Archery Hunters, listen up. If you find yourself in the heart of King County, do
yourself a favor and stop in at Rock Creek Archery, located in Tukwila. They
have everything you need if you're just beginning to the sport or you've been
shooting for 20 years, even indoor shooting range, or check them out at
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Welcome back to the Ridge Zion Hunting Podcast brought to you by
Phelps Game Calls with your hosts David Crane and David Sandana.
All right Dave, we're back. Like we are every time we're back. Again. Again, here we
go. Who would have thought we were stuck with it? I know, right? This is a episode 42 or 43.
Technically, yeah, probably 48. Yeah, so yeah, on to our second year and we're
heading into our second year and this has been fun. Yeah, it's been exciting.
Crazy ride and you know we always get to meet new people which is one of the
things that makes it fun. If it was just you and I, we'd run out of stuff to say
already I'm sure but you know we meet people every day almost it seems like
and we have tried to keep new exciting guests on the podcast and bring to the
forefront things that are going on in our community. Also, what's going on? You
know if we can do semi-nationally or regionally or something like that, that
helps out too. So we have a guest today. Why don't you introduce the guests and
then we'll get them on the line and we'll talk about where we met them and then
we'll introduce them on the show. Yeah, well this is Trevor from BHA. So it's
back country, hunters and anglers and we actually, we haven't really met Trevor
yet. So we talked to a guy at the Sportsman show that got us in contact
with Trevor. So we're actually going to call him up right now and then I'll have
him explain what he does with BHA and then we'll go from there. Well for BHA,
for those that aren't familiar with the acronym, it's back country, hunters and
anglers. Yeah. It's an organization that help you with your public life. Here we go.
Hey Trevor, this is David Crane and David Sandana. How are you doing?
Oh I'm doing fine. How are you? Doing fantastic. Thank you for joining us on the
podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I know it's late on the
east coast. What state are we calling you at? So I'm in Montana for we are in
the run to be coming up this week. So I'm here prepping everybody for that and
getting ready for all the prizes, raffles, all that stuff. Okay, I thought for some
reason you were already gone. Oh no, that's awesome. So at least you're at least
closer in time zone than what I thought. Well, it could be bad. A friend of mine
just came back from Dubai and he was saying that jet lag is real. Yeah. Oh yeah. He
just flew over the north, I guess what's that arctic? You know, so he was like, it
wasn't, I mean it's a long flight, but he just flew over and pretty much went
through a time zone pie. Like over this cross section of time zones and he
lines up it's like two o'clock. Yeah. Two days before, you know. So we just went
over back country hunters and anglers in just like a little tiny segment. Just
said, you know, what your organization is that you work for. And so Trevor
why don't you give the better interpretation of what you do for BHA and
what the organization is about? Yeah, so I'm trying to make this shortest story
as possible. But yeah, so I run the Armed Forces Initiative for BHA and we're the
piece of back country, enters anglers focused on the military community. So
veterans, active duty, National Guard, reserves, Gold Star families, just trying
to specifically advocate for that group and get that group involved in public
lands and waters, conservation, just starting a conversation with them. That's
what I do. So where do you, where do the conversation lead normally? Yeah, so the
biggest piece then was just kind of we're gonna talk about how it began, which is
a little bit of a lot of stories. So I'm sorry about that. But that's fine. So yeah,
so every year BHA does a membership survey. Basically we send out like
50 questions, mostly demographic. I understand how our members feel about
certain issues, where they spend most of their time in the outdoors, what they
like pursue, you know, try fishing, walleye, deer hunting versus you know,
squelching, small game, upland, whatever, right? So in 2018 was the first time they
asked the question, are you a member of the military community? And I don't know
exactly what sparked that question. I wasn't on board at that point. But one of
the surprising answers was 12% of BHA's membership then said yes, they were at
either a veteran active duty national guard, reserved to go start family. Now
that's a good because that's a good percentage. Yeah. Yeah. So if you look at
the average population, depending on which like statistic you read, it's between
five and seven percent of the general population of the US is a member of that
military community, right? So something BHA was doing in 2018 was organically
leading to over double what that percentage was within our membership. So
like per capita, why are we attracting so many of this military community? So I
started like a journey in 2018 for BHA, where that's when I was contacted a
couple other people that sit on my board that are part of that military
community, just trying to figure out what exactly drew us to backcountry
hunters name. There's a whole litne of it. There's not, you know, one magic pill,
right? But a lot of what was even more surprising is digging into this, we
realized that half of the military members of BHA were in leadership
positions. They were either running state chapters, they were organizing river
cleanups, doing public land packouts, advocating policy-wise for backcountry
hunters name, there's public lands and waters. So it just by the time we figured
that out, it's, all right, how do we create an avenue to get more of this
demographic engaged, right? Like if 6% or right, like if half of that 12% of the
military population within BHA is our most active part of our membership, how
do we get more of them, right? And that's something that any organization would
look at. I mean, if, you know, whatever 6% of any company was the most productive,
6%, it's, all right, how do I get more of that 6%? You know, so that's what
started the Armed Forces Initiative and that's when I kind of came around as a
volunteer where we're just still trying to figure out what the Armed Forces
Initiative meant, how do you best serve this military community, how do we
activate them for conservation, right? So we do this in a number of different
ways, but primarily my job is to take members of this military community
out hunting and fishing on public lands, just introduce them to the
Conservation Conversation. And that started with me and the seven members of my
board doing three trips a year, right? And that was 2020, we did our first trip,
there was in November, Eastern Montana Mjoldier, where we took 18 veterans out
with some V tags, which are Go tags in Montana, and we just tried to, we brought
a biologist in, talk about, hey, this is why they live in this habitat, this is
the importance of like a sagebrush prairie or a short grass prairie, this is
all the species that live here, this is why we manage deer populations using
hunting, why it's one of the tools that is most effective, what, where your
hunting license dollars go, it's just kind of give them an overview of, hey, this is
why we're out here doing this, and then this is how we're doing it, like
physically how to spot and stalk mjoldier, and then also how to prepare that
mjoldier and take it home to feed you and your family, right? So you're
actually participating in this kind of natural, natural cycle of life, right?
So that's a lot of things kind of all wrapped into step one of what we do.
Step two that we want to do at every one of our events is we want to talk to
them about community in the military community, and this really is less of an
organized discussion, I mean, there's no psychiatrists, there's no
couch or anything like that, really this is one of the coolest parts that just
happens organically, is people participate and they just kind of pick up like, oh
man, like it's not uncommon that we'll have folks on a mission in Afghanistan
in 2011 and realize that at that same camp is the pilot that was flying one,
they didn't know each other, separate units like walk into the
shinnok helicopter and talk to the pilot, right? That's like, oh man, what part of
the country is that in? My dad was there, you know, like, it's a really
interesting dynamic, I mean, what happens to the result of this conversation is,
because our events are between three and five days long, normally, is you have a
group of people with the same shared life experiences, they're all dealing
with just the result of being at war for the past 22 years, they're all
dealing with like maybe they hunted before the army, but very few of them
hunted while they were in the military, now they're trying to pick it up again,
they're not really sure where to start, how to go about it, and they have an
interest in it, right? So really the second piece is kind of just introducing
them to a community of people that can help them continue to hunt or fish
without relying on a nonprofit to do it, because that's my goal, like if I take
anybody out and in 10 years they say, yeah, I went hunting once, it was great,
like that, I see that as a field, like the goals that they can have all the
skills and the people to go with to continue doing this on their own,
like it's not a once in a lifetime experience, it's a lifetime of
experiences, right? That's the goal, and right now,
basically we do like after action surveys, we're at about 82%, it's like 82.6,
if I hadn't pulled the numbers up for today, I'd bring that at a time, but in
January 82% was had hunted in six months after an event, so it is working,
they're continuing to hunt. Can I interrupt for just a second? Because you
got me with the, so I got step one and step two, but step one, I had some
questions in my head where I was sitting here, so Dave,
training myself, both of our families served the US
Armed Forces and my dad was an army and what was your grandfather? He was an
army? He was an army, yeah, both of them were, yeah.
In World War II? One was in World War II,
101st Airborne, like he was D-Day all day, he went through all that, he was 17,
and then my grandfather on my father's side was in
Korean War and he was artillery. So right after, yeah.
So my grandfather and your grandfather were both in Korea, same time problem.
Probably, yeah. So the question I had was, I see a lot of times,
you know, being around, growing up around JBLM, used to be Fort Lewis,
I spent a lot of time on base with soldiers and my dad, he'd always talk
about, you know, battle buddies and people you served with and
years later, it was crazy because we'd be walking through
just like you and your rendezvous is when you have these organic meetings on,
you know, with note without the couch. My dad will be walking through Fred Meyer
or Safeway or something else in here to just stop it staring at somebody and
they'll look at him and they'll be like, hey, were you in
South Korea in 1987 and they're like, yeah, I was there, what do you
want to know for? And they start thinking, oh shit, you're that guy, you know, it's like,
it's true the military community is so tight, but they're on a mission,
you know, they're always mission oriented. So they, you know, they deal with last
names and so they're like, say, I'm Dan, oh, say I'm Dan, I remember you,
blah, blah, blah, they start chopping up for 10 minutes and then you're trying to
get out of there with your groceries, you know.
But I think it's, I think it's fascinating how they have such a
large contribution to BHA and what I've, you know, this is not scientific,
but from observation in a lot of the military members around here is they're
always reaching out, trying to find somebody because they're usually newer
to the areas or not there very, very long, you know.
So, you know, the organization's like a natural gravitational thing, right?
Seems like that's where people are going. This is what where we can go and learn
and because all the time they'll ask like, hey, where's the
where's the spot I can go duck hunt? Where's the spot that I can, you know,
where I can go hunt deer, I'm not from around here and they look for a weekend
friend to do that with and then they go back on duty, you know, they have
get back to the base and do their job, but so BHA seems like a natural fit for that.
Oh, absolutely. It's, you know, that's one of the key reasons that we found that
military folks are drawn to BHA is, I mean, if you take average, average private, right?
Like, you grow up in Southern Missouri or wherever, like, you know, at a hunt
duck hunt, white tail in Turkey's, you go to basic training for,
realistically, about six months, like, full-bending Georgia's.
You're, you're basic training and you're infantry school, you're not hunting,
you don't have to be, you don't have a pass but doing that.
You're just getting screened at and learning how to be in the Army, right?
Yeah. Then you go to, like, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, right?
Okay, well, all of a sudden there's a difference. Like, you can hunt there.
Like, that's an option. There's wild hogs. There's deer on post. There's quail on post.
And if you drive a couple hours, you can be saltwater fishing.
Like, just a whole litany of things that you could do
that you didn't have access to before. Now, let's say you didn't go to Fort Bragg,
see, you got to somewhere cooler, like Alaska.
Like, any of the multiple military bases we have in Alaska, like,
how you're hunting terribly, moose, rizzly bear, like, just all
wild sheep, mountain goats, all this crazy stuff, right?
But you have no idea what you're doing.
You can't, like, if you live in the barracks, like you're a younger guy, 18, 19, 20,
you live in the barracks. You can't keep your firearm in the barracks. Sounds ridiculous,
but you can't. So you have to find a place to store your firearm safe on post.
You need to figure out where can I go hunt if I can hunt on post or if I can. A lot of military
posts, you are allowed to hunt on. There's a lot of, you know, it's public land. It just kind of
goes by different terms, because it's managed by the Department of Defense. And there's a
couple more he poops to jump through because you're at the, um, the federal law.
Go to the training schedule, right? So like the soldiers training on that land will always
have priority over you hunting, but there is still plenty of opportunity. So now you have,
you're at a point where, all right, well, I still want to hunt and fish. How do I know about it?
Well, I could go ask my boss who screams at me every day, but even if I got the courage to do
that, he got there six months before I did, right? And you're at each of these places for two and
a half, three years. One of those years is probably a deployment. If it's been the past 22 years,
right? Like, yeah, you're training, you're deployment, you're a rest. And then you move.
Yeah, that's how your life is. So it's not surprising. A lot of folks like, I spent eight
years in the army and I did not hunt while I was on active duty. Like a lot of, a lot of people
who like that. It's nuts. My dad probably would have, my dad was the first sergeant. So people
were asking him for things, you know, but he probably would have said, he's like, if someone
asked him to go hunt and they probably, he'd probably say like, boy, you need to learn to
shine your shoes before you can go hunting. You know, like, yeah, get your shine right first.
You know, he was always polishing boots. Yeah, things you don't think could be polished for
shiny. We have a, we have a new friend, Cameron Spires. He moved here from Tennessee, but he's
normally from South Carolina, or he might be North Carolina, I can't remember. But he came
over here and he had been in the military and he was, he doesn't really know anybody. And we're
here in the state of Washington. And, and I met him at a firing range. And, you know, he was reaching
out like, Hey, we're to do this and we're to do that. And, you know, with BHA, we have BHA here
here in Washington state. And, you know, him possibly joining that and reaching out more and
reaching out to us. I mean, it's, it's a good community to be a part of.
Yeah, I think it's absolutely. It lowers the defenses too. There's a lot of people I feel
it's hard to approach. It's hard to approach people you don't know for one and then to,
and on the firing range, or it could be Archie range, you'll shoot next to the same people for a
while before you actually start having the conversation. Yeah. So it's not an extremely like,
what they call extrovert place. Yeah, there's a lot of people to themselves, you know,
there, you know, they're on, they're on, they're in their zone. And, you know, you get to know
them and you hang out and you start to realize everybody's actually a big softie. You know,
there's a, there's a beard behind the beard is just nice people. You know, most of the time,
it's, and it doesn't have to be beard, but you know, whoever it is, the hard shell gets
cracked. And next thing I know, like, man, this dude's, this dude's all right, you know, we should go
fishing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's, and that's one of the reasons that successful is,
it's just a little bit less of a, I don't want to say like a barrier entry, but like you, you go to,
I don't want to throw any money on the bus. You can go to a ducks unlimited banquet. And you're not
exactly having people line up to show you their duck cutting spots. Like I remember I've gone to
ducks unlimited banquets or dealt the waterfowl, I reckon on health before trying to figure out,
like, Hey, how do I figure out? How do I learn how to do this? And you just, there's not a red carpet
rolled out to like, Oh yeah, come with me up the mountain. I'll show you all these wallows or,
yeah, I go to this swamp and this is the regs. And this is how you have to wait in line and draw
your position. Those are, yeah, those are the same as that. There's all these red, all these
rub the death every September 15th on this hill. Everybody up there.
But then you go to like the first year I went to BHA rendezvous as a volunteer.
Like I started some dude for like five minutes. He says like, Hey, what, like he was a volunteer,
been there a long time, not his first round of view was mine. And he's just like, So what are you
into man? What do you like to hunt? What do you, what are your goals? And I was like, Oh, I do this,
this and this. He's like, Yeah, but what do you want to do? And I was like, Oh, I'd love to go to
Arizona and hunt some native quail. There's three species down there. I'm a bird dog guy. Like,
I think that'd be a lot of fun. He's like, hold on. Left for five minutes came back. He's like, Hey,
these are two dudes around the cal or the Arizona chapter. We're going to hook you up with some
pins. We're going to teach you exactly how to do this. Like it's just a very open, inviting environment
that BHA has created. And I think that's a huge help. Like no one's going to like kind of a
chastise you or make fun of you because you don't know how to tell white tail and you're
apart, right? Like there's very friendly to learning and very open. Yeah, I'm still kind of on
defense on that myself. From like, is it open for deer here? Yeah. Okay, good. Okay, how many points
do we need? Brown tip, white tail, black tip, you know, whatever. Sure. That Colombia, that Columbia
black tail. Now that'd be a doozy. You know, they have a, they have a, we have a fourth species of deer
here. The Columbia black tail deer. Yeah. And it's a protected one. Fortunately, it's in, it's kind
of in its own little place. So we, they're not like roaming around, you know, where we hunt.
Yeah. But hey, what if there was one, Dave, and you shot it? To be honest, I probably wouldn't
even know what it was. Just take it to the bush. I mean, that's a black tail. You wouldn't even
think about it. Honestly, just be like, damn, so it is, it is important. And it's funny to see
that experience with the duck hunting stuff, because you won't see my picture on the bragging
boards, you know, at sports and warehouse. And that's just fish, you know, because they list all
the rivers, like, here's these rivers. And this is what's going on. And they'll say it's good,
it's slow, hot, you know, like they'll put in red letters, like hot, hot, hot in everybody's there.
I mean, the next day, that's it. So they do it for lakes on stuff. But this gives people good
option, good outlet and opportunity to get some of that inside information. Because, you know,
honestly, these guys, you know, we went over the timing, they're either in the field,
they have a little bit of R and R time, and they're back at work, you know. So their work schedule
is, you know, money through fire, they have like an actual hourly schedule. So you have to be there
a certain time, you have E.P. at this time, or whatever, how your day set up. But it's regimented.
And then you have my brother-in-law, off a he's getting, they call it, like everybody said,
but he's getting PCS or something for no, not PCS. You have to, you have to correct me on these
terms, but he's going for training for like six weeks. So he's going to be, he's going to be doing
nothing. Is that PCS? Hey, I T. Yeah, PCS kind of anytime you leave your, your current post and
you're going to do a new one, like, yeah, it's what he's doing. Because he's getting sent down to,
their next station is in Louisiana. I guess, I thought he was going to Hawaii.
He thought he was to. Oh my gosh. Hawaii was a huge choice. That's a huge difference.
They give you a list like, where's your station of choice? You know, he's like, oh yeah, I'm going
home, I'm going back to Hawaii and then boom, boom, boom down this list and the last spot,
they're like, what's your least favorite spot? He wrote Louisiana and that's what he got.
Dang. Yeah, he got Will Smith. Yeah, he's like, I had it coming, you know, so dang.
That's a right Louisiana ain't too bad. It's almost Texas actually. It's like, you know,
on the border in the, he's in the middle of nowhere. It's like Louisiana, Texas.
Yeah, when the army made posts, they didn't even buy the most expensive land to build those on.
They should have got some from the railroad. We're giving it away at one time. Geez,
crazy. So yeah, I like that. Everything we've gone over so far. What about the third option?
Well, hold on. Before we get into that, we're having a technical difficulty with our camera.
So hold on one second, we're going to pause this.
All right, sorry about that. Technical difficulties. Yeah, dead battery.
So we got, we got point one and two.
Yeah, now what was the third portion we were jumping into before the questions were?
Yeah, the third portion is kind of the most important, right? Like,
you probably wondering like, all right, well, we understand why it's good for the participants,
why they are getting something out of it, why they want to go hunting and fishing and how this
kind of helps them. The third question is, or the third thing that I want everybody to get out of
it is a mission, right? One of the things, especially with our post 9-11 veterans, Afghanistan,
Iraq, Syria, like for me, I was in sixth grade for 9-11, right? Like, we've lived longer.
You're a young and both Dave and I had to look at each other like whole crap.
Whole generation. Yeah. Of people that have been at war longer than they've been at peace,
like being in the military, being like knowing if that's what you want to do, like having a mission
every day, like it makes a difference is how people grow up, right? Like, there's a whole
generation of veterans that have always had a mission and now all of a sudden they don't,
right? Like, you get out of the army, you get out of the Marines out of Navy, and now all you
have to look out for is you. You don't need people responsible for like, and that can be extremely
refreshing. It can also be terrifying, right? Because there's nobody looking out for you and it
sounds like ridiculous, but like, nobody telling you what time to wake up, you don't have to schedule
for the next day, like it is fun for about 45 days. Then reality sits in. Yeah, right? So,
that's a real thing. It's crazy. Oh, it's nuts. I mean, you can get,
like, you go get a job, right? You go to a bank teller, you can be a project manager,
steel worker, whatever, right? But there's a certain point where, because this generation,
one, just naturally in veterans, you decided to sign up for something that was bigger than
yourself. You're very mission oriented, but especially with this recent generation of veterans,
you've always had that mission and now all of a sudden your mission is what? Like, as a bank teller,
three of the goals that you have to hit at work or as a, I was a project manager, so like, yep,
got to keep the project on time, one budget, got to keep the rolling, but you're not making the
world a better place. You don't have that like internal kind of satisfaction, but you're doing
something for your country, for your community. And that's the third thing that we hope our
participants get out of this is we want them to be able to take these skills and contribute back
through the conservation conversation. You know, and I don't necessarily care what they get
passionate about, right? Like, whether it's, I mean, it's an organization like small mouth
unlimited, they really get into small mouth fast, or if they really get into elk or white kale deer
or walleye, like, it doesn't matter. What matters that you, we can somehow ignite a passion
for something in the outdoors that you can get involved with. Like, yeah, ideally, I'd love
you to go be a leader in BHA. I'd love for you guys to go be a chapter leader. I'd love for you to
start planning river cleanups and work on access issues, right? But that's not a reasonable goal.
Like, maybe you're going to get passionate about something else. That's fine. I just want you to
leave with all the raw ingredients to find your mission, to find whatever you can do in conservation,
to find that kind of new way of serving your country. These are uniquely American resource
we have. Like, yeah, you have honey in Canada, you have, there's certain like, public land
aspects to Canada, sure. But the United States is truly special because anybody can just go hunt
and fish. So, it's one of the ingredients. Like, if you ask a hundred people why they join the army,
none of them are probably going to say, because of America's public lands and waters, but it is
one of the reasons that makes us, and one of the aspects that makes us unique as a country.
Like, you can't, you can't go hunting in Germany without an immense amount of money, or knowing
somebody with an immense amount of money. Ireland's Great Britain, same way. You have to know a landowner,
you have to be in with a property manager for an estate. But here, you can just go do it. Like,
you can take $80 down to Walmart, like, if you live in the right area, you take $80 down to Walmart,
and get a single shot shotgun, and get a pair of ground coveralls, and go 100% in a few months.
Like, you can just do it. And that's amazing. Right, so that's the third piece. I just want
to ignite that mission. Find a passion, whatever the passion about to be a species, could be public
lands, could be a suitable Roosevelt conservation, get really into policy, right? That's fine.
Whatever your flavor is, that's the third goal. Yeah, get people involved, you know, the involvement
of individual, like a grassroots level. And I don't have, like, insight in this, but the chapters,
how do the chapters work? For BHA or for like the armed forces?
No, for for for BHA, and then, and then how do they incorporate into the armed forces initiative?
Sure. So for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, it's kind of like a mix of regional and state
chapters. Like, Indiana has its own chapter. Kentucky has its own chapter. Tennessee has its
own chapter, but then like the Northeast, where even a bunch of states come together, like the
whatever that is, five Northeast stream states, they're one chapter, right?
So it just it kind of depends where you're at, like the Southeast, uh, uh, Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Alabama are all one chapter. So not because there's not a public lands down there. So it kind
of depends on what region you're in, but most states have their own chapter. So not to be clean
shape, but similar is this is it divided up? And you may not may not know, but is it divided up
kind of like Boy Scout, um, troops where there's like, here's this troop in your area, you can join
this troop or you can start your own troop or or they say this, this area, Washington state has,
you know, one BHA chapter for the armed forces initiative initiative, and then they have the
regular Backcountry Hunters and Anglers general population. Yeah. Or you can have like a little
mini chapters, it's own chapter. Like, we don't do like a, uh, oh, this is South Central Louisiana
chapter, or this is Eastern Kansas chapter. Like right now we're just going to states,
and a lot of that has to do is with just your numbers, right? I think we are approaching a D.
A.K. is growing, but once you get to a certain point, like you're absolutely going to have to
expand to more regional chapters. That's something we've looked at strategically. It's just kind of
deciding what is that level of that breaking point where we finally have enough, right? There's like,
there's no point making a Southern Illinois chapter. If it's the same 12 dudes showing up,
right? Right. Right. So it's so we're kind of at that point of growth where we're starting to
look at that, but currently we just have states. And then the Armed Force Initiative is one chapter.
So like whether you're in, you know, doing based Lewis McCor, whether you're in Fairbanks,
Alaska, whether you're in Southern Georgia, you were part of the Armed Forces Initiative chapter.
You're welcome no matter where you're at. Yeah, you can be exactly. So that's the reason for that
is you're still going to be very closely tied with your local BHA team. Right. You're still going
to go to their events. You're going to have fun with them. They're going to be able to teach you
how to hunt deer in Georgia or, you know, whatever, chase alligators, Louisiana, wherever you're
stationed or wherever you decided to retire to if you got it out of the military. The thing that
AFI does is ideally end state like Trevor does his job right. We have one Armed Forces liaison
in each state where we have a BHA chapter, and that person's job is to manage the military
community in that area, right? Because I can't be everywhere. I don't know what the veteran
population in New York state needs. I don't know what the veteran population in Washington state
needs, but I have a local rep everywhere that can tell me like, hey, for example, Alaska
Armed Forces Initiative is all about, hey, these are new,
crazy species that you've never heard of. This is a moose. This is a caribou. Like, it's a thing
to walk up on one of these things on the ground and just be baffled by what do I do next, right?
Especially with the one waste laws in Alaska, you have to be spot on with how much game you harvest.
So what they thought with that chapter thinks is the best way to serve the Armed Forces Initiative
is to have a big game breakdown class once a month at different installations across the state,
right? So they have, uh, you know, messed it up. It's not Alaska fishing game. It's whatever the
Alaska Natural Resource Department is. They donate like a roadkill moose, roadkill caribou,
and they do a, hey, this is how you break down a moose. This is how you do this, this is how you
do it legally leaving, uh, leaving all the right parts intact and harvesting as much meat as you can,
right? So that's what they do in Alaska. But in Colorado, what they think the biggest benefit
or the biggest need for the military community is, hey, Colorado's got some crazy regs, but there's
a ton of opportunity. How do I explain how to navigate these regulations, how to apply for tags,
what is a B tag, what is an A tag, what are all these zones? So they do, and they think it's
quarterly. We're trying to make it monthly. It's just fine. The right time is how to navigate
Colorado. Right? So you just get stationed at Fort Carson for your at the Air Force Academy,
or wherever temporary post you're at in Colorado. You're trying to make the most of your time,
right? And then obviously North Carolina is doing something completely different where I say,
this is how you turn this is how you help white tail in the mountains. Like this is a physically,
let me take 10 guys out and teach them how to do this. And it's all within the AFI mission,
right? Like my exact mission, my commanders intent, the armed force initiative is to build
conservationists out of the military community. So whatever that means for you and your local
team, your local community, do it and you're within the mission. Like I don't put a lot of
restrictions on my team or what they need to be doing. Yeah, the North American conservation
models is unique to the world. You know, you know, and a lot of people don't realize,
you know, people say some stupid stuff sometimes. So they're like, I'm, you know,
I don't hate America. I don't like United States or whatever. We don't have, you know,
whatever that they're angry about today, right? And then I'm like, have you ever been to Mexico?
Like you just go south of the border and see, it doesn't take much to when you leave the
comfort of the United States to realize that we're very fortunate that we have this government
and this and our constitution and everything set up. And we have access to things that people,
most people around the world don't, I don't know what I would do if I lived somewhere else.
Like I would, like I asked people a lot of people that I know like, what do you do for fun? And they
don't list anything. That's fun. Like, what? Like, what are you? Like, are you a human? How do you not,
you never go fishing? When I moved to New Jersey, like everybody I knew didn't even know how to swim.
But when I lived over here, I was like swimming in rivers and lakes and ocean and it was like
part of life. But it's, it's where those, where the people are from, you know, most people I lived
moved in from New York. So they don't have swimming pools. They're not going into the Hudson. You
know, it's like, it's just, yeah, there's not access to those things. And you don't really even know
you're missing it if you never had it. Right. So being American and having this North American
conservation model and the conservation is one part of it, right? But having the land reserves,
the means to do it. The land reserves, you know, and access to public property, you know,
it says public lands. Most countries don't have that. I mean, you might find it in China
somewhere if you lived in the jungle, but I'm sure someone would stop you sometime, you know.
But it's, it's, there's very few places you could just roam freely and not have to account to
anybody for it. Well, some of the other countries, I mean, to even hunt over there, you need government
permission to even do it. Mm hmm. Yes. It's nuts. And you have to get permission before you can
even say that you're going to hunt the country and whatever species that is open for hunting,
you need government, you know, permission. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's nuts. Because of our because of
our, I mean, we, we need government permission to kill deer, right? And well, you're not calling
like the consulate and like, Hey, I'm so unso. This isn't like government permission. We can go
hike on any property we want to that's public land, or we have, you know, an access permit to
or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But there's certain areas they protect the conservation, protect these lands
from overuse to like conservation doesn't mean preservation. The difference is preservation
means permanent set aside conservation means limited, like we're going to extend the use of this
stuff to make sure we always have it. It's not to keep it in one spot where you never access that
but there are areas in Washington, a lot of the high mountain metals, there's one specific place
you can only hike there with a permit and you have to go into a lottery to draw it and then you
either get drawn for an overnight stay or a day hike only. So the place all over the US,
I mean, your grantee is like that, like if you want to because you have 10 million people hiking
through there and be ruined. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like people don't realize when you when you go
through and you cause erosion and you crush down the shrubs deep and all this other stuff,
the game animals can't survive and then that environment never recovers, you know.
So yeah, it's just it's it's unique. I love it and I can't imagine life without it and turning
hunters into conservationists. That's like an evolution that a lot of people don't even consider
because you've always had it. You're not you don't even think you're doing anything.
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's really cool. I didn't I didn't even know BHA did that, but that's
that's genius. You know, letting people realize like, hey, here's the here's the deal.
Yeah. And it's I mean, this isn't like just what the Armed Force Initiative is doing. Like
one of the tenets of back country hunters and English one of the programs they're working on
is R3 is that kind of recruit retain reactivate of all these different hunters like really the
Armed Force Initiative. Mostly what we see is this reactivating and retaining like most of our people
like hundreds of kids or fishes a kid had a little bit of exposure to it and then just stopped for
whatever where there was four years eight years 20 years in the military. Those were reactivating
them and then kind of just continuing keeping them on mission. Right. The
other cool thing that BHA is doing, which is it's kind of like I'm kind of saying it's a miniature
version because they're reaching same amount of people. There's doing a different way. So like
they'll do these I can't remember I think it's hunting for sustainability is like the catchphrase
that they're using, but they do these clinics in these traditionally non-used areas, right. So
they'll go over to like they did one in Portland, they did one New York City, they did one in Atlanta
and they just hugs of people that don't have traditional access to the outdoors. You know,
these are not your traditional hunters and anglers. And the reason we're doing this is maybe we don't
make them lifetime hunters named. Right. Like maybe they they try it and they're like,
your honey's not for me or going in crab traps in Portland is not for me. But now they have an
understanding of it. They can at least speak to, oh, this is how the North American model of wildlife
conservation works. This is how my part in it. This is how hunters play a part in it, anglers play a
part in it. So when something comes across the ballot in six months, three years, 10 years,
that once you kind of limit the ability to hunt and fish or goes against scientific management
of wildlife, we have these this non-traditional group of people who now has that experience to say,
hey, no, that's not what I learned from BHA. Yeah, the education behind all that I've had these
conversations with people that don't have a clue what hunting really is and what we contribute
to society, really. And they have no clue. And that is fantastic. And yeah, more people in
Portland, Seattle need to jump on that for sure. Because there is stuff going across the ballot
and there's people voting on they don't even know what that could is. It's just like, oh, we don't
want them hunting this. Yeah, boom. Like, this is cool to me. I'm a hunter and angler, but I've
never said crab pots in the Pacific Northwest. Like you're telling me how to just show up an
event and you're going to teach me how to do this. We're going to harvest crabs. We're going to learn
how to cook them. Like, that sounds amazing. Yeah, never done that. Blue crab. You're speaking
my language. Crab master. Hey, I'll tell you what we do our damage with the
dungeness and rock crab, the red rocks. Yeah. We, you know, my brother and I, you were you're
saying earlier, this guy, it's fun when you get out of the military for about 45 days. You know,
in my one of my neighbors, Nick, he retired this last summer. I was working across the street from
his place and he's like, Hey, what are you guys doing over here? He comes over and I always see
him out there, barbecue. And before he retired, he's from Texas. So he barbecued his like crazy,
smokes everything and has a big spit and this whole get up, right? It's like every, I mean,
it's incredible food. So he's like, yeah, I just, you know, I'm just retired and, you know, I have
the final paperwork was coming out in a little bit of time. So he's like, yeah, and this kind of
mosey around the house on much to do and I'll come help you for free. I was like, what? I was
like, I'll tell you what, if you want to come over here, I'll take you, you know, I can use some help
moving some of this stuff, but I'll take you crabbing. And he's like, Oh, yeah, really? I've
never done that before. So we went out, we actually went to the Puget Sound went crabbing and it's on
my my personal Instagram, me and Nick crabbing. And he was blown away. Like, he's like, I didn't
know you can catch these right here. And right now they're probably like, oh, 15 bucks a pound.
So took him out. He caught a monster. It's like seven and a half inch dungie. And that's, that's
big. It was almost bigger than the, than the little scale we used to measure them. And so, I mean,
it's mind blowing to people and they're like, dude, this is crazy because they'll go to a restaurant
and they'll go buy a crab dinner or they'll go to the supermarket and they'll get a crab. But
they didn't realize if you were to get a shellfish and fishing license and go to Puget Sound,
you could drop crab pots and do some fishing. And then you can probably catch, you might catch a
lingcod, you catch, you catch a flounder for sure. And maybe some skate. And then you could bring in
up to six crabs a day. So, I mean, that right there is, we brought home a whole bucket full of
crabs. It was like, you realize it's like $300. Oh man, it's something similar. We're having an event
coming up next month right outside of Boston about learning how to clams, which is a big deal.
So, it's just up January and we did a duck hunt with, I think we had 15 veterans up there trying
to do like a waterfowl event. And you could see Boston, like you're that close. So, you're just
like in the city, like I'm, I'm waiting for like my car to get heat or, you know, my tires get
slasmed like something and all weird, some hunter harassment up here. Now everybody's super chill.
Like it's actually a really interesting, like people just get to live off the land. Like they get it,
right? Like, right there hunting and like, so you can only clam during daylight hours and only
during low tide. So depending on where that sits, like you have your first light flight where a
bunch of ducks are coming in, right? Then, you know, whether that's eight, thirty, nine o'clock
when low tide hits, you also have a claim, like all the clamors getting their boats and they,
the commercial guys come out to pick clams. And they push all the ducks around again and you get
that second flight, which is a lot of fun. But talking to some of these dudes, it's like,
this is anybody can go do this, go buy a rake, go get your commercial claiming license, which is
wildly affordable. I think it's like $30 or something. And go dig clams and in a tide, you can dig up
200, 300, maybe even $400 for the clams. And you just drive them down to the fish market and sell them.
You guys should advertise that as the shooting shovel.
You know, they have a cast and blast fishing trip. Yeah, you got the shooting shovel, you know,
where you go duck hunting and clam the same day, you know.
Honestly, I don't want to blow this spot up.
Pretty good. Like, I did not expect it to be good. And it was, yeah, I mean, with all that
coast is public, like this big coastal marsh, like, like we had four groups, sometimes we had five
groups, depending on how many people we could fit in what boats and where we're trying to go to.
But like we didn't run into other hunters, you have plenty of space to spread out, like you're
working divers, black ducks, Canada geese, like opportunity for some brands. We didn't get me.
Then how many grantees quiz out? I don't know how to call a brand. Like somebody will write in and
tell me exactly what I did wrong. But anyway, it was a really interesting area to hunt. And
those places exist all over, right? Like, I don't care if you're in, we've got a guy, a volunteer down
in Los Angeles, like, you hear that? And you're like, Oh my God, what does he even do? How do you
live there? I do have 45 minutes and I'm hunting California quail behind my Springer Spaniel
anywhere because it's all public out in the like the desert. You really call it. Probably have a
geocentric term for it. It's not really like just saying, you know, like a
bear investor. It's definitely a southern, south like desert, kind of climate, right? And he's like,
yeah, it's great. I drive 45 minutes. Like you can't find that in a lot of places. That's my favorite.
Like me like, yeah, that sounds far, but you can't live in Chicago, New York and drive 45 minutes
to go hunting. No, you're still in Chicago. We had we had the same, you know, epiphany type moments
when we would fish early in the morning and Tacoma, you know, because there's there's a segment of
people that realizes you get up out of bed, you go down to the pier, or you get on your boat,
and you can drop a pot, do some fishing. And everybody else around you is there's like a million people
and they're all sleeping. And you're like, you get to watch a sunrise, there's a Mount Rainier.
There's a lot of people are missing out on when they can just,
people don't even realize 10 minutes and they get to see it.
It is one of the things that I found that I always try to, it's really how I started
playing these trips. Like now we've got these 42 chapters of Armed Force Initiative. We're taking
1700. I think the last last year, we took out 1700 veterans. This year we're taking, looking to take
out 2300. And it's not just veterans, it's veterans, it's veterans, active duty, everybody's just
easier than saying the old spiel every time I just call them veterans. But the, like we're doing,
the way I get kind of the ideas, I look at things from my past, like, right? Like, what did I really
have fun doing? Like, what was that kind of epiphany moment for Trevor, you know? And it's,
a lot of that was bird hunting for me. But there's all these experiences. And now that we have so
many volunteer leaders, all these states, we're just doing these wildly crazy stuff. Like,
they're doing like a big old crawfish event, like our Louisiana guy and our Texas guy are
getting together and teach people how to do crawfish traps. And that's how you cook them. And this
is why you do it this way. And it's going to be a really great event coming up. Like it's
just tons of experiences that the program's growing into and it's, as wild.
I wasn't ever a crawfish guy. I went to Louisiana. I'll change that. Not before I went to Louisiana,
but our buddy's wife is from Louisiana, from New Orleans. And she's always talk,
she's always ordering crawfish. You know, they would come and, you know, they come there, like,
they're like eight hours or whatever, they get them here, express in there in this little shipping
thing. But she would do these crawfish boils. And I fell in love and I actually missed that.
You know, when we went down to Louisiana and had some down there, they have what's called
the, I think it's crawfish king and they're like, they're like food trucks,
but they'll have two, three hundred pounds of crawfish and they'll be sold out in 10 minutes.
And there's a bunch of them. So yeah, man, you're talking about all this stuff, man. I'm just getting
hungry. I'm like, how can I get to Louisiana for this event? How can I get over there?
Yeah. Clams, crawfish, oil, duck, yeah, duck, man, I'm turning that level.
We're in between seasons over here and we're just itching to get out and start doing
some dang hunting. Right. This is a struggle for me too. So like, I always go home. So I'm originally
from from Southern Missouri. Okay. I was going home in February with my dad, Uncle family,
we chase snow geese around and flying states. And that ended. I think my last one was February
28th. And like now I've got like fundraisers and different workshops going on. I've tried travel
and I'm traveling all March. I'm just like driving through fields and you're looking at
big old herds of flocks of turkeys. You're looking at antelope trying to move back into the summer
range and coming out to Montana. Gosh, man, you're just in that withdrawal zone mostly. You got all
those ducks flying north. Like I watched the group appeal in Montana and the Zulu Montana already.
I'm like, what the hell are you guys doing here already? I'm flying north right now. The geese and
stuff are back. Yeah. You know, like, I'm like, Oh shit. I mean, you become more keenly aware of
your environment when you're involved. You know, I used to watch, I had this house in P.L. up and
I used to be able to watch the sunrise. And over a couple, it didn't take too long. A couple of
years of living there, I realized that the sun is going to stop behind this tree at the peak of summer.
And it would start coming back to the direction. And I was like, when it gets behind that part of
that hill, I won't see it again for like three months. And you just get aware of these situational
things and, you know, like the geese coming down when I see the first ones in September, I'm like,
probably gonna be a bad winner. This ain't good. So I'm going on up north. Yeah. And then, you know,
this year was hot here, like 60 until October. Yeah, almost November, almost November. It was nuts.
And we had the best, I mean, Trevor, you should have been here for this season. We had the best
goo season and duck season I've ever seen. And the, I need more Pacific Flyway time. I've been
so I hunted the sports in a hunt all four flyways this year for work. Like I got paid to go do this.
And which is just the best job in the world. But the Pacific Flyway is the one I really have
not spent enough time in. And I would love to get out there. They're talking about putting it
on the river trip next year. And I really get some like big fundraising items going through.
But I don't want to mention that a lot of them are around bird hunting, but we're trying to put
together like a nationwide like waterfowl tour right now. And it's interesting. That would be
fantastic. There's far better places than what I know of. But from what I mean, from my experience
here this last year, we had hot until October, then it didn't get cold. You know, the ducks and
geese didn't really come down. They all came down December one. I mean, after that, we were
limited by eight in the morning. I'd never done that before. But every single time we were out,
we limited geese three times, we limited ducks four times. And we're putting six guys on limits
by eight nine o'clock in the morning. I mean, it was just, and that's I'm driving five minutes
from my house. And you're talking like, son up is like 745. They're limited out in like less
than an hour. It felt like you're being swarmed by bees. I mean, I literally said, I was like,
this feels like bees warming you because they're flying from every direction you came and you can
even lock onto one because there's so many like holy smokes. So it's nice to know that they're around
and in in all that. But I'm a bird hunter dude. I'm an outdoors dude. Period. Clam reiki.
Dungeons and S crabs razor clam digging salmon fishing duck hunting never done pheasant. But
I mean, I would. In all the big game you can handle. It's awesome. I'm wondering, how can I get
involved in in BHA if I was interested in getting started, joining a chapter, starting a chapter.
Backcountry hunters.org. Type it in. If you just want to type in to Google BHA because you're lazy.
First is going to be a hydraulic acid. And then the second term is going to be Boston Housing Authority.
And then the third one is the one you want. That's backcountry hunters.
It'll take you to the. He's got the full breakdown. You join or renew your membership to be looking
on a new. It should be in the top there. And for veterans or active military, it's $25.
For regular normal folks, it's $35 for that. I think right now you get free t-shirt.
For magazines a year. I'll be backcountry journal. A lot of good tips, tricks in there. I normally
write an article or two. Check those out. But that's awesome. We're still a small organization.
We're at like 30, maybe 40,000 members. I have a check for membership. I'm just looking at my
little segment, my little picture of the whole word. So a lot more tied into the AFI side. But
yeah. And if you want to get involved, hit the events tab at the top. And you'll see events all
over. Normally, if everybody's done the job, right? All the AFI events are labeled with AFI. And then
the title of the event. But we do miss them. So you have to read the description at some points.
But I say I'm stopping ahead and watching. I know we have like a learned turkey hunt coming up.
We have a turkey hunting camp coming up. We have like a 3D archery tournament.
Fung it up later on in the spring. Just for the armed force initiative. I know
BHA like the standard chapter has a bunch of stuff too. But again, all 50 states. I'm sorry,
except Hawaii. I missed Hawaii. We don't have so many Hawaii. You know, everybody's Hawaii like
starts Hawaii chapter. Please let me know. Well, off A, when he retires, he'd probably like to do
that. Yeah, definitely. I'll say it would definitely do that. Yeah, especially the
English presence in Hawaii. But the trouble is everybody's on a boat.
You have Schofield barracks where everybody on the army seems like a
station for at least two or three years. We had a ton of opportunity with like all the
crazy exotics running around and the fishing's got to be amazing. But just have not found the
right person to start that chapter yet. So we'll probably need a local. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, so I'm looking at the we've been on the BHA website here for a while. We're looking at
the events. But literally, if you're in the United States, you need to check out this event tabs
because they have stuff in like if you're in North Carolina on March 15th, they're going to have a
pint night at Union County pint. Yeah, we had one here American beer company there. And then
they have we've had them here as well. And I wanted to go to one, but it was way up north.
So yeah, they don't really have anything over an arne act of the woods. But it'd be nice to get
over to to one and just be a part of what BHA is trying to do. And you know, if you're someone
that's interested, I would definitely do that. And if you're a veteran, there's a program for you.
Yeah, just get out there, get to one, make the trip like, let's say it's 45 minutes, an hour drive.
Man, I really don't want to drive an hour to, you know, pay six dollars a beer or whatever it is
in some of these fancy places to meet a bunch of people. I don't know. I totally get that at
two. Trust me, I was there for years. Go with a list of what you want in the state, right? Like,
hey, I'm really looking for a trapping spot or where I can catch some flounder, some halibut
or whatever you guys have in Washington, like just go with like, not necessarily an agenda,
but a couple of questions. And you'll find people there with answers, right? And then ideally,
you kind of see how local how they're running these pint nights, because it's not rocket science,
maybe anybody can do it. You go home and you want to do some more stuff in the area. Let's do it.
Well, we just found an event for us.
Yeah, I just missed it.
We did this guide, find a bar that ideally hosts you for either free or pretty cheap.
Normally it's free because you say, hey, I'm going to bring, you know, 25 people here and we're all
going to buy beer, right? And then the next thing is find a reason for people to be there.
Like what we like to do is you like to invite, like a presence forever biologist or whatever wild
turkey biologist is in the area, whatever seasons around that time, right? Like, we have one happening
at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and they're bringing in this wild turkey,
super like local kind of wild turkey famous hunter. He runs beyond the Rubicon. This is a little
hunting channel and whole deal with that pint night is, yep, show up. Buy some raffle tickets,
win some cool prizes, but mostly listen to this guy talk about hunting turkeys and how you can be
a better turkey hunter. But it should be anything like that. Whatever makes people better conservation
is better in the outdoors. Let's do it.
You play plenty of what you need from us and we'll make it happen.
I would say, hey, have you ever gone hunting not killed a turkey? Like, oh, yeah, all the time.
You can just stop doing that. Here's how you can do that. We got this little event.
I'm just going to show you how to do it. Especially in the city northwest, you guys got
three types of turkeys running around up there. I see videos from my buddies sending them their
subdivisions chasing down mailmen stuff. Yeah, yeah, they got some crazy areas. Yeah,
yeah, it's the gangs really. I mean, the gangs of turkeys that, you know, they'll get you.
Some people say they're like gangs, you know, they're like these things. Yeah, there's like 80 of them.
They'll marade you, you know, take your wallet. Yeah.
So in Tacoma, we have this one. It's International Fly Fishing Film Festival
on March 23rd at the Grand Cinnamon Tacoma. I'm going to attend that. It looks legit. I'm
going to invite my buddy Matt. He's a fly fisherman, you know, and he goes all over the place. Yakima,
you know, everywhere. But he works in Seattle and he loves fly fishing and he lives right here.
So I'm going to invite him to that. It's next Thursday. So this episode, is this this one's going to
air on in two weeks. So this will air after. So we'll do a review after we can we can we can
air it before. Do you want to get the control to do that? We can air it before that week before.
Okay, we'll put it up before. I would still like to do a review after though, just to talk about
the experience and then you want to go? Yeah, I'm down. It's Thursday night, Thursday night,
and I'll get we'll get the times and we'll do this and we'll probably be new BHA members.
Yeah, I'm sure they'll have a registry or sign up at the event. So this is what time 7 p.m.
Perfect. Oh, that's yeah, that's that's perfect for us. So yeah, after 10 30 and in kid 30,
we can go have fun. That's right. Sweet. And if you are going to sign up, I highly recommend
signing up at a local event. You just you get hands on first experience. The perp will take
my sign up. That guy's a chapter leader that girls chapter leader. She's going to know what
they need help on where the next kind of habitat cleanup or access project is happening. Like,
that's the place to sign up. Like, obviously, we're going to take your money online. We'll do
whatever check cash credit card. We don't care. But if you could if you could if you have a choice,
definitely go to your local event and buy a membership there. It's just so much easier to get
in direct contact with your local folks and get tied into the mission there in Washington.
Awesome. Or where? Awesome. And I'm excited. So Trevor, what is the website one more time if
people wanted to join back on that country hunters and anglers online? Yep. So it's back
country hunters.org. Hunters with an S or you could just Google BHA scroll past beta hydraulic
acid and Boston housing authority and we're number three. Awesome. Well, I know I know you're
it's later there than it is here. So it's 8.15 p.m. I don't want to take your whole night and I do
appreciate you coming on here and sharing with us. It's been awesome. I appreciate what you're doing
for our armed forces and getting them involved as well as giving them access and opportunities as well.
Yeah, no thanks for having me on. It's always a pleasure. Get the message out there. So thanks.
Awesome. And we'll stay in touch and we'll do a review after this about the event and
you know look for a name on the scrolls. Sounds good. I appreciate it.
Okay, Trevor. Thank you. Have a good one. Yep, you too.