While at the Duck Hunters Expo in Little Rock, AR, Joel has a conversation with Ford Van Fossan, Director of Brand at First Lite about conservation and the launch of First Lite’s new waterfowl camo pattern Typha. They also discuss hunting across the years of life, how many times a senator needs to be contacted to take notice of an issue, and the host's years of hunting from sun up to sun down. A portion of the proceeds from Typha pattern sales will go do continuing the Delta Waterfowl programs.
Check out Delta Waterfowl: https://deltawaterfowl.org/million-duck-campaign/
Get some Typha Camo: https://www.firstlite.com/search?lang=en_US&q=typha
While at the Duck Hunters Expo in Little Rock, AR, Joel has a conversation with Ford Van Fossan, Director of Brand at First Lite about conservation and the launch of First Lite’s new waterfowl camo pattern Typha. They also discuss hunting across the years of life, how many times a senator needs to be contacted to take notice of an issue, and the host's years of hunting from sun up to sun down. A portion of the proceeds from Typha pattern sales will go do continuing the Delta Waterfowl programs.
Check out Delta Waterfowl: https://deltawaterfowl.org/million-duck-campaign/
Get some Typha Camo: https://www.firstlite.com/search?lang=en_US&q=typha
Welcome back to another episode of Delta Waterfowl’s the Voice of the Duck Hunter podcast. Today I'm joined by First Lite's, director of brand Ford Van Fossan, to discuss his unique job in the hunting industry, as well as the development and launch of First Lite's waterfowl camo pattern called Typha that took place earlier this year. With that introduction, let's bring in today's guest, Ford, welcome to the Delta Waterfowl Podcast. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. Yeah, and we're sitting here at Delta's podcast booth at the Duck Hunters Expo in Little Rock, Arkansas. How's your experience been so far? Great. Y'all pulled it off as far as I can tell everybody out here. People are flooding in and it's exciting. And that's no small task to just start up a show. So Ford, Director of Brand, what does that mean? Sort of. It's it's dangerously all encompassing. Anything can be folded under the word brand, but generally it's overseeing kind of outbound messaging to the customers via social media, via email, via web imagery, content creation, kind of all that falls loosely under my purview. And then the coolest part and I suppose the reason I'm here is that our conservation efforts are our nonprofit partners, and our projects on the ground all fall under my purview, too. Yeah, that's great. You'd mentioned that. So at one point in your I know Ryan Callahan, he was director of conservation and you had conservation tagged on to your title at one point. Yeah, I've kind of had it all. I was actually I was First Lite’s first intern 2014. I walked into the office, introduced myself, and a couple of months later and had wrangled an internship from Scott and Kenton. And at that point it was one room with six guys, kind of making bass layers and are basically baser layers printed in asast camo. And it was a very different, very different organization today. But I'd kind of done it all. Customer service dealer service, pro program, content creation, web management and that sort of all come together into this brand role, which pulls in a bit of everything. But again, the conservation part sort of kind of my favorite sort of my baby, because that's always been what's important to me. I was actually on a wildlife biology track, studied conservation biology in college worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service right out of school and then the University of Delaware doing some whitetail trapping before I came to First Lite So that's actually sort of my route that way. No, that's impressive. You said one thing that if we can capture lightning in a bottle twice and you said that Conservation director, some form of conservation is often attached to your title, but you dropped it because. Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, I do. Sometimes people throw director of brand and conservation on my title and I kind of stay away from that because it's confusing and longer but B, because brand for us encompasses conservation. It's always been a part of our heritage and our business model, frankly. And I'd like to say that it's, you know, to this day a core pillar of who first lite is as a company and why we're here. Yeah, bring it all back around. Yeah. So, yeah, why call it out if it's a part of your everyday life? Right? Yep. Yep. Exactly. It's just it is just a core part of our brand. And and I honestly often tell people only half jokingly, it's, it's not really altruistic, right? If it's if our customer and our employees don't have access to wildlife in wild places, we don't have a business, we never will. So protecting those places and supporting conservation and conservation groups is part of our success. We have to do it. Yeah, I think that's the tough thing, is, you know, I've talked with others and that at the very core, you know, the apparel or camouflage, you know, it's a business and someone is trying to make money. Absolutely. But there's that balance. You know, I love it when companies don't stop right there we’re making money. It's great to reach across the aisle going the extra mile, recognizing that, you know, there are conservation activities that are taking place that allow those, you know, you know, the deer, the ducks, the turkeys to be hunted, to be harvested. So it's I just love to see companies give back and and you guys do it, you know, And as good if not better than anyone. Yeah yeah. I mean and and sportsmen have always obviously been champions of conservation and I think that's been an inspiration for us and how we do it. You know, for example, this camo for conservation program. We've just expanded to Delta, you know, with our with our Typha pattern, with our new waterfowl pattern. A small portion of every single sale of any object printed in Typha is supporting Delta's work. So mimicking sort of that Pittman Roberts model, right. Every sale supports conservation because every sale is dependent again on on our ability to access the great outdoors. And we got to protect that. Well, we appreciate that. Absolutely. You know, in my role, you know, I work lead our team of biologists that are putting the duck production programs on the ground, the research on the ground. Hunter recruitment programs on the ground. And again, just can't thank you enough for for supporting Delta, supporting conservation. And it's exciting. I'm looking forward to the future. Yeah, I, I would be lying if I said I wasn't. I was I'm pretty pleased to have that official apparel title for, first of all. Yeah, that's definitely a sort of a long term dream of ours. Yeah, that's great. That is great. Yeah. You know, we call ourself the Duck Hunters organization. We try to live it and, you know, pursue that goal every day. Yeah, we skipped us over. It's a, it is kind of a tradition of mine anyway. You know, it's a company is about its people first, right. You know, and it's not just the product. So I'd love to just get to little know a little bit more about you personally. Yeah. And then, you know, you did kind of cover how you got to to First Lite but but I would love to hear you know your upbringing. Yeah. To take the story a bit a bit further back. I grew up on Maryland's Eastern Shore, a town called Trap, just south of Easton, home of the the famous waterfowl festival. And so waterfowl, it's just it's such a strong part of that place, you really can't separate the two. And it was neat. We actually did it. We did a short film as part of a kind of a series leading up to the launch of our waterfowl line, and we filmed it back in Maryland on the Chesapeake this year, did some goose hunting and some duck hunting and it was cool to see home through some, some different eyes in the eyes of the videographers that we brought along who, Minnesota, you know, no background. And they're like, man, all the streets have duck names and there's a big statue of geese in the center of town and this, that and the other is like, man, you know, it's true. It's a it is a it's a duck place. And I was really lucky to grow up there. It's it's a really, really cool place. I was just telling Phil, I had this college girlfriend. She's like, she came to visit back in the day and she's like, why is everybody has carvings of ducks in their homes? What's what's up with that? And, you know, I never thought that was unusual at all. But it is and it is standard in that part of Maryland. You know, everybody has decoys even if you don’t duck hunt you have decoys in your home. It's just what you do. It's it's like, why do you have paintings on your wall? Why do you have decoys on the shelf? It's it's a really special place. So growing up, there was a huge part of, I think, shaping, you know, who I become obviously as a human all the way around, but especially when it comes to the outdoors and especially when it comes to hunting, it really impacted me. Have you always been a hunter then? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. My my dad. My dad put a shotgun in my hand if I want to say at maybe 9. I think you can take your hunter ed nine in Maryland at the time. I don't even know if that's still the case. I don't know. But shooting the .410 single shot, four, ten, pretty much as soon as I could, I could do it. I mean, again, it's just cultural there. You know, if you grew up in Aspen, Colorado, your skiing right now, if you if you grow up in Santa Clara, California, your surfing, if you grew up on the Eastern Shore, you’re goose hunting even if you're not a goose hunter, you only even if you do it once a year, it's just what you do it’s the culture, which is awesome. So fortunate to be from there. You grow up in a hunting family. What did you like to hunt the most? So geese, geese, I would say it was sort of what we did. We had a corn and soybean farm. And winter wheat, you know, as a cover crop in the wintertime and that was really what was good on our farm and really our part of the Eastern shore in general, I would say mostly known for goose hunting, less of ducks than geese. If we got real lucky and it got real cold at the end of the season, canvasbacks and blackheads, as we call them Bluebells, I think is the rest of the world calls. Yeah, they would come up farther up the creeks and we might get a crack at them. But a lot of Canada goose hunting and then a lot of dove hunting and you know and obviously white tails too, were a part of that mix. But the focus was definitely geese. That's cool. You know, we at Delta, we have a team of policy staffers that they deal on big picture, you know, farm bill, agriculture, conservation initiatives. But they also deal with with national and local hunting issues. And I tell you, we are overwhelmed at times with phone calls from Duck Hunter saying a lot of them on the Eastern shore, you know, there's a discharge ordinance. Somebody is trying to close hunting in this bay. that we've been hunting, you know, for three generations. Have you seen you're going back to you said you're going back again on Monday. Have you seen changes or heard of them? To the bay? As a general rule? just in, you know. Well, in your lifetime. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So when I was when I was coming up, there was no goose season. There was a what was called the more a Tory battle has a lot of weight, sort of like he who must not be named on the Eastern shore. Sure. But that fortunately was lifted, if I recall the year I got in 100 safety card. So I, I think it was either the year or the next year. But basically, you know, more or less that at the same time. That goose season opened back up to one goose ultimately got two geese.. But now, as you might know, in the last couple of years has gone back to one goose. And so, yeah, there's there's certainly been changes in my lifetime. And, you know, obviously the Chesapeake's not exactly a picture of health either from an ecological perspective. Unfortunately. No general rule. No. And so now you've flipped to kind of the other side of the country. Very much so, yeah. Idaho. Yep. Idaho, very different, obviously. Great big game hunting, great upland bird hunting and also great duck hunting. That surprised me. I wasn't really aware of the the vitality of the Pacific Flyway, but it's a great place to kill ducks. Yeah. I've only heard good things about hunting in Idaho from a waterfall perspective. I've not done it myself, but I've heard great things. But it's not widespread. Is that true? Correct. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, we're in we're in the southern half of the state, a lot of which is high desert or mountains, you know, neither, which as a general rule hold ducks. But you know, where there's water in Idaho, there's ducks, which is cool. So the Snake River is obviously a principal, you know, factor in that. But even closer to us, we have sort of spring creeks that stay open through the cold winter that hold ducks locally. And it's always a trip to me being from the east, you know, spot near and dear to me that hunt quite a bit. Throw a decoy out and a 25 inch brown trout shoots out from under it. It is a cool it's a cool deal to have this sort of tradition of both fishing and water and waterfowling intertwined in these same special places. Yeah, no, that's pretty interesting. One of the things you said, I think we were I don't think we're recording it, but you were saying how, you know, you waterfowling thing was a big part of your upbringing. Absolutely. And then you know, your time and at First Lite there wasn't a waterfowl line. No, no. But what's, I mean this is going to sound like such a sales pitch, but it really is true. I mean, we were all hunting and, you know, we'd come out with the whitetail jacket we were wearing in the marsh. It was really, it was really a pursuit that kind of bound everybody. And if anything, I almost feel like there was more, you know, that that circle, those overlapping circles, waterfowling was kind of the most common pursuit in the office for so long. And we had so many passion have so many passionate waterfowl hunters that it was sort of a matter of time. You know, on one side that experience and passion that our employees have was meshed with our technical expertise, making hunting gear, and that's how the waterfowl line was born. I think it was, it was kind of always going to happen. Yeah, I think it was just a matter of time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would imagine there's a certain leap that a company takes when you open up a whole nother line like that for sure. What went into and then you have your own. Typha camo, Yeah, yep. Yeah. Typha So named after the genus that encompasses a lot of the waterfowl, a lot of the wetland plants that we pursue waterfowl sort of among. Right? Yeah. And I must say that was, is the name I came up with. Okay. But it was, it was like 1 to 10 and we took it to the pad in the office and like ran through them. They were getting shot down, you know, left and right by for, you know, various legal reasons. And I was like, Oh, I guess we're going with mine. Those are the things. Yeah, a few things that counts. And we tried to trademark them. Oh, yeah. You know. Yeah. Sometimes you have a phrase that you want to turn into a trademark, but it's just, Oh, yeah, this kid gets kicked out because it's too common of language. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And that was like I said, we ran into so pleasantly surprised. They went with my suggestion. But yeah, Typha. The new pattern for open situations as we describe it. So marsh field, agricultural situations, anything. It's kind of grass. right. Yeah. I love it. You know, I where I live, it's it's everything is, is faded, you know, it's the cattails. It's, you know, stubble fields, corn fields. And so I think that has a great application. But I love it because it is brighter. I mean, there are shadows in it, too. Don't get me wrong. It's and that was a real emphasis. I'll tell you, we really wanted to address the issue of sort of blobbing out. It's it's funny to say that it's sort of a technical way, but a lot of cameras do look great three feet away when you grab it on the on the rack, when you put it 50 feet away, all of a sudden you start getting darker and darker. And by the time you're 100 yards away, kind of looks like a brown blob. Yeah, and I think it's not intuitive because again, when you see it close, when you see it on your buddy, when you see it on the guy sitting next to you in the blind, you're like, Oh, it looks great. Looks it looks like the marsh. But again, not so good as you get further away from from the distance that those ducks and geese are perceiving it. So keeping that light, keeping that from blobbing up was really a driving factor. And in in the evolution it Typha for sure. How many years in development? Two and a half, I believe is is the term. It kind of depends on when you define the inception of the pattern. And I want to say it's version 11.6 or something. It's it's something pretty crazy in terms of how many tweaks were made. And some of those were small, some of those were big. But you just can't you can't and this sounds like such a sales pitch to you, but you can't you can't design it in the lab. You know, you can't design it on the computer. You've got to get it out there. You got to get it out there in on a shady day or, you know, on a cloudy day in the shade. You got to get it out there on a sunny day. You got to put it in the marsh, you got to put it in the cornfield and all of that gets factored in. And we fight a little lighter, little darker, little lighter, little green or little yellow hair, you know, back and forth. And eventually we came out with what we got today, which we're pretty, pretty pleased with. You know, I understand that, you know, the product testing can can take years. Oh, yeah. Sending yes. Versions of the actual apparel out into the testers. So you have your feedback hitting, you know, every flyaway to was was an important part. So you know Maryland was was I think the furthest east we got and all the way over to just sort of the coast along the Columbia in Oregon and kind of everywhere in between just again trying trying to find problems. Right. That's what it's about. You're trying to figure out the situation you didn't think of ahead of time, that in which in this case a pattern or garment or whatever fails breaks. And we have this tendency, you know, all of us in the outdoor industry, probably we put out these cool videos with rock music, like how cool this garment is. But that's just like not how this product gets to fill. No, I suppose not. It's when your arm gets cold because the gasket was wrong or the pockets in the wrong place and you went put your cell phone and dumped it in the water and this, that and the other and that sort of less glorious part of it is key. It's what makes it good in the end, getting out there. Yeah, Yeah. I was talking with Shawn yesterday. You know, some of the products that are now being printed in Typha are the same item that you're going to get in any of the big. Yup, yup. And we yeah, we pride ourselves on the versatility of our gear. You know, we hope to really not have to sell you seven different bass player. You know, one that can do it all is sort of the dream now obviously we're going to print print those bass layers and tie up, but it's the same bass layer I'd recommend for all cutting. It's the same bass layer I'd recommend for whitetail hunting, you know, within reason there's different contacts, but the bass layer system's really the same. And even some of the lighter, you know, what we call transitional outerwear is the same, you know, pack ability, for example, is of the utmost importance on an owl, but being able to get a puffy jacket as an extra layer in a blind bag can be awesome also. So, yeah, you will see a lot of our current gear also printed in Typha, along with, of course, a brand new set of styles explicitly for waterfowl. So what are some of the waterfowl specific items? Probably a lot of the outerwear, Yeah. I'd say the the flagship pieces are outerwear. Based on one hand we've got the landing zone jacket, which I've been talking a lot. I would say more to you with folks down here where it's not quite as cold, so a shell jacket is probably getting towards more of what they're needing. So that's just a four and a half layer waterproof jacket that's real burly but doesn't have any insulation. It gets a layer under it layer it down, flexibility being an emphasis that way. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we have the refuge collection, which is our insulated, our insulated line bibs, parka, muffs, etc. for the coldest conditions. And if anything pan, we made that stuff too warm. I remember testing, testing those bibs out, I think two winters ago and it was two degrees. I was putting out Candida shells in Idaho. I got too hot in the bibs. I was venting. So if anything, like I said, we went to warm with some of the gear, but I'd rather be too warm than people get cold, obviously. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Layering, you know, I'm thinking back in my lifetime, it feels like a relatively new thing. Yeah, but. But that's what I've always done. Yeah. When I was a kid. Yeah. I mean, I had crappy boots, I had coats that didn't fit me because I was a kid. You know, My dad had three kids that hunted and. But, you know, as an adult, where you can start buying items that you can wear for years till they wear out. I mean, layering is I, I don't know it. That is probably the the most important thing, if you ask me when it gets into the field is, oh yeah, you go in with your warmest gear, you're going to sweat and it's going to be a difficult it's going to be a difficult rest of the day for you when it gets cold. Absolutely. And luckily, that is our heritage. I mean, the first site was found essentially with Scott and printed, you know, wool garment with camouflage. That was sort of their Aha. That's that's our history. And so it's layering base layers and merino wool specifically really is our heritage. And still what a lot of people know us for and you know, very conveniently as we go into waterfowl, merino is a hell of a base layer for a duck hunter, right? It retains tons of its heat and warmth. Excuse me when wet. So if you dunk, you're not necessarily going home. It's obviously very warm, It doesn't stink, which, you know, as I would say, it's less of a critical element than it is to a white sailor, but it's still pretty nice to put on a base layer in the morning and not immediately smell yourself yet. A lot of the well, most all of the big game hunting I do is back country, big game hunting. And as you know, you do that as well as, you know, some of the articulation in the clothing, the base layers, the ability to, you know, to shove that outer shell in the back there. That's how I really got into the layering. And there was a time there I thought, that's not necessary for duck hunting, but not all duck hunting is the same. No. You know, some of it. It's a boat trip, you know, out to a point, throwing out decoys. Some of it it's loading, you know, decoys over your shoulder and hiking a mile out into a field. That's the buddy and so the layering system does work for all types of hunting. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, as you referenced a little earlier, the driving principles for the development of our waterfowl line, I would say were durability and waterproofing. Right? Those are kind of the primary needs. But there's certainly a reason we made some of our popular puffy Western hunting items in we printed in our types of powder and also because again yeah, you're walking in, it's lovely to stuff that that synthetic puffy and you know just a little of your blind bag and be able to pull that out after you've walked in so you guys have some hardgoods I'll call them that. Yeah. You're working on to my I was going to actually I was heading that direction. My favorite thing might be our ground control pack. So kind of our thing. Yeah. Our very first bag we've made and it's awesome. Sort of a tub design floats can be used standing up or standing sort of sitting down. Mean sort of a traditional blind black bag format, removable design dividers on the inside for gear storage, roll top, dry bag in the center of it. I mean, it's just dialed and it's dialed whether you're, you know, using as a true blind bag throw it in the boat or walking it out to a pit or a sort of. I tend to do more walking into a deeper public land spot as sort of a troop backpack, if that makes sense, to have it in the booth. Oh, yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I'll have to give you the tour. As you can tell, I'm excited about it. Yeah, it's pretty neat. Yeah. You know, I saw it on the radio, so you saw it on the podcast. I can actually see it for it is definitely glowing over some of these things. It's it's, it's like I said, it's, I think it's my favorite piece. It's pretty neat. Logan did a really good job, but I think the Yeah yeah I do want to kind of switch gears just a little bit. Yeah. The conservation ethos of First Lite, the company that people you know like many I follow First Lite on, on social media and I really smile from ear to ear when I see some of the conservation projects that your staff. Yeah. Participate in. Just talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I'm particularly proud of that. You know, we kind of divide our efforts up into three silos and, you know, the most sort of conventional is what we call, you know, fundraising or or generating dollars, which is critical. Right. And and programs like Camp for Conservation with Delta fall into that category where we're raising money so y'all can get the work done, which is awesome and I think will always be the core of it, whether that's our roundup program so folks can donate, check out, or whether that's as simple as, you know, giving away a jacket at a banquet. So the more money gets raised, that's an important element of our efforts for sure. On top of that, we've got advocacy, which I think is just as important, and that's putting out the word that you need to call your senator about recovering America's wildlife. That right. Telling people what that bill is telling people when that's hitting the floor, telling them that they need to make their voice heard. And I think that will always be a critical element. You know, maybe the most important is depending on on your view of democracy, so to speak. But it's a big country stating the obvious. Yes. You know, we're talking about waterfowl right now, but there's big game, there's upland, there's everything. How do you guys as a company, how do you what's your approach to staying abreast of those issues? You know, I think frankly, I hit the Instagram so often of, of, of Delta Pheasants forever. Rocky Mountain, Elk Foundation, National Deer Association, VA. You know, whoever. I'm just kind of trying to stay abroad there and our social media manager also to kind of keep our eyes on the pulse and trying to pick the right moments to tell folks to do something right. I mean, you know, that's better than us. But really trying to say, okay, now is the time to contact your senator about the grassland. It's on the floor or it's approaching, you know, approaching the floor. And again, I think as a profile, as a sort of entity in the outdoor space, that's critical, that's on us to try and get the word out when things need to get done. And and, you know, sometimes to take a stand on stuff, which is hard to do as a company because you often get that well, you also just make clothes. It's like, well, again, if if y'all don't have somewhere duck account, we're not going to have anybody to sell clothes to. That's true. And so again, advocacy, I'm getting into the weeds, but advocacy is another silo of our conservation efforts. But what you're alluding to and I think maybe my favorite part is our on the ground stuff, and that really comes from a desire to just sort of do something, you know, send in money directions is great and critical, but it's nice to get your hands dirty every once in a while. And that's really where Brush four Bucks, which is our in-house project came from. So we had participated in a bunch of sites back up in southern Idaho. We've got an issue whereby rangeland and and specifically winter range gets devoured by fire and then subsequent invasion by annual grasses like cheatgrass reduce and etc.. And so we lose those critical warm south slopes where mule deer, elk and antelope winter basically we lose the forage, they forage on bitter brush and forage on sagebrush, and that stuff gets replaced by these horrible invasives basically. So we had been on a couple of plantings whereby we had volunteered to help the state put sagebrush in the ground to try and jump start those shrubs communities and put food back on the ground for game and other species. And at a certain point after one or two of those, I was like, We could do this. We don't, we don't really we don't really need the state necessarily. And so we worked worked with the contact there and they helped us kind of organize on buying seedlings and loaned us some devil bars and planting bags. And we started purchasing 1200 seedlings in the fall. In the spring, we'd shut down the office and we'd have the whole crew go out and put those seedlings in the ground on local winter range that had been in fact been affected by this this fire invasion cycle. So, you know, a small project in the scheme of things, but helping get our employees more directly involved and helping put just a little bit more habitat on the ground for local big game. And that program's I think we started in 2018. Okay. And what's cool is we actually recently partnered with some of our influencers, the guy from the guys from Get Hashim, Okay, And we broadened it to sort of customers. So we put out a call, got 50 people to actually buy tickets, quote unquote, that would help pay for seedlings really, and did sort of a hybrid employee portion and outside customers project. And we were actually able to put 10,000 seedlings in the ground nice this spring and we're looking to grow that program wider in the future. Yeah, no, that's cool. I wasn't being rude, but I was looking at how many Instagram followers does first I have 345,000. So yeah. So it's a you know, keep it up. It's a voice. Yeah, it's a voice. And we have to use it to get the word out again, when it comes to important issues, when it comes to important legislation or ethics or whatever it may be, I think it is one of our our greatest but one of the ways we can contribute. Yeah. The most. Well, it does. It makes me feel really good. And if there's anything for that that Delta can do, you know, to help flag issues partner on advocacy or anything like that, you know, conservation projects, sign us up, sign me up. You know, like I said, that's a it's a it's a great you guys are great ambassadors. It's 345,000 people that, you know, probably hunt really hard. But are now, you know, consciously or subconsciously, you know, being infected with that conservation ethic. And that's what we need. Oh, yeah. When you, you know, far better than us how wonky policy can be. And so, you know, if we can help, I hate to say it, but boiled that down a little bit and get the get the word out to people about important legislation. You know, the Great American Outdoors Act came came to mind recently in terms of like I hope I think in some small way we help get the word about help, get some calls, letters, emails to senators, and maybe in our own small way, hope it helps get that over the line. I say many hands make light work. Yeah, I don't think like that. I don't know. I read it recently, but this really stuck with me because I have all of our you know, I have our two senators or two congressmen contacted my phone. Oh, tried to call them regularly on, you know, conservation issues as they come up. And somebody told me, I don't know if it was at a tr sleep meeting where I heard this, but that in a you know, a state like Idaho, a smallish state, very small state, ten phone calls will get their attention. Ten phone calls on an issue will get a legislator to sort of pause and think. And so you know and ten getting ten employees in First Lite to call a legislator is not that are no it's not that it's not that much in the way of voice to make a difference to talk about what's it what's a typical employee at first sight like who are they? You know, it's gotten more complicated as as we've grown so much. But, you know, the typical employee is is obviously going to be a hunter. Probably fish then. Yeah, they're probably going to do a little bit of everything. They're probably going to dabble in waterfowl big game and whitetail, you know, where their emphasis is, is probably going to depend on where they they came from. I'm sure it's heavy Midwestern, which might surprise people. I think we're probably more than half Midwesterners. Really? Yeah, Yeah. Obviously a lot from the West itself, a lot from Idaho, Oregon, Washington, you know, the states, Montana, right around where we're at. Sure. But yeah, very Midwestern. And so obviously, you know, those guys tend to be more whitetail oriented. Yeah. The Westerners tend to be more elk and deer oriented and waterfowl kind of cuts across everybody. That is interesting that you say that. I do feel like I kind of look at my childhood and I was lucky we'd wake up, go duck hunting, and then where I live we'd rough grouse hunt in the middle of the day and then we jump on our tree stands at night. But one of the things that I can't help but think of with waterfowl hunting is, you know, there's when I was and maybe you too, when you were learning, when you're pursuing a wildlife degree, you know, they taught about the five stages of a hunter. Oh yeah. You know, so he was the one who just doesn't have any skills. They don't, they can't shoot anything. They're just terrible. And you had to start advancing through skills and you're into this volume stage where it's all about how many of something can it harvest? And then it you start to refine methods and start to challenge yourself. I hope I never reach the last stage. The last stage is maybe more that you prefer a camera over a gun. I don't think I'm ever going to reach that one, although I like that part of it too. But I hope I never get there. But what what I think happens. So you take. I'm just going to go Father son. Yeah, take the dad. Dad is at a more advanced stage of a hunter, and after a stressful day of work, all they want to do is sit in their tree, stand up or sit on a hillside and just relax. And so big game tends to be something that people more advanced in their in the in their stage tends to gravitate towards. But the kid they're at, I want volume, action, excitement. Yeah. So I think some people kind of get I think that's that's a it's a bit of a conundrum in the sense that the kid wants to go, Oh yeah, maybe more than big game. Yeah. And so I think it's important to do both. And I do find water fouling can be something that everybody can do. Yep. And so it's interesting though, that you say that that's the kind of what everybody has in common. Yeah. More than hunting. More than. Yeah. I think just obviously, you know, there are waterways everywhere, right? There aren't necessarily elk and mule deer or whitetail everywhere, but there's ducks and South Carolina and there's ducks in Washington State and there's ducks in Utah. And, you know, I think in that regard, it does cut across the country that way. There's not too many places where there aren't waterfowl of some sort somewhere. Yeah, Yeah. Well, no, I appreciate it and this has been a great conversation forward. I don't know if I've spoken with you on the phone in the past. I'm one of those people that'll call looking for advice from time to time. Yeah, but, but, but it's been, it's been a great conversation and I'm very proud to be partnered with First Lite you know the Campbell for conservation, obviously, you know, it's a great funding mechanism for the programs that we do on behalf of of waterfowl. But, but I'm also proud to call you guys the official apparel company of the organization. Yeah, well, we we can't be we can't be more pleased about it. It's been awesome and you know, I finished on the, on the advocacy note, you reach out to us if you've got something you're looking to push because we you know, we can't we certainly can't change the world but we can do a little and and people I appreciate when energy has reached out to us trying to push stuff all the time. I was just talking to Sportsman's for the Boundary Waters a day or two ago about you kind of action alerts they were working on and pheasants forever about the Grasslands Act and in the in the works right now. So definitely reach out if you got something to put you know I'll do that. I'll do that. I'm really glad that you brought that back up and flagged it. That that means it's genuine. Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It's awesome. Well, thanks for it. Appreciate time. We'll just kind of wrap up here. If anybody has any questions, of course, you can call First Lite the email for slight jump on their website. Learn, learn the great work that they do. Look at the type of type of pattern that you see. Those items obviously are only sold through your through the store, but there are a few items in partnership with tangle free that. Oh yeah. Yep. A whole well, I won't go into the full field but basically they're, they're accord assortment. Well will be available on Tyson. Okay which is awesome. They make great stuff. I've really been pleased as punch to partner with them as we as we make this entrance into the waterfowl world. Okay so that so that apparel like the other apparel, is just available at first line, correct. Yeah. But some of the hardgoods that we've talked about. Yep. Lines tangle free. Exactly. All of the tangle free items will be available on both our site and for free. So awesome. Okay, well thanks a lot for it. Um, hope you enjoy the rest of the show. Oh yeah. We'll get back to it. This fun sounds great. All right, Take care.