Gundog Nation
A show to bring together gundog enthusiasts, trainers, and handlers with discussion focused on all breeds and styles of gundogs.
Gundog Nation
Gundog Nation #015: Kali Parmley - Bird Hunting, Wild Upland, and GUN DOG Magazine
In this engaging conversation, Kenneth Witt interviews Kali Parmley, the editor of GUN DOG Magazine and host of the Wild Upland TV show. They discuss Kali's journey into the outdoor industry, her experiences with hunting, the challenges of filming a hunting show, and her passion for training hunting dogs. Kali shares insights on the importance of physical preparation for hunting, the impact of her athletic background, and her personal experiences with her dogs, including her first hunting dog, Lincoln. The conversation highlights the joys and challenges of hunting and the deep connection between hunters and their dogs. They explore various aspects of hunting, including the impact of human activity on bird populations, the thrill of pheasant hunting across different states, and international hunting experiences in places like Argentina. They discuss the importance of different dog breeds in hunting, share insights on shooting techniques, and reflect on their future hunting plans. The conversation also touches on unique waterfowl hunting experiences in Salt Lake and the challenges of black bear hunting in Canada. In this conversation, Kenneth Witt and Kali Parmley discuss the world of gundogs, the role of social media in hunting, advocacy for gun dog owners, and the importance of engaging the next generation of hunters. They explore the challenges and opportunities within the hunting community, emphasizing the need for mentorship and the preservation of hunting traditions.
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Hello and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. This is Kenneth Witt and I'm coming to you from Texas. I want you to know that Gun Dog Nation is more than just a podcast. It's a movement to unite those who want to watch a well-trained dog do what it's bred to do. Also, we are set out to try to encourage youth, to get encouraged in the sport of gun dogs, whether it's hunting, competition, trials, hunt tests, all the above. This is a community of people that are united to preserve our heritage of gun dog ownership and also to be better gun dog owners. So if you'll stay tuned to all of our episodes, we're going to have people on here to educate you about training, about nutrition, health. Anything can make you a better gun dog owner.
Speaker 1:It's my pleasure to welcome our listeners and please join our community. All right, welcome back. This is Kenneth Witt. I'm coming to you today from Midland, Texas. I'm very honored to have a special guest with me today. I've been tracking her down for a while, trying to get her on here, because she wears a lot of hats in this industry and has a lot of gundog knowledge that I could probably take a lot of notes from. But I'm going to go ahead and get started with her. The editor of Gundog Magazine and many other hats that she wears, Ms Callie Parmley.
Speaker 2:Hi Ken, how are you? Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you. I know it's a busy time of year. It's hard to catch you in hunting season, so where'd you just get through hunting at? So where'd you just get through hunting?
Speaker 2:at. We were filming an episode of Wild Upland here in my home state of Utah. We were hunting chukar, so didn't have to go very far and that made me really happy to kind of be in my own backyard.
Speaker 1:So let's just dive into that. So you actually have a TV show. This is your third series, correct?
Speaker 2:Our third season is called Wild Upland. It airs on the Outdoor Channel and came to be a couple years ago where, well, I'll be honest with you and say I didn't want to do a TV show, my boss told me I had to, and so it was just an extension of Gundog. We had kind of revamped Gundog magazine and needed to do some more, you know, new and fresh things, and so a TV show was the next step and I said, ok, if we're going to do a TV show, then we're going to do it the way that we hunt, that I hunt, and that's wild birds and with fantastic bird dogs, and about the places and the people we go, and it's not going to be about filling bag limits. It's going to be the hits, the misses, the ups, the downs, and I think we've really produced a really cool show so this show's true hunting it's very true, hunting.
Speaker 1:You're gonna see a lot of misses on this chucker episode yeah, I don't think I'd want anybody to film me hunting either. I just uh. Yeah, I just come did a sandhill crane hunt up in lubbock, not far from here at all, but no, that's fun. Yeah, so your boss. When you say your boss, I guess that that's the gundog, the magazine people.
Speaker 2:It was. It was Layden. Layden was my boss a few years ago. He has since moved on and I have taken over his position a little bit. But Layden, yeah, he was my boss and he said we're going to do this show and you're going to be the host and I'm like all right, but I'm telling you, it's going to be really hard to film wild bird hunting. These birds don't hold for you, for the camera to get up there, right, these dogs are going to do what they do and we're not going to get those big beautiful in the face of the dog shots because we're hunting wild birds right Now. Sometimes we get like this week we've actually the chukar have been holding so tightly. It's been amazing, but I think we've still been able to capture the true essence of wild upland hunting.
Speaker 1:You must have some really good camera people.
Speaker 2:They get up there quick. They know the rules. They've been doing it with me for three years, so they know when a dog goes on, point, you better get up there.
Speaker 1:How would people find if I want to watch the show and I do? How would we find that?
Speaker 2:Of course it airs on Outdoor Channel. Season three will start airing in April the new one but if you want to watch season one and season two, we actually have a streaming platform called MyOutdoorTVcom M-O-T-Vcom, and it's kind of like our Netflix of the hunting world.
Speaker 1:And it's on there right now. Now, so is that. Is this MOTV? Is it like? Have all kinds of different stuff on there? It does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has all of the sportsmen. I shouldn't say all, but has most of the sportsman channel and outdoor channel hunting shows. So you're not going to get just Wad Upland, you're going to get any type of hunting show that you love or want to watch. It's truly fantastic for $10 a month.
Speaker 1:That was my next question, so I didn't know about this. I'm so glad you just mentioned this, so I'll I'll be glad to push that on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can. It's just like your typical app like Netflix. You can download it on any of your Roku or TVs or watch it on your browser.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Phone Nice.
Speaker 1:So is this your first dip in the TV world.
Speaker 2:No, it's actually not. I did Peterson's Hunting TV for a while. I did a lot of big game hunting, and so that's why I kind of was like, oh, I don't really want to do a TV show. It's so much pressure, right. But I do enjoy it and it's fun. It's just, you know, it's almost like you got the cameras watching all the time, right.
Speaker 1:I got the camera rolling over my shoulder when I'm trying to hit a flying bird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's some pressure.
Speaker 1:I also cuss like a sailor sometimes, so they have to edit you out a lot, a lot of beeps. So how many years did you do the Peterson show, the big game.
Speaker 2:I think I did Peterson's. I worked for Peterson, I was the managing editor of Peterson's Hunting Magazine for four years and we filmed during that time and it was truly a great experience Got to go hunt some awesome things and it's kind of cool having both the big game hunting TV experience and the bird hunting experience Right. So definitely have an appreciation for all those guys. It's very tough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like mule deer, stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, mule deer stuff like that.
Speaker 1:oh yeah, mule deer elk, any big game animal, yeah okay so, callie, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take it back a little bit, sure to the beginning. So I know as far back, I know you're from ohio, uh, I know that you're a college basketball player, so when did you get started hunting?
Speaker 2:um, what's funny is I have a nine-month-old puppy next to me, so please excuse me if he makes an appearance. I didn't start hunting until I was in my after college. So I grew up in a very rural area in Ohio, though so, like I grew up very outdoorsy, I grew up on a farm with horses and you know I trail rode and camped and all that stuff. But hunting wasn't strange because I grew up in the country Right, so it was never weird to me. My grandpa did actually raise and train English setters and he trialed them and he was a hunter, but I never hunted. I played every sport under the sun, so I was busy, but after college it was kind of it was during 2007. The job market was hard and so I took the first job that I could get out of college, because I studied photojournalism and I knew I wanted to be an editor. I just didn't know where or I didn't know it'd be for a hunting magazine later.
Speaker 1:And so um I was thinking like newspapers right.
Speaker 2:Like so the first job out of college was with a group called the U S sportsman's alliance, which is a nonprofit that protects hunting in Columbus. And um, I worked in there, actually in their youth program to. They did youth programs to teach kids how to hunt and shoot and fish. And uh, I kind of made it known to him, like, hey, like my specialties in journalism or marketing, you know, or community I shouldn't say marketing, I should say communication. And so a position opened up later and they moved me over into that department and that really started my career in the outdoor industry of being in the communications realm. And um, a job with Peterson's hunting opened up a few years later as their associate editor and I was fortunate to be able to get that and from there I started in magazines.
Speaker 1:So we're going to talk about a lot of stuff, so you have to watch me and keep me on track if I, if I digress. But what's it like to be the editor of gundog magazine? What's? What's your day to day job?
Speaker 2:Um, I'm very fortunate to be in this position and I love my job and I tell people all the time I get to look at photos of dogs all day. So what could be better, right? Honestly, I work with some fantastic contributors, some freelance writers, and I work with them to decide. You know, okay, we have certain columns that go in every issue we have features. You know, what are we going to put in each of these issues?
Speaker 2:And we come up with ideas together and I work with deadlines and getting those in. And then we edit those stories and I work with my art director to he makes it look all beautiful and I might tell him, you know, he's not exactly a bird dog guy, so maybe in the flush column he might have a setter instead of a cocker, right? So a bird dog guy, so maybe in the flush column he might have a setter instead of a cocker, right? So I'm like, no, we got to switch that out and we just work to produce a really great, informative magazine that you know, the DIY dog guys who are looking to train their own dog can pick up this magazine and use it as a reference.
Speaker 1:I love the magazine and the articles. I fly quite a bit and that's what I do, but yeah, that's great articles and I highly suggest for anybody who does not, who listens to this podcast, does not have a subscription to Gun Dog Magazine, it's a must.
Speaker 2:It's a cool. I really enjoy our magazine. I think it's very informative. I think it has a good mix of training, knowledge and training how to, mixed with your adventure stories and where you should hunt, how to stories and you know where you should hunt, how to hunt and giving you that little tidbit. And, of course, who doesn't love a good dog story? Right, Pull at your heartstrings type dog story. I love those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I got to watch my dog this week for the first time retrieve Sandhill crane, you know, and that's a tricky thing. Especially when a dog goes to get a bird, that's that's. It's so big that when he's coming towards you, I can just see his eyes and his feet. Yeah, but he never hesitated and uh, he got out there on a bird that wasn't dead and I panicked because I wasn't gonna sit him on, but on dead birds because he's green yeah green is sandhill crane and the other the guide's dog, dusty brown.
Speaker 1:A really good guide he's. He wrote the article on how to fix sandhill crane and sit on sitka gears website. But anyway, dusty's dogs no goggles anything. So they're. You know, they're running out there just kind of cringing, but his dog's like it's like watching the ultimate fighting or something.
Speaker 2:Uh, anyway, yeah, because it was successful.
Speaker 1:My dog has he has both of his eyes. Yeah, yeah, so uh, but he was smart enough to get out there on a live bird and and it's like, okay, yeah, I ain't gonna mess with him, and kind of stayed back, so that's pretty cool to see that yeah, yeah it is, and it was just instinct. It wasn't my, you know great training, but so tell me what hunting season looks like. You know what kind of hunting do you do. When does your season start? What do you do all season long?
Speaker 2:So I live in Salt Lake now. I'm from Ohio, but I live in Salt Lake and I specifically moved out here because I got really into bird hunting and big game hunting and I was kind of tired of driving 24 hours every time I wanted to hunt, right. So we don't have wild birds in Ohio anymore. So a typical season I do both. I run both a gundog and a big game magazine called Backcountry Hunter, so I do a little bit of both bird hunting and big game during the season. So you know, like this year in August, I was in Alaska hunting caribou, and then I came back and was in Colorado hunting ptarmigan with my dog, and you know it's just all over do a lot of Western hunting, a lot of Western bird hunting. So chukar, huns, quail um, sharpies, you know you name it I love to hunt, hunt everything, I would say. My favorite, though, are huns and chukar.
Speaker 2:Okay, and you're doing this from what I saw on the stuff that I've read, you're not doing guided hunts, it's all DIY, right, I mean, yeah, yeah I, I mean, I, I take a lot of pride in DIY stuff. Of course I have no issues with being guided at all and um, uh, you know there's I'm not as knowledgeable about every big game animal, so sometimes I need guided, but mostly with the bird hunts, yeah, I would say DIY for sure. And um, um, there's just something I take a lot of pride in just being able to look at the map and trying to figure out the terrain and just park my truck and go figure it out and hopefully we find birds.
Speaker 1:Now you said before we got on the air that you had a camping background when you were young. Yeah, Do you? Do you camp out when you're?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do, I do. I used to do a ton of backpack hunts and then as I got older I realized you know the I got a camper that I nicknamed Tawanda and so she goes with me a lot of places and so if I have to backpack I will, but I enjoy also camping out of my little camper. She's just a little pop up thing, but yeah, I would do a lot of camping and do a lot of backpacking. But also, just, I don't mind spending the night in a Super 8 as much as the next guy for a warm bed, right. But yeah, we typically go out for a few days and don't come back for a while Nice.
Speaker 1:That's hardcore. I enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I think it's just something that I really am passionate about and I truly get a lot of joy from it. I think that it's just something that I really, uh, am passionate about and I truly get a lot of joy from it. So I just that's just what I want to be doing.
Speaker 1:Let me ask this you know I know from talking to you earlier that you've played a lot of sports, not just basketball. How do you think that that's made you a better hunter?
Speaker 2:Um, I did. I played a lot of sports growing up and I think it taught me a lot. How do you think that that's made you a better hunter? I did. I played a lot of sports growing up and I think it taught me a lot about grit and athleticism and determination and working as a team with friends. You know, I don't want to say I'm competitive in the bird world, but I definitely do enjoy. I think that kind of rolls over. You got a little bit more determination, you know. You know what I'm saying. Um, I don't care about killing a bird I, that's definitely a bonus. What I care about is seeing the birds and seeing my dog perform well.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, I think I think being an athlete growing up really did help help kind of set your mindset and set you up for if things are challenging you can kind of get through it Right. I mean, this week we're hunting in the Chukar Hills and it is steep and it's hard and it's um, it's not easy. Or even when I was hunting in Alaska this year, caribou hunting, we're in the back country and we've we've been dropped back there and we're camping and the weather just turned to hell and I'm carrying, carrying two quarters of a you know, a caribou over many, many miles and the weather is the wind and the rain has hit me in the face and it's cold and it's nasty, and you just put your head down and go right and you just have that determination in your head and I do think sports definitely helped with that.
Speaker 1:So Now with that. So now do you have to physically, do you do anything?
Speaker 2:outside of just the hunting itself, to physically prepare yourself for it. Yeah, I definitely I did. Yeah, you can't, you, you can't go out just after sitting on the couch all summer like you'll just set yourself up for injury. And that's at our age. You don't want to do that, right?
Speaker 1:we don't bounce back as quick as we used to no, uh, I put on my crispies before, uh, pheasant season and walk my ranch about an hour and a half a day and I've got some elevation. I've got a ranch near Menard, texas, and I'm 56 years old. If I didn't do that, I'd struggle.
Speaker 2:You and her and it's just not good. It's just not a good thing to do. Just putting on your boots and even putting on a little weight on your back and walking around your neighborhood will go, will help you immensely. So, yeah, I do, I do, I love um working out and making sure I'm in shape. I do a lot of stair stepper and uh, you know different workouts and things like that. But yeah, I definitely don't go from couch to to upland hunting, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:No, and what you're doing is much more challenging than me walking through cornfields and stuff in South Dakota.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I would never. You think that I would never put. You know, never weigh them against each other. Believe me, high stepping through the pheasant fields with a you know a foot of snow, that'll make your hip flexors feel it the next day. I would never, I would never compare pheasant hunting to chucker hunting. Um, you know, they they both have their own, they're both hard, they're both. You have to work for it and, uh, you know, any type of upland hunting is going to take a toll on you.
Speaker 1:You know you took the words out my mouth, hip flexor. So the first year I went, I didn't prepare and I was walking through just real We'd done cornfields and sorghum and stuff that we were going through, just native high grass. I got halfway out there and listen, I'm an ex-paratrooper, I'm an ex-athlete, you know, and I quit. I was like I couldn't move my legs. I had I'd stop and I won't quit either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're walking more miles than you think you are. Yeah, of course, the Chukar Hills are steep and hard and I you know, I'm a Chukar hunter. It's hard I'm not saying it's not, but hunting a pheasant field or hunting for Sharpies over seven miles a day in the rolling prairies like there's, to not go back in that, you know not being in some kind of condition. At least having walking 45 minutes a day, even if it's around your neighborhood, will change your life.
Speaker 1:So we know that you didn't grow up hunting. You grew up outdoors, you grew up in the rural area. When did you possess your first hunting dog?
Speaker 2:sure. So I actually possessed my first hunting dog by accident. Uh, lincoln, he was my lab. He came to me just as a companion family dog. Right, just, I wanted a dog.
Speaker 2:And uh, so I got lincoln when I was 20, something, 23, 24, and um, he did not come from a hunting line, he did not come to be a hunter. Uh, one day he was two and I had some friends ask me hey, we're going to go do some training on at a pheasant farm, like bring Lincoln. And I'm like now, lincoln was very I had trained service dogs in college, so he was very obedience trained. I'm like, no, no, he's never seen a bird, I'm not going to come ruin your hunt, you know. No, no, no, bring him. And in that day he flushed and retrieved a hand like four pheasants and I don't mean like flush, like out of range, I mean like a working dog. And so I was like I need to train this dog. You know I need to get into this. And so he and I I credit Lincoln with making me a bird hunter because he and I figured it out together I would hide bumpers in my backyard wrapped with feathers, and we'd work on retrieving and casting. And uh. He and I became bird hunters together and he truly ignited my passion for upland hunting.
Speaker 2:And uh he is. He is the uh. You know I kind of got some hate for it because he is the? Uh, a silver lab he was. I lost Lincoln a couple months ago, but he, uh, he's the dreaded silver lab, right, but this was before I knew anything about breeding and you know whatever. So he, let me tell you what the the color of his fur did not stop him from being a hell of a bird dog. So he, to this day, is one of the best rooster dogs that I've ever hunted over, and of course I'm biased because he's my dog, but he was a fantastic bird dog.
Speaker 1:Well, what's crazy is that it's odd enough that he turned out with that ability from not being from working lines.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then the fact that he's silver yeah is even yeah, you, you had a jewel I had a jewel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was he. I was very fortunate that he was my first bird dog and he was. He was easy. He was one of those dogs who everything just came naturally. I didn't have to like he just retrieved a hand naturally. I didn't have to fight him, I didn't you know. So I got. He was an easy first bird dog and I'm so thankful for that. But he and and I he was a heck of. He was. His specialty was definitely pheasants but he he hunted chukar and ptarmigan and sharptail and he was an all around bird dog. He could go and go and go for miles in the prairie and oh, I'm so thankful for him.
Speaker 1:Well, that probably spoils you. Do you know how long people train to retrieve and train to flush?
Speaker 2:Honestly, and I say this to you I go. He was really easy. I didn't have to do force fetch, I didn't have to do any of that. I didn't have to do anything. I taught him. I can't even think I literally would hide bumpers wrapped in feathers in my backyard and we'd work on that together, but other than that, I did teach him. I remember I taught him directions you know left or you know over, in like a day it was, it was. He was just naturally very smart.
Speaker 1:Now you've got my interest there. You said you trained service dogs in college. How did you end up doing that?
Speaker 2:Well, I was, and there was a program on the campus where you could house a golden retriever and train them. They trained them as a service dog. And let me train them as a service dog, and I mean, basically, as a college student I had a golden retriever go to class with me and go to restaurants and we had to do their obedience, but it was just to get them used to being in public and so of course I wanted to do that. Who doesn't want a dog in college, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you. But you'd never been trained to train, had you?
Speaker 2:No, that was. That was very beneficial for me. Yeah, they, they taught us how to train obedience and then, uh, you know, cause there's, they were going on to be service dogs. So it's not like we could just keep a dog, and it was cute, like we had to actually work with it and they went to class with us. They had to be calm, they had to be on heel, they had to lay at your feet. You know that, you know service dog stuff, and so that I almost got free dog training as me, as you know, teaching from that in college.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's crazy. I didn't have anything like that when I was in college but, I would have taken that up. So now I assume that you don't send your new pups off to a pro trainer. You're training them yourself.
Speaker 2:So I do train myself, yes, but I now have two setters Jones was my first pointing breed and he's four now from Northwoods Bird Dogs. And then I just got a new setter named Trek. He's only nine months old and he's from out here in Utah, from T's dog house. And yes, I do train them myself, but with guidance, like I have. You know, I'm very fortunate that I have trainer friends who I can call and be like hey, he did this, what, what should I do to remedy it? Or I go out in the field with them and watch and and apprentice under them, you know. So I'm very fortunate in that way. I would never call myself a professional dog trainer, you know. Yes, yes, I go out and set my own pigeon.
Speaker 1:Yes, I work with my dogs, but I very much have guidance from fellow pro trainers who can steer me in the right direction. I'm in that same boat with you, so yeah that's how I would classify myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could help you if you had questions and I could say this is probably you know, but really we work with, I work with. I'm very fortunate in gundogs. I work with some amazing trainers who can answer my texts and my frantic texts and calls, and I'm very, very fortunate in that.
Speaker 1:Now. So what dogs are at the house now?
Speaker 2:So, jones he's four behind me and he wants to just sleep. He's four years old and what breed is he? He's an English Setter. And then we have Trek, the nine-month-old, who he just wants to play, play, play and he's a Setter also. He's an English Setter From two different kennels, though.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know, you mentioned something. You said your grandpa would train English setters and I assumed he lived in Ohio.
Speaker 2:He did. Yeah, I remember I would work on his farm. I actually rode his trialing horses all summer long to keep him in shape as my summer job. Quote unquote. So that was pretty fun.
Speaker 1:You know, I know I'm older than you, but when I was growing up, you know, english setters were popular in Appalachia. You know.
Speaker 2:Southern.
Speaker 1:Southeast Kentucky, in that area, east Tennessee, because people grouse hunting and there were grouse when I was young, I mean even up to my teenage years, uh, which is the late eighties that you don't see a grouse.
Speaker 2:There are no grouse, there's definitely few and far between, for sure.
Speaker 1:Were there grouse up there when you were younger.
Speaker 2:Supposedly there are grouse in southern near Cincinnati where you told me you went to school or lived. There's a small population there but that's not near me. I was about an hour and a half north of there. I remember pheasant on my grandpa's farm growing up, but as I got older there were not pheasant anymore.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. You know, it's something I never saw in East Kentucky was pheasant, it's. It's almost like and I don't know this for a fact and you know, don't have a wildlife background as far as educationally but it seemed like when the turkey came in the grouse were gone.
Speaker 2:Sure, I have heard that that has something to do with it, for sure, yeah, yeah, I think it has to do with that. I think it has to do with human population and farming and taking over and you know the terrain and I'm sure there's a number of things that has led to it. But, yeah, that that was kind of why I had to. I left Ohio because, well, I left. I left Ohio first to go to Illinois when I took the Peterson's job and then from there, you know, there's a little pockets of wild birds in Illinois, but not enough to. You know, if you really are a hardcore bird hunter who wants to hunt every day, right. And so Utah was. I knew some people in Utah and of course, utah is like a central location to every state you can imagine to hunt birds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know I had a friend through dog training that lived outside of Salt Lake City and he would bow hunt mule deer up there and you know his shots were like 85 yard shots, crazy stuff and he would always get one in velvet every year yard shots crazy stuff, and he would always get one in velvet every year, yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the bow season here opens in august, so the the hardcore muley guys are out there chasing them in the heat. And yeah, he's a my good friends do that uh, but that was just amazed me.
Speaker 1:You know, again growing up in east kentucky, a bow hunt you're if you got a 30 yard shot.
Speaker 2:A yard shot that's a long shot you yeah, well, at 85 yards, pretty long for a bow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't feel that confident with a rifle, but anyway, so are you a big pheasant hunter?
Speaker 2:I love pheasant hunting. I do love pheasant hunting.
Speaker 1:That's my new passion. Where do you go? I love pheasant hunting.
Speaker 2:Nebraska a lot, Montana, Actually. Southern Idaho has a really good population of pheasants, South Dakota of course. So I truly I love, as much as I love big Western open prairies, I love pheasant hunting.
Speaker 1:You know, and I'm definitely not a pheasant expert, but because the only place I've ever hunted pheasant wild birds are is Southeast South Dakota, and I can't imagine it being any better than that. Are there places that's equivalent to that? That you stay?
Speaker 2:in is really good. Montana is really good, like that um. Nebraska has been good. It's been kind of down the last few years, um, but you really can't beat south dakota.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's just the pheasant capital of the world, right yeah, I mean when you're driving out to the farm you're going to hunt on, you see at least a hundred pheasants in the ditch line on your way out there in the morning. It's nuts, yeah, you can't.
Speaker 2:I actually pheasant hunted South Dakota this year with a friend and his golden retrievers, which I never hunted over for us. That was a really unique experience. And there were just there were pheasants everywhere, everywhere and I know I know we were stepping over them and I know they're running out in front of us Like they just had a killer season. So but we were able to. We were able to bring some down. It was fantastic.
Speaker 1:I love it. You know I went in November. I won't bore you too bad, but in November I went to England to the International Gun Dog League competition. I consider it like the super bowl of the retriever. You know trials, at least it definitely in europe and england. But uh, I guess I know they're not native, obviously, but the pheasant over there were like mosquitoes really you know, yeah, it's, and they were telling me that there's just not.
Speaker 1:They have no predator that's probably true, actually, now you think about it and I'm I'm telling you of, I was staying out like three hours from London around Branscombe Beach, and that's where there's a state where they had this three-day dog trial Beautiful place and there was pheasants. I mean you couldn't drive down these roads for pheasants crossing and being in the ditches, I've never seen that many in my life.
Speaker 1:They would have these driven shoots for the hunt test or for the trial, and they would come up out of the trees. It's like crows or something.
Speaker 2:That's really neat though.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and they'll shoot 100, 300 pheasants a day. It's something like that. It's insane.
Speaker 2:You always see pheasants in all the England. England. You know paintings and everything, so I think it's pretty big part of their culture.
Speaker 1:Have you ever hunted birds outside the U? S? Are you probably have hunted Canada, I guess.
Speaker 2:I'm hunting Canada, I'm trying to think where else? Um, I I went to Africa for Peterson's and I did big game hunting and I did. I did ask if I could hunt a guinea fowl for an afternoon. So I guess technically I did. Yeah, it was really funny. Um, I think the big game I get I get pumped about bird hunting anywhere and I think they looked at me like, yeah, you can shoot a guinea fowl, sure? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I thought that was like catching a frog, or something yeah, and they were like okay, but I really enjoyed it does it look like a traditional guinea that we'd have?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Just like the ones you see in the farmyards here. Yeah, and I did go to Patagonia last summer and hunt doves in Perdiz, which was, you know, is kind of kind of like a hun Perdiz, and we actually did over dogs down there. It was so fun to see their culture and their bird dogs and they were running an English setter I mean English pointers, but you know no callers and and it was just super fun to hunt down there and their culture with them. So that was really neat.
Speaker 1:Now excuse my ignorance, but that wasn't Argentina right it. Where is that exactly?
Speaker 2:It was, it was, we were in, we weren't in Patagonia, sorry, we were in Argentina, sorry, okay, but we were. We flew into Buenos Aires and then we, we flew another, another small little flight, so it was, it was right in the same vicinity, but really cool hunt. And you know, you, you see those videos of the doves and the hundreds of doves and doves, and it's, it's like that, it's, it's, it's crazy and really makes you, and the hundreds of doves and doves, and it's, it's like that, it's, it's, it's crazy and, um, really makes you a good shooter, that's for sure to try to hit those zippy little birds. And then we got to go hunt the perdiz, and that was really neat to do because typical upland hunting, just it looked like where we hunt here and these birds are about the size of a hun, I would say.
Speaker 1:You know, I I haven't done that yet. I was actually booked for an Argentina hunt during COVID and it got canceled.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But I just want to go really, I think, to improve my shooting skills. They said when you leave there you will definitely be a better shooter.
Speaker 2:I took. You know, a lot of guys just go and they might just shoot as much as they can, and I kind of took my time, cause I was, I didn't want to make my, I didn't want to make my, I didn't want to. I felt like if I rushed it would make my shooting worse. Right, like I use this as a, as a practice opportunity, and we were using full chokes and these birds because they were staying pretty high and you really had to learn to lead them because they're, they're fast, they're fast well, that'd be good for me.
Speaker 1:Uh, uh, yeah, I know, if I get in a real big hurry, like even the sand Sandhill Crane, when they all start coming out at once, you know I notice myself missing.
Speaker 2:Well, I did that this week in the Chukar Hills. I had whiffed on a few coveys and they were holding so tight, like that's the most. I chukar hunt every year, and I've never seen coveys hold so tight like they were. We actually could see them trying to run from us, which of course upland birds want to run. They don't want to, they don't want to fly. But I've never in all my years of chukar hunting, I've never physically seen chukar run so much in front of me. And so you're trying to, you're, you're your own flushing dog right, cause we have setters, we have pointers, so they're not supposed to move. So we're trying to run at them to get, as they flush, right, and uh, so my shooting percentage was way down and I had to tell myself to hey, get it together. You know, calm down, stop rushing the shot.
Speaker 1:Well, do you see yourself adding on a flushing dog?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I just lost. I just lost Lincoln a couple months ago and I don't ever ask, so I'm going to get another lab and I have. I have no issues with labs, obviously. I just not sure I want to replace my Lincoln right now, and so I do find a great benefit in flushing dogs, for sure, especially in the pheasant field. So I'm not saying it's out of the question, but it's not on the radar right now.
Speaker 1:You know I kind of got an affection for springers and cockers in England which I've been looking at them here too, but I watched them a lot over there in those trials. I use them to flush the dogs for the retrievers. Oh yes, I mean flush the birds.
Speaker 2:I have hunted over many cockers and I will hands down say those are some of the best bird dogs in the world. I've never seen a cocker not recover a downed bird. It's insane. They're little pocket rockets.
Speaker 1:You're about the 15th person that I've talked to probably eight or nine on this podcast that love cockers.
Speaker 2:They're fantastic.
Speaker 1:Hopefully I'll get to this season.
Speaker 2:This coming season I'll have one to hunt with myself fantastic yeah, I don't know if it's because they're so low to the ground and they can catch all the scent, but they are fantastic, dogs, fantastic and they seem to have, from what I've seen, videos and stuff, just a drive.
Speaker 1:That's insane unmeasurable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to make them stop, because they're not going to stop have you ever used English pointers? I've hunted over English pointers. I do not I haven't owned any, but oh, they're fantastic too.
Speaker 1:I love to see them.
Speaker 2:Very naturally inclined bird dogs. Setters tend to mature a little bit later than pointers. Pointers tend to kind of hit the ground hunting, you know. I mean setters do too, but I feel like pointers mature a little bit faster than setters do and they are really good bird dogs.
Speaker 1:Have you ever hunted with Britneys?
Speaker 2:Actually I only hunted Britneys once with the Smiths, Ronnie and Susanna, and that was really fun to see them. I didn't feel like I really got to see a true Brittany work because it was really hot. So the poor Brittany couldn't we. We had to end up putting them up because it was just way too hot. But they're great dogs too.
Speaker 1:I love those people. I had them on the podcast.
Speaker 2:No, Ronnie and Suzanne are the best.
Speaker 1:The best. I will try to go a couple of their seminars this year. That's my goal.
Speaker 2:Very informative, very educational. They're very. They love teaching people. I I went to one last spring to um. I was at this event and they were in Ronnie asked me. They said come down to this. And very, very beneficial. I would recommend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's um, I've wanted to go one forever but I'm going to make myself, cause I, I, I'm kind of torn. I do a lot. I still do protection, dog work and uh, so right now I'm training the Dobermans and so I, you know I go from that to retrievers. That's all the dogs I have right now is retrievers and Doberman, but it's just.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's an unusual transition it is, but I just love that. They love sharing their knowledge with people. You know they're very open to it and they and they truly take the time and patience to talk to you and work with you through your dog and um. I thought the seminar they did that I was at was fantastic for the people who attended, so and I've never heard anyone have a bad review about going to that seminar that I've talked to personally.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'm getting ready. I've just got their book. I'm getting ready to start to start it. Uh, I've got a. I've just been busy, but to start it. I've got a. I've just been busy, but probably like you, but I haven't gotten to open it yet. So it's driving me crazy. So what's your next big venture? You've got TV magazine.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:What's? What's on the what's on the 2025 calendar for Cali I?
Speaker 2:don't know. Yeah, I, uh, I always get real tired at the end of the season. I'm like, all right, I need a little bit of a break, and then a month goes by and I'm ready to get started again, right, yes, so I really would like to hunt Alaska with my dogs. I really would like to hunt ptarmigan with my dogs. The only issue is I don't want to fly them up there, I want to drive. So, uh, that's pretty long drive, but, um, that's definitely on the bucket list, cause I have hunted ptarmigan in Alaska, but not with my dogs, so that is a bucket list hunt for me.
Speaker 1:When you hunt them up there, did you use someone else's dogs.
Speaker 2:Uh, actually I was there to duck hunt and, uh, we got really bad snow, we couldn't get the boat out, and so I was like, well, I'm going to go tarmigan hunting. So I just was just hoofing it by myself and mute my own bird dog. So, um, had a great time. I did, we definitely. I got into him, me and my friend Natalie. We had the best hunt afternoon. Just absolutely pot hauling up to our knees and, um, we ended up. I don't know how we got into them without a dog, but we did.
Speaker 1:I've never you know, I never even thought about waterfowl in Alaska. I guess that's so far out of that. Might be something new. So on that note, do you do a lot, do you, do you have time to do a lot of waterfowl hunting? Does it conflict with your upland?
Speaker 2:I know I tell people all the time I'm not a big waterfowl hunter. Um, uh, I go when I get a call from a friend saying, hey, would you like to go? But if you asked me to go set up a decoy spread and call ducks right now, I'd look at you like you're crazy, like I don't do any waterfowl hunting, but personally I waterfowl. I get guided on waterfowl hunts. Let's say that.
Speaker 1:That's me, and I'm doing more. I actually just got invited yesterday to go at the end of the month and I swore I wasn't going to do any more hunts because I've traveled so much the england trip and I've duck hunted, crane hunted, you know.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, probably not as much as you, but I think it's great I love the hardcore waterfowl guys and I always laugh when I always say to them like how do you? You know you got ducks flying around. They're identifying them. Like how can you identify what those are from here? And they're like well, just like you can tell on the wing what a upland bird is, like that, you know. We've been doing it for so long and I was like okay, but but if you ask me to identify to shoot only a drake now I could shoot a greenhead, right. Well, like a drake, I don't know, even know you know, name a different bird and coming into the spread, I'd be like I just tell me when to shoot well, same, it's the same here.
Speaker 1:I just went to stugart, yeah, arkansas, and you know I mallards, but the other ones, you know, I guess we shot a green wing teal and some gadwalls, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm like what is?
Speaker 1:that one? What is that one? These guys looked at me because, you know, I had a dog that was trained, which was mine, yeah, but they were like how, this guy?
Speaker 2:you know, I'm like just tell me, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But there's so many species. But no, I'm learning that too. A wood duck's pretty easy, but other than that, you know, at a canvas back I've seen those and identified it. But that's just. That's the extent of my.
Speaker 2:Yeah, until you get it in hand or in the water. Like you know, I can't. I couldn't identify it.
Speaker 1:I can identify a mile or a bit.
Speaker 2:No, we did. We actually have really cool waterfowl hunting out here in Salt Lake. If you've never hunted the Great Salt Lake out of airboats and we hunted teal that day specifically and it's so cool my friend Chad, he takes us out in his airboat and he is just like the duck master and, and you know, you take them out in the airboat and then you just kind of tuck back in the reeds. You're standing in the water and these just huge teal are just coming in and these huge flocks and just buzzing past you. It looked like 747s, you know, and that was a really fun hunt, you know, quick and fast and just you know, you got the Wasatch Mountains behind you, this big, beautiful backdrop, and it's a really cool hunt.
Speaker 1:So that's a thing you can actually take hunts on an airboat on the Great Lakes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we say the Great Salt Lake. There these are like tributaries of the of the Salt Lake. It's kind of a mix of both the salt and freshwater. And yeah, I'll send you the reel on Gundog that I made of. It's really cool. They take you out in airboats and they mallards and teal and I'm sure there's other other kinds, but that's what I've hunted on the on the Great Salt Lake. But it's a really unique, awesome hunt. And, of course, swans a huge thing here is swans. You can draw a swan tag and the swans come in during the winter and it's really cool.
Speaker 1:Do they take dogs out on the airboat?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they take dogs out on the airboat oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. This might be a really stupid question, but do they use the airboats as a blind and disguise them, or do they get just use them to get to the place they're going?
Speaker 2:we use them to get to the place, um, and then they take the airboat a little ways away and park it and, um, yeah, they might sometimes use it. I, I don't know, but we have always just taken it to the place, gotten out all the gear, and then they have these tall reeds that are in the great salt lake. So we just kind of tuck back in the reeds and and you stand there and the ducks come in. We set decoys and it's really cool I did not know.
Speaker 1:I did not know that and I was actually listening to a podcast the other day. Uh, oh my gosh, it's a pit boss guy. He's really funny, but he's got he does out off the coast of Maryland sea ducks.
Speaker 2:Yep Sea ducks and I was like man.
Speaker 1:I did not know that existed.
Speaker 2:I've done actually sea ducks here in the last in December in California and San Francisco was so cool. You got the city in the background of these sea ducks or scoters are coming and hunting with this really bad-ass lady. She's, she's a guide and it's her and another another. She has all female guides with her and they're so cool. I was just, I just thought they were awesome and, uh, we went out there hunting, hunting sea ducks.
Speaker 1:And you could see the city of San Francisco.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was funny. You're like oh, there's the city right there, like you know, and I think I think California is kind of a little hidden gem for waterfowl hunters, cause everyone just thinks California right Like poo poo yeah. It's a little hidden gem for sea ducks.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. So did you see Alcatraz?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we ended up visiting it not visiting it, but like we went around San Francisco Right and I could see it in the distance, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Did you go eat seafood at the wharf?
Speaker 2:We went to. What'd you say? What was it?
Speaker 1:you know down where the wharf is yeah, oh my gosh, my brothers are musicians and of course they played all over the world and they told me you gotta go down there and just eat one of those yeah, we went down to rolls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we went down there and just, you know, we had an off day, so we went and explored. We were in san francisco or not, you know yeah, yeah, it was cool, it was cool.
Speaker 1:Hunting in San Francisco. That I mean, that's just. I never, that never hit my radar.
Speaker 2:It's a little hidden gem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um, so have you ever? So? You, we've done Alaska. Have you hunted Canada?
Speaker 2:I've hunted Canada, I've hunted Saskatchewan and Alberta for waterfowl and, uh, I've hunted British Columbia for black bears. And you know you can't beat Canada for waterfowl, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me ask you I know this is not a gun dog topic but is black bear in British Columbia better? I hunted it in north of Saskatoon about three hours. They're up there, there's lots of them, but they're just not very big, and I've heard that there are better areas in Canada.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there are. Where we were hunting it was this. British Columbia is beautiful, right, Very mountainous, very, very big and just hardcore. I'm sure there are. I just feel like Canada is filled. Canada is just like sportsman's paradise. Sportsman's paradise. It really is. The thing about British Columbia is you got to be careful when you're hunting black bear, because you can accidentally call in a grizzly right. So yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:That wasn't a thing over there in that part of Canada where I was at, there were no grizzlies to my knowledge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you had to be really careful about. You know they'd call up to them or we'd be sitting there and we'd have to be careful about which bear came in, because it's filled with grizzlies over there.
Speaker 1:Now were you all hunting over bait.
Speaker 2:No, we were spot and stalk hunting, but it was or driving around and glassing and looking. It was tough hunting.
Speaker 1:I mean it's really mountainous. I was going to say, yeah, it's so hard. I mean I can't imagine trying to stalk and spot a bear because they can smell so well, they're so fast.
Speaker 2:I did. One of my first big game hunts was flew into the back country of Idaho, me and my buddy, and did a DIY black bear hunt and it was just spot and stalk and you're right there. You had to play the wind and glass them up and figure out how to get into them Like any any big game hunt without them seeing or smelling you. So now out how to get into them like any, any big game hunt without them seeing or smelling you.
Speaker 1:So now I have bear hunting northern idaho no luck, but I was hunting over bait. That's tough still no luck. Yeah, tough country, but it's beautiful country. Oh yes, um, how far is salt? Just, I don't know why I said this question. How far are you from like park? Is it park city, the big resort town?
Speaker 2:yeah, just 20 minutes up the road, up the highway. Yeah, it's nice, I ski there all the time.
Speaker 1:That's one thing I haven't tried yet. Actually, I've got a cousin who lives in Salt Lake City from Kentucky. I just thought about that. But so you don't know your no big announcements for this coming year. You're not going to start a new magazine, a new show.
Speaker 2:Please, no, you, you're not going to start a new magazine.
Speaker 1:A new show, please, no, no, no, your plate is full.
Speaker 2:Our plate is full right now. We might do some, some digital video series. We're going to kind of extend that. We want to do a lot more of gear talks and and giving people the true, honest gear reviews. But honestly, we're just going to keep gun dog, the new and improved Gundog, and keep providing a great magazine to people and a great TV show and we hope everybody enjoys it.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question, callie. So when I started this podcast I wanted to try to. I want your opinion and I want to know something too about the magazine. But the retriever world if you get on social media just like crazy saturated, that's not a bad thing, I mean, it's just popular. Everybody has retrievers, duck dogs, people have duck dogs. The population of those people are huge. You know this better than me. You probably know all the statistics, but I wanted to.
Speaker 1:My goal was to include all gundog breeds. I wanted to. My goal was to include all gundog breeds and I'm starting to tap into even though it's where I was from and I should know that better than anybody. But like coon dogs, I did grow up with squirrel dogs and beagles for rabbits and stuff too. But you know, my hometown is the world champion. This year won the UKC world champion coon dog and it's a boy that grew up literally down the street. And then another world champion is in the next County over. He lives in London now but in Clay County. So my point I'm actually have a point to what I'm saying. So do you guys at the magazine I know you, you know it's all upland and waterfowl dogs Do you ever think to include? Is there a reason that you and I'm not trying to be controversial, I'm just saying have you ever thought of including hounds or other dogs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get that question a lot actually and it's not something I'm opposed to, and we have done a couple of hound stories. When I took over, you know, I was very much told that gundogs based on upland hunting, right. And then we have another magazine called wildfowl which is focused on duck hunting. Um, now we do cover a little bit of duck hunting and gundog as well. Um, no, I'm not opposed to it at all. Um, it just gundog has always traditionally been kind of about upland hunting. But I I think the hound dog world is awesome and you're right, we should do more of it because those are gun dogs as well. And we have done a few because one of my writers, brad Fitzpatrick, is a big hound dog guy and he loves writing about hound dogs. So, yeah, I'm definitely not opposed to it, for sure, because there's definitely a market for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, you may already know this, but when I started uncovering it interviewing people, um, like I said, I grew up around. I have friends that do it that I grew up with I was just never I couldn't have a couple times and staying up all night and back in the day. You know, I live in the mountains, you know in eastern kentucky, so if a dog runs a deer for four hours, you know I'm you walk the mountains for four hours after a dog man, that that'd kill you, you know, and it just burned me out and and I've. I went again with some people that had good dogs and they didn't run trash and and it was more fun watching them tree. But anyway, I had no idea the money and the purses in these coon dog competitions it's insane, it's pretty big.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the purses in these coon dog competitions. It's insane, it's pretty big.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a pretty big. I'm sitting here thinking my, my retrievers starve me to death. You know it's a money pit and these guys are. You know, some of these guys are grossed $100,000 on a dog. It's a really cool market.
Speaker 2:It really is, and those dogs are phenomenal. I have seen some of them work and it is a truly, you know, awesome sport to watch and these dogs just have all these natural instincts and these guys are hardcore and they're super passionate about it and I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, I always thought of and maybe it's just me, but I always thought of Gun Dog Magazine as a gentleman's magazine, you know. But you know also, if you think about it, you know, hounds, foxhound, foxhunting, that kind of stuff was an old gentleman's sport too. Yeah, for sure, but it's interesting. No, I just, I just wondered about that while we were talking, you know, because I was going to ask you.
Speaker 2:No, I'm definitely not. I have no issues with with hound dogs. It's just, you know, we just we get so focused on upland hunting that I definitely need to consider putting more hound stuff in there, because that is such a big market.
Speaker 1:And and you know it's such a I know you could, it would be hard to talk about everything in an issue of a magazine, but yeah, that's interesting. So and actually I think one of my I'm going to have a guest on here from New Mexico. You know, it's got the mountain lion and bear dogs.
Speaker 2:That's crazy, new Mexico, you know it's got the mountain lion and bear dogs.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:I've never done it, but I have a bunch of friends who are really hardcore about it and I love hearing their stories. And, um, I've had some people send me photos and I'm just like wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I have to my buddy here in Midland. Uh he, he killed a cat. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I hunted with a. I hunted with a guy in Colorado. He was guiding me. We were on an elk hunt and a media hunt and he was a hardcore cougar guy with a bunch of hound dogs and he was telling me all these crazy stories. He goes out at 3 am looking for tracks and if they cut one, they just all night long. They're just chasing these cougars and I was just like, wow, you guys are hardcore.
Speaker 1:Hardcore, hardcore and and these cougars and I was just like, wow, you guys are hardcore, hardcore they are. And I know a guy he's been on the sportsman channel. He's up in new mexico that's done a lot of that. It's so funny, though I always want to know about the dog. So I'll ask those guys a couple guys that I've talked to that do it for a living what kind of dogs you running? They can't tell you the breed because they've invented their own stuff from plot hounds and Walker. It's so crazy and I mean they'll. I've asked four or five guys hey, what are you running, what kind of dogs running? And none of them tell me a specific breed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I normally see the plots yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but uh, and it's. I don't know that any of the two guys that I talked to that do it full time had a full bred dog on the on the lot. You know it was, but it's, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of neat. You know, these guys are kind of studying genetics really. I mean, they're finding what works. Yeah, they're they're taking good and bad from or, you know, weeding out the bad stuff, and it's just neat. I think that's really neat. It's really cool.
Speaker 2:Those guys are hardcore and definitely true sportsmen, that's for sure. Do you try to always contribute to article yourself in the magazine? I try to do a few. I'll be honest say I get very busy managing the whole thing so it's hard to find time to write, but I at least have to do my editor's letter and I try to do a feature story here or there and uh, but yeah, mostly my. I have fantastic contributors, luckily, to help me out.
Speaker 1:So now do you have a, you have your personal social media to some stuff, right, yeah, I do YouTube channel.
Speaker 2:Uh, no, youtube, I just I'm. I enjoy Instagram. I'm a photographer, so I like posting my photos on there, and you can find me at Kali Parmley, K-A-L-I-P-A-R-M-L-E-Y. And then, of course, we have the Gundog social, which is at Gundog Mag, and we're on both Instagram and Facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 1:Okay, do you do TikTok? No, okay.
Speaker 2:I will not fall down that black dark hole.
Speaker 1:It's funny I'm actually on there now to see if it would help promote the podcast to direct traffic. I don't know that it's done that or not, you know it's definitely been very beneficial, but I, I, I get tired.
Speaker 2:If, honestly, if I could delete social media, I would. I just can't because of work. But, um, you know, I media, I would, I just can't because of work. But, um, you know, I, I do enough dark scrolling. You know what do they, what do they call it death scrolling or something you know. So I don't need another platform to be doing that on well.
Speaker 1:My son, uh, my youngest son, has been, you know, kind of managing the tick-tock stuff and uh it can be very bad.
Speaker 2:Oh, I am. I have no issues with tick-tock, I just I don't want another social media. Yeah, you don't want another social media platform.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't want another distraction.
Speaker 2:No, I grew up, you know I'm 36 now and people don't believe Like. I grew up before the time of cell phones. When cell phones came out it was still a new thing and we had to pay 10 cents a text and, you know, social media was just starting. So I didn't grow up with social and it's definitely taken over life for for people on me sometimes and I don't like it. So I don't need another platform to be.
Speaker 1:But you know what's funny? It's almost like it skipped a generation ahead of us not younger, but for like my mom, lives on it, she loves it, lives on it and she's sending me stuff all throughout the day from Facebook.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't. Tiktok and even and she's sending me stuff all throughout the day from Facebook, tiktok and even Facebook, like it, provides information, right, I'm sure there's some great dog training stuff on there and I just I have no issues with it. I just don't want to be scrolling any more than I already do.
Speaker 1:Well, I can tell you my social ignorance. You're not allowed to post your dogs with a bird in its mouth or dead birds on TikTok. I've been kicked off for community guideline violations Not kicked off, but the post was kicked off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't like that I don't like that that's not fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they can talk about all kinds of crazy stuff, but a dead bird in a dog's mouth.
Speaker 2:That is another, you know, on the sportsman side of things, where you get censored a little bit for our sport and that's not fair and I don't like it, and so we we definitely fight with that on our social, where you know if we showcase a gun or try to highlight a gun review or you know we get dinged and that's not, that's not cool, that's not fair to us, we were law abiding citizens who are passionate about what we do.
Speaker 2:And yes, we hunt and quote, unquote, kill things. But you know, we do it ethically and passionately and I don't think we should be censored for that.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to do two final topics with you and I'll try to leave you alone, do you all? Or how should I frame this? It's the attorney coming out of me now. So do you all feel like, as a magazine or an organization you know that that's a voice of gun dog owners to, I mean, get involved in the politics of, you know, because, coming from Europe, you know they have to kind of hide their field trials or there'll be protesters like you had, you know, kidnapped a kid, or something Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we try, we definitely try to stay out of politics, whether that be voicing you know who we're voting for, or anything like that. We respect all sides. We respect everyone's opinions. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. That's why we live in this great country, right, because we have that right. Um, but, yeah, I mean, if it has something to do with, uh, like, for example, the cdc trying to ban the dogs coming into, coming in and out of canada this year you know, I don't know if you knew about that like they, had to be six months old.
Speaker 2:they had to have all these shots they had. There was no scientific evidence behind it, it was just random. That would be something we would write about.
Speaker 1:I imported two dogs puppies that got here from England and Ireland July 26th and beat the August 1st deadline. They come in on separate flights on separate days. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:United Kingdom is a non-rabies country yeah, that that would be something that we would write about because it's informative and we're making you know, we're saying like, okay, one, you need to know about this band and two, you know we're it's a little bit we're not standing behind it type thing.
Speaker 2:So, um, stuff like that for sure. But yeah, we're not endorsing anyone, we're doing anything. But if it has to do with hunting rights and if our gun dog rights because a lot of times people don't realize like a lot of the anti-hunting and dog bills that get introduced will affect dog breeders and will affect gun dog owners, you know, sometimes the anti-hunting or the animal cruelty people will try to introduce bills that say like can't have your dog tethered for X amount of hours, like how many times do you put your dog when you're sitting in bird camp? You tether your dog on a stakeout right, like that would make it illegal Sometimes the stuff they try to introduce. So, um, we definitely try to stay up to date on those and inform people and we would, we would want to help fight that type of legislation because it would affect us as gun dog owners.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's interesting. So you know, and that's where I was going. I wasn't suggesting by any means not that I can tell you what to do, anyway, I mean, but I wasn't suggesting getting involved in politics so much. I framed that wrong. I probably should have said you know, at least advocating for sportsman's rights and gun dog owners, absolutely we are 100% behind that, because it would affect our sport.
Speaker 2:It would affect, it would take away our rights to do what we love, and we're we're. I like to think that all of us, or most of us, are ethical gun dog owners and stewards of the land. And I mean, for goodness sakes, hunters are the ones who wanted Pittman Robertson to give back to this. You know, give back to every item we buy for hunting to make sure that conservation and our lands stay, our lands and wildlife populations stay healthy. And so hunters are really the stewards of what we do.
Speaker 1:And you know I try to tell people in the podcast or at least make it known. If there's any listener that accidentally gets on here listens, that's not really a gundog owner, maybe it's just a pet owner, because that you know the majority and there's exceptions to every rule. But the majority of gundog owners, those dogs live better than most.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they eat better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, better dog food, better nutrition, you know, more exercise.
Speaker 2:Hey, when we're paying $80 a bag for dog food, you best believe they're getting high treatment right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I probably spend more on dog food than my own food, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, so, but uh well, good deal.
Speaker 1:Also, the only other topic you know the podcast. My intent was to create a community of gundog owners, right, that can you know. When I get my, we're going to redo the website. I'm going to have a vet from Texas A&M. It's going to have nutritional newsletters and stuff, health newsletters. Yes, I've got trainers. Rhodey Best is going to. He's already got it sent me. He's going to start doing a letter and some other trainers have newsletters ready for training tips. But but the other part of the podcast is I want to get youth involved because otherwise our sport will die.
Speaker 1:And when you see eight out of 10 kids, nine out of 10 kids that sit around on their phone all day, those dogs aren't out, those dogs, those kids aren't out playing with a dog or playing in the woods, or you know it's hard, it's very hard so does gundog magazine have any? And I I don't know this just because I read just articles I want to read. But do you all have anything to promote youth?
Speaker 2:uh, participation I wouldn't say specifically no, but we have definitely highlighted groups. I need to be better about it, but we have highlighted groups that are focused on hunting or continuing our sport. Last year we ran an awesome article on a field trialing group down in Georgia who really focuses on youth-specific field trials, and I know that's field trialing, but that's still working with bird dogs and that's still moving into the hunting realm, but just to keep kids involved in that sport alive. And so, um, yeah, we focus heavily. I would like to start focusing more on making sure that we continue our passing down the tradition of our sport, because if we don't, it's it's going to go away.
Speaker 2:We do live in the age of social media, we live in the age of video games, and when I was a kid, our entertainment was going outside and playing you. We live in the age of video games, and when I was a kid, our entertainment was going outside and playing you know, make believe in the backyard, and I don't think that's very much a thing anymore, and so I do think, if you have ideas, I would love to discuss them how we can keep this tradition alive, because we need to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I definitely don't have all the answers, but you know, I definitely definitely think it'd be worth brainstorming, maybe even getting a group of folks to talk and think about it. And the reason I say that too is that maybe I'm a hypocrite. So I have four kids. They're great. Two are out of college, two are in college and only one of my kids hunts. My youngest son hunts. My oldest son has and he doesn't care about it anymore. And then only two of my four kids well, three of them, I should say are really big dog people. So yeah, but it's neat because, also from my hometown, I told you we had a world champion coon dog guy. The youth world champion is my friend's son, who's nine years old, who won the world championship in the youth division of UKC. That's neat, maybe promoting people like that.
Speaker 2:I do want to say that I hope we did a study on. Everyone wants to say print is dead. Print is dead and newspapers are struggling because you can get your news on the internet right away, right, um, but magazines are not. They actually did a study and they found that uh, uh more of the younger generation were still reading magazines and I like to think that's because of the uh know some of the trends coming back, like the stuff you used to wear in the 80s, stuff you used to wear in the 90s. I think there's something to be said. I think that kind of goes with the kids like the what's the word I'm looking for. They just like the idea of magazines. That's something from the old times, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, nostalgia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from back in the day, or even like, right, you know, everyone loves records now, so I think magazines have that same ambiance to them, and so we haven't lost we haven't lost that, that young generation yet, and so I'm hoping that they pick up gun, dog, and we'll be like, oh, this is something.
Speaker 1:I'm interested in.
Speaker 2:If it made you think of that. I still have to read, I have to have a hands-on magazine and a hands-on book I can't do. The first thing I do when I go to an airport is I go to the magazine rack. Right, yeah, go to Barnes Nova, go to the magazine rack, but that's that's what I love. So that's just me.
Speaker 2:But I will say, to keep youth involved, we need to be open as hunters, we need to be willing to mentor and take people out, because I do think that one of the problems with hunting is there's kind of a large barrier to entry. You know it's pretty intimidating. You know you got to know about guns, you got to know how to shoot the gun and even bird hunting. Like you don't need a dog. But if you're interested in dogs and you got to have a dog, well, how do I train this dog? How do I? Where do I find birds? How do I do this? And so it's definitely a large barrier to entry. And so I think we, as as experienced hunters, need to be open to helping people, and I love taking people out. I'd rather someone else shoot a bird over my dog than me shoot a bird over my dog, and I think, to continue this generation and our love of this sport, we need to be willing to mentor people and help.
Speaker 1:In our love of this sport we need to be willing to mentor people and help. You know, I have a I've told you, I have a high fence hunting ranch that I own and live on half the time and or most of the time, and I have a lot of kids that come out and hunt there with their parents I mean small kids and it's amazing and they get hooked, you know, and it's I love it. I've actually had a lot of kids kill stuff the ranch. And then I've had a lot of ladies I mean ladies that are 50 years old and never hunted in their life my friend's wife.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And now she's hooked, so I love to see that happen.
Speaker 2:Being successful on a hunt helps keep people engaged and keep them coming back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and my ranch is true safari style. We don't hunt over feeders and it's not a canned hunt. You know it's in a high fence ranch, it's you're going to earn it. Yeah, and it's, it's true, hunting it really is.
Speaker 2:Well, I always tell people when I take people out, like if I can get them a bird down, that's going to bring them back. If you take them and you just take them on a death march, we don't see a bird, we don't shoot a bird Like that's going to be hard to get them to come back, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's the same with training a dog. You know, I trained shed hunting for a long time. And you go, take a dog five or six times, don't find a shed. You know you're going to lose some drive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:There's tricks you can do.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:Callie gosh, I know I've talked your head off there and I really appreciate you taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to talk to us.
Speaker 2:Happy to be here.
Speaker 1:It's a pleasure having you on. Maybe we'll get you back on again sometime and follow up and see what all is going on with you, the magazine and your endeavors. But anyway, thank you so much and look forward to maybe meeting you in person one of these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I truly like what you're doing over there and I love the name Gun Dog Nation. So good on you and let me know how we can help you.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you very much.