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Welcome back to the Rigsline Hunting Podcast brought to you by Filps Game Calls, with
your host David Crane and David Sandana.
We're back again, we still have raw sharp with us.
Still here.
And today we're going to talk about some things going on in our state with our Fish and Wildlife
Commission, also what does that mean to us and what's happening now.
Last week, our last episode of Ross was talking about writing a letter and how he's been
busy with commission meetings and stuff like that.
So we're going to kind of get the inside scoop as to what took place there.
I've tried to watch as many of the videos on the meetings that I can, so I have some
sort of contribution to this conversation, which may be limited, we'll see, but welcome
back Ross.
Yeah, the, just trying to sift through all the stuff that these people have been saying.
It's just nuts, you know, the things that are going on.
And last week's meeting, particularly, was, they were originally supposed to vote for
their new preservation, what they, they called conservation, but it's a preservation policy.
And, you know, their reasonings, you know, they say because the climate change and all
the stuff that things need to change, but they're trying, they're trying to make this policy
for.
So everybody in the state is a stakeholder, rather than it being a resource.
So like, they use those terms a lot, you know, oh, stakeholder, stakeholder, because they
are the, they are the, they are so good at wordplay, they're going to make it good for
the stakeholders.
And nobody knows who they are or what their motives are, but what is exactly, what, what
started this whole thing just so people that maybe don't know anything about this, how
did it all start or come about?
So how it all started was in 2020, no, 2021, yeah, 2021, November 2021, they were just
talking about, just talking about bear hunting.
And all of a sudden, one of the commissioners turned the table and was asking, asking about
well, you know, what's the average age of a bear being killed in Washington, how, how
many sails are being, you know, killed?
And so then they, they kind of turned this direction where they, they were asking the
department questions, knowing that they would not have those answers right now.
So, so Washington state, you have to turn your bear tooth in, an agent, right?
So they would have all the information that's handed to them, right, they would know all
the questions that were being asked, did they ever answer those questions?
Well, not the way the commissioners were asking because they were just asking some, like
they, they wanted it on the spot.
So the state is actually in a middle of a study, like a five year study, right?
And the commission knows that they're not finished with it, but they want the answers
now when we still are a year away from the final study.
So they can put all the data together.
And the commission is just like, well, if we can't have those numbers now, you know, hold
everything.
Yeah.
And so it wasn't, it wasn't that.
It was, I mean, if we are in the middle of the study, right, or we're at the tail end
of this study.
Right.
The whole argument was, is that the model that we are presenting right now is not good
enough.
So basically they're saying that the biologists that we have through the state that are doing
their job, doing their due diligence to get us this information that we need, they're
not doing it good enough.
It's not a good enough model.
So my, I guess my stance in this conversation is going to be from a question like outside
or looking in.
Right.
Because, you know, I have questions too, but it's not about bears.
Right.
And so from an outsider's perspective, do we have a declining bear population?
No.
No, we don't.
And actually, if you go to my Instagram, I made a little video of it to where the top
bear biologist, I think your name was Stephanie, she told them repeatedly, we have an ample
amount of bears in the state.
We are nowhere near endangered.
It is very sustainable.
It is very sustainable.
She even gave out the percentage of females that are shot, you know, and that's not, not
even anything to worry about.
And because, you know, the Lorna Smiths and the, I can never remember her other name route,
Commissioner Rowland, because they are from the anti-hunting side of things.
They just, none of them listened.
And at the time, we were off a chair member, they only had eight, right?
So when they did the vote, it came out to a four or four tie.
And in my mind, if it comes out to a four or four tie, it should be the same rule until
you have a tie.
It goes to the runner.
Right.
Until you can change it.
But apparently, that's not the way it works.
No.
And so they canceled the season.
And they had multiple meetings now.
And this is everybody.
This is for springbear.
Right.
Springbear.
But them, so before even if they got two springbear, they were looking at bear bears
just in general.
And then it came to like this, oh, well, what can we cut out?
Does anybody know?
They didn't even know what the hunting seasons were.
Does anybody know why they decided to pick the bears or what that was?
Well, you will never get a straight answer from them or why they picked the bears.
You had to guess why they started with bears.
Because if you eliminate a lot of the predator hunting, which if you already know what's
going on in the blues right now with the elk herd being decimated and they've already
determined most of the killers are from bears and cougars.
We at Hunters, we're not meeting our quotas as it is as it is.
The bears are, there's more and more and more of them.
Bears don't punch tags, right?
And if they can stop even just a little sliver of hunting right now with the eventual plan
to eliminate it altogether or curb it so small to where there's hardly any bear permits
it at all, those predators are going to decimate the ungulates.
And that was once the ungulates aren't honnable, then they'll be like, oh, sorry people,
we don't have a population of hunt.
That was what I was figuring too, what their end goal would have been.
So like, okay, yes, we get rid of all predator herding altogether.
You know, okay, fine, you can still hunt, you know, elk and deer, you know, whatever.
But even at that point, they're trying to get an elk hunt to a draw only statewide.
And then deer, I don't think they even touched anything on deer.
I don't believe.
I know there was elk, which is still ongoing.
That's coming up.
The elk thing actually, we're kind of jumping forward a bit from her.
Yeah, sorry, but they had a season setting meeting a few weeks ago.
Nothing has changed for elk as far as as far as next year goes, which is what they do
like a three year setting, though, well, that's what this is for, which I guess we can go
back and forth.
So it's going to get confusing.
But in the season setting meeting, and this is just going to trap your ass out of everything
that's been going on.
I don't need any more of that.
They were asking questions, roundabout questions that they know they're not going to get
answers to because they're in the middle of all these studies and stuff, right?
It was basically was thrown out there that if they can't get the information that they
want, by the time the date comes to set the seasons, if we don't have the information
we want, we might not have a season.
Well, they, I mean, they do legal.
Yeah, they do emergency closures for fish and stuff.
They've been so wrong so often that it's almost ridiculous to rely on any information
you get out of there.
But then when you have people that are deciding preemptively, like, here's our end goal,
right?
I'm wondering if these people are really this super smart in the head of everybody else,
or if they're just so dumb, you can't ever begin to know what are they thinking about?
They're not dumb.
I know.
That's what I'm saying.
They are smart, but they are not from a hunting mentality.
They are from the animal loving mentality, and therefore they are slowly, like I said,
they are really good at word play.
They don't actually specifically ever answer a direct question like, you can't get them
to admit that what their plan is, but you can read it on the wall, right?
Because they use this certain lingo to take away spring bear, and now they're using the
same lingo to start targeting all these other things, and then they go, when we raise
questions, they're like, we're not taking hunting away.
We've never said we're taking hunting away.
You're right.
You have never said you're taking hunting away, but all these things you're doing is a
slow process to take it away.
And it starts back now.
That starts with our predator hunting.
Because if you eliminate predator hunting, what's going to happen to the ungulates?
They're just going to get decimated.
So now you have back to where we have two lower numbers for hunting seasons at this point,
because the decimation of elk and deer and every other critter out there.
You know, one of, I think, was Barbara Baker's defense.
We should not have a spring bear season.
I don't, I want to say it was like late 70s or something, and then the tree companies
were, you know, having problems with bears, destroying their trees.
So they started this program.
Well, it went from being only in the tree farms to all these wilderness areas, and she's
like, in their mind, well, we've exceeded, you know, we're outside of the tree farms
now.
Why are we doing that?
Because in their mind, you know, we're, in their mind, we are hurting the bear population,
which we're not.
And in their mind, we're also hurting the cougar population, which is an absolute joke,
because they're obviously not listening to their scientists again, because cougars are
growing like crazy, and they're going everywhere.
You know, there's no, so thinking about spring bear season and regular season combined,
if you had said those two, the way I look at it is if I have money in the bank, right?
If I have a checking account, I have a savings account, and into my checking account, I need
money, and I could just pull it from my savings and say, this is the money I set aside.
If you had, it's all the same pot, even though they're in separate little pots, right?
It's my, everything is mine.
So when I have a bear season in the fall and a bear season in the spring, say you go
out and the spring tarot tags aren't just over the counter for everybody, it's a draw.
So you're never going to have this unleashed wrath upon the bears to where you're like,
oh my God, we can't recover.
Right.
But say you had a good season where 50% of the spring bear hunters went out and got a bear.
That's only a couple of hundred tags that are even issued in the year, right?
So then in the fall, that's going to mean there's probably going to be less bears that
people are going to get in the fall if we had an issue with sustainability and population,
which we don't.
So I think in the same sense that they're talking about, well, what do these numbers
look like?
It looks the same to us on the other side because we know there's no issue with the population.
On this show, we've talked about, you know, when I spread out that bag of brown sugar,
there was like 10 to 13 different bears, I can't remember the exact number.
But in one day, all these different bears came into this brown sugar.
And that spot is, it's by one of those tree farms.
And on the opposite side, there's an absolute massive amount of bears that people really
don't even have any idea.
And my buddy and I were talking, I was like, they thought they had like 30,000 bears
in this state.
I was like, it's got to be way more.
It's got to be because there's just, you can do set up a bait site and check it out,
put a drill camera on it.
You're going to see a shit ton of bears, right?
It's not even a question.
If there's going to be a bear, it's, and that was our question.
Are we going to even get one on this trail camera?
I think it was a, you're not baiting bears, you're baiting deer.
No, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is not for hunting purposes.
I mean, this was before they made that law.
I mean, this, because the first, the first, the first drill camera we had was, it was
a task go.
All right.
Big old task go or, or bush nail or something.
Right.
But we were wondering if we're going to catch something on camera and setting it up just
on a tree is probably not a very good way to get something.
So we figured we'd try some attracting and sure shit, man.
And then we were addicted.
Then we're like, we got to see what else we can catch on here, you know?
Right.
Right.
Right.
Last week at the meeting here, what was the, what was the goal for this one?
Well, the goal was to, we had a pit, you know, three weeks ago, mainly through the conservation
coalition of Washington State.
They put together this petition and we got it out there.
And I think we, we had like 5,500 signatures in three weeks, which is pretty good.
Yeah.
My name was on there.
And we presented it to them at the meeting on Friday that, you know, you guys need, hunters
don't want this new conservation policy.
Well, I didn't know it at the time.
I found out later on the Thursday meeting, I guess they have postponed voting for that
policy because they obviously are aware that some things need to be changed because the
pressure that we put on there on, on Friday, when I was there, it's not a very big room,
but hunters showed up.
We jam packed the room.
It was standing room only and they actually had to move people into an overflow room, which
I think one, there's like 50 people back in there.
So overall, we had like 150 to 200 people there.
And I want to say only 10 of them were from people who weren't there to support hunting.
They were there, like a couple of them were, you know, wolf lovers and they were talking
about that.
And then another person was there to talk about, because there was a bunch of agendas
that day, a fish, hatchery, you know, discussion, because all the open forum is in the morning
and then they break it down into individual meetings later on in the day.
But it's funny in that on Friday's meeting, Commissioner Rowan, and if you go to my
Instagram, you can see this.
I splice it all together.
So back in June, she's like, hunters need to be worried, I don't know if you remember
that.
You know, and she went on because we have been in control for a long time and people feel
that the commission is not doing their job.
Well, the people is anti-hunders, you know, even though they don't come out and say that.
They make it sound like it's the general public, which it's not.
It's a certain group of people who influences them and what their background is from.
Well, after all our awesome testimonies, because even at the break, the director came to me
and Jason Phelps directly and he was like, this is just what we needed.
He goes, this is awesome.
You guys spoke, you know, your testimonies were spot on and really good.
And then even one of the directors or commissioners came up to me and what I was with another
group and he said basically the same thing and then he asked me where I lived and I said
I live in Summoner and he lives in Buckley and he's like, you know, we should get together
and talk and which was really cool.
But then Rowan, after we all said our part and all the Zoom calls came in, they let the
commissioners say what they wanted to say, Rowan came back.
He was basically backpedaling.
She tried to say, I didn't mean that hunters should be nervous because we're taking hunting
away.
Hunters should be nervous because of climate change and what it's doing to our deer and
what it's doing to the land and all hunters should be, we should all be worried because
of what the climate and weather is doing to our animals, which is nothing.
Shouldn't it be more effective if there's, if she's concerned with that as being a key
issue, wouldn't that have a greater impact on our salmon fisheries instead of our hunting?
You know, like I would like to say that she was, she was just backpedaling.
She was just trying to, she was just trying to make something up and, and, I understand
she's around the bush of like what was she trying to, she's trying to spin her, her, her
statement to make her seem like I didn't really mean that because I was watching, I was
on Zoom watching that, that meeting when that went down.
There was, there was no other thing except that.
So if you go and watch any of these videos, if you find them on Instagram or Facebook
or wherever YouTube, the crazy out companies Instagram, Ross does a great job of putting
some videos together on that.
I would recommend actually going, I believe it's on your reels.
I think there's some posts about it as well.
There was nothing actually said after that.
Yeah, I think it was hunters should be nervous right now.
Right.
The important part to me about what someone says is the pretext of that, of that statement
too.
So going back to what, what was taking place before she said that, not just sitting there
quietly and also to come up with statement, oh yeah, hunters should be concerned because
this, if there was a climate change conversation taking place, if there was a conversation
about bear hunting taking place and then it was making a statement based on that against
hunters, then it's 100%, undeniable like, here's what was taking place when you made
the statements.
You know what I was talking about, I mean, I can play on my phone.
She said, we have been in control, I want people to hear it.
She's like, we have been in control of the commission and now it's basically time for
us to take a seat back as in the hunters have been in control of the commission.
So she's talking about physical control, yeah, and before that, before the conversation,
which you're not going to hear on what Ross has, it was basically saying that, you know,
we're taking away spring bear because that's what was going on at the time.
And that was her statement after some sort of retribution type thing.
It was.
No, it totally was.
That was what was stated right after that.
So it was, it was number one, I was kind of in awe and I was in shock and I actually called
my wife over.
I was like, you got to listen to me hold me.
No, well, my wife is a hunter too.
I know.
She has a hundred and a while, but she's a hunter as well.
So when this statement was, was, was done, it was no other context around it.
We were losing our spring bear.
And then this is what was said, yeah, and that the hunters and fishers could be getting
nervous.
And I think they should be getting nervous because they have been pretty much in complete
control for a very long thought.
And there are many of us who believe that the commission and the department have not
been fulfilling those statutory responsibilities when the basic focus and the basic constituency
is hunters and fishers.
That is not to say there is no room for hunting and fishing clearly hunting and fishing
is part of our statute too.
That is legal and we are to manage it and we are directed.
Yeah, so they're, their requirements for giving us all excess opportunities possible.
It's not just like here you have some maximize opportunities and they took an opportunity
away, even though it was available.
Can you actually bring up the, maybe we'll get to that later on.
But there is another commissioner that stated, was it the same, was it Saturday?
I believe it was on Saturday.
You know what I'm talking about, like, why, why we shouldn't, what's going on right
now?
Right.
We'll get to that.
We'll get to that.
So this weekend, so you know, I think on an average, hunters and numbers don't go to these
commission meetings because we would think that these commissioners would have our best
interest in life considering their mandate.
So you know, we're out and plus they're having meetings like when we're hunting, like we
don't want to go to those things.
But because of the starting of taking our spring bear away, it's drawn a lot of attention
and especially since June, when she said those words, it woke a lot of people up.
So oh, sorry, before you jump into that.
So this, this meeting was actually done towards the tail end of a rifle, um, deer season.
And the beginning of elk season.
Yes.
And the beginning of elk season.
So the people that showed up, I was actually, I was at work.
I, I wish I could have been there because I would have come.
I was working, um, they, they're trying to get it to where they don't want people to
show up.
Like they know what they're doing.
They know what the seasons are, they, they know what's going on, but yet they have this
meeting during the tail end of deer season and the beginning of a rifle elk season.
So I mean, I'm, I'm, I have goosebumps because people showed up to this, you know, like,
they took the time out of their season that is pretty much under jeopardy kind of reminds
you of this.
The dukes of hazard when boss hog is having a meeting during the hazard rally and he's
trying to buy everybody's land and everybody has to show up in order to not get their land
purchased by a boss hog, you know, they're like, there's a meeting over here and they're
watching the dukes of hazard race, you know, and, and it's like slight a hand, you know,
they want you to, you know, they'll do it right in the middle of the most important thing
going on in your life or things that they know people have planned all year for, they'll
set these things up when it's very easy to have these same conversations after the season.
We have, well, now we have probably eight solid months from January till August where most
hunters aren't going to be out and doing what they normally would do.
Right.
So they could, they have plenty of time.
They have three quarters of the year where they can say let's have meetings and let's
talk and let's figure things out.
But instead they want to condense it into the times where we're occupied or that if we
show up, we're doing exactly what they want by not being in the woods, you know, so that's
the other side of it.
That's the catch, that's the catch-toy, I mean, so because of the attention that this
is drawn, you know, we had a big fundraiser, bear country outdoors, put it together for
sportsmen's lions, we raised $60,000 to help sue the state.
Conservation Coalition locally, like when they only focus on Washington.
So like if you want to know what's going on with Washington in the game department, go
follow the Conservation Coalition of Washington State.
They're really keeping people informed really well.
Like, you know, I text those guys and talk to them quite frequently to find out, that's
how I get my information besides what I'm actually seeing.
Because they have their hands, there's a few of them and they all have their hands kind
of in different spots and then they get together and they talk, you know, make a plan.
But anyway, I think due to the pressure that hunters, just by their presence, you know,
because normally they give you, they start their meetings at eight and open forum time
is done by 9.45, 10 o'clock.
We had so many people signed up to talk.
They actually were accommodating and we talked to almost 12.
That's how many hunters were there to talk and some guys showed up, you know, unprepared
and they just kind of went off the cuff.
But you know, their feelings were real and you could tell they were genuine.
Some of them kind of, you know, if they would have had or something written, it would have
sounded better.
But you know, you could tell it was genuine and I don't know, there was just a lot of great
speeches.
There was actually a speech a guy who was a hunter now who used to be a vegan as of
like two or three years ago.
His speech was great.
And I don't know if you want to listen to mine, it's like three minutes long, but...
No, yeah.
Let's listen to it.
I mean, that way people can get a context of why we're even talking about this and here's
this great.
Oh, I...
I talked right after Gary Strasberg after he showed them the petition that we, you know,
drew up over three minutes.
Yeah, well, you're like, at the end of the year, you get it on the time, right?
Yeah, because the beeper went off.
Yeah.
Here we go.
This is Russ Sharp.
I'm a lifelong resident of Living Pierce County.
I appreciate you letting me speak today.
Why am I here, you ask?
Because I was told I should be nervous.
I asked myself, why should I be nervous when I have science on my side?
I have gone back and listened to almost every meeting in the past two years and I could
not, in my wildest dreams, make up the things that I have heard.
I'm supposed to be dreaming about future hunting plans with my daughters and friends.
I can't wait for the time when we wake up on a cold morning and my kids don't want to
get out of sleep and beg until I start the fires to warm them up.
I can't wait for the moment my kids see something while we are hiking that they have never
seen and listen to the root squirrel or chipmunk that just learned the whole world that
we're there.
There are a lot more moments I can't wait to share with them just as my uncle has shared
with me.
But with this current commission, I worry that some of these things may never happen.
The thing I'm hearing lately is almost verbatim from when I'm reading on local anti-hunting
websites.
So it makes me wonder what's at play here.
Why is there so much activism on this wildlife commission?
I understand that there's a lot to manage from where you sit, but when it comes to the
hunting aspect of things, I cannot fathom why we are putting feelings over science.
In today's world, everyone is preaching that we need to be more inclusive.
So why are people trying to tread on my lifestyle?
Yes, I said lifestyle.
Hunting and fishing is not a pastime for most of us.
And I also hate to term recreational hunter.
I'm not a recreational hunter.
I'm a lifetime passionate hunter.
It is a lifestyle that has been handed down from generation to generation since the beginning
of time.
Everyone in this room is here because of someone in their past hunted.
You have never seen cave drawings of a salad, never.
We hunt because we love the sustenance it gives us, or both our body and our soul.
I have heard commissioners say that we never hear from the hunters.
Well, I believe I know the answer to this.
Hunters for the most part are pretty laid back people.
We also like to be alone with nature and commune with our friends and family while
sharing these wild places.
We really tend to mind our own business.
You will never see a hunter go to an anti-hunting rally and disrupt their lifestyle.
Because frankly, we don't care.
We just want to be left alone.
If anyone in this room eats meat and is opposed to the hunting, shame on you.
We have chosen to know where our food comes from and in this day and age, it is way more
healthier than the options you can find at a grocery store.
And by the way, most hunters have gardens as well.
There are so much more I can say than I can go on for hours, but in closing, I want
to address something I heard recently.
A commissioner stated that every day I open my emails or come to a meeting, it feels
like it's a groundhog day.
Do you remember the premise of the movie?
The same thing kept happening over and over and over until he got it right.
So get it right and we will be here until you do.
Yeah, yes.
So the guy at the end who said every time he opens his email, he feels like his groundhog
day is Commissioner Lemcule who also wasn't in June or August, I don't remember.
He said, if you don't like what's going on here, hire our own biologists.
We have our biologists.
No, they would they said hunters.
Oh, I know.
Yeah, hire their own and everybody was like, yeah, what does that mean?
You don't even listen to your biologists like your biologists aren't telling you, oh,
man, we need to shut down the season.
Your biologists are telling you we have plenty of bears, but yet you didn't listen to them
because you want, they're not listening to what's being said to them.
They want you to answer what they want, but it's unanswerable.
Well, they want a yes, man.
So what happened?
So what happened with that whole conversation about this last week about the bear population
with the biologists and the hunting and stuff.
If you have that clip, I'd like to play that this weekend.
Yeah, this last weekend.
There wasn't anything about the biologist except for what the biologists had told them
though, she reveals what she was told from the from the biologists, yeah, yeah, that
she wears it now convinced.
So this is at the meeting they were talking about the spring bear hunt and what they knew
and the time they knew it when they made their decision.
In my view, a big admission of what I feel is a guilty act and a seditious type act because
they decided to do something against the information they had because they felt like they wanted
to.
I'm going to have to go back just to the thing I put together yesterday because I can't
find them here.
What I'm worried about to witness is an admission of guilt brought on by two days of hunters
showing up in numbers with great testimony.
And even though it's Halloween, you have entered the Twilight Zone.
Gross, on this commission is to try to be real clear on what question I'm being asked
to answer or have an opinion on.
To bring it home to the orange hats in the in the audience, we knew.
We were told that we had enough bears to have a bear hunt in the spring.
That was not my question, but it was the question of that's all I needed here.
We were told that there are enough bears for us to hunt, okay?
Biological science says let there be a hunt.
If you went the other way for some other reason, you know, she's like, well, that was not
my question.
Yeah, we know what your question is, but your question has nothing to do with science.
They keep wanting to throw a social science like we need to care what other people, you
know what?
There's always going to be people who hate hunting.
Why coward to them when science is on your side a long time ago when this whole thing
started in a conversation, she's, she's like, if we don't take care of this, we're opening
ourselves up to lawsuits, worried about the anti hunters suing them, but they're not
worried about the hunters suing them, which we did and we're going to continue to do.
Yeah, the terrible thing about the court system is that you can take anybody there at any
time on a claim, it doesn't even have to be true.
But I think in the case for the anti hunters, the people that don't want hunting, maybe
they're not anti people or whatever, maybe they love animals.
I think we all love animals and I don't think anybody loves animals more than the hunters
love animals because most often, if you look at the statistics, we are not successful in
our harvest, right, it's a, it's 90 plus percent of the time that you're not going to kill
an animal of your, of that season, right?
It could be once every five years or once every year, some people get lucky and do it every
single season, but that's still in the grand scheme, you know, eight to 10 percent on
average is going to be your success rates overall, overall, actually, I can tell you for
a fact, a spike hunting in Washington is less than three percent, six, six, right, for
elk.
Yeah.
Yeah, because they went, yeah, so it's very much spike only, yeah, true spike, yeah,
disparage spike for the general, that is archery as well, there's only a few units.
I want you to get into that, but you'll jackpot, you hit the jackpot, yeah, yeah, it's
three percent, which is, yeah, that's hard.
It goes over 10 percent when you have your quality draws and your bull tags, you know, those
are, those are more successful, but just your general season, which most people hunt general
seasons and it's, it's hard to say I'm going to go do something every single year and take
all this time and spend all this money, put in all the practice and effort and all the
things you do getting prepared for the seasons to be that unsuccessful, you know, it's
if, and it has to do with more than the actual harvesting and just the joy of like you
described in your statement, being there with your friends and your family, your children
and the experiences and showing them new things and experiencing, you know, the warm fires
and the good stories and the camaraderie you build over the over the year, it's almost,
well, I get sad every time we break camp down.
You know, so it's like something heavy is here, you know, it's the end of this celebration.
And, you know, I think that we have a more investment in connection to the nature that
most people average people realize and it's not just the, the, the bugs bunny and Elmer
Fud, you know, going out there, shooting at everything, whatever.
And that's that vegan now turn hunter, he, he talked about that, he's like, I have
hiked my whole life, you know, and I have gone to many great places.
He's like, but I have never felt more connected and seen more wildlife now that my vision
has turned to hunting and he, I'm actually going to go back to find his speech and record
it because I want to share that because I thought I was, you know, just a really good message
for people to hear, you know, there's nothing wrong with people who hike.
They're good people, you know, they, they get out and enjoy nature the way they want
to enjoy it.
But a lot of those people don't understand why we do what we do, I understand why people
like you.
When, when they should just leave it alone and just say, well, that's what they do,
you know, they never see it, you know, they're not out there when we're, when we're hunting
for the most part, like I've never run into any hiker hardly at all.
Yeah.
You know, so just let them, you do you, you know, stay on your side, let us do us and
we'll be fine.
But it's kind of ironic.
It has to push their lifestyle on somebody else.
Yeah.
And it's ironic to be say you're, say you're not, you're not forehunting and you're, you're
like to go hiking or whatever and you're like, I just don't understand how people can
hunt and kill an animal.
And then that later that evening, you're like Ruth, Chris, steakhouse, Daniel's broiler
and you're just like, oh, this isn't rare enough for me, you know, and, and, but then
you can't, can't look that act in its eyes and say, this is me killing this animal with
my wallet, which is somebody else's favorite said that.
And that's what they do is they, they feel better if they buy it than if they do it, you
know, and I, I believe, you know, it's obviously true, but not every single person in this
goes back in eons was a hunter, right?
You know, if you go, if you look at native tribes, there were, they, not every single
tribe member was a hunter, but the people that could provide the food were allowed to
hunt.
You know, so it's, it's an important part of our life and it's not just the act of getting
a deer, it's, it's primitive, it's in us, you know, it's not something we can deny,
we can't just say, sorry man, hunting is so unethical that we're not going to do it because
it's, it's part of how we even survive.
Just because we've corralled the animals and put them in pens and they don't fight back
or try to evade us, doesn't make us not killers, you know, so, yeah, that's, I guess my ending
statement.
Yeah, I mean, that last weekend was a really, because of the hunters that showed up, I
think that was a, you know, an admission of guilt.
She, she cracked after two days.
That was the chair barber baker, you know, the day before, um, Rowan, you know, backpedaled
on what her statement was earlier.
And because the pressure, you know, they had the, the wolf proposal that was, you know,
presented to them, they voted it down.
So which is good because they basically, the proposal was, we need to keep doing what
we're doing and they wanted to restrict, you know, ranchers and cattlemen on how they
deal with wolves.
And the state said, no, we're going to move forward, you know, the commission, the commission,
yeah.
So, and I think that was, that was all brought on by, and in my belief, pressure.
I don't think as they could stand on that one, then they can't stand on any other thing,
because wolves are something that's been such a hot topic in the West for years, you
know, if they can't say, if they couldn't vote in to restrict people on how they're going
to protect their livestock from wolves, then I don't think they have much legs left.
Well, you know, that's a wobble.
Well, yeah, and in our eyes, it is, but unfortunately, we live in this state where is, you
know, especially in this region is democratic controlled.
And they have a lot, like they have the agey on their side.
I do know two days before these meetings happened last week that they called an emergency meeting,
no cameras, no public allowed was behind closed doors, rumor has it that is, they're being
sued by something and they were advised legal, well, that was no thing I was going to talk
on.
On Thursday, they had their big tent committee when they were talking about their preservation
slash conservation plan and their legal counsel in the room told them that they cannot talk
about this, that their plan is basically illegal and they know it, but yet they're still
going to try to, which is why they probably be pushed it off to make, to spend things,
you know, to make it more appealing for everybody, which is, I don't know, it's all, it's all
a mess.
They should just stick with what we have and forget about whatever they're trying to do,
but Lauren Smith, I don't know if you heard this one either, she has turned down every
invitation, handed to her by hunting podcast people or hunting media, doesn't even respond
to the invitations at all, but yet she went and did a Zoom presentation, I heard about
this.
The Sierra Club, which didn't have very many people and I think my friends that were in
the call, they said there was like 20 people on the call and five of them were hunters.
She talked about her dis, we are the opposition.
This is coming from a commissioner who's supposed to be maximizing hunting opportunity.
Hunters are in opposition.
Her plan to fire the director Kelly Sesswine of his role, because he's a hunter.
She said that we don't pay into, you know, hunters don't really contribute that much to conservation
with her words and she basically was trying to rally the troops, you know, and she even
said, please come to the commission meetings and support the commission in what we're
trying to do.
They didn't show up.
Well, I don't know if they did or not, but she's actively recruiting anti-hunters and
talking to anti-huntering groups, how about how much she doesn't like us, yet she's
supposed to be on the board for hunting.
That's a conflict of interest, I mean, she's already been sued because her role is illegal,
I don't know how her actions are not illegal.
Yeah, she was on, you know, I read something online about her position with a group of
predator wildlife conservationists or preservationists and it pretty much seems to me like she
doesn't even like the aspect or idea of an animal dying that's a predator.
I mean, she's, even if it was, if she has kids, I don't know if she has kids, but I don't
even know if she'd save them from their jaws if she could, if she had to, if she had
to hurt her to do it on things she'd be able to do it.
I don't know how strong her, I guess I don't know.
I feel like she's so, she's so involved with that, that she can't serve both sides effectively.
You know, like she's so invested in this, stepping into this role is a moral conflict
of hers and now she's on a crusade.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
And yeah, she definitely should not be on there and hopefully, so they have appealed, you
know, even though she lost in the court, they have appealed the ruling, which who knows
how long that takes, but she has the support of the AG, which we all know, he's a crooked,
you know, as they come, so hopefully things don't get overturned, but yeah, she needs
to go, Rowland needs to go, Baker, I think she's only taken as strong of a stance as she
does because she has the other two, who are the voices of the anti-hunting side?
Some people say she's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
I think she's just kind of a, she can be washed one way or another and I think she's just
under the blanket of these people at the moment.
I don't know.
I don't know what to think about it.
So she can make a biased decision.
I think so.
I mean, I've heard her say some things in the past and maybe those were just all lies, you
know what I mean?
But now her true self is showing up.
I have no idea.
You know, they say, maybe she was a wolf in sheep's clothing.
We're from the government and we're here to help.
Right.
This is one of those situations where we really don't need your help.
We don't want you to help us.
We just want you to not deny our rights.
Right.
You know, you never had to pioneers never had to ask permission to eat, you know?
And we're in this world now where we feel like we're having to beg them to let us live.
And I don't, that's not a way to live.
Yeah.
And so that's, yeah, it's sketchy and scary and they should be concerned, you know, because
they've awakened a force that's just going to continue to grow and gain steam.
And the more people talk about it, they're like, hey, now this is a thing.
And guess what?
Next Friday, you're going to be at the commission meeting.
We'll be there in our high five, you know, orange hats.
We're ready to roll.
Yeah.
You orange hats in the crowd.
That one, that one kind of, yeah, it seemed kind of, I didn't like, I almost liked
that.
It seemed almost like, like, condescending.
Initial tones.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm like, what if it was like something else?
The substitute orange hats with any other phrase.
They did say at that meeting on Friday that in end of November, there's going to be, like
they're meeting with a bunch of experts in the predator field, you know, and that we
should come to that meeting.
They actually said, you should all come to this meeting and say, you should hear what,
you know, who, who, who these people are that are the professionals that, I don't know,
there's like the Washington Cougar Association, which is an anti-hunt, you know, they love
Cougars.
I love Cougars.
Yeah.
Well, there's a place where I'm, you know, like, there's a place where I'm right next
to my potatoes.
You know, I feel like that was, I feel like that, that orange hat piece was, can we officially
label that as a microaggression or no?
Nowadays probably.
I mean, shoot.
I'm just trying to get up with the terminology, you know, I don't know.
Yeah.
Um, it was, it was eye opening, man, like I've never been to one of those meetings.
I've, I've talked to them via Zoom, sitting at a house on my computer, but actually being
there and, and hearing what they say.
I didn't stay for the whole day because I didn't have that kind of time because of my
daughter's meeting, but they got the point that we're here, we're going to fight.
We're not going to put up for this crap and, uh, change is coming.
And if it's good, we're going to make it happen, you know?
So hopefully it was a wake up call for them.
I think it was with the things that they said slip out.
I think like Lauren Smith overall was really quiet and I think that has to do with the
lawsuit that's pending her and probably their lawyers saying, hey, you guys need
to shut up.
You know, you can't be, you can't be saying this stuff.
So we'll see, um, the petition, which I thought we were actually going to be like presenting
it to them, like here you go, but it's not an actual legal, illegal petition.
It was just a, hey, this is how many signatures we have.
This is how many people who do not like this plan that you're trying to do.
Um, so I've been told, if anybody wants this PDF, um, to contact Gary Strasberg, actually,
I have one too, if you want, um, we're still collecting signatures.
If your name is not on, on there, if you want to, you know, just the more names we can
get on it, the more numbers we, so when we go back again, when they try to talk about
this conservation slash preservation plan, we're going to be like, hey, now we have 30,000
people who do not want this preservation plan.
You need to listen to what we're saying, um, have they not looked at any models preservation
doesn't work?
It's like in one of their documents.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's funny.
I got that book from you and I was reading it and going into the meeting, I just wanted.
My speech was just, I was just going to lambast them with all kinds of crap.
I talked to a guy who actually works for the state, um, for the game department and he's
like, they don't listen when you're that confrontational, you know, they turn you off and they
don't listen.
He's like, tell him a story, tell him, you know, and so I, I rewrote my speech probably
like five times before I, um, I should have Abbey right of speech, who, like nine-year-old
daughter who went hunting for the first time last weekend?
Oh, yeah.
Have her come up and read it to him.
There was a, a kid there, uh, it was a dad and I want to say one of them was his actual
kid and the other one was like his adopted kid or stepson or something, um, they spoke
in the 11 year old.
He was really cute, you know, listening, he just talked about like what it means when
he's out with his dad in the field and stuff, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was good
to see, um, and they pay, they obviously paid attention to that because, you know, the
kid deserved it.
But, um, yeah, I, I mean, who knows what the future holds, I'm, I'm positive, I have positive
feelings and, you know, it, it felt really good to be there too, you know, um, like you
were, like you can't bitch about something if you're going to sit at home and not doing
anything about it.
You know what I mean?
And I feel that my kids, your kids, your kids, you know, our future needs us to step up
and fight so they can enjoy what we've enjoyed, um, and it just felt really good to be there
with all those people and fighting, you know, for what we believe in.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is our Normandy here.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
It was awesome, man, it was awesome to see all the hunters and hunters is out there on
the front lines for all of us that couldn't be there, right?
Um, you know, hopefully, hopefully there is no more meetings, hopefully they get their,
their acts together and get everything squared away, obviously, that's not going to happen,
we're going to have more meetings, um, I plan on being there, you know, um, I want to
be a part of this fight and I think, you know, more, the more people that we can get
out there, I don't even, it doesn't even matter if you're speaking or not, um, get, get
out there, show your face, you know, shake hands, get to meet other hunters.
Yep.
Most people, I would say 75% of the people that are didn't talk, they just came to show,
yeah, you got to have this support, right?
Yep.
Um, you know, hopefully they were able to see how many people were on Zoom, I was on Zoom,
uh, I was commenting on almost everybody's speech, uh, you know, trying to do my part,
but from home, I was working sucked, um, he's like the meme master in the background.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gold gifts.
They didn't have that feature, but, uh, yeah, uh, I definitely plan on showing up and
joining the fight and doing what I can, um, I didn't grow up hunting.
I was not a hunter, um, you know, early in, in my, in my youth, uh, I didn't have anybody
that hunted.
Uh, I grew up in a, in a house we fished, we camped, we did all these other things, um,
but if, even if you were someone that started hunting late or later on in your years, show
up, this is for you too.
So if you, if you hunt, if you, if you fish too, I mean, they're, they're trying to do things
with fishing as well, um, get there and show up because this is for us.
This is right.
What we need to do.
We need to fight.
So I don't want to eat Bill Gates lab grown meat.
No.
No.
That's not.
Yeah.
No thanks.
Yeah.
I couldn't have said any better.
Yeah.
Get involved.
Stay involved.
Keep the pressure up.
We'll see this thing to the end.
Yep.
Yeah.
That's right.
That's going to be the end of our episode, um, Dave, any less final thoughts?
Yeah.
Um, um, crazy out company, crazy out company dot com, use promotion code ridge line 20.
Yeah.
Get your discount.
Dave.
Join the fight.
We need a, um, you know, we need to be Mike Tyson cheer list and knocking things out.
So we need to fight.
That is my last thought.
Ross, I just, uh, I appreciate you guys having me here again.
Um, we'll talk with you guys, um, like, you know, reiterate what they said.
And right now and all the times hunters are almost our, our worst enemy where we, we
in fight a lot between, you know, archers and rifles and what kind of rifles we shoot,
you know, and all that stuff.
And there's a lot of, you know, going back and forth.
We need to stop that right now because we're just dividing ourselves and we need to be
united in this fight because it's coming, you know, they've got a Cougar thing coming
up in Colorado, you know, to ban Cougar hunting there, which obviously they didn't look
at California because California spends millions of dollars paying professional hunters to
kill cats and they just throw them in a dump, you know, and here in Washington, 30% of all
the Cougars that get killed are killed by state hunters and those cats just get thrown
in a dump.
The thing about, and this is how the anti-hundreds work in Colorado on their Cougar bill, they
put in their no-links hunting, well, guess what?
You can't hunt links anyway, it's an endangered species.
So why is that even in your bill?
It's just the tug at the heartstrings of people who don't know anything, you know what I mean?
And that's what they do.
Yeah, so we just need to be more united, you know, talk to your friends about hunting,
if they don't know anything about hunting, you know, and bite them over for an elk-stake
dinner.
So how good it is and, you know, get them into it and if they don't want to get into
it, at least support our lifestyle and, you know, the nowhere we're coming from.
Yep.
Yep.
It's good to have that education out there.
I work corporate job.
So a different dynamic for sure, it's very hard to fit in, I have a construction background,
so, you know, getting into this corporate thing I've been in it now for a while and it's
just, you know, you almost don't want to bring up that you're a hunter.
I do actually.
I do.
I'm not afraid.
He's bold.
There's a lot of people that are like, oh, why do you do that?
Why do you do this?
Why do you do that?
Blah, blah, blah.
And basically I tell them and they're all of a sudden just like, holy smokes, I had no
idea.
And, you know, they're actually, they're emailing me or contacting me, hey, when's your
next hunt?
I want to see some photos and blah, blah, blah.
So I mean, just get out there and talk about your passion.
There are people that are generally interested and they just don't know.
Yeah, I found most people are pretty receptive to hunters and then we talk about everything
else too.
Fishing, we talk about, you know, whatever.
And it's not just a one-dimensional being of I'm a hunter and that's who that's everything
I ever do.
Like, there's all these other layers to the, I guess, layers to the onion that it's
common phrase, but they don't understand they're like, oh, I didn't, like, people look
at me.
They usually don't think I'm a hunter and fisher.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, shit, man, I'm, you know, I can tell them all sorts of stuff
and they're like, wow, shock, you know, and it's not very typical that they get that
information.
Well, there's just like stigma, oops, I think that was my stuff.
My favorite thing is when I say we have a podcast, we're like, what?
Well, there's a stigma behind it too, man.
Like, a lot of people just think that hunting is what for the white man, you know?
And like, I'm brown year round.
So like, I hunt, you know, Dave hunts, there's more dynamics than just like, it's this
great, great white hole hunting type deal, like everybody hunts, okay?
And the whole nation of Africa, they're hunters.
And their idea of hunting is what Disney and Hollywood has shown them.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So I mean, the more information that you get, the more educated that, you know, people
are going to be, and they're going to be more open to like what, what we do as hunter
hunters and fishermen.
All right.
Let's sign off.
Yep, that is going to be it.
So yes, go to oak company dot com, crazy old company, crazy old company dot com, sorry.
Use Ridge line 20 as your code.
Also, if you need any game calls, check out belts game calls, you can go ahead and pick
up their brand new V2.
This thing is awesome.
Yeah.
And that's it.
Should I do it?
No, I'm not.
No, don't, don't do that.
I was low on that.
I don't know.
I was thinking last night, man.
It was sounding so good.
I can't do it in the mic.
All right.
Good night.
Good night.