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 the community. If you're a new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.silvercore.caCA we 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, which sure you are properly covered during your outdoor adventures.

[00:00:43] If you were interested in learning how to hunt or, or a dormant hunter, I would like refresher Silvercore has created an online hunter education program, which is the official online. Well, the BC wildlife Federation included in the cost of this course is the mandatory $30 graduation certificate fee for anyone wishing to hunt in British Columbia.

[00:01:06] Check the link in the description for more details. Today I'm joined by the host of the hunting dog podcast, recurring guest on mediator, passionate Upland game, hunter, dog handler, and all around cool guy, Ron Boehme Ron I'm really excited to be chatting with you on this hunting dog. Silvercore swap cast.

Ron Boehme: [00:01:27] Cool, cool. Yeah, you wrote, and uh, you said one key word to speak my interest. You're thinking about getting the bird dog. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:35] I am thinking about getting a bird dog. Yes. 

Ron Boehme: [00:01:39] Why would you do something so stupid? 

Travis Bader: [00:01:42] Honestly. So I've, I've had dogs before previously. I had a border Collie and smart as a whip, easy to train how to train, doing everything I wanted.

[00:01:54] But, uh, but not as a hunting dog, right. The kids had kids come on the way. And we realized we weren't giving the dog the attention that it needed. And we have two kids that needed our attention. And I didn't feel that we're being fair to the dog. So, I mean, the kids would say, or dogs living on a farm now.

[00:02:12] Well, it actually was, we found that some farmers who had some property who could take care of the dog and give it the attention I needed, and I was always of the mindset. I'm not going to get myself another dog until we got a large property and I want to get a couple because they're pack animals. They want the.

[00:02:29] And recently out hunting. I came to the very sudden realization. I am tired of retrieving my own birds and I would love to have a dog. And this happened after about, I don't know, three hours of trying to find a bird that went down and just couldn't find it. And finally had some other hunters come by and they had dogs and they were able to help out.

[00:02:53] So I said, time to get a dog texted the wife, she's immediately looking at all these different breeds. And that's, we're kind of, we're kind of looking at Munster Landers, but you probably have some ideas on those, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Ron Boehme: [00:03:06] I, what I was going to ask you, who was, you would not be, you are so not alone in this world of how to pick a breed because back in the day, if it was kind of always, the guy met the guy that he was hunting with and he got a dog from his friend and now the wife and the kids always come into the equasion.

[00:03:27] And online and they start reading breed descriptions, and you could read, I got several books, I got an encyclopedia over there, all the dog breeds. I've got that great book that, uh, Craig Kaushik, a follow a fellow Canadian friend of, uh, or fellow Canadian of yours wrote a book. And it breaks down every continental breed that points in this particular book.

[00:03:53] And it gives you kind of an explanation and he tells you the pros and cons, but you'll fall in love with every dog you read on that, like lower in there.

Travis Bader: That's the thing.

Ron Boehme: Yeah. So what I was getting at is there's so many families to get involved with picking a dog. And a minute you said your wife on the inside eeeeeh,I'm going, you got, you know, it's not just a dog.

[00:04:15] It's going to be another kid of some, some fashion, you know,

Travis Bader: Yeah,agreed.

But the upside I tell everybody and I probably filter. Three or four calls a day. And they ended up getting to be long calls with people, looking for first dog. And when I know someone's got a that they haven't done it before, I literally asked them two different questions.

[00:04:39] One of them is always, are you married? And they're like, yes. Okay. Do you have kids? And they said, yeah, how old? Uh, five and seven. Okay. You're not going to have a problem if you raise that dog. And you've got kids that you're, you know, 85% happy with, you'll be able to raise a dog, but it's just like, you've probably met somebody with that first kid and they, they think they're, they don't know what to do and everything's an emergency and everything's this and everything's that, um, the worry part of being a parent, if you're not a worry ward, parent, you've got a pretty good kid.

[00:05:19] You're I don't care if the kid's three or 13. If you did a pretty good job, you're going to do a good job with your dog, whatever breed you get. So there's a, there's a silver lining for Silvercore.

Travis Bader: [00:05:31] Silver lining for Silvercore! Yeah. Well, our kids are what, 14 and 12 right now. And, uh, I don't know. I think we're doing a good job with them.

[00:05:39] I've got a good family unit partying about getting this dog though. I said, look at, everyone's gotta be on the same page. So we're buying some books on training the dog. And what is one of them? The gentleman's hunting dog, I think was a Mike Stewart. And there's a, another book, a smaller one, a lot of really good information that we're going through right now.

[00:05:58] But I said, I don't want to train at one thing. And have you guys do something different? We gotta be unified in our approach. 

Ron Boehme: [00:06:05] Yeah, well, that's, that's going to be important. Um, so what, what kind of birds up in your neck of the woods would you be chasing forest grouse? Mostly. Are you in what part of Canada? 

Travis Bader: [00:06:15] So we're, I'm in the lower mainland area and I'm fortunate enough where I live.

[00:06:19] I mean, we've got some great waterfowl hunting, so we've got great ducks and geese I in the area where I'm at actually, they've got a club that'll release pheasants, and so we could do some pheasant hunting, uh, and then you don't have to travel too far. And we've got a lot of, uh, gross hunting and all my gross hunting in the past has been okay.

[00:06:40] Let's let's walk the roads and look out for the guard gross and just try and keep, keep my eyes open. So having a dog will be a completely different dynamic. 

Ron Boehme: [00:06:50] It will be. And, you know, especially like the breed, you're talking about the, the monster Lander I've judged a lot of them over the years. And one of the parts of the versatile hunting dog test is, uh, a puppy needs to track a live.

[00:07:08] So we disable this pheasant from being able to fly with both wings and we released it on the ground outside of the dog and we basically shoot it away. Like, go, go, go. Right. Right. And in an ideal situation, you're in maybe six inches of cover, like a hayfield or something like that, or a Stubblefield or something.

[00:07:29] And ideally that bird runs into some other cover, like a fence row or a Woodlawn or something. We set this up and I've said this probably 50 times on my podcast, but I haven't said it to you or your listener. Um, as judges, we, we, we cringe some time when we're like, oh, is this a good spot? Are we giving the dog the best we could give it?

[00:07:54] Like the covers kind of sparse, it's kind of just mostly mud or the covers too tall, or, you know, we all. We could judge the field search of a dog because you're watching a dog run. No problem, no big deal. Right. But the track is really important because it's up to us to set up a good track. We can, and this has happened dozens of times.

[00:08:19] Let's say we get a couple of other dogs that aren't, I'm not going to say what breed, they're just not monster Landers. Sure. And the first couple, just that dog just didn't inherit a lot of tracking or it use kind of a wild search to track and the dog can still get some qualifying points, you know, as long as he's making forward progress.

[00:08:38] But as judges were always like, oh, I knew we should've found a different field. And then third dog up is a small monster Lander and the person puts the dog out on a track and it looks like a bloodhound chasing a prisoner right through the swamp. You know, it just really just now there's the exception to the rule, but I mean, the exception is rare and the rule is strong.

[00:09:03] Munsties have a hell of a tracking instinct, a hell of a tracking instinct.

Travis Bader: [00:09:10] You know, that's good to hear. That's good to hear. 

Ron Boehme: [00:09:11] So that last bird you looked for forever. Never. I don't think that's going to happen. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:17] Well, amen. That's awesome. So I guess the next question would be, so you get, you get this as a pup and I think we're, where is it?

[00:09:26] We're looking at somewhere in the states. There's a breeder out there, so we'll have to fly in, grab it. And when it's a, uh, a few months old, like what age do you, do you start their training at?

Ron Boehme: [00:09:38] Well, training kind of starts the day. You get it home. You'll hear people say that it really does because dogs learn that they only can learn by association.

[00:09:48] So it's either they're.. they got seven inherited appointing dog has seven inherited traits. Okay. Obedience and understanding, and this language is not one of them. There's desire. There's search there's nos, there's tracking there's water, cooperation, those things come in the package, but the training starts just like with crate training.

[00:10:13] Um, you know, I don't know with your border Collie, if you create trained it for travel and for the home, or did you let it become a bed puppy and deal with a couple accidents in the house back in the day? 

Travis Bader: [00:10:25] No, no bed pups. I've. I was raised with having dogs as an outside only dog, uh, our new dog that we'll be bringing in, will have a crate inside the house.

[00:10:37] And, um, yeah, I'm, I'm sort of torn between the utility of a dog, as well as the fact that you're saying, you know, the kids and the wife and every, and it's becomes part of your family. 

Ron Boehme: [00:10:49] Right, right. So that crate is like your, your pups first bedroom. So like when we have kids, they sleep in the bassinet nearby, so mom can feed them.

[00:11:00] And everyone's worried about the new kid. I tell you, when you bring home a new puppy, let's say, let's hope it's not before eight weeks of age, it should be I think 10 or 12 is well-proven to be a better age to pick them up. If it's a good kennel, that's really developing their pups. And honestly that keeps you from having less house accidents at 12 weeks.

Travis Bader: Yeah, exactly.

Ron Boehme: [00:11:22] And it doesn't, they just have a more developed bladder and food system. But so when you bring that dog home, you set that CR I tell people, set that crate up by a door, closest door to your yard. And when you put that puppy in, when you don't have time to play with the puppy, which would be outside, taking walks a little bit of house with the kids, of course, they're going to hold them and watch TV with them and all that stuff.

[00:11:46] But when you don't have time with the, for the pup. Put them in a crate and he's going to haul a little bit and he's probably going to haul all the first time you shut the door and you go to bed, but what kid didn't cry the first time you put them in his own crib, in his own room.

Travis Bader: Right!

Rob Boehme: And what mother didn't tell their daughter, don't you go in there. Cause if you go in there once...

[00:12:14] That baby can only learn by association. So you can't tell the baby it's okay. I'll be back in the morning. And when you wake up at three, I'm going to nurse you, you can't resort baby. You can't reason with a puppy. So you put them in that crate and you never let them out when he's barking or crying.

[00:12:35] I mean, there's exceptions. Like we've got to make sure that he's already emptied his bladder, you know, and maybe maybe made to the poop in the backyard or whatever, or maybe he already pooped on your carpet. Who knows? You don't want to put them in there. Yeah. There's a chance that he really has to go to the bathroom.

[00:12:55] Other than that, even adult dogs can sleep 20 some hours a day when you're not doing nothing, you know how regular house. And, uh, so you get him used to that crate. And that just starts that, that crate training, like, no, it's not about me right now. It's about, it's about now. It's quiet time. Now. My mom used to, she'd been gone for a long time, but she gets, she can it around now.

[00:13:22] My mom was, you know, I was born in the fifties, so my mom would go next door and have cigarettes and coffee with the neighbor and plop me in a, in a plate. You know, back in the day I had four foot square wooden playpens, right. She says you were raised in a playpen for like two years. She goes, I didn't do anything with you.

Travis Bader: [00:13:40] Kids are easy. 

Ron Boehme: [00:13:41] Kids are easy, you know, give me a toy. And I was fighting like a dog with a chew toy, but I, I keep that with the dogs. Like when you don't have the time, put it in the kennel is not going to resent that once he gets used to the kennel.

Travis Bader: That's good to know.

Ron Boehme: So, so when you ask, when does this training start?

[00:14:00] That's part of it. The next training on that is in the beginning, you, your kids, your wife are going to open that crate door and he's going to come running out like, ah, I'm here, you know, and of course you've got to let them out to the door. You always they'll always relieve themselves after a nap, pretty much most of the time.

[00:14:21] And, but after that's developed a little bit, you take that door and you kind of, when they come charge, not you snap it in their face a little bit.

[00:14:33] And he's going to keep banging. This is a dog. It's not a kid, so you're not going to get child services after you. Right. And I always say, picture yourself, trying to get out of, uh, uh let's. Have you ever used a portajohn on a job site? Okay. Yeah. Those doors unimportant. Johns can be weird, right? They can swing back and like you get your hand caught in a once.

[00:14:59] You're like, ah, no, I know part of John Doerr needs to go all the way out because it's spring loaded. And if I'm not all the way out the door, it's going to come back and hit me. And for some reason, the porta John door's grocer, then, you know, so the dog's gonna think the same thing. You, you, you, you give him a note.

[00:15:14] Nope. You close that door. And then the minute he kindof is like, should I come out or should I not come out? You open that door a little bit and you get a couple inches out and then you say, okay, now he starts learning. Okay. Means. Right. Developed that over a few, a few weeks, right? To the point where when you go to let them out of that door, you're going to go.

[00:15:38] Aye. Aye. And then you're going to open that door. That door is going to be open 180 degrees, and he's going to be sitting in there. She, and he's going to be like, say the word, say the word. Okay. You know, you're going to go, okay, he's going to come up. Just like he did. When you first got home, he let him out happy puppy.

[00:15:58] But he already learned that he's got to wait a little bit. Right? So what that does is it establishes you as making the rules for the dog and that's where so many people go wrong. Just those little things like that. When you go to the door, once he's learned the kennel door, you do the same thing at the house store you, as you go out the door, you never let the dog take the lead.

[00:16:22] You say. You know, don't worry about teaching the dog to sit. Uh, I, I won't ever go into that pointing dog. Some people would never train them to sit, sits, sits a default for a dog. If they don't know what to do, they're going to sit. If you want to give it a name, give it a name. But if you don't, I guarantee if you keep opening a door and your dog is trying to get out at some point, it's going to go like this, I'll just set it.

[00:16:47] So they're going to sit, right? So then you start doing the house door and he sees that house door goes open. You get one step out under the threshold and then say, okay. And then he comes out with you, but you take the lead. So, so that training starts early on it. That's just associate of training. How to be a good puppy at home, you know?

[00:17:14] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:15] That's it sit, stay thing. I had a, with my last dog, I was, I told them sit. And then I said, stay in someone's. Why are you telling them to say, like, if you told them to sit doesn't that just mean sit. If he gets up two seconds later, it's not sitting anymore. So do you teach state? 

Ron Boehme: [00:17:33] Yeah, I will. I will enforce the duration of the sit later on.

Travis Bader: [00:17:38] Okay.

Ron Boehme: Yeah. But all I'm looking for early on is just some compliance, just that he understands, like I, and it gets it. We, it would take forever to go through the whole process, but that early teaching him to stop is going to help you later because there's going to be times when you need to make your teenage dog six months, 10 months, year old, whatever you want to call a teenager as a dog, you're going to, you're going to be asking him to stop.

[00:18:07] Whether it's walking on a leash and you got to stop at a sidewalk or you're out in the field. If you end up getting into some real bird, dog training down the road later on, you're going to want to steady this dog up to at least. The word woe means stop when you're moving, but if he understands stop and it comes from you or the word wall, so most people use wall in the Burt and the pointing dog world.

[00:18:33] Right. If you use the word wall early, when you start training him later, let's say with a little check court on or a leash and you say, whoa, his brain goes right back to the kennel in the house stories. Like, I think that means I should stop. Right. So, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not hard to do. It's just consistent.

Travis Bader: [00:18:54] Yup. So I brought my border Collie many years ago, brought them out to the local shotgun range and we just kind of stayed in the parking lot, who far away from the gunshots. And I figured I'd try and slowly try and introduce my dog to the sound of gunfire right now, a border. You're prime hunting dog at all, but I found that every single time I put a long gun up to my shoulder, my dog would come right beside me, lean hard into me and start shaking.

[00:19:25] So I probably did something wrong in the introduction to firearms with this dog at some point. And I definitely don't want to repeat that with a dedicated hunting dog. How would you introduce them? 

Ron Boehme: [00:19:39] Well, there's, there's several ways to do it. Um, probably the most one you're going to hear the most you'll see on the internet and on YouTube would be, um, get this dog to chase like a pigeon or a, a pen raised bird that you can kind of control the flight.

[00:19:57] Pigeons, you don't control the flight of, but pigeons never land back on the ground. So you take a, you get a pigeon, you let it fly the dogs and mid pursued he's he's. He thinks he's going to catch it. He can't, but the dog's running. And then in the background back here, you do some light, maybe blank gun, or if you don't have a blank and you got to have a friend, another 50 yards behind with, let's say a four, 10 shotgun or a 22 rifle, and he still keeps the barrel pointed the opposite direction of the dog.

[00:20:31] But now this dog is seeing a bird as it's running. And he's hearing a little something in his head, but just in his eyes because of his instincts where the border Collie doesn't have that chase. The, I bet you, if you'd have had a sh. And he was hurting and you were shooting when he was young. He probably be like, man, that's the sound of sheep.

Travis Bader: [00:20:55] Yeah, you're probably right. 

Ron Boehme: [00:20:57] Right. Um, the, the thing about gun clubs, I'm telling you, a lot of people have done it. And I cannot tell those people that didn't work because they did it. Right. But what they also have is probably what I refer to as a Bulletproof dog. There's some dogs out that are just so not going to be bothered by noise, that it would be literally you'd have to work at making them gun shy.

[00:21:25] Right. You almost have to take a, take a starting pistol and wake them up for breakfast with it in his ear. Like, Hey, boom, Hey, wake up and eat. So there's some dogs. My first short hair, I didn't do any gun training. I took her hunting, but she was chasing a bird. I shot the bird. She associated the noise with the bird.

[00:21:46] The noise was always good for. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:48] Uh, when did you get your, for short hair? Huh? How old were you when he first got your, your first? 

Ron Boehme: [00:21:55] Oh, I was thinking I was, well, I was in my twenties when I got one, but when I actually bought one, like with the purpose that I was 30, 30, 2, 64. So it might, my first purchase is what I call a bred dog was probably 32 years ago.

[00:22:12] Something like that now. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:14] Okay. Have you noticed a change in sort of training tactics over the years? 

Ron Boehme: [00:22:21] Yeah, mostly because in the beginning I didn't train it. You know, I literally had one of the things I mentioned to you about dogs are the natural cooperation. What that is like, I'm guessing that your border.

[00:22:37] Was pretty good running around all the time. Right? Didn't didn't run off and leave you for 300 yards. He right. That's bred into the border Collie. And that's one of the reasons they're very intelligent is they're very cooperative. So cooperation is the teamwork. The you don't, it's not trained. It's the teamwork that the dog gives you.

[00:22:59] So that border Collie probably had a good amount of cooperation. So my first dog had a lot of cooperation and she literally, in her genetics, her searched genetics were inherited from generations of good hunting dogs. So she searched at a pattern that something in her brain said, that's about right. I'll turn, I'll come back.

[00:23:20] Well, that's about, you know, so I got very lucky and then I bought a next dog which had zero cooperation. So, so somewhere in my mid thirties, I said, I'm gonna have to learn how to train the dog because this dog. I don't. I think I took a trip to Canada. One time to go a sharp tail hunting, and I never shot a dog bird over the other people did, but I never shot a dog, a bird over my own dog.

[00:23:43] He just doing his thing all day long. Some somebody would see him on point. He goes, Hey, Ron, Hasko's over here. I'm pointing. I'm like, God, shoot the bird farm. I don't care.

Travis Bader: [00:23:59] Oh yeah. Well what about the whole male female thing? Is there any, is an old wives tale people saying you got to get a female hunting dog or is there any truth to that? 

Ron Boehme: [00:24:10] I don't think so. I think one of the reasons if people are pro male, it's probably because a lot of the champions out there back in the day were male.

[00:24:20] And the reason that is is because they never go into a heat. Right. So you've got that when it comes to competition, you've got that when it comes to everyday hunting, you could get a heat cycle. I just had one come up in North Dakota with a dog. So I couldn't get her out with my mail. And if another dog would have, you know, it would have been a real, real catastrophe.

[00:24:41] So, um, so some people will say one Hunt's better than the other. And some dogs I've been told this, some females like guys better, some females like the mom better, but that could also be some early imprinting of this stuff. We talk about, you know, they just they're like, oh, there's my boss. And they know the difference.

[00:25:05] So there's, I bet you there's just so many great stories about female hunting dogs as there is male hunting dogs and you could find it would be, uh, it would be as divided as the United States is politically, right? 

Travis Bader: [00:25:18] Yeah. I hear ya. I hear ya. Well, you just came back from a hunting trip. While we're chatting last year driving.

Ron Boehme: [00:25:27] Yeah. Um, I went to Northwest North Dakota. In fact, we went up so far Northwest that one of my friend's phones, the text said welcome to Canada. I never, it didn't come up on my phone, but he said, yeah, I'm getting some texts alert. Like, you know, something probably from the border, like some like welcome to Canada, make sure you stay.

[00:25:47] He's like, we're getting texts from Canada here. So I didn't get that on my phone. But, um, so we were up there, we did some pheasant hunting fire up there. We were chasing sharp tail grouse. Uh, looking for Hungarian. Partridges only found one Covey. And we did a fair amount of duck hunting, which is probably our bigger success in, but this trip was all just a trip with my best friend since we were in diapers and my neighbor and his boy.

[00:26:13] And it was like no pressure. There was no expectations on this trip and it went down in history of my trips as well. Yeah, top five trips I've ever taken. So yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:26] Yeah. You know, once you leave those expectations behind, if the expectation I find for me personally, if the expectation is the outcome, like what, how many animals are we going to harvest or are we going to be successful or not?

[00:26:40] None of those trips ever rank high with me, if the expectation is, man, we're just going to have a good time. Inevitably we do. And if we end up harvesting something, that's just icing on the cake and yeah. And, and that's, I don't know, that's one of the things like in the silver Corp podcast, I try and speak with, uh, find the people who are inspirational and sort of groundbreaking in their territory, who are passionate about what they do.

[00:27:07] And I try my best, a learn from them and B share that passion with others and more and more I'm finding that the most passionate and the people who are having the most fun are the ones who. Just truly enjoying the process. And like, when I look at you, I watch you. So you've been on a few episodes of mediator there and you're showing Steve how you're making your own lead shot.

[00:27:32] And you got some nice shot guns that you're using. They're not always the latest greenest fanciest thing, but they got some character to them. I mean, that's one thing that I've really taken away from your podcast from watching you is that you are the type of person that truly knows how to enjoy the process.

Ron Boehme: [00:27:51] I know I'm just about to open a beer right now.

Travis Bader: [00:27:54] Good for you. Good for you. And that was this... Yeah? 

Ron Boehme: [00:27:57] When, uh, when you said meet her. Yeah, I was fortunate enough to be, uh, Steve was one of my Stephen, his brothers, but Steve specifically, and his brother, Danny, where some of my earliest employees, he just got out of high school here where he lived and I ran into his mom and she said, my sons are looking for work.

[00:28:15] I'm like, I'm looking for. So that's how we met. And so I was fortunate enough to get asked when his production budget was much smaller way back in the day, he'd say, Hey, can you come out to, you know, here and here and do an episode. So, you know, he pay for my gas or whatever, you know, but, so yeah, I was lucky enough to do that with him.

[00:28:36] And, and that, that was, uh, that's actually the start of my podcast because Joe Rogan talked him into doing one in our, one of our hunting trips in Texas, that we filmed, he brought out podcast equipment and I thought you needed a studio, right. I've listened to podcasts for about four years at this point.

[00:28:55] And I thought, I'm not going to find a studio. And you know, I'm not good morning, five minutes after 7, 7 0 5 work, you know? And then when I saw we could sit down at the kitchen table and drink beer, Mike, I'm doing a podcast as soon as I get home sold. So what was your podcast background, Travis? I mean, because it's, it's a lot similar, but, but like what made you start it?

[00:29:22] What made you say? 

Travis Bader: [00:29:24] So I've I started, I've got a training company, silver core training, and we do among other things, firearms training and hunter education and outdoor safety printing and Canadian based. And it's something that I love, but I've also got a desire to always create and build things. And I don't know if it's the ADHD in me or what it is.

[00:29:47] But I'm always looking at other things that I can do to kind of occupy my mind and occupy my time. And there was a growing trend that I found myself sort of, uh, being surrounded by in my industry. And I don't know if it's the same in the states, but in Canada. I mean, like there, there is a social stigma surrounding firearms.

[00:30:08] There's a social stigma that surrounds hunting and there's a lot of negativity as well. And if, and I, and I found that I was seeing a lot of that negativity, but in the same breath, there's a lot of positivity and there's a lot of great stories and it's, I dunno if it's equal on both sides, but I thought, well, I want to be able to change my vantage point to be able to see the positivity, really that positivity.

[00:30:36] And so I started the silver Corp podcast and we're like, we're in the hunting or I don't think they have a hunting category we're in the wilderness section. What's that.

[00:30:47] Yeah. So we're in that outdoor section on the, um, on the, uh, the iTunes chart, but we talk about everything under the sun. Usually it starts with hunting or firearms, but like we've had, uh, uh, last one, we just let it was with a British special forces commando. And he's talking about a selection process and, and the rest I had the inventor of the invisible cloak on the podcast.

[00:31:10] I don't know if you've heard of this guy. He is so smart. And I thought, well, this is kind of camouflage related, right? This has got something to do with, uh, are you talk about the Harry Potter? Kind of like that, what this guy did. Okay. It's going to sound really fancy. He took a, an array of lenticular lenses with a, uh, special viscous compound in between them to refract light in such a way that the person behind it is not seen, but what's in behind that person is seen.

[00:31:42] And I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it. So he brings us in, he brings it into the, uh, into the studio that we have here. His name is guy Kramer. His grandfather invented the walkie talkie during, uh, during the war. And so lineage of really smart dudes. And it's funny because we're having this podcast and he keeps looking at his watch, right.

[00:32:02] And this is one of my earlier podcasts. I'm like, oh man, I must be boring him. Right. And he keeps looking at his watch and I'm like, finally I said, look it, if he gotta be somewhere I'm don't don't let me hold you up. He's like, no, no, I'm really sorry. This is, um, uh, I'm getting my email notifications come through.

[00:32:18] Uh, that was Fox news. The other one was, I don't know, CNN or something else. Cause he just, uh, release the trademark and patent on is this invisible cloak thing. And you know what it is. Have you ever taken a, uh, you know, the stickers that you can look at, but you can tilt it and it changes the, uh, whatever you see on the sticker.

[00:32:38] And it's like, as kids would play with them, those are lenticular lenses. And he basically took a couple of those things and he put an oil between it and you can go online and you can see all the, um, the videos of people. Who've tried to copy it anyways. Positive fellow. Is that related to hunting and firearms?

[00:32:56] No, but he's a pretty cool story or, I mean like Colin Deller, he was attacked by a grizzly bear and fought it off of this pocket knife. I mean, that's not really, that's not really hunting, but Hey, but it's a story. Yeah. 

Ron Boehme: [00:33:09] That's how I started. I just was in North Dakota. We didn't really bring layout blinds or anything for duck hunting.

[00:33:18] We just thought we'd hide in cattails. And some of the ponds did not have cat tails and we would just kind of sit, it doesn't work real good for a duck, you know, an invisible cloak that you could just reflect, whatever else is around you on that. I bet you, we're going to see that at Sportsman's warehouse someday.

Travis Bader: [00:33:39] I think you will. I think you will. He tried to sell it to the military and he says, this shouldn't be in civilian hands. And he went around and, uh, he did the circuit, but nobody really picked them up on it. And if you look at the videos that he has online, I mean, it's amazing what it does, but it's also got a different application.

[00:33:54] You can put it over top of solar panels and it, I don't know, I don't know the exact number, but like 10 times or 20 times the amount of light will come through onto your solar panels. So anyways... 

Ron Boehme: [00:34:05] I got to ask, what was it like? So if he was in your studio and he pulled this over him, would you just be kind of seeing a broke up version of your studio? Like 

Travis Bader: [00:34:15] Kind kind of, I actually, I took a picture and it wasn't the best picture of him and I, and we're holding this thing in front of us and you can see the, sort of the, the frame of the picture and behind us. And, but we kind of disappear. I mean, if you go on his website, you can see all the videos in there.

[00:34:31] They're optimal. I mean, the things just disappear behind it, but I guess that's a bit of a tangent, but yeah, essentially the silver Corp podcast, I don't monetize it. I mean, I'm sure there's, there's ancillary benefits to having the silver coordinator out there, but I do it because I love talking with people like yourself.

[00:34:49] I love learning things and I want to surround myself and others with the positive things that are in both of our realms.

Ron Boehme: [00:34:56] Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you get those emails that like, yep. That's why I'm doing the podcast. Right. Somebody will write you from a guest and you really feel like. You know, philanthropic to one word that's like for money, you really feel like, wow, this guy would not have wrote me an email if he didn't mean it.

[00:35:17] And it's almost sometimes a little gushy, you know, you're like, wow, I can't believe I got you to get back into the hunting world and got you to buy a dog or got you to like, in your case, like yeah. You know, I used to shoot and I'm going to shoot again or so yeah. Sometimes that's all you need for payment, you know?

[00:35:34] And, uh, that's, it's fun. It is.

Travis Bader: [00:35:37] Yeah. It is fun. And, and really, I don't know, at the end of the day, everyone's got to make a living. Everyone's got to do something to retire and have the nice things that you want to have, but the real positive change that you can affect in the community typically, isn't, it, it, isn't something that comes from directly from your job and it's something.

[00:35:59] As a by-product of your passion, your endeavor will probably end up generating revenue. But if you, if you look at it from a revenue standpoint, I think that's, it's a dead end. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you you've what, 2012, I think it was when you started your podcast.

Ron Boehme: [00:36:16]No, no. It was 2015. I'm going to be in my, uh, I I've, I've done it for almost seven years now. So next year will be my eighth year starting my eighth year.

Travis Bader: [00:36:25] Did you find it hard to start or were you just natural, like you are now? 

Ron Boehme: [00:36:30] Well, I found it like, I want to do it and like, who's going to be my first guest. Right. Got my oldest hunting buddy to come over here and drink beer with me. And we just started rehashing a trip to South Dakota.

[00:36:46] I'm like, I guess that's what it is. But you mentioned something about me and like making my own shells and. I don't want to say I'm not calling myself genuine, but I never change. You can ask my wife. I never changed. I'm sure. She'll agree. Just like drinking a beer or smoking a cigar. I'm like, no, I'm not going to not do that because that's what I do.

[00:37:10] And that just resonates with people. Like, I mean, I say sarcastically, I'm trying to bring smoking back. I think he had a better, but that's because when everybody smoked, it was just a better country back then. So maybe it was the country. Cigars did not have anything to do with it, but maybe we've banned this so bad that some people that might be cool or like, God, if I could just have a cigarette, that'd be great.

[00:37:35] You know, I hate censorship. You know, I agree again. I know if you're sitting in a restaurant, nobody wants to smell a cigarette coming off the Ash tray. But when I grew up, you S you smoked on planes. Yeah. Smoked in the last five rows. Now at that age, I don't think I was smoking. It didn't seem to bother me, but that's cause my mom blew cigarette smoke into my baby blanket.

[00:38:02] So I mean, it obviously didn't bother me. 

Travis Bader: [00:38:05] Reminds you of mom.

Ron Boehme: [00:38:05] Reminds me of mom, but so yeah. But, being real, like, like you said, you're, you're just so passionate about what you do that you want. You're not trying to convert people. You're just trying to celebrate the passion kinda. 

Travis Bader: [00:38:23] Right! By default you end up surrounding yourself with more like-minded people who have that same passion and same drive.

Ron Boehme: [00:38:30] Yeah. Like I think most podcasters, if they, I don't know if they did a murder mystery or what. It's kind of like, we all served a little term together, figuring out how to do it. You know, that first, that first episode, when are we going to next week? How did you pick a first guest for, for, uh, for yours, for Silvercore?

Travis Bader: [00:38:48] Just like you. I had a couple of friends and so when both of them are retired, Vancouver city police, and, and from the training background, I look at it and I said, well, I figure every single episode I put out should have some educational components. Like if I'm asking for somebody's time to listen to me for X amount of time, what value am I imparting to them?

[00:39:09] And so I figured, well, it's got to have some training components. And so I'd kind of draft out all the different things that we'd try and have, uh, covered, or it's got to have some entertainment value and it wasn't until, uh, sitting down with, well, there's a couple, but, uh, I don't know, uh, Brad Brooks from our galley.

[00:39:32] I remember before doing the podcast with them, just like with you, we have a little bit of preamble, we talked back and forth. He was like, you know, if you want to talk about whatever technical things that I do with hunting. Sure. Yeah. We can do it. I mean, like they make the game bags and yeah, we could talk about that, but honestly, I'm more interested just to tell stories.

[00:39:52] I want to see what you're about and I'd love to be able to share some of my stories. And I'm like, it's just like you're saying this, this whole world of social media, that's been so polished and everybody knows it's fake. Right? For the most part, you look at all this policy, they want to see something real and they want to be able to connect with, with the people that they're listening to, where they're watching.

[00:40:14] And if they happen to be entertained and educated in the process, even better.

Ron Boehme: [00:40:18] it's a bonus. It's a bonus. Yeah. I mean, I'll bring guests on that are not usually entertaining, but very informative. Um, and that's a podcast where I want them to do a lot of the talking, right. A habitat biologist, um, I've had several of those on, and I'm kind of like when I got them on and they're on a roll about habitat and biology and pollinators, I'm like, oh, right. So then I feel like one of my own listeners. Yeah. Like that's why they liked this because I just learned something. They gotta like it, you know? And then with, in my particular case, cause I'm known for being such a, a drinker.

[00:41:05] Well, I am, I mean, my dad said I drove a beer truck in Chicago for two years when I was 20 and 21 years old. I drove a paps blue ribbon, a tractor trailer and delivered beer to stores. Awesome. You, you cannot imagine how much beer, I think the other day, a buddy of mine. Uh, best friends since I was, you know, like I said, right around diapers, we don't remember ourselves, but we were next door neighbors and he goes, how much beer do you think you drank?

[00:41:37] And I'm like, I don't know. So I got my calculator out and I didn't drink early. I wasn't like a 13 year old delinquent, you know, like I didn't cigarette until I was old enough to buy cigarettes. Yeah. But my mom smoked and she said, oh, you're smoking. I'm like, well, yeah. She goes, well, I certainly can't tell you not to, you know, it came to beer drinking.

[00:41:58] I was, I was probably, I was not like the high school party kid. You know, we were out trying to chase bugs and flies and try to hunt and trap. And even though we're in the city of Chicago, but when it came to like drinking, when I was able to say, get into someplace or go to Wisconsin, where it was only 18, I took to that, like a, like a, you know, a flight of shit.

[00:42:23] And then I drove this beer truck. And the sales, the job is called driver salesman. It was a union. It's a union. I think it was, I think it was local 7 43 in Chicago. I think it was. And so my first day, I'm with this other driver and I'm his helper, which means I got to do all the work. Of course, 12 packs on the Dolly, bring them down the stairs, stock the sh you know, you don't stock the shelves, but you, you make sure the beers in the shelf where people can see it.

[00:42:53] An old bill was over at the bar having a short glass of beer. And that's right after breakfast, because our tender would pour him a, a shorty glass and that he'd get, he'd get the bill made out. And he'd say, you want a glass? I'm like, I'm dying from work. I mean, yeah, let me have a Bible. Okay. That would go on all day long, all day long, five days a week.

[00:43:15] And I'm not saying I have good friends of mine have literally told me, Ryan. I don't think I've ever seen you out of control in your life. I've seen you on stage. Might've seen the lampshade once, you know, but I have some and I drink very light. I drink light beer, you know, I don't drink content. I don't drink alcohol.

[00:43:39] Like what I call alcohol? I don't drink wine. I don't drink bourbon. I'll sip on something once in a blue moon, but I have some innate, maybe it's just because of conditioning. I've been pulled over three times for suspicion of DUI. It never, it never blew illegal. Now. I don't know how to explain that. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:01] Some horseshoes, maybe, I don't know. 

Ron Boehme: [00:44:03] Horseshoe up my ass, the one I got under the seat in the truck. Again, I was, I know that those times that I had alcohol on my breath. But I wasn't in a bar, you know, drinking, but I've been on, I was on a hunting trip once and I got pulled over. And of course you could smell it on my breath. This cop made me do three times into this straw and he's like, he's like, he was literally like, I don't understand this thing and go like this thing's broken 

Travis Bader: [00:44:37] good genetics.

Ron Boehme: [00:44:39] That goes, just goes back to, I, I always am who I am, you know? And I, I mean, I could tell from talking to you the other day and you're like, kind of guy we'd bump in. If we sat down on a plane together, it's not the guy you're not going to talk to. It's the guy that's going to make the whole flight go by and totally blink of an eye.

Travis Bader: [00:44:59] Totally Yeah. So yeah. Sounds like a dream job. I don't know why you left that one.

Ron Boehme: [00:45:06] Yeah, it was a good job. It was a good job. I, unfortunately, I don't know. I don't know. I forget what I think it was a Monday morning. I took what was called a barrel. I had to do a barrel run, so it's a different truck.

[00:45:18] It's a straight bed truck. And I was starving. I was probably out all day at a barbecue or whatever. Got up, more starving, hungry. And I, I pulled into a McDonald's through and thank God, there was a car under the canopy at the drive-through window. But so I stopped with my, the front end of this old international... you know, ma.. literally manual steering box truck.

[00:45:45] And I'm bright behind this car. But what I didn't realize was that the sign that said clearance up clear it's nine, six. Yeah. I was just thinking McDonald's. So when I pulled up and stopped the box and my truck was literally up against that sign, I didn't know it. And when that car pulled up, I let off the clutch.

[00:46:09] And all the glass started breaking and coming down under the hood. No, I didn't take the canopy down or anything. But, uh, it gave my boss some pause for keeping me going. I went back into construction.

Travis Bader: [00:46:26] Gotcha. So that must have been what you hired, uh, Steve and his bros for was being construction. Was it?

Ron Boehme: [00:46:31] Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Even Danny and Matt. Um, so yeah, I, I just jumped back into construction and started my own crew, but I mean, what is your background, military or law enforcement or what's yours? Cause I couldn't, I know on that podcast you did with April Vokey and I'm a huge fan of April Vokey. You said she asked you a question.

[00:46:53] It was like, well, you're kind of known as the gun guy and you're like, no, I don't want to be known as the gun guy! What's your background? 

Travis Bader: So, yeah, my background aside from being in the army cadet program as a, uh, as a teenager and going through that, that's the closest to military I've ever been. Um, I've got family background in law enforcement.

[00:47:14] My father and grandfather were law enforcement. I just was, uh, a bit of a delinquent in school, in elementary school and high school. And wasn't really fitting in and I did like to blow things up. And nowadays after nine 11, that's not something that would wear well, but back in the day, it was just, Hey, this is chemistry, or this is engineering, or this is.

[00:47:39] Actually one of the fellows, he was the head of the police academy here at the justice Institute in British Columbia. And he says, travel, you know, why don't you come on and take a few courses. It might be right up your alley and, uh, their firearms related courses. So at 18 years old, I started packing a gun on my hip and was working as an armor car guard.

[00:47:58] And I thought, Hey, this'll, this'll be a good step in the right direction for, uh, for law enforcement or military. I flew over actually to the UK because I was going to join the British military. Um, but I went through the process with our local police department, Vancouver police scored top of my intake on the written.

[00:48:17] I came third on the physical because you can actually see, uh, based on where you place on everybody else. And they said, well, Travis, you're kinda young. Come on back when he got a bit more experience and I've always kind of been entrepreneurial minded. I mean, I might. Job. I had, I was performing magic at kids' birthday parties when I was in grade four grade five.

[00:48:39] Right. I mean like what, what can I do? I can make some money. And, and even before that, when I was working for the armored car company, I was welding up all their hand trucks for them because I thought, well, geez, how can I make a couple extra bucks? And then I started doing their gun smithing for them, went down to Springfield, Massachusetts to the Smith and Western factory and got myself trained up on their, their wheel guns.

[00:48:59] And of course, I guess Springfield's move in now. I think they're going to Tennessee or something. So always had that sort of background, that knowledge base. And I decided, well, geez, maybe my life experience will be, I'll start a business and you know, most businesses fail. And so if I go through that and I suck at it, then I can show that life experience and go back and try the policing.

[00:49:24] I didn't suck. It took off and I've, I've never looked back. And then we do work with law enforcement, for firearms, repair and maintenance. Uh, we do work with like the armored car industry do and use of force training. And I do, I'm a subject matter expert with the courts for both defense and crown counsel for firearms and use of force and weapons related things.

[00:49:47] But that's not, I don't know. That's just one aspect of, of what I do. I wouldn't call you the, the construction guy. I know that you can do it. 

Ron Boehme: [00:49:57] That is what I'm probably the best at you're. Right, 

Travis Bader: [00:50:00] right. Yeah. Well now you're. 

Ron Boehme: [00:50:05] Yeah. Cause I assumed when I, when I talked to you and I was watching you in April on your podcast, I'm like, oh, he's a Navy seal or something, you know, or, uh, or, uh, uh, uh, Royal Marines or so I, I just assumed, right.

[00:50:22] And I'm like, nah, he looks like he's about six foot three and ripped, you know, my eyes, this guy's going to tear, tear, someone's head off. You know, you have a fight. You're the fighting background. 

Travis Bader: [00:50:34] Yeah. I, so both non-professionally and when I say non-professionally, I got into a lot of fights when I was younger.

[00:50:41] And then in a more organized perspective, I got into. Muy Thai kickboxing and jujitsu and Akido you. Yeah. And then our niece or niece was a kind of a neat one, but you do jujitsu don't you? Yeah. There you go. 

Ron Boehme: [00:51:01] I, uh, see, I, I did not hear it. I did not do any research on that, but you know, like you said, when you meet somebody, like there's something about him.

[00:51:10] It's, if it's not military it's martial arts. And so I, uh, I got into, I took, uh, some show to con class in high school at somebody other school, but when I there's a little rabbit hole, but when I got divorced, I was married for a very short time to the very wrong person, no kids, no fault. But when I got divorced, I wanted to go kick this other guy's ass, you know?

[00:51:41] And then I was told that, well, he's a state police officer and he protects the governor of Illinois. Well, that's not going to be a good guy to go against. So now I got, I said, I'm going to get into March. So I took Ken Paul and I was in that for a long time. I have a, you mentioned add and ADHD. I've got some version of that.

[00:52:00] Cause I can't, I got to reread and reread, reread. So learning all the cottages and techniques took me a long time. I earned a brown belt in that, um, fought competitively, but not for money in amateur, you know, like tournaments. Right. And I would do the forms. I would do the weapons. So when you said our niece, you know, um, I would do, and then I would also do the sparring or

[00:52:25] Yeah. So I did that and did that in Chicago for a long time when I was still in Chicago. Found schools up in Michigan and then with having three daughters, it was always, there was always a heavy bag in my life. There was always a heavy bag. Yes. There was always a on the road go to, uh, I'd go to a dojo and say, what's your, what's your walking policy?

[00:52:46] Can I walk in for a week? And I would go take TaeKwonDo. It was never a big fan of the, I wasn't built for TaeKwonDo. It's just, I'm not a Lakey, well stretched guy, but I mean, and I would even enter tournaments in other cities. So like, I it's like so weird then when you said jujitsu, listen to the damn Joe Rogan.

[00:53:08] I started jujitsu at age 58. Holy Crow. Yeah, because of Joe Rogan because of Joe Rogan. Yup. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:17] Yup. That's the power of the podcast, right? 

Ron Boehme: [00:53:19] Yep. And that's why I started my podcast. Cause he got Steve to start a podcast. So that man has no idea how influential he's been on me. That's an. Uh, jujitsu is by far it's the most, I've never enjoyed a martial art as much as jujitsu because it's so you can put a hundred percent into it.

[00:53:40] And if you're careful not get hurt, you know, like Muay Thai, that's some deadly shit there poets a task for your conditioning. Oh yeah. But you can't show a guy a technique at full strength just to show him the technique involves breaking his face on your knee. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:59] Yes. 

Ron Boehme: [00:54:02] You can get yourself, locked up, tied up, choked out arm barred.

[00:54:06] And you can tap that you had, that is close to feeling is so I at age 60, no, 58, 9 68 61 took me a long time. I only went a couple of days a week. I earned my blue belt, which was like, yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:54:24] Good for you. That's fantastic. Yeah.

Ron Boehme: I don't even remember.

Travis Bader: Are you still training?

Ron Boehme: [00:54:31] when COVID hit the school closed and the school near me.

[00:54:35] I did find a school last summer. That's near me. I walked into a couple of classes. I liked the class and it's probably as soon as hunting, season's over, I'm going to, I talked to the professor there and I'm going to join up and get back there a couple of days a week. Cause it doesn't get your legs in shape for hunting, but boy gets your, get your heart going.

Travis Bader: [00:54:58] Gets your heart going like crazy. Yeah. Crazy. Well, you know, I little bit of a segue here, but a training. So I've got the training background, training company. That's what I do. And I've always had a keen interest in online training and I happened to know that, uh, you've got some background in online training as well.

[00:55:21] Don't you? 

Ron Boehme: [00:55:23] Well, now I do, uh, two years ago, I didn't. Um, yeah, a friend of mine, who's a dog trainer in this area in west Michigan. He would come on my podcast and we would do question and answer, uh, segments. And they were always well received. I'm sure. You know, you get certain guests on and in the beginning you always look at your download numbers.

[00:55:44] Like, oh, people are listening. I don't look at it anymore. And, uh, I got to turn that ringer off. I don't look at downloads anymore until I load up an episode and it pops up there on my feed and it's always pretty consistent. Um, hang on, I gotta get that off. And so, um, the guy that I used to bring on Justin McGrail, he was a really good dog trainer.

[00:56:09] And I tried to talk him into doing like some YouTube clips and stuff like that. Just let's show some people, some of the stuff you do. He's like he, and he is not a computer guy. He's not a phone guys, much younger than me, but you'd swear. He was born in the 18 hundreds. Yeah. I think, yeah, they, the phone to him is just, someone's got to call me, so I have to have a phone, but that's all he wants it for.

[00:56:34] Right. If a tin can and a string of work, he'd be happy with it. So he looked at some YouTube videos. He's like, no, no. He said, I'm not, I am not putting myself out on YouTube and sorry, Ron. I enjoy doing the podcast with, you know, I I've got a little rhythm going. I, I enjoyed the questions he said, and then one day were kicking something around and it just turned into like, well, what if we filmed what you do?

[00:57:03] So it's not like the only way to train a dog. It's just the way he trains his dogs in the past. He guides for like six weeks in Montana, six weeks in, uh, Arizona. Now on those trips, there's some non hunting season time. But anyway, Scott used to be on the road 12 weeks a year. Guiding wild bird hunts and Arizona and Montana.

[00:57:26] So, I mean, he is as real as you can get when it comes to wild bird, dog, and, and the training it takes to make that dog. So we started coming up with this, you know, cockamamie idea that we're going to have an online training school. We didn't know what that meant, you know, but in now a year and a half of filming and, uh, eight months of editing, it's, it's out there.

[00:57:53] It's called the Upland Institute. It's based on all the dogs we use are pointing dogs. So, I mean, for the few listeners that you or I would have that be like, okay, I know what a German Shorthaired pointer and a Labrador is a flushing dog, but there's a lot of same stuff in those dogs. Just one happens to flush a bird.

[00:58:13] One happens to point. So this course is tailor made for appointing. But it also tailor made for, if you got a new dog it's tailor made for like, what do I do with this dog when it's young, when you asked early on, how do I, you know, when does training start? Well, it starts early and there's a lot of little things that, you know, I've known this guy for a long time.

[00:58:40] I'm like, I didn't know you did that with your puppy when he was that age. Like just these little things. And so we filmed it and then we filmed it when they got older and we filmed. And then we just went into, we went into the weeds with it and we felt that we had enough content to, you know, create, you know, we had somebody create a website.

[00:58:59] And so I had no background in online training, but, you know, I kind of do now, but like how, how did, how did you, I mean, did you go at it like with your eyes closed, like we do with podcasts or were you doing live training and then turned it to. 

Travis Bader: [00:59:17] So, yes and no. So when we talk with the whole ADHD thing and I've joked in other podcasts about it, so I was diagnosed with ADHD at a young age.

[00:59:26] I don't even know if I have ADHD, but it was just seems like to be the common thing that people would diagnosed with. But I do know that I'm always looking at new things and I'm always trying to invent or create. And, and on the training side, I did not do well in school, which is really funny for a guy who now owns a training company.

[00:59:46] But I was able to take like from the cadet side, the man management method of instruction and all the, the military, uh, techniques for providing training, whether it be theoretical or practical training. And I thought, man, they kind of got it dialed in. They can take people from the all different spectrums, from the lowest common denominator to bright people, get them all on the same page, get them trained up, get them proficient and get them going.

[01:00:12] So. I looked at that. And by around 2004, 2005, I was already certified as a, uh, a master instructor within the firearms training here. That's a designation from our RCMP for, um, just some really basic sort of safety training that we do, but I'm able to train other trainers. And I started having talks with the different government officials about saying, you guys got to put your stuff online.

[01:00:39] You have to have some sort of consistency in the, in the delivery and the approach and looking at these benefits. And, you know, it kind of fell on deaf ears, despite all the different, uh, people I was talking with and they're flying people, uh, from back east over here. And I thought, man, they're just pumping me for information and they're gonna go do it themselves.

[01:00:59] So I started delving deeper and deeper into the, into sort of the online training world and there's pros and cons. I mean, you can learn a lot in an in-person course that you wouldn't get online and vice versa. Totally. So how do we, how do we speak to those pros in the online? Because being a, uh, a small business owner, uh, and having employees, w w our reach is only so far, we've got the lower mainland, we've got our locations.

[01:01:31] You can only get so many people in a classroom, and you can only have so many instructors, right. And instructors will have a, um, a turnover rate. How can we sort of systemize that? So people can get the quality of information and sort of without the downside of that administrative side. And that's where that's sort of where the online training kind of came in.

[01:01:53] And I actually, I took it from an approach. I wanted to build a SAS or a software as a service. And I had, uh, at, at the end, I think it was five different programmers, building something for me. And I had zero business building a SAS, and I sunk a lot of money and time and energy into this only to realize there's other ways we can.

[01:02:12] We can skin this cat. And so the online training has been a passion. And right now we hold the contract for provincial hunter education training in British Columbia. And every dollar that I have coming back in from that goes back into new hunter recruitment, hunter retention, getting people into the activity that I, that I enjoy and hopefully try and introduce them to some of the reasons for that enjoyment we've tripled.

[01:02:41] We've tripled our provinces, uh, take on, uh, what they've been bringing in, which is fantastic and massive new hunter retention or recruitment and hunter retention. So that's sort of a passion project and I'm sure if I keep following that passion, at some point, there will be a monetary reward at the end, but that's not why I do it sort of long-winded but I think that kind of touches on why I got into it.

Ron Boehme: [01:03:09] Did you, did you run into the. The like, oh my God, we have to film this in on-camera and is it like, oh, shit moment. Like, you know, no wonder why I can watch television. There's a lot of stuff that goes on to make that television show. Right. And a lot of footage just never get seen by anybody. You know. 

Travis Bader: [01:03:36] Our very first course that we put together and put online and I put a press release out on Newswire for it.

[01:03:42] And we hired a fellow to do sort of the filming and production of it. And so I learned a lot about the process of like scripting a storyboarding and kind of what's involved. I also learned holy Crow, some of these people that get into this, I don't know, I'm using air brackets for people that are listening, but this Hollywood mentality or this Hollywood.

[01:04:05] I am. I never had somebody be able to push my buttons. So either this guy could and holy Crow, it was like, we would get somebody trained up and I would find a appropriate male model and female model or actor or actress for, for different things. And, and on the night before he would fire them and he says, oh, I met somebody out at the Siri sky train station and we're going to give them the job.

[01:04:29] And I mean, it was, it was all over the board. And I, I was so frustrated by the end, we have a final product. It costs a lot more than I wanted that. I went out and I purchased my own audio equipment, my own video equipment. And I figured if one man can do it, another can do it. I'm going to figure this out.

[01:04:46] And we started proceeding with our, our future courses from that perspective,.

Ron Boehme: [01:04:52] You know, and that's... I'm sure that this was not a COVID thing. It could be a COVID thing, you know, because of everybody being able to go out and certainly it's way more popular. I mean, kids are going to school online, which that was unheard of, you know?

[01:05:07] I mean, I'm sure there was some college courses that you could take online back in the day. I always heard the commercials. Yeah. Um, but, but getting into that is it's, it's almost like sometimes you're like, you're so proud of it. And the other part is like, well, why wouldn't people just come to me and learn this well, but then you could reach, like you said, you can reach so many more people what you've done with the numbers for, you know, the hunter state.

[01:05:35] Like I know there's an online hunter safety now I'm old enough that most places I don't go, I go, I don't need a hunter safety card. Right. In fact, in fact, I remember I took my twin daughters and my youngest daughter to Kansas. So that would have been a long time ago. They were just getting their driver's permit.

[01:05:55] There were 15 and they're in their mid thirties. So 15 plus years ago, and I had not hunted Kansas previously went to South Dakota, North Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma mountain, all over, never hunted Kansas. So I go and you know, there was, there was computers. Then you could look in that long ago, but I went on there and it said, enter your hunter safety number.

[01:06:21] And it said, or check here if you're old enough, like, well, of course I'm old enough. Well, I already put my information down up in the top. I hit. The button didn't say, of course I'm old enough, but it was, and then it said little red line come up. You are not old enough. I'm like, what?

Travis Bader: [01:06:42] Really?

Ron Boehme: [01:06:44] I'm not old enough.

[01:06:45] You know, they didn't even have good automatic shotguns. When I started hunting. Anyway, turns out I was like eight months too young to just go to the state of Kansas and then trust me to have firearms. So I had to take a hunter safety course. So, yeah. And so my kids did it in high school, which was great, you know, at Boulder state, you know, we're in a rural area of Michigan had boater safety was a hunter safety, all kinds of things, you know, they talk.

[01:07:15] And so I had to, I had to do a hunter safety class when I was like in my forties. Like I'm, I know more about guns than you do, but, but it would have been not really, not really. It was pretty rudimentary. Yeah. Um, and the instructor that actually that I know he's like probably shouldn't say it, but I think statute of limitations ran out and he goes, we're not need, we don't need to go in the field for the field.

[01:07:45] Right. You've answered all the questions on the, you know yeah, I did. But I think that a hunter safety, I think that that is so cool that that's out there for the kids, because it's not going to teach you how to shoot a bird, but it's going to drill that one or two things into your head, you know? And I drilled it into my kids.

[01:08:07] It's that? Where's that barrel point. Where is that barrel pool? And if. That's it. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:14] Yeah. Yeah. We told people, I said, you know, if you violate all of the other safety principles, if your fingers on the trigger, you didn't check to see if it was loaded. You trip, you fall equals bang, but at the very least you control that muscle direction.

[01:08:28] You've got no loss of life. You have minimal property damage. Your ears are ringing. People are screaming at you, but that's the fundamental of all of, all of that safety. But I think for my, my personal standpoint, and I'm, you know, I'm still learning, but for sort of, let's say, talk about online hunter education.

[01:08:50] I think I could do so much more than what it currently does. I mean, we live in such a litigious society that everybody's now says, well, geez, like you look at the ERT members. Well, are you door kicker certified. If you're not door kicker certified, you can't get a good door. And right. Everyone figures, if you have a certificate or some sort of.

[01:09:10] Piece of paper over your head, then, then you're going to be competent, proficient in what you do. Or maybe it's from the other side. Now in an organization can say, Hey, we've done our part, right? We've done our due diligence. Don't can come after us. But what if they use hunter education in a way to, um, to vote and inspire people to get outside?

[01:09:29] And what if it was put out in such a way that maybe wasn't necessarily strictly hunter education, but that could be a component of it. Cause any course that you do about hunting hunter education, it's not going to teach you how to hunt. It'll teach you how to be safe. I'll teach you how to be legal. But what about the vast majority of people that go to school that maybe just want to learn how to hike could be, have some knowledge of the flora and fauna around them or be safe in bear country.

[01:09:53] And I think if it was maybe modularized and put out in, in such a way that, uh, could attract a much wider audience than the whole conversation around hunting could be talking. Maybe maybe talked about it in a different light. I don't know. 

Ron Boehme: [01:10:12] Well, yeah, I, I, I, uh, I kinda, I envy the kids that can do it and not envy them, but I'm glad they do it, but it would be cool if that class was just more than just what it was just a little bit more like almost like a teaser commercial for a movie.

Travis Bader: [01:10:30] Right. So you're showing the passion. 

Ron Boehme: [01:10:33] Right, right. You're you're cause you could, you know, you remember going to school and the guy would put a movie on it was health education, like totally. You know, but, and I'm being obviously way off the rails here. If health education had two or three minutes of. All right.

[01:10:51] Let's say soft porn. Not, not for two or three minutes of like, oh, the kids would be paying attention. Those students would be like, Ooh, I'm going to be here. And I'm going to be careful too. You know? So, you know, you're a hunter safety course has to expand into like some hunting segments, you know, some raid ducks dropping out of the sky, the tailgate.

[01:11:17] Yeah. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [01:11:18] So everyone says, oh man, why can't you teach whatever, right. Oh, I wish we went to the range on this. Like in the, in Canada, in order to get a firearms license, you have to have some basic safety training, you know, but the laws and history and, and actions and safety and, and all the rest. And they say, oh man, we should have a, a live fire portion.

[01:11:37] And some countries do that. Like Germany will have that. And I say, well, you know, each one of those would be a barrier to lawful firearms ownership. Um, there are important points that people can know about. But what if you instill a passion, some just rudimentary fundamentals and instilled sort of the drive to want to learn more.

[01:11:58] And that's what we try and do with our, our courses. Cause I mean, we've got YouTube. You can learn anything you want on YouTube or through Google. The issue is, is you've got to sort through a lot of garbage to get there, right? Where your course is really good. This is a particularly curated course for someone like it's curates all of this information.

[01:12:18] It's not the only way to train your hunting dog, but it's a proven method that works for you and your friends and the people that, and I think there's, that's where the value is in. In online training, condensed, curated, uh, content. That'll get somebody where they need to go in a quick way. When you look at it from a certification standpoint and checking boxes, or I got to sit in front of my computer for X amount of time.

[01:12:45] I mean, you're probably like me. If I have to do an online course, I'm going to go to the very end and do the test and see what do I know and what don't I know, right? Yeah. 

Ron Boehme: [01:12:52] Yup. Yup. Yeah. Yeah. Just like we were in school. 

Travis Bader: [01:12:56] Totally, right? If you want to be somewhere else, I didn't want to be in school. 

Ron Boehme: [01:13:01] Right? Well, I'll leave it up to you to work on the, uh, the better hunter trainer safety online school, and you leave it up to me to work on the, uh, our, our tagline is be a better trainer.

Travis Bader: [01:13:14] Oh, I love it. I'm going to, I'm going to sign up for your course and I'm going to put links in the podcast or both on the podcast and in YouTube. So anyone else who wants to check it out can 

Ron Boehme: [01:13:23] appreciate it.

Travis Bader: [01:13:27] All right. Well, is there anything else that we should be chatting about? 

Ron Boehme: [01:13:32] No, I mean, nothing, unless we got into like rabbit holes, but you know, no, I mean, it was, it was good. It was great to meet you. I, I feel like we could go onto mat together. I got, I got to go. I still got, I still got a role in a G I don't like no geek because I'm old.

[01:13:46] I still need something to hang on to a car, but I feel like if we ever bumped into each other, you say, Hey, let's get on the mat and let's roll, you know? And there to me, like, you know, the jujitsu world, that's kinda like the hunting world. Like, there's like a weird brotherhood totally is in general. But jujitsu is like, oh my God, it is the, it's the best thing I ever did in my life.

[01:14:13] I just wish I'd have started earlier. You know? Um, well, I cannot tell people like, couldn't. Th the last class I went to when you said that I have, I, am I still in it while I was out of it, completely for the co the big COVID part. And I really missed going, and I'm in worse shape now than, you know, because I haven't done it, but I can get that back.

[01:14:38] But when I went to this class at this school, that's in my town now, cause I used to travel to go to do this. It was an hour away. And, uh, which, you know, in Canada may not be a long ways, but it was an office on the 

[01:14:48] road. 

Travis Bader: [01:14:49] Come on. 

Ron Boehme: [01:14:49] That's just like going to, it's like going to Montana, I'm going to go to Philly.

[01:14:55] But on the second class I was there and I was, I was really sucking some air pretty good. You know, I was like, Hmm, I can still remember how to defend myself, but I wasn't getting very far. And the, the professor, you know, he's very, very nice guy and. I can tell you says, Ryan, you're gonna roll again. Come on, get another partner.

[01:15:15] I said, hang on a minute. I literally being my chatty Cathy onstage self. I said, oh, hold on, everybody, hold on. I said, could some of you kids bring your dads tomorrow? You bring your dads in here. So I got someone near my decade to, but I that's, it I'd say other than dogs, bird hunting and people like jujitsu's number four, you know?

[01:15:45] Awesome.

Travis Bader: [01:15:49] Well, I think, uh, I think we're going to have to get into some rabbit holes maybe at another time if you'll have me, but, uh, yeah. We'll, 

Ron Boehme: [01:15:55] we'll go down the, we'll go down to my gun stuff, your gun stuff, martial arts stuff. Uh, we could touch on ADHD cause they didn't diagnose me. Cause I didn't sit still long enough to be diagnosed.

Travis Bader: [01:16:08] And your other door, we can talk about the Beretta that I sold. Nice over, under like E L that a sold for 800 bucks. 

Ron Boehme: [01:16:16] Oh yeah. Yeah. I think that'll be fun. Let's make sure we do it once or twice a year. It sounds 

Travis Bader: [01:16:23] great, Ron. Well, thanks very much. This has been a lot of fun. 

Ron Boehme: [01:16:27] It's been a pleasure. I made another new friend.