Rules and Regs Round 2

Charles Greer of Whitetail Fanatics Land Consultants joins John again this week for another conversation about proposed changes to some important rules and regulations in Oklahoma. The Guys cover a few repeat topics, but Charles also brings up a few new ones that even John hadn't heard about yet, such as CWD regulations going to the Ag department, and a wildlife commission with the power to make changes as they please. Some of these topics may be getting old, but again, these legislation decisions are going to echo throughout the state for years to come. So please give this episode a listen, and make your voices heard!

[00:00:00] Hey guys and gals, welcome to the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast, brought to you by Arrowhead Land Company. Here you'll be educated, entertained, and equipped to get more out of your outdoor experience. So hold on tight because here we go.

What's going on folks? Welcome to the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast. And if you listen to last week's episode, I had one of the shortest intros I've ever had on a podcast. And I'm going to try to beat that this week because I am actually hoping to be on the road in about 12 minutes headed to Nebraska to visit my sister, do a little Turkey hunting, do a little bit of scouting for this coming deer season.

Yeah, I'm trying to rush through this just a little bit, but wanted to make sure I got an episode out to you guys. And yeah, that's what's happening. I do wanna [00:01:00] say real quick, last weekend a couple guys from the Sportsman's Empire came down Nick from Michigan, Andrew from Ohio, and Dan from Missouri made the trip to Oklahoma, took him out hog hunting.

We ended up killing eight pigs, so that was great. And man, Nick from the hunt war he butchered every single one of those. He singed the hair with a torch on most of them. He cut the tender lines outta one of the big sows and made us, made 'em for us on the spot. And they were fantastic.

And kind of the whole point he wanted to come down and do all this was to change the narrative on. Eating wild hogs. And I admit, I grew up hearing from all the old, gentlemen out there and stuff. The older folks that hogs are no good. You can't eat 'em. Just shoot 'em, let 'em lay. And I've honestly done that most of my life.

I've tried, maybe twice to eat 'em and they've always been decent, but just not enough to really get me excited. So anyway, so Nick butchered all those, he brought down four huge coolers, filled them to the brim, and and I'm really excited [00:02:00] to, to see what he does with them. Like I said, he he marinated some of the tenderloins and like a chili lime marinade and cooked 'em for us.

And my goodness, they were good. So yeah, that was the last weekend, like I mentioned about to hit the road to Nebraska. Pray for me. I'm actually taking my daughter with me because my wife is outta town. Part of the reason I'm doing this trip when I'm doing it. So yeah. So I'm gonna try to hunt some turkeys, do some deer scouting.

All while having my little girl along. So my sister's gonna be able to watch your son. I have, oh man. Thank you guys. I just reminded me I'm, I need to grab her little pack so I can tot her around on my back with me and I forgot to pack that, so I'm super glad I just said that. So yeah, so like I said, that's pretty much it for this intro.

We once again are going to be talking about some of the rules and regs. I hope you guys aren't getting sick of that sick of this, I should say. Cause I think this is the third episode I've done on it. But once again, it's just super important and part of the reason I'm doing another one of these.

Is just to get another person's perspective. So [00:03:00] this week you may remember Charles Greer he was on a few weeks ago. He has a land consulting company. He works all over Oklahoma. And so again, he reached out to me asking if he could come back on, and I was more than willing to let him, because again, I just think the more perspectives we can have on these topics, the better.

One thing I did wanna throw out something we covered in this one that we didn't really cover in the other ones was the C W D. Last year Oklahoma had its first case. There's currently some talk of taking that away from the wildlife department and giving it to the Ag department which personally I don't really understand.

So yeah, again, just lots of very important topics. So I'm sorry if y'all feel like I'm just beating a dead horse with this stuff, but again, this stuff really affects the future of hunting in Oklahoma. So that's why we're gonna cover it again. And then next week probably going to cover the hog hunt, hopefully my Turkey hunt.

But who knows? Who knows? Yeah, that's all I got for you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in, trying to [00:04:00] beat last week's intro. So I'm gonna shut this down. We'll get into the episode right after our quick word from our partners right after this. Private water fishing has opened up dozens of private lakes in Oklahoma and Texas.

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Check them out@deerlab.com and don't forget to use Code Oklahoma Outdoors for 20% off. We had the guys from Arrowhead Land Company on a while back, and if you listen to that episode, it was pretty obvious. The guys are big time hunters. So if you're looking to buy or sell a piece of hunting property, why not call someone who truly understands what they're looking at?

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Visit bravado wireless.com or check them out at one of their retail locations. Bravado Wireless, the power of connection. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. We're talking to repeating guests. Mr. Charles Greer. How you doing, Charles? Oh, pretty good today. Good man. I've had a few repeat guests, but I'm not sure I've ever had such a quick turnaround as this.

You were just on about a month ago, right? Yeah, it was a month or two ago. I think it was. May have been back in January. Okay. Okay. Time flies when you're pumping these things out every week, but man, just in case somebody missed that episode, why don't you give everybody a little bit of a, an introduction?

Tell us a little bit about yourself. All right. I'm [00:07:00] Charles Greer with Whitetail Fanatics Land Consultants based out of Norman, Oklahoma here. Been doing it for a couple years now, and pretty much just wanted to come on and talk about all this fun legislation stuff that we've got here. Yep. And man, I I have been getting just a flooded inbox the last few weeks with this stuff.

It, for some reason it seems like a lot of this just came outta nowhere, all of a. And for a couple days there, it seemed nobody know, knew what to think because so much of it was coming out. It seemed you'd get worried about one thing and then the next day another topic would come up.

And and just before we started recording, you brought up some that I hadn't even heard of yet. And so there is a lot going on in in the whitetail woods right now, or I guess just in the woods in general. So yeah, man, we have a lot to cover and I personally am looking forward to it, just to hearing what you've, what you have to say and all the research you've done.

Yeah, there's a bunch of it and it seems like they [00:08:00] hit us all at once with a lot of big changes that are coming down the pike. Hopefully we can get ahead of it and voice our opinions. That's the hope. That's the hope. Charles man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna chip in for sure, but I know you have several topics you want to cover, and so I'm gonna let you pick the first one on your own and then maybe y'all guide us from there.

But man I know we have a lot to cover. Go ahead and take your pick. Where do you wanna start today? I'll start with the, one of the bigger ones, I believe is the formation of a Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Committee. That's going to, seems to me like take the power away from our legislative process for our rules and regulation changes.

I'm worried that's gonna take our voice out of the whole situation. Gotcha. It could turn it, it could turn out to be a different way, but it's pretty scary because all the bills already. Word, everything for the committee or the [00:09:00] commission. Interesting. Seems like they're already trying to pass it before it's actually completely passed.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Interesting. All right. And I believe you had the bill you wanna give everybody, the number and kind of a, you gave a little bit of a synopsis, but just talk about it a little further. Yeah. So people know what to be looking for. Yeah. It's a Senate bill number 1 96, and I don't have the date that it was actually introduced, or hang on March 1st looks like they voted on it and the committee for a committee.

Gotcha. And I don't know if it passed exactly or not all the way through, but the way it's worded is they're taking the power away from the wildlife department. Make their decisions anywhere from the budget, all the way down to rules and regulations and bag limits. They've got their hand in every bit of it.

I know they are gonna make a director that [00:10:00] would be answering to the committee, but it just feels to me like they're trying to take the power out of the legislative process and taking our voice out of our elected officials. Gotcha. If I'm understanding you right, basically this committee would be able to make whatever rule they wanted to, and then basically if they decided it, they'd pass it to the Wildlife department and they would have to implement it no matter what it was.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's going as far as. Use of vehicles for the wildlife department. So it's pretty much taken over the, it's taken over the whole wildlife department. And what worries me on that is more of a money grab, cuz all of our money from licenses and stuff goes straight to the wildlife department.

I'm worried it's gonna carry over and not be used for that. That was one of the, one of the first questions that popped into my mind is who's funding this committee, who's paying their salaries and stuff. Yep. [00:11:00] That's it. Yeah. Lot of questions about it, not a whole lot of answers at this point.

Yeah. Yeah. There, there's a lot more topics that fall, off of that one, but, I thought that was the biggest surprise that I found out of the whole deal so far. You want to go on into the other ones that we've got here? Ab Absolutely, man. Yeah. Go down the line. All right.

Let's touch base on the CWD regulations for the state that they're trying to go with. Yep. This was a big one that I was hoping to cover because one, it, it's been a little hard to find information on, and I also just feel like nobody knows about this one. Somebody, I wouldn't have known about it if somebody hadn't sent me an article on it.

It may have even been you that sent me the article. I'm not sure I've gotten so many, but but yeah, just something that's just not talked about. And I, I actually I had our state's commissioner on last year, JD Strong and I asked him several c w d questions and to be honest it just seemed like it [00:12:00] wasn't really a concern.

Yeah. And When I, and again, he represents the wildlife department, so it concerned me a little bit that the state itself didn't seem that concerned. And then when I heard about this bill, it concerned me even more. Anyway I'll quit interrupting and let you go on and tell folks about it.

That's all right. We've got House Bill 28 62. It's been introduced and they're trying to declare that the Department of Agriculture to ha to be the primary entity responsible for all policies related to the testing and regulation, chronic wasting disease in the state. The problem I have with that is the Department of Agriculture.

We're dealing with wildlife here. We're not dealing with farm animals and everything else, why don't we keep it into the wildlife department and fund their research and everything, because what's gonna happen is the Department of [00:13:00] Agriculture get ahold of it, and we're gonna turn into Illinois or one of those other states that just do the mass, killings of all the deer, when something's come in there. And Yeah. I don't believe that's the way to handle this disease at all. I think we've got products out there in the market that people aren't talking about to handle it. That don't mean that we can get enough of it into a wild animal to mitigate the disease, but I believe that we could at least attempt it. Yeah. Yeah. I kinda like you were saying, I don't, as far as I know, there's never been a single case. Of c w d transmitting from a wild animal to a domestic animal. So kinda like you're saying, I don't really see how this falls under the Department of Ag in any way.

And then you brought up Illinois and one of my a guy that I learn a lot from is Don Higgins. He has the oh, chasing Giants podcast and he's the owner of Real World Wildlife Seeds and everything. And he, I've heard him talk about, [00:14:00] basically how bad Illinois's done of managing it.

And one thing he mentioned was if they have a deer PO test positive, I can't remember what the radius was, but they, I wanna say it was like two miles or something. They basically, yeah, two miles or. Yeah, they try to basically kill every deer in that radius thinking that it's gonna help slow.

They've pretty much proven that the midge that causes c w D can live in the soil for a thousand years, something like that. His point is like, how on earth are you saying you're helping it? If just the deer are gonna repopulate that area in a few years and the Midge is still there.

That's it. And it's what happens is the Midge gets ingested by the deer and then turn around and then it's creates a misfolded protein. So I believe we can probably treat this just by supplemental feeding. I know they say that it's passed by the deer saliva and everything touching, but what are they doing [00:15:00] out there in the natural brows, you can't tell me that a deer's not gonna come behind another deer and not nip on the same leaf. Yeah. So it just seems to me like we can do a better handle of, trying to control it than what they are. To CWD is the disease that it's not a fast acting disease because it affects the brain.

You see the side effects at the, at, late term when it's fully staged and like the deer walking in circles and such. So if we can use nutrients to take care of that, I don't understand why. The government and everybody else doesn't want to try that beforehand. They're out on the east coast, they're already trying to give deer birth control through feed.

Yep. I've seen deer out there. When we lived in Maryland, they had feeders set up. They had big rollers and deer would stick their head in there and it like painted the deer's head with the form of birth control that was [00:16:00] ingested through the skin. There's gotta be ways around it, and there's more to it, I believe, than what we even know.

They're not telling us everything. It's all about funding right now, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned funding. I already had a thought working and funding plays into it. I, I think when it comes to wildlife, Oklahoma's definitely a little bit underfunded. And I remember I was talking to a guy probably three years ago or so, and.

I was saying how, if you look at a map of CW cwd states, Oklahoma's not on there. Now. We did have our first positive case, I believe last year, so we might be on there now, but before Oklahoma was not on there, and I was talking to this guy and I was like CW D'S gotta be in Oklahoma.

He was like no. They say there's no cases. And I brought up, I was like, how many deer have been tested in Oklahoma? Of course he shrugged. And, Oklahoma has no process set up for testing, and I think that's the only reason that Oklahoma wasn't on the map is because they just, they hadn't tested any deer.

But, you can't tell me that [00:17:00] Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas all have C W D and Oklahoma didn't. And now I also like, I don't think as far as C W D and humans and stuff, I don't think it's quite as big a deal. I understand it'd be very detrimental to, to deer hunting if a human contracted it.

But I think people were eating C w D positive deer way before they knew C w D was a thing. Absolutely. Unknowing cw. Yeah. Yeah. C CW D's been around forever. It's not a new disease. It's just becoming more known. Just the fact, cause we've got higher deer populations than we ever have. It's just like everything else.

If the deer start getting overpopulated, they're gonna contract the disease. But that don't mean we've gotta wipe out everything in a two mile area and devastate our deer herds, cuz that's all that's gonna do. Yeah. Some of these other states, the ones that do have cwd that's prevalent and they come in and use sharp shooters to kill these deer.

They're doing it over [00:18:00] bait piles where bait piles are illegal. So are they getting every deer that you know, comes into that bait pile? Are they coming in and destroying it? When they're not sitting there at night sharp shooting them? That's the big thing to me is it's backwards on the way they do thing and, yeah.

Some sharp shooters are gonna lose their jobs. If they don't do that, they're, but they're gonna be finding a different job doing the same kind of work somewhere else. Yeah. And you brought up Don Higgins earlier and his products, he's actually putting humic acid and some of his feeds and to captive deer that actually are CWD positive, it is actually taking the symptoms and making them where they're non-existent.

And the deer are actually living a full life while taking this. I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with nutrition. Yeah. Yeah. Did when you're doing your research and reading the bill and everything, did it [00:19:00] give any reason on why they're talking about this? No. Like why they're talking about moving it over there.

I was wondering if it was, I was wondering if it maybe was like a funding thing or a research thing or something like that. It could definitely be a funding issue. The Department of Agriculture, I imagine it's got a lot more federal funding and everything else for stuff like that.

But, maybe the wildlife department's not able to get the federal funding if it's not through the Department of Agriculture. I don't know. But I just, I don't like having the Department of Agriculture in a wildlife space. And, doing research is one thing, but being able to make legislation and rules and regs is another thing.

Yeah. That's it. The rule, the rules and the reg still, that, that may be a good thing. But I believe that it would be more known to the public if it went through our legislative process. Yeah. Instead of coming out of a one body deal, at least then we could speak up against whatever.[00:20:00]

Okay. Any, anything else on that one? Or you wanna move on to the next one? No, we can move on to the next one. That's fine. Okay. I just know we got a lot to cover, so I don't wanna spend too awful much time on, on one thing all I'm gonna count. Go ahead. Oh, no, I was just gonna say what you got next.

I'm gonna jump into one that's in a little less serious note. I just thought it was it was funny, how about the Senate bill or. Oh, let's see here. House bill 2353. The commission may designate any two consecutive days after the season declared for hunting to be a senior citizen's hunting days, 64 years old or older.

And it has to be after September 1st of the year. That one was strange that I don't know if that one's actually needed. Yeah. It seems like the [00:21:00] seniors, can hunt with everybody else. I don't know if they need their own special two days. Yeah, because Yeah.

Oh, sorry. Keep going. You're alright. No, it's just it's just weird to me that would even make it in there. To me, the older I get, the more I wanna hunt with family and friends and kids, so I'm, I would just, that's my assumption. I would assume that, seniors would want to do that same thing with everybody.

Yeah. I'm sure on your list, probably down the line is some, it's probably something about the velvet season and probably something about the air bows and oh, the two things I keep hearing or the thing I keep hearing about those two bills is opportunity, more opportunity.

Yeah. And a point I made a few weeks ago on an episode I did by myself was, Oklahoma offers, some of the most opportunity out of any state in the country. We have a very long season. We offer multiple weapons, seasons for multiple weapons. [00:22:00] We still have a true rifle season, which not all states can say that.

Muzzle loader, rifle, archery, crossbows are legal. I don't think we're lacking for opportunity. So not to say I'm against, senior citizens getting out there and hunting, but I'm like you. Like I don't necessarily think they need an extra season for that. Yeah. I totally agree.

I was reading the stuff on the air bows and the air bow regulations that, that they have in play are regulated towards people that can't shoot a compound bow. That, that's what I was getting the gist of. So where do we stop this legisla? Because we've already got crossbows and crossbows were four people that couldn't shoot a compound that were handicapped and had a disability.

That's the way they were back in the early two thousands and the nineties whenever I was growing up. But it goes, this legislation goes even further than the airboats. They wanna make a [00:23:00] compound bow can be held at full draw with a mechanical device and still be legal hunt with. That had not been to me, that is just like picking up a rifle. Holding it out there and pulling a trigger. Yeah. It takes everything away from the archery aspect of the archery season. Yeah. And one thing that somebody sent me was how can you say a an airboat is a bow when it doesn't even have a string?

Exactly, that's exactly, it's, it shoots a projectile, which your rifles and your bows, they all shoot projectiles. That's the thing is I believe that what they're calling the airboat really needs to be in a rifle season. Yeah. Even better, it would be in mu loader season.

Which, that's one question I had. So last year, and that's part of the reason I had some trouble doing some research on this topic because Oklahoma passed Airboats legal and rifle last year.[00:24:00] Were, are they legal in muzzle loader? I don't even know. Or is it just rifle? I believe it's just rifle.

I did not see anything poor muzzle loader being legalized. Okay. Okay. And one of the articles, some, again, people have been sending me a lot of stuff on this, was An interview from an air bow manufacturer saying that they were actually against legalizing air bows in archery season. I've seen the same article on that.

Yes. Yep. Yep. If the manufacturer is against it, I don't really see how you can be for it. Yeah. And back on the legislation part of that, they are limiting the air bow use to physically disabled people. Gotcha. Okay. I did not know that. That's good news. So that's a de, that's the good news.

But why do we have to legalize basically a firearm? Because [00:25:00] it's on the same concept, it just shoots an arrow. Yeah. Why don't we just use our crossbows like we have been? Because if you, to me, if you can shoot an airboat, you can shoot a modern day crossbow. It, it seems to me like the crossbow would be more ethical Yeah.

To be in an archery season. Because an air bow look, it runs off of an air tank. You get multiple shots off that same air tank, so you could actually put another arrow in there and shoot it faster than you could a crossbow. So it's, it may be an opportunity deal for people, but I don't, I truly don't believe it should be in archery all the way through.

That's, yeah. And like you said, if it is legal during rifle season, By all means, go for it. But I'm like you, I don't think it should be considered archery equipment. And if it does [00:26:00] pass, I'm gonna use an example. When medical marijuana was passed whatever it was, 2, 2, 3 years ago, however long it's been now I remember talking to one of our local deputies and he was saying he pulled a guy over.

He was obviously high. The guy said he had a prescription. He asked where he got his prescription, and he's oh, the doctor. And he named this town and he's there's no doctor in that town. He's oh, the guy in the van. And, there was a guy, there was, I guess he was a real doctor, but he just, he got him a van.

He was just going around setting up in parking lots and somebody come up and give 'em their money and he'd ride 'em a prescription. And it's only a matter of time till you have that same thing with this. That's it. Exactly. I, I believe the air blow air bows a neat concept.

I don't have anything about it, against it itself, just the use of it. We've gotta protect our hunting seasons. Yeah. I know. They're talking about opportunities. They're talking about, more deer harvests want more people [00:27:00] out in the field. But I don't think doing that's the way to do it, legalizing something that's I would say even more deadly than a compound.

Yeah. Oh yeah. And a whole lot easier to use. Yeah. And, a few weeks ago I mentioned, I've talked about this once or twice on the podcast now, but I think a lot of people kind of blame crossbows for being this super ultra deadly weapon. And they are like, they're easier than a compound boat, definitely easily easier than traditional archery, but I don't think you can just give a.

A crossbo to some random guy, and all of a sudden he's just this crazy killer. But I do think an airboat could be that, I've never shot one, but I know that I looked him up a little bit, did some research. They're shooting over 400 feet per second. I'm guessing you have a, probably a pretty good range.

The one I was looking at, I wanna say you got, I think you could shoot it 12 times on one tank of air. So you have, a quick reload ability. So that one you could, you could hand that to just about anybo anybody, and [00:28:00] they're gonna become very deadly with it. Yep. That's it. Ex especially shooting it just like a rifle, yeah. So that's, let's, that's troubling. If anything, make its own, make it its own season. Yeah. Give somebody a week to just go in there and shoot with the airboat, but I don't believe it should be legalized all the way through and yeah. That bill that they're trying to pass, that, that's Senate bill 3 52.

And, but I'm glad it's one of those. I was gonna say, I am glad you brought up that it was a medical thing. I didn't know that. I thought it was just gonna be open across the board. Yeah. And here's another thing that, that I didn't hit on. A person using an air bow for legal hunting method during the archery season shall be limited to antlerless deer only.

That's a good rule. Yeah. If this pass, that's a good rule. That's the only problem I've got with it. We don't check our deer in person anymore. We don't take 'em down to the nearest [00:29:00] check station. I worry about how many deer on our current days that people check in and they're not actually an antlerless deer.

Yeah. Because, yeah. Yeah. The wildlife department does audits. They come around and they check so many people, a year that check 'em in to make sure they are, there's still a lot of 'em that just slip through the cracks. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you got a buddy down at the processor.

Yep. That's right. That's right. Going to the, they're also talking about it being legalized for wild hogs and raccoons and stuff like that. I don't if you can kill. A wild hog with an air bow and do it consistently. I wanna see it happen.

Yeah. Because I've shot a wild hog before with the 3 0 8 at 25 yards and shot him right behind the shoulder, Uhhuh, and he didn't die. Yeah. He, it's one of those deals [00:30:00] that, they're, they've got their place. Yeah. They're just another tool. So I just think we need to limit where they're going.

Yeah. Yeah. The one po, the one positive thing that I've brought up about 'em is they'd be a great management tool for do and stuff where, it's quieter than a gun. Again, using it during gun season. You can harvest some doze without being as loud, being a little bit less disruptive so you don't mess up your spot and everything.

But yeah, I just don't think they belong in archery season. No. You want to get into the big one that everybody was talking about there for a little while? Which one was that? The old new, the new velvet season they're talking about. Absolutely. Man I'm really curious on your thoughts on this.

They're not all bad. Yeah. At all. Yeah. I'm for a velvet, I'm for a velvet season. Yeah. I'm not really for a velvet season on when they're wanting it. Yeah. But, [00:31:00] and I think there needs to be some other season changes to go along with it to coincide a little bit better. Yeah. The Velvet Bill, what I'm gonna call it, it's a Senate bill nine 10, and it's actually past the Senate, so it's gotta go to the house now.

And be passed. What they're proposing is a nine day velvet season. At the end of August. So I'm pretty sure I'm gonna word this right, the last weekend of August, or No, the Saturday morning prior to the last weekend of August. And end to the last Sunday evening of August. So it'd be nine days is what they're proposing.

And it's gonna be a draw, hunt only. So land. And it's gonna be also this bill only covers private lands. This is not for public land. So [00:32:00] what you're gonna do, you're gonna have to draw in for it. 90% of the tags are gonna go to Oklahoma citizens. 10% are gonna be for the out outta staters. There are no tag prices put on this bill. That would be left up to the commission to, to set those prices. I believe this if this went through as the way it sits, this would be a very coveted season for out-of-state hunters. Absolutely. That being said, with it only being on private lands, that is going to drive our lease prices way up in the state of Oklahoma.

Yeah. These out-of-state hunters are gonna lease these properties. And I, and even if they don't get drawn, they can still come in our regular season by their package of tags and they can get every tag. Yeah. They can buy their archery tags and they get two buck tags and I, [00:33:00] it's either four or six DOE tags and one package.

Yeah. For 'em. Yeah. So it's one of those deals where it's, the season's not a bad concept. There's only, I think, four other states that have a velvet season. And they're pretty sought after states now since they've got it. Yeah. This would be a, this would be a revenue stream for Oklahoma tourism because of the early season dates and not many places being offered the season as it sets would limit it to one antler buck at, for the season.

And that would count for your two buck limit for the year. So that being said, is the date I've got a problem with the date. Okay. I don't think we need to have it at the end of August. I believe they need to put it September 1st. They wanna run it nine days, let's run it nine days. But as soon as that nine days is [00:34:00] over, we transition into an archery season instead of October 1st being our traditional archery season, we come in and it's compound only, no bowls, just straight compound.

Only for that archery season, for the month of September after the velvet season. The wildlife department's always talking about that. They want numbers, they want more deer killed. Give us more time to do it. It's gonna be hotter than blue blazes in August and September, Uhhuh.

As hunters we're gonna have to do our due diligence to keep our meat fresh and a hundred degree weather. Yeah. The people that sell ice are fixing to make a killing. Yep. But the bill it, I think it just needs to be changed a little bit, like I said. And we also need some numbers. We need some tag num, the amount of these tags of what they're gonna cost.

Yeah. Because as a [00:35:00] resident, you're gonna have to buy a permit for velvet. Yeah. So they'll have a special permit for that, which that's fine with me. If you get drawn, and I imagine they're gonna do it like our draw system now, that we have for all of our draw hunts.

Yeah. And there, there's nothing wrong with shooting one of these in velvet. It's something that just about every hunter wish they would see at the beginning of season of deer in velvet. It would be something that your buddies don't have. Yeah. It's not a bad thing, I don't think.

We just need prices on tags, especially for the out-of-state hunters, because it's gonna be such a such a special deal for out-of-state to come in to our state and hunt. I hate to say that they need to pay a lot more. But they do need to pay a lot more. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got a good deal going on in our state and I believe if they do [00:36:00] pass the velvet season, we will have a new state record within two years.

Just because the velvet does add a little bit of measurements, to the antlers. I don't know exactly how much it would add, you add an eighth of an inch, on all the measurements. Yeah. You could bump a deer up there quite pretty big. Yeah. All the trail cameras we have they look a lot bigger during the summer than they do in the fall.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, man I have so many thoughts on this. I think overall, I think I'm for it, I think I'm for the velvet season. I've talked about it a decent amount now. One thing that, I, other than college, I've pretty much lived within 30 miles of the Red River my entire life.

And I can't imagine sitting in a stand in August. And if I'm an outta state, let's say I'm from up north pick, Minnesota, Illinois, where. I think that would be a very rude awakening to come down here and sit in the stand in August. But [00:37:00] I think people will still do it. I don't really, I've talked about this before, I don't really understand the point of making it a draw for residents if it counts towards your two buck limit anyway.

I guess the thinking behind that is probably just, that time of year, I think deer are probably a little easier to pattern and kill. Their testosterone hasn't risen yet since they haven't shed their velvet and stuff like that. They're still bachelor up. But I don't really see the need for a draw if it's gonna go towards the two buck anyway.

I think the first couple years that this is open, I think it's going to have kind of a negative effect on the deer herd because just like mule deer out west or wherever I think people are gonna be shooting. Bucks because they're a velvet buck and not because they're a good buck. I think it's gonna be an opportunity thing.

The first one that comes by, I think people are gonna be shooting it. So I think it could, I think over time that'll wear itself out and people get more used to it. But I think the first [00:38:00] few years, I think you're gonna have a lot of younger bucks being killed simply for the fact that they're in velvet.

I do the idea of limiting non-residents. I think you're almost gonna have to I think, yeah, you'd have people flooding in from all over the place. But one, one of the big thing, kinda like I mentioned the whole opportunity thing earlier, a big part of this is about opportunity, but a real big part of it, it mentions tourism in the bills.

They're counting on people wanting to come from outta state. To hunt this velvet season. So if you're limiting outta staters too much, I feel like you're going against the purpose of it a little bit, even though I'm for that. Cuz again, I don't think you can just go open season with this.

And then, it mentions when it opens that it will be private land only. I think that's, I don't think that's gonna last very long. I think when they see the revenue this generates, I think it's gonna be open on public very soon. And I think that's really gonna hurt the public land hunting opportunities in this state.

[00:39:00] So yeah, that's just my wham bam down the line. Thoughts on it. A again, I love the idea last my sister now lives in Nebraska. Last year I went up there and hunted and I went and hunted September 1st because I wanted to kill a velvet buck. I'll probably be back up there again this year because I want to kill a velvet buck.

So again, love the idea. But man, there's a lot, there's a lot to it. Yeah, there definitely is. And I think there's probably a lot more questions right now. Yeah. Than there are answers about it, because, if they do a thousand tags, they give nine, give 900 people, 900 residents tags, and only a hundred non-residents.

You're not really bringing in that much money for tourism. So just how many tags are they gonna issue? Are they just gonna, are they gonna make it a draw so they can keep track of how many people come in and do it? Yeah. Or, there's just a lot of questions there. But we are opening a can of worms for the public land. Yeah. Because,[00:40:00] just like the air bows came in for rifle season last year, look at where we're at now with them. Yeah. A year later. Yeah. Yeah, A year later. We're talking about all the way through season. There's a lot of good deals in it, selfishly I think we need more answers. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I'd love to hear some numbers. And selfishly, I might be a little bit against the draw because I'm the most unlucky person in the entire world and I'd, and I never draw any tags, and so I know I'd be the one left out. Especially that, oh man, that first year if I didn't draw a tag and everybody else did, oh, I'd be kicking myself.

But but anyway, that's just a little selfish side. I understand that. But there is a, down, there is a downside to this too. The velvet season, what are you gonna do when you screw up your season because it's 110 degrees in September and you're out there trying to hunt, smelling it up. Yep. And your target buck comes [00:41:00] in and he smells you.

Yeah. Especially with that shorter season, people are gonna be Yep. More likely to not play the wind and stuff like that. I have thought about that. It, who knows, maybe it could save a bunch of older bucks. Yeah, it definitely could. They are patentable and then you're gonna turn around and have 'em in bachelor groups at that time too.

So we've got a lot more eyes out there too yeah. Maybe one, one thing I thought about, you always hear people complaining oh, I got pictures of these bucks all summer long, and then season rolled away and they all disappear and go somewhere else. Now they'd have a chance to get 'em.

That's it. But, A lot of those bucks leave because they come in and put pressure on 'em right before the beginning of season. That's true. So that's one of the reasons they leave. Yep. I'll give this so this, I'll give this free tip out right now. If this were to pass, if you're not planting soybeans in the food plot you're doing it wrong.[00:42:00]

Yeah, I agree. I agree on that one. Yep. That's for sure. Let's see if we've got anything else we need to talk about here. Okay. Anything that's else sneaking up on us. Okay. Let's I got one random topic for you. If you don't find anything, but if you got something else, by all means.

Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. This is a habitat question, not a bill question, but since I got you on, I'm gonna get some free help from ya. This spring has been extremely wet, no secret. Expect I'm southeastern part of the state. I swear it has rained every Thursday for the past like five weeks.

And so I prepped a big area to burn this spring, and as of right now, I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to get it burned from a combination of just, it keeps raining but also it seems like we're having a really early spring. Everything's getting real green. Yeah. So a two-part question.

One, Do you think it is too late to [00:43:00] burn with everything getting so green? Could I get it to burn and would it do any good? And then a backup question, and I don't know if this is even a question you could answer that has an answer, but, if I'm not able to burn, is there something else I could do to offset that?

I think you're gonna be able to burn you're just gonna be burning at a different season. It would be more of a growing season burn. You're gonna get some of the stuff to burn. Not all of it though. Like you said, it definitely wouldn't be as good as a dormant season burn to open everything up, but I believe it would still have effects, especially here in Oklahoma, next week the rain might shut off and you might get a dry month and everything go back to D dormant, it's one of those deals I would definitely try to burn even up until June before it gets super dry. Yeah. And then just hope for rain after that so everything will start growing back. Yeah. And I think fire's good year round [00:44:00] whenever you can get it done. Get it done. Cause it's gonna benefit you down the road and that's what you're gonna want anyways.

Cause you, you go in and burn it and you're not gonna. A cover aspect or a forage aspect right away anyway, so it's a long term plan. Yeah. So I don't think it would hurt to burn later on, but Okay. The, we, you know how the weather is here. I've still got food plants or food pots put in and Yeah.

I can't even get the ground sealed up. Yep. Yeah, I Man, I got real inspired this year on my Habitat stuff and there's a big deep draw at the back of our place and I've always been scared to burn it, to be honest. But we did a nice big burn last year, around the rim of it.

And so I got my confidence up and we got an old 1971 dozer out there, so I can put in a nice big line. And yeah I dozed the line probably almost a month ago now, but just the weather in my schedule just won't line up. And so yeah, I've been a little bit afraid and [00:45:00] I think I'm actually I got actually it might have been delivered today.

I haven't checked yet. I ordered some real world switch grass first time. I've never done switch grass and I'm gonna use it more for screening than anything. And I was actually hoping to get it in the ground this coming weekend, but I think we got rain Thursday, Friday. Chance, small chance Sunday, small chance Monday.

I know it needs to get in the ground pretty quick. And then I'm, I am, for the first time ever, I'm finally gonna plant some soybeans this spring. Got a lot of plans. I just can't get the weather to cooperate with me. Yeah. Mother nature, she does that, she's got her own plan.

I'm glad to hear that you bought some switch grass, that'll make you some real good screening cover. Just don't plan it too wide. Cause if you do, they're gonna be laid right up in there next to you. Yep. I've been warned about that. And especially their switch grass, it gets pretty thick.

Yeah. They say deer, I won't bedding that real thick stuff, but I believe they will if it's secure. [00:46:00] Yeah. Let me ask you this. What's a good width? What do you suggest? I would say that switchgrass probably about 10 yard or, yeah, about 10 yards wide. Okay. Are you having to screen on both sides of you?

Like going into a stand or something? Or just one side? No, just just one side basically. So my plan is I got about a three acre food plot that actually backs up to that canyon area that canyon's pretty thick, lots of cedar trees and stuff. I've cut a bunch of cedars, but, so it's a little bit more open now.

But basically I approach from the opposite side of the canyon. So yeah, I'm just gonna screen that one side and then maybe a little bit on the side that faces the neighbor also. So yeah, but mostly just one. Yeah, you'd be behind. I'd just say about, I'd say about 10 yards wide. Cause I think if you go much wider than that, you're gonna have the deer bedding right there in it.

You still may have the occasional deer try to come in there and bed and right up against it or something, but yeah, you can't do nothing about that. So you just don't wanna lay a [00:47:00] big area for 'em, okay. All right. Just just had to get a little bit of free advice out of you.

Yeah, that's alright. Did did you find any oth anything else in your notes that we need to cover before I let you go? I wanted to touch base on one thing that snuck up on everybody to our neighbors up north. I don't know if you've heard about it, the trail camera ban on public land in Kansas.

Yep. That is what I'm afraid of that we're gonna end up having here. I've listened to some of the people on the committee up there, Uhhuh, that decided to ban the trail cameras. And to me they seemed like they didn't know anything about trail cameras. One of 'em stated that going in and checking your trail cameras was putting more pressure on the wildlife.

That was one of their reasons. And in turn, they couldn't even tell you the difference. If they seen one, they couldn't describe the difference between a cellular camera [00:48:00] and a conventional SD card camera. Gotcha. I'm worried that we may be following their lead on that. Is having people that don't know anything about it.

Yeah. And they didn't even put it out really to the general public, so nobody could even really come and oppose what their opinions were or give 'em, good opinions for, the hunters. Yeah. So I don't want that to happen here. But I could see it, I could see it happening just because the public land stuff, there's always an issue every year with tree stands left on public land.

Yeah. And, now I believe we have to tag our tree stands if they're on public land and left supposed to have your name and stuff on 'em, I believe. I just don't want that to come here. Trail cameras are a very good tool to be used out there, and I really don't think they use [00:49:00] properly, they don't put more pressure on wildlife.

And, it's not e it's not just hunters that use these, bird watchers and other people that just want to get pictures of wildlife, they use it. Yeah, it's one of those deals, it's one of them deals that it slipped in on Kansas. I don't want stuff like that happening here.

Yeah. And I would've thought that cell cams would get banned way before even a band just on public land. I know a lot of, actually, I believe Boone and Crockett, I think if you use cell cameras, they don't accept your entry because they don't consider it fair chase. Yeah. So I knew that cell cams were a lot more.

Heated topic. And I did hear, I think part of their argument in Kansas was that, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a cell camera or another camera. So it was just easier to do a complete ban. But I will say, Kansas is not a state that I would've thought something like that would happen.

And it just, it does. It goes to prove that[00:50:00] yeah, this stuff can happen anywhere and it can happen real quick without warning. All this stuff that we've talked about today, I think it's very important that people get involved, share their opinion, talk to their representatives because yeah, they need to hear our voices loud and.

Exactly. They need to listen to the public that's what they were elected for. Is the way I look at it. And if we don't have a way to voice our opinion on stuff, they're just gonna do whatever they want that they think is gonna line somebody's pockets. Before we end this, I want to touch base on, everybody if you're for these bills, if you oppose these bills, please contact your local representatives in the Senate and the house, because that's the only way we can be heard. The, we do have a wildlife committee that there are eight people that sit. You've got David Smith, Kevin [00:51:00] Wallace, Jacob Rosen, Krantz John Waldron, and Rusty Cornell and John Talley, Ty Burns and Eddie Dempsey. I believe that's how he pronounce his name.

Those are the eights that sit on the Wildlife committee. They're, so I would recommend contacting them also not only your local representative, but let them know how you feel about these bills that are coming down. And everybody wants to send emails now to them. I recommend sending your email and, be polite.

Tell 'em why you oppose it or why you're for it. But also follow up with a phone call. The problem with an email is their staff members can go through it, they read it and it's gone. So it doesn't take 'em as long to go through that email as it does to [00:52:00] answer or listen to the voicemails that you leave.

Be polite, be professional. No reason to be rude. Just contact your representative and let 'em know how you feel. There's no right or wrong about it. Just let 'em know. That's the big deal. We've gotta let, we've gotta get into the habit of letting our representatives know how we feel.

Yeah. Awesome. Charles. Yeah. This stuff. I feel like I've covered quite a bit now, but it's important stuff. There's a reason for it. And man, I appreciate you doing the homework for all of us and filling us in. But I definitely wanna give you a chance real quick before I let you go to, to shout out your business.

If somebody wants to get ahold of you, maybe do some consulting where do they need to go to get ahold of you? All right? You can find us just by googling us. Whitetail Fanatic Land Consultants, llc. You can find us on Facebook at whitetail fanatic Land Consultants. And we've even got an Instagram page that we're trying to get up and [00:53:00] rolling.

So that'd be whitetail fanatic land. And then my phone number is (443) 545-4527. Everybody can call just about any time. Leave me a message and I'll get back with them as soon as I can. Perfect. Perfect, man. Charles, thanks again for coming on. Like I said very educational. I feel like we just started, we're coming up on an hour, so I better let you go.

But thank you once again for joining me. All right, man. I'll do it anytime. All righty, man. I'll take you up on that. I'll talk to you later. Thanks. Once again, I'd like to thank Charles for coming on and just doing all of that research, looking all that stuff up clarifying things for us. And I know I've said this a thousand times, guys, but this stuff is so important.

So if you care about the future of hunting in Oklahoma, if you want your kids to have the same opportunities that you had, or hopefully even better you just really need to be paying attention to this stuff. So reach out to your representative. [00:54:00] And just let's stand together on this because as a hunting community, we can be really strong if we go ahead and voice our opinions.

So that's gonna do it for me, this guy. Wow, this guys this week, guys. I'm so ready to be outta here. Got about four minutes. So yeah, I'm gonna shoot this thing off, hit the road. Be looking forward to all my Nebraska content, which actually, I guess I'll be done hunting in Nebraska by the time this comes out.

But anyway, go back and look at all my Nebraska content and I will be keeping you guys in touch with what's going on. Thank y'all so much for listening to the Oklahoma Outdoor Podcast. Once again, I would not be here without your support. So once again, thank you. And until next week, I will see y'all right back here on the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast.[00:55:00]

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