Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #90: Randy Newberg on Public Lands Issues and Threats

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #90: Randy Newberg on Public Lands Issues and Threats · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon, and this episode number ninety Taylor Show,
0:21
Speaker 1: we're joined by Randy Newburgh to discuss the greatest threat
0:24
Speaker 1: to public lands and public land hunting in America. All right,
0:46
Speaker 1: welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you
0:49
Speaker 1: by Sick Gear. And today, as I mentioned, we've got
0:53
Speaker 1: Randy Newburgh on the show of us again. And Randy
0:56
Speaker 1: joined us last September for a conversation in which we
0:59
Speaker 1: discussed a lot of different conservation and hunting related topics,
1:03
Speaker 1: but we didn't get to really dive into one of
1:05
Speaker 1: Randy's favorite issues, and that's public lands. Now fast forward
1:09
Speaker 1: to January a month ago, and we had Wit Fosterer
1:12
Speaker 1: from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership with us on episode
1:16
Speaker 1: number I think it was, and during the interview, we
1:19
Speaker 1: discussed what Wit believed were the most important conservation issues
1:23
Speaker 1: of two thousand and sixteen, and one of those was
1:27
Speaker 1: this threat of the transfer of public lands that's been
1:30
Speaker 1: talked about a lot these days. So Coming out of
1:32
Speaker 1: that conversation, We've been getting lots of questions and comments
1:35
Speaker 1: from listeners and readers wanting to better understand what exactly
1:39
Speaker 1: the deal is with this public lands transfer idea. So
1:44
Speaker 1: in short, we decided that we need to have a
1:46
Speaker 1: full episode dedicated to this very topic and public lands
1:50
Speaker 1: and all the various threats to them. So it seemed
1:52
Speaker 1: to me that there's no one better to discuss this
1:55
Speaker 1: with than Randy Newberg. So obviously we now have Randy
1:59
Speaker 1: Newberg on the episode, which I'm excited about. And if
2:01
Speaker 1: you didn't catch our first episode with Randy, I highly
2:04
Speaker 1: recommend giving them listen. It's episode number seventy two. But
2:08
Speaker 1: if you haven't done that, and if you're not familiar
2:10
Speaker 1: with who Rady is, he's first and foremost just a
2:12
Speaker 1: serious hunter, both for deer and other big game species.
2:16
Speaker 1: He's a host of Fresh Tracks with Randy Newburgh on
2:19
Speaker 1: the Sportsman Channel I Believe and the Hunt Talk radio podcast,
2:23
Speaker 1: which I'm a big fan of. He's also a board
2:25
Speaker 1: member for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and a very
2:28
Speaker 1: active advocate for hunting in public lands. So well, all
2:32
Speaker 1: that said, this is going to be what I think
2:34
Speaker 1: is going to be a terrific conversation focused on one
2:36
Speaker 1: of the very most important topics for hunters today. But
2:40
Speaker 1: that's just my two cents, Dan, what do you think?
2:42
Speaker 1: Are you ready for this? Are you excited about this?
2:45
Speaker 1: Do you do you think this is gonna be interesting? Yes?
2:49
Speaker 1: I do think it's going to be interesting. Um So
2:52
Speaker 1: from a political standpoint, I have never really been into
2:56
Speaker 1: politics at all, never, like I just eyes politicians type
3:01
Speaker 1: of view on life. And this year, Uh, I got
3:07
Speaker 1: a little bit of a fire under my seat and
3:09
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I'm gonna pay it more
3:12
Speaker 1: attention two, you know, to to the political field and
3:18
Speaker 1: I'm going to start, you know, really honing in on
3:21
Speaker 1: what candidate really meets as many values for me as
3:26
Speaker 1: as possible. And uh, I know that today's episode kind
3:30
Speaker 1: of correlates with what we're gonna be talking about today,
3:34
Speaker 1: and um I'm looking forward to seeing what Randy has
3:37
Speaker 1: to say about about some of that stuff. Yeah, definitely
3:41
Speaker 1: think we'll have some some great perspective as far as
3:44
Speaker 1: as far as hunters who are active in the political
3:46
Speaker 1: arena and you know, getting involved and making sure that
3:48
Speaker 1: the hunter's voice is heard. Randy is one of the
3:51
Speaker 1: most active out there that I know of. UM. I
3:53
Speaker 1: know he's frequently talking with people that are making these
3:57
Speaker 1: decisions going to Washington, c or going to the capital
4:01
Speaker 1: in Montana or whatever it is, and he's, uh, he's
4:03
Speaker 1: making his voice and the hunters voice heard. So I
4:07
Speaker 1: think it's going to be interesting to to dive into
4:09
Speaker 1: these public lands issues and maybe some of the other
4:12
Speaker 1: things surrounding the politics of of hunting and UH habitat
4:16
Speaker 1: and all that. UM. You know, these topics can be
4:21
Speaker 1: sometimes a little messy, right. Politics is something that people
4:24
Speaker 1: can get pretty fired up about. UM. And it's funny
4:27
Speaker 1: you mentioned that you really haven't paid attention to politics
4:30
Speaker 1: much in the past, but now you are. I've been
4:33
Speaker 1: kind of on like a roller coaster ride. Like there's
4:35
Speaker 1: a period of time where I was like really into
4:37
Speaker 1: it and I paid a ton of attention to it,
4:39
Speaker 1: and I was like super gung ho about what I thought,
4:41
Speaker 1: and then I kind of fell away from it, and
4:43
Speaker 1: then again some number of years ago, I was like
4:46
Speaker 1: really gung ho and I had I felt he had
4:48
Speaker 1: really strong connections with certain UH parties or people and
4:52
Speaker 1: things like that. And now I'm back on the back side.
4:55
Speaker 1: I'm kind of down the bottom side of the roller
4:57
Speaker 1: coaster again where me personally, and this is just me,
5:00
Speaker 1: but I'm very disenchanted with a lot of things going
5:05
Speaker 1: on in politics today and in Washington, d C. And
5:10
Speaker 1: in all of our various UM state capitals. What's happened.
5:14
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things going on. I'm just kind
5:15
Speaker 1: of I'm not happy about UM and a lot of
5:19
Speaker 1: the just the I don't know, it's just gotten so nasty,
5:22
Speaker 1: so divisive, so polarized, UM And so I'm really I
5:26
Speaker 1: kind of have removed myself from any type of political party.
5:30
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just a person. I'm a guy who's
5:33
Speaker 1: interested in trying to find someone who's gonna stand up
5:36
Speaker 1: for hunting and for our Second Amendment rights, and for
5:40
Speaker 1: our public lands and and for wildlife and wildlife habitat
5:43
Speaker 1: and all these things that mean a ton to me,
5:45
Speaker 1: and of course other things too. UM. But it's getting
5:48
Speaker 1: really hard, at least for me these days, to find
5:50
Speaker 1: anyone that really meets all those criteria. UM. So, on
5:54
Speaker 1: a on a scale of one to tend, how how
5:57
Speaker 1: happy are you with our options these days? From uh?
6:02
Speaker 1: I mean, the one that's talk about right as the
6:03
Speaker 1: presidential race, without getting into too much, how do you
6:06
Speaker 1: feel about our options as far as as a hunter,
6:09
Speaker 1: as far as uh I'm today, I did research on
6:13
Speaker 1: some of my breaks at work and found out that
6:17
Speaker 1: a majority of the Republican Party candidates that are still
6:21
Speaker 1: out there, not all of them, but a majority of
6:23
Speaker 1: them would are are serious about transferring federal lands back
6:30
Speaker 1: to state management. Yeah, and we'll we'll avoid driving getting
6:36
Speaker 1: into that right now. We'll wait till Randy gets on
6:37
Speaker 1: to discuss. You know why. That's something that I think
6:40
Speaker 1: you and I are both personally concerned about. Um. But yeah,
6:45
Speaker 1: that's that's concerning. And then in the other hand, though, here,
6:48
Speaker 1: here's here's some and I hate to dive too much
6:51
Speaker 1: into this because you know, inevitably pisces people off, but
6:54
Speaker 1: you know, I get really concerned when I hear things
6:56
Speaker 1: like that, because these guys and gals want to get
6:59
Speaker 1: rid of some of these public lands for one reason
7:01
Speaker 1: or another. Um. So I'm like, Okay, that's something I
7:05
Speaker 1: definitely don't agree with. But then you've got other people
7:07
Speaker 1: that are running where you know, you worry if so
7:10
Speaker 1: and so gets into office, what does that mean for
7:11
Speaker 1: our you know, our right to bear arms and hunt
7:14
Speaker 1: with different types of weapons and all these things that
7:16
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, there's no candidate that I
7:18
Speaker 1: can see that I'm really comfortable with. They can who
7:21
Speaker 1: can check all these boxes for the sports, It's all
7:24
Speaker 1: like voting. When you vote, it's it's always the lesser
7:28
Speaker 1: of two evils. And I hate that it has to
7:29
Speaker 1: be that way. Yeah, very true. It's uh, that's I
7:33
Speaker 1: was literally I was just vacuuming today. I was vacuuming,
7:35
Speaker 1: sitting and thinking about this topic and just saying, like,
7:39
Speaker 1: you've got that's exactly what you have to pick your
7:41
Speaker 1: poison and what am I willing to compromise on? And
7:44
Speaker 1: unfortunately these days it's like either way, you're compromising on
7:47
Speaker 1: some pretty big issues. Um So I guess, I guess
7:51
Speaker 1: because of that, that's probably why a lot of hunters
7:53
Speaker 1: just put their heads in the sand and don't want
7:55
Speaker 1: to get involved in this kind of thing at all
7:57
Speaker 1: and just say I want to go out and hunt
7:58
Speaker 1: and just do our thing, which is which is great
8:01
Speaker 1: and good and we all love doing that too. But unfortunately,
8:05
Speaker 1: think there's so many things happening today, Dan that we've
8:08
Speaker 1: talked about in the show and other points that are
8:11
Speaker 1: kind of demanding that we hunters need to start getting
8:13
Speaker 1: involved more or else. You know, change is gonna happen,
8:16
Speaker 1: and it's not gonna be the change we want to see. Yeah,
8:18
Speaker 1: and at the same time, we need certain hunters to
8:22
Speaker 1: maybe not voice their opinions on certain certain subjects. Jesus,
8:27
Speaker 1: can I vent? Okay, if I vent, you can vent.
8:31
Speaker 1: How much time do we have. We've got like ten
8:34
Speaker 1: minutes to vent. But we gotta make sure we don't. Well,
8:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you say whatever you want to say
8:38
Speaker 1: because it's your opinion. Okay. So here's the deal. This
8:42
Speaker 1: is and this is the straw that broke the camel's back.
8:44
Speaker 1: So typically Mark, you know me, I'm pretty laid back guy.
8:47
Speaker 1: I go with the flow. I never am too fired
8:50
Speaker 1: up about anything. I roll with the punches. You know.
8:53
Speaker 1: It takes a lot for me to get really worked
8:55
Speaker 1: up about specific you know, any really anything. I mean,
8:59
Speaker 1: my order, our son has to really crap on the
9:02
Speaker 1: carpet like seven or eight times before I get mad
9:05
Speaker 1: at him, you know that kind of And that's like
9:08
Speaker 1: before you even clean it up, or just before you mad.
9:13
Speaker 1: So so anyway at work, right, So, anyway at work,
9:18
Speaker 1: there's this board. And on this board at work, it's
9:20
Speaker 1: a long story short. Every month there's a new phrase
9:25
Speaker 1: or a question on it, like what's your favorite baseball team?
9:27
Speaker 1: Or what's your favorite picnic food? Or you know, something
9:30
Speaker 1: like that. You know, and this one was can I
9:33
Speaker 1: can I say a pause? Yeah? Sorry, sorry, this is
9:36
Speaker 1: totally not the topic. I thought you were gonna go downtime.
9:38
Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna I thought you were going in
9:40
Speaker 1: a different direction with this. It will lead back to it,
9:43
Speaker 1: Oh it does. Okay, So today, uh, this month in
9:48
Speaker 1: Februaries is what is it one reason that you want
9:53
Speaker 1: to live a longer, healthier life, something along those lines.
9:56
Speaker 1: And I never take part in this board, never take
9:59
Speaker 1: part in it. And one day I'm sitting there eating
10:02
Speaker 1: my breakfast burrito and I'm looking at this board, and
10:04
Speaker 1: the first thing that pops up into my head, you know,
10:07
Speaker 1: because every other people have already written, uh, you know,
10:10
Speaker 1: I want to spend as much time with my family
10:12
Speaker 1: as possible. I want to see my grandkids grow up,
10:15
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Uh. And so I walk up
10:18
Speaker 1: there and I write kill a two white tail and
10:21
Speaker 1: That's what I wrote on this board. Now for the
10:24
Speaker 1: for the listeners of this podcast, that probably doesn't. I mean, Mark,
10:29
Speaker 1: would you want to kill someday maybe a two white tail?
10:32
Speaker 1: I mean that'd be cool. Yeah, I mean it's not
10:34
Speaker 1: it's not the reason I hunt, but it would be one.
10:36
Speaker 1: I mean, if it had be awesome. So you know,
10:40
Speaker 1: it's not my main hunting goal, but it's it would
10:42
Speaker 1: be cool if it happened. Because obviously, from a from
10:45
Speaker 1: a statistic standpoint, killing a two buck is a rarity.
10:50
Speaker 1: And so I go back to my desk and I'm like, oh, yeah, okay,
10:54
Speaker 1: so I wrote I participated, which is good. You you
10:57
Speaker 1: participate in workplace culture, Dan, You're being available men ver society.
11:01
Speaker 1: That's a positive thing. Right. So later that day, or
11:05
Speaker 1: as I'm I think it was as I'm leaving yesterday,
11:08
Speaker 1: someone erased my comment. Now you didn't actually see them
11:12
Speaker 1: doing it, right, you saw that. I saw that it
11:15
Speaker 1: was erased, and I'm like, mm hmm. It kind of
11:20
Speaker 1: ticked me off a little bit. So this morning I
11:24
Speaker 1: come back to work, I right up right up there again,
11:27
Speaker 1: kill white tail, and someone erased it again. I'm dead serious,
11:35
Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm not the kind of guy to
11:37
Speaker 1: make waves in the workplace just because you know, I
11:40
Speaker 1: go there, I get my work done, I participate, and
11:44
Speaker 1: I try to make the workplace. Workplace better is from
11:46
Speaker 1: a process standpoint, and that's my job. And and then
11:51
Speaker 1: I got this in the back of my head, like
11:52
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it all day long. What would happen
11:55
Speaker 1: if I erased somebody else's dream or goal of there?
12:00
Speaker 1: How would they feel? I'm like to the point now
12:02
Speaker 1: where I've talked myself into potentially going to human resources
12:06
Speaker 1: to bitch about it. I don't know. Is that something
12:09
Speaker 1: that that maybe I shouldn't get worked up about and
12:13
Speaker 1: just let it flow, go with the flow, or is
12:15
Speaker 1: it something I mean, I feel like, of of all things,
12:19
Speaker 1: it's like, is now where I make my stand I
12:23
Speaker 1: can understand. I can understand where you're coming from. I mean,
12:26
Speaker 1: you're you're I think you're absolutely excuse me. I think
12:28
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right that if you erased someone else's thing
12:32
Speaker 1: and they found out about, someone would be pretty upset
12:34
Speaker 1: about it and will complain about it and say, Dan
12:36
Speaker 1: doesn't respect the fact that I want to live a
12:38
Speaker 1: long life because I'm a democratic, because I love my grandkids,
12:42
Speaker 1: or because I love the Michigan State Spartans, whatever it is. UM.
12:47
Speaker 1: So I think that's pretty unfair that they can do
12:50
Speaker 1: that because your hunter and maybe they disagree with that,
12:53
Speaker 1: UM and do it twice and think they can get
12:55
Speaker 1: away with it. So I don't think it's a I
12:58
Speaker 1: think that's a fair thing to talk to someone about.
13:01
Speaker 1: I mean, and and that's the thing, like, maybe they're
13:06
Speaker 1: and the first thing I thought of was, Okay, maybe
13:08
Speaker 1: they're offended or they're worried about the word kill, which still,
13:14
Speaker 1: anytime you eat a hamburger, you're responsible for killing a cow. Right,
13:18
Speaker 1: if you take part in that, you have to be
13:20
Speaker 1: somewhat responsible. Yeah, I mean the thing is and right
13:24
Speaker 1: when we talk about this a lot people are so
13:28
Speaker 1: they're so disconnected from reality, right, it comes to things
13:32
Speaker 1: like that, you know. And I think, um, it's interesting
13:35
Speaker 1: you bring this up because last week I was at
13:37
Speaker 1: the s CI Convention in Las Vegas. That's Safari Club International. UM.
13:42
Speaker 1: I was there covering it for Outdoor Life, UM, kind
13:44
Speaker 1: of examining some of these issues and topics that have
13:47
Speaker 1: been in the news a lot with trophy hunting and
13:49
Speaker 1: conservation and stuff. Like that. Um. And there were a
13:52
Speaker 1: bunch of anti hunter, anti hunting protesters outside the convention
13:56
Speaker 1: and pro petitions online trying to cancel the show because
14:00
Speaker 1: of these different auctions for gear and guided hunts and
14:03
Speaker 1: different things, and they're calling it paid a sleigh. Um.
14:06
Speaker 1: So I don't mean to derail your story, dan, Um,
14:09
Speaker 1: I just want to mention one thing is interesting. You know.
14:12
Speaker 1: I happened to be leaving the resort to go get dinner,
14:16
Speaker 1: and as I walked out, I walked actually right through
14:18
Speaker 1: this group of anti hunting protesters who were on the
14:20
Speaker 1: corner of the street, and they're all there, you know,
14:24
Speaker 1: still talking about cease of the lion and killing these
14:26
Speaker 1: beautiful animals and how bloodthirsty we are and etcetera, etcetera.
14:30
Speaker 1: And I just kind of stood there looking at these
14:31
Speaker 1: people and their signs and the stuff they're saying, and
14:34
Speaker 1: it's just kind of unbelievable, Like do you do you
14:37
Speaker 1: do you know what you're saying? Do you know what
14:39
Speaker 1: you're talking about? Like they're wearing leather shoes, leather belts,
14:41
Speaker 1: wearing their leather purses there. You know, I'm sure they're
14:44
Speaker 1: going out to dinner, gonna have a steak tonight. I mean,
14:46
Speaker 1: there's so many people that are disconnected from reality, and
14:49
Speaker 1: they see what we do as Hunters as barbaric um,
14:53
Speaker 1: when in short, we're simply just actively participating in something
14:57
Speaker 1: and taking responsibility for ourselves. That is happening. Even you know,
15:02
Speaker 1: they are doing the same thing in some ways, but
15:04
Speaker 1: just allowing a surrogate to do it for them, and
15:07
Speaker 1: they feel better about it because they don't need to
15:08
Speaker 1: be involved in it. Um. Interestingly, though, I was standing
15:11
Speaker 1: there at the crosswalk waiting for the light to change,
15:14
Speaker 1: and I had all these guys and girls all around
15:16
Speaker 1: me with their signs, yelling and screaming and stuff. And
15:18
Speaker 1: I'm standing there just waiting to cross the road. And
15:21
Speaker 1: I look in front of me across the road and
15:23
Speaker 1: I see there's a newspaper photographer snapping pictures of all
15:26
Speaker 1: of us. And I realized I'm in this picture with
15:29
Speaker 1: like Florida and Hunters. And I'm like, oh, jeez, don't
15:31
Speaker 1: don't give me in this picture. I'm not with them,
15:35
Speaker 1: oh man. Yeah, So that that pissed me off a bit.
15:38
Speaker 1: And then I go back to my desk, right and
15:41
Speaker 1: here we are, me and you talk about this about
15:44
Speaker 1: about this a lot that if you're going to be
15:46
Speaker 1: an advocate for hunting, make sure you have the facts,
15:49
Speaker 1: you know, and I think you knew. One of my complaints, UM,
15:52
Speaker 1: as far as hunter retention is concerned, is that we
15:56
Speaker 1: my in my opinion, there's certain hunters that we may
16:00
Speaker 1: not want to be the voice for our our hunting
16:04
Speaker 1: just because they're the man. If it's brown, it's down
16:06
Speaker 1: the beer drinking, you know, you know that kind of
16:09
Speaker 1: stereotype hunter. And then I go online and I'm reading
16:13
Speaker 1: this article which is in a newspaper. This newspaper person
16:18
Speaker 1: go or this journalist goes and interviews this person. I'm
16:23
Speaker 1: not gonna say his name, but he has a television
16:25
Speaker 1: show and he says, boo, yeah a lot, and so
16:28
Speaker 1: that narrows it down. And he's given all this, this reporter,
16:31
Speaker 1: all this information that is completely false about chronic wasting disease.
16:38
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, now people are gonna who aren't
16:41
Speaker 1: hunters are gonna read this and they're gonna think that
16:44
Speaker 1: this c w D isn't really as big of an
16:47
Speaker 1: issue as as it really is, or the hunters are
16:50
Speaker 1: a bunch of idiots exactly. So I'm I'm sitting here,
16:54
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting there, I'm just fuming, and that kind
16:56
Speaker 1: of dumped fuel on the fire for this little comment
16:59
Speaker 1: that was race to mind, something so typically innocent that
17:04
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't say I'm gonna gut shot of
17:06
Speaker 1: a buck and watch him die over a three day period.
17:09
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't write that. I wrote kill white
17:13
Speaker 1: tail and someone and it's just somebody. And that's why
17:17
Speaker 1: I'm no longer a people person. I'll tell you what, guys,
17:21
Speaker 1: Dan Johnson is coming in hot today, so so I'll
17:25
Speaker 1: get down off my soapbox and I apologize if I
17:28
Speaker 1: kind of went off on a tangent. What what we do,
17:29
Speaker 1: That's what we do on this But I mean, you
17:32
Speaker 1: know what I mean, It finally, it finally has just
17:35
Speaker 1: built up to the point where I'm just like, are
17:38
Speaker 1: you kidding me? Yeah, it's it's it's it's kind of
17:43
Speaker 1: scary some of the sentiment these days outside of the
17:46
Speaker 1: hunting community. Um, and it's something we talked about a lot. Actually,
17:50
Speaker 1: the last time we had Randy on, we talked about this.
17:52
Speaker 1: We talked about the importance of perception and how the
17:56
Speaker 1: non hunting public perceives hunters because they have a ton
18:00
Speaker 1: of power. And you know, if if we start having
18:03
Speaker 1: these bad apples give continue to give us a really
18:06
Speaker 1: bad name and keep changing that public perception, all of
18:09
Speaker 1: a sudden, we're going to start losing our privilege and
18:11
Speaker 1: right to do these things that we love to do.
18:13
Speaker 1: And as you can see, I mean, there's someone in
18:15
Speaker 1: your office who didn't even want you to be able
18:17
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that you like to hunt. I
18:19
Speaker 1: didn't even talk about it. I wrote, you guys are
18:23
Speaker 1: still using chalk. Well, it's this little pain on board
18:27
Speaker 1: ding so but yeah, yeah, anyway, we should probably before
18:32
Speaker 1: I start dropping f bombs. Yeah, fair enough, this is
18:35
Speaker 1: a good time. I completely understand your frustration though, and
18:40
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people listening probably can too,
18:42
Speaker 1: because I think I think there's this I hate to
18:45
Speaker 1: go down this road, but there's like definitely some what's
18:48
Speaker 1: the word? Um oh gosh, why am I? Uh wow,
18:55
Speaker 1: Dan help me out here. Hypocrites? Man, I've never had
19:01
Speaker 1: this Harvard time thinking of a word. But we are
19:04
Speaker 1: being yeah, I know, we are being treated differently than others,
19:07
Speaker 1: negatively because of what we do as hunters. And there's
19:10
Speaker 1: a very right exactly. Um so It's an issue, and
19:17
Speaker 1: it's something that I think because of the continued urbanization
19:22
Speaker 1: of our population, I think it's gonna continue to get
19:24
Speaker 1: more and more um frequent. It's gonna happen more often,
19:28
Speaker 1: it's gonna be more severe. More and more people are
19:30
Speaker 1: disconnected from hunting and what we do and why we
19:32
Speaker 1: do it um and it's something we have to be
19:34
Speaker 1: really cognizant of. So, man, do you think we should uh?
19:40
Speaker 1: Should we do? You want to keep talking about the standards?
19:42
Speaker 1: Should we shut it down and bring Randy on and
19:44
Speaker 1: make us a three person discussion better? I mean, he's
19:48
Speaker 1: the expert and he's the problem. He's probably the guy
19:52
Speaker 1: that before before guys like me and you start throwing punches,
19:56
Speaker 1: He's the guy going, it's not worth it, guys. Randy
19:59
Speaker 1: will be the voice of reason for us today. All right, Well,
20:02
Speaker 1: then let's take a quick break for a word from
20:05
Speaker 1: our partners at SIKA, and then we will give Randy
20:08
Speaker 1: a call. So, as we do every week, today we're
20:11
Speaker 1: going to hear from Sick of Gear product category leader
20:14
Speaker 1: Dennis Zuck, and specifically for this episode, I wanted to
20:17
Speaker 1: hear about rain gear and what factors into creating really
20:21
Speaker 1: high quality rain gear for deer hunters. So here's Dennis
20:24
Speaker 1: to explain. Yeah, I mean for me, anything that keeps
20:27
Speaker 1: you in the woods longer is important, you know, and
20:30
Speaker 1: and rain gear is a perfect example of that. You know.
20:33
Speaker 1: So it's either going to keep me in the woods
20:34
Speaker 1: longer or if I want on a long hunt and
20:36
Speaker 1: I don't get to pick the days, you know, it
20:38
Speaker 1: might be the thing that lets me hunt that day
20:39
Speaker 1: where I get the opportunity. So it's super important. And
20:43
Speaker 1: I think when you're thinking about, you know, what makes
20:44
Speaker 1: good rain gear, um, I think you need to think
20:47
Speaker 1: a little bit about what you're trying to do with it,
20:48
Speaker 1: and you need to look at where your rain gear
20:50
Speaker 1: comes rain rain gear comes from. Um, so if I'm
20:53
Speaker 1: going to put it as a cover suit, I need
20:55
Speaker 1: to make sure it's sized in a way that's gonna
20:57
Speaker 1: let me put it over top of my garment. So
20:59
Speaker 1: that's something that it's important. Um. But I think that
21:01
Speaker 1: where it comes from is really important. You know. I
21:03
Speaker 1: haven't spent a lot of time with the folks at
21:05
Speaker 1: Gortex over my years. Um. You know, all rain gear
21:08
Speaker 1: is not created equal. You know, if you turn in,
21:11
Speaker 1: you turn that that rain gear inside out you're gonna
21:13
Speaker 1: see seems you know. Those need to be taped, Those
21:17
Speaker 1: need to be sealed, They need to be done in
21:18
Speaker 1: a way that works well. Um. It needs to have
21:20
Speaker 1: a hood that's going to run the rain off appropriately.
21:23
Speaker 1: It needed the pockets that it doesn't run into. Um.
21:26
Speaker 1: It needs to do a lot of things, um to
21:29
Speaker 1: protect you when you're sitting and when you're standing. You know,
21:32
Speaker 1: So think about all the things you're gonna do in
21:34
Speaker 1: your rain gear. Think about who's making it and are
21:37
Speaker 1: they paying attention to those details that maybe I don't see.
21:39
Speaker 1: I think those are the parts that make up make
21:42
Speaker 1: up bulletproof system, you know, for that rainy day hunt. So,
21:46
Speaker 1: if you would like to learn more about Sick of Gears,
21:49
Speaker 1: rain gear or other items, visit sick of gear dot com.
21:54
Speaker 1: And now let's give Randy a call. All right with
21:57
Speaker 1: us Now on the show is Randy Newburgh. Welcome back, Randy,
22:02
Speaker 1: Mark and Dan thanks for having me, my pleasure to
22:05
Speaker 1: be here. Yeah, we're we're excited to chat again. And uh,
22:08
Speaker 1: you know, for the past like ten or fifteen minutes,
22:10
Speaker 1: me and Dan have been kind of going all over
22:13
Speaker 1: the place on issues related to public lands and politics
22:16
Speaker 1: and anti hunters. We've had a whole lack of a
22:18
Speaker 1: conversation already, so we're we're excited to bring you in
22:21
Speaker 1: as the voice of reason today is what we're hoping
22:24
Speaker 1: you can know. The thing just just completely went off
22:29
Speaker 1: the rails, and to bring me in so before we
22:34
Speaker 1: before we get too far into all those fun topics
22:36
Speaker 1: that we do want to talk about. Um, last time
22:39
Speaker 1: we chatted, I think that was in August maybe, Um,
22:42
Speaker 1: it was just before you were about to head off
22:43
Speaker 1: on your fall two thousand fifteen hunts. So it's kind
22:46
Speaker 1: of curious, how did your season end up going? Oh,
22:50
Speaker 1: you guys know how it is where some seasons it's
22:54
Speaker 1: like everything falls into place, and then some seasons, no
22:57
Speaker 1: matter what you do, it doesn't work out. As Muncy's off,
23:01
Speaker 1: it can't go wrong, it will go wrong. Well, Mr
23:05
Speaker 1: Bercy was riding shotgown with us this season. Anyways, it
23:10
Speaker 1: was so hard. I've told people if I huded this
23:13
Speaker 1: hard in most seasons, I would have filled every tag
23:16
Speaker 1: with a dooling crocket animal as as as we probably
23:21
Speaker 1: failed half my tags. But hef we we got to
23:24
Speaker 1: see a lot of cool places did a lot of
23:26
Speaker 1: cool things. We had great guest hunters, were shots, some
23:30
Speaker 1: nice animals. Um just well, yeah, doing the public laying
23:34
Speaker 1: gig like we do. And I know your audience is
23:36
Speaker 1: gonna be like, oh, Randy, I really feel sorry for
23:39
Speaker 1: you year my symphathies. But we had a We had
23:45
Speaker 1: a decent season, but for how hard we worked, it
23:48
Speaker 1: should have been better. That's funny. Yeah, you gotta know
23:51
Speaker 1: how that is. Yeah, sometimes you worked your butt off
23:55
Speaker 1: and you don't get what you deserve, and sometimes you're
23:57
Speaker 1: sitting on your button, just lands in your lap and like,
24:01
Speaker 1: all right, somebody needs to tell me what that's like.
24:07
Speaker 1: Dan's ready for one of those. Yeah, it'll be there. Dan.
24:12
Speaker 1: The next time you climb in the tree stand and
24:14
Speaker 1: you turn around just to get ready, here'll be the
24:17
Speaker 1: big buck standing right down below you're looking at you.
24:20
Speaker 1: That would be nice. That would be nice. Yeah. You know, Now,
24:24
Speaker 1: as I'm as I'm remembering things, I think our first
24:26
Speaker 1: interview with you, Randy, it aired the week that me
24:29
Speaker 1: and Dan were out on our elk hunt together and
24:32
Speaker 1: we had one of those elkhuns. Now we were only
24:34
Speaker 1: it was only a week compared to your whole season.
24:37
Speaker 1: Out there. But our week of elk hunting in Idaho
24:40
Speaker 1: was kind of right in line with what you're talking
24:42
Speaker 1: about with kind of everything going wrong. We just got
24:45
Speaker 1: poured on the whole time, and Dan didn't bring a
24:47
Speaker 1: good tent, so his tent went to bunk on our
24:50
Speaker 1: first night, so we had to pack out to get
24:53
Speaker 1: him new gear because everything was soaked and nothing was talking,
24:56
Speaker 1: and there was way more hunters than I've ever found
24:59
Speaker 1: back there. So it was just one of those trips
25:00
Speaker 1: where you look at it as as a learning experience
25:03
Speaker 1: and that's about it. Uh, well, you got to have
25:07
Speaker 1: a few of those so that you really appreciate it.
25:10
Speaker 1: One of the good ones from along, Very true, very sure.
25:13
Speaker 1: That's that's how I rationalize that. Anyhow you have, you
25:17
Speaker 1: have to tell your yourself things like that in the
25:19
Speaker 1: in the Pits of despair, hunted the mountainside right right exactly?
25:24
Speaker 1: You did? Uh? If I remember hearing you did get
25:27
Speaker 1: a nice bullet? Was in Montana? Yeah, yeah, I did.
25:30
Speaker 1: I left out and h this was one of those
25:34
Speaker 1: days and Mr Murphy was on vacation and all I
25:37
Speaker 1: convegued because we we were actually we walked out on
25:40
Speaker 1: the small sliver of glm land, and the idea was
25:43
Speaker 1: we were just going to glass from that big nobb
25:46
Speaker 1: out there and going to hold. There's three bowls and
25:50
Speaker 1: twenty cows just tearing it up and carrying on making noise.
25:53
Speaker 1: And I ended up shooting one of them and he
25:57
Speaker 1: ended up being the best ball I've ever shots. That
26:02
Speaker 1: just goes to show you go out to glass. I
26:05
Speaker 1: almost it was so unprepared to actually shoot because I'm
26:08
Speaker 1: just thinking about, Okay, I'm gonna glass for the evening
26:11
Speaker 1: hunt and figure out what we're doing this evening, you know,
26:13
Speaker 1: and sudden they start beavy and blass, and he wanted
26:17
Speaker 1: to be a TV star, so I obliged to. Gotta
26:21
Speaker 1: love those attention hungry elk. Right. Yeah, So it was
26:26
Speaker 1: fun when can in Mexico, I guest unner shot a
26:29
Speaker 1: really nice bull there. And in Wyoming we had a
26:32
Speaker 1: guest inner street to bull there and I continued my
26:35
Speaker 1: white tail addictions. Um in Montana, I shot another white tails,
26:39
Speaker 1: so out of my I've lived here for twenty four
26:43
Speaker 1: hunting seasons, uh, and I I've filled the deer tags
26:48
Speaker 1: every year with Montana. It's not super hard with an
26:50
Speaker 1: under deer we hub, but I've only shot three meal there.
26:54
Speaker 1: In my entire time I lived in Montana, all the
26:56
Speaker 1: ways have been white tails. So that's a problem when
26:59
Speaker 1: you when you grew up in northern Minnesota, you can't
27:02
Speaker 1: get rid of the white tail or the walleye problem. Yeah,
27:04
Speaker 1: I can definitely, I can imagine that. Um. When when
27:08
Speaker 1: I think most people think about white tails in Montana,
27:11
Speaker 1: at least from a Midwestern perspective, I think of like
27:14
Speaker 1: eastern Montana, Milk River and stuff. Are you traveling way
27:16
Speaker 1: east to hunt white tails or are you finding some
27:19
Speaker 1: over on the western side. There's light tails all over
27:22
Speaker 1: in Montana. I shot this light till at about six
27:25
Speaker 1: thousand key to elevation on the Forest Service all the
27:29
Speaker 1: all the elk counters go, they just march right past you.
27:33
Speaker 1: I cut up this wonderin agent sit on this ridge
27:35
Speaker 1: and white tails being white tails in November. That he
27:38
Speaker 1: was the sixth buck that I saw that morning, And
27:43
Speaker 1: he was the one that actually decided to stand for
27:45
Speaker 1: the camera because I still in myself, which is really hard, um.
27:50
Speaker 1: And so he was nice enough for me and I
27:53
Speaker 1: shot him. But I think if people from the Midwest
27:57
Speaker 1: came out to Montana or Wyoming, Idaho, white kill hunting
28:00
Speaker 1: made you shake their head at one how little hunting
28:03
Speaker 1: pressure there is to the average quality of a lot
28:06
Speaker 1: of our books relais at the highly pressured places that
28:09
Speaker 1: I grew up in Minnesota anyhow, um, and just how
28:13
Speaker 1: much country there is to go and find him. I
28:15
Speaker 1: shouldn't be saying that Montana, but they're gonna be like,
28:19
Speaker 1: shure your mouth. Yeah, you're you're telling a pretty big
28:22
Speaker 1: chunk of white tailers out there about your secret. And
28:26
Speaker 1: where's that trail head located? Yeah, well, then if you
28:31
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to ask too many people because they see
28:34
Speaker 1: them my truck park there regularly, I'm gonna have to
28:36
Speaker 1: start driving like a player to Prius or something. People
28:40
Speaker 1: see my track, they're like, oh, I know where you're
28:42
Speaker 1: Raindy was at. No, it's we're lucky to live in
28:49
Speaker 1: a place like Montana where we do have all this
28:52
Speaker 1: public plans and and you know, people, I think you know,
28:56
Speaker 1: people believe if you can hunt white kills in Montana
28:58
Speaker 1: you need private access, and there's no doubt that's going
29:00
Speaker 1: to help you. But where it's a little leg works,
29:05
Speaker 1: the ability to desire to hike a little bit, maybe
29:09
Speaker 1: a para waters to cross the creek or river the
29:12
Speaker 1: key to other people from the crossing. Um, you'd be
29:14
Speaker 1: surprised how many white deals you can find here on
29:17
Speaker 1: but look, yeah, it's definitely intriguing to me. It's funny
29:21
Speaker 1: you mentioned it because over the past few weeks I've
29:23
Speaker 1: been sitting here at home trying to figure out where
29:26
Speaker 1: my what my third state should be, because I typically
29:28
Speaker 1: hunt my homestead of Michigan, I go to Ohio and
29:31
Speaker 1: then a third white tail state, and I've kind of
29:34
Speaker 1: moved away this year from doing one of the usual
29:37
Speaker 1: ones I do, like something close to home. I've been thinking, like,
29:40
Speaker 1: this is the year maybe I'm gonna head west for
29:41
Speaker 1: like a totally different kind of western hunt. Maybe North Dakota,
29:45
Speaker 1: maybe western Nebraska, maybe Wyoming and Montana. So these are
29:49
Speaker 1: the things I'm thinking about. So it's interesting to hear,
29:52
Speaker 1: you know, your perspective on that, because I've heard that
29:53
Speaker 1: from a lot of people that there's a lot of
29:55
Speaker 1: great deer hunting out that part of the country that
29:58
Speaker 1: people just don't know about or don't realize it's available.
30:01
Speaker 1: So yeah, right, if you decided to come this far west,
30:06
Speaker 1: you guys just give me a call and I'll tell
30:08
Speaker 1: you where those GPS coordinates are. Learn you'll reslearned to
30:15
Speaker 1: avowed secretcy. You gotta be careful what you offer, Randy,
30:19
Speaker 1: Dan's liable to take you up on it. So, speaking
30:25
Speaker 1: of public lands though, right what what I really was
30:28
Speaker 1: hoping we could talk about today, Randy, were a lot
30:31
Speaker 1: of things related to public lands and some of the
30:33
Speaker 1: current um risks facing our public lands. And I know
30:36
Speaker 1: that you are a guy who has worked for quite
30:39
Speaker 1: a long time now on behalf of public lands, public
30:42
Speaker 1: access and those those places and animals that we as
30:45
Speaker 1: hunters um have the have the opportunity and privileged to hunt. Um.
30:49
Speaker 1: So I guess I wanted to cover a lot of things.
30:53
Speaker 1: But the first and foremost aspect of this is this
30:56
Speaker 1: whole issue of the transfer of federal public lands. It's
31:00
Speaker 1: been talked a lot over the past year two most
31:03
Speaker 1: recently with the whole standoff in Oregon. There's been a
31:06
Speaker 1: new light shine on it. It's been talked about a
31:08
Speaker 1: little bit in regards to the presidential race going on
31:12
Speaker 1: right now, so it's definitely in the media. It's something
31:14
Speaker 1: that people I think need a need to have a
31:16
Speaker 1: strong understanding of But right now, I think there's still
31:19
Speaker 1: a lot of questions, especially for guys that are you know,
31:22
Speaker 1: our audience here in the Midwest, east coast south wherever
31:25
Speaker 1: it might be, who aren't necessarily in our as involved
31:28
Speaker 1: as maybe someone in Wyoming or Montana or Nevada is
31:31
Speaker 1: where there's tons of public land. UM. So we've talked
31:35
Speaker 1: about this issue a little bit. A couple of weeks ago,
31:36
Speaker 1: we had Witt Fostburg on the show and we spent
31:38
Speaker 1: maybe five ten minutes talking about this topic. But I
31:41
Speaker 1: was hoping that you, Randy, could help us really drill
31:44
Speaker 1: into it. So, uh, could you maybe to really start
31:49
Speaker 1: us out here? Could you explain to us, you know what,
31:52
Speaker 1: what is this issue? What when someone says the transfer
31:55
Speaker 1: public lands, what are they talking about? And why do
31:58
Speaker 1: these people want to do some life that Well, I'm
32:02
Speaker 1: not sure how much time we have, guys, because we
32:04
Speaker 1: could spend the twenty four our podcast on I'll try
32:08
Speaker 1: to touch on the high points that are relevant to
32:11
Speaker 1: two hunters, um. And the reason I say hunters is
32:15
Speaker 1: in the west of Hunters, in the last west of
32:19
Speaker 1: the Great Plain hunt on federal public lands. So that's
32:25
Speaker 1: it's a really big issue to hunters in the West,
32:28
Speaker 1: just because it's where most of us un UM. But
32:31
Speaker 1: the premises of this argument is that the federal government
32:36
Speaker 1: should transfer the lands to the state and not the
32:39
Speaker 1: state manager. And you know, in the first year, it's
32:42
Speaker 1: like and not a bad idea. Um. And for a
32:48
Speaker 1: lot of people who live in a state that their
32:51
Speaker 1: state lands are very friendly to hunting, um, it really
32:55
Speaker 1: sounds like a good idea because they think that all
32:58
Speaker 1: states operate maybe the way their state what does. So
33:01
Speaker 1: I'll use the example where I grew up in Minnesota.
33:03
Speaker 1: Just about all the state lands are open hunting pretty much.
33:07
Speaker 1: All the state lands are open to most everything. Then
33:10
Speaker 1: you come to Colorado, and I'm just using some examples
33:13
Speaker 1: here because usually these examples will illustrate the concerns very
33:17
Speaker 1: quickly to the to the listener. So you come to
33:20
Speaker 1: Colorado and you see on the state land are these
33:23
Speaker 1: little blue squares in your maw? Um, you cannot hunt
33:27
Speaker 1: those state lands. So we've got twenty three million acres
33:31
Speaker 1: of BLM and Forest Service in Colorado. But if it
33:34
Speaker 1: was transferred to the State Land Board of Colorado under
33:38
Speaker 1: the premise that this whole state transfer idea is those
33:41
Speaker 1: twenty three million acres are currently accessible federal lands, the
33:47
Speaker 1: beer of line management in the US Force Service would
33:49
Speaker 1: no longer be available for US to hunt unless the
33:52
Speaker 1: Department of Wildlife in Colorado went and leads the hunting
33:56
Speaker 1: rights on those lands. Well, they don't have the budget
33:59
Speaker 1: to do that. Um So the reason I used color
34:03
Speaker 1: Colorado it's such an obvious example of how each state
34:07
Speaker 1: has different rules about access and restrictions on the state
34:12
Speaker 1: lands that are controlled within that state. It's not like
34:17
Speaker 1: federal lands work. If you go to Montana, to Michigan,
34:22
Speaker 1: to Georgia to New Mexico, the federal lands are all
34:26
Speaker 1: pretty much the same access rules. It's it's very very
34:30
Speaker 1: different by state. So in that example, let's let's just
34:34
Speaker 1: walk it through. The federal government transfers all those beyond
34:38
Speaker 1: lands to Colorado. How are we going to replace twenty
34:41
Speaker 1: three million of acres that right now is currently open mouning,
34:48
Speaker 1: no no options. I don't think. I don't know how
34:50
Speaker 1: you could. I don't know how it is. So and
34:55
Speaker 1: people say, well, he's just using one really bad example. Well,
34:59
Speaker 1: let's off then Ada, New Mexico, New Mexico state lands.
35:03
Speaker 1: You cannot camp on the state lands, so I hunt
35:07
Speaker 1: the HeLa National Forest areas for Alkala. Now, if the
35:11
Speaker 1: HeLa National Force was transferred to the state of New Mexico,
35:14
Speaker 1: I could not camp out there on my out on
35:16
Speaker 1: the grounds right outcome, Well, it's about a three hour
35:20
Speaker 1: drive on some of America's worst roads from the nearest
35:25
Speaker 1: place I'd be able to camp to where I would hunt. Well,
35:30
Speaker 1: how practical is it for outpointing that I'm going to
35:33
Speaker 1: drive three hours every morning, hunt, drive three hours that
35:36
Speaker 1: night to come back out to where I'm now allowed
35:37
Speaker 1: to camp, and repeat that process every day. In my outcome,
35:41
Speaker 1: it just not practical. In New Mexico, a lot of
35:46
Speaker 1: the state lands that have a lot of wildlife values
35:50
Speaker 1: get considered wildlife management areas and only residents can hunt
35:54
Speaker 1: those and apply for tags and those wildlife management areas.
35:58
Speaker 1: So again I'm just pointing out the obvious examples. In
36:02
Speaker 1: my state of Montana, we were like Colorado until nineties five,
36:07
Speaker 1: I believe is when when you went to Helena and
36:09
Speaker 1: gotten the big it was an ugly desktop with the legislature,
36:14
Speaker 1: and what came of it is that we agreed we'd
36:19
Speaker 1: be willing to pay a fee if we would be
36:23
Speaker 1: allowed to hunt state lands. So now residents and non
36:26
Speaker 1: residents get to hunt state lands in Montana, but they
36:29
Speaker 1: have to pay a fee to do that. So if
36:33
Speaker 1: any of you who traveled to the West, I assume
36:36
Speaker 1: if seventy of us living here hunt on federal lands,
36:41
Speaker 1: odds are seventy percent who would travel here to hunt
36:44
Speaker 1: very close to that would probably hunt on federal lands. So, um,
36:49
Speaker 1: it's a it's a huge impact. So just in that
36:52
Speaker 1: sense of what would happen under state control and ownership
36:58
Speaker 1: is one thing if you step back and don't let
37:02
Speaker 1: yourself just be drawn into that argument. But you look
37:05
Speaker 1: at the history of this discussion, that this discussion has
37:07
Speaker 1: been going on for decades, and the premise of it
37:11
Speaker 1: is that the federal government should not be allowed to
37:15
Speaker 1: own land. But it's unconstitutional. In spite of the fact
37:19
Speaker 1: that that's a month to quote many times and it's
37:22
Speaker 1: been defeated every time. Um, these people still hold that
37:27
Speaker 1: out as some sort of myth or some iconic constitutional fiction.
37:33
Speaker 1: But the goal of those groups saying this is to
37:37
Speaker 1: not just get the land transferred to the states. Historically
37:41
Speaker 1: their goal was let's sell these lands and so in
37:47
Speaker 1: the late eighties they really were pushing that. It became
37:50
Speaker 1: what was called the sage Brush Rebellion, and they got
37:54
Speaker 1: their teeth handed to them from a political and just
37:58
Speaker 1: public opinion standpoint. So they kind of retreated for a
38:01
Speaker 1: little while and said, boy, let's not say sad lands.
38:03
Speaker 1: Let's call it something else. So that's where they came
38:06
Speaker 1: out with the new idea, the new package they wrapped
38:09
Speaker 1: around it called transfer the public lands. The reason that
38:12
Speaker 1: they do that is the lessern states are very very
38:16
Speaker 1: good at selling their state lands. Um Nevada at state
38:20
Speaker 1: where these grande over two million acres of state lands.
38:23
Speaker 1: They've sold all but they've sold. Um Utah was granted
38:30
Speaker 1: over seven million acres of state land at era of
38:33
Speaker 1: land at statehood, they're now down to a little over
38:36
Speaker 1: three million. Um Alasta currently sells their land to fund
38:41
Speaker 1: their university systems, their school system, and their mental health system.
38:45
Speaker 1: So if these states obtain the ownership of these lands,
38:51
Speaker 1: it will the goal of selling them, which has been
38:54
Speaker 1: the goal of most people behind This would be far
38:57
Speaker 1: easier to accomplish if these lands are in eight hands
39:01
Speaker 1: than when they're in federal hands. So it's really two issues.
39:05
Speaker 1: It's the easy argument and to say, look, this is
39:08
Speaker 1: really going to affect us from a hunting access standpoint,
39:11
Speaker 1: and the evidences there. It just takes ten minutes to
39:15
Speaker 1: explain it. But the longer term goal is to get
39:19
Speaker 1: these lands out of public hands. That's that's that simple.
39:23
Speaker 1: And it struck me that just two weeks agother and
39:29
Speaker 1: for your your listeners, there's a group called the Mountain
39:32
Speaker 1: States Legal Foundation based in Denver. They're a large think
39:35
Speaker 1: tank of attorneys who are very much into property rights,
39:41
Speaker 1: western land issues. Uh. Someone your listeners mainly remember Gil Norton,
39:46
Speaker 1: who was a Secretary of Interior under George W. Bush
39:50
Speaker 1: to um James Watt, Secretary of Interior under Ronald Reagan.
39:54
Speaker 1: Both of them came out of this think tank called
39:58
Speaker 1: the Mountain States Legal And why why am I bringing
40:03
Speaker 1: that up is because just in the last couple of weeks,
40:06
Speaker 1: as they've seen more and more publicity for this idea
40:10
Speaker 1: of transfer, they've now come flat out. And the president
40:14
Speaker 1: of that organization, who's also an attorney, UH, William Pentley,
40:18
Speaker 1: wrote a very long article and the title of it
40:21
Speaker 1: I have it right here, says the federal government should
40:24
Speaker 1: follow the Constitution and sell the Western Lands. So now
40:29
Speaker 1: they're back to, you know, we called the transfer, let's
40:32
Speaker 1: just say what we wanted to be, we want to
40:35
Speaker 1: sell these Western lands. And the part that strikes me
40:38
Speaker 1: as funny, and here's an attorney they in Pentley who
40:42
Speaker 1: says the federal government should follow the Constitution. Well, if
40:46
Speaker 1: heat an attorney leading an organization with lots of other
40:49
Speaker 1: attorneys who specialize in this law, why don't they just
40:53
Speaker 1: follow lawsuit and say, hey, this is this is unconstitutional,
40:58
Speaker 1: get it turned over. It seems like an epier path.
41:02
Speaker 1: The reason they don't is because they've been defeated every
41:05
Speaker 1: time they've tried it. So their hope is, if we
41:08
Speaker 1: can continue to make it sound like it's unconstitutional, if
41:11
Speaker 1: we can make it sound like this is a big
41:14
Speaker 1: government against the little guy, we can accomplish this legislatively
41:19
Speaker 1: because we've not been able to accomplish it judicially, Let's
41:22
Speaker 1: try and get Congress and public support to accomplish this.
41:26
Speaker 1: So it's just been recently in the last month now
41:29
Speaker 1: that they're back saying let's just sell these lands, which
41:32
Speaker 1: surprised me because it was such an unfavorable advertisement for
41:38
Speaker 1: their cause. Twenty five thirty years ago. Now, I know, um,
41:44
Speaker 1: like me and Mark before the show started, I had
41:47
Speaker 1: a little conversation about and I'm just saying this presidential
41:52
Speaker 1: election year, I've been I've been focused more than I
41:56
Speaker 1: ever have on politics and with this, and I've done
42:00
Speaker 1: some research before this show, and in one term that
42:05
Speaker 1: kind of strikes me funny is and especially I think
42:09
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz on the Republican Party has been saying, we
42:12
Speaker 1: want to return the land to the people. Well, if
42:16
Speaker 1: it's public land, isn't it already the people's land? Yeah?
42:23
Speaker 1: That funny. When he says that, I just laugh. I'm like, an,
42:27
Speaker 1: we the people. Isn't this the government for the people
42:30
Speaker 1: by other people? So yeah, when he says when I
42:33
Speaker 1: wanted to return it to the people, I'm not sure
42:36
Speaker 1: what he means is like that. I think I laugh
42:40
Speaker 1: when I when I see those same clips because you
42:43
Speaker 1: see him out on YouTube or some of the social
42:45
Speaker 1: media where he's saying, you know, you gotta return this
42:49
Speaker 1: land to the to the people. Is this trying to
42:52
Speaker 1: gain public opinion? Is this like a stunt to try
42:55
Speaker 1: to gain Um, I guess public acceptance rates so that
42:59
Speaker 1: somebody you would say you know what these guys are right,
43:02
Speaker 1: we need to sell all this land. I think that's
43:05
Speaker 1: what it is, guys, in its bigger picture. If it
43:09
Speaker 1: was really a constitutional and legal issue, there are very
43:14
Speaker 1: smart mountains that you know. I gave the example of
43:16
Speaker 1: amount of states legal foundation. There are very smart legal
43:19
Speaker 1: minds in many places that are promoting this cause. If
43:24
Speaker 1: it was strictly a legal and constitutional issue, it would
43:27
Speaker 1: have been in courts and solved a long time ago.
43:29
Speaker 1: It's being in courts many times in it's always been
43:32
Speaker 1: solved against their favor. So now the mantra, the narrative,
43:37
Speaker 1: the talking point is these lands are a burden, these
43:41
Speaker 1: lands are this, these lands hurt you know, the rural
43:45
Speaker 1: last blah blah blah blah blah. And it's building and
43:49
Speaker 1: kind of backfilling a legislative effort that we're starting to
43:53
Speaker 1: see at the state level in the US, and we
43:56
Speaker 1: will be seeing at the national level. I've been to
43:58
Speaker 1: DC twice and last year on this issue, and you
44:02
Speaker 1: see a lot of now national level politicians taking that
44:09
Speaker 1: as the narratives going forward on public lets Let's just
44:13
Speaker 1: sell them, let's just give them to the states, Let's
44:16
Speaker 1: tell them let's and so I do think a lot
44:18
Speaker 1: of what we're hearing, a lot of this effort, a
44:21
Speaker 1: lot of the volume being turned up, is part of
44:24
Speaker 1: that longer term strategy. They have to convince Americans that
44:28
Speaker 1: these lands are a burden, their pain in the butt,
44:30
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, let's just sell them. And you know,
44:35
Speaker 1: if they are able to accomplish that, well, shame on us.
44:39
Speaker 1: So I want I want to dive into a few
44:42
Speaker 1: of the things you mentioned there, Randy, dive deeper into
44:44
Speaker 1: some of the motivations for some of these things, a
44:47
Speaker 1: little more of the history you touched on some of it, um.
44:49
Speaker 1: But before that, I kind of forgot to speak to
44:53
Speaker 1: this at the beginning. We've mentioned it before, but I
44:55
Speaker 1: just want to re emphasize the fact that this really
44:57
Speaker 1: is an issue that isn't just a Western issue. You know,
45:00
Speaker 1: this is also something that I think should be very
45:03
Speaker 1: important to a white tail hunter in Michigan, or a
45:06
Speaker 1: turkey hunter in Georgia, or a you know, a grouse
45:10
Speaker 1: hunter in New Hampshire or whatever it might be, because
45:13
Speaker 1: you know, this is first and foremost, there are national
45:17
Speaker 1: lands and national forests and public federal public land, not
45:20
Speaker 1: just in the West, but all across the country. I
45:22
Speaker 1: mean there's tons of deer hunters hunting national forest in
45:24
Speaker 1: Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota, West Virginia, Ohio is huge
45:29
Speaker 1: national forest lands, and in places like that that. If
45:33
Speaker 1: all these types of these types of things happen, now
45:35
Speaker 1: you know, if you're one of those public land hunters,
45:37
Speaker 1: you're in serious trouble. On the other hand, if you
45:40
Speaker 1: are a private land hunter, you know, even as private
45:43
Speaker 1: land hunters, we can we complain about issues with increasing
45:47
Speaker 1: hunting pressure and struggling with with finding places to hunt
45:50
Speaker 1: in different things like that. Well, what happens if millions
45:53
Speaker 1: of acres of public land all of a sudden start
45:55
Speaker 1: getting sold off in your neck of the woods, Now
45:57
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a whole lot more competition to try
45:59
Speaker 1: to find somewhere to hunt, even if you are on
46:01
Speaker 1: private land. UM. And then third, if you ever do
46:06
Speaker 1: have a dream of someday going out and hunting deer
46:09
Speaker 1: or elk or whatever it might be in one of
46:11
Speaker 1: these other Western states closer to you, Randy, that I
46:14
Speaker 1: think a lot of people do have a desire to experience,
46:16
Speaker 1: whether it be to hunt fish, camp hike, UM, if
46:20
Speaker 1: you have a dream of someday doing that, well, this
46:23
Speaker 1: is going to have a significant impact on that future
46:25
Speaker 1: for you or your children or your grandchildren. Um So,
46:28
Speaker 1: I just want to I just want to jump in
46:30
Speaker 1: here and re emphasize that this isn't something for white
46:33
Speaker 1: tail guys in you know, Louisiana to turn your ears
46:36
Speaker 1: off to. If you're in Texas or Michigan or Indiana.
46:39
Speaker 1: I mean, this is something that I think all of
46:41
Speaker 1: us hunters need to stand up and take a stand on.
46:43
Speaker 1: Um It's not something just for Randy Newburg and Montana.
46:47
Speaker 1: This is also something for Dan Johnson Iowa. UM So,
46:52
Speaker 1: I'll just use an example that has been with some
46:54
Speaker 1: of my friends. You know, again, I grew up in
46:57
Speaker 1: Minnesota and and you're in Iowa. To the Upper Mississippi
47:02
Speaker 1: River National Wildlife Refuge is between Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa.
47:10
Speaker 1: And the number of friends I have who deer hunt there,
47:14
Speaker 1: waterfowl hunt there, it gets ad a lot of hunting
47:18
Speaker 1: presure simply because it's trade hunting. It's near places where
47:24
Speaker 1: hunting access would be difficult. These proposals are to sell that.
47:30
Speaker 1: So who's going to be the guy who goes and
47:33
Speaker 1: buys that prime whitetail ground. Someone's going to buy it.
47:37
Speaker 1: And I don't think they're gonna say, oh, everybody, come
47:39
Speaker 1: and hunt my great white tail hunting here in northeast
47:43
Speaker 1: Iowa or southeast Minnesota or western Wisconsin. I suspect they're
47:48
Speaker 1: gonna say no trespassing here, folks. Um And so that
47:53
Speaker 1: there's so many federal land I don't care if we're
47:56
Speaker 1: talking to boat ramps where you launch on the river
48:00
Speaker 1: that when you start rolling back the covers of what
48:02
Speaker 1: this argument really is about, it's it's an argument of
48:07
Speaker 1: we don't want public access as it currently exists to
48:12
Speaker 1: be there, and we want these lands in the hands
48:15
Speaker 1: of private parties because we have a ideology that private
48:20
Speaker 1: industry is where things should be. And I don't argue
48:25
Speaker 1: that private industry that efficient. I mean, I started and
48:30
Speaker 1: built my own businesses and I'm thankful for the returns
48:33
Speaker 1: on that. But I think in this country we also
48:36
Speaker 1: one of the things that makes our country so great
48:39
Speaker 1: because we do have these public lands. We do have
48:43
Speaker 1: opportunities for the average person to go to hunt if
48:46
Speaker 1: we have the bird watch, whatever it is, and that
48:50
Speaker 1: makes us different than other places. And it's politicians think
48:54
Speaker 1: that they want to sell all of these wildlife areas,
48:58
Speaker 1: all of these volte rams, all these fishing access sites. Well,
49:05
Speaker 1: for me, it'll be the old over my dead body. Um,
49:09
Speaker 1: you know it's it's not going to happen. And I
49:11
Speaker 1: don't care where I lived. My attachment to hunting and
49:16
Speaker 1: fishing in the outdoors is I said, I'm not going
49:18
Speaker 1: to stand there and just let it happen. And the
49:22
Speaker 1: argument I use with a lot of the politicians who
49:25
Speaker 1: are trying to push this is I give them the
49:29
Speaker 1: studies that we're done by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
49:32
Speaker 1: That's a the number one reason people quit hunting, the
49:35
Speaker 1: number one reason they don't hunt as much as they
49:37
Speaker 1: previously did, and the number one reason cited for why
49:40
Speaker 1: they don't get into hunting if they come from a
49:42
Speaker 1: hunting family is access accessible lands. So how do you
49:48
Speaker 1: go on this idea that we should get rid of
49:52
Speaker 1: all these lands the public uses for this hunting access
49:56
Speaker 1: and yet try to convince me that you're in favor
49:58
Speaker 1: of hunting. I'm not, Brian. So that's that's why to me,
50:04
Speaker 1: it's it's very important no matter where you live in
50:07
Speaker 1: this country, because it's the public lands, the federal lands
50:11
Speaker 1: in the southeast and the northeast in the Upper Midwest
50:16
Speaker 1: probably get a far higher use rate van the private
50:21
Speaker 1: lands as far as hunter days per ache, or however
50:23
Speaker 1: you'd want to measure it. You know, I grew up
50:26
Speaker 1: in northern Minnesota. We had Superior National Forest. Over in
50:31
Speaker 1: Northeast Minnesota, we had Chippewa National Forest, and the deer
50:35
Speaker 1: hunting pressure on those lands was in tents and it
50:39
Speaker 1: created an opportunity for hundreds of thousands of people. So
50:43
Speaker 1: now we're going to sell those where those people gonna
50:47
Speaker 1: hunt if they don't have the money to go buy
50:49
Speaker 1: some of it themselves. So damn Yeah, it's not just
50:54
Speaker 1: a Randy newbridge in the West this year, I guess
50:57
Speaker 1: is it's the point that you brought up, Mark and
50:59
Speaker 1: I can we agree. Yeah. It concerns me that different
51:05
Speaker 1: factions try to position this is one thing or another,
51:08
Speaker 1: or they'll try to position the groups that are fighting
51:11
Speaker 1: for protections public lands as anti hunting. I don't know
51:15
Speaker 1: if you've seen any of the green decoy stuff, but
51:17
Speaker 1: some of that stuff is ridiculous, and it's trying to
51:19
Speaker 1: split hunters up and say this isn't an issue for you,
51:22
Speaker 1: or this is an issue that environmentalists are pushing, so
51:25
Speaker 1: you shouldn't support it. Um And I just want to
51:27
Speaker 1: make very clear, you know, by having you here to
51:30
Speaker 1: discuss these things with us. So this is a a
51:32
Speaker 1: hunter issue, not just a certain type of hunter, not
51:35
Speaker 1: a certain type of person. This is an American hunter
51:37
Speaker 1: issue that we all really need to to be aware
51:40
Speaker 1: of and take action on. Right, Yeah, I agree. And
51:44
Speaker 1: then the thing if you want to get a politician
51:47
Speaker 1: worked up who claims to represent hunters but he is
51:51
Speaker 1: supporting this cause, I just don't, Well, your actions are
51:54
Speaker 1: the same as the anti hunters. Oh my goodness, the
51:59
Speaker 1: blood pressures like and I just don't look the study
52:04
Speaker 1: show what you are proposing is one of the the
52:08
Speaker 1: huge jobs that goes away facing nine accessible places to hunt.
52:12
Speaker 1: Why are you hammering us? Why why do you want
52:15
Speaker 1: to take land away from us? And for the most part,
52:18
Speaker 1: they don't have an answer. They usually has politicians are
52:22
Speaker 1: good at They usually change the topic, um or they
52:26
Speaker 1: give some party line of this or that. But yeah,
52:31
Speaker 1: what's kind of is Oh, go ahead, I'm sorry. No,
52:35
Speaker 1: I just gonna say it is a real and present threat.
52:38
Speaker 1: I used to just kind of push it aside, like
52:41
Speaker 1: how that will never happen. But now seeing the amount
52:44
Speaker 1: of money that is behind the effort, seeing their strategic
52:48
Speaker 1: plans that they have at a national level, mostly in Congress,
52:52
Speaker 1: it is no longer a a just fringe element that
52:57
Speaker 1: you can ignore. The time has come for owners to
53:00
Speaker 1: take it seriously. So they sit there and they say, okay,
53:05
Speaker 1: well if you sell, if you sell this state to
53:09
Speaker 1: this land to the state, then the state sells it
53:11
Speaker 1: and that's going to help maybe boost the economy of
53:14
Speaker 1: that state just a little bit, get you know, get
53:16
Speaker 1: some some money flowing into the economy. But at the
53:20
Speaker 1: same time, when you take away hunting land from the hunters,
53:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's got to be some kind of negative
53:27
Speaker 1: effect to the economy as well. Is that something you'd
53:30
Speaker 1: like to speak on. Oh, I mean, I'll just usually
53:33
Speaker 1: examples in the Western states, UM, rural western states, and
53:39
Speaker 1: I'll even dall in more. In my state of Montana, UM,
53:43
Speaker 1: the little outlying communities used to be a hunting season
53:48
Speaker 1: was their second car. This season, you could not get
53:51
Speaker 1: him on telo and you'd have to stand in line
53:53
Speaker 1: and right first seat at a restaurant. The gas stations
53:56
Speaker 1: were just you know, humpered a bumper with hunter or
54:00
Speaker 1: staffing up. And over the last twenty years there's been
54:04
Speaker 1: a lot more of leashing of property or there's been
54:08
Speaker 1: property that's been bought up that it's people who just
54:12
Speaker 1: they don't want any hunting. Then they don't lease to
54:14
Speaker 1: an effort, or they don't leave to a private party.
54:15
Speaker 1: They just want wildlife and they don't have any hunting.
54:18
Speaker 1: That's really impacted these small communities in rural Montana because
54:24
Speaker 1: they no longer have this big dan flux of hunters
54:27
Speaker 1: because there's no place there far fewer places to hunt
54:31
Speaker 1: in hunters of just you know what, I'm not going
54:33
Speaker 1: to drive ten hours, twelve hours just to go someplace
54:37
Speaker 1: and that somewhere to hunt. So that that's just a
54:40
Speaker 1: very small example, but there's a lot of examples where
54:43
Speaker 1: the hunting economy is very important for rural America during
54:48
Speaker 1: times of the year. Um and it's right now we're
54:52
Speaker 1: seeing a big bust after a big boom in oil
54:55
Speaker 1: and gas economy. And if there's one thing that's always
54:59
Speaker 1: been there with the in any economy, the recreation and
55:01
Speaker 1: outdoor economy, it's been pretty predictable and pretty consistent. It's
55:06
Speaker 1: not subject to the booms and bus of a lot
55:08
Speaker 1: of our other stuffs. But I think at times we
55:11
Speaker 1: as hunters entertanans. He did not interject that, but it
55:15
Speaker 1: is a very important part too many of the places
55:18
Speaker 1: that we traveled to. And I think another thing worth
55:22
Speaker 1: noting is that you know, these public lands, they aren't
55:25
Speaker 1: just used by hunters, but also fishermen, hikers, campers, horseback
55:30
Speaker 1: riders in many cases, whatever might be. And that large
55:33
Speaker 1: or just not just the hunting industry, but the tourism
55:35
Speaker 1: industry as a whole, I think is really substantial. I think,
55:39
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, it was either Montana or Wyoming.
55:41
Speaker 1: I was looking at that. That's like the number two
55:44
Speaker 1: industry in the entire state. So I mean, we're talking serious,
55:47
Speaker 1: serious money, right, Randy, Yeah, you are. And you know
55:51
Speaker 1: it struck me. Is out on my forearm. I have
55:55
Speaker 1: a big web form called hunt Talking. We've been talking
55:57
Speaker 1: about this a lot, and one of the people sent
56:01
Speaker 1: me an email and said, did you know this was
56:03
Speaker 1: going on in Wisconsin? And so they sent me all
56:06
Speaker 1: the information and I think it's two to late two
56:08
Speaker 1: thousands thirteen, Wisconsin passed a lot that said they have
56:12
Speaker 1: to sell ten thousand acres of state land. Um and
56:17
Speaker 1: they identified it's got to be landlocked or not, I
56:21
Speaker 1: got to have difficult access blah blah blah blah blah.
56:24
Speaker 1: And so I posted a comment out there about it
56:27
Speaker 1: on my website, and I could not believe how many
56:30
Speaker 1: Wisconsin guys showed up and either posted or sent me
56:34
Speaker 1: private messages. It said, I may not hunt that line,
56:37
Speaker 1: but I use that land to get to this lake,
56:39
Speaker 1: or to get to this fishing spot, or I trapped
56:41
Speaker 1: that land or whatever. And and so there's there's a
56:44
Speaker 1: whole lot of other activities going on on these lands. Uh.
56:49
Speaker 1: And when I heard all these comments from Wisconsin, it
56:52
Speaker 1: really opened my eyes to how many other uses there
56:55
Speaker 1: are to these lands for outgod people, besides just the fact,
57:00
Speaker 1: you know how I like to Hey, I like to
57:02
Speaker 1: fund there. So it was great anile. All right, Now,
57:08
Speaker 1: before we go ahead with the next question for Randy,
57:10
Speaker 1: we do need to pause here for a brief word
57:12
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58:33
Speaker 1: And now let's get back to the show. Yeah, and
58:36
Speaker 1: I think I think that's another one of those those
58:39
Speaker 1: pieces of the puzzle here that sometimes gets overlooked that
58:43
Speaker 1: you know, these types of changes, if we take away
58:46
Speaker 1: these these landscapes, it's impacting a whole lot of different
58:50
Speaker 1: people that you know, we need to look bringing all
58:53
Speaker 1: these different people together to support what we're trying to
58:56
Speaker 1: do here protecting these public places. Um. Now I want
58:59
Speaker 1: to take a step back though, because you know, when
59:03
Speaker 1: someone looks at this issue, they hear about it, maybe
59:05
Speaker 1: a sound bite. There's like some common questions like, well,
59:07
Speaker 1: why is that bad? Or why would they say that?
59:10
Speaker 1: And we covered a little bit of it. But one
59:12
Speaker 1: of the pieces that one of the lines that we
59:15
Speaker 1: hear a lot, and you mentioned earlier, is the fact
59:17
Speaker 1: that this is a constitutional issue the federal government. Is
59:20
Speaker 1: this federal overreach. You know, there's a lot of federal
59:22
Speaker 1: government haters that are saying that this is an issue
59:24
Speaker 1: of the federal federal government trying to take too much
59:26
Speaker 1: control and they shouldn't have all this land, etcetera, etcetera. Um,
59:30
Speaker 1: can you explain the history of how states got certain
59:36
Speaker 1: allocations of land and the federal government got certain allocations
59:39
Speaker 1: of landing some of these states out west where this
59:41
Speaker 1: is a super super big issue because I think a
59:43
Speaker 1: lot of people don't even understand that. And then that
59:46
Speaker 1: I think when you do understand that some of these
59:48
Speaker 1: other things have less uh less power when this so
59:52
Speaker 1: and so says it. Yeah, So the way each state
59:56
Speaker 1: was admitted to the Union is slightly different. So we
59:58
Speaker 1: all have what are called enabling acts, in other words,
1:00:02
Speaker 1: the act that allowed the state to become a member
1:00:04
Speaker 1: of the Union of the country. The original thirteen colonies
1:00:10
Speaker 1: became states under a way different premise than say Arizona,
1:00:14
Speaker 1: which I link with nineteen twelve, or Alaska and Hawaii
1:00:17
Speaker 1: which were ninety nine. But and there's only this statement
1:00:24
Speaker 1: of let's give the land back to the states is
1:00:27
Speaker 1: what you'll commonly here. And that's such a false premise
1:00:30
Speaker 1: because the state's never really own these lands. When Thomas
1:00:35
Speaker 1: Jefferson from France got from France the Louisiana Purchase, which
1:00:41
Speaker 1: covered most of the Missouri River drainage all the way
1:00:44
Speaker 1: through Montana and Idaho and I mean to Louisiana. That
1:00:49
Speaker 1: was federal land. It wasn't like the states at that time,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: which were I mean it was all indigenous people live
1:00:57
Speaker 1: in here at that time. It's not like they ever
1:00:59
Speaker 1: had that land. So so that in itself is a
1:01:01
Speaker 1: false argument. They know it, but it sounds good to say, well,
1:01:04
Speaker 1: let's give it back to the states. Well, the state's
1:01:06
Speaker 1: never around at the start with, so let's then think
1:01:10
Speaker 1: about and again I'll use Montana just because I live
1:01:14
Speaker 1: here and it's it's a relevant example. When Montana became
1:01:18
Speaker 1: a state in eighteen was eighty nine, and I believe
1:01:25
Speaker 1: the federal government said in when I say, they gave
1:01:30
Speaker 1: Montana two sections out of each township. For those who
1:01:33
Speaker 1: are not familiar with township range sections, um, every township
1:01:39
Speaker 1: is six square miles or six miles wide by six
1:01:42
Speaker 1: miles north and south, So you have thirty six square
1:01:46
Speaker 1: miles within each township, and each one of those thirty
1:01:50
Speaker 1: six square miles is considered a section. A section as
1:01:54
Speaker 1: sixty acres. So when Montana became a state, the federal
1:01:58
Speaker 1: government said, we're going to thank you for the funding
1:02:01
Speaker 1: of your school systems. Section sixteen and section thirty six.
1:02:05
Speaker 1: In every township within your borders, that's what you will
1:02:09
Speaker 1: get as your lands to fund your state schools. Montana
1:02:14
Speaker 1: then signed its enabling act that said, we agree with
1:02:17
Speaker 1: that we hear by relinquish all of our rights blah
1:02:19
Speaker 1: blah blah to any future claims to these lands. They
1:02:23
Speaker 1: did that. Everyone on a long may, great or happy
1:02:28
Speaker 1: tries to make some money off those lands so that
1:02:31
Speaker 1: they can fund their school system. That's how these lands
1:02:34
Speaker 1: became state lands. The states or the federal government retained
1:02:39
Speaker 1: rights to all the other lands, and then through the
1:02:41
Speaker 1: Homestead Acts and other stuff, the federal government granted lands
1:02:46
Speaker 1: to private individuals through other legislation. But that is how
1:02:51
Speaker 1: the states ended up with a lot of land in
1:02:53
Speaker 1: the West, and in the West we had different enabling acts.
1:02:57
Speaker 1: They enabling acts, I think pretty much since Nevada forward
1:03:01
Speaker 1: and Nevada is a strange situation because it's uh. If
1:03:06
Speaker 1: you think about Nevada, it's the motto is called battle Born.
1:03:10
Speaker 1: I think it became a state in eighteen sixty three
1:03:12
Speaker 1: or sixty four during the Civil War, and even though
1:03:15
Speaker 1: they didn't have the population or otherwise they really meet
1:03:18
Speaker 1: the requirements of being a state. The North wanted more
1:03:20
Speaker 1: states on their side, so they admit that Nevada to
1:03:24
Speaker 1: the Union, and they did it in a way that
1:03:28
Speaker 1: some say, oh, it was kind of a mess and
1:03:31
Speaker 1: it wasn't done right, Dadada. But Nevada was one of
1:03:35
Speaker 1: the first Western states that gave up rights to any
1:03:38
Speaker 1: of the federal lands within its founders. And then you
1:03:41
Speaker 1: go to Utah or Zonning, New Mexico, color and all
1:03:44
Speaker 1: the rest of them kind of followed that same path.
1:03:46
Speaker 1: So the Western states, they're enabling acts when they became
1:03:49
Speaker 1: part of the Union, they specifically say that stated, we
1:03:53
Speaker 1: will give up any claim any future claim to the
1:03:56
Speaker 1: federal lands in exchange forgetting as I explained, Sections sixteen.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: In Section six in Utah, they didn't get two sections
1:04:05
Speaker 1: out of each township. They got four sections out of
1:04:08
Speaker 1: each township. So each it ended up with a different
1:04:12
Speaker 1: percentage of land granted to them by this idea government
1:04:17
Speaker 1: that said, hey, you can now least these lands, you
1:04:20
Speaker 1: can develop them, whatever you can do with them to
1:04:24
Speaker 1: raise money. It should help fund your school system into
1:04:27
Speaker 1: the Still to date, these lands in Western states are
1:04:30
Speaker 1: a big source of funding our education systems, and that's important.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: Sorry Randy, that I was gonna stay up. That's an
1:04:36
Speaker 1: important thing to note, right that these state lands are
1:04:40
Speaker 1: there for not just you know, some of the same
1:04:44
Speaker 1: mandates that are in federal land. But as for the states,
1:04:46
Speaker 1: it is a funding source. It is something that's supposed
1:04:49
Speaker 1: to be used to profit and to pay for whatever
1:04:53
Speaker 1: things need to be paid for within the state. So
1:04:55
Speaker 1: that right there, I think speaks to one of the
1:04:59
Speaker 1: great risks of transferring these lands to the state is
1:05:01
Speaker 1: that you go from lands managed and owned by the
1:05:04
Speaker 1: federal government where they have to be managed for multiple uses.
1:05:08
Speaker 1: So some of that will be at least maybe some
1:05:09
Speaker 1: of that will be for habitats, some of that will
1:05:11
Speaker 1: be open to hunters, fishermen, hikers, etcetera. When that goes
1:05:14
Speaker 1: to the state, that all changes, and all of a sudden,
1:05:16
Speaker 1: this could all of a sudden be looked at simply
1:05:17
Speaker 1: as a profit center, isn't that? Isn't that right? That
1:05:21
Speaker 1: is correct. All of the Western states, when they became states,
1:05:24
Speaker 1: they set up these state landboards to hold these lands,
1:05:27
Speaker 1: and they're called state trust lands. And if you ever
1:05:30
Speaker 1: look at a surface map they're the light blue splares
1:05:33
Speaker 1: on your surface map. So these Western states set up
1:05:36
Speaker 1: these state landboards, being constitutionally, the state landboards are required
1:05:41
Speaker 1: to manage these assets, these lands for a profit. So
1:05:44
Speaker 1: I'll give you a great example of what happens when
1:05:47
Speaker 1: they're not profitable, or you're going to have the same requirement.
1:05:51
Speaker 1: They have a state landboard. And anyone who knows organ
1:05:54
Speaker 1: knows there's a big timber industry in Oregon. So in
1:05:57
Speaker 1: the fall of two thousand four, after years and years
1:06:02
Speaker 1: of litigation by groups who didn't want a logging to
1:06:05
Speaker 1: happen on what's called the Elliott State Forest, you know,
1:06:08
Speaker 1: and one of their most highly used state forests, they
1:06:12
Speaker 1: were losing money, losing money because they could no longer
1:06:15
Speaker 1: generate timber proceeds. Wow, they sold it. They put it
1:06:20
Speaker 1: up for set, and they didn't sell it. They put
1:06:21
Speaker 1: it up for sell. I notified everybody that hey, we're
1:06:24
Speaker 1: going to sell this because it's losing money. Constitutionally, we
1:06:27
Speaker 1: have to do this. Well, that created a big stir
1:06:31
Speaker 1: and everyone got upset. So the landboard kind of pulled
1:06:34
Speaker 1: it back. Now, last I heard it was they couldn't
1:06:37
Speaker 1: find a solution that can't continue to hold it anymore.
1:06:40
Speaker 1: And I believe that that land has been sold, there
1:06:43
Speaker 1: is being sold, and that's ninety thousand acres of state
1:06:47
Speaker 1: land that's going to be sold to private parties because
1:06:51
Speaker 1: that state could no longer make money. And that's that's
1:06:56
Speaker 1: land that hunters have been using to this point, right
1:06:58
Speaker 1: for years, yeah, for years. So Utah is really pushing
1:07:02
Speaker 1: this heavily. So they did an eight hundred page study.
1:07:06
Speaker 1: They hired this group to do a study of could
1:07:08
Speaker 1: Utah floor to take over the federal lands within its state?
1:07:12
Speaker 1: And the economists who did this, they came forward and said, well,
1:07:18
Speaker 1: as oil and gas prices stayed and I can't remember,
1:07:23
Speaker 1: they had a bottom threshold of seventy some dollars a
1:07:25
Speaker 1: barrel and kind of a break even threshold of ninety
1:07:28
Speaker 1: some dollars a barrel. That then you talked with the
1:07:32
Speaker 1: floord to pay for weeds, roads and maintenance, pay the
1:07:37
Speaker 1: taxes that they federal government currently pays on these lands.
1:07:40
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. Well, let's oil and gas at right now.
1:07:44
Speaker 1: US that checked this learning, I think the West Texas
1:07:47
Speaker 1: crude was hovering right around thirty dollars a barrel and
1:07:52
Speaker 1: the long term forecasts is going to be under fifty
1:07:54
Speaker 1: dollars a barrel for a long time. So how would
1:07:59
Speaker 1: Utah under that scenario pay for all these lands they're
1:08:03
Speaker 1: now going to take over that we currently have access
1:08:06
Speaker 1: to know what the reality is, They can't and their
1:08:10
Speaker 1: constitution says they would have to sell them, just like
1:08:14
Speaker 1: Oregon is going to sell the Elliott's. Thereforest's again uncertain.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: And for anyone listening, small government guy, I'm a c
1:08:24
Speaker 1: p A. In my other life, my job is to
1:08:26
Speaker 1: disinherit the federal treasury, and my daily life is arguing
1:08:30
Speaker 1: with the I R S. So I fully get the
1:08:32
Speaker 1: the government overreached the headache that you know all that
1:08:36
Speaker 1: I come from a logging family. I don't need any
1:08:40
Speaker 1: uh you know, any more than what I already have
1:08:43
Speaker 1: for life. Examples of those frustrations. But what's happening is
1:08:48
Speaker 1: people with a motive of getting rid of these public
1:08:51
Speaker 1: lands are using these frustrations in this crisis to try
1:08:54
Speaker 1: and leverage their long term goal to get these public
1:08:58
Speaker 1: lands out of public hands. That's what it really boils
1:09:02
Speaker 1: down too. So let's let's speak to something you alluded to.
1:09:06
Speaker 1: Their little bit of the management of these lands and
1:09:09
Speaker 1: how you know, could the state afford to handle management?
1:09:11
Speaker 1: And you explained how that would be a struggle for
1:09:13
Speaker 1: a lot of states. But what about on the federal
1:09:16
Speaker 1: side right now? One of the arguments that these pro transfer,
1:09:20
Speaker 1: pro sale of public lands people are saying is that, well,
1:09:23
Speaker 1: the federal government is mismanaging all these lands. It's horribly managed,
1:09:27
Speaker 1: it's not handled well. The states can do better. What
1:09:29
Speaker 1: do you state to that? Randy Well, I was in
1:09:32
Speaker 1: Congress UH tastifying in front of the House Natural Resources
1:09:37
Speaker 1: Federal Lands Subcommittee UH last April, and I was there
1:09:41
Speaker 1: to talk about the economic value public lands provide in
1:09:45
Speaker 1: Montana to our our small businesses. Also, there was an economist,
1:09:51
Speaker 1: very smart guy, who said, here's all the things the
1:09:53
Speaker 1: states do better in managing lands that the federal government
1:09:57
Speaker 1: doesn't do. He talked about the the fact that the
1:10:00
Speaker 1: federal government charges about one eighth to one tenth of
1:10:05
Speaker 1: the least rate for past degrading, that state's charge that
1:10:09
Speaker 1: they charge half of the coal royalty rate. They charge
1:10:12
Speaker 1: it only like two thirds, sometimes a half to two
1:10:16
Speaker 1: thirds of the state oil and gas royalty rate. So
1:10:19
Speaker 1: they went to this big list of things, where in
1:10:21
Speaker 1: the fact, Congress is giving away a lot of value
1:10:26
Speaker 1: on our skun our federal lands that the states, by
1:10:29
Speaker 1: their constitutions can't give it away. They have to charge
1:10:33
Speaker 1: the most. So the pro sell, the pro state takeover,
1:10:40
Speaker 1: whatever you wanna call it, the to transfer. Congress people
1:10:43
Speaker 1: in that committee, we're patting that that guy on the back,
1:10:46
Speaker 1: that economists. Yeah, that's right, that's that's how the the
1:10:51
Speaker 1: federal government is kind of messing things up, and how
1:10:55
Speaker 1: the states do such a great job. Blah blah blah.
1:10:58
Speaker 1: Three weeks later, the Secretary of Interior goes in front
1:11:02
Speaker 1: of the same committee and suggests those changes that this
1:11:06
Speaker 1: economists had just mentioned. Those those same people who thought
1:11:12
Speaker 1: the economist was a genius, now tell the Secretary of
1:11:15
Speaker 1: Interior what an idiot she is. It's like the problem
1:11:21
Speaker 1: of how these lands are managed lies at the feet
1:11:25
Speaker 1: of Congress. Congress could change it if they wanted to,
1:11:29
Speaker 1: but they don't want to. When we said the fads,
1:11:32
Speaker 1: the damn Feds. This the fads that the Feds are, Congress,
1:11:38
Speaker 1: and anything that the Feds are currently not doing with
1:11:42
Speaker 1: their lands that the states are, the Feds could easily
1:11:46
Speaker 1: do that if Congress had the gumption to stand up
1:11:50
Speaker 1: and manage those lands the way they should be, But
1:11:53
Speaker 1: they don't. It's just there's some in Congress who do
1:11:57
Speaker 1: not want those lands men are properly because if they
1:12:01
Speaker 1: were managed better, that would defeat their long term argument,
1:12:05
Speaker 1: their long term goal. Do you think that there is
1:12:07
Speaker 1: some of that actually happening in that members of Congress
1:12:12
Speaker 1: or these committees or whatever are purposely starving the Force
1:12:15
Speaker 1: Service budget or the BLM budget are the things just
1:12:18
Speaker 1: to help improve their argument that the federal government can't
1:12:22
Speaker 1: manage these things, that they should be transferred and then
1:12:24
Speaker 1: eventually sold. Absolutely, I have no doubt about it. And
1:12:29
Speaker 1: the fact that a bunch of Congress people sitting on
1:12:34
Speaker 1: the House Natural Resource Committee, the committee in charge of
1:12:38
Speaker 1: these lands, would say, yeah, that's why the states do
1:12:42
Speaker 1: such a great job. And then when the same exact
1:12:45
Speaker 1: almost their datam recommendations are made for how the fads
1:12:49
Speaker 1: could improve the management of those lands, those same Congress
1:12:52
Speaker 1: people run the secretary out into the streets screaming and
1:12:55
Speaker 1: yelling at it. That tells me the people have known
1:13:00
Speaker 1: drifts in proper Land management is about ideologies, and so
1:13:05
Speaker 1: let's a lot of people may not be aware of
1:13:09
Speaker 1: how wildfire funding happens in the West. So the four
1:13:14
Speaker 1: Service owns a lot of the public kimberland in the West,
1:13:19
Speaker 1: and when the Mississippi River flood, their hurricane hits the
1:13:23
Speaker 1: Gulf Coast, or an earthquake hits California, or tornadoes at
1:13:27
Speaker 1: the Midwest, who shows up femous Federal Emergency Management Agency.
1:13:32
Speaker 1: Congress issues as inappropriation and says we're going to take
1:13:36
Speaker 1: care of that natural catastrophe through a special funding from Congress.
1:13:41
Speaker 1: That's not how they deal with fires. A lot of
1:13:43
Speaker 1: people think that's how they do it with fires. Here's
1:13:45
Speaker 1: how it works with fires, Congress says, for Service, here's
1:13:48
Speaker 1: your budget. Oh yeah, we're cutting it more this year,
1:13:50
Speaker 1: and we're cutting it more this year. You know, when
1:13:52
Speaker 1: fires flare up, you better put them out. We're not
1:13:56
Speaker 1: giving you any money to put them out. You have
1:13:58
Speaker 1: to take that money out of your operating budgets. Your
1:14:00
Speaker 1: budgets that were there for roads, that were there for
1:14:03
Speaker 1: water against that we're there to get timber sales done.
1:14:06
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah. All that money gets taken away
1:14:10
Speaker 1: from operating budgets to use for wildfire fighting. The same
1:14:15
Speaker 1: people in Congress who complain about the SAIDs refused to
1:14:19
Speaker 1: set up a separate funding mechanism for the natural catastrophe
1:14:24
Speaker 1: of wildfires. Why why wildfire to get treated differently than
1:14:30
Speaker 1: you know, floods and tornadoes and hurricanes. I don't know.
1:14:35
Speaker 1: But if you want to raise the hackles of some
1:14:37
Speaker 1: congressman who wants to take your public plans, don't suggest
1:14:41
Speaker 1: to him that he changed the funding for how wildfire
1:14:44
Speaker 1: fighting is funded him. His eye will bug out, he'll
1:14:50
Speaker 1: get livid, it'll it'll tell you what a stupid idea
1:14:53
Speaker 1: that is. And those of us who aren't in d
1:14:56
Speaker 1: see all the time are candis catching their heads and really,
1:14:59
Speaker 1: why have that's such a dumb idea. So the flip
1:15:02
Speaker 1: side of that thing is they will say, well, the
1:15:04
Speaker 1: Forest Service has a big backlog on road maintenance, they
1:15:07
Speaker 1: have a big backlog on weed control. They have this
1:15:10
Speaker 1: big backlog for this and this and this, and you
1:15:12
Speaker 1: guys didn't get enough timber sales done this year. Well,
1:15:15
Speaker 1: it's all of the foresters and timber managers and road
1:15:18
Speaker 1: people and everyone else are out fighting fires and all
1:15:22
Speaker 1: their budget is allocated to fighting fires, or half of
1:15:24
Speaker 1: their budgets. How are they supposed to do the rest
1:15:27
Speaker 1: of their work. So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy
1:15:31
Speaker 1: of them wanting the federal government agencies to be underfunded.
1:15:37
Speaker 1: And I'm all about, you know, being as fiscally frugal
1:15:42
Speaker 1: as possible, but you also have to give them the
1:15:46
Speaker 1: resources to do the job that you ask them to do.
1:15:50
Speaker 1: And Congress could fix a lot of that, but they
1:15:52
Speaker 1: don't want it. So any other any other person would
1:15:58
Speaker 1: be fired for sand bad Yeah, you would be. I mean,
1:16:06
Speaker 1: I mean if Congress was saying, we were shareholders, and
1:16:11
Speaker 1: Congress was the board of directors of the corporation, and
1:16:16
Speaker 1: the board of directors was given a proposal by some
1:16:19
Speaker 1: consultants to say, hey, we can get a much greater
1:16:22
Speaker 1: return on your assets. One of our competitors is doing this.
1:16:26
Speaker 1: We would like to do the same thing, but your
1:16:28
Speaker 1: board of directors said, no, we reject that idea. The
1:16:34
Speaker 1: shareholders would remove that director or that board of directors immediately.
1:16:40
Speaker 1: I mean, we we would laugh at the stupidity of
1:16:43
Speaker 1: that happening. But in Congress you're allowed to do that.
1:16:48
Speaker 1: It so, and as you can probably gather, when Randy
1:16:52
Speaker 1: goes to d C or I go across the west,
1:16:55
Speaker 1: meaning with congressional people. Um, I I'm not always given
1:17:02
Speaker 1: the warm welcome that they so that that would imply
1:17:05
Speaker 1: I care. So tell us more, tell us more about
1:17:09
Speaker 1: these meetings that you have, Rainny, what's it like, what's
1:17:12
Speaker 1: the And you've kind of alluded to a little bit,
1:17:14
Speaker 1: But when you go to d C to have these conversations,
1:17:16
Speaker 1: what's the feedback you're getting? How are people taking what
1:17:20
Speaker 1: your side of this issue? Um, it's it's a mix. Um.
1:17:28
Speaker 1: Some are they're supporting our cause. Um, there are some
1:17:32
Speaker 1: people who are still, you know, feel there's a value
1:17:35
Speaker 1: in public plans. Ah. And then there are some who
1:17:40
Speaker 1: just say, you know, this is such a low priority
1:17:42
Speaker 1: list item, thanks for your time, blah blah blah. And
1:17:46
Speaker 1: then there are those who say, yeah, we're glad to
1:17:50
Speaker 1: see it's low on the priority list of many because
1:17:54
Speaker 1: that allows us to accomplish our objective. And so the
1:18:00
Speaker 1: within Congress itself, there's a growing frustration about how federal
1:18:06
Speaker 1: lands are managed. But they're the ones who can fix
1:18:10
Speaker 1: the problem, but they don't want to fix it. Okay,
1:18:14
Speaker 1: so we don't have many timber sales on fedder Land
1:18:18
Speaker 1: anymore because in our trade deals we let the Canadians
1:18:22
Speaker 1: flug the softwood lumber market. It's it really doesn't have
1:18:26
Speaker 1: as much to do with the florist service as it
1:18:29
Speaker 1: does just the market. The Canadians subsidize their logging industry.
1:18:33
Speaker 1: You get paid for building roads in Canada, your stumpage
1:18:36
Speaker 1: is free. There's no terraffs, So the Canadians can flood
1:18:40
Speaker 1: the softwoo lumber market in America anytime they want. Well,
1:18:45
Speaker 1: week Tigers could change that and make it more profitable
1:18:49
Speaker 1: to be a logger a mail owner in the United States,
1:18:52
Speaker 1: but they're not going to Congress could change the fact
1:18:56
Speaker 1: that states, and they could change is the fact of
1:19:00
Speaker 1: what they charged for a cold royalty or an oil
1:19:03
Speaker 1: and gas royalty. And here's the flip side of that
1:19:06
Speaker 1: is whatever state that resource is located and they get
1:19:11
Speaker 1: a portion of that royalty, that federal royalty, it gets
1:19:15
Speaker 1: split with the states and the federal government. So by
1:19:18
Speaker 1: them keeping that royalty artificially low, they're hurting the states.
1:19:23
Speaker 1: In addition to giving it away too. And this is
1:19:27
Speaker 1: purely my opinion, they are giving it away as their
1:19:31
Speaker 1: manner of repaying political favors. I mean, one of the
1:19:35
Speaker 1: currencies of the West is public resources. They get repaid
1:19:42
Speaker 1: or used to repay political favors. I wish I could
1:19:46
Speaker 1: say it was different. Sometimes it's quite discrete. Some some
1:19:50
Speaker 1: instances are just so blatant that you shake your head
1:19:53
Speaker 1: and say, really so kind of like a guy's goes, hey,
1:19:56
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'll help fund your campaign, but you gotta
1:19:59
Speaker 1: make make sure I get a little section of this
1:20:02
Speaker 1: trout stream in Montana or not quite that blatant, but
1:20:08
Speaker 1: we we will put a bunch of money in your
1:20:10
Speaker 1: political campaign, but we want to make sure that oil
1:20:15
Speaker 1: and gas royalties stayed low. Guess what, the guy gets elected.
1:20:20
Speaker 1: The Secretary of Interior comes forward and says, we the DLM,
1:20:24
Speaker 1: the largest holder of oil and gas interests in North America.
1:20:28
Speaker 1: I think we should raise our royalty rate to be
1:20:31
Speaker 1: equivalent to the states in which we are operating. That
1:20:35
Speaker 1: politician who has received all those donations from that group
1:20:39
Speaker 1: all of a sudden attacks the Secretary of Interior, and
1:20:42
Speaker 1: then the next day he's out there on the streets
1:20:44
Speaker 1: complaining how poorly the federal lands are managed and that
1:20:47
Speaker 1: the states do a better drop you know, and I
1:20:51
Speaker 1: don't mean to pick on a long gas you know,
1:20:53
Speaker 1: I use oil and gas. I'm just using that as
1:20:56
Speaker 1: as an example. It could be you know, somebody who
1:20:59
Speaker 1: say is, you know, I want to have water rights,
1:21:03
Speaker 1: I want to have some sort of irrigation rights and
1:21:07
Speaker 1: make sure that no one else can make a claim,
1:21:09
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah, And so they make the donation
1:21:12
Speaker 1: to a politician, and the politician all of a sudden
1:21:15
Speaker 1: gums up any resolution of a lot of the water
1:21:18
Speaker 1: rights adjudications and battles that we have in the last
1:21:21
Speaker 1: where water is very scarce. It's just so blatant. In
1:21:25
Speaker 1: many instances, it's dumbfounding that they can't get better with.
1:21:30
Speaker 1: Oh well, so so we're talking a lot about through
1:21:35
Speaker 1: the through this whole issue. We're talking about they and
1:21:38
Speaker 1: them and these people and these organizations. Who are these people?
1:21:43
Speaker 1: Who are these organizations, Randy, Who are we actually talking
1:21:45
Speaker 1: about that is supporting this? I think, you know, if
1:21:47
Speaker 1: we can all decide that this is an important thing,
1:21:50
Speaker 1: we need to know who we need to start talking
1:21:52
Speaker 1: to to making a difference. Who who are these people
1:21:54
Speaker 1: in organizations? And that's where it gets to be difficult,
1:21:58
Speaker 1: because since the City of Sidney nine case that it
1:22:01
Speaker 1: hits the Supreme Court in two thousand and ten, and
1:22:03
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said that corporations have the right to
1:22:06
Speaker 1: free speech and that they can participate in elections, and
1:22:10
Speaker 1: it got rid of a whole bunch of the disclosure
1:22:12
Speaker 1: requirements and reporting requirements. We don't know who they is
1:22:17
Speaker 1: or them or that group because they use five O
1:22:21
Speaker 1: one s for organizations five oh ones nine, I mean no,
1:22:27
Speaker 1: I might have that long. I know they use a
1:22:29
Speaker 1: five one seed flours where you don't have to disclose
1:22:32
Speaker 1: who gave you your money and you can engage in
1:22:36
Speaker 1: political activities. So we didn't We don't really know a
1:22:44
Speaker 1: lot of people are like Citizens United. What does that
1:22:46
Speaker 1: mean that that didn't Well, it affects us. It allows
1:22:50
Speaker 1: industries to go and heavily fund political activities without being
1:22:57
Speaker 1: ratted out for lack of a better term, um And
1:23:00
Speaker 1: so there's no transparency to understand who donated to this
1:23:04
Speaker 1: senator or this congressman or congresswoman's cause. And is that
1:23:09
Speaker 1: affecting their positions on public land policy? Is it you your?
1:23:16
Speaker 1: I mean part of it is you get a little
1:23:18
Speaker 1: feel in these back and forth arguments because you see
1:23:22
Speaker 1: if he shows up as the opposition when you are
1:23:24
Speaker 1: they're promoting a policy that would help improve public land management,
1:23:28
Speaker 1: and they show up opposed to it just by default,
1:23:31
Speaker 1: they trying to show their hand a little bit. Is
1:23:35
Speaker 1: it fair to say that in many cases or is
1:23:39
Speaker 1: it fair to assume maybe I'm wrong here? But from
1:23:40
Speaker 1: a lot of things I've heard when I've done my
1:23:42
Speaker 1: own research and looking into this, it seems like a
1:23:44
Speaker 1: lot of the money that's being put into this type
1:23:47
Speaker 1: of work is coming from industry people that would rather
1:23:52
Speaker 1: extract profit out of these lands, whether it be by
1:23:55
Speaker 1: sale or you know, their use of it. That is
1:23:58
Speaker 1: their motivation, and it sounds like a lot of the
1:24:00
Speaker 1: the motivation and money and energy is coming from that side,
1:24:03
Speaker 1: pushing a lot of these politicians say hey, let's let's
1:24:05
Speaker 1: do this because it's good for the economy and it's
1:24:07
Speaker 1: also good for business. Not obviously we're all pro business,
1:24:11
Speaker 1: pro a lot of these things. But at the same time,
1:24:13
Speaker 1: I imagine there might be something going on there too, right.
1:24:17
Speaker 1: That's I mean, we've always in America had industry organizations
1:24:23
Speaker 1: involved themselves in policy to the extent they can um
1:24:27
Speaker 1: so a lot of instances you will have a discussion
1:24:32
Speaker 1: about okay, this is going through. It's like water quality.
1:24:35
Speaker 1: You know, have somebody who's using the landscape to extractor
1:24:38
Speaker 1: resource who says, we want to low us level of
1:24:43
Speaker 1: regulation because for us to comply with a higher level
1:24:47
Speaker 1: hurts bye profit. And then you might have a community
1:24:50
Speaker 1: who needs that water for its water, so saying, hey,
1:24:52
Speaker 1: wait a second, we we drink this water. This is
1:24:57
Speaker 1: an absolute fundamental part of living water um. And so
1:25:04
Speaker 1: very often it is private interests to have either economic
1:25:09
Speaker 1: value at stake. Sometimes it's ideal just strictly ideological interests
1:25:14
Speaker 1: at steak um. And a lot of times we don't
1:25:17
Speaker 1: know who it is. It's individuals with really really big
1:25:19
Speaker 1: checks that are are funding a lot of the campaigns
1:25:25
Speaker 1: that are are the politicians who would like to take
1:25:30
Speaker 1: your public lands. Let's talk about that. So so, but
1:25:35
Speaker 1: and I just want to preface that, guys, but you know,
1:25:38
Speaker 1: my brother is still a logger. My dad was a logger.
1:25:41
Speaker 1: I would probably be a logger except for the fact
1:25:43
Speaker 1: that I was the worst logger that ever ever tried
1:25:46
Speaker 1: to start a chainsaw. So my dad said, I don't
1:25:50
Speaker 1: know any money to send you to college, but you
1:25:52
Speaker 1: better figured out because you're terrible logger. So I have
1:25:54
Speaker 1: nothing against natural resources. I mean I use them. I'm
1:25:58
Speaker 1: all in favor of smart use of our resources. But
1:26:02
Speaker 1: when that that discussion then becomes leveraged to a discussion
1:26:07
Speaker 1: of let's get these public lands out of public hands,
1:26:12
Speaker 1: then I'm I'm going to stand up and say something
1:26:14
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, there's gotta be a threshold, there's gotta
1:26:17
Speaker 1: be some balance, and uh, you know, like you said,
1:26:21
Speaker 1: fair use, smart use of some of these things makes
1:26:23
Speaker 1: all the sense in the world. But if it gets
1:26:25
Speaker 1: so far out of the hand where we're actually getting
1:26:26
Speaker 1: rid of them um or you know, keeping the public
1:26:31
Speaker 1: from the opportunities to use them, whatever might be, then
1:26:33
Speaker 1: I think to your point, and then somebody needs to
1:26:36
Speaker 1: stand up and say, Okay, things have gotten a little
1:26:38
Speaker 1: far too far in the other direction. So you mentioned campaigns, politics,
1:26:45
Speaker 1: all those things. In a lot of cases we may
1:26:47
Speaker 1: not know exactly where the money is going but or
1:26:49
Speaker 1: where it's coming from. But I think in some cases
1:26:51
Speaker 1: we do know where it's going. It's going to fund
1:26:54
Speaker 1: certain politicians, certain campaigns, et cetera. And I pursedly Randy
1:27:00
Speaker 1: hate getting into politics, because it's one of those things
1:27:03
Speaker 1: that people will automatically put up a wall when they
1:27:06
Speaker 1: hear certain words, or when they hear certain parties, or
1:27:09
Speaker 1: when they hear certain ideas because we have these super
1:27:14
Speaker 1: passion is really strong passions or ideologies that are embedded
1:27:18
Speaker 1: in a lot of us. And what what bums me
1:27:22
Speaker 1: out in a lot of cases is that if we're
1:27:25
Speaker 1: just when you talk parties, sometimes issues become politicized as
1:27:30
Speaker 1: to one or the other side, and in the way
1:27:32
Speaker 1: things are going right, it's a huge divide in between.
1:27:35
Speaker 1: It's becoming a polarized political system where you are either
1:27:37
Speaker 1: this or you're that, and if you're that, I hate
1:27:39
Speaker 1: you and all that kind of stuff. This is one
1:27:42
Speaker 1: of those issues that has become has become politicized and
1:27:46
Speaker 1: has been adopted by a party, and I worry about
1:27:49
Speaker 1: that um and it makes it makes it tough for
1:27:51
Speaker 1: me as a voter too. And I imagine a lot
1:27:53
Speaker 1: of people listening. Can you can you speak to this
1:27:55
Speaker 1: at all? What what are we as hunters to do
1:27:59
Speaker 1: when we look at would have vote for who to support?
1:28:01
Speaker 1: When we're seeing some parties and representing the idea of
1:28:06
Speaker 1: selling off these lands, some parties being you know, in
1:28:10
Speaker 1: favor of protecting them but then wanting to take away
1:28:12
Speaker 1: our rights. Uh in other ways. How do you do
1:28:15
Speaker 1: how do you make sense of all this? Randy? Yeah,
1:28:17
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to make sense of because you're exactly
1:28:21
Speaker 1: right that we as a society are becoming more and
1:28:23
Speaker 1: more polarized. We we are more and more accepting of
1:28:28
Speaker 1: I'm this label and someone else's that label. We like this,
1:28:33
Speaker 1: you know, kind of false dichotomy. This, this, this whole
1:28:38
Speaker 1: idea that if you're not with me on this, you
1:28:41
Speaker 1: should be against me and everything else blah blah blah.
1:28:44
Speaker 1: And so we end up in very often a discussion
1:28:48
Speaker 1: of someone saying, yeah, but I'm good on guns. Yeah,
1:28:53
Speaker 1: you can be good on guns and good on public lands.
1:28:56
Speaker 1: That it's not. It's not one or the other, it
1:28:59
Speaker 1: can be both. Then, so when we enter these discussions,
1:29:04
Speaker 1: and I'm a very conservative person, I'm a conservative socially,
1:29:09
Speaker 1: fiscally um and definitely right a center. But the unfortunate
1:29:16
Speaker 1: fact that I cannot deny as a conservative person is
1:29:20
Speaker 1: every one of these efforts to rid us of the
1:29:24
Speaker 1: public lands have come from people who are of my
1:29:28
Speaker 1: same kind of feeling. Of conservative small government, frugality, blah
1:29:32
Speaker 1: blah blah. And that frustrates me because I can make
1:29:38
Speaker 1: a counter argument that, you know what, these public lands,
1:29:41
Speaker 1: at least where I live and a lot of other
1:29:43
Speaker 1: communities are a huge asset, a huge economic driver. But
1:29:49
Speaker 1: instantly that person wants to drag me into a you're
1:29:52
Speaker 1: either with me or again me. You're either a Republican
1:29:54
Speaker 1: or a Democrat, or you're a liberal or a conservative.
1:29:57
Speaker 1: What are you because you And it's almost like they
1:30:00
Speaker 1: want to say, I'm gonna be good on guns, but
1:30:04
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be good on public lands because
1:30:06
Speaker 1: the other guys are are are not trying to take
1:30:09
Speaker 1: your public lands. So I got to have a position
1:30:12
Speaker 1: counter to them. So my position is I got to
1:30:14
Speaker 1: get rid of these public lands. I'm oversimplifying there, but
1:30:19
Speaker 1: that's really this politicized environment forces they're not forces. Allows
1:30:25
Speaker 1: for people to take sides on what I'm what I
1:30:33
Speaker 1: think are They take sides based on arguments that are
1:30:37
Speaker 1: not complete. If the argument was complete, we could have
1:30:42
Speaker 1: a discussion of hey, there is a place for public lands.
1:30:45
Speaker 1: You don't have to be just one or the other.
1:30:48
Speaker 1: You you don't have to feel that because you're good
1:30:52
Speaker 1: on guns, you have to be bad on public lands,
1:30:54
Speaker 1: or because you're good on public lands that you have
1:30:56
Speaker 1: to be bad on guns, or you know, it doesn't
1:30:59
Speaker 1: have to be gun, they be any other issue. That
1:31:01
Speaker 1: is primarily as a writer, left polar opposite on that topic.
1:31:06
Speaker 1: But it's it's a very hard discussion to have hunters
1:31:11
Speaker 1: get drawn into it. And I'm not a Republican and
1:31:16
Speaker 1: I'm not a Democrat. I I am of the hunter, angler, fishing,
1:31:23
Speaker 1: hunting access. What's good for the future party is that
1:31:27
Speaker 1: I am, and anyone politician who doubts that, we'll quickly
1:31:33
Speaker 1: learn that. If you're on my side. Also, you know,
1:31:37
Speaker 1: I'll give you all the praise in the world. If
1:31:38
Speaker 1: you're against me on those topics, I'm coming after you,
1:31:42
Speaker 1: and I don't really care what party you're with one
1:31:45
Speaker 1: of the you know, the history of hunting and conservation
1:31:48
Speaker 1: in America is a remarkable story that goes back hundred
1:31:53
Speaker 1: thirty forty years ago where hunters started this. And it's
1:31:58
Speaker 1: only been the last hand sixteen years that we've allowed
1:32:02
Speaker 1: hunting and conservation and access to become a political issue.
1:32:06
Speaker 1: It used to be a political we're both sides would
1:32:09
Speaker 1: support what we were doing, and now it's been drawn
1:32:14
Speaker 1: into the political morass, and we as hunters. One of
1:32:19
Speaker 1: the problems we have that that makes us feel prepared
1:32:23
Speaker 1: to do battle over there in the political arena is
1:32:26
Speaker 1: one we just don't like politics too. We're kind of owners.
1:32:30
Speaker 1: We don't like to go out to speak and and talk.
1:32:34
Speaker 1: But probably institutionally the biggest problem we have as most
1:32:37
Speaker 1: of our advocacy and most of our representation comes through
1:32:41
Speaker 1: White Tails Unlimited or Ducks Unlimited or the Rocky Mountain
1:32:45
Speaker 1: Foundation five all one c three organizations who, by the
1:32:50
Speaker 1: very nature of the tax Club cannot get involved in
1:32:53
Speaker 1: Lobbanian politics. So these other groups are able to take
1:32:56
Speaker 1: our issues and drag him over into the political sphere,
1:33:00
Speaker 1: and we can't do much about it unless we individually
1:33:03
Speaker 1: engage in that. And when we do individually engage in it,
1:33:07
Speaker 1: it splits hunting camps to houses, you know, brothers and
1:33:11
Speaker 1: cousins to argue about this or that, and then when
1:33:16
Speaker 1: everyone gets frustrated, to just try to divide ourselves along
1:33:18
Speaker 1: a party line or liberal versus the conservative or whatever.
1:33:23
Speaker 1: To me, that is that's exactly how the opposition wins.
1:33:28
Speaker 1: And when we decide we're going to let it be
1:33:30
Speaker 1: defined as a R or D, a left or right.
1:33:34
Speaker 1: This is an issue for about hunting and fishing. It's
1:33:39
Speaker 1: that's simple. It's about access. It's about the public lands
1:33:42
Speaker 1: that someone gave to us that we have responsibility to
1:33:45
Speaker 1: get to the next generation in a better state than
1:33:48
Speaker 1: what we receive them. And if we can resist the
1:33:53
Speaker 1: temptation to make it in our or the left or right,
1:33:57
Speaker 1: whatever issue, we're better off if we can source politicians
1:34:01
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, I'm good on guns, all right, we
1:34:06
Speaker 1: like that, Thank you. Please be good on public lands,
1:34:09
Speaker 1: or I'm good on public lands. Okay, please be good
1:34:13
Speaker 1: on guns. You don't have to be one or the other.
1:34:16
Speaker 1: You can do both. We have examples out there. So hey,
1:34:22
Speaker 1: being involved in the politics of this is just kind
1:34:25
Speaker 1: of a crazy place to be as a hunter because
1:34:28
Speaker 1: I really have no use for politics. I don't care
1:34:30
Speaker 1: what side anyone is on. I just want to know
1:34:33
Speaker 1: that you are going to do the right thing for
1:34:35
Speaker 1: the cause. It's important to me, even fishing access. Yeah,
1:34:40
Speaker 1: I I can relate to a lot of things you
1:34:43
Speaker 1: said there, and um, you know I personally I mentioned
1:34:46
Speaker 1: this at the beginning of the episode before we brought
1:34:48
Speaker 1: you on, Randy, I think I did. Um that. You know,
1:34:51
Speaker 1: I personally have been going through these kind of oscillations
1:34:55
Speaker 1: as a person, trying to understand where I fit in
1:34:57
Speaker 1: the political spectrum and how much how at tension I
1:35:00
Speaker 1: paid to it and all that. And Um, I came
1:35:04
Speaker 1: from a conservative background too, That's how I grew up.
1:35:06
Speaker 1: I have a lot of UM beliefs to fall in
1:35:09
Speaker 1: line with some of those UH groups. At the same time,
1:35:13
Speaker 1: though now I most definitely do not define myself any
1:35:17
Speaker 1: longer as a Republican or Democrat. I fully believe I'm
1:35:21
Speaker 1: a member, hopefully I think now the second member of
1:35:24
Speaker 1: the Hunting and Fishing in Public Lands and Wildlife Habitat
1:35:28
Speaker 1: Party underneath the leadership of Randy Newburgh. Um No, because
1:35:36
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right. I think that this really
1:35:38
Speaker 1: is we as hunters and anglers and outdoors men and women.
1:35:42
Speaker 1: We have to resist that temptation to fall prey to
1:35:46
Speaker 1: this either or mindset, or this you're either with me
1:35:49
Speaker 1: or against me, and all these things. Because this party
1:35:51
Speaker 1: says we support A B and C, So I'm going
1:35:54
Speaker 1: to support A B and C because of it, And
1:35:56
Speaker 1: as you've mentioned, a couple of very important things to
1:35:59
Speaker 1: outdoors people, the right to bear arms and the right
1:36:02
Speaker 1: to public access and habitats and wildlife productive wildlife populations
1:36:06
Speaker 1: unfortunately has been split between parties, and it drives me
1:36:10
Speaker 1: up the wall, and it frustrates me to no end.
1:36:13
Speaker 1: And it gets confusing to um because I sit here
1:36:18
Speaker 1: and I watch CNN, and I'm watching what these people
1:36:21
Speaker 1: are saying, especially in a year like this where the
1:36:23
Speaker 1: presidential election is going on and all these things are
1:36:26
Speaker 1: being thrown around, and it's very contentious and lots of
1:36:29
Speaker 1: emotion and information and misinformation, and it makes it hard
1:36:33
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do when you believe so
1:36:36
Speaker 1: strongly in some things that are being split right down
1:36:39
Speaker 1: the middle by either party, and and you have to
1:36:41
Speaker 1: pick the sides. How do you handle that, Randy? How
1:36:45
Speaker 1: do you approach a year like this, a presidential election
1:36:48
Speaker 1: year like this, when we're saying, what in the world
1:36:50
Speaker 1: do I do when there's very important things to me
1:36:52
Speaker 1: that it's hard to find someone that's checking all the box.
1:36:55
Speaker 1: All the boxes it is, and I don't think it's
1:36:59
Speaker 1: realistic to expect where we're going to find a candidate
1:37:02
Speaker 1: that agrees with everything one of us feel um, But
1:37:07
Speaker 1: I think it's incumbent upon hunters and anglers and people
1:37:12
Speaker 1: who enjoy public access to make sure their voice has heard.
1:37:16
Speaker 1: I think if we have as hunters, have a fault,
1:37:19
Speaker 1: it's inherent to our personality that we don't want to
1:37:23
Speaker 1: rustle an each others. They're well behaved people, were you know,
1:37:27
Speaker 1: and kind of I don't just take our lump and
1:37:29
Speaker 1: moves forward kind of folks. And I get. But the
1:37:33
Speaker 1: rest of the groups, the rest of the people advocating
1:37:37
Speaker 1: a cause, are being the squeaky wheels, and they're getting
1:37:41
Speaker 1: the Greece. And I think we, as our community of
1:37:46
Speaker 1: outdoors people need to start being a bit of the
1:37:51
Speaker 1: squeaky wheel. And I don't expect that whoever's can win
1:37:58
Speaker 1: the primary on one side or the other is going
1:38:00
Speaker 1: to agree with me on everything. I might be one
1:38:05
Speaker 1: or two them and don't agree with me on anything. Um.
1:38:08
Speaker 1: But once they get elected or get their nomination, if
1:38:14
Speaker 1: they're talking presidentially, and the same thing for whether it's senator, congressperson, governor,
1:38:20
Speaker 1: or whatever, I engage myself to try and influence their perspectively.
1:38:27
Speaker 1: I try to get them to understand these issues that
1:38:30
Speaker 1: are important to me why they're important to me, and
1:38:34
Speaker 1: make it a higher priority item for them. And if
1:38:38
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily agree with me completely on something, I
1:38:43
Speaker 1: don't just completely write them off or forget about it.
1:38:52
Speaker 1: A part of our process of government is you have
1:38:55
Speaker 1: to engage yourself if you want to result. And I
1:38:58
Speaker 1: feel strongly that if I engage myself, I'm doing as
1:39:03
Speaker 1: much or maybe more, to influence the outcome than the
1:39:07
Speaker 1: one time every four years I go and cast a
1:39:09
Speaker 1: vote in a ballot, you know, check the tab or
1:39:14
Speaker 1: still in the povo in my ballot. I think, my
1:39:17
Speaker 1: my daily activity, my continual interaction with these policymakers, had
1:39:23
Speaker 1: a greater effect on where these outcomes are than where
1:39:27
Speaker 1: this one person stands and he or she got elected
1:39:30
Speaker 1: governor or president or senator or whatever. UM. To me,
1:39:34
Speaker 1: that's that's the other part of government that happens for
1:39:38
Speaker 1: three years and for three d sixty four days other
1:39:41
Speaker 1: than the election. So who who we vote for? Everyone's
1:39:46
Speaker 1: going to determine that. UM. I have no problem voting
1:39:50
Speaker 1: for a third party person or a write in. And
1:39:53
Speaker 1: some people are gonna say, oh, if you do it
1:39:54
Speaker 1: writ in, that means you're gonna let some gun grabber
1:39:57
Speaker 1: get in. I value my vote more than giving it
1:40:01
Speaker 1: to the lesser of two evils. Yeah, I think there's
1:40:04
Speaker 1: how many people I feel in that way right now.
1:40:06
Speaker 1: How many times have you and your friends sat around
1:40:10
Speaker 1: and talk politics and said, well, I voted for this
1:40:12
Speaker 1: person because I thought they were the lesser or the
1:40:15
Speaker 1: least damaging of two options. I've I've done that. I'm
1:40:21
Speaker 1: done with it. I am no longer giving my vote
1:40:24
Speaker 1: to the lesser of two idiots, because in the end,
1:40:26
Speaker 1: I've still voted for an idiot. I will write in
1:40:31
Speaker 1: a vote, or I will vote for a third party
1:40:33
Speaker 1: candidate before I will anymore give one of these groups
1:40:38
Speaker 1: or one of these people who I don't think deserves it,
1:40:41
Speaker 1: something I value as much as I value my vote.
1:40:46
Speaker 1: Were you gonna were you gonna say something? Dan? Oh? No,
1:40:50
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say that. I'm pretty pissed like
1:40:53
Speaker 1: this this, I mean, no, not you. The conversation we've
1:40:59
Speaker 1: had is it's just like got me fired up, like
1:41:03
Speaker 1: when we talk about sandbagging, you know, like if I
1:41:06
Speaker 1: didn't try or at at school, or I didn't get
1:41:09
Speaker 1: my work done or my chores done at home, I
1:41:12
Speaker 1: got slapped across the back of the head by my mom.
1:41:15
Speaker 1: You don't get your ass and gear or you know,
1:41:19
Speaker 1: you know, hey, why did you throw rocks at in
1:41:22
Speaker 1: a parking lot? You break the car windows? That's called
1:41:25
Speaker 1: common sense, dumb ass, you know, like that kind of stuff.
1:41:29
Speaker 1: We need people like you to start showing up with
1:41:31
Speaker 1: some of these uh showing up in d C and
1:41:34
Speaker 1: telling people what's what? Yeah, I would be that guy's like,
1:41:37
Speaker 1: get him out of here. And then I get taste.
1:41:41
Speaker 1: I told you that I'm in the same way, coming
1:41:43
Speaker 1: from a logging family. My wife no, it's a bit
1:41:45
Speaker 1: cutting as an art form, and she always reminds me
1:41:49
Speaker 1: as I'm heading out the door when she drops me
1:41:51
Speaker 1: off at the airport. Now, control your temper. Cushing doesn't
1:41:56
Speaker 1: get you anywhere. And I'm sure the listeners have probably
1:42:03
Speaker 1: noticed my tone and my demeanor has gotten pretty riled
1:42:08
Speaker 1: up through some of this discussion because this is this
1:42:13
Speaker 1: is so important to me and and I don't know
1:42:15
Speaker 1: how to explain it. It's hard to explain. But if
1:42:18
Speaker 1: I never shoot another elk in my life, I've shot
1:42:20
Speaker 1: more than my share. But the fact that somedayd two
1:42:28
Speaker 1: hundred years from now, some other Randy Newburgh is going
1:42:31
Speaker 1: to realize his dream of being an elk hunter on
1:42:34
Speaker 1: public lands. That's important to me. That's more important to
1:42:38
Speaker 1: me than killing my next out. And I don't know,
1:42:42
Speaker 1: maybe I've well, I know I've probably been dropped on
1:42:45
Speaker 1: my head too many times, but I just feel that
1:42:49
Speaker 1: strongly about it. And I think if there's one thing
1:42:52
Speaker 1: that has that hunters have stood the head and shoulders
1:42:56
Speaker 1: above the rest of our society. And why we've accomplished
1:42:59
Speaker 1: so much in the face of such great challenges what
1:43:04
Speaker 1: we've done to conserve landscapes and protect species in and
1:43:08
Speaker 1: enhanced and in increased populations of species, is we kept
1:43:12
Speaker 1: a vision that was not next week or next month,
1:43:16
Speaker 1: or next quarter or next year. Our vision was always
1:43:20
Speaker 1: a horizon that was a generation away or more more
1:43:24
Speaker 1: than one generation away. And if we start lowering, lowering
1:43:29
Speaker 1: our horizons, we're going to aim low and hit even
1:43:34
Speaker 1: lower in what we accomplished. And I just I'm not
1:43:38
Speaker 1: willing to do that. And most of the hunters I
1:43:40
Speaker 1: talked to you like you're down when you get wound
1:43:43
Speaker 1: up over this is because you share that same thing.
1:43:45
Speaker 1: You want this to continue, you want it to be
1:43:48
Speaker 1: better for the next person. And I think that's where
1:43:52
Speaker 1: we as hunters. Sooner or later again, our threshold is
1:43:55
Speaker 1: going to be met where we're gonna get pretty active
1:43:57
Speaker 1: about this. Um. I hope. If it's not met already,
1:44:02
Speaker 1: I hope it gets met tomorrow. So to that point,
1:44:07
Speaker 1: I think we absolutely we need to be encouraging both
1:44:11
Speaker 1: myself and Dan. We need to do a better job
1:44:13
Speaker 1: of stepping up and starting to take action. I know
1:44:14
Speaker 1: you already are, Randy, UM, but I hope we can
1:44:16
Speaker 1: also encourage our listeners too as well. UM. But I
1:44:20
Speaker 1: guess I do want to not beat around the bush
1:44:24
Speaker 1: a little bit. And we've talked about the fact that
1:44:26
Speaker 1: you know, I hate the fact that it's become so
1:44:28
Speaker 1: politicized and so partisan. Um but correct me if I'm wrong, Randy.
1:44:33
Speaker 1: But this issue of transferring and selling public lands has
1:44:38
Speaker 1: become a plank in the Republican Party platform. So that's
1:44:41
Speaker 1: like an official party line, now, is that right? It is? Unfortunately,
1:44:45
Speaker 1: and a person who like I said, it's socially insistedly conservative,
1:44:50
Speaker 1: who you know, it's very very adamant about the Second Amendment.
1:44:57
Speaker 1: That disturbs me heavily. Um. Month, And it's not just
1:45:02
Speaker 1: a national policy issue for that party. At the state level,
1:45:07
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. Two years ago, the Montana Republican
1:45:11
Speaker 1: Party made it a very big deal that they had
1:45:14
Speaker 1: unanimous vote to add the transfer of these lands as
1:45:19
Speaker 1: a party platform plant And it's just like, who's who's
1:45:26
Speaker 1: leading is that who's doing the thinking for them? And
1:45:31
Speaker 1: after my disappointment, I sat back and looked at it
1:45:35
Speaker 1: and said, well, here's how politics works these days. Um,
1:45:39
Speaker 1: you get some consultant to come and tell you the
1:45:42
Speaker 1: polling data says this, or here's a strategy of how
1:45:45
Speaker 1: we're going to accomplish x, y or z. And so
1:45:50
Speaker 1: these party bosses, whether they are state party bosses or
1:45:54
Speaker 1: national party bosses, lean heavily on consultants for forming these
1:45:59
Speaker 1: to editions on on topics they don't know much about.
1:46:04
Speaker 1: And if the other side has done one really good thing,
1:46:07
Speaker 1: it's that they have invested tons of money and highly paid,
1:46:14
Speaker 1: slick talking consultants to come to the party bosses and
1:46:19
Speaker 1: make the sales pitch that selling the public lands is
1:46:22
Speaker 1: good for the party. And that's how that stuff gets
1:46:24
Speaker 1: in there. So it sounds screwed up, but that's how
1:46:29
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff did that. Yeah, it does
1:46:31
Speaker 1: sound screwed up, um, And I guess with that being
1:46:34
Speaker 1: the case, right, I too feel that same disappointment. And
1:46:38
Speaker 1: like I mentioned, I definitely have um a background similar
1:46:42
Speaker 1: to yours too, Randy. It sounds like and I don't
1:46:46
Speaker 1: care if you're listening around. I don't care if you're
1:46:48
Speaker 1: a Republican or Democrat, or in the Hunting angling Outdoors
1:46:51
Speaker 1: party or wherever you stand on these issues. If you
1:46:55
Speaker 1: do have the passion that I think most of us
1:46:59
Speaker 1: do have a out these these landscapes, these habitats, access
1:47:03
Speaker 1: to them to hunt and fish and do all these
1:47:05
Speaker 1: other things. We need to start taking action on it.
1:47:08
Speaker 1: And historically there's probably a majority of hunters would be
1:47:13
Speaker 1: would fall towards the conservative side, would fall towards the
1:47:15
Speaker 1: Republican side. So let's just say, let's let's go with
1:47:18
Speaker 1: that assumption. Let's just say that the majority of people
1:47:20
Speaker 1: right now listening might be leaning in the Republican way.
1:47:23
Speaker 1: I don't care either way, but let's just hypothetically say
1:47:25
Speaker 1: that's the case. If that's the case, and given the
1:47:28
Speaker 1: fact that right now, like you mentioned, Randy, a party
1:47:31
Speaker 1: line like a goal within the Republican Party not, at
1:47:34
Speaker 1: least from the top level, is to sell off or
1:47:36
Speaker 1: transfer these public lands. To your point A called minutes ago, Randy,
1:47:40
Speaker 1: we the people or anyone who wants to be involved
1:47:43
Speaker 1: with those politicians or wants to support them, it's our
1:47:46
Speaker 1: job to go and say, hey, that's a really stupid idea.
1:47:49
Speaker 1: I want to support a lot of the things that
1:47:50
Speaker 1: you do and that that you work towards, but that
1:47:52
Speaker 1: is something that we can't have, and so we need
1:47:54
Speaker 1: to start, like you said, being that greasy wheel. Um,
1:47:58
Speaker 1: because it doesn't need to be either between being good
1:48:00
Speaker 1: on guns or individual rights or whatever it is and
1:48:04
Speaker 1: habitat public access all that. Um. So whichever party or
1:48:08
Speaker 1: wherever you place yourself, we need to be talking to
1:48:11
Speaker 1: our representatives, are senators, all these other people presidential candidates,
1:48:16
Speaker 1: and saying hey, this is a really important issue. And
1:48:20
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people and a lot of communities,
1:48:22
Speaker 1: and a lot of businesses and a whole lot of
1:48:24
Speaker 1: different things that are gonna be impacted by this. Let's
1:48:27
Speaker 1: make sure you're going in the right direction. Yeah. And
1:48:31
Speaker 1: often I hear people say, well, I don't want to
1:48:33
Speaker 1: upset them because they're good at guns, and I get
1:48:36
Speaker 1: tests but why are we not afraid? And let's so
1:48:41
Speaker 1: we're kind to use the assumption that most hunters are
1:48:44
Speaker 1: right center, and that all the data shows that the
1:48:47
Speaker 1: feature and that's why we're disappointed when the parties further
1:48:51
Speaker 1: to the right supports this. So let's take the mirror
1:48:54
Speaker 1: and go the other way and just about all guns.
1:48:57
Speaker 1: My distillation that just at the second Amendment comes from
1:49:01
Speaker 1: the Democratic side. Why do we not have any hesitation
1:49:07
Speaker 1: about writing a letter, making a comment, or giving that
1:49:11
Speaker 1: Democratic legislator or senator or congress person how we feel
1:49:18
Speaker 1: about certain gun issues when it's detrimental to us, But
1:49:22
Speaker 1: for some reason, we refuse to convey the same frustration
1:49:28
Speaker 1: or the same feelings when it's a Republican who's doing
1:49:31
Speaker 1: something on the other side on public lands. I don't
1:49:36
Speaker 1: understand the thought process that give someone the comfort in saying, oh,
1:49:43
Speaker 1: why do you do this on my guns? But yet
1:49:45
Speaker 1: they're afraid that they'll offend someone as they go say
1:49:48
Speaker 1: the same thing on public lands to someone on the
1:49:50
Speaker 1: other side. Maybe I'm too simple minded to understand that hesitation,
1:49:57
Speaker 1: but I just think that we are at that point
1:50:01
Speaker 1: where hunters are going to have to speak up for
1:50:04
Speaker 1: their own toughs and engage with these politicians. If you
1:50:08
Speaker 1: know a county commissioner, if you know a state legislator,
1:50:12
Speaker 1: if you know someone at a local level, that person
1:50:16
Speaker 1: hearing your concerns, and if they hear it from enough
1:50:18
Speaker 1: of you, will carry it to the next level. Who
1:50:21
Speaker 1: carries it to the next level. They say all politics
1:50:24
Speaker 1: is local, and to some degree it is. If you
1:50:27
Speaker 1: have a congress person in your district who gets twelve
1:50:32
Speaker 1: calls in emails from the same on the same topic,
1:50:37
Speaker 1: they're going to tell us Stafford will find out what's
1:50:39
Speaker 1: going on there, because if twelve people called, that means
1:50:43
Speaker 1: there's probably twelve thousand people who feel the same way
1:50:46
Speaker 1: just in that little area. But it does make a difference.
1:50:51
Speaker 1: It's I know, we feel at times that the big
1:50:54
Speaker 1: money machines and the big political parties on both sides
1:50:58
Speaker 1: controlled the argument, and they they do to some degree.
1:51:02
Speaker 1: But nothing scares a politician more than a group of
1:51:05
Speaker 1: piste off hunters for a good reason. Yeah, I mean,
1:51:10
Speaker 1: not because we're gonna show up armed, but because when
1:51:13
Speaker 1: you piss us off, we plan to do something about it,
1:51:17
Speaker 1: and we're good at hunters. When they do. Finally, get
1:51:20
Speaker 1: mad enough are good at getting people unelected. Well, I
1:51:25
Speaker 1: I certainly hope and uh I expect that that's going
1:51:29
Speaker 1: to be the case moving forward, that regardless of where
1:51:33
Speaker 1: we individually feel we fit within the party spectrum, if
1:51:36
Speaker 1: you are left or right or center or whatever it is.
1:51:38
Speaker 1: Hopefully I think all of us hunters and outdoors men
1:51:41
Speaker 1: and women and people that appreciate the incredible resource we
1:51:45
Speaker 1: have of these of these public lands, that we can
1:51:47
Speaker 1: all kind of decide that, yeah, this is something that
1:51:50
Speaker 1: needs to be sorted out and needs to be taken
1:51:52
Speaker 1: care of it, and we'll talk to our representatives, regardless
1:51:55
Speaker 1: of what party they may be, and say, hey, this
1:51:57
Speaker 1: needs to be a priority. We need to refocus our
1:52:00
Speaker 1: attention here. And I hope of everyone everyone listening today
1:52:03
Speaker 1: that you can take Rainy's advice and be that greasy
1:52:06
Speaker 1: wheel speak to your representatives. We don't need to settle
1:52:09
Speaker 1: for either or we don't need to settle for Take
1:52:13
Speaker 1: all the above, and you're stuck with it. I think
1:52:15
Speaker 1: we can start. We need to start taking an active
1:52:18
Speaker 1: interest in an active role in informing where informing the
1:52:24
Speaker 1: direction of where things are going to go. It's it's
1:52:27
Speaker 1: time that we don't just let things go idly by
1:52:29
Speaker 1: and roll with it. I think we need to start
1:52:32
Speaker 1: really start forming that path forward. So I agree, Randy,
1:52:36
Speaker 1: this has been This has been really helpful. I think
1:52:39
Speaker 1: this is one of those topics that is evidenced by
1:52:41
Speaker 1: the fact that we've just talked about it for over
1:52:43
Speaker 1: an hour and a half. There's a lot to talk about.
1:52:45
Speaker 1: There's a lot of questions. Yeah, no, to your audience,
1:52:52
Speaker 1: they're probably it probably dropped the line along time ago.
1:52:58
Speaker 1: I hope not, although although d And did drop off,
1:53:00
Speaker 1: so that might be evidence of he actually had to
1:53:04
Speaker 1: go take care of family. Is family stuff. But um,
1:53:08
Speaker 1: but now, this this has been terrific, and I'm really
1:53:11
Speaker 1: glad that you could share your your experience and background
1:53:14
Speaker 1: and knowledge of all these things because it's something that, yeah,
1:53:17
Speaker 1: it's starting to show up in the media, the hunting
1:53:19
Speaker 1: and outdoors media more, which is a good thing. It's
1:53:21
Speaker 1: still something that there's a lot of questions about. And
1:53:24
Speaker 1: my goal here was to really try to answer some
1:53:26
Speaker 1: of those questions, get people thinking about it, get people
1:53:28
Speaker 1: hopefully ready to start taking some action. And I think
1:53:32
Speaker 1: you were able to really help us take a step
1:53:34
Speaker 1: in that direction. So I'm to thanks so much. I
1:53:37
Speaker 1: appreciate you having me. Yeah, absolutely is there is there anywhere?
1:53:41
Speaker 1: And I know there is. But would you like to
1:53:42
Speaker 1: share with our audience where they can go to hear
1:53:45
Speaker 1: more from you, your opinions and thoughts on any of
1:53:47
Speaker 1: these other things, or just to get some more Randy
1:53:49
Speaker 1: Newburg in their life. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity, Mark,
1:53:53
Speaker 1: And Uh, one thing I'm going to definitely do with
1:53:56
Speaker 1: my following is to share your podcast with with all
1:53:59
Speaker 1: of my folks who watched my TV show and listen
1:54:02
Speaker 1: to my podcast. Um, if the people are interested, I've
1:54:06
Speaker 1: done some episodes of my podcast. It's called The Hunt
1:54:09
Speaker 1: Talk Radio Randy Newberg Unfiltered. I've done some episodes specific
1:54:14
Speaker 1: to a few of the topics we've talked about today.
1:54:18
Speaker 1: They can just get that out on iTunes or Stitcher,
1:54:21
Speaker 1: or you can go to our YouTube channel. Now we're
1:54:23
Speaker 1: loading our podcast episodes right up on our YouTube channel
1:54:26
Speaker 1: and it's called Randy Edinburgh Hunter. And uh, we would
1:54:31
Speaker 1: love to see all of your listeners who maybe are
1:54:34
Speaker 1: primarily white tail hunters. Love to see them. I'll be
1:54:37
Speaker 1: also get a taste of the West. Um, and you
1:54:40
Speaker 1: can get the addition for out meal their animal, white
1:54:43
Speaker 1: tails or whatever out here, and if they're interested in that,
1:54:47
Speaker 1: we have the big forum called hunt talk dot com
1:54:50
Speaker 1: where boy, we we talked about everything related to the
1:54:55
Speaker 1: public land hunting and we help people apply for tag
1:54:59
Speaker 1: figure out drawing systems. A lot of really get stuff
1:55:03
Speaker 1: out there. So when my TV show isn't airing in
1:55:06
Speaker 1: quarters three and four, those are the best places to
1:55:09
Speaker 1: reach me, either on the hunt top forum, listen to
1:55:12
Speaker 1: our podcast, or check out our YouTube channel. So and
1:55:16
Speaker 1: your your YouTube channel now has old episodes of your shows,
1:55:19
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, we're actually our old show on your
1:55:22
Speaker 1: Own Adventures where we've loaded those four seasons up and
1:55:26
Speaker 1: now in the next month we're gonna start loading up
1:55:29
Speaker 1: the last three seasons we've produced, which are the titled
1:55:32
Speaker 1: under the new show called Fresh Tracks with Brandy Newberg.
1:55:35
Speaker 1: So if people go out there and hit the subscribe button,
1:55:38
Speaker 1: and it doesn't cost you anything, so hit the subscribe button.
1:55:41
Speaker 1: It's not like you're paying a fee to subscribe. But
1:55:43
Speaker 1: hitting the subscribe button on our YouTube channel means that
1:55:46
Speaker 1: you will get notified when we load up a new episode.
1:55:49
Speaker 1: And it's so far it's turned out great. The traffic
1:55:53
Speaker 1: is just growing like crazy. I did not know that
1:55:56
Speaker 1: many people really cared about Randy Newbergs stumbling around in
1:56:00
Speaker 1: the woods trying to hurt himself. Maybe maybe they're just
1:56:03
Speaker 1: bored in the winter. I don't know. There's there's certainly
1:56:06
Speaker 1: is probably a little bit of at least for those
1:56:08
Speaker 1: people are listening to this podcast, because they if they're
1:56:10
Speaker 1: listening to this show, they must be feeling the same way.
1:56:13
Speaker 1: But but I do highly recommend anyone listening if you
1:56:16
Speaker 1: haven't already, take Randy up on that offer. I'm subscribed
1:56:20
Speaker 1: to the YouTube channel, I'm subscribed to his podcast, and
1:56:22
Speaker 1: I check out hunt Talk and all the above are
1:56:25
Speaker 1: great resources for both just entertaining and interesting, but also educational. Randy,
1:56:31
Speaker 1: as you've heard over the last hour and a half
1:56:33
Speaker 1: or so, has got a lot of great perspective and
1:56:35
Speaker 1: experience on some of these important issues to all hunters.
1:56:39
Speaker 1: So definitely check it out. And your website, Randy is
1:56:42
Speaker 1: Randy Newberg dot com, right, yeah, yeah, Randy Newberg dot
1:56:46
Speaker 1: com will give you linked to every one of our platforms,
1:56:49
Speaker 1: so that that's kind of the clearing house where when
1:56:52
Speaker 1: in doubt go to Randy Newberg dot com and you'll
1:56:54
Speaker 1: find a link to all of our platforms. Perfect. Well,
1:56:58
Speaker 1: I think with that we'll wrap things up. Randy, so again,
1:57:02
Speaker 1: thank you so so much. You're you're welcome. Mark. I'm
1:57:06
Speaker 1: not going to let you go without you making a promise.
1:57:08
Speaker 1: And what's that this summer, you're gonna come to Bozeman
1:57:12
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get together and you're gonna be on
1:57:14
Speaker 1: my podcast and we're gonna go fishing or something. I
1:57:18
Speaker 1: will I will accept that and promise you to take
1:57:21
Speaker 1: you up on that, because that sounds like a lot
1:57:22
Speaker 1: of fun. All Right, Mark, thanks so much. I appreciate
1:57:26
Speaker 1: all you do. I appreciate your listeners are great folks,
1:57:29
Speaker 1: and uh, keep carrying on. I really appreciate it. Sounds great, Randy.
1:57:33
Speaker 1: I'll see you this summer. Yep. All right, good bye. Alright. Well,
1:57:38
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation, found it helpful, educational,
1:57:43
Speaker 1: and maybe put a little fire in eath your butt
1:57:45
Speaker 1: to take some action on these things. I appreciate you
1:57:48
Speaker 1: sticking with us here on an extra long episode, but
1:57:51
Speaker 1: hopefully you'll agree that this was an important enough topic
1:57:54
Speaker 1: for us to do that. So thank you for your time.
1:57:57
Speaker 1: Uh speaking of thanks, we do need to thank our
1:57:59
Speaker 1: partners who helped make this podcast possible. So big thank
1:58:03
Speaker 1: you too, Sick Gear, Trophy, Ridge Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds,
1:58:07
Speaker 1: Hunter A, maps Ozonics, Lacrosse Boots, and the White Tail
1:58:10
Speaker 1: Institute of North America. And one other thing that I
1:58:14
Speaker 1: forgot to mention was that there's a petition you can
1:58:17
Speaker 1: sign at the sports at sorry, the u r L
1:58:19
Speaker 1: is Sportsman's Access dot org and that's a petition to
1:58:24
Speaker 1: support our public lands and uh, you know say that, hey,
1:58:27
Speaker 1: we do not want these two be transfers sold. So
1:58:29
Speaker 1: check out Sportsman's Access dot org for more information on
1:58:32
Speaker 1: this topic, as well as the resources we mentioned earlier
1:58:36
Speaker 1: at Randy Newberg's website and podcast. All the above will
1:58:39
Speaker 1: be super helpful in addition to what we talked about
1:58:42
Speaker 1: here today. So but that all said, thank you again
1:58:45
Speaker 1: for joining us. I appreciate it, and until next time,
1:58:50
Speaker 1: stay wired to hunt.