KHC 139 - Ryan Callaghan

Ryan Callaghan - MeatEater's Director of Conservation and a national board member of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. Ryan grew up out West hunting, fishing and, guiding and has been passionate about the outdoor community ever since. Join us for a conversation about our public lands and why selling them would take away from more than just bowhunters. Ryan talks about how he got connected with MeatEater, his experiences with conservation, and more! Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Follow Ryan Callaghan: https://www.instagram.com/olcal406/ Thank you to our sponsors: Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.com/cam use code CAM for 15% off Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Timestamps: 00:00:00 Why People Call Ryan “Ol Cal” 00:01:53 Ryan’s Education 00:08:26 How Ryan Got Connected with MeatEater 00:18:37 Steve Rinella: Wild Within TV Show 00:23:31 Missouri Breaks: Joe Rogan’s First Buck 00:26:10 Conversation as a Tool 00:27:21 Conservation in Clothing Lines 00:32:18 Ad Break (Ketone IQ & MUD\WTR) 00:34:36 First Elk Hunters Ryan Guided 00:37:06 First Lite’s Correlation with Public Land 00:41:00 The Threat of Selling Public Lands 00:52:36 Speculations Behind Senator Mike Lee’s Motivation 00:55:21 The Appreciation of the Outdoors 00:57:55 The Volume of Calls to the Senator 01:09:01 “Hidden” Threats to Public Lands 01:14:12 Land Biden Attempted to Sell 01:16:54 The Government's Intentions Behind “Affordable” Housing 01:21:13 Spreading the Word with Social Media 01:22:59 Takeaways from the Recent Public Land Dispute 01:26:34 Consumers in the City VS Independent People in the West 01:31:11 Trusted 3rd Party People & Resources 01:34:36 Sons of Smokey Non-Profit 01:39:10 Animal Migration in Value Land Segments 01:42:33 Lack of Early Engagement in Selling Public Lands 01:51:16 The Negatives that Come with Politics 01:53:17 Weighing in to Make a Difference 01:59:53 Shared Passion for the Mountains 02:02:37 Outro Badass Raptor Giveaway: https://cameronhanes.com/pages/hennesseyraptor

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Cameron Hanes?

  All right. This is the Keep Hammer Collective with Ryan Callaghan. How you doing?

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm good. Yeah, I am good. Yeah, I'm trying to be better than good, but I'm good.

• 0:25Cameron Hanes?

  Well, on Instagram, you're old cow, right? Yeah, it is. Yeah, just old cow. Yeah. Okay.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:31Cameron Hanes?

  I like that.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  And that that came because

• 0:36Speaker 01

  the guys I hung out with in college when I attempted college.

• 0:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  They were like, God, you're like an old man.

• 0:45Cameron Hanes?

  Just your what you were things you were concerned with or how you carried yourself or what?

• 0:51Speaker 01

  I, yeah, I don't know.

• 0:52Cameron Hanes?

  Good stories, maybe?

• 0:53Speaker 01

  I think because I I worked, I had jobs and

• 0:57Cameron Hanes?

  Weird.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Um, right. Um, you know, you like freshman year of college and sophomore year of college is this big mixing pot of people and and a lot of those kids didn't and they're just coming from different walks of life. And um, this buddy of mine, Kyler Reardon, he's still one of my like all time best hunting partners. Uh, he's got a great, he stayed in the construction van. I took a different path.

• 1:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Um, but you know, we'd peel out of the dorms and come back covered in, you know, gypsum and, you know, doing demo jobs and stuff like that on the side and come back and people would be like, where were you guys playing? Yeah, you know?

• 1:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, I just, you know, had some bills to worry about and stuff like that. So it was like, oh, old cow. Old guy.

• 1:50Cameron Hanes?

  I like it.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Where, where was it? Where would you go to school?

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Uh, that was University of Montana.

• 1:56Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Yep. So I grew up in Missoula. I have a giant Montana family.

• 2:01Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Um, and now it's, it's pretty funny because I live in Bozeman and it, you know, it used to be like Bozeman was really just the ag school. It was a rodeo school. A bunch of my Eastern Montana family would end up. Going to Montana State University, the Bobcats, and then my Uncle Mike played football for the Bobcats, unfortunately, still for their only national championship team.

• 2:28Cameron Hanes?

  Oh.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  So he still kind of gets wheeled out as royalty.

• 2:31Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  With the national champs.

• 2:34Cameron Hanes?

  That's a big, that's a big accomplishment, though.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Oh, it is.

• 2:37Cameron Hanes?

  That's, that's pretty sick.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  But they almost got it again last year.

• 2:40Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, did they?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:41Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  And they played a hell of a game. It just, it's one of those things, like, when you're playing at that level.

• 2:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  You just can't have a bad quarter.

• 2:49Cameron Hanes?

  Are they playing, is it like North Dakota State?

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:52Cameron Hanes?

  Like where Carson Wentz went?

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:55Cameron Hanes?

  Isn't that the same size of school? Yeah, okay.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:57Cameron Hanes?

  And that, isn't North Dakota State usually pretty good, too?

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  But, you know, as you know, like, my falls are pretty booked, so you can't ask me too much about football.

• 3:07Cameron Hanes?

  Understand.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  But the funny thing is, is now I'm two and a half hours from all my Western Montana family and all my Eastern Montana family, and I'm dead smack in the middle.

• 3:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  And I got a lot of family coming through all the time.

• 3:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25Cameron Hanes?

  So you, you went to Grizzlies?

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Yep, University of Montana, Missoula.

• 3:29Cameron Hanes?

  And your uncle won with the Bobcats?

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:31Cameron Hanes?

  So that's, okay, yeah, that's a big rivalry.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  And I didn't like to pay for anything. And so when I was going to University of Montana, I had all of his old Montana State University, like, workout clothes and stuff.

• 3:46Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  And they had this great shirt, so they won in 1984. And their 85, like, practice shirts and workout shirts was Keep It Alive in 85.

• 3:58Cameron Hanes?

  Nice.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  And so that's, that's what I was working out in.

• 4:01Cameron Hanes?

  That's, yeah. That's when I graduated.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Uh, high school?

• 4:06Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  All right, yeah.

• 4:07Cameron Hanes?

  So that's how old I am.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  I'm an 01er.

• 4:09Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:10Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, so you're young, see?

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, 42, young.

• 4:15Cameron Hanes?

  Um, what, uh, what were you going to school for back then?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  I loved, well, any, any of the ologies.

• 4:24Cameron Hanes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  And I bumped into a USGS employee who was out checking the stream flow monitors.

• 4:34Cameron Hanes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  I was fishing the Beaverhead River out of Dillon, Montana, and this guy rolls up, who like, kinda looks like me, and he's...

• 4:45Speaker 01

  And I, you know, had some fly fishing stuff with him and I was like, hey, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, don't worry. I'm not fishing here. I gotta check this thing. And he's, oh, I'm USGS. And I was like, oh, how'd you get into that? So I was like, oh, I'm gonna be a geologist.

• 4:58Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  And so I started doing that. And then I took this class called volcanoes and earthquakes. And I was like, oh.

• 5:05Cameron Hanes?

  It sounds like a good one.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  This is gonna be great.

• 5:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  And that professor made it. Like, how do you make volcanoes and earthquakes boring and terrible? I mean, it was so bad. And I was, oh, my gosh, I gotta do something else.

• 5:20Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  And so I kind of bounced around and, and at one point I had like anthropology and geology and paleontology all at the same time. And I always loved history and, and I'm just not good with authority either.

• 5:38Cameron Hanes?

  And, yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  And my advisor didn't show up the first week. So I just picked all my own classes and I picked all the things that I wanted to do.

• 5:48Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  And they were all like the hard classes because those sounded way better than intro to this or intro to that.

• 5:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  And then by the time I was supposed to be thinking about graduating, I had all the easy classes. And I couldn't stand going to them. Because I was also working construction the whole time. And all like, I was like, this is so stupid. This is so stupid. I could be setting trusses today and making money.

• 6:14Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  You know, like the crew needs me.

• 6:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  You know, like teamwork was always, you know, my dad's family is big organized athletics family. So teamwork, teamwork, teamwork, coaching, all that stuff. And, and so like the construction crew, even though you can attract some knuckleheads, you know.

• 6:33Cameron Hanes?

  Still a team. Yeah.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  It's still a team. Yes. I'd be like, oh, my gosh, we're putting up walls today.

• 6:38Cameron Hanes?

  Can't let the guys down.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep. So that was kind of the down. Plus a good bird dog. And she was just hitting her stride and all of a sudden dad found out that I was taking two classes instead of eight.

• 6:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  And.

• 6:57Cameron Hanes?

  You're supposed to be a full-time student.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Supposed to be a full-time student. And all of a sudden I start getting these phone calls from credit companies and they're like, hey.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Um, you're not paying your tuition to the University of Montana. And I'm like, whoa, what's going on here? And, and my dad was like, oh, did you finally notice?

• 7:24Cameron Hanes?

  So he quit paying?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:26Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 7:27Cameron Hanes?

  Found out you weren't going?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Found out I wasn't going, found out I was, I was making plenty of money to pay, pay my bills and spending that on hunting. And, and then I learned real quick about responsibility, being an adult and all that stuff. And yeah, negotiating my time with, with creditors is super fun. Yep. Um, and I have a very, um, yeah, that, that little stint creditors following you around when you're trying to hustle and, and make some paychecks.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Definitely like in modern times, they call it trauma. That'd be my childhood trauma that follows me.

• 8:12Cameron Hanes?

  Deal with the bill collectors.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 8:15Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Well, you could probably get a lot of therapy out of that now, nowadays, if you want to talk to somebody.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you just give all that money I'm saving back.

• 8:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then, so when did you get hooked up with the meat eater?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Oh, so, uh, you know, I, I, just like a lot of the, the guys that I was around, we all, we were all guiding.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Fly fishing and, and my dad's secretary, when, when I was young, he was a lawyer in town and, and he had a, you know, a legal assistant whose husband was a outfitter. Larry Pendleton, loading Lone Tree Outfitting.

• 8:52Cameron Hanes?

  No, it sounds good. That's a good name.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  It is. Yeah. And he had all these beat up old trucks and each one had a, a custom license plate and then be like Lone Tree one, Lone Tree two, Lone Tree three. We'd ride around Lone Tree three. And, um, he was just like a saint. Is the weirdest thing. Uh, I know you've been around a lot of outfitters. I've worked for a bunch of them. And it's like, the more I think about it, it's like the first one was the most honest. And thank God for that. Um, and he just had the, the patience of Job and would.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  I mean, love him, love that man. And he would answer every single question because my dad wasn't a hunt, like he was the team sports guy, the athletics guy. They won't, um, and football and all that stuff was taking me away from hunting and being outside. And I had, my mom had got me like outdoor life and field and stream for my birthday, my whole life. And so I'd read those things. My dad would get me books on outdoor stuff. And, uh, this guy was like, the gateway to all the, like, he had all the knowledge firsthand. And that was

• 10:15Speaker 01

  the only person that had like that depth of knowledge. And, and oh yeah, I have been turkey hunting. Versus like reading turkey hunting stories, right?

• 10:25Cameron Hanes?

  So you just ask him a million questions about everything or what?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. And I'm like still embarrassed about sitting like the, the idea, because I would just not shut up.

• 10:35Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  And I'd just be like, well, what about, and what about, and what about, and what about? Right?

• 10:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  And this guy just would just pay, and he'd roll his own cigarettes, digging in the pocket of his shirt and dig his tobacco out and sit there and roll a cigarette and be like, well, pard.

• 10:56Cameron Hanes?

  Did he have the tobacco loose in the pocket?

• 10:57Speaker 01

  No, he had, um, the prince, is it prince?

• 11:02Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, Prince Albert?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Prince Albert?

• 11:04Cameron Hanes?

  Is Albert is?

• 11:05Speaker 01

  He had the tin.

• 11:05Cameron Hanes?

  Is that right?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  And then he'd have like the big

• 11:08Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  can at home and he'd repack the tin.

• 11:12Cameron Hanes?

  Visualize exactly what you're saying. That kind of moving around a little bit. Yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was, I mean, it's still just so iconic, but you know, everything stunk like nicotine and cigarettes and, um, but it's like a nostalgia smell.

• 11:26Cameron Hanes?

  And he's doing that. He's not in a hurry to go anywhere because he's got to roll a cigarette so he can tell you a story.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, man. And it was, I mean, it was just everything to me. And then the other thing he'd do, right, is

• 11:39Speaker 01

  You know, I'd follow him around.

• 11:41Cameron Hanes?

  Hmm. And how old were you at this time?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  This was probably starting about thirteen, I bet. And so all but all the way through high school. And, you know, the second, and this is, you know, dad didn't know this, but like the second football ended. I'd cut class. I'd be sick at school. I'd, I'd never miss a day. And then the second football ended, I'd cut class and go down there and, and help him guide elk hunters and, and just, you know, be with him and, and learn as much as I could and, and he had just had this trick that I didn't pick up on forever.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  But, you know, he's always smoking and then he'd like stop me with his hand and then he'd look down at his cigarette.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  And then just start marching on, you know?

• 12:34Cameron Hanes?

  Is that the, his wind?

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's checking the wind with the, with the smoke on his cigarette, you know?

• 12:39Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I, hey, it worked for that, I'm sure.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:42Cameron Hanes?

  It's like a little wind detector.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Yep. But anyway, so I was guiding all over the place.

• 12:46Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  And eventually, um, I, I was,

• 12:54Speaker 01

  outdoor television was, was like Wild West outdoor television at that point, right? Like anybody with a couple of bucks could be on Sportsman's Channel. If you had a couple more bucks, you could be on Outdoor Channel. And they were just trying to like feed the beast of content in, in those days. And so we were just constantly bumping into these TV shows. And, you know, ninety nine point nine nine percent of those went away fast. They don't exist today.

• 13:24Cameron Hanes?

  But when you were out like hunting, you were seeing these guys? Okay.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Or, you know, they'd come into camp, you know?

• 13:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  With, with different outfitters and then, um, the one thing that they all had in common is it was like, nobody was doing that in Montana or Idaho then, um, which were my main kind of zone. Uh, and, and they were all like Midwest folks, like they're turkey and whitetail folks, but then they wanted to get the elk.

• 13:50Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  And then they'd be like. These nobodies in shape to do this. Yeah. So let's hire this kid. Mm hmm. To carry a camera. And so that's, that's how I did. I would fill in. Uh, if, if I was filming TV and I had a break. I had all this list of outfitters I could talk to. Call one up and be like, hey, I'm in New Mexico. Got any work? Yeah. You got any work? Yeah. And they'd be like, yeah. And so I'd jump in for a week there and then I'd go to Colorado and, and kind of vice versa. And, and on, and then in the winters I'd fill in going to trade shows for outfitters or for brands or whatever, and just stand in the booth. Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Right? And, and talk to people and, and that's how I met like the first investor in First Light. Hmm. And it, he had a bumper crop of tomatoes. California dude. Yeah. Sold, uh, the fields, the tomatoes, two years in a row. Uh, I know nothing about tomatoes other than what he told me, which is they're notoriously uh, dangerous to raise because they always cost you money, but when they make you money, they make you a ton of money. I see. And he had two years in a row and he was like, I'm going to buy a plane. And his childhood friend, uh, was like, how about you don't buy a plan and you invest in this idea that I have, which was the First Light Clothing Company. Yeah.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  And, and I met those guys right at that time. Mm hmm. And, uh, we ended up going to New Mexico. I ended up helping guiding those guys in New Mexico. And then they're talking about this clothing stuff and I'm like, well, do you have this? And do you have that? And they're like, no, no, no, that's not what we want to do. We want to do this. But these guys were pretty new to hunting. They were like adult onset hunters. Yeah. Super fit.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Um, like really top of the line, like snow sports athletes.

• 15:54Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Like, so they have plenty of skills, but not the experience in the hunting, right? And, um, and they're like, well, boy, we'd love to hear more about what you think. We, we don't know anybody who guides and, and that was kind of how that started. And then a couple of years down the road, they were just having a hard time, like, being real serious. They're like, okay, we got other jobs. Do we go all in on the clothing thing?

• 16:27Cameron Hanes?

  Had they started it yet?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they'd started it. They'd come up with this logo that people still say is XD, which is a mountain and a sun coming up, first light, first light of the day. Um, and.

• 16:40Cameron Hanes?

  You know what? I never, so that is the sun coming up, isn't it?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:44Cameron Hanes?

  I've never actually thought about that logo until right now.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:47Cameron Hanes?

  It's like, when you said it, people still, I was like, oh, okay, that is supposed to be something. I don't even know what I thought it was.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 16:55Cameron Hanes?

  Good. Um, I learned something today.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  If that's all we do, we've, we've accomplished something. Yes, exactly. So, um, we, the, the angel investor called me and he's like, hey, these guys are going to call you for a job. It's like, I told him, I'm tired of like the bickering. Uh, and I'm going to pull my cash out unless they hire you full time.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  And I was, I was literally, I was working for Warren Miller Entertainment as like a roadie for their ski films. Sitting next to the pool in Santa Barbara.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  As my, like my winter seasonal job. And I was like, oh, I don't know if that's going to be a good deal. And, but I was like, I should just try something else.

• 17:48Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  And then a couple of months later, I'm like teaching myself how to type. You know, cause like the last time I typed on a keyboard was in fifth grade typing class that we had to take. And, um, doing order entry. And then I was also, my first business card was marketing, media and sales.

• 18:12Cameron Hanes?

  And that's a lot.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  And my job really was to sit in between the two founders, Scott and Kenton, and help them communicate with each other because they were so frustrated with each other of who wasn't doing what, right? And, uh, and we got through that first year and they were like, this is fun again.

• 18:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  And then it just kinda kept going and a good friend of mine called and he's like, he was working for National Wildlife Federation and his job was to go all around Eastern Montana and talk to all the grazing associations about the idea of reestablishing buffalo around the CMR, like a free ranging herd, right? And you can guess what cattle, cattle guys think of competition for scarce feed.

• 19:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Um.

• 19:04Cameron Hanes?

  Not, not excited about that.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  They weren't excited about that. Um, but you know, I threw that Eastern Montana family of mine and helped them talk to people and I'd be like, oh, well, you know, these guys are the schwankies up here in square but and, and, and, uh, at least have some civil conversations, right?

• 19:22Cameron Hanes?

  Good start.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, um, and then he's like, yeah, there's this guy, Steven Rinella. He's got a TV show, I guess. And two out of the three of us at first light didn't own a TV.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  And so we're like, well, okay, we'll figure out how to check this out.

• 19:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  And then we're like, okay, this is neat. And this, uh, these friends of ours, the Marx's, they had two little, little boys at the time. They were big dudes now. And, uh, they're like, oh yeah, we sit and watch this show. The whole family does.

• 19:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  We're like, well, that's different, right? That's a good thing.

• 20:01Cameron Hanes?

  Was it Steve's first show or was it?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  It was the first show. So it was.

• 20:05Cameron Hanes?

  I can't remember what that was called.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Uh, Wild Within.

• 20:06Cameron Hanes?

  Yes.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Right. Before it went to Meat Eater.

• 20:08Cameron Hanes?

  Right. Yep.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  And then, um, yeah, I went, called them on the phone.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Chatted a little bit. He's gonna be on book tour that was gonna stop in Missoula. And then that Missoula stop had a bunch of conservation groups there. And I had all these buddies working for conservation groups and I was dating a girl in Missoula. So I was like, well, I'll run up and take her on a date. And hopefully these guys will pay for my gas if I meet Steve.

• 20:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, business trip.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I went and did that and met Steve and that was great and then went out on a date. Tried to salvage that relationship. And when I was gone, Steve was talking about Meat Eater and like what trip he wanted to do and and wanted to do mule deer in the breaks and wanted to,

• 21:06Speaker 01

  you know, go up to British Columbia and wanted to do and and my buddies were like, oh, you should talk to Cal. Oh, you should talk to Cal. Oh, you should talk to Cal. And so I'm back out on the road and Steve calls and he's like, hey,

• 21:22Speaker 01

  what would you think about helping me with some first time hunters? And I was like, oh, you know, that's great, but this is my first year not guiding. Cause you know, when you guide full time, like you don't hunt for yourself.

• 21:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, so you're looking forward to hunting.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was like, I got some buddies who are awesome and they'll help you out. He's like, okay, what if I told you they were comedians out of LA? And I was like, not interested.

• 21:55Cameron Hanes?

  I know it. I know what trip this is.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:57Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And he's like,

• 22:00Speaker 01

  I say, okay, what if? One of them was this guy, Joe Rogan. And I'm like,

• 22:09Speaker 01

  the Fear Factor guy? And he's like, yeah, but you know, he's got this podcast and stuff. And I was like, dude, you're like, I'm like, you're not sweetening the pot. And you're not taking no for an answer type of thing. And he was getting frustrated and I was kind of getting frustrated. And I'm like, listen, I had some buddies who are awesome. They're better than I am. I'll, I'll set you up. And he, Steve ends up hanging up the phone going, well, I can find somebody else too.

• 22:39Cameron Hanes?

  Okay, so you guys were in a

• 22:41Speaker 01

  And

• 22:42Cameron Hanes?

  It's a tipping point.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so I turned to this buddy of mine, uh, still a good buddy of mine today. We, we did guided some uh, fly fishing in whitewater together, Ryan Thompson. And I was like, RT, can you believe this guy? Can you believe what, like, he just will not take no for an answer. Well, like, kind of what a jackass, you know? And RT is like, he's like, Cal, dude, I know, I know you like hunting. But you should do this.

• 23:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  And I was like,

• 23:17Speaker 01

  like, you're supposed to be on my side.

• 23:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  You know?

• 23:20Cameron Hanes?

  I gotta go babysit these guys?

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  And, and, um, that was, that was it. So we went and did that, that trip and

• 23:29Cameron Hanes?

  That was Prince Wales, right?

• 23:31Speaker 01

  That was the Missouri breaks.

• 23:33Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, oh, that was Joe's first buck.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Joe's first hunt?

• 23:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's right. He, he still talks about, well, I'm sure, cause you're going on a show, right? Coming out?

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:43Cameron Hanes?

  I'm sure he's got that deer still sitting there. I mean, have you been on there since he's?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  I haven't been in Austin with him.

• 23:49Cameron Hanes?

  Okay, yeah, yeah. But no, he still talks about that cooking that meat, I, I guess around the fire that night.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:55Cameron Hanes?

  And how he's like decided right then. And he'll tell the story just with the same enthusiasm he always tells it. Cause it's like his stories, his, I think his, one of his superpowers, he can tell a story for the hundredth time is and he's as into it as the first time. And so he's going to tell the story about cooking that and he took a bite and he knew at that time, he was either gonna, he was gonna, this is what he's gonna do for the rest of his life. I love that story.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Oh, and that trip just had, had like the things that make a good trip.

• 24:27Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Um, like, like, like force you to bond. Like, it wasn't warm.

• 24:35Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  It wasn't friendly. You know, it's the Missouri breaks and it's kind of, when we started, it was kind of right at that rain, snow point. And then when we took off, it was like, I can't remember what it was, like 13 or 14 below zero.

• 24:49Cameron Hanes?

  Whoa.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's a, when it's gray and nasty, it's not like a welcoming landscape.

• 24:58Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  All that. And Joe and Brian's first impression was that it was like a post-industrial. They thought like there was a coal mine that had raped and pillaged the land, you know? And they were like, what the fuck is this? You know?

• 25:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  And I could hear him chirping and I finally had to say something because I was a little offended.

• 25:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  I'm like, this is my home state, guys. This is beautiful out here.

• 25:21Cameron Hanes?

  What are you guys talking about?

• 25:22Speaker 01

  You better love this.

• 25:23Cameron Hanes?

  This isn't some nuclear, yeah.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm like, you better love it right now, in fact, right? Um, but you know, it's like when, when everybody has to deal with some adversity.

• 25:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  It just helps.

• 25:34Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Glue you together, right?

• 25:36Cameron Hanes?

  For sure. Yeah, that bond.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  So it was good. It was good.

• 25:40Cameron Hanes?

  Well, I mean, yeah, Joe talks about how that trip, that was changed his life essentially. And it's like, how, how incredible is that though? Like you think about the decisions you've made in life and that you didn't really want to do it, but you kind of did it. And I mean, probably changed the trajectory of everything.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it did. I mean, the guys on the, on the work side of things were like, you're still going to be able to answer the phones, right?

• 26:05Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  And yeah, I mean, it was. The interesting thing that like you just don't realize is. And I still struggle with it, right? Is like being able to just have a conversation as a skill.

• 26:25Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  And the production crew, um, some of those guys are, are still around. Mo Fallon is, you know, he came off of Bourdain's show to launch the Meat Eater Show.

• 26:38Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  And, um, and he was like, dude, you gotta do this. Like you're, you're great.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  And talking to a camera. I was like, ah, so I'm sure everybody is type of thing, you know?

• 26:50Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Um, and they're like, no, this is so much easier for us. Um, um, but you know, that's just kind of a goofy thing. I'm like, well, let me show you how I build a house. Like, that's more impressive to me, you know, type of thing.

• 27:06Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. And the thing is not hardly anybody's good is good at talking to a camera. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, they were right. You're good at it and most people are terrible at it. So yeah, it takes, you gotta have that little, that little part of it.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:21Cameron Hanes?

  It's hard.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  And so we ramped up on the first light side of things. And, and as you know, like the thing that little tiny clothing line and the biggest, biggest thing for us that separated us from everybody else at that moment in time. Things have changed a ton. Uh, and I, I don't want to, uh, I want to be careful with this because it's just the way it was. And people have short memories, especially these days, but, um, brands in the hunting space were not outspoken about conservation issues. There were brands that donated tons of money, way more money than we had,

• 28:05Speaker 01

  um, in our clothing line and in our marketing, like way more. But they just wouldn't talk about it. It might be buried on a landing page in the back of the website, but, um, the whole industry was so scared of alienating anybody that it just wasn't out in front. Right? Meanwhile, in the out, greater outdoor world, you have Patagonia basically in comparison being like a crazy activism group.

• 28:37Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Right?

• 28:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Uh, in comparison.

• 28:40Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  And.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  This public land sell off stuff was happening at that time. And I was made aware of it through all these friends in Missoula that

• 28:53Cameron Hanes?

  Was this 2017?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  This would have been a little bit earlier, it would have been like 20 2013, 2014. So you have like the Bundy's.

• 29:04Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, right.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  You have Mal here.

• 29:06Cameron Hanes?

  That was a huge thing.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  You have Jason Chaffetz, like it's all that.

• 29:09Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Walk up.

• 29:11Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  But prior to that, kind of like where we're at right now, you had these people being like, hey, you gotta be aware of this. You gotta be aware of this. This is coming. This is happening. These, you know, like the tumblers are starting to move again.

• 29:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  And I ended up at a backcountry hunters and anglers meeting in Missoula. Cause I came out of the Frank Church Wilderness where I was working. And did what everybody else my age was doing that was guiding, which was you had a pocket full of cash and you're going to go drink beer and chase girls. And I called up my buddies and I was like, where are we drinking beer and chasing girls? And they're like, well, let's, we're going to go to this meeting. I was like, no, what else you got? And they're like, don't worry, there's free beer.

• 29:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I'm sorry. I thought you said meeting.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So we went up there and it was kind of same deal. And they're like, does anybody guide? You know?

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Like, well, what's your story? I'm like, well, this way, you know, that's what I did. And, and what they were talking about this idea that people didn't value wilderness areas, like capital W wilderness was like appalling to me.

• 30:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Cause that's where I spent a ton of my time growing up rattlesnake wilderness outside of Missoula, Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, and then a bunch of time later on in life in the Frank Church Wilderness. And I would watch these people just have these transformative experiences.

• 30:43Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Like transformative, these big time.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, at least where I was in life, I was like, these are big time CEO. People own chains of hotels or chicken farms or whatever it is. And they would come in, they'd be on sleeping pills. And, uh, other pills and smoking cigarettes like a fiend and, and then, you know, six, seven days into the wilderness trip, they're like,

• 31:14Speaker 01

  chilled out and they're accepting the fact that they're not in charge of stuff.

• 31:20Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  And, you know, more often than not, like my biggest claim to fame, I, you know, I'd, you know, kind of ease off and instead of being the guy in the lead all the time, I'd be like, well, hey, you know, I'd do exactly what the old outfitter did for me, right? I'd be like, hey, pard.

• 31:39Cameron Hanes?

  What do you think?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Take the binoculars.

• 31:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Um, I can just ease up over that ridge.

• 31:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  And tell me what you see, you know? And

• 31:50Speaker 01

  these, I mean, these guys are listening to like a 21 year old kid.

• 31:52Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  And, but they're like,

• 31:56Speaker 01

  should I?

• 31:57Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  You know?

• 31:58Cameron Hanes?

  And, and when they started, they would never listen to you, right?

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. Um, and so that was just crazy that people wouldn't value wilderness. Cause I was like, well, I've seen it.

• 32:09Cameron Hanes?

  Hmm.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  You know, and these people aren't Montana people or Idaho people or Wyoming people. They're North Carolina, South Carolina, New York. First elk hunters I ever guided were, um, uh, well, Nunzio was, was my guy. And he was fantastic, right? And he was shooting a compound bow in Queens, New York.

• 32:32Cameron Hanes?

  Hmm.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  10 yards in, inside of his apartment. He's like, dude, that's what I got.

• 32:37Cameron Hanes?

  Doing, doing all he can. Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was just like amazed.

• 32:41Cameron Hanes?

  Hmm.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Amazed that somebody could, could do that, would ride his bike in Central Park or, you know, whatever. And he's like, yeah, that's, that's what I do. You know? Um, so anyway.

• 32:53Cameron Hanes?

  How'd that hunt go by the way?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Uh, with Nunzio?

• 32:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Nuns?

• 32:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Um, it was a bit of a cluster. It was, yeah. Man, we worked so hard and.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  It was early in the guiding career for archery elk and um you know, I just couldn't like, I just didn't know what I didn't know, right?

• 33:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, getting a bull in close is tough.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, bull runs in and I'm backing up because just him and I.

• 33:26Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  And um, he's like, yeah, that bull came in to like five yards and it was just a chest shot.

• 33:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Well, why didn't you shoot it? He's like, why didn't you tell me that's a good shot? You know, I'm like, oh, my God.

• 33:37Cameron Hanes?

  There's so much to learn.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and just so many variables that you can't explain them all.

• 33:42Cameron Hanes?

  I know.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  And getting people set up is tough.

• 33:46Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  But I mean, it was awesome. It was awesome and and just learning like what got those guys out of Queens to come out there and.

• 33:56Cameron Hanes?

  It's incredible.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  And like these big city folks like can kind of get get shit on.

• 34:03Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  But the level of dedication and what they have to do to stick with this stuff.

• 34:09Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Like, I know plenty of guys out here in the West that, man, they're grabbing the golf clubs, not.

• 34:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Not sticking with the hunting stuff if that's what they have to go through.

• 34:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I mean, it's like here you can here you can buy an over the counter elk tag still in Western Oregon and just go right here.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:28Cameron Hanes?

  And that's too much for some people. So imagine somebody in New York. Yeah. It's like he's got to exercise in Central Park and shoot in their apartment and they're still willing to sacrifice. But yeah, I mean, but also then there are people out here who are just ate up with it and just think about it every second of every day. Like probably us.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Uh, but yeah, so anyway, the we started talking about first light or sorry, uh, public land. Because public lands were under threat and it was just. The truth. It was easy. It was simple. It was like this whole company was founded on public land. Like the, the origin story was.

• 35:07Cameron Hanes?

  So this is first light again or BHA? Okay. Cause you're talking about that BHA meeting for a second.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, that, those guys kind of got me like, uh, quote unquote, activated thinking of it, aware of the threats, right?

• 35:19Cameron Hanes?

  This world out here.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then like a year goes by, um, at first light. Again, I'm like sales, marketing, media, plus I'm doing all the like background. Uh, product research on fabrics and or fit or all the, the things, you know, three, three man band, right? I lived in the garage underneath the, uh, office. And I brought my 1971 camper trailer that I bought off the old outfitter, put it in the garage.

• 35:49Cameron Hanes?

  Was this in Idaho?

• 35:50Speaker 01

  In Idaho. I was living, was living in there. Um, it pissed my, uh, one boss Scott off a ton because he was like, that thing is just a big piece of crap. And everybody who walked in would be like, oh, cool camper. And he's like, ah, you gotta get that out of here. But, um, we, uh, just started being like, hey, you're public lands. You're public lands. First light, public lands. First light access. First light, public lands, public lands, public lands. And all of a sudden, people started buying stuff and the brand just starts getting huge for us. Huge, right? I mean, we're tiny, tiny.

• 36:30Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Um, but people are talking about us. People are buying stuff. We're selling out of everything. Um, the bigger brands, like big legacy brands are calling me and being like, hey, Ryan, love what you're doing, but just so you know, you're going to alienate people. And you can't afford to do that. The pie is not that big.

• 36:53Cameron Hanes?

  By talking activism and public land.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, by just talking and it tells us it wasn't activism. It was like, well, if they take that away, that's where we go.

• 37:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  What are we gonna do?

• 37:03Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Right? And all we did was archery hunt, like the three of us, that's all we did at the time. And it was all hyper local. It was like right out the back door. It was like, well, God, this is exactly the stuff that they're talking about. And, um, and then I started doing research and, and reaching out to big companies in the bigger outdoor space and, and got a hold of these reports telling me how big the pie is, right? I'm like, well, it's a three billion dollar industry. I'm like, we're doing like, uh, two million dollars right now.

• 37:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  I'm like, I.

• 37:39Cameron Hanes?

  Seems like there's some more pie.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  There's a lot of pie out there, guys.

• 37:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  I'm like, what if we got to seven million dollars?

• 37:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Like that'd be, that's.

• 37:46Cameron Hanes?

  Ballin'.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's still a ton of pie left then too, you know? So, um, yeah, that's, that's what we did. And, and I think the brand's still like very much known for, um, just having that, that good public lands ethos and, and that's where our customer base hunts and it's relatable and that's where we're testing the products and, and that's, that was kind of like the whole startup deal. And then, yeah, Steve came in and, and we're like, God, this guy's so similar to what we do. And it turns out it's like, well, it's similar to what most hunters do.

• 38:26Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Like that turns out they eat their food too, right? You know?

• 38:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  And, uh, and yeah, I mean, we're a long way down the road from that, but um, kind of back in that same public lands type of, uh, hot topic scenario.

• 38:41Cameron Hanes?

  Well, so, so when you talk about at that time, you said, well, that's what we do. And you talk about public lands. What was the threat back then? Was it the same threat that we're dealing with now? Or was it a little bit different?

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, same threat, kind of different story, right? So like, um, the Bundys were talking about transferring all land and they were really, uh, whipping people up on,

• 39:07Speaker 01

  you know, really strong anti-government, uh, federal land is, uh, not constitutional. And, um,

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Basically like, like it was spun as like a government overreach type of argument. And then that coalesced around this moment where, and it's so similar to right now in the fact where you have this build up. And then some politician comes in and tries to capitalize on it. And the politician at that time was Jason Chaffetz. And he was like, oh, here's a bill to sell 2.3 million acres. And

• 39:49Cameron Hanes?

  Disposable.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, low value. Nobody cares about it.

• 39:54Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  And, you know, all of a sudden, uh, Joe Rogan's got a public land owner t-shirt. We're, we're on his podcast. Uh, everybody's talking about public lands. All the Utah boys, all of our flat brim bros are like, oh my God, public lands are awesome. What's going on? We hunt, you know, this is, these are our over the counter tags. This is, and it was a, a huge like tidal wave moment, right? And all of a sudden, uh, Chaffetz has his

• 40:30Speaker 01

  strange kinda, I love all dogs, but the picture was strange, like hound dog-ish thing and a odd fitting hunting coat.

• 40:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, by the fire.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  I swear to God, I hunt, you know?

• 40:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  And, and then, you know, we smashed that bill and, and things just kinda simmered down ever so slowly with no resolution. Um, and, and, you know, I feel like a lot of people just kinda like forgot about this idea. That it's, it's, I don't want to call it like class warfare, cause that's not what I'm about at all. But this idea that quite simply, if somebody can't have it, it makes them want it more.

• 41:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Yeah. And so you think they see this like right now Senator Mike Lee, he sees all that land and he's like,

• 41:24Speaker 01

  This is the time?

• 41:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I, I think, don't you think that, and maybe we've talked about this because we've talked, you know, in the course of all this, but um, when, when they have the House, the Senate and the presidency, they can be more aggressive, right?

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:40Cameron Hanes?

  I'm a Republican, so I'm, I'm not saying they like somebody else.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can say we.

• 41:44Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it's, it's we.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  I, I, I think more now more than ever, people need to be reminded, like, the government is us, is we, we the people.

• 41:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Right? And if you don't want to participate, um, somebody will participate for you.

• 42:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Right?

• 42:04Cameron Hanes?

  Make those decisions. Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  So, yeah, we, yeah.

• 42:08Cameron Hanes?

  Well, it's, you know, I think most people probably listening know what's, what we've been dealing with lately, but there was a big threat to public land. Essentially, I'll just, you know, just so we can catch everybody up to speed. Um, recently a senator was proposing selling public, you know, they say a small portion of public land, half percent, percent, something like that. But when you talk about, you know, 200 and however many million acres, that percent, yeah, that's even a small percentage is more land than we want to sell as a, as public land hunters. Um, but yeah, so the senator was proposing this, they were trying to sell it. I think not originally, it wasn't, it wasn't billed as um, affordable housing originally. I think that was like,

• 42:54Cameron Hanes?

  I think that's what it ended up, because I heard even Trump mentioned it, like, yeah, we need more affordable housing. That's not what it was about to start off that, that I saw. I never saw any affordable housing mentioned, but yeah.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  So the affordable housing was in the sales pitch, not the language of the, not in the text of the bill. Yeah. And the, the text of the bill was really left up to broad interpretation. Like it was very vague, um, but like, I hate saying I have favorite parts of it, but one of my favorite parts, right, is like bullet point one. Land eligible for sale has to be near existing infrastructure. Then you get all the way down to bullet point number seven, or uh, very hard, very far away from existing infrastructure and, and, uh, you know, and it's like, so everything in between. So the stuff that's really close and the stuff that's really far away and everything in between. Yeah.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Right. And then, um, you know, I had called you because there are like these bellwether moments of awareness and

• 44:02Speaker 01

  you know, like we've been feeling the tide rise on this for, for months and months. And, uh, the language coming out of Lee's office was getting more and more bold. And for people who don't understand the history here, like Lee, the, the only,

• 44:22Speaker 01

  the only, uh, positive thing, or I guess admirable thing I can say about him is he's been out front and he's been consistent. Right. But he's changed his language ever so subtly now because he used to just flat out say the federal government should not own any land. I want to sell it all. And he's said that over and over and over and over again. And now he's trying to work on his sales pitch, right? But the first one was, uh, I think half a percent of all Forest Service and up to 0.75% of all BLM in these 11 Western states.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  And the lands eligible would come from like a 500 million acres would be eligible. And then you could pull those parcels from here and, and there. And, and fortunately, um, the Wilderness Society produced this map of like, okay, well, here's the eligible part. And people could look at that map and be like,

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Oh my God. That's my spot.

• 45:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Right? Like my, my public land spot is on there.

• 45:40Cameron Hanes?

  Favorite spot. Yeah.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, obviously that helped a ton. Um, because people need context, right?

• 45:49Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  It's like, oh, they're selling public land. What are they selling? Oh, stuff that's not valuable.

• 45:52Cameron Hanes?

  Well, cause they, they, I mean, Lee and his whoever, they weren't putting out anything. Saying, here's what we're talking about.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 45:59Cameron Hanes?

  Cause they wanted it vague.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:01Cameron Hanes?

  But then, you know, you, you talked about the Wilderness Society did put that out. But that was like a big, people didn't know what we're talking about. Cause they make it sound like, oh, it's this, nobody ever uses it. It's like, who, who's nobody? First of all, the people that do use it that you don't know, they probably are concerned about this.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:20Cameron Hanes?

  But yeah, so what do you think?

• 46:23Speaker 01

  I mean, like low value.

• 46:24Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Garden variety, all these like.

• 46:27Cameron Hanes?

  I know, yeah, these terms that they're using just to label it is just to like, get people settled down, basically.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:34Cameron Hanes?

  No, nobody wants to think about, oh, they're going to sell Yellowstone. So they would go, or Glacier or whatever. So they would go to the exact opposite of what people think about when they talk, think about beauty, beauty and mountains and parks.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:47Cameron Hanes?

  And they're like, okay, so what would be the exact opposite of that? Well, that's this, you know, low value or whatever.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and don't worry, we're not selling the national parks. I got so sick of hearing that. I'm like, God almighty, there's not a single hunter out here who ever mentioned national parks.

• 47:03Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Like, none of us are worried that you're going to sell Yosemite or Yellowstone or Grand Teton. We're talking about the low value lands.

• 47:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Like the places that we run our bird dogs, the, you know?

• 47:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Close to town after work. Yeah.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:19Cameron Hanes?

  It's a, I don't know. It was, I think, I don't know. I've never been so frustrated. But so what, what kind of context could we put out there that'd help explain this a little bit more? So we have the Senator thinks there should be no, the, the country shouldn't own any land.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 47:38Cameron Hanes?

  Essentially, right?

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 47:39Cameron Hanes?

  So what does he, I mean, why do you think he's, why is this his mission? If you had to guess?

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Man, I'd rather not guess. I mean, there's all these existing theories. I've never talked to the guy.

• 47:53Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Um, I've only been in the, the same hallway with him once. Um, and he didn't look like he was in a real chatty mood at the time. Um,

• 48:04Speaker 01

  But you know, those theories range from like, uh, real hardline religious ideology to, um, the like, just participation in these land sell-off think tanks.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  I don't know what, what the truth is.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  But I guess I don't know what the truth is, other than the fact that people love public lands. And, and people from all walks of life use public lands. And with the exception of a lot of these people who live in DC full-time.

• 48:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Right? I mean, and so, yeah, I'm sure this stuff's low value to them.

• 48:50Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  But they have just quit rubbing shoulders with the rank and file American. And it just shows more and more and more.

• 48:59Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  So.

• 49:00Cameron Hanes?

  And I, and I do think it's probably an easy, you know, cause Trump is a business guy, right? So he probably loves the numbers, thinking about what we could do with this land and turn this into that. And what it would result in money-wise, but it's not the point.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Well, it's not the point too, but I mean, it's like, they are money producers. And it's like, if you need to dig yourself out of debt. It's like, uh, do you sell the apartment building that you own? That's throwing, putting money back in? Like, what do you do? I mean, I don't, yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  The value worldwide of untrammelled land just keeps going up and up. And the United States of America and Canada, um, are like, leading the charge in extremely high-value, high ecological value lands that have not been screwed up yet.

• 50:04Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  And the value of that just goes up and up and up and up, you know, so.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  The, kind of going back to, you know,

• 50:19Speaker 01

  some of the stuff that you've been saying on the motivation of Lee, you know, has to be spot on. It's like, well, I already promised that we were going to sell this land.

• 50:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  And now I gotta go to those entities and say, oh, this isn't going through right now. Which isn't fun. But, you know, again, like he never gave the, the quote unquote, public land owner, the, the fair public process to say whether we value them or not.

• 50:50Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  And that came in gradually building and building and building into like this ground swell moment here. That just like, I think it peaked about two and a half days ago. And it just, just got pulled out last night at, what is it? Eight, eight thirty, nine, nine o'clock. Uh, Pacific time. Yeah. So,

• 51:18Speaker 01

  you know, people were kind of getting beat up on the messaging and, and it's so frustrating to call and leave messages and not get a real response from a real person, or you get a form letter that kind of addresses something, but really says what they wanted to say the whole time. And so I get it, but that stuff really made a difference.

• 51:44Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, no.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Really made a difference.

• 51:46Cameron Hanes?

  I don't think, do you think there's ever been anything like that? Happen as far for in politics? Do you think their phones have ever been and their emails have ever been as active as they were with this? Cause I don't think so. I know that we both talked to the same reporter from New York Times and she, and she said, do you think they anticipated this? And I was just like, I don't think so. Because this, I think this is like a big wake up call. I think they sort of forgot. And I said, I don't know what you guys think about land out, you know, in the back east in New York or whatever, but out west, it's a big deal. And I don't know if,

• 52:26Cameron Hanes?

  I can't, it's hard to think that they wouldn't know that or Lee wouldn't know that, but maybe it's just been in that DC bubble so long.

• 52:35Cameron Hanes?

  Couldn't have forgot, but it's like, seems like, did you guys forget?

• 52:39Speaker 01

  You just get dipped. I mean, it's, I, I don't want to make excuses for the guy because I think the guy still wants to sell the stuff, but

• 52:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, you know, you get further away from the guy who looks like he's going to punch you in the face and eventually you're like, all it was just an argument. He didn't really want to punch me in the face.

• 52:57Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Right?

• 52:58Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Type of thing. Um, man.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  There are so many people that use these places all the time. And, you know, because of how we've made, we all have a hand in this, how we've all made party politics and, and wanted to distance ourselves from the crazy. Um, it took a long time to get a hold of all these people. It's like, oh, dude, your off-road group. Do they, do they go out here? Great. Well, it's, it's gonna be up for sale.

• 53:34Cameron Hanes?

  Might be gone.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  Like it's happening. Uh, your archery group, your, your crew that you go out and fall with, you know, bird watchers, dog walkers, trail runners, ultra marathoners, and we all have this huge overlap in the middle of the Venn diagram of just wanting to be outside and having some, some space.

• 53:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  And most people don't have a lot of options other than, you know, these lands that are held in the federal trust, right? The public trust. Um, and I think it's a great time for the hunting and angling crowd to be out here and be out front and say, yeah, this stuff is special and without it, um, we kind of go away.

• 54:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  And your guns go away and, you know, National Shooting Sports Foundation, when we first went through this. Um, and or, you know, my first time really being in it in that, you know, two thousand twelve, thirteen, fourteen range, they had released some numbers that I didn't, didn't seem to get to uh, this time around on like what happens to gun ownership with lack of access. And gun sales and ammunition sales.

• 54:50Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:51Cameron Hanes?

  Seen that.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  And, you know, it goes down.

• 54:54Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  And if you can't use something, pretty soon you're like, ah, I gotta free up space.

• 54:59Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  And then you just don't have it anymore.

• 55:01Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  And there's all, and then we talk about the next generation of hunters or just people who appreciate the outdoors. If it's every weekend right now, and then all of a sudden it's, well, it's once a month and it's a bigger trip.

• 55:17Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  You know, I always sound like I'm beaten up on golf, but it's like.

• 55:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Burn less ca- cash going to the golf course and you can walk around and be, you have that weird thing where your golf cart falls you around. I saw that for the first time when I was in California a few weeks ago. That's a, that's a weird deal. Um, but, uh, I don't think most of these lawmakers have had their phones ring like that on one issue. For possibly ever. I know, like using the backcountry hunters and anglers action alert center, um, when it was in the house and, and we got it withdrawn out of the house.

• 55:59Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  We had, uh, fourteen thousand calls in, in one day.

• 56:03Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  And, you know, that goes, they really don't.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  We need to get to, get to this, but you call your senator or when it was in the house, your representative.

• 56:19Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  And say, this is what you gotta do. This stuff means a ton to me. This is what you gotta do. And then they take it from there.

• 56:25Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Um, it's, that's the way the system's set up. When it's in the senate, you call your senator. They, they take your request from there. That's the way the system's set up. At the end here, you know, we were yelling like, call your senator. I know you've done it already, but then also call John Thune's office, right? He's senate majority leader.

• 56:46Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  And people were like, man, I don't know if they really listen to that because it's supposed to be the representative. I'm like, well, I don't care because the guy is, he's got a hell of a lot more responsibility than just the state of South Dakota. And I love South Dakota.

• 57:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  It is a, it is a sportsman's paradise.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  But like, those channels, you start feeling like they're not working, right? At the end of the senate fight, um, or like I said, about two days ago, that BHA Action Center in one day, 40,000 people used it to call or email their senator in, in one day.

• 57:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  And the bulk of those, uh, calls and emails were, were in those 11, 11 states. And that, I mean, that's more action on the email and, and phone lines than those people may get their entire rest of their career.

• 57:50Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, it's, it is a really big deal and folks always ask like, well, what's the most impact I can make? You know, hit the, the switchboard, make a phone call, make an email.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Those form letter, uh, systems, they matter too, because groups that do have, um, government affairs teams, they can also like point back, right? Like we, that allows us at BHA to track the traffic and be like, okay, we know for a fact that, you know, 3,500 people called your office today. Right? And those are people you have to put in your address. Um, so those are people in your district.

• 58:44Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  They're the people who vote for you or don't vote for you.

• 58:47Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  And thirty five hundred people called you today.

• 58:51Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Right?

• 58:52Cameron Hanes?

  It's a lot of calls.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  I'm like, can we talk about that?

• 58:54Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  You know, and so they, it's that data that does matter. And I know once you do it once, you're like, okay, I feel good, feel good about that. And then you do it again, like, okay, still feeling good. And then you do it again and like.

• 59:07Cameron Hanes?

  God, is this, does this doing anything?

• 59:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:10Cameron Hanes?

  But it, God, it did. Um, can you, can you explain too? Cause I'm not, I was telling both Randy Newberg and you, I wish I was as good as you guys at this. I just, I'm not good at it, but could you explain? People are saying that I thought this was already resolved or whatever, because how it worked was it was at the house. So this huge bill, which I hate these huge bills anyway.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:36Cameron Hanes?

  There's so much garbage in there that just gets lumped in.

• 59:40Cameron Hanes?

  But so goes to first, it's in the house and the language has to be the exact same, both in the house and the senate. So they took this public end sales out of the house and went to the senate. Lee added it back in.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:53Cameron Hanes?

  Then if it stays in there, the house would have to approve it, right?

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:59Cameron Hanes?

  And then it would go to the president to get signed. But both the senate and the house have to agree on the exact same language. And then it gets signed into law.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly.

• 1:00:08Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  So if the senate would have been like, hey, house, great job. Everything looks great here. Then they would have, uh, it basically just would have gone to the, to the floor for a vote. They would have voted on it in the senate, would have gone to the house, the house would have voted on it. Up to Trump's desk, big, beautiful bill. Done. Um, but because of those changes, the house then would have to review those changes. But what happened this time is because in.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  I don't even think Lee's press release is something people should read because it is so misleading.

• 1:00:48Cameron Hanes?

  It's such BS.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  It is. It's, it's like.

• 1:00:52Cameron Hanes?

  It kind of contradicts itself.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:54Cameron Hanes?

  In the, from the middle to the end.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, it's like a gut shot kill, right? You're like, man.

• 1:01:02Cameron Hanes?

  Let's not do that again. Got it, got it done, but.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  I got that bull, but man, I don't feel good about it.

• 1:01:08Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Right? Like, it could have been a better way, but I wish it, wish it would have been a better way, but I'm trying to feel really good about it. So.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  This is what people need to know, and this is what I have real, real heartburn over because I do 100% believe in we the people like.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Your person lost in the election, that's still your president.

• 1:01:34Cameron Hanes?

  Yep.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Right? You're, that's still your senator.

• 1:01:37Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Right? If you win, that's your president, that's your senator, that's your representative, you're not off the hook. You're still a citizen. You gotta exercise your right to keep these folks straight and representing you.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  This is proof in the pudding that the election isn't all there is to being a responsible hunter.

• 1:02:00Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Conservationist, citizen of the United States. Like, yeah, it's not always fun, but as we used to say, the not fun stuff is actually what you get paid for.

• 1:02:11Cameron Hanes?

  Well, the, the people that are saying like, this is what you voted for. That's what drives me so fucking insane because it's like, no, that's not what I voted for. That's why we're pushing back on this because we didn't vote for just to sell public land, but they're like, if you make a vote, then you're just stuck with it. You can't say one word about anything. No, that's not how it works in America.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  And by the way, is that really what you want? Like I'm asking people, I'm like, okay, sure. You got your point out there, but what's your goal?

• 1:02:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  Like, are you, are you, do you want public lands or do you not want, want public?

• 1:02:47Cameron Hanes?

  What's the point here?

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  If, if you don't, you're making a great point and the 54% of America that voted for Trump can shut up and you're going to lose your public lands.

• 1:02:59Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  And then if that's your goal, great strategy, right? But if your goals.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  Public lands and saving public lands for you and the next generation, the next generation. Put your bullshit aside.

• 1:03:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Can we get past this?

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  And yeah, and hopefully we all learn and grow and do adult things.

• 1:03:20Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  And, and keep the wheels on this train, right? Um, and we'll save public lands. And then when it comes election time, we can start having those fun talks again. But guess what? If you want to wait for election time, you're going to lose a bunch of really good shit between then and now.

• 1:03:37Cameron Hanes?

  Three and a half years.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Is that your choice?

• 1:03:39Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Right? So, um, here's the, the thing that just absolutely chaps my ass. Mike Lee, he's a, he's a senior senator. He is also the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. There's other senior senators there. Uh, Heinrichs is one of them. We were talking about him, uh, earlier, probably before we were recording. Um, and it is so difficult to get anything done without the support of the committee chair. That that's the main excuse here is like, well, I can't be too strong on this.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Because I have other things I want to get done. And Lee has made it crystal clear.

• 1:04:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  That that good stuff that I want to do for my constituents will not get done unless I support him on this. Or if not support, just don't say anything.

• 1:04:41Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  And I mean, we got to be able, like, once you have somebody who just refuses to work on good things that will benefit the American people, what do you do with that person? Like you have got to be able to work around that dude.

• 1:04:57Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  And that's where, you know, the John Thune angle would come in. Um, where he, you know, he can override that committee chair. And, you know, so that's why we were saying like, well, somebody's got to step up and be an adult here.

• 1:05:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  We got this kid in the middle who refuses to let go of the ball.

• 1:05:16Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Everybody else wants to play.

• 1:05:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Everybody else wants to play, but we only got one ball.

• 1:05:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  And this guy's standing there, white knuckled on it.

• 1:05:25Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  What do we do? Like, is this really how our government's supposed to work?

• 1:05:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's, that's what I cannot, I could not get over. I don't know if I didn't know how it worked or if this was a unique situation. I could not figure, or I mean, it seems so wrong that one person, Senator Mike Lee, can hold that ball essentially. But he wants to sell pub, federal public lands or, or just public land and can almost do it. One person can almost get that done with the public, without social media. We had, really had no say. Yeah, we vote, he got votes to be in his position. So I guess you could say, you know, he was, he was a.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Democratically.

• 1:06:09Cameron Hanes?

  Given the rights to make decisions for his voters or whatever. But over something this big that could change a country forever, how can one person essentially can almost make that happen?

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and we can't say it could, it would have. Like, once it's gone, it is gone. That is just the absolute fact of it.

• 1:06:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  And man, all the things that we talk about.

• 1:06:36Cameron Hanes?

  And the whole country, nobody was on board with it and still almost happened.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Cameron Hanes?

  Why? How, how can that happen? And how do we fix that?

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, our government relations person was like, yeah, I was talking to, I can't remember, I'm not as good as they are. I was talking to somebody in Maine. They're like, you know, we don't have, this is not a Maine issue, like. I've gotten more calls on this than anything else. Anything else. People call in my office and don't sell public lands.

• 1:07:05Cameron Hanes?

  This is the main person.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yes.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. And it's like, everybody.

• 1:07:10Cameron Hanes?

  So the whole country.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Cameron Hanes?

  Said no, and it.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  And this person who's supposed to represent his district in the state of Utah.

• 1:07:18Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  Is giving the bird to the entire rest of the country and it has sucked up all the volume in the room.

• 1:07:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  All the volume in the room. So we have all these other threats to access, hunting access. Boundary Waters canoe area, right? Big foreign owned mine in our freshwater reserves. The most visited wilderness area in the entire United States, the most accessible wilderness. And that's one of the biggest gripes about wilderness. Well, you can't go in there is what people like to say. Well.

• 1:07:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Millions of people visit the Boundary Waters.

• 1:07:58Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  You got Anwar, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I was just up there. We were talking about you.

• 1:08:08Cameron Hanes?

  Oh.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, because the folks on the trip were like, don't you think Ham Hands would like to come up here? I'm like, yeah.

• 1:08:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Every hunter would, I mean, the Brooks Range. Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah. You know, they want a mandatory lease sales right on the Arctic plain where the caribou calve and all of our migratory birds go up to. And you know, things that are like going to impact all of us have gotten so little attention. The roadless rule rescission.

• 1:08:42Cameron Hanes?

  That's part of this too, isn't it?

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  That's not in this. That's a, that's a separate thing. There's going to be a 30 day comment period that people need to weigh in on. Read the text. I keep telling people, I'm like, this is not information that's exclusive to me.

• 1:08:57Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Or you. It is. Go to the federalregister.gov and read it for yourself.

• 1:09:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's, I mean, but that's your point is like, that took up so much of everybody's energy and focus. And there's all these other things. So you wonder is like, was that a distraction to push this other shit through? You know what I mean? People like, like they label stuff as conspiracy theories now, but you have to wonder. Was this a ploy somehow? Or like, I would, I would wonder, was this a ploy to push something else through?

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Cameron Hanes?

  You don't know, they, like I said, these big bills have, who knows what's in there? I mean, it's a thousand pages. I haven't read the whole thing, have you?

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  No, no, I went straight to page 202 and looked at public.

• 1:09:43Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I know, but it's, that's what's, that's what's pretty frustrating is you wonder what they're up to. And it used to be, I think we were kind of tricked into believing they have our best interest at heart or in mind now.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Heavy dose of skepticism, right?

• 1:10:03Cameron Hanes?

  Definitely, but.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  And I laugh at the people online who are like, oh, you're a Trumper, you're a Republican, you're, you're lefty, you're liberal. Uh, you know, depending on whatever I say that day. And I just gotta laugh, man. I'm like, gang, if you think I'm in bed with either side at this point, like, I just can't. I just cannot. Like, I'm trying to find the right people. I'm doing my research. I'm trying to make the best decisions.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  And, you know, I'm like, also, like on the presidential ticket, man, Harris had land sales in there too. She was just doing it through the existing legal structure, which is a hell of a lot better than what Lee was doing. And that's like the thing that people have got to understand. BLM has Federal Land Transfer Facilitation Act. As we've already covered, I'm a fricking college dropout. Okay, I didn't get good grades. I just love being outside. And you can use the internet for good or evil.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  I look this stuff up and read it, you know, and it's like, that exists. On the, uh, oh, sorry, FLIP-FA is the Forest Service side. BLM is FLIP-MA, Federal Land Policy Management Act. But this country has used those, they're voter approved. Are they perfect? Absolutely not. I would have been ultra fricking pissed at Harris and I would have been beaten this drum and BHA would have been. Just as pissed on those land sales because they were super broad in language. It was affordable housing.

• 1:11:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  Right? And it's like affordable to who? Oh, no, no, it's not affordable. It's attainable housing. Okay, well attainable to who?

• 1:11:53Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  Right? Um, what I point out often is Biden sold a chunk. It didn't, the sale didn't actually go through. Uh, it was Nevada, you know, King County is Vegas, isn't it? Is King County, yeah. Uh, and the last time I looked, it, so it, it, it went, it happened under Biden. The actual sale didn't happen until Trump was, but this is a Biden thing.

• 1:12:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Uh, and I think it was March is when it happened. There were five tracks to address the affordable housing crisis. Uh, I looked at it months later and only three of the five tracks had bids on them.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Right? I'm like, this is a crisis.

• 1:12:38Cameron Hanes?

  What's going on? Yeah.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  Shouldn't, shouldn't they all have sold like that?

• 1:12:42Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Right? Um, and so heavy dose of skepticism. So I don't care where it's coming from.

• 1:12:48Cameron Hanes?

  I wonder what that was. I wonder if that was to open up something else.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  That was BLM, you know, it was supposed to, I, I contacted, you know, there were like three little stories out of Vegas newspapers on that sale. And I, I reached out to the reporters, um, I get real OCD and start going like, I gotta figure this out.

• 1:13:10Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  And, um, they couldn't really explain it either, but they, they said that there was just a lot of local pushback. Right? Because you have people who, um, you know, they got, there's a $350,000 house here and there's a $400,000 house here. And the difference is, is the backyard of this one looks out on the BLM land. And the backyard of this one looks out on another house.

• 1:13:34Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  And so the, the people with the backyards that looked out on BLM, they're like, hell no, we don't want you building houses out there.

• 1:13:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Screws up our view.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we already paid a pre, but premium on it. Yeah.

• 1:13:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it's.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  It's infuriating. Um, where I'm at right now and is like, people are dying for uh, this conservative Republican, anybody to come out and be like, public lands are not for sale. Don't care. Ryan Zinke's doing in the house, leading the charge.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  We like, Tim Sheehy's close. He's, he's now our new Montana Senator, freshman Senator.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  But just, just be a champion for this. It's not that hard. Just say it.

• 1:14:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  Say it. Do it. And, and change, change this, this shit.

• 1:14:35Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it's a, you know, somebody's asking me if, if there would be a way, like, if you trusted what they're saying, like if you, if we needed to create more affordable housing, they said, would there be a way to do that? And I was like, yeah, I mean, I'm sure, but with Senator Lee, nobody trusts what he's saying because he keeps changing it. But yeah, I mean, if maybe there would be some land around a city, maybe, but it's just like, nobody trusts it, that they're doing it for the right reason. That's just like a scam, just to get basically the, the, who knows what develop public land, make money, somebody's gonna make money off of

• 1:15:17Cameron Hanes?

  it, sell it to China, BlackRock, Bill Gates, who knows? But if you probably could have a discussion, if you started off on the, on like going down the right road, basically. But what I see, and I don't know what you see, I go up to Portland, I see all the businesses in the city are vacant because we've had riots, we've had different things like that. So, we talk about these public lands they want to sell for affordable housing, that they have to build an infrastructure on, roads, water, power, gas lines, infrastructure, just to build these houses where there's already.

• 1:15:55Cameron Hanes?

  A vacant city right now with buildings, there's nobody in them, turn those into, if you're worried about living quarters, turn that into affordable housing. And the infrastructure is already set up. So it's, it seems like a lot of excuses to get to, you know, some prime real estate, for whatever reason, for somebody to make money. It's not for what they say. That's, that's, I think the, that's the biggest problem I have. It's like, I just don't trust that their intentions are pure.

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  Oh, darn right, man. I mean,

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  I mean, any of these boom towns, any one of them, I was talking about my buddy Kyler, Rocky Mountain remodel.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  That dude could whip you out the proper zoning, how to make affordable housing in, you know, 15 minutes, probably.

• 1:16:46Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Why is it so hard for our elected officials to do that, right? Outline it. Like you can't throw a rock in these boom towns without hitting a contractor of some sort.

• 1:16:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Right? And all we got was this like vague zoning language that, yeah, like high density affordable housing is possible there, but also a house on two to five acres is possible there. And I think probably what's gonna get built is the thing that makes the contractor the most money.

• 1:17:20Cameron Hanes?

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  More than likely.

• 1:17:22Cameron Hanes?

  Right. And is, and yeah, so I think it's, nobody trusts that they're, actually that's the goal. The goal is something else for somebody else to make money. But if, um, yeah, I don't know, it's.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  But yeah, like, let's re-beautify this stuff. Let's, let's put the grease into the existing infrastructure that we have. Has anybody done an analysis of what's standing in empty or vacant and what's it gonna take?

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  Right? Yeah. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

• 1:17:58Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  That old, that old tune.

• 1:18:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it's a, yeah, I just like, it's just, that was, was so frustrating and I can't believe, I mean, we made it. It feels like, it feels like I'm still nervous to celebrate. Sort of, because I'm just waiting for some revision or like, oh, we, this happened or they did this. But it was, uh, I mean, I don't know, I'm, I'm just nervous. I'm nervous that, yeah, we, we won this one. But, um, I'm hoping that the out, outpour of support and, and concern, hopefully this gets some thinking about the next time they try this because they're like, okay, we gotta do a better job at whatever they're, whatever they're trying to do. But they see that what happens when they get the public riled up.

• 1:18:46Cameron Hanes?

  And we have this vehicle, because without social media, this wouldn't have happened. Do you, I mean, how would we have made this happen without social media? And people talk a lot of shit about social media. Hunters, you know, we, we do all the time, but man, it sure worked in our favor this time, didn't it?

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it can be used for good or evil, right? Yeah. And, you know, I always tell people, I'm like, sign up for those newsletters, like whether you're a member of a, a hook and bullet, uh, conservation organization or not, you can sign up for the newsletter, then learn about it. And then you can choose to pay your 30 bucks and be a member or, um, donate a couple for when they're doing good stuff that aligns with you. Well, that mail list, mailing list only grows a little bit and social media, um, once the algorithm kicks in, it can gain traction. It's not reliable by any means, but

• 1:19:45Cameron Hanes?

  Gets a message out.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  It gets, gets the message out and there's some ripple effects there and it's right at people's fingertips and they can share it. Um, and damn right, I saw a lot of alignment, a lot of positive alignment. And the next move. Like, I will make a gentleman's wager right now. The next move is gonna be to divide us. They're gonna, they're gonna figure out, like, okay, let's come up with a crazy gun issue. Let's come up with something that can rip this community apart in different ways. And then, once they're divided, we're gonna try it again.

• 1:20:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Right? And, I mean, that's, that's the playbook. And we have got to just put that little ticky tack BS away and focus again, like, what's your goal?

• 1:20:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I know. So are, are you saying, so if we say, what, what have we learned from this? What could, what did we do good? And what could we do better? So tell me, like, with this exercise, what do you, what's your takeaway, your positive takeaways?

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  Uh, positive takeaways is, uh, we reaffirmed what we already knew. Like, this stuff means a lot to a wide variety of people. It's not exclusive to these 11 western states. Um, I am so proud of my Montana people because Montana was exempt from this.

• 1:21:13Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  And we have the data at BHA to show that Montana people kept, kept calling and kept emailing the whole way through.

• 1:21:25Cameron Hanes?

  Even though?

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  Even though our, our public lands

• 1:21:28Cameron Hanes?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  Weren't gonna be sold off, but that's not what public lands are. Public lands are our public lands, whether they're in Oregon, or Washington, or Idaho, or Montana, or wherever, they're ours, and that's the way we gotta think about them.

• 1:21:43Cameron Hanes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Right? And that's the only way you're gonna get your ass up to the Brooks Range one of these days, is if it's still public, right?

• 1:21:50Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  So, um, that was a huge positive one.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  I

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, information, awareness, some, some trust, right? Like certainly people are like, I mean, when I called you and I told you I could kiss you or whatever, like, you're a trusted third party, like, oh, okay, Cam says it's real now, it's real now.

• 1:22:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  Like, we identified some of that. I think, um, and I do my damnedest, I screwed up sometimes, but uh, those of us who are willing to go a little slow in order to be factual and have their actual information, retain that trust. The organizations that weren't hyperbolic and, oh my God, the sky is falling all the time, but sometimes we're a little bit behind the news cycle are going to retain that trust. And hopefully people are like, okay, yeah.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  These organizations were good. I never had to backpedal on what I said to a buddy because I, I trusted what I read in the newsletter or the action alert. Um, I think that's all positive and we just need to retain this awareness, right? Um, and I think also the information sharing that we were talking about, uh, because information's not coming out to these like historically trusted organizations like it used to from, uh, the White House or the administration or our level of senators or, or congresspeople sometimes. Um, there's been a lot more information sharing amongst, uh, the conservation groups.

• 1:23:42Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  Um, which is, I think, a net positive as well.

• 1:23:46Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  Um, and

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  You know, I think like people just understand a little bit more that it's fricking important and they're gonna take this stuff from you. Uh, like what you said about the conspiracy theory, it takes all the need. Okay, don't look over here because yeah, this is scary.

• 1:24:05Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  They're still gonna take that if it's easy.

• 1:24:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  Right? And yeah, man, my guts in like knots thinking about the stuff that that we're potentially gonna lose.

• 1:24:15Cameron Hanes?

  So.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  But I know, like, I know.

• 1:24:18Cameron Hanes?

  Hmm.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, if they're like, oh, see, they rolled over.

• 1:24:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  They're they still would have taken it.

• 1:24:23Cameron Hanes?

  So.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  And then they would have asked for more.

• 1:24:25Cameron Hanes?

  Who's they? So when I think of it, I don't, again, I'm gonna sound crazy, but to me, what I was thinking in my head, people like us are the enemy. People like independent thinkers, self-sufficient, we can get out there, we can survive in the mountains, we can provide for ourselves. To me, they don't like people like us because we're hard to control.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:50Cameron Hanes?

  They can control consumers that live in a city who rely on somebody for everything, the pretty easy to control those people. People out west here, more independent type people, it's tougher. I feel like they, I don't know who it is, but want to take the power away from. So when I, when you think about well, gun control, they say, well, you don't need this for hunting. It's it's just this way to, you talk about segregating these small groups, right?

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:18Cameron Hanes?

  It's like, well, we'll take it from hunters, like, oh, I thought you said it was for home protection or your everyday carry. So you wouldn't need this or that. Well, now they're just separating things. But when you say they, who's they?

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  Uh, to me, they are the people who do not know the value of public lands.

• 1:25:37Cameron Hanes?

  Okay. Yep.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  And there's a, there's a lot of they on all sides of the aisle because they are so far removed, right? It's like.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  I say this over and over again, uh, so I apologize, but once you start thinking that food comes from the grocery store. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a real thing. Right. Like, there's a lot of responsibility in, in taking that animal's life. Mm hmm. And it stays with you. And it's not, I'm not, you know, we had like the gut shot animal analogy, like that stuff sticks with you. And I can remember the first time it happened to me and the last time and a bunch of the times in between, and it's, it's hard. Mm hmm. Um, but man, that's where I prefer to get my meat.

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  Um, and I work hard to make it go as well as it can, um, the majority of the time, right? Um, but there's all these people out there who are like, well, can't you raise that stuff from cells in a lab? Or what about the vegan option? You know, that's coming from a lab, right? And I'm, I'm fighting back against that stuff hard because when we devalue the food and think it can come from another source, then we also devalue that land. Mm hmm. Right? And man, I am pro farm, pro ranch, um, for a lot of different reasons, part of my upbringing

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  for sure, but that land provides so much value to the American people just doing what it's doing. The ranch land is creating clean air. It's a big carbon sink. Um, it keeps the water table healthy and we can graze cattle on it, thank God. Yeah. Because if we couldn't, there'd be another reason to take the damn stuff. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so that to me is just like the people who are disconnected and don't know. And like, we can't, we talked a ton about Republicans, a ton about Republicans, uh, during this fight because the Republicans have the majority in the House and the Senate. Mm hmm.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  That's why. Um, there were badass, uh, Democrats that were working really hard the whole time because they do believe in public lands or at least believe in their voter base that believe in public lands. Yeah. Um, but there were damn sure, uh, Democrats that got talked about, uh, On a bunch of emails I'm on and a bunch of text threads I'm on with people, government affairs teams at different organizations who are like, they want this.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  Like, they, they love the affordable housing language.

• 1:28:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  They love it.

• 1:28:33Cameron Hanes?

  Of course.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Right? And it's like, that's an easy win for their demographic where they are, right?

• 1:28:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, cuz who would, who would say, oh, you don't want affordable housing?

• 1:28:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:42Cameron Hanes?

  You don't care about people?

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  You want, you want to kick people out on the street?

• 1:28:45Cameron Hanes?

  You want them to live on the, yeah, have no place to live in their, and they live in their car? Yeah, so that's, it's, it's an easy one. You know, I was just thinking to this too. You know who, I mean, we talk about wins. It, it's, when I was looking for an update on stuff, it wasn't the news sources. It wasn't, it was you, Randy Newberg, it was the Pete, just people, regular people. That's who, when I was like, I need, I want the latest on what's going on. That's crazy. Where it's not an organization or news or whatever, it's just somebody who's connected. And they have, you can trust that person cuz whatever they say, that's real. That, to me, that was, that was huge. I mean,

• 1:29:30Cameron Hanes?

  the, the trust part, or the, you said the third party, I don't know.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  Trusted third party.

• 1:29:34Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that, that, I mean, we definitely gained from that. You know, because we are, we do have, I feel like just the general public's best interest in mind. We're not beholden to anything else. This, this is just what I do for myself. I care about it. So you can trust me.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  I will tell you, I'm biased as hell on public lands. I really am. Like, I mean, the whole reason, I was telling Randy this the other day, like, that BHA meeting that I went to, right?

• 1:30:05Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  I was like, oh, man, okay. I'm gonna speak up right now. And then I'm gonna kill this thing, this idea that people hate wilderness areas.

• 1:30:17Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  If I just lean in right now and speak up right now, and then I can go back into the wilderness and not talk to people and be happy.

• 1:30:26Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  And now it's what, like 14 years later? And, and I'm literally super frazzled at whatever time yesterday, texting Randy. And I'm like, dude, here I am again. I'm like, okay.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  If I just spend less time in the woods and more time in DC.

• 1:30:48Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  And just lean in really hard right now and stop this crap.

• 1:30:54Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  Right now.

• 1:30:55Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  Then I can go back.

• 1:30:58Cameron Hanes?

  And enjoy the wilderness.

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  And not talk to people and enjoy the wilderness, right?

• 1:31:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, no, it's a yeah, it's a, it's, I don't know. I, I, I just wanna really say how much I value you, Randy Newberg, just these people who are just so passionate and then were just putting out this trusted information. The post from you guys, I just knew that this is a hundred percent real. And that's all, man, you know, you'd see these, there was some politicians who I felt like they're definitely on our side. And that was, um, yeah, that Heinrich, he, he seems like, I just like, he had a post today that said, he mentioned bow hunters and bunny huggers that working together. And I'm like, how sick is that?

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:44Cameron Hanes?

  That was cool.

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:31:46Cameron Hanes?

  I like just, when you talk about just a group of people and that one of those groups is bow hunters? Senators are mentioning bow hunters? It's badass.

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:31:56Cameron Hanes?

  We fucking care about this shit.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:31:59Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:59Speaker 01

  And, and we care about it because it, we've gone out there and we

• 1:32:04Cameron Hanes?

  appreciate it.

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  And bled on it.

• 1:32:06Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  And we understand what it gives back.

• 1:32:09Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's like, not every time that I go out there, I kill something.

• 1:32:13Cameron Hanes?

  No.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  But every time I go out there, I'm like, God, I love, I mean, we were out picking trash. I gotta give these guys a plug, cuz I mean, dude, you got, I mean, we're gonna build a car and go do this.

• 1:32:24Cameron Hanes?

  I saw those bu, the buggies you were in.

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Oh dude, Gambler 500, uh, Sons of Smokey is the nonprofit. Dude. I I love these people uh so hard right now, which is my new line that I think is hilarious. But um like these are like bust your knuckles on a monkey wrench, fix anything.

• 1:32:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  Like crazy fixed up cars, the whole gambler idea is like you gamble on whether it will get you there and back.

• 1:32:56Cameron Hanes?

  I see.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  That's where the gambler is.

• 1:32:58Cameron Hanes?

  Gotcha.

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  Um, and it's gotta be a car. It started as a car $500 or less.

• 1:33:03Cameron Hanes?

  Hmm.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  Like Craigslist and go. And um, this group of folks, like, once you get to know them, you're like, oh, that

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  super dust covered grimy dude is actually like an investment banker. This guy's a rancher.

• 1:33:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  Um, this dude might be a total vagabond. This lady's a nurse and but they're all out there picking up trash.

• 1:33:27Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  And just living in the dirt and um, they fricking love their public lands and the ability to just relax and have a good time. And they, I mean, they cleaned up hundreds of thousands of pounds of garbage off of public lands. I I felt like a total bum because I was running around with my film crew trying to film it, you know, like, I gotta tell this story of another group of public land users who give a shit.

• 1:33:55Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  And they're responsible and it's responsible use and it's so valuable right now. Um, and then I'd try to hustle around, pick up garbage, but pulling campers and and all that stuff off of there. And and you look at this big, dirty, motley crew of people and ultimately 5,000 people showed up.

• 1:34:13Cameron Hanes?

  Wow.

• 1:34:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:14Cameron Hanes?

  That's making a difference.

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  And I was like, you guys just stay weird. Stay weird. Don't let these politicians put put you in a neat little box.

• 1:34:21Cameron Hanes?

  Exactly.

• 1:34:22Speaker 01

  So they can be like, oh, I got their vote. I got their vote. I'm like, you gotta stay, stay the way you are, you know?

• 1:34:28Cameron Hanes?

  No, I love that.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, it was, and it was just like so positive, um, like during this time. And so refreshing, right?

• 1:34:40Cameron Hanes?

  When you're seeing so much negative out there and it feels like you're fighting against the world and they're trying to take our land. To see something like that probably just feels great.

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. And they're physically doing the work, right? And they're like running groups taking off in the morning and there was plenty of beer drinking going on in the evening and uh, everything in between, uh, but they're physically doing the work. You can tell it's just like filling their cup. To when, and then today they're all on the road, heading back to whatever job and going back to normal, right? But they're taking that with them. And it's fricking amazing and, and man, that's, that's a huge part of, uh,

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  what we try to embrace on the BHA side of things, like we're trying to be like fiercely independent. And we want people who are going to make the freedom of choice. And try to empower them to represent themselves. Like you go to your commission meeting and stand up and, and represent. Like here's the tools that you need. Our, our government, government affairs, uh, folks, Kaden, really the, the dude, um, will get you booked at your senator's office. He'll, he'll help you, uh, have the confidence to go in there and say, hey, I'm Cam from Eugene.

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  This is what I do, right? And you've done some of that and it's scary as hell. The first time you do it. And you're like, what am I doing here? I'm not the right guy for this.

• 1:36:19Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:36:20Speaker 01

  But man, it makes a difference. And like I said before we started, you know, like every time I walk into somebody's office in DC and I'm like, oh yeah. You know, I, yeah, I'm pretty fortunate. I get to go around and hunt and meet a bunch of people and you know that spot in your state? And they're like, dude, I work for the state of, I'm from New Jersey or wherever, right? I'm like, God, how does that happen?

• 1:36:48Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's, well.

• 1:36:52Cameron Hanes?

  You know, there's another thing I was thinking about too. That same person asked me if there's a way to make, you know, this, address this affordable housing issue type thing. Another thing that, I don't know if this plan talks about, but when you talk about these different land segments, and people say, well, it's underutilized, or it's whatever, low value.

• 1:37:18Cameron Hanes?

  One thing that I know the last time we were talking about migration routes where, you know, there might be nothing there specifically at that, at most, most times of the year, but when that weather hits the mountains, those animals gotta get out of the mountains, they gotta migrate down to low country. If all of a sudden, yeah, maybe it was underutilized during, you know, whatever, 10 months out of the year, but two months, those animals, that's how they get down. And animals don't, they're not gonna figure out some other way. They'll go and stand where they normally go and be like, guess we're just stopped at this highway now, or this, and they'll die.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  It's just not convenient, is it?

• 1:37:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, why can't they figure it out?

• 1:37:56Cameron Hanes?

  No, and it's just like, that's just what animals do. But, so even considerations like that with migration routes, and there's just different things to think about. Nobody, I never heard one reference of the animals. You know, if we sell these public lands, if we do this, what happens to the animals that inhabit that, that, or then whatever?

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that are coming off, I mean, in these mountain towns already, like those animals, when they hit their winter range, which would be the low country, summer range is the high country. Uh, I know you know that, and for folks listening, that's what we're talking about. That winter range, there's a lot of housing there already, and those animals, the elk and the deer, are, in these mountain towns are coming down into neighborhoods as is in a lot of areas. And those are the areas that even in the fourth frickin' revision of Lee's bills, we're still, still in there. It's the stuff. The front country, right?

• 1:38:58Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:38:59Speaker 01

  Like we were talking about, like, what happens to your back country when the front country goes away?

• 1:39:03Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  All that's left is the back country.

• 1:39:05Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  And if you're griping about overcrowding right now.

• 1:39:09Cameron Hanes?

  It's gonna get worse.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  It's gonna get worse unless you weigh in.

• 1:39:11Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if you don't weigh in, don't worry, somebody else will for you. You know?

• 1:39:16Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:17Speaker 01

  It's like, cripes.

• 1:39:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  Um, no, that, I mean, that's a, that's a huge one. I mean, the, and they're not making any more of it, right?

• 1:39:28Cameron Hanes?

  No.

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  Like that old saying, right?

• 1:39:29Cameron Hanes?

  No.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  We gotta provide these big lumps of fat on our heads. Like, we, we got a responsibility to provide for all this stuff.

• 1:39:38Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, yeah, definitely.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  And selfishly, like,

• 1:39:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:42Speaker 01

  Kind of tweaked our whole lives around this.

• 1:39:45Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  And we know the type of value it's provided us. And I don't need people to do what we do, but I need people to know they have the option.

• 1:39:53Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  And just having that option is a pretty frickin' amazing American freedom that you have. Like, do you want to sell that down the road?

• 1:40:01Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:02Speaker 01

  And at what price?

• 1:40:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that's, that's the point. It's just like, yeah, just appreciating what we have. And if you want to take advantage of it or not, that's up to you. But for those that want to, we gotta protect it and do our, do our best here. So we talked about things that went well. What didn't, what do you think, did we make mistakes? Could we, what could we have done better?

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I mean, lack of, lack of early engagement would be the mistake, right? Like, again, uh, early on, the party politics were so crazy strong because it was so close to the election, right? The Trump, Trump administration version two is moving at like lightning speed.

• 1:40:49Speaker 01

  Um, they're, they're, they're cruising, they're, they're trying to get stuff done. Um, and early on, when we were talking about these land sales are coming, these land sales are coming. People were like, screw you. You hate the president.

• 1:41:03Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:03Speaker 01

  Right? I'm like, I love public lands. They're for everybody.

• 1:41:07Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  Screw you.

• 1:41:09Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  And so that was rough, but you know, here we are. That's in the past. I don't give a crap how you voted or what you called me. Early on, I just need you here now.

• 1:41:22Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  And stay here now. Please, I need you. Um, so.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  I hesitate to call it a mistake, but if folks want to look at the learning curve. Let's get through that patch a lot faster.

• 1:41:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:36Speaker 01

  The next time.

• 1:41:37Cameron Hanes?

  The combative part, like red versus blue.

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then maybe we don't ever see it. Uh, go to the house.

• 1:41:45Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  And it darn sure doesn't pop up in the Senate.

• 1:41:48Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  Right? Um, I think.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  The big mistake is.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  We had an opportunity to be proactive. In, uh, like Zinke, Ryan Zinke there in Montana, um. He, Paulson Pirate, I believe. He, uh.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  We never had a professional, uh, sports teams in Montana. So. Uh, local high school athletics was like the thing. So.

• 1:42:19Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, pirates were the, the mascot. Um.

• 1:42:24Cameron Hanes?

  Is that where he went?

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  I think so. I think he was a Paulson Pirate.

• 1:42:27Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:42:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I didn't know what you were referring to.

• 1:42:31Speaker 01

  It's like a mental twitch I have at this point in my life. Um, so. He came out with this public lands and public hands act.

• 1:42:39Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  And he worked and got, got some co-sponsors.

• 1:42:43Cameron Hanes?

  Just recently or when?

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  No, this was early.

• 1:42:46Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  This was early. And we're like, hey. You know, tell your, uh, representatives, it was in the house. Tell your representatives, co-sponsor the public lands and public hands act. Uh, I think Simpson's, uh, out of Idaho is a co-sponsor of that. Um. You know, I, I did a post earlier, Rish and Crapo in Idaho. Um, they've done some great stuff for public lands in the past. Um, those guys would be awesome champions and Idaho's a badass public land state.

• 1:43:15Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  And right now that Public Lands and Public Hands Act is there's language written for it for the Senate version. Um, I think Gabe Vasquez, another New Mexico Democrat, who's a super good dude. He was also on it in the House version, I think. Um, but they need a Republican co-sponsor in the Senate version. And you know, that's tighter restrictions. It would have prevented what Lee's doing right now.

• 1:43:53Cameron Hanes?

  But they never got it.

• 1:43:54Speaker 01

  But they never got it.

• 1:43:55Cameron Hanes?

  Okay. Why, why, why would that be? Nobody wants to put their neck out there or what?

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  Nobody wants to put their neck out there. They're looking at, you know, there, there's again, like the speed of the administration, like pushing to get all these other things done. Um, you know, that's a, that would like a couple of months ago, that would have fallen on like the hippie dippy side of things. Like, well, that's not an immediate need.

• 1:44:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  Well, right now, had we been like, oh my God, this is a demand from the American public. Look at this public out, outpouring of support. Um, but the idea of land sales a couple of weeks ago or months ago was like, oh, those conservation groups are being hyperbolic.

• 1:44:43Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  Or I think they, they've got liberal influence or whatever it was.

• 1:44:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:48Speaker 01

  Um, but now it's like, oh my gosh, there's all sorts of people reaching out and being like, how can we be proactive? And as far as I can see, not being an expert, that's the only thing out there that could be a good next step right now is.

• 1:45:06Cameron Hanes?

  Getting somebody in the Senate that would, okay, ta- take that on.

• 1:45:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. A Republican co-sponsor to the Public Lands and Public Hands Act because there's a Democrat out there.

• 1:45:17Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:18Speaker 01

  And maybe I, I would love it if Tim Sheehy in Montana would do it. Um, Rish and Crapo would be great folks out Idaho, too.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  You know, something like that would at least be like, hey, America, we heard you.

• 1:45:34Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it seems weird that they that somebody wouldn't step up. Is I wonder if it's optics or?

• 1:45:40Speaker 01

  Well, it just seems like such an opportunity, right?

• 1:45:42Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Why? Why wouldn't they do that? That's what's weird.

• 1:45:46Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't know. I do not know. I mean, John Thune, he had, I know he had, uh, I think he ran for president for a primary or something, I think. I mean, hell of an opportunity for that guy.

• 1:46:00Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  Um, you know, something like that. So that lack of, you know, I was using trying to find a good analogy, right? It's like hunters and anglers, like we just don't get fired up until it's the place that we go.

• 1:46:16Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  Right? And it's like,

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  the forest fire is on the front door right now. Like you could fry an egg on the back of the door. It's that hot.

• 1:46:25Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:26Speaker 01

  And people were like, okay, I better start calling my senator.

• 1:46:30Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:46:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. Yeah, I just don't. We're not generally the activism type, I guess. It's like, we're not the marching in the streets type people because we're got jobs, got shit to do, you know? So it's it's I understand why sometimes we're a little slow on stuff because yeah, it's like, why? Why waste a bunch of energy on something that's? Are they just trying to fan fan fan the flame? Are they trying to whatever? And so, yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't get worked up about hardly anything until it's like, okay, I guess shit, God, I guess is serious. So maybe it's just that. But yeah, this definitely got everybody's attention this time.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's not that I don't understand. I mean, I,

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  you know, I've lost a lot of relationships and and some possible like way higher monetary career paths and things because I love being outside.

• 1:47:33Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:33Speaker 01

  Right? And this is just the stuff that I care about. So I get that I'm a little bit weird and I'll and I pay a little bit more attention.

• 1:47:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  Um, and, you know,

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  Our last big BHA rendezvous, I had a buddy of mine call and be like, hey, are you going to BHA rendezvous this weekend? I'm like, yeah. He's like, I thought so. Can I borrow your boat? Going fishing, you know? Yeah, yeah, you can.

• 1:47:58Cameron Hanes?

  He knows it. He tricked you.

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 1:48:00Cameron Hanes?

  Didn't ask for the boat first.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  Right, I like this.

• 1:48:02Cameron Hanes?

  You're gonna be busy.

• 1:48:03Speaker 01

  There's some good stuff happening and you know, it's serious right now. Um, and I get it. I totally get it. Um, you know, I've missed countless weddings and birthdays and family gatherings because I just wanted to be outside.

• 1:48:18Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:48:19Speaker 01

  Right? Um, so I totally get it. Uh, but hopefully we've gained enough trust here that this next little round, or just this Public Lands and Public Hands Act, if you want to follow up and say, hey, thank you so much, uh, for advocating for public lands.

• 1:48:36Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:48:37Speaker 01

  Here's the next step. We don't want to do this again.

• 1:48:40Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  You know, co-sponsor this bill if you're a senator, sign on, uh, as a sponsor if you're, uh, in the house. Public Lands and Public Lands and Public Hands Act, uh, is an easy one to remember, so.

• 1:48:56Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:59Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I think, I was just trying to think why people hesitate also, there's because it's so toxic when you start talking politics. You put up anything politically related, it's, then you got a bunch of negativity on your page.

• 1:49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:14Cameron Hanes?

  That's another reason why, do I want to, you know, you, you put up a, like a cool picture of an elk or something. It's all positive.

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:21Cameron Hanes?

  It's all good, baby. You start talking politics, then you're like, oh my God, I gotta deal with people just saying crazy shit.

• 1:49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:28Cameron Hanes?

  And so I think that is a reason why maybe some people didn't post. Um, and then probably just not.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Not being confident.

• 1:49:37Cameron Hanes?

  Not being familiar with what was going on.

• 1:49:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:49:39Cameron Hanes?

  I, I think, um, cause I know Joe.

• 1:49:44Cameron Hanes?

  It took him a little while, but once he like, he's so busy. I think once he kinda looked into it and figured out like, so what are the, wait, what's going on here? Then he was all about it.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:49:56Cameron Hanes?

  It just, there's that time that where you gotta get up to speed on what's, what's going on and what side am I, what's a good side, bad side? What do I gotta do? So, yeah, it's.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Oh, and just like anything else, man, there is so much noise.

• 1:50:10Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  So much noise. And I think that's a huge negative in this day and age is it's so easy to just write people off and they wanna find the first mistake.

• 1:50:20Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  And they're like, okay, first chink in the armor.

• 1:50:23Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Out of there. Now I don't have to think about it.

• 1:50:26Cameron Hanes?

  Right, I can ignore this now.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  And so this is just hard work.

• 1:50:29Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  It is. And, and that affordable housing side of things.

• 1:50:32Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:50:33Speaker 01

  The right solution's hard.

• 1:50:34Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, what Lee threw out there is like so easy to say, oh, here, this'll fix it.

• 1:50:44Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:45Speaker 01

  And people are like, yeah, a lot of acres. Okay.

• 1:50:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:47Speaker 01

  That'll fix it. But I mean, that is like, they're not even thinking about this.

• 1:50:52Cameron Hanes?

  No, that's, I mean, it was lazy solution.

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  Lazy, yeah.

• 1:50:56Cameron Hanes?

  Let's actually get, do some problem solving. But yeah, um, yeah, I was trying to think about the, the positives. I, what I do like now though is that, um, we did go through the exercise and we were successful and we've learned from it and people, we have these trusted sources, like I said. Um, we had people that, and I think I, I mentioned this in a post, I said, what I remember are the people who stood up, who made a stand, who never wavered. And then there's some certain people who didn't really hear from.

• 1:51:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:51:33Cameron Hanes?

  And I think that's telling also. So I, I learned a lot about those two groups. The guys who were like, okay, I'm gonna stand for, for what I believe in. And then the people who are just on the sidelines and. I don't know.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:47Cameron Hanes?

  Learn from both those groups.

• 1:51:49Speaker 01

  Oh, big time. And listen, like, it's, it's the way it is, is like, you need that bandwagon moment of like, people piling on. And even, even on this fight, right? Like, the very end, all of a sudden, it's like, oh, that's, all of a sudden, they're interested in public lands. And it's like, are they interested in public lands? Because they love them and they're passionate about them? Or are they so fricking scared that they're gonna be on the wrong side of this issue?

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  In that bandwagon moment, it doesn't matter, because that's what you need to win. And I said, I love you. Thank you so much.

• 1:52:26Cameron Hanes?

  We need volume.

• 1:52:27Speaker 01

  Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And for the folks that didn't weigh in this time, um, you're well rested.

• 1:52:35Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, for the next time.

• 1:52:36Speaker 01

  For the next time. And, and we need you.

• 1:52:39Cameron Hanes?

  What, uh, I mean, are you ever tempted to wade into the DC world to try to make a difference? To, to be the person that, you know, you talked about putting your own personal, like, wanting to be in the wilderness aside, just to, to make an impact right now? Have you thought, because you're good at it, you care. I mean, have you thought about that?

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  I care a lot. Uh, I think DC is just like, so incredibly unhealthy.

• 1:53:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:08Speaker 01

  Like, every time I go there, I like, I'm traveling so much, and I need to, like, hang out with you and get, like, your, doesn't matter, get up and go on a run, because I like compartmentalize and, and, you know, a couple more days of travel, then I'm gonna have a week at home, and then I can do my, my normal thing, instead of like, you know, now it's, now it's a shoot week, and I'm missing this, I'm eating.

• 1:53:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:36Speaker 01

  You know, I ate a burrito laying in bed at midnight last night. It's the only food I had all day.

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  And I'm just like a bowl of jelly on top of my bed at midnight, eating a burrito.

• 1:53:50Cameron Hanes?

  It's tough on the road for sure.

• 1:53:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the unhealthiness of DC mentally and mentally

• 1:54:00Speaker 01

  really scares me. I will tell you that when we do these hill visits and lobbying days and you know, I'm really try to maximize my time back there. This is, I don't want to spend any more time than I absolutely have to.

• 1:54:19Speaker 01

  There's quite a few visits that feel the exact same as when you call or email and you're like, God, I don't mind of that.

• 1:54:27Cameron Hanes?

  Did I have to be back here for this?

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  Did that connect with anybody?

• 1:54:30Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:31Speaker 01

  And then you have some good ones. And you're like, and I've had some, the last time I was up there, I had some good ones where I was like, okay. We had a two-way street. I was listened to. That was great. And I had some good ones where I was like, that dude and I are going to be friends. We're going to drink a beer, beer together, but there's no way he's on the same side as I am, you know?

• 1:54:54Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:54Speaker 01

  But that's kind of valuable too, because uh, so much of what we're seeing

• 1:55:01Speaker 01

  in the world, in the US, in politics, in the hunting community, in whatever community is like

• 1:55:09Speaker 01

  that willingness to be like, oh, wrong side. Out of, out of sight, out of mind, where it's like, man, we're mixing pot. It's just another person on the other side of the line, you know?

• 1:55:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. But if you're, if you're thinking, I should be in politics. Man, we got a lot of politics to change. I think we're in a big symptom of like, we've made that whole system so crazy that a lot of good folks are staying away from it because you're like, it's a circus, man.

• 1:55:45Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, yeah. And unhealthy. I mean, if, if, if you're a normal human, that's, as we talked about, it's unhealthy back there. I mean, I don't know. I, I, I have respect for people who can do it, keep their sanity. Um, never waver on, you know, what they care about, what they believe in. I wish we had more of them. It just seems like it's really hard. That's why I'm like recruiting you and thinking, you'd be perfect for that.

• 1:56:15Speaker 01

  Well, it should be like a mirror on this side of the table there, buddy. You can do it. You can do it.

• 1:56:20Cameron Hanes?

  God, I went back just recently and I'm like, I don't know how people do this. It was, yeah, I just don't know of who can you trust back there? That's the hardest thing is it's like, even like with this administration, you know, how it works. Well, you got these, some of these congresspeople who are in their position for decades. Then you got a presidential administration that comes in. And so the people, I think it feels like people want to pretend like, yeah, we're going to help you want to work on your side. But in the background, there's like, fuck this guy. I'm not doing this. We just got to, what do we got? Three more years and he's out of here? And so you figuring out who's actually on your side, who's not, whether they're,

• 1:57:05Cameron Hanes?

  you know, I mean, trying to screw you over behind the scenes. That would be exhausting.

• 1:57:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:57:11Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:57:12Cameron Hanes?

  That I, I don't know. I wouldn't, doesn't sound that enticing to me, but.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57:18Cameron Hanes?

  For you, it'd be great.

• 1:57:21Speaker 01

  Get one more person out of the elk woods. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Yeah. You're a natural politician. No more mule deer, no more elk for that guy.

• 1:57:31Cameron Hanes?

  Man, I don't know. I'm, I'm really like, you know, what I saw, I saw you kind of mentioned it a little bit, but people saying that a lot of comments, you know, you and I don't agree on much or, you know, don't have much common, I don't know, political things in common, but with this, I can really, you know, get on board.

• 1:57:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:55Cameron Hanes?

  We're on the same page. That was kind of cool. I, I had a lot of comments like that. A lot of people from the back packing community would never hunt in their life, but we felt the same on this. And both are fighting for the same thing. That was pretty cool. I love seeing that.

• 1:58:11Speaker 01

  What's cooler than that?

• 1:58:12Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:13Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And again, man, there is a lot of, a lot of stuff we can lose by staying divided. Right? And, and we used to talk about, you know, trailhead diplomacy, like.

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  If you screw up and you're having a bad day and you flip that horseback rider off as you're pedaling your mountain bike on the single track.

• 1:58:42Speaker 01

  That horse rider doesn't think you're a jerk. They think all mountain bikers are a jerk.

• 1:58:47Cameron Hanes?

  Right.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  Right? So think about your actions.

• 1:58:50Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:51Speaker 01

  And think about the fact that that horseback rider is out there for the exact same reason you are. Like they just want some space and they want to be outside in nature.

• 1:59:03Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. That's, I always tell them, these guys, we're gonna, I have a friend, she's like the best ultra runner in the world, Courtney DeWalter, but we're gonna do like an overnight trip to a, we've done like six 14ers back in Colorado together, but she's a runner, trail runner. Usually that's pretty, you know,

• 1:59:26Cameron Hanes?

  much different than the hunting crowd, right? But we both love the mountains. So she loves to run in the mountains. I do too, but I also love to hunt the mountains. But we come from it, from still love, loving the mountains, just for different reasons.

• 1:59:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:59:43Cameron Hanes?

  You know, and that's, that's what, I mean, there are common themes to all this stuff. We're, we're humans. We have this fabric interwoven. We can appreciate each other and have this shared interest or shared love or shared passion for, you know, the back country or the mountains. And that's what I love. I love people like, like, you know, ultra runners who might be more like granola type that, yeah, we both care about the same thing and protecting it. That's, that's what, that's, I love that part of it.

• 2:00:13Speaker 01

  And you're never gonna find that out if you don't have the conversation.

• 2:00:16Cameron Hanes?

  For sure.

• 2:00:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:17Cameron Hanes?

  For sure. Well, I mean, I'm pumped. You came on. I'm pumped. We were able, I'm, well, you know what I'm pumped about? That this is a positive moment instead of us bitching about, I can't believe. Mike Lee is selling public land. Thank God that didn't happen. So I

• 2:00:35Speaker 01

  Thank God.

• 2:00:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  Thank God.

• 2:00:38Cameron Hanes?

  I'm excited that this was like, hey, we won. Let's, let's

• 2:00:41Speaker 01

  But you were having that conversation in your head, right?

• 2:00:44Cameron Hanes?

  Oh.

• 2:00:44Speaker 01

  I was like, okay, what, what is that? Like

• 2:00:48Cameron Hanes?

  So nervous.

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  If we're this underrepresented.

• 2:00:50Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:51Speaker 01

  With this much, and I went so far as, did you know that I was like, okay, what if we sent out a press release that we're gonna use the Freedom of Information Act?

• 2:01:04Cameron Hanes?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:01:05Speaker 01

  To see how many people called in to each office, each senator's office, for public lands and against public lands.

• 2:01:15Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:01:16Speaker 01

  And

• 2:01:17Cameron Hanes?

  I'd love that number.

• 2:01:18Speaker 01

  Oh, I would love that. I would love that number.

• 2:01:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  And you can't use the Freedom of Information Act. That's private information. They're exempt is what I found out.

• 2:01:30Cameron Hanes?

  It's gotta be what 90 10, right?

• 2:01:32Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, I would.

• 2:01:33Cameron Hanes?

  I mean,

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  I would think, I mean, you got little old ladies who look out their window.

• 2:01:37Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:37Speaker 01

  And are like,

• 2:01:38Cameron Hanes?

  The songbirds.

• 2:01:39Speaker 01

  Why would you, why would you sell that?

• 2:01:41Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:41Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, to the, the super gnarly guys that aren't all that friendly in there.

• 2:01:47Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:47Speaker 01

  Only after the big bucks or whatever.

• 2:01:49Cameron Hanes?

  It might be 95 to five.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  I would sure think so, man. Oh.

• 2:01:54Cameron Hanes?

  But if we could have that and then be, then present it to our representatives and say, this should never come back up. Here's what the people want.

• 2:02:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. These are the people that are in your district.

• 2:02:05Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:06Speaker 01

  They're voting for you.

• 2:02:07Cameron Hanes?

  I know. God, that would be so valuable.

• 2:02:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Accountability, I think they call it. Yeah.

• 2:02:13Cameron Hanes?

  Well.

• 2:02:14Speaker 01

  But yeah, I'm so happy to be here and, and I'm so happy. I, I literally

• 2:02:22Speaker 01

  I was, my anxiety was at like an all time high. I left BHA rendezvous, um, literally from, from talking to everybody, uh, saying thanks and stay in the fight. And I went to the Missoula airport, got on a 730 red eye flight, landed in Fairbanks and I was in the Brooks range at three o'clock in the afternoon. And the last, the literal last thing I saw, as I'm frantically trying to get the news, I'm in the air, in a caravan.

• 2:02:58Cameron Hanes?

  You can't, you shouldn't have your phone on in the plane, remember?

• 2:03:01Speaker 01

  And fricking Cameron Hanes is like, you guys, they're selling our public lands. And I just, I could have cried. I could have, I'm like, thank God. Thank God. Okay. Come on, come on, come on. Out of service. And when I got back into service, I called you and I, man, just thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

• 2:03:22Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, no, I'm, I'm so appreciative of you. It's like, I love that we, I don't know, I haven't really known you, you know, before this.

• 2:03:30Speaker 01

  Not really.

• 2:03:31Cameron Hanes?

  So this is, I mean, I'm just, if nothing else, I'm thankful for your friendship now.

• 2:03:36Speaker 01

  Oh, you got it, buddy.

• 2:03:38Cameron Hanes?

  I need more people like you in my life, just good people that you can count on and tell it like it is. But so, yeah, I'm, I'm appreciative. Thank you for coming. Thank you for doing the podcast. Thank you for all the work you're doing for public land hunters and being so well spoken. It's, uh, I don't know. I, I feel really honored to have you on the podcast and get to talk about this with you.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  Well, dude, man, we're, we're, uh, kindred spirits, you know, and just like I was telling you on the, the first light starting days.

• 2:04:06Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  It's like, we didn't know any better. So we just told the truth.

• 2:04:09Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:10Speaker 01

  Right? And it's like, we love public lands, right? It's like, you got a big megaphone. I mean, you always did, but now it's a lot bigger.

• 2:04:18Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:20Speaker 01

  You're still out there just being who you are. That's damn respectable.

• 2:04:25Cameron Hanes?

  Mohawk Indian. So if you need the high school reference for me down the road, Mohawk Indian.

• 2:04:31Speaker 01

  And that's Eugene?

• 2:04:33Cameron Hanes?

  No, that was like 20 miles outside of town here. I lived in a little, little tiny town, single A school. That's where I grew up. So, but we were the Mohawk Indians.

• 2:04:42Speaker 01

  Heck, yeah. I love it. That was a Hellgate night.

• 2:04:45Cameron Hanes?

  Okay. All right. Now I know. So we got our high school. What are those? What are those called?

• 2:04:52Speaker 01

  Mascots, yeah.

• 2:04:54Cameron Hanes?

  But they, they actually, because we can't offend Native Americans, they're the Mohawk Mustangs now.

• 2:05:01Speaker 01

  No way.

• 2:05:02Cameron Hanes?

  How dumb's that? Mohawk Indians were badass, dude.

• 2:05:06Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 2:05:07Cameron Hanes?

  You should, the, the painting we had in the middle of the gym, such a cool, I mean badass Indian.

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they were Iroquois. So how'd they get out here? When I was leaving Bozeman the other day, though.

• 2:05:24Cameron Hanes?

  Don't trick me.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  Our tribal, our tribal schools.

• 2:05:27Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:28Speaker 01

  Uh, they're, they're Indians.

• 2:05:30Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 2:05:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, Browning Indians. They were pulling up, the school bus was pulling up the other day. Yeah.

• 2:05:35Cameron Hanes?

  Okay. Well, so you still have them back there, like the mascots?

• 2:05:38Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, masc- well, but they're, they're the, they're on the, um, Crow, or no, shoot, I'm sorry. Who, who was it? No, yeah, Browning. Yep. So they're, um, Glacier National Park, east side of the Blackfeet.

• 2:05:51Cameron Hanes?

  That's a tribe?

• 2:05:52Speaker 01

  Yep. No, the Blackfeet.

• 2:05:54Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:55Cameron Hanes?

  Gotcha. Well.

• 2:05:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:58Cameron Hanes?

  I don't know, I don't know where the Mohawk Indians came from. That was just our school name. So.

• 2:06:01Speaker 01

  That's awesome. I thank you for sharing that with me.

• 2:06:04Cameron Hanes?

  Now, now you know. Well, I say let's go get dinner. How about that?

• 2:06:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:06:09Cameron Hanes?

  Well, you, but you had a burrito last night, I guess. So maybe you're not hungry.

• 2:06:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I gotta wait till midnight. Eat it on my belly.

• 2:06:15Cameron Hanes?

  All right. Well, Cal, thank you very much. I appreciate you.

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  Yep. Thank you, buddy. That was great.