Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep 417: 10 Actions You Can Take Today for Conservation with Sam Soholt

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Ep 417: 10 Actions You Can Take Today for Conservation with Sam Soholt · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:17
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number four seventeen,
0:21
Speaker 1: and today the show, I'm joined by Sam Soholt, the
0:24
Speaker 1: co founder of public Land Teas and well known for
0:27
Speaker 1: his public land bus adventures, and we're diving into ten
0:31
Speaker 1: very specific actions you can take today for conservation. All right,
0:39
Speaker 1: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
0:43
Speaker 1: by First Light, and today we have got Sam so
0:48
Speaker 1: hold and Sam is most well known for his public
0:53
Speaker 1: land bus and public land van adventures. If you follow
0:57
Speaker 1: those at all on YouTube or social media or in
1:00
Speaker 1: the countless other media places he's shown up, you probably
1:03
Speaker 1: know what he's been up to. He also is one
1:05
Speaker 1: of the co owners of public Land Tease. And Sam's
1:10
Speaker 1: story is really cool because you know, Sam was just
1:14
Speaker 1: a regular hunter. He's just a guy like you or
1:16
Speaker 1: me who would love to chase deer and get outside
1:19
Speaker 1: and and hunt critters and enjoy the great outdoors. And
1:23
Speaker 1: after doing that for a whole lot of years, though,
1:25
Speaker 1: he realized that he wanted to do more. He realized
1:29
Speaker 1: that he could do more to help protect public lands
1:33
Speaker 1: and wildlife and healthy habitats, and so he decided, you
1:36
Speaker 1: know what, I'm gonna go from just being a person
1:39
Speaker 1: that goes out there and hunts and takes pictures and
1:41
Speaker 1: does this kind of stuff, and instead I'm gonna try
1:44
Speaker 1: to make a difference. And since that point he's been
1:47
Speaker 1: doing it. He's been living that mission and making a
1:51
Speaker 1: big difference. And so it seems to me that he
1:53
Speaker 1: is the perfect person to help us wrap up our
1:55
Speaker 1: month long conservation series because you know, we've talked about
1:59
Speaker 1: a lot. Talked to Randy about public lands. We talked
2:02
Speaker 1: to madd and Adam about private land management work that
2:06
Speaker 1: you can do in your own ground. We talked to
2:08
Speaker 1: Wit about a lot of different public and private land
2:11
Speaker 1: related conservation policies, regulations, laws that might be considered. Uh
2:16
Speaker 1: So we've kind of covered all of that stuff, and
2:18
Speaker 1: there's there's been a lot to talk about the question
2:22
Speaker 1: though that I think I had coming out of this,
2:24
Speaker 1: and maybe some of you guys too, is okay, now
2:28
Speaker 1: what you know, there's so many different things that were discussed.
2:32
Speaker 1: It's I think it's fair to say that could be overwhelming.
2:35
Speaker 1: There's so many different issues you could worry about, our
2:37
Speaker 1: things you could do or actions you could take. And
2:40
Speaker 1: I think what I wanted to try to do today
2:42
Speaker 1: here was to talk through some concrete ideas, give you, guys,
2:47
Speaker 1: ten specific ideas for how you could take action to
2:51
Speaker 1: help conservation efforts to do something good for the wildlife.
2:55
Speaker 1: We love chasing for the wild places, we love to
2:57
Speaker 1: spend time in uh and way that we can give back.
3:01
Speaker 1: And so what Sam and I have done as we've
3:04
Speaker 1: brainstormed kind of looking at our own experiences and then
3:07
Speaker 1: also looking back at the conversations we've had already this
3:10
Speaker 1: month about these topics with Randy Wit and Adam and
3:13
Speaker 1: Keith or Adam and Matt, and we've put together our
3:19
Speaker 1: top ten action items. So this is a bunch of
3:22
Speaker 1: different ideas. Some of these will be realistic for some
3:25
Speaker 1: of you, some of you not so much, So pick
3:27
Speaker 1: and choose, but my my encouragement to you is to
3:30
Speaker 1: give this a listen and see if there's one or
3:33
Speaker 1: two things here that is a good fit for you
3:35
Speaker 1: that you could try to take some action on and
3:38
Speaker 1: move that needle. I think we can all do it.
3:40
Speaker 1: I'm if nothing else, this is for me. I guess
3:42
Speaker 1: this is a great way I'm trying to remind myself. Okay,
3:47
Speaker 1: here some tangible things you can do to to do
3:50
Speaker 1: something that's going to help. Because it's it's easy to
3:53
Speaker 1: see the news or see something pop up online and think, damn,
3:57
Speaker 1: another bad thing happened in this place I care about,
4:00
Speaker 1: or another you know, public land thing that's gonna go
4:03
Speaker 1: down the tube, and it can seem so overwhelming or
4:08
Speaker 1: out of our hands, and sometimes it just feels really
4:11
Speaker 1: good to do something about it. And so today our
4:15
Speaker 1: hope is to give you a few ideas for how
4:18
Speaker 1: you could do that. So we're gonna dive into Sam's
4:20
Speaker 1: story a little bit, learn a little bit about this history,
4:22
Speaker 1: learn a little bit about what it was for him
4:25
Speaker 1: that took him from being a hunter to being a
4:27
Speaker 1: hunter advocate, conservationist, public land promoter and uh protector and
4:33
Speaker 1: all that kind of good stuff, and then we dive
4:36
Speaker 1: into these ten specific ideas. So I hope you enjoyed
4:39
Speaker 1: this one. I hope this is a helpful way to
4:41
Speaker 1: wrap up this series. I think it is. Uh, it
4:44
Speaker 1: definitely was helpful for me, and I'm excited for you
4:46
Speaker 1: guys to give it a listen and then for all
4:48
Speaker 1: of us to get after it. So with that, I
4:52
Speaker 1: appreciate you being here. Thank you for here, for tuning
4:55
Speaker 1: into this Conservation Month series. And now let's get to
4:58
Speaker 1: my conversation with Sam so Whole. All right, I've got
5:04
Speaker 1: with me on the line now Sam So hold Sam,
5:07
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. It's
5:10
Speaker 1: been I feel like it's been a long time coming. Yeah.
5:13
Speaker 1: I just was thinking the very same thing, like, why
5:16
Speaker 1: hasn't this happened yet? It is? It is one and
5:19
Speaker 1: oversight on my part, and uh, I know we've talked
5:22
Speaker 1: in the past about making it happen and then logistics
5:24
Speaker 1: and different things ended up getting in the way. So
5:27
Speaker 1: I'm glad it all worked out. And thanks for making
5:30
Speaker 1: the time to do it. Yeah. Absolutely. I just you know,
5:33
Speaker 1: appreciate you having me on. And you know, during the spring,
5:37
Speaker 1: it's you know, it seems like a very good time
5:39
Speaker 1: to to sit down and do this before the craziness
5:42
Speaker 1: of that is the rest of the year. Yeah, that's
5:44
Speaker 1: that's definitely the truth. So you know, I I briefly
5:49
Speaker 1: introduced folks to you in the little introduction that I
5:52
Speaker 1: record before these conversations, but I got to hear it
5:56
Speaker 1: from the horse's mouth. You know, when when people ask
6:00
Speaker 1: you what you do, how do you answer that question?
6:03
Speaker 1: Because it's not as easy as someone who says, like
6:04
Speaker 1: I'm a doctor, or you know, I work on cars.
6:09
Speaker 1: You kind of have a complicated answer. What do you
6:11
Speaker 1: tell people? You know? For a long long time, I
6:15
Speaker 1: just told people that I was a photographer, freelance photographer,
6:18
Speaker 1: a videographer. Um, but I'm trying. I've been trying to
6:21
Speaker 1: figure out what a better a better explanation of what
6:25
Speaker 1: I do, and it would probably just be like content creators,
6:30
Speaker 1: slash public land and conservation advocate. Well that rolls off
6:34
Speaker 1: the tongue really nice. But but okay, I kid um
6:43
Speaker 1: way too long. But yeah, so it's been in the
6:47
Speaker 1: whatever quote unquote hunting industry for ten years now, and
6:52
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I started off as just doing mostly videography,
6:55
Speaker 1: kind of transitioned into a lot more photography, and then
7:00
Speaker 1: about four years ago, uh started down this journey of
7:03
Speaker 1: kind of transitioning and using everything that I had learned
7:06
Speaker 1: in photography and video to to really promote and raise
7:10
Speaker 1: awareness and raise money around conservation and help educate people
7:15
Speaker 1: on how they can get involved, and so it's yeah,
7:18
Speaker 1: what started as was you know, just a passion for
7:21
Speaker 1: the outdoors and the love for hunting and uh, you know,
7:24
Speaker 1: photography and videography was away from me to get paid
7:27
Speaker 1: to do those things. Transition into doing what I can
7:32
Speaker 1: and what we can as a company to to protect
7:35
Speaker 1: those resources so that future generations have those same opportunities. Yeah, yeah,
7:39
Speaker 1: I can definitely relate to that kind of transition. But
7:43
Speaker 1: was there any was there any one thing or moment
7:47
Speaker 1: or time period that was like the catalyst for that
7:51
Speaker 1: jump or was this just a slow evolution for you? Now,
7:55
Speaker 1: the big catalyst was the fall of two sixteen when
8:00
Speaker 1: it was a transition year for politics and there was
8:03
Speaker 1: a lot of legislation that was coming down the pipeline
8:05
Speaker 1: that was threatening our public land system. And to be
8:10
Speaker 1: completely honest, like I really had no idea, Like I
8:13
Speaker 1: didn't I was uneducated myself about all how all of
8:17
Speaker 1: that worked, all the finances and everything, and how potentially
8:21
Speaker 1: easily that could all disappear. And so there was this
8:24
Speaker 1: moment like when I started to learn about all this
8:27
Speaker 1: stuff that it just like, you know, it's like getting
8:30
Speaker 1: punched in the gut. I just felt like I needed
8:32
Speaker 1: to do my part to speak up and and talk
8:35
Speaker 1: about it. At least, you know, I have very small platform,
8:38
Speaker 1: but at least do something that would maybe help a
8:42
Speaker 1: few other people learn about it and speak up about it.
8:44
Speaker 1: And no, it just knew that collectively, like the hunting
8:48
Speaker 1: industry as a whole, there's a lot of people out
8:50
Speaker 1: there have been doing this for decades. But just you know,
8:53
Speaker 1: the more people that knew about it, the more people
8:55
Speaker 1: that would speak up, would help protect public lands and
8:58
Speaker 1: conservation going forward. And so yeah, it was. It was
9:02
Speaker 1: that fall of two thousand and sixteen. I just got
9:04
Speaker 1: all inspired and fired up, and it was I was
9:07
Speaker 1: coming off of a really good year on photography and
9:09
Speaker 1: videography and just was kind of looking for that next
9:12
Speaker 1: big project and this one, this one was. It was
9:15
Speaker 1: a combination of perfect timing and inspiration all at once. Yeah,
9:19
Speaker 1: And this sounds a lot like what I went through
9:21
Speaker 1: leading up to my book project. Same kind of deal
9:24
Speaker 1: where I realized, like, wow, this stuff is not as
9:27
Speaker 1: guaranteed as I thought, and uh, and I have so
9:32
Speaker 1: much to learn, like what can I do to help?
9:34
Speaker 1: And it's sent us both down that path, I guess.
9:37
Speaker 1: But what what I mean when people look at what
9:43
Speaker 1: you've done in those years, since there's been a lot,
9:46
Speaker 1: how would you describe like what that journey looked like
9:49
Speaker 1: for you? I mean, tell tell us about the public
9:52
Speaker 1: land bus and the van and everything since, Like, what
9:55
Speaker 1: have been the stand up moments for you? Now that
9:57
Speaker 1: you've taken this this detour for um, just hunting photography
10:01
Speaker 1: and videography to now, Uh, you know, content producer conservationist.
10:07
Speaker 1: There's your name, your content producer conservationist. Yeah, that's perfect. Um. Yeah,
10:14
Speaker 1: so you know, of course, you know got all fired
10:16
Speaker 1: up and you know, wanted to raise awareness about all
10:19
Speaker 1: these issues, and you know the most obvious solution to
10:23
Speaker 1: that is to purchase a school bus. And yeah, I
10:27
Speaker 1: mean it's just total makes total sense. And actually the
10:30
Speaker 1: school bus idea had been around for a while. Um,
10:34
Speaker 1: I was previous to my photography career. I had worked
10:37
Speaker 1: with my brother in his back country hunting store and
10:40
Speaker 1: he had kicked around the idea of getting the bus
10:42
Speaker 1: and using it as like a marketing vehicle for their company,
10:45
Speaker 1: or a mobile archery shop or you know, some different ideas.
10:49
Speaker 1: And uh, so that the school bus itself had kind
10:52
Speaker 1: of been floating around my brain and like all the
10:54
Speaker 1: possibilities of what you could do with that type of vehicle.
10:58
Speaker 1: But it wasn't until this this idea for this project
11:02
Speaker 1: came about that I was like, Oh, that's that's it.
11:04
Speaker 1: That's what you use a bus for. It's the it's
11:06
Speaker 1: a rolling billboard to raise awareness, like what the vehicle
11:08
Speaker 1: would get more attention than something that you know, basically
11:13
Speaker 1: every person in the country has written on a school
11:15
Speaker 1: bus at one point in time, like whether it be
11:18
Speaker 1: going to school or going to events? Are all these
11:20
Speaker 1: things like has all this nostalgia built into this vehicle?
11:23
Speaker 1: And so I was off and running. I was looking
11:26
Speaker 1: for busses on Craigslist and Facebook and uh, you know,
11:30
Speaker 1: like newspaper ads, anywhere I could look. And my my
11:34
Speaker 1: brother Josh found one on Craig's list out in Colorado,
11:38
Speaker 1: and I called on it and just you know offered.
11:42
Speaker 1: I was, you know, a bit of a barter. So
11:44
Speaker 1: I was trying to trade gear for it. Asked if
11:47
Speaker 1: he asked the guy hunted and fished, and I was like, well,
11:49
Speaker 1: what do you need to need? Coolers? You need guns,
11:51
Speaker 1: you need what you know, what are you looking for
11:53
Speaker 1: I think I finally just wore him down and he
11:54
Speaker 1: had it listed for fifty dollars and UH just was
11:59
Speaker 1: finally like, I'll just I'll take and so yeah, so
12:04
Speaker 1: I said, yep, that sounds good, drove down or it
12:08
Speaker 1: was out in Colorado for New Year's and drove down
12:10
Speaker 1: on New Year's Eve and bought the bus and and
12:15
Speaker 1: then um, yeah, proceeded to you know, basically plan the
12:19
Speaker 1: interior build and uh from there on out. But like,
12:23
Speaker 1: you know, bought the bus New Year's And then obviously
12:25
Speaker 1: in my photography career, I would go to Archer Trade
12:28
Speaker 1: Association show, the A t A Show and the Shot Show,
12:31
Speaker 1: and every year I would go talk to my former
12:34
Speaker 1: clients and talk to potential new clients. And I went
12:38
Speaker 1: to both of those shows with all just jacked up
12:41
Speaker 1: that I had just you know, bought this thirty seven
12:44
Speaker 1: foot piece of steel, and I was like, Hey, here's
12:47
Speaker 1: what I'm doing, here's the idea, here's what I'm gonna
12:49
Speaker 1: do with it, like and um, all of these companies
12:52
Speaker 1: were all fired up about it, and then not a
12:55
Speaker 1: single one of them came through on actually support for
13:00
Speaker 1: the for the bus project. So that which was which
13:03
Speaker 1: I think in the end was was even better because
13:05
Speaker 1: year one I just spent every dime I had basically
13:08
Speaker 1: ever made and put it into this bus idea and
13:12
Speaker 1: it started to get some traction towards the end of
13:15
Speaker 1: that first year. So um, yeah, I had the school bus,
13:20
Speaker 1: ripped the whole interior out of it, all the seats,
13:22
Speaker 1: pulled the flooring up, and then um, Memorial Day weekend
13:27
Speaker 1: of was the very first like actual thing that I
13:32
Speaker 1: did on the bus, which was a buddy and I
13:33
Speaker 1: painted the ceiling inside and then I laid the floor
13:37
Speaker 1: in the bus. And so I just got to work.
13:40
Speaker 1: And my parents had graciously allowed me to park the
13:43
Speaker 1: bus at their little lake cabin for the summer and
13:47
Speaker 1: sleep at the lake and wake up in the morning
13:49
Speaker 1: and make a pot of coffee and start working on
13:51
Speaker 1: the bus. Every day, so for you know, a little
13:53
Speaker 1: over two months, I would wake up, make a pot
13:56
Speaker 1: of coffee, walk out to the big yellow school bus
13:59
Speaker 1: in the driveway, and and just start working on stuff.
14:02
Speaker 1: And I just, uh, it was it was whatever, you know,
14:04
Speaker 1: start working at seven am and work till dark and
14:06
Speaker 1: then do it over again. Um. And so from Memorial
14:11
Speaker 1: Day weekend until August I believe it was August seven,
14:14
Speaker 1: was the day I hit the road. I transformed it
14:16
Speaker 1: from just your standard yellow school bus into what it
14:19
Speaker 1: is today, which it's kind of a makes I mean,
14:23
Speaker 1: it's a camper, but like without all of the like
14:26
Speaker 1: no running water, no toilet, um, just like bunk beds,
14:30
Speaker 1: bed storage, little kitchen area and uh yeah, just a
14:35
Speaker 1: big giant green and white bus that says public land
14:38
Speaker 1: bus on the side. Yeah. I can attest from when
14:41
Speaker 1: I saw it a handful of years ago that it
14:43
Speaker 1: it definitely turned out really cool. I mean it's it's
14:48
Speaker 1: uh every nomad hunter's dream of of a mobile office
14:54
Speaker 1: home hunting camp. It. Man, it turned up pretty sweet.
14:59
Speaker 1: What did you do from there? From like, it's one
15:02
Speaker 1: thing to transform a bus, it's another thing to use
15:06
Speaker 1: that as a tool to get attention on public lands
15:10
Speaker 1: and advocacy for them. So how did you go about
15:13
Speaker 1: figuring out how to do that? That seems like the
15:15
Speaker 1: trickler one almost, Yeah for sure. So the you know,
15:19
Speaker 1: obviously through my social channels like just continue to kind
15:22
Speaker 1: of like preach that message. But one of the connections
15:25
Speaker 1: that I made at I believe it was at a
15:28
Speaker 1: t a show. Um, a friend of mine introduced me
15:32
Speaker 1: to um an editor at outdoor Life, and then he
15:35
Speaker 1: introduced me to Andrew McKean, who was also at outdoor Life.
15:39
Speaker 1: And McKeen and I started talking back and forth about
15:42
Speaker 1: the project, and you know, he was working on getting
15:46
Speaker 1: sponsors for it and stuff, and that just didn't really work.
15:48
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I'm doing this project regardless,
15:50
Speaker 1: and so we put together a deal where created four
15:55
Speaker 1: videos for this public land bus project. And to be
15:59
Speaker 1: totally honest, like by the of the first year, like
16:00
Speaker 1: I really wasn't getting at the end of that first
16:03
Speaker 1: fall that I had the bus it like you know,
16:05
Speaker 1: it was it was cool, and people liked it, and
16:07
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, it's kind of this whatever
16:09
Speaker 1: fun rig or whatever. But I was almost ready to
16:12
Speaker 1: be done with, you know, driving a school bus around
16:15
Speaker 1: the country. And then all of the videos and articles
16:18
Speaker 1: and everything for outdoor Life hit and that's when it
16:21
Speaker 1: really picked up the pace and like just the number
16:24
Speaker 1: of the just the amount of traction for lack of
16:27
Speaker 1: better terms, that that project got and kind of like
16:30
Speaker 1: escalated and and pushed it to the forefront. And like
16:33
Speaker 1: this now this bus has become a symbol for public Lands.
16:37
Speaker 1: It led to all sorts of other projects, including a
16:40
Speaker 1: whole series for on x maps, and a bunch of
16:43
Speaker 1: my former clients who were excited about it and didn't
16:46
Speaker 1: come through like jumped on board and wanted to be
16:48
Speaker 1: part of it and wanted to push it and wanted
16:50
Speaker 1: to help about it and wanted to talk about it.
16:52
Speaker 1: And so you know, this this initial project turned you
16:55
Speaker 1: know that my original goal was to have the bus
16:59
Speaker 1: for a year and that ended up turning into about
17:01
Speaker 1: three years UM and you know a lot of time
17:05
Speaker 1: spent the school bus driving around the country. But it
17:08
Speaker 1: it just took one, you know, it just took Andrew
17:10
Speaker 1: McKean believing in this whole idea and helping push it
17:14
Speaker 1: out there for me to to spread the word. Yeah,
17:17
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Now. I know you've you've talked about bust
17:20
Speaker 1: life and all those trips and the different things you've
17:23
Speaker 1: done since, you know, on a lot of different podcasts
17:25
Speaker 1: in different places. So I know you don't want to
17:27
Speaker 1: belabor that too much, but if you look back on
17:31
Speaker 1: those years from this vantage point, like what's the biggest
17:36
Speaker 1: what was the biggest takeaway for you? Just on like
17:38
Speaker 1: the adventure side, or the bus life side. Uh, you know,
17:43
Speaker 1: like what stands out now today as either something you
17:45
Speaker 1: would that you love the memory or you hate the
17:48
Speaker 1: memory of, or that you would tell people to think
17:51
Speaker 1: about if they ever consider something crazy like this, what
17:54
Speaker 1: would that be? You know? I think, like looking back
17:57
Speaker 1: at it all now, it like it's it's some of
18:01
Speaker 1: the best years of that I've had in my short life.
18:05
Speaker 1: And you know, I definitely do not regret doing it
18:08
Speaker 1: at all. I think the biggest shift in my own
18:12
Speaker 1: brain that I had to make was the the time
18:16
Speaker 1: and just the the the time it took to a
18:21
Speaker 1: one get from A to B, and then just the
18:24
Speaker 1: time that it took to like kind of let this
18:26
Speaker 1: whole thing organically grow. Um. And so you know, my
18:32
Speaker 1: brother put it a good ways, like just remember when
18:34
Speaker 1: you're driving that thing, like it's more like sailing, Like
18:37
Speaker 1: you're just you're not gonna get anywhere fast. You're just
18:40
Speaker 1: kind of letting the world pass you by, like you're
18:42
Speaker 1: not really passing the world, Like you're just kind of
18:45
Speaker 1: out there cruising doing this thing. And I think just
18:48
Speaker 1: through the course of like you know, many many road
18:51
Speaker 1: trips in the bus and just getting you know, like
18:54
Speaker 1: really soaking in each and every one of these experiences.
18:56
Speaker 1: It just it taught me to kind of slow down,
19:00
Speaker 1: and you know, everything in our life is so fast paced.
19:03
Speaker 1: I think the bus taught me is slowed down and
19:05
Speaker 1: just really see what was going around on around me
19:09
Speaker 1: more so than then. I mean even now, like I'll
19:12
Speaker 1: admit that I'm guilty of, you know, getting lost in
19:15
Speaker 1: my phone or whatever it might be. Those the time
19:17
Speaker 1: that I was focused on this project definitely helped me. Um, yeah,
19:22
Speaker 1: just see the world around me a little bit better. Yeah, yeah,
19:25
Speaker 1: I can see that for sure. So so what happened
19:28
Speaker 1: from there? You you moved on from the public Land
19:31
Speaker 1: bus eventually to the public Land van. Yes, and what's
19:36
Speaker 1: that next step? Yeah, so that was pretty exciting because it's, uh,
19:40
Speaker 1: you know, Josh and I have always been in the
19:43
Speaker 1: you know, hunting together and he owned the store and
19:45
Speaker 1: I was doing all the content stuff, and the transitioning
19:49
Speaker 1: from the bus to the van was an opportunity for
19:51
Speaker 1: us to do more stuff together. And so not only
19:55
Speaker 1: is it that, you know, going from a full size
19:57
Speaker 1: bus to a van, like you can drive a lot
19:59
Speaker 1: more places, but you can get there quicker, a little quieter,
20:02
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of positives to going from
20:05
Speaker 1: a forty ft vehicle down to a twenty one ft
20:08
Speaker 1: vehicle that has four wheel drive, but um, yeah, it
20:12
Speaker 1: was just it was kind of a way to continue
20:15
Speaker 1: the mission and continue the idea and behind you know,
20:19
Speaker 1: creating awareness around public lands and and um, all things conservation.
20:24
Speaker 1: And it gave us, Josh and I the opportunity to
20:28
Speaker 1: have this project together and build out kind of the
20:31
Speaker 1: the ultimate hunting van for lack of a better term.
20:34
Speaker 1: So it was it was since we've been you know,
20:37
Speaker 1: grew up in this whole thing together, it was kind
20:39
Speaker 1: of a cool way to um bring our paths back
20:43
Speaker 1: to the same road and uh and build the band together.
20:46
Speaker 1: And then you know, Josh and I have been owners
20:48
Speaker 1: of public landees together since its inception, when the bus
20:51
Speaker 1: project launched, and so to have him kind of come
20:55
Speaker 1: on full time and do this all together has been
20:57
Speaker 1: pretty cool. So the van is you know, same color scheme,
21:01
Speaker 1: a lot of the same elements that came from the bus.
21:03
Speaker 1: We we brought over into the into the van, the
21:05
Speaker 1: pine and the um, you know, some tin and some
21:08
Speaker 1: different stuff that we used in the bus to kind
21:10
Speaker 1: of like continue that message and create that awareness around
21:14
Speaker 1: all the things that we're trying to educate people on. Yeah, so,
21:18
Speaker 1: so on that education front, like, what have the other
21:21
Speaker 1: things been? What are some highlights of of what you
21:24
Speaker 1: guys have been pushing over these years both you know,
21:26
Speaker 1: I know you started with a lot around simply public
21:29
Speaker 1: lands and that was during the land transfer movement and everything.
21:32
Speaker 1: Since then, as things have evolved, I know you've talked
21:34
Speaker 1: about other things. You've talked about duck stamps, a lot
21:37
Speaker 1: um and more. What what are some of the where
21:41
Speaker 1: are the highlights there since? Yeah, so we when we
21:45
Speaker 1: started the company, obviously you're right, it was it was
21:47
Speaker 1: very surrounding that the land transfer legislation and all that
21:50
Speaker 1: type of stuff. But as we've evolved, like it, I
21:54
Speaker 1: think the most fun that we've had is creating some
21:57
Speaker 1: of these initiatives that leverage UM systems that are already
22:02
Speaker 1: in place to kind of bring awareness to like, like
22:05
Speaker 1: you said, like the duck stamp. We started the Stamp
22:07
Speaker 1: It Forward project, which is a way to UM basically
22:11
Speaker 1: raise a whole pile of money to purchase federal duck stamps,
22:14
Speaker 1: which by law of that money has to go towards
22:18
Speaker 1: habitat conservation, wetland purchase, extension of the National Refuge System
22:23
Speaker 1: and like that has been a very cool project. And
22:27
Speaker 1: then uh, you know are I don't know if you
22:29
Speaker 1: want me to talk about our most recent initiative right now,
22:32
Speaker 1: but um, we've we just continue to try to find
22:36
Speaker 1: new and creative ways in the conservation space to raise
22:39
Speaker 1: money to give back to all these organizations that fight
22:41
Speaker 1: to improve habitat, improve access and protect hunting heritage every
22:46
Speaker 1: single day. Yeah, you've been doing a really good job
22:49
Speaker 1: of it too. I mean it has been really fun
22:52
Speaker 1: to watch from Afar and see what you're doing and
22:54
Speaker 1: see the see the real impact you're having. Um. And
22:58
Speaker 1: that's that's that's the funny thing. I think when you
23:01
Speaker 1: get involved in this kind of stuff, it's easy to
23:04
Speaker 1: think so often like oh what can I do? Um?
23:08
Speaker 1: These problems seems so big and so above me? And
23:12
Speaker 1: so you know it's something that you watch on TV,
23:15
Speaker 1: you read about in the news. But I think for
23:17
Speaker 1: for a lot of us, you know, myself included, at
23:19
Speaker 1: times you can feel like, geez, what can little little
23:22
Speaker 1: all I do? And what's that been? I mean, what's
23:25
Speaker 1: this period been like for you? Now? That you've seen
23:28
Speaker 1: what you have been able to do. I mean, what
23:30
Speaker 1: have you learned about yourself for the I don't know,
23:32
Speaker 1: conservation as a as a calling, or or as the
23:36
Speaker 1: hunting community. I don't know what what on that front
23:38
Speaker 1: stands out to you. Yeah, I think that's been the
23:41
Speaker 1: biggest The biggest thing, one of the biggest things I've
23:44
Speaker 1: learned is is how much impact each individual person can have.
23:49
Speaker 1: So like our company public Land Tease, five dollars from
23:53
Speaker 1: every single item we sell, which is in the purchase price,
23:56
Speaker 1: five dollars from every item we sell is donated back
23:59
Speaker 1: to different conservation organizations or projects, and you know, so
24:04
Speaker 1: we couldn't do anything that we do without our customer base. So, like,
24:08
Speaker 1: the real hero of this whole story is people that
24:11
Speaker 1: have been following this journey and have chosen to support us,
24:14
Speaker 1: like through the purchase of merchandise, which then we turn
24:18
Speaker 1: and take that money and we we donate it back
24:20
Speaker 1: into into different causes, different projects, different organizations that need
24:24
Speaker 1: this critical funding to do all these things. Um and
24:27
Speaker 1: so I but when I when we first started this
24:30
Speaker 1: whole thing, like I was totally overwhelmed, Like I really
24:32
Speaker 1: didn't know much about how the system all worked, you know,
24:36
Speaker 1: is learning Like as I went UM really felt like
24:40
Speaker 1: I was like, man, is this are we actually going
24:42
Speaker 1: to be able to do anything? Like? Are there enough
24:44
Speaker 1: people that care about this stuff? Is there enough like
24:46
Speaker 1: our I mean, do I have a big enough platform
24:50
Speaker 1: to even like like change anything. And that's been the
24:54
Speaker 1: coolest thing to watch is the people that have been
24:56
Speaker 1: following along with everything that we're up to, the people
24:59
Speaker 1: that have chosen to donate, support, jump in share all
25:03
Speaker 1: this stuff, Like it only takes a few people to
25:08
Speaker 1: kind of get the ball rolling. And and as that
25:11
Speaker 1: ball grows, as that snowball just keeps moving and growing
25:13
Speaker 1: and growing and more people are sharing it and talking
25:15
Speaker 1: about whatever it is. It blows me away every single
25:19
Speaker 1: day to watch this collective community make a difference time
25:23
Speaker 1: and time again, whether it be UM, you know, raising
25:27
Speaker 1: money for a specific project or simply picking up the
25:30
Speaker 1: phone and calling or emailing about, you know, in favor
25:34
Speaker 1: of or against the specific bill UM you know, people
25:38
Speaker 1: just educating themselves on you know, or receiving whatever a
25:42
Speaker 1: newsletter or whatever it is from these organizations, all these
25:45
Speaker 1: different things, and people like jumping on board individually and
25:49
Speaker 1: watching that snowball into this massive wave of impact um
25:55
Speaker 1: as we go forward, and you know, I can't tell
25:57
Speaker 1: you how many times I've seen the sportsmen and women
26:02
Speaker 1: of this country rally together around issues and I mean
26:06
Speaker 1: really cause massive change in a hurry. Yeah. Yeah, man,
26:11
Speaker 1: It's been a heck of a five six year period
26:13
Speaker 1: now where we've we've been seeing some strong examples like
26:17
Speaker 1: that that have been really cool to to watch and
26:20
Speaker 1: to be a part of. And and like you said,
26:22
Speaker 1: it's that snowball effect is kind of crazy when you
26:27
Speaker 1: realize it's happening and you step in, like, whoa, there's something,
26:30
Speaker 1: there's a movement here, there's some fire here, and uh,
26:35
Speaker 1: when that happens, good things, good things tend to follow.
26:39
Speaker 1: So I think that's a perfect segue too to the
26:45
Speaker 1: larger reason why I thought you'd be the perfect I
26:48
Speaker 1: to talk to here, because it's this whole idea of like,
26:50
Speaker 1: what can you do that I wanted to talk about
26:53
Speaker 1: today because you know, this is this is week four
26:56
Speaker 1: of what I was calling Conservation Month here on the
26:58
Speaker 1: wire Tunt podcast is the spring. You know, there's not
27:01
Speaker 1: a whole lot of crazy stuff going on in the
27:03
Speaker 1: white tail world. It's a great time to step back
27:05
Speaker 1: and think about, you know, how do we ensure that
27:09
Speaker 1: the resources, the places, the critters that we care about
27:13
Speaker 1: so much are around in the future so that we
27:15
Speaker 1: we can still hunt, so that we can share this
27:17
Speaker 1: with our kids or grandkids someday. And we've talked public lands,
27:21
Speaker 1: We've talked private lands, We've talked policy and legislation and
27:26
Speaker 1: all these different ideas and concepts and debates. But through
27:30
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff, and and you talked about it,
27:33
Speaker 1: and I felt it too, Like you can so many
27:35
Speaker 1: times feel like, Okay, yeah that makes sense. Okay, yeah
27:40
Speaker 1: that's a bad thing, or you know, that's a good thing.
27:42
Speaker 1: I'd love to see that move forward. But what in
27:44
Speaker 1: the world can I do today or what can I
27:46
Speaker 1: actually do here in Michigan or Montana or Maine or
27:50
Speaker 1: wherever it is. So my idea, if you're game for
27:53
Speaker 1: the SAM, is for us to layout ten specific ways,
28:01
Speaker 1: ten specific actions that folks could take, you know, today
28:06
Speaker 1: or over the next few weeks or this year that
28:08
Speaker 1: could actually make a positive difference for conservation. And this
28:11
Speaker 1: could be private land, it could be public land, it
28:13
Speaker 1: could be a lot of different things. Um, So I've
28:17
Speaker 1: got a handful of that of ideas. Do you have
28:19
Speaker 1: a handful that we could run through and see if
28:22
Speaker 1: we can come up with with ten real slid action
28:25
Speaker 1: will take aways today? Yeah, I think I'm totally game
28:29
Speaker 1: for that. All right? Do you wanna? I was thinking
28:32
Speaker 1: maybe we we just pitch one out, talk about it,
28:36
Speaker 1: and then go back and forth. You want to lead
28:38
Speaker 1: the way? Do you've got a great do you have
28:40
Speaker 1: a good opener for us? Well? Pressures on here because
28:44
Speaker 1: if it's a bad one, then I think I do
28:48
Speaker 1: because this, I mean obviously, this, this one is what
28:51
Speaker 1: I've been focusing all my all my efforts on for
28:54
Speaker 1: you know, the better part of like three or four
28:56
Speaker 1: months now. So, um, if people are looking at getting
29:00
Speaker 1: involved in conservation, like, hands down, the easiest way to
29:06
Speaker 1: do it is to join uh an organization and the
29:12
Speaker 1: you can you can stop me anytime, but that you
29:14
Speaker 1: can join an organization. And one of our our latest
29:17
Speaker 1: initiative is a way for people to get involved on
29:20
Speaker 1: a on a bigger level. So obviously one go out
29:23
Speaker 1: and join any organization, find a species you're passionate about.
29:26
Speaker 1: I can almost guarantee there's a conservation group that is
29:29
Speaker 1: dedicated to protecting that species. But our initiative that we
29:34
Speaker 1: just came out with a few weeks ago now is
29:36
Speaker 1: the Conservation Crossing Initiative, and it allows people to go
29:40
Speaker 1: to our website by a single T shirt and automatically
29:43
Speaker 1: be enrolled in an annual membership for five organizations, which
29:48
Speaker 1: include back Country Hunters and Anglers, Delta Waterfowl, National Wild
29:51
Speaker 1: Turkey Federation, the Mule They Foundation, and Pheasants Forever all
29:55
Speaker 1: at one time. It's bucks so um but yeah, so
30:00
Speaker 1: so that's I love it. I love the idea. I'm
30:03
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to getting my T shirt here and
30:04
Speaker 1: the mail sometimes soon. I finally I finally signed up
30:07
Speaker 1: and and got in on it. Um, What's I mean?
30:13
Speaker 1: This is an obvious one, right, but it's also one
30:15
Speaker 1: that probably a lot of people pay lip service to
30:19
Speaker 1: more than they actually do. I mean, I've been guilty
30:21
Speaker 1: of that at times. I've always been a member of
30:23
Speaker 1: a couple. But there's so many great organizations out there
30:26
Speaker 1: that it's easy to forget this one or that one,
30:29
Speaker 1: and easy to forget how important it is for people
30:32
Speaker 1: to be doing that and sending in their money. I mean,
30:35
Speaker 1: as you've gone through this project, yourself. What have you
30:38
Speaker 1: learned about the importance of people just getting signed up
30:42
Speaker 1: and how much that helps these these organizations. Yeah, I
30:45
Speaker 1: think the cool part is understanding that when you become
30:48
Speaker 1: a member of one of these organizations, so typical typical
30:51
Speaker 1: annual membership to a conservation group is thirty five dollars. So,
30:55
Speaker 1: but that thirty five dollars, it goes a whole lot
30:58
Speaker 1: further than just getting you those benefits which every single
31:01
Speaker 1: group has, whether it be there you know, a magazine
31:04
Speaker 1: five or six times a year, or you know, you
31:07
Speaker 1: get the membership card and a decal, and a lot
31:09
Speaker 1: of times there's discounts to their partners and that type
31:11
Speaker 1: of stuff. But what these organizations are able to do
31:15
Speaker 1: is because they're so membership based. Let's say, let's take
31:19
Speaker 1: the National Wale Turkey Federation. It's spring, its spring Turkey season.
31:22
Speaker 1: So if you join the National Wald Turkey Federation, whether
31:26
Speaker 1: it be an individual you know, membership or through our
31:30
Speaker 1: conservation crossing program, n BTF can leverage those funds to
31:35
Speaker 1: work with partners or grants and all of these things
31:39
Speaker 1: to basically take that thirty five dollar donation and triple it,
31:45
Speaker 1: quadruple it or five exit based on people matching donations.
31:49
Speaker 1: So you know, the more members that each group has,
31:52
Speaker 1: the more the more money overall they can raise because
31:56
Speaker 1: they have these partners that are like, okay, if you
31:58
Speaker 1: get you know, a hundred thousand members, I will match
32:01
Speaker 1: up to X number of dollars for you know, like
32:04
Speaker 1: to add to the pot. And so I think that's
32:06
Speaker 1: been kind of the biggest eye opener to me, is
32:08
Speaker 1: like that thirty five dollars or that through conservation crossing,
32:13
Speaker 1: Like it goes so much further than that initial investment. Yeah,
32:17
Speaker 1: that's a great point. And you know, from a benefit
32:20
Speaker 1: standpoint for like the individual, maybe the biggest thing I
32:24
Speaker 1: found is is, yeah, the magazines are nice, and it's
32:27
Speaker 1: it's great to donate that money and help from a
32:30
Speaker 1: financial perspective. But what I've found might be the biggest
32:35
Speaker 1: benefit with this membership is just like the pipeline of
32:39
Speaker 1: information and opportunities that comes from joining one of these groups.
32:44
Speaker 1: So when whenever I hear folks wondering or emailing me
32:47
Speaker 1: or messaging me like hey, how how can I get involved?
32:50
Speaker 1: How can I do something? This is always the first
32:52
Speaker 1: thing I mentioned too, because by doing this one action
32:54
Speaker 1: becoming a member, you you do what you just described,
32:58
Speaker 1: you financially, you know, benefit these groups in a big
33:01
Speaker 1: way and they can then use those dollars and have
33:03
Speaker 1: exponential impacts. But then you get all this information that
33:08
Speaker 1: is so important and actually being able to do anything,
33:10
Speaker 1: like if you don't know the issues, if you don't
33:12
Speaker 1: know about this action or this you know, opportunity, or
33:17
Speaker 1: this piece of property that's threatened, Like if you can't
33:21
Speaker 1: be aware of those things, you can't do anything about it.
33:23
Speaker 1: And it's so hard to keep track of all this stuff,
33:26
Speaker 1: like any one of us is so busy in our
33:30
Speaker 1: everyday lives, Like how in the world can I keep
33:32
Speaker 1: track of every important issue when it comes to deer
33:35
Speaker 1: or pheasants or public lands or the rivers that I
33:38
Speaker 1: care about, or trout or turkeys or whatever it is.
33:41
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's impossible to scan the web every
33:44
Speaker 1: day all day and read all those things and stay
33:46
Speaker 1: up on it. And so these organizations they do that
33:48
Speaker 1: for you, right, I mean, h v h A is
33:52
Speaker 1: a great example, and that they're you know, sending out
33:55
Speaker 1: their newsletters giving the information, or they're sharing stuff on
33:58
Speaker 1: social media, or you know, they have action alerts to
34:01
Speaker 1: get you going on specific things. And and many of
34:03
Speaker 1: these organizations do the same thing. Um, you know, it's
34:07
Speaker 1: the pipeline for all these other things, don't you think?
34:10
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely? And then I think in addition to that,
34:13
Speaker 1: like so you get all of this information that you
34:17
Speaker 1: can act on. But the other thing that it does
34:19
Speaker 1: is regardless of which organization you join, it immediately connects
34:23
Speaker 1: you to the local community because there's always a local
34:26
Speaker 1: chapter of whatever national chapter you're joining. So let's you know,
34:30
Speaker 1: if it's b h A, they'll send you an email
34:32
Speaker 1: with oh you could you know, here's the local chapter,
34:34
Speaker 1: here's the events that they have in your area, here's
34:36
Speaker 1: the people that are involved with that. And so anybody
34:40
Speaker 1: that joins one of these organizations UH is immediately connected
34:44
Speaker 1: to like minded people that live near them. So you know,
34:49
Speaker 1: maybe you don't go hunting together, and maybe you don't
34:51
Speaker 1: you know, like share you share your honey hoole spots
34:54
Speaker 1: or whatever, but it does put you in touch with
34:56
Speaker 1: people that you could go do a river clean up day,
34:59
Speaker 1: or you could go volunteer together and pull fence out
35:02
Speaker 1: and you know on some mulder project, or you could
35:06
Speaker 1: you know, go grab a beer together and talk about
35:08
Speaker 1: hunting tactics or you know, you name it. There's a
35:11
Speaker 1: million things that happen once you get plugged into that
35:14
Speaker 1: community that surrounds all of these different groups too. Yeah,
35:17
Speaker 1: so true and man for for new hunters. This is
35:20
Speaker 1: another one I get all the time. I'm a new
35:22
Speaker 1: hunter and I want to meet you know, I want
35:24
Speaker 1: to meet other people that do this kind of stuff
35:26
Speaker 1: because no one in my family or friends does. Right,
35:28
Speaker 1: I need a mentor or I just want to be
35:31
Speaker 1: around like minded people and I'm a new in town
35:33
Speaker 1: or something like. Right here, join one of these groups,
35:36
Speaker 1: connect with the local chapter branch, and bam, just like that,
35:40
Speaker 1: You're You're in. You're in right right, You've got an
35:43
Speaker 1: opportunity for mentorship. You've got an opportunity for new buddies
35:46
Speaker 1: that you know, maybe you do get a beer, you
35:48
Speaker 1: go hunting or fishing together, maybe you do actually have
35:51
Speaker 1: ways now to do some work on the ground. It's
35:54
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the super like the silver bullet
35:57
Speaker 1: for this kind of stuff, that this is the gateway
36:00
Speaker 1: that gets you into so many different things. I mean,
36:02
Speaker 1: right there, if you're not a member of you know,
36:05
Speaker 1: a handful of these you do it. That's it's such
36:09
Speaker 1: an easy way to get started, and so many of
36:11
Speaker 1: the good things come from it. Um Why why was
36:14
Speaker 1: it these five organizations that are part of the conservation
36:17
Speaker 1: crossing any particular reason or is it just that they
36:19
Speaker 1: were the ones willing to do this? What was what's
36:22
Speaker 1: the story there? No that Uh, we definitely picked them
36:25
Speaker 1: out intentionally, and it's a way. It was a way
36:28
Speaker 1: to kind of cover the masses, right, so, like not
36:32
Speaker 1: only species wise but country wise. So you have the
36:35
Speaker 1: Mucler Foundation and you know, Backcountry Owners and Anglers is
36:38
Speaker 1: primarily focused on a lot of Western type stuff. Even
36:41
Speaker 1: though there's local chapters nationwide, there's still a lot of Montana.
36:44
Speaker 1: So you have a couple of you have an advocacy
36:47
Speaker 1: public Land and Water group Backcountry Owners and Anglers, so
36:50
Speaker 1: you kind of cover that western um like western focus
36:54
Speaker 1: as well as the mule deer, which is you know,
36:56
Speaker 1: a Western big game animal and aspirational hunt for a
36:59
Speaker 1: lot of people that are in the East. And then
37:02
Speaker 1: you have National Wild Turkey Federation, which if I did
37:05
Speaker 1: the research last spring, and second to the white tailed deer,
37:09
Speaker 1: turkeys are the second most pursued species of game, so
37:14
Speaker 1: you have you know, literally millions of people that turkey
37:18
Speaker 1: hunt and uh so it only made sense to reach
37:22
Speaker 1: out to the n b TF as they are the
37:25
Speaker 1: foremost organization when it comes to turkey hunting, heritage, turkey
37:30
Speaker 1: habitat restoration, all those things. Um, you have Pheasants Forever,
37:35
Speaker 1: which we've collaborated within the past and worked on their
37:37
Speaker 1: build wildlife area campaigns. They do a lot of amazing
37:40
Speaker 1: habitat work and they have a really unique model when
37:44
Speaker 1: it comes to their conservation group where the local chapters
37:48
Speaker 1: have they get to choose where one of the locally
37:51
Speaker 1: raised funds go for projects, and so they have thousands
37:55
Speaker 1: and thousands of volunteers. And so we cover that upland
37:58
Speaker 1: side of things, which not only helps upland bird species,
38:02
Speaker 1: but every other species because most of what Pheasants Forever
38:06
Speaker 1: is doing on these landscapes is planning more grass, working
38:09
Speaker 1: on riparian areas, adding water sources, which not only you know,
38:14
Speaker 1: of course is going to help upland game species, but
38:16
Speaker 1: everything else. Um. And then delta waterfowl and we've collaborated
38:21
Speaker 1: with delta waterfowl in the past as well. But I mean,
38:24
Speaker 1: you can't have one of you can't have this massive
38:27
Speaker 1: collaboration without a organization that's focused on a migrating species um,
38:33
Speaker 1: and so we really try to kind of spread it
38:35
Speaker 1: out and cover as much ground and as much different
38:39
Speaker 1: influence as possible to really highlight like how important each
38:43
Speaker 1: group is individually, but more so like kind of that
38:47
Speaker 1: old analogy that you know, a high tide raises all
38:50
Speaker 1: ships type of thing that if you can kind of
38:53
Speaker 1: spread that wealth out and collaborate together, like it's going
38:56
Speaker 1: to help every single person, every single species across the board. Yeah, yeah,
39:01
Speaker 1: very true. You know another thing I kind of noticed,
39:03
Speaker 1: and I don't know if this was by design or not,
39:06
Speaker 1: but you know, when you look at something like mule
39:10
Speaker 1: deer or pheasants um or even turkeys, you're for you.
39:16
Speaker 1: For a handful of years now, I've been hearing rumblings
39:18
Speaker 1: about turkey populations declining in different parts of the country
39:20
Speaker 1: and some issues there um mule deer especially, but pheasants
39:24
Speaker 1: with with CRP declining in a lot of states and
39:27
Speaker 1: all the different things pressuring mule You're like, these are
39:29
Speaker 1: some species that needs some extra love right now too,
39:32
Speaker 1: and sometimes don't get as much attention as you know,
39:37
Speaker 1: I mean white tailed deer soak up a lot of
39:39
Speaker 1: attention in the room. So I love the fact that
39:42
Speaker 1: by looping in some of these other groups, it's it's
39:44
Speaker 1: given the love where there's a little bit extra needed,
39:47
Speaker 1: and uh, it makes it easy, you know. Sometimes it's oh,
39:51
Speaker 1: it's what do they call the opt in effect or
39:54
Speaker 1: the opt out effect? Like if you were to, you know,
39:58
Speaker 1: send someone, oh, I don't know, an email in which
40:03
Speaker 1: they are automatically if the button is already pressed, like
40:08
Speaker 1: to opt into becoming a member of something, or to
40:12
Speaker 1: sign up for a newsletter, you'll get way more people
40:15
Speaker 1: to sign up for that newsletter then if you sent
40:18
Speaker 1: them that same thing, but the button for it says,
40:22
Speaker 1: you know, you have to actually select the button to
40:23
Speaker 1: opt in versus select the button opt out. Like if
40:26
Speaker 1: you make it a default choice people, it just becomes
40:29
Speaker 1: easier for folks is to go along with it. And
40:30
Speaker 1: so in this case, you made it really easy for
40:33
Speaker 1: people to go along with something that's good. Excuse me,
40:36
Speaker 1: that's good and that is um you know, if you
40:39
Speaker 1: ed instead said, hey, pick however many conservation groups you
40:43
Speaker 1: want to join with the purchase of this shirt and
40:45
Speaker 1: make it a lot more challenging for people and make
40:47
Speaker 1: it a little bit more inconvenient, and people probably wouldn't
40:50
Speaker 1: sign up for, you know, some of these other species
40:52
Speaker 1: maybe that they don't you know, don't chase every day,
40:55
Speaker 1: or don't have experience with. So it was just a smart,
40:58
Speaker 1: well put together idea, and I love that it's happening.
41:00
Speaker 1: And um, you know, i'd say go out there, get
41:04
Speaker 1: the shirt, become a member, and then tack on some
41:06
Speaker 1: other memberships too. I mean, ah, there's so many great
41:10
Speaker 1: organizations out there. The National Deer Association, of course is
41:12
Speaker 1: a great one. Um, there's plenty of good places to
41:17
Speaker 1: send your your time and attention and funding you know,
41:20
Speaker 1: as as available. So I love it. It's a great
41:23
Speaker 1: one to start with. Sam, Yeah, awesome. So I think
41:29
Speaker 1: that the one I would pitch next is a is
41:31
Speaker 1: a very clear kind of next step from what you
41:35
Speaker 1: just suggested. You know, you said join the organization, and
41:37
Speaker 1: I'm going to say, do the next step after you
41:40
Speaker 1: join the organization, which is something you you mentioned a
41:43
Speaker 1: little bit, which is volunteering. So this year i'd encourage everyone,
41:49
Speaker 1: if you haven't before, volunteer for your first on the
41:53
Speaker 1: ground conservation project. And this is something that is, you know,
41:58
Speaker 1: a lot easier to do you if you're involved in
42:02
Speaker 1: one of these groups, because I think it comes back
42:05
Speaker 1: to what we talked about earlier. It's the knowing excuse
42:08
Speaker 1: me had had one too many lunchtime bubbly drinks. I
42:13
Speaker 1: guess what I'm trying to say here is knowing when
42:18
Speaker 1: those opportunities come up, like where can I volunteer? When
42:21
Speaker 1: can I volunteer? That's the hard part. A lot of
42:23
Speaker 1: people want to do something, but knowing like, Okay, this Saturday,
42:26
Speaker 1: there's a thing within an hour of me, I can
42:29
Speaker 1: go do it. That's the trick. So when you sign up,
42:34
Speaker 1: get ahold of a local branch or chapter or regional
42:40
Speaker 1: director or whoever it is, and just let them know that, Hey,
42:43
Speaker 1: I'm a member now i'd love to know about volunteer opportunities. UM.
42:48
Speaker 1: I think that's the easiest way because it's it's hard
42:50
Speaker 1: to otherwise track these things down. So just send out
42:53
Speaker 1: a note saying hey, I'd like to do something, and
42:57
Speaker 1: you're gonna be amazed, I think by how many opportunities
42:59
Speaker 1: there are to do it. I can tell you that
43:01
Speaker 1: I I reached out to our national Deer Association Regional director,
43:06
Speaker 1: or he used to be called the regional director. He's
43:08
Speaker 1: got some other fancy titled now about grassroots or something.
43:11
Speaker 1: His name is Josh Hilliard. You might know him. UM.
43:14
Speaker 1: And I asked him like, hey, what kind of things
43:16
Speaker 1: are available here in our home state right now? And
43:19
Speaker 1: he sent me a whole list of different opportunities for
43:21
Speaker 1: people in Michigan. And I'm sure there's something similar in
43:24
Speaker 1: in all sorts of different states. So, for example, in
43:27
Speaker 1: May fifteenth, there's a big river clean up being put
43:30
Speaker 1: on by Michigan's Chapter of back Country Hunters and Anglers.
43:33
Speaker 1: There's going to be volunteer opportunities at the Back forty
43:37
Speaker 1: property here in Michigan, put on by the National Deer Association.
43:40
Speaker 1: Of course, everyone listening to this knows all about the
43:43
Speaker 1: Back forty. Um. There's an organization called the muc SE
43:48
Speaker 1: Michigan United Conservation Uh. Jeez, I'm blanking on my acronyms here,
43:54
Speaker 1: but they've got this uh on the ground and on
43:57
Speaker 1: the water volunteer programs where they've got i mean, dozens
44:01
Speaker 1: of different habitat projects like this where you can go
44:03
Speaker 1: out and you know, help plant something or help put
44:07
Speaker 1: treason or help burn or help do different things on
44:10
Speaker 1: the ground to to actually make a difference. So this
44:14
Speaker 1: is one of those things that I think ties into
44:16
Speaker 1: what you said to Sam, the whole connecting with people thing,
44:21
Speaker 1: because if you go out and do one of these
44:22
Speaker 1: volunteer opportunities, there's another great opportunity to meet folks, to
44:26
Speaker 1: get tapped into the community, and who knows where that leads. So, um,
44:31
Speaker 1: so that's my second My second action is this year,
44:34
Speaker 1: try to actually go do one of those on the
44:36
Speaker 1: ground projects. If we all do that, there's a whole
44:39
Speaker 1: lot of good stuff happening out there. And and I guess,
44:42
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't want to do that, or
44:44
Speaker 1: if for some reason your schedule is crazy and you
44:46
Speaker 1: just can't commit to someone else's you know, calendar, plan
44:51
Speaker 1: a day on the property you hunt to go pick
44:53
Speaker 1: up trash or something like that. Like one on the
44:56
Speaker 1: ground thing, I think is a really great goal for
44:59
Speaker 1: all of us that a in them this year. Um
45:01
Speaker 1: that would be my first suggestion. Yeah, No, I like
45:06
Speaker 1: that a lot. And I you know, I've spent so
45:09
Speaker 1: much time kind of doing like these big, huge projects
45:14
Speaker 1: raising awareness that I haven't done as much like volunteer
45:17
Speaker 1: boots on the groundwork as I want, So like going forward,
45:20
Speaker 1: that's definitely gonna be high on my priority list of
45:24
Speaker 1: like really getting into these things and uh, you know,
45:28
Speaker 1: showing how awesome it is just to go out there
45:30
Speaker 1: and and do these boots on the ground activities. But yeah,
45:32
Speaker 1: I like that one a lot. Yeah, what are you
45:34
Speaker 1: going next? So I touched on a little bit earlier
45:38
Speaker 1: and he said that I talked a lot about duck stamps,
45:41
Speaker 1: and so I think that's I think that's a way
45:43
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the duck stamp and how
45:46
Speaker 1: that's a no brainer for anybody who is looking to
45:50
Speaker 1: be involved at a very simple level. Um, so for
45:54
Speaker 1: anybody that doesn't know what the federal duck stamp is,
45:57
Speaker 1: it is a if you water found hunt. By law,
46:00
Speaker 1: you have to purchase a federal duck stamp. And the
46:03
Speaker 1: cool thing about that is it was started in it's
46:07
Speaker 1: the Federal Migratory Bird Act, and by law of the
46:13
Speaker 1: purchase price of a federal duck stamp has to be
46:16
Speaker 1: allocated to improving or purchasing more wetlands, which obviously helps
46:21
Speaker 1: with migratory bird species, but also helps with soil erosion,
46:25
Speaker 1: water quality, flooding, um and and helps roughly seven hundred
46:30
Speaker 1: species overall, like through just improving or maintaining current wetlands
46:36
Speaker 1: or adding more wetlands. So the cool thing about the
46:39
Speaker 1: duck stamp, though, is it's you. I think my favorite
46:45
Speaker 1: thing about it is you don't have to be a
46:47
Speaker 1: member of something. You don't have to have a hunter
46:49
Speaker 1: safety card, you don't have to have a license before
46:52
Speaker 1: you buy it. There is the barrier to entry to
46:56
Speaker 1: purchasing this and having and knowing that almost of the
46:59
Speaker 1: money you just spent is going to conservation is is amazing,
47:03
Speaker 1: Like there's there's really nothing other There's no other like
47:08
Speaker 1: system put in place that that much money is designated
47:11
Speaker 1: to conservations. So it's just a very simple way for
47:15
Speaker 1: people that are looking for a way to get involved
47:17
Speaker 1: in conservation just to know that they did a major
47:20
Speaker 1: thing simply by either going to the post office and
47:23
Speaker 1: by a duck stamp or hopping on the US Fish
47:27
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service website and buying one online. UM, the
47:31
Speaker 1: barrier to entry, the hurdles that you have to cross
47:33
Speaker 1: are so low to take that step. I think it's
47:36
Speaker 1: one of my favorite programs that we talk a lot about.
47:40
Speaker 1: And even if you I mean you said it, even
47:43
Speaker 1: if you don't duck hunt, it's it's still something you
47:46
Speaker 1: can and and it's worth doing, right, Yeah, I think
47:50
Speaker 1: especially if you don't duck hunt, I mean, if you're
47:52
Speaker 1: a waterfowl hunter, you have to buy one. So it's
47:54
Speaker 1: it's something that you know, like you don't really think
47:57
Speaker 1: about it. You're like, oh, it's just part of my tag.
47:59
Speaker 1: But if you're an if you're not a waterfowl hunter,
48:01
Speaker 1: it's just as important, if not more important, to purchase it.
48:04
Speaker 1: Because if we could get like collectively, anybody who goes
48:08
Speaker 1: and hunts anything to buy a duck stamp every year,
48:11
Speaker 1: like the funding for these massive tracks of wetlands, like
48:15
Speaker 1: the funding would not be a problem, and there would
48:17
Speaker 1: be more waterfowl and more birds and more animals than
48:21
Speaker 1: we would know what to do with. Yeah, you know,
48:23
Speaker 1: it's such a good idea. I wonder why there isn't
48:27
Speaker 1: something like this for other projects, other species, you know,
48:31
Speaker 1: Like why isn't there a public land stamp? It's super cool. Yeah.
48:36
Speaker 1: I think what it comes down to is the people
48:40
Speaker 1: in that hunt or fish. I think they feel they
48:44
Speaker 1: don't see it as an investment in the future. I
48:48
Speaker 1: think we have done a badge. Like feels like a tax,
48:51
Speaker 1: you know, it feels like a tax on this activity
48:54
Speaker 1: that we all do. And I think that's just poor edge,
48:57
Speaker 1: Like you know, the assist I'm doing a bad job
49:00
Speaker 1: on educating people about how important all of these things are.
49:04
Speaker 1: So it's, uh, it's the same reason that every time
49:07
Speaker 1: license prices and everything go up, it's you know, you
49:10
Speaker 1: hear a lot of griping about that, but every time
49:13
Speaker 1: I buy a hunting or fishing license, I just look
49:15
Speaker 1: at it as a concert ticket to the greatest show
49:17
Speaker 1: that I get to attend every single day. Yeah, yeah,
49:20
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's spot on. And like
49:22
Speaker 1: there's a lot of taxes we can grape about and
49:24
Speaker 1: we want to, and it's it's that's fair. I mean,
49:27
Speaker 1: I get it, I've done it. I'm there. But if
49:30
Speaker 1: there's anything on the pay extra for, Like if there's
49:32
Speaker 1: anything in the world I'd be happy to pay a
49:34
Speaker 1: little extra for, it's this stuff. I mean, anyone who's
49:38
Speaker 1: listening to this has a love for the outdoors and
49:41
Speaker 1: hunting and wild things, and I don't know, you can't
49:45
Speaker 1: put a price tag on that stuff. As far as
49:47
Speaker 1: I'm concerned, I'll, you know, whatever I've got to do
49:50
Speaker 1: to to to pony up to keep this stuff around
49:53
Speaker 1: and and inaccessible and healthy, and gosh, I'd much rather
49:58
Speaker 1: spending money on that than an xbox or a new
50:01
Speaker 1: TV or whatever, a bunch of beer. I mean, this
50:05
Speaker 1: is this is money well spent. As much as I like,
50:07
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. Um So what else. Let's see
50:14
Speaker 1: what would be another good one. So here's here's one,
50:18
Speaker 1: and this is this is a much more This is
50:21
Speaker 1: much more of a commitment. The first couple of things
50:24
Speaker 1: we've talked here are pretty easy to tackle for anyone
50:28
Speaker 1: out there. It's a low lift. I mean, I think
50:30
Speaker 1: everyone could go and do those first three things today.
50:33
Speaker 1: My next suggestion is going to be one that is
50:36
Speaker 1: applicable to a much smaller portion of folks listening, and
50:39
Speaker 1: it was going to take a lot more thought. It's
50:41
Speaker 1: going to take some serious planning and some legal work
50:45
Speaker 1: and thinking. So take this with a grain of salt.
50:49
Speaker 1: But something that we've talked about over the last few
50:53
Speaker 1: weeks has just been this endless um cycle of developed right.
51:00
Speaker 1: I mean, every year, more and more wild places and
51:03
Speaker 1: open spaces are paved over, their subdivide and built up. Um,
51:08
Speaker 1: they disappear. I'm sure, Sam, there's places from your childhood that,
51:12
Speaker 1: like you can remember playing in or exploring that. Now
51:14
Speaker 1: we're a Walmart or a housing development or who knows what,
51:18
Speaker 1: right I mean, that's it's just happening. Um. There's actually
51:22
Speaker 1: a new feature that Google Earth just put out last
51:25
Speaker 1: week which allows you to go back almost thirty years.
51:30
Speaker 1: You can do like a time lapse feature of I
51:34
Speaker 1: Think anywhere in America, in anywhere in the world I think,
51:37
Speaker 1: and you can see how the aerial photography. Can look
51:40
Speaker 1: at the aerial photography of a place and see how
51:42
Speaker 1: it changes over the last thirty years. And if you
51:45
Speaker 1: go and and look at your favorite hunting spot, or
51:48
Speaker 1: look at some place that you care about, or look
51:51
Speaker 1: at anywhere randomly in America, if you zoom back to
51:53
Speaker 1: what it looked like in nineteen eight or whatever that
51:56
Speaker 1: first date is, and then you start fast forwarding through time,
51:59
Speaker 1: I can tell you what you're gonna see. You're gonna
52:01
Speaker 1: see more buildings, more roads, more pavement, and less and
52:06
Speaker 1: less green, less and less grasslands and forests and water
52:10
Speaker 1: and rivers and wetlands and and all that good stuff
52:13
Speaker 1: that we care about, Like, that's just the reality of
52:16
Speaker 1: what's happening. So I think that one of the big
52:19
Speaker 1: big things that we as hunters and anglers and outdoors
52:22
Speaker 1: people can do is is try to be one of
52:24
Speaker 1: those positive forces to slow that tide. There's a bunch
52:29
Speaker 1: of ways we can do it, um but one that
52:32
Speaker 1: has been discussed a little bit over the last couple
52:34
Speaker 1: of weeks is this idea of a conservation easement, and
52:38
Speaker 1: so conservation easement, if you miss those earlier episodes, these
52:42
Speaker 1: are there's a bunch of different ways this can happen,
52:44
Speaker 1: a bunch of different programs you can go through, but
52:46
Speaker 1: basically there are voluntary programs in which if you own land,
52:50
Speaker 1: if you've got a hunting camp or a back forward
52:53
Speaker 1: of your own um or or whatever, if you own land,
52:57
Speaker 1: you can voluntarily sell the develop mint rights to that
53:01
Speaker 1: property so that in the future it can't be developed. Basically,
53:06
Speaker 1: you are saying like, hey, this is a place that's
53:08
Speaker 1: really special to me, and I want to make sure
53:10
Speaker 1: that after I'm dead and gone, it's not gonna be
53:13
Speaker 1: turned into a shopping mall. I want to make sure
53:15
Speaker 1: that after I'm dead and gone, this is still wild.
53:17
Speaker 1: There's still deer out here, there's still pheasants out here,
53:20
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. Um, I want to keep it,
53:23
Speaker 1: you know, this wild special place that's been so important
53:26
Speaker 1: to me and my kids and whatever it is in
53:28
Speaker 1: your situation. So these programs allow you to enter a
53:32
Speaker 1: legal contract in which you maintain ownership of the property.
53:36
Speaker 1: You maintain all your same world rights that to do
53:39
Speaker 1: what you want to do there. It's not like you're
53:41
Speaker 1: giving free access to the property or anything. It's just
53:44
Speaker 1: basically saying like, hey, we're putting this regulation on this
53:47
Speaker 1: property that into perpetuity. Um. You know, there will be
53:52
Speaker 1: no development of this property, there will no be no
53:54
Speaker 1: subdivision of this property. There will not be any kind
53:57
Speaker 1: of um impacts to this that would remove the natural
54:00
Speaker 1: qualities of the property. And there's there's all such different
54:02
Speaker 1: little caveats you can throw in there. You can say,
54:05
Speaker 1: you know, I want to keep this ten acres available
54:07
Speaker 1: to still build or add onto my house or build
54:09
Speaker 1: a cabin or whatever. Like. There's you can set all
54:12
Speaker 1: these things ahead of time. But what it allows you
54:14
Speaker 1: to do is to make sure that the next people
54:17
Speaker 1: fifty years from now, maybe you don't know if they're
54:19
Speaker 1: gonna care about conservation. You don't know if they're gonna
54:22
Speaker 1: um care about the white tails or the ducks or whatever.
54:26
Speaker 1: But you since you own this place right now, you
54:28
Speaker 1: have this special opportunity to put your lasting kind of
54:33
Speaker 1: fingerprints on that wild space. And so you can do this.
54:37
Speaker 1: There's some government programs you can do these. There's some
54:39
Speaker 1: private land conservation trusts. UM. There's a lot of different
54:43
Speaker 1: ways to do it. UM. Sometimes you can be compensated
54:46
Speaker 1: and paid for this. They'll actually buy the rights, they'll
54:49
Speaker 1: buy this conservation easement. UM. You can also do this
54:52
Speaker 1: as a donation, like for example, Ducks Unlimited has a
54:56
Speaker 1: conservation easement program where you can donate the conservation asian
55:00
Speaker 1: excuse me, you can donate the conservation easement two du
55:04
Speaker 1: and then they kind of manage the monitoring of it
55:07
Speaker 1: and the some of the logistics of it. Uh. And
55:10
Speaker 1: it's it's just a really cool way to make sure
55:12
Speaker 1: that your special place stay special and conserved into the future.
55:16
Speaker 1: Not saying this is for everyone, I understand there's like
55:19
Speaker 1: a lot of logistics they have to go around this.
55:22
Speaker 1: But if you own land, my encouragement would be for
55:25
Speaker 1: you to look into it, do a little googling, read
55:29
Speaker 1: up on the conservation easement programs available where your property is. Uh.
55:33
Speaker 1: This is something that I'm going to start looking into,
55:36
Speaker 1: um and seeing if this is a good fit maybe
55:38
Speaker 1: for our family camp. Um. And I mean there's there's
55:42
Speaker 1: a lot to it, but I'm just gonna pitch you
55:44
Speaker 1: on learn more, do some reading, do some googling, see
55:47
Speaker 1: if this is a good fit, because I think it's
55:49
Speaker 1: a great way that us as hunters that that have
55:52
Speaker 1: a lot of land. I mean the number that I
55:54
Speaker 1: keep on bringing up is something like three fifties some
55:57
Speaker 1: million acres across the country are either owned or least
56:01
Speaker 1: or managed for hunting. Million plus acres of land are
56:07
Speaker 1: kind of underneath our influence of sorts. So that's a
56:10
Speaker 1: big footprint that we could have a lasting impact on. Uh.
56:14
Speaker 1: So there's my pitch, consider conservation easement. Um. And I
56:19
Speaker 1: think it's I just think it's one of those special
56:22
Speaker 1: kinds of ways we can make a long term impact
56:25
Speaker 1: that takes a little time but could last a long time. Um.
56:29
Speaker 1: What do you think about that one? Sam? I think
56:32
Speaker 1: that's awesome. You know, if it's always been a dream
56:35
Speaker 1: of mine to have a piece of property at some point.
56:37
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, if I ever actually make
56:41
Speaker 1: it happen and be able to go down that road,
56:43
Speaker 1: I think the conservation easement thing is is something I'll
56:46
Speaker 1: definitely look into, uh, you know, to protect it for
56:48
Speaker 1: the future, and like you said, like I would have,
56:51
Speaker 1: you know, set it up in a way where, you know,
56:53
Speaker 1: if I pass it on to my kids or their
56:56
Speaker 1: kids or however it works down the road, like make
56:58
Speaker 1: it so it's still available for them to you know,
57:01
Speaker 1: have areas where they can build a new cabin or
57:03
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, um but but protected in perpetuity
57:07
Speaker 1: so it's always going to be a wild place. That's
57:09
Speaker 1: that's really cool. Yeah, I mean talk about the worst nightmare.
57:13
Speaker 1: Can you imagine being like you have someplace that you've
57:16
Speaker 1: that you've loved and steward it and worked on and
57:19
Speaker 1: spend all this time building up, and then you pass
57:22
Speaker 1: away and if you were watching it from the grave,
57:24
Speaker 1: can I can just I mean, when I think about
57:26
Speaker 1: it myself, I think about our family hunting camp up
57:28
Speaker 1: in northern Michigan. We call it ken Rov and it's
57:31
Speaker 1: it's the forty acres that like formed me. It is
57:34
Speaker 1: foundational to I who I am, and the idea of
57:38
Speaker 1: fifty years from now, someone coming in there and who
57:41
Speaker 1: knows what the world's gonna look like in fifty years.
57:43
Speaker 1: But what if there was a big city kind of
57:45
Speaker 1: slowly easing its way towards there, and all of a
57:47
Speaker 1: sudden someday they said, you know, we're gonna we're gonna
57:49
Speaker 1: chop us all up into one acre lots and put
57:51
Speaker 1: houses there. I mean, I would be rolling over in
57:54
Speaker 1: my grave for two thousand years if that were to happen.
57:58
Speaker 1: So so this is this is just a great way
58:01
Speaker 1: to make sure something that doesn't UM. So there's there's
58:05
Speaker 1: my idea. What what's next for you saying, let's see,
58:10
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back to something that's not quite so
58:14
Speaker 1: heavy lifting like you said, but this one is just
58:18
Speaker 1: go I'm sure you've talked about this before, but just
58:20
Speaker 1: go shopping and it's gonna sound weird, but more specifically
58:25
Speaker 1: for specifically, you know, if we're talking you know, a stimulus,
58:29
Speaker 1: all this stuff get the economy going. But more more specifically,
58:32
Speaker 1: go shopping for guns, ammo if you can find it,
58:37
Speaker 1: archery equipment, fishing gear, um anything with it kind of
58:41
Speaker 1: held in that space. And I'm sure you've talked about
58:44
Speaker 1: this before on the podcast, but anytime you buy a gun,
58:49
Speaker 1: you buy Ammo, you buy a bow, you buy arrows,
58:53
Speaker 1: all of those things have a federal excise tax on
58:55
Speaker 1: them which goes into the Pitman Robertson Fund and it's
59:00
Speaker 1: somewhere between ten and eleven depending on what the item is,
59:04
Speaker 1: and that is taxed at the manufacturer level, So I mean,
59:07
Speaker 1: obviously that cost is just passed down to the consumer,
59:10
Speaker 1: but it's a self inflicted tax from way back that
59:13
Speaker 1: goes into a fund, and then those funds can be
59:16
Speaker 1: applied for by state agencies, organizations, all of these people
59:21
Speaker 1: that are working on habitat access easements, all these different things,
59:25
Speaker 1: and every time you go out and purchase one of
59:28
Speaker 1: these things, that money goes in there, and then that
59:30
Speaker 1: money gets funneled to these projects to help improve habitat management,
59:34
Speaker 1: wildlife management, hunting heritage all across the country. So that's
59:39
Speaker 1: a pretty easy one. Most people that are listening to
59:40
Speaker 1: this probably like purchasing new guns, you know, new bows, Ammo,
59:44
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and you can you can rest a
59:47
Speaker 1: little easier knowing that you know, a chunk of that
59:50
Speaker 1: is going to protect the places and and you know,
59:54
Speaker 1: give back to the places that you want to protect. Yeah,
59:57
Speaker 1: this is what I call the significant other silver bullet.
1:00:01
Speaker 1: So you can say, you can you can tell your
1:00:02
Speaker 1: wife or or whatever that, hey, you know what, I
1:00:05
Speaker 1: had to buy that new gun because I care about
1:00:08
Speaker 1: conservation and this is a way to do that. Um
1:00:11
Speaker 1: right there. It's all about the story. And this gives
1:00:13
Speaker 1: you great story because it is a really great program
1:00:16
Speaker 1: and and Pittman Robbers Robertson. I mean, it's it's another
1:00:20
Speaker 1: example of of how, you know, we hunters have kind
1:00:25
Speaker 1: of agreed to self taxation of assorts. You know, back
1:00:28
Speaker 1: in the in the forties, when this stuff was all
1:00:30
Speaker 1: coming around thirties and forties, you know, it was it
1:00:33
Speaker 1: was folks at that time being willing to say, all right,
1:00:35
Speaker 1: you know, we'll get behind a piece of legislation like
1:00:38
Speaker 1: this because we care about this stuff and we're willing
1:00:41
Speaker 1: to pay a little extra. And um man, I'm glad
1:00:44
Speaker 1: that folks were willing to do it back then because
1:00:45
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's paying for the lion's share of
1:00:49
Speaker 1: a lot of this management work that needs to be done.
1:00:53
Speaker 1: These programs on the ground. I mean a lot of
1:00:55
Speaker 1: that comes from these PR dollars. So so yeah, pat
1:00:59
Speaker 1: yourself on the backs, be easy, feel good about it. Um.
1:01:03
Speaker 1: And I guess if you're out there doing that, if
1:01:04
Speaker 1: you're shopping someplace that allows you to round up for conservation,
1:01:08
Speaker 1: which a lot of companies are doing these days, a
1:01:09
Speaker 1: lot of stories are doing. Um, go ahead and do
1:01:12
Speaker 1: that too. That's another one, right, yep, yep, that is
1:01:15
Speaker 1: another one, so perfect. I like it. I'm going shopping.
1:01:19
Speaker 1: Um all right, here's another one. And this is this
1:01:23
Speaker 1: one's gonna be easy to do. Uh, take a little
1:01:27
Speaker 1: bit of time just to think about it. But this
1:01:28
Speaker 1: is related to that same idea of how we're losing
1:01:31
Speaker 1: wild places, right, And this is related to one of
1:01:34
Speaker 1: the ideas that we talked about with Randy a couple
1:01:36
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, and we talked about this with Witt
1:01:38
Speaker 1: Fostburgh last week. And this is the thirty by thirty initiative. Sam,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: have you heard anything about that, read anything about thirty
1:01:47
Speaker 1: by thirty? Familiar with that? I am a little bit.
1:01:50
Speaker 1: I haven't done the deep dive into it because it's
1:01:52
Speaker 1: so fresh. Yep. So anyone who's listened to those other
1:01:56
Speaker 1: episodes already knows the basic gist, so I don't want
1:01:58
Speaker 1: to preach about too much, but basically, it's this top
1:02:01
Speaker 1: level goal that kind of started internationally within the scientific
1:02:06
Speaker 1: community and has been picked up now in America by
1:02:10
Speaker 1: by a variety different conservationists, environmental and conservation organizations, and
1:02:14
Speaker 1: now some politicians basically pitching that to prevent you know,
1:02:19
Speaker 1: the series of extinctions and declining wildlife populations that we've
1:02:23
Speaker 1: been seeing and that that are are absolutely happening across
1:02:27
Speaker 1: the world and even here in America, to prevent that
1:02:30
Speaker 1: from getting worse, we need to set a goal of
1:02:32
Speaker 1: conserving of our land and water by twenty So it's
1:02:39
Speaker 1: setting like a big audacious goal and something to work towards.
1:02:43
Speaker 1: And so uh, as you guys have heard me talk about,
1:02:46
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about kind of the opportunity this presents
1:02:50
Speaker 1: folks like us in the conservation community community to get
1:02:53
Speaker 1: on the offensive. So much of the time, you know, Sam,
1:02:57
Speaker 1: like with the whole land transfer movement and all that
1:02:59
Speaker 1: five years, it was defense, like these guys are trying
1:03:02
Speaker 1: to come and take away our land. They're trying to
1:03:04
Speaker 1: sell these places or transfer them and denude them and
1:03:07
Speaker 1: deteriorate them. So we gotta play defense. This is the opposite.
1:03:11
Speaker 1: This is like, hey, you know what, we stopped that.
1:03:14
Speaker 1: Now let's go out and make sure that more places
1:03:17
Speaker 1: have some form of conservation and protection on them to
1:03:19
Speaker 1: make sure that we don't lose more. Um So, who
1:03:22
Speaker 1: better to take a leadership position in this than us
1:03:25
Speaker 1: than hunters. I would rather like us. We should be
1:03:28
Speaker 1: in that conversation. The hunters and anglers should be part
1:03:32
Speaker 1: of this. Um you know, I know there's some concern
1:03:35
Speaker 1: around you know what if some folks within you know,
1:03:40
Speaker 1: different sides of the environmental movement have too much of
1:03:44
Speaker 1: us say on things and they're gonna make it this
1:03:46
Speaker 1: and that, and we're not gonna like it, or they're
1:03:47
Speaker 1: not gonna allow hunting, or they're not gonna whatever. I mean,
1:03:49
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of things you could say. So let's
1:03:52
Speaker 1: just be a part of the conversation and make sure
1:03:55
Speaker 1: that those things don't happen. So my suggestion, my action
1:03:58
Speaker 1: and for people is to number one, learn about this
1:04:02
Speaker 1: stuff some more. Go to hunt fish thirty dot com.
1:04:06
Speaker 1: That's this website that's been put together that features basically
1:04:11
Speaker 1: a a position statement from the hunting and fishing community
1:04:14
Speaker 1: that's been approved and signed off on by basically name
1:04:18
Speaker 1: any hunting or fishing conservation organization out there and they're
1:04:21
Speaker 1: on this list, And this position statement basically says, hey,
1:04:26
Speaker 1: we see thirty by thirty as a great opportunity. We
1:04:29
Speaker 1: the hunting and fishing community have been leaders in the
1:04:32
Speaker 1: conservation space for decades and we want to support this
1:04:37
Speaker 1: and see this as a great opportunity to protect more places.
1:04:40
Speaker 1: But we want to make sure our voice is hurt.
1:04:42
Speaker 1: So let's make sure we're thinking about some important things
1:04:44
Speaker 1: like maintaining hunting and fishing access in these newly conservative
1:04:48
Speaker 1: protected lands, um making sure there's clear ways to define
1:04:53
Speaker 1: what counts as conservator protected, and making sure things like
1:04:56
Speaker 1: private land conservation easements would be counted, because hey, there's
1:05:00
Speaker 1: a huge opportunity with those types of things. So my
1:05:03
Speaker 1: suggestion is one, go to the website hunt Phish thirty
1:05:06
Speaker 1: thirty dot com, read up on this stuff, and then
1:05:09
Speaker 1: number two, email your two senators and say, hey, I
1:05:13
Speaker 1: want to make sure you know about thirty by thirty
1:05:16
Speaker 1: and I want to make sure you're listening to hunting
1:05:17
Speaker 1: and Fishing position on it and copy and pay some
1:05:20
Speaker 1: stuff out of that website. That position statement I'm talking
1:05:23
Speaker 1: about really easy. All you gotta do is punching your
1:05:25
Speaker 1: centator's names, copying some information from that position statement, shoot
1:05:30
Speaker 1: it on out. I think this is one of those
1:05:32
Speaker 1: things that over the next you know, eight nine years,
1:05:35
Speaker 1: could be one of these big success stories we're talking about,
1:05:38
Speaker 1: just like you know, you and I Sam can talk
1:05:40
Speaker 1: about the success that we had, you know, as a
1:05:42
Speaker 1: community with the land transfer movement and you know, the
1:05:46
Speaker 1: whole Chavet's Bill and how we shut that down. All
1:05:49
Speaker 1: the different good things have come out of the public
1:05:52
Speaker 1: land awareness renaissance. Why don't we go and go on
1:05:55
Speaker 1: the offensive with that same energy and be able to
1:05:58
Speaker 1: look back, you know, onies and same man over that
1:06:02
Speaker 1: eight nine year period, look at all of the progress
1:06:05
Speaker 1: we made, look at how we made sure that there's
1:06:07
Speaker 1: gonna be more wild places around that we're not going
1:06:09
Speaker 1: to lose all these spots that we care about. That
1:06:11
Speaker 1: your old fishing hole isn't going to disappear, That that
1:06:14
Speaker 1: spot you learned duck hunt isn't going to be gone,
1:06:16
Speaker 1: That that patch of pines that I taught my son
1:06:20
Speaker 1: to turkey hunt, is going to be here down the road. Um.
1:06:24
Speaker 1: That stuff really gets me excited. And I think this
1:06:26
Speaker 1: is there's this momentum around this idea, in this goal.
1:06:30
Speaker 1: Let's latch onto it and be a part of it
1:06:33
Speaker 1: versus just watching someone else here it. Um that's my idea, Sam. Yeah, no,
1:06:38
Speaker 1: I I love that. And like you said, I mean
1:06:41
Speaker 1: just go on the offensive. I mean so like again,
1:06:44
Speaker 1: like so often, our whole industry community is reactive and
1:06:49
Speaker 1: not you know, not planning for the future. I mean
1:06:52
Speaker 1: they are to some extent, but again it's mostly like
1:06:55
Speaker 1: something happens and we have to you know, the world's
1:06:58
Speaker 1: on fire, we have to react to it. So um, yeah, no,
1:07:01
Speaker 1: I think that. I think that's great. So, like Mark said,
1:07:04
Speaker 1: go to that website, learn about that, and get involved.
1:07:07
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I think it's I think it's gonna be
1:07:10
Speaker 1: a really interesting thing to follow and be a part of.
1:07:12
Speaker 1: So stay tuned more on that. What are you go next? So, uh,
1:07:16
Speaker 1: this one is something that is pretty easy to do. Um,
1:07:21
Speaker 1: but I I'm gonna talk a little bit about it.
1:07:23
Speaker 1: And it's it's all of us are so involved these
1:07:26
Speaker 1: days on social media, whether it be Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
1:07:32
Speaker 1: you name it. There's a million different platforms or you know, blogs, podcasts,
1:07:36
Speaker 1: all those things. I would encourage people to spend more
1:07:41
Speaker 1: time and effort posting about and talking about conservation issues. Now,
1:07:47
Speaker 1: I will warn you when you post about these things,
1:07:50
Speaker 1: when you talk about these things, you will get about
1:07:52
Speaker 1: zero engagement. And that's not as exciting as the big
1:07:58
Speaker 1: buck picture. Huh No, it's not. It's not. It's not
1:08:01
Speaker 1: as exciting, but as the big buck picture, it's not.
1:08:03
Speaker 1: It's it's not sexy conservation. It's not a sexy thing.
1:08:06
Speaker 1: Uh And so you know, I've seen it time and
1:08:10
Speaker 1: time again. The more I talk and preach about conservation like,
1:08:13
Speaker 1: the lower my engagement rate is. But I'm going to
1:08:16
Speaker 1: continue to do it. And I think that if we
1:08:18
Speaker 1: can get more people on board talking about it. You know,
1:08:21
Speaker 1: whether it be a volunteer weekend that you went and
1:08:24
Speaker 1: participated in, or you know, something that you just donated to,
1:08:27
Speaker 1: or you know, you went to a banquet and you
1:08:30
Speaker 1: did this, or you know it helped raise money for
1:08:31
Speaker 1: this project, whatever it might be, talk about it, Tell
1:08:34
Speaker 1: your friends, tell your buddies, because you never know who
1:08:36
Speaker 1: you might inspire to also do something like that. So
1:08:39
Speaker 1: I think just posting about these things that you can
1:08:44
Speaker 1: do in a positive light, like you're going to be
1:08:47
Speaker 1: posting something anyway, maybe splashing a little bit of conservation.
1:08:50
Speaker 1: It's a pretty easy way for everyone to get involved
1:08:53
Speaker 1: and to kind of keep that message moving forward. Yeah,
1:08:56
Speaker 1: now you've done this more than most. Do you have
1:08:58
Speaker 1: any suggestions on I don't know how to do it right,
1:09:01
Speaker 1: because there should you. I don't know whether that be
1:09:04
Speaker 1: the medium that you use like picture or video or written,
1:09:08
Speaker 1: or how you talk about this stuff or what you
1:09:10
Speaker 1: share is I don't know anything you've learned about telling
1:09:13
Speaker 1: these stories, sharing these things online that that's useful or
1:09:15
Speaker 1: helpful to do it in a better way. Yeah, I
1:09:18
Speaker 1: think the most important part is to just not be
1:09:21
Speaker 1: like trying it to be too preachy about it, because
1:09:23
Speaker 1: the last thing, you know, like he nobody likes just
1:09:26
Speaker 1: getting talked at um. But maybe just talk about like
1:09:30
Speaker 1: your involvement in it, Like if you're posting about it,
1:09:32
Speaker 1: just be like, oh, you know, I joined this organization
1:09:35
Speaker 1: and I went out and I you know, did a
1:09:37
Speaker 1: river clean up over the weekend, and you know, like
1:09:40
Speaker 1: collectively we hauled out you know, like thirty seven bags
1:09:43
Speaker 1: of trash or whatever, like anything like that just kind
1:09:46
Speaker 1: of always just posted in a positive light. I think
1:09:49
Speaker 1: that's probably the best way to do it without being like, oh,
1:09:52
Speaker 1: I did this, why aren't you all? You know, like,
1:09:53
Speaker 1: don't try to condemn anybody for for not speaking up
1:09:57
Speaker 1: about it. I guess it's probably the best way to
1:09:59
Speaker 1: go about that's good. Yeah, yeah, it's it's funny. There's
1:10:04
Speaker 1: there's this it's it's present in a lot of different communities.
1:10:07
Speaker 1: But there's this kind of like social proof for social
1:10:11
Speaker 1: momentum kind of thing that happens with this type of
1:10:13
Speaker 1: deal where if you if enough folks, like the public
1:10:18
Speaker 1: lands thing is a perfect example, Like during that whole
1:10:21
Speaker 1: period or on the land transfer movement, so many people
1:10:24
Speaker 1: started talking about public land and public land access issues
1:10:29
Speaker 1: that it all of a sudden became like the thing.
1:10:32
Speaker 1: It became like, if you're not tapped in on this,
1:10:34
Speaker 1: if you don't realize what's going on, if you're not
1:10:37
Speaker 1: you know, doing your part, you're missing out, Like you're
1:10:40
Speaker 1: you're outside of the of the community. Now, if you
1:10:43
Speaker 1: weren't kind of involved in that, there's a certain I mean,
1:10:46
Speaker 1: saying it's trendy is kind of negative, but I guess
1:10:49
Speaker 1: if you if some if being trendy could ever be good,
1:10:53
Speaker 1: I would say, like making conservation trendy is a damn
1:10:57
Speaker 1: good place to do it. Um. So, if enough of
1:11:00
Speaker 1: us are talking about like, yeah, I'm doing stuff, Yeah
1:11:03
Speaker 1: I did this. Yeah, I think this is an issue
1:11:05
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm keeping tabs and I think it's pretty interesting.
1:11:08
Speaker 1: If enough of us do that, the people that wouldn't
1:11:12
Speaker 1: normally get involved in these things will probably take notice,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, when it becomes the quote
1:11:18
Speaker 1: unquote like thing to do. Uh, then you're then you're
1:11:22
Speaker 1: talking about some real cool stuff happening. Um. Yeah, well
1:11:27
Speaker 1: it's the tipping point, right. It's just like it's it's
1:11:29
Speaker 1: like the video of that one weird dude dancing at
1:11:32
Speaker 1: the concert and if you haven't seen it, just go YouTube.
1:11:37
Speaker 1: You know, weird dude dancing at a concert. But like
1:11:40
Speaker 1: you know, it starts out with just one person at
1:11:43
Speaker 1: the in the video, there's one person that's dancing just crazy,
1:11:46
Speaker 1: and then you have one other guy that decides to
1:11:49
Speaker 1: go like I'm just gonna go, you know, get wild too,
1:11:51
Speaker 1: and just dance and like then all of a sudden
1:11:53
Speaker 1: you have a few more adopters and a few more
1:11:55
Speaker 1: adopters and the next thing, you know, there's hundreds of
1:11:57
Speaker 1: people that are just going nuts uh uh and and
1:12:00
Speaker 1: joining in all this stuff. So it takes a little while,
1:12:03
Speaker 1: but like if you, like you said, if you can
1:12:05
Speaker 1: get enough people talking about it, you can get enough
1:12:07
Speaker 1: people thinking it's trendy to be a conservationist and and
1:12:10
Speaker 1: preach about conservation and really you know, be passionate about it. Yeah,
1:12:14
Speaker 1: there's no there's no end to what we can do
1:12:17
Speaker 1: as a community in that space. Yeah. And social media definitely,
1:12:21
Speaker 1: for all of its downfalls, one thing that it has
1:12:26
Speaker 1: done that is pretty darn cool is it has made
1:12:28
Speaker 1: that kind of like community building or sharing just so
1:12:33
Speaker 1: much easier. Um, I mean, you could you can mobilize
1:12:37
Speaker 1: a group of like people, like minded people in a
1:12:41
Speaker 1: in a crazy way compared to what it would have
1:12:43
Speaker 1: taken twenty years ago. So you know, if there was one,
1:12:47
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen it a handful of times with
1:12:49
Speaker 1: big issues or big bills, Like when there is a
1:12:52
Speaker 1: concerted thing that we're all going to double down on
1:12:54
Speaker 1: and you can get the word out there enough people
1:12:56
Speaker 1: start doing it, that snowball effect is can be assive. Um.
1:13:01
Speaker 1: And we've we've got that power at our fingertips now,
1:13:04
Speaker 1: So that's that's pretty cool. So if, yeah, I love it.
1:13:07
Speaker 1: If ever one of us started doing that, that absolutely
1:13:10
Speaker 1: makes a big difference. Yeah. Um yeah, I'm wondering here,
1:13:17
Speaker 1: what do I have? All Right, here's one, Um, this
1:13:21
Speaker 1: is gonna be another on the ground thing. Um. My
1:13:26
Speaker 1: challenge for folks listening within the deer hunting community is
1:13:31
Speaker 1: to take action on one non dear focused habitat project
1:13:38
Speaker 1: this year. Um. We talked a lot about this two
1:13:41
Speaker 1: episodes ago with Adam Keith and Matt die um. So
1:13:46
Speaker 1: there was tons of ideas mentioned in that one. My
1:13:49
Speaker 1: my challenge, my my hope is that every one of
1:13:53
Speaker 1: us that has a piece of ground that either released
1:13:56
Speaker 1: or we own it, um, and then we can do
1:13:59
Speaker 1: some kind of stuff. Let's all try to do one
1:14:02
Speaker 1: thing that's not solely dear focused. Um. It's it's obviously
1:14:07
Speaker 1: that we always want to do those projects that are
1:14:09
Speaker 1: gonna make the deer hunting better. For those of us
1:14:12
Speaker 1: that are nuts about white tails, it's I mean, I'm
1:14:14
Speaker 1: guilty of it a ton Like if I'm gonna do something,
1:14:17
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna put money and time and energy into it.
1:14:19
Speaker 1: Of course, I wanted to lead to you know, an
1:14:21
Speaker 1: awesome encounter with a great, big giant buck on November one. Um,
1:14:25
Speaker 1: I've got that beautiful green clover plot for that, right.
1:14:28
Speaker 1: But but you know, we have these places, we have
1:14:32
Speaker 1: these landscapes that we have the privilege to either own
1:14:36
Speaker 1: at least or to use, and uh, you know, there's
1:14:38
Speaker 1: there's a lot of power that we have on those
1:14:40
Speaker 1: places to to do good stuff for other critters out there.
1:14:43
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff out there that
1:14:45
Speaker 1: is struggling compared to dear deer doing pretty darn great
1:14:49
Speaker 1: across the landscape. We've done an awesome job as deer
1:14:52
Speaker 1: hunters and managers of of managing them and providing you know,
1:14:56
Speaker 1: landscapes that they benefit from. But you know, talked about
1:15:00
Speaker 1: this throughout the whole Back forty project. Things like butterflies
1:15:03
Speaker 1: and bees are seriously struggling. Songbirds are declining rapidly across
1:15:08
Speaker 1: a lot of different places. Um, you know, rough grouse
1:15:11
Speaker 1: are in a bad, bad place across a lot of
1:15:14
Speaker 1: their landscape. There's all sorts of these other animals out
1:15:17
Speaker 1: there that could use, uh some help, that could use
1:15:21
Speaker 1: more wildlife habitat that you know. Shoot, pheasants across a
1:15:25
Speaker 1: lot of the Midwest now are declining because of more
1:15:28
Speaker 1: and more fence, and I was getting tore out more
1:15:30
Speaker 1: and more grasslands and CRP stuff being put into crops.
1:15:33
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many examples of this kind of stuff.
1:15:35
Speaker 1: I know. I'm sure you've seen a sam um. So
1:15:40
Speaker 1: you know, if you can find one thing, it could
1:15:42
Speaker 1: be small, it could be just a test, it could
1:15:44
Speaker 1: be man you know, maybe this year, instead of planting
1:15:47
Speaker 1: five food plots, I'm gonna do four food plots, and
1:15:50
Speaker 1: one of those spots, that one acre that usually goes
1:15:52
Speaker 1: into straight clover, Maybe now let's try to manage that
1:15:55
Speaker 1: as an old field and promote native plants and weeds
1:15:58
Speaker 1: and different things like that that be great for pollinators
1:16:01
Speaker 1: and butterflies and bees and rabbits and all that stuff. Maybe,
1:16:06
Speaker 1: you know, instead of I don't know, maybe instead of
1:16:10
Speaker 1: investing a thousand bucks or five bucks in the new
1:16:13
Speaker 1: box blind, maybe you take five bucks and get a
1:16:17
Speaker 1: cheap chainsaw and some safety gear and do some kind
1:16:20
Speaker 1: of timber management. Cut a little d I Y project
1:16:23
Speaker 1: on a half acre that brings some sunlight to the ground. Um,
1:16:27
Speaker 1: look at those ideas. There's tons of stuff out there.
1:16:29
Speaker 1: Try something. My idea is one non deer project. See
1:16:33
Speaker 1: what it does on the landscape. It's it's probably gonna
1:16:35
Speaker 1: end up helping your deer hunting too. But if we
1:16:38
Speaker 1: can do this and and give some love to these
1:16:41
Speaker 1: other animals, these other landscapes, I think, I think everything
1:16:44
Speaker 1: that's connected benefits and um, I think that'd be a
1:16:47
Speaker 1: great place for us to spend a little time as
1:16:49
Speaker 1: as deer hunters and managers. So that's that's my next one. Yeah, no,
1:16:53
Speaker 1: that's that's perfect. I like that a lot. And like
1:16:56
Speaker 1: you said, uh, you might be focusing on something that
1:16:59
Speaker 1: is quote unquote not deer related, but it's almost guaranteed
1:17:02
Speaker 1: that it's going to help your your deer herd as well.
1:17:06
Speaker 1: So yeah, um, let's see here, I've got a little list. Now.
1:17:15
Speaker 1: This one is going to take a little bit more
1:17:17
Speaker 1: uh more people educating themselves on it. But this one
1:17:21
Speaker 1: is just vote for conservation. Um. You know, so much
1:17:25
Speaker 1: of what happens, you know, you kind of touched on
1:17:27
Speaker 1: stuff like the Farm Bill and CRP and and these
1:17:31
Speaker 1: major government programs. Um, a lot of that happens in Washington.
1:17:35
Speaker 1: The decisions that you know affect your local herd or
1:17:38
Speaker 1: your local flock or your local you know, like habitat
1:17:42
Speaker 1: improvement stuff is it comes from Washington, and it comes
1:17:47
Speaker 1: from you know, being educated about who's running for what
1:17:50
Speaker 1: seats and then you know, like kind of looking back
1:17:53
Speaker 1: on their track record or at least looking back at
1:17:56
Speaker 1: like what they have where they have positioned themselves, you know,
1:18:00
Speaker 1: on conservation issues. And so it's it's just you know,
1:18:04
Speaker 1: whether it be researching the voting records or you know,
1:18:07
Speaker 1: asking those questions, two different organizations that are keeping an
1:18:10
Speaker 1: eye on anybody that's you know, running for certain positions
1:18:14
Speaker 1: or whatever within the government. Educate yourselves on you know,
1:18:19
Speaker 1: who's going to be pro habitat conservation public lands uh,
1:18:24
Speaker 1: you know, or conservation easements or private land improvement. Uh.
1:18:28
Speaker 1: And and know who you should vote for in the
1:18:30
Speaker 1: election because that makes a huge difference. Um. Yeah, but
1:18:34
Speaker 1: that you know, it takes time. That one takes a
1:18:36
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot there's not one great, you know,
1:18:39
Speaker 1: central location for all of that information, and unfortunately a
1:18:44
Speaker 1: lot of the organizations can't really like you know, tell
1:18:48
Speaker 1: you you know, um, right, or wrong, like who has
1:18:52
Speaker 1: voted for what because you know, because they have a
1:18:55
Speaker 1: nonprofit um status and so they're not able to really
1:18:59
Speaker 1: you know, you can't have a political view because they're
1:19:02
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be unbiased and objective about everything. So
1:19:06
Speaker 1: it's uh, yeah, that when you've got to take on
1:19:08
Speaker 1: for yourself and learn about who you're voting for and
1:19:10
Speaker 1: and and where they stand on all those issues. So
1:19:13
Speaker 1: it takes a little time, but believe me, it's it's
1:19:15
Speaker 1: worth it once you once you start to learn all
1:19:17
Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, Now here's the rub though, Sam, how
1:19:21
Speaker 1: do you personally go about like figuring out the balance?
1:19:27
Speaker 1: Because you know, I think something that plagues a lot
1:19:30
Speaker 1: of our plagues our political situation a lot of these
1:19:34
Speaker 1: times that it's hard to find candidates that are good
1:19:37
Speaker 1: on habitat and conservation and also good on hunting rights
1:19:42
Speaker 1: or firearm rights things like that that are important to
1:19:45
Speaker 1: what we do. Um. I mean, this is the thing
1:19:47
Speaker 1: that I'm constantly wrestling with, like how do I how
1:19:50
Speaker 1: do I do this right? How do I get the
1:19:52
Speaker 1: best of both worlds. It's like every year I'm constantly
1:19:55
Speaker 1: trying to figure this out and trying to read up
1:19:58
Speaker 1: on who's best on these different things and all that.
1:20:00
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you how do you manage that?
1:20:02
Speaker 1: How do you think about that? Oh? It's not easy.
1:20:06
Speaker 1: I think for me, what it boils down to is
1:20:09
Speaker 1: I have a list of priorities, you know, for whether
1:20:12
Speaker 1: it be for my my personal views and then like
1:20:15
Speaker 1: the much grander view when it comes to all things
1:20:18
Speaker 1: conservation related. And I think it's just trying to pick
1:20:23
Speaker 1: and choose what's going to fit that bill as best
1:20:26
Speaker 1: as I can. I'm never going to get right of
1:20:29
Speaker 1: the time, but I do know that, um, you know,
1:20:32
Speaker 1: for our country to continue to progress and do the
1:20:35
Speaker 1: right things, we need a balance of both sides of
1:20:38
Speaker 1: the aisle and people that are you know, maybe maybe
1:20:41
Speaker 1: the best thing is trying to find people who are
1:20:42
Speaker 1: willing to work with each other, uh and get them
1:20:46
Speaker 1: in office. And so you know, it's not also one
1:20:49
Speaker 1: sided one way or another, because I think, you know,
1:20:53
Speaker 1: as a as a country as a whole, we have, um,
1:20:56
Speaker 1: you know, people that lean really far one way and
1:20:59
Speaker 1: really far the other way, and there's a lot of
1:21:01
Speaker 1: us that are kind of in that more central, essentially
1:21:04
Speaker 1: minded common sense stuff. So I think it's just picking
1:21:07
Speaker 1: and choosing um as best you can on how all
1:21:11
Speaker 1: that fits into you know, both your personal and worldviews. Yeah, yeah,
1:21:15
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you on that one, and that's
1:21:17
Speaker 1: so so true. I wish we could get more of
1:21:19
Speaker 1: that middle ground represented um and get some working together happening. UM.
1:21:26
Speaker 1: You know, I would add on that, which is like vote,
1:21:31
Speaker 1: vote for conservation, vote for these things you care about.
1:21:34
Speaker 1: But then I would say my, my, my, yes, but
1:21:38
Speaker 1: or yes, and would be yes, do that and after
1:21:42
Speaker 1: the elections, regardless of who won, then pressure the hell
1:21:47
Speaker 1: out of whoever did win. Two represent the thing that
1:21:51
Speaker 1: still matters to you. So you know, if if the
1:21:54
Speaker 1: person who's good on I mean again, this isn't always
1:21:57
Speaker 1: the case. Sometimes there's people that are good on all
1:21:59
Speaker 1: things that we care about. But let's just say, hypothetically,
1:22:01
Speaker 1: like the person who's good on the environment but not
1:22:05
Speaker 1: good on guns or good on hunting rights, say that
1:22:08
Speaker 1: person wins in that case, they said, all right, let's
1:22:11
Speaker 1: get ahold that person and say yes please on that
1:22:13
Speaker 1: environment stuff, and yes please on that conservation public land
1:22:16
Speaker 1: stuff and say a great job at a boy, at
1:22:17
Speaker 1: a girl whatever, But then really raise a ruckus about
1:22:21
Speaker 1: like K but we we still need this and this,
1:22:24
Speaker 1: and we have these really important hunting rates. You gotta
1:22:26
Speaker 1: support that. You gotta support that. You can't be good
1:22:28
Speaker 1: on conservation but bad on this, so we gotta like
1:22:31
Speaker 1: the onus is on us to keep making a racket
1:22:33
Speaker 1: on that thing. Or on the flip side, if the
1:22:35
Speaker 1: person that's great on our firearm rights are great on hunting.
1:22:39
Speaker 1: If they win, but then they want to start doing
1:22:41
Speaker 1: some wonky stuff with our public lands, or they start
1:22:43
Speaker 1: promoting some bad stuff for wildlife, then same thing, like, hey, buddy,
1:22:48
Speaker 1: I voted for you, but you cannot wreck it by
1:22:51
Speaker 1: doing this bad stuff for the other things. Um. That
1:22:54
Speaker 1: pressure that those emails and those calls, even after the election,
1:22:59
Speaker 1: I think that can still make a difference too. So
1:23:02
Speaker 1: be the squeaky wheel vote and then be the squeaky wheel. Yeah.
1:23:05
Speaker 1: I like that a lot. Just hold all of those
1:23:08
Speaker 1: people accountable, um, and you know, potentially even sway their
1:23:12
Speaker 1: mind to you know, go down the path that we
1:23:16
Speaker 1: wanted to go down, because they are after all, elected
1:23:18
Speaker 1: officials elected by the people. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh, it's
1:23:24
Speaker 1: it's possible. I mean we've seen examples over the last
1:23:26
Speaker 1: five years of how we've been able to do it right. Shot.
1:23:29
Speaker 1: That's example A. So, um, there's definitely that that power
1:23:34
Speaker 1: we have, UM that takes us to number ten, And
1:23:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say my number ten is going to be
1:23:45
Speaker 1: this one. This is gonna be way different than most
1:23:47
Speaker 1: everything else we've said. I'm going to say that. And
1:23:51
Speaker 1: I've talked about this in the past before. But if
1:23:54
Speaker 1: we're looking for something, if you haven't done this yet,
1:23:57
Speaker 1: you gotta pick it up. You gotta read a Sand
1:24:01
Speaker 1: County Almanac. That's gonna be my last suggestion. I just
1:24:06
Speaker 1: think it's one of those it's short, it's an easy read,
1:24:10
Speaker 1: and it's one of those just foundational sets of ideas
1:24:15
Speaker 1: about conservation and protecting and conserving these places and animals. Uh,
1:24:21
Speaker 1: there's so much in there that Aldo Leopold talks about
1:24:24
Speaker 1: that resonates true still today. If you read that whole
1:24:27
Speaker 1: book through and don't feel inspired to take action on
1:24:31
Speaker 1: items one through nine, I don't know what will um
1:24:35
Speaker 1: so read that one. The first half of the book
1:24:37
Speaker 1: is kind of like little anecdotes and stories, and he
1:24:39
Speaker 1: might be like, oh, this is interesting stuff, but I
1:24:41
Speaker 1: don't get how it ties directly to conservation and the
1:24:45
Speaker 1: land ethic of stuff. But read that because the second
1:24:48
Speaker 1: half of the book gets into the real meat and
1:24:51
Speaker 1: potatoes of these ideas, and you're not close the book
1:24:54
Speaker 1: on that last page and be like wow, yeah, alright,
1:24:58
Speaker 1: we've got work to do. So that's that's my last one. Sam.
1:25:02
Speaker 1: Have you have you read a Sam kind of Almanac?
1:25:05
Speaker 1: I have not, Sam. No, just listen, wait wait, it
1:25:10
Speaker 1: is ordered perfect Okay, I literally just ordered it on Amazon.
1:25:16
Speaker 1: So good, good, good, you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna
1:25:19
Speaker 1: thank me for that one. You're gonna like that. I'll
1:25:21
Speaker 1: probably have it read by the time this podcast goes live.
1:25:25
Speaker 1: So yes, I've read it. Okay. Yeah, we'll edit this
1:25:27
Speaker 1: out and just say yeah, I've read it. Yeah, I
1:25:31
Speaker 1: have read it. Oh man, I think and it's it's
1:25:33
Speaker 1: a it's an easy quick read, but it's um man,
1:25:37
Speaker 1: it's just full of the good stuff. So I don't know, Sam,
1:25:42
Speaker 1: I know we each we each had more ideas, but
1:25:44
Speaker 1: I figure if we if we overload people, it's probably
1:25:46
Speaker 1: more than anything than anyone could handle. Um But I
1:25:50
Speaker 1: think there's some good stuff here we've got. I'll recap
1:25:52
Speaker 1: the list and my my idea here is like, obviously
1:25:56
Speaker 1: none of us can do all this stuff, but if
1:25:58
Speaker 1: but if each one of us maybe could do a
1:26:00
Speaker 1: couple of these things. We figure out what's the right
1:26:02
Speaker 1: fit for us, and what do we have the time
1:26:04
Speaker 1: for the or the money or the what's the right situation,
1:26:07
Speaker 1: whatever it is that works for you. If each one
1:26:09
Speaker 1: of us could tackle a couple of things, um, that's
1:26:14
Speaker 1: that's a really good step in the right direction for
1:26:17
Speaker 1: this this these places, these animals that we that we
1:26:20
Speaker 1: care about so much, that make you know, all the
1:26:23
Speaker 1: rest of the podcast topics. We've had all these conversations
1:26:26
Speaker 1: about how to hunt Donald buck on foot, or how
1:26:28
Speaker 1: to plant food plots that will lead to better our
1:26:31
Speaker 1: tree kills in November, or you know whatever it is
1:26:34
Speaker 1: that stuff that we love that gets us pumped up
1:26:35
Speaker 1: to be out there in the tree all day in November. Um,
1:26:38
Speaker 1: it's these little projects, these little emails and phone calls,
1:26:44
Speaker 1: reading these books, getting this information, all this stuff is
1:26:47
Speaker 1: what makes that possible. So a recap of our ten ideas.
1:26:52
Speaker 1: Our number one, join a conservation group or a bunch
1:26:56
Speaker 1: definitely check out the conservation crossing shirt and initiative number two,
1:27:01
Speaker 1: try to do your first volunteer project for a conservation group.
1:27:05
Speaker 1: Go out there and do a little something. Number three.
1:27:08
Speaker 1: Get a duck stamp. Buy some duck stamps. It's an
1:27:10
Speaker 1: easy way to send money directly to habitat work. Number four.
1:27:15
Speaker 1: If you own land, learn a little bit about conservation
1:27:18
Speaker 1: easements and see if that might be a good fit
1:27:20
Speaker 1: for your special place. Number five go shopping for hunting
1:27:26
Speaker 1: and firearms and Ammo and all that good stuff and
1:27:28
Speaker 1: feel good about it and tell your significant other that
1:27:30
Speaker 1: you're making a positive difference and not just spending your
1:27:33
Speaker 1: family's money. UH Number six, learn a little bit more
1:27:37
Speaker 1: about this thirty by thirty initiative. Go to hunt fish
1:27:40
Speaker 1: thirty thirty dot com to learn about that. UH Number seven.
1:27:44
Speaker 1: Talk more about this stuff on social media. Yeah, post
1:27:48
Speaker 1: your big buck pictures. Yeah, post your big fish pictures,
1:27:51
Speaker 1: but tossing a couple where you talk about the habit
1:27:54
Speaker 1: at work you did, or that volunteer project or some
1:27:57
Speaker 1: important issue that you care about. Number eight is if
1:28:01
Speaker 1: you own at least land and you can manage and
1:28:03
Speaker 1: do habit at work, let's try one non dear project
1:28:07
Speaker 1: this year. Consider that as an idea to add to
1:28:09
Speaker 1: your list. Number nine was vote for conservation, take the
1:28:14
Speaker 1: time to learn about these people and what they support,
1:28:17
Speaker 1: and and pay you attention to that in the ballot box,
1:28:21
Speaker 1: and then also be the squeaky wheel afterwards. And then
1:28:24
Speaker 1: the last number ten read a Sand County Almanac and
1:28:27
Speaker 1: get inspired by the wisdom of Eldo Leopold. Uh, that's
1:28:32
Speaker 1: what we got, Sam. What do you think, I'd say
1:28:35
Speaker 1: that's a pretty good list. Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm
1:28:37
Speaker 1: happy with it. I feel I feel like there's a
1:28:40
Speaker 1: good number of these things I can do myself right now.
1:28:42
Speaker 1: So I'm excited about that. Yeah, me too. And there's
1:28:45
Speaker 1: definitely some things in there that you know, I'm gonna
1:28:47
Speaker 1: try to you know, do and and use going forward. Man,
1:28:52
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is a good stuff. I'm glad.
1:28:55
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we could just get to talk about
1:28:58
Speaker 1: this stuff and uh and think about these things. And
1:29:00
Speaker 1: it's it's just, you know, it's sometimes easy to look
1:29:07
Speaker 1: at the news or see some documentary or whatever. And
1:29:11
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier like feel overwhelmed. That's another thing. But
1:29:14
Speaker 1: it's also easy to see this barrage of bad news
1:29:18
Speaker 1: related to this animal going extinct or this amount of
1:29:21
Speaker 1: the landscape is gone, or this place is in danger,
1:29:24
Speaker 1: or this place got burned to the ground, or this
1:29:27
Speaker 1: lake has polluted. I mean, it could get depressing. It
1:29:30
Speaker 1: can get depressing. Um. And so I always go back
1:29:35
Speaker 1: to what Avan Shinnard often says, which is the best
1:29:40
Speaker 1: cure for depression is action. So whenever I start seeing
1:29:44
Speaker 1: that stuff and I'm like, damn, like, what are my
1:29:47
Speaker 1: kids going to be left with? That feeling always leads
1:29:52
Speaker 1: me to think, next, Okay, what can I do right now?
1:29:55
Speaker 1: Is there some little bit of action I can take?
1:29:56
Speaker 1: And that's I think that's the most important thing I
1:29:59
Speaker 1: can I can add to this conversation. I guess today
1:30:02
Speaker 1: is just the best cure for depressions. Action. So if
1:30:05
Speaker 1: you start bumming out about something you're seeing out there, um,
1:30:09
Speaker 1: do something. And Sam, you're a great example of someone
1:30:12
Speaker 1: doing that. Well thank you. But yeah, like you said,
1:30:15
Speaker 1: then you know, just take action. Pick one of those
1:30:17
Speaker 1: things on this list and just get after it. So
1:30:22
Speaker 1: if people, if people want to follow what you're doing,
1:30:25
Speaker 1: if they want to stay in touching up to date
1:30:29
Speaker 1: on your projects, those that are going right now or
1:30:31
Speaker 1: those in the future, where where should they go? Where
1:30:33
Speaker 1: can they tap into that? So, yeah, personal page mostly
1:30:38
Speaker 1: post Instagram is just at Sam Soholt, and then public
1:30:43
Speaker 1: land Tease pages are public land Tease dot com and
1:30:47
Speaker 1: the Instagram page is at public land Tease. And then
1:30:51
Speaker 1: we have, you know, starting to grow the content on
1:30:54
Speaker 1: the sohol Brothers YouTube channel. So, um yeah, that's pretty
1:30:57
Speaker 1: much where you can find everything that we're up to.
1:31:00
Speaker 1: We well, yeah, is there anything importantly we left off?
1:31:04
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you were dying to talk about
1:31:06
Speaker 1: that I've horribly mismanaged this conversation and missed him? No, man,
1:31:11
Speaker 1: I think uh, I think we covered it. I just
1:31:14
Speaker 1: really appreciate you letting me hop on and talk about
1:31:16
Speaker 1: everything that we're up to, all the initiatives and kind
1:31:18
Speaker 1: of the the journey that led to that point. And
1:31:22
Speaker 1: um yeah, I mean the goal is just to continue
1:31:25
Speaker 1: to figure out ways to do more of that. Yeah, well,
1:31:28
Speaker 1: I love it. I appreciate making the time to do this.
1:31:30
Speaker 1: And and also, like I mentioned a second ago, you
1:31:34
Speaker 1: are you are the example that people can look to
1:31:38
Speaker 1: of what can happen when folks make conservation cool and
1:31:42
Speaker 1: make it trendy and make it out there. Right, You've
1:31:45
Speaker 1: you've used your platform to share these initiatives, these stories,
1:31:48
Speaker 1: these experiences, these learnings you've had, and it's gotten a
1:31:51
Speaker 1: lot of people interested in it. So I mean, keep
1:31:55
Speaker 1: fighting the good fight, man, and uh, you know, I'm
1:31:58
Speaker 1: gonna gonna keep looking to you and being inspired and
1:32:01
Speaker 1: trying to do a few things myself. So thank you,
1:32:04
Speaker 1: Sam Well. I appreciate the kind words, but you know,
1:32:08
Speaker 1: a long way to go. But yeah, again, thank you,
1:32:11
Speaker 1: and that i'd say is a rap. All right, that's
1:32:15
Speaker 1: gonna do it. Appreciate you guys listening. Thank you for
1:32:18
Speaker 1: following along for this whole series. I hope you've learned
1:32:20
Speaker 1: a few things. I hope you've come away with some
1:32:23
Speaker 1: new ideas of of what you could do yourself when
1:32:25
Speaker 1: it comes to keeping these wild places and wild animals
1:32:28
Speaker 1: around so we can have a whole lot of great
1:32:31
Speaker 1: times in the future, good hunts, good memories, things that
1:32:34
Speaker 1: take our kids out there to enjoy, opportunities, to fill
1:32:37
Speaker 1: our freezer, all that good stuff. I want to make
1:32:40
Speaker 1: sure it's around for a long long time. So I'm
1:32:44
Speaker 1: excited that many of you are going to be doing
1:32:47
Speaker 1: the good work to help make that happen. And I'm
1:32:49
Speaker 1: gonna do my best to be right there alongside you.
1:32:51
Speaker 1: So thanks again and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.