The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 535: The Fight to Save Hunting

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Dan Gates, Connor Smith, Ryan Callaghan, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, and Phil Taylor.  Topics discussed: When you’re ruined for elk hunting at the age of 16; Conner getting the 39th biggest bull elk ever in Montana; the trials and tribulations of Mingus the hound; when you further up the upper limit of what you’ll spend on your dog at the vet; a citizen initiative to ban certain kinds of hunting in Colorado and why you need to pay attention to this if you care about hunting, period; activating ballot initiatives vs. entrusting state game biologists to determine how to best handle wildlife; fallacies and lies; naming bucks because you want to get them; hug a hunter; “Save the Hunt” and DONATE HERE; calling all outdoor recreationists; and more.  Outro song by Kenny Leiser Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. apparel to support every hunter and every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. Hey everybody, listen up. I got mega huge news. Meat Eater Live is heading back out on the road. That's right.

Join me and the crew talking Clay Newcomb, Cal, Yanni, Spencer's going to be there. Phil the Engineer's going to be there. Meat Eater Live, head it back out. Now, when you get every ticket, okay, every ticket you buy, you get a signed copy of our new Meat Eater Outdoor Cookbook. This tour is celebrating the release of the book.

Buy a ticket, get a signed copy, Meat Eater Outdoor Cookbook, wild game recipes for the grill, smoker, camp stove, and campfire, which I'll point out is a $38 value. Here's where we're going to go. April 23rd, the Mesa Art Center in Mesa, Arizona. April 24th, the Balboa Theater in San Diego. April 25th, The Grove in Anaheim, California. April 27th, the Crest Theater in Sacramento.

April 29, the Union in Salt Lake City. April 30, the Egyptian in Boise. May 1, the Wilma Theater in Missoula. May 2, the Bing Crosby Theater in Spokane, Washington. May 4, Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon. And May 5, the last day of the tour, Pantages Theater in Tacoma, Washington. For tickets and more information,

visit the events page at themeateater.com. If we're not coming to your neck of the woods and you still want to get your hands on a signed copy of our new Meat Eater Outdoor Cookbook, go to signedoutdoorcookbook.com or check out Barnes & Noble online. Hope to see you at the show. Welcome, everybody.

We got two shows in one day because we're joined by Dan Gates to talk about what's going on. The topic, as Corinne wrote it, is what's going on in Colorado. We're going to get into what's going on in Colorado, which if you're a Coloradan, how do you like to say that, Brody? Coloradan. Coloradan. If you're a Coloradan, you'll especially want to stay tuned but if you're just a general american you'll want to

stay tuned as well because what we're going to talk about going on in colorado has implications for what's going on in america um so stay tuned for that but first the the first part of the show and then we're gonna we're gonna hear um we're gonna hear a little bit from yannis about a recent adventure uh ryan callahan's here brody henderson's here randall dr randall's here with a brand new haircut been cutting his own hair yep learn how to cut his own hair learning to cut my own learning because he's going to take us through that process step by step yeah we're actually doing a video series i love that and uh the the star of the show part one remember i said this is two shows in one The star of show part one is Connor Smith

How old are you Connor? 16 Connor Smith is 16 years old His mother Alyssa is a colleague of ours And he, I've been hearing about this Killed himself A big old bull At a Christmas party

Your mom showed me a picture of it And normally people are showing me Pictures of big bulls that's just in one ear and out the other but i took note because uh um one because you're her kid and not like the neighbor's cousin's friend which is a lot of the big bulls you see and two because you kind of you did it real scrappy like yeah 39th biggest bull ever killed in montana about yeah what do you mean about might get kicked out oh you're gonna get kicked out my dad wants to shoot one bigger than me oh i thought you meant there was a like a legal problem you were faced with or something like it wasn't seasoned or something no oh so you're legit okay tell me now you were telling me the story earlier and i cut you off because you got to the part about

your gun stopping working and that's not a thing i usually hear about uh firearms so how did your tell me your gun layout here well i had a 300 that we have two 300s one that my grand we're both my grandfather gave me and so your parents are tight. Yeah. You got two old grandpa guns. Okay. I'm picturing. And the first one I've been using for a couple years now, it's like, I don't know how old it is, but we brought it to the shooting range and it just kept shooting like inconsistently. Got it. Like, I think there's something wrong with uh

chambering is what my grandfather keeps keeps telling me so so it's deep within the bowels of the gun it's not like a loose scope mount or something yeah and uh yeah a week before the hunt i had a change to my dad's that's now or my granddad's that's now my dads and then i used that for the hunt so these are 300 wind mags yeah okay i got it um so then you got tuned in and i'd probably call it like yours now because it's not like anybody else wants to use that gun because it's like you got the biggest bowl with it yeah well maybe it's got good mojo. So juju, whatever that might be. It does, but it might just be Connors. Yeah. So Gramps, Gramps passes down one gun to you and one gun to his kid, your dad.

Yeah. Okay. And then you get the one that Gramps now thinks is shoddy. So you take the old man's gun. Yeah. Okay. And then you got to have a spot where you're going hunting. So talk, talk me through that.

Don't give me the spot, but like tell me through your, your process here. Well, I've, uh, going into last year i had uh three points and my dad put me in for a special pull elk tag and uh i got you with three bonus points yeah 11 chance odds you see cal's getting excited now cal likes any story about youngsters with lots of points drawn sweet tags man taking opportunities away from him that's his favorite that's his absolute favorite genre of story i know but you know talking uh talking with your mother i know that uh the family put some sweat equity in out there so yeah so it wasn't just told okay continue on his dad didn't drag him out of like

band class that he'd rather be at because his dad did all the work yeah yeah all right so just okay i'm sorry to interrupt so you got you got into a special unit yeah and uh um i like got home from school one day and oh back up you you didn't do any scouting or anything? Well, we've been scouting out there before. Okay. And I got home and my dad showed me the draw odds and I drew the tag. Gotcha. Okay.

And roughly what were the odds of you drawing the tag? Do you remember? 11%. 11%. Got it. All right. Got it. Yeah.

So it's the area you're familiar with. Very familiar with. Oh, how's this? How are you very familiar? We've been hunting out there a couple of times. So family members have drawn? Well, not really. Just, we've been like shed hunting out there and like scouting for an elk tag.

Just pre-scout, just in case. Yeah. Just getting familiar with the area. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Okay. So then what happens? Well, we scouted all through the summer, spring, and all that.

But you kept going up there and checking in on it. Yeah, exactly. Okay. And we found a couple sheds. And, yeah, going into the season, we went a couple days before and uh we saw a bull a really nice bull it was a big five point actually and uh we scouted him put him to bed and waited for the morning opening morning and uh we woke up that morning um did. Did you have a goal? It's like how big of a bull you're looking for? Basically the first, uh, solid bull I found.

Awesome. Have you killed some bulls before? Yeah, I was saying before he's got two. I've killed two bulls and one cow. Sweet. What? Yeah. Sweet, sweet.

Doing what? Just, uh, regular, just regular. Regular hunting? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And did any of those come, uh, during the youth season when you could. There's no youth season. There's no youth elk. Oh, it's just deer and birds and turkeys.

Dude, if there was youth elk. Oh, I know. I know. I'd be having more kids. That's my other. I would have never gotten the vasectomy. That's my other one. Yeah.

Have Ma and Pot coached you up properly on how these conversations can go and how not to give away your landmarks. He's doing super good so far. Very cryptic. I got nothing to go off. Well, no, I do. Three points, 11% odds. A real sharp feller. I shouldn't have pointed that out.

Yeah, no, you've done more. Someone real sharp on math with a sharp pencil. Go on. Bleep all that out, Phil. We watched this bull all opening morning. Just the five point. Yeah. What do you mean watched it?

Why not go get it? Because you're just holding off? Yeah, there was some other competition in the area too just like there was a lot of like ravines and stuff that these both this elk herd could have gone there so we just watched them and we're trying to watch where they were going so he was with other he wasn't solo he was with other elk yeah what's competition mean from hunters hunters yeah i see okay and uh we watched these bulls we like rushed it for this bull and like this group of cows and we watched them for a little bit ran over to like where we thought they were going to come out at and uh and you're hunting with your old man yeah is gramps there

no okay just my dad and my little brother. Okay. And. And little brother's how old? He is 14, 13. Is he much elk? He's a little, little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Don't feel bad about not knowing ages. I just give a height on most, most younger folks.

So, yeah. And we watched these elk come out of this like ravine. And I think the first opportunity I had was at 523 yards at this five point. You're so precise. Now people are going to know exactly where he was. We watched him for a little bit. I thought I could get closer, and he ended up going into the timber out of sight. We had to wrap around and see if we could find him again. And we didn't know where they went.

We thought they crossed the way and stuff. And we kind of just walked around and we heard a bugle. Hmm. Heard a bugle like maybe 50 yards from us. What time of day? It was about like maybe 50 yards from us and what time of day it's about it was about like maybe seven eight ish 50 yards away yeah and uh they definitely spooked because we heard some running in the trees and stuff and also maybe the cows spooked and that made the bull bugle

because he's like where's everybody going kind of thing okay yeah and uh we kind of just followed those tracks up this little this little hillside and um we topped the ridge and there was just a bowl like in the middle of like all these trees there's like one open patch and just a bowl or just the bowl the bowl all right um not the five point not the five point whole different bowl yeah whole different didn't know even know about him he's the one that ripped a bugle. Presumably. Yeah. We don't know. And just like in the middle of like this, all these trees, there's like one little open

patch of like, uh, grass and stuff. And he was just standing there and I told my, uh, my dad and my little brother to get down and you told them to get down yeah they spotted it yeah they didn't see it huh okay and uh you got to go to your dad get down yeah he kept they had to feel good he tried to keep walking he didn't he didn't believe me just smack him on the shoulder yeah get down yeah yeah and do it uh he got out the spotting scope and I kind of sat up on this rock with my gun, like looking at the bull and he was like, it's at 689 yards. Oh. And I was like, I got a whole another week of the hunt.

Might as well try and pull the trigger. And. Hold on, back up. That contradicts. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm tracking. You have a whole nother week of the hunt so might as well

pull the trigger yeah if i missed then oh i got like i got enough i got another week because i could hear you finishing that sentence by saying uh we got a whole nother week of the hunt let's not pull the trigger so let's not pull the let's wait so you're like we got a whole week of the hunt so let's take a shot. Yeah. Are you a holdover guy or are you dialing? Uh, holdover. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. And what happens? It's like a little Christmas tree scope. It's got, what is it, five notches on it. Yeah. The farthest it goes is 600, but there's like this little notch at the very end that I use for 700. Okay. And 700 okay and uh you do a little bit long long distance shooting no that was the first time i've ever shot that far okay

so i missed the first shot and the bull just stood there like nothing happened okay and you're using your little extra post yeah okay then what happened um my dad's like shoot again shoot again could he see where you hit yeah he was like you missed high and i was like okay i gotta readjust for wind and all that and uh shot again high backed him and his like back legs dropped and he just kind of stood there again and my dad's like load another one and shoot and i did and it double lunged him. Bam. Yeah, he kind of walked off to the trees and bedded down after that. And then what happened?

We walked up to him, and he was dead. Yeah, just laying there. And at what point did you go like, my goodness, that's a big old bull? When I walked up to him, when I shot, I didn't see how big he was. I saw the back whale tail and just was like, that's enough for me to see how big it is. No ground shrinkage. No.

He had ground growage. Yeah. He's like, that's not the fight point. The uncommon ground growage. Yeah. Yeah. And we walked up to it and we kind of talked about it. We thought it was in the 370 range. Uh-huh.

And we got it scored a couple weeks ago at 387 net and then 393 gross oh that's wild get out of here that's all right dismissed yeah yeah give us a lot to think about, Connor. Thank you. I've killed two bulls that would fit under that 393 bar. Like you could add them together. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't get there. That's pretty incredible.

Yeah. So now you realize, here's the problem you're going to face now as you grow older. You probably already got the biggest elk you'll ever get. You realize that? Yeah. Okay. You comfortable with that? Yeah. you'll ever get. You realize that? Yeah. You comfortable with that? Yeah, I've been told by a lot of people that... People like to point that out. Is it mostly older people that point that out? Yeah.

I think some of them are sitting around the table right now. I did in the hallway out there. That makes older people feel better. I've been told I'm ruined for the rest of my life. Well, let me give you a piece of advice. We had a dude... That makes older people feel better. I've been told I'm ruined for the rest of my life. Yeah. Well, let me give you a piece of advice. We had a dude. There's a dude named Dustin Hoff that was on the show, and he killed, I think it's, what is it? The biggest typical.

Typical whitetail. Biggest typical whitetail in America. Meaning not in Canada. Yeah. Okay. Because there's a bigger one there. He's number two a bigger one there he's number two on the continent so number two on the continent number one in america which is what really matters yeah we're all americans here um he uh when he set out that day he set out to kill he was like my goal was to

kill a personal best okay yeah and a personal best for him i can't remember he had killed like a 130 whitetail so he's looking for a personal best so then he kills this thing that you know will never be seen again yeah and i said well what is your attitude now because you're like a personal best hunter and he said i'm gonna go back to where I was before I killed that buck. So he had to just, you know, ignore that one and then plow ahead. Yeah. Which is probably how you're going to want to approach things. Yeah.

It'd be like your rifle range, right? Where you get a nice group and then there's one that flies off to the side. Yeah. And you just kind of, that's an outlier. Yeah. Yeah. When you're shooting and, that's an outlier. Yeah. Yeah, when you're shooting and you go home after a good shot, I'm not going to shoot again

because I might have one of them strays and then I have to go home feeling worried. You could also just get really into general tag hunting. You have your draw best and you have your general tag best.

That's a good way to look at it too. He's got time to draw all kinds of good tags. Sheep, goat, moose, all that stuff. But you saw some other hunters. Yeah. You're hunting on public land.

Yes or no? Yeah. Hunting on public land. Saw some other hunters. Yeah. Kill a giant bull. What was the elevation? Oh, I can't remember.

I couldn't remember that. Yeah, that's a good answer. That's a good answer. Congratulations, man. Where is the bull? It's in my garage right now. You're going to get it stuffed? The hide's at the taxidermist right now.

Huh. So you are getting it stuffed. Yeah, we're going to get it shoulder mounted. Where are you going to hang it? Probably like living room. You got a place big enough for that? We talked about it.

We have to move a full body mountain goat for it. That's your catch? Get out of the way.body mountain goat for it. That's your catch? Get out of the way. Whose mountain goat is it? My dad's. Yeah. I'm sure he doesn't take that personally.

If you run out of room, you can hang it down here in the office. I might have to do that. Yeah, man, we'll put a little plaque up. Yeah, nobody's going to walk in the house and talk about dad's goat anymore. Right? Yeah. It's going to be like, well, talk about dad's goat anymore. Right. Yeah.

It's going to be like, well, what's that? Who's paying to get his stuff? Uh, my parents. That's nice of them. That is nice. Yeah. Who are you going to have stuff at? Do you know yet?

Uh, it's a guy down in, uh, Belgrade. It's, uh, Terry Scher. He does good work? Yeah. He does a good job. You vetted him? Yeah. Good man.

He's done, uh, my dad's mountain goat and, uh, he's done in my dad's mule deer. Yeah. A lot of those guys are weirdos, man. He's done my dad's mountain goat, and he's done my dad's mule deer. A lot of those guys are weirdos, man. Taxidermists. I even talked about that with taxidermists. No, he's a- Did they agree? Oh, yeah. He's a funny-

But they're like, not me, but they're like, yeah, a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah, he's a funny guy, though. Is he? Yeah of them. Yeah. Yeah. He's a funny guy though. Is he? Yeah. Funny like good. Yeah. He's, he's, he's fun to talk to.

He's humorous. Yeah. Got it. Great. Well, thanks for coming in, man. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Congratulations.

Thanks. That's pretty great. Yeah. You can head out this year, obviously. You turkey man? Yeah. Okay. You like to fish?

Yeah. Okay. Let us know next time something good happens to you but it's shed hunting season like that's that's what these guys do if you're into that oh yeah that wasn't a thing when i was a kid you picked them up but no one had a word for it you just found an antler no one like went anywhere to find an antler just if you found one you brought it home everyone was a shed. They just didn't know it. Yeah.

There was no term for it. They didn't have dogs. No. They didn't know. It's kind of like parkour. You know, people used to just jump off trash cans

and stuff like that. Somebody called it parkour. They didn't know what it was. Yeah. All right. Well, next time you have something good or if something real bad happens,

you come check us out. I want to hear it next year. I want you to come down and talk about getting your ass kicked at something. Oh, I probably will. I'm going to try archery hunting this year. Okay. So come tell us about missing one or hitting one in the leg and can't find it. There won't be any 600-yard shots with that, I'll tell you.

I'll probably miss high on one. Yeah. He'll be like, well, it was 83 yards. All right, buddy. Thanks. You can stick around. I'll stick around. Yeah.

Where are you supposed to be? You in school still, obviously. Yeah. What grade are you in? Junior. Okay. But you got excused? No, I'm just playing hockey.

He's sick today. He's at the dentist. What school are you at? Bozeman High. Where's that at? I think that's where my kid's going to. It's the dentist? What school are you at? Bozeman High. Where's that at? I think that's where my kid's going to. It's the old one.

It is. Oh, yeah, my kid will be down there next year. He'll like all that stuff about yardages and calibers. That's like his

peer group. That's what they're interested in. Yeah. He'll be like, Johnny shot an elk at 620 yards with a...

And I'm like, where were they was it a big bull i don't know everything is calibers and distances uh all right yanni you're gonna tell us something yeah you're gonna share are we gonna co-tell the story you were there i'll chip in. You were there. I'll chip in. I had a lot of people. I just got back from Pheasant Fest. A lot of people asking about how old Mingus is doing. Yeah, I don't know where.

We must have talked about it somewhere else or someone did because word got out. It was mentioned briefly on trivia and we kind of danced around it on the last Meteor episode. Oh, hey, let me tell you something that Pat said first. Pat Durkin. Pat durgan wrote in hi steven corinne i enjoyed the meat eater podcast with cj box especially the shots at copy editors probably because i am one he goes on i'm sure you know samuel clemens that's mark twain do you uh ill uh not illiterate not literary folks i'm sure you know mark twain didn't like editors either oh i see what he's doing here he uses samuel clemens and then uses mark twain

um i keep this mark twain quote taped above my desk it It's from a 1906 letter to Henry Mills Alden and was printed in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Twain says, how often we recall with regret that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember with clarity, no, but we remember with charity that his intentions were good. And he says, also don't bury outdoor newspaper columnists yet. Please wait till I die. I'm still cranking out my weekly column for eight Wisconsin newspapers. I started the column in 1984 while at the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern and haven't missed a week since. I also posted on my website for the freeloaders. Last of a dying breed.

Yeah, we were talking about like when you were a kid, you had like the dude at the Muskegon Chronicle. I wish I could remember his name. Bob something. sunday you're like excited to open the paper he'd profile a taxidermist he'd be like they're getting big perch yep you know off of the late michigan pier the next week it'd be here's a great venison meatloaf recipe just every saturday man and that was like the only outdoor media we took in. Yep. Was that dude's column. Well, I wonder if even there is an outdoor section.

I haven't gotten a newspaper in so long, but I remember like the, the Gazette, Kalamazoo Gazette had an outdoor section. On Saturday. Yeah. Which is weird because Saturday is a day you're hunting and fishing. Yeah. A lot of papers have gotten rid of them.

Billings, I think still has one. Yeah. Yeah. I talked to an outdoor guy at one of the papers and, um, he was not happy about digital media. I can tell you that. All right, I think, still has one. Yeah, I talked to an outdoor guy at one of the papers, and he was not happy about digital media, I can tell you that. No. Alright, Yanni, go ahead. A couple, actually, I think it's

three weeks ago now, Steve and I took our kids on a little snowmobiling, cat hunting adventure, and not long into our morning, really, probably less than an hour into our snowmobiling cat hunting adventure. Mm-hmm. And not long into our morning, really, probably less than an hour into our snowmobiling adventure, you cut a fresh bobcat track.

We had incredibly fresh snow. Yeah, real fresh snow. Real fresh snow. Like it had probably only quit snowing right at daylight or maybe even after. And so any, you know, track that we were going to cut was going to be pretty fresh. And this sucker, I mean, it might have been filled in a little bit crossing the road,

but as soon as it went under any kind of a tree, you could see it was, it was crisp and clean. And so we cut Mingus loose on it. And, uh, Steve and I have been trying to do this for a couple of years now. Yeah, we got seven, seven people and one dog. Yeah, go hunt with Mingus. And, uh, it's a, uh. Is that right? Seven people? Yeah. Me and my three, I, go hunt with Mingus. And it's a... Is that right, seven people? Yeah, me and my three.

I had all three of my kids. Yeah. I had two. Yeah, there's a lot to think about when you're going to put together that kind of an adventure because it's not just like you and me going looking for a lion track.

There's five people uh, it's not just like you and me going, looking for a lion track. Uh, there's, you know, five people that are depending on us and, you know, you bring in sustenance for them and extra clothes. Cause they're going to, you know,

first thing we do when they, when you stop the snowmobiles and are looking at a fresh track, they're like, yeah, that's interesting. And then they just start like doing parkour off the edge of the forest service road into the snow and they're fighting don't cry yeah everybody's like this soaking wet oh cool it's

like no shit all the snowmobiling goggles are just packed full of snow worthless at this point whitewashing each other whatever man it's like this comes, this is part of the story because that morning, um, I had looked at the pack. I'd been using a, a pack that Paul had made for me. It's kind of just a day hunting pack. It's not really meant to pack meat. And, uh, I thought, you know, with all these kids and nowhere we were going, there's not a lot of roads. We might end up on a long walk and I'll be carrying all kinds of gear water food whatever so i should go to a bigger pack and so i swapped out and just grabbed my like a exo pack that has more of a frame to it you know anyways um we cut mangus loose on the track

and um he's what i would call smoking it moving it very quickly. He makes it, you know, 600 yards as a crow flies from us in, I don't know, 10 minutes? Maybe not that. Gotta make the noise. What's that? The noises he's making. Oh, when Mingus is on track. Well, I kept saying, well, what's that noise mean? What's that noise

mean? And he's like, he likes it. He doesn't love it. He hasn't seen it. it right like that kind of stuff yeah it's a steady ball it mangas's bark is very hard to replicate um because he kind of balls and then at the end of it his voice almost cracks and breaks and it almost sounds like you're taking uh like newspaper on a window. If you're watching it and it's like that right at the end.

It's a funny sound. I don't know if I can do it. He was explaining to me the noise. If it sees it, then it's a different noise. Well, once he sees it in the tree. Yeah, then it changes. It's a different sound.

Yeah, he'd go into three long, like locate balls, which are very deep, very low, and then he would just go into a constant chop. So anyways, he's crossed. We're on one side of a drainage, and he's crossed the drainage, crossed the creek,

and he's gotten up on a, I guess that hill would be south facing, right? It's way more open. There's not as many trees. Yeah, south. You're right, it's south. And it looks steep to me. There's some cliffs over there.

Steep? It's like a, it's a band of cliffs. Um. It's like, no, it's like you go down, we're on a timbered slope. Yeah. And you go down and you got a big scree field. Yeah. And then like all the cliff faces that all the scree had been breaking off.

Sure. But he obviously went. A little geology there. You you see i slipped a little geology in there nice work but he's the whole thing wasn't a cliff face because he was able to get above the cliff bands bands yeah he was able to pretty easily work through the trees that the bobcat had taken and bobcats are known for evading dogs like while the chase is actually going on. A lion really doesn't have that option because it doesn't have the stamina to stay out ahead of dogs. It's a very short chase, usually a couple hundred yards, and the lion gives up because its lungs are burning and it has to go up a tree. Can I tell you a thing that you told me while we were doing this?

Mm-hmm. Uh, he went down into a creek bottom where you could picture like a cat running, but then all of a sudden he left the creek bottom and went up and we thought, oh, I mean, he might already know because the track was so fresh. He might already know there's a dog after him. And Yanni was talking to a houndsman who was saying he's seen cats eluding dogs and actually stop get out on a cliff and be sitting there licking their paws just looking looking down where they know that because they and you think about they probably deal with this all the time like they're on a kill and some coyotes come like oh brother climb up a tree right or around here in some areas be like there's wolves to deal with so just get like oh

yeah on the climatree and hang out yeah it's part of this thing leaves me alone and then i'll go about my business it's probably like a somewhat casual occurrence to eludicate to get out of a canine's way sure it's part of daily life you know um? But yeah, some houndsmen say that they think that when they've glassed those cats sitting there, it almost looks like they're having fun, which that's a little too much anthropomorphization, I think, to the situation. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada.

The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you, you guys in the great white north can be part of it. Be part of the excitement.

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Anyways, yeah, you had just mentioned about how it's looking pretty cliffy, like too cliffy. And I'm like, yeah, buddy's hunting that kind of stuff all the time. And I was like, I wasn't worried until you said something. And if you're watching the GPS, especially when they're on these bobcat tracks, it's just squiggly lines, squiggly lines, squiggly lines. And so he's in this cops of evergreens we can't he's only 600 yards away but we can't see him there's fresh snow mingus is pretty much a black and white dog he blends in very well on on

snow and uh so we're trying to find him but we can't and i'm just watching the gps and uh squiggly lines squiggly lines and then you said he went quiet and you're like, well, what is he doing now? You know? And I'm like, eh, he must've lost it, you know? And he's just like really having to focus and he doesn't have that fresh scent in his nose. And that's why he's not balling. And like the, the pause went on long enough to where I'm like, I better look at the GPS again and see what is going on. And I look at the GPS and he had made a short run out of that copse of trees to the looker's left and gotten above those cliffs. And then there's a straight line from the top of those cliffs to the bottom of those

cliffs. And then the GPS is showing treed. So when you have your a garment set on a hat for a hound dog when they stop moving it'll basically give you a treed signal so that if you're out of ear shot you know your hound stopped moving he's on chase he's probably at the tree with the cat well in this case we knew he wasn't at a tree with a cat he was simply not moving and he wasn't barking anymore after being on a super hot track and so we immediately knew something was up oh yeah it was without a

doubt that he had taken a fall yeah and so we uh i figured well um you know he's like stone dead at the bottom of a cliff oh yeah which yeah i thought that was going to be the same deal that i felt bad i felt bad for you by mainly was like man yanni's daughters love that dog so much this is just gonna this is just gonna be horrible yeah like a horrible day and we should touch on that later too you know at the end of the story because i still go back and forth. I've been called a monster already at my house because I've brought up this idea of the different ways that it could have turned out. And 50 years ago, or maybe not even that long, 20, 30 years ago, this veterinary care that we have so available to us wasn't. And if you had a situation like that, you'd be like, well, that's a bummer.

And you would just have to like, wouldn't even walk over there. Well, no, you'd walk over there. I'm just joking. Right. You got to get your collar back. But. Girls, I'll be back with the collar. You know what I mean?

And it's like, yeah, obviously in my head, I'm thinking like, how is this all going to go down with the kids? How are they going to deal with it? And part of me thinks that I don't want to say it'd be better, but it certainly wouldn't hurt them in life to have gone through the other, the other outcome that could have been from that day. Oh yeah. You know, to go through the loss. They wouldn't have had different lives. No, not at all. Wouldn't have been from that day oh yeah you know to go through the

law they wouldn't have had different lives no not at all like losing a parent but in the moment it sure feels like that the pressure you're feeling so uh we uh i empty out that backpack that i was just talking about earlier take out and it's funny because i was packing yeah you took your pistol out a 10 millimeter on my my hip. And I had a 22 mag in the backpack in case we found a cat that we wanted to shoot. 10 millimeters for in case things get Western. And I purposely took them both out because I thought if we go over there and that dog has to be put down, I can't do it with an earshot of those girls because if they hear me shoot that dog,

then they'll never forgive me. So I left both things there. I don't know what we're going to do. No, on the way down, I said, you got your pistol, right? Yeah. And you're like, no, I didn't want them to hear us shoot. Yeah.

We would have had to let his blood out with a knife or something i don't know we told the kids all the hypotheticals are making this so much worse well we told the kids well dude that's the story man we told them to all stay put so we told all five we're gonna stay put we're gonna go down and cross the can did you guys let that were the kids aware that something was wrong? Yeah, Yanni said the dog might be hurt. Okay. Yeah, but they,

they were having fun. Like I said, we had just, we had moved the snowmobiles closer to where he had, where he was. They were having fun. This is before we realized

he got hurt. They were having fun throwing snow, chasing each other around. And so we're like, Mingus, you know, is, might need a little hand. We're going to go check in on him you guys just hang out build a fire eat some snacks they weren't really aware no at all of that we we didn't certainly didn't show on the gps track

so steve and i bailed down off this forest service road and uh i don't know what you think we dropped thousand feet maybe not quite to the creek bottom i can tell you exact deep deep snow a lot of fallen trees and um i felt like we were just hopping a lot of trees which on the way down wasn't wasn't too bad across the creek and uh you know base are able to walk right to him and steve actually spotted him first and this is something i've been wanting to ask you about i'm trying to i'm looking to spot i said i was out a little bit in front of him and i said his head's up and you look i couldn't tell if you were relieved or upset that his head was up you looked like you were uh upset that his head was up no i mean honestly i couldn't

tell you if what kind of at that point what kind of emotions i was feeling i was just feeling really guilty for letting him get into that position you know understood heavy responsibility situation too right like yeah there's yet a lot going on yep so uh it was good to see him with his head is up with his head up we knew he's alive um but we get to him and he's kind of he likes to sit in what we call a lot of dogs sit in that kind of sphinx position um he does it extremely well and and looks very handsome when he does it sometimes he crosses his front paws but he's but he's in that position on a scree slope facing uphill and he can crosses his front paws but he's but he's in that position on a scree slope facing uphill and he can obviously hear us coming but he's not looking over his

shoulder you know he's like just looking one way and we get up there to him and kind of start poking and prodding and like he's not reacting to anything we do like you can pull his legs out and he's they're just kind of loose and floppy and you know little holes all over him he's not look yeah lacerations just covering his body and he's not like you know you can put your whatever you could kind of yell at him and he wasn't reacting to a big old blood trail coming down the hill yeah like he landed probably 50 yards above that and uh it looked as though if you had shot a deer up there and then it had rolled down and the blood, you know, it was kind of that scene.

I hiked up there real quick just to see, kind of get an idea of what he had gone through and where he landed. We probably had what, four to six inches, maybe a fresh, but not nothing underneath it. Very poor snow conditions in general for the winter around here. But when he landed, you know, the impact had shot snow probably six feet

either direction. It was a big bomb hole. You can see it from way off. Yeah. And it's like between two cliff faces, there was a little bit of a shoot, and I thought, well, maybe he could have come down through that, but there was no disturbed snow. So obviously he came off one of the cliff faces, there was a little bit of a shoot. And I thought, well, maybe he could have come down through that, but there was no disturbed snow. So obviously he came off one of the cliff

faces. I'd like to go back and actually hit it with the range finder to know, but I just remember looking up there and just for, to have some sort of, um, comparison or context, I thought I've never jumped off anything that high on skis and like i'd probably be too scared to jump off of that on skis even on the you know deepest powder day so you ski a lot you know you've probably jumped off some stuff oh but also you probably do too right connor you're dead you're dead animal experience there too right of like seeing that tumble down in the snow means something to us. That if you don't have the prior experience of recovering game, it doesn't mean as much, right?

So you're, yeah, you're, you're adding up all your, your data points right now and being, trying to come up with the proper conclusion. Yeah. So we'll, we'll never know how he came off the, the, uh, the cliff. My best guess is that where he went up, the grade of the hill was enough that he had good footing. And then I think that as he wrapped the hill going left, the grade just, it just increased to the point where it got really steep and the cat kept going and the snow

got slick and eventually he just lost footing and and and couldn't you know couldn't turn around and just went careening off a 40 footer is what i guessed it at he too if you put your i put my ear against his chest it was like right and i thought because i don't know what i'm doing i thought it was later found out what it was but i thought blood in his chest just because i don't know you know it's like a real gurgly noise but it won't be in a totally he'll tell you rianni will tell you what it was but totally different issue yeah which i had never heard of oh yeah i've learned a lot of uh words through this experience that i'd never heard of before um but uh yeah so we think we just decide well we're gonna pack him up luckily i had that frame

pack that's meant to pack me and so i stuck him in there just like an elk quarter between the pack and the frame 83 pounds and uh zipped zipped him up and strapped him down did you tuck his legs in yeah he was he was he wasn't dangling yeah he was sitting side he was sitting 90 degrees to my back and i thought i was like if he's you know i didn't think it's gonna i didn't think the dog was gonna be alive and i'm like especially he's not gonna be alive now right we even talked about what are you gonna do though it's like there's nothing you can do no there's no way to we're on a scree slide like there's no way to do anything you know you're not gonna call a helicopter no it's like you have to just you couldn't a sled would have been no good there's nothing you can do and honestly even having more people wouldn't really know it's

nothing it was like nothing you can do you can't tag you can't tag team it. A sled wouldn't do you any good. You can't go up. There's nothing to do. But I was like, because it was breathing bad, you know, you guys are like, keep your airways open. Oh, slump them in the back of a backpack and make a run for it. The human response, right, would be like you provide stability for this victim. So the movement doesn't cause more trauma. Exactly. Right.

Or exacerbate whatever internal injuries you can't see, which is just not an option in this scenario because it's a ticking clock. And that dog was cold too. That was the only thing I thought about waiting. He's already all wet and shivering. Yeah. And he got a lot colder uh throughout the day because it took a while so uh i decided to instead of going back up the way we came which in retrospect i still haven't decided if that would have been faster or not what do you

think it took me a long time to go out the creek it was like an it was like a mile and a quarter mile and a half as the crow flew i figured figured it might have been two miles, the route we took to get out the creek. It would have been better to go with me because we had all the time in the world. Waiting on me. Yeah. The kids made a second fire. Yeah. Yeah, but you didn't have to climb that hill with 85 pounds on your back.

No, but I still think it would have been quicker. All right. Well, but I made this decision, which I often say don't do. If you already know one route, the thing was all those logs i didn't feel like climbing over all those logs on the way back up with a full pack was going to be fun anyways it takes me two hours to pack them out we meet up with the crew load them in back into the dog when he comes finally busting out of the brush the dog's not in the backpack anymore. That's right. He's carrying that dog.

Like on the front of a romance novel. Well, right at the, right, like seconds before that, he had just started, legs and stuff started slipping out of the pack and he was getting a little floppy on me. So I had him on the ground and I'm like, I can, I know where you guys are. Just, you know, him on the ground and I'm like, I know where you guys are. You're just 200 yards away. And I'm like, eh, at this point, I'll just he-man it,

which was probably a bad idea. Oh, dude, I couldn't believe it. When I went to take him out of your hands, I couldn't hold him standing there barely. It's a hard, awkward package. That's a big, heavy dog. Was he making any noise over the course of this? He looked somehow better.

Like a little more with it, maybe. I don't know. Maybe the concussion was wearing off. I'm guessing that could have been. He was, the whole time I could hear him breathing. It was very shallow breathing, but just this. You know, but just shallow breathing. But at least I could hear him breathing which was good i told

my older boy i said i took him aside and i said i don't think that mangus is gonna come out alive out of the woods and i can hear my daughter like she's like acting like she's a vet and somehow she got and she's telling yanni's daughters that if it's got a broken leg they're gonna have to put it down i Oh, God. I was like, Jimmy tells me this. I didn't hear her say it. Jimmy said she's tattletaling that Rosemary is really upsetting Ina and Mabel with her armchair vet talk.

Which in this particular instance, you're like, well, how old are they? Well, Rosemary's 11. Yep. I and Mabel are 10 and 12. Yep. And my older boy's 13 and my younger boy's nine. Well, there's vet shows all over the internet and television these days that the kids watch.

I think she's mixing up horses. Because I told her it's hard to fix a horse's leg. I think she's mixing that all up. That could be. Anyhow, a lot of like coaching. Yeah, the only time he made any noise is one time I had like slipped down a little bit of a bank and kind of caught myself, caught my own weight, and that caused him to shift pretty heavily to one side,

and he made like a little moany groan kind of a sound. But other than that, he was good. So were you talking to your buddy the whole way out? Oh, yeah. Yeah, just apologizingizing pretty much you know yeah shedding some tears it was sad oh that's terrible it's terrible um every now and then for whatever reason he would like rotate 90 degrees and then get a paw on each one of my shoulders and kind of like even put his chin on my one shoulder and i'll be like oh my gosh kill me now yeah but then he'd like he'd go the other way and he'd almost like his head would like get too far back

and kind of get floppy and i'd have to look to make sure he was still with me you know exactly oh man i felt terrible for you guys that day but uh yeah we could get it loaded up. Ina comes with me. Steve still had to go and had some unfinished business on that trail. And so just Ina and I took Mingus in and there's only one place to get emergency vet services here in the greater Bozeman area. I'm trying to make it a little bit faster here, but we spent a couple hours in there as they're checking him out. He's obviously, he was very cold. They had to bring his core temp back up. The shallow breathing, the injury was called pneumothorax, which basically is air inside of your chest that's between your chest lining and your lungs. And so when you have air in there, it prevents the lungs from actually expanding and doing what they're supposed to do.

Hence the crazy noise. Yeah. And the super shallow breathing. So they basically just stick like, I don't know if this is exactly right, but it's like a syringe that's meant for pulling air out. So they just- They vent you, yeah.

Yeah, they vent them. And I think after they do it three or four times, they'll actually just stick like a tube in there and just constantly keep pulling it. But it took them, they said on the fourth time, they would go to the tube. They only did it three times. They pulled like two liters of air out of there.

And that was kind of the end of that. Hmm. All those lacerations, he had, I don i don't know 30 40 some stitches and staples kind of all over um they shaved any part where there was any trauma on that dog uh when he when he came home literally a mole when he came home half of him was shaved like his rear rear end, because, yeah, you just start to, you know, because you're fixated on different things of what's going on with the dog. And so it takes a day or two and you start paying close attention. But his rear end was, the whole thing was just purple for a week.

Yeah, yeah. You know, from the impact. Did they give you the talk, like before any of this happened? Were they kind of like, from the impact. Did they give you the talk, like, before any of this happened? Were they kind of like, here's your options, and how much are you willing to spend? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that one for sure. Like, you knew very quickly what it was going to take, and so I had to have that conversation with my gal.

And, yeah, I feel like I owe a lot of people an apology because I for sure have sort of poked fun at anybody that spent, I always said, of course, 5k is my limit. And I was like, you did what?

Your dog got ACL surgery, you dumb ass. You know, that's, that was one of the first things I mentioned to you after we knew the dog would be all right. I was like, if someone had taken you aside a month ago and said,

how much would you put into that dog and vet care before you pulled the plug and got a new one? And you'd be, you know, you'd think about it, four or five grand, I suppose, you know, whatever. I don't know what the number would be, but you'd have some number. But then you get in the actual situation and there's like, this leads to that. And you got to bring it down and then find out what's going on and then there's all this emotional stuff and you're the the daughters are involved and and you can just see how it runs away with itself totally oh yeah you know it's not like um you know it's not like you get up there and someone says okay now's your decision moment you know is this worth 10k or not worth 10k

you know but it's i don't know maybe, but it's, I don't know. Maybe you want another, maybe it'll be dead. Maybe it's $300, but I just, you know, you can't, you just go and it snowballs. And then there you have the massive. Oh, dude, they were pretty spot on with once they kind of had him stabilized and, and had, and they knew what was going on. So basically the only, he had a mild concussion. They gave him some drugs and he popped right out of that. He had the pneumothorax.

They pumped that out. They gave him whatever, 30, 40 stitches and staples all over. Not a big deal. The one broken bone from falling 40 feet, basically straight to rock. Was it the leg I thought was broke or not the leg I thought was broke? One of his left rear leg has a fractured patella. So he broke his kneecap. That's so nuts.

But anyways, yeah. So once they had him stabilized, they were able to call us and be like, this is what it's going to cost. Oh, yeah. By that point, you already carried him all that way and all that. It's just different. Oh, yeah. And then you're like, okay, well, what's it going to cause? Are you going to just put him to sleep, and then I'm going to either lie to my daughters

that he didn't make it through the night? Girls, I told the vet, money is no object. Drain their college funds. Yeah, but it's not like he would have like the put into sleep thing if they had just stopped care he wouldn't have just like died on his own you know what i mean no like how could you yeah it's not like at that it's not resuscitate it's like they'd actively have to put him down yeah isn't free well no i mean you have a dog run around with a broken, I don't know, maybe. No, I asked about that and they said basically the leg would just atrophy to nothing and then you end up having to amputate it and it wouldn't be a good deal. And I told you my theory about three-legged dogs.

Oh, listen, I was ready to go there. I need to check up on this because they told me that it was pretty much going to be the same price to go to a three-legged dog to what we paid for. That's a bargain because people like them three-legged dogs, man. I would have had no problem running a three-legged hound. Oh, they'd have made a Yeti film about you.

If you started catching lions with a three-legged dog, they'd have made a whole Yeti movie. There'd be like the sad part with the sad music. Yeah. They're like, what if you took them both off and we got one of those wheelie carts? How much that runny guy? Off-road mountain bike tires on the back.

Before we leave. Couldn't take them in wilderness, though. Before we leave the vet the first night. That got Phil. They're like, everything's kind of set. He's stabilized. We're like, all right, set these stabilized we're like all right we'll get a phone call from you later to and they're like yeah surgery probably tomorrow or go home and discuss with your you know family on you know if you guys want to pay etc but they're like oh

you want to come back real quick and just say you know give him a kiss and say bye and check him out i'm like yeah sure that sounds like a great idea, why not? I wasn't thinking like goodbye as in forever, but just like go, you know, give him a pat on the back. And we walk in there and it's just him laying on this table. I mean, there's people kind of milling out and about.

Do you have your girls? Just, just Ina. And we walk over there. And when we're like maybe five feet from the table, you kind of, you're like, oh,

you see the big blanket and he's got the little mask on helping him. So he's not looking great. It's shaved everywhere. And your heart sinks a little bit to see your buddy in such a bad state because he's not really like, he doesn't even look up at you when you walk in there. And right as we're getting to be a little bit closer

where we're going to put our hands on him, the machine next to him goes, dee, dee, dee. and all of a sudden there's a dude running over and he's like, Dr. So-and-so, I need 7 milligrams of this. No, make a tent and prepare a backup. And all of a sudden it's like there's five people around him

and we're like pushed out and it's like an ER scene. So they have little paddles? Clear! Yeah, it was getting it. It was going to be that soon. And Ina looks at me like, what the F? They just told us he was stable. You know, I'm like, yeah, I don't know. Well, he had had just like a little heart arrhythmia.

And it was. Well, you and him got the same problem. It was all. Yeah, his has gone away, I think. But it was just caused from that impact and the trauma to the heart, you know that's what caused that pneumothorax to was just such impact that Some part of the lung whether it's like a bursa sac or an alveoli But some end part of the lobe just goes and like pops open and literally releases air into your chest Oh, you can have internal which is pneumothorax

Which is what he had or you, which is pneumothorax, which is what he had, or you can have external pneumothorax, which is if your ribcage actually got punctured and air got in that way. You know what I'm learning about myself right now? If you were telling me that about a person, I'd be having all these problems.

But because it's a dog, I'm not having all these problems. Like if someone tells me, oh yeah, I have testicular cancer, my nuts start aching. But I can hear all this. I can hear all this without having the pain. You feel like a pain or just like a strange sensation? No, I feel like, man, I got that problem too.

It's like a sympathetic pregnancy, Steve gets, you know? Yeah, like, yeah, I'm just noticing that for some reason, if you were explaining that in that kind of graphic detail, I'd feel like my lungs, I'd be like, there's something wrong. I'm short of breath. that has pins that all go into different bones that are holding things together. And now the external fixator actually has a piston, looks just like the piston on the hatch on your topper that holds your window open. And then they adjust it and give him more range of motion. When he's done with that, can I have the piston? Because I've been using a broom to pop up my windshield for months now.

You know, I think luckily they take it back, and so that saves you a little bit of money. Oh. Yeah. So I won't own that piece of hardware when we're all done here. You take a bid from them and Randall. Yeah, just compare with the shop down there. How did you carry him out on the snowmobile?

We have a sled like a dog box that sits on a sled that's like a trailer behind the snowmobile so we just loaded him right into his box and he wrapped him up in his down jacket yeah try to make try to warm him up a little bit so if anyone wants to send yanni a bunch of money that's what he'll do it is he'll turn around and give it to his vet yeah so it's a it's a it's a big it's a big number uh did you get a payment plan like how you supposed to come up with that kind of money yeah they actually have a uh there's like a emergency vet credit that you can get first with super low uh with super low interest. From who?

That's what they're- Through the vet. Well, I mean, they advertise- It's like a third party financing option. It's like a guy sits there with a desk and- Set up for that. Yeah. He writes it up while you're there. Let me go ask my manager.

Well, it's a great business plan because you're just sitting around like who should i lend money to who's gonna spend the money no matter what yeah totally so the vet offers like financing or it's a third party it's a third party it's like credo or you know like on yeah i was looking at it the other day when i paid a big vet bill just wonder if i could do it like six so now you got to make payments? You know, I don't know if we have it figured out exactly how we're going to do it. We'll probably just take a big chunk out of savings and just knock it out.

Ugh, man. Better that. Now you can resent that dog every time you see him. Well, you know, it's funny because that dog is a pound puppy, shelter dog, whatever you want to call him. So now you can just act like you bought him for a lot of money yeah yeah he was like a hundred because pound dogs aren't free they still make you pay for uh neutering 75 and shit yeah it's like 7500 now you paid 10 but now you just really

boosted his pedigree there yeah totally i better get his papers now people ask yanni how much you pay for that dog you had to start the story by going, well, he's a genuine racehorse now. So, yeah, he's fine now. He's not going stir crazy. You think he would be. I mean, he wants to go out. You can't just let him roam. He's basically got to be on a leash.

It was a season ender. Oh, 100%. Yeah, there's no more cat hunting here. And Yanni lost his appetite for cat hunting he doesn't like doing it without his own dog he said oh yeah i mean he went he went with someone else's dog he said it wasn't the same yeah it was still fun just not the same right but he didn't jump off a cliff that's why in the game so what i was amazed at this when we were chatting on text. They said it was like 95% recovery to full recovery. For that back leg.

Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Great. So it won't be like new, but I think he'll be able to hunt, no problem. How old is the dog?

Four. Okay. I'll take him right back. He's got another at least four to six, I would think. I'll say I'd get him right back to that same spot. See if he learned anything. Shock the shit out of him with the collar. Be like, no, no.

No cliff bands. Yeah, it's not a bad idea to put him up on top of the cliff and then shock him. Right. You'll find that he never goes left ever again. Yeah, he's a dog that only goes right. It'll be interesting to see if he does have any post-trauma from it. Did he learn from it? If he remembers it.

As hard-headed as that dog is, I don't think so. I doubt it. Well, thanks for sharing. Yeah. Thanks for being there and helping out. It would have been even tougher if it had just been me and my girls. Yeah. I don't want to say it was fun, but I'm glad it worked out the way it did.

Because like I said, I felt terrible for you guys. Yeah, it was. It mostly felt terrible for your girls because that would have been a hard little trip. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, one other sort of silver lining out of this is I wasn't even really bringing it up. Because I don't know if it was Jennifer that was seeing how bummed out I was about how the season ended for us. And how it was no more line hunting for me and Mingus.

We're done until next year. But she pretty much has given the go-ahead for number two. So Mingus goes off another one next year. But, uh, she pretty much has given the go ahead for number two. So Mingus goes off another one next year. It wouldn't be so bad if I had a second dog. I'd still be in the race. Oh yeah. So yeah. Get August.

I think we'll have a puppy. That's awesome, man. Yeah. puppy. That's awesome, man. Yep. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning g GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps,

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y'all all right dan you ready to dive in i've been doing this for the last five months yeah that's all you've been doing is diving you already dove yeah i dove i fell off a cliff they found me i was gurgling uh lay out who you uh lay out your organization first and then lay out uh and then just kind of give the give the the rundown of what, when I said, what's going on in Colorado, what tells what's up with Colorado? Well, first give a thorough introduction of yourself. So I'm Dan Gates. I'm the executive director for the Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management.

And it's a 501c4 organization. Uh, our mission is to enhance, promote, and defend the North American model of wildlife conservation and responsible wildlife management. And so we're not a membership organization, but we do advocacy work and education work on a variety of different levels. And we have three full-time lobbyists at the Colorado Capitol. We fight through the legislative side of things and the regulatory side through the Parks and Wildlife Commission. And now we've been dealt a citizen's initiative to bring it to a ballot for November 5th of this year to ban the harvest of mountain lions, bobcats, and the red herring on that as lynx. I heard you talk about that before, but I mean, lynx aren't harvestable in the lower 48,

but they want to make sure that they never are. If they're ever delisted, they say, no, we don't want you to ever do it. If they ever become delisted. Dan, when you say a citizen's initiative, can you say where like, that's like, where did it come from? I want to clarify just real quick though. You said you've been dealt this, right? This is an issue that Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management is fighting against.

Fighting against. Yes. Yeah. We beat similar type issues through the Parks and Wildlife Commission. And they also, the antis, the extremists, went to the General Assembly through the legislature in 2022. And we beat them there. And this was their other option to turn around and file an initiative, which 26 states have that available to them, but file an initiative to where they get enough signatures through the legal process and then they can put it on the ballot for people to vote on. Right.

And an attempt to ban, I mean, they call it trophy hunting, even though we went through the proper steps that were allowed to us through the Secretary of State and the Title Board and the Supreme Court that we got trophy hunting out of the title, but it still remains in the measure itself. But it's not trophy hunting. It's a hunting ban. It's a mountain lion and bobcat hunting ban is what it is. Yeah, you don't fill out a questionnaire asking what you're interested in retaining from the animal, and then you get to get a permit if you write the right thing down.

No, no. The intent is, their definition of trophy hunting, Steve, is intentionally killing, wounding, stalking, and trapping a bobcat or mountain lion. And intentionally killing is not trophy hunting. That's, it's hunting. And, and the, the scary part about this is that we appreciate the opportunity to continually talk about it, but it's an education process because it'll become statutory. I mean, it'll set a precedent. I want you to back up a little bit because I want to get to the language part of this in a minute.

But how many signatures, like tell how a ballot initiative works. So they file and it has to go through the proper legal processes as in any state. There's 26 states that allow it, but they file and then there's an opportunity for arguments from the, they're the proponents, we're the opposers. I was the only objector on the entire legal

documents through the state. When you say they, like who is they is what I was getting at. So the organization that is doing it is a group called Cats Aren't Trophies. It's called Cats. Was it built for this purpose? It was built specifically for this purpose, yeah. I see, yeah. But they have deep connections with the Animal Welfare Action Institute for a Humane Economy,

which is run by Waynene picelli the former hs us executive director and uh wild earth guardians and a variety and if you look at their website there's 50 or 60 different organizations that are all on board but it's cats aren't trophies is the organization is center for biological diversity on it uh they're they're on it as far as a supporter but to the best of our knowledge, they haven't put any money in that's been trackable. Sierra Club didn't get in on it, did they? Everybody has.

They're on it? Yeah. I mean, you look at the line item. They're listed as a supporter? Yeah. I mean, it's gotten to a point to where I think they see it as a shiny object, and they're willing to turn around and throw their name into the hat on every single thing. And the individual people that are running the Colorado

side of those organizations have been, those are the ones that we've been fighting for the last 20 years anyway. I mean, but they just keep resurfacing. I mean, it's like mushrooms, you get rid of them out of your yard, but pretty soon they show up somewhere else. It's so weird, too, because bobcats are an IUCN species of least concern. Yeah. Yeah. Which is so surprising that Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club and organizations like that would even be in it when you're talking about a species of least concern. And that's a great point, too, talk about like they uh international union for the conservation of nature is like the they when people are like well they say it's okay or they

say they're doing good it's it's the the uh convention that people go to to see how everything's doing it's like the the science at the back end of all biological diversity, basically. And what I'm saying, species of least concern, they rank out. If you're curious about any animal, you can go look up the IUCN status, any species, and it factors in foreseeable issues, right? So you could have stable populations of an animal, but they'll look and they'll be like, well, foreseeable issues coming up and that'll impact the level. But if you go look up a bobcat, bobcat's species of least concern, meaning stable, widespread, no foreseeable issues. Exactly. And same with mountain lions.

Yeah. I mean, mountain lions and bobcats are so highly regulated in the United States that people, it know, it's the fallacies, the lies, and the falsehoods of our enemies. As you say it enough, people start to believe it. And the facts and the data will argue those, those, um, points that the opposition brings, but Bobcats and mountain lions, there's, there's no, we all know they're sitting around the table, but the general public for the most part doesn't. No. And the links thing is funny because the links are enjoy the highest level of protection that any animal can get in America because they're ESA protected.

Exactly. Exactly. They're harvestable in Canada and Alaska, but not down in the lower 48. The entire lower 48, they're endangered species that are protected. Yeah. But they're using that. So a state can't do anything anyway. No.

It's just like half the wolves that you'd turn around and deal with, what we have to deal with in Colorado. Wolves are not on the endangered species list in the Northern Rockies, but they're going to be in Colorado just because we brought them there. But it's the same wolves that came from Oregon that probably came from somewhere else that it's the lies that our opposition wants to be able to bring to the table. And like I say, if they say it enough, it just becomes the truth as far as they're concerned. And what we're trying to do is make sure that the general public, not just in Colorado, I mean, we have to worry about the voter, but throughout the United States, sportsmen and women need to pay attention because of the way it's written. And you can turn around and put it in Arkansas or Wisconsin or anything, just change their statutes because of the way it's written and you can turn around put it in arkansas or wisconsin or or anything just change change their statutes because of the statutory component of this

you know with people voting on it did uh how many votes does it take or how many signatures and then what's the population of colorado and how many signatures so it's roughly two percent of the population that they need for signatures but i think it's 124 238 signatures that they need for signatures, but I think it's 124,238 signatures that they have to get that are certified. So they're out gathering signatures now, but we're assuming that they'll probably have to get 180,000 because there'll be some ineligible ones and some ones that aren't- Readable or whatever. Yeah, exactly. People won't fill it out right, so that one won't. They might fill out the wrong county or they might fill out that it's a country, not a County.

Hanging chads. Yeah, exactly. See, you know, our young friend, he doesn't, he doesn't get the hanging chads joke. And you're lucky. Gore v. Bush. Yeah.

When they get to Gore v. Bush in history, listen, you'll hear about hanging chads. Yeah. Uh, but in Colorado, uh, in the state constitution, they have to, uh to pass these citizens initiatives if the populace votes yay, right? Well, this will not be constitutional. This will be statutory.

So a constitutional one, you would have to get 2% of those required signatures from each one of the 35 Senate districts. So this one here they could all stand out in front of one whole foods in downtown denver essentially that's what i that's what i'll say too i always think of that because there's like you can't go to a whole food without someone having a picnic table oh yeah a folding table out front collecting signatures for something yeah they they there's we had some some guys downtown Denver that were doing some other functions and they said there was at one location, there was five individuals that were out gathering signatures for five different ballot initiatives at one spot. I mean, I don't know what you do, but if I don't go to the grocery store, my wife does. But if I went there and there was five people trying to hit me up on the way into the way out, I mean, I'll buy Girl Scout cookies if I go, but I'm not going to turn around and stop and sign five petitions.

No, I'm always thinking, just the fact that you're here makes me suspicious of what you're getting signatures for. Exactly. Exactly. What do you want to change in my life? I love the produce, but I don't know what's going on in this parking lot. Well, and there's so many things going on in Colorado because of the landscape that we've got. I mean, the gubernatorial administration has not been favorable to us, to say the least, when it comes to hunting and fishing and agriculture-type issues. And there's some other stuff going on in Denver that the state won't be able to vote on, but Denver city and county residents will and one is a fur ban which is not a fur ban it's it's much broader than that and it's a slaughterhouse ban as well both of those are citizen ballot

initiatives for Denver city county residents but those are the same people that'll be able to vote on the statewide mountain lion and bobcat issue as well so they get to vote on three things to try to take away and the state residents themselves get to vote on the mountain lion and bobcat issue as well so they get to vote on three things to try to take away and the state residents themselves get to vote on the mountain lion and bobcat but they can't engage in the other ones because they don't live in the city you're just looking at me like let's go talking about lions no no no no i'm not looking at it that way i just remember back in uh i remember back in the early 90s must have been the 90s, when Colorado had the- Yep. Had a baronet.

No, the one that had the trapping ban. Well, that was in 96. I'm looking at it that way only because of this. I remember with that trapping ban, someone said at the time, the minute Denver and Fort Collins had a population that equaled the broader population of Colorado, meaning 50.1% of Coloradans lived in Denver, Fort Collins, the trapping ban. Yep. 92 was the-

And they were like, man, it was like urban people v rural people. And I saw a statistic that, and this is pretty much across the board, especially in the West. In 1900, 80% of the population lived on the landscape and 20% lived in the city or the municipalities. In 1950, it was a 50-50 mix. And then 2000, 20% lived on the landscape and 80% lived in the cities. I mean, just in a hundred years, in the next 50 years, they're saying that it'll probably be somewhere around 90% live in the cities and 10% will live on the landscape. That's the problem that we get into because everybody benefits off of hunting and fishing, even if they don't participate in it. They benefit off of agriculture production.

We all have to eat. It's not like we're all growing chickens in gardens in everybody's backyard. But all of that stuff plays into people's psyche because it doesn't affect them until they go to the grocery store or until they want to feed their kids or go to McDonald's or something. And I think that we're getting to a point where there's going to be some break even where people are just going to get fed up and say, wait a minute, let's just leave it up to the experts on a variety of different things. We haven't gotten there yet, but we're going to this November, I think, just because of the outreach that we've gotten and the momentum that we're actually building on this issue.

Because people are sick and tired of extremism. They're sick and tired of somebody telling them what to do, whether they do it or not. It's the fact that they might want to do it or they know that their uncle does it or their brother does it or the guy that works at Whole Foods does it while somebody's trying to gather signatures outside that that was a point I wanted to get into with this which makes it tricky is uh you look at um you look at certain environmental battles uh that that environmental fights that sportsmen get involved in okay and the the most notable notable example would be like the huge outpouring of um that came from the hunting and fishing community all around the country in opposition to, um, developing the pebble mine site. Okay. And a lot of like people want to draw a line in the sand on the pebble mine development, even if they weren't planning to go to Bristol Bay. Right. they weren't planning to go to bristol bay right they looked and they're like that you know just it

was easy for people to picture like that's the wrong mind in the wrong place i'll never go there but i recognize this is something i want to lean in on the problem when it comes to method of take fights or fights like this i think it's hard for people to picture why it matters to them. Like, you know, I don't hunt bobcats. I don't hunt mountain lions. I don't have any friends that run lions. Why would I care? Right.

Because it's hard. It just winds up being harder to imagine why it. Well, you can extrapolate pebble as a, just a total clean water issue, right? Sure. And clean water, the, the overlap for's the overlap for the bell curve of the biggest possible chunk of the population, right? That's,

that's the messaging that, that we have to be able to get to with, with a lot of non hunters. Yeah. And I think that what, what, if I look at, I'd worry about, I got got a handful balls in the air

here and i'm gonna turn back already a minute but i just want to clarify a point like even just if it just if this if a vote like this breaks on hunters non-hunters you're gonna lose because most people aren't hunters right i don't know what what's participation rate in colorado 14 high at the high end at the high i'm sure okay so you're gonna lose anyway so it's like hunters and then some supporters now if we were talking about a deer and elk hunting ban which i don't think is out of the realm of possibility in my kids lifetime no so if you're talking about a deer and elk hunting ban you're gonna buck it up you're pretty much bucketing up most hunters okay most

hunters are gonna be like that impacts me if you talk about an obscure game animal you're not even bucketing up most hunters but even if you had all hunters you still need extra support from elsewhere exactly right so i wonder about how to gather it up. And I would say like, for starters, and I'll leave it to you on the public end of things, the non-hunter end of things. I would argue with hunters, why you need to pay attention to this is again, you're talking about taking a stable, expanding population of wildlife if we if we say and i don't i don't i'm not terribly familiar with the iucn but an international board of biologists determines these things to be stable with no foreseeable threat the experts that the experts lean on and you're saying no we're pulling that species out of the pool of available resources not because they're imperiled not

because they're endangered not because there's any reason to think that these species have a chance of extirpation but just because we don't think you should go and get those exactly so what's next um sorry guys jeremy romero i was making one of his recipes What's next? Sorry, guys. Jeremy Romero. I was making one of his recipes. Berea tacos. Oh. So.

So hip. Is it? Yeah. We learned that in trivia a couple weeks ago. Point being, that's what I would say to hunters, why this matters to you because like stuff you like to do is in line bears. That's definitely common, right? Someone could go make the case on bighorn sheep. That they're trying.

Yeah. Whatever. I mean, other stuff is coming. This is just like a step along the way. Archery. Yep. Yeah. Archery.

That's mean right now how do you think the like how should the the the non-hunting public why do they care well the the hardest thing to get people to understand is why something affects benefits or adversely affects them. And for somebody that doesn't hunt, they have to recognize, we have to get them to recognize the importance of hunting and conservation. And the problem I think that we get into with that messaging is you've got 10% that are going to be strong, you know, right hunters. And you've got 10% that're going to be strong, right. Extremist. I don't like the word animal activists because they're not, they're terrorists. They're extremists. You know, they, they, they might be activists as well, but I mean, their mentality is to disrupt the entire process of every game agency in the country and on the continent as extremist. I mean, they, they want to do it at the extremist level that they possibly can.

You mentioned bighorn sheep, uh, Trish Zornio. And I've mentioned this, they want to do it at the extremist level that they possibly can. You mentioned bighorn sheep. Trish Zornio, and I've mentioned this, I think even on the live show that we did, Trish Zornio, uh, with the Denver, uh, the Colorado Sun mentioned, why are we, why are we harvesting bighorn sheep, our state animal? Bighorn sheep are no different than mountain lions. They're already setting the tone and the narrative of why we shouldn't do something and, and why be able to go after the low-hanging fruit like on bobcats and mountain lions. There's less bobcat and mountain lion harvesters out there than there is many other things. But there's less bighorn sheep, less mountain goat, and less moose harvesters than there is the mountain lion and bobcat combined. Huh. And you can't, I mean, so you stop and think of that.

You know, I mean, we sold 2,500 mountain lions. That's i mean so you stop and think of that you know i mean we sold 2,500 that's pretty interesting i hadn't thought of that we sold 2,500 mountain lions last license last year we had a success rate of 19 on on bobcats we can only cage trap in the state of colorado or we can use hounds or we can hunt them with predator calls but but roughly about, about 8,000 guys participate in some capacity to pursue mountain lions, excuse me, bobcats. This year we harvested around 900 bobcats. On some years, it's been as high as 1900 that you had guys out there, but in the historical side of things, we did 36, 3800 bobcats back in the seventies and eighties. When prices were crazy.

When prices were crazy. And you had more people out there doing it. You know, trucks cost 12 grand and Bobcats were worth $400 and now trucks are 80 grand and guy's got 14 kids and, you know, he's got vet bills with his dogs and all the other stuff. I mean, he's not out pursuing like what they used to, but that doesn't mean that it's not a viable option or an advocation for management.

Well, it's interesting that harvest is down, historically down. Yeah. It just has a market factor. Well, on the bobcats anyway, but back in 1965 when mountain lions became a big game animal, before that they were a nuisance in Colorado, we roughly had 200 mountain lions on the

landscape and now we boast 5,000 with regulated hunting, with regulated harvest, with objectives that are met throughout the entire state. We've got more lions now than what we've ever had. And they still want us not to be able to harvest them because it's wrong. That's what they say. They don't care that it has anything to do with management.

I think that's where the general public says, why is it wrong? How should it be worked? Why should you just take it out? They're starting to ask those questions. I mean, as many opportunities we've had to talk to the general public at a variety of different levels, and I'm not speaking for all 5.9 million people in Colorado, but people are questioning why. Why isn't our game agency, our scientists and our biologists good enough to make the decisions

on our game management practices? And they're starting to realize. And I think, honestly, guys, I think the wolf issue brought that to the forefront because it was a 51% to 49% vote, very, very split decision. We were told that we would lose by something like 68% to 32%, and it was 51% to 49%. I think it surprised the hell out of everybody on both sides because even the people that thought, well, maybe this would kind of be cool, but I'm not really sure. And then the other ones have thought, yeah, I'd like to hear a wolf howl. Now that it's been in the news for the last four years, they're like, well, there's been

a lot of negativity. Do we really want to go the route of bobcats and mountain lions? The general public's starting to question why we can't rely on our experts, our scientists. We've heard the science all the way through COVID and through that whole process. Why can't we follow the science here? And I think that that's starting to play a significant role in people's psyches about, well, I'd like to know that bobcats and mountain lions are appropriately managed because they've been talking about wolves being appropriately managed now for the last four years.

Why do we need to turn around and put it on the ballot? What was the lion harvest in Colorado last year? Roughly like just less than 500, like 486. It was actually by hunters. Yeah. I don't know if this wind up, I don't know how this impactful this will be to voters, but you see an interesting thing happen where the states do depredation work. Yep. an interesting thing happen where the states do depredation work yep uh i've never checked into

this exhaustively but my understanding is before california had their lion hunting ban hunters in california were killing about 300 lions a year um since then the state is killing about 300 lions a year somewhere in that neck of the woods i've seen high and lows of that okay but but the but the the kicker trying to explain it to our public is that hunters aren't paying to do that taxpayers are paying government officials whether federal or otherwise oh yeah you used to have people pay you said people pay for the opportunity yeah and now you're taking taxpayer money to pay someone to do it as though the lion that's getting shot is like, well, thank God it's a government employee. They're happy about it now.

Thank God a government employee got me and not a guy who is paying into the system. That's where a major fallacy or lie about the whole story is, is that they're telling people that, hey, if we stop this, the end result is that there's less lions killed. If you're getting pitched this at Whole Foods and they're trying to get your signature, they're going to tell

you, we're going to stop the killing of mountain lions. You'll dent it for sure well maybe in the short term this part though like i don't think that's what's effective right like we can look at there's a big ass uh billboard on on the uh bozeman hill here uh driving west out of yellowstone uh sal grizzly Bear has a couple of cubs, big old bullseye drawn on mom's back. Yeah. And it says.

Which would be illegal. Right? And like hunters look at it and you're like, well, that's a bunch of bullshit. Yeah. Right? But it's like delisting, state management means trophy hunting.

And it's the crosshair on the sow's back, which everybody knows is illegal. No, I'd be like, well, no, cause you wouldn't be able to shoot a sow with cubs. Right, right. But it's like, that means something to hunters, right? But I think all those arguments should be

combined and targeted at outdoor groups and say, okay, here's, here's an argument I'm going to make against rock climbing and all rock climbers. Yep. argument I'm going to make against rock climbing and all rock climbers. Yep. And I'm going to bring this as a citizen's initiative in the state of Colorado to save raptors, right?

Rock climbers on rock faces. It sounds like we had this discussion because that's, that's the exact same argument that we, that we get on multiple things. Hold on, I want to hear about the rock climbers and raptors. Okay. Well, raptors nest.

Oh. On rocks. Okay. Yeah. We know the rock climbers and raptors. Okay. Well, raptors nest. Oh, I'm working on it. Okay. Yeah. We know that rock climbers are killing raptors because they're abandoning their nest because of all these popular routes. Sons of bitches. Yep.

They're picking up trash, micro plastics. Um, there's no reason that rock climbers should be allowed to do this. They're leaving scars on the rocks big chalk all over the place um and it's running all around and it's killing these poor birds and you have the picture of the nest and the little abandoned uh uh chicks in there screaming for mom you know who's choking on the six six pack ring at the bottom of the cliff face. All rock climbers are doing this, right?

None of that shit's true. Well, to some degree it might be, but the, but the, but the fact of the matter is if you tell it enough, I mean, you could get people to turn around and buy into it. Oh, absolutely. Especially the unknown public. And that's not that big of a group of people.

No. Right? No, but you think they're going to come out in force and go, wait a minute. Well, I want to rock climb. Well, I think that the general public would probably side with the environmental side of it if there wasn't a good argument from the rock climbing community. And there's just not enough rock climbers to get out there and be like. Well, and that's why we're at such a deal. You know, I've heard statements from the specific proponents of these measures that their goal to take the low-hanging fruit is, you know, take it, then cut the branch, then cut the tree, and then go into the forest.

Well, if we're the lowest-hanging fruit, the trappers and the mountain lion hunters, where do you go next? I mean, your point, would it be bear hunting? Would it be archery? Would it be state animal? Would it be, you know, the iconic moose that we introduced there that now need to be saved so we can feed those to the wolves? I mean, I don't, I don't know, but it's easily,

it's easily distinguishable to see how those lies carry on to the next level because they don't have to pick on these guys anymore because these guys are gone. These guys are out of the picture. I can make a great case against mountain biking. He's just going to go on the recreation side now out of the picture. I can make a great case against mountain biking. Um, he's just going to go on the recreation side

now. Oh, exactly. Hit every recreation group and be like, here's, here's my bulletproof PR plan to eliminate your special interest group. Right.

And we're going to, we can do it all through citizens initiative because we know there's enough other groups that do not participate and don't necessarily give a shit about your thing that you love. And it can all be part of a campaign that says, this is why this whole Citizens Initiative stuff

needs to be greatly reworked because it can be manipulated to take away things that don't need to be taken away. And multiple states that I said, you know, 26 have this available to them. There needs to be a revision in some capacity, whether it's on the wildlife side or just on the citizen's petition side itself, because it

is being manipulated. It's being abused and it's bastardizing so many different things that we're dealing with at so many different levels. I're dealing with at so many different levels. I mean, you know, you can talk about oil and gas or wind energy or solar siding or whatever. Everybody thinks it's good until you say that it's going to kill a bunch of wildlife. And it is good. I mean, I'm not saying that we should get rid of any of it. It just needs to be appropriately managed. But I don't think that you should get, you know,

some crazy old women standing out in front of Whole Foods trying to ban everything pretty soon we'll be running around naked and you know not being able to get what we want uh you know one of the ways i think that uh i hesitate to even say this because i'm giving up the i'm like uh showing the inside thinking but a rhetoric i would use in this is one that when i hear it oftentimes causes me to roll my eyes but uh it would be maybe you're not a hunter you're probably certainly not a bobcat hunter um but do you really want these city slickers telling you how to live your life, that would want to be, that's very effective to people. And I always go like, Oh,

really, really. But, uh, that's what I would be pitching big time. Well, if you look at it, look at,

look at the, where the money comes from. And, and, and while we, while I say that we've gotten money from 50 states to help us with this fight, the seed money for these efforts from the opposition has come from out of state.

It's out of state big money. Oh, yeah. And because it's coming from the national organizations and the lunatic ones that are out there that, you know. I mean, you know what polled number one when we did our first poll was Carol Baskins off the Tiger King. I mean, that was like, well, we don't want her doing our wildlife. I mean, that's what people think about wildlife.

I don't understand what you're saying. So we did our polling. You asked the questions and trying to get people's attention to figure out where their psyche was, where their impressions were, perspectives on mountain lion and bobcats. Because you asked the question about Carol Baskins, that poll, number one, where all the other stuff about conservation and economy and wildlife science and the North American model. I mean, a disapproval, generally a disapproval of her.

Yeah. I see. Yeah. But she polls number one. Not all the good stuff that we should be talking about. She polls number one. And we're thinking, well, how the hell are we going to turn it off? Man, I'm sorry.

I still don't understand. Steve famously didn't engage with Tiger King when that was happening. No, no, no. Let's say I did. Let's say I did I still don't understand. Steve famously didn't engage with Tiger King when that was happening. No, no, no. Let's say I did. Let's say I did. I don't understand. What is the pull? So when you ask, you're trying to get a feel or a pulse from the general public about how you would be able to message to that general public and what would resonate with them.

I understand now. Okay. And they're saying. Sorry I didn't lay it out. If you were saying, like, do you have a favorable impression of Baskins as a wildlife manager? Yes. They would say resoundingly, I do not have a favorable impression. Exactly. I understand.

But if you said, what is the most important to you when it comes to wildlife management, and you ranked it ABC, and you said the economy, wildlife science, sustainable resources, Carol Baskins. I mean, Carol Baskins comes in at the top. It's like, well, we don't want her, we don't want her managing our wildlife, but they're willing to turn around and take some 85 year old ex Uber driver, you know, because that person doesn't want anything other than what Carol Baskins does. Yeah. And so we are so disconnected from wildlife, as you all know,

for the general public. I mean, they don't know where the wildlife management comes from. They don't know the science behind it. You talk to people all the time that, well, I pay my taxes. Well, good. I'm glad. But very little of that goes to wildlife conservation and management. It's from licenses. The sportsmen and women have historically paid that, and it goes from the North American model practices and the excise taxes. You can't argue that to somebody that doesn't even understand the circle, the process. So you have to figure out a way to talk to them about how hunting and fishing benefits them and wildlife as a whole.

Seventy-eight game species of wildlife that's managed in Colorado. Is it really? Yeah. You've got 961 species of wildlife and 78 of, 78 game species of wildlife that's managed in Colorado. Is it really? Yeah. You've got 961 species of wildlife and 78 of it's game species. Oh yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. Fish.

Yeah. Yeah. But they, but they would, they don't want any of it. You know, it's, they don't want you to harvest any of it for any reason. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high and titty there,

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That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free Free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. So where does the governor of Colorado, Governor Polis, fit into this? Would this all be happening

without him in office? Not to this level. No. This, no. This particular individual, his spouse, the first gentleman of Colorado, is a animal rights extremist. Yeah, that's what I've heard.

And he's got, well, I would like to say he's got deep pockets. I think they combined have deep pockets. But you look at the support that they get and the connections that they have. I mean, it's like a giant spider web that what they have as far as the animal rights extremism. And it's not just about wildlife. It's about everything that has to do with animals.

His old man is an animal rights activist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Extremist, terrorist. He, he's inserted some people onto the Colorado Wildlife Commission that aren't necessarily pro hunting, correct?

Yeah. Not necessarily pro. Yeah. It's like, yeah, that's an understatement. Yeah. But yeah. Which is one way he, like he can further his influence on. Right.

Yeah, and even through the Department of Agriculture. I mean, you just look at appointments straight across the board. The oversight that's been created with our game management agency because of the extremist mentality, what we consider to be an agenda, that should be paid attention to by people from all around the country as well. Because that model works. You might not be able to get what you want, but if you put the right people in place, you can get a lot of what you want and you can do it in a short period of time just because you're able to turn around and change the mindset of management and regulatory components and house structures, then legislative, then legislative, you know, issues come up to where, well, this is more

favorable to that administration, so they're maybe more likely to support it. You know, I'm concerned. We're sitting around here, and granted, it seems like the more and more I do this, I become the oldest guy in the room everywhere I go, but, you know, guys like Connor sitting here, I mean, I want him to be able to do what he did, not kill a 386 point.

No, he's got another. Yeah. I don't want you to be able to do that. You know, you should be able to kill spikes after this, but I want him to be able to do it. And, and while we talk about professing to do something for the immediate future, which is now coming this November, I want him to be able to do it when he's my age. I want his kids to be able to do it. And, and I think that that, that question resonates really, really well with our stakeholder audience that we've got, the hunters and anglers, but it resonates well with the non-hunter,

not the anti, but the non-hunter as well, because they're like, well, maybe my kid would want to go hunting. Yeah. Because my neighbor's kid goes hunting and he talked about taking him or, you know, they're like, well, maybe my kid would want to go hunting. Yeah. Because my neighbor's kid goes hunting, and he talked about taking him. Or, you know, they're doing it in scout camp, or they're doing it in some sort of outward bound deal. And it's all preparation for wilderness survival and conservation. There's the American Wilderness Leadership School. We do stuff for the National Rifle Association, the Youth Outdoor Adventure Camp at the Whittington Center,

and we sit in kids on scholarships. The reason you do that is because you're hoping that you educate them to be able to participate in this and escalate and enhance their knowledge of the landscape. Well, did you see what they're doing with the kids in Colorado about naming the wolves? So they had a contest the governor implemented a contest to name the wolves that we introduced dumped them on the ground named them had a big contest that way because that way when one of them dies from something it'll be like a yeah i mean how do you like to be the first rancher that has his sheep eaten you actually kill it under the 10j rule and somebody says well that guy killed maverick

you know i mean they're. I mean, they're going to be protesting him. They're not going to want to eat his beef. It's just indoctrination, this psychoanalysis that they've done. I prefer when they got a name like M-O-O-6. Yeah. B-52. But I want to see our society recognize the need for conservation as opposed to just talk about it. And I really, I think that there's- Well, I mean, as opposed to a preservation mentality. Yeah. I mean, my grandma used to preserve jam and put it on the shelf.

And my grandfather always used to say, no, that's conservation because I'm going to eat it. We're not putting it there just to preserve it. But I want to see, I think, with what we're trying to accomplish, we have a moment in time that we can actually prop up a flag. And I don't want to be all sappy about it, but it's our chance as sportsmen and women in the United States to prop up a flag and stop something that could dramatically affect about any other state or any other species or any other method of take or, or season or anything. Because once you start doing statutory regulations and set a precedent, I mean, it's easy for everybody else to go, well, they did it over here.

Sure. All we have to do is change this species or take this out. And I wanted to bring up, cause you. Oh, there's two things I want to do though. So hold that thought. Cause the two things I want to do is, uh, one, I want to explore how certain the outcome is. You might look at this and look at some of the demographics we're talking about and look and be like that, you know the governor's behind it certain uh certain environmental groups with a lot of name recognition are behind it it must be that like like hunters are automatically

going to lose but they don't always lose no um maine beat a bear hunting ban yep some years back montana uh beat a public land trapping ban overwhelmingly recently very different politics right arizona is similar to colorado and they beat a cat hunting ban so they didn't they didn't even get signatures down there because they did such a formidable campaign to make sure they didn't get the signatures yeah so it's not that's the bright side the not bright side is you lose a lot too and and i could name a bunch of states that lost a bunch of stuff but point being the fact that it's on the ballot doesn't mean it's one no like this is going to be decided it might be tight but this is going to be something that's decided down the future like it's not this isn't news of something that happened this is news of something that's coming and will be addressed in the future right uh so that's the first point

i want to make and i want to make as continue your thought, what is the most productive thing, the most helpful thing that people can do? Give me a bunch of money. Okay. I saw. And I, and I, yeah. I said something the other day that was, uh, and I don't know if this is true or not, but it was something like if every person who applies for non-resident elk in Colorado were to send you $20, you'd have the, what is anticipated. Are you serious?

The war chest. Yeah. The war chest sort of amounts to like. Dude, I'm doing that. Yeah. Yeah. And so like you have a number. Well, Brody's applying.

Brody's applying. Cal's going to like this. Brody just found, he's going to, he's applying his kids. Oh. Mm-hmm. To where? Colorado. Yeah, he's applying his kids. Oh. Mm-hmm. To where? Colorado. Yeah, that's fine.

That's fine. So Brody's got to send you 60 bucks. Yep. Well, you're exactly right. Yeah, you have a number that you need for a war chest to fight this, you know, effectively. Yeah. And it's a number that people who are spending

money on their hunting dreams down the line can, can pull together without too much heartache on anyone's We've been working with Howell for Wildlife on a bunch of different things, trying to get a message out. And they, they've got a really unique system to be able to deal with the legislative side of things throughout the country.

And they've been really effective over, over the last two years, but they're helping us dramatically on this, which is kind of the first ballot initiative that they've actually engaged in to this degree. And one of the arguments that we've actually given is, to your point, it's almost 200,000 non-resident applications that come in. And they're coming in now. It goes all the way, the deadline's April 2nd. But you have to buy a qualifying license. I think it's 39 to 54 bucks, depending on which one you get. You got to buy preference points. You have to pay application fees. If every person that put

in for the state of Colorado would just take some of what they're already given Colorado that they don't get anything out of unless they draw a license. I mean, just, you don't even, you're putting money in for a lottery ticket, but we know that we're not all going to, I mean, you got 11% success out of your deal, but you know, you're an anomaly. So, I mean, where's your 20 bucks? Yeah. He doesn't need to hunt Colorado. We know the folks are paying the taxidermy bill. Okay. So cough it up. Yeah. You don't get to get out of here unless you pay ahead of time. But we, we have a funding mechanism in the United States with people that apply all around the country just for the opportunity to apply. We're just asking people to help support our cause

so we can fight for the opportunity for them to continue to apply. I mean, mountain lions, you know, they don't eat celery and kale. I mean, they eat deer and elk and wolves are going to do the same thing. Our bear population has expanded significantly. They're going to eat a lot of deer and elk. You have that many apex predators on a landscape with 5.9 million people and habitat loss and the amount of recreation that we have. Our elk populations and deer populations are not in peril. What are they going to be in 10 years?

I mean, we have to do some sort of preparation for down the road for sustainable management opportunities. That always irritates people. This is the thing that troubles me uh if you say like if a hunter if a big game hunter says oh no no no um you know i welcome predators being on the ground oh yeah but i like predator control because i like to be a lot of deer and elk a lot of people view that as like uh like a not defendable position right but it's so funny because you see it reflected um so widely in the animal kingdom you know coyotes catch a wolf or uh wolves catch a coyote they kill it coyotes catch a fox they kill it it's sort of this general tendency to want to be like no i'm defending my hunk of the

piece of the pie but i don't think it's that problematic like you know i feel that that hunters should be like morally emboldened to go and say um no i want to defend high numbers of deer and elk to support the the the hunting that i want to do like i'm after i'm chasing that number like high harvestable surpluses of deer and elk. And I will take that fight to people that want to degrade habitat, right. Which is going to chip into my surplus. I'll take that fight to people that want to

degrade any kind of predator control. Cause that's fighting into my thing. And that's what I'm chasing. And that's what I'm interested in. Like that to me is a totally defendable position. I think. To be like, I'm pro deer and elk. You're pro deer and elk, but you're pro wildlife period.

Sure. You know, I went through the. I don't advocate for, listen, man, never have, never will. I do not advocate for the removal of any native wildlife. No. Ever. No. And, and so, nor do I.

I didn't vote for the wolf deal because I don't think it should be done by ballot box biology. Sure, I can understand that. It shouldn't be done by citizens initiatives. I mean, if. Or they walk in like they did. Like they did. That we had to turn around and kind of influence,

you know, an ongoing program for that. I don't believe in ballot box biology for any wildlife make a decision. If that's the case, why do we have 350 scientists in our agency? I don't think that the gal at Whole Foods or the Lyft driver or the guy that drives for UPS or the Rockies left fielder, I don't think they should be able to turn around. Is he a nice guy? Yeah. I don't think they should be able to turn around and decide what our wildlife

management agencies are stuck with. Yeah. I mean, it, it puts them in such a significant position of trying to do what's right when they're forced to do something that they know doesn't balance with what their management plans on 70 other game species are. Have you seen any, any backlash? Like in the COVID era, it became like this thing, like we always say, trust the science,

trust the biologists, but it's also become this thing in the last few years to be like, well, the scientists are full of shit. Like people, it's a thing now where people don't trust the science. And I see that as kind of a challenge when you're like, trust these wildlife management agencies. Cause a lot of people are, have a tendency

to not do that. Trust the science is law. I can't say it anymore. I know, but. Because like. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, but that trust the science thing, after COVID it needs a break because it got

so abused by everybody on all sides where you like the science is whatever you heard. Right. So in this argument, maybe it's a tough position to put, you know, these agencies in to be like, trust the science. Well, but in my argument to that has been, follow the science. Right. You got 50, 80, 100 years of data and science and studies and population densities and models and objectives. To me, that's worthy. When somebody comes out from March 17th of 2020

to March 30th and says, follow the science, wear a mask, get all these shots. Okay, well, two weeks of science really isn't what I want to follow. That's more of what I want you to do. 40, 50, 60 years. I think that that's a track record that you can use, you can sustainably support. And because, because there's so many other components of that. Well, yeah, I think a lot of people would have no clue that since mountain lions, like across the board where they became managed as game animals, there's way more of them now than there was say 80 or 100 years ago instead of trust the science sorry instead of trust the science i'd be like

trust the process when you've had similar things happen we're trying to uh with with federal the federal government trying to influence alaska's wildlife management practices for instance like hummett by what right do you have to go after them? They have a completely intact menagerie of wildlife. They have wolves and grizzlies occupying, like, I don't know, 96% of historic range. They don't have extirpations. They're still trying to go and catalog wildlife. They're not in recovery mode.

Where is the criticism with colorado fish again like where is the evidence that they're messing up yeah but even in alaska they've tried to with the whole like crawling into dens well no that's what i'm saying like i'm talking about that attack on them it's like where like show me where where alaska fishing game like show me where they're screwing up or with fish in Colorado. Show me where the state is messing up. Can you go and point to me that is it, what is it there?

FWP, it's not FWP, it's CPW. Yeah, it's changed. It's in Colorado. Okay, whatever the hell. Colorado's Fish and Game Agency. In its current form over decades, show me where they have been letting game animals slip through their grasp and slip into extinction or slip into extirpation. It's like there's no evidence. Maybe they might make little mistakes.

Everyone does. There's no evidence that they're shitting the bed. Right. So it's like trust the science again like i don't know trust the last 75 years or whatever the hell it is that they're not like losing it's not like oh yeah we were supposed to be managing those but they all they're gone now yep we didn't even know they were here it's just not happening yeah like they're not messing up i think i think one challenge is like the average person

on the street probably thinks of mountain lions is like this rare inherently endangered thing because they don't see them right it's not standing in some ag field as they blow by on the interstate and so i think like that is probably a big challenge in the educational component is like these animals are thriving over the past however many decades. And it's especially, you know, impactful when you consider all the habitat that's been lost as the front range is grown and all this stuff. Like the average person on the street, I wonder,

do they even know like the story of mountain lions in Colorado? I'd wager not. No. And, and to that point, I mean, before the wolf issue came up, when, when the wolf proponents went out and asked, and they've got a video on their website, they went out and asked people about, do we have

wolves in Colorado? And overwhelming, like people like, yeah, I think so. Don't we? I'm not sure. Yeah. Well, I'd like to. I mean, so they were priming the pump for that

ignorance. It's not stupidity. It's just ignorance. And I think it's on the mountain lion deals. Well, that became a trick question because some had just shown up. Exactly. Yeah. You know, it's like, but I think, I think that trying to convince people of your, of

your perspectives from the misinformation is the way that most of our losses have happened around the country when it comes to wildlife. I mean, you just, like you say, you just, you create this, this, uh, fake story out there and you say it enough and pretty much people start to believe it. But, but, and I, and I want to cover this because our organizations that we're all members of, that we support, that we're, that we, you know, we get the magazines on a regular basis, all the acronym groups. They do the yeoman's work. I've said this over and over. I'm partners with them.

But they haven't done a very damn good job for the last 40 years of talking to the general public. They talk to the sportsman community. They talk to the agriculture community because they work close hand in hand with them. We need to start advertising. We need to start talking regularly to the general public to tell the conservation story and making sure that, you know, I mean, every Christmas time, everybody sees the ASPCA and the Humane Society commercials and stuff that are out there. Not all that money goes to, you know, helping the little puppies and the kittens. I mean, that's an advertising ploy.

No, HSUS and local humane societies are totally different things. For a while there, there were those hug a hunter campaigns. I'm involved in that. It seems like those things kind of died out. We're doing the, the, the campaign that you talk about. I'm the chair of the wildlife council. Yeah. And I've been on that for seven years.

It started in 1998. And that, that changes and morphs into something regularly to differ with public perception. Because your demographics that you were talking to between 18 and 34, if you did that 20 years ago, now they're 55 or whatever the hell it is. So they have different perspectives and perceptions. So they need to be educated differently, but hopefully you did a good enough job on that target audience. But then you've got so many of the other ones that are coming in underneath of that, that they're being, they're, they're able to name wolves, you know,

and, and hopefully somebody didn't kill, you know, Margaret, uh, the wolf because they're going to be bastardized for it. Well, then those kids get a bad perception on, on wolf management because it didn't work. And it's the wolf that they named. Well, if they start doing that with mountain lions and deer and elk and everything else, I mean, why do you think Bambi is such a bad deal? You know, it's because we all grew up and, you know, Bambi's dad got killed. Yeah, man, you get into naming bucks, people

name them because they want to get them. Exactly. You know, exactly. You know. If a buck's got a name, you better watch his ass. I like hug a Houndsman. That'd be a good little campaign for Yanni.

I'll go give Yanni a big hug. Was that campaign successful? That campaign was extremely successful. And the reason being is because it didn't talk to us in this room. It talked to the general public. That's why it was so successful. I mean, I joked about it. The reason I got on as the councilman, I applied because they came up with a talking deer campaign.

And I thought, okay, this is not the way that we need to turn around. They still left Jeff Foxworthy. Yeah. Yeah. Just like the talking bass on the wall or something. But the reason I got involved, because I thought that that wasn't the right way to go. And the council had that one campaign, that one year. But the hug a hunter deal, that resonated with the people that were out in the field

that didn't hunt because they understood where some of that money was coming from. So they could actually know that wildlife was taken care of appropriately and that it was on the landscape. Now that we've got a different demographic, our audience has changed. We have a science in the wild campaign that's going on right now. It started November 15th and it's going all the way through this next June. But it is. I mean, you put 30 different people in line and you put a game warden or somebody with a badge and an emblem and a gun and a truck with a badge on it.

And you say, who do you trust to manage your wildlife? People point to the game warden. They don't point to the pink haired nose ring extremist. They don't point to me or you because we're standing there doing what we, they, they want the expert taking care of it. And I think pushing that narrative and that tone resonates with the target audience enough to where they go, I want experts to do my work. And I'm confident that when November 5th comes along with our campaign that we're going to

have to do in August, September, and October, I'm confident that the people will, enough of the people will make the right decision because they care about Colorado's wildlife. But, you know, people all around the country better pay attention as well, because you've got to figure out a way to build up your armament, build up your war chest, and make sure that you prepare for the inevitable. Because like you've mentioned, Steve, I mean, we're not singular. It goes to every state in some capacity. Yeah. You know, I mean, might be crayfish, might be muskrats, might be whatever,

but it's, it's going wherever they want to take it, that they feel the path of least resistance and they feel a chink in the armor. So, uh, at a point, how many months is November away? I don't know. Take me forever. Eight. In eight months, it'll come down to voting. Right now, you made it.

I said, what can people do? And you said, jokingly but truthfully, send me money. Yeah. Where does the money need to go? So the money needs to go, you can go on the website. It's SaveTheHuntColorado.com. Okay. And there's a couple different options

there that you can participate in. The reason that we need the funding is because the extremists have an endless amount of funding to do a variety of different things. They're fighting, you know, 20 things in 20 different states at different levels. We need to be able to go punch for punch, tit for tat with them on advertising, because we're both talking to the same audience. They're trying to get that middle of the road 80%. We're trying to get the middle of the road 80%. We're going to sway some and they're going to sway some. But look how close the Wolf deal was at 51 to 49. If we're anywhere in that ballpark, we're going to win. But we have to be able to advertise to that audience and get them to understand

first about the science. Second, about the experts that actually provide the science and third, how it actually affects those individuals just for they, so they know that they have sustainable wildlife populations on the, on the landscape. Everybody likes to see deer and elk. Everybody likes to see bighorn sheep. You know, that's, you know, I did a deal with Shane Mahoney, and Shane says one of the biggest things that all recreationists do is when they go out to recreate, rock climb,

without messing up the raptor's nest and everything. Killing every one of them. Yeah, killing every one of them. But he said everybody that goes out and they see wildlife, the first thing they do is they come home and tell people about the wildlife they saw. They didn't automatically start telling them about their rock climbing incident or their mountain bike wreck or whatever, unless they were, you know, bunged up or something. But they tell them about the wildlife. They tell them about,

I saw a mountain lion, or I heard a wolf, or I saw a moose, or I saw a coyote eat a rabbit. Because we connect with nature. Once people understand how that connection affects them and where it comes from, they're more likely to support the science and follow the science and follow the component that has been able to fuel and fund that whole program for the last 125 years. So if they go to SaveTheHuntColorado.com, they can contribute. There's also the initiatives that are on the website that they can look at. Initiative 91 is the one that we're dealing with, even though that's not going to be the final initiative. They'll change the number when they get through the process to put it on the ballot. But we want people to educate themselves and educate their peers and

congregation and coworkers and everybody, because without education, we're no better as far as the ignorance on the landscape as well. You know, Yanni talked about the hound part of it. Read the initiative. It specifically wants to take hound hunting out along with mountain lion hunting, but they talk about electronic e-collars, training collars. They testified during their Supreme Court or their title board hearings, their attorney did, that we don't think you should hunt with any dog, period. Read the language in there. They set that as statutory language. What about upland bird dogs? What about waterfowl dogs? What about coon dogs? I mean, guys are starting to pay attention because they read what it says, not what somebody interprets it. And it's like, well,

it doesn't say mountain lion dogs. It gives a view into their mindset. Exactly. And you can understand where people should really pay close attention. I did a presentation on Saturday to the Fremont Cattlemen's Association in Colorado, and I said that. And one guy said, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Does that include stock dogs? I said, well, right now it's not mentioned in here, but why couldn't you turn around and go to an animal cruelty deal because you want to use electronic training devices or collars on your dogs. So it's, people need to read into the intent of what they're trying to accomplish with this. They need to understand that it's not singular. They need to understand you could, the way it's written, you could take bobcats and mountain lions out and put any other species in, but then look at the other components of that. Educate yourself because these guys are so well-structured and their plans are so

well-formulated that they're looking at New Mexico. They're looking at Arizona. They're looking at Nevada because if they're successful in Colorado, they don't have to go to Colorado again unless it's on another species. So they go to the next state and they start to build that momentum with the legislators. Then the message starts to resonate well with the general public. And pretty soon the lies just take over like locusts on a cornfield.

Well, I think, uh, you know, one thing as we kind of start to wrap up here, broad and diverse coalitions are what really win these fights, right? So as we narrow way down, right, we already discussed like if you're the hound hunter representing the hound hunters groups and you're trying to fight, uh, a major political campaign

like this, you're, you're just, you're outnumbered. You don't have as much of a voice. So, um, a broad, diverse coalition gains your, uh, your, your voice, right? Yeah. And your, uh, public awareness of the issue. So, uh, I will tell you, like, if you have pink hair and a nose ring, if you're an old lady at

Whole Foods, we want you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Damn straight, we want you. Like, if you like going outside and you're talking like Shane Mahoney says, you went out and did your thing and you like talking about that wildlife that's out there.

You got to understand that this boring story that CPW tells of like no major, like, oh my God, we had to bring something back from the brink. Right. That's because they're out there doing their jobs. Right.

And like good conservation stories come from catastrophic failures, like crash of duck numbers. Right. We talk about ducks all the time is this huge win, but it's because we damn near killed them all. Right. We're talking these stories about grizzly bears, but all that stuff in between, it's like, it's been a boring story because we've, we've been winning. We've been maintaining, we're keeping that diversity of habitat. So, um, you need to understand that and appreciate it. We need to get more diverse and more broad and talk to these groups that, you know, at

first blush don't align with us. So like, man, if you're a mountain biker, a rock climber, a backcountry skier, all of these things can be regulated to death. And little fights like this have broad implications, right? So broad degrees of agreement. Government oversight is one thing. Extreme oversight from the general public to some degree, and I'm talking a very minute section of the general public, that extremism is what's going to alter so many different things that people look at when it comes to outdoor recreation and

conservation and wildlife management. Because there's a small group that has the squeaky wheel and they're well-funded and the majority of our community just wants to go hunt. We just want to turn around and go scout and check our game cameras and get ready for season and do it. I mean, what we're talking about right now is the least entertaining component of your deal, your dog deal, the story, your elk hunt. Nobody wants to listen to this crap, but they have to listen to it if they expect to be able to turn around and have the story that you had and have the story that you have and to be able to do that, what you did, not what you did, but

when I'm- Not that big. Yeah, not that big. Go back to the spike. A reasonable. Yeah, where you do 40 years of spike hunting. But if we want to actually engage in that conversation, there has to be a component of buy-in from the general public. And I think that the public is there and wants to be educated. We're seeing that on this level, the people that are reaching out at so many different levels. I mean, I can't tell you how many people just walk up to you and go, hey, I heard, or hey, I saw you, or hey, I was told. And they want to be part of the solution. They want to be part

of the victory, not part of the problem. All right. Hit them again with where to go. Okay. SaveTheHuntColorado.com. There's a couple different opportunities there. You can actually, you can actually get into a couple different raffles that SCI is running to help fund this measure. They're giving any guns out. He can get a better working gun.

Uh, yeah, there is a gun works gun is on there. There you go, buddy. You want to talk about shooting some So you can give me your $50. He perked right up. Now you can Yeah, there's a gun. So you can give me your $50. He perked right up. Now, you can go on there. You can donate.

You can look at everything that we're doing as far as videos and stuff. You can go on Instagram and Facebook and find us. CRWM is on Instagram, and Colorado is for Responsible Wildlife Management on Facebook. I do want to mention something, if you've got time. Because of the lies and deceit. I'm going to read you this and I want you guys to give me your impression. This is the ballot title for Denver this year, just for the city and county voters of Denver. It says, shall the voters of the city and county of Denver adopt an ordinance concerning a prohibition of fur products and in conjunction beginning July 1st of 2025, prohibiting the manufacture, distribution, display, sale sale or trade of certain animal fur

products in the city and providing limited exceptions to the prohibition. They're talking about leather too? No. No. But they're talking about beaver felt cowboy hats. They're talking about fly fishing material.

Yeah, there's a lot of fly shops. Yeah. So when I asked about leather, I was just being cute because somehow once you take the fur off everybody's cool with it oh yeah but you start when you start it doesn't say that until you read it in the measure this is what they'll vote on for the title you read it in the measure and you go what do you mean in denver you can't buy a cowboy hat it's the death of the elk hair caddis yeah you know i mean look at all the mink and the beaver stuff that's put on the on the fly fishing lures and on the fishing lures and stuff.

You start putting in, there's a component into that deal that they made exceptions or exemptions because they wanted to be politically correct. So Native Americans can sell their artwork and their crafts in the city of Denver, but you have to be white or non-native to be able to buy it. Well, how many times did the Denver March Powwow or the Indian market, do you see that Native Americans are selling to Native Americans? Maybe a little bit, but if you, if you're white and you want to go there, you can't buy it because it says you have to be indigenous to be able to do it. They're feeding off of the lies and deceit of the general public on that, the slaughterhouse ban, the mountain lion and bobcat ban. And I hope that the general public wakes up, not just in Colorado, but these things go

on all around the country and people go, well, oh, that happened in Cleveland or that happened in Dallas or that because it didn't affect them. It's happening everywhere. And we have to figure out a way to plant our flag, draw a line in the sand, and say, if the science says that we shouldn't, then maybe that's what we should look at, especially from a conservation standpoint. But I mean, you guys have the ability to give a synopsis, synthesize things that are going on in the landscape. I'd encourage people to reach out at every level to say, hey, there's something going on in

Washington, D.C. or something going on in Sacramento. Because the average person doesn't know, and I'm not trying to, you know, jump your inbox up. You probably already have that enough as it is. I don't look at it. Sorry, Corinne. But no,

we appreciate the opportunity to kind of bring a little bit of message to light because it's something serious enough in Colorado that if we fall in Colorado this year, you're going to see a lot of other things happen behind this because it's easy to turn around and take their momentum, momentum and move it to the next level.

Well, man, I appreciate you coming on. Appreciate the time. Tell the site, tell where to go one more time. SaveTheHuntColorado.com. It's the Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management and uh you can get a lot of information on there but if they got if they have wishes wants and desires they could reach out and contact us through the email chain on there as well great yeah do it at the same time that you're applying for your colorado elk tag just then pop over to cwrm and give me 20 bucks crwm crwm give me 20

bucks all right dan gates thanks for coming on thanks guys appreciate it thank you very much to CWRM and give me 20 bucks. CRWM. CRWM. Give me 20 bucks. All right, Dan Gates, thanks for coming on. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thanks for your work you're doing. Thank you very much. It's the Meat Eater Podcast. It's the Meat Eater Podcast Start your day off right

With Ranilla and the crew With a conservation mind And conversation through and through It's the Meat Eater Podcast. It's the Meat Eater Podcast. It's the Meat Eater Podcast. It's the Meat Eater Podcast. It's the Meat Eater Podcast. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that

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