Welcome to Moro Outdoors on News Talk five sixty KLVI. This is Chester Moore.
This week we're gonna have one of the more unique programs we've really ever
had. I'm interviewing Grayson Highfield. She is the winner of our Tony Houseman
Conservation Legacy of what we do through my higher calling Wildlife, and she has
a unique story. She went from being a vegetarian for most of her life
to becoming a hunter. I'm so excited to have my new friend Grayson Highfield
here on the program. I met her at the Sheep Show in Reno.
She is a twenty twenty three graduate of the Women Hunt Program of the Wild
Sheep Foundation. And I got to meet her at the sheep Show and my
friend Kat Hunter, who's been on the program, said you gotta make this
check. She likes to write. She's really awesome. And I gave her
my card and I said, you know, if you'd like to do something
out there writing, contact me. I can make that happen. In like
fifteen minutes later, I get this like Shakespearean text, you know, with
all this awesomeness on it, and most people I say that to never hear
from again. So I thought, she's a real go getter, and she's
someone who's going to have a wonderful future whatever she does. So welcome to
the program. Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. Now.
You have a very interesting journey ending up at a women Hunt program because
you were a vegetarian for twenty out of your twenty seven years of your life
just about Yeah. I was really little when I decided I didn't want to
eat meat. Wow. We connected on our love for animals, and I'm
such a softie, and I said to my parents, they're too cute and
I don't want to eat them. And I stuck to my convictions for a
really long time on that, and it wasn't until I moved to Wyoming about
a year ago that I kind of had decided I wanted to eat meat again.
And one of my moral convictions is that if I was going to eat
meat again, I was going to learn how to harvest it myself. Wow.
So that is how I ended up applying to Women Hunt and have been
on this journey for the last year. That's a pretty intense conviction that because
most people never consider that, you know, even if it's this dad,
even they just eat it. You go, Okay, you know, I
was a vegetarian. I like animals. I want to get back into eating
meat, but I'm gonna at least be able to say I can harvest my
own meat. Yeah, And I think that's just morally something that I stand
behind because the life of an animal is so important to me, and so
if I'm going to use it to sustain myself, then I need to be
able to understand what goes into taking that animal's life. And that's kind of
how I ended up deciding to hunt. And I've always respected hunters and fishermen
fisher women because I think it's one of the cleanest, most ethical ways to
harvest and sustain yourself. I think that it leaves one of the lowest carbon
footprints. That's the first time on this program that's ever been mentioned a low
carbon footprint. So you're you just give us a first. Yeah, you're
the first. Something I think about all the time, because I consider myself
an environmental advocate, right, I consider myself someone who is a proponent for
conservation, and I think that's something that needs to be considered, right,
and let's talk, you know, farm to table, the that's that is
like the least amount of effort going into transporting that food and creating that food.
It's in the wild, it's living a beautiful life. You get to
harvest it. Maybe it's a lot of personal effort, sure, but I
think that's a good thing. Well, no one can leave this planet without
having blood on their hands of animals. If you're a vegan and you eat
vegetation, there's a plow that went across the field and something got killed.
It's not a personal contact. So I definitely respect the fact that you had
this journey and you had your convictions, and you're like, man, that
steak looks pretty good. So I want to get back involved in some meat,
but I want to make sure that I have the gumption and know I
could do it myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I mean I
even grew up around people who raise their own meats, and I also really
respected that and one day I'd love to be able to do that for myself
as well. A school, Yeah, very much. So you're very much
in the horses. I'm a horse girl. Yeah, and you live in
Wyoming, which is a great place to be a horse girl. It is.
Yeah, it's funny, it's you know, not where my horse girl
journey started, but it's why I've ended up. And I'm up in Cody,
Wyoming, which is beautiful country. It's wild country, so much amazing
wildlife and so many hunters and anglers which is kind of amazing. And it's
been such a great support system for me to lean on during this journey.
The horses are just my favorite hobby. Yeah, I've had it be a
job for me. Worked for the Forest Service last summer as a crew lead
for a trail crew and we were stock supported, so we were on horseback
and packing in on mule and stock and horses for up to eight days in
the back country there. Oh, your backcountry people make me feel like a
slacker down here in Texas, you know, Like, yeah, we backcountried
and for like seventeen thousand miles and then camps for five weeks, and I'm
like I stayed at a hotel or stayed in a cabin and went hunting,
you know what i mean, Like you guys are you know? And plus
horses don't like me very much, Like have many horses for a ministry and
they're cool, But other horses I've written I did, You're a terrible rider
get off me. So being able to utilize horses could be a very important
part of your hunting journey. That's actually one of my biggest goals. So
I've been a horse girl my whole life. I grew up writing English,
actually retrainlating that because I have no idea what that is. So English saddles
are a lot smaller. I did your sage and eventing, so it's jumper
stuff. I didn't get into Western until I moved to Colorado. I lived
in Colorado for four years and started to kind of. I do a lot
of I still do drisage, I do. I train with drissage principles,
but uh, when I started packing is when I started riding Western more consistently.
And it's it's a lot. It makes a lot more sense for mountain
riding obviously, you know you're packing a lot of stuff on your saddle.
And so my horse is my two. I have two colts. One is
going to be five of this coming June and one is just about to be
two. And I started them both myself, and it would be a dream
of mine to take them both out in the back country on an out Hunt's
going to happen the two horses, it'll happen. Yeah. So what are
your horses names? Spruce and Indy. Yeah, Spruce came with his name,
and then Indy. We were trying to kind of stick to a theme,
and her name came to us in the back country this summer. I
picked her up in September and it was on the last hitch that we went
on. We're sitting around a campfire and she's a little sorel so she's a
little red mare and we were thinking, you know, I love Indian paint
brush, and so that's how she got her name. It's funny. Indian
blankets my favorite wildflower. So Indian paint brush is cool too. Yep.
So you know, moving to these states where you have large carnivores, you
know, then you got horses. What is that gonna be like? Is
there gonna be is there training for that with the horses or is there any
kind of like or more training for you on handling the horse and situations like
that to be around gris and gris and gray wolves and everything else. Yeah.
So honestly, I'm more worried about my dog than I am about my
horses. Yeah, my horses are flight animals. And they're smart. My
dog would probably try to take on a pack of wolves just for the heck
of it. But so my horse is Spruce was born on a ranch in
northern Colorado, and so he had been around black bear and sure mountain mountain,
but you know, he's smart about it. I actually took him into
the back country for the first time last summer and we had a grizz walk
right behind their pasture. And horses are alert and their ears are looking and
their their heads on a swivel. But horses are also pretty big animals,
so it'd be pretty rare. I think that you'd have a grizzly actually try
to to come after one. I think, you know, the horses are,
like I said, they're going to be alert and they're paying attention.
I'm thinking more of being like on a switch back on a mountain and there's
a grizzly right there in front of I have not luckily run into that situation.
We had some you know, kind of down off trail. We did
have a black bear about twenty feet off the trail, which I have a
video if he's just rooting around. Horses were just locked in on him.
The bear did not care about us at all. I think it's more just
if you have horses that have been experienced in the back country and then you
bring, you know, your young one out, they learn from the other
horse the other ones too. That makes sense, Yeah, and a lot
of its trust as well, building a relationship with your horses and they trust
you, right, you're not scared of this situation. I'm not scared of
this situation and knowing that you're not going to leave them into anything anything bad.
Right. I find it interesting to speak with people who come from different
backgrounds and the great outdoors, and I really found Grayson's story fascinating. She's
such a great young lady and she's part of our Tony Houseman Conservation Legacy Award
family. Now and when we come back on More Outdoors, We're gonna hear
more about Grayson's story and her goals for the future for hunting and for conservation.
Welcome back to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty KLVA. This is
chester More. Follow my blog at Higher Calling dot net. Follow me at
Higher Calling Wildlife on Facebook and at the chester More on Instagram. Very active
there. Continuing our conversation with Grayson Highfield well, I was really happy to
be here and I didn't witness it, but I was on the grounds.
When you ate your first crawfish, I did. What was that like?
Oh, that was so fun. That was my first crawfish boil last night,
which was super fun. I had Chef Josh walk me through, you
know, breaking the process. Yeah, and it was you know, it's
funny. It's it's a lot of work and a little bit of meat.
But it was such a great experience and I'm glad that happened here. What
did you think about it? I thought it was good. Okay, because
the show is based out of Southeast Texas, where it's basically Western Louisiana cuisine.
Yeah, so we like our crawfish. And I had to I had
to mention that because you came run a Chester, I ate a crawfish.
I'm like cool. I got a picture with my first crawfish too, So
that's good. So you're getting in your journey, You're also get to go
and see a lot of different culture, a lot of different areas. And
what is it about wild places and wild things that you enjoy? Oh gosh,
that's such a good question. I feel like I can breathe when I'm
in wide open spaces. YEP. I grew up in an environment that was
way different. The East Coast is kind of a sprawling metropolis and some spots,
and I went out west for the first time when I was thirteen to
southern Utah, did a four day pack trip supported by pak lamas, and
it was just like my mind just opened. And from the age of thirteen,
I knew that I was going to be somewhere way more wide open.
I love it. Speaking of pack lamas, I'm in a Rocky Mountain National
Park like four years ago and we go down this spot and I see these
lamas walking down. What in the heck? So, what was it like
with pak lamas. Oh, they're so fun. I have a picture I
just found the other day of me as a fourteen year old with my arm
around this lama neck. We had so much fun. But they only fit
when they're provoked. That was something fun I learned. So they're not just
they don't just goun spitting at people, but they're hardy little animals. I
mean, it's kind of amazing what they can carry in the environments that they
can get into. Because we were climbing through sandstone, and we were in
Escalante, the Grand Staircase National Monument in southern Utah, and just the way
that they can traverse that environment, it's pretty impressive. Wasn't part of the
reason they were kind of institute in that is because they have less of an
impact in certain areas with their feet and stuff. I'm not sure. Yeah,
because I've heard that they have less of an impact and maybe horses and
other stuff in certain areas that actually may be true. I know horses can
be very damaging to the erect Yeah, but like you know, there's certain
areas like Alama. I'm like, yeah, I have bad memories of Alama,
Like I have this Llama that was like evil. Yeah, we ran
into and it was like this, And we've got in our wild Wishes program
did a Lama wish and that lama was cool. This other Lama is like
I'd wake up and coming after me. You know, Like it's really kind
of funny. But you know, I love your infectious energy for life and
wildlife and wild places. You've done things with the Fort Service to BLM.
You've done some fire work. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah,
I worked in wildland fire for a couple of years. I actually went
through a women in wild landfire but camp in twenty nineteen with the Vale District
BLM out of eastern Oregon and separated. I had been offered a job on
an engine the next summer. I actually turned it down and was doing other
things for the Forest Service and then came back to it and I was an
initial attack dispatcher for two years, and then I also was detailed onto an
engine summer of twenty twenty two for ninety days, which was such a cool
experience. It was a slow summer, so I didn't get to see that
much fire, so I wouldn't you know, I have been qualified as a
firefighter. Didn't see a lot of major fire. I hiked into a couple
Yeah, yeah, but it was so cool and honestly, my favorite part
was patrolling because we would go out and patrol and I know we've talked at
Estes Park and Rocky Mount and some of your favorite place place planet. Yeah,
and I was on the Arapaho Rosevelt National Forest, so yeah, so
Estes Park was part of our North zone and you know the South zone as
well. But I was patrolling on the North zone and I just the wildlife.
We saw it was amazing Dak Warren's news all over the place while we
were patrolling. Love it, Love it. So we have something we do
at higher calling wildlife every year. Thunderous would be our fourth year of this
and it's called the Tony Houseman Conservation Legacy Award. Tony Houseman was a visionary
hunter conservationist and first heard of him by he had these big science Houseman properties
which still exist as why Gisola does that? And I read an article on
newspaper when I was a kid that he was a safari hunter and he was
actually past president of the Houston and the Dalla Safari clubs different times. And
one day the phone rings at my house. It is like nineteen ninety three,
late ninety three or maybe early ninety four, and I've maybe just been
writing for a year or so in a newspaper. Call him and Chester Moore
is Tony Houseman. Hi. Tony never met him, just assumed I knew
who he was. I guess, you know. And he's like be in
my office at noon and I'm like, okay. So I went to his
office and it's like Kate Buffalo Heads and Kudu and Elk and I walk in
and he says, have you ever written for a hunting magazine? And said,
no, service newspaper right now, and he goes, you will,
So what do you mean? He goes, I just shot the world record
red stag and news in with a muzzloader and hunter sworn from the Uston Safari
Club wants the story, but I'm not letting them publish it until you write
it. He had never met me. He just saw a glimpse of me
and a call him and told me he saw something. So when I saw
you and met you at the sheep show, I saw something intangible and you
heart thank something that can't be you know it's there, and I saw there's
greatness in you, and then I started, you know, I looked at
some of the things you did and me and my wife Lisa talked about it,
and I'm like, man, everything about what Houseman did for me is
what I want to implant in you. So we're happy that you are twenty
twenty four Tony Houseman Conservation Legacy Award winner. Thank you because we see greatness
in Grace and Highfield and know that you're going to do great things because you're
a great person. It's an outgrowth of you, and that's what this ward
is about. Everybody can have like a great resume and stack up whatever,
but they ain't got heart. Don't count. Yeah, you got heart and
you got You're gonna do great things and you already are. So just congratulations
on that, you know, and I'm super excited to see where you go
and what you do. Thank you so much. It was such an honor
to be selected. I was so excited when you called me, and I
just wanted to say one thing that got my wheels turning when you were talking
to me about it that his last hunt was a gain hunt. Yeah,
And I feel like I've spent so much time considering what it means to be
a hunter, and it just really got the wheels turning on the definition of
a hunter, right, And I think some people there's this divisiveness and sometimes
people think it's just killing, and I think there's so much more to it
than that, right, Like, how do we redefine so that people can
understand that green hunting is a thing, right, or people go out and
hunt lions to radio call or that. Sure. Yeah, there's just so
much to it and I really would love to find ways to be involved on
that side of the same. Well, you know what, I have an
opportunity for a green hunt you, yes, and we'll have to talk about
that. Okay, Yeah, I just got hit up on something on that
that would be so cool. It's not a rhino, it's in textis but
we like you. But if it was a rhino, I'd probably go do
it. But anyway, thanks for spending time telling us about you and your
awesome life, and thank you for your friendship and for what you're doing and
just being you. Thank you all right. That was recorded at the Hunt
Fish Podcast summit out at the Warren Ranch. And I think it's very important,
especially on the hunting side of things, to talk to people who do
hunt who come from different backgrounds because things are so political and so divisive now.
And that's what truly cool about the Women Hunt program of the Wild Cheap
Foundation is a lot of ladies from a lot of different walks of life coming
to the program. I've been involved in covering the Women Hunt program since its
inception three years ago, going on four years ago, and it's very interesting
to see all the backgrounds of the ladies and Grayson is really awesome and she's
actually gonna be helping us with our Yellowstone Mission trip that we're working on here
later this month. So a lot of great things happening, a lot of
interesting people, And if maybe you have an interesting story to tell about your
involvement in hunting, you can email me at chesteratchestermore dot com. You never
know you might end up being a guest on More Outdoors here on news Talk
five sixty klv I. And when we come back, we're gonna completely shift
gears for the rest of More out Doors tonight. Welcome back to More Outdoors
on News Talk five sixty klv I. This is Chester Moore. If you
want to follow my work, go to Higher Calling dot net. Also find
my work in Texas Fishing Game magazine every month and various publications around the world.
You can listen to the show every Friday year from six to seven pm
as well as getting the podcast. Go to KLVII dot conflict of the podcast
link looking at the archives of the show, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app. I have a really really special guest for the next two segments,
Al Perkinson. He is the CEO and founder of the Heeo Sunglass.
They're doing some amazing work to save CEA Flats in the Caribbean. Thanks thanks
for having me man Now, first off, and now I'm from Southeast Texas.
I have a hard time pronouncing my name correctly. Sometimes b a Jio
down here in Southeast Texas could spell a lot of things, that's right.
But heo is is pronounced. It is pronounced by a lot of people a
lot of different ways. But that's cool. It's an old Mexican name that
means the shallows. So it's the flats, the bay used, the saltwater
marshes. There's low lying areas, and since that's our zone that we care
the most about, the most passionate about, we thought of you an appropriate
name for the company. I absolutely love it, and of course I've always
been drawn to those areas in my life where they're incredible, not just sport
fishing opportunities out but just the biodiversary that we all crave in these incredible areas.
But let's talk about the heel itself for a second. You guys debuted
April twenty twenty one. That's right, we did. It. Took us
a little over a year to sort of conceptualize and build our product and right
in the middle of COVID that was more challenging than it normally would be,
absolutely, but we were able to pull it off, and yeah, launched
in April and retail and online. Now these sunglasses, of course I know
this because I work in the sport fishing industry, and of course I sunglasses
are important not only for eye care but for proper fishing. They will to
actually see down in the water column. But kind of give us a rundown
just on your basic philosophy of the sunglasses part before we really dig into the
conservation. Yeah. Well, I think overall, we wanted our sunglasses and
everything we do, including the packaging, our T shirts, hats, all
of that to be sustainable so have a small impact as possible on the flats
and other parts of the ocean. So that's kind of where we started.
All of our frames are sixty five percent plant based material. But these things
are also an important tool for anglers, and the better you see the fish,
no matter what kind of castor you are, the better chance you have
of catching them. So we came to the market. We knew that,
you know, having been in the sunglass business for twenty years, we knew
the technology that was out there, and it was all old. You know,
five to eighty was created back almost twenty years ago at this point,
so we knew of some new technology. We knew it was time for something
fresh. So we well, we focused on instead of yellow light like all
the other competitors. Yeah, that was table stakes. We did that.
We focused our lenses on reducing and filtering out all of the harmful blue light
from the light spectrum, and the result of that was that the lenses just
cleared up. It was kind of like you have a windshield with a lot
of dirt on it and you put your washer on and watch them away and
all of a sudden everything clears up. Well, there's a lot of that
kind of dirt and static in the blue light spectrum and part of the spectrum,
and so we cleaned all that up and the lenses are really beautiful.
The other thing was just to you know, do get into technical about all
this stuff. When you build a lens, you build it in a stack.
It's a bunch of different layers, and we found that the more red
that we put into the base lens layer, the more contrasts you would get,
the better you could see fish off the bottom and also the deeper you
could see into the water column there. And so we developed these. The
rose mirror that we have and the violet mirror that we have both have red
bases. The other lenses have a lot of red as well, but not
quite as much. And when we took those out to the flats and took
those put them on guides and let them test them out, they were a
shock at how much better they could see, how much deeper into the water
column, and how much more contrast they could put two big things on the
lenses, you know, And that contrasting as a fisherman is a very very
important thing because sometimes you're seeing a fish it's not moving, sitting with its
back, that's basically the same color as the bottom. But there's just one
little difference or something that there's any amount of contrast, there's some that's what
your eye picks up on exactly, you know, And to see the fish
pop against the bottom and the guy next to you is like, what,
I don't see a fish down there. Yeah, you can tell the difference
pretty quickly. Yeah, And that's really important, especially thinking about these flats
fisheries. I mean, you're dealing with clear water, typically very shy fish
in many occasions, and what blows my mind. I mean, like even
here in the Texas coast, sometimes you'll have a speckled trout, a really
big speckled trout that doesn't spook to your really you don't even see the fish
to you're right on top of it, you know, And you know it's
just using that that camouflage and that nature based camouflage and being able to pick
that fish out and cast to it, of course can be that leads you
to more fishing success. And then you go to the more extreme example of
flats fishing like I've gotten into of the last year for bonefish and permit and
all that kind of stuff, it just takes it to a new level.
Yeah, no doubt. You know, the whatever kind of boat you're in
is just going to spook the fish. And so the farther out that you
can see them, the less chance you have of spooking them. And you
know that sometimes makes the difference between a great day and that's a great day.
Yeah, and your sunglasses come in quite a few different designs. I
mean, you've got stuff for pretty much every style someone will want to use.
Yeah, you know, I think when it comes to fishing sunglasses,
the uh you know, the more light that you can block from the sides,
especially coming in, the better and so the base curve is really important.
The bigger the curve, the bigger the wrap, the more lights you're
going to block. But also a lot of the light comes in from the
sides, and there are a couple of different ways to block that light.
So you can have fat temples and those will block a lot of that side
light. You'd have side shields, which is going to block a lot of
it, and so those are the two most common. We have a lot
of those in the line. But some people don't like to look that,
you know that they don't like to look for the fat temples or the side
shields. They want something more every day wearable. So we came out with
the line of thin temples that have sort of a hidden sun ledge we call
it, and it's on the inside, you don't really see it from the
outside. Design itself, that's going to create the conditions that your eye operates
in that are going to allow you also to see a lot more of this.
Yeah, really key stuff and looking good but also very functional at the
highest levels. Now, what really got me hooked on this al was the
conservation innovation you guys are doing and actually going out and finding ways to work
with local communities in places like Mexico to restore seagrass flats and conserve these areas.
So just tell us about how that project started. You know, the
area of the ocean that we think is the most important right now is the
put the affection that's closest to the land. Because about it, you know,
the ocean, the part of the oceans that's closest to the land is
getting most of the abuse from the land. Right That's where some off happens
and our habitat degradation happens all that. So we so we wanted to focus
on protecting that, and there really wasn't a ton out there that you know,
tons of tons of groups, tons of people really focused on that.
But those are also the estuaries of the nurseries for the ocean, and so
that's where that's where the young fish, you know, that's where the bait
fish, that's where the crustaceans, all of us important sea creatures live.
And so if we want to protect the future of the oceans, we've got
to protect the flats, and so that's really started out as our focus question
is, you know, how do we do that, because man, it's
a big problem. There's you know, there's so many people you know who
heard here's so much bad news all the time, you know, and so
they wanted they wanted to feel like there's some hope. So we kind of
we started small and we're really just going we're starting in the Caribbean ocean basement,
and we started in Ishclac, Mexico. And when we went to Ischcolac,
we saw solve some problems and we said, hey, we can solve
these problems, or helped solve these problems. So one of them was ocean
trash. Man. There was so much trash on the beaches down there,
not because the people in the town, the small town of Ishcolac put it
there, but because the ocean washed it up, you know, from other
countries and cruise ships stuff like that. So we created a T shirt that
had a rooster on it, which is a painting in the on a building
in the town of Ishcolac, and a hat and we said, look,
we're going to take all the proceeds and we're going to donate it to a
fund to help clean up the beaches, and so we ended up bringing a
woman out of the village who was actually a daughter of the first fishing guides
down there and p organized. So already we have cleaned up all the beaches
in Ishkaelac. Unfortunately, the trash SAP's coming so they keep, you know,
keep circulating, but we're going to keep you know, the T shirt
sales don't cover all the costs that we just pay for the rest of it.
But it's it's it's a little thing, a little project in a little
place, but it's created this attitude within the town where they're more you know,
fired up about conservation and have more ownership and more pride in their town.
And that's spilled over into a lot of different things. And then we
can tell that story. You know, maybe others will do it as well.
We're also about to launch a frame that has paintings of coral reefs on
the inside of it, and now we'll go to plant corals in the reef
which lines the whole Messo American reef lines second largest in the world, Mexico,
Belize and South. Come back on more those well, talk more with
al Perkinson of BAHEO. Welcome back to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty
klv I. This is Chester Moore wrapping up our conversation with Al Perkinson of
the Heeos. But we're going to keep you know, the T shirt sales
don't cover all the costs that we just pay for the rest of it.
But it's it's it's a little thing, a little project in a little place,
but it's created this attitude within the town where they're more you know,
fired up about conservation and have more ownership and more pride in their town.
And that's spilled over into a lot of different things, and then we can
tell that story. You know, maybe others would do it as well.
We're also about to launch a frame that has paintings of coral reefs on the
inside of it, and now we'll go to plant corals in the reef which
lines the whole Messo American reef lines second largest in the world, Mexico,
Belize and South and so we're you know, again, it's a small project,
but hopefully it'll grow into something bigger. We've also hired scientists to do
some mapping of the flats down there so that we know we can measure a
progress over time. But I think that to me, the most exciting thing
is a project we're going to be launching the first quarter of next year,
and it's called the Yucatan Trail. And you know as well as I do,
that if people love something, they want to protect it. And so
we're starting a whole initiative to make the saltwater flats and international travel more accessible
and domestic as well, more accessible to young people. So we're creating a
trail that'll be a whole system of people who it will be cheap places to
study, it'll be some di y type of guidance that occurs along the trail,
and then we'll tie in conservation projects for people to volunteer on as well.
But so bringing youth in to the fight is I think the most important
thing that we can do, because they're the next generation of conservations. It's
been said that bonefish provide us practice, TARP and provide us excitement, permit,
provide us humility. But what can we provide them in return for so
enriching our lives, our support for the science behind the fight, our support
for bonefish and tarp and trust. Please join us today at PTT dot org.
These species well being depends on all. What I've found is some of
these young people that are maybe facing special challenges or just young people in general.
When they get something and they get they really get onto something, they
stay with it like a pit bull. They don't want to let go.
So you guys being able to provide these opportunities like go down to the Yucatan
and you know, as self guide and maybe help conservation projects, I mean
that that could be huge because that empowers people, you know, I think
I think too much maybe in some of the conservation elements been like Okay,
it's us elite guys doing this or whatever, and then you know, donate
some money to do this, and that's great. Money makes the world go
around. But I think what I'm seeing you guys are also doing the thing
where you're trying to find a way to empower a younger generation. Am I
correct? Yeah, that's right, and empower the indigenous people who live in
a lot of these areas as well. It's it's their home, yep.
And if ultimately, if they're not engaged, it's not going to get protected.
So so yeah, man, it's not you know, the biggest role
that we can have is really empowering other people and not trying to do it
all ourselves. And yeah, hopefully we can we can help increase the number
of people who are fired up about you help them, help them the planet
and fishing and all the things that we're super stoked about. So this Yucatan
trail situation seems very similar, like maybe like the Appalachian Trail, you're trying
to kind of model something like that perhaps, and then but tie it into
like flats conservation or rainforest conservation along the way. Yeah, exactly, you
know, it's the applats and trails a great idea. I think people love
trails because they can they can maybe do a piece a year, very few
people do the whole thing. But there's nothing like that for fishing out there,
believe it or not. And so we're gonna we're gonna do our best
to create the first fishing trail in the world and hopefully do a lot of
them as time goes on around different spots around the world. Yeah, that's
sound, that's very inspiring. And the coral reef thing right now, I
was just talking with some people from the Moat Marine Laboratory about coral problems in
floor for example. I mean, that's a mega problem around the world with
pollution and plastics and everything. So great to see the Heeo taking a stand
and aspiring people. But it's really interesting how you and I are sitting here
talking about this, And I mean our interest in this probably hailed from sitting
somewhere fishing at some point. Flats for example, I've taken a deeper interest
because I got into fishing for bonefish and trying to catch a permit last year.
And I was actually talking with doctor Aaron Adams from the Bonefishing Tarpent Trust
after I caught my first bonefish. He said, Chester Bonefish or the gateway
drug for flats fishing, And I said, you have already booked a permit
trip, you know, But it's not just the thrill of the catch.
It's that you're in this beautiful habitat that you want to see live forever,
you know, because of the fishing component. It creates that interest, and
we just got to kind of figure out how that we can take our interest
beyond the catch and putting more back into the resource. Yet that's totally right,
and that's why I believe that you know, anglers and other people who
enjoy the outdoors hunters, they're engaged in conservation, and I think a deeper
level even than some of the groups who just kind of want to wall things
off and create parts. I think we should all band together and work on
these issues as one group, for sure, because you know, the resources
aligned against us are are pretty significant, So we need everybody who cares about
it to band together. But if you're out in it as an angler,
you're more connected to it in a lot of ways, because in order to
be successful catching that permit, you have to know where the crabs live.
You have to know where the grass is, and you have to understand the
barometric pressure and the tides and the winds, and there's so many factors,
and so in learning about all those different factors, you all of a sudden
become more knowledge about the environment, more connected to it, and so I
think you have a deeper appreciation of it, the circle of life, you
know that kind of thing, and you have a deeper appreciation, and therefore
your desire to protect it is even higher. So I don't know. I
think people who who active environment, if they do it upperly in a sustainable
way, ultimately that's the answer to get more people using that because they're going
to be connected more and actually I think care more. Agreed man. And
I just saw a really interesting example of this on the Texas coast. A
friend of mine has a little apartment complex he owns close to a cop and
obey and he has he had a little two acre reef by his property,
oyster reef he fished for years and I'm meet him there one day and he
walks last year, he walks up to me walking out of the water.
He just looks angry and he's and I said, what's going on? Then
he goes, it's gone, And I said, what's going to? Goes
the reef? Because we're having an issue here with some illegal oyster harvest and
some things like that with different areas and moving into back bays and stuff.
There's a big push about protecting oyster harvests. And you know, they came
in in the and the incomplete little reef is completely gone. It's gone,
and and he's like, you know, that's what we call all of our
fish. That's that was the my sweet spot. And it got him really
wanting to be engaged in learning more about protecting oysters in Texas Bays because of
that encounter out there, because he cared enough to fish. Now he's like,
we've got to figure out how to make sure if this doesn't happen in
other places. So it's always exciting out there. And how I'm excited that
you guys have this really cool Yucatan project and the coral project and the plastics
issue and keeping up the beach cleaning and uh, where can people get more
information if they want to get connected with the BHEO, Well, I think
you know, they can reach out through social for sure. And back One
is our social g and he's out there outside of my office talking to folks
all day every day. I also go on to our website at Heosunglasses dot
com and we have some good information about things there as well. Yeah,
it's great stuff. Well, I'll tell you what. I appreciate what you
guys are doing. And thank you so much for taking time to be on
the program. Thank you, Chester, appreciate it. Byke cue the Jaws
theme, great white sharks have been proven a swim in Texas waters. Hi.
This is Chester Moore hosting More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty k l
v I and founder of Higher Calling Wildlife Now. I've been investigating great white
sharks in the Golf of Mexico for a number of years. There are a
lot of hidden records of great white stadium back into the nineteen thirties in Texas.
Recently, ocean based satellite tagging group oh Search tagged great whites off the
coast of Canada that ended up in the Gulf of Mexico and one of them
was found about one hundred miles off the coast of Galveston. I uncovered I
verified evidence of great whites dating back to the nineteen thirties in Texas, with
consistent catches about up into the nineteen fifties, and then something happened. They
simply disappeared long lines which were essentially miles long trot lines set in ocean waters.
Sharks are often caught on them and have their fins cut off and thrown
them back into the water alive to fuel the demand for shark fin soup.
In many Asian countries, this caused a great depletion of many shark numbers.
Great whites are often caught in nets set for other species, as great whites
are typically born on the East coasts in the Atlantic and the juveniles swim into
the warm waters of the Gulf to feed and grow up. Now that we're
removed the nets, great whites are coming back. Whether that scares you or
excites you, it's a fact. You can learn more at osearch dot org.
Thanks so much for listening to more outdoors. You can check me out
at higher Calling dot net, at the chestermor On Instagram, are Calling Wildlife
on Facebook. God bless you and have a great outdoors weekend.