Ep. 535: The Fight to Save Hunting

This is the meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast, 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 el, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T L I T E dot com. Hey, everybody, listen up. I got I got mega huge news. Me Eater Live is heading back out on the road. That's right, Join me and the crew talking Clay newcom cal Yannie, Spencer's gonna be there, Phil,

And Noble Online. Hope to see you at the show. Welcome everybody.

We got two shows in one today because we're joined by Dan Gates to talk about what's going on the topic, as Krin wrote, it is what's going on in Colorado. We're gonna get into what's going on in Colorado, which if you're at Colorado, how do you.

Like to say that, Brody Coloradin, you're a.

Colorado you 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 gonna talk about going on in Colorado has implications for what's going on in America.

So stay tuned for that. But first the first part of the show.

And then we're gonna we're gonna hear, We're gonna hear a little bit from Jannis about a recent adventure. Ryan Callahan's here, Brody Henderson's here. Randall, Doctor Randall's here with a brain, new hair, been cutting his own hair, yep, learned how to cut his own hair.

Learning to cut my own learning.

Because he's gonna take us through that process step by step.

Yeah, we're actually doing a video series.

I love that.

And uh, the star of the show part one, Remember I said this is two shows and one. The star of show part one is Connor Smith.

How old are you? Connor?

Sixteen?

Sixteen? Connor Smith's sixteen years old. His mother, Alyssa, is a colleague of ours, and he I've been hearing about.

This killed himself a big old bull.

Yeah it's uh.

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 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 scrap you, like, yeah, thirty ninth 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 guns stopping working, and that's not a thing I usually hear about firearms. So how did your tell me your gun lay out?

Here?

Well, I had a three hundred that where we have two three hundreds, one that my grand we were both my grandfather gave me and so.

Your parents are tight. Yeah, you got two old grandpa guns. M hm okay, I'm picturing.

And uh the first one I've been using for a couple of 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 the chambering. That's what my grandfather kept keeps telling me.

Mm hmmm. 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 not my granddad's. That's not my dad's, and then I used that.

For the hunt. So these are three hundred wind bags. Yeah, okay, I got it. 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 ball with it.

Yeah.

Well, maybe it's got good mojo so jiju whatever that might be.

It does, but it might just be connors.

So gramps passes down one gun to you and one gun to his kid, your dad. Yeah okay, and then you get the one that Graham's 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 it taught me through that. Don't give me the spot, but like, tell me through your your process here.

Well, I've going into last year. I had three points and my dad put me in for a special pull elk tag.

And I got your three bonus points.

Yeah, eleven chance odds.

You see, Cow's getting excited now.

Cal likes any story about youngsters with lots of points drawing sweet tags man.

Taking opportunities away from him.

That's his favorite. That's his absolute favorite genre of saying no.

But you know, talking uh, talking with your mother. I know that the family puts some sweat equity in out there.

So it wasn't just told, okay, continue on.

His dad was dragging him out of like banned class that he'd rather be at because his dad did all the work.

Yeah yeah, alright, so just okay, I'm sorry to me. Interre up. So you got you got into a special unit.

Yeah, and uh, I like got home from school one day and.

Oh, back, you didn't do any scouting or anything.

Well, we've been scouting out there before.

And uh, 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?

Got it?

Yeah? So it's the area you're you're familiar with, very familiar with. Oh, how's this? 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 out tag.

Oh, just pre scout, just in case, just getting familiar with the area. Yeah, got okay, Okay, So then what happens?

Uh, Well, we scouted all the summer through the summer spring and all that.

And they kept going up there and checking in on it.

Yeah exactly, And we found a couple of sheds and yeah, going into the season, we went a couple of days before and we saw a bowl, a really nice ball. It was a big five point actually, and uh we scouted him, put him to the bed and waited for the morning opening morning, and we woke up that morning.

Did you have a goal? It's like, how big of a bull you're looking for?

Basically the first solid bull I found he killed.

Before before I've killed two bulls and one cow?

Sweet? What ye doing?

What regular?

Just regular hunting?

Yeah?

Yeah, and did any of those come uh during the youth season when you could?

There's no youth elk Oh, it's just deer, birds and turkeys, dude. If there's a youth olt, yeah, I know.

I have more kids.

That's why I would have.

Never gotten the vast ectomy.

Yeah, I have to have them on.

Pot coached you up properly on on how these conversations can go and how not to give away your landmarks. And he's doing super good.

Yeah, I got nothing to go off. Well, no, I do three points eleven percent odd. It's a real sharp feller. I shouldn't have pointed that out.

Yeah, you've done more.

Someone real sharp on math with a sharp pencil. Gone and blueball ad out Phil.

We Uh we watched this bowl at all?

Opening?

Yeah, we 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's 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 to go.

So he was with that, He wasn't solo, he was with other out.

Yeah, what's competition made from hunters?

Hunters?

Yeah, I see, okay, and uh.

We watched these bulls.

We like rushed this bowl 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, just my dad and my little brother.

Okay and uh little brothers how old he is?

Fourteen thirteen?

Much help?

He's a little a 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 uh, we watched these out come out of this like ravine. I think the first opportunity I had was that like five hundred and twenty three yards at this five point.

You're so precise and know exactly where he was.

Watched them. We watched him for a little bit.

I thought I could get closer and he ended up going into the timber out of sight. So we had to wrap around and see if we could find him again. And we we didn't know where they went, and we thought they crossed the way and stuff, and we kind of just walked around and we heard a bugle. M heard a bugle like maybe fifty yards from us, and what time of day it's about.

It was about like maybe seven eight.

Ish fifty yards away.

Yeah, and uh, they definitely spooked because we heard some running in the trees and stuff.

And also maybe the kyles spooks and that made the bull bugle because he's like, where's everybody going kind of thing, okay.

And uh, we kind of just followed those tracks up this little this little hillside and 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 ball or just the bull.

The bull all right, not the five point not the five point whole different bawl, Yeah, a whole different didn't know you know about him, but he's the one that ripped a bugle probably 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 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.

Humh okay, and uh yeah, he kept had to feel good.

He tried to keep walking.

He didn't.

He didn't believe me on the shoulder.

Yeah, get down, yeah yeah, and uh. He got out the spotting scope and I kind of sat up on this rock with my gun like looking at the bowl, and he was like, it's at six hundred and eighty nine yards.

And I was like, I got a whole another week of the hunt.

Might as well try to pull the trigger and uh.

Hold it back up that that contradicts. Yeah, yeah, No, you have a whole nother week of the hunt, so might as well pull the trigger.

Yeah.

If I missed, then I got 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 trick.

So let's not pull the truck. Let's wait. So You're like, we got a whold of the week of the hunt. So let's take a shot.

Yeah, are you a holdover guy or you dialing a holdover? Uh huh.

And it's it's like a little Christmas tree scope. It's got what is it, five notches on it. The farthest goes a six hundred, but there's like this little notch at the very end that I used for seven hundred.

Okay, and you do a little bit long long distance shooting.

No, that was the first time I've ever sat that far.

Okay, go on.

So I missed the first shot and the ball just stood there like nothing happened, and.

You're using your little extra post. Yeah again, Then what happened?

My Dad's like, shoot again, shoot again?

See where you hit?

Yeah, he was like, you missed high And I was like, okay, I got to 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, float another one and shoot and I did double lung dum 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.

Uh.

When I got walked up to him, I didn't when I shot, I didn't see like how big he was. I saw like the back whale tail and just was like that's enough for me to see how.

Yeah it no ground shrinkers. Yeah yeah, yeah, he's like that, that's not the five point the uncommon ground groath.

Yeah. Yeah.

And we walked up to it and we we kind of talked about it. We thought it was in the three seventy range. Huh, and we got it scored a couple of weeks ago at three eighty seven net and then three ninety three.

Gross. Oh that's wild. Get out here, all right, dismissed.

Yeah, gave us a lot to think about. Connor, thank you.

I've killed I've killed two balls that would that would fit under that three nineties.

Yeah. Yeah, 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 might you probably already got the biggest helk you'll ever get.

You realize that, Yeah, okay, you can't feel that.

Yeah, I've been told by a lot of people that.

People like to point out out. Is it as the older people to point that out?

Yeah, well 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.

Yeah, well, let me give you piece of advice.

We had a dude, There was a dude that named Dustin Huff that was on the show and he killed uh. I think it's what is the biggest typical typical biggest typical white tail in America meaning not in Canada. Yeah, okay, because there's 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. 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 one thirty white tail, so he was looking for a personal best. So then he kills this thing that you know, we'll never be seen again. Yeah, And I said, well, what is your attitude now? Because

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, when you're shooting and you go home after a good shot, I go down there shoot again because I might have one of them strays, and then I have to go home feeling worse.

You could also just.

Get really into uh general tag hunting. You have your your draw best, then you have your general tag.

That's a good way to look at it, Toude.

He's got time to draw all kinds of good tags. Sheep goat moves all that.

But you saw some other hunters. Yeah, you're hunting on public land? Yes or no?

Yeah, hunting on public land.

It's awesome other hunters.

Yeah, what was the elevation? I can remember?

Congratulations, man, where it's in my garage right now? You can get stuffed the hides at the taxidermist.

Right now, you getting stuff.

Yeah, we're gonna get a shoulder mountain where you gonna hang it? Uh, probably like the living room.

You got a place big enough for that.

We talked about it. We have to move a mount a full body mountain goat for.

It out of the way. Whose mountain goat is it my dad's.

Yeah, I'm sure he doesn't take that personally.

If you don't, if you run out of room, you can hang it down here in the office.

I might have to do that.

Man, we'll put a little plaque up.

Yeah, nobody's gonna walk in the house and talk about dad's goat anymore. Right, Well, what's that.

Who's paying to get it stuffed?

My parents?

That's nice though, That is who you're gonna have stuff it? Do you know yet?

Uh, that's a guy down in Belgrade.

It's uh Terry.

Sure he does good work.

Yeah, he does a good job. Yeah, he's done my dad's mountain goat, and uh he's done in my dad's mule deer.

A lot of those guys are weird. Ohs man Taxdermist, I've even I even talked about that with tax Ermis. Oh yeah, he's like not me. But they're like a lot of them. Yeah.

Yeah, he's a funny guy though, is Heny like good? Yeah, he's he's fun to talk 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 thing when I was a kid. Pick 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 shad lunder. They just didn't know it. Yeah, there's no term for it, you know. No, I didn't kind of like parkour.

You know, people used to just jump off trash cans and stuff like that.

They didn't know what it was.

All right, Well, next time you get 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 gonna try archery hunting this year.

Come tell us about missing one or hitting one in the leg and can't find it yard shots.

For that, I'll probably miss high on one.

Yeah it was eighty three yards A buddy, thanks, you can stick around.

I'll stick stick around you.

Where are you supposed to be in school? SI? Obviously? Yeah? Well gradient jor okay, but you got excused.

No, I'm just playing.

What's sick the dentist?

Yeah, buzzman high?

Where's that at? That's what my kid's going to.

It's the that's the old one it is.

Oh yeah, it'll be done. Yes, yere. He'll like all that stuff about yardages and calibers. That's there. That's like his peer group as they're interested in.

Yeah, he's like Johnny shot a elk at six and twenty yards with a 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 something.

Yeah, you're gonna share it. Are a cotell his story? You're there, chip In.

I had a lot of people that I just just got back from pheasant Fest, a lot of people asking about how Mingus is doing.

Yeah, I don't know where.

We must have talked about it somewhere else or someone did because word got out.

He got mentioned, It was mentioned briefly on Trivia, and we kind of danced around it on the last Meet episode.

Oh hey, let me tell you something that Pat said first, Pat Diurkin. Pat Dirkin wrote in Hi, Stephen Crinn, 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 to you.

Uh, not ill literate, 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. I keep this Mark Twain quote taped above my desk. It's from a nineteen to six letter to Henry mills Alden and was printed in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Twain and says, how often we recall with regret that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we

Talking about, like like when you you're a kid, I'd like the dude at the Skiing Chronicle. I wish I can remember his name, Bob's.

Every Sunday you're excited to open the pap.

He'd profile attacks at Ermist. 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 meat low for Resbee. Just every Saturday, man. And that was like the only outdoor media we took in ye was that dude's column.

Well, I wonder if even there is an outdoor section.

I've gotten a newspaper and so long, but I remember, like the Gazette Kalamazoo Gazette had an outdoor section on Saturday, Yeah.

Which is weird because Saturday is the day you're hunting and fishing.

A lot of papers have gotten rid of them billings.

I think still has one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I talked to an outdoor guy at one of the papers and he was not happy about digital media. I can tell you, all right, 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 snowbiling adventure, you cut a fresh boxcat track. We had incredibly fresh snow, yeah, real fresh, 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're gonna cut was

Yeah, we go seven seven people and one dog.

Yeah, go hu with mingus and uh it's a uh.

Is that right? Seven people? Yeah, me and my three I had all three my kids.

Yeah, I too. Yeah.

There's a lot to think about when you're gonna put together that kind of a an adventure, because, uh, it's not just like you and me going looking for a line track. Uh, there's you know, five people that are depending on us, and you know, you bring in us in its form and extra clothes because they're gonna you know, the first thing we do when they when you stop snowbills and are looking at a fresh track, they're like, yeah,

Yeah, everybody's like this. It's like no ship.

All the snowmobile and goggles are just packed full of snow. Wordless at this point.

Whitewashing each other whatever. Man, It's like.

This comes this is part of the story because that morning I had looked at the pack. I had been using a pack that Paul had made for me. It's kind of a 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, we cut Mangus loose on the track and he's what I would call smoking it, moving it very quickly. He makes it, you know, six hundred yards is the crow flies from us? And I don't know, ten minutes maybe not that.

We gotta make the noise. What's that little the noises he's making?

Oh, when Mingus is on track?

Well, I kept saying, 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.

Right, like that kind of stuff.

Yeah, it's a steady ball it. Mingus.

His bark is very hard to replicate 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, oh right at the end, it's a funny sound.

I don't know.

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, it's different.

Well, 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 across the creek and he's gotten up on a I guess that's hill would be south facing right, it's way more open, there's not as many trees, and it looks steep to me.

There's some cliffs over there.

It's like it's a band of cliffs. It's like, no, it's like you go down.

We're on a timbered slope and you go down, you got a big screen field and then like all the cliff faces that all the screen had been breaking up.

Sure, but he obviously went you see, I slip a little jelagy in there.

But he's the whole thing wasn't a cliff face because he was able to get a bullet cliffs 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, right, a lion really doesn't have that option because it doesn't

Can I tell you the thing that you told me? While we were doing this, h.

He went down into a creek bottom where he could picture like a cat running. But then all of a sudden he left the creek bottom and went up and we were thought, oh me, 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 look looking down or they know the because they when 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 around here in some areas, be like there's wolves to deal with, so just get like, oh yeah, on a climba tree and hang out.

That's part of that wing leaves me alone and then I'll go about my business. It's probably like a somewhat casual occurrence to elude a can to get out of a canine's way.

Sure, it's part of daily life, you know. But yeah, I've somehow it's been saying 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 too much anthropomorhization, I.

Think, to the to the situation.

But anyways, uh, yeah, we were. You had just mentioned about how it's like looking pretty cliffy, like too cliffy, and I'm like, yeah, buddy, he's hunting that kind of stuff all the time, you know. And I was just 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 lions, squigily lined, squiggily lines, and so he's in this cops of evergreens. We can't He's only

Now.

Look at the GPS. And he had made a short run out of that cops of trees to the lookers 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 has shown treed. So when you have your 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 earshot, you know your hounds stopped moving. He's on

Oh yeah, it was without a doubt that.

He had taken a fall.

Yeah, and so I figured, well, 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.

I'm reel bad. I felt bad for you, but mainly was like, man, Yan, these 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 to you know, at the end of the story, because I still go back and forth. I've been calling Monster already at my house because I've brought up this, uh, this idea of like the different ways that it could have turned out.

You know, and.

Some like fifty years ago, or maybe not even that long, twenty thirty 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, what.

Do you walk over there?

Well, no, you'd walk over there, right, but to get your collar back.

But girls, I'll be back with the 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 you know, to.

Go, they wouldn't have had different lives.

No, not losing, but in the moment, it sure feels like that the pressure you're feeling. So I empty out that backpack that I was just talking about earlier, take out. It's funny because I was packing, you took your pistol out a.

Ten millimeter on my hip and and I had a twenty two mag in the backpack in case we found a cat that we wanted to shoot ten 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, you know. So I left both things there. I don't know what we're gonna do.

Way down, I said, you got your pistol, right, yeah, and you're like no. I didn't want them to hear a shoot.

Yeah.

We would have had to let his blood out with a knife or something.

And we told the kids are making this so much worse.

Well, that's the stay put.

So it's all five. We're gonna stay put. We're gonna go down and cross the camp.

Did you guys let that?

Were the kids aware that something was he said the dog might be hurt, okay.

Yeah, but they they were having fun. Like like I said, we had just we had 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 gonna go check in on him. You guys just hang out, build a fire, eat some snacks. They weren't really aware at all of that. We we

I can tell you exact deep deep snow.

A lot of fallen trees, and 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 something had been wanting to ask you about. I'm trying to I'm looking the spot, I said. I was out a little bit in front of you, and I said, his head's up. And you look I couldn't tell if you were relieved or upset this head was up. You looked like you were 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, he got a lot going on, yep, So it was good to see him with his head with his head up. We knew he's alive.

But we get to him and he's kind of he likes to sit in what we call a lot of dogs sitting in that kind of sphinx position. He does it extremely well and looks very handsome when he does it. Sometimes he crosses his front paws. 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,

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 the.

Big old blood trail coming down the hill.

Yeah.

Like he landed probably fifty yards above that, and it looked as though if you had shot a deer up there and then they had rolled down in the blood.

You know.

It was kind of that scene. I'd 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 afresh, 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 out of the direction.

It was a big bomb.

You 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. I'd like to go back and actually hit it with the rangefinder to know, but I just remember looking up there and just for to have some sort of comparison

Your your 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, this doesn't doesn't mean as much, right So you're, yeah, you're you're adding up all your your data points right now and trying to come up with the proper conclusion.

Yeah, so we'll have Yeah, we'll never know how he came off 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 couldn't, you know, couldn't turn around and just went careening off a forty footer is what I guessed it at.

He too, if you put your I put my ear against his chest and 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 because I.

Don't know, you know, it's like a real gurgly noise, but it why not be in a totally He'll tell you, Rihani, He'll tell you what It was a totally different issue now which I had never heard of.

Oh yeah, I've learned a lot of words through this experience that I had never heard of before. 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 out quarter between the pack and.

The frame, eighty three pounds.

And uh zip zipped him up and were strapped him down. Did he tuck his legs in? Yeah he was. He was dangling. Yeah, he was sitting inside. He was sitting ninety degrees to my back.

And I thought, I was like, if he's you know, I didn't think it's gonna make I don't think the dog is gonna be live, and I'm like, especially it's not gonna be live now. 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 screen slide, like, there's no way to do anything. You know, You're not gonna call a helicopter. 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 was like, nothing you can do.

You can't tag, you can't tag team in lead 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're like keep your ways open and slumping in.

The back of a backpack and 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. Oh that's the other thing I thought about waiting. He's already all wet and shivering.

Yeah, and he got a lot colder throughout the day because it took a while. So, uh, I decide to instead of going back up the way we came, which in retrospect, I s time to decide if that would have been faster or not.

What do you think?

It took me a long time to go out of the creek. It was like an It was like a mile and a quarter mile and a half. As the crow flew, I figured it might have been two miles the route we took to get out of the creek.

It would have been better to go with me because we had all the time in the world waiting on me.

The kids made a second fire and you yeah.

Yeah, but you didn't have to climb that hill with eighty five pounds on your back.

No, but I still think would have been quicker.

All right. Well, so, but I made this the decision which I often say, don't do if you already know one route. And it was.

The thing was is all those logs. I didn't feel like climbing over all those logs on the way back up where the full pack was gonna be fun. Anyways, it takes me two hours to pack him out. We meet up with the crew. Lowed him back into the dog when he comes.

When he comes finally busting out of the brush, the dog's not in the backpack anymore.

That's right.

He was carrying that dog like 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. And so I had him on the ground and I'm like, I can I know where you guys are, just you know, two hundred yards away. I'm like, at this point, god, oh, just you know. He man it, which was probably a bad idea.

Oh dude, I couldn't believe it. When I want to take him out of your hands, I couldn't get him. I couldn't hold him.

Standing there barely. So it was a hard, awkward package. That's a big, heavy dog.

Was he making any noise over the course of 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. I 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 Mingus 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 was like, Jimmy tells me this, I should say I didn't hear her say it. Jimmy said, he's she's tattle tailing. That Rosemary is really upsetting Iron and Mabel with her like armchair vet talk.

Which in this particular instance, you're.

Like, well, how old are they?

Well, Rosemary's eleven.

Yeah, Iron and Maybe are ten and twelve.

And my older boys thirteen and my younger boys nine.

Well, there's vet shows all over the internet and uh television these days that the kids watch.

And I think she's.

Missing horses because I told him to fix the horses. She's mixing that it could be anyhow a lot of like coaching.

Yeah, the only time he made any noises one time I had like slipped down a little bit of a bank and UH kind of caught myself, caught my own weight, and that caused him to, you know, shift pretty heavily to one side, and he made like a little moany grown kind of a sound.

But other than that, he was good. So are you talking to your the whole way out?

Oh yeah, yeah, just apologizing pretty much, you know, shedding some tears.

It was sad.

It was terrible. It's terrible.

Every now and then, for whatever reason, he would like rotate ninety degrees and then get a paw on each one of my shoulders.

I kind of like even put his chin on my one shoulder and like, oh my gosh, kill me.

Yeah 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.

I'd have to look to make sure he's still with.

Me, you know. Oh man, I felt terrible for you guys that.

Day, But yeah, we can get a loaded up in it comes with me. Steve still had to go and UH had some unfinished business on that trail. And so just Iron and I took mingus in and there's only one place to get emergency VET services uh here in the Greater Bozeman area, So we.

Went there and.

Trying trying to make 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 coretent back up. The shallow breathing. The injury was called pneumo thorax, which basically is air inside of you know, 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 this is exactly right, but it's like a syringe that's meant for pulling air out. So they just, yeah, they vent them and I think after they do it three or four times, it actually just stick like a tube in there and just constantly keep pulling it. But it took him. They said on the fourth time they would go to the tube. They only did it three times they pulled like two liters air out of there and that was

Did they give you the talk like before any of this happened where they're 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 gallant, and yeah, I feel like I owe a lot of people and apology because I for sure have sort of poked fun in anybody that spent I always said, crist five K is my limit, and I was like, you did what your dog got acy l surgery, you dumbass.

You know that's that was one of the first things I mentioned 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 pull 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

You know, but it's I don't know, may'll be dead.

Maybe it's three hundred dollars, but I just you know, you can't you just go and then it's snowballs and then there you are the massive vethist.

Dude.

They were pretty spot on with once they kind of had him stabilized 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 newmo thorax. They pumped that out. They gave him whatever, thirty forty stitches and staples all over.

Not a big deal.

Uh.

The one broken bone from falling forty feet basically straight to rock.

Was it the leg I thought was broken at the lego though was.

One of his left rear legs has a fractured botella, so he broke his kneecap and uh 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.

Yeah. Yeah, by that point you already carried him all that way and all that is different.

Oh yeah, and then you're like, okay, well, what's it going to cause? You canna just put him to sleep? And then I'm gonna either lie to my daughter so that he didn't make it through the night.

I told the vet money is no objects.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it's not like he would have like the putt in the 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.

It's like they'd actively have to put him down. Yeah, isn't free you have a dog run around with broken I don't know, maybe no.

I asked about that and they said, basically, the leg would just atrophyed and nothing, and then you end up having to amputat it and it wouldn't be a good deal.

And I told you my theory about three le dogs.

Oh listen, I was ready to go there. I need to check up on this because they told me that was pretty much gonna be the same price to go to a three legged dog to what we we we paid for.

And I was like, that's a bargain because people like them three legged dogs.

Man.

Look, I would have had no problem running a three legged hound. I know a couple of the film.

About you if you started, if you started catching lines with a three legged dog, they had made a hole of the Eddy movie. It'd be like the sad part with the sad music and yeah, like if.

You took them both off and we got one of those wheelie cards. How much that that off road mountain bike tires on the back before we get take before we leave that the first night.

That everything's kind of set, these stabilized, we're like, all right, we'll get a phone call from you later. And they're like, yeah, surgery probably tomorrow, or go home and discuss with your family on you know, if you guys want to pay, et cetera. 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,

And all of a sudden, there's a dude running over and he's like, don so, I need seven 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 I mean it's like an er scene, you know, like.

You had little paddles.

Clear, Yeah it was.

It was gonna be that suit. And it 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 his uh he had had just like a little heart arrhythmia and uh and he got the same problem.

It was all yeah, his is gone away, I think.

But it was just cause from that impact and the trauma to the heart, you know, that's what caused that pneumo thorax. Too, was just such impact that some part of the lung, whether it's like a burst of sack or an alveoli, but some end part of the lobe just goes and like pops open and literally releases air

You know, I'm learning about myself right now.

If you were telling me that about a person, I'd be having all these problems because it's a dog.

I'm not having all these problems. Like if someone tells me testicular cancer, my nuts start aching.

But I hear.

You can hear all this without having the pain.

You feel like a pain or just like a strange sensation.

I feel like, man, I got that problem.

It's like a sympathetic pregnancy.

Steve Gatz, Yeah, yeah, I'm just noticing that for some reason, if you were explaining that in that kind of grand detail, my lungs like, there's.

So yeah, he's he They put a what's called the external fixater around his rear leg, which is basically this bracket that has pins that all go into different bones that are holding things together. And now the external fixer actually has a piston looks just like the piston on the hatch on your topper that holds your your window open. And then they adjust it and and give him more range of motions.

When he's done with that.

Can I have the piston because I've been using a broom that my windshield for months now.

You know, I think luckily they don't 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 when we're all done, you take a bid from them, and yeah, just compare with my the the shop down there.

You know, how did how did you? 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 you on you 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 do you get a payment plan like he's supposed to come up with that kind of money.

Yeah, they actually have a uh there's like an emergency VET credit that you can get for with super low uh, with pretty low interest from.

Who it's it's that's what through the VET. Well, I mean they advertised like a.

Third party financing option.

For that.

Yeah, he's right. It writes it up while you're there. Let me go ask my manager.

It's a great 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. So the VET offers like financing or it's a third party. It's a third party.

It's like crit over, you know, like on Yeah, I was looking at it the other day when I paid a big VET bill.

I just wonder if I.

Could do it, Like now you got to make payments, you know, I don't know, if we haven't figured out exactly how we're gonna do it, we'll probably just take a you know, big chunk out of savings and just knock it out.

You know, man, better than that you dog every time you see him.

Well, you know, it's funny because that dog is a you know, pound puppy, sheltered dog, whatever you want to call him.

Now you can just you bought him for a lot of money.

Yeah, yeah, he was like a hunt because pound dogs aren't free.

They still make you pay for Yeah, it's like seventy five.

You just really boosted his pedigree there.

Yeah, totally. I better get his papers.

Now people ask Yannie how much he paid for that dog. He had to start the story by going.

Well is it genuine racehorse?

Now?

Just like so, yeah, he's fine. Now he's uh, he's he's going. He's not going stir crazy you think he would be. I mean he wants to go out, he can't. You can't just let him roam. He's basically got to be on a leash.

It was a season ender.

Oh yeah, there's no 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 did jump off a cliff that's.

In the game. So what I was amazed at this. When we were chatting on on text, they said it was like ninety recovery, like to full phone recovery for that back leg. Yeah yeah, right, yeah, yeah, great. So it won't be like new but I think, I mean, he'll be able to hunt, no problem.

How old does he take?

Four him? He's got another at least, you know, four to six.

I wouldn't think, I say, I'd get him right back to that same spot. See if you learned anything.

Shock the ship out of him.

No, no, no, cliff, yeah, there's nothing. Not a bad idea to put him up on top of the cliff and then shock him.

Now, you know, he'll find that he never goes left ever again. Yeah, your dog that only goes right.

It'll be interesting to see if he does have any uh you know post you know trauma, you know from it?

Did he learn from it?

I remember, as hard headed as that dog is, I don't think so. I doubt it.

Thanks for sharing.

Yeah, thanks for being there and helping out. It would have been uh even tougher 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 uh, mostly felt terrible.

For your girls because that would have been a hard little trip. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh.

The one other sort of silver lining out of this is I wasn't even really bringing it up, but uh, because I don't know if it was Jennifer that was like seeing like how bumna I was about how the season ended for us, and how like it was, you know, no more line hunting for me and mingus. You know, it's we're done for till next year. But uh, she pretty much is given the go ahead for number two, So another one.

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, all right, Dan, you're ready to dive in.

I've been doing this for the last five months.

Yeah, it's all you've been doing is diving. You you already dove?

Yeah, I dove. I fell off a cliff that they found me.

I was gurgling, Uh, layout who you lay out your organization first, and then lay out uh, and then just kind of give the give the rundown of what When I.

Said, what's going on in Colorado? What tell us what's up with Colorado? Well, first give a thorough in introduction of yourself.

So I'm Dan Gage. I'm the executive director for the Colorado's for Responsible Wildlife Management. And it's a five O one C four 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 we're not a membership organization, UH, but we do advocacy work and education work on a Friday at different levels, and we have three full time lobbyists at the Colorida Capitol. We fight through the legislative side of things and the regulatory side through the Parks

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 it as real quick though you said you've been dealt this right. This is an issue that Color Addams for Responsible Wildlife Management is fighting against.

Fighting against. Yeah, we beat similar type issues through the Parks and Wallife Commission, and they also the antis the extreme went to the General Assembly through the legislature in

Yeah, you don't fill out of question.

They're 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, it's the intent, is their Definitiontive trophy hunting, Steve is intentionally killing, wounding, stalking, and trapping a bobcat or mountain lion and intentionally killing. It's not trophy hunting. That's it's hunting. And 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 will set a precedent.

Well, I want you back up a little bit because I want to get this the language part of this a minute. But how many signatures like tell her about initiative works.

So they file, they file, and it has to go through the proper legal processes as in any state. There's twenty six states that allow it. But they file and then there's an opportunity for arguments from the they're the proponents worth the opposers. I was the only objector on the entire legal documents through the state.

When you say they like, who is they?

So the organization that is doing it is a group called Cats Aren't Trophies. It's it's called cats.

Was it built for this purpose?

It was built specifically for this person purpose. Yes, But but they have deep connections with the Animal Welfare Action, Institute for a Humane Economy, which is run by Wayne Piselli, the former hs US executive director, and Wild Earth Guardians and a variety And if you look at their website, there's fifty or sixty different organizations that are all on board. But it's Cats Aren't Trophies is the organization.

Is Center for Biological Diversity on it.

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.

Serious club. Everybody is they're on it.

Yeah, I mean you you look at the you look at the Lord as a supporter, yeah, I mean it's it's 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 twenty years anyway. I mean that's a but they just

So weird too, because bobcats are an IUCN species of Least Concern.

Yeah. Yeah, there's just so.

Surprising that Center for Biological Diversity in 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, when we talk about like they 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 the the convention that people go to to see how everything's doing. It's like 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 its 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 will impact the level if you go look up a bobcats, bobcats species of Least concerned meaning stable, widespread, no foreseeable issues exactly.

And same with mountain lions. Yeah, I mean, you know, mountain lions, mountain lions, and bobcats are so highly regulated in the United States that people, you 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 points that

No.

And the links thing is funny because 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 the last but not down a little entire tired lower lower forty eight.

They're in dangered species yea, you're protected. Yeah, but there state can't. State can't do anything anyway.

No, it's just like half the wolves that you turn around to deal with what we 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

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 one hundred and twenty four two hundred and thirty eight 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 one hundred and eighty thousand because there will be some ineligible ones and someones that aren't.

You know, readable or whatever.

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. You know our young friends, he doesn't get the hanging chads, Joe.

And you're lucky Gorvy Bush.

When they get to gor v Bush in history, listen, you'll hear about hanging chads.

Yeah. But in Colorado, in the state constitution, they have 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 would you would have to get two percent of those required signatures from each one of the thirty five Senate districts, so this one here, they can all stand out in front of one Whole Foods in downtown Denver. Essentially, That's what I'll say.

I always think of that because there's like, you can't go to a Whole Foods now someone having a picnic table.

Oh yeah, a folding table off the front left and signatures.

Yeah, they they there's We had 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 four 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 end of the way out, I mean, I'll buy girl Scout cookies

No, I'm always I'm always thinking my head. Just the fact that you're here makes me suspicious of what you're getting signatures.

Exactly exactly what do you want to change in my life?

I mean that the produce But yeah, I don't know what's going on in.

This park 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 the Denver City and County residence will And one is a fur ban, which is not a fur ban's it's much broader than that. And it's a

No no, no, no, no, I'm not looking at you that way. I just remember back in I remember back in the early nineties, must have been the nineties when Colorado had the ye had.

A bar nation, know, the one they had the trapping Well, that was in ninety six, and I'm looking at it that way only because of this. I remember that trapping band. Someone said at the time the minute Denver and Fort Collins had a population that equaled the broader population of Colorado, meaning fifty point one percent of Colorado's lived in Denver, Fort Collins, the trapping.

Band, YEP. And they were like, man, it was like it was like urban people, the yep, rural people.

And I saw a statistic that this is pretty much across the board, especially in the West. In nineteen hundred and eighty percent of the population lived on the landscape and twenty percent lived in the city or the municipalities. In nineteen fifty it was a fifty to fifty mix, and then two thousand, twenty percent lived on the landscape and eighty percent lived in the cities. I mean just

That was the point I wanted to get into with this.

Which makes it tricky is you look at you look at certain environmental battles, that environmental fights that sportsmen.

Get involved in.

Ok.

And the most notable example would be like the huge outpouring of that came from the hunting and fishing community all around the country in opposition to developing the Pebble Mind site. And a lot of like people wanted to draw a line in the sand on the Pebble Mind development, even if 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

Why would I care? Right? Because it's it just winds up being harder to imagine why it why you can.

By strapolate pebble is just a total clean water issue, right, sure? And clean water the overlap for the general population, the bell curve of the population, it strikes a bigger tone. And so like, what what's our messaging right when we say, well, this method of take this particular species, what's the overlap for the bell curve of the biggest pot 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 if I look at I'd worry about I got a handful of balls in your hair, and I'm gonna.

Turn back already meant, but I just wanna 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 fourteen high at the high end, at the high end, I'm sure, Okay, so you're gonna lose anyways, So it's like hunters and then some supporters. Now, if we were talking about a deer in elk hunting band, which I don't think is

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 be because we don't think you should go and get those exactly. So what's next?

Sorry guys, Jeremy Romero was making one of his recipes, uh beria tacos, so so hap is it?

Yeah?

We learned that in trivia 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 coming, right, Someone could go make the case on big horn sheep that they're trying. Yeah, whatever, you know, other stuff is coming. This is just like a stuff. Yeah, archree, that's mean right now. How do you think the like?

How should the the non hunting public, why do they care?

Well, 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 ten percent that are going to be strong, you know, right hunters, and you've got ten percent they're going to be strong, right. Extremist.

That's pretty interest that we sold.

Twenty five hundred mountain lions last year licenses. Last year we had a success rate of nineteen percent 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 roughly about about eight thousand guys participate in some capacity to pursue mountain lions, excuse me, bobcats. This year we harvested around nine hundred bobcats. On some years it's been as highs nineteen hundred that you had

But it's interesting that harvest is down historically down. Yeah, it just has a market factor.

Well on the bobcats anyway. But back in nineteen sixty five, when when mountain lions became a big game animal. Before that, they were a nuisance in Colorado, we roughly had two hundred mountain lions on a landscape, and now we boast five thousand 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

What was the lion harvest in Colorado last year?

Roughly like just less than fived, like four hundred and eighty six. It was actually by hunters.

Yeah, I don't know if this line up. I don't know how this impactful, this will be the voters.

But you see an interested thing happen where the states do depredation work.

Yep.

I've never checked into this exhaustively, but my understandings before California had their lion hunting, band hunters in cal And you were killing about three hundred lines a year. Since then, the state is killing about three hundred lines a.

Year somewhere in that neck of the woods. I've seen high end loads of that. 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.

You used to have people pay, used to have people pay for the opportunity, and now you're taking tax parimony to pay someone to do it.

As though, And it's so as though the lion that's.

Getting shot, it's like, well, thank god it's a government employee.

They're happy about it now because they got a.

Government employee, got me, not a guy who is paying too well.

And that's where like a major like 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. Right, I mean, if you're getting pitched this that whole Foods and getting there trying to get your signature, they're gonna tell you we're gonna stop the killing of mountain lions, you.

Probably, I mean you'll you'll dent it for sure.

Well, this part though, like I don't think that's what's effective. Right, Like we can look at there's a big ass billboard on on the Bozeman Hill here, uh, driving west out of Yellowstone.

Uh.

Sal Grizzly Bear has a couple of cubs, big old bull's eye drawn on on mom's back and it says uh, right, and like hunters look at it and you're like, well, that's a bunch of bullshit, right, But it's like, uh, delisting state management means trophy hunting. And it's the crosshair on the salas back, which everybody knows is.

Illegal to shoot a solid cubs, right.

But it's like that means something to hunters, right. But I think all those argue months 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, and I'm going to bring this as a citizens initiative in the state of Colorado to save raptors. Right, rock climbers, rock face.

Sounds like we had this discussion because that's that's the exact same argument that we that we get on multiple things.

I want to hear about the rock climbers and raptors.

Okay, well, raptors nest. Okay, we know that rock climbers are killing raptors because they're abandoning their nests because of all these popular routes. Sons of bitches, Yep, they're picking up trash, microplastics. 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, and and it's killing these poor birds. And you have the picture of the nest and the little abandoned chicks in there screaming for mom.

Well, to some degree it might be. But the fact of the matter is, if you tell it enough, I mean, you could get people to turn around and buy into absolute especially then that's not 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 a rock climb. Well, I think that the general public would 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 that's why we're at such a deal. You know, I've heard statements from 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 in the mountain lion hunters, where do you go next? I mean your point bear hunting. Would it

Are you gonna make a great case against mountain biking?

You're just gonna 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

And multiple states that I said, you know, twenty six 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 citizens 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 mean, you know, you can talk about oil and gas or wind in there's ear, solar sighting

You know.

One of the ways I think that I hesitate to even say this because I'm giving up. 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 it would be.

Maybe you're not a hunter, You're probably certainly not a Bobcat hunter, but do you really want these city slickers telling you how to live your life?

Mhm?

That would wind up be that's very effective to people. And I always go like, oh really really, But that's what I would be pitching big time.

Well, if you look at hot tip for you look at look at the where the money comes from. And while we while I say that we've gotten money from fifty states to unless 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 and and and because it's coming from the national organizations and the and the lunatic one that are out there that

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 land and Bobcats. Because you asked the question about Carole Baskins that polled number one, where all the other stuff about conservation and economy and wildlife science and the North American.

Media disapproval generally a disapproval of her. Yeah, I see, you know.

But but but she's 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 they happened.

I'm sorry, I still don't understand that Steve famously didn't engage with Tiger King. No, no, no, let's say I did.

Let's say I did.

I don't understand. What is the poll like?

So when you ask you 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 that, okay, and they're saying, sorry, I didn't. 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.

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 Carole Baskins comes in at the top of like, well, we don't want her, we don't want her management our wildlife. But they're willing to turn around and take some eighty five year old ex uber driver, you know, because that person doesn't want anything other than

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.

So where where does where does the governor of Colorado, Governor Polls fit into this?

Is it like would this all be happening without him?

In not to this level?

No?

This, no, this this uh, this particular individual, his his spouse, the first gentleman of Colorado is a animal rights extremist and he's got well I would like to say he's got deep pockets. I think they combined and have deep pockets. But you look at the support that they get and the connections that they have. I mean, it's like a

His old man is an animal rights activist.

Yeah, yeah, extremists terrorist.

He's inserted some people onto the Colorado Wildlife Commission that aren't necessarily pro correct.

Not necessarily pro that's an understatement, but yeah.

Which is one way he like he can further his influence, 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.

Had a big contest because that way, when one of them dies from something, it.

Will be like, I mean, how do you like to be the first rancher that has a sheep beating and you actually kill it under the tenj rule And somebody says, well, that guy killed Maverick, you know, I mean, yeah, I mean they're going to be protesting him. They're not going to want to eat his beef. It's this indoctrination, this psycho analysis that they've done, and even.

When they got a name like M six, yeah, just you.

Know, B fifty two. But I want to I want to see our society recognize the need for content as opposed to just talk about it. And I really I think that there's.

A lot 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 put in there just to preserve it. But I want to I want to see. I think with what we're trying to accomplish, we have a moment in

There's two things I want to do though, Yeah, so hold that thought, because 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 governors behind it, certain certain environmental groups that 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, Maine beat a bear

Arizona is similar to Colorado, and they beat a cat hunting band.

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 have 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.

So that's the first point I want to make, and I want to make as you continue your thought, what is the most productive thing, the most helpful thing that people can do.

Give me a bunch of money?

Okay? And yeah.

Something the other day that was 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, We're to send you twenty dollars.

Yep, you'd have the what anticipated are you serious? The war chest? Yeah, the war chest.

Sort of amounting yeah, yeah, And so like you have a number's apply.

Brody's applying is a cowsking like this, Brody just found he's gonna play. He's applying his kids, Oh to wear Colorado.

That's fine.

So Brody's got to send you sixty bucks.

Ye, well, you're you're exactly right.

Yeah, you have a war 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.

We've been working with Howl 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 the last two years. But they're helping us dramatically on this, which is kind of the first ballot in issue that they've actually engaged

So we know the folks are paying the taxi duringy bill. Okay, so coff it out.

Yeah, you don't get to get out of here unless you pay ahead of time. But we we have a funded 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 in elk and wolves are going to do the same thing.

As other as 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, you know, I welcome predators being on the ground.

Oh yeah, but.

I like predator control because I like there to be a lot of deer and elk. A lot of people view that.

It as like a like a non defendable position, right, But it's so funny because you see it reflected.

So widely in the animal kingdom. You know, kyotes ketch a wolf, or wolves ketch a kyote, they kill it. Kyote's ketch 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, you know, I feel that that hunters should be like morally emboldened to go and say no, I want to defend high numbers of dar and elk to support the hunting that I want

Like that, to me is a totally defendable position.

I think to like, I'm pro deer and elk, you're pro dearing elk, but your pro wildlife period You know I went through this.

I do know.

I 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 understand citizens initiatives. I mean if they walk or they walk in well 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 I don't believe in ballot box biology for any wildlife make a decision. If that's the case, why do we have three hundred and fifty scientists in

Have you seen any backlash, Like in the COVID era, it became like this thing, like 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 like I see that as kind of a challenge when you're like trust these wildlife management agencies, because 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 you know, 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 right, So in this argument from your body at the maybe.

It's a tough position to put you know, these agencies and to be like trust trust as well.

Well.

But in my argument to that has been followed the science, right, you got you got fifty eighty one hundred years of data and science and studies and population densities and models and objectives. To me, that's that's worthy. When somebody comes out from March seventeenth of twenty twenty to March thirtieth and says, follow the science, wear a mask at all these shots. Okay, well two weeks of science really isn't what I want to follow. That's that's that's more of

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, Yep, there's way more of them now than there was, say eighty or one hundred years ago.

Instead of trust the science, sorry, anam, Instead of trust the science, I'm like, trust the process when you've had similar things happen. We're trying to with federal the federal government trying to influence Alaska's wildlife manager practices, for instance, like helmet 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 what ninety six percent of historic range. They don't have

Yeah, but even in Alaska they've tried to with a whole like crawling into dens.

Well, no, that's what I'm saying, Like I'm talking about that attack on them. It is like where like show me where Alaska fishing game, Like show me where they're screwing up, or with with fishing with Colorado, Like show me where the state is messing up.

Can you go and point to.

Me that that is it? What was the FW What is it there? FWP is not f WP.

It's CW change prks in Colorado, Okay, whatever the hell.

Colorado's Fishing Game Agency and it's in its current form over decades. Show me where they have been letting game animals uh 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. So it's like trust the science, going like I don't know, trust the last seventy five.

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.

We didn't even know they were here.

It's just not happening, 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 as like this rare, inherently threatened thing because they don't see them, right, It's not standing in some agfield as they blow by on the interstate.

And so I think like that is probably a big.

Challenge in the educational components, 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 did they even know like the story of mountain lions in Colorado, I'd wager or not.

No. 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 not sure? Yeah? Well i'd like to. I mean, so they were priming the pump for that ignorance. It's not stupidy, it's just ignorance. And I think it's on the mountain lion.

I 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 said, you just you create this this fake story out there, and you say it enough and pretty much people start to believe it.

HSUS and local humane societies are two different things.

For a while, there were those hug a Hunter campaigns. It seems like those things kind of died out.

We're doing the campaign that you talk about. I'm the chair of the Wildlife Council and I've been on that for seven years. It started in nineteen ninety eight, and that changes and morphs into something regularly to differ with public perception. Because your demographics that you were talking to between eighteen and thirty four, if you did that twenty years ago, they were you know, now they're fifty five

Yeah, man, you get in the name and bus people name them because they want to get.

Them exactly, you know, exactly.

You know, if a buck's got a name, you watch that. I like hug of Houndsman, that'd be a good little campaign for Yannie. I'll go give Yanni.

Was that campaign successful?

That campaign was extremely successful. And the reason being is because they didn't talk to us in this room. They talked to the general public. That's why it was so successful. I mean, I joked about it. The reason I got on is as the counsel and I applied because they came up with a talking deer campaign and I thought, Okay, it's just not the way that we needed. Yeah yeah, just like the talking bass on the wall or something.

So at a point, how many months is November away, I don't know, eight in eight months, they'll come down to voting. Right now, you made it. I said, what can people do? And you said, you know, jokingly but truthfully, any money? Yeah, and where does the money need to go?

So the money needs to go? You can go on to the website and Save the Hunt Colorado dot com and there's a couple different options there that you can participate in. The reason that we need the funding is because the extremist have an endless amount of funding to do a variety of different things. They're fighting, you know, twenty things in twenty 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

Because 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 Cattleman's Association in Colorado, and I said that, and one guy said, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, does that include stock dogs? That's one 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.

Well, I think you know one thing is 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 a major political campaign like this, you're you're just you're outnumbered, you don't have as much of

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 they're well funded, and the majority of our

Giving any guns out. He can get a better working gun.

Yeah, there is actually a gunworks. Gun is on there to talk about shoes. So you can give me your fifty dollars. 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 cowm is on Instagram and call Ruddings for Responsible Wilach Management on Facebook. I do want to mention something. If you got time because of the lies and deceit, I'm going to read you this and

So when I asked about leather, I was just being cute because somehow, once 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?

It's the death of the el caricatus.

Yeah, you know, I mean, look at all the mank and the beaver stuff that's put on the on the fly fishing lures and on the fishing lures and stuff. You start, you start putting in. There's a there's a component into that deal that they they made exceptions or exemptions because they did they wanted to be uh hit politically correct. So Native Americans can sell their artwork and their crafts in the city of Denver, but you have

Well, man, I appreciate you coming on, Appreciate the time, Tell the site, tell where to go one more time.

Save the hunt Colorado dot com. It's the Colorado's for Responsible Wildlife Management and you can get a lot of information on there. But if they got if they have wishes, once and desires, they could reach out and contact us through the email chain on there as well.

Do it at the same time that you're applying for your Colorado ELP tag. Just then pop over to CWRM and CRWVRWNC give you twenty.

Bucks, Dan Gates, thanks for coming on.

Thanks you're doing. Thank you very much.

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