Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 139 - Ryan Callaghan

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Ryan Callaghan - MeatEater's Director of Conservation and a national board member of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. Ryan grew up out West hunting, fishing and, guiding and has been passionate about the outdoor community ever since. Join us for a conversation about our public lands and why selling them would take away from more than just bowhunters. Ryan talks about how he got connected with MeatEater, his experiences with conservation, and more! Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Follow Ryan Callaghan: https://www.instagram.com/olcal406/  Thank you to our sponsors: Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.com/cam use code CAM for 15% off  Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Timestamps: 00:00:00  Why People Call Ryan “Ol Cal” 00:01:53  Ryan’s Education 00:08:26  How Ryan Got Connected with MeatEater 00:18:37  Steve Rinella: Wild Within TV Show 00:23:31  Missouri Breaks: Joe Rogan’s First Buck 00:26:10  Conversation as a Tool 00:27:21  Conservation in Clothing Lines 00:32:18  Ad Break (Ketone IQ & MUD\WTR) 00:34:36  First Elk Hunters Ryan Guided 00:37:06  First Lite’s Correlation with Public Land 00:41:00  The Threat of Selling Public Lands 00:52:36  Speculations Behind Senator Mike Lee’s Motivation 00:55:21  The Appreciation of the Outdoors 00:57:55  The Volume of Calls to the Senator 01:09:01  “Hidden” Threats to Public Lands 01:14:12  Land Biden Attempted to Sell 01:16:54  The Government's Intentions Behind “Affordable” Housing 01:21:13  Spreading the Word with Social Media 01:22:59  Takeaways from the Recent Public Land Dispute 01:26:34  Consumers in the City VS Independent People in the West 01:31:11  Trusted 3rd Party People & Resources 01:34:36  Sons of Smokey Non-Profit 01:39:10  Animal Migration in Value Land Segments 01:42:33  Lack of Early Engagement in Selling Public Lands 01:51:16  The Negatives that Come with Politics 01:53:17  Weighing in to Make a Difference 01:59:53  Shared Passion for the Mountains 02:02:37 Outro Badass Raptor Giveaway: https://cameronhanes.com/pages/hennesseyraptor

Every step I take I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel. Gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I move it's so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. All right, this is a Keep Hemmering Collective with Ryan Callahan.

How you doing? Oh, I'm good. Yeah? I'm good, yeah. I'm trying to be better than good, but I'm good. Well, on Instagram, you're old cow, right? Is that it is? Yeah.

Just old cow? Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And that came because the guys I hung out with in college when I attempted college, they were like, God, you're like an old man. Just what you were, things you were concerned with or how you carried yourself or what? Yeah, I don't know. Good stories, maybe. I think because I worked, I had jobs.

That's weird. Right. You know, like freshman year of college and sophomore year of college is this big mixing pot of people. And a lot of those kids didn't. And they were just coming from different walks of life. And this buddy of mine, Kyler Reardon, he's still one of my like all-time best hunting partners. He's got a great, he stayed in the construction vein. I took a different path.

But, you know, we'd peel out of the dorms. and come back covered in, you know, gypsum and, you know, doing demo jobs and stuff like that on the side and come back and people would be like, where were you guys playing? Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so, yeah, I just, you know, had some bills to worry about and stuff like that. So it was like, oh, old cow, old guy.

I like it. Yeah. Yeah. Where was it? Where did you go to school? That was University of Montana. Oh, okay. Yep.

So I grew up in Missoula. I have a giant Montana family. Okay. And now it's pretty funny because I live in Bozeman. And, you know, it used to be like Bozeman was really just the ag school. It was a rodeo school. A bunch of my eastern Montana family would end up going to Montana State University, the Bobcats. And then my uncle Mike played football for the Bobcats, unfortunately still for their only national championship team.

So he still kind of gets wheeled out as royalty with the national champs. That's a big accomplishment, though. Oh, it is. That's pretty sick. But they almost got it again last year. Oh, did they? Yep. Okay.

And they played a hell of a game. It just, it's one of those things. Like, when you're playing at that level, you just can't have a bad quarter. Are they playing, is it like North Dakota State? Yes. Like where Carson Went went? Yes. Is that the same size of school?

Yeah, okay. Yeah. And isn't North Dakota? to state usually pretty good too. Yep. Yeah. Yep. But, you know, as you know, like my falls are pretty booked,

so you can't ask me too much about football. I understand. But the funny thing is, is now I'm two and a half hours from all my Western Montana family and all my eastern Montana family and I'm dead smack in the middle. Yeah. And I got a lot of family coming through all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. So you went to Grizzlies. Yep. University of Montana, Missoula. And your uncle won with the Bobcats. Yeah. So that's, okay, yeah, that's a big rivalry.

And I didn't like to pay for anything. And so when I was going to University of Montana, I had all of his old Montana State University, like, workout clothes and stuff. Okay. And they had this great shirt. So they won in 1984. And their 85, like, practice shirts and workout shirts was keep it alive in 85. Nice.

And so that's what I was working out in. That's when I graduated. High school? Yeah. All right. Yeah. So that's how old I am. I'm an O-1er.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you're young, see? Yeah, 42 young. What were you going to school for back then? I loved, well, any of the ologies. Mm-hmm.

And I bumped into a, you. USGS employee who was out checking the stream flow monitors. I was fishing the Beaverhead River out of Dillon, Montana. And this guy rolls up who like kind of looks like me. And he's, you know, had some fly fishing stuff with him. And I was like, hey, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, don't worry. I'm not fishing here.

I got to check this thing. And he's, oh, I'm USGS. And I was like, oh, how did you get into that? So I was like, oh, I'm going to be a geologist. Okay. And so I started doing that. And then I took this class called Volcanoes and Earthquakes. And I was like, oh, it sounds like a good one.

This is going to be great. Yeah. And that professor made it, like, how do you make volcanoes and earthquakes boring and terrible? I mean, it was so bad. And I was, oh, my gosh, I got to do something else. Yeah. And so I kind of bounced around. And at one point, I had like anthropology and geology and geology.

and paleontology all at the same time and I always loved history and I'm just not good with authority either and my advisor didn't show up the first week so I just picked all my own classes and I picked all the things that I wanted to do and they were all like the hard classes because those sounded way better than intro to this

or intro to that. Yeah. And then by the time I was supposed to be thinking about graduating at all the easy classes. And I couldn't stand going to them because I was also a work in construction the whole time. And I was like, I was like, this is so stupid. This is so stupid. I could be setting trusses today and making money.

Yeah. You know, like the crew needs me. Yeah. You know, like teamwork was always, you know, my dad's family was big organized athletics family. So teamwork, teamwork, teamwork, coaching, all that. stuff and and so like the construction crew even though you can attract some knuckleheads you know still a team yeah it's still a team yes i'd be like oh my gosh we're putting up walls today can't let the guys down yeah yeah yeah so that was kind of the dent plus a good bird dog and uh she was just hitting her

stride and all the sudden dad found out that i was taking two classes instead of eight yeah and um You're supposed to be a full-time student. Supposed to be a full-time student. And all of a sudden, I started getting these phone calls from credit companies. And they're like, hey, you're not paying your tuition to the University of Montana. And I'm like, whoa, what's going on here? And my dad was like, oh, did you finally notice? So he quit paying?

Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Found out you weren't going. Found out I wasn't going. Found out I was making plenty of money to pay my bills and spending that on hunting. Mm-hmm.

And then I learned real quick about responsibility, being an adult and all that stuff. And, yeah. Negotiating my time with creditors is super fun. Yeah. And I have a very, um, Yeah, that little stint. Creditors following you around when you're trying to hustle and make some paychecks. Definitely like, modern times they call it trauma.

That'd be my childhood trauma that follows me around. You had to deal with the bill collectors. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you could probably get a lot of therapy out of that now, nowadays, if you want to talk to somebody. Yeah, and you just give all that money, I'm saving back. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and then, so when did you get hooked up with that? meat eater. Oh, so, you know, just like a lot of the guys that I was around, we were all guiding, fly fishing and my dad's secretary when I was young, he was a lawyer in town and he had a, you know, a legal assistant whose husband was an outfitter. Larry Pendleton, Lone Tree Outfitting. Oh, that's a good name. It is. Yeah. And he had all these beat up old trucks and each one had a custom license plate and then be like Lone Tree 1, Lone Tree 2, Lone Tree 3. We'd ride around Lone Tree 3. And he was just like a saint.

It was the weirdest thing. I know you've been around a lot of outfitters. I've worked for a bunch of them. And it's like the more I think about it, it's like the first one was the most honest. and thank God for that. And he just had the patience of Job and would, I mean, love that man. And he would answer every single question because my dad wasn't a hunt, like he was the team sports guy, the athletics guy.

Yeah. And football and all that stuff was taking me away from hunting and being outside. and my mom had got me like outdoor life and field and stream for my birthday my whole life and so I'd read those things my dad get me books on outdoor stuff and this guy was like the gateway to all the know like he had all the knowledge firsthand and that was the only person that had like that depth of knowledge and oh yeah I have been turkey hunting first is like like reading turkey honey stories right so you just ask him a million questions about everything or what oh yeah and i'm like still embarrassed about

about the sitting like the the idea because i would just not shut up yeah and i'd just be like well what about and what about and what about and what about right yeah and this guy just would just pay and he'd roll his own cigarettes and digging in the pocket of his shirt and dig his tobacco out and yeah sit there and roll a cigarette and be like well part did he have the tobacco loose in the pocket no yeah um the prince is it prince oh prince albert prince albert is he had the tin is that right yeah and then he'd have like the big yeah yeah okay okay and he'd repack the i can visualize exactly what you're saying that has a little kind of moving around a little bit yeah yeah and it was i mean it's still just so iconic but you know

everything stunk like nicotine and cigarettes and but it's like a nostalgia smell today. And he's doing that. He's not in a hurry to go anywhere because he's got a roll of cigarettes so he can tell you a story. Oh yeah, man. Yeah. It was, I mean, it was just everything to me. And then the other thing he'd do, right, is, you know, I'd follow him around. Right.

And how old were you at this time? This was probably starting about 13, I bet. And so all, but all. all the way through high school. And, you know, the second, and this is, you know, dad didn't know this, but like the second football ended, I'd cut class. I'd be sick at school.

I'd never miss a day. And then the second football ended, I'd cut class and go down there and help him guide elk hunters and just, you know, be with them and learn as much as I could. And he had just had this trick that, I didn't pick up on forever, but, you know, he's always smoking. And then he'd, like, stop me with his hand.

And then he'd look down at a cigarette and then just start marching on, you know. Is that the wind? Yeah, he's checking the wind with the smoke on his cigarette, you know. Yeah, I, hey, it works for that, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. It's like a little wind detector. Yeah. But anyway, so I was guiding all over the place.

Yeah. And eventually, I, I, I, I, I, was outdoor television was like wild west outdoor television at that point right like anybody with a couple of bucks could be on sportsman's channel if you had a couple more bucks you could be on outdoor channel and they were just trying to like feed the beast of content in in those days and so we were just constantly bumping into these tv shows and you know 99.99% of those went away fast, they don't exist today. But when you were out, like hunting, you were seeing these guys? Okay. Or, you know, they'd come into camp, you know,

with different outfitters. And then the one thing that they all had in common is it was like nobody was doing that in Montana or Idaho then, which were my main kind of zone. And they were all like Midwest folks. Like they were turkey and white tail folks, but then they wanted to get the elk. Yeah.

And then they'd be like, these, nobody's in shape to do this. So let's hire this kid to carry a camera. And so that's how I did. I would fill in if I was filming TV and I had a break, I had all this list of outfitters I could talk to, call one up, be like, hey, I'm in New Mexico. Got any work. Yeah, you got any work?

Yeah. And they'd be like, yeah. And so I'd jump in. for a week there and then I'd go to Colorado and kind of vice versa and on and then in the winters I'd fill in going to trade shows for outfitters or for brands or whatever and just stand in the booth yeah right and and talk to people and and that's how I met like the first investor in first light and it he had a bumper crop of tomatoes California dude yeah sold um The fields, the tomatoes, two years in a row.

I know nothing about tomatoes other than what he told me, which is they're notoriously dangerous to raise because they always cost you money. But when they make you money, they make you a ton of money. He had two years in a row, and he was like, I'm going to buy a plane. And his childhood friend was like, how about you don't buy a plan

and you invest in this idea that I have, which was the first light clothing company. Yeah. And I met those guys right at that time. And we ended up going to New Mexico. I ended up helping those guys in New Mexico. And then they're talking about this clothing stuff. And I'm like, well, do you have this and do you have that?

No, no, no, no. That's not what we want to do. We want to do this. But these guys were pretty new to hunting. They were like adult onset hunters. Yeah. Super fit. like really top of the line like snow sports athletes.

Okay. Like, so they have plenty of skills, but not the experience on the hunting side. Right. Right. And, and they're like, well, boy, we'd love to hear more about what you think. We don't know anybody who guides. And that was kind of how that started. And then a couple years down the road, they were just having a hard time, like, being real serious. They're like, okay, we got other jobs. Do we go all in on the clothing thing? Had they started it yet? Yeah, they'd started it. They'd come up with this logo that people still say is XD, which is a mountain and a sun coming up, first light, first light of the day. And you know what? I never, so that is the

sun coming up, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. I've never actually thought about that logo until right now. Oh, yeah. It's like when you said it, people still, I was like, oh, okay, that is supposed to be something. I don't even know what I thought it was. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Good. I learned something today. If that's all we do, we've accomplished something. Yes, exactly. So we, the angel investor called me. And he's like, hey, these guys are going to call you for a job. He's like I told them I'm tired of like the bickering

and I'm going to pull my cash out unless they hire you full time. And I was literally, I was working for Warren Miller Entertainment as like a roadie for their ski films sitting next to the pool on Santa Barbara as my like my winter seasonal job and I was like

I don't know if that's going to be a good deal. but I was like I should just try something else. Yeah. And then a couple months later, I'm like teaching myself how to type, you know, because like the last time I typed on a keyboard was in fifth grade typing class that we had to take. And doing order entry. And then I was also, my first business card was marketing, media, and sales. That's a lot.

And my job really was to sit in between the two founders, Scott and Kenton, and help them communicate with each other because they were so frustrated with each other of who wasn't doing what, right? And we got through that first year and they were like, this is fun again. Yeah. And then it just kind of kept going. And a good friend of mine called and he's like, he was working for National Wildlife Federation. And his job was to go all around eastern Montana and talk to all the grazing associations about the idea of reestablishing Buffalo around the CMR.

Like a free-ranging herd, right? And you can guess what cattle guys think of competition for scarce feed. Yeah. Not excited about that. They weren't excited about that. But, you know, through that eastern Montana family of mine, I'd help them talk to people. And I'd be like, oh, well, you know, these guys are the swankies up here in Square Butte and, and at least have some civil conversations, right?

That's a good start. Yeah. And then he's like, yeah, there's this guy, Stephen Ronella. He's got a TV show, I guess. And two out of three of us at first light didn't own a TV. And so we're like, well, okay, we'll figure out how to check this out. And then we're like, okay, this is neat. And these friends of ours, the Marx's,

I had two little boys at the time. They were big dudes now. And they were like, oh, yeah, we sit and watch this show. The whole family does. Yeah. We're like, well, that's different, right? Yeah. That's a good thing.

Was it Steve's first show or was it? It was the first show. I can't remember what that was called. Wild Within. Yes, yes. Before it went to Meat Eater. Right, yep. And then, yeah, I went.

Call them on the phone. Chatted a little bit. He was going to be on a book tour that was going to stop in Missoula. And then that Missoula stop had a bunch of conservation groups there. And I had all these buddies working for conservation groups. And I was dating a girl in Missoula. So I was like, well, I'll run up and take her on a date. And hopefully these guys will pay for my gas if I meet Steve.

Yeah, business trip. Yeah. So I went and did that and met Steve, and that was great, and then went out on a date, tried to salvage that relationship. And when I was gone, Steve was talking about meat eater and like what trip he wanted to do and wanted to do mule deer in the brakes and wanted to, you know, go up to British Columbia. And my buddies were like, oh, you should talk to Cal. Oh, you should talk to Cal. Oh, you should talk to Cal. And so I'm back out on the road.

And Steve calls and he's like, hey, what would you think about helping me with some first-time hunters? And I was like, oh, you know, that's great. But this is my first year not guiding. Because, you know, when you guide full-time, like you don't hunt for yourself. Yeah. So you're looking forward to hunting. Yeah. Yeah.

And I was like, I got some. buddies who are awesome and they'll help you out. He's like, okay, what if I told you they were comedians not LA? And I was like, not interested. I'm like, but I know what trip this is. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, okay, what if one of them was this guy, Joe Rogan? And I'm like, the fear factor guy and he's like yeah but you know he's got this podcast and stuff and i was like dude you're like i'm like you're not sweetening the pot and you're not taking no for an answer type of thing and he was getting frustrated and i was kind of getting frustrated and i'm like listen i had some buddies are awesome they're better than i am i'll set you up and he steve ends up

hanging up the phone going, well, I can find somebody else too. Okay, so you guys were in a tipping point. Yeah. And so I turned to this buddy of mine, still a good buddy of mine today. We did guide some fly fishing and whitewater together, Ryan Thompson. And I was like, RT, can you believe this guy? Can you believe what, like, he just will not take no for an answer. Like, kind of what a jackass, you know?

And R.T. He's like, he's like, Cal, dude, I know, I know you like, honey. But you should do this. Yeah. And I was like, like, you're supposed to be on my side. Yeah. You know. I got to go babysit these guys.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that was, that was it. So we went and did that trip. And that was Prince Wales, right? That was the Missouri breaks. Oh, that was Joe's first buck.

Joe's first hunt. Yeah, that's right. He still talks about, well, I'm sure, because you're going on a show, right, coming out? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure he's got that deer still sitting there. I mean, have you been on there since he's? I haven't been in Austin with him.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But no, he still talks about that cooking that meat, I guess, around the fire that night and how he's, like, decided right then. And he'll tell the story just with the same enthusiasm. He always tells it because it's like his stories, his, I think his one of his superpowers, he can tell a story for the hundredth time

and he's as into it as the first time. And so he's going to tell this story about cooking that and he took a bite and he knew at that time he was either going to, this is what he's going to do for the rest of his life. I love that story. Oh, and that trip just had like the things that make a good trip. Mm-hmm. Like they, like force you to bond.

like it wasn't warm it wasn't friendly you know it's the Missouri breaks and it's kind of when we started it was kind of right at that rain snow point and then when we took off it was like I can't remember what it was like 13 or 14 below zero

and you know it's a when it's gray and nasty it's not like a welcoming landscape all that and Joe and Brian's first impression was that it was like a post-industrial, they thought like there was a coal mine that had raped and pillaged the land, you know? And they were like, what the fuck is this?

You know? And I could hear them chirping, and I finally had to say something because I was a little offended. Yeah. I'm like, this is my home state. Yes. This is beautiful out here.

What are you guys talking about? You better love this. This isn't some nuclear. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like, you better love it right now, in fact, right? But, you know, it's like when when everybody has to deal with some adversity, it just helps glue you together, right? For sure.

Yeah, that bond. So it was good. It was good. Well, I mean, Joe talks about how that trip, that was changed his life essentially. And it's like, how incredible is that, though? Like, you think about the decisions you've made in life and that you didn't really want to do it, but you kind of did it. And, I mean, probably changed the trajectory of everything.

Yeah, I mean, it did. I mean, the guys on the work side of things were like, you're still going to be able to answer the phones, right? And yeah, I mean, it was the interesting thing that, like, you just don't realize is, and I still struggle with it, right, is like being able to just have a conversation as a skill. And the production crew, some of those guys are still around.

Mo Fallon is, you know, he came off a Bourdain's show to launch the Meat Eater show. And he was like, dude, you got to do this. Like, you're great talking to a camera. I was like, I'm sure everybody is type of thing, you know. Yeah. And they're like, no, this is so much easier for us. But, you know, that's just kind of a goofy.

thing. I'm like, well, let me show you how I build a house. Like, that's more impressive to me, you know, a type of thing. Yeah. And the thing is not hardly anybody's good is good at talking to a camera. You know what I mean? I mean, they were right. You're good at it and most people are terrible at it. So yeah, it takes, you've got to have that little, that little part of it. Yeah. It's hard. And so we ramped up on the first light side of things. And as you know, like the thing that little tiny clothing line and the biggest, biggest thing for us that separated us from everybody else at that moment in time. Things have changed a ton. And I don't want to, I want to be careful with this because it's just the way it was. And people have short memories, especially

these days. But brands in the hunting space were not outspoken about confidence. conservation issues. There were brands that donated tons of money, way more money than we had in our clothing line and in our marketing, like way more. But they just wouldn't talk about it. It might be buried on a landing page in the back of the website, but the whole industry was so scared of alienating anybody that it just wasn't out in front. Right. Meanwhile, in the greater outdoor world, you have Patagonia basically in comparison being like a crazy activism group.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. In comparison. Right. And this public land selloff stuff was happening at that time. And I was made aware of it through all these friends in Missoula. Was this 2017? This would have been a little bit earlier.

been like 20, was 2013, 2014. So you have like the Bundys. Oh, right. Yeah. That was a huge thing. You have Jason Chaffetz. Like it's all that walk up. Okay. But prior to that, kind of like where we're at right now,

you had these people being like, hey, you got to be aware of this. You got to be aware of this. This is coming. This is happening. These, you know, like the tumblers are starting to move again. Yeah. And I ended up at a backcountry hunters and anglers meeting in missoula because i came out of the frank church wilderness where i was working and um did what everybody else my age was doing that was guiding which was you had a pocket full of cash and you're going to go drink beer and chase girls and i called up my buddies

and i was like where are we drinking beer and chasing girls and they're like well let's we're going to go to this meeting i was like no what else you got and they're like don't worry there's free beer yeah i'm sorry i thought you said meaty Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So we went up there and it was kind of the same deal. And they were like, does anybody guide? You know, like, well, what's your story? I'm like, well, this way, you know, that's what I did.

And what they were talking about, this idea that people didn't value wilderness areas, like capital W wilderness was like appalling to me. Yeah. Because that's where I spent a ton of my time growing up. Rattlesnake Wilderness outside of Missoula, Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, and then a bunch of time later on in life in the Frank Church Wilderness.

And I would watch these people just have these transformative experiences. Yeah. Like transformative. These big time, you know, at least where I was in life, I was like, these are big time CEO people own chains of hotels. or chicken farms or whatever it is. And they would come in. They'd be on sleeping pills and other pills

and smoking cigarettes like a fiend. And then six, seven days into the wilderness trip, they're like chilled out and they're accepting the fact that they're not in charge of stuff. And more often than not, like my biggest claim to fame, I'm, you know, I'd, you know, kind of ease off. And instead of being the guy in the lead all the time, I'd be like, well, hey, you know, I'd do exactly what the old outfitter did for me.

Yeah. I'd be like, hey, part. What do you think? Take the monoculars. Yeah. And I can just ease up over that ridge. Yeah. And tell me what you see, you know.

And these, I mean, these guys are listening to like a 21-year-old kid. Right. And, but they're like, should I? You know? And when they started, they would never listen to you, right? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. And so that was just crazy that people wouldn't value wilderness because I was like, well, I've seen it. Mm-hmm. You know, and these people aren't Montana people or Idaho people or Wyoming people. They're North Carolina, South Carolina, New York. First elk hunters I ever guided were, well, Nunzio was my guy. and he was fantastic, right? And he was shooting a compound bow in Queens, New York, 10 yards,

inside of his apartment. He's like, dude, that's what I got. Doing all he can, yeah. Yeah. And it was just like amazed, amazed that somebody could do that. Would ride his bike in Central Park or, you know, whatever. And he's like, yeah, that's what I do, you know. So anyway.

How'd that hunt go, by the way? With Nunzi-O. nuns. Yeah. It was a bit of a cluster. It was, yeah. Man, we worked so hard. And it was early in the guiding career for archery elk.

And, you know, I just couldn't like, I just didn't know what I didn't know. Yeah. And getting a bull in close is tough. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, bowl runs in. And I'm backing up because just him and I. Yeah.

And he's like, yeah, that bull came into like five yards and it was just a chest shot. Yeah. He's like, well, why didn't you shoot it? He's like, why didn't you tell me that's a good shot? You know? I'm like, oh, my God. There's so much to learn. Yeah.

And just so many variables that you can't explain them all. I know. And getting people set up is tough. Yeah. Right. For sure. But, I mean, it was awesome. It was awesome.

And just learning like what got those guys out of Queens to come out. out there. It's incredible. And like these big city folks can kind of get shit on. But the level of dedication and what they have to do to stick with this stuff. Yeah. Like I know plenty of guys out here in the West that, man, they're grabbing the golf clubs, not sticking with the hunting stuff if that's what they have to go through. Yeah.

I mean, it's like here you can here you can buy an over-the-counter elk tag still in western Oregon. and just go right here. Right. And that's too much for some people. So imagine somebody in New York who's like got to exercise in Central Park and shooting their apartment and they're still willing to sacrifice. But yeah, I mean, but also then there are people out here who are just ate up with it and just think about it every second of every day, like probably us.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So anyway, we started talking about first light or sorry, public land because public lands were under threat and it was just the truth it was easy it was simple it was like this whole company was founded on public land like the origin story was so this is first light again or bha first light because you're talking about that bha meeting for a second yeah yeah well that those guys kind of got me like quote unquote activated thinking of it aware of yeah the threats right this world out here yeah

and then like a year goes by um at first light again i'm like sales, marketing, media. Plus I'm doing all the like background product research on fabrics and or fit or all the things, you know. Three man band, right? I lived in the garage underneath the office. And I brought my 1971 camper trailer

that I bought off the old outfitter, put it in the garage. Was this in Idaho? In Idaho. Okay. I was living in there. It pissed my one boss. Scott off a ton because he was like, that thing is just a big beast of crap.

And everybody who walked in would be like, oh, cool camper. And he's like, ah, you got to get that out of here. But we just started being like, hey, your public lands, your public lands. First light, public lands. First light, access.

First light, public lands, public lands. And all of a sudden, people start buying stuff. And the brand just starts getting huge for us huge right i mean we're tiny tiny right um but people are talking about us people are buying stuff we're selling out of everything

um the bigger brands like big legacy brands are calling me and being like hey ryan love what you're doing but just so you know you're going to alienate people and you can't afford to do that the pie is not that big by talking activism and public planned.

Yeah, by just talking. And to us, it wasn't activism. It was like, well, if they take that away, that's where we go. Yeah. What are we going to do? Right. Right? And all we did was our tree hunt.

Like the three of us, that's all we did at the time. And it was all hyper local. It was like right out the back door. I was like, well, God, this is exactly the stuff that they're talking about. And then I started doing research and reaching out to big companies in the bigger outdoor space and got a hold of these reports telling me how big the pie is, right? I'm like, well, it's a $3 billion industry. I'm like, we're doing like $2 million right now.

I'm like, I seem like there's some more pie. There's a lot of pie out there, guys. I'm like, what if we got to $7 million? Like that'd be, that's balling. Yeah, there's still a ton of pie left then too, you know? So, yeah, that's what we did. And I think the brand still, like, very much known for just having that good public lands ethos. And that's where our customer base hunts.

And it's relatable. And that's where we're testing the products. And that's, that was kind of like the whole startup deal. And then, yeah, Steve came in and we're like, God, this guy's so similar to what we do. And it turns out it's like, well, it's similar to. what most hunters do. Like it turns out they eat their food too, right? You know?

Yeah. And yeah, I mean, we're a long way down the road from that, but kind of back in that same public lands type of hot topic scenario. Yeah. Well, so when you talk about at that time, you said, well, that's what we do when you talk about public lands? What was the threat back then? Was it the same threat that we're dealing with now or was it a little bit different?

Yeah. So same threat, kind of different story, right? So like the Bundys were talking about transferring all land and they were really whipping people up on, you know, really strong anti-government federal land is not constitutional. and basically like it was spun as like a government overreach type of argument. And then that coalesced around this moment where, and it's so similar to right now in the fact where you have this buildup. And then some politician comes in and tries to capitalize on it. And the politician at that time was Jason Chaffetz. And he was like, oh, here's a bill to sell 2.3 million acres.

and disposable land yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah low value nobody cares about it yeah and you know all the sudden uh jo rogan's got a public land owner t-shirt uh we're we're on his podcast uh everybody's talking about public lands all the Utah boys all of our flat brim bros are like oh my god public lands are awesome what's going on we hunt you know, this is, these are over the counter tags. This is, and it was a huge, like, tidal wave moment, right? And all of a sudden, uh, Chaffetz has his strange kind of, I love all dogs, but the picture was strange, like hound dogish thing and a odd fitting hunting coat being like, yeah, by the fire.

I swear to God I hunt, you know? Yeah. And, and then, you know, we smashed that bill. and things just kind of simmered down ever so slowly with no resolution. And, you know, I feel like a lot of people just kind of like forgot about this idea that it's, I don't want to call it like class warfare because that's not what I'm about at all, but this idea that quite simply if somebody can't have it, it makes them one, on it more. Yeah. Yeah. And so you think they see this like right now, Senator Mike Lee, he sees all that land.

And he's like, this is the time. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I think, don't you think that, and maybe we've talked about this because we've talked, you know, in the course of all this. But when they have the House, the Senate and the presidency, they can be more aggressive, right? Oh, yeah. I'm a Republican. So I'm not saying they like somebody else. Yeah. And you can say we. I mean, it's we. I think now more than ever, people need to be reminded like the government is us. It's we, we the people. Yeah.

Right. And if you don't want to participate, somebody will participate for you. Yeah. Right. Make those decisions. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.

We. Yeah. Well, it's, you know, I think most people probably listening know what's what we've been dealing with lately. but there was a big threat to public land, essentially. I'll just, you know, just so we can catch everybody up to speed. Recently a senator was proposing selling public, you know, they say a small portion of public land, half percent percent,

something like that. But when you talk about, you know, 200 and however many million acres, that percent, yeah, that's even a small percentage is more land than we want to sell as public land hunters. But yeah, so the senator was proposing this, They were trying to sell it. I think not originally. It wasn't billed as affordable housing originally.

I think that was like, I think that's what it ended up. Because I heard even Trump mentioned it, like, yeah, we need more affordable housing. That's not what it was about to start off that I saw. I never saw any affordable housing mentioned. But, yeah. The affordable housing was in the sales pitch, not the language. Right. Not in the text of the bill.

Yeah. Yeah, and the text of the bill was really left up to broad interpretation. Like, it was very vague. But, like, I hate saying I have favorite parts of it, but one of my favorite parts, right, is like, bullet point one, land eligible for sale has to be near existing infrastructure. Then you get all the way down to bullet point number seven. Or very far away from existing infrastructure and, you know,

And it's like, so everything in between. So the stuff that's really close and the stuff that's really far away and everything in between. Yeah. Right. And then, you know, I had called you because there were like these bellwether moments of awareness. And, you know, like we've been feeling the tide rise on this for months and months. And the language coming out of Lee's office. was getting more and more bold.

And for people who don't understand the history here, like Lee, the only, the only positive thing, or I guess admirable thing I can say about him is he's been out front and he's been consistent, right? But he's changed his language ever so subtly now because he used to just flat out say, the federal government should not own any land. I want to sell it all.

And he said that over and over and over and over again. And now he's trying to work on a sales pitch, right? But the first one was, I think, half a percent of all forest service and up to 0.75% of all BLM in these 11 Western states. and the lands eligible would come from like 500 million acres would be eligible, and then you could pull those parcels from here and there. And fortunately, the Wilderness Society produced this map of like, okay, well, here's the eligible part. And people could look at that map and be like, oh, my God.

that's my spot yeah right like my my my public land spot is on favorite spot yeah yeah yeah and so I mean obviously that helped a ton because people need context right yeah it's like oh they're selling public land what are they selling oh stuff that's not valuable well because they they they I mean Lee and his whoever they weren't putting out anything saying here's what we're talking about exactly because they wanted it vague yeah but then you know you talked about the wilderness society did that out but that was like a big people who didn't know what we're talking about because they make it sound like oh it's this nobody ever uses it was like wait who's nobody first of all the people that do use it that you don't know they probably are concerned about this yeah but yeah so what do you

think i mean like low value yeah garden variety all these like i know yeah these terms that they're using just to label it is just to like get people settled down basically yeah yeah yeah no Nobody wants to think about, oh, they're going to sell Yellowstone. So they would go or glacier or whatever. So they would go to the exact opposite of what people think about when they think about beauty and mountains and parks. And they're like, okay, so what would be the exact opposite of that? Well, that's this low value or whatever.

Yeah. And don't worry, we're not selling the national parks. I got so sick of hearing that. I'm like, God, Almighty, there's not a single hunter out here who ever mentioned national parks. Right. Like none of us are worried. that you're going to sell Yosemite or Yellowstone

or Grand Teton, we're talking about the low value lands. Yeah. Like the places that we run our bird dogs, you know, it's like close to town after work. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, I don't know, I think, I don't know, I've never been so frustrated. So what kind of context could we put out there that would help explain this a little bit more? So we have the senator, thinks there should be no, the country shouldn't own any land,

essentially, right? Yeah. So what does he, I mean, why do you think he's, why is this his mission, if you had to guess? Man, I'd rather not guess. I mean, there's all these existing theories.

I've never talked to the guy. I've only been in the same hallway with him once. And he didn't look like he was in a real chatty mood at the time. Um, but, you know, those theories range from like, uh, real hardline religious ideology to, um, the, like, just participation in these land sell-off think tanks. Um, I don't know what, what the truth is. but I guess I don't know what the truth is other than the fact that people love public lands

and people from all walks of life use public lands and with the exception of a lot of these people who live in D.C. full-time. Yeah. Right? I mean, and so, yeah, I'm sure this stuff's low value to them. Yeah. But they have just quit rubbing shoulders

with the rank and file American and it just shows more. and more and more. Right. So. And I do think it's probably an easy, you know, because Trump is a business guy, right? So he probably loves the numbers thinking about what we could do with this land and turn this into that and what it would result in money wise, but it's not the point.

Well, it's not the point too, but I mean, it's like they are money producers and it's like if you need to dig yourself out of debt. Yeah. It's like, do you sell the apartment building? that you own that's throwing putting money back in like what do you do i mean i don't yeah i i i the value worldwide of untrammeled land just keeps going up and up and the united states of america and canada um are like leading the charge in extremely high value high ecological value lands that have not been screwed up yet.

Right. And the value of that just goes up and up and up and up. You know, so the kind of going back to, you know, some of the stuff that you've been saying on the motivation of Lee, you know, has to be spot on. It's like, well, I already promised that we were going to say. sell this land. Yeah. And now I got to go to those entities and say, oh, this isn't going through right now,

which isn't fun. But, you know, again, like he never gave the, the quote, unquote, public landowner, the fair public process to say whether we value them or not. Yeah. And that came in gradually building and building and building into like this ground swell moment here that just like i think it peaked about two and a half days ago and it just just got pulled out last night at um what is it eight at eight 30 nine nine o'clock uh saturday saturday time yeah so um you know people were kind of getting beat up on the messaging and and and it's so frustrating to call and leave

messages and not get a real response from the real person or you get a form letter that kind of addresses something but really says what they wanted to say the whole time and so I get it but that stuff really made a difference yeah no really made a difference I don't think do you think there's ever been anything like that happen as far for in politics do you think their phones have ever been in their emails have ever been as active as they were with this because i don't think so i know that we both talked to the same reporter from new york times and she and she said do you think they anticipated this and i was just like i don't think so because this i think this is like a big wake-up call and i think they sort of forgot and i said i don't know what you guys think about land out you know

in the back east in new york or whatever but out west it's a big deal and i don't know if I can't it's hard to think that they wouldn't know that or Lee wouldn't know that but maybe it's just being in that DC bubble so long couldn't have forgot but it's like seems like did you guys forget you just get did I mean it's I don't want to make excuses for the guy because I think the guy still wants to sell the stuff but yeah yeah I think you know you get further away from the guy who looks like he's going to punch you in the face and eventually you're like all it was just an argument he didn't really want to punch me in the face yeah right yeah type of thing um man there are so many people that use these places all the time and you know because of

how we've made we all have a hand in this how we've all made party politics and and wanted to distance ourselves from the crazy um it took a long time to get a hold of all these people. Like, oh, dude, you're off-road group. Do they go out here? Great. Well, it's going to be up for sale. Might be gone.

Like, it's happening. Your archery group, your crew that you go out and fall off with, bird watchers, dog walkers, trail runners, ultra-marathoners. And we all have this huge overlap in the middle of the Venn diagram of just wanting to be outside. and having some space. Yeah. And most people don't have a lot of options other than, you know,

these lands that are held in the federal trust, right? The public trust. And I think it's a great time for the hunting and angling crowd to be out here and be out front and say, yeah, this stuff is special. And without it, we kind of go away. Yeah. And our guns go away.

And, you know, National Shooting Sports Foundation, when we first went through this, or, you know, my first time really being in it in that, you know, 2012, 13, 14 range, they had released some numbers that I didn't seem to get to this time around on, like, what happens to gun ownership with lack of access and gun sales and ammunition sales. Okay. I've seen that. And, you know, it goes down.

Oh, yeah. And if you can't use something, pretty soon you're like, ah, you got to free up space. And then you just don't have it anymore. Right. And there's all, and then we talk about the next generation of hunters or just people who appreciate the outdoors. If it's every weekend right now, and then all of a sudden it's, well, it's once a month and it's a bigger trip. Yeah. And, you know, I always sound like I'm beating up on golf, but it's,

like burn less cash going to the golf course and you can walk around and be on you have that weird thing where your golf cart follows you around I saw that for the first time when I was in California a few weeks ago that's a that's weird deal but I don't think most of these lawmakers have had their phones ring like that on one issue for possibly ever I know like you in the backcountry hunters and anglers action alert center when it was in the house and we got it withdrawn out of the house right we had uh 14,000 calls in one day and you know that goes they really don't we need to get to get to this but you call your senator or when it was in the house you're representative and say this is what you got to do

this stuff means a ton to me this is what you got to do and then they take it from there um it's that's the way the system set up when it's in the senate you call your senator they they take your request from there that's the way the system set up at the end here you know you're yelling like call your senator i know you've done it already but then also called john thunes yeah right he's the senate majority leader right and people were like man i don't know if they really listen to that because it's supposed to be the representative. I'm like, well, I don't care because the guy is, he's got a hell of a lot more responsibility than just the state of South Dakota. And I love South Dakota. Yeah. It is a,

it is a sports wins paradise. But like those channels, you start feeling like they're not working, right? At the end of the Senate fight, or like I said, about two days ago, that BHA Action Center in one day 40,000 people used it to call or email their senator in one day. Yeah. And the bulk of those

calls and emails were in those 11 states. And that, I mean, that's more action on the email and phone lines than those people may get

their entire rest of their career. Right. I mean, it is a really big deal. And folks always ask, like, well, what's the most impact I can make? Well, you know, hit the switchboard, make a phone call, make an email. Those form letter systems, they matter too because groups that do have government affairs teams, they can also like point back, right? Like that allows us at BHA to track the traffic and be like, okay, we know for a fact that, you know,

3,500 people called your office today. Right? And those are people you have to put in your address. So those are people in your district. They're the people who vote for you or don't vote for you, and 3,500 people called you today. Yeah. Right?

It's a lot of calls. I'm like, can we talk about that? Yeah. You know, and so they, it's that data that does matter. And I know once you do it once, you're like, okay, I feel good. Feel good about that. And then you do it again. You're like, okay, still feeling good.

And then you do it again and you're like, right. God, is this, does this doing anything? Yeah. Yeah. But it got it did. Can you explain to, because I'm not, I was telling both Randy Newberg and you, I wish I was as good as you guys at this.

I'm not good at it, but could you explain? People were saying that I thought this was already resolved or whatever because how it worked was it was at the house. So this huge bill, which I hate these huge bills anyway. There's so much garbage in there that just gets lumped in. But so it goes to, first it's in the house. And the language has to be the exact same.

both in the House and the Senate. So they took this public land sales out of the House. It went to the Senate. Lee added it back in. Yep. Then if it stays in there, the House would have to approve it, right? Yes. And then it would go to the President to get signed.

But both the Senate and the House have to agree on the exact same language. Yeah. And then it gets signed into law. Yep, exactly. Okay. So if the Senate would have been like, hey, House, great job. Everything looks great here. then they would have

it basically just would have gone to the to the floor for a vote it would have voted on it in the Senate would have gone to the House the House would have voted on it up to Trump's desk, big beautiful bill done but because of those changes

the House then would have to review those changes but what happened this time is because I don't even think Lee's press release is something people should read because it is so misleading. It's such BS. It is. It's like it's kind of contradicts itself. Yeah. From the middle to the end. Yeah. It's like a it's like a gut shot kill, right? You're like, man. Let's not do that again.

Got it done, but I got that bull, but man, I don't feel good about it. Right. Right. Like, yeah, it could have been a better way, but I wish it, wish it would have been a better way. But I'm trying to feel really good about it. So this is what people need to know. And this is what I have real, real heartburn over because I do 100% believe in we the people. Like your person lost in the election, that's still your president. Yeah. Right. You're, that's still your senator. Yeah. Right. If you win, that's your president. That's your senator. That's That's your representative. You're not off the hook.

You're still a citizen. You got to exercise your right to keep these folks straight and representing you. This is proof in the pudding that the election isn't all there is to being a responsible hunter, conservationist, citizen of the United States. Like, yeah, it's not always fun. But as we used to say, the not fun stuff is actually what you get paid for. Well, the people that are saying like, this is what you voted for. That's what drives me so fucking insane because it's like, no, that's not what I voted for. That's why we're pushing back on this because we didn't vote for just to sell public land.

But they're like, if you make a vote, then you're just stuck with it. You can't say one word about anything. No, that's not how it works in America. And by the way, is that really what you want? Yeah, no. Like I'm asking people. I'm like, okay, sure. You got your point out there.

What's your goal? Yeah. Like, are you, do you want public lands or do you not want public lands? Right. What's the point here? If you don't, you're making a great point. And the 54% of America that voted for Trump can shut up and you're going to lose your public lands. Yeah.

And then if that's your goal, great strategy. Right. God. But if your goal's public lands and saving public lands for you and the next generation, the next generation. put your bullshit aside. Yeah, can we get past this part? Yeah.

And yeah, and hopefully we all learn and grow and do adult things. Yeah. And keep the wheels on this train, right? And we'll save public lands. And then when it comes election time, we can start having those fun talks again. But guess what? Yeah. If you want to wait for election time, you're going to lose a bunch of really good shit between them and now.

Three and a half years. Is that your choice? Yeah. Right? So here's the thing that just absolutely chaps my ass. Mike Lee, he's a senior senator. He is also the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. There's other senior senators there.

Heinrichs is one of them. We were talking about him earlier, probably before he were recording. And it is so difficult to get anything done. without the support of the committee chair, that that's the main excuse here is like, well, I can't be too strong on this because I have other things I want to get done. And Lee has made a crystal clear

that that good stuff that I want to do for my constituents will not get done unless I support him on this. Or if not support, just don't say anything. Right. And I mean, we got to be able, like, once you have somebody who just refuses to work on good things that will benefit the American people,

what do you do with that person? Like, you have got to be able to work around that dude. Yeah. And that's where, you know, the John Thune angle would come in, where, you know, he can override that committee chair. And, you know, so that's where we were, saying like well somebody's got to step up and be an adult here yeah we got this kid in the middle who refuses to let go of the ball right everybody else wants to play yeah everybody else wants to

play but we only got one ball yeah and this guy's standing there white knuckled on it right what do we do like is this really how our government's supposed to work yeah that's that's that's what i cannot i could not get over i don't know if i didn't know how it worked or if this was a unique situation I could not figure or I mean it seems so wrong that one person Senator Mike Lee can hold that ball essentially but he wants to sell federal public lands or just public land and can almost do it one person can almost get that done with the public without social media we had really had no say yeah we vote he got votes to be in his position so I guess you could say you know he was he was uh democratically voted in.

Yeah, whatever. Given the rights to make decisions for his voters or whatever. But over something this big that could change a country forever, how can one person essentially almost make that happen? Yeah. And we can't say could. It would have. Like, once it's gone, it is gone. That is just the absolute fact of it.

Yeah. And, man, all the things that we talk about. And the whole country. nobody was on board with it and still almost happened. Yeah. Why? How can that happen and how do we fix that? Yeah.

Our government relations person was like, yeah, I was talking to, I can't remember, I'm not as good as they are. I was talking to somebody in Maine. They're like, you know, we don't have, this is not a main issue. Like, I've gotten more calls on this than anything else, anything else. People calling my office and don't sell public lands. This is the main person. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. right and it's like everybody so the whole country said no and it and this person who's supposed to represent his district in the state of Utah right is given the bird

to the entire rest of the country and it has sucked up all the volume in the room yeah all the volume in the room so we have all these other threats to access hunting access

um boundary waters canoe area right big foreign owned mine in our freshwater reserves the most visited wilderness area in the entire united states the most accessible wilderness and that's one of the biggest gripes about wilderness well you can't go in there is what people like to say well yeah millions of people visit the about the boundary waters yeah um you got uh anwar arctic national Wildlife Refuge. I was just up there. We were talking about you.

Oh. Yeah, because the folks on the trip were like, don't you think Camhands would like to come up here? I'm like, yeah, absolutely,

you would. Every hunter would. I mean, the Brooks Range and, yeah, oh my God. Oh, my God. Yeah.

You know, they want a mandatory lease sales right on the Arctic plan where the caribou cab and all of our migratory birds go up to. and, you know, things that are like going to impact all of us have gotten so little attention. The roadless rule rescission.

Yeah, that's part of this too, isn't it? That's not in this. That's a separate thing. There's going to be a 30-day comment period that people need to weigh in on. Read the text. I keep telling people, I'm like, this is not information that's exclusive to me or you. It is go to the federal register. gov and read it for yourself.

Yeah, that's, I mean, but that's your point is that that took up so much of everybody's energy and focus and there's all these other things. So you wonder, like, was that a distraction to push this other shit through? You know what I mean? People like, like they label stuff as conspiracy theories now. But you have to wonder, was this a ploy somehow? Or like, I would, I would wonder, was this a ploy to push something else through? Yeah.

Because you don't know. Like I said, these big bills have, who knows what's in there? I mean, it's 1,000 pages. I haven't read the whole thing, have you? No. No. I went straight to page 202 and looked at public. Yeah, I know.

But that's what's pretty frustrating is you wonder what they're up to. And it used to be, I think we were kind of tricked into believing they have our best interest at heart or in mind. now. Heavy dose of skepticism, right? Definitely. And I laugh at the people online and you're like, oh, you're a Trump or you're a Republican, you're a lefty, you're liberal, you know, depending on whatever I say that day. And I just got to laugh, man.

I'm like, gang, if you think I'm in bed with either side at this point, like, I just can't. I just cannot. I don't even. I'm trying to find the right people. I'm doing my research. I'm trying to make the best decisions. And, you know, I'm like, also, like, on the presidential ticket, man, Harris had land sales in there, too. She was just doing it through the existing legal structure, which is a hell of a lot better than what Lee was doing.

And that's, like, the thing that people have got to understand. BLM has federal land transfer facilitation act, as we've already covered, I'm a freaking college dropout. Okay, I didn't get good grades. I just love being outside. And you can use the Internet for good or evil. I look this stuff up and read it. You know, and it's like that exists on the, oh, sorry, Flit Fu is the Forest Service side.

BLM is Flipma. Federal Land Policy Management Act. But this country has used those. They're voter approved. Are they perfect? Absolutely not. I would have been ultra-frikin pissed at Harris, and I would have been beating this drum,

and BHA would have been just as pissed on those land sales because they were super broad in language. It was affordable housing. Yeah. Right? And it's like, affordable to who? Oh, no, no, no. It's not affordable.

It's attainable housing. Okay, well, attainable to who? Right. Right. what I point out often is Biden sold a chunk. The sale didn't actually go through. It was Nevada. King County's Vegas, isn't it?

It's King County. And the last time I looked, so it went, it happened under Biden. The actual sale didn't happen until Trump was it. But this is a Biden thing. Yeah. And I think it was March is when it happened. fund. There were five tracks to address the affordable housing crisis. I looked at it months later and only three of the five tracks had bids on them. Right? I'm like, this is a crisis.

What's going on? Yeah. Shouldn't they all have sold like that? Right. Right. And so heavy dose of skepticism. So I don't care where it's coming from. I wonder what that was. I wonder if that was to open up something else that was BLM you know it was supposed to I contacted you know there were like three little stories out of Vegas newspapers on that sale and I reached out to the reporters um I get real OCD and start going like I got to figure this out yeah and um they couldn't really explain it either but they said that there was just a lot of local pushback right because you have people who um You know, there's a $350,000 house here, and there's a $400,000 house here. And the difference is, is the backyard of this one looks out on the BLM land.

And the backyard of this one looks out on another house. Right. And so the people with the backyards that looked out on BLM, they're like, hell no, we don't want you building houses out there. Yeah. Yeah. Screws up our view. Yeah. And we already paid a premium on it.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's infuriated. where I'm at right now and is like people are dying for this conservative Republican anybody to come out and be like

public lands are not for sale don't care. Ryan Zinkie's doing in the house leading the charge. Tim Shehee's close. He's now our new Montana senator freshman senator. But just be a champion for this. It's not that hard.

Yeah. Just say it. Yeah. Say it. Do it. And change, change this shit. Yeah. You know, somebody's asking me if there would be a way, like if you trusted what

they were saying, like if we needed to create more affordable housing, they said, would there be a way to do that? And I was like, yeah, I mean, I'm sure, but with Senator Lee, nobody trusts what he's saying because he keeps changing it. But yeah, I mean, if maybe there would be some land around a city, maybe, but it's just like nobody trusts it that they're doing it for the right reason. That's just like a scam just to get basically the, who knows what developed public land, somebody's going to make money off of itself to China, Black Rock, Bill Gates, who knows. But if you probably could have a discussion if you started off on like going down the right road, basically. But what I see, and I don't know what you see, I go up to Portland. I see all the businesses in the city are vacant because we've had riots.

We've had different things like that. So we talk about these public lands they want to sell for affordable housing that they have to build an infrastructure on. roads, water, power, gas lines, infrastructure, just to build these houses where there's already a vacant city right now with buildings, nobody in them, turn those into, if you're worried about living quarters, turn that into affordable housing. And the infrastructure is already set up. So it seems like a lot of excuses to get to, you know, some prime real estate for whatever reason, for somebody to make money. It's not for what they say. That's, I think, the, That's the biggest problem I have.

It's like I just don't trust that their intentions are pure. Oh, darn right, man. I mean, any of these boom towns, any one of them, I was talking about my buddy Kyler, Rocky Mountain Remodel, that dude could whip you out the proper zoning, how to make affordable housing in, you know, 15 minutes probably. Yeah. Why is it so hard for our elected officials to do that, right?

Outline it. Like, you can't throw a rock in these boom towns without hitting a contractor of some sort. Yeah. Right? And all we got was this like vague zoning language that, yeah, like high density, affordable housing is possible there. But also a house on two to five acres is possible there. And I think probably what's going to be. to get built is the thing that makes the contractor the most money.

Right. Yeah. More than likely. Right. And is, and yeah, so I think it's nobody trusts that they're actually, that's the goal. The goal is something else for somebody else to make money. But if, yeah, I don't know. But yeah, like let's rebutify this stuff. Let's put the grease into the existing infrastructure that we have.

Has anybody done an analysis of what's standing and empty or vacant and what's going to take? Right? Start there. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Yeah. That old tune. Yeah. It's, uh, yeah, I just like, it's just, that was so frustrating.

And I can't believe. I mean, we made it. It feels like, it feels like I'm still nervous to celebrate, sort of, because I'm just waiting for some revision or, like. like, oh, this happened or they did this. But it was, I mean, I don't know, I'm just nervous. I'm nervous that, yeah, we won this one. But I'm hoping that the outpour of support and concern, hopefully this gets them thinking about the next time they try this

because they're like, okay, we've got to do a better job at whatever they're trying to do. But they see that what happens when they get the public riled up. And we have this vehicle because without social media, this wouldn't have happened. I mean, how do we have made this happen without social media? And people talk a lot of shit about social media. Hunter's, you know, we do all the time. But man, it sure worked in our favor this time, didn't it?

Yeah. I mean, it can be used for good or evil, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I always tell people, I'm like, sign up for those newsletters. Like, whether you're a member of a hook-and-bullet conservation, organization or not, you can sign up for the newsletter, then learn about it, and then you can choose to pay your 30 bucks and be a member or donate a couple for when they're doing good stuff

that aligns with you. Well, that mail list, mailing list only grows a little bit and social media once the algorithm kicks in, it can gain traction. It's not reliable by any means, but It gets the message out. It gets the message out. And there's some ripple effects there. And it's right at people's fingertips and they can share it. And damn right, I saw a lot of alignment, a lot of positive alignment. And the next move, like, I will make a gentleman's wager right now.

The next move is going to be to divide us. They're going to figure out, like, okay, let's come up with a crazy gun issue. Let's come up with something that can rip this community apart in different ways. And then once they're divided, we're going to try it again. Yeah. Right. And I mean, that's that's the playbook. And we have got to just put that little tickey tack BS away and focus again.

Like what's your goal? Yeah, I know. So are you saying, so if we say what, what have we learned from this? What could what did we do good and what could we do better? So tell me like with this exercise, what's your takeaway, your positive takeaways? Positive takeaways is we reaffirmed what we already knew. Like this stuff means a lot to a wide variety of people. It's not exclusive to these 11 Western states.

I am so proud of my Montana people because Montana was exempt from this. Right. And we have the data at BHA to show that Montana people kept calling and kept emailing the whole way through. Even though our public lands weren't going to be sold off. But that's not what public lands are. Public lands are our public lands, whether they're in Oregon or Washington or Idaho or Montana or wherever. They're ours. And that's the way we've got to think about.

Right? And that's the only way you're going to get your ass up to the Brooks range one of these days is if it's still public. Right. So that was a huge positive one. I, yeah. Yeah. I mean, information, awareness, some trust, right? Like, certainly people are like, I mean, when I called you and I told you I could kiss you or whatever.

like you're a trusted third party like okay cam says it's real now it's real now yeah like we identified some of that i think um and i do my damnedest i screwed up sometimes but uh those of us who are willing to go a little slow in order to be factual and have their actual information retain that trust the organizations that weren't hyperbolic and oh my god, the sky is falling all the time, but sometimes we're a little bit behind the news cycle are going to retain that trust. And hopefully people are like, okay, yeah, these organizations were good. I never had to backpedal on what I said to a buddy because I trusted what I read in the newsletter or the action alert.

I think that's all positive. and we just need to retain this awareness, right? And I think also the information sharing that we were talking about because information's not coming out to these historically trusted organizations like it used to from the White House or the administration or our level of senators

or congresspeople sometimes. There's been a lot more information sharing amongst the conservation groups, which is, I think, a net positive as well. Right. And, you know, I think, like, people just understand a little bit more that it's freaking important, and they're going to take this stuff from you. Like what you said about the conspiracy theory, it takes all that.

Okay, don't look over here because, yeah, this is scary. Yeah. They're still going to take that if it's easy. Yeah. Right. And yeah, man, my guts and like knots thinking about the stuff that we're potentially going to lose. So, but I know, like, I know. If they're like, oh, see, they rolled over. Yeah. They still would have taken it. And then they would have asked for more. Who's they? So when I think of it, I don't, again, I'm going to sound crazy. But to me, what I was thinking in my head, people like us are the enemy.

People like independent thinker, self-sufficient, we can get out there, we can survive in the mounds, we can provide for ourselves. To me, they don't like people like us because we're hard to control. Yeah. They can control consumers that live in a city who rely on somebody for everything. Pretty easy to control those people. People out west here, more independent type people, it's tougher. I feel like they, I don't know who it is. but want to take the power away from.

So when you think about, well, gun control, they say, well, you don't need this for hunting. It's just this way to, you just talk about segregating these small groups, right? Yeah. It's like, well, we'll take it from hunters. Like, oh, I thought you said it was for home protection or your everyday carry. So you wouldn't need this or that. Well, now they're just separating things.

But when you say they, who's they? To me, they are the people who do not know the best, of public lands. Okay. Yep. And there's a lot of day on all sides of the aisle because they are so far removed, right? It's like, I say this over and over again, so I apologize, but once you start thinking that food comes from the grocery store.

Yeah. Right. I mean, it's a real thing. Right. Like, there's a lot of responsibility in taking that animal's life. Mm-hmm. And it stays with you. And it's not, I'm not, you know, we had like the gut shot animal analogy.

Like that stuff sticks with you. And I can remember the first time it happened to me. And the last time and a bunch of the times in between and it's hard. But man, that's where I prefer to get my meat. And I work hard to make it go as well as it can the majority of the time. Right. But there's all these people out there who are like, well, can't you raise that stuff from cells in a lab? Or what about the vegan option?

You know, that's coming from a lab, right? And I'm fighting back against that stuff hard because when we devalue the food and think it can come from another source, then we also devalue that land. right? And man, I am pro farm, pro ranch for a lot of different reasons. Part of my upbringing for sure. But that land provides so much value to the American people just doing what it's doing. Rangeland is creating clean air. It's a big carbon sink. It keeps the water table healthy. And we can graze cattle on it, thank God. Yeah. Because if we couldn't, there'd be another reason to take. the damn stuff.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And so that to me is just like the people who are disconnected and don't know. And like we can't, we talked a ton about Republicans, a ton about Republicans during this fight because the Republicans have the majority in the House and the Senate. That's why. There were badass Democrats that were working really hard. the whole time because they do believe in public lands

or at least believe in their voter base that believe in public lands. But there were damn sure Democrats that got talked about on a bunch of emails I'm on and a bunch of text threads I'm on with people, government affairs teams at different organizations who are like, they want this. Like they love the affordable housing language.

Yeah. They love it. Of course. And it's like, that's an easy win for their demographic where they are, right? Yeah, because who would say, oh, you don't want affordable housing? Right. You don't care about people? You want to kick people out on the street?

You want them to live on the, yeah, have no place to live in their car. Yeah, so that's, it's an easy one. You know, I was just thinking to this, too. You know who, I mean, we talk about wins. It's when I was looking for an update on stuff, it wasn't the news sources. it wasn't it was you Randy Newberg it was the Pete just people

regular people that's who when I was like I need I want the latest on what's going on that's crazy where it's not an organization or news or whatever it's just somebody who's connected and they have you can trust that person

because whatever they say that's real that to me that was that was huge I mean the trust part or that you said the third party I don't know Trusted third party. Yeah, that.

That, I mean, we definitely gain from that. You know, because we are, we do have, I feel like just the general public's best interest in mind. We're not beholden to anything else. This is just what I do for myself. I care about it. Yeah. So you can trust me.

I will tell you I'm biased as hell on public lands. Mm-hmm. I mean, really am. Like, I mean, the whole reason, I was telling Randy this the other day, like, that B.H. meeting that I went to, right? Yeah. I was like, oh, man, okay. I'm going to speak up right now.

And then I'm going to kill this thing, this idea that people hate wilderness areas. Mm-hmm. If I just lean in right now and speak up right now, and then I can go back into the wilderness and not talk to people and be happy. Okay. And now it's, what, like 14 years later? And I'm literally super frustrated. I'm,

at whatever time yesterday, texting Randy. And I'm like, dude, here I am again. I'm like, okay, if I just spend less time in the woods

and more time in D.C. Yeah. And just lean in really hard right now and stop this crap. Yeah. Right now. Right. Then I can go back

and enjoy the wilderness. And not talk to people and enjoy the wilderness, right? Yeah. No, it's, yeah, it's, it's, I don't know. I just want to really say how much I value you, Randy Newberg, just these people who are just so passionate and then we're just putting out this trusted information. The post from you guys, I just knew that this is 100% real.

And that's, man, you know, you'd see these, there was some politicians who I felt like they're definitely on our side. And that was, yeah, that Heinrich, he seems like, I just like he had a post today that said he mentioned bow hunters and bunny huggers that working together. And I'm like, how sick is that? Yeah. That was cool. Absolutely.

I like just, when you talk about just a group of people and one of those groups is bow hunters, senators are mentioning bow hunters, it's badass. Yeah, absolutely. We fucking care about this shit. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we care about it because we've gone out there and we appreciate it and bled on it. And we understand what it gives back.

Right. And, you know, it's like, not every time that I go out there, I kill something. No. But every time I go out there, I'm like, God, I love. I mean, we were out picking trash. I got to give these guys a plug because, I mean, dude, we're going to build a car and go do this. I saw those buggy's you were in. Oh, dude, the gambler 500.

A Sons of Smokey is the nonprofit. Dude, I love these people so hard right now, which is my new line that I think is hilarious. But these are like bust your knuckles on a monkey wrench, fix anything. Yeah. Like crazy fixed up cars. The whole gambler idea is like you gamble on whether it will get you there and back.

Oh, I see. That's where the gambler is. Gotcha. And it's got to be a car. It started as a car $500 or less. Like Craigslist and go. And this group of folks, like once you get to know him, you're like, oh, that super dust-covered grimy dude is actually like an investment banker. This guy's a rancher.

This dude might be a total vagabond. This lady's a nurse. But they're all out there picking up trash. and just living in the dirt and they freaking love their public lands and the ability to just relax and have a good time

and they I mean they cleaned up hundreds of thousands of pounds of garbage off of public lands. I felt like a total bum because I was running around with my film crew trying to film it, you know? Like I got to tell this story of another group of public land users

who give a shit and they're responsible and it's responsible use and it's so valuable right now. And then I'd try to hustle around and pick up garbage, but pulling campers and all that stuff off of there. And you look at this big, dirty, motley crew of people, and ultimately 5,000 people showed up. Wow. Yeah.

And I was like, you guys just stay weird. Stay weird. Don't let these politicians put you in a neat little box. Exactly. So they can be like, oh, I got their vote. I got their vote. I'm like, you got to stay. stay the way you are yeah no i love that oh it was it was and it was just like so positive um

like during this time and so refreshing right when you're seeing so much negative out there and it feels like you're fighting against the world and they're trying to take our land to see something like that probably just feels great oh yeah yeah and they're physically doing the work yeah right and they're like running groups taken off in the morning and there was plenty of beer drinking going on in the evening and everything in between. But they're physically doing the work. You can tell it's just like filling their cup. And then today they're all on the road heading back to whatever job and going back to normal, right?

But they're taking that with them. And it's freaking amazing. And man, that's a huge part of. what we try to embrace on the BHA side of things. Like we're trying to be like fiercely independent. And we want people who are going to make the freedom of choice and try to empower them to represent themselves. Like you go to your commission meeting and stand up and represent.

Like here's the tools that you need. our government affairs folks, Caden, really the dude, will get you booked at your senator's office. He'll help you have the confidence to go in there and say, hey, I'm Cam from Eugene. This is what I do, right? And you've done some of that,

and it's scary as hell the first time you do it. You're like, what am I doing here? I'm not the right guy for this. Right. But, man, it makes a difference. And like I said, before we started, you know, like every time I walk into somebody's office in D.C., and I'm like, oh, yeah. You know, yeah, I'm pretty fortunate. I could go around and hunt and meet a bunch of people. And you know that spot in your state?

And they're like, dude, I work for the state of. Yeah. I'm from New Jersey or wherever. Yeah. Right. I'm like, God, how does that happen? Yeah. that's well um you know there's another thing i was thinking about too that same person asked me if

there was a way to make you know this address this affordable housing issue type of another thing that i don't know if this plan talks about but when you talk about these different land segments um And people say, well, it's underutilized or it's whatever, low value. One thing that I know the last time we were talking about migration routes where, you know, there might be nothing there specifically at that, at most times of the year. But when that weather hits the mountains, those animals got to get out of the mounds, they got to migrate down to low country. If all of a sudden, yeah, maybe it was underutilized during, you know, whatever, 10 months out of the year.

but two months those animals that's how they get down and animals don't they're not going to figure out some other way they'll go and stand where they normally go and be like i guess we're just stopped at this highway now or this and they'll die it's just not convenient is it yeah you know it's like why can't they figure it out no and it's just like that's just what animals do but so even considerations like that with migration routes and there's just different things to think about nobody i never heard one reference of the animals you know if we sell these public lands, if we do this, what happens to the animals that inhabit that, that, or then whatever. Oh, yeah. They're coming off, I mean, in these mountain towns already, like those animals, when they hit their winter range, which would be the low country, summer range is the high country. I know you know that. And for folks listening, that's what we're talking about. That winter range, there's a lot of housing there already. and those animals, the elk and the deer,

are in these mountain towns, are coming down into neighborhoods as is in a lot of areas. And those are the areas that even in the fourth freaking revision of Lee's bills, we're still in there. It's the stuff, the front country, right?

Like we were talking about, like, what happens to your back country when the front country goes away? All that's left is the back country. And if you're, griping about overcrowding right now. It's going to get worse. It's going to get worse unless you weigh in.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you don't weigh in, don't worry, somebody else will for you. You know? Yeah. It's like, cripes. Yeah. No, I mean, that's a huge one.

I mean, they're not making any more of it, right? Like that old saying, right? No. We got to provide these big lumps of fat on our heads. Like, we got a responsibility. to provide for all this stuff. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And selfishly, like,

kind of tweaked our whole lives around this. Yeah. And we know the type of value it's provided us. And I don't need people to do what we do, but I need people to know they have the option. Yeah. And just having that option is a pretty freaking amazing American freedom that you have. Like, do you want to sell that down the road?

Yeah. And at what price? Yeah, that's the point. It's just like, yeah, just appreciating what we have. And if you want to take advantage of it or not, that's up to you. But for those that want to,

we've got to protect it and do our best here. So we talked about things that went well. What did you think, did we make mistakes? What could we have done better? Yeah, I mean, lack of early engagement. It would be the mistake, right? Like, again,

early on, the party politics were so crazy strong because it was so close to the election, right? The Trump administration version two is moving at like lightning speed. They're cruising. They're trying to get stuff done. And early on, when we were talking about these land sales are coming, these land sales are coming. People were like, screw you. You hate the president. Right?

I love public lands. They're for everybody. Screw you. And so that was rough, but, you know, here we are. That's in the past. I don't give a crap how you voted or what you called me early on. I just need you here now. Yeah.

And stay here now. Please, I need you. So I hesitate to call it a mistake, but if folks want to look at the learning curve, let's get through that patch a lot faster the next time. The combative part, like red versus blue. Yeah, and then maybe we don't ever see it go to the house. And it darn sure doesn't pop up in the Senate, right? I think the big mistake is we had an opportunity to be proactive in like Zinky, Ryan Zinky there in Montana.

He, Poulson Pirate, I believe. He, we never had professional sports teams in Montana. So local high school athletics was like the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Pirates were the mascot. Is that where he went? I think so.

I think he was a Pulsome Pirates. Okay. Yeah, I didn't know what you were referring to. It's like a mental twitch I have at this point in my life. So he came out. with this public lands and public hands act. Okay. And he worked and got some co-sponsors.

Just recently or when? No, this was early. Oh, okay. This was early. And we're like, hey, you know, tell your representatives. It was in the house. Tell your representatives. Co-sponsor the Public Lands and Public Hands Act.

I think Simpson's out of Idaho is a co-sponsor of that. You know, I did a post earlier, Rish and Crapo in Idaho. So they've done some great stuff for public lands in the past. Those guys would be awesome champions. And Idaho is a badass public land state. And right now that Public Lands and Public Hands Act is, there's language written for it for the Senate version. I think Gabe Vasquez, another New Mexico Democrat,

who's a super good dude he was also on it in the house version i think um but they need a republican co-sponsor in the senate version and you know that's tighter restrictions it would have prevented what lee's doing right now but they never got it but they never got it okay why why would that be nobody wants to put their neck out there or what nobody wants to put their neck out there they're looking at, you know, there's, again, like the speed of the administration, like pushing to get all these other things done. You know, that's a, that would like a couple of months ago, that would have fallen on like the hippie-dippy side of things. Like, well, that's not an immediate need. Yeah.

Well, right now had we been like, oh, my God, this is a demand from the American public. Look at this public outpouring of support. But the idea of land sales a couple of months ago was like, oh, those conservation groups are being hyperbolic. Or I think they've got liberal influence or whatever it was. But now it's like, oh my gosh, there's all sorts of people reaching out and being like, how can we be proactive? And as far as I can see, not being an expert, that's the only thing out there. that could be a good next step right now. Getting somebody in the Senate.

Yeah. Okay, take that on. Yeah, a Republican co-sponsor to the Public Lands and Public Hands Act because there's a Democrat out there. Yeah. And maybe I would love it if Tim Sheehe and Montana would do it. Rish and Crapo would be great folks out Idaho too. You know, something like that would at least be like,

Hey, America, we heard you. Yeah. It seems weird that somebody wouldn't step up. I wonder if it's optics or... Well, it just seems like such an opportunity, right? Yeah, I mean, I don't know why wouldn't they do that. That's what's weird. Oh, I don't know.

I do not know. I mean, John Thune, he had... I know he had... I think he ran for president for a primary or something, I think. I mean, hell of an opportunity for that guy. Yeah. You know, something like that. So that lack of, you know, I was trying to find a good analogy, right?

It's like hunters and anglers, like we just don't get fired up until it's the place that we go. Right. Right. And it's like the forest fires on the front door right now. Like you can fry an egg on the back of the door. It's that hot. Yeah. And people were like, okay, I better start calling my senator.

You know? Yeah. Yeah, I just don't, we're not generally the activism type, I guess. It's like we're not the marching in the streets type people because we're got jobs, got shit to do. You know, so it's, I understand why sometimes we're a little slow on stuff because, yeah, it's like, why waste a bunch of energy on something that's, are they just trying to fan fan the flame? Are they trying to whatever? And so, yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't get worked up about hardly anything until it's like, okay, I guess shit, I guess it's serious. So maybe it's just that.

But, yeah, this definitely got everybody's attention this time. Yeah. And it's not that I don't understand. I mean, I, you know, I've lost a lot of relationships and some possible, like, way higher monoton. Terry career paths and things because I love being outside. Yeah. Right? And this is just the stuff that I care about.

So I get that I'm a little bit weird. And I pay a little bit more attention. Yeah. And, you know, our last big BHA rendezvous, I had a buddy mine call and be like, hey, are you going to BHA rendezvous this weekend? I'm like, yeah. He's like, I thought so. Can I borrow your boat?

Going fishing. You know? I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he can. He can. He tricked you. I like it's...

Didn't ask for the boat first. Right. I like there's... You're going to be busy. There's some good stuff happening. Yeah. You know, it's serious right now. Um, and I get it.

I totally get it. Um, you know, I've missed countless weddings and birthdays and family gatherings because I just wanted to be outside. Mm-hmm. Right. Um, so I totally get it. Uh, but hopefully we've gained enough trust here that this next little round or just this public lands and public hands act.

If you want to follow up and say, hey, thank you so much for advocating for public lands. Here's the next step. We don't want to do this again. Yeah. You know, co-sponsored this bill if you're a senator. Sign on as a sponsor if you're in the House. Public lands and public lands and public hands act is an easy one to remember. So, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I was just trying to think why people hesitate. Also, because it's so toxic when you start talking politics, you put up anything politically related, then you got a bunch of negativity on your page. Yeah. That's another reason why, do I want to, you know, you put up a, like a cool picture of an elk or something. It's all positive. Right. It's all good, baby.

You start talking politics, then you're like, oh, my God, I got to deal with people just saying, crazy shit. Yeah. And so I think that is a reason why maybe some people didn't post. And then probably just not. Not being confident. Not being familiar with what was going on. Yeah.

I think. Because I know Joe, it took him a little while, but once he, like, he's so busy. I think once he kind of looked into it and figured out, like, so what are the, wait, what the fuck's going on here? Then he was all about it. Oh, yeah. It just, there's that time that where you got to get up to speed on what's, what's going on and what side of my, what's a good side, bad side, what do I got to do? So yeah, it's. Oh, and just like

anything else, man, there is so much noise. Yeah. So much noise. And I think that's a huge negative in this day and age is it's so easy to just write people off and they want to find the first mistake. And they're like, okay, first chink in the armor. Yeah. Out of there. Now I don't have to think about it. Right. Right. I can agree. ignore this now and so this is just hard work yeah it is and in that affordable housing side of things the right solution's hard yeah you know i mean what lee threw out there is like so easy to say oh here this will fix it yeah and people are like yeah a lot of acres okay yeah that'll fix it but i mean that is like they're not even thinking about this no that's i mean it was lazy

solution. Lazy. Yeah. Let's actually get, do some problem solving. But yeah, I was trying to think about the positives. What I do like now, though, is that we did go through the exercise and we were successful and we've learned from it and people, we have these trusted sources, like I said. We had people that, and I think I mentioned this in a post that I said, what I remember are the people who stood up, who made a stand, who never wavered, and then there's some certain people who didn't really hear from. And I think that's telling also. So I learned a lot about those two groups, the guys who were like, okay, I'm going to stand for what I believe in, and then the people who are just on the sidelines and I don't know. Yeah. Learn from both those groups. Oh,

big time. And listen, like, it's the way it is. is like you need that bandwagon moment of like people piling on. And even on this fight, right, like at the very end, all the sudden, it's like, oh, all the sudden they're interested in public lands. And it's like, are they interested in public lands because they love them and they're passionate about them? Or are they so freaking scared that they're going to be on the wrong side of this issue? In that bandwagon moment, it doesn't matter because that's what you need to win. And I say, I love you.

Volume. Thank you so much. We need volume. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And for the folks that didn't weigh in this time, you're well rested.

Yeah. For the next time. And we need you. What, I mean, are you ever tempted to wait into the D.C. world to try to make a difference, to be the person that, you know, you talked about putting your own personal, like wanting to be in the wilderness aside, just to, to. make an impact right now have you thought because you're good at it you care i mean have you thought about that i care a lot uh i think dc is just like so incredibly unhealthy yeah like every time i go there

i like i'm traveling so much and i need to like hang out with you and get like your doesn't matter get up and go on a run yeah because i like compartmentalize and and and i and i you know, a couple more days of travel. Then I'm going to have a week at home. Right. And then I can do my normal thing instead of like, you know, now it's a shoot week and I'm missing this. I'm eating. Yeah.

You know, I ate a burrito laying in bed at midnight last night. It was the only food I had all day. Mm. And I'm just like a bowl of jelly on top of my bed at midnight eating a burrito. It's tough on the road for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So the unhealthiness of DC mentally and mentally really scares me. I will tell you that when we do these hill visits and lobbying days and, you know, I'm really try to maximize my time back there. I don't want to spend any more time than I absolutely have to. there's quite a few visits that feel the exact same

as when you call or email and you're like, God, I don't mind of that. Did I have to be back here for this? Did that connect with anybody? Yeah, yeah. And then you have some good ones. And you're like, and I've had some, the last time I was up there,

I had some good ones where I was like, okay, we had a two-way street. I was listened to. That was great. And I had some good ones. where I was like, that dude night are going to be friends. We're going to drink a beer together, but there's no way he's on the same side as I am, you know?

Yeah. But that's kind of valuable too because so much of what we're seeing in the world, in the U.S., in politics, in the hunting community, in whatever community is like that willingness to be like, oh, wrong side, out of it, out of side, out of mind, whereas like, man, We're mixing pot. It's just another person on the other side of the line. Have some grace.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if you're thinking, I should be in politics, man, we got a lot of politics to change. I think we're in a big symptom of like we've made that whole system so crazy that a lot of good folks are staying away from it because you're like, it's a circus, man. Oh, yeah. and unhealthy. I mean, if you're a normal human,

that's, as we talked about, it's unhealthy back there. I mean, I don't know. I have respect for people who can do it, keep their sanity, never waver on, you know, what they care about, what they believe in. I wish we had more of them.

It just seems like it's really hard. That's why I'm like recruiting you thinking, yeah, you'd be perfect for that. Well, there should be like a mirror on this side of the table there, buddy. You can do it. You can do it. God. I went back just recently and I'm like, I don't know how people do this.

It was, yeah, I just don't know of who can you trust back there. That's the hardest thing. Because it's like, even like with this administration, you know, how it works. Well, you got some of these congresspeople who are in their position for decades. then you got a presidential administration that comes in. And so the people, I think it feels like people want to pretend like, yeah, we're going to help. People want to work on your side. But in the background, there's like, fuck this guy.

I'm not doing this. We just got to, what do we got, three more years and he's out of here? And so you figuring out who's actually on your side, who's not, whether they're, you know, I mean, trying to screw you over behind the scenes. Yep. That would be exhausting. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

That, I don't know. I wouldn't, doesn't sound that enticing to me, but no. For you, it'd be great. Get one more person out of the elk woods. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Yeah, you're a natural politician.

Yeah. No more mule deer, no more elk for that guy. Man. I don't know. I'm really like, you know, what I saw, I saw, you kind of mentioned it a little bit, but people saying that a lot of comments, you know, you and I don't agree on much or, you know, don't have much common, I don't know, political things in common. But with this, I can really, you know, get on board.

Yeah. We're on the same page. That was kind of cool. I had a lot of comments like that. A lot of people from the backpacking community would never hunt in their life, but we felt the same on this and both are fighting for the same thing. That was pretty cool. I love seeing that.

Well, it's cooler than that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, man, there is a lot of, a lot of stuff we can lose by staying divided. Mm-hmm. Right?

And we used to talk about, you know, trailhead diplomacy. Like, if you screw up and you're having a bad day and you flip that horseback rider off as you're pedaling your mountain bike on the single. track. That horse rider doesn't think you're a jerk. They think all mountain bikers are a jerk. Right. Right. So think about your actions. Yeah. And think about the fact that that horse back rider is out there for the exact same reason you are. Like they just want some space and they want to be outside in nature. Yeah. That's, I was telling these guys, we're going to, I have a friend.

She's like the best ultra run in the world, Courtney DeWalter. But we're going to do like an overnight trip to a, we've done like six 14ers back in Colorado together. But she's a runner, trail runner. Usually that's pretty, you know, much different than the hunting crowd, right? But we both love the mountains. So she loves to run to the mountains. I do too, but I also love to hunt the mountains. but we come from it from still love,

loving the mountains just for different reasons. Oh, yeah. You know, and that's what, I mean, there are common themes to all this stuff. We're humans. We have this fabric interwoven. We can't appreciate each other and have this shared interest or shared love

or shared passion for, you know, the back country or the mountains. And that's what I love. I love people like, like, you know, ultra runners who might be more like granola's type that, yeah, we both. care about the same thing and protecting it. That's what,

that's, I love that part of it. And you're never going to find that out if you don't have the conversation. For sure. Yeah. For sure. Well, I mean, I'm pumped. You came on. I'm pumped. We were able to, well, you know what I'm pumped about? That this is a positive moment.

Instead of us bitching about, I can't believe Mike Lee is selling public land. Thank God that didn't happen. Thank God. Yeah. Thank God. I'm excited that this was like, hey, we won. But you were having that conversation in your head, right?

I was like, okay. Yeah, I was so nervous, dude. What is that? Like, if we're this underrepresented with this much. And I went so far as did you know that I was like, okay, what if we send out a press release that we're going to use the Freedom of Information Act to see, how many people called in to each office, each senator's office, for public lands and against public lands.

Oh, yeah. I'd love that number. Oh, I would love that number. I would love that number. Yeah. And you can't use the Freedom of Information Act. That's private information. They're exempt is what I found out.

It's got to be, what, 90-10, right? Oh, my God. I would think, I mean, you got little old ladies who look out their window and are like... The songbirds. Why would you love? Why would you sell that? Yeah.

You know? I mean, to the super gnarly guys that aren't all that friendly and they're only after the big bucks or whatever. It might be 95 to 5. I would sure think so, man. But if we could have that and then present it to our representatives and say, this should never come back up. Here's what the people want. Yeah. These are the people that are in your district.

They're voting for you. I know. God, that would be so valuable. Yeah, accountability, I think they call that. Yeah. Well. But yeah, I'm so happy to be here and I am so happy. I literally, I was, my anxiety was at like an all time high.

I left BHA rendezvous literally from talking to everybody saying thanks and stay in the fight. And I went to the, the Missoula Airport, got on a 7.30 red-eye flight, landed in Fairbanks, and I was in the Brooks range at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And the last, the literal last thing I saw, as I'm frantically trying to get the news, I'm in the air in a caravan. You can't, you shouldn't have your phone on on the plane, remember? And freaking Cameron Haynes is like, you guys, they're selling our public.

glance. And I just, I could have cried. I'm like, thank God. Thank God. Okay. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Out of service. And when I got back into service, I called you. And man, just thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, no. I'm, I'm so appreciative of you. It's like, I love that we, I don't know. I haven't really known you, you know, before this. Not really. Yeah. I mean, I'm just, if nothing else, I'm thankful for your friendship now. Oh, you got it, buddy. I need more people like you in my life, just good people that you can count on and tell it like it is. But so yeah, I'm, I'm appreciative. Thank you for coming. Thank you for doing the podcast. Thank you for all the work you're doing for public land hunters and being so well spoken. It's, uh, I don't know. I feel really honored to have you on the podcast and

get to talk about this with you. Well, dude, man, we're, uh, kindred spirits, you know, just like I was telling you on the first light starting days. Yeah. It's like we didn't know any better, so we just told the truth. Yeah. Right? And it's like we love public lands, right? It's like you got a big megaphone.

I mean, you always did, but now it's a lot bigger. Yeah. And you're still out there just being who you are. That's damn respectable. Mohawk Indian. So if you need the high school reference for me down the road, Mohawk Indian. And that's Eugene. No, that was like 20 miles outside of town here.

I lived in a little tiny town, single A school. That's where I grew up. So, but we were the Mohawk Indians. Heck yeah. I love it. There was a Hellgate night. Okay. All right.

Yeah. Now I know. So we got our high school. What are those? What are those called mascots? Mascots, yeah. But they actually, because we can't offend Native Americans, they're the Mohawk Mustangs now.

No way. How dumb is that? Mollock Indians were badass, dude. Oh, for sure. You should, the painting we had in the middle of the gym, such a cool. I mean, badass, Indian. Yeah, but they were Iroquois. So how'd they get out here?

When I was leaving Bozeman the other day, though, don't trick me. Our tribal schools. Yeah. They're Indians. Okay. Yeah, Browning Indians. They were pulling up.

up the school bus was pulling up the other day. Yeah. Okay. So you still have them back there, like the mascots? Oh, yeah. Well, but they're the, they're on the crow. Oh, shit. I'm sorry.

Who was it? No, yeah, Browning. Yep. So they're Glacier National Park. Oh, that's a tribe? Yep. No, black feet. Okay.

Yeah. Gotcha. Well. Yeah. I don't know where the Moloch Indians came from. That was just our school name. I don't know. I thank you for sharing that with me. Now you know. Well, I say let's go get dinner. How about that?

I mean. Well, you had a breed a little last night, I guess, so maybe you're not hungry. Yeah, I got to wait till midnight. Eat it on my belly. All right. Well, old cow, thank you very much. I appreciate you. Yep. Thank you, buddy. That was great.