Muleys, Mountain Lions & Wolves with Jamie Roscoe and Lauren Connally

In this episode we connect with Jamie Roscoe of the Cowboy Dinner Tree in Silver Lake, Oregon. We talk mule deer, our favorite fuzzball the coyote, wolves, mountain lions, other critters and critter gitters like the 30-06 and the 280 Ackley Improved. Learn more at https://cowboydinnertree.com/1875-beef/ Annnnnnnd further, we discuss the perils of public policy surrounding ungulates with Lauren Connally, running for the Deschutes County commission. Click on https://www.connally4deschutes.com/

If you want to support free speech and good hunting content on the Information Superhighway, look for our coffee and books and wildlife forage blends at https://www.garylewisoutdoors.com/Shop/

This episode is sponsored by West Coast Floats, of Philomath, Oregon, made in the USA since 1982 for steelhead and salmon fishermen. Visit https://westcoastfloats.com/

Our TV sponsors include: Nosler, Camp Chef, Warne Scope Mounts, Carson, Pro-Cure Bait Scents, The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce, Madras Ford, Bailey Seed and Smartz.

Watch select episodes of Frontier Unlimited on our network of affiliates around the U.S. or click https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gary+lewis+outdoors+frontier+unlimited

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

I think it's better than the ever beyond analytically. Analytically.

SPEAKER_06 0:23

Welcome back. This is Gary Lewis. Gary Lewis. And today we're going to go to Silver Lake, Oregon to talk to Jamie Rothcoe, owner of Cowboy Dinner Tree in 1875 B. We're going to talk to Lauren Connolly, who's running for the Discoots County Commission. We're going to talk about Mount Lions, Mill Deer, Wolves, our favorite phone, Coyote, and AR-15 to suppressors to adiactically improved 30 odds. And we got a difference of opinion on bullets, but that's okay. And at the end of it, we're going to go to the student range. And in the middle, we're going to talk about public quality and how that relates to our favorite angular test. We'd like to take our sponsors, not our incorporated orange cards. Let's uh have a good conversation with Jamie Roscoe. And we also have here with us today Lauren Connolly. Lauren is running for the Destudes County Commission, and that's in the great state of Oregon. And Jamie Roscoe, you're from uh Silver Lake, Oregon. And Lauren, you you live in Bend, Oregon. So welcome to the show to the both of you. Thank you, Gary.

SPEAKER_05 2:38

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_06 2:39

So, Jamie, a couple of years ago, I went out to the Cowboy Dinner Tree, and uh you, I understand, are the owner of the Cowboy Dinner Tree. Do I have that right?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

That's correct. My wife and I, she she does the majority of the work up there, and I take care of our ranching operations and uh some of our younger children.

SPEAKER_06 3:04

Okay. And then as I was leaving the cowboy dinner tree, I was driving my 2023 Ford F-150, which was actually new that year. And andor maybe that was in 2024, possibly. But anyway, uh good brakes, good tires. A deer comes running straight across in front of me, and I could see it just out of the corner of my eye, and uh I've got good reflexes already, and I saved that deer's life. I was so proud of myself and that Ford F-150 from Thomas Tails in service in Madras, Oregon. I saved, I saved uh Eastern Oregon mule deer by hitting the brakes in time. And um, I was loaded down with good food from your restaurant. Why don't you tell us about um your operation that you run there at the Cowboy Dinner Tree?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah, absolutely. So, first of all, I would say unfortunately, a lot of our customers do have interactions with uh our wildlife here, whether it's deer or ale. And uh I wish there was a way to keep them off the highway, but there's really not. So um so yeah, so we we have a restaurant in Silver Lake, Oregon. Um, it's pretty unique, I think, as most people know. We're reservation only, cash only, and we've only got two options on the menu. You know, this is uh April 21st of 2026, and if you wanted to come on a Saturday, I think we'd be looking at June or something like that, maybe to try to get you in. If you wanted to pick your time, we'd probably be looking at July or August. Uh the Fridays and Sundays are a little easier, so I I guess I should say that too. We're we're only open on the weekends until Memorial Day, at which time we add on Thursday, so it's Thursday through Sunday all summer until the first of November. And uh then we start kind of tailoring off for the year. We're open year round, but we go to reduced days all winter. So um, yeah, we we think it's a unique deal. You know, it's definitely not some kind of five-star restaurant in New York City, but we hope that everybody has a good time. They enjoy themselves in the process. We hope that they enjoy the food, and they're gonna take a lot of it home, and we hope we it excuse me, that they enjoy it for days to follow.

SPEAKER_06 5:23

Yeah, and that's what we did. We enjoyed it for days to follow, and it it's definitely a unique experience in central Oregon. It's a two-hour drive. So you from where I live, it's gonna you're gonna block out some time. Our neighbors love going down and visiting you. They they go on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

I'm glad to hear that. You know, we have customers that come four times a year, customers that come once a year, and customers that come once a decade. So um we just appreciate everybody that comes back.

SPEAKER_06 5:59

What do you wish that people knew about Silver Lake and and the county that you live in?

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Well, I could eat up your entire podcast on that. You know, Lake County is the third largest county in the state of Oregon, it's just over 8,000 square miles. We have just under 8,000 people. We don't have a stoplight in this county. Lakeview is our county seat, and it's 105 miles from me. Um, so it's, you know, I mean, dang near the same distance as Ben to Portland. So it's uh it's I don't think most Oregonians realize how big our desert is. You know, there's there's three counties that make up one quarter of Oregon, with Lake Harney and Mal here, which are also the three largest counties in Oregon. We have a pretty uh unique demographic. So of our 8,000 residents, almost a thousand of them are are veterans. So I would challenge anybody to to show me another county in the U.S. that has one-eighth of their population of the veteran. Um and uh so the oldest human DNA in the western hemisphere of the world was found here uh out at uh Paisley Caves. Now they're they're kind of debating that. It sounds like at Wagontire, just over the county line into Harney County, they may have found a little DNA that's a hair older, so we'll see. That's up to the to the scientists to argue that one.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Um we have to argue over it.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Right. There's about 3,000 known pictographs in the state of Oregon. I apologize about the pup uh barking there. She's chasing one of the cats, but uh there's 3,000 known pictographs in Oregon. 1,500 of them are here in Lake County. Um, I could go on about that kind of stuff all day. So that's one of the big things with us and our restaurant is we really don't want our customers to come flying over here, you know, slide into the parking lot, eat a big old meal, and then go home. We do want them to go camping, you know, if I walk around the trailer and show you guys, you know, the Fremont uh National Forest is right right behind me. It's sure enough, I can't even operate the camera and look at it, but there's Hager Mountain. Uh it's around me on two sides. So there's three million total acres of forest between the Fremont and the Wyonema, and about 15, excuse me, about 50% of it is publicly owned, and about 50% of it is privately owned. So with that said, they have one of those uh I'm gonna get the act the name of it wrong, but it's a joint travel management cooperative. And so the vast majority of the private land you can actually drive on and hunt on and camp on and and all that business. So that's it's pretty neat. Uh the Fremont Forest was railroad logged until 1989. They pulled up the tracks in '91. So every one of those old rail beds is now actually a two-track road that you can drive down. So we have more miles of road than the entire National Park Service combined, and we have the highest ratio of roads to acres of any federal forest. So, yeah, Silver Lake itself is is uh famous for two things. That's the cowboy dinner tree and the fact that every door and every business in America has to open outward based on our fire from 1894. Uh, you can Google it, you know, 43 residents died in the in the Christmas Eve fire, uh only all because the door didn't open on the building. They're having a having a big dance and show, and uh still the largest loss of life in the state of Oregon history to fire at any one time.

SPEAKER_06 9:30

Unfortunately, is what it is. Yep, I forgot about that story. Yeah, there's you got a lot going for you. We do, good hand bad out there.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:43

Well, um, when you look around you, what do you think the best hunting opportunity is for the public land hunter in your neighborhood?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Predator hunting. So uh the kids and I, we actually gave up on hunting here about a decade ago. So as a disabled veteran, I can hunt in Idaho um for the same cost as the Idaho resident youth. And uh there's a lot of opportunity in big game there, and I really enjoy that. I still put in my my points every year to try to draw some really nice tags in Northeast Oregon, which turns out a lot of other people do too, so I haven't drawn any. But uh predator hunting is is really big. We have we've got a lot of predators here. If you want to come out and coyote hunt, our lions are really thick. Um, you know, I I trap bobcats and coyotes in the winter and you know, all kind of set of lion tracks every day in the snow. Um and are it's not not legal to hunt wolves, but if if wolves ever did become legal to hunt, Lake County is where I would go for sure. So we have uh gosh, Lake County is less than 10% of the state of Oregon's landmass, yet we have somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the state's wolves. You know, we've there seems to be some debate on how many wolves are in the state of Oregon, somewhere between 240 and 270, according to ODF and W. Um, but we have on any given day about 30 wolves is the official estimate from from the government, both the feds and the and the state. Um Well, congratulations. Yeah, I would think it's a little higher than that. So we have a joke here in Lake County, and that is they they've gotten so thick here because our beef is so good, and that's why they've concentrated here. Uh as you can tell, we're being somewhat facetious, but uh they're thick here, so we have a lot of wolves all the way around us. We deal with them every day.

SPEAKER_06 11:41

In terms of cattle, what kind of cattle do you raise?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

So I run red Angus cows. Uh I've got kind of a little hardy bunch of them. They're they get around good, they're good mothers, and they really fit fit my program and my country. Um they're I got some of them with horns, and I'll be honest, I'm breeding more of them with horns into them to to try to give them an opportunity to defend themselves from the wolf.

SPEAKER_06 12:08

Okay, I see. I see. And then what do you what kind of problems do you have with the coyotes relative to your herd? Do you do you find them shadowing your cows uh at uh calf time?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

We do. So the only the only conflict we have with the coyotes is when we're calving, and they really only go after the the calves that are brand new. You know, within a few days or a week, as long as the calf doesn't get sick, you know, the they're typically gonna get away from a coyote unless it's a really tough winter with deep snows and cold temperatures, you know, then the coyotes are gonna kind of condense around our cattle and put more of effort into them. Um so we you know, we we do um what do some predator control, but we don't put a ton of effort into the coyotes unless they're really becoming a problem. And I should say, I'm not anti-predator at all. I'm not anti-wolf, I'm not anti-lion, but I am uh pro management strategy. Um I guess would be the best way to put it. So the wolves are neat, you know, they're cool to see, um, they're a neat animal, um, but they impact my livelihood uh directly in in multiple ways.

SPEAKER_06 13:25

Yeah, once I interviewed a rancher in just outside of Joseph, Oregon, and I was in with his cows that day, and they were so nervous. And there was one mother cow that was camped out on a greasy little spot that used to be her calf, and a wolf had killed the calf, and she wouldn't leave that greasy little spot and and those little bones that were that were left. It was really sad.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

It is so and when I said it impacts my livelihood in multiple ways, not only with the death loss, you know. I I'm sure most people are are aware of how that system works, you know. If if I have a calf killed by a wolf, we have to get the biologist up there. He's got to confirm it, and they do that by looking at bite marks. Uh, I don't know if anybody for for all your viewers, they they really should go on and look at how uh how destructive wolves are when they do attack. It you know you know, they like to go for the hind end and they bite them and they really turn the muscle into jelly, I guess is the best way to put it. Um and then they begin devouring animal, you know, with the guts and move on.

SPEAKER_06 14:39

While it's still alive. The animal is still alive.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

While it's still alive. So it's it's a horrendous way to die. Um, you know, I I definitely am a pro-death penalty kind of guy, and I think maybe we could uh shape up a little of our crime in this country if if we uh took some of those those people and and turned them to the wolves and had it on camera. Um I I I think we'd have a lot lost. I thought you said you weren't gonna say what you thought today. Oh no, I'm being gentle still. So darn it. I didn't talk about a potato peeler or anything like that. Um so but back to wolves. So um anyway, so yeah, they do they do it while they're alive, and we have to catch them right away because we have to have evidence for the biologist. So we skin the animal and he has to find a wolf bite mark. And so typically we don't get paid because they they've ate the majority of the animal. And they say, Well, we can't prove it was a wolf. We even had a video. I had a a video one time, and and he said, Well, he ate too much of it. I can't tell that he killed it, I can just tell that he ate it, you know, and and the cost of live cattle or the value of them currently, that's a lot of money. And then the other part of it, like he talked about the stress on that cow, so it really changes the cattle's behavior as far as grazing, right? And then also our breed up, you know, they they don't breed up as well when they're stressed out like that. There's a lot of secondary or tertiary effects.

SPEAKER_06 16:01

Yeah, that whole that whole breed up thing, that that's a thing that I forgot about, but it's it's the whole fight or flight thing, and um when they are stressed, the chances of of being bred go way down, don't they?

SPEAKER_01 16:20

They do. And so, you know, like I told you, I I was gonna do my best to stay out of the controversial sides of of things. Um, but that that's the impacts that we're also seeing on our deer and elk. You know, the the the stress of the wolves being here, I don't think as many cows are getting bred, and they're not our elk aren't herding up like they used to.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

And so we're we're seeing kind of the longer-term effects of that. And same thing with the needle deer. And then I don't remember if it was the state of California, their wildlife agency, or one of the universities, but they released a study last year talking about, and it's kind of a a new term, and I'm I hope you can forgive me on my my pronunciation, but it's uh bupto parasitis. And their study found that when you have lions and wolves in the same area, a lion has to kill six to six to eight times more mule deer to survive than because the wolves are coming and they're eating their kills.

SPEAKER_06 17:18

And uh so when the lion will do, the lion knows it has to kill three, four, five, six deer so that the when the wolves come along, the wolves have something to eat, and so then the lion still has something to eat because otherwise the wolves will take the the deer away from the lion. That's what you're getting at, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, and I'm not saying that the wolf, or excuse me, that the lion has a a forethought that they have the conscious ability to make that decision. I think that they make a kill and they come back to eat on it, and it's either been devoured by wolves or they've got to challenge wolves for it, and obviously the lion's not gonna do that, and so they move on and kill again. So that would be for the biologist to to tell us if the if the lions had that forethought or not.

SPEAKER_05 18:04

So so here's a question for you, Jess. As I'm listening, you know, I kind of from Mr. Schutz County perspective, and we have a lot of conservation hearts here that care about the little deer and the population described uh uh decline. And you know, what type of policies can or cannot actually affect what we see going on? Because you know, that's always the solution that people have is let's throw another policy layer on top of this for range and for population control and for how we as humans interact. But there's a lot more interaction going on here.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

So Gary, you're a lot smarter than me. Do you want to take it or you want me to give my opinions on on what the voters of Deschutes County should kind of be looking at or what their future is going to hold as the wolf population grows?

SPEAKER_06 18:55

I would I would really like to hear from you on this matter.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

So, and again, this is my opinion. You know, if you look at at the Oregon Wolf plan, you know, in my opinion, we're currently in phase three by the population of our wolves and and by the number of breeding pairs. So I I think the state should be working with the feds to delist the wolf at at least east of the Cascades. That would give the counties um and their residents it would change my dynamic with the wolf. You know, last week when I had a wolf in with my cows, I could have been more aggressive in my in my hazing of it. If it would have attacked one of my cattle. Luckily, I got there and I caught it right away. Um, you know, I I could have eliminated it legally, and currently I can't do that. So all I can do is haze, and I did, and I got the wolf out of the cows with with no conflict. Um what's gonna happen though? So, so we should talk about Central Oregon. When you guys see those resident deer that hang out and bend all year and they're all scruffy looking, they eat everybody's flowers, and I think sisters have some of that, and the outskirts of La Pine and Sun River, that's not natural. Mule deer should be migrating. The reason those deer are not leaving is because our predators are too thick in Oregon. We've actually created a sanctuary for our undulates to stay within the city limits to give them somewhere safe to be. And so what's gonna happen is as these wolf populations increase, and I I think last year we had a 13% increase in our in our in our wolves here in Oregon, um, we're gonna see more competition for those food sources, whether it's bears, you know, a bear's favorite spring food is elk calves. As our elk populations decline, the bears are gonna have to be looking at different things. Uh, we have those elk, you know, right around uh the north end of La Pine Sun River. They may be moving more into the urban areas, trying to find refuge. And then the same thing with our meal there. You know, they're gonna continue to move into our residential and agricultural areas, attempting to get away from their predators. So it's gonna become an issue for for the residents of Deschutes County. So that would be my thing. Like I said, I don't want to wipe out the wolves, I don't want to wipe out the lions or the bears, but we need to have some sensible management strategies, and and that's what I think the commissioners of Deschutes County should be trying to work with the state on.

SPEAKER_05 21:20

So when we're focused in Deschutes County on migration connectivity and overlays for the mule deer and understanding, you know, where uh where they are and and their herd ranges, like where are we missing the mark um for for actually helping the situation? Because everyone has good intentions, right? So then we'll do things because they make us feel good, but we're missing the rest of the story and the underlying information. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

So like Gary, the conflict that you had with your vehicle when you came to the cowboy dinner tree is going to become more and more um the the norm in Central Oregon with the residents. It'll increase your. Insurance. You know, you look at the at the Midwest and Back East, you know, with all their white-tailed deer, they got deer everywhere, and every resident can get three, four, or five tags a year, depending on which state it is. And it's that's part of the reason they have so much conflict with the wildlife. You know, the insurance companies are throwing a fit about it, the residents are throwing a fit, and they're actually using honey as a way to limit those populations because there's so many of them. And I think the more pressure that happened in our open terrain, whether it's the desert or our federal forest, the more that your wildlife is going to concentrate around your urban areas in central Oregon.

SPEAKER_06 22:37

And then then the numbers just continue to decline in that scenario. And to me, the most important thing is that little baby mule deer grow up to be big adult mule deer. And so that they can carry on and breed and and do so without being pressured by predators. And one of the best friends of the wildlife manager is the hunter and in this North American model of big game management. But we we should as we're trying to arrive at the decision, I think the basic question has to be asked will the things that we do in policy help one little baby deer get to maturity.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

And that is that is a question. So again, I told you I try to stay out of opinions and and just stick to the facts. You know, our wildlife populations are declining in Oregon. I don't think anybody's are going up. How about our native undolit?

SPEAKER_03 23:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Um so thank you for keeping me honest and keeping me uh straight with my terminology. So we've got to address why that is. You know, in my opinion, our habitat is changing. You know, we are losing some habitat. They're building more houses around Ben and La Pine and Redmond all all the time. The quality of our habitat is declining. You know, this this country right here does not look the same as it did in 1843 when John C. Fremont and Kit Carson came right through. We need to log more, we need to burn more, we need to graze a lot more. Um we we really need to restore our habitat. We need to uh limit our predators, they're too thick. You know, I listened to one of your podcasts the other day, and you guys talked about maybe there's 8,000 lions in Oregon, and I thought that was awfully nice of you to to use a number like that. Um, you know, those of us that are out on the landscape every day would bet there's a few more than that. Um so we yeah, and it, you know, are we gonna change the law in Oregon and get back to where we can hunt with pounds again? We need to have that discussion for sure. You know, it it went to the people. We all voted on it in '94. And those of us that spend time on the landscape lost, you know, I don't I don't want to see the legislature overrule the people, but I do want to see good information. That's what I think ODFNW should be doing. Our biologists should be out there saying, here's the facts, you know, here's how we cure this, here's what's coming down the pike, you know, and same thing with elk. You know, we're in 2015 here in Silver Lake, we got our first wolf. We had 1,800 elk. Today we have about 250, uh, not even 11 years later. And and that's that's what everybody in Oregon is going to be looking at. If we stay on this trajectory, my grandkids will only see an elk or a mule deer in a book. Well, I guess it won't have books, I guess they'll be on the internet, but they won't see them in real life. And I I don't know of anybody, no matter where you're at on the political spectrum, that that thinks that's a good thing. Yeah, we we need to kind of find a way to coalesce around the facts and come up with some policies that offer some stability, you know, and and like you said, the North American model of of big game management has been effective for a long time. Our hunters pay for a lot of our conservation dollars. You know, I I don't know the facts on it, but I I don't know if it's a majority, but I bet they pay a big percentage of it, you know, through the Pittman and Roberts Act and all that. And I think everybody kind of needs to get over themselves and really start looking at the facts and and addressing these issues. Because time is not on our side. You know, we we've lived in a luxury for a long time with wildlife here in Oregon and and we don't have a lot of time to figure these problems out.

SPEAKER_05 26:41

So when we talk about policy, you know, uh over they're saying over the last 20 years we've had this 50% decline in deer population. So in 2023 there was state level uh work on the deer management plan to um update you know how how we look at and manage herds. What have you guys seen from 2023 and now what what how is your how your opinion changed how is policy positively or negatively affected management? Are we in are we going in the right direction? Again, we're all trying we're all trying to protect FAR, right? Like are we going in the right direction and how we're setting policy to help what's happening on the ground.

SPEAKER_06 27:26

I think we're going in the right direction if we get um the right decision makers on the commission level, at the county commission level in Deschutes County and in other counties.

SPEAKER_05 27:40

Well, I know at the Deschutes County level, they also talked in 2023 about that mule-dear layer range combining zone. And that uh had a lot of pushback on it because it it started um creating fencing standards and made limitations to building standards that became nearly impossible. You know, it's it's like like we have to always be finding that balance between our human impact and our ability to grow and thrive as a region. And so did we take it too far in one direction? It sounds like we maybe may have, because I mean if you can't put up a correct editing through your cattle, um at the it you know, it did the policy was the policy even something that could have been effective.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

So not being a Deschutes County resident, I I honestly I don't have a uh an opinion on it. I I'm not familiar enough with the intricacies. I I do know that obviously Deschutes County's had massive growth over the last 20 or 30 years, residential and and you know, businesses and everything. And and I would definitely um submit to Gary, uh, in his opinion, he's gonna be much much more knowledgeable than than I would on on those Deschutes County specific um actions and their effect on on our wildlife.

SPEAKER_06 29:05

And for me, I just I just want to be able to answer that question. Do we with our decision making help little baby deer grow up to be productive adult deer? That's what I want to see. Yeah, I'm all for the mule deer.

SPEAKER_03 29:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:22

And um I am I am against limiting freedom in the um pursuit of policy. So that's that's the other my other guiding force.

SPEAKER_05 29:38

So if we're gonna have it, it it needs to really be something we know is attractive. Because that's when you're gonna get that bipartisan, you know, uh support behind it. Because at the end of the day, everyone cares about that being. They'll do. You know, and and you know we care about the multitude of beautiful creatures. But it you know, it's it's uh one of those first lessons in biology that gave our children, right? The food chain. And the balance in that food chain. And we don't we don't have balance in in Oregon right now.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

I would say we're definitely going a little extreme in one direction and and we should. You nailed it right there, Lauren. We need to work on a balance.

SPEAKER_06 30:18

I think we have a problem right now with apathy. And I heard this from you, Lauren. Um but uh as I reflected on this, I think that we've been buffeted by the political winds so much that uh some of uh some of our constituency might be uh apathetic because there's so much uh coming at us. But we can't afford apathy right now. We have to do the right thing and and show up when we you know when it's necessary to show up.

SPEAKER_05 30:58

Well, and and you you gotta think about you know, information when when we have data points coming at us from so many different directions and so many different levels. You know, we are we're constantly unless you're you're you're Jamie Rostone who gets to live out in the country and have a cell phone go out in half a day, the rest of us are constantly getting inundated with technology, we're inundated with social media, we're getting inundated with the news at every level. Um everything is happening instantaneously all at once in every direction. So what what are we supposed to pay attention to and and and what are we giving capacity to in our brains? And so my challenge is always to people you give capacity to what you can be a player on the field or a coach in in that you know it's it's the the man in the arena scenario, right? What what is your arena? And that's the one that you need to focus on because that's where you can affect change. You might not be able to to handle what's going on halfway around the world. Um maybe like Danny and I were both in the military. While we're in the military, we're handling what's going on halfway around the world. But then once we're out of the military, our our service and our fight is right here. It's right here where we can reach out and touch and where we can attack. So the the first step it's like to combat apathy is to actually care about things that lead to an effect that change.

SPEAKER_06 32:16

Okay. Uh, Jamie, do you have anything else you'd like to add?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Well, I want to say you know, Lauren's really got the sensible approach, and I think that's what will bring, you know, the division across the political spectrum together. You know, when when you can go to it and say, hey, we care about them just like you do. You know, w we all want the same end state. We maybe have some different ideas on how to get there. You know, let's kind of work on some compromise, work on some ideas together. When you bring everybody to the table, you know, like Lawrence talked about, should be really effective at making the change that that us big game hunters and and ranchers and people that live, you know, in rural America want to see. Oh, go ahead, Lawrence.

SPEAKER_05 32:56

No, I was just gonna say one day these days we're gonna get have to get back on and talk about shooting because we didn't even get to that today.

SPEAKER_06 33:02

Oh, yeah. Okay, so Jamie, what's your what's your favorite uh coyote caliber?

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Well, being a former military guy, honestly, I've got a lot of AR-15s and 223. I run them suppressed, and that's for shooting coyotes, that's honestly my go-to. Every pickup has one in it. Um, we run thermals, you know, we just kind of have to, but um, for big game hunting, honestly, my two idiacly improved as a slayer. So I will say though, and everybody gives me a hard time about this, but the 30 aught six, I think, has probably killed more things uh since the invention of the firearm than any other single caliber. I've got a pile of them. I really like the Remington and Winchester actions, and uh every one of my kids has got a hand-me-down uh bolt action Remington and probably a pump action Remington, and I'll tell you what, I pack a 30-6 in every rig too. So I've got the bigger stuff too, but um, you know what? You can't go wrong.

SPEAKER_06 34:05

Do you have a favorite uh bullet for big game in your 30-6?

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Honestly, you know, we reloaded for a long time and I really love the core locks. I'm sure I'm you're probably gonna get banned off the internet for me saying that, but you can buy them, they're still pretty cheap and they perform relatively well.

SPEAKER_03 34:25

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Honestly, uh, and I I'll tell you this real quick. When COVID happened, you know, I was like, oh my gosh, kid, everybody's running to the restaurant or to the store to get toilet paper. Holy cow. We need to we need to consolidate all our ammo and make sure that we've got enough. And it took up, I've got those gorilla racks in the garage, and we filled one of those, and I was like, you know what, kids, I think we're gonna survive the apocalypse. So um I I normally try to have, you know, 30 to 50,000 rounds total on hand, everything from 17 HMR, you know, to 300 wind mag. And uh, you know, because we've got we've got a pile of guns. I have a couple ginormous safes, and uh all my kids have a pile of firearms, whether it's pistols, shotguns, rifles, and and I do I do like the variety. I like a lot of wildcat stuff. Like I told you, you know, my 280ly improved is probably my favorite rifle.

SPEAKER_03 35:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Um so I I have a lot of fun with that.

SPEAKER_06 35:21

So Lauren I just like shooting. Lauren, have you been shooting lately?

SPEAKER_05 35:26

I'm going this weekend, but you know, what I'm it most excited to to shoot at the end, uh, which I haven't been able to do in a while, it's uh isn't my pistol. I have uh just uh Walter PK and I really like that thing. I've always really liked pistol shooting. Um I'll take rifle shooting too, but pistol shooting is what I love.

SPEAKER_06 35:46

Good. Probably going out to the COSA range, I imagine.

SPEAKER_05 35:49

That's right, with a with a few veterans.

SPEAKER_06 35:52

Very good. Okay, well, it's been great talking, you guys. Thanks for taking the time today and coming on the show, and we will catch you again soon. And Jamie, I look forward to to coming down to the Cowboy Dinner Tree again here one of these days, and I'll make sure that I time it around your schedule. Okay, Jamie, how can people find you?

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Oh, I've got an Instagram for myself and uh one for my beef company, 1875beef.com. If you want to come to the dinner tree, the only way to make a reservation is to call us and talk to us on the phone.

SPEAKER_06 36:27

Cowboy Dinner Tree in Silver Lake, Oregon. And Lauren, how can people find you and connect with you?

SPEAKER_04 36:34

My uh Instagram and my Facebook for my campaign is Connelly No. 4. And then it's also my website.

SPEAKER_06 36:42

And we spell your last name P O N N A L L.

SPEAKER_04 36:47

That's right.