Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring Backcountry Hunters & Anglers

The bitter tide of privatizing public lands and waters is rising fast across America. Only the actions of quietly heroic citizens can stop it.
Nobody who hunted and fished the Cutoff wanted to tell the world about it. The Cutoff is also known as Creslenn Lake, a twelve-mile stretch of what used to be the Trinity River (it was “cut off” by a long-ago flood control project) between Navarro and Henderson Counties about an hour and half south of Dallas, Texas. The Cutoff has been a locals’ top destination for crappie fishing, duck hunting, jug lining and just enjoying this wild corner of Texas, through multiple generations (check out the Save the Cutoff Facebook page for the comments).  Nobody dreamed that one day, a local landowner would simply declare the miles of public water his own fiefdom, hiring guards, closing roads, building illegal fences and excavating -- also illegally -- thousands of yards of dirt to block any hope of access. This is a David versus Goliath story, a battle fought on behalf of us all, by a very small band of hardworking rural Texans who simply will not lay down and take it.
Learn more:
https://www.backcountryhunters.org/local_outdoorsmen_rally_to_save_the_cutoff
https://www.facebook.com/p/Save-the-cut-off-100078227846990/
https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/east-texas-cutoff-trinity-river-land-dispute/
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BHA. THE VOICE FOR OUR WILD PUBLIC LANDS, WATERS AND WILDLIFE.
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Tony Jones, host of the Reverend Hunter podcast, and author of The God of Wild Places: Rediscovering the Divine in the Untamed Outdoors and eleven other books, outdoor writer, hunting mentor, guide in the Boundary Waters, father of three, hunter, fisherman, seeker.
When Tony Jones was growing up, all he ever wanted was to know and preach the Gospel, and to one day have his own church and congregation. He accomplished that goal, beyond his wildest dreams. He was a star in the pulpit, and as a scholar, with degrees from Dartmouth, from Fuller Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from Princeton’s Theological Seminary. He wrote influential books (including The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life) and lived an orderly life of service, study, scholarship and meditation, in a quiet home with his wife and children. But life is not orderly. As Tony writes in his blistering and thought-provoking journey The God of Wild Places, we are nature, and nature is unruly, unpredictable and beautiful in its ruthlessness. Join us, for an interview and a conversation about losing faith, and finding it again, in the whirlwind of the natural world. 
More about Tony: https://reverendhunter.com/

Michigander Mark Kenyon is the host of the Meateater podcast Wired to Hunt, and the author of the definitive book on the American public lands, That Wild Country. Mark is at work on another book about the future of American conservation, and the hunting and fishing that do not exist without it. He’s also hunting and fishing and gardening, raising outdoor kids with his wife, and establishing himself as one of our country’s leading voices in conservation, public lands and the outdoors.  Mark has a concrete plan to put conservation back in the foundation of hunting and fishing, and he outlines it right here- don’t miss this conversation.

A conversation with Jonathon Gassett, Ph.D., former Commissioner of Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, Southeastern Representative of the Wildlife Management Institute, National Conservation Leadership Institute and Patrick Berry, former Director of Vermont fish and Wildlife Department and CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
“Those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it.” Why does the US and Canada have a tradition of public hunting and wildlife conservation based on the public ownership of wildlife? Why don’t we hunt elk in fenced enclosures in Wyoming, as many hunt whitetails in Texas? Why are we not like Scotland, where hunters pay to stalk red deer on huge private estates? How about South Africa, where almost all “hunting preserves” are high fenced? Why do we have what we have? Why is it imperiled from all sides right now? 
Political attacks on Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration funds from the right, ballot initiatives to ban mountain lion hunting and take away the authority of wildlife biologists from the left. The wholesale dismantling of state fish and game agencies by both left and right. Scorn for the public trust. Hunting and the conservation upon which it is based is under massive fire from all sides, and from a growing apathy and indifference of masses of Americans who don’t have access to it, and so don’t understand or care about the careful stewardship of wildlife and fisheries that created a miracle of restoration almost 100 years ago. Today’s podcast episode is a conversation with experts at a time of crisis.

20 Years of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers with Ben Long and Patrick Berry
Ben Long is a founding board member of BHA, the author of the Hunter and Angler’s Guide to Raising Hell, and a lifelong hunter-conservationist of the old breed. Ben came to Rendezvous this year to meet with new BHA CEO Patrick Berry of Vermont and help chart a course for the future of the most dynamic hunter and angler conservation organization in history.  Join us as Hal, Patrick and Ben look back at the origins of BHA, the people, the fire, and the issues, and revel in the memories of where we’ve been and celebrate where we’re headed.
Recorded live at the BHA Rendezvous in Minneapolis.

Alabama’s iconic Coosa River was recently named America’s fifth most endangered river. It’s vast watershed, all 280 miles of tributaries and lakes, begins in the mountains of north Georgia and flows south through the very heart of Alabama. The Coosa, like so many American rivers today, faces intense pollution from industrial-scale poultry production and other agricultural runoff, as well as an array of other threats. The Coosa is also one of Alabama’s most popular rivers for fishing, powerboating, kayaking and swimming. To clean it up, and keep it that way in the face of everchanging and growing challenges, the river needs tireless defenders who can be out on the water, day after day, mile after mile, in every season. Join us today to meet one of them, award-winning Coosa Riverkeeper Justinn Overton, born and raised on the rivers of Alabama, an outdoorswoman, hunter, forager, and a fierce advocate for the waters of her home.