The Hunter Conservationist Podcast

Brought to you by Community-Minded Alpine Toyota

In the episode Mark and Curtis talk turkey with Matt Besko, Director of Wildlife and Licensing for the province of Alberta. The topics they cover include the moving wild turkey from BC to Alberta, the difference in attitudes towards managing wild turkey in BC versus Alberta, the philosophy of non native wild turkeys in an altered landscape, valuing wild turkeys, wild turkey-human conflict, myths about wild turkey, adaptive management, Alberta’s wild turkey Minister tags, hunting wild turkey, iconic hunting cocktails to represent the regions of Canada and gator tails.

Brought to you by Community-Minded Alpine Toyota

In this episode Curtis and Mark are joined by John Schneider, host of The Food Afield Podcast and member of the From the Wild film series in northern Alberta. The gang compares hunting spring black bears in BC’s Rocky Mountings versus the Alberta’s Northern Boreal Forest. John talks about the atmosphere and tempo of hunting spring bears versus fall deer and his general strategies to find bears in Alberta. Other topics the group muses over include how and where to find spring bear, early spring success versus late spring success, bear meat, cooking, bear organ meat, using the brains, baiting hunting bears form a tree stand, what to do with the hide, hunting outcomes, what size of bear should you take, rifle calibers, game rating systems for black bears, shot placement, getting messed up, Star Wars tribute and assless bear fur riding chaps.

Show Notes:

The Food Afield Podcast

https://www.foodafieldpodcast.com/

From the Wild

https://www.fromthewild.ca/

Brought to you by Community-Minded Alpine Toyota

In this episode, Curtis and Mark are joined by Jeff Senger star of the From the Wild series. The crew talks about the ethics and philosophy of killing. Jeff covers running a small family business slaughterhouse in Alberta and the care that goes into treating animals humanely. The varied topics that the guys talk cover include the dichotomy between nature's way of killing and human-caused death, killing in an abattoir versus hunting, centre of mass versus brain shots, whose perspective is humane death seen from, killing fish versus killing animals, whether nature needs the gruesome deaths as a precursor to evolution, rifle calibers, shooting, bullets, nature is metal, coyote Afghan blanket as a work in progress, why vegans should be vegans, what deer think when they see a hunter, active shooter POV in beaver hunting, and if you were a bear, whether you want Jeff to shoot you with a bow or a rifle.

In this episode Curtis and Mark talk about the start of the spring turkey season in BC. The guys break down a close call with a gobbler, analyze the turkey’s behavior and assess the tactics they used in that situation.

In this episode Curtis and Mark discuss hunting clothes and their experiences with the modern synthetic and traditional wool hunting clothes. The guys go over the trade off between light weight and warmth, durability, cost, what happens when campfire sparks land on your clothes, breathability, layering systems, the camo conundrum, Icelandic handmade sweaters, hunting clothing tribalism, the cost of uniformity in the hunting community and affordable high-quality Canadian made hunting clothes that kicks ass.