new hunter this year, we wouldn't be talking about
13:46
Speaker 1: the decline next year. So it's an easily fixable problem.
13:51
Speaker 1: But it's going to create, um, you know, a concise effort, uh,
13:56
Speaker 1: you know, kind of rebranding and remarketing hunting um and
14:01
Speaker 1: of course taking down a lot of the barriers that
14:03
Speaker 1: we've created, um. But you know, hunting appeals to large audiences,
14:08
Speaker 1: and we know from poles that over eighty percent of
14:12
Speaker 1: Americans approve of hunting for food, and so few are
14:16
Speaker 1: doing it four and a half percent maybe, So there's
14:20
Speaker 1: low hanging frood. There's opportunity out there. But we've got
14:23
Speaker 1: to figure out how to create a lot more hunters, UM,
14:28
Speaker 1: and we all have to understand the consequences of becoming
14:31
Speaker 1: a vast minority or becoming um, you know, less relevant
14:36
Speaker 1: in society. Yeah, I think that last point is is
14:41
Speaker 1: so important. I mean to you, you said it. You
14:44
Speaker 1: get this comment from a lot of folks saying, well,
14:46
Speaker 1: I don't see an issue that they're not big enough
14:48
Speaker 1: hunters where I am, or people saying well, I'd like
14:51
Speaker 1: it if there's less hunters because that mean less competition
14:53
Speaker 1: for land access and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I already have
14:56
Speaker 1: too many people hunting right next to me or trespassing
14:59
Speaker 1: or doing and this are doing that, um so so selfishly.
15:03
Speaker 1: A lot of times we kind of wish we had,
15:05
Speaker 1: you know, the twenty acre piece of public land all
15:08
Speaker 1: to ourselves, or wish that there wasn't someone posted up
15:10
Speaker 1: all around our private property or whatever it might be.
15:13
Speaker 1: But like you said, there are serious consequences to dwindling
15:19
Speaker 1: numbers of hunters that you know, it's just worth repeating
15:22
Speaker 1: and kind of pounding in our heads because it's it's
15:24
Speaker 1: some serious ship, like this is not some small issue,
15:29
Speaker 1: and I'll kind of let me I'll lay out the
15:31
Speaker 1: high level and that I'd love for you guys to
15:33
Speaker 1: maybe drill into this a little bit more. But I
15:36
Speaker 1: think Charles you alluded to it's number one, you've got
15:38
Speaker 1: a funding issue. Hunter license sales fund a tremendous amount
15:43
Speaker 1: of wildlife conservation, habitat related work. So the stuff that
15:47
Speaker 1: that keeps our states are in a state, wildlife agencies
15:51
Speaker 1: functioning and keeping quality habit out there and managing these
15:55
Speaker 1: resources that is primarily funded by hunters. So if hunter
15:59
Speaker 1: lis and sales continue to go down, that funding goes down,
16:03
Speaker 1: the quality of care we can provide to the resource
16:06
Speaker 1: goes down. It grossly simplified. That is one big issue.
16:10
Speaker 1: And then number two on the pr issue side, the
16:15
Speaker 1: fewer hunters that we have, the smaller number of advocates
16:20
Speaker 1: there are in the country for this way of life,
16:23
Speaker 1: for the privileges and rights that we have as hunters.
16:26
Speaker 1: So I think anyone if you pay attention to the
16:29
Speaker 1: news a couple of times a year, something horrible pops
16:32
Speaker 1: up in the media that gets blown all across the
16:36
Speaker 1: web and sometimes the mainstream media and gives hunters a
16:40
Speaker 1: really bad name. And you can look at the c
16:42
Speaker 1: cele Line incident, so many other things over the years
16:46
Speaker 1: where we just as a as a whole community, we
16:48
Speaker 1: get skewered by one bad apple or one bad thing
16:50
Speaker 1: that even maybe it wasn't maybe as missed, our presented,
16:52
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, there are these things that can
16:55
Speaker 1: very quickly change public opinion about something ing um that
17:01
Speaker 1: can lead to real changes that negatively impact us or
17:04
Speaker 1: the things we care about, just based off a one
17:07
Speaker 1: bad pr incident. If we have fewer and fewer people
17:10
Speaker 1: out there that can stand up and say, hey, this
17:12
Speaker 1: is the real deal, this is what hunting really is like,
17:14
Speaker 1: or this is what I've experienced. If we have not
17:17
Speaker 1: even just hunters, but hunters, and then people have a
17:19
Speaker 1: positive experience with hunters. If that number keeps dwindling, you know,
17:25
Speaker 1: just more and more opportunity for our privileges to to disappear.
17:29
Speaker 1: So that is like at the highest level the things
17:32
Speaker 1: that scare me about this um. But I very simplified that,
17:37
Speaker 1: Hanker Charles. Would you guys add anything more as to
17:40
Speaker 1: why this matters um to the future of what we
17:43
Speaker 1: all love to do? Well? Can I can I just
17:45
Speaker 1: jump in and reiterate, you know you talk about one
17:47
Speaker 1: bad apple. We have to remember what I said earlier.
17:52
Speaker 1: We are fortunate to you know, we are seeing some
17:56
Speaker 1: of the highest public approval rates of hunting in the
18:00
Speaker 1: country that have ever been documented of Americans improvement hunting
18:04
Speaker 1: for food. But we also need to be cognizant. You know,
18:09
Speaker 1: Charles touched on our three as a marketing you know,
18:12
Speaker 1: it's it's marketing, it's it's a culture thing. I'm the
18:16
Speaker 1: guy at cutium May who says, remember, think about what
18:21
Speaker 1: you post or what you're doing. How is of Americans
18:26
Speaker 1: that don't hunt gonna perceive it or view it? And
18:29
Speaker 1: so you know from you know q May as an example,
18:32
Speaker 1: if people go to our website, I want them to
18:35
Speaker 1: look at it and say, if they're not a hunter,
18:38
Speaker 1: say it's not for me. But these people are doing
18:41
Speaker 1: good and I want them to support it. And it's
18:44
Speaker 1: the same thing when you're talking about hunting or you're
18:46
Speaker 1: sharing hunting, we see this one person, this bad apple,
18:51
Speaker 1: do something in this public outcride, and then we assume
18:56
Speaker 1: that we have to be on the defensive or we
18:59
Speaker 1: have to be quiet and not show what we're doing.
19:03
Speaker 1: But what it really means is that we need to
19:05
Speaker 1: be cognizant of being respectful and and showing hunting in
19:10
Speaker 1: a good light and making sure that that we're a
19:14
Speaker 1: good ambassador for what we love to do. And so
19:19
Speaker 1: that's really what the public needs to remember. But you're
19:21
Speaker 1: you know, from the pr standpoint, you're absolutely right. Um.
19:25
Speaker 1: You know, there's an eleven percent xise taxigoist to the
19:28
Speaker 1: federal government that's allotted to the states solely based on
19:31
Speaker 1: the square knowledge of the state and the number of
19:34
Speaker 1: honey license they sell, and that's a you know, the
19:37
Speaker 1: majority of the conservation funding. And then from a state
19:41
Speaker 1: agency level, on the hunting license level, you know, almost
19:45
Speaker 1: of those funds are going directly to your state agency
19:48
Speaker 1: and they're the ones that are on the ground managing
19:51
Speaker 1: the game. And in that same you know, on the
19:54
Speaker 1: ground level, as hunters are really the on the ground
19:58
Speaker 1: manager of wildlife in the State and doing a public
20:02
Speaker 1: service there as well as UM. You know you're very
20:05
Speaker 1: familiar with Shane Mahoney. Um. You know he's quantifying the
20:10
Speaker 1: wild Harvest is the Wild Harvest Initiative, but he's quantifying,
20:14
Speaker 1: you know, the amount of meals we pull off of
20:16
Speaker 1: these public or or private rule wildlife you know, um,
20:21
Speaker 1: wilderness or natural environments. And and that's another thing that
20:25
Speaker 1: we're taking away from that ever take Yeah you Um,
20:33
Speaker 1: you touched on a few of the things. Why this matters,
20:36
Speaker 1: like at a macro level, Um, why you know, we
20:39
Speaker 1: might want to, you know, think about these things, take
20:42
Speaker 1: steps towards addressing these things. But what all personally, Hank,
20:46
Speaker 1: why do you care about this personally? Um? Other than
20:48
Speaker 1: just getting you get a paycheck to work on this
20:50
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But do you do you have anything
20:53
Speaker 1: a little bit closer to to who you are that
20:55
Speaker 1: makes this work? Meaning field you Yeah, I grew up
20:59
Speaker 1: in Ustern, North Carolina, Um, and no one in my
21:04
Speaker 1: family hunting. But western North Carolina has a great culture
21:09
Speaker 1: of like you know, it's the original Frontier or whatever.
21:13
Speaker 1: It has that kind of mountain man and Native American
21:16
Speaker 1: history and the Daniel Boone you know, I was, you know,
21:20
Speaker 1: a half hour from Boone, North Carolina, and so I
21:23
Speaker 1: had an uncle who hunted. Um, but my dad doesn't hunt,
21:27
Speaker 1: doesn't hunt today. Um. But I was around and I
21:31
Speaker 1: saw enough of it to know that I wanted to
21:33
Speaker 1: do it. And I was always fascinated with Indians and
21:36
Speaker 1: mountain men. Um. You know, I've got childhood photos with
21:39
Speaker 1: like pop guns and headdresses and all that kind of stuff.
21:42
Speaker 1: But I aspired to hunt. And um, you know, my
21:45
Speaker 1: family didn't do it. But I had a neighbor up
21:47
Speaker 1: the street, a few doors down, UM, that said that
21:51
Speaker 1: I could go with them anytime they were going. And
21:53
Speaker 1: so I was fortunate enough to find a mentor growing
21:56
Speaker 1: up that you know, allowed me to learn to hunt. Um.
22:00
Speaker 1: And and and that's why I'm a hunter today most likely.
22:04
Speaker 1: And UM, you know, I understand that I think this
22:06
Speaker 1: is a natural desire in most humans. I think, you know, um,
22:10
Speaker 1: you know, Steven Ronola has talked about it a lot
22:13
Speaker 1: about you know, it's it's kind of more unusual that
22:16
Speaker 1: people don't hunt than hunt because of the entire human history.
22:21
Speaker 1: You know, you weren't able to live in a in
22:24
Speaker 1: many most capacities without hunting. Or gathering for food, and
22:27
Speaker 1: so I think it's a natural um desire that I
22:31
Speaker 1: was born with, just like my bird dog was a
22:35
Speaker 1: bird born with a desire to hunt birds. And you know,
22:39
Speaker 1: I've read a book of What Not to Do. You know,
22:41
Speaker 1: it's pretty much this is in your dog, don't screw
22:44
Speaker 1: it up. And I think that humans are no different.
22:47
Speaker 1: I think we're disconnected much of what Swanny referenced about
22:50
Speaker 1: the urbanization and and we're just moving further away from
22:54
Speaker 1: the natural world. But um, it was a natural desire
22:58
Speaker 1: for me, and I was fortunate to have some body
23:00
Speaker 1: show me the ropes. And I hope that I can
23:01
Speaker 1: help others and aspire current hunters to get out there
23:06
Speaker 1: and do the same for others. Yeah, I think your
23:09
Speaker 1: percent right about that they're being this latent um desire
23:14
Speaker 1: and all of us. I think, even if you're not
23:16
Speaker 1: introduced to hunting, it seems many times when you talk
23:18
Speaker 1: to someone who finally is introduced to it, um, they
23:22
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you guys will talk about this with
23:23
Speaker 1: some of the experiences you've had, but from a lot
23:25
Speaker 1: of folks I've talked to that they speak about that
23:28
Speaker 1: thing they never really realized was lying there, lurking underneath
23:32
Speaker 1: the you know, their their daily urbanized life. Then all
23:35
Speaker 1: of a sudden, they go out and they participate in
23:36
Speaker 1: something like this and they tap into something that's very
23:38
Speaker 1: very human um and it's really compelling, and they never
23:43
Speaker 1: realized there was this other way of engaging with the
23:45
Speaker 1: natural world. And once they do, many cases, they're hooked. UM.
23:50
Speaker 1: And I feel like that kind of like you said,
23:51
Speaker 1: we just need to help people tap into that that's
23:53
Speaker 1: already there within them. Just give them the opportunity to
23:55
Speaker 1: do that. Um. So we we didn't even touch on
24:00
Speaker 1: on one other issue that revolves around the whole hunting
24:03
Speaker 1: recruitment topic, which is in addition to changing cultural uh
24:08
Speaker 1: norms and demographics and urbanization all that, and there's also
24:12
Speaker 1: the whole demographic shift as far as age and this
24:15
Speaker 1: huge group of hunters beginning to age out soon. So
24:19
Speaker 1: not only do we have changing cultural things going on,
24:22
Speaker 1: but then we also have a big portion of the
24:23
Speaker 1: hunting public right now, which is approaching an older age
24:27
Speaker 1: class that people just start stopping hunting. They begin to
24:31
Speaker 1: stop hunting once they get into those what is low seventies,
24:34
Speaker 1: mid seventies somewhere around there. Is that right Handker or Charles, Yeah,
24:38
Speaker 1: it's around sixty. Um. But there's there's several graphics out
24:43
Speaker 1: there looking at the data where it basically just shows
24:46
Speaker 1: a cliff where people drop off, and that that hump
24:50
Speaker 1: is moving across as the years ago and eventually, I mean,
24:55
Speaker 1: we're starting to see some people pick up in the
24:57
Speaker 1: millennial age class, which is really good. But if the
25:01
Speaker 1: train continues, we're probably in some pretty big trouble. Um.
25:06
Speaker 1: So hopefully that trend does not continue. Yeah. Yeah, And
25:10
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, that's that's why why I really
25:13
Speaker 1: want to talk to you guys, because I feel like
25:15
Speaker 1: what you guys have tapped into with the Field of
25:17
Speaker 1: Fork program and some of the efforts you've done around that,
25:20
Speaker 1: I feel like you're tapping into one of our best
25:22
Speaker 1: opportunities to avoid some of these doomsday scenarios with Hunter
25:26
Speaker 1: numbers just falling off the cliff. Uh So, let's we've
25:30
Speaker 1: established what the problem is, and we kind of already
25:32
Speaker 1: knew that, but it's going to get a little more context,
25:34
Speaker 1: I guess. But let's talk. Let's talk solutions. I feel
25:37
Speaker 1: like Field the Fork is one of the most compelling
25:39
Speaker 1: solutions I've seen yet the way you guys have been
25:41
Speaker 1: able to developed this, the success you've seen, Um gosh,
25:45
Speaker 1: if we could scale something like that, it gets me
25:47
Speaker 1: really excited. So what is what is Field of Fork?
25:50
Speaker 1: It's been all over the Wall Street Journal in some
25:53
Speaker 1: like the Guardian overseas. I think maybe I saw Fox
25:56
Speaker 1: News covered it. Um, getting hips turning hips to is
26:00
Speaker 1: in the hunters is like the headline of choice lately. Um,
26:04
Speaker 1: what have you guys created a program? Sometimes we call
26:08
Speaker 1: Hank Hank the Hipster. If you can see a picture
26:11
Speaker 1: of him, you know a lot. So we we started
26:16
Speaker 1: Feel the Fork. There was a couple of programs going
26:19
Speaker 1: on like this. Basically, what Feel the Fork is, it's
26:22
Speaker 1: a program to take adults that have an interest in
26:27
Speaker 1: hunting for food or big logical reasons and teach them
26:31
Speaker 1: how to hunt and give them a welcoming hand into it,
26:34
Speaker 1: helping them continue to hunt. And so there's a lot
26:37
Speaker 1: of data to suggest that people that sometimes might be
26:42
Speaker 1: termed as local ores, but we kind of expand that
26:45
Speaker 1: definition and just include anybody that wants all natural food,
26:49
Speaker 1: um and preferably locally sourced. There's a lot of data
26:53
Speaker 1: to suggest that they would be interested in hunting if
26:58
Speaker 1: they had the opportunity to do so. And so one
27:00
Speaker 1: day Hank and I were sitting at lunch at this
27:03
Speaker 1: Jamaican place in Athens. I've got some really spicy stuff,
27:07
Speaker 1: but we were we were talking about what's our our
27:12
Speaker 1: pious sky idea for an R three program, you know,
27:16
Speaker 1: something where we actually take people and take them through
27:18
Speaker 1: the whole process. And both of us are very passionate
27:22
Speaker 1: about food. Hank is an incredible cook and that I've
27:25
Speaker 1: just I've been eating venus in my entire life. I've
27:28
Speaker 1: actually never bought beef from a grocery store before. Um,
27:31
Speaker 1: And so we're both passionate on the food side of it.
27:34
Speaker 1: And living in Athens, Georgia, which is a college town.
27:38
Speaker 1: You know, it's got a lot of farm to table
27:39
Speaker 1: restaurants and then there's a big farmers market presence and
27:42
Speaker 1: a lot of organic farms around here, there's this perfect
27:45
Speaker 1: audience for what we were talking about doing, taking these
27:49
Speaker 1: people that are interested in on atrial food and getting
27:52
Speaker 1: them out there. And so we kind of batted around
27:55
Speaker 1: the idea of what does this program look like and
27:58
Speaker 1: we looked at some example and there was one going
28:01
Speaker 1: on in Wisconsin. UH Keith Warnkey, who works with the
28:04
Speaker 1: state agency, is running I learned to hunt food program
28:07
Speaker 1: up there that's expanded a lot, So we talked to
28:09
Speaker 1: him a little bit. And then kum A was already
28:12
Speaker 1: partnered with a program doing something similar to this in Kentucky.
28:16
Speaker 1: It was actually called the Field to Fork. So we
28:19
Speaker 1: called Kentucky uh pup and asked them how they were
28:23
Speaker 1: doing it, and we kind of took some of their
28:25
Speaker 1: ideas and they were actually generous enough to let us
28:28
Speaker 1: use their name because it's a very catchy name. And
28:32
Speaker 1: we put it all together and we went down to
28:34
Speaker 1: the farmer's market and set up a booth. They were
28:36
Speaker 1: nice enough at Bathens Farmers Market to give us a
28:39
Speaker 1: booth for free since we were nonprofit, and we just
28:41
Speaker 1: handed out samples of venison, just opened up with would
28:44
Speaker 1: you like to try as and venison and got people
28:47
Speaker 1: to come to the table that way, and it was crazy.
28:50
Speaker 1: We didn't know what to expect um, but it was
28:53
Speaker 1: wild how many people were willing to try venison. And
28:56
Speaker 1: we had vegetarians and vegans trying venison that they were
29:00
Speaker 1: fine with it because lived a life free of and
29:03
Speaker 1: welcare concerns. We had. Pretty much everybody they came by
29:07
Speaker 1: the table would try venison and approaching hunting in that
29:12
Speaker 1: for the food or for the ecological reasons. Manner was
29:18
Speaker 1: really appealing to pretty much this whole audience. I don't
29:20
Speaker 1: think we had any negative experiences, except for that one
29:22
Speaker 1: girl you piste off Hank. Oh. Yeah, now, Charles, Charles
29:28
Speaker 1: is absolutely right. I mean it's you know, you probably
29:31
Speaker 1: run into it every day. But you know, I'd moved
29:34
Speaker 1: to ath And a couple of years previously, and you know,
29:37
Speaker 1: meeting a new group of people, what do you do?
29:39
Speaker 1: I worked in conservations and then a couple of weeks later,
29:43
Speaker 1: you know, what are you doing? And I'm going hunting?
29:45
Speaker 1: And I go, oh, I thought you said you worked
29:47
Speaker 1: in conservation or um. You know, I've been to the
29:50
Speaker 1: Farmer's market and they were doing chef demonstrations and one
29:54
Speaker 1: Saturday I was watching the lady make rocotta cheese and
29:57
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, man, we should just bring in a deer
29:59
Speaker 1: and break it down as a chef demonstration. But I
30:03
Speaker 1: didn't have the confidence at the time to be the
30:05
Speaker 1: person who broke down the deer in front of you know,
30:08
Speaker 1: forty people of the farmers market or whatever. But um,
30:11
Speaker 1: we decided to get set up that booth and we
30:14
Speaker 1: didn't know what to expect. But of course the number
30:16
Speaker 1: one question we'd get, uh, you know from current hunters
30:19
Speaker 1: is a that was the lines then or whatnot? But
30:23
Speaker 1: nothing further from the truth. UM. Gone a few eye
30:27
Speaker 1: rolls over the years, but it's probably offering me to
30:30
Speaker 1: a vegetarian or vegan, um, and all power to them.
30:33
Speaker 1: That's their choice and I totally respect that. UM. And
30:37
Speaker 1: then we've had, you know, a couple of people that
30:39
Speaker 1: no one will confront you in front of people, but
30:42
Speaker 1: you know, after hours or whatever, just a couple of
30:44
Speaker 1: people have said something but they just weren't willing to
30:47
Speaker 1: look at the facts. You know. We often talked to
30:49
Speaker 1: people about, you know, the same reasons they're vegetarians or
30:53
Speaker 1: vegans are the same reasons we hunt. Uh. You know, UM,
30:57
Speaker 1: we have a lot of shared values. And so over
31:00
Speaker 1: the years we've taken uh you know what I mean,
31:03
Speaker 1: at least five or six vegan or vegetarian next vegetarians
31:07
Speaker 1: or vegans through the program, maybe a couple more this year. Yeah,
31:12
Speaker 1: I mean we've got people that that still identifies vegetarians
31:15
Speaker 1: that hunt now, but they're fine with Basically, they're against
31:19
Speaker 1: factory farming, which I totally get. But you cannot be
31:23
Speaker 1: vegetarian or vegan and be against hunting. It is absolutely
31:26
Speaker 1: not possible if you think through the logic, because if
31:30
Speaker 1: you're eating I mean, if you're vegetarian or vegan, you're
31:33
Speaker 1: probably eating some soley based products like tofu. And if
31:37
Speaker 1: you're eating something that's made out of soley beans, you're
31:39
Speaker 1: contributing to the death of deer because you've either got
31:41
Speaker 1: to hunt those fields pretty heavily or you have to
31:44
Speaker 1: use depredation per minutes to keep your beans a lot.
31:47
Speaker 1: I mean, they're else deer or wife out, at least
31:49
Speaker 1: in the Southeast. I mean that's something that a lot
31:52
Speaker 1: of people don't realize, is you know, you gotta kill
31:56
Speaker 1: deer to have the plants. So if you're gonna be
31:57
Speaker 1: a vegetarian, you might as well particip in the whole process. Yeah. Yeah,
32:02
Speaker 1: So we also learned that most of the vendors at
32:04
Speaker 1: the farmers market or deer hunters. Yeah, that's good. They
32:07
Speaker 1: ate a lot of innocence. See, you guys brought in venison.
32:11
Speaker 1: You've got a table you've got a booth the farmer's market. Uh,
32:15
Speaker 1: what kind of walk me through how you were actually
32:19
Speaker 1: taking food samplers and converting them to participants in a program.
32:23
Speaker 1: Do you guys have like a pamphlet describing this program?
32:27
Speaker 1: What was the program you guys were talking to these
32:29
Speaker 1: people about? Um, what was the next step after getting
32:33
Speaker 1: kind of there's venison diplomacy. You hear people talk about
32:35
Speaker 1: which I love, which is you know, providing this positive
32:39
Speaker 1: interaction with a hunter by way of sharing food. So
32:42
Speaker 1: you guys did that? What was the next step? Yeah,
32:44
Speaker 1: so you're absolutely right. I mean we talked about you know,
32:47
Speaker 1: our three subtitle acceptance and you know, increased participation in
32:52
Speaker 1: hunting and you know, you may we've got goals through
32:55
Speaker 1: mentoring and we've got sharing goals of venison. We got
32:57
Speaker 1: DONA and goals, but still support touches on both kind
33:00
Speaker 1: of the sharing and the mentoring. And I mean, you know,
33:03
Speaker 1: we can't quantify the value of having a pro hunting
33:08
Speaker 1: focused booth at the Farmer's market and and all these
33:11
Speaker 1: hundreds of samples we hand out at each market, but um,
33:15
Speaker 1: you know, even the people who don't take us up
33:17
Speaker 1: on it usually smile and say, you know it's not
33:19
Speaker 1: for me, but I'm glad you're here. Is something of
33:20
Speaker 1: that sentiment. But um, you know, we we all for
33:24
Speaker 1: the samples, cook some backstraps, some broad worse, some jerky.
33:29
Speaker 1: We've done breakfast sausage on the Saturday morning markets. Um,
33:33
Speaker 1: but you know, we lead off with hey, would you
33:35
Speaker 1: like to try some venisine? I usually start with you know,
33:38
Speaker 1: do you eat much venisine? And we've been I've been
33:41
Speaker 1: surprised that I shouldn't speak for Charles, but I've been
33:44
Speaker 1: surprised at how many people are saying that they're eating venicine,
33:48
Speaker 1: And and many of them aren't hunters, so they're obviously
33:50
Speaker 1: getting it from a hunter or some other way. But
33:53
Speaker 1: a lot of people and and maybe there's a little
33:56
Speaker 1: bit of that, you know, just like a new hunter
33:58
Speaker 1: kind of will pretend they a little bit more about hunting.
34:01
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just a you know, a cool club kind
34:03
Speaker 1: of thing where you know, they say they eat more
34:06
Speaker 1: of innocent than they do, but it seems like they're
34:08
Speaker 1: getting ahold of innocent. And then you know, I'll ask him, well,
34:11
Speaker 1: have you ever thought about for curring it yourself? Or
34:14
Speaker 1: you know, have you ever been interested in hunting, and
34:17
Speaker 1: and um, you know you get different reactions. Um, but
34:21
Speaker 1: you know, there's some college studies and Charles will know
34:23
Speaker 1: more than I do, but some studies out of Climpson
34:26
Speaker 1: showed that because it's college students were interested in hunting,
34:31
Speaker 1: it was something along those lines that I have. I mean,
34:35
Speaker 1: so there's there's this huge swath of the population that's
34:38
Speaker 1: interested in by making it attractive and offering samples, and um,
34:43
Speaker 1: you know, we filled up a program in two hours
34:46
Speaker 1: the or three hours the first Saturday we ever set
34:49
Speaker 1: up at the Farmer's Market to a waiting list. That year,
34:53
Speaker 1: we only took eight participants. But um, you know, we
34:56
Speaker 1: filled up in in one market, but we we into
35:00
Speaker 1: a few just to fill it out. We have a
35:03
Speaker 1: Saturday market that's at a local park and it's kind
35:07
Speaker 1: of the larger market, and then we have a Wednesday
35:09
Speaker 1: market at a local brewery, and as you can imagine,
35:12
Speaker 1: we get a lot of people that volunteer to help
35:14
Speaker 1: out at the Wednesday market or whatever. But um, it's
35:19
Speaker 1: of our participants come from Saturday morning. And I don't
35:21
Speaker 1: know if it's just the Farmer's market on Wednesday as
35:24
Speaker 1: an excuse to go drink a couple of beers, or
35:27
Speaker 1: it's just a different dedication level for somebody to get
35:30
Speaker 1: up at eight a m. And make it to a
35:32
Speaker 1: farmer's market. I don't know, but that that's been one
35:35
Speaker 1: interesting trend. We don't we don't miss any Wednesday markets. Uh,
35:41
Speaker 1: when we're recruiting, sure, even though they know about it,
35:45
Speaker 1: but it is it's pretty interesting. So we hand up
35:49
Speaker 1: that fact sheet and then we get our list of
35:52
Speaker 1: participants that want to sign up, and we actually do
35:54
Speaker 1: like a pre questionnaire to make sure we're picking the
35:56
Speaker 1: right people because we do have a limited capacity for
35:59
Speaker 1: this program. For example, this year we took fifteen people
36:02
Speaker 1: um and that the Athens Field the Fork event, and
36:06
Speaker 1: we make sure that we're picking people that they want
36:09
Speaker 1: to do it for the food of the ecological reasons
36:11
Speaker 1: and people that actually haven't hunted before or at least
36:14
Speaker 1: have very limited experience. And then we bring them all
36:18
Speaker 1: in and we do multiple training nights. So we want
36:23
Speaker 1: people to come through the program and even if they
36:26
Speaker 1: don't continue to hunt, at least understand hunting a little
36:29
Speaker 1: bit better and understand why hunting is important to conservation.
36:32
Speaker 1: So we do week day evening training nights where we
36:36
Speaker 1: talk about conservation history and how hunting relates to conservation
36:40
Speaker 1: historically and present day um and then we talk about
36:44
Speaker 1: deer biology and how the biology relates to hunting strategy.
36:48
Speaker 1: We take them out in the woods and we show
36:50
Speaker 1: them how to read deer sign just take them through
36:53
Speaker 1: the entire training process there, and the most importantly we
36:57
Speaker 1: do shooting training. And for this program, we were trying
37:01
Speaker 1: to decide what to do and we settled on crossbows
37:06
Speaker 1: as our our weapon of choice for Field of Fork
37:09
Speaker 1: And there's a few different reasons for that. One of
37:11
Speaker 1: them was we kind of decided that, you know this,
37:16
Speaker 1: this participant base might not be as open to firearms Initially.
37:22
Speaker 1: Initially we thought that archery equipment might be more palatable
37:25
Speaker 1: because there's the stigma that surround firearms, especially right now
37:29
Speaker 1: in the United States, and that actually turned out to
37:33
Speaker 1: be true with quite a few of the participants. Would
37:35
Speaker 1: have people come up to the boot and think about,
37:38
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't do that, I couldn't shoot anything
37:40
Speaker 1: with a gun, and we tell them we're gonna train
37:42
Speaker 1: them on a crossbow and they're like, oh, well, maybe
37:44
Speaker 1: I could participate in that that take a flyer. You know,
37:47
Speaker 1: we heard from several participants as well that went through
37:50
Speaker 1: the whole program that they appreciated the fact that it
37:52
Speaker 1: was done with a crossbow, so that was pretty interesting.
37:56
Speaker 1: But we we put them through that whole training process
38:00
Speaker 1: and then we have a hunt weekend, and I should
38:03
Speaker 1: say through the whole trainings we incorporate the food aspect
38:06
Speaker 1: because that's the main theme of the program is, you know,
38:08
Speaker 1: sourcing your inn all natural protein. So Hank does Venison
38:12
Speaker 1: tacas or I think we did brought works one night
38:15
Speaker 1: in Venison Burgers. We've been kind of a little bit everything.
38:20
Speaker 1: But we go into that hunt weekend and we pair
38:23
Speaker 1: them with mentors. So the first year that we did it,
38:27
Speaker 1: which would have been two thousand and sixteen, we were
38:30
Speaker 1: trying to decide who to pair them with, and the
38:33
Speaker 1: ones we came up with the quickest that that seemed
38:35
Speaker 1: like it would be the best bit were the u
38:37
Speaker 1: g A Deer Lab graduate students, So the University of
38:41
Speaker 1: Georgia as a dear research program here and Athens. It's
38:45
Speaker 1: pretty well known and obviously all of those grad students
38:49
Speaker 1: would have a pretty decent knowledge of hunting and dear
38:53
Speaker 1: Biology can be able to answer any questions and be
38:55
Speaker 1: fairly open minded as well. We wanted to be kind
38:57
Speaker 1: of touching this first year just to see how it went.
39:00
Speaker 1: So we I contacted them because that's where I went
39:03
Speaker 1: to school, and we got the grad students on board
39:05
Speaker 1: and they served as the mentors and we took everybody
39:07
Speaker 1: out and then following years, we're trying to figure out
39:09
Speaker 1: how to make it more sustainable, and we just used
39:12
Speaker 1: the Athens Quality their Management Association brands. We approached them
39:16
Speaker 1: with this idea and use those members and they were
39:20
Speaker 1: all on board. I mean, I mean they were a
39:22
Speaker 1: little hesitant at first, I think, but then they really
39:25
Speaker 1: jumped in and they've taken ownership of Athen's program now.
39:29
Speaker 1: But we were pair them with the mentors and we
39:31
Speaker 1: take them out on properties all around Athens here, some
39:34
Speaker 1: in town, some just outside of town, and hopefully we
39:39
Speaker 1: get some some harvest, but either way they get a
39:41
Speaker 1: pretty neat experience, and then we continue on with follow
39:45
Speaker 1: up opportunities. We encourage those mentors to take them back out.
39:48
Speaker 1: There's property here in kdum A that they can hunt
39:50
Speaker 1: for the rest of the season, and then we have
39:52
Speaker 1: a what we call a culinary social. Let's a follow
39:55
Speaker 1: up dinner. We drink some beer and some wine, cook
39:58
Speaker 1: some of the venice in that their harvest has been
40:00
Speaker 1: else and have them tell their stories. Um, and we
40:04
Speaker 1: can get some of the stories a little bit later here.
40:06
Speaker 1: But one thing that I didn't want to mention is
40:08
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier talking about how it's you finally feel
40:13
Speaker 1: like you're human. You know, it's this this activity where
40:16
Speaker 1: you you didn't realize you had it in you. You
40:18
Speaker 1: didn't realize how it would feel. And we hear that
40:21
Speaker 1: a lot from the participants. You know, a lot of
40:24
Speaker 1: these people are very outdoor participants, and they they might
40:29
Speaker 1: have hiked or camp or kayak or whatever it might be,
40:32
Speaker 1: which is all passive interaction with nature. But when you're hunting,
40:37
Speaker 1: you're truly involved in the natural cycle. And we have
40:42
Speaker 1: just off the top of my head, one of the participants,
40:44
Speaker 1: we've got her own video saying this. She was talking
40:47
Speaker 1: about how she harvested her first year with that cross bow,
40:51
Speaker 1: and she made the perfect sound effect about just how
40:53
Speaker 1: it sounded and everything, and she talked about how it
40:57
Speaker 1: was sad, but at the same time she was really
41:00
Speaker 1: happy and that the feelings she felt was that it
41:03
Speaker 1: was like she was finally human, which we just thought
41:07
Speaker 1: it was very interesting. Yeah. Yeah, So let me walk
41:10
Speaker 1: back back a little bit just to throw in some detail.
41:13
Speaker 1: But you know what Charles was talking about with you know,
41:16
Speaker 1: recruiting the deer lab and um, you know, our first
41:20
Speaker 1: year we recruited a kind of younger demographic than we've
41:24
Speaker 1: run into the last couple of years. And uh, and
41:27
Speaker 1: that may have been due to the second year, we
41:30
Speaker 1: scheduled our hunt date on the day of a home
41:33
Speaker 1: U G A football game. We just went with the
41:36
Speaker 1: second week in the bow season. Um, you know, we
41:40
Speaker 1: used crossbows because of the palatability, but also we want
41:44
Speaker 1: to take uh you know, advantage of our early archery
41:48
Speaker 1: seasons where deer are still more patternable. Uh. The you know,
41:54
Speaker 1: it's actually unfortunately sometimes it's too hot, but you're not
41:57
Speaker 1: dealing with cold weather. There's still a lot of day
42:00
Speaker 1: light in the afternoons after work. But um, you know,
42:03
Speaker 1: the difference between Filled the Fork and a lot of
42:06
Speaker 1: the other programs out there is we diligently work to
42:10
Speaker 1: try to make this program sustainable and replicable. So um,
42:15
Speaker 1: we called around on text I D maps and got
42:18
Speaker 1: permissions of properties around Athens to hunt, um, many of
42:22
Speaker 1: them within the belt loop. And we talked about, you know,
42:26
Speaker 1: the urbanization of our population and stuff. But you know,
42:30
Speaker 1: I'm one to argue that we overlook a lot of
42:32
Speaker 1: our best opportunity, especially to mentor new hunters in these
42:38
Speaker 1: kind of suburban and urban areas. You know, we have
42:41
Speaker 1: white tels. I live in downtown Athens, and you know,
42:44
Speaker 1: obviously a small college town, but there's near in my backyard,
42:47
Speaker 1: Um that would be legal to harvest. I'm not gonna
42:50
Speaker 1: do it because of roads and stuff like that, but
42:52
Speaker 1: you know, we found opportunities and pockets around town. We
42:57
Speaker 1: used a process that we could show them how we've
43:01
Speaker 1: utilized all next maps and given our participants subscription on
43:05
Speaker 1: x Maps, which is awesome for you know, locating the
43:08
Speaker 1: potential properties and as you know, with the property owner,
43:11
Speaker 1: you know lines and information. I mean, you can figure
43:15
Speaker 1: out who has five or ten acres that might give
43:18
Speaker 1: you permission to hunt. But um, you know, we we
43:21
Speaker 1: went through these steps to try to make it replicable
43:25
Speaker 1: to the participant and also a program that we could
43:27
Speaker 1: scale and um and with the recruitment of the u
43:32
Speaker 1: G a Deer Lab participants that year, I think Charles,
43:36
Speaker 1: we had four successful harvests out of eight really seven
43:42
Speaker 1: who really took the program seriously. And we found that
43:45
Speaker 1: if again the rule of our participants are continuing to hunt,
43:50
Speaker 1: and I think that's as good as we'll ever get.
43:52
Speaker 1: We we might have had a little higher than that
43:54
Speaker 1: this year, but you know, some people go through they
43:57
Speaker 1: experience it and it's just not something that really just
44:00
Speaker 1: inspires them to go the next day. And then you
44:03
Speaker 1: have the other ones who hunt thirty days that year,
44:07
Speaker 1: but um, you know, as a Deer Lab students didn't
44:10
Speaker 1: allow for that follow up opportunity. And and the success
44:13
Speaker 1: of the program is not in the organized events, but
44:16
Speaker 1: in the opportunity for these participants to utilize the potential
44:20
Speaker 1: access to check out cross those and gear, um, but
44:25
Speaker 1: to allow them to continue to grow as a hunter.
44:28
Speaker 1: And and we talked about how you work your way
44:31
Speaker 1: through uh you know, becoming and self identifying as a hunter.
44:35
Speaker 1: And I really believe that's two different confidence levels. They
44:38
Speaker 1: obviously take time to um, you know, to to gain
44:43
Speaker 1: the full confidence, but one is they have to be
44:46
Speaker 1: confident to take care of an animal or they're not
44:48
Speaker 1: gonna go hunting and they're not gonna shoot at anything
44:51
Speaker 1: they can take care of. One of the biggest fears
44:54
Speaker 1: is they don't want to waste an animal's life or
44:57
Speaker 1: the meat. And so if you don't make them confident
45:00
Speaker 1: or give them a resource, so you know, mentorship comes
45:03
Speaker 1: in a multitude of level. Some people need multiple years
45:08
Speaker 1: of hands on, you know, hunting, and others may need
45:12
Speaker 1: one afternoon in the stand and then have your cell
45:14
Speaker 1: phone number in case they need help dragging something out
45:17
Speaker 1: or or or cleaning this um. And the second confidence
45:21
Speaker 1: level is I believe that self identifying as a hunter
45:24
Speaker 1: is a confidence level to be like, I can do
45:27
Speaker 1: this and do this on my own. That's confidence. And
45:30
Speaker 1: so we we understand that it takes time to build that,
45:34
Speaker 1: and the program's built. We brought in the athletes Q
45:37
Speaker 1: and a branch to service mentors. They're opening up their access.
45:42
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a big proponent. I believe the quickest
45:45
Speaker 1: way we can affect access is by invites. You know,
45:49
Speaker 1: I can't do a lot to change the opportunities for
45:51
Speaker 1: public land deer hunting. We can try to make public
45:54
Speaker 1: lands better. We can try to make more opportunity but
45:57
Speaker 1: the quickest way we affect access is offering the opportunity
46:01
Speaker 1: for somebody to come hunting with us, and so that's
46:04
Speaker 1: what we've asked these mentors to do. Some of them
46:08
Speaker 1: have opened up their properties, but we've all realized that
46:12
Speaker 1: this is hugely rewarding to everyone involved, and it may
46:15
Speaker 1: be their most rewarding hunt and ours as well. If
46:19
Speaker 1: either one of you guys had any experiences you could
46:22
Speaker 1: share personally about what it's been like as a mentor
46:25
Speaker 1: being being a part of this at all. Sure. Yeah,
46:28
Speaker 1: the so the first year one of my my whole life,
46:32
Speaker 1: I've kind of mentored people, you know, throughout college, high
46:35
Speaker 1: school and everything and taking new people hunting, and I've
46:37
Speaker 1: always founded rewarding and a lot of people that we
46:41
Speaker 1: run into existing hunters, and a lot of these organizations traditionally,
46:47
Speaker 1: you know, they'd be willing to take a kid hunting,
46:49
Speaker 1: or a handicapped person hunting, or a veteran hunting. But
46:52
Speaker 1: if you just asked them to take some five year
46:55
Speaker 1: old you know that was fully capable of going on
46:57
Speaker 1: their own aside from knowledge, they kind of turned their
47:01
Speaker 1: nose up at it, which is the wrong mentality because
47:04
Speaker 1: that twenty five year old is actually the person that
47:06
Speaker 1: has the authority in their own lives to start hunting.
47:10
Speaker 1: Might have kids one day at their own and they
47:11
Speaker 1: would teach how to hunt. They probably have discretionary income
47:14
Speaker 1: that they can use to buy the equipment to get
47:16
Speaker 1: out there. So we've been kind of shifting towards adults.
47:21
Speaker 1: And it's really cool when you take somebody. The first
47:24
Speaker 1: year we did this program in twenty sixteen, I served
47:28
Speaker 1: as a mentor for a few people during that program
47:30
Speaker 1: and one guy out um telling them run down real quick.
47:34
Speaker 1: Just I feel like we should talk about the kind
47:36
Speaker 1: of different people were getting different people in the program
47:40
Speaker 1: that year that what was it that you're eighteen? That
47:43
Speaker 1: was eighteen to fifty seven. Yeah. So throughout the three
47:48
Speaker 1: years we've been doing the Athens program, we've had from
47:51
Speaker 1: eighteen years old to seven year old participant male female.
47:56
Speaker 1: We've had everything from uh, people that are professed ers
48:00
Speaker 1: and researchers at the university, two roofers to cheft organic farmers, teachers,
48:06
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. I mean just covering the whole engineers, yeah,
48:11
Speaker 1: race car engineer who's now teaching his kids hunt on
48:15
Speaker 1: But I took this guy out who was an undergrad.
48:19
Speaker 1: And there are two undergrads came to the program the
48:22
Speaker 1: first year that were actually roommates. And this guy's name
48:25
Speaker 1: was Evan. Evan, Yeah, his name was Evan, and he'd
48:29
Speaker 1: never hunted before. He's from a pretty urban area. You know,
48:32
Speaker 1: you could tell like these swarming around him and things
48:35
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, maybe an actual one. I'm sure he
48:40
Speaker 1: wouldn't be appreciate being labeled, but maybe you would. I
48:43
Speaker 1: don't know. But anyways, we take him out on this
48:46
Speaker 1: property and like Hank said, we're using these urban properties.
48:49
Speaker 1: I've literally knocked on this ladies door after I looked
48:52
Speaker 1: up information, the tax map information, and just gotten permission
48:56
Speaker 1: to hunt twenty acres right there beside her house. You know,
49:00
Speaker 1: I hung a stand up there and hung a double
49:02
Speaker 1: hang on set in the senior tree. We walk out
49:05
Speaker 1: there and I'm explaining how everything's gonna go to him,
49:08
Speaker 1: and so we get in this hang on set, and
49:12
Speaker 1: what I was kind of surprised about is he was
49:15
Speaker 1: way more still than I was. I was over there
49:18
Speaker 1: messing around with my phone, and he was rock solid,
49:20
Speaker 1: locked in looking for deer the whole time. And we
49:23
Speaker 1: ended up I mean every time a squirrel would jump around,
49:26
Speaker 1: you know, he had slowly turned around and asked me
49:28
Speaker 1: if that was one, And it was pretty cool to
49:31
Speaker 1: see the reaction. But eventterestly we had these two dos
49:35
Speaker 1: and a fawn start working their way down. We were
49:38
Speaker 1: kind of in some water eggs right there, and then
49:41
Speaker 1: there was this opening just up the way. They were
49:43
Speaker 1: working their way down to the opening, and they were
49:46
Speaker 1: going to bypass us, and so I can I just
49:50
Speaker 1: kind of wrote them off. I was like, it looks
49:51
Speaker 1: like they're gonna walk right by. How to range their
49:53
Speaker 1: head another direction? And I go back to playing around
49:56
Speaker 1: on whatever I was doing, I don't know, Facebook or
49:59
Speaker 1: something and being a terrible minuet, and uh he goes,
50:06
Speaker 1: he goes, and I was whispering until I was telling
50:08
Speaker 1: him something. He was like, be quiet for coming back.
50:10
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, so do youer started working
50:14
Speaker 1: their way back and they're going to step out perfectly
50:18
Speaker 1: in the shooting land that I cut it about thirty
50:20
Speaker 1: yards and I had him get the crossbow up and
50:24
Speaker 1: everything and take the safety off. U went in and
50:27
Speaker 1: ranged where the deer was gonna step out. I told
50:29
Speaker 1: him where to to hold on the radical, and the
50:32
Speaker 1: deer stepped out and I did a little mouthfleet and
50:34
Speaker 1: stopped her, and he just hammered her. I mean, squeeze
50:37
Speaker 1: that trigger perfectly, and he was calm the entire time
50:40
Speaker 1: until the second he pulled the trigger. Right after that,
50:43
Speaker 1: he just started shaking like a leaf. And it just
50:46
Speaker 1: reminded me, It's incredible. No matter what background you come
50:51
Speaker 1: from and what's your life experiences are, You're still going
50:56
Speaker 1: to have that same the action, that same rush when
51:00
Speaker 1: you you squeeze that trigger. Initially, it was pretty cool
51:04
Speaker 1: to see what I've always felt, you know, in somebody else,
51:07
Speaker 1: especially in an adult, when they get that excited about
51:10
Speaker 1: harvesting their first animal. And both those roommates harvested that
51:15
Speaker 1: first year they lived with what five other guy. So
51:17
Speaker 1: I'll tell the other side of that story and got
51:20
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Charles was telling a story that
51:23
Speaker 1: the first time hunter knew something he didn't and he
51:27
Speaker 1: called me an incredible chef. So I'll say Charles is
51:29
Speaker 1: an incredible hunter. But I I did the same thing
51:33
Speaker 1: with them. His roommate, we were out here and QTa
51:36
Speaker 1: May had a redneck blind that had a little food
51:39
Speaker 1: plot in front of it. That was fenced off until
51:42
Speaker 1: until we were ready for archery season. But this little
51:48
Speaker 1: little four pointer or spike came in and um, I
51:51
Speaker 1: just caught a glimpse of it out one of the
51:53
Speaker 1: windows and it came in right on the on the
51:56
Speaker 1: wall side that he was sitting on. So we had
51:59
Speaker 1: to switch to eights and you know, stone cold switch seats.
52:03
Speaker 1: Um made a good shot and the deer ran off
52:06
Speaker 1: and we get down and we go and look and
52:09
Speaker 1: the blood has just a dark pinp to it. And
52:11
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, we might you know, And and
52:13
Speaker 1: he had made a great shot. He had just gone
52:15
Speaker 1: a little bit back and um, but you know, he
52:17
Speaker 1: wasn't accounting for the angle of the deer as much,
52:20
Speaker 1: but it was still a great shot. And I said, well,
52:23
Speaker 1: we better give this deer some time. And he goes,
52:25
Speaker 1: it's right there and it hadn't gone fifty yards. It
52:29
Speaker 1: was in the next little opening over and uh yeah,
52:33
Speaker 1: exactly what Charles was getting at. These two guys I
52:35
Speaker 1: think lived with five guys. They put two deer in
52:38
Speaker 1: their freezer. Um. Evan did donate a backstrap back to
52:42
Speaker 1: our culinary social So he ate a backstrap of his deer.
52:45
Speaker 1: The culinary social day here. But I mean these guys
52:48
Speaker 1: must have been, you know, the cool kids on campus.
52:50
Speaker 1: I mean just you know, fifty hundred pounds of Dennison
52:53
Speaker 1: and the freezer. Um. But we you know, over the years,
52:57
Speaker 1: I guess I've sat with four five first time harvest Now. Um.
53:04
Speaker 1: We both hunted with a guy that uh named Dan,
53:08
Speaker 1: and he didn't want to wear shoes to hunt. Um.
53:12
Speaker 1: He wanted to fill the earth under him and I
53:15
Speaker 1: thought that sorry, okay, So this was this was literally
53:19
Speaker 1: the first hunt of the program, and I paired myself
53:23
Speaker 1: with this guy that we ended up calling shoelas Dan.
53:26
Speaker 1: Really cool guy. Uh. He's a nutritionist and very intelligent. Um.
53:33
Speaker 1: But he he wanted to get into hunting so he
53:36
Speaker 1: could source his own proteins. So he fit them old perfectly.
53:40
Speaker 1: But we're driving around and we're dropping off the other
53:42
Speaker 1: hunting pairs at their respective locations. Then we get to
53:45
Speaker 1: where we were gonna go, which was his ground blind
53:47
Speaker 1: but we had about it, I don't know, five or
53:49
Speaker 1: six hundred yard to walk in, you know. So we
53:51
Speaker 1: get out of the truck and I noticed he's not
53:53
Speaker 1: wearing shoes. It's like, Danny, you can put some shoes
53:56
Speaker 1: on and he goes, no, no, I think I'm gonna
53:58
Speaker 1: go bare foot. I just like to feel the forest
54:02
Speaker 1: under my feet. I was like, okay, so we're gonna
54:04
Speaker 1: bebop and duck in the woods. And we get to
54:07
Speaker 1: the ground blind and I've set up this blond and
54:10
Speaker 1: brushed it in and everything, you know, a few weeks prior,
54:12
Speaker 1: and I've got two chairs in there. So we get
54:15
Speaker 1: in and I've set his chair up for him, and
54:17
Speaker 1: he goes, I think I'd like to sit on the ground.
54:20
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, So I moved the chair
54:22
Speaker 1: out of the way and he he sits on the
54:25
Speaker 1: ground because he wanted to be more connected to the ground.
54:27
Speaker 1: You know. About ten minutes later, he goes, I think
54:31
Speaker 1: I might try that chair now, all right. I set
54:35
Speaker 1: up the chair for him, and in about thirty minutes,
54:38
Speaker 1: the mosquitoes find us, and I mean they are we're
54:41
Speaker 1: doing this an early season in Georgia. You know, they
54:45
Speaker 1: are wearing his feet out. I mean, I've never seen
54:49
Speaker 1: so many mosquitoes and somebody's beets before. Because he wasn't
54:51
Speaker 1: wearing shoes, but he it was it was hard to
54:55
Speaker 1: not laugh, but he had he was a trooper about it,
54:58
Speaker 1: and he had such a great experience. We had a
55:00
Speaker 1: doe come through at thirty yards at last light and
55:04
Speaker 1: he could quite get a shot on. Everybody got the
55:06
Speaker 1: whole rush of you know, trying to get in the
55:08
Speaker 1: right position and everything. And he ended up harvesting later
55:11
Speaker 1: in the program. And that just I mean, it kind
55:14
Speaker 1: of shows you that we we have all these different
55:16
Speaker 1: people from different walks of life that that have unique
55:19
Speaker 1: perspectives about things, but they're all there because of that
55:24
Speaker 1: common goal to eat more sustainably and neat be more
55:28
Speaker 1: in tune with nature, which is pretty unique for a program. Yeah. Yeah,
55:32
Speaker 1: And so Dan and I got his first deer a
55:36
Speaker 1: week or two later. Um, actually a fawn he chose.
55:40
Speaker 1: I told him that, you know, if if he'd be
55:42
Speaker 1: happy with that deer, he could take it. And he did,
55:45
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, he took the kidneys, the liver,
55:49
Speaker 1: the heart. I mean, we sat there and we processed
55:52
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Um, and you know, it's super stoked.
55:56
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, you these you know, there are
56:00
Speaker 1: who want to hunt from different backgrounds than possibly me
56:03
Speaker 1: or you, but their desires to hunt and be as
56:07
Speaker 1: genuine or in some cases maybe more genuine than the
56:11
Speaker 1: person who was handed you know, a rifle at ten
56:15
Speaker 1: years old or whatever. I mean. Um, you know, we
56:19
Speaker 1: can tell stories on them. But these these people are
56:21
Speaker 1: awesome friends, um, and great hunters and really enjoy to
56:27
Speaker 1: be around. And we've created this community around that and
56:30
Speaker 1: that we we have you know, at least fifty people
56:33
Speaker 1: who have been involved with the program at least and um,
56:37
Speaker 1: it's really cool and it's inspiring to all parties you get.
56:42
Speaker 1: You hear the participant in talk about how infectious it
56:45
Speaker 1: is to be around a group of passionate people and
56:49
Speaker 1: obviously passionate about hunting. And then from the same side, um,
56:54
Speaker 1: and and I would urge you know, any listener to
56:56
Speaker 1: go read that Wall Street Journal article. It it of
56:59
Speaker 1: course has some spin on it. Um. The spin I
57:03
Speaker 1: think helped it. It obviously created Uh, it went kind
57:07
Speaker 1: of viral, and it was probably a lot to the
57:09
Speaker 1: catchy title. But he did a great job of humanizing
57:13
Speaker 1: our participants and and telling it from their points of view.
57:16
Speaker 1: And you know, you mentioned that Charles talked about human
57:20
Speaker 1: The manager of the Farmer's Market was a participant this year,
57:23
Speaker 1: and and she was quoted in there saying there's this
57:26
Speaker 1: animal side of you, and you know, we all understand
57:30
Speaker 1: that as hunters. You know, they're just getting that taste
57:32
Speaker 1: of it. But it's uh, you know obviously for the food,
57:35
Speaker 1: a connection with nature. Um, that's what we're hearing from
57:38
Speaker 1: our hunters and they're they're really um, it's really fulfilling
57:43
Speaker 1: to everybody. Yeah, it's it's interesting you mentioned a second ago,
57:47
Speaker 1: how um you know, the the way that one of
57:53
Speaker 1: these adult onset hunters might be thinking and approaching a
57:56
Speaker 1: hunt in many cases so different than someone like like myself,
58:01
Speaker 1: who you know, do what you guys talked about earlier, Like,
58:04
Speaker 1: hunting was never even a question for me, Like, it
58:06
Speaker 1: was just what we did from as soon as I
58:08
Speaker 1: was walking, I was up at our deer camp. And
58:10
Speaker 1: I never experienced a single moment of life where I
58:13
Speaker 1: didn't consider myself a hunter and surrounded by hunters. There
58:16
Speaker 1: was never a bit of thought that ever went into it.
58:18
Speaker 1: I never mindfully made the decision or ever had to
58:21
Speaker 1: think about why do I do this? Um? I never
58:24
Speaker 1: had that most of my life. It wasn't until you know,
58:27
Speaker 1: a young adult in my twenties that I really started
58:29
Speaker 1: thinking about those things. Myself, it always just been what
58:31
Speaker 1: I did. Um But I feel like in a lot
58:33
Speaker 1: of these cases, these adults onset hunters, they're very um,
58:38
Speaker 1: mindful about what it is they're doing and why they're
58:41
Speaker 1: doing it. I took him a lot of time and
58:42
Speaker 1: thought to come to the decision to to do this,
58:45
Speaker 1: because they have to really approach this in a thoughtful manner,
58:48
Speaker 1: because no one made the decision for them when they're kids,
58:51
Speaker 1: you know. Um, So it's got to be interesting to
58:53
Speaker 1: get to engage with people that are you know, dealing
58:57
Speaker 1: with that kind of swamp of emotions and questions when
59:00
Speaker 1: it comes to do you want to start, you know,
59:04
Speaker 1: as you said, Charles, engaging this natural cycle of life
59:07
Speaker 1: and death. That is that's it's a really compelling thing.
59:11
Speaker 1: But it's a serious thing too. Um. But you guys
59:14
Speaker 1: talked about like all sorts of different types of people
59:16
Speaker 1: you're meeting, especially if you're gonna go somewhere like like
59:19
Speaker 1: a college town like Athens and go to the farmers market.
59:22
Speaker 1: If that is is a group of people that are
59:25
Speaker 1: you know, really recepted to this, it's probably fair to
59:27
Speaker 1: say that a lot of hunters might um, you know,
59:32
Speaker 1: maybe there's a little bit like an intimidation factor or
59:35
Speaker 1: a this person is different than me factor, or will
59:38
Speaker 1: I be able to relate to these types of people
59:40
Speaker 1: because because like you were saying, Hank, in many cases
59:42
Speaker 1: we are relatively insular. Many times we do kind of
59:45
Speaker 1: hang out with our own little type of people, doing
59:46
Speaker 1: our own little type of thing. Um, And a guy
59:50
Speaker 1: with suspenders, engage earrings and a cut off plaid shirt
59:55
Speaker 1: and type jeans might not be like the usual person
59:58
Speaker 1: you hang out with. Have you, guys, experienced anything or
1:00:01
Speaker 1: do you have anything to share with people listening right
1:00:03
Speaker 1: now that are thinking, Man, I want to help get
1:00:06
Speaker 1: some more people into it, but this trend of like
1:00:09
Speaker 1: the hipster folks or urban folks getting into it, Gosh,
1:00:12
Speaker 1: I think they'd be uncomfortable. I don't really want to
1:00:14
Speaker 1: do that. Can you speak at all to just your
1:00:17
Speaker 1: experiences interacting with some different folks, um, folks in different backgrounds,
1:00:21
Speaker 1: different cultural you know experiences, What that's been like? Any
1:00:25
Speaker 1: advice for someone trying to, you know, connect with some
1:00:28
Speaker 1: different types of people in this kind of goal, with
1:00:30
Speaker 1: this kind of goal. Yeah, So let's let's step back
1:00:35
Speaker 1: a little bit to what you were saying initially, you know,
1:00:37
Speaker 1: you started hunting as a kid, and so did I,
1:00:39
Speaker 1: and there was no choice. You know, that was just
1:00:41
Speaker 1: something that we were going to do. Well, think about
1:00:44
Speaker 1: coming into that as an adult and having all those
1:00:47
Speaker 1: emotions and making that decision and that thought process. That
1:00:50
Speaker 1: was probably a pretty heavy thought process. Think about how
1:00:54
Speaker 1: intimidating it is to try to start hunting what you're
1:00:57
Speaker 1: an adult. I mean, it's there's an incredible amount of
1:01:01
Speaker 1: skills development. You know, hunters as a community traditionally haven't
1:01:05
Speaker 1: been that welcoming, you know, to outsiders, like we're talking about,
1:01:10
Speaker 1: we're trying to shift the culture of hunting to make
1:01:12
Speaker 1: it a more welcoming activity. And then one of the
1:01:16
Speaker 1: biggest things, if we need to remember, is that you know,
1:01:22
Speaker 1: hunting his activity for for everybody. It's a very it's
1:01:26
Speaker 1: one of the the most human activities that we have
1:01:30
Speaker 1: left other than reproduction, that we still partake in. And
1:01:34
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's something that transcends societal, political, and
1:01:42
Speaker 1: religious boundaries activity for anybody that wants to source their
1:01:47
Speaker 1: own all natural food or that enjoys the outdoors. Um
1:01:51
Speaker 1: and this message focusing on the hunting for ecological reasons
1:01:58
Speaker 1: and hunting for the food. Like Hank mentioned earlier, we
1:02:02
Speaker 1: know from the polls that over are about of the
1:02:06
Speaker 1: general public the United States except hunting for those reasons.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: So if you're going to get out there and take
1:02:13
Speaker 1: somebody hunting with you, then those are the messages to
1:02:17
Speaker 1: stick with. And you know, just sticking to the facts
1:02:20
Speaker 1: about natural food, ecological reasons, the funding source, the North
1:02:24
Speaker 1: American model, it's gonna resonate with everybody. You're gonna focus
1:02:28
Speaker 1: on a common ground of what resonates with people. Stay
1:02:31
Speaker 1: away from politics, stay away from religion. You're not going
1:02:34
Speaker 1: to find two subjects. They're gonna divide people quicker no
1:02:37
Speaker 1: matter where you stand. So that would be the the
1:02:41
Speaker 1: main messages. One realized that the number of hunters in
1:02:47
Speaker 1: the United States directly relates to the quality and quantity
1:02:51
Speaker 1: of sporting opportunities that we're going to have. Not to
1:02:53
Speaker 1: mention all of the world of conservation benefits, but just
1:02:57
Speaker 1: from a selfish hunting perspective, the more hunters we have,
1:03:00
Speaker 1: the better off you're going to be. You might think, well,
1:03:03
Speaker 1: I want less hunters so I have more room on
1:03:05
Speaker 1: the public piece of property. With that public piece of property,
1:03:07
Speaker 1: is not going to be there anymore, or at least
1:03:09
Speaker 1: not be open to hunting if we get down to
1:03:11
Speaker 1: a certain percentage. So it's just something it's very important
1:03:16
Speaker 1: for everybody to remember that this is something we all
1:03:21
Speaker 1: need to be advocates for. When you take anybody that's interested,
1:03:25
Speaker 1: and it's I think Hank's probably gonna touch on this later,
1:03:29
Speaker 1: but we've seen a lot of the mentors come through
1:03:31
Speaker 1: and and kind of have the asidency and then later
1:03:35
Speaker 1: on be surprised. But wow, I had no idea to
1:03:38
Speaker 1: have that much in common with these people. So it's
1:03:43
Speaker 1: it's a pretty interesting topic. But the bottom line is
1:03:46
Speaker 1: we need everybody to get out there start taking people hunting,
1:03:50
Speaker 1: and we also need existing base of hunters to understand
1:03:55
Speaker 1: that funding model and why it's so important to conservation.
1:03:59
Speaker 1: Um was a study done not too long ago where
1:04:01
Speaker 1: it showed that only hunters actually knew hunting benefits conservation
1:04:06
Speaker 1: about PR funds and obviously funds and the rest of it.
1:04:10
Speaker 1: So the more that that we can do, like on
1:04:13
Speaker 1: this podcast, or you can do when you're talking about it,
1:04:16
Speaker 1: or anybody writing articles and pushing messaging out there, everybody
1:04:19
Speaker 1: to understand why it's important um from a conservation standpoint
1:04:23
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah. So, but you know, we've had these
1:04:27
Speaker 1: participants to come through. UM. One one gentleman's name was Ron.
1:04:32
Speaker 1: I think he was probably around fifty years old. He
1:04:34
Speaker 1: worked for a roofing company locally. And you know, we
1:04:38
Speaker 1: we get there that first night and we ask everybody
1:04:41
Speaker 1: to go around and to introduce themselves, you know, who
1:04:44
Speaker 1: they are, what they do, and why they want to
1:04:46
Speaker 1: learn to hunt. And he said that you know, there
1:04:50
Speaker 1: were you know, six or eight offices down his hall,
1:04:53
Speaker 1: and all of them had deer heads hanging in them
1:04:55
Speaker 1: except his, and no one had ever invited him to
1:04:58
Speaker 1: go deer hunting. Um. You know, I think I think
1:05:02
Speaker 1: adults are very hesitant to ask other adults for help
1:05:06
Speaker 1: or to do something that, you know, maybe that's something
1:05:08
Speaker 1: we feel is more childish or something. Um. But then
1:05:12
Speaker 1: we also have participants like Jim, who Charles mentioned earlier
1:05:17
Speaker 1: about the human comment. UM, but I called Jim homestead er. Um.
1:05:22
Speaker 1: She's a really awesome UM. You know, she's a graduate
1:05:27
Speaker 1: student here at you g A but um, you know
1:05:30
Speaker 1: it has been a next vegan vegetarian. But she went
1:05:34
Speaker 1: she used to go or still does she's active in
1:05:36
Speaker 1: a women's home setting group. She goes on these like
1:05:39
Speaker 1: outdoor skills weekends, and I have to imagine that like
1:05:43
Speaker 1: the people at these things that are teaching people how
1:05:45
Speaker 1: to tan hides or or whatnot or hunters. And so
1:05:49
Speaker 1: I asked her one death if you know you've never
1:05:51
Speaker 1: asked one of them or ever been invited, and she
1:05:53
Speaker 1: talked about, well, she's like, you know, been off the cuff,
1:05:57
Speaker 1: invited twice, but when she followed up on it, it
1:06:00
Speaker 1: seemed like she was burdensome. So, you know, a big
1:06:03
Speaker 1: success of our field to port program is a we're
1:06:06
Speaker 1: going to this, you know, we're going to a place
1:06:09
Speaker 1: to find them. We're going to them and um, you know,
1:06:14
Speaker 1: we are offering a message that we are here for you.
1:06:18
Speaker 1: This is something we're doing. If you'd like to be involved,
1:06:21
Speaker 1: sign up. It's not that you're going to be a burden.
1:06:24
Speaker 1: We're doing this. Join us, um, and so that you know,
1:06:29
Speaker 1: that's a cognizant effort. A lot of them learn to
1:06:32
Speaker 1: Hunt programs, in my mind, don't do a good enough
1:06:34
Speaker 1: job of that. You know, they do sign ups on
1:06:37
Speaker 1: a on a state agency website. Well, you know what
1:06:41
Speaker 1: non hunter knows about the state agency. Uh, you know,
1:06:44
Speaker 1: So we need to be cognizant to get in front
1:06:47
Speaker 1: of new audiences, and we need to diversify our hunter
1:06:51
Speaker 1: base and that's the focus of Filled the Port. But
1:06:53
Speaker 1: at the same time, when you get these diverse candidates, yes,
1:06:58
Speaker 1: there's initial hesitation and from some of our more traditional mentors,
1:07:03
Speaker 1: but when they realize that they are valued, that their experience,
1:07:08
Speaker 1: in their opinion, is valued by these uh you know,
1:07:12
Speaker 1: these diverse people, it's empowering to them and they realize
1:07:16
Speaker 1: that they can co exist and they can all you know,
1:07:19
Speaker 1: bond uh in this shared desire to hunt and and
1:07:25
Speaker 1: and so we've seen that even with some colleagues and
1:07:28
Speaker 1: minor qt M A some mom showed that hesitancy of
1:07:32
Speaker 1: will I be able to interact with these people that
1:07:37
Speaker 1: are different from me, um, you know. And and the
1:07:41
Speaker 1: answer is is they've realized they can, and they're empowered
1:07:44
Speaker 1: by it and uh and it's been hugely successful. And
1:07:48
Speaker 1: everybody gets along and drink some beer and tells their
1:07:52
Speaker 1: story and and has a good old time. Yah. We've
1:07:55
Speaker 1: we've seen have pleasant see from our whole industry too.
1:07:59
Speaker 1: In the last years. And I were talking about this.
1:08:02
Speaker 1: We'd go to meetings and start talking about targeting the
1:08:05
Speaker 1: food focused individuals, and you know, we'd get some eye
1:08:08
Speaker 1: rolls and things like that, and then all of a
1:08:10
Speaker 1: sudden Wall Street Journal happens and now everybody's talking about it.
1:08:14
Speaker 1: So it's it's things like that that are gonna push
1:08:18
Speaker 1: the needle. I was in the airport coming back from
1:08:20
Speaker 1: the Archery Trade Association meeting and UM Trade Show and Louisville, Kentucky,
1:08:26
Speaker 1: and that was shortly after that article came out. And
1:08:28
Speaker 1: at five am, I'm in the line for Starbucks getting
1:08:31
Speaker 1: some coffee before I catch my flight, and I let
1:08:33
Speaker 1: this couple go in front of me that we're headed
1:08:35
Speaker 1: to Antigua, I think. And we started talking and they
1:08:38
Speaker 1: were asking, you know, what I was doing there, and
1:08:41
Speaker 1: I told him when I did for work, and the
1:08:43
Speaker 1: gentleman popped up and he was like, you know, hunting
1:08:47
Speaker 1: is actually declining and that's a big problem because it
1:08:50
Speaker 1: supports the majority of conservation in this country. And I
1:08:52
Speaker 1: was like, did you read the Wall Street Journal? And
1:08:55
Speaker 1: he goes, yeah, how do you know. So just the
1:08:57
Speaker 1: impact of articles like that on the Jim Republic are
1:09:00
Speaker 1: unreal and potentially generating interest, you know. Yeah, So I
1:09:06
Speaker 1: mean that front Um, the Wall Street Journal did an
1:09:12
Speaker 1: article on CWD, another big focus to KEDI UM a
1:09:15
Speaker 1: couple of weeks later, and so I was, I was
1:09:17
Speaker 1: speaking to the writers and they wouldn't give me exact numbers,
1:09:20
Speaker 1: but you know, that Wall Street Journal article was trending
1:09:23
Speaker 1: on Apple News four or five days later. Um it
1:09:27
Speaker 1: got picked up from some other news sources, but he
1:09:29
Speaker 1: told me it had a hundred times their typical page
1:09:33
Speaker 1: views for an article. And to me, that just shows
1:09:38
Speaker 1: that there's so many people out there that are interested.
1:09:41
Speaker 1: I don't know if they'll ever participate, but this is
1:09:44
Speaker 1: an interesting topic for people. Maybe it's that primal. Maybe
1:09:49
Speaker 1: it's that all of us have this natural desire or interest.
1:09:52
Speaker 1: But I mean, for for some article about crossbow, you know,
1:09:58
Speaker 1: and and a few hips to is going hunting to
1:10:00
Speaker 1: make the cover of the Wall Street Journal shocked us
1:10:04
Speaker 1: and UM, and it really did give an opportunity to
1:10:09
Speaker 1: kind of paint hunting in a different light. And we've
1:10:11
Speaker 1: gotten tons of you know, calls and emails and and
1:10:15
Speaker 1: and some of us fortunate, some of us unfortunate because
1:10:17
Speaker 1: it shows that people don't consider hunting in this light,
1:10:21
Speaker 1: even current Hunters and of course you know the flat
1:10:25
Speaker 1: that I've seen. I read all the comments, but current
1:10:28
Speaker 1: Hunters maybe our biggest critic in some regards, and we're
1:10:32
Speaker 1: getting a lot of the anti cross bowing across the
1:10:35
Speaker 1: bow sentiment across the bowing, and of course to keep
1:10:38
Speaker 1: the uppies in the city's kind of thing. But you know,
1:10:42
Speaker 1: from a whole I think you know, it was kind
1:10:45
Speaker 1: of enlightening and inspiring that it's it's something that people
1:10:49
Speaker 1: want to talk about or read about. Jim In. There
1:10:52
Speaker 1: are a few things that will piss me off as
1:10:55
Speaker 1: much as seeing someone try to talk badly about some
1:11:00
Speaker 1: like this who might want to give it a shot
1:11:01
Speaker 1: because there are quote unquote hipster something you do see
1:11:04
Speaker 1: these comments like keep them in the city, or these
1:11:07
Speaker 1: guys like to come out here with their plaid shirts
1:11:09
Speaker 1: and they're big beards and pretend they're big bad hunters. Now,
1:11:12
Speaker 1: well they'll never be real, like I am, Like, come on,
1:11:15
Speaker 1: that's that stuff. So it's not helping at all. If
1:11:19
Speaker 1: if you want to feel good about yourself and try
1:11:21
Speaker 1: to prove that you're more legitimate than someone who wants
1:11:25
Speaker 1: to give this thing a try and Um, that's how
1:11:27
Speaker 1: you're gonna make yourself feel good about yourself. Great, but
1:11:30
Speaker 1: I have no interest in you being a part of
1:11:32
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do here. That is is so
1:11:35
Speaker 1: self defeating and discouraging to see. Fortunately, that's probably just
1:11:39
Speaker 1: a a vocal minority who is going to be negative
1:11:42
Speaker 1: about just about anything. And um, I know that the
1:11:46
Speaker 1: vast majority of folks I think can understand what you
1:11:49
Speaker 1: guys are getting at here and and the the overwhelmingly
1:11:53
Speaker 1: positive impact this kind of thing can have. Something worth noting,
1:11:59
Speaker 1: I think is the fact that you guys are tapping
1:12:02
Speaker 1: into and focusing on this adult demographic. There has been
1:12:06
Speaker 1: a lot of talk in previous Are Three efforts about
1:12:09
Speaker 1: trying to get kids involved in hunting, which of course
1:12:11
Speaker 1: is a great thing. Um, but I think there have
1:12:14
Speaker 1: been some studies or some theories around the fact that
1:12:17
Speaker 1: targeting adults is more effective for long term recruitment. Is
1:12:23
Speaker 1: is that right? Remembering this correctly? Isn't it something along
1:12:26
Speaker 1: the lines the fact that the adults just simply have
1:12:28
Speaker 1: the means and the ability to to keep up with
1:12:31
Speaker 1: hunting versus taking a kid out once and unless they
1:12:34
Speaker 1: have someone who can continues taking them, taking them, taking
1:12:37
Speaker 1: them they drop off. Is there something to back that up? Yeah,
1:12:41
Speaker 1: there's there's definitely something to back that up. Youth programs
1:12:45
Speaker 1: for hunting are worthless. But hold on, let me finish
1:12:51
Speaker 1: my statement here. I gotta finishing everybody off before I
1:12:54
Speaker 1: get done. Seriously that they are, and it's because if
1:12:59
Speaker 1: you do a quote un youth program for hunting and
1:13:02
Speaker 1: you teach a kid how to hunt, that doesn't do
1:13:05
Speaker 1: any good unless you teach their parents how to hunt
1:13:08
Speaker 1: as well, because they will have no one to take
1:13:11
Speaker 1: them back out, unless you, as the mentor, are going
1:13:14
Speaker 1: to take them every time they want to go hunting
1:13:16
Speaker 1: and make them continue along this process and help them along.
1:13:20
Speaker 1: Which if you're going to do that, that's great, but
1:13:22
Speaker 1: that's not how the youth programs go. So when you
1:13:26
Speaker 1: do a youth program and you don't teach the adults
1:13:30
Speaker 1: so you don't have it as a family program, then
1:13:32
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of kids that have a great
1:13:34
Speaker 1: experience one weekend and then they can never continue to
1:13:37
Speaker 1: do it again until they're out on their own. When
1:13:40
Speaker 1: you do an adult program, you are teaching people that
1:13:44
Speaker 1: have authority in their own lives. So even if they
1:13:47
Speaker 1: came from an anti hunting family, which a lot of
1:13:49
Speaker 1: these people did, anti hunting or anti gun families. I mean,
1:13:53
Speaker 1: they grew up in a place where their parents would
1:13:56
Speaker 1: have never let them do this as a child. And
1:13:59
Speaker 1: now they're adults and they're making their own decisions and
1:14:01
Speaker 1: they decided to do this. They have transportation, they have
1:14:05
Speaker 1: potentially discretionary income, you know, funding to use for outside activities,
1:14:13
Speaker 1: and then they also have you know that one of
1:14:18
Speaker 1: the most important things bringing it back to the traditional
1:14:21
Speaker 1: process that we talked about how you and I started hunting.
1:14:24
Speaker 1: They might already have kids, or they're gonna have kids
1:14:27
Speaker 1: one day at their own most likely, and they're going
1:14:29
Speaker 1: to teach those kids how to hunt through that natural,
1:14:32
Speaker 1: time intensive process. So what we've seen with the youth
1:14:36
Speaker 1: programs from over foreigned programs looked at nationally is that
1:14:40
Speaker 1: the majority of youth programs in this country where the
1:14:45
Speaker 1: kids of the existing base of hunters. So it was
1:14:49
Speaker 1: this one. You have this community that's marketing to party
1:14:53
Speaker 1: hunters about these programs, and then you know, whoever it
1:14:57
Speaker 1: is is seeing a great opportunity to get their kids
1:15:00
Speaker 1: on a free hunt, you know, and that's just that's
1:15:03
Speaker 1: just kind of how things go, or at least their
1:15:06
Speaker 1: kids from hunting communities and hunting cultures where they were
1:15:10
Speaker 1: going to have that opportunity. Regardless, they're not really tapping
1:15:13
Speaker 1: into any new audiences that we're staying within that same
1:15:18
Speaker 1: five bubble. I mean, I I helped out with a
1:15:22
Speaker 1: youth hunt. When I first started, I was guiding this
1:15:25
Speaker 1: turkey hunt, and luckily this program involved the parent as well,
1:15:29
Speaker 1: so it was better in that respect because we're teaching
1:15:30
Speaker 1: the parent as well. It was still a youth focus.
1:15:33
Speaker 1: And this kid whips out his cell phone and starts
1:15:36
Speaker 1: showing me what he killed in New Zealand the week before.
1:15:39
Speaker 1: How like, what am I doing? So I stand by
1:15:46
Speaker 1: my youth programs are worthless statement. Hank and Takeaway disagree.
1:15:50
Speaker 1: I would absolutely agree that youth are the least efficient
1:15:54
Speaker 1: audience that we could take hunting. And our goal is
1:15:58
Speaker 1: to create hunters, to create license buyers. That has to
1:16:01
Speaker 1: be the goal of our programs. You know, that's the
1:16:04
Speaker 1: goal of our three UM and we've traditionally run a
1:16:08
Speaker 1: lot of hard string programs UM you know that focus
1:16:12
Speaker 1: on youth and military and UM you know, handicap and
1:16:19
Speaker 1: while many of them were good. Um, you know, they
1:16:22
Speaker 1: aren't moving the needle. And um, you know we accumate.
1:16:26
Speaker 1: We've run a lot of youth hunts that wouldn't agree
1:16:29
Speaker 1: we're worthless because we we were very diligent, just like
1:16:33
Speaker 1: in field the Fork that we selected youth from non
1:16:36
Speaker 1: hunting backgrounds. Um. But again, you know, it can be
1:16:40
Speaker 1: hard to find good candidates because just like we talked
1:16:44
Speaker 1: about at the beginning, you know, these hunters don't know
1:16:47
Speaker 1: non hunters quote unquote. UM, So yeah, focusing on adults
1:16:52
Speaker 1: is a much better use of our time. We talked
1:16:55
Speaker 1: about the bubble earlier. You know, the baby boomers are
1:16:57
Speaker 1: aging out of the sport. We're gonna lose another a
1:17:00
Speaker 1: couple of the percent of participation if nothing happened. We
1:17:04
Speaker 1: don't have fifteen or twenty years for Johnny to get
1:17:09
Speaker 1: out of college and become a license buyer. Again, we
1:17:12
Speaker 1: need to be looking at who can go hunting the
1:17:15
Speaker 1: next weekend, who can purchase the license, and we're seeing
1:17:18
Speaker 1: that in the program. We had one gentleman, Edwin, who
1:17:22
Speaker 1: purchased twenty five one day license for the state of
1:17:25
Speaker 1: Georgia the first year we took him hunting. He also
1:17:30
Speaker 1: put two or three deer in his freezer at the
1:17:32
Speaker 1: u g A four deer at the u g A
1:17:36
Speaker 1: Disease Lab. He works at UM and send an email
1:17:40
Speaker 1: on the list serve and said, have at it. Here's
1:17:42
Speaker 1: there's venicine. And the freezer ended up mentoring five new
1:17:46
Speaker 1: hunters that year once he shared his venicine and made
1:17:49
Speaker 1: these connections. And so you can see this, you know,
1:17:52
Speaker 1: domino effector you know instant uh, instant rewards, Like this
1:17:57
Speaker 1: guy is going out and he's mentoring his friends. He
1:17:59
Speaker 1: shared in his medicine, he's telling his story. He's now
1:18:03
Speaker 1: in two years harvest attend deer and taking ten new
1:18:07
Speaker 1: hunters of field. UM and and we're working on some
1:18:11
Speaker 1: videos so you'll meet Edwin Um in the coming months.
1:18:15
Speaker 1: But UM, you know he's not the only one. UM
1:18:20
Speaker 1: and we're seeing this. But you know, the shocker to
1:18:23
Speaker 1: me during you know, the whole program is you know,
1:18:25
Speaker 1: they come in and and to the education part, they
1:18:28
Speaker 1: want to learn about the apology of it is Charleston's
1:18:31
Speaker 1: reference a few times, and that's because they know that
1:18:34
Speaker 1: they're going back to their peer group and they're gonna
1:18:36
Speaker 1: tell them about it, and they they want to be
1:18:38
Speaker 1: able to defend their actions and so they're very much
1:18:42
Speaker 1: concerned about the ecological aspect of hunting, which shocked me. Um,
1:18:47
Speaker 1: you know, I was thinking, oh, we're here for the food.
1:18:50
Speaker 1: But they're going back to you know, their peers, and
1:18:53
Speaker 1: they're telling that story and they're becoming an advocate for
1:18:56
Speaker 1: hunting and ambassador for hunting and entirely new circles and
1:19:01
Speaker 1: demographics and um, you know, they're referring their friends. The
1:19:05
Speaker 1: next year we have you know, we we have people
1:19:08
Speaker 1: on waiting list now for Athens um. But you know,
1:19:12
Speaker 1: people have very very different backgrounds. All Um. You know,
1:19:17
Speaker 1: Edwin told me the other day that we're making him
1:19:18
Speaker 1: poor because he's buying hunting gear, which we can all
1:19:20
Speaker 1: right too, and you know he's it called him. You know,
1:19:27
Speaker 1: he's full born now and that would not happen with
1:19:31
Speaker 1: you obviously. Well, you guys have obviously tapped into something here,
1:19:36
Speaker 1: an opportunity that is available and and seems to be
1:19:40
Speaker 1: you know, leading to the results that we need to
1:19:42
Speaker 1: see given all the trends. Uh So it's a proven model,
1:19:45
Speaker 1: but it does seem to be. The question is how
1:19:49
Speaker 1: do we scale it? How do we take what you
1:19:51
Speaker 1: guys have have created and tapped into im proven to
1:19:53
Speaker 1: be a successful way of of bringing new hunters in
1:19:57
Speaker 1: the fold. How do we actually get that out there
1:19:58
Speaker 1: to the rest of the folks, Because as what you're
1:20:00
Speaker 1: doing is awesome, but it's you know, eight hunters a year,
1:20:03
Speaker 1: fifteen hunters a year. How can we get to the
1:20:05
Speaker 1: point where the tens of thousands of folks listening to
1:20:08
Speaker 1: this and the millions of other hunters out there that
1:20:11
Speaker 1: hopefully will be UM presented with ideas like this, how
1:20:14
Speaker 1: do we start taking some of these things into into action?
1:20:17
Speaker 1: Put these things into action, um. Because if we could
1:20:20
Speaker 1: all participate in something of this and all of us
1:20:22
Speaker 1: have a hand in bringing a new hunter into the
1:20:24
Speaker 1: fold each year, or each community bringing a new fifteen
1:20:27
Speaker 1: in a year, UM, then we are making a really big,
1:20:31
Speaker 1: significant difference. So my my question, I want to post
1:20:34
Speaker 1: you in two parts. I would like to know how
1:20:38
Speaker 1: you would propose we do this on an individual level.
1:20:40
Speaker 1: So how could each one of us, UM take some
1:20:43
Speaker 1: of these things into account on a on an individual
1:20:46
Speaker 1: level with a mentorship, maybe a one on one type thing.
1:20:49
Speaker 1: Or Part number two would be if someone listening loves
1:20:53
Speaker 1: what you're doing, with Field of Fork and wants to
1:20:55
Speaker 1: start a Field the Fork operation in their community. How
1:20:58
Speaker 1: do we do that? That's my part one and part
1:21:00
Speaker 1: two questions. Feel free to take with it, to take
1:21:03
Speaker 1: it wherever you want, all right, So you know we've
1:21:07
Speaker 1: we've long said that, you know, in a short term basis,
1:21:11
Speaker 1: you know, an organized program is hard to get to
1:21:15
Speaker 1: move the needle, and it all comes down to scalability.
1:21:18
Speaker 1: But um, you know, individual hunters can move this needle,
1:21:22
Speaker 1: as we spoke earlier instantly tomorrow this season, and we
1:21:26
Speaker 1: need all hunters to to understand it's their duty. Uh,
1:21:32
Speaker 1: it's it's their duty for the future of hunting, for
1:21:35
Speaker 1: the sake of you know, future generations and and the
1:21:38
Speaker 1: habitat and wildlife that they love, that they need to
1:21:41
Speaker 1: mentor a new hunter each year. And if we all
1:21:43
Speaker 1: did that, you know, game over. You say that an
1:21:46
Speaker 1: organized program is hard to move the needle, but then
1:21:50
Speaker 1: you know, all of a sudden, you're on the cover
1:21:52
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and you you made a much larger
1:21:55
Speaker 1: impact than the thirty three participants that have gone through
1:21:58
Speaker 1: the program. And happens georgan three years. But um, you know,
1:22:03
Speaker 1: filled the pork is scalable. I think you could replicate
1:22:06
Speaker 1: Field the Ports throughout the country, and so last year
1:22:08
Speaker 1: we set a goal to try to do that, and
1:22:11
Speaker 1: so we we took Field the Fork to eight new states,
1:22:15
Speaker 1: um you know, from your home state of Michigan. For example,
1:22:19
Speaker 1: we ran a Field the Fork at the Tip of
1:22:21
Speaker 1: the Mid Branch Mike Wolf and we partnered on the
1:22:25
Speaker 1: already existing Learned a Hunt in uh in Michigan with
1:22:30
Speaker 1: n W t F and Steve Sharp, and We're going
1:22:32
Speaker 1: to continue to do that. I've always instructed my colleagues
1:22:37
Speaker 1: to partner with existing programs that we can help to
1:22:41
Speaker 1: evolve before we go out and create another one, you know.
1:22:45
Speaker 1: So so that is our first push. If there is
1:22:48
Speaker 1: an existing learning hunt program, should try to evolve it
1:22:51
Speaker 1: to you know, use the filled the Port model. But
1:22:54
Speaker 1: where they don't exist, we've been replicating the model. We've
1:22:57
Speaker 1: created standardized curriculum, sample agendas. We're working on a couple
1:23:02
Speaker 1: of videos right now that will give a good picture
1:23:06
Speaker 1: of Field the Fork and a lot of the participant
1:23:10
Speaker 1: um point of view, and I think they will be
1:23:13
Speaker 1: very beneficial for showing it. You can go to qum
1:23:16
Speaker 1: a dot com slash Field the Fork and see our
1:23:18
Speaker 1: written summaries and some old videos, but we want to
1:23:23
Speaker 1: do everything we can to help replicate Field the Porks
1:23:26
Speaker 1: around the country, and so we're trying to inspire our
1:23:30
Speaker 1: q you May branches as well as anybody who would
1:23:33
Speaker 1: be interested in hosting a Field the Fork to contact me.
1:23:37
Speaker 1: My email is on key you May I can. I
1:23:40
Speaker 1: can tell it to you right now. It's all you know,
1:23:42
Speaker 1: all of the all the summaries of the Field the
1:23:45
Speaker 1: Pork program, which are all online, so you can find
1:23:47
Speaker 1: it there. But um we understand it as we replicate it.
1:23:52
Speaker 1: You know, each model will look a little different. So
1:23:55
Speaker 1: um I kind of took it under uh my wing
1:23:58
Speaker 1: to try to test some of these different replications around
1:24:01
Speaker 1: the country. Last year, so I flew to New Hampshire
1:24:05
Speaker 1: and hosted a field to Fork for industry. We had
1:24:08
Speaker 1: to cap it at twenty four because we had to
1:24:10
Speaker 1: actually host a hunter education day, but we hosted twenty
1:24:14
Speaker 1: four employees of Ruger and six Hour, both American firearm
1:24:19
Speaker 1: manufacturers from New Hampshire and Vermont, and we partnered them
1:24:24
Speaker 1: with qum A members from the KEYMA New Hampshire branch
1:24:27
Speaker 1: or First New Hampshire Branch, and we did kind of
1:24:30
Speaker 1: an organized education which included hunter education because there was
1:24:34
Speaker 1: no apprentice license and no online hunter education, so just
1:24:38
Speaker 1: a quick belief at a major hurdle that's keeping us
1:24:41
Speaker 1: from creating new hunters in those states. But we we
1:24:45
Speaker 1: ran a very successful program. Um you know, they they
1:24:49
Speaker 1: paired up, they had a very short season. You know,
1:24:52
Speaker 1: down south were very fortunate to have these long seasons,
1:24:55
Speaker 1: long firearms seasons. It's a little bit easier to inspire
1:24:59
Speaker 1: people to in tour I field. But also went to
1:25:02
Speaker 1: Texas and partnered with v h A and we hosted
1:25:06
Speaker 1: a destination filled to Fork where it was just three
1:25:09
Speaker 1: days at a ranch in Texas, and um, well, I
1:25:13
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to take somebody from New Hampshire and sent
1:25:16
Speaker 1: him down to Texas to teach him to deer hunt.
1:25:18
Speaker 1: You know, that was applicable for residents of Texas, so
1:25:21
Speaker 1: we only took you know, in state people who were
1:25:25
Speaker 1: first time hunters that wanted to hunt for me. And
1:25:27
Speaker 1: and as Charles mentioned, we do preselection surveys so we
1:25:30
Speaker 1: make sure we're getting the candidates that fits, you know,
1:25:34
Speaker 1: fifth the bill, and then we're doing posts, events, surveys
1:25:38
Speaker 1: and a survey a year later to really check up
1:25:40
Speaker 1: on ourselves and gather the data. But um, you know,
1:25:44
Speaker 1: we'll have filled the forks in at least ten states
1:25:47
Speaker 1: this year, probably more. Gotten a lot of emails from
1:25:51
Speaker 1: people wanting to host build the forks, um in states
1:25:55
Speaker 1: the Q MAY traditionally doesn't cover, and we're not gonna
1:25:58
Speaker 1: abandon those. Uh. Acramento, California seems to be like number
1:26:03
Speaker 1: one place to host the field the Fork. I got
1:26:05
Speaker 1: more emails from Sacramento, California than anywhere from the article,
1:26:10
Speaker 1: And UM, you know we're not going to abandon California.
1:26:13
Speaker 1: California is just getting on board, writing an our three plan,
1:26:19
Speaker 1: hiring a state coordinator. So we're gonna do what we
1:26:22
Speaker 1: can to help them to hopefully host field the Forks
1:26:25
Speaker 1: in California. But UM, you know, we're trying to partner
1:26:29
Speaker 1: with anybody interested. I know UH in Michigan again, we're
1:26:33
Speaker 1: gonna do one this year, partnering with b h A. UM,
1:26:37
Speaker 1: so we're expanding them in the states that we expanded
1:26:40
Speaker 1: to last year and uh and then hope to gain
1:26:43
Speaker 1: a few more. But um, we're here to help. We're working. Uh.
1:26:47
Speaker 1: We got a grant from NSSF to help with some
1:26:50
Speaker 1: of the replication materials and some of the videos that
1:26:52
Speaker 1: will be released. We're working with the Archery Trade Association UM,
1:26:58
Speaker 1: you know, to to help standard some of the curriculums
1:27:01
Speaker 1: and push their members, which are industry manufacturers, to host
1:27:05
Speaker 1: filled the forks UM. You know, really a lot of
1:27:08
Speaker 1: people see it as a viable way too to actually
1:27:11
Speaker 1: create you know, lasting hunters and so um. You know,
1:27:16
Speaker 1: we've hosted a filled to pork internally pretty much at
1:27:19
Speaker 1: qtm A because you know, I had probleagues asking me, hey,
1:27:22
Speaker 1: what are you doing up there after work? You know
1:27:25
Speaker 1: I'd be interested in that, So we hosted employees. So
1:27:29
Speaker 1: K may but I guarantee anybody listening if you make
1:27:33
Speaker 1: it a concerted effort to share a little vinincent or
1:27:36
Speaker 1: tell a story or ask around. You interact with people
1:27:40
Speaker 1: all day every day that are interested in hunting, that
1:27:43
Speaker 1: do not hunt, that have never been invited, and you
1:27:47
Speaker 1: shouldn't make it your mission to take somebody new this
1:27:50
Speaker 1: year and do do it the right way. Put in
1:27:53
Speaker 1: the time, teach them what they need to know on
1:27:56
Speaker 1: the front end, take them to the range, get them proficient,
1:28:00
Speaker 1: you know, teach them and try to do your bet
1:28:03
Speaker 1: to create a new hunter and uh, it may be
1:28:06
Speaker 1: your must rewarding hunt this coming season and it will
1:28:10
Speaker 1: be the most beneficial hunt for the future of hunting.
1:28:13
Speaker 1: Spot On, Charles, did you would you add anything on
1:28:16
Speaker 1: that front? That was pretty passionate. I don't know if
1:28:19
Speaker 1: I want to follow that up, but basically, just just
1:28:24
Speaker 1: take new people hunting. You might be surprised. I mean,
1:28:28
Speaker 1: at the very least, just mentor somebody new each year.
1:28:32
Speaker 1: You know, pick somebody, has somebody at your office, one
1:28:34
Speaker 1: of your friends, your neighbor, or whoever, and ask him
1:28:38
Speaker 1: to go, honey, you can you can take him deer running,
1:28:40
Speaker 1: you can just take him on a squirrel on or
1:28:42
Speaker 1: a dog hunt or whatever it might be. Just get
1:28:45
Speaker 1: him out there and have some fun. And you're probably
1:28:47
Speaker 1: gonna be surprised with how much fun it actually is
1:28:51
Speaker 1: to teach somebody. I mean it it can get to
1:28:54
Speaker 1: the point where it's it's more fun to watch them
1:28:57
Speaker 1: at success than it is to do it yourself. I mean,
1:28:59
Speaker 1: we hade and mentor named David Kidd that came through
1:29:03
Speaker 1: the program and served as a mentor for the past
1:29:05
Speaker 1: few years that he was like, these participants are way
1:29:09
Speaker 1: more interesting than the people in my hunting club. I
1:29:11
Speaker 1: should keep them all out and invite all these people
1:29:13
Speaker 1: who come off. You know, it's so whether you do
1:29:17
Speaker 1: it on your own, or you want to start a
1:29:19
Speaker 1: field of fork so you contact Hank. You know, it's
1:29:21
Speaker 1: just a good time with the field of fork. Food's involved.
1:29:25
Speaker 1: You know, we all drink beer afterwards and pair wine
1:29:28
Speaker 1: with the meals and everything. It's just it's a lot
1:29:30
Speaker 1: of fun, and it's fun to get to know people,
1:29:33
Speaker 1: um that might have different views than you and be
1:29:36
Speaker 1: able to explain things a little bit better in ways
1:29:39
Speaker 1: that you haven't thought about it before because you've been
1:29:41
Speaker 1: so ingrained and hunting your entire life. Yeah, I will
1:29:44
Speaker 1: say from my own personal organized program ahead, I was
1:29:49
Speaker 1: just gonna say, the organized program really the best part
1:29:51
Speaker 1: about it, other than the community phil and this social support,
1:29:57
Speaker 1: which is obviously what we've decided a key to creating
1:29:59
Speaker 1: a honor is that social support. UM. It puts a
1:30:04
Speaker 1: date on your calendar. It's easy to say you're gonna
1:30:07
Speaker 1: do something, but it's it's harder to follow through. And
1:30:10
Speaker 1: the organized hunt the value of it is we hope
1:30:13
Speaker 1: we get a deer and we can break it down
1:30:14
Speaker 1: and show them and it. But it's set that date
1:30:17
Speaker 1: on that calendar and it starts the process. And that's
1:30:22
Speaker 1: really the value is you know, set a date, get
1:30:24
Speaker 1: it done. But that's that's the value of the program,
1:30:28
Speaker 1: uh is it just it holds everybody to it. We're
1:30:31
Speaker 1: all part of this and we don't want to let
1:30:33
Speaker 1: down our our buddy or or nobody wants to let
1:30:36
Speaker 1: down me and Charles hopefully, But it just it puts
1:30:38
Speaker 1: it on the calendar and gets it started and then
1:30:41
Speaker 1: they continue to you know, hunt through that year. Yeah,
1:30:46
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, kind of echoing some of
1:30:48
Speaker 1: the things you both mentioned there, you know, from my
1:30:50
Speaker 1: own personal experience just engaging with non hunters, like in
1:30:55
Speaker 1: my old dage I've a worked in like the tech
1:30:57
Speaker 1: industry and a lot of people from the coasts, a
1:31:00
Speaker 1: lot of urban folks who had no experience hunting or
1:31:04
Speaker 1: anything like that. But the level of curiosity and the
1:31:06
Speaker 1: level of kind of fascination with hunting once, you know,
1:31:11
Speaker 1: once the topic came up, it was very interesting, how interesting,
1:31:17
Speaker 1: how interesting these people were in it. And then there
1:31:19
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun for me just to get
1:31:21
Speaker 1: to be a part of those conversations and share with
1:31:23
Speaker 1: them what actually happens and everything that goes into it. It
1:31:25
Speaker 1: It was it was really surprising to a lot of
1:31:27
Speaker 1: these folks. They had no idea that so much one
1:31:29
Speaker 1: in hunting, or that there was actually all this management
1:31:32
Speaker 1: behind it, or or the fact there was even something
1:31:34
Speaker 1: like bag limits. UM. Just talking about these things was
1:31:36
Speaker 1: so much fun. Let alone, then getting to take some
1:31:39
Speaker 1: of these people out into the woods and do things
1:31:41
Speaker 1: like that, I mean that that is very very fulfilling
1:31:45
Speaker 1: and and I'm excited about what you guys are doing
1:31:47
Speaker 1: that the results that you're seeing so far, I think
1:31:49
Speaker 1: it really is an example that we can all learn from.
1:31:53
Speaker 1: And and to your point, Hank, then organized model using
1:31:56
Speaker 1: a framework like what you guys have built with Field
1:31:58
Speaker 1: of Fork, I think gives us an opportunity to scale
1:32:02
Speaker 1: something like this UM Because yeah, it's easy to say
1:32:05
Speaker 1: I want to enter more people, Yeah I want to
1:32:07
Speaker 1: do these things, but following through on it, actually acting
1:32:10
Speaker 1: on it's a whole different story. UM. I think by
1:32:14
Speaker 1: by putting some organization around it and then having you know,
1:32:17
Speaker 1: some of the hard things taken out of the equation
1:32:20
Speaker 1: by way of the fact that you guys have already
1:32:22
Speaker 1: done the legwork to establish curriculum, to establish some of
1:32:25
Speaker 1: these frameworks. I think that is what people need, and
1:32:28
Speaker 1: so I'm pumped about it. I'm really appreciative of what
1:32:32
Speaker 1: you guys are doing, and I want to make sure
1:32:33
Speaker 1: that we make this as easy as possible for people
1:32:36
Speaker 1: that are intrigued and excited by this to take action. So,
1:32:38
Speaker 1: hank Um, as risky as this might be, can you
1:32:42
Speaker 1: give us that email address right now that people can
1:32:44
Speaker 1: reach out to you at and then exactly where on
1:32:47
Speaker 1: the website can they find more of these resources? Kind
1:32:49
Speaker 1: of I want to make sure if someone right now
1:32:51
Speaker 1: wants to start a field to fork um, I want
1:32:53
Speaker 1: to give them step one and step two exactly what
1:32:56
Speaker 1: to do right now when they get done listening. What
1:32:58
Speaker 1: what would that be? So all information is at qum
1:33:01
Speaker 1: a dot com flash f t F F t F
1:33:05
Speaker 1: and my email is h F O R E S
1:33:09
Speaker 1: t R at qt m A dot com, h Forster
1:33:13
Speaker 1: at kum a dot com. Um reach out to me.
1:33:15
Speaker 1: I'm here to answer any questions, whether here somebody who
1:33:20
Speaker 1: would like to participate in the Field the Fork or
1:33:23
Speaker 1: um hosts of Field the Fork just reach out to me.
1:33:26
Speaker 1: But again. QUM dot com slash f t F has
1:33:29
Speaker 1: all the summaries of the three years and that F
1:33:32
Speaker 1: and some summaries of some of the other programs UM
1:33:36
Speaker 1: and then some of the news and and another podcasters too,
1:33:40
Speaker 1: and and it thinks we've done on until the fork.
1:33:42
Speaker 1: But you can find all the information compiled there. Excellent.
1:33:46
Speaker 1: All right, Well to all you guys and girls listening,
1:33:49
Speaker 1: light Hank up hit about take advantage of this great
1:33:53
Speaker 1: resource that that Hank and Charles are putting together for
1:33:55
Speaker 1: us all to uh to do some really good positive
1:33:58
Speaker 1: things out there in the world, because this stuff really matters.
1:34:03
Speaker 1: It really really does. If we want to keep hunting
1:34:05
Speaker 1: as a is a part of our lives moving forward
1:34:08
Speaker 1: for decades to come, this kind of work is necessary.
1:34:12
Speaker 1: And UM, I'm really excited to see what we can
1:34:14
Speaker 1: do with with what you guys are putting out there.
1:34:16
Speaker 1: So Hank and Charles Man, thank you for doing this
1:34:18
Speaker 1: and thanks for taking the time to chat about him. Hey,
1:34:20
Speaker 1: thanks for having us. Yes, thank you, mart And UH,
1:34:24
Speaker 1: I think with that we'll wrap it up. Hank and
1:34:27
Speaker 1: Charles always feel free, uh if you want to hop
1:34:30
Speaker 1: back on the show sometime and talk about how the
1:34:32
Speaker 1: next couple of years worth of feel the Fork events
1:34:35
Speaker 1: have gone. Would love to would love to keep this
1:34:37
Speaker 1: conversation going, absolutely, and we got we got more in store,
1:34:41
Speaker 1: so yeah, hopefully they'll be more available for them in
1:34:45
Speaker 1: common years. Sounds good and that is a rap. So
1:34:52
Speaker 1: thank you for tuning into this one, Thanks for listening
1:34:54
Speaker 1: here about what, as we've said over and over, is
1:34:57
Speaker 1: a very important issue. My my big hole been takeaway
1:35:00
Speaker 1: from this. I'm not gonna ask for anything else today
1:35:03
Speaker 1: other than please try to take someone new hunting this year.
1:35:08
Speaker 1: You know, take the things that Charles and Hank talked about,
1:35:11
Speaker 1: put them into action. I'm going to do my best
1:35:13
Speaker 1: to do the same thing this year. Let's all do
1:35:15
Speaker 1: a little something positive this season and hopefully it's gonna
1:35:19
Speaker 1: help us all in the long run. So with that,
1:35:22
Speaker 1: I will thank you all for listening. I will thank
1:35:23
Speaker 1: you for being a part of this community. You guys
1:35:26
Speaker 1: are the best. And until next time, stay wired to Hunt.