00:00:04 Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Hunt Collective. I'm Ben O'Brien. Today I am joined by Spencer new Art and Mark Kenyon. Both of them work on the wire to Hunt brand and then both of them work here at the Old Meat Eater Incorporated. Um, we're gonna talk to you guys about a bunch of really interesting topics, mostly around white Tail. Um. I say that because mostly around white Tail. We had a few little diversions into some other things that you'll be very interested to hear about. But I think as far as white Tail conversations go, and the conversation about what's really going on in that world, I think we had some good topics. We had some real sketchy ones too. UM. So hopefully you've you learned a little bit. Hopefully, uh we either make you mad or make you real happy with some of our opinions on some of these uh tougher topics. So, without further ado, enjoy this episode with parkt Spencer White Tannon. You should know that millions thirty million, maybe it sounds Spenser six million or killed a year. I know that. Okay, all right, well that's something that question I asked, But it's that answer to a question which I want to know what it really is them now, because thirty million was just like a number that sounded right. Okay, what do you what's it? Let's give a ki we already have. That's like that's a solid based one spencer. What if six well, I think it's six million deer. I don't know if six million white tales are killed a year. Um, I'm gonna go prices right on this and I'll say twenty million. Okay, I'll just say one deer. Yeah, I want to say twenty twenty million, one twenty million. No, I got six million, Mark, It's probably not it's going to be an estimated number. We know there's more white tailed deer in this like the Atlantic quotes that there are as many as thirty million of them roman the country at large. White tail or dear, this is speaking to white tail deer. Good. I'm glad you passed the test. You can keep podcasting about tales. Joined by Mark Kenyon, Wired to Hunt Spencer new art of the Meat Eater team. Here. Um, we're gonna talk about white tail stuff. What do you guys think about that? It is something that I do on occasion. Yeah, You've been known to speak of speak of white tails, and every time I do it, I enjoy it. So I'm looking forward to this every time. So get ready, everybody. It's gonna be scintillating. Now. This is the time you where people who don't give a shit about white tails right now, other than you freaks, other than you freaks that are out there looking for sheds. There's a lot going on this time of year for white tail folks. Yeah, not just finding sheds, what else scouting, low scouting, going on, a lot of prepping. Now was a great time to get out there and be haying your stands now, get that, get that work done now so you're not doing it like you're stretching in a little bit. Yeah, planning out of state hunts when you get your ducks in a row for that. If you manage private land and have stuff you can do like that from the habitat site. And that was a great time to be doing things like timber management, hinge cutting. You're getting some so bored here for access as well. Yeah, knocking in doors you are into like content, you talk to a boring caving and uh you can get maybe some kyote access that maybe leads to something different. Maybe you meet an old man who likes to play checkers. You guys play checkers together, talking about you asked for this, Ben, you can get yourself into this mess. It's probably like the deadest time of year though for a white tailer. And I always finally got back to the truth, if you had to pick the valley in the white tail seasons the lowest EBB point of the year. Yes, So what we're trying to do with this podcast is bring it back up, gives people something. Did you hear about that podcast where they talk about white tails. That's what we're trying to do. That's our goal here. But recently, Mark, you've been out looking look for sheds and you found what seemed to me like a lot of small ones. I wouldn't even say a lot. I found a few sheds, of which they've all been small. It's been a rough because the snow. Partly has been because of the snow, partly simply because of like travel schedule has not allowed me to spend much time in places where there's the numbers and quality of deer to actually finds. A lot of shed hunting comes down to just the quality of the areas are in. Yeah, have you You haven't shed on it at all? Have you spencer this year? Uh? I was recently back in South Dakota, where I'm from and where I do most of my deer hunting, this last week, but they had like a foot of snow on the ground, so you would find nothing in that case. Nothing. Yeah, I've I've never really consistent. When I had a lease back in Maryland, I shed on a good bit and I got when I was fully into the white tail year right every season was doing something. But right, I haven't shed hunting in quite some time. You know a lot of people well that don't, that aren't into it, kind of dog it like, oh that seems like a stupid thing. You can't eat antlers? What are you going on their waste your time doing? And I think from my perspective, I really it's a love hate thing. Um But I mostly love it because I enjoy hiking. Like if you like to walk a lot, if you like to hike just for the sake of being outside and doing that, shed outing is a great way to do that because it's a way to get out there, stretcher legs, hike around, be outside and then there's also this little treasure hunt aspect to it, which adds a little bit of fun and um when you do stumble on one, when you do find one, that is a really exciting moment. I saw, I think the other day where guys were advertising guided shed hunts. That's pretty crazy. Describe that you think that might be, Like it's like an Easter egg hunt. Guarantee those dudes are putting them out there. They're like, oh, you're a little bit warmer, you're hot, you're boiling hot, you're on fire, You're on fire. There's no way that they're just taking them out for a walk. I wonder what the actual specifics of it are if it if it actually entail a guide or is it just access like you pay. Now this one was a guided, like you paid to go to a lodge and a feller would walk around with you like that. I'll just say, that's not my cup of tea. I could see. I think I could be. I think I could be a shed hunting guide if you wanted to learn about shed hunting, Like if you had found two sheds in your whole life and you're like, what am I doing wrong? I have to dial this in there could be an advantage to that, like going out with somebody who you know you're gonna find sheds with. But otherwise I can't imagine there's a lot of guys type in the Google shed hunting outfitter. But I do know some people who I do have friends who really love to shed hunt, who have said to me, man, it would be cool to for once in our lives, like get access to the kind of place where you could find fifty amlers in a day, Like you see people on social media having these days on these big managed properties, and like myself and all my friends, like, we don't have that kind of thing. So when we go, it's usually public land or something we knocked on the doors of. And if you're you're lucky even in the best place says to find ten antlers between a group of five or something like that. So once in your life to go somewhere that's just loaded with deer, just brown antlers everywhere. Like, I don't think i'd pay money to do that, but I certainly wouldn't mind, like getting invited to go along on something that and just and you would travel like three states away because you do that. Oh yeah, I've travel across the country forget. I hope non hunters are listening to this and they know how crazy we are, because I was thinking, yeah, I do that too. I would It's hard to describe why it's that much fun, but it's just could you like being outsidely? I said, there's just something really neat about being outside and then searching for something and occasionally finding it and then antlers to me, like holding an antler in your hand, It's just like a really cool artifact of a life, like seeing something that used to be part of a living animal and then is now something you can hold in your hand and touch and feel and spin around, and like there's fascinating objects on her own and to be able to find a bunch of those is just well, you develop these relationships with those animals, man, and you're you know, you're tracking them all year round. It's fun to find a little You're find literally a little piece of them, which brings me to what's your favorite kind of shed to find? Like a little little blood on the pedicle? Does that get your going? Like? Does that? I wouldn't say, like what gets you going? Yeah? I don't necessarily value like a fresh ee anymore than fresh, freshy, but it would be like fresh, its fresh. It would be nowhere they're like, oh, look at this one fresh just and I mean a fresh antler is nice. Like I definitely prefer something that's not been chewed on by animals and stuff, just simply because it's pretty. It feels good in your hand. It's just a cool thing. But like an old chalky shoot up one is just whatever. It's not quite as aesthetically pleased. Do you feel though it would be more exciting because you're like, well, nobody found this and I somehow stumbled upon it, the old shoot up one. Yeah, I guess that's one way to look at him. Yeah, you don't seem excited about that. Yeah, not too much. Even when I lived within like ten miles of where I primarily a white tail hunt, I just didn't get into shed hunting that much. But I would, um, like for the reason of Kevin fever, Like South Dakota winners are pretty awful and uh, by the time, like marsh rolls around and there's nothing else to do. Sick of ice fishing, uh, sick of being inside, Like shed hunting sounds pretty good at that point, so I can get into it. So you're saying that when you're at the your most desperate, Yes, you're you can barely think about anything else to do. You've read all the books you're out of. As far as we're like shed hunting ranks and what I like to do outside, it's it's pretty low. And I don't think I would ever drive what you went from Michigan to western North Dakota. Yeah, it's got to be like a thousand miles. I wouldn't do that. I'd go that far to to kill a deer, but not look for a deer's antlers. Not to be fair, that was shed hunting and scouting, Okay, And I hit Montana Fair in North Kakota and I killed a deer there, so that scout and shed paid off. Yeah. My view on is always like, this is not going to help me kill a deer. If I'm out there and I find a specific antler or find no ansler's Um, that's my view. I don't think this is going to help me kill a deer. But I did talk to a body a few weeks ago that kind of changed my perspective on it. Um. He was looking for elk sheds in South Dakota. In a unit that it's tough to draw, all units of South Dakota tough to draw. Anyway, he found the piece of public and he got in there and he found three elk sheds at which are They were in obvious places and so to him that meant nobody else had been there, like in the last few years, because they were old sheds, and so that was really valuable. Like that's an obvious um sign that you were one of the few hunters in there at that time. So I could see the value to that point, like finding them on public land and these places that so you're saying, go and plant sheds and obvious places where you know they're no elk. So hunters like this guy I'm going back there really dispersed the other hunters. So that's some value I could see in it. But from the just finding an aniler and being excited about it, not so much. Yeah, I'm hoping to convinced Mark Kenyon of something. There was an article in Outside magazine and this article, uh, it's called in Memory of Yellowstone Wolf nine to six F. You possibly read that, Mark. I lanced that. I did not read it, but I know the basic gist, like the deck here is kind of like she was a survivor and an alpha, and then she was legally shot and killed by a hunter. Yellostone Park's legendary wolf researcher Rick McIntyre reflects on the life of one of the park's most famous canines. And this guy waxes about wolf to six in a way that I respect like his I don't. I would never make fun of his relationship with the animal. Yeah. Um, and he definitely uh personifies her in a lot of ways and talks about his how he cared for, how he tracked her since she was born, things of that nature. And my thought was not that, not that old and Rick had some unnatural relationship. I first thought of you, I thought, well, Mark Kenyon, Well, Mark Kenyon has names animals and follows them throughout their lives. He just happens to kill them at the end and eat them. Yeah. So I want to convince you to write an article where you, maybe, like for Frank, would write this eulogy like this fellow did for a wolf, but then at the end he would like and I shot it and I ate it. Convinced Outside to publish it. Next to that, and convince Outside to publish it. What are you willing to take that on? It would be a very interesting pairing, that's for sure. I don't know if that's because you would start it like I remember when Frank was born like an all series. No, not to that, but it is interesting to you bring it up, because like when I saw that article, I was like, oh jeez, like some serious anthropomorphization. Um. I didn't say that work as I always always stumble over the pronunciation of and so thank you for them, You're welcome. Um. That just goes too far. And you see this a lot with the wolf debate. UM, and I will publicly like I I am not like an anti wolfer like I I'm okay with I'm all from management of them. At the same time, I'm happy they're on the ecosystem. A lot of players to it, they their native species. I'm okay with that. UM. So I'm not someone who like vehementally anti wolf, but when I see stuff like this, they go so far to the other direction that you know, Disney fies these animals and makes it seem like they're a little happy family of people up there that were attacked by vicious hunters. And this whole relationship that they kind of contrive from watching something in the spoty scope or whatever. Um. I kind of rolled my eyes at it a little bit. Not that I don't respect the fact that they appreciate and respect these animals so much, but something like the way it's tis a strange parallel, he says. Rick says this, she had a long, exciting life and overcame great difficulties. Tens of thousands of people got to see her live that life and were inspired by her grit and determination. Her family is carrying on. Next April, her adult daughter will likely have a litter of new pups at the pax stn. In my attempt to deal with the death of of a wolf I knew so well and admired so greatly, I thought of something I could do. WO was shot about a mile from my cabin. I found the site where she had blew out her blood out and collected some of her frozen blood. I trudged through the snow to where had been born and where I had seen her play with her pups, and left her remains there. I did it for her family, but mostly I did it for her. She deserved to come back home. It's good writing. Yeah, and like I can appreciate appreciation for wildlife and animals like them. Yeah that's because I do too. Yeah, I'm not making light of what this guy feels like. I understand what he's going through. But I just think it's funny that there's this parallel between particularly white tail hunters, because you're in close proximity to the animal, right that that you can no a deer, probably not from what it's born, but pretty freaking close you know, and track it and find its sheds and and and understand each year what age it is. You get pictures of it every year. Um. I know a lot of white tail ranges where they have little flipbooks of a deer's whole life, like every picture of it. As soon as you call it a ranch, and it wasn't Texas, it's a low fencer. Um. Kid. But I know what you're saying, you know what I'm saying. Like there's a relationship they like this guy had a relationship with the wolf. He just like he took it to what I believe is unrealistic level. Right for at least he didn't write about it. I remember the time that wolf ate the asshole of a mule deer, although that would be a great vignette. Yeah, I remember, you know, one time I was I was following the wolf pack and she got on the track of a baby of a fawn mule deer, and I remember when she ripped its throat out. What a wonderful experience. Conveniently leave out the part that this is a killing machine, right, I don't I don't mind his relationship and his admiration of the animal, but he takes away almost all the realism there. Yeah, and so I think that what's interesting is, like I have my gut reaction has like boy, roll my eyes. But then to your point, if I do put a mirror up to myself and look at what I how I engage with with deer, you're right, like, there is an interesting kind of relationship that forms when you hunt the same deer for multiple years, when I see it over and over and over again, I studying, and I look at trail camera pictures and I observe it, and I have, you know, moments of engagement where I see this a little close at a close call, or almost got a shot at all these different things. Yeah, in a really weird way. That's hard to explain to someone who's not been a part of that you do form a kind of relationship with that animal, which then becomes really weird when you talk about the fact that you're trying to kill that animal that I so enjoy that, I so appreciate that. Um, it's a weird thing. And so I have had situations like there was a bucket hunted for three years and watched and had a lot of encounters with um and after successfully killing that buck, eventually I had like a weird swamp of emotions afterwards, like sitting back and realizing, Wow, I'm never gonna see that dear again. And it's similar, like to this guy to the point of the deer you encounter, see you don't kill, and a lot of those get killed by someone else. So like you are dealing with the same thing that there's some buck you're aware of, you've known him for four years, and then a neighbor kills him. It's very similar to what this guy is talking about. Yeah, so there's there's like the these weird parallels, and I feel like this is with all hunters and then non hunting lovers of wildlife like that this weird parallel we always draw what we both care about the animal. There's at some point in the parallel line where we divert, you know. They go into this like intense, almost unrealistic love, and we go into this more pragmatic stance of I'm gonna kill it and need it now. We've had this caring relationship of this animal for all this time. We just take the left fork and they take the right for it, and it just we forget that we're traveling along the same path, you know. Um. Yeah, And I think it's I guess to to to kind of wrap all that up in my own mind, Like I think it's probably a good lesson for myself to remember not to go to not to jump to that eye rolling, um reaction right away when I see something like that, but instead remember that, you know, we're on the same path for a lot of this, and it's probably much more helpful to engage someone like that and talking like, hey, I've gotten I've had relationships like this, I respect what you're saying and have meaningful conversations versus right away. So then these guys are Yahoo's squirrel. Yeah, it's it's way too easy. That's the way too easy round and we're you know, we're always in whether we'd like to say it or not. We like say, oh, we're not in an echo chamber. Bullshit. We're all in a similar echo chamber. Whether you're in the White Tail space or just the Western hunting space or whatever, you're an echo chamber. And you're talking about things that would seem crazy, that us killing animals that we care about. Is Is it crazy to that guy? Is us? Is that dude talking about you know, taking bits of blood and burying it? You know it is us, same kind of same kind of gap. Live in a world filled a lot of paradoxes. So are you willing to write this article? And we'll pitch it. I know, I know this website. We could put it on mediate or dot com. I'd consider it loosely, loosely consider we'll have you. We'll have you back alone when you're prepared to break here your article, and then well then you could write. Then then I scooped up the remains of the deer, put it in my truck, drove the truck to my house, went inside my house, and cook the deer and ate the deer. What a lovely And I do see that as a form of show in my respects, just like he showed what he did as a farm of his respects. Yeah, I'm about to have this one. This vegan guy on that was trying to argue with me about the morality of our relationship with animals and why don't we just treat them like us, Like, well, we don't eat us, we eat them. And if you want, if you want to display the ultimate understanding what animal is, I would imagine that eating it is a part of that also understanding your humanity. So it's a there's there's two ways to look at that. What was so Mark? You could go to Wyoming, like learn the deer herd in that area, name a few deer, wait for that wolf to kill those deer, and then the proper response is I like it your wolf killed my dear that I really liked. And then you'd be like I remember when dear one to three kill my wolf was born and he was yet three hours old, and wolf nine to six came around the corner and ate his the whole entire body. This has got lots of potentials. I remember when one to three was pooped out? What a what a day? Yeah? What a day? All right? Let's let's just gently move on from that one. Um, I want to move on to a subject it's near and dear to my heart. Is that if somebody shoots a big giant buck, as Steve Ornella would say, and we're talking like big bucks, we'll say, for for sake of sake of this conversation, it's either a record breaking animal of some kind, right, we'll just we'll stick to white tails since that sort of thing, or or a deer over My question to you two is why do immediately all other hunters hate that person? Number one? I think that's maybe more obvious. But why is it always that that had to be a farm to deer, that had to be a high fence deer. Even if, like in the case of an article that that we ran on our website, even if record book keeping organizations are saying this is at the Boone and Crocket Club or the Pope and Young Club is saying we accept this into a record book, that that means they've done the research and they determined it to be fair Chase, Why why are most folks first reaction two to throw that shade over those types of things? So I would I would first said that I don't think most folks come to that. I think it's similar to like any almost anything these days, Like you throw a political topic out there, there's always a very vocal minority. So I think this is the case of the vocal minority stealing the spotlight on something like that, and that vocal minority oftentimes is angry, lonely, jealous, something going on, that this is their way to strike out online and feel half a percent better about themselves or something. That's my best guess. Yeah, I would agree with you that not every hunter thinks that, and it is a small group, but it's the loudest group. Um. But and I think that's the obvious answer, is like jealousy. But I think there is also a point to it that like, uh, it's hard, really hard to fathom like a two white tail because the majority of hunters have not seen I think there's like ten million hunters in the US. Uh. Every one of them besides like the one guy who killed it, for the most part, has never seen a deer that big, and it's not used to dear growing that big. But we are in the golden age of deer hunting, specifically for white tails, so it's hard to fathom that there are deer that big out there, Yeah, especially depending on you live to Like, if you live in the state that you almost never see a hundred twenty inch type buck your whole life, to then see a two buck online, it does seem kind of unfathomable. Yeah, And and like most recently the uh, the buck that was killed by Brewster in Illinois. Illinois is a giant white tail state, Like, that's not hard to believe that there was a sil white tail tacking around there. That's still incredible. Illinois seems like the appropriate place for that to happen. But the last time, like a notable white tail record dropped, do you remember what state that was? In? Mark Tennessee, Tennessee, which if you and I made a list of like the top twenty white tail states, that would not be on either one of our lists. And so that one, it's easy to understand how people were skeptical when there's an enormous deer out of a southern state like that that is not known for white tails. Yeah, I mean think I think skeptics, you know, being skeptical is always important, right, That's something that you know we should all be willing to accept right just to sketch. And there's been a lot of folks who shot. I remember a guy at Pennsylvania shoots this farm deer, takes it over, throws it in a field, walks up on it, tells you because he was jealous that his brother had shot a really big deer of the year prior, and investigate. Investigation comes out and says, Okay, this is bogus. So that that happens, So that creates the environment where skepticism is is healthy. But I mean, I just want to read you. You know. We posted on the Mediator Facebook page an article that Spencer wrote, uh, and we said breaking news. After rescoring the Luke Brewster white sale, the Pope and Young Club has determined it's even larger than previously thought, nearly three inches. It's officially the biggest wild buck ever taken. And this thing, if you haven't seen it, look up a picture of it. It's just it's a bizarre looking deer. It's a bizarre looking deer, pretty wild. I haven't looked at the comments, but some of my guests people are gonna like reference steroids or something like that, or get ready stop posting this. Obviously Farm deer. I'm so tired of seeing it. Total bullshit. That guy says, this guy says, meat Eater is losing credibility with posts like this. The deer on the left, which is the Brewster deer, is obviously on the juice. I missed the old days of meat Eater. There's too much clickbait, the Barry Bonds of deer. It's pretty funny. Um game Farm released. I'm sure this ship's out of control. It's pretty much every every other comment of the commentary here is is about this. So what do what do we do? Just take it and take it and say it's existed in skepticism these people. So you're saying all the lonely people you were talking about happened to be on Facebook, happen they also happened to follow meat Eater. I just feel like you tend to get that kind of thing. When when a big buck, exceptionally big buck gets put up, there's gonna be a group of folks that want to jump on it. They want to jump to conclusions, to have a jump to conclusions. Matt and away his air towards the negative side, and you see somebody with a deer that big I think a lot of guys naturally jumped too, Like this guy is an asshole with money, like he when paid twelve tho dollars to shoot that buck behind the high fence in Ohio or Texas or whatever. And that's like what a lot of people are projecting onto a wild deer from Illinois. You know. Yeah, this guy says he was he was definitely being fed supplements. Awesome buck though, Yeah, you know it's it's funny because you're right, like the latter does happen, right, There are people that will pay some ridiculous some money to go I want to call hunt, do you want to go shoot an animal that it's in a high fence area? And I have all sorts of opinions and thoughts and issues of that, um valid concerns around that. Um so yeah, people probably then make assumptions and project that onto some of these deer that do seem so out of the ordinary. And I guess there's something part of me that can understand why might jumped to that. I just like I personally don't ever feel the need to go in comment like maybe in my health big that's kind of sketchy looking, but I don't see the need to go in there and publicly say you're a douche bag. This is obviously on stuff. Lem's blah blah blah, and most people wouldn't. Most people don't. Most people, but I I just remember reading these comments when it first came out. I just thought, and if this is not again, I used to work with North American white tail back in the day. I've I've seen this stuff. We post things and it will almost always be the reaction. Um. And I'm not sure if it's this a symptom of the white tale's community obsession with giant things. Uh. And I don't. I think the white tail community obsession with giant antlers didn't help create, but is is symptomatic of the you know, high fence breeder bucks, like those things are connected. Yeah, man, I don't think this. I don't think you can just say it's just the white tail community though. Man, the entire hunting community. No. Yeah, we're like, I'm just saying white tails because we're sitting here with talking about white tails. Um. I with the entire hunting community fetishize is big antlers for sure, absolutely, And there's plenty of you know, the spider bowl being one of them. There's plenty of l hunters who have bought a giant tag, you know, paid six figures, bought a tag, had a bunch of people go track down an LP for him. They walk in and shoot it, take a picture whe it. They're the record holder. So I mean there is a lot of h a lot of it's called duggery around big animals. But you know, the white tailed world, like you know, the traditional television programs, traditional print media in the digital space, like there's this fetishizing of big bucks that has to have an effect on the culture in a negative way. And like the people that commented that you rather comment specifically, they're just uneducated assholes. Like that's the easiest way to put it. Wow, that's a strong stan. Well here's my point. So like, and I'll tell you their names. The Bruister Buck, I think, uh, the two deer that it passed were in and I had to write in there specifically hunter killed deer because it did not surpass like the biggest white tail in the books, which I think we're two other ones. Um one was like do you do you remember Mark? It was hit, it was killed by somebody found it or there was like a buck found in Missouri that was dead back in like the sixties or something. So that was, you know, fifty years ago that there wasn't high fence white tail farms at that point. And I think there was another deer like fifty years ago that was also found dead that is at the very very top of the record book. And so like even in En when that deer was killed. Uh, there were bigger dudes than that pretty long time ago. It's a good point. Yeah that had been found. Yeah, you know, you want I just wonder about that why that reaction is triggered. And most people, like you said that the easiest answers be like their assholes. Um, there's other answers to that question, though, I sure. I think maybe what you're getting at is that there is a pushback to the big buck fetish and maybe this is a similar this this is a reaction just a lot of regular folks are tired of it. Um. But again they I think given a chance, they would shoot that buck, right, everybody would shoot that buck given a chance. But I think there's there's there's a lot of people that are just tired of it. Some people said in those comments they would not choose that buck. Though I remember someone saying, like that steroid deer, I wouldn't shoot that thing like wild deer better eating, But that person is an asshole, wouldn't shoot Yeah, Like to your point, I agree in that it has gone overboard in a lot of ways, and the way we like hero worship people that shoot big deer and and try to um assign some kind of value or skill level to a hunter or people self assigned to themselves, like I'm a big bad because I kill all these big too earnish bucks or whatever. I see that being like ridiculous. Um. I don't think that high scoring bucks in any way represent some type of skill in most cases to a certain hunter. In many cases, it's just a product of where you happen to be or good luck, or in some cases there are guys who spend a lot of time trying to find animals like that, and you can't say that that didn't take them some amount of work, um and things like that. But in general, I think that the way I look at Antler's score and stuff like that, now, to me just personally, it's like, do I find big bucks exciting to see, fun to hunt? Like awesome? And just like a cool, enjoyable, interesting, fascinating animal to look at, sea hunt look for Yeah, like they're just cool. You can't help but look at an animal like that and marvel at what is the relatively rare thing in a species and animal that reached a high age that has the genetic ChIL to to grow large anglers. And it's a beautiful, cool rare of things. So I don't think there's an issue with appreciating that, um and I certainly do. And I think also it's fair to say that even the people that get pissy and common stuff like that, even they appreciate that too, like there, well, that's a heck of a buck. Like that's cool. There's a lot of like, oh, steroids book, great buck. But I think I think the I think the frustration begins like when we start saying like or when people start feeling like they have to kill do like that to feel good about themselves or to be a quote unquote big counter. Like there's like self worth things that get tied into all this now because we're saying, oh, such and such is so amazing because he's killed five booners this year, and I think everybody else that says, well, I won't even see a one tent or something. Then there's gonna be some bitterness. And there shows like Team two hundred and and you know people like Spook Span who have like the the that's that's how they get their street cred um. And I think, like I said, I think culturally hunting it's appropriate to you know, want to or lust after like the the rarity of a large and like that. To me, it's appropriate. It's not it's not something that's something that I do. If I see a big buck, I'm not gonna be like now, I'll keep looking. Yeah, I'm excited by the big buck. There's four bucks in the field. The biggest ones on I'm looking at, I mean, the most unique ones sometimes is the one I'm looking at. So I don't begrudge anybody that. But I think as as our culture has kind of dug deeper into what that really means psychologically, we've kind of gone in some weird directions, and like the white tail community I think is ground zero for that kind of shift in hunting culture. But it's everybody. The Pope and Young Record Book has had seventeen of the thirty four records broken in the last decade. That's not coincidental. Like every hunter who targets big game has an infatuation with you know, big animals or big antlers, not just the white tail community. And it should be pointed out this is not new. No, Like this was happening a hundred years ago, two d years ago, Like Theodore Roosevelt was really pumped up to find a really big elk or a really big white And when folks were putting cap paintings on the wall, you know, there's these are big antlered animals. They weren't showing the little spikes. So I think it's natural for humans and hunters to see something like that and like wow, But media and culture and all these things have probably cranked it up to that's yes, I think, like I said, it's appropriate, And like the bigger question I don't. I don't think any of us could really answer, is why is it natural? Like what about that? What about that animal in our relationship? That animal makes it natural for us to desire to shoot the biggest one? Right? I think we have posthumously started to you know, we'll get into shooting young bucks here, but we've posthumously assigned it to management, right, Um like, if you're if you're if you're saying that, you know, the q d M, a style of white tail hunting didn't come and wasn't didn't come into play in the thirties, sure didn't come into play at the turn of the century. Um, so we've posthumously kind of added that to the the ledger of reasons why we do it. Yeah, I think it's definitely part of it now, but certainly not all um that in specifics. But yeah, I don't have any answer to why it's natural. I could try to articulated, but I don't know that I could very well. And I think that's a problem. That's part of the problem. It's hard to it's hard to articulate why that why it is, why it is? I mean, if I was, I think it's it's My guess is that it's like a combination of just the pure aesthetics, Like it's just aesthetically when you see a large antlered animal, just like when you see a huge bear, just like when you see a huge lion, or any any kind of large, formidable top of its species type of feature set, Like that's just an aesthetically impressive thing. Just now why that's impressive. I can't answer that question, but maybe it goes back to our long long ago ancestors that are used to having to be able to assign some kind of value to an animal based off of physical characteristics or size. It would help us understand if it's dangerous, if it's worth pursuing for food, whatever. Way back in the day. Maybe that's something that it was helpful for us to be able to ascertain by visually, you know, looking at an animal like that. Maybe. And I do think the rarity of something makes it makes the value higher to whether that be a mineral, whether it be an animal, whether that be a nice pair of sneakers something, Things that are rare are always looked at as more valuable. And I think that just natural then applies in this case. Yeah. I think hunters also. I think humans desire challenge, right. You desire you seek if you if you seek improvement, you seek the greatest amount of challenge. Right. So if you seek improvement as a hunter, you seek you know, by by proxy, you're seeking this rare thing or this challenging thing to find, and you're and almost somewhere deep down you're facing off with the most challenging animal to kill. Right, Um, we all know sneaking up on a one year old white tail is a lot different than sneaking up on a six year old white tail. Um, whether it's a bucker or do so. I don't know that we'll ever really get to that part of it, but I think it's an example of how these how sometimes we just do things because it's it's part of our culture without thinking about the grand effect of it. And there's the issue I think in that, or what worries me within the culture is that you get people who feel that they have to just do this thing because it's what you do. And I think that's when you get some bitterness because there's maybe some people that don't actually want to be or need to be targeting big or mature bucks, but they feel like there's this cultural pressure to do so. And so you've got people that are just starting out hunting, maybe um or people that you know, just they want to get some meat and they don't care about hunting for four months. They just want to have their weekend and want to fill the freezer, which is perfectly fine, but they don't like the fact that when they do that, they've got a neighbor who gives them crap about it, Or there's a new hunter who listens to the Wired and podcast and reads the Meteor website and they see big Bucks all the time on these websites and they hear about us talking about these things, and they're thinking, well, that's what everyone's doing, I better do it too, Like I don't want to not be the person doing that. So I think that's the danger, is that making it seem like it's what everyone should be doing or has to be doing, or that that is what everyone's doing. I think that's where, um, you get these false um limitations put on people. Maybe that um, it could be a matter of fulfillment to like it's a challenging you're wanting a thing and wanting to be fulfilled, but there's some sort of intrinsic like there's there's always it would be easier if intrinsically you're like, I just want to kill an animal, right and I just want to either eat it or yeah, even hanging on my wall. I don't really care what to what age the animal is or how big the set of anilers are on its head. I just will be fulfilled if I go outside experience this and at the end of the day I'm successful in killing a animal. That would that would be much easier and probably a much more fulfilling hunting life, right, Like I think I think there's have you heard about the stages of hunters? Like there's is like, oh, yeah, there's not. Not everybody goes through all these stages, but there is sometimes a somewhat generic set of steps up the ladder that sometimes, uh typically hunters might take, at least like for myself, I could say I followed something along that, right, there's yeah, that first phase that you just want to like figure it out and be able to kill an animal, figure out how to hunt. And so you finally do that, and that's awesome at that point, like getting any animals a huge accomplishment and it's a big step in this new direction. And then eventually figure out how to do that and then to your point about challenge. Many times, if you find that fulfilling and you enjoy that and you want to participate in that more, then it's like, how do you take it to the next what's the next step, what's the next challenge, what's the next way to deepen this thing? I'm into and that's then usually it's I want to numbers. It's like I want to kill. I want to have a lot of success as a hunter, So hunt a bunch, feel, a bunch of tags, whatever it might be. And then many times then the next step is, Okay, I've figured out how to do that. Then for many people it's how do I do that next rare thing, which is killing an older or bigger animal. And then again that's that's a challenge thing. And then eventually many people get to the point where I've checked the boxes. I've had these really long seasons where I hunted these deer for a long time. I've killed some big mature bucks. That was really exciting, and I learned a lot and I became a great hunter. Now, you know, now I'm not quite as interested in that. I mean, it's still fun what happens, but now I just really want to see my kids have success. I really want to help other people have success. I really just want to be out there and enjoy the scenery and just soak it all in and think back on all those great memories. I don't need to pull the tricker now to still enjoy it. Just the process. Um, I think a lot of people go through that you don't have to. So that final one is kind of like a Buddhist mentality. I think maybe eliminated the craving, because that's a big thing in Buddhism, like the the four Noble Truths, Right, you eliminate they're basically just saying you're eliminating the craving, right, and that's bring a less desirous and more happy life. Yeah, so I think a lot of people to bring Buddhism in the fucking White Tales, that'd be an interesting podcast to do right there. And this is and they can't be measured in quite anecdotal, but I feel like maybe we've hit the climax already of like big buck media and big culture. Like if you think back twenty years ago, the only way that you were getting like anything around White Tails, it's not the Internet. It was like DVDs that were called Big Booners Volume ten were like on the Outdoor Channel or through one of the magazines that puts you know, Hunter and White Tails on the cover. That's not so much the case anymore. There's a bunch of different YouTube channels of amateurs um you know, like us that are out there and get jacked about killing a public land here or uh, you know, are stoked about killing hunter white tail with a gun whatever. Um. But that like wasn't the case with white Tail media maybe like twenty five years ago. And now that it's not just like such a limit of options that it's magazines, DVD ease or the outdoor channel, I feel like we're coming down from that of just being kill giant ear because there's there's so many more voices. Yes, in the space, there's a diversity of options and a diversity of of demand from people, Like people want to see stuff that's closer to what they experience in the real world, and there's definitely people that are starting to share them. I think it's great. I think it's good that there's all these different things out there. I think it's great to show all the different ways of hunting and all the different types of end results and and and uh validate all of them. Like they're all great. If you want to target mature bucks, go for it, that's awesome. There's a lot of cool things about it. If you want to go out there and shoot young bucks, go for it. It's awesome. Do whatever. It's filling and legal. Um, it's gonna be different for all of us. I just think that I have nothing wrong with like being intrigued and interested entireet mature bucks myself and talk to people that are. They're like that, that's cool, it's fun, it's interesting. Certainly nothing to be a shame like. There's certainly nothing we have to apologize for. And I think the same thing is both ways. It's just like, you know, just making sure people understand, especially for new people that are just getting into it, that's feeling. Something I've always tried to do. I've always tried to emphasize us within the Wired Hunt podcast. Is like, you're gonna hear a guy today who's going to tell you about how he kills this year? And is that interesting? Is that rare? Is that kind of crazy? Yeah? And it it took some interesting strategies and tactics do all those. That's interesting. But I just want to make it clear that interest is not what it's all about. This does not make you a lesser hunter or less interesting hunter because you haven't done anything like that. I've always tried to make sure that when new people get into this community, they don't fall into this um assumption that you have to be. Yeah, that's that extrinsic piece of it, right, So they see the motive. Their motivation is to kind of like be part of the club or please the social media followers, you know. Or that's where the mouse trap or the you know, the maze of social media gets you know, we're dangling the the thing that you want. We'll put you in a maze to go and get it. Well, if you post just what you want to post or just what makes you feel good, that's not that's not gonna work here here on social media. That's not how this works. You post what other people want to see, right, and you post the kind of hashtags that get uh, that gets you noticed. You post the kind of things that gets you noticed. And now and now you have the your Now you're the mouse that found the cheese in the maze. But if you decided to take another path, it's gonna be a whole lot longer until you get desired number above your name on Instagram. It depends on what you want. It depends on what you want. Some people, it's all about trying to get those validators like a right, and so there's lots of I think that's just it's just it's a part of every community. I'm sure it's part of the fashion community. It's part of just like it's part of the hunting community. People people want to take shortcuts, People desire to be known, and so it manifests itself in weird ways, and then it manifests itself in a weird way in hunting, and it has moving on shooting immature bucks. We just kind of we took a we took a hard left at you know, fetishizing trophy deer. We had we did have to cover for lover likes a little detour, a little detour. We covered that, and we're gonna go back to kind of the antithesis of fetishizing a big old, big old buck, which is which is shooting um young bucks. So it give us a quick rundown. We had an article on the Old Mediator dot com by Brodie Henderson about this um mark and you give us just a quick rundown of of that and then just kind of your perspective on shooting young bucks and kind of the issues at hand. Yeah, so this article that Brody rowe kind of shared his personal perspective on this issue, that being why do some people get chastised for shooting young deer, small deer, et cetera. And I do think this is a symptom a little bit of this conversation we've been having about the big buck mania, about all this value of being applied to big deer, big antlers so much that within the media and then now in our culture, um, people are really excited about big antlers. And what you get is sometimes people that are super gung ho about that, super gung ho about their own personal goals, that they then put that on other people. And so if they see someone shoot a young deer, that is not gonna help them reach their own goals because they want to see kill big deer. They will then ridicule that person. And so there's certainly some of that going on, which is a big time bummer. I'm not happy about that kind of stuff. What is the reality it happens? So, so Brodie's article kind of laid out, kind of laid out, um, you know, a little bit, a very kind of high level overview of how the culture has changed a little bit, how much people focus on big deer, and then how there's some of this ridicule. Now there's the folks that don't do that and how they get um chastised a bit. Um. Now I have some qualms with Brodie's arcle a little bit though, Um. I think he misrepresented a few things, um. And so this is a little bit unfair to make these stadiums without Brodie here to defend himself. He's an article. Is his article, yep, um, But he took a few like quotes out of context. And he also applied some blame to an organization, um, that mean, the Quality Deer Management Association. So basically what's going on here is there's two things. There is the fact that there was an organization, the Quality Deer Management Association, which is a conservation organization, to start decades ago that was one of the first to wildly discuss how you could better manage wild deer herds to achieve older deer and bigger deer. They also talked about you brought this up at the beginning, the whole swath of different benefits to the overall ecosystem into a deer head in general by doing this. But a big part of that was like you did see a bigger deer, older deer, and there's a whole bunch of things to go with a different kind of hunting experience, different types of behavior. You see a lot of cool things come out of it. But the Quality Deer Management Association was like one of the first groups to really spread that and talk about them. What happened, though, was that their message and their management philosophy got hijacked by a lot of people, and people took a lot of things they talked about and then they just took bits and parts of it though, and then put it on the TV show and they started growing big deer, and they started saying, I practice quality deer management, I shoot big box, I shoot trophy Bucks. And over the last two decades, that message of what the Quality Deer Management Association was doing and talking about has been now deluded into trophy management killing big deer, and the people like to do that. And but people apply that part of quality deer management to now generic quality deer management. So what you get now is a backlash to that. So when people hear about um trophy Bucks, people trying to kill big deer, people that are mad at people for shooting small deer, they like to point the finger at the Qualitier Management Association say that this organization is spreading that kind of stuff, and so Brody made put a quote in there, um, a portion of a quote from the Quality Deer Management website um along the lines of the fact that, uh, you know, there's a quote where the cutie Mayson says something like in the case where you know young children, new hunters are student a deer, is perfectly acceptable for them to shoot young deer and that kind of thing. And Brodie made the point that he thought it was absurd to have a qualifier there. That he said that it's absurd that the Quality Deer Management Association is saying it's only okay for new hunters or uh, young hunters to shoot young bucks. Brodie's assertion was that everyone should feel fine and do that. You should shoot whatever you want to shoot. Number one, agree with them. I think that your goals as the hunters should be, you know, related to nothing but your own personal goals. You should not feel obligated to do anything else. Differently that what filth fills you brings you enjoyment, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, let me read this quote real quicke from the from the q D that he put in here. It's best not to force other hunters to jump to advance levels of buck management if they're not ready. They should also be afforded the opportunity to start with younger bucks and work their way up. Cutie may even see just that young or new hunters be allowed to take any buck, even a yearly, if that's their desire. Yes, And so I think what happened? Then when I'm reading that, I'm thinking to the whole point the qualifier, like, why isn't the QT main support of anyone shooting whatever they want? Um? I will say that Brodie did include a quote the end that did show the director of Conservation from the Quality Management Association specifically saying you know very clearly, hey, like we support anyone shooting whatever it is. You can read that quote too, Yeah, read to take a moment for to remember why we hunt. This is Kip Adams talking. Your reason may differ from your neighbors, So don't be critical of what he or she legally shoots or chooses to pass, and never apologize for what you shoot. YEA. So now coming back to the moral of my story and how there's been the Quality Management Association and then there's this version of QTM that's been hijacked by the trophy hunting mentality. There is um so I have studied quality deer management very like the real quality management has laid out by the founders of Quality Management Association and then science behind it and all the different parts of it, and there's much much more to it than just shooting huge deer and telling your neighborsition shoot small deer. The Quality Deer Management Association themselves, especially over the last five years or so, have been really clear and taking a lot of um putting a lot of time and energy behind trying to also make that clear too, because there's been, unfortunately some people that take this message and have bent it into their own little warped idea, and there are some people that are pretty nasty about it, and there are some people who do ridicule other people, and so there's definitely some bad apples out there. There's a lot of folks that go way too far with this. My issue is trying to put that on the Qualitier Management Association, which is a conservation organization that has been doing a lot of really good things for white tails and for deer hunters, and has made it really clear that the kind of quote that kept made there like that is that is the philosophy and the message I've heard from them over and over again, like they share all sorts of different insights and strategies and things that you can do if you so desire to try to manage for older deer. But that quote that Broody pulled about the we would even say for young hunters, an adult or new hunters, that was in response to a specific question about someone who already wants to manage for older deer. So I think I think my point is that let's not rail on qum A saying that they are at fault here. I think it's it's uh a bastardization of some things they originally brought to the table that have now become the bad apple. And I think the name of the organization like tends to trip some people up who are not familiar with it because you hear like quality and management um. The optics of that are like raising big deer. That's what you think if it was called white Tails Unlimited or North American Deer. So as if you took the word deer on put habitat right would change, it would would totally change. So I think people who aren't familiar familiar with q d m A kind of get tripped up over the name, and uh don't realize that they are all about like healthy herds. Um. If I'm ever working on a story about something biology related to dear, I reach out to them and they have the answer. I mean, those guys are great. If I'm working on something about why white tails are shedding early, they have the answer because it has to do with dear health. If I'm working on something about um some buck and I will that never shed is rack, I reach out to q d m A. They have the answer that kind of thing. So I think that, Yeah, the optics of the quality and the management which is aren't great for them if people aren't familiar with what they actually do. Yeah. No, I think that these are both really like really good points, and I'm probably falling into that camp a bunch, right. I've liked out of my whole life. But the q d m A thing was always something that it was problematic. Were not problematic because of what I like what I new of q d m A, but problematic about how people you know, applied it talked about it. Right, So your point's well taken, Mark, that there's a lot of people that are not you know, they're they're everything is second hand, right, You're seeing you know, their philosophies taken and twisted, and and that's what you're that's your experience. So that's that's a good point, and that's something that happens in way more than just this this instance. But that's a good point well taken. Yeah, and I think I would I would challenge anyone who has like a negative perception of that organization to go and actually like listen to a podcast that some of those guys have been on with me, or to read like the tenets of their of their philosophies that are not just about shooting mature bucks. But there's a strong focus on hunter recruitment, on improving hunter access, on um educating all hunters on things not just related to growing big bucks or playing food plots, but everything, Like they've got a lot of programs, especially now. One of their major goals for the next ten years, I think it is is all about really taking a strong stance of diversifying the group of hunters that they can help. And so they are very well aware of the perception that we're talking about, like they're well aware of that, and it's a big frustration for them internally, and so they're taking steps to really try to go make sure that people no, that's not the case. So there's cut may folks are going out there and they're doing habit at work on public land. They're trying to improve public land for people. There's a whole bunch of really cool programs they're doing right now to help introduce new adult onset hunters into this space by going to uh like food markets and stuff downtown and finding people that are interested in like local grown food and giving venison. Like here's like a tri sample of venison. This is great, you know, free range food that was harvested locally. If this tastes good to you, if you want to try to learn how to how to you know, start harvesting your own meat, we'd love to teach you and show you. So they're doing some really cool things that are benefiting all hunters, not just guys that want to shoot big box. And I just think that's like an important thing to know, and that was even recognized, but I think it was like the New York Times maybe um that has no preconceived notions of what q d m A is. Uh, you know they had heard about that and they went and did an article about adult onset hunters and q dm A like helping introduce them, and so they are doing like a ton of good things. Yeah. Still like the general sentiment of Brodie's article agreed with, Like, no one should be feeling pressure to to have hunting goals that are tied to somebody else's. You read you his closing paragraph to just sorry, keep interrupting. Um, there's nothing wrong with wanting to kill big bucks and wanting more of them around for a futurounting seasons. However, for all being honest, using these arguments to make a case against anyone who is happy with a young buck his race primarily on selfish motivations that should not apply to all hunters. Agree with that, and I think any rational hunter would agree with that, that you shoot what makes you happy as long as it's legal. Yeah, But I mean there are definitely some people out there who don't feel that way unfortunately, Like I know, there there are some people that are, and they're there. I would point to them as as hole in the boat pokers, These people that are like really nasty about this stuff and like so so intent on pushing their personal goals on everybody else. I think you're putting holes in the boat. Um. So I'm not I'm not okay with that. Um. I'm okay with Brody's arkle I ingredents, but he said there. My only issue is just I feel like he kind of made it look like Cutie May was the problem. Um. And that was the one thing that I would that make sense. I mean, you know, I've I've always found that when you look at this issue, that and I was a part of it. Um in Pennsylvania when I was growing up in um other places near where I grew up in Maryland, they just started putting in minimum point restrictions, right. I mean, I feel like that's an effective way to go about this if there is a management issue. Because when I and my growing up, if you saw anything that had spikes on it, he shot at and that's everybody. So opening the fe season on public on state ground. I mean there's more than one time where I had you know, bullets pretty close to me. Right. There's one time where I shot a buck that had three holes in it or two holes in it or something like that. You know, and so, and it was a forky, right, and so when stuff like that starts to become a prevalent, then maybe there is time to do something. I can't pretend to be some expert in that, but I think minimum point restrictions are certainly something that sometimes could be like that gets that's like the the nasty debate on it right now is around aprs other point restrictions is kind of how people refer to them, and that is a case where we're getting some of this nastiness happening where there's a difference between like this could be a whole podcast itself. So I'm not sure we might go down this road right now we can briefly touch on. But it's it's a it's a weird quandary for me personally too, because like I personally would my personal goals would be more easily and I would enjoy things more more often in that specifically towards my own goals if APRS were in effect in the places I hunt, because having some kind of minimum point restriction and aniler point restriction does lead to more young bucks reaching older age classes, like It's been proven in many different cases. So can we just stop there our North American model of wildlife conservation says that are you know, animals are regulated and they're regulated by science and wildlife biology. So this isn't Let's let's be clear when when an a p R is put into effect, it's not put into effect to you know, by state legislatures, like it's not even tried to do that. Well, but I mean the folks in the state legislators, like it would be proposed by a wildlife biologist or a state game manager that believes that this is necessary for the health of the population. Is that So there's actually cases where hunter advocacy advocacy groups like people that actually just like hunters that really want there to be a p R s are actively Um We're like in Michigan, this is a huge thing and like I could like get crucified for coming out against it within my own state because people are so strongly for it, but then so strongly against it. Two, it's like a really hot item right now. Um, So there are people trying to get ballot in issues, and they're people showing up at NRC like National Resource Commission meetings and pushing for the DINA to do this. And so there are possibilities of suddenly these things being proposed and put out there, not just because of biologists I thought this was the right thing to do, but because hunter advocacy groups are saying, hey, this is the right thing to do, and they're trying to show that there showing evidence for it, and there is evidence to show it is the right thing to do in many cases, and for example in Pennsylvania, this was something that came from the biologists originally saying, hey, this is the right thing to do to deal with our issues. And so that's a combination of both, well that's and then and then that to say, you know, foll up on the point I was just making. I think it's you know, when you're looking at local tune of populations, you go as the tune of fishermen. I mean, there's empirical evidence that they have that that biologists just don't have. Right, So there is some credence to hunter groups saying, look, we we are we're around these animals, we hunt them. There are less we got together said there are less quality or less in total population. Right. So that's not not to say that that's you know, totally um defunct way to go about this but at the end of the day, it has to be an ingredience with with state game biotists. And it comes down to you see this across Western states in different places, like many states, state wildife agencies have to make a decision between managing for opportunity or quality. So is this going to be a state where there's been lots and lots of deer so that you can go out there and you can shoot a deer tons of them, or do we manage for a more balanced quality quote unquote heard, which UM many people would argue is like the better choice from up pure science standpoint. UM. It also though, leads to a better situation from a big deer standpoint. So you get people coming to it from both sides. You've got people that want big deer and they're not really care about the other things, but they do like there are those people that really want the big deer, and so they really pushed for this. UM. So the issue then becomes, are we doing what we talked about in reverse where we're applying our personal goals if we're if it's if we're trying to make the point or the argument for outside of the science, if we're saying Hey, I want more mature bucks. I want to see more big deer. That would be fun. The things that happen outside in the woods when there's more mature excuse me, more mature bucks. There's a lot of different things that happen when you've get mature bucks in the population that I personally think are really exciting and great to see. Explain what those are, because I think for the most part, the voices that people here like pushing for a p r S are those who want like a cultural shift and just kill bigger deer. Uh, but not many people are aware of, like what the herd benefits are. So explain that. So so a few things. There's a few things, like like from a hunter standpoint, you would enjoy different experiences in the woods. For example, when you go from place like Michigan where they're relatively not many mature bucks, to a place like Iowa, where there are relatively higher numbers of mature bucks. When I first started hunting in Iowa, I never heard a buck run in the wild. I never had heard of snort we's in the wealth. All my experiences in Michigan, I've never seen bucks fight in the wild in Michigan, I've seen very little actually chasing like extreme running behavior. All these things are much rarer to see in an area, whether they or not, where there's not a relatively balanced herd because it's not as much competition, there's not as many mature bucks that are the ones who demonstrate that kind of behavior. So from a pure like wildlife hunting experience, having a balanced older age class, you get to see a lot of things that naturally happen in the white tailed world that you do not get to see in a place where there's no old. Dear, it's a very unnatural thing to be hunting in a stretch of landscape where there's fifteen females and five or six bucks and they're all one year old. That's not a natural thing in the world. But that's pretty that's the case in many states. So when you flip it around and you go to Iowa where all these are these mature bucks, you get to see and experience a lot of things that are natural and exciting as a hunter. Now, as far as benefits to the hurt itself, there are many benefits to um Harder to articulate without getting into a bunch of wonky science stuff, but damn science. But one one simple thing that is easy to point to. When you have older mature bucks, you've got a more natural rut. You don't never a rut that is tight. So by that, I mean you're gonna have a period of time when most females come into estra's and are ready to breed, and most of that breeding happens within that tight time window. That's gonna happen more often when you have a balanced age structure. When you have a very unbalanced age structure, you're gonna start to see situations where dolls will be bright over the course of a much longer period of time. When that happens when does are being bred from early October through late December, and you've got all those pregnant dose brought out of course that time period in the spring, when these deers start giving birth, you've got fawns dropping over the course of a long period of time. So you've got fawns dropping really early, you've got fawns dropping really late. There's issues across the board with that. You get early drop fawonds, You're getting fawns hitting the ground when it's too cold, there's too much snow, so a lot of fauns time. When you've got fawns that are getting dropped too late in the spring, you've got fawnds now they are gonna be too young by the time the next winter comes along, so they won't be able to be as healthy and as mature as they need to be to make it to the winter. And then secondly, when you have a bunch of fawns spread out over a long period of time, predators can very easily, over the course of two months or something kill the five funds that are here now and the five fonds that are here next week, and the five funds are here next week, and very easily hammer a fawn population. So this is so the opposite. What actually happens in a balance hurt is predator swamping. Where Ellen, my hot tip off word or whatever is so. What happens in the natural, dear herd is that when you have mature animals, when you have a balanced, relatively natural herd, you're gonna get tight rut. The tight red is gonna lead to a tight fon drop where all fonds or the vast majority of fonds will all drop within a tight window. So imagine how much harder it would be for a predator population to kill all of the let's just say, twenty fonds if they all dropped within a five day window, versus how much more difficult or how much easier it would be for them to kill all those twenty fonds if it was spread over the course of two months. But by then, I mean like, OKAYO is not gonna kill twenty fonds in two days, because he's gonna have his one and that's gonna take him for a couple of days and then etcetera, etcetera. So there's a whole bunch of benefits like that that just then lead to, you know, like a trickled on effect. It sounds like we need to get out of our own way here, Like in which one when you start to say that hunters are well personally, I'd love more big bucks to be around. Okay, great, that's not how it works. That's not how it's purported to work. At least there has to be more evidence, right, But it sounds like what you're saying is there's more evidence suggest that your desire for big bucks aligns with the best way to manage a deer herd. And you know another thing that a lot of people, don't, uh make a point about when you look at the bastardization of QTM is a lot of people when it comes to QTM that the folks who aren't really looking at the holistic approach there and say past young bucks, shoot big bucks. But they forget a big part of actual quality deer management is the fact that we are trying to manage a deer herd to the correct care and capacity to the habitat. It's a really important thing because if you don't do that, there's too many deer for the habitat. You've got very unhealthy deer. You've got deer that are not you know, all sorts, I mean, the whole bunch. So many things that comes in, right, I mean, the economic thing comes in, where the more hunters we have, the more money we have to manage the wildlife. Right. So if we're saying you can only kill big bucks, you're likely going to have you're you're gonna have less hunters. I mean, if you're telling young young kids, you guys sit here and wait for a big buck, it changes their experience. Right, So you have this conundrum that says you can't I mean, if we want to and it's crossbows the same way too, Like you want to have more hunters, you would want to have crossbows allowed. I mean that's just to me. That's that's pretty common sense related related common sense. So you have that, but you also have how many people live in a state. Right, There's way more people that live in Michigan than live in Iowa. Um multiple times more. There's three eleven thousand bow hunters in Michigan compared to I think fifty seven thousand. A yeah, and so there I think there's there's millions of people. There's like seven million people more that live in Michigan than live in Iowa. Well, how I know that, um? So, let me so and guarantee there are more dear in the state of Michigan than there are in the state of Iowa. They're all probably I don't I'm sure of that. I'm sure of that. Um I don't know the exact numbers either, but I'm sure of that, and I'll look I can look it up here. But so you you have to understand the cohabitation elements and the economic elements and the variables for for how much land there are, how much caring capacity is there, and so I think boiling it down to like, I just want more Big Bucks so I can have a better experience. It's like, look, man, great, good for you, but that's not how this works. The democracy of wildlife doesn't work for you. That works for all of us. And that's how that's how this is. And so any advocacy group that says we're arguing for this so we can have a better experience, is I think hurting the cause, which seems to be buttressed by the science, butchers by the wildlife management philosophy. No, the thing, the cow that would be with us. Some of these organizations are pointing to the science. If you're pointing to the side, Yeah, yeah, I'm saying if if there's ever, if anybody ever stands up and says, look, I'm in the woods and I'm seeing what big Bucks, and I really would rather stay home, So please change the regulator put in an APR so I can have a better experience with my kids, can have a better experience of more big box. Like, yeah, that's your value, that's your value proposition. That's not everybody. Yeah. The problem is that both of those two things are happen at the same time, right, Like the science supports in many cases, but then you also have the emotional argument that a lot of these people have, which is what gave them the passion to really want to push for the science because because it is like the personal experience, Like let's not sit here and pretend like our experiences don't drive the choices that we make, Like, of course we want to have a better hunting experience if that's something you love and whatnot. It's just how do you go about it and how do you try to implement it? And um. The interesting thing is that I don't know the exact numbers, but in I think in almost every case where the a p R has been applied, whether it be in the northwest part of Michigan or in Pennsylvania other places I think Missouri to UM. Usually first it's very contentious, but like leading out to it's very contentious. After a few years of being around, satisfaction is like very high. So usually people really like it, but there's still like there's still a portion that doesn't. So the question is, then what's more important is it? Is it? If we're looking at satisfaction, how a number one? How important hunter satisfaction versus just the pure science of it. And then number two, do you make your decision because sixty seven percent of folks are satisfied with that and you say, well a significant majority approves, or do you look at and say, well, but then we're leaving tent or whatever it is that aren't happy with it and really full under satisfaction. Right, this is not how our conservation model works. It works on does the science and biologies say that this is the best thing for the animal. But in Michigan they're looking at hunter satisfaction to help make those decisions like to be And again that gives back to the economics likely, right, So if you said, like, we're we're upsetting all the hunters are not gonna come hunt anymore, we're the stake Again. I mean, I don't know what the percentage is for Michigan, but roughly sixty at sixty of um revenues from that are coming into state game agencies are from hundred dollars, right, So I could see why they're considering that. I'm not the fun but but but the only real way to to weigh this out is to say, how do we how do we best manage for how they heard of animals here and a p rs aren't always like the answer because as far as big buck stakes states go out of the top ten like Boom and Crockett white Tail states, nine of them do not have any aprs. So it's not like it's mandatory that you haven't have an APR, or it's always going to turn you know, Michigan into Iowa, whatever might be. But I think Mississippi is a good example. They introduced aprs and within a few years, like I think last year they had the highest percentage of mature bucks being three and a half year olds being killed in the country in a big reason where those aprs now, it's how hard to gauge, like how many hunts that room for people that we're out and otherwise would have shot at young deer whatever that might be. But I think you made a good point that like at some point it becomes accepted and everyone is more satisfied, Like a decade from now, our generation from now, people would be happier that those aprs are. They're no different than like if you had a lake with a bunch of walleye in it and there was no regulations on take or size, and someone put a slot in you know, there'd be a bunch of pushback, but down the road everyone will probably be more satisfied. Yeah. So yeah, it's a short and long term, but I mean it is a messy situation where you're when you're relying on hundred dollars to manage the herd. Right, So now you've connected those two things which we have done and too too great success. I mean, there's more white tailtier now than ever, so we can't complain about that. But you'd say, like we've connected the hundred dollar to the management of the game or how we spend to manage the game. So you've connected those two things, you know, without understanding impacts of those. Right. So if it's all about you know, if it's all about healthy herds, how are you gonna pay for him? Well, hunters gotta be happy, they gotta be coming at the gates, man, they're gonna be going through the turnstiles. Um. So there's there's no wonder it's contentious. And what's even making things more difficult though now, is that there's become such a disconnect in many states between that agency and the hunter population and animosity in many cases that now the hunters don't even believe that the wildlife agencies have their best interests or the herd's best interest in mind anymore. So that's it's becoming a thin Michigan between a p R S and then this whole C deputy thing. You're seeing this all across the country, a lot of people all sorts of conspiracy theories now these days about how these agencies are in cahoots with such companies. It's just a money grab and you're hearing a lot of really crazy stuff. So an agency can't even make the case for a change like this based off pier science because hunters won't even believe it. Though. That's that's tough man, that's you know, that's a honor the thing think about. But I appreciate the breakdown of that because I think it's something everybody should understand. You know that we were we're so entangled with this process as hunters. We fund it mostly at least partially funded. Um it impacts all of us. We want to have these broad, sweeping statements, like you said, we want everybody to be able to have the greatest time they want to have. That's real, warm and fuzzy, but sometimes that doesn't stand up to the reality of what's happening with cohabitation, the economy, and healthy wildlife populations carrying cassy. So sometimes not everybody can have the warm and fuzzy time outdoors and just go have fun. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices, UM, for the future of of that we say all this, I think it's important to like set back and you know, recognize that we're in the golden age of white tail hunting. Like you said, there were more white tails than ever before. UM. There were more mature bucks killed than ever before. There were less yearling deer killed than ever before. UM. As far as like ratio, yes, yeah, I think it's of three and a half year olds made up the deer harvested in UM. Whereas that that's the highest it's ever been. Lowest, Look, no mature bucks. There were more mature bucks than ever before killed. Sorry I thought you were from confusing you and myself and numbers. You're right. So of the total harvest, it's on power of the lowest it's ever been. As far as what percentage one and a half year olds to make of the over harvest, and it's at the highest three and a half are older have ever made up. Yeah, So, like we discussed all this and it's important to recognize that this is the best that deer hunting has ever been. Yeah, yep, we'll end on that the best that deer hunting has ever been. Well, maybe we'll title the podcast that. Thank you boys, thank you, Thanks. That's it. That's all another episode of The Hunting Collective in the books. Thanks to Mark and spend there for sitting down. I feel like these dudes are we coming huge voices in the white tail space. Leaders in that space, voices for reason, guys willing obviously tackle some tough topics. Big Bucks little Bucks lover likes things like that that interests me. So thanks for entertaining me voice, and we'll have you back on real soon. One other big thing to get to here is that we're gonna be launching a new format the next episode of The Hunting Collectives. This format will allow for a little more timeliness. We're gonna have a segment of the show before the interview portion, where me and a guest from met Eater talk about what's going on in our world news and events, answer questions from you guys from previous episodes, and talk about what's generally Aico said, what's going on in our world. Then we're gonna follow that up with a prerecorded interview, and then we're gonna have some new segments, some pretty cool new segments. One of those you might have heard in the previous podcast as I tested amount, but one of them is called hots by Cool Dude, Cool Lady. And that's where I try to convince all these wonderful guests to give me their favorite hunting spots and share them with all of you. See, that's a public service, that's what that really is. We got some other things called where people are gonna share with us u near death experiences in the outdoors, and a bunch of other cool ideas that we're gonna be bringing back consistently on the show. We'll have some new music, hopefully you can tune in next week to hear that new music, and just a new way of putting together our show. So hopefully it's a it's a better program for you people. Everyone that has downloaded, we're at about a million downloads thus far in fifty four episodes, So thank you so much to everybody that has downloaded and listened and spend all your time with us. It means the world to me. I can't thank you all enough, and it's just important for me to continue to get better with this program. So with all that being said, sending your feedback. Hit me up with the d MS on Instagram. Email me, tell me what you think about this new format, give us your feedback. We're going to do our best to continue to get better, to always change and always adapt to what's going on in our world, what's going on in the podcast world. So hopefully you tune in next Tuesday, April two, you're gonna hear from Cameron Haynes on the Adam Green Troop poach in case. I talked about that case with Ryan Callahan. We talked about Ryan Callahan's biggest surprise of his media life, surprise announcement from Ryan Callahan, and we're gonna talk about his love life and a little show called The Bachelor as well. So a lot of cool stuff coming up next week. Please tune in and we'll see you then for the new format of The Hunting Plex. Bye.

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