00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, this is Tyler Jones and you're listening to the Element podcast. Well, what's happening on my woods people? I am a long ways from Casey, but still in the same state. Casey is on the phone. What's happening, dude. I just got home from church. Man, had had a good worship night worship service, and guess what. The rain has stopped from my goodness. Have you been seeing the videos of like the Hill Country rivers. Yeah, man, that's crazy. And we were standing in a lot of those places this past spring, and like a place where we were standing at water level this the spring like literally literally had eighty feet of water above it, above our heads due just yeah, like bow docks their roofs be looking like they're the floor or whatever. It's crazy. You know, I haven't really seen anything. If anybody has gotten injured or lost for loves or anything, and I hope that hasn't happened. It's it's I mean, aside from like that danger factor, man, Like nature is impressive. Man, it's just crazy cool how the rivers do that, and like they're made to do that, you know, yeah, like that's there. They are the drainage of the of the land. You know, it's just I don't know why. I just think that's so cool. Just ripe hareing environments generally cool. Me. Yeah, yeah, I agree. We've talked about this a little bit. Um. So the rain is stopped. What does that mean for you? The rain is stop. That means I'm going hunting in the morning. And I'm pretty stoked about it, really because I drive past my property on the way home from work today and saw two of my bucks. Now I don't think either of my shooters, but still just like seeing the bucks in the in the past year, Like they were right next to a place that I've set up a mock scrape, so I don't know if they're messing with it or not, but they're on the field edge, you know, and um, anyway, I'm pretty excited to get in there. I know that they're on using my property right now, so I know they're they're in the general area. And uh, that deer, Swope, I would like to get a look at you, because I mean, he's not gonna be a high scoring deer. He's not a real long time dear. He's you know, he's just the kind of East Texas deer. He's gotta like I guess you could say, like average mass. He's not like super pencil, you know, but but he's a good looking buck and like look at anything the binoculars tonight. I mean, maybe he's starting to run up a little bit, you know, and kind of get a swoll neck or something. But he looks like a four year old. But from all my picture analysis, he looks like a three. So I'm not going in there to shoot him in the morning, but I would like to see him from the stand. I'd like to see any deer from the stand me. Yeah, it would be a fun thing. It should be a cool deal, But now I think it would just be neat to And the way I'm gonna set up in the morning, I'm gonna be, um, probably pretty tight to where these deer are gonna be traveling. I'm gonna be about twelve foot up in a tree about teen yards from the trail, so I'm gonna be t Jones style were tightened there on them. It's good, man, or you can't move. Is it gonna be? What's the temp gonna be. It's gonna be warmer. I think in the morning it's gonna be like fifty three and then it's gonna warm to like sixty two tomorrow. That's about where you had today out here where you're at. Would did you all have a high pressure day? Or was it cloudy? It was? It was you know, it was mostly cloudy. There was some time during the middle of the day when it was got kind of sunny and a few spots, but it was the same thing, like low fifties in the morning, low sixties and middle of day, and it's gonna be like forty five is a high tomorrow, a high and rainy. Oh I know, who, man, what's that do for you all? Well, I guess I should go ahead and tell everybody what's going on listening on the scoop right now. Yeah, So I'm today was the first day I actually uh did this, but I came out here today. I've been in the Panhandle shooting video and stills of a mule deer capture and call it Project Um. It's one that's been going on within the state, uh for like about five years, four or five years. I can't remember what they said today, but things like four or five years. Um. So like they're they were capturing dear today that some of them they've they've been capturing for the last you know, three years or whatever, so pretty cool. Like one of the bucks that came in, they were like they were like they you know, they kept they would age all of them by looking at the teeth and they and there's a bunch of TPWD biologists out there and they're like, uh, four ish there was. And then the guy taking the status back. I can't put ish, you know, but anyway, they were just every time they don't you know, they don't really know by looking at the jaw how old this dear is. Um. But there was one buck that came in with her, like, we know this guy's three because we caught him as a faun. So yeah, it's pretty cool to see. Yeah, so are they radio collar? Do they implanted their collared right now? But they're taking collars off of them and I think what, I think we're gonna put collars on a different herd tomorrow. Oh yeah, it's a it's interesting. I'm I'm pretty glad to be involved with it. I've never seen or done any of the game capture type stuff, and I'm getting to sit there in video and get right up a close personalists and for me, pretty big bucks, you know, I mean, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean I feel like Texas mule that are kind of like Texas Prompt Horn, where you're like you're on a little bit different scale, right, so everybody else is looking for a two and I think on one six de Texes is pretty big. Well it depends, so I mean in this area that we're and you know, I think that you you're right, Um, I was told that there's I was told today by one of the TPWD guys that this ranch in particular has had some one eighties when nineties come off of it. Um. And but I don't think this side of the Panhandle is exactly known for big the big ones, you know. So you know, Um, there's a public public hunt that's a draw hunt called Yoakum Dunes, and like two years ago, like a two sturdy came off there, you know. And I think they were talking about how it's possibly like a soil deal, which is what a lot of antler development is related to. Anyway, So places that historically have big deer usually have good soil. Um. So yeah, exactly so anyway, but like and then I'll so I know another biologist who works for a state that I grew up with play baseball with and stuff in high school and he worked out in the Transpacas region And there are some big ranches out there owned by some really really rich people. Um where they're shooting. I mean, they're looking for two hundreds every year. Of course they've got several tens of thousands of acres um. But they are looking for deer that big. So they exist. They're just in certain places and they're not really uh uh and they're they're localized in those circles certain places, and they're not really available on too many from too many public hunters, you know what I mean. But it's very interesting mansk. It's it's cool to be involved with them because I I don't have a whole lot of I mean, I've seen you'll do here and there, seen them sometimes, you know in Kansas. I shot a four key back a long time ago when I was hunting in Texas. UM. So they're they're just cool species that you and I don't get to see very often. So yeah, just species on the age. Man. They just kind of live and heard stuff. Yeah, they're very interesting and currently Parks of Wildlife don't know a whole lot about them. And they had a lot of questions they couldn't answer, so that's why they started this project. And they've been being proactive about this. It's cool. Yeah. And I think they're you know, working with the Mildier Foundation and that kind of thing. So um, yeah, there's several companies here that are helping make this thing a possibility. And and uh and I was told that that Pittman Robertson Act really came into effect here with yeah dollar matching and everything when they got ready to put a budget to this project. So it's a very expensive project. Yeah, it's cool anyway, been cool, man, I've been I've been really excited to do it. Um, but it's uh, I'm just pretty much did film work from about eight o'clock this morning until about six o'clock. Yeah, I remember those uh, you know, I used to work in a game catch or some and from a different side of what you are right now, but from long days man, And everybody's always running full speed. But like I don't know if it's out it was with you all today, but there's always like this excitement in the air whenever it's a capture day, and everybody's kind of happy and oh, Yeah, it was great attitude. I mean it was cool to see. I mean there wasn't a ton of like when when you see when you hear volunteer. There wasn't a ton of like volunteers, so like local people from the state or whatever that are just volunteering their time with no no self interest. Really it was the volunteers we had were like graduate undergraduate types from different colleges around the state and and that kind of thing, which is still a volunteer thing, is still doing it for free and donating their time. But there's actually, you know, man, props to take the parks in my life because they're were There was several tp w D guys there that we're volunteering their time to do this. Yeah, this wasn't something that they was part of their job description or anything. So good on them, man, you know. Yeah. But anyway, yep, that's cool man, speaking of a cool species. Yeah, so we've got a guy coming on the podcast today that has a lot of info about cool and different species to be hunted. Yeah, man, Anthony Lakota, who is the editor in chief is that, yeah, for Outdoor Life and who we're gonna talk to today, and uh, it sounds like Anthony has had a lot of experiences on a lot of different public land and even some kind of off the wall stuff that we're going to talk about. So I kind of looking forward to this thing. Man, Yeah, I am too. And you know, for the listener, there's a lot of you out there that, like, I know, you've heard all this call to action stuff about public lands and saving public lands, and you'll probably burn out from you know, listening to that kind of stuff right now. So if that's the case, feel free to fast forward through a little bit, because there's a little bit at that at the beginning. Just when three guys that are passionate about saving public lands get together, there's gonna be this conversation and it happens on you know, it's happened through a lot of media in the last couple of years. So like saying, you fast forward, if you're new to this stuff, feel free to listen to it. And I suggest listening to it because uh, it's a it's a good thing to know about, and it's a good thing to know you know where the threats are coming from, and um, you know it just might I say that things get political, but it's not the normal that we you might hear from some groups or whatever. You know, there's not it's not gonna be a bashing session. It's gonna be ah, let's come together and talk about what we can do to make just right and make different ways to make that happen. Thought that was cool, O case, I'll can't tell we've already done this interview and so yeah and so like, but after we get done with that, we finally get into some really cool, interesting opportunities that exist and also like planning out your fall in public lands. So yeah, exactly, it's like we have a tendency to like just go why tell what tell? What? Do I tell them? This season is over? But there's actually so many other cool things we can be doing and utilizing our public lands for all fall, in spring and summer for the for the truth matter. But you know, we're talking about like planning that a fall hunting season, you know, and and there's just there's a lot of seasons open and to get a true appreciation for, you know, the gift that we have and in public property, I think maybe we need to start expanding that and you know, exploring some of the bird hunting and small game stuff and and at least doing more of it than we already do, you know, and just to make use of this opportunity absolutely man. Um, So before we get to that conversation real quick, don't forget we're doing a giveaway. We're giving away a trail camera. Um. This is an Exodus Trek trail camera. Think they list for like a hundred fifty dollars on the website. Uh. So it's a nice stroke care Amanda's uh you know HD video um uh and takes great stills as well. Man. We used to lock them the f F fifth protection and all kinds of stuff. And uh, we're gonna give that away for iTunes reviews. Correct, that's right, and we are giving it away. What's the date, teller? The date is October. That's on the Tuesday, the day before Halloween. So before you have to dress up as a vampire, you go and leave us and iTunes review And I've been requested by a few uh listeners who didn't really know how to get to the iTunes reviews to leave them. And it's kind of funny because iTunes actually makes that kind of complicated. So I'm gonna explain that right quick. So Guys, if you want to leave us review and you don't really know how because it's kind of hard to figure out, here's what you do. You go to your podcast app, which isn't iTunes, it's his own thing, you know, on your phone, and you have to go search the Element podcast. You can't just go click on our icon that you have saved because we're in your feed. You actually have to search it. Click on the search result the Element podcast, and then scroll down. It will show like ten podcasts like our team most recent, and then at the bottom it'll have a place that lets you mark how many stars. Go to the fifth star. Click that and then you can write a review. So you can't just go to our thing and your fee, but you actually have to search it. But if you do that, you'll leave a review. Nice pro tip. So if you're have any questions, uh, just send us a message on social media and we'll try to further explain that. We've already had several messages, uh inquiring about how to do that. So, but if if you want to review and rewind this thing fifteen seconds at a time, listen to Casey say all that over again. Go do it right now, and then We're gonna get Anthony Locatta on the phone. What do you think it sounds good? All right? All right, So now on the phone we have Anthony Locatta. He's the editor in chief for Outdoor Life. What's been going on? Brother, hey man? Thanks for having me on today. Sure thing, man, We're glad to do it. It's uh, it's a pleasure for sure. How's your early fall been going? Oh? Those things going pretty good so far. I started, Uh, I got out a couple of times bow hunting for white tails. Uh back where I'm from. I'm from Pennsylvania originally, and I have a hunting camp there and I loved bow hunt, So I didn't get out west some big game hunt earlier in the year. So my first hunts had been kind of close to home, up in a tree stand Jason white tails, but I love to be there. Cool. So is that is that on some family land there in Pennsylvania. Yeah, it's a combination. It's on some family land that we have, But I also hunt quite a bit of public land in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is blessed with a great public land system, not so much federal land, although there is some of that, but they have a great state land system. Gifford Pinchot, who was one of the pioneers of the National Forest Service and ran with Teddy Roosevelt, one of the people responsible for for much of what we have these days. He was actually the governor of Pennsylvania as well, and so he set up a terrific system of public lands dedicated to hunting in Pennsylvania. And that's where I grew up, hunting on public land like that, and I still still love to do it and do it quite a bit. Yeah, that's pretty nat so, uh, I've heard, you know, Pennsylvania is a pretty uh there's a there's a strong heritage of deer hunting as a tradition there. Um, those public lands. Is it hard to get away from people out there? Sometimes? Pennsylvania's certainly had We have a lot of land, but certainly have a lot of hunters and a lot of deer hunters. So uh yeah, sometimes they could be crowded, you know, the opening of the season, the rifle season, certainly. But you know it's true on public land in many places. Uh, you just put in a little bit of extra effort and you can get away from people, like farther than the road a lot of people don't go too far from where they're parked or too far from the trail, and so you know, I try to find those spots that are way back in maybe I gotta roll up my pants and cross the stream or time a deep ridge that cuts out a lot of your competition right there. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We found that water access stuff makes a huge difference. And it's cool to see that. Like, Pennsylvania has such a thriving hunting heritage that continues today, and it's kind of interesting to see that you also have a correlation of having a ton of public land to hunt, right And I gotta think that those two things have something to do with each other. Absolutely. I mean it's it's a huge part of the culture of the state. Um. You know the school I went to, uh, we had off the first day of hunting season, school closed because no one would show up. Yeah, and you're right. It is that access and that opportunity that that creates that culture, fosters it and keeps it alive. I mean we all know. Um, one of the things that people say why they're getting out of the sport or they don't hunt as much as they used to it's a lack of access, a lack of place to go. Um. So having that public land and having those opportunities to get access, no matter how it is, is crucial to keep in the sport healthy and the traditions alive. Yeah. Sure. So Uh for the public land hunter, Um, what's the outlook like right now? Like, what's the opportunity compared to past years? Like, say, you know, for today's generation of hunter, how good do they have it across the nation? Uh? How pretty good? We really have a pretty good It's one of those situations where I think, man, you kind of don't know what you have until it's gone. Um. I think you know, there are certainly plenty of threats the public land, and we could talk about that in a little bit. But you know, one thing we we we did a big story about this in the latest issue, and one of the reasons why we did it is just to remind people that, hey, man, this land belongs to all of us. It's there. It's a lot of places, it's underutilized some places. Sure it gets some pressure, but there's so much opportunity there. I mean, we we really do have it good. You you look at the way hunting is done in some other countries. And I've I've been lucky enough that I've hunted in Europe, and I've hunted in South America and some other places. And especially when you're talking about Europe, it really is a rich man's sport. Um. It's a whole different model. It's not the North American model the wildlife conservation that we all talk about, where having vast amount of public land and lots of hunters and uh to buy licenses, to pay the excise tax, all these things that support conservation. It's not the case there. You really have to be a person with money to get access to a place to hunt. Yeah. Yeah, And I I'm glad that it's set up that way for us because it's just, I don't know, I can't imagine, uh, just living in the world of lordship where you know that you had to deal with permissions, because quite honestly, getting permission where we live it's for a pretty tall Yeah. I think I'm sure it is there, but that's getting more true everywhere. Yeah, special comes to deer, Yeah exactly. And you know we all just as you were talking, you know, we all love our white tail, you know, but there's I think that's kind of one of the big things we miss on some of the public land stuff is that, you know, we all get caught up a big game in white till and so be it. But man, there's a lot of fun to be had, you know, chasing little creators too. And I think that's one of the big parts of why public land is so cool, because we all can access it for our own specific desires and I'll share it, you know, So I don't I don't know if it's uh, if it's something that everybody feels. You know, sometimes if if I'm in the whitetail standing some Scurol hunters roll through, it's not the funnest thing. But you know, if you sit back and look at the bigger picture, it, uh, it makes sense, and I'm glad it's it's the case. So, what are some of the big threats that you see to uh public lands that are kind of on the forefront right now that might affect hunters in the future. Sure, there are quite a few of them, unfortunately, And I feel like I make it's steel good. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't wanna bumb everybody out right, because the way I started was this very positive thing that we have this land and we have this ability and that is still true. So we should feel very very proud, very confident and optimistic. But the thing is we just can't get completing UM and and lose what we currently have. It's that that's kind of the situation. You know, there's a few threats and I'll try to be pretty quick about them, and I think, man, many of your readers are kind of familiar with some of them. UM. You know one, uh is this push coming from UM lots of different places to transfer ownership of federal lands to the states. UM. That's something you see a lot of politicians from different Western states talk about, and they say, well, the federal government can't manage these lands, give it to the states and let that manage manage them. And while that may, you know, sound like there's some logic to the truth of the matter is h the states cannot manage them. I mean, some of the firefighting budgets required for these lands would bankrupts UM many of these states and they don't have the funds or the personnel to manage them. And what has invariably happened whenever there's been trans for of federal land to state land is much of it is sold. It's sold, um, you know, and made private and people lose places to hunt and fish. It happens all the time. And you know, the answer is not transferring it to the states. It's it's to making sure that our federal government is able to manage them and has the resources they need and that we hunters are out there using them, you know. And I kind of I kind of feel along the same lines where um, yeah, I'm I'm a pretty conservative fella, you know, honestly, and I know the role of the states and another role of federal government, and I feel like on this issue, this is a federal issue, right, Like they are there to do things that we can't do for ourselves because I can't manage land that I own that's in a separate state, right And that's the point of the federal Government's the point of the union. So this whole rhetoric of let's give it to the states, well, I don't want you to give my land in to the state of you know, I'm not going to name one because I don't want to be negative about another state. But you know that's my point. It's it's our land. It's not those states land. We didn't. And it's kind of funny. One of the things you hear, you might even hear that out of our great state of Texas, um is let's give it back to the States. Well, it never was the States. If you want to give it back, you can talk to Native Americans, and I'm sure they would love to have it back. But that's not you know, if you want to do the right thing right, or you want to do the thing that makes the most sense. So but we're not. You know, what we want to do is preserve the fact that these places exist. Right. So that's that's right. And that is a talking point that people used to confuse the issue less as if the federal government came in and took this land. It it didn't never belong to the states. It always belongs you know, or should sayment was managed by the federal government. And you know, I don't even have said it several times, but I don't like to say it that it's the land belongs to the federal government because you said it perfectly. It belongs to us, Yes, that belong the whole citizens of the country. Um. You know, I know, Um, I live Um, in the East. I'm from Pennsylvania, but I've had some of my most fantastic hunt in the East on public land, but also out in Colorado, Alton, Montana, and Wyoming on land that belongs to me. All I had to do is pack on my truck, get my license, drive out there, and that's my land. Um that I'm able to go on and hike and camp and hunt and it belongs to me. Sure. Yeah, So you know, on another note, UM, I guess in the opposite in the spectrum at least, where what are some of the in regards to access and opportunity. What are some of the great things, the cool things we've got going on for us right now? Um, as far as that goes, Yeah, well, some of the positive things are there's a lot of work being done by different conservation groups, whether it's Rocky mountainel Foundation or back Huntrey hunters and anglers, lots of other groups who are working on solving access challenges to this public land. This is land that is public open hunting that belongs to all of us, as we said, but we're blocked from access by private landowners. Um. They are closing you know, roads that maybe cross their property to get to the land. Uh that have always been open for people to access that land, and we're talking about you know, um, some people moving into those areas who have lots of money and very wealthy. And hey, I got nothing against being wealthy. I wish I were wealthy. But that's a real threat where people come in and blocked you from from getting land that belongs to you. So, uh, that is the challenge. I know you have asked for an opportunity, but I think it's very positive that people are focusing on that now. And there's a lot of organizations and ones I mentioned in others, um that are fighting that fight, and they're they're good people to be involved in and and they're um, they're very helpful to help you find out land. I mean, Montana has uh great systems in place to help regular hunters know what's public land, what's open, what the boundaries are, how to access it, and that's the kind of thing that that helps all of us. Yeah, yeah, sure. So you know you talked about hunters, and you know that's really what we're all thinking about this time of year, like it's hunting season. You talked about being in the white tail stand. We were in the stand most of the day yesterday, UH, doing the same thing. But what are some of the hunts that you've been on or know about. You know, I'm sure in your business you get to hear a lot about a lot of different varieties of hunts out there. But you know, we all understand that white tail hunting is cool, righte. But are there any other hunts like that can be done on public land across our nation that are kind of obscure but really awesome that people should be checking into. Yeah? Absolutely, Um. You know, bird hunters, I think sometimes don't realize the opportunities they have for themselves. There are so many public grasslands and national forests that are that are grasslands that are open to bird hunting, that have some terrific bird hunting, whether it's upland bird hunting, you know, pheasants and trumpers and stage grounds and things like that. Um. You know, it's possible for guy to put his UH channel on the back of the truck, get a couple of dogs, pack some food, and go on a road trip uh through the heartland of the country having some terrific bird hunting on all on public land. And I think that's something people sometimes don't think about. Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's true, man, And actually I need to I need to do a little bit more of that, uh for some reason, the the especially Upland stuff, it's just something I haven't ever really had a chance to. We don't have a lot of quail where we live, and that's kind of not the only you know, native Upland that we we're gonna have. But I'd love to kind of travel and do a little bit of that. There's a barrier to access kind of there. The dogs, and sometimes Upland birds are really hard to hunt, uh without a dog, whereas in my opinion, like waterfowl, I've hardly ever had a dog, and I've hunted waterfowl in my life and I just I gotta go pick them up, you know what I mean. So that's the difference. It's not the dog dog exactly. Yeah, I don't need a dog to find birds in waterfowl, but in Upland, man, those roosters are out running you, you know, for sixty acres pretty much. So yeah, that's I kind of feel like that's kind of one of those things. But but I mean, in my opinion, along the same lines, is what you're saying. Bird hunters don't really realize. I mean, there's a ton of waterfowl, especially throughout the Midwest that I've seen, and I'm like, that's those birds, all those geese out there sitting on public right now, and nobody's bothering them. It's pretty cool. Absolutely, absolutely these terrific public land opportunities for waterfowl, and even in places that um, you know, maybe people know about and and they're well known. I would say, like, you know, you talk about Arkansas and hunting the flooded timber, that green timber, um. You know, that's a pretty magical thing. It's pretty pretty special. And you know there are some big clubs down there in private grounds, um, you know where it could be kind of a high dollar thing. But there's also a lot of public land. There is biometer, there's lots of places to hunt. This you know what for a lot of duck hunters is kind of a bucket list thing um that they could go and do you know, you gotta do a little homework, you gotta, you know, these days with with Google, I know, I use a lot of Google Photos or Google Maps to look at places and scout from from afar that way, but you could find places in and away and openings and it does take a little bit of lake work and a little bit of exploring, but um, you know that's kind of the fun too. Oh yeah, for sure. Especially for Casey. He's literally on a map. If he's on his phone, he's he's most of the time on a map. So you know, like I said, I think I've never met any hunters like the two things they love the most. I feel like our maps in the weather channel, man, we are death with maps and radar and weather. That's right. You know. Another thing that I feel like a lot of people don't realize. Uh. And we we talked off the air, will probably your you and nine Casey will probably talk about this in the future sometime a little more in depth. But you know, fishing is a is a public land opportunity, like and like the majority of fishing goes down on public land, you know, And so a lot of people don't realize that public access is a boat ramp sometimes. You know, it's not necessarily um, you know, a big giant piece of several hundred thousand acres in national forest land, that's right, boat boat Rampy exactly that that's a way to get access for for fishing. And you know that's something I'll bring up one more sort of threats I think everybody body should be aware of and do something about. And I mean call your representative, do something about it. And that's the Land and Water Conservation Funds, right. They often hear of it called the l WCS. Now, uh, you know, to make short work of this, this is UM a program that was put in pace by federal government that would take royalties from offshore drilling and use it to buy and protect outdoor recreation projects. I mean these are this is land, but this is also boat ramps, it's it's shooting ranges and so on and so forth. I mean from n fourteen, sixteen point seven billion dollars have been spent that way. Three million acres have been purchased and protected under this. Every fifty states, every state has a successful project here. What the cost is the taxpayers is zero. So this is an has been an incredibly important program that benefits all hunters and anglers, most of them probably don't know about it, and also benefits anybody who likes to be outside. UM. But currently UM, they Congress was trying to reauthorize it. The deadline passed, it has not been reauthorized. It has been UM the right Now it's in limbo, and this would be a huge loss for hunting and fishing and and there's this is something that has bipartisan support. It really should get passed. And so you know, I'll get off of political soapbox that make it. This is something that all of us who love the outdoors should support that LWCF. It doesn't cost us a dime and gives us billions of dollars. So I would say, you know, if if your listeners want to do one thing to get involved after this, UM, look that up and then give your congress person a call and let them know what you think of it. Yeah, you know, I really appreciate you bringing up that point, because, UM, there's a lot of uh I want to say this lightly but uh kind of public lands, public lands or die kind of uh talk out there when it comes to voting. And I'm gonna be honest, like that is a big issue for me. But there's a lot of issues out there that I care about, you know, and I think that um, some people don't use the right to petition near enough, you know, like um, just because a senator who is elected who you don't agree with or you do agree with on some things and don't on others, is there. It doesn't mean you have to live with their opinions. You can then, you know, politely, petition and riot or call or whatever, call that office and let your voice be heard. And that actually does matter. If they hear a thousand voices, then they're gonna think that's a hundred thousand people. And you know, they care about their voting constituency. And you can do things you you yourself can actually have a voice that way. You don't have to do it just with voting now by all means, go vote, right, but there's other things you can do. I just wanna give you an amen on that. That is a perfect point, and it really is. There's a lot of hunters and fishermen in this country and and when we speak together and get involved um our government listens. They But but if we don't, they kind of take us for granted. They think that they're going to get a vote or they won't or whatever. And you know, I can tell you as you know, running field stream and without their life, I've had the opportunity to, you know, interview vice president, presidential candidates, UM in many senators and congressmen, and they they reach out to us, not because I'm such a big deal, but because hunters and fishermen are a big deal and we are a big powerful UM group. If we speak together and we spend a lot of money and they listen, and your point about UM, you know, calling or writing, I'm telling you that matters. I have heard it directly from politicians that you know. And it doesn't even have to be a thousand letters. You know, they get a hundred from their constituents. That says something. People don't write that much, people don't contact that much. And when they start getting stuff like that, you know what they What politicians want more name thing I think is stay in power. Yeah, exactly. They want to get they want to get elected again. They want their people to vote for him. When you tell them that this stuff matters, they listen. They honest to god do Yeah. I believe it. You know what, I think that we as media we do. We we do some stuff. But I think I'm just gonna speak for the element here because I'm sure out to a life it does a better job than we do. But uh, we could do a better job in educating our listeners our readers on what these issues are. And that's kind of what our podcast, you know, what we're doing today, right. But like I'm gonna give you an example. We were in a state in the west, uh this past summer, uh, floating down a river with a fly fishing guide and uh, you know, great dude taught me a ton um, put me and Tyler on some fish all day. You know, really cool um, But he didn't know what the Landing Water Conservation Fund was and he's using to boat ramps on this river that I'm all but positive. You know. We're partially funded by LWCF funds, you know, and this is a guy who's making his living off of that. And you know, not nothing against him, you know, but he needs reliable media to inform him that these things are happening, you know what I mean? Absolutely absolutely? I think you know, when we're hunting and fishing, we're out there because we love it. We love the outdoors, we love nature, we love the connection it gives us, the food, the family, all of that. Who wants to think about politics, you know, but we get we were getting enough politics every day, and you know, we tend to want to get away from that, and that's kind of a struggle for for us and I imagine you guys is when we're talking to our audience. Um, you know, it's not the most exciting thing in the world and maybe kind of a bomber. But you know, as we did with this story in the latest issue about public Land, Um, yeah, we told them what's at stake and what they're getting and backed it up with numbers. But it was also driven by the stock that like, hey, here are a bunch of great hunts that you could do, and here's how to do it. Um. You know, it is a struggle. But if people just understand that you don't have to be a political junkie, you don't have to be involved in all this stuff. Just just be aware of it, make your voice heard, and realize what we have and try to keep it. And it's it makes a huge difference. Yeah, and that reliable media source if you if you believe in them, you've done a little fact checking your you can kind of just I don't mean to say this, I don't mean for this to have any negative context, but you can kind of almost uh tune out a touch and just trust that that media source for a little while. We'll give you the information you need on what to vote on, what to speak up on, and you don't have to you don't have to know how every single congressman voted or whatever. You know. So but you said this, Oh, I'm gonna get away from politics and go back to awesome hunts that we can do. Is there anything else out there that you can think of? Like Casey said earlier, it's obscure, that's um, whether that's like some kind of gator hunt or some awesome squirrel hunt that just happens. You know, there's awesome amount of squirrels there every year or whatever. I mean, is there anything out there rabbits you know that's just and and awesome hunt to go on that maybe people don't think of most of the time. Yeah. Sure, there's a lot of those, like kind of um sleeper spots and sleeper hunts all across the country. I mean, you know this is not everybody's cup of tea, but um Burmese pythons have been introduced to South Florida and are devastating Oh yeah, natural ecosystem down there. So we did go on a Burmese python. That Yeah, that was pretty cool, made a pretty cool story. Um, and it is very important because they're devastating native wildlife populations. But like there's things like that we're um, you know there wildlife managers are begging people to hunt. You know, there's elk. Everybody thinks about elk out west. Well there's elk in this out in Kentucky, the Dana Bude National Forest. I gotta draw a tag, but you you could draw it. Um. You know, that's kind of an underlooked hunt there. There's some kind of cool things like that everywhere. And then you know, you said about squirrels, and I I'll talk about something that happened to me just just a couple of days ago. On Sunday, I took my um two children there ten and six fishing. On Sunday, we went to u a piece of public ground. It's a beautiful piece of public ground that's owned by the state, the State of New York. And we were there fishing and we capped some fish and it was great. But as we were fishing, who pulled up but a couple of guys um getting ready putting on their hunting gear. And they were going squirrel honey. And these are guys. Um. I went over and I talked to him a little bit. They were adults. They're kind of new to the sport. I would say. They're not kind of the traditional hunter that you would think. And it's been doing it his whole life, and um, you know, raised because the daddy taught him that way. They were people who were interested in it, interested in getting out and um, here they are going out for squirrels. And then this piece of public land, Uh would be great squirrel hunt. I've never hearded it for squirrels. I hunt it for deer. I go and I bow hunt there, and because it's close to some population areas, it gets a little crowded. But I'll tell you what, no one was there in squirrel hunting that day. It was just them. And there's places like that all over the place. And I know last year, Um, I was on a white hild hunt. This was not public ground, it was a private ground. And I killed a nice buck and I had a couple more days I spent him squirrel hunting and I hadn't been squirrel hunting probably I don't know, six seven years. Oh man, was it fun? We had a great day walking through the woods, getting a bunch of squirrels, seeing some pretty country, and that night we had a big old Southern squirrel. Fry's talking about made me like ask myself, why don't I do this more? And I would say, you know, there's public land, no matter what state you're in, where you can go do something like that. Yeah. Man, you know, if you if you were to go get on your Instagram right now and look around, you know, or at least for me and a lot of people, I'm sure you're gonna you're gonna see these big, antlered and horned things all over your Instagram. And I think that sometimes, um, that kind of puts these um like, it puts a value on those on those animals, for sure, and it's a good value in most cases, but like in the minds of some people who maybe haven't done a lot of hunting or starting to get into it, it puts a value on on deer and sheep and these things that are that everybody really has striving for and spending so much money on, and that that kind of thing. But um, in all honesty, Casey and I had the opportunity to go out just strictly four squirrels last year in February, and it was like it was so fun because I feel like that the value placed upon those horned and antler game species, uh causes you to be extremely serious, to be extremely tactical. You've got to do everything, you gotta you know, wash your clothes, you've gotta be quiet, all these different things, and you kind of tend to forget that, like hunting can be um a fellowship, you know, it can be something that you do with friends and family and you can enjoy. And that's one thing the dove hunting Texas is is probably you know when opening day a dove season, it's it's not at holiday, but it should be. I mean, they're everybody's gonna be off work if it's not on a weekend. And it's it's just a huge historical thing down here. And uh, I think every year I go dove hunting a couple of times maybe and I say, man, I wish I did this in October instead of deer hunting and swatting mosquitoes. You know, so it's just so much fun. You know, you get to yell at each other across the field. The birds don't really know what's going on. You know, it's it's fun. And I feel like that those small game species sometimes get overlooked because of the value that maybe society doesn't place um or culture doesn't place on them. But man, they're they're fine. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And you know, self hunting does have that great tradition, especially for the opener, but there's a lot more like that. And you know, um, kind of playing off of something you said, that's a bit of pet peeve of mine. And I'm sure I'm guilty of it here at out through life that we've been guilty of it. But you see it in ads, you see it on TV, you see it in magazines, you see it everywhere. But that, as you said, that like very serious mindset, you know, But I better get a one fifty class buck. You know, your face is all painted. Nothing wrong with paint in your face, but you know, people are scowling like they're going off the war and if they're not suffering, and uh, then it's not worth it. And you know, don't get me wrong, I love a good hard back country hunt where pushes you. But hunting is supposed to be fun too. The ways to have fun and and and that social aspect is also a really important part that I think sometimes gets left off of those um you know, that kind of mindset. You know, deer Camp used to be about, uh, sure everybody wanted to kill deer, kill, big buck, um, but it was also about deer camp being there for the week, you know, playing cards, hanging out in the woods. And now you know it's everybody. You get your food plots and set stands and no, don't go in there now because the wind's not right and you better not hunt today because you're gonna blow it and don't hunt it. Well, I just want to go out and hunt, man. You know, let's not be so serious about it. Yeah. Yeah, I me and Tyler this talk the other day. And it's cool to bring up a deer camp thing because agree with that. You know, I kind of missed that thing. But like, uh, we were having a conversation and I just said, man, hunters, hunt, like, let's go. You know, it's just getting out in the woods. Uh. And it's not that I was having to talk him into it because he was game too. We were just you know, we were kind of like we both were kind of in that Uh. I don't know, sorrowful mood where it's like, dude, it's like eighty five, why are we doing this? You know, there's moiskids are terrible. But then went out and end up shooting a dog that night, and it would have made it for a great day, you know, and if I if I would have lit like uh when that was just not perfectly optimal or you know, the wound was a waning christ instead of a waxing or something, you know, like you know, full at that getting the way, we would not have had that great experience. And I don't know, I think that the way that some of UH culture goes nowadays and hunting is that of like the loner and that of like the tacticians. Yeah, soul hung There's a lot of people though that that doesn't that doesn't resonate with you know. And I know we talked about a lot about like you know, uh, our three you know, which is you know, keeping hunters, creating new hunters, and you know, reintroducing people that want for hunters. Uh. A lot of those people that were losing or not reaching is because that man they don't connect with, like going and freezing your butt off. And I wasn't hunting a giant deer. You know that by yourself, that's just not it's not what it is. But if you know, they want to go out and experience nature and maybe get some meat and have some fun. You know. We you talked about that squirrel hunting in its latest issue the same uh issue with the follow issue with with the public land story. We have a story called the Bunny Pulpit, and this is about a preacher in Pennsylvania, UM, Robert Ford, pastor Robert Ford, who's just just loves to rabbit hunt and he's got a big pack of beagles and you know, you talk about the value. What's one thing that's interesting here is he does so much rabbit hunting and he does it on public and private land. And it's private land that um, if he was asking to deer hunt, people would say no, right uh, you know, because that's serious. Maybe there's money, maybe there's a lease, but when that's over, everybody will open up their land to let him come hunt rabbits. And he's got a pack of beagles and he it's like he always goes with other people in the crowd and it's social and you're working the dogs and you're talking and you're having fun, and you're you're getting to access ground that you wouldn't if you were just chasing deer, and it's just a ton of fun. Um, you know, And I think you're you're probably right when we talk about um bringing new people into the sport um or retaining on that something all of us are thinking about and talking about. Um. You know, I think we overlook opportunities like this where instead of yeah, putting them purchase them in a stand where they're freezing and they you know, are trying to hold out for a big deer, go out and follow some beagles around and get some rabbits and have a meal and have a good time. Yeah, and uh, you know, I feel like that's something that the common person totally gets, you know. So like, with that in mind, UM, I want you to do something for me. All Right. You are in a great position where you get to talk to a ton of people who hunt all across the states, right, I want you to maybe lay out a really um cool fall for us. All right, So let's take a lot. Let's divide hunting into like three things. So we're gonna talk like big game, which is like prong horn and bigger, all right, and then small game, which is you know, like squirrels, rabbits and that sort of thing, you know what all this stuff is. And then uh, wing shooting, which is anything that's a bird. All right. So if you were to lay out a really good October, what are a couple of those hunts that you would really try to do in October that you could utilize public land and do it you know kind of del y, have fun style, you know, not like serious, I'm gonna go kill a giant, but just like if someone wanted to really get out and enjoy the outdoors, living outdoor life, right, how would they do exactly? Yeah, exactly. Well, Um, since we've been talking about squirrels, maybe you know, maybe they'll start there a lot of squirrel seasons open pretty early, and they're they're opening in October. And um, you know, we have one of our writers, Will Brantly are hunting at her He lives Downing and Cockey and you know, he's been chasing some deer, but he's been doing a lot of squirrel hunting and there's a lot of public land to do that. And and that's you know, to me, this is a bit of a personal uh issue, but sometimes when it's still too warm, I'm just not feeling the deer hunt here that I have. I guarantee you fifty mosquito bites on each hand right now, and I'm probably not gonna feel my hands either. So I think, you know, until we get a good major cold front, I'm probably gonna try to hunt something else. I'm right there with you. Yeah, So I mean, I think that's a great way to start October, to start hunting squirrels. You're kind of getting your hunting legs about you, uh, spending time in the woods doing something a little different. There's plenty of public land for that, you know. Going in Kentucky you could go, um, you know, we will talk about um some big game, right and it does not have to be, you know, the biggest trophy of the biggest bull. I think you know, plenty people know about this, but it's really important that you could go out to Western states like Colorado for instance. Colorado you can get a lot of UM over the counter ELK licenses for archery or for muzzleloader and um, you know, depending on the unit. You know, that's that could get all complicated, but there's there's ways to figure that out. But you know, you don't have to draw this great trophy unit. You can get over the countertags where there's there's a lot of elk and a lot of public land, and you know, maybe you'll kill raghorn bull, maybe you'll kill a big one, you'll have a cow tag. Um. But but that's you know, people dream about an elknt, especially people who don't live out west. That's a very doable thing, uh, getting the car, drive out there, have a terrific hunt and spectacular country at a beautiful time of year. Man, the astons all lit up, um. And I think that's something that is a real treat that's open to all of us. Um Dublin birds. Yeah. Man. Uh, you know, I would say since we're kind of in the middle of the country now Colorado, you you go up north to Montana, eastern Montana, there is so much public ground open for bird hunters, um all kinds where you could just walk for miles and um have some of the best bird hunting that you could ever have. And I think that's that's something that that I would love to do. I'm not doing that this fault, but I kind of wish I were. M Yeah, so what about kind of what about the same thing, same general concept here, but for like what mostly call like late season, so say December January something like that. What are a couple of cool hunts you could do for big game, small game and when shooting well, certainly there's a lot of good waterfowl hunts that time of year, right and in each flyway, you know you look for um uh national wildlife refugees other places like that. Um you keep track of the ducks and the weather is pushing them down. There's lots of places where you could go and do some great public land duck hunting. And you know that's the time to do it, when the weather is starting to get nasty and getting cold and ducks are pushing down. Um you know that. That's that's where I know a lot of my friends who are bigger waterfowl hunters, and I am. I like to hunt waterfowl, but uh, they have more decoys than I do and more stuff, so I tag along with them. But I mean that's the time where where they really look for it. The best friends to have, man, that's my kind of friend. I ain't gonna decoys, yeah, exactly, I'm gonna give a late season hunt that I love and a little bit biased here because it's from my home state of Pennsylvania, and it's just something that I love to do and it's really unique. And that's late season. It's it starts after Christmas, right, so there's almost always snow. People been hunting deer for you know, well couple of months now, so people maybe getting a little burnt out. And what opens up in Pennsylvania is this really cool flintlock season. They got a hunt with a flint lock with um, yeah, with with buck horn sites, you know, patch ball. Um. It is so much fun. It is uh, as they said, that is usually a social activity. There's a lot of snow a lot of times people are driving deer that time of year, putting good old fashioned organized deer drives together, walk into the woods. If you get a good snowstorm to be able to track or still hunt through it is so much fun. And um, that's the kind of opportunity that that's a really good one. And if you look around a lot of states haves of cool seasons like that. M yeah, I mean that's just something that's right up my alley. Man. It's just something I don't know obscure, you know, like I never even thought that, like flintlock had its own season and you know it's just black powder, right, Like it's just what you're thinking. But like sometimes those things shoot three hundred yards nowaday, what's the range on one of those flintlocks? Yeah, well I I won't shoot over a hundred yards. Yeah, that that is really the range. A little closer is even better. Sometimes they're they're accurate. Good one is accurate. But you know they're they're tough to shoot. You gotta practice. Yeah, we got a little bit of a delay, but it's it's really a lot of fun. Um, it's a really fun hunt. Oh yeah, it sounds like it. Man, that's really cool. Um. So for the listener that's interested in this kind of stuff, what's the best way for them to see more of your articles and works? Yeah, so you can always go on outdoor life dot com. Um, the public land story that we've been talking about that is online uh right now and has all the facts and figures that has It's got some really great stories of why, um, how great public land honey could be kind of fun adventure stories. Then we have a lot of real practical stuff about practice about really how to be successful in these places. And then we have all kinds of facts and figures about the opportunities that are out there. So we named some of the best ones across the country. Uh, you know how many acres are available different ideas. Um, that's a really good place to start. So you can either pick up the Fall issue about their Life, which is full of great stuff, so I would recommend doing that, or you can go online outdoor life dot com and uh to see all everything we've been talking about. Cool. It sounds great, man. We'll make sure to link to outdoor Life and a couple of the articles we mentioned here. Such listeners interested that will be in the show notes below. Anthony, I appreciate it, man. I hope you have a good fall. Oh, I do too. I'm ready now because it's been a little warm here, but now it's cold and I'm ready to really get serious. And so it was great talking to you guys. Um. I hope you guys have a good fall too, and uh, you have some success on public land, send me some photos. I'd love to see pure will man do? I appreciate man. Man. We'll talk to you about trout after after all the cold weather recedes. I would love to. Alright, man, we'll have a good one. All right, thanks guys. All right, Casey, do you know what caliber I should use on my snake hunting Florida? I'm gonna say a four ken my guest, it wouldn't go into his head. Man, I don't know, man, It depends on how big that Burmese python is. I know how big they get, though. I mean, I don't know, but I see like photo shot pictures of them eating humans and elis and stuff, So I don't I don't know what's real and what's not. I guarantee you can make one heck of a copse pop. They don't make trees long enough, I don't think, dude. You can make like an inside out popper, putting the meat on the inside. You can put the meat on the outside. Stuff the snake with that cream cheese in the helps. Oh my gosh, they're made for it. They are. They are. I really do wonder if, like, are they edible like a rattlesnake or whatever. Oh, I'm sure they are, man, I mean, uh, I don't know. I don't have any way to say yes or no, but it snakes snake I think you can eat about any of them. Yeah, that's that's true. Yeah, well that's interesting. I was just wondering if you, if you had any if you do anything ballistically about how you know what calibrushia take you know, I don't. But everybody's got there. Yeah, everybody's got there. You know, like, here's your gun for white tells, here's your gun. You cool? It would be to shooting archery equipment and use those turkey guilty broadheads on just cut their heads off. Dude, that would be cool. That would like that the best too. That way, they're like heads are gone. Yeah, dude, I ain't never getting you on that hunt anyways. I don't even know why we're talking about. I will not unless you can make me a stink boot. That's a body suit. So, dude, I was looking through our guests the last couple of months, and man, I gotta say this, If you can't kill a deer this year, then you haven't been listening to the Element podcast hard enough. It's true. It's true because I have killed a deer, man, So it works, it does. And I haven't yet and I haven't listened back to all of our guests. But that's probably why. But man, I was just like I just went through the list and I didn't realize, but then we had like an all star line up from like I think it was like late June or somewhere in July, all the way until basically like you know, this week. You know. So as far as as far as White Tails go, you know, so if you're a new listener and you haven't checked back, you sure and go check out of that older content because we had some really great guests earlier in the summer. And also, um, we've been getting a lot of questions in our inboxes, which is awesome, guys keep sending them in. Um. But I was gonna let you know that we uh did a Facebook live event a week of show ago. It went over really well, and we'll probably do another one of those in the future. So if you don't get a response back from us, which we try to do, then we will make sure to answer your question in that Facebook live event that is not determined to date yet, but we're gonna do this pretty soon, so you know, send in questions if you got them, and we will get to them as soon as possible. Also, speaking to good content, we actually just released my Delk Hunt film on YouTube, which is I'm gonna go ahead and tell you it's not like a cinematic experience. It's more much more like a story of the Hunts kind of a video journal more than anything. But um, it was cool because like I went on Hunt and self filmed it with my parents who were there for pretty much the whole thing. Tyler wasn't there, and then Tyler got to edit it all. So everybody told Tyler, thank you, thank you, Tyler. But he did a really great job and uh for like the a as uh he pieced together the minimal amount of footage that I brought back for him to and I hope it was acceptable for you. Like I tried to do the best I could, but M like, I went through and picked the parts of the clips, you know, just the clips that had something in it that I wanted or that I thought was important to the storyline, and then just the parts of those clips that I wanted. Um, for almost every clip that I put in there, and I laid it all out on the timeline and it was over two hours long, so and convinced that to one quarter, which I mean, I might be biased, but I watching it, I didn't feel like it lasted thirty minutes. Like I didn't either, That's what I kept saying too. I was like, um, and I think a lot of it has to do with like the all the dialogue you had with the elk, you know, and just back and forth calling and that kind of thing. But yeah, it was it was. I felt the same way. I was like, man, it's like thirty minutes, but it doesn't feel like it at all, you know, it feels like it pretty interesting. Really sure, well, if you were still cool enough to be listening to us blabber here at the end that down in the show notes below here along with some of the articles and stuff that we talked about with Anthony. Yeah, absolutely so, I'm exhausted. I'm about to tip the hey dream about some water fountain pythons, that kind of thing until it's till I get backed up and go do the meal do a thing again in the morning. So anyway, when uh, you guys are listening this, I'll probably be headed back to the eastern part of Texas and hopefully I am ready to start my deep season, if you know what I mean, and actually have some decent weather not be raining, no mosquitoes or minimum mosquitoes, and the rut is gonna be ramping up here quick, so I can't wait. But remember to give us that five star iTunes review. 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