Ep 37: Bear Grease [Render] - Waterfowlers, AGFC Director, and Guarding the Gate

Published Jan 19, 2022, 10:00 AM

On this episode of the Bear Grease Render, the crew is joined by the director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Austin Booth and the waterfowl biologist for the state of Arkansas, Luke Naylor. Both of these guys were on the last Bear Grease podcast but came in to discuss waterfowl hunting and the agency's plan to become more accessible to people. Austin is a marine,a lawyer and public land duck hunter and is hoping to bring some change to the agency. He talks about the unique public meetings they've been having regarding the Green Tree Reservoir issues in Arkansas and we talk some more about the culture of waterfowl hunting. Aside from an intriguing conversation about footwear, the Render begins with a stand alone section by Clay regarding the recent attacks on hunting and what we can do. You'll enjoy this one!


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Yeah. My name is Clay Nukeleman. This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Hey, guys, I want to take a minute and talk about something that I think is really important right now. In the United States, the Spring two legislative agendas and public comment periods for state agencies are coming out, and as I hope you've heard, many have strong wrong anti hunting and specifically anti predator hunting agendas. Washington State recently canceled the spring twenty two bear season, despite it being recommended by their Fishing Wildlife Colorado Bill SP twenty two DASH oh three one is set to ban mount Lion, bobcat and lynx hunting. Arizona is experiencing a strategic push from the animal rights crowd to change current regulations about lying and bear hunting by flooding the public comment process. California has petitions filed to suspend bear hunting in the state until further population studies can be done in Vermont. Anti hunting groups are pushing for a full band on the use of hounds in hunting, and the list can go on. Years ago, if you told me that hunting was strategically under attack, I would have called you an alarmist crying wolf when there wasn't one here. We all live in some version of cocoons with limited visibility of the wider nation. That cocoon is partly geographic, but mainly the un is our own interest. When I started working with Bear Hounty Magazine in twenty thirteen, my eyes popped wide open when I saw bear hunting and the crosshairs of many states, and I saw how the tools of bear management and the methods of take that make bear hunting viable had already been banned in many places. Just as a short, non complete overview, California band bear hunting with hounds and mountain lion hunting in the nineteen nineties. Washington State banned hounds and bait for bear in nineteen six, Oregon band bear hunting with hounds and bait in the mid nineteen nineties, Colorado band bear hunting with hounds and bait in ninety one, New Jersey Band all bear hunting completely on the basis of public opinion. Several years ago, we started saying that we've got to guard the gate. Guard the gate because predator hunting is the gate of the anti hunting community to come into the space of the North American model of wildlife conservation, which I might add is the most success full act of wild animal and habitat management on planet Earth. Since the frontier days of America, there has always been a political and ideological divide between the urban and rural areas. The masses often have the attention of the politicians because of money and votes, and as I've always said, it's a one phase cell. To convince someone with no history or knowledge of hunting that killing a bear or a predator is bad, it's a much more complex story to convince them that it's a good thing. And this is why we as hunters have to work harder than those that oppose us, and we should because we actually have stock in this thing. There is something that we've now seen work twice in the last year, and it's when hunters from all over the country, hunters of every striping creed, participate in communicating with legislators and the powers that be. Last year, a California bill was submitted to banned bear hunting, and the legislator was bombarded by people who love wildlife enough to know the hunting is good, and it swayed the political process and the bill never made it to the floor. And just the last few months, the public outcry of hunters to reinstate the spring bear season in Washington got the spring bear hunt back on the agenda of the Commission and was recently discussed again. Inside of a democracy, the main tool that we have as our voices. We all know that, and I urge us all to become more active participants in every way by making our voices heard. I found the easiest way to do this is by following the lead of the wildlife organizations that have all this communication stuff dialed in. Most of them are a one stop shop for letting your voice be heard. I have zero affiliation with any of these groups that I'm about to say, but I want to give you some groups to check out. And what you have to do is just get dialed in with these guys systems and the way that they communicate with legislators and just do it. A good group that I love is Sportsman's Alliance. I would say do whatever they say. It's just that some A new group that I really like so far, and they are brand new is a group called how for Wildlife. They seem to be really streamlining the process of communication. There are many other groups that are fantastic Hunter Nations, Safari Club International, and the list goes on, including a bunch of state agencies which are essential that you be members of. Whichever group allows you to easily and consistently communicate use them. You know, years ago and when I was a kid, talking about being a public land hunter wasn't cool. I mean, that's where everybody hunted, and it's kind of the place you didn't want to hunt. In the last ten years, it's become cool to talk about and to hunt public land. Well, I can tell you the new thing that we're gonna make cool is defending hunting. I love it that some people are calling into account social media influencers to use their voice in a positive way. I mean, it's really a modern issue that we're going to have to deal with, and if we really love hunting, we will and will joyfully unite our voices in in in very productive, educated, classy ways will say hunting is good. Wildlife management in this country has worked. We are the good guys that love wildlife and want to see all species of wildlife thrive. We're the guys that are putting our money towards habitat conservation inside of a country where urban sprawl is just devouring habitat. We are the good guys where an animal has cultural value through hunting, that animal and its habitat is protected. And lastly, the best thing that we can do to protect this lifestyle that we love is to clean the inside of our own cup and make sure that we're representing this lifestyle with honor and dignity in every aspect of our life. So right on, guys, let's get to the render. Speaking of boots, he caught Brent on a good day and he's not wearing his Wow, this is the first time crocs are flip flips, I think, is all I've ever seen Brent Raven. Well, the last time we went out to the mew barn, squishing between your tube, Well, no, I just didn't have access to everything. So yeah, this is the first time I've seen Brent where the first time we wear boots. We've been all over the country together and not scared of coronavirus. He's just worried about getting worms. Yeah wait just a second, did you I'm scared of getting him again? Did you freak get beer boots? Whenever you all went hunt hunting bear camp? What did y'all come back for? He forgot his bot, I forgot my boat. Remember it was important, would have went barefooted. But welcome to the Burger's Render. Doing that, we have we have some man, this is a big day at the Burgers Render. We have some real guests with US State boys. Or I could tell when I when I walked up and I saw you in your your dress clothes, think place in dress clothes. And Brind's got shoes on, has faded overalls today. He very nice. I hung that on a bob war fence. Brinton has a zip tie in lieu of a button. Beautiful, good custom custom. Yeah, well, we're gonna do something a little bit different today. I'm gonna introduce my guests right off the bat. Well they go first. Well, I just I don't, I just I'm just so excited. I just He's just gonna blurt it out at some point if he tries to introduce to Yeah. Usually I talked for ten minutes before I introduced the mystery guests. Right, Austin Booth. Austin Booth, director of the Arkansas Game of Fish, is with us. Austin them to have you. Man, it's really good to be here. Thanks for coming to Northwest Arkansas has excellent boots. Yeah, what kind of tell us? Tell us about these boots, Austin, So these are dinner lights. Uh. I like them because they're very similar to what I wore in the Marine Corps for eight years. Super comfortable. Can't tear them up, you can resole them. Really, Santa, apparently Santa brought them to you. Santa Claus did indeed bring them. Hey, let me tell you. My problem with boots like this is I really like what you're doing here and that you're you're using them like like dress boots almost. I mean, like, you know, they look nice, there's not a scuff on them. But you're gonna you're gonna walk out of here, and because you have those on, you're gonna be like you're gonna like run across the ditch or you're gonna go do something, and you're gonna scuff them up, and then you've built You've built this this idea in your head that these are the boots I wear, like these are like my church boots, but then they beat up in no time because they're not church boots. It messes with my head because I can't keep a pair of boots nice. I mean, it's a problem. I just heard you say your shoes make you do things. Yeah, they do. And I don't wear crocs. I got I got crocs for I got crocs from my children, your kids listen to this podcast. I know, and I love them. I love mused by you, and I will wear those crocs at different times, but I will not wear them when my family's honor is at stake. The fight that happen often crocs, I firmly we have. There was you know, sometimes you're around someone and they say something that you're like, That's what I've been trying to say my whole life, and you just take it from them. Um Ron Bayne Hunting Dog Podcast. He says you should never not wear shoes that you couldn't protect your family in a volcano. Why couldn't you? When have you? Why is the volcano relevant? Volcano is a metaphor. I mean volcano. If you're a human, I would like that is more culturally relevant. Well I get it though when you say that, it's like, yeah, you don't want to be wearing flip pups. You wanted to be wearing these. Still I'm wearing leather boots, so also, I like your boots. That's all we're trying to say. Thank you. That's a really other you anticipate this was going to start off this way. I knew it was gonna be something similar about something meandering and humorous play We oh photo evidence that shot. So are other mystery us that we're very honored to have. Luke Naylor, Arkansas Game Fish Commission waterfowl biologist. Luke was on the Luke was on the Main Burgers podcast last week. I told I told him he carried the weight of it, carried the weight of it as usual. Yep, he did. Great. Now I still stand by my analogy that you being the lead guy for the Arkansas Game of Fish Commission, lead waterfowl guy in the duck hunting capital of the world, he is essentially, like I said, Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors. Yeah. Yeah, my jump show is not that good. Quite. I don't think that's gonna work. You would have typically, I'm about the only guy showing up on a on a w A to change in and out of hunting boots and wearing my Choco sandals. That's pretty much Choco to and from a hunting location. So I'm I got problems with volcano, I guess. But but it works out. You got all kind of problems if you were in Chuckos chaos, I mean, only worn. I think there's something that we need to get it out of the way with Luke, okay, about a certain object that falls from trees. Oh it's true. Yeah. I wanted to make a public apology to all my listeners from the South about the way Luke pronounced the word acorn an. You know what. I listened to it twice one time on the way up here, and the only thing I could get over was you saying pronouncing I know. I knew it would come up. I knew it would come up there. I didn't hear I don't you know. I honestly didn't remember him saying it either. He did. He's had in the truck too on the way here. Yeah, get a lot of really Kansas. Yes, I'm a native kans and they don't trees. How much was the telephone pole? Yeah? Pretty much is so. Yeah, there's there's a few acorn berrying trees in Kansas, but not near the number there are down here. So you do have some respect for where you're at. Just go and call you kind of gotta go. I've I've been here for a while and I can kind of you just gotta kind of read the room and it it's particularly hostile, you go with acre. You just just avoid the subject altogether. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well no present company accepted you. You you gave us some great knowledge on the podcast. So are you gonna introduce the rest of us? Yes, I was gonna say so, the regular crew that's here to my right, Misty Nuclem. Great to have you, Misty. Did you guys know that most of the comments would get about the burglary surrender about Misty? Yeah, because she's better than us. Yeah, very much so. Brett Reeves. Great to see Brett, great to be seen. Josh Billmaker here, glad, I'm glad. Hey, Daniel Rupe couldn't be here. His mustache is excellent. I have that in my notes what did you guys think? The first thing I'll photo was Calfish hunter. Should we possibly get some context for why we're talking about Dan's mustache, Well, he post we we would not out this information because we follow hippo guidelines here at the Barges podcast, we probably should talk about what Dan just couldn't be here. So last week Daniel saw my mustache and Daniel was that the inspiration, no doubt, No, I mean it's not really debatable it is. I have to say. It's the most fake looking real mustache. You'll see it. It looks great, it's fantastic. So Daniel couldn't be here, and then unfortunately Gary Newcomb couldn't be here. That's very unfortunate. Yeah, Dad couldn't be here either. So so we've got a got a great yeah subtle for us. Hey, while we're while we're taking care of some business here, I want to to two Metta related things. So meet eaters coming out with a whole big waterfowl deal. You can go to the meat eator dot com forward slash waterfowl and see all the stuff that they're doing. So one of my guests who on the podcast was Sean Weaver, who is meat eaters waterfowl guru. Shawn is a cool guy. Shawn's twenty eight years old. He puts seventy thousand miles a year on a truck, which is true and has for like the last ten years, and he he travels all over the country and it's just a genuine good guy. And uh so he he came here and I interviewed him, and I thought he was so good on the podcast because he wasn't from Arkansas. Everybody else was from Arkansas, including me, and so we were establishing that Arkansas is duck hunting capital of the world. And I was kind of playing the why is it? I don't understand and Sean to me kind of sealed the heel because he's got no stock in Arkansas and his I liked. I liked what he said about He just kind of gave an outsiders look in Arkansas. I say that to say. Meteors coming out with a new series called Duck Lore, and it's Sean traveling all over the country hunting with people and so it's pretty cool and one of the episodes will be in Arkansas maybe maybe maybe not with me, there's not an episode in Arkansas. We got big problems because this is the kind of capital of the world. So you can go to the Meteor dot com forward slash Waterfowl and you can see First Light has a new waterfowl waterfowl gear system coming out, and you can sign up for our newsletter. That is uh, that's good. The only other thing on a meeting or agenda is, uh, how many you guys know Spencer new Hearth. Yeah, okay, our guest series, Spencer new Hearth works hunting editorial guy, A good good. Yes. I had a dream the other night and I remember nothing about the dream other than that Spencer new Hearth walks past me and I call him beach Nut, and you're gonna make this public, You're gonna release this on the Nut. I just remember addressing him very seriously, Mr Nut, beach Nut, come here, you know something. So I just I'm doing my part in uh to just make sure that that's what everybody calls him. I think that's a moniker that I'm pretty sure Steve Rinella is on this wagon too, as is everybody else at Meat Eater. So beach Nut, we really like, we really appreciate what he does for us. Okay, moving right along, moving it was weird. It was very weird. Okay, that's why I've made it a point. I you know, made it a point to make this very public. Okay, moving right along. I almost lost my eye yesterday. I feel like I had rode with these guys for like twenty minutes before I told them that. I wasn't like, you know, like either you know, Clay's got pink eye or Clay is pink Yeah, that's my first thought. It's like I've got small kids, like, oh, if your eyes read, you just assume somebody. Yeah. Well, I didn't want it to be the first thing I said with you guys. Um No. So yesterday I had two of my buddies from Oklahoma come up here. Um, Alan Grigg and Brian Wrangles. Very nice, very they they they are really good guys. They ride horses. They wanted to come up and squirrel hunt on their horses. Me on the mule, and we hunted yesterday. And at about eleven o'clock yesterday, I was riding to a tree. So when you when you're squirrel hunting on mules, part of the deal is that you can get to the tree quick. So the dog's tree and the squirrel especially this time of year. They're going in Den's really quickly. Usually it's the quicker you can get there, the better. And going to a tree, and I mean, just like we've done for lots of miles, riding through thick forest, you just kind of put up your arms and just go and stuff brushing across you, and you know, And I just took a stick. You know, I didn't see it happened. I don't know how big it was, but it was in your and you didn't see it. Yeah, I just took a stick in my right eye. And uh, for a minute there, I really thought I'm gonna open this eye and I'm gonna see black. You know. I was envisioned what I'd look like with a glass eye, and like what what I was gonna put that's actually in the middle. I wish I would have thought about that because I was just the hospital. No, I was picturing and walking around with him with a patch. I also had visions and I and and because Clay is so descriptive in text message, I'm I'm shaking my head. No, he's like I had issue with my eye, heading to the doctor, may need, may need to ride. And my response is on a scale of one to ten, with ten being blindness. Where we are and he didn't text back, and we called, We talked on the phone. You didn't on the phone. You did. But when I talked to him on the phone, I was a little concerned, to be honest, because you can usually hear it in Clay's voice that everything's all right and it's usually a good story or whatever. And I couldn't hear that when I when I I just got on the phone, it was like, well, I mean, it might be hard from the text if in fact we are at in blindness. So so I just picked up the phone and called him and said, what's what's going on? And I could tell he wasn't quite sure. Well, it hurt like heck, and at first I just thought it would just kind of go away, and so we just kept hunting, kept hunting, and I just kind of was squinting and it was watering, and about four hours later it was worse than when it happened, you know, And so we had a hall off the hunt and I just was like, man, I can't even see you out either eye because when you squinch up this eye so hard this I started water in two and you just it was. It was pretty painful. I went to the eye doctor and I took off a chunk out of my cornea and uhry he said. He said, if it had been two millimeters further as I'm seeing right now to the west, uh he said, it would have caused permanent damage. If if you if that happens on your pupil, like it's basically I mean, from what I could tell, like not, but it's no big deal. It's it's almost already healed. Isn't that crazy? But if I hadn't gone to the doctor, he said, what happens is it's when you get an eye injury, it abraid, it abraids your eye, and then when you blink, it tears the scam off your every time you play, they put it. They put a contact lens, like a medicated contact lens over it, and then so that when it was like but yeah, to get rid of the worms, but it Brent stays for pink. Your eye heels very quickly. And I'm serious, like, right now I feel perfectly fine, and yesterday I can hardly see how so yeah, miracles modern science, folks, Well, what my buddy Alvin says is he said, we take for granted how often stuff just goes normal, Like you go, you go squirrel hunting and you don't get hurt, and you come home and you just think that's normal. It's so. Anyway, I lost another tooth today. Yeah, yeah, Austin man. You uh so, you've you've been at the game and fish now since July July one, July one, so little over six months. That's right. So give us a little, uh the walk through of your career and where you've been and how you got here. Grew up in a small town in Lonoak County. UH left in two thousand four to go to college. Uh dad was a ninja builder. Mom became a nurse after she put her kids through college. But anyways, Uh, I went to college at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. Then I went to law school at the University of South Carolina, and uh then took the start taking notes here. He's a lawyer. Okay, that's one finger check, yeah, okay. Then took a commission in the United States Marine Corps in two thousand ten. He's a Marine number two and served on active duty in the Marine Corps for eight years. UM got out in two thousand nineteen, came home, was the chief staff for the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs and did that for eighteen months and then I started at at Game and Fish and July. So in the Marines, you were a lawyer for the Marines. Yes, really, So my first three years I did nothing but basically prosecute cases. What I mean, like, what I don't understand why the I mean the Marines defending themselves? Yeah? Is it? Is? It stuff happens inside the Marines. Well, so the Marine Corps a a cross section of society, right, so it's very interesting cross section of society. Um, but we have marines that that that break the law and are you serious? Yes? Actually yes? And uh. In the Marine Corps, uh, you know, we have the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which it is very similar to what we would see in civilian jurisdictions. Uh. We hold them accountable. And there's a Marine Corps jury, Marine Corps judge, Marine Corps prosecutor, Marine Corps Defense counsel and uh uh it's very similar to what you would see out in town. Okay. So there it's like its own internal, own criminal justice system. So you were just prosecuting, just regular stuff. It wasn't like you name it all over the place. For nine years, the jury selected at random like they are except for within a smaller yes, now mostly at random. UM. There's some guidelines on if you're a certain rank you know, there can't be anybody of junior rank on on on the panel. Um. And there has to be a certain officer to enlisted ratio. So we can just reach into hattan people out. But then we get this big panel and then we go through the Vadar process where each side trust to keep people off if they think they'll be unfair. That's very similar to what happens out in town. So I did that for three years, uh, and then went to Afghanistan. Um, it's an operational stuff over there. And then came back and went to the hill for three years. So in Afghanistan you were like on the ground. I was on the ground still as a lawyer. Uh. But then what we call operational law, which is I mean use of force, drone strikes, rules, an engage front, you know, vetting, targeting packages, stuff like that. And then okay, so I tried to get out of the Marine Corps after Afghanistan, but that really just wasn't a marketable skill to law firms. Really, yeah, it seems like it would be. That's all right, and you're you're married and have three kids, married and have three kids, and uh, hey, I just want to say this because this was news to me the director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. That position is a hired position. It's not an appointed position. And that's right. That's that's good intel to know. I mean because for someone who's lived in this state his whole life, I could not have told you that. I thought I knew that the commission was governor, right, and I just, you know, kind of lumped all the leadership together in some way. But the director of the agency, I mean, you applied for the job and got hired. That's right, that's good. And when we were doing our g t R public meetings, I don't want pull anything, but someone would always ask me. They were like, so, you're thirty five years old, how exactly did you get to be the director of the ark Star Game Fish And uh I was telling the same thing. I said, do you really want to know? They're like, yeah, of course, give us the inside, and I tell him I'm like, I went online. I googled the head. I found his website and I sent him in my cover letter and resume and they said, what did you know any of the commissioners. I was like, yeah, I knew one, and we had lunch of Bear was his inn road and we had lunch and he told me not to apply. So, yeah, it's high. So Austin, did you grow up hunting? I did mostly duck hunt, a little bit of deer hunting, but mostly wing shooting, dub and ducks hunting. Public land in Arkansas, public land in Arkansas. We had it, you know, we had some leases every now and then if we could find him. And oh yeah, let me ask something. Brent, you're not a hillbilly. You are a flat lander. So is Austin also a flat lander? Okay, it's helpful. I just I just think it's helpful to category in the room. Just so you know, if you call me a hillbilly or him a hillbilly, now that there's two of us here, you better have the right shoes on cross. Uh. I've had the threatening the quick call them me a hillbilly. Clay throws a cham around kind of loosely. Yeah, now, Luke, we we got into little bit of your history on the main podcast. But you've been with the game fish since two thousand six, correct years you went. Where'd you go to school? I went to undergrad at Kansas State and then graduate school at the University of California Davis, so spent some time out there. So, yeah, I grew up in Kansas and just my wife and I went west for graduate school for a few years and then decided to come back east. As the California people say, once you crass crosses here in Nevada, you're back east. East Arena is back in Yeah, yeah, so anywhere out here, you know. That's I like what you said there, because directional descriptors are totally based on your perception of where you're at. Because Austin was asking me about ger Stoker a minute ago. He saw a painting that we had hanging that was a guy fighting a bear with a knife in crocs. He was not wearing cross and uh so the book that that story is in is called Wild Sports in the Far West. Right here, there was a time when Arkansas was the far West. That is neither here nor there. But so you man, Luke was hunting public land this morning when you got the invite to come here. So I was driving back from a little morning in BioMed How how much do you think, uh, participation inside of the places that you're regulating helps you manage a lot. I don't know how much. I don't know how you could do this job if you if you don't spend time in those places. I have the opportunity to speak to some college courses, you know, wildlife classes, conservation classes, whatever the name may be. And I've kind of got a standard presentation I give and tweak from year to year, and that's been some of my I've been kind of hanging on that advice the last few times when I talked to students, said you gotta I think I ordered something. You gotta walk where you want to work. And and I've that was instilled in me early on. I was a public land hunter growing up in Kansas, a lot of a lot of duck hunting. Qualent doesn't of course, had had some had an uncle that had a farm for years out west, which tall and and had some awesome opportunities there with family over the years. But but nine public land and uh, and that just instills a totally different perspective and I don't know how I could relate to anyone else, do anything, have any credibility really with all the stuff we're talking about, the g TRS if I didn't actually live it myself. Uh so, yeah, I like to just get out. And I went out and just took a walk in the woods by myself this morning, and may may go out tomorrow morning with some friends. We'll see, but you know, kind of it's a refreshing to do that at least once kind of by myself every year and just go kind of wonder around and uh there's no no pressure, no strings attached to anything, just go out and see what's going on. So again, coming into this topic in this world not knowing a lot about it, which is to be interesting that you can live in a state like Arkansas and be is active in the hunting space as a bunch of us are over here and know nothing about duck hunting. But when you told me that you didn't, you know, everybody hunts private land sometimes, but you were like, man, I pretty much hunt public land in Arkansas. And I mean, you're you're the guy making putting a lot of your fingerprints on what's going on around here. I I just thought that that did give you a lot of credibility. You know, well I appreciate it. Yeah, you gotta walk a mile into shoes, right, so it's uh more or I guess most people don't walk like I do, but a lot of people are something like that. Put in another man's crocs, right right, Yeah, I might as well have been in croc today. My waiters were leaking, so wouldn't make it. But but yeah, it's you get you gotta get out there and experience it, just like like other folks do. I do it. It's been turkey hunting here, deer hunting here. You know, it's all public land. Yeah, and sure I'm not afraid to to go out and ask permission to snow goose hunt or go out and somebody invites me to a place, I'll do that. That's a that's a couple of times a year versus to all the other trips compared to all the other trips I do on public land. So keeps you, uh, keeps you kind of grounded on what's really going on out there a little more connected. How feasible is it really to hunt ducks and all that on public land in Arkansas? It is most people. I guess I'll start out by putting in perspective from somebody outside Arkansas. Most folks coming from outside Arkansas come here and have a duck hunt. And we've got about forty five thousand people every year come from out of state to hunt ducks in Arkansas, and about of those are on private land, but on public land invariably. Those folks have come from out of state to duck hunt on public land typically, and I've talked to a bunch of them over the years that the one day in Arkansas they will see more ducks than they see in an entire season of hunting ducks somewhere else big states for US out of state hunters, or Georgia, South Carolina, Um Tennessee of course, coming across a Memphis a lot. But it's it's to a person they say that this is I mean one day in the woods here when the water's in and this time of year, and they'll see more ducks, and they'll see uh in a couple of seasons sometimes. So it's just different. The the intensity here is extremely high, the pressure is high. You can't you can't ignore it, and you know, pretend like it's some sort of a wilderness experience to go duck hunting on public than in Arkansas, because you're not typically gonna find a lot of solitude. I found relative solitude this morning, which means there's somebody. I think Clay was asking me how close somebody was and you know, a few hundred yards and you can barely hear their duck call. That's that's kind of solitude in public land in Arkansas. Um, but it works, and and I think it's the folks can take off um where I'm hunting. You you just get a pair of cheap hip boots and a duck call and go walking. I didn't even have a decoy with me to really and yeah, you just walk in and kind of the old timer way of doing things. You just kick the water. Duck's key in on that the being in the woods. Ducks really key in on the moving water, the splashes and the sound the call. So they're kind of hard wired to look for that. Take any ducks this morning, I talked to I shot to two ducks. I should the two that that came in and did it? Did it right? Like I like to shoot them so they would be fully committed that where they mallards. Yeah, yeah, they were great. Right, that's synonymous in arcas compared this right here, what he's talking about doing on public land. How many vehicles running parking lot this morning? There's usually this when it's like it is now, they'll be fifty to seventy five, sometimes over a hundred at our major access points. And that's on and in the area you're hunting by meeting. I assume it's probably twenty thousand acres of water right now because we're on a major flood. Twenty acres fifty to mt vehicles. Just what you said, what would you do if you pulled up and put six hillbillies? What would you do if you pulled up to a trailhead in Montana where there was a million acres in front of you and there was fifty vehicles there? You go somewhere, you turn around and go back home. But you can do that here. That's pretty cool. The question why, because you can do dislike what what Luke did. You can get two d and fifty yards away from somebody and you can do that and still be successful. Absolutely you can. And that's just that's a big difference. And I just thought about how different that was then if you and I had pulled up somewhere with a trail here that had fifty vehicles and we wouldn't even stop. We just keep going, and he and we would be walking, and he was walking. Yeah, I don't know much smaller area and he had a space to do it. Brent, tell us about your duck hunting history. My brother than I guided for better probably twenty six years. I guess. I think what I figured it up. And I've been I've been hunting. I killed my first green head when I was twelve, I think, and I can remember it just like it happened this morning, and twelve years when I was twelve. That was a few years ago. Yeah, it was right after the Great War and uh Spanish American. Yeah, that's where I learned speak spending. I got caught. But we we guided at Raydale. We had a camp. We bought a camp over at Raydale, right on the Arkansas River. We were ten minutes from Buckingham Flats, which is now can we why can't we talk about all this public land and not and it's okay to be specific or I mean it just is. I mean that's it, but I mean it's a it's a serious question because I don't understand we don't use names of stuff well in bio media. I mean, if you're duck hunting on public landing Arkansas, in that part of Arkansas, it's by me to or if you're if it's north east Arkansas, it's Black River or Black Swamp, or we're comfortable saying that. It's just a serious question. Yeah, I mean, do you ever talk about the places I hunt? It's over. I'm gonna quit pointing your finger me. I'm gonna tell you if you all asked me, like a name of a road or a or the nearest town where I turkey hunt Stone Face, I don't know what I want. Two or three, any street You've already gone too far, already with it. We'd say, just turkey hunt in the eastern deciduous for us. This photograph that I brought my son wanted to come to a renter, but he couldn't come today. He was toy open. I think when I took this picture, this was on the blue line and by me. Luke may have heard of that where yeah, standing right there is that Luke in the background. No, No, I don't think I was lurking back. That that's my brother back there. But we had this dog for thirteen years. That that that's in this photograph with him. But that that photograph says so much to me. And one reason I brought it today the show was just for y'all to look at, was this was on the last podcast you talked about driving by Luke. You talked about your dads and he drove by, and every other house had a black dog and in a boat in a driveway. What that was? This was my life right here for almost thirty years. It was we I deer hunted some for something to do until ducks season opened up. I mean that, and that the whole community of people that I was around, that's what they did. Everything else was just to keep you out of jail long enough for duck season open up and then for the next our sixty seventy ninety days whatever it was gonna be. That's what we did every day. And it was the hardest job I've ever had outside of law enforcement, the hardest thing I ever done, in the most fun. I mean, I made the best friends. And you talked about people coming from out of state. We had clients from all over. The hunted with us from Pennsylvania and Georgia and North Carolina and South Carolina like the biggest, vast majority of them come from there. And we remember one day we took a guy from Pitts from Pennsylvania, from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We took him into Buckingham Flats and we went in there and nine ten o'clock ducks just shut off. It was over with, and we liked there was probably four or five of us in there. I'd say there was four of us in there, and we liked, like two ducks having a limit for everybody. So we started picking up the equips and we're walking out and the guts he's passed away now, but the guy from from Pennsylvania was walking around beside me, and I said, Mr Roberts, I'm I'm sorry, it wasn't any better than it was today. And he said what I said, I'm sorry, it wasn't any better than that was normally ten o'clock. You're waking up from a nap, getting ready to get something because you've already limited up several hours before. And he reached and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and turned me around. I thought he's fixed to hit me. He said, boy, you don't realize what y'all have here. He said, I saw more ducks this morning than I have killed than I have seen in two years at home, he said, And I killed more ducks this morning than I have over the last two years at home. He said that you've got something special here. And if I never and I would say that up until that point, I would always apologize to a client if we didn't kill a full limit. I never said it again after that because he was right. Yeah, and it was this would have been ninety eight or ninety nine, and it was you could go and you could put two hundred and fift three ducks in a in a hole in the woods, right on top of you. I had them so close they were blowing that their wing tips that touch you on the arm. My brother caught a mallard hen one time. They're not saying that. The directors here, they they're gonna have to catch him. He let him go. He called a mallard him, come him. I thought you were gonna say, my brother wants killed. No, just fluttering by, looking for a place to light. And he reached out and grabbed it by the neck. And he said it went that duck went up his arm like a roast in the year. He said that he was clawing and he durned it, Lucy, but it was I mean, you just get them in that close, and that's not what's the most? You ever just estimated and we know your estimation is gonna be thirty percent higher than the truth. Well what's the what's the most do you think ever landed in a set of decoys? You know, came in in Buckingham Flats. We had two guys from Memphis. We went in there on a Tuesday morning and we were the only folks in there. We had where's one vehicle in that parking lot on a Tuesday morning? This been about four eight three or four And if it was one duck, it was seven eight hundred. I was gonna say a thousand, but you weren't gonna believe it. So we started working ducks and and fifty ducks because I don't even know really what ducks would look like. Luke, have you ever experienced anything? Most people don't. Now, Yeah, not to that scale. But UM been fortunately, been on some good hunts with some good friends, and I see that start to happen. It's strange, what what happens? There's something so fascinating about hunting in the timber that it it does. As Brent started to describe, they kind of just there's just this cascade effect or where they start coming. And I watched a few of them do it this morning, and I was about ready to leave and a few ducks came in. They finally just found a spot and they broke through the trees, away from me and away from this other group just just kind of started settling in and half a dozen of them started it. And and really all it takes is a few to start the train. And I mean just in just quickly, there's probably sixty seventy ducks just pulled right in behind them. So if there's enough ducks around, it can build into the hundreds like that, if the key is being patient enough to let it happen. And they started lighting like a hundred yards away, okay, they kind of and they just and it was just like a rolling carpet. They just started just rolling. Rend you ever see anything like that? Awesome, big big groups like that. Hunting on the White River bottoms one time, and we had a group of six guys and one group came in about three minutes after shooting time and we limited out one and one group of ducks. How would that be? Would you have you had to have reloaded? No, but how would you limit out? I mean, I'm not a game warden or anything, but if you only got three shells in the limits four, how do you limit out? Because the ducks are that close and there's that many. Sometimes if it gets right, you gotta be careful. One of the one of the first times I had had but I had my head down here one of the first times we were in government Cyprus several years back, ten plus years ago, and and uh, they finally started coming in that they did it. They broke through. And if things are going right, and I'm sound kind of arrogant, I guess, but if you're shooting them right, which means they're down inside the tree right, not flying skimming the tree tops and all that, you know, each his own that that that's it's legal to make your own make your own decisions. But um, really, shooting a secondary like if if ducks are doing it right in the woods, shooting them is kind of an afterthought because it gets to the point where they're they're in so close and and there's there can be so many of them and they really um there, I mean acrobats, but getting that many ducks up out of the woods and out of gun range. Uh, A man can operate a gun much quicker than they can get out. It really Once it happens like that, Um yeah, it really is, you're kind of like, Okay, I guess we're gonna shoot him now, started the top and yeah, and you work as they come up. You just keep working the ducks. That's after they've landed, after they coming, when the shooting starts, you start high and then as they work up you take them. Is it going out? It could be the ducks there are still coming in talking about that train starting, you know, and if a bunch of them on the water, they're just gonna keep coming. You shoot the ones here and then other ones get up. You're just basically bang bang bang. It's a safety thing too. Yeah. They're easy shots. Yeah, you talk, you'll think y'all shot twenty gauges. That was my guide. Gun wasn't open under twenty Wow. So do you like as a duck hunter if when you're thinking about your duck hunting career, is that like, is that like killing a ten point buck limit out and you know, limiting out in one minute. So look at that. How does that give me a scale? Here? Luke and I were talking about that on the way up here. I think I'm in the minority here, but I would much rather kill a few ducks short of my limit but have a longer hunt. I mean, I love being I'll see those those blue notches on their wings in the sunlight, and I love being a lot to see that green that knee on emerald green head in the sunlight. Uh. Sure, it's awesome to limit out really quickly, but I wouldn't much rather you know, string that over a few hours. That makes sense, Yeah, it's it's really it's about seeing them. Yeah, if I can shoot some ducks, great, But I know if I've shot some ducks, that means I saw a lot of ducks, and I had a lot of ducks close. That's way more important at the end of the day seeing them and talking to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that communication you have after you calling. We always we would tell clients we can get this over with quick. You know, at one point there was a point system where you know, males and females. Drakes and hens were a different point value, and you went up to a hundred, and hens were a hundred. If you killed a hen, whoever killed that hen, that was their limit. So we would tell during that hun during that time and even after, you know, if we got close on if there was close on hens, you know, we'd say no, you know, we're shutting it down before we got to a limit, because we've been gonna walk out there limited ducks. So I would we would always tell them the boys, we can get this done quick, or we can sit here and let the sun come up and we can shoot the boy ducks, you know, and and see a show. From that time on, and everybody to a man was yeah, we want to we want to stay here and we want to watch it because it is so you try to shoot the drake Mallard just pick out the boys. Yeah, boy, that's harder to It's it's not every band I ever killed, except for one. I saw it on the duck's leg when I shot him. We're kind of different duck hunters, you know, because here's the deal. Look, Craig mack Austin, tell me there's a difference between a man that hunts ducks and a duck hunter and experience. Yeah, you gotta be careful how far you take that before you offend. Somebody ain't worried about offending Clay Well, you know, I mean, I'm a pretty serious duck hunter, and uh, I pretty much just hunt, you know, the timber. But it's amazing what you can see if you just look. You know. It was always and we would tell new hunters, you know, pick out one duck. There's gonna be few there, maybe fifty come in, but you gain shoot them all. You've got to find one. And then being gads, we would always let the client shoot first, start shooting, they get their chance, and we'd shoot hours. And then how does that work? And I'm not I'm not saying that's bad, but why does the guy get to shoot? Why does he get to shoot while I'm out there hunting too? I'd like to shoot him. But in a wing, you're not taking away anything from anybody. But because usually in a guided situation, the guide's not hunting too. But that's common practice, that's pretty common, and it gives you an extra limit for the picture. Okay, you so give you an extra limit. Yeah, you're taking novice hunters too. It's nice to have. I took some out just last week and I had my gun with me. No intention of shooting first at all, but you know, had to go. Um cripple goes off something. You gotta have somebody experience that kind of knows how to take care of things, and you're hunt When novices you've got a dog, for example, you tell everybody that, hey, once that dogs out everybody else, but nobody else shoots like I'm gonna shoot because I know what the dogs doing. So it's important a lot of times to have a guide or have a more knowledgeable hunter, more experienced hunter to be to be ready to help out with some situations like that. And he has a few more ducks for the picture too, Yeah, few more ducks for the picture. Put all the mallards up front. Um, do you feel like this is all inside baseball? Josh, No, I have intentionally never duck hunted. That's on purpose, on purpose because I have a bit of an obsessive personality, and I know that first I see, I love to fly fish. I mean I get obsessed with fly fishing. Actually tell you guys, I got my first trout fishing guide gig this weekend for some guy. My guide license. Everybody that's I'm obsessive about gear and about fly fishing and tying and all that kind of stuff. I know, the first time I go duck hunting, it's gonna be You're gonna like this. My brother in law loves my brother in law, Scott Anderson, duck hunts over and around the Tulsa area a lot, and he's always wanting me to go. And I'm like, I've never just been too gung ho about it because because of that reason. Okay, talking directly about the podcast, this is what we usually do. What what was your favorite part that stood out to you? Anybody can start, Yeah, I'll tell you it was. It has been my favorite of all the ones. He really, he actually said this yesterday. It's been in my favorite since even Bear Hunting Magazine when we first started. It's been the because there was everyone that talked on there. I could relate everything somebody was saying. You know, it was from Jim bow to the whole thing, the biology and the the area because this, you know, these were questions that clients would were asking me. I've had people from New Jersey they they wanted to know some of them never seen stars at night. They were standing outside in front of the camping in Raydale on the bank of the Arkansas River and looking up at the stars and be amazed, and they were just it was just one question after another. What kind of tree is this? Why do ducks come down here? The things that you addressed in that thing, and it was from me lying to them and tell them to pick cottonfield was the remnants of where they raised grits at that. I never corrected that, but to to actually tell them the truth about things that I could actually answer. But all of those things were just an intrinsic part of their experience. And it made me realize, like the guy that's snatched me out of my waiters there from Pennsylvania, of what we had, you know, and what we have and what we were, what we were able to do, that those guys were just gonna be able to see for like three days until the next year. Every from we'll start to finish this nostalgic for I loved Yeah. Man brought back a million million memories. I know. There was one thing I listened to it the second time when it actually came out, and I thought man, I bet I've offended a bunch of people. Well did Here's what, Here's what I think. This was the only thing that guardered my attention other than you say in pronunciation was the first word the first duck hunting podcast, and as far as I know, I'm the first duck guys you ever knew. And my reference was corn bread, which was really going bad. Trump's everything got called out for your love of corporate which is true. No shame in that, No, It's right. I loved it. I've I've listened to every single one of the Bear Grease cast and Beer Greased renders except for the most for the most recent render um way to go Austin. Yeah, I had some special perspective on it, not because I worked for a Game of Fish, but because I grew up Arkansas dunk hunting, and then I left it, and I did it in South Carolina, did it in Virginia. Was Oh, the look of disgust. But I tell people it was so much different. But it made me such a better hunter, not just because I appreciated it, but because I had to pay attention to so many more variables when you're hunting. You know, public land off of the Potomac River with you know, you gotta worry about tides. You you've got to worry about like when the temperature folds into single digits, big water, just a million different variables. And I had my boat inside my garage out there one winner, and my dad came out. They're understanding and in the garage talking, and he looked in it in my boat and said, son, why in the world do you have blue building? And you know, he you know, It's like, what, Dad, It's just that's just what we have at here? What is the blue bill decoy? It? It's so a blue bill is a type of duck. It's a diver, not a dabbling duck. Uh. And Luke's gonna correct me if I get anything wrong here. It's a fun bird to chase. Uh. They five very erratically, so they're fun to shoot. They're not quite as tasty and not near as pretty as a mallard. Okay, I mean blue bill kind of sounds nice to me. It's not. I'm a I'm more of a mallard guy. Right, you always have a Um, I'm out at the one mallard I've ever killed. So I loved it from that perspective. And then the second thing that I really liked about it was the outro your description of it's a good thing when North American hunters love a career so much that that they chase it for its feathers, it's for for its meat, because we'll do whatever we take to try to preserve that. And uh, as I've kind of approached the game of fish as an as an outsider, but as a life on beneficiary of it, I'm very focused on trying to restore that connection between consumption and sportsmanship. So yeah, yeah, man, that statement is so true, and I mean that's really the message that we're trying to to send to the broader world is that, Man, the best thing that could happen if you were a game species is that guys like this would sit around a podcast one beautiful lady h and then what would talk about hunting that inside bou Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's the best thing that can happen because where where where an analyze cultural value and see these are the things that I think need to be on all of our tongues just to intuitively be able to say it. I want my kids to be able to say this is that where an animal has cultural value, it's protected and its habitat is protected. And when you when you when you when you can't hunt something, when when when the common man has no incentive because he cannot partake of that resource, he has no incentive to protect that. And I mean that's the North American model, is that we've given people the common man incentive want to protect wildlife, and we've built this culture, this hunting culture into our families and North America, oddly enough, as the most big game animals of anywhere on the planet and the strongest, most robust hunting culture of anywhere on the planet and other places, but they do not fishing. And fishing we got our slot limits that we observed. So, Brent, would you say, in light of claysure Mark, that the mallard is valued culturally in Southeastern Yes, I would say, I would say it would be Jesus and then the mallard duck. No, it's not even close. But he the mat of ducks the next one on the wrong. No. I thought that was an interesting question because it's so in It's like there's no question. I mean, like you guys that are in it deep that never I mean has it ever crossed your mind that why are we targeting this animal? So why is this one so special? I mean, these guys they're all looking at me like I'm crazy. They're like, yeah, yeah, well that's interesting because that and that's why I wanted to talk about it. And I thought that was cool section of the podcast and it answered my questions because there's always functionality. There's always function behind something that seems just totally cultural. You know, they're they're the vocal duck, they're the biggest duck, they're meat duck. They're the most widely geographically distributed duck. So it's a no brainer once you understand these pieces of science behind it. You know that, uh that's like, yeah, the king of ducks, man, the mount duck. There is a cultural connection. I mean, as we just kind of denigrated bluebills here for a second. You know, if you go out like the legendary and people here again they kind of like I might get struck by lightning. But you know, water follow hunting didn't start in Arkansas, I mean just right, So but you think about the I know, I know, I'll have my letter on your desk in the morning, but but you think about you know the diving ducks, campus back scalp, bluebills, you know that decoy carving. That's the East Coast tradition and Great Lakes tradition built around totally different species, largely different life histories, different behaviors, different ways of pursuing them. It's all duck hunting, but much different techniques used. Uh. You know my time out six years out in California in the Central Valley where the with the northern pentail is king, and it's fascinating watching that. When I was out there was kind of during this transition phase where pentel populations were declining, uh, continentally, bag limits were declining. Uh. So it went from back in the days where Brent meant to the point system. Uh, they were pentails were bonus duck in the seventies in California, which meant you could shoot ten of them per day, and and it built this whole culture of managing habitat for pin tails, which is a different structures, wide open, huge, huge, You know, I hunted one time out there with a friend over you know, three thousand decoys and this is just a totally just wide open water like four to say, since deep, wide open and as pentel limits dropped, people started managing for mallards, and so now people in California are managing much much more from mallards than that they did in the seventies, eighties and early nineties because kind of the the the king ducks sort of switched based on uh, you know, just regulations, kind of apparent population size and kind of the availability to to have that that harvest opportunity, and so it's it's it's kind of these regional we have these regional differences and what duck is important. But you know, as we talked about on the podcast, I mean, it's it's just there's just no doubt who's king here, and it's the Mallard in most parts of the country, and nobody, nobody can challenge the argument that that Arkansas is the king of the mallard local Like, I mean, the mallard is king in Arkansas as the king four mallards, so that that's pretty much undebatable, just despite uh uh, you know, rumors of its demise are are greatly exaggerated. So yeah, tell talk to me about that, because it's probably everybody just wants to talk about the negative, and that's what you hear, but I hear guys say that, you know, there's not as many coming down. You know, it's different than it used to be. And I know that it is different. I mean, just talk to me about that. Yeah, it's totally different, but you always gotta kind of compartmentalize, right that different doesn't necessarily mean worse or it's always gonna stay this way. I mean, it may change right right back. We don't. We don't know. Um, a lot of good things have happened, just this could be a whole another conversation. But if you think back, well, it's kind of interesting where people um established their frame or reference, right. It's it's always fascinating to talk to people. Had a colleague in Louisiana who he's lived there now. He actually was from California, but lived there for over thirty years now, and was getting, you know, finger in his chest from from some guy talking about how terrible duck hunting was now and and he finally asked, you, it's like, man, I've been duck hunting in Louisiana thirty years. I wasn't born and raised here. He said, how many years have you been duck hunting? Just out of curiosity. Well eight like, well, so so where's your frame or reference? And I think it's I think that's really important because some old timers, I say that kindly have a different perspective on it. And right, Uh, there have been a lot of changes. And if you think, uh, kind of continentally and what's happened for waterfowl habit that we've done a lot of good stuff. We've put a lot of wetlands back on the landscape across the entire mid continent Mallard range. So we should expect the distribution of those birds to change. It does not mean that Arkansas is still not king and it doesn't mean that Arkansas is maybe getting fewer ducks. An argument could be made that, hey, populations have been high for the last five to ten years, let's say record highs. You can make the argument that Arkansas maybe should have seen a bigger boost then what we might have. Well, some people have have perceived um and even what we've counted in some of our some of our data. But it's just kind of a broadening out of this whole duck range and it makes people uneasy. More people are shooting ducks in more places. It doesn't mean that Arkansas is still not the leader. Um, it makes it a little bit more unpredictable here. And and so that predictability, I mean, you know that mother nature is never predictable. But but humans just want everything to be exactly the same. We want those seven hundred ducks in the decoys right in the whole every single day we go. And it's kind of a human coping mechanism to always remember the most positive experiences. And so you have it framed like you can never expectations, never go anything but up. The social scientists in this field tell me, they say expectations, they just keep ratcheting up every time. You got four years of duck hunting that happened once. What you said about the hunder ducks in there that happened one time. That's a great perspective. Yeah. Well, and I think it's human nature too to want to uh find reasons, maybe not not an excuse for not being successful, but like to just to talk about the time you went that it was bad, you know, or or that or how your luck has changed or whatever, you know. And I think another cohe mechanism, which print I know you've got opinions about, is um this gear. I mean, the amount of of money that people are spending on every single piece of gear now compared to what they were spending on it twenty five years ago. It's just absolutely nuts. And hey, this America then spend their money how how however they want to, and that's awesome, But you know, people have high expectations and sometimes the season doesn't deliver on that, so they buy this piece of gear that that's that's gonna help reconcile that gap. I think the expectations didn't go even further. The more you spend on gear, the more expectations you're more invested. Yeah, you do these parking lots and you've got sixty eight thousand dollars, and we talked about what there'd be two three hundred vehicles in bio meat on a given day, and half of those have got got you know, fifth, let's say fifty two seventy plus thousand dollars parked there to bring some duck meat home. Well, and then I wonder how many were people talking bad about Arkansas duck hunting forty years ago? I mean, do you do you see what? Like? I mean, there were there were people that had bad duck hunts forty years ago. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, we're sure they did, and but there wasn't an Internet then. The biggest roadblock, or the biggest stumbling block that we ran into was overcrowded. And as duck hunting got more popular, and it was I can attribute it only to what I saw. You know, a TV show comes out about duck hunting, and in the next year, the parking lot start getting fuller and fuller and fuller and fuller people. And I would say it would have been a boon to duck stamp sales and ammunition sales, and Pittman Robertson probably benefited from that, which benefitted the whole state everything. But you've you've also still got a limited amount of space with the large influx of new people. And that's about to say I enjoy this, this sociological discussion about human expectations. The last thing that I want people to think is that, you know, me and Luke are saying, Uh, the duck hunting in Arkansas is absolutely perfect, and anybody that thinks otherwise is a crazy person. No, I mean it's a challenge resource continentally. Uh. I think we've got some access problems. We've got some habitat problems which will be uh part two. Uh, we got plenty of habitat problems in in Canada. Uh So yeah, we we deal with unrealistic expectations a lot. But uh but on the flip side of that, it's a challenge resource and we need to be more adaptive and how we manage the resource, but also and how we how we deal with people, uh in their favorite sixty days of the year. Yeah, Hey, Austin, tell me about tell me your philosophy, Just what you see this next trail looking like for the game and Fish and your leadership inside of it. Yeah, we're in a really nice turning point right now. Not necessarily turning a nice turning point because I'm the new guy here and I think everything needs to change, but churning point culturally in in the agency where a lot of people internally know that we need to change. Uh. We We've got major fluctuations going on on the regulatory landscape and also some major changes um habitat as well. And I mean, Luke, tell me if you think um wrong here. But the number one thing that we have going for right now, I think we got a really solid set of commissioners, and so you want a badmouth, any of looks like I already I already kind of like I held out when we talked about the when Austin talked about the hiring process, and because there's lots of other stories from the staff side down, Missouri needs a new water. Yeah, I got no gt rsum, No, it is there. I agree with that because and the only thing I'll say about it as as a evidence of that is that probably one of the biggest issues that this agency has ever tackled, and that's I don't think that's hyperbole, is the GTR stuff. And we started that in well a couple of times. But let's say, and so that's an entire term of one commissioner seven years now, which you could do the math. So that's like, however many of that is total, ten or twelve of them different people, and we have held the same ground and continued on the same path towards change since with would that make different commissioners? Yeah, And and I mean there's not a single commissioner that I know that I can that I would would point out be like, oh, yeah, he's not a very good guy. They're all awesome. Uh. There they all served the state for seven year terms. It's all unpaid and they put it in just an immense amount of work. And they all do because they hear about the resource. Uh. What I meant by that comment is we don't just have great people right now. We've got a rare chemistry going on where where um, we're all pointed in the right direction and we're all get stuff done. Yeah, we we can get stuff done. So back to your original question, Uh, we're we're about to roll out a strategic plan for the agency. Haven't had one and sometime, um, but we're gonna roll that out soon. And Uh, the way that I'm thinking about everything is, uh, habitat first, and our kansons always Uh in the Marine Corps we say that about the mission mission first. Marine always well, habits at first and our kansons always and and you know, at the end of the day, everything we do comes back to habitat. We can talk about you know, the deer resource, the duck resource, the trout resource, everything comes back to habitat. And if we don't stay lacey focused on that, then everything else is just details. Second Arkansas, that means communicating then what's going on the resource having regulations that make sense and providing meaningful quality public lands with access. And you've been having these, uh these public meetings that are different. Tell us about one of your public meetings. What would be like, Yeah, so the public meetings that we do with the g t rs WrestleMania. Actually no, actually, so I worked on g t R. Okay, so we haven't. The next podcast will be about green tree reservoirs. So green tree reservoirs are this flooded basically flooded timber, which you talked about in the podcast ton about Tony course. So g t R g TR means intentionally flooded timber. Yes, Brent, I know would agree with this definitely, Luke. But there are people in Arkansas, for a good reason, that are not interested in hunting Dutch over a rice field or a moist I'm not the The only thing they want to do is see ducks Lane and we're on and I get it because it's magical. But I worked on the hill for a little bit when I was still in the Marine Corps. Uh, So I I got to see some congressional town halls and I wanted to take a little bit different approach from just bringing our poor staff in and uh, you know, passing the microground and letting, letting Luke and did everybody else get yelled at? So what we did was we made it not informal, but we intentionally selective venues where we could cook for people. It was a goal of mine from day one that I wanted to get off the stage to eye with people and actually literally break bread with them, and corn bread. I don't think we had corn bread. I think we had some rolest you. Next time, we'll, Luke try that in avout the waterfowl position. Now we'll have corn bread when we do our black panther town halls. Luke's still gotta tell us about his podcast. Yeah. But um, so we walk into this meeting, uh, I would kick us off, talk very high surface level about what we were doing on each gtr uh, and then I would bring up the commissioners, bring up a staff. All the commissioners were wearing blue Arkansas game and Fish shirts. I would introduce all the commissioners and where they were from. And then all the agency staff, including Luke and myself, we're wearing white shirts. And I would introduce each of the staff members saying, this is Luke Naylor. He's our waterfowl biologist. If you have questions about anything pertaining to ducks or geese, just ask him. This is Rob Willie over here. Rob Willie is as our habitat program coordinator. If you have questions about forest management and red oaks and white oaks and all that stuff, ask Rob. And so we would go down the line. And then one of the last things that I I always did is I said, if you're raising I'm sorry if you're wearing a white shirt and you hunt ducks on public land raisor hand and and then I would say, all right, we're gonna talk again in an hour, and I would turn the mic off. And we had maps set up around the room, and you know, people are eating barbecue. At some places they're having a beer, and uh, the conversation was actually conversation. It was actually productive, meaningful dialogue. And uh. In all four public meetings, I made a point to remove myself from the crowd and just kind of go back and observe in every single time, I would look out over the room and there were white shirts and blue shirts and and they were each in their own little pocket of of people and the only thing that was happening was heads nodding up and down. So that was tremendous for me to watch. You know, these guys like Luke that I see work so hard every single day, Uh, in their element, in their expertise, actually having ida a conversations with people. So they've been successful. Huh, they've been very well luquid. Well, yeah, compare that to the old way of doing things, and you know, there was there was a need to be to be present, to be to kind of open your doors and have people come in and have an opportunity to communicate. But you know, we used to hold a series of regulatory public meetings every year and they it got to the point, you know, you'd have you'd have twenty or thirty game and fish staff and about five members of the public show. Um. And we did a few of them a couple of years ago about g t RS and went pretty well. Um, not not a lot of yelling and screaming and people angry at each other. Um, that's a good thing. That's actually like it was only a little bit I do And but what was neat about this new way is that they could there's a difference between having a passionate conversation with someone disagreeing, agreeing, whatever, having an argument versus um having a podium either whether that be us or be a member of the public, and it kind of puts everybody on the same level playing field where we're not talking literally in a lot of cases, talking down to people given power points, and everybody's going to sleep and tired of hearing it. And then also have an open mic night to the public where people get start to get amends and preach it brothers and all that kind of stuff, and it kind of just you kind of get the whole crowd riled up. It ends up being one person that's you know, you don't get any information out to anybody because that person, whether it's us or them, like it's it's not productive for either of us. And they all left home with somebody they felt like. And we would end every meeting the same way too, right, you know, we had an hour of dialogue with staff, I would come back up there, we'd paint out some door prizes, and then the last thing we would say is is I would say, is there anybody is gonna walk out that door tonight with their question? Not answered, and sometimes we'd have a few of them raise your hand and we'd sort through it that way. But eventually, you know, that was their time to ask, to ask questions, to have an open mic because I am sensitive people that are upset and I want to hear him out as a director dest my job. But we heard him out and everybody walked the door, didn't have a question or or they forever hold their peace. Well, it sounds like it sounds like you're making the agency more accessible to people. That sounds what's what the goal is. Guys, thank you so much for coming. Appreciate it. It's gonna be thanks for your contribution to the to the main podcast, both of you. And this next this next week is gonna be uh, We're gonna get in to the nitty gritty of the Green Tree reservoirs, which is why we started this whole conversation. And for the record, I approached these guys about this. They didn't. They didn't call me and say, hey, we want you to do a podcast on this. That's all the way it happened. At all I heard about what was going on, I knew nothing about it. I thought that I should learned a little bit about it and thought that's interesting, and then so we're making this. We're gonna do a two part series on you know, arganstas duckhunting in the GTR situation. Yeah, so thanks for coming up here, guys. Luke appreciate it. Thanks Austin, thank you, man, appreciate it. Thanks for having Yeah, thank you so much here say yes

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