Transcript

Travis Bader: [00:00:00] I’m Travis Bader and this is The Silvercore Podcast. Join me as I discuss matters related to hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the people in businesses that comprise of the community. 

[00:00:20] If you’re new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where you can learn more about courses, services, and products that we offer, as well as how you can join The Silvercore Club, which includes 10 million in North America, wide liability insurance to ensure you are properly covered during your outdoor ventures.

[00:00:43] Before I get rolling, I want to let everyone in on an exciting new website that Silvercore is involved with called AnchoredOutdoors.com. If you like hunting, fishing, foraging, cooking, homesteading, etc, you will love AnchoredOutdoors.com I highly encourage you to check it out. You won’t regret it. 

[00:01:04] This is a special episode where I sit down with Jens Cuthbert and Dennis Zentner, two extremely passionate ambassadors for hunting and fishing. And we discuss tips and tricks, ethics and local knowledge, and in particular how to be successful when waterfowl hunting. 

[00:01:20] These two are pros of what they do, and you’ll have the opportunity to literally experience what it’s like to be a local sitting at the counter of Stillwater Sports, a small town sporting goods store situated in Ladner, BC.

[00:01:35] Sitting down with Dennis Zentner and Jens Cuthbert. Dennis is a former commercial fishermen. He’s a current president of the Vancouver Rod and Gun Club, he’s a past president of region 2 BCWF. He’s an avid hunter and angler who I met as we both sit on the hunting advisory committee for the city and having shot beside him in Fort St. John, I can attest, he’s a heck of a good shot in his own right. Welcome, Dennis. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:01:57] Thank you.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:01:58] Welcome, Dennis. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:59] I’ve also got Jen’s Cuthbert now. Jen’s has worked as a hunting guide in the States in the past. I know Jen’s as a person who lives to hunt. If you haven’t seen his Instagram feed, make sure to check that out, it’s 604Backwoods. He’s got over 17,000 followers on there, it’s got some great content. He’s sponsored and endorsed by Drake Waterfowl and dive bomb industries and currently works a couple of doors down for the Silvercore head office, working at the local gun store and Ladner Stillwater sports. Welcome Jens. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:02:28] Thanks Trav. Thanks for having me here, bud. 

Travis Bader: [00:02:30] So I figured we’ll kind of get things rolling here and get a little, a little bit of background on you two. Why don’t we start with you, Dennis? 

Dennis Zentner: [00:02:36] Sure. 

Travis Bader: [00:02:37] Commercial fishing, you did that for awhile. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:02:39] Yeah. I started when I was in high school and I got the opportunity to work on a steam boat for one of the local families. Worked with that for a few years and then what got into the gill netting side of it and I got to do some gill netting. So I got to work up and down the coast and thought it was a, a really good opportunity to see what the coast of British Columbia had.

[00:03:00] We went all the way from, say, Bella Bella, down all the way back down to the border here. And so I got to see some pretty neat spots of British Columbia. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:12] Very cool. How long did you do that for? 

Dennis Zentner: [00:03:14] Bout six years total. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:17] So you’ve, you’ve got some chops? 

Dennis Zentner: [00:03:19] Yeah, yeah, for sure. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:03:20] How good were you on the boat when the sea’s were rough.

Dennis Zentner: [00:03:24] You know, in all those years,  I only got ever got a little bit green in the gills at the sand heads. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:29] Really? 

Dennis Zentner: [00:03:30] Yeah. I don’t know all the places to be on the coast to think it was probably the roughest spot I was. The only spot I ever felt a little bit green in the gills. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:03:38] Pretty gnarly there. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:03:39] Yeah. Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:03:40] The sand-heads was the reason I had to get a larger motor on my boat. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:03:45] Yeah, we’ve been out there in tin boats before nine nines and 12 footers. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:03:49] I did it this year alone. I had my little 15 footer and my and my 40 horse out there just cause my big boat was in use at the time so.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:03:57] Yeah, uncle Jack’s got you beat. He’s always out there around the green can there and is nine nine and 12 footer. I don’t know how he does it.

Dennis Zentner: [00:04:03] Diehards, diehards. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:05] Hardcore. And Jens, commercial guiding, can you tell me a bit about that? 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:04:10] Ahh, well just like everything else, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. I had a couple buddies that had a guide service there when I was down in the States for college baseball, and then the summer months or the spring months I used to go and help him out and his guide service and that’s what kinda really put me on to chasing birds. 

[00:04:26] I mean, I always did it since I was a kid. But really seeing how much the sport demands and how much time, how much effort it takes to get up every day. And, and you know, you’re getting paid to do that instead of just going out there leisurely, you got a little bit more extra to put onto it so. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:42] You say that’s something you’ve done all your life, just being out there chasing birds?

Jens Cuthbert: [00:04:46] You know what, people think I’m crazy, but you know, I’ll be sitting on the beach in Hawaii and there’ll be like, what are you thinking about? And that’s all I’m really thinking about is the birds. Birds and what they’re doing and how they’re doing it and where they are and how everybody else is doing too, so. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:59] I don’t think that’s that crazy.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:05:00] Yeah, exactly. One, one fallower to the next, right. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:04] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:05:04] That’s how you learn. That’s how you learn what they do. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:05:06] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:05:07] Pay attention. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:05:08] Lots of people got addictions, mines, mines hunting or mines just being out there.

Travis Bader: [00:05:12] Yeah.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:05:12] Especially with company, good company or my dog or anything like that, with you Trav, with anybody right?

Travis Bader: [00:05:19] So Cuthbert yeah, there’s a BBC article and they’re talking about this Cuthbert. And he instituted the first local laws for bird protection. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:05:30] I did not. I didn’t know that. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:31] So the eider duck, I guess there is a, an area off the UK and this guy by the name of Saint Cuthbert goes over there and he sees people are eating the eider ducks and eating their eggs. And so he implemented the first bird laws in the world, and it was about 86 or 875, 80. And they’ve got a named the duck after him, they call it the Cuddy duck or the St Cuthbert duck. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:05:54] Cool.

Travis Bader: [00:05:55] So anyways, I thought it was interesting that birding is so in your blood. And 

Dennis Zentner: [00:06:00] Must be related. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:01] It’s gotta be. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:06:02] Neat little side note. I mean, that’s good that he’s protecting the birds. I don’t know, we like to harvest the birds, but at the same time we like to do our part in conservation, whether it’s donating to the local clubs or helping the farmers or down at the DU sanctuary, anything right? 

[00:06:18] Or the rifle sanctuary. Do your best and volunteer and more about than just killing the bird and eating it and stuff like that. It’s a about having a secure future for the up and comer guys that are going to get into the sport too. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:32] Well, well, let’s talk about the up and comers, because I look at you guys as sort of the old boys, the old school club, the the old guard in Ladner. Now, Ladner has a very prolific hunting and fishing community. And a lot of people grew up around hunting and fishing. 

[00:06:52] They grew up on the ranges, they know the rules, they know the etiquette, they know how to get into it. But there’s a lot of people who are looking to get into the sport that don’t know this etiquette. They don’t know what they’re doing out there. And I have to imagine working in a gun store, there’s going to be some sort of a weird dichotomy between, you want to see more hunters out there.

[00:07:15] You want to see people getting into the sport. Just not, not in your hunting spot. I don’t want to see people coming into my hunting spot perhaps if they’re not doing things properly, if they’re not showing proper etiquette, if they’re, obviously being unsafe, but a lot of new guys out there, they just don’t know it.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:07:37] That’s right. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:39] I think we’ve all seen it, 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:07:40] I think, I think that goes to say for a lot of things in life I mean, you come to, come to the ice rink and you’d never played hockey before and I don’t know a that you got to shower with the boys after or something like that. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:53] Sure.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:07:53] You know what I mean? Like  it’s something to do with getting to know, stepping in the ring, getting to know the ropes and stuff like that. And it can be intimidating, but I mean, if you got a decent friend group and guys around you and stuff like that and good general public awareness and stuff, then, then you start to pick it up.

Travis Bader: [00:08:12] Right. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:08:12] Better. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:13] So I see people who have decent friend groups, but none of their friends are into hunting or into fishing. I remember when I moved to Ladner, course every odd year we’ve got the pink settle run up the Fraser, and I was super excited to go out and just be able to fish off the shore here real close. This is before I had a boat, and I watched a fellow and he’s casting out and then you see him reel reel reel, yank, reel reel reel, yank.

[00:08:41] And I look over at him, said what are you doing? Said well this is how you’re supposed to fish for them, somebody else showed me how to do this when I came here and he was being pretty successful. Said, well, you know, you’re not supposed to foul hook them, like that’s against the law.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:08:53] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:08:54] He’s like what do you mean. I said well, what you’re doing, they call that snagging. He had no idea. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:08:59] That’s the Fraser River twitch.

Dennis Zentner: [00:09:01] Exactly.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:09:03] That’s what they call the Fraser River twitch or, yeah, everyone calls it that, I guess. Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:09:10] I think, I think what that boils down to is ,they maybe didn’t have a, a mentor or a uncle or a granddad or father that, that, that took them out and showed them the the proper way. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:23] Right.

Dennis Zentner: [00:09:23] They just went down to the river bank like you did travel, and then just kinda just watched what w w what some of the other fellows were doing and well, that doesn’t look that hard. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:09:32] No. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:09:33] Kind of followed suit. Unbeknownst to him that he, he’s not doing illegal. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:38] Right. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:09:39] You know, he’s, he’s trying to foul hook with that style of fishing. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:43] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:09:43] And unfortunately, you know, some people get caught and fined because they’re doing it wrong, and they’re just like, well, I just learned from the guy down on the beach there.

[00:09:53] So luckily for myself and Jen’s, we grew up with, with mentors that taught us the right way. So, you know, and I think that’s part of our job as, as hunters and fishers to see if you see something wrong, go, Hey man, like I think you’re doing it a little bit backwards, let me help you out. Some guys will take you up on the offer and some will tell you to beat it, right?

[00:10:15] So hopefully the, you know, some of the people I’ve come across over the years doing things backwards, took it to heart, what we had to say, and started to do it the correct way, the more legal way. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:10:28] I think tim, times have kinda generally changed over the last couple of year. Evidently. Like this world is going so fast that, you know, back in maybe the eighties and early nineties and stuff like that, you’re, you’re calling us the Cavaliers of, of of this time of hunting and stuff like that. 

[00:10:45] Dennis was there way before me, he was there when dinosaurs roamed the earth and stuff like that. I got a little bit of of everybody by growing up, but I think people’s time is, is so important to them that a lot of the time that they don’t take the time to show other people how to do it or they don’t.

[00:11:04] They don’t have the time to do it, whether it’s someone’s dad or grandpa or a big brother or something like that. It’s just, these days and age, the world’s moving so fast that you gotta try and keep up. And I mean, let’s face it, hunting and fishing is not looked at the same these days and age as it was back in the eighties or the nineties, how important it was to the lifestyle of the people now.

Travis Bader: [00:11:26] Right.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:11:27] Right. So, I mean, back in the eighties and nineties you didn’t have social media. You didn’t have, you didn’t even have cell phones back then. You had to go run down three blocks to knock on your neighbour’s door to say, Hey, Tommy, you want to go down there and fish down to the river or something like that, right?

[00:11:41] So I think anyone who wants to join anything like fishing, hiking, outdoor or anything like that too, you obviously get into it by having someone there with you and hopefully they guide you down the right way. It’s whether or not they’ve been taught the right way so. Like Dennis says, we’re just lucky that we grew up with different family friends and, and dads and brothers that all kind of grew up in the same era as us too right so.

Travis Bader: [00:12:06] Well with the social media, I see people even just locally here posting up on Facebook saying, Hey, I want to, I want to get into hunting, somebody want to take me on and show me some spots? And would you guys say that’s a good way to approach it or. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:12:21] I don’t, I, I think it, yeah, I think it’s putting your neck out there, but I mean, these days and age you kinda got to do that. But, you got to think logically behind it. No guy’s gonna really give up his honey hole or.

Travis Bader: [00:12:33] Right.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:12:34] No guy’s really going to show you the proper way. A lot of the things, you can’t be spoon-fed. You gotta go out there and grind it yourself and kind of figure out a way and then surround yourself with good people too. 

Travis Bader: [00:12:45] So where would you say a good first step for somebody, eh, let’s just look in the Lower Mainland and, and talking about bird hunting. What’d be a good first step if somebody really wanted to, they’ve, they’ve gone through their training, they’ve done their hunter education, they’ve gotten themselves licensed. They got their FWID, should they join a- 

Dennis Zentner: [00:13:03] I would say talk to one of the local gun clubs, you know, whether it’s Pitt Meadows or Delta Ladner or, I mean, even Vancouver Club, I mean we’re more of a trap club but there’s lots of hunters there. Ridgedale, Abbotsford, all the clubs, all, all through the Valley or you know even in the North, there’s water fowlers all through the province.

[00:13:20] But a good first step would be to go to the club. You know, join, ask some questions, maybe one of those guys will mentor you. I don’t have a problem taking a guy under my wing and showing them, showing them the ropes on how to fish and hunt and whatnot. But like Jen says, you’re not really going to take them to your, your top secret spot because we’ve been stung before.

[00:13:41] You take a guy there and then. Oh, Hey, this is kind of my spot, keep it under your hat to keep it under wraps. And you go back and you know, a month later, or even the next season, and here’s this 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:13:50] This fellow. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:13:51] Here’s this fella in the exact same spot you took him with his buddy or two buddies and all of a sudden, well, that spots ruin. And unfortunately with the way times are now with social media, it’s ruined a lot of, a lot of good spots. You know, guy takes a photo and they recognize the background, oh I know where that is.

[00:14:09] Or they’re on there and like Hey, I caught this big fish at, you know, such and such a lake and all of a sudden you go back there and there’s, it used to be you and maybe two or three other fishermen there, and all of a sudden you go there and there’s 15 there now, right.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:14:21] And the guys don’t even go out and look for the birds, they just look for the background in the social posts, that’s all it is. It’s called internet scouting now  Dennis.

Dennis Zentner: [00:14:28] That’s for sure. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:14:29] They don’t go in their boat and go out and look for birds and they don’t go out in the road and put 200 clicks on there to the Valley and back and figure it out. Now guys just look for backgrounds and screenshots and stuff like that. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:14:40] Oh, and so you’d look at, look at some of Jen’s photos of his birds, and he’s a successful hunter and most of that is scouting. So step number one would be to join a club. Step number two is once you, think okay, I’m going to be a water fowler. 

[00:14:56] One of the best things you can do is put miles in the truck, go scouting, find the birds, and start banging on doors. The worst the farmer can say is, no, I’m sorry, I’ve already given permission, or there’s no hunting on my property. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:08] Right.

Dennis Zentner: [00:15:08] You know, if there’s, if there’s a spot where, you know, if you’ve got a big chunk of property and he might’ve get already given permission to maybe two or three other fellows.

[00:15:16] Well, there’s a couple of guys that hunt here, so as long as you can all get along, it won’t be a problem. So, I mean, that’s, that’s the thing, people for some reason nowadays are scared to go and bang on a farmer’s door and ask, ask for permission. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:15:28] Well, yeah, no one, no one likes rejections. I mean, I mean, going up to Cindy at the high school dance and asking her to dance and she snubbed you for, no, I mean, that’s pretty tough one to get over, it’s still in my grade 11 year right? 

[00:15:40] But. Well I can, I can, I can tell ya. Yeah, I could tell you. I mean, I maybe go one for 10 on farmers’ doors some, some years and sometimes you go 10 for 10 on knocks. But I mean, you can, hunting is, either you’re in or you’re, you’re kind of in or you’re not in, you know what I mean?

[00:15:58] So, I mean, if you really want it that bad, you can make it happen that bad. I mean, you can. You can go as far as following guys out of the boat launch from the morning, you can go as far as picking out the most ugly guy at the boat launch and asking them where the ducks are and stuff like that. 

[00:16:13] But I mean, when I was young, we’d haul sacks of potatoes from the bar and all the way out to the, the roadside, just for the farmer, just, just for a chance at permission and half the time he’d invite you in for a cup of tea and say no.

Travis Bader: [00:16:25] Right. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:16:26] And then you just sit there and you’d been there, go home and cry. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:28] Yeah, exactly. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:16:29] Been there. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:16:30] Yeah. So I mean, what do you do? I mean, the best advice that I could say is, but boots on the ground go out and scout just, just in bird hunting in particular and stuff like that. But don’t be afraid of rejection.

[00:16:43] Don’t be too to upfront, to upcoming, you know, be respectful. Don’t be too, too pushy or anything like that. It’ll come when it comes and, and just no when the right timing is to do it. I mean, you’re going to go knock on a farmer’s door at six o’clock at night and he’s having dinner with his wife, he ain’t going to give you permission right. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:17:02] Not gonna be happy. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:17:03] Right. Or you pull them off a tractor when he’s seeding in the field, he ain’t going to be too happy right. So, I mean, pick your spots, show up with a bottle. I dunno, that usually helps. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:12] You know what, I found that one works. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:17:14] Yeah, that works well. And I mean, I’ve, I’ve given away bottles even with no permission and come back the next year and they give you permission because they remember who you are right. Half the guys don’t do that. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:23] The other thing I find, if you get permission or if you don’t, it’s good to go back and upkeep that relationship. But if you get permission, there’s nothing stopping you from bringing another bottle again afterwards or at the end of the year and saying, Hey, thanks very much, for ensuring that you clean everything up that you bring onto that field. 

[00:17:43] To reporting any anomalies you might see out there to the, to the landowner. I mean, there’s a responsibility, I think, on the hunter that’s going to be out there too, if they get that permission, to maintain that relationship. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:17:58] Well that’s a bond that you start with the, with the landowner, when you get permission there, like you say Travis, you know, if you find something on the property that’s not right. You know there’s a tree across a fence, or a fence is down or, you no ditches sloughed in, or beavers made a dam or whatever. If you go on and mention that to the farmer and then they’d be like, okay, this guy kind of understands. 

Travis Bader: [00:18:18] Right. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:18:18] So you, you, you build a relationship with that farmer and then over the years it becomes more than that. Now, now all of a sudden you’re, there, there’s friendships involved and all sorts of things. And we’ve done it in the past where you, you bring them a piece of smoked salmon and a bottle, like you were saying, or even even offer him some of your, your harvest right. Like a well, old Dunkin Montgomery there, I mean, he always kind of enjoyed it if we’re like, Hey, would you like a snow goose? Or, you know a brant or whatever. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:18:47] Pheasant, whatever.

Dennis Zentner: [00:18:48] Yeah. You know, so you always, and quite often he would take you up on that offer and I’d go, how many do you want? Well, a two would be fine. So, you know, we’d either dress him up real quick for him, or he’d dress them himself and it’s okay, just leave him in the feathers, I’ll deal with it.

[00:19:00] But quite often we’d run back to the tailgate and dress the bird for him and hand him and his wife, you know, two big fat mallards or a couple snow geese or something. And you know, he was quite happy with that. And in that example, he’s one of the harder farmers to get permission from.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:19:15] Nobody. Yeah.

Dennis Zentner: [00:19:16] Yeah. Very few guys. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:17] Wow.

Dennis Zentner: [00:19:17] I mean, and in my industry now I’ve, I’m in construction and when, when a Dunkin Montgomery was alive, I ditched all his ditches. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:26] Oh yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:19:27] For him right. And you know, even, even, even doing that, he was a tough guy to please so. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:19:35] Yeah.

Dennis Zentner: [00:19:35] That gave me some access by helpin him out. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:19:37] He was my potato story. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:19:38] Yeah, I knew all. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:19:39] Bring him a sac of potatoes and a cup of tea and he says no. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:19:42] Right. And, and even to this day, his son runs that same farm and it’s not easy to get permission there, there’s a handful of guys. So you were saying, where does a guy go to kind of get started. Dunkin’s farm in past years has been part of what they call associated wildlife preserves.  

Travis Bader: [00:19:58] Right.

Dennis Zentner: [00:19:58] And it’s a, it’s an organization or a gun club that goes and secures farmland. You pay a, a handsome amount to become a member of this organization and, but there’s, there’s private lands for you to hunt on. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:20:13] That’s a good way to get started though. It costs a little bit of money, but you know what. If you start that, if you, if you pay what I think it’s what, 800 bucks or whatever, 1000 bucks, I’m not a part of the associated. 

[00:20:25] I’m not, I don’t do the wildlife, I’m part of Westham Island, but associated as in there’s other different hunting clubs, you just got to dig a little bit to find out. But 800 bucks, I mea for water fallowing, yeah it seems a lot to swallow at the start and stuff like that.

[00:20:40] But you can go shoot pheasants, snow geese, ducks, all with land owner permission and stuff like that. And you have endless amounts from. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:20:48] From Ladner. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:20:48] Ladner all the way out to. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:20:49] Chilliwack. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:20:50] Yeah, out to the Valley right. So, and that’s,  I don’t know how many acres they got and they have their own club and there’s lots of other clubs that have all different acres that you can join too.

[00:20:59] It’s, I mean, that’s one good way to get service and it’s just like any other hobby. Water, water fallowing is, is a hobby and everything costs money these days. I mean, costs money to put fuel in your truck, costs money to go buy new pair of skates, to ice hockey, everything, everything costs money these days. So I mean you’re going to have to buck up to pay, right to play.

Dennis Zentner: [00:21:21] Pay to play. Yep. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:21:22] That’s right. But at the same time too, there’s nothing wrong with knocking on, on public land doors and, and I shouldn’t say public, private doors and  doing your due diligence and not being afraid of, of getting rejected.

[00:21:37] We’ve knocked doors in Saskatchewan and Alberta and stuff like that. If you show up with a piece of fish on any Saskatchewan or Alberta door, they’ll give you permission and mark my words, they’re the friendliest people out that way in the prairies and stuff like that. Every door that we knocked on there if it wasn’t already plan to be hunted, they would let us, they’d let us in.

[00:21:56] But every time when we walk knock, knock doors in Saskatchewan, they let us in, they gave us a place to stay. Some of the nicest people around. Here in BC, it’s a little bit more tight knit. There’s not as many spots to waterfowl. There’s not as much public ground and it’s not vast and wide open.

[00:22:11] We’re dealing with the city kind of encroaching on us, right. We’re dealing with new structure and, and new types of people, and then people that aren’t used to being engaged with hunters, I guess hunters or fishermen. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:25] Right, right. I guess another tip would be just really knowing the synopsis and an easy thing that you can do at home. I’ve seen people who get into it and they have no idea what areas are open, what aren’t. With the Lower Mainland, of course, you’ve got the Fraser Valley.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:22:42] Map.

Travis Bader: [00:22:43] The map, that, that’s a good resource.

Dennis Zentner: [00:22:46] Comment on a map. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:47] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:22:48] And being that you sit on the same board as I do, or the community as I do. The map is a guideline. Just because it’s red does not mean it’s closed. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:57] Right.

Dennis Zentner: [00:22:58] Right. So take an example, Surrey and Langley as red. Red is not necessarily closed. As far as the waterfowl act goes, and the right to farm act is. You have the right to protect your crops. So just because it’s red doesn’t mean it’s close.

[00:23:17] You can go there and you could obtain written permission from some of those farmers and have access to that land also. Talk to some of the conservation officers, they know. The map is a by, it’s, it’s, it’s a bylaw map. 

[00:23:33] So the regional biologist goes to the, to the city council and says, any changes this year, what’s closed, what’s open, what are the rules and regulations as far as the bylaws stance goes, and then they produce the map.

[00:23:48] You’ve been there when, when Jack brings the prototype of the map or the the draft and we go over the changes. It’s a good guideline for new hunters because they don’t know where to go. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:24:01] Well, it’s their only guideline basically. Apart from asking somebody where’s legal, what’s not legal? I mean.

Dennis Zentner: [00:24:06] Correct. They open the map. They open the map and say, Oh look, I can hunt here in Boundary Bay and I can do this. And like, okay, there’s some open areas for me to go. People come on, they’ll phone, they’ll phone or you’ll get them on social media where, where can a guy go get started? 

[00:24:21] If you don’t, if you don’t feel comfortable knocking on doors, you’re going to go to Westham Island or Brunswick Point, or you’re going to buy a boat and go into the Marsh. It’s a tough gig to go and learn on your own without some sort of a mentor. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:34] Yeah, it really is. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:24:35] Right? There’s lots, there’s lots to learn on how to do it, but you know, lots of fellows, they’ll go and they’ll go out to Boundary Bay and they’ll walk over the dike and go out into foreshore. You know, they give it their best.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:24:46] Yeah. But they’ll learn. They’ll learn from that single experience, right? 

Dennis Zentner: [00:24:49] Yeah. And that’s called the knocks of the knocks of life. You know, Hey, I went out there, I got a little bit wind burnt and rained on, and I only got one duck. Had lots of fun doing it, maybe next time it will be better. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:25:00] That’s duck hunting.

Dennis Zentner: [00:25:01] That is duck hunting right? And then, you know, part of the problem is people don’t understand the capabilities of their firearm. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:08] Ahh, here we go there.

Dennis Zentner: [00:25:10] They’re, they’re, they’re shooting at things that are a little bit too high or a lot too high. They don’t ha, they don’t know the effective range of their shotgun. So, you know, and in some cases they, they need to go, one, learn how to use their shotgun properly. 

[00:25:21] So when you go to a, an accredited range and learn and learn, and then you go out in the field and say, okay, well that bird’s a little too far, or, you know, you need to know what, what the load you’re shooting is capable of, what you’re capable of and what the firearms capable of.

[00:25:36] So there’s lots of folks out there shooting stuff, 80, 90, 100 yards, and I mean, if they do hit them, the bird probably trickles off somewhere, lands, you know, half a mile away and it doesn’t get retrieved. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:25:48] No dog, nothing.

Dennis Zentner: [00:25:48] No dog, it’s hawk food or coyote food or gone to waste because you’re not shooting ethically. It’s no different then, you know, shooting at a deer and making a poor shot on deer. Basically what it boils down is learning your firearm and being an ethical hunter. If you’re shooting at stuff that’s too far away, you’re going to wound more and retrieve less. 

[00:26:11] If you bring up, let those birds come in and say within 60 yards, 40, 40 yards is kind of the optimum shot or closer. But you know, say your max range is 50, 60 yards. If you, if you’re shooting at anything inside that, your success rate’s going to go up a lot higher. So you go out with a box of shells and you know, hopefully you’re going to come home with your limited ducks. 

[00:26:31] If hear some people come in and you know, they, they go with a flat or shells and they’re happy to come in with five ducks. Good, good on them. They’re out there enjoying the outdoors.  

Jens Cuthbert: [00:26:41] Good for Stillwater.

Travis Bader: [00:26:44] Yeah good for Stillwater.

Dennis Zentner: [00:26:45] But, but let’s face it, it’s not an ethical thing. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:48] The other thing it does is this, you’re going to have people seeing you out there do that. Like you mentioned, the Brunswick Point. People can walk all around the outside there. They see you shooting at birds that are too far away getting wounded and where’s that end up?

[00:27:00] Next thing you know you’re going to be reading about in the newspaper, these poor ethics are going to be reported upon and that one poor hunter.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:27:08] And ruin him.

Travis Bader: [00:27:09] Who’s demonstrating poor ethics, all hunters painted with the exact same brush. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:27:15] Yeah. The other, the other thing that those guys don’t realize when they’re shooting at birds. In or out of range or anything like that is when you shoot at birds out of range at, my out of range is 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 yards. You’re only educating them. They’re.

Travis Bader: [00:27:31] Right. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:27:31] They’re not, they’re not going to come in the next day, you know what I mean? Most birds are, are, are on a flight path. They’re going to do that similar flight path every day until they feel uncomfortable to not do that flight path.

[00:27:44] So if you get those, let’s say snow geese, snow geese coming over at 60 yards. There’s a lot of snow geese coming over at 60 yards, and you figure that you can hit them and you’re not hitting them at 60 yards. You’re only educating those things to fly back at the next day at 70 or 80 yards right? Now, you’re just tickling them, you’re just massaging the breasts. 

[00:28:03] You’re not, you’re not, you’re not even penetrating anything right. You’re only, you’re only helping your Stillwater’s cause with wasting and burning your ammo and stuff like that. And to be honest, it’s more of a sport when you can decoy them or when you can get them in close enough to where you can actually do full capability of, of harvesting the animal properly and with one shot and down it goes. And it’s a quick, quick dispatch.

Dennis Zentner: [00:28:26] That’s my favourite way. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:28:27] Yeah.

Dennis Zentner: [00:28:27] That’s my favourite way when they’re the birds completely committed. It’s my favourite way to hunt birds. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:28:33] Oh, there ain’t nothing better. That’s right. When you can trick a bird into coming into plastic, plastic things that look like it, and there ain’t nothing better than that. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:42] There’s one other resource that I figured I’d throw out there, and we talked about the, regulations, talked about the, the map. If you guys ever used iHunter?

Dennis Zentner: [00:28:51] I use iHunter and Hunt Buddy.

Travis Bader: [00:28:54] Hunt Buddy.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:28:55] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:55] I think Hunt Buddy was a sort of a, the trailblazer on the phone. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:28:59] That’s right.

Travis Bader: [00:28:59] I think there’s a guy by the name Mark Stenroos in Alberta who took the iHunter thing and for people that are new to it, it’s a, it’s a pretty good resource. It makes things, now of course, you have to check the synopsis, make sure that everything matches up, but they’re pretty good at keeping on top of things and knowing if, what your limits are, what, what the season is, the length of it.

[00:29:25] But the maps are the most, one of the tools that I found quite useful. I remember it was, it was last year actually, I was on an elk hunt and we had taken the kids into town to get some hot cocoa and ice cream, and we’re heading back and we’re going through some farm, farm land, and we see some juvenile elk in a farmer’s field and we pull over.

[00:29:49] The kids are trying to identify it and figure it everything around here was gonna be private property and non hunt-able. And as the kids are looking out, I look over at my wife and I say, well, you know, mama’s not going to be too far away, and my wife had a cow elk tag. Said too bad we’re, we’re in an area where we can’t harvest them.

[00:30:08] And she pulls up the iHunter and she looks, actually right across the street over there, it’s completely open. I look across the street and there’s another cow elk right there. Having resources like that can also be a helpful thing. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:30:24] I think, ,I think a thing to touch on is like you mentioned regulations. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:28] Right.

Dennis Zentner: [00:30:29] And, and as a CORE instructor, it’s one of the things I stress a lot is regulations and how to read them properly, right? So learn how to read the regulations properly cause, and Jens’ll, Jen’s will say the same. When you look at a lot of the hunt forums, guys are asking simple questions that are in the regulations, right? It’s like, Hey, it’s on page 15, just look it up yourself sorta thing right? 

Travis Bader: [00:30:55] Right. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:30:55] They’re relying so much on everybody to tell them what to do instead of actually doing the research. So in my CORE classes, I kinda spend a little extra time on the, on the regulations part because I want them to know how to use it.

[00:31:10] They can’t come back to me and say, today, you didn’t teach me about that. You didn’t teach me about, you know, the, the regulations well enough that I understand. No, when my students leave, they know how to read that regulation properly. I find that happens a lot and, and, and hunters on the hunt forums get not upset, but they get tired of those silly questions that are so easily to, you should be able to figure them out yourself.

Travis Bader: [00:31:38] Mhmm.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:31:39] Yeah, I think, I think, yeah when a, when a, when a question that’s pretty simple gets posted onto a, let’s say a forum or a page on social, and you’ve had guys that have been in the game for 50 years or whatever you want to say. I think I can see how they can get easily annoyed with, with simple questions like that or whatever.

[00:32:02] But at the same time, these days and age, I should say the kids, or the people that are getting involved in this stuff almost want it spoon-fed to them, to the point where they don’t even care about reading the regulations. We have a, we’ve got a new influx, a new coming of, of new hunters coming into the thing where it’s, you know, I pay for my license, I pay for my tags, I pay for my stamp, I can go out there and shoot. 

[00:32:30] I don’t know how much I’m allowed to shoot, I don’t know where I’m allowed to shoot, but I’m just going to go out and shoot because they’ve never had that privilege before. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:36] Right. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:32:37] It’s a privilege to hunt, it is, but it’s our right to hunt too. I believe it’s, it’s our right to bear arms and it’s, a firearm is just a tool to me.

Travis Bader: [00:32:47] Yup.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:32:47] It sits right next to a shovel, you know, on the front porch, and it doesn’t do any more damage than what it then a shovel would to digging in the yard right.

Travis Bader: [00:32:54] Preaching to the choir.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:32:55] Yeah. So I think it’s, I think it’s a little bit of a negligence when people are so, put out dumbfounded questions and stuff like that. But at the same time, I think they just need a little bit more direction and a little bit more help sometimes too, because if they’re coming from an era where it’s uncommon to have to work mpretty hard to get to what you want. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:20] Right. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:33:20] In life, right so.

Travis Bader: [00:33:21] Well, working in the gun store, what are, what are some of the common things that you see people come in that you just kind of have to shake your head at? I’m sure there’s.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:33:28] Ohh, there’s millions Trav. You know, we come in with barrels put on backwards and fully loaded guns and I dunno it hap, it happens. But I mean, there’s people from all walks of life and stuff like that, and like I said, they just need a little help, a little guidance. Sometimes it’s due to negligence or laziness and stuff like that.

[00:33:48] But I mean, we get, we get public coming in for public complaints. We get hunters coming in about other hunter complaints sometimes. 

Travis Bader: [00:33:56] Okay.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:33:57] But I mean, that’s all part of the game. You know, when, when you’re in that certain aspect of it, it’s going to happen, you know? But it’s not going to happen as often as you think it does. It just, it’s going to happen in that time. We’re trying to whittle it down to as minimal as possible right. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:13] Public complaints. Let’s talk about that. What can new hunters do to mitigate public complaints? 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:34:23] I think, I think they, they should, one, know the rules.

Travis Bader: [00:34:27] Right. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:34:28] Just so that they’re not out of place or out of bounds and stuff like that. And sometimes rules aren’t there written, they’re just the unwritten rules of the sport, you know what I mean? Not to set it just like you do in fishing, you’re not going to go down there and go post below a guy in the run and start casting your thing in without going to maybe ask permission and say, Hey man, I know it’s not your river, but out of etiquette, I’m going to ask you, Hey, can I fish below or would you rather me fish above you?

Travis Bader: [00:34:55] See, a lot of people wouldn’t know that. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:34:57] No, they wouldn’t right. And same thing with duck hunting, right? And you’re not going to go post a guy, I mean, I had it this year in similar situations, hunting snow geese where we had a, where we had a guy post up 50 yards off our, off our set. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:10] Come on. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:35:11] And you know, and what do you do? You, you can either join forces with the guy or educate the guy, or just if he’s a plane, I guess dick then he’s going to have that name built out for him later on or whatever right. But in most circumstances, it all figures out its own way and stuff like that and people get along.

[00:35:30] And I mean, as hunters, we all have to unite somehow, because that’s we, we all love the sport. We all love to hunt, we all, but we don’t want it to be thrashed by the, the few and far between the people that are going to try and ruin it for us with being ignorant or uneducated things. 

[00:35:47] So with the public complaints and stuff like that, yeah I think it has to do with some, some hunters and stuff like that that are ruining it for others, but I also think it’s I think it’s a little bit ignorance on, on a part of the public that about most of the complaints that we get. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:02] Oh for sure it is.

Dennis Zentner: [00:36:04] It lands on both sides for sure. But everybody, an example, an ethical hunter or a, a hunter with a bit of smarts wouldn’t pick a heavy Southeast wind day to be shooting right behind a neighbourhood.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:36:20] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:20] Right.

Dennis Zentner: [00:36:21] Right, cause it’s going to sound like you’re right in the backyard. So there’s days where I’ve gone to a field and went, this might not be the right place to be shooting here today cause it’s going to, I mean, yes, you’re, you’re more than legal. You’re far enough out in the field. Nobody’s going to get rained on, but the noise is going to make, make the neighbours mad.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:36:38] And that’s the same thing with like casing your gun while you’re walking the dike. You know what I mean? I mean.

Dennis Zentner: [00:36:44] Yeah Jens and I had this discussion while I was with a fellow today actually in the store, and I was in there visiting Jens, and this fellow came in and the discussion came up about hunting Boundary Bay and with, with the Metro Vancouver running the strip park at the dike.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:36:59] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:37:00] That was owned by Delta, Metro Van came to Delta and asked if they could manage the Dyke as a strip park, as a continuation from the Centennial Beach Parkway right? So was Centennial Beach park used to come around and come over to Boundary Bay and it kind of ended there. 

[00:37:15] They wanted to carry on the the strip parks so people could enjoy that whole use of the park. Problem being is, back when we were kids that was pretty much strictly used by hunters. 

Travis Bader: [00:37:29] Right.

Dennis Zentner: [00:37:29] And the guys would go out there with their pickups on a, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and the dykes were never gated back then. He’d back up there on the thing, you’d have your trap throw out there, you’d be chucking pigeons out there shooting, shooting back clay birds and stuff like that. 

[00:37:43] Well, that’s come to an end after that happened. This fellow that we’re talking to today was one of the comments was about walking over the dike or down the dike with an uncased gun and pack three ducks. 

Travis Bader: [00:37:55] Mmm. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:37:56] The, the general public who’s not hunter savvy, not going to want to see that.

Travis Bader: [00:38:00] No, not at all. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:38:01] So you gotta be a bit smart as a hunter, like let’s not be flashing. Case your gun, throw your ducks in your blind bag or whatever and then. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:38:09] Yeah.

Dennis Zentner: [00:38:09] You know, mind your P’s and Q’s. The problem is people get a little bit confrontational, like they’ll, they’ll come across a, a person, just general public that’s not educated about hunting and you shouldn’t be shooting birds out here. Well, that’s not the case. Boundary Bay in that, in that aspect, with that park there, it’s a multi-use area. It’s no different than Brunswick’s Point where people walk their dogs and the kids go out on their bikes and they ride along the dyke, it’s a multi-use area. 

[00:38:38] Both, like hunters need to get along with the public. Public needs to get along with the hunters. So if you have a hunter or a group of hunters that’s a bit confrontational with you know, somebody from the public that’s not educated about hunting or doesn’t agree with hunting, that just makes it worse.  I think we are going to be all sorts of complaints, right?

Jens Cuthbert: [00:38:57] I think we all, we’ve all been there. You know where there’s going to be confrontation. There’s going to be people that don’t share the same views that you have or anything like that. I’m all, what you said, Dennis, I’m all for that, I’m not, I’m not too scared about, I would case my gun on the dyke, but I’m not scared about showing my, my harvest.

Dennis Zentner: [00:39:17] No. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:39:17] Or my foul or anything like that. I think most people that walk those dykes,  let’s say 64, 72nd Brunswick Point, Pitt Marsh, whatever you want to call it, any public ground, I think most people that are there, are accepted of it and they know what’s going on. You got to remember that down Brunswick Point that used to be all private dyke, public use would never be able to walk down there until they opened it up in the I think it was the early nineties or something like that. 

[00:39:41] But you have to remember that the hunters were there before there was dog walkers, before there was, you know, morning walkers that had their cool crisp stride, you know that come down there with their Starbucks, and now here I am stereotyping them.

[00:39:55] You know, we live in such a, an awesome place, especially Ladner. We don’t want to put it too much on the map because then more people come because it’s already losing it’s small thing, we’re getting encroached with that big, ugly piece of pavement out there and Tsawwassen. I mean, I shot thousands of ducks, or I shouldn’t say thousands, but hundreds of ducks, right where that big ugly mall sits. 

[00:40:17] And now it’s, it’s not soil. Yeah. It’s concrete now right? You can’t get that back, you can’t grow, can’t grow crop out of concrete. And here we are having some of the best soil in all of Canada, and we’re paving it over.

Travis Bader: [00:40:28] Yeah.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:40:28] Like it’s nobody’s business and I. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:31] Well, it brings up a, you know, there’s a, there’s an interesting balance because we talk about casing the gun because some people might be offended by seeing the firearm, by putting the, your kill and hiding it away.

[00:40:46] I know I was speaking with another fellow, he says, you know what? I’d love to drive down the road with my deer opened up on the top, letting the air cool it out, but I just can’t do that because of how that’ll look. And although it’s perfectly legal for somebody to be walking out with their uncased firearm and perfectly fine for them to be displaying or having their harvest out in the open, there are going to be those within the society that are offended by it. 

[00:41:17] And the difficult fight comes in when, just like you were saying before, it’s, it’s a tool. I was raised around firearms, I got my first firearm when I was, well I started shooting at four, got for my first firearm at five years old. Still have it, old custom made 22 Stevens cut down to fit a five year old frame right. 

[00:41:36] It took down into two pieces, could throw it in my backpack, it was perfect. I’m used to that. And for a long time I had this attitude of, it’s legal, it’s lawful, I can do it. Screw everyone else right? I mean, I’m not doing anything wrong, but the reality of it is, we are the minority. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:42:00] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:01] We really are. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:42:02] And then that’s what’s changed from like the 70’s, the 80’s and then early 90’s and now, you know, getting into, we’re well into the 2000’s now and I mean, I hate to say it but, the snowflakes are winning, you know what I mean?

Travis Bader: [00:42:16] Yeah.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:42:16] Like they’re, I shouldn’t say they’re winning cause it’s not a fight for that. But I don’t think anyone should be not proud to be a hunter or, or out even a shooter or a, or a fishermen or anything like that because a certain group of people that are, are more minded like that disagree on that part right? But it’s a touchy subject, right? Because at any point in time, you could say the wrong thing and you’re going to be the bad guy, right? You say one wrong thing and shame on you. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:46] And when it comes down to do I case the gun? Do I not? Do I hide the harvest or not? And then it becomes the argument of, well, if we keep casing it and hiding it and people don’t see it, then how do you normalize it? Because not having, not seeing the firearm becomes the norm and you further hurt your cause. 

[00:43:06] Well like just, back in the day when guys would roll around in their, in, in their Chevy or their Ford or whatever with three guns sitting

Dennis Zentner: [00:43:13] Shotgun hanging in the back. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:43:14] In the back window right? 

Travis Bader: [00:43:15] Yeah.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:43:15] You wouldn’t think anything. I went to, I, I, when I went into high school, I used to drive a Cutlass Supreme with an empty bullet shells all around the thing, like dingle balls, but they were shotgun shells, perfectly legal, but I got pulled over quite a bit. But at the same time it was like, that was, I was okay with displaying that I was okay with, you know, being okay with that.

[00:43:33] And at that time it was right at that transitioning point where, you know, guns are scary, guns are bad, guns a thing. I think a lot of it is just ignorance and uneducated people about certain things. It’s, it’s, it’s a tool and so it’s a way to harvest animals right?

Travis Bader: [00:43:51] Well, speaking of, yeah. Well, speaking of the general public and people seeing hunters out there, Dennis, you had an experience where somebody got their phone out, filmed you, I think they put it on YouTube didn’t they?

Dennis Zentner: [00:44:06] Went up to the media, yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:07] Yeah.  

Dennis Zentner: [00:44:08] Yeah, we had a, we had a opportunity, a very privileged opportunity to hunt a piece of property who not many people get to hunt, and it’s back in the back in when we were allowed to hunt the property. Now it’s being developed, so it’s kind of off the table, but back in that, in that time, there was a handful of us that have permission to hunt there, and it came to the point where the public pressure from around that farm, they kept complaining to the land owner and the land owner finally said, okay, there’s no more hunting here.

[00:44:38] Got to the point where there was so many snow geese in this property that even the neighbours were like man, we can’t even sleep at night, they’re there all the time. So the landowner finally said, okay, come on in and, and you know, let’s harvest some of these geese and make a move on. This, a resident, you know, everybody’s got a phone now on there with a camera on your video.

[00:45:01] So came out and videoed us, called the local Delta police and made a, made a big scene out of it. Ended up going to media, when it was in the papers it was you know, on the news. We weren’t doing anything wrong, we followed all the rules. The guy basically tried to make a mockery of myself and my hunting partner at the time. 

[00:45:23] We stayed professional, answered the questions, the media came, the media came to my hunting partners residence. We did an interview. People just need to understand that we harvest our animals, we just don’t go shoot him just because. We don’t shoot over our limit, we’re conservationists. 

[00:45:44] You know, us as duck hunters when the ducks are freezing, we got a big long freeze up. Example would be way back when Boundary Bay was froze over. The ducks were freezing, they were thin. The Delta Rod and Gun Club went and purchased a whole bunch of green and went and spread it out for the birds to eat. You wouldn’t see general public do that.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:46:05] We get, you know, I say as hunters, we give so much more back to the wildlife than any of the general public does. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:46:15] Oh, the old saying eh Jen’s like the, the migratory birds stamp. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:46:19] Oh yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:46:20] Us as hunters buy that migratory birds stamp, every year the money goes back into the waterfowl. It doesn’t mean that general public can’t buy that same stamp and contribute. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:46:31] Well, that’s what I mean, the guy taken, I mean, I take photography of, of wild birds and love them just as much as when they’re alive, as when they’re on my table.

Travis Bader: [00:46:38] Right. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:46:39] But they don’t see the, the hours put in at, let’s say the sanctuary or, or behind a planting a cover crop for a farmer or anything like that too. Like I said, to the dyke walker that might complain that when you have harvested birds there, it’s like, Hey man, I pay $17 and 85 cents every year for my bird stamp.

[00:46:59] And that contributes to the wildlife habitat restoration, to all that stuff, what do you do? You can buy that too. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:06] Right.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:47:06] Why, why haven’t you bought your bird stamp? Do you have your bird stamp? Anyone can buy it. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:47:10] Not only that, it’s a cool thing to collect. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:47:12] Well, that’s too, right. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:13] I don’t think a lot of the general public actually knows that.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:47:16] Right.

Travis Bader: [00:47:16] Yeah. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:47:16] I mean, if you’re.

Travis Bader: [00:47:17] That’s a good tip.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:47:18] If you’re a birder and if you enjoy photography or going out there with your binoculars and looking at the chickadees, looking at the sparrows, looking at the starlings.

Dennis Zentner: [00:47:26] And the waterfowl.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:47:27] And the waterfowl, anything. That all helps that right. But just on a, on a case in point touching Dennis, is like, the other thing that people don’t realize is how much damage those birds do to farmer’s crops. 

[00:47:43] I’ve had a farmer come up to me that has significant amount of property on Westham Island and he’s come up to me and he goes, Jen’s, you know what? I didn’t get a wink asleep last night. And I said, why? And he said, do you know what it sounds like to have $10,000 get eaten out over two nights.

Travis Bader: [00:48:01] Yeah. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:48:02] And it’s like you sit there and you’re like, and he’s like, can you come and pound them out for me? And it’s like, yeah, I can only do my best, but at the same time it’s like, that guy is losing money, right? Are it’s, it’s getting eaten out, house and home every single field, you know, and it’s.

Dennis Zentner: [00:48:17] It doesn’t take long for a big flock of snow geese to annihilate a whole field.

Travis Bader: [00:48:20] Well and then they stamp down on the ground, the water will sit on the top. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:48:24] That’s right. Yup. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:48:25] And then, I mean, and then you go as far as, how much damage they do here, and then when they migrate back up North into the Tundra, how much damage they do up there. They’re almost eating themselves out of house and home. They’re almost killing themselves off because there’s so many of them on this, on this certain fly away and on, on the mid.

Dennis Zentner: [00:48:47] Central flyway. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:48:48] Central flyway and the Mississippi flyway, all that stuff. That, they’re eating the Tundra so fast that it can’t even regrow back so that the birds can eat the next year after that. There’s just so many of them that they’re eating so much at the little, the juveniles can’t survive that. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:06] Yeah. And right now those numbers are just out of control. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:49:09] They’re out of control. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:10] Eventually it’ll self level one would think. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:49:13] Well.

Travis Bader: [00:49:13] Food would run out. Something is going to happen, but.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:49:15] Trav they had the guys that used to say, you know, they wouldn’t see a snow goose in the 80’s and they might see a, you know, they might have, you know, 5,000 on the fly away in the 90’s, here I’m talking Pacific flyway her on our coast. 

[00:49:29] And then you generally, and then you just saw the explosion happen where you had, you know, where the normal was 50,000 now it’s at 60,000 now it’s at, you know, 130,000 on good hatch years and stuff like that. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:49:41] And now we’re used to hear, or see snow geese in East Delta, Chilliwack, they’re up the Valley now.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:49:48] Yeah.

Dennis Zentner: [00:49:49] But they never used to be. I mean, it used to be, we hunted them on the foreshore, we hunted them on Westham Island, maybe at Brunswick, that was it. Now they’re, they’ve come inland and they’re like right in the central Ladner, East Delta and further out and that, and, and in years gone by, that wasn’t common to see.

[00:50:06] Jens Cuthbert: [00:50:06] Yeah. But it wasn’t common to have a casino or a big mega mall or any of that too lot area. And it turns out. It turns those birds pretty nocturnal pretty quick. I mean you, you don’t get to pound them in the daylight hours and they come in at night and you can’t do anything about that. They get so smart, so fast and you have so much light pollution around here that they can come in and they can, they can feed at night and then they’ll leave at first light. You don’t get a crack at them. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:50:31] And thats a good example Jens, I mean right by my shop is right where highway 99 and highway 17 meet. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:50:38] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:50:38] And they have those big light halos at the, at the interchanges and behind the shop at night it’s, fields lit and the snow geese would come in there at night, every night. And they, it was just like, it was daylight there for them, it didn’t phase them.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:50:53] You wait till the slot machines go up down the road, even worse. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:50:57] Even worse.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:50:57] Thanks Mr. Toygo. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:50:59] Yeah.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:50:59] Shout out. Shout out bud. Make your money. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:51:02] And another thing that hunters can do to, to help themselves too is, we talked about it earlier, was pick up after themselves right. You know, earlier we mentioned like, if you saw something wrong with the property, a tree down on a fence or you know, beaver damn in the ditch or whatever. 

[00:51:19] But I mean, that’s part of it, you go out there and you have the privilege to, to hunt on whether it’d be public land or private land, try not to leave the big mess. I mean, I get it, some of the casings, they go off on the side and you don’t find them in the long grass, but if you want to be welcomed back there or you want to keep hunting open in the area, you got to kind of pick up after yourself too so. 

Travis Bader: [00:51:40] Yes.

Dennis Zentner: [00:51:40] You know, pick up your, pickup, your casings, pick up your lunch rappers. It’s, you know, make it nice as it as it can be, or nicer than when you got there. And that’s the problem. Like I’ve gone to doors and banged on a door and asked for permission and, and it’s a farmer I don’t know, it’s in an area I don’t know. And that, and the answer is no. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:00] Hmm. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:52:00] Because the previous hunter, there was a slob hunter, right. We’ll use this, use that term. It didn’t pick up after themselves left there, you know, pizza box behind or whatever they had for lunch and beer can layin in the blind or whatever. And so the farmer’s like, nah, I’m not, not interested in going through that scenario again. So ya know, the hunters need to help themselves by, you know, looking after the piece of property that are hunting on.

[00:52:26] And like I said, it doesn’t necessarily have to be private land, even on the public lands. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:52:30] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:52:31] Mhmm.

Dennis Zentner: [00:52:31] And there’s lots of times they’ll go to a spot and all that’s pretty commonly used by duck hunters, and you’ll go there and there’s casings from the previous guy there and you’re like, ah, come on man, and you’re going to fill a half of a five gallon pail, and.

Travis Bader: [00:52:43] I pick him up.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:52:45] Yeah. You don’t have to be the superhero and stuff like that. There’s Marsh cleanups and stuff, but at the same time, it doesn’t have to be your mess to pick it up either, right. Because.

Travis Bader: [00:52:53] Cause it’ll affect you.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:52:54] It’s all, it’s all, it’s all the duck Juju too, right? Like it’s, I mean, if you pick up 12 casings, you’re probably going to shoot your limited ducks. Cause that’s, I mean, that’s how I put it. If you pick up three Tim Horton’s cups and a pizza box and stuff like that, you probably gonna get some, some good flocks comin your way, right? 

Dennis Zentner: [00:53:08] Yeah. Yup. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:53:08] Not going to happen all the time, but I mean. Better to be on the good side than the bad side anyways.

Travis Bader: [00:53:14] And on the public side, I, I’d like to circle back to your story there, Dennis, with the person taking the video, because I remember seeing that video and there’s a bit of an uproar and I remember watching, it’s like, it was hard to see in the video, but I’m like, I think I know that guy. I’m looking at it. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:53:27] I got a pretty distinct profile. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:30] And I watch it, and although there was negativity surrounding it at first. I was really impressed with what you did afterwards. You did the interview with the media, you educated them as to what people are allowed to do, what you were doing out there. And I think, whether you’re the type of person to case your firearm or to tuck away your harvest or to have it out displayed, engaging the public when you’re out there, educating them what you’re doing and why you’re doing that, just even if it’s just a nod, Hey, how are you doing?The friendly.

Dennis Zentner: [00:54:05] Always try to be friendly.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:54:06] And that’s what most of it is on the dyke there too, unless I mean that people that are going to give you a scowling look most of the time, even when you’re walking on the streets without a gun or without stuff like that someone’s going to.

Dennis Zentner: [00:54:16] Give you in your cammo.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:54:17] Someone’s going to give you, you know, a bitch face. I’m not going to really give you the time of day either right? 

Travis Bader: [00:54:21] Yeah. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:54:21] But at the same time, it’s, it’s important to, you know, let, let the people know that you’re there and you’re doing everything legal and everything’s cool and you’re not going there to hurt nobody I mean. 

Travis Bader: [00:54:33] Even that smile, that little bit of outreach and all of a sudden, maybe you’re not just a scary guy with a gun. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:54:38] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:54:38] Okay. Got it. 

Jens Cuthbert: [00:54:39] Yeah. I can, I completely, I, I can see where it comes from both sides where you know, where you’ve got a guy walking with a gun and you might not be comfortable around guns, just like most of the general public’s not because they’re unaware of what it can do. But yeah, just a simple smile or a good morning or have a good day, have a good rest of the walk and be on your way. And that’s kinda, I think the most of the general public along these dykes and stuff like that, they kind of know. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:07] Yeah.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:55:07] They, they’re, it’s not their first rodeo and most of the time, if it’s a guy coming down from Vancouver with his Mazarati and Starbucks wants to walk his Chihuahua on the dyke and he might have a problem with it, but at the same time, it might just take two minutes of education and he might be on your side. You never know right. So.

Dennis Zentner: [00:55:24] Yeah. Yup. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:26] Well, we’ve talked about etiquette, some tips, some really good tips actually, if people are really listening to this, there’s some great takeaways and educating the public. Before we wrap things up, is there anything that we should get out there? Anything that we haven’t talked about that, should probably be said?

Jens Cuthbert: [00:55:43] I don’t know. I think it, I think just based on. I mean, we’ve only kind of touched on the Delta, Ladner area. I mean, there’s lots of other places to hunt waterfowl in ya know, Langley, White Rock, Surrey, Pitt Meadows, Cloverdale, Chilliwack, all those things, right? You can go anywhere.  I would just encourage people if, if they want to get into the sport, don’t be afraid to jump in it.

[00:56:11] It is an expensive hobby to do and stuff like that, it will, it is an addiction. Once you get into it, it, it’s an addiction. So if you have a significant other, just make sure that they’re ready, ready for, ready for that addiction to start and ready for, you know.

Dennis Zentner: [00:56:27] Ready for that three in the morning, jumping out of bed, where are you going on this stormy.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:56:30] Exactly. Ready to squirrel away a little extra money for a gun or some extra ammo or something like that. But I would just say, just remember you’re representing all of us when you’re out there. It’s not your, you’re representing yourself, but you’re also representing all of us out there. So, if you treat wildlife and our resource and our environment with a good hand, then I think it all repay itself in the end.

[00:56:54] The other thing I’d, I’d touch on is if right now with the world that we’re living in, everything is getting developed. Everything is getting overexposed. We’re dealing with tons of stuff against our own environment here in British Columbia, people move here to see what we have and what we have to offer.

[00:57:13] And right now we’re, we’re moving in a certain direction to where we don’t care about our wildlife, is what I’m seeing. I might be a little bit biased, but with our government and stuff like that, BC is one of the most renowned places to come to in the whole world. We live in the best place in the whole world.

Travis Bader: [00:57:31] Yeah, agreed.

Jens Cuthbert: [00:57:31] And if we don’t start caring about our wetlands, our oceans, I, and I’m not given a Greenpeace speech or anything like that, all I’m asking is that you give maybe 20 minutes of your time at, at on, maybe sign a petition or maybe go to a meeting. We’re losing a lot of a lot of stuff each and every day. Whether it’s to do with coal pollution or loss of foreshore or loss of public ground to hunt on, even big game or waterfowl.

[00:58:02] I suggest that you get involved in that, and especially if you’re a newcomer because it’s for the, the newer comers that, it’s for our kids and their kids that are happening. If we lose that, then well, not, we’re not the same British Columbia. We’re not the same Delta, we’re not the same Langley, we’re not the same area anymore. Right. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:58:22] One of the biggest things I think that hurts us as hunters is hunters bickering with hunters. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:28] Ugh. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:58:28] Social media. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:29] We’re never going to cure that one.

Dennis Zentner: [00:58:29] Social media is the worst thing in the world. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:31] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:58:32] Because you know, the hunters are, are bickering back and forth between each other and, we’re not sticking together. So you know, we’re, we’re imploding ourselves. You know, whereas the, we’ll call them the, leaf lickers is what I usually refer to them as.

Travis Bader: [00:58:50] What was that?

Jens Cuthbert: [00:58:50] The leaf leaf lickers. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:52] Oh. 

Dennis Zentner: [00:58:52] I like leaf lickers. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:53] I haven’t heard that one.

Dennis Zentner: [00:58:55] You know, they, they don’t understand hunting. We try our best to educate them you know, some of us guys. But, but for the most part, it’s, it’s our own bickering back and forth between hunter, hunter versus hunter and this group versus that group, whether it be BC Wildlife Federation and resident hunters of British Columbia, whatever, bickering back and forth. The, the, the end result is or do what we do because we enjoy wildlife. 

[00:59:24] We enjoy being out in the, out in the wilderness, whether it be fishing, hunting, hiking, trapping, whatever it is. But if we just learned to, you know, stop, think, listen a little bit and and, and pitch in and the, and the big thing is like, the worst thing to, that I come across as the keyboard warrior and, and I put my time in, I go to meetings.

[00:59:47] I’ve, I sat on the board of the Federation, I was a director for BC Wildlife Federation for the longest time, even after I was the regional president. We go, we put our time in and you put all that work in and then somebody squishes everything you did and it’s, it’s like, man, what did I do that for? Like why did I work so hard so somebody could stop me?

[01:00:09] And what it boiled down to is the keyboard warrior and, and I, I’ll question them quite often like, Hey, I, I see you’re complaining, I’ve never seen you at a meeting before. 

Travis Bader: [01:00:21] Yeah.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:00:21] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:00:22] Right. Why don’t you.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:00:22] Put in your time.

Dennis Zentner: [01:00:23] Why don’t you come out to a meeting and put your time in? Well, I don’t, I don’t do that. I’d rather just do it from here. Well, you don’t have all the facts, so please get the facts before you start.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:00:34] The thing, the thing.

Dennis Zentner: [01:00:35] Typing on the keyboard.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:00:35] That the social does is it gives, it gives a perception. It puts, it, you put yourself out there, when you make comments or when you post something or whatever, you’re going to put yourself out there, but you better be educated when you put yourself out there. I have guys, I got guys direct message me all the time, Hey man, like where’d you shoot your birds? How do you shoot that many birds? How are you so good? How are you? Blah, blah, blah. I said, you know what the best duck hunters I know don’t have social media. 

[01:01:03] They don’t do social media, they’re an old guy that goes out in his boat every day and shoots his limit of ducks or he shoots four ducks and he’s content with that and he stops after four cause that’s all he can eat. Or that’s all he wants. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:01:14] And he’s, and he’s, he’s learned, like he’s followed the pattern. He’s done his homework, he’s scouted, he’s, he’s comfortable with how you, you know, his shooting capabilities. He lets the birds get him to 40 yards, he, you know, knows how to set up decoys. He’s a competent caller. You know, you go onto the marsh some days and there’s a guy with a duck call and you’re like, you just want to get in your boat and drive over and cram it down his throat because it’s just like.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:01:39] Scares the birds away.

Dennis Zentner: [01:01:39] It doesn’t even sound like a duck. You know, but everybody’s got to learn somewhere.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:01:46] So the social platform, I mean. It’s like, here I’ve caught, I caught this fish, and then the next guy posts, Hey, I caught a bigger fish. Hey, I’ve got a bigger fish, hey, I got a bigger fish, I caught a bigger fish. Well, man, good luck, good, good job, man. Because the, the 70 year old guy that did it in the 80s that caught twice as big as fish as you, don’t care. 

[01:02:03] And neither do half of the other ones. But at the same time, it’s, you’re only representing yourself in, in that type of way. So if you want to be that guy, you go ahead and be that guy, you’re gonna shoot yourself in your own foot right? So.

Travis Bader: [01:02:15] Yeah. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:02:16] But at the same time, you can also move in a more positive direction and guiding people or helping, helping people know the rules or, you know, maybe helping them out with a little extra info or something like that.

[01:02:28] But the real warriors are the guys that are going to bat every, every, every day for us. Whether it’s contributing to BC Wildlife or, or go to, you know, region 2 meetings or region 3 meetings or region 5 meetings. They’re all, it’s all important to here in BC. It’s not just this local aspect to it.

[01:02:45] I mean, it’s, it, it goes as far as Cranbrook, Prince George, all the way up there right. All the way through our natural resources, and right now, the way that I see it going and stuff like that, it’s kind of getting put in the back pocket and we really don’t care about it. And all the leaf lickers as Dennis would say, when the, when the hunters and the fishermen battle against each other, they just sit there with a bowl of popcorn and love it, right?

[01:03:08] They just eat it all up, right. They, they, they want to see us turn against each other and I get it, we’re in a, we’re, it’s, it’s a sport and it’s competitive. People want to be at the top of the chain. They want to, they want to go out there and people want to be successful though too. And don’t get me wrong, there are only, the only way that you’re going to be successful is by going out there and repetition, doing it lots and lots of times.

Dennis Zentner: [01:03:31] But in saying that Jens’ and as you go out there and I don’t know, and it’s happened to me many times and then same with you, you and I have hunted together before. And you go out there on a day and you don’t get any.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:03:41] Oh yeah.

Dennis Zentner: [01:03:42] But you still learn something.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:03:43] Oh, did.

Travis Bader: [01:03:44] You know, I think the definition of success has to be what you’re talking about there, is social media sometimes skews success as, well you have to have a pickup truck full of birds.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:03:54] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [01:03:54] Or you got to have the biggest fish, but success is what? Did you go there and have fun?

Jens Cuthbert: [01:03:58] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [01:03:58] Did you learn something?

Jens Cuthbert: [01:03:59] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [01:03:59] Did you make some bonds? 

Dennis Zentner: [01:04:01] Well and look at Jens’, says he had a pickup truck full of full of birds or, or you know, your sleds full of green heads that you shot that day sort of thing. We didn’t come by that easily, we’ve worked our way to that. We learned, it’s called the Knoxville life, the knox of hunting. You go out and you learn, Oh, I didn’t do it right.

[01:04:19] Biggest thing guys can learn is, go get permission, go hunt private land doesn’t really matter. Biggest thing is scouting, concealment and decoy placement. And then the fourth would be learn your firearm, right Jens? 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:04:33] Oh, and you’re calling and all that stuff too right? 

Dennis Zentner: [01:04:35] That com, that, calling comes with time. But yeah, biggest thing is like, how did you do so well? And I’ve always said that I’ve put my time in scouting, put by, you know, fuel in the tank, miles on the truck. When you get there, make your hide as most natural as you can. So you use hide around you to build your blind. You laugh at these, some of these guys, you go by and you’ll see a nice goose spread out in the field somewhere, and this blind sticks out like you took your hammer to your thumb and stuck it out in the middle of the field. 

[01:05:02] It’s got, it’s yellow and a green field sort of thing, right? So one of the biggest thing is concealment. If you, if you stay hidden and match what the terrain around you is, here’s your success rate most likely it’s going to go up.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:05:18] Yeah, and you’ll learn, you’ll learn from that. That’s succ, that’s another thing of successfulness is like when you go out there and you see birds flaring off you or, or your, your down or your upwind of an elk and it smells you, you know what I mean? You’re going to learn from that experience when you’ve got a big six point bull walking in front of you and you’re on the wrong side of the wind. Well, Hey, man.

Dennis Zentner: [01:05:36] Off in heart beat

Jens Cuthbert: [01:05:36] Yeah, that thing takes off. Well, I bet you if you’re, if you’re into it, you’re gonna learn from that experience right. Same with whatever, moose calling, or when you show up in the rut. It’s not just to do with that, it’s getting to know what you really want to get into, right? So the more you know about it and the more you experience it, the better you’re going to be.

[01:05:56] And it doesn’t mean that you need to put eight green heads on the tailgate. Doesn’t mean that you need to have a six point bull hanging in your, in your man cave. Doesn’t mean that you need to catch the biggest steelhead. And, but it does mean that you can go out there and you can have a good time doing it and enjoy.

Dennis Zentner: [01:06:12] The outdoors.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:06:12] What it.

Travis Bader: [01:06:12] The process.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:06:12] You know, w what, what it has to offer. Yeah. You learn every time out there. Every time you can learn something new out there. I mean, and there ain’t, there ain’t a time that I haven’t went out and, I go out a lot, where you don’t learn something and now you get it. You get guys that at certain stages in there, I guess you could say their hunting career or their fishing career where they’re successful.

[01:06:36] But they want to share their success and show other people. They get more, they get more gratitude with bringing other people out there and watching them light up on, on, you know, hooking a steelhead or, or shooting a couple of wigeon or, you know, watching birds work or bugling in an elk, you know what I mean?

[01:06:55] Like that, all that stuff, just talking about that stuffs makes the hair on my back oo, my neck stand up right. So, and then when you see a, a new comer, or even even a guy that’s just been in it for five to six years and you’ve already seen the show, you’ve already seen that Cirque de Soleil parade plenty of times, but they haven’t.

Travis Bader: [01:07:14] Right. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:07:14] And then, you know, they’re hooting and hollering after it all is successes. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s when you know that you’re doing something right.

Dennis Zentner: [01:07:21] Hell, I still hoot and holler when I get one down. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:07:24] Every time, buddy, every time. I told you it’s an addiction, you go out there all the time, right?

Dennis Zentner: [01:07:31] Oh yeah, for sure. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:07:31] You’ve got to have an, I think if you want to get into hunting, you gotta have an understanding wife, number two, you gotta have an understanding wife, number three, you gotta have an understanding wife, number four, you’ve got to be spending money on your wife. And number five. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:07:44] Put a fat ring on her finger.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:07:46] Number five, you just have to have an understanding of people around you that accept you for who you are, right? So it ain’t easy and no one ever says, and if you can find someone that’ll share all that passion with you and stuff, kudos to that because. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:08:00] What I have found made things a little bit easier was that a 100 mile diet thing eh. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:04] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:08:04] Right. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:05] That did.

Dennis Zentner: [01:08:05] People are a little more interested in trying organic meat.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:08:09] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:08:09] So they’d be like, Hey, Dennis, could I have a duck or could I have a snow goose or a pheasant or what? No problem, I’ll give you one. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:15] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:08:16] Or could I have like a, even a package of elk hamburger or something? 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:08:19] It’s the first thing that goes on an open table anytime anyways.

Dennis Zentner: [01:08:22] I go to an event, I go to an event and it’d be a just a social, like a gathering, whatever, bring an appie, I’ll always bring a selection of, say some smoke fish and so, a couple of different, so some ducks and goose sausage, maybe some elk sausage, whatever. And it’s usually the first thing gone at least parties. 

[01:08:40] And they’re like, what’s this? What’s this? What’s this? So I put these little flags in there, elk sausage, you know, goose sausage, whatever. People try it and they’re like, wow, this is pretty good.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:08:49] Man.

Dennis Zentner: [01:08:50] One of the things we do is the waterfowl heritage days, right. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:53] Right.

Dennis Zentner: [01:08:54] So waterfowl heritage days, quite often we see single moms now. They have a son or a daughter that’s kind of interested in hunting, but mom doesn’t know anything about hunting. So they find out what waterfowl heritage days. When we bring out, I find it, you know, pretty fun. We’ve had some kids that they barely set foot out of the house, they don’t do sports, they, you know, their, their body said, Hey, there’s this waterfowl heritage days thing, where get to go hunting and shoot, try to shoot ducks and geese.

[01:09:20] We always do a lunch with them, and in the past we did like duck fajitas or a duck chilli or goose chilli, that sort of thing. And I, I kinda snicker cause you see these, these single moms come and they’d have like their, their skirt business attire on, drop the kid off in the morning, come back later. 

[01:09:37] And you know, and they’re miffed that you’ve asked them to meet him at Wellington park at five in the morning and these poor single moms got to drag her butt out of bed and get the kid down there right.

[01:09:47] Come back at lunchtime when we’ve got a big lunch spread put out, and they kind of turn their nose up on it, and I have said to a few of them, look, just try it. They try a duck fajita or goose fajita and whatever, and if you throw it in the garbage, you won’t hurt my feelings, but at least you tried it.

Travis Bader: [01:10:01] Right. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:10:02] But nine times out of 10 they would try it, or maybe even nine and a half times out of 10 they would try it and they’re like, Hey, this was pretty good. 

Travis Bader: [01:10:09] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:10:10] So you know, on the goal then it was to try to get all the kids to harvest a duck, and even the ones that didn’t, quite often, there was some kids that harvested two or three ducks and they’d all go home with a duck. We’d send them home with a recipe. They go home. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:10:22] They’d go home with a lot more than that.

Dennis Zentner: [01:10:23] And they’d try it.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:10:24] They’d go home with a lot more than that though hey Dennis. That day changes lot of those kids’ lives and you’d be a surprised on, that might change their path in life. You know, with a single mom dealing with a teenage boy, I mean that, maybe without a male influence in their life, when they get to maybe that one or two days a year that they get to go out and they get to be with the boys are, or the girls too, because they can hunt too as well.  

[01:10:53] But for that, special time in that moment, in that day they go, they tell all their friends at school, they tell their grandpa, they tell their mom, they tell everybody how great that was. I don’t think we’ve ever had a sour experience on a waterfowl heritage days.

Dennis Zentner: [01:11:11] Not yet.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:11:11] And, and some, and some years we’ve been out there and we’ve only shot what, three ducks, but some days we’re out there. I mean, some waterfowl heritage days we’re out there we shoot 20, 20, 30 snow geese right? 

Dennis Zentner: [01:11:21] Yeah. Just the luck of the draw.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:11:22] But it’s hunting, but it’s always those, no matter if you shoot, I shoot a bird or you don’t shoot a bird, that day from right there and they will forever remember that. I promise you that because they won’t.

Dennis Zentner: [01:11:33] I know it for a fact Jens.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:11:35] I get guys coming into the store that you brought out, that are my age basically, or just a little younger than me, and they still talk about that day, right? Yup. And that’s the day that basically groomed them into, you know, maybe starting waterfowl, you know? So if you ever get that opportunity where you got to a kid that’s going to tap you on the shoulder, that you know, maybe maybe you put aside a weekend day for him or, or, you know, take him out for a night flight or take her out for a night flight or whatever right? 

[01:12:05] We encourage anybody in anybody, and it’s never too late to get into the sport. I mean, uh, we had my oldest hunter in the shop this year was 104 years old. He, he shot his own deer and dragged it out right so.

Travis Bader: [01:12:19] 104. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:12:20] 104.

Travis Bader: [01:12:21] Wow.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:12:22] That’s what I filled out the license, I was like oohh man, you’re old. He’s like.

Travis Bader: [01:12:27] Yup.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:12:27] Yeah. He had his, he had his little.

Dennis Zentner: [01:12:29] Yeah. It’s still, you know.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:12:29] Philippino caretaker pay, pay the pay, the license fee and stuff like that. But, he said he was going hunting right. But I mean, you deal with kids from five years old, all the way up to 90 years old. You’re never too late to start in the sport, whether you’re male or female. It’s, it should be welcomed with open arms and I mean, if you’re going to snub your nose at people that are eager to learn and want to get in your sport, then you might be in it for the wrong reason right now right. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:12:56] What I have noticed as a, as a CORE instructor over the years is how many, how many women and children I’ve taught. like it used to be pretty much predominantly a male sport. 

Travis Bader: [01:13:07] Oh the numbers are going. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:13:08] Now that there’s so many ladies and, and kids that I’ve taught and probably more kids than, Oh, pretty much almost all the kids that have shot here in Ladner. At one time, I’d probably cross paths with them, whether it be as a CORE instructor or as when we run the Delta Ladner Rod and Gun Club Junior Program.

Travis Bader: [01:13:27] And what do you attribute that to?

Dennis Zentner: [01:13:32] My mentors. 

Travis Bader: [01:13:33] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:13:34] You know, my mentors taught me and how, I mean, how it came about with me getting into some of these, these, these kids involved, my mentors taught me well, there was nobody to take over the youth program at our gun club, so we took it over. As time went on, like my sister got involved, she would tell her friends, so then now there’s a few girls getting involved. Now, again, like we talked about the 100, the 100 mile diet, a lawyer friend of mine, she and her daughters were vegan. 

[01:14:05] And they came to me one day and they said, Dennis we, we’d like to take the CORE. And I’m like, kind of threw me off guard that they wanted to take the CORE cause they’re vegans. And I said, why? And she said, well, I’m dating a fella and he’s a hunter and we tried some deer and we thought it was good. 

[01:14:23] And it’s like organic, it’s healthy, like there’s no growth hormone in it, so we want to learn how to hunt. So I taught her and her two daughters and, and a girlfriend or hers, the CORE. And these, these four girls, well, three of them for sure, that I’m still in contact with, they love to duck hunt, they love to deer hunt right. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:14:42] And they love to eat it now too. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:14:44] They love 

[01:14:44] eating it. 

Travis Bader: [01:14:45] You know what, I attribute that to a few things. Like you’re saying, the a 100 mile diet, yeah, I mean it’s, it’s popular, people want to be eating organic, they want to eat local. And we find a lot more people coming through, a lot of hipster types that are coming in that just want to be able to provide for themselves. There seems to be a desire for people to go out and be self sufficient. 

[01:15:10] I don’t know what’s driving that exactly. If there’s a uncertainty in their own life or if they’re watching the news too much and seeing all the negativity and thinking, well, I better be prepared, but we do see those types coming in. And as much as hunters, as we look at the doom and gloom of kind of where things are going with the encroachment and population growth and the lack of, the limited access that just as time ticks on. I also see the other side of that. 

[01:15:44] The face of hunting itself seems to be changing the the reasons that people are looking to get into it seem to be changing and I think what you guys mentioned earlier, for these people who might be intimidated to go out and go to the gun club, or to strike up conversation from with some of the old boys. Joining a club, putting in that time to meet the the old guard and learn from them is a, is an integral part. 

[01:16:15] It’s, it’s a way that this sport is going to continue and in the same respect, the old guard is going to have to take a look and realize that some of these hunters aren’t really doing, they’re not dressing like how we would dress. They’re not, they’re not exactly the type of person that we are, but they are enjoying the same sport, they’re doing it legally, they’re doing it ethically. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:16:33] That’s right. I think that’s a huge component to it. I think there’s a little give and take on both, both sides of it and stuff where, you know, the good old boys might have to give up a, a little bit of their knowledge to the new up and comers so that you can all join up and, and, and conquer the hunting and here in British Columbia.

[01:16:52] But I think just touching on the 100 miles stuff, I think people are starting to try to understand where their food comes from. And I think, I think a lot of people, it’s a scary world out there, it’s moving a mile a minute, I mean, a, you can’t even keep up. That’s why I, I mean, we don’t watch the news in our place it or anything like that. It’s just bad, bad stuff to do because I mean.

Travis Bader: [01:17:17] It’s not worth it.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:17:17] In the short, in the short time that you have here on this earth. You gotta be focused on the people that you care about, the things that you want to do and the surrounding your area, your atmosphere and stuff like that. And if you’re too caught up in other people’s worlds and stuff like that.

Dennis Zentner: [01:17:34] You’re not going to enjoy life.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:17:35] No, you’re not going to get there right. You’re not, you’re not going to get the most satisfaction. So touching back on where your food comes from, yeah. Do I have to grab a duck sometimes and wring its neck and, and put it out as misery, yeah, you bet I have had to do that a couple thousand times, but at the same time, I feel remorse for that animal.

[01:17:56] Every big game animal I’ve taken, every, even every duck that I’ve taken. When, when you kill something, it, if you don’t feel a bit of remorse, then you’re in it for the wrong reason because it is taking another things life, but you’re using it to sustain your life. You’re, you’re, you’re using all parts of that.

Dennis Zentner: [01:18:16] I, I totally agree with you Jens and I, you know, I’ve shot lots of big game animals, lots of birds over the years, and, and people have asked me that lots of times like, what’s it like, as a hunter and, and what’s like when you harvest something, and I’ve said to them many times, every emotion goes through your, through your body right. 

[01:18:38] You’re, you’re excited because, Hey, I’m ha, I have this opportunity to harvest this elk or this deer or this goose or whatever. And then you also, you’re happy to be out there with your buddies, you’re excited, all that’s going through your mind, Hey, we’re having a good time and all, here’s my opportunity. So you harvest that animal and you knock it down and now you’re like, Oh man, I just, I just shot an animal. Now, so now there’s a sad feeling, right? Yeah, I just harvest this, but Hey, it’s for my family, we’re going to eat it, it’s, you know. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:19:08] You respect it though. You resp, you respect the thing and.

Dennis Zentner: [01:19:11] Totally.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:19:11] You respect the game that you chase and you respect the game that you’re in. And it, it’s, it’s not, it’s not for the faint of heart, I should say, but at the same time, like, I know where my food comes from. I know, I know that I worked hard for this for whether it’s meat or whether it’s even vegetables out of the garden, like, I mean. I don’t fight vegans, I don’t fight vegetarians, I respect them. They have their own way of living. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:19:35] Their choice.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:19:35] That’s fine and stuff like that. But if, if a certain group’s going to come at me because they don’t like the way that I harvest animals or the way I kill animals or anything like that. I mean, my rebuttal them is, you know, quit eating all their food. I mean, they’re, I mean, they’re eating vegetables, you know what I mean? I mean, we can go there, but at the same time, it’s like, you know, you don’t want to. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:19:58] I’ve had that argument. I’ve had that argument with, with the lady once, she’s like, I can’t believe you would go out and kill animals. And I go, well, it’s no different than you go into the store and purchasing yours. The difference is, I know where mine came from, mine didn’t go through the slaughter process.

[01:20:12] Well, I’m a vegan, I said well, what’s the difference? You’re upset that we’re, that we’ve harvested a living being. My example was like, you don’t think that carrot was sitting there just living its life. Just say, Hey, this is a great life, and all sudden you grab it by its hair, yank it out of the ground, wash it off and started eating it. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:20:29] But the other thing is.

Travis Bader: [01:20:30] If it was screaming, it’d be a completely different thing.

Dennis Zentner: [01:20:32] Everything’s living. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:20:33] The other thing is too, it’s like you get, I just don’t want to pick on that certain group, but like, I mean you get, you get a crop of vegetables. Well that, that the vegetables now, they all get sprayed. So bugs die from that, you know, just because you have to eat those vegetables, so they have to be contained, so they have to get sprayed. So mice, rats, bugs, all living creatures that you’re having a problem with us harvesting are do, are getting harvested off or killed off because you were wanting to eat this plant or something like that right? So, you know, it’s touché here, touché there.

Dennis Zentner: [01:21:07] It’s the circle.

Travis Bader: [01:21:07] Yeah.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:21:08] It’s like, what can you do right? But at the same time I’ve, you don’t want to argue with that point. You just want to say, Hey.

Travis Bader: [01:21:15] That’s a tough thing to argue. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:21:16] Yeah. You, you live your, you live your style of life and I’ll keep in my lane and live my style and I’ll, I’ll help people that are in mo, in the way of my life and you help people the way that yours is. But I’m not going to go out and bash on the way that you live life because that’s the way you live it. You go right ahead. You have your, your own choice, your own way of doing that. But this is how I want to live mine, and this is the animal that I want to eat. You know. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:21:38] A lot of, a lot of what I enjoy about being out there is, you know, being with my friends or my family, whatever, you know. Enjoying nature and harvesting and gathering a lot of our, a lot of our food. Like, so while we’re out there, I’ve done the fiddlehead collecting.

Travis Bader: [01:21:58] Yeah.

Dennis Zentner: [01:21:58] You can get, we grabbed Morel mushrooms when they’re in hot, you know, when they’re around. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:22:02] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:22:02] Shaggy manes, all that sort of thing right. So it’s all part of being out there. All right. So, and people don’t understand that it’s, it’s more than just out there harvesting animals or trying to hunt animals. It’s just being in nature, enjoying it.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:22:15] Living.

Dennis Zentner: [01:22:17] Away from the city. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:22:18] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:22:18] Well, getting away from the city. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:22:19] Yeah, it’s living right. It’s a different, different way of living. You gotta respect that. If you respect mine, I’ll respect yours, let’s just put it that way. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:22:30] Correct. Right. And it’s, and it’s unfortunate. I mean, everybody has an opinion. It’s, some people just don’t understand how you live, how I live, how Travis lives, and then they, they got to put their 2 cents in.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:22:44] And don’t get me wrong, it’s, it’s tough taken an animal’s life. Like it’s not.

Dennis Zentner: [01:22:47] Oh definitely.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:22:48] It’s not an easy thing. It’s not just, we go out there and, you know, we shoot an animal, put the blood on our face and say yeah, like beat our chest and say, Hey, this is what, this is what we’re here to do, and stuff like that. It’s, it’s a, it’s a thing of privilege. It’s, it’s, you come in there and you, you work hard for what you want to do and it’s not easy.

[01:23:08] So that’s why I respect. I have a little bit more respect for those people that are, are capable of doing that. Knowing where their food comes from, maybe getting their hands a little bit dirty, maybe working hard for what they’re entitled to right.

Travis Bader: [01:23:24] Got a more intimate relationship with the life and death.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:23:27] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:23:27] And that creates a greater value in most people, understanding that.

Dennis Zentner: [01:23:34] Well, I think you touched on something that you said, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not easy. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:23:38] No. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:23:38] And people who think that being a hunter’s easy, it’s not. 

Travis Bader: [01:23:42] There’s easier ways to get our meat. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:23:43] The hunters that are successful, they work hard to be successful. The weekend warrior, who thinks it’s just as easy just to jump in the boat, throw it a dozen decoys, and go out and harvest a bunch of ducks.

Travis Bader: [01:23:54] They’ll figure that out quick.

Dennis Zentner: [01:23:55] They’re not going to be very successful.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:23:56] Yeah, they’ll learn, they’ll learn fast. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:23:58] Right? You have to put the time in, work hard at it. It’s, it’s far from easy. You know, you gotta, you gotta expect that you’re going to go on that elk hunt and not harvest an animal. Go and learn a little bit and the next year you might be successful or have a, have a great chance at an, at an animal.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:24:15] Get an encounter yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:24:16] Right. So I mean, an example, my dad, him and I have hunted lots over the years. My dad has never had the opportunity to hunt big bull elk during the rut. And this year I had the pleasure to take them along with me. We harvested an elk a few days before, but I have my dad, with an opportunity, I had a bull. I called the bull within 25 yards of him and he never made the shot because you couldn’t tell if it was a legal animal or not. 

[01:24:42] But I remember the look on his face when that bull’s standing 25 yards ahead of him, bugling his face off in the trees. And dad, I’m looking at dad and dad just kind of looks back and it was over in a blink of an eye. The wind had changed on us, the elk winded us and he was gone like a ghost. And I looked at my dad and said, how close was he? Cause he goes like 75 feet. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:25:04] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:25:05] And he goes, I’ve never been that close. He says, I thought I was going to get run over. And I’m like, and I said to dad, I said, you know how close you were to harvesting that elk? And he goes, no. I said, it’s like you’re at the world series game, you’re down by two runs, you got two runners on base, and you crank one and it’s going out of the park and that outfielder catches it as it’s going over the wall and there’s two out.

[01:25:27] Said, you were that close to harvest in that elk. And my dad kind of looked down on me. He says, you’re right, it was one hell of a cool experience. He says, we never got him, we were this close, but it was so fun. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:25:40] That’s what it’s about. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:25:41] It is, you know. 

Travis Bader: [01:25:43] If you make the success of the hunt, the harvest of the animal, you’re going to have a lot of disappointed outings and lots of people will end up giving up on that. But if you make the success, the preparation, the time in, the I don’t know, I’m a gear junkie.

Dennis Zentner: [01:25:59] The enjoyment of the experience.

Travis Bader: [01:26:00] I’m a gear junkie, I like collecting the kit and then you go out and you’re hunting. Your outdoor is, you’re observing what surrounds you. You’re a part of the nature, you’re part of the process. And then guess what? If you do happen to harvest something, that’s the icing on the cake.

 Jens Cuthbert: [01:26:15] That’s a bonus.

Travis Bader: [01:26:15] Yeah.

Dennis Zentner: [01:26:16] A total bonus. I mean, you don’t go there every time expecting to come home with a truckload of, of birds or deer or elk or whatever the story is. Whatever you might be hunting, but just be out there and join, enjoying the, the nature and the wildlife and the Lake you’re sitting beside, you know. It’s just part, it’s all part of it. And when you harvest something, it’s a bonus to the trip. 

Travis Bader: [01:26:39] Well, I think we’ve got a lot of material here. Any new hunter listening to this will have some great tips and tricks. And I think we’ve really hammered home some, some key points here.

Dennis Zentner: [01:26:48] Yeah, yeah and I think like Jens touched on, he says, don’t be afraid to, you know, be a hunter, be become a hunter. If, if you, I think it’s something you enjoy it. Come and try it.

Travis Bader: [01:26:59] Yeah. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:26:59] Yeah. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:27:00] You either love it or you hate it. Right Jens? 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:27:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re all in or you’re not all in right. But at the same time, it’s, I’m proud to be a hunter. I know all you guys are proud to be hunters, and there’s lots of hunters out there and huntresses. And everyone that’s in the outdoor community, whether it’s fish and hunt and trap and hiking, camping, outdoors stuff or whatever, we all, we all share the same environment and it’s a, it’s up to, up to us to have it and keep it going and all that stuff too. So just don’t be afraid to stick your neck out there a little bit and, and then don’t be afraid to jump in with the feet first.

Travis Bader: [01:27:35] Don’t be afraid to ask Cindy to dance. 

Jens Cuthbert: [01:27:36] Yeah, exactly. I never really liked her. 

Dennis Zentner: [01:27:44] You liar. Does Cindy know?

Jens Cuthbert: [01:27:47] Yeah, I hope not. I mean, she might be listening, I don’t know.

Travis Bader: [01:27:50] She will after she sees it on your Instagram feed.

Jens Cuthbert: [01:27:52] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 

Travis Bader: [01:27:54] All right. Wanna wrap it up?

Jens Cuthbert: [01:27:55] Yeah. Sounds good.