We're Not Famous w/ Jason Crighton

Show Notes

This week on The Average Conservationist Podcast, Marcus sits down with the host of the Conservation Unfiltered Podcast, Jason Crighton. The guys kick things off catching up on last year's deer hunting season and how they are trying to get their kids involved in the outdoors and making memories along the way. Jason and Marcus discuss how they approach preparing for podcast guests and ways to ask important questions without getting scripted answers. From there Jason discusses a recent partnership with the Keystone Elk Country Alliance in Pennsylvania, what KECA is all about and plans he has for this year's event (you're going to want to hear this). All in all, it's just a great conversation about a wide range of topics with plenty of laughs along the way. Enjoy!

Show Transcript

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Jason Crighton: All right,

Marcus Ewing: welcome back everybody to the Average Conservationist podcast, and I'm your host, Marcus Shoeing. Before we get into today's episode too far I want to just wish everyone a belated, happy Easter. I hope that wherever you're listening from and tuning in that you guys are getting some of this beautiful spring weather.

And yeah, hopefully it feels like things are gonna start to change permanently going forward here. Today on the podcast, I am joined once again by Jason Kreton, and I had Jason on [00:02:00] probably a year and a half ago, I would say. Jason is the host of the Conservation Unfiltered Podcast as well as the owner of, excuse me, conserve the Wild.

And really Jason and I we talked about it our first time around, but the similarities that Jason and I have from our upbringing the way we view the outdoors, a lot of our thoughts and beliefs and approaches to things are very similar. So today we, we just chop it up a little bit.

We, we talk about getting our kids outdoors, the path towards hopefully raising our kids in this, in an outdoor lifestyle. The, some of the things that we do to try to get them involved even at a young age. We talk about some memories from our childhood and from our past and things that really stick out to us and trying to mimic those.

And Jason puts it best. He said that, as a parent himself, [00:03:00] he's trying to draw on a lot of the things that he did as a kid with his dad and with his grandpa. And he's trying to, do those with his son. We talk about different topics that, that we like to dive into as hosts of podcasts and.

How we go about, trying to tackle some more difficult issues, how we prepare for things how we're hopefully able to really get the guests to open up, to feel at ease. And really just, I would say that's the segment of the podcast where we just we kind of share tricks of the trade, if you will having both having our own podcast.

And then we dive into, conservation fairly heavily towards the back half of the of the episode. And we talk about his partnership with Keystone Elk Country Alliance there in Pennsylvania and some work that he has done with them over the past year or so, and some exciting stuff that he has [00:04:00] coming.

Later this summer. Yes. He's, I don't wanna give too much away, but he's planning something pretty big at the yearly event that the I think he calls it the Keka the Keystone Elk Country Alliance that he has planned with them and some of their members and guests and things that are gonna be participating in their yearly event, which is is super cool.

I highly encourage you guys to give that part a listen, especially if you're in Pennsylvania. It sounds like a great event. And if you're fortunate enough to be in the area, I definitely recommend you stopping by. Yeah, just it felt like after a couple rough weeks in terms of.

One episode I had to do by myself. Another one, I had some poor audio on my end, which again I sincerely apologize to to the listeners and to rob my guest last week. But today felt like got back into the groove a little bit and it was it was just a good conversation.

I always enjoy catching up with Jason. So episode 1 46 with Jason Kreton. Today's [00:05:00] episode is gonna be brought to you by my friends over at Go Hunt. I know I've said it numerous times in the past, but now is the perfect time to sign up for your insider member membership with Go Hunt and really prepare yourself for next hunting season.

And, Sign up and draw odds units all sorts of different information. And if you're looking for the, for a mapping system, the Go Hunt maps is also a great tool to use whether you're escott, whether you're actually in the back country, whatever the case is. Go hunting, excuse me, go hunt.

Maps are pretty, pretty unmatched when it comes to the capabilities and everything that they have. So be sure and check them out@gohunt.com. All right. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast from Conservative Wild, Jason Creighton. Jason, how are you, sir? I'm doing

Jason Crighton: great. Thanks for

Marcus Ewing: having me back on.

Yeah, absolutely. It's been, gosh, I'm trying to think what, it's probably been close to a year, I would say, if not more, since we had you on the first [00:06:00] time. And when we got you on the first time, you were just coming off of winning 2% for conservation. One of their. I don't even know. I should know the name of this one of their media awards.

Yeah. For your podcast. Conservative, wild. So yeah, Jared had put us in touch or recommended me reaching out and yeah, I feel like we've, we don't talk all the time, but I feel like we've become pretty fast friends from from the time that we first spoke and obviously we've tried to connect on a few hunting trips, getting me out to Pennsylvania there, and it just hasn't worked out with my schedule and whatnot.

But I'm still planning to get out there, so don't take that offer back, please. Hey, no,

Jason Crighton: that offer's on the table until you get here. And then we'll probably continue to stay on the table. That was actually something I was gonna bring up once we got done recording is, Hey, do you want to come this year?

Marcus Ewing: Yeah, I think so. We talked about it a little bit before we were recording here when we were catching up, is that I started a new job in October of last year which is. Yeah, for all you listening, yeah, terrible timing. Like I get it, but you don't always have a say in those types of things.

So [00:07:00] yeah, my hunting season last year was truncated big time, right? Start I think I started it like October 25th. Could you think of a worst time? No. Going right into the rut and yeah, I was telling you, I I hunted three, three times last year. I hunted once early October for one evening sit, another one mid-October for the same thing, like an evening sit.

And then I got out with my bow, oh gosh, second week in November, maybe it was like the two or three days leading up to win rifle season is here in Michigan. And yeah, it was just not the kind of day I expected. It was just probably wrong spot kind of thing. But yeah, just super low activity and yeah, that was it, man.

It. Tough pill to swallow come into the year. Yeah.

Jason Crighton: That would be a rough year. Like I remember those kind of years where I would only go out maybe a couple times, but that was back when I was in college and playing baseball, or even coaching for a couple years after college.

High school baseball coaching, high school baseball. I had the, some years like that, but since, it's been almost [00:08:00] probably somewhere around 10 years or so now that I've gotten really back into hunting and I, man, if I had a year like that I would probably go a little bit insane

Marcus Ewing: yeah, it was tough and especially, all, prior to this new job I had a ton of flexibility with, I could come and go as I please.

If it was a Wednesday afternoon, the weather looked right, it'd be like, Hey, I am. I'm gonna head to the property and hunt and that was that. And then now obviously I can't do that. And then even the weekends were super jammed up this year, more than normal. So yeah, even those weekend timeframes were just shot to shit.

And, such as life, right? There's always next year. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Jason Crighton: As much as that would not be the optimal situation, right? Hearing someone else go through it it makes me specifically pretty feel pretty fortunate, with my job being there 13 years now 14 years as a teacher, it's a pretty easy set schedule.

And and then having the family around that I have, now that I have a son my mom takes my son on Saturday, so that my wife can go to work [00:09:00] and so I can go hunt, and another couple years maybe I'll be taking him with me. Yeah. I feel very fortunate in the situation I'm in.

I've been able to keep up with some of that stuff. But like you said, so life happens. There's been a couple weekends where I'm like a couple weekends this year. First day of rifle season for Pennsylvania. For the first, no, sorry, second time ever. I did not go out on the first day.

And not because I didn't have a be, not because I already shot my buck. In Pennsylvania you only get one buck. So if you shoot your buck in archery season you can't hunt opening day. Although now it's a concurrent season, you can shoot a bucker dough. But so there's been some years I haven't actually hunted, but I go to camp the first year I had my appendix taken out on the Friday night after Thanksgiving.

Not gonna hunt that following Monday. Now it's a opener on Saturday. And my whole house was sick. Like my son was sick, my wife was sick, I was sick. And it was like, I was thinking I was gonna just, tough it out in the woods for a day and try to get myself a buck.

[00:10:00] Cuz there was, I saw some great movement during the rut. But once my wife got sick it was like, I can't leave her at home sick with a sick kid, yeah. That was a hard decision to make. But life happens and sometimes you gotta do what's best for the family, not necessarily best for

Marcus Ewing: yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's very easy to get tunnel vision that time of year. And get, and tend to get a bit selfish when you wanna be out there. And especially if you've, you have a track record of being out there and being at camp on opening day and things like that.

But going back to one of the things you said, having that support system close to home, would to give you that flexibility to allow you to head out on a Saturday if your wife's at work or. She has other plans or something like that. And yeah, grandma and grandpa wanna take the kids.

They always seem pretty prime for that, right? Oh,

Jason Crighton: yeah. And part of me feels bad, right? I should wanna spend time with my kid. And it's not that I don't want to spend time with my kid. It's that, it gives me a little mental reprieve from life. Yep. And then also in addition to that, and [00:11:00] maybe this is just me trying to convince myself, but grandma and grandpa they need time with their grandson, yeah. My grandson needs time with them too. And since they work, Monday through Fridays, they don't always get to see him during the week. Especially my mom, like she can see him, if she can spend, six hours with him on a Saturday she really enjoys it, and I hope that by giving them that opportunity that, my son's, developing a relationship with her and with my dad and where he wants to spend time with family too.

Like I said, maybe I'm trying to just convince myself that it's okay that I'm like leaving and going to camp for weekend. I really do think that is important too, yeah. Hopefully like I said, hopefully someday it, it would be, I'm not gonna force him, but if he wants to come hunting with me, I'll take him, and then he can spend Saturday with, dad and grandpa, yeah. What dad and pap

Marcus Ewing: Yeah. And that's what I was gonna ask you if, I thought that we had talked about it previously that your dad hunts as well. So being able to spend some time with grandpa, while you're out hunting and, he can possibly instill or pass along some of that knowledge [00:12:00] that he passed along to you when you were a kid.

You know what I mean? At the age that he's at it's hard to know what he's really gonna retain other than if we happen to swear around a kid and they repeat that. There's

Jason Crighton: those things always bad stuff.

Marcus Ewing: Yeah. All the bad stuff. Yeah. Which is funny because my, I'm not the best at watching my language around the kids sometimes and even just not like cursing at them, but just like in your everyday In general.

Yeah. Yeah. In general. And my daughter's never once in, in six plus years repeated a word that I've said that's not been a good word. But my son, man, like he, he won't say anything or he won't listen. And then as soon as you drop something, he'll turn around and repeat it back to you. And it's nope.

Didn't think you were paying attention, Kyle. We don't say that. Only dad says that. And he's not supposed to.

Jason Crighton: Yeah. Everyone that knows me knows I'm a huge I'm a huge outdoorsman. I don't fish, I hunt. I do a lot of, habitat work on our property, family property that we have.

And, so people always ask oh, you're gonna get your son to hunt. Yeah, if he wants to, I'd always say if he wants to, yeah. If he wants to fish, we'll fish. If he wants to hunt, we'll hunt. If he just wants to hike, [00:13:00] we'll hike. If he wants to forage, that's what we're gonna do.

My big thing is I just, I want him to appreciate being outside and want to be outside. Finding opportunities now, as a one and a half year old, almost two year old, it's just finding ways to get him outside and then letting him explore a little bit. Yeah. And explaining some stuff, so like last summer, I took him and my parents came too, and we went to a National Deer Association local chapter cleanup event, and I, I have him in like the front chest carrier.

Yeah. And I'm bending down, I'm picking up trash. And he has his carhart overalls on and camo hat, and he's playing in the dirt when we're taking a break and stuff. Just give him time to just enjoy the outdoors and hopefully, listen, do I want him to hunt?

Absolutely. But just because that's something I enjoy, but we're gonna do whatever he enjoys and so it's more about just giving them the experience, being out there now at this point in his life.

Marcus Ewing: Yeah. And I [00:14:00] think that's all we can do at this point, like when they're that age is because you have to just like plant that seed, and there's, maybe, even, when they're 8, 9, 10, 11 years old, maybe they're not super interested, but, maybe come those, those more vulnerable years, they get to be a teenager. And then it they can glean from, from things that they learned or things that you guys did when he was younger and then they take up an interest, right?

I don't, I think there's certainly people, out there that they take to it at a young age and they just, they can't ball into it, right? And they never look back. But I think for a lot of people it's more of a slow burn, right? I think that it's gradual. And then once you.

Can you become more self-sustainable when it comes to hunting or fishing and things like that. That's when that, that real passion the real obsessive nature behind it, really comes into

Jason Crighton: play. Yeah. Look, 100%, it's just giving him experiences, right? So that he can try to enjoy.

And a lot of it, a lot of the try experiences I'm trying to give him, I'm drawing on things that I [00:15:00] remember from when I was a kid. Yep. Like the things that have stuck in my head, 35 years later, like if it, if that memory's burned into my brain that I can still remember it now then it must have been something impactful.

Yeah. Like I, I remember I don't really remember it, but I remember seeing the picture. I've seen the picture so many times of my dad's holding me and I'm sitting on the neck of a buck that he shot with my great-grandfather standing, next to us. My grandfather's actually taken the picture.

And that was the, let's see, I was born in February I was probably only seven or eight months old at that point. So the first year that my son was born, like I did everything I could to shoot a bucket. It just was not coming together until first day of rifle season. It was almost like it was meant to be just like my dad, and I shot a buck. So I, we came home from camp. I told my grandfather and I told my dad, I was like, we're going to my in-law's house. We're taking this picture. So yeah, we recruited, like that's an ex, and that's a picture that, that he sees. It's hung on the wall. And and then I remember things [00:16:00] like, and granted this can't happen yet, but, I was, I don't know, maybe eight or nine years old.

My dad shot the only archery deer he ever shot a four point buck. And my mom and I just happened to be at camp with him that weekend. I don't even know why, but. He came back to camp and he said, I shot a deer. Do you wanna help me track it? So I'm tracking it through the snow. There's, maybe two inches of snow.

And I didn't know at the time, but he watched it fall, like he knew where it was. But me, having me go out and I'm in front and I'm just like finding blood and just okay, next step. And he's trying to walk me through the process and I almost tripped over that deer, cause you're so fo at that age I was so focused on, I have to find the next spot of blood. I never looked up. That's something you learn after. You shoot some deer, you learn to look up. I probably follow blood and until was about five yards away when my dad was like, are you, can you look out in front?

What's out there? And I looked up and right there, and it was exciting for me. I found the deer, right? Yeah. That was, as a kid, that was very exciting for me.[00:17:00] So to be able to give opportunities like that to my son, like that's what I'm looking forward to try to instill that Hey, maybe at least he wants to try hunting and then maybe he sticks with as much as I have.

Maybe more, maybe not At that point we'll just go with the flow.

Marcus Ewing: Yeah. No, I think, yeah, going with the flow, just take it as it comes. That's the best way you can do it. It's funny, you talk about you just, when you were five and you had that experience, tracking that deer, with your dad that, that he had shot where we hunt.

So it's not close to where we live. It's probably about two and a half hour drive. And we have my in-laws, it's my in-laws property, and they have a cabin that's probably, I don't know, 25 minutes from the property that we hunt, that they own. And usually during deer season, like if, especially if we're gonna make like a weekend out of it during archery season we'll all go up to the cabin.

Like my, my my mother-in-law, my father-in-law myself, my wife, my kids, probably my brother-in-law, his wife, Their kids who are around the [00:18:00] same age as mine. So it's a big family thing. And we do that, heck, three, four times during the hunting season. And once rifle season comes and the weather turns a little bit, we usually, it's usually just the guys more or less.

And every deer I've shot has been when I'm up there by myself or I'm just with my brother-in-law. And my kids are, and my wife are back at home. So I think it was three years ago I made a very spur of the moment trip left the house around noon drove straight to the property and my brother-in-law was supposed to meet me there.

He didn't show up. He had some work conflicts. He wasn't able to go. I ended up killing a real nice eight point, from the time I put my butt in the stand till the time I pulled the trigger was like 35 minutes. And it was like this white out snowstorm. It was incredible. It was, you couldn't have drew it up any better as far as, I knew we were supposed to get snow.

And as I'm getting closer to the property, I'm like, holy cow. There's more than a couple inches. There was probably, five inches on the ground when I parked the truck and it was still a whiteout, it was coming down and as I'm [00:19:00] getting dressed the truck, I'm like I'm probably late.

There's probably already deer in the field. And this is like first week of December. So it was like, like our second rifle season in the zone that we're in, we get like an extra 10 days more or less because we're in like A C W D adjacent county or zone. So what's typically like muzzle loader in muzzle loader season in our zone we can use a rifle.

So I'm gonna take advantage of that if I can. Oh yeah. And it was, I was sitting on a food plot cause it was really good, late season food even, despite the snow and yeah, there was two young dos standing in the field when I walked up and I kinda crouched down behind a bush and I was.

I, I said, I'm like I can't sit here, right? This is, I'm exposed, I'm just in the elements. So I'm like, I'm just gonna have to bump these deer. So I stood up and just slowly started walking and they picked their heads up in young deer, you can get away with it. They looked at me for a minute and they just ran off.

But yeah, it was everything was like super quick and a whole, and I don't know if we've talked about [00:20:00] this the first time around, but this whole episode transpired after, with dealing with the deer by myself was in, six inches of wet heavy snow was just a nightmare. And so what, basically what I was trying to say is they had never seen one of the deer that I had shot, so I.

The next day when I came home, instead of going right to the processor, like I came home out of the way just so that they could see it, they could take pictures with it. We could have that memory and yeah it's the same kind of thing. Like it's one of the pictures that I have framed, it's in my office, like with both the kids.

Like I think my son at the time was, gosh, just over a year old maybe, or maybe not even a year old. I'm like holding him and he's holding one of the, the rack and my daughter's like standing in the bed of the pickup truck holding it as well. So it's one of those things that, yeah, I hope that they get older and they can just like you did, right?

Like they, it's something that they can draw on.

Jason Crighton: Yeah. Yeah. It, I remember, my dad doing that, every year, that he would get a deer. It came home. And I got to see it before he took it to the [00:21:00] processor. And I got to see my grandfathers and I got to see my uncles, it was Hey, we're gonna show these deer off and then okay.

Now we take 'em to the processor. Yeah. I've been wrestling with this for years. And I keep saying I don't have time to process my own deer. I do, I have the time. I'm just like choosing, I'm not making time. And because I'm a culinary teacher, I'm like, man, like I really should be doing all this myself.

So the last couple years I've been making an effort to really try to process at home, which makes it easier to. Show my son because I'm bringing it home. The problem with that is, is that it's been so warm especially during archery season, and it's I don't wanna hang it up at camp for even 12 hours.

Even overnight it seems like it's getting it's staying too warm. So it's like I sh what I should do to make this the best culinary fair. This isn't the eighties anymore. This isn't the sixties where we're throwing it on the hood of a car. We know what makes venison taste bad is not handling it [00:22:00] properly.

So what I should be doing is I should be quartering it up and throwing it in my Yeti cooler with some ice and everything's ready to go. I should be doing that. But I still have this like pole of, man, I really want my son to see the deer itself, type thing. Last year I actually came home the, that day this past season.

I came home that day. Like I, I shot a dough and brought it home that day because it was like, it was gonna be too warm. I don't want to hang it, I'm not gonna quarter it. And I want him to see it. So I brought it home that day instead, which made it a lot tougher, right? I didn't get as much sleep driving, that day instead of the next morning, trying to race home to get home before he goes down for, to sleep and all that stuff.

But whenever he gets to see it, it's, it makes it worthwhile.

Marcus Ewing: Yeah, absolutely. So I mentioned it earlier but you host the podcast Conservative Wild as well as, it's your organization. So what has been new with Conservative Wild since [00:23:00] we last spoke?

Jason Crighton: Ooh. Conserve the wild.

Not a whole lot has changed since we last spoke. I'm still, it's funny it's crazy how things work. Like I was right at the doorstep of turning, conserve the wild into a nonprofit, had the funding set up to get all that started. And then the pandemic hit and all the funding got withdrawn.

Yeah. And I haven't gotten it back yet. Couple of the businesses, have gone away from the pandemic. The rest of 'em are still ah, we're not quite sure where things are. So from there, really, I've I put everything on hold for a little bit with that.

And Anne put the blog, I it's funny, right before all that hap everything with the pandemic happened, getting ready to do nonprofit. Like I was starting to do some public appearances where I was like giving talks at some just very local, yeah, outdoor show type things. But I put, I've put that on hold just with the whole pandemic and everything.

Then having a kid put the blog on hold. But just this year 2023, I started the blog back up. And I've changed a little bit of the [00:24:00] podcast, so I don't, and everything's the same. It's just now, instead of releasing every week, I'm releasing every other week just because I do not have time.

Yeah. To put in the effort. To release a quality episode every single Friday. I need, two weeks to get together to get everything together just because family pools, every, work related time commitments, all that kind of stuff. So basically what I've been trying to do instead to try to still keep that content flowing is that ev so every other Friday release a podcast And then on the Fridays that I don't and it hasn't been every Friday, but as many as I can.

I'm trying to release a blog post that is tied into that most recent episode. Okay. That's just a overview. I'm not, no one's gonna sit down and read a transcript right, of an interview about a topic. So it's more just, an overview of these are the things that we talked about.

These are the big takeaways type things. Here's where you can find more information. If you're interested, listen to the [00:25:00] episode. You'll hear a whole lot more. Trying to tie the two together a little bit just so there's a flow to the content that's being put out there.

Are you still,

Marcus Ewing: I've checked out obviously some episodes over the course of time, and You don't, you cover a wide variety of topics. You talk to a lot of different agencies and organizations and things like that with kind of the, relaunch isn't the right word, but with kind of shuffling things up a bit to start the year, are you still trying to keep that kind of national footprint or try to, or are you keeping it a bit more local?

Jason Crighton: Yeah it's I'd say probably about a 50 50 mix. Yeah. I, I have so just recently, just this past year, I became a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writer's Association. They expanded their definition of a writer to include podcasters. They're trying to update with the times, sure.

I became a member and between that and the fact that I've been doing this podcast now for 150 plus episodes[00:26:00] I've developed a pretty good network of people. I. That I can bring on as guests. So I like, it's funny when people ask, especially in a podcast community what's your podcast about?

I say conservation, like the name of my podcast is Conservation Unfiltered. Like we're talking about conservation. How I decide, that everyone always talks about when you started a podcast, you wanna keep it. Real specific. The more specific you can make it, the better. Unless you're someone like Joe Rogan, right?

Unless if you're already a celebrity, you could talk about whatever you want. People are gonna listen. Yeah. But when you're not Right. I'm not, no offense, you're not. Like you need to have not offended by that. No. I'm coming on your show and saying you're not famous. Like when you're not a famous person that already has this built-in audience, you need to be specific with what you're talking about.

So people that are interested in that niche subject area are. Coming to you because they're interested in that. So at the beginning I thought like conservation, that's super niche, right? No, it's not [00:27:00] there. It is so broad because it's everything from, grasses and invasive species of plants to bees and butterflies to deer and hunting and fishing.

And if you really want to, international, it gets crazy. Because of that network that I've built o of people that I've had on as past guests and then people that they know and people I've met I'm trying to keep a 50 50 mix. I'm trying to be Pennsylvania specific because there's a lot of Pennsylvania's a lot like Michigan.

There is just a huge tradition of conservation. Yeah, absolutely. And hunting and fishing there. So I really wanna highlight the things that are going on in my home state that I love. At the same time, anything that interests me nationally I want to talk about it, when I talk about when I say like 50 50 mix, like I'm just thinking about the episodes just since January that I've released since it's fewer now, right?

Cause it's every other week. But there's been six episodes released that I've released. Three of 'em have been Pennsylvania specific. One with the executive director of our [00:28:00] game commission, one with the executive director of our Fish and Boat commission, and then one about Rachel Carson world renowned, biologist and or ecologist.

And author of Silent Spring she actually grew up right across the river from where I live now. So a Pennsylvania person. Okay. But then at the same time I'm also talking about things like you. Pheasants that live in downtown Detroit. Talking about sagebrush habitat with whit fosberg of T R C P, and then also a primer of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

They brought that back. It's on the RFD channel now. We did a, we did an episode sort of highlighting the fact that, Show that's been on for decades that I grew up watching, is now coming back again. And nationally, talking about Pennsylvania stuff like I said, if it interests me and it has, and I can even remotely relate it to, conservation, then then I'm gonna see if I can find someone to talk to about it on my show.

Yeah.

Marcus Ewing: I'm often, I'm [00:29:00] curious and you probably have a bit more insight because, you're publishing your podcast and you have the platform that's all, yours, that's all kind of self sustained within yourself with, the average conservationist podcast. It's on a network of podcasts.

When I get my episode ready, I send it off, they get it published, I do the write up in the editing and all that good stuff, I send it off to them. Like I don't see, like weekly numbers and I could probably ask for 'em, but it's, it can be a bit cumbersome and, I don't, you don't need to tell me how every episode does, right?

I get, I think probably like a mid-year check-in with, hey, here's where downloads are at, and then like an end of the year type report when we have a big network meeting and whatnot. Do you notice, more or less downloads or, higher, more people are tuning in if it's something local as opposed to national?

Or have you gotten to the point where like you have a pretty good built-in audience and regardless of, the guests whether it's local, whether it's national that people are still tuning.

Jason Crighton: So I definitely have a builtin audience, right? Like I have [00:30:00] yeah, people that it doesn't matter what I talk about they're gonna listen every week or every week, every episode.

They're gonna listen to it. I have it up here on my second screen here, so I'm looking at it. I would say,

I would say honestly, local stuff seems to be not local, but I mean like state specific stuff. Yeah. Actually seems to be a little bit down compared to the national stuff. And I think that's just because there are, while I have a lot, the vast majority of my listenership is, it is based in Pennsylvania, but I, there's quite a few people that listen to the show that are in other states.

Sometimes they, I think my listeners really like whenever I talk about something and that has been talked about, but try to talk about it in a little bit of a unique way, right? Yeah. So like we if you've paid attention to any conservation stuff at all for the past 10 years, you've heard about Sagebrush and [00:31:00] you know that we need to conserve it.

But why? And what's being done Right to, in order to do that and being able to talk to someone like Whit Fosberg, who has his finger on the pulse about something like that. Yeah. And talked about, how there's private partnerships between oil and gas and ranchers and conservationists all working together to conserve sage brush.

When you can put it like that, because when it comes to, when it comes to conservation, every, a lot of people look at like this black and white deal, right? You, okay, we need to conserve sage brush. That means no oil and gas. That means no development. And then you have someone like wit that comes along and says, Hey, look at this private partnership where you have oil companies, developers, ranchers, and conservationists all working together to say, Hey, it's okay to drill a well.

It's okay to build a housing plan. It's okay to graze your cattle, but let's be, let's think about where we want to do it, right? Like, where is the [00:32:00] optimal place that we can do these things that's gonna have the smallest impact on Sage brush being delivered and then, yeah. And so it's this gray area in between where it's like, we can still do some of these development things.

Yeah. We just need to be smart in how we go about it. And they, it's had a tremendous amount of success, and it makes sense. I'm go back going with this episode because it, a lot of it really encapsulates the kind of stuff that I like to put on my show. It makes sense once you hear someone break it down.

Why would oil and gas care about conserving sage brush habitat? Because there's a species of bird, right? That's a, just happens to be a game bird, which is why a lot of hunters are also interested in it that live in sage brush habitat. And it is, Not yet on the threat. It's like in this limbo of threatened and not threatened.

And if we kept going in this destruction of sagebrush habitat, it's going to end up becoming endangered, right? If it becomes endangered, guess what happens with those oil and gas companies or those [00:33:00] housing developments? They can't be built. Hey, if we put some money and some effort towards, keeping their numbers at least stable, then we can still do our thing and make our money as a company, right?

Yeah. I like really waiting into those sort of gray areas with conservation. And because of that, I think it takes me nationally and like I said, no, the, I will say numbers wise, the only thing that I see when my numbers take a pretty big dip is if I go international. I've talked about elephants, I've talked about international conservation issues and travel to do that.

And I see a pretty, I see a pretty big dip, unfortunately. People like to hear what's happening in their backyard, yeah. Not necessarily a across the ocean.

Marcus Ewing: Yeah. I think when you get international, obviously here we have our model of conservation that's been around for generations, and we're very used to it.

We understand it. We, for the most part, if you're in the hunting community, in the fishing community, even if you just, have a general understanding, [00:34:00] how it works and, the funding mechanisms and those types of things, when you go abroad, there's a bit of a disconnect, because just, general regulations are completely different. And obviously you, you wade into certain parts of the world and there's big, there's trophy hunting and. That's has, for a long time had a very negative connotation to it. And, I think that there's two sides to every story and, the, I guess the other side has started to become a bit more publicized in recent years.

But yeah, that's I think that guys like you and I who don't have this, we don't have this built in audience like you talked about. I think that's one I think we can get away with a little bit more when it comes to asking questions because we don't have to worry about upsetting A or B, when it comes to maybe partners or affiliations or things like that.

So we can get into that gray area like you talked about. We don't have to ask PC questions to get PC answers. Because they've, if you have a guy like Witan who I've [00:35:00] had on this podcast before as well, you can ask him some things. You can, Wade into the deep end a little bit, and not have to worry about repercussions. And I think that, with, and I don't want to keep singling wood out here, people like that who have a really big platform they get used to giving, again, those PC answers, right? And I think they enjoy being able to get into the weeds and the nuance of things and how those relationships works with, developers and conservationists and things like that in order to, further the mission of, groups like T R C P and, making sure sagebrush and things like that.

The habitats are stable, like you said, because, with, you take someone like a development company. They all, they're gonna have their like risk analysis, right? What happens if we keep doing this? Where could potential blowback or pushback be? And is it, hunters, is it conservationists, is it state gang, agencies and things like that because certain populations are taking a dip and good on them [00:36:00] to have that foresight to look and say, yeah, this is the type of property where we're continually developing on.

These are some effects. Cause I'm sure that they have people on the payroll who are doing that work, right? They're doing their investigative work, say okay, what are the ramifications of this? And they're getting out ahead of things, I guess is a good way to put it.

And yeah, I think that's, cuz there, there's gonna be development iregardless, right? And for them to do their part as much as possible to try to maintain, certain populations and certain habitats. Yeah.

Jason Crighton: Good on them. Yeah. You mentioned asking the non PC questions, and I have to say, this is why I like listening to your show, and this is why I think people like to listen to my show.

I want to ask the hard questions, right? But I don't want to be the gotcha guy. Yeah. That's not my purpose. My purpose isn't trying to make you slip up or try to get you to say something that's going to go viral. I've been advised, [00:37:00] hey, that's how you get more people to listen to your show, be controversial.

That I'm not trying to be controversial. I'm covering controversial subjects, but I'm not, I don't wanna be controversial. One that would not go over well with my day job as a high school teacher, but two, I don't, I wanna be respected, right? And I feel like Y when I started this whole show, it was all about I, I always said, and I'll continue to say now, I'm not the expert.

I weighed into conservation a lot. I follow it very closely. I've made it, a very important hobby in my life, but I'm still not an expert. I'm not a wildlife biologist. I'm not the executive director of a state agency. So I'm bringing the experts on. The way the, to continue to get these experts to come on is by not embarrassing them.

I've had episodes that I've recorded that I have never released and I will never release. Because maybe I've had, they've said some things that they're not supposed to say cuz they weren't allowed to say it yet. And [00:38:00] then, They asked me to take that out. When I take it out the episode, it's the whole episode turned on something that they said, that I can't take out and still have a good episode or I could think of one episode.

I I loved the whole concept. I worked for months on this whole concept to get three different people on and do this sort of round table about a specific topic. And unfortunately, one of the guests just was, he was just not very nice to the other two guests. Like he demeaned them differing viewpoints.

Yeah. I was trying to bring differing viewpoints together, but there's a way to do that professionally, and he wasn't, and yeah, I tried everything I could to like, edit out all the like, really rough things that he said that I just, it, I couldn't make the episode flow. So it's you know what? I'm not putting that out there.

I'm not gonna embarrass someone else by putting, This out there on the internet for the world to see. Not that the whole world listens to my show, right? Like my numbers aren't that good, but even if it's just one person listening I don't that's not my purpose. I'm not trying to be a gotcha person.

[00:39:00] I, I wanna get the best information possible, but I wanna do it in a way that the person I'm talking to is like, Hey, I want to come back on the show. Not, oh, I never wanted to do that again. You're a terrible person.

Marcus Ewing: Yeah. The gotcha thing. Yeah. I certainly subscribe to that same train of thought.

I'm not trying to Yeah. Put someone in a spot to make 'em answer a question that they're not prepared to answer. Because that's when Yeah. That's when you say something that you haven't had a chance to really think out. And that's, and I mean that, that's just, I don't know. I don't wanna gain something by, Hurting someone else or exactly by demeaning someone else or something that they say and exploiting that because that's, I, I guess maybe that's just the type of person I am, right?

Like I don't really want to get into that kind of field of play. I would much rather just and I've had a lot of kind of back and forth with people pri prior to to actually recording. It's Hey, like I'm not [00:40:00] gonna, this isn't gotcha. Cuz they'll be like, oh, can you send me an itinerary of what we're gonna talk about?

And when I first started yeah, I would really map out what I wanted to talk about and to really try to get the episode in the conversation to flow a certain way. And as well as I do the more you do it, the more you can just do that naturally, right? You can ask good follow up questions.

You can go from one topic to the next and next thing you know, it's an hour and you're like, oh man, that was super easy. And that's really how I try to navigate things. But people will just they almost have to know, like every question that you're gonna ask, every topic that you want to talk about.

And if you deviate from that, they get uncomfortable. And, that's, I don't want to make it seem like an interview. I wanna make it seem like a conversation. Again, I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions, but it's gonna be very conversational, not, okay. Mr. Kreton, tell me about this.

Tell me about, that's just Yeah, and I think for guys like you and I, who again, are we're not celebrities. We've established that that's what people like to hear. I think the [00:41:00] relatability that you and I have with our guests with our listeners I think that's why I think people continue to tune, tune in week after week.

Because we're just, we're average people and that's, people want to hear those conversations with guys like us. If you were, sitting at camp if you were, having a beer on the back porch or something like that. Yeah,

Jason Crighton: That, that's the thing is we're coming at it and asking questions that are the same kind of questions that those people are gonna ask.

You know what I mean? And, that Gotcha deal. The first time I really noticed it in Pennsylvania you can only hunt on three Sundays a year still. But when the original bill to give us those, what ended up being those. Three Sundays when it was going through the state legislature.

I went with my co-host at the time to state senator's office in Erie, and we interviewed him and, his press person sat in on the interview. I had to put like all the write up all the questions, and they really didn't want me to deviate from that. Which, but it was funny because, I don't know, maybe halfway [00:42:00] into the conversation.

The press person picked up, her phone started, I don't know, scrolling, social media, whatever, I don't know, stop paying attention. The senator relaxed and started joking with us a little bit about some things, and I think he realized like, I'm not here to be the I'm not tmz that's not my purpose.

And Right. It's a fine line, right? To ask the hard questions, that people want answers to, but not do it in a demeaning way. And to make your guests feel comfortable. And last year I got some confirmation that I've been doing it. I've been walking that, that line the way I need to.

Last year I partnered with the Keystone Elk Country Alliance and went to their Elk Expo and, Brian Burhans, who's the executive director of our game commission came up and he's joking with me about stuff. I've talked to him now probably about five or six times, and every time I talk to him, it's we've been friends forever.

It's wild. So obviously like he likes me in some capacity. He respects what I do. He realizes I'm not trying to get him on [00:43:00] stuff, right? Like he's joking with me, but then, he leaves and then all of a sudden, some guys come up from a sort of local club from the state that really has some very strong opinions about the game commission.

And they're joking with me about the game commission, and it's like I, I'm, both sides are talking to me about stuff and yeah. I'm like, I'm an old friend, so up I, I'm apparently walking the line just right to be able to, say yeah, people from the game commission, they like what I do, I don't like everything the Game Commission does.

Like every rule they make, no one does. Yeah, they're not making the rules for me. They're making 'em for the, every a hundred in the state, almost a million of us. But at the same time, like I can also recognize that some of the good things that they've done, even if it hasn't benefited me, I can recognize why they're making that decision.

Yeah. It's like being able to play both sides. I'm not doing it maliciously, but I'm trying to, because you need that relationship with both [00:44:00] kinds of people. Yeah.

Marcus Ewing: Yeah. You need to be able to offer your listeners a viewpoint from both sides, depending on the topic. You need to, yeah.

You need to have everyone. Have their voice heard. And I think that's another thing that people respect is, and Rogan's a whole different ball of wax. But that's, he gets all sorts of people on his podcast, have all sorts of different viewpoints on, a hundred different topics.

And I think that's why people like to listen to it. Cuz yeah, you're gonna get guests on there that, 95% of society, whatever the topic is that guest wants to talk about, agree with, then he is gonna get that person on who really speaks to that 5%. And that's, it's, I think everyone kind of deserves, deserves their time to tell their story.

No. Tell me more about the Keystone Elk Country Alliance. Cause I know you mentioned that you've recently partnered with them.

Jason Crighton: Yeah, so they, I've, I during the pandemic they did this before the pandemic, but they really solidified what they did. They are the local statewide [00:45:00] Organization that really does a lot of great work for the Elk herd here in Pennsylvania.

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has chapters in Pennsylvania and they do a lot of great work, but the Keystone Elk Country Alliance it was developed really to push that mission like hard, right? Like Mark Melton Elk Foundation, that's a national deal. They're gonna be very concerned with elk out west and in the southwest and Kentucky and Virginia now, places like that along with Pennsylvania.

But they're, the people that started Keka really recognize the fact that to really benefit elk in Pennsylvania, we need our own. Individual running organization. And during the pandemic, one of the things that they had been doing that really took off were virtual field trips. Where they they would send a trunk of an elk hide, an elk antler some examples of what elk eat, things like that.

Two-way school. And then they would have someone, virtually talk about all these things and pull stuff out [00:46:00] of the trunk that they had. And the kids get to touch, the elk hide and they get to touch the elk antler and they get to learn about elk. And so during the pandemic, we, my job I had Fridays I had to work, but we didn't have kids.

We had this hybrid. It gave us time as teachers to plan cuz we were teaching both kids in the classroom and remotely, so it gave us time to plan and figure out how we were gonna do these lessons. Since I had already been doing that sort of stuff having a lot of my assignments on online and stuff, I decided I was allowed to take a day and go to Benette, Pennsylvania, which is where the visitor's center's located and talk to them.

And then while I was there, after the workday was over, I record a podcast about, the education that they do and the conservation and everything last year. They reach back out to me. And so every year they have what they call the Elk Expo. It's basically this big celebration. That's a weekend every year at the visitor's center.

They have vendors, food crafts out Elk Outfitters are [00:47:00] there. On the Saturday of the Elk Expo, the game commission pulls all the. All the tags for the elk season that we have. And then on Sunday they do this big celebration of the Keka tag, which is, it's their own raffle.

And it comes with a a guide. It comes with taxidermy, it comes with processing. Like for 20 bucks you get a ticket. And it's the whole experience, right? Yeah. So that's obviously a big deal and that, that's the big stuff. But they were looking, they've been doing it for 20 years.

They were looking to expand their reach. So they, since I had talked to some of them, they decided, previously that hey, maybe we could do some podcasts around it. So it was thrown together. It was a little late. At the time, it was in August, I think second week second or third week of August that they had the Elk Expo last year.

And they contacted me in like late June. So it was like, whew, okay, what are we gonna do? So I did, ended up doing five episodes around the event. Had a booth there talking to [00:48:00] people, seeing what the event was like. I'd never been there. I'd heard about it and wanted to go, but just, it never really worked out timing wise to be able to go and it was a great time.

So this year with their new marketing person, we started talking already about what we're gonna do and decided they wanted to keep doing the partnership. So the big thing there, there's two big things for this year is they're moving. The Elk Expo this year. And that's because we have Pennsylvania's Institute, an archery season for Elk.

Okay. A couple years ago one, three or maybe four years ago. The problem is, the problem was that they were pulling the tags in like the middle of August, and then the season opened up three weeks later for archery season. So it's not much time to prepare. No. So you can do all kinds of scouting if you want.

But then you don't get the tag or you don't do any scouting and then you get the tag pulled and now you're like, you have three weeks to get ready to go. So they move that tag pull up a couple weeks to give [00:49:00] some people a little more time. So the Oak Expos been moved up, so this year it's July 29th and 30th.

So it's last weekend in July. So that's the first big thing is it's earlier this year. And then from my perspective the big thing for me, so we will be the week bef two weeks before the Elk Expo, I'll be releasing a podcast talking with Keka employees about. Who's gonna be there? They put on seminars why people should come where people can stay.

They do shuttles and all this stuff. So like, how to go about all that stuff. And then the big thing for me, which, whew, this is scary. I can't believe I'm actually saying this out loud outside of just, talking with the Keka people I'm gonna do a Marathon Live podcast on Saturday, July 29th.

So we're gonna have I have a tentative schedule mapped out where we're going to have basically eight hours of podcasts straight. That will be live on YouTube, live [00:50:00] on Facebook. Where we're gonna have guests come in pretty much every hour, and we're gonna be talking about stuff now.

We're still trying to figure out exactly who's gonna come when and who's gonna be there for different things. But so we're, a couple of things that I can mention we're gonna have for sure is last year's winner for the Keka tag was a guy by the name of Roy Moon, who actually lives like 10 minutes from me.

But he's gonna come on at 10 o'clock. So it's gonna start at nine. We're gonna talk with some entertainment people tentatively, but he's gonna come on at nine o'clock and then, or I'm sorry, at 10 o'clock. And then at 11 o'clock we're gonna have gentleman from the trophy rack lodge who's an outfitter elk outfitter in Pennsylvania.

He's gonna come on, he's actually the Keka tag outfitter. So if you win the Keka tag, you get to go with him. Okay? For your hunts. And So we'll have him on to talk about, how to find an outfitter, what you should be looking for in an outfitter. What's all involved with the Keka tag?

Hunt Chef is going to [00:51:00] be putting on some seminars for Keka. So he Jeremy Critchfield is the chef that, that has started Hunt Chef. He's gonna come on in the afternoon and talk about processing and his brand and how to get the most out of your food. And as a culinary teacher, that's, right up my alley.

And then we're gonna have, last year we had Jeremy Banfield on and we're probably gonna have him back again for that live one. So he's our elk biologist for the state. So he'll come on to talk about updates and things with elk. And then Sunday we're gonna release an episode with Raleigh Kogan, who's the CEO of Keka.

And hopefully at least one board member as well, just to get some updates from Keka. But that won't be a live episode. It's that live thing where I, it's gonna be me and two other people sorta intermixing in there asking some questions for eight hours plus as people are walking around the expo, so it's gonna be interesting. I've never done that before. [00:52:00]

Marcus Ewing: Oh, kudos to you for even signing up for something like that, because think about, go back to when you first started the podcast, right? And you, you feel comfortable talking about the outdoors and conservation, right? But then, You get certain guests on and pucker up a little bit, you wanna make sure you put your best foot forward.

You don't wanna stumble. Like you wanna sound as professional as possible. You wanna sound like, you know what the hell you're talking about, right? We've, I think anyone who's done a podcast has been there before. Yep. Again, like the more you do it, the more you get comfortable and you're just like, ah, they're just another person just like me.

If I trip over a word or if I, say a word that's not actually a word, like they're not gonna catch any those types of things. But when you're doing that, you're like, okay, I, for 60 minutes or 90 minutes or whatever I've gotta be on to be on for eight hours. That's a long time, man.

Even when even people who have day jobs, who work, eight to five you're not on that entire time. Like you're, you're taking breaks, you're, you're chop chopping it up with other people in the [00:53:00] office or whatever the case is. So yeah, to be ready to go and then change topics, I realize it's all centered around elk and things like that.

Different guests, whether it's culinary, whether it's, the executive director, whether it's an outfitter. Thankfully it's an interesting topic, right?

Jason Crighton: To keep you Yeah I, yeah. Yes, I hear what you're saying, but at the same time, I've cheated a little bit here. I brought in some people to help me.

My original, no. Yeah, my original co-host is I've conned him into coming and helping out, giving me a break here or there if I need it. But the other thing is don't forget I'm a teacher. I teach this year. I've, I teach seven of eight periods and I have five different preps or five different classes that I teach.

So that's, I teach child development, I teach financial management, I teach careers, I teach culinary classes. So important things. Yeah. I agree 100%, but they're all different, right? So I'm changing topics throughout the day and I'm used to starting at seven 30 and [00:54:00] with one break, right?

For lunch going until three 30. So this isn't gonna be a whole lot different than my normal day. The thing that's really getting me to pucker up you mentioned, you get your first what you think big guest, right? For me, that was Lindsay Thomas Jr. And that was pretty, I think that was like episode seven.

That was super early. I had no idea what I was doing. And but like you said, you, you figure out like they're just like you. They talk the same and they're just as nervous as you are. And now it's at a point where both of us, we've done this enough that our guests are gonna be more nervous than we are.

Oh, appreciate when it comes to it. But now all of a sudden, the thing that's getting me apart is the fact that it's live that. I feel like I'm not a huge techie person. But I know enough about tech to be able to do a podcast, right? Like I, I've done it enough now. Like I know how to fix little things that need to be You can troubleshoot.

Yeah. Yeah. I can troubleshoot. I've never done live before, right? So I'm trying to reach out to these other people, who's done a live podcast? Okay, what do I do? Like I'm, I have spent the [00:55:00] last three weeks like researching every spare minute I have on what I need to do. I need an encoder, I need software.

I need, like what is go okay, what does that even mean? I don't know. So I have until July to figure it out. Yeah. That's the part that's keeping me up at night now is I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like, crap. What happens if this happens? Or what do I do if this happens?

Or what does this mean? Which, yeah. It's gonna be interesting. I'll say that. It's exciting though,

Marcus Ewing: but. I know some guys who do a weekly podcast. I you've probably heard 'em. Okays Hunter. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that they do all their shows. They do 'em on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure that those are all live, have to reach out to them.

Eric Clark, the host, one of the hosts there, the man behind the case center of the brand in general. Pretty savvy when it comes to that sort of stuff. So maybe I'll put you in contact with him. He can answer some questions for.

Yeah,

Jason Crighton: we, I talked to him a couple months ago. Okay. We were talking about trying to get him on my show and timing didn't [00:56:00] work out.

We were gonna push it later, but I didn't realize his shows were live. I'm gonna have to con to talk to him again. Yeah. It's just fear of the unknown, right? Yeah. Yeah. But the whole reason why we're doing this and it was my idea, it's right I'm complaining say, saying you're doing great, man.

I'm, I'm worried about everything that could go wrong, but meanwhile I'm the one that was like, Hey, let's do live. The reason why I think this could be good is that, for people that can't make it, to still get the experience and the information. We're not gonna be walking around.

It's gonna be a static shot of, three or four people sitting at a table talking about stuff. But, like Jeremy Critchfield is gonna be doing, I guarantee I, I've watched his videos I've read his articles. I've been on his site, like he knows his stuff when it comes to culinary and processing cuts and cooking venison.

He knows his stuff, so he's gonna put on some great seminars if you can't be there. At least you get to hear him talk about it, and get to hear some of the stuff that, some of his [00:57:00] knowledge and share in his information. So even if you can't be there, you still get to experience it.

I think that's super valuable for people out there, and then in the coming weeks, after, yeah, it's gonna be live, but I'm gonna put all these, all those like different topics out there as as their own episodes as well. So that people can, that maybe, you have your kid's soccer game, at 11 o'clock, so you didn't get a chance to hear Larry from, the outfit Trophy La Rack Lodge.

Talk about finding an outfitter, but you really wanted to know more about that. Okay. I'm gonna put it out there so people can still listen to it. And we were talking about numbers before. I'm not expecting those episodes to get great numbers when I put 'em out after, I'm doing it more as just like a, hey, if you didn't get to hear a section of the live and you want to experience it, great.

Yeah. These are extra episodes on top of what I would normally be putting out.

Marcus Ewing: Yeah. Or someone wants to go back and re-listen to one of the topics, even if they listen to it live. If there was, you just, [00:58:00] it's like anything, if, if you're riding the car, listening to it or something like that, like you're retaining it, but you're not, there may be something a little nugget.

You're like, man I need to go back and listen to that when I can pay a bit closer attention and really absorb that information. No, that, that's super cool, man. I wish you the best of luck because while I do think after you pointed it, You are prepared for it from the the topic, the being able to be on like that's a good thing.

I didn't even take into account like being a teacher, that, that kind of plays that's, that plays into your hands, the tech side. Yeah. What happens if something goes down, man, then all of a sudden it's gonna be all hell's gonna break loose. Yeah. Jason's gonna be over there just scrambling, going

Jason Crighton: Yeah.

Get our feedback. What's going on here? Yeah. And as much as I say I'm prepared, I teach, seven, seven hours a day that's still like when I screw up in class and listen I'm a person. Teachers aren't perfect. So I screw up, I say something I'm not supposed to, not that I'm not supposed to, but two plus two equals five type thing.

Yeah. That's in front of 25 kids. Yeah. [00:59:00] I screw up on this live one, I don't want to like, knock on wood here, but that could be in front of hundreds or thousands of people. Yeah, keka is gonna help host this like online. Cuz that's the target demographic we're going for.

Like you that's a big mess up, right? Yeah. That's in front of a lot of people. No one's, there's not a live stream of my classroom. There's the, as much as I feel like I, I'm as prepared as I could be from that aspect of just being on and being, a podcast host personality.

It's still intimidating, because there's still anything can go wrong, man. It's just live is way different. Yes. Yes. All right,

Marcus Ewing: Jason, I'm gonna let you get outta here, man. Get back to your day. But it was great catching up. I appreciate the time. I'm definitely excited to, maybe we'll get you back on here after.

The Marathon podcast, we can recap that, talk about how the weekend went, some of the takeaways from that, and yeah, really dissect your performance of eight hours of podcasting.

Jason Crighton: Yeah. Hopefully it's some good news to share then. [01:00:00] Not whoa, it didn't happen, yeah. The

Marcus Ewing: wifi went out our two to six.

The power. Yeah. The internet went out or something happened, like people were just staring at a blank screen on Facebook or YouTube. So No, I, yeah I'm sure it's gonna go well, and I'm sure that that it'll be a huge success. So

Jason Crighton: I appreciate it, and thanks for having me on today. I'd love catching up with you, man.

And we gotta have, you have you out here in Pennsylvania to chase the exact same kind of deer that you chase out there. Yep. Just in a different part of the country. Yeah.

Marcus Ewing: Yeah, absolutely. Jason, take care of yourself, man. We'll talk again soon. All right. All right. I appreciate it. Thanks. All right, thank you again to Jason for joining me today and taking some time to catch up with with me.

I'd like to thank the partners of the podcast, stone Glacier Go Hunt, and of course, 2% for conservation. And if you're interested in learning more about 2% for conservation, you can visit their website, fish and wildlife.org. And over there you're gonna see all the certified brands that have committed to conservation that you should support when you shop.

I also encourage you guys to give 2% of follow on social media where it's gonna be only [01:01:00] positive conservation driven content that you're gonna see there on a daily basis. So again, if you'd like to learn more about 2% for conservation, you can look for them online, on social media, or@fishandwildlife.org.

Thanks. Joining me this week, everyone. Hope you enjoyed the episode. Stick around. As I've said before, we've got some great episodes coming down the way here. And ones that I think you're certainly gonna enjoy. Till next week, stay safe out there and remember that conservation starts with you.