00:00:00 Speaker 1: Oh hey, everybody. Ben O'Brien here episode sixty five with the Hunting Collective coming at you. It's gonna include a message for me about Father's Day, and then uh, an interview with great and powerful Edward T. Nikins, the writer extraordinaire. But before we get to all that, we're gonna talk about the Yetie Go Box. Now, the Yeti Go Box is badass. Uh. It's airtight, watertight. It's an awesome box to keep whatever is important to you. And I just got back from the bear Woods and we're camping out. My dad and I in public Lands are running around and I used the Go Box as my camp cook kid. I put my pots and pans in there. I put my Mountain House meals in there. I put all my seasonings, all my silverware, plates, bowls, all of that fit perfectly into the Go Box. And I want to keep that in there. Keep that in my truck no matter where I am, where I decided to camp or decided to roll around, always have that there. It's you know, jep Oil, Mountain House, everything in there in the Eddie Gobox, schip hit Eddie dot com. Pick that up, man, it's a great product. You're going to love it, and then we're gonna talk about Federal Premium ammunition right now, Federal Premium dot com. There's a bunch of new things coming out from them, um, but particularly right now, we needed to go. We had a lot of feedback from you guys about Federal t S S turkey AMMO, because boy, did we kill some turkeys with that thing this year. I watched not only myself kill some birds, but you honest but tell us Stephen Ranella, um, Ryan Callahan, we were all we dropped a lot of turkeys with Federal TSS heavyweight this spring. And a lot of you guys have reacted to that and asked a few questions exactly. The one question was how far do you think you can shoot with this thing? Well, Man's I would say for sure. I mean I killed a bird out to past fifty yards. Um, I killed birds at forty and I killed him at ten and fifteen. And I know the other guys the same way. I am very comfortable at forty and fifty yards with Federal TSS ammunition. And so if you're you're looking for a very competent what I would refer to as a long range turkey gun. This is the one. This is the one that is Federal Heavyweight t s S at Federal Premium dot Com. All right, now we're gonna get to this podcast. You're gonna love it. Let's go. I guess I grew up on an older road, a pedal to the medal. I always did what I told until I found out that my brand new close a game second hand from the rich kids next door. And I grew up baths. I guess, like what I mean, they have a thousand things inside of my head I wish I ain't seen, and now I just wanted to real bad dream of being in lack. I'm coming about of the seams. But thank you, Jack Daniels. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode the Hunt Collective. I'm been O'Brien. It's gonna air this one with Juleven getting down to it very season almost over here in Montana. One last shot at it this weekend, and we're getting getting into it at the time. I like to pull my bow out and shooting around. But today is is special podcasts for a lot of reasons. About they're always all uh, well I work called them, so they're all special me. But it's it's coming up on Father's Day. So in our opening segment, I have no guests. I just want to talk a little bit about my father, our story together and uh, the story of fathers in in the hunting culture. I mean, I think it's it's an important thing coming up on Father's Day, just to talk about that, and UM, I just want to tell you my story a little bit, and so hopefully he'll stick around for that. After that, we're gonna get into are one of my favorite writers of all time, the great and powerful Eddie Nikins. And Eddie Nickins is uh a writer for A Field, Stream, Garden, a Gun, and many other publications. I met with him in his home in North Carolina before. We did a talk together on hunting ethics, and Eddie is an extremely intelligent, thoughtful person man and just a good old Southern boy to his roots. We talked about his own raising of of kids outdoors and what he feels like that has done for them and for him, and so a great conversation. Please stick around for that here real real shortly, um, and thanks to Eddie for hanging with us. But before we get to that, I just want to talk a little bit about my dad. Because I just just got back from some three days in the back country with my dad hunting bears in Montana and also spending time with my son and my dad and my family altogether. And it strikes me that, you know, my dad and I were walking through the mountains and I said something to him was like, if you if I could transport ten years back in time as I am now and talk to myself ten years ago, my ten years ago self would not have would not believe Would I believe me if I told him where my life was today? In so many ways, living in Montana, you know, having a beautiful son and a wife, and having the job that I do, and being around the people that I'm around, it really has has been an incredible journey. And my dad just kind of said, you earned it, you know, you did it, And that got me to thinking a lot of things, but it got me to thinking about his role in all of it. No today, back then, I started thinking about when I was twelve years old and when I first started to desire to go hunting, and how he shepherded me along and and honestly, I don't remember the first moment that I thought I might want to go hunting. But I just remember always wanted to follow my dad, and it's something that he did. Now, he didn't do it in the early days of my life. He didn't do it as much because he was, like many fathers, drawn away from hunting to take care of his family, to work hard, to build something, to build a family. He was drawn away from that. So as a kid, I didn't get to see him running off to go hunting a bunch. He did some, But in fact, when I was born, my dad was hunting and he came back from I don't think of ten days in the wilderness, um running around, probably drinking beer, hunting deer, and went into the delivery room and they made him go stand in a little all closet like because he smelled so bad. They didn't want him in the delivery room. And so his what I was born, my dad was hunting. He was, but he was drawn away from it a little bit to take care of us, and and I was able to kind of bring him back into it with my own interests early on at you know, at the age of ten, eleven, twelve, but twelve years old. I remember being on this cold garage floor was October, being on this cold garage floor with my dad and our neighbor Bill Miller, and they were trying to determine at what position I could best hold this to forty three, the savage one ten and to forty three. I remember that like it was yesterday, and I remember going to the range and shooting that rifle. I remember my dad being stressed out about how I could hold it, and so he had shooting sticks and we were always messing around with those. I remember talking about safety. I remember, and these are all things I remember pretty vividly. When the rest of my life comes in flashes, this is vivid for me. Um. And at some level I knew I didn't know what I was getting into, but I knew that I would follow might be following my dad, and that was all that matter. And so the other thing I remember clearly is I had this orange Elmer Fudd hat with like fuzzy flapped ears, and I had a cover a pair of coveralls that if I was wearing them hunting today people would would laugh at me, but back then they were cool. Um. I remember, who knows what boots I was wearing, but I was wearing these coveralls and they were way too short, so my I think my ankles probably showed they were frayed on the edges. It was this old, dirty, mossy oak tree bark deal. My dad would pack sandwiches and toast chee peanut butter crackers in this little ruck sack, and we will go hunt this private land. My first ever experience with this was was um Maryland's Youth Hunting Day, which was a week before the opener on a Saturday. It was rightful, and I remember we lived in the suburbs and we had this frosted stone walk that would lead to the driveway, and across this frosted stone walk you could see my neighbor's house. And Bill would be going with us with a crew of other people. And I remember standing on this frosted walking. My dad would be in the kitchen making sandwiches, are getting getting things right here, and and looking over and with so much anticipation to see the garage door on my neighbor's house open, because there was. I was so heightened. I was so ready to go into something I had really no idea about. I never seen a deer die, I had never seen a deer gutted. I didn't really know what hunting them looked like or felt like. But I was going anyway because my first you know, I was old enough to understand it. My dad had talked me through it, but I didn't really know anything. So it was a different kind of excitement. It was a different kind of hunting, of course, following my dad and I remember, I remember walking into the woods the first day. I remember how it fell to be, you know, smaller than him and him feeling larger than life, and I just had key on his every move, what what he said, what he did, um how he felt. We didn't kill a deer that day? It was. There was a lot of follies And hopefully I'll have him on the podcast and maybe Bill Miller and we'll talk about those follies one day because they're pretty funny and I'm so glad to have I'm glad to have some of those memories. But it was like those things that established my love of hunting. And I think maybe later down the road, when I've done other things didn't hunting, my dad has discovered some different things as well. So it's a nice it's a nice spin and it's a nice flip of the coin to have to be able to bring him along this week in Montana showing show him some of the things I've learned over the years after I left the nest as it were, ran around and did a bunch of things, and bring him back and show him some of the things that I've learned because I wasn't wouldn't be here without him. I wouldn't be anywhere without him. You know, my mother and the rest of our family, but particularly in Honeygo wouldn't be here without him. He spent a lot of time showing me things, and it's still showing me things today. And we won't hunt together for the rest of our days, but the days that we've hunted together, the time we have spent together um has introduced me to something that is that has changed my life. So so thank you to my dad and to everybody else else out there listening that has had that experience. I'm sure you feel the same way, and I would encourage you just to take some time on Father's Day to express that. You know, I'm expressing it through podcast for him because my dad, I'm sure we'll listen to this, but but I express that to your your people, whoever it is that took you hunting. If it isn't your dad, whoever was that that took you hunting, um and allowed you to kind of see the world in the way a hunter might see it. And I guess i'll close just in in general. I mean, there's a lot of people out there that that didn't get the chance to hunt with their dads for whatever reason like I have. Maybe you're an adult onset hunter. Maybe you just got into it. Maybe your dad just didn't didn't love it, and you and you somehow found it. I met a lot of people that have that story. UM, have that story and so continue to pass it on. I don't think it's got to be a father and a son. It could be a mentor and a mentee. It could be anything. We talked about that a lot on this podcast, and I feel that strongly that just just taking somebody out you can stoke their passion. Maybe they won't be into it, but you could maybe stoke something that my dad stoked inside of me to help me along. And UM, I get pretty emotional back because it's changed my life. Hunting has changed my life in a lot of ways, personally, professionally, and on and on we go. So Um, thanks to my dad. Thanks to all the dads out there for doing what you do. Um, for for taking someone hunting. It means a lot. It means a lot a lot to me. And so I'll stop blabbering on. But I just wanted to to address Father's Day and my dad. Freaking love your dad. I love you so much. You're awesome. All Right, we're gonna get into the interview portion of this show, and like I said, it's a great man. His name is Edward T. Nikins, and we're gonna talk about a lot of things. So I'm gonna transport you over to Raley, North Carolina for a conversation with Eddie T. Nikens. Enjoy I ard, all is good man? How in your layer? Yeah, this is the International Headquarters. Whatever happens happens here. I'm not sure how much of it is value, but this is where it gets done. You know, I feel it should be dirtier. Well, this is pretty neat and tidy in here. It's real. It's real good, you know. Um, it's got you got folders with labels on them. I mean I've got folders, I've got stocks of looming deadlines. Um, I have a post it notepad here that'll explain the relative neatness. It says, one story at a time. This is a new leaf that I turned over on Monday. Let's talk about the new tricks. Yeah, we're a weekend on that. Talk to me in a few days. We'll check back in. That's a good that's a good reason. Guest appearance number two. What else i'd say on your posting notes? There anything? Uh? Sorry? At times? More of a you know, it's an ideology, Yeah, you know, it's sort of I've got this this sort of long term project I've been thinking about. I'm calling it an honest shrimp man. I love shrimp, and I eat a Polish shrimp, and I want to eat shrimp feeling pretty good about it. You gonna eat shrimp one way or the other, but I want to eat shrimp healthy conscience. Yeah. Yeah. So they're living here in North Carolina, especially in Raleigh. We're sort of coastly oriented. I got a little place, and I mean a little place down at the coast, and um, so we start thinking about those things of sustainable sourced seafood. Uh see, yeah, shrimp man, we had a pole of shrimp. I find it. Yeah, I finally in my life. You know, I didn't grow I grew up in western Maryland, which you know people think of Maryland, they think of crabs in in the chesapike game. We were nowhere near that. Um well, it was east west Virginia, you know. We that's where That's where I grew up. And so you know the furst. You move around the world, you start to see other you said, think the coastal areas. I mean, I've heard oyster farms, shrimp, all the resources that are on the coast of this country are important to think of. And as a hunter, I'm kind of drawing to those things from my hunting a big game, small game, whatever, Right, you start to think of things as a resource. I guess that's what I'm saying. And we've got that here. I mean the salt water resource on the coast and North Carolina with all the seafood. I mean, what's so amazing is how how close and personal it is. So you just pulled up here. I mean, if we you walk up in my front door and you take a right, and you drive two and a half hours and you're on the longest stretch of uninhabited coastline in Eastern America. You turn left and get three hours and three and a half hours. You know, you're standing on top the highest mountain east of the Mississippi. So when you think about what places like this have in the South where we sort of straddle these worlds between mountains and coast, I mean, there's a mind bogging. The opportunity is is just phenomenal, and it's a great it's a great place to be. Yeah. Now, as a as a ardent advocate of the east Eastern seaboard or just the eastern side of the country, as we were talking about before they record, a lot of people put it on me as a member of Meat Eat to keep it, keep it even to continually slip in those Eastern sensibilities to our western Bozeman offices. We have a few Midwesterners in there, but nobody, nobody is strictly from the East until we hired Anton Locata And now he's bringing a little uh that New York flavor, Pennsylvania flavor to the conversation. So we're getting it covered. But but that is something that we think about. It the sensibility. I grew up much and the same as you're talking about. We lived in western Maryland. But we could take an hour and a half tribe and be at the bay um blue crabs and oysters and sea ducks and ducks and geese like you wouldn't believe. Um. And so yeah, we we understood that there there's not a lot of places where you can have those two environments in such a short, you know, span of driving. You know, I think here a lot of sportsmen tend to be specialists in generalizing, right or or generalists and specializing. I'm not sure how that how that would work, but you know we do. We do so much. I mean from Labor Day until March we can hunt. You know, we have a huge long deer season from early September all the way uh to January. So I do think I do think people tend to live live that lifestyle year round, no doubt. But I think this East West thing, you know, we we see that in in conservation activism and politics, UM and advocacy. We see it in terms of I mean, there is sort of the schism east and east and west, you know, but but from the eastern perspective, I mean the way the way that I put it is is the West is critical to every hunter and angler in North America, whether you whether you involve yourself in Western hunting, or whether it's this sort of aspirational idea. Right, you know all of the old Remington's calendars, the old Winchester calendars, you know, it's this these big scenes of hunter versus moose or elk or bear. You don't see a lot of scrapping with squirrels and woodcock on those old count Yeah. Yeah, So I think it's important from an aspirational perspective. But I think Eastern US hunters, uh, I still think we're sort of coming into our own in terms of telling our own narrative and telling and telling that story and not feeling like it's always got to be the story of Eastern Eastern hunters moving west. Well, and you think of about the Southeastern, you know, you ready for gardening gun. You've written a lot about things that are happening in the cultural significance in the Southeast. When I think of the Southeast, I think of that culture, right, this real distinct, real flavorful culture that's aspirational. For that reason, it's not aspirational because the big peaks that you might go in or or we think of like bio diversity of game for hunters, it's the culture that kind of wins through. That's why I feel that, you know, a lot of your reality TV shows are based in Louisiana because there's such a rich culture that you can dig into there. Um. And in the West, the visual can sometimes be as aspirational as anything, no doubt. And you know, and that that idea of sort of solo hunting in the West, you know, putting yourself against the elements, putting yourself against that that big game animal um, I think is fabulous um. And we certainly have that. We certainly have that in the East. But I think a little bit of lost a little bit in the conversation or those hunters specifically who enjoy the social aspects, you know. I mean, I'm I'm a member of a of a hunting club, like a lot of folks in this part of the world. You know, we hunt public lands. But you know, I'm a member of a hunting club. I drive fifty minutes east and I've got thirty seven acres in a camp and swamps and fields and woods and people that I love being outdoors with. And you're a lot of our members they probably don't step foot on public lands ever. But they're a part of this conversation too. They're they're part of this conservation movement as well. And I think you're right, Ben, I think we've got to figure out a way to to dovetail these in and celebrate the differences, but you know a lot of commonalities as well. Yeah, And it's it's hard I think in this this day and age in our media space. You know this well that like the aspirational in the digital space for sure, the aspirational. I mean, it's hard to set beside each other like a bugling bull elk coming down a ridge and you know, whitetail walking on a fence row, a six point white walking out of South Carolina fence round, you know something like that. It's hard to put those two deside each other. But we have to find ways to do that. Like I said, I think I think there are certainly in roads to to just making sure we're seeing all this perspective, as hard as that is to do. Yeah, And I think setting them beside each other maybe the maybe the challenge, you know. I mean, these are each pursuits that are worthy of their own merits um and so I do think, I do think we have to be careful in this industry, whether it's whether it's media, whether it's advertising, whether it's marketing, that we we can't forget that that a not everyone is a back country archer, being not everybody really wants to be a back country archer. You know, there are a lot of folks just as soon, you know, follow their fish dog through the fall woods chasing squirrels, but they've got as much a connection to our heritage as any other hunter. Yeah, I think that the I've been guilty of this a lot of thinking of some of those heritages and his cultures is like Bubba culture less intellectual than my culture, or less intellectual in the way that I, you know, put my pursuits out there, the way that I think of hunting, And that's some bullshit, Like it's it's just is. I mean, the the the way that our hunting is connected to the whatever you'll define as Bubba culture, that's as inherent as somebody out west who grew up on a ranch. I mean, it just is you know, Bubba Bubba's aren't defined by their driver's licenses, their their addresses, right. I do think that this growing interest in intellectualizing our pursuits is going to make all the boats rise in this tide. And I'm thrilled to hear and to read and and to be a small part of that conversation of some deep thinking about what it means to be to be a hunter and an angler in American society today. Because you know a lot of the early deep thinkers, you know, we hold up Aldo Leopold, you know, as as the patriarch of this. You know, while he cut his teeth, well he cut his teeth actually in the Midwest long before he went he went out west, um, and when he he didn't write much of his Western work until he was back on his farm, um in the Midwest. So it's an exciting time to be around to think about what our sports, what our pursuits, you're gonna look like in the next thirty fifty years, because in the last twenty or thirty fifty years then we didn't have these kinds of conversations. And so I'm excited about that. That's a little nerve wracking too, to think about the pressures, there's no doubt, but it's it's fun and it's exciting, and it's a positive that we're all kind of grappling with this. Yeah, and I think you said it right. It's a conversation, right, I saw. I so often get people that will say, like, you didn't debate that guy hard enough for you didn't. Well, we talked about a lot of contentious issues on the show, and I purposefully, for whatever reason, I'm insane. Like if I see something I think it's fraught with you know, entanglements and some perils of our modern ways of thinking, I run towards it and try to figure it out. That puts me in a lot of crappy situations. But I think it also elevates that we can have these conversations. We can have, you know, we can take an issue that we didn't my like my dad's generation didn't think about or didn't vocalize if they were thinking about it, um, and have that outright and and say this, you know, baiting or you know whatever. You could just pick any of any many subjects. Um, let's say we can have this conversation. And it's the fact that we have the conversation that will help us get down the road in ten, fifteen, twenty years just to a comfortable place. If we ever get there. But it's the openness that and especially now as so much emphasis is going towards our three and bringing on new hunters and new kinds of hunters, which I fully support, and that's fabulous and I'm and I'm thrilled to see some success in that. But you know, we exist within this ecosystem of heritage in history, and you and I can think about sporting ethics and it's just sort of second nature, right. We think about not crossing, and this is an ethical thing, but not crossing offense with a gun in your hand. You know, we don't even never occurs to us to deal with those kinds of issues. You know, when you and I were coming up, I mean I remember that the little cartoons of the Ten Commandments of guns very yeah, you know, I remember black and white ILOs and the first one was, you know, was muzzle control. Don't point your gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. Right. Well, I want to sound like kids today, but kids today are raised from the age of insanely young to point a gun and shoot at the TV screen at the video games. I'm not to go down that route, but but I'm fully convinced that we're seeing that ramifications. Now we're bringing in these new hunters and we need them, we want them, but they don't have a little bit of a d n A of what it means ethically and responsibility um to be a part of this tribe. Yeah, and there's like a I always think about it. I've been thinking lately about baselines, Like where when I came into hunting, what was the baseline of expectation for me or for anyone around me? Like how we set that baseline? How do we shift it? Move it up? I mean, we'd like to always be moving forward, but that baseline is safer and more responsible and more ethical, more thoughtful, more intelligent, all the all the things you'd want to be as a human or a hunter or whatever. But I think about the baseline of or say, kind of at the peak of growth of hunting, where we were, where our baseline for what's acceptament? And then where we are now and where we might be when my son is is twenty five or you know, in twenty some years, when he's that's where he is. So I wonder about that baseline where how do you how have you seen it change? I mean, it's it's a certainly always changing. It's just a perspective thing. But there there is a perceived baseline there. I mean I think there is a perceived baseline. I think it was it was just sort of the coin of the realm when we were growing up. You know, if you hunted, if you fished, you were handed down these traditions, and so there was a bit of an indoctrination process from your elders. Right. So so the challenge that we face today, and the opportunity as well, is when that in doctor nation phase is taken out of equation, you know, what do we do? You know, I see this at our hunting club down east, right. So my son is just getting ready to turn twenty. So when we joined that club, there were probably four or five members there, parents and kids, and they came into hunting. The dads had never hunted in their life. I never thought they would hunt, could have cared less about learning how to hunt, but their sons wanted it so badly that what that how what happened is is they were willing to learn to help their son reach their passion or their or their daughter reach their passion. And so what we're seeing is younger generations reaching up and pulling older generations into our tradition. It's a d eighty degree flip from what you and I saw. And so that's an enormous opportunity and I think it's a fleeting opportunity and one who really need to take advantage of right now. But it also is the challenge of when we've got now, we've got young hunters and old hunters, and neither one of them really understand, right they don't really understand through no fault to their own with the North American model of wildlife conservation is they shared it and grow up, you know, looking at the Ten Commandments of gun safety cartoons, um, the block of fur fishing game magazine. So that's that's the plate we have set in front of us, right And I think that's why when we talk about making sure we've we've thought through and presented all the perspectives east, west, north, whatever, that's important because people are gonna Hunting is such a culturally varied thing that we do. It's impossible to line it up for somebody say this is what it is, because they're always going to run into something they didn't that was outside their pur view when they learned whether they're forty five when they learned, or their ten when they learned, They're always going to run into something. And that's why you know, we're gonna um do a little talk later on for the b h A group here and Raleigh, and a lot of it will be about that, Like we're there is no way that you can go hunting and not be faced with some sort of like internal crisis. Yeah, whether there's someone with you or you're by yourself, whatever, you get to make a decision of do I do this thing or not? And it's got fairly grave circule stances attached to it. And a lot of those decisions are being made a bit in a vacuum right now, or maybe they weren't um in earlier generations where there was just sort of the more more context I guess, um. But again, I'm just I am stoked that these kinds of conversation is the one you and I are having right now, when we're gonna have later um at this at this ethics forum. They're they're just they're taking place more and more often. But I'd like to I'd like to see within the industry and effort to to to reach out to some of the two clubs organizations and and help them understand why we don't want to necessarily codify sporting ethics for everyone. This is a This is a conversation that needs to take place, and needs to take place more than you know, the few minutes you're gonna get in a hunter education course. Yeah, yeah, and it's it. And just to frame it up for folks somehow, like at least try to set it up in a way that like, here is how you can make your decisions if you're wondering maybe a good way to get from from Oh I have a bow in my hand. Oh there's a deer too. I'm sending an arrow. Like how do you get you know, from A to B two B to see it on on down the road? Like I never had that. I made a lot of crappy decisions because I didn't never have it. So if we could somehow provide it the folks, I think that would be you know, beneficial. But how do we do it? What's the way to do it? Well? I mean, I think it comes from strong mentors, you know, in folks stepping up and stepping out. Um, but it's tough. It's tough to look at your buddy and go, really, yeah, fifty yards shot two or fifty yards shot? Hundred and seventy five yards shot and it's the only shot you're gonna take all year long with a rifle. You getting picked up from last year? What are you thinking? Yeah, you're that's so, that's a hundred percent. I had We had a guy come up at BJ and say, my buddies, I'm hunting with my buddy. He's a bit of a like, he just wants to he's doing it for the Graham and he is. I'm uncomfortab hunting with him just because of the way that I see that he acts and kind of the results of his actions. And my first reaction is like, well then just just don't go with him anymore. Um, he said, wasn't my best friend? I said, well, you're in the you're one of the only folks in a situation to set this ship straight. But it ain't gonna be comfortable at all. Um, but you're one of the only folks I could probably go through like you're one of my best friends and you're acting like this isn't the way to go. Um, that's tough, man. Nobody wants to nanny another fun or and I don't want to if everybody came up to me and said, hey, we're like, get peace, get out of here. Man. Yeah, I have a podcast, you know, many people. There's only a thousand of us standing in this room of a thousand people. But it's tough, you know. I don't hesitate ever to tell someone when they've pointed their gun muzzle at me. Hunt right, I've made that decision long ago. Just say hey, you know, I just want you to know what you did. And let's you know, because I'm I'm sure I've done it, done it to others, and I want people to point it out to me. Although I try to think that I'm always aware of moz, so it's it's not a far step to go to the next level and go, okay, when I see behaviors that, let's don't say they're questionable. Let's let's certainly don't say they're wrong, but they demand thoughtful reflection. How do you how do you approach that? You know that the hunters who who I mean? And I hear it all the time. Oh it's two d yards shy. I just thought give it a crack, you know, and I missed, you know, there's a much higher chance that you actually wounded that dear than you ever missed that dear, and so thinking of it in those terms may help. But it is tough to wag that finger and go, we need to do it my way, right, That's what we're gonna talk about tonight. But it is a tough sea. It's tough. I you know, I get I think I personally get it a lot or people. So how who are you to talk about that? I said, I'm no, I'm nobody. I literally am nobody. But I would I would like to think that that just by bringing it up and allowing you the opportunity to disagree with me on these things, that we're starting some some sort of new dialogue as to how we get to the endpoint Like who am I? I'm I'm just the guy bringing it up. You know, hopefully more folks want to continue to bring it up in their circles. But I think to your point, if you're the guy in the group that is kind of the arbiter of some of these situations and you're seeing and respected as that, you then internalize that and become more ethically yourself. I feel like you have to. You're thinking of well, if I'm going to be the guy who's saying watch your muzzle, I better damn well watch my muzzle. Um, and I'm in the woods, so I think it. There's there's a kind of a dual effect to having that position. And this is a bit of a modern construct as well, because we're all hesitant to hurt anyone's feelings and to be considered. You know, they know it all, you know, back in the day, you know, the deer camps of your you know, old old old Ben didn't mind a bit busting your chops if if, if you did something that that was untoward. And so maybe there's a little bit of that as well. But it's a matter of framing this in a modern way, like we're all we all understand through social media and everything else, that hunting is under a brighter spotlight, and so it's on its incumbents on all of us, you me, as experienced as we are, to look at how we approached this and some of the decisions we've made and just ask ourselves, is there a way to improve, Is there a way to is there a way to have a more thoughtful approach to hunting and fishing? Yeah, No, I mean I had high situation turkey hunting here not long ago, where I had a brain new shotgun that was came from weather Be Incorporated. That's a sponsor alert. That's uh, the new A ten I that's that they gave me to use as a fantastic shotgun. These just pull a star. That's industry talk, guys before we get free stuff. Um well, I had it and I just didn't take the time to put a sling on it. And then as I'm walking around with another person in the woods, I realized without a sling, there's all these other ways to hold a shotgun that that caused a lot of muzzle control issues. And as I'm walking around with it in my hand, just holding a kind of horizontal to the comparallel to the ground. As I'm walking, I realized, somebody walks in front of me, I'm immediately doing that. So if I hold it against my shoulder, if somebody's behind me to the left, especially if you're in you know, out in the west where people are different elevations, you're walking nick kind of whether you're hunting partners. So I realized, like, hey, if I had a sling, I kind of know this thing stable. I know where the barrel is pointed. So sometimes I just realized walking around I was still, you know what, I feel safe with my muzzle. But I just feel like, oh, that's one little step that I can do to make sure that I don't have eight different ways to carry this shotgun that are comfortable on long totes. So you know. And actually, in the last hunt I did this year, I just carried I don't even load it. I just carried it with the action open because I'm like, it's just there's too many variables here. I'm just not gonna do it. Um. And truthfully, these are these are almost the easy questions, right, I mean they're they're the ones that are fraggt because we're talking about guns safe to hear. But when we move into the real ethical conundrums of of the aesthetics of the hunt versus the ethics of the hunt, um, it's it's thorny, stoney ground, Yeah it is. And it's I'm I've been inheartened by people's people listen to this thing. Every week. I often bring up some of the same issues with different people, and that's I think that's the idea is to collect perspectives from around the country of people that are various expertises and skill levels of of what it really means to them, Like what what is this to to someone sitting in North Carolina as opposed to someone sitting in Texas as opposed to I Mean, there's such a tapestry of perspective that you can go pick from. And if you can really understand that that you and I go hunting, there might be some things that I do, do you think are unsafe? Have been doing my whole life, and they're they're folks out west that just that's just what you do. Um, So it's good to just have that in your mind and just try to try to judge a situation rather than just you know, always bring your own perspectives to it. That certainly helped me. And even like I said, even this year, I've I just realized a few things are like, Okay, each year I'm gonna learn something, hopefully learn many things. Yeah, we can't approach this thinking that we got it all all figured out. I Mean, every new technology brings another ethical quandary, and that's like there's never there's never been a time we're like we've been able to hunt. It's it's never been undisturbed, it's never been unmoved or always moving it well, and it seems like we're always moving it forward. Some of us like to move it back when we take a recurve bell or a self boll out, we were trying to move it back to where it was. But that baseline is always shifting around always technology does it are in personal feelings towards what we're doing to it. That's we're all it's always moving, it's moving underneath us as we go. Um. And that's something that I've I've certainly come to know and learn. It's like it's if you if you think it's all like you're you're going to be the center point of the activity, you're wrong and you're always going to be either moving with it or against it. Yeah, and what the it is is important, right. I mean, I do think in this this modern period where there's so much emphasis on of self actualization and you're doing the right thing for you and don't worry about if it's the right thing for anyone else, and I think I think some of that can creep into sporting ethics as well. That I'm making this decision because it's right for me at this particular point in time, and none of these externalities really entering the equation. Well, I applaud that sort of individualistic streak. You know, the heritage of sporting ethics does not. There's not in when you look at Aldo Leopold's writing, and some of his quotes are are the ones that are that are used to sort of underscore this notion of you now you are alone, your behavior when you are alone? Is is that the defining aspect of sporting ethics? But but in his later writings he went on to really sort of evolve that perspective that that ethics only exist in a in a community of other perspectives. Um and I think I think we're definitely seeing that these days and the ramifications of that in our in our passion right there only wordy when compared to one another, like it's it's this thing I'm doing is okay for me, and you're doing it over here, and there's a hundred other people that are appalled by it. Like that's only that comparison is important, right, It's important for all of us to understand, you know. That's that's where he gets sticky at at somebody email me email in the other day about you know, is the discussion that I've been having muddying the waters? Like is this the presentation of is it legal or illegal? Well, if it's if it's legal, it's a different conversation. If it's made have been made to be illegal, you just don't do it. That's how this works. We've kind of we have a social contract that says, right, we've construct a way to act that the illegal is by default un ethical now and then and that's where it's like, well, that's muddy in the waters. That's not always true. As look this this we've already we've already admitted this conversation to be almost impossibly entangled. Let's not let's not entangle it further by. We're looking at state by state laws and seeing if if we feel in the modern sense, they're ethical. We we just let's I understand that that is a reality. Let's leave it off the table for now. So there's just there's you know, folks that would want to work on the edges. But there's so much like this conversation that's kind of like right down the middle, like what the hell are you doing? How are people reacting to it, and at the end of the day you feel comfortable with what you've done. You know, and and feel feel that it's good and right, and a lot of the stuff, Like I tell my kids, you know, if you if you do a decent job of bringing up your children, they get to the age to where the discussion isn't what was the right way to behave and what was the wrong way to behave? I mean we at some point the discussion is what did you choose? Which road did you go down? And why? You know, a lot of these things, even with the hunting, I think if people understood the broader context, a lot of these real sticky issues. You know, it's shooting at long ranges, which is which is not an issue at all if you have the skills to do it. Um. But a lot of these things will sort of go by the waist or we'll we'll handle them, um in a meaningful way with a little bit more discussion and understanding UM. Because you know, most of the time, when you're an adult, it's not a matter of knowing what's right and wrong right, it's it's having the guts and gumption to choose the right thing when you really, really, really I want to shoot that bucket fo Yeah, and then when it becomes something different than what it really is, it's just a living breathing thing that you intend to like. It's a really it's we we talked about it in a lot of ways. It's a resource, it's this, it's that, But it's really when it comes down to, it's a living breathing being standing across from you somewhere. And I know you agree with me on this. You know, I don't harvest. I mean, I kill animals, you know, I think there's a level of honesty. And you've talked about this. We don't need necessarily go down that road, but I do think that helps us understand the sort of level of responsibility. Yeah, and I think if we can get to We've had I've had a lot of these same conversations around women and hunting, around you know, how we speak about how what we call ourselves sportsmen's sports, women's sports, people, Like, a lot of people are all spun up on this right now, what we call ourselves, you know, what's the proper name to call our community? Um, it's all I think it's a good point to say, it's all about kind of getting to what what's really I think the greatest society expects us to be honest with them, but what we're doing and I and we you and I both know like say, not to be labor, but that the harvest thing came from a re like I'm a remark kidding of what we're doing, not you know, not a real sense of being truly honest with what what we're pursuing. And so I say, let's move this conversation as a as an industry into helping people understand why we do this and what we're doing so we can be honest and say we're taking a life to give life. And this is why, Um, I've never have you ever had you know, I've become the the guy at the dinner party that if there's a vegan there, they set him by me, or like you know, I'm always hey, this guy's a hunter, tell him why, you know, to become the that guy, And um, I don't mind it. I like it. But at you know, at some level, that's that's where we are, Like we have all of us have the opportunity to some of us more than others, you know, tell that story and and it seem like mental masturbation to be having these conversations over and over and over again. But each time you do it, you just like sharpening a knife. Like when someone asked you a very tough but obvious question, you should you should have a very simple answer for it. You know, why do you kill things? O? Um, eating him? But why do you go off for ten days? And like why are you so that there's this like cascade of questions that someone who doesn't understand what you're doing could ask, could answer you or ask you. And I think your answers inform how much you've really thought about it. I think a lot of us, me included, for a lot of years, didn't really think about it all that much and weren't ever asked to think about it all that much because for a lot of us, it was just what a lot of other people did. There. We're raising kids in the city. So we're here in Raleigh, UM, a pretty big city. Yeah, we should set it up. You have a son and a daughter, uh, Jack and Markey. My son is about it turned twenty. My daughter Marky Man, I'm going to get this right. She's twenty. She's about to turn twenty three. Um, all of them here in the next in the next month, Yeah, and so and and Markey is not hunt and Jack is like deep in hunting and fishing. Jack is deep in hunting and fishing. Marky does not hunt. I took market hunting plenty when she was young. Um, and I've written about this. And she was totally enamored of the hole in the tree stand and watching. But you know she was gonna be watching at Bobcat hanging out on the log right. Um. And so it became pretty clear fairly early that hunting and fishing weren't her things. But since my whole family we camped and we backpacked and them and you can see him, it was just this whole environment is what they what they grew up in. She and I had this whole other life as a journalist, a sort of. Um. I'm a contribute editor for Audubon Magazine, and I've done a lot of work in Central America. For some reason, although I speak zero Spanish, for seven or eight years, I had a lot of work, uh in Central America for Audubon magazine. And so, whereas Jack was always going hunting and fishing with me, I hauled Marquis to the most god awful places in Costa Rica and Honduras and even north into northern Quebec and so and I firmly believed that she was able to enjoy that and appreciate that and make that a part of her life because she grew up sort of with the rigors of camping and with with with getting up early and going hunting. And I remember one of the few times when as parents, Julie and I would look at ourselves and we'd say we did a good thing was we were picking to go somewhere. I can't even remember where it was. Um, and Mark was upstairs. She was a little she was a little little slip of girl, and she hollered down from upstairs, Mommy, am I gonna pepee inside or outside? That's all she needed to know to pick. She could sleep in a tent, she could sleep in a hotel room. Um. They were like, yes, we did something right. Um. It wasn't long after that that Jack Hollard down asking if he could take his hatchet to Sunday school. And that was one of the times we worked at each other thought and we still we still got a little work. Yeah, I think it's I grew up in a house like that. My brother never never got into hunting, and I did, of course, And you know, you you look back at that and him and I an you know, kind of the same guy, and just except for that, it's it's hilarious, kind of hilariously similar things we're interested in. And just like the diverged it that I would guess that it's just he by the time my dad really took me when I was twelve or thirteen, But by the time my brother would have got into it as well, he was into other of things. This is like just never happened for him. If we could, if if we could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I'd be like, hey, man, you really need to come along, like you really need to be a part of this, because you're gonna be You're missing something. But at that time, it was just I did this and he did. He did sports and girls and I did hunting and girls. When I can get to it, that that's what it was. You. So you don't really know those things the verge, don't. You don't know. And you know, doing what I do for a living, you know, A hunted and fished just a lot, you know, and and I would hunt and fish for work, and I'd come home after an assignment, well that was work. I was ready to go hunting and fishing. Thankfully, I I'm married someone who understood you understood that. Um. But some of the best advice that Julie, my wife, ever gave me, and she had to give it to me a lot over the years, was to meet these kids where they were. You know, we want them to experience the world that we love, but but not everybody's wired for it. Um and And with Jack and I made some big mistakes with Jack early on hunting and fishing, no no question about it. Almost lost him to hunting early on. UM with but with Marquis, you know, what was important was getting her outside and having that father daughter relationship that even now is pretty rare, I think. And the fact that we ended up traveling so much together just her and I over the years has paid enormous enormous benefits UM in terms of our level of communication and our relationship. But but it was always I was always trying to get them to the next level of whatever I want to do, you know, and you gotta meet him where they are, to meet him where they are. Yeah, my son currently would be like dinosaurs, gonna meet him at dinosaurs, which we do. We do a lot, We do a lot of dinosaurs. But yeah, and I think that's good, great advice. Do you feel, and your kids are pretty close in asel, I say, three three years, do you feel that there was ever a time where you realize that they were that different that you you know that you had to handle one one way? I mean, you've kind of alluded to it, but do you remember making a conscious choice to kind of foster one's hunting and one's, uh more just love of out being outside. Yeah. I had my daughter and I had this thing called Daddy Daughter Deer Camp where we would go slum it up in a little mom and pop motel and and deer hunt at the at the least that I had was about it was about an hour away. It didn't have a honey camp on it, so we stayed at this little hotel. And I remember one day they were they were harvesting sweet potatoes in the field, and she was totally enamored of the whole process, and we must have come back with eighty pounds of sweet potatoes and never even I don't even think we hunted that morning, and I talked to her about this and said, you, Margie, you you're a whole lot more interested in hanging around, you know, with the with the potato farmers than you were and being in a tree stand. And and she started to help me realize that it just it just wasn't it just wasn't there. But but I was already doing so much hunting with Jack that I recognized, you know, I recognized that I needed to be proactive with my daughter. So that's when I started. Every every year since she was a little girl, she and I have traveled somewhere, just the two of us for four or five, six, seven, eight days, and that's that's that's been our thing. And so that's that's important. But I do remember with Jack, you know, I took him deer hunting when he was little, too little, for too long, you know, when deer hunting with a year old boring one night cold here was boring. It's just an exercise, and you know, sit down, don't move, shut up, don't scratch, don't don't don't don't don't, you know, And he didn't want to disappoint me. And I didn't learn about this until several years after all this, and he he just he got to where he just couldn't stand to go. But he wouldn't. He was not going to tell me no. So I took him duck hunting one time, and Ben, I remember, we were standing in the swamp and I looked over and he was doing this. He was moving his index finger almost imperceptibly to scratch his nose because he knew if he moved it fast, I'd be on him like I wasn't at tree stand right, And I said, you know, Jack, when you're duck hunting, you can scratch your chit chat, eat, eat a granola bar. And honestly, I just I saw the wait just lift off his shoulders, you know. And so when years to come, I have to say, you know, Jack, just because you can talk in a duck blind doesn't mean you have to always talk in a dug line. But ever since then, it was feathers for him. You know, he's still good deer hunting, and he's he may come back to it. He started to he started to make some noise about coming back to it. But from then on it was birds and shotguns and shooting. You like to shoot. Squirrels were good too, but yeah, you've got to figure out, you know what trips the trigger. That's good insight too. It's like you you wonder if it's the chicken or the egg? Are you are you out there doing things to find it? Or you know, is the is the opposite true? You know? How do you know it's Is it always there and you're just trying to get out of get everything else out of the way to get get it. I wonder that about I haven't, I guess a generalist mentality. I just love doing it all. I don't. I haven't found any one thing. I could probably rank them. Um, turkey hunting currently is like the thing, but I wouldn't if you suddenly said, hey, I gotta here's a duck boat and a bunch of decoys and somebody to teach you how to call like a champion. Be just as into that as anything else. So I've always I feel like I'm lucky that way. But there's some people that are just you know, doing that chicken or the egg dance, you know. And I figured out early enough that what I wanted them to leave the woods with was the feeling that God, that was amazing, that was so much fun. I can't wait to go back. And if that meant the squirrel hunt was over in three minutes after a legal shooting light and we spent the rest of the morning shooting sickamore balls in the creek, then that's what it meant. Um. But yeah, you know, I minute doing what I do. I'm I'm terribly goal oriented, and that's a terrible way to bring up kids. I'm I'm super thankful that I learned that earlier. I'm super thankful I had a wife that helped me learned that. One thing I I learned from well I learned it from multiple people, but I learned from my dad's. Like he my dad wasn't really let's say, like you know, gear oriented. You know, he had a lot of I mean, he is a guy that kind of knew the natural world ends and out, birds, trees, whatever, um, but just you know, didn't really ever change his oil. But I had a neighbor who was kind of a little bit the opposite, didn't really know, you know, I didn't know trees, birds, whatever. He was. He was all kind of you know, get your hands dirty. So I had my dad very much let me go with him to go change my oil. To do certain certain things. I think my dad recognized like what he could bring, and I think I remember later on, I'll tell his story just to make my parents proud. I gotta Early on in my driving career, I got what they call it like h d y kind of thing. It wasn't even to do. I think it was just had a beer in the car and I wasn't old enough to have one. So I had to go to a class and would like so I didn't get in trouble, one of those like scared straight type class. And so I went there and my dad was said with me. They were interviewing me about kind of like my influences were good and bad. And I remember my dad saying, they saying, you know, other than your father, is there an influence positive influence in your life that you would call a mentor, Like yeah, man, Bill Miller's my neighbors. This is I remember like looking at my dad and then looking at me like, yeah, you understand that. You know this other influences is important? Did you gotta have that for your kids? Are like if you didn't, do you wish you did? Like how how did that go for them? With their life? Have other influenced other influences. Um, that's an interesting question because they didn't have a lot of other influences in terms of the outdoors. My father died when I was a kid, so they didn't really have that sort of grandfather, uncles, aunts, other family members. Um. So in terms of bringing them up with a with a love of the outdoors, it was it was Julie and I. I mean, because Julie loves the loves to camp, loves to hike. I used to love to backpack, um. And we were constantly taking the kids out. I mean that's what you know when you when you look at a family's budget, you can kind of figure out what they what they think is important. Right, how much of their mortgages going to their house payment, how much of it is going to their car payment. And we love to travel. That's where we spend our family money on, you know, and we were very intentional about that. Um. And so I think I think that probably had as much of an influence on then these others. I lament the fact that that my kids didn't have the older generation in front of them, and frankly, Julie and I probably overcompensated in ways because they because they didn't have that, but they they seem to have turned out okay. Right now, they're on the boat at Cape Lookout maybe maybe coming back. And I hadn't gotten a I hadn't got a note from the coach guard. The answer, I'm thinking we did something okay, but they're still there's still time for that to go south. Oh, we've been looking at it, like looking at I don't know if it's been intentional here lately, Ronnella and I and you're honestly, it was kind of triggered by Steve asking one one live podcast we did. Steve asked question like what did your dad teach you and hunting that you carry with you? And we all answered kind of I think, well like the pat answer, and we all had something because our dads are all very involved in our and our upbringing out doors. And then the next couple weeks later, we're at a show and he asked, what did your mom do all right? Somebody written in like, wait a minute, is that only the father here? Like a non hunch of right in, Like I don't understand why you never talked about any other influences or at least you focus so heavy on on that that the influences of your father, and we started to then answer, like, what did your mother they're doing All of us were kind of uh uh, and then we I could just see I was looking at the other guys up there, and I could see that like things were sparkling in their heads that they've never thought of before. And it was interesting to me to just kind of think about those influences. How, you know, how do you, either consciously or unconsciously, were shaped by them? You know? Yeah, my mother was the great enabler um since I didn't have a father that took me hunting and fishing, and she knew how absorbed I was in this world, even though I had no one in my family who hunted, no one in my life experience who hunted. I didn't know a hunter um. And when my dad died, I was thirteen, and even by the end, I mean, I subscribe to field and stream and outdoor life and fur fishing game and all that stuff. You know, I had a I had a pola pine straw in the backyard and a and a bow. You know. The kids going to football practice would holler out at me, nature boy, because I'd be back there shooting yeah, yeah, yeah, So I mean, honestly, Ben, I remember I remember driving to the mountains as a kid, and and I was laying down in the back of our en seventy three Pinto station wagon, of course, with no seatbelts, and and I saw out of the window a big field and a little speck of blaze orange in a tree, and it was a deer hunter. And I absolutely remember asking myself, would I ever get to go hunting? Was there was there any path in my life that would that would lead me to that? And and there wasn't. There wasn't until my father passed away and a friend at church did what we all tell each other we need to do. He took a kid hunting. And his great credit Keith, Keith Gleason, he didn't take a kid hunting, this kid hunting on Saturday and get me all hopped up and then walk out of my life. From the first time we went squirrel hunting in October of nineteen seventy four until I graduated from college, he took me. We went every Saturday of the season, and so it was one of those few times where you could point to a moment when your life just takes a dramatic, dramatic change. And so my mom, to speak to your question, she was the one who allowed me to do all the stuff that she was super uncomfortable with. You know. I mean, I was a snake freak like so many of us, you know, grew up on this creek, and I would She would let me hibernate my snakes and pillow cases, knotted pillowcases in the refrigerator's vegetable cristal. God, bless her soul, she would. She knew how badly I wanted this. And so I think even today, I think that's probably as much a part of my success, be that as it may as anything is. There's a lot of mornings when I wake up and I just I'm just amazed at what I'm doing. Um, And I want other people to realize that their love of hunting and fishing is you know, these sports are imperiled from outside forces, whether they're economic, or whether they're social, whether they're cultural. And if we don't figure out a way to address those challenges, this is this is gonna slip away when we talk about it as a community, I feel like and it's when you tell a story like that to me, it's it's sobering and it's a little bit emotional to think of. We always talk about our three and we like we've made up these the fancy little things, but like we really just talk about affecting someone's life, not just just the day that they're with you or And that's the reason I do what I do. I think because I've identified this in enriching thing like this, Oh, look at this thing no one really knows about. They don't really know about the way I know now about it, and it's shrinking. For fox sake, what that makes no sense to me? And so it's engendered in me this like one willingness to fight, but also one willingness to appreciate what that what's currently here, because it is shrinking and by any measure, you know, almost all measures. So it's just a it's a sobering thought that that you're a part of something that has been so enriching to your life and others lives, and people have given their time to kind of change your path and you can do that for other people. It's just like the spider web of experiences that we're all together in, but that that's closing in on us. A little bit and so. And I think part of the success and that is celebrating all of the different ways that we choose to involve ourselves in this in this passion of hunting. You know that that one is not better than the other, that one is not more elevated. That I mean coast coast to coast, north to south. Those those feelings at sunrise, Um, I think they're the same in a salt marsh as a rocky mountain ridge line. You know, the heart, the heart can only beat so fast and so deep, and those moments like that, we mix it out no matter where we're standing. Yeah, And I think that that's why we were drawn to these people that are able to codify the ideas and like you know, Aldo and and Teddy Roosevelt and and all these writers you know, and I would put even yourself and guys like Steve Rinella and all these other writers and people that are able to take these ideas that we share an articulating in such a way that one making relatable, but to make you realize that's how I'm feeling, Holy Ship, that's how I'm feeling. Yeah, yep, that's it. And then once you've shared that with someone and it's it's it's beyond measure, I feel like. And that's and as lucky as I feel to be a hunter, I feel equally blessed to write about hunting, because I mean, I do think that's been I hate the call that a stick, but I've done a lot of writing about, you know, the cultural response to hunting, that personal response, you know. I mean, I I love to write stories that are just great stories of human character, and they happen to be told through the medium of the hunting and fishing. Um. But there's there's there's something about this pursuit that is is transcendent in a way that that other quote unquote sports I don't I don't think can be. And then again, I was a kid that the football players called niture boy and the buck. What do I did that? Well, if you would have kept that and trademarked it could have been a wrestler now. But I think that's it's true. Um. And there's a lot of people you like the author Michael poland It wrote the book I'm Know Where's the Lemmter talked about it in his book. He said hunting is so incredibly different from the inside than it than it is from the outside. I mean, this is it's just this incredible core that no one gets to see because it's so hard to see it. I mean it's like a you know, it's it's it's almost invisible unless you're there doing it, you know, because it's there's so many ways to see it that don't seem productive. And you know, you imagine society and everyone that doesn't hunt is just asking the question is this good for all of us? Is this good for everything? It is this good for what society and the way we think about animals and our interaction and our motivations are we good? Is this good? And we're like, yeah, fucking really good. But it's hard. I mean we've struggled to articulate that. I feel like, you know, over time, huh is it good? We could say? Am I playing a role in it being good? You know? So that's sort of the question as well. I Mean, we don't want to saddle people with all this philosophical baggage. You know, you just want to go hunt, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But that's I keep coming back to that because I've I've argued this a lot of people and sometimes I would step back from because I don't want to be that guy, right, the guy in the room going like, don't you guys want to think a little deeper. This is a douchey thing to say sometimes oftentimes, but I also want to say, like, in our little community here of people, if if you would tell me that half or more want to just go out and have fun, I would say, that's that's that's fine. Whatever number of us just feel that it's this is in their nature and they're gonna do it. They're gonna have a good time and that's what they get from it. I'm totally fine with that. I would argue that there needs to be a percentage of on the other side, that's that's answering these tough questions and having you know, sometimes these endless conversations around some of the more intricate parts of it. So when someone asks you have somebody to send them to, you know, and I think there's a that percentage of people or the or the ones that I think are the ones that are almost ridgelines and then there's swamp bottoms just feeling totally blessed by this moment. Yeah, and if it's guys like it's guys like you and other people have had on this podcast, like if if Honey was a representative government, Like who would we elect? Because we have to elect someone to explain our the ship we do to other people, Like we have to elect a body to allow us to just go and have fun and elect the body of people to talk about it and think about it and reason it outside of this science and biology that goes on the state game agency level in the federal or whatever, just just as a theory and philosophy. I think that's that's how I look at it. There's got to be some people out there that are doing that, you know, and like exploring the human elements of hunting and things like that that just a little bit deeper than most people want to go with it. Well, you know, at the at the dawn of our modern civilization or or or at our our modern culture, people sat around and tunics and sandals and thought about what it means, what it means to be human, and what it means to engage in society, and what good government means. So, I mean, I I think it's a fine thing to sit around in our flip flop flannel shirts and think about what does it mean to be a taker of life? Yeah, yeah, that's the question. Yeah. I think it's that conversation like we'll never get there or never you'll never be like, oh, you know, you know what, guys, I hadn't thought of it this way, but here it is. But you can certainly continue to explore it. And that's another part of I think how hunting community has grown and how we talk to each other. The willingness that people that are going to come to rally and sit and listen to us kind of have this conversation on a on a wonderful evening where they could be doing anything else. I think is is just evidence of the elevation of the willingness to have that conversation. And that's it's a pretty huge win in my my estimation. It's a it's a pretty good time. This may be the time, you know, like we I think we just being self critical. We can always throw stones at it. But I think I've quickly seen when I first came in the industry and social media really got going, it was not there was some really bad stuff happening, and over the last four five years, maybe I'm in a bubble. I think we're all in our like self contained internet bubble for reasons of in our controlling, outside of our control. But I you see, like you see the through lines of people that are really thinking hard, you know, in a way that they communicate, and so that's you see it and see a lot. That's that's you know that you would like to think in the groups like pH and I was just with with Fosberk from TRCP, He's like to think that that that that's all Like the fact that somebody's willing to put their money down and join one of those is signifies that that's really really truly going on. Yeah, and I think with the growth of these organizations, people are recognizing the threats that we have, the opportunities that we have, and that hey, and this tribe is big. You go to that b h A rendezvous, you go to some of these big meetings, and you looked around and that's that's that's the response. We hear a lot. I found my people. Oh yeah, right, we're at the ronde. Even you and I must I must have heard that, wow, three dozen times, I don't know how many times. Many times. Yeah, yeah, So it's I mean, that's that's strong medicine. But you know, let's also not get away from the fact that it's a it's a hoot. Put stump around into swamp, have a gun and be able to engage in this. But it's fun. That's fun, like any freedom in free either and said, well, it's it's great. I mean, this is I think being able to go and do that and then in the quiet times we're not doing that. I have these conversations and then go out and let them inform and go back and forth from that's great, man, I love doing it. Uh, there's a lot of people listen to this, I think love love to hear it. I'm assuming so a lot you know, a lot of good, good reviews over the time. But I really I do. I do believe that this this conversation, however, you know organic our conversation here has been it's a little sobering to me to think of the point from it that I'll probably take forward with needs to think of how just you didn't have a father around, somebody in your life picked up, picked you up and took the time and change your life and then and then cascading on change the lives of your children and probably their children and on and on and on we go. It's like just one you had the desire, somebody saw it and jumped on it and helps you. But that's the power of this sport man. You know you feel it, and I feel it. Everybody listening feels it. Um, I mean it. I mean these are these are life changing experiences in life affecting experiences we have. You can spend your Saturday watching Tom Brady, or you could spend your Saturday like taking somebody else man and chain and possibly hopefully changing the way that they see the world change in their life's who's Tom Brady? I'm not just see what's this oil change? And thank you were talking about I don't got time. I got time for that. Well, thank you, Edward. Um. I appreciate what you do. And you can find your working lots and lots of places. It would be hard not to find it, I feel. Uh. You can find it at field and stream, you can find a garden and gun. You can find it an Audubon, like where else do you magazine and Men's Journal and Shooting Sportsman and yeah, I look at that big polar over there. You know this is a part of my job. Nobody wants to hear about is the sitting here and right right right, but hard to complain this podcast is taken to a lot of people. I try to do them inside of people's personal space, and like this is, uh the neatest I've interviewed a lot of writers. Imagine like how Harry I didn't get to go to his officer. I imagine like he just he just his a head poking out of papers. All right, that's my that's my imagination there, Andrew mc keene, he's the same way a bunch of other folks we've had on It's just like it just seems the writer's mind seems to be too cluttered to have time to clean shut up. But you have you have done it, sir, Well, it depends on what I'm what I'm working on. Um right now, I'm working on my column for Field and Stream, which was due at some point in the recent past. Sorry guys, Yeah, so uh so yeah, so that's more of an essay thing, so I'm not covered up with notes. But yeah, there's other times when it's a it's it's a mess. It's all one story at a time. Folks. Remember that has Eddie. Eddie has always said at least for the last week. One story at a time, One story at a time. Thanks man. Alright, buddy, that's it. That's all another episode of the podcast in the Books, thanks to Eddie T. Nikins. Oh thanks to all your dad's out there here as we run up to Father's Day, So do something nice for your dad. Do something nice every day, but do something especially nice for Father's Day. Before we get any further. Th HC at the Mediator dot com. Th h C at the mediator dot com. That is where I want you to write me all your emails. Uh there, they've been flooding in here lately. Uh, to the to the program. In fact, you know, ten to fifteen a day rolling in so so it's really cool to see um everything from Colonel Tom Kelly two Ethics to Texas to anything you can think of that to the Devil Makes Three, the song that a lot of you love and a lot of you hate. It's been great to read all the I am reading them and respond to them as soon as I possibly can. But thank you for writing in. Continue to send those audio clips to th HC at the meeteator dot com. Send us the audio clips and we'll play them at the end of each show. We need them from you. They're fun for me to listen to and fun for for the rest of the audience. A lot of people have been commenting about how they love it, um and again, we're gonna continue to crank those out for you. What else, what else? What else we got? You know, it's it's almost too close to Father's Day, but you know this will come. You'll have a few days after this airs. If you want a good Father's Day gift to go to the meat eator dot com click on store. There's a lot of th HC gear there. There's hoodies, there's pro Nuance, anti bullshit t shirts, there is our Aldo Freaking louispold t. There's a bunch of stuff there that you can check out, and then once you're there, then you can buy all kinds of other things meat Eater, Metator mugs, metior hats, meet eat or Tease. We just came out with a new broadhead t that Steven Ronell himself came up with. It's pretty badass. To check it out at the meat eater dot com click on shop and you're gonna see it all there. That's great, trust me, So without further ado. We're gonna get you too a couple of reader voicemails, as we'll call him, and then we're gonna get you to old number seven. Enjoy Man. That Stephen Ronnella really came off as a high brow kind of guy throwing all our Game of Thrones love under the bus like that. I guess he doesn't have time for that, but I'll get over it. They say, never really get to know your heroes or you'll be let down. Thanks Ben for keeping it real for us Game of Thrones fans and UH to finish off the thought Sportsman's Alliance doing God's work. I wish I could support them more right now. Thanks for continuing to bring those guys on. I really get kind of uncomfortable talking about ethics because it's such a moving target for anyone in any place, whether it's ranching, pet ownership, hunting, fishing tournaments. It's a tough thing to define. Thanks for at least talking about it and the platform that you guys put forth. See Hello Ben and the guys at Hunting Collective. This is Armando Basulto. I'm from western North Carolina, out here in the Smoky Mountain part of North Carolina, big fan of the show and it've enjoined the last couple of episodes. UM, wondering if maybe on an upcoming episode you might touch a little bit more on trapping. Um, you guys touched a little bit on it when you were discussing the North American model of UH wildlife and you touched a little bit on it. But um, currently trapping is really under attack in so many states. UM. You know, it tends to be easily targeted because even some hunters don't understand it. Um. It's kind of low hanging fruit target for uh Ani hunters and people kind of work against UM hunting and conservation. So, UM, I'm a hunter, but I'm also a trapper. I'm teaching my boys how to trap, and UH, I know even I have some difficulties sometimes getting people to understand UH trapping as part of a wildlife management and as a real tool. So anyway, hoping you guys can discuss it on an upcoming episode, UM, and keep up the great work. Thanks guys. Tennessee who whiskey got the dragon heaven and uh and just stopped it looks good to me. They're gonna have to depumpit to the vardy Oh on the fire, Red dragging in the fire, dh on the fy d dragging in heaven.

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