The Rich Life of a Bird Hunter

Introduction

0:00This episode of the Flush Podcast is brought to you by Onyx Hunt, Walton's, Hoxie Native Seeds, the Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club, HuntFishSD.com, Rufflin Kennels, Black Gold Dog Food, and by Game Virtual Shooting Simulators. Today, I'm sitting on a lawn chair overlooking a wildlife management area in central Minnesota. Arlen D. Brecker is my guest. He's a lifelong bird hunter and active member of his local Pheasants Forever chapter. He's one of the guys that gets his hands

0:30dirty when it's time to burn habitat and work on that habitat. We'll share stories from a life spent

Hunting Stories

0:35in pursuit of wild birds over 50 plus years and creating places that have more birds. It's the journey that a lot of us hunters take over a long life spent in the outdoors. These are Arlen's stories.

0:55Welcome to another episode of the Flush Podcast. My name is Travis Frank. I am, as always, your host. My guest today, Arlen D. Brecker. D. Brecker. D. Brecker. All right. How many times do people botch that? Oh, a lot until I kind of spell it out for them as B-R-O-O-K instead of R-U-Y-C-K. Yeah, the spelling would not suggest D. Brecker. We are sitting overlooking WMA. My dog is just so

Dog Talk

1:33wound tight right now. She's got spring fever, winter blues, whatever you want to call it. She's been cooped up. I did bring her out here recently. We did a nice run, saw a couple pheasants. As I pulled up, you said a bird? Yeah, just as you came around the curve over here, a rooster was crawling up in the groves. Oh, man. Let's do this. Anytime you see something wild, point it out. Okay. Wild critter, a bird, does not matter. All right. We'll see how many we can spot over the next hour or so

2:06of this conversation. The reason I thought we should do this is because you're like, well, I could come to your office. And I thought, yeah, I've done that a lot lately. You know what? I'm sick of it. I'm sick

Outdoor Enthusiasm

2:17of the office. I need vitamin D. I need sun. It's 70 degrees right now. And I thought, no, let's go somewhere that we can enjoy the beauty that we are going to talk about. Daisy is sitting inside the kennel. She wants to go for a run. My computer and our recorder is sitting right here on top of it as well. We have lawn chairs that we've folded out. I was going to sit on the tailgate because that felt right. But then I thought, you know what? Depending on the wind here, we're kind

2:49of hiding behind my truck and using it as a windbreak right now. But gosh, there's just a variety of different grasses in front of us right now. Everything's dead. Everything's brown. When

Habitat Assessment

3:02you look at this, Arlen, what comes to your mind? What do you see out here? Well, you know, I see lots of good nesting and brood habitat right out here in front of us. And it reminds me, this is one of I came from one of the first habitat projects that I ever did. And it was kind of interesting. It was right at the end of COVID. And the DNR manager kind of met with us all ahead of time. I've been raining some that morning. The DNR manager said, okay, we got about a mile and a half of fence to pull out here. I know we won't get it all today, but you know, whatever we can do. I've been

3:35having this on my list for three years. So we got started and being an old farm boy, I knew how to pull fence. And so we started pulling and we had the whole mile and a half worth of fence plus other stuff done by before noon. So it was, you know, this is a fence line that was just right out here, what, 50, 60 yards from where we're at, all the way out to the corner and then all the way out to the road out there. So. Well, we're looking over the Tiger Lake wildlife

Wildlife Management Area

4:01management area. This is a complex that has grown over the last several years, mostly because of the success of the Carver County Pheasants Forever chapter here in Minnesota. It's in central Minnesota. It's actually my, uh, home chapter and, um, hands on habitat day is coming up here in two weeks. Something like that. Something like that. April 11th, I think. And I'll be there. I'm planning on going with my kids again. I mentioned it to my wife. She's like, Oh yeah, I want to go to the same. But she, she had something last year that she was out of town. So it was just me and the kids

4:35and she was bummed to miss it because even though she might not see it as much as I do, just being able to get your hands dirty and working on it. It just, I don't know. It makes you feel good. I've spent the last, Oh, a couple of days here since the weather turned nice, just doing yard work and cleaning up my garden and getting my hands dirty. And I told my wife last night, I go, gosh, it just, I, that accomplishing things makes me feel good inside, you know, and I'm really looking forward to the habitat day to see what we're going to work on next. This place out here, like I said,

5:08it's grown over the last few years and it's become probably one of the best success stories in

Pheasants Forever Membership

5:17Minnesota and nationally as well. How long have you been a Pheasants Forever member? I think I became a member like at about 91, 92, something like that. Okay. And have you seen anything else like this particular project in your lifetime? Not at all. Pheasants Forever and even Pheasants Forever only started doing them just a few years ago. It wasn't, you know, I think it was, most people started recognizing that, that the DNR could not do the maintenance and the habitat improvement and things that they need to do on wildlife management

5:51areas. So they started doing some things. I think Scott Rall was a big starter of that. Yeah. You know, Scott Well from the Worthington area. Yep. And he said, you know, we can, we can adopt a WMA. Well, let's start adopting some and let's start improving them instead of just letting them grow up all over the place. It's great to, to buy land and turn more of them into WMAs, but turning land into WMAs and then letting it sit

Habitat Improvement

6:14there and not get any improvement on it doesn't do a whole lot. So let's start doing a few other things. Yeah. You got to make the ones you have be, um, live up to what they need to be before you can go adding on to more and a prime example. So we just had a fisheries meeting. I worked with the DNR at different levels and one of the fisheries updates, it was a long range plan that we've been working on for musky and pike management in the state. That's one focal group. And there's a bunch

6:44of different groups. And, but this one in particular, they presented that everything was approved and passed on that in this state, they just realized there's some shortcomings in what we have. Instead of trying to add more lakes with more muskies and more musky fishing opportunities, they're like, you know what? We've expanded and expanded and, and we've really limited how well we're taking care of some of these resources. So we need to go back and we need to strengthen what we have before we expand again. So that's really what we directed them to do in the work group.

7:16We said, we need these big resources that were once the crown jewel in North America to return to that before we worry about trying to expand opportunities into other waters. And I think

Legislation Discussion

7:27that applies to when you see what we're looking at here right now, this is a WMA that continues to grow. And we've been purchasing, when I say we, the chapter has been purchasing acres that have become available by local landowners, farmers here that say, you know what? We've seen the value of this wildlife complex. We've seen what you're doing and, and we, we want it to expand. And there's going to be bigger chunks added to this here in the coming years to make it continue to grow. There

7:58are wild pheasants out here right now. And you just heard one of them and there are deer, there are turkeys, there's a lot of ducks and geese that use this thing out here. It's really, um, well used by a lot of hunters. And there's things that need to be done. Like right out here in front of us is a sapling that needs to get cut or pulled one or the other. How bad do you want to go cut that right now? It's kind of like, you know, I got to sit here. I kind of tethered by this. So you can only go about 10 feet. Can't quite get out there, but yeah, that's, that's some of the stuff that needs to be

8:30done. I know we'll be doing that in a couple of weeks. Yeah. And I've talked about this on the podcast. You've listened to my podcast for years now. When I talk about having shears in my back pocket, when I'm pheasant hunting, do you giggle? Do you laugh? A little bit. Think about, yeah. You know, is that a good idea on my behalf or no? You know, I, the, the problem is if you just cut it and you don't treat it, it's going to come back. It's going to probably sprout back again pretty quick. So realistically you need to have the shears and you need to have some herbicide in your pocket too. And trying to do that while you're pheasant hunting, it's kind of tough.

9:03You can get sidetracked real quick. Yeah. I grew up on a farm and one of the things dad always said, you know, I knew people that would do their, their harvest with a shotgun sitting in the tractor cab and stuff. And dad would say, absolutely not. You can't do two things at once. Either you're going to be farming or you're going to be hunting. You can't do both. Yeah. So I feel it's kind of the same thing. I know some farmers that would say otherwise. Well, you know, they're not really hunting. They're just out there to shoot at that point. And you know, that, if that's what they want to do, I'm not going to knock them for it. But to me, that's not really hunting anymore.

9:33What part of Minnesota did you grow up in? Up by Marshall. Okay. So prime pheasant habitat. Prime, like when people think of Minnesota pheasant, they think of Western Minnesota. They think of Marshall. They think of Notavideo. They think of Worthington. It is now, but not when I was in high school. Why? There was nothing. There was, there was two wildlife management areas in the County and there was just basically no birds. We, when I was in high school, we did most of our pheasant hunting, uh, near my uncle's place. He was a manager of a Cenex in, um, South of Owatonna. Allendale was the name of the town.

10:07Okay. And of course, because he was a manager, he knew all the farmers out there and there was lots of peat ground. So there was lots of areas that were great for pheasant hunting and raising pheasants and things like that. So through high school, that's where I did most of my pheasant hunting. Um, but not on public lands. Mostly not then. So today, do you hunt mostly private or public? I mean, you know, a lot of people. Yeah, I know. Well, you know, I know a lot of people, most of the farmers, even if you know them say no, um, you know, that some of the people around Minnesota that know Minnesota football, maybe know about the Rosbergs and Hutchinson. Um,

10:41Andy, uh, is the current head coach. And I talked to him quite a few times, he and Grady, his dad about pheasant hunting. And, and I, it's been a number of years now, but as popular as he is as a, as a coach and things like that, he'd say, oh yeah, I'll go and ask some people if I can hunt their land. Nope, no way. You know, it's a, out here when you, when you're close to the metro area, they, they guard it pretty fast and pretty hard. So it's, it's tough. It's a little bit easier. You get further out West, they're a little bit more willing to let you do that, but less people usually means more opportunity. Yeah. Well, and, and less new people rolling up,

11:14you know, it's when you're here during, during pheasant hunting season, there's hardly been a day that I haven't driven by where there's not two or three cars in each of the parking lots that are out here. So at this particular spot. Yeah. Well, you can't see this one too well from the road, but any of the other parking lots that are out here, there are people out here using it, which is grand, but it's also meaning that every other farmer that's around here is getting approached by people from Minneapolis or St. Paul or whatever. And after a while, they just say no. Yeah. I, I came out here. I had an hour to spare on opening morning between

11:50something. I don't remember what my kids were doing, but the parking lot, I was sitting in some gentlemen, they were probably in their sixties or something like that. They were sitting in a truck and they were excited to hunt. And I said, where are you from? And they said, the cities, the city that they were in. And I was like, are you guys a member of Pheasant's Forever chapter? And they said, no. And I started telling them all the things that we do out here. And then I said, if you guys ever interested in joining, we'd love to have you. And the same thing with the next vehicle that pulled up because we had all this time to chat, but I'm amazed at how

12:23many people use a resource like this. That aren't members. That aren't members. You know, and more, there's, there's a small percentage of people that do the work that's, that show up and do the work. There's a large percentage of people that, um, come and show up at a banquet. They may show up at a banquet. Yep. And that's helpful too. It is. That's helpful. And there's a large percentage of people that don't do either. Far beyond that. Yep. And they show up and they hunt and then they leave. Yep. And, um, you know,

12:56I just feel like when you get involved, you start to learn more about what it takes. You start to appreciate things a little bit differently. And I'm not going to sit and harp on anybody for their own reasons of why they do or do not help and support. Right. Whether it's Pheasants Forever or Pheasants Inc. or, you know, different, whatever, you name it. Yep. Chuck or Chasers, uh, Quail Forever, all the different organizations around the country. They all make mistakes and they all do their best probably to do good work at the same time. And it's so easy to take a, a bad example and be like,

13:33I'm done with it because of this, you know, but then what if we weren't doing this, Arlen? I know it's, you know, I just was telling you, I just got done with, uh, with a gun safety training class. We've met Tuesdays and Thursdays all through the month of March until last one was on Thursday last week. And as I'm kind of the main instructor guy, cause I love teaching. I mean, you know, so when I'm doing the teaching part, I'm doing that. And then we got other guys that do other pieces and things that I couldn't do if I didn't have them with. And I'm so glad they do, they handle

14:04all the paperwork and all that kind of stuff. But going through that, one of the slides that we have has abbreviations of a whole bunch of different organizations like PF and, uh, DU and W, uh, TF and all that kind of stuff. And so I'm going through and so there's 41 kids in this. Well, mostly kids, there's a few moms and a couple of dads, even how many, you know, any of these and not one of those folks knew what any of those abbreviations were. Not a one, you know, and I went through you guys, you've got to join something. If you're a deer hunter, join Minnesota deer hunters association.

14:36If you're a duck hunter, join ducks unlimited. If you're a turkey hunter, join wild Turkey federation, do something, you know, and it being a small town, what's the response then? Well, you know, they, they kind of look at you and they're kind of, oh, I kind of wonder, um, you know, that being from a small town, a lot of them have relatives that own land. So about half of them had their own private land that they could go on and stuff. And so they didn't see a lot of need for it. And I said, you know, if you want to have public land to hunt, you got to join one of

15:06these places and put some effort into it, do a little volunteering, uh, help them out with a banquet. You know, it doesn't take a lot to be able to make a big difference. So we need to do some of those kinds of things. And I personally think Pheasants Forever is one of the greatest of those organizations for a lot of reasons, because of their model and their background and the way each chapter gets to do what they want to do. And so, you know, even like me, uh, the, the main chapter that I work for the county where I live in, they don't do a whole lot, but I've got some land out by Marshall, some family land that is lucky enough to be able to purchase some. And so I work with those guys out there and they're a great group of

15:40guys and they want to improve habitat. They want to work on all those kinds of pieces. So we go out there and we do the work and we go and help other people. And I think it's around that we can do that. Um, how many chapters do you think you're involved with around the state? Cause I've seen you at our banquet here. I was just emceeing your banquet in the cloud county. Yep. So I've done a few things in Carver cause I only live a mile across the Carver line. So not a big deal there. Um, uh, do a few things with, with McLeod, but they're much less active as far as doing habitat work and things like that.

16:12Lion County out by Marshall area does a lot more. We did, I think it was five habitat projects just in that county last year. Um, one of them was a big WMA and we took off over 10,000 pounds worth of wire and steel posts off of that one WMA. Wow. Two huge, two huge dumpsters full. Um, and we did a few other ones. I helped out, uh, Worthington at one spot last year on a Saturday and, uh, I was going to go and help out Brown County, but I had a conflict, but I know a couple other guys from, uh, Lion County went out and helped out Brown County with their habitat thing.

16:45So, so do you feel like you're, you've always been this active or do you just have more time now? When I was teaching, I didn't, I couldn't be that active. I could go to a few meetings. I could help out once in a while. Um, you know, helped out with the mentor hunt out in Lion County. Like I've been doing that since 2012. That's, that's a blast. You know, at least from where I'm at at this point, I like getting out. I like walking the fields. I like seeing pheasants fly, but the, the greatest is, uh, watching a new hunter harvest their first bird. And I got to see three new hunters

17:18harvest their first bird over my dog this fall. So to me, that's just the greatest thrill right now. Um, take us back there into your role as a mentor. As you can tell, people are listening now. I'm starting to peel back layers of this onion to find out what's really inside of this guy that I'm sitting next to you right now. Obviously very committed to, um, the outdoor world that we, we love so much. Yeah. A mentor. Why, why are you a mentor? Well, let's start with, I love teaching. When I became a teacher, even before I became a teacher,

17:54my high school chemistry teacher tried to talk me out of it for about two years. Really? Yeah. Why? Cause you don't make any money. You know, it's a, it just as an example, a guy I sat in class with, there was nine of us in this organic chemistry class. He got a job in Hutchinson at was then was Hutchinson technology and, uh, told me what he made. And I know that I got better grades than he did. Cause there was only nine of us there. We all knew what we were all doing and his salary is over double the mine, you know? So as a teacher, you're not going to be

18:26making those kinds of things. And to do that, I had to go to school an extra year to be able to get my teaching license compared to him getting his chemical engineering degree. So I don't begrudge him at all what he did and what some of the other people are making and things from my point of view, I was always financially stable and, uh, always were richer than my parents who were farmers. So I don't begrudge that, but that's a lot of other people would look at me and say, you know, you could do so much more, you could make so much more money, but

18:56money has never been part of it.

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22:23Well, I think wealth is really determined by each individual. It is. You know, and some people, wealth means just actual dollar bills in their bank account and what they can buy with it. Yeah. You know, but does that mean happiness? Does that mean wealth? Or does that mean just dollar bills in your bank account? Because if you've got the means to provide for yourself and your family, if you want to have a family, you know, I told my kids and my wife last night, we were eating dinner outside,

22:53we grilled venison steak, and we just had some veggies from the garden from last year. And I just said, you guys, this is, I want you to know that this is exactly what I dreamed of. I have a supermodel wife, which I call her, you know, I just think she's the most beautiful wife inside and out. And then I have four kids that we've been blessed with and they're all healthy and they, we have

23:24what we need and so much more, you know, and it's, I just feel like I'm as wealthy and rich as I could possibly be. Well, you know, it depends on where you're at. And I guess part of it is your own personal philosophy of life or whatever, but I honestly felt I was called by God to become a teacher.

23:47And it was just, I don't know, I can't explain it. If you, if you're not there, you can't understand. You know, I would have administrators try and convince me to become an administrator because I would be so good at it. And I go, no, I want to be a teacher. You know, I don't want to be sitting in the office and filling out paperwork and all that kind of stuff. And I said, I teach for free. I told that to so many administrators and they would look at me and go, we pay you an awful lot that you're teaching for free. And I said, no, I teach for free. What you pay me for is correcting papers, going to meetings, filling out forms, all that kind

24:20of stuff. So every time you come up with a new committee, I need to be on and do all that kind of stuff. You're actually cutting my salary. So, so it was there. So that teaching thing is still there. So teaching gun safety training, you know, that's a retired teacher. I'm a retired teacher. How long since you retired? It's a, it'll be a five years in May. Okay. But you can't take the teacher out of, I don't know, there's probably a saying for it or something. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's there. It's, it's part of me. So I love teaching. I love teaching people about things that I care about. So whether it was chemistry and physics or astronomy, when I was in the classroom or whether

24:54it's a gun safety training, anybody that's gone through that kind of stuff, the instructors do not get paid. It's all volunteer kind of stuff. I get paid in a whole lot of other ways. There, there's not many places that I can't go anywhere around this area of Minnesota where I don't run into somebody that I've either taught gun safety training to or chemistry or physics or something like that. Yeah. And even past some of that, I have an aunt that, that, uh, they, they winter in Florida and, uh, she sent me a picture up from Facebook last week and said, do you know this young

25:25lady? And I said, oh yeah, I recognize her. She goes, she says you were her physics teacher in Florida. Uh, cause DeBruycker is kind of an unusual name. And when she found out that she was a DeBruycker, it was, you know, right away my name came up. Do you know a guy named Arlen? Yeah. Oh yeah. Do I ever. Yeah. You know, so that's, uh, there, there's some of that, that, that's a long time reward afterwards, but just like I said, you know, watching those, those three youngsters shoot the first bird over my dog and knowing that I had a part in that, that's, that's better than shooting 10 myself.

25:57What kind of dog are you hunting with these days? I have a Llewellyn setter. Okay. How's that going for you? He's, uh, pretty tremendous. He doesn't have as much natural skills as, as my first setter that I had back when I was in high school, but he's a, he's better than the other three that I've had. So. So you've had a total of four setters? Four setters, yeah. Okay. And you keep going back to that because of what? What is it about that particular dog? To me, I have to say his nose. My, my first setter, uh, we got, I was like 14 years old.

26:30The, uh, vet tech that we had out at the farm brings the dog out and said, uh, you know, your, your other dog was kind of a collie mix had just died and you need a farm dog. So here you go. You can have them. He's a purebred setter. He goes, but he's gun shy. So, okay. So he's gun shy. We will, we'll deal with that. He's a, you know, we'll have him out here on the farm when we were doing some things. And did you think you're going to break that dog? I had no clue. I, I didn't know. You know, it was, what did I know at 14? I had, had seen, uh, I think it was big red or old red or something like that, the Walt

27:00Disney movie. So I knew what a, uh, uh, Irish setter was. I had heard of an English pointer. I thought maybe it was a cross between the two or something like that. I didn't know any better. I didn't, you know, you didn't have any of the internet or any of those kinds of things going on here. So I had no clue how to train them at all. So one thing he didn't do very well is when we were hunting the cornfields out where my uncle lived, uh, you know, pheasants are not going to sit in the cornfield for a point. So he chased up a lot of birds from a long ways off and those kinds of things. But, uh, the first, first time we went hunting, we were kind of surrounded this, uh, cattail

27:33slough with my uncle and my brother and my dad and, and, uh, probably about 30 other guys, uh, opening weekend, I think a pheasant season. And so the dog was probably about a year old or so. I'm not even sure how old he was when we got him, but we're, we're around there. And the first bird flies up, it was a hen and somebody shoots and thankfully they didn't hit it, but the dog came and cowered right by my leg, you know, and just kind of shaking and kind of go, okay, so, well, you know, whatever. So we're walking and he's basically right on my heels and a rooster gets up and my brother

28:05and I both shoot and we wing it and it hits the ground and starts running. So we run after it. Cause until this point I had been the bird dog for dad all, all my life. That's all you knew. That's all I knew, you know, and you know, we never had a dog that retrieved or any of that kind of stuff. Well, he got on the scent of that bird and that was the last time he was gun shy. Really? That was it? He found out that there was a bird at the end of that gunshot and all you had to do is rack a gun or put your orange on and he was up and ready to go. That easy. That, you know, I'm not saying it's going to be that easy for everybody, but that's what it was for him.

28:35Unbelievable. I mean, you talk about years of trying to break that for some people or maybe they just give up hope and don't bring the dog along. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And so there's, there are so many times that, you know, we'd hunt in, in a group of eight or 10 people and we quite often. Are you sure that's how the story went? I mean, has it changed over, how long ago was that? Well, that was when I was 14, I'm 66 now. So that gives you a clue. Okay. So stories tend to change a little bit over time.

29:06You seem pretty sharp. Do you know? So one pheasant and that dog never cowered to a gunshot again. Never after that. You know, he would sometimes, it took him a while before he was really excited every time. But when he started figuring out that there was a bird coming down. Two farm pigeons. Right? Yep. Where are they going, you think? Probably trying to go and find some water someplace. We're coming back from water. One of the two. Speaking of farm pigeons, there is a bill that has been added or language that has been added

29:40to the farm bill. That's what I've heard. And it could, there's language in there about greyhound usage with live animals that if you read it a certain way, it would tell you that you can't use live animals. Live animals for training. Yep. And those pigeons just sparked that in my brain to think about the fact that we as dog trainers will use pigeons or, you know, maybe it's a NAVDA event or something like that. I think, you know, on this show when something important comes up and I have been emailed several

30:15times about this language being added. Right now is the time to, because it's at the early stages, the farm bill is needed and it's been necessary for a long time. This language is not needed. And I think if you have the desire to learn more about it, you would find that a few minutes of your time to send your elected official a message to say you don't agree with this and you'd like this simple piece taken out of the farm bill.

30:47Now's the best chance to get rid of it before it goes anywhere else. We're talking the federal legislation. So your state representative, or your federal representative, or your senators, Tina Smith or Amy Klobuchar, those would be the two senators to talk to. And whoever your representative is, Michelle Fischbach for me, but whoever, I'm not sure who's here, but. Yep. I was, oh, I just, this message went away. Okay. I literally, before I got here, um, this one was sent to me, but I could give you, if I can find it here, um, the, the bill or the name of that particular, uh, bill, do you know

31:25it by chance? I heard it again this morning, but it's like 50 something five zero. If you Google farm bill, I'm sure you'll find it. It's not officially called the farm bill anymore, but it's, uh, yeah. And there's a whole bunch of other things wrapped up into that as well. So now we had somebody that just pulled in the parking lot. I do have an extra mic if they feel so inclined to join us, but let's keep going. So, um, you have this gun shy dog that's, that's broke, right? Yep. And let's see, you've been hunting now for 52 years. Yeah. Were you pheasant hunting before that dog came around?

31:56Well, mostly before that I was too young to carry a gun. So like I said, I was the dog for dad. Yeah. You know, and it was when, when you, when you talk about some of the pheasant heyday and go back into the, the late sixties, early seventies, when they had what was called soil bank back then. Yeah. And then we had enough birds around. It was, it was not unusual for mom to say something like, uh, you know, we haven't had pheasants for a while in the fall. So dad would say, okay, Arlen, go get the shells. And it was just, I got the whole of the shells. That was the greatest thing. And, and we drive around the section and we'd have three birds for supper.

32:27You know, there was that many birds and, and of course never would hunt that way now, but you know, dad was a meat hunter. He, he hunted for sustenance for the family. And mom would tell me quite often, if dad hadn't been a trapper in the winter, I would have starved to death because that's, that's how he made his living by trapping and hunting and, and by having, putting food in the table that way. So. We are so different today in what we need and what we have. It is. We have never had it so good, right? Some, I've had some people remind me that, you know, different generations, but they say

32:59we've never had it so good. Sure. We can complain about this or we can complain about that. We all have different beliefs and opinions and that's easy to complain about because we have the time. Well, you've got, so you still have those kinds of things. You were trying to, you were trying to provide our grandparents and their grandparents that were trying to provide to, to survive. That's right. You know, and my grandpa, he ran a trapline. My, my dad ran a trapline. I ran a trapline because that's what I knew. And they did it for different reasons than I would do it today. One of the simplest things, you know, we didn't have air conditioning back then.

33:32We, we ended up getting a car that had some air conditioning in it. So in the really hot summer days, mom would bring lunch out. You know, if you've ever been farm situation, you got breakfast, dinner, and supper. And in between there at about 10 o'clock, you've got lunch. And then about four o'clock, you've got lunch again. And so mom would come out with lunch and let us sit in the air conditioned car when it was a 80, 90, a hundred degrees outside. And, you know, we're bailing hay or a straw or whatever it was. But now air conditioning is standard, right? I mean, that was really unusual back in the seventies. Even the eighties, a lot of people didn't have air conditioning.

34:04Now it's kind of figure if you don't have air conditioning, you must be a really poor or something like that. Well, and even nowadays when we have our furnaces on up here in Minnesota and then it's like, oh, it's nice. So let's open the windows. It gets too hot. Let's put the AC on. No, we are not putting the AC on for at least another month or two. I know that it's 73 degrees right now, but the AC better not be on at my house. I agree. You know, why? Oh, there's a center right there. Yeah. It's a good looking dog you've got, sir.

34:35Yeah. We're just recording a podcast out here talking about life of a bird hunter. Well, we appreciate you watching. Yeah. Well, this is Arlen Debrecher. Nice to meet you, Steve. Hey, Steve. Nice to meet you. You want to join us on this show? I got another headset here.

34:53That's okay. Yeah. All right. Well, what's that? She's right here in the kennel. Yeah. This is Daisy. I'm not going to let her out because she's going to want to go for a run with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice to meet you as well. Thank you so much. It's a beautiful place, isn't it? Are you a member of the Carver County Pheasants Forever chapter? No. I'll look up there. Yeah. See? I told you, Arlen. We need to. There you go. Perfect example right there. We could use your help, sir. It's those guys that help make this land be here.

35:23So we need help being part of that organization. Yeah, I will. And I do wildlife painting, too. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, he taught me, so I'll make sure to get you guys one. All right. All right. Sounds great. Have fun.

35:37Where were we? I think we were talking about when I was young and how I was dad's bird dog and how- Oh, yeah. How hunting and fishing were ways that he survived. You know, in the summertime, there was once in all my years at home that we actually took a vacation of going somewhere. We spent a week at the Black Hills. But other than that, it was, oh, we got two days. We'll go fishing. And we used to go fishing all the time to this little lake south of Alexandria called Lake Rachel. And we always caught fish and we always brought fish home.

36:09You know, dad would have even, he died a few years ago now, but even right up till shortly before he died, it was, what's this catch and release thing? You know, why would you ever release a fish? You know, you catch it. If it's too small, okay. But other than that, you can bring it home and eat it. You know, that was life. And this is funny you bring that up because my grandpa was the exact same way. And I remember that if it wasn't a fish to eat, it was no good in the lake and you

36:40should put it in the garden. Yeah. It was compost. Yeah. And right now the state of Minnesota is trying to figure out, are they going to change regulations for what we consider rough fish? Yeah, like carp and buffalo and things like that. There are some lakes where those particular species have overrun the lake and changed the habitat where game fish would need to spawn and reproduce and things like that. There are other rough fish, though, that are vital to the ecosystem and can't be considered

37:13waste because it changes the whole ecosystem and the dynamic for everything. You know, we just, we want everything to be so perfect, right, Arlen? We look out here and we'd say, I don't want a single mean seed to be in this place. But that's sometimes a native plant and there's more to the big picture. You know, in some ways I understand, you know, people want to take their dogs out and they want to run and they want to get home and they put the dog in the kennel and that's all there is to it. I've got a long-haired dog and people look at me all the time and go, isn't that, isn't

37:45that just a mess when you take it out hunting with all the birds and stuff? I go, no, I get home, I comb all the birds out. I comb all the weed seeds out. You know, we take time to do that. The dog loves it. I love it. It's extra time with the dog. I think you should be doing that anyway. And if you're doing that, if you pick up some mean seeds, then you pick up some mean seeds and you comb them out right away. You don't let them sit there and fester. So I haven't had that problem with my dog. So maybe I've just been lucky. I don't know. Same here. I've had some close calls. Been lucky as well. If you hunt long enough, you're going to have some things come up.

38:18I just think that's part of it. We go into it knowing that. But you could probably tell stories for days and days about hunting.

38:28What are some that really come to mind for you that stand out over your life as a bird hunter? Well, some of the ones that stand out the most are the ones with my daughter. My youngest daughter decided she wanted to do some shooting and some hunting, and she's done some of that. So while I had been a mentor out at Lyon County for a while, she decided, okay, let's do this. So we signed her up to be one of the mentees. And I remember, I think it was her first year, we hunted in the morning, and then about noon came in and had some lunch and stuff.

39:01And then they opened up the trap houses, and she had been shooting trap for a couple years at that point. And I remember one of the young men standing up next to her, and she says, you're going to shoot? She goes, I'm going to shoot. He goes, you can't shoot. You know, girl. What? Yeah, that was kind of the attitude that he had. So they stood up there. Was he just prying her to get her to go? I don't know. No, she was going to go. There was no question about that. So he really didn't think she could shoot? He didn't think that she was going to be able to shoot very much or very well. And so when she cleaned his clock, it was kind of like, okay, I guess she could shoot.

39:33Yeah. So then after that, this is back when Pheasants Forever would allow the bigger group hunts. So there was approximately 20 mentors with 20 dogs and 20 kids, mostly kids, a few new adults, the kinds of things. And we're walking in this big line out at the Red River Sportsman's Club out east of Marshall Oase. And four birds that day ran the gauntlet. Do you know what I mean by running the gauntlet? They started, two of them started on the left side, two of them started on the right side. My daughter was in the middle. Those four birds dropped in front of her because she shot them.

40:03Everybody else had shots at them coming across. And she waited until it was out in front of her. You know, and I got a picture of her coming back with one with a huge smile on her face as she went and picked it up. How old was she? Probably 13, maybe 14, something like that. Oh, I love it so much. Yeah. When she got to be 16, I told her, you're too old to be considered a new hunter now. So, you can be our chauffeur. So, the one mentor hunt we started again. It was near the Red River Sportsman's Club. It's kind of a little triangle piece, probably 30 acres or something like that.

40:37And so, we're waiting for 9 o'clock. And she's off on the county road on the other end where she's going to pick us up. And we're waiting for 9 o'clock. And she calls me. She goes, Dad, there's a rooster crowing right out here. I said, okay. You got to come and get them. I said, we'll get there. And so, we were going. And I remember, it was three mentors. I can't remember who the third one was, but it was myself and Troy. And Troy is a DNR manager in the Marshall area. And so, we're walking across. And we get almost to the end. And you know how farmers will mow the row of ditch grass.

41:09Well, there was a patch about, a triangle-shaped patch about three feet or so on each side. Up on kind of the side of the hill of the ditch. And Troy's dog goes on point there. My dog came up behind him and backed him. And so, we're telling this kid, there's a bird in there. And he's kind of going, no, there can't be a bird. You know, just that little piece there. After all the stuff we walked, there's a bird in there. That dog knows there's a bird in there. And he was kind of trying to argue with us for a little bit. And so, finally, we convinced him to go up and step up into there. My daughter had her camera out.

41:39And she's got a picture of that pheasant right here in front of his face. I can't believe that it didn't hit his face as it came up. You know, and he turned and both he and his dad shot three times and didn't touch it. And, you know, how that goes as a new hunter, you just get so flabbergasted and all that. I still get that way sometimes. You know, that's one of those memories that's just burned in your brain that, you know, you can still see it. Well, you can see the picture every once in a while, too. But it's just there. The hardest people to teach, you talked about that guy giving your daughter a hard time.

42:11The hardest people to teach are middle-aged men. Yeah, I believe that. In my experience, yeah, they already have got it figured out. But women, from my experience, are by far the easiest to teach, followed by children, and then men fall in dead last. They just do. They already know it all. And they're going to do it their way. And they usually take a long time to come around to any suggestions that might help them in any outdoor pursuits. And it doesn't even have to be middle-aged. You know, trap shooting yesterday, there's a new shooter out there.

42:43I'm guessing he's a sophomore, junior in high school. And it was obvious that he could hit a few birds. He knew the basics of gun safety and all that kind of stuff. But trying to get him to shoot like a trap shooter, trying to get him to lean forward, to, you know, put his cheek on the comb and get his head down. And he'd shoot a few, and he'd hit them. And then the next one, his cheek would be three inches off the comb, and he couldn't figure out. And he'd go, you know, you're over it by four feet. And he goes, well, how do you know? I said, because I can tell where your gun's pointing or where you're shooting when I stand behind you, you know, and trying to convince him.

43:19You know, he'll eventually get there. But it just is kind of like, well, I've been duck hunting or goose hunting or whatever for years, and I can hit birds. And I know you can hit birds. I see you hit a few targets out here. But if you want to get in the 20 to 25 range on a 25 target shot with trap, you can't do it the way you would goose hunt and duck hunt. It's a different game. And you have to get in there and learn how to be consistent, learn how to do those kinds of things. How long have you been a trap shooting instructor? Since my daughter was in seventh grade, and she's now in her third year of med school.

43:54So, you know, coming on somewhere close to 20 years, something like that. Anything that surprises you about the explosion of how popular the sport of trap shooting has become in America? You know, I'm not surprised at all. When I was young, it was, we tried to convince young people not to shoot signs, you know, because you want to go out and shoot something. So here's a place where you can go shoot something. And the more you shoot, the better it is. And I don't know if you've ever heard of Mark Stevens. He's a big trap guy in the Buffalo area.

44:26And I've done some things with him and coached with him and done some things. And he likes to tell kids all the time, you know, what we're here to do today is make noise and break stuff. Who doesn't like to, as a teenage boy, especially like to make noise and break stuff. And the more noise you make and the more stuff you break, the better you are. So I'm not surprised at all. I am a little bit surprised at how many young ladies are doing it. I'm glad that they are. It's more than 50-50, I think, in some instances where there's more ladies than there are boys in a lot of cases, which is really cool.

44:58Yeah, we don't quite have that. We have about 26 kids out, I think it was yesterday, for Lester Perry. I think we have nine girls, so it's not quite 50-50, but I'm glad to see them out there. And again, they will take instruction, for the most part, so much better than the guys will. Just because I think guys think, well, I'm a guy, I know how to shoot, you know, it's part of my DNA. It isn't. Nobody was born learning how to shoot, you know. You have to learn the right techniques if you want to become a good shooter. You're in the middle of, or maybe not in the middle of it, but fire burning.

45:36Right now I saw there was, I don't know how many counties in this state added to the no burn warning. It's just too windy and it's really dry right now. Yeah. So, what does that mean for you when it comes to prescribed burns on wildlife habitat? Well, I'm not making my living off of it, so I don't have to worry about, you know, that I've got so much to do. I've got freedom. I don't burn that much at a time. It's kind of like, okay, here's the perfect conditions for this one, so we'll go and burn that one today.

46:07Is there a bigger rush than burning something? I mean, come on. I've only been a part of it just a couple of times, but you want to talk adrenaline rush? I know what you're saying. You light something on fire and then hope it doesn't take off. A rooster pheasant coming up at your feet, I think that's really hard to beat. Yeah. But, yeah, when you get out there, last year I was able to do a few burns with Lester Prairie Fire Department, and they don't take it slow like the rest of us do, at least the Pheasants Forever guys that I work with. You know, they're out there and they want to get it burned now and get it done fast,

46:38so they get it out there and, you know, we burn the edge and make sure that it's safe, and then the faster we can get this to burn, the better it is, and so they set the whole thing and get it going fast, and you've got to get out of the way because that fire is not stopping for you, and it burns big and hot. You can't stand 10 yards, 15 yards from it. It's too hot to stand that close. I think most of our listeners are pretty educated,

Teaching and Mentoring

47:03but let's say somebody doesn't understand why you're going to burn property. Give them just like a basic overview of it and why and what it does. Well, the biggest thing is, you know, Native Americans in the prairie would burn prairie to keep it prairie. You know, right here where we are, this used to be part of the big woods. You've got a few remnants around here, but you get west of Hutchinson, there was almost nothing. And we're in central Minnesota, just to jump in there for people, because we have listeners around the country. So we're in central Minnesota. We're not in the big woods.

47:34We're not in the north woods. There used to be big woods, but a lot of the woods have been cut down and plowed up for farm. You know, so there's a few, you know, you see a few remnants right over there and a few other places where you drive along, you can see a few groves of old oak trees. So it used to be old oak savanna for a lot of this around here. But even there, fire is the thing that keeps it new and fresh. And, you know, I've started following some of the sustainable farming community stuff.

48:04I'm not a farmer at this point, but I'm interested in seeing what they're doing and how many of them are going back to grazing with cattle to mimic what the bison used to do when they were around. And the Native Americans would set fires. And knowing that if I set a fire here this spring, next year that's where the bison are going to be, because that's where the best grasses are going to be. That's where the most productive grasses and the most nutritious grasses are going to be for them. Food plots go way further back than us modern-day hunters. Yep, yep. And we lost a lot of that for a lot of years. A couple years ago, the Minnesota Science Teachers Association,

48:38in conjunction with the Meadowakan Sioux Indian community, were given away. It was just a little dinky book, but it was described about the history and the purposes of fire on the prairie. And so they were giving that away to science teachers. So, of course, I picked up one and read through it. And going through some of that, I knew that that was one of the ways that I could help improve habitat. And so I've done a few of those on the land that's—oh, there was a swan over there, two of them. Oh, yeah. Flying in a pair.

49:08Yeah, the—the—that's how you keep the stuff good for good nesting habitat. Otherwise, you get all this dead stuff that's laying there and keeps falling over. And pretty soon the baby pheasant chicks or the baby Hungarian partridge chicks can't make it through there. They can't walk through it. They can't do much. They can't find their stuff. And the forbes, when we talk about forbes a lot, I know you talk about forbes a lot, Bob St. Pierre and his podcast.

49:41Forbes are basically flowering plants that are native to the prairie. And they support the bees and the butterflies and all those kinds of things. And that's all the birds eat. You know, I remember—I think it was about four years ago. The day before had been a hard frost, and I'm going out, and I—and I shot two birds. My daughter shot two birds, and we opened up their crops, and it was just full of grasshoppers. The frost had killed the grasshoppers, and they weren't even trying to eat corn or beans or anything else. They were just eating the grasshoppers.

50:12And they had been doing that basically their whole life since they hatched from their chicks all the way up until November or so when the killing frost comes through and kills all the insects. That's—that's what they're eating. And so we need those kinds of things to be able to sustain those populations if we want to have good populations of them. And you got things like that tree, like I said there, and you get a good fire burning here, and it'll—if the tree's starting to sprout, it'll kill that tree. That's how we maintain the space. So will that fire kill—and this tree is—I'm going to say it's five feet tall,

50:49and it has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight little branch offshoots coming up on it. What kind of tree is that? I can't tell. That's why I was not a biology teacher, Travis. Okay, fine. That's fair. I thought you knew everything about everything. I don't know everything. I can show you which one's the milkweed out here because I'm pretty familiar with that one. Everyone knows a milkweed. That's the most basic weed you can find. Come on. That and the big blue stem that's over here and some of that kind of stuff. But there's so many of these, I'm just starting to learn what some of the names of these things are.

51:19Yep.

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54:20There's a lot out there. You know, and maybe that's why you listen to this podcast, I guess. You know, I sit and I talk with you, and I'm like, why would you spend any of your time listening to my podcast? Because you've lived through a lot more than I have, and you've experienced a lot more, and you've learned a lot more. You should be the one hosting my podcast, but not listening to it. Why do you keep coming back? Well, most of the podcasts listening I do are listening in the vehicle. And so I get these little dinky jump drives that are about a half-inch square, and I download all the podcasts onto there, and then I plug them in.

54:56You're so old school. It's crazy to me that you download every one. Well, and then after I've downloaded them, if they're really good, I save them. I put it in a separate folder and say, I'm saving this one to listen to again. Really? I do that, yeah. Curiously, what gets saved?

55:12You've talked about the Prairie Farm podcast with the guys down in Iowa, some. So I've got probably between a half a dozen and a dozen of theirs saved on how to set up your own, you know, restore your own prairie. You know, they had a, you know, first of all, here's what you do to get it ready, and here's what you do. Here's how you seed, and here's how you control herbicides or not herbicides and those kinds of things. So I've got a few of those, a bunch of them on fire. The DNR, a few years ago, had a podcast called The Prairie Pod.

55:46It's no longer being done, but the podcasts are still out there. So I've saved a bunch of those, and they talk about the butterflies and the different things. And one of the features of their podcast is they would say, go take a hike. You know, a lot of people consider that kind of an insult, but for them it was, oh, great, they get to go take a hike. And they'd talk about a particular WMA or SNA that was, which is a, what's SNA? I can't remember what that stands for now. Scenic and Natural Area. And so they'd talk about that and what's there and how to get out there and how to see some of those things.

56:20And so some of those are the kinds of things that I keep because they're, to me, they're educational. And for me, I don't, especially names and things like that, I don't pick it up the first time around. I usually tell my students all the time, you know, I'm going to have to know you in three different situations before I remember what your name is. Just sitting here in the classroom. You know, it's kind of interesting. You know, I could, before they came into class, I could take their tests and papers and pass them out where they were supposed to be, where they sit. But if I'd see their face, I'd recognize them, but try and put a name to it going the other way, it didn't work.

56:54So a lot of these plants and things work the same way. I recognize what the plants are and I recognize what their flowers might have been looking like in the summer or the spring. But to tell you what their name is, you know, it's, I'm learning some and I want to keep learning more. So those are especially the podcasts that I save is the ones that I think would teach me a few of those things. How many kids do you think you've taught over your life? I don't know. From the classroom to the gun range to firearm safety? Well, in classroom, I taught for 39 years and, you know, I suppose it was in the range of 130 to 150 kids per year.

57:28So that kind of gives you a clue. Okay. And then firearm safety, 20 years of that, usually what, 40 kids, 50 kids? Somewhere in that range, yeah. Okay. And then how about for the gun trap shooting leagues? Yeah. You know, we, we've typically had between 25 and 30. So, you know, I'm not the only one there, so I'm not seeing all of them, but, you know, seeing about 10 or so a year. So there, there's been a lot of kids, a lot of names I don't remember, a few that I've been blessed with, uh, be able to teach some, some rather famous ones.

58:02One, one, one name I'll drop that I hope she, I don't think she'll mind. Lindsay Whelan. Okay. Is one of my students. And, uh. She's a, a legendary basketball player in the state of Minnesota. She is. And, you know, played, played for the Gophers. Um, I know lots of people that would come just to watch her play because of what she could do with the basketball out there when she was in high school. And, uh, when, when they dedicated the gym to her in Hutchinson, she asked me to be the teacher that said a few things about her.

58:33So I know I've had impact on some of those kinds of people. But, yeah, it's, uh, it's very humbling. You know, I'm not trying to say this to brag. I'm just saying that's how, how much, they've had a lot of effect on my life. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I was going to ask you, the reason I asked the question of how many kids you think you've teached is my question would be, what do you think they would say about you as their teacher when they look back at Mr. DeBrucker? Well, I'll put it this way.

59:07Um, there was a guy, I don't want to call out his name. He's, uh, now a surgeon in the trauma center of, uh, HEMC. He was my, one of my first chemistry students back when I was in Fargo. And, uh, two months ago, he, uh, found me through social media and said, hey, I just wanted to say thanks. It's been 40 years now and sorry for all the hard time I gave you, but, you know, I think about you quite often and all the things you taught us. So I know that, that I did some of those things.

59:39I've had very many teachers, very many students tell me, and this is always my goal, tell me that I taught them that they could do things that they didn't think they could do. You know, I don't think I can pass this class. Yes, you can. Trust me. Sit with me. Work with me. And, and they all did, you know, if they wanted to work, if they wanted to do it, I would do whatever I needed to do to make sure not only they could, they passed, but they knew something when they got done. What's the hardest thing to teach a kid?

1:00:10Respect. Really? If they don't have that from mom and dad, it's, it's really hard. At least when they get to high school age, you know, they hit those teenage years and, uh, the, they think the need for that is, is kind of gone in a lot of ways. And it's there, you know, uh, uh, uh, former teacher and administrator that I respect would, he was a middle school principal for a while. And he said, you know, those, those middle school kids, they're just bags of walking hormones. And our full job is to keep them alive.

1:00:42Now that's our main job. Well, you get that going and, and, uh, they, they start, they start becoming independent. It happens to, to all of them and it should, you know, you haven't quite experienced. You haven't experienced this yet? Cause his cash is, what is he? Thirteen? Uh, my oldest is 11. About to be 12. Okay. So, you know, it's, it's going to come to them. Hey, you have a good day too. Did you see anything out there that was not today? Huh? Yeah. We saw the swans out there.

1:01:14A lot of ducks. Yeah. Yeah. Tis the season. They're migrating through. Well, you take care. Thanks for coming out. You know, you hit, hit that age and, and, uh, it's part of biology. You want to separate from your parents and you want to get away from that. And not just your parents, but by extension, all authority figures. And you want to make a name for yourself and be off by yourself. And so if you haven't learned respect before that time comes, it's not going to be coming through very much when you're in high school. So to me, that's, that's the hardest thing, you know, uh, the chemistry, the physics, it's,

1:01:51it's a matter of for all of those kinds of things, starting where the kid's at and building on it, you know, and some of them need lots of help because they, they didn't have the background that they probably should have had to take the class, but you can still do it. You can still get there. You can still teach him techniques and it's a matter of time. So it's, you know, uh, one of the reasons I retired is because my body just couldn't keep doing it anymore. I would, I was also a school photographer and a typical day for me started at school