Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcasts and Blasts

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 136 - Saving the Striped Bass with Mike Woods and Chris Borgatti Jul 19, 2022

Show notes

Striped bass are arguably the most important fish – culturally and economically – on the Atlantic seaboard. And right now, anglers are spearheading a push to conserve and rebuild striper populations, which have suffered in recent decades because of overfishing and poor habitat. What's the future of this iconic Eastern species, and what opportunities can we create to ensure our continued ability to fish for striped bass? Hal talks with Mike Woods, chair of BHA's New England chapter, recipient of BHA's Jim Posewitz award and resident of Rhode Island, and Chris Borgatti, BHA's New York and New England chapter coordinator who hails from Massachusetts, about the past, present and achievable future of striped bass fisheries in the eastern United States. As Chris says, "New England might not have as much public land as in the West, but what's there is vital to the huge population centers in the East. And it makes the fight for conservation, habitat, access and opportunity even more important." Join them for a far-reaching conversation that hits on all aspects of the outdoor lifestyle along the New England coast.

Ep. 135 - Rue Mapp - Founder and CEO, Outdoor Afro Jul 05, 2022

Show notes

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 135: Rue Mapp, founder and CEO, Outdoor Afro

Rue Mapp transformed her kitchen table blog into a national nature business and movement. Today, Mapp is founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro. For more than a decade, the nonprofit has continued to celebrate and inspire Black connections and leadership in nature across the United States. Mapp also is an award-winning and inspirational leader, speaker, public lands champion and author. Her first national book, Nature Swagger: Stories and Visions of Black Joy in the Outdoors, will be released in the fall. Mapp is a National Geographic 2019 fellow, Heinz Awards honoree and National Wildlife Federation communication award recipient as well. Her work has earned international media attention from Oprah Winfrey, The New York Times, Good Morning America, NPR, NBC's TODAY, Forbes and MeatEater. Be inspired by her wide-ranging conversation with Hal Herring, and follow her adventures @RueMapp.

Ep. 134 - Snake River Dams Jun 21, 2022

Show notes

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 134: Snake River Dams

We are teetering on the brink of what could be the greatest conservation success story of the past 50 years. The removal of four outdated and failing dams on the lower Snake River will restore the passage of millions of salmon and steelhead upstream into 5500 square miles of the most intact, coldwater spawning and rearing habitat in North America (almost all of it public land). If the dams are left in place, these same salmon and steelhead face inevitable extinction. It is a simple choice between vibrant, resilient life abounding, with all that entails – a resurrection of fisheries, economics, and the health of forests and wildlife that evolved with these fish – or a descent into the darkness of extinction and collapse. Which will we choose? Join Hal as he meets with Eric Crawford, North Idaho field coordinator for Trout Unlimited; Sam Mace, a fisheries expert who has worked with Save Our Wild Salmon; and Josh Mills, BHA development coordinator and board member of the Wild Steelhead Coalition, in this podcast recorded live at the BHA North American Rendezvous in May 2022.

If you live in Idaho, Oregon or Washington, take action now! Urge your elected leaders to support a science-based approach to conserving fisheries and supporting the economic health of communities that depend on them.

Ep. 133 - BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning Jun 07, 2022

Show notes

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 133: BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning

For Americans who live or venture west of the Mississippi River or north to Alaska, no public lands are more important, more abundant or more accessible than those managed by the Bureau of Land Management. We are talking about 247.3 million acres of public land (70 million of them in Alaska). In the Lower 48, this means elk hunting in the Missouri Breaks of Montana, Wyoming's best pronghorn and mule deer country, quail hunting in the borderlands of New Mexico, and black bear or even bison hunting in the high desert mountains of Utah. The BLM manages the National Conservation Lands system, which includes millions of acres of America's finest hiking, camping, wandering, canyoneering, rafting and access to rivers. The agency administers 18,000 grazing permits and is responsible for 700 million subsurface acres of publicly owned minerals. If it seems like an impossible task…well, sometimes it is. Today on the podcast we talk with BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning about the present and future of these lands – and how we can create a future in which politics is no longer the major obstacle to keeping these irreplaceable lands in public hands.

Ep. 132 - Corner Crossing in Wyoming with Ryan Callaghan, Liz Lynch and Jared Oakleaf May 27, 2022

Show notes

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 132, Corner Crossing in Wyoming with Ryan Callaghan, Liz Lynch and Jared Oakleaf

Most of us have been following the case: four hunters from Missouri who used a homemade ladder to cross from one section of public land to the next without setting foot on private land…and the hard-fought court cases that ensued in Carbon County, Wyoming. It's a case that may define public access to public lands for decades to come. Yet it is more than that. It's about the resurgence of privatization of public assets in America, a harsh echo from the Gilded Age. It's a reminder that plutocracy never sleeps, that the public trust is never truly safe and that, as Frederick Douglass said best, "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Come listen to this discussion, recorded live at BHA's 11th annual North American Rendezvous with MeatEater's Ryan Callaghan and Liz Lynch and Jared Oakleaf of the Wyoming chapter of BHA: It's a deep dive into the Wyoming corner crossing case, 200 years in the making. It's a story of old range wars, land giveaways and ancient doctrines of law. Explore with us the possibilities that "bruising someone's airspace with the points of one's hips or shoulders" can be an offense worthy of full-bore prosecution…at least in the eyes of some folks.

Ep. 131 - Sen. Jon Tester and the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act May 03, 2022

Show notes

BHA Podcast & Blast, Bonus Ep. 131, Sen. Jon Tester and the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act

To those outside of Montana, the Blackfoot River is the "Big Blackfoot" featured in Norman Maclean's lyrical and tragic novel A River Runs Through It. For Montanans and generations of visitors, the Blackfoot is a state of being all its own, a big rowdy river of native cutthroats and bull trout, its waters born of both high-altitude wilderness snows and the tannin-stained, unfathomably rich chain of wetlands and lakes of the Clearwater drainage. It is a huge, complex and vibrant watershed, and as healthy as it is now, it was not always this way. Join us for an interview with Montana's Sen. Jon Tester on why he is a die-hard supporter of the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act, supported by three-quarters of Montanans – hunters, anglers, bikers, loggers, ranchers and others – and which will guide the management and ensure the long-term health of this irreplaceable part of our public lands and waters legacy.

Learn more and take action in support of the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act right now.

Ep. 130 - BHA's Armed Forces Initiative Apr 27, 2022

Show notes

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 130: BHA's Armed Forces Initiative: Honoring and serving those who serve.

"Public lands are probably not the reason you would list for joining the Army or the Marines, but they're the key piece of what makes America the greatest country out there," says Trevor Hubbs, BHA's Armed Forces Initiative coordinator. BHA recognizes that military members are a key constituency when it comes to the defense of our wild public lands and waters. The Armed Forces Initiative, or AFI, is booming. From Ft. Bragg to Camp Pendleton and everywhere in between, active duty military members and veterans are working together with local BHA chapters to get our fighting men and women out onto public lands and waters, teach hunting and fieldcraft skills, and hunt and fish, acknowledging that nobody gets service members like others who have served. Join us as Hal interviews Hubbs, along with AFI Liaison Leader Ryan Burkert and AFI Installation Leader Andy Ruszkiewicz. Learn about the mission, challenges and successes the AFI has seen during its first year-plus of existence and hear stories from the individuals who are playing a new and critical role in engaging military members in the conservation of our shared lands and waters.

Ep. 129 - Joseph Jenkins - Biologist, Herpetologist, Alabama Wanderer Apr 12, 2022

Show notes

The Bankhead National Forest in Alabama is a place of shadowed canyons and rushing coldwater creeks, crystalline waterfalls and bluff shelters blackened by the smoke from campfires over thousands of years. It's an island of rare plants and wildlife and old growth trees in a state where coalmining and industrial forestry and now the sprawl of cities have radically altered the landscape. Come with us to Moulton, Alabama, and meet native son Joseph Jenkins, a biologist and herpetologist, hunter and angler, who is working to save two of the most imperiled and least known creatures in the forest: the flattened musk turtle and the Black Warrior waterdog. What is it like to spend one's life working to save two species that almost no one would miss if they disappeared? What did Aldo Leopold mean when he said, "The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to keep all the parts"? How did the fine chisel of evolution result in these two highly specialized creatures living only here, in this last piece of public lands wild country, in a region facing total transmogrification at the hands of humankind?

Ep. 128 - Jimmy Stiles - Alabama Herpetologist Mar 29, 2022

Show notes

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 128: Alabama Herpetologist Jimmy Stiles

The Conecuh National Forest in south Alabama is known as the Heart of the Longleaf, a landscape of tall pine and wiregrass, restoration and recovery, humming with life and comprising a wild diversity of plants and wildlife found nowhere else. Field biologist, herpetologist, student of deep time, and full-time hunter and fisherman Jimmy Stiles lives and works in the Conecuh, leading efforts to recover the endangered indigo snake (North America's largest and arguably most impressive snake species) and restore the longleaf forests that were once the southern U.S.-dominant ecosystem – all while having a rollicking good time way out there in the farthest reaches of the wild, hot, buggy and snaky Deep South. Hal caught up with Jimmy on Oak Mountain in Alabama this spring at the BHA Southeast Chapter Backcountry Jubilee.

Ep. 127 - Jack Rudloe - Florida Gulf Coast Writer, Naturalist and Advocate Mar 15, 2022

Show notes

Jack Rudloe is one of the orneriest watermen on the Florida Gulf Coast, a time- and sun-honed fighter for clean water, intact forests and wetlands, and the myriad salt and freshwater life that depends upon it all. He is a world-renowned scientist and researcher, a commercial harvester of sea life, an unparalleled educator and the author of nine books and hundreds of articles. He and his wife Anne founded Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in the fishing town of Panacea in 1980. Hal and Jack talk about what it is like to have a inhabitant's perspective on the saltwater that spans over 60 years, the connections between the blackwater swamps, rivers and ephemeral wetlands of the inlands to the health of the Gulf, alligators eating dogs, and what it costs a man and his wife and family and business to stand tall and speak out against the towering wall of powers that want to dismantle the Gulf Coast and the natural systems that make it one of the richest fisheries in the world.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcasts and Blasts

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected