Hey folks,
Hope your week's treated you well. Whatever you've been getting into out there, we’re glad you're here.
This week we're getting into:
Six headlines from hither & yonder.
Two hillbillies do public math.
An old Ozark roadtrip game.
🧢 New hats flash sale!
Let’s dive in!
HITHER & YONDER
Obviously fake, but hilarious image (of course from Florida)
A few headlines from right hither ‘round the Ozarks that caught our eye this week:
You bring the fiddle, I’ll bring the bow. The Arkansas State Old Time Fiddle & Banjo Championships return to the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View on August 8, with banjo and fiddle competitions all day and an evening show featuring Canadian duo John Showman and Chris Coole.
Practice your aim before dove season. August is National Shooting Sports Month, and AGFC is marking it with steep discounts at multiple shooting ranges. Free for ages 6-17 and 65+, $2 trap and skeet rounds all month, and a free day for anyone who's bought a new gun or renewed a license recently.
A few stories from out yonder you can share on the porch swing this evenin’.
Federal land opening up to hunters and anglers. The Department of the Interior just proposed its biggest expansion of hunting and fishing access on federal land ever, opening up more than 95% of the National Wildlife Refuge System to hunting across in 32 states.
Imagine serving jail time for catching a fish. Some folks in Oregon are pushing to criminalize hunting and fishing across the whole state. Sounds a bit silly to me. Turns out most of the state thinks so, too. It didn’t get enough signatures to make the 2026 ballot.
Poaching for YouTube views. Two YouTubers from Ohio were sentenced on 40 charges related to deer poaching. I ain't condoning a lick of that... but I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a few of the mounts the police seized. Check out their haul here.
Heard a good story we ought to share next week? Hit “reply” and send it our way!
THE REAL COST OF LOSING HUNTERS
This week, we’re coming off two really good conversations with the Arkansas Office of Outdoor Recreation. There was a lot to unpack, so we pulled back and got out a whiteboard.
We wanted to know:
Who actually pays for conservation in Arkansas and Missouri?
What happens if fewer of us are out there hunting and fishing over the next ten years?
Turns out hunters and anglers carry more of that load than most folks realize. In Arkansas, licenses, permits, and federal excise taxes on gear add up to about $63 million a year going straight into conservation. Missouri's numbers run even higher.
Drop hunting and fishing participation by just 20% over the next decade, and Arkansas loses close to $13 million a year. Missouri loses more than $18 million.
To make that up through the sales tax everybody already pays, you'd need something like $22.7 billion in new spending statewide.
That's the size of the gap one generation of hunters fills.
That's a point we kept landing on. Discouraging the next generation of hunters would be bad for the Ozarks for the habitat, the fisheries, the public land every one of us gets to use.
Ok, that’s a lot of math, so let’s come down to simple numbers: one.
If hunting's already part of your life, invite one person into it this year. You don't have to reveal your spot. Just take someone who's never been. We've both got friends who went from tagging along once to buying their own gear a year later, and that's the whole cycle working the way it's supposed to.
And if you've never hunted, maybe this is worth putting a number to what it actually does for this place.
We got into the full math on the episode this week, whiteboard and all.
Worth a watch if you want to see the actual economic impact of all this (or if want to see two Ozark hillbillies try to do public math on camera).
Or listen on Spotify | Apple Podcasts
ZIP HORSE! THE OZARKS’ ORIGINAL ROADTRIP GAME
Season two of The Old Ozarks just dropped!
Hosted by renowned historian Dr. Brooks Blevins, the leading authority on the region’s history, this podcast explores the lives, legends, and landscapes that have shaped this unique region. Whether you’re a native Ozarker, a new resident, or a curious listener, join us as we share the stories that make the Ozarks special and connect us to our past.
Dr. Blevins kicks off the new season with a road trip game called Zip Horse. Here's how it works:
First person to spot a horse and holler "zip horse" gets a point
Spot one with spots on it, you holler "zip spotted horse" and grab five points (spotted horses are more rare)
See a mule, and that's worth three.
First to 25 wins.
That game turns into a real history lesson as Blevins traces the mule population in the Ozarks, which dropped 85% between 1930 and 1950 as tractors took over.
He digs into “muley,” an old Ozarks word for a naturally hornless cow that traces back to the Gaelic word moily, carried over by Scots-Irish settlers.
And he explains where “poll tax” actually comes from, not just the voting tax most of us learned about, but a version in Missouri that meant mandatory unpaid labor maintaining local roads, a practice that stuck around until 1937.
Give this one a listen if you want some real Ozark history and culture from the guy who knows more on it than probably anyone still breathin’.
PROVISIONS
We just added two new hats on the storefront. They’re only available today and tomorrow, so get your orders in quick!
20% supports conservation work preserving the Ozark mountains, rivers, and wildlife.
So you can look good and feel good, too.
Kinda like this guy…
COMMUNITY
The Holler is where outdoor enthusiasts of the Ozarks come together to share stories and get direct access to the show’s hosts and guests and exclusive discounts at outfitters we love!
We’ll be back next week with more stories from the Ozarks.
Til then,
The Ozark Podcast