00:00:01 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the White Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. 00:00:19 Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, Tony and I are kicking off the summer with a very fun conversation around this past season's turkey hunts, our biggest plans and projects for deer hunting this coming fall, and some important public land issues and updates. All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast. In this week it is Mark and Tony's epic kickoff to summer adventure extravaganza, outdoor Rama podcast fest. 00:00:54 Speaker 3: How does that sound, Tony? 00:00:55 Speaker 4: That sounds amazing, amazing, Buddy, It's good to have you back on the show man. Yeah, thanks for having me buddy today. 00:01:04 Speaker 2: I just wanted to have, like, I just want to have a little bit a lighter conversation, a little bit of fun Wired to Hunt. Over the last couple of months, we've had a lot of habitat stuff, We've had a lot of conservation stuff. It's been like kind of deep and heavy content So as we're kicking off summer here with June finally arrived, feared, we should, you know, just get the crew back together, talk deer, talk upcoming plans, Talk Turkey season, because you and I haven't got to talk about our Turkey seasons yet. And I've got a great story that I haven't got to tell anyone on the podcast about yet. 00:01:38 Speaker 3: Talk a little bit current events. 00:01:39 Speaker 2: There's been a lot in like the public land conservation world that we haven't explicitly talked about on the podcast yet, So I want to give some updates there and then you know, see if there's anything exciting going on for you or E as we head into this season. Because what's crazy is it feels like we're going to blink and all of a sudden, it's going to be late August and we're gonna be racing round to go hunting. 00:02:00 Speaker 3: So I don't know how it happened. It feels like it was. 00:02:03 Speaker 2: I swear to god, it was just January first, and my wife and I were like planning our year, and all of a sudden, half it's gone. 00:02:09 Speaker 3: How does this happen every year? 00:02:10 Speaker 4: I don't know, buddy, It goes time, just freaking flies now just flies. 00:02:16 Speaker 2: Is it getting worse for you with the older kids and everything? 00:02:21 Speaker 4: It just accelerates When you have kids. It's like your whole life is spoken for it, like activities and stuff. So like you said, I mean, you're sitting there planning out months ahead of time what you're going to do, and it's always like, well, I got to be here to pick them up, here, got to drop them off here, they have this choir thing, they have this softball thing, whatever, and it's just like your life is just gone. And then I mean I was thinking about this this morning. I left the gym and I was like, oh, man, I got to go get my blinds out of the woods now because Turkey season's over. And next week I'm going to drop cameras off in Wisconsin and cut some trails and do some work over there, and it'll be right into deer mode. 00:03:00 Speaker 2: And it's like, yeah, crazy, Yeah, I'm actually going out to put my, uh or some of my summer cameras out right when we get done with this, which is just wild how it shifts and flies. And one of the things I always thought early on with kids was that, oh, when they get older, I'll have more time and I'm not sure if that's true or not, because I'm in a window right now where it's it's sort of true. But I see like the future that you're talking about with sports and all those things all of a sudden taking away the little bit of extra independence I've gotten out. The kids are a little bit hands off compared to what they used to be. I don't know if that's what you're saying you're experiencing there, but so it's a little scary. Your freedom changes. 00:03:43 Speaker 4: So having when you have little ones, you know, like obviously you can't leave them home alone. They'll kill each other, burn the house down, whatever, So you're like always there for them, or they're with you, or you have to arrange for them to have somebody. When they get older and you can leave, it's it's like they get into more activities. So like your weekends and your days are tied up more, but your individual time like go for a run in the evening or go do you know, go buy the groceries or whatever changes, so you get these little bits of time that open up for you where you're like, Okay, now I don't need to worry about that, Like I'm gonna go get my haircut. I don't have to think about what I'm doing with my kids, you know, but you trade that for them being in you know, five months of basketball where there's tournaments all over the state for you know, literally months at a time, and then you get out of that and it's right into another activity and you're like, well every Tuesday and Thursday night is softball and there's four tournaments over the summer, and you're like, so that you lose those big blocks of time more. Yeah, So it's tough, like planning. I mean, I'm you know, you talk about planning your year with your wife, Like I'm sitting here looking at opening dates in Minnesota and Wisconsin and where I kind of want to travel this year, and like when can I get my daughters out hunting for a couple weekends next season? And it's already like, well, I can't do that. One can't do that. One can't do that. One you better make this one count. I mean, it's just it's a lot, buddy. 00:05:14 Speaker 2: So we just wrapped a Turkey season, or at least I don't know when yours ended, but our season ended two days ago. Turkey Season of Michigan just did so speaking of taking the kids out and everything. Did you guys have a good Turkey season? How was it for you and the girls? 00:05:29 Speaker 4: We had good, good season, buddy. Minnesota went really well for us. My daughters killed both killed good toms early in the season. I killed one. I rowed a good bird here, so we had a good Minnesota season. I killed a bird on public in Nebraska, bird on public in Kansas. And then we did one weekend in southwestern Wisconsin and one of my daughters killed a really good tom down there. So we ended up killing six for our family, which is a good spring. So yeah, I'm the kid thing. Dude. It's like my daughters are. They're kind of obsessed with stats, like they're at that stage, you know, and so they've never had neither one of them has ever had a up until last year, a two deer year or a two state deer year, right, So that's how spoiled they are. They're like, well, I've killed two deer, but we were in the same state, Like I want to kill one. You know, how old are they again? They're thirteen thirteen, okay, and then they'd never even though we've hunted Wisconsin and Minnesota every year they've either missed or it just hasn't worked out, so they've for that. My one daughter to kill a bird in Minnesota a good time and then go to Wisconsin and kill one. She's she's flying pretty high. Plus she's the one who killed the barrel last year, so she's she thinks she's pretty special. She's probably sending in applications to meat eater right now. 00:06:52 Speaker 2: Well, hey, there's there's precedent for some nepotism at our company, so I. 00:06:56 Speaker 3: Might work out for how dare you a kid? A kid? 00:07:01 Speaker 4: But do you. 00:07:04 Speaker 2: I would love to see the Peterson girls get a gig at a meeted or why not come on with. 00:07:09 Speaker 4: No shit start making some money girls? 00:07:11 Speaker 3: Mm hmm, Yeah, I gotta pay their own way. 00:07:14 Speaker 2: Did A were any of those any of those hunts like particularly unique or memorable? 00:07:19 Speaker 3: Were they? 00:07:19 Speaker 4: Were? 00:07:20 Speaker 3: They pretty standard? Tony Peterson, Turkey Fair. 00:07:23 Speaker 4: You know with the girls, it's like the blinds, the scouted out thing like it's it's mostly a matter of time on those spots. You know, we had we had good hunts. My one daughter. The one thing that was really fun about my one daughter, not the one who killed the bear in the two turkeys, but she has struggled the most with shooting, so she's just she's she rushes her shots a lot, deer, turkeys, whatever she like, wants to get it over with. And so last season she killed a little velvet spike in Wisconsin the first night we hunted over there, and she made a good shot. He died right in front of us, so she was happy about that. And then she killed a late season deer in dough in Minnesota, made a good shot that deer died in front of us. And then this spring turkey hunting, we had two gobblers come in that hung up at like forty yards, you know, wide open, you know it was it was anybody else, you'd be like, you just kill them, right, But with her, I'm like, that's like right, kind of at the line. But finally one of them finally posed up and stood there forever, and I was like, honey, if you think you can dump him, just dump him. And she did. And so her confidence has gotten way higher. And seeing that, because that's been a real challenge with her, and seeing her just stringing together multi weapon good shots on different species has helped a lot. So But yeah, like I mean, you know how this is dude. I had a ton of fun hunting with him. You know. I kind of knew we were going to kill birds in Minnesota because where we're hunting, but I went and kind of took a flyer. I hunted Nebraska and Kansas in probably planned less for those hunts than I ever have in my life, just kind of like just go into an area, find a place to camp, find a place to hunt, figure it out. And I had so much fun. Yeah, like so much fun. And I know we're gonna get into this later on the public land thing, but that is just like to me, being able to go do that, right, It's a gift, no question. But while I'm down there in Nebraska, I found a spot where I'm like, I think I can't do it this year because we're filming a project, so I got to save my tag. But I found a place where I'm like, I think I can kill a big one early when it's super hot, and I'm like, that's that's cool. That's a part of it. You know. The turkey thing was really fun, but that was cool too. And then in Kansas where I killed my bird, there were pheasants and bob white quail all over and you know the quail thing. People talk about this all the time, like there's no quail left, there's no Bob Whites on public and I've you know, like I've found them in a few states and hunted them, and you know, it's been a few years now, but I'm like, I'm probably gonna have to wait till January. But I'm like, I'm going down to Kansas with my lab and I'm gonna go shoot quail on public land. Somehow I'm gonna figure it out. And it's like I'm actually really excited about that. And I always think about that because you know how this goes. You go for a reason, right You're like, I'm gonna go kill a buck on public land in Ohio, or I'm gonna go take a flyer on some state, and inevitably when you're there, when you're driving there, or you're driving back and forth from camp to where you're hunting, you see some kind of critter, you see something where you're like, I'm gonna fish here, I'm gonna hunt here, I'm coming back, and it's like this thing that never ends. And you know, public land is like this hot topic right now, but I'm like it's so valuable for that reason, Like you you might not use it, like you might not have any interest to ever go hunt public gland white tails. And that's great, but that's not the only thing going on, you know. And I can promise you I'm I'm going to go kill Simbob white quail on public land. And people will be like, you can't do that. I'm gonna be like, I'm doing what you say you can't because there's public land available with quail on it, you know, And I think that shit's amazing. 00:11:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it's so it's so amazing that we have just the opportunity to dream about that, like to sit here and be able talk about, Okay, this is a possibility. We're not rich, we don't have some huge private preserve. We don't have millions of dollars or millions of acres of all this kind of stuff like you might need to have over in Europe, gonna have high dollars, a serious bank account to be able to do some of these things over there. But any Tom Dick or Harry over here can go off and have these kinds of adventures. 00:11:50 Speaker 3: It's it's so funny. Growing up you it just was like the way it was. 00:11:54 Speaker 2: I never thought twice about it, never thought about how it was that we get at these places, or how special this was, or how unique that is. But man, I'm gonna I'm taking off tomorrow afternoon, heading out towards our place out in Idaho, and you know, for the next two months, any random day, any weekend, We've got free places we can camp, and free places I can hike and go fishing, or scout for a future hunting trip, or you know, go rafting down a river. I mean, absolute bucket list stuff I can do for basically the cost of a tank of gas and feeding myself. We can do that for weeks on end if we wanted to. It's it's the most unbelievable thing that we've got going here. It's it's pretty special. It's badass. Yeah, man, Well you know what what else is badass? What For the first time ever, the Kenyan family killed two turkeys in the state of Michigan this year. And it's not because I poached and killed two myself. It's because we're only allowed to kill one turkey per person in Michigan. So that means I killed my turkey and my son killed his first turkey. 00:13:17 Speaker 3: Ever. How old is he he's seven? 00:13:20 Speaker 4: Oh man, Yeah, so he's been. 00:13:25 Speaker 2: No, he didn't, he was. I mean, he was really excited, but it wasn't like crazy. It was like just very excited, very proud, just like a huge smile on his face. And then like the kids say dude and bro all the time now, so he's like, dude, bro, dude, I can't believe that just happened. 00:13:46 Speaker 3: Dude. That was so amazing. Dude. 00:13:50 Speaker 2: But uh, but it's so cool because you know, you know, like you with your girls. He's been out there with me every year since he's been born, Like when he was four months old, wrapped him to my chest and we'd walk around the woods and I'd try to strike up gobblers and so he was hearing gobbles when he was four months old. And then the next year when he was able to toddle out there with me, he was sitting down there and I would do these practice turkey hunts. We've talked about this in the past, where I would just take the boys out and try to call in birds, you know, without even a gun. We're just like trying to get birds in there close and get am used to that and have fun with it, and you know, year after a year, we've had more and more of those experiences, and then you know, I don't remember how long ago it was, but maybe four years ago he started coming out with me for like real hunts, and then last year we had our first successful hunt together where my oldest was with me when I killed a bird and that was really cool. He was like, we struck up a gobbler and the spot we weren't expecting, so we had like belly crawling prone. This wasn't like in the blind kind of thing. I think I told you this story last year, but the broad stroke, so that we were laying prone, he was laying on my back, had a bird like come into this field in front of us, kind of did a one to eighty around us. We had to like continue belly crawling through the woods to get to an open position and finally got a shot this bird and that was so cool. So this year, you know, he's been asking to go hunting forever. He's been like, of my two boys, they're both into the outdoors, but Everett has always been like really obsessed, like pretending to be hunting since he was like two years old with a pretend bo or gun and just really into everything. Shooting is bb gun, then shooting at seventeen and at twenty two, and we got him a calm, humble last year when of those like little Mini, I think it's a diamond or whatever the botech offshoot is. Yeah, and he's been shooting that good. So he's just been he's been ready and wanting to hunt deer, but I'm not going to do that yet. But I thought like turkeys would be something I think he's really ready for. He's been doing it with me for a really long time. So the question was just like, all right, if we can get him comfortable with a four to ten, I think he's like mentally ready. He's done all the hunt stuff with me a thousand times. He's been on a lot of deer hunts. Now he can he can handle himself in the woods well, so if I could, if he'd be comfortable with the four to ten, then then we're gonna do it. And so, long story short, my wife's dad gave him an old four ten of his and this winter and spring he was practicing with that and very comfortable with it, and so we were gonna go for it, and had a lot of fun hunts to spring with him kind of prioritize, like getting him a bird before me of course. So I mean, just like you've had, we just such such great memories, so much fun. We don't do it the way you do it, as I understand the way you do it with like sitting in a blind for long periods of time. I'm a d D when I turkey hunt, so I'm like the we call it walking squawk, So just kind of walk around, you know, like call try to strike something up, and if you do, you know, make a move on him and just kind of running gun it. And so we had like some really fun hunts that way that didn't quite come together but close. Like one time both of the boys want to go out, so I had my seven year old and my five year old and we struck up a bird. We actually were hiking into a spot, came over hill and saw some toms in a low spot in the fields trotting around. So then we backed up, circled into this timber, got set up on a tree, tried to call him in. They gobbled back, So I thought that was on. But then I looked behind me and on the other side of this little woodlot word and I'll cross another field. We got another gobbler that came in like on a string. This bird comes barreling in and gets to fifty forty five fifty yards kind of circles around us, but too far away. So a bunch of cool stuff like that happened. But this is a long winded way of getting to the final ultimate hunt. I decided to do like a turkey weekend with my dad. I invited my dad down to come and turkey hunt with me and ever see if we could get him a bird and my son a bird. 00:18:00 Speaker 3: So for that, I was like, all right, I'm gonna set up a blind in like. 00:18:02 Speaker 2: This best spot I know of, and we'll actually do some sitting and waiting in this spot because it it'd be hard to do the running gun with my dad and Everett. But so set up a blind back in this location where historically there's been birds roosted pretty close in the past. Usually sometime in the late morning, something will circle through here. It's actually right in the same plot where my son and I killed one last year, and long story, shorts struck them up off the roost. They're goblin like crazy, really exciting. This is our second morning. First day, it didn't happen. Second day, this is when this all happened. And they're goblined like crazy off the roost. But then they went quiet filed some hens off. It seemed like maybe an hour later, here comes some birds into this little opening, little plot, and it was six jakes. And I told, you know, ever, like, hey, if you want to take a jake, awesome. If you want to wait for a tom, that's great too. It's this is really your hunt, whatever you want. And so he was kind of like, I'm going to see what at how I feel in the moment. And these birds get to the edge of the plot and then hang up, and they just don't want to come in. They're just like looking around, and some deer had spooked. A deer got down window of us. Deer had spooked not too long or not too long before that, so this. 00:19:13 Speaker 3: Deer had been there. 00:19:14 Speaker 2: They're kind ofly edgy and they hang up, look around. I call, They start walking my way and then they walk away from us. 00:19:22 Speaker 3: I call again. 00:19:23 Speaker 2: They come back to the edge, poke around, and then turn and go back the other way. 00:19:27 Speaker 3: And this would literally have. 00:19:30 Speaker 2: I had two of our Dave Smith's a jake and a feeding hen like ja, yeah, the corset jake and the feeding hen and and yeah, they just didn't want to commit to it for whatever reason. And they stood there right on the edge of this plot. It was about twenty to thirty minute interaction. And this whole time, like as soon as they showed up, my son had to get ready. So he was ready gun out the window, holding still, and then he can't move, so he's, you know, try and hold still, and he's getting tired, and so I I have to like kind of slowly reach over and give them some support to hold the gun for a while. And and finally they look that they're gonna leave, and so that I just kind of went cram like, well, hell mayor with the calls, they're just like kikiki run run around, like just just going cutting and cutting and cutting, just like annoying, just you know, nothing to lose. 00:20:18 Speaker 3: And then that turn them around. 00:20:19 Speaker 2: They came barreling into the decoys finally, and uh, problem is they all stayed in one big cluster ball, so all six of them were doing you know what those birds do, Like have you ever seen one of those? There's a clip from like a plane earth show or something where there's all these flamingos all marching together in line in formation, like they're in a huge cluster, and all their heads are pointing went and they all are moving like this, and they all move together on the right as if like they're like like an army parade, you know how they're all like strutting together. 00:20:49 Speaker 3: It was like that with these six jakes. They would not separate. 00:20:53 Speaker 2: So like every time a bird kind of separate, everyone's like, okay, can I take that one to the left, and like yeah, like no, no, no, no no, And then like what about that one, Like okay, yeah, take him? 00:21:01 Speaker 3: Then no, no, no no. So that went on for four and a half. 00:21:05 Speaker 2: Minutes because I filmed this whole part, and finally, what looked like probably the biggest of the jakes finally like kind of half strutted and puff puffed up next to the Deeks and the other five were just far enough away. I'm like, that's the one, and uh, and he dropped it. 00:21:21 Speaker 3: It was super exciting. He was excited, and like I said, he was saying. 00:21:24 Speaker 2: Dude and bro a lot and uh and it was a really nice, you know, just good big Jake, and it was awesome, awesome experience. He handled like a pro. He was very very proud, very excited to be able to m Yeah. I helped him a little, but he carried it mostly himself and just just great to see like that next step taken for him. He's been you know, following along with me for seven years now, and uh, I mean it's I can see why you've been, you know, loving all his years. 00:22:00 Speaker 4: The way you have this is so fun. 00:22:03 Speaker 3: I mean, pretty are special. 00:22:04 Speaker 4: That situation where when you have a kid it happens with Newby just any Newbye Turkey Hunter two when they come in all wadded up is like intense. A couple of years ago, after my daughter's had that just melt on where they shot nine times and we got one Jake. The next night, I took my daughter back out and I'm like, you gotta get back on this horse, buddy, because that was a that was a bad performance. The day before I called in fourteen. So there's five or five Toms and nine Jakes came into the decoy and it was just like holy shit, like we gotta like do not touch one off until we get one that's separate. Because we could kill like six at one time. 00:22:45 Speaker 3: You can get your nine shots back all in one dude. 00:22:48 Speaker 4: Yeah, But so that's that situation is intense. But that's awesome, man. 00:22:53 Speaker 2: Yeah it was cool. And uh and yeah, now he wants to you know, of course, he's like, now I got a turkey, then I can shoot a deer too. 00:22:59 Speaker 3: You know I can't. But no, we're gonna We're gonna wait a lot. How old were your girls when they took their first year? 00:23:07 Speaker 4: I think I took him hunting when they were eight. 00:23:12 Speaker 3: But like they were on the trigger, yep, okay. 00:23:15 Speaker 4: Because I had taken them hunting before that. I think the first time they actually did hunt was when they were eight, but they didn't kill anything until they were nine. And the time that I took them first was one weekend in the whole season and it was just a short deal. They didn't really get after it till they were nine. But they both killed deer when they were nine. 00:23:34 Speaker 2: Okay, So yeah, that's gonna be. I gotta figure that out when when I want that to be. I know he can handle himself. I know he can do it. He can he can you know, he can shoot a rifle really well, he's shooting a seventeen rifles, not shot a three fifty or anything yet. But he can handle himself on a rifle really well, Like he's physically able. For me, I just want to more still figure out when he's mentally mature enough, you know. 00:24:00 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the deer things different than Turkey's man. Like if I were if I were you, I would get one of those death grip bog pods and make sure that the SHOT's going to be like fifteen yards kind of thing, like just you know, And we haven't had this happen yet. We've been pretty lucky so far. But my girls haven't spined one. We haven't had a really ugly death yet, which was my big fear. And I think now you know, they've been through it enough, I you know, And it might be different with boys too, like your your son might shake off. You just don't want to risk it, you know, like you want to keep away from that spine. You want to make sure that it's a yeah, it rides away seventy yards and tips over. 00:24:52 Speaker 3: Were you on the podcast when I was talking about what happened with me and my son last year on a dough I shot and it charged us. Tell you that story, dude, it's crazy. 00:25:03 Speaker 2: The very like the thirty second version is that I shot a dough. 00:25:07 Speaker 3: It was like snow and a ton. 00:25:09 Speaker 2: So I wanted to pick up the blood trail fast or sooner than I would usually, just because I don't want to lose that blood. And we walked up on her when she was still alive, and so I took a second shot to finish her off, and she stood up and charged right at us, and literally like I had, I had to step in front, I pull my son behind me, stand up with my arms up and screaming at her, yelling to try to stop it. And then it collapsed like within five yards of us. It was crazy and so and so you think she intentionally was charging you, I don't think. I don't think she was intentionally charging me. Like she never even looked at me. She was just like it just happened to jump up. And he was like running like head down almost, you know, just we just happened to be right there. So he saw some crazy stuff at that time around right. 00:25:59 Speaker 4: I know Tom Doc and the dog trainer. He was shed hunting a couple of years ago. In one of his I think it was a standing corn food plot he had, and his dog bumped up a buck and it came through that food plot and hit him, just barreling out of there and knocked him assive her apple cart. But I was hunting one time in college. I had gotten permission on this We'd been trout fishing this stream, and I kept finding all these crossings on there. So I just went up and knocked on the door and they let me hunt this place. And it was down in the you know, bluff country along the river. I was down in Winona, and so you're in all these big valleys. And I walked into this valley one time and just sat on the ground in this place to kind of cross through once in a while, sitting there, and I had a little buck coming in bed behind me, and I had already filled my buck tag, and so I just watching him. He came in, and you know, he was like fifteen yards away, and he got up to leave, and I bleeded at him just for the hell of it, just like for something to do. And when I did, I heard another deer start just barreling down the hillside like above me, you know how it is, And like a you're like in an amphitheater almost yeah, And so I looked and there was a dough coming like full bore, and so I drew and she came around the tree at like as fast as a deer can go and hit the brakes and I could have just reached out and touched her, and she kind of like recoiled when she figured out I was standing there, and she hopped like ten yards and I laced her and she ran and tipped over, and I was like, that was crazy, Like she came she heard me make that bleat, and she came down so hard, and I was thinking about it, and I had found it was a long highway fourteen this farm was, and I had found a like a yearling doe dead in the ditch like that day coming in, and I'm like, oh, I wonder if that deer's fawn got hit And she hadn't like pieced it together, because that you know, I've bleeded at a billion deer and I've never had a response that was like she was like, holy shit, there's what I'm going to now, and it was like a crazy response. It was the only time I've ever had that, So it could be maybe that wasn't it, but I was like, maybe she had lost her fallen like a day before, and thought maybe, you know. 00:28:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, I've I've had really good success with like that kind of fawn and distress. 00:28:19 Speaker 3: Blate that that will. They will come tearing into it, They really will. 00:28:23 Speaker 4: Yeah, it was wild. 00:28:26 Speaker 2: So speaking of deer though, let's I'd love to hear you know, what's like the big thing you're most looking forward to coming up this year when it comes to deer hunting. What's your big exciting trip or priority or thing you're working on this summer or looking forward to. 00:28:44 Speaker 4: You know, honestly, this is gonna be so boring other than with the girls. And I should say this too. I got permission to hunt a badass place for bears here in Minnesota, which I am like a little torn on because I don't like the thirty second version of this. I ran into a guy used to fish a lot of tournaments against earlier this spring, and he sold his business quite a while ago for a lot of money, like walk away and never do anything again. So he owns thirteen hundred acres in one spot an hour north of me A in the no quota zone in Minnesota. So essentially you can buy an over the counter bear tag every year because they don't want bears south of a certain point. Gotcha. So he was like, he killed like the number five biggest non typical in Minnesota ever a few years ago, giant like it was something it was in the one eighties, net one of those deer that's just like a you know, mass for days kind of thing. Anyway, talking to him, you know, we were talking about deer, and then he said, you know, my only problem is I'm covered in bears there and nobody will shoot him. And I'm like, hey, buddy, I've got two thirteen year old girls who will shoot all the bears that we can, and so we have that. So I'm actually like, we're excited about that because I'll be able to do real like bear work, Like I'll be able to set things up and bait it and it won't be like i won't be driving several hours at a time and not there for many days at a time, like all my bear hunting has been like very kind of piecemeal because nothing's close to me. And so I'm actually kind of excited for that, other than potentially having dead bears to deal with, which I'm not that excited about. But we'll make it work. We'll eat them, they'll get their bear rugs or whatever. So I'm excited for that and just hunting with them in general, because we're starting to do you know, you talked about like put your back to a tree with your son versus sitting in a blind. Last year, we started doing natural blinds deer hunting. This year, I'm setting up tree stands for my girls so we can sit together. So we're like expanding that thing because I'm sick of sitting in blinds and so are they. And after they both killed deer out of natural blinds last year, they're like, Dad, this is how we're going to do it, you know. So that process, that's kind of what I'm going to be working on next week. I'm excited for that. But like personally, you know, I've talked about that that big wood stuff that I hunt over in Wisconsin a lot, and you know my struggles on the public land over there. Last year, I found a concentration of good bucks, you know, almost almost got one, like a one point thirty with my daughter sitting on the ground in there, just super freaking cool. I went back there to hunt, Uh, had a great hunt, almost killed a nice eight point in my first morning, hit a deer that night, wrecked my truck over didn't I didn't get to do what I wanted to. But I went back there this winter and this spring and I scouted and I put way more time into that area, and I'm like, my focus is get the girl some deer early, and then I just want to go have like a good like give that area a good effort because it's just that fun, big wood stuff. And last year it was like, I mean, I hunted Iowa. Last year. When I left Iowa, I went over to Wisconsin in the Northwoods, where the deer concentration is like ten percent of what you're going to run into where I was at Iowa. Like literally, I'm not even really being facetious. And the sign that I found in the concentration of bucks that I found was better than what I found in Iowa. That's crazy. I just I have a few theories on it. I don't know if I'm right or not. But the easy access died a couple of years ago when we had this crazy heavy snow that just weighed everything down. And it's like to get to these deer now even though they're not very far away from a road. Is just a different thing than going down a very clear two track with a four wheeler or just walking in and I think that was the difference maker. And so that's part of the reason I did a lot of walking in there this year, because I'm like, are there people even hunting in here anymore? And every tree stand I found, which there's supposed to be none, every one of them is a stand I've seen for years, So I'm like, I didn't see anything new, and I'm like, I think people are just staying out of here, and that's why those bucks moved in here and were concentrated. And so I don't know how long that'll hold up, because it'll get open again, but that that little challenge is like my most exciting thing right now. 00:33:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, are you gonna run cameras out there? 00:33:19 Speaker 4: Can't? You can't on this. So this is private land open to the public. Wisconsin has a great program for that, and so I think I should check this, but I think technically you have to get permission from the landowner whoever owns it, to run cameras. So I just don't, which is weird, right, because you're like showing up and you're like, there's sign, there's everything. But every deer that shows up is like a kind of a mystery deer. But I don't mind it, you know what I mean, Like it's just kind of like you just whatever, you play by that rule now, you know, but it's it. And also, I'll tell you this, not being able to do that has forced me to just walk in scout a lot, you know, because you can't go in and be like, well, I'm just gonna monitor this trail for a month and if this doesn't work, so I'll move my cameras. And so it's like a different thing, you know. But that that just that area just got under my skin and I'm still dealing with it and I can't get past it. I got to figure it out. 00:34:27 Speaker 2: So that's fun, those those new little challenges, I mean to what you saw with the camera thing. I love my cameras. I'm gonna keep running cameras, of course, but I do find myself more and more interested in just some places, not doing them on purpose, right, just to keep that mystery in some spots, you know, because last year, like on my main Michigan area, you know, in any bucks, I was interested in shooting disappeared early on, and then I just found myself like increasingly less and less excited, less and less interested. Like I'm going out there, I'm like not even feeling like there's a chance. I'm kind of going through the motions because I haven't got pictures of a deer in seven weeks. I would shoot, But here I am. While if I had just gone into it, you know, with a different set of expectations and just been out there for the fun and the mystery of it, you know, probably would have enjoyed those hunts a lot more. 00:35:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. 00:35:25 Speaker 2: I mean, there's there's pros and cons to everything, but that mystery is nice sometimes. 00:35:30 Speaker 4: I like ha them both. Man. You know, I'm going to go drop a shitload of moultries off on private land over there next week, and you know, for the girls. You know, I if obviously, if I found a giant or something that I could work with, I'd probably pay attention to it. I just don't anticipate that, but I like that, man, Like I like, you know, I'm going to go down probably probably sometime after the fourth Steve and I are going to spend some time in Nebraska, this pole on a private place, and I'm really excited to run cameras there because I think it's going to be really good. And there's a you know, a river running through this place, and so I look at that, I'm like, I'm so jacked to start getting pictures from there. But I'm also looking at a time window when I can head out to North Dakota and hunt where I like to hunt, where I'll have no intel, you know, I'll show up in glass and so I think, I don't know, man, you know how this goes? Like it's really nice to give yourself a few different options like that, because, like you said, you know, if you're primarily sitting there and you're like, all my Target bucks are gone and I know it because I have a lot of cameras out, then there's like something missing for that part of your season, like you just don't have the desire to go. But if you're like, well, I don't have any Target Bucks right now, but I'm heading out to North Dakota in a week and I don't know what's going on there, but I don't care because I'm gonna have to go find them. In the moment, it just like sort of balances that stuff out a little bit. 00:36:52 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:36:52 Speaker 2: Now we've talked about for years like that having options or having diversity, just just just having some different things makes at all, you know, a lot more fun in many different ways. So I will be running a lot of cameras in one state this year because I'm my friend should be drawing Iowa. Yes, So I'm excited to get back there. I've not hunted Iowa in too long because I after my last time in Iowa when I missed a giant eight point on the last day of one week in November that first year, I was kind of butt heard about it the next year and forgot to apply for a point that year. So I've had to wait longer than usual, but finally got back on it. 00:37:39 Speaker 3: And this year should be the year. 00:37:41 Speaker 4: Knock on wood, Are you gonna hunt back down in the same area again. 00:37:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, same area, So I've got access to a couple of different spots down there with our mutual friends and we'll be looking for redemption. 00:37:54 Speaker 3: So about that. 00:37:56 Speaker 2: And also, like you know, that year in one week in November because of the fact that you know, we were there for work and we were filming that show, and you know, things you know, weren't going my way. So I felt like, you know, there was just zero room for any fun. It was like, I'm hunting all day every day. If I'm not in a tree, i'm scouting, I'm moving, I'm you know, getting back late because you know, we're in deep and we're sneaking out as quietly and slowly as possible, and we're in their way before, you know, just like everything was two thousand percent focused on how do you kill a good buck here? Right while at the same time, a couple of my friends from Michigan were also there in Iowa with our buddies that live there in Iowa. And so like my whole friend group is, they're hunting together, and they're going out to eat at night, and they're meeting up for lunch and hanging out and having a good time and they're just having a terrific experience. Meanwhile, I am, you know, killing myself to try to kill a deer, not doing any of that stuff for them, and uh and then I didn't even kill it ere So this time around, I'm going there for the full experience. I'm gonna, of course, try to fill a tag and so you're gonna film stuff. 00:39:05 Speaker 3: I'm not gonna film it. 00:39:06 Speaker 1: No. 00:39:06 Speaker 4: Wow, dude, I know that you hear this a lot about one week in November. I mean that's the one project people are always like, when are you bringing that back? 00:39:15 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:39:15 Speaker 4: And I mean I would do it again because I think it was a really good show. But that week sucks so much. I mean you're yeah, I mean it's just you know, it's a dumb thing to bitch about. But I'm gonna anyway, when you when you get into that week and you're you're dragging a cameraman around and you have that pressure to kill it's, uh, by the end of that week, you are like, I am done with this, like done. 00:39:46 Speaker 3: And it feels like one month in November. 00:39:49 Speaker 4: It's a it's a heavy lift, man, I mean it's it's so great when you kill one, like it's that it's really fun when you kill one or you have a really cool hunt where you're like, that's gonna be a good show. But man, it's it's just a lot. And then you know, like when you when you have a tag, like an Iowa tag, where you're like there's like an extra pressure to that. I just did a Foundations episode on this on like the premiere tags and the you know how you know, Buffalo County used to be the place in Pike County and you know now it's like Iwan Kansas and there's a few places you can go to where it's like still that premiere feeling. There's like an added level of pressure to that that's not for everyone, you know, like it's it you know, like we said, it kind of balances out, but you're still like, I'm only going to get X amount of Iowa tags in my life. They're expensive. You want to put a lot into them, and you want to get the most out of them. But it's also like just this weird level of pressure to do just that and then end up with that grip and grin of something big to show for your time there. And it's like, I don't know, man, it's it makes me appreciate some of those trips to like Oklahoma or wherever where you're like I'm just shooting anything, I'm just here for the hunt, versus like this added component of like I kind of feel like I need to kill a big one otherwise this is going to be a failure. That stuff's tough. 00:41:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, and that's why I'm approaching it different this year because every other time I've gone there, I've approached it the way you're describing it, and so this year, I'm just like, this is where some of my best hunting buddies live and spend all their time. It's like a great like deer camp atmosphere. I'm going to go there for the full thing, you know. I'm not going to go into it like a military mission like I do sometimes. I'm going to just enjoy myself, have a fun hunt, spend time with good buddies, experience what Iowa has to offer, like not be so worried about having to kill a big deer, but just watching, seeing, experiencing all the cool stuff that happens there. And you know, if you get a buck, awesome. But I want, like, I want the Iowa experience more than I want the Iowa buck on the wall, Right. I think with that mindset, I'll probably have a better chances of bringing some meat home too. 00:42:02 Speaker 4: So yeah, you'll have fun. I mean when I when I drew last year, I had a tough hunt down there in some ways. I mean, it was just a lot of pressure, just a lot of things going on. I was on the end of a long run of travel. But even you know, like how I killed my buck, like decoy and m and like what we saw the evening before and that day I was like this is like Iowa, like this is just like what you want to be here for. And it wasn't like I was covered in giants, but it was like you're you're sitting in a spot once you kind of get a dial down there where you're like this this little area is just humming with activity, like somebody's coming down the trail eventually, and that's just and you know, I know you're you're hunting a little bit different situation. I was on public down there, but like I'm like watching all kinds of animals on public all day long, where you're like this doesn't feel you know, like some where you're on public, you're like, I don't I haven't seen a squirrel. It just feels different, and it is It's good to be reminded to like appreciate that because you're not just that I would take. Isn't just a ticket to go kill a big one and bounce, you know, like you actually have like really enjoyable sits down there. 00:43:18 Speaker 2: For many reasons, well, And that's like with those types of hunts, and really any hunt, but especially one of these that have like a little extra pressure or cost or you know, rarity of getting them. You know, I would encourage someone to milk it for everything that's worth. 00:43:33 Speaker 3: Like, go do the. 00:43:35 Speaker 2: Scouting trips, do the summer visits for cameras and glassing fields. Go down there multiple times if you can throughout the season. Like, don't rush it if you have, if you have the available time, why you know, spend this rare opportunity on just one week of misery. Why don't you get get out there, enjoy it. Don't put pressure on yourself. Just experience everything the place has and the people have and the animals have. 00:44:00 Speaker 3: And that's that's the good stuff. 00:44:02 Speaker 2: Like when I look back on, like many of my best memories, often it's from like the the summer trips, putting up cameras and glassing deer with my buddies in the field, or going in there in the early season and just like you know, getting to see things progress throughout the year. Or it's the hunt when I didn't have a show and I was just like you know, discovering this new place with my buddies and seeing what happens, and yeah, just just taking it all in because there's so much more to it than just filling that tag. It's so we've been saying this for years and years and years, right, but every single year, I have to relearn. 00:44:37 Speaker 4: It, you know, dude, It's an easy thing to forget. 00:44:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, So, speaking of public land, I think that's a perfect opportunity for us to segue to a quick kind of pivot here to a like current events update for people. If you are not on social media, if you are like Tony Peterson and you are not on social media too much, you might have missed some big news in the public land world that I and a bunch of folks have been talking about lately. So quickly I want to get folks up to speed and then give people updates on what's happening. Still, but the Big Brewja over the last month or so, Tony, and I know you're aware of this, but the Big Brewja has been around the most recent iteration of attempts to dispose of public lands. 00:45:31 Speaker 3: Right now, Congress. 00:45:32 Speaker 2: Has been debating this big budget bill through a process called reconciliation, and this is basically something that you know, like every administration comes in, they want to get a set of budget related priorities passed, and there's this process that can be used called budget reconciliation, which allows a bill to pass Congress with only fifty one votes rather than the typical sixty needed. 00:45:56 Speaker 3: So it's basically a way. 00:45:57 Speaker 2: For something to actually get passed when many times these bills never get passed. And so what happens is that everyone throws in their little thing. So Joe and Minnesota says, oh, I wanted this little thing to get done. I can never get a bill passed. I'm going to attach it to this budget bill. And then Bill and Michigan has wanted to get this funding approved for this project, so he throws this thing in there. It becomes this big, huge package of a thousand different things. But because they have to get the budget passed and they have to get funding all taken care of, it has to get passed by whatever party controls Congress, and so these things typically move forward. So that's what's going on right now, and a number of different public land related things have gotten thrown into this budget package. One of those, which was added in the middle of the night is like between eleven and midnight within the House Natural Resources Committee. 00:46:52 Speaker 3: This mandated the sale of more than five. 00:46:55 Speaker 2: Hundred thousand acres of public land and it'd be done in this case in Nevada and you So this happened like three weeks ago when news came out about this. You know, first we thought it was eleven thousand acres, and then it was several hundred thousand acres, and then there was more than five hundred thousand acres. At one point people thought maybe is more than one million acres. 00:47:16 Speaker 3: But basically what happened. 00:47:17 Speaker 2: Is, like the the representatives from Utah and Nevada didn't specify, oh, it's this a this these acres. They sent some very kind of oh what's the word ambiguous language around certain properties that had been previously approved possibly for this kind of stuff in the past. 00:47:35 Speaker 3: YadA, YadA, YadA. 00:47:37 Speaker 2: Long story short, there were two things that were very concerning here and the reason why so many folks across the conservation and hunting and fishing and outdoor rec worlds were raising such a stink about this. You know, First and foremost, this was selling five hundred thousand plus acres of public lands that you or I or anyone would have access to, right. So that's that's a huge issue because we're losing public access. We're losing you know, a long term sustainable resource that you know, could be used both for recreation, for wildlife habitat, but then also like it's used in many other ways that produce revenue for the for the nation too and provides grazing lease funds or maybe there's oil extraction or different things like that going on out there. So this is something that has produced revenue, produced utility, produced space for activity and recreation for hundreds of years, decades and decades, and it could for decades and decades in the future that would all be forfeit if this is sold off for a short term revenue game. 00:48:40 Speaker 3: So that's number one. 00:48:52 Speaker 2: The number two, which maybe is even more concerning, was the process that would be utilized to dispose of these public lands, because historically there has been a process in place for appropriate sales of public lands or swaps of public lands. Occasionally there'll be a situation where maybe there's like a small piece of public land that's landlocked and inaccessible by the public, and there's been situations where they say, okay, well we're going to sell off this twenty or forty acres or whatever it is. But this process requires a very careful review process. It requires public review and comment. And then it also requires that any sale of public lands, those funds go back towards future public land acquisition or work. So if we're going to sell a piece of public land, that revenue will be used for additional better situated public lands, or to improve public land access, whatever it might be. So it's it's kind of keeping it in the family, right. Well, this sale would mandate the sale of all those acres, and it would jump around that entire process, so there would be none of the public review, there would be none of the public comment an opportunity to influence it. There would be none of the careful kind of red tape that should be necessary to make sure that if we have to sell a piece of public land, it is done for the public's best interest and done in a careful way. And then finally, the funds in this case would not go to any future public land effort. It would just go to the general to the General Treasury fund and be used for lord knows what else. So this sale of five hundred thousand or more acres. We're talking billions of dollars would not go to what it was supposed to be, which would be future public access and lands. 00:50:40 Speaker 3: It would go to whatever. 00:50:42 Speaker 2: If this were to happen, this would set a new precedent for how future public land sales could be conducted. If this actually went through and got approved, then next time around, who knows what other politician might jump on board and say, well, hey, this has been done before. 00:50:58 Speaker 3: Here's my two. 00:50:59 Speaker 2: Million acres that I'd like to use to fund this other project. And someone else comes around the next year and says, all right, well, we've got this issue in such and such state. We don't think that, you know, the federal government should have all these federal public lands here. We should sell these off and pay for our school issue or pay for our whatever issue. That kind of precedent would be really, really dangerous in damaging to our public land system. So because of all that, there was this, you know, this huge uproar about it, a lot a lot of folks talking about a lot of phone calls, made a lot of emails sent, and fortunately it was removed right before the House had to put their vote in for this actual bill. They pulled it out. When they go through this final kind of review of the bill, they were able to rescind that part and the House voted on what was left and that passed the House, and now the bill is in the Senate where the Senate will be debating this new version of the bill now out. The good news that the public land sales out. The bad news is there was a bunch of other junk thrown in there that's really bad for public lands and wildlife and hunting, fishing, and unfortunately, what sucks about the situation is that there's so much stuff in there there's no way, like any one of us can you know, keep track of it all and take action on all of it. So because they throw like so much spaghetti at the wall, some of it's going to stick because you can't you can't address it all. The thing with the public lands sale, and the reason why you know, we were able to stop it is because it was like one thing that was very clear and obvious, like, this is a problem. The sale of public lands for these two reasons is bad. And everyone could talk about this one thing, and everyone could take action and ask their congressman or woman to vote no on this to do whatever they could to get this out of the bill. And because of that, there was like a ton hundreds of thousands of emails and phone calls were made that got people's attention. When there's like ten or twelve different other slightly smaller issues, that gets lost in the noise, you know. So that's the situation we're in right now. There's a bunch of stuff that's not great. The question has been in the discussions right now with a bunch of organizations is like, Okay, what do we do to try to get some of these addressed before the Senate votes, because that's our next opportunities. 00:53:21 Speaker 3: If we can get the Senate to remove a few. 00:53:23 Speaker 2: More things, then when this bill eventually goes to the president, it's not as dangerous as still right now. So I want to bring up two specific things real quick, Tony, thank you for letting me go on my tie right here. Of the of the many different things still in this bill, I want to bring to attention to specifics. One of them is there in your home state, Tony, the Bounder Waters. Yes, the Bounder Waters are freshly endangered. Longtime listeners of the podcast have heard me talk about the bound of waters a lot over the years, I've somehow adopted your home state's cause. But but you know, go back and listen to these Bounder of Waters episodes I've done over past years if you're curious about more details. 00:54:07 Speaker 3: But the short version of the long story. 00:54:09 Speaker 2: Is that there has been a mine proposed, a sulfide or copper mine proposed right on the border of the Bounder Waters Canoe Area wilderness, which is a water wilderness. It is a water logged lake and stream and river filled incredible, incredible wilderness area. And this mine would be placed on the upstream edge of that watershed. So if there's any pollution from this mine, it flows through the entire system potentially. And no mine of this type has ever been conducted in the past. So every other mine across the world that's used this form of mining, none have avoided pollution issues. Every single one of them have had some kind of significant issue that impaired the environment around it. We're putting one of those, hypothetically right on the edge of the most visited wilderness area in the lower forty Estates nation. 00:55:01 Speaker 3: So that's problem, and. 00:55:05 Speaker 4: This very specific ecosystem that's ripe for that pollution because of the water. 00:55:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's that's why it's an incredible place to fish for small mouths and pike and trout and walleye and all. 00:55:18 Speaker 3: Sorts of stuff. 00:55:18 Speaker 2: It's cold, clean, you know, amazing water that could be threatened here by this thing. So there was this mind those proposed number of years ago. Hunters and anglers and outdoor folks had been fighting it for years and years and years. In twenty twenty three, a mineral withdrawal was put on the Rainy River Watershed, which is the area surrounding us that basically said there will be no mineral withdrawals, no mind like that in this zone for the next twenty years at least. So that saved the boundary waters for the time as of twenty twenty three. Well, they're trying to change that this new bill as is currently written as the Senate is debating it. If it were to pay, it would remove that mineral withdrawal, opening up the entire area again to mining and other things. It would reinstate the leases for this specific mind, so that it could be fast tracked and ray go right away. And it requires future lease sales. Let me make sure I've got my details on this correct. Yeah, so those are the two main things. It removes the mineral withdrawal and reinstates those leases. 00:56:27 Speaker 3: So all of that. 00:56:29 Speaker 2: Work that's been done by folks over the last decade ish would be out the door. And the way things are going now, they're really trying to move things very quickly, so there could be you know, real change is coming to the special place relatively quickly if this happens. So number one, like, that's a big one that we as hunters and English could make a difference on. We could call the Senate thing now, So we're calling our senators and letting them know, Hey, the boundary waters is two special places, the wrong it's the wrong mind in the wrong place. 00:57:02 Speaker 4: Well, and so I know that I know that people are going to play Devil's advocate on this and say, well, you're using a lot of electronics with copper in it every day, so you're a hypocrite for arguing this. But it's when you dig into this issue specifically, there are copper deposits in a lot of places that could be mined where the risk to such a large, sort of very special ecosystem isn't there. Yeah, So it's not like we couldn't. It's not like you couldn't advocate for copper mining someplace else to you know, feed the needs of all the different electronics and components all that shit. This is a this is a place where the risk reward is crazy. And it's just that I mean that that Like, that's the thing about this specifically, Like this has to be done. Somebody's got to mind some copper somewhere this place. Maybe not great idea. 00:58:01 Speaker 2: I think that's the thing is like, we of course need resources, we need these things. The job will be for folks like us is to like identify when they're proposing it in a place like this, this too risky, too high value of a location for for other reasons, and advocate as best as we can that that this kind of development is being done in the places where it's safest to do so and most appropriate to do so, not just where it's most convenient or most profitable for a few foreign owned companies. Right right, this is not the place for this, and we still have an opportunity to influence it. So to anyone listening, if you've ever been there, or if you would like to go there somewhere, your you know, your attention, your phone calls, your emails, they're needed right now. If you go to Sportsmen, oh jeez, I should have had this URL. Just look up Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters on Google. They've got probably the best overview of the issue for hunters and anglers to help understand why this is important and what you can do. So that's number one. One other example, real quick of a situation like you're talking about where resource development is needed generally, but this is a place where they're trying to do it that's got a really high risk, and this would be the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 00:59:16 Speaker 3: The long story short. 00:59:19 Speaker 2: On this one is that it's basically the absolute crown gem of our public land system in America. It's the largest, wildest, most incredible, most undeveloped, last wilderness reservoir we have the nation. It's right up in the northeast corner of Alaska. 00:59:35 Speaker 3: Right there. The Brooks Range, which is the northernmost kind of. 00:59:39 Speaker 2: Appendage of the Rocky Mountains, runs across this refuge. You have this unbelievable mountain landscape and then the north slope of it heading into the Arctic Ocean, there is something called the coastal plane. And this is like when you see the videos from like Planet Earth or Our Planet or whatever nature documentary it is, And like when you see the videos of the hundreds of thousands of caribou all migrating, it's this place or place is very nearby and similar. This is where these vast aggregations of caribou are occurring. And caribou are not doing very well across the world right now. I believe I saw that they have declined eighty percent in recent decades. The Porcupine cariber herd is the herd there that utilizes the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They are actually doing pretty well right now. They are now the largest remaining caribou herd in the world. But they are dependent on this area called the coastal plane that I mentioned earlier. When the Arctic National Wilife Refuge was created in the like nineteen sixties ish, right around there, it was designated in such a way by Congress that there was a little slice left that was not protected as wilderness. And this little lice was like part of these congressional debates where someone said, well, hey, we'll help you pass this bill, but we want to leave this chunk here that's not designated as wilderness and it will be designated to study for future either future protection or future use for development. Basically, it was open to maybe it'll be wilderness someday, or maybe it'll be open to drilling someday, because that has always been the thing up there's maybe there's oil. And for the fifty years since or whatever it's been, it has been debated like one of the most hotly debated kind of repeated issues, bringing up again and again and again, should the coastal plane of the Arctic Refuge be open for drilling or not? For decades and decades, the outdoor community, conservationists, hunters and anglers, environmentalists, the whole nine yards have kind of beaten back repeated attempts to do this. But in twenty seventeen, during one of these budget debates, just like what we're having right now, one of these little riders got slipped in that opened up the coastal plane to drilling for the first time. In twenty seventeen, that was slipped into one of these budget bills, It passed, it got approved, but the most recent administration canceled those leases before anything was done, so right now the Arctic National Wilder Refuge, which is one of the most incredible places to sheep hunt, to fish for all sorts of species, to caribou hunt, to have unbelievable rafting, backpacking, all sorts of incredible trips. Huge, It's like one of the top places that polar bears are left in Alaska. Two hundred thousand plus caribou, there's muskos, there's wolves, there's brown bears, wild wild place. It's safe as of last year. Now riders attached to this new bill that is wanting to open things back up reinstate the leases, mandate lease sales of over four hundred thousand acres, and also strangely enough, removing any ability for public input in judicial review. So somehow, through some interesting language in this new version of this bill, it would remove the ability for the public comment periods and for anyone to have this challenge it in court someday. So not only is it crazy to force this lease sale that for fifty years people have been saying no, no, no, Now they're also trying to remove any ability for the public or people with different perspectives to challenge it at all. So again sets like a super dangerous precedent for how public land issues are dealt with in a place that's like the crown jewel of the dreams of outdoors people. And I know a lot of folks aren't going to get to go and see this place. It's kind of like a life list once in a lifetime if you're. 01:03:44 Speaker 3: A lucky kind of place. 01:03:47 Speaker 2: But man, knowing something like that is there maybe to someday visit, or just knowing that they're still somewhere that's truly unbelievably wild and available and that these things are happening, that is that's worthwhile. Also, I mentioned the cariber herd's the largest remaining caribou herd. All of the calving that this herd does occurs on the coastal plane. The coastal plane is where they're trying to open up to drilling. So if all of a sudden the calving ground, the place where these creators have to go to have their babies, if that's all of a sudden turn into an oil field, what will happen to the last remaining great caribo herd in the nation? Serious problem. So, if you care about caribou hunting, if you care about having wild places, if you care about just the kind of structural integrity of how we deal with public land related issues in this nation, this is another one to be keeping tabs on and to let your center to know, Hey, this is not the right place to do this kind of development. 01:04:46 Speaker 3: So as far as. 01:04:47 Speaker 2: I'm concerned, I would love folks to say no to this boundary water's mine, and say no to opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Let's keep our last best places healthy and plan and open and accessible. They're not making any more of them, Tony, So this last couple we've got go, we gotta stand strong on. 01:05:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, And I would say, you know, you alluded to this, right, Like most of the people listening to this are never going to go up d Aanmar. Most of the people listening this are never going to go with the BDW in Minnesota and ketching smallies. I don't have any connection to public land in Utah and Nevada personally, like I may never hunt either either state. Right, But when you keep mentioning the precedent for these kind of things, and I always I look at this like I think an easy way to sort of contextualize this stuff, you know, like we know when something goes away, it doesn't come back right, and the outdoors like it just generally doesn't. And so I've talked about this a lot where it's like the non resident versus resident thing, and non residents don't have any power in any state that they don't live in, and so they're an easy target to get rid of. So residents can have better or easier hunting for themselves, right, And so that's an easy push to make and an easy connection for people to make. But what they can't see is when you say, when you bitch about how much pressure there is, and those guys are the problem, and those guys go away, the next step is you guys are the problem because people are still going to be bitching. So you think that that's a win, But the precedent is set that you can use that excuse as like, there's too much pressure on public land. We need to get rid of people because the quality of the experience is down. You may have a very valid gripe there, but you've also once you've taken away one component and you've said, now you guys who live across state lines, you're very limited or you're going to pay you know, twenty five times what we pay or fifty times what we pay. You've set that precedent that this problem can be remedied by removing pressure. And the next step is you. And so when you celebrate that and go, well, now these guys won't be coming in and hunting my stuff, you think that that problem is going to go away. There's still going to be a lot to urban sprawl. You know, that's going to increase pressure on locking up land for the people who are paying that higher price. Like it's not it'll be like a temporary reprieve, but that's coming for you. And that's a precedent. And the same thing like when you talk about this bill for selling off land that most whitetail hunters don't give a shit about it all in two states where nobody's going to white tail hunt, right, it's not. It's easy to sort of be disconnected from that and go, well, I don't really care if they sell off some land there. But that's not the point. The point is that your state could be up next, and when that happens and it's in your backyard, then it's a different deal. And I know it's like hard. I know that kind of sounds like pandering or whatever. But like when these precedents are set, things change and generally not for the better. And I will say this, you know, I know people view that one specifically in the Anmar thing, and b like these are all like politically muddy, right, Like they're politically muddy. We're very try Bible people want to take a side. But I just look at some of this stuff and I go like, some of these issues are just like we just have to you just have to like look inside and be like, do you really want uh resource extraction in some of these places that are just left that like we can do we can get these resources other ways. And you're trusting politicians on either side to decide what's best there, or you're trusting politicians to sell off public land. Like who do you think they're going to sell some of that stuff to their buddies? Right, Like there's gonna there's gonna be some bad elements to this on both sides, and I just it's it's a dangerous game. And so like like to maybe frame this up the best is like think about that precedent and not what it means just for the hunters of that state or just for this one off event that could take half a million acres off the public goal and put in private. Think about it in a broader scope, because this stuff's coming for us, and it's just so frustrating. It's easy to sort of be shortsighted on this, and I get it, Like we all have a lot of stuff going on in life, and life is hard, right, like people, life is hard. But when you look at things like that and go like, man, that like public land is a gift. You know, if you allow people elected officials to decide the fate of it over there, when that comes for you, you you could be in trouble. And then you know, and if not you, your kids, and that that's a big risk, man. Yeah. 01:09:36 Speaker 2: And there's you know, those of us who care about this stuff who actually had like a real personal connection to public land or hunting or fishing or whatever it might be. We're a relatively small group of folks, right, Or those of us who think that you know, a place like the Boundary Waters would be better off healthy and protected versus just being like maximized for the very most dollars per year. Right, Business interests, the momentum of capitalism and all these kinds of things that of course we need to live. But like that momentum is constantly putting pressure on these things, and if you look back over the last couple hundred years, you can see what's happened largely has not been good for these things that we care about. So because of that, if we're ever going to occasionally be able to tap the brakes and protect some of these spots or these rights or these opportunities, it's going to require like all of us. I think that more and more we're going to find, like the hunting and fishing community kind of has to look like at any attack at these things as being an attack on all of us. Like, Okay, mountain lion hunting in Colorado, maybe I'm never going to go there, but I know that, hey, this is a precedent setting issue that if that gets banned, they could impact our stuff someday. Just like what you're saying, if we lose the boundary waters in this kind of way, if we lose hundreds of thousands of acres sold in this kind of way, it could. 01:10:53 Speaker 3: Impact us someday. 01:10:55 Speaker 2: If it's you know, whatever it is, it's it's going to require all hunters and anglers. Where As many of us as we can possibly get to kind of chip in and do their part every time around, so that when it's your pet issue or your special place, you can count on the rest of folks from other places or with other interests to jump in and do their part. 01:11:13 Speaker 4: Two. 01:11:14 Speaker 2: I think that's where we're gonna be heading in the next five, ten, twenty years. If we're ever going to be able to keep some of these things that are important to our way of life, it's going to require us starting to act like a big family. Even if we do some different things and we live some different places, we all kind of need to chip in and do our part on every one of these issues as much as we possibly can, right. 01:11:35 Speaker 4: I mean, I'll say this on the public land thing because people I have this conversation a lot, like specifically around public land way tales. When I was when I first started deer hunting in Minnesota when I was twelve, we had my dad and I had permission on two pretty huge properties or like big enough where we were not we were doing well right at different areas, so we could hunt one close to town and one was more like a weekend thing. But like we were spoiled. It was awesome. And when I turned fourteen right before the season, so I had those for two years. Both of those properties changed hands and we lost them. So we literally went from like we weren't going to run out of land to hunt that was private and good to having I sat on opening day. I'll never forget it in the pouring rain, watching squirrel hunters on public land and just being like this whole paradigm shift in my life at that point. And I talk to people and I know you do too, a lot who are like, they don't hunt public right They hunt Gramma's farm, they hunt somewhere else. They only hunt deer, maybe turkeys, whatever whatever's available on that property, and so they don't have quite the connection to public And I'm like, that public land that you don't hunt right now, not only is it a lot of people's only place to hunt, but it's also a hedge against not hunting. You might find yourself in a situation where all of a sudden you need that for some reason, and when you do, you want it there. And I know that's like a there's like a fear factor to that, but it's like it's absolutely true. So you you might not utilize it at all right now, so you see very little value in it, But there are a lot of people who that's when they go hunting. They don't have grandma's farm. They can't afford the lease, right, Like, so it's just like, man, we just need it, like we just need to look at that like it is our every one of us, Like it's a hedge against not doing what we love, because there is a world in which if that goes away, your private stuff goes away too. And without that, what are you going to do? Golf? No thanks, screw that. 01:13:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think that's I think that's a good place for us to, uh, to wrap some of this up. More on this topic to come in the future. In a couple of weeks after Actually, me and Cal are going to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We got invited to join a trip up there to kind of see this place and experience it ourselves to be able to bring those stories and that perspective back to the rest of the world. 01:14:15 Speaker 4: So me and mister Callahan. 01:14:17 Speaker 2: Are going to check it out here in mid June and report back to everyone with what we saw and experienced and learned. 01:14:24 Speaker 3: So stay tuned on that front. 01:14:27 Speaker 2: But in the meantime, let your senators know there's some places that are not the right place for this stuff. And we're all a big family. Let's chip in when we can, So. 01:14:38 Speaker 3: Tony, any final thoughts from you before we wrap it up. 01:14:42 Speaker 4: I think we're good, buddy. I think we covered a lot of stuff, all right. 01:14:45 Speaker 2: Man, it's good catching up and to everyone listening, appreciate you being here. 01:14:50 Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in. 01:14:51 Speaker 2: It's going to be a fun summer as we ride this roller coaster that's rising and momentum as we approach the fall, which unbelievably is knock on our door. So appreciate you and until next time, stay wired to hunt. 01:15:06 Speaker 1: M