Ep. 59: Bear Grease [Render] - The Game Warden’s Here

double undercover. What's that name for that where you're to be triple under cover if you lied to him about it. So Brent used to do undercover work for the for multiple long a couple long well State Police. What was it? I liber to discuss that with you, sir. Okay, So Brent used to We'll talk later. So Brent used to do undercover work. When Brent met me years and years ago, he called me and it was kind of suspicious, and he was like, hey, I really like what you're doing.

He did what Russ Arthur did too, you know, the guy he was after played to his ego. It was like, say that that was suspicious or maybe he has a guilty conscience. Well, I think everything Brent does, stay with me, Stay with me, stay with me. So he calls me and I'm like, who is this guy? YadA ya, and

finally I'm meet up with him. We become friends. To this day, I still think he's probably a double undercover agent, but his plan is finally coming to real fruition because he finally helped me gain you know, a position in the outdoor space where I have a podcast, and then he helped me become comfortable enough that on a podcast I told every illegal thing I've ever done. He orchestrates. He's like, hey, Claire, you ought to you want to buy a game now? And then here we have the

game and fish. So I'm waiting for a raid at any moment. And this thing, it would be cool that'll be on live podcast. Also, what you're gonna do? Tim has been working for us as well. Okay, we do have a special guest guest with US, Lieutenant FP Fletcher from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Welcome man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Super stoked to be here today. That you're gonna sing a special his face, So yeah, I said they needed to sing a game ward and

that could uh sing and play music. They didn't tell you that can you clog dance too? Because we're looking for some We brought you here to entertain, right to have you. So we're gonna we're gonna talk with Lieutenant Fletcher about some game warden stuff, which is gonna be really cool. Introductions. Brent Reeves, he is right, good, good to see Brent beards looking good summertime beard. Absolutely, But these overalls looked like they washed about four or five times.

Pretty good for you, which is direct correlation how many times I've worn them? Anybody keeping up or keeping score? How many pairs are you up to now? Actually about man, we had a store opened up just down the street yesterday and at Woods like unmoss y'all got them everywhere, but like a farm store like a tractor's supply, and they had overalls and they had overalls on sale in there. Are you a red house overall? Guy, brown house, roundhouse?

That Woods? Yeah, that's what they sail there. And they're made in America. And you had liberties on last weekend. We all have to we all have to, Okay, we work our way up to the top. Remember key, Yeah, some of those I got me a pair and my grandson a pair. Looking good. And you're wearing real shoes today. Yeah, um, do your left. Josh Spilmmaker fresh off the boat, Yeah, fresh off the boat. Josh has been in Hawaii. Did some fly fishing in Hawaii. Smallmouth smallmouth bas like we

have here. They were released back in the twenties. I tell you what. It was crazy. Surprised they let them carry that on a plane, having a little ziplock and it's illegal, and Lieutenant Fletcher could be something there. It's wild walking through Hawaii in waste deep water where there's no predators and nothing dangerous. You don't have to worry about snakes and ticks. It was. It was a weird thing.

Ticks and tigers over there. I don't know there are places in this world that don't have ticks and jiggers. I mean because I've always seen movies where they're like having having picnics in the grass, and I'm always like, oh, gosh, Hollywood. And I said that one time and someone's like, no, we don't have ticks up north. The worst hunt I've been on in terms of ticks was in Montana, and

it was with you and it was the worst. I mean, I've never seen something ticks, but they don't have jiggers there, So I like what you're saying though, So just you just go walking through the jungle and lots of chickens. There's there's feral chickens everywhere because there's no predators and hogs. There's no no, no predators. There's feral chickens in the Walmart parking lot. They're everywhere. It's a wild thing. It

was a wild place to go to. They probably would And I kept asking people, I said, now do people just snatch these chickens up and eat them like they're chickens? Yeah, that that chicken's probably been eating cigarette butts like okay. But there's just wild chickens everywhere in hog sign all over the jungles. You didn't see any how, didn't hunting that goes on? And while you know, Runella did a episode of Meat Eater and I saw it was really good. They have they have blacktail and access to the or

there too. They got turkeys and they didn't. I think uh Rio's really I think so or Miriam's. That's one of the one of the two transplanted. That's pretty cool. You can hunt the fly fishing under a hundred foot waterfalls. Pretty cool, that's pretty cool. The pictures are cool. Do you left Gary newcom Good to be here and then to my dad's left, Misty, Hey, my wife, Y're good to have you to see good to be here. Hey,

I gotta I gotta tell you. I actually when I didn't tell Dad what I was gonna do on this podcast, and uh, and I called him after I thought maybe he'd listen to it, and I said, you probably didn't like that one very much, did you? I thought I thought he might be like, uh, why did you go tell all this stuff? But what do you say, Dad? I said, I loved it. I mean I do the same thing. But when I do something really stupid, which I have a propensity to do that, it's game laws No,

but anything. I mean, I just don't go to all my buddies and go something really low. I Q I did. I mean that's between me and me. Some things you just don't. Yeah. Yeah, And I've heard you tell stories like looking down the barrel of that what kind of talking about two different things? Dad thinks I overdisclose about stuff that makes me look stupid, not like the other

makes you look honest. It's so when I came out about you know, two or three things that happened, so I was I was actually kind of surprised about that. Thanks Dad, it's your mother coming out. Yeah. We may we may bring Juju in here later and I may do a formal apology to Juju. Bad things I've done. Um, okay, move and right along. I kind of regretted all of the you know, the end of the last very surrender, I said a lot of real nice things about you

being up right good. Honestly, when when you listen to this podcast where you're like, I don't know who you exactly into our front drive, I was like, well do you so, Lieutenant Letcher, do you when you pull up in your truck, do you do you sense people's nervousness around you? I mean, like, what's it like being a

game warden? Yeah, I mean I think anytime that you, uh, you come in contact with people, you know, you either get one of just a handful of responses would be you know, I've been doing this for twenty years and this is the first time I've ever been checked by game warden, right, and I think you you pick up on some honesty and people when they make those type of comments. You also think you do get the surprises like, hey, man, where'd you come from? You know, they're like, this guy's

a ghost? How did he show up in my domain? You know, are this this officer is a ghost? And uh? I think those are probably the two more popular responses um a lot of times just by rolling up in that game and fish truck, that law enforcement conservation law enforcement truck, people sit there and they're like, man, is this officer ever gonna get out of that truck? Their windows are tended, I don't know what's going on in there.

What are they working on? You know that that usually you get you encounter You encounter that type of contact in the field when you're responding to a call to service from an adjacent landowner or someone that witness something off the side of the road and you're sitting there in the truck and you're doing the business of the day, which is trying to find as much information and start an investigation on a case or whatever. And sometimes you know people, you know, they're just like, man, when why

didnt take you so long ago? That truck? You know, there their nerves are killing them. They can't. What do

you do? Uck, Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's what you're doing, is you're sitting there on your radio and you're you know, running your cell phone and and you're trying to gather all the information that you've got so far on something just as simple as you know, a neighbor shot a deer on the other side of the fence and they forgot to call their buddy who's the landowner, And all of a sudden, the landowners driving by their property and they see somebody out there and a piece of hunter

orange on their property, and they're like, I've got somebody out here hunting on my land. And you know, a lot of those things you're you're putting those those pieces limited pieces of information together. Um, it's funny. Just that type of instance alone, you'll see, uh, you'll see a lot of those situations resolve themselves by the time you actually show up. Usually they realize, hey, I do know so and so you know, they're two houses over and

you know, they just forgot to make the call. That's just you want to several type of things, but those are probably some of the more common you know, first encounters with the public is that's kind of what you see. So are you in the field, like, is that is that your primary? Yes? So, so I have as a lieutenant, I have field responsibilities, you know. I have enforcement duties assigned to me in a county that I'm assigned to and the further part furthest part of northwest Arkansas and um.

But I also have administrative roles, which is more of my day to day stuff where I'm an assistant supervisor of a district of fifteen officers and six counties in the northern part of Arkansas. You know. So, so it's a it's a balance for sure, you know. I would say probably about sixty forty administrative and I get out in the field and be with our folks and be with the public. That's a that's a huge part of

our success for our enforcement division. The game fisher in Arkansas is a contact that the wildlife officers make out in the field with the public. There's no debat. Yeah, what would you say, I asked this to Austin, What would you say is the philosophy of law enforcement? It just in general terms, I get, you know, because I don't I don't really even know what question I'm asking but I know that you guys have a mission. You guys have a philosophy for how you enforce the law

and how you interact with people. I don't just talk to me about that, So, you know, I think I think in the podcast, you know, the director was spot on when he said, you know, we really focus on and drilled down on those major violations. And and that's true to who we are as an agency and as a division when I came to work twelve years ago, just like it is today, and it will be the

same twenty years after I've retired. You know, the compliance stuff, you know, I think that gives us as a group of officers, conservation law enforcement officers, wildlife officers, game wardens, whatever affiliation you're you fall under, in what state you fall under, you know that we are regulatory agencies, right and so our our primary job is to go out there and ensure that general public, the hunting and fishing public,

are complying with what those regulations are. And so, you know, I don't know that the philosophy is as fluid as some of the strategies that we might have as an enforcement division or as an agency in response to progress with technology are population growth, or as you like to call it, maybe this crossover in these urban to rural areas where you've got a lot of the traditional rural type approaches to hunting and sportsman type outdoors activities are

now getting squeezed out a little bit with more urban urban settings, and so we had we adapt and we adjust with the times, just like everybody does in any kind of segment of law enforcement or or any industry that you're affiliated with. Conservation law enforcements, no different. What's a what's a big violation? Like serious viola? Give us an example. So, uh, you know, I look at it. I'm a I'm a community driven guy, and so you know, I take ownership of what happens in my community. I

want to be present in my community. And so I think if you look at it through my lens, what I consider to be a big violation or a major violation would be something that draws in towards public safety, a threat to public safety, and that gives you the road hunting situations, the night hunting situations, what Rinella called it, what jack lighting, which is which I mean, I'm an Arkansas guy. That's a term that's new to me. But spots.

So you know, anything that as a guy or a gal that's a whilife officer in their county or in their community that is a genuine threat to the safety of the people that they share the space with, those things take priority. The over harvesting wildlife, um, you know, those those kind of things with intent on the violator. You know, those things are egregious and there's no place for that, and so we try to establish major investigations,

undercover operations, special offers still going on right now. I mean, like so the individuals and that we talked about in this past podcast. I mean, we're people that were killing you know, twenty let's just say, twenty plus turkeys a year. You know, back we had a lot of turkeys. Like, are people still doing that? So I'm gonna answer that, yes,

they are still doing that. I've had some conversations with some other supervisors across the state this last week and a different setting, and and we've all kind of come

to the consensus. And I'm not speaking for everyone, but just some of the conversations I've had is we've all kind of come to this this consensus of you know, maybe there is a little bit of a decline in that, you know, just super egregious type of negligence in over harvesting a game within ten of like hunting out a season or just doing it because you want to cut the horns off of a deer and leave the meat,

you know, that kind of thing. It still is occurring, but I don't know the prevalency rate is as high as what it once was with the exception one thing that I have seen over the last ten years, and and I think a lot of it has to do with probably location, because throughout my career I've been based along this western northwestern border of Arkansas, so we share territory with other states, Missouri and Oklahoma, and we do a lot of work with other state conservation agencies where

these more major, more serious violations have occurred across state lines. But it's our Kansans that are doing them, yes, and so they'll ask us to assist with investigations. Um, you know, getting a getting a deer tag in Kansas is a big deal. It's a very big deal. It's a very

calculated system, and it's a fair system. But just to investigate some of my own countrymen and women, if you will, here in Arkansas, on violations for nothing more than what extent they would go to to try to manipulate a system in Kansas so they can kill a Kansas buck deer legally, which is not legal. You know, those are the kind of things that we're kind of seeing. Show it's head Um and I and I can tell you

it would be how would they do that? Sure? And and I'll explain, you know, with leaving names and faces something. I mean like, yeah, give me just a simple example of so, UM had an investigation, uh with a subject that lived in a small rural town in central Arkansas. I get contacted by Kansas Parks and Waldlife about an individual that they had been investigating for the better part of a year and a half almost two full dear

seasons now. And what started out as something of a simple check of their current licensed status, meaning are they a resident in Arkansas and they have licensed privileges as a resident of Arkansas or are they a resident of Kansas therefore they're entitled to correct resident license and the privileges that thereof in the state of Kansas. Well, what started out is just that simple check to see and

we do that with other states. They'll they'll call us in Oklahoma or Missouri and and try to check and say, well, hey, we don't recognize dual citizenship. To my knowledge, nobody does, no state does. But for us, it's the same thing. We just want to make sure that your primary residence

in Arkansas arts in Kansas in this case. So what started out is that evolved into this timeline and building this investigation against an individual that had for almost greater than a decade cheated the State of Kansas out of licenses of landowners that had turned their tags, their landowner tags privilege given to them as a citizen of the State of Kansas back into a regional office or licensing

center or check station. And this individual from no name Arkansas was paying under the table too, a certified agent of the State of Kansas, not a law enforcement agent, but someone who was a an employee of the State of Kansas under the table to take those tags that are issued in someone else that turned him in and use him in his own name. And to make it even furthermore, he was passing him out to his buddies.

And so this these are the kind of yeah, that's that's pretty that's pretty wild of conservation crimes that that I'm seeing that we're seeing across the state Arkansas and throughout the southern United States because it's I would imagine the state of Kansas and state of Colorado and Missouri and New Mexico. They're seeing there citizens, the people from their states violate things in Arkansas. And we've got a special investigatives unit of our Enforcement Division that does the

exact same thing when these things happen out of state. Interesting, do you haven't do you have another example of an egregious wildlife violation? Man egregious? The one Austin talked about was someone just shot well, yeah, that was yeah. I just I don't know people still do that. I mean, what where he shot the shot? It's deer from the highway left. So you know, I'll share with you one that's uh kind of still hot off the press, if you will. But it's all been adjudicated, gone through courts,

so I feel comfortable sharing it with you. But we had we had a recent investigation that was held by some of our officers here locally here in um in the northern part of state, and they started investigating this gentleman greater than three years ago. Now for what started out was just what I would call just a simple call to service where a complainant calls in and says, hey,

shots were fired after dark. I got a vehicle description, they didn't get a license plate, but they got us enough information to where the officers could document on paper, do a good incident report and say, Okay, we've got something here and we'll keep an eye out on it.

You know, that's always key for our officers to let those those people know, the individuals know that call in from their communities, Hey, we're we're gonna start working this and if you see or hear anything that suspicious, give

us a call back. This was no different. Well, within a matter of weeks to a month, you know, another call in that same general facility by another private landowner saw this same type of activity almost with the same time of day, same location, same vehicle description, And so that was really enough for officers to start working in

a full investigation. And we really had to drill down on this and start giving us some attention through the use of a decoy set or working non traditional hours and you know, in an area that we would have to conceal vehicles and try to see if there's anything that we could physically see. Nothing materialized that year. Well, the next year, as soon as the phone started ringing, if you will, for those officers in this same location, they're like, Okay, we're gonna get out in front of this.

And so about that same time that this all started to occur, an officer in northwest Arkansas gets another call from someone who wants to be an anonymous on this particular activity, which correlates with the same chain of events that it happened to year prior and everything. Does that tip you off to anything that somebody wants to be anonymous? I mean, it's somebody that maybe has a personal relationship with this person, or yeah, I'll say, I mean it's

no secret. You know, a lot of times it's it's friends, it's it's Monday morning quarterback talk. It's around the water cooler showing a picture of a big deer or a turkey that was harvested a couple of days before season. You know, sometimes your closest friends and family members, you know, whether it's an ethical standard or it's just something that they feel like is is just wrong, or they're sick of you showing them those pictures are describing that event.

And they just had enough. So that's the legal right that is afforded by the game and Fish that you can call anonymously and no questions will be asked. Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, we we've got to We've got a database and it's a couple of times on Brent say maybe Josh and I will do that every Monday morning. I've told you, I mean, it doesn't have to be factual. You know, we cant that was one brim basket and that was okay, so anonymous. Yeah, so the anonymous complainant just just a

kind of something real quick on that. So if an individual calls in and an officer ends up doing a report, runs an investigation, it's their information is kept is kept in a database and there issued like a series of a of a letter and a number, and that's how it's recorded and documented and the report and that's how important touch with the person. Absolutely, but it completely stays and honestly and so we protect their their rights to

the autonomy. So so anyway, so in this instance, uh, subject calls in and says, hey, I know this stuff is going on, and what you need to know is this is who's doing it, and this is what they're trying to accomplish. And when I first got the information from one of our officers, it really took me back. You know, my dad, he's he's seventy nine years old and and we share these stories about my career in

law enforcement. My career is a conservational LA enforcement officer, and he's always says, hey, nothing surprises me with your job. You know. This is coming from a guy who was an Arkansas State trooper for greater and thirty years in state Arkansas. And I'm like, you know, you look up to your dad's right and so for him to say that and for me to get caught off guard at times, man, I'm just like, wow, this is new territory, you know.

So this was no different. We walked into this situation and the officers reported it says, hey, this this individual owns a small business, has vehicles as a part of their small business. They have employees, they've got a shop, they do construction like work or work around in that industry,

and so therefore they have access. And to make a long story short, what this individual had done is over the course of years, he had gone out in the mornings during deer season, legal season, which I find kind of ironic because what he was doing was far from legal, and he would harvest deer, shooting him from the road, and sometimes he'd have somebody in the truck with him

when he did it, and sometimes he wouldn't. But where it got so interesting was is he went out and bought license for his employees and brought them in to this type of activity and they would go out behind him and pick up his deer for him and tag it and they would take it back to his facility

and they would process it there. And so once we had this chain of events and we started putting together this investigation and now you've got this this gold brick that somebody just gave us in this information through this confidential informat. We had something to work off of, and so we reached back out to the confidential format, got the information on when this type of activity was prevalent, when it was more predictable to to run into it.

We set up a little sting operation with our officers and a dear, dear decoy, and within a matter of forty eight hours of that activity, we caught this guy red handed shooting our dear decoy and uh, yeah, it's it's real interesting. What was the estimate how many? So I believe he was issued citations for seven dear that he failed to check our tag in his own name in addition to what we had evidence of physical evidence.

So was an additional nine dear. I believe for those other individuals that check dear in their names, even though they weren't after Horns was the big buck hunter, you know, I think that's probably how it started. But you know, when we went in to his shop and started looking at all the meat and stuff, you know, it was packaged as if it was for consumption. You know, there wasn't a lot of terrible waste, you know, So I think it probably just turned into you know, this is

something that I just do. I don't know if it was some kind of release he had to have or whatever. This this fix was kind junior high girls with shoplifting. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like a thing. They just a bunch of them just like to do it. And I'll and I'll speak, I'll speak to this and I don't I don't mean to kind of control this conversation because that's

not what I'm gonna try to do. But it brings me to another point about the end of the podcast, and you showed in your moment of vulnerability about shooting a squirrel and you get checked by the wildlife officer and he and he keys or he or she keys on a speck of blood. Right, any what do he tells you to do? He said, Clay, you need to write about it. Yeah, when it's all and and I'm

I'm going to tell you. And I've only been doing this for a little over a decade, but I bet in that moment Clay felt better because what he thought he had done wrong, and then he got that approval from the wildlife officer to go out and write about it and speak openly about it. When we run into these serious violators, the ones that aren't even on that same level your your violation is way down here on the floor, and the stuff that we're talking about today

is the top of this ceiling. When we run into that type of encounter and there's closure there, you get this sense from these individuals that they're almost very thankful and appreciative of you catching them. Interesting because they've done it for so long, they're tied up in it in so many ways that they're just almost beside them themselves thankful that they had this encounter. Interesting. Yeah, I can say that that correlates a lot with the undercover work

I was doing. I've seen folks we try to catch him for years, sell them dope, and we finally do and they it's like, hey, you know, that was my job to catch him, that was his job to sell it. I won that day, and they and now they say they don't have to worry about the next knock on the door. I get what you're saying there, because all the time that guys out they're doing that, he's got to look for you and make sure that you ain't coming around the corner or something. So it's probably a

burden lifted off. The truth just set you free, dad, What what questions do you have? Well? Have you ever written a citation to Gary Nucom? I do not believe you know he's talking. He's talking all that trash and keeps bringing my name up. I never got a ticket. I've never I've never seen this guy break the law. You got a ticket though, I never got I know. That's why. That's what I told everybody, shut your pie hole. You just never got caught. That is not what we're

talking about. We're talking about who got a ticket and who didn't. Uh. All that's very very interesting. I love to hear that stuff. Uh it takes me back to my childhood. Uh, A little bitty guy and you we're all kind of innately evil, you know, we're taught that. You know, decision, A little bit kid is gonna still toy. I mean, they don't go up and hand you your his toy. I mean they're gonna take your toy. I

mean that's the way, that's our nature. So as a little bitty guy raised up in a very sterile, honest home, my big sister got me stealing stuff out of a little store that was the neighborhood Beverly of all people. And so he's a moment I got something really cool. He's little teeth, you know, full of kool aid. And I mean I was smart enough to know, don't go in the house with this. So I crawled under a trailer, a little little trailer, and I'm better chewing on this thing, thinking, man,

this ain't worth it. You know, it's a whole lot easier just to play by the rules and not have to have all this worry. And I find that so true in life. And you just described it better than I've ever heard it. But hey, the simplest way to lead this life is to pretty much played by the rules. You know. I mean there's rules that that society allows us to break that the penalty is not too great. Like driving up here today, I mean speeding, speeding. You know, when I run a stop sign, I go, hey, man,

I just say my breaks. I say, fuel kill a big deer. And I go, well, you know, I'm feeding the family. And you know, so we all living our own little bubble and it's all okay because I'm doing it. I don't understand. What do you mean two stories together? As a little kid, I say, follow the rules. But still even in that environment, we all break rules. But there are rules that we have made the decision on. Not a law enforcement officer. I've own, okay, stop sign suggestion,

you know, killing people, that's a law. And you're saying what what Steve Ronnella was saying is that he now looking back in his childhood, realized that his dad had a very strict code that they lived by. And and now he looks back at it and it's like where did this come from? Like we could do this, but we couldn't do this. We could do that, but we couldn't do this. But he would have been real mad

if we had done this. And yeah, it's kind of interesting because you'd be surprised how many people have brought up to me speeding. Inside of all these conversations about about outlaws and breaking laws, everybody goes back to speeding. When we said something too that I didn't agree with you. You said yourself was a poacher because you dropped your orange. I was gonna ask him about that. That don't make you a poacher, that makes you a violator. That was such a wild deal. Like I never in my life

have not wore orange. I know so many people that intentionally don't wear orange or take it off when they're in the tree which here in Arkansas that's illegal. Other states you can, I think in Mississippi once you're in the tree standing. Don't quote me on that, look that up. But there's places where, um, yeah, what what would have been a situation like that, like walking to the tree stand. And I didn't say it on the podcast. I was

on my land. I know it doesn't matter. Bow hunting dur and Muslo, you dropped the orange bast had the orange hat, just keep hunting, just like, Wow, you was already in violation but not wearing it out there in the dark. You're do you have a weapon? Are you in game cover? Am I right? Lieutenant? That the letter of the law. Yeah, you know your intent was to go hunting that day, well under under periods of darkness or not the letter, the letter of the law would

say that you need to do that. Now, did did Clay violate a law by the letter when he shot this world class buck? That's how I envisited in this I'm not gonna it was, but you know I see that as you know, your intent right was to wear your Hunter orange that day or otherwise you wouldn't have had it with you, right, But had a wildlife officer made contact with you out in the field after you had taken that deer and you had not had your Hunter orange one, how would you have talked yourself through

that situation? With that encounter? And I think that's a lot of times when you know, the director mentioned last week, and not to get us too far off into the weeds here, but he mentioned last week about you know a lot of people just think, hey, our officers are out there to do nothing more than just write tickets, right. I think that our officers are out there to have a duty to our communities, but to also educate the public on things that they probably should know, but they

haven't taken the time to truly understand. You take the totality of the circumstances. You know, for me, when I'm out in the field and I come across a compliance violation, like someone not wearing Hunter Orange when I check them in a tree stand or walking out from a field, for me, it's a three pronged litmus test. You know, what's their age, what was their intent when they left the house that day? And by by their violation, how

have they impact the resource? Right? So, by Clay leaving his vest or it inadvertently falling down on the ground, how are you impacting the resource that day? What was your intent? Did you mean for it to be left on the ground? Right? And so as a wilife officer, that's our officer discretion is probably the biggest duty that we have out in the field on a day to day basis. So just something following you like me not having Hunter's Orange didn't give me an advantage that day?

Like is that what you're saying, how it affects? And yeah, so it's it, that's what you would have said, Like it wasn't like I accidentally spilled a pilot corn on the ground on public lands again, because I mean, yeah, my intent entirely was to wear orange that day. I do it every time I hunt. Uh, so that would

have factored in. Uh. You you take in the totality of all of it, and then the officer has that discretion of like, hey man, you know, you know the code book says you gotta have your orange on, but you're telling me that you dropped it on the ground. And I can visibly see that it's a hundred yards or a hundred steps from your stand, and this deer's

in the opposite direction. So it was probably during the period of darkness, you climbed the stand, you got up there in the heat of the moment the sun was rising. Sure the right thing might have been for you to come back out of your stand during that peak activity time and put the orange on, but you you made that decision right, and so our officers, I think any wildlife officer, any conservation officer, any game warden across the

United States. I think that's how they operate on a daily basis, as they say, hey guy, guy made a mistake, but but it wasn't intentional. Yeah, and he didn't really have a direct impact on the resource that day by not wearing his Hunter Orange. Yeah. Yeah, no, that that makes sense. I say, you do the crime, you pay the time. Do you remember that, Dad? Yeah, yeah, I told you, But you were mad at me. Yea. Let's

let's have this out. Let's let's have your comment about you say the right thing to do would would have been to get come down, go back. I understand that that's your job. That's your job, but our job is to kill deer. But the point I'm making it would have been a lot more dangerous to come down that tree again walk back where you could be shot at peak time. You know that you made that point. I mean that and and and I didn't think that. I mean,

that wasn't the thought process of my mind. But like if you were, if you were standing in a if you're yeah, I mean I was just trying to say, the laws designed to protect us, using Hunter's Orange to protect us, you know, I was kind of what I like to do in those scenarios. Is just paint all the different scenarios that make something a little more nuanced maybe than it than it was, or you know, maybe

then then you might think of it um. But yeah, Hey, I've got a question, and I know intuitively that it's wrong, but I want to go back. I mean, not for the question, but this story you told about the guy who is using as workers and getting licenses in their name.

He's paying four hunting licenses, and I think there's probably just from a legal labor perspective, you know, there's some major issues as a boss and we should fire them just for that, but but from as a non hunter like someone who I'm I don't hunt a lot and I didn't grow up in a hunting family. Explained to me, I know it is wrong, but explain to me why

it's wrong. If you buy the licenses and so there's enough licenses and you can skip this in my embarrassing you because she didn't know how to plug a turkey, I'm just thinking it question. I mean, I'm really thinking that any of us could answer, but I'm just thinking that it might be a question that people have why, And you're welcome to skip the question and you and I will be conversing later. But that com some people might have question, like he's buying the licenses the game

and fish perspective, Why is this bad? Because clearly we have the licenses to hand out, and if you're if you're distributing licenses on there saying the goal, or if you're distributing animals, you know, if you're if you're making camplemens and things like that, on the basis of how many licenses are bought in this guy legally buys the

license the other obviously it's not good. I'm gonna say, there's there's a lot of moving parts there, you know, when you when you look at regulation, regulation says that that's being considered lending license by definition. Okay, so what his intent was was to purchase license from his own money, his own funds, in the name of his employees. Those individuals were not active hunters, and so basically, in theory, they were lending license their tagging privileges because he was

the one retaining the harvest. I think that from the regulation standpoint, it's a it's very serious because the law clearly states how in so many ways that was wrong. But I also think it's a it's a it's a very strong ethical dilemma on his part. And so I always look at it from my belief system is where

your ethics and regulations intersect, you have an experience. And so for each of us, we have that on our own experience out in the field, you know, when we're hunting or fishing, or you know, doing our recreational voting activities, whatever that is. But but what were his what were his ethics in that moment by doing that knowing that his co workers, the people that he had paid as employees, didn't hunt, they weren't conservationists to knowledge, and so that's

where his ethics and the regulations came together. And I look at it as like, you know, what kind of experience is that for people when they do that with intent? And so I think all of us are in some ways responsible and accountable as being conservationists and sportsmen and

and hunters to that particular type of situation. And so when the agency says, hey, every person is allowed five or six tags now right, no more than two bucks per year, and you know four Antler's deer and you can take two in one zone and three and another or whatever, that looks like you know, those are based calculated off of science, right, And so if you've got someone with intent that comes in and says, I've got ten family members, none of them hunt, and I'm going

to over harvest on their calculated in exactly exactly on their behalf. I'm gonna do a favor to whatever it is. You know. Um, I think that probably kind of gets at the root of of what we would see as you know why it's not okay because they're really not

when they set the limits. And I'm just thinking calculating how many hunters we have in the state, and calculate those family members, those ten employees, they're not calculating them, and so they he is going over everybody could do that, then essentially there would be no bag limits because I could I would just go find some guy down the street though I could buy a tag for and he's his tags, so I and obviously he's lying, he's abusing his authority. He's doing just hearing us talk about hunter

recruitment and buying tags that funds. So You're like, and I'm just thinking if all the people there's a lot of people who listen to your podcast who are not hunters specifically, and might not like I understand. I like, this is what this guy's doing is lying, and that's bad. Like on that level, it's wrong, no matter why. Maybe I'm not the outlaw in this family. You know. I was also thinking, it's it's counterproductive to the what's what's the term that you use when when the game belongs

to the people that trust it really trusts doctrine. Yeah, it's it breaks that ethic because then someone just has the ability to go by by dear. I'm just gonna go buy the ability to hunt, and I'll kill as many DearS as I want. It's a it's a it's really an unethical and uh it's a partial way to to do that, and I think that's that's a completely Yeah,

just what would you? So I keep going back to this this I'm kind of asking the same question, maybe over and over, but like, what what who are the most people doing damage to the resource in terms of poachers? Like what what's the kind of person? Because it's clear to me that probably most a lot of your officer's

time is spent with compliance. So you're at the boat dock checking people's license, make sure they're wearing life jackets, public safety stuff during the deer season, you're cruising, public land, checking license, you know, that kind of stuff in in you know, most of the violations inside of that are going to be compliance stuff like do you have the right license? Do you you know, are you wearing your Hunter's orange? Stuff like this, which is all important stuff.

But then there's this other category of people like we talked about, that leave the house with the intent to be serial law breakers, that are just wearing out game populations. Um, I mean, maybe I just answer my own question, but like who are those people? And do we well, I did ask you that question, who who are Who are the people that are the biggest the biggest threat to wildlife.

I'm gonna look at it from an experience that I shared with my supervisor, our district captain in northwest Arkansas when I first had the opportunity to move back home from the Arkansas River Valley to northwest Arkansas. And one of the first things that he said to me in this open meeting with other officers, and I was a young sergeant at the time, and uh, he said, you know,

fish our finite resource for the state of Arkansas. And I didn't really understand what he meant by the term finite resource, and he said it in a very common sense approach, which is how we operate as game wardens and wildlife officers as we apply a lot of common sense to tactics and techniques and training and things. And he said, the fish are depleted at a much greater rate than what we can replace them at as an agency.

And so I think our biggest challenge with Poe Shing is if you take that same type of segment with fishing and you apply it out in the field with hunters in general, that over harvest to the point where it carrying capacity gets depleted and harvest numbers significantly drop. You know, those are our a segment of poaching that we really have to be sensitive to and we have to pay attention to as wildlife officers, as conservation law

enforcement officers, you know. I think I think the other thing too to consider is most of the Southern United States now uh south central United States is in this period of kind of the unknown when it comes to disease in servants. With the introduction to c w D and the prevalency that we have throughout the northern part of Arkansas and the now all the way over to the Boothill of Missouri and into Oklahoma, and you're starting

to research and studies being done in surrounding states. And and so when you have individuals that are uneducated, are refused to pay attention to the strategies and the science and the techniques that we're trying to do to manage a disease like chronic wasting disease and these type of things that are are prevalent through this northern band of

those arcs and starting to spread their way south. Is that, by definition, a new demographic of poaching, the individuals that when you have spread crew stuff that's might spread c w correct in the sense of we have c WS c w D zone baiting laws in this part of Arkansas now, and the regulation says, you know, after the thirty one December until the first day of September, you can't spread any bait on the ground with the intent

to harvest wildlife or harbor wildlife. Right. And the strategy is real simple because when you bring in a group of deer, right and I'm no scientists by by trade, but I've I've been around to see it long enough. Is and haven't explained to me, is when you bring around these deer and they have this communal type of gathering, right, yeah, well then there's probability. And so I think I think we're in a new territory here. I really like that. That's that's the kind of I didn't know what I

was fishing for. But that's a great point, is that you know, with the with the threats c w D, that that, yeah, maybe the guy that breaks the c w D laws is now the one that is really

threatening the resource the most. And I know there's a lot of controversy on how CWD spreads and that's a whole other conversation, but but yeah, that's that's important because yeah, you kind of think of it like, uh, well, and I mentioned it to you on the phone the other day, but this terminology that I heard a lot of these

now retired law enforcement game boarding guys used. Jimmy Martin used the term, Russ Arthur used the term but old time poachers, which are just guys that are recreationally going out and killing more than their limit, maybe even during seasons using traditional methods. Um. Yeah, and now it's it's interesting to think that now the guy that's you know,

baiting deer longer putting out mineral licks. I mean, we can't put mineral licks out here anymore, which, you know, it would be interesting to see how compliant people really are to that, because I don't know that they are.

And you know, along those same lines, and we talk about the strategies that our agency is implementing, we've got a phenomenal group of men and women in our Wildlife Management Division that have spent almost a career's worth of their work in dedicated towards c w D and spread

of infectious disease and things like that. In servants alone, we started seeing seven or eight years ago, about the time that I was transitioning out of the River Valley into northwest Arkansas, this intent on behalf of these hunters that were harvesting servants from out of state bringing there unprocessed whole bodied servants deer, elk, et cetera, across state lines into Arkansas. And so you know, that opened up a whole another avenue of regulation that we were prepared

for as an agency. We knew it was coming, but we just didn't expect it to happen at the rate that it probably did. You know, I'll never forget. UH. Seven or eight years ago, I was working in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and it was my one of my days. I was working UH in Crawford County, which is just north of there, and I get a call from our radio room dispatch, which is based in Central Arkansas, and they say, Uh, Officer Fletcher, we've got an individual there on I forty

eastbound in Oklahoma. Is there any way we can patch them through to you? And I said, sure, not a problem. And so through a series of things, they forwarded the call to me, and I'm talking to a subject and he tells me lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, and he'd been out in Oklahoma City working all week. And he says, I'm behind a truck bed of deer horns and they're

headed towards the state line. And I knew in that moment that things were about to get real interesting for the wildlife officer in Arkansas when we start dealing with this type of activity. And so you ask yourself, is that a new era of poaching as well? I mean, is it or is it not? You know, we deal with that, you know, those are that's our reality that our officers are now challenged with, well, I mean c w D they can take more deer out the I

could with a spotlight. Sure, So is that a confession? That's what I was curious about. How many do you have you taken out with the spotlight? Why it's always back to that when you're gonsing that around. Yeah, trying to get the focus off of him on someone else. It's got to take it. Good point, great point. Bent continue, Well, I was born in Okay, Okay, Yeah, no, and that's that's just it that. Yeah, that kind of stuff is instremental to the resource. Could be whether those deer were

legally taken or not. If if they're coming across and they're not packaged the way the regulation states to keep c CWD out of Arkansas. I mean, that's man, that's the one the monkey box out there. So who knows? Who knows how bad it could be? Yeah? Do you think that someone could do what did? Did you? You may not have heard the podcast about Louis Delle and Charlie Edwards and they killed like how many turkey every year? Seven eight million? I mean, but this was like years ago.

Do you think someone could do that? Today? They were very vocal about it. Yeah, yeah, there, Yeah, you know, I think probably with the advancements in technology and the way that our s i U teams work, the wildlife officers that are that are trained to work either in an undercover capacity or work exclusively with social media presence, you know, because we we do have to operate that way. Really,

you've got people that have monitor in social media. Absolutely, I would I would say probably, you know a majority of the conservation law enforcement agencies across the United States probably operate in some capacity that way. But you know, I would I would say that it would probably be real difficult to expose that type of activity if those individuals had a small network of friends that weren't tied

into some kind of social media presence. Absolutely, they wouldn't need to be glorified by what they had done, you know. I mean, hearsay used to be the way that we started investigations and we built these phenomenal cases. But today it's almost like the burden of proof or whatever probable cause, it's kind of been elevated to the point of we need some kind of physical evidence or something that puts

someone in a certain capacity. Tip would have been like, hey man, let's hit the ground and run with it absolutely more than just here today. Yeah, it's and we make a lot of great cases, don't get me wrong, as a as an agency and as a division, just based off of word of mouth and and our our um our what's hotline. We have a hotline here in the State Arkansas that people can call in and if

they give us information that turns into a successful prosecution. Uh, we split the fine money with them, just like Director yes, sir, just like Director Booth uh mentioned last week. You know, none of our fine money stays within our agency. Thanks thanks to Amendments seventy five and n seven when it was passed in this one eighth of one percent of the general sales tax use and the State Arkansas goes to conservation of that number goes to the Arkansas Game

Fish Commission. And so we have these type of programs in place to where we can allocate some of those fine moneys to keep that word of mouth, to keep that here say live and how we do our business absolutely and at least to some phenomenal cases and work done environment and women every day. Um. This is kind of off topic, but just being in law enforcement like you have for as long as you have, what's the what's the wildest situation you've ever found yourself in? Like

just uh like dangerous? Uh? If you if you that you could share with us. So I'll just tell you by by by affiliation. The first six or seven years of my career, I was stationed at UM. Fort Chaffee was a big part. I consider myself being stationed there because four and a half days of my work week I could spend out there and do the work of the game and fish and have a lot of opportunities

for contacts with individuals. Big part of that area is uh of the forty thousand plus surface kit cleared area acres of Fort Chaffee is an area known as the impact area and it, and I can tell you it in itself is extremely dangerous because you have it's not surface cleared, meaning meaning when Fort Chaffee was a very active military installation and still it is described because we're talking to people outside of Arkansas Testure Jeffia is a

military base. Forty thousand surface cleared acres is what is how I describe it. And then you've got an additional gosh, I don't know, five seven eight thousand acres of this uncleared ground, meaning meaning when the military is in there doing their training, you have crews that go behind those groups and troops and platoons and they clear those ranges. It's active ranges like live shooting at big targets and munitions. And you know the the A ten tank killers is

I've got gotten to know them over the years. They had a range out there called the Razorback Range and they would do all their drops in this impact area to simulate their trainings that they were doing in Afghanistan live uh, military and wartime stuff. So this this place is a is a public hunting areas. Absolutely can't just walk in there. You've got to take a class and

the absolute ways you got hunt. But it's it's well known around here, so tell So I'll just tell you that in itself, anytime I had to go into the impact area loone, you know, you were kind of playing with fire because you didn't know what to expect and step on a live shell the ordinance, that's correct. Some of them have not exploded, and sometimes they were randomly

explode after being in the ground for ten years. So the thing about it is is the impact area of Fort Chaffee garnered attention starting about twenty five thirty years ago from a certain segment of the outlaw poacher, and these individuals would jeopardize their own lives, whether they knew or did not know that there was a live fire in progress or a training in progress, all in the name of harvesting a world class Boon and Crockett type deer that the impact area has so been glorified known

to have. And in my career there I saw kind of the last remaining, you know, world class Boone and Crockett type deer of Chaffee, because I saw it kind of decline over the six or seven years that I

was there. But but one situation in particular, we get a tip of an individual that had crossed over a road, a county road on the Sebastian County line in the Franklin County line um on it that borders the far eastern side of Fort Chaffee and they had jumped the fence and camo and a rifle and that's all we had to work on. And so I had a partner at the time, and we've got a K nine team that gosh, we're super proud of these these men and

women from all over the state. They dedicate a large part of their career to these service dogs and what they're trained to do. And so I got the call from our radio room because it came in anonymous lee and this individual was seen crossing this fence. So we had a last known location, but we knew they were going in the impact area. Well you know, what does ten thousand plus acres look like in this impact area? I mean, it is, it is forever, it's you know.

And so I pick up the phone and I called my partner at the time, and I say, hey, can you bring the dog. Here's what I got and it might lead to something, because man, I'm telling you as a wildlife officer in Sebastian County, Arkansas, and my primary job description is to catch poachers and outlaws crossing into the impact area. If I didn't catch this guy, I was going to, you know, deface the name of Turning that had come before me. And so, I mean we took it to heart, and we sacrificed a lot to

catch these guys. A lot of them we never caught. But this night was different. So my partner arrives there and I meet him at the place where this individual, who was on their way home from work, had reported this guy and Kimo across the fence. And and I knew through my limited training of working with canine handler that you know, I didn't need to contaminate this scene. Okay, I'm gonna do what I for. I'm an old coon hunter,

was Brent. There is a law that is unbreakable in coon hunting, and that is, when you see a coon cross the road in front of your truck, if you just stop and turn your dogs out, you almost never treat that coon. And so what you do, and I want to see if this is what y'all did? You wait minutes less than that, because no coon hunter has the patience to wait that long. But then you go, but you let the track, something happens in the scent settles, and you go anyway. I just thought of that when

they said they saw a guy across the road. They're bringing a dog. I'm thinking, if you turn it out quick, you're not gonna catch it. So he also didn't want to contaminate it with humans, and go ahead, go ahead, So it thirty minutes had passed. Let's so you're right. So partner gets there at the time and uh, he dumps the dog out, and the dog, you know, starts doing their crazy back and forth back and forth, kind

of raining in that scent. And then all of a sudden, man, there the two of them go, and they're over this fence and they're tracking this guy. Y'all worried about being in the impact zone. I'm always worried, tell the chaffe folks. Yeah, So so we would call, don't shooting tanks in there. We would always even in areas that were closed to general public that may not be live fire or active

or anything like that, we would we had protocol. We would call range control and they always had that facility staffed, and we would let them know, Hey, we're we're down range of range eight eight or whatever the range number was. Are we good to work through this area? Give them the heads up, But but you gotta remember this is the impact area, and we got to catch these guys.

And so you know, we're going, as they say, our high water right, And so we're going and so I I look up and and my partner and this dog, they're they're fading in the distance fast, and so I'm like, man, what I do? And there's not much I can do at this point, because I didn't want to go circle around this guy or or spooking or you know whatever.

And so I go to this city down the road called Charleston, and it's probably three or four or five miles and I just wait because my partner and I had worked together for so long and it was not uncommon for me to dump him out of the truck and him just start walking and him to call me an hour later or seven hours later and say, hey, man, I'm on the other side of this range or I'm on the other side of this ridge. Can you come pick me up. That's not uncommon. So I knew what

I how how comfortable was with it. So I went to this little area in Charleston and I sat there outside this convenience store and my phone rings about two hours after dark, and he says, man, I found this gilly suit and I found this rifle and it's at the base of this tree. And I'm four miles inside the impact area or some crazy number, right, So the dog did their job and so but no man, no man.

So they stopped there. He photographs evidence or whatever he needed to do, and the dog takes off and they track this guy all the way out the other end of the impact area, which is on the far eastern boundary of Fort Chaffee, which is probably another three miles to the highway. And then they get to a car wash which is about another mile up a paved road, and there this guy set and he had arked his car under this car wash, which is five or six

miles from even touching Fort Chaffee at this point. That was his intense commitment. Absolutely, So he was walking on blacktop roads. Yes, wow. So he popped out of Chaffie and then walked on and to trail him that far and and the car wash. What I didn't tell you is the car wash that he was sitting in that car was about a hundred and fifty yards from where I was sitting, right under my nose. It was a car he had changed his clothes, stuffed him in a backpack.

And when we and when we caught up with the guy, which my partner, did you know, I was sitting there, almost about to eat dinner at this point, and he's like, I got this guy. He's he's scared to death. He's sitting here and he said, you know, when we got him to talk It's one of those situations where he was just like, man, I didn't know if you'll ever gonna catch me because I've been doing this for about seven or eight years. Gosh, you hadn't surrounded that night

time was on our side. That's incredible. Yeah, So that's that's the dogs the day, those those kind of that's I mean, you know, those kind of situations can be a little dangerous, intimidating at times, even for a skilled canine handler. And you know, because it's that unknown. That's the our guys and gals that that do this every day. That's the world that they walk into with that dog. Would he is he trained to apprehend someone? No, no bite, that's just a trailer? Correct? What kind of dog? Was

it a labrador? All of our Yeah? Absolutely? Yeah. Are one of the tennis ball waiting for him to throw a tennis? Are all the dogs trained to to no bite? Are? Yeah? Interesting? It is? That is wild, that's wild. That's the officer's job to bite. Is it the same for canines in like a you know the ones they have up here at the police stage. Some of them dogs are definitely trained to apprehend people, you know, I mean attack them. Basically hold restrain them. They would never need to do

that with me. Sold, you got me. My grand Danes are trained to knock down and lick. Yeah, yeah, okay, So do you guys have anything that you would like to confess to Lieutenant? Before we closed? There was a time I did not get a ticket for it. I was just kidding, Josh. I did go fishing and at the end of the day looked at my license and it was three days. So I just confess that I just wanted to get on board with you too, Clay.

We'll pray, we'll pray for you later. So in that in light of that, not in light of that, but how much how much time would you guys spend on game versus fish? Do you have officers that are specifically assigned to game and some to fish. No. In the State Arkansas, it's it's based on season. A lot of times our seasons will overlap, uh, like in the heat

of the summer, for example. Our primary responsibility right now is water safety and water patrol and compliance on our waterways, trying to keep people from running to each other, having serious accidents on the waterway transition into the fall, it's dove season. Both season opens up and then we roll right into it seems like every single weekend through the first of December, there's something else coming at US duck season, deer or whatever, And so we vary our workload based

on the seasonal stuff. When you talk specifically about fishing, just like I mentioned earlier, you know, fish or finite resource, And so we try to explain that to our officers out in the field. Is we really in the spring when the cropper are spawning and the bass are starting to become active and the walley are running up the rivers?

Is is we really have to protect that resource in that moment, And sometimes it overlaps into Turkey season, like it does here in the northern band of those arcs and the White River chain of lakes and and those things. So so we just kind of go where the activity is and we know when we need to be out there. Hashtag keep Them, keep Them wet um did did uh? Did your time with agency overlap with Joel camporra it did? Did you? Yeah? So I went to high school with

Joe Campora. He was one year younger than me. Just talking about talking about water safety made me think about Joel. I wrote a story about Joel right after that happened. Joe Campora was he was killed and I think June it was in late May. Ye. Uh, just thinking about the responsibilities that these guys have. Um, I'll tell the

story as I as I remember it. But there was a flood in um Scott County that was a different one food in Scott County and uh, I guess Joel was where it was based out of Waldron at that time, and uh, big flood and there was a house that was being flooded and there was some as I remember the story being told, there was some elderly ladies that lived in this house and they called and water was coming up in the house and then just talking about

chain command and like when you guys might be called. Um. Yeah, Joel was called along with the sheriff Cody Carpenter of

Scott County. And so the Arkansas Game and Fish Game Warden and Cody Carpenter went and and using a game and fish boat went to make a water rescue with with these was it two ladies and the black It was in the black of night too, it was pouring rain and they ride out in the water to this house and I mean, you know, it's fast moving water, and you know, no one knows the details, but they go in the house and the house collapses, and uh but it's it's it's I mean, no telling what kind

of calls you guys are gonna get, and and and every they all perished, and it was it was real. It was a real moving deal. There's a there's a part of that highway now and I'd see it every time I drive to Mina, and every single time I drive to me, no matter who's with me, I tell them about Joel Camport and my kids know all about it. But there's a section of the highway that's the Cody

Carpenter section and the Joel Campora Memorial section. But both of those guys past the way, and the ladies did too. But two longest days of my life were you were you were there. Still rough to talk about today, but uh yeah, And I tell you, we have got a lot of great men and women that surround us every day, and law enforcement and it's wildlife officers, and you know, we always say when conditions are at their worst, we're at our best. You know, it's one of our mottoes.

And they were certainly at that at their worst those two or three days around that, and you definitely saw, definitely saw the best in people through all that they were I mean, like hunt a couple of hundred people there from other law other states because they couldn't they couldn't find they couldn't find them. Yeah, if I remember correctly, and you know, I probably need to pay closer attention to it because I was so involved in it. But almost you almost tenure is removed from it now next year.

You know, there were so many moving parts. But that is one thing when we talked about pride in your co workers and what what we know and how we know to operate, is we all as wildlife officers plugged in in that moment because we knew what our capabilities were, and we knew how we assisted agencies when it came to critical incidents and you know, overcoming these dire times

and dire periods of adversity. And so we all just jumped in that first day and it was kind of a chicken with your head cut off movement, but we didn't didn't really have a calculated response and and by the time we got our people in there, by the end of that first day, and we had this calculated effort on how we were going to proceed. It was the very next morning we found Cody Carpenter and then the following morning we recovered Joel's body. And uh, man,

I tell you, it's almost slight. You know, you look at it for the last ten years of reflection, and you think about all the training and trials and tribulations that we go through, and the commitment and the sacrifices that we make for this career, this line of work. It's almost like we were molded for that particular experience to have occurred. We could endure it and see it through the other side. Mm hm. Extremely sad situation anyway you look at it. People lost their lives, friends lost

their lives. But I I do this job today because of those men and women that carried that torch with us through that whole deal. It's a it is at the root of who I am forever basically in your agency, I would think absolutely absolutely, you know, I think I think the what I remember the game and Fish really took great care of Joel's Joel's widow Rebecca, and and

and still do. Yeah, absolutely, I mean and that that spoke a lot to me, m and I think you know you see that, and you can speak to this in the in the law enforcement community, regardless of what segment you're in. You know, you you go to work for these agencies, you go to work for these departments, and they talk about this brotherhood and we're all a family. And I can assure you with certainty that the Arkansas Game Fish Commission wildlife officers and their families are a family.

I mean, we couldn't do it without it. You know, we have flexible work schedules, we don't have shifts, and when the phone rings at three thirty in the morning, like it did that morning that Brian Bailey called me on the phone and saying I need help you you answer the call. You don't have back up, and so it takes that person on the other side of the bed of you. You have to have their sport. Yeah, sure, yeah, and our agency recognizes that. There's no doubt. Well we sure,

we sure appreciate the work that you guys do. Yeah. Yeah, we are really grateful for it and grateful for your service and sacrifice. Mm hmm yep mm hm. Well thanks so much for coming up today. Really has I tell you I've so this this ends in basically an eight week period where we were talking about something to do with the law and we're moving on finally. Uh yeah, French rated talking about squirrels. I'm tired of glory and flying outlaws all the time and I can't even defend

them anymore. But uh yeah, So anyway, this is this is a great it's a great way to end it. We appreciate you coming up for sure. Thank you. I'm glad to be here, Yeah, glad to be here. All right, that's a wrap, guys down