Trey Reid of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission

Born and raised in Pine Bluff, Trey Reid is the Assistant Chief of Communications for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. His primary role is executive producer and host of Arkansas Wildlife TV, the AGFC’s weekly television show that documents The Natural State’s many outdoor recreational opportunities and AGFC’s myriad conservation work. Trey makes more than 250 radio and TV appearances per year representing the Commission and educating Arkansans on our natural states outdoor offerings.

Prior to joining the AGFC staff 11 years ago, Trey was field reporter for ESPN2’s BassCenter, traveling the country to report on professional bass fishing, conservation issues and much more. His travels took him everywhere from post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans to bass fishing adventures in New York City’s Central Park. Trey was outdoor editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for four years.

He started in the newspaper business as a sports writer and later as sports editor at his hometown newspaper, the Pine Bluff Commercial. He continues to work as a freelance writer and has had articles appear in local and national magazines and websites including Bassmaster, Greenhead, AY, Fish Arkansas, Arkansas Wild, Arkansas Money & Politics. ESPN.com, Bassmaster.com and more. Trey graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a B.A. In Liberal Arts.

Outside of his professional life, Trey is also part of the five-time World Cheese Dip Championship winners: The ConcheeZtadors. Donning Mexican lucha libra masks to hide their true identities, they recently offered their cheese dip for sale for the first time (just a flash sale, so not always available). Click the link to their Facebook page to see if you can identify Trey!  https://www.facebook.com/ConcheeZtadors/

Up In Your Business is a Radio Show by FlagandBanner.com

 

EPISODE 72

 

[INTRODUCTION]

 

[0:00:03.2] TB: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. Be sure to stay tuned till the end of the show to hear how you can get a copy of this program and other helpful documents.

 

Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

[0:00:22.8] KM: Thank you, Tim. Like Tim said, I’m Kerry McCoy and it’s time for me to get up in your business. Before we start, I want to introduce the people at the table. We have Tim Bowen, our technician who will be taking your calls and pushing the buttons. Say hello, Tim.

 

[0:00:35.4] TB: Hello, Tim.

 

[0:00:36.6] KM: Recording our show to make a podcast available next week is our technician Jessie. Thank you, Jessie.

 

[0:00:42.5] J: No problem.

 

[0:00:44.2] TB: This show Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy began with entrepreneurs in mind, a platform for me an entrepreneur and a guest to pay forward our experiential knowledge in a conversational way. As with all new endeavors, it has had some unexpected outcomes.

 

The one I enjoy most is hearing my guest biography; how they worked hard, took risks, found their voice and pursued their destiny. Another is that business is creative, much more so than people might first think. Last, behind each of my successful guests has been the heart of a teacher.

 

My guest today is Mr. Trey Reid from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and host of the TV show, Arkansas Wildlife, where he teaches us fun things, like how to hunt, fish, conserve, conserve and cultivate responsibly.

 

Whether you like to sit on a park bench or backpack through the Ozarks, or a new word I learned today from Trey, hook and bullet. I did just learn that from you. You lucky listeners will not want to miss learning about the natural state’s mini outdoor treasures. You may even get inspired to visit some places anew, get a tip for improving your existing sporting hobby, or begin a new outdoor activity.

 

If you’re just turning in for the first time, you may be asking yourself, “What’s this lady’s story and why does she have a radio show?” Well, Tim is here to tell you.

 

[0:02:09.3] TB: Thank you, Kerry. Over 40 years ago, with only $400 Kerry McCoy founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. During the last four decades, the business has grown and changed dramatically from door-to-door sales to telemarketing to mail order and catalog sales. Now Flag and Banner relies heavily on the internet, including our newest feature, live chatting.

 

Each decade required a change in sales strategy and procedures. Her business and leadership knowledge grew with time and experience, as well as the confidence to branch out into multimedia marketing that began with our non-profit dreamland ballroom, as well as our in-house publication Brave Magazine, and now this very radio show that you’re listening to.

 

Each week on this show, you’ll hear candid conversation between her and our guests about real-world experiences on a variety of businesses and topics that we hope you’ll find interesting. Kerry says that many business rules like treat your employees well, know your profit margin, and have a succession plan can be applied across most any industry.

 

What I find most encouraging is her example that hard work pays off. Did you know that for nine years while starting Flag and Banner, she supplemented her income with many part-time jobs? That just shows that persistence, perseverance and patience will prevail.

 

Today, Flag and Banner has 10 departments and I have 25 co-workers. It reminds us all that small business is the fuel of our country’s economic engine and that they empower people’s lives. If you would like to ask Kerry questions or share your experience or story, you can send an e-mail to questions@upyourbusiness.org.

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

[0:03:47.1] KM: Thank you, Tim. My guest today is Trey Reid, Assistant Chief of Communications for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, where his primary role is executive producer and host of Arkansas Wildlife TV show.

 

Trey’s career has taken him all over our great country. 11 years ago, he was a field reporter for ESPN2’s Bass Center, where he traveled the 50 states reporting on professional bass fishing and conservation. Two of his more interesting episodes were fishing in New Orleans, port Hurricane Katrina and the other bass fishing in New York City’s Central Park. I can’t wait to hear about that.

 

Trey started in the newspaper business as a sports writer and later as sports editor for his hometown newspaper, the Pine Bluff Commercial. For about four years, he was the outdoor editor of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Today, he continues to work as a freelance writer and has had articles published in local and national magazines including Bassmaster, Green Hit, AY, Fisher Arkansas, Arkansas Wild, Arkansas Money and Politics.

 

Outside of his professional life, Trey hides his identity by dawning a Mexican Lucha libre mask as part of his five-time world cheese dip championship team’s costume, The Conquistadores. What a character. It is a pleasure to welcome to the table a man’s man, the Assistant Chief of Communications for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Trey Reid.

 

[0:05:14.2] TR: Hey, what’s up?

 

[0:05:15.4] KM: Wake up over there.

 

[0:05:17.3] TR: You got to do social media all the time now. I was noting that – I think you said I do like 250 radio and TV appearances a year in my role as assistant chief of communications for game and fish. This is my very first time on KABF 88.3 and I’m very excited about it, because I am an avid listener of this radio station.

 

[0:05:41.4] KM: You said it’s on your dial all the time.

 

[0:05:43.2] TR: It is my number one preset.

 

[0:05:45.3] KM: Which show do you listen to?

 

[0:05:46.9] TR: Probably the blue show in the afternoons is one of my favorites.

 

[0:05:51.4] KM: You said another one when you came in.

 

[0:05:52.6] TR: Crossroads on Friday; it’s Friday evenings. It’s like right after the blues traffic jam.

 

[0:05:57.4] KM: You know, Tim and Jessie are the Wednesday night show. What’s the music that you play?

 

[0:06:02.4] TB: We play every kind of music.

 

[0:06:03.8] KM: Yeah. I always say that.

 

[0:06:04.7] TB: We don’t have a set genre that we play. We just –

 

[0:06:06.5] TR: See, that’s right up my alley, because I have eclectic tastes in music. I’m all over the place.

 

[0:06:12.6] KM: Tim, your stage name on Wednesday night is what?

 

[0:06:15.9] TB: We go by The Logger Brothers. I’m Lou Logger, he’s Bert Logger. Our show is called Phono Mania.

 

[0:06:21.7] KM: Phono Mania. All right, let’s get down to what you do. I’m dying. It’s really nice to meet you. You just had a great career, but I have to find out about these bass fishing in the New York City Central Park. Tell us the story.

 

[0:06:36.0] TR: Bass fishing in Central Park. I worked in 2005, in 2006 in a show called Bass Center on ESPN 2. Bass Center was at the time and still remains the only show ESPN ever licensed under the derivative of the sports center name. That’s a little small –

 

[0:06:56.0] KM: What does that mean? Derivative of the sports center name?

 

[0:06:58.6] TR: They don’t have NASCAR Center, or a football center, or hoops center.

 

[0:07:06.3] KM: This is called Bass Center.

 

[0:07:08.8] TR: Bass Center. It’s essentially our show was sports center for fishing, professional bass fishing and conversation issues associated with fishing. I say all that to lead the conversation side of things is really what took me to New York. You ever heard of the snakehead fish? Probably, because we had to eradicate them in Arkansas, or attempt to eradicate them about 8 or 9 years ago.

 

[0:07:34.6] KM: Is that the gar?

 

[0:07:36.0] TR: Snakehead is an Asian fish that was brought here potentially as a food fish in the 1990s primarily. Then the federal government said, “No, we don’t need this foreign fish. We may have –” You’ve heard of the silver carp that escaped? Mainly sewer pots and waste water treatment facilities in Arkansas in the 70s and now we’ve got this foreign invader that’s threatening the Great Lakes.

 

[0:08:03.2] KM: What’s the name of it again?

 

[0:08:04.8] TR: The Asian carp. The silver carp. This fish I’m talking about is the snakehead. Very popular food fish in Asia. Somehow, either people released them or whatever, they showed up in a little small pond in Maryland. This was in I think 2002 is the first time they were known to exist in the wild outside of a farming operation.

 

Pretty soon they showed up in the Potomac River. They are an established fish in the Potomac River now. Obviously from a conservation standpoint, anytime you have an exotic foreign invader like that, they can compete with your native fish and that’s – not just fish. We can be talking about vegetation, or any type of animal. It’s not a good thing to introduce animals that aren’t native to an ecosystem.

 

Well, one had shown up in New York out in the Flushing Meadows area, not far from Shea Stadium and the Queensboro. We went up there to do a story about it and we actually hired a Chinese interpreter and spent one night in Chinatown trying to get somebody to sell us a live snakehead to show this is how easy a fish could go from a market to being released into a body of water.

 

Okay, so I’m interviewing a biologist from New York’s version of Game and Fish. I think they call it New York Department of Environmental Protection. It’s like our ADEQ and Game and Fish sort of lumped together in New York. Anyway, fisheries biologist.

 

I ask a question. I said, “Look, I don’t mean this in a bad way, but look around us, we’re in Queens. There is Shea Stadium over there. There are skyscrapers everywhere. Why should anybody really be worried about the presence of this exotic fish? I mean, what native fishery are we concerned about here?”

 

He said, “Well, actually there are a couple of ponds in Central Park and they have some of the highest densities of large-mouth bass of any of the water bodies that we electrofish sample in the entire state of New York.” I said, “Get out of here. You’re kidding me, right?” He said, “No. Absolutely.” I’ll e-mail you the data sets we have. This is great.

 

We’re there for the snakehead story, but I’m looking over at the producer and the camera man that I’m working with and I’m like, “We’ve got another story here. I’m going fishing at Central Park.” I remembered a few years earlier reading a story in Field & Stream magazine about there’s one – there’s a couple orvis fly fishing tackle shops in Manhattan, but there’s on old school bait and tackle shop called Central Fishing Tackle, and it’s in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.

 

I looked it up. I called the guy, talked to the manager and I said, “Hey, I’m Trey from ESPN. We’re doing the story on snakeheads, but they tell us they’re just fishery here. I didn’t have fishing tackle or anything with me. Can you get us hooked up with somebody? Do you know anything about this?” It’s like, “Yeah, man. I’ve got a guy that lives around the corner that fishes there all the time. Come on down to the store.”

 

We bought some bait, he loaned us some tackle. The next morning, I take the subway from our hotel in Queens to Central Park and we go out there. I’m talking about it and I mentioned it in the bio that I sent you, because it was truly a – I mean, it was a once in a lifetime experience. It was –

 

[0:11:49.9] KM: Do you have to get a special permit?

 

[0:11:51.5] TR: No. I had to buy a non-resident fishing license for New York, but that’s it. There are people – we went that afternoon before we fished and actually there were people lined up around the lake. If you have ever seen a movie that has a scene in Central Park, you’ve seen the lake I’m talking about. It’s the one with the gondolas and the stone archway bridge. I mean, it’s been in countless movies over the years.

 

I would go out there and the people were taking the gondola rides and everything, but there is a handful of people around fishing. We did some interviews with them. There was actually a rider for – I think he used to work for Forbes if I’m not mistaken in Monte Burke. He’s originally from Birmingham, Alabama and he had just at the time written a book called Sal Belly about the several people that were really obsessed of about trying to catch the next world-record bass.

 

We called Monte and got him down there and he did a little interview with us. He said, “Yeah, I’ve actually come down here and fished a little bit before.” It was amazing in that 6:00 in the morning, New York maybe the city that never sleeps. It was still in the park. It was quiet and we weren’t hearing sirens. If you look down at the water and you’re thinking about the fish and trying to feel that bait, or watch first strike, or depending on the type of lure you’re moving, you really can forget where you are for a minute.

 

Then you look up and there’s the Dakota where John Lennon went. Then there is the building that the Ghost Busters skyscraper was based off of. You’re like, “Well, I’m really in Manhattan. I’m in the middle of New York City.” Now as the day progressed and the city started to come to life, you got those sirens and cabs and horns honking and all that. We caught the heck out of the fish.

 

[0:13:51.4] KM: You did?

 

[0:13:52.1] TR: We did.

 

[0:13:52.7] KM: Were they big?

 

[0:13:53.7] TR: Not a lot of big ones. Two, two and a half pounds were probably the biggest fish. I probably caught 15 or 20 fish in that 2, 3 hours that morning.

 

[0:14:02.0] KM: Why are there not a bunch of people standing around fishing?

 

[0:14:04.7] TR: I think part of it is you’re so close to the saltwater there. There’s a lot of fishing in the east river and the Hudson and obviously the saltwater in the Atlantic and off of Long Island. Probably more of a saltwater fishing culture in the city itself and a lot of people retreat from the city and go upstate. There are really some nice fish risen; the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, St. Lawrence River, the Lake Oneida near Syracuse. These are some of those larger lakes, the bass master tournament series, they still go there to this day.

 

[0:14:42.9] KM: Did you fish off a boat, or off the side of the bank?

 

[0:14:44.9] TR: Off the bank.

 

[0:14:45.7] KM: They didn’t even let you take a boat?

 

[0:14:46.9] TR: No. I don’t think they’ll let you fish from those gondolas that you can rent.

 

[0:14:50.6] KM: Okay. Before we get into all the Arkansas Game and Fish stuff, you were born and raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

 

[0:14:56.6] TR: That’s right. Yeah.

 

[0:14:57.6] KM: Did you always want to do what you’re doing?

 

[0:15:00.4] TR: No. Not really. When I was young, I want to – I flip back and forth between wanting to be in the performing arts some way, like an actor.

 

[0:15:09.9] KM: Well, you are.

 

[0:15:12.2] TR: I wanted to be a football coach. I know those are very disparate sort of career paths to take, but those were two of the things that I thought a lot about when I was younger.

 

[0:15:21.0] KM: I think you found it. For everybody that doesn’t know, you are big. How tall are you?

 

[0:15:24.9] TR: About 6’1”.

 

[0:15:26.0] KM: Yeah. You seem bigger than that. You seem taller to me than that.

 

[0:15:29.6] TR: My boots, you know. It’s my 2-inch heels.

 

[0:15:32.7] KM: There is the theater part in him. Yeah, I think you’ve find them balanced.

 

[0:15:39.2] TR: I really enjoy what I’m doing and –

 

[0:15:42.0] KM: You’re a rider too.

 

[0:15:43.3] TR: I am. Yes, absolutely. That’s honestly always – I found riding in high school and really, I guess blossomed as a rider in college. I had a professor at UALR named Huey Chris, who I took multiple classes from and it just really – that’s a new event. Once I got into those classes and I got some positive feedback, it’s like I want to be a rider. I still, despite being on TV all the time, I would call myself a rider first and foremost in the TV, the public relation stuff is second in my mind, at least.

 

[0:16:20.4] KM: I think that’s really interesting that I don’t think people realize about you. This is a great place to take a break. When we come back, we’ll continue our conversation with Trey Reid from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. We’ll get him to choose what his favorite outdoor recreation is and where his favorite places are.

 

We’ll also talk about conservation, cultivation, water shortages, quail hunting, which my father used to do a lot of, and the business of Arkansas Game and Fish.

 

[0:16:44.2] TB: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. If you missed any part of the show, a podcast will be made available next week at flagandbanner.com’s website. If you prefer to listen on iTunes, YouTube, or Soundcloud, you will find those links there as well. Lots of listening options. We’ll be right back.

 

[0:17:31.2] KM: Wow. That’s Andy Griffith for everybody that doesn’t know. If you’re under – I don’t know. Does anybody under 30 even know who Andy Griffith is? That’s OP’s dad. Does anybody even know who OP is? That’s –

 

[0:17:43.3] TB: Ron Howard.

 

[0:17:43.9] KM: Ron Howard. I know. He was such a cute little boy.

 

[0:17:46.7] TB: One of the best directors of our generation.

 

[0:17:50.2] KM: He was a cute little actor too. All right, you’re listening to Up in Your Business with me Kerry McCoy. I’m speaking today with Trey Reid from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and host of the Arkansas Wildlife TV show. All right, I’m flipping channels. This wake, watching channel 4 and your show comes on and you’re fishing for small-mouth bass on the Caddo River with stank bait. Is that the real name of the bait, or do you just not know how to pronounce stank?

 

[0:18:17.9] TR: It is a bait with a – not all, but many of the lure companies now when you’re fishing with artificial soft plastic baits, they put some sort of formula in there, some scent to entice the fish to bite it. Honestly, the name of the scent on this particular bait was stank. Obviously, clearly a marketing ploy. I mean, it’s got you wondering about it. It’s effective, I would say.

 

[0:18:48.4] KM: There’s a lot to say about that, but I’m going to keep from saying it.

 

[0:18:52.4] TR: Well, it’s just the FCC could get upset if we went too far down the rabbit hole.

 

[0:18:58.2] KM: That’s right. That’s right. It’s a good thing that – I mean, there’s no woman that would ever say, “Let’s market something and call it stank and think that it’s ever going to sell.” I would say that will never sale in a million years. Is there anybody who doesn’t think men and women are different are wrong. Not that I’m trying to say that we don’t want to be treated equally, but we are definitely different. There is no way I’d ever buy anything that had the word stank on it.

 

[0:19:22.0] TR: It’s funny, because there’s an old saying that you’re not trying to hook fish when you develop a new bait. You’re trying to hook fishermen. I used to have a blast. Some of the freelance writing I’ve done was for Bassmaster magazine. I have a recurring little part of the section that I wrote for them, where I had fun with the names of some of the bait callers. I mean, Margarita is a favorite color. Tequila Sunrise, Mardi Gras.

 

[0:19:55.5] KM: I know exactly what colors those are.

 

[0:19:56.9] TR: Well, Mardi Gras, yeah. How about California 420 with –

 

[0:20:01.7] KM: Pink. Pink.

 

[0:20:04.0] TR: No. It’s a green color with some –

 

[0:20:05.2] KM: It’s green. Yeah, darn. I should’ve known that. You’re always trying to say the hand signals.

 

[0:20:09.5] TR: With some red or gold in there.

 

[0:20:11.4] KM: Stop now. All right. I have actually fished on the Caddo River, but we didn’t fish with stank bait. We fished with rebel cray. I can’t believe we said –

 

[0:20:22.0] TR: A rebel crawfish, proudly made in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

 

[0:20:25.4] KM: Really? Well, we had a saying that they catch fish all day with rebel cray and it worked. We did it. We caught fish on the Caddo all day long. Talk to me about fishing Arkansas, spawning, where and when can you bait. I mean, I never know what to do.

 

[0:20:39.7] TR: Kerry, the thing about it is there are so many ways to fish in Arkansas, so many different types of fish. Really what that boils down to is the diversity of our aquatic habitats, because we’re a diverse state. We basically got everything, but salt water. The thing is you’ve got – it started in the Delta since the child of the delta being from Pine Bluff, and you’ve got the slow, sluggish bios, the Arkansas River, the Mississippi River, they’re flat, they’re widening out, they’re reaching the terminus.

 

[0:21:17.3] KM: Those are catfish?

 

[0:21:18.2] TR: Yeah, lots of catfish, large-mouth bass, things like – The species are pretty consistent across the state with some exceptions, but the types of water and where the better fishing for certain species may be. Then let’s move north and west into the Ouachitas and Ozarks and we’ve got clear, cooler mountain streams, like –

 

[0:21:38.7] KM: Trout.

 

[0:21:39.2] TR: Yeah. We’ve got the trout. Now trout are not a native species. When we built dams in the mid-20^th century for hydro power and for flood control in the Ozarks and Ouachitas, the cold water that came out from the bottom of the dams after hydro power generation killed our native small-mouth bass in those streams, like the White River, the North Fork in particular below Beaver Dam in Northwest Arkansas.

 

Trout were introduced as mitigation for the loss of those warm water species. We still have places like The Buffalo, The King’s River, the Ouachita River, where we’ve got those native small-mouth. We’ve got waley. A lot of people think of waley as a northern fish in Minnesota.

 

[0:22:28.4] KM: We have waley?

 

[0:22:29.3] TR: Absolutely. For a long time, the world record waley, at least under one group’s definition of world record, it’s like boxing. You got the WBC, the WBA, the IBF. You have different groups that recognize world records in fishing. One world record waley came from Greers Ferry Lake.

 

[0:22:50.1] KM: What’s the best fish you like to catch on Greers Ferry?

 

[0:22:52.7] TR: Me. I’m not a huge fan of Greers Ferry. Although you can catch a lot. I like to fish for small-mouth bass in Ozark streams primarily, but also Ouachita streams. I’ll tell you why. First of all, I think pound for pound, you won’t find a meaner, a stronger, a feistier fish than a small-mouth bass. Now in our Ozark and Ouachita streams, they don’t get huge. I mean, the north, the great lakes and places like that, I was talking about the finger lakes in New York. They’re known for producing big small-mouth bass.

 

I think our state record is a little over 7 pounds. That’s not a huge small-mouth. A 3 to 4 pound fish in one of our Ozark streams is a giant. You saw the episode and I caught – that fish is probably close to 4 pounds. That’s the largest small-mouth I –

 

[0:23:40.6] KM: That little fish was close to 4 pounds?

 

[0:23:43.3] TR: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. That little fish, wait a minute. Wait a minute, Kerry.

 

[0:23:47.1] KM: I mean, it wasn’t that big.

 

[0:23:48.4] TR: It wasn’t a giant. I mean, our state record large-mouth is like 16 pounds.

 

[0:23:54.5] KM: For a small-mouth, it was a big fish.

 

[0:23:56.4] TR: Well, a 4-pound small-mouth is a giant, especially from these small streams we’re talking about. I like doing that for a couple of reasons. You can get some exercise fishing out of a kayak or a canoe. A fishing guide friend of mine once said, small-mouth don’t live in ugly places. That’s another reason I like fishing for small-mouth.

 

[0:24:17.1] KM: That’s a Twittable moment.

 

[0:24:19.2] TR: Just think about being on the Buffalo River. I mean, it is truly Arkansas’ gift to the world. I mean, it is a national treasure that we’re lucky to live an hour and a half from here in Central Arkansas. You look up at those bluffs and the majesty of your surroundings and you look down and you got small-mouth bass there. That’s one of the reasons I really enjoy small-mouth. Great fighters and they’re just so much fun to catch. I let everyone of them go.

 

[0:24:44.4] KM: That was my second question. Do you cook them?

 

[0:24:46.6] TR: Not a small-mouth. I would never keep a small-mouth.

 

[0:24:49.8] KM: Why? Because they’re too hard to clean?

 

[0:24:51.6] TR: No. Because they’re – you were talking about how they’re not huge. They’re not giant fish. Their growth rates in our mountain streams in Arkansas are just incredibly slow. That fish you saw, that 4-pound fish that I caught on the Caddo River was probably 12 to 15-year-old fish. It took it that long to get that big.

 

[0:25:13.0] KM: Wow. I didn’t know fish lived that long. No wonder you throw them back. Bless your little heart.

 

[0:25:17.1] TR: Alligator gar, a truly prehistoric fish that we have in Arkansas. Not a big sport fishery for it, but a very interesting and incredible. I mean, it truly has been around since the age of the dinosaurs. They lived to be some estimate 60, 70, 80 years old.

 

[0:25:36.0] KM: You catch those in Arkansas River, right?

 

[0:25:37.6] TR: You can catch those in the Arkansas, the White, the Mississippi drainages.

 

[0:25:41.5] KM: Those big rivers.

 

[0:25:42.3] TR: Ouachita River down and around Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge. They’ve seen better days. They’ve been vilified for years and they eat sport fish. They’re no good. I accidentally catch one on a trout line, or a yoyo and they throw it up on the bank. It’s a bad fish. A lot of that is probably over blown. I mean, they’re part of the ecosystem. They’re here for a reason. We’re really trying to work with [inaudible 0:26:06.0] now at Game and Fish and do a lot of research on our side of things to bring the alligator gar back to prominence in Arkansas.

 

[0:26:13.7] KM: There’s a fish that spawns certain time of the year, because my husband always goes up and it’s –

 

[0:26:19.6] TR: On the little Red River?

 

[0:26:20.9] KM: No.

 

[0:26:21.3] TR: No. Okay.

 

[0:26:21.9] KM: It’s down towards Hot Springs. It’s got a big stripe. You have to –

 

[0:26:26.8] TR: The hybrid striped bass.

 

[0:26:28.2] KM: The hybrid striped bass.

 

[0:26:29.9] TR: Yes, or striped bass. Both of those fish are neither one of those fish is native to Arkansas. The striper is actually a saltwater fish. Back in I believe it was in the late 40s or 50s, they were building Santee Cooper Reservoir, a lake in South Carolina. They dammed up the lake. The Santee and Cooper Rivers go to the Atlantic Ocean. They trapped striped bass, because striped bass run up into fresh water as to where it used to spawn and then go back out to sea.

 

Well they trap the fish in there and after several years, people are still catching them or like, “Well, striped bass or stripers can live in fresh water.” In a lot of these large upland reservoirs like Ouachita and North Fork and North Arkansas and other places across the south and across the country, we have stripers as just another fishing opportunity. They still make their fall spawning runs every year.

 

[0:27:28.9] KM: They sure do.

 

[0:27:29.7] TR: Then the hybrid striped bass is across between our native white bass and then these introduced stripers. The hybrid striped bass is essentially a creature of the laboratory. We grow those at our fish culture facilities that we have at Game and Fish.

 

[0:27:43.6] KM: It’s a gym of fish.

 

[0:27:45.1] TR: They make these fall spawning runs and they are really a lot of fun. It’s like saltwater fishing here in landlocked Arkansas.

 

[0:27:53.6] KM: They just jump out of the water.

 

[0:27:55.4] TR: They can pull like a runaway Buick.

 

[0:27:58.1] KM: They can just jump all around you and you think – they never get on your hook. Drives me crazy.

 

[0:28:02.7] TR: Yeah. That’s a –

 

[0:28:04.8] KM: That’s a fisherman’s Nightmare.

 

[0:28:05.5] TR: I’m trying to remember this quote, fishing is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable. The Scottish statesman, John [inaudible 0:28:13.0].

 

[0:28:14.0] KM: Quail in Arkansas, bobwhite. I grew up eating quail that my father caught. I saw it on your show where they’re trying to bring it back.

 

[0:28:23.0] TR: Big, big focus of the Game and Fish Commission right now. You’re right. I’m 47 and I’m right at that cutoff point. I remember my dad talking about quail hunting and having bird dogs. We never did it together, because quail populations by the 70s and early 80s when I was coming of age and going hunting with him were really starting to disappear.

 

If you’re let’s say 50 sort of the cutoff point. If you’re older than 50, you have fun memories of quail hunting in Arkansas. If you’re younger, probably not so much. The decline of the Bobwhite quail in Arkansas has largely been a function of loss of habitat. That’s really anytime we’re talking fish or wildlife, it’s all about habitat, or habitat is the biggest piece of the pie when we’re talking about populations. It’s especially true for the bobwhite.

 

You think about, we had a lot of small farms. Even like small dairy farms up north of Conway and foothills of the Ozarks. People did not farm clean. They fed their cattle native grasses and things like that. Their finch rose had brush and stuff growing up around them. That’s great quail habitat. Well now, drive by a farm up there, first of all they’re very – they’ve replaced the native grass with fescue, which is –

 

[0:29:48.7] KM: It’s so well-groomed, I can’t stand it.

 

[0:29:51.7] TR: Yeah. Quail habitat, I was talking about small-mouth living in beautiful places. Quail habitat is not very attractive. There is not an aesthetic with quail habitat. It’s overgrown and shrubby and bushy and scraggly trees that aren’t very big yet, but it’s great habitat for quail.

 

We can’t tell people what to do on their land, but what we’re doing is for people who want to bring back quail. We can say, “Here are some things you can do.” Let the brush grow on your fence line a little bit. Introduce fire to the landscape. Fire suppression was the rule of the 20^th century, where Smoky the Bear did too good a job. Only you can prevent forest fires. Yes, catastrophic wildfires are terrible. We’ve seen it in California over the past few months.

 

Some fire on the landscape is a good thing. It’s always been there. Lightning strikes have caused fires. Native Americans used fire extensively to help manage habitat. They knew what was going on. What you do when you introduce fire to the landscape, you cannot set it back. You get rid of some of the things you don’t want and it clears that leaf litter off the ground. Those native grasses and Forbes and the seabed, I can breathe again and they spring to life. Those are the things that are great for quail.

 

[0:31:16.8] KM: Ash is a great fertilizer.

 

[0:31:19.9] TR: Absolutely. There is a lot of things we’re doing. The difference with quail is going to happen on private land. Public land represents maybe 10% of the landmass of Arkansas. If we’re going to make a difference, we’re going to make a difference, we got to get land owners to buy-in to the program and do some things to encourage quail hunting then.

 

[0:31:38.0] KM: You’re going to have to get money in there for them to buy into it in their land.

 

[0:31:40.7] TR: That’s the beauty, Kerry. There is money. There is federal grant money available. We’ve got money available at Game and Fish. We’ll loan you a seed drill to plant native grasses. There are things out there. I’m not here to pitch Game and Fish. I know we’re talking about –

 

[0:31:57.2] KM: You should be.

 

[0:31:59.1] TR: Well, I mean that’s what I do every day.

 

[0:32:02.4] KM: There is some grant money.

 

[0:32:03.4] TR: Go to agfc.com, our website. We have a quail page there and there’s a lot of – check out our private lands program. We have 10 biologists around the state, wildlife biologist that are essentially consultants that will come out and you could pay big bucks for. It’s absolutely free. They’ll come out and tell you if you want more white-tail deer, here is what you should do. You want quail, here is what you can do. You want sea birds, you want to watch wildlife, here is what you should do.

 

[0:32:29.8] KM: Tim, let’s take a quick break and then we’ll come right back and we’re going to talk about deer hunting, duck hunting, water shortages and the business of Arkansas Game and Fish. Everybody get their pen and paper ready, because when we come right back after two minutes, we’re going to give you the numbers so that you can call in.

 

[0:32:46.2] TB: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. If you missed any part of the show, a podcast will be made available next week at flagandbanner.com’s website. If you prefer to listen on iTunes, YouTube, or Soundcloud, you will find those links there as well. Lots of listening options. We’ll be right back.

 

[0:33:32.1] KM: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I’m speaking today with Trey Reid from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and host of the Arkansas Wildlife TV show.

 

All right, we got a lot to talk about and 20 minutes to do it. Deer hunting, that’s my husband’s favorite thing to do. He went out in 25-degree weather and sat in a stand with my youngest son and got up at 4:00 in the morning to do it. That just seems to me like somebody without good sense.

 

[0:34:00.4] TR: Well, now you’d have a hard time telling that to our 300,000 plus deer hunters in Arkansas.

 

[0:34:07.2] KM: Is that how many there are?

 

[0:34:08.4] TR: That’s an estimate. We sell roughly 250,000 hunting licenses a year and year –

 

[0:34:13.8] KM: How many?

 

[0:34:14.6] TR: 250,000.

 

[0:34:16.2] KM: What do you with the profits from that? Does it go into the general fund, or is does specifically income then?

 

[0:34:19.9] TR: No. It goes specifically to Game and Fish. It does goes into our general – our general fund. Hunting license and fishing license sales represent about a third of our revenue. This is not precise, but roughly a third is from hunting and fishing license sales.

 

[0:34:38.4] KM: That’s a lot.

 

[0:34:39.5] TR: One-third is from federal money through the Dingell-Johnson and Pittman-Robertson funds, which are the sport fish and wildlife restoration acts. Anytime somebody buys a fishing pole, a trolling motor, a gas-powered motor, a boat, a shotgun shell, a rifle bullet, a rifle itself, a bow and arrow, there are excise taxes on that at the federal level that are passed back to the states on a proportional basis based on their fishing license.

 

We’ve got a third of our revenue from license sales, a third from those federal programs. Then the other third, we’re very fortunate in Arkansas, thanks to amendment 75 which passed in 1996 and went into effect in 1997. That’s the 1/8 cent conservation sales tax; state parks, everybody, every time you buy something in Arkansas, 1/8 of the cent tax is collected for conservation.

 

Now Game and Fish gets 45% of that, state parks gets 45%, natural heritage gets 9% and Keep Arkansas Beautiful gets a 1% of that. We get a little less than half of that sales. That amounts to another 20, 25 million dollars a year that we – Arkansas and Missouri are the only two states in the country that have a dedicated conservation sales tax.

 

I have to say that being a native Arkansan and now working for Game and Fish, it’s a source of pride. I’m glad that the people of our state saw that it was important enough to pass a tax. When do people want to pass a tax, but the conservation and preserving our natural resources and our wild places was important enough to them that they said, “You can tax me for that.”

 

[0:36:33.7] KM: Wow. I love that. Deer hunting. Chronic waste and disease. I think I listened to something online where you talked about deregulation in 2016. Baiting and feeding. What would happen if deers weren’t hunted? Where do you find out the current rules for deer hunting? There’s a lot you can talk about.

 

[0:36:52.1] TR: Yeah, chronic waste disease is the big headline of deer hunting in Arkansas for the past year. We found out in February of last year, just about 11 months ago that an elk that was taken by a hunter – we have a very limited permit only elk hunt around the Buffalo River, tested positive for chronic waste and disease.

 

[0:37:12.8] KM: What is that?

 

[0:37:14.1] TR: Well, we could really spend a lot – I’ll try to make it brief and simple. Chronic waste and disease was first detected in a captive mule deer in 1967 in Fort Collins, Colorado. A pen that was Colorado State University, a federal research group were studying mule deer. They kept dying mysteriously and they would get emaciated and they drooled and they salivated and urinated excessively and they couldn’t satiate their thirst.

 

They started studying it and found out that it was – it’s called a prion disease. A prion is a misshapen protein that – a protein that naturally occurs and something happens to make that protein – it’s abnormal. It’s formed funny. Now that abnormality causes those proteins to conglomerate and it essentially – the technical term, it’s a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or TSE. But there are –

 

[0:38:14.6] KM: I got to be a scientist to work for you.

 

[0:38:17.4] TR: Okay, you’ve heard of mad cow disease?

 

[0:38:19.7] KM: I was just going to say, is that something like mad cow disease?

 

[0:38:22.2] TR: It is. Mad cow is also a TSE, scrappy and sheep is a TSE and Creautzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans is a TSE.

 

[0:38:30.1] KM: We got it in Arkansas?

 

[0:38:31.6] TR: We’ve got it in Arkansas.

 

[0:38:32.3] KM: Is it in the white tail, or is it just in that elk?

 

[0:38:34.3] TR: It’s in the white tail as well. We went and sampled white tailed deer in that area and the elk as well, and found that it was pretty prevalent. 23% prevalence rate.

 

[0:38:43.4] KM: How do you know if – what if you kill a deer this week, the deer made the radio show. Are we going to go crazy?

 

[0:38:49.6] TR: We have tested deer in all 75 counties and I mean thousands and thousands and thousands of deer, and we have only so far found and we just added – we founded in three additional counties this hunting season. Those new counties are Washington, Sebastian and Benton counties. The original seven counties where we found it last year when we first detected that that disease was present – I’m on the spot here. Okay, Newton County was the epicenter of this CWD detection.

 

[0:39:17.3] KM: Where is Newton County?

 

[0:39:18.1] TR: Jasper.

[0:39:19.5] KM: Gosh. Really? Okay.

 

[0:39:20.9] TR: Yeah. Newton County, Cersei County, Boone County, Harrison, Carol County, North Central Arkansas primarily and down northwest at sea.

 

[0:39:30.2] KM: Where the big deerer. That were the big deerer?

 

[0:39:33.2] TR: Some. Probably the biggest deer in Arkansas are over in East Arkansas, the Delta. Yeah, Arkansas County, Desha County, up and down the Mississippi River, deer and visually all wildlife for that matter are a product of the ground they walk around on. The most fertile land in the state is in the Delta, and therefore the bigger deer are there as well.

 

Without me, I could probably name the counties if I get to one, but you can go to agfc –

 

[0:40:02.3] KM: That sounds like 10^th – Okay, go ahead.

 

[0:40:04.3] TR: There are 13 counties total where we could try to-

 

[0:40:06.5] KM: You need to go, where to find this?

 

[0:40:07.3] TR: agfc.com/cwd. We’ve got maps there, but also loads of information about what does this mean to you if you want to eat your deer.

 

[0:40:17.6] KM: What does it mean?

 

[0:40:18.7] TR: If an animal test positive, the centers for disease control and prevention says you should not eat that animal.

 

[0:40:26.1] KM: What if I do accidentally don’t know it.

 

[0:40:28.4] TR: There have been no known cases of people eating a CWD positive.

 

[0:40:31.5] KM: He said you didn’t see [inaudible 0:40:32.9].

 

[0:40:33.4] TR: No. No, no, no. I’ve talked about this a lot. There are no known cases of humans eating a CWD positive deer and contracting the disease. To our knowledge, and I say our – I’m talking about the scientific community, not just game and fish. CWD cannot infect humans. It is a disease of servants. White-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, moose, caribou, reindeer.

 

[0:41:00.5] KM: Can you tell if a deer is infected with it?

 

[0:41:03.1] TR: You can in the latter stages of the disease.

 

[0:41:04.8] KM: Not in the early part.

 

[0:41:05.7] TR: Not in the early stages. Here’s what we’ve been dealing.

 

[0:41:08.0] KM: Are they going to make a kit, so we can test them all?

 

[0:41:10.1] TR: No. We have participating taxidermist around the state. We man check stations during the opening weekend of gun deer season in that area where we know the disease is present. We’ll test the animals for you. That weekend, you take them to taxidermist. There’s a few veterinarians around the state.

 

[0:41:28.3] KM: You take it and get it ground up, and they throw your medium with everybody else’s meat when they’re start – like, tonight we’re going to do deer meat.

 

[0:41:34.3] TR: They shouldn’t do that.

 

[0:41:36.9] KM: But they do.

 

[0:41:38.4] TR: Well, here’s another thing and this is really – I’m just speaking as a deer hunter myself, but Game and Fish does not regulate the processors. The processing industry in Arkansas really is not regulated by anybody.

 

[0:41:55.9] KM: I’m going to get my own grinder.

 

[0:41:57.9] TR: I have one. Kerry, I would be very surprised that if in the next legislative session, you do not see that issue taken up by the general assembly and try to introduce some sort of regulatory authority over these processors. Now let’s face it, a lot of them are mom and pop operations. There’s people just trying to make an extra buck. I’m not advocating for onerous government, overreach or anything like that.

 

At the same time, food safety is a pretty important thing to worry about. That’s the thing. Game and Fish is not a public health organization. We defer to the Arkansas Department of Health and the centers for disease control. They say if you hunt in an area where you know the disease is, you should probably have it tested. If it test positive, don’t eat it. Another thing is sometimes the animals are obviously sick and we just say, “Don’t shoot that animal.” We’ve said that for years.

 

[0:43:00.0] KM: Actually shoot it and get rid of it. Wouldn’t you want to? Is that not good either?

 

[0:43:05.2] TR: Yeah. I mean –

 

[0:43:05.4] KM: Because then other animals eat it.

 

[0:43:06.0] TR: It’s going to die anyway of the disease. CWD isn’t always 100% fatal disease.

 

[0:43:12.4] KM: What’s your favorite thing to outside activity to do? We’re going to do the seasons; in the winter?

 

[0:43:17.7] TR: Duck hunting.

 

[0:43:20.4] KM: Of course.

 

[0:43:20.7] TR: I love to duck hunt. Hey, we live in the duck capital of the world. That was the thing my father introduced me to first and therefore, it’s been one of – it’s very active. You can talk. You don’t have to be still and quiet on the deer stand. I like that. It’s a very social type of hunting, and lots of action.

 

[0:43:36.1] KM: What about the water shortages they’re talking about?

 

[0:43:38.4] TR: Yeah, that’s something we really need to pay attention to.

 

[0:43:41.1] KM: Do they mean global warming?

 

[0:43:43.0] TR: Absolutely. I don’t think it’s something you believe in. I think you look at the science and it’s happening.

 

[0:43:47.8] KM: Is it going to affect our Delta area?

 

[0:43:50.2] TR: I think it already is. I mean, we’ve known since the 1920s that we were using water. I’m using the editorial collective citizen re wee here. We’ve known that we were withdrawing water from those aqua first at a rate greater than they could replenish themselves.

 

[0:44:05.7] KM: For people that don’t know what we’re talking about, it’s the farmers versus the duck hunters down there.

 

[0:44:10.3] TR: I don’t want to catch it in those terms, because duck hunters are farmers and farmers are duck hunters. A lot of duck hunting takes place in farms. I think what it is is responsible water use and we’ve got to figure out new ways to do things. I think farmers are doing that. There is several irrigation projects on the board right now, the Balamida Irrigation District, the Grand Prairie Irrigation Project that are going to try to divert surface water from the Arkansas River, the White River, and there maybe another set of issues that we’re not thinking about there. I’m not advocating for or against, but using surface water is one way to prevent using that ground water from those aqua first.

 

[0:44:52.3] KM: For people that don’t know what the pros and cons are.

 

[0:44:55.6] TR: Really, what you’ve got going on, Arkansas is the largest rice producer in the country. We produce 50% of the nation’s rice.

 

[0:45:02.4] KM: The farmers want to flood their fields.

 

[0:45:03.5] TR: You have to. That’s how you grow rice. You grow it in water. Rice is one of the most water-intensive agricultural crops in the country. We have to have that water. I mean, obviously that’s a huge part of our economy as well.

 

[0:45:14.6] KM: When they drain down the water in the river, then the duck hunting goes.

 

[0:45:19.3] TR: Well, it’s not so much that – It’s not really an issue. It’s not really a duck hunting farming thing. The issue I think is long-term sustainability. I mean, we’re talking – a lot of communities depend on this water for municipal drinking water. If we want to be able to continue to grow rice and have sustainable agriculture, which is the number one industry in the state of Arkansas, we’ve got to use – be careful how we use that water.

 

[0:45:47.2] KM: Let’s get this caller. Hello, we’ve got a caller. You’re talking to Trey Reid. Do you have a question for Trey from the Arkansas Game and Fish?

 

[0:45:54.1] Caller: I do. On the CWD topic, there is – I’ve got some hunting property up in Madison County, which is one of the counties in the CWD zone. This last year, I was looking for locations to have a deer tested. Outside of opening weekend, there seems to be a very minimal number of participating taxidermist in that area. Is there a close or is there going to be a closure, some sort of incentive to get more taxidermist, or processors on board to do that testing? Because realistically, it would take hours to get that done at this point from where I hunt.

 

[0:46:43.7] TR: It’s a great point. One of the things that we’re up against there is you’re talking about the travel. It’s a very rural part of the state. It’s not easy to get around on those two-lane highways in the Ozarks. They twist and turn, up and down. To answer your initial question, yes we are constantly seeking taxidermist, processors and others, potentially veterinarians to try to help us to that.

 

Here’s the bottom line, we know that hunters want to have those animals tested. Like I said, we encourage you to have it tested since you hunt in an area where we know the disease is potentially present. On the other side of that, it helps us have a larger data set and to understand the disease better, where it could be spreading. We have a vested interest in collecting more samples, so we are definitely trying to get more people onboard to pull those samples for us.

 

[0:47:39.5] KM: That’s a great point. Thank you caller for your question. Wait one more.

 

[0:47:43.3] Caller: Yeah. Is there any way in the future that there would be some system where a hunter could take his own sample and send it in somewhere to have it tested?

 

[0:47:53.5] TR: The problem with that is the accuracy and the viability of the sample. You may be able to quickly and easily cut the neck of a deer and pull the lymph node out, but another guy might not be. That’s the problem you have with that. I’m not saying it’s outside the realm of possibility, but there’s – being scientific about it and wanting to have a good sample. There is a little bit of an issue just like, hey. Yeah, pull the sample for us and you might get a viable lymph node and you might not.

 

[0:48:31.6] KM: That’s a logistic problem. All right, thank you caller.

 

[0:48:33.6] Caller: Thank you.

 

[0:48:34.4] KM: You’re welcome. All right, spring. Where is your favorite place to go in the spring?

 

[0:48:38.4] TR: I love to be – like to turkey hunt in the Ozarks and I like to small-mouth bass fish probably on the Kings River would be one of my favorite places, near Eureka Springs in Barryville, love the Kings River. Probably one of my favorite places in Arkansas.

 

[0:48:55.4] KM: I’ve heard that before. Summer.

 

[0:48:58.7] TR: Summer time, I’m looking for some air conditioning. No, I’m kidding. Honestly, my outdoor recreational pursuits go way down in the summer time. I do it either really early in the morning or late in the evening. Again, I like the small-mouth streams, because if you get hot, just go for a swim.

 

[0:49:19.1] KM: You’re not a water sports person.

 

[0:49:21.6] TR: I’m not really. I don’t like crowds and likes like Hamilton and even Ouachita in the summer time get pretty busy with the recreational boat traffic. That’s just not my thing as much.

 

[0:49:34.4] KM: The Game and Fish oversees that?

 

[0:49:36.1] TR: We do. We administer boating laws that had been enacted by the legislature. That’s one of our areas that we do.

 

[0:49:44.6] KM: Okay. The last season, fall.

 

[0:49:46.7] TR: Fall. That’s another time when I like to go fishing. I like to find –

 

[0:49:51.7] KM: I think you just like to fish.

 

[0:49:52.5] TR: I do love to fish. I like to find schooling large-mouth, or stripers, or hybrid stripers and October is a good time. They’re feeding up, getting fat for winter. Also starting to think about duck season a little bit in the fall.

 

[0:50:07.6] KM: You didn’t say anything about dove or deer.

 

[0:50:10.0] TR: Dove. I mean, let’s see. That’s late summer.

 

[0:50:13.5] KM: That’s my favorite one. It’s warm and you get to just stand around.

 

[0:50:16.7] TR: Warm and it’s social. I’ve done a lot of deer hunting over the years. I don’t really deer hunt very much anymore. Duck hunting and fishing are my two big things.

 

[0:50:27.1] TR: Well, cleaning that deer and making it want to have to deer on.

 

[0:50:29.5] TR: I love to eat venison though. I’ve got a lot of – the good thing is I got a lot of friends who still deer hunt a lot. I’ve got a lot of venison in the freezer. Because we didn’t even get to – I’m a huge foodie. I love to eat.

 

[0:50:41.9] KM: I was going to say you cook.

 

[0:50:42.7] TR: I cook a lot.

 

[0:50:44.3] KM: Part of your show is cooking.

 

[0:50:45.8] TR: Yeah. We’ve been trying to incorporate a lot more of that, but yes I love to cook. I got a sous vide device.

 

[0:50:51.6] KM: I saw you talking about that. Tell by what that is.

 

[0:50:54.2] TR: It’s basically a water circulator and heater. It’s a French cooking technique that’s been really big in restaurants for the last 20 plus year. You can get a home version now for anywhere from a 100 to 200 bucks. Basically you heat the water to – sous vide is French of under vacuum. You seal the meat or vegetable or whatever it is in a plastic bag. I use a vacuum sealer. You can use Ziploc bags as well, just get as much of the air out as possible.

 

Then you immerse that whatever material you’re going to cook. I usually do meat. It is a very precise cooking method where you get it – if you want a medium rare steak, you set it in a 135 degrees and from edge to edge there is no variance. It is going to be perfectly medium rare side to side.

 

[0:51:43.8] KM: You know what I don’t like about that, you’re cooking in plastic. I don’t like that.

 

[0:51:47.1] TR: It’s BPA-free plastic.

 

[0:51:48.5] KM: There you go. The Game and Fish –

 

[0:51:50.8] TR: Is that okay?

 

[0:51:51.3] KM: Yeah. That one’s okay. Okay, we’re almost out of time. In 2011 might be the appointed Steve Cook from Melbourne as the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Chairman. I guess he still is until 2018?

 

[0:52:05.4] TR: Yeah. This is Steve’s last year. The way amendment 35 which established the present form of the Game and Fish Commission in 1944, it is constitutionally dictated as an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution, how the Game and Fish works. We have some autonomy from the state legislature, but the governor appoints a commissioner every year and they seven-year terms.

 

[0:52:28.8] KM: Can’t do it again. Can’t do it twice.

 

[0:52:29.4] TR: You cannot do it twice.

 

[0:52:30.8] KM: Do you want to be it?

 

[0:52:32.6] TR: Well, I couldn’t be as an employee. Now if I left, I could be. Maybe one day down the road if we ever get rich selling this Conquistadores cheese dip and then maybe I can retire from Game and Fish and be a commissioner and make the rules. It’s a tough job though. It’s a very tough job.

 

[0:52:47.7] KM: What’s the advice, or ad that you want to convey to our listeners about the natural state?

 

[0:52:52.3] TR: I think when I travelled with ESPN all over the country, it amazed me how little people knew about Arkansas and I was okay with that, because I like it being a well-kept secret. Don’t take for granted what we have here. We are very fortunate. I mentioned the conservation sales tax. We’re one of only two states at funds conservation work in the state, but everybody pays for it. We have some incredibly special places, a diversity of habitats, from the coastal plane and the delta, to the Ouachitas and Ozarks.

 

[0:53:29.3] KM: We got two mountain ranges in Arkansas.

 

[0:53:31.3] TR: Remember that we have that and go out and take advantage of it. I just wrote an intro to the Fish Arkansas magazine that the Arkansas Times puts out as their guest editor. I said, “Fishing, but hunting as well and the great outdoors in general.” In these two often troubling and disturbing times that we live in. They are a salve for the soul, so get out there and enjoy what we’ve got here in Arkansas.

 

[0:53:58.5] KM: A salve for the soul. That is a Twittable moment. Thank you, Trey. You’ve got to come back.

 

[0:54:02.3] TR: Thanks.

 

[0:54:02.4] KM: For coming on the show I have you a present. It’s a suede decorative flag with a duck in the –

 

[0:54:10.6] TR: That is too cool.

 

[0:54:11.5] KM: A camo duck flag.

 

[0:54:12.5] TR: A camo duck flag. Kerry, you’ve done your research. You know me well. Thank you so much.

 

[0:54:16.2] KM: That’s right. You’re welcome. I just want to say to all of our listeners, thank you for spending time with me and with Trey. If you think program’s been for you, it has been and you’re right. It’s also been for me. Thank you for letting me fulfill my destiny. My hope today is that you’ve heard or learned something that’s been inspiring, enlightening and that it whatever it is will help you up your business, your independence or your life. I’m Kerry McCoy and I’ll see you next time on Up in Your Business.

 

Until then, be brave and keep it up.

 

[END OF INTERVIEW]

 

[0:54:48.5] TB: You’ve been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. If you’d like to hear this program again, next week go to flagandbanner.com. Click the tab labeled “Radio Show”, and there you’ll find a podcast with links to resources you heard discussed on today’s show. Kerry’s goal: to help you live the American Dream.

 

[END]