Kent Boucher (00:01.07) I've noticed that you have to try and keep it like try not to re ch you can do it some but otherwise it'll make a noise if you if you change your grip too much. Nicolas Lirio (00:12.366) all right, just sorry. So before we get started, skip, I'll have you that's your camera. This is Kent My's camera. I'll have you look at the camera and say your name, your title, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast, whenever you're ready. Skip Sligh (00:28.012) Wha what's my title? Nicolas Lirio (00:29.982) I know, conservation you first time you said skip sly, I will whitetail, this is the prairie farm podcast. Skip Sligh (00:38.144) Unemployed. Yeah. Yeah. Kent Boucher (00:42.988) Gainfully unemployed. Skip Sligh (00:44.568) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (00:45.08) Yeah. Dirty from from tree work. Skip Sligh (00:50.478) I guess I am a farmer. Skip Sligh (00:56.109) Yeah. Kent Boucher (00:56.526) Who's Nicolas Lirio (00:57.782) We had someone just say enthusiast. They didn't even give their n just enthusiast. Skip Sligh (01:03.116) Lazy Bomb. Nicolas Lirio (01:07.01) We could put all that in there. family man, Iowa advocate. Skip Sligh (01:14.102) Okay. I just Kent Boucher (01:15.172) I like that one. Iowa and Skip Sligh (01:19.992) So Nicolas Lirio (01:21.172) Name, title, and this is the Prairie Form podcast. Skip Sligh (01:25.518) Skip Sly, Iowa Whitetail, Farmer, Iowa Advocate, Family Man, I could keep going, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. Nicolas Lirio (01:35.896) Perfect. All right, Kent, you're bringing us in? Yep. Kent Boucher (01:36.046) Perfect. Kent Boucher (01:40.462) Skip, you're at a point in your life, and I guess we could say career, even though we just talked about what is your career. they they I think they center around land more than hunting. I mean, hunting is what brought you to this, that to to what you do with the land, right? But I really think it's you care. This is just me. Skip Sligh (01:48.236) I have fifteen jobs. Kent Boucher (02:08.94) I don't want to put words in your mouth here, but I perceive that your your number one care is for the land itself. You you try and make it better than you found it. But that being said, if you had to take a poll of all the people that know who Skip's lie is, they'd probably associate the word hunting with you first. So you have rub shoulders with basically everyone there is to rub shoulders with in the hunting industry. And you were telling us that you've been into some pretty impressive trophy rooms and you've noticed a common theme. Skip Sligh (02:46.062) yeah, that's that's a good story. so here's a point I would make. people always say, especially on social media, which there's so much just crazy opinions and information, they'll always say like, money buys big bucks or stuff like that. They'll say comments like that, like money buys big gear. And don't misunderstand, it absolutely helps. It absolutely does. but I actually know a lot of people who shoot some giant deer with no money. They travel, they're sc they're scouting machines, they're willing to go where the big deer are, etc. And the way I would in a sense, just more for fun, but the way I would illustrate or prove that point is all of the people that you can think of that have unlimited funds or that spend obscene amounts of money to travel around the country or the world hunting. And you go into their trophy rooms and maybe maybe they've been to Africa, maybe they've been to out west, maybe they've been to Alaska, Canada, all over the world hunting, and they'll have just impressive mounts for elk and mule deer and goats and African species and all these things. And nine out of ten of them do not have a wall of giant white tail box. It is the one common theme I see in most of those cases where the the money is unlimited and they still have a very difficult time getting giant whitetailed deer with as much money that they could devote to it and it's I would say it's the most difficult thing to achieve. And I see it over and over. Kent Boucher (04:29.474) That's really interesting data. Nicolas Lirio (04:30.84) Not not from a hunter, but like the big game in North America. What is what big game do you have to have a high skill set in the hunter category to be impress you know what I mean? Because like in Africa a lot of times they'll walk you right up to the you know and and but I know Whitetail is tough. Are are there any others? Like what is the hardest big game to Have on your wall. Skip Sligh (05:01.344) A fully, fully mature whitetail, like five, six, seven, eight year old white tail, and I'd say six, seven, eight, is probably it. Now more than for sure. For sure. I know I know so many guys that have shot and I'm not a I'm not big into the elk, so I don't know this stuff. But like high three hundreds, four hundreds and Nicolas Lirio (05:11.507) More than like elk? Sure. Skip Sligh (05:27.372) You know, the amount of guys I know that have shot high three hundreds, four hundreds, even with some consistency that haven't shot like a a seven year old just gigantic white tail is almost every one of It's it's by har far the hardest. And and you know, the other reason is the the really old giant white tail is actually very rare though too. You know, they're it's a very one, they're very rare. even in some of the best neighborhoods, they're very rare. And then you go to certain states with like bad regulations and it's like, you know, they just don't exist. So, you know, I could be a billionaire but own like and hunt in like, you know, Michigan or out east or something and just hunt on regular farms and there isn't one that exists. You know, I mean, maybe if you could lock up thousands and thousands and thousands of acres, you you know, I mean that would obviously help. But You can hunt in so many states where it's like that that giant mega monster whitetail just they don't don't exist on the landscape. So, you know, finding them is so hard. And the other side of that coin though, we could we could have it where a lot more people were were very successful on giant whitales, which everybody wants to be, and there a lot of people get frustrated. But if we had better regulations across the the Midwest, they're actually absolutely would be more of them. And there's really no downside to having more mature bucks on the landscape. There isn't any downside. I mean, maybe you could make an excu obscure argument for it, but having no mature bucks on the landscape and all the young bucks getting shot, too many dough, horrible ratios, not a balanced age class, really bad sex ratios, there's a lot of downsides to that. So If we can just have balance across the Midwest, everybody benefits and more people could achieve what is so rare and what so many people are seeking is trying to get on those those truly old, smart, you know, giant whitetails. And and even just by age, you know, hunting a fully, fully mature whitetail, I don't care what it scores even, is challenging, it's fun, it's rewarding, and so many guys are seeking it, and it's just so hard to find. Skip Sligh (07:53.454) And I wish it was more common to be honest. Why? And and I don't want this sport to be I so let me make a fine point right here before I go on. But I don't want this sport to be for the rich man. I want it so yeah it's better across the whole landscape, you know, for everybody, for the kids, for the everyday man, so they're not like I want them to say, Hey, I don't have to have millions of dollars to be to hunt mature deer. And like I said, certain guys can grind it out and go to extremes to get on mature deer, but it's so hard. There's so much extra work and and I wish it was just a little more balanced and and of higher quality and management. So the everyday guy who didn't have the money had more opportunities. Nicolas Lirio (08:38.722) Man. The the the one of the most frustrating stories that I think about is a friend of ours was out hunting public land and not I mean an hour and a half from here and some guy who has private land butting up against him knew there was a giant buck in there and took his U T V and just ripped up and down the fence line right there. I was so I was so upset. I was like, that dude's not a hunter. That guy's trying to I don't know, but that's it's not s they're called sportsmen. There's no sportsmanship about that. I was so frustrated. And I was thinking like with whitetailed deer, it truly is well, most hunting, r rising tide raises all ships in terms of landscape and and ecology and the health of the habitat going on around. But yeah, I don't that I was listening to you talk like, it we don't want it to just be for the rich man and that guy was all about himself on that one. Yeah. Skip Sligh (09:38.57) And I s I've been on both sides of that where like I was the broke kid, looking at that looking at the green grass across the fence, going, Man, I wish I could hunt next to that or or hunt on that land. I wish I owned that, you know, and hunting the degraded, just the worst ruination of hunting experiences anybody can imagine. I've been that kid, or been that guy even. so I get that. And there's there's these You know, there's these dynamics in hunting because mature bucks are so rare and there's so many people competing over it, which I don't like. I wish there was just hey, it's fairly natural that there's a mature buck in every neighborhood so everybody had a chance and people weren't so protective of it. But because they're so rare, you get the landowners who step over the line, like I own these, you know, I wanna keep somebody else from shooting my deer and they can make poor choices like what you what you illustrated. And I agree, there's a line there. And then there's a line on the other side where some guys will be like, you know, they'll literally seek out the guy that that does do things right. Yeah. And all of a sudden you're like, why is there fifty guys hunting this guy's fence line? Yeah. Where every other normal farm there might be like one or two. Right. But you go and and I've I'll be honest, like I've been on both sizes. I've I'll have farms where, you know, you look and There hasn't been a person hunting across this fence on this like p degraded pasture with like two trees and there's nothing there. It doesn't hold deer, it doesn't grow deer, nothing. And all of a sudden you manage things well and all of a sudden you're like, there's five guys hunting there all of a sudden. Yeah. 'Cause they know you put in the work. So, you know, there's there's two sides to this coin. And, you know, so I would say one, it's distasteful for the landowner in your example to do that, to to ruin somebody else's hunt and think he owns a deer and I I think that's it's it's problematic, it's unethical, it's unsportsmanlike, it's unfortunate, all the words you want to use. And then on the other side of that there's other people who want to take advantage of other people's hard work too, where, you know, I can I I get soured on that as well. So, you know, it's it there's a balance there. There's a fine line. And that's why we have you know, there's ethics that should be involved in this sport. And I think people Skip Sligh (12:00.158) know when they're pushing the ethical boundaries when it comes to hunting and some people don't care. Yeah. Kent Boucher (12:07.628) I agree with that. And it's it is so interesting why like you said, they are a rarity for one. But I it does it just come down to there's so many people after and the habitat in which they are found is a part you know, it's it's parceled up, especially if you get into states like Wisconsin, Michigan where it's Skip Sligh (12:32.472) We're actually pretty parceled up here in Iowa. Yeah. Yeah. People don't realize that. We are. Nicolas Lirio (12:37.07) What what do you consider parceled up? Skip Sligh (12:39.468) Well, you look at you look at most of most of Iowa, go to most of our wooded areas with a few exceptions, you'll find ten, twenty, forty acre tracks, five acre tracks, eighty acre tracks, you know, and you look at the largest piece of land in the state of Iowa. It's forty three hundred contiguous acres owned by a private landowner. That is the largest in the whole state of Iowa. Really? You go to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois Any other surrounding state, anyone, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, forty three hundred is fairly common. I mean, I'm not saying they're all over the place, but but to say the biggest farm in the state of Iowa privately owned is forty three hundred acres. Does Wisconsin have one of those? Wisconsin has tons of those. And they have bigger ones of those. Nicolas Lirio (13:31.35) That's not that's contiguous far. Skip Sligh (13:33.854) Yeah, yeah. We we are actually very segmented up in Iowa, more so than people think. That's very interesting. And and I have to mention this one too, because I reached out the I made a post on this earlier. but I got I went to every DNR and every state agency in the Midwest and I got their data for the amount of hunters, how much habitat they have, how much timber, C RP, swamps, marshes, prairies, grassland. And when you look at the habitat where deer exist Iowa has the h the most amount of hunters per habitat of any state in the Kent Boucher (14:09.942) You made a post about that, didn't you? I remember that. Skip Sligh (14:12.914) And people say that's misleading because of this. No. I did it in every context known to man. And I just took their data. And people always want to have a problem with anything you post on social media. And but I just asked for their data. I mean we have timber, we have timber mixed with ag. We have CRP. We ha we don't have any marshes in Iowa. They've all been drained. We don't have any swampland in Iowa. It's all been drained. so we really have timber very little, less about seven percent now. And we have ag mixed with timber, but every Midwestern state has ag mixed with timber. Mm-hmm. You know, southern Minnesota has tons of it. Southern southern Wisconsin has tons of it. We have the least amount of habitat of any Midwestern state with the least amount of deer and the least amount of public land with the most hunters per huntable acre of habitat. So to say I always hear I've heard it since I was a little kid. Well, you know, you go to Iowa and there's just so few hunters, it's like And I've lived here for twenty five years and I've been in every county in the state and I've owned land in probably twenty counties. It's like, where are these places where it's not high hunt high hunter density? Because everywhere I go is full of hunters. Full of And it's baloney to say that we have low hunter density here. And when you look at the actual data and look at the facts, we are actually number one. People can't grasp that, but it is a fact. Nicolas Lirio (15:37.58) Do you think there'd be more hunters if there was more land to hunt in Iowa? Do you think we're maxed on how many hunters can hunt the Skip Sligh (15:44.824) We're maxed out. And that's why we have a nonresident quota of six thousand we can't take any more on. And, you know, I don't want to change the non resident quota. I would not advocate for it at all. But if somebody said, Hey, just based on the data, based on the facts, what should we do with the non resident quota? Just for the r the good of the resource and for the residents of Iowa, you'd say zero. Zero. With there there's no reason to bring in non residents when you're when your residents don't have places to go, when access is difficult. When the number one reason cited by residents, especially kids, that they quit hunting is lack of access to quality land. You don't bring in any non residents at the at that point. When you have a surplus, you bring in a lot of non residents. So, you know, and and I'm not I don't I don't think we should change it. But, you know, there the best place to take in like non residents would be something not as fragile as a deer herd with, you know, the the least amount of deer and the least amount of habitat of all the Midwest. And again, these people are traveling from other states with more habitat, more deer, the same deer by the way. just bad regulations. And they're just traveling here to hunt older bucks. So the real re the real answer is fix your own states. Fix your broken regulations, which they can do, which some states are doing. You know, Indiana's made huge strides. Kentucky's made huge strides. Michigan finally changed a couple of things. And they need to keep going. But it's like this little sliver we have here in Iowa, which is two point eight million acres of timber, with a hundred and sixty five thousand deer hunters, I think that's about right. we can't take any more on. And there's millions and millions and millions and millions of acres of public land. Even states like Michigan, nineteen million acres of forest. Mi Wisconsin, Minnesota, it's you know, seventeen to twenty million acres of forest. When we have two point eight, but they all come here. It's like you have w ten times or five times what we have and more deer. Nicolas Lirio (17:48.556) What's up with Wisconsin? Why d why are their deer why so much younger? Skip Sligh (17:53.414) they're th they need to go to one buck. They just th they just overshoot n everything. Their gun season is too early and they need to go to one buck. and online the Wisconsin people love to brag that they're the number one BNC state and I'm I wanna just agree with Absolutely you guys are. Everybody needs to go to Wisconsin. By the way They have over the counter non resident tags. You don't need to come to Iowa. You can go to Wisc Wisconsin. What is it? You don't have to wait six years for a tag. Okay. Yeah, you can get over the counter tags. So everybody that wants to come to Iowa and wait six, seven years, you're crazy. Just go up to Wisconsin. It's over the counter. And it's far cheaper than Iowa. Yeah, it is. And it's better hunting. Look at ever they they keep saying it. Yeah. Wisconsin. Yeah, it's it's silly. I mean they're Nicolas Lirio (18:23.339) okay. Nicolas Lirio (18:38.936) Sometimes they hit one tens over. Skip Sligh (18:43.782) There's a few areas where the land is a is locked up. You know, and I'd say most are B and C bucks. It's it's in areas where it's heavily managed, which is great. I applaud that. it's really locked up for access. People gotta just just really tighten things down to get a few deer to maturity, but it's so rare. Yeah, I mean this farm I bought from Wisconsin people, the farm next to me I bought from Wisconsin people. I have Wisconsin people come up. hump my farm every year 'cause I've tons of friends from Wisconsin from the top end of that state to the bottom. I have Wisconsin people out here every year. And to say they're comparable is silly. And Wisconsin but the here's the funny part. They're not comparable. Even when the sliver of habitat we have and the sliver of deer, but they could be way better than Iowa. Way better. Kent Boucher (19:33.858) Well to me Missouri is the state that they should be the the absolute best place in the world. Skip Sligh (19:35.768) Missouri is number one. Skip Sligh (19:42.914) Best potential state, barn. I think I think they have eighteen million acres of timber and it's just right there through my window. we can just about see Missouri. It looks amazing. There's and you go across there and it gets even more rural, less people. It is broke up so amazing and eighteen million acres of of forest, way more deer than Iowa. And it's just immaculate habitat mixed with agriculture, but the regulations just need to be fixed, which you know, I do think what need the rifling season needs to be moved back. Mirror Iowa like December first and they need to go to one buck. And the third thing they need to do urgently is put a non resident quota in place. Kent Boucher (20:33.154) Yeah, y the they have the trifecta of problems going on where guns during the rut, over the counter, non resident, and then it's they're a two buck state, aren't they? For Skip Sligh (20:46.542) Two box crazy. And you go across the line because regular rifles. So you go across the line and our DNR got the Missouri DNR's data on how many people are shooting does. We're shooting over over half of our harvested does. H hunters are taking probably too many doughs in Iowa. The second you cross the line we got Missouri's data and the amount of dough shot goes down the tubes. Like it's just they're shooting all the bucks. Kent Boucher (20:50.394) Ri regular rifle. Skip Sligh (21:15.018) And so many parcels are locked up by non residents, outfitters, leased up. I'm not sure on that. Kent Boucher (21:20.28) Do they still do antler point restrictions though? I hunted it years ago, I think twenty nineteen, and they I was in a Antler point restriction county. Skip Sligh (21:30.828) We d we do a better job managing our deer herd in Iowa when they're not shooting like they're overrun in certain areas with doe's you know, according to them, according to the DNR, you guys aren't shooting enough does and their data shows that they shoot a far lesser ratio of does because they're j everybody is just annihilating all the bucks and they're they're just out to kill bucks where we shoot slightly over fifty percent dose in the state of Iowa. Nicolas Lirio (21:58.018) Man, you're you're hitting on like a very human condition, which is like why get more later when I can have some now? You know? And I have you heard that experiment with a marshmallow? I've been bringing this up a bunch recently. 'Cause I think it I think it really plays the humans. So it was little kids, they did this experiment on little kids and they left a marshmallow in front of right? And and the whole idea is that if the kid they said hey don't eat the marshmallow and if you don't, we'll be back in ten minutes. We'll give you another one or ten or something like that. And the then they track the kids for like twenty years after that. And the ones who didn't eat the marshmallow, did way better in life, just in general. by basically every benchmark you could hope to measure. Skip Sligh (22:41.902) Well that that goes into every part of our life. That's why you know most people don't invest. It's why most people have significant credit card debt. It's why people rag on the one percent that are wealthy that actually had discipline for decades and dig did things right. It's why even in like farming, when you look at well, I can get a little better stand if I l diss the living daylights out of my soil right now, but I know Over long term it's gonna hurt my soil. If I don't do no till, I might not get quite as good a stand. it's not gonna warm up the soil as much, but you track stuff out like that out, and all of a sudden it's like ten years in, the guy who did no-till is actually having far better results for yields, but it took time. It's I mean, so you can replicate that that example and illustrate it in so many different parts of life. And it's like, you know, the very the people who didn't take the marshmallow and any one of those examples is the minority. And a lot of times people don't like or, you know, envy them or something. And it's like, you know, and I probably was like that when I was younger, being broke and seeing the rich guy that wouldn't let me on his land and probably didn't like the rich guy even. But now it's kind of like, you know, I I don't care about somebody being rich or but but people who are successful. Now I've just like you want to learn from them or learn what made him successful, learn about the discipline, look learn about all the hardships that maybe they took on so they did have better results later. So, I think more society gets with that mindset, of looking longer term, you know, clearly the better off we're going to be for it. And clearly you can look at the problems across the state of Iowa or across the country and saying, you know, all these short term fixes, look at all the problems it's caused us. And yeah. Yeah. Kent Boucher (24:37.8) One of the things I wanna I wanted to kind of extrapolate from this is every now and then I'll hear from somebody who's a non resident landowner in Iowa. And they'll say, you know, I understand you guys got your rules and I get it. You know, you wanna protect the resource, this and that. But what about in this one specific case? What if I mean I just don't understand why the state and and I I've even had had people say, and I know I know Skip wouldn't agree with me on this and and but I mean if you just think about it, you know, they start doing that. What Skip Sligh (25:18.894) Yeah. Me. But what about mys unique example? Kent Boucher (25:23.336) Yes, exactly. Exactly. What are some of the unforeseen consequences if the state were to say you know one of those yeah, if you own land here and or or maybe I'll just word it this way, instead of giving a specific example if you're a non resident landowner weekly. If the door was opened not all the way, not to where yeah, you're a landowner here, you get a tag every year, like like Illinois is. what if they just did they just lessened it, maybe cut it in half. But if they started to open up more tags to non resident landowners now, what would be the unintended consequences and unforeseen consequences that the average person doesn't understand? Skip Sligh (26:11.15) Okay, that's a really great question. And I have this conversation all the time with my friends who are non residents that want to give me their unique example, or could you just do this or what about come on, this does make sense to do that. Here's the deal. If we open it up a little bit, because I know these non resident groups that have tried to change our laws, I know them. Yeah. Some of them have even like apologized for doing it later. I know I know how they talk to the legislators to try and get the legislators in their pocket. I know their arguments. Their plan, make no mistake about it. At least some of them, some of them, if they get one crack, like, hey, let you know, let's make half the tags for people who own land. Or if you own this amount of acres, you get a guaranteed tag, or you just get preference points. All they want is a wedge in, and they're gonna so that's one legislative session. Their plan the next legislative session after that when we have a next election, new politicians they're gonna go for everything. They their plan and somebody'd say that's a kid Skip Sligh (27:19.56) And and some people might say, Well, in my example, I'm not looking for that. I'm just saying, you know, if I own a thousand acres, shouldn't I be able to get a tag or a hundred or you know, I've owned it for twenty years or something. You might want that, but there is a group that is a part of those those non resident landowners that that has lobbying interests that will use that as like blood in the water. And the the next legislative session, and I I know this is their plan because they've basically explained this to me. and I've had conversations with the legislators who've worked with them. they're gonna go for it all later. Like, well, you know, now that you let people with X, Y, Z acres or gave them this preference. Don't you think the right thing to do is just if they own land here, it's only fair. They're gonna go for the whole thing. Now, here's the thing: you go for the whole thing, just open it wide open, we're done. The residents will have nowhere to go. We have seven percent timber. We have the least amount of habitat of any any Midwestern state and the smallest deer population and the least amount of public land of any Midwestern state. We have a very tiny, tiny, tiny minuscule, fragile resource. You open that up, the residents will have nowhere to go. There is billions of dollars, and I have very extremely wealthy friends who with a smile on their face would say, if you get any indication they're gonna change, just let me know. I have millions. I mean and totaled together, it'd be billions ready to be employed in the state of Iowa. I will sell my Illinois farm, I'll sell my Indiana farm, I'll sell my Michigan farm, I'll sell my Kansas farm, I will bring it all to Iowa. If there's a crack, I am ready to go. It will it will bring billions of dollars to the state of Iowa and they it will be a mad dash to buy this stuff up. Yeah. And and if you know the one case where somebody could be like, is there a is there anywhere that might make sense where I could make the argument? And I could I could make the argument for any of this. If somebody said, just put on this hat and make this argument even though, you know, just like being a lawyer or something. I could argue any side of this. But if if you open if you so the the one the one place where it actually has some merit would be like, well Skip Sligh (29:42.646) What if somebody owns six hundred and forty acres or more? What that would do is it would force people to put more ground together instead of sectioning it out, which is good for the environment. Yeah. S land segmentation hurts the environment. And I'm glad to explain how that works and and what it does when we keep parceling things up. It's bad for everything. Well and that would actually create more big deer if s if we made it like six forty. But what would happen is you'd you'd have really good hunting around those six hundred and forty acre parcels. Everybody would want to hunt around there, but it would drive the prices up everywhere else. And where you couldn't put six hundred and forty acres together, it still would drive the prices up. It would drive the non resident demand up because they're like, Well, they approved six forty, let's let's fight later for less. And that's all they do. Right. So you approve six forty and then they're gonna be like, Well, let's make it eighty acres. That's the next legislative session. Right. So it drived the prices up. So the really the only benefit there is a few farms around the state where you could put six hundred and forty acres together. Would be good, it'd be good for the environment, but it wouldn't stop there and that that log would be Negative It would be it would be a net positive for one year. okay. Maybe two, and then all of a sudden the law would get switched and then all the land prices everywhere else would get shot through the roof and then things would start getting segmented up worse and we'd be in the long run, just without explaining this, going down the whole rabbit hole, dissecting it all, in the long run we'd get i it hurt us. So Nicolas Lirio (31:17.934) When you're in Des Moines fighting for the resource, both the animal and the land, what are you actually doing? Are you speaking in front of committees? Are you meeting with people for lunch and trying to make these arguments to him? What what are you actually doing? Skip Sligh (31:29.356) Yeah, all of the above and you know, I'm not just talking hunting up there either. I mean I'm talking farming, I'm talking water quality, I'm talking conservation projects, I'm I'm fighting for the forest reserve program, and I have to make economic arguments too. And I have to I have to learn how to how to find middle ground with people and anything whether you like it or not, anything in politics has compromise in it. So, you know, I mean, I have great relationships with almost every outdoor group that could be farming to conservation to whatever. I mean, 15, 20 different groups I have good relationships with. So, you know, and a lot of times I want to help people who have battles that are impacting them that aren't impacting me, but you win a lot of these battles by having other allies too. So when they need help on something that's a righteous cause or that I believe in, it might not impact me, but I'll go to bat for them. And I want to when it if it's right. You know, and and all this stuff I battle for doesn't impact me anymore. You know, I'm doing this purely to help other people, purely to help the state, purely to help kids, whether it's environmental, whether it's economic, whether you know, like like I want to go there and fight for, you know. bolstering our rural communities. And they could be like, Hey, could you give a fifteen minute presentation on how we fix our rural communities in the state of Iowa and explain to me the plight that our rural communities have, these dying towns? I'd be like, Yeah, let's talk about it. And I could go through all the things that hap are happening in our rural communities, why some of these towns are having so many obstacles and exactly how to fix them. And it doesn't mean we can't tweak these or nuance it, but You know, I the so w the reasons I go up there end up being it a opens up a whole can of worms, but you know, it started out like I wanna fix the world of hunting, I wanna leave it a better place. And it kind of morphed into I wanna fix the state of Iowa, I wanna leave it a better place. and now not fix it, but improve upon it. And it's like, you know, hopefully somebody has a a tint of I wanna leave the world a better place in some regard. Skip Sligh (33:56.93) some regard and where that ends for me I don't know. I mean I I like I hunting is you know it's a big portion of what I do and farming's a big portion of what I do, but I have a lot of other issues I love just as much d as well. So I mean culture, issues, society, you name it. Nicolas Lirio (34:13.515) Why why do they listen to you? I know I know there's a little Midwest humility, but like why would they would listen to you way more than they would me? Is it just relationships you've had or some status you have in their mind? What what's going on there? Skip Sligh (34:25.518) Well, y if you build the relationships, you build trust. And they're used when you go to the Capitol or you go to any political event, you meet with politicians, what are they used to dealing with? They're pe they're used to dealing with people that are just there for their selfish interests. Usually boiled down to money. So I'm meeting with so and so today, Johnny. He's the lobbyist for, you know, this farm group or whatever. He wants something from me. For his interest. Well, what's his interest? His interest in this. And what does that interest get him? It gets him more money. Mm-hmm. Really? That ninety percent of the people that are there, it comes back to money. They're there because it betters their them financially, their business, their sector in some way. When I go there, it's not there's no benefit to me. Yeah. And they see that. They understand that. And when I advocate something, listen, I live in this world, you know, in the farm world, in the hunting world, you know, and I live in I live in the suburbs, so I get to live that life. I understand the dynamics of the suburbs. And I also live in the middle of nowhere in these rural communities every day of the week. I mean, I'm in one of the two places. So I understand all these different things. And I want to see things in in both cases improve. And there's nothing for me to gain. I'm not there for my own selfish interest. I'm not there to economically benefit from it. I don't have a business that is looking to benefit from it. I just want to leave this better off. And when you go there and you don't have all these biases, you know, I think it's human nature where people can see through that. Yeah. You know, and I think even politicians respect somebody that's there for the for pure reasons. And that's one thing that impressed me with Iowa's politicians on both sides of the aisle. Before I went there, I would have said something like Politicians are all scumbags. They're all sellouts. Some of them are. Some of them are. I got there and went, There's a lot of good ones too. There's a lot of good ones that care. Nicolas Lirio (36:30.134) How you tell the difference? Skip Sligh (36:32.162) relationships. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing how they vote, seeing why they bring in legislation. there was somebody who introduced some awful legislative legislation the last session that was completely selling out the residents of Iowa and that person just lost their Republican primary election two days ago, which is fantastic. Wow. So People see through that. So their voters saw through that. Kent Boucher (37:02.742) Why were they doing that? They were just getting greased by somebody or Skip Sligh (37:05.506) Yeah, yeah. Nicolas Lirio (37:08.238) Every time Skip ha like has a one word answer like yeah, that means there's a story here that I probably shouldn't share publicly. And I think that's hilarious. I wanna Kent Boucher (37:19.656) That's one of the nice things about me and Skip's friend is after we hit a pause on the on the recording we get to hear the story. what what would happen to if I mean when you you've we've talked about this ever since we first interviewed you, but I think it's it's it's worthwhile to visualize it a little bit. If Iowa lost deer hunting, what what would that mean? For Iowa. I mean, yes, financially, but also culturally. I mean Skip Sligh (37:54.67) Great question. Nicolas Lirio (37:55.928) Are you saying lose, lose or lose it like Wisconsin? Kent Boucher (37:58.804) Right now in Iowa's history, we're we just had our the first step in our governor's race, right? We had our primaries. And since I've lived in Iowa, this to me has been the most How do you say it? I don't want to say emotional, but maybe like most front of mind time for the average Iowan, I feel I sense leading into a big state election. and I think a lot of it has to do with ten years ago, Iowa was was still viewed as, hey, there's a lot of positive things going on. Over in Iowa, other states take a look, see what's going on over there. And that's not really the case anymore. We're we're hit we're making the headlines, but for all the wrong reasons. Skip Sligh (38:57.498) Even even our deer hunting, our harvest is in half versus 15 years ago. It's in half. So our deer hunting is way down, and people go, I want to hunt Iowa. And I'm like, if I'm honest with people, like, is there still some giant deer here? Yeah. Are we far worse off than we were 10 and 15 years ago? Absolutely. We're really hurting. And there's a whole lot of variables there. Kent Boucher (39:21.356) Yeah, so th so that and that's the one that's the one thing that I would say we consistently have held on to that people look to us as there's an example there's a shining example. So if we lost that. Skip Sligh (39:33.464) Think about this. Think about this. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, all these states are like, we can never be like Iowa. We didn't used to have deer hunting in Iowa. Yeah. This is new to our state. Yeah. We had no deer for decades and decades and decades. There was no deer season. And Michigan people in a lot of these places they'll fight over like tradition. Well, we can't change anything because of tradition, which just means I don't have an argument, so I'm just gonna throw something out. like we traditionally don't even didn't even have deer here. Yeah. And you know, so this could go a few different it and I'll I'll answer it very directly. So, you know, we lost, so we we didn't have deer hunting. We finally got deer hunting, and all of a sudden, in a blink of an eye, Iowa was known for deer hunting. We got good really fast. Now, what goes up? can come down very quickly and we have came down very quickly, like degraded fast. And I would say if people want to understand what it looks like when something breaks and a very prominent, well respected system gets degraded, think of Iowa pheasant hunting. When I was a kid, people used to travel to Iowa to go pheasant hunting and the stories I would hear were just amazing. You know, I lived in Michigan and We could actually pheasant hunt in Michigan. And all my buddies from around town would be like, Yeah, I go to Iowa or South Dakota or whatever and pheasant hunting. Pheasant hunt. Like I'm around this state all the time. It's come back a little bit in the last few years, which is great. Fantastic. We've made some we've done some things to help, but but the whole pheasant hunting dynamic of the state of Iowa died. I mean Kent Boucher (41:22.648) Yeah, I wouldn't say ruin I would say we have a lot of people that enjoy pheasant hunting here and there, but we don't have a strong pheasant hunting culture in Iowa anymore. Skip Sligh (41:33.07) Th thirty years ago, people would say Iowa is a pheasant hunting destination, right? Yeah. Very few people would say that. They'd say, No, I go to South Dakota. Right. And South Dakota does a very a far better job managing for pheasants. They they it's part of their economy, which it could be part of our economy too. And and if somebody said, Where could non-residents best fit in the state of Iowa with all the different well, we don't have that many Options. It's not like we have a ton of big game animals. Pheasant hunting is actually a very good one. Yeah. Because pheasants rebound very quickly if you shoot the males, if you shoot the roosters, it's not problematic, unless you literally shot all of them. But you basically can have a replenished population every year if you have the habitat. Yeah. It's sustainable. And South Dakota brings in hundreds of millions of dollars from their from their pheasant hunting economy. So we really don't have a pheasant hunting economy anymore. I mean we have a little bit for the enjoyment of the people that live here, which is the most important over economics. Nicolas Lirio (42:34.796) Where where did you hunt in the nineties for pheasants? The CRP? Well, but in Iowa you were saying like Iowa was a good Kent Boucher (42:43.246) Well I think there was just more what Nicolas Lirio (42:45.784) Pash. Skip Sligh (42:46.062) We had C RP. Yeah. We had far more C R Play. Kent Boucher (42:49.454) And just and just I think more remnant ground. You know what I mean? Maybe it was degraded cow pasture or old hog pasture. Skip Sligh (42:57.364) It's everybody wants to put a single reason to it. And I I won't get too caught up on this, but I'll go through it real quick. If you look at farming practices in the last thirty years, thirty years ago you had weedy corn. You didn't have Roundup Ready corn. Very weedy, okay? You controlled your your weeds with atrazine, maybe me to laclor, a few other things. You have very weedy corn. in the eighties and nineties, farmers were struggling. They didn't They didn't need to tile every last drop because they didn't have money to tile every last drop. They didn't have money to run a bulldozer, to take out every last tree. Yeah. so they didn't. You know, they left areas that were pretty rough, like, you know, I'm not making money on my normal farm ground, so I certainly am not gonna go doze out that patch of brush over there and not make money on that too and pay to do it. Yeah. So go over there to do that. So Nicolas Lirio (43:48.79) Not make money. Skip Sligh (43:51.01) There's all these different things that have changed in 30 years. All of a sudden we have this uber clean farming. Farming got more profitable, and right now farmers are kind of struggling, but super clean farming, fence rows are gone, every bit you can doze out is dozed out. A lot of people don't want to sign up for CRP, especially in your more fertile regions. The price of ground has gotten obscenely high in the last 10 to 20 years. All things that did not happen in the eighties and nineties. You know, it was a lot of struggling farmers, a lot of fallow ground. and you know, I could I could add 10 more things to this, but like fur prices were high back then, you know, and it goes in cycles, but we haven't had good fur prices in ten, fifteen years, probably. You know, South Dakota finds little ways around that. and we're kind of catching up in a way, but South Dakota will put out a a raccoon bounty and people debate whether that works or not. Well, if you do it around nesting season by definition, it does work. And it's probably a good governmental investment. Now we handle it slightly different by saying, let's just legalize trapping all year round and more people are doing it because they care, just so we have balance. Like the predator to nest laying ratios were not balanced. They were they're not. And people are finally going, if I want to have pheasants, if I want to have turkeys, if I want to have quail I need to get them in balance and they're doing it out of responsibility. Nicolas Lirio (45:20.77) That is that that is really interesting. The the the hunting economy is just very weird and different to me. But it I wanted to bring this up earlier. The trophy hunting for Bucks. I think most hunters, it is very rare to meet a hunter that doesn't go through a trophy hunting phase or is in the trophy hunting phase. It's a s it's a symbol of status. It's and and We as humans can't get away from status if we wanted to. It's ingrained in our DNA. but I do think that or I it's not a thought, it's a question. Can we have an industry where our lot of our friends work, really great people work, that makes money and incentivizes really large bucks and still fight off the people who want to come to Iowa. And get those really large bucks. My point is, if the reward is a large buck, how are you gonna keep you can't build a fence high enough to keep all of the regulators and or all of the the people that have the wealth to come to Iowa and get those big bucks. You you couldn't do it if you w Skip Sligh (46:32.564) Our regulations are keeping them out. So they're keeping they're keeping them from buying up every last drop of the land, the little bit of land we have left in the state. And it is because we have older deer here. And you know, to the people who aren't here all the time, we have a lot less older deer than what we used to. So we're hurting greatly. you know, to have older deer is biologically proven to be beneficial. It's it retains hunters better. I can get into data on why having a quality, balanced deer herd will captivate kids more, why it'll retain more hunters. When you have a lopsided, horribly managed deer herd, kids are not going to stay engaged. and you know, just one real quick thing. When people use the word trophy hunter, a lot of times they want to use it as kind of like a An attack word. You're a trophy hunter. Any anybody that shoots a buck and they pass a doe to shoot a buck, I don't care if it's a six-point. You're a trophy hunter at that point. Now, a trophy hunter, if a trophy hunter means I want a balance aid structure, healthy sex ratios, a reasonable amount of deer, you know. I don't know a pe person who's a trophy hunter that wants older deer that isn't responsible about shooting does as well. Like I want it in balance, I want the sex ratios. appropriate. I don't I don't want everybody mad that there's five hundred deer back here and we do a very good job on dough management. So somebody say Iowa's a trophy state. We do an exceptionally good job managing our dough populations, which all these states that are not trophy states are not doing a great job. Missouri, Michigan, southern Wisconsin, southern Minnesota. I mean they're they're out of their balances and ratios and age classes all out of whack and they're not quote unquote trophy states. even down in Kansas, where I go to Kansas, the the ratios are are great. they'd be considered a trophy state. It just means they have a balanced age structure. So it's all beneficial when you have things in balance. And that's really what we are. People want to use the word Iowa's a trophy state. We're just a balanced state. We're a common sense state. That's it. And to wrap up real quick your fine point on what would happen if we lose Iowa hunting, you know, we've already lost Skip Sligh (48:52.14) Basically pheasant hunting. And I think it's imperative that more of these kids and families are out like small game hunting, pheasant, rabbit, maybe quail, squirrel. I mean, it's a it's it's how I got started hunting, really. It's you know, l on my own. But yeah, I I think the small game hunting is critical. And if we lose deer hunting, here's the one point I want to make. You know, it really if you trace all of it out with property values and Kent Boucher (49:09.666) Yeah. Skip Sligh (49:21.934) The whole economics, probably realistically, about a billion dollar economy. To the state of Iowa, that's huge. Now, Iowa has a very big problem with the youth leaving this state. And we have a staggered old population. Hunting is one of the few activities. You can't go snow ski. You don't go to the beach. You don't go surfing. We you don't go deep sea fishing. Kent Boucher (49:44.194) Lakes are are closed for the the E. coli. Skip Sligh (49:48.28) Yeah, so compared to any other state, like I grew up on the Great Lakes, there's millions of different things I could do. We don't have that in Iowa. I mean, I love this state. I love it. There it's fantastic things to do. And hunting is a big component of that. But let's just be honest, for these kids, there's a whole lot of activities we don't have in Iowa that other states do. So you know, to keep a good, well balanced, quality hunting scheme. Hunting, fishing, small game, big game, just a balance and and a good environment where people can go out and have a quality experience outdoors is critical to these kids in this state. And it will keep more kids here if we have a quality resource, whatever the game is, whatever fisheries are. I mean, a good environment with a lot of outdoor outdoor activities is the best thing a state can possibly have. And we need to protect that. And we also need to build upon that. That's how that's one component on how we're gonna keep these kids staying in Iowa. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (50:50.306) Yeah. I asked one of the gubernatorial candidates that at a live event that I was at of theirs, I said, Hey, young people are leaving and there's two reasons young families, young adults, young people move to a place, it's economic reason or natural resources. Yep. we're losing both of so what do we do? You know, and they they didn't have a good answer. Skip Sligh (51:16.206) They didn't have a good answer. These are governor candidates. Okay. There's answers for this. Now but but I'm not campaigning and I have answers for that. So that's a little concerning to hear that. I mean we need to fix these rural towns. We need to I mean the the the rural towns can be fixed and and most of our state is rural. So, you know how okay. Very succinctly, there'd be several things. I go to these rural towns. One Nicolas Lirio (51:21.774) Now it was a little early in the campaign, right? Skip Sligh (51:45.794) We need to have a lot more law enforcement presence, which is not that much in these towns to and I talked to a lot of people pretty high up in law enforcement. Like, do you realize how easy it would be for me to have one undercover agent go to these small towns and go buy drugs and bust and and run up run up the the pipeline, you know, basically to cartel level and clean these towns up? It'd be quite easy. I mean, we should be doing that. Like twenty to forty more. Nicolas Lirio (52:09.944) Why don't we do that? Skip Sligh (52:14.592) undercover officers that go into these small towns and run undercover operations to clean up the drugs. So so what business wants to come to a town that's full of drugs? Well, none. Drugs and crime. That's actually fairly simple to clean up. I'm not saying I'm not saying it's like easy, but but there's a a process to do it. Okay. And then all these you know we need to shift some of these tax incentives, some of these things that like we'll say, hey Data center, we're gonna give you a tax break to do that. And I'm not necessarily opposed to that. I mean we need to probably weigh it out a lot more stringently than what we are but Kent Boucher (52:52.03) Careful what you say. That's a very charged thing we found on our on our reels. Skip Sligh (52:56.782) But and I won't get too far into the weeds with this, but there's different tax incentives. cities, municipalities, counties can give. And there's some there's some towns down here that do very a very good job with giving small businesses tax breaks and tax abatements, stuff like that. And they want to attract small businesses. Small so there's two towns out there, and I won't name them so I don't get some folks in trouble because I know the people who are involved in the government both, but one of them is very business friendly, two little c towns. And they give tax incentives, they give a tax abatement to a small business that, you know, maybe a hundred employees, stuff like that, to manufacture some things. There's another town about twenty miles away that's led by people who won't give anything. They won't they won't be flexible with businesses that want to move in. They won't give any room to negotiate on taxes. So some of these buildings that like manufacturing buildings have stayed vacant and the businesses have left. So we need to bring bring those people back with incentives. You know, tax incentives with investment. and some of that can be government driven investments. Sorry, it's just part of how our system works and the cities are getting a lot of it. and we need to fix the crime in some of these neighborhoods and get the drugs out. I mean, every one of these towns, I'm in these rural these small towns every day of the week across this state, and they're infested with drugs. We can fix that. And when you improve the economic situation of the rural towns. The drugs are lessened because people actually have things to do. So these things are far more intertwined than anybody would understand. Nicolas Lirio (54:31.21) So I I wanna I wanna poke at that. So I live in Knoxville. Knoxville is actually I just saw a reel on Barn Talk where they were talking about this, maybe with Zach Lane, about how, you know, there's usually in a small Kent Boucher (54:43.138) Knoxville ranks in the top forty Knoxville's in United States. Skip Sligh (54:46.286) Six times next one. Nicolas Lirio (54:47.36) It's tough. Kent Boucher (54:50.437) I I always mess with Nick 'cause he loves Knoxville. I say he th Knoxville ranks within the top forty Knoxville's in the United States. Nicolas Lirio (54:57.271) Well so maybe you have an idea for me, Skip, but our town Skip Sligh (55:00.664) I know Knoxville. I love Knox. I'm in Knoxville all the time. So Nicolas Lirio (55:03.778) So my wife and I we have a coffee shop in Knoxville. We live downstairs and and we have like one block away that old family video in Knoxville. Yeah. So here's the deal with that family video. Some guy, some L L corporation owns it on the East Coast and they have greatly inflated the value of it because the bank that they have it registered on their balance sheet isn't gonna come out to Knoxville, Iowa and actually look at this building. And so they can borrow against it to do real real estate. in on the east coast or real is in like higher dollar real estate. But it sits empty in the middle of our town and I don't know what's Skip Sligh (55:38.68) Do it Family Video? Why don't you start it back up? Rent rent D V Ds and VHS things. Nicolas Lirio (55:44.846) Yeah. Thinking about what kind of business we could put there. But most of these small towns are reliant on some sort of company that came in and is self sufficient. So you could talk about 3M. I wouldn't put 3M in I think it's helpful for the economics, although it's got a lot of cons to it, but it's helpful for the economics because they do pour out, you know, a lot of fifty and sixty thousand dollar salaries into the town, but more like Weiler. Kent Boucher (55:46.439) Be kind rewind. Nicolas Lirio (56:11.01) You know, Weiler out of three So they employ a bunch of people. They put the Weiler Foundation is like the reason our hospital is as good as it is. There's like a bunch of stuff that Weiler is doing. And I've been racking my brain on what is you know, I love the plumbers, I love the small restaurants. I mean, we have a coffee shop. I but those are all like self sufficient small town things. I've really been trying to think what can our town provide, not for the globe, like you know Skip Sligh (56:37.236) Small businesses, ten to a hundred people a hundred employees. Nicolas Lirio (56:40.792) What what what could people from all across Iowa know Knoxville for? And racing is part of it, but racing's so seasonal, you know, it's it's tough. A lot of your our city sits empty waiting for race season. Yeah. So I I don't know. Skip Sligh (56:52.834) You know, so there's there's I I could talk about this for an hour on how to bring the small businesses to these rural towns, what types of small businesses should be here. And there's a lot of rural towns that are doing this that are very successful because of it. And it's what's keeping a lot of these small towns afloat, along with farming, education, the communities, and so on. But another big component that we can't miss is like if we improve the habitat of our state and we have more game like pheasant hunting. Which is actually a very good economic driver to bring into these communities. Deer hunting, I would say don't ma we can't take any more on. We've got all the pressure we need. But the d the deer hunting by residents has has really improved these rural communities. It's made a huge impact on the rural communities. Resident deer hunters that are here three hundred and sixty-five days a year, that live here three hundred and sixty-five days a year, pay the property tax, fill up their gas, what I mean, all year round. We don't need non residents for that. But if we had more deer, more small game hunting, like brought back to pheasants and we had like more CRP, we you could bolster these towns. It'd be a in a big chunk of the pie where people would would travel there or want to own land there. And when you bring in hunters, they spend money. So and pheasants would be a great place, you know, that'd be one prong of Kent Boucher (58:20.054) this is much further out, but Nick talks about often that until prairie becomes a becomes an everyday item for people in some way, but it's it's just not gonna be adopted in large scale again in Iowa. And I think there's some truth to that for sure. I think I I think he's right. And I think that that I mean, Nick's talking about it from a tangible product that's on your in your kitchen cabinet, right? if we could just discover a use that is is is an everyday item. Or even if like I think yeah, I think it the the most obvious way is through hunting. I mean at at one time this state was a bison and elk and black bear hunting paradise. And now that's we're never going back to that all the way. Nicolas Lirio (59:00.718) You know. Kent Boucher (59:18.264) But there I mean if we could expand in a magnitude or two the amount of habitat, not just prairie, but but also make our forest healthier and and have wetlands where there should be wetlands and things like that. I think that we would only see those not to the size of our whitetail culture. Definitely not that. But it's kind of like when I like to go out to Nebraska to hunt mule deer. It's because that they have mule deer. You know what I mean? That just having that that local option creates another industry in of itself. And so there's these tiny little towns in western Nebraska that have nobody show up for anything except for the fact that they have mule deer out there. And and I think there's there's a way that hunting can help in that way too. Skip Sligh (01:00:16.3) Hundred percent. So you could literally solve five issues by saying we are going to take our most vulnerable ground around the state of Iowa and take one percent of our overall landscape that is erodible, vulnerable, and plant it to native grasses, prairie prairies, trees, stuff like that, one percent would change the dynamics of our whole state significantly. Kent Boucher (01:00:45.826) I think especially in waterfowl. I mean, there's no reason we aren't a waterfowl paradise. We're in between the Mississippi River and the Missouri River. Skip Sligh (01:00:52.93) There's a reason we are in a waterfall paradise because we've drained entire every last wetland and marsh and swamp in the state of Iowa. There I mean we've wiped our wetlands out. So, you know, and I'm all f I'm all for balance. What I'm saying is, you know, you look at there's two point eight million acres of timber. if we added one percent more timber or CRP or some combination of that, would be a huge benefit. And what I'm saying is Do it on the most vulnerable soils. And a lot of these rural communities like down here, they're in the worst soil regions of the state with erodable ground, not productive regions. Yeah. Everybody's gonna laugh. I mean Kent Boucher (01:01:33.742) Highway two corridor cut. Skip Sligh (01:01:53.046) the you're not gonna change that. But the most vulnerable parts of the state, which are economically suppressed, like the most rural counties actually have the least fertile soils and and the the most vulnerable soils. So if we put some some money and some some policy in place where we did get the programs right to to add more habitat, take our most vulnerable soils out, you know, and then there's there's the minor little impacts there too, like you know, i i it's a global market now, but like our oversupply of corn and beans, which has driven prices down, if we can take some of our vulnerable ground out of production, if we did that across the whole country, probably raise grain price, that'd be a a countrywide pursuit. But if if we took our most vulnerable ground, like like even out west where they have pivots and they're they're draining the aquifers and we said, Hey, we're gonna convert that into prairies again, or grew things that were more drought tolerant like sorghum and Milo and stuff like that, we could actually increase the prices of our grain markets here. Kent Boucher (01:03:01.122) Yeah, sometimes nature does that for us. It's called a Dura Show. You know, where four I think what was it in twenty nineteen or twenty twenty, what I can't remember the year it was. There was that terrible duration in August and I think it wiped out forty percent of the state's corn. Corn prices Skip Sligh (01:03:18.072) Boomed that following fall. Yeah, I mean the biggest drought years is when I and I mean I'm far I farm and it's like when we have a a horrible drought across the whole Midwest, prices are up and everybody gets all excited that prices are up and then they harvest their fields in some of the rough regions. Like the prices are up, but I didn't really grow much. Kent Boucher (01:03:40.152) Right. Nicolas Lirio (01:03:40.6) Yeah, the I I I I feel like people don't understand that like the trade markets and futures are dialed in to a science. They've allotted how much they've already allotted, not technically, this isn't on a piece of paper, but it's it's it's in how we do futures math, the salaries of the people who do the work. And fun fact, farmers are the ones doing the work. So you think, basically you're hoping to get lucky and be on the margins. Of you're hoping that everybody else got wiped out by a Doratio. So the price is really high. You're the one person that didn't get hit. And those are not good odds. So so as a as a farmer, your what your average salary across farmers is is supposed to be per acre or whatever or per bushel of corn. That margin's kind of decided already, you know, by by the future sales and and and people trading on the Chicago trade board. Kent Boucher (01:04:36.396) I want to do kind of a hard pivot here, but it's related to what we're talking about and it's something you've been dealing with. And I sense from what you've posted and and conversations I've had with you and conversations I've had with some of the other guys in this neighborhood that are mutual friends of ours, poaching is is it's always been around, of course, but it seems to be a huge huge issue. It seems to be growing. Skip Sligh (01:05:03.668) It's growing. People don't realize it. Kent Boucher (01:05:05.696) And you've had to interact with some poachers. And what are those? What what what is I don't understand the motivation. I c I could maybe see it for sh for sheds because you could you could theoretically those I sense those guys aren't doing it so much because I really want to find a big shed. It's because they want to quick turnaround and sell to because there's a pretty big antler market. But but like shooting a big buck Skip Sligh (01:05:08.038) yeah. Kent Boucher (01:05:34.466) You would have to keep that under such wraps that you can't really show it off. And maybe they're just dumb. Maybe that's just maybe that's just the common denominator in every case is low IQ of of poachers. But you can't you can't you can't really celebrate the trophy value. You didn't earn it in an honest way, usually. You have to shoot it in the dark with a thermal scope or you have to right and obviously you're trespassing. Skip Sligh (01:06:00.344) That's what they're doing. Yep. Kent Boucher (01:06:04.06) And and Nicolas Lirio (01:06:05.27) Did we even bring it to the taxidermist? Skip Sligh (01:06:07.49) Well, you can what what a lot I would say half the poaching here, half is done by people that travel here from out of state, October, November, maybe December. They get a motel room, you'll never know they're there. They go out at night. When you're back in your house, you left your farm, you're back home, they're out all night, they're like vampires. You don't see you don't know they're there. a lot of times these guys Kent Boucher (01:06:37.836) What's their motivation? I mean, what are they after? Skip Sligh (01:06:40.78) So if they're from out of state they bring it back home and said, Hey, I took a hunting trip to Iowa and nobody asks like, Well, don't you have to draw a tag there and then they can show it to their buddies back home. You know, some of sell we busted a group last year that was selling Nicolas Lirio (01:06:58.543) So what is their justification when you're like, What are you doing here? They're like, I want to be here. Skip Sligh (01:07:03.498) Everybody it's the same thing like if you've watched any any crime show where somebody gets in trouble for anything, I mean they always have some sob story, excuse story. Nobody's like, Yeah, I'm I'm a scumbag and I Nicolas Lirio (01:07:19.502) I'd almost have respect for them if they look dude, I'm just a scumbag. Skip Sligh (01:07:23.22) Everybody it's always there's some stupid reason and they weren't doing this and it's a misunderstanding and they you know they learn they just made a bad choice and they're sorry about it or you you go down the list and it's it's always the same thing, which is why people always need to prosecute them. But it's happening more and more. a lot of people don't realize how much it's going on, how much is it's happening, and it's like, you know, well how much is are the COs busting? Well You know, the COs are covering two counties per guy. Right. And they have families, they have lives. You know, the good ones are out at night and dealing with some stuff that isn't the most ideal of ours. Some of aren't doing that. we need more that are. Kent Boucher (01:08:05.854) It's a dangerous job. I mean you're you're confront you're confronting criminals who are on Skip Sligh (01:08:10.634) Armed. And they're very hard to catch. I mean, it is thermals with suppressors or crossbows. I mean, the the amount of deer we've lost, like crossbow bolts by the road, crossbow bolts in a deer by the road, rifle holes. Kent Boucher (01:08:28.022) Are they just cutting the heads off and getting out of them real quick? Skip Sligh (01:08:30.815) A lot of them now, so I mean, I have so much information on what goes on here, it makes me sick. But a lot of them now will go literally run out of the vehicle or circle back, run out of the vehicle and take the whole deer out. So they leave no evidence. So I was like, I don't I never saw a deer with their heads cut off. They're taking the whole thing out. Wow. Most of are doing that. And, you know, there's gonna be I strongly predict with some reason behind it. There's gonna be some more technology and some more law enforcement tools put in place. I mean, even my farm, it's prevalent. I would say I lose a handful every year. You know, half a dozen get poached every year right around here, at least on average. Some years are worse than others. It's never zero. Yeah. And any neighborhood I've been in in Iowa, there's poaching that goes on. It's everywhere. Kent Boucher (01:09:20.705) Where's the worst region of poaching that you know of in the States? Skip Sligh (01:09:23.598) Anywhere there's really good farms, the g the out of state guys target it. And then you've got the locals wherever they might be. but the out of state guys poached the good area. Nicolas Lirio (01:09:35.742) I didn't realize it was so organized. I thought it was just like twenty year old some guys that are angry they can't have land and big ol' skip, he's got a bunch of land, so I'm gonna go up there and he won't miss it anyway. That's what I thought it was. But you're saying it's like nah, just scumbags coming from another state. Yeah. Doing their scumbag thing. Skip Sligh (01:09:50.583) Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:09:52.174) State are what states are they usually come up with? Skip Sligh (01:09:54.562) We ha we chased a guy, I passed this information on. They were from Louisiana. they're from all over though. We busted groups from Wisconsin. we busted one local group. I mean Nicolas Lirio (01:10:11.511) 'Cause you're not gonna like run up on everyone's holding guns, right? You Kent Boucher (01:10:17.258) Well, Nicolas Lirio (01:10:18.164) So what do you do, you just tear in with your truck and hey, what are you doing? Or what w call the cops before you get there or Kent Boucher (01:10:24.098) Yeah. Skip Sligh (01:10:24.416) all people. I'm not gonna not confront. I'm just not. And could people do crazy stuff? Sure. but I'm not gonna just walk away. I'm gonna deal with it. And now, you know, we've got cameras that take photos of license plates and every vehicle that's on the road, so if something goes down, we at least know who is there. the the neighbors are getting better on patrolling at night. we're screening in every bit of road and this is this is going on all over the place. Nicolas Lirio (01:10:57.996) That's so stupid. How many resources are having to go to make sure a negative thing doesn't happen? Not adding to positive things. Skip Sligh (01:11:05.354) And anybody with anybody that I know that actually has the rare like mega giant deer, I mean nine out of ten of them that I can think of, like s probably why it happens, but they usually live like in the center of their farm, not by the road in the middle of, you know, just a secluded spot. Maybe because a lot of them have got, you know, poached or whatever. They just figure out to go deeper. So I would say most of the poachers aren't shooting absolutely Behemoths, I mean, and there isn't that many behemoths to shoot. Even in the best areas, there's not as many as what they think. They end up shooting one, you know, like four year olds and three year olds and maybe a five year old. And they're they probably I don't know, they probably are disappointed. Like I thought we'd shoot I thought we'd poach bigger bucks than this. Yeah. And it's just sad. And it's like, dude, just go to a high fence, pay somebody. You know, a cob on a high fence is probably like Two hundred inch deers like probably Cole Buck can send some of these high fences. Yeah. Pay somebody five grand and tell your buddies you got it. You know that Kent Boucher (01:12:13.868) Yeah, that's a great point because again, I don't when you if you strip away the sportsmanship, the fair chase side of deer hunting, I mean, how many deer if if you just decide to go out today before we got here with any weapon you wanted, I mean, do you do you think you could have shot more than one deer before we got here this this this afternoon? Skip Sligh (01:12:40.6) For sure. Like we went out. No, it's ridiculous. I went out with some guys coyote hunting with really good thermals and night vision, do doing it legally. Yeah. And at the end of the night, we all sat there and said, How many how many bucks could we have shot tonight? Fifty? Yeah. I mean, we went all over the place. Yeah. We could have shot fifty. And it would have done Kent Boucher (01:12:42.338) But that does nothing for you. No fair chase to it. Kent Boucher (01:13:06.456) And it would've done nothing for you. Skip Sligh (01:13:09.402) These things are defenseless. Like they don't they don't even they're not alert to humans. It's it's scary. It's scary how lethal that is. Yeah. But it's like, why? And even even back in the day, you know, like I remember being with my brothers go in Van Buren County driving to a farm and this giant buck goes in front of our vehicle that was I still remember him vividly 'cause we watched him for five minutes. Yeah. He stood in front of us, he had a dough in the ditch. That deer was, I don't know, it it It wasn't less than two thirty, two forty, two fifty, just a mega in insane mammoth like twenty years ago. And I mean, I could have just grabbed my bow, but like he's in the headlights and shot him. It's like why? Yeah. Why? So and and I I understand even the temptation to go, man, I could get a giant right now, but yeah, don't I would implore anybody, you will regret that for the rest of your life. You'll look at that and be like, Kent Boucher (01:14:08.257) Nothing too. Skip Sligh (01:14:08.846) It do it does nothing. And it and you're not a hunter at this point. You're just a thief. You're just a scumbag. That is not hunters. Poaching is very different than hunting. I have no respect for those people. They need to be prosecuted, shamed, discouraged. Yeah. And we need more technology to deal with them and that is coming out. You you Kent Boucher (01:14:27.82) been vocal, especially this last shed season because the shed poaching specifically has gotten so rampant. Yeah. That you want to put well, our mutual friend Steve Nansen got hammered by a poacher this this spring. I think it was right before he was gonna take his niece and nephew out if I remember correctly. Skip Sligh (01:14:49.942) Yeah, so kids were gonna go. Yeah. It's it's like saying, Hey, the neighbor kids, their parents just put out a bunch of Easter eggs. Yeah. Kids are gonna easy let's sneak in there and take all the Easter eggs. What in the heck? Kent Boucher (01:15:00.236) Yeah, it's right, right. It's it's it's it's insane. But you have been talking with legislators about increasing the penalty to be more of a of a d deterrent. Skip Sligh (01:15:16.84) Yes, because it is not much different than going into your vehicle and taking stuff out of your vehicle, ripping stuff out of your your home, ripping off your jewelry. Nicolas Lirio (01:15:27.212) What is the punish 'cause isn't there a trespassing Skip Sligh (01:15:29.836) The trespassing fine is significant. It's more than it was. We probably need to get it raised. And what we definitely need is two things. We need Way higher fines and penalties for repeat offenders. Like your second time, like the first time needs to be very impactful. The second time, like ridiculously harsh penalties and fines because you're not learning your lesson. Yeah. And it is a real problem. We need a huge deterrence there. And the other thing we need, if you are traveling to my state for the sole purpose of stealing, poaching, robbing our state, you are never coming back. You are ne and Well, they're gonna poachers don't buy a hunting license. A lot of them actually do. And just let it be known, you come to my state to poach, steal, or anything, you are not buying a hunting license in this state ever again. Yeah. That's what needs to happen. A resident, maybe strike two, you know, you get caught egregiously poaching multiple times. It needs to be very harsh. And it's very different than like, hey, I got a ticket because I didn't wear my blaze orange, you know. I I bought the wrong license, you know, stuff that's like you know, there's there's these categories of things that people get ticketed for. It's like, yeah, okay, pay your fine, learn your lesson, not a great choice. But then there's the egregious ones. Like I shot a buck out of truck window. I'm shooting them at night, I'm sneaking into farms and robbing them blind. We need far more egregious penalties for that as a major deterrent and enforcement. So these people take it seriously because This is fundamentally a billion dollar economy that they're stealing. It's a fragile, very limited resource that the residents that own this resource should be able to avo enjoy. And, you know, and they're raping raping and pillaging it and the consequences need to be vastly more stringent. And, you know, what the politicians are understanding is like, you know, they're selling these things for thousands of dollars in some cases, tens of thousands. You know, the Skip Sligh (01:17:38.872) That one buck just sold for a million bucks for those sheds, the whatever it was. I mean it's when the politicians understand the general, right? Deer and antlers have value, that's a good thing. Yeah. That's a good thing. That's how that's how wildlife is protected. Kent Boucher (01:17:54.946) Are you aware of a of a state that has a a penalty for poaching that you are most in favor of? Skip Sligh (01:18:05.95) Iowa actually is pretty good. We need some a little bit different language. When you get over a certain size of deer, it's like a seventeen thousand dollar fine or sixteen or something. But a lot of times the judges will or the DAs will plea it down. And we need to have more teeth in the law that make it like mandatory fines, mandatory minimums, and where this stuff can't get plead down like you know, I know The law says if it's this, but we'll just say it was a you know, basically the equivalent of poaching a doe. We just need it where you have to give sentences accordingly. Kent Boucher (01:18:45.294) A few years ago there was a push to lower the fine for for poaching in Iowa, for poaching a deer in Iowa. Skip Sligh (01:18:50.86) Ridiculous. Probably backed by Farm Bureau because they want to devalue wildlife and devalue deer. Probably yes. Now, there was one politician that did it because his buddies got in trouble poaching and got a bunch of fines and they were farmers and they whined about it that they got a bunch of fines for shooting those those rats. And that's how he viewed it though. He wanted to put you know, they looked at wildlife as a net negative. Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:19:00.558) So that was the motivation. Skip Sligh (01:19:21.24) They're not a net negative. It's a huge asset to our state. It's a huge asset economically. Yeah. So Kent Boucher (01:19:27.498) And it's not something they own the rights to. Skip Sligh (01:19:29.942) Right. It this the state owns it. The state owns it in a trust. And there's and the smartest thing our DNR ever did was finally do an economic study to put a value on what Iowa's deer hunting economy is. And just the basics like hunting licenses, general hunting supplies, this, that was a hundred and eighty million. The second you started factoring in, property values. this guy bought a tractor. we bought a U T V. we get Kent Boucher (01:19:32.024) Trust. Skip Sligh (01:20:00.042) you know, more revenue from taxes because the property values have gone up. You know, you look at what some of these property values, which is good and bad, but you look at without deer, what these property values would would do would it'd plummet it. So really our deer hunting economy is probably closer to about a billion dollars a year. So don't destroy a billion dollar economy. Yeah. And that's where I fight Farm Bureau, where they want to kill every last year. They want everyone dead. The old timers at Farm Bureau. Like you guys you're the deer do five point two million dollars worth of corn damage a year statewide. With soybeans, it's probably just under ten million statewide. I would argue some of that's coons, a lot of it's coons actually, and some of it's turkeys, but fine, give it all the deer. We're me as a farmer, I'm part of that group, we have a twelve billion dollar corn crop. Yeah. We don't need to kill all the deer, destroy a billion dollar honey economy. To save five point two million dollars in crop damage on a twelve billion dollar crop and destroy all the th all the blessings that hunting gives to these families, kids, the meat it provides. Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:21:12.824) Well, something that I think doesn't get mentioned, and it's actually it applies to you, and other mutual friends of ours, there's there's several people that I can think of who have and this traces back to when we were talking about the resident side of this, the non resident versus resident. There's successful people who have switched their residency to Iowa, bought land here, live here, and not only so so in other words. You're attracting good people into your state. And a I think all of those people employ other people as a part of their their project for better deer hunting. Skip Sligh (01:21:56.544) Here here's the dirty little secret that is great. We so for every non resident that wants to change our laws so they can live in another state and hunt here, we have two or three that actually move here to say, No, I'm actually just gonna move here. And when they move here You're one of Yeah, I'm one of twenty five years ago. Yeah. I'm one twenty five years ago. And when they move here now they pay state income taxes. Yep. They pay sales tax three hundred and sixty five days a year. They pay the same properties taxes. They're filling up their truck three hundred and sixty five days a year. They're employing people. These are people generally Nicolas Lirio (01:22:33.902) Coffee shop. Like actually there's a bunch of them. Kent Boucher (01:22:36.865) Yeah, why? Skip Sligh (01:22:37.608) And a lot of them are like small business owners. Kent Boucher (01:22:41.378) two of our good friends at Hoxie do a ton of work for you. That's how we met Skip Sligh (01:22:47.0) So, you know, states, whether you like it or not, states want to import good people, people who contribute, people who are economically viable, people who with ambition, down the list versus like, nah, let's import a bunch of welfare recipients that don't want to work. I mean, I'm not I'm not knocking that group, but that's not what most states want. They don't they want people who are productive members of society that are gonna better things. And when people move here. And you know, like the amount of businesses I I deal with that I g I spend my money at, the amount of people employed and I mean it's Nicolas Lirio (01:23:26.294) grateful for it. Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:23:27.95) Yeah. Skip Sligh (01:23:28.514) Yeah. So so it's great when those people move here and they're productive members and they're actually net contributors to the system. They're not leeching on rural Iowa. That's also how you fix these rural towns. Kent Boucher (01:23:39.054) In rural Iowa. Nicolas Lirio (01:23:44.568) Yeah, you go to Northern California and you have a hundred people that move in with a hundred and fifty thousand dollar salaries, psh, where no no needle is moved. You get five people with sixty thousand dollar salaries and move into a small town, even like Knoxville with eight thousand people, it's like, that made a difference. Skip Sligh (01:24:01.326) Huge. The hunters have actually the the resident hunters have enhanced these rural communities at significant levels. I go the mechanic shops I go to, the tractor shops, the the co-ops, the seed stores, you guys, the the biggest customers, almost all these small businesses that I deal with, even the builders, they're like the hunters. Yeah. They're the resident hunters are bolstering our business. There's they spend money like it's they're they're the best. Best customers by far. Kent Boucher (01:24:32.312) And that's why poaching prosecuting poaching matters. Skip Sligh (01:24:36.118) Yeah. And and keeping a quality resource, keeping the fragile resource we have good and actually making it better, which we need to do, and we need to improve upon, you know, our deer herd and everything else. I mean Nicolas Lirio (01:24:50.2) Well, it's interesting because one deer, let's say let's say one deer they figure out economically it's worth one a hundred and sixty inch buck. Let's say they find out it's worth twenty thousand dollars. Probably it's not worth like so you could find them twenty thousand dollars. But here's the deal that deer, it's not like buying a U T V. It's like a hundred thousand people paying a dollar for a raffle at the U TV. So one deer's not worth whatever thing mu amount of money to the community you could put on it, it's worth all those raffle tickets. And those raffle tickets are cups of coffee at the l local coffee store, people filling up their gas at Casey's, people pay it or taking their kid to a a private school or their kids are in sports and they're donating to whatever booster club. You know, that those are all the little raffle tickets that come from resident hunters that make the make the whitetail worth way more than, you know, the twenty thousand dollars. And and The but if all of them go to what go away or there's a tangible difference in bucks that people are really desiring, then all those raffle tickets go away. So yeah, let's say we got rid of all the bucks and maybe some odd million dollars worth of, you know, if you attributed a a value to you got rid of all the trophy bucks, all the ones that people are worth are willing to move for. But when you add up all the little raffle tickets that they spent. To be here in Iowa while they were here in Iowa or they moved here in Iowa and all the stuff they say the bucks are worth a billion dollars. Skip Sligh (01:26:27.384) Forty three thousand dollars for a chance at an Iowa buck. Yeah. Is what the last which is a great thing. I mean, it goes to charity, goes to conservation in Iowa. It's very limited, very small amounts. Great thing. Forty three thousand dollars for a chance to shoot an Iowa buck. Probably no, not probably. For sure, all of these tags bought by people who live in states with more whitetail, more habitat. Kent Boucher (01:26:33.993) Governor's tag went for you. Skip Sligh (01:26:55.874) The same species, white they have white-tailed deer. Why are they they can go to their home state, don't have to travel, probably buy a tag for twenty, fifty dollars, something like that. But they leave their own state with more deer, more habitat, to spend forty three thousand dollars to have a chance to hunt the same exact animal here. It just happens to be managed far superior. Kent Boucher (01:27:16.355) Yeah. It just can't it just can't be undersold. Okay, we w we we can't leave without talking a little land with you, Skip. So we we gotta be careful here. People hate the data center conversation, but w it'd be irresponsible to not talk about it. And I perceive that this is going to affect land value in isolated cases. Sure. Right. But what I mean, what I guess what do you see coming? What are the pitfalls that you fear? What are maybe some of the positives, if there's any that you can think of that could come from this? And I mean, do you perceive a long term risk of these just being a a big empty pile of concrete twenty years from now that is a an eyesore for everyone? Skip Sligh (01:28:14.764) Could be. I wouldn't say like my expertise like data center, like well, we think AI is a bit, you know, it's not gonna do what we think it is. A lot of these places are gonna, you know, now there's you know, fifty percent of the data center applications have been withdrawn 'cause they don't think it's gonna be what it what they had forecast it'd be. You know, what it happens with it, I don't know. I mean, you know, I see a sliver as I drive up north of here, you know. It's maybe fifty acres or something. So every s everything that I've seen, it's like fifty acres here, a hundred acres there. And then I go, okay, so how much are we talking? It sounds like to me, or what I see, since I travel across most of the state, is just little slivers here and there. So my brain just goes to the big picture, like, how about the ninety nine ninety nine point nine nine percent of the other land? You know? And so I'm not saying I'm dismissive of the data centers, don't care about I do. you know, looking at things like can they be can they generate their own electricity so they're not a burden on the g the grid? all these other things, you know. and I know some people who now they want just these crazy prices for their land and because a data center could come here. Kent Boucher (01:29:33.326) Do you think that's all gonna fall apart, those inflated land values? Skip Sligh (01:29:37.464) So because of data centers, if I wanted to know the answer to that question, I would be like, let's I'm gonna phone a friend, let's call Elon Musk a minute and just have a genuine phone call with Elon. Say, Elon, give me the scoop. Are these den data centers gonna keep going like this, or is this gonna blow up in our faces? And he's gonna have a far better answer to that than I would. Sure. I can talk I'm probably far. So that's a nice thing about just having basic understandings of things like that. Like I would reach out to other people who are more I I don't pay attention to y technology and this and that. Now my my expertise would probably be more geared towards the ninety nine point nine eight nine nine percent of the other land that isn't a data center. And how can we make that better? Like let's pass I will and both governor candidates better say, Yeah, I wanna pass I will. Stuff like that. Nicolas Lirio (01:30:33.192) It's on the list of things to ask them when they're they well and I I really like Taylor Riggins' argument is like we can't we can't agree on the the last three eighths of the penny of where it's gonna go, so let's just get rid of it. We'll just do five eighths of the penny and and call her good. You know, but you know, everyone in government wants their slice of the pie and so the what what's interesting with data centers specifically is one of the biggest build outs in the United States that's ever happened is the the AI build out. Anytime a country ever has spent over three percent of its GDP on on one specific build-out, it has to some degree crashed or reset the economy. Here's the biggest difference between AI and all the other times. The other times would include railroads, highways, The internet build out with the fiber optics, the the manufacturing for cars, these all had like a r a recession afterwards. Difference was those factories or cars, those highways, those railroads were worked for 30 to 50 years. The data centers that we're building, the shells will last for decades, but the actual compute that costs the most money. The servers that are sitting there, those those GPUs. Five to seven ish years. And so there was a recession on all the other ones. And then but after a while we said, Well, we're still using the highways. It's good. We kind of got over the recession and now we've got highways for for decades and decades. Not gonna be the case with AI. Now, the best argument I heard, and this is scary, just as scary as it is whatever these people were saying was a good thing, was that robots are gonna be really good at what they do. And I've heard people gone to the robot factories and are like, you're gonna forget that Musk even had Tesla. Like no one will remember him for that because these robots are so good. So the whole point is like, will specifically for the economy, I think there's a lot of there's a lot to be said about the human condition on all this stuff, but specifically for the economy, I I think it definitely falls on its face a little bit. I mean, even the internet did. And then it would probably pick back up after that. But Nicolas Lirio (01:32:57.292) the data centers themselves, people are arguing about energy and water use. Right. And and is it polluting the water and stuff like that? Skip Sligh (01:33:06.424) Yeah, th those would be the things I'm interested in, you know? And and I'm interested in whether it would hurt the economy as well. But I mean, you know, I grew up in Michigan where you trace back Michigan into the fifties and sixties and look at Detroit. It was a a booming, built up, expanding, robust working population of people turned into a rotting corpse where you can basically get houses for free at one point. Nicolas Lirio (01:33:35.98) You can buy blocks whole blocks at a time. They're listed. Skip Sligh (01:33:38.402) Yeah. Just complete ruination. So I don't have the answer to that one. Nicolas Lirio (01:33:43.148) Yeah. I I I'm curious to see how the data centers play out and and what people are gonna do about it because the I do think that the people can rise up and there can be a nimby. I I think we can definitely do that. Kent Boucher (01:34:02.038) Not in my backyard is for yeah. If you're listening you're not sure what he's Nicolas Lirio (01:34:05.524) And I mean, we saw it here in Iowa here recently with the shooting range in Warren County. I don't know. That was all that was like a whole ordeal. And and so we can do that, but we also have to remember we're trying to NIMBY the most powerful humans in the world, you know, is is who would be we're trying to go up against. So we really have to be able to fight from a state level. we have to be able to, we can't just Have small groups of people complaining about it on social media if you don't want the data center. Now let's say your county's flat broke and you've got nothing, nobody wants to live here, and a data center comes in and says, We'll give you $10 million a year, you know, then it's like, yeah, I don't you know, I don't know. But I also think it's a little it's a little silly to complain about data centers on social media, because well, all of social media lives on Skip Sligh (01:35:00.958) Anything complaining on social media. Nicolas Lirio (01:35:03.374) Yeah, that's true. That's true. Man, you it doesn't matter what you post, your comment section is filled. It is filled with stuff. Kent Boucher (01:35:04.91) Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:35:12.682) Okay, here's another one for you, Skip. That's very this is even more current. So we keep hearing about fuel prices, fertilizer prices in relation to everything going on in the Strait of Hormuz. Do you how how do you see that playing out with with farming? You know, this this coming fall, we'll say going into this harvest. And and maybe into next year's planting season. And and I mean from what I of course, how do you know like what how how do you know it's true anymore? But it does seem it's it does seem in the news that a like peace talks are intensifying. So let's assume we get let's let's assume a treaty a a peace treaty is signed by January one. What do you I mean do you think Iowa farming is impacted in any significant way by this harvest and by next year's planting season? Or or Skip Sligh (01:36:24.92) For next year it could be this year's already kind of in the bag as far as like your planning your fertilization was done long ago. So these prices were after the most spending occurred. I mean, you know, a global conflict like this, like and I read a a lot of comments and I watch a lot of different sides in the news on these things too. And it's like I see so much noise where one group has a political motive to make all these comments or whatever, or they say spin it this way. And there's so many things going on behind the scenes that we aren't privy to, we aren't aware of. I really do think it will get resolved. I I could be dead wrong on this, but I think it'll will get resolved. And I think gas prices will come down substantially. That's just my gut belief. And I do believe that. I could be dead wrong. Now You know, and I'm not gonna worry about things I can't control though, too. Because I can't control that. Right. So so I don't worry about it. now what I would like it to do is different than than worrying about it too. Clearly I'd like prices to come down. Clearly I'd like there to be peace with, you know, real solutions to that that big problem. where it could be interesting if if I just wanna put like a little who knows what the heck could happen. But like Hey, we get some things straightened out for now. Prices come down. Then we have the midterms. Midterms are done. Hey, let's go clean them up. Let's go clean their clock. That that's where if I had to guess, like if if things were gonna get kinetic and get hot again, that'd be my guess. After the midterms, they bomb the living daylights out of I'm not saying we should or shouldn't or this or that, but that'd just be my wild guess. And that's odd on a tangent. Kent Boucher (01:38:07.864) For mid. Kent Boucher (01:38:17.594) What what would get you concerned as far as the implications for farming? Like if it stretched out for an you know a few more years, the straight stays shut for during that those next few years. I mean, at what point do you think we start having farmers saying, holy cow, diesel is now such an input cost, maybe even shortage of diesel? Skip Sligh (01:38:43.564) I I just I don't think with how many different countries in this world with different influences and different seats at the table that they're gonna allow it to drag out that long. Like, hey, we're gonna let diesel be at the equivalent of eight bucks for two more years. There's too many power pieces, people with influence that are gonna say, No, no, this isn't gonna happen. That I just don't see. I could be dead wrong on that. Nicolas Lirio (01:39:11.756) You know what I found really interesting is I I have a friend who builds septic tanks and a huge part of his business is that delivery fee, right? Because they're they're giant, they weigh a ton. I mean, literally they weigh tons, and so he spends a lot of fuel getting them to and from places. And actually that's why there's no like centralized septic tank building company. There there's a lot of small septic tank builders. Because transports. Yeah, logistics is so Kent Boucher (01:39:36.27) Interesting. Nicolas Lirio (01:39:40.958) And I asked him, I said, Are you worried about, you know, these fuel prices? Blah blah blah. He's like, No, I mean I got a business, you just pass it on to customer. But what's interesting is there's an industry that can't pass it on to the customer. And that is farmers. They can't do that. Their prices set and their margins are so thin already. So traditional businesses have much, much better businesses have much better margins than the person in charge of the row crop farm. Skip Sligh (01:40:05.632) We've dealt with high prices for like ninety days now. If anybody out here can't buckle up for ninety or sixty days, you're probably living past your means. And I understand there's people that are like, dude, I'm just in a really tough spot and you know, whatever. I got a lot of a lot of things going on where I'm just treading water, barely. And I and I empathize for those people. But, you know, farmers, if you're running a business, you need to be able to tread Honestly, I think most farmers should be able to tread like two or three years. I mean, that's historically going back to any farming, you know, you might have two really good years. Yeah. And I mean, farmers around here, around the whole state will be like, the man doesn't let you make money for more than about two or three years. You know, the equipment manufacturers, the fertilizer, they catch up. And then you have three bad years and maybe you have a year you broke even. Maybe you have a few years where you lose money. That's just a cyclical game of farming that has gone on for decades and decades and decades and it's gone on, you know, the ups and downs of this stuff forever. You know, on Republican and Democrat administrations, all sorts of different situations. It it's fluctuated forever. So, you know, really a responsible farmer, I'm not saying it's reality, but a responsible farmer should have the means to float a year at least a year or two. if things get really bad. And if you know, if 90 days are making people freak out, the average guy, you know Probably should be doing things a little bit different. Yeah. but most farmers, you know, like I said, you there's gonna be a lot of times where people are gonna have two or three tough years in any dynamic in the future. And then we we also just came out of a s period where we had three really good years where guys were like, I was killing it. And it's human nature, like, okay, you kill it. Now are you saving for a rainy day? Which is coming. Which is coming. And some did and some didn't. My dad Nicolas Lirio (01:41:59.936) He he said that several times. He said, What I'm really worried about the young farmers today is they haven't seen the 80s. Like, you know, most of the farmers that are older, and most farmers are older, had to were either really young and watched people go through the 80s or they were there. And and he's like, they weren't even alive when the farming crisis was going on. So They're going out and they're like, Of course it'll be good. And they're just getting, you know, leases on this equipment and and and getting, you know, renting at three hundred and seventy five dollars an acre. And he's like, Well, it all comes tumbling down really fast and they don't have to the experience to even know, I had a really good year. I should put four hundred thousand dollars in the bank account 'cause I'm gonna lose two hundred in a couple of years, you know. Skip Sligh (01:42:45.646) Part of that, the big part of that pie is gonna be human nature. People are just gonna do that. Prices were good. I bought a brand new combine, I bought three brand new trucks, I bought a brand new tractor. It was the same way as the building market up in Des Moines in 2008. These guys were going crazy building these houses up by me and just leveraging themselves to the max. Employees, brand new trucks. They go bankrupt. Things start turning around like five, six, seven years later, and all of a sudden they're doing the same thing. Yeah. Like you just saw what this horrible time was and you're you're right back to yourselves and Nicolas Lirio (01:43:21.198) The amount of people I know that in 2020 or 2021 bought a house at 2.3%. Well, guess what, Skip? We're at that five-year balloon phase for the interest rates. So it goes from two and a half percent to seven, or let's say they have they locked in the two and a half or three point whatever percent, but and they're they're house poor. They they had a couple kids, now they can't afford where they're living, so they need to move. The problem is They now they're gonna get six and a half or seven percent rate. So they have to go from three bedrooms and two bathrooms to a shed in a in a pig field. You know what I mean? That's like their options. And and so we we've stuck ourselves, but like the the bankers don't they're not worried about it it's hard to describe, but bankers will just say yes to giving you a loan if they even think the asset will come close to paying it off. And I'm not saying all bankers are bad people. I I really like my banker. I ask him for advice all the time. But he's way more willing to say yes than an average American should be willing to get into debt. Right. They should be on the most extreme willing to say yes. And the consumer should be the most like, I don't want to get into that, you know, the most resistant to getting into debt. But we just love having our cake and eating it too. We love it. Skip Sligh (01:44:45.026) That's why we're thirty seven, thirty-eight, whatever it is, trillion in debt. Yeah. and I mean, I did something that I almost never do. I've done I think I've done it twice. And I bought a new vehicle. and I bought a I mean it's a Tacoma. It wasn't a ton of money. Yeah. but when I went in there, I'm like, how many people are getting loans on these? I like asking people different questions. He's like, eighty-five, ninety percent. I'm like, what are the payments? You start telling me what people make for payments. my gosh. Yeah. So they're paying interest on so at well, you pay six percent interest on this vehicle that's going down in value, probably by six percent at least. And you're putting fuel in it and insurance, it's going down in value. Like, man. Nicolas Lirio (01:45:33.986) Yeah, I I do not understand the car thing. And a lot of a lot of I know Skip Sligh (01:45:36.642) Great. Kent Boucher (01:45:38.978) just becoming another mortgage for people. You know what I mean? It's it is it is very normal to have a mortgage. So now people are having a mortgage on their house and on their vehicle. Nicolas Lirio (01:45:51.532) I think it will be weird to own a car in twenty years. I mean, out here in the middle of nowhere, people will still own but I think self driving cars are just gonna go around and you're gonna pay what, three hundred dollars a month or whatever to always be able to click that button, get in the car, and you'll get a certain amount of miles you're allowed to travel in these cars and they'll come and pick you up. And I I think the the the era of the car, of the self driving car, the freedom the American freedom of the car is is slipping away. Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:46:20.962) You know what, now you say that, I just got a notice from my insurance company who I've had a great relationship with. And it's not that insurance company. Nicolas Lirio (01:46:31.443) Skip Sligh (01:46:36.446) I don't I don't dislike them we just we just need to change who's in charge and who's on the board of that insurance company. Kent Boucher (01:46:44.194) But I got a I have a full ton truck that I isn't my daily driver. I just use it like I just bought some from Nicolas Lirio (01:46:52.718) He does donut he goes to the local high school and like does donuts around to show those high schoolers who's up. Kent Boucher (01:46:57.626) In a full ton truck, no, it wouldn't you couldn't spin the tires fast enough to do that. I used it to go pick up some farm equipment from an auction this last weekend. But I got a notice from my insurance company. It's a two thousand, so it's Nicolas Lirio (01:47:11.16) Did you get that pull type? No, no, no, you got that b- Kent Boucher (01:47:13.99) I got I got a combine cylinder and I got two seed cleaners. I paid two dollars and fifty cents for each of my seed cleaners. Nice. But the insurance company said we are no longer going to insure this vehicle. Never had a claim on it, never and and Skip Sligh (01:47:33.038) Well you got the you got your fourth DUI a couple of Kent Boucher (01:47:35.956) yeah. I was supposed to talk about that on the podcast. But I have n the I have no D D UIs on my record. but I yeah, just out of the blue and it just made me think like is this is this like a new f way of where old vehicles are gonna start getting phased out because they're deemed like a safety concern. Skip Sligh (01:47:40.686) Yeah. Skip Sligh (01:48:01.656) Why why wouldn't you get insured? Just have just have liability on it. Wait, did you have collision on it? yeah, I don't have collision on it. My my Tacoma I do, the rest of I don't have collision on it. Sure. Maybe it's super cheap. And I'm I probably have some of my farm vehicles that are worth like I mean one of was worth like five hundred bucks, one of 'em's maybe worth a year and like I probably have totaled them like ten times more. Kent Boucher (01:48:04.96) Yeah, maybe that's I think I do. Kent Boucher (01:48:29.943) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (01:48:30.69) That which is crazy 'cause of how mu how many white tail you have out here in your part of Iowa. Skip Sligh (01:48:34.772) I have all steel bumpers. I have these heavy steel welded bumpers. Yeah, this is No dear damage. Kent Boucher (01:48:40.248) This this truck's still this truck is still in great shape. It's got a brand new flatbed on it. Skip Sligh (01:48:44.664) Yeah, you don't have coverage on that. Nicolas Lirio (01:48:48.152) Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:48:51.214) But but yeah, I just wonder if that's gonna be part of the the you know, it's all part of the movement. Not that it's intentional, it's not what it like a conspiracy. It's like the cultural the cultural shift towards everything is is brand new or or you know, five years or or or less and and that's what insurance companies are preparing. Nicolas Lirio (01:49:01.452) You will own nothing and Nicolas Lirio (01:49:17.112) I remember in like 2019, I was home for the summer working and I was working in a field with Ben DeRos and our good friend Ben. And he said, Yeah, it's kind of interesting with farmer farming and all this housing and renting and stuff. We're kind of going back to a lords and serfs model. And I was like, you crazy weird dude. What what are you talking about? And by golly, we're getting to the point where no one owns cars, you just rent it from the person you work for. And and we know some farmers where It it's not the end of the world, but it's just on a macro level. They have a huge farm. They hire all these people, and a lot of those people rent a house on that person's farm. You know what I mean? And it's kind of like, well, I don't know. And I think and it's the same with think about phones. Like you basically Who knows what those contracts actually say? They keep telling me I'm gonna pay $39.99 a month. I keep paying $89.99 a month. You know, and every time I go in, so you swear. This is what I'm gonna pay out of my bank account. And then yeah. Well that's what I was saying. Like you you there was that old World Forum thing they they put out that said you will own nothing and be happier. Kent Boucher (01:50:16.692) You can get collision insurance on your phone. Skip Sligh (01:50:28.619) World Economic Forum Klaus. Nicolas Lirio (01:50:30.68) Yes. Yeah, people were so angry about that. Kent Boucher (01:50:33.496) What is that Davos? Is that what that came out of? Skip Sligh (01:50:33.986) Wonderful. Nicolas Lirio (01:50:36.418) think it was Davos, I think it was another Davos but but like even video games so skip a play a bunch of video games you don't own the video game you own the right to play it and you download it digitally. Isn't that interesting? You don't own it Kent Boucher (01:50:39.198) That's Skip Sligh (01:50:49.718) I have to worry about all these things. I just sit at my farm and Nicolas Lirio (01:50:52.398) Yeah, you own do you own your skid loader or not leasing it? Skip Sligh (01:50:55.507) I don't I don't have payments on things. It's crazy. Kent Boucher (01:50:58.403) Life goals. Yeah, I I thankfully I have no car payments or Skip Sligh (01:51:01.696) I've never had a car payment in my whole life. Really? That's no no Kent Boucher (01:51:05.89) We d we did it for three vehicles and by the third vehicle I was so sick of it. And I couldn't I I was down to the we just were doing we just had one vehicle that we had payments on and I I could not wait to be done making payments on that thing and then God bailed me out. somebody else did get a DUI and while I was sleeping safely in my bed with my car parked out on one of the busiest roads in West Davenport. Somebody just smacked the snot out of that while they were while they were drunk. and Yeah, it it was a great car, but it was like we were our family was getting too big for it and we needed something a little bigger and and but I wasn't gonna go and you know get another car payment. I was gonna pay the thing off. Well the insurance check covered it and I Nicolas Lirio (01:51:44.094) And it was like a round four. Kent Boucher (01:52:01.762) Thankfully, have not had to have a a car payment since. Nicolas Lirio (01:52:05.71) Man, my wife and I we saved three hundred dollars a month. I'll I'll let you know mine here real quick. My wife and I, we saved three hundred dollars a month for a new car for her because her car started pooping out years ago. The problem is we agreed we would step in and use that three hundred dollars a month we've been saving for years at this point to buy her a new car. W as soon as her RAV four poops out, it should it's gonna poop out any day. Kent Boucher (01:52:08.642) That's my virtue signal. Nicolas Lirio (01:52:31.394) Nah, brother. They go forever. No, they go forever. So she's gonna get like a Maserati one day because we've been saving so long. It's awesome. And it finally goes out. But yeah, we we're Kent and I have both have our nightmare debt stories that we've had to shoulder and and we're over it. And I'm glad we're over it so young because some people just they don't learn the lesson and it's tough. I got one more question before we take off. It's gett a little heated. so we just had the primaries. Skip Sligh (01:52:54.926) All right. Skip Sligh (01:53:00.706) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (01:53:01.122) Zach Lane and Rob Sand. Yeah. What is the one most important issue? Or maybe if you have a couple, that's fine. What is your Kent Boucher (01:53:08.782) Just share a word of advice or or what you would implore them to Nicolas Lirio (01:53:13.656) Yeah, what what are you looking for in them to Because what's interesting is Rob Sand is a true sportsman. He's not he's not going around toting that 'cause it's fake. He really is sportsman. And Zach Lane is a true conservationist. Yeah. He is putting a ton of prairie on his farm and so Skip Sligh (01:53:27.212) I mean R D both those people better earn your votes. you know, that's why I was actually very glad to see Fienster lose when he didn't show up and most of the people didn't know who he was and meeting the people at the Capitol who are his I guess not well he was at the federal level, but most of the people in his own party not even liking him or supporting him, you know, you have to earn the vote. You have to show up, you have to do things. So I'm really glad about that actually. So you know, both these people have to earn their vote, earn your vote. And, you know, I've got my list of like, you know, the things to ask each candidate. And I kinda even I even jotted a few things down. But you know, I think there's some things before the election, like if I were to ask and I think I would want to know they're gonna want to run for a second term. So there's some things where we need to have metrics in place to go, how did you do? Like, are you gonna get IWIL passed? I think that's really important. Are you gonna implement I will? Is that gonna happen? Because that'll that will help the state of Iowa in so many different regards. you know, fixing the rural towns, which I talked about, getting the young people not leaving Iowa. We can measure that, okay? The amount of young people leaving the state of Iowa, we know what that number is. If in four years these people if that rate has increased, then they don't de deserve to be reelected. Nicolas Lirio (01:55:00.482) You think you could turn that around in just four years? Skip Sligh (01:55:02.626) Yeah, absolutely. And they certainly should be slowing it. So we have the data and they better the we we have to keep the politicians that work for us accountable. And there needs to be metrics in place that we can measure them by. So if they say, Hey, X amount XYZ amount of people are young people are leaving the state of Iowa right now, in four years we're gonna know what the new number is. And it better be better. It i it needs to be better. It needs to be lower, it needs to be slowed and A good the somebody who did a fantastic job would say, hey, we're actually increasing the amount of young people staying in the state of Iowa. And all you know, economic and also by all the activities they can do, hunting, fishing, all these other things. we can keep a lot of these people, and that's a whole nother discussion. another measurable for either of these candidates going into the next election, but they need to be lowering the nitrates, and we can also measure that. And there's not a voter in Iowa, R or D, that wants to be drinking more nitrates or wants to have more nitrates in the rivers. Even the farmers that are putting nitrates out in the field. They don't they don't want that in the water. So are we doing things to fix that? And there's very honestly fairly common sense, not that costly of pro of things we can do, like buffers, like like native grasses that have 10 and 15 foot deep root systems by the creeks that are gonna suck up nitrogen. Yeah. Things like that. So in four years, did you reduce the nitrate level? You know, is our cancer rate slowing? Stuff like that. you know, and I do want to ask e both of them, you know, are you gonna side with with the residents of the state of Iowa, the resident hunters, and support us against, you know, the special interests that are just looking to exploit our our state? and we're gonna have some conversations there. And I wanna it's that's a conversation. For both of these candidates, and we're gonna be having it. but they need to be on the right side of that because that's that's siding with a huge voter block in Iowa. I mean it's it's a massive amount of people. and if they're not siding with the residents of Iowa and the the outdoorsmen of Iowa and outdoors women of Iowa, then they're siding with the special interests. And if they're siding with the special interest and they can be bought out, if they can be bought out on, you know, the hunting. Skip Sligh (01:57:25.004) the environment, the farming community, what then they can be bought out on other things. And I don't want somebody that's a seller. Nicolas Lirio (01:57:31.648) An interesting conversation with someone about the the being bought out thing. And what they said a lot of politicians they get bought out by one or two groups that care about one thing. Yep. And so you go and and they'll if if you're in behind closed doors, they'll say, Hey, look, I'm open to anything that'll help these people except this one thing. This one I got in because of this one thing with this company or special interest group. I am gonna vote this way with this one thing. You can't stop me. But all these other things. And I have really strong mixed feelings about it. Like I swing either way. I'm like, okay, I kinda understand. Like being loyal to but also shouldn't take money from the devil, you know, if you're gonna just to get in just so you can do good in all the other ways. It's just it that's not a foundation you want to build on. Skip Sligh (01:58:20.952) For example, I want Farm Bureau to have a seat at the table. I want to see how Farm Bureau is managed and the people who are on the board of Farm Bureau. I want a younger generation with a different mindset because I think they're they're fundamentally misdirected at what their goals are and what the results across the state of Iowa have been and what they fight for. It's very concerning for me. But if They are going to be beholden to Farm Bureau and do whatever Farm Bureau says. That is disqualifying. It is a disqualifier. You cannot be owned by Farm Bureau. And it doesn't mean that I can't be allies with Farm Bureau on certain issues. I mean, I'm a farmer. There's certain things I do align with them on. It's just that organization has a lot of things and it's like you're gonna vote this way on things that are absolutely wrong. And and we have issues right now we can point to and say this is a big problem for our state. and we need to fix. So by definition, probably two or three of the top issues in our state directly relate to farming. And sorry, you're gonna have to be able to say no to Farm Bureau on certain things. And I'll be an ally with Farm Bureau on some things, but there's there's definitely things in our state that need to change and we need a candidate that will say no to Farm Bureau. Isn't Nicolas Lirio (01:59:39.02) Besides the Democrat and Republican Party as a whole, is there any special interest group that is more prominent at the the Iowa state level than Farm Bureau? Skip Sligh (01:59:51.906) They're they're probably number one. But I would say things have really shifted in the last five years where, you know, all these different conservation outdoor far different farming groups, even coalitions of of voter blocks that care about these issues, that are paying attention to these issues, and especially things that have gone in the wrong direction, have really shifted how much power Farm Bureau has and and the people now. And these coalitions and these different organizations that sorry they just stand for a lot a lot better things and are more advanced than some of the antiquated, stubborn, old school Farm Bureau members. they've they've got a bigger seat at the table and there's more balance. So I would say things are changing in Iowa just based on this last primary election, based on who the two candidates are. I think we're getting better and we're realizing what what our problems are. And I think I feel very optimistic we're gonna solve them. Nicolas Lirio (02:00:51.096) Man, I love that. Well, Skip, we love hanging out. Kent Boucher (02:00:55.788) Yeah, good. Skip Sligh (02:00:58.171) Thanks for coming. Kent Boucher (02:00:58.892) I always get distracted by the sheds and the mounts when I'm here. Yeah. While I'm talking to ya that that one with that nice flyer off the the back of the G two there. Nicolas Lirio (02:01:01.891) Yeah. Skip Sligh (02:01:08.312) So literally we're doing this and I'm literally staring out my window like not distracted really but it's like and I've looked at this for fifteen years. Yeah. But I never I never get bored of it. Yeah. I still appreciate it. Kent Boucher (02:01:24.174) There's not many things you can say say about or say that about, you know. Pretty special. Nicolas Lirio (02:01:29.336) Yeah. Skip Sligh (02:01:30.658) Blessed. We're blessed in the state of Iowa and we have a duty to make it better. Nicolas Lirio (02:01:35.566) We really appreciate ya. Everyone, don't forget, conservation happens just like with skip sli, one mind at a time. Kent Boucher (02:01:45.742) It was a lot of fun. Skip Sligh (02:01:47.094) That was fun.