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This episode of the Bird Shop Podcast is presented by OnX Hunt. The number one GPS hunting app, and final rise, premium quality made in USA hunting vests and field apparel, and upland gun company custom built and fit handcrafted Italian shotguns. Hey everyone, welcome to episode number 288 of the Bird Shop Podcast. Thank you for joining us today. As always, we'll be talking hunting, fishing, and our connection to wild places with Tony Jones. In just a couple of minutes, I want to thank Patreon Patrons of the Bird Shop Podcast. Those of you out there making contributions in support of the show to keep these conversations coming your way. I appreciate your support. Patrons are eligible for Patreon giveaways, we do some bonus content, we have some exclusive discounts, and we get everyone set up with the Bird Shop Podcasts, can coolers, and stickers. If you want to learn more and sign up, you can do so at patreon.com/birdshot. Alright, a quick reminder for everyone, if you love the show and you want to help us out, you can always leave the show a rating, review, subscribe to the show, follow the show, don't miss any new episodes, make sure you are subscribed, all of those are helpful to me and the Bird Shop Podcast as well, so I appreciate that. Alright, hope you all are enjoying September so far, I'm sure a bunch of you have found some field time already, I have not, however, that should be changing in the next day or two, so I'm looking forward to that. And when you hear from me next week, I will be on the prairie, Jason Sharptail Grouse and Hungarian Partridge, if all goes according to plan, we've got some great shows coming up for you, including our annual interview with Anne Jandrena as the rough-grouse seasons in the Great Lakes kickoff this weekend. So stay tuned for that, best of luck to you all on your upcoming hunts and keep on enjoying the best time of year. Today, we are talking to Tony Jones, aka the Reverend Hunter and author of The God of Wild Places, Tony's latest book, one that we will discuss and reflect on in today's conversation. I had a great time catching up with Tony, he is a fellow Minnesota guy who I was aware of, but had not yet had a chance to connect with him, cross paths, and we have plenty in common and plenty to discuss, I really appreciate Tony's perspective on hunting and the outdoors, which you will learn a little bit about how he came to it all. And if you read the book, you will gain a lot more insight into Tony's thoughts, perspective and introspection, which I encourage you to read if you are interested in that sort of thing, links to Tony's website and places you can pick up a copy of The God of Wild Places in the show notes. You know where to find it. With that said, let's welcome into the conversation and onto the Birdshot podcast, Tony Jones. Well, I see I look behind you and see you got a dog looking out the window. Oh, can you see that? Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, that's Rose. Yeah, we're going to talk. We're going to talk bird dogs today. That's that's my long tailed pointing dog. Okay. Is yours nearby? Yeah, he's my yellow lab. He's upstairs somewhere and then I'm I'm dog sitting a black lab that's owned by my niece while she's on her honeymoon. So yeah, yeah, we've got a couple of labs and then my wife has a little rescue Chihuahua mix, something or other. Yeah. Well, if the dogs they keep us busy, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, welcome to the show, Tony. It's as we were just chatting a minute ago. You and I have really never had the chance to connect, but we have many mutual contacts and friends. We're both Minnesota guys and we're even both cake eaters in our own way. So it's great to have you on the show, buddy. Oh, yeah. It's great to be here. And yeah, like I told you before, we started recording. I have a great affinity for Duluth East because one of my first friends in college was a greyhound and we ended up being the I was the play by play guy and he was the color commentator for men's hockey on the radio at our college. Oh, really? We knew more. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a funny story that we walked in like during freshman orientation week to the college radio station. We're like, hey, we'd like to call some hockey games on the radio. And they're like, oh, you're, you know, freshmen, you know, here, you come to some games, we'll give you a tape recorder. You can practice a little bit and maybe by, you know, sophomore or junior year, we'll let you call some games on the radio. And really, this is how it went. And the guy is like, by the way, you know, where are you from? And I said, well, I'm from Edina, Minnesota. And Pete says, well, I'm from Duluth, Minnesota. And the guy goes, hey, can you guys go call the Princeton Army series next weekend? We'll give you all the gear in a truck. So we were thrown into the deep end of the pool as soon as we, as soon as we revealed where we came from, they're like, well, you know more about hockey than anybody who calls the games on the radio. So it's all yours. And then I did it for the next four years. It was a ton of fun. Yeah. Did you really? That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of hockey tones, but I mean, we'll get a few eye rolls for this. But is there anything better than when Duluth East and the Adina Hornets meet in the state tournament? No, that's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, the Hornets keep rolling, man. We, I don't know, every three, four years they hang another banner from the rafters at Bremar Arena. So you obviously didn't stick with the, uh, with the play by play announcing for, for the, you know, like, uh, when I, when I, when I, when I was a senior in college, I actually sent my resume, you know, out to like ESPN. And this is in, you know, this is in the spring of 1990, uh, sent it out to ESPN and I don't think Fox sports even existed yet. I don't know who else I, I sent it out to a few minor league hockey teams and, you know, never, never heard back from a single one and ended up going to seminary and, and you've read the book. So you know that the, the, the path my life took after that. But yeah, there's, there are a couple alternative universes in one. I'm a, you know, I'm a hockey play by play guy and another some, in some other alternate universe somewhere. I'm a major league baseball umpire. Love it. Yeah. Yeah. I got a few of those myself, I think, but, uh, I'm living this one. Yeah. I mean, what are you going to do? Maybe I'll meet those alternate Tony Jones is somewhere, uh, uh, somewhere down the road. Yeah. So we're, we're, you were the play by play guy, not the color commentator. I was a play by a play guy and a big goal call. I didn't, uh, I mean, I don't think I, you know, he shoots, he scores, there's no, there's nobody, uh, it's not like a home run calling in hockey, you know, and of course doc Emric was not yet on the scene. So it wasn't people weren't trying to like, uh, compete with his incredible vocabulary. I thought I did a pretty good job. And, um, the, the nice thing for me was, uh, in it went, when I did away games, I not only was the play by play guy on the radio, but I also was writing up, I wrote the stories for the, the college newspaper about the games. So on occasion in a really boring game, I would make up a fight on the radio. I would just make it up and I would start screaming. There's blood on the ice. There's blood on the ice. And then, you know, then I would kind of write that into the story in the paper, uh, that would appear, you know, the next day in the school newspaper about the, the fight. And it was always funny because there were never fights. I mean, this is ECAC hockey, uh, so it's East, you know, it's, it's East Coast hockey. It's a little lighter than what people are you probably used to and the gophers play North Dakota or something or UMD plays North Dakota, you know, uh, those are a little more rough and tumble type games. Um, so I, I would, yeah, and the players always thought that was hilarious because the only people who knew that I wasn't telling the truth were the other people who are, you know, got some Sunday afternoon game at Brown or Yale, you know, nobody was, these were, it was like kind of crickets and some of those arenas. So yeah, I had a lot of fun with it. That is, that's pretty funny. I've never gone down a deep rabbit hole thinking about the freedom and flexibility that a radio announcer might have, but, but there you, there you have it. Yeah. Well, these days you couldn't get away with it. You know, you couldn't get away with this kind of stuff we got away with now, but because everything's on, you know, everything's streamed, every game is televised. Uh, in fact, sadly my, my kid went to the same college and they don't even, uh, ESPN bought all the rights for broadcasting every single sport at that college. So there's no more student radio station and there's no more student broadcasting. Yeah. It's, it's kind of a tragic deal, but times change. What are you going to do? Right. Right. Yes. Indeed. Well, man, I still, I think I still have kind of the chills. Just thinking about the, uh, your near miss on, on Lake of the woods, the opening chapter of the book. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Man, well, yeah. Bring me back to that. Was that your first? Yeah. Was that your first hunt? Yeah. Yeah, man. That was my first ever hunt. I mean, I had been to the horse and hunt club with my uncle a couple of times when I was in high school, you know, but you know, that's, that's a deal. Yep. That's different. That's, that, that's more like a video game than an actual hunt and yeah, I got invited to, to go on this hunt and I always knew even 10 or 12 years ago, when I first came up with the idea for this book, that that story was going to kind of be a cornerstone to the book because it was, it, it, it had such a huge effect on me, um, it, it changed me, you know, and it's stuck with me. I mean, how many things do we do in our lives that we forget or are somewhere deep in our, the recesses of our memories that we can't even access or something like that? But there was this, this duck hunt with this guy, I was a pastor at the time and was, and he, after I, as I, as I recount the book, after I had this really inappropriate explosion of rage at a committee meeting at church, um, this guy, Doug kind of took me under his wing, um, encouraged me to get into an anger management class, which I did and invited me to go hunting with him. And he took me into the very north reaches of Lake of the Woods, which I knew nothing about, you know, I didn't grow up in an outdoors family. I wasn't one of these guys who grew up walleye fishing on Lake of the Woods. I mean, I knew Lake of the Woods existed, of course, sure, but I'd never been there. I didn't know, I didn't know that it covers 1600 and 79 square miles. I didn't know that it has 12,000 islands. You know, it, when you start to think of the immensity of Lake of the Woods, um, especially when you get up into the northern reaches of it, it's really, um, it's, it's a breathtaking body of water. And so he took me duck hunting there and it was like really, it was a little bit like, uh, you know, calling a hockey game with no experience in college on the radio. I got thrown into the deep end of the pool, um, of duck hunting. And it was, it was absolutely mesmerizing, you know, it just, it changed my life, uh, that experience of being in that lake with, uh, duck hunting. And, and yeah, the, the story you're, you're alluding to, um, it was on, on a, on a ride home to his back to his cabin in a duck boat, a storm had come in, fog had settled. He had no GPS. He, he just navigated this lake by memory and, uh, we got lost in the middle of this storm. It was, it was a very, very frightening night, um, because we were probably two or three hours from his cabin by duck boat, you know, um, and we had no cell phone. I mean, this was, this is, you know, this is, um, 1999 or something. And well, we got out of it, but I just had this moment of peace and calm. I lived as I recount the book. I, I was in a very toxic marriage. I was very angry person. I did not have peace in my life, even though I was a pastor and I was preaching about peace, you know, on a regular basis. Um, I was masking the, the truth, which was that I, I was not a peaceful person. Not in a peaceful family situation. And I had this piece, I mean, it's almost biblical, like I found this piece in the middle of a storm, you know, and it's, it's stuck with me for many, many years. I didn't go back hunting for many years, but I always had this pull toward hunting because of, I think because of that experience on that night. Yeah. It really was just a, uh, I think as we talked about it at the beginning, you know, times have changed. And of course, yeah, now we've got, we've got our onyx maps and our GPS. And I'm not much of a fisherman anymore, although I love to fish and I've, I've done a good bit of fishing in Ontario and lakes, lakes like that. Um, I can't really imagine the, what kind of electronics and stuff are in the fishing boats today, but, but to think that you're out there navigating that kind of a lake, you know, covering that sort of distance in the dark, you know, on the, on the, you know, in front of a storm and, and things are obviously going down. I mean, it was just, I think I, it was unsettling to even think about being in that situation. Yeah. Yeah. And I, it was just one of those, you know, stories, there are several stories like that in the book where I wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it and kept trying to get it just right. I felt like the words on the page were an accurate representation of my experience, um, my experience that night. So yeah. And I'm, you know, this, um, four or five days from, from this recording, from you and me having this conversation, I'll be, um, paddling into the boundary waters and with a group of guys. And I, to this day, don't, you know, we don't, I don't bring a GPS. I'm a map and compass guy. Um, I, you know, you paddle by guys with all the electronics and the forward facing sonar on their canoe, you know, I'm just like, I don't know, uh, no, that's just not the way I'm ever going to approach my time in the wilderness is with that kind of gear and I'm not a guy who wears a GoPro on my hat on every hunt and trying to create content. I get that. I mean, I appreciate the guys who do it. I watch their videos. I find it interesting at like watching those, you know, watching their hunts during the off season on YouTube or something kind of keeps me fired up for for hunting season. But yeah, I mean, I'm I guess I'm I'm 56 and more and more as time goes on. I just feel like I'm like, I maybe I'm just like a. Ink on paper guy. I like I still read the newspaper old school and yeah. So that's how I'm good with that. I was thinking about newspapers. The other you get one delivered to your house every day. The Sunday we get to Sunday. We don't do it. We used to have it every day and we just were like, I would spend an hour and a half every morning reading the paper and I'm like, I need that. I need that time to. Write and garden and train my dog and do all the other stuff I want to do. So just the Sunday paper and that's like a thing my wife and I do every Sunday. Yeah. Yeah, I could get behind that. I was actually just. I was. I don't know what set me off on this path, but something about newspapers and I was thinking and. I mean, I'm 38 years old. So I mean, I remember paper boys and deliveries and my dad was a paper and he was a kid a long, long time ago. But anyways, that the point is the. It's it's crazy. I mean, I finding sort of your relationship with technology in the outdoors. Like we've just we exist in this world where things have changed so dramatically and hasn't taken that long. You know, I think about mentioning the boundary water. My last couple trips to the boundary waters were really this. I went back to back labor days with some college buddies. So this is a while ago, but at that time, nobody was. We weren't mapping on our phones or looking at Google Maps or anything like that. It was paper maps and that's really not that long ago. And right now you have, you know, again, the GoPro and, you know, I've experimented with all this stuff and trying to try to maintain this balance of, you know, is this intruding on my experience? Why am I here? You know, we've sort of all faced with those things and everybody, of course, is going to come up with their own way to do it. But yeah, I appreciate that. How many trips to the my trips to the boundary waters have you done this summer? Oh, oh, this will be my third. But I did, I did a couple day trips. I did a day trip in with Joe Friedrichs of the paddling portage, those paddling portage guys. I don't know if you follow them, but they're a great follow. They're out of Grand Marais and they have got a great podcast. And then the other time I went in up by Ealy to Basswood with my buddy Timo Rova and we had, you know, that is like just a legendary fishing lake. And it's one of those deals where you can motorize boats in. You got to have portage wheels and roll your boat over the portages. I've never done that before. So that was a great experience and got to take my 19 year old son within there with me. So those were day trips. And then this trip will go in at the end of the gun flint trail and do a big loop going on big sag and come out on seagull about five days later. Do they still do the little Jeep, Jeep buggy portage where they'll they'll tow your boat over to Basswood because I have done that before. You know, I, yes, I heard about that, but we, I don't know if they still do that because, but we had these portage wheels, you know, that like ride in the boat and then you put them under the boat and you like push slash pull the boat over these portages. Yeah, so I'd never done that before. But then there's these other boats where the portage wheels are like built onto the back and they kind of stick up out of the back. So I guess there's some guy and Ealy, some welder who makes the, you know, you bring him your boat and he attaches portage wheels to him. But the guys who do that, who do those Basswood day trips. I mean, they have it locked in. You know what I mean? They, they, they know what time to leave the house and they go and they do, you know, they, they've got the whole thing. They do it multiple times a year and they go in there and they hammer walleye. And yeah, we, I mean, our fishing day wasn't the greatest, but still fantastic, you know. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, just talk about, yeah, kind of, kind of epic lakes. I mean, that's, that's one of them. I, I spent a little bit of time on there, not enough time to, to really do any damage on the, on the fishing, but, but we've caught some. That's a, that's a big body of water. Yeah. What do they, they're, they're like, Tony, this is a meat factory, this lake. So, yeah, we had a lot of fun, but my kid is crazy about bass fishing. I mean, if it were up to him, he would, all he would do is fish. Smallies on topwater lures all day. So the fact that he could just, I mean, those smallies were still hitting topwater lures at high noon, you know, and he's just like, I've never seen this before. Usually it's dawn and dusk. So just to see, to be out there and have a kid who my kid, that of my three kids, he's the one who's really ravenous about the outdoors in the same way that I am, just to see him with a grin from ear to ear because he's, you know, hammering bass and then it's time to go because it's like a two hour commute back to Italy between motoring back and then the portage and then loading the boat in there, like the sucker, like chain, basically. Yeah, I can't remember the name of the lake we put in that, but yeah, it's like moose something. Yes, too long. There were too long portages that used to, you know, these guys are telling me, oh, when I was a kid, my dad used to drive his Lincoln Continental up in here in the winter and we drive over this portage and we'd drive across the lake and we'd ice fish. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Yeah, so, you know, to experience it through him and the excitement and then when it's time to go, he's like, no, I don't want to leave yet. We'll be back. We'll be back. So that's, it was a lot of fun and, yeah, you know, some people are like, you drove all the way to Italy so you could go one day and fish and I'm like, no, you don't say no when you get invited on one of these. A guy has a day pass for a motorized boat into basswood. You're like, and he invites you and your kid, you say yes, and you just make it work, you know, so that's what we did. You just go. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Do you still do it? And maybe this is what you're about, the guided, guided trips where you're taking groups into the VWCA? Yes, that's what I'm doing next week and we'll let's just use that. Let's just not call it officially. I'm not officially a guide as far as the US Forest Service is concerned. You know what I mean? I mean, I'm like taking in some buddies. There is a protocol for being a guide in the boundary waters that includes a million dollar liability insurance policy. And so I'm not really doing it that I'm not doing it for money or, but I lead trips of guys like, so this trip is interesting because it's a guy who's gone in the boundary waters with me several times before. And he's in a certain anonymous 12 step recovery fellowship. And he, so he was like, I would love to do a trip just with guys who are in recovery and we'd have like a 12 step meeting around the campfire every night. So that's what we're doing. So for the first time in memory, I will be going to the boundary waters without a flask of whiskey in my bag out of respect for these guys who are in recovery, you know, but it should be really fun, fun trip. For many upland hunters, along with their passion for dogs, birds, and the places we chase them comes a passion for shotguns. Upland Gun Company specializes in customizing shotguns for the Upland Bird Hunter imported from Italy and shipped direct to an FFL near you. Select from one of their side by side are over under shotgun platforms and customize the fit function and aesthetics to your liking, design and build your next Upland hunting shotgun with Upland Gun Company today. Visit Upland Gun Company.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Marshware Clothing, where style meets adventure, whether you're hiking your bird dogs through the field or strolling the streets around town. Marshware Clothing has you covered with premium quality, coastal inspired apparel. 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The reason I asked about that is because it was mentioned in the book that you would sort of lead groups in there. I just kind of feel like it's one of these places. I have an affinity for the boundary waters. I love it. I've been in it. I've been around it more. But I haven't been there in a long time. It just kind of got the wheels turning in my head. Like I wonder if there's like a groups or something, you know, it could just go tailing along with somebody. Oh, no, every summer. Yeah. No, I'd love to have you. First of all, it's crazy. You can like spit and hit the boundary waters from your out your window there. So that's shame on you, man. You got to get out there. But yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I would love to have you. I used to kind of advertise on my website, "Hey, anybody want to go to the boundary waters with me?" And I don't even really do that anymore because I have so many people just reaching out to me and saying, "Hey, can I put together a group and will you kind of take us in?" Because yeah, I can be intimidating for people who haven't done it before. But yeah, I'd love to go in there with you anytime. And dude, you know what you should do is go up in there and grouse hunt. Yes. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's been suggested many, many times. I could absolutely get behind the idea. I almost did it one time with some, actually the guys from the flush were going up there. I don't know that they actually ended up going in there. They went with a friend of mine. But anyways, yeah, I mean, that would be, that would be very, I've always, you know, as I'm sitting in my house in the depths of winter dreaming about like, Oh, looking at the wildfires, you know, where have the wildfires been, you know, 10 years ago to go up there and to hit some of those covers. And yeah, but then inevitably I get thinking about logistics of dogs and all the, all of the things, you know, and then I just go hunt. No, you're right. There's more logistics for sure than just putting your dog in your truck and driving out to some public land and walking, logging roads for grouse, for sure. And I'm fortunate that my dog, I mean, look, as I write in the book, you know, I run labs because I love to duck hunt and I do a lot of pheasant hunting and really thick cover in South Dakota. So I just, and I just love labs. I just think they're just a great all around dog. I've never had pointers. I hunt with a lot of other guys who have pointers, but I'm a lab guy. So they're not ideal for grouse. I get that and it's with any breed of dog, right? It's a give and take. Like you're going to have, you're going to have some types of hunting that your dog is just perfect for and other parts that are really a challenge. And grouse hunting is a challenge with a flushing dog. But he's a great canoe, like my dog is a great canoe dog. He's very calm in the canoe and very steady. So that makes it a little bit easier to do something like that. And yeah, there's certain places. I mean, I remember last year we were at a campsite on Alpine lake and every time somebody went to sit on the biffy, there was a rough grouse sitting on a branch like 10 yards away just watching you as you did your business on the biffy. It's a grouse sitting there. And that, like you say, I mean, that's a place where they'd had a blow down followed by a fire like 10, 15 years ago. So it's just ideal, ideal grouse habitat full of, you know, a 10 year old Aspen stand and it's pretty sweet. Yeah, no, that's, that's cool. To your point, there would, dear, there are bigger reasons to go grouse hunting up there than getting bogged down with logistics. That's not the same as me just going out for an afternoon hunter out here. So I could definitely get behind it. Actually, it's funny. You mentioned that the last time I was in the boundary waters. I don't even remember where we were, but we were camping on an island that was a decent sized island like it would probably take you. I don't know. If there was a trail, like you could probably walk around it in 15 minutes. It wasn't very big, but it was a, it was an island. And there were grouse on that island. And I just remember going down this, like thinking of like, yeah, did they fly out here in the winter? Like, how did they end up here? Right. I mean, that's the question for me too. Wasn't that big of an island? Yeah. Right. Do they fly between islands or is this like this grouse spends its entire life on this island? And it eats and it breathes and it dies on this island. Yeah, that would be a fascinating conversation to have with a wildlife biologist. Yeah, no doubt. Circling back a little bit to kind of the, in some of the origins in the book, there was a unique piece of family history in, how do you say, is it Machno? Yeah. Machno Jones. Okay. So that's your great, great grandfather or something? Great, great grandfather. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. The, the bit about him having an encounter with Frank and Jesse James. Jesse James. How did you, is that like, is that like family history? Like, how did you uncover that? How did you research that? Yeah, that's a good question. And it wasn't even a story I knew. It wasn't a story my dad or my grandfather told. But I was doing some research and I reached out to some distant relatives by email and, you know, it's funny. I think I had, I think I tweeted back, back, back before Twitter was a dumpster fire of a website when it was actually a helpful website. I think I tweeted something like a thread about what Machno, because I had been doing some family research or whatever. And it's, it's a unique name, you know, so it came across the, the, it came across to some of my relatives. Very, very distant relatives, including one in Wales and somebody else in Northern Minnesota and somebody else somewhere else in the world who reached out to me all individually. And I kind of put these three guys in, in like a group email where the four of us and started writing, well, here's what I found out about this ancestor of mine and, and we shared this ancestor, you know, and, and so other guys were like, oh, this is what my aunt told me. And then I found this old book that's, that's like called the Welsh in Minnesota and it was published in, I don't know, 18 or something. And there's a entry in there about my great, great grandfather. And then, yeah, I came across, it was, it was written down by another relative, the, the story that he was, he was a preacher. And he was on his way to church one day, walking, he had like a quarter mile walk from his homestead to where the church building was and these two rough looking dudes come up to him on horseback and ask him to preach a sermon to them. He's, they say, are you a, are you a, you know, are you a preacher? Yeah, will you preach us a sermon? So he stands there on the ground in the middle of a farm field in, you know, blue township in southwestern Minnesota and preach as a sermon to these guys on horseback. He finishes his little sermon to them. They offer him money. He refuses. And, you know, off they gallop on their horses. And he realizes later, maybe when he reads the man Cato newspaper, you know, on Monday or something, that that's Frank and Jesse James who had had their botched robbery attempt in Northfield, Minnesota on Thursday. So it's three days later and they're heading west. You know, they're the only two guys who got away from that, the big Northfield bank robbery of the James younger gang. Everybody, everybody else was captured or killed. They got away. And, you know, according to my great, great grandfather, he preached him a little sermon on horseback Sunday morning on his way to church as wild. Yeah, it's kind of a fun story and hadn't had, wouldn't have known it had I not been researching this for the book. And, you know, the whole reason I put that section about my great, great grandfather in the book is because when I decided to become a clergyman, my dad was so proud because he'd had this very patriarchal figure in his family who had been a Welsh Presbyterian minister in southern Minnesota. So he was like, Oh, you know, he'd always tell me, Oh, you grandpa mock. No, he was a, he was also a clergyman. I don't know that I was aware that the, is that bank robbery? That's like, that's like a key part of the younger James story. Like, would that have been in the movie? Like the assassination of Jesse James? Like, I didn't know that was in Northfield, Minnesota, I guess. Yeah, very famous every year in Northfield, they reenact it on the day of when it happened. Yeah, they still to this day and they, you know, they've got actors to people who live in Northfield do it every year and you know they come out of the bank guns blazing and really, I mean, the story of it is that Frank and Jesse James and the younger guys, this band of outlaws who are bank robbers, they rolled into Northfield, Minnesota, basically thinking that all these Scandinavian blockheads would just roll over. You know, they thought, Oh, this is going to be one of the easiest bank robberies we'll ever have because these guys are just a bunch of Norwegian and Swedish farmers in this little town in southern Minnesota. This will be no problem for us to knock over this bank. And the citizens of Northfield fought back. I mean, and the James younger gang was caught completely off guard. And yeah, that kind of ended their crime spree because it was their last big robbery attempt and it went sideways and those two guys got away, but nobody else did. And the, you know, the people of Northfield became like heroes around the country because they'd be, yeah, they'd been the first, they'd finally the James younger gang had been stopped from robbing a bank. Unbelievable. I'm, I'm kind of surprised at that just that bit of Minnesota history has not has sort of evaded me. Well, I mean, you're, you're, yeah, not the other. If you grew up in southern Minnesota, maybe you would have learned that, but you're up North. You guys probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about us down in the cities and fart fart from that. Yeah. Yeah, the 612 or is right. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. So you go on the duck hunt till Lake of the Woods and, and then you go away from hunting and how do you eventually find, find your way back. I'm sure it's detailed in the book, but, but I'm curious what, what sort of brought you back to hunting and then where did the bird dogs enter your life. Yeah, well, I probably went on that duck hunt when I was about 30. I was a youth pastor. And I think all I can say now is I think it planted a seed in me. A taste for it, you know. But my life took a different path. It included like I left being a pastor in 2003, went to Princeton to get a PhD in theology took my family with me, hoping that that kind of getting some distance from our families and stuff. And from me being a pastor would maybe help my marriage out. It didn't help my marriage. So by 10 years after that dunk hunt in, you know, 2003. So, so, you know, in, I don't know, 20. Well, 2008. Let's see. Sorry. That duck hunt was in like I said, what 99. So yeah, 10 years later, 2008, 2009, I was filing for divorce. Very, very contentious divorce. And then followed a few years after that with a big custody fight. And those two events, the divorce and then a custody thing really tore my life apart. I, you know, all the things, all the things you hear worst, worst divorce ever, you know, two different judges actually in Hennepin County, looked down from the bench and said, this is, I think, the worst divorce I've ever seen. And these were not, these were not inexperienced judges. You know, it was ugly. It was super ugly. And in, in it also spilled out onto the internet, which pretty much destroyed my career as a pastor and kind of a semi celebrity preacher and theologian and Christian author. So I got, you know, foreclosed on. I lost my house. I barely saw my kids for a while till I ended up getting custody of them. I got full custody of my kids ultimately, but for a stretch there. It was super lonely, you know, and I, that's, Nick, that's when I started hunting again. You know, I had this seed planted in the, these cup going up to lake the woods a couple times with Doug and, and duck hunting. And he'd taken me once out to South Dakota to Pheasant Hunt. And I had a dog in that marriage, who I write about my, and I, you know, I just even heard on your last episode, you talked about this kind of how you like measure your adult life by your different. Gun dogs that you have, which I think is a pretty common, pretty common deal. And there's a great Jim Harrison quote at the very end of the acknowledgments in my book that is where Jim Harrison like wrote that exact thing. Like, you basically measure, it's like, he left a lot of books behind, but his life was measured by the, by the gun dog, by the, you know, the hunting dogs who'd lived and died with him. Those were the, and those are the chapters of my life. And that first dog was not a hunting dog. I mean, maybe he went to the horse and hunt a couple times. But, and he kind of learned to hunt toward the end of his life a little bit. But then, right during, right, like during probably the lowest time, I'd started dating Courtney, who's my wife now, she lived in Texas. And she, I'd heard about a dog at a breeder in Menominee, Wisconsin, a family friend. And this dog Albert had been returned. It was a one year old lab who'd been returned to the, to the breeder, you know, and he was looking to get rid of the dog. And I think it was 400, I think Albert was 425 bucks. And I'm not kidding. Like, I'm, I'm at the time, I don't know, 40 years old. I do not have 425 bucks to eat to, for a dog. And then there was a check in the mail from Courtney who lived in Texas and we just been dating long distance a little bit for 425 bucks. And I drove to Menominee and I bought that dog. And then Albert became my hunting companion for the next 10 years as I kind of rebuilt my life. And not only rebuilt my life, like ultimately got custody of my kids, bought a house, got, you know, professionally kind of stable again. Got remarried, got married to Courtney and rebuilt rebuilt my life that way. But also this passion for hunting was really planted during those 10 years because it was just one of the things that I could do that got me away from all the drama of, of my personal life. And all the drama of like court dates and child custody evaluations and meeting with guardians at Lightham and taking my kids to therapy and having school conferences with their teacher, all the stuff that I had to constantly deal with at home. And I went out hunting with, with Albert, the dog, my yellow lab, all that stuff faded away, you know what I mean? And I found that whether I was duck hunting or pheasant hunting or grouse hunting, it demanded my full concentration and I was pulled away from all the drama. I was just focused for a few hours, just on me and the dog and being in the wilderness. And man, I mean, I bet I'm sure you can relate to this. I'm sure almost all your listeners can relate to this. That was just like, it was so healing for me to be out there. And it was exactly what I needed. And frankly, as the, as I write about in the book, it healed me and healed my soul in ways that the church didn't. And that's not, I'm not disparaging the church or people who go to church. But for me, as somebody who'd been like kind of a celebrity pastor, I was not well cared for by the church and hunting became my like spiritual pursuit. Yeah. Hence the God of Wild Places, the book. Right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I'm telling you, I mean, I appreciate that. I did look up the, I grabbed the book here and I got to read it because it's, it is really good. And yeah, I mean, I was, as I was reviewing your book, this morning, actually, I think I came, I came across that passage again where you were describing how you kind of measure, you know, your, your life is chapters, these chapters of the different dogs you have. And I immediately thought of George, the interview that, that went up this morning. But yeah, he, yeah, Jim, the quote from Jim Harrison, he leaves a trail of books, but he really marks the passage of time by the series of hunting dogs. He's left behind. It's literally the last like words of text in your book in the acknowledgement section. So, very fitting. Thrilled to let Jim Harrison have the last word in my book. Yes. Yeah. But again, you, you, you, you obviously have a unique perspective in someone that you were in the church, you were part of the church. And you went through these things and you've now sort of found your piece and, and other things in, in the outdoors. And I, anyone that reads the book, the God of Wild Places will, will, will pick up on that. And to say it was thought provoking would be an understatement. I mean, as I, as I read through the book, I have a young family, a wife, two kids. And, and just, it was a reminder of like how you build this thing up, right? This life and you do these things and you make these choices and, and how fragile it all could be. And, and these types of things happen to anybody. Yeah, it was, there were, there were many parts in the book that kind of stopped me and my tracks and, and just had to sit there and think. I mean, that was probably, probably what I did the most as I was reading through it. That's, that's super gratifying to hear. I mean, I, yeah, even this summer, even though I, I, I'm not actively a pastor anymore, of course, because I'm like the ordained clergyman of the family, I get called on to do certain duties. And this summer, I officiated the funeral for my 41 year old cousin, who died of cancer and left behind a eight year old and a six year old. And then a month later, I performed the wedding of my niece and her husband now. And they're 26, 27. Yeah, man, you just, I, I'm performing their wedding, you know, and everything to them. They look and they see just like a straight road ahead of them, you know, with no, no twists, no bumps in the road. Nothing. It's like, yeah. And I know that I remember that feeling when I got married when I was 29 thinking like, oh man, everything is exactly like it should be and got the house and got the job and going to have the kids and do all the things and then you just don't know. There's, you know, anybody who's listening to this who's in their 50s or 60s, it's like, yeah, life, life comes with tragedy, like life comes with pain. That's, that is part of the deal. And, yeah, yeah, so you're right. It's your young man, just wait, all the tragedy is still in your future. Yeah, yeah, there, there are as much as you, I might try to go through each day, not thinking about that sort of things. With each passing day, you know, you kind of have that realization that there are, there are things that will begin to happen in my life that I haven't had to deal with a lot. And you see those things in your family and your network and I've been lucky, fortunate to thus far to not have a lot of that. But again, I think, you know, you could speak to this, but I mean, that is part of life. It's a, it's a central theme, your book there, there will be loss, there will be heartache struggle, failure, all of it. We all experienced that one. Yeah, there's one scene in the book where it opens a chapter. And there's a bunch of guys standing around some switchgrass in a little plot of CRP, like kind of a postage stamp of CRP in the middle of a cornfield. And I just, in the book, I just go around the circle. And, you know, one guy is divorced and remarried and went through a lot of pain in that. Another guy is single and kind of hurting and lonely. And another guy is like fighting for custody of his kids and another guy has had cancer twice and another guy. There's me who's been through my thing and then there's my kid, whose parents got divorced when he was three, you know, and has been in therapy for years to deal with that, what that means in his life. And I'm like, these are, you know, every one of us, where these apex predators with guns in our hand trying to find some pheasants in switchgrass, but each one of us is a wounded, broken predator, you know, like we've all had our own suffering. And yeah, that's, I mean, that's life. And that's, frankly, one of the things I like about hunting. As I write in the book, a lot about it is that it reminds me of my own mortality that I, you know, my life, my time here is finite, that I'm flesh and bone and blood and like these creatures I'm chasing and hunting and eating. I'm part of this whole, you know, I'm part of the whole mix with them. And I, it's, it's what it's really done, frankly, is it has disabused me of the dualism that I had grown up with in the Christian church, which is like, yeah, yeah, we're bodies, but I mean, what really matters is your soul, your immaterial soul. And it turns out that that's not really necessarily a Christian idea that's more comes from Plato and, and Hellenistic philosophy. And in hunting, I think it breaks down that dualism. It's just like, no, we're, we're this unified being of body and spirit. We're not separate the two. And we're just, yeah, like you use the word fragile, you know, frankly, we're, we, we walk around like we're not, but we're just as fragile as one of those white tail deer or one of those walleyes or one of those pheasants that we're chasing. Yeah, absolutely. For anybody that hasn't read the book is interested in the book. I think that, that is, it's very introspective in that way. You ask a lot of questions sort of of yourself and of the reader. And, and I appreciated that again. This is a, this is a different addition to my library of outdoor related books, but, but I'm very glad it found its way under my bookshelf and it's, I think anybody that's been hunting a long time. Maybe not anybody, but I know as I have done, I started when I was very young. So I started when I was 10 and I was kind of smiling listening to or reading a rereading a passage in your book where you're talking about, you know, when you're a kid, you know, you think nothing of, of pulling a bluegill out of the lake and all the, the hook is buried down deep and I'll get the hook out and I'll throw it. And we were at my cabin a couple of weekends ago and my kids have taken to fishing. My kids are six and three. And I am like, as much as I used to catch bluegills and really not think twice about it. I'm like, I'm, I'm struggling right now. Like, I'm taking all the barbs off the hooks of, of my kids hooks and just, if we don't get, we don't set the hook fast enough and a bluegill gets it buried. I'm just like, it's like affecting me in these weird ways and I'm, I'm trying to like, yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to like diminish my kids experience like I came to all these things over a, over a long period of time. But it's this weird thing that I'm, we fed a bluegill to the eagle last week and it was kind of cool, I guess, because it happened right there in front of us. But there are many things like that in the outdoors and things that I continue to new things that I question each year and things affect me in a different way when I'm holding a dead grouse in my hand versus Nick holding that same dead grouse in his hand 20 years ago. It's just, I think we all, we all think about those things. Man, I love it. I love to hear that, Nick. Honestly, because I think, I mean, at, at like a bigger, like 30,000 foot level, I think the future of hunting and fishing needs to be that needs to be a lot more of those of us who are invested in that in the kill and the mortality of the animal and the sacred connection that we have to those animals that we're killing and eating and we're taking into our own bodies and that we're serving to our families. I, you know, I've many times disparaged the outdoors TV shows that are like guys growing big bucks on their food plots and then whisper, whisper, whisper, bang, high fives, high fives, oh my God, oh my God, and then the grip and grin, you know, shot. That I think is, that's not what the hunt is about for me. The hunt is much more about a sacred connection with all these animals with whom we share the planet. And then also the truth that I eat, I'm a meat eater, and so I want to be involved in the meat that I'm eating, be it a white tail deer or, you know, a tiny little woodcock breast, you know, I want to, I want to respect that life. And so I think what you're experiencing even like yanking a hook out of a bluegill, now that you have kids that I think that's a pretty common experience that it's becomes a bit more poignant. And I think as we age, we probably become more a cognizant of our connection to those other critters, and we don't take that for granted. Especially when you, when you have little kids and you realize the fragility of those, of those little creatures and how your job is to try to, you know, I used to have a phrase keep them alive till they're five, because they're just like, constantly trying to kill themselves doing, you know, stupid stuff or whatever. Yes, it's, I think that's a part of aging and, and, and I think it's so important to be aware of it like I say be cognizant of it. And for those of us who hunt and fish, I think we can add, if we're more, I mean, these, these seem like kind of like new agey type jargon or whatever, but if we can be more mindful of those lives that we're taking and consuming. It will make us, frankly, better stewards, better conservationists, better environmentalists will care more about these, this planet that we co inhabit with all these other critters. Yeah. Yep. I certainly appreciate that. And it's, for me, it's just something that it's, I'm like an observer of myself, which is good in many ways. And I continue like each year I continue to observe sort of, I think back on how my love and my passion for grouse hunting specifically started and developed and like really propelled me into just this pursuit, endless pursuit of grouse. And that is still there. But then I have these, I have these other feelings about the grouse and how I go about my hunting and I just, I've found it very interesting just to kind of observe myself and how my thoughts and feelings change any evolve, I guess, would, would be one way to put it because, I mean, my drive to hunt is still there. My love for the birds is no less, but I think about them in different, I think about things maybe deeper than than I did when I was 10 years old, which I think is my natural. Yeah, that's right. I think that's exactly right. And yeah, this is, you know, this book is not a book I could have written when I was 30. I wrote it. I wrote other kinds of books when I was 30. This was a book that took some more maturation, you know, the wine needed to sit in the bottle for a while and become a more complex bouquet for me to write. And it took me a long time. You know, I wrote this book, it took over 10 years. It's my, it's the shortest book I've ever written and it took me 10 years and I cut a lot out of it and a lot of it changed over time. But yeah, I think same. I've, I'm a few years ahead of you on that journey, but yeah, I'm thinking about things. I'm processing things. I'm, I'm engaging with the ideas of my own mortality in ways that I simply didn't as a younger man. I did find that interesting. I wanted to ask you about that because I don't know that I would have known that, but I heard it as you were chatting with my, our mutual friend Mike Nadeske on his podcast that it took you 10 years to write the book. I'm kind of curious like, what was the, first of all, what was the inspiration or motive sparked to write the book and then if at all did that sort of change over that 10 years, like how did your, how did your idea and thoughts on the book change over that time period. Yeah, well it changed a lot. I mean, I looked back and I think I first pitched this idea to my literary agent like 12 years ago or something like that. And she was, you know, open to the idea and so we kind of fiddled around with it a little bit, but it wasn't so much a memoir. It was more like how to find God in the wilderness, you know, this kind of thing. And so I just started writing, writing, writing, and then I kind of had a version of the book and she took it out and tried to sell it unsuccessfully for about a year. And then she and I ended up going our own separate ways. I got a new literary agent and he, he was like, let's take a different, let's take a different tack on this book like let's go a different angle with it. And part of it was just because he's like memoir, the market for memoir is real soft right now and it's particularly soft for like memoirs by middle aged white guys who live in Edina. That's not really a great hook for a book. You know what I mean. So he's like, well, let's try to organize it instead of, let's organize it thematically, you know, and so you've already mentioned some of the chapters. The book took on a very different shape. I was able to, you know, I kind of equate it to like, let's say you build a house on a lot and you build a rambler. And then you're like, this, I don't want to live in a rambler. I want to live in a, I want to live in a two story colonial. And so in the next lot over, you start building a colonial and you frame it up the house. You frame up the new house. And then you can go back to the old house and you can be like, well, I think I can still use this sheet rock, you know, and we'll use the same dining room table and stuff like that. So once I've framed it up differently and then I could go back to earlier versions of the manuscript and say like this story fits better in this chapter. This story doesn't fit at all in the book. So that's, that was the, that was kind of the process of writing it and it's, it's a much better book as a result. And as I, I think also is in the acknowledgments somewhere in the book, but Mary Carr, who's just one of the great memoirists alive today, she said you shouldn't write about anything till it's at least eight years in the past. And so I think another part of it was just that a lot of the stuff I was writing about was too close. It was too recent and I had to, um, I had to have more distance from it, frankly. I also had to like, there were earlier iterations of the book that was like I'm going to even like I'm going to settle scores with my ex wife I'm going to air some dirty laundry I'm going to prove to the reader that I was in the right and she was in the wrong. So I had to get all that I had to exercise all that out of my system. And I had to, I mean, this is probably more relevant to your podcast, but I had to figure out how to write about the outdoors, because, you know, you're, you're an outdoors guy in the outdoors industry. I'm sure you read a ton of outdoors writing and there's just, it's very hard to write. I think about a hunt without being cliche. There's, yeah, I mean, hunts aren't that one hunt isn't that different from the next. It's just like one yellow lab isn't that different from the last yellow lab, even though every yellow lab's the greatest dog that ever, you know, it's the I own the greatest dog. I just bear, you know, like how many most, most outdoors magazines are like a do not, they'll even stay on their website like do not send us a story pitch about your dead dog and how your dead dog is the greatest dog that's ever roamed the earth, because every guy thinks his dog is the greatest bird dog of all time. And so to write about my dogs without being cliche, to write about a duck hunt, to write about a pheasant hunt without being cliche, there's a writer, I know, who's writing, I read a lot, and I'm like, okay, he's already said the word shotgun. I'm guessing in the next paragraph, he calls it a scatter gun, and then sure enough, next paragraph, he calls it a scatter gun. You know, it's hard, it's just that's hard. So I had to work and work and work to have the outdoors to have the, and this was a great compliment I got from an editor in New York who read the book at a big publishing house and didn't end up buying it. But he did write the outdoors and hunting scenes are the most fully realized writing in the book. And so I was like, well, that's a great, that's a victory, that's a victory for me if I can, to this guy who's, I mean, I could explain it. But he's like the least hunting guy you could ever imagine. He's like, sure, New York editor, African American gay guy, he's like, I've never even touched a gun before, but I loved your hunting scenes in the book. I'm like, okay, okay, I'm making progress. You know, I'm learning how to write about hunting in ways. So it just, you know, it took a while, it took a while, and I think it's a better book because it took so long, it was at times frustrating. I'm like, is this book ever going to be done? But yeah, that's why I think just so it would be better. I could be a better writer. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. And again, I said it before, you know, thought provoking is the word that comes to mind. And I think we all would have experienced, you know, how your thoughts and feelings about a certain thing or event or what change or, you know, you go and revisit something. And if you journal or something journal, you really get a, which I'm not very good about. I try to be on certain things, especially with my kids. And I think about that. But to go back and reread like how you're thinking and feeling and how much that has changed just just with a little bit of time. I think that was evident. I mean, there, there, there were some, there were some complex patterns of thought. And I would say not just just to blow smoke. But I would would agree that you're the outdoor scenes and events in the books. They were not the kind of things that I was anticipating, like, Oh, and we're going to go over the next rise and there's going to be a flush and I mean, it wasn't about that to be fair, but yeah, but I would. I think you did a good job. If that's what you set out to do, they were not cliche and they were, they were different outdoor scenes and events and depictions. Then, then they were not predictable, if that makes sense. Thanks. Well, I appreciate that. And I, I really immersed myself in great nature writing while I was writing this book. And, you know, I quote some of my writing heroes in the book, but whether it's, you know, Annie Dillard. Or Sigurd Olson or Aldo Leopold or Jim Harrison, whom we quoted about the dogs. I mean, these are writers who went another layer or too deeper. They weren't just like, yeah, exactly. Like, Oh, and then, yeah, we got over. We turned the next corner and wow, four pheasants got up and I shot and I missed and blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, these, they were, they were more looking for the spiritual connections in the outdoors. So I would, a passage like that, I would write and rewrite and rewrite to try to get it as good as I could get it and try to get the reader to be, to be there with me to experience what I was experiencing, not just at the like, what it's like to shoot a bird and have a dog bring it back to you, but like what it, what it does to you, what it does to me. Like the impact it has in my soul or, or the passage about, you know, shooting and wounding a deer, but walking up and having that deer still be alive. You know, it's like you with the fish. It's just, it's a brutal, brutal experience. And it is an experience I never want to get numb to. I never want to get numb to the feelings that I'm killing another animal. And what the panic in that animal's eyes, when I cripple it instead of killing it, I want that, that, I want that feeling, that reality of what that, what that means to me and what that means to my fellow creature, I'm killing. Well, it only seems to be getting more and more real to me. That's, that's been one of my biggest observations over the last, last, yeah, however many hunting seasons, but there were, we're going to wrap up here shortly, but you mentioned a couple writers there. I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to ask you, I think there's some quotes and some, there are some other authors. If anybody is interested in kind of like these, you know, and it could be, it could be in the on the religious side of things. I think there's one author that you mentioned that you really like herself. But again, that thought provoking. Look at the outdoors and our relationship with nature. Anything else come to mind that you'd recommend. Well, there's an epigraph in each chapter, like an opening quote, you know, from another author, and a lot of those, I would say, you know, whether it's John McPhee writing about canoes, or whether it's Jim Harrison writing about hunting dogs. The Christian author, she's not really Christian, she's more of a spiritual author, Barbara Brown Taylor. She endorsed my book and she has, there's a big long quote from her right before the very final chapter. Yeah, so, and of course, like Sigurd Olson, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, some of the giants and Ralph Waldo Emerson, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of different authors, I quote, but there's, there's just some really great outdoors writing. Edward Abbey is another one who comes to mind but there's some really great outdoors writing out there for people who are into it. And, and I would encourage any of your listeners who to pursue that, and not to get hung up but like I've read enough stories in enough outdoors magazines or the outdoor section of the newspaper it all kind of sounds starts to sound the same. I think if you dig a little deeper and find some of those truly great writers, you'll be pleasantly surprised at the kind of spiritual depths that they plumb as they're doing their writing, and that was the kind of writing I wanted to do I don't know if I pulled it off but that's what I was trying to do and there's a great, frankly, it's funny because, you know, in the conservation outdoors industry area, I mean, in that sphere right now there's kind of probably a little bit like yeah we don't, we don't do religion, you know, like, we don't do politics, we don't do religion that stuff's radioactive, we just like do, we just talk about the outdoors, but the greatest writers in our tradition like the Sigurd Olson who's probably more responsible than anybody for protecting the boundary waters. If you read his books like "Deeply Spiritual Guy" writes openly about it, about God uses the term God, you know, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Jim Harrison, Buddhist guy, Gary Snyder, Buddhist guy, these people were, they're writing about hunting and fishing and the outdoors and saving the outdoors but they're also like deeply connected to their own spirituality and they're unafraid to write about it, so I hope, you know, I don't know, I don't know your listenership that well but they might be like why is, why do you have a spiritual writer, former pastor on a podcast about bird hunting, what kind of gun does he shoot and what size shells does he use or whatever. We'll talk about that but yeah, exactly, yeah, and it's like this is I think the future of conservation, frankly, is connecting to the meaning of life and the meaning of why we do this. And I just loved frankly, I just love to hear that, that as now that you're a dad and as you're getting older, you're like thinking more about that your spiritual connection with that bluegill. I mean that's beautiful, I think, I think that's beautiful and you should pay attention to that and we all should pay attention to that. That doesn't mean we'd like oh I'm going to become a vegetarian, no it's like this is what our ancestors did I had Jim Shockey on my podcast and just like not only like a huge hunting TV rock star guy, but one of the most genuinely beautiful human beings I've ever spoken to And he talked about feeding your ancestral soul like why he hunts is it connects him to his ancestral soul that is the very reasons his ancestors hunted that's why he wants to hunt and now we have to fight for it in the modern world, because it's a lot easier to go to Costco and do a super cheap meat than it is to go out and like load a gun and spend a day in the woods and try to, you know, hunt your own meat. But it does connect us to something that I think we're we're losing. That's well said, man, I cannot avoid the complexity of it and I will continue to observe and pay attention to it because it feels like the right thing to do. Yeah, it is the right thing to do. We are days away from September 1st, I know you got a boundary waters trip coming up that'll be that's this is a beautiful time of year to go to the boundary waters. That's that's going to be a blast but what are you most looking forward to this fall from out from a hunting perspective. Boy, that's so hard. I mean my my my absolute crack cocaine is South Dakota Fazen hunting. I love it. It's just idea late late season South Dakota Fazen hunting is what I'm crazy about. I love pounding cat tails that are covered with snow with a lab and just like feeling sweat dripping down, you know, my back, even though it's 10 degrees outside with 15 mile an hour winds. I just love it. So that's probably, you know, some December January Fazen hunt will be the peak experience. But yeah, I mean, starting on Sunday, I'll be early goose early Canada goose going to bought my $4 tag and I'm going to be out there trying to decrease the goose population. I don't do the early teal because I did that a couple years ago and I shot a wood duck, you know, that was screaming by me and I'm like, Oh, that's a teal bam. And then the dog brings it back. I'm like, I just killed a wood duck and like that's terrible. So I'm against the early teal season. I think it's a bad idea. So I don't participate in that. But early goose and then I'll be out after grouse and hope to do some duck hunting in North Dakota and Northeast Colorado. Do some fly fishing in Southwest Colorado in late October. And then by the time I get back from that big trip, it'll be time for Fazen since South Dakota. That will be my all consuming passion until the end of January with it, not, you know, with probably hopefully a whitetail, one whitetail hunt in there. How about you? Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm so I'm anticipating the rough grouse opener coming for us, which I get less excited about now than I did a long time ago because of the, really because of the dogs and the, that's not the prime time of the season, which is, which is obvious, but it might, it would be an excuse to probably be at my cabin and, and have a maybe my, you know, my boys, my older one is six and he's, he's walking along with me now and so we can, we can have fun with that and do that. But I will be making a Western trip for for sharp tails and hopefully some Hungarian partridge. I've grown to love that. Again, with, with the dogs. And then, you know, I'm pretty as much as I appreciate, you know, I love talking to upland hunters all across the country and I really want to go and explore and experience things. Um, I, I definitely take advantage of the opportunities I have here in my backyard. I mean, it's, it's, it's easy and it's convenient and with, with the young kids and stuff, it allows me to be here at home. So I, I will take full advantage of the grouse hunting for as long as we can. And last year was like, for, for Nick's adventures, last year was like the exact opposite of like, we had, we had no winter, as you know, and like the grouse hunting was phenomenal all the way until the end. So I just, I hope little, little need to go anywhere and do anything. But I have some, I've got a couple ideas this year that I might branch out a little bit, but again, I'm, you give me an afternoon in the grouse woods and I'm a happy guy. Beautiful. Well, if I'm heading up there to Eley to do a little grouse hunting in the boundary waters, maybe I'll swing by Duluth and you can jump in the truck and away we go. Please do, please do. Yeah. Yeah. I, I want to, I want to keep in touch and, and I'm serious about the boundary waters thing. We'll have to talk about that next summer. Well, I'm sure our past, our past will cross, but we could do a, we could do a pheasant, pheasant hunt, grouse hunt, exchange and do something a little different. That'd be fun. Yeah. I'm down with that. I thought there was one other thing I was going to ask you. Maybe not. No, we did the book. Recommendation. But Nellie's, but not, but Nellie's, but Nellie's super black Eagle three and 12 gauge, you know, fed, fed. Yeah, 12, 12, always 12. I mean, I've, yeah, I need to invest in a good 20 gauge for a grouse hunt, but I just, it, I cannot miss with that. I, I, it's crazy to me. I've never owned a gun like that before where even when I'm shooting clays, it's just like, I shoot nine out of 10. I mean, and I'm not, I'm not a great shot. It's, it's something about that gun. It fits me perfectly. So anyway, that's my, there is something to be said about having a gun that fits you and you are confident with. Yeah. And that is a good thing, Tony. So that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on to the birdshot podcast and sharing a bit about yourself and the book. You have your own podcast. You have this book available, obviously, the God of Wild Places. Tell the listeners where to go to find it all. Yeah. Just, just go to God of Wildplaces.com and that'll take you to my website. You can find out, you not only can buy the book through whatever online retailer. You can buy a copy from me that I, I'll sign and send to you. And then you can find my podcast and all my social media and everything there. So yeah, God of Wildplaces.com. Wonderful. I will, I will link it all in the show notes. And once again, Tony, thank you for your time today. I appreciate it. I wish you the best of luck this season. Have a great one. And we'll be in touch. Same to you, Nick. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'll turn it into another episode of the birdshot podcast presented by Onyx Hunt, Final Rise and Up and Gun Company. Don't forget to rate, review, subscribe and share. And if you really love the show and want to contribute above and beyond what you already do by listening, you can sign up at patreon.com/birdshot. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode of the birdshot podcast. Onyx Hunt is the number one hunting GPS app. Join millions of other hunters who trust Onyx Hunt to find more game, discover new access and hunt smarter. Onyx Hunt shows you nationwide public and private land boundaries. They've got topographic and 3D maps. You can track your route, location and elevation profile. You can save maps for offline use and take Onyx Hunt with you wherever you go. The most comprehensive hunting tool you'll own. Download the Onyx Hunt app today and use the promo code BSP20 to save 20% on your Onyx Hunt subscription. Know where you stand with Onyx. When the miles rack up faster than your flush count, that's when you'll truly appreciate your hunting vest from Final Rise. Built for the uplands and proudly sewn in the USA, the complete lineup of hunting vests from Final Rise from their all new Summit XT down to the minimalist sidekick system are all built upon the foundational, low bearing waist belt and low profile shoulder strap system which allow you to carry all the gear you need and do so comfortably while maintaining your ability to move freely and perform when you need to most. With the complete lineup of accessories and newly released performance field apparel, Final Rise has the gear you need to help you get the most out of every mile and every flush. Final Rise gear is built for the uplands. Get yours today at FinalRise.com. Hey, what's going on everybody? It's Bob from Wound Ducks Gun Dog Chronicles Podcast. I hope you just enjoyed the episode you just listened to and if you did, I think you'll enjoy hopping on hours. We've got professional retriever trainers and upland bird dog trainers from across the country and world sharing their tips and tricks and great stories to help you and your dog get ready for the season. We'll see you there.
