The Voice of the Duck Hunter is back with a new look! Host Joel Brice breaks the hiatus with an exciting conversation with so-called habitat influencer and professional photographer, Isaac Neale. They discuss one person's power to impact the system, a modern approach to hunting, photography, and conservation, and the random birth of catchphrases, "Drain cold ones, not wetlands." https://www.habitatinfluencer.com https://www.isaacneale.com
The Voice of the Duck Hunter is back with a new look! Host Joel Brice breaks the hiatus with an exciting conversation with so-called habitat influencer and professional photographer, Isaac Neale. They discuss one person's power to impact the system, a modern approach to hunting, photography, and conservation, and the random birth of catchphrases, "Drain cold ones, not wetlands." https://www.habitatinfluencer.com https://www.isaacneale.com
Welcome back to Delta Waterfowl’s the voice of the duck hunter podcast. This past winter, I sat down with a new friend of mine, Isaac Neale, to discuss his life as a professional photographer and self-proclaimed habitat influencer. As a habitat influencer, Isaac uses clever phrases such as All my homies hate habitat destruction to raise funds for initiatives and organizations devoted to conserving, restoring and expanding habitat. With that introduction, let's welcome Isaac to the podcast. Isaac Neale Welcome to the Delta Waterfowl Podcast. It's good to be here. Thanks for the invite. Yeah you're welcome. I would invite you to Bismarck, North Dakota, but I think most people right now don't want to be here. It's 18 below -40 some degree, wind chills, snow falling. So yep, I'll hold down the fort for everyone. I mean, as as waterfowlers, I think one of the things that is kind of sick or miss wired about our brains is that we live for inclement weather, right? You're looking at the weather. I've gone, oh, this looks ducky. And then, and then you can kind of get past that and it feels like that's where you guys are at right now. Like we've sort of jumped over the good range of terrible weather into just terrible range of terrible weather. Yeah. Yeah. There's not much to do right now. I think, you know, we have a few straggling geese hanging around this area yet because the Missouri River runs right through town. But yeah, other than that, it's just white wonderland of cold and wind right now. But I have that twisted thing, you know, like you said there, you hit on something I think as waterfowlers we think of that bad weather and we romanticize that and I kind of have this theory is that there's an, you know, I think people file memories with an emotional tag to it, and I think the emotions are just that much stronger when the weather is that much crummier makes it more lasting. Absolutely. Yeah. There's a there's a sort of concept in this range from I think it was a podcast called The Dirtbag Diaries that talks about type one, Type two, type three fun. And the harder where something is, the more value we ascribe to it. And I think that is certainly something that's present in waterfowling. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Hey, just to give everyone a little bit of a preview, I've been honestly admiring your work for the last few months and learned that you have a side of what you do and you call yourself a Habitat influencer. So I wanted to bring you on the podcast, talk about your your photography and videography work. Let's learn about that Habitat influencer side of Isaac Neale. Let everyone know how they can find you where they can. Then follow your work, follow your habitat influencer efforts. But I guess before we get into that, I'd love for everyone to learn about Isaac Neale I understand that you're you're from Missouri now, so but just maybe you've always been from Missouri, but just tell people, Isaac, where are you from? What's your background? Bring it right up into maybe where you've started taking photos and videos as a living. Yeah. So the condensed version is I'm born and bred Missourian. I love Missouri, but more specifically I'm in Ozarker, which for all of us is Ozarkers who are Waterfowlers. That's a terrible combination. It's like land that's purpose made to not hold ducks. So But I was born in the Ozarks. Growing up in the Ozarks, I still live in the Ozarks and I grew up hunting, but by the time I started hunting, my dad, you know, his career and other obligations had led him to where we were. We were basically just opening the opening weekend of Whitetail Firearms that was hunting for us. My grandpa has always been an avid hunter, upland waterfowl, anything has always had a bird dog. But a lot of my hunting growing up was just that opening weekend of Whitetail Firearms. And so I started doing that as soon as I could and and did that until I went to college. And then in college I started investigating other forms of hunting, small game hunting and stuff like that. And I had a buddy who found out that I had a old wax canvas jacket from my grandpa and he's like, Oh, dude, we got to go duck hunting. This was a guy who took photos as well. Nate Lucas, his name takes beautiful photos, but he took me out in a canoe and we sat under some driftwood on the shore of Lake, and I was wearing his hip waders that were dry rotted. I didn't know that at the time, but I just thought it was like freezing cold. And then we got back to the truck and I was just soaked from the from the knees down, basically. But the something about the experience just bit me. And it made me go like, this is what I want to do. We didn't see a bird, we didn't shoot a bird, we didn't do anything. We just like sat on a shore and froze to death. And I was like, Yes, this is what I want to do with my life. So from there on, I still loved to hunt other stuff, but from there on waterfowl and really bit at me. And as you know, there are days when you're hunting ducks or whatever that are pretty slow. And I had had the hobby of taking pictures with my 35 millimeter camera. Old Pentax K 1000 My wife is also a photographer. She shot families and weddings and different stuff like that. Well, at some point in time she upgraded her camera and I got her old body and started shooting digital pictures at that point in time. And I think this was probably before we were married. This is probably 2010 or 11 or something like that. And I started just taking it to blind with me and taking photos and really enjoying it in that. And it was this sort of snowballing thing where it got to the point where I was like, Man, I don't think I'm ever going to make my living hunting. I'm not going to be a world class hunter or anything like this, but I think I have the skill set and the drive to potentially be a photographer that can make a living doing this and still get to be around these things that I love, like waterfowling. And even though I'm not going to be the world's best duck hunter or whatever, and from there it eventually turned into a full time gig. And that's that's where we're at today. That's pretty exciting, is that you didn't go to college for that? Yeah, I went I went to college for graphic design and advertising for a year and realized that I was not. It was it was never going to be something that I was world class at. And I, I was good enough to be frustrated by bad graphic design, but not good enough to make good graphic design. And so I was like, this is not for me. And it was super expensive. So I was like, I don't need a degree, degree. I don't want to go into debt. So I just dropped out and bummed around for a number of years until I ended up here. Yeah, I think that's that. I admire that for me. You know, I grew up in a in a hunting family, lived in the country of rural west, central Wisconsin, loved the outdoors, camping, hiking, fishing, hunting and to go pursue a wildlife degree that was just kind of a natural extension of what I loved the most. And so then I you know, I did some private research in between my bachelor's and master's, went on to get my master's. And I've spent my whole life, you know, thinking or thinking about conservation, thinking about hunting or practicing, you know, conservation and management as a job. And so that whole saying of if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, I think it's true. And it sounds like the same thing for you. You took your passion and you found a way to merge it with your profession. And the lines are pretty blurred at this moment, I suppose. Yeah. I mean, I certainly still have days when I'm like, Man, this is right. You know, I've got four little kids, eight, eight through two, and, you know, to be a person in the hunting industry means that you're probably going to be gone a lot. You're going to be traveling a lot. And so that's an unfortunate side effect of the job. But even that, I zoom out and I go, Holy, holy cow, I'm so blessed to be able to do this. Like the downsides to this job are still like I mean, it's incredible. So yeah, that's good. So I was looking on your website and just let's make sure that people have the opportunity to, to come find you. isaacneale.com ISAACNEALE com. That's your photography website. Yeah, and that's how you can find me on Instagram. Isaac Neale, you can email me there. You can, you can find me through anything that's ISAACNEALE That's how you spell it. Isaacneale.com, Isaacneal@isaacneale.com Yeah, Your short little selfie videos make me laugh. Most want to. I want to put you on the spot almost. It's kind of like developed as a pattern because and, and we can get into this later, but the habitat influencer stuff like it's a little everything's a little tongue in cheek. I have a hard time taking things too seriously, even stuff that needs to be taken seriously. I maybe error on the side of being a little cavalier sometimes, which is a conversation for another day. But it it that the idea of me putting myself out there to tell someone else how they should live their life or show somebody out, whatever it I feel like a fish out of water. And so that was sort of something that developed as a as a bit to sort of, I don't know, assuage my my weird emotions when I want to talk to somebody through a telephone. But, you know, effectively, I've got this routine at this point in time where I go, Oh, hey, didn't see there Isaac Neil at Isaac Neale, part time photographer or full time knucklehead or whatever, you know, switch out the blanks there. But and then I go into whatever I say because it's I dont know. I just feel like life's too short to take yourself too seriously. And I certainly don't I don't think I have much to offer that somebody else does. And so, yeah, you say it a little slower and a little funnier. And so I would recommend that people head to your Instagram page and listen to some of those. Every single one of them makes me laugh and you need to post more frequently. So I get my daily chuckle. There we go. Oh, I'll put it in the calendar. Yeah. So lifestyle portrait photographer. I just stole that. Straight off of your website. You take pictures of both people and the outdoors in and you know some of the clients on there appear to be no slouches. Can you just namedrop some of some of your more recognizable clients I guess for people maybe on this podcast? Sure. So I do a lot of I do a lot of work for a couple of different companies. One of them is Heyday, formerly known as Lifetime Decoys. I do a lot of photos for them. I do a lot of photos for Duck Camp. I do a lot of photos for Irish Setter. I do a lot of photos for I do a lot of work, not not photo work, but video and actually podcast work for a company called Meat Eater with a guy named Clay Newcomb. He has his own podcast called Bear Grease. So I help out with that and I make videos for him. And at this point, that's, you know, a lot of who I work with. I was just on a trip with a company called High and Dry. They make a pole that you stick in the ground and you can hang your bag or gun off as if you're hunting a buck brush slough or or whatever. And we were also shooting with Turtle box. So they make Bluetooth speakers. Really fortunate to shoot with a and I'm really fortunate to be at a place in my professional career where I can shoot for people that I personally want to be around and products that I believe in. So I'm sure I've missed some people and I'm sorry. Send them to the website now I think. Yeah. Should yeah. Again, it's one of those situations where you are you can work for or helping promote things that you believe and I think that's where it where it all lines up. What are some of the I took a look at people and the outdoors so some wildlife nature photography I would say a lot of people a lot of lifestyle emotion you know, you get to read a lot of people's emotions. What are some of your favorite things to take pictures of? Man for? I make a sort of joke, but like I photograph people and oftentimes those people are humans. Sometimes those people are animals, but anything that can when I'm talking to a potential client, like the way I try and explain it to them is like, I'm not necessarily trying to take an accurate picture of what it was, what what it looked like, or an accurate picture of your product or an accurate picture, whatever. I'm trying to make you feel something. I'm trying to make a picture that makes you feel what it felt like to be there. And oftentimes, one of the easiest ways to do that is to capture emotion in a human being. So if you look at a lot of my work, the vast majority of it involves human being in some way. And the stuff that really connects with me, the most is people emoting. You know, I want a new perspective, I want a fresh perspective. I want I want to feel something. If it doesn't compel me to react, then it's a photo that probably isn't that valuable to me and by extension, my clients like uhh The truth of the matter is like what I do for a living is not art, it is production. Like I'm working for a client most of the time. And so sometimes that looks like selling something, sometimes that looks like telling a story. I had a shoot in April for pheasants Forever and the Sorghum Checkoff, where they were showing people that there's an alternative way to grow sorghum that produces habitat for animals. So in that way we're still selling somebody on a concept, not a product. But ultimately I am paid by a company to help them, in my eyes, tell a story. We're trying to show people that there's a lifestyle or an experience that is available to them and that this product or this whatever helps to fulfill that. And so if my photography does not compel someone to react, then it doesn't help them with their end goal, which is to sell their product or to sell their concept or whatever. You touched on something that it was. This was a conversation I had with my daughter the other day. I grew up in Wisconsin, in the woods and a sunset in Wisconsin or Sunrise is vastly different than it is here in the North Dakota prairies. You know, the sun isn't really gone, you know, until it it goes below you know, the plane of the earth. But with the trees, it's gone along a lot earlier than that. So my daughter is really fascinated with sunsets because they're just so brilliant and so vast. And you see the whole sky and the colors here and the wide open prairies. But when she takes the pictures, she says, Man, that's just not what I saw. Sure. And we were having this conversation that a really good photographer can insert emotion into that picture. And I admire it. It's like someone who can sing. I can't carry a note in a bucket, but but when someone can sing, I admire that. But when a photographer can put emotion into a picture that other people can feel, that's a real art form. Yeah, it, it, it is. And I think part of that for me is knowing my lane, like I've got buddies who are truly phenomenal, you know, waterfowl photographers, Phil Conkey and Art Diaz, who live up in South Dakota, like both of them take pictures of birds like nobody's business. I can get a good picture of a bird every once in a while, but it's certainly not my lane, right? My lane is typically human beings. If there's a human being in there, if there's something going on, that's my lane. And and so in the same way, whenever somebody, you know, the sun sets a great example, I've shot a few great sunsets and I'm like, man, that's really great. But I rarely go out to shoot a sunset. And so it's funny that even within the discipline of photography or whatever, everybody has their own little niche and like I still get caught up with other people's like version of like, Wow, that's incredible what you're able to do with that. Like, I might be able to throw a dartboard and hit a bull's eye, but it doesn't mean that I can hit a bull's eye every time with what you're doing. Now that that's it's a true art form. And I admire what you do there with the camera. It's it's something I can't do. But I also admit I don't really have an interest in it, which is probably half of the problem. I take out my phone, I grab a few pictures so I can remember what they are. I'm not really taking Oh yeah, other people. And so I think that's a lot of it. Having the interest, the dedication to it. It's funny because like, I don't get me wrong, I love taking the shotgun. I love hitting the limit of birds. Absolutely. I cannot do both. Like, I cannot take a gun and a camera because I will do both poorly. Like when I'm on camera. It's like all I care about. I just want to shoot, shoot, shoot. When I'm taking a gun. Like if I take a gun and bring a camera, I guarantee I'll get like two shots and then like, all right, let's kill some birds. Right? And so, like, I think that drive is certainly a huge part of it. Like, and without getting too off in the weeds here, I think my drive for photography is much higher than my drive for birds like. And I think that's what allowed me to gravitate that way at for whatever reason, I rarely go on a hunt and be like, Man, I wish I would have brought my gun so that I could have also got limit of birds. But I have had times where I don't bring a camera. I'm like, Man, I wish I would have brought my camera. That would have made perfect or whatever. That is like a thing that is constantly in me. People are like, You don't shoot. It's like, Dude, I am like, This is doing it for me right now. So I think that drive is a big part of it. Yeah, I think everybody has a little bit of that in them. Maybe not with the camera. For some it's that conversation of which would you rather take your dog or your gun, you know, and sure, yeah. Me? Yeah, I lived it. I was without a dog for a few years as we had tiny kids and I was traveling. I just waited and bought a three year gap and I just really didn't like bird hunting for that period of time because my connection was gone and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My, my bird dog died of cancer last year. And so, like, I mean, we had several hunts where it would just be me and her go out, sit, sit on a little wood whole shoot three wood ducks at first light and you know, call it a day. And it's like those are some of my favorite hunts and I haven't had any of those this year because I'm not going to go out and sit by myself and do that. But when you got your dog with you, it's a different experience. You know? It is. It is. And the other one that that I'm right smack dab in the middle of my two kids. They're 16 and kind of freshly 16 and 13. And so and we go hunting. A lot of times I don't bring my gun because I want to be super focused on their experience and make sure that they're safe and and yep, everything is a teaching moment. But if I do bring a gun, I'm the last one to shoot and know We were out a couple of weekends ago and they had turkey tags, so they each filled a fall turkey tag. And I went home, you know, just with some great memories and pictures. And I couldn't have been more satisfied. We were we were recently at an industry event that where, you know, there's there's stuff going on during the day, but you can go out and hunt in the morning. And so I was with my buddy Chris Herrell, and he had his son Gray and another buddy, and we went out, there is no birds, no water in the area. But we were we're going out to hunt because we could anyway. And Chris stood with Gray and helped him shoot a single wood duck. We saw maybe six wood ducks fly by during the morning, shot the wood duck 20 minutes later. Chris, like, what do you think? You're good. And Grace like, Yeah, you want to go get a biscuit? Yeah, let's go get a biscuit. So we packed up and got a biscuit and it was my favorite part of the weekend. Just shooting one wood. Great shot. One more duck. And me and Parker hung out on the shore and just it was like, This is something special and it's own thing. Yeah, I'm going to back up to when my son was three years old and I'm only going to tell the story because I think it might be worth something for the maybe the young dads out there. But I had this, you know, when my son was three. I was at just the just at the epitome of hunt all the time, shoot lots of things. And and I was caught up in a in a moment where I knew there was a particularly nice whitetail buck that was coming through one of the areas that I routinely hunted. And I said, if I can just get that buck when my son is with me, he'll be hooked forever. And we sat in the stand, it was a ground blind, actually. We sat in there and I knew this guy came through. Let's say, at 2 hours from when I got there, and about an hour and 45 minutes after we'd been in the blind, my son had a complete and total meltdown and I got mad at him and we left the blind no deer experience. And and I it was a walk of shame for me. I felt so awful. And I thought, I'm focused on what I love and I want him to love it the same way. I have to focus on what he loves. And from that day I treated hunting with my kids night and day different. You know, it was about food and laughing. And if he wanted to break tree branches and jump off of rocks and just make any kind of noise, let's do it. And, you know, because it's not about what I want. It's about what they want, man. It's such a it's a hard line. It's like pushing them. I want to push my kids outside of their comfort zone, but I don't want to push them outside of wanting to hunt. And I still haven't found the balance. But like, you're so right, I've never, ever pushed them too hard and been like, Yeah, that was that was good. We did some good work there. They're going to hate that now. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, it's such a I took Ezra out who's he's one and a half. He's actually two today. Today is his birthday but he, we went out, I think my wife and the three older girls were going to an amusement park and so it was me and Ezra hanging out and I was like, Let's go, bow hunt. So we went out to this big box blind that my grandpa built years ago for when my sister had her first kid. And we saw two groups of deer that day and as you're scared off the first group and I scared off the second group, I was pretty frustrated with him on the first one because I was like, Be quiet. And he made a big noise. And then the next group came along and I, I blow against the front of the thing and I was like, All right, you know what? Fair enough. This was a good lesson. Yeah, that karma, I guess, isn't it? It is funny, but and I would tell for maybe for you, for whatever it's worth. Sure. But for others, eventually it becomes your. I don't know if I don't wanna say done right, because I think some people are naturally drawn to hunting and others are not. You know, given the same experiences. But with both of my kids, they're, they're driven hunters now all on their own. But I let them find their way and I tried not to push mine on it so hard. Yeah, I think that that's what I aspire to. And I'm sure with time that'll that'll happen. Yeah. I have two brothers who grew up in the same household, same experiences, same opportunities, and our relationship to hunting is extremely different. I go all the time as much as I can. That's what I think about my older brother is very conditional. So like, he actually I think he hopes not to see a deer because I think so. I really do. And then my younger brother loves to go, but he's kind of one of those people that you have to invite him and. Yeah, and take him. And yeah, not one is not better than the other. They're just vastly different. And so you never know how it's going to turn out with your kids. Yeah, yeah. But hey, it's a fun thing too. It's a very fun thing to share, and I'm glad I'm able to do it. And I'm glad you're having some of those early experiences, especially at one and a half, two years old. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it certainly certainly mitigates expectations when you're taking a one and a half year old versus a ten year old or whatever. But yeah, trying to trying to start early, make it make the opportunities available, but not push them. We'll see if it produces anything good. Yeah. And I think my other goal and I did say this all out to my daughter or to my wife and my friends, so my goal was that when my kids look back on it, they would never they could never remember a time where they didn't hunt. Right. So take them out, frankly, before they could ever remember it later on in life. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. It was just always there. So it's it worked for me, for whatever that's worth. Yeah. So. Hey, I want to get into the next part here, and I think I mentioned this before we started with the record button, you know, and I've, I've always been drawn to conservation, participated in it as a profession, volunteering outside. And I know lots of people make money off of off of hunting, off of, you know, our wildlife and natural resources. And and I get that, and I'm totally fine with that. I just on top of that one layer, something on top. I totally admire it when when companies and individuals give back to conservation while they're drawing an income. And that's what really, really turned my head hard when I saw you promote a sweatshirt that on your Instagram feed, I think it was dream cold ones, not wetlands. That right? Yeah. Yeah. So Habitat Influencer was sort of a project and that name is kind of tongue in cheek because I think we all, when we hear the term influencer, roll their eyes to some degree or whatever, but it's is a project that that grew out of a couple of different thoughts. One of them was a conversation I had with a friend. We were driving to hunt Pheasant in South Dakota, actually, and I remember we passed some guys mowing the median and shoulders at the highway we were driving on. I was like, Man, I wish they wouldn't do that. I wish they'd plant some native grass or whatever and just save money on mowing, save money on whatever. And the guy was with was like, Man, I just think it looks so unkempt. And I was struck by that. The irony that we were having to drive, you know, 8 hours to go hunt a bird that used to have a I mean, native it wasn't a native range, but it used to live in Missouri and you used to hunt it in animal populations. We had to drive 8 hours because of things like the practice of planning fescue or mowing or all these things. It just struck me as ironic and I think that sort of got the gears turning. But the other part of it was struggling with this sort of abstract concept of conservation. I was seeing a lot of people being like, I'm a conservationist, I'm a whatever. And it at at the same time felt simultaneously almost like worthless because like it meant like it just became a new buzzword for I'm a hunter, I'm a guy who cares about the outdoors, but also like unapproachable. It's like, what is conservation, What is this thing? And so through the process of like wrestling with that and thinking about that, I was like, well, I can I can either be mired in inaction because I don't know what to do, and I feel torn between these two things, or I can do something and, you know, I think we can all do something and we should all do something and we should not be concerned about what we are doing in comparison to someone else. Like we ate through that process. One of the biggest things that I decided was I'm going to take a new hunter hunting every year. Like the biggest thing that I think that we can do for conservation in hunting and outdoors is take someone new hunting because like whatever impact you can have on the outdoors, on habitat, on conservation, anything, if you can get somebody else hooked on hunting now, you've doubled that. And if you instill that virtue in them in two years now you've doubled that. It's an exponential growth factor. Obviously, you know, not everyone's going to take to it. Not everyone's going to continue to go every year. But the the most important thing you can do is to make people care. And so in that same way, like I've always been a little bit different for those of you who don't know what I look like, I've got tattoos and I've got stretched ears and I grew up being a punk rocker and and so like hunting for me was not this holistic culture in which, like, you have to dress a certain way and consume certain media and do this. Hunting to me was this thing that I loved. And I also had these other interests listening to hardcore music and whatever. And so like through this process, I wanted to make something that felt more like me, that represented the things that I cared about, that like had funny phrases like drain cold ones, not wetlands, or all my homies hate habitat destruction or whatever. And and all of these things work together to like when we're bringing new people in like letting them know, like, hey, it's okay to dress how you want to dress or look how you want to look and, and also be interested in this pursuit because like, it's not this singular pretty of like, identity, which, like, I'm not here to hate on anybody. Like, if, if you, if you fill the stereotypical silo of hunter, like I am for it, I think that the plurality of our different interests is what is interesting to me. And, and when it all coalesced around something like hunting or conservation is where we can be really strong. So providing that place for people to express themselves in a different way, providing that place for people to influence habitat, we haven't said it specifically about I give 10% of the gross from this project to habitat restoration expansion, and I conservation organizations and it's different every month. But it it's it's just something that is fun and approachable that scratches a bunch of itches but is hopefully trending towards good. Yeah, I think you're doing some ambassador type work and I'm going to put that label on there. To be honest with you. I spend a lot of my time working on talking, delivering programs. You know, that that that we hope at Delta will affect the future of hunting toward a more secure state. One of the things that you look at it and you say some people will say that if they want to stereotype the current hunter, pale male and stale, right. Like it's 50 something years of age, mostly white, mostly men. And we need to reach out to people who have maybe a different perspective, A different view. Yes, different genders, different ethnic backgrounds, because the whole hand-me-down tradition, you know, you took hunting to a different level from sounds like from what your father taught you. But it was a hand-me-down tradition. And so to reach out into into making conservation fun, make hunting fun, making, you know, appealing to a different audience and like you said, just being okay, you don't have to you could what it no matter what your background, gender, race, hunting is cool hunting is okay. Yeah. I think I think to to sort of double down on what you're saying like absolutely it's okay to be a stale white dude. I am personally a white dude. I don't know if I'm stale or not, but that that is totally okay. But it is in the it's, it's in the like sort of resting on our laurels and being like, this is the way it is. It's okay. Like, I want to reach out. I mean, personally it's, it's not fully altruism. I want to I want to help create a world in which my three daughters grow up and can be something more than just a token representation or a object for male desire within the realm of hunting. I want them to be a hunter who happens to be a woman, like I don't want them to like have the only option when they go to the store be something that is like, well, it's it's it's a woman's hunting outfit because we put pink on it. It's like probably more interested in the functionality and the fit and, you know, if it has pink, whatever, you know, it's it's broadening these horizons because if we're if we're not growing, we're dying. And if we're dying, then the whole North American model of conservation is dying. And that's not good for anybody. Hunters or non hunters. Animals, certainly habitat certainly. And so it's something that I'm passionate about. Yeah, but I think going to part of the original intent like it when we talk about it in these big terms like it can seem overwhelming but it doesn't have to be it can be something simple like taking somebody hunting. It can be something simple like buying two duck stamps. When you only have to buy one. It's going to be something simple, like, you know, just stepping in in a conversation when somebody is talking about how they shot over their limit and being like, Hey, I totally get it. Like, but here's why that's bad. Here's why that's not good. It can be something simple, like, you know, just whatever starting where you're at and doing whatever you can. And it'll initially it'll eventually grow. And obviously I'm focused on Habitat because that's something that I'm passionate about. But it can be. It can be anything. I agree. I agree. It's one of those. So there's I want to touch on something that I hear a little too often, you know, as as wildlife managers and biologists or people often say hunting is conservation hunting funds. Conservation hunting manages wild populations of birds and mammals, ungulates, whatever. But I sometimes hear individual hunters saying that and and they'll say, I want to support conservation. I want to control wildlife populations. And I say, I don't I don't think you hunt for those reasons. I don't know you, but I don't think you hunt for those reasons. I think your reasons are are recreation, family, nature, food. Pick the order. Right. We'll all establish our own order. And I say, which is not wrong. No, not at all. Don't couch it in the language that you're doing something altruistic. Yeah, you're doing something. The bare minimum. Yeah. Serves yourself. Exactly. So I encourage people, and it sounds like you do too. I encourage people to find your way to do something more than what's obligated. And you gave a great example by two duck stamps. Take someone hunting. Yeah. I have all of my state tags set to auto renew whether or not I'm going to hunt a species or not that year it becomes like how? Like I've maybe spent 120 bucks on tags in Missouri every year. It's like that's such a little amount of money that I can do. And then furthermore, I don't complain about the conservation department. I know that there are a lot of good people who have poured their life into this thing and genuinely care about the resource and genuinely care about the hundred population. And so when they're like, Hey, we're going to raise this price or whatever, it's like, Heck yeah, more money to conservation. Like it's these little things that are like, it's it's so easy. It's so easy to make a difference. It's so easy to actually invest in conservation. Yeah. And obviously we don't pretend to know, you know, the pressures facing an individual. So we don't want to make anybody feel bad for doing more than the minimum because that may be what you have. You may not have the time, you may not have the resources. Absolutely, you're right. But but I still encourage people to you know, there are ways. Right. And sure, join a conservation organization by to duck stamps, take someone hunting, put up some nest structures, you know, on your own, do some form of habitat management, you name it. There's lots of things out there. Yeah, we've we've you know, we live in town. We have a little quarter acre thing. We have been slowly turning all of our land into stuff that benefits pollinators, stuff that benefits wild critters, leaving, leaving brush piles on on specific parts of our land, leaving compost piles in different spots. There are so many different things that you can do that don't involve money, that don't involve that large of a knowledge of the way ecosystems work. Like just, you know, something like making a butterfly garden is like an insanely helpful thing for something like quail like and it's so easy. It's just dedicate a little part of, you know, on plant some native wildflowers. Let go, let it rip. It's, it's, it's when you when you start diving into it, it is this overwhelmingly hopeful thing. I think this conversation can often be couched in the language of doom and gloom and like we're all headed downhill and everything's going away. But it's like, dude, the human beings can they have an incredible power to be destructive, but they also have an incredible power to be creative and conservative. And all of these things like the thing that I think about it, it's like when my when my grandpa was born, there was no deer season in Missouri because we wanted him to the brink of extrication. By the time he was 18, the first dry season opened in Missouri. When I go hunting now, if I don't see two dozen deer, I'm like, This is a bad year, you know? So like on on the short timeline, it can seem like there is nothing good. Like duck numbers are down, Habitat's gone all there you know it but it when you when you zoom out you're like, what can I do? Well how many people are there out there like me who can do something to like it? Is this, like overwhelmingly hopeful possibility? I don't know. It's just it gets me excited. Well, I think kind of to support what you're saying. You know, the whole phrase of many hands make light work. And so we don't have to hold ourself as an individual to this high, high, high standard to do the little bit of chicken and then, you know, as a community of of people who love the outdoors, it all adds up. And yeah, so I don't know, I guess from from my perspective, Isaac, if anybody if people get anything out of this particular podcast recording conversation, you know, I think that's a great message right there. Just everyone kind of do their part and, and I love the optimistic side of it. You're right. It's too often it's it's doom and gloom we're losing and hunters are going away and habitats gone and I used to hunt in that location. Now it's now it's a subdivision. And hey, those are all true conversations, but the glass can be half full at the same time. Yeah. And, and I think what you said is really important on that factor of like, I don't want to presume anybody his position in life. I think that it is critical that we operate in realms like this without shame, like I am not here to guilt somebody for not buying to duck stamps. I do want you to consider what you can do one one thing along with me. Like every year I'm going to take a new hunter hunting. One thing that I do is I'm determined to never go into the woods or go on to a reservoir or whatever and leave without taking out more trash than I came with. Does that make sense? Every time I see a shell on the ground, I pick it up. Every time I see it, can I pick it up? And it can seem a little bit futile or useless, especially in flood plains where we're watching a lot of trash downstream or whatever. But it's like, what can I do that costs me nothing like taking up a shell is easy. How many times we've been in the woods and you saw a shell from a squirrel hunter. And that's not to say I'm back in a thousand on my shells. Like I try and pick up all my shells. I'm sure I've missed something somewhere. But if we are moving the ball forward and trying to do little things like we're going to make a better world for all of us, it's more of a state of mind, right? Yeah, absolutely it is. Hey, the one website address that we missed here, Habitat influencer AECOM. Yeah, I think that you can find it from my personal website but Habitat influencer dot com, you can get on there and find some stuff and if you find something on there you like and want to get it, that's totally cool. And if you feel like your money would be better spent doing something else, like I never want to be one of those places that's like you have to buy a t shirt because we're doing good. And it's like, if you don't want a t shirt but you have 30 bucks or whatever, just give that money to Delta. Give that money to whoever, like I have no interest in building an empire here. Like at the at the core of this. It's like, what little thing can I do to do good? And then also, like, I just think like that hoodie or that t shirt or whatever is funny and therefore I want to make it and I don't want to lose money on it. Like, that's more of what I'm interested in than like making the next lifestyle brand. So like, I would love your support, but also that the end goal is to move the ball forward on conservation. So yeah, I agree with you and I totally appreciate that and I picked up that vibe to be honest with you. The but yeah, if you are in the market for a new t shirt or sweatshirt. Yeah there's some it I do think they'll grab people's attention like sure a spooning on a hoodie in a nice wetland scene. All my homies hate habitat destruction that's going to catch eyes That's a great conversation starter I was I was going through TSA in the Houston airport on Sunday and the TSA agent was like, pat me down because somehow I always get randomly selected. But I was wearing that during cold ones, not wetlands. And on the front it says, Oh, my homies hate habitat destruction right here. And he's like, he's like says to one of the other TSA agents like, Hey, come over here. Check this out. And like, read that to it. And he thought that was really funny. And when I was leaving, he was like, Hey, all my homey, still trying to call one. I was like, Heck yeah, man. Like, But it's just like this little, like touchpoint that we got to experience because, like, you know, I guess someone like me does not put off the stereotypical hunter vibes, but like, we bonded over that experience because we had that shared interest in this little moment that like brought a little bit more positivity into the world and it's like, Oh, that's fun. Yeah, I've had a few shirts. I remember when my kids were younger as a biologist, I was asked to come in and and give a talk to the kids. So, you know, I tried to find this really fun way, but of all things that my T-shirt caught their attention and it it just was such a conversation starter and it brought us into this whole topic that I had no intention of going down. But yeah, they loved it. And so I think, yeah, I think you're going to start a few conversations. There's some turkey items, pheasant items, duck items, but trucker hat stickers to help, you know, if your mindset aligns, you know, with Isaac's, it's a, it's a great opportunity for you to get a few conversation starters and yeah and to the opportunity yeah and above all things 10% of gross sales that's what yeah that's a that's a word right there grow sales to conservation. Well it's yeah and I, and I say that because like so many you see like a percentage of our proceeds benefit conservation it's like that's awesome. I'm glad that that is happening as opposed to not. But it is like purely marketing because it does not commit to anything. It's like if I'm putting 10% out here of gross sales and for people who are not in the business world, growth means all the money I bring in, 10% of that goes, that's not 10%. After I cover my expenses or anything like that, that's 10% of you give me 30 bucks. Three bucks is going to conservation and habitat building restoration organizations. And and so like, I want to be front and center and I want to be committed and I want to be held accountable. And we've given to Delta, we've given to ATF, we've given to Audubon, we've given to Cal waterfowl, the Klamath stuff like so we're and that's the other thing. I am not like some big green guy in terms of like I don't have my pulse on my finger on the pulse of every awesome project that's happening. So I'm always open and looking for anything that people are like, Hey, this organization's doing really, or This project's doing a really good thing. Like we're always looking for ways to give money. I did see that and I saw that on your website. Yeah, there was an opportunity there for people to to make suggestions for your next donation. Yeah, and I love it. And it's not, it's not we're not doing crazy amounts, but like the I think we donated $763 this year. It really started in April of this year, kind of doing stuff. So that's not a lot of money. That's not a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of things. But like the whole point of this is like not like very few of us can write a check for $1,000,000. Very few of us can write a whatever. It's like what we can do is what we can do. And what I can do is like make these fun things and and sell them. You get 10% and your your thing might be picking up a shotgun or, you know, buying an extra duck stamp or whatever. Like all on the whole, all of us. Well, how many how many water followers are there in North America, do you know? Or in the US? Oh, the last kicking around there, it's, you know, 1 to 1.2 million waterfowl. Yeah. If everybody gets 25 bucks a year extra, that's $25 million. That's an insane amount of money. You know what I mean? Like it is in that small step on the aggregate, that makes a huge difference. And so like that's, that's one of the takeaways that I'd love people to, to walk away with. You know, I tell you what I like, I run into people now and again that truly inspire me. And I have to say this this conversation is inspiring and I hope it rubs off on other people, too. Whatever it is, whatever it is that you want to do, you want to check out Isaac stuff. Great. If you want to. You know, if you have a preferred activity, great. It's just I just hope every with the energy level picks up a notch and we all do what we can. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about it and just ramble and talk about hunting and waterfowl and all that stuff. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. I kind of when this just kind of a side thing here, you know, when I started this podcast three years ago or whatever, I thought of all the wonderful in-person conversations I was going to have. But I think 95% of my recordings have been virtually, you know, And so it's always kind of funny. I get to I get to see into people's living rooms or offices oftentimes. And an earlier was actually the wife that opened the door behind you. That was my sister. So we're up at my parents. They live in Hermon, Missouri, which is this Well, actually, technically, they live in Rhinelander, Missouri. It's this little German community that's on the Missouri River just an hour west of Saint Louis. But I'm in the upstairs bedroom, sort of secluded. We've got a house full of kids and my parents are here. So getting ready to celebrate Christmas. We're working on Christmas. I don't I don't know if there's any thing of note in the Neal family around here, so I'd show it to you. But I don't think there's anything interesting. Well, thank you for for taking a break from your family and joining us on this conversation. I've really enjoyed it again for everybody. Isaac Newcomb, Isaac Neale on Instagram, Habitat Influencer dot com. Want to check out, I guess, the movement that Isaac has has started here. Start your own movement, whatever school, just so long as we're all pushing the ball in the same direction. Right on, right on. Okay. And then I suppose if anyone wants to reach out to you, there's like I said, you can go through social media, social media contact info. Isaac Neale at gmail.com. Again, that's AC and e-mail e on all the major stuff. Right on. Isaac, appreciate the time. Thanks for taking the time, man. Yes, sir. Anything we can do to help you out, let me know, okay. You got it. All right. Catch you later.