00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, boat bitten and in my case, underwear. Listen, don't make you eat your podcast. You can't predict anything, all right. Um, first thing I'm gonna do is screw Yanni over here because I, uh, did you bring my perch flies? No? Alright, Yanni? If anyone's been following this, Yannie will not make me my perch flies until because he won't. Um, I won't do any promotion and for his T shirt company, So I will not talk about the striking red Hunt to Eat knee Eater collaboration T shirt that he's wearing right now. Take that, because he will not. What's you know? What's the stinker about our hunting fans and our and our purchasers and buyers is that you know, we make these colors thinking like man, someone's gonna break out of the mold of blue, gray and white. And we've sold probably almost a hundred to one blue to red T shirts people like blue. Are you plugging your T shirt coming right now? No, I'm talking about his buyers. You're The thing about the thing about the perch fly that's driving nuts is like I put a picture up of the perch fly and people like, oh yeah, it's it's such an easy tie, you know. But that's not the point. The point is that twenty months ago I asked you to do a small favor and you refused. Um, what's that? What's that hook? Do you want him on? I'll show you right there. Well, i'll show you in a minute. I don't know, I like unlike most people who have been fishing for a long time, I can't tell you. I can't look at the hook and tell you. I just know what I want to see it. But that's not what I want to talk about. There's a thing I want to talk about. There's the main thing we're gonna talk about, and there's a thing I want to talk about real quickly before the main thing. And then I already have a segue. That's It's amazing how I'm gonna get from the one to the other. It's gonna be like you're reading a David Foster Wallace thing. When I hit my segue. Um, you'll see in a minute. The first thing I was gonna talk about his call Ryan Callahan's here, Calt. What was the your favorite thing about the week you just spend at our fish shack, like your your favorite thing that I did. Oh so went to Steve's Fish Act in Alaska and it was so overwhelmingly awesome. I'm having a hard time picking something out, but I loved the harpooning of halibut next to the boat. Yeah, when we get a big halibut, because we're fishing small boats, really small sixteen foot skiff and the eighteen ft skill like I would think people were looking at as funny when they're putting by us in their pur sayers and stuff out there. Yeah, and when you get a big fish in a little boat, it's different than a big fish in a big boat. So what we'll do is we get them up and then we'll harpoon them and then sometimes kind of hog time and then drag them up into the boat. It's fun, incredibly fun. Explain that how that harpoon works. It's a detachable head on it. So what I did is I went down to home Depot. I mean you can buy them, but I went down to home Depot and bought a whole handle, like a replacement handle for a garden hole, and drilled it out and put a piece of stainless steel. U doubt stainless steel riding there and then there's a detachable head you buy where the detachable heads slips over the stainless steel shaft and that's connected to a cable and then you run the cable to a rope and the rope to a buoy. So when you stick the fish and the gill cover you pass through the fish, the detachable head comes off and forms like a toggle on the other side if you get a clean pass through, and then you just throw the booty overboard and you watch that booty kind of go and a good fish will pull the booty. The bootie's out sides of a beach ball, small beach ball. We didn't see the buoy going under, but we had uh the one kind of yeah, how that will take that booy way down, you know. And we've had it too. Were you sticking with the hard poon and the rod comes undone like the hook comes out, and then you know you go, you can disconnecting the anchor line and go get chase the booty and get the fish. It's nice it pins those gills down, um, and it just you have all this chaos of this thing coming up to the boat and there's rods and and sharp hooks and stuff flying around, and then a lot of dudes yelling real real, real give advice. So if you hit the fish and the gill cover and get like a good pass through, then what you can do is you just once you get the fish out of the boat, he's if you hit him to gil and his gills are bleeding, they'll kind of bleed him out anyways. But then if he's big, you can bleed him and then take the cable and pull it tight and hog tied around his tail so he's curled up. Then drag him the boat and he doesn't go bananas in the boat and the whole help. But it was amazing because like the bleeding process, it's like almost like if you were to you know, it's a ton of blood, like major artery just I mean gives big squirt. And then the intestines on a sauce it looks like about making sausage casing. I've never seen intestines on the fit like discernible in it was the whole We opened up a hall of it stomach were you there for that? We don't know the hall but stomach and it had a seabird in it. Yeah, I was there for that. Yeah, he caught a seabird a diver you were doing? At first? I thought, at first I thought he had a porcupine, because it was kind of it was digested partially. But then I realized I was just looking at the um the basis of the feathers, which seemed yeah. So however the hell he come into that either died and sank, or he grabbed it when it was down fishing. Um pulled a big chunk of squid out of one, a lot of fish bones, found a rockfish old list in one's gut, and then what else we so we got a bait, a lot of old bait, a lot of salmon bellies. We'll take on pink salmon. You're allowed to use the belly strip of pink salmon, so we use pink salmon bellies. Hooligans. My brother Danny dipped up a bunch of hooligans in the twenty mile river they run in the spring. So salt the hooligans down and use people called candle fish. It's a very oily fish and uh, all amazing information. However, it will be gone because nobody wants to keep a journal up there like this is all good stuff. I think it will improve. Yeah. But what I'm gonna do, though, is I want to start take up one of our charts and start putting a pin at all known Halibit locations, all known Yellow Eye, and all the linkod locations. So we also dove um. One day we went out on a good we had a good low tide. Uh. You know, lunar cycles drive the tides, but there's also a big influence from the sun. So when the Sun and the moon are aligned right, you can get very deep tides and they're normal. So like it's tide start at sea level. High tide would be a high high tide to be plus twenty, so twenty ft above sea level, but a big low tide is only like minus four minus five. We went out of the minus three tide and dove for scallops, rock scallops and cucumbers, and Cal was the boat tender for that. We gotta the amount of se cucumbers. Yeah, you gotta google these things. And it looked like this. Really, it looks like a diseased male member, seriously diseased bad and they come in acid trip. Yeah, if you had a diseased male member and looked at it while tripping sign me up. That was the voice of Hillary. Oh, I want to do my thing though my transition, so check it out. So my fish shacks on the beach. Okay, someone can come walking down the beach in front of my fish shack. Legally, I have no right to go yell at him, right, correct. That's why we're gonna talk about access. You guys like that. Um uh as though dealing poker. We got five people here, can can uh like I'm dealing now to you? So introduce yourself please land Tani back country hunters in English. It's it. I mean like like sushi anytime. I do have two young kids and the eight year old and a five year old. Uh, spent a lot of time outdoor. Just got back from the Bob Marshall, spent my thirteenth wedding anniversary and the Bob Marshall this weekend. I did, and just us too. You haven't done that thirteen times in a row, head, No, that's three years in a row. My brother renews his vow every university I don't know married two years. Okay, probably she puts the dress back on and oh they did not redo the vows I mean, that's what they like to do. That's what they like to do, right. You know what's cool about where he got married. He got married on his wife's ranch or family's ranch, been there for a couple of a few generations. You know, they got a family plot where the grandparents and stuff embars buried. They got married right there. Abody to go back up there for sure? Where'd you go on to, Bob? We went in, uh, just outside of Ceey, not Pyramid Pass and not Morle Falls, but somewhere close um and went into this lake up on tops about three and a half miles and you get feet of elevation and that three and a half miles. So we got four of them. With a gas we hammered the cut throats fan and the first lake that we stayed at was dead. It had a bunch of leeches in it, no fish. And you popped into this one that had bad leeches, like big leches, big ones like that big. You think there would be fish because of that. That's why I think when we saw him, like they are all these leeches are out in the open just like swimming around, and so we you know, like it was like that was a red flag that there was no fish in there, and then we we stayed right there because they'll they'll parasite on the fish. Official eve s there's no fish there because all the baits there. No. What I'm saying is when I when the bates being that obvious that we got full rain bait, it's like baitland. So we didn't. There was no fish there, but there was a like a probably i don't know, a mile and a half away there was an awesome little lake where we had a waterfall that was about forty ft coming off this sheer kind of rock face, and at that inlet, it was just game on and we My wife doesn't five fish that much, and she just had a ball and she looked over me at one point she's like, you made make a fisherman out of me. At some point. No, they stayed with mother in law, so we had us two for three days, no cell phones, and like there was actually some romance and we could have adult conversations. You know. The best fisherman ever, my provider. At this lake, there's a bear tracks like forty yards from camp. Yeah, I mean we're not there when he showed up, and we're there and don't know they were there, like they were probably like a day old when we got there, which was the way I'd like to say, good, see what the bear still in it? Well, I like the embarrassment. Not close. Yeah, alright, man, we saw some cool bears feeding it. We were down fishing silvers one night last week and there's five or six bears in there. Incredible would they take turns? Because he's staking out this little riffle and when a fish would come up the riff, we grabbed it and he hauled it up and the bushes to eat and his body who was just like basically taking a bath. Yeah, like cool, it was hot. This body's like cooling off into pool and he's like, oh my turn and it runs over the riff. I want to grab a fish head in the woods. The next one to come to the riff all and it was we were sitting in a canoe and you could take your my fly rod and basically touch each bank from sitting in the canoe. So it was really tight. And they're ultimately six six black bears up there feeding my kid. The kid didn't like it. He can't think the bears are gonna get him. He was a little nervous, but at the end of the day, he's like, the best day ever. You know, that was great. I told him, I'm in charge of being worried about bears. I'll tell you when it is time to worry about bears. And these bears have a lot on their mind besides you, who's been around more bears or you? You? Yeah, that was cute alright. Next. My name is Hilary Larry Hutcheson and I live in northwest Montana, mother of mother of two cooligans uh teenagers twelve and fourteen. I don't know why I'm bringing up who's got kids? Like, No, it's good to know. I mean, it's important. It's all part of it. You mean, you do what you do for yourself, but also for them and and I hope they enjoy it too at some point. And if they don't, you know now, you hope they will. Yeah, yeah, No, it's important. It's good to ask, especially with three kids. That's kind of the first thing you ask, right, Yeah, then you know you can complain about your kids with other people. Yeah. Yeah. He started it with does your kid eat shirt? No? Neither does mine. I spect we have breakfast this morning? There was no complaining about kids at all. Yeah, none. So run down, run down, um, you know, lay at me kind of your your professional scope, your professional purview. It's not a word I use very often. I don't even know if it was used properly for I'm uh yeah, no, So I'm a I'm a fly fishing guide in northwest Montana. I guy for glacier anglers. I got to work with kel over here back in the day. Yeah, and uh, it's your busy season right now, right it is a busy season, Yeah, for sure. But I'm kind of making the rounds doing some other things right now, even though it's a busy season. Have been there for a really long time, and so now I've kind of tried to make use of that time and other ways and trying to balance it a little bit. But like I just got back from Washington, d C. To talk about how climate change is affecting our fishery, and so right now in Montana, across Montana, you know, we're in hoodal conditions. You can't fish after two pm. The river is too low, too hot to dry. It's really difficult on the fish. And so you know, seeing a lot of different things happen around Montana and we're talking about access. That's kind of one of them. But so I try to, you know, squeeze some other things in there during my busy season. I have a trip tomorrow. I got to be there six am, get ready for a full day tomorrow. Yeah, yep, unless this still laze me, What are you guys gonna go after tomorrow? Tomorrow? What are we fishing for? Target? Yeah? So our fisheries just cutties. There's bullies in there. The bullies are actually doing better this year than I thought they would be. But um, lots of mostly cut throat is kind of what we're fishing for. Yeah, man, native trout. Man, God, yeah, no, it's it's that's what people come there for right now. You know, it's in West Glacier. People are coming to see the last of the Glaciers, but they're also coming to fish for native West Loope cutthroat trout. It's great, and now people are kind of at the point that they can say it by name, like a lot of times it used to be back in the day. People get on your boat and they're like, so what are we fishing for today? You know, now it's like destination fishery they know what they're coming for because it's they want they want to see, they want to catch them and call my first bull trout that guy right there. Wow, you got lucky. I mean, I mean Cal got lucky. He kind of showed me how to do it. Man, All right, Cal, introduce yourself? Is that you are? You? Are? You satisfied with your introduction? But you do but now, but you do a TV show? Yeah, yeah, I have a television show. And you got to say the fly shop. Yeah? And I got a fly shop. Yeah yeah, I own a fly shop in my town. Talk about a fly shop first, because it's uh, it's kind of my favorite right now about too, And I took copious notes. Now I don't know how to make them. I don't have a home depot nearby, but I know a bunch of hose no I yeah, no. The fly shop is called Larry's fly And supply it's called that it's for Hillary, but it's l A. R. Y s. But the reason it's called that is this is the town I grew up in, where my my shop is. And when I was a kid in high school, in sports, we put our first name on the back of our jerseys. One year and somebody made a mistake the printer and put a space in between the HI and l A r y. So I went running out in the car, said, Hi, Larry's all the old guys who come into my shop now they walk into the shop and they're like, Hi Larry. So, yeah, that's Larry's Flying Supply. Yeah. I wanted it to be Larry's Bait and Tackle, but I figured people would actually come. Yeah, so Larry's Flying Supply. It's in Columbia Falls, Montana. And then, um, yeah, I run trout. That's a good name for a shop. I thought long and hard about it. Not really, it's like it's it's a refreshing name for a fly shop. Well it's the other part two is it's a dude's name, right, Larry. So I was waiting for somebody to come in and you know, ask for Larry. And it finally happened this summer. Finally a guy came in. No, I mean, I wrung. I didn't recognize him. Most of the time. If anybody in my town, you know, they get a discount and recognize them, it's like their shop two kind of a thing. And um, but if they're tourists and maybe they come in there kind of an asshole or something. I'm not going to give him a ascount. So come in. I ring this guy up and he leans forward and he's like, well, Larry always gives me a discount. And I was like, does he Larry? It's Larry's day off? You got me? Yeah, that's awesome alright. Anyways, cal oh Ryan Callahan. Uh get a run around with Steve and Yannia on occasion. And I worked with First Light. We make hunting clothes. Um, great clothes. Check him out, and um, I have no kids, you know, to say harr pooner in Spanish fiscador, Oh yeah, yeah, I got got that mixed up with your pinky, thank you, thank you, tuscadero. Um, no kids, you know, oh no, but calls family. You can't look him up, don't. You can talk about that if you want to talk about it. How I tried a dating website and uh, I need to hit a few dates. I went on a couple of dates, first couple of dates in a long time, and um, I just kind of came to the conclusion that I got a lot of stuff going on and hunting seasons around the corner. So I should probably just pump the brakes on that situation so you can take the profile down. No, because it's pretty entertaining when you're sitting on the pot. So Yanni, that's that's sexy. I need to see them all trying to figure out what app that is right now? Did cucumber dot com? I'll damn flies. That's how I was gonna introduce myself the guy it's too busy to make Steve flies. I've been shooting my bowl, I've been riding my bike. What are the recording have I been doing? No fishing, chasing the babies, chasing babies around? Um, you're cool on that. Okay, Now what I want to talk I want to talk about stream access and I'm trying to find the way to even how to address I forgot about I did that segue earlier, so now trying to I'm trying to get a good way into this. It's gonna help set the scene. Um, all right, So when you if anyone anyone's listening to ever walk down like the beach. Okay, and you're walking down a beach, let's say you're even on a lake or on the ocean, and you're walking down the beach and you're walking where people have homes or condominiums or golf courses or whatever on the land, and you're allowed to walk down the beach. Okay, you're doing you're you're doing a type of legal access there where the water is not privately owned. Okay. So landownership on the ocean, or you know in the US, typically landownership on lakes, oceans, large rivers extends down to the water's edge, and there's varying definitions on what the water's edges, and you can kind of cruise along there. The same way if you go down to the Mississippi River and watch on the Mississippi River, you will see recreational vessels, commercial vessels vying their way up and down the river with no regards to who owns the land on the banks. Meaning if I own both sides of the Mississippi River, uh, I have no say over what goes on in that river. I can't yell at someone and say, hey, you can't conduct intracontinental commerce up and down this tier river because I happen to own the land on each bank, and I'm declaring the Mississippi River has my own. Now that's the Mississippi. Extend that down. Um, you know, to go smaller and smaller, you have the Ohio River. The Ohio River, giant river is a navigable river. Um, if you own land on both sides of the river, you can't impede public access and commercial traffic up and down the river. As you shrink down, down, down, now down, you get to sort two streams, rivuletts, creeks where at some point there arises a question of can the public use this waterway or not? Or with even it can happen. We're talking about stream access specifically here, but it can happen with lakes too. Is can the public have access to the littoral zone, the border between land, or the seam where land meets water, or the water itself. I grew up on a lake called Middle Lake in Twin Lake, Michigan now Middle Lake. Thankfully, I used to hate it phenomenature enough to love it. The lake had a public access boat launch. Okay, a fella could, when I was growing up, walk down the public access boat launch and then walk all the way around the lake, and he could fish and wade and even use the docks along the lake. Because those docks were built out over public water. Certain people would love to come out and yell at you, um and tell you and try to yell at you and say you weren't allowed there. But I knew enough to know that you were, and that was an access issue. So just because my family owned property on the lake didn't mean we could tell people they couldn't boat in front of our house or walk down the beach in front of our house. At my fish shack in Alaska, I cannot come out and start screaming in the hollering at someone who goes and anchors their skiff in front of my shock on the CoV i'man because that's not my water, that's the people's water. Where this all becomes a debate, where this becomes an issue that's that's being fought out in courts and around the country, is particularly with streams that are kind of on the border of navigable or not um. Even though I try to stay away from getting to Montana centric with all kinds of Montana people. Here, let's talk for a minute about Montana and I'll introduce and I'll kind of bring up a creek that I'm familiar with and sort of explain what I'm saying one time that there's a creek in Montaina called Lolo Creek, and it's named after a fella who I believe he was killed by Grizzly, and they're a trapper named Lolo Um. It's buried somewhere around there too, yet killed by Grizzling. His buddy buried him up there. I don't know that people argue about where he was buried. I think someone thought they found where he was buried. But he he grew by Lolo. He's a French dude, got a mountain, a town named after him, got a creek named after him, got a national forest named after him, got a peak named after him. There's no brewery and brewers named after him. Brewery named after another dude named Laramie. So a guy named Laramie comes out to Wyoming, a mount would be mountain Man Wyoming. Mountain man comes out to Wyoming, gets killed by Indians. They stuff him under the They chip a hole in the ice of a beaver pond and stuff from down in there. Some of its minds up with a town, river, mountain range. So Lolo Creek. One time I hiked over the hiked over the divide of the Bid Roots down into the headwaters of Lolo Creek with a pack raft and in in on National forest Land. Inflated my pack raft during spring runoff and started coming down the river. And I remember that I was in what was regarded initially as a non navigable stretch of that river. So by floating down the river, I was actually trespassing on whose ever land that creek flowed through. Then I magically hit a point at a bridge where that river became legally navigable. I was then allowed I then entered apart region have to be paranoid, and I was then allowed to float through all the ranch land as long as I stayed below what's called high water mark. At that point, it was regarded as legally navigable because in the historic record there is information to suggest that from that point down people used to float timber. They would stick logs in Lolo Creek at that point and float them down to the bid Route and use it for commerce. So the state recognizes that Lolo Creek from that point down is a navigable river, meaning once someone has legal access into the river, they can wade, fish, float other f things as long as you stay other legal activities as long as you stay below high water mark, meaning you stay below the bank of the river as described by the waters level at peak point. So if it's a drought, you can you can walk in the mud as long as it is where river normally occupies during high water. Yes, and and and the way that gets to find two is a lot of like it's a vegetation change, right, Like you have a definite vegetation change from like stuff that gets has water over the top of us doesn't grow very well. It's something that's really well established. You can kind of tell that different. Yeah, and it also like cut banks and various things. I'm almost done talking, but that's only a little more basic groundwork. Yeah, it would be good to touch on two on where that where the whole definition of navigable navigable comes from, because there's all that's the thing. It's actually more of a federal thing, and it's kind of like an accepted federal definition of the waterways. It's actually the states that are more fighting over the land, which is kind of what we're talking to, because it's the access of the land. You know, if you're if you're talking about walking down it and not just floating it. Like the Army Corps of engineers have always been the ones that kind of like set the base level for navigable, and some states defined that differently by saying, as long as you're doing anything, it could be commercial, could be fishing, could be hunting, any sort of recreating. But I mean you said it, it's like like Lolo Creek they were pushing logs down, you know. But some sort of use like that, you know, deems that navigable. Um. But the Army Corps engineers have been the ones that have kind of like set the definition for that, and then the states take that and kind of the states look at it too as at the time of statehood, did we use it as a highway? Did we use it as the main mode of transportation to kind of build our cities and our towns and start to create that commerce. So if you're able to look at it and say that at our time of statehood, this is how we built our state. We use this waterway as as the way to actually build our existence here, then that's the way that you know they're able to win lawsuits in Utah for example, Okay, I wanta I need to do something real quick. I need to put out before before people get too lost. Put out Why this matters? Why does matters? Is all these definitions are talking about UM pertain to you. If you like to hunt and fish and recreate and float. They pertain to you because there are people out there, wealthy, very well connected people out there who are trying to limit down UM very aggressively, try to limit down where you can go on the water. There are a lot of people who own land and they're like, why in the hell can Joe Schmo come floating down this river and cross in front of my land? That is for me, I don't like seeing it. I wish they weren't able to come down and catch the fish that live in this river or whatever, because it pisces me off. I paid a lot of money, worked hard all my life, and now I got any old asshole can come floating down the river in front of my house. And it gets a little more complicated than that too, like, for instance, you might you have people UM who want to sell the idea of exclusive access on rivers, and so they're trying to limit down stream access and access points. That's why this kind of matters. UM. Let's go back real quick to the Montana issue. Montana recognizes by law right, it's recognized Montana you have legal stream access. If you can legally get into a river, you're allowed to use it. But where is it becoming a thorny issue? So I think it goes back to something you just said, is I think a lot of folks um that are moving into Montana that one don't understand the culture. But then two we're sold that piece of property like you are buying a piece of Montana. And so they're like, well, I love that piece three miles of exclusive access, which is they aren't told the laws they're in place right now. That explain to that that any you know, asshole can go like you know, fish and floating in wade in front of the regular poor people floating by me included. And so like when they when they buy that piece of property and then they see that person, they're like, whoa wait a minute. And so I think they're being sold um a bill of goods a little bit that they're not getting told the whole truth when they bought some big figures. In this debate, people who are trying to limit access on things that have always that people have always accessed. We see the names, yeah, I mean Charles Schwab, Charles Schwab, Jim Kennedy. I mean those are the two biggest ones. But he's part of the Cox Communications. He's got Sailor Lane was the big Sailor lane. Yeah, over down and off the Ruby. And so I think the like the these are billionaires that have lots of money, and so, you know, like what they tried to do in Montana was first they tried to change our stream access law. Now the state legislature you know, has all sorts of hearings that happened over in Helena, and uh, you know, I think medical marijuana was a big one, you know, not too long ago, and maybe a hundred and fifty people show up to that medical marijuana. You start talking about when they had a medical marijuana like hearing everybody like like, you know, there's a hundred fifty people to show up. That that's kind of a big deal. Now only for the people who want to smoke weed and let everybody know they want and want to express their want to express their No one shows up at stuff like that. You say, I don't want people to smoke wheat. There's plenty. There's plenty. Yeah, that's a whole another because pop get way more excited about want the smoke weed than they do about not wanting people. So there's a culture in Montown that would show up to be like, I don't want it's the it's the root of all evil for madness. But so like there's a hundred people of sho up to that where you think there maybe even be more, but a stream access hearing comes up and they can't even hold it where they want to hold it. They have to have it in the old Supreme Court chambers because four hundred and fifty people show up with pitchforks, and now that one it's like a hundred to one where you have a hundred people saying, don't take our access away and one person saying please, you know, we want it for ourselves. Well what's the pitchfork? And the pitchfork is basically saying hell no. I mean like there couldn't be anything more saying hell no, I'm gonna pitch fork a floater or on a pitchfork. I'm like like like like like you know, like when when like the mob shows they didn't actually have a p I'm sorry, yeah, you know you can picture like at Trump rallies have also it became a thing to bring a pitchfork with you, right like people everyone's like you just picture maybe your pitchfork at home. But um and so like five people show up and so I think, I just it shows you how much this matters to Montana's And so we were able to stop them from changing um any kind of laws. While ago they just like the last legislative session, they had a build it was forward that said anything any place that had an irrigation structure on it was now gonna become awful inness a stream access and so any kind of structure it comes off of a river or off of a stream that we have access to right now. If it was anything was being used for irrigation, then we wouldn't have been able to float it. All. Here. Here's my here's my nightmare right now and nightmbe right now is people aren't understanding what we're saying. All right, there's really good examples. That's what I want to talk about because I just want to clarify something. First off, the laws have traditionally been interpreted a certain way for the people. And there are people we named a handful, like like high profile cases would be landowned by Charles Swab, landowned by Cox, landowned by other individuals who own land right now, and they're trying to make it. They're trying to say, let's step back, get our lawyers involved, and see if we can find a way to prohibit people from accessing a stream that they can now access. And one way they do that is trying to find legal ways to like legal wrangling methods. So the first thing they try to do is legislatively. The second thing they try to do is just legal wrestling that you're talking about, like changing definitions, are challenging definitive, challenging definitions, goes all the way this rim court. I think one of the arguments during when they were in front of the Montana Supreme Court was as one of the questions was do you want to change the constitution of Montana And they said yes, Like that's what they're trying to do is change the constitution, which is you do by laws. And so there's the legal side. They've lost the legislative level, they've lost the least the argument in the legislative legislative level. It's like a private property taking that should have never been in the place. It was a taking back in the eighty five when it first got established. So they were saying, you're taking my private property by letting Joe Sho float down the river exactly. But if you look at the U. S Constitution, the US Constitution has waterways as a means of travel and says every US citizen has right to these thoroughfares. Basically, they're a road as much as the road. Yeah. Again, no one's arguing that if I go and buy some land in Missouri in Illinois, that I can shut down commerce on the Mississippi River, right, correct, you wouldn't get far. But it's these you know, as you get smaller and smaller and smaller, people starting to be like, come on, this is ridiculous. I could throw a rock across this river. You shouldn't come through it. And to go back to you and Jimmy and I sitting in the canoe, that I mean you could Jimmy six years old, get underhand rock from bank to bank. We had an incredible time on that river. And there's a lot of people out there saying that would say you should have checked with the landowner. Right, all right, go back though, so they've tried it legislatively, they've tried to legally like and the legally was changing the constitution. Yeah, I mean that's what they have to do. They just saying, like the hell that if that's the case, let's just rewrite the whole thing. And so they've lost both those and so now they're trying to um change the Supreme Court in Montana. So if you can't win at a legislative label level, which is basically the people right, you can't do it at uh at the court level. Now they're trying to do at the supreme like, at the at the highest level, so that they can get different judges in there that will interpret the law in a different way and so that we uh um, something we have now doesn't give us the protections that we have on stream access. So you know, and when you think about the billions of dollars they have and these guys they don't. They're not used to losing, right, and so they're not going away. And so like right now in Montana, there's a Supreme Court race that is vitally important to this whole issue. Meaning what well, if I mean it's so like I think I can't think it's five to last time that this was decided as Montana Supreme Court. So this would make it four three if this person got in, and that takes one more and all of a sudden we're tied. And there are people who be sympathetic to the landowner side. Yes, Hillary, here's lots of money or at stake. Two, here's a challenge for you. Give act like you're a land or wealthy landlord. Give give me his argument. Ah, I agree with the real estate part of it. When you want that chunk of Americana for the right reasons, Okay, let's just say, you know you want to get your family out there. GE's beautiful. You've worked really hard all your life. You know this, you saved up and you you really want that kind of chunk to pass on to future generations. Right, So those are reasons who want to be a landowner in Montana. And you're an honest, hard working kind of person, and you're going to be a steward of the land and you're going to take care of it and you're not going to even like develop it in rape and pillage. Right, this is your plan. So you go look and you find the perfect spot and God, a river runs through it. You know, awesome, this is the spot, Marge. We're gonna move out here, We're gonna bring all the grandkids, are gonna come for Christmas. Is gonna be amazing. And then you buy it. You get sold this, this piece of Americana, this whole view that you've wanted, you've worked hard all your life. And you get out there and ship there's Hillary standing out in the middle of it, looking like a fish hippie down there to screaming teenage exactly at all of their homies. Yeah, so you know, and you're like, this isn't what I signed up for, This isn't what I want. What I want, And then you're and you're thinking that the rivers are property. And then the other thing that you start to worry about is, oh, my gosh, what if somebody gets hurt. I'm going to get sued if somebody gets hurt down there, were somebody drowns down there. What if, um, you know, what if I want to fish there later tonight and and they've completely you know, swarmouth all my fish. Um, what if they make a mess. What if they take a dump behind that tree? What if they all of these things, and you're like, this isn't fair. That's my backyard, right, my personal opinion about some of them. No, no now, I'm out of it. I'm of the lead role, no now now or about that right. So that's the small scale, you know, person who just kind of wants their own chunk for themselves. Um. But the bigger problem also is those small pieces and those people add up to bigger picture of like larger landowner opportunities. Um. And I'm not saying that just the smaller owner is is Okay, I fighting for stream access, you know, for the public, um. But all of those small arguments, for those small five acre plots that have little bits of river running through, kind of all our voices that can add together and can can actually hurt everybody's access and everybody's use. So my argument, um is not just about access because pretty much everywhere you go you have access, meaning you can access the river. It's also use. So it's the way we use the river. Once you access it in a public place, then you can walk all the way up and down it below high water mark, and then it's our use. We need to be able to fish it, we need to be able to float through we need to be able to anchor up. We need to be able to have an amazing shore lunch and all of the activities that I experience and that I do on public lands. You know, we see as for the entire population for everybody to be able to do. Now, what happens when we all do that together. It has to be out of respect, right, So you have to respect the land. You have to respect the private land. So if you've got private landowners on either side, maybe it's the same one who owns both sides, like you were describing before. And this water runs through and we have public access at a certain point, but we've walked down or floated down, fish down, and we're going through their private property. Um, the water is ours as a public to use. The fish are all of ours to share and enjoy, the rocks that are tumbling and moving all the time, or all of ours those stream beds. And I want to I want to point I want to interrupt real quick. Just point out a thing. The water is owned by the state. The state doesn't relinquish the water as it flows through your property. The fish are owned by the state, and the state generally will not relinquish the rights of the fish that are living in the water that they own that's flowing across your problem exactly. So now if you're the if you're the private landowner, and you recognize all of these things, then we have a great partnership, right because you've still got your land, and then we as fish are and recreators, are going to respect it. That means, no, you guys, don't run your dogs up in there. Don't let your dogs go running up above high water mark. Don't make a big camp. You know that's going to potentially have um wildfires that could go up into their property unless you're really certain that you're in an actual legal spot. You know, be really respectful of those private landowners as we use what is our right. You know, it is our right to use this waterway and um and have a blast. But god, you know, I mean, we have to really respect ourselves by respecting those private landown Yeah. And you know, it's unfortunate because I hate to see people mess it up. And and it's one of the things I see happen is is we're floating along, you know, and if I'm guiding and and I've been guiding the same stretch of river for a long time, you know, up in the middle Fork in nayak As, you know cal if If you haven't been there in a little while and you float now you see these big private property signs that there never were before because there are sections of private property along there, and it's always in private um in a couple of these stretches, you know. But we've always had the ability to float through. We still can. But when you see those private property signs, it's like, oh, shoot, somebody must have messed up. One of us must have gone up there and pick tuckleberries on their property. One of us must have like run our dogs up there. Something happened to piss those guys off. Or maybe it's just fear. Maybe they are new landowners there and maybe they're afraid that we're going to So it's important for two reasons. We now can make it right by making sure that we do the right thing now, and then also be telling people that this is a partnership. This you know, you've got your land you worked hard for, you know you own it. We all together own this um water, in this fish and in the rocks, and we can work together on it. I sound like a diplomat but I'm not a mid know. I appreciate what you're saying. I think it's important to point out what I when I used to butt up most sort of my crash courses, stream access and my crash course and landowner relationships came when we used to do a lot of floating for some geese. Okay, and remember early on when we got interested in floating rivers for ducks and geese, like rivers that flew up through ranch land. I called trust. We were gonna get away from Montana real quick here, but this happened in Montana. I called fishing game. And uh, I was saying, Okay, so fella can float the bitter route. I understand. Um, we're gonna float down and jump shoot pass shoot for ducks and geese. What are kind of things that were up against you know, like for instance, and where I grew up in Michigan. I can't remember what it is, but you can't fire a gun within four fifty or some odd feet of a structure on someone's land. So even if you're on your own land, if your if your neighbor's place is within that distance of your border, you gotta get written permission from that neighbor before you fire off a firearm, no matter what direction you're aimed at. I was just curious, is there anything like that going on you? Yeah? I was told there that the only problem I could foresee is that you hit someone's hog use. If you hit someone's house with your shotgun, that's negligence, and that is that that's a problem for you. But no, go for it. So we start doing a lot of floating for ducks and geese. And one day we're putting in at illegal access on East Gallaton fixing the float through there, and a guy comes racing up to tell us that we had gotten ourselves. He was the landowner, and to explain that we were in a catch twenty two. He was saying, uh, I'm watching you when you hit a duck down and it lands on my land. If you go to get that duck, I'm gonna get you for trespassing. If you don't go and get that duck, I'm gonna call in for wanting waste. So watch it. And we always are real careful about not tipping ducks around the guy's property. But that that was the first time I ever started really getting into that that use thing. And again for him. Imagine he's motivated by a handful of things. Maybe the guy likes to hunt ducks, and just on a purely selfish level, he just kind of piste off that at uh, that he can't have this private supply of ducks. Maybe at another level, he's piste off for watching guys sending ducks sailing off into his alf alpha field and they don't go pick it up because they're afraid to go trespass. And he sees like some like real wasteful activity and might wonder why the hell would you float such a small river that you can't go retrieve birds off of without trespassing on my land and then leave like cripple ducks laying around. It's outrageous just because someone is I just pointing out, like, like, you know, just because almost opposed to stream axis might be based off of various things. I don't want to to sell it as this like rich versus poor kind of thing, which is tempting to do when so many of the most vocal critics of stream access happened to be billionaires who are coming from out other cultures into a place and being a little bit baffled by what goes on a lot of the helme owners don't know. I mean, that's that's a bottom line. A lot of them don't know that it's not theirs. They bought this and they don't know. And I've spent a lot of time in Utah with my friends I fish with their kind of going door to door even though we know we're going in a legal spot, and that spots, you know, the provo and the we were have just been pushed down because so much public use has been locked down. And so now when there is a public spot and you go in there, you talk to the homeowners around it just to chit chat with them and see if they know what's up. They know the laws, and every time it's appealed, then everybody gets confused. And you know, in a new one mile piece of water opens and then that gets appealed and shut down and open, there's a lot of confusion that goes on around it. Like you were just saying with the show, you know, people are like, ah, what's going on? Which is kind of why back Country Hunters and Anglers is is really focused right now on putting together one place where everybody can go to learn about what laws are applicable where you live. Yeah, which is a great resource. And and sego because what's that river in Virginia Jackson? Okay, this is an interesting river. Now I'm gonna lay. I'm gonna lay some groundward. You tell me when I mess up, and I'll tell you when I run out of stuff. I know about. Jackson River in Virginia was a warm water river, warmwater stream. They put in a big tailwater damn. Correct, putting a damn that created a tailwater. Putting a dam that created a tailwater. What a tailwater is is where you build a dam and you be a big empoundment of water. Now, when you impound water, have a lake, the water at the surface tends to be much warmer than the water down below, as is known to anyone who's ever been swimming and dived down to the bottom and it gets real cold all of a sudden. A tailwater instead of drawing, instead of releasing water from the surface, which is like what a beaver pond does right where the water flows off the top of the beaver dam, a tailwater releases water from the bottom of the water column and it sends out cold water. What a tailwater does by sending out all that cold water. As you create a cold water fishery, and it allows you to have cold it allows cold water species to flourish. Trout like cold well oxygenated water. Tailwaters generally are great for trout because you're sending continuous cold water year round. It's not sun baked and all heated up. And you can have places like the White River in Arkansas the Jackson River in Virginia that will support great trout fisheries because the fish are always getting nice cold water no matter how hot the weather is. This river had never had a stream access debate. There's just a river people could use. The tailwater came in and also became a destination trout fishery. Landowners along the river we're like, man, it would be sweet if only I could fish east trout. Boomer that all these other mofos can come down here floating and fishing. They got to digging around and realize that when King George the First and King George the Second did some land grants back in the old timey times, they'd be like, man, you're a great guy. You've always done great service for us. Here's a gigantic hunkle land this is pre us, all right, this is when we were a colony. They would that when he granted, When King George granted chunks of land, this sort of initiated the idea of private property ownership in the US. He pointed out that you own the whole damn river and everything that's in it. So based on that, now that there's something in there that I really want, based on that, we're gonna get together and make a play to say no one can access the Jackson River of Virginia except private landowners along the banks. It's so complicated, if I understand, it's correct that the fishing game in Virginia. Rather than trying to clarify the issue it's so complicated, they just alert anglers and floaters to the fact that you may encounter landowners who are making certain claims. We don't know what to tell you. Break that all down well, and I think it's it's gone. Like there's been a lawsuit over it. There wasn't actually a kayaker who got like busted by one of these landowners and they said he was trespassing. So they there was a lawsuit over that to try to find him for trespassing. And uh, this is only gone from what I know, it's only gone to one level um of judge, and that judge side with a landowner. And so right now, like that area is closed down to fishing to float into anything. And so like to me, though, Steve, like that's that's what we were trying to get away from when we created America, right And like when you think about like the um, like we established this country to where the water belong to the people, in the wildlife belonging the people, you've already you know, we've talked about that earlier, and you know, the States kind of as our manager of that. And and to me, that flies in the face of that. And so I I think if somebody challenges that up to a higher court, I think we will win that one, because when I start hearing King's grants from the sevent hundreds, I'm like, that's what we revolted against, you know, like that stuff doesn't matter anymore because it did then, like the East Coast would look a lot different than it does right now. GG doesn't get to do that. So I like, like, to me, I think that one will be challenged and will win. Um. But right now it's definitely a confusing piece. Yeah, as far as the the way, you know, the the European system in the American system. So the European system um goes back to like think of Robin Hood, right, Robin Hood was a was a poacher because the king on the wildlife and Robin Hood would go out and hunt and you could get in a lot of trouble for hunting in England and other places because wildlife only belonged to wealthy landowners. The US is a direct repudiation of that system, where we have an excellent arguably and I'm not just saying this because I'm American. We have the best wildlife management system in the world, which has been proven again and again um to to work very well. And we have what's called public ownership of wildlife. Wildlife is held in a public domain, meaning that if a trout is swimming in the river, it doesn't matter whose land he crosses. He remains the property of the people of that state, the public. Um. If an elk jumps, If an elk is in Yelloso National Park and he jumps a fence and goes onto National forest land, and he jumps another fence and goes onto BLM land, and he jumps another fence and goes onto a private ranch, and jumps another fence and becomes into a municipal park. Throughout all of his wanderings, he has remained a possession of the people. Now, you might be able to control access to that elk, but you never take ownership of that elk. So one thing that's at stake when we're talking about access to waterways is it's a way. It's a tool by which people can come in and try to subvert our system and try to take ownership of wildlife resources that belong to the American people. It's just it's just one of many tools in a tool bag that you can use to claim something that traditionally is not yours to claim. No, tell you about another river, um, I mean, I think it's a good story from a Missouri river, right, not the Missouri River, but ver I think like the story of Missouri is about all their rivers. I mean, I think you know a lot of people think that this is just a Western issue. Yeah, That's what I'm trying to get away from because growing up in Michigan, I remember one time when I used to run mink traps. I was at Cedar Creek where one twenty across the Cedar Creek and Cedar Creeks a navigable river, and I remember having uh D n R officer, like a basically a fishing game officer come and and tell me that I had to pull my mink traps on the upstream side of the bridge because downstream side was Manaestee National Forest, upstream was private ownership. I would jump into the creek on the Mannaestee National Forest side, go underneath the bridge and waiters, and then set mink traps in the water on the upstream side, which I knew to be legal. He was confused about the issue and told me that I wasn't actually allowed to do that. I had to stay on the downstream side, even though it's a legally navigable river. So was my point there. I think you're trying to say it is not a Western issue. So here I am a dude traviling mink in Michigan having the same conversation. But for some reason, it's become like I don't know why it's become a West, why it's dan why it's perceived as the Western issue. When we got like Virginia and we got what you're gonna talk about, aream. And they've tried to do the same thing they've tried to do in Montana is changed the laws. And so in Missouri you do have the right to wait up to the high water mark in Missouri. And so there's been two attempts now at their legislature to repeal that and change the law. And so the people once again in Missouri and show me state stood up and said no, not here. And so that said, these folks aren't going away, you know, I mean, they want to kind of take this this stuff for themselves. And so I think that's one of the things, is like this vigilance, like I mean it. And and we've talked about this before on on the whole public lands divester issue, is that we're a very young country and there's been folks trying to take things for themselves ever since Roosevelt kind of, you know, started this whole idea of the land belongs to the people, and and there was stuff that happened before that too. But the reason we still have public lands and public hands, and the reason we still have stream access is because countless people have stepped up and said that's not, that's not what America is. America was established in a different play us or in a different way, just how you described it. How it's different from the European model, right, and so um, these are these things will continue to happen. But in Missouri, Yeah, I mean it's that there's definitely an attack on um uh stream access and that we're able to push it down, But that doesn't mean it's not gonna come back again. Cal And what do you think about all this? I got a case in New York State. Oh okay, Uh, this information comes from by a beautiful, young, smart attorney in Helena, Montana. Used the date. Yes, what happened there? Like? Why did that relationship network? Oh? Like I said, we just uh, you know, grew apart. You know, part of it is this bird dog that she didn't train to hunt birds. And I just can't wrap my head around that. And that caused the rift of your relationship. Yeah, things can kind of separated from there. Uh And you called her up and and or send her some sort of message. Yeah, yea, so she did some some bird dogging she married now, Uh, no, no, she is not what do you guys, taxes or any innuendo. Oh but that's just kind of her sounse of humor. There's no chance that's going to get going again. You know, I don't think so. I think I've burned that bridge down at right now, let's think about that. Yeah, she's an environmental lawyer. Yeah, she wants all of it. Yeah, And what's the get what's what's what's the New York state deal? Okay? So um two thousand thirteen, Access was challenging New York um and a man's canoeing down a navigable waterway, yes, to portage his canoe. That portage takes him across land that is posted for no trespassing landowner because of a beaver dam or whatever. Yeah, log in the river some sort of obstruction, and uh so the landowner sues or you know, uh tries to dig this guy for no trespassing. He brings up the navigable wall a way in the U. S. Constitution says that you can use uh land even above the high water mark to get around obstructions to navigate this thoroughfare. Essentially, two thousand sixteen, uh, New York Supreme Court declines to rule. So, uh what happens is since they declined to rule. Um, the you know, the predetermined laws stand, which means you can trustpass on somebody's land to continue your travel. If a log or be ver damn or whatever, you can't hang out there, you just have to keep going. Correct. Yeah, I read this morning that portaging because it's it falls under something you would do while boating, hunting, fishing, whatever, that would then be encompassed in using that waterway, and so it would fall under legal use. And the right to navigate includes the necessary incidental use of bed and banks. Oh, now, Yahn's explain like when when you're working, because every state is different, explain the situation in Colorado is that where there's weird ship like you can float down the river, but you can't set the anchor. Yeah, explain that that's weird. Well, And I think that's where it does get really tricky on which I was talking about earlier, is because like they have the navigable waterway things figure it out where they're like they can't put a fence across it and keep it from going down it. But Colorado, the state has chosen to say that the land underneath is owned by somebody and not by the people and so if you own just the water z owned by the people, not the not the vessel holding the water exactly, even though all these rocks are tumbling down. Yeah, I've never thought about that. You made a good point. It's like that river bed is just constantly changing, like your rock is on the neighbor's rock or the neighbor's property, you know everything. I'd be out there being like something nothing rolled down to your land. Yeah. So no man, we uh, I don't know if you guys have to do that guy in here in Montana, but in Colorado. I mean there's this tricky do with your raft is you're pulling behind you would know every single rock that had just enough like reverse current where you could pull in and you had to re ray everybody. You get way too far, sorry, explain the problem. Oh yeah, So you're floating down these rivers that you want to fish, and it's private land on both sides, both sides. And the rivers, uh, the Eagle River, the Calbado rivers, they're going fork. It doesn't matter anyone. You're floating in that state, big famous rivers. Yeah, if you're going through private property, you cannot anchor you can't pull over. Can't wait, you can't wait. You can't get out of the boat. You can't even stick your boat onto a rock to stop. You can't push pole, you can't push pole, you can't grab willow branches, hold yourself in place. Nothing, Just you in the water. That's it. That's the only So you can't beat up on a rock that's out in the river because you're using that dudes rock. Yeah, So what we would learn how to do is you'd find just the right rock that had just enough eddie for like twelve and a half foot super puma, and you pull in there and you'd have the guy actually in the back looking down and be like, let me know if I'm bumping that thing, and you'd sit there and like, just do these little feather strokes and drop your awards underneath your knees. Tie tie tie tie tie. Put him back a couple of feather strokes, tie tie tie tie tie. He took up on the bank, and there'd be the dude on the a TV just sitting there watching, just waiting, and he knew who I was, you know, I mean, he just he'd had a cell phone and be calling the shop, you know, on that rock again, just passing. You pee off the boat. They have to pee off the boat. Oh, they can't climb up on the bank to pee. You know, we were when we were fished this week. Our our boat was so filthy. I had my boy peeing right into the boat. I was like, hurt anything now, man, it's a boastal full of slide and drink some more water we clean to clean this thing. First, I had them peeing over the edge, but it was so way be ap phrasing and fall over and I had a pet at the bucket. That's them. I just go ahead. There's a lot of very defined systems up there for the fish shack is you well know. And whenever one of those systems like falls apart, it's so apparent as to why you bring x amount of buckets a cooler, Yeah, scrub brush out of stuff like that. Was one time he was whizzing in the boat and Callian picked up all the basketfull of perforated basket full of shrimp tails and moved it up to a seat, which all right, we had about three inches of muddy guts blood water in the bottom of the boat. And He's like, hold on, I gotta bean Steve and I are cleaning trimp right there, and it's a laundry basket full of the shrimp knots and laundry basket, a perforated basket. It's like, yeah, it was not they sell them. It's a fishing basket. He found that one beach comb. Oh nice, but yeah, it looks just like a laundry basket. You have never found basket that. Yeah, yeah, six times more expensive. He whizzes into the six inches of filth and killian, then picks up the trenches like, oh, that's what's gonna gross you out. It's not that it's bull of rotten. You make concessions. Okay, So why was I talking about Colorado? You can get on the bank, can't get on the bank. I was gonna say. It's like it was always just like a minor issue on most rivers. But as soon as like the Blue River below Green Mountain Reservoir, giant private ranch down below, there gets a bunch of giant fish stocked into it that are fed and like words, getting how are they stocking and feeding fish? The Gunnison's like that too, the upper Well, so how do they know the fish are gonna get away? Like in Texas they got that shipped down. I don't think they care. I think this is my primary stock. They can you can feed fish in the river. M hmm. I don't know. I don't know about all plays. I don't know if you can do that in Montana or even here. And I've never heard of that. No, the bucket brigade kind of thing in Glacier National Park is largely frowned upon. Do not plant fish in my zone. Yeah, it's a bummer on the you know, on the first time ever you're fishing the Gun of San, I expected to be a madhouse. I was down there visiting some shops for work, swunging to fish with the old yellow dog, and um, who's that? We literally my dog guy never heard of No, no, no, And uh, I'm fishing way and everything's great. And then I catched this fish that is so obviously a like a pen raised, you know, a super round nose, nubby little stock er. Look, pellet head, yeah, pellet fed. You know, I'm just like, what is you know, I kind of killed that stuff. This guy or his manager on this ranch. Sometimes when they were trying to like push back a little bit, they would know like because you can only floated at certain levels, you know, before you just because there's wing damns, all all these river improvements to make pools, and so when it got too low, just too dangerous to drop the boats over these damns. But so they would know, like, Okay, the river's coming up, they're gonna release water's gonna be a bunch of fish, a bunch of guys coming down to fish it. They would just power feed these fish for days ahead of time, so that when you floated through there, I mean you can see them all sitting on giant, totally full bellies. You're kidding The story I like, is this dude, Uh, this was in the back Country Hunters magazine. This dude was selling what state was this in? That he was selling exclusive access on a stream? So it's like a developer who's selling exclusive access on the street. That was that was Virginia. That's Virginia. No it's not. I know that was happening in Virginia too, but maybe it was Utah. I should know that. I felt like that was on. Wasn't it the provo or a tributary to the Provoeah? For sure? He yeah, so he sells he's got a developer gets his chunk of property and he tells people you're buying exclusive access. It turns out it's not. It's public access. So the people get pissed at the guy they bought the land from. The guy that bought the land from turns the developer turns around and sues some other dude for having messed this whole thing up. I mean, that's the whole thing Victory Ranch up in Utah. I mean it's a development, right, so this is the place. Well, um, I think one of the main things is if it's a development, you aren't doing your own rece arch necessarily on that area. It's almost like in a lot of these kind of large subdivisions, you have these amenities that are just described to you, right, and that kind of to use one of the amenities. If you're doing your own research, you look into what river you're buying your property on. But if it's a big subdivision, you just know it's kind of one of the things. Like, for example, we also there's this like big orchard over here, and like we're gonna put like this big group swimming pool in the middle, and now there's a river here. There's all these amenities, right, And so I think a lot of these people, um, we're kind of told that this is just one of those basic amenities that you get as part of it, and that was sold to them as exclusive um access in use. But then when it turned out not to be, then they're like, well, let's make it so you know, and they're like, we can't give you your money back. Yeah, And so they start to find out it's not. And it wasn't like just going quietly into the night. It was like, okay, well we're going to fight for to make it as we said otherwise, what how much value is that reducing and whatever it was that they purchased. How much of that was because of the river? Right? So they can't give them money back. They already bought, they already have their landscaping out, they already whatever. And so now instead of just saying, actually, we messed up, they're going let's change the law and let's make it yours. What percent now, as a fishing guide, what percent of the of time do you spend in your in your terrain where you guide? What percent of time do you spend fishing water that is flown through private land? Well a hundred percent of the water on which I guide is public access, public use. So it's the middle fork in the north fork of the Flathead. But River Left on the middle fork, for example, has a significant amount of UM privately owned property. Can so River left is as the river's flowing, everything on your left. So even if you spilp your boat around. Yeah, so if you're looking upstream, river or left is going to be on the other side. The river left is always left side as the river flows. River right is always right side as the river flows. So on the middle fork of the Flathead, UM River right ten feet above high water mark technically is Glacier National Park, So that's all national park. So you know that that's all public land. You just know that's what the boundary is as a professional guide and hopefully as a as a private floater as well. It's not a permitted river, so anybody can float it. And then River Left is going to be UM, state, federal, and private land. So it's split up just in different zones based on kind of UM you know, state ownership and it's for service and it's also privately owned and it's important to own Montana. The land owner does not have the responsibility to post that land. It's the user, the person that has the responsibility to know where those boundaries are and where you are as a human being. That's good to get into right there. I want to talk about that, and that's that's complicated, but but it's that's huge. That's what I was saying before. It's our sponsibility as the user to be well educated. Otherwise we're going to get those big bright orange reminders on the trees. And I hate floating down the river guiding my people, and that's what they see, you know, private property. Keep out, dada, because if those are gone, it looks like this, you know, beautiful place that we all know and love and you take your photo and you know, carry on and it's great and you point out and you you believe that a lot of those signs are there because of us public users not respecting. Yeah, I think it's either and I haven't seen it. I haven't seen like disrespect really on the river where I work. I think I think locals are great. I think the visitors are great. I think the visitors do a lot of homework. Um, the biggest way they could do that is by going with guides, you know, by by having somebody show you how to do it, and maybe next time that they they'll come back they can do it themselves. But I think a lot of it is, um, somebody either did something wrong, or there's the fear that something bad will happen there. The private landowner is afraid that, um, somebody's going to come up on their property and something bad is going to happen, or maybe which isn't unreasonable. Yeah, they're they're gonna somebody's gonna get hurt in there, sue them, or else maybe they'll break into their house. I mean, people love to have that back back deck open, you know, facing the river all the time. Somebody gonna come in and steal my ship, you know. Can I let my kids play out there and there's all these people coming by? Is that even safe? You know? I Mean, it's that typical fear in America that we have. And it's hard for me, just because I've grown up there and I've worked there for so long to see that change happen. And it's like, oh man, no, it's just me. Hey, you know, it's cool. I'm not gonna hurt you, you know. And so I think that's just kind of one of those growing things we see in America as of fear and love for that to stop, and we have to be the ones to stop it just by being really respectful of those private landowners for sure. So to answer your question about like who's UM when when I guide as a private property is it? Is it UM, state or federal? It's really cool that it's a mix. Like caw said, it's up to us to know the rules and where I work. It's really cool that it's a mixed. Now on the north fork of the Flathead, the boundary goes right smack dab down the river. Um, in the middle of the river, there's a line cheapest part of the deepest channel exactly. So UM, if you're floating the river, river right is going to be that mix of state, federal and private land. River left is going to be all park side Glacier National Park. So the middle fork in the north Fork form the two boundaries. The boundaries right smack dab down the middle. So that's why we tell everybody to get as the river's administered the same way. Or you actually can't fish one side of the river without a certain you you can fish both sides. It's it's hysterical because that's why. UM, in Glacier National Park you don't have to have a fishing license. Actually you can fish in the park without a license and it's free. UM, but we make everybody get it because the same thing, like you were talking about the ducks, you catch a fish and then on on park side where it's free or whatever, and it swims over to the other side, and like you land it on the other side, you know, up up for debate a little bit. So everybody gets everybody has to get a fishing license, and we try not to park. You don't really camp River left on park side because you don't have a backcountry permit. Always camp River right where it's for service, because you know, that's a four service camp. Even as if it's not an established camp, you can camp there without it being an actual campground. But it's got to be on the public land. Yeah. Within the fish small mouth uh and a lot of other things. On the Delaware River, which is a wild and scenic you know, designated wild and scenic river flows between in the stretch. I used to fish flows between New York and Pennsylvania. UM, wildfish slam offs be caught uh over the years, nine different species of fish out of that river. Um. But anyways, those two states came up with a collaborative agreement, which is pretty nice. I wish it happened more where you could hold a license from either side and fish both sides. And they came together and made a a regulation with bag limits and methods and seasons that made it so that river was jointly managed in a way that made sense to people. When I used to live in Sue Sat Marie, Michigan, you have a gigantic river to St. Mary's River, which one side of the US, one side Canada, and there was a line running down there. It was not easily discernible, and the seasons and structures were very different on each side of that line. It would create a lot of confusion for people out in boats. There's a story of Buddy Mine, a guy who works at Bench Made was telling me about a bass fisherman who's in a tournament and in the Mississippi River and it's very confused, like what states waters here and he's where it's several different states come together and one of the states you can't high grade fish, meaning if you catch a fish and put in your live well, and you gotta limit, and you catch a bigger one, you turn one of those fish out and put the bigger one in. So unknowingly he crossed the line and high graded a fish in another state and and broke a state law and wand up losing some absurd amount of money because it's a fishing tournament over that little differentiation there, and it does get a little bit complicated. Um. I was always glad, like I thought it was cool that Delaware did that, But that's usually not the case. You can get some really confused ship. When one side of a bank is owned, you know it's managing somewhere in the R side's managing a different way to the Colorado point. I was just trying to think about what it would be like to not be able to touch the rocks in the beds and stuff like that. Where where I guide because I'm out of the boat all the time, not just you know, to fish it right, you know, sometimes we walk the boat sometimes, you know, it gets so skinny. I don't want to use my oars and I don't want to bang rocks or whatever, and so you know, I'll move the boat myself. But but also because being stewards of that river means we have an awful lot of things we have to do to help we pick up a ton of trash, for example, you know, get people out of a jam, Like I'm pushing boats off you remember all the hand like all these people coming down they get stuck on rocks themselves. You're pushing them off rocks all the time and helping people out, giving people directions. You know what happens if you see trash, you're not allowed to go pick it up because you're afraid to get in trouble, you know. I mean, it just seems weird to not be able to be an actual steward of the entire piece. That everybody's got this own little bubble that they go into. It's nothing, it's not the right way where I'm at. I'm at it with some of your things. I can totally, I totally understand the other side of the issue. I can. I understand it because, like I said, I grew up on a lake that had public access. I own a place now that has uh it's on public access waterway. I understand both sides of the issue because I understand the feeling of man, does it suck that on the lake where I grew up. When the blue gills come up on the beds in early June, they get hammered by dudes who walked down that access. I understand, Dan, you'd be like, man, I should call up and do a little sniffing around and find a way to make it that they can't come and do that, because people are just like that. I think that we're like that over fishing game, where I imagined that the earliest wars we fought as our species, definitely the earliest wars we fought in this country were wars that we fought over access to fishing game, who's hunting grounds or who when you go When Lewis and Clark were traveling through traveling across the West, a lot of the places where they recorded the greatest concentrations of game turned out to be uh contested hunting grounds between different tribes. The Noman's lands borders between different tribes where it was not safe to go hunt and fish because of the chances you'd run into your competitors, and those areas tended to concentrate game. So we've always kind of like fought over access points and fought over rivers and fought over control of the Ohio and control of the Cumberland Gap. No, no no, no, because we wanted those little things for ourselves. I get it. But the same way I do when it comes to issues of clean air and clean water, Um, what I do when it comes to issues of public access, I am generally gonna just instinctively side on the side of access. Public access. It's like, it doesn't mean I don't understand the other arguments. If I was, I could go in and argue all day long, and I could probably be fairly convincing at it, like I have that much of a grasp bottom. Um. But if we don't watch out and protect public access, I feel as though we are gonna slowly just get beat. Well here's my my Pollyanna pipe ups. Here's what I don't get a about that private ownership is I love the hell out of sharing it. I mean, you're blue girl thing too, I guarantee. Well, I don't know. I don't know. Like there's something about going out there and like helping people get into them. I mean really, and I challenge I bet you have that too. I don't maybe not. I like to share the fish stack. However, how much time did you spend trying to get me a yellow eye? Yeah, I was the only person fishing, and I think it was the writer John Gearritt who pointed out great fishing. Writer pointed out there's two kinds of fishermen. There's the guys in your party and enters the assholes. So yeah, I love to take people out. But at the same time, now there is a Native tribal corporation that owns a lot of land near my fish shack. When they go in and cut timber, they clear cut it, they annihilate the place. And the one I talk about Cela, they're going into do a big cut right now, just what we saw, and they are gonna annihilate all the old growth on the two big end. Let's buy My place is their land, right their property. It makes me feel sick the destruction that we saw in three days without them taking a stick of lumber out, not one stick lumber out, just getting things prepped to start taking lumber out, dynamite. They will go after the They will go after every scrap of old girlth they can get. So it's private land, you know, and I do. There are parts of me I look and go like it can never be like, why can't the tribal corporation look at that and be like, yeah, I gotta like it like that. It's just there's just something about It's just kills me. It kills me To bring her back to a point point being I understand all the complexities and idiosyncrasies and hypocrisies, right, I don't want someone telling me. If someone came and say, hey, man, you can't do that on your property, I'd be like what. Meanwhile, I look across the beach and I'm like, how can have sons of bitches do that on their property? So it's just like we are full of personal biases that we're always looking out for our own well being. I could point to you, Hillary and say, well, you know what, you're running the business selling flies to people who are fishing on the rivers that flow through private land. You guide clients, right, So you're just looking out for your bottom line, and that's why you're trying to dress up this issue as something that benefits the people. What we're really talking about your money, right, I just need the money because it's if it's shut down, I won't get to But that's a really good point. I mean that is actually a huge part of it. Look at all of the guides, look at all of the outfitters who we all work together for our livelihoods, and we all go to the grocery stores, real center, kids of school, all this, you know, continues on. So it is true. It's a very good point. Looking out for public lands and public access and use is a way of sustaining our families and sustaining our livelihoods, especially in a lot of these small towns where we've got three months to do so. So hell yeah, I want to sell the flies, I want to get people on the rivers, and it is a way of looking out for myself. Can I point out something about the tribal corporation is clear cut in the land. They are wonderful about public access. You don't need to ask. You can hunt and fish on their land. Go ahead. Yeah, it's complicated. It's the renewed timbers of renewable resource. My house is built out of wood. That ship got cut down somewhere. Okay, it provides jobs all that, But we always have these things, but we are always sort of looking out for our personal interests. I'm just trying to make this point, Okay, I'm trying to make this point. I'm trying to say, yes I have. I'm gearing up to make the point that, yeah, I have stuff to gain personally from public access, like the hunting fish. But I do think that it's a little bit bigger than my own needs. I think that I'm on the winning side of history when I say that that it's something I think we need to do with an eye toward future generations. Roosevelt talked about preserving wildlife and preserving land for the generations still in the womb, the womb of time, the womb of time, Okay, beyond us. Because of my occupation, I have no shortage. I could hunt and fish the rest of my life on private property and enjoy the best hunting and fishing the world has to offer. Right. I happen to be lucky enough to be like, we're doing what I do for work. I have great connections. I don't need this stuff, but I do like to see it because I think about future generations and what will their relationship be to the out of doors, What will their perception of public resources be? Will they have a vested interest. Recently that the director of the U S Fish and Wildlife Service. Dan Ash gave his speech, gave a talk, and what he talked about was conservation becoming irrelevant as people turn away from the out of doors and become more engaged with just electronics the indoors, as we become more urban and less rural, that people will just not give a ship what happens with the woods and waters. Okay, By enhancing public access and giving people as many opportunities as possible to enjoy the out ofdoors, to enjoy woods and waters, you increase the likelihood that those same people will stay interested in clean air and clean water is the long game. Do I gain something from it on a very personal level on a day to day basis, Yes, But I don't think you should take that and turn it against me when I point out that we are talking about something a little bit big or didn't catch a fish absolutely ourselves. I do that shorthand, Um, that was a lot more eloquent than I would do it. But I said, it's like the access is the gateway drug conservation. Yes, right, and so without that access, like what you just said, then why do you care? Right? And so if you have that access and you get out there and get yourself. I'm wors in it. And then you start to learn intersecrecies of all that all works together and what part you play. So it's just a gateway drugs what it is. Yeah, ed Abby wouldn't have written Desert Solitaire if he didn't hang out outside. Jim Harrison would have written wolf Right if he hadn't spent a bunch of time in the here on National Force. It's like exposure leads to advocacy. I also guide a lot of people from the city who are trying to get away from their lives doing whatever it is that they do in the city where you're talking about. Those are kind of potentially the people who might create less need for woods and waters. But they need to get away somehow, right, So they come away for a weekend and they come out and and my point to them is no, no, I'm glad you came out here to get away, but you need to not come out here to get away. You need to come out here to be part of it because it belongs to you, it belongs to all of us, and you need to continue to contribute to it. So this is yours as much as it is mine. This isn't like Disneyland, where this river's on rails and you've paid and you're I'm gonna take your round around in circles. This belongs to you. So so don't think of getting away from it. Being in the city and having all your electronics in your life. Make it part of your life. Come out here and say this is every bit of my life. Is what I do from my nine to five. Welcome American to your river. To your river. I mean, this is not you getting away. This is like, this is an extension of your life and then your kid's life. And when they look at it like that, they're like, oh my god, I never knew. And then that ownership comes out in them. They feel like, God, well, we gotta we have to look at protecting this. This has to be here for future generations. I didn't know. I didn't know this was here for my children's children, and I'm like, how do not? But now you do. And so then what happens is then they go back to the cities and they can be able to make plans to come back next year and maybe it will be two years, but doesn't matter. It's in their heart, it's in their head. They're able to tell their kids, they've got their photos, you know, it's the screensaver on their phone now, and they're part of it, and they're going to fight like hell to protect it because they've been there. They're connected to it now and they're going to be some of the biggest fighters and and it's soaked in them. They're never going to forget that experience. I mean, I have people who like um, ask for photos of some of our trips, uh that I need to send to them, and it's been maybe years since they've come back, but it's because somebody who's on that trip died and they want that to be part of their memorial service, you know. I mean, it's really lasting impressions and they use it. They they're the ones who vote. I mean, any of these guys here all say that, you know, voting is the number one way that we're going to be able to protect it. And those people in cities who potentially you're saying aren't necessarily connected to it, I think are so connected to it because of their small experiences that they will vote for it. Good. Now we're gonna do something that was great, but that was that was like you did your concluding thought before we do conclude. I could say it again, that's what we're worried that, uh, we'll do concluding thoughts and the not that direction you deal poker, oh man, but laying I'm dictating your h that's punchline to a joke we recually got really interested in. Um uh. At my age, I find that punch lines are funnier than the actual joke. I'd rather just hear the punchline and try to imagine the joke, like, uh, Yanni's got a punch line, which is funny to me. I know the joke. I just love the punch line. There's another punch line and tell them how might dictate? Um? Yeah, tell us your I don't have any more jokes, I don't have any more funch I'm gonna I'm not gonna dictate it to you. Yeah, I'm gonna dictate to you. That are I'm gonna ask of you that you uh have your concluding thought dovetail seamlessly into what people can do to find out and get involved? Do you mind doing that? So do whatever you want to do. But but but I was starting to be my concluding clots, so like we were thinking the same thing. Wiggle it into that. Okay, okay um. I think I said before the last time we did a podcast with Land, I had my allies and adversaries mixed up. But we need to find more allies outside of our blah blah blah. I think so. And I was of hunting and fishing, and I think likes to get more people. So the conservation isn't irrelevant. You know, we need to like expand and always be accepting and joining hands. And I think everybody knows that new hunters and fishermen and new recreators. Sometimes the hardest thing, one of the greatest hurdles we hear about all the time is the is access. You know, where to go, how to get in there, you know what I get into it. So I feel like that's where this, you know, it makes a lot of sense to me. It's like, let's let's keep it all. Let's keep it access because that is how we'll get more people into it, you know, And don't you know it all the time, but it's like it's like it doesn't really work. It's utopian. Why there's always people and I I there's always people who like want to bring in all the stakeholders. Yeah, okay, but you have so many conflicting stakeholders. But we can catch and release guys and the harpoon guys you got like like yes, yeah, but if they don't have the water, then it doesn't matter if they catch really so harpoon. I love the idea of having all all the stakeholders come together, but when they all come together, there's always like a lot of little things, the squabble, but the like yeah, I wouldn't really describe me syric CLU does they do a lot of great stuff. It happens to be that they often times are at odds with hunting. Sure, and that's why that's my point is that don't go into that conversation with the member of the Sierra Club thinking that they are immediately at odds at hunting. Tell them the meat eater message, the story, and I think a lot of times you'd be surprised that you can sway them and get and we can be on the same team. Yeah. No, I support it, I work toward it, but I just I'm starting to get I've started to get I don't know. No, I just think that you often we're just doing the opposite though. It's like instead of just being like, Oh, it's never gonna work. We're already like, screw those greenies. They're not gonna help our cause, where maybe they would if you just pitching the right story, which I think you do all the time unnoyingly through your words and show and whatnot. Onoul't you agree with that? Yeah, you were saying you showed your wife meeting, right, she wasn't gonna watch a hunt and show checks your thoughts at the end of your cluing thought, Um, you wanted him to go. Yeah, I do say, yeah, No, I mean people need to be involved. People need to be involved, and they need at least some taste to know at least what they're missing out on and at least a little bit of you know, people like us, like what makes us so crazy about it? Um? You know. The thing that that bugs me about conversations like this is I think a lot of people have a tendency to argue it as an US versus them, um, a rich versus poor issue. Yeah, like I was doing earlier, and I think that's dangerous as dangerous it is so easy and and like I'm not like I've studied rhetoric formally, and I know that if you want to win rhetoric rich versus poor cells. Yes, there's a lot more than as we've learned, as we learned now and the presidential race. You can do rich versus poor even when you're rich, which is weird. Yes, but I'm telling you, man, if you go out on a big public waterway and jam a harpoon through the guilt play, it's a big halibit and you watch this plume, beautiful red blood come up to the surface, Yeah, tell me more. I'm following you. You get so locked into this that you would fight to your dying breath to tech any access be you a New York State native in a canoe or a Montana fly fisherman, you know, trying to hop over a bridge as a legal access point. Did I wrap that up? Still floating? No, you're good, alright? Do I any other points? Nope? No, sir, Really, you're still getting text messages from the lawyer. Well I did today, why, just to try to to try to patch things up. No. No, I didn't make my own bed. I can't hear my own laundry, but I can make my own bead. What's your concluding thought, No, I think that just what Calah and that's he and I will reiterate his reiteration of what I said too. Is that your connection to it. If it's the big bloody plume, it's nature, it's wildlife, it's the outdoors, you're connected to it. You understart to understand by your own experience what access means, you know, And I think that's huge, And I think that, um, yeah, it's something different for everybody, and it's something different wherever you are and however you play. But the more that you can tie your own experience into sharing it with others and passing it on down, then that's when we all start to understand it a little bit better. Good are You're gonna come back to you in a minute. You think I have something more to say. No, my compluting thought is a question. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna skip out of turn because I want to end with your deal you're cooking. I'm just wait. Here's my compluting thought. If you're as a guy. As a guy, let's say you take a client out and you you take them down a stretch river and you're like, here's what's up, Here's where the fish like the lay, Here's what we're getting them on right now, do this, do that? Don't bother there? I know that whole looks just like that whole wherever there's no fish, and this whole gold fish that hole. And the next day there he is. Do you get piste or are you happy? I'm happy now, I'm not kidding, but are you not? Is that a normal guide feeling or a not normal guide feeling? Yeah? So I know what you're talking about, because there are guides that I've been to different places, you know, have fish all over the country and everything. And there's places I go where I genuinely, sincerely have no idea what happens in that fishery. And I step up and they could tell him and ask him what what they're using, what flies are using. I'll cover up the fly that they have on the rod with their hand. They don't want me to see it, you know, or else. Sometimes guides always talk about how the flies in your hat up here, these flies up in my hat. This is actually when I'm fishing. But there's lots of places you go where they intentionally put the wrong fly in their hat to make you think as a visitor, that's what you use. And then you're the dork out there, you know, throwing big chubbies and that's not what they're using, using tiny p you know. So it's like that it does exist what you're talking about. However, where where I live in Glay Sure Country, we have a lot to share. So it's not just the rivers and the fish. I mean, honestly, don't care. I don't care. There he is the next day standing in the Yeah, and you're like, how do I know this guy both that I guided him here yesterday? You're like, hey, he's gonna have giardia in a few hours anyway, He's no, I'm just kidding. No, I am talking to a guy with incredible wealth and knowledge of the area. Though too some you know, Greenhorn comes in and goes to the spot where he caught the fish. He's not going to catch a fish. He's gonna catch fish in that, but you know he's not. He's got a lot to work. Yeah, Like, yeah, I get it. They don't know, Hilary, he's still gonna do that. Yeah. No, it was more of it. And I'm not asking because I want to understand her perspective' asked, just to understand this thing I'm in my head and I'm just curious and I am plotting the thing out in my head, trying to wag whether how on coal it is to do what I want to do. And I was just seeking some opinion from a guide. No, I personally have no go screw a guide over. No. I mean there's a typical fy I, this is what I look like. I can't see me. Um. No. I mean, there's definitely ethics involved, but that isn't one of the things that bugs me. And it happens all the time, you know, and a lot of times. To be real honest, To take it a step further, people will come into my shop and they'll book a trip with me, and then I'll draw them a map for the next day literally and give them the flies for the next day, because I want them to do it right. I don't want them to go out there and do it wrong. So if they book a trip, they fish with you on Monday, yea, they're still in town. Yeah, you're like, Okay, here's what you ought to do tomorrow. Yeah you bet, And it's going to be legit like it's super serious. I'm not going to send them in the wrong spot. I'm not going to send them where I want them to go, because that's not where the fish are anything like that. It's really really sincere and honest. And the reason is it's because I know what I'm talking about, and I want them to do it right. I don't want them to, you know, mess it up out there. I don't. I don't. I want them to go out there with as much knowledge on their own that I can give them in my boat, and I really do. Again, maybe it's Pollyanna, but I feel like most of the guide community is the same way. We want to educate people about the fishery. We don't want to start mouthing fish. We want them taking care of the fish. We don't want them, you know, to not pinch their barbs. We want barbs pinch. We want them to have fun so that they come back and experience it. We don't want to send it up, yeah, stand on private land or make a mess like. We want them to have a freaking blast like we do. We really sincerely do. And so no, it does not bother me when I see somebody out there, um publicly fishing a place that I've guided them previously. Or I also don't look at them and go oh, those could be my dollars, like I could have taken them today. You know, I think I think that that rising tide floats all boats, getting more people out there. And and when I say more people, I'm not advocating for crazy pressure on these rivers. I'm saying that the more public access we have, the more spread out we can be. If we start to pinch ourselves down by limiting public access, then then that's gonna happen. That's gonna start to happen. I've seen it in Utah all the time. I get high hold and low hold by people and by guides actually and child high hole and low hole. So many holes, so there's um if you're fishing, uh and somebody drops in on you, same kind of goes in where you are, and then they go above you and you're working your way up maybe and then they steal that hole. That's you're getting high hold. And then the same thing for when you're getting low hold. And in boats, it's really easy to low hold somebody else. You pass them and you can drop in on them. And a lot of times that's ethically okay because you're leap frogging you kind of like get into this rhythm where you can leap frogging boats and it can be okay um. But if you're both anchored up and fishing and then you get ready to go and they drop in before you, you know, that can be low holding you too. You're you're getting ready to go and they look over their shoulder and see you and then push, push, push and go and they're kind of low holding you. So it can happening on foot, and it can happen in the boat or whatever. And that's just regular guide ethics. But it happens more when there's less public access because now you are in a battle and now I am racing against the clock and on fish and like trying to get you know, my people happy, and and I think that just recreational fishing on foot. That's when the fights happen. That's when people are like, this is my waters, my water, because now you're pinched in Utah. When we've got one mile we can fish in a certain stretch and you've got six people all just low hole in each other. Then that gets real tense, you know, and you're not gonna catch fish because people are trumping all over the place. So that's what happens when we have less area, not a real good outdoor experience. No. Absolutely, let me ask you this question. One day I was fishing and waiting and I come around a corner there as a guide. These guts. This a little picture, you know, they sit up those little tables and your clients there, and they got like wine out. It's just they're having like the little shore lunch cheesey karack or right. And he's camped out on this hole. And on my way up waiting up, I fished the hole where he's camped out having his lunch. And this guy goes ballistic online or not outline. Uh, you know again, I might be different about this. Not out of line for me. I mean, like for me again, I swear to God, I would invite you to come up and have some wine with us, you know. I mean that's just because we got in a screaming unbelievable Yeah, not out of line for me. No, It's like it's not we're taking we're taking a break. And he was in a boat. Yeah, I can see that conversation happening at the bar if you bumped into That's part two of the story on the shore. In part two of the stories, we wound up drinking in the same bar. Yeah, and my girlfriend was a bartender in the bar, and he had a girlfriend who was a bartender in the bar. And we want up hash later in a much more friendly way and agreed to disagree. He said, no, wait, he goes, You don't know that I have fished it, am gonna fish it. I'm holding the hole. No, that's not a thing. You can't hold. No, that guy is not. There is no holding the whole. No, let the whole be free. I hope that's not. Should listen and I'm sure I'm sure he is, and he's changing his ways right this. You know what that thing that happened twelve years ago. No, but if you came to Montana right now, I think you know we're we fish and stuff. That's not a thing now you don't. It's ridiculous. You don't stick a steak in and like your fly your flag. Because that's the only reason I want to tell a whole holding story. Do you know what time we started? Guy? Ye about wrapping it up to you? Well, real quick, we use fish great Lakes, whitefish in the Sioux Edison hydro Electric Dam, and there's like forty two turbans, and for whatever reason, Turban number twenty seven would get a lot of fish in it, and old men like to fish it and they would get up very very early and go tie off. So where the water comes out of the turban, there's for whatever reason he studs in the ceiling. You could tie a rope around the stud and hold yourself right in the outflow turban and drift flies for whitefish. We would go to the bar and close the bar, then get in our boat and go sleep in the turban. And that would be very irritating to people who would get up at five and we were just sleeping in sleeping bags and the bottom of a boat holding the hole that would lead to some cross looks. That is hero hole holding that I've learned a lot of terms today here is that it's one remember remember what I yeah, yeah, I know. Um, I think, like probably my cluding thought is I think this piece about us first, then you know, and I think we all lose when that happens. And whether that's the rich, verst poor or private landowners versus the like unwashed public, I think we lose. And I think we all love America America losers really and and I think one thing that UM that anglers can do a better job of. Hillary brought it up being stewards, but it's also not being at actors. You know, we talk about like the garbage that gets left places or um letting your dogs run. I mean, that's that's all stuff that we can control on our end to make sure that those relationships stay better and alleviate tension. Alleviate tension. And I think another thing that Hillary brought up is like, you know, knocking on doors and even though you know that there's public access there, uh and you can and you can legally access it, letting them know that you're gonna be there. It's just one of these friendly things that I think we're getting away from in the society. And you know, I wrote down the plain from Zula and was sat next to a guy who's a landowner and we were talking about this issue, and he said, you know, I have a place down southwest Montana and above my house about a mile there's a river access site. Below my house, there's a river access site, and people are trespassing all the time through my property. And when I go out and try to have a normal conversation with him, and be hey, there's legal access up river and down river, and then you can way back and forth all you want. We're getting a big yelling, screaming match about no, this is my river and I have stream access. And so that to me that then that story gets told by that landowner to another landowner, and then that is that way from their ten fifteen years that one story. So I think we can be better actors as just anglers in general. Um. And and so that's a segue into then knowing what the laws are right and and we've talked about some of the differences, and I'll just take you know, Montana, Wyoming, in Colorado. This is a difference in Montana where we have great stream access. You know, I can access up to the high water mark I go down to Wyoming or Colorado, and we've talked about it. If my anchors uh in the water, um, I'm trespassing. I can't really wait at all on private land like no, the laws and and so that you know that, Like I think we've talked about how in Montana prav landowners gonna have to post their land for trespassing like no, the law, we have the user responsibility. No, No, the law, and so as as back country hunters and anglers, that's what we're trying to do with our Stream Access Now campaign. First, it's just create awareness and so one you keep yourself legal, and so you know, when I go to their state and I'm over a bridge and I see some awesome sexy water, I want to go access that. But I got to the law before I jump and put my toe in one because I can get in a lot of trouble the position I'm in. But too, like, that's just a good thing for me to know. So the first one is just like knowing what I think the laws are. But then as as something Cal said is that if you don't know what you have, then why are you going to try to stand up and defend it? So that's one. If you don't know that things can be better, then why would you work to try to make them better. And so by understanding the differences of stream access laws all across this country and what it is for you in your own state, you can decide on whether that's a place where you want to try to make it better or if it's something you want to hold on too. So I think that education piece is gigantic and as confusing as some of this stuff was today and I get I appreciate you keep on bringing that back in the world. Will let's slow down and like explain this is because this stuff gets complicated really quickly. And so what we're trying to do is create a place where you have one place to go where you can you know what is legal, what is not, and how to find that information. Um, we're compiling that right now and state state by state, and nobody's ever done that before. What stream access like in Hawaii, I will tell you here in December, I'm going Actually my mother in law turned seventy and believe it or not, on Kauaie there are natural um occurring and not natural but they they planned them. And but now they're naturally reproducing rainbow trout on Kauai, which is gonna be absolutely crazy to go fish these little teeny streams with a guide. First, I'm gonna try to figure it out for myself. I'm gonna maybe one or two other days, go to their honeyoals will be sitting on there. I'm gonna hole hold on them, hold on here, hold holder. I'll be a Howley hero hold holder. And that we're arguing U. So I think it's that education piece first, UM. And then second like there's like we've heard about a couple of them already, but down in Utah Utah Stream Access Coalition U Montiana, it's really the Public man Water Access Association. There's these groups that are kind of starting to build coalitions in these states, and so we want to one help amplify their voices. And in places like New Mexico where they just lost bill by four votes in our state legislature that restricted stream access, we want to make sure there's a coalition so the next time that we have an opportunity to get that law changed, that we have people coming together. And so that's happening in New Mexico, and so we want to you know, we can't be all places all the time. What we can be as facilitators and amplify voices, right, and so trying to educate and motivate and then inspire people to do stuff. So UM stream Access now is this campaign. We've had an awesome corporate partner. I mean Hillary talked about you know, this is a huge piece of business, right If you don't have access, this whole fishing industry pretty much goes away, and yes, there will still be people fishing, but it won't be as robust and sustainable as it is right now. And so you know, um yet he is stepped up coast to fish pond, Sage Reddington, um fly lines. Women in Montown's making an awesome little lanyards out of use fly line. So like the industry unders the industry understands it. Uh. And then I think the public is starting to understand it, but they need to be educated about it. And that's pretty of what we're done. There. You have it? Is that? So? Is it like a website? Stream access now you can go to this dot org dot org. You can also find it through our back country Hunters and Anglers dot org site. We have it on there as well. All right, folks, stream access now. Next time you find yourself buzzing along fishing Walleye and you realize that you got a golf course on one side in the house on the other, think about it. Stay tuned in. All right, Thank you guys very much. Man, Thank you

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