00:00:00 Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater Podcast. We're in Douglas, Arizona, gonna be crossing into Agua Prieta, Mexico tomorrow to hunt for cous dear or cows gear dear or what all pronunciations exist out there? Cows. I don't like cows, cows, cows and cows, So don't now go and tell waste your time telling me that it's not actually cus dear. Chris Denham, and I've said this before. Chris Denham said, he's you know, he's been. I think he's probably written more pages and published more pages of information about this animal than probably any man alive. And he said that he will call him CU's dear till the day he dies fighting words. I agree. I'm here with your honest to tell us, maker of the famous hunt eat t shirts, how's that going? Johnnie, Great, Steve, Thanks Um Janice was just telling us before we started about how all the money he's made out on hunt eat t shirts. Jay Scott, who's here with us, noticed that Yannest actually has money falling out of his pocket, a little small pile of it here on this If you ever are fixing to get a hunt Eat T shirt, do it now because he's almost made so much money he's gonna be getting out of the business. For our other two guests here, y honesties to make a shirt, says hunt to measure because Jay Scott, Dark Holburn here and these guys are the guys that find the biggest critters running around in the mountains. They just go and look real quiet and patient and find him. And um, we're crossing tomorrow to go hunt in Mexico. We're not actually hunting together. You guys have clients, multiple clients going down and we're kind of riding on the um Dark Holbur and Jay Scott coattails by getting some access on to a place to go hunt. But you guys got well, what's time? January is right? You spent all January down here hunting cruised here. Yeah, typically January during the rut. What's your annual schedule like with guiding, Ah starts in September usually for ELK H September ELK and then cheap we start scouting in November and hunt cheap in December and then pretty much januarysus deer down to Mexico. And you guys, you don't like Jay, You're the only one, you don't. You don't do turkey anymore, right thar I'm back in this year, so I don't. I don't know if you followed turkeys at all. There's something kind of interesting where there's in North like in the New World. You get two kinds of turkeys. You got just the regular American wild turkey, and then you have a thing called the oscillated turkey, which lives in Central America, um extreme southern North America. But then you got like the regul old turkey we all know about. The regular old turkey we all know about is divided into five what we've traditionally called subspecies, though a lot of geneticists argue that that's a bunch of malarkey and that they're not legitimate subspecies. But you have the Eastern wild turkey, which is native to the eastern US. Then you have the uh osciola, which is in the southern half of the Florida Panhandle, and that one is the one that geneticists say is the least legitimate subspecies because there's sort of this arbitrary line which happens to exist like around Orlando, where everything north of that line is the Eastern wild Turkey. Everything south of that line is an osciola, and a Turkey could kind of walk back and forth from being an eastern to an osciola throughout the day. There's some morphological differences, like some coloration stuff, but basically it's kind of like you know what it is based on where you shot it. Then you got, uh what real grands Miriams which you're from the south southwestern US, some Texas and elsewhere. Um, then the five is the kind of coolest one in my opinion. The Goulds. It's hard to find the ghouls. There's some Gould's tags in here in Arizona. I put in form, never drawn him. Um, very limited. But most guys that want to get what are you looking at me for? I just wanted? Is that the only? Uh? Now, if you pay attention to such things, there's a there's a thing called the Grand Slam. I have a Turkey Grand Slam in that I have killed all all five kinds of turkeys, Royal Slam, and you have the world Slam. No, I don't have the world slams. I've never killed an oscillator. I have the what what kind of slam do I have? Royal Okay, a grand slam is a dude who kills four the ones. Yeah, for the four main South pieces of turkeys are for most readily available wild turkeys. I realized this is a major turkey geek stuff. But the Royal Slams when you pick up the Goulds, people who are into turkeys usually I'm pulling this out of my ass. Of the guys that need one more turkey to get a Royal Slam need a Goulds. Of the guys that need one more turkey to get a Royal Slam need an Osceola. I'm pulling out of my ask. But it's somewhere around there. If you want to get a Gould's, uh, you know, you you a long shot draw and it's like a desert turkey. You know, they live in like the sky island areas down into Mexico. If you want to get the googles, you do a long shot draw and draw a tag, or you call up Jay Scott in dark Holburn. That's the only two ways, right, Well, because these guys, these guys spend a lot of time in Mexico and they spend a lot of times scouting down there. Did you guys get into interested in Mexico because the cousier because of turkeys. And then you're like, holy sh it, there's a lot of turkeys running around here. I have a funny story just I know you go off on tangents, but just a quick tangent down here, Well, why does why does the fact that I do is that relevant? Show? I was going off on a tangent. I appreciate the warning. I was down here. You know, I've always wanted to get straws so we could drink beer through straws. And it didn't make a funny noise, and so I'm gonna do that. No one will know, just because it to make any noise. Quick tangent. I was down here scouting ranches uh In in the late summer, early fall, and I was looking at the ranch and they were making charcoal, and we come up to the to the pit where they're making it, and out walks the freaking guy from the show we filmed down here three years ago, the guy that cooked with you on the charcoal charcoal guy, same guy just doing a contract of another ring, different ranch, I mean hundred miles from there, and I got a picture of it with him. I was gonna send it to you. Yeah, but the same crazy process man, and some thankless work is smolder and giant pits of charcoal, he remembered dark. Yeah, put his arm around. Yeah, it was funny. I was talking to these boys from National Wild Turkey Federation, and they were talking about when they were bringing they were getting Google's out of Google's turkeys out of Mexico in order to do try to get them re established on native range in the United States. And they went down and struck a deal with the Iron Mexico Um that they wanted twenty turkeys and he was supposed to establish his bait stations to catch turkeys. And they would go down and use cannon traps, you know, shoots like an explosive charge and shoots the net out to catch birds. Because when they had originally were trying to do turkey reintroductions, you know, like turkeys got their dicks knocked in the dirt, like there used to be turkeys, and you know, the time of European contactors turkeys and thirty nine states or something like that. By the nineteen thirties they were mostly gone. You could you couldn't legally hunt them barely anywhere South Carolina had a few um they got wiped off the planet and they came back through just careful work, primarily by National Wild Turkey Federation and a bunch of state agencies. But anyhow, they would do hatch raised birds, but the hat raies birds they don't live that they just get decimated by predators and weather. So they started realizing no wady established her he's is to catch wild ones and move him. You can't raise him and depend and let him go. So he started coming down to Mexico to catch these birds and they paid. They struck a deal with this guy in Mexico to establish his base stations. And when he made the deal, he was excited to get the work, but he misunderstood the deal. He thought he was getting a set amount. It was real happy to do it, not knowing that he was getting that amount for each bird up to twenty So he's hauling fifty pounds stacks of corn all over in the mountains. They come down and catch all these birds and he thinks, I can't remember what it was, but he thinks he's getting like a hundred bucks. But this dude was telling me I turned around and handing him the money, and he was off by you know, a factor of twenty. So he turns around, hands the guy at two thousand dollars, he said. The guy wept. That's awesome. He thought he's doing all that, he said, this guy is just happily packing around all this stuff. So that's how the googles that came up here came up here. Um, what else about that? What I actually wanted to do is do some of our thing we do is that's it's popular with listeners as we do fan questions. That's good to have Jay and Dar here because they can weigh in on a bunch of these issues. These are good talking points. This gives you a chance to kind of hit on a lot of things that are going around in the what in the worlds of wildlife, hunting, fishing? I don't know, do you'll need might pick one out first. Yep. I like this one because you have a Now is the one that Ja and Dar is gonna be interested in or not? You know? Definitely? I think so. I think they can definitely weigh in on it because from talking to him of the last couple of days, they're kind of dealing with some of the stuff that I think we'll talk about from this question. The question is it's it's under the heading of basic beginner advice. What hunting norm exists and how would a new hunter go about learning them. I'd like to hear your advice for the absolute beginning hunter, not equipment or scouting tips, as much as the stuff most people learn while growing up hunting, like the unwritten rules of hunting public lands. For example, in my area central North Carolina, we have lots of small tracks of public land and squirrel season starts during deer season. Can I wander around looking for squirrels without ruining someone else's hunting? Do big game hunters take precedent? And I like that question because we just heard a story about that. We just heard a story up in Michigan. We were down we can talk. Yeah, yeah, we were in Kentucky. Heard a story about Michigan. We're down in Kentucky hunt with a small game. I honest said that, Uh, this guy we were with in Kentucky's name is Kevin Weaver. That he is to Kevin, sorry, Kevin Weavers a gunmaker. Kevin Murphy. Kevin Murphy is two squirrels what Neil de grass Tyson is to the cosmos. He's a squirrel man through and through raises squirrel dog his hunt squirrels. He was telling me that he left his home state of Kentucky and went up to hunt squirrels and Manestee National Forest in Michigan. He's out running his dogs and gets a bow hunter so pissed at him that the guys following him around yelling obscenities at him. I would have punched that guy in the face. That's my take on it. Public land, dude, why does the guy bow hunt deer have more say than someone else. I think there's things you can do. If you were to see a bow hunter in a treat Absolutely, you have an obligation not out. Yeah, you have an obligation, a moral obligation to work around him. But to say that you're not gonna squirrel hunt because it's bow season, I think it's ridiculous. I had a situation I was guiding an elk hunter and um here in central Arizona and there are bulls bugling all around, and we were kind of it was an afternoon hunt. We're kind of going after our first bull. All of a sudden, here lying guys bear dogs. Well, you can hunt bear. It's a very liberal season, was right during the two weeks ARCHERYOK season. So what I would say is, if you have an animal that you cant all the time, or a very liberal season, maybe you ought to maybe not go when the guys only have stay a two weeks season. That's my take. I think it's a lot of people's takes. I just had this conversation with my friend Jared Fink in Wisconsin and we were kicking around the idea of doing having Kevin Murphy from Kentucky come up to Wisconsin on farmland, which he would think he died and gone to heaven because the squirrels are there to sit and bark at you. It was a Kentucky You're smart any I was saying, man, we ought to do it before uh gun season. He's like, he crazy has both season. People are gonna let you on their land hunting squirrels during both season. So it's a common Yeah, I think a lot of people think that. Me personally, well, I don't think you should do it. I don't think you should be able to hike or walk or ride a bike or anything like that. But ever I personally would say, you know, it's up to the Fish and Game departments to maybe structure the hunts. We're up on the strip this year. There's thirteen b in Arizona. It's a ten day season, fourteen day, no ten nine or ten ten day season. Um, it's the most coveted the world, I mean, one of the best, better than the and and there's seventy deer text in a huge area but low deer density. You know, it's a it's a yeah. You guys can go days about seeing a box, right, Yes, So there's a ten day window for this hunt. Well, it opens the same time as the Chucker season, which is like I want to say, it's almost three months and we saw chucker hunters out there, and I mean there's people that have waited twenty years for this tag. Why not push the Chucker season back ten days? And so there isn't even a conflict. I mean that seventy deer hunters, how many chucker hunters are there? How many field days? Maybe they're just trying to maximize people's opportunities to get out. I see where you're calling from. But what's ten days later gonna matter? When in ten days no one's gonna be hunting deer the place to be a ghost town and they can run to from you know, second week in in November to February like they do. You know the fishing writer John Gurrick, I think it's how he says the last name. He had a great line where he said, there's two kinds of fishermen. Does the guys in your party and then there's the assholes. It's like, it's just kind of it's kind of like that, and I think that you had the key that you said, though Darry said like it's up to the fishing game. I was like, when people have questions like this about what's the right thing to do, the wrong it's gonna do, I think of them can be answered by, well, what's in the what Let's take a look at what the hunting regulations say, because a lots of stuff isn't really shouldn't really be guesswork, you look like, am I allowed to be out hunting squirrels right now? I am? You're talking legal versus so what I'm saying like, I don't think that it's some guy's job who wants to do a little squirrel hunt and whatever. Let's say it's his kids got some time off school, he wants to do some squirrel hunt. I don't think it's his job to sit down and figure out what will my squirrel hunting negatively impact someone who supposedly is doing something more valuable by hunting deer. I think it's us. I think if you've got a problem with I think, like you said, maybe maybe the state Fish and Game Agency might look and try to alleviate some of those conflicts. And I think in a lot of places they do do that, like for like Wisconsin used to have a lot of regulations about being out small game hunt in the day before deer season and all that kind of stuff. All right, I'm gonna bite on this one. Yeah, So you're saying, I'm not even gonna reply. You're saying, if you could kill what is a squirrel? Limit squirrels anywhere from four to no limit throughout the Great Country, so you can just roll out and start blasting, and a bow hunter or a guy in a deer stands got one dear tag to shoot one year. Now I'm talking about Arizona because Arizona that you know, it's a draw one year, it's you know, twenty years to get the tag. And so the chucker can go out and shoot fifteen chucker for the next ninety days. My thing would be put yourself in the position of whatever hunt that you might go and interfere, and if you feel like you would be interfering, then not do it. Wait till that season is over, and then go knock yourself off. So you think that should be the perfect you think that should be the responsibility. That's the responsibility of a guy who wants to do a little hunt with his kids. I think it's the department. I think hunter should like put themselves in the other person's situation and say I'm not going to screw up their hunt. We can we can, you know, squirrel hunt or chucker hunt anytime, or quail hunt. Let's not go out, then let's find something else to do. Or let's go in an area where there's not a lot of deer and let's stay away from him, and let's be courteous to the fellow hunter. How often do you cancel your planned activities on account of not wanting to inconvenience other people. Do you ever go to put your boat in a river and be like, you know, probably not a good day. A lot of shore fisherman today, I will tell you when I'm rolling down the river, and when when I see people on the side of the river, I go to the other side and go buy them and don't even go through their water, so I would say, And I see a lot of other guides do it too, So I mean, I think it's common to be, you know, curteious, courteous to your fellow man. So that's a good point. Put yourself in the other person's shoes, and what would you do? You are like you two are like as tight as as my friend Doug says. You guys like nots on a dog. Whenever I see one of you, I see both of you. And the fact that one are you saying it's an ethical issue and one of you saying it's a legal issue, shows that there is a place j ends and dar begin or vice versa. All Right, I don't know if we settled that answer to your question specifically specifically for that person, though I think that certainly, uh, they can go squirrel hunting during deer season, especially in the place like North Carolina where most likely the deer hunter has ten deer tags. They can feel, you know, But they're asking the question should I do it? Is it okay? So they're actually thinking about it, where a lot of people don't even think about other people. They just go do what they want to do. I want to do two total quickies and no, not even I don't. I don't even want you guys even open your mouth. Then we'll get the one that you that you guys have good something good to say about. Uh. I thought we even did this one before. Environmental stance. What's you take on environmental issues? Me? I'm a single issue kind of guy. I look at yeah, clean air, clean water, what's good for wildlife? That's how I make up my mind about stuff. Opinion on b h A, I love b h A. He's referring to Bad Country Hunters and Anglers. UM, there's a handful of conservation groups that I belong to. This This is actually segues into another question I saw about. How do you decide which groups to join? I support a handful of conservation organizations. There are many great ones, UM. I tend to pick the ones I like because they speak to things that I like a lot. They speak to animals that I like a lot. They have proven track records. UM. One of the groups that I support and advocate on behalf of is a group called back Country Hunters and Anglers. Basically, I mean they work on a lot of things, but one of the things they work on is access issues. Um. They try to preserve the integrity of wilderness areas and back country areas, and they try to open up access. Two lands four hunters and anglers. And they fight for stream access laws so that people can't lock you out of streams, so people can't lock you out of public ground that's surrounded by buffers. Um. They're a great organization. That's my opinion. Now, before we started need to stop it, Let's say a quick break. Here's one that like that I spent a lot of time thinking about and arguing with people about, and I don't really know, man, I'm kind of starting to. Let me tell you what it is. First, is hunter recruitment is scam. I think the discussion on hunter recruitment and why it's a scam should be touched on in more depth. I've seen a destroy fishing off my coast, and now it's working its way into hunting. I assume he means he's seen fishering recruitment destroy fishing, your brother, meaning my brother is spot on. Hunter recruitment is an essence hanging your own noose. Yeah, yeah, no, it's so complicated, dude, it would take forever to explain this. But here's the thing. I California. Let's start. Let's talk about California from it. California has less than one, less than one percent of Californian's hunt. The national average is five or six percent of Americans hunt. Some states that gets up pretty high, and a ten and more. Some stay it's much lower. California's less than one percent. I recently had a very high ranking person within California's fishing game department expressed me off the record, so I got I canna tell you who he is. He feels in twenty five years, it's gonna be all gone in California. It'll be done. What happens is people who are opposed to hunting whittle away around the edges of hunting. If you call up and ask Americans do you support legal hunting? An overwhelming majority say they support legal hunting. The minute you start asking them specifics, like what about hunting bears the dogs? Well, I don't know about that. What behunt bears it all? Yeah? You know they're kind of cute, Okay. The way people who are opposed to hunting work is they take specific things and bring them to ballot initiatives and other things things and and then bring them to votes or bring them in front of assemblies and and and shoot you down bit by bit by bit incrementalism. It's never gonna be that someone says like, let's have a big referendum and vote yes or no on hunting. It will never happen like that. It just happens piecemeal because on a national average, only five percent of Americans hunt. Our futures are being decided by the voters going down there. Don't even hunt. They're just going down there and weighing in and what's their opinion about activity they don't participate in. That's why I think that putting forth a strong message about hunting and advocating on behalf of hunting and explaining hunting and being honest about hunting is productive because it's necessary for the general public to see the hunting is worthwhile, helpful activity. But that alone doesn't solve everything. You there has to be some hunters out there who are out there doing it, demonstrating it, making it viable. Another thing to think about is this your state phishing game agencies. Many of them are funded with no hard funding from the state. They're funded through licensed sales and permitting. The reason they get worried about hunter recruitment is they see their budgets for things like research, enforcement of existing laws, habitat improvement, shrinking when less licenses get sold. One of the main guys I argue about hunting recruitment about with Okay, who's adamally opposed to hunter recruitment. I realized that one of the main guys I argue with hunter recruitment about and he's adamantly opposed to hunter recruitment. And all he cares about, he says, is how many trucks you're at the trailhead. That's the only thing he cares about. I realized that last year he went on a trip that was a combo walleye. Dear, I'm sorry he went on a trip there was a combo walleye turkey trip. He's fishing wall in the river that doesn't have a historic population of wall and while they were brought in through a state fishery plan, state hatchery, and he's hunting turkeys that aren't native to that area, and we're brought in by the state Game Agency along with National Wild Turkey Federation. So two hunter based initiatives. Put the turkeys on the ground, the wall eyes in the river that he's fishing for, and then he draws a mountain goat tag and a mountain range that mountain goats weren't in until the state put him in that mountain range. So you have to think long and hard about what you really care about. And we're talking about miniscule amounts. But if you think it's gonna that you're gonna be the last guy hunting and it's gonna be a shangri law, no one in the trailhead and you're not just gonna get fucked by voters and lack of funding for conservation efforts and wildlife research and enforcement. To put game wardens on the ground to stop poaching requires money. That money comes from like Pittman Roberts and stuff. It comes from duck stamps, that comes from buying hunting licenses, it comes from buying guns and AMMO exercise taxes. Dudes out walking their dogs aren't paying for the land. So you know, there's a lot of like cutting off your dick despite your balls, man, anybody else have any to add of that, I'll add something really quick. My my oldest son is eighth grade. And it's scary though when I because he hunts a lot, and I asked him in his and he knows most of the people in in his school sixth through eighth grade, and he could name and I think there's probably a hundred to two D per grade level. He could name two kids that had ever hunted before. Yeah, that's scary. If if I had a crystal ball and I could look into the crystal ball and I could see that access would stay the same, and I don't think that it would, but forget, I'm not gonna do any qualifiers. If I could look at my crystal ball and see that wildlife management would be as as viable and as productive in the future with no hunters, and that access would be as good, The enforcement of wildlife regulations would be as good with no hunters, and restocking depleted wildlife that happened but through market hunting and stuff in the late eighteen Hunters and early nineteen Hunters, which is an ongoing process, would still be as vibrant, and I could be the only guy that hunts. I'd be a little bit tempted, but that's not how it's gonna go. It's just not what happens when they put elk back into Michigan and Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Who do you think did that? When they put big horns and they're still working on putting big horns back everywhere they belong. Who you think is doing that, Peter? No. Well, one thing I might add to, and it's controversial, is you know the big auction tags and the big as you call them fat cats, you know spending Well, i've heard you say fat cats before, not specifically those because of his T shirt coming money falling out. Um, you know, that's a whole another controversial subject. But the reality we've talked about this though. Without that big money goes right into the wildlife. It goes and into the wildlife. Yeah, and it's actually set in a lot of states. It's set by law that I don't like, goes right into habitat improvement. We've talked about that before, J and I didn't and I might have said bat cast, but I use that term endearingly and it's it's very relative and in fact a lot of that money, um for like sheep, When those tags are sold, like a sheep take, it goes directly to sheep habitat specifically. That's how not just not just life, I mean specifically sheep. So that's it's a competter recruitment, a scam. I don't think so, absolutely not. Here's the thing I have had. I understand because I understand the frustration of competition, So I get that sentiment. But I have had, through my professional life, the occasion to sit down and speak with some of the most productive conservationists that are alive today, all of them and people that are well meaning and have devoted their lives to wildlife. All of them have warned me about the possible threats of low hunter numbers, and they've all expressed to me that hunters need to continue to be as generous with the next generation is the previous generation was with us. It's not about us, it's about the future generation. One of these same guys. And if we're saying hunting is a wildlife management tool, I mean if it's if it, if we go away and it's not, then I mean it's just it doesn't make sense. No, it's not. It's gonna be managed for it with a completely different set of criteria. Now, one of these guys said to me, uh, the writer I was kind of I was having I was speaking around the edges of this concert conversation with the Conservations Jim Posswitz, and he was relating to me he was at a meeting and I had to do with an access issue, opening roads into a road this area. And Jim Posswitz is, you know, he's an older guy. Now he's in his eighties, still very active, still hunts, but you know he, by his own admission, he's not the guy He's not the hunter he was forty years ago when it comes to knocking around on the mountains. Um. He was saying, he's at this thing and it was a comment period, and the guy got up and it was the older another older guy, and he's like, I've been hunting there in my whole life and now I can't get in there, and I have a right to get in There should be a road in there. And Jim Posswitz asked this, says, why would you want to deny the experience two upcoming generations that you're sitting here telling me meant so much to you it's like you had your fun. You know, you had your fun. It's time for new people to have some fun. I just don't I get it. I get where they're all coming from, and I just feel that it's in our best interest to stay a to remain politically viable, and to fund conservation groups and fund agencies. I recently had a conversation with um animal ethicist who he's a vegan. He's an animal activist and animal etheticist. He's a professor teaches animal ethics. When we were talking about this, and he was telling me how he thinks it's malarkey that hunters are conservationists, and I was telling them about I was just was used as a for instance like Ducks Unlimited. How much money Ducks Unlimited members and the organization put that just all they're doing is buying imperiled wetlands and transferring him into the public trust. Can't argue with it. Guys go to banquets, they have a couple of drinks, they start bidding on crazy stuff in auctions. It generates a bunch of money and in other ways outright donations. They love to hunt, They belong to du They spend tons of money buying wetlands that benefits ducks, aquatic invertebrates, fish, aquatic plants, the entire ecosystem. And he's like, he said, well, it's just too bad that their motivation has to be shooting ducks. I'm like, you know what, It's just that's how it is, dude. I don't really care what their motivation is. It inspires them. Let's say this hunting ducks inspires them to take money out of their pockets and preserve wetlands. I'm sorry again, Peter isn't buying wetlands. They're they're worried about like horses in Central Park, that that that's bad. They like, it's really mean to horses. That's their understanding of wildlife politics. Anyone with half a brain knows it. Right now, when they're talking about wildlife politics, they should be talking about wetlands riparian areas. You know. It's just like, you gotta you gotta have people who are on the ground invested in wildlife, spending money, giving money, buying licenses, supporting stay game agencies. Let's move on. Well, and that that money from Pittman, Robertson and all the sports and money doesn't just help game animals. I mean, like you said, it benefits so many other animals. When foundation goals and put together and they go and preserve a piece of elk habitat the songbird. He he doesn't know and care that it was meant for elt. He's like sweet, you know, And they're and they're looking at stuff that is a limiting factor issue too, Like a lot of focus on winnering habits hat everything benefits. You pick one, Jannie, I like this one. How would you how would you cook goat testicles? I cook him in butter and put red hot on him. I called buck nuts. Now you pick one, Nie? Do you eat the heart from the bear you killed? And is it good? When I keep bear hearts, I grind them up and put them in with bear sausage. There's something about psychologically because I have a you know, I'm like a conflicted bear guy. Uh. I like to hunt bears, and I have hunted bears a lot. I'll continue to hunt bears, but I really find that often when I'm looking at a bear and I'm fixing to go after it, I have this thing where I'm kind of torn between watching the bear and going after it. That's why I found for me that I like to hunt. Instead of hunting bears, I like to go out with guys who've never hunted bears and be with them when they get their first bear, because there's nothing greater than your first bear. You know, a lot of animals just keeps getting better and better. I just had my best mule tor hunt ever. I've been hunting muledier a long time. I just had my best mule der hunt ever. Every time I hunt Mulder, it's better and better and better. I love it more with bears. My first bear will always be my most exciting bear. Um So yeah, like a bear heart. I don't know, man, I got like a little bit of a um yeah, I feel a little bit. This is hard to explain. It verges on a spiritual thing because I associate heart with you know, like the like the spirit of something. I know I'm getting into some mystical business here, but no, I grind it up. I don't think I've ever sliced there. A night I made Kevin Murphy's cathead biscuits and fried deer heart. The baby ate it, my wife ate it. We all loved it. But I've never just sliced up a bear's heart made it cat head. It's just bis because I don't why they call him cat head, biscus, why they call kheads because that's like the size of just the size of a cat. I didn't know that. I told my kids that those cads, but my kids lead any man. They don't care. They don't even know, Like, they don't even know about a lot of stuff people eat. Man, They just eat. Like I said, there a night there just eating deer. They don't even know about that. It's abnormal. Um, did you pick one? Yeah? I got another one here. This guy recently moved to Colorado has a cabin near brack and Ridge. It's an area of some good elk hunting. He's getting all geared up to go hunt elk in September with his bow during the rout, but he's spent as much time preparing for the butchering as he is for the hunt. And I think that's very small of him. And he's asking if we have any tips because you don't want to mess it up? Yeah, so he just wants to have like his You don't want to be like that dude? That uh in John Cracker's book, right. Chris McCandless shoots that moose and that's the whole thing, right, your what's your guys best? You know, I gonna put this one to Jane Dark you guys hunting the hot state? Yeah, so what's your what's your just prep look like? At home? I mean he's probably done and set after years and years of doing it. Oh is he talking about at his house around the woods? Oh? Well, he's saying butcher in so I I think he means in the field. Oh that's what I think he means. Let's just let's take it both ways, say he means in the field. My biggest tip is don't underestimate how big that thing is. Be realistic about how far you're willing to go from your truck, because for one person to move a bull elk three miles is a major undertaking, and you need to have a solid plan put together about how many people you can get to help you. Are they on standby if they're not? What's the weather if it's warm? How quickly are you gonna move? Four or five hundred pounds of boneless meat in ahead? So four pounds all combined, because a hundred pounds at first you're like, oh, it's nothing. Three or four trips later, you are dying. So think about that. Yeah, that's huge, man, that list of people to call. Also, get the guts out of it quick and open up the ball joints in the back legs because that's where stuffill sour fastest. But I think mainly like make a plan because when you walk up on it, you're not gonna be prepared for what's laying there. You get a feeling. I get it when I walk up on the moos, you get a feeling like what have I done? Because you can't even roll it over? You know, I would say, first and foremost, you know, depending on this experience level, get the hide off of it. Get the hide off of it very first and foremost. Yeah, the more I would think, the more you can break it down, the quicker it's gonna cool off. But that's the thing is like an Arizona because tags are so tight, you guys always have the lux you're having a lot of buddy to hot with you. Well, in our country too, isn't extremely rough like Colorado. Most of the stuff, you know, we can get too fairly quickly. There's a lot of roads in Arizona. So I mean, if you guys have a down game retrieval. Yeah, you can vall with a lot of places. You can drive a one trip deal. They say you can go in and get it and come out, but we don't. We're not hunting a lot of wilderness series too, you know, especially on the early hunts when it's so hot, so usually within a mile. Ye. Usually. I think that when I hear about guys having uh meat spoil, and I'll remind you it's illegal to let your meat spoil. Okay, you can't do something dumb and get five miles from your truck down in some hell hole and kill a bowl and then it gets up at seventy five degrees and you don't get out of there and it rots. That's against the law man. So it's not just about having like yummy steaks. It's like you have an obligation to get that animal out of the woods and edible form you can get find and have your hunting privileges revoked. You cannot waste meat, So it's good you're thinking about it. I think just the fact that the dude's thinking about it means he's not gonna have a problem. So I think it's the guys who can never give it any thought, and they go way too far. They don't have a plan, their legs whatever got problem. They haven't notified anybody about the situation. They're the ones that probably wind up. Somebody who sits around and thinks about for five minutes is probably in good shape. Suppressed firearms ethics of using suppressed firearms. I've started using a three b LK rifle with a suppressor for wild hog control. On my dear lease. Hogs are destroying habitat and the only cure is through buster numbers. As much as possible, they eat all the meat. What are your thoughts on suppressed firearms? You know, I hunted in Scotland, which I hated, but I hunted in Scotland one time, and in Scotland they couldn't believe that we hunt without suppressors because it is dangerous, Like I can't. They're like, I can't believe you're allowed to guide people without a suppressor and haven't blown your ear drums out. That was his take on it. But I was recently talking to game Worden and we're talking about technologies in general, drones, other technological issues. We got on the subject of suppressors. He said to me, he said, one of my most effective tools is the gunshot. He's a big bow hunter, and when a game warden, no matter what game wardens at work, generally, but he just tries to squeeze in a little uh bohun. He said. There's been several times he could recount, just recent years, when he's sitting in his stand and here's a gunshot. He's like, that don't sound right, and heads over there, and sure enough, he said, getting calls from people I heard a gunshot at night out in my field. He says it's a very effective tool. He also said the internet is a very effective tool as a game warden. But um, he said. He didn't want to get into the politics of it, but he said, from the perspective of doing my job, I feel that I would be seriously handicapped by suppressors. But I also understand that blowing you your drums out all time isn't great. And I understand too that if you're trying to like this guy is saying, control hogs, you can shoot a hell of a lot more hogs without them knowing what's happening. Do you think the suppressor gives you an unfair advantage on game, on shooting game, I don't think so. I don't think it because I mean, how many animals you shooting? Yeah, and I mean you're you shoot at something with a bow and it usually you shoot once and it runs off. No, I don't think it means that you're just gonna be able to sit there and just set up camp and start like shooting bullets off at something. Um. I don't think that's really what's that issue? The only thing I see and and like I said, man, I'm very much My tendency is to think that. My My tendency is to think that suppressors are not a negative. My one reservation is the issue about law, is the issue belt poaching an enforcement that like this guy said, he said, I don't want to get into the politics of it. It's a valuable tool for me. I would almost think the other way on the safety issue too, that if you don't know someone shooting, that could be dangerous. I mean, I don't know. I really want here's my thing I want to I would love to have a UM, I really want to suppress twenty two just for small game pot hunting. While I'm big game hunting. I would be a a great dealer of small game. I mean, come on, because every time I'm out hunting big game, like god, it's killing me. Rabbit's everywhere, squirrels everywhere. I'd just be like, dude, there'd be no stop for me. Yeah, that's a good one. You're any lay one? Eus. Oh, here's another good one. What's your take on kyo killing contests. One of the first magazine stories I ever did was I was It was in two thousand, Yeah, I was in two thousand, members right. I remember it was the first time I ever went to the state of New York, and I remember getting uh car taking a car service stupidly because of how expensive it was. I took a car service like from JFK or Laguardi or something all way out to Montalk, which is just insane. But I was in a hurry, and I remember seeing the the Twin Towers. I remember very soon after seeing him, they felt um doing that out. I went out there to cover a shark tournament, um where guys got a ton of money. It was. I was doing a story in two thousand for Outside on a mako shark tournament called Mako Madness, and it was guys bet a bunch of money who can kill the biggest mako and makos are valuable fish. Their tastes good, there's a market for him, right, it's a coveted fish, good fish. But the thing had a thing where there's like the main money went the biggest shark and mako's are greatly depleted, depleted from due to not not rotten real fishing, not recreational fishing, but they're depleted from pelagic longlining um you know, mako shark reserves or maybe downe from the nineteen seventies, so a lot of years now, the biggest shark winner isn't from what we generally think of as big sharks. It's not from like a tiger, it's not from a muskie. But a lot of years ago, catch a big blue shark. Okay, blue sharks are much more abundant m an average, not as big, but as the big coveted sharks go down, there's a good chance you might win the whole derby on a big blue. Blue sharks are not very popular table fair at all. I think they have about zero commercial value. And uh, every boat you know they do all want to bring in your allowed to bring in like two sharks for boat. Everyone would always want to bring in a blue shark because why not, because a blulue shark might win. And they filled a dumpster full of blue sharks. No one wanted him. I mean a dumpster full of blue sharks. As part of my story, I went and interviewed a writer who wrote a pretty profound book called Song for the Blue Ocean, a fisherman who wrote a pet a book about the depletion of the oceans. And he said something to me that he kind of articulated something that I had felt and thought about a lot out at this tournament. It's he was like, he's and this is a fisherman, you know. I actually went a shark fishing with him. Um. But he had a hard time with anything that puts a carnival atmosphere around the killing of animals. He had a difficult time with it. Just the idea of of of making a contest out of the death of animals or having that be the motive the motivation. The issue with kyotes is much different with sharks because they're kind of the opposite. As sharks are depleted from not being able to regulate international waters and unregulated plagic longlining, and all kinds of other stuff. Kyles are exploding everywhere. This was as different, but that's just something to think about. Anyway. You know on this ranch that you guys are gonna go hunt tomorrow, um tying it back into kyote contests. There was a buck on the last day that we were trying to get and I hiked up this ridge and Darr was over on another ridge and I found this buck and he was rotting. He was just kind of walking and he went and he came off this kind of shady basin and he peeled off down there, and then he was looking for a place to lay down. He laid down, and I'm looking at him, thinking, you shouldn't have done that. You know, your yards from us. It's the last day. You're the buck we're looking for. And he's right there, and dar is already coming to me with the hunter. And I see a coyote coming perpendicular sniffs the trail where the deer had just walked. I'm watching this whole thing came across this flat. He turns turned the right way, sniffing, sniffs that big buck up sniffs him right up, comes kind of peeling over a rock and then oop, that's not the way to go. Snuck around, jump that buck up. And I watched that kyote chase that buck for over a mile as far as I could see out of my sight, and the buck was running full tilt legs straight out. I would have thought he'd kind of turned and fottom And well, it's funny. On that same ridge, two days before, we had seen a group of have Alina with a pack of coyotes lined up, and actually the havelina had babies too, and the coyotes were just gang tackling those Havelina, and Havelina would be you know, chompol and chasing the chasing the coyotes off. But here's this big buck. You'd think he'd turn and fight a kyote, and he takes off run. If if people don't think that kyotes have a huge impact on our deer, they're so invite you and I'm not. I'm not saying this because from a pro kyouse, I don't thinkyotes have any problems. I think you can go do all the kyote killing contests you want. You're still gonna have kyleotes around. I mean it's like you're not gonna hurt the population. But I would invite you to go talk to people who are doing research right now about the issue of d Coyotes actually killed a lot of deer. I think you'd be astounded how few they kill. And talk to Pat Durkin, well, the writer, the writer, Pat Durkin. People can write about this widely. They can write about all they want. I saw it and believe you saw it. But I think okay, and they were gonna eat those halvelina. But I but here's what I'm saying, and I'm not vested in this either way. I'm just saying there's a lot of emerging evidence the kyote predation on deer is not what we thought it was ten years ago. I'd like to see it. Well, there's horrible kill a hell of a lot more dear than was previously suspected. I'll tell you. In Arizona we have a horrible problem with the coyotes and antelope fonts. There was areas where there's no fund recruitment because of the kyotes. So a lot of the kyo contest I've seen in Arizona are up by like Seligmann A ten where there's big antelope and they're trying to really help the antelope come back. But you see the distinction I'm making. There's like, what I'm talking about with this shark situation, what the sharks situation was, and how is different? Said? Yeah, I mean you said, like, have kyotes are turned up in places they've never been. They're rapidly adapting to urban landscapes and suburban landscapes. And it's funny because I watched his anti kyo hunting documentary one time, and the big thrust of the documentary was he was arguing, the more kyotes you shoot, the more kyotes there will be. So well, I was like, okay, so if you love kyotes so much, I think you'd want anybody to be out shooting them because I'm just gonna be even more of them. So I think that you'd be making a pro Kyle hunting video so there's more kyotes. I don't I'm not losing any sleep over Kyle. But but would you say it's a management tool? I mean, could you say hunting contests could be used as a management tools? To man, I don't have any problem with them. I was just bringing up I just like the world is different than just a bunch of black and white issues. That was just bringing up a perspective which I attributed to a man that I admire, a good writer. That's just his take on it. My take on kyote contest. If you're operating within the limits of the law and following legal methods, I don't think that there's any risk right now anywhere that I know of of of having a dangerous depletion of coyotes. I think there's other large predators. That's the case. In this second you can see some excellent podcast hosting because there was another guy asking through this transition I'm about ready to do because another guy was asking, how come so many hunters are unwilling to accept that we have large other large predators on the landscape, which is baffling to me too, because I don't like to see any species driven to extinction or extirpation, which is like regional extinction. I think it is just it's morally wrong, it's ecologically wrong. We have no business driving species to extirpation or extinction. I support the management and where necessary there reintroduction of large predators on the landscape, and I think they should be managed on a state level and where there's traditional use patterns. I think they should be managed as game, meaning we have plenty of wolves in the Great Lakes, Upper Great Lakes, we have plenty of wolves and portions of the Rocky Mountains. If we can have stable populations of wolves and there's hunter interest, I feel that they should be hunted and managed the same way we manage out We don't want too many. We're not going to drive them to extinction. There's no risk of doing that with coyotes at all. In fact, I think we have the opposite risk, where we're really coyotes are coming in because a man made reasons, and at the same time they're coming in, they're really causing. And not to make it an academic issue about white tailed deer like how many bitsill do they actually kill? They have a profound impact on on a on a host of different species. It's just kind of a level that the argument I'm talking about with white tail is a lot of guys are now questioning, like in areas where he's seeing dear crash, is it really solely attributable to new populations of coles or other other factors of play? Um, we should have Pat Durk and not here to talk about it. Uh funny thing about wolves. I always say about wolves with guys who are adamly opposed to any wolves being around, Why do they go hunt Alaska? If you can't have big game in wolves, why in the hell is everybody wanting to go to Alaska? And why is everybody like reading books about Lewis and Clark and how awesome it was all the animals Lewis and Clark ran into because one thing, they damned sure ran into a lot of his wolves. So don't tell me that the wolves and big game are mutually exclusive when everybody's lying enough to go hunt the most wolf infested state there ever was already all want to go to Canada, where wolves occupy I don't know, nineties percent of their native range, or Alaska or they operate probably ninety five or percent of their native range. If you can't have wolves in big game, it's just a lie. It's stupid. Pick one out, yohnnie, you guys want to pick you don't have a papacy, can't pick one out here? How pass this one off? I would ask you, are wolves have they been hunted in Alaska? I mean, have they've been there for a long time? But have they've always been in. They're hunted fur bears, and then they're they're managed by they're managed through cooling, aerial often aerial shooting. They manage wolves aggressively in Alaska, and how much they hammer them depends on how much you are. How much they hammer them depends on what kind of impact you're having on caribou and moose, because Cariboan moose practically have like voter registration cards. In Alaska, you can win and lose elections based well, I mean there's a lot of Western states you can win and lose elections based on big game honey. You know, yeah, they hammer them hard wearing you'd be. But again, they're on the landscape, and I don't think anybody up there is saying how they ought to add Like I'm sure there's some radicals, some anti wildlife people who are out there top of how they ought to categorically remove them from the landscape. But I honestly, of all the guys that hang out within hunt with the hunt with a lot, I don't actually hunt with any guys or socialize with any guys who are really saying that we should go and poison off all large predators so that there's none left. That's a radical, radical perspective that exists. I don't run into it very often. And the guys that I do run into it, and where I do hear from people, it's usually people who are just I mean just they are not that bright, Like they're not real smart at figuring out how stuff works. I got a good one. Trophy hunting, poaching, point creep. This is under hunting tactics. I don't even understand that question. Do they explain it? You feel the focus on trophy hunting slash inches within the hunting community of big game is leading to more poaching. Also, what ways could states like Utah, which manage heavily for trophy units do away with current dilemmas facing a point system like point creep? Let me. I want you to answer, but I want to do a little translation. Um, what what point creep means is when you have a resource that is not big enough to support the demand on it, and I'm talking about big resource of big game animals. It's not big enough to support unlimited hunting. You have to find some way to control access to the resource. So you have to look and you say we got let's say you got a thousand elk, you're comfortable removing ten percent of that population, let's say, because as they'll reproductional more than make up for that. Um you get how many elk that allows you to kill? You got, you know, five thousand dudes that all want to go elk hunting. You do a lottery system and dish out tags, pull hats, uh, pull names out of a hat, and give people tags. Because everybody can't go, so we gotta find a democratic way of selecting who can go. A guy keeps doing this for five years, he never draws a tag. He's like, man, I keep putting in, I never draw a tag. It's not fair because my buddy that he just put in for the first time and he drew a tag. So they come up with a system called bonus points where they it's basically like you're awarding people for their allegiance and every year they're spending some amount of money to draw a coveted tag, and you're giving them preference points or bonus points, basically awarding return customers. And the more years you put in, the higher your odds have drawn the tag go either every year you put in, your name goes in the tag one, the hat one more time, or a certain number of the tags go to the people who've been trying to get the tag longest. Very fair system in my mind. But point creep comes from the fact that it used to let's say it used to take on average five or six years to draw an ELK tag in some unit. It might now be that guaranteed allotment of tags is going to guys who have twenty five bonus points. I mean, they've been putting in for a tag twenty five years. So point creep is every year it seems to take more years to draw some of these coveted units trophy management. So if you're behind you you're always staying beyond. You'll never catch up. Like if you're fifty and you decided to start putting in for a unit that the max point holders are I have twenty five bonus points, you're kind of like a little bit late. But that that would be true on a preference point right here behind on a bonus point like Arizona, it's not necessarily true because it increases your odds, but you still could in theory like Montana does no allocation to max pointholders. What they do is they used to each point you had through your name in the hat that many times? So if I put in for three years and I filed a fourth year application, my names and the hat four times, than what they did is they now square that number, So now my name is in the hat sixteen times. UM, So different ways doing that. And in some states take fifty of the tags, be it moose, goat, sheep, whatever, fifty percent of the tags will go to those individuals who have been applying the longest. Fifty percent of the tags will be allocated in the general draw, so newbies have a chance, the old timers have an enhanced chance. And everyone does this a little bit different. And there's variations within states based on um, variations within states based on species and based on units. This guy's saying, and if Utah has started trying to maintain animal quality, like maintain that you have a good chance of killing a big bowl because they're not shooting all the bulls, and you could open the doors up and let more guys shoot bulls and drive big size down so you don't have as many animals reaching maturity, but you've got more guys having a chance to hunt. It just kind of depends on how productive the landscape is, and and a gross general and I'm gonna stop talking after this and let J and DR talk. A gross generalization would be this arid places that have low population densities um, and not a lot of agriculture which tends to drive up animal numbers, and they have a lot of aridity, which tend to drive down animal numbers. Those places tend to be much more conservative with ten allocation, and they tend to have places that are more conservative a tag allocation tend to have more intact age structures, meaning you have animals living long enough to die of old age. Um. There's a lot to be said for a system that allows animals to die of old age because you're replicating more of a natural ecosystem. But it does piss guys off because guys want to shoot stuff. Yeah, for sure. And I think you know throughout the West, there are certain states that guys that want to go hunt over the counter and more liberal tag systems can go and hunt Colorado, Montana, Idaho and then their states like New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, where you know you have older animals, more mature animals. You know you have point creep. I don't know if you heard about Arizona's new change, so and are you can weigh in on this if I get because sometimes I get sidetracked on this. But so ten percent of the tags can go to non residents. And before when you have for specific elk hunts, deer hunts, etcetera, the max point holders for that hunt like Dar's sons hunt, Okay, up to ten percent could go to non residents. Of those tags could go to or go to max point holders. Arizona switched it so that five of the non resident tags go in the max point pool and the other five percent go into the random draw. So that point pool four non residents. That's the thing I thought. I thought at first it would be another pool of okay, everybody else non residents. They're limiting their non residents. So what it's gonna do is actually make more point creep because say you had eighteen points for that hunt that his son just drew, and you're a nonresident, you have max points. Well, now they're taking half that amount of max point holders that are non residents. But for the first time in a long in a long time since the draw system, you have four points three points or you know, have no points as a nonresident. It's the first time that you actually have a chance, mathematical chance to draw that cat. You still are thrown into the general draw. Okay, that's outside of the max point holders, the random the random draws, and but you actually have a chance. But if you've got a lot of points, you're still in a stronger position in the still in a stronger position, but you're if you're a nonresident. Instead of taking ten, they only take five, So your point creep. You know, it may take you another doubled the amount of years that it would normally take because they're taking half half the tags, which creates what this guy's talking about. That's point creep for non residents. It's gonna creep for residents. It's actually probably gonna go down because now they're taking instead of ten out of that. But it gives you a shot to draw, where a lot of these hunts if you did not have max points you did there's no way you could draw. Yeah. I get emails from people all the time and they're like, I'd like to draw Unit nine archeryoc Tech, And I say how many points do you have? And they say three? I say how old are you? They say, you know, I said, mathematically, there's no way that you will catch up. Well, now I can tell them put in for unit nine because you could be one of the five percent that's just thrown out in the random draw that could actually draw. So I think Arizona is going to see application numbers go up definitely because now people that are behind actually have a chance. So I say, I kind of like states make a lot of money state game And I'm not talking about this state. State agencies make a lot of money for that stuff. We're talking about research, habitat improvement enforcement. They make a lot of money by having drawings because they make money off unsuccessful applicants who are obligated to buy a license or pay a draw fee. So I don't think it's necessarily bad from this whole this whole issue from perspective of a guy like me. I have the luxury if I get to travel freely, willy nilly all around the whole country hunting all the time. So when I look at it, I'm like, yeah, it's cool. You got like some states or high opportunity states, anywhere you want, you can go elk hunt bo or rifle in Montana. You can go l count Boa Rifle in Colorado and go lcome Boa rifle and idahole. So there's that do that all the time, and then there's these dream states where I can apply. But I realized that I'm not the typical guy like my situation. Not that I'm not the typical, but my my situation isn't typical my hunting situation. If you were living in a state like let's say you're living in a state like you talk and you're like, man, I want to shoot spike bowls and fill my freezer. I think that's more important than a guy fulfilling his dream to kill a giant bowl. And I think there's a lot of validity to that perspective. I could see that it would be frustrating, but I think it's not just a matter of that. You would open up the valve and let everybody start shooting all kinds of out and expect that the picture is gonna stay the same way. You're gonna the integrity in these areas that have lower densities, kind of more complex elk management issues going on. It's not as simple as you're just gonna start killing more elk, and everybody's gonna be happier, and everybody's gonna kill more elk if you're gonna pay for it. Somewhere all the Leopold in Sand County Almanac talked about when wildlife managers improve the pump, but they don't improve the well meaning you know, the sister and holds a hunter gowns just because you put in a bigger pump doesn't mean he got more water and the sister it's a limited resource. Yeah, So it's like a lot of times this stuff is the result of trying to manage a limited resource rather than saying like, let's make a system where no one can hunt, but if you do get lucky to hunt, you'll get a giant. It's more complicated than that. I have an interesting Utah application uh to this. A friend of mine drew a few years ago a one of the best limited entry Utah archery oak permits in Utah, and I thought, cool, I'll go with you. I'll go see how Utah cunting is. So he's there's sixteen permits in the whole unit, and it's a huge unit. Sixteen permits. We're thinking, we got the whole place to ourselves. We show up there and there is literally a quad on every road, every ridge. There's people everywhere, were like, what the heck is going on? They have a spike and cow over the counter archery hunt at the same time in all those limited our triocun it So in Utah just answering this guy's question. In Utah specifically, you can go hunt cow or spike at the same time that the same guy that waited twenty five years to draw you just can't shoot a big bull. I remember my brother, My brother lived in Washington State. He had the same issue, Like he could go out hunt spikes and units that were like the most coveted big bull units anywhere. He says, all day long, you've seen giant bulls, can't find a spike. Didn't hear the same story from somebody else To further complicate the picture, Some states like Colorado, like Colorado is the default go to state for l conton and it's Colorado has twice as many of because the three times as many elk because the next largest elk holding states. So I'm screwing that up. They have tons out. It's no wonder they got a lot of tags, but they're tight asses with their mulet here, and I think it's a trophy muleteer state in an opportunity elk state well in Colorado in the past few years has gone until a lot more limited entry units and they've seen the quality rise as far as size of bulls and and you know, Yanni can attest to. You know, there's a handful of Colorado units that have some pretty darn good size quality elk hunting. And then of course it's known for the over the counter el coun I mean it's the key and the thing too. When people here, I find a lot of guys when you're thinking about management get tripped up by that. They think that if you're growing big box or big bulls, did it somehow only benefits like trophy guys, But what about having just healthy hurts. I got buddies at hunt in Wisconsin when they were growing up, like like Doug durn has been on The Meat Eater Show, and I spent a lot of time with talking to about wildlife issues. He was growing up. If you if you saw a deer track, you ran home and told your dad, Okay, there was nothing around. Deer finally started coming back and as deer came back. There was a thing you never shot a dope because it was true de you were in recovery. You're like, you wouldn't shoot a doll because you shoot a buck, you're killing one animal. You shoot a doll, you're shooting her. You're killing her in every offspring she's ever gonna have. It's more complicated in that book. That's kind of true. Eventually they got were deer were just absolutely everywhere better deer herds that ever had amazing deer, and a lot of guys still couldn't get used to the fact of shooting does. I still run into old timers all time, particularly in the Midwest. They won't shoot a dope because those are the guys that grew up and they weren't dear. They love deer and deer hunting so much. You're like, man, you don't shoot does shoot bucks? And that's when you get in these situations that I grew up around, where you'd sit there and you'd count thirty forty dolls in a night and not see a single buck because everybody shot the first buck they saw, and if someone shot a two and a half year old buck, y'all thought you were seeing a giant Okay, so is that really the kind of deer herd we want where you have like deer or born one to one. Just like people, people are slightly more females than males, but deers are basically born like buck, bado buck do buck do? When you're sitting in the woods, that's not what you're seeing. I would argue that hunter recruitment very first question that if new hunters can go out and see a big rack, because there's just I don't care who you are, there's something about a big rack, whether it's an elk, a sheep, a deer, an if you could see a big rack, I think it would hook more people, more youngsters, more new hunters than if they went out and saw forty does that all quote unquote look the same, and they never saw a big mature buck. It's something magical, but you grew up dreaming about it. I just don't I think that. Like if you go somewhere, if you've got a place that is doing things well enough that you have animals dyeing of old age and you have breeding class animals, egg breeding like animals, like with with deer that are getting out to be four or five years of age and reproducing bull elk. I mean it's like twice that right to be like in a in a healthy herd has its whole age demographic. I mean, what's a what's the bull like a real herd bull? I mean eight eight doll sheet. It just takes a lot of to get stuff that old. It takes a lot of not pulling the trigger, and it's like it's just healthy herds man um. So I don't think that, you know, if you live in a state it's like a dry state or whatever, and it's like low densities. I don't think it's a sign that people are being tight with the purse strings because you got big animals running around, you know. I mean you should be. You should view it as a good thing. But I do acknowledge and I do think there is an issue of managing for opportunity. Now state my state, Washington, Uh, for no one understands why I think it. You know, there's theories that it stems from an anti hunting sentiment in parts of the Game and Fish Agency. I don't know that that's true at all. But they're real tight like with their their their biologists are tighter with mountain goat tag allocation than anybody else. They have a higher threshold of what the population needs to be in order to award a tag. They award a lower percentage of tags. You might wind up thinking, like, listen, man, there's a lot of the states successfully manage the mountain goats that are allocating a lot more mountain goat tags. What's going on? You know, are we utilizing the resource to full potential or is this something different happening here? Yeah? I think you can ask some questions, but in general, um, I think that that some programs that are managing for quality animals, or let's say you're managing for healthy demographics and your herd, I don't think it's automatically negative, And I don't think that the default management system should be to kill as many critics as you can possibly get away with killing without driving the population into the dirt. Johnny, what about the first part of that question, the inches causing the trophy hunters gerd leading to more poaching. Now, I think that if you talk to wardens and stuff, I think there's more people poach for the pop I think a lot of guys poacher to breaking rights more so than was going on when I was a little kid. I don't think there's as much poaching big bucks or bulls as they're used to be. Well, yeah, I'm talking totally out of my ask. I have no idea. I don't think there is. But I think there's a lot more people out there watching. I think when you have a lot more hunters with quality optics, and you have more of our own police out there watching the fellow hunters and such, I just I don't hear about a lot of poaching well with trail cameras and people taking pictures in video. I mean a big bucket shot, there's I mean other people know about it. You know, did you hear about that dude? There's a dude that shot. Like Tennessee has much more liberal deer seasons in Kentucky. There's a guy to kill this giant and he says he killed Tennessee. He brings it down to some big buck contests or something like like, uh, you know, like the outdoor expo and a guy from Kentucky has to be at that outdoor expo sees that bucks like that buck didn't die, and that buck didn't die in Tennessee. I got trail camp pictures of that buck, and the buck was so unique in the trail camp pictures so conclusive that guy wanted to having his buck confiscated and got prosecuted off a dude's trail camp picture. He's like, that book never stepped foot near where you're saying you shot, Which is interesting. Man. It's like, you know, technology kind of like you always wanna there's always all these negatives to technology and hunting, but in some ways you find these little like helpful stories, hopeful stories. We got to chat with those warrants in uh Kentucky a little bit there, and they talked about very sophisticated trophy poaching rings, right. But what was interesting to me is that I felt like if someone's gonna go out of their way to go shoot a giant buck at night or however they do on someone else's property and you know all that stuff, like, there's got to be like a monetary drive. Because he's like, yeah, we broke up this giant poaching ring and I'm like, well, what are they doing it for? Are they are they selling them for? He said, no, they're just all basically a bunch of yah who's they just want to have the bragging, right, That's all it is. This dude also told me about the case they worked where a guy had put out a feeder, had a suppressor, had a red dot scope. It was just shooting deer and as best they could tell, he was just shooting him to shoot him, like, not for trophy, not for me, he said, It's just just a mentally ill, sick dude. What are your concluding thoughts? Jay? But not this subject. The whole damn deal. You gotta buy them. I got like two or three for free. Right now, I'm sporting my Laska one. It's got a doll sheep on it. Is there a hunt to eat Arizona? I might just have a hunty shirt for you boys and that over there as you have a million dudes all hunting on one. You do some glass and for one got in every point. I want to say, while I'm sitting here, that wasn't your I got one more I want to say while I'm sitting here, I get a lot of people that really admire your show and the job you do producing the show, and the benefit that people get from your show in that every show you can take something away, and to me, it's refreshing to hear people say that about your show, and I wanted to give kudos to you guys for you know, doing what you do and how you do it. Um, I think your show is spectacular. I think it stands out above all other shows. And I just wanted to say that, thanks man. We'll give you a shirt for that. Okay, yeah, you better give him a shirt. Now give him like shine it up before you give it to him. Yeah. And you're you're the same off camera as you are on camera, which is cool too. I mean you don't see that all the time, and a lot of the shows I would say, what are your concluding thoughts? I appreciate that. That That was I'm ready to go to Mexico. That's it. He stole my concluding thought. I'm ready to go do some hunt. My concluding thought is uh, And I'm not just doing this because they had such nice compliments. If you, um, if if you want to go hunt Gould's turkeys or if you want to uh going hunt Who's deer? You you might have to wait in line, but you will not have a more quality experience than if you go with the jandar Jay. The problem with these guys is there a little annoying about they don't like to leave anything. The chance you're gonna bring up the light story again, I'm not gonna tell Jay earlier was talking about something happening very early, and I remember thinking he must be talking about two am. A lot of guys say very early, and it's like five am or six am. Um, if you can handle the abuse of of being around the perfectionists, um, you will have. You might come home with complaints, but it won't be about your guys not hunting enough, and it won't be about not hunting off, and it won't be about not being in a good spot. It might be that I don't know, you were cold, or your feet got blisters, or you were bored or whatever kind of little problems you have. It won't be because you went to a bad spot and had a bad guy who didn't want to hunt. They like to watch animals, and um, they observe animals, their students of animals, and uh if you you can learn a lot from these guys, for sure, and um hunting Google's turkeys. It's like to see um birds out in the desert, like in these little washes and stream valleys where everything's just like desert and it looks like an episode of Wildly Coyote. And there's these little like oases, you know, from springs and streams, and just to watch Turkey's kind of doing her thing down on those little bottoms. I mean, it's just mesmerizing. Man, It's just a turkey has great colors and do you want to see what like that? And the most beautiful of settings. It's like in a desert environment. Um it's amazing. And KU's dear, is this your third trip down to Mexico for Kase here right? What brings you back? What brings you back? What? What about him? Do you like? I like look at through binoculars. I just like watching big expanses and looking through binoculars and just observing, saying you guys like I just like observing, you know. I mean I love walking around the woods too. You know. I just had a great time down Kentucky following a squirrel dog through the woods, which is the noisiest thing you've ever been involved in. But um no, just the quiet, quiet observation and just watching and watching and watching, and then the thrill of realizing that there's a deer right where you've been staring all day long. Um, I have like I have a decent gay lie. Yanni has a better game I than I have. And Yanni talks about how frustrating it is to watch for coo do you COU'SI with Jandar. I feel like I see one, Yannie sees two and he says, you, guys see your I definitely gets trained to pick it up. And it's a lot of its proportion. I would say, just what size to look for? Yeah, um, I learned I I never did the whole binoculars on a tripod thing, and tis the first time I ever did that was hunting Cou's dere And um, you realize that when you start seeing two hundred yards away a bird. If when you realize that you just saw like a bird wing two hundred yards away, you're like, dude, there's no way I would have ever seen freehand and I would never have caught that movement. And then you realize that the tip of that deer's eyear it's like about that size. And a lot of times you're like I just saw ear or hey, wait minute, that piece of grass isn't grass. It just turned. It's like a time, it's just its own thing. Man, if you like puzzles and like visual stuff, you should try Wu's your hunt. Um, But anyone's going to appreciate a Google's hunt. I think you need to hunt quite a bit before you're really gonna appreciate it. Accused your hunt, I think I think it's a kind of sewers thing. I think doll sheep is a cond of sewers game. I think Who's Dear is a kind of sewers thing. You have to love hunting and love all things about hunting, and love being in the woods, um, in order to love cous Dear. Maybe I'm wrong. I wouldn't suggest it as a first hunt. It's definitely not like as much action as you're getting advantaging. I would suggesting Google, like, if you've been hunting one time before, I'll be like, dude, go on a Google talk man, you have a blast. Um. All right, that was a long concluding thought. Thanks who in more next time.

Save this episode