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Home»Outdoors»Ep. 420: Urban Catfishing and New Mexico with Rep. Gabe Vasquez
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Ep. 420: Urban Catfishing and New Mexico with Rep. Gabe Vasquez

Gunner QuinnBy Gunner QuinnOctober 3, 2025
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Ep. 420: Urban Catfishing and New Mexico with Rep. Gabe Vasquez
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00:00:10
Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana.

00:00:14
Speaker 2: This is Col’s Week in Review with Ryan cow Calaan.

00:00:18
Speaker 3: Here’s Cal.

00:00:21
Speaker 1: All right, Cal’s week in Review Listeners, we got another exciting interview segment. We’re getting super political because we have New Mexico Representative Gave Vasquez the Land of Enchantment with us this week, and we’re going to talk about some of the federal level news that is pertinent across the country, but also in Representative Asquez district in New Mexico. And we’re also going to talk about taking advantage of hunting and angling opportunities near you when you’re living life on the road, such as are duly elected due when they’re bouncing back and forth between their home states and Washington, d C. So welcome Representative Asquez.

00:01:21
Speaker 3: Thanks Cal, it’s great to be on here with you today.

00:01:24
Speaker 1: Well, great to haven’t you. What for our listeners, what is your district?

00:01:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me just say I have one of the most beautiful districts in the Southwest. I’d say across the nation. My district is bigger in size than the state of Pennsylvania. Just for reference for our listeners, we’re home to two National parks, White Sands and Carsbad Caverns. We’ve got four National forests that includes the Hila, the birthplace of America’s wilderness. We’ve got world class hunting and fishing opportunities, tons of public land, and some really beautiful, diverse communities, including seven different indigenous communities. We’re also home to the chili capital of the world, which is Hatched, New Mexico. And so for anyone out there that puts green chili or red chili in their recipes, I hope it’s coming from Hatch.

00:02:12
Speaker 3: Otherwise it probably doesn’t taste this good.

00:02:14
Speaker 2: But to get a sense of it, it spans from Albuquerque all the way down to the US Mexico border, which is about one.

00:02:21
Speaker 3: Hundred and eighty miles the entirety of the.

00:02:23
Speaker 2: US Mexico border in New Mexico, and then from Arizona to Texas, so it’s really about half the state.

00:02:29
Speaker 3: It’s one of the largest districts in the country.

00:02:32
Speaker 1: That’s a lot, a lot to bite off.

00:02:34
Speaker 2: And it’s where folks come and hunt that orx that everyone you know fantasizes about getting there there once in a lifetime.

00:02:42
Speaker 3: Tag.

00:02:43
Speaker 2: I’m jealous because I’ve heard on many podcasts and for many stories about out of staters getting that once in a lifetime and I’ve been putting in for it for about a decade now.

00:02:53
Speaker 3: It’s laughing front to tag.

00:02:54
Speaker 2: But we’re also home to the oryx, you know, barbary sheep, ibex, some of the exotics that are out here too.

00:03:01
Speaker 3: They’re not fenced in, they’re out in the wild.

00:03:04
Speaker 1: I love New Mexico the sense of hospitality. New Mexican hospitality is like a very real thing and very food centric, which I love. New Mexicans by and large have a real sense of pride in in their landscapes and their their state and the opportunities and it’s just, you know, it’s kind of like a heartwarming thing to be around. It’s a it’s a slightly different culture than than what I grew up with in Montana, but very similar in the fact that people are are kind of tied to the land, which yeah, I love.

00:03:46
Speaker 2: No And I think if you look at the most beautiful flag in the United States, that that is the Sacred zea symbol from the Zia Pueblo, that that represents a perfect unity amongst cultures and our ties to the land. So if you ever wonder what that zia on that yellow flag is about. It’s about who we are as cultures united and about our connection to the land.

00:04:12
Speaker 3: So it makes sense that you’d say.

00:04:14
Speaker 1: That, Oh, okay, so what you’re You’re a hunter and angler. Give us a little sense of your background.

00:04:22
Speaker 2: And yeah, so I you know, I grew up. I grew up here along the banks of the Rio Grand, both in Mexico and in New Mexico. And you know, my first experiences were going out cat fishing with my dad, my brother, sometimes my grandpa when he had some time, and we spent most of our time underneath the overpasses on I twenty five in places like Hatch or the Messia Dam, fishing the mighty Rio Grand and mostly channel cats, the occasional blue cat, and when we got lucky, a flathead or two, especially if we’re using bigger bait, and of course all those annoying bullheads that you catch all over the place, but of course don’t make for good eating. But that’s really how I started. And my grandfather, his name was Javier Banolos, and he lived in Siatuadas, Chihuaha, and his passion was was hunted. He came from from a small farming village called El Remorino or the Whirlwind, in the central state of Sacatecas. And when he came to the city, he missed the outdoors and and sustenance hunting so much that he actually started the city’s first hunting club, so SATs They had a club called the Santaudos, and my grandfather basically got a bunch of his buddies together that came from ranches all across the country that had moved to the border and moved to the to the Frontea and they’d go out to the Sierra Madre, better known as kind of the Copper Canyon for many folks, and so at the at the northernmost easternmost edge the San Luis Mountains, that’s where you know, my grandfather would take us.

00:06:03
Speaker 3: You know, he had he had ten kids because.

00:06:05
Speaker 2: He’s Hispanic and Catholic, and so I was a product of a big family. And and you know, you learn all about the ins and outs of conservation and responsibilities that you have.

00:06:17
Speaker 3: And when your grandpa tells you to do something, you do it.

00:06:19
Speaker 2: But he also teaches you about you know, the things you know why you can’t keep a certain fish, or that one time he got really mad at me for actually putting a turtle back that we could have eaten, and I said, I didn’t think we ate turtles, and he said, oh man, he said, you’re not gonna eat dinner tonight.

00:06:39
Speaker 3: And so you learn those lessons early on.

00:06:41
Speaker 2: But he hunted everything from from Koo’s deer to puma or mountain lion. Caught a ton of bass and lots of hovelina as well, and that was all the food that ended up going back on our plates. And so at my grandma’s house, where you had, you know, twenty twenty five people running around every night to feed that many kids and grandkids, you know, you eat what’s on your plate, and most of the time it was it was wild gaming. And you know, that was a different upbringing for most kids in a place that’s industrialized. You know, half a million people or more at that time in Chiahaguadas, and so, you know, those that combination of experiences of getting to experience the rivers of New Mexico, you know, laying under the.

00:07:25
Speaker 3: Stars with my dad and my brother and and then.

00:07:28
Speaker 2: Going back to the city and seeing how much my grandfather just cared for for the outdoors and and how you know, how how dedicated he was to making sure that with a family that big, he could still take some time for himself and honestly, you know, some time with his buddies too. My grandma wasn’t too happy about that when he’d be gone for four or five days.

00:07:49
Speaker 3: But that’s that’s a little bit about how I grew up.

00:07:51
Speaker 2: And you know, from there I went on to try to hunt and fish as much as I could, and so my go to was always walleye. So we’ve got two reservoirs here, Elfant, but Kabaya Lake, and believe it or not, there’s some really good walleye fishing, at least there wasn’t that time when I was growing up, and they make for the best eating, but also a lot of white bass, a lot of black black bass, small mouth and large mouth. And then eventually, you know, I got into rabbit hunting, and from there it went into hovelina, which is you know, that was how I learned how to use a bow as well, because it’s an easy target and they’re not that smart. And then you know, worked my way up from there to at that time, my grandpa had passed and and you know, I really wanted to to get back into the tradition, the family tradition, and so hunting coups deer out on the border or something I really enjoyed doing. And any chance I get now, you know, anything that I can learn, whether it’s fishing for HeLa trout or fishing for artichard and the Artic tundra in Alaska, I’m all about it. You know, I really cherish that time, especially now that I get so busy these days.

00:08:57
Speaker 1: Well yet it’s it’s hard when you have those interests and then you take on a role, which is a voluntary role. Nobody forced you into running for the House of Representatives, and but there’s some trade offs there.

00:09:18
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, there definitely are.

00:09:21
Speaker 2: I mean, just just the amount of space that that you have to work with here in Washington, d C.

00:09:27
Speaker 3: Is I just say, it’s really annoying.

00:09:30
Speaker 2: You know, I’m used to big, beautiful, wide open landscapes and you come here and you’re cooped up in a tiny apartment. If you’re lucky to have a backyard, you know, it’s a ten x ten little square and it’s just it’s not home.

00:09:46
Speaker 3: And so that transition coming from New Mexico to d C.

00:09:49
Speaker 2: I think for many Westerners who are used to this kind of lifestyle or who represent these rural districts, it can be tough. You know, it can get kind of claustrophobic at times. And so there’s nearby trails here. You know, there’s local parks, places like Rock Creek Park, which I spend a lot of time in, but they always have something going on. Cal you know, there’s there’s so many bikers and trailer runners and hikers, I.

00:10:13
Speaker 3: Mean, you name it.

00:10:14
Speaker 2: It doesn’t seem like I can I can honestly get on a trail here without seeing you know, two hundred people on any given day. So you got to you gotta search for places out in Maryland or Virginia or West Virginia where I’ve spent some time as well, to try to find that quiet in that piece when when you can get away. But you know, there’s there’s a guy I think you know him, Chris would from Trout Unlimited. And when I when I first came here to d C, I hooked up with Chris and he, you know, he turned me onto a place called Fletcher’s Coat and that’s still within the city limits. It’s about I don’t know, twenty twenty five minutes away from where I live here on Capitol Hill, and it sits on the edge of the Cno Canal, right next to the Potomac, where you have just this bunch of concrete that was dumped from the construction of the Cno Canal and a bunch of rocky slabs on the shore that that actually make for some great cover for all types of fish.

00:11:11
Speaker 3: And so I first got here and Chris and I went out there.

00:11:14
Speaker 2: We caught some nice stripe bass, and so I go back when I can to fish there also now for catfish.

00:11:20
Speaker 3: You know, they got a boat dock, so I ran, I ran a kayak.

00:11:24
Speaker 2: I bring my fishing rods, and I like to get out there and paddle and find those holes. And you know, I’ll be honest with you, the fishing set are not great there except during the shad run, which I still have yet to experience. But you know, I was there just just last weekend, and there’s actually a bunch of guys that are that are out catfishing out there. You’ll see them along the side of the Potomac, and I always wonder how the heck they got there, and they’re fishing with with fishing line and gatorade bottles, so I suspect they may be fishing to for sesssenence as well. But you know, there’s there’s more places out there that you can get out. But it is a tough transition.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it’s cool that you’re you’re making it happen though. You know, one of my consistent grapes, especially during the beginning half of the year here, is how in my belief system, any elected official who has experienced public lands and what they can provide would not be in the business of selling them off. And it’s that lack of connection. So you know, it’s important to me that even though the fishing may not be great, you’re still making it happen here and there.

00:12:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you still you still get to see the osprays, You get to see those little leather back turtles. I don’t know what species they are, but they hang out on the rocks a lot. You might get to see bald eagle or two. That makes it all worth it for me, and I need that time when I’m out here, if i’m if I’m here long enough to be able to enjoy a trip out there. It’s really important. And you know what, I’ve been trying to take my staff out there too. You know, the the Anacostia River, which is which is here as well, makes for some great cat fishing. And in fact, you know, I took one of my staff members out there just recently and we were we’re catfishing out.

00:13:19
Speaker 3: On a little boat dock.

00:13:21
Speaker 2: And the next actually within a couple of weeks, one of my other staffers said, hey, you know, i’d really love to go.

00:13:28
Speaker 3: Can somebody take me fishing?

00:13:30
Speaker 2: And she actually, you know, she works on her public lands portfolio. She’s also a vegetarian. She’s okay with me saying this, and so I said, are sure you want to go cat fishing? And she caught her first catfish just a few days ago. So this might just become a ritual or write a passage for anyone who’s employed in our office.

00:13:49
Speaker 1: So that’s one of the things that we connected on here is there’s this article with the very catchy headline congressman’s dirty eating habits I could jeopardize path to the majority for Democrats.

00:14:07
Speaker 3: That’s hilarious.

00:14:08
Speaker 1: That’s pretty weighted comment there.

00:14:10
Speaker 3: You know, it’s it’s hilarious.

00:14:12
Speaker 2: Because I you know, I look at where I come from, or catfishing to us is a tradition. I mean, it’s part of who we are because you know, many people in the south and the Southwest, you know, where we have warm waters New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, catfishing isn’t looked down upon. Catfish aren’t dirty fish.

00:14:31
Speaker 3: They make for really good eating. And so you know, that’s just how we grew up.

00:14:35
Speaker 2: And so not everyone might understand that, you know, on the East coast or or even up north. But I’m proud that not only did I get started fishing on catfish, but but I still enjoy it today.

00:14:45
Speaker 3: You know, it brings back good memories.

00:14:47
Speaker 2: And by the way, I think you and I talked about this a little bit too, there are some some lunkers out there. Wow, in the Potomac. I mean, look at what guys like earning the hawk snatcher pulling out of that river with in city limits. You know, you see the Washington Monument back and then somebody pulling out a sixty pound blue catfish.

00:15:08
Speaker 3: There’s truly some monster fish in there.

00:15:10
Speaker 2: So it’s you know, if you get out there and you find those opportunities it’s really cool, and so you know they they’ll try. As a politician, look, they’ll attack you for just about everything. You can’t blink, you can’t take a step forward or backwards without somebody criticizing you for it.

00:15:26
Speaker 3: But that’s the job that we take.

00:15:27
Speaker 2: And if they’re going to hit me on calf fishing, then I’ll probably defend that every day of the week.

00:15:33
Speaker 1: Earnie the Hogsnatcher slowly becoming a national hero here by the way, God just fishes. I love it.

00:15:39
Speaker 3: Yeah it is.

00:15:42
Speaker 1: I know we’re tight on time, which is my fault, but what we have roadless rule right now. One thing that hasn’t like quite hit the presses is the fact that the Ryan Sammarad, the lead attorney for the defense side the Missouri fur on the Corner Crossing case, they just submitted their brief to the United States Supreme Court yesterday and we’re gonna now it’s kind of like in their hands as to whether or not they’re going to hear the Corner Crossing case. But New Mexico it’s relevant because New Mexico is within the tenth surcit And I haven’t looked specifically on on X but I can imagine there probably are some like corner locked lands within a district that big in New Mexico.

00:16:38
Speaker 3: Oh, there’s there’s a lot.

00:16:40
Speaker 2: There’s quite a bit and effect I was, you know, before I got this job, I was out with my Onyx app with my hunting buddies right that I hoe down in Deming and we were mapping out some of these corner crossing areas by ourselves so that we could talk to the State Land Office. You know, New Mexico looks maybe a little bit in terms of the challenges that we have then places like Wyoming. But we do still have a lot of checker boarded land. But what we’ve seen in New Mexico is that a lot of folks have made some backroom deals with the State Land Office to you know, purchase these different little strips of property that essentially, you know, prevent the access to thousands of acres of federal land. I fought a big fight at a place called the Phelips Canyon Road in a very conservative county. This was in Chavis County near Roswell, New Mexico, and asked some of the best barbary sheep hunting and some pretty good elk hunting out there as well, and this guy, essentially, you know, he wanted to have a county road vacated so that we’d lose access to about seven thousand acres of blm land. And you know, we brought together hunters and anglers of all political stripes. We went into that county commission meeting. We said, you cannot vacate this road because you were essentially given seven thousand acres to a private and and.

00:18:00
Speaker 3: We think that might be against the anti donation clause.

00:18:03
Speaker 2: It’s a lot that we have here in the state of New Mexico, and not just that, but this is where our kids hunt, you know, and Barbari sheep hunting out in that country is a big deal. And so we were actually able to stop the vacation of that road. Now, that was about ten years ago, and that was when I was working at the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. So we have those access issues here all across New Mexico. They may look a little bit different, but I think in general, look when we look at purposeful intent to limit access to the public, and when private landowners have essentially public land playgrounds that they market. You know, we’ve seen these real estate ads that are out there that basically say, you know, not only are you buying a you know, ten thousand acre ranch, but you’ve got another fifteen thousand acres to hunt on. And the way that E plus and A plus are set up here in the state of New Mexico is that you know, you can essentially sell those out tags, those private tax or analyot tags for ten twelve thousand dollars and you have exclusive access just for you and your clients to both hunt on your private property and your public property. So I know there’s been a lot of work done on that, and I think this case in particular, look whether it goes with a Supreme Court and successful or not, I think this fight that is ongoing is really important for us to have this conversation about what public land access looks like. And one of my missions here in Congress is actually we’re working on some legislation now is to figure out how to open up more landlocked public land across the country and to be able to have the purchasing power not through just LWCF, but also the support of the Department of Interior, so that if we are all in agreement and a bipartisan agreement that landlocked public land does is no good unless you have a helicopter that we should move forward in an aggressive way to figure out how we can unlock the these lands. And so I can’t tell you what the Supreme Court is going to do on this case. I can’t tell you what the impacts will be. I’m not a lawyer. I do know that, you know, for for myself, you know, I obviously would like to have a successful ruling on this case that that confirms the lower Court’s ruling. But in the in this in the case that we don’t, it will be a setback. But I think that’s when we really turn on the gas and and say, if it is the mission of the Department of Interior in this administration and by partisan agreement, that we need to open up more landlocked lands, then let’s figure out a way to do that. And I’ll say I have a bill to do that. So we’re gonna we’re going to continue to work on that and hopefully roll it out soon and hopefully it’s something that this bipartisan Public Lands Caucus can support too, which is something I started with with Representative Zinki and we’re kind of working on, you know what pieces of legislation we’re going to center around this caucus.

00:20:57
Speaker 1: Well, well that’s exciting to hear, so please please let us know, get us on the press list if when you’re ready to roll that language out. Yeah, and you said the word intent, and it’s from the very beginning of this particular issue getting national interest. It’s like most things, just a little more complicated than the headlines lead people to believe. And quite unfairly, every landowner gets lumped in with the bad actors who have the intent to lock up public ground from the public, which is unfair. And the intent on an access seeker side actually has a huge amount to do with this particular case where according to the Unlawful Enclosures Act, if your intent is to go from public ground to public round, that that’s actually what matters. And obviously, you know we have bad actors on the hunting side of things too that could take advantage of some of this. So, in my opinion, it does need It’s not going to be perfectly cut and dry. Even if the Supreme Court weighs in in what I’m going to say is our favor in the public access favor, it’s going to need a little more structure guardrails to you know, ensure private property rights that we hold deer in this country are are upheld well and respectively as but it should be on the same status and tier as the public access seeker.

00:22:56
Speaker 3: That’s my soapbox. No, I think you’re right.

00:22:59
Speaker 2: I don’t think we want and you know, thousands of people out there with step ladders going over pasture fences across the West.

00:23:07
Speaker 3: I don’t think that’s the intent of opening up these opportunities.

00:23:11
Speaker 2: I think it really just highlights a larger, larger issue that to your to your point, needs more structure, it needs it needs a way for us to responsibly access those lands. And and you know that that may force some negotiations between private landowners and and uh, you know, departments of Wildlife and Game and fish and those kinds of things, or some rulemaking, whether that’s at the state level or at the federal level. But I agree with you, I don’t think we want to also create an unecessary burden the public to private landowners. And you know, I know firsthand private landowners contribute to such important habitat work, and and you know I’m a I’m a private land rights guy in that sense, but I’ve also just like there’s bad actors on our side, there’s bad actors on their side too, and so we’ve got to come to a consensus of how we solve some of these complex issues.

00:24:02
Speaker 1: You brought up, Lwcful. We could talk about the Secretarial Order three four four two that just came out, but I know there’s also a lot of implications in your district regarding the Roadless Rule and yeah, the yeah, you know the recision of that.

00:24:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, the roadless Rule. This one’s really important to me.

00:24:26
Speaker 2: The Roadless Rule protects seven hundred and thirty thousand acres in the Heala National Forest. And you know, you think about our conservation legacy, the nation’s first wilderness, the legacy that Aldo Leopold left behind, and also a place that is wholly in my district, and it’s it’s where I go to find peace and where I go to fish and camp and you know, take my family out there and go sit in the hot springs. I mean, you name it. It’s a special place for me. And part of the reason is that it is. It is remote, it is remarkable, it is rugged, and you got to work. You got to work to find those special places. It’s not like you know a national park where you can drive into a visitors center and you know, buy a couple of goodies and go on a trail and make your way.

00:25:09
Speaker 3: It’s it’s really a remote and beautiful place.

00:25:11
Speaker 2: And so I think the truth is, like any other forest, you know, we have to have adaptive management for things like wildfire suppression, and the twenty twelve Forest Rule that many forests are implementing, including the HeLa, allow for that, which means that you can you can change certain management conditions on the ground on the fly, depending on things like changing climate, extended drought, you know, wildlife corridors, and you know, different things that come along the way. So these new forest plans aren’t as rigid as they were before, and many of them hadn’t been updated for twenty thirty years. And so when we see the impacts of things like overloaded fuels with recent fires in the HeLa like the trapped fire and the blackfire, I do agree that we have to do something to help clear some of that deadwood to reduce that fuel load.

00:26:03
Speaker 3: But the roadless rule is not the answer for that.

00:26:06
Speaker 2: You know, we’ve got a dedicated set for service staff and volunteers out there that are doing that work, prescribe burns every year.

00:26:13
Speaker 3: But you know, truth be told, cal we don’t have enough of them.

00:26:16
Speaker 2: We need adequate staffing levels at the Force Service and other land management agencies to put a debt in our fuel load. And when it comes to timber harvesting, you know the market and the volume, at least in places like the Hila, they just aren’t there, and as I suspect that they’re not there in other national forest But this is being used as the principal reason to repeal the rule. And so there are opportunities for partnerships already and contracts that help produce things like biofuel and other niche products in certain parts of the country that partner with local businesses that are for profit. And so we should really think about how we can support world communities, in forced bedroom communities in particular that can benefit economically from things like for thinning.

00:27:01
Speaker 3: But I think.

00:27:01
Speaker 2: Reviving a wholesale timber industry under the guise of repealing the world this rule is just not going to happen.

00:27:07
Speaker 3: It doesn’t make sense for a place like the Hila.

00:27:09
Speaker 2: So I’m a sponsor of the Roadless Worldless Area Conservation Act and I’d encourage anyone listening to contact your members of Congress invite them to join that bill as a co sponsor as well.

00:27:21
Speaker 1: Roadless Area Conservation Act. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that one, because it’s honestly not on my radar. I will tell you I’d met with two one retired for a supervisor last night and one active for a supervisor last night, and this was obviously the topic. So my research it essentially says that.

00:27:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, it essentially codifies the rule. That’s basically what it does.

00:27:49
Speaker 2: So it makes it a congressional law rather than administrative rule making.

00:27:55
Speaker 1: Okay, it you know, my research says that the roadless rule recision just simply cannot be about timber because even the timber companies are saying this isn’t going to make economic sense.

00:28:12
Speaker 3: That’s right.

00:28:13
Speaker 1: So, yeah, some of that mitigation work that you’re talking about, it does employ people. It is largely like physical manual labors still in a lot of places, especially that steep, nasty stuff, and there are some economic benefits to get some of that stuff going. But that that domestic board foot lumber scenario from everyone I’ve talked to, that is not going to happen.

00:28:45
Speaker 3: No, I don’t think it is.

00:28:47
Speaker 2: And you know, I recently met with a bunch of employees at the Forest Service.

00:28:52
Speaker 3: Some of them are about to be riff. They’re about to lose their jobs.

00:28:56
Speaker 2: And they had just come many of them working from other industries, and honestly, a lot of them had gone through a bunch of tough times in their life.

00:29:06
Speaker 3: They came from Arizona, from Colorado.

00:29:09
Speaker 2: Some of them were, you know, they’re having personal issues and they wanted to go out in the forest.

00:29:14
Speaker 3: They wanted to work.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: Hard, and they said the saddest thing about losing their jobs and they were doing maintenance, you know, trail work, thinning work, that kind of stuff. So the hardest thing about losing this job is that this was the answer for me when I needed most in my life.

00:29:30
Speaker 3: And I don’t make a lot of money.

00:29:32
Speaker 2: I can barely get by, but being out here every day and doing this work is so important to me or important to me and my families.

00:29:39
Speaker 3: You know, some folks bring their kids and their families down, and that.

00:29:43
Speaker 2: Was heartbreaking because there’s not a lot of people in this country that want to do that work. You know that the amount of physical strenuous labor that you got to do, and in remote areas in the case of the Hila, you know, we got a huge chunk of wilderness. So nobody’s picking you up in the for service truck. You’re you’re walking in and walking out for miles on end. So you know, we need more of those folks. It’s gainful employment and rural communities. Those folks buy local homes, you know, they go to local businesses.

00:30:12
Speaker 3: We need more of that, not less of that. Yeah.

00:30:15
Speaker 1: The one of the things that really got glossed over during the early uh dose days is, Uh, every industry has has some bums, has some folks that aren’t shouldering the load. But in this particular industry, Uh, there’s a hell of a lot of people that are real civil servants and they’re they’re working out there for us, for for you and me, just as much as they are for themselves.

00:30:48
Speaker 3: That’s right, And uh, you’ve.

00:30:50
Speaker 1: Got to figure out a way to celebrate those folks and lift them up and not concentrate on again the the what I believe is the vast, vast minority who they’re not good at that job, and they weren’t good at the job they had before.

00:31:10
Speaker 3: So that’s right, that’s right.

00:31:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you so much, Congressman for sharing some time with us today. And you did a good job of not talking about any specific honey holes there in the DC area, so we’re not going to add to the overcrowding side of things, but it’s good to know that there’s some opportunities out there as well.

00:31:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I encourage any of my colleagues or anybody who comes and works in Washington. You know, it’s a little bit out of the way. There’s a ton of traffic on all these freeways. It’s kind of a heading to get out there, but it’s totally worth it. And I’m learning, you know, when I go out about new ecosystems, neat birds, new species, new places to visit, and it can really help cool down your internal temperature of the politics of Washington, d C.

00:32:01
Speaker 3: And I think hopefully we’ll get to do a little bit more of that here.

00:32:05
Speaker 2: You know, I’m part of the Congressional Sportsman’s Caucus and you know, put together this Public Lands Caucus, so you know, more and more folks are reaching out to me now than tell me about some of those spots, and I’m grateful for them, so keep it coming because I’m gonna be here.

00:32:18
Speaker 3: For a while.

00:32:19
Speaker 2: So thank you so much, Kyle. Appreciate everything that you do and look forward to seeing you soon

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