In this episode of Sportsman Colorado, Scott Whatley invites listeners on an engaging journey from recapping a lively event at Big Horn Firearms to diving into the intricate world of firearm legislation. Ryan Resch of Big Horn Firearms shares the joys and challenges of running a firearms business, especially in light of changing regulations. The show starts with an exciting announcement about an adventure-packed upcoming episode and then eases into stories of community gatherings featuring tacos and tattoos. As regulatory landscapes shift, the conversation delves into the impact on both store operations and customer experiences. Ryan candidly talks about
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado, Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here’s your host, Scott Whatley.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome to Sportsman Colorado. Thank you so much for joining us. We are glad you are with us. Hey, next week, join us. Real quick programming note. Kevin Flesch and I just returned from Pelican, Alaska with our friends at the Wild Alaskan Lodge. Next week, we’ll be playing some interviews that we did while we were on location there. And telling you all about our trip. It was so much fun. Caught a lot of fish, but I’ll just leave it there so we don’t spoil anything for next week. So make sure you join us next week for that. Again, the Wild Alaskan Lodge, it is self-guided. uh they take care of you on everything but hey you go out in the morning with the boat hit the ocean and it’s your day see alaska your way so uh it’ll be a fun show and i hope you’ll join us but today we’re going to kick it off with our good buddy ryan resh big horn firearms we were over there a few weeks ago a big day on a saturday and that ryan had some special things going on so first of all welcome back ryan how are you
SPEAKER 05 :
great to be here i’m doing doing well good man that was a fun day a few weeks ago i can’t remember what date that was now it seems man time flies so much but uh oh man a lot of a lot of fun a lot of people showed up yeah yeah we had a really great turnout uh we had our friends from uh q and uh black canyon systems out at the store hanging out we had a taco truck and gave away some cool raffle items and had an awesome turnout. I don’t know. I’d say we had well over 100 people in and out throughout the day because I think we did 70-something plates off the taco truck. So that’s how many people ate.
SPEAKER 09 :
A lot of people think, you know, eating tacos off a truck, you don’t know the people. But I’m telling you, that was good food.
SPEAKER 05 :
Super good, high-quality, authentic. They’re one of our go-tos. They’re actually – have a truck that’s parked in the liquor store parking lot around the corner from us at the intersection of Holly and Evans. And they’re set up there every day. And so we frequent the truck on a regular basis a couple times a week at least. And they’ve just been always on point. And I felt like having them come out and cater to the event, the food was even better. tastier and fresher they definitely cooked up a special uh batch and menu just for the event which was really cool so Everybody seemed really satisfied with that. I’ll tell you, dude, I was shocked.
SPEAKER 09 :
Now, we had tacos and tattoos.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. We did have our friend Spencer out there. And I was shocked.
SPEAKER 09 :
I walked in there. There were like eight people in line to get tattoos at your store.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah. I think we definitely had a friend out there doing some tattoos, and it was a good turnout for that as well. Yeah. I think everything was, you know, per health code.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, I sat in there and watched a bit because I’ve never been brave enough to do that, to be quite honest with you. And I watched him do a few. No, he was super.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah. No, he was. I just don’t know if we needed a permit for that or something. So hopefully, you know, nobody from the city is listening. And we won’t be doing that again in the future. Absolutely not. Exactly.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
I was telling you this before we came on air. I don’t know what it is about your client base, but, man, every year over these last two or three years we’ve been doing this show and coming out there, man, just the nicest people. I mean, they hang out for hours there.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, we’ve got great customers. I think it says a lot about what we’re doing over there. We tend to attract the people that are truly interested and passionate about firearms on the community level of it. Yeah. for whatever reason it may be, whether it’s purely for recreation, competitive shooters, just fanboys or whatever, people who just really just love being around the gear and the people that love the gear. So it’s cool. I mean, I met a lot of new people who came out because they just saw that we were doing this event, they hadn’t been to the store yet. And this was the reason for them to come out and check us out. So, you know, I got to meet a lot of new people and then see a lot of very familiar faces, uh, throughout the day. And, uh, yeah, it was just no drama, just a good time. Everybody was chill, just relaxing. The Q guys were phenomenal. They were extremely knowledgeable on the product. Um, I mean, I, I sat in and just kind of in passing caught a couple of conversations and they were going into into deep detail on on um production methods and things like that so and they were very aware of who their audience was too so you know they could tell if somebody was like you know understanding what they were what so they were talking to them about and then they would maybe you know they could take it to whatever level yeah to meet that customer yeah absolutely and it was really cool to see that um it was very casual very laid back those guys have just a great attitude and a great approach to, um, informing the customers about, you know, why their products are, are the best. Um, you know, we, we got a lot of good content that day. We had our friends out, uh, from black Canyon systems and, uh, it’s more of a like apparel lifestyle company. They’re locally based, uh, Colton and, uh, Devin are like kind of the main, uh, characters there. And, uh, They were out there interacting with the crowd. They brought a lot of fans and customers out to the event as well. It was really cool to see. Those guys are really goofy. They have a good time. They like to just joke around quite a bit, and it comes off. It’s always well-received by everybody, and it was just fun to have them there. And then, you know, staff was on point that day, you know, just hanging out, getting people taken care of, as always. I mean, those guys are always great.
SPEAKER 09 :
And your counters were loaded pretty much all day, dude.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. There were people there all day. Yeah, yeah. It was a fantastic turnout. We’d had some really good sales that day. And, you know, it wasn’t just about that, but, you know, it’s always nice when you do an event like that to, like, you know uh have a good sales day as well on top of it so we kind of had a cause a mission you were kind of donating some money yeah yeah that was uh um a seals foundation uh they they were uh basically uh recommended through the guys from q it was somebody that they had worked with uh previously but we wanted an extra way for people to get more raffle tickets so if you could donate money uh to the foundation you could spin the wheel, um, of chance again to see how many more raffle tickets you may win. So there, it was cool. We, we basically, everybody who showed up had a free mode of entry. You got to spin the wheel if you showed up and, uh, you got your, uh, whatever tickets the wheel dealt you out. And then, uh, you got your free tacos. And then we had a list of other ways of like making purchases or donating money to be able to spin the wheel additional, uh, additional times and get more tickets. So, yeah, it was great. We had some. Incredible giveaways. We gave away a fix, 8.6, 12-inch pistol, Q silencer, which Scott won. After one of our regular customers won both grand prizes. Yeah, he won both. So he got to choose one or the other. Between the gun or the suppressor, yeah. Yeah, it was something we had kind of predetermined that, like, hey, you know, this has happened at our events before. Yeah. You know, some people get a little bit sour when somebody takes the whole cake. But I don’t know. I was kind of on the fence about how we were going to do that. My thing was like, hey, it’s a raffle. It’s a raffle. You win the thing. You take it all. You take it all. It’s just how the game of chance is played.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I had 15 tickets and actually got drawn for three different deals.
SPEAKER 05 :
You did. I know.
SPEAKER 09 :
I couldn’t believe it.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, our raffles always seem to turn out that way where we have, and I mean, it’s just completely random. I’m in there mixing the bucket around the whole time. My hand just apparently sticks to tickets that are for regular customers. Uh, I even had Colton, uh, grab some tickets out. I had, uh, Cole from Q pull a couple of the prize tickets and it was all, you know, our best regulars. Um, and Scott, you are a regular too. So it works out that way. It’s, it’s a lot of fun. Everybody was cool with it. Um, Shane who won both grand prizes, he was totally cool with, uh, choosing between a silencer and a fix, uh, q fix rifle or pistol sorry and uh he did choose choose the pistol and so we redrew on the silencer and scott pulled that one so yeah it was it was cool day a lot of fun um you know great people great food tattoos it was cool we’ll let you know when they’re going to be doing that again if you’re just joining us ryan rush is with us he’s the owner of bighorn firearms 2175
SPEAKER 09 :
South Jasmine Street in Denver. Celebrating 13 years. Yeah. Wow. So looking back, were there a few of those years along the way? Like, man, I don’t know if we can do this. Or has it always been like every year you just kept believing and kept grinding?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I’m a glutton for punishment. So, you know, if it’s not a challenge, I get bored pretty quickly. Yeah. this was a huge challenge, a lot of different, uh, junctures along the way, but you know, I’m not definitely, uh, not a quitter by blood. And, uh, that’s just kind of how it goes, man. You know, it’s not always easy, but you just keep on. And if it’s something that you’re truly passionate about, you’ll overcome the hard times and, uh, and you’ll get to reap, uh, reap the harvest down the road, you know, and, uh, and really it’s just better, easier times, simple times. But like I said, I, you know, if it’s not challenging, then I get bored. So I just tend to find out how to make it challenging again. And so I just kind of just, uh, live through the cycle of, um, you know, really hard times and really great times. And then I kind of set myself up for hard times again, because you know, I like to just grow the company and reinvest and, you know, figure out what’s the next thing that, you know, people are after that they want to see in the store, the next evolution that they want to see of the store. So, you know, right now we’re, just working through all the new regulations and stuff.
SPEAKER 09 :
Um, a lot of them say that our political, uh, scene has certainly delivered some of those challenges of late. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s, it’s been a lot different than it was, uh, you know, it, it from day one to day, you know, year 13, you know, we’ve seen a lot of evolutions in, uh, regulations and, and, uh, things that we have to do to, uh, you know, remain above board. And, uh, that’s, That’s just part of the challenge too.
SPEAKER 09 :
So what are the things right now that kind of affect – there’s a lot of things that affect you as a store owner and the store side, but what are the things that are affecting customers at this point?
SPEAKER 05 :
So some of the stuff we’ve been – getting comfortable with over the last six months, you know, the, uh, or longer, like the three day wait, you know, that’s still a thing, you know, it can, it can cause some issues, you know, where people, you know, they have to wait. So then they end up dragging their feet too long and maybe their background check expires and then they have to resubmit a background check and then wait another three days. You know, that’s something that we see. Somewhat often we try to, you know, stay up on that and make sure that people are getting notified that, hey, you know, your background checks can expire if you don’t make it down here in the next week or so. But, you know, that’s one thing that we see happen with the three day wait. You know, also, you know, people sometimes I’ve had, you know, folks come in and they’re feeling threatened or, you know, need help. feeling like they need to be able to protect themselves a lot like today. And that’s why they’re there, you know, and then they find out that they got to wait 72 hours and you got to send them out the door with pepper spray. Right. You know, I guess it’s better than nothing, but, you know, I’ve heard some kind of wacky things, you know, going on closer to like, you know, downtown and those areas, you know, where people are encountering, you know, vagrants and things like that in their back alleys by their garages or something like that and maybe they see something bad happening so they you know attempt to intervene by calling attention to a situation and then the people who are involved maybe now take note of who they are and so they become a target you know a couple different scenarios like that where You know, that three-day wait can be the difference between your safety and not. So concealed carry laws, July 1, that went into effect. So, you know, you need the full course. it went into effect July 1 but most people were you know having issues before that where they weren’t able to get appointments for applications you know as early as like May June you know mid May to early June people were no longer able to get scheduled get appointments for applications to submit their for their concealed carry permit and So they’re basically going to have to go take another course now unless the course was already satisfying the new requirements, which are eight hours with the additional testing and this, that, and the other thing. And then also 6.5% excise tax. Those are kind of all the things that you’re seeing from a consumer standpoint that are new if you’ve been doing this for a while. I would say… You know, there hasn’t been a lot of pushback. It’s not really stopping people. Because I know it’s not you. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
I mean, this is the last thing you wanted.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right, right. So, you know, people have, you know, been taking it with a grain of salt, man, and just kind of dealing with it. So we are still looking for somebody to partner with on the instructor side who offers the new course. It’s not something we’re offering in-house currently due to some, Um, you know, just, just staffing and things like that. It just wasn’t, uh, we were not in a position to offer it in house at the moment. So we are looking for, uh, potential partnerships with local instructors who are verified by Denver County. It is a county to county thing, too, which is making it kind of difficult because if you want to teach classes outside of a particular county, I believe you have to get verified in that county as well. So still just kind of navigating through all that stuff, and we’re hoping to be able to start offering concealed carry classes again maybe as soon as August or September is our hope. We are still offering the intro to pistol class, so for the new— the new gun owner um this is a great class for you to just get familiar with your pistol ask all the you know quote unquote you know dumb questions um but you know for a new uh gun owner i mean there’s i mean for anybody really when it comes to guns there’s no such thing as a dumb question uh we’re happy to answer and spend as much time with you as we can at the counter But if that doesn’t satisfy your needs, we do still offer the Intro to Pistol class, and you can sign up for that online at bighornfirearms.com. You know, and then everything else really is on a dealer level, the new stuff that we’re working with, you know, additional paperwork requirements, updating displays and fixtures, secure gun storage during business hours, things like that, you know, some kind of silly things that the— you know, state is requiring for us to maintain a valid gun store, gun dealer license here that’s now issued by the Department of Revenue. So, you know, just more, you know, government involvement in what we’re doing, which, you know, at the end of the day, if you’re in this business, yeah, it’s just more, it is more stuff and it’s more time consuming. It costs you more money to deal with it. But, You know, we’re used to paperwork, you know, we’re used to doing, you know, all this stuff for ATF. I don’t know really what the goal was here and how this accomplishes the goal of public safety.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I think they were hoping a lot of people would just give up. You know, it’s just too much hassle now. We’re going to get out of Colorado, and I think that’s what they were hoping. But from what I’ve seen, for the most part, most people have dug in and said, hey. And, of course, our big message here, even at today’s show, hey, continue to support your local family-owned gun dealer, man.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
You’re there for us when we need you, so we’re here to be there for you. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. I mean the, uh, we’re here to help you, uh, exercise your right to keep them bare arms. So, you know, uh, anything, uh, we can do for you. Just let us know, give us a call at the shop 303-758-9423, or just pop in during our normal business hours, uh, Tuesday through Friday, 11 to six and a Saturday from 10 to five. Uh, and, uh, And outside of business hours, you can shoot an email to info at bighornfirearms.com. Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
Ryan Resch is with us. As he mentioned, Bighorn Firearms is a store at 2175 South Jasmine Street. Now, we’ve all heard over the last few months a lot about the big, beautiful bill. All right. And there’s a lot of stuff in there. But a couple of interesting items for us as sportsmen and gun owners.
SPEAKER 05 :
Tell us about that. So they were trying to basically remove silencers. The initial goal was to remove silencers and SBRs and NFA items, just basically remove the NFA. And those particular items fall within NFA and require additional silencers paperwork, registration, and a tax of $200 per item. So, you know, if that would have passed in that form, and they would have removed the NFA, there was the potential for that to hurt us quite a bit here in Colorado, and potential for for gun owners in Colorado to no longer be able to purchase silencers because there would be no registration required. I don’t know that the bill changed because of pushback from states like Colorado because there’s a few other states or if they were having a hard time repealing the NFA. So what ultimately ended up happening is they reworded everything and they removed the tax or they reduced the tax to $0. Now, how do you have a $0 tax, right? So there could be potentially issues that come up down the road with a $0 tax because it is not really a tax. It’s $0. So I don’t know ultimately how things will play out long term.
SPEAKER 09 :
And we’ve still got six months because I think you said January 1 on that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. But as of now, there is a $0 tax and the $0 tax will start January 1 of 2026. So that’s great. You no longer have to pay $200 to get registered for a silencer. You still will be required to submit the paperwork and get an approval from ATF and have the item registered with the ATF. And this is a silencers. short-barreled rifles short-barreled shotguns and other uh destructive uh devices that fall in the aow category also uh transferable machine guns um which uh would have to be manufactured before 1986 for them to be a transferable machine gun legal to to be owned privately by any citizen who pays the tax stamp and gets an approval from ATF, registers the item and receives an approval from ATF. So now that’s great. A lot of people are like, well, I’ll just wait till January and I’ll buy a silencer then to avoid the $200 tax. Well, a lot of people are going to do that. And I anticipate… Huge demand. A huge demand come January 1. So limited product availability. You may see people… poaching or paying over MSRP through auction sites like gun broker or wherever, uh, online, um, you will also likely see longer wait times for approvals. So when ATF, uh, Okayed the e-forms process and announced 90-day turnaround times for silencer and Form 4 approvals. Mm-hmm. Um, what happened? There was a handful that took less than 90 days and then it got backlogged and everybody was taken nine months to 13 months. You’d see some come back sooner, maybe around six months, but average wait time was almost nine months. And that was when they promised 90 day approvals. Everybody surged and went and bought silencers cause they wanted a 90 day approval. So I would imagine come January, um, Everyone wants a free tax stamp, and we’re going to see wait times, I don’t know, potentially exceed the nine months. Now, this is just speculation.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, yeah, we don’t know.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is just based on things we’ve seen in the past. But, you know, if you want to get – we’re seeing approvals right now. We just had one today, 24 hours. Actually, it’s less than 24 hours. I submitted, certified this gentleman probably 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon yesterday. And he was approved this morning at 1030. Wow. I believe he even purchased his silencer yesterday. And we went from purchase to assignment to certification to approval in less than 24 hours. Unreal. So it’s still a great time to buy if you can afford the $200 tax stamp, you know. Sure. I don’t know. I’ve been kicking around some ideas of maybe doing a promo and maybe splitting the tax stamp or something like that, some way to get people excited about, well, at least I’m not paying $200 if Bighorn’s splitting the tax stamp with me. So stay tuned for something like that. Follow us on Instagram.
SPEAKER 09 :
If you mention Sportsman of Colorado, maybe.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah. Come in and mention Sportsman of Colorado. I’ll split the tax stamp with you. So it’ll be a $100 discount off your silencer of your choice. All right. Well, we’ll appreciate it. Yeah, we’ll start there, and we’ll see how it rolls. All right, cool.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, I do want to circle back because we talked about the 13-year deal, but you’ve got some special deals going on before we get out of here I want to mention.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so anniversary sale, 13 years. We are running that in-store this week through – the end of the day, close on Saturday, which is when you’re going to hear this. Right. But we will extend it through the end of July for Sportsman of Colorado listeners. Just come in and just say happy anniversary. All right, that’s the key word, happy anniversary. Yeah, happy anniversary. You’ll get the deal. Sportsman of Colorado, boom, you get the deal, which is 10% off guns, 15% off optics, and 20% off equipment. There are some excluded items, but we’re keeping it pretty limited on the exclusions. So just come in, you know, load up your shopping cart.
SPEAKER 09 :
I want to mention, I mean, a lot of times you see sales and, you know, people mark up prices to give a discount. But this is off your… What I would call your everyday low price that you put things on. It’s true discounts off of that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. We’re very competitive with pricing. If you ever see something that’s priced and it’s not competitive, let us know, and we will check our margins because things change. If an item’s not moving, we’re not keeping an eye on it. There might be a price drop on it that we’re just not tracking on, and if you see it somewhere else cheaper, let us know, and we’ll see what we can do about getting you price matched. Um, you know, we’re, we’re typically, I don’t know, five to 10% under MSRP. And then, uh, we do observe map with a lot of our product lines and that sort of thing. So we’re typically priced at map, uh, certain items. You may see us a little bit closer to MSRP, but it’s rare that we’re over MSRP. And if you see us over MSRP, then we probably made a mistake and we would appreciate you letting us know. Cause We want to get you the best price we possibly can. And the discounts do apply to the everyday low price. We’re not doing price adjustments to run a sale in our store.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, it’s Bighorn Firearms, 2175 South Jasmine Street. Hey, 13 years. So now is the time to save. And, again, normally this was scheduled to go through Saturday, the 12th. But, hey, since we’re just airing it today, Ryan is going to extend that through the end of the month for us. But you’ve got to mention Sportsman of Colorado. And before we get out of here, I just want to mention this. This is a big part of your business where people have some –
SPEAKER 05 :
guns no longer using or they got some gun collections they may want to move and that could be a collection of two guns or 20 guns or whatever they can come in and see you and talk to you about that yeah yeah just bring them in make sure they’re cased and unloaded if it’s more than a handful and you don’t want to haul them down without at least having an idea if we’re interested or not you can always call ahead or email me directly ryan at bighornfirearms.com send me a And if you’ve got a list, great. But a couple pictures usually kind of gives me a general idea, and I can let you know if it’s something we’re either interested in purchasing or doing consignment on. So we do have that option as well. But, yeah, just reach out, and we’ll get the ball rolling on that. We’d like to help you out and have you get those guns moved on down the road in a legal fashion. So we can definitely help you with that. And we’re also available to come out to you if need be. So just reach out first, and we’ll get the ball rolling.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, sounds good. Ryan, appreciate your time.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, thanks, Scott. Good to see you, man. And thank you, Denver, for 13 years of support. There’s 13 more, man. This has been great, yeah. Looking forward to it. All right.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s Bighorn Firearms. Get by and see them now. 2175 South Jasmine Street. And once again, 10% off on firearms, 15% off optics, and 20% off ammo through the end of July. But you’ve got to mention Sportsman of Colorado. We’ve got to hit a quick break, and we’ll be back with more right after this.
SPEAKER 04 :
If you’re in the market for a new rifle for the big game season, or a new shotgun for some doves or upland game birds, head on over to The Gun Room. Kevin Flesch here from Sportsman of Colorado, inviting you to visit Denver’s oldest gun dealer. And that’s The Gun Room at 1595 Carr Street in Lakewood. They offer buy, trade, consignment, transfers, and appraisals. And if you purchase a gun, we’ll cover your background check fee. It’s The Gun Room, 1595 Carr Street. Tell them Sportsman of Colorado sent you.
SPEAKER 07 :
560-KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. Thank you so much for being with us. Hopefully you joined us last week. And we have a co-host here with us from the United Houndsman of Colorado. Cody is back. How are you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Good to be back. I’m doing good.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, man. Good to see you. And Dan Gates, Colorado’s responsible for wildlife management. and also the fame of Through the Gates podcast.
SPEAKER 02 :
It was more of a hangman’s noose than anything.
SPEAKER 09 :
Man, I should have worn one of my sweatshirts or something with your picture on it, dude. What am I going to do with all that stuff? Cody, yeah, does he make you wear that like once a week and send a picture? No, you know what we do? We dress up like dummies.
SPEAKER 10 :
You don’t have to dress very hard then, do you?
SPEAKER 09 :
Man, it was like the – Coffee mugs, sweatshirts.
SPEAKER 02 :
I didn’t – you know, okay, with all transparency here, Luke Weedle and Bob Thompson from Marketplace, who helped do our social media stuff for our shopping cart, I didn’t know we had a shopping cart. And I didn’t know we had shirts with my damn face on it until – Until I went home and my wife was wearing one. And I said, what the heck is that? And she was laughing. She said, well, Luke and Bob did that. And I said, who the heck is Bob? And she goes, well, he’s the guy running our shopping cart on the website. And I said, we have a shopping cart on the website? Does anybody discuss this?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, see, the beard made the sweatshirt and made the t-shirt. You know, it made a good look.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s a famous beard.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 09 :
I told him we should have bet him that, hey, if we win Prop 127, you’ve got to shave your beard. That’s what we should have done.
SPEAKER 02 :
I lost intentionally. Nobody wants to see my face.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, Dan. Hey, last week, you know, we had just a few minutes, and I asked you what are the biggest challenges facing us. So I want to move ahead a little bit to what’s on the agenda, what’s on the horizon, so to speak. And you’ve been talking a lot about a different initiative recently. um, that’s coming up. So tell us what’s going on.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. And I don’t want to bore anybody because politics is the least exciting, flashy object when it gets into hunting conversation. But, you know, Cody and I are currently working on the furbearer working group that was established under governor Polis’s commission. Um, and it’s an attempt to try to figure out a way to provide some sort of organic and holistic perspective on the way furbearers, the 17 species of furbearers are managed in the state of Colorado. You know, um, We don’t know how that’s going to turn out. We had our first meeting last week at 6060 Broadway, and it’s about a three or four or five month process. The rules of engagement haven’t completely been outlined yet. But at the same time, the Center for Biological Diversity, who is also on the working group, filed a petition, a citizen’s petition, before the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to ban the sale of fur-bearing animals, which means that if you were to harvest a coyote, you couldn’t sell the pelt, which they deem as unethical. and steps away from the North American model of wildlife conservation. It does not. It’s just that they read part of a paragraph to their particular liking. But if you look at a peer-reviewed study and listen to the authors of the North American model, which was… former, past Valerius Geist, current, still alive individual Shane Mahoney, John Organ. These people codified the model and the harvest of fur-bearing animals is in that and the market side of that is in that as well. Our adversaries want to continually talk about markets, markets, markets. Well, if you really stop and think about it, Scott, we still have markets for game. If you look at lobsters and if you look at a lot of the seabaring type stuff, there’s a market there, but it’s measured in an abundant management objective, just like fur-bearing animals. And the fur-bearing animals have been taken. And the reason I highlight that is because fur-bearing animals, including bobcats and mountain lions, which are not a fur-bearing animal, they’re classified as a big game animal. have been under the gun for quite some time because of the opinions or perspectives of individual groups and individuals themselves that none of that should be harvested in any way, shape, or form, which then starts to degrade and erode the model. The reason I bring it up in that order is because there’s a ballot initiative that’s being circulated right now. And last week, on Friday, June 27th, it went before the legislative council to try to codify that to go in front of the title board. Initiative 98 was previously Initiative 82, which was previously Initiative 52. So they’ve gone multiple times to go through this process. And the scope of that would create an individual non-binding commission and a division itself that if you read the language within that context of initiative 98 it could and intended on defunding and disbanding colorado parks and wildlife and give an unequivocal authority to this particular commission about keystone species about public and private land about the management of all of the species in the state of colorado about the habitat management It talks about oil and gas. It references water and conservation issues. They want to turn around and take every single thing that we have, even though Cody and I and you might not agree with all of the workings of what the commission does or CPW’s processes or procedures. at least we have a public process to be able to do so. This Initiative 98 will degrade and erode every single thing in Colorado when it comes to science-based wildlife management, the North American model, and the historical side of what Colorado Parks and Wildlife has done through 125 years of science-based wildlife management. If we’re allowing that to get on the ballot, that’s going to make… Proposition 127 looked like a Girl Scout cookie sale. That will be the worst thing that could possibly happen in Colorado history coming up to wildlife management. And if people are befuddled and misled and deceived through that entire process, we have a tough road to tow to turn around and try to stop that because their intent is to fund this through an original $5 million stipend from the General Assembly and then $150 million a year input from a sales tax that would be created that they could turn around and utilize for their benefit, for their wishes, their wants, and their desires. And there won’t be a damn thing that the sportsmen in Colorado or the ag community can do about it.
SPEAKER 09 :
And you know what? It seems like. It doesn’t take much on social media to ground it. It’s happening in a lot of states, isn’t it? Yes. I mean, everywhere. Cody, it is, isn’t it?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, absolutely. Not only with, you know, our state, but a lot of western states, right? Like there’s a lot of, you know, it’s not really a red or blue issue when it comes to wildlife management, but it seems to be more of the blue states that have a lot of, you know, folks that just aren’t maybe as engaged in that type of life and how this all works. And they’re easy to fool, right? So it’s a scary thing because you don’t know what you don’t know. And that’s on us to share that knowledge and explain, you know, like Dan has done so well over the last 10 years about understanding how these things are going to affect wildlife management in our states, what we can do about them.
SPEAKER 09 :
Now, Dan, I think you mentioned something before we started recording. There’s also something coming up with beavers.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, they’ve got a statewide beaver management plan that is being formulated around, which ironically, beavers are one of the top fur bearers, you know, when it comes to the original expansion of the West and the history. of fur-bearing management. We can’t talk about beavers during the fur-bearing management working group that we’re on because there’ll be a statewide beaver management plan working group that’s being formulated that we might or might not have a chance to be able to participate in. But the interesting thing about that, there’s supposed to be somewhere around 60 to 80 stakeholders. And I’m talking not stakeholders about harvest. I’m talking about stakeholders of trying to incorporate The ideology of a beaver being a keystone species, which I don’t disagree with, but it’s not going to change the entire environment in the state of Colorado by itself, like what people have alluded to that it’s done in Yellowstone or other wilderness areas in the western United States. Beavers are an intricate part of Colorado’s natural resources. However… What they want to do, a lot of these individuals, not everybody, but a lot of these individuals want to turn this state back into some sort of riparian area that beavers are going to solve all the state’s climate problems and drought issues. You snicker about that, but they believe that if we can turn around and move that direction, it’s going to be of significant benefit to all things. Well, it already is because of the restrictions or prohibitions that we have on beaver harvest because of 1996 Amendment 14. We don’t harvest beavers like what we used to. And I’m not saying that we should or shouldn’t, but with all realization, I run a nuisance wildlife control business. And there are times when beavers can be relocated. And there’s times when you could, but there’s no place to put them because there’s already beavers there. Or there’s places that you could put them, but it’s not suitable enough habitat. The way we harvest beavers in the state of Colorado now on the avocational side versus the nuisance or damage side, all that information is being molded into a ball of clay to create a problem when there is none. And if you get 60 or 80 stakeholders in a room together to talk about their particular versions of what beavers can or can’t do, I’ll just say this. We need to turn around and get rid of 5.9 million people and 84 million visitors in the state of Colorado because beavers can’t do what they historically did because we have the interaction. The ecosystem includes almost 6 million people. It’s a different landscape than what it was 350 years ago. And what we are doing now is managing an abundant wildlife resource in a very meticulous way with the carnivore and furbearer management side of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. And still, somebody is not happy with the way it’s done, so they want to undermine it and circumvent it for their particular liking.
SPEAKER 09 :
Sure. Dan addresses a lot of these things. How often do you do your podcast?
SPEAKER 02 :
We’re doing four, well, we call them four short versions a month and two longs, but it seems like we’ve got six longs. Six longs, okay. What we try to do, and we’re trying to do some stuff that’s shorter to where it’s a little bit more palatable to the individual to digest in 15 or 20 or 30 minutes. But some of the guests that we have on, you’re just some really, really top-notch people, some really good individuals. You know, Martin Launey with Wildlife Services or Jeremiah Wilber with the War Party Movement. And, you know, we had Wilmore Corbett Davis tent on. We’ve got some really good guests, but it’s all circular to wildlife management, even though we try to get into each an individual background. You know, we’ve had Cody on. We’ve had Christine Kepin on. People that live and breathe the Western traditional heritage style lifestyle and that are intricate on the agricultural side or the wildlife side as well.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, it’s Through the Gates. And I guess anywhere you can get your podcast, you can find it.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’ve got YouTube. If you just can’t get enough of seeing us, you can always watch it on YouTube. And if you just want to listen to us and shut it on and off, you can turn it on and do that on about any of the platforms or formats that are available.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, cool. All right. Hey, we talked about this last week. I want to touch on these again. Hey, a couple of great deals coming up. 1st, August 2nd. That is going to be at the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. This is for the United Houndsmen of Colorado. You can get tickets at the door. You can get tickets online, unitedhoundsmenofcolorado.com. And it’ll start at 5, I believe you said?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep, 5 p.m., Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. Okay. yeah fill us in on some of the details yeah yeah it should just be an awesome night you know these banquets they’re designed to be family fun right like bring your kids we got stuff set up for the kids we got games there’s prizes giveaways raffles auctions and it’s not just hunting related right there’s going to be something for everybody so uh it’s always a fun time and whether you’re a hunter or not come show up to not only our event but dan’s event uh and uh and support the cause yeah i know you’re going to have a live auction any couple of things we can
SPEAKER 09 :
tease the audience with a little bit?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I would love to tease, but we haven’t decided what’s going to be in the live auction yet or what’s just going to be a standalone. But yeah, regardless, there’s always cool stuff. You want to come win the gun of your dreams for a $5 raffle ticket? Well, that’s a good shot to do it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, that’ll work. That’ll work. And once again, hey, they work on memberships, and that’s how they help us, too. All right? Hey, $50 for an annual membership, $1,000 for a life membership. And I think there’s one I saw that was like $80 that – Is that an email type newsletter?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so we started something new this year to try to see if it would catch some traction, but like a reoccurring membership, right? So if a member wants to be like, well, I’ll buy a membership, but I want to keep contributing, we can do like a monthly deal. So that’s been something we’re just trying out. Yeah, cool.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, and then we’re going to Florence Park once again, or Pathfinder Park in Florence, I should say. And, boy, this is a great event. Been the last couple of years, Outdoorsman Days, August 8th and 9th, Coloradans Response for Wildlife Management. And a lot of groups in this, a lot of great, I’ll just mention a few here, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Western Hunt Fest. Davis Tent, our good friend Wilmar Court, and Muley Fanatics, SCI, Colorado Shed Company, a lot of great people here. And there’s going to be a lot of great speakers, seminars, demos from folks, training seminars, Dan. Fill us in a little bit on that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, some of the stuff that we did last year that took off so well, we’ve got the bird of prey demonstrations, which is kind of cool because it’s outside, but it’s undercover. We’ve got presentations that the United Houndsmen of Colorado will be doing on the utilization of dogs and hunting practices. The Rocky Mountain Big Game recovery guys that are there that typically do blood tracking for Gillespie, a lost or wounded game. And there’s about 30 demonstrations and seminars that will happen on two stages over the course of the two days, August 8th and 9th. And some of it will be video-oriented. Some of it’s just in person with demonstration. But you were there last year and saw a tremendous amount of, I mean, you’re watching this, but there’s a demo or seminar going on over there. I know.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s why I say you’ve got to come for the two days. I mean, there’s just so much going on.
SPEAKER 02 :
And we busted up to the point to where when people want to come, there’s something to keep the kids busy at some level if you just want to go sit and listen. And, you know, there’ll be bounce houses for the kids and gold panning and stuff and archery shooting and competitions and tomahawk throwing. And, you know, there’s vendors and demonstrations all day long, starting at nine o’clock on the morning of the 8th. And then when you go through that evening, when we have the big chuckwagon dinner, tickets for that are $30 a piece. But I say chuckwagon dinner. There were six chuck wagons last year that you could turn around and grab a ticket and go through each one or part of any one of those chuck wagons. These are the authentic things.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, dude, I’m telling you what. I mean, from attire to the pots and pans, utensils. Dude, I mean, you look like you were back in a Gunsmoke series.
SPEAKER 02 :
It was like if you wanted to reincarnate the Chisholm Trail to cattle drives.
SPEAKER 08 :
No doubt.
SPEAKER 02 :
This was it. And that and that same night on Friday, there’s a wild game calling contest that Guy DePlancy and his team with Western Hunt Fest are doing. There’s cash prizes for that and $1,500 of the cash prizes. Last year we had kids participating and young adults and novices. The interesting thing that we’ve thrown into that is because on the wild game calling contest, it’s the duck or the waterfowl guy against the turkey guy against the predator guy against the elk guy. And that’s hard for judges to judge. But when you got elk guys looking at the waterfowl guy going, well, it’s kind of hard to turn around because that guy sounded like a flock of geese coming in there. Yeah. You were there for that. Oh, I know. It was awesome. And so doing it a little bit different, a little bit different mix-up. But there’s camping on site. For more information for the banquet tickets and stuff, chuckwagon tickets, they can go to ColoradoOutdoorsmansDays.com. And as I always reference, they can still go to SaveTheHuntColorado.com as well because that’s a little easier to remember. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we’d love to have people. The banquet on Saturday night typically sells out 425 people. Last year we had 4,600 people that came through the gate, and the carloads are $5 apiece to get in. Spend a couple days there. There’s plenty of stuff to do, and if somebody wants to camp on site, they can do that as well for $20 a night. But they can bring their camper down. It’s dry camping, so you bring a generator or whatever. But this is a big event, and we turned it into something that people didn’t think that we were able to do, but… Last year’s efforts culminated with the banquet, and that’s what we’re going to do again this year. Yep.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’ll be awesome. That’s August 8th and 9th. And, hey, it will be a great time for sure. Go to ColoradoOutdoorsmanStays.com for more information. Tell you what, we’ve got to hit a quick break. When we come back, if you’re into any social media at all and podcasts with hunting and Dan’s through the gates, you’ve been seeing a lot about some land grabs going on. When we come back, we’re going to get into that a little bit more with Dan Gates and Cody Lostrom, Cody Lostra with United Houndsmen of Colorado. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
This is 560 KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. If you’re just joining us, Coach Lowe is with us. United Houndsman of Colorado, Dan Gates. Colorado is responsible for wildlife management. And, again, we’re going to push Dan’s podcast through the gates. Be sure and catch that. A lot of great information and true information that you’ll find on Dan’s podcast. Once again, that’s through the gates. All right, Dan, this whole public land thing going on, man. Again, if you get into a lot of different podcasts and social media posts, man, you don’t know who’s coming from what and what’s going on. So, man, I always like to tell people, hey, I promise you one thing, we’re going to do the best to get great experts on our show that will be the truth. So let us know what’s happening.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, and thanks for that. And while we’ve engaged in that conversation on the periphery, There’s been a plethora of individuals from all around the country, specifically the West, that have engaged at a variety of different levels. And some of that is, you know, I got to say, we appreciate the enthusiasm, kind of what we built off of on Proposition 127 last year. People saw that they could make a difference. And there’s a bunch of different platforms and mechanisms out there for people to engage. They need to continually talk to their congressmen. They need to talk to their state legislators on state-type issues. But everything that’s been going on with this is a federal deal. And when Senator Lee, out of… the state of Utah came up with these ideas on the reconciliation package. I think there was a lot of opportunity for the sportsman community to get engaged and get informed. The problem was we saw a lot of misinformation or misguidance, or maybe it just happened so quick that somebody didn’t, you know, stay up to par with what happened yesterday because they recorded something and said it the day before yesterday. And something changed yesterday to give people a different, which, which happened. Yeah. It does. And so that’s one of the reasons why last week we had Ryan Bronson, the Director of Legislative Affairs. with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, who is intimately involved from the RMEF perspective. But they’ve got lobbyists at the capital, the federal capital, Washington, D.C. And Ryan did a really good synopsis, not just on behalf of CRWM, but to give us the proper information that goes out. And we’re going to try to do that again as this process continually moves through the minutia, the sausage-making process of federal government. But what I want to encourage people to do is pay attention to the current version of everything. Because As much as we’re involved at the state level, things change on a moment’s notice. And even as you’re walking into a committee room, there could be amendments that are put onto a piece of legislation that strikes stuff that you’ve been arguing for or against. And pretty soon you’re talking about it that it’s no longer in or it’s been modified in some capacity. So I would educate people to say, pay attention to the people that are actually doing the work. not people that are transmitting the information specifically. So organizations like the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, National Wild Turkey Federation, maybe it’s the National Wildlife Federation, a variety of different organizations out there that have lobbying representation through the American Wildlife Conservation Partnership, which those individuals are probably the most knowledgeable about this subject matter because they are partners in Washington, D.C., and they have a plethora of individuals from states, regions, and all the way through the country up to the D.C. level to make sure that they’re consistently putting out the same consistent message. The reason I mention that is people heard over the time that 1.5 million acres was going to be sold then you saw somebody else kick out 30 million acres and then we saw 300 million acres and then it was 45 million acres then 75 million acres then this was dead then this resurfaced and it came from the house to the senate all of that is not true but a form or a faction of it could have some fact to it all i’m saying is don’t get the cart in front of the ass on this stuff make sure that we are working lockstep and getting the message out because there’s nothing worse than contacting your state senator when the state senator has nothing to do with this right when it’s the federal senator your congressman or woman that is the one that’s making the decisions and going to vote on this follow the experts follow the ones that are in the know rmef’s a good a good means to be able to do that backcountry hunters and anglers and all the other ones that i said
SPEAKER 09 :
Is there an action item for sportsmen to do right now?
SPEAKER 02 :
Right now, well, depending on what changed over the course of the last week, when this specific version of your episode airs, I would just say continually let your federal legislators, your representatives and congressmen, know that that you are interested in making sure that they’re fully aware, do not sell our public lands in any way, shape, or form. Now, there might be a provision in there, something that is of benefit to sportsmen and women and the conservationists of the country, where there might be a land swap or a trade, or maybe there’s a sell-off and somebody else turns around and gets something in a replacement. That’s not been alluded to in this particular piece of legislation. But the action item is… Always, not just now, always stay in touch with your federal legislator, your state legislators, and your state commissioners to make sure that they’re aware that you, as a sportsman and woman, are interested in what decisions they’re making on your behalf and that they need to hear from you regularly. Because if they hear from you once and never hear from you again, somebody’s going to backdoor something and put it under the carpet and nobody will ever know about it. Contact your state and federal commissioners. and regional legislators as much as what you possibly can and let them know who you are and why you approve or disapprove or whatever it might be. Yep, cool.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, Cody, we’re going to go back to you here a little bit. So, Dan, how’s the best way to figure out with him how we can help him and what we want to get the message out?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I think, you know, and we talked about this before, harvesters are part of science-based wildlife management. Without harvest and without data, there’s not a game agency on the planet that can decipher any information because there has to be some sort of harvest. If you don’t have harvest, why do you need to turn around and know what’s there or how much of it’s there? The United Houndsmen of Colorado, as are a lot of other hound hunting organizations in the country, are intricate partners of each game management agency. And I’d like Cody to explain some of the stuff that they were doing and have been doing over time on mountain lion management and science gathering.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. Yeah, I appreciate that. That’s a really good topic to bring up because a lot of people don’t understand, right? What do hounds contribute to the things they hunt? Why is that an important technique to have around? And if we want to just stick with mountain lions to make it simple for a minute. Nearly everything that we know about mountain lions is because of hounds, right? All their studies have involved hounds. All their studies have involved houndsmen, right? Like, we are the experts on where to find a lion, what they’re eating in this area, what they’re eating in that area, how they travel the country, all these different things. And those are really, really valuable things. characteristics to have sure if cpw was to have people out on the ground you know that was their only thing is to study lions the entire for their entire careers they would be houndsmen they would be like what like us right so when uh any of your game agencies want to do studies want to figure out you know how many lions are in this area how they’re moving what they’re eating and even secondary studies on what their effect is on on deer and elk populations on on bighorn sheep populations and all those different type of things um the houndsmen are called in right we know where to find the lions we know how to how to we have the tools to do it um 100 safe too when when an animal is in the tree they can be darted sedated um fitted with a collar if they’re tracking them like that even um you know just biopsy darts which don’t require the animal to be sedated A small biopsy dart is fired that takes a tissue sample, and they can genetically track these cats as well. And a lot of people don’t realize because they don’t see mountain lions all the time. It’s not like you go to Estes Park and see mountain lions and herds out on the golf course. Right. They’re super, super elusive. Right. And so they think we don’t know much about them. We don’t know how many are out there, this and that. While they are very elusive and they can be very difficult to to learn about with the with the help of houndsmen and the biologists and the program managers in the state. And Colorado especially has one of the most known, I don’t know the right word to use for it, but the most well-studied lion populations in the western United States. It’s incredible the amount of data that our program manager and CPW have gathered through the help of Houndsmen. And it’s just something that you can’t, you can’t duplicate that. And if you want to go further onto the harvest aspect, as Dan was talking about, all these cats are getting age, they’re getting genetic samples taken. You know, they’re, they’re monitoring the, the, the population like the, the age structure and the population and, So they get all these metrics that come in to their program and helps them understand, you know, what these lions are doing on the landscape, how many are out there, how many were taken, what are they eating, how’s the health of the population. But without houndsmen and dogs, you can’t have any of that. Sure. I think it’s just such a cool part of what we do in wildlife management that we can be partnered with, you know, with a game agency because we’re the most invested in the resource, right? Yeah. A common misconception would be like, well, they’re killing everything they catch and they just want them all dead. Couldn’t be farther from the truth. We love having these animals on the landscape. We do hunt them. We eat them. We treat them just like any deer or elk or any other game you hunt. But the fact that we can be involved with the game agency on a little bit deeper level is super fascinating. There’s also other stuff that’s been done recently up in Washington where the voters got rid of the use of dogs. They’ve had big problems with mountain lions since then. They’ve become habituated to people. You’ve had more attacks on livestock, pets, and people as well. A guy I know, a fairly decent friend, actually just completed a four-year study up there on hazing. They’re hazing these lions with dogs. Um, and I can get into the, a lot deeper on how this, this study went, but, um, they’re not killing any of them, right? They’re hazing them. They’re, they’re making them understand that there’s a healthy fear. They need to have a people. They need to avoid people, people, sounds, pets, all that stuff. And it was without a doubt, one of the most successful studies on hazing and, and, um, being able to, uh, it proved what we’ve all known as, as houndsmen for a long time. If these animals have a healthy respect for people, we don’t have much problems. um if they lose that we have big problems yeah and so that was that was really cool you know recent finding of of the benefits of using hounds as well not only for um you know for harvest and population management and stuff like that but also conflict um you know uh resolving conflict before it even starts sure man
SPEAKER 09 :
I hate a clock. Man, we’re out of time. But, man, Dan, thanks, and thanks for setting us up. Appreciate it. And, man, look forward to Outdoorsman Days August 8th and 9th. And also, Cody, appreciate it. And we’ll do some more stuff here as we get closer to your banquet as well. But that’s August 2nd at the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. Hey, that’s going to be cool in itself. Both of these great family events. You can get your tickets at unitedhoundsmanofcolorado.com or at the door. and also at coloradoutdoorsmansdays.com. And any information you need, hey, get in touch with me here at the show, and we will help you out. So, guys, thank you very much. Thanks, Scott. Appreciate it. Thanks for being with us today for Sports from Colorado. Once again, I hope you have a great weekend. And, folks, hey, let me mention this real quick. Become a member of United Houndsmen of Colorado. It’s 50 bucks, all right? And a lot of 50 bucks go a long way, all right? So become a member, and I promise you they’re putting your money to good use. So thanks for being with us. We’ll talk to you next week.
SPEAKER 08 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
