The Dark Side of Hunting Media w/ Matt Rinella | HUNTR Podcast #136

the guys who are going to control the financial buckets ultimately they're going to say I'm gonna give what to this jackass but I think you're meaning to be treated like they need to be treated like the toddlers they are when they poop in the potty you clap your hands for them and when they throw apples [Music] [Applause] the hunter podcast is brought to you by deer grow man it's almost food plot season Jared and dierker is one of those products that has really changed the way that we plant food plots and the success we've seen from them no doubt I've been you know trying to plant food products my entire Whitetail hunting career is a little shorter than yours but the minute that I started or that I you know I realized that I could get deer grow back into some of these remote plots where I couldn't get lime or fertilizer especially in the 50 pound bag you know format so everything was changed you know I could get into these spots moving forward with the backpack sprayer in that sense escalated to these 40 or 60 gallon sprayers and we're doing upwards of you know five to ten acre food plots just with your girl and having phenomenal success yeah and I mean with the price of fertilizer lime diesel everything this year I mean what better way to get in there and grow a successful food plot at about a third of the cost check out deer grow at deergrow.com and we're back on our podcast episode 136. I well I know we messed up boat Mars I said 132 it was 133. I don't even remember 130 this many yeah yeah that sounds something around it uh 136. um so yeah I don't know what the number was last time should have said 35 but that was Kip Adams Cody declusters whatever dude I'm not keeping track let me pull out of me uh it is June 29th if you're listening to this since July sometime likely into it probably oh yeah I mean Late July summer evenings I can't believe it would be turned in the page I mean there's a chance that this is this is creeping in towards towards August at this point hopefully not we'll try to keep them timely here yeah but uh you're you're into July you're past the fourth I mean you're in mid-july things are happening people should start to feel the need to get hunting cameras all this and all that I mean beans and corn bar and we have no droughts should be looking good shooting bows shooting bows yeah I mean it's a a Kentucky velvet season like on the New Horizon near Horizon so yeah that's uh and super exciting to to be into that side of things and um I always say that's the best thing about hunting season is there's always another one to look for there is always another one the hardest part about that season is just to put the brakes on and enjoy it because it goes fast I mean those those three three and a half months Blaze Blaze by like really quick yeah yeah it's it's tough not to let other stuff creep in you responsibilities and you just gotta surprise yeah yeah it's it's tough I mean and it it's one of the things I say that jokingly but it is the the fact that you know you could blink and and miss you know two three weeks and of like critical time not not necessarily like oh you got to get out and you got to be able to harvest or shoot something but um every day in October man just enjoy I mean dude there's not much better than you know whether in the midwest or Northeast uh like that late September early October fall field that's my favorite time in late September is my favorite time the anticipation the build up just the soaking it in the knowing that I'm gonna what's ahead yeah I live for the anticipation it's tough to replace man so yeah we're you know here we are in July but it's it's definitely um in the crosshairs uh yeah coming fast well we're we're in the zone here we've been back and forth from Illinois looking looking at a property yeah looking at properties and uh running back and forth to some Firearms getting some stuff kind of uh yeah I mean just you know it's easy to kind of glaze over in the summertime because you know get these hot dry streaks and stuff but there's there's plenty of things to do and if you can start chipping away at it you feel a lot less Rush come August you know when The Season's kind of right on the horizon uh we did not draw anything out west this year because typically we'd be in full train gear for for like a North Dakota South Dakota bringing me down the other day you're like I just imagine a big mule standing out in that field I'm like that's because we were driving by we were literally driving by as they were cutting wheat yeah and we're like wheat Fields kind of a bummer yeah but uh like I said there's always another season that's right after this one so um we got a cool guest today uh so we've got Dr Matt ronella here with us um and I think um Matt has put out a lot of stuff over the last couple years um that's ruffled some feathers and if anybody knows us we tend to do that as well um but I think that uh what we're gonna have today and will be a really cool discussion is you know there are things that need to be talked about in our hunting space that people are afraid to just say you know and it's not to it isn't just to stir the pot and get everybody riled up um you know healthy things come from discussion and debate uh progress comes from discussion and debate um and so I think you know challenging some of the things that you know maybe we as a society as a Hunting Society have been told are hey you know this is just how it is or This Is The New Normal uh to question that stuff is not wrong um and so it'll be really interesting to see where we go into some of these different rabbit holes on on specific topics but um yeah I mean I if anything in a major Society of where we live today we should all be pretty aware that some of the things we're told are not true and we shouldn't just blindly accept them yeah a lot a lot of sheep a lot of sheep right and and the reality is like a lot of people are just willing to just in the general public you know it's a blindly follow I think in The Hunting Community I want to believe it's it's way less than in the general general population like right I I have to believe in the general population I'm gonna on certain things I'll stick by that statistic I would stick to it on the mainstream statistic but within the industry oh I don't know man yeah there's a lot of wool over people's eyes in this space well I'm you know I'm very much of the mindset and it's gotten me in some trouble like over my lifetime but it's like question everything right it's like don't don't just believe that because they say oh yeah crossbows are true oh it should be in this or yeah it's a lot it's in the law book well what do you mean who who decided that who is you know who's making these decisions for us is this the best thing and uh is the public having a say we we just talked about this obviously small small freaking thing but go clear back to the Yoder discussion of where um the Drone thing going into Banning for for Ohio and it's like nobody heard about this sure you know and I'm not saying right or wrong of having that but the fact that the people that are most affected had zero input or ability to put input in it's like we're you know why why is somebody else making oh there's there's the politics discussion and like undoubtedly it's kind of a mess you know I think uh they're even just amongst ourselves you know just the general consensus of how we feel about things and how people are treated how you know whatever yeah The Hunting Community is divided there's no hiding it I mean I I know people this is one of the things that I think is a big pet peeve of mine is you know um can't we all just get along yeah and and at some level yes because we're Hunters right that is the level we are human yeah we all have to get along we all have to find but inev inevitably there are going to be different things that are important to different people within that crowd um and if you start to force your type of hunting or your way of hunting on to me that's not mine it's like well no I'm not going to do that that's that's not why I do it or that's not what gets me excited about it um so I think it it's going to be interesting to see kind of how those discussions play out with Matt here um but even just some of the response from people listening to this because you know I think um when you get into these discussions it makes people uncomfortable uh historically not us but but historically it makes people uncomfortable and I'm a big fan of of being uncomfortable I love it uh that I think that's the only way that you progress in life is like you got to get out of the comfort zone you got to be uncomfortable and you gotta you gotta hear the opinion right like so if Matt has some ideas that are off the wall it's like I'm super curious to know as to why that is what motivates that thought like he's obviously very uh you know the last neighbor would imply that he's like got some connections and in the hunting like he's seen things that most of us have not sure you and I included and so I I'm anxious to learn and to hear where those opinions came from and uh you know have a discussion on them sounds good let's get mine on all right Matt we got you on man thanks gentlemen appreciate you coming in uh so you're in what Montana right now mm-hmm so still still early well somewhat early in the day out there finishing up uh the late afternoon stroke there that's what you said initially you're like can you do eight eight o'clock uh mountain time or whatever it was I was like oh boy yeah I guess it's six at six Jeremy gets to bed at 9 00 PM eastern time do we we want to do everything we can to be flexible I just like we did one this morning uh uh you know I've been here for 12 months and I haven't eaten it I was telling Jeremy before we started I was fasting since yesterday's um I should be sharp sharp sharp to listen to our conversation here so not yeah that's the way I operate too I usually eat once a day in the evening yeah I'm feeding yeah there you go yeah I I mean even be like now there's all this clinical evidence that indicates that there's health benefits to it but I just kind of figured out that that's like you say the alertness level is better for me if I do if I go like that yeah it makes sense yeah I mean to be honest some of it is like inadvertent on our side like we'll just get wrapped up in something and it's like what time is it oh two o'clock I'm not gonna eat now I might as well just wait it's literally what I did this morning I woke up and I was like I don't have like a meals prepared or I was like get some fasting today yeah I'm either gonna eat good throughout the day stuff I've prepared or I'm not going to eat well Matt um you know kind of pre-podcast there we talked about you know a few things that that we've been discussing and and obviously um you know one of one of the main reasons Jared and I started this um this podcast was really to just have discussions with people that share similar views uh people that share different views in us and similar passions being the main thing yeah and and even talking just in general about things that uh I feel at least for the last I don't know five or ten years have not been talked about in the industry and um you know one of the things that that we've spent a lot of time on here recently and it sounds like we may all have some some similar opinions on so we'll get a little deep into it is you know a lot of these states and stuff that we deal with and Jared and I focus on Whitetail States more than anything you know so Midwest and East um really have been uh just pounding what we've been terming as opportunity and and and part of that is is the mindset around you know providing that that providing more opportunity uh to people to hunt uh creates you know a better Hunter ecosystem essentially and and transparently you know I I personally and I think Jared chimes in with it too um don't necessarily think that that that is working the way that they think it's working um that the opportunity that whether it's extended Seasons or um more efficient weapons at at harvesting animals baiting baiting has has made things so easy in some cases that the competition uh you know Factor on public land has been just you know bombarded and there's other factors there too but just has been over the top to where the experience of the actual hunt cannot be good uh and personally we've experienced it to where it's not good on a lot of public fans in the midwest so interested in kind of your take on um something that we discuss on here a lot which is you know is opportunity um or is the the growth of opportunity you know a benefit to The Hunting Community yeah this is not something I'm used to talking about so it sounds like there's multiple components to it right I get I gather you what you're saying what you said was longer seasons was one thing yep yep more more efficient weapons better technology better put under the rubric of opportunity and then baiting you put it under the rubric of opportunity correct okay yeah so I I probably different opinions on all of those I mean I I don't have a I don't have a unified stance on all I think I'd have to take them all individually I'm not a big fan of baiting let's start with baiting because that's a that's a big factor and in fact um you know and I don't know how far it's gonna go but Kansas uh recently has put on the table well In fairness I I don't know that there are any states who have recently opened that up I think in most there are Mississippi was one is a new one that you you can uh you can hunt over bait this is crazy I went on a rant with off podcast or something you can hunt over bait if it's visible within a hundred yards no no no closer meaning I could gun hunt over bait but I couldn't bow hunt over bait okay well I mean in the states that are most familiar to us which Matt you'll find throughout the course of those Pockets we're from Pennsylvania by the way so we hunt in Ohio quite a bit uh Kentucky we make it as far out as Kansas and so we've hunted The Dakotas uh Southwest Dakota which is probably pretty close to you there um but primarily you know we're Northeast and Midwest to our intimate knowledge you know most of these states that we're talking about baiting is not a new thing I think in Ohio it's probably always been a thing I think Kansas has always been a thing it's when it's paired with uh because it is so deadly uh you know especially on the whitetails is what we're talking about one is paired with these other newer forms of technology cell cams straight wall cards card work uh straight wall cartridge right cartridge yeah how to say that what's that crossbows in the archery straight wall cartridge in in Ohio and some of these other states where it used to be shotgun basically shotgun Muzzleloader only you now can use a straight wall rifle cartridge which would be like a 450 Bushmaster the 350 Legends basically you're Now using a rifle uh that can shoot out to 200 yards with multiple rounds where before you were kind of limited to slugs shotguns single shot muzzle loaders oh okay and and I guess use this as like a premium example this is the situation that I lay out for people a lot it's like you you know I don't know how long it would have been 10 years ago let's say um a situation would have been you've got a bow hunter or you've got a slug hunter that you know may or may not be hunting over a corn pilot was legal at that time um and that's basically it you know they had maybe a trail camera and they would have to go and check that and that would give them evidence in today's day you know I can go out a few days before the gone season or even the archery season you know and I can use a crossbow during that I can dump my corn pile I can monitor it with a cell camera from a distance never go in there uh and then sit you know 60 to 100 yards away with either one of those two weapons uh and you know basically pick these pick these deer off like it's how would you not kill one basically is how I feel about it um and so those are the scenarios it's that opportunity of it's like there's kids getting exposed to that for the first time um you know there's people that that's basically what hunting is to them now you know maybe they did hunt how I originally said you know they were hunting terrain ridges natural you know food sources it's kind of been diluted because so much opportunity has been given so this is in the state of Ohio I'm sure it differs across the country um and it just it doesn't seem good it doesn't seem good like it's it's it's not what we wanted it's where I think the too much opportunity there's so many chances at this thing because of all of these different factors that um you know hunting's supposed to be a challenge right that doesn't seem very well it's multifaceted in that we personally don't want to hunt that way uh but it seems like you know you kind of have to you know to to compete like and that's a specific scenario but also I think we feel for the people who are hunting that way kids because that's what they're being exposed to first so they know I don't think that inspires a passion you know that would create a lifelong Hunter but also to just people that um you know are doing that it just doesn't seem like a it doesn't seem like a great experience yeah yeah I I don't I grew up hunting over a bait and in Michigan and if I move back to Michigan I wouldn't be it's not even it's not like an ethical thing it's just like it's kind of just feels cheesy yeah yeah it almost feels like cheating we've done it too we both killed deer ever bait yeah I can sit here and say we haven't yeah for sure yeah I don't yeah and then you know and like I never thought about you interface that with with more technology and that just gets even more silly you know yeah yeah I I I I uh I I I can't imagine I just can't imagine going back and sitting over bait with you know and then and then uh putting trail cams over my bait pile and stuff like I just I would rather take up a different hobby than and that's it right there Matt in that my feeling is you know I grew up uh running and gun in the hills of Pennsylvania you know through all different types of public land open private land you know permission land um like when I was successful I mean I worked my tail off and I think that that grind is why I'm so ate up with it still today um if if I place my own kids who are seven eleven um over top of corn with you know straight wall car like all of those scenarios was talking about they cannot they'll absolutely be successful or at least have a chance at being successful but are they really gonna love it like are they is it or is it gonna come so easy that they're like all right well we do this every year and dad puts a corn pile out and I shoot a big buck and there's nothing there's nothing special about it yeah instilled the passion in me that kind of hunting for whatever reason but it wasn't that easy like it where I grew up be only bow hunting over bait your bait pile was only effective for the first few days and after that your bait would disappear after it got dark but yeah but they weren't there they weren't there during the day after the first few days so but yeah I don't think it I mean when I look back on my hunting experiences has been the times I remember that that I'm captivated by the things that I'm captivated by the memories I have that I cherish most are are when I've been working hard working very hard and got and been successful yeah you know yeah and I think that's the kind of stuff that just um what we when we hear this opportunity and we're hearing it from um state agencies mainly like they're trying to create more opportunity again the extended Seasons the allowing the straight wall cartridges whatever it might be um bag limits uh it it it just seems like um you're creating you're creating a perfect storm here right or on private land right I can bait I can do all these things it becomes so easy that I don't know if people will stick with it on public land you're trying to shove we've used this too many times so I know but you're trying to shove 10 pounds of [ __ ] in a five pound bag right you're trying to shove all these Hunters into an area that is a finite resource and so the experience becomes I mean talk to any public land hunter in the midwest right now and they will tell you that they almost have to outspark Smart Hunters more than they have to outsmart the deer to be successful yeah okay so what part where you're saying that the Fish and Game management agencies are taking steps that are increasing crowding on public I think from an opportunity standpoint that they are they're they're trying to create more opportunities whether it's through um and we'll pick on crossbows just for a second because you know during archery Seasons right there were a finite number of archers in the woods you know from whatever October 1st to to gun season um the moment that that crossbows obviously became a legal archery method for the entire season for everybody not just disabled or kids or seniors you you enabled a giant amount of people into archery season that typically were not there uh I see so the number of people in the woods went up dramatically demonstrably when when they legalized crossbows maybe not overall uh like over the course of the entire season but certainly in in the archery season you have now you have people that might have at one point spent one or two days during the gun season now spending several weekends uh throughout the course of the archery season you know in the same Woods yeah yeah so the impact the net impact is good yeah so in as much as is what we're talking about are steps that draw more people into public land hunting yeah I don't I'm not into that I I oppose all of that I that's a huge part of why I became vocal of all the things I'm vocal about because I oppose I'm opposed to trying to get more people into hunting yeah and it sounds bad right from the outside I mean in you know Jared and I are not afraid to say it like there's plenty like you know you don't have anywhere to put them it's it's not that um it's not that you know I don't want new people to come necessarily into hunting but in the current situation there's nowhere for them to go well what is the reason now I mean why don't why don't you want more Hunters recruited because um because public lands are too crowded because draw odds of Tanked because uh everything's leased up lots and lots of land is leased up more than ever and is and and I think of those as the big three big problems facing hunting in America today crowding lack of access and and and and and inability to draw tags and so I think when I the people that I bring that are keen on growing The Hunting Community are by and large people that make money make more money when there's more Hunters so I I and I don't think that considerations of profit should weigh into [Music] uh decision making about how big the Hunting Community is I believe that there's lots of ways of being a filled human being thank God that's the case because if it wasn't if you had to be a hunter to be fulfilled then I guess 95 96 percent of Americans are unfulfilled right um and there's a lot so being that there's lots of other ways to be fulfilled why not draw people into those activities um because if soccer gets too crowded just build another soccer field yeah yeah if this yoga studio gets too crowded you expand it so I I think I can't imagine anything more ridiculous than I mean more more that that is more ignorant or or disregards the facts on the ground more than the decision by the non-profits in the hunting industry that we're gonna increase the number of honors yeah how can you look at what's going on and have that be your conclusion well what do you think of like I guess my knee-jerk or like it seems like the the thought would be or seems like uh people are afraid to be a like a minority you know even though we already are right if it's five percent of Americans I think when you ask most people you'd say well why why do you want more Hunters it'd be well strength of numbers like people it's a uh it's a it's a controversial activity you know wants to be taken away from us by uh large powerful people um the more of us that are on the same page the better and that argument sounds good right it's like oh that makes sense it almost seems like a double-edged short it's like well I want more hunters from that sense and I also want Innovation and products and all that but um we're also experiencing I think the negatives that that you've experienced on on public land especially well in the same people that make those arguments you know we need to protect our rights and all that and that's why we need to grow The Hunting Community are engaged in all kinds of activities that the American people are not on board with mm-hmm like trophy hunting yeah okay you know the if you look at the NSS F report that was came out in 2019 on American attitude towards hunting you know uh like Americans are are not on board with trophy hunting so Americans aren't on board with um people that shoot big bucks and then show everybody that's willing to look on social media they're not down with that that's so you can't tell me that you're concerned about growing the community Hunting Community to protect our rights on one hand and be gloating over trophy animals to the whole world on social media like yeah it just doesn't doesn't make sense it's it's incongruous hmm yeah I think there's a there's an interesting link there between the people who um and I don't even know if I want to say that it was blown out of proportion but I mean it seems like for the last I don't know 10 years it has been beat into our head that we are a Dying Breed that that Hunters are a Dying Breed like just beat into our heads yet you know I know covet had a big play on this thing too but um in the last three years I feel like I've seen more Hunters than I've seen since I was a kid you know 30 years ago um yeah everywhere from The Wall Street Journal to NPR to outdoor life had several articles all a lot of that was precipitated by this 2016 fish and wildlife support that showed a decline in Hunter numbers um it wasn't even a statistically significant decline they never nobody ever mentioned that I had to look into the back of the several hundred page report in the appendices to see that that could have just been due to sampling error that the detected this decline so that's what precipitated all these articles like between 2016 and 2018 is this decline that could have been a statistical artifact I think the reason you don't hear about it as much now could be because I wrote an article on meat eater yeah for meat eater about how uh expressing my concerns about Hunter recruitment uh Andrew McKean or life wrote an article a couple years ago we have no idea how many Hunters there are then there was an increase in hunting numbers yeah that's pretty demonstrable as a consequence of covid so maybe that's what why you don't hear as much about it but at the end of the day it's just it's it's like it's not even worth discussing to me well the number of hunters in a vacuum is just meaningless yeah yeah and I mean that it it ignores what's happened to Habitat yes you know we've lost like six to eight percent of habitat in the last 30 years it ignores what's happened to Rich people gobbling up all the land for themselves you know it's it it's the the proper metric is something like Hunters per hunnable acre and even that isn't quite right it should be like Hunters game animals accessible per 200 per Hunter yeah accessible game animals per hunter or something like that and it'd be shockingly low it'd be shockingly low for many people and be incredibly insanely high for small numbers of people just kind of like in it like in you know income inequality yeah it is yeah I think the um the the thing that caught me off guard was the the covid kick into Hunter numbers right we in you know like you said just a giant number of people coming into it um how celebrated it was and at the same time we we were in Southern Illinois hunting public land it was the most miserable hunting experience I I think I might have ever had we've been so good you got to look at who's doing the celebrating yeah the people that are doing the celebrating are the only that you hear celebrating are the only ones that have a voice and the only ones that have a voice are people that make money off Hunting that's the problem with the whole thing and that includes State agents all the people that weren't celebrating didn't have any way of telling people that they weren't feeling celebratory yeah you know I want to say my guess would be is a lot of people were conflicted like like Jeremy and I it's more of a state of confusion around where like you know for the reason I mentioned earlier it's like boy it seems like it would make sense if there's more Hunters like we can stand up to the Anaheim or that we need them because they've been dropping in numbers per the reports that we've been right I know exactly and so I think you know that state of confusion or complexion we thought as well like we've said on this podcast we're like and it's always been more on the the questioning side of it's like well I mean it's good I guess that there's more Hunters but like boy like at what cost like it really seems like you know and I think we've been really vocal about like our negative experiences on public land in the midst of this whole public land craze that's been going on for you know five years now and it's just like man I wish that it was great but it's like it doesn't seem great to us like it's and so we're just like we don't know what to make and then it makes us sound like [ __ ] right because we're saying oh you know it's just we're selfish you know we don't want to share it's not that it's that you know we escape to hunt for the experience right and when the experience is yeah I really went I I I I really went when with this the selfish thing it's on behalf of people that have been hunting for 20 minutes yeah it's on behalf of people that have been hunting for 20 years yeah that I say quit bringing more people into hunting so that you can make money yeah yeah somebody has to look out for the existing Hunting Community I don't understand like that selfishness thing I I just it drives me crazy yeah and then the people then you look at the people that are the lauded Heroes in honey they're not when you say this when you say the selfish people what's that when you say the selfishness Matt you're talking about people who profit from bringing people into hunting well no I'm saying I I would the when the selfishness thing I would say when people accuse me of being selfish oh yeah because you're saying you don't like oh yeah grow The Hunting Community like I first of all I'm drawing all kinds of controversy to myself I'm spending 15 hours a week on something that's pain not paying me a dime to do what's right by the existing Hunting Community whether it's somebody's been hunting for 20 minutes or 20 years it's on it's for those people that I say we don't need more money we don't need more Hunters so that you could you know so that you can make more money yeah and then then what I was going to say is that you look at the the the the the the the the people that are like the most lauded in The Hunting Community and I don't see how they aren't getting called Selfish on a daily basis mm-hmm when you look at all the land they gobble up for themselves and the dozens of big game animals they kill yeah and they don't get called Selfish yeah well and me that wants to look out for the existing Hunting Community I'm selfish because I think we don't need any more Hunters to bring in more Hunters so you can make more money I don't know I mean it would seem like it drives me and again there's obviously there's three R's in this thing but it would seem like in your case Matt you're saying like we need to take care or quote retain the existing base right because if you continue to bring in new ones your existing base eventually is going to say screw this right this is this is not what I signed up for yeah I've said it so many times but I I feel uncomfortable saying it again but yeah I just I don't I don't think that our three you can't be R3 you just can't the the recruitment retention reactivation they're internally inconsistent you're you're either Pearl retention or R1 yeah or your pro Recruitment and reactivation R2 I just happen to be R1 well yeah and I mean I would also say that I'm R1 and I would think that if you you know again I'm making assumptions here because it's my own opinion but I would feel like if you would take care of the existing Hunters AKA retain them the the trickle effect to other Generations I.E my kids right it's still gonna happen so there is still natural recruitment happening to the generations that are connected to the retention people that's how we all grew up that's how we all got here we all got here because somebody who hunted trickled it down onto us it's not that some Outside Agency through a curveball at us and said or I should say not all of us there's there's a very small minority that ended up getting picked out from a family that was not didn't have an uncle dad grandpap you know cousin nephew whatever that hunted um that organic side and I think that organic side is so much deeper to the actual retention of being in hunting for long term well then the phase type stuff that we see from recruitment take it a step further too those people that brought us into hunting uh you know it's not like they were you know they were having good experiences right like they wouldn't have brought us in if it wasn't for that no you know it's like it's not like hey come out to public land where I run into five guys every time it's great yeah you're really we never see a deer it's cool yeah they were having great experiences and it's like it was it was uh it was contagious like that's where the passion came from that's where that's where the hunting camp Community was born in that camaraderie aspect of that's what Drew us into it yes to to this recruitment side which no offense but if you bring in somebody who has no connection to Hunter who says hey I'm going to try this the odds of them sticking with this in today's society especially has got to be less than 10 percent yeah let's have Deep Pockets yeah exactly yeah exactly like go take a new per we did it Corey our sound guy we talked to you pre-podcast right Cory's Corey hunts with Jared but I wouldn't say Corey's like a dedicated Hunter right he's a new Hunter we go out to Southern Illinois and we say hey Corey we set the stand up we did all stuff hey just walking in the morning public land he ran into uh well 100 yards in he had a guy f-bombing the heck out of him because he was walking by it was an hour before dark but because he was set up there and Corey was gonna walk by him and this is a new Hunter who to him was like this like do I really want to do this the answer's no they want to do that I don't know man it's uh it's a deep it's a deep rooted thing that um and and I don't say this to put anyone down from a new hunting situation it's just um we talk a lot about it's hard for you to relate to uh maybe even the three of us that are just we we've grown up around it um we I mean we're just rooted in hunting we're it's just it's just part of us when something new comes in in a phase it it can't attach to hunting uh quickly it takes time it takes dedication and I don't know if in today's you know Society there's enough attention span for a new person to stick like that if you look at what's happened to draw ads it sure seems oh like they're sticking well you know in Kansas at least not again to beat up the opportunity bus but uh it was fairly easy to draw a Kansas archery until they legalize crossbows oh yeah that's that's definitely what did it now now it's double the amount of applications every year okay but uh so Jeremy you're you're speculating that we maybe we don't need to worry about recruitment efforts or what I think is has a much much bigger than agency or non-professional recruitment effort is Media yeah we don't need to worry about media and recruitment efforts bringing more people in because they don't have the attention span to stick with it and but if that's sold then why are like draw odds tanking in throughout the country why are things going from over the counter to draw in so many areas why are bag limits being reduced why is it now that you can't go to Canada and Hunt docs unless you draw a tag when you could go and even when you draw the tag you can only stay for seven deer days whereas two years ago you could have stayed there all season if people don't have this stick-to-itiveness then why why is all that happening they must have stick to it well I think it's because people are more deadly than everybody I agree that's my that would be my summary necessarily directly tied to to number of hunters as much as it is efficiency efficiency of killing so you know and and this probably ties into a bigger you know uh to your lease land discussion like in Canada uh I would assume there's a ton of Outfitters taking a lot of what was high quality waterfowl habitat open to the public so there's just less places for people to hunt so you have to give them draws or again you're stacking all these people in a place where they can't fit um that's a loss of action all of this reduced all this reduced opportunity and now you know I use that word a little differently than you what I'm talking about is is when I say opportunity I'm talking about ability to get a tag yeah I think that's all because of increased interest very possible man I don't think that I don't think that like if you look at what's happened to draw odds for antelope elk and mule deer in four West four Western States of Wyoming Colorado Montana and Idaho between 2016 and present it used to be one and two averaged over all those units in in the three species you have 50 chance of drawing and now it's one in four wow between so that's between 2016 and 2000 and 22 and the number of tags that were being issued didn't decline over that period just more noticeable way which if it was a matter of people being more deadly they would just be issuing a lot fewer tags it was more it was more applicants and and if you also if you graph the number of Google searches for hunting shows like Fresh Tracks meat eater hussion and a couple others I can't remember against on that same access the the those two lines mirror each other extremely closely sure so let me ask you this Matt that's absolutely true I mean dude look at just public landing and the hunting public I mean that's the same thing out here so you know I grew up hunting mainly in the late 90s early 2000s that was kind of my childhood in the high school time frame you know I would say back then there was a stat thrown around but I don't know what it was 90 95 of hunters never left their state that they were residing in to hunt anywhere I would assume that with the Advent of media and the awareness like dude when I grew up in high school the only time I knew that there were big bucks being killed is when I turned on TNN or whatever it was right I mean or I I got a deer and Deer Hunting magazine I had no idea that people killed 200 inch deer in Illinois like it just it didn't exist in my brain right all I knew was Pennsylvania because that's where I was with the Advent of all this media I think it's opened up an entire world and I don't know if it's necessarily a good world to and Jared and I are guilty of it's like well dude we want to go to Kansas there's giant bucks in Kansas and it seems pretty easy to kill them like let's go to Kansas so we get in the car and we drive to Kansas and We Know by the tip of our fingers we can figure out how to do it right 20 years ago 25 years ago I I mean I don't even know where I would even started it's not a Kansas Department of Wildlife you did that it was in my Pennsylvania yellow book you know there was yeah media media could media did that and we could argue about whether or not that's a good thing media provided information about species of game that were that weren't being were that weren't being over exploited that people could go and pursue but and that's one reason I believe why it draw odds of tank but there's the media did another thing too okay media media okay so there's one reason why people travel more yeah is because they're more they're more aware of hunting opportunity elsewhere the other reason is because there's less and less opportunity in the state where they live yeah and media caused that media caused that media made a market for hunting land and then rich people bought it up and my proof of that is Media itself they admit it you guys just had I saw you guys just had Whitetail properties on your podcast here's an example they have what they they have a TV show where they show you attractive hunting footage and then they try to sell you the land um there's also the hunting land man another Channel so it's explicit hunting content reduces access [Music] and that is why people have to travel more to find a place to hunt because fellow Hunters that work in media have screwed them so you think on that side Matt the the awareness that's being created by that Media stuff is basically putting uh I don't know a sense of urgency into people to say oh you know I gotta buy this or somebody else is going to do it and that's what's choking it out yeah the emphasis is in completely the wrong place from my perspective what I care about is traditional hunting that has defined the traditional hunting like the forms of honey that defined hunting the Traditions that have defined hunting in America till recently publicly accessible non-pay hunting are you against land ownership no and I'm not a post land ownership um but uh that's that's what that's what's been good to me that's the American way that's the way it's always been sure but now that's we're we've decided to throw that away the hunting industry has has decided to throw that away hunting media has decided to throw that away the leasing thing is and move towards a private privatization of wildlife so like I I Sitka is in collaboration with uh with Whitetail properties mossy oak buys and sells land Realtree buys up lands and and subdivides them and sells them yeah they're the hunting industry instead of working on access for everybody they have decided that they want to go to small numbers of rich people is is the money we give them for products you know they take the the the money we give them for products and make it so we have fewer places to use those products that's what they do so the reason there's fewer acres in in a lot of states and people have to try to travel draw tag and draw travel elsewhere is because the hunting industry didn't fulfill its fiduciary responsibilities so there's Sportsmen there's two things they just tried to privatize it all right Matt because I mean it's not like we haven't lost public lands though right I mean the pub the amount of public land in Pennsylvania I would assume is the same that it was 25 years ago so I would assume it's more we've had we had to have gained Hunters if the issues are more enhanced in Pennsylvania it's definitely more public land than there was and what I I guess it's the loss of it's comically overcrowded yeah and that's because back in the day it used to be that several people hunted on Farmer Jones's land sure yep and now it's one guy leases out farmer Jones land and he hunts on that and then but he also leases out farmer Smith and farmer Hoppers and farmer keiths and and that's his buffer land and nobody hunts that so the leasing side of things I get like you know land ownership that's only one piece of it too though we were just talking the other day like I think liability is as big of a deterrent for people to let other folks on their land in today's society in today's society as Leasing uh I don't I don't think so like if you don't have a light you don't in Montana you know if you're in the block Management program you don't have a lot there's no liability issues at all zero and still block management are program that allows public hunting on private lands is shrinking due to leasing so the leasing aspect that and and our do you think that it's as much individuals leasing as it is Outfitters leasing for business yeah both well but I mean these days it's more private individuals but so Matt you're blaming the hunting industry for for that scenario basically I mean yeah like showing showing people dead and dying animals on TV and social media that's what you know that's ad that's promoted the the the implicitly admit it themselves the hunting land man and and Whitetail properties they admit it themselves that that leads to privatization of wildlife it takes working lands and creates a market for them so a place that you used to be able to bang on the door or farmer Smith let five people hunt now we show you hunting content on the TV you get excited you got lots of money you buy it you kick everybody else off and now it's just yours so you know there were choices the the hunting industry could have cultivated an atmosphere of sharing they could have worked on access they could they could have had the idea that I'm now pursuing where you show appreciation do work projects and buy appreciation gifts for farmers and Ranchers that allow public hunting through Sportsman funded programs but um nope we're going to commodify it well that seems like where it's lacking now is because like while we see that as well as people who are fired up by a good hunting experience you know who who consumed that like Jeremy and I are uh you know I'm not necessarily aware of another way it's like man if we want to have the best experience possible we have to buy land and it's yeah yeah yeah and then we could talk about that go go ahead I got I got some things to say about that but go ahead no I guess I'm just explaining like our mindset like we are maybe a victim or like we're in that environment somehow where it's like man we consume that stuff like uh we're excited by it we want the best experience possible we've hunted public land we didn't like it we've been kicked off we want to isolate ourselves from the public environment that exists what other way is there to do that than to purchase public land other than in some private land right private land forgive me um other than some of those programs which we think a lot of like in North Dakota the plots plan and I know that that exists probably like in the state of Montana and stuff and and that seems like an area that's lacking severely in today's environment uh is for Jeremy's original argument access yeah I yeah I just I would I don't think of it I don't think okay so Elise I'm very clear that I just don't have any interest in leasing hunting land I mean it just it turns it into Disneyland hunting oh what's the difference between uh a person leasing a piece of Farmer Joe's ground for hunting and him versus buying it well no him leasing it to this farmer to make money on it to raise crops and make money just him what's the difference between leasing up a bunch of land sitting there and shooting a deer and going by in a steer the recreational aspect all of it the whole hunting is it I guess for me hunting is what makes it worthwhile is working hard and having it be an equal playing field and um and and not bringing my billfold into it it just goes against the whole point to me yeah I'm gonna bring my bill it's like it's always been a thing for me since I was a little kid of using my wits and equal playing field with everybody else to secure dinner for myself or a set of horns for the wall once you bring your billfold into it just it loses loses I lose the point especially when it's like you're like you are paying to have this all to yourself I mean it's just yeah it's just kind of I don't know it's tacky what do you do though I mean the reality is even without the hunting industry people own land that inherently have more opportunity than than others like what you know how do you want to do that oh how do you undo people buying land for themselves to hunt with sure there's ways you could descent disincentivize it it could become I mean wouldn't it be nice if the hunting industry wasn't causing it that would be nice well so what are the ways what here's another thing we could do as a community We could decide to dispense with hunting social media because I mean that's a huge dryer I'm not a good driver of this I got to get a bigger Lane I got to get a bigger I gotta lease a bigger Farm because my buddy Bob got a bigger deer than me and I got to make sure that that don't have and put it on his Facebook and I gotta I can't have that again so that comes back to my awareness hunting into a popularity contest which jacks up the value of hunting land I mean if another thing we could do if we wanted to turn back the clock on this is do away with hunting television as a community these these are some of the steps we could do doesn't it seem like it would be a shame though Matt like I mean I I personally enjoyed that stuff like it's you know yes long term it's motivated me to want to increase my access my opportunity but my entire hunting career I've just I've really enjoyed it it's it's something that I I like just because you love hunting and so in the off season when you can't hunt you want to watch hunting yeah I just enjoy I just enjoy it yeah but I I yeah I mean I I there's a lot of things I enjoy that aren't good for me like I used to like smoking cigs I'd like to have that third whiskey um I'd probably you know I'd like to watch more porn um but yeah I said that's not good for you it's it's clearly the case yeah and clearly the case I mean the hunting industry's own actions demonstrate that hunting television and hunting social media reduce access and increase the cost of access I'm into this for The Haunting I'm not into it for the hunting entertainment I'm not into it for the haunting culture I'm gonna do it for the haunting so why in the world am I going to do something engage in some activity get lend my eyeballs to an Enterprise that is reducing access for me it has been since the 80s it is a very interesting person I must admit like I'm because we are experiencing that as well like we would love to go hunt Iowa we would love that a lot of that's probably driven by the hunting industry to begin with but it's also the reason that yeah and this is your case in point it's taking six years to draw to go do it yeah I don't know how I feel about that yeah yeah I mean there's a it kind of goes back to the you know the the suffering or the the the grind and anticipation build is going to make it that much we've come to embrace that but you right there sound like the guy who's like I love a bunch of guys on public land that is the challenge yeah it's kind of the same argument I hate with the passion I know yeah I also hate that we don't get to go hunt you know these places that we want to hunt yeah honestly we've met we've never really thought about it if you if you rewind social media and you rewind TV to to not be media like it is today you go back to the late late 90s you know or mid 90s where dude I didn't even I didn't even think about hunting Iowa it wasn't even I didn't even know why would I like what it was it was completely foreign to me that why I would even go there dude do that here's the thing though like because we we recently only have like I guess assessed this for ourselves you know like a public land sucks why a lot of people like well a lot of people have public land because the hunting public promoted it I'm like well I can't blame the hunting public for promoting management agencies hiring him to do it just so that they can like be like hey look at me aren't I cool you know well but instead of being mad at the house there's probably people they show up at places and on them that other people have been hunting for decades and then those yabbats show up with a camera and publicize the [ __ ] out of it I just how is that not unethical well my see my anger would be more directed at the lack of access itself it's like okay people are interested in hunting great there's very limited places to hunt per the interest that exists I think my my frustration would be towards uh you know the the framework of the seasons that exist like the technologies that we talked about originally okay make it make it harder you know get more places done okay but why why don't you think that the what the hunting public does you think why do you think I'm trying to figure out why you think that that's a good thing it just doesn't seem inherently unethical to promote something that you love to other people the hunter podcast is brought to you by Hoyt Archery dude where would we be without our Hoyt Buzz probably shooting crossbows or a Matthews here one in the same but in all seriousness we love being Hoyt guys because you stand out when you're in this room full of other people that shoot these other types of bows I feel like the Hoyt guys just stick out dude it's just a legit bow I mean especially that carbon Riser man I mean I know that they've got several other aluminum lines as well but for me I'm shooting that rx5 in the carbon model they've since come out with RX7 and uh I can't tell you how much I love being a white guy amongst a C4 of Matthew's guys so we're out there I think proving them wrong shooting 80 pounds and uh you know killing stuff hey man if you want to get serious get Hoyt all right there's it's we pretty widely agree as a community that if you take somebody to a place and then they then go back to that place without you that that's a No-No kind of like an unspoken role foreign and it's even more of an of a No-No if you bring someone else to that place like that's heretical like in as near as I can tell universally so in The Hunting Community I agree but if you bring a camera and show the whole world a place that a bunch of well-intentioned quiet Hunters that are doing it for all the right reasons have been hunting for decades you're lauded then as a hero I could see that perspective yeah and I mean and so that's why I think that people like I don't these gangs these gangs drive me nuts the hunting public the Russian guy like I just don't like it's that and then you know I don't I shouldn't I'm talking about too many topics I just he even sang the names of these little gangs you know um but then I just don't understand how they get to be construed as a Force for good uh I think it's because a lot of people in at least in the hunting public side a lot of people watch those guys and say they're just like me well they're related I think there's a lot of people that don't watch those guys that don't even know of their existence that have had their hunting severely and negatively impacted by them without even realizing what happened what now I can only get one turkey tag why is that you know hmm or now my favorite Wildlife Management agency or uh Wildlife Management Area is a draw what yeah they don't realize that's because the hunting public were there and filmed a show about it yeah and I guess that would be more of a promotion of a location that is driving that then of the hunting itself you would agree right and I I mean so there's that's one in the same way in the same okay so there's three tiers there's you you take your buddy to a place someone else showed you his secret spot yep then the next tier is what we just described with people going places with cameras yep and then there's people that and then there's keeping the location completely secret but publicizing the heck out of hunting and trying to get more people into it and my hmm opinion all three of those are equally equally harmful to the existing Hunting Community that does it for Hyde horns meat and personal satisfaction I don't I don't I don't see where those are logically or ethically any different give us a three again just so I can get it in my brain one that everybody dislikes is you take your buddy to a spot that somebody else showed you okay yeah that's an unspoken everybody agree but I don't see the difference between that and the hunting public going and filming in some State and talking about how epic the turkey hunting is in Missouri in the same way is I don't see a difference between those two things I don't see a difference between those two things and somebody filming hunting or going on Joe Rogan's podcast and talking about how cool hunting is that that's just another way of destroying hunting negatively impacting hunting for the existing awning Community I am still trying to Proud people out in in a sense the people with the camera and the people who go on Rogan or like do Hunter they're almost they're worse because when you when you do the thing that we all agree is bad which is take your buddy to a spot that somebody else showed you at least you're not making money off of it with the other ones you're screwing people so that you can make money um yeah I think that that fine line um and this man I don't know if it's misinformation or or what so let's take uh let's take the hunting public for instance if they are are they effectively let's say they're effectively hired by a state agency to promote public lands in the state because the state agency says we want more people to hunt those public lands who's at fault there hunting public or the state agency well I they're doing it whether they're getting paid by the state agency or not so the more the more clear-cut cases are where they're not do you think they're doing it intentionally to make more money yeah the hunting public but do you think that they have another um they're filming in places they're State dropping and they're doing that to make money they make all kinds of money I mean sure but they would also say that they don't have any public private places to hunt so what is that German that they don't have private places to hunt they only hunt public because that's the only place they cannot right which makes it even worse um some little national forest or some little Wildlife Management Area not because of mine money because they're trying to get money and famous get make money and get famous like the hunting public people are but you do understand what we're doing it they're doing it because they actually like to hunt it's enough they like hunting enough to do it without a camera behind them and here comes these guys that probably the only reason they're interested in the first place is because of the money and the fame and like because if that wasn't why would you have a guy why would you have a guy with a camera behind you I think those guys genuinely love the challenge of public land and I think that's why people love the hunting public because they're like these guys are ate up with it like me and to Jared's point we can enjoy seeing that third hand I don't think that they do it for the money in Fame I do think they do it to be unique right because if they just went out and hunted private land and filmed it just like everybody else then what's unique about them nothing right they're just another hunting show uh if they're if they're if they're not hunting for money and fame then why do they have a camera with them I think they like to share their Journeys and we're not necessarily defending I'm we don't no I'm just I'm just trying to put myself in a per there's I don't I don't I don't I'm not there why does that my view of human nature is is yeah well there are there are plenty we're just trying to show the love and the no and what we do no there are plenty of making money that make money and and I've heard it firsthand so I got into this industry when I was 22 years old one of one of the guys I idolized growing up watching him on TNN and these things I overheard at an industry show say yeah I'm not a hunter I'm an Entertainer and it it it almost as a 22 year old guy broke my heart to hear that from somebody I thought loved hunting as much as I did right so there are absolutely people that use hunting as an entertainment way to make money but I still think that there's a fair amount of people I mean yes Jared and I transparently make money on this podcast but we don't do it to make I don't need to make a dime on this thing I I love deer hunting and I love hunting in general and I love talking about hunting does that make me a guy that's thriving off of the monetization of of hunting yeah I'd rather I think we should pivot back to the negative impact they have on other people okay that have been hunting locations because I agree with we stick on this topic all we're going to do is speculate on people sure sure you know and and that that's that those are hard things to adjudicate but it's quite it's hard to tease apart in my mind I think it's quite clear that there are many many people that hunt very that their hunting is a very spiritual yes I would arrive it thing that they relish very much that they do in their local community that have been severely negatively impacted by people like The Haunting public and I think that that's a bad thing yeah I think their intention is all we disagree on I I don't and it's really hard to tease apart because it's like if somebody has a you know if if they are are producing something like that you know and it's and it's relatable and there's all these things it's like inherently that comes with some form of income at some point like it's you know there is nobody that is has a large following in any space you know let alone the hunting space that isn't making some money from that so it's really hard to say well if it wasn't for that would they still be doing it yeah that's what I said like I don't know yeah I I it was my fault that we got on to this no no it's okay it's a good discussion to have I think I mean so when I and it was it's just dumb looking back when I was in high school right so in 99 2000 I filmed every one of my hunts so that I could watch them I didn't make a dime they're not on YouTube right although they'd be hilarious to watch now dude to your point the number of people that film their hunts that don't get paid for it is I big it's big there's a lot of people that that do that for fun I mean mainly so that I could I'm not a lot of them yeah I just like to re like there's there's so much in your mind that you could see but I like to relive that hunt yeah because it was it was special to me to a point it was kind of spiritual to me so that I want to enjoy those moments again like I watched some the other day obviously I don't have any problem with that it's not it's there's it's a it's not damaging other people sure no not at all it's when you start to show other it's when you start to show as many people as you want to look at it that then it becomes damaging is it the media platforms that are the the main issue there though what media what do you mean like Facebook Instagram Tick Tock except I mean they're the platform that's throwing it out there they're the ones who have sucked this audience in with eyeballs or we've pointed at three different people you know it's the people that are producing the content that's the platform that it's on they all probably hold blame to a point well yeah I don't want to get into censorship I I don't I wouldn't I wouldn't feel comfortable calling up Mark Zuckerberg who's the worst thing that's ever happened to hunting in my mind and saying will you please dis de-platform people that put dead and dying Wildlife on yeah I'm not saying from a censorship I would rather have this be something that we worked on as a community together I'm looking at it more from the fact that Facebook just exists period like without if Facebook didn't exist or Tick-Tock or this wouldn't be an issue right there would be more man if if we're if we're going to run counter factuals and I think and I enjoy doing that yeah I'm glad you they want to do that let's run this counter factual not only did Mark Zuckerberg not come along but the idea of of filming hunting and putting it on television head number never come along sure I believe that hunting in America would be more widely accessible to people that wanted to do it it'd be more economically um feasible for people that wanted to do it [Music] dramatically so than it is now and alls we do is thank the people that made it the way it is yeah do you think that those early you know and I'm thinking back to like uh like Barry and Gene Wenzel I can see that but right for what it's worth I can see that like if I think back to Barry and Gene went to like uh do you think those guys had capitalism in mind when they were making those videos you know in the 80s and 90s I started before I don't know these guys so they're like two brothers they grew up in Pennsylvania moved to Iowa killed giant boss for a long time killed giant bucks with with long bows uh and filmed it and some of the original like outdoor content creators in the form of books and videos educational videos of how to find and pattern big bucks and stuff and monetized it of course they made money on it yeah I just the hard the hard part there is like do you did you do it with the intent of I'm going to capitalize on this or did you do it with the intent of I love this so much I want to share it with people and of course the question would be well you could have did it for free but you didn't yeah I don't know I don't know in things things that are not negative that don't don't have an appreciable negative effect at one point in time that's true then later have a a negative effect then the effect of hunting media has become negative it's not at some point it became negative yeah um yeah I would agree with that people that that that like high quality publicly accessible non-pay hunting so I let's say let's say that that uh people weren't strong that a huge okay the reality is in my mind a huge portion of hunters in America are struggling to have a quality experience that they can afford I agree I would agree so um if that wasn't the case then I wouldn't give a [ __ ] what people did mm-hmm yeah you could put up your deer with your #and your freaking real tree blah blah blah and all that and I wouldn't I I don't care I think it's tacky to use dead stuff to sell products but I'm not gonna wouldn't it's like I'd be like that's well it's not something that appeals to me but whatever teach their own it's only because it's negatively impacted so many people that is worth talking about in my mind do you not think Matt that it would have gotten her eventually anyways like all on its own it's like it's hard to imagine yeah it's like I agree that the TV it was all centralized at one point it's okay let's film this let's put it on TV but like within the past whatever 15 years it's you know the world is so connected anyways a text message via any means of like communicating it's like Words gonna get out about these opportunities and you know it's always been the case that you can you can purchase the lands where that happens if it is private land it just seems like kind of an inevitable scenario so you're saying in a d for things to be different now we'd have to not only get rid of have go back in time and have got not done the hunting TV but we'd all end the social media but also not done texting yeah I mean anything any means of communication that's gonna Like Glue people into the fact that there's opportunity that exists outside of you know where they're currently hunting I don't know it's not just the in that clueing people in is low down on my my list of things that are have been negative let's let's hit let's hit the leasing or my I mean what I think is more negative is is has been you uh the the negative effects of hunting media from an advertising standpoint like in provoking people to do things using interactive hunting content to provoke people to do things the otherwise wouldn't have done like so yeah the spot burning thing that's yeah that's bad too but the man get into this be a badass Hunter like me um put all your stuff on social media and be the next Big Time Mighty Hunter guy that mode of operating and then you get your own show and all your own products for free and that's what's gotten us where we are in my mind yeah I I agree with that it's it's like it's more than the giving location information it's just bastard media has bastardized our motivations for haunting mm-hmm what do you think Jeremy I mean there's so many analogies I look at though like like I could say the same thing about you know baseball like baseball growing up is not anything like baseball is today like I grew up I played Legion ball I played local ball like um you know I didn't know who who used what bats or who use what gloves like it just you know got whatever was that the local sporting good shop um to today where you know parents pay thousands of dollars to have their kids on traveling teams so that they have better training better chances you know and their kids like I grew up poor like there's no way in hell my parents would have been able to afford that so you know in today's society I would be at a massive disadvantage no matter what my skill level was just because I'm going to use the word opportunity was taken away from me because of these paid boundaries to it so I just you know I agree I think it's happening in hunting I think it's happening it's in all types of society right now you're saying the promotion of something inherently creates a paywall a barrier to entry absolutely and I think that is true with the hunting industry obviously I think it's true with almost everything in today's I would agree it's it's just how it and I mean where the fine line is and and I'm very Pro so I don't want to step over it is is around capitalism you know so take leases for example if if uh if somebody inherits a piece of Farmland right and and Lisa's the the crops out and then they're like oh you know I don't know what to do with this and somebody says hey well I'll give you an extra five thousand dollars to leases for hunting why not like that's the reason I think that's more relatable I think that's more closely tied to the hunting conversation because of the limited resource aspect like Matt said early on you can keep building soccer fields you can keep building baseball anybody can do that uh well my analogy there was the the sorting out of the the different levels of you know in that case income because even if the kid at the lowest level of income was amazing at it his parents can't afford to put him in the multi-thousand dollar travel League to where he's going to get more coaches attention more eyeballs More Everything sure he just won't and that's just reality I mean that's your life isn't fair type of a statement so what's the difference between that and the guy with a sub pump public land versus the guy who buys land well I think what Matt's advocating not to put words in Matt's mouth but it's like the the promo the over promotion that is of hunting that is uh financially fueled by the individuals who are doing it is what's taking away opportunity from all the people that are could experience it to its fullest potential and I'm I'm right it's basically I'm on board with that yeah yeah that that's I get it that's correct and and I too but you know there's some things I struggle with with the capitalism thing yeah that's where my biggest is yeah so okay I I believe in private property ownership yeah just like most people the vast majority of Americans do but we have made a choice there's two right there's two counterbalanced rights there's the right to access publicly uh owned Wildlife Resources and there's the right that's codified in the North American model and a bunch of other statutes um the game is owned by the state yep the the the while the waterfowl or internationally owned uh and then there's the right of the land owner to exclude we've decided that one of those rights supersedes the other and that's fine but I don't think that if you I don't think if you let's say you were somebody that thinks I think that the right to access our fish and wildlife should super supersede the right of the landowner to exclude I don't think that that makes you then not a capitalist hmm yeah I mean because I think we would agree it's a shared resource right the wildlife I think yeah there's one thing I think about and then the other one in this domain that I think about is these farms and ranches take a tremendous amount of public money okay how so well between 10 and 50 10 and 50 Farms farms and ranches what are you referring to like just private this is a national average farmland and Ranch Land so which is where a lot of the game animals are in the country right or these are like the sorts of places that that I'm trying to restore a little bit of access through through our hunters for Access nonprofit the these these places these uh between 10 and 50 of their income comes from the taxpayer and I I think that that's something that should be considered when we're talking about Public Access to publicly owned wildlife is that certainly I'm not talking about passing any laws yeah what certainly doesn't seem like the it sure certainly does think that it seemed like the onus should be on the politicians and the hunting industry to trying to get people access to those places in some way shape or form so like CRP and slowly through a preferably through a carrot more than a stick but so like CRP being one of those well there's no there's no there's no access requirement with CR right but I'm saying from a public dollar standpoint going to a private landowner oh oh or CRP e-cip program Direct subsidies yep um okay yeah I I've completely so I think we're all in agreeance let's go on the farthest end of things private landowner puts a high tensile fence around his property that is the privatization at the extreme of of wildlife right we're all in agreeance of that high fence is the whole property encapsulates everything that's inside yep that's nobody in nobody out no gaming no game out that's that's the thing because like I there's some cases I could see where it's be worse to just have a Haven where everything goes really I think that's the worst well you look at look at look at Montana okay so Montana there are many many places here where if you're elk hunting the first few days those elk will be on public and then they'll all be down on you'll be able to watch them in some of our valleys 500 elk out there on this branch that you can just watch from the mountains now if that was all high wire fence they couldn't go in there right so I don't know well when you're cutting off the wildlife to what they want well I was going to say it doesn't seem right well yeah but we're talking about the level of privatization sure but I think about what's good for the Wildlife if we want to talk about what's good for the Wildlife yeah yeah that's oh that's complicated preserved that they can run or a shooting preserve that they can run into yeah but if it was public access everybody would be down in that Valley stirring them up and they wouldn't want to be there and then they would they would suffer from a health my question would be would they even be there if the private landowner didn't put all the money into plant the Alfalfa field or whatever they're at well they wouldn't but they're not doing that for probably for the Elk some are they're doing it for we are I mean you're talking about just like not everything that Wildlife do is because of people right like they a lot of it is affected by it you know our farming practices our Timber practices but a small percentage of it at a grand scale has done because of the wildlife or or directly to affect that like you're talking about a farmer plant in this field to draw elk to it yeah that happens sure okay but Jeremy I I interrupted your line of argument so let's just say for the sake of argument that that is the the penultimate form of privatization is putting up a yeah a wildlife proof fence yep because in in in the basis of I think what everybody would agree with in this this country and and you know hopefully in the continent but uh is that the wildlife is a shared resource if that deer is on my land it's not my dear it's it could go anywhere I'm not containing it right versus the extreme example within tensiles is it's there and it's not going anywhere it's my dear it's not your deer it's my dear it's in the fence on my property yeah so I mean that's where I look at the extreme side which is kind of funny because that's not even the European model of wildlife right I mean they're not over there high fencing their properties most of them right they're just large to your point I think Matt they're just large retreats that they cover so much ground in in the Europe side of things that I mean the animals can run away and they're still on your property right like they it's not like that that's and I think you guys kind of have something similar to that out west a little bit because we talk about partial sizes all the time I mean think about some of these ranches out in Montana and Wyoming and Colorado I mean yeah that you spook the elk here they run right to the other side they're still on your property right I mean they oh yeah there are there are massive enough in this state that yeah the herds of elk never leave the ranch where my interest would be and again speculative here right is along the same lines as capitalism with those ranches if states were able to and this is the fine line pay those ranches to provide Public Access they're still making money from hunting but it's benefiting the public is that all right that's our that's our block Management program that's the block Management program many many many programs that that are much smaller than block Management in many other states like you were mentioning plots program the Kansas yeah walking we we ha program yeah we just started a hunters for Access chapter in Kansas yeah they're walking programs and we like and we like that Matt or no oh we love that absolutely because they're getting paid absolutely that's that's what hunters for Access is is what these these buying this buying appreciation gifts and doing work projects we're doing that stuff for farmers and ranchers that are enrolled in these programs okay Matt so wait that's a meme the Montana program it's the biggest of its kind six million Acres that's funded by the Sportsman it's fun it's funded by license fees okay so it's not even just a tax thing in that same breath though and and I'm I'm playing Devil's Advocate because I'm in it I own businesses why would why wouldn't let's just say Montana and I'll pick on Sika because they're in Montana why wouldn't Sitka also contribute to that non-profit in order to create more access thus either more opportunity for more hunters and or better experiences for the existing Hunters I wouldn't be so too busy selling property with weight well but I mean I I just don't know if the mess I mean is the message being conveyed enough because I mean to me as a as a dedicated Hunter and a guy I've got sick all right um like well why does it matter though at the company what do you mean at the company level oh it matters for everything because if it's a shitty experience you're losing customers out the door so I want to make sure that's my shitty experience they're hunting well but I think of if if things turn around and I don't think they will meaning I won't be specific if if publicly accessible non-pay hunting improved in the next couple decades would be shocking to me it would have to be because the multi-billion dollar hunting industry got behind it started looking out for the Sportsman and and I and I'm saying as a business owner like why I'm with you why would I not want Jared Prussia to have a better experience so he's more addicted to hunting so he wants to keep doing he would you would well then why do these companies are they doing the opposite thing because you want me to well because they're advertising to people with money and they're that's why yeah but I again is it short-sighted then because the long-term game is that person has bad experiences and and stops hunting and he stops buying your game there's an argument that says that it is short-sighted I would agree and I think a lot of that is around uh Capital groups while being involved in the hunting why would you be surprised Matt if that happened if those if those programs continue to grow why would you be surprised by that uh okay so what I what I meant to be clear is not that the programs grew but that the quality of hunting got better so I would be surprised that because and the reason I say I'd be shocked if the quality of the hunting got better publicly accessible non-pay hunting it was because I just never experienced a time in my life where it has sure it's always gotten worse well the two would go hand in hand right like if those programs grow because if it brought more people in like if if growing hunting numbers are in balance with growing access then it isn't going to get any better that it would get better sure I mean I'm putting a lot of effort in I'm putting a lot of effort into this try my personal time into trying to grow these little programs because of a faith that it would make it better for The Hunting Community I think we wholehearted you know and I would think that as manufacturers again it may be short-sighted and there's a there's a deep rabbit hole on the monetization side of that what's paying for those programs now I mean Sportsman's donations basically donations from individuals that's what I would assume well if you're talking about the program that funds yeah there's a federal program it's it's uh it's it's administered by the nrcs Yeah like and they and you write a and you you if you work for a fish and wildlife state Fish Wildlife Management agency you can write a grant yep a proposal and get funding to help com to fund these programs where they compensate Farmers around that's right and stuff coming from so how do you how do you advocate well that that plots precedes predates this Federal money so that might be just straight license sales and and that one I don't yeah probably but I think that in the last decade plots has gotten money from this nrcs program so the in the these days and that that program gets funded that's get that's compensating farmers and ranchers for letting people on it gets funded through the farm bill yeah Farm Bill mm-hmm yeah I wish I could remember what it's called but anyway so that's that's a new positive development right there and so so how would you advocate for the growth of those then like I think we all agree I don't think I mean that goes that's deep politics for Access yeah well that's what I was gonna say Matt's non-profit would be the way because on the federal side three donations we're the five percent on that side yeah donations it's a donation based yeah well okay here's what I'm gonna go a little one step deeper into describing this so let's go what we we our president raised eight thousand dollars last year in the tiny little town of Mile City Montana not just multiple businesses your president not General president yeah John so so he was getting donations from Napa from the feed store like people companies had nothing to do with hunting yeah and then we raffled that all off and then took the proceeds and we bought calf shelters and uh pneumatic fence post pounder bunch of gift certificates to Ranch and farm Farm Ranch stores and then you wouldn't have to do it this way but in our state there's seven different hunting regions in our region in every region they have two block management appreciation dinners this is where our fish and wildlife management agency it welcomes the hot the participants in the black Management program to these dinners as a way of saying thank you for being enrolled in Black management we had a presence there and we gave out all the gifts okay and then we went around table to table and said hey maybe would you would you maybe want some help this summer for a day or two around the place you know as a thanks for putting up with the hassle of having people on so like I get they're getting paid yeah you know they're getting not a lot not as much as an Outfitter would give them but these farmers and ranchers are concerned about just Joe schmoe having a place to go so then we so this summer we're doing like eight different work projects we have a website people are coming from people are coming from Washington people are coming from Utah Colorado Kentucky to come out for the weekend and fix fence and clean up trash and what you name it as a way of saying thanks and the the the the ranching community in our neck of the woods have proven so appreciative they've been so touched by this and that's what we're I mean that's what we're trying to tap into is that like showing a little appreciation goes a long way sure you know and you hear these ranchers say that nobody's ever comes comes to my door to say hi or help or anything until hunting season then then I know my phone never stops ringing so we're this is our way like trying to simulate the old way where not everybody lived in the city you know and people lived out in the country and they maybe they help with the hay balen hay or picking up Bales and then they got to go hunt you know we're trying to bring a little bit of that back through this so you know it's not just about keeping people in the program yeah it's also that farmers and ranchers talk to one another and when the hope is when people that are in the program uh say man we had these guys come out last year they were so nice and they fixed three miles of fence then the next door neighbor thinks well maybe I should get into that block Management program my my Outfitter is kind of an [ __ ] anyway you know or whatever so can I go ahead I've got a I've got a proposed solution but you go so do I kind of okay uh and help me get this I thought out cohesively because it's first of all to your you know kicking an Outfitter off to let somebody on because of kind gestures I wanna I wish that was the case I I wanna like I would love for that to to to be the way that things work I just I it's the opposite 99 of the time right where the guy that's been doing these grand gestures these real yeah doing whatever they're they're losing that to people who are willing to pay money for it it's money oh yeah oh it's mine yeah at the end now out here people do get sick of their Outfitters and kick them off sure what and go back to block management a lot of times because they don't people don't shoot enough does okay they're like I can't have this outfit around here he doesn't shoot enough does I gotta get some honors on here but you no it is going the opposite way and that's why you know so so what about this though man what I was gonna say is like what is what's the tax in the state of that's where I got you covered you tell me you ready because I'm gonna drop numbers so why doesn't that just pay for everything okay so here this goes back dude honestly that fixes like that this goes back it's taxing the people and not just from license sales no this is everything so uh state of Missouri has conservation tax okay everybody on this things is uh no more government no more taxes okay hear me out for a second this is State based okay uh state of Missouri I'm sure there's other states that have it they're the one I'm most familiar with okay and I just ran the numbers we're taught this is a sales test conservation sales tax so that's how they sell the 95 of people who are not Hunters on this tax it's for conservation right we're conserving Missouri's habitat and Wildlife it is a 0.1 sales tax meaning for every eight dollars Missouri Department of Conservation gets one penny okay doesn't sound like a lot in 2022 the state of Missouri collected 130 million dollars from that tax 130 million dollars from a tax that when you spend eight dollars you contribute one penny to conservation everybody does everybody on anything on anything that's sales tax related right so there's certain exemptions even non-hunting related everything it is a Statewide concert you tell me that cannot fix our issue I'll call you full of [ __ ] because that's it um because it is money unfortunately the only thing that's going to change this I wish it was all good-heartedness the only thing that's going to change this is money and so if okay so yeah let me just interject quickly because I mischaracterized it that's one that's one thing we're do is the work projects but also if the hunting industry would get behind this and we're going to be working on that absolutely man and that's a no-brainer if we could buy everybody in Kansas every farmer in Kansas a tractor you're right but but if you even if you could come and I'm gonna pick on leasing for a second right uh average lease in Ohio whatever 30 bucks 50 bucks a let's just say 50 bucks an acre okay so for 100 acres guys okay guys pay me 2500 bucks for a hundred acres right the state has this tax money in their pocket that's nothing you know how much land that they could lease for open public ground I totally agree that's what we're getting at here well and honestly due to our whole conversation earlier about like the hunting industry driving the privatization of wildlife frankly I and I don't know we might get some heat for this but like it seems like they should there should be a more severe tax on those goods and services yeah that would fuel you know the and off the purchasing of public access and offset and offset this tax in my opinion if collected right and I mean you're gonna need lobbyists because everybody want to get we're talking one penny I know there's only five percent of us out there but if we got behind state-based bills that said you know what past that point one percent sales tax that one penny per eight dollars and you're gonna have a hell of a much better hunting experience in yourself does the state of Missouri what do they spend that money on yeah dude they have the biggest piggy bank in the world they don't spend it Unfortunately they do spend some but they don't spend much I bet that they I don't know what their slash fund is but it's it's probably in the billions if that's the case it seems like Missouri's have more to be frustrated about than anybody it's like you have the money to buy us back access from Pub from probably not a slash fund man yeah and they're not spending it they they have programs there are some there are some uh Co-op type programs too but it's not mainly because I bet they don't I mean you need somebody on the ground that's going to knock it on the door and say Hey you know I don't know what your hunting situation is on this I'm not a guy coming to lease it I'm from the state we're willing to pay you just like a CRP right think what it think of the conversation you have to have with a guy to take his tillable ground out of production into CRP that's not an easy discussion you've got to put a substantial amount of money well the farmer goes to the NRC yes about that like that's it's the farmer going you know because he knows my best friend's brother is the guy that does this for region seven there you go is the one that that goes to I mean most of these ranches are in it year after year after year yeah so you're going to say hey you want to renew your credit this year yeah that's recurring revenue for them why not yeah so I I've told you my idea in a I believe in it enough to actually try it is to try to Leverage The Hunting industry like last year we raised eight thousand dollars in Mile City a town of nine thousand people now our team has grown and we're going to start trying to raise more money by just calling up companies and saying here's yeah will you contribute to this so and then the work project but there's some other create and those that's where I'm staking my claim and I don't have any bandwidth to anything more and Matt you can get them you could get the manufacturers behind you you just can't [ __ ] talk them anymore oh no that's I know I know but it's like I get it I understand but you know what I'm saying we have internal discussions about that all the time I'm not saying you're wrong I'm just saying that from from the the guys who are going to control the financial buckets ultimately they're gonna say I'm gonna give what to this jackass right that's the conversation that's going to come across but I think you're meaning to be treated like they need to be treated like the toddlers they are when they poop in the little potty you clap your hands for them and when they throw applesauce on the wall you you reprimand them you know yeah like if if if if some big hunting brand that I have a lot of problems with Gets behind this and donate some money to it or sends out a volunteer crew there's not going to be they did the right thing however it's going to just be look at them doing the right thing you know yeah um plus they get to say it on their own platforms they get to say we helped out and which I think is great things at the end of the day I think there are two separate things at the end of the day there's hung quietly and there's sure there's the then and there's hunters for Access and I'm not the president of any I I'm I'm not I'm the vice president of one chapter of hunters for Access so yeah um but like here's so we got that idea floating around but what about and I like your idea about what the taxes I mean that's a big deal right we bring up what's that it's a big uphill battle because it's taxes it's lobbyist it's legislature I mean it's all the [ __ ] that nobody wants to get involved I mean Skip's lie is one of the great guys of in the lobby business right now or knowing the right people to say hey dude how do we get this on the table because this is huge for honors who who wouldn't want that a lot of people it's it's taxes it's it's the same people when I say you have to buy a hunting license they say screw you government can't tell me what to do and obviously people don't want taxes but and it makes a lot it would make a lot of sense to me if like a majority of that came from the hunting industry that's driving demand for hunting to begin with well doesn't it I mean that that goes back to like Pitman Robinson dollars and things like that in terms of those are taxed goods for conservation and so how is this different it's just this is this is on everybody everybody who has Pittsburgh Pittman Robertson everybody every state gets PR dolls what does that money get spent on federal dollars yeah that's what I'm saying is it seems like this is where the money is not wrong it gets it gets it gets spent on conservation projects R3 yeah I don't research everything I mean everything agency would do not usually not access in fact in Pennsylvania we're using a lot of our oil and gas money to buy new access to buy new game lands and stuff as it should be as it should how about this one here about this one public public access for public money you want that you want that hundred and eighty thousand dollars for your new pivot um how about you allow a little Public Access Yeah a hundred percent uh dude we're fully on board with that way more than I am like I like we covered a lot early on in the conversation about like getting mad at people at promoting hunting getting mad at people for buying hunting or land so that they can have exclusive access I'm not so much on board with that I'm a hundred percent on board with there's so much private land that people could be financially incentivized to give back to the public that I am a hundred percent in favor of yeah I don't know yeah that's that one just seems like a no-brainer it seems like a no-brainer yeah if you're gonna take a bunch of money from the public for your farming operation at least let them come out and do a little hunting you know well what would what would motivate well that would have to be legislated and then the farmer has a choice you can you can be like yeah I can you know I can either continue to irrigate out of a ditch with this tarp and keep everybody off or I can get 180 000 for this pivot from the e-cip program and um I have to let a little hunting on now see I like that a lot more than the Hunting Community have to make the decision around do I promote you know whatever it is we talked about earlier I I way prefer that where the the landowner has the decision now do I want to continue to keep people off and not make that money or do I want to accept the money and make it publicly accessible that makes a lot of sense well yeah but the way it is yes and what the way it's been for since time immemorial is you the farmer and the Rancher gets the best of both worlds he gets to exclude everybody and he gets all the subsidies yeah we're talking about Jeremy how to motivate that like how do you motivate for that shift to take place in terms of just like opening access or like well no so like what Matt's saying is like the Lander has the best of both worlds they get to collect you know this whatever you know this large percentage of these public dollars for their equip program yeah CRP and they get to lock it down uh for private hunting rights you know it's I log it out I mean there are how do you how do you hire an Outfitter yeah there are programs and I I don't know um I'm not sure exactly which ones they are but I take that back uh in Pennsylvania it's the game Co-op program you know what I'm talking about where uh so those game co-op programs are effectively what we're talking about here where Game Commission comes in Pays that landowner to open up their private Farm to either all types or certain types of hunting um they can't collect the money right without having the land wide open open to public honey that that's the stipulation so why wouldn't you do the problem with the problem with this like CRP and stuff is now instead of you know the wildlife and access program is as much as it's probably more a state issue than it is a federal issue and so when you have CRP and farm bill stuff on the federal side I don't think they give two shits about what happens from a state access standpoint and that gets even more effective as you go east of the Mississippi like when you get to Ohio like I mean Federal ground I mean there's hardly any federal land to hunting in Ohio right it's state land well shouldn't that be the places where the federal government should be most incentivized to have human Farm money come with strings attached you would be in places there's no access you would think so Matt my only concern there is most land that I see let's put this the best public land that I see is managed by the state not the feds and that's in the East right I'm I'm not as familiar or familiar at all in the West in the eastern U.S the best hunting land for success and and just habitat is managed by the state game agency um the feds are not managing that land very well oh wait okay I don't think I'm being clear because I'm not talking about the fat when I say it feels just to me that if you're going to accept a bunch of subsidies yeah and you're a farmer Rancher that there would be an expectation of some reasonable Public Access I would agree 100 no I'm not talking about the federal government managing the guy's Farm I gotcha okay okay you're just saying providing pure access to it yeah some hunting access I I think I think that's an absolute um yeah I think that's a huge piece of it here's the problem and I think this is why the federal government hasn't done it is that a large percentage of private landowners would pull out of those critical programs for habitat and riparian buffers because yeah Trump changed compared to where they get most of their money I still most of it is not CRP yeah most of it is like bailouts when there's a there's a when some commodity takes a big yeah um yeah yeah dope see I'm looking at it from like so like if uh Jared and I own a piece of ground in Illinois that has CRP right and we're using it for our own and and you know transparently we're not letting anybody else hunt there if they came to me and said hey Jeremy we have to take the 60 Acres or whatever which is substantial eighteen thousand dollars or so nineteen thousand dollars a month out of uh out of CRP unless you add a year you know have yeah a year unless you let people hunt it I'd be taking it out because of the price of the property the value of the property overall well there's different all kind of different scenarios oh yeah right but I mean also if uh if if it was like 2019 or 2020 and all of a sudden cattle prices tank yep and it's you know you want a 300 000 bailout yeah I agree with that 100 which I think is probably a more common scenario yeah I mean I'm not opposed to the CRP thing in fact the fact where we're at I mean some of these CRP levels are you know 250 300.00 per year I'm not opposed to saying Hey listen if you're going to take this money in exchange you have to provide uh Public Access or or you know something it's it's tough though but I share your concern Jeremy about you wouldn't want to have conservation programs the enrollment and the job like you say CRP drop yeah it's critical like I say there's a lot of farm subsidies that aren't related to conservation yeah that that I think is where you have to piggyback that Matt because yeah I mean like I mean we're already losing habitat at a massive rate if you start hurting more riparian areas and things because these incentives are being crippled by you know a contingency basically then yeah I mean we're screwing our Wildlife even more than we are now a hundred percent agree yeah where I think would be most politically palatable would be in western states where a lot of these ranches are basically like a a donut of private land with a huge chunk of publicly owned land in the center I would agree with that yeah and those ranchers are getting a screaming deal on the grazing rights yep in in those in those landlocked public lands like yeah in AUM I don't know is like what you pay on them on the public market for AUM animal unit month grazing is way more than what they pay to raise their Livestock on land owned by you and me yeah that I think is [ __ ] I mean that that right there is you know the fact that you're paying me a minute amount under market value we talk about market value so much and there are no benefits returning to frankly and I'm you know I'm I'm not against cattle but the fact is cattle do some significant damage to that natural habitat as well the fact that you're well yeah you know they're also beneficial they are a lot of places they are absolutely not only do they do that but then they hire an Outfitter and he gets to outfit all that public land in there yeah and he gets money I'm not I'm not uh first of all that I'm completely against that I don't understand how that flies right because nowhere in the eastern U.S can you at least outfit guide public like public land like that like you can in the west where you can lease public land you could keep people well it's not your no no no you're not you're not leasing the public land so what are you leaving if I wanted to fly into this land in a helicopter okay I could haunt it okay and if there's an Outfitter working it okay the Outfitter leases the ranch surrounding it gotcha to get out now in effect he has exclusive access to these landlocked pieces because it's the only way in there short of flying into it but isn't it still a little bit ridiculous that the Outfitter can make money off of the public land that's mine patently ridiculous I mean yeah I mean and the ranch the ranchers can charge that Outfitter more if there's more the more landlocked land there is in a ranch the more the Rancher is going to get from the Outfitter yeah well so go back to your tax aspect of things I understand that like if if you're on an alpha like you went on an outfitted hunt in Colorado hunted public land other guys could have walked in right on you it keeps other Outfitters out but the album does but the Outfitter made money off of you that should be a much more stringent tax to conservation right he made money off my public land and I known it who told him he could do that well but anybody can hunt it like oh oh yeah but not everybody's making money off of it he is yeah yeah so I don't I don't take a big I don't take a stance against Outfitters outfitting on on public land because they're not locking me out of it I agree except for the fact that they're making money on land that is owned by the people and they're not bringing anything back to that oh it could be a bunch of money they pay a lot of money for those for those um leases license permits I don't think they call it it's a guy so how do they keep other so they're getting exclusive yeah I mean it's really no no no they're not getting exclusive it's anybody can in Colorado they are I have a place that where I hunt where my I usually set up my Camp a mile and a half from an Outfitter but are there other Outfitters so like this elk hunt I did in Colorado last year it's like the Outfitter has a permit okay and it's a long-term permit it's like they have it until they sell it it's like a liquor license and they haven't yeah they have exclusive ownership not to keep public out but to keep other Outfitters out that's their block of so is that money being used to gain more access today they pay a lot for it well that's what I'm saying like should that because I mean it all goes back to what is the state spend our money on and I'm not knocking the Outfitters but the fact that they're in there you know creating probably a more successful hunt than the do-it-yourself guy like that money should be used to get more access for the people I don't know that it's not I don't know I don't think I think it goes into the general Treasury it's a slippery and it's and we're talking about federal land here right so I think it's going into the federal Treasury and it's gone and [Laughter] [Music] the outfitting side of it it's just it's a slippery slope when you start to talk about public lands being monetized by you know a private entity mm-hmm yeah it's just it it becomes and so I say that in like if I'm only a do-it-yourself elk Hunter right like I would love to have I'm are there areas where Outfitters don't have blocks like there's there is no Outfitters it's only do-it-yourself people believe there is probably a few days yes there are definitely chunks of National Forest I shouldn't say it that strongly I'm pretty damn sure that there's chunks of National Forest in Montana that don't have an Outfitter yeah well there's not an outfitting license I don't know I can't hardly I can't hardly criticize because I sometimes will hire uh uh like a spear fishing guide or yeah absolutely I mean the waters thing is another yeah that's a whole different I wouldn't hire one to take me in a place that no one else could go sure because that would make me the biggest hypocrite I just say it because it's you know it ain't much different than what the industry's doing when the guy is using public lands to make a living well yeah but I'm more concerned about the consequences of people's actions you know like it's not like that makes it if a guy has an outfitting permit on National Forest him running his business doesn't make it so you can't go there mm-hmm does it make it tougher for me to be successful though I don't know because it's hard to say because maybe those same people would be out there anyway and I'm I'm coming from an Eastern side right this is like a hundred percent foreign to me if somebody said hey so-and-so's gotten on you know whatever game lands this I'll be like go kick his ass like that you know that's you can't do that just my very limited experience I don't think that it does I mean the outfit or the the we did the L con with is like they're they're very like you know they don't own anything they just they have the permit there but like lots of other people Hunter and stuff and they help people frankly probably help more people than they hurt by helping them pack stuff off and it's yeah well you know what it this is all toilet bowling around is the fact that we all don't have the transparency we need to know where those funds are going I mean okay they're going to Federal treasury do they ever end up back to doing good for conservation I don't know well we can see for sure where it's lacking which is public access to private lands and the ability to pay private landowners for it I'd say that's Nationwide especially where there's a lot of private there's a lot of criticism there's a lot of criticism on the uh on the nonprofit side I think uh National Wild Turkey Federation has been really blown up lately too where's all the money going yeah what are you doing with it specifically you know and I know you can't tell me paying some high dollar salaries that is for sure I saw some like their top people oh my God eye-popping salaries well so yeah I'm not saying like down to like oh we took Jimmy on a hunt necessarily but like what what are you investing in what where is this dollar and as that being a non-profit and Sportsman's funded type of thing shouldn't we know Matt's gonna hate it but I'm sure promoting turkey hunting yeah I'm probably oh they they have a huge R3 yeah agenda yeah they spend time like I I wish ah man I wish I had this because I I don't somebody just told me how much they spend on R3 yeah but it's crazy on a yearly basis and it's a CR it's a ton they also spend a bunch of money trying to privatize hunting access hmm no that's it but they write articles yeah they write articles about how to find your hunting lease yeah you know it it's uh it's interesting when you get into that because that's the one thing and it's not just on on budget it's you know uh we've talked about it with Harvest data and stuff it's it's the lack of transparency in a lot of these um these companies or or state agencies or even Federal whatever it is uh and and I understand why it's because people will over analyze and misinterpret but the fact is if it's especially if it's a publicly funded agency or or organization we deserve to know or see and yeah maybe some people are going to misinterpret it but so what okay can I just I think what Matt just said it was really interesting like the the nwtf is like advertising or writing articles or producing content about how to acquire hunting leases and it's and we're saying that's that's creating a problem that's more privatized land why would they they're yeah on one hand they're like we need more Hunters yep and then the other hand they're like trying to show you how to like instruct you on how to privatize hunting land so so why is one of their articles uh why would they do that over advocating for this conversation that we're talking about which is how to spearhead purchasing back private lands what what is the difference why would they do that over the other I don't there's some things I understand like I feel like I understand and there's some things I don't I understand why the hunting nonprofits are all on board uh with R3 it's because they get a lot of money from the hunting industry and they are the advertising arm for the hunting industry they give the hunting industry the hunting industry gives the non-profits then while turkey federations the backcountry hunters and Anglers the REM rmefs et cetera Etc money docs unlimited pheasants okay they give them money to promote hunters and come back and keep buying products and then they they those outfits bring more people into hunting so that the the non-profits can ursul the industry can sell them products so that's they're not they're not donations they're advertising dollars then there's some things I don't understand like why in 2021 did the North American Tech Turkey Federation publish guide to leasing sometimes you gotta pay to play I don't know seems like they should have been working on public from my perspective it seems like lack of uh direction or or know-how like we don't even us we've been sitting here for two and a half hours trying to figure out how do you how to spearhead the purchasing back of or where do the funds come from what kind of programs would be wrapped up in purchasing back Public Access on on private lands it's certainly not as clear-cut as make more money by the land yeah at some point I go like I've staked my claim I'm telling you I've told you what I'm doing but at some point I'm like you guys caused the problem you figure it out yeah well I mean you figure it out you guys are the ones you guys be in the hunting industry and the hunting celebrities and the non-profits you're the one that has made it so it's like laughable to think that anybody's gonna have a quality experience in a large swaths of this country when they go out hunting you're the one that's made it this way you figure out how to deal with it well and they're the ones who should pay the lobby I'm engaged in trying to point out that they've created a major problem for in terms of Hunter satisfaction and I'm having to try to come up with Band-Aids to fix it I'm like you guys figure out a way to fix it the unfortunate reality is like I would I would bet that they don't care nearly as much as like as we do well see or I would even say the people that are left without access like I mean dude there does come a point where people are so like it it is it's a business for them and it's just a business and when that goes away they'll find another way to make money they'll just go to another business and we'll be left here with no access with no hunting opportunity what at all so as much as I kind of feel that same way matters so you guys figure it out it's like we're the ones that are affected and so I could see it yeah and this is the short-sightedness though that that that's the major issue because what what everybody and we've talked about this but what everybody is failing to acknowledge here because in in transparently we are too in this conversation focusing on there are two there are too many hunters for the axis we have the experience that the hunters in in today's atmosphere are are getting is trash for the most part unless you're in these private lands and things like that from a public it's trash we are at the cliff where all of a sudden we're gonna wake up one day and I don't know if it's gonna be 10 or if it's gonna be 30 of the hunters are going to fall off of it because they're gonna say why will I keep do like cut you know fool me once you know shame on me type of thing in the fact that I over and over and over again I'm repeating the same thing which is a miserable hunting experience and whether they're seasoned or they're new they're gonna say forget it and and if you look at so the one thing about social media is you get the information look at social media now there are a lot of people that said you know I quit hunting for this reason and I stopped hunting for this reason and we're at that edge you put this was the thing I warned people about this when we had covet everybody celebrated to your point Matt you know watch the people who celebrated celebrate man we got all these Hunters I said you can't put them anywhere and it's a time bomb and that time bomb is going to explode when everybody finally wakes up and realizes man hunting sucks all I do is run into guys people yell at me I don't see anything I don't kill anything right I can't go anywhere and they're like screw it I could do I could spend my money and time elsewhere better boom overnight we're gonna lose we're you want to see a drop in Hunters it's gonna come and then all these businesses and all these people that benefit from Hunter numbers including agencies are gonna say oh [ __ ] now what yeah and it's common like a freight train that well and I welcome it you know it's crazy to think that and I mean I'm not I'm 30 drop off I'm not I'm I'm with you like that's that is the and again all of the Doomsday people out there are gonna say oh shame on you guys like the moment that happens hunting as a tradition is is gonna go extinct in this get the hell out of here you're full of [ __ ] right just just stop with it right now um and it and it's not selfish people say it's selfish it's the fact that for the people who will be left it's like a deer herd if a deer herd comes in and gets hit with EHD it seems very traumatic right but three four five years later the herd that made it through and rebounded is the healthiest it's ever been because there's more resources available to them that is a fact that is how nature works and it'll be the same way with this it'll be a major shock to everybody and to a lot of people's pocketbooks you know a lot of businesses a lot of agencies fees But ultimately the people that made it through damn you want to talk about Golden Years what do you what do you both think about like it seems like the biggest fear of that happening would be like the unknown of like the the threat of the non-hunting community it seems like the only argument that somebody would have there's no threat there to say no no does that that's not the one that's the most widely promoted no threat there I don't think there's anything out of it I mean somebody's going to come to your private land and say Jared you can't hunt here sure just the same way they're gonna say I can't carry a gun I can't have a second amendment no it won't stand I don't care if you're the three percent of the US it won't happen I would agree but I'm not making that up I mean that's that's what they tell you that's what they tell you that's what they tell you it's not true I don't fear it the hunter podcast is brought to you by stealthcam dude where would we be without our cell camps I would definitely be divorced at this point yeah I hear that I mean the fact is is I spent more time checking cameras than I actually did hunting prior to cell cameras now at least my wife can enjoy me being in the comfort of my own home buried in my phone checking those pictures 100 and dude when it comes to trail cameras I definitely sell cameras reliability is I think the number one thing that we're looking for Stealth cam just has a long reputation of reliable cameras and ultimately that is the most important thing to us they have to work in terms of reliability there's not a better camera on the market than Stealth cam where they're talking about the fusion X the reactor the ds4k transmit and most of them are under 200 bucks southcam.com check them out [Music] foreign [Music] bands is in recent years is is social media yeah it's been directly directly implicated in hunting it's been right in your face the people who have no interest in hunting do you know the do you know the examples no like it excites some specifics yes you can't you can't spew Bears anymore yeah and we just had him on yeah yeah we just had Josh on yeah from her buddy and you can't hunt grizzly bears in British Columbia anymore yeah that's an that was an interesting one uh in Australia some of their honey they're they're getting close to just doing away with hunting entirely and some of that is is social media invoked um self-imposed [ __ ] that we've done to ourselves they did to them so the owners there did themselves and like you type in hunting social media controversy and you'll never stop reading because yeah there's uh it's it's one of the single things that's ruined hunting because it's made everybody who didn't even know what hunting was or didn't even think about it it's put it at the Forefront of their brain in a lot of cases yeah or watch the women who kill Lions exactly yeah so somebody posing with a director I think that the argument that growing The Hunting Community is dangerous for our rights because more Hunters means more people putting dumb [ __ ] on the world wide web I agree is every bit as powerful as the argument that more Hunters protects our rights I agree I think it's a great argument I think it is too yeah I have no doubt man and it's um yeah for so for a lot of those reasons yeah I don't feel threatened the the only thing that I feel um feel that could threaten hunting would be and it's a weird kind of twist on it would be uh Wildlife diseases if like a chronic wasting you know showed a jump into humans or whatever it would be sure at some point there would be a massive government would get involved hunting is at risk at that point yeah yeah I mean it gets real messy but that's obviously not being advocated by the hunting industry though it's like it's nothing yeah yeah nothing interesting cause CWD so no I disagree but yeah no it did not but that would be that jump you know some sort of of uh you know human existence threat type of yeah at that point yeah but but in terms of numbers or or anything like that I mean man they got politics got too many other fights to pick on you know like it's between the the you know the Second Amendment battles and and gun control I mean you know yeah would hunting be affected by that very little um are we advocating for no we're not advocating for gun control but the eyes are on that more than it is on us guys who are out hunting for sure yeah I mean yeah there are people that really do worry about it though I know yeah and do you think it's because they love it so much because they're in that's how they make a living that I can agree with I I don't know but I I talk to people I talk to people and I email with people they just reach out to me you know through the pop because of the podcast that don't make don't appear to make money off Hunting that are very concerned about anti-hunters so I I just everybody's got their own threat assessment of you know my in it sounds like and I think that that's fair Jeremy like your threat assessment is like that some catastrophic Whitetail disease comes along because you you know mine I think the threats are are from within I think the threats are yeah yeah I don't I don't know the learning industry sure and then and some people think that the threats are the anti's so I yeah well it's a weird thing like take the anti's for instance and this is kind of a you know a weird there are um you know obviously just use the biggest one use Peta for an example right uh I don't think the three of us would condone somebody uh neglecting and beating a dog would we no no of which Peta also would not go for now there's obviously some crazy ass [ __ ] that Peta says that we are like yeah I don't think so like you're you're off your rocker but there's weird kind of cut the thing that I think um gets us by on the uh the anti-hunting standpoint right is the fact that we the hunters fund conservation in this country uh which is is most of those people who are like crazy about wildlife and like don't shoot the Bears they haven't paid a dollar to conservation in their damn lives nothing we fund conservation Bears thrive in areas moose thrive in areas because of us Hunter Sportsman conservationist we're way more conservationist than they'll ever be that that is our Shield against them now okay I want to ask a question about that because I want to understand this there was a time where it was if if this if the Sportsman hadn't stood up and or in uh Pitman Robertson hadn't come along we wouldn't have been able to save Wildlife like when Wildlife populations were extremely depleted because of DDT yep and over hunting in the 30s and brought a lot of wildlife populations back from the brink but like in the modern era it just seems like all you need is hunting okay I don't believe this but I I could but I flirt with the idea that all you need is that these Wildlife populations don't need to be propped up by money constantly where am I where do they where why are why okay where are Wildlife getting money paid to keep them alive year after year where is all this money like it's not I think it's regulation I mean that's I look at a deer in the man let's say I'm I look at an elk in the Crazy Mountains would he go away no if there was less conservation dollars is does he need thousands of dollars of conservation money every year to keep him alive no um but the the thought would be is if there's conservation dollars went away would that piece of land turn into you know Hotel whatever well this he's he's a he's an elk that if he's in the Crazy Mountains and he lives on public land in the yeah but with that publicly that's an important point that you're making there with the publicly and stay without conservation dollars I would say no so Pittman Robertson dollars go towards keeping public lands public State I don't think the four I don't think the forest service gets Pittman Robertson dollars um I'm not sure about that I know state does so yeah and again this is where the the west east west is kind of a little different um okay let's take a deer in your in your neck of the woods how is he profiting from an influx of conservation dollars on an annual I think the same point you made is like it's it almost seems like those dollars coming in from you know from from Recreation is like they're basically to combat the erosion of of habitat because habitat loss yeah because if there's no value there then why wouldn't I just turn it into anything other than Wildlife well in a crazy way too Matt is the fact that if there was no value in recreational land land would be disappearing at a very very very fast rate right now um you were saying Jeremy without the conservation we fund conservation yeah we've we've to me it seems like a lot of wildlife in this country all they need is a is a fairly intact sure natural ecosystem they do that's all by definition that doesn't require if it's a fairly intact natural ecosystem it doesn't need huge influxes of cash it's it's self-sustaining it it seems though like it the to Define definition or to Define uh conservation in this sense it's just to keep it wildlife habitat regardless of wow the improved quality or not it's just is it Wildlife habit habitat because of conservation dollars or is it a super center because nobody cares about Wildlife or their habitat there's not enough money to justify keeping that I don't but I don't see I don't think that our conservation dollars I'm the money we buy products with that's what we're talking about here right yeah PR I don't think that that goes to keeping public lands public it goes I don't think it does either but it goes to it it goes to what's that I think it should I think that's a lot of what we've talked about is using those dollars to keep habitat habitat I'm trying I just need to ask this question more simply you guys are saying that we fund conservation what exactly are those dollars going towards it's a good question yeah I mean like we're asking the same question they go they go to U.S fish and wildlife right I mean that that's where PR funds go is to U.S fish and wildlife service PR funds yep Pitman Robertson funds which is our tax dollars on hunting gear ammunition to U.S fish and wildlife service okay the fund their fund and those are used on conservation effort a lot of them I think go there that then goes on conservation efforts so U.S fish and wildlife will be like your National Wildlife Refuge system which is Giant and which in most cases allows hunting access um goes to research and preservation goes to a lot of waterfowl because of U.S fish and wildlife being Federal a lot of it goes to state fish and game management agencies which is probably where I would say well again East versus West in the East I would say that's where most people hunt is on state land versus in the west yeah those people hunt on Federal Land and I think the big difference there Matt is you need to figure this out like I need to figure out how you would know how would a deer discover that there was no longer conservation that the Pitman Robertson tax had been abolished how would he figure it out what would happen to his day-to-day I think the biggest thing and again I I don't know let's say it's going a lot of it's going into state agencies if they can't fund the resources to enforce regulations they those deals but I don't think you can use PR dollars for enforcement I don't know I'm pretty sure that that's true I'm I'm almost positive that's true like a game warden is not funded through PR dollars which seems insane because that would be like the one thing that I would think would be affected can enforce biologists game biologists are yeah but hell on Most states they gotta report to the legislature anyway so they don't listen to them yeah at the end of the day I mean let's be honest they don't get to they don't get to decide what they don't get to use their data to make the decisions instead it's just yeah that's whatever the constituents decide on now that's a good question man I mean I don't know um you know I guess the the the Hunter and the conservationist in me wants to believe that it goes to things that are helping keep the wild wild but do I know that no yeah I'm gonna start asking people on a regular basis and then someday I'm going to encounter somebody that really knows the answer and I don't think it'll be the answer we want to hear probably that would be my guess yeah I have friends that could answer this question that work for Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks I just need to oppose it to that big it's a good it's a it's a really good question to understand and it goes back to the transparency side of things I always hate it man when people aren't transparent I just immediately know you're hiding something that you shouldn't like that's just that's just the way that I am and the Skeptics it's like hey uh what where do these well you know they I don't know come on why do you why are you gonna make it dance tonight yeah you just know that something's not right you know and it's just you know but that's that's the answer you get for a lot of these things so yeah it's um the the whole discussion around it I think the the big thing is is like you know whether you're familiar with it or not this country cannot go to the European model of conservation it can't uh it won't survive frankly um it will be the way that the in now I say that in the same breath I do believe that the North American wildlife conservation model needs some updating based on how things have changed what updates specifically I don't know that's a whole different podcast to get into but I do think that things have changed dramatically in society and how things are done um I think that it it's worth a strong you know look over to say you know what is what is maybe even not relevant uh that we're trying which of the seven tenants would you get would you okay so here's your seven I'll read them off Wildlife Resources are conserved and held in trust for all citizens we've we've dabbled all over that one we've dabbled all over that one okay uh Commerce and dead Wildlife is eliminated yeah uh Wildlife is allocated according to democratic rule of law I don't even know how to freaking address that one nope uh Wildlife may only be killed for a legitimate non-frivilous purpose it's like a a list of seven things we are not doing yeah Wildlife is an international resource every person has an equal opportunity under the law to participate in hunting and fishing that's getting better right we've got a lot of states that are putting in uh hunting as a right versus a proof I think it's okay equal opportunity as long as you have a thick pocketbook okay scientific meal we just addressed the scientific management is the proper means for wildlife conservation so I guess my answer would be all seven Matt need needs some sort of uh revisit they don't need I don't think they need work I think there's there's I think that they need to be enforced who's gonna enforce them well I think they need to be okay not let's they need to be adhered to um yeah we should at least acknowledge that we've abandoned them yeah I think we've abandoned them a long time ago yeah I mean yeah a long time ago there's no hunting celebrity that could I don't sound like I could say with a straight face that they're not using wildlife to make money um yeah yeah I mean it's it's uh no you know what I mean as you guys heard my have you heard my uh I uh this going back momentarily for to this um we need more hunters for conservation bit yep you know what another reason while I'm suspicious of that argument is because none of these people from non-profits that argue that are the either they will not they are unaware of the literature or they never mention the literature all the peer-reviewed public or peer-reviewed uh scientific papers that indicate all of the negative effects of intense hunting pressure on Wildlife yeah yeah if you're if you guys like seen my Pope and young talk or heard me say anything podcasts so it's like how can you not have any qualifier in the in in that argument when you say we need more hunters for conservation how can you say that without also pointing out that more Hunters is also has a negative effect on Wildlife well and and didn't you say on conservation didn't you say I'm not talking about the animal that's being killed right the other talking about how to cafes ratios and Elk lipid concentrations and duck body fat lipid concert concentrations in in Ducks body condition scores and duck sexually selected and fanticide and bears spatial distributions of almost every game animal there is have been shown to be negatively impacted by intense hunting pressure public lands are being rendered inhospitable to Wildlife because of hunting pressure and still these guys with a straight face will tell you we need more hunters for conservation well didn't you say in one of the I don't remember which report it was Matt that like 80 plus percent of the hunters reported that hunting pressure affected where they hunted oh it's more like 92 in the least in the in the most recent so it affects the wildlife on the land it also affects the people who are trying to hunt the land like yeah how is that not your double whammy that says yeah you know what guys we better take a take a break here yeah it just stop and think about it they can't even they being the non-profits the won't they they don't won't even consider it because there's so much money tied up in it yeah turnover of memberships too in a lot of these cases I mean think of our baby boomer you know era you know fading off and you know they need to they need to plug the holes right they need new people what a weird way to plug them to be like we're gonna turn people into hunters and then get them to pay dues okay take take Backcountry Backcountry hunters and Anglers okay important non-profit right yep uh big recruiting push arm with them a bunch of chapters three they have our three specific employees okay they operate in Montana that's where they're centered yeah do you know what you know what percentage of hunters in Montana belong to BHA one one percent yes wow so it's not like they have to turn people into hunters and then get them to be Deuce paying members they could work on the 99 of people that already hunt that aren't members yeah today but those people already own gear yep do you do you think that there are some non-profits out there that actually care that actually give a [ __ ] well I think the okay we're talking about the people that work for these now no because I know there are people that I know people in all of these groups so I'm talking like overall like is there can you put a thumb on any of these non-profits you're like you know what those guys collectively are are are doing something good okay so are you asking about their intention or their intention or what they or their effect their their effect their effect yes yeah because all of them I think will say that they have good intentions compared to what they could do for wildlife and for the existing Hunting Community if you compare what they could do for wildlife and existing on community compared to what they are doing it's just they could do so much better I can't I have a hard time deciding if some of these groups like a Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation yeah you know they do some pretty good stuff yeah I mean it seems like it right yeah buying land yeah turning it over to the Sportsman yeah but here's my my non-profit choice would be something like them except also that they're they're opposed to uh leasing land in states that have government programs that allow everybody to haunt you know they're opposed to use of dead and dying animals to sell products they oppose R3 because the existing Community Hunting Community already is having a hard enough time having a quality experience yeah I think it's interesting to him when you talk about look at what a non-profit should be doing yeah they really cared about the existing Hunting Community compared to what they are doing it just it just doesn't they don't seem serious to me I think the existing Hunting Community isn't I mean they're they're listening right now right they're on the podcast I think it's an interesting discussion and it's a healthy one to have and and to say even out loud that you should feel a little bit screwed here um you should feel a little bit uh kind of you know wool over the eyes and that you are a driving force of this community right now um and frankly the efforts are not putting being put in to take care of you yeah yeah that seems like a good Clarion call to me yeah and man I would say that you know like in terms of the wool over here I I don't I would hate for people to not think to accept what I'm saying I just think there needs to be a lot less like just received wisdom where people hear things from people in the hunting sphere and just accept them as Jared says that all the time and question everything questions that's not a bad thing that's not a bad thing just question everything use your brain yeah everybody's saying something just think about it yeah tough man well listen Matt we took up a bunch of your time dude we uh absolutely appreciate you coming on and having this discussion it I mean it feels good to have like I mean you know take what you want out of this podcast if you're listening to this but I mean it just feels good to have open Dialogue on stuff that is very very important to the future again it's not that I feel threatened that our hunting uh Community is or the hunting rights are going to be taken away from us but I do feel threatened on the experience because uh selfishly I feel like I went through some of the Heyday in that late 90s early 2000s with the deer camp atmosphere the blinders essentially to what else was out beyond my state boundary uh there were a lot of uh Clarity and Purity in what I did um to where if you're entering it now I don't know if you'll ever see that in your lifetime and that's sad for me because I I just you know what I did back then is what's made me the hunter I am today oh man I I really appreciate that you guys the honesty like you guys can at least say that there's a problem which is which is rare among people in the hunting sphere and thank you Matt for going against the grain and for questioning like what the hunting industry has been promoting like you know it's it's frustrating and you know in some cases it's like you don't want to hear it you know or even entertain that some of these things are like taking place but you know I commend you for taking the stance I know it's even affected some of your closest personal relationships so like you know clearly you believe in it and I I think we can see why and so I think it's a really good thing that uh that we're having this conversation and that you're you know leading it in some some senses thanks you guys have a good night all right man and long one again yeah I appreciate you bearing with us if you're still listening uh it's 10 30 our time in case anybody's wondering yeah I haven't eaten all day my my bedtime's at like nine I'm not kidding like I I'm usually asleep by nine um awesome conversation with Matt I mean again part of our podcast is so that we just have open discussions um clearly some things we don't agree on and and um I I won't say either of us are right or wrong it's it's just all opinionated well there were some things that were said that at face value sound really bad yeah like a hunting public yeah which we know those guys we love those guys yep and and they again Matt's opinion RP those guys are not doing anything intentionally to be negative towards public hunting obviously yeah and that's you know why we question we're like well yeah what do you mean tell us why you feel this way about that and I I do think you know over the course of the three and a half hour conversation it kind of comes out well it's I don't yes I agree their intention is not this yeah it's inadvertent and we kind of identified what we've kind of always said about like the the the Trap of the industry in terms of like getting caught promoting a lifestyle that well yeah I mean think of those guys just in general like this is the first time we've Incorporated that like the access element of that it's always been the way you're making money off well it's hard for you and I because um and I don't mean this to sound horrible for us or anyone listening who feels this way is like uh besides like our family and and you know business and deer hunting is everything to us like it we talk about this all the time it's like dude if you don't Deer Hunter what do you do it's because we think about it every day we think about it every day management shed hunting finding bucks trail cam whatever we because we love it it is the passion it is you know our free time is deer hunting and management I don't I don't actually think people can comprehend like the amount of of time and money and resources there are some people listening to this can oh yeah there's a handful of them for sure and we've talked about it as a one percent is it five yeah less than one percent but I say that because because we feel that way the ability to purchase land for hunting exclusively to us call it selfish or not is a major major goal in my life um not like I I think about it every day but I do well dude I think a lot of that is motivated by this conversation it's worth questioning like the reason that we want to buy it land so badly is because those opportunities are so limited to the people that can do that the experience everywhere else is dog [ __ ] because you're well and I say that because when your uncle and my dad and everybody else hunted none of those guys even talked about buying land or leasing land I didn't even hear the word leasing land until I moved to Mississippi when I was in college because the experience that they had and I had was fantastic it was everything we wanted and I don't think Matt is wrong I think I think he points at The Hunting industry and the promotion of hunting on those exclusive types of lands as being a a primary motivator of that and I I don't you can't disagree disagree um I yeah and and in a selfish manner I can't disagree that that's bad for everybody because for people who disagree that that's bad for it's a lot of double negatives going on there so I I can't disagree that so you agree so I agree that um the way that that shaped up for some people was negative sure for other people I think it was a giant positive because it set off a light bulb to oh I could have an even better experience if I have this land to myself well it's a separation like it's you know it's just like a separation of like of wealth based distribution and it pushed it pushed it really hard to the people who have land the in between is the people who either have permission or lease land to the people who don't have land um and and again in context we're talking a lot about whitetail States I I have no familiarity or what the hell happens in the west I just know there's public land everywhere yeah um and people don't buy land necessarily just it's different there's a lot more access out there so this this this separation has occurred and yes the uh the top uh is absolutely benefiting more from the experience of you know privatization exclusivity but you also have a lot of people in the bottom and and for me it's a bad experience I don't I don't like it but there's a lot of people that love the challenge of public land I mean they'll tell you about the first thing they say to you is like hey I'm Jared I'm a public land hunter I think that's out of necessity I I okay I really do it's like yes but there are guys that will they will right until they die and great I if you that is the reality that I'm happy that that is the way for you because that's what you got yeah um but to tell me that like you genuinely enjoy challenging other guys on public land to kill a three or four-year-old deer like in the state of Michigan or something like that over you know the opposite spectrum of what somebody would call like a premium Whitetail experience like even we talk about it here racing like like agree agreeing to grain eight and a half year old deer that you've you know invested into this property yeah Bill history with found sheds like done all this stuff with two different experiences there are very different experiences I I don't know yeah and and so why I also say that is that um I do and it it sounds kind of I do disagree that the top the people with that exclusive access is a pure rich man's game there's a lot of ways to have land inheriting it uh there are still plenty of access like permission pieces friends family type stuff um so I I get a bad distaste and that's because like I you know well dude look at what we're going through right now like dude we're not rich like we and yes we've certainly been uh born into or like have some situations that are are better than other people there's there's no doubt that's life but we're busting our freaking butts to be able to buy yeah and a piece of ground yeah and it stretches it stretches the finances for sure yeah and and click it's definitely not in cash we aren't buying [ __ ] in cash we're recruiting debt oh yeah um so I don't I hate that distaste for like and no like knock to them but like the Ted Turners of the world and I was like dude I'm nowhere like that kind of guy I even think when you talk about the Ben risings or we have Bobby Kendall I'm like all of these guys are dude they're taking risks and they're taking on debt to try to get to that goal you may not want to do it but don't knock them for being a rich guy because they surely aren't they're just willing to take a risk and if it fails they may be screwed I mean that's just the reality I I don't know like where this went wrong or like what the hunting industry kind of had to do with that I think that was a lot of what our conversation was about but but the real reality is that like the the as far as deer hunting which is like by Far and Away the there's the most amount of deer hunters more than anybody uh as far as deer hunting goes the best opportunities are on private land and the way to get access to those is is to buy them or to to pay for them somehow that is that is the way that it is now yeah man the uh the private land experience um you know is uh it's a hard thing to put a finger on it's always existed right there's not neces there's not been let me see how I say this flight or has it not yeah there's not there hasn't been less private land than there is today right private land is dwindling from a hunting side yeah public access to private Landing man Public Access has been dwindling but no I'm just saying private land in general there's there's less private land available today than there was whatever 20 years ago right from urban sprawl and okay um you know subdivisions and whatever else right there's less private land for deer hunting today yep 20 years ago so this gravitation to to private land yes there's already access being taken away because there's less private land this this kind of migration to it from a hunting standpoint yeah I I do think that in a in a way it is uh industry driven from content that you all of a sudden start to see in Iowa and these guys are on these big farms but I also think that this um I think that I don't know if I want to say we're lied to I feel really um blinded by the fact that we may have been told that hunting numbers were just in the tank and we got to get hunters in here and that was [ __ ] and it created a Feeding Frenzy on private land because all of a sudden the places that we did hunt before were gone or were saturated and that automatically I can agree with that created this Feeding Frenzy to lease because it was like oh my God I don't want that anymore we have to secure something now well not only that but like you know uh what Matt said about and this is not to point at any one like manufacturer like who knows you know the intention or or situations that people get into with running companies and stuff yeah I mean listen I I run a company in the industry it's not like I have a shitload of extra dollars to throw towards access I just don't well what I'm going to say though is like in regards to uh you know Matt talked about uh the donations right to the conservation groups and it's you know he and he said pretty bluntly like it's not conservation dollars that's marketing dollars that's going out you know to to uh to bring I mean dude that's all of the most financially successful companies in all of time especially in the United States have gone out and created a need maybe one existed initially but to grow created more of a neat I mean I don't know dude like it's a conspiracy theory or whatever but like run down the list of like big Pharma being like sure above and beyond like this drug creates a problem for this one creates a problem for this one yeah and on and on I mean you look at any interest there's a necessity to like to continue to to to make people want your to or need to buy your products and you know that could be misconstrued through a good thing like the promotion of hunting like nobody's gonna say I mean Matt might but we're not going to say that that's a bad thing inherently it's not sure but it is a part of and it may be paid for or motivated by the need to sell more product money yeah and when you bring those people in there's nowhere for them to go any existing people are having a worse experience because of it and I think that's an important thing that was you know at least the conversation was brought to light by today's conversation it's the realization that the motivation for a lot of that stuff even though the people doing the promoting themselves may be well intentioned is uh ultimately hurting your access yeah yeah the one thing that we didn't cover and we I tried to touch on it but I applied it to the western side which sucks because I don't know anything about that the one thing we didn't cover is and and we're in that group as long as a lot of people is um and it's not necessarily the conservation like how does this deer get conservation dollars but the private landowner spends billions of dollars creating better habitat for all types of game and non-game species inadvertently sure whether it's food plots or Timber stand improvements or whatever it is um we it is an immense amount of in enhanced habitat that if in Matt's case would say hey just do nothing and this deer will be fine maybe but by doing all of this on my private land there's a lot of deer and a lot of turkey and a lot of songbirds and butterflies and everything in the sake of the argument that's also driven by the hunting industry which I think is a good thing which I think is a good thing it's uh we're not you and I are not anti-hunting industry yeah we are on a good history exactly yeah I mean to in some sense of the word but it's like I do I do agree that I think that there could be in I said it to Matt on the podcast did maybe some of these people would help you but you can't [ __ ] talk them right like I'm not gonna if you're if you're telling me as the manufacturer then I'm a piece of [ __ ] and then at the same time you're saying yeah maybe not the best yeah and and I know that's not I know that's just him getting fired up over it but but you can't expect that right um and so like I guarantee if you sat down and had a good conversation with us or whoever and you said Hey listen here's what we're trying to do how can Sitka help us provide more access to Hunters like this fund is for that no different than going to the state legislatures or whoever to say hey we want one tenth of a percent on sales tax one tenth of a percent yeah and it will generate a massive amount of opportunity for hunters who spend billions of dollars every year I think it's a change in mindset like it's hard to you know say this confidently without all of the data laid out for you but like it seems up until this point you know Matt's frustration in our conversation today was around uh manufacturers promoting you know the highest quality experience which only comes in the case of whitetail hunting by purchasing you know this land and eventually exclusive access exclusive active and eventually people run out of access and it seems like it would be a better like and even a time now to Pivot to where it's like it would be a more sustainable better for all situation uh hunters and manufacturers and content producers it somehow that vicious cycle of like jacking up the prices of this was put back into paying private landowners for public access on their lands yes yeah well and and again um just preserving it that also will in turn also preserve a lot of habitat for wildlife that is 100 fading quickly 100 um yeah it's a it's an interesting take on it and obviously out of everyone the industry people the manufacturers absolutely don't want Hunters to to bail out that's their customers they lose customers they lose money um and so yeah it's it's a weird thing when you start to look at it I do think that the one you know we there's there's other things we agree the one thing I'm 100 on board with mad on is the fact that as existing Hunters we are not the priority we're not the priority the priority is the people who quit hunting to come back in or the people have never hunted to come in us who are the stronghold were the wall are forgotten oh they're already Hunters who gives a [ __ ] what do they need if you look at the R3 program depicted as the enemy I mean do you look across but lobbyists would say to us like these guys are terrible like they hate they hate uh they don't want they don't want new Hunters they don't want these people who can't shoot a a vertical boat what but if you look at the money I bet there's a lot of money going to reactivation and a lot of money going to Recruitment and a little money going to the retention excess a little bit of tension comes from access that's us we're the existing people and uh we're running That's it man and right now the only way you get access is by paying for it and that's I don't think anybody wants that no no but again you can't blame the landowner for taking lease money or whatever or the individual for buying it or the contest because the alternative content about it is not a good experience and that's where we we have circled the opportunity and experience thing has become kind of a core piece of our podcast um and and transparently you know we have a lot of really good experiences because of what we've worked hard to develop we also still have some pretty bad experiences when we try to go outside our core box um because we want to do things like everybody else does and then we do them and we're like well that's dog [ __ ] why would we do that like we care about hunting hunting means so much to us and at first such a short time I can't do that every day that's miserable why would anybody want to do it because it's the only option you have because you as the active Hunter are forgotten by the the same people who said hey come in with us we'll take care of you you'll love this it's it's fun that's what happens once they have you on to the next it's an interesting conversation I hope that nobody will ever say they would just have people on like it's an Ico chamber like we are going to agree with us because I I knew he we were going to disagree with him on a lot and I didn't know if we would agree with him on much to be honest when we got into it yeah um in the end we ended up agreeing on a lot yeah more than I thought you know obviously yeah and you commented on the way things are said and who's attacked probably not the right approach um but I think because we know a lot of those guys personally and we know that they're not yeah right they're not ill intentions and and maybe it isn't although you know yeah the hard part is there from a recruitment side or a reactivation side I bet they're doing a bang-up job doing a good job you mean recruiting a lot of people or or reactivating a bunch of people who are you talking about the public and and hushin and the guys that 100 he pulled out 100 and I will stick to my opinion which is I don't think that that's a bad thing I I think I I don't think there's anything wrong yes at some point you start to make money from that but that any successful business or operation will yield that well and I don't think you can stop it as a Hunting Community I don't think you can stop Recruitment and reactivation completely but we sure as hell have to do a better job for access in order to be able to handle those Recruitment and reactivate well at some point it stalls out it checks itself because it's like you know those guys can do the best job ever at promoting people the outflow is is offsetting yeah because people are like exactly this I'm leaving yeah they're like yeah it's great content I would love to do that but like I can't find a business public land that's not yeah new person comes in old person goes out because they're like screw this so it's it's a wash right and that's what happens that if you look at a lot of the statistics and what people say they're like man we got to recruit more people because we're losing so much did anybody stop and think that you're losing people because you're putting people in I did think it was really interesting his point about uh you know social media and how um like we're so afraid that it's the lack of of 100 number that scares us we're like well if we you know if we get if we lose Hunters we lose uh strength against the hunters and the point that he kind of brought to light was basically like in reality or like at least in like uh um recently it's it's been the overexposure like and it's the number of hundreds because it's right you know that drives that basically is like whether it's beaumar Spear and a bear or it's you know these girls that shot the lines and stuff it's that's what's freaking firing them up and not that they did anything inherently wrong but yeah you see the conflict that exists because of that and especially the exposure into new audiences and and obviously he's awesome yeah I think Joe Rogan Joe Rogan is not traditionally a hunter right was brought into hunting via you know Cam and and Stephen Ella and these other guys and look at Joe's audience and inevitably I'm sure there's a large part of Joe's audience that do not like that he hunts sure a large part of it sure so those Optics that are happening um you know in one way you could look at Joe as one of the most influential Hunters out there because people know perfect case in pointer like Joe is not financially motivated not to inspire new Hunters no it just loves to hunt like he loves the Hunts talking about it and undoubtedly that's inspiring a ton of hunters and so there's a perfect example of good intent but because of the access that exists for it you know possibly a negative effect tough tough place to be in in um in in a social media mindset and just a media mindset of connectivity and and yeah all the things that we think optically look great could be having a major negative effect on the experience that many people and specifically the people who've been doing this their whole life um their their quality of hunt has degraded greatly and silencing yourself not creating content that you love you know that that yeah don't do that don't do that that's not the answer we'll we'll figure that we'll figure this thing out I mean we want to see it we want to watch YouTube We want to watch the guy that we I don't know you you don't know me but you created a cool hunt in Kansas or Pennsylvania or Ohio and I watched it and I'm like damn that was awesome like we want that that is not Matt really hung on that as being a bad thing and I'm I do not think it is um I think it's great that you're sharing those hunts and experiences um and I wouldn't and no offense I wouldn't go as far as saying that those people are in still filling a whole new generation of hunters or anything like that I think ultimately though it's the fact that um I mean it does it not seem like the hunting industry is just a lot bigger than it was 20 years ago 15 years ago like it just feels bigger um and and what's so weird about that is because it feels bigger shouldn't there be much more given back to like the access and the availability of hunting it does feel bigger but in a lot of ways it feels a lot smaller yeah um but the same the same is true like the amount of dollars that are coming in and does the hunting feel smaller because the industry has to be bigger well I guess like when I talk about that like when we go to ATA it's like it's dead yeah but I I don't think that's because the companies are dead I just don't think they go I just don't think they go to ATS yeah and that may be true I think the companies they'll be dressed the the the big players are there right and they're thriving um they're just not at that show right but compared to 20 years ago when it was like a couple camera companies a couple bow companies sure uh trail camera or two company sure like it there's way more beef here now um and yet Hunters are in Hunter numbers in theory are less than they were and yet they're struggling even more to have a good experience it's a it's a strange kind of turn of events and it's it again it's it's we're bleeding out there um you know but uh it's just baby steps and and uh man it just seems like you know and you know we're we're obviously for it and you know I don't know where the opposition would come from but the fact that it's like like a penny for every eight dollars on a tax could go to conservation generate 130 million a year okay Sarah what Sarah Mclaughlin a penny a dollar a penny is that ASPCA something like that but no you're not wrong dude it's like it seems like a big enough issue that like um you know I'd be I'd be willing to put money towards that I don't know how all the taxes that are included in that sales tax thing like at least that's the one thing I'm like damn I'd be pretty happy about that the rest of them it's like what's this for you know if 33 cents for this five cents for this like where's that money go who the hell knows yeah well and frankly I think that would motivate people just as much like if I knew that I could go and spend money on something and a portion of it was going to get dedicated to opening back up private lands for me and for anybody it's like that's I could see that being appealing yeah I think it would be I think it would really be a big piece I think it's also we we've had the question for a long time of how do we get the non-consumptive users to commit dollars to conservation because we all enjoy the benefits of you know cleaner air or Waters whatever it might be right how do you get those people to con to to commit when they're non-consumptive right they don't necessarily use it for a consumptive manner via sales tax you know so anyways I'm sure everybody's gonna yell at me for lobbying for higher taxes great I don't know what side what what political party usually does higher taxes I don't know dude anymore [Music] uh I don't who knows I'm gonna say Democrats but I could be wrong sounds right we'll blame them bigger government makes more money yeah higher taxes higher taxes that sounds right we're not them anyways uh we appreciate you listening to this episode number 136 with Matt ronella and we will see you next time later [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: HUNTR

Views: 71,865

Keywords: hunting podcast, deer hunting, bow hunting, whitetail deer, public land hunting, deer hunting videos, land management, mature bucks, big bucks, bow hunting tips, mature buck bedding area, whitetail deer hunting, rut hunting whitetail, crossbow hunting, crossbow deer hunting, crossbow vs compound bow, baiting deer, matt rinella pope and young, matt rinella joe rogan, matt rinella podcast, matt rinella hunt quietly, matt rinella controversy, steve and matt rinella

Id: a_J7bXJiFFg

Length: 190min 20sec (11420 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023