EP. 383: How Public Land Changes Hunting One Parcel at a Time

0:00adım Don't take me back in time now, there's nothing for me there. I want to see forever, baby, right? Welcome to On the Wing Podcast presented by Perina Pro Plan. We're celebrating Build a Wildlife Area Week at Fesins Forever and Quill Forever.

1:01And right out of the gates, I want to thank our weak sponsors, Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's Outdoor Fund, as well as our friends, over at the Flush. In this year, we've got a $400,000 matching gift, or matching funds, not a singular gift, but we've got $400,000 matching funds lined up, like your pocket-change case? Yeah, definitely. That's all me. I didn't have anything to do with it. $400,000 in matching funds to incentivize our listeners, our followers, our members, and all lovers of public land. If we can raise $400,000, we can match it towards Build a Wildlife Area this week. And Yardy Hurt is his voice. Casey Sill joins me as co-host.

2:01We're releasing in conjunction with Build a Wildlife Area Week. Casey's very first crossover of your previous life and your current life. A brand new film called Brick by Brick. We'll consider this a documentary, not a science fiction movie like Zombies or any of your war films. This is real-life creation of public lands. So Casey got to marry his stage in screen work with his work as communications professional for the habitat organization. So we're going to talk about that film called Brick by Brick, as well as Build a Wildlife Area as we celebrate Build a Wildlife Area Week. We're in September now. It seems fitting, Casey. We're recording this before your next filming adventure.

3:05Just tease our audience a little bit about where you're heading for your first hunt. This isn't your first hunt of the year. You've been out chasing ducks haven't you? Well, it actually will be my first hunt of the year because we abruptly canceled our annual teal season. The teal smacked down? Got canceled? It was at a hot. Two reasons for that. One is, I was like 90 degrees that day, and we've hunted teal opener in that kind of weather before, but the other thing was that my lab spent all weekend in the emergency clinic. I didn't know this. Yeah. So that put a damper on the whole thing. She's fine. Okay. But she ate a corn cob. That's what the vet says. But she ate the state fair. No. No. I think, why did she eat a corn cob? Is this your true toy? No, it's because she's a lab and she'll eat anything. She would eat this table if you left her alone with it for too long.

4:05Okay. I don't know if it was when we were out running on public land somewhere or if maybe she got into the garbage when I wasn't looking and snagged because it's sweet corn time of the year. So one way or the other, she was really the thargic on Saturday and she'd been vomiting and I won't get too graphic with the details but it looked pretty abnormal and I called my aunt who's a vet and I bug her with all of these dog questions all the time. And she's a very old school vet who's her answer 95% of the time is like, nah, that'll be fine. And when I called her and told her what was going on and she said, eh, you better take her in. I knew it was pretty serious. So we took her over to a clare to the emergency clinic and they x-rayed her. They had, she had what they thought was a blockage but they weren't sure yet. So they kept her overnight. Luckily, everything started moving with some fluids and medication and stuff like that.

5:06So they didn't have to go in and get it. But still it. Wow. Yeah, it was pretty much. So you said they think it's a corn cob? That's what it looked like on the x-ray. What about when it came out? So you know what? I was trying to, well, I was like, is this thing gonna come out of like one thing? You didn't go see a siya? And so I tried. And it was, I think the way they described it by the time it got to that point, it's not like it was one solid thing, right? It had been sort of like mushed up basically. So you were like breaking it apart with toothed. No, I wasn't. So it's a, it all worked out literally. But yeah, it put a damper on teal seasons. So because she had to rest for a week or something after. So, so you're heading out on your first hunt? Yes. So long story. Yeah, that's right. That made a corn cob breaking news. Yep. So we're headed out to Wyoming here shortly.

6:07We're gonna start around in the Cody area and then we're gonna move, move east a little bit to like the big horns and do a little bit of trout fishing and then hunt for sage grouse, which I've never done before. So it'll be a wholly new experience for me. Cool. Yeah. And that is part of a film in our future. It is. Yes. So that'll be a film coming up this fall. Myself and Ryan Sparks, the Kuala Fiber General Editor are heading out there to hunt and fish and sort of talk about water. Talk about low impacts, low water on the west, how that's impacting not just trout and the rivers but everything that's connected to sage grouse being one of the main ones. So that's sort of the focus of the film. Yeah, I was really excited to get out there about my bear spray the other day. Yeah. So that's yeah. So because when we're out at the first half we'll be out in Cody. So I thought I'd better come prepared. How nervous are you on a scale of one to ten? Yeah, it depends on the day.

7:10How nervous is your eight month pregnant wife? Yeah, probably seven months, probably more than I am. Yeah. But it's funny when I moved up here from Nebraska I had never been around. I'd never been in any kind of bear country. And as naive as that sounds I was frightened of black bears when I moved up here. I just did completely foreign to me. And it's funny how you get used to it. You know, now it's no big deal or you don't really think about it. But I've never been in grizzly country. So that's a whole new set of, I would say mild anxiety. I'm not I'm not sweat and too bad about it. But I want to be sure that I know what I'm doing going into it. Well, I am I am envious. I listen to know I've been talking about going to Wyoming. And I've had to cancel my trip to Wyoming because my my truck has decided no longer. Oh really? Yeah, that is what I do. Yeah, I'm in process of buying a new truck.

8:11So for folks, yeah, hunting trips are outside of a one for a film. They're done on their own diet. Yeah. Yeah. And it turns out I need to buy a truck. Not go to Wyoming this one in season. Well, man, that's too bad. Yeah, I love that. So when will you plan on being out there? Right now. Oh, it was. Yeah, right now I was intending to be blue grounds hunting. Oh, man. In Wyoming for I took a week's vacation. And now I canceled it in here. So my my hunting season will be rough grounds. My start of my hunting season will be rough grounds getting underway north. I'm sorry, Wisconsin. Mm hmm. The 12th and then Minnesota season starts the week after that. Oh, it's the week after. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So getting underway in the woods. So a little bit different. But that's all right. I love that. That's that's right. But if we weren't going to Wyoming. Yeah. So yeah. But we're going to spend our time talking about where you

9:14were last hunting season for this film. And we're going to talk about build a wildlife area. Before we get rolling, I want to thank Perina Pro Plan, the National Dog Food Sponsor of Fesans Forever and Quill Forever and the presenting sponsor. On the Wing Podcast. My Pops, Little Winter and Little Gitch Gumi have always eaten Perina Pro Plan. Not just because Perina supports the wildlife habitat mission of our organization, which is important to me. It should be important to you as well. But the most important thing for all of you to know is that Perina created Pro Plan for the working bird dog like yours and like mine. The recipe was made for hunting dogs. You can learn more at proplanesport.com Perina Pro Plan Nutrition. That performs from Fesans Forever and Quill Forever National Headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is Casey Sill with the Upland Newsroom delivering top stories from the habitat organization and across the

10:14American Uplands. We begin today with the Rebuilding America's National Cowherd or Ranch Act. In August, Senators Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota introduced the Ranch Act to help producers convert marginal crop land to perennial cover for man-ed grazing. With America's beef cowherd at its smallest size in 70 years and grasslands disappearing at a rapid pace, the Ranch Act would support livestock production by increasing access to grazing lands, allowing existing operations to expand and providing opportunities for young and beginning producers while also creating additional habitat for wildlife. The Ranch Act would create a voluntary program for producers to establish up to 20 million acres of perennial forage on marginal and highly erodable cropline, expanding grazing opportunities while improving the health and resilience of working lands. The program would provide annual rental payments and cost-share assistance to help producers establish perennial

11:15cover with the additional incentives for beginning, farmers and ranchers as well as for the use of high quality native seed mixes. Enrolled acres would remain available for grazing throughout the contract. By making it easier to transition less productive cropline to perennial forage, the Ranch Act would help producers strengthen their operations and manage risk while delivering benefits for wildlife habitat, soil health and water quality. Speaking of Washington, with the Senate back in session, the Senate Agricultural Committee will resume work on critical Farm Bill legislation, and you know what I'm going to say next. It has been eight years since Congress passed a bipartisan Farm Bill, and we need your voice to tell lawmakers that rural America cannot afford to wait any longer. Now is the time to speak up. CRP is the only major USDA conservation program left without significant investments or updates since 2018, and it is critical that Congress passes a Farm Bill this year to ensure CRP continues to deliver for farmers, ranchers, hunters and rural communities.

12:18This includes improving rental rates for marginal and environmentally sensitive lands, restoring cost share for beneficial management activities, and updating payment limits for the first time since 1985. Provisions that are included in the Farm Bill currently under consideration by the Senate Agricultural Committee. Through Fesans Forever's Upland Action Center, you can take direct action to urge your senators to advance a Farm Bill that strengthens the conservation reserve program and other conservation programs. To get started, head over to Fesans Forever.org and click on our advocacy page. That'll do it this week reporting from PFNQF headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota. I'm Casey Sill. As I mentioned, we're celebrating Build a Wildlife Area all week at Fesans Forever and Quilfere. And that's the umbrella name for our organization's Land Acquisition Program. So if we, it wasn't named Build a Wildlife Area in 1982

13:19when we started, that was decided over a breakfast table in 2005, which I was sitting at with Joe Dugin, Chuck Delaney, and Rob Driesline. That name was conceptualized heading into Game Fair in 2005. But now it's the umbrella term for our Land Acquisition efforts. And since 1982, we have created 248,293 acres, just shy of a quarter million acres of permanently protected habitat that's out there on the landscape in the form of WMAs, Wildlife Management Areas, or GPAs, Game Production Areas, if you're in South Dakota, or waterfall production Areas, if we've turned them over to the Federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, so just shy of 250,000 acres of permanent habitat.

14:20Last year alone, we turned over just shy of 4,000 acres, 3,996. One of those projects was last year's signature project for the Wildlife Area. We can, that was the Jim Wolley family tract. And we had Jim Wolley and Matt O'Connor and Matt Holland on last year at this time to celebrate Bill the Wildlife Area. That project, the Jim Wolley family tract, was turned over to the Iowa DNR just last month, in August of 2026. That included 422 acres in Iowa's Madison and Clark County's family, that connects to 1,021 acres of the Heritage Hills WMA. So, thank you to last year's partners in the Jim Wolley, Jim Wolley family tract, which included Bass Pro Shops and

15:20Cabela's, Sport Dog Brand, the North America Versatile Hunting Dog Association, and Big Grove Brewing. Those folks and all the listeners that made a contribution to the Jim Wolley family tract on the ground for all of us to enjoy this hunting season. All right, now let's turn our attention to Brick by Brick, a film sponsored by Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's outdoor fun Chief Upplin in Sport Dog Brand. Casey, you're the producer, director, the star, chief cook, bottle washer. Tell us about the story. So, we, you know, Southern Minnesota and Northern Iowa are such a great example of the Build-A-Wall-F Area program. And so, we wanted to go down there and sort of border hop essentially and see what the impact of Bawa has been,

16:20not only on the habitat and access in that area, but on the community. You know, I think that there's a twofold impact, right? These places are so tied to their local communities and this area isn't filled with thousands and thousands of acres of public land. It's not like the Sandhills. Yeah, or you know, you think about Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, where there's huge, huge tracks of public land. These complexes are built around small towns. And I think that that's such a cool angle to like intertwine them basically with all of the people who care about them. Thought that was a great story, so we went down there to hunt and to meet some of the locals who were putting these acres on the ground and try to shoot a few birds. So, it was late. It was late in the years. It was a December hunt. So, cold weather, no snow. But yeah, so that's the gist of it. We really wanted to see the connection between these properties

17:20and the communities that serve them and that they serve. So, they're really good at this. They're really good at this. I mean, they serve them and that they serve. So, the listeners that are members, the fall edition of the Feson's Forever Journal has a story you wrote. Yep. And that story has a wonderful start to it. And you know where I'm going with it? Yeah, I think so, yeah. You write, like I think it's the lead, that you are born with a right to hate Iowa. Yeah. Maybe it wasn't the word hate. I think it was that story. Yeah, I was just wondering. I want to make sure I wasn't putting two strong words in your mouth. No, yeah. Explain why you were born with a right to hate Iowa. So, I was born and raised on the Missouri River bottoms of Eastern Nebraska. Like, we could see Iowa from our door. And there's nothing that Nebraska's hold closer than a

18:21mutual hatred of Iowa. And I think it's the same for Iowa and Spurnabrasca. Most of that has to do with college football. But yeah, we used to growing up, there would be kids who were from Iowa who had come over and gone to school in Nebraska. And it was just endless bickering back and forth between the two states. I think it's very natural to that dislike is. It's drive deep rooted, man. Yeah. So, I do. I felt like that was my birthright. But I have my secret, which I alluded to later on in the story. You did a lute to you, Kima, right out and said, I actually love the state. I do. Yeah. It's not just this area where we hunted, but the whole state. I haven't spent a ton of time hunting in Iowa, but obviously I've traveled through it a lot. And I think, you know, I've done some trout fishing in the northeast part of the state and it's traveled to southern Iowa quite a bit, which I think I was just talking to Tom Carpenter the other day about that being a really

19:24underrated part of the country just like from a geographic standpoint. I think that's southern Iowa, like southern third of Iowa is just gorgeous. High winds are hitting you now just for exposing all the ships. I know. Maybe I'm dying. Yeah. But maybe that's good. Yeah. I want them. Did you, you said you didn't hunt Iowa very much when you were a kid growing up in Iowa? No, we did not cross the border very much. Yeah. We had, I had some, my good friends where I'm still, I still hunt with a Nebraska sometimes. They spent a lot of time over in like the Los Hills and that area of hunting fesins, but we did not. It was, we were mostly on, on the Nebraska side of the border. And through all, so was, was this trip your primary introduction in hunting in Iowa? Very much so. Yeah. It was. Yeah. So I had hunted, well, I had gone on a turkey trip to northeast Iowa a couple of years ago where we fish for trout and, and hunted turkeys, but I actually didn't have a tag myself. So I was just kind of tagging along.

20:24So definitely the first upland trip I've ever taken in Iowa. So tell, tell me now as a born again Iowa fan. What turned, turned your mind about, because you, you wrote very specifically in the story that's in the journal about having not only an appreciation, but sort of a love affair with Iowa. Yeah. I think as far as this trip was concerned, once I got down there and I saw, I saw what was available and I saw, not, and I mentioned it in the film and in, in, in the journal story, but not just the quantity of public access that was in, in Northern Iowa that I saw in Northern Iowa, but the quality of it, right? It's just, I was blown away. And again, I had, I talked to carp a little bit before we went and he had said, you know, pay attention to that because he spends a lot of time in Iowa and he's totally right.

21:25I got down there and everything he's just so well taken care of and such a part of these, the folks alive who are, lives who are helping create all of it. I was, I was just really blown away by it. You know, I, public land is not something that I had access to growing up. There just wasn't, you know, just wasn't like right next to it. Well, I lived on a national wildlife refuge, but it was not, it was completely closed to all honey. Oh, it was, okay. Yeah. So we did not hunt public property and I honestly, the whole concept of it was lost on me until I moved to Minnesota. And it's, I remember going through a printing off the like county by county, public list, the Atlas. Yeah, that was, I had no idea what Onyx was at the time. And just coming to realize I can roll up to any of these places and just go hunt. And it really, and not being over dramatic had a huge impact on my life, like it changed

22:29my life. So to see everything that folks are doing down in Iowa to grow that, especially in a state that says heavily, privately owned as, as Iowa is, it's pretty awesome. Yeah. So you, did you start in Iowa? Did you start in Minnesota for this film? We started in Minnesota and then, then kind of worked our way down. Okay. So let's, let's start chronologically. Yeah. Tell, tell me about the places you hunted and your impressions. So the, we hunted Minnesota the first day we were there. We met up with Sabin Adams, who's a Minnesota state coordinator. And we hunted the Howard Vincent property that's right on the border, which that property has been talked about quite a bit over the last year or two. It's literally right on the border. Yeah. And the other side of the road is Iowa. Yep. Exactly. And then it's just North of Spirit Lake. Yep. North of Spirit Lake. And that was the first place that we hunted. And it looks great now. It's amazing to see some of the before and after photos that on that property in particular,

23:31because it was such a dramatic change. Were you there for the dedicate? I was not there, but I've seen, I'd seen some of the photos. Yes. I mean, it was just a barren, black dirt field with a wetland in the middle. Yep. And now it, now it looks great. And we showed up. It was very stereotypical of Iowa in early December, kind of spitten sideways rain, cold. They were ducks everywhere, which we took note of right away. And hunted our way around that property, sort of got the lay of the land. And then we worked our way kind of west from there throughout that whole complex, like from the Howard Vincent property to the west, primarily. Yeah. And you spend one or two days hunting in Minnesota. It was just one full day in Minnesota. Okay. Yep. What's the most important thing about the habitat, the complex, before we jumped Iowa? I mean, once we jump to Iowa, there are similarities, they seem very similar. What's cool is, which is kind of the whole point, I guess, of the film, is that it seems

24:34like it's unbroken. That that state border doesn't impact it. There's this huge complex of public land on the Iowa side, and it just keeps going into the Minnesota side. It's just really neat to see that across the border. So all of the hunting was all within that spirit lake? Right in that area. We did not leave that area. Okay, so you have very legitimately hopping back and forth. Yep. Yeah. That was our whole plan. We stayed right in spirit lake, and yeah, just spent time right on either side of the border. All right, take us to Iowa. Yeah. Next day, we went to Iowa, a hunted, Christopherson slew, which is a pretty well-known complex, a public land, just east of spirit lake, and it's massive. I mean, huge, huge amounts, and it's been built on over time, which is kind of where the title of the story comes from. Is it when you step back and look at this on Onyx, it's like Lang Bricks on top of each

25:35other right, and you add this little piece, and this little piece, and pretty soon it's this piece. I didn't know where the title came from because I was thinking, well, build a wildlife area, maybe there's a brick, you know, but in that place to it, it's part of it. Yeah, so when I look at complexes of public land like that on Onyx, it reminds me of Tetris, the old, you know, where you're fit in this piece and that piece, but yeah, it also kind of reminds you of Lang Bricks, right? It's, you start small and eventually in a place like Christopherson slew over 20 years or so, or long they've been building with Monin. This turns into something really special, so yeah. It's the complex, yeah, yeah. I have a connectivity, yeah, connectivity, that's van value. Yep, absolutely, so. So did you hunt more than one place in Iowa? That, so we did, it was all basically adjacent to Christopherson, so it was additions. Yeah, it was either the slew proper or additions that are either directly connected to it or spitting distance from it basically.

26:37Oh, yeah. And part of the film, so obviously hunting's part of it, but then you interviewed chapter volunteers, members of the business, folks the overall take on having this, you know, public land continue to grow in their area. Yeah, and they're working really hard at it. I mean, I talked to a lot of folks from the Iowa Great Lakes chapter. MJ Rapp was one of my main contents. MJ, Mary Jo. Yes, Mary Jo. Yes. Not to be confused as Michael Jordan. Yeah. So she and I talked prior and she kind of helped us, you know, hone in on a couple of places to target since we'd never been there before. And then she actually invited us, they happened to have a chapter meeting while we were there. So we got to go in and sit down and talk to all the volunteers and listen to what they were working on and plan their banquet and things like that. And then I ended up hunting with a fellow named Steve Blum, who is another volunteer with the chapter. He came out when we did our Iowa day and kind of helped show us around a little bit.

27:41So that whole chapter is just doing such great work. And I know that's something that's happening all across the Feson Range, but the folks in northern Iowa in particular, they care so deeply about this access. And I mentioned this earlier, but I think because Iowa's so heavily private that this is, it's sort of a jam of the state forum and they're working really hard to keep growing it. I know, I'm trying to remember the exact statistic. I think it's like 49th out of 50 state percentage of publicly owned land. Yeah. And I think it's, yeah, somewhere I don't know off top. I had 48 or 49 days. Somewhere there. It's a very small percentage. Right. So to see such a huge complex of public land in a state that's that highly privately owned is pretty cool. Well that and they're also driven by protecting the water quality in spirit lake trees. I know. I know.

28:41Yeah. Because by creating these habitat, permanently protected habitat complexes, it's filtering the water that goes into spirit lake to maintain the fishery and cabin ecotourism that all exists out there and trade and habitat for the birds at the same time. And there's a cool partnership there between Minnesota and Iowa as well, right? Where they're the stuff that's directly on the Minnesota side of the border, that's also a part of that watershed. So like the Howard Benson property, all of those are still connected to that, you know, spirit lake watersheds. So they're all kind of working together to make to protect that water. So this is the first time that you've blended your new career with your old career. Yeah. Impressions of that. It was a lot of fun. I wanted to sort of bring these two together for some time. I was really thankful to have the opportunity to do it. It is a little bit different in that you weren't chased by zombies.

29:45Well, so as miniscule as those movies that I used to do were, there is something freeing about the fact that even if it's a smaller part that in a feature film or however you want to say it, you're playing somebody else. There's a freedom in that, right, to make mistakes and look stupid and, you know, sort of kind of experiment with that. So it was like the mentality was a little bit different and that now it's me. Now I have to be myself. So there is a certain amount of pressure in that, but I'd like it. Not only yourself, but your representative of this much larger thing. Yeah. Volunteers, co-workers, donors. Yeah. And that was, you know, we're trying to tell that story obviously in all of our films, but in this one, this one was so connected to the people that I, yeah, there was a responsibility there to try to tell the volunteer story for sure. I did find my experience useful, like logistically, you know, and having helped organize film stuff

30:50before just like, oh yeah, we're going to need this and a little like continuity is something that I had experience in, like, oh, okay, we're like, Sabin's wearing this jacket in this shot. So we need to wear this jacket in the next shot. Like stuff like that. It did come with the anti-can. Why is he have a pink hat out? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit ago, so I'm going to tease this as a radionix. A little bit ago, you said, public land changed your life. Yeah. So I'm going to ask you how it changed your life. Before we get there, I want to thank Onyx, a partner of on the wing podcast. We don't hunt for that picture perfect scene just for social media. With Onyx as your guide, we do hunt for the walk behind of a good bird Don, the smell of burnt powder and the buddy that walks right alongside us to some of our favorite places.

31:56The best spots being more every time we return, somewhere passed down to us and some we found ourselves. And the traditions we carry forward are the ones we hope somebody carries on after us. Time out here has a way of putting everything else in perspective. The best is rarely involved what ends up on the back of our tailgate. They're the stories we tell for years. The unforgettable dogwork and the people who were there to see it. Long after the season ends, those are the things that stay with us. Onyx Hunt, here's to the hunt. Alright, Casey, as we celebrate, build a wildlife area week. Do want to invite listeners to help us reach that $400,000 matching gift. You can learn about build a wildlife area at either of our websites, Fesansforever.org or Quailforever.org, keyword build a wildlife area.

32:56You said a moment ago, public lands changed your life, which is a big statement. Yeah. I'm sure a lot of folks heard that and were nodding in agreement. It changed a lot of people's lives. But why yours? I moved to Minnesota when I was 24 years old and I moved here on a whim. Really? How do you say it? I had a good friend of mine that I had known for years and years. We had always talked about, not seriously talked about me moving up there. I had gotten out of college and I was doing the movies. That's kind of listless, I guess. I was bouncing around, we're construction in the summertime. He called me one day and said, hey, we're moving into a new house. It's a guy friend, not a girl. Yes, a guy friend. He called me and said, we're moving into a new house. It's got an extra bedroom. Do you want to move up here? I was like, nah, why not? What were you doing at the time?

33:58We were actually, wow, we moved up there when we were shooting that Zombies movie. I was in Minnesota shooting that Zombies movie. My friend Cody is also, we knew each other through film. He was also in the movie. We were chit-chatting about it and that's how it came to be. When I went up to Minnesota to work on that movie, I was not planning on staying. While we were doing it, he's like, do you want to move up here? Yeah, whatever, what the hell? I moved up here on a whim. I stayed because of what I found once I got up here. I'd grown up a hunter, but I never had access to the opportunity that I discovered in Minnesota and in Wisconsin. It's for sure changed my life. I don't know that I would have stayed here if it wasn't for all of the outdoor opportunity that I found once I got here.

35:01That is largely due to public land. Now I met my wife here. Now I have a son and another kid on the way. They will be raised here. I think about that all the time that where I live right now, when my children, 10 years from now when my kids are older, they can get on a bicycle and drive three quarters of a mile and have access to hundreds of acres of public property where they can hunt and fish for trout and all of that. That is not something that I had access to when I was a kid. Yeah, for sure changed my life. Your brother and your parents have all moved up here too. I do have to give credit to my parents because we vacationed in northern Minnesota growing up. We weren't hunting and we were fishing primarily. I already had a love affair with the North and with Minnesota in Wisconsin, but I didn't

36:05understand the depth of the opportunity up here until I moved up here. I called Danny a year later and was like, dude, you gotta get up here. I'm pretty soon, mom and dad came up too. Now we hunt with dad and all the time, which is more and more valuable as he ages. He's 90, but he's 70. It's like you really think about that a lot and all of the opportunity for me to do outdoor things, both with my brother and with my dad, are massively expanded compared to what we had access to in Nebraska. That's interesting because as a guy that's hunting Nebraska, I have a perception that there's an awful lot of public land in Nebraska. They have some of the best yawaken acres in the country. I know that's true and I've gone back and hunted Nebraska since I started working at PF. That's definitely true with the NCAP program and the walk-in program.

37:08When we were growing up, it was just felt so hyper-local, right? You were pretty close to home. Yeah, so we're way on the eastern side of the state. There wasn't any public access in our area, necessarily. It's also just not something, I don't think my dad probably ever thought about that. He grew up in a very different generation where you just asked the farmer down the street and that's all the farther you had to go. We didn't really understand that that was a possibility, even in Nebraska. The access that isn't Nebraska would have been as far from us as a person. Sure, it's the country that I've asked. Yeah, it's amazing how, in part of it too, the smaller pieces do add up, which is brick-by-brick. It's the intent, right? I think about the sand hills on Nebraska, it's the largest, continuous grassland that's

38:11still intact in North America. But it's not in your backyard, whereas some of these projects, 40 acres or 400 acres at a time, builds up a complex and it becomes opportunity for more and more people. Yeah, I think that's what's so special about places like the Spirit Lake area in Iowa or where I live now that aren't as, they're not as remote, right? But a kid can get out of school and drive five minutes with a couple of his buddies and go hunt fesins and then come home for dinner. And I think that holds so much value for everybody. And that's why the volunteers who are down there care so much about them because they're, I said in the film, but you drive by them on your way to work. You know, it feels, they're intertwined with little farms and you see grain trucks go by and it's like they're a part of these places. They do their own August roadside counts on their way to work.

39:12All right, folks, the film out this week, brick-by-brick, essentially written, star-down, produced. The only thing you didn't do is hold the camera. That was Jordan. Yeah, Jordan, darling. It's a darling. Shout out to Darlie for carrying the camera and editing, but the voiceover, the writing, the production, the production, the direction, Casey Sill. So check out the film celebrating Build a Wildlife Area. It's called Brick-by-Brick and it is a sponsor, the film is sponsored by Bass Pro Shops and Cabellas Outdoor Fund, Chief Upland and Sport Dog Brand. And this week, we're celebrating Build a Wildlife Area week thanks to Bass Pro Shops and Cabellas Outdoor Fund once again and our friends at the flush. You can check out what's going on all week at Fesasforever.org or Quillforever.org.

40:14And please consider making a gift, making a donation to Build a Wildlife Area. Like I said, we've got $400,000 in matching funds. So if you make a donation of $100, that's $100 closer to $400,000 a weekend on the mock. Casey, thank you very much. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Bob. All right, folks. Thank you for listening. Check out that film and please consider a contribution to Build a Wildlife Area week. I am Bob St. Pierre reminding you to always follow the dog, especially. That's a build if it's a build a wildlife area property. Something good will rise. Thanks, folks.