00:00:08 Speaker 1: The Hunting Collective is presented by Element. I guess I grew up on a row. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of The Hunting Collective. I am Ben O'Brien. This is episode one fifty seven. The Years almost over, Christmas is upon us, and Phil Ty engineer is getting in his long winter snap before he emerges in a hunter. Hey Phil, Hey, I wish I could go down for a long winter's nap. Um. I get I'm too excited at Christmas to nap though. Now. My wife was just talking to me about this. Do you guys send out like a family Christmas card? We we usually do. We did not this year. I think we just got lazy and just didn't even care. Really, yeah, that makes sense. We never, my wife is we never have since we've had kids, We've never We've never done it, and we were just having like a little bit of a debate about is it weird to just send send people a picture of you doing stuff once a year that says, like, Merry Christmas. There is a picture of what we look like. Do you feel it? Is that what you guys do? Uh? Yeah, I mean that was pretty much it, and we didn't start doing it until I mean, we've probably done it, like we've done it for the last four years or something, you know, since the my my parents do a thing where they like they have like a whole right up on their Christmas card. They like like a summary of what every person in the family did that year, And um, we have never done that. It's yeah, it's just been like kind of like a goofy picture of us, like looking cute, and then it says happy holidays, like maybe the warmth spread to your loins or something. Yeah, warm loins for you this holiday season, of course, warm warm loins. Now. Charles Rodney, everybody knows my friend Charles Alls the Rabbitman. Rodney been on the show many times. He writes a full dissertation on the year's events. And I'm talking my buddy sent me a copy of this. It's like, i'd say, a thousand maybe two thousand words nicely typed up on on a piece of paper and it's got like the picture like a cover on the front. And then Charles has collects these every year and he's gonna make him into a book, and so hopefully we'll have one one week. We'll just have him reading that to you. And that's the entire episode. I won't even be on. Oh wow, it'll probably be the most listened to episode of the history of the show. Yeah, it'll be like it's it'll be like someone reading towards the night before Christmas, but it'll be Charles Rodney reading about his life. What happened, what happened this year? It's beautiful. So hopefully you guys feel free to send us what you guys do for holiday cards. And if anybody out there wants to make maybe photoshop at th HC what you feel like the th HD holiday card would be, uh send send him over. A lot of you guys are good at art, a lot of you are good at photoshop. And uh, Phil, he's so depressed that he might need need a laugh. He might need something to laugh at this holiday season. So get to work out there, no prizes, just get to work. Um one one brief update before we move on. I'm still not on the People of Maryland Facebook page or Wikipedia page. I'm still not on there. Other many many people tried to put me on there. They tried everything you can think of. They describe me in almost every way you could possibly think of. A lot of people started putting COVID nineteen survivor on there, try to really drum up some support and feeling. But it's it's not working man, as of as of, as of right now, I'm not on there. Many many people have tried dozens. I hate to tell you, I think it's a lost cause. Ben you think so there's nothing we can do. I've got to do something of note. I've got to actually do well. Maybe in one I'll do something of note and save somebody from a train or something, and uh, then I'll get on there. Yeah. Sure, I mean you shoot shot man, set set high goals. That's that's healthy, it's good. Maybe maybe one will stage a series of life threatening events for you where I save you each time, and then we'll have the news news there each time to to report on it. Okay, well, well we'll we'll have the Occult the cult board meet up and talk over that idea. I'm I'm a big thumbs down on that. I'm just gonna tell you right off the bat. But we we can brainstorm some more big thumbs down. Yeah. Shout out to barstool. They posted a thing like on their Instagram saying name examples of things that are that you joined, that you didn't think we're a cult, that actually was a cult, and many of you tagged me and Phil those posts. I probably got tagged fifteen twenty times, So thanks for joining the cult. But coming up here on this program is Clay Newcomb. Now Clay Bear Grease Nukem is an employee of Mediator. Now, last time we is on the show, he was not, but now he is. We're happy about that. We got into all kinds of things we nerded out about ethics and the slippery slope fallacy and other logical fallacies, and we started talking and we got deep into how we look at supporting hunting, how we look at defending hunting, and how we we test our own ideologies within what we do in the hunting space. So there's a lot of really good stuff in that. We're gonna get to that really quickly here. But before we do, Phil, you must play the damn jingle not so sharp moment. So if you don't have to, Philly, you look scared. Sorry, I yelled, Yeah that was it was aggressive. Um, but you know, hey, you've got to use the stern hands sometimes, and I appreciate it because sometimes you don't play the jingle and I get pissed. Uh so this one is from in Subpoena and he says, ben Phil. When it comes to not so sharp moments in the field, my family has a few of them, from shooting compound bows with no whearrows at giant bulls, to having to shoot down trees or shotguns because the goose got stuck in the canopy too. Now joining a hunting based cult during a global pandemic. These are the moments that come from a lifetime of hunting, and I guess waking up way too early for days pon end. However, when I think of a not so sharp moment, my mind comes to one instance that happened a few years back. On the Eastern Plains of Colorado. Me and my dad went out for a rifle anteloupon in October for just a couple of days. We both had obligations and this hunt was going to be a quick getaway, so we threw a hunting gear together and hopped in the car. The year before had been a record rained year on the plains, and since it was teel season, we decided to throw a few decoys and shotguns in the trucks. Just in case some birds were flying. And when we got there, oh boy, where they flying. We quickly disched our plan to hunt antelope on the first morning and decided to hit a little prairie pothole that was swarming with green winged teal the night before. We got to our spot before first light and began throwing out some decoys. Now, because of the warm weather at the time and the fact that both of us forgot our hip boots, we figured we would just pull our pants up and wade into the water to pick everything up. And usually these little ponds on the prairie are a little more than a couple of feet deep, that is, in a regular year. As soon as the sun rose, teal came dive bombing in one flock after another, and we soon had a limit of teal. And when the time came to pick up ducks and decoys, that's when the show started, the real show. I rolled up my pants and took three steps into the water, and on the fourth I sank two feet into the murky, thick mud at the bottom of the pond, completely soaking my pants, which in fact, were the only pair I had brought. My dad sat on the shore laughing his ass off, and I was in a predicament. The mud was almost like quicksand, and I had to use a lot of energy just to move one single foot. We still had twelve decoys and five teal in the middle of this pond that needed to be picked up, so I decided to say screw it and just weighed in. I was past the point of no return while in the water. Without my knowledge, my pants had unrolled and gotten stuck in the mud along with my feet. The next step I took did two things simultaneously. It pulled my pants down and into the murky water, and got my legs tangled up in the pants to the point where I lost my balance and face planted right into the green marsh water. My dad had never laughed so hard, and I had never been the victim of such malicious and random circumstances in my life. I picked myself up from the mud, swam out, got the ducks and the decoys, and whimpered back to shore, having wet my only clothes and broken my pride. Antelope pump was cucked short, But for my dad, he brought home a favorite tale to tell at any family gathering. We got back home and cooked up a delicious teal dinner at which my dad now famously calls plata David Guenza, which is translated to duck of shame. Play the jingle, Phil, not so sharp moment, so you don't have to me? All right, what do you think about duck a shame? Phil? Have you ever seen The Never Ending Story? Then? Yes I have, Yeah, I just I was just picturing him just sinking deeper and deeper into the mud um while I cried. That's that's how I felt. Oh well, so sorry. The only thing I remember from Never Any Stories that the flying dog, and I believe his name was Falcore or something like that creepiest flying dragon dog thing. That's all I remember. That's part of it. There's also a scene where where a horror horse drowns in quicksams. Ah, so you were picturing that horse when you were thinking, are are our great listener? Ryan? Subpoena will Ryan, congratulations for getting your pants pulled off by some mud. Well, you're gonna send you a work sharp field sharpener for all your troubles, and of course, as always, go to work sharp dot com or go to the work sharp YouTube page to check out those folks, and they're weekly sharpening tips. One of those is me sharpen and stuff in my garage, So you're really going to enjoy that. And then next week we have the great showdown of all the dumbest things you all have done in the cult this year, and a big time prize for the big time winner of the not so sharp moment of the year next week on the final episode of twenty Okay, Phil, we're gonna need we're gonna need you to put your doctor Phil had On. Okay, can you do that for me? Yeah, let me go grab it? All right, come on right back. Phil's back, He's got his Dr Phil had On, and we've got we've got to solve some issues, some deep seated issues within the hunting space. Now we we already said that. Clay Newcombe and myself, we're gonna be talking a lot about, you know, the intricacies of hunting, hunting ethics, how we support each other, how we talk about and to each other, and what we say in the public forum to defend hunting, defend each other. This email I got from Michael Buchanan gets to that point pretty well. He says, I was listening to the episode one four, where you and Mark Kenyan were talking about supporting our hunting culture and our fellow hunters. You can tell he's from the South because the next sentence starts with y'all's conversation made me realize I'm negative. I have been recently towards a selection of hunters in my current area. I girl up hunting White Tales and the Georgia Piedmont on a private hunting lease. I wouldn't say the habitat was that well managed there, but the hunting was good and you could count on a club member to get at least a hundred twenty class block every other year. Well, I finished up my masters at U g A at a foresty job in North Carolina. Company I work for owns land in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, and I'm blessed to have around six acres of company land a hunt in both states. Initially I built on my head how I now had a realistic opportunity to kill multiple big deer year and was super stoked for this hunting season. Well, there's a type of hunting there. I wasn't prepared for dog hunters. Now, Phil, I know what you're thinking people aren't hunting dogs. They're using dogs to hunt. Oh, I was worried. Thank you. Yeah, I could see you getting worried over there, he said. My expectations at the start of the season were that the occasional dog would cross me in the woods. The reality is once rifle season kicks in, you occasionally don't encounter hounds chasing deer, which means most of the time you see them. The days of my quiet sits in the tree stand on Saturday during a rifle season are over. Trail camp footage has shown that it didn't take very long for the pressure to push deer to be more nocturnal, as well as show me that dogs are running deer across land, least to their own hunters. The typical dog hunter will tell you you can't dogs can't read post its signs, but they don't tell you that plenty of them release their dogs on land they can't hunt with the intention of pushing deer onto property they can hunt. This is a general lackadaisical attitude towards dogs running deer on land they don't have permission on, and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. In Virginia east of the Blue Ridge. Either if a landowner tells the dog hunter not to come on their property. Dog hunters have the legal rights to retrieve their dogs at any hour of the day, as long as they don't carry a gun, allowing them to run deer across their land even if they don't have permission. I'm trying to put a positive spin on things, but by saying I now have more opportunities for grouse, ducks, woodcock, and quail, but I'm still bitter. I guess my question is am I in the wrong for wanting legislations to sort of rein in the dog hunters, either through a contiguous acres limitation or its own later season. Still, hunting is definitely a minority in this area, so it's not like our opinions carried that much weight compared to the dog hunters, But we're dog hunting to fall out of legal favor. I have a hard time feeling bad for them, trying to stay positive, but having a hard time over there in the South. Michael Buchanan, Phil, do you have do when you think of running deer with dogs? Do you have anything that comes to mind? Do you kind of WinCE at the idea that people would be chasing deer with dogs and shooting him on the run, or do you feel like it's that's a normal thing. I that honestly doesn't really jump out at me. Is something that is uh like egregious. Um, I like, honestly, I kind of fall into the more like, if you're gonna try to still hunt in that kind of environment, that's just something you have to deal with. I don't know, I don't I don't see legislation being like a feasible solution. I don't know about you. Well, uh, dog hunting, hunting with deer with dogs specifically is outlawed, and I think all but eight states point okay, this is this is news to me then? Yeah, I mean dog dog hunting has been going on, you know, using dovest coated k nines to chase you know, wild animals right as were going on for thousands of years, fifteen thousand years and some and some estimations. Yeah, I guess we should note that that dog hunting is commonly how we refer to this, but we're not hunting dogs, as I said. But yeah, in in in the mid seventeen hundreds and into the late eighteen hundreds and into the turn of the century, even in this country, there was a lot of pushback for hunting deer, specifically with dogs. I looked up some of the legislation. The Virginia House of Burgesses past a law in seventeen thirty eight that required owners of deer dogs to keep their animals confined except when they were actually involved in a deer hunt. Eighteen seventy six, wis Constant became the first state to ban dog hunting altogether. The Adirondack Deer Law of eighteen eighty eight imposed tight structures and restrictions on dog hunting in New York, and then by all the Northeastern eates that outlawed dog hunting for deer altogether. In today, Phil, Uh, it's a it's a predominantly Deep South legality. You know. The states where this is still legal are spread across the South, and many of the states that that Michael was talking about, and many of the states that I've never hunted for deer is where this is legal. So I've never run across this in the woods. I don't know a whole a whole lot about the tradition itself. I've never that I can think I've run deer with dogs, run other things, many other things with with dogs, including upland game birds, pigs, um Man, I can think of other things that I've used used dogs in the field for. But um I think this is an interesting thing for us to think about, especially because what we're gonna be talking about in a minute with Clay Newcombe that we have these and we've we've certainly talked about this on this show before. We have these dividing lines in the in America around the pursuit, even within the same species, how we pursue those species, and then the prospective culturally and the traditions and how we socialize all these ideas, and so Michael is not wrong to probably have some disdain for people running dogs places they shouldn't be and and quite honestly, in places where like Virginia where this has been studied before, I think a lot of what what comes out is that, you know, deer hunting deer with dogs is an important tradition and it helps manage deer like any other type of hunting, but it generates concerns from hunters, landowners, everybody, and most of those concerns are around trespassing dogs, trespassing hunters, hunting from near roads, and a lot of this borders on just just ethical issues and so, um, it's interesting to hear you say, Phil that that as a non hunter, it doesn't seem like a big deal. Do you feel like this because you know that we use dogs for others other things? Yeah? I think so. Maybe I've just been spending too much time editing Cal's podcast where it's just become the Snort Show where he's just constantly talking about how adorable his dog is. Um. But and I like, that's that's weird. Yeah, I feel like I'm pretty like sensitive to this kind of stuff. So it doesn't and it doesn't really it doesn't really irk me, So I don't. Yeah, I can't explain why that's interesting. Man, I don't have a problem with it. Um But if I was in Michael's situation, sitting in a tree standing, dogs are running by all day and I felt like my rifle season was ruined, I probably would think differently. You know, but there's deer hunters who believe that our sport is under attack, and they they might be surprised to learn that the country as a whole probably still overwhelmly supports the preservation of this tradition a lot of other traditions. But as you'll hear us talk about with Clay nucom in a second here, there's not a lot of folks fighting for these type of what I would call fringe uh privileges or fringe pursuits at the very least in our space. And it's so it creates quite the paradox, and it is hard to understand, um where people in Alabama and Georgia and North Carolina might be coming from. If you're sitting in Montana or Connecticut or California or someplace where it might seem abhorrant to even think about chasing deer with dogs um at all. So I say all this to say, this is a great example of what we're what you're gonna hear me and Clay Nukem talk about something like I said, that's paradoxical in nature, something that's hard for us to to suss out, not having been in that southern deer hunting culture with dogs and um. Glad to hear Phil that you it's not right off the bat as you first hear about. It's something that you think is is uh you know a worry for you ethically or as somebody who's about to join the hunting cult. Um, something you might turn your eye towards if if you hear about it. Yeah, I just gotta get Mango to a trainer as soon as possible. Oh yeah, Mango. Would Mangie think Mango would Uh she would definitely chase deer right, oh yeah, very poorly, but she would do it and she'd be stoked about it. Well, um, yeah, I would go back to I was reading this once I read this email from Michael. I went back and I was reading this Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisher's report from years ago, from like a decade ago called Honey with Hounds Away Forward, and it listed out the two sides of this. And this is two thousand seven, so we're some thirteen years later and we're still there. And I think as long as deer hunting with dogs and those states holds will still have those same sort of back and force. Um. If you've ever been to the Blue Ridge Mountains, it's a beautiful place, and there's a lot of people that would tell you the way of life is chasing deer with dogs. How dare you try to ban it because you don't like it. Um. But as you'll see, there's plenty of people that don't hunt that we would we'd call anti hunters that are happy to take advantage of this, this argument within the hunting ranks, of this disagreement within the hunting ranks. So it is full of shades of gray. We're gonna discuss just that this week with our buddy guard the gate Man, Clay Knewcom. Please enjoy Clay knucom. What is up, Hey, Bend O'Brien. I'm doing good, man, I'm doing good. It's cold here in Arkansas, a little snow on the ground. That's kind of what's up. That is what's up? You've had you haven't really caught up these sense the breaks, a lot of news sense. Then you now are a meat eater. You're a meat eating son of a son of a bee. That's what you are right now. Yeah, man, Yeah, I've been working for I've been working for Meat Eaters since October five, and uh yeah, it's been it's been an exciting run so far, working on a lot of projects. And I'm still publishing Bare Honeting magazine, so that's still that. I still do that. But I'm also working full time for meat Eater, so well, we're damn glad to have you. If you haven't seen what Clay has been up to, you've been you've been, uh really missing out. We have a video on acorns on the website acorn has been acorns. I mean that I know, I know Ronnella is hot on this this debate. I feel you don't want to get involved. I don't really want to get involved. No, I'll say whatever you want me to say. I will capitulate in this. Acorns all good to me? A K E r N S acorns I'm in. I'm yeah, yeah, yeah, And if I need to defend that against Steve, I take your side and we'll we'll put him down. Don't work. That's what I like about you been yep, I will understand it. About of the country pronounces that word as acorns. The seventy would pronounce it the other way, which is not even possible to come out of my mouth. I can't even say it. Yeah, more power to however you want to do it though. Yeah, I mean, I blame the liberal media is what I blame for this, for this, uh, for they are they're mistreating acorns, and you and I will stand against it. There you go. I will stand next to you or behind you, wherever, or in front of you, wherever I gotta stand. Don't worry. Yeah, yeah, I got it. Well, there's a bunch of in all series. There's a bunch of good content on the mediator dot com. You and I are feverishly hammering away on this secret podcast that will soon uh reach these air waves of the Meat Eat Podcast network, So look look forward to that, of course. But we're also want to tell everybody that we're gonna have you at some regular cadence next year, probably monthly once a month, to come on and update us on a philosophy that you introduced to us. I want to say, oh, a year and some change ago on this show, and I'm sure talked about it on the media podcast as well. Really, um, you came in and you gave what I would call it soliloquy on this subject, and you like turned me a little bit, you turned my you change my perspective a bit on and we were just talking before it hit record, and I think a few things you said at home, but this philosophy explained to people who haven't heard this, this philosophy around this term guard the gate been So this idea of guard the gate is essentially that inside of North American hunting the the entry point for those who would seek to um tear down. And that's just that's just the truth, that's not a spin. I mean, there are active groups of people, very well funded, very well organized, that have made it there life goal, their career goals to to dismantle North American hunting. And there's very many reasons why people do this. There's I mean, it's massively complex, and I think we would all know some of these reasons. But these these groups always are gonna attack, They're gonna they're gonna find an entry point into our sphere through a specific place, and usually that place is a weak point inside of our world. And just this most simple example to me is bear hunting. So if you were to look at North American hunting in general, like the rational arguments against squirrel hunting or elk hunting even would be you know, it's really easy for people to connect with the idea of eating elk. It's easy for them to connect with the idea of well, maybe not squirrel hunting, but white tail hunting eating a white tail. Bears are these charismatic megafauna. It's it's very easy for people to build a narrative that people buy into that bears shouldn't be hunted. There's different methods of hunting bears that are hard to understand for some people. We use hounds to chase bears, We use bait to chase bears. So it creates basically a gateway, a low hanging fruit, a soft entry point for people to go, hey, this is bad. These guys are barbarians. And I think in in times past, the hunting community has recognized that. I mean people like by default, like by unconscious default, recognize that and naturally steer away from some of these lower hand in fruit type situations which would be trapping as well. Um And but the thing is is that if they can take that, if they can tear down that from an intellectual standpoint, from a legislative standpoint, even from a non intellectual standpoint, if they can tear down why hunting bears is no longer relevant, If they can tear that down and turn that into functional legislation, turn that into the way that the culture is shifted, then it's just a matter of time before they do that with something else. Because the truth is when you really understand bear hunting, when you understand it as a management tool, when you understand that we utilize bears more than I say this all the time, Ben, and I mean honestly, Like if we were sitting in a court of law and I had to plead my case of why you should kill a bear over killing a deer, I think I would win because we use more of a bear for utilitary and purpose then we do a deer. I mean, we tan the hide and use the fact we use the meat. So my point is is that, uh, any weak point in our architecture is bad news for all of us. So if we are people that are interested in the preservation of the North American honey model and our culture, North American hunting culture, then it's in it's in all of our best interest to guard these lower hanging fruits, to guard the gate. And that's that's a stretch for people, because not everybody is interested in bait and bears. Not everybody is interested in following a hound and killing a bear over a hound. And and and our point is is that you don't have to be interested in that we're not trying to tell everybody they need to do that, but we are saying if you love, if you love what we have, then it's in your best interests to guard it at all. So like this, it's an idea of unification. It's also guard the gate is an idea. So actually guarding the gate means that we're educating people. We're educating people about bear hunting, about trapping, about why these things really are absolutely is just just as legit as all these other types of hunting that people are very comfortable with. Yeah, yeah, well, there's so much within that that gets that interests me and and the reason why I think we can do it once and more we probably do it once a day or once a week. Once we'll go through here some of the instances of of where hunting is being attacked as you described there as on the fringes. But there's a couple of things within the guard the Gate mentality that I agree with, and there's some things I want to talk through with you um here and I think we did last time in folks and go to here are whiskey and ethics on on bear baiting and bear hunting that we did last year with Clay. But you know, there's the slippery slope argument, right like in a in a legal sense, the slippery slope argument asserts that you know what, in logic and critical thinking, and then this often comes in political rhetoric and rhetoric we're here on the media that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in like something something happened of more significance, and that leads to the logical fallacy within the slippery slope argument that I've always had a problem with. I understand it, but I've always kind of had a problem with it. And the way that I think you can bat this slippery slope fallacy, the logical fallacy within, is to make a case or to demonstrate an example of that slippery slope logic coming into play, right Like if if somebody gets in for bears, I guess first I would ask you that question, do you feel like we're on a slippery slope here? Is that? Does that align with the guard to gate mentality or is there a little more It's part of it, Ben, Yeah, And I realized how that could be perceived. It's trying to make people fearful in order to cause them to act and um, because yeah, I am saying that it is a slippery slope and we've got tons of But what I'm also saying is that, I mean, we've got you know, a hundred and fifty years of a hundred years of of history and examples of that slippery slope happening. I mean, and it's happening this week in you know, in different parts of the country. So so it's not it's not just it's not just rhetoric. There's actual examples of hunts being taken away that will probably never get back. Yeah, And that's it. That's that's where I kind of draw the line with the with the logical fallacy within the slippery slope arguments is if we're able to damage trade, if we're able to look at the slipper Soper argument, because it happens with Second Amendment. It happens, really, it happens in a lot of rhetorical conversations like this one where someone is presenting an idea and that person is is using that idea to to eliminate the middle ground. Is to say, like, we can't we can't have a middle ground because if we give an inch, we're gonna lose the middle ground and possibly lose it all. Um. So I I would uh admit to some conflict over this idea because I do see some logical fallacies, um within the argument, But I also see some things that are real here, and we're gonna go over some of them in this case. So as we often get into in this podcast, where things get interesting is where you have a duality, where you have a dualism at play, right, where you have like hey, listen, man, the slippery soap argument in this case rings true because we there are some examples here, but we also have to really be cognizant of slipping down into our own logical fallacies and losing the middle ground ourselves. So that's why that's that's ultimately why I think this is a topic that we can go on and on and on and on about because I think those two things are are likely true at once here or at least parallel to each other, you know. Um yeah, And And does that does that track with with how you'd like to explore this? Because I a man, I really think that we're and we're gonna go over some examples here. But like I said, but I really think there is. Once we crack this open, we're gonna discover something about ourselves and the way we think about um, our own hunting pursuits, and and folks that come along with that. Yeah, it sounds fair enough to me, Ben, really, and I think it will help me understand this even more here and you talk, I mean, because I I don't want to be an alarmist. Uh, you know, I want to be somebody that's got both feet plugged right into reality, you know, with a with a intent to find solutions, you know. I mean. The good news is that we've still got a lot of great stuff going on in North American hunting. We but humans are extremely comfortable with everything being good today with a negative forecast for tomorrow and us not being that worried about it. So we might as well, we might as well have this conversation. Oh well, and then you get into the all of the metaphors and all the things that are happening here. There's the domino fallacy, There's like the damn burst fallacy. There's all these like really interesting concepts that can help structure how you think about things. Um. And maybe I'm just nerd ing out on on this, but I do think that I don't think maybe is a is a really a question here totally. Let's deep. Let's go deep. Um. Yeah, this is definitely in the Happy Hour podcasts like we had last week. But I do think I want to explore how, you know, the ways we construct these arguments and the ways that we present them, and the ways that that we're we're influenced by what's happening around us, and as you said before we hit record, find a way to not be alarmist, to not be fearmongering, to not fall into many of the traps that we see in mainstream medium, any of the traps that we here in our own um divided space within hunting, and so ultimately to take apart you know, what someone might use as as political rhetoric and find a healthy way to examine the important stuff baked within that, you know, the real the core idea that we need to crunch through and have some uncomfortable conversations about and um. And so that's what I look forward to and I know we will UM, and I appreciate you coming along for that ride. Yeah, man, I just jotted down a couple of a couple of states and provinces that have lost significant portions of their bear hunting been and just just I mean California main spring hunt, British Columbia grizzly hunt, Colorado lost um hounds and bait lost their spring hunt. There's there's just so many examples for examples, Well we'll go let's go through some because you know we we talked with Brian lenn from the Sports's Alliance here some weeks ago about about the new Jersey bear situation, and we went over this. We went over and I agree, and I told him, I said, in addressing the hunting industry dogma, when I first took off this podcast, I wanted to kind of address is turviy hunting good or bad? You know, is bear hunting good or bad? Is baiting good or bad? And actually address it and look at it and not just accept what I was told in the hunting industry, you know, accept the dogma from our world and really beat at this. A couple of things I've learned. One um ideological veganism is misguided. In my opinion, I've explored that in depth, and I think it's misguided. And I also think the animal rights mentality is misguided. In a lot of ways. And I think those animal rights ideology is something that leads if you, I hope you would agree that it leads people to want a band bear hunting, that leads people to want to kick the gate in and change things within within where we're at um. And so I think that's that exploration means something here because we have to determine why, you know, why are people fighting so hard against uh, particularly bear hunting, but in a sense hunting on its fringes and trapping too. Yeah, so dive you So let's I mean give us that you have a good example you're telling about from Washington State. I feel like we need a real concrete example of something that's happening now in our context for COVID times even might be might be nice. We have an example from Washington. Last last week I talked to the lady named Marie new Miller. She's with the Inland or the West Wildlife Council, which they are a a hunting conservation group out of Washington, focused on focused on Washington, but I think they're focused on the Pacific Northwest, but they're based out of Washington. She wrote in actually to meet eater and and and told the story of a a Washington State Game Commission meeting that she was in attendance to virtually because of cod and she often goes to these, so she's got a lot of experience. And basically because the spring bear hunt in Washington, which is pretty limited, it's a as I understand it, it's a draw. It's a quite limited spring season. But they do have a spring season in Washington. And she said that because it was the first big game hunt of the spring, came up in this order in their session. And a couple of things that were interesting is that there were she said, there were twelve people that stood up to spoke to not stood up. They they were online, but they spoke about it, zoomed in, they spoke out against the bear hunt. And as I understood it, it was kind of led by an out of state special interest anti hunting mountain lion group out of California. And so basically inside this meeting, you know the dynamic dynamics of human nature when you hear something negative spoken it, she felt like it empowered a whole bunch of people who maybe weren't even that interested in it to to come in and and and speak negatively about it, and she was the only person I think there were thirteen comments, and she was the only person that stood up and said she you know, she said, hey, this is this is wildlife management. This is the way we've always managed our bears. Our bears are thriving. If we take this away, we're losing a management tool. We're using a UM, you know, a part of our hunting and heritage, which is important to some people. And so her whole thing was where were the hunters? You know, where? Where? Where were the hunters inside this meeting? And she brought up a great point that and we know this, but it helped me to hear it from her, is that we need to do a better job as hunters of telling our game commissions what what we feel like they're doing right, you know, I mean the squeaky Will's heard and her question, yeah, it was just that where are the bear hunters? Um? The second thing that she brought up was that COVID, because everything has become virtual these days, COVID nineteen the pandemic has given access to anybody basically to attend some of these high level meetings. And I'm not sure the protocol for who gets to go to what meetings, But this meeting in Washington, all you had to do was reserve a place at the commission meeting and you were sent a zoom link and you could attend and you could speak in public comments stuff. And so her question was, you know, her statement was that these out of state special interest groups now have an even easier reach into Game Commission meetings, and uh, that was pretty telling. Um. She also brought up that in the commission meeting, while they were talking about the spring bear hunt, the commission was mandated is mandated to report the comments that they received during certain periods of time about specific topics, and they reported that they had received five hundred and forty negative comments on the Washington spring bear hunt, and ben those five they were mandated to report that, and those five hundred and forty, those five emails were or um, let's see form emails from a couple of anti hunting groups out of California. And it just kind of it was wild because you can see how that would turn. I mean, some of these commissioners aren't hunters, she said, one of the commissioners specifically, it's not a hunter at all. A commissioner on their Wildlife Council and uh, I mean you can see how just like the overwhelming vibe of all this was negative. And what I pulled from her talk of the form emails was, you know that was powerful. I mean you know, to see to the anti hunting groups that did that, you know, and again you know where where are the hunters? You know? And um, that's powerful stuff. Um yeah, yeah, There's there's so much that goes into just I just as you mentioned, it's like, start trying to read a little bit about the Washington bear hunting situation itself. It just goes to show you each one of these situations is so different and and there are, but you know they have commonalities, and one of them is there's there's this the idea that people are wantonly murdering bears, and you don't imagine that somebody that thinks that will do anything to stop you from doing that. Like that's that's what's on what you're talking about. It's on display. It's almost at the idea of hunting and its traditions and it's important to us and something that we value, and it provides us food and all these other things could never pale in comparison. As a driver of action to people are murdering bears, we must stop it. And so maybe this is what you're giving giving us as a tangible example of of the motivating factors on either side. And we we've seen this time and time again that that anti hunters are people that want to stop hunting. Seemed to be well read and well practice and and coming in with a real mission here, and hunters seemed to kind of be defensive and sit back and um, only defended when there's a real, real stated threat in the in the public forum, um, rather than you know, going to the game Commission in a proactive way. Yeah. You know. One of the things that Maurice mentioned that they said in this meeting was that I think four percent of the people in Washington or hunters, and an even smaller percentage of those people are spring bear hunters. And so their question was why are we even doing this? Which that's a tough one to take on the cheek. UM. I mentioned that too to to Steve Ronella on on the Medeor podcast, which you can hear some of our conversation. It wasn't as in depth that's what we're doing right now, And Steve made a great point, which I was glad to hear. It added some It added some fodder to my to my guard. The gate um is that he said, he said, this is a democratic society, but not everything is democratic. And his example was when we go to war, does do we do we take a vote? You know? I mean does does the does every person in the whole country get to vote on? Do we you know, shoot a missile over there? I mean, this point was well taken to me, is that wildlife management is not designed to be a democratic process. It's really not. I mean, it kind of sounds crazy to say it, but it's not. I mean, it's we we've in this country. Is the reason we had such success and bring it back wildlife is because we've left it to the professionals. We've left it to scientific wildlife management. And I mean that's a big platform we stand on and scream out all the time, is that, hey, we're leaving this to the professionals. Um. And I mean that's a strong case. That's a strong case for us to say that is that this is not a democratic process. If if if we said we're gonna ban tennis, if fifty one per cent of people in this country. Don't like tennis, you know, you know I would ban tennis, um. And it hurts those those poor little yellow balls and get beat up all the time, right all right, So I mean the point is it's just, you know, not everything is supposed to be just because of us like it, you know. Yeah, I mean, if you if you examine what Steve is saying, is born out in our model of wildlife conservation um and thought out by the folks who enacted it to turn of the century and then the nineteen thirties, and then written down and codified by Shane Mahoney and dr various geist and folks in the eighties and nineties and up until today where they just published last year a book on the subject um. And And it starts off by saying addressing ownership, right, like who owns wildlife? If I own it, then I can tell you what we're gonna do with it. Um. So it starts off by saying, man, it's a public trust. And it means right, fish and wildlife are held by the by the public. We own them, state and federal governments are going to manage them through the state and federal government. We own them, right, and we we are putting in charge state and federal government who have employed biologists and ecologists to help us figure out wildlife management, right, And that's that's where the part of the allocation of wildlife by law comes in. And then you get to wild life should only be killed for a legitimate purpose, and then you boom, boom, you come all the way down to science is the proper tool for the discharge of wildlife policy. And we are entrusting as the public the state and federal governments here and the agencies that they've created to do this with the discharge of that wildlife policy. And all of that is built out and and kind of a cascading set of ideals in those tenants of of our wildlife model. And I've read the books and broken them down and try and go on and go on after this as much as I can, and again take taking a few swings at the dogma in the hunting space, like only we can tell you, only we can tell you how we should hunt. Taking a few swings at that idea, you come back to, chaos would be ballot box biology throughout this country, because then you would have, ultimately, and what you have here is a bunch of people who don't hunt voting on what we do with wildlife. A bunch of people that do that don't understand the population dynamics, don't understand anything about it, cohabitation voting on how we managed wildlife with little to no knowledge of of what they're voting on other than easy, the easy emotional elements of killing or not kill. You know, Ben, you said something earlier that when you said it, I thought about it because I would have totally agreed with you, and you tell you, tell me what you think about this. You said that a lot of these uh, most of these anti hunters are well educated, well spoken, and really know their stuff. Um, I think most of them that are on the front end and on the top end of this argument do Yeah. Let me let me define that as like activists. People that are activists in the sense that you're explaining in Washington. Those folks are there because they know what's going on. Now, we've had some antimbrights activists on this show that that don't know a bear from an elk. So shades of gray there for sure. Yeah, continue, No, no, And I'm not disagreed with you. I just want to I mean, like encourage people. Like the reason that the anti hunting community and their messages so well received is because it's it's an extremely dumbed down, easy idea to get behind if you don't have a lot of knowledge, and so, like, I think in general, like if if we if we got the average listener of this podcast in a room with an average anti person that said they were anti hunting, I'm pretty confident that our guys would in the court of law, like have way more information, way more persuasive legitimate rational arguments. Um. So, anyway, I just say all that to say, I'm pretty unimpressed with the hunting anti hunting world, really am. And I know I'm I I laugh because I've been there, man, I agree with you. You know where I've been. Um. I've attempted to find who people I thought were thought leaders, or at least leaders of these organizations things that that have large followings, and Paulisher and Anonyms for the Voiceless is the most recent example of that. UM. And I find these people to be militant in their activism, but well intended in their thought processes, you know. And I find them just to be people flawed as we might be. You and I might be in our own thought processes about hunting. I mean, I guarantee there's some some chinks in our armor and the way we think about it that hears from now we'll be like man, I'm glad that I evolved from where I was. Um, But at its core level, the knowledge of the natural world, the knowledge of how we relate to manage live with wild creatures, it's just I haven't found it. I found this cursory understanding of the emotions, Um, this acknowledgement of the emotions, and this kind of slavery to the emotions. That that is, it goes along the lines of that original dog that I heard when I first got in the honey industry that anti hunters are all emotional with no facts. I said, well, let me go explore that, kick the door down on that, and see if those guys are right or wrong. And this is one of the ones where I'm like man, when I returned to the original statement, it really is, is is as true as it was when I when I first started. We got this short into the stick on this deal. I mean, like we have to really know our stuff, we have to really have information knowledge the the correct I mean I think our intent matters, you know, have the correct heart motivation. Um like inside this argument, like it's really easy to jump on the other side. It's harder to get on our side. But we're you know, it takes more intentionality. And I think that's what we're trying to say these days, is man the base level, the base level knowledge ability to articulate, the ability to understand the macro system of North American hunting of the average hunter needs to come way up, you know. I mean in nineteen eighty nobody knew a thing about white tailed deer hunting. I mean, guys were just guessing on how to kill dear in My nine year old son knows more knowledge and information. Let me say then, probably my dad did in nineteen eighty, Like you know what dear do, where they go, why they do it. That's what it has to happen with this, Like we have to become we have to become really knowledgeable, confident, uh merciful. And that's what I've seen inside of your kind of your frequency BNS is Yeah, we're not These aren't bad people necessarily, They're really not there. It's and I like that because you know, we're not this war is not against flesh and blood, you know, it's it's it's an ideological battle. It is um, and it's a functional legislative battle, yes it is. It's a political battle, yes it is um. But it also plays out really functionally inside of our everyday lives, as we interact with our communities, as we interact on social media, as we portray and live out the lifestyle of a modern North American hunter. And uh, I think that's where we can all we can all you know, improve ourselves and and ou our knowledge. I love it, and it's extremely well said. And the way that I've become will come to build upon this in my own life and try to display that on this show, is that in the face of a person or a group of people who is built a narrative, right, they built a narrative in their head. And this happens, as you said, on the political spectrums, that happens in our own world. Most people, they're their logic is narrative based. This is how the world is. This is the story I believe to be true, and I'm going to fit the truth into this apparatus I've built to kind of insulate myself from maybe objective truth, and so I'm building everything into a narrative. This happens with right wing and left wing anti hunting and hunting and the thing that in the philosophy that I've come to really appreciate, and I didn't always have this, you know, when I first came into this show and to speaking publicly about this, I was like, get rid of gripping grins, you know, that was my first I was mad. I was mad at the hunting industry. I wanted it to change. But I don't understand what I was talking about. I didn't know what I was saying. I was presenting loss instead of change. Um and and an example of going and exploring these ideas. Why would I do the thing to the to an anti hunter that they are doing to me if they're if they're playing an emotional narrative based logic and there and that's how they moved through the world. And I feel that to be cheap, I feel that to be um have almost no value in terms of critical thinking. Why would I then develop my own narrative against the one that they've developed. Why would I not first look at how I think about hunting, the values that I believe that inserts into our lives and try to beat the crap out of that first, and try to take the narrative I've built in my head and kick the door in on that in order to then face them by saying, I've done the work here, internal work. I've done the internal work to say what is and what isn't true about hunting itself. Um, then you're you feel like you're empowered then to call them out on the stuff, the work they haven't done with the fallacies that are built into the animal rights ideology, and so hopefully there's some real strength in that. Man, it's hard to do. But man, once you just described the internal process that you just described of basically deconstructing our hedgemon, you know, the hedgemon being like the way the filter through which we view life that it's default ingrained, unrecognizable, often invisible, like being able to deconstruct that and go into something objectively without bias. And that's really hard, I mean, like massively hard for a human to do that, because we were successful, because we I mean, like when I say successful, I mean like even like biologically successful and relationally successful, and so much of our world is built upon these narratives, that we create about ourselves, about our family, about our where we live. So to do what you're describing being it's really a it's really difficult, and I I can't say that I've like, I attempt to do that, and and I attempt to do it. I don't know, I don't know how successful I've been. Um, But I like the idea. I mean, I love it's it's not an idea, I mean it's it can be a reality but interesting. Yeah, yeah, I mean how yeah, how can you truly defend something if unless you've explored its weaknesses? You know, if we were building, if we really were building a fortress around hunting at some pearl that we needed to protect within our lives and the lives of people around us, we would have to check the fortress for some crumbling infrastructure. We would have to check the walls and be like, is this going to hold up when somebody attacks it? Is this gonna hold up when somebody attacks it? What about this part of it? What about this? What about this? What about that? And so in building the gate, you know, to guard I think we also have to try to kick our own gates in, you know, um and try to try to move moving away that we've already tested. We've already proof tested this in our own minds and with people that believe what we believe, um, and challenge ourselves and and man, you're stronger in the defense of it when you get there. UM. I think. I I know that to be true because when I go into a conversation with an anti hunter who thinks or murderer, I have nothing but confidence in the ideas I'm about to articulate, because I've been looking into them a good bit and then I've been trying to realize where I'm where I could be wrong. And then when I find when I find those weaknesses, m then I allow myself to, you know, get rid of them on my own. Here's a quick thought. What what if you What if you didn't buy into kind of this intellectual position like we're talking about, and you were just like, man, we've got a right to do what we do because of all the positive things, the things in the plus column I come from hunting like, regardless of anything else, us just simply saying they're more there's more wildlife in North America than anywhere in the world. You know, are big game species. You know, we have the strongest big game in the world in many in many categories. And it's come because of the funding of hunting, it's come because of scientific wildlife management. So we're just gonna do it because it works, not not because it's not because of any deep thought. It just works if your desire is to have sustainable populations of game, you know. I mean, it's it's easy for me to dive deep into like all this stuff that I love to talk about, like you're talking about we're talking about, but also there's this other thing that's just real simple. It's like, why are like the anti Huney community they want animals on the landscape, Well so do we, And it's been working with us being at the driver's seat. Yeah yeah, I mean, I'll play Devil's advocate because I like this. I like what you're saying. Hum and that's all. And I think what you're saying is the surface level. Let's go and test what you just said, right, Let's go and then then examine if there's something that's analogous to that. And I think maybe the war analogy makes sense. If you went to somebody and said we are the safest country in terms of external threats that there is. What we've been doing from a wartime strategy is kept we're safer than everyone else in terms of somebody coming into our country and harming us. And he said, yep, cool, you want to stay safe? Yes, I do. Well, then then I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. We're like, what about what about looking at how we conduct war, making it, you know, making it more um palatable from a morality standpoint. Let's let's look at who we bomb and how we bomb them, or who we sanction and how we sanction them, and let's get better at at this act even though it's working right now. I think there is some analogy in that too side, you know, like what society is asking us to do with hunting. I think I think they're saying, is it good? Is it good for everybody? Is a good of the animals? And I and we're saying, hound hunting, bait hunting, all the stuff. Yes, we're saying, yes it is, Yes it is. Look over here, it is um And then they're saying, but what about the guy that's speared the bear on YouTube? And we're saying, but that's an isolated incident. You know, if really if you want to see the propagation these wildless pieces, you have to allow us to conduct this and you have to understand that it's imperfect in lots of ways. And I think that's what's happening here. I feel like we're on the right side of history, and I feel like history has proved that out. But that I don't think that smooths out the complicated societal and cultural factors that we're talking about. It done and so here we are. You know, that's a more philosophical debate. But then you have this the real idea that that things are being attacked that we love, right, um, brilliant idea. Ben Um, We're gonna, I think we're gonna we're gonna all line from like central Texas up to like you know, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and we're gonna give the anti hunters the West. We're gonna give him the whole western u s Okay, and we're gonna say, you guys are the king of wildlife management over there, and then everywhere from Arkansas to the Atlantic. We're gonna let me And uh, I'm trying to think of a good comrade. Um. I need I need a person. I need a person somebody that would help you in Shane Mahoney, Me and Shane Mahoney. I was thinking somebody a little more you know, less magnanimous. Yeah. Maybe, Well, how about three Me, Kolbe and and Shane Mahoney get to manage the eastern US and we'll touch base in fifty years. We'll see how things are going. Yeah, well, I think you would. You would. Look, you'll be looking at a very emotionally distraught western half of the United States who has has um taken away a lot of the protections and a lot of the value systems that we have for wildlife in terms of how we relate to them. They overpopulated and then they had to start killing them. Um like we do oftentimes. Take a look at aphis the government the U. S D a aphist team and what what they kill each year. Um, they would have the biggest aphist team ever And they would have to because they wouldn't want to confront the emotionality of having to kill stuff because they are humans and they take up habitat and they take up resources, and there's a competition for resources going on. They would have to be lying to themselves going, you know, we we at least we're not killing them for ego, like, oh yeah, well okay, holier than thou. Um, how's it working over there? You know? You know the other thing that they would have a lot of over there? Wolves, Yeah, there would be a lot of Yeah I do. I mean if we could make you know, if we could make the case to have some like two islands, right, I would like, if I had enough money, I would buy two islands, and I would I would allow Paul the Sheer and some folks to run one and I'd run another one. And I like, I just guarantee that I guarantee, I know this to be true, that our island would be more well balanced there. The people would be happier. Um, there would be more freedoms, there would there would be a better value system for wildlife. Man. And you know, I wish that was enough, you know, I wish my knowledge of it was enough. In your knowledge shous enough. But it's not enough to stop a bunch of people in California from jumping on a fucking zoom call. You know, And because imagine that, dude, you're a busy guy, your family man, you're religious, you go to church, you go to sports, with your kids, you do podcasts, you work for media, do you do other stuff? Do you have time to to firebomb game commission form emails? Like? Do you ever think about that? You know, have you ever thought? Well, I know that and that your point is well taken, but I'm gonna throw in a I'll tell you what. These back country hunters and anglers for emails are pretty good. They've been sending out They sent out one to Florida when Florida was the Florida Game Commission was trying to decide their beare management strategy, and it was reported to me that there were It was the good side of the story. I just told you about Washington where the Game Commission said, hey, we had I think it was over a thousand emails that came in. That were four emails that were pro bear hunting that came into Florida. Um. Additionally, the b h A did one for the recent New Jersey thing, which we didn't win on, but at least the voice was there, so that you know, and and and b H is certainly not the only people that are doing that at all, like, but but they do a good job of it. They do. Yeah, And I think to it's that man o ban That's what I'm trying to your face. So yeah, I mean you're not wrong. But that's a new thing, isn't it. I mean, that's new. I'm not Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe something can write in and tell me in years past and eighties, nineties and decades that I really wasn't active in this in this community the way I am now. You didn't have email in nine four when you were not born negative one? Uh No, I didn't. But I mean, was there uh an active a group as as b h A has become over time? You know when I was coming up, I never thought there was. I certainly wasn't involved in one. You know, the single species organizations. There isn't a bear hunting association that has the power of the Rocky Mount Nail Association. Um, there isn't. You know. These single species organizations kind of get in a box and and sometimes a're stuck in that box, right, Um? And the Sportsman Alliance we've had those guys on a couple of times. Such a good organization, man, I mean, and they they can't seem to get traction. They don't have a hundred thousand members like Anonymous for the voiceless. You know, they don't have Instagram that has three hundred thousand people and they're screaming about eating vegetables and and but that's what the other side has. And Sportsman's Alliance was is dedicated to fighting these smaller battles, but they don't have any steam within the hunting world. They're not like the thing on the tip of everybody's tongue. I think the hell is going on. I think with every hunting license sold in North America, you ought to have to buy buy membership to the Sportsman's Alliance. I mean there's and it's not. Every time you highlight somebody, others might feel like they're being left out on purpose. They're not, I mean just Sportsman's Alliance. I'm familiar with them. Uh they have a column in our our magazine or any magazine, and they they're just so I love those guys, man, I really did too. I've known Brian Lynn for a decade and he's been on the shows on Show earlier this year, and he and their CEO, Evan Hutchfeld, has been on I never know how to say his last name, Sorry, Evan, It's it's complicated. Hudson Feld something like that. Um, But Evan's a great dude. I've hunted bears with him and and with um, with Brian Lynn over in fact Uh in Idaho and saltees and and over bait, and just as you're such a barbarian man, Yes, I am a very Yeah, I might look like a hipster. I might talk about logical fallacy is a political rhetoric, but I'm a chest beaten barbarian myself. And I dude, I I mean, I hunted over bait for years and in Quebec and and enjoyed myself and never thought of anything other than this being the proper way to hunt for the place that I was in. I'm not gonna throw a bag of corner down on the in Montana and the Gus and National Forest. I'd be in trouble if I did. But I wouldn't anyway, even if I could do it, because it's just not the way to hunt him. And so anyway, I say all that to say, I do think they are the sportsmen Alliance is the group. And again, when I first came in the industry, I decided I'm going to question what they say. And I don't want to be a part of some sort of you know, movement that has only insular credibility. And as the more that I've learned about the opposition to what we do, the more that I know that that those folks are important. You know. Um, those folks are Brian and Evan and all the folks that do what they do. They're underfunded, they're understaffed. You know, they can't they can't. They're punching above their weight. Sad this thought the other day when I um plugged in Brian's article. Those guys, those guys are every day confronted with very very negative things about hunting, like their job is to deal with the dirty stuff, the bad stuff. And uh, you know, I actually had the thought of like them. You know how we're we're aptly so, you know, the culture and of in the US is to you know, support our first responders and our our our military, which we should do. Um. I think in the hunting community we need to like throw some shout outs and encouragement to these guys that are fighting for a living, like a Sportsman's Alliance. I mean, these are just people. They get they can get. I mean, I know I get down sometimes when I see some of the things that we're up against, and these guys have to do it every day, and I know a lot of those groups have a lot of turnover, and I think it's because of the heaviness of the job. And we also know that those guys aren't in it for the money. They're not becoming millionaires at all. They're doing trust NGOs and our space conservation regislations. I know for a fact, aren't aren't shelling out the big bucks for for people to come and work there. I know, I know Sportsman's Alliance, I know where it is. I've known it since it was you know, a couple of people in in Columbus, Ohio. UM and and again, Yeah, as as I look at the validity of all our conservation organizations and moved through that world, I've I've increasingly agreed with you that that these are the guys that are that are doing it. And it is you know, as people try to divide us as hunters right between left lefty hunters and you know, the new version of kind of the green decoy b H A member hunter and the old version of the right wing banquet you know, going R M E F guy and possible Sports's Alliance guy. UM, I think you're a good example and maybe I am too, of of all those ideas being important to me, I don't see. I don't think of this along party lines. You know, as I think about defending bear hunting, I want to support the Sources Alliance, And as I think about defending our national forests and our public lands and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Boundary Waters, um, and I want to fight for sensible minings, sensible oil and gas development, better forest management throughout our country. UM. I don't divide that up, you know. I feel as passionate about that as I do about defending bear hunting in Florida, New Jersey. UM. And all I'm looking for is really objective thought, UM, and constructive thought within our wildlife management process and the systems that we have that work. That's all I'm looking for. Just do that, and don't come crash our party with all these bears because you feel real because you have You know, there's a couple of bears in the corner of your kid's room that are wearing suspenders. It's like, stop doing that. That's all I'm asking. Bears don't even have shoulders when they stand upright, How spenders even stay on them? I mean, that's that's the sense of rational argument there, man, and bears. Bears stand outside in the rain all the time. Why would they need a raincoat and a little yellow hat? Like, why would they even need that? It doesn't make any sense. They should be given those raincoats to people in need and not wearing around the damn woods. I've had enough of the ship. Um. But yeah, man, it's all it's funny. Yeah, it's funny. I don't know if you it's funny how all this stuff is intertwined, Like you could start down if you're willing to go into the rhetorical world of what we're talking about, if you're willing to kind of go in there. It's all intertwined. All of the things that we do are intertwined. I mean, all the ideas we present can all lead back to bear hunting somehow, right, they can all lead back to Um, the restrictions are what we do. And I think that's that's a really fun part of it, man, where we can always find our way back to the core principles of hunting and then why we why we love it. Yeah, it's not hard it's not hard and there's always something out there that for us to talk about. So hopefully we'll be able to have you back here, you know, at least every month. My plan is every month to talk about to look at and talk about some things that are happening in our world. You know what what might be smart. I have thought about this till now, but we'll we'll call Brian Lynn up that sports his alliance and will partner with him on this. Yeah, We'll have have him help us highlights some of the things that are important to them and some of the things that we think warrants more discussion and keep this going because and again push back on stuff where we can to make sure we're not just falling into that trap. Been several years ago, I was up in Michigan and I've been several times to the Michigan Bear Hunters Association banquet, and those I hunted with those guys hound hunted with them for seven days one time, about six days I hunted and I hunted with a different family every day, So I ended up hunting with well five different families in in six days. And what I noted and those guys, it would have been like it wouldn't have been that big a deal to them because it was just their life. But what I noted even in their kids and their wives, in their in the in every part of their their world when it revolved around bear hunting with hounds, because they had built into their culture the idea that to be a bear hunter in Michigan is to be proactive and to be a fighter to preserve what we love to do. And I mean even the kids. I mean it's just like it's just normal, yeah, to be a bear hunter every single year we have to. I mean they this Michigan Michigan Bear Hunters and in Wisconsin bear Hunters as well. Both of those groups incredible, incredibly well organized, well funded, well put together groups that are basically very active in state government, extremely active in state government. Extreme the people are active. I mean you have you go to West Wisconsin Bear Hunter Association banquet in the spring and uh, there will be I don't want to say the number because I'll get it wrong a lot of people there. I mean a lot of people. I know the Michigan Michigan Bear Hunter bankquets. I went to add five people there. That's a big deal to gather five people from a statewide organization. The point. The point is is that they built into their culture this idea that it's our job too, it's our job too to be proactive in maintaining this thing that we do. We've got to be fighters, and I think that's what's got to be built into the North American hunter's mind and not and and fighting. We probably need to use a different word than fighters, because we're not. Again, we're with this. It's not against flesh and blood. We're fighting. But it's our job to be aware. It's our job to be proactive. It's our job to be knowledge able, knowledgeable, it's our job to be able to say it. And you know, maybe it's maybe it's educators. Let's all be freaking educators. Man, Let's let's educate anybody wants to listen and and have a lifestyle that's kind of built around that with your kids, your family, you know. And I just saw that so strongly with those guys. That was I think that's what we're missing. Sometimes we're so comfortable with just everything being as it is and it's always gonna be this way, and that's just not the truth. Ben. Let me close with one thought, um or well, if we close just one final thought, years ago, it might have taken twenty five to thirty years to turn the narrative in this country into something else. Now, because of technology, because of communication, because of social media, what used to take thirty years is now taken five years. So we that's another just point of why you know, guarding the gate this these ideas are so important. Yeah, I'm with you, man, I do think we said this. We were talking to the animal rights folks. It's like when you go up to somebody and show them a slaughterhouse video and you say you like that, and they say no, you join us, And they say, okay, Um, are you really creating like a healthy movement there? Are you? Are you having people come into your movement in a way that's healthy? Um? I say no, And I think that's born out by what we see. But exactly what you said, I think is true, Like we we need to find a way to get people in in a very healthy way, bring them in in the ways that we already have expressing, like you said, educating them expressing our values, educating on conservation, on wildlife management, on the philosophies we discussed here today. And then once we get them in here, we gotta say, hey, look, if you really feel like we feel, then you got to look around you and see that there are a lot of people that that want to take it away. UM. And the combination of creating a healthy movement of people to have a really good perspective on why they're here, and then giving them the knowledge that this is under threat and you can help. You don't have to fight, you don't have to punch people, but you have to educate them, tell them what's up, tell them why you love this, UM. And that's how you know guys like Jonathan Wilkins, who's your buddy down there in Arkansas, who's an African American waterfowl hunter. UM. You know, anybody from any gender, any identity, any cultural background, any place in our society can can tell everyone this is why I love this, and I'm gonna fight for this, and I'm gonna do I'm gonna educate everyone on this so it stays the way that it is. Maybe that's a good combo. It's first I've ever articulated that, But maybe maybe that's the way that we can build something that's really long standing and not only defensive in its nature. Yep, we're gonna explore the ship out of that um and the months to come. Man. And when I was thinking about this and thinking about I want to have you on more. I mean, it's like it's the perfect thing to give people pretty regular perspective in one on, a good way to uphold what we do and and keep things moving in the direction we want them to go right on. Thank you, Clay Newcome. The other thing I'm passionate about is uh, skinning squirrels fast and making squirrel tail Christmas ornaments, So we could talk about that too. Yeah, we're gonna have Clay's Craft Hour where you come in. Yeah, if you haven't seen Clay's video on how to make a squirreltael Christmas ornament. Uh, you're you're You're not a hillbilly, You're not a red kneck. You don't care about those values your bastards. Do you want to make any you wanna make any kind of call out there to the rednecks and hillbillies to join the squirrel tail ornament movement or is there any sort of Well, I think it's like a litmus test for being a hillbilly. Is if you click to watch that video and have positive emotions afterwards. If that happens to you, you might be a hillbilly. You just might be. I was looking at some old pictures of hunting when I was a kid, and I'm like, dude, we were hillbilly. We were. We were the hillbilliest people I've ever seen. And I love it. Uh And I still do the term of endearment to me. Oh, it's only endearment. Hillbilly, especially rednecks been kind of turned around, but hillbilly yea exactly, even the ones from Beverly We're good. So all right, Clayn, you can get out of here, go guard the gate. We'll see you next time. Brother. That's it. That's all another episode of the Hunting Collective podcast in the books, it's almost the break, Phil and so you guys know, we gotta give Phil Philly Engineer and Phil Jr. Hayden his real name is Hayden. We can reveal that now we like Hayden. We hope he sticks around even though we mistreat him. Um, Hayden and Phil, our podcast team and Krin the producer work incredibly hard right before our holiday break at our company to pack in as many podcasts as humanly possible, so that they can actually get a break, go on vacation, and that those podcasts still are coming into your iTunes. So if you're out there and you are wondering how it is that we're not working on the holidays but you're still getting four or five weekly Mediator podcasts, it's because of Hayden and Phil and Karn that that is happening. And so what you wanna do is just bombard at Phil Taylor with as many thank you's she possibly can as you listen to the best of episodes at t C. You listen to Roummy Warren's podcast Cutting the Distance. You listen to Bent, the Phishing podcast on the Media Now Work. You listen to The Mediator podcast with Steve Ronnella and the hospitell Us Ryan Callahan. You listen to Mark Kenyan's Wired to Hunt, I miss Any, Phil Cow's Weekend Review Cals. We can review Cal, Sorry, Buddy, um all that stuff. Man. We have a pile of content that comes out every week and it just doesn't magically appear there. There has to be somebody like Phil at the helm of the ship, steering us into the future, bravely, boldly, we're going where no man has gone before. Phil Jr. At his side, Phil any uh, any commentary? Please give a speech. No, you wrapped it up. I appreciate the thoughts, Ben, Um, and I'm I'm happy to do it. Yeah, I'm I'm very excited for Christmas and I'm it is. It is no no sweat getting these podcasts done. Um. I'm glad to keep the content coming throughout the break because I know that I I would appreciate it. Um. If I were a listener of this show, which I am not, I'd like to say I've never heard an episode, but if I were, I would I would like to have the episodes coming over the break. And Uh, I'm more than happy to get it done. So thank thank you Ben for putting us all together. No no problem. I would say, if you're listening, you know, if you're laying by a warm fire, drinking eggnog, uh, singing Christmas carols with your family, uh, drinking white claw heavily and crying in the corner like I might be, you should remember that there's people out there like Phil that are got your fucking back and they're supporting you even know you've done nothing to deserve it this holiday season. So that's what that's my pep talk? Is that good? Phil as a pep talk? No, that was very bad, bad, all right, cut that cut that. We'll bring it back in something better. All right. We're gonna get two beautiful weeks of best stus. We're gonna crank out some of the best moments of the last year. It has been a trying year for all of us. So thank you for or sticking in there. Thank you for listening to this program, Thanks for tolerating our jokes and our poop stories. Thanks for digging into the hearts hard stuff with us, and so its faith and hunting, veganism, animal rights, predator management in this country, all the things that we've touched on in this last year all very important to us. And it's also important to have a good laugh. Never take yourself too seriously. We sure don't hear the Hunting collective. So we hope you have a great holiday season. Phil, tell these people by goodbye, have a great holiday, because I can't go a week without doing rong. Oh withou

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