145 SCI's Chris Tymeson on Fishing, Hunting Advocacy, and Wildlife Conservation

In this episode of MAC Outdoors with Mia Anstine, we chat with Chris Tymeson, SCI's western state and local liaison. The conversation offers a comprehensive look into the intricacies of non-resident hunting impacts and conservation efforts. Tymeson also shares the joys and challenges of finding fishing areas at each location where he travels.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
She's an award winning writer, a hunting guide, archery and rifle instructor,
keynote speaker, and all around outdoors woman who encourages
you to get outside, hunt, fish, shoot and savor all that life has to
offer. And now, here's your host, Mia Anstein.
Well, hey. Hi. Hello, guys. Thank you for tuning in again.
I'm so happy that you're here to listen and learn and share

(00:24):
adventures. Today I have one of my colleagues or
cohorts from SCI, and I know we've talked about Sei a lot on
the show, but today we're not only going to talk about Sci, we're going
to talk about some adventures and how you can also
head out and have some fun this summer. But
before we get going, as I said, we're talking about Sei, and I

(00:47):
talk about Sei a lot because I'm a volunteer for Sei.
And really, I have supported Sei for quite a while
and joined Sei many years ago because of
their advocacy and what they do on a national,
state, and also international level to fight for our
freedom to hunt. And so it's something that is near and dear

(01:10):
to my heart. I grew up in a hunting family, my
grandfather, my great grandfather, there's been a lot of hunters
in my life, and I really see the need for
conservation in the area. But
Sei, it is always at
the table for hunters. Whenever you go somewhere, you'll

(01:31):
see them there. Whether it's at the legislation, whether it's at a
local commission, Sei is there. They're commenting,
they're listening, they're watching. And so that's
why Sei, like, why I focus on it a lot. And
it really overlaps with a lot of what I share with hunting and
I shooting and stuff like that, which you'll learn a little bit more about

(01:54):
how those overlaps happen. But I also wanted to tell
you, while we visit today, we will talk about
how Sei is at the table, but we also mentioned,
like, things that you can do. And one of the things I wanted to
remind you, we've talked about women for gun rights and second
Amendment advocacy over the years.

(02:16):
But a politician, they really want to hear from their
constituents. And something that I do is when I write a letter,
I address it from your constituent. And what that is is if you
live in their district, if you vote or didn't vote for them, even if you
didn't vote for them, you are their constituent. So you're in their
district, you're somebody that they care about because you

(02:38):
obviously can be a future voter. But the decisions they
make impact you. And if you don't let them know
whether you are for or against something that's gonna be
addressed, if you don't comment on that, then they assume it's okay.
If you, so if there is maybe, for
instance, a gun issue and you don't comment,

(03:00):
they think, oh, okay, this is all right with them. So you've got a comment.
And I always say, when you comment, make it personal, make it
polite. Address it professionally to your
representative, your senator, your congressman,
address it professionally. They're not Lauren
or misses Boebert. And I'm just saying that because she is our

(03:21):
congresswoman right now. But we would address it.
Congresswoman Boebert. So you want to be professional about it. They do
hold a position, and you should be respectful of that position.
But remember, our organizations may comment
on the issues, and that's one thing. But when a
constituent comments, it weighs pretty heavily. A little more

(03:43):
weight to that. I also wanted to let you know if you want to
learn about advocacy, the Safari Times is where you learn
about advocacy. And the Safari magazine is where you might learn
about stories and outfitters and adventures. So without
further ado, let me not take up too much more of your time, because I
have my good friend Chris Timason here, and we're going to be talking about

(04:05):
not all the boring advocacy stuff, which is exciting for some people like me,
and I know some of the listeners like it, too, but we're going to talk
about some fishing adventures as well. I hope you enjoy today's
show this. Summer, whether at the range or in the
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(04:29):
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(05:12):
Anstine for 10% off your order. All right,
everybody, well, I wanted to introduce you to one of
my colleagues or cohorts in the SEI
industry. We talk about SEI a lot on the podcast.
And so, Chris, so that, you know, we do have a background. If anyone's listened
to past episodes, there's plenty sei that goes on

(05:34):
around Mac outdoors. But I wanted to introduce you all to
Chris with SCi because I actually met Chris. We see
each other at the Colorado Capitol, at
the DC, at the Capitol, and we
work on different legislative issues in
wildlife and stuff like that. And it wasn't until we were

(05:56):
actually meeting with legislators up at the Buckhorn
exchange in Denver, and Chris told me about
carrying a fishing rod with him everywhere he
goes. And so I was like, wait a second. I got to share this with
my listeners. But, Chris, would you please introduce yourself to
the listeners, let them know who you are and what you do. Sure.

(06:17):
I'm Chris Timonson. I am the western state and local liaison for
Safari Club. So that means I do state and local
issues, government affairs. Everything west of the Mississippi
is my territory. So it's a pretty, pretty big swath of the
country, 24 states. I've got a counterpart in the east who's
got 26. I joke with him because he doesn't have to go as far

(06:39):
as me because the west is so big. But
before that, I was the chief attorney for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks
for 22 years before I came to SCI. And I'm also a veteran,
had served in the military and the army infantry. Yeah.
And it's something that I think a lot of people don't understand is
how much work Sei is doing all the time.

(07:02):
And I have people say, you know, Sei
hasn't worked on maybe the wolf issue in Colorado. That's the most recent thing
where I try not to get in the arguments in the comments on social media,
but on Facebook, I was like, wait a second. Don't go there.
Because I know me personally as a volunteer, as a
regional rep, I worked really hard on that, on focus groups

(07:24):
and all kinds of different issues with it. And, you know,
we had to do what the voters asked, and we tried to have a say
in that. And I work on other things, too. But for you, with
your great big territory, what kind of different issues
have you been working on, like, in the past year that maybe people didn't
realize Sei is in the middle of? Well, I find myself

(07:46):
increasingly engaged in
carnivores and predators. Right. Mountain lions,
grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, bobcats.
It seems like I'm drawn into those. And I feel
like many times SCI is the only organization
commenting on some of those regs, you know,

(08:07):
and my background, I came from the agency. And so I
understand that reg process and I follow it closely,
probably more so than the legislative process, just
because that's where the meat of
the language comes from. The real details come in
those. And so I also want to be, if I

(08:29):
know that people who are opposed to what
we stand for are commenting on regs, I want to be there, even if I
know it's going to pass at the commission level to make sure that SCI
is out there saying, hey, we're here to support you. And so that's
what I do. I draft comment letters, go meet with
legislators. We also have an alert system where we've got

(08:52):
80,000 plus advocates and we send out
alerts to folks to ask them to comment if it becomes a big
issue. Recently, well, this morning I'm working on
Nebraska mountain Lions. I'm also doing a
presentation for a lunch and learn in Washington, DC. I
head to DC on Wednesday of this week.

(09:14):
I give a lunch and learn on Thursday to hill staffers. So help
educate them on hunting 101 and state
primacy and how hunting is funded. And
then let's see, last week I was in Washington state for four
days with the Western association of Fish and Wildlife
Agencies. I'll probably comment on East

(09:35):
Slope mountain lions in Colorado this week. So
those are the things that I do. Yeah. And I think
that's something that I notice. I'm on the sportsman's roundtable or sports
persons roundtable here in Colorado and it seems like
some of the sportsmen that are not involved, they
don't see like everything that we're doing in the background and how we

(09:58):
are trying to fight for what we can. And, you know, sometimes we have to
work with what we've got. And if, if it's something like the,
the wolf issue where voters voted, it's like, well, we can't have stop
that once the election happened, but we can try to make things
as good as we can. And what do you think an average
sportsman, what should they be doing? Or how can they pay

(10:21):
attention? Or, I mean, you mentioned the outreach where you can ask
people to comment, what should we be doing? I mean, I know I do, but
an average sportsman, what should they be doing? Well, I
think, you know, just as a commentary, generally,
sportsmen and women are happy, right? So therefore, because game
populations are probably at all time highs, and with

(10:42):
that success comes some failure, too, because people, I think, don't pay attention
as much because, you know, white tailed deer,
for example, I'm in Kansas, right. And white tailed deer, our
first modern deer season was 1965. You can
shoot six deer a year, six antlerless deer and
one antler deer. I mean, if you could fill all those tags.

(11:05):
Most people don't, but when game populations are at that level,
people don't come to the commission meetings. They aren't really engaged as much.
Right. So what can you do? You can
meet with legislators, because oftentimes I was the only person in the
Capitol you can. And talking about wildlife
issues. So I would be there testifying against bad proposals.

(11:29):
Nobody else was there except for the people who wanted to change things.
And I realized that's hard during the legislative session because
people can't take off work and come in the middle of the day or whatever,
or it's a long ways to the Capitol.
So you could follow on, like
I put out when I was at the state agency. You can follow the state

(11:51):
agency's legislative update every week.
You can write emails, you can make phone calls. I think phone
calls are the most effective way to contact legislators and
commissioners. It's an interpersonal
conversation, and it's not just a
nondescript email. And I think the worst thing you

(12:13):
can do is to infight with other hunters. I see
it, and I've seen it a long time. They don't hunt the
way I hunt. They don't use the same method that I
hunt. But I work across the west,
and my busy states are Washington, Oregon,
California, Colorado, New Mexico,

(12:34):
where the antis are really active. And you can, I don't have that problem
in Kansas, where I worked before. But you can see
they're gaining ground in places like on the commission in
Washington state. And to argue with other hunters instead
of pushing back against the anti hunting proposals
is a no win situation for us. That's a lot of

(12:56):
energy to be putting out there when you're fighting your
own, basically. And as you said, I mean, the method, I
understand people having preferred methods, but also, why
are we wasting our energy fighting on somebody who's a
rifle hunter versus a bow hunter, for example? Why are we
fighting them when they're not competing with you for tag? So

(13:20):
stuff like that, right. I think about
the people who don't like what we do. They enjoy
the fact that we're fighting amongst ourselves because it takes our energy.
Right. The antis, there are lots of anti groups,
and they are cohesive in their effort. They might have different methodologies
and different leadership of organizations, but

(13:41):
ultimately they're all cohesive around. I want to stop
hunting. And so bit by bit by bit, if we
argue that longbow hunters shouldn't have
the opportunity to hunt in the same time that I do as a crossbow hunter
or a traditional bow hunter with a
recurve or something like that. The

(14:02):
idea that we're arguing amongst ourselves, they're
still going to pick us off, because they're going to pick off that one thing,
then they're going to the next thing, and they're cohesive. And
it takes us all to push back on stuff like that, not just a few
of us. And so some of the issues that I'm seeing, I'm
curious what your thoughts are as far as, I mean,

(14:25):
right now. In New Mexico last year, they limited
non resident hunters. And right, in Colorado, they're talking about
limiting non resident hunters. I think in Wyoming and a few other states, they've
done that. I mean, they've always been limited, but they're
further reducing their opportunities. As a non resident,
do you think that is affecting hunting opportunities in

(14:48):
the future, or how is it affecting agencies? Okay,
so if you look at non resident
allocations, right, used to be like,
depending on the location, in some states, it's wide open,
right? And you have, like, Missouri. I live a mile from Missouri.
So Missouri is over the counter. Um,

(15:11):
non resident deer in Turkey. And
I think that they have about three or 4% of their total
permit allocation. The way it happens is it goes to
non residents just by with no limitations, no cap. In
Kansas, uh, we have a cap, and it's based upon
a figure. It's not just like, it's an allocation

(15:34):
with a whole formula in it. And then you look at, let's
say, Wyoming, where it's 20% or
whatever the cap number is. So I was part of
litigation back in the early two thousands
where an outfitter had sued New
Mexico and Arizona, and then sued

(15:56):
Nevada and Kansas. And then
there was some litigation between Minnesota and North Dakota on non
resident allocations. And ultimately
we were successful. We prevailed because we went to Congress and
we said, we want you to pass something as part of this budget bill for
Iraq, which allowed states to then

(16:20):
limit non residents under the commerce clause.
So while we were successful, there was an
immediate reaction, like Arizona then only had a cap
on elk, and I a cap on Kaibab Deer,
and then they went to a 10% cap across the board. So non
residents got hamstrung in those cases. And I'm not

(16:42):
saying residents or non residents should equal access.
I'm not advocating for that. But I think that when you start to
discriminate against non residents, it's my brother who lives in
Arkansas or my brother in Minnesota. When they want to come here.
We're not just talking about random people that we don't know. We're talking about
family and friends. Right? Or in the case

(17:05):
of why should we limit somebody who wants to come to cheyenne bottoms and hunt
ducks? That's their lifelong dream. And they're from
Pennsylvania and they have to use a guide,
and guides get a bad connotation, but they provide
a valuable service for somebody who can't get there
themselves, can't have the gear. It's just their dream. They want to

(17:27):
spend a couple days and do this. I think
that when you see those caps and the reactions now
you're talking about limiting people more and get waffle. That was
a common topic. We need to limit
people because other people are limiting people, and
it's a reaction. So then everybody starts limiting you more and

(17:49):
more. And you have to remember you're a non resident in 49 other
states, right. And you brought up something that, I mean,
a few things that I hadn't thought of, and that's how I think almost
all of us are, is like, we think in our own little bubble of like,
what, what we do, where we go and stuff like that.
And I think a lot of people think of that resident, non

(18:11):
resident issue as an outfitter issue and that, you know,
the outfitters just want the money from the non residents. But you're
right, I do have a lot of family and friends that come and
hunt here in the state, and now I actually
have more of them than anybody who's wanting to, like, pay for
a hunt or something. But then you also brought up, like,

(18:33):
waterfowl, and I travel all over the place for
waterfowl. So that, and upland birds,
too, and fishing, which I see your fishing shirt.
But so there's a lot to it. And I think that's something
that I try to do, and I think I do a pretty good job
normally of being empathetic to other

(18:54):
users, whether it's archery or rifle or, you know, shotgun
upland people. But there's more to the scope a lot of
times than what we think on the surface or the one original
issue. So thank you for bringing that up because it
just, you know, it broadens my scope and hopefully it
broadens the listener's scope as well. One last point about

(19:16):
that non residents in Kansas provide about 70% of
the fish and wildlife agency budget. And so when you
talk about limiting non residents, as a resident,
you have to ask yourself, are you willing to pay more? Because
you either have to pay more or services are going to have to be
reduced. And Kansas, for example, we

(19:39):
provide one and a half million, 1.2
million acres of public access on private property that's
paid for through sportsmen's dollars.
The response is, okay if you can't, that's just one item in a
big budget. But if you can't, if their

(19:59):
money's not there from non residents and residents aren't
willing to pay, then you're going to have to cut that service. And that's a
valuable service. That access in Kansas is a
97% privately owned state, so access is
key. Oh, yeah, right. I mean, you have to weigh all those
things as an administrator. And it's so it's easy for

(20:21):
somebody to say, let's cut non residents. But
when you actually get down to it, can you,
I don't know the answer, or what, at what level can you sustain?
Right. And that's, that's another huge point which I've brought up
several times in conversation, is also the tourism
dollars, because I know here I live in southwest Colorado and we're

(20:44):
tourist towns, which, I mean, we've got river
rafting and fishing and hiking and mountain biking and a lot of different things. But
also in those fall months, a lot of the little mom and pop
shop owners, they rely on the tourists. And so that's something I haven't
seen a lot of studies about how that will
impact those small towns, but it

(21:07):
definitely will. And I don't know that a resident hunter is going to make up
for that because they're already there, you know, spending their money day after
day. So I think that's another aspect. And
you talked about, like, limiting access, which here in
the eastern half of Colorado, especially in the northeast,
our agency works on corners for conservation, you know, corners of the

(21:28):
pivots where you can go and hunt pheasants and upland birds. And so
I see that as that might be something where there's not enough money to
partner with those landowners. And that's
definitely something over there, like you said, where it's a lot of private
land, there's going to be some limited access.
But I also thought when you said that is when you limit the agency,

(21:50):
that may also limit us in some of our studies that we're doing if we
don't have funding for those studies, for the biology aspect.
So, yeah, so much to it. There's so much.
Right. I always enjoy talking
about legislative stuff, which some people think I'm crazy, and

(22:11):
I guess I would say I enjoy it. Because if we don't
talk about it, if we don't look at it, then we're gonna lose it. And
I recently went to Pennsylvania and talked to their agency,
and my whole speech was about how quickly things can be gone
and that we have to pay attention and we have to act. And
for me, that talk was more on an r three, on a recruitment

(22:33):
aspect. And I talked to them about some of the
sci foundations. We recently did waterfowl hunts in New
Mexico and we did a quail hunt in New Mexico. But we
also have here in Colorado, the Four Corners
chapter. They have a Sables group. And we're doing a fly
fishing trip with new fly fishing men who

(22:56):
want to learn to fly fish, or a couple of them just want to learn
about gear and how to read water and, you know, how to get
into fishing. So that's coming up. But I really
wanted to talk to you about the, you said you carry a
rod almost everywhere you go. And that, like, really caught my attention
because I've carried like, fly rods to New Zealand and it was kind of a

(23:17):
hassle with our fly rods, which now I have a smaller breakdown
rod. But tell us, will you tell us about this
adventure, or is it a self imposed challenge? Will you
tell us about it? It. Sure. It started mostly during
COVID Like the. I used to fish a
lot, but not like I do now. And during COVID

(23:39):
you couldn't go anywhere and you couldn't do anything. And so I
started seeking out more opportunities for my kids
and myself and my wife to go around
the Kansas City area where we're at.
And I really ramped up the number of days.
And I tried to do little challenges, like, can I

(24:01):
fish every day for a month to see if I could do that? And
then I would be like, I wonder if I could hit 100 days of fishing
this year. And then when I hit 100 that year,
my wife was like, I bet you can't hit 200. And so
I started just ramping it up. Well, you know, and then because I
travel for sci, I probably travel,

(24:26):
I would say 100 to 120 days a year for
sci. And so I wanted to fish and
also to see new places and just to do new things. And so
I bought a St. Croix travel rod, a couple of them.
One is an ultralight, and I'm an ultralight fisherman, primarily
spinning rodental. So I use a pfluger president,

(24:48):
20 x two pound test,
64 ounce jigs. And I usually catch
crappie bass, bluegill, green sunfish, red ears,
catfish. Those are my fish. Species that I'm
pretty average on. And so I have
every day, like, where my kids have soccer, I drop off.

(25:11):
I know there's a pond where I can go fish close. Bye. A public, I
fish almost exclusively public. And so it's a
lake that belongs to the city. You just have to
have a Kansas fishing license. So I'll fish there for an hour,
come back and pick up a child from sports. And so, whatever.
If it's volleyball, I know there's one over near the

(25:33):
volleyball court where we practice and the soccer fields.
And so I've got a little circuit that I kind of run in
town. And then when I'm on the road, I have that I
fish with the same rod every day that I also have a travel rod
companion. So I fish with the St. Croix rod. That's four foot. I
fish. I have a travel rod, a four piece travel rod. And then I've

(25:55):
got a medium light one, too, that I took, like, to Alaska,
and I fished up there. So last year, I
fished 17 different states in two countries. So
that was a pretty good year. And I had 261 days of
fishing I couldn't make every day. But, I mean, that's over
two thirds of the year. That's crazy. And I just think it's

(26:18):
insane because here, like, I am, I live close
to a lake, I live close to rivers, and I do not get
out that often to go fishing. It's like, that's why I think I was
so amazed, because, like, when we're planning our vacations,
if I'm going to Mexico, I'm either going to find a place to fish or
hunt, like, wherever I'm going. Like, okay, we're gonna. We're gonna do this.

(26:41):
And so for, with your job and the amount of
travel you have to do, I was just so impressed that you're taking that
time. And when you. When you decided to do
this, did you just do it because you have a passion for fishing,
or is there an ulterior motive? I mean, was it kind of your.
I'm thinking, for me, that would be, like, my downtime and my

(27:04):
stress reducer, because I imagine your job is very stressful.
It can be stressful, for sure. It's my Zen time. It is.
Like, even if I get five or ten minutes in a day. And then
another thing that started during the pandemic, a friend of mine lost his
job. And so the first fish I catch every
day, I take a picture of and I send it to him. And so

(27:26):
it started then just kind of to cheer him up. And then my brother
was like, hey, I want a picture. And then my other brother, hey, I want
a picture, right? And so now I have a group of people that I
send pictures to every day, and some of them are lumped
together, but most of the. Most of the texts go out individual.
So I send out 20 a day now. And so that's kind of a little

(27:47):
thing that I do. And when I was. I mean, I used to post
on Facebook every day, and I think I maybe wore people out. And my hashtag
was, fishing is always a great way to end the day. And I would take
that first picture and I would post that every day. So now I'm
a little more judicious. And when I post it, you know, if
it's like, if I catch five species in one night or something like that.

(28:10):
But, yeah, I did it for Zen time. And then,
like, you can almost always. New
Mexico was harder for me when I was there, but
I can always. And so I did fish New Mexico last year, but I.
You can almost always find a public pond or something that you can go and
fish in, and then you're buying a day license or a couple days

(28:33):
license, helping conservation. That money goes to help fund.
And I'm almost exclusively catch and release, except for
crappie. In the spring, I like to eat crappie. And
so the kids and I will catch a mess of crappie, and I have a
little assembly line, and we'll clean fish, and then we freeze them and
I eat them the rest of the year. But mostly.

(28:56):
Yeah, mostly it's catch and release. The
kid. During the pandemic, the boys wanted to. They wanted to keep
catfish, and I didn't really know much about. I had never really been a
catfisherman. I mean, I've caught them, but not enough to
eat. And so I read YouTube's great. Learned how to
clean a catfish. And then. So that was the

(29:17):
first, uh, I think that year I caught
302 catfish. The. Because they wanted to focus
on catfish, so I bought catfish rods, and. And
they all came out of one little lake. It probably has more pounds of
catfish in it per square acre than. Or
per acre, you know, than any place else in the state. It's

(29:38):
incredible. And so then
they wanted to eat them, and so we cleaned them and we ate them. But
then the carcasses, you know, I live in the city, so then they were like,
I had to make a rule that we could only keep fish on Sunday or
Monday night because Tuesday night was trash night. Tuesday morning
was trash day. Right. Because I just can't dispose of the carcass any

(30:00):
old place. So then it got to the point where I was like,
oh, I forgot the bucket today so I wouldn't have to
clean fish and, and keep the carcasses. So.
But the kids still had a great time and we caught lots of fish. I
went back the other day. I went back the other,
and I average about, usually I'm like, on. I

(30:22):
usually catch 1000 fish by the 1 June. I'm a little less than that
this year. And I went back because I was curious. The last
five years, four and a half years, I said, how
many days have I finished? Over a thousand. It was like 1043.
And then how many fish I've caught? And
it's almost 10,000. Over the last four and a half

(30:45):
years, I keep a detailed log of where I
fish, who I fish with, what we catch every
day. So that way, so I know those numbers.
Okay. Because that's what I was just going to ask you. What inspired the log?
Just for your own personal. I used to just keep it for hunting.
And then I go back occasionally and I look at it and I'm like,

(31:07):
oh, yeah, I went to Alaska and did that. Or I caught,
I me, I try to get big
little fish. Like a ten inch bluegill is like,
my, the thing I seek most. They're
like an 80 pound tuna on that small rod
and two pound test. And they're so fun to fight, and they're

(31:29):
aggressive. They're just a great little fish. And so I
like to look and see if I've caught new species. And, like, when I was
in Texas one time, I met with the
director, the new director, and afterwards I talked
to him about fishing a little bit, and he told me about this state park.
So before I flew out that night, I went the

(31:52):
state parks on the way to the airport. So I went to the state park
right in the middle of the city and caught a red
breasted sunfish that I had never caught before.
So stuff like that, just to keep a log
and go back and look at it. And so in your log, are you
using like a hunter's hill journal, or are you,
do you just have a little journal book or a little spiral notebook? Just a

(32:15):
word document. Oh, a word document. So you have it. You can take it
anywhere without having to worry about a book? Yeah, I put it on a flash
drive. Nice. So I can take it wherever I
go. And in your document, are you, you're documenting,
obviously, the place and fish, and then are you documenting a
story? And putting a picture or what kind of details? No, it's

(32:37):
pretty bare bones. It's just where I fish. What day? The
day where who and what
and what. And you don't put what you caught it on.
I almost fish exclusively the same thing. I fish
64 ounce mule jig. It's a Kansas company.

(32:58):
The young. The man who started it, ethan,
and he was on
the K state bass club. And so it's like. And so he has a.
It's like a little solid body with a flicker tail on it. It's called the
donkey tail junior. And he's got different
various sizes. Mulefishing.com, i think, is what it is. You

(33:20):
can just do mule fishing, and he's got a
great product, and it's like 99% lead free.
So I think if people make voluntary choices about
conservation, some of those things
come into consideration. Right, right. And
that's a very good point, because that's something that we also deal

(33:42):
with on legislatively, is this lead issue,
which I'm sure you even know more about that than
most of my listeners or myself. And we have had.
We had Connie Brooks from Barnes bullets on to talk a little bit about
it. The lead issue, but you were talking
about is that you use primarily the same setup. But you did mention you got

(34:05):
a different rod and stuff for catfish. What.
What would determine. Why would I need a different setup?
So the catfisher pull a little harder. They're a little bit bigger.
And honestly, it's. It's kind of overkill. I have some ten
foot rods with 20 pound test on there, so the. The line
is thicker, you know, and. But those catfish can certainly give a good

(34:27):
tug and sometimes break off even. So, uh, and for my
kids, it's a lot easier to. To horse in a big fish with
a big rod on my little rod. The biggest fish I've
landed on my little rod is a six pound catfish on two pound
test. It's a good fight. I had a really
nice bass on yesterday. I saw it in this. This

(34:50):
newly renovated lake that I fished has made the water
super clear. And so it's like sight fishing.
And I saw this big bass come in, take me, and before I could
adjust my drag, he just went. Bam. Broke it right off.
So you gotta have a. You know, for those big cats, you're
gonna. You're gonna take a heftier rod and a thicker

(35:12):
line. So what kind of. Are you using a jig with them? What are
you using for your hook? Oh, the cats.
There's a commercial bait that I buy at Walmart. And he
just. It kind of looks like a. Kind
of looks like a dog, like a piece of dog food, but it's soft,
right? It looks. That's kind of what it looks like. And then you just hook

(35:34):
it on the hook. And I use a number. I think I'm using number
four hooks. I can't remember. So smaller hooks cast
out with some weight and get it out there and just let it sit on
the bottom. And then I put it in a rod holder. And then
when there's a big fish on there,
so it's not my preferred method. I prefer to,

(35:55):
I prefer to move. So I have a little Osprey pack
shoulders day day pack or whatever that flips over my one
shoulder. I keep a bunch of rubber band
of those donkey tail junior bodies, and I have a box of jig
heads. And I just ended on the side. I've got some.
I got clippers and a set of pliers. And I just

(36:18):
keep moving constantly. That's what I carry every day.
Okay. And when you're traveling for work, are you
generally you're taking carry on and can you take that gear
and your carry on? You can. I don't
typically, I check a bag because I fly on southwest
mostly, and so bags fly free. So then you can

(36:40):
just throw that in and into your
bag, and it's small enough that it'll fit in a carry on size
bag, the rod. And if I put it crossways, it'll fit in my
carry on. I've never had a problem with it flying in my
luggage. I just put the rod right up next to the. The inside of the
luggage seam on the, you know, where the middle is, where it

(37:02):
folds and so. Yeah, and then I just throw my, the
same day pack that I carry around everywhere. I just
take instead and throw that into my carry on or
my right. And it. I don't think hooks
are not forbidden. I've never had a problem going through security
with, with hooks, but I also don't have anything else in

(37:24):
there. Yeah. And. And I was thinking when
you had said forceps and, um, I know those probably wouldn't be a
problem, but I was just wondering, like, what other fishing gear do I have in
our tackle walk? I think everything would probably pass on carry
on. I don't know.
Right. When you, you said in New Mexico,

(37:47):
you kind of had a little bit more of a challenge finding a place to
fish. Is the river there that goes through the
city? Most of that's private property. Or do they. They don't have public
access on that river. Well, I was looking for trout
mostly. I was trying to catch trout, and so not on the. Not
on the river through Albuquerque or Santa Fe. I was in

(38:09):
Santa Fe. Yeah, I fished both Albuquerque
and Santa Fe, but I went a little bit east to the.
I can't think of the name of the river right now. That's why I was
looking a little confused, too. I know that river, but I can't think of the
name right. I went east, and there's public access.
It's just, you know, when you go to a more arid

(38:30):
place like Texas or Arizona or New
Mexico, it gets just a little harder. Or southwest. I was
in California one time to give an award, and
I had to drive about. I had to take an Uber about 30 minutes
to get to a lake to go find a body of water that
I could fish. I mean, the ocean was right there. It was in San

(38:53):
Diego, but I wanted to go up into the foothills a little bit
off the ocean, and. And so I just ubered my way up there
and fished for a while and caught some nice bass and then
ubered back down to my hotel. And so this
is what caught my attention when you talked about carrying your rod with
you, is I may have told this story on the podcast

(39:15):
before, but I tell a lot of people. What got me into
advocating for hunting and fishing and firearms
was my parents divorced, and we moved to San Diego. And
when I got there in the high school, most of the
kids didn't fish. They didn't know about fishing. They hadn't been fishing.
And I'm like, lake Cuyamaca is right there, you know, and, like, all.

(39:38):
All these different lakes are there, and they have fish in them,
you know, and then also fishing off the piers, you know, you
can go hang out and sit there, which to me, that kind of fishing is
a little bit boring. There are opportunities, and a lot of people
didn't realize that those opportunities are there.
And that's why when you said you go places, I'm like, well, how

(40:00):
are you learning about the places? Because to me, I see that
as, even with the outdoor partnership that
I'm on, a lot of people talk about people in the Denver area
not having opportunities to go fishing, but I'm like, there's stuff
right there in the city. So what do you suggest for people
who are saying that they don't know where to go? How do. What can they

(40:22):
do? I would go to the game and fish website. Right. The game and fish
agency in your state, they have typically will put
together public access
opportunities in a book or on their website that you
could download and put it on your gps. And
then, like, the walk in hunting access

(40:44):
we talked about earlier, there's walk in fishing in Kansas,
and so they put that out there. I think Garmin
probably puts it out on their stuff. If people still use a
Garmin like that or OnX, you can find it through that.
So that's the first place I would go. The second place
is, besides their website, I would go just to the Internet and just

(41:07):
type in fishing, Indianapolis or wherever you're
gonna go fishing, Minneapolis or Kansas City,
and just see what pops up. You might be really surprised. And that's how
I've, how I've done it. Just kind
of learned as I went and tried to find a place that I would be
close by. Wherever I'm staying, that's reasonable that I can get

(41:29):
to. Yeah. And that's the greatest thing, I think, is
that there's so much information out there, we just have to look for it. But
there are also, you mentioned, like, a Garmin or onyx or
something like that. They're evolving as well. I didn't realize how
much information now is on at least ONX. I have
ONx on my phone, and there's even, like, wetlands for

(41:52):
duck hunting or upland areas where you can go pheasant hunting that they kind
of have these layers on the map that you can add. I'm sure
you probably have to have premium subscription or something to see all the layers,
but it's really neat that we have this stuff now
where way back when, when I was in high school, we didn't have that
even the. But even asking other fishermen, right. I think

(42:14):
generally people are. Want to share and they don't
mind sharing, you know, maybe not their
special location or. But like, one
day during the pandemic, I was walking along and I was like, I want to
go fish this place. And I look down and there's a guy
standing in the exact same spot that I wanted to fish. I was like, what

(42:37):
is this craziness? This guy is in my spot. And so I go
down and I just kind of sidled up next to
him. Not, I mean, there's a whole lake, there's nobody else fishing,
but he's in the corner of the lake that I wanted to fish. And so
I just kind of go down there and set up, and we just start
talking. And it turns out now he and I fish probably three or four times

(42:58):
a week together. He taught me how to build fishing rods. I started
building fishing rods during the pandemic, and then
he turned me onto a bunch of spots and I turned him onto a bunch
of spots, too. And just, you know, just make a
friend and start talking to them. Go to a body of water and
just be friendly and see what people will do.

(43:20):
That's a great resource. Absolutely. And that's something I've
suggested for people who want to start hunting is to reach out. You know, if
you know someone's a hunter, ask them if you can tag along. If you want
to figure out how to fish, ask a fisherman if you can tag along. And
I also, I mentioned earlier the sables
and sei chapters, I think everybody thinks of them of seis

(43:42):
as hunting. But you mentioned, like lead. And we deal with
fishing issues with lead. And it's not only with big
game and hunting or, you know, the waterfowl, which has been
federally a rule for a while, but
we also deal with some issues that deal with angling. And I know
each sei chapter works differently. They all work in their communities

(44:04):
where they see a need. But this one down here, as I said, the Sables,
the women there going to teach some fly fishing clinics
and how to time knots, how to read water and different stuff like
that. But if you reach out to your sci
chapter, ask them about it, and if they don't have anything, then
look at some of the bass anglers and you can ask

(44:26):
them if they have anything where they can teach you. For fly
fishing, go to trout unlimited, ask them. And they have stuff all
the time where they'll teach you as well. So I think there's plenty of
resources where hopefully, if you think you're
limited, then reach out to us and we'll help give you some
ideas depending where you're at, because Chris is fishing all over the

(44:48):
place while he's working. And, you know, taking that as his break in his
downtime when he's away from his family. And I just thought that was amazing. I
thought it was wonderful. Yeah, it's,
as I said, it's my Zen time. So even if it's ten minutes just
to go out and catch a fish and
it helps me clear my mind, let's put it that way.

(45:11):
So what are some other, I mean, obviously you work with
Sci and that's why I had to do on hers for Sci, but what are
some other things with fishing? I
mentioned lead, but is there anything else that we do specifically with fishing that you
can think of? No, there's a lot of overlap on the, on the
lead issue for fishing and hunting. There are proposals

(45:33):
to ban lead on federal refuges.
Right. And it's not just focused on
hunting. I think that that's problematic.
Like, you know, the guy, the jigs that I
use, he, you know, he wants to be a better steward of
the environment if he can. Right. And so he makes a voluntary

(45:55):
choice as to what he's going to put out for a product. And
everybody makes a voluntary choice whether they're going to use it or not. But it's
not 100% lead free. And I don't know that there's product out there in the
fishing world that's 100% lead free.
And so when somebody says, hey, we're going to ban
lead use, they're taking away the

(46:16):
voluntariness, which I think that's the key consideration.
People will make choices based upon price and based
upon their moral compass or whatever the reason is that they're making
their choice. We shouldn't take away that opportunity to make a choice.
But then when you come back and you say you can only use lead

(46:37):
free, I don't know that there's product out there. I haven't
looked for product like, I mean, because how I
fish and what I fish with, but, you know, lead sinkers are a
staple in some places for catfishing or whatever the
methodology where you have to get to the bottom
quicker, so. Or stay on the bottom and so.

(46:59):
So I don't know what replacement that is. And is it
tolerable financially? I just don't know the
answer to those things. But I do know that taking away
people's choice is not the right method. Right. And that's kind
of. I wanted to talk to you about your fishing adventures because of the
access issue. And that's something that I see as a

(47:21):
limit to people who want to have access to
fishing or hunting is, like you said, limiting that
choice is limiting their accessibility to this
activity. And so it's something
I agree with you. I think we should have our choices, and we can
make our moral or ethical decisions onto what we want to

(47:43):
do. But there's another issue that I'm curious,
and Sei has commented on it before,
but fur bands, and you talked
about the predator issues and stuff like that. But the fur
bands, I fly fish a lot. I grew up with
lures and baits and stuff like that. And then in the past

(48:05):
decade or two decades, I fly fish a ton. And so
this fur band is something that impacts us as
well. Right? Certainly the fur band, again, people
limiting choice based upon not science, but
based upon emotion. And, you know, ip 91
is going on right now in Colorado, right? And that's something sci is working

(48:28):
on collectively with a number of conservation
organizations. Also based on emotion only.
I watched Dan Gates put something out yesterday or over
the weekend. I was watching, and it was a
comment from somebody who is
pushing for the ban on hunting and trapping of mountain

(48:51):
lions, bobcats and lynx. And Lynx, that's a red herring. You can't
do those things anyway with the lynx. But, you know, they, they put out
information like, well, mountain lions aren't endangered now,
but they will be soon in the future. That's, that was an exact
quote. And it's just a lie. It's a lie and it's
trying to play on the emotions. There is no science based to it.

(49:13):
Same with the fur band proposed fur bandaid. No science at
all. Like, furbearer populations are probably stronger than
ever. When you look at raccoons
and opossums and the number of people who trap actually
is going down. It's quite down,
actually, compared to what it was 20 or 30 or 50 years

(49:35):
ago. So to say that
furbearers are imperiled, that's just not true. Even
river otters have made a tremendous comeback, for example,
like super successful
program to bring back river otters. So to say that
furbearers are imperiled. At all, it's

(49:57):
just, it's very challenging, I think, to deal with the
emotion because we all have our
emotions, you know? And I also feel like some
people I mentioned earlier, even sportsmen, like, we don't follow
everything. And so a lot of these people, all they're seeing is the
propaganda about why we shouldn't use fur, why we shouldn't have

(50:19):
fur, and they're not considering what the replacement for fur
might be. And then I've had a few people that were shocked, you know,
our cowboy hats. I wear cowboy hats all the time. When you see me at
convention and stuff like that, I'm always wearing my cowboy hat. But,
you know, the fur, it goes into more things. And then for
me personally, I have fur blankets that I've had since I was a

(50:41):
kid. Whereas I bought this $20 throw
on Amazon to put on the couch because it looked really cool. And I, like,
six months later, it's a tattered mess and I have to throw it away. And
I'm like, well, there's that
cost prohibitive stuff where it's like, well, that cost me
only $20 or however much, but really, if I want to replace it,

(51:02):
it's going to cost me more than the fur. So I don't know
how to always deal with their emotions. I mean, for me the
best thing has been, you know, a one on one conversation with somebody who's
receptive, but there's a lot more than just one person to
talk to. So it's a, you know, if you live
in Colorado right now and you're a hunter, you should be concerned

(51:25):
about IP 91 and you should be going out and talking to every person
who's not a hunter about this issue because theyre the
ones who are going to be the vote in the middle. Thats the most important
vote. And so you should go out and talk to them intelligently and
say, or on the fur band, for example, and say
hunting is scientifically based, its not emotion

(51:46):
based. And theres no way, I think state game
agencies have great credibility. I think they have good credibility
with the general public. Right. Right. So
if you're a hunter and you say, I think that the state
agency, there's no way they would ever allow a species to
become endangered. It's not in their business to do that. Right.

(52:08):
It's not what they want to do. So why would somebody say that? Well, because
they're lying. They're not telling the truth. That's how. And
you should be out just talking to people. Like that's probably maybe one of the
best things you could do to be engaged as a sportsman right now in Colorado
is go out and talk to folks. Right. And I'll add to
that, Chris, is one thing for you all. If you're listening and you're going to

(52:30):
go talk to people, always keep it positive. And if
there's pushback, you know, touch and feel, see what they're receptive
to. But don't fight with them if they're not receptive to
hearing the information or if they, most people who
are not hunters don't understand quotas and they don't
understand how we hunt lions, why we use

(52:52):
dogs, why, you know, the methods. So it's all about
finding a way to explain that to them. But if you
push too hard, it's kind of like there's a game that we
did in a leadership where you put your hand and you're like, okay, you press
against my hand and the harder I press, the harder you push back.
And because it's our instinct. And so if we're trying to explain

(53:14):
this to somebody who is pushing back, the harder you're pushing,
the harder they're going to push back. They're not going to be receptive to what
you're trying to explain to. That's a method and a
tactic that if you want to learn more about, I can teach you about that,
because there's definitely a technique to being
empathetic to what they're open to learning.

(53:36):
Also, don't think. Don't take any base level of knowledge for
granted. My wife and I went to Africa last, well,
in April. And so when we came back, we had a great hunt. And
it was her hunt. She had bought it several years ago, and we finally got
around to doing it. And then I added a couple animals to
hunt myself, and then we did some touring, but we got back in

(53:58):
soccer game, and one of the,
my daughter's team, one of the moms of
another child on the team,
asked me why I wasn't at the tournament. And
so I told her we had been in Africa. And her response
was, you didn't shoot any endangered animals, did

(54:20):
you? And I said, no, actually,
that's antithetical to what I stand for. Right.
And she's like, well, I just assumed that animals in Africa are
imperiled and endangered. And I was like, that's absolutely not the
case. So even her, and she wasn't anti
hunting. She just didn't understand. She had a

(54:43):
perspective. That was nothing where I come from at
all. Right? And so I chatted with her a few minutes
about, you know, why hunters matter and who pays for
species and why species have been restored if they had been
imperiled at some point. And, you know, having, we had a
conversation about having to live next to an elephant, which is a

(55:04):
completely different foreign concept to people, and
why that elephant has value if they allow
hunters to come and hunt. And so it was a good
conversation, but I didn't, I was taken
aback at how misinformed she started. Her position
started from. And then after our conversation, she's like, I had no

(55:26):
idea. Right. It was enlightened. So that was
good. Yeah. And that's just that one. Like I said, the one
one on one conversation where if I, if
you're talking to one and I'm talking to one, that's only two.
So if the listeners could also go out there and have those conversations, we could
make a really big difference. That would be a wonderful thing,

(55:49):
where we're not just perceived as the
murderous lion killers or something like that. And I actually had
to scroll past a comment about,
I'm sure it was from somebody who wasn't a hunter and how
nobody kills a mountain lion and eats it here, like,
for us, when, if we shoot a mountain lion, you're like, okay,

(56:12):
I can only give you this tiny bit and you this tiny bit because everybody
wants some of the meat because they love it. And so there are
those misconceptions where online, it's very
difficult to have those conversations, and I have had a few
that are just amazing, but that doesn't always happen.
So pick and choose those ones, right. People can hide

(56:34):
behind a screen. Right. You don't have to
face somebody. It's always more difficult to talk to somebody
in person and have a conversation like that. Right. Somebody who's,
when I say difficult, difficult for them to, you know, say
nasty things to your face. People don't want to do that, right. But when they
sit behind a computer, they can spout all. Spout it off all

(56:56):
they want, all the misinformation they want. They can be rude and
disrespectful. So get out and talk to people.
Try to, you know, spread the word about
it about, you know, the initiative petition and
everything like that. But I was going to ask also,
isn't. Isn't it required to keep the meat in Colorado

(57:17):
on a mountain lion? Like. Yep. And people don't understand that either,
right? Yeah. Yeah. They say nobody eats mountain lion, and that's just
not true. It's 100% not true. And I actually have
recipes on my website if anybody wants to go look at them. I
have. I have a few different versions, actually. I have a bobcat recipe
as well. Bobcat is really good.

(57:40):
And I actually did that one as a challenge. I was like, okay, sure. And
it's actually very good. So we can eat lots of animals.
I have a friend who's. Well, and really meat eater is eating everything, but I
have a friend here locally who's eaten a pretty much everything as well,
so. Right. My wife and I bear hunted a couple
years ago, and of course we brought back our bears and

(58:03):
I made burgers and put them up against elk burgers. And people
in my neighborhood probably wouldn't know the
difference, right, generally, of what an elk is or
a deer. I mean, they know the meat,
but I put elk and I put bear out, and
people couldn't tell the difference. They're like, this is great. All of it's great.

(58:26):
They loved it all. That's awesome. So
that's another way also, it's fun to open those
conversations. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We had a wild game
feed. We try to do that every now and then with our neighbors and bring
them over, and most of them come and ask
for more. Exactly. That's what, and that's what I mean

(58:48):
by we have a mountain lion down and somebody hears about it. Everybody wants some
meat. One of our really good cohorts and some of the
sportsmen stuff that we're working on drew his moose tag this year, and I told
him, I was like, be forewarned that that is a
huge animal. But when Hank got his moose, all of a sudden
it was like we went to get steaks and we had no more moose because

(59:09):
everybody, you know, wanted, they all loved it. And we're like, sure, sure. And we
don't mind sharing, you know, at all, but it's fun to share wild
game. Yeah. And so you mentioned initiative
91 here in Colorado. I know
we've worked really hard at doing some fundraising for that. Could you let
the listeners know what they can do or where they can support

(59:32):
the mission to fight that initiative here in Colorado?
Sure. There are two entities
that are set up to collect funds for that. It doesn't matter if
it's $10 or $100,000. You know,
there's an issues committee and it's Save the hunt
Colorado and or Colorado's wildlife deserves

(59:54):
better. Either of those
two you can donate to. You know,
ScI has raised some significant funds through
our chapters in Colorado to help fight
against that. There are videos online that
you could share on your social media feeds if you're out there

(01:00:16):
that are well done. 32nd videos
either go to Colorado's for responsible wildlife management
or Colorado's wildlife deserves better.
Pull those videos down and share those on your social media. That's an effective
way to help spread the word. It absolutely is.
Well, Chris, thank you for joining me today on the podcast

(01:00:39):
and sharing some of your fishing stories and tips. Hopefully it'll
help inspire some other people to get out there or for like me, it
inspires me to kind of broaden my horizons of where I'm going fishing
rather than just here when I have a break.
Right. I appreciate it. Sure. Happy to do
so. Encourage people to also come to the Sci convention if they

(01:01:01):
get a chance. If you've never been to the Sci annual
convention, it's in Nashville. It's on the back of my,
or it's on my screensaver or
background, I should say January 22 to 25th.
I'm there the whole week. It's an incredible time. You'll see some incredible
taxidermy. There's plenty of fishing outfitters and hunting outfitters there,

(01:01:23):
a whole mix of stuff. And if you get an opportunity even
to swing down for a day. It's totally worth it. It,
absolutely. I enjoy it. And I've been year after year after year, and it's always
fun every time. And part of it is those, seeing those outfitters,
whether you're going on a fishing trip or hunting or whatever. But also
some of the artists, we have a bronze artist that is now

(01:01:46):
a personal friend. And, you know, there's just such good people
at that convention. It's a good thing. And,
you know, it's mostly, it's clearly geared towards hunting, but there is some
fishing there, so, and big game fishing. I'm just trying to
think. There's some outfits in Panama and some stuff like
that. So. Yeah, absolutely. Come to the show.

(01:02:08):
Absolutely. Well, thank you. I sure appreciate you sharing some of your
time. Sure. Thanks for having me on, Mia. Hey,
this is Lloyd Bailey, the armed Lutheran host of the armed lutheran
radio podcast, reminding you that the podcast you're
listening to is a proud member of the Self Defense radio network.
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