Our Truest Selves While Hunting

Ramsey Russell: I’m your host Ramsey Russell, join me here to listen to those conversations. I’m in Reno today, we’ve got SCI convention which is probably my favorite week of the year to not be in a duck blind. Really, I love coming out. Here is one of the largest shows in the world you see everything from. I’m not kidding. The first time I was out here, the guy behind me was selling rabbit hunts over beagles in the state of Missouri and two doors down with a guy selling everything in the world you want to shoot in New Zealand and three doors down from him with a guy selling big mark horse and big sheep and everything else. You walk around, you play around, you see just every single kind of hunt imaginable. You see hunters from all over the world and I absolutely love coming out here and spend the time it gets my imagination going. Kind of how we made our splash in the pond, so to speak at SCI was in fact we’re the guys that sell all the duck hunts around the world. Today’s guest is Steve Comus, he is the editor of Safari Club Magazine. I blew that. But Steve, how are you today? I appreciate you meeting me.
Steve Comus: I’m doing fine Ramsey, nice to see you. Not in a duck blind last time we were together we were out there shooting ducks and geese.
Ramsey Russell: Every time I spent time with you we, we’ve been killing birds, which I got to tell you Steve it kind of surprises me that you’re such an avid bird hunter because you already editor of SCI, how long have you been doing this, working for SCI?
Steve Comus: I’ve been on the staff for, it’s a little over 20 years. But I was there when the club started, I was not one of the founders, but I was there when they started.
Ramsey Russell: Really? How’d you even get involved with being there at the beginning of Safari club?
Steve Comus: Well, it was over in Los Angeles and that where C.J McElroy founded the club. And at the time I was working for the Hearst Corporation and one of the guys on the newspaper there, the examiner was a guy named, who knew McElroy very well. And so we’re working together and he said, hey they’re starting up this hunting club, they’ll stop out and take a look at it and stuff. And so I did I went out there and met with them and everything and I went to several meetings and that was when they formed the club back in 1971 – 1972.
Ramsey Russell: 1971 or 1972 man. That been more than 20 years Steve.
Steve Comus: Well yeah they’ve been on the staff for 20 years. Before that it was just a member of that kind of thing.
Ramsey Russell: I can remember back in the 90s working down in Texas on a ranch and that’s where I first became acquainted with SCI. Because a lot of the guys I worked with were big into it. They were chasing collections of white tails or collection of North American animals. And they kept talking about SCI and SCI record books and I’d have told you up until about five or six years ago, I’d have told you that SCI was just a bunch of hunters that have got around and smoking fat cigars and big banquets and hunted. I really and truly had no idea until I showed up at convention to exhibit of just what SCI meant to me as a hunter.
Steve Comus: Yeah that’s one thing that a lot of people have a misconception. They think all they are is a bunch of rich guys going around shooting African animals and stuff like that. And that’s not true. I mean yes we do have that hunt everything, but it’s everything, for example, I never started out being a risk at all. In fact when I was a kid, if we’re going to eat meat, we had to go out and shoot it. And so give me an idea when I was little kid, we get a pair of shoes every year to go to school. Well when we went out hunting in the summertime, you don’t where the shoes at all. So when we were out hunting, I wouldn’t take my good school shoes. I just go barefoot. And that’s one way I learned how to stalk animals was when you’re barefooted, you can be a lot more quiet. But anyway, so as a result of that, quite frankly, some of my most fun hunts are squirrel hunts and the rabbit hunts and that kind of thing because that’s what we used to do to eat.
Ramsey Russell: Wow. And that’s a long way from some of the bigger hunts you’ve probably done is editor of the magazine.
Steve Comus: Yeah, I want to give you an idea. When I was a little kid, you weren’t even allowed to imagine that you would ever do much because this is back in, right on the edge of Appalachia back there and everything. And you know, I would dream about going to Africa and shooting a leopard. I don’t know why, but that was my as a kid. I had a little Steven’s favorite single shot 22, little falling by 22. And that’s why he shoots squirrels with. Well, when I was out shooting squirrels in trees, I would imagine that I was in Africa shooting the leopard with the single shot rifle. And I never had any ideas that time I’d ever even get close to Africa. But since then I’ve been there a lot of times. I’ve done a lot of hunting and everything. So it’s kind of living the dream really.
Ramsey Russell: No, that you’re saying that about that Old Stevens 22 reminded me of a pump up Benjamin 22 caliber air gun shooting squirrels and rabbits, blue jays and everything else as a child. And the hunt was the hunt, I can remember in my imagination I was somewhere else hunting something else.
Steve Comus: Yeah I mean it’s just they say so. What SCI is really is hunters I mean and I don’t care what anybody says hunters are born now granted we can learn things and everything else. But I think it’s in our DNA. We’re just hunters. If you look at it from another perspective we ought to be a guarded minority because we can’t help. But we’re genetically hunters and therefore we have to hunt.
Ramsey Russell: I think we ought to push. I think that ought to be an SCI initiative. I mean, minority privilege.
Steve Comus: Yeah. Why not because quite frankly if it is and I truly do believe us in our DNA. But if that is actually true then it should be and then we get rid of a lot of other crap that’s going on out there with the ANIs and everything else. But no it’s been a heck of a life and I’ll tell you what, the reason why I like bird hunting so much is the number one you get to shoot more. Number two, it’s just downright fun to watch those birds work in the sky and come in and everything else.
Ramsey Russell: I agree entirely. I feel like I’m having a conversation and negotiation with those birds. I feel like it’s a very interactive sport, you know? And I do shoot big game. I have been on some big game hunts, but when I’m chasing a deer, waiting on a deer, hunting a deer, I don’t feel a relationship with him quite like I do when I’m duck hunting. It’s like I’m outside the flock and I’m inviting them to come join my imaginary flock out here. Whereas with a deer, I’m just trying to close the distance and get to prey and predator get within range. To me it’s just a different relationship and I enjoy Steve how I got to know you was hunting down in Mexico and some other places where you’re sitting in a duck blind and in between the Bali you just get to visit know people and hear stories and that’s what I enjoy so much about a bird hunting, especially duck hunting.
Steve Comus: What I like about any kind of hunting, but especially bird hunting is, you’re part of nature in a way that you can actually do things. They say when you’re envisioning that you’re a flock over here and getting them in there, literally you’re getting inside of their head. But more than that you’re getting inside of nature and that’s what’s so nice about hunting is you’re out in the natural world doing the natural thing. And to me that’s really important because that’s one of the reasons why I go out of my way to bring new people into hunting every year. I don’t know if I told you this, but I try to bring in at least 10 new people a year into hunting.
Ramsey Russell: You go into the year with a goal like that.
Steve Comus: Yeah. And if you figure that I’ve been doing that, I started hunting 1949. And so that’s a lot of people that I have been able to introduce to hunting who otherwise wouldn’t be there. And I’m talking about people who, because of their own circumstances probably never would be a hunter. For example, one time, this one single mother called up over there at the office, she had a daughter who wanted to learn how to hunt. Well, mother didn’t know anything about hunting. And so they said, how do you do that? I started thinking to myself, well, you know what if you started from square one and be kind of hard. So that’s why I said, well look, bring your daughter we’ll go out and we’ll go through the motions and stuff. And so I taught him how to first shoot a gun and stuff like that and then how to hunt. By the time it was over, both the mother and daughter were hunters. I told the mother in beginning, I said, you know, you can’t just be on the sidelines here. I said, you’ve got to be part of your daughter’s thing in order number one to encourage her. I said number two. So you understand it, well, turned out both of them loved hunting. And so now they’re both avid hunters. But yeah, every year I try to do at least 10. And because I figured that way, we’re not only increasing our ranks, we’re are allowing people to realize themselves. I don’t know if you ever talk much about this, but when you’re hiding, you are more who you are than any other time in your life. When the hunters are in the field, that’s when a hunter is in his or her own element. And it’s so great that I hate to see people not be able to do that.
Ramsey Russell: I have thought about that. In fact, Aldo Leopold the father of Wildlife Management of Forrester. That actually founded the North American Wildlife management Program. Way back when everybody was, I say, everybody when the government was managing wildlife resources at a depleting resource, you know, when it’s gone, it’s gone. He came in and brought sustained yield and management and conservation into the equation. But he actually penned in a book of his Sand County Almanac one time that exactly what you said, that you are your true itself when you’re hunting that, especially when it replies to ethics. You know, it’s one thing who you are when everybody’s watching you. It’s something else entirely different when it’s just you alone in nature conducting yourself the way you know you should be conduct yourself. I know that, I hear a lot of people refer to being outside as their church and I know that I know that being outside on slow days or fast days are good days or any day. It’s just I feel a connection, I feel my greatest sense of self there and I would wish that on anybody.
Steve Comus: Yeah, the guy that helped instill that into me was Fred Barry. That was in 1949 as a matter of fact, when I first learned how to bow, I bow hunted first, okay. And I made my own bow and my own arrows and it was Fred Barry, taught me how to how to hunt with it. And that was nice. He was a real evangelist for hunting and he would go around and I forget what little group I was in there in the time I was in and so for all those kids showed us how to make her both a little better how to hunt and stuff like that. And he was big on that. There was an ethic when you’re hunting, and he preached and that’s where I got going on that. Before that it was just we just go out as kids and they say if we always have potatoes and stuff is sometimes didn’t have meat, so I’d have to go out and get a rabbit or goose or something like that. And so what we talking was there, there was an ethic to that and best stayed with me all my life. And I’ll tell you what, I learned one thing about that and that is ethics are absolute in that, if you ever have to ask yourself is it ethical, then the answer is no. Everything is that is on his face, obviously ethical.
Ramsey Russell: We know it intuitively.
Steve Comus: Yeah. You know what it is and any time you got a him or hard or make an excuse, you’re on, it isn’t. And so again, back to hunting. It’s real basic. And as long as you follow the basic things, you’ll be right. It’s so beautiful.
Ramsey Russell: It’s fundamental. And I hunted with a couple of pro baseball players back in December. Adrian Houser and Archie Bradley, a couple of major league pitchers, man. I mean big timers and I asked them, I’ve always said this, but I asked them just because they’re the real deal. And I’m just, I’m not a baseball player yet. And I asked him, I said, at some level, you’re out there pitching in the major leagues, at some level is it the same is when you were a child throwing a baseball with your daddy? And Archie explained, yeah, it’s fundamental. He was talking about, he got a pigeon slump. He said, you know how to fix it. I went all the way back, all the way back to grade school fundamentals and it’s just going through the basics. And I think hunting is a lot like that is fundamental, which brings up a good point. The last time I talked to you, I spent a few months ago, we were on the phone and I know not to call you. Can we get to talking like this, Steven, it doesn’t turn into a 10 minute conversation, it usually turned into an hour. But I had told you about a project I did back when I was 15 years old. My grandmother lived in the same house she was born in and she had rummaged around the attic and found this old shotgun, this old family heirloom that as best I can run back through, just put the clues together. Probably belonged to my great grandmother’s father. My grandmother didn’t know that, she didn’t really know, she doesn’t remember her grandfather, her great granddaddy having own the gun or being hunters. But nonetheless they did and had old Damascus barrels and it had to be, I couldn’t go and shoot, I couldn’t shoot it with conventional loads, I couldn’t even shoot it with old black powder loads because the boards were bad. So I got talking to an old guy that knew something about this, these old guns and he said, well, go through the firing pin, go through spring. It’s very simple gun compared to now with these semi-automatics, he says, but the board, they’re not going to take the pressure, whether it’s the first shot or a thousand, they’re going to burst. And I said, well, I didn’t want a shotgun, I just hung up above the mantel like cracker barrel. I wanted something I could shoot, I wanted to connect with my ancestors, they were duck hunters. I wanted to take this gun duck hunting. And he suggested, I bored out 20 gauge is sent it to Briley and they’ll shoot conventional loads. When I shot some business with it. And we actually did that hunt last month and man the gun had a huge drop compared to what I’m used to. And I was sitting there thinking as the first duck kind of just hooked up. When do you pull these hampers back? And once the hammers a click-click pull back your live. I mean you got one in the pot ready to go and who knows? Double triggers? I’ve never shot double triggers. My old clumsy middle finger, but it was something when that mallard hooked up, downwind, single mallard hooked up downwind, click-click. Those hammers came back instinctively and he said, it’s just like my ancestors were pulling him into the decoy, he set up right in the pocket, sat there and floated like a butterfly boom-boom, double tap them. And I ended up shooting a limit of ducks missed too because I got crazy trying to shoot wild at a far duck. But I was literally shot my limit of ducks to include a double. Now it was such a connection, you know, what I’m beating around the bush talking about that old gun getting back to the fundamentals, how that morning we just threw out some old battered up court decoys, we’re wearing the old granddad green canvas shooting those old guns. And it just in this day and age, especially, it seems to me that a lot of industry marketing narrative is to substitute technology for fundamentals, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Steve Comus: Technology will never ever substitute knowledge and skill and ability and paying attention to it. It can get your ducks, it can get you a limit, but it won’t get you the same feeling. I truly believe there’s such a thing as soul and was that old gun ever sold?
Ramsey Russell: It was.
Steve Comus: And for example, I’ve got a flintlock musket that my ancestors used in the revolution.
Ramsey Russell: Wow.
Steve Comus: And I took a turkey on.
Ramsey Russell: Really?
Steve Comus: And that was fun, I got a turkey with and that. That was fun. But also I’ve got an old side by side hammer again, like you’re talking about, my grandfather was very old in other words, he was born in 1876. But anyway, he and his brothers were market hunters back when they were young. And I was that not only one of their old guns but also got their loading block where you load 50 rounds at a time, little old brass shells and stuff and I’ve taken that out and got in touch with stuff that’s fun. So but yeah that tie to the past is something that there’s a culture and tradition and everything else in hunting that goes back to the beginning of mankind. And so we are the ones that do have the culture in the history. And the rest of society doesn’t have that. And I’ll tell you what, you can see that they don’t have a how screwed up they are. And have you ever noticed that true hunters are not screwed up socially, the way that a lot of other people are. It’s kind of weird. It’s not an angle a lot of people think about but it actually is true. And the reason why is they’ve got a meaning in their life and hunting is that meaning. And so to me, every day that a hunter doesn’t celebrate the fact that he or she is a hunter. They’re missing the boat, because it’s something that is beyond pride. I mean, yes, we got a lot of pride in being a hunter, but it’s beyond that. It’s something that we’re saying okay, we accept who we are and what we are in this world and duck hunter, we’re proud of it and we’re going to keep doing it and the world is going to be a better place because of it. You see the one thing that hunters do is we actually meaningfully conserve wildlife and that’s something that nobody else does. I mean you can talk about all these other outfits. Well yeah they have these conservation projects in everything but they’re not out there in the field doing the real work that hunters do and that really does separate us from the others. If you stop to think about it, I was talking with one time I very rarely find myself in the company of anti-hunters. I just don’t not because I choose to. I just don’t because I’m not around them. But one time I accidentally was in the middle bunch of them, that’s what we were talking about. This stuff and I said look it is to stop and think about it. I said, are we going to sit out here and shoot to extinction the animals that we love to hunt the night on the back as what we’re about is we’re about making wildlife abundant so that hunting we can do that forever. And that if anything we not only don’t keep it even in the end, there’s more than they want to start with. I said I kept telling that that’s the way it works and they just kind of sat around there. I said what you guys are doing is you’re mixing apples and oranges. They were talking about over to Africa where the poachers were getting, I said those aren’t hunters those are poachers. Those are those are criminals. I said it would be the same thing like here if you want to demonize one entire group just because part of them are bank robbers. That’s not right. I said because the bank robbers are bank robbers, poachers are poachers and they are the enemy of wildlife and they are the enemy of mankind. And so we got to get rid of them and that’s the way that works.
Ramsey Russell: And hunters are very good at getting rid of. I know the times I’ve spent in Africa there’s a lot of anti-poaching that is funded and spearheaded not by bird watchers, but by hunters and hunting organizations.
Steve Comus: There wouldn’t be any money over there. A lot of people don’t understand it in Africa. They don’t have the excess money to throw money at things to solve problems like we do here in the United States. And so if it weren’t for hunters over there, not only funding it, but also sometimes even participating in some of these things. There wouldn’t be any at all. And then it just be wide open and the next thing you know there’d be nothing there.
Ramsey Russell: You bring up a good point about hunters verses, let’s say non-hunters or anti-hunters. I’ve always believed that working for US Fishing and Wildlife service when I started my career, I was astounded at how few hooking bullet biologists there were. There were guys out there, I didn’t understand that. I’m from Mississippi and with the Mississippi state, I didn’t understand guys that got into that field that didn’t hunt or fish that just loved nature, but I worked with them and they did good things. But the distinction to me between a bird watcher and a duck hunter let’s say is a bird watcher is happy to see a mallard, a bird one to check off his list. We duck hunters, to a duck hunter, we want to see so many ducks, they obliterate the sun and when they pass through this guy and we’re willing to put our time and money into a great excess of wildlife. That’s what I see.
Steve Comus: Yeah. We want an endless supply of wildlife for everybody. I mean bird watchers, they’re great people, they’re nice and everything but they’re different. What they want out of is different but that we both take advantage of and being able to go out there and watch wildlife. The way I look at it is a birdwatcher is like, okay let’s suppose you’ve got the water in the Middle East or Vietnam something like that. A bird watchers is the guy watch it on TV. The hunter is a guy out there in the race.
Ramsey Russell: Boy, I said that that hits home right there. That’s a very good way of articulating that thought Steve. And I didn’t mean to put bird watchers at odds because they do contribute a lot of money through the Pittman Robertson Act and everything else into conservation. Speaking of which, you know, I read something of course we all hear that hunter numbers are declining but to drive the point home besides just being game animals that we’re conservatives, it’s all the aside when it hits the state budgets in the federal budget. Like I was reading the report just yesterday, it was going around all over the internet about lack of funding and the threat to endangered species because of declining 100 generated dollars. And there’s one believe was Indiana or Wisconsin. One of the states they had a massive honey bee pollinator type program in their state budget that they no longer have money for because there’s not hunters.
Steve Comus: Yeah. It’s an interesting double edged sword. As far as I can see, one thing is, yes, the number of hunters may be going down, but it’s not in a steeper decline as a lot of people would have you believe if you really look at it. But the way I see it is there’s a difference between quantity and quality. The hunters who are hunting now are more serious hunters than before, okay. And I think the only flaw in the financing system is that their system is set up on volume of hunters rather than quality of hunters, okay. I think quite frankly, if they realign the way that they get those dollars, they would end up with a lot more dollars from hundreds alone. And that is when you’re serious hunter, you don’t mind paying a little bit more. I mean obviously, in the beginning of Pittman Robertson and we said yeah, we’ll be 11% more. But I think a lot of hunters would volunteer to pay even a little bit more on some of this stuff. But I’ll tell you where else I think then we give you somewhat careful on this funding because if a majority of the funding comes from anti’s or non-hunters, then all of a sudden hunting gets blocked out. And so but there’s a way not to have that happen and still have everybody come out on top, and that is have these others fill in the blanks on the dollars that hundreds have been paying for stuff has got nothing to hunt. For example, a lot of the stuff that hunters or finance and everything else, has benefited animals and stuff that will never have been and never will be hunted. And like they even bees and insects and stuff like that, that’s fine finance those programs separately, but keep the hunting stuff as it is. And I don’t think it’ll be too hard to come up with a system like that. But in the end no matter how that works out, if society decides that it will not of its own finance, the future of wildlife, then not only his wildlife doomed, but I think people are doomed. Because quite frankly I don’t think people in this planet will last very long without a bunch of wildlife. There’s a natural situation there among all of us critters. The absence that all of a sudden we would probably start tearing ourselves apart. There’s a dynamic there that to me it’s really fascinating. But I think right now all we got to do is do what we do and do it better and more seriously and we’ll be fine. And especially if we can continue to recruit serious hunters, I think this decline in numbers, if you look at the overall situation, I think it is explained very easily. And that is right now you got to go a little further to go hunting. It takes a little more to go hunting than it did before. Like when I grew up I could literally be hunting 50 feet from my house. Well, that doesn’t have much anymore. So the harder it is to go hunting, then the marginal people fall off, okay. Like when I was a kid, every kid on it, girls go ahead of everybody, and that’s because, A) it was handy and B) something to do. But a lot of them fell off later on in high school and stuff because they have other things to do, we didn’t. And so I think what we’re seeing right now is on a bigger scale, the same thing. And that is, as it’s becoming less convenient to go hunting, those who are margin ones drop out. The serious people never will. I mean, let’s face it guys like you and me, if there’s only one place in the world to go hunt and we’d be there. I mean, that’s just the way it is. But yeah, I think that’s what that is. So it’s like everything else figures don’t lie, but liars figure kind of deal. People can look at those statistics and you can get a lot of different ideas out of them. But to me all it really says is that in contemporary society, it’s a little harder for people to go hunt. Therefore the margin ones drop out. That’s where it behooves us as hunters though. The number one recruit people who will be serious hunters and number two do what it is and do it even better than before.
Ramsey Russell: Wow. That’s a very interesting thought there Steve that I’ve never considered. And I would say they either drop out or they get on social media and complained. You can complain about the situation or you can roll up your sleeves and fix it. But no, that’s a very, very good thought. Tell me this, you talk about quality and about serious hunters. I don’t know a more provocative word in what we do then the word trophy.
Steve Comus: Yeah, I love that term. That to me is a term where hunters in general have dropped the ball on that one, in my opinion. That’s something we ought to be proud of. I can still remember back, can’t help going back to the beginning in 1949 when I started hunting in the very first animal that I shot with my little bow and arrow was a rabbit. And the rabbit was running and I shot it running with a bow and arrow. I got it. In fact, as he was running away and I went right through the back of his head and went out his mouth and he stuck him in the ground and did a little flip. And so that rabbit since that day, I’ve shot a lot of record with the animals. I’ve not shot any animal that is a bigger trophy to me then that rabbit. And the reason why it was, number one, I made the bow, I made the arrow, I went out hunting and I got the rabbit and so to me that was the epitome of a trophy. And so it kind of depends on how you want to define a trophy. The problem that we’ve had I think is we’ve allowed the anti’s to define trophy. And they say, well, yeah and they give the idea that, okay, all we do is we go out there and we just use something, we take the animals off of it and leave the rest of it to rot. That’s the idea that they put out.
Ramsey Russell: They’ve created that narrative.
Steve Comus: Yeah. And shame on us as hunters for allowing them to do that, because they have really perverted the term and so what we need to do is set it straight and that is that, all that animal gets eaten and stuff like that. I mean if we’re after them, they say, well, gosh, you guys ought to breed the animals that all it is a set of antlers walk across the field and just go out and shoot the antlers or something. But no, what we need to do is redefine that term into something that has meaning and that is that in a true trophy situation is a genuine honor to be able to take a trophy animal and that it’s an honor not only for the hunter, but I’ve had people really look funny at me, but you’re honoring the animal, okay. And that’s one difference between Safari Club and some other operations when it comes to measuring animals and stuff like that, the sparkle of system measures everything the animal group. And to me that’s very important because whether they fit a particular thing of what we think is right, it’s kind of irrelevant because that’s nature. And so whatever that animal group, will you honor that? Because what you’re after is you want to take something that’s representative of that species. And I said that’s what it is. And yeah, if it weren’t for the “trophy thing”, we could go out and if you think about it, that would be very, very much worse on the conservation front because chances are that the case was going to shoot a bunch of doves and little babies and stuff like that. Because what we are not is a bunch of cold blooded, just mass killers. That’s another thing that we’ve been accused of which isn’t true. I’ve never had buck fever. So I don’t know what that feels like. But there is appealing that you get when you’re going to take an animal. That is unlike any other feeling you’ve ever had in your life for people who’ve never done it. And hunters who have, know what I’m talking about and that is when you truly are one with nature because you’re part of nature. Again back to the bird of watching thing, when you’re birdwatcher, you’re watching nature. But when you’re hunter you’re part of it. And it’s like we’re talking earlier when you are part of nature, all as well as the world, really, really truly is.
Ramsey Russell: I appreciate big animals. I walk around like all the other tourists at SCI convention with slack jaw and eyes big and phones going just because it’s just it’s astounding at the high quality. But I was with a group not too long ago, we’re sitting around talking over drinks and something like this topic came up, we start talking about big animals and trophies in Africa and different things. I’m like, well I’m not a trophy hunter, and they’d go how can you not be? I mean, because you go all over the world shooting the bird, and I said, well, I think that’s what’s changed my thought because when I was young I wanted great big white tails, and now I chase something a little bit different. It’s like this Steve is like the first red crested poster you ever put your hands on is a trophy. It’s a real big prize. You went a long ways. You played the game, you got the bird. The next 100 is just like the first because it’s a duck. They’re all the same and I find myself now different than I was 20-30 years ago when I started hunting. I wanted an old animal, I wanted a mature animal, I don’t want the dove or and I wish you looked down south, we shoot a lot of doves. A whole lot of them like they hurt her moms, we have to shoot him to manage the deer herd. But nonetheless we’re after quality animals. And it’s hard for me to articulate to people why. Because to an observer, they don’t make a distinction. Now there’s a beautiful white tailed deer, but those hunters there’s something different, it’s something different about chasing an older, mature, bigger and or buck than it is just chasing a deer. And that’s what makes it I think maybe the difference in shooting verses hunting.
Steve Comus: The Safari Club actually within the last year or so has come up with what they called Methuselah or which is designed specifically to honor those who go out of their way to take the older animals. The ones that are no longer reproducing stuff like that. And in Europe, they’ve been doing that for a long time. I took a Roebuck over there one time in Austria and the locals got all excited and everything because it was an extremely hold deer and that was great. And I liked it because the only reason I shot in the first place was there’s something about like the animals, so I did. But to them it was even more meaningful and so yeah, that whole animal thing like that there’s a lot of fun. One time I was out hunting, this has been years and years ago before I really realized how a lot of this stuff together. But I guess even then I had the beginnings of it, but there was a deer, this is on the first day of deer hunt and there was a deer that was crippled and he was in a lot of pain. He had not been shot by any other rifle shoot or anything like that, it just had, there was one leg gotten broken somehow. He was having a hard time getting around and I could even tell through my binoculars that I could even see the pussy type stuff on it, everything that deer was in agony. And I had one tag and I thought, well I can look around here and wait till I see a really good deer. The more I sat there and I mean it took only a few seconds, but it seems like a long time. I said, nope, that deer right there doesn’t deserve a suffering and it was where I shot him. It was my tag on him, that’s just the way it is. Each situation kind of dictates your tactics and I think hunters do the right thing that deer would not have lasted long in the area where out there an awful lot of coyotes and stuff like that, they would have gotten that deer within a day or so because he already was becoming very sick and so rather than being eaten alive, I just put him down. To this day, I’m kind of, I’ll never be ashamed of it that.
Ramsey Russell: Nature can be a lot more cruel than a hunter. Natures are different.
Steve Comus: Yeah, I mean, you know when you’re out and watching some of this stuff happen, nature can be very cruel. I say these animals literally eat the others alive. I mean they’re eating on them while they’re still alive and that’s kind of different to watch sometimes. But even when you watch a couple of deer are out fighting, they kill each other really doesn’t happen real quick. They die really slowly. So again as part of nature, if we’re going to be that element of it, then we need to be very efficient and effective at it. And that’s why I think it’s very important for people, especially on big game animals and stuff to practice at a time and stuff like that. So that when you do make your shot, it’s just, it’s one shot and handles down.
Ramsey Russell: Steve, I know you’ve seen a lot of changes since you met Fred Barry and he helps you tune up your bow with a child. You’ve seen a lot of changes in hunting, you’ve seen a lot of changes in the habitat, and then hunted himself. I haven’t seen there’s many changes, but I do. And the advent of social media, maybe it’s the way it makes me think or I don’t know, I struggle with it sometimes, but it just seems to me in my world and my glimpse of the world through my social media that a lot of anymore in duck hunting or hunting in general seems to be driven more by ego. It’s like I see a lot of these big piles of birds and this big stuff and it seems to be more than, some of these hunters and I’m not saying this is what it is, but it’s what it seems to be, they seem to be defining their sense of self and ego and worth on the backs of big bucks or lots of animals or different things like that. Have you seen a transition in that? I know it’s, I’m not saying like award winners that are vying for trophies are big or Methuselah awards or collections. I’m just saying a different in a mindset of hunter we’ve gotten, I mean, let’s face it, nobody that I know anymore is going out strictly to subsist on game animals. I eat a lot of duck, I eat a lot of deer, but nobody really today in America is putting food on the table like you when a little boy.
Steve Comus: And maybe only in Alaska. But now I’ve got a kind of a different take on that and that is, I think to a degree that’s always been there. I think social media merely allows everybody to see it. And the way I look at it is, I think hunters go through phases, okay. And when you’re young, you kind of get all full of vinegar and everything and you want to go out and shoot everything there is and everything because you can. And then as you get older and more experienced, you look for different things on it. And then I think when you get to be an old geezer like me, you really have a totally different outlook on it. Okay, I’m 75 years old and when I go, I live in Arizona and I love to go quail hunting and I go out there. I don’t have a dog and I don’t, I’m not around the house long enough times to take care of one, right. So I’ll go out and this walk, I’ve got a 410 shotgun I take out, and I’ll walk out there in the desert, kick up crap. Well on average, I’ll kick up the quail about every mile, takes about a mile walking to kick up a quail. And you don’t shoot 100% on that. There’s a lot of days I’ll go out and walk 10-15 miles and shoot one quail. Now to me, that has been a successful hunt. Because I’ve gotten out in nature, I’ve done what I want to do. It’s to me it’s not a hunt if you don’t get a shot, that there’s just like wild life watcher. But as long as I get a shot, if I miss that’s my problem. But I’ve actually hunted and so I don’t have that limit mentality and stuff like that. But I think a lot of people have through the years, I think social media has brought it to the four. But the one thing I think social media does do this kind of bothersome and that is it can infect others to think the same way. And that is we’re going to go out and get the biggest and everything, there’s nothing wrong with having that as a goal. But yeah, anybody who says, okay, the only thing hunting is for me is some big animal or some big string of ducks or something. Actually, I feel kind of sorry for him because they’re missing a lot of the real enjoyment of hunting and I’m not going to shame as long as people stay within the legal limits and everything else, that’s fine. Because that’s all part of game management. But I would invite anybody who is doing that kind of thing to take a look at it and say, there’s another level of enjoyment that I’m missing in life that I could have. But I just go out and don’t say okay if I don’t get a limit today, it’s been a bad hunt. No, it hasn’t. If you go out, number one, the fact that he went hunting, that’s a good day right there. But number two, if you’ve finally gotten anything, then you completed that circle. And it can take one bird and that one bird is so great. I mean, when you’re out in the middle of things, we’re shooting a lot of birds and everything, you don’t spend the time looking at that one bird as much as you do. If that’s the only bird you got in your hand and so I’ll be out there looking to quit. I mean, I’ll study that thing. I have been studying quails now for years, but every time I look at him, I see something different. So it’s great.
Ramsey Russell: Steve, I thank you for your time. Folks, I thank you all for listening. Get out in the blind, get out of deer stand, connect to your truest self. @RamseyRussellGetDucks on Instagram, we’re streaming out all the time every time around the world, but also check out official_SCI, if you all are unaware of what this organization is and does for you as a hunter sitting there listening today, these guys are on top of all the issues I think of them as the, well, let me they do for hunters. What NRA does for firearm rights is exactly the way I should describe them. As a member, you do receive a lot of valuable emails. I don’t read the federal digest. I don’t know what our federal government is doing with regard to hunting or hunting rights or hunting laws. They do, they have a staff that does and then puts it in fourth grade terminology and send it to you to make you aware of things you really ought to be aware of as a hunter. Anyway, thank you all for listening. Live from SCI. See you all next time.