00:00:04 Speaker 1: Clean your gun, JR. Bow Where the Uncollective show calling Hunters new and all uncollective show with thanks or facts and opinions are subjective. You're listening to the whole collecting by everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Hunting Collective. I am Benjamin Patrick O'Brien and I'm joined by Phil t engineer Phil I bet hey, we're in the studio together. Good. It's good to see you. When was the last time that this happened. I can't remember we were with your honest maybe yeah, we did, like an Ascal eagle. It's been months and months I've seen in your face. Do I look more accomplished? Do you? Uh? Do you want the honest answer? Yes? Then yes, yes, you look awful like you need a nap. I've just touched down last night from Texas and it is officially I'm gonna need some sort of sound effect like dirt Owner, something really cool. It's officially. Turchi says that you're feeling it. There it is I put I put the sound in. You feel it? Yeah? No, No, I'm not. You're not feeling it. Maybe after I go Turkey hunting, I will be feeling I'm I wish you were with me in Texas. It was fantastic. So I saw many many Instagram comments, Yeah, worse film, people confused into the st that I wasn't and I wonderful. Like the rest of my hunting career, every time I post something about hunting, people like worse film. Why isn't Why aren't you mentoring film? Why are you mesitor phase out somewhere not being mentored by you and you're out hunting? Uh? To do you know official pressure LEAs style? Phil? Uh? Did not go with me? Would you hope? I know? Ben? For the people that did comment, Ben did extend me an invite, I did, but it's it was just it was like only a week and it was like a week in advance, and you know when I got I've got a family and kids in daycare situations, and it's just it's hard to organize something that last minute. But Ben did invite me, So thank you Ben. No, no, I did not join. I wish you had come. It was it was tremendous. Shout out to to Greg and Casey and to Marshall who let me hunt a place. Uh, a new ranch. I guess. We hunted Friday and Saturday and new little property. I've never seen um in a wonderful little I mean it was like idyllic field. It was idealic. It was like green grass. It's six eight inch really like florescent green grass. A lot of open timber for turkeys to eat, bugs and just you know, gobble and open meadows, a lot of edge ground, like tall, tall trees for them to roost in. It was kind of unbelievable. And I killed beard Zilla. He's all a picture beards at all. I did now his his for everybody that were was at that the guest how long his beard balls? On on my Instagram page? It was eleven inches flat. Do you know that's good? Phil? I don't. That's amazing. Okay, I don't know. I don't know what the longest. Let me google like longest turkey beard ever, but it's it's gonna be way longer than eleven inches. So that's the longest. Let's see what it says. WHOA. Cody May of New Boston holds the possible world record for the longest bearded turkey ever. The bird has a twenty two and a half inch beard twenty two and a half inches. He's dragging on the ground. Yeah, let's go to a rope rope dragger. There's a lot of different names for for spurs and beards on turkeys, but that's eleven inches. Is the biggest one I've ever killed. So I'm gonna make a little broom out of it. From my office, I'll come sweep off her, sweep off your buttons here. But yeah, he came, he flew down. We're doing a little uh shout out again to Marshall Seardorf from Texas. He works at four some nature meach Remember them, Oh yeah, of course they're awesome. Um, we were hunting together. We sat up. There was eight gobblers phil eight as far as I could tell. And a gobbler is a turkey as a turkey, male turkey. I thought. You know a lot of times you can tell the difference between a Jake gobble and a Tom gobble, Tom being a mature turkey two years old and older Jake being a one year old, because, uh, Jake's gobble, it's kind of like he's he's trying to like if you were like, what's man that you're trying to sound serious? But at Tom's gobble has this extra depth to it to enough of them you can tell Tom went through puberty in the eighth grade and his voice has dropped. Yes, yes, and the jake. So so we set up I'd say about two yards from a roost. And I've been saying the night before, over a few beverages that I did, I thought the best time to turkey and Phil was nine am to eleven am. Yes, you said this. I've said this the first turkey I killed down in South Texas with my buddy DJ the day before. We literally just sat and didn't move, and I told him, dude, if we sit here untill ten, I think we'll kill a turkey. So we sat in a spot where I knew the turkeys wanted to be. We sat there. It was in my ass was anxious. I was like, dude, let's get out of here, let's go walk around. I stood up, I stretched out as a god. I don't know, man, I don't know. I haven't heard, we haven't heard a gobble. We had a couple of hands come by and I was like, God, no, no, even just go let's go call just walk around. We're just gonna walk around. We're gonna find a turkey. And then I told myself no, No, you sit the fun back down and you wait. Do what you said you were gonna do. When I sat back down, Phil, fifteen minutes later, there it is. There, it is. Came a couple of I worked him. He started off probably three four yards away, came down to Sindaro, cut it off straight into our little set up, and then he died. Didn't hadn't heard a gobble all day until nine in the am, right at my cut off time. Yeah, and I shot him at ten oh seven, right cut off time. So that's the biggest thing that you'll you'll find, which is this is what we found on our our next time where I killed the second turkey, is that you're it's sit and get or run and gun. Have we talked about this before? We talked about this Tony Peterson a little bit last Yeah, I think we went over it a little bit, or maybe that was with Preston Pittman on Steve's podcast. I've heard I've heard about it. This is the different turkey philosophy. Philosophical really debate is do I sit and wait or do I run and got? Do I go and find this turkey? I call it trolling for turkeys because you can just you you basically in the case of Texas, and you just walk us and daro, or walk a road, walk a couple hundred yards, call response nothing, walk to in a more yards call response nothing. You're kind of covering. Think of it as a bull's eye. You start in the middle. You kind of work out as you're covering an area with your you know, with with your calls, see if you get a response. Or you could sit in a place where that you know they want to be, or you know they're going to pass through and you've got that extra advantage that they want to be where you already are. So in this case, the first turkey, which which method have you have you found more success? We were talking it sounds like to me, I feel like I'm the kind of impatient person with other things that I would want to like be moving around and do like I feel like I'm doing something like I will actively take a detour in in a town or like a highway even if I like, I'll say that there's there's a way where there's traffic, got it, and you'll still probably get through it like more quickly than if you went on the detour. But I'll take the detour just because it feels like I'm moving, you're doing I'm doing something. Sun't take me twenty more minutes. You're seeing exactly you know, I um, you have to first you gotta think, like, what is the what kind of day is it? On the first or he has shot? It was a jury day a little way in d the birds had the day before. I called into Tom, a big old Tom and his head. It's about three yards behind me, and I worked at turkey. I called him right in behind. He came through this ridiculous mesquite brush, came right up behind me. Couldn't get a shot. He gobbled his way off into the distance, and I called him back like forty five minutes later. In that case and in the in the case before, I knew there wasn't a lot of turkeys around this ranch we were hunting. The ranch manager told us they had such a rough time with the big storm down in Texas, the big coal front that moved through, and they had so little water over the last couple of years that their turkey populations were way down. So I knew we were hunting a limited number of times. And I also knew where there was one big creek where they all hung out. So if we lined ourselves up on this creek and we just sat in a place where turkey would want to cross, we sat there all day, that turkey was gonna come through. But that is hard to do for a lot of people. It's hard to do for me because I just like, I know that I know it's down that creek. If I just bombed down in that creek, Ma, if you calls coming out shooting in the face. But in that case, it was like, there's not a lot of turkeys, So if you bump one, you're kind of screwed. Because you bump one, that's you know, that's nine turkeys. You can hunt ten for that day because we bumped them out of the roost one day and then it pretty much turned out to be that So that there was a factor. But I think that the biggest factor is what kind of day is it. Are they goblin? Are they aggressive? If they're aggressive, you can be aggressive. If there's not a lot of talking happening, if they're not gobbling, if they're not responded, you're not seeing a lot of movement, then it's time to sit and wait. And at some point it might just be that the sun hits a certainty. It's funny because the way you're explaining it, I would think it would be the opposite. Like if if they were out there calling them being aggressive, then I it would kind of make me want to just sit like in park. But like, but if I wasn't hearing anything, I wouldn't seeing any movement, That's when I would want to get up and try to go to them. Yeah, and again, this is a philosophical debate I think all Turkey hunters will have for for the rest of time. My buddy Jeff Johnson, who was a writer for n R a American hunter when I worked there, wrote an article called sit and get a run and gun that that was was by far the best evaluation of this idea. But you know, I don't know. I think you just gotta have to been there. But I will just say this, there's no replacing being in an area where Turkey wants to be. There's no replacing it, whether or not you run and gun to get to that spot, or whether you determine the pattern and Turkey has been traveling and get there. There's no better there's no better tactic than to be in the place they want to be yeah, which I think goes back to something that Jim Heffelfinger has recently said on the Mediator podcast, which is that like these turkeys have schedules, they have like certain places they want to go throughout the day. They might not get there like the exact same time every day, but they will get there eventually. So if you know that a turkey is gonna show up somewhere, if he has, if he's done it, you've seen him do it a couple of times, he'll do it again. You might have to wait for a while, but he'll do it again. And that's the first turkey that we It was exactly that. You know, I had seen these turkeys about the prior day in this little meadow, a little clearing. I had seen him there. I watched him. I glass them up. There was a two hands and a gobbler and they were just just pecking around feeding. How he would strut a little bit, they would kind of you know, they were just doing turkey ship in this little meadow, and I knew that what they would do is fly down from the roost. We bumped them off the roost like idiots that first morning. So they changed their pattern but I knew that they wanted to fly down off the roost, strut around in the road, get you know, be seen, and then when the heat of the midday, they go down in the creek in the shade feed, find some tall grass, cool, cool place to be. Then they worked down that creek all the way to this meadow. That's what they do. So once you know that, then you can make the call that's what you want to do. You can go right to the roost tree and try to call him down they pitched down the road, boom, shoot him in the face. Or you can tuck yourself in the creek and try to get them to come by that way. Or you can ultimately just go to the place you know where they're going to be, because that's again that's a destination. Whereas the rest of that stuff, you're trying to manipulate them and to do something that they probably wouldn't do otherwise. Right, whether it's a slight change in their pattern or to them it's a big change. You're trying to call them to you, right, So that's you just have to read the situation. But in in the case of that the first turkey I shot, it was just like, well, I was talking to a couple of buddies down there. We were talking about this. I want to move, Like when I sit down, I'm there for an hour. I'm like, dude, I can find these turkeys. I know where they're at. I'm gonna find them. I know I can do it. I've got the confidence I can go find these circuits and get them to get it done. But um, ultimately, if you want to be successful, I think you stay put more often. I'll probably change that opinion next week. But it depends on where you're hunting, too, and how much knowledge you have. If you have no knowledge of the area you're hunting, it's hard to get a read on what the turkeys are doing. You gotta move because but if you have you know exactly. If the turkeys playbook is pretty easily read, kind of have to um read it and listen to what they're telling you and go where they want to be. But anyway, that second turkey that shot beard Zilla, he didn't have a twenty two inch beard, but a man could dream. But anyway, he was roosted. And this is one of the first times I've seen this. And and again I was round the fire with a bunch of a bunch of guys drinking a little bit. Talk about my nine to eleven theory. Al right, it had been buttressed by the prior turkey hunt where I shot the bird at ten and oh seven. So I'm like, you don't even need to go out in the morning. Don't go out there. What hapverage sleep in like it's nine am to eleven am, you're gonna kill a turkey. Well, the next morning we get up, we go out. We find these birds or who sit there, like I said, probably five to eight gobblers and a couple of jake's and a couple of hands, all roosted together. So we sit down about two yards and put our decoys outs, pitch dark, gobble, just a gobble fest, boom boom, boom boom everywhere. And so we start through some hen yelps. Marshall, my buddy's doing some colling through some hen yelps at him, which I would normally wouldn't do. When they're on the roosts like that. You can do tree yelps, which is kind of a softer hey i'm waking up yelp. But in this case there was Hans the hands that were roosted. We're lighting up. They're yelping. Yea, so we started yelping a little bit. They're goblin beard Zilla decides, I believe to fly down out of the tree in the dark to beat these other tom's to the punch, to the you know, get some action. Flies down out of the tree. Marsha goes, there's a turkey in the field. Like, dude, it's dark. Why is it in the field? I look and I see this white head. It's like a hundred twenty yards. I say, this white head in the darkness. I put my bodos up, like, holy sh it, there's a turkey in the field. It's twenty minutes before daylight. And he just started his way across the fence and just never broke strut, just spitting drummond. I don't think he ever gobbled. He just kept coming, coming, coming, And he was so close. When I first saw him, my shotgun was leaning against my hip and the barrel was in the grass. And so normally when it when a turkey comes, Phil, I'm gonna tell you, like, get your get your gun up and be like mounted and ready to go wait for him. In this case, I wasn't ready to go at all, and I had a bunch of cover we I had set to my left, which is where the turkeys were gobbling. Well, this turkey, let's say that the all my cover was from like eleven o'clock to six o'clock. Well, this kid, this turkey came at noon. He was coming right straight ahead of me. I had basically no cover between him and I, and he was coming right The decoys between were between me and him, and he kept coming strutting. So I was like, well, I'm basically gonna have to keep the shotgut on the ground and whenever I want to shoot him, he's either gonna have to be I'm gonna have to raise my gun up when he turns around and then kill him, or I'm gonna he's gonna probably run when I put my gun up, and I would have to shoot him while he's turning to leave. He got right to the decoys, and I waited, waited, waited. He just would not turn. He just kept looking at the decoys, going back and forth. I was like, all right, screw it. So I threw my shot gun up. I don't even think I got it to my shoulder and pull the trigger and he was already turning to run, shot him back of the head. Dead beard, zillah gone. And it was seven ten in the a M. And So my theory, Phil, that the best turkey hunting happens between nine and eleven is either complete horse shit or there are exceptions. Cool. Is that exciting to you? Can you feel my like pure? Yeah? I don't know if or the turkeys, but Ben is vibrating, you know, I am it's just the lifeblood. I was telling the guys we were with that. Ah, it's just every thing is better when when you have success. The turkey was I don't want to make it seem like everything is better when you kill something. It's not that. But like we said, honey has a game like quality, and when you win the game, pocket feels good. It feels real good. So hopefully you get that feeling. Phil. I'll do my best. I'll do my best for you. But yeah. So that was three and a half days of turkey hunting, two big turkeys, a bunch of meat. My boy and I this morning woke up early and start clean all the meat up vacuumsila, put in the freezer turkey nuggets Tomorrow night, Phil, I bring some in for it if you like, and then we're gonna if anybody has the ideas t C at the media door, com what we want to do for cutting these babies up and cooking them up. If you have anything you'd like to see on the Instagram, let me know and we'll do it. But that, yeah, that was my Texas turkey hunt. It has begun, Phil has begune. So if you haven't read the tenth Legion yet, have you? I have not? Damn it, you have roughly a month. I'm sure it'll be like the night before we go out. I read the first two chapters. All right, Well, listen, I was a procrastinator in high school and college. Uh you know I did, all right. I was a stay up until four am the morning that the papers do kind of guy. Yes, well, all right, we'll moving on. We got a lot to get to. Sure, that was a long winded turkey story. I just meant to mention that I had killed some turkeys. Um, But now here we are twenty minutes later. Um, so sorry about that next thing. T A C. Chapters Phil, have you have you logged in Facebook yet? You know I have, and I've done some lurking, have you I have been lurking the Montana chapter. They have been asking about you, like where is Phil? They they're looking every person that joins the Montana chapter, they're looking for you. Okay, we'll keep an eye out. Maybe do you have a Burner account? Can? You're not gonna share what it is? Well, I mean, once I joined, everyone's gonna say that's wise. No, So I didn't go with mango. But I chose a very generic picture of like a mountain at the end of a highway on the horizon. This will be a game like fine fill the engine exactly. But my name I put it Phil, and my last name is t E. Let me just say this, let's just do this. Could you change? Could you create a more encoded version of a Burner account that people will have to find figure out? Maybe I don't know how let how often they let you change your name. I don't think it's very often. I might have to wait like a month or something. I don't know. I'll see if I can. Phil is going to create a burner huh uh. If Facebook executives are listening, a lot of them, I think Zuckerberg listen, it will just be like Rick Johnson, and it'll be like like a camo. It's gonna be's gonna be something Phil will. We'll leave bread crumbs for you to figure out that it's him. He's gonna join one chapter and if you if the chapter leader or so many chapter figures out it's Phil, I will shower you with th HC gifts. It's called Fine the Fine Film, Fine Film. It's a new contest we just came up with Live. There's gonna be some Illuminati style clues I'm gonna leave in my posts and stuff. You'll have to figure it out. I've been watching this Q and on documentary. It's gonna be just like that they got the Cicada thing, not just like that close. All right, let's see Michael, Now is it canos k n A U S S. That's it's now? I think that is definitely silent. No, or now see is it two s is an e? No, it's just two s. Alright, Michael canal h he is. He's our leader from New Mexico. He made Phil. Did I show this do you feel check it out? Yep? You showed me. Describe what you're seeing right now. It's almost like like a Patrick Bateman style business card. Business card, yes with uh the Hunting Collective logo. Yes, it is the Hunting Collective New Mexico Chapter. I won't read out his phone number or email. Um he's says New Mexico Chapter leader. And then it says th h C New Mexico. Facebook dot com slash groups slash th h C New Mexico And so he he wrote on our little Facebook chapter admin page. I decided to make some business cards to hand out to people I come across and start talking to. Just thought it was a rather inexpensive, but still a nice way of creating a flyer away to get people to my group. Pretty badass. All these things make me chuckle because they're just so uh. Are folks in the in the actual cult chapters are very innovative and very excited and are growing our little chapters in amazing ways and with great passion. I just received an email from Doug during this morning lauding the Wisconsin chapter for their growth uh thus far, And so I'm excited to report on that. And now let me find I'm gonna find the last update that someone posted to where we are in terms of we're over a thousand members Phil, do you ever think we get there? Never? But I've always underestimated you before, so yeah, I apologon't underestimate me, son of a bit. Let's see, we got yeah leading the way right now. California has been leading the way from the beginning, but then of the last update, here's listened as Q two one in the spreadsheet. I think Patrick Ray made this from Alabama. Uh, California leading away four seventy seven, Phil, California leading the way. Wow, four seventy seven. Montana has shot up the leaderboard to number two with a hundred and seventy three. One of those is Phil's burner account and Colorado one thirty nine, Arizona one seventeen, Wisconsin one thirty five, wash Enton one oh four. Well done everyone, well done. A few have zero Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas has zero sad days. Sad days for those places, But get in. We're not looking to grow this year cult all that. We're not trying to grow it just for the sake of numbers. I wanna slowly, methodically bring people in that are really want to to come share in this hunting thing. Phil. I'm excited we're gonna keep having some folks on on the show to talk about this. Like I said, Nuri Hong in California. A. B. Rich has been blowing it up, Patrick Ray, Riley Nelson, all you guys out there that we call chapter leaders, thank you. And one thing before we get we got say I'm so old coming on remember him? Of course, I do public land about one of my favorite people in the world. He's got a new conservation issues we're gonna be talking about just now coming up. But before we get to that, I've got uh newman Landa wrote in he said, I just wanted to share my ten year old project that he's doing for his class. They were tasked with making a presentation that demonstrates opinion writing. My son Jack chose to talk about hunting and conservation. Attached is the draft he just sent me. I've gotten with him to spruce it up a bit, but I wanted you to see it in its raw form. It was pretty impressive. I just wanted you to see your young fans are fighting the good fight and guarding the gate in elementary schools. I hope you enjoy now. I hope this is okay with Jack. When I'm gonna try to read most. I'm gonna read it all ready, phil typos and everything. I hope, so I don't think I don't know. I hope there isn't any type. I read the first little bit of it. It's maybe, I mean, look a look at me. I'm just being I'm understating everyone. Maybe I'm sorry Jack. I would love to he apologize to Jack all right. Hunting, hunting, Why hunting is good for wildlife? There's a picture of a mule deer in a turkey on there. It says why hunting is good for the conservation. When a hunter kills an animal, yes, he or she is taking a life, but he or she also just help conservation because when an animal is shot by a hunter, there's one less animal to eat all the other grass or seeds or even other animals. So whenever most people here that an animal was just shot, they're probably thinking, oh, no, an animal was just killed, and now that a species will probably become extincts soon. But what they should think of is an animals just shot, and now there's more food for all the other animals. Also, when you go hunting, you have to buy a tag. The tag is so whenever you kill an animal, you put the tag on it, and there are only a few tags, so you don't over hunt an animal. Tags are also for another thing. When you buy the tags, the money that you buy the tags with goes towards the wildlife and conservation. So that is how hunting helps conservation. What do you think, Phil, You know how you are gonna buy out those billboards in San Francisco? You should still do that, but then just put that on the st jack on. There you go. Yep, there's more you want to hear more. The history of hunting Over two million years ago, cavemen started to hunt, and they didn't hunt for the fun of it. They hunted to survive and if they didn't get anything, they wouldn't eat that day. But over the centuries people have become smarter. They have learned how to farm and how to cook. And when the first refrigerator came out and then eighteen forties, people didn't need to eat right away. Around the sixteen hundreds, people made laws on wind, where, how, and what animal you kill and hunt over the over the decades, people have started hunting just for the pleasure of it, but also a lot of people still hunt for fun and to get meat in the refrigerator. I brought it back to the refrigerator there at the end. I like what he's doing. Also, throughout the years, poachers have been made, and often people mistake poachers for hunters, which is true. Um, can I just go to the conclusion um because he does the whole thing about the difference between hunting and poach, which is very well. But the conclusion in conclusion, I think that you should have a different opinion on hunting. Now. I'm not saying you need to start hunting. I'm just saying you should appreciate hunters more for the things they do, like helping conservation. The end, Jack, fantastic, great, well done. Yep, well done Jack. In all series is this is about as good as I could do, if not better. It had definitely better than very clean introduction. Yeah, you had those those middle paragraphs with you, with you, with your arguments and conclusion and your conclusion bringing it all home. So I if listen, Newman, if Jack somehow doesn't get an A plus on this, you right in and you let me know, and I'll I'll do. Whoever this teacher is, its elementary cool teacher, We'll take it. The tack. We'll let the THHD Facebook chapters take care of We'll take care of it. Don't worry. We'll rough them up all right now from one uh budding conservationist to a hardened one. Now we're gonna listen to my buddy Sam Silver. So I'm so hoped. What's up, Funny? How you doing? Man? I'm doing great? How are you doing? I'm doing I'm doing fantastic. You look good. You've been doing like a workout you told me? Yeah, like I've been tell me about this workout. I gotta get in Turkey shape? Is there? Turkey shape? Is that a thing that sitting on it by a tree? Is that the thing you'd get in shape for? I mean, I guess I haven't perused like Instagram or anything, but there's gotta be somebody out there with like I mean, there's every other fit like you know, there's there's gotta be like Turkey fit, like somebody was there there. There's ELK Fit, right, ELK Fit, ELK shape, was there an ELK fit and Elks shape probably and then uh white tail fit. Yeah, I guess it would just be like, yeah, eating nuggets and sitting against a tree. That's what you do. Yeah, yeah, go through the Chick fil A drive through and then get your nuggets and go sit by a tree and eat them. Turkey Yeah, turkey show. Yeah. Well, depending on where your hunt turkeys, I mean you kind of got to be in at least pretend shape. It's true. Yeah, hunting. Where are you do in South Dakota and the Turn? We were just talking about the turkey tour um a little bit. But South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska? Where where I'm gonna be? Uh, Saturday? Are you coming to join us? Are you coming with us? I won't make it to the hills, but I might be able to sneak in for a couple of days in Nebraska. Okay, good, you've just live on the air. You've you've promised that you're gonna be there. You sneak it. You sneak the hell over there. We need I will. Yeah, I'll do my best. Okay, Um, but that country man, You're up and down a good bit. It depends. Phill and I just had a big conversation about running, gun or sit and get. Do you have any philosophies turkey philosophies that that starter end with sitting and staying in one spot or getting up and run around like a crazy person. I mean, I'm probably the same as most people where you try to get a close to the roost as you can, where you're you know, you're in on them tight early, but then the rest of the day, you know, I'm typically you know, unless I find a spot where it has like a ton of like really fresh scratch, scratching or you know sign, I'm typically doing running gun type stuff the rest of the day, trying to get something just to gobbles back and try to you know, make a play on something. I mean, that's certainly the most fun. Anyway, it is the most fun. We were just talking a lot about if you can pattern turkey, which in the West is a lot of times hard to do. You just a big chunk of public land, you find a bird, you don't have time take pattern to sit and watch the turkey and see where it's gonna go or pattern them, and you probably don't know enough about the landscape. If you're just you know, walking into a piece of public and trying to find a bird, you don't know enough about that landscape to understand how that turkey is going to use that terrain. Yeah, it's different than you know, having a chunk land that you've hunted for however many years and you know like typically they're going to roost in this area or this tree. You know, it's a little little bit different. But um, I think over the years could probably figure out a pattern, like if you have like a consistent roost like area, a region or like little pocket. But man, it's tough. Yeah, well the argument, see what you think about this. I've come to believe in the sitting, sit and get and run and gun debate that if you know where a turkey it wants to be, even if even if this is what we're doing in Texas, even if you know where they're going to roost and you pull off yards or find that meadow, you know they're gonna want to be in once they get once they fly down, that's a more sure bet than it is trying to call them in and change their pattern. I agree. Yeah, okay, but like you said a lot of times, you don't have that knowledge. And if you don't have that knowledge, you gotta run a gun. Yeah. Now we gotta teach Phil all this man, because Phil, he's got a month till his first hunt on the Is he going to be on the Turkey tour. No, he's not allowed to travel away from home. You've got pretty much chained to the studio. We're gonna we're gonna have the first week, gonna have the first week of May. Phil is like a paid indentured service pretty much. I mean, we feed him. He's healthy, that's good, but he can't he can't like go more than a few hours away from the office, and he'll often to get called back by Rinella. You know, he has like one on a little shock up bring him back to the studio. Anyway, that's what we're excited for around here. Let's tell everybody your your Turkey events for this spring. Yeah, let's see, I've got South Dakota, North Dakota. I'm North Dakota resident now, so first tag in North Dakota. That should be kind of fun. But yeah, in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, and then uh potentially Minnesota. So I'm not right and I'm not traveling you know, too far this year, too many crazy states or anything. But um, I'm gonna be able to get out and get after it. Um definitely focused on I got my wife's got a tag, trying to get her a bird. My dad's got a tag, try to get him burg. Chris Ellis, who you know, is actually flying out. We're gonna go chase turkeys together at some point. So um yeah, good fantastic human. Um yeah, fun with that guy. But you refresh my memory on last year. I certainly had a tough turkey year last year when COVID kind of crushed my dreams for turks. How do you do last year? Do you feel like this is any redemption for you? Because for me, when I shot that first turkey in Texas, I felt amazing. I felt like I had been through something. I you know, I actually ended up having a pretty good year. I didn't go nearly as many places I had originally planned, Like you couldn't buy a tag in Nebraska, Kansas, you had a quarantine for fourteen days. I mean, there was always like stipulations on stuff. But I had a pretty good year. I shot four birds last year, you know, helped another three people get birds, So it was it was fun. You know. I got to be part of seven seven turkey hunts successful turkey hunt slash bring, so I'm I was lucky do you think I'm ever gonna get my goal of ten in one year? Have you killed two already, haven't you? Yeah, I've got too. I mean that's you're doing pretty good. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it. I feel like I've got a shot. I've got Montana. Well, I only bought three, but I can buy two more. I've got one in South Dakota, one in Wyoming, and two in Nebraska. But I can get a third yea, and so conceivably I don't have to leave the Western I can get my tin. Yeah, but I've been man, I don't know. I've got some backups. If it gets to like the end of May, are you gonna like travel to those states where like I think Michigan has typically a couple of days in June. Wisconsin is my spot. Uh. I haven't told Doug during this we have talked about it. I haven't told Doug Dusty, but have you to see if there's any leftover tags? There is? Uh? In Wisconsin, I think you can. I don't have any birds you can shoot Wisconsin. But it's not it's not a small number. Well, so it's it's typically, Uh, you can choose as many as you want, as long as you have the tag. But I know that there are way fewer leftover tags. This year there were like sixteen thousand more people that put in for turkey tags in Wisconsin. This spront bitch, Alright, Well maybe screw maybe screws my backups. Maybe maybe, But I mean, you know, I know I can get a tag in Idaho, um Oregon. I know I can get a tag unless it's a similar situation. So I think I could in the West. If I was like one short, I would just get I would just get real inventive with what I could do in the West. But I can conceivably get real close and then you know, I just need a little extra levers to pull to get the ten number. Well maybe I can call it, you know, if I if I am able to eat out to Nebraska with you, maybe I can call one in for you. Again, Dude, I'm this is this is exactly the the equation that I want. I'm happy to call in birds for other people and calling my own birds, but I'm also happy to have somebody to do all the call. Dude, I'm not there's no you go in it for me. I love when you call that birden for me and I spooked it. Somebody, well, we spooked it. That was great. I did that in Texas. Last week's had a bird come into three yards, goblin's head off, spitting a drummond like right behind my head. Basically he gobbled his way off it kind of I think he knew something was up, not quite understanding. Called him back into sixty yards two or three more times, I think, and never just never got a shot. But those are those are the fun times when you know there's a bird that that that's that fired up that you can pretty much put him on a string and just kind of pull them back in whenever you feel like it. Yeah, I think that's one of my favorite things. And I learned this from hunting with like Aaron war Britten and whatever. But like you call a bird in, they don't quite come into range, and you just let them wander off and then you go to where they came and gobbled and calm, and then they just come ripping right back in because they're like, oh, I did call up a hen, you know. Yeah, that's a good hot tip. That's a really good hot tip. I've done that before, not even thinking about it in that way, but just kind of like getting was for cut the distance. But it's that's that's a really good point. Yeah, that's a that's a great point. Yeah. I've used that tactic several times now and it's amazing. Um, like what we did it on your burden in South Dakota a couple of years back, where called him up and then he came up and kind of gobbled on this little ridge and then went off. And then we went to where he was and did you know, and then he came right back up. So came right back up. Yeah. Yeah, and and and again if you're able to if he sees something he doesn't like, you're able to to know. Okay, this turkey he's he's committed, but he's also not I mean, he's not brainless. Some of these this turkey I killed in Texas a couple of days ago, he was, he was fairly brainless. He just flew down off the rust. He flewed off the roost when it was dark and came in to beat his other buddies to the punge I for you, And so he is. There was kind of anything you could have done just about anything to him, and I think he probably would have came back in certainly didn't give him that chance. But you know it's it's again just reading that turkey. But that's a good hot tip man, Aaron Warburton of The Hunting Pot. Look, that's that's if anybody got anything from listening to two hours I mean talk this week it's Sam so holds hot tip the Errand that's that's another one. Do you hunting in South Dakota and hunting other places? Do you find that you that your strategies are different from state to state, from terrain to terrain, and have you kind of codified that in your mind where you know, like I'm gonna go here and do this. You know, I'm hunting Iowa cornfields, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna set up a pop up line, or I'm hunting South Dakota and I'm just gonna walk around. I probably haven't like broke it down into state by state, but I'm guessing you know, there's definitely tendencies like depending on where I'm going, Uh, you know, if I'm hunting stuff where there's like gonna be egg where I know, like turkeys are probably gonna at least head too and scratch um and eating whatever. Like you know, I probably use that to my advantage if I know I can cut them off, like if there's like a okay, they roost in that little cottonwood stand there, but I know that they're going to be working their way to this egg field because it's the only egg in you know, the whole area. Um, Like, I'll bring that into But I mean most of the places I hunt are so wide open like that I'm either like trying to sneak into where I think they're gonna fly down to, um, and then if that doesn't happen, then I'm looping away around trying to cut them off on the way to something. So um yeah, I mean I unfortunately, I'd like to do more of it. I haven't done a ton of big like big woods hunting. UM did a little bit back in spring of nineteen, and I had a blast room. Like I was honestly had more fun doing that, like you know, sneaking around in big oak ridges and stuff and um yeah yeah, mature timber right. Yeah, we were. I was talking to the guys at FHF the bino harnesses and chess rigs, and I was asking that, you know, how much let's make a product for turkeys, which they are making some inserts for their chess rig. I don't know if I'm breaking news on that, but that's what they're doing. Uh. Sorry, guys, if I'm breaking the pr release on now. One um, we're and we were talking about using bino harnesses for turkey hunting, and they were saying, listen, a lot of guys just don't use binos for turkeys, and I thought that's weird, because man, I use them as much as as much as any other pursuit. I guess I'm thinking, I'm not sitting in glass and all the time, but I'm using them all the time in the turkey woods, have you? And I imagine, I guess. And then I started thinking, well, maybe if you're hunting in big timber in the east or in the South, and you're in a situation where you just literally can't see that far um and you're calling turkeys through this thick timber where you you really don't have a chance to get a look, I guess I could see it then. But I mean, you're you're carrying bins every turkey hunt, aren't you. Every time there was one there was one hunt? Uh, three years ago that I didn't have binos in the entire time. I was like, oh, I just wish I had, but I feel naked. So no, I use them all the time turkey hunt. But again, like you said, like I hunt pretty wide open stuff, so like any time I see a black spot out in the field or whatever, you know, constantly, like if I'm ripping around like trying to scout, I'm definitely using them all the time. But even when I'm hunting, I'm using them a lot early in the season, you know, because it's not so thick that I can glass up birds on the roost and sneak into them. Um. So yeah, yeah, that's another thing, glassing up birds. I mean, you're gonna capture more light in a pair time by forty two then. But you know, to see one you might be able to see with the naked eye that there's birds roots, So you want to see is it a time, is it a jake? Is it a hand? You needed? You need that definition. You need to have those. So if there's folks out there that aren't carrying bins, shame on you. You should be. Um, I wanted to do this with you. I want to try to do this everybody here in the future. But top how many Turkey states do you feel like you've you've filled a tag? How many states do you feel like you've too. I was trying to count the other day and I got about thirteen or fourteen. Oh, I'm not even close to that. Yeah, let's see, like seven or eight, maybe seven or eight. Yeah, that's pretty good. I feel like that's way more than most folks. Yeah, it's most folks are probably one or two or three, but they're definitely a diehard Turkey enters. This is starting to become a thing that are trying to do the state. You know, Turkey Slam. I don't know if there's even a Slam. It's way more than a Slam. But that's way more exciting to me than the Grand Slam or the or the World Slam. Yeah, because it's called the U s Slam, right, is that what it is? Yea, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, so the U s Slam. I think we should start thinking about that. We should started, we should make it packed right now, we're going to do it, yeah, I mean that'd be great, it'd be great packed. That was a noncommittal packed. That's fine. I mean yeah, like, yeah, caught me in. We we have to tell our wives first. Yeah, business venture, you know. And I've been you know a few of those states I've hunted in where they're like right now the populations are super low, like Arkansas. I mean that's just tough hunting. Um. Yeah, yeah, the land to clay nuncomb a clay Nucomb kill one over the weekend, probably one lass over there. Yeah, it's one less over there. But yeah, that's that's uh, it's becoming a thing. But do you have let's try to name our like top five you could be the top five states that you want to hunt in that you haven't or top five states you've hunted in. Either one, like in your mind, can you rank Let's start at five and go to one load high. I can start of that if you have your try to think about it. Can I just think about this over the weekend. I'm gonna go number number five Florida. Florida is have you ever hunt in Florida? Number one? A lot of people hunt there. One because the seasons are earlier, right, so you can hunt in early March mid March. And two you can get yourself an osciola, which is a subspecies that really you don't have much. You don't have a chance to get anywhere else in the in the US that I that I can think of, or no of. So those are the generally two reasons. But again, man Florida is just a kick ass place to be, especially in March when the weather the spring spring is sprung and Ossola is in at least in my opinion, are a little bit more cagy, a little bit tougher than some of the other subspecies, definitely tougher than a marian. So I'm gonna put number five is gonna be uh Florida. Number four Oklahoma. Have you ever hunt in Oklahoma? I love that place. Oklahoma has is becoming one of the top turkey states, one of the most hunting turkey states in the country here recently, it's kind of a trendy spot to hunt if you're a turkey guy. Um, they're everywhere and it's it's not really as much of the culture as it is in places like Florida or places like Texas, but it's an up and commerce. So Oklahoma. Number three is South Dakota. That's it's gonna be your It's gonna be on your list. For sure. The Black Hills are an amazing place to hunt turkeys, not only the terrain, but the conservation story, just everything about particularly Black Hill. But I've also hunted them in the central portion of the state and the plains, places like the Rosebud Reservation, and so I've always had good luck in South Dakota. So that's gonna be on my list. I might surprise some people with number two, but I had a kick ass hunt in Oregon. I feel like especially eastern Oregon and a wonderful place to hunt turkeys. Um again, you can do it a little bit later in the years. Who're trying to schedule your turkey year? And the number one is Texas. Texas is I understand our public land friends, public Land Tis might not agree with my Texas is number one. But the argument I'll make for Texas is that not a lot of Texans give two ships about a turkey. They'll say doesn't have antlers, and you say no, They'll be like, we don't care. And so you can get a lot of access to a lot of big tracks a ground, or a lot of tracks in suburban areas that are smaller but whole, a lot of birds and there. There's over half a million turkeys in the state of Texas, almost of turkeys. That's a lot of turkeys, man, And so there's a lot of turkeys on a lot of nice people. Probably bias because I just came back from there. But if you can find a way to get access to private ground there, which I think is abundant in my opinion at least um, then Texas becomes the top state because you can start in the southern region hunt early and then you know, I was there this last weekend. It was opening day for for the northern part of the state. And so and you can go buy and over the counter license and you can get four tax um and that's so that again just it's plentiful. It's a good place to be. So that's my list. Hopefully I helped you, Sam. I know I'm hitting you with this. It's corect I'm gonna at all, Okay, knock at that. So my favorite place that I've ever hunted turkeys was Tennessee. And it was kind of a combo of things like just hunting, you know, big timber, hardwood stuff, but like the way it played out, had um like two days in a row, mishaps, like screwed up on a bird. And then I had a bird at like fifteen yards and had a bad shell and like you know kind of like farted a look like a little a little shot on shell. Like it was like, yeah, I was just like there's kind of like lofted it out there, and you know that one and then killed. I'm gonna start prank with people with that if I could get how that shell was creating. Just so yeah, just like some grass and a walk. And then the next day finally killed a bird but had to switch on left handed, had to switch to shoot right handed, and like like he was about to disappear over the rise and like just like domed him off the top. So that like this Tennessee was super fun. Um. So that five or one, that's five, that's one the other way you're dropping to that, Okay, it's fine, surprising surprising, I know. Yeah. Number two South Dakota. South Dakota, like you know, like have a blast hunting on the Black Hills and stuff. Um. Number three trying to think like Nebraska, I think just because of the abundance and uh yeah, lots of turkeys called the called the turkeys in certain areas. Um, you know, I had one hunt there a while back, like we buddy and I killed the bird. He killed the bird, but it was it was like nine degrees and we had six inches of fresh snow. So like watching a bird strut in. I think in the middle of a snowstorm. Now, it's pretty cool. Uh, let's see that's three Kansas is super fun. Yeah, and then Minnesota is a cool hunt birds in. Yeah, the state of Donny Vincent. He was up there shooting turkeys last year when I last I talked to him. They're just smashing birds. Tony Peterson up there, Yeah, we talked to him last week. Um, that's a sleeper. I feel like Minnesota. Minnesota. Yeah, not a lot of people talk about it, but there's certain parts of the state that have lots of birds. Yeah. I think that. I feel like that the categories for me, the things I'm looking for is abundance of turkeys obviously. Ah, and again I think abundance of access is always there, but but a good structure for access. And my Texas thing is is a bit goes us that a little bit. But like I said, I just think that I just know that there's a lot of landowners down there that would let you hunt. They don't care. They're like, man, there's no aler's on that turkey. They're in the backyard there. You go on them. And then I think three is how many tags you can get, you know, how how much bang for your buck? And that's that's limited in a lot of places. And again there's a few states where you have to draw for certain areas or for the entire state. Um, and so it's really I've been I just went in and bought a General Wyoming tag, a general a Black Hills, South Dakota tag, got all my Montana tags as a resident, and then got two tags on the piny Ridges of Nebraska. And all that stuff happened, um, just over the counter and just sat down one night, boom boom boom, got them done. And so that turkeys. I think one of the reasons that turkey hunting is so powerful to me because it is so accessible and you don't have to I mean, you could play in a turkey tour in the Western United States three weeks before you left and you would have Do you think that's going to shift a little bit in the years to come, simply because of some of the regions in the states that have diminishing turkey populations, and just you know, the popularity of turkey hunting has gone up, especially the popularity of traveling to turkey hunt. And yeah, and I think it's that, yes, that accessibility is always an issue, right, Look at Colorado Elk. I mean, if you start to look at how Colorado Elk has has ebbed and flowed over the years, you would open it up to everybody, and then you you inevitably have to start closing off portions of it. You have to start taking those over the counter tags off, put them in a lottery. You're putting them in a in a point system, um, in a drawal system. So I would say you're probably right about that. I think it'll take some time, I would guess to matriculate into that because even even states like Kansas, for a while there it was a two states or a two bird state, and then they went to a one bird state just because of populations. Um. Yeah, yeah, I think it will become the is something that as turkey hunters and people that care about it. And this goes back to our our recent conversation around Matt Ronelle's article about our three anti R three, it's like, how do we handle We can talk about that a little bit too, Um, how do we handle this? Because even this podcast where I'm mentioning I bought tags in this state, I about tags in that state. This is where I love to hunt. These are my top states I am making. I am actively understanding that by saying where I love to hunt, I'm other people will probably be there. And when the Black Hills are pretty big place, but not that big, not that big, and so I I know you probably run into this. All of us that have like voices in our industry have to think about it. Um, it's a catch twenty two if there ever was one. In my opinion, Yeah, yeah, I try to you know, like I try to generalize like regions that I hunt a lot um, you know, and a lot of people ask what state I shot something in or whatever, and I, you know, it's kind of a dick move, I'll be honest, but I tip quickly respond with the state of happiness, because you know, like I think, Yeah, in my my personal opinion, I think everybody's going to have a higher quality hunt if they do a lot more of the footwork themselves, figuring out locations, figuring out states, figuring out regions, whatever, whatever it may be. Like, I think you get a lot more satisfaction out of a hunt if you're not like, oh, he hunted here, I'm gonna go hunt here. Yeah. That's just that's just my personal opinion. Though it's tough, man, but I just you know, it was just in Texas met uh a lovely couple, Greg and Casey. They let me hunt their property. They were awesome. I'd love to hunt with them as much as humanly possible. Greg is a hardcore Turkey. Honor and shout out to him. He had your public and tease sticker on his yettie and he he was wearing the gobbler camp. Dude. He was rock and publicly and teas hardcore. But I liked him immediately when I saw that. He's like, I'm obsessed with turkeys. I think we I got along with him. I don't know, he might not like me. Enjoy the ship out of him. Um, he was doing, uh, pretty much the exact same Turkey to whether I'm doing a couple of weeks later, right, And so it just becomes like a part of the culture for people to travel and hit these states up and is accessible and so yeah, man, at some point, the more hunters that are on a place, the more it has the opportunity to become a biological desert and and have pressure and even make the hunting experience for those that are residents are traveling non residents all the more negative. Um, we're all more unsuccessful at least at least the chances for that. So I think it's the ultimate debate, it's the ultimate catch twenty two. Um, it's funny for us to be in this position. That makes me laugh because when I first got in the industry, was like, hunting numbers are falling, What are we gonna do? It's awful, Oh my gosh, it's and now we're we've we've shifted somehow into should we let more people in? Should we recruit new people that aren't already part of our networks? You know, I had a buddy that made a good analogy, like the recruiting should never stop. Like think of a championship team whatever sport. You recruited those players to come play there, and you're not going to stop recruiting just because you won once. Like it's a constant thing, Like you need, you need this constant flow of people and like you're gonna have some that fizzle out and some that you know re come back in. But like we can't just be like, well we're good and then wait for the next crash of hunters. Yeah. Yeah, our our system of conservation depends on a rising tide. It just depends on a rising tide in more ways than I can count. Um. Often, hunter there needs to be a hunter recruitment. I think it should be our three plus a. Uh, and the A is approval. You know, we need people to approve of hunting as as a thing that's good for society. Um. And that's that's likely more important than the actual recruitment itself. But the recruitment isn't a zero sum game. You recruit a new hunter who's in a family of non hunters, and that person becomes a hardcore outdoorsmen and they love it and they talk about it and that's all they post about, and that's all that they do. Chances are someone in their orbit is going to be drawn into that energy. And so that's how it works. It's not just that we are we're starting new there's you know, new cracks in the surface that people can enter through. You know, there's there's new gates that are opened by that. And I just I have so much passion about hunting and I built my life around it that I'm I'm unwilling to turn that off. I'm unwilling to turn it off. I will keep that going forever. And I'm you know, our buddy Greg I mentioned that's a big fan of public public lan Teaes. I told him, I said, I'm gonna be up in those four states doing a turkey tour. I'll drove some way points where I know birds are. You're coming up there too. I want to share that stuff with you. He shared his land in Texas and so, you know, hunters are generally not apt to do that, but uh, I think you can on a relational level, right, Yeah, Yeah, I think I think at some point, like it's just important to be helping helping others out to Yeah, it really is. But again it's it's a conversation that we have to have, especially around our three, Like it's gonna the more that we have success with it, yeah, the more it's going to become problematic. Turkey hunting is a good is a good example, and I honestly I do believe that COVID had like we're not going to know the repercussions that it had like on this space for a while, but like I mean, just how it felt out hunting the last year, Like there were you know, okay, you take professional sports basically cancel uh, college sports basically canceled, most high school sports basically canceled. So you have all of these people who you know, either used to or did limited amounts of hunting on just on the weekends, and now they're working remote. Like I mean, there's all these factors that go into it, and all of a sudden, you have all of these people with all of this time that love to hunt, but may only get out five to ten days of year total, and they have all those time they go out, so like you know, you definitely felt the added pressure, you know, and then just looking at Wisconsin, like selling that many more turkey tags and all this different stuff. I think it's going to be interesting to see how it shifts back. So like you know, we've done all this are three stuff over the last decade or however long, you know, like when it really started pushing and we have COVID hit and then you see this massive spike in you know, people in your spots and people at the trailhead and almost you know, it's all these crazy things like is that going to maintain or like how long is that going to take to shift back? You know, as more states start to open up hunter and people go back to work and sports come back, you know, all these other obligations that people have with family and all, you know, all these things, it will be. I'm just curious to see how it all plays out. Right now, I would imagine that the coffer for all the Pittman Robertson funds and all the state agencies have seen a massive increase in their budget. I hope the hell so. Yeah, We've we sold millions of millions of new guns and ammo is at a h millions of new rounds of ammunition. Yeah, so I hope that that money, uh, it gets into that Pittman Robertson fund and that Man. I've done a lot of studying on this, and it gets divvied out based on at some percentage based on number of hunters in a state, number of license sold in the state. There's a there's a very complicated equation that I can't I can't pull out of my uh jetlag brain right now, But there is there is an incentive to have more hunters, to get the percentage of robertson dollars state by state, and that definitely happens. To your point, I think the way I think about this is what I think we've done, what covid has helped do, and what what I think the youth movement specifically that you've led and our company here media has been a part of is. And specifically I say that because I know the age demograph that listens to this show, and I know it's young, and so I think what we've done is raised the floor. I'm not too cons I'm not too worried about how high the ceiling is, because I think the ceiling, as you mentioned there, is higher than it maybe should be right now, just because of covid um. But again, the important part is how many of these new hunters or new license um holders from this last year can we keep? Right That's the floor. The floor is how many of them do we keep year over year over year every year? That becomes our floor. So I think our floor has been raised to a level we're not really sure of right now. State, state by state, we can look, but we've raised the floor. And I'm not too not too concerned about the ceiling because I think that is the fluctuation, right, you may get a flood of new hunters for whatever reason, um and the and it's it's about that retained the retained part of that group. But I do think over the last couple of years we have raised to raise that floor to a to a. I don't know whether it's millions, but I was just reading an article the other day. I'll pull it up here so I get the numbers right from Pure Trusts about this exact thing. It's it's how do we retain these hunters Michigan's it's a Michigan saw a sixties seven percent hike and new hunting license buyers this year compared This is obviously compared to a fiftent increase in female hunters and a moderate growth in many younger age brackets. The state also sold forty six percent more apprentice licenses, a discounted option that allows new hunters to give the sport a try under the supervision of a mentor. And then this is from Dustin Eisenhoff, who is the marketing specialist for the d n R. He said, we have over one hundred thousand new hunting customers the year. That's a big opportunity for us to work with those to keep those folks involved. Um This says Nevada saw jump and hunting licenses. Um main sold a record number of deer permits nine rise on hunting in that state. On and on and on we go. We can we can list off those numbers forever, but there's obviously an opportunity there right and there's there's an opportunity for us to have an interesting Turkey season where we come back from our torn and be like, boy, that was intense. There are a lot of people. I've been thinking about that over the last couple of months, like, what's the reaction gonna be if we get out to the Black Hills and there's a hunter on every ridge? You know, it's not a positive It's not a positive reaction. I mean, I've definitely tried. I don't know how you think about it. I'll be interested to hear that. But I started thinking about it, like turkeys, elk deer, there's as much chance of hunters on the landscape as those animals. Like every time I see a hunter and I see a deer. I try and my best version of myself to think about those things in the exact same way. Both are both of them are supposed to be there, right, both of them are going to be there. Um. And it's helped the way that that I think a natural reaction every hunter, somebody's in your spot or a spot that you've worked hard to kind of cultivate, there is a negative reaction there. No, It's like last spring, I saw more people out hunting in spots that I've ever seen before. Um, And at first it was you know, frustrating, like because like you said, like you you know, you learn these areas and whatever, like you hate to be hunting stuff that's super pressured. But at the same time, like I try to just keep it in my mind that all those people are out there doing exactly what I love to do, and like, more power to them. Now, I think, yeah, I mean we could talk about all this. They are all the our three stuff and like all of them. But I think, and this this might be I have no science to back this up. I don't know what hunter numbers are like as a whole, Like if they're increased seeing decreasing maintaining. But I think what is happening, and this has shifted a lot over the last ten years, is because of social media, because of people like you and me talking about the importance of public lands and hunting up public land and like just hunting in general and talking about our travels and you know, the hunting public and whatever. I think the few the people that are hunting are hunting harder and hunting more species and hunting more locations than ever before. You know, think about like think about you know, like every time if I talk to my dad about growing up hunting. Okay, he grew up in Wisconsin. He hunted Wisconsin, and he would deer hunt for a week, and he would duck hunt for a few weekends, and he would, you know whatever, Like he'd do those things within the state, close to home. He wasn't planning fifty days a year on the road, you know, and and hunting ten different states and buying tags all over the place and putting in for all these hunts, um and so where it used to be like you'd hunt small game and big game and upland whatever like kind of locally. Now it's shifted where you might have fewer hunters, but they're all hunting more species, more of the time, in more places. Yeah. Yeah, I think social media certainly has added to that quite a lot. I mean the media across the board, whether it's podcasts or social media, but I think probably social media being the big change, um and the big driver, and like the kind of media people are consuming on a daily basis. I mean, you know what's more aspirational, right, Like, and when we went through this with our company, we bought a sixty four acre farm in Michigan and quickly figured out, like, that's great and all, but boy, it's hard to tell a story about that. And in the consistent fashion marketting did a great job with that. But again it's just a different deal, um. And so people when people come content creators in the professional sense, you almost have to strike out. You know, it's because you're chasing new experiences all the time. Exactly, That's all it comes down to, exactly, no offense to like Lee and tiffinitly Kassi, they're awesome people, but they started off as white tail hunters and their show now if you watch is very you know, Western, big game heavy, big game heavy across the board, and I think that's just a reaction to like, boy, we gotta show a lot. We want to do different things, and we got to show a lot of different things because we got a lot of a lot of programs put together, a lot of content we want to create. So I think it has I guess the aspirational set of Hunters, the people that are in the position to talk about it and show it have kind of shifted that, I think a lot. And that's no different than Jim Shocky, you know, ten years ago, fifteen years ago. It's not like it's it's it's totally new, um, But I think it's it's kind of proliferated to your point in the last who knows how many years, five to seven years for sure. And I'm assuming some of that comes from the age demographic that has grown up with like this, you know, more available media, Like you finally have enough money to go do these things, and you're like, I've been watching this for the last five or ten years, like people hunting all over the place, and now I finally can afford it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's it's an interesting that way. I run into people all the time that are you know, I ran into a couple last year and two years ago in Bozeman. Then are just randomly booked booked a fire tower to stay in for a week and they were gonna lcome for the first time and they just they heard about it on a podcast what you know. I don't think it was this one. It was some other podcast, and they decided, well, we're just gonna go and do that. I was like, man, that's aggressive. How long have you guys had a bow for? How long you guys been been in the archery game? About six months? It's like, you're gonna find that ran back into him. But but that's a tough one. The fire tip where they were going to was not a really great spot. But there again, they're doing it. Man, you know, they're out there doing it. They're inspired to do it, and they're gonna learn that way. Um and and that I can get with. But it is, man, it's an entangled we're in. We're in this kind of entangled it sometimes real mucky situation where we're um. This most recent conversation about R three's right in the crosshairs, which is what do we do if hunting all of a sudden becomes the most popular thing on the street over the next five years, what do we do? Um? But you know that's not something that our model of conservation is really built to address. I mean at that point, I think there would be a lot of restrictions and then it ends up all coming down to like if it explodes in that way, it would come down to, you know, really needing millions more acres of habitat put back into like wildlife habitat, yeah, and that's all there is, and put back into you know, managed habitat. Yeah. Because because going back to that catch point, to the more hunters, the more funding conservation gets right just on a flat level. And then as the point I saw you make and you did to take over for n w T, at the point you were making there was like the more conservation group members there are, the bigger their cloud is politically and socially, right, the more attention comes to the issues around turkeys or elk if it's r d F for whatever it might be. And that's a great point. But I think also you have the catch twenty two of the more hunters, the more dollars we get right licensed sales. Pittman robertson the American system of conservation funding is very much built to benefit from more hunters. Right, So there's there's one side, but are on the ecosystem level. From a wildlife management level, more hunters doesn't mean success. More hunters particularly means more pressure on landscapes, more pressure on on wildlife populations. Um. The dynamic that we're just we're probably not ready for wildlife because the habitat can't keep up with the funding because it takes so much longer to you know, to raise habitat than it does raise money. So exactly, yeah, the habitat is not something you you know, you can replace. And the wildlife populations again, while cyclical because of many factors, is predator, prey, win or kill things. There's just happened in any ecosystem. That's a natural ebb and flow. But you have this third and very impactful things. It's hunter pressure. Um. And I imagine if you would think about it this way, if you own a piece of property, they have this idea called block management, but let's just remove that for a second. If you if you own a piece of property and you are and you loved animals, you love watching them, hunting them, you love being around them, and you wanted your property to be a wildlife haven and to be a healthy ecosystem, and you care to kind of on an ecosystem level of every little piece of it is their water, is their cover? You know, trophic cascade? Is there a proper predator prey balance? And somebody came to you and said, hey, uh, the government will give you a subsidy if you allow hunter access and they and the government also then says, people will sign. You can set some rules and people will sign a log, but you can't sit at the gate and approve each one and shake their hand and talk to him. Right, would you do it if you only were talking about if you didn't care about the money or the subsidies or the tax break you might get for that. Would you do it if you just cared about the wildlife? I think the answer often is it would be sketchy. Right, It would be tough. I mean, that would be a very hard decision to make. Yeah, because opening that gate is the ultimate slippery slope argument. Unless you open that gate and people start coming through, and the flow of people start coming through, your kind of no longer in control of the balance and the of the ecosystem, Especially if you've done all of the work to help those populations flourish, you know, just to open that up to you know, stuff out of your control like it that it would be it would be a very hard decision to make. Yeah, And so that's the Catchwaney two. And I think that, in essence is what the kind of conversations we need to keep having because there is no easy answer, right, There's no easy answer to it. And it's not that, as has been stated in several articles and rebuttal to Matt Ronella's article, you're an asshole if you don't do this, you're an asshole if you do this, or it's not that, man. People have to make their you know, people have different sets, perspectives and value systems, and they make their decisions based on that. And we have to have an overall welcoming vibe in our community. But we also have to when we let people in, go like, listen, you're coming in. You're coming into this complex, messy situation that has lots of factors not only on the state and national level, but on on individual ecosystem levels. And so even when you step into a place where you've never hunted, as like a transient hunter that's just looking for adventure. You have to understand. You know, you're buying your tag, you're doing your part, but you need to understand kind of the situation you're walking into the best you can. That information is always available to you at the time, so you feel like that covers off on that situation. I mean, it's been something that's been going through my head almost every night when I go to sleep, because, um, it's one of those deals where I understand all sides, you know, when when it comes to how do we bring in new hunters, how many of them and what's the impact? You know. And had a big conversation a couple of years back with Randy Newburg, who has been talking about public lands and hunter recruitment and it stuff for a long long time, and I need to I wish I could knew the numbers exactly right off the top of my head, but he was talking about our three and how we don't really have a recruitment problem all that bad because if you look at the numbers of people just coming out of Hunters Safety every year, something like six hundred thousand new Hunter Safety members, you know, with a hunter Safety card every single year, and that's I mean, that's a lot of individuals. And if you the problem is really the retention, So you know, those younger people or whoever is doing it, like especially the younger crowd, if they get hunter safety, they might hunt for a year or two, but a lot of times, as other obligations happened, they kind of phase out. So it's hard to know which segment of our three to really like put the marketing dollars towards and put the fun towards two. Yeah, like which part of that do you do? Like is it is it really? Do we really need to be focused on the recruitment or do we just need to talk about making sure that everybody who's currently doing it is re upping their licenses every year and like keeping those people to keep the funding. So I don't know what the answer is, but you could, we could talk for hours and hours. You have to break it down, man. I think one thing that's important to break down here though, and I think a lot of people might if you if you stop and think this will be maybe apply to you, is what happens if you bring in a young hunter, right you like me or probably you, there's a very small subset of hunters. Once you become eighteen, you kind of go out of your parents home and you go out into the real world. Let's say you go to college. You're in a new place, don't have a lot of money. Now, you don't have your own you don't have your parents to take you and pay for the AMMO and pay for the guns, and pay for all the things that that it takes, the tags, the licenses. You have college, you have classes, you have new friends, you have parties, you have whatever whatever things that you do. Socially, your life changes. Has happened to me, your life changes in a way that doesn't support hunting, and almost any facet right, it doesn't financially, you're not supported. Um socially, you're probably not supported because you're being transported into some new place without your friends around, without your social structure around. And so I think one of the things that I love the most I know n WTF does this and and b h A does this is college chapters, specifically at universities and state colleges around the country, because I think I know for a fact that we're probably going to retain emergent hunters that that start hunting when they're adults what at a way higher rate than than people that start hunting when they're eight twelve years old. But just it just is what it is that happened to me. I don't know if it happened to you, but it definitely happened to me. Um, because your focus shifts and your support shifts at that time in your life. I mean, it didn't happened that way for me. Just I if anything, I hunted harder when I got to college. Well it's like I know a lot of people no offenses like people like me. I know a lot of people that got to college and went harder because they were free and the school thing didn't go as well for them, but that they're definitely I mean, I said in bows when we have hunting fishing university down the street, like it's you know, that's what it is. So but I was also to go to college somewhere where hunting access was readily available, so that's a different Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the major colleges are in in major cities or major urban areas. So again I don't have numbers on this, but I just that is one of the vulnerable points. So it would be nice to understand, like, what are the vulnerable points in retainment? One of them, I think is is people having kids, young children like I have. And I think one of the vulnerable points in retention is I save retainment. That's not even a word. I don't think in retention. I've been saying that. I feel like for this whole podcast, retention is uh is it exactly that? Like, well, what are the weak points in in somebody's life? Not weak? What are the points somebody's life where things shift and you can find ways to keep people involved in their hunting, in the hunting community locally, um, to support them during those times. And because again what you you know, you lose your hunting social structure and you may never go again. So I feel like we've we've covered off of that. We can talk about that forever, um, but we need to talk about your new conservation initiative. And I'm gonna shower. I'm gonna heap praise upon you. You You ready for it, You're gonna feel you might blush, well, thanks for appreciated ahead of time. You don't know what it's gonna be. Um, I just feel man, Here's I'll say it this way. Our generation me and you and I. I've we've had this probably on this show before. I think it's fun. It's been fun for me to track along with you and others in kind of are a generational way, like friends in the in the hunting space that are able to track along in our lives and see how things change ange over time. Right, we're we're part of I feel like a brotherhood and like a bond of people that are just you know, we're seeing it in real time. But one of the things I think is important for that there's people are being innovative and and not giving a ship about the way it's done now or the way it has been done. And I think what you're doing with public and tease with your brother Josh is one of those things and maybe kind of the a stark example of relentless innovation, innovation in a way that like not only innovation. T shirts are not an innovation. I don't think I'm breaking for you, but the way in which you guys are moving through the conservation space and coming up with ideas that are not only pushing you know, people that that buy your T shirts, but also the conservation organizations themselves to to appreciate and pursue their own innovation around all the things we're just talking about, how we get people in, how we get more members. Uh so, kudos to you for that. And I think, um, I don't think you're gonna stop innovating, but but this particular thing you're doing right now, I think is is is a great example of the innovation that you've that you've had since you started building a bus, or maybe in your head prior to that. Um So there's my compliment. Now you're gonna tell people why I'm complimenting you. Well, thank you for that. Um yeah, you know. It's it's been fun too for Josh and I to like kind of as we grow the company, you know, and as as as we're able to sell more merchandise, the more money we raised for conservation. But it's been fun to come up with try to come up with different ideas and and do some things that aren't done in those spaces and try to you know, we're both he owned a business, we own this business together. We're both business majors in college, so it's been kind of fun to like bring a different approach, the business side approach to conservation, to figure out ways other ways to raise money other than banquets and other fundraisers and stuff like that. So but yeah, this's new initiative is called Conservation Crossing, and it is a collaboration between US at Public Land Tease and five conservation organizations where if you buy a single Conservation Crossing T shirt, you become a member of Backcountry Unders and Anglers, Delta Waterfowl, the Mule Deer Foundation, National Wild Turkey Federation, and Pheasants Forever, all for bucks. So typically a membership for each of those organizations about thirty five dollars, so that's a D seventy five and then T shirts so so about a two value for a hund bucks and you buy the shirt, we take care of the rest. So we ship you the shirt and the matching decal for the Conservation Crossing side of things, and then we get all of the all of your information to the conservation groups and then they will send you your member packets, your membership card, your decals and all like you know, the magazines and everything else that goes along with being a member of any of those groups. And one of the other things I'll say is is I have all kinds of crazy ideas and it is it's one thing to have an idea, but one thing, it's the other thing to make it come to fruition like you guys have here, and again, to make it easier for somebody to understand the value of joining multiple organizations, you know, I have to sit back and listen, like all of the I get a lot of magazines to come in to mail, and my wife pausble on my desk, and that's kind of how I track the organizations I'm members. I have membership in and again, like everybody, getting to the point where you appreciate it enough that you want to become a life member, because I think that's the thing that that folks should be pushing towards. But you gotta get in the door first, right yeah. Yeah. And it's whether it's through something like this or just in general. But again, there isn't another way that I know of to join multiple organizations like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well you should do it. I don't know why. Uh, you gotta get the rest of the organizations involved. If you need me to kick him in the kick him in the ass and get him in on this, I can. Yeah. This was just you know, round one. So I think Conservation Crossing will continue to evolve and grow and we'll figure out, um, you know, which organizations we can add and how to do that and how to scale it, like how do we how do we make that a thing? So I think it's just the beginning for this whole project. But yeah, just launched it a week ago and it's been going great so far. I've raised a ton of money for all the organizations and just gonna keep letting it cook and keep you know, every every single shirt we sell is you know, that's one more member for each five of those organizations. So yeah, it's usually again like we were we were saying earlier in the show, and we'll continue to say, um, these these these organizations are hurt, and especially ones that are really relying on the in person banquets. Uh, it's it's it's it's a struggle. Man. Have you found out some specific numbers or anything you'd like to share from these some of these groups in regards to to where they are. Yeah, I didn't get actual numbers on like how many members they lost over the last year because of you know, the lack of banquets and that type of stuff. But I mean collectively, it is millions and millions of dollars that did not come in simply because the you know, both local and national chapters could not have these events that they rely on. Now, I think going forward it will be beneficial in the long run because it probably forced a lot of these organizations to learn how to do a lot of stuff online, and now going forward, they're going to be able to do both as states open back up, you know, and after the pandemic, you know, you'll be able to have in person and virtual events. And I think that'll that'll be a big thing going forward. But man like in a single year, the loss was catastrophic, So it's, uh, yeah, this this was you know, this whole initiative was also just a way to try to help them out, as you know, as much as we can, and and really just shine a light on all of the work that they do. So the last week I did takeovers for each of the organizations through the public land Tease page, and I think starting tomorrow I'm gonna do it on my personal page, just kind of like go back through each organization and talk about like the membership benefits, what those organizations are really about, how much your membership means to those organizations, and why you should be even if it's not buying our shirt and becoming a member of all five, why you should be involved at some level. Yeah, And I would say on a on a personal level, on an even a selfish level, if you want to put it this way, you are you become a member of this organization, any of these organizations b h A. I definitely know for sure you now have access to, whether you use it or not, a local, state, and even regional group of people if it whether you're a new hunter or a a veteran, that you can now go to and be a part of. Right there's you know, even this podcast has its own state chapters. Um, and that's I think that kind of community, that communal response to conservation is as cool as anything and as useful for your twenty five dollars or whatever how many how many ever well you know hus in this case, to join a bunch of organizations, you're able then to to pull immediately, pull in a community of people that care about what you care about immediately. I would just one of the most powerful tools is just being connected to all the people in your local area. And I would pay bucks just to be just to have that, you know, access to that community. And understand because there used to be hunting clubs. When I was a kid, My dad belonged to the hunting club, and it was it was kind of about access to the ground, but it was also about access to uh, you know, a bar or somewhere and nowhere, or a bunch of people hung out that that did the same thing you did. So this is this is it that people don't forget about. Not only are you giving, but there you have the opportunity to get a ton back, but you just have to go out and be active in that. Yeah, I was actually, I mean, I've been a member of a lot of groups for a long time now, but I'll be honest, I didn't do a lot of like a big deep dive into all of each organization's membership benefits. You know, you get the member card and you get the decale and you know, you remember, but most of them offer discounts to their partners, like you know, like big companies like like b h A. You know, you get a discount of first Light and Philson and Vortex and different stuff. So I mean, just like that's one example, but all of them do it, and uh, yeah, it's it's it's been fun to really take a deep dive into what each of these groups is doing to help protect I mean collectively, like hunting heritage for the future. Really yeah, And to your point earlier, I remember talking to Lantani about I was on a committee for b h A about the rendezvous. Last year. We did virtual rendevous, hosted a lot of events. It was it was fun, man, fun, fun time, and we had the exact conversation that you know what you just mentioned. I said to him, Listen, this is gonna be hard to do, to to scramble together. That we're gonna lose a lot of money not having an in person rendezvous. It's gonna hurt. It's like a gut punch right now. But what we're gonna be doing, we'll be tougher next time, and we're gonna we're gonna have modernized. We're gonna find new ways to innovate, find new ways to get people together. And I remember having that virtual rendezvous and thinking, man, that was cool as hell. We should be doing that every single time, and I'm sure sure we will be. Um And so again to your point, innovation in in our in the conservation space has been rare, you know, relatively rare. There was like a bunch of established ways to get people together. Banquets, as we mentioned, is one of them. Uh, conventions is another one. And when those things get wiped off the map. I've seen Wild Sheep had an awesome digital convention here recently. U s c I has been doing some good stuff and so we've seen you know, I guess you could call it modernizing some of the ways we gather, um when we couldn't gather in person. So I think that's another big wave coming here. Connect to what you're doing for sure. Yeah, definitely. All right man, Well, I appreciate you as always, uh, thank you for joining our pact to come to hunt with us this year on the Turkey tour. You've promised on the podcast don't let the listeners down. Um, as you can tell, I just need to like convince Sam that this is top priority to come hunt with me top already. Um. Either way, good luck this season. It's Turkey season. There's nothing anybody can do to bring me down. I am so hot right now. I have two turkeys in the back. Just there's nothing. I'm just floating on the cloud. Alright, Sam salt, thank you, sir, Hey, thank you appreciate it. Alright, Tell everybody one last time where they can go to get themselves a T shirt. To go to public land tees dot com. It is the first item on the page, the Conservation Crossing tea. You can't miss it. There's more information about it there. So yeah, go join all five organizations right now. That's all I can say. It's got a bear, is that grizzly bear, grizzly bear, buil deer, wild turkey, pheasant, mallard duck. That's right, bamn, do it, do it. That's it. That's all. Thank you too. Samuel Holts and his brother Josh so hold public land Tease, public and Tease dot com, Public and tease on all the social Media's really cool thing that they've been doing, uh pretty much constantly. But this, this particular program is as cool as anything they've done thus far. So if you have a HD and you want to support it, please do. It's important to to keep folks like Sam in our industry working, being innovative around how to get people to think about conservation. Um and I'll tell you he's just all around good dude, regardless, so sports Sam and his brother Josh and all that they do. If you don't mind, we thank you. Uh so, Phil, Yeah, we are roughly a month away from your hunt, Pee. A lot of people were at like you said earlier in the show, a lot of people were asking about it. Where's Phil? Is he hunting with you? I'm gonna go. I'm leaving Saturday to go on a two week long Turkey tour again without you. Just I just I want people to understand that Phil and I have scheduled our hunt for the first week in May, and that every time then nobody knows. But I'm leaving on a jet plane and I'm gonna go a two week Turkey tour with the folks at First Light for Van Fauston, Kevin Harlander, our friends at First Light and All Star crew. The n w TF is on board with our two week long Turkey tour. We're calling it the Trek for Turks. More Turkey telethon um stick in. You're gonna be pretty soon. You're gonna be hearing a lot of details. We'll talk about it next week obviously on the show. A lot of details on how our Trek for Turks is going to raise money for the n w TF. We've mentioned on the show prior and we've had a lot of fun with Cameo. How about the fact that we needed to raise money for the n w TF. Banquet season is going to be sketchy this there's a lot of people getting vaccinated, so maybe there is a more robust banquet season than we we thought earlier in the year. But the lack of of large gatherings is hurting Turkey conservation in a way that, um, it's very serious. So part of my two weeks I don't want to want to break all the news. I'll let First Light do it. But part of the two week Turkey tour is basically a telephone We're gonna be cranking out content while we're in the field, throwing stuff on Instagram, asking people to go to First Light's website and sign up to be a member for some awesome benefits exclusive to signing up on the First Light website. So all that's coming. I'm excited about that. So, just so everybody knows the schedule, two weeks of meter Turkey hunting sands pill which means no fill unless he shows up in camp without fit and then somewhere around the first week and maybe Phil and I will we will be in the field, and then we will have taken um our weather b e t n out and we will have put some work in with it. Okay, you're good, I'm great. Anything else you want to say? No, how have you been? I haven't seen you in a while. I'm good, feel good, feel healthy? Did I look healthy? Yeah? I told you look great. Alright, thanks? No, I feel good, feel healthy. I've had a little long COVID symptoms. I've been telling people, oh really yeah, but having that yep, little ringing in the ears, fatigue. Man, you got hit. I got hit. Sucks. It's not fun. But beyond that, family is good. It's spring Turkey season. I'm telling you, dude, you couldn't. You could tell me anything and it wouldn't ruin my mood right now, literally anything, And I'd like, that's fine. Can I turkey hunt? Because I look back to last year? We look back to last year turkey and basically got canceled pretty much. We're sitting around there like, oh, they cancel it in South to go to Oh they cancel in Nebraska. Oh they cancel it here? And I didn't kill the turkey. And now that I'm two turkeys deep, I spent the morning with my my son talking about what a turkey breast is and a turkey tender and turkey thigh and the turkey leg, and I was flying around shooting turkeys in the face. It is. It feels good to be back and I feel inspired phil as always. So you wanna what do you want to say before we go? Let's not drag this out. I don't have anything to say. You could just say bye. I beat Dark Souls three last night. Nope, say bye. It's a pretty tough game. I was proud of myself. Nobody wants to beat I've eaten four of the the Soul Scorn games. You haven't directed by hit A talk of Miyazaki directed by It's a video game, dude, How how does anybody do? So? You have so much to learn? How does it? As a co mentor? It's a mentor mentor relationship. Dark Souls three and the Demon Souls direct a video game. It's it's determined. First of all video games, so many different art forms and and disciplines come into one product. There's there's cinematics, there's game design, there's programming, coding, arts, art, direction. All these things have to come together to form a cohesive product. Doesn't always go well, but when it does, you can thank the director of the video. The director, I think you would come up with a different that's fine. Take the title director, my title a mediators, director of hunting. I've never directed to hunt in my life, so I guess, I guess, uh the fellow, you just strip your title and strip my title. Anyway. I'm I. I got I got the first dose of the Fiser vaccine AG. I'm two weeks in, feeling feeling good. You're feeling okay, getting getting that second dose next week? Alright, feeling great? Alright, phils vaccinated. We're moving on next week. More turkeys, more fun. We're trying to recruit Robert C. Jones come back, talk about more vegan, vegan stuff. But really, right now we're thinking about his turkeys. Um So, if you want to write into sc meter dot com, it better be about turkeys. That's all we're gonna read for the next two months. I'm gonna try to get ten. By the way, I think I can get it. Yes, So I got I got two in the bag. I got six dud. You're you're you're going on a turkey tour. Honestly, I'll be mad. I'll be mad if you don't get in town. If I could just shoot ten and it wasn't like legal, really, you know, I would just shoot ten. So it's a numbers thing. At this point, I got two turkeys in the bag, possibly seven tags on this Turkey tour right now. I purchased only six I could. I think I could buy another one in Nebraska. Have you ever gotten ten? No, most you ever got seven? I think, But I never started with I've never well, I guess I've probably had two this early before. I definitely have. But this is I just feel like I gotta I just it's I gotta have it. I gotta do it. The turkey meat will sustain my family, and if you know, God forbid, society crumbles in the next six eight months, we'll be living off turkey. You can come over, bring your turkey meat, will commune, We'll have it. So everybody root for me. I got I can get up to six, up to seven on this Turkey tour, so it's possible by around April I'll have nine and then it's just like then we're just sweeping it in. Then we're just doing it and we're living it. There's sailing right in so Um. Everybody think about that when you go to sleep tonight, Say bye Phil, goodbye bye Clean. You're gone and to your bowl where the Hunt Collective show and calling hunters new and all, the Hunt Collected show, working pick and shuttle or working ben in hand, we conregate nice lovers, ear Lane. I'm a land. We're focused. We're just living for the searching, dreaming of the fire and a salty Gilburn. But we ain't coming by till it's colden Lake taking its slow so week shoes straight clean, You're gone to your bowl where the hunclected show, calling Hunters new and all. They ain't no cold time to