00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome Episode number eight The Hunting Collective. I'm Ben or Brian. Today we are joined by pure nomad Sam Soholt. Sam somebody I met five or six years ago and as a young photographer in the hunting industry, and somebody that I became fast friends with, and somebody who not only did I respect who he was and what he did by respect that he's creative vision in his work and all the things he did with a camera, with a rifle, with a bow, whatever. And Sam's also somebody who lives a life that a lot of people could respect. He lives as a nomad, kind of doesn't have an address. It's hard to pin him down. I know he used to live in Montana and sometimes in South Dakota, but he kind of always was everywhere and doing things, living life the way all of us would want to, just with a ton of freedom. And most recently, Sam has built a bus. He didn't build a bus, He bought a US and then turn it into a camp mobile hunting camp and took it around and used that bus to highlight public lands um and he's also has a company called public Land Tease that he started that money goes back into backhuns and anglers for public lands from each purchase. So all these things put together makes Sam a force in the hunting world and somebody I call a friend and I'm happy to do so. So hopefully episode number eight will be a good one for you. Please enjoy Sam. So, Sam, what's up? What's going on? Not much? Um? I am actually just sitting in my pick out at the moment. I figured that would be the quietest place where I could record this week. Yeah, we've done a few. This will be our second, or at least one of the participants, if not. Both were in a pickup, and I find that to be okay. I have no problem with that. Yeah, yeah, it works as long as you're not driving. You and cawhanded it in in the pickup in the show, didn't you, Yeah, which is a bit of a Russian nesting doll of weirdness. Yes, we did. Um. Yeah, so you're not driving the truck though it's stationary. I'm not driving. No, I'm not driving. I parked, um, but I thought it seems fitting. I'm a fairly you know, travel a fair bit, so that's good. I might as well do it in my home. Well, you know, what I mean. Yeah, I feel like the first thing to talk about is that it's turkey season, because that's the only thing to think about right now. If anybody else's as a hunter and they're thinking about anything about turkeys, they're foolish. And I've had pretty much turkeys and snow geese. Yeah, you know, like whatever, whatever, snow geese, whatever, let's get okay in February, you can hut snow geese that track. Yeah, you got some turkey plants coming up? I do. Yeah, I'm gonna do a little turkey tour in the bus. Um. I'm gonna go chase some in Nebraska first before I go out to Boise for the b h A rendezvous, and then depending on timing, probably chase some in my home state in South Dakota, and then uh, you never know. It's the turkeys. With turkeys is kind of nice. You don't have to plan like a ten day trip. You know, somebody can call you and be like, hey, I've got turkeys something like, all right, I'll be there in the morning and and you go and shoot a turkey. You're right about that always the case. I know, it's not always the case for turkey hunting. But a lot of times, you know, it's not like you know, chasing Mulder or Elk, where you gotta have plenty of days to make sure you get it done. We're talking about this the other day. Do you feel like there's a way to do a public land grand slam in the States. There's gotta be Let's make that a thing. Yeah, there's gotta be. Let's make that a thing. Because I don't know that anybody's ever said or did that. I just shot an Osceola in Florida. I don't know if there Yeah, but I was looking around on the maps and the Onyx maps trying to figure out if there was public where you could turkey hunt, because I feel like that's the only missing piece. I mean, there's I know you can hunt easterns Rio's and Miriam's in public ground. I know that. Yeah, if we can find the secret public around spot for Osceola's, we're in. I feel like between you and I though, like we know enough people in Florida where we could make that happen. Yeah, we just can't tell anybody if we find like the golden spot for Osceola's, No, we can't. It have to be like, I don't know how we pull that off. We just we have to do it very publicly but very secretive. At the same time. We would make we would just probably make up names. We wouldn't say what's really going on, that's right, Yeah, because I can't imagine there's somebody from Florida can right in and tell us all about the public land turkey. Yeah, but I can't imagine there's a whole lot of that going on. Yeah, I wouldn't imagine. So, but it seems like a good goal that we need to figure out how to pull off in the next couple of years. It's it's true. Tell just tell everybody, why do you think turkey hunting is the best type of hunting there is? Because that's I mean, obviously that's the reality. I mean, I don't know if it's okay, I'll just start. Turkey hunting is amazing. Uh, first of all, of springtime, like everything, you know, like just spring in general is great. It's kind of like the transition out of the deep freeze. And you know, if you live in the northern part of the US and everything starts, you know, everything's growing back and everything's turning green, and everything smells good, and then you go out and you chase these like twelve to twenty pound dinosaurs that basically yell at you and to try to attack you, and then you shoot him in self defense. Most of the time, it's it's uh, I don't know. I it took me a long time to get into turkey hunting. I never thought I would, Like I didn't like watching movies that you know, uh, you know, I didn't like watching turkey hunting. Is it just time side? It was just super boring. But I only did it one time, and I was like, I get it now, this is pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, that's like almost saying, like, tell me why Donald Trump is the greatest president or the best president? Yeah, you really phrase that. I feel like turkey hunting. Rogan talk ship on turkey hunting when he went with Ronella, and I feel like there's other people around that are popular to talk ship on turkey hunting. So I just feel like I need to be a voice for the greatness. Yeah, did they go kill did they kill any turkeys? I feel like I don't know if Rogan killed a turkey or not. Probably not. Well, that's that's probably why he's talking shit. On it. I don't know, but if he did, I'll get him eventually. But I just feel I feel like turkey hunting is just underrated. It's seen as like a redneck pursuit, which maybe it is. I'm a redneck. But even even if it is, it's worth it. Yeah, you're talking to a giant raptor with giant yeah terms. Yeah, And so here's the question, uh for you and you've you've done a lot more turkey hunting than I have. Um, And a lot of people say that they're, you know, an incredibly smart bird. In my personal opinion, I think that they are so dumb that they are hard to hunt. Like they they flie down from the roost, they have no idea what they're doing. They're like a ping pong ball. It's just like, you know, it's like a it's like a puffed up the turn and then and then they just keep they go and they hit that field edge and then they just turn it just you know, just strutting around up. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that could be either. There's times when your turkey hunting and it seems like the most simplest thing you could ever do. See you go out there, you make something, you shut the carridor and they start gobbling, they come running and you shoot them. Like I've had things like that happened where you just asked, like last year, two years ago in Florida. But the turkeys are tough. All morning, they weren't really goblin. We didn't get into much. And we were walking back to the truck on this paved road and there was a little food plot just down over this little palmetto ridge and we were talking full voices, and I think this turkey gobbled at our voices was the first time it gobbled. And then I just went down over the hill and hit the call one time and it came running through this palmetto and I shot at like five yards. So then you're thinking like, mmm, I gotta tell you this can't be the hardest thing when that's when that's going on. Yeah, But I just I think that we hunt them and just like a white tailed deer, if you were only hunting white tailed deer in November, you would think they're the dumbest, you know, pussy hungry things there ever was. Um, So I think we we and then you know they've habititated or they've cohabitated enough that we'll see him in our backyards and you see him in parks sometimes, and so anything you see in those environments you think might not be that's smart. But I've hunted swamp gobblers in Louisiana that you just thought, there's no way I'll you'll ever trick it into coming near you. I mean, they're just he just feels like you'd never get it done. So I think yes, and yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all situational. Yeah. So I'm I'm reading an article now, uh from our boys, Steve Hiccoff. You ever met Steve Hickoff. I don't think I have. He's a turkey killing genius. So he has an article on realtory dot com called how to get your Turkey hunting Grand Slam on public Land. He wrote it in January, so he so the first thing he says, good news three quarters the grand slam of public land is easy. Bad news the quarter not accounted for as as Florida's Asceola subspecies. Tagging a public land Osceola is tough, I think, goes on. He goes on the list of how tough it actually is. Oh, yeah, seems worth, seems worth trying. Seems worth. See, that's it. We just gotta spend like a whole month in Florida scouting, sitting on the beach, drinking booze. That's what we gotta do. That's the only way it doesn't seem terrible. Hopefully Steve Hicks to this and can help us. I'll get an air condition or putting the bus and we can roll that down. Yeah. Yeah, man, Yeah, you get a lot of a lot of ladies get on that bus. Like when the bus pulls up and they see inside, a lot of a lot of young ladies want to get in there. Are you asking that question? Yeah, that's a question. No, they don't know. That's not a thing. It's you know, surprisingly enough, luckily I have a girlfriends. But it's not exactly. I wouldn't call it a female magnet um a big green and white school bus. It's not exact to the opposite. Second, Yeah, I would say for any regular listeners, I'm feeling a little bit more free flowing with the verbage today just because I'm drinking beer. And that's okay. Sam and I are good friends, we're not just acquaintances, so it's gonna Yeah, we've been in a few camps together. Yeah, a couple of times, been here and there. Um, so just this since we already touched on the bus. For those who don't know, give us the bus rundown and don't be shotting the details, okay. Um So, I it's funny. I was, I was thinking about this before we we hopped on the phone, and I was trying to figure out like when the bus idea first originated. And I actually remember telling the first time you and I that was up in BC with Rogan, and I remember telling you guys that I was thinking about buying a bus and that was what was that November? Yes almost yeah, be four years ago this fall? Yeah, so um yeah, I remember, like and I think it was like that's like spring of the the bus idea had like popped into my and and I was actually, you know, my brother and I had had talked about, you know, buying a school bus, and and actually we had originally talked about doing like a twelve state Turkey tour in a school bus. So this, you know, like what we talked about earlier, kind of segways nicely into this. But um no, I said, it took me a while to kind of wrapped my hand around actually purchasing long And it was not this last fall, but the fall before I was kind of coming off the hunting season, and I was just, you know, I had a good year, and it was had traveled a bunch and shooting photos and and hunting for myself, and and uh, the bus idea just hadn't gone away in at that point, I was like, you know what, I'm turning thirty this year. UM, Like, the amount of time in my life where I can do something like purchase a full size school bus and build it out into a camper is It's comminishing quickly. So I finally I was like, well, I'll just do it. And if I hay it, well then I know I hate it. But if I don't do it, I'm always gonna regret not you know, pulling the triggering doing this crazy adventure. And it was right after I decided to find a bus and buy one. UM, I actually called you, uh to talk to you about an idea that I had um with the bus project and actually relating it all to UM public land transfer awareness and trying to get the word out there, you know, to as many people as possible about the possibility of losing our public lands, and uh, you and I kind of spit ball back and forth on the phone, and like you know, I got in touch with b H and I have been working with them and have been working with a few other UM companies, you know, outdoor Life and those types of people to to get the word out there. But ye ha, it all originated the fall of and I bought a school bus from Colorado and and turned it into my rolling hunting camp. And how like when you see when you get is you bought a Bluebird? What year was your Bluebird school bus? That? Yeah? So uh some of the specs on it now so I yeah, it was the Bluebird U full size, so full size passenger UM and I bought it four so it's listed for fifty d And I was able to talk the guy down to thirty hundred sous I had at that point, I owned thirty seven ft long. Um. Yeah, so I owned thirty seven feet of vehicle. Dude. Right now, I'm I'm on eBay googling used school buses and this is scene. What's out there. There's a lot, It's amazing, unbelievable. I'm certainly not I'm not the first person to buy a school buss and turn it into a camper. No, but I am the first one to do it in the hunting industry and related all to public lands. I'll take that. It's like a small credit. Here's the guy that wants dollars or a twenty four pastor like a short bus. Well, what years it is a four wheel drive? I don't know, man, it doesn't look like look like something. It's probably just a year. Yeah, dude, four wheel drive short bus. Come on, man, like that's another you should you should tow that behind the bigger bus to deploy an all fer situations. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna get a van, a four wheel drive van and build that out. Any anyway, continue, you've purchased this bus. Purchased the bus? Um, I bought in Colorado and actually parked it. My brother owns a hunting shop in Fort Collins and he's got a big lot behind his place, and I bought it and I parked it there for a while. Um Because, to be honest, I didn't really have, um any goal other than getting the bus, and then I was going to figure it out from there. Um. So I bought it and then I went to a show and I had, I talked to a bunch of companies about the project and what I was doing and um and that's where the like the connection to outdoor life came from. But it was at this point it was still just I owned a school bus and that was it. And yeah, so you know, and in the time between UM I bought it on New Year's Eave. In the time between Ben and UM April, I was just drawing plans and you know, thinking of ideas and UM not ashamed to say that I've done a lot of browsing on Pinterest, because apparently everybody else with a school bus puts all of their stuff on Pinterest, so there's there's a lot of each oior design ideas. UM, and I just gotta you know, I kind of tried to figure out what I wanted it to look like, and then it at the very end, uh so I ripped all the seats out in February, uh March I was traveling for work. And then in April I drove the bus back to South Dakota, um my, so that I could park it at their lake place and do the whole build there. And which worked great for me because I got to leave it the lake and wake up and go work on the school bus. But I, um, at the end of it wasn't until the end of May that I finally painted the ceiling and actually got to work on the interior. Um. So I painted the ceiling and and then I put down the floor and see paint the ceiling, put down the floor, and then I put up all of the framework on the walls, so then I could put up all of the pine on the walls and and and bolt everything to the outside so that way but wouldn't shift around. But I yeah, I turned it into I took it from yellow school bus with no seats to mobile hunting camp in uh I guess nine weeks. Yeah, so you just went you just had like a did you draw a blueprint and then went to home depot or did you just kind of go? I mean you had a layout right before you went, and yeah, yeah, I had a layout. So after UM, so, I painted the ceiling and then I went in there. I went in there with like just masking tape and um kind of the measurements of everything I wanted to put in there. Uh So, like the queen bed is in the back, so I'm putting masking tape on the floor where the queen bed was gonna sit. And then I kind of just roughly like guess like how much space I would want between that bed and like the bunk beds, you know, and then I massed off the bunk beds where those were gonna sit. And then you know, I just worked my way from the back to the front um. And so I've got a queen bed in the back, I've got team sets of bunk beds um in front of that, so I can sleep five or six in the bus um and then in front of the bunk beds and the bunk beds all open up for tons of storage um, which is nice. I can keep most of my gear in the bunks or underneath the queen bed. And then in front of that, I have on the we'll say on on the starboard side of the bus. We I have like kitchen, uh kitchen areas. So I've got cabinets up top um for all of my cooking stuff or like all you know, spices and oil and like anything I would need to cook a meal. And then I've got a kitchen countertop that I've made out of old barnwood. And then I apoxed it, and I built built a cabinet that houses both my battery system and then storage for my um stoves and pots and pans and all that kind of stuff. And then on the same side, I've got a little desk where I throw all of my photo editing video editing. And then on the side in front of the bunks, I've got a little room that was intended to be a bathroom, and I bought a portable toilet for it, but I have yet to use it. I just it turned into a just kind of like a little storage closet and hang a bunch of clothes in there and stuff. Most of the time, I just use Great Mother Nature for any outdoor facility needs. And then uh yeah, and then I've got any space from my appropriate fireplace in front of that, and then a couch and yeah that the inside is great for just like if it's just me, it's it's a ton of room and um, it's a great living space. And then any time I've got more people, I had a custom I custom built the framework, but then had that cam is sewed for it. I have a ten by twenty and closed awning that's it's next to the bus. So all in total, I have a little over four square feet of space when I have camps out. Man, Yeah, that's I don't know that how in the if I'm have any ingenuity in my body, but probably not enough to pull that off in the time that you did, and that I'm hoping you saved all the instant story material from those from those deals because that was Yeah, yeah, I've got a lot of I got a lot of content, um just saved on the computer and the phone. Are they save it on Instagram? And then now you can save Instagram stories to your feed or to your page. Can people go and look at that the build out on your so not right now? I could actually go back. Um, I could go back and add a bunch of stuff, but I'm during what I'm gonna do is during this Turkey tour or like this Turkey and I'm doing the next couple of weeks. Um, I'm going to completely set up camp like everything, and then I'm gonna do a full walk through tour kind of my yeah, my entire design and what's in there. And then once i get that, if you at, I'm gonna let well and then I'm gonna try to do it like a live Instagram feed where I can people that have watched the video can ask questions about any part of it, the business and so your your general advice to folks would be that you need some ingenuity, a school bus and a ton of time and you can do it. Yeah, yep, yeah, I mean luckily for me, as you know, unless I'm on a photo trip, I don't have you know, there's not all that much going on in between in between trips, and so I was able to you know, I'd wake up it whatever seven am and make a pot of coffee and send a couple of unitals if I need two, and that I would walk outside of the bus and get my home my table, son skill son minor by the compressor for my mail gun, and just work until it was duck. Yeah. I don't even want to add how many hours, like two things like how many hours I spent inside of it just building it, and then how many times I walked in and out of it like just you know, go in, measure one thing, go out kind of board, go back here, like I mean ten thousand times in two months. I think the more like the more interesting part of it is how you have come to have that free time, right because a lot of people that are listening to this on their way to work or at work or in a cubicle, and they would love and most people would love to have the freedom that you have, right because it's just tell Polkes what your your job is currently and kind of what what that entails. Yeah, I guess my title would just be, uh, professional photographer in the hunting industry. Um, I don't know if that's yeah. I mean, I do a lot of a lot of things, but yeah, that's that's probably like as general as I can as I can get. Um but yeah, I started. I mean, it took me a long time for sure to get where I'm at. But um I jokingly I tell people I retired out of college basically, um but I my first job in the industry was I worked, Um, I was camerap and um video producer for Midwest Whitetail. I was finishing up my uh Masters of Business at North Dakota State. UM but I all I had was an online class left and so I took an internship with Midwest white Tail and moved to Albia and spent all roughly six months UM in Albia and was either hunting or filming twice a day and producing videos. Was producing the Michigan and Minnesota like weekly web shows, and then I was filming for the main show from Midwest, White Tale, and really picked up a lot of my you know, video education from from all the guys that I was working with now there and then that transition, and I moved to Colorado after that, and I was helping manage UM. Like I said before, my brother owns at that country hunting store, but I was helping manage that. UM it's called the Gannett Ridge, and I was producing video content for for that shop. And then I moved to Montana and the sales are up. Actually I um took a job through UH the owner of a rep age and see who sold to my brother and UH move in Montana. But shortly after that, I had an opportunity to move to Alaska and film a couple of different national TV shows for the Weather Channel and the History Channel, UM Coast Guard Alaska and then The Hunt for the History Channel, and I jumped on that, moved to Kodiak for about five months so and then from that it's just you know, it's from there, it's just been all networking stuff. So you know, I meet one person on one show, and then that led to History Channel, and then that led to me meeting Chris Ellis, who you know pretty well. And yeah, and Chris is a PR guy for in the industry, and he hired me to do my first professional photo shoot, um for Remington's. And then through all of those events that you know I met, it was actually a Reckington event where I met Mike Scobie who then forwarded you my portfolio and then hired to go up to b C. So it's um, I became a photographer. You know, I feel like I have a pretty good eye for photography. But I I think I'd became successful in what I do because of just networking as much as possible and just meeting you know, as many people as I could on every single trip. Yeah, I think that's I'm sure that's a huge part of it. I mean, but there's some innate need, not to say, a desk that I think drives people to fine. I'm sure you found like what what's the what's the thing that's going to get me free or keep me free? And if it was networking, that would have been it. You know that that yeah, was it? Or if it's I need to be talented in these areas, Yeah, that's what you need to do. Yeah. No, I think I think forever, you know, up, I think I was. I was never destined to be, you know, at a quote unquote normal job. I always wanted to, you know, be in the outdoors. Um a long time, had a dream to be doing something in the hunting industry. And I think that the further I went down the past that I'm on, the more I realized how how much I didn't want to be like, you know, building every day. And um, Fortunately for me, I just you know, I was was able to keep that going and work my ass after where I am now so um, but I can't, I mean after doing it for so long and you know, and having the type of flexibility that I do, you know, and and it'd be I can hardly imagine you know, trying to work for a company or works or whoever you know, and where I clock in it whatever seven am and clock out of five or whatever it might be. It that would be really tough for me. You know. It might be really good for about six months and then be pooped up and pitching to go so right now. It only takes me about three days before move on to the next adventure. Yeah, I'm with you, man, I am tortured by that that balance as they call work life balance, but I just call it like life balance. Work is work is what you do that interrupts your life for sure. Well, I think you know it's as cliche as it sounds. I mean, we only get one shot at this whole thing. So I know, a long time ago I decided, like why, you know, I don't want to I don't want to waste my not that you know, working is wasting your life, but I just wanted to do as many things I would have just been completely more out at the end of my event. Yeah, and uh, I do that working a normal job for me personally was not going to get me there. Yeah. I mean that's good. I mean the good advice for people that are in that situation or who are are realizing that that their path maybe took them in a wrong direction, where your path I think took you in the right direction for you is that you know you can always change that. I mean, there isn't you there was no template for you like that, Nobody laid out like hey, Sam, if you if you go on this moose hunt with Ben and Joe Rogan and and take some photos, next thing you know, you'll have a career. Or hey, if you you want to shoot some Remington photos for some of some guns at a at a media event, Yeah, that next thing, you know, you'll be hanging out with Joe Rogan. Like, if you reverse the steps that led you to where you are, you wouldn't at each step you wouldn't believe the other. And that's how I am too, not a chiance. Yeah, you wouldn't. When you were in that Remington shoot, somebody said, hey, the next thing you're gonna do is take photos of Joe Rogan for a Peterson's Hunting cover in British Columbia and the moose You've been Like, shut up, dude, there's no way you're high. Yeah. Absolutely, well we should probably talk about that that hunt because you just posted, um yeah, this week wasted A couple of days ago. Was that it was a three year anniversary when I saw it hit the shelf first time? Yeah, so this is yeah, it was. I was actually in Arizona leaving a Remington New Products seminar media event and um, yeah, I got into the airport and there it was on the shelf. So this was the whole backstory on this. We kind of touched on a lot of it because I think it just it just is kind of the thread that pulls that that you're eyes relationship, just because it was such a great beyond just what it was like that the time spent together was so good that I was my position at the time. This would have been like I was a managing editor at Peterson Shunning magazine and we were we had done one issue the year prior that was. We called it the meat Eater Edition of Peterson Shunning and it was a giant piece of bloody meat April would have been April thirteen. A giant piece of bloody meat on the end of a knife, and there was. It was widely acclaimed and widely criticized. That cover, which you know, which is which, yeah, which turns out was a good thing, right, you know. And in that conversation, Steven Ronella was a big part of that article and he said to me, hey, man, I actually I asked him who else is is? Do you think it's just hunting of the meat or people that you know they are kind of new to hunting and are picking it up just for meat. And he said Joe Rogan, And I said, the guy from Fear Factor. Are you sure we're talking about the same guy. Uh. He's like yeah, yeah, man, I take him hunting, you know, a few months ago and as first time hunting. But he just cares about the meat. That's all he wants to do. And I was like, well, I'd better call that guy and get it and get the low down from So I ended up calling him. We talked for a couple of hours and he got like a sidebar in that April feature article that included Ronnella. But then when we were thinking about like what's the April Meat Eater, because we wanted it to be an annual thing, what's the April cover going to be? My first thought was like, it's got to be Rogan, just for who he is, and through that time I had got to know him a little bit better. And so then we decide we were gonna get moose hunting because Joe said that's the most possible meat he could get is from a moose, and I agreed. We found an outfitter who was my Cockers, who's up in Quesnel, British Columbia and then we were at the last minute like, man, we need obviously need a photographer. A bunch of people weren't able to do it. Um and and Scobie came by. I was like, man, I met this young guy, this this guy Sam at this Remington writers event and he's super talented and he'll go with you prom and he'll do a great job. And so I think, I don't know if I called you or emails you the next thing you know you were signed up to come right, Yeah, I think I got an email and then you and Scobie both called me to wear like a little conference call, and uh yeah. I was basically like, hey, can you be in d C from November step to the ninth. And I don't I don't think you even finished the sentence. I was like, Yep, I'll be there. Yep. Sounds good. Perfect. Yeah. Most most hunters, when you say come to British columby November, they're like, yeah, I can do Yeah, Yep, I can do that. Yep, I can make that happen. Yeah. So then we we went up there. The first time I met you, first time I met Joe in person, um, the first time I met Mike Hawkridge in person, and next thing you know, we're rolling around and a beat up pickup truck, chasing glass and cut blocks for moose and laughing our ass off. And that was one of the few times where you literally meet people for the first time and the next thing you know, you're having the time of your life with him. Whether you were hunting or not, I don't think it wouldn't matter, No, it would. Yeah, that wasn't bounding right trip, and there's you know, I need to go on a lot of different trips, and that the the feeling. You know, again, the truck in the camp is not always just that. Um so that was yeah, that was pretty cool. Yeah. So then we and it ended up being a hell of a successful trip. Yeah yeah, I mean we you know, like it's not the it's not the middle of the rut, so we're not you know, calling in bold from half mile away or whatever. But it was you know, we just spent a lot of time going to you know, different places and signing, finding any moose and possibly Tod and I think that, you know, still one of my favorite memories, not any h was when we spotted Joe's moose and not very big. I don't care, you know, you know, and then he shoots the moose and then we uh, you know, the next day we uh you know, I forgot the mute. I'll seeing up in there. And then we took that photo. And then the next day we go out and you shoot, I was right there, just sprinting down the road. Yeah, you know, I still have that photo of the moose, like, you know, like just like in the background, Joe's just running, Yeah, just running. Well that was a whole like, so I'm looking at the cover now, I got my years wrong. The first cover was April fourteen, the second cover was April of fifteen. These things that happen, Yeah, these things happen different years, obviously, Um, but yeah, I mean I remember, like I look at the cover now, if you look at the April May her uh pigeons hunting. I'm sure you could just google Joe Rogan Peterson Hunting, you'll see it. Uh. It says eat what you killed. Down the left side, Joe Rogan celebrates the wild meat movement. Has a bunch of other blurbs and stuff around it, but it's just a picture of Joe holding the giant moose quarter for just I mean, there really is no reason to be holding it like that other than to just show people this is this is it, bitches, this is what so what we do. And I remember we shot a bunt. We had a bunch of ideas for how to shoot the cover and we we tried those and they just didn't quite work. And this, the cover of him holding the moose quarter, was kind of an afterthought. And we were standing in this weird like kind of dead field with not a whole lot going on. Yeah, it was almost just like a little, you know whatever, an acre of pasture land. And he had enough, you know, there was enough of a rise where he was standing on the top of the rise and I was able to get low enough to get you know, a little bit more clear sky or great sky in the back on and uh yeah, yeah, because we I don't know how many different types of photos we shot. It was a lot, but I'm happy with the one that they ended up picking. Yeah. I remember in with the art director. I sat in he picked that photo and once I saw it in the cover, I thought, holy ship, that's gonna be good. When I saw and I and the other thing I remember is that Joe was bitch in the whole time. He didn't want to do it because he wanted to go hunt. He wanted me to get moved right like you still hit uncut tagging. So he was just chomping at the bit, you know. And I mean we didn't we didn't spend an overly long amount of time, you know, like it was the past few hours that we were, you know, playing with different ideas and stuff and sending it off whatever. But the whole time he was just like any time he had to, you know, pick something up, ever, he was just you know, basically his white knuckling it wanted to be out there chasing animals and not dealing with what do you what we were doing. I think later he trust at us though, like once he saw yeah, I think he was like, Okay, I get it. But yeah, So we we shot this thing and jump in the truck and we're driving out to a couple lock where he's seen a bull in the days prior to that. And come we're driving on the road and two big bulls run across a big for that area run across the road. So we parked the truck, get out, I jump out. I'm shooting a Blazar R eight straight pool action rifle. I jump out, getting the bar ditch, get up on the side these moves, run around this corner, and I shoot him. I just started wailing away. I mean, it's the last day or second the last day of the hunt, and we have we've liked, and we've classed, and like we haven't seen him moves anywhere near the size of either one of these bulls. So I'm up in this little area above the bar ditch and I shoot, hit it, Shoot hit the bull. He's stumbling around and I go to reload. He's dead at this point, on his feet. And I go to reload and rogue in his r and he started running down the road towards this bull who was stumbling back and falling around. By the time I get the gun back reloaded and back to my shoulder, he's halfway to the animal and it's just now fallen over and dieing. And and what did he say? Like, what do you say afterwards? I just wanted to be there when it died, or I wanted to see it die, or I can't. He's like he's like he's like I don't know, Like he went full Forrest gump on us, didn't he He just started for running. So we have that photo. Of course you have that photo and um and then we have we have that photo and then we have the cover photo. But I think just that hunt, I mean afterwards, we cut that bull up, took it back to camp to care of it, and then we went to uh two down in several bottles of what was it, spice Box Run, Oh god, spice by from Yeah, what a tear. Oh, we're just thinking about it. Yeah, no, I'm starting to gag a little bit. I'm just thinking about spice Box from now the makers. If anybody here works at the Spicebox from factory, let's listening to this. It's a fine product. It's just you can't drink. You can't drink two leaders of it expect to be all right. Yeah, I mean it's absolutely delicious. Yeah, it's spicy room. You know, you can't sit there and tell stories about the hunt and uh and keep you know, drinking glass after glass for several hours. Well, we ate we uh Joe was drilling up Moose liver and Moose heart and we were over there taking shots and partying with with our guide, my Hackage and having a fun party, and um just kind of got out of hand a little bit and we had a good time though. Yeah. And then uh, during like while we were eating and cooking and drinking spicebox, but over the UFC event going on and Joe of it up and streamed it and he was basically commentating for all of us sitting at the table. And didn't the road kill beaver show up at some point? Yes, yeah, we forgot about that. I have a photo of you and Hawker's and a beaver. Now, these are the things that happened in the haze of Spikes Box room. Like this was kind of the next thing, you know, a beaver shows up. There's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, Mike just came through the door like that. I mean that thing was giant. Yeah, one of his buddies that has killed a giant beaver, a road killed beaver. Found a beaver on the side of the road and they just brought it in. We uh, they were cutting it up to eat it and we took some pictures with it, which is totally respectful. I thought of the animal and it's it's life, you know, I think. Uh. We were in Canada though, you know, like the never Failed. There's always some weird stuff that happened, and there's a lovely country, but there's always going to be something strange. Yeah, I love, no doubt love you can, but yeah, sometimes you're messed up. Nothing you can do. But yeah, I mean, I just think everybody has a hunt like that. I think probably in their life. You know that that you I didn't know what to expect, and then it was it was something where even now when that image pops up, I don't really think about that cover and what people said about it later or anither reaction to it. I just think about the time we spent in camp and what that what that kind of meant for me. And you know, I also think that Joe during that hunt and you were there and you were kind of in on the conversation, Joe was like, you should start a podcast, Ben. I was like, yeah, well, I was like, listen, Rogan, I don't even know what that is. It's nobody podcasts. I think, what am I going to talk about for hours on end on podcast? He said you should do it, man, I'll help you out, and I was all fired up. I think I even called my dad, So I'm doing a podcast and then I just got back to the real world and let it go. Well, I think what what happened was, uh, we got back and then it was not that long after that that you accepted a job with what you're doing now. Yeah, you're yeah, so then it just kind of put on the back turner just from moving on another Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it was. It was yeah, maybe say three or four months after that. Then I met you at a shot show and I said, Dude, I'm I gotta tell you, I'm taking a new gig at Yeddi And you were like, well, Ship, yeah, I'm taking a gig at Yedi too. Ye that work ed, did ye are? But yeah, I mean that that Hunt I think changed a lot about the way I thought of things. I think it was the first time I realized that there could be and elevation and the conversation past our bubble. Because even with you as young as we both were at the time and still are, you kind of get into the industry bubble and you have your conversation and you feel like that's what it's always going to be, and then you meet somebody like Joe Rogan and you elevate the conversation with a with a cover like that and the image like that, and next thing, you know, you realize, man, we could talk to a lot more people. We could we could take this message and spread it a lot further than it's currently going. And so I think, I don't know about you, but for me, that was the first time I realized what what it could be. No, And I think in addition to that, do to mean if you if you're talking about like just eating the animals that you you know that you go out and shoot um. Like growing up, you know, we allgate whatever we did. We did a lot of bird hring when we had a lot of peasents and turned a lot of ducks into jerky and they do when we talt to do and you know, it was always all, you know, really good and tasted of it, but it it didn't it never seemed like something out of the ordinary because that's just what you did, you know, I mean, And once you once you look beyond that, you know, like heating it through the lens of that cover, and like the controversy that it stirred up and and that you know, allowing people to talk more about you know, um basically knowing where your food comes from and controlling the consumption of your beat that type of thing. It, uh it allows you to open a mind about what hunting means to society as a whole, and then to me it's personally and actually made me appreciate while getting me way more than I ever had and what that you know, like what that means to me in relation to everybody else. Yeah. Actually, that's probably the first time that I really, uh man, was able to drill down to to how I wanted to go forward, you know, how I wanted to talk to people about hunting becaus see and Joe, you know, Joe shot the bully. Shot was a forked horned forking antlerd H young moose. I was a young bull and he shot it off the you know, shot it just in the bar ditch off the road, much like I did. And so you know, if you were if I were to fast forward four years and say, what's that the hunting purity score of that hunt? I was like, oh, man, when when it came down to she came down of the actual hunting, it wasn't all that all that great. Um. It was a rough time of year, the weather was weird. But when you if you take that away and be like, we just got each of us got two hundred pounds of meat, more probably than that. And I know I remember Hawkard's driving that meat down over the border into l A to deliver it to Rogue and um, and I remember how excited he was to shoot this fork antlerd you know, moose and what it meant him to cut it up. And it was like, wow, Okay, here's somebody who's forty some forty five years old, never hunting before, and doesn't give two ships whether it's a fork, a antler, or it's a moose. And I don't know if that was the first time I've been around somebody like that, but it was the first time I was impacted that that's seriously by that idea. Yeah, no, I would. I would definitely agree with that. I mean because of you and I both grew up in hunting families, and so when you're breaking down an animal, it's like it's not this brand new experience. Um. Really, I mean like when you're a kid, it's a new experience. But your dad or your older brother or your uncle or whoever takes you out hunting, like has done it however many times, and so you know, they don't make like a big deal out of it. But to watch somebody who you know, got to from start to finish, you know, shot the animals, skin the animal cut of apart like you know, and Mike was kind of walking through it like the different you know, sections to start cutting out, and it was Yeah, it was really cool to be part of that whole experience. Yeah, yeah, it changes you a little bit. That that changed me. I don't know. I wrote even this week when you posted that, Hey, it's been whatever three or fourty years since that happened, and I look back at that now. I'm glad it happened the way it did. I could have never guessed that that would have been. How would I would have all went down? But it sure did, and I'm glad it did. That's yeah, Yeah, I wanted to go ahead. Yeah, on that trip, I was starting to get a little bit nervous because it was getting later in the weeks before we ended up knocking the first moose down, and uh, but I'm yeah, I'm glad it all panned out the way it ended up. Yeah, No, it did. And then I will I've got that the room. I'm sitting there now here with the bar h'm I've got that cover hanging on the wall. So it's something that I personally think means a lot, and hopefully it meant a lot to the you know, I certainly got a lot of compliments at the time, even more so later as as times going on. But um, yeah, I think it's seminal in the way that I see things. The other thing I wrote down that I wanted to talk to you about because I think maybe you'll have some similar experiences to me or will be able to share some stuff is when public lands has been a big part of what you've been doing recently, right with the bus and just just how you grew up in a big part of who you are. When what was the first time you realize what public lands were like, what they meant to the country, what they mean to use the hunter? What was the first time you feel like you really had true perspective on public lands? You know, I mean slightly embarrassingly like I probably didn't think about it enough until until there was a possibility of them be like losing them. Um, you know, I mean it was always something that was just there, and so I think it's it's definitely something that I took for granted. Um, you know, I mean, growing up in South Dakota, there's definitely some public land, but it's nothing compared to the West. I think, you know, once I once I moved west, you know, and and Montana resident. Now I think it definitely opened my eyes too. You know, you look at the you know, you look at the atlas or the map or Onyx maps or whatever it might be in um Whereas back home it was you know, you've got whatever maybe a half section or or a full section of public and different spots um. Whereas you know in Montana you've got, however, many millions of acres and when you can park at one trailhead and you can just like, all right, I don't need to look at the map anymore unless I need to. Don't figure out where I'm going, like I just know I'm going to be on public land. I think that was definitely a an eye opening experience. You know, the fact that you can not only walk to that ridge, but you can walk to the ridge after that, and the ridge after that ridge after that, and you just you know, continue chasing animals. UM as far as your legs will carry you, um, but it should be perfectly honest. It wasn't until it was par of the platform to possibly transfer lands to the states, which for a lot of people out there that might not know if um is a cute way to package it up um and sell it to the general public. But as we've seen through history, a lot of the states that are given you know, land and it's managed by the states, a lot of times that ends up getting sold off. And uh so I think once I saw the possibility of you know, stuff being transferred, stuff being sold or you know, like land swaps of different stuff, I think it's it really opened my eyes to the opportunity that I've had in my life time to you know, spend and have experiences that have molded me into the person I am. UM. To have something like that go away for future generations was you know, kind of hit me pretty hard, for sure. And I think that was it was my exact same experience because that and that was my guessing of what your answer would be, because I think a lot of people I grew up on the East Coast in Maryland and we hunted Green Ridge State Forest like was our backyard, and we never I my dad never said hey, son, do you realize what we're doing right now? You realize what this land is, You realize what, who who it belongs to, and why it's important. It was just never much like everything growing up, it was just never a topic because it was the thing that you did, and there was never any need to explain it because it wasn't in peril and there wasn't There wasn't like, hey, you need to know this because you might lose it. It It was this is ours, it will always be ours, and this experience will be in perpetuity. And then when you start to get a little bit older and you see that maybe that's not the case, you start to want to learn and defend the thing that you grew up with as a reality of your life and just something that was always there for you, something that you probably needn't didn't even know you needed at some level. And so you so you learn a little bit more about public lands, probably through ross mosis, but also probably because it was important to you. Why why does then the you you know, flip the switch to activism as you have well, I don't know, I just um, it's you know, I growing up, you know I was a Ducks and Limited member, and I was Rocky mountin Al Foundation member, and you know, different conservation organizations. But it was you know, all of that, and there's nothing wrong with this, but all of that was more so about like you get the magazine and you go to the banquets and you you know, you hang out with other people that hunted that kind of thing. But I never you know, volunteered for creek clean up or nesting site clean up or fence removal or you know, whatever that was. And so I think there was probably a little bit of guilt there where I have been growing up in a in a country where I can go out and hunt, hunt, hunt, and I was never doing anything to give back. And so I think as the sportsman me like, I just looked at, you know, the voice that, even being a small voice that I have um in the hunting industry, and I just thought it felt like it was my duty as a sportsman to try to do what I can personally to protect that for future future generation. And so it was, you know, once that switch flipped, it was go time. And I was like, all right, I guess it's time to just talk about this and tell as many people and get involved and raise money, and um, you know, do whatever, do my part too, you know, have this be something that is an opportunity for anybody who not just people who are hunting now, but someone who might want to get into it, or you know, if I have kids, my kids and their kids, and you know, it's just it would be hard for me to live in a country where people can't grow up and have the same opportunity that I have right now. It's good for the soul. I don't know what else there is to say about it. I think without those wild places, there's no release. Um. And I think we, you know, we start to change as a society. Yeah, I mean I think, Um, I live in a country called Texas, and uh, it doesn't have the same ah doesn't have the same freedoms as the West has. I mean there's in Man. Before this, I lived in Illinois and it's the same way. So it's not it's not exclusive to Texas. I think are our idea of public lands and and the freedom to explore is decidedly a Western idea And that's probably for a lot of reasons want but mostly because a lot of that land is wilderness and a lot of that land can't be turned into a profit center, unlike Texas or Illinois might be able to with farm land and and um extractions. So yeah, I think that idea, Uh, it's kind of permeated in me and been been instilled in me over the last three or four years, maybe maybe five years, to the point where you know, I went from a twenty five year old person who loved to hunt and enjoyed, as you said, the same kind of banquet idea and the idea that my tag money went back to conservation to a person who's now early thirties who feels like there's a mission at hand, and if we don't all serve that mission, then to ten twenty years from now, we'll be sitting around and wishing we did. Right. Yeah, you feel like there's a generation gap there. My dad definitely always says to me, says he's proud of our generation for stepping up as we have because there's a need to step up. And I don't know that that the previous generation felt that need, and maybe there wasn't as pressing an environment. Yeah, I don't think it was as pressing for you know, like father's generation, simply because the generation before them had put into you know, the Pittman Robertson acting and I never remember what it's called on the fishing side, but a similar the what is it Dingle Johnson, which makes me giggle, Dingle Johnson, I'm a child, which is a fairly unfortunate name. But um no, I mean the previous generation had enacted both of those bills where you know, it was it was a huge stepping stone to you know, to to bring back the funding the conservation. And I think because like our father's generation was so huge, um, you know, in in hunting and fishing. I mean there were so many of them doing it that I think like their contribution simply from hunting licenses, fishing licenses, uh, conservation banquets, that type of thing is way bigger than anything that our generation is doing now because there are you know, there's the baby boomer generation is ten years from being done hunting and the you know that's of the current license holders, and there's there's nobody that's coming up to fill that gap. So I think it's our generation needs to do more. Um, Buying a hunting license is not enough. I mean it's great, Don't get me wrong. Like, I think anybody who has a hunter safety card, even if you're not going to help, to go out and buy a hunting license every year because it's a contribution to conservation and managing herds and managing land and that type of thing. But no, I think our generation definitely sees the need to take action and not just go hunt because it's not enough. Yeah, I mean it's it's hunting really peaked in the early eighties, and you looked at like when it really started to rise, it was it was post World War one, post World War two, and when a lot of people were coming back from the war and they had idle time, and technologies were starting to advance that allowed them to get for they're out into the wilderness and allow them to you know, even in the turn of the century talk about refrigeration and railways and just easier ways for people to get out and experienced hunting and they come back and enjoy the meat and it just enjoy the experience. And that I mean, I think that is where modern sport hunting came to be, because you know, people have hunted on this continent for many hundreds of years, as long as we've been on it. There's been hunting, but modern sport hunting right in the came to its peak in the early eighties as a part of our dad's generation, right, I mean that there was something like seventeen or eighteen million people purchase license um or worse, seventeen or eighteen million hunters or something like that, and that's kind of the peak. And I think that was the peak of our you know, around the time we would have been born, but also around the time when our fathers were in their prime. So yeah, ship man, they were part of the prime um in the history of modern sport and whatever. You know that it's been around. Yeah, And you know what's interesting about that to me though, is it was the prime for number of hunters, but it was nowhere close to the prime as far as number of species go, because like population numbers, Yeah, I mean I grew up waterfall hunting, and um, like the war fall numbers are the best they've ever been, and there's you know, like there's a less than half of the number of hunters there are that that we're in like the late nineteen seventies and there's like triple the birds or whatever the number is. UM. So it's kind of crazy man. It's it's been a strange shift, you know, away from uh, you know, people going away from hunting, and I think it's hunting isn't easy. It's not a you know, it's not a it's you know, in an age where instant gratification is you know, something that a lot of people seek, Hunting is not that. Yeah. No, I always describe it very much as like the the idea of I'd like to go hunting, and actually going hunting and being proficient is like walking a tighter across the Grand Canyon. I mean, there's no there's no way to separate the idea from the reality and how far it is from from just somebody who may listen to this or who may just think independently from this, I'd love to go hunting and then trying to find um that access that skill, the idea, you know, to to process all the ideas that go with killing another living thing and then and then going back and doing it again and again and again. I mean, all those things are are tough to do, and I think our our generation, unfortunately unfortunately whatever gets to do them in the public eye because we choose to through social media, um, through media and you and I are in a business where we both profit off of hunting in a lot of different ways, and uh, let's just change things, yeah, you know, and and kind of touching like adding to that, I think one thing we've done bad as an industry as a whole um. You know, we don't have we need a PR agent. The industry does. But the one thing we've I think we've done a bad job of is we we put so much emphasis on you know, white tailed deer hunting and elk hunting and mule their hunting and chasing all of these it's incredibly hard to hunt big game species, whereas like our fathers would have, Yeah, they deer hunt, but they also rabbit hunt, and they pheasant hunt, and they duck hunt, and they squirrel hunt, and they you know, they do a lot of other types of hunting and small game hunting. Where people now say they're thinking about getting into the sport and the person that they look up to, say is Joe Rogan, right, and like Joe Rogan got him into hunting. And then they go out and buy all the gear, and then they go out in the mountains and they get their asses absolutely kicked, and then they never go out again. Instead of starting with pheasant hunting or duck hunting or whatever, and you you know, you start with small game and you go out, you enjoy, simply enjoy the experience, and you might shoot a bird or two or rabbit or two, and it's it's it's all about everything else, you know, instead of focusing on a big game animal. I think I think that's made it really hard for people to get into it. Because the ultimate achievement, right, I mean killing with the bow, it should be the ultimate thing. I mean that should be something you work towards for your entire life, not something you walk up the mountain and do in a weekend. Yeah. And if if, if you've never hunted before, and you go out and you buy a bow and all the clothing whatever, and you drive out to Montan and you walk into the mountains, like is it's going to be mentally challenging. And when you don't shoot something, you're like, I just spent almost a thousand dollars on a tag. I spent clothing and a bow and all this stuff and fuel out here from all that, you know, I dropped ten grand to get into this, and then I didn't succeed in if you know, if success is killing an animal so that you know person's mentality. But it almost has to be, especially if you start pushing like we've done in the past, like meat is the meat is the goal, and well, of course killing something is the goal, because that's the only way that happened. There is no other way. I met a guy um two couple of days ago and here in Austin, and if you don't mind, I want to read I'm pulling it up now is when you're talking about this. This guy sent an email in to me through the Hunting Collective dot com, had listened to the podcast a few times, send an email in and then I actually got the medium a couple of days ago. But this guy's name was Daniel Porter, and he wrote and he said, Ben, I'm not a hunter yet. I grew up in a fairly liberal household in Washington, EC. Not only was I not connected with the hunting industry in any way, but in the middle of a concrete jungle, there's very little opportunity to do so in any way. And I also did not want to express my interest out of fear that I would be judged by my interest in guns. A year ago, I started listening to Joe Rogan. Through that podcast, I became familiar with John Dudley, Cam Haynes, Remmy Warren, Steve Ronilla, and a host of other individuals and companies that promote hunting. And then I heard you on the Gritty Bowman podcast, and it opened my eyes. Here was a guy with as simply a complex philosophy that I had been waiting for. The thought of killing an animal still bothers me, and I'm a forty four year old man. However, the idea that I could love animals still take one's life never occurred to me until I listen to what you and others had to say. It is a dichotomy that is truly, truly confusing, and yet one that I am desperately wishing to be immersed in. I have a twelve year old son, and I very much wanted him to be involved at hunting and to be aware of the history and how he got here in the first place as a species. We're going to go Haavelina hunting later this year so that we can both experience this together for the first time. And he goes on to say, a bunch of other stuff. Um. And I got to meet that guy, Daniel Porter the other day and we sat and talked for a long time, and he had um even the what you were just saying, Sam, Like, isn't that guy the archetype of what we were just talking about. I mean, listens to Joe Rogan, picks it up, wants to do it, and now has this great challenge of how the hell do I pull this off? Right? So he we talked about his biggest problem in Texas, living in Austin, Texas was access. So him and I talked through that for about an hour and I kind of gave him a bunch of ideas what access could be and then have you emailed with him and give him some ideas about where he might be able to go. But but he's trying to walk across that tightrope that is the Grand Canyon to get to the other side, um, which I find super interesting. I hope to follow this how followed Daniel and see how he gets gets it done because it's not easy. Yeah, And that's I mean, that's honestly, that's like a mini documentary in itself is follow to someone you know of that age who has never done it. Before and uh, you know, and followed their journey like into the sport. I think that would be super interesting to a lot of people who you know, may be on the fence about how they feel about hunting in general. Yeah, and I think I mean, we we know now as we start to do studies and look around as with that the baby boom or population that you mentioned, we know now that recruitment among or retention more of retention among young hunters who are introduced at the early age is much less effective than it is if somebody starts in their thirties. Now, because they started, they start just like you and I did, with very little understanding of like the the overall impact culturally and in our society. Then they get they turn eighteen, and they get a girlfriend, and they go to college, and they forget about hunting and a lot of them never go back to it. But if somebody starts in their thirties, when they have a child who they want to show um and they learn about it, it sticks because they they're already they're able to have the finances and the mental capacity to handle the damn thing and do it. Yep, yep. So then the real trick is how do we reach those people and how do we you know, cultivate that and get more of those people involved that If anybody has to answer that question, I have no idea, but I think there like so if you look at that thirty because I'm glad you brought that up. There's a great article. I'm trying to find it now. It's called there It is why we suck at recruiting new hunters, why it matters, and how it can fix it was written by Natalie Cribs in Outdoor Life recently here in Lasson in January, and she talks about a lot of stuff in this, but most I think, most importantly is if you take that thirty percent that's fifty five and older, that's a baby boomer, and you eliminate them from situation, we're kind of screwed. In fact, we're not kind of we're screwed when we're out of it. Where we went from seventeen million, hundred two to possibly and you know, six million or less. Yum. But I said, you know, and and and once they're done, I don't think continuing. Well, I like the phone the phone podcast. You get to do this, like you go, no, I'll go um. What I would say to that is, he's just like if somebody like Daniel so Daniels forty four and he and he listened to Joe and then found this podcast and other voices of people that have have helped him. But if he teaches his son, who's twelve, the new way, right, which isn't how we were taught, but is it's very um, I think very just understanding of the complexity of hunting and how it plays out in our society and urbanization and kind of the conversation that needs to happen for everyone to understand hunting. If that guy teaches his twelve year old son and you can get a hundred thousand or a million Daniels to teach their son, well then you have not only a new crop of hunters that are sub fifty five years of age, but then even a newer crop of hunters that are you know, youth hunters that are learning a new way. I think that's probably important overall. Yeah, I feel like that's probably the avenue we need to go down. Yeah, you know, quote unquote saved the hunting industry because I mean, once we you know, once we lose those hunting is not older hunting is not gone. Um, but our voice, you know, in any sort of policy making is is that's tough. Yeah. Yeah, well you and I are both early thirties, so you we're kind of in that gap generation. That's that's kind of wondering what happened before us and what will happen in the future. I mean, there just isn't there's no answer to why either one happened the way it did. Yeah, And uh so this is a kind of a different thought. But and you correct me if if you think I'm wrong. But I feel like there's there's less hunters now for sure. I mean that's in the math, but the hunters that are out there, I think through social media and through you know, watching people who hunt hard, I think that the people that are out there in the field are Um. Even though there's less hunters, if you go hunt public land, it feels like there's more hunter presence now more than ever because the mentality is like I gotta walk five miles in whereas it used to you know, whereas it used to be like I'm gonna go hunt, but you know, mile too off the road, Like that's good enough. Um, And I think, you know, I've seen it in a lot of places where I've been where there's not that many people hunting, but you end not bumping into people because they have the same mentality as as I do. Were I'm just gonna walk until I'm pretty sure I'm not going to see anybody, and then you know we're all sitting there on the same knob. Yeah, we're five miles in. I used to do it. I did that as a kid. I try to bawl the further I walked him. I'd run into like the highway and I'd be people and once I didn't seen anybody for the five miles I walked in. But yeah, I think we need to I think we need to recruit a new generation of road hunters. Yeah. New generation hunters are like the spook stuff into the core of the wilderness where we or we're waiting. Yeah. I would like to buy the license, but don't like to do all the work. They don't care about that. Pivot rarmers and tax I'll buy seven guns, that's fine, that's right. Yeah, fun this bit y. Yeah, I wonder I wonder how that'll how that'll all break down. I mean, it's going to take some decades for this all the shake loose and it's hard to talk about. It was just a bunch of numbers. Um. Natalie did a good job in that Outfore Life article of trying to break it down. But but it just it's gonna have to shake out. I mean, there was no way. There was nobody in you know, prognosticating what it would be. There's just no way. There's no way to know. And I guess my overall where I always stop when this line of line of conversation goes on is that I think urbanization is going to be hunting's biggest tool in the future, just because people are going to be living in these cities and they're gonna have this need to go outside and do something to connect them to nature, and then hunting is going to be They're waiting for him and they're like, oh this they do it one time, they're holy ship, this is awesome. Next thing. You know, I would agree with that. Well, shall see, we shall see what's next for the bus man. So the bus uh, I think it'll be a big year for the bus Um. Like I said before, I kicking it off with some turkey hunting and stuf Off rolling it out driving out to Boise for the b h A Rendezvous, and it's gonna be parked at um if anybody else is going out there that's listening to this, the bus is gonna be parked all weekend at White Dog Brewing, which is only about a block and a half away from the Boise Center. And I'm gonna trying to plan some event for Saturday, um with the bus and kind of be out there and given tours or whatever. But um, yeah, so going to the going to the rendezvous, and then UM, I'm gonna focus down. My original plan was to just live in the bus for a year, and uh, it turned I did that all last fall. It turns out I can't get anything done. I shoot a lot of photos and video, and I have all this great content, and but I don't have any time to sit down and and get it all, you know, get it out to the everybody who wants to see it. So I'm gonna focus down a little bit this year and doing one or two big trips a month. Um, so you know, spring Turkey gonna do some stuff. And Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota, a bunch of other publicly turkey hunting here and there. But um, going into the summer. In June, I'm doing a trip up to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. I'm gonna be doing talking a lot about the potential mind site up there and kind of what that means and and that whole wilderness area. And then uh, July, trying to work out some sort of you know, backpacking trip or something out on the National Forest and out west somewhere and um. But yeah, but basically gonna focus down one or two big trips a month and really you know, kick out a lot of content for people and and talk about talk more about public lands and and how they relate to private land and how we need both. And um, it's h Yeah, I'm gonna be doing a lot of traveling, a lot of photo and video stuff and obviously rolling into hunting season, it's gonna be it's gonna be busy, So it'll be It'll be a good year. I have no doubt about that. Do you are you realizing that I was just looking around on Instagram and uh, Instagram has that Joe Rogan cover on your page? Sensitive content? Yeah? I didn't. I wasn't able to see that, but I've had I don't know. People comment that that it was sensitive content, so man, I don't know. I mean it must be. Somebody must flag the post um, you know. It's like I had one person put a pretty negative comment on there, and so I deleted the comment because nobody needs that. And I'm assuming that they flagged it, you know, for whatever says this photo contains sensitive content which people may find offensive or disturbing. Just people in general, not certain types of people. But all right, yeah, which is pretty funny because it's literally just meat. It's a picture of meat. Man doing anything but holding a picture of meat. No, it's not like you know, it's not like Joe is holding it up like you're eating the giant turkey leg or something, which would be he's not even there. Yeah, oh god, this could be. We could go down and rat and all with this conversation. Holy sh it, I can't believe that photo is now sensitive content on the Internet. Anybody listens to this check my page because I can't. I guess you can't see if it's your own ships sensitive content. But yeah, it's nice to say. I think you and I post a lot of sensitive content. Yeah, a lot. Well that's good. I like to be in that, but which is fine. I think it made a lot more people look at it because you know, people want what they can't have, and they're like, I want to see what that is. Isn't that the funny part about that they think they're protecting people, but really that people are just drawn to whatever it is that they can't see. Yeah. Yeah, in this case Joseph Joe holding a moose leg. Only God damn moose leg. Yeah well yeah, good back to the bus. Um. I think I just personally appreciate what you're doing, and I think it's important in any effort to shine the light on you know, b h A or trc P or just just any piece of knowledge that folks can gain about these these subjects is important. I mean, I will you know, and all honestly, I'm a board member for b h A, but I don't. I think that just makes me more my my sense is a little more heightened when it comes to the public land discussion. Um. But I think it's important for people too. And you've done You've done a great job, especially with stuff in South Dakota you've been doing recently, and then Boundary Waters of just pushing people to get educated. You know, you can talk all day about how important it is and get all real fluffy about America and America the ideals and what public things mean. That's that's great. Anybody can fucking do that. Anybody can say that. Well, what but people can't say is let's educate you in the lane of Water Conservation Act, or let's educate you on the mind they're proposing for the boundary waters and what that really is and what that could mean for the future. I think those things are important. So I'm glad you're you're busting it making it happen. Yeah, you know, and you know, everything's of all right with ideas and whatever. My original idea with the bus was to travel all over the country and you know, go to different chunks and and then I realized that I I don't have to travel that far to tell the same story because it's you know, like I just want people to be able to relate to me and like what I'm doing and what I'm talking about with wherever they live. I mean, I don't have to go to you know whatever, I don't have to go to Utah to talk about, you know, how important public land is. I can you know, I can go hunt my old haunts or explore some new places and and do the you know, tell the same message. Um. The one hunt that I'm pretty excited about this fall. I just found out that I drew ah my North Dakota any Deer archery tag, which is fairly tough to draw, and so I'm gonna go chase mule deer with a buddy of mine who lives in North Dakota. Um. But I'm pretty pumped up that because that entire like a lot of the western part western edge of North Dakota is National grassland, but it's also home to the Bachan oil field, and it has been like the extraction and the roads and the wells and all of that stuff that's been built on there. I'm I'm excited to show what, you know, a national like a federally owned place that has been turned into oil extraction. It's going to look like or can look like. And you know, one of the places in the country that molded Teddy Roosevelts like view of land was the bad Lands in North Dakota. And so you know, I want to show a bunch of you know, video footage and photography of that area this year, and you know, you can, like if you remove all those roads and all those wells, you can kind of get an idea of what it would have looked like with none of that infrastructure in there. So that's you know, I think I think doing projects like that means more than like just instantly cruising around in the in the bus going hey, I'm you know, I'm in as I want to. I want to do things that are a little bit more meaningful. Well good, Yeah, I think those things are all important. And it's that you know, I've found recently, especially when like the Land and Water Conservation Act is up for for funding or up for defunding moreover um and people have started to talk about it. Well, I can guarantee there's a whole generation of people that have no idea what that is. And so you start to get this general idea about what that fund is and where it comes from, but you don't really see it in action, right you never, nobody ever does delivers you a tangible example of what that money from that fund goes towards or where it comes from, or you know, the whole process. IM same with Pittman Robertson, the same with with your tags and license fees. There's no, you don't buy the license, and then in the book it doesn't tell you where the money goes. H At least as far as I know, I've never seen that. No, you don't buy the rifle, and it doesn't tell you what where that tax went. Um, so I hope you know, things like what you're doing are just specific examples that people can use to give a tangible meaning to these ideas that were thrown around all the time. Yeah, yeah, bravo. And then you also have public land Tease. Yeah yeah, yep, so started a T shirt company to kind of kind of in conjunction with the bus project but um yeah, public land Tease dot com and five dollars from every shirt goes to back country hunters and anglers. And the reason, you know, a lot of people wonder why I chose d h A, And the reason I chose h A was because right now they have the large, like what I feel is the largest voice talking to both people that hunt and people that fish. And to be able to cross that line is a is a big deal for me. And to be able to raise money for an organization that is has a huge voice on in both of those communities is a big deal. So but yeah, public plan dot com and I do have some news and it's coming out soon. I just need to get them mocks up on the um on the digital signment and get them on the website. So a pre sale good. I'm sure they'll be sensitive content. I'm sure they'll be probably very sensitively. Yeah, well, good man. Well, I just want to have you on the talk. I know we talk all the time. We'll be hunting a bunch this year, probably together. I'm sure we can't see not do that, which which I um, what we really need to figure out is how to get to it on the bus at some point this year. Well, that shouldn't be hard, like um no, it will be. Well, I'll probably let's just say this, if you have an event at the Rondeby, I'll be on the bus. I'll probably be the drunk guy in the back sleeping on the queen bed. I'll be sure to lock up all of my valuable thing. Yeah, please please, But yeah, I mean I just think that as somebody who's relatively to most people a young man, and he's the same for yourself, Like, we've got a lot of years in this thing together, and it's good to know there's guys like you out there that care about the right stuff and they're doing the right stuff. And I'll close by saying thanks, buddy, I really appreciate all you're doing. Yeah, thanks for having me on beautiful talk to you man. Yeah, for sure, that's it episode number eight in the books. Appreciate Sam joining me talking about all things public lands, all things hunting. Same and I have a lot of stories to tell when it comes to big adventures. We've done a lot of them, and I appreciate always having Sam along. And uh, I always compare that guy too. If I he's my Johnnie, if I was Steve Ornell, he'd be my Joanna's pateel Us And all compliments to everybody involved in that analogy. I really enjoy Sam. He's a great dude. So hopefully that in conversation was enlightening for you guys. Thanks for check going us out. Go to the Hunting Collective dot com for more of this type of conversation. You can hear from Steve Ornella. You can hear from Ryan Callahan, John Dudley, Charles Post. You can hear from Shane Mahoney, Aubrey Marcus, anybody that we've had in the first seven episodes prior to this one is there at the Hunting Collective dot com. They're also on iTunes and Stitcher. You can also read articles and watch videos things that I've been involved in, not only on the website, but also at Benny ob three oh one on Instagram. Until the next time, folks, I really appreciate you all. Thanks for writing in, thanks for commenting. Please go subscribe on iTunes, Please follow us, Please tell your friends to the same. We'll keep cranking out content for you. Thank you, See you at bot time to f

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