AG&F, WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING?! | Ep087 | Off The Clock with B Scott

Forests can be healed and birds can be hunted fairly when burn plans, thinning, and water timing work together. Weather will always be a wildcard, but policy determines whether a front turns into a feed or just another rumor.

If you care about Arkansas duck hunting—residents, guides, or traveling timber diehards—this conversation gives you the numbers, the trade-offs, and the moves that can change next season. Subscribe, share this with your crew, and drop your smartest fix in the comments so we can push for changes that actually put greenheads over the trees.

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Transcript

Setting The Agenda And Disclaimers

SPEAKER_02 0:00

It's five o'clock and you're off the clock of Beast Guy. Now, today we're gonna talk about the Arkansas Game of Fish, what they're doing and what they're not doing. Okay, we're gonna talk about the new legacy lunker program, which is pretty trending right now, and they're doing some good things and they're doing some bad things, and we're gonna bring that to the light. We're gonna talk about the lack of water here in Arkansas for the waterfowl hunters. Where's the water? Where's the ducks? We're gonna find out though. These are our opinions. It's gonna get edgy. All right, if you got feelings, you might want to tuck them inside and not listen to this because they're probably gonna poke them a little bit. But before we get into it, make sure you leave a like, subscribe, check out our gear shop. We got new hoodies in orange, got wax canvas hats, and tons of new merch. So we're gonna dive right in. If you're sensitive to a little bit of um controversial topics, this might not be one for you to listen to, but if you're into it, let's dive in.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

All right, so we're talking about water levels, and we're talking about water levels all over Arkansas and how it affected duck season. And let me tell you something, man. I've I've talked to a lot of people. I had a customer from Alabama, not sure if he's from Alabama or not, but his name is Patrick. I will say that. And he's a good customer. Me and him have been talking back and forth. He has a RDBST and he kills sea ducks, okay? He texts me, I think it was yesterday, and he says him and his old lady was in Arkansas. They'd never hunted in Arkansas before. And uh they he asked me, where can I go to kill some ducks? I said, man, it's really bad right now. So I sent a text out to our group, you know. So, you know, you got Brian Jetson up north, right? Then you got cuz outboards and Baameda, and you got, you know, then you got Shockley hunting uh down south Arkansas. So we so we got the whole state covered, you know, and there's just no ducks. There's no ducks, and all the water stinks and it's stale.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

The water for one is a big issue.

Reports From Across The State

SPEAKER_04 1:50

So I you know, so so I told Brian, I said, well, I mean, Bomeda stinks and it stales, and ducks ain't using the the timber. And they're not pumping water into the timber. And you know, Brian shot back the same text message, said, Hey, you know, it's the same results we're getting up here in Black River. I said, they're just like everything sucks right now. And there's so many people coming to Arkansas to duck hunt. Why but there's less now? Why why does Arkansas Game and Fish not recognize that they do not have enough water for the customer base? I don't necessarily know if it's something that they don't recognize. They do recognize it, but why don't they recognize it? Why don't they try to fix the problem? I mean, what are their goals here? And they're not real clear about it.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Save the trees.

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Save the trees. So, you know, that's really weird because actually it says save the trees, but they won't pump the water off the trees until I mean they they won't even pump the water off the trees.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

I know.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

Once it rains in February and March, they'll just keep the water on the trees.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 2:49

Are they trying to cut the woods and make money off the woods? I mean, they just don't.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Um they not just give a crap about the guys that spent all the money to come to Arkansas the duck hunt.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

When you add it all together and you look at it, they know what's going on. They're addressing it, but it's not very clear.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

You think they really know what's going on or just elected people?

SPEAKER_02 3:10

I think they know what's going on, and I think it's something deliberate that we haven't quite figured out yet, or maybe you know, it's more than one thing, but I think they're deliberately doing it for a reason. Yeah. An alternative motive, maybe.

Is AGFC Ignoring Demand

SPEAKER_04 3:22

Right. I I don't know, but I know it's disappointing because we have customers coming all over the United States to come to Arkansas because it's the duck. The hunt the legendary flood attempt. It's the duck hunting capital of the world, right? Was that right? Arkansas knows that, but nobody else does. How how how long is it going to take for everybody in the country to know that Arkansas is not the duck hunting? I think it's already starting.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Okay, I, you know, all these customers you talk to all around, you know, United States, and there's more and more people I hear from that are like, man, you know, we normally make a yearly trip to Arkansas. We always come hunt the timber, always come hunt the timber. But the last couple years we, you know, we haven't really done it. You know, we haven't came to Arkansas to hunt the timber. Or, you know, they're talking to people that are in Arkansas and they're like, you know, let me know when it gets good. When's it get good? You don't got water, you can't expect it to be good. So a lot less people are actually coming to Arkansas based off what I've been told from these people, you know, to hunt flooded timber, partly because of the duck numbers, partly because of water. Right. If you add both of them together, it's a bad situation. Especially when it comes to the the duck hunting capital of the world.

SPEAKER_04 4:29

If you're gonna make revenue off of if you're gonna if you're gonna make revenue off of hunting license, if you're trying to make our Kansas, the Arkansas, if you're gonna try and make that a place where to bring people to kill ducks, I mean, why don't you invest in in ducks? Why don't you invest in the water? Why don't you flood the waters?

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Why don't you Is there that much more money in these private lands, these duck ranches? Is there that much more money in that that you wouldn't take care of this?

Fewer Trips To Arkansas Timber

SPEAKER_04 4:56

I don't know. There's something fishy going on. There's something f I mean you brought up a good point. There's something fishy going on with this private duck clubs. I don't know what it is, but you know, we sell a lot of duck boats. And we stay connected to a lot of our customers. And I all I see is customers struggling and struggling every year to kill ducks. And I would think that Arkansas Gaming Fish, it's their responsibility to fix that.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Well, it's supposed to get paid to do. All right, so to bring some new details to the table, we actually got special guests, Caden Heydrich and Brian Jesson. They're gonna come in here, bring some more details, and add to the conversation. So it's been it's been interesting. Still got a couple weeks left. Um, what's y'all's predictions on the rest of this duck season?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

It's been it's been a year for sure. It's been a year. Waiting on the cold to get here, brother. It's just if we could just get some cold weather. It's it's hard to have a good duck season when you don't have any water and it's hot. Yeah, I mean it's been hot. Don't even feel like duck season. If it could be cold, we could deal with dry. If it's warm and wet, cool. But you cannot have dry and warm. Just it just doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

Or dry and cold.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

It just doesn't work. I'd rather have dry and cold. What about what I'm I'm ready for some cold weather. Bring it. I am too. They got some predicted. Do that.

Why Not Invest In Water

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Let's bring it. Let's do it. What about the what about the duck numbers? What about the duck numbers? What are y'all thinking on the numbers? Man, it's been down.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

For us, it's been down. It's been down. I feel like it's been as good a year as it is for for the conditions. Yeah. Right. For the conditions. One thing that I think you're dealing with a lot is is uh is is crowding and pressure. People can't spread out.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

No, there's no there's no spreading out.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Pretty much people are hunting what little river water there is in these uh green tree reservoirs, what little water there is in them. You know, we've we've really been limited on water in these green trees um due to a lot of reasons, Game and Fish says uh the trees is what they keep going back to. But um yeah, they're limiting water. So nothing is is flooded to the depth that it used to be. Full pull is now less than what it has in the past, in the past, in the past.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Yeah, they keep going down with the it's reducing over and over.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, right correct.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

And there's nothing that our biologists can do about it.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

And what that does to people is I mean, now you have less and less places you can actually hunt. Oh, it's missing. So if you got the same amount of people hunting, they're hunting less places, it's way more crowded.

Private Clubs And Public Suspicion

SPEAKER_03 7:17

Well, I'll tell you this in the 20 years that I've hunted around Northeast Arkansas, this is the lowest I've ever seen the water levels and the most people I've seen through the woods. I mean, when you're stacked in on top of each other, it's how you gonna kill ducks?

SPEAKER_04 7:32

That's the reason why you see so many people though. Everybody's kind of grouped together.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Right incidents like people getting in fights, people people, you know, duking it out, trying to get these holes. It's hard to hit.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

I can't believe we haven't seen more fight videos on Facebook than what we have this year, just because of that.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

You know, my personal opinion about all this, I think they should regulate, you know, and reduce the amount of license sold. Well, based off of based off of the water, amount of water bases the hunt.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

I agree with that 100%. 100%. And and I think that you've got to look back as a as an Arkansas resident and a taxpayer in this state. I feel like that should start with the out-of-staters. How come limiting license sales? Just like when you want to go shoot a big elk. Yeah. Just when you want to get away, even deer. I mean, go shoot you a big deer out there in Colorado. Other states do it for you know, deer.

Guests Join And Weather Hopes

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Even Kansas started doing it. Yeah. So I mean it's not a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

I think you limit people are used to that. I think you limit out-of-state license. I think you allow them to federal ground and private. And you increase conditions and and and improve conditions for residents.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

And and to follow up with that is what I think, and Justin and I have talked about this quite a bit, is I believe that it's gonna come to a point system, just like Colorado. I guess we're gonna do that. I think I think it's gonna be a five-year deal.

SPEAKER_04 8:51

And I believe But that's but that's what you think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

So what are they gonna do? Right. And that and that's the question. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Well, and I hate to I hate to even mention draw because what if the draw is affects us, everybody affects residents. Which I don't think it shouldn't be. You know what I mean? It shouldn't. Because when you show up to a boat ramp.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Correct. Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

I mean, they I mean, because then you end up in Missouri.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

Right. But when you show up to our boat ramp and I show up to our boat ramp, and there's five in-state trucks during the week of of the third split, and there's 50 out of staters. Yeah, you gotta do something.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

Well, you know, in New Mexico, when we went and killed an elk in New Mexico, the resident That was sweet, by the way. It was it was a cool video. It was a great time. But but you know, the deal about it though, the residents don't get to kill an elderly.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

I remember them telling us they're on the same same same deal. And that's what I don't want in Arkansas. I mean that's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

Yeah, y'all's got it. So even never killed an elk. Yes.

Crowding, Pressure, And Lower Pools

SPEAKER_01 9:43

No, they're wild. Yes, yes. The guy that we hunt went hunting with lived there. He was 20, what, 20, 21? Yep. He had never shot an elk. He never drew. He never drew that to draw.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

There's a never drew. There's a uh district in Colorado that a buddy of mine lives in, and my brother-in-law lives up there too, so this is how I know. That it takes 25 years of drawing points to kill an elk. That's absolutely ridiculous.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

In state or out. It's not right. I mean, it's not right for residents to not be able to kill what we're paying for. Yeah, it's it's it's just not right. I mean, I felt bad. I felt bad. I mean, we're taxed for it, you know. I mean, I mean, I left early and gave my tag to a residence.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Yeah. Man.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

You know, because you know, I drew it and I was like, dude, I feel sorry for you. We left early and I gave my tag away. I said, go kill the sale king.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Now, was that it or were you tired of walking?

SPEAKER_04 10:33

I think it was second one. I mean, I have a moral, you know, compass, you know what I'm saying? I feel bad for the guy. You know, he he spent all of his time, you know, making money. You know, the outfitter's a pain of pills. Yeah, you know. And uh I just felt bad. I mean, Beast Guy did too. We're there. And and the cook, you know, the the the my little mic thing fell off. This is bad stuff here. But anyways, the uh you know, the the the cook didn't kill an elk. No, no, no. Everybody that was uh residents there hasn't killed an elk, but everybody else gets killed one. Yeah. Well, I know.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

It definitely feels like you like you shouldn't be. You know, it's like like why am I good enough to come here and kill an elk and like you residents that live here don't get to kill one. Don't get don't get to hunt your own resources. Absolutely. You know, y'all are selling y'all's resources to us, and y'all at the end of the day are the ones that don't get an opportunity to call.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

But that all comes back to the fact of what we're talking about today. Right. Duck hunting. And how can Arkansas game and fish improve duck hunting? And a lot of it is what you think, B Scott, just too many people hunting and enough water.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

I think a lot of it's pressure.

SPEAKER_04 11:40

All right, so what causes what causes Arkansas Game and Fish? Let's get into through the numbers. I mean, what causes Arkansas Game and Fish to reduce the amount of water that's pumped on WMAs? I mean, how many WMAs this year wasn't pumped that could have been pumped?

SPEAKER_03 11:55

I know of one in Northeast Arkansas. I don't know how many you guys had down south, but there was definitely one.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

One WMA was said to do with uh vandalism. It was it so it was dry. Oh yeah, the pump there was another one that's been dry for five years. Um uh due in in part, this is the temp back to the timber. What are their names? They're BiodeView. Bio de View has a big one. It's and that's a big hitter.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

And it's a right in the flyway. All the all the local boys hunt it, and it's it's tough. There's some spots at Biode View that you can't even walk into.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

So who else and then another large one is is is Hurricane, Hurricane WMA. Um it it's dry and the gates are open. Um and and it's it we're back to this timber deal.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

Well, another one was ready to break. Uh they didn't close the gates until what, December 2nd? So we didn't have water until December 2nd. Or well, really a week after that.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Same thing, biomeda, lower water levels, later gate closing. I mean, you you can go on and on throughout all the whole state, but it you know, it goes back to the trees and and we're saving the trees.

Pressure Shifts And Refuge Seeking

SPEAKER_04 13:02

Yeah, well, I mean, all right, so so let's talk about pressure. You know, Arkansas Gaming Fish is selling these licensed rides for revenue. And and you know, we have all the numbers here, but they're they're they're obviously trying to to collect money to pay for their expenses, right? Right. So with with these WMAs not having water on them, then they could have pumped water on these spots. Is that causing more pressure on these on these other areas that have natural water?

SPEAKER_01 13:30

It is. I mean, it's definitely causing more pressure. Maybe you got water. If your area, yeah, if your area is dry and you can't hunt, um the people are gonna hunt. Yeah. So they're gonna go somewhere. Where's the next spot that I have a chance?

SPEAKER_03 13:43

A lot of the reason, like we normally hunt the north side of the W May. And Brian knows where we hunt, but um, and I guess it doesn't matter anymore because everybody knows it. But Upper Island's where I'm normally at. 90% of the time you're gonna see me at Upper Island. This year, 90% of the time, you've seen me at Ashe Ball. I've been at Ash Ball.

SPEAKER_04 14:02

Hundred trucks.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

And there's a hundred trucks, but that's where the ducks are at. That's where they want to get.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

Why aren't the ducks here?

Limiting Nonresident Licenses

SPEAKER_03 14:08

They're wanting to get away from shooting. So I believe that they're trying to find a flight path and kind of go where these hunters aren't. They're trying to find rest. And there's water there, and there's water, and there's nobody hunting them. So what we do we've been doing is getting away from people. We're getting way back in the woods and finding their flight path. And that's how we've been killing them.

SPEAKER_04 14:33

Well, I I don't think everybody's interested in how you kill ducks. I think everybody's interested why nobody's killing ducks. Right. Yeah. Why it's everybody, yeah. Yeah, it's everybody.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

You hear of less people wanting to come to Arkansas to hunt because they're they're afraid that when they take that trip, right? They're gonna make the trip and there's not gonna be ducks. There's not gonna be water.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

It costs you money to come here. It's not it's not free. I think it's what, 400 bucks for them to come?

SPEAKER_04 14:54

Not only that, it's the local economics, it's yeah, what people buy, their food, their clothes. I mean, Max makes a lot of money. I mean, there's a lot of companies in Arkansas that draws money off of duck season.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

And Arkansas Gaming Fish has a responsibility to the to those areas all over the state of Arkansas. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

And if you look right here where it says license sales, yeah, you can go from 2024 to 2025 to 2026, and it's steadily going down. Declining. Yeah. I mean, it's going down.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

It is what I was that's what I was just doing is the numbers on the 2024 to 2025. That is a$233,000 uh decline on on license sales.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

Yeah, it looks like the uh over and under the difference is$341,000.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Yeah, then there's even even uh uh less buying in 2026.

SPEAKER_04 15:44

Right. And can I tell everybody where we're getting this information from, would you?

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Yeah. Uh so Arkansas Game and Fish uh and I have been contacting each other about kind of what their revenue was. And I talked to a friend of mine from the Arkansas Game and Fish, and he said that we could we could basically get any public information that we wanted, but anything that was confidential, obviously we can't have.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Right.

Draws, Points, And Resident Access

SPEAKER_03 16:06

So anything that's confidential. These are all public. Right. All this is public reference records.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

And anybody can get on and find this. If you want to see these numbers for yourself in depth, I mean there's a great breakdown here. You can just get on there and and and get these, get these paperworks, yeah, and you can read all this.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

Where do you find this paperwork at?

SPEAKER_03 16:23

So I got on email and I sent Mr. Gibson a an email, a formal email, and all he said back to me was I need your driver's license or your business name. How did you like how I emailed so I went to the Arkansas Game of Fish page and I found communications email.

SPEAKER_04 16:44

I got you. And he went through that.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

And I went through the whole process of how do I get this information? And I've been trying to get it for years, and I finally just got on chat GBT and I was like, I need to figure this out, so I'm gonna do it. And I got on chat GBT and it told me how to do it.

SPEAKER_04 17:00

I think a lot of people don't understand that this is public records. Yeah, I mean anybody can do it.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

But but the problem is is you have to ask for it.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

Yeah, you do not have to do that.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

They're not just gonna they're not gonna post it on their page.

SPEAKER_04 17:09

You know it's a lot easier to get on social media and complain about duck season, but what is the problem? That's what havoc is trying to do. Right. That's what off the clock with beats guys trying to do right now. We're trying to figure out what is the problem and how can we fix the problem.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Right. Well, the first step is getting educated. Everybody needs to look at this, everyone has their own opinions.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yep. And I and I think you dig, you know, looking at this, and I uh this is my first day of of actually looking at it, but when you start digging through here, sorry, there's there's uh that's great. I'm just glad that's everybody else. There's uh when you start digging in real deep though, there's just some some points in here that it's like, okay, uh I don't I don't understand that, you know. I don't understand this. Why don't why aren't you? I mean there's there's just things in the budget that that you know make it make sense. Well, obviously on pack number two, we got them labeled here because there's so much documents.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

I mean, I think there's like 50-60 pages on one of the documents. There is. And we only got a few that were, you know, PowerPoint, you know, uh points that we're going to go over.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

We can't cover all this.

SPEAKER_04 18:08

By no means. License sales are dropping. Oh, you're right. And I guarantee you that's the first thing they look at.

Economics Of A Bad Season

SPEAKER_03 18:12

From 2024 to 2026, it was a 341,000 decrease. Almost a 342,000 decrease in people buying licenses.

SPEAKER_04 18:21

How about federal aid? It's also dropping. Federal aid has dropped significantly. Oh, federal aid. It's dropping two million dollars.$2 million.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Two million dollars per year for the last three years.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

Wow. You guys wonder why they're cutting timber? Because they got a$70,000 increase.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

I mean, they have to figure out a way to make money. And why are they trying to figure out a way to make money? Is because, well, I mean, they pay a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yeah, I mean, it I mean, if you do the money, I mean if you look at it. License sales, that's generates revenue for them. If it's down, it's not good. Federal aid, it's it's money for them as well. If it's down, it ain't good. And both those are down. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

So they're looking for Yeah, you're looking at this revenues down and expenses are up.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

Yep. Expenses up and labor uh in uh 2024, um,$26 million a salary expense, 37% of the annual budget, 40% and uh 2025, 43%, and you guys like uh it's only 23%, but that's 3% of the annual budget tax.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Difference of like, you know, 43%, it'd be hard to run a business. I mean havoc doesn't run on 43%.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

No, you wouldn't be proud of salary expense.

FOIA, Public Records, And Data

SPEAKER_04 19:30

No, no, could you imagine if Havoc boats we would be broken out of business? Our boats would be our our our our plan chain boat, our VJs would be like$36,000 just for a boat. Yep. So that tells you how inefficient this whole system's running. And and uh and a lot of this is because that they're not elected fit officials.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

I mean, let's but let's just face the facts here. I mean, these are not elected officials.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Commissioners are appointed by the governor. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

That's right. Period.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

And you know, our eight cents tax goes to this organization that isn't appointed, dude. It's not we're not able to vote on who we want to represent, this, that, and the other. Right. It's kind of just pre you know destined, you know, like get appointed.

SPEAKER_04 20:15

And what's really crazy is Arkansas Game Fish watches this podcast, they're going shit. But let me tell you, this is not about talking about it about somebody. It's not a good thing. No, because improving the situation.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

At the end of the day, I I I appreciate Arkansas Game and Fish because we wouldn't even have this these uh public timber w without this. You know, I mean, this is let's do it. We do, but but we do pay our taxes. We this is taxpayer money. Do our part. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

I appreciate the law enforcement officers that we have.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

We've got great law enforcement and we've got great managers throughout the world.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Yeah, our biologists are even great.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

There's they can't do anything if they don't get money. There's just some problems that you know could could be addressed and need to be addressed. It's based off of leadership, you know. Right.

Sales Down, Aid Down, Costs Up

SPEAKER_04 20:54

You know, the it just it just it just needs to be cleaned up a little bit, uh, you know, I would think. You know, we could talk about all kinds of things on here. I mean, there's so much information, and we encourage you guys to go to their website and get the information for yourself and look at it because there's just so much information here. Um, you know, the one thing that that really you know brings me attention is the the education, the the uh the communications. The communications for sure. I mean they're spending they're spending two million dollars a year on communications. What does that consist of? Yeah, is that is that uh social media? I mean, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

And and I think a lot of it is is they're probably up in that, trying to, because in the past there's not been good communication. Right. And it has gotten better, right?

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Well, I mean, out of the out of the communication, they they've already used up 45%. So that goes from June 30th to June 30th. They've already used up 45%. So with their two million dollars, they've already used 914 of it.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Like, I wonder when they're when they're putting it as communication, I don't see anybody in Anywhere right there where it's like social, like social media marketing. So I would assume communication communications would be just reaching the public. So I would assume they're probably talking about social media and everything.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

But I mean we don't spend two million dollars on social media.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

No. And I would be outset.

SPEAKER_04 22:17

I mean, even even if we went travel to every one of our dealers nationwide and had a two or three day event, we wouldn't spend two million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Well, I mean I would say if they are spending two million dollars, they're doing a really shitty job with it because nobody really knows what's going on.

Salaries Climb Amid Revenue Slump

SPEAKER_04 22:32

And that's the whole point of this podcast. Basically because they forced our hand on selling license. When you have a when you have a a tight area like this, Arkansas, and you're in your advertising to the nation, this is our Arkansas duck duck capital of the world, you need to have resources to provide a service.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Right. But we're not we're not just servicing the ducks, and that's one thing that we need to very, very well make clear.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

It is, and that's that's what we talked about a lot on the way, is is you gotta service the deer, the turkey, turkey and the squirrel. Quail, squirrel, soon. It's not total management of the of the But it's mismanaged.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

So for people that wouldn't understand that and know what you're talking about, pretend I don't know anything and you're explaining what what what you would do for the ducks. Like for people that are listening. Okay. What is it that you would do?

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Go ahead, Brian. You take a you take a these green tree reservoirs that are that are flooded for waterfowl. You know is good and well like turkey. Right. Let's compare it to turkey. Okay. Flooding a place is not good for turkey. Right. Turkey are not gonna live in the water. Yeah. Turkey are not gonna nest in the water.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

And deer do not sleep in water. So last that you have to do it. You know, same thing with the deer. So tough.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah. You're you're you're doing two things that make sense for one. On the high ground kind of contradicts. It contradicts, you know. So you're pushing deer out of the bottoms, you're pushing you're pushing them up to high ground where they don't have any bedding.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

They're scared. They don't they're running wild. So I mean, we're saying with a turkey.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

We can all agree the Arkansas game fish doesn't have an easy task here.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

No, it's not they they have a difficult job because they're not just catering to a waterfowl hunter. Right. It's deer, turkeys, quail, spectrum. Oh, yeah. Spectrum. I mean, they're trying quail on some areas. You definitely don't want water over. I mean, quail can't take flooding. Not at all. So at all. That would be no good.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

No. So I mean it is difficult.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

So they do gotta maneuver it very So what I've been told is they're trying to create more bedding area for these animals to live and survive in. The problem is, is like Baudavie, and you know, I can personally say this because I bootst on the ground it is it is so thick that I don't even think a deer could walk through it. I had to crawl through it.

Communication Spend And Transparency

SPEAKER_01 24:58

And one thing that you know is looked at you know, they could really utilize fire in these areas.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

Oh, absolutely. Especially I wish we would have to wide after because I think a lot of it has to do with going back to agriculture for just a second, is these fires that are creating issues in agriculture. You've you've seen these these highways that have been, you know, killing people because of the fires, the smoke, you can't see through them. So what happens if you do that in in the hills up there where you live? You come around a curve and there's an 18 wheeler stopped and you can't see them, you're dead. So I have a feeling like that's a lot, that's a lot to do with it. Is I think AGFC has kind of scaled back on burning turkey woods, but that's also so good about what a turkey likes is is is new new life. You know, you need the greenery, so right.

SPEAKER_04 25:59

It's it's I mean it's obviously it's a lot to go, you know. I mean, obviously it's not that easy, you know, and but you know, on on this see what I'm on pack, I'm on page number three on packet two. Packet two, okay, and the first thing I see is things that I highlighted right here. You can see it right here. You know, I highlight a few areas that that that you know, wildlife management division, what is that?

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Um wildlife management division. I have I have yet to figure out. Okay. There's there's a few things on here that I haven't even got to look at.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

So I uh we don't know what that is, right? Now the total budget is 11 million dollars. I mean it's quite a bit. So I have a feeling that has been. Right now, so far they've spent 52% of the annual budget. Yeah. Which is six million dollars. The fishery. What is a fishery?

SPEAKER_03 26:51

A lot of your marine habitat.

Multi‑Species Management Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 26:53

It is, and a lot of your fisheries uh go into the trout. Yeah, yeah. It's very very expensive. The Northwest Arkansas. I guarantee it's trout.

SPEAKER_04 27:02

To breed Northwest Arkansas, Amos Springs, trout. Yeah, yeah. And they're listing names of the lunker program.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

I mean, I'm sure the lunker program's gonna be costly. I don't know where that is, but y'all need to re-and the lunker program.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

So I'm sure it's so on on packet one, there is which I don't know if we even have the package, but um, on packet one, there was a a research done by Oklahoma State University, I believe. And basically it's for sonaring fish. So crappie.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

They're wondering how it has an effect. And this is funds coming in, this is a grantee, but they're one they're giving us money to look at the the effects it has on crappie. A sonar. So live scopes.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

Like a study on it? Yeah. Well, that probably goes back into the federal funding, too. Because you see they also got uh uh funding from the uh federal side of it. Uh how much is that, Brian? Do you do you remember?

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Uh federal yeah, it's total grant, but I mean it's uh the it's broken down into what the federal funding is. Right. Uh so you've got the federal aid, you know, 19.5 million, wild sport fish restoration, hunter education 1.6 million. These are all federal aid revenues. So this is all federal money given, uh range plant granting, uh recreational boating safety, you know, 1.8 million, land and water conservation fund.

SPEAKER_04 28:33

I mean, it's just so I mean basically the uh Arkansas Game Fish is scrapping for money wherever they can get it and they spend it wherever they need to.

SPEAKER_03 28:39

Pretty much. Yeah. So is what they think. So they have two different tiers. I don't know if you've seen that yet or not. But on there's there's two different tiers. And tier one is what they've been funded to to go and do. And then there's tier two, where there's not any funds. Nobody's giving funds for that.

Fire, Habitat, And Thick Understory

SPEAKER_04 28:58

I mean, I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't think the viewers understand what you're saying.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

So, like the green tree reservoirs and what the duck hunting world has been looking to get done over the past seven years. There's no funds for it. Nobody's giving any funds from universities. University of Arkansas hasn't getting any funds. Um, Arkansas Gaming Fish has only put five million dollars towards it. So our green tree reservoirs that are having temper cuts are bidded out. And that's a myth that um that AGFC is making money off these green temper reservoirs where they're logging.

SPEAKER_04 29:32

Well, real really honestly, to be honest with you, based off the numbers I see, they're not making no money.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

No.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

And I mean, this is definitely that is definitely that's one thing I did read. This tells you right here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

And that's why everybody needs to look.

SPEAKER_04 29:44

I mean, a lot of people on the internet saying, hey, they're making a ton of money on cutting trees. No, they're not. No, they're not making money on trees. I'm not seeing it.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

And that is one thing everybody needs to understand.

SPEAKER_04 29:55

So so so let's get back to it. Obviously, I looked at the numbers, they're not making money on cutting trees. None. So why are they cutting trees? To be honest with you, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

Well, I mean, they're trying to produce wildlife habitats for generations. So, and I and Brian has told me this before. The quickest way to kill a tree is a chainsaw.

SPEAKER_04 30:15

It is and it is. I mean, I get that, but let's get down to the point here. Right. Why are they killing trees? Why do you think they're killing trees? Because it doesn't appear to be financial. Is it the ash? I mean, I heard something about somebody saying something about the ash of a tree.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

What's it all about? So if they have three red oaks on top of each other, so within five, five feet, ten feet of each other, and there's one big red oak that's producing ash. So what ash does is it goes down into the ground once the acorn falls and turns to ash. So when you get basically to where it gets rotten.

Lunker Program And Fisheries Grants

SPEAKER_04 30:46

And this goes back to the burning deal that Brian talked about. Right. Yeah. So once it goes down to It would be very beneficial. Be very beneficial. I get you. So you're saying they're cutting trees, they cut down the canopy, they're leaving the tree that's producing the most to create more trees. To create more trees. The problem is that they're falling right here on top of it. And the problem is they can't flood the flood grounds because they're killing the new trees. The young trees. So how do they stop this vicious response?

SPEAKER_01 31:11

And when you when you dig into this a little bit deeper on this trees, people think they're cutting trees for the money. Well, they're not. Unless there's something. I mean, unless their numbers are wrong, they're not unless uh something's astray on the numbers. They make very little money from actually cutting.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

What page is that? That's uh page.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Two one. Yeah, two one. Yeah, well, if you look to year to year to year, it's actually less. Page two, yeah. Packet two? Packet two, page one, timber revenue. Okay, so 2026 at uh projected timber at$180,642.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

A$70,000 increase.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

Well, well, I mean, I don't know anybody that was watching this that cuts trees for a living, but that's not much money. Not at all. No, but not when it comes to something like this.

Why Cut Timber If Not For Cash

SPEAKER_01 31:50

And uh, something that I was thinking about, and and we looked at this a little bit, is okay, so they've been cutting trees for a while now in these WMAs. Could we be creating a bigger problem? I I don't understand why they're cutting trees to start with. Could we be creating okay, so beaver beaver, this last year, beavers was a big deal. We gotta get rid of the beavers, they're killing the timber. You want$100,000 for a beaver? So when you dig deep. You're just you're just you're just guessing. You don't have the numbers. No, I don't. It's just a guess. When you dig deep into this, though, all these trees that they're cutting, uh, a lot of these timber is per se hollow. So they cut the butt cut off, they cut it so far up, all the limbs, all the leaves, everything lays there. Right. When the when the river does blow out into these WMAs and flood these, it all this debris has to wash somewhere. Somewhere. Right. Are we creating some dams? Is all this beaver related? Or are we are we causing problems? Are we causing flooding issues by putting all this debris on the ground? Here's another thing is and not burning it.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Yeah, you should burn it. See, the problem is if you don't burn it, the debris's left, and then when it does blow out and it does it does somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

And it's not all gonna burn anyway, but some of it would. Yeah. I mean, I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

I'm just a you're weakening the logs. So even if you do, the river, if it's up and it's rushing, you're gonna break those logs. Those logs won't jam up just as just as much.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

In theory, these these trees are damaged from water, they're gonna eventually fall over. And why don't they just flood the damn trees when ducks are in and take the water off of when they need to?

SPEAKER_04 33:28

Well, they just do what's right. All right, so podcasts we've had in the past. I think this is what this is what I think it is. This is what I think it is. I think that they have a tax, they get all this money, they get federal funding because we obviously see it, right? They're dealing with how much money total? 153 million or something? 133. 133 million. All right, the the end game is let's spend all the money in one physical year, and whatever we got to make up, let's do it. Yeah, but what it boils down to.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

But you also gotta think of the 20 million that they're getting in federal, you know, in in funds.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Is that on top of the 153?

SPEAKER_03 34:05

No, that's on no that's totally that's included into the 133.

Debris, Beavers, And Flooding Mechanics

SPEAKER_04 34:09

But but I know, I know what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, I get you. I'm gonna argue with you here a little bit, okay? I get uh and I want to defend Arkansas Gay and Fish just a little bit. No, yeah. I'm also gonna be honest here, but to me it looks like they just got a big wallet of money, they gotta make up some shit to make the money go away because they won't get the funding for the following years. Okay, okay. Is that correct? Uh I mean, I've always heard these horror stories. I've always heard these horror stories.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

If you don't spend your budget, you don't get the money, correct? All right, so I'm gonna stop you right there. So with that being said, spending money to just get rid of it, you bring up like contract work, well, all sorts of people.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

Spend money to make money, right? Like right here on page two.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

But they have to spend the money they're not gonna get rid of it.

SPEAKER_04 34:48

Agreed a packet to what's the most important part of what's the most important part of a budget? Is spending is who gets paid. Yeah. That's what they're protecting. They're salaries, okay? Right. That's what it boils down to.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Well, it and and you you clearly see salary increases. Yes. And and just before Austin Booth left, there were some large salary increases. Now he has since left and went to banded. That's a whole nother story that we could talk about in a long time. That's a different podcast. There was huge, you know, increases in salaries done. You know, big move there. Big move. Big power move. Right. Well, now you you see this. I mean, this is pretty big. 37%. Page one of the city. Page page two or packet two, page one.

SPEAKER_04 35:36

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Uh 20 2024, 37% spent. 25, 40%. Now we've moved to 20. So you look at look at six percent increase in two years.

SPEAKER_04 35:48

So that's almost that's almost 50% of the annual budget.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

And we're and we're talking about the total number. Okay.

Logging Timelines Delay Flooding

SPEAKER_04 35:55

Do you think the other 50, do you think the other 50% gives a shit about the trees? No. No. So that's what that's what the main goal is right here, is that right there. Okay. Somebody's eating, somebody's getting paid, okay? So the rest of the budget, they're trying to figure out where to spend it and how to improve the situation to make sure they get the same amount of.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

So I've got a question. So is this is this 43%? Is it coming out of the$133 million, or is it coming out of the$113 million because of the 20 20 million that's funded?

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Uh you can go to pay packet one, page four. Okay. Packet one, page four. Gotcha. And we can pull that up. Not saying they're doing a bad job. They just need to tighten up. So you you go to packet one, page four.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

Salaries and benefits expense,$61 million. There's$500,000.

Who Benefits From Timber Work

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Yeah, so I think they're they're gonna pull it here in a second. And then their base agency maintenance and operations. It's I mean, give or take half. Yeah. You know? And then you've got you've got$60 million for salaries and benefits, and then you've got around$60 million for um you you're gonna pull it up online, and we can just do a little brief deal of it. So uh just look on my it's just it's just on me right here.$61 million salaries and benefits, and then maintenance and operations expense, another$50 million. So over half the budget is is for salary. I think that's that's the problem. And year in and year out, that salary goes up and up. And I get salary in the city.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

But what's crazy is so the salary's going up, but the license sale federal is going down. Way down.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

That's but but that's making less, making more. That's why the timber and everything else are trying to do the fishery, the lunker program, that's why they're trying to come up with different sources of revenue to fund their the 50% budget.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

But then but then I would say that makes sense if they were making a killing.

SPEAKER_04 37:54

They want to cut everything but the salaries, and that's the problem with the government. And it's Arkansas Game of Fish, you're not doing a bad job. It's just like, look, you need to cut it.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

We kind of need to step it up a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

But here's the here's the deal, though, right? So the thing is though, when you're in this, when you're in the inn, when you're an Arkansas Game of Fish employee, a commissioner, a admin, a whatever, you don't want your salary to go down. No, you don't. No, I mean nobody weren't gonna increase. Now, if you're not in the inn, this makes sense to us looking at it. But if you're sitting there and this is your flame that you're in front of you, you want your salary to go up. That's the same way with us. This is this is where we're at.

SPEAKER_04 38:29

Right, beast, do you want to take a pay cut? Nobody wants to take a pay cut. Okay, nobody's that's right. And everybody in Arkansas Gay and Fish don't want to take a pay cut. And the problem is that they need to regulate they need to figure out a way to increase the revenue.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

And I don't necessarily know if it's with the actual timber, but it might be outsourcing the jobs to get the timber.

SPEAKER_04 38:49

Where do you make outsourcing the why don't they just stop subcontracting all their work and make their employees work for more money?

SPEAKER_02 38:55

I don't know. That makes sense, doesn't it?

Private Lands Budgets And Leases

SPEAKER_04 38:57

Man, they get paid to do something. Let's cut the subcontracting in half and give it to make the people sitting at the desk cut some trees.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

What I would do.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

Hey Brian, would you like to go and cut a little bit of timber out of the Arkansas Game of Fish Crown? Um, I mean, would you do it for$10,000?

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not cutting any trees. Well, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

No, but legally, legally, if you could, would you?

SPEAKER_04 39:20

But there is a reason why Arkansas Game of Fish coach trees.

SPEAKER_03 39:23

Right.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

Because they're not making money, guys. I mean, you see all over the internet, they're making money on trees, making money on making trees. That's hogwash.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

That's yeah, but then look at this. They're not making money. So where is the money getting made? So obviously Arkansas getting made. Or is it all these these you know outsourced jobs they might be in on? I mean, okay, let's where's the money? Let's get it. Where's the money?

SPEAKER_01 39:47

But we're put we're all right, we're so we're we we're all have agreed that we're gonna cut the trees. Right. They've all agreed they're cutting trees next week. There's nothing we can do about it.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

They're gonna do it regardless.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Now, we gotta flood the trees later. Well, what I've noticed and has been noticed across the state by numerous hunters that are out in these WMAs, these loggers are in the woods later and later and later. No, that's wrong. And the water is being pushed and pushed and pushed.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

But time out. So what about a 17-inch rain?

Scale Of AGFC’s Mission

SPEAKER_01 40:16

So here's here's the deal with flooding thing. Okay. They're gonna log these regardless. Right. They can't log them when they're wet. Is there a correlation between flooding the timber? No. And cutting the trees? There's not because there's not enough money in cutting timber.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

Then that's I'm sticking up for you on this one. Okay. There's not enough money. If I was in the business to cut trees. But there's no money in cutting trees. There's no money in cutting trees.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

But look at this. They're getting the trees thinned for free. They've spent zero dollars to get the timber thinned. It's not cost them anything. Unless. Because the budget's full. Unless somebody to thin the timber.

SPEAKER_04 41:00

Unless somebody that's cutting the trees is inside the trees.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

Is making the money. Which is what I'm saying. I'm saying A little bit of money is better than numbers. Where is the money? Where's that money at? I would be shocked if really it's in somebody's pocket, maybe. Oh, 100%. The timber revenue. This must be just just a little bit.

Budget Packets And Odd Line Items

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Nothing else. I have had some timber cut personally. And so there's some good tracks of timber that can cut a thousand dollars of the acre. This is just numbers. People out there can agree, disagree, whatever. Some some tracks only cut four or five hundred dollars of the acre. Landowner part. The logger's gonna make half. Yeah. Right. Some I've had stuff cut that's cut a thousand. I it's really good white oak stuff. You could cut fifteen hundred. You could cut quite a bit to the acre. So game and fish, 180,000, 110,000.

SPEAKER_04 41:48

I just don't want to, I don't know if those are true numbers.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

These something's up in timber numbers. Like I can't figure out. So so they're not even getting$400 to the acre. Have you seen some of these trees they've cut? I don't know if the numbers are right. And if this is leaving the only thing that stands out 100% to me is something is weird with the timber numbers. When you tell me in 2025, Game and Fish got$110,000 for their timber bids. That just that's that's that's something is definitely fishy about those numbers.

SPEAKER_04 42:21

The timber numbers are I don't know. I think the rest of those numbers are into another uh account.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

And and maybe the other account is extra help. Maybe that has a total budget of 1.7.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

I feel like though, if you're cutting trees and you want to know maybe that's where the timber total revenue. This looks to me like it would be total revenue.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

Yeah, like you looked at the PL before. Listen, they they hired a bunch of beavers here with extra help to come cut 1.70 dollars, 185 of them.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

I'm just saying in the private sector, I know there's a lot of counseling in PL, and that's something has moved over some movement.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

And you know, yeah, this these are just little sections here, guys.

SPEAKER_04 42:58

Based off of these numbers, what I'm looking at, there's no money cutting trees based off of game officials.

License Plates Up, Everything Else Down

SPEAKER_02 43:04

And this brings me to another thing, too. This ain't just cutting. It makes you want to believe they're trying to do the right thing. On packet two page three, go down to where you see private lands. What exactly does private lands mean? Because there's three the total budget for it is three point one million dollars on private lands. I think exactly is that.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

So what I've been told by a farmer buddy of mine. Because this is taxpayer money paying for this around Dave Donaldson that ADSC is stepping in and paying him not to harvest. So if he has 1660 acres of of rice, they're stepping in and paying for that.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

That is, there's that, and then it's also this is also leases. Yes. They lease ground. And you know what? At the end of the day, the game and fish, they have a uh a huge job to do. They do. They manage three point two million acres. How many it is? 3.2 million acres is managed in the state of Arkansas.

SPEAKER_04 44:04

I don't think anybody's saying they don't have a hard job. No, their job's very difficult. I think a lot of people just don't understand why there's no ducks and they don't understand why they're cutting trees. And the reason we don't and they don't understand why it's over the overcrowding and it's all based off of money.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

You know the largest area they manage? Washita. Wow. Hmm. Washita what? Natural forest?

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 44:30

Well, that's natural forest. That's the largest. And that's also, they also burn there, too.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

They do burn there.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

There's a bunch of turkeys there.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Oh, yeah. That's a lot easier to do. That's the largest, largest portion WMA in the state of Arkansas. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 44:47

That just don't make sense to me. Like, how many duck hunters come to buy meat every year?

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Oh no, no, I'm not saying the most used. I'm not saying the most known is that is the largest track. But wouldn't it be?

SPEAKER_02 44:57

But but when you think acres acres. But but but how much money do they spend on that track? But wouldn't you think that game of fish probably break it down somewhere? Wouldn't you think that the needs of many would outweigh the needs of few? Alright, so where why why are we why would they look at the biggest track of land and put more resources to it versus the needs of many? I don't think that's what Brian's saying.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

What I'm getting at, 3.2 million acres of that, the waterfowl is the least of it all. No. They're not spending all their money.

SPEAKER_04 45:33

They're not spending all their money on that track. They're not serving the majority, correct? That's just their largest. It's their largest track. Just the biggest piece of the track.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Waterfowl being being being a percentage of this 3.2 million.

Rain, Control, And Practical Fixes

SPEAKER_02 45:47

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I I'm pretty sure bird watching is pretty high up in Arkansas. Like I want to say bird watching is actually number one in Arkansas. It's probably in this report somewhere. I'm pretty fucking sure. Somebody looked that up. I'm pretty sure bird watching is actually the number one reason why people come to Arkansas for natural resources. Where'd you get that at? I'm pretty fucking sure I've seen that somewhere. Well, not on this report, you didn't. Not on this report. Well, but I'm just saying. Well, that must be up in somewhere up north. I was talking about the needs of many outweigh the needs of few. I get it.

SPEAKER_04 46:16

But so I mean don't give Arkansas Game of Fish any ideas. I'll spend a couple million dollars in bird watching. Yeah, I mean, it definitely doesn't. But you know, after seeing all this, I mean, there is some money spent where I don't understand what it is, but also I don't understand a lot of it. So what it boils down to is everybody watching this podcast needs to get on Arkansas Game Fish website and get a copy of these financials. And you guys could get together and and and and voice your opinion. It's what this is all about voicing your opinion.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

Yeah, and get educated.

SPEAKER_04 46:53

Try to make a difference for our future for our grandchildren.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

It'd be a lot easier if we could vote for, you know, officials. Officials. That'd be an awesome thing to be able to do, especially since we pay taxes for it.

SPEAKER_04 47:06

But you know, it's really that's really good some really good information, don't you think so, Brian?

Serve The Many, Manage Pressure

SPEAKER_01 47:11

I think it's awesome. I think there's a lot of good stuff in here. And I think you dig into it a little bit deeper. I I think talking about it, it will definitely it'll I I think talking about it will definitely help. And when you look at all these numbers though, you gotta take a little bit of time and just kind of it's it's a lot of information.

SPEAKER_04 47:30

I mean, it is a lot of information, but one thing I did learn about this, either their numbers are wrong or they're not making money on tech.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Like, like, for example, the equipment fund.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

You know, so and and and we don't know. This is just the numbers we were given. Right. This is what was sent to Caden. So it it just seems pretty low.

SPEAKER_04 47:50

It does seem low. You did bring a good comment up just a minute ago. I heard you in my my mic there about equipment expenses. Yeah, this is.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

Oh, equipment right here. It's like the packet two, uh, page six, very last page.

SPEAKER_04 48:07

But you guys gotta get this information off the internet because I'm telling you, it's it's really good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

I'm not gonna say some of this is hard to believe, but it's some of it is hard to believe. And I blame the game of fish for communication because if they had somebody really explaining all this, packet number two, page six. Yeah, page six. I mean, there's there's several good things on this page, like the comment. I don't even have that page. Conservation license plate.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Here right here. There you do, cash balance.

Closing Rally For Engagement

SPEAKER_02 48:32

6.4 million on the license plate. Yeah, we got you. That's crazy, huh? That's 15.5%. Wow. Percent change between 2025 and 2026. That's crazy. Yeah. But anyways, back to what I was saying about the equipment fund. So in 2025, it was 763,000 and 2026 it was 572,000. What like what equipment are we talking about? Are these like pumps or these, you know, skid steers or these dump trucks? What are these?

SPEAKER_03 49:00

What I've looked at is it's one jump truck and 10 outboards.

SPEAKER_04 49:04

This right here is just a summary. Right. Okay, so the rest of the report, if you guys get online and request this, you'll get a breakdown of what we're looking of the equipment fund consists of. This is just an accounting account right here. Right. Yep. So it says$763,000, uh$26 balance,$572,000. That's 24%. There's probably change. So that tells me a lot of equipment were out, and they had I'm I'm just putting this in perspective of like how we're going to be able to do that. How a business, how a business, yeah. We have business. We have 10 trucks delivered boats, and eventually that percentage on our PL is going to be high because we got to replace our product, our trucks. Right. Okay, so you really can't, you really can't go by this. Now, they might spend more money on something on your personal opinions, like, hey, I wouldn't have spent$17,000 on this, whatever, but really we don't know the difference. Right. I mean, it's hard to put a put a number on that for sure. It's hard to tell. But if that that percentage is high, uh, you know, it's got 24%, 63%. Holy shit, what is that? State's state second uh Weldecat. What is that? That's the last one? Yeah, what we I just seen 63%. I didn't get no further. State set aside funds.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

And you know, some of the 53% we don't know what that is. That could be like a leftover, it could be it could be a lot of things, you know. Previous year budget. But you know, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

Definitely something to look at. How many accounts have we looked at on this thing that shows way less income from last year to this year? Everything looks like it's going down, but salaries are going up, way up.

SPEAKER_04 50:40

And the that that's what it ball down to.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Does not make sense.

SPEAKER_04 50:44

Everything's going down, and nothing is going up other than salaries.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

Like, look at that whole page right there. There's only one, two, three, four things on the whole page that are going up. Yeah, it's it's pretty ridiculous. It's like everything else that's going down is like 24%, 60%.

SPEAKER_04 51:01

Yeah, if 12%. If we ran havoc boats like this, we'd be broke tomorrow. That's way.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

I'm glad you don't. It's definitely not being ran as a profitable business, it looks like. But then again, that's what taxes do for you. That's what you do.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

I mean, that's 2024. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission increased Director Austin Booth's salary by 5%, raising it from$152,638 to$160,270 annually in July 24. This followed a heated, failed proposal in May of 24 to increase his salary to$190,000, which was rejected by the state of representatives before a more moderate final increase was then approved. Well, that's good. So they asked for$190,000. And why?

SPEAKER_02 51:49

I'm not even the thing is I'm not even gonna I don't even want to get into that because I mean you don't know what people are worth, what they're what they're actually doing. It's hard to put a finger on that, right?

SPEAKER_03 51:57

What education do they have?

SPEAKER_02 52:00

It don't matter about education. It don't matter, but I mean if he's got the dog in him, he's gonna get it done. Right, he's worth some money. But I I do think in the overall looking at the numbers, with expenses salary expenses going up on average over the last three years, three percent. Not four percent one year. No, we're looking at three percent each year. A steady three percent.

SPEAKER_04 52:20

Yeah, it's it's it's for overspending.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

And you know, the timbers down, the licenses are down, the license plate sales though, them motherfuckers are up. Did you see those? Yeah, six million dollars this year?

SPEAKER_04 52:33

The license plates?

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Yeah. Wow, that's what we need to start making. I mean, hey, we got license plate guys on the gear shop, having nation.com. Yeah, I need one of them. Put them out on the front, dude. Let's let's raise this thing to six million dollars. Right.

SPEAKER_04 52:45

Yeah, you know, uh, we can talk about this all day long. I think we've gone through plenty of numbers. Um The big thing is, guys, take a look at this yourselves. I think the more request it from the state. The moral of the story is get online, look at the information. Only thing we're doing is bring it to your attention, okay? Uh, you know, you get on the internet, you see everybody's opinions, 90% of them are wrong. Ours could be wrong, but ours is based off these numbers.

SPEAKER_03 53:10

Yeah, we're going off numbers.

SPEAKER_04 53:11

So there's facts. Um get online, check these numbers out, contact somebody you know. Let's make a difference in Arkansas Gaming Fish. Let's improve the duck hunting, the deer hunting, the turkeys. Um I would like to say. And stop listing the freaking lunkers on the lakes, okay?

SPEAKER_01 53:27

I would like to say this year, when you when you go back to the waterfowl, we can't. I I don't know what's to blame, but I do know this. Mother nature, we cannot make it rain. Right. It did not rain. That's true. We had a lot of wind. It did not rain. No rain. It didn't rain. But but it did not rain.

SPEAKER_04 53:46

But they can put water where they can put water and they can reduce the pressure on spots.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

I I do agree with that. That's the problem. I do never nothing. There's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_04 53:55

And then they can also reduce the cells based off of their current conditions, and they can predict the future. Yep. Yep. And I totally agree with you. Yeah, that's the problem I see. I do, I agree. That's the problem I see. Yes, I agree. You cannot predict the weather. I get I get that. But there is places they can control. Yeah. And they should put all the resources in that if you're trying to sell a license.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

Service the many. Service the many.

SPEAKER_04 54:21

Reduce the license fee. You know, reduce it up the up the license fees for All Staters if you need to. If you gotta create more revenue. But you can't do that unless they got a place to hunt. That's right. It's a business. It's no difference than going to a restaurant, sitting down there, and they come by taking half your steak. Why don't they take half your steak? Because they put too many tables in the restaurant. Yeah, true. If they don't have enough steaks to feed everybody, you can't take enough. You shouldn't let people eat. Yeah. It's their fault they put too many tables in the restaurant. Correct. So that's the way I look at it. And that is what they're doing. They're overselling because they 50% of the budget, almost 50% of their budget, is their salaries. So they need to regroup. They need to either grow some ducks or something.

SPEAKER_03 55:10

How do you feel about the farm ducks?

SPEAKER_04 55:11

They need to. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's all shit. I mean, do you think it's gonna hurt genetics? I mean, I heard about that. I mean, I I don't get I I right now it's a money problem. Right. 100%. It's not a duck problem. No, it's a money problem. They need to fix the money problem first and then they can fix the ducks. Yep. I agree. And that's the same problem in in Washington, D.C. and all over the country. It's a money problem. 100%. Everybody wants the money and nobody wants to work for it. We see it in manufacturing. We see it uh we see it out in the real world everywhere you go. Every day. And it's definitely a money problem until they fix that. They can't, they can't they can't grow ducks, they can't manage property correctly. What do you think, Mom?

SPEAKER_00 55:50

We need some doge.

SPEAKER_02 55:52

Doge. Need some doge in here. You know, you think doge will be able to figure out what's going on in here? For sure. Definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 56:00

We definitely need that in here. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 56:03

That's right. I I do know one thing. Okay, we'll wrap it up after this. But if we ran our business like this right here, we would no longer be a business because it does not work. No, it don't work. And maybe uh maybe you guys can read this for yourselves. Go on there, get educated, find what you can find, and drop in the comments. Let us know what you think. If you find anything else on here that we didn't cover, man, drop in the comments, let us know. Yeah. And we can come back and talk about it some more.

SPEAKER_04 56:28

Yeah, your your your your annual budget for your labor, direct and indirect labor needs to be under 20%.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

Yeah, that's pretty crazy. Crazy, guys.

SPEAKER_04 56:35

It should be under 20%.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

That's pretty crazy. But what do we expect? You know, it's I mean, come on now. We all know how it goes.

SPEAKER_04 56:43

Yep. So everybody get together, get on the internet, uh, take this information, I hope you learned something. Get on Arkansas Game of Fish, voice your opinion, and uh pull these documents up, look for yourself. Everybody, when they have these uh uh educational uh meetings or whatever they call it, they spend to what two, three million dollars on it. Yeah. They should at least feed us. Should. You know? Uh, anyways, that was just a uh take me to dinner first.

SPEAKER_03 57:09

Maybe a little, right, right.

SPEAKER_04 57:11

They should at least feed us. But, anyways, uh go there, voice your opinions, let's make a difference in this, guys, because we got grandbabies growing up. I got a little grandbaby. I would love to see my grandbaby killing uh green heads in a timber. That's what we all should be thinking about is our future and quit being greedy and uh let's make a difference.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

Help your neighbor, that's right, for sure. That wraps this one up, guys. Make sure you leave a like, subscribe, hit the bell for notifications, and we'll catch you on the next one.