Transcript
Capturing the Wild: From Viral Photos to Hunting Dogs
Raised in the Woods · Sat Aug 29, 2026
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This week on Raised in the Woods, we're taking a look back at some of the year's best moments so far.
Starting off with a show starring Chad Belding, national host of The Foul Life, who visited the Midwest back in May.
to be part of a national television show.
I started my career out in television and television news, had a local hunting and eating show called Kill It, Clean It, Cook It, which aired
13 years on several stations throughout Wisconsin and to be a part of a national television show that's got reach in the waterfall community in the greater hunting community is Extremely exciting that wouldn't have happened had it not been for what?
National host Chad Belding always says all because of a mallard duck.
Yeah, I say it all the time just because 90% of my network is built because of a mallard duck and I say mallard because that's my number one
And that's what I would go to the end of the earth to chase or pursue.
And through the Mallard Duck and our excursions and our experiences, I've been able to meet what I, you know, just the coolest people.
I met a guy named Fred Zink from Portland, Ohio, who's one of the mentors of my career, my life, one of the best waterfowl all around hunters of all time.
I started filming with him and the way the fall I started was he invited the TV show called Ducks Unlimited Waterdog to Canada with us.
They said, where are you from?
I said, I'm from Nevada.
They said, we've never hunted out there.
I said, well, come out.
So they did.
And a month after we went to Idaho and Oregon and Nevada, their producer called me said, I want to start a show about you.
You're awesome on camera.
He said, are you interested?
I said, yeah.
And I was going to name the show Dr. Duck and I was going to write a prescription for
like, I'm an idiot.
I don't have the credibility.
If social media was around, I'd have done it.
Oh yeah.
I think the most important thing in success, what I used in college baseball or high school baseball, then at D1 college, and I still use it hunting as the art of visualization.
Ted Williams talks about it in the science of hitting.
And you can manifest and you can paint the picture.
stalked me for six months.
I think you manifested it since you're the big believer in it.
My life, I believe very strongly in manifestation because my life has up to this point been a result of my manifestation.
Now, the other side of that is manifestation is a combination of motivation, right?
Motivation, hard work, and believing in yourself because life, you can manifest
the same thing every single day.
I wanna, I will say, I wanna buy a Corvette, right?
That Corvette's not gonna fall out of the sky.
But me saying every day I wanna, I wanna Corvette, I'm gonna start doing the actions to get that Corvette.
I'm gonna work harder.
I'm gonna get maybe a better job.
But while those things are happening, life is still gonna throw things at you, right?
So life is naturally gonna knock us off the course.
But manifesting and keeping our eye on the prize, I guess, is the best way to say it.
I mean, it's,
Every single time you guys, Joel, I know in this hunt, this was really important to you guys.
You had a fantastic gentleman who came here and he wanted to check it off his basically bucket list to get this turkey.
And you, you guys had a rough start to your turkey hunt, but you continually said to yourself, we're going to, this is going to work out.
We're going to make this work.
And you did the things to make it work.
many times he didn't.
No, there's no such thing as luck.
Sure there is.
There is no such thing as luck.
The harder you work, the luckier you get.
Yeah, which proves there's no such thing as luck.
What amazes me very much about our guest tonight is that he's kind of like in the realm of Madonna.
Like you don't know her first name or last name.
Wando is here with us on the show.
they had a list of 20 songs they went through and
They knew I liked Motley Crew, so that was a top five song.
Oh, I love Motley Crew.
But they came up with Jump Around as their number one.
And because it happened at Wando's that night, the football guy is picking the song that I am the birthplace of Jump Around.
That you have something special going on there.
There's no doubt about it.
And you know, the Fall Life's got a relationship with Travel Wisconsin and the Tourism Bureau.
I mean, there is no better way or reason
to come to Wisconsin than if you're going to celebrate kind of the culinary and there's really no better place to do it.
There is nothing better to me in the world than getting out into the waters and woods in the fields and turning that into food to put on my dinner table.
Hosting this show is fun as heck for me, along with my co-host, Ellie Lawton, who is the real deal when it comes to culinary.
She's got a culinary degree, a French culinary and
turning wild game into food is about as good as it gets.
But you're the real deal when it comes to hunting too.
I don't want to speak for everybody, but I've been involved with, you know, several women's hunting groups.
I've mentored women's hunts here in Wisconsin and in some of our states out west.
And I think it's just like anything else, Joel.
I think there are people that have common interests, and when you bring them together, sometimes they decide, you know,
I think emotions take over sometimes.
I think that competition takes over.
I think sometimes...
This is a hard one to explain.
Let's just not share it go to the social media is completely ruined.
I'm
Like my daughter's in high school right now and it just seems like girls are mean.
meaner than boys.
are fighters, but girls are mean.
and they want
single day to
represent the outdoor community, to expose new hunters, whether male or female, to the community, to teach, and not only about just going out and harvesting these animals.
You have women that are going out there and guiding
big game hunts out west and then on the off season they're teaching foraging and they're teaching how to utilize these harvests or how to turn hides or bones or antlers into jewelry or clothing.
What an exciting show this is gonna be because these two women are somewhat new to the outdoors, new to hunting.
One of them, I'm not gonna tell you which one yet, is not a vegan anymore.
I think that that is fascinating to me.
I want to talk about that transition and
what it
harvest
We're in Wisconsin.
I think it's
Well, it's a couple steps away from Jeffrey Dahmer.
Careful, you might be her next mount.
Shelby Christensen is here.
She's newish to hunting and she's got some odd hobbies that I'm fascinated by and she was telling us how she got interested in hunting by literally being interested in animals.
And I know you said you have a background.
You have a minor degree in entomology.
My daughter loves entomology.
She's studying museum studies and anthropology at Baylor now in the graduate program.
So I'm fascinated by bugs.
We've got bugs up in this, you know, in these rooms.
And I think that there's kind of a close connection to taxidermy.
But how on earth and why on earth did friends say, what an odd hobby you like to pick apart animals and use them, which I think relates perfectly ethically to hunting.
Yeah.
And it will surprise a lot of people, but especially at the time when I was young, through middle school to high school, there was a very
very being a kind of strong word, but there was a significant internet community of it used to be called vulture culture.
So
young women too.
And it was unlike different websites and blogs you'd still find them on Instagram.
So it's more of the animal preservation so it can include taxidermy.
It can include like wet specimens, so jarred specimens, bone
was this smaller little internet community
of, again, mostly young women who were interested in this kind of stuff.
Here's a tip, too, for people.
You don't need to be dragged by someone else.
I never had any family or friends into it.
This was all I made the decision that I wanted to try it.
But for years before that, I had a lot of interest in just
animals themselves and taxidermy.
started picking up roadkill.
That was my first step of actually
hunting.
And then I'd bury it in the yard and pick up the bones after.
That's where I
and begin to say, you know, maybe I can get these specimens myself and I can also provide food for myself for this as well.
I think one of the fascinating
things about you is that you never let any of the taboos or preconceptions, let's say, stop you from doing this really cool stuff.
And now on the other end of it, you're completely experienced in it and you have this really cool stuff.
You got some trinkets in your pocket too that are just awesome.
What is going on with that?
Yeah, tell us about those.
Yeah, so I brought a few things along.
I brought a key chain that was made out of the foot of the skunk.
So this is not actually that difficult to do.
Well, the skunk wasn't lucky, but maybe.
You know, maybe it'll bring a little luck there.
Painting something with conductive paint, putting it in an acid bath, dissolving copper, which then sticks to the conductive paint.
How thick that layer is, how shiny whatever that's all done by.
time and the different concentrations of chemicals that
basically a scientist.
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Get to bring you the best of the outdoors, help you figure out how to use it, how to bring forage and food to the table from the woods and the cornfields of the great states of the Midwest.
This shows on civic media in five states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa every Saturday at 11 o'clock.
I cannot tell you how fun doing this show is.
Shelby Christiansen is here, and Ashlyn Whitting is here, and I want to talk to them.
We've got Sarah Marinas, our homesteader, and of course, Megan, the Somalia pirate, our Somalia.
One of our guests today.
I'm really excited about talking to you because Ashlyn Whitting is brand new to hunting.
I'm good.
I would not be the first time.
I'm super happy to talk about it.
I'm 31.
Okay.
And you got into hunting when you were?
29.
Well, it all started when a girl met a boy.
Oh, she is.
He is an avid outdoorsman, hunter, fisher, you name it.
And when we met, we're like, how are we going to make this work?
I am very, very strict vegan.
We have separate cooking pots and utensils.
And this man is like, I happened to walk in the room and witnessed a buffalo just drop in the middle of a field and- Did you just go up to him and slap him?
Oh no, no, no.
No, I started sobbing.
And I was like, how can you do this?
And he's like, but you have to consider
This animal has lived a perfectly full life.
Free, wild,
wild, eating the most organically sourced food.
Okay, I think that vegans and hunters actually have parallel missions that at some point- Yes, yes, absolutely.
Yes, I try to
that all the
and
want to talk about this for like an hour.
I love this topic.
First, I guess you would call it a hunt.
I mean, I had Blaze Orange on and we were in the Plains of Colorado and we were determined to get an elk.
Oh, boy.
First.
Wow, that is crazy ambitious.
It was so cute.
I had a little baby strapped to my back and
baby.
I cried my way through it,
I fired a shot.
help?
So what happened?
No, the only thing that we got to see were massive tumbleweeds.
Okay.
And no elk.
Okay.
tumbleweed.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm not too sure how
gnawing on tumbleweeds.
I don't know.
a whisko wrong.
We
Dave and I are not part of it, but we're going to contribute if asked.
But we're going to talk about the fastest growing group of new hunters today, women in the outdoors and how they are flourishing in the outdoors and some of the issues that are encountered when any influx of new hunters gets into the sport.
And we also are honored to have Joe Person.
He's going to bring us the perspective.
of the youngsters because he's 18 years old.
one that got me into
I started out hunting with my dad when I was four,
pop gun at leaving that flu.
And
4'10".
It started with that.
Good
You have a choice, and the age that we live now is social media age, right?
And it is, you can find the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between.
Everything.
You're right, Danielle.
But...
The thing that we all forget is that we are in control of all of it.
Absolutely.
So if you keep getting this negative fee, negative fee, do you see this person constantly and they just bring you down?
You have a choice to unfollow them.
You have a choice to block them.
I think everybody needs to go back and watch Bambi again.
if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
This is Raised in the Woods.
My name's Joel Clayfish.
I'm alongside co-host Ellie Lawton, the chef extraordinaire adventurer.
Megan Salazar is here, our sommelier pirate.
Dan Tim is a guest this week.
Very excited to have him along.
He's your local archery expert and
Adventure some guy who travels these United States, including the two separate states of Alaska and eventually Hawaii.
Listen, we're going to get to your luxurious flowing beard later in a minute.
Fair enough.
We've got a lot of adventurers.
Good Lord.
You don't even know the beginning of it.
You don't even know the beginning of it.
I'm telling you.
Today's guest I am so excited about and he is sandwiched between Dan Tim's lover and homesteader Sarah Marinas.
Lacey, great to have you here as well.
But our guest this week, I has driven a long way and I'm so excited because he is one of the most accredited, iconic
symbols of Wisconsin and the Midwest for the outdoors.
Patrick Durkin is here.
First of all, what an honor to have you.
Appreciate it.
Appreciate your service to this country
as a
I hope we have time to get into that.
You are a writer.
You have been on television.
You've been on radio.
You have made the outdoors your life, and that is incredibly exciting to us.
You work on the biggest outdoor show in the world, Meat Eater.
You know, Steven Ronella, you, I can't wait.
This is quite the resume, Patrick.
I can't wait to get into what you have accomplished.
I need to know
Yeah.
Oh, thank God.
I'm much more about eating than
The cool thing to have happen was when I was in the Navy, I met Penny in a night class I was taking.
And when she heard that I was wise, I'm a cheapskate.
And
True.
And she heard me talking about, though, how
I would typically eat on the ship all the time because Navy feeds you three meals a day.
And she invited me over on our third or fourth date and cooked a meal for me.
And it was a really nice meal.
The first year I brought home after we got married, she came out in the garage and helped me cut it up.
And I always thought for a person who did not grow up in New Wisconsin, did not grow up in the hunting community, did not grow up in the fishing community, she really adapted.
I just admire that.
Patrick Durkin is a part of MeatEater.
think I've written over 150 articles now for MeatEater over the past nine years.
This is a weird story a few years ago of a fawn that was about 30 feet up a tree.
dead, hanging in a crotch for tree.
I mean, the most read, downloaded article I ever wrote for them.
And it was just a very, just went crazy on the internet.
Another one that just fell in my lap was a very similar story where a woman was sitting on her porch in summer up in Northeastern Wisconsin, here's summer home, watching the lake and Moses fawn peddling along in the shoreline.
And down comes this bald eagle.
Drowns the fawn.
It's just oh, there's a almost painful to watch because yeah You can't help it feel sorry for it.
Yeah, how many people called me that from all over the country?
different content creators, really, hello, you want to call them, and wanting to get the right to that video.
And I said, I kept referring to this lady, and she called me back and asked, well, what kind of money should she be asking for to rent at least this video out?
And I have no background on that.
I just told her, I don't know.
Just don't know.
But people wanted to buy that video.
And if you Google it, if you Google my name in Bald Eagle Fawn, you'll probably find that story.
But I never wrote that one up for Meat Eater, because that was kind of before I was really writing for them.
But I'm writing that column.
And that's the fun thing about a newspaper column in that era.
you know, for the first 35 years of my career, was that's how people got their news.
And it's only in recent years where the newspaper's really, really
tumbled.
And this man fashioned a truck cap that is absolutely gorgeous.
Dan's been eyeing it up the whole time.
Yeah, I can't stop looking at it.
The whole idea of why I built it.
I hated having a cap that you couldn't put tall stuff in.
You had to take the whole cap
road.
When I'm pulling my Cedar Strip roll boat I built, it attracts women.
I believe it.
This guy's craftsmanship, I believe
I tell young guys all the time, if you want to meet women, build a Cedar Strip rollboard or a Cedar
It works their way too.
Like when I go up to the back to the parking lot to get my truck and trailer and leave my wife with the boat, the old guys come over.
Oh, sure.
So she's taking advantage of it too.
The boat attracts old guys, carpenter guys.
But then women of all ages and interests.
goodness.
And the difference too is that women touch it.
They come over.
Like
or?
Yeah, well, yeah, no.
You know, this almost like.
Adoring type touch.
Oh my
god.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Single guys dress up as a cedar strip canoe for Halloween.
Did you get outside this week?
Oh, we had a wild week Joel, but I'm gonna leave one of the biggest highlights.
for my bride here.
She's
get it.
We just took a road trip and we went camping in the...
Great Smoky Mountains.
And I got really excited because we saw a bear.
And I was like, oh my gosh, there's a bear.
That's cool.
we finally get to meet Macy.
Lacy!
Dang it!
Dang it!
You can call me Ali once.
Wow, I love that.
Well, we are very honored to have a very special guest with us today, a man who has spent his life seven
decades of it, covering the outdoors, experiencing the outdoors, living the outdoors, and living what many people would consider a dream, and that is making your lifestyle, your career, your income the outdoors.
Patrick Durkin, how did you get started in the outdoor media before outdoor media became what it is today?
I started at the Oshkosh newspaper, Oshkosh Northwestern, back in 1982, 83 in college.
I just never thought I'd be a writer when I was younger.
But to my god, the Navy, I knew that's what I wanted to do.
I started writing letters home.
My dad, my mom, my grandmother, various friends.
would say stuff to me like, your letters are so interesting.
You should really look in the journalism when you get out.
And when my dad told me that, my dad told me that before I went in the Navy, but I wanted to be a firefighter back then.
So I got all this damage control training in the Navy and lots of trade skills in the Navy.
They taught me a lot of good stuff like welding, I was a locksmith, did all sorts of cool stuff as far as trade work.
And by the time I got out of the Navy, I realized I wasn't very good at any of them.
But you
are good at writing.
But I was good
Patrick, your life is literally a storied life of how to live the outdoor lifestyle and have it become your life, which is so many people's dreams and so few people ever get to pursue it.
This is Raised in the Woods.
We've got really awesome guests tonight because and I don't know how we pull it off But we pull off like some pretty important people on this show.
I'm pretty excited get some celebrities and Tonight it's pretty cool because we're gonna talk a little bit about travel, Wisconsin in our seafaring ways this evening But we have Todd Scheller who was the state
of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources chief warden for years, which is always fascinating to talk to him about cops and those who use the waters and woods of the great states of the Midwest.
And we have Eric.
Lobner, who is the administrator for Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
He's the current guy.
He's like the main guy.
He's like the bro in charge.
I mean, the word wildlife, that covers like everything.
Okay.
Let's hold it.
Let's not go overboard,
do have fish, but I'll tell you anytime that you want to get outside and enjoy nature, maybe do a little hiking, a little biking.
cross-country skiing, hunting, fishing, trapping, you name it.
We're somehow involved with that.
on the ground
what's really fun?
You're tired and you ascend that.
to your friends who are still working.
Those people, thank you.
How
are you getting ready for
awesome?
I'm sharing my experience.
I think it's good to share.
You're sharing your tips.
How was work today and you got a bucket full of perch?
How
czar lobe.
emperor.
Emperor might be a better term than Tsar.
I like Emperor.
Tsar sounds kind of negative.
I like Emperor
Just don't forget
Yes,
it.
Very first, Turkey Learned to Hunt was something that I worked.
very closely on to put all the material together.
year did that happen?
Must have been about 1996, I think.
Yeah, the DNR at that point.
And one of the main things that I did was help put on these Learn to Turkey Hunt programs because nobody knew how to do it here in Wisconsin.
Yeah.
It was a new activity.
We are deeply concerned about safety, right?
Yeah, we're talking
And those species then, ultimately, the goal of that wildlife action plan is to try to keep those species from ending up on the endangered threatened species list, because nobody wants that.
Yeah, so there's a number of them.
We have martins.
There's a number of different salamanders, and there's turtles.
stuff.
Hey,
Salamander.
together, right?
Rusty Patch Bumblebee, right?
Rusty Patch Bumblebee has been here.
Well,
Patch.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
This is Raised in the Woods.
My name's Joel Clayfish.
This show is about everything in the great outdoors, the great state of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa.
We have really jumped out of the box today, and we are doing... I think we jumped out of the boat.
We jumped out of the boat.
Right here, the Hideaway Bar in Grill, a famous little joint on Okachi.
There are stories that there are old slot machines buried in this lake.
bodies buried in this lake.
Supposedly, the mafia had its control of this lake back in the 20s and 30s, and we, for the first time, have taken this show on the road into the field.
What a bonus getting a little sun out here while we record the show.
It is beautiful out here.
They're running the bass tournament at the hideaway.
They've got a wing night going tonight.
They're debuting one of the sauces here, the right wing sauce and the left wing sauce.
It's a buffalo sauce.
Alexis Cron.
You're here, your dad's here, he doesn't, I see, we've got you with the mic too, are
I'm excited to have you here because I want to talk about the culture of Wisconsin and the culture of the Midwest and what bars mean to the people in Wisconsin.
If you want good food in Wisconsin, you don't necessarily go to, in quotes, in air quotes, a restaurant.
Bars are restaurants, restaurants are bars.
And do you see a difference when we get towards summer versus winter in that culture?
Yes, I would say so, especially out here.
I don't know, you just meet so many people from all around.
People are coming, you know, other states, coming all the way to Ocache, which is crazy.
But it's such a cool atmosphere out here.
There's always something going on, whether that's live music, just boating for the day, you know, just always a fun atmosphere.
Wintertime, I feel like it's more just like closing it, like people around the area, family, like... How do
A lot of people in the summer just always looking for different things.
A lot of people are out boating, drinking.
They're in the sun all day.
They want something refreshing and, you know, good life.
But they also are like on the go.
So something that can, you know, be fast, easy, family food, see a lot of families here.
And then I would say...
come wintertime, fall, we're more like comfort food, you know, those hearty foods that people love when it gets a little bit colder out here in the Midwest.
People forget about that, but that's really how we are designed to eat.
Alexis hit it on the head.
That's exactly what the trends say every single year.
When we go into those colder months, we are craving those really warm, hearty dishes.
When we get to the summer months, when it's hot, we want lighter, we want fresh, we want the fruits, we want the vegetables, we want, you know, to do the barbecue, things like that.
So yeah, for sure.
We have an awesome show today.
Big thanks to the Hideaway for having us out for our first live in the field show.
Thanks to Mickey Fody, thanks to Alexis and Scott Cron.
It is beautiful out here.
They're running the bass tournament at the hideaway.
They've got a wing night going tonight.
They're debuting one of the sauces here, the right wing sauce and the left wing sauce.
It's a buffalo sauce that I Joel Clayfish yours truly literally invented in a kitchen in Mickey Fody's kitchen 20 plus
years ago.
That's crazy.
Actually 25 years old now.
And you're right.
I mean, it was one of those things where Joel and I used to go around all the time and we'd do the different wing nights.
We knew where every wing night was, but we knew the flavor we were looking for.
And Joel...
I mean, I like to take credit for being there when Joel came up with the sauce.
He hit the nail on the head.
We tried so many different times and it turned out just perfect.
And now it's being debuted here and I'm telling you what, the most beautiful setting you could be at, the hideaway where you just sit and you see Okachi Lake at its finest.
It's absolutely beautiful here at the hideaway.
And then to be able to have our sauce here and our wings and we're out handing them out for free tonight.
And it's amazing the number of people that are giving
very good compliments, and they're giving kudos to Joel.
It's just crazy.
Chef Lawden is a corporate chef, and she knows the folks here as well.
And just seeing what this kind of atmosphere and what bars and restaurants mean in the Midwest, they're not just a place people go to have cocktails.
You know, you go on the coasts, you go into a bar.
They very often don't even serve food.
Chef
Can we get a little hint as to what today's recipe is going to be?
didn't take
breath, though.
You know what?
I would like to turn the show over to you, ladies.
For a while.
Have at it.
Don't threaten me with a good time.
Kidding!
I want to say hi to our number one fan who responds to everything we do on Facebook, listens to every show.
Gary Fluet, you are here.
You really could teach some lessons to some folks about being fans of the show.
These are a great bunch of folks and I've learned a lot from them.
Being in the outdoors is life for me.
Hunting is life, gathering from the outdoors is life.
I learned a lot from this show, and I actually do jot down the recipes.
Or cry.
head.
It's going to be a little bit of a laugh,
of a cry.
I haven't really rolled the eyes too much.
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Yes.
All of it.
I know.
I love it.
All of it.
We've got
we had
you know, a blue
Well, I'm a third-generation broadcaster grew up in the radio industry and I was not planning on Really going into radio and then or writing or any of that stuff and I met my husband Jim Hudson and was in northern, Wisconsin and we started his guide service and a person who is
myself who grew up in marketing and radio.
I helped him grow his guide service with writing, with photography, with all of those things.
And so I was sort of an assumed person to do all of the outdoor communication and I fell in love with it.
The fishing and hunting communities are amazing and I don't think people understand that enough.
And I
I can't, it's really funny because I can't really talk about things other than fishing and hunting unless I am prompted to talk about something else.
So it's a problem.
I don't think that sounds like a problem.
It's not a
and it is hunting
So
Right.
And nobody in my family hunts and fishes, hunts and fishes.
And not because they're anti at all that just wasn't something we did we will be canoed we kayaked we went hiking we did all the things we foraged all of that and so my Life running that guide service on Lake Superior being out in the in the woods with dogs all of those things That was my entire life because when you work in the outdoor industry you work
you know, they say, I'm trying to avoid a 40 hour job and you end up working like a hundred hours a week.
That's what it is.
Because if you're pre-fishing or you're, you know, doing food plots or you're doing any of the things that you need to create content from, you're, you know, during the day doing that.
And then at night, you're editing photos or you're writing articles or you're recording or you're doing YouTube, all of those things.
And so that
It's all consuming and what became my entire life and I would not change a thing
Yes,
Red Cliff the
Yes,
and angling.
Yes.
And so I can only speak for my knowledge from Jim, from Jim Hudson, Red Cliff Ojibway and his mother who taught me.
I moved to Wisconsin.
in the 90s when the spearing conversation was going on.
And I knew nothing about it because I was not from here.
I did not know about tribal rights.
I did not know anything like that.
I go to Northern Wisconsin.
I meet Jim in a bar.
The week... Well, where else do you meet in Northern Wisconsin?
Well, the week before ice fishing and open water, he didn't drink.
He was a cop and he didn't want to be drinking around people that he had arrested.
So he walked up and I knew I was going to marry him right away.
My exposure to hunting and fishing was through his eyes.
So I thought everybody
you know, fished 12 hours a day.
I thought everybody had a hunting season from September 1st to December 30th.
I had no idea.
But I also assumed everyone put tobacco down and said thank you when you take an animal.
I assumed everyone, in my very, you know, Pollyanna way, I assumed everyone protected the waters that they had as a resource.
Conservation was such a large part of
And
in Wisconsin.
But
you
Yes.
large, but a medium.
A medium.
We're going to
I'll take Captain.
Captain Kam go Roo.
No, no.
Now you're just.
Well, I'm doing the best I can over here.
I am so excited.
My skin is about to jump out of itself because this to me is the time of the year that is unrivaled, unequaled.
The golden glow of the golden hour of the day, starting around five o'clock.
Now you start to have that
golden sunshine setting on the farm fields that are just about to get taken off.
You got some weed off already and hunting season is around the corner and I couldn't be more excited about that.
Hunting season is coming.
Eating season also.
There is nothing better in the world than getting up before the sunrise, setting up in a field.
You get your decoys out there, your layout blinds, or you're, you know, you're hidden in a natural blind and those first goose honks you hear in the distance.
Yes.
Get the flags ready, the calls ready.
You start your calling, trying to draw them into you.
Having those birds set.
and knowing that you're gonna get some on the ground, that's gonna be literally dinner that day.
It does not get better.
I'm so excited about this show today because Hannah Stonehouse is here.
She is literally an icon in the Midwest in the outdoors and she is a world famous.
I'm gonna say it because it's true.
I apologize.
She's a world famous photographer of bird dogs.
You know, Chad Belding is
really into his dogs.
He names all of his dogs after Guns N' Roses members, because it's the best band ever.
And I'm not gonna necessarily dispute that.
Guns N' Roses is fantastic.
That is, yes, but you should know his opinion as fact.
Well, I was named after the house I was conceived in.
you know.
So it was a Stonehouse.
It was the Stonehouse.
Grandetor, Illinois.
cool.
John Deere built it when he came
Right, Hannah
Tractor.
But
right?
Hannah Green.
Hannah
Yes.
No, he built the house in the 1840s for the people who were coming over from Vermont.
And the women couldn't get pregnant on the way because it was too long of a journey to Illinois, obviously, his first factory in Grand Detour, Illinois.
And that's where babies came from.
And my parents, who
are hilarious and I am definitely their daughter, named me after where I was conceived.
They lived there a long time.
It's a great name, no matter how you slice it, I guess.
Thank you.
It's awesome.
You are famous, and I'm gonna drag this out just a little bit.
You're famous for a particular photo, but that's not the only thing that you do.
You have kind of made a living shooting bird dogs.
Bird dogs are your, that's your forte.
How important, you know, when we're out there, when you are sitting in a blind or you're walking in a field, upland hunting,
and you drop birds from the field that are coming in, that are coming right to the hole, and you get to see that dog work, very few things are as satisfying and cool as that in the field.
That is my favorite thing about photography, is when you capture an animal, a dog, doing what they were bred to do, the look on their face.
the just whether it's their muscle structure their breed standard any of that when I get to capture that that is that's why I'm here in some ways because
That especially when you have a dog who's so important to you, who is your hunting partner, and I get to find out later that those are the memories you have of them in the field because you've been able to be present with them and be able to hunt with them.
And you tell me 10 years later that those are the things that bring you happiness when you look at my images.
That is everything to me.
Thank you.
is why I do what I do.
How important I want to get into some of the logistics of this you know for for the folks listening who are serious waterfall hunters who spend a ton of their time training their dogs sending their dogs off to be trained training them themselves that payoff that happens when you have the dog in the blind with you and that dog is I mean
Ansier than all get
out.
Yes, I had seen
All they want to do is make their owner happy, right?
They just want to make everybody happy.
They want to do their job.
But to them,
They literally live for it.
How important is it, do you think, for dogs to be involved in hunting?
And how is that become such a part of Americana and the culture of hunting?
It is extremely important if they are trained correctly.
And we can talk about this till we're blue in the face.
If you have a dog who is
has not had the right, much like a human, exposure to hunting, you can cause an issue and you've wasted some money.
So it's really important to have a dog that's trained appropriately that you respect.
and that the dog respects you.
Because that dog has skills that you have it there for.
overthinking it or consistently missing shots.
It's really important in my estimation to be extremely practiced yourself when you have to also train yourself.
and
photos of dogs glaring at their owners, and
Oh, very much so.
especially frustration, happiness, joy.
I mean, joy translates with dogs in the field.
You see they're doing what they're meant to be doing, and whether it's bird dogs, sled dogs, and any of those.
They're happy.
When
you
very much
Yes.
Incredible.
it is.
I love it.
Yes.
Very
mean.
I have left before.
I have left before.
On a photo shoot.
I have said this is no longer happening.
And you're not respecting your dog.
You're not treating them appropriately.
And this is done.
Correct.
I am not talking
That is true and a lot of the time what I've seen from a dog behavior issue or a human behavior issue is they're trying to be confident.
The human is trying to be confident but doesn't have the base of knowledge because they haven't been around other people who interact with dogs appropriately.
And I'm not trying to be judgmental, but it's also really important to make sure that you know what you're doing.
I mean, if you're gonna have fun and you're gonna do the things that make you and that animal happy, you know, do it for the love of it in a way that is...
is joyful.
I mean, I keep using joyful, but that's what it is.
It shouldn't be a source of frustration.
Make sure you have a breed that's appropriate for you.
That's one of the biggest things is people get a breed because they fall in love with it.
But they don't actually know that that dog may need more or less exercise than another one.
you're aging and you need a dog that you need to be able to get out in an emergency.
I mean, I love like Brittany's spanels or any of the smaller spanels because for people
mean I'm a short person who you know if there's an emergency out in the field I'm not gonna be able to pick up
110-pound lab, right?
Wait,
they use a
It's fine.
I think it's
It's just important to be about picking the breed that is right for you and your family because that's what makes it fun.
We've got Chef Lawton and a special guest today.
We've got lunch lady Lynn Morris.
with us who is part of a local school district.
She's the becoming world regionally but world famous lunch lady and she's gonna be making some appearances here on the follow life podcast and are raised in the woods show which I'm pretty excited about but what I am most fascinated by when it comes to dogs is there are real
pros and cons to having a dog in the field.
But any dog person will tell you there are no cons with the right training and trained dog.
And I want to get into that a little bit because if a dog is running around the field while you're out there and birds are coming in, they can very often reduce your chances for that to happen.
So I want to talk about those kind of specifics.
This is awesome.
We've got a fantastic guest with us today, Hannah Stonehouse, with a storied multi-decade history in the outdoors, of course, Chef Long.
I'm excited to get in there and peel the layers back.
And I'm excited about our cooking segment.
That's for sure.
My name is Joel Clayfish.
This is the Midwest and this is a place that if you're spending time in the outdoors, waterfowl hunting or big game hunting or angling, they're really
I think is a hidden gem here that the rest of the country may not fully know about.
And somebody who's spent a great portion of their life in the outdoors, in the Midwest, in several states throughout the Midwest, is Hannah Stonehouse.
She's been in Duck Blind.
She's been in Upland Field.
She's been on the Great Lakes, the Backwater Ways.
She's been a writer, an award-winning writer, award-winning journalist.
for three plus decades and she's got some real insights and what a cool guest she is to have.
Of course, we've got a provider chef Ellie Lawton with us.
Lunch lady Lynn is here too.
My name is Joel Clayfish.
I get to be the host, the Midwest host of The Foul Life and I'm really excited because hearing your past and your history
First of all, I see parallels to mine, which is exciting and fun.
But we've been talking about your photography of bird dogs and your love and passion for bird dogs.
There is a famous painting, picture, photograph.
This is a photo of my friend John with his dog Shep in Lake Superior.
He and I had, we walked our dogs together.
He lived down the street and one day he came to me and said that he may have to put Shep down and that he would be in taking Shep into Lake Superior and Shep would fall asleep.
Could I come take photos of him and Shep?
17.
Okay.
Yeah, 17.
He died a year later.
Okay.
18.
Okay.
And yes, he was very old, very arthritic.
And that summer, the lake was not very cold.
So he would take him down into the lake, hold him, and I got, you know, it's like,
three or four minutes, maybe less.
And I got a shot of them and shared a photo of the back of my camera to Facebook, and it just went nuts.
And then I, this is like in the early days of going viral when you actually people saw things.
Yeah, exactly.
And it was
I can't really explain the craziness that happened.
I did a TEDx talk about it because my phone would fill up with messages multiple times a day.
We were on the Today Show, Good Morning America, all these crazy things, and people would drive like six to eight hours.
trying to find John and they would walk into our house.
They would open the door and my husband had just retired from being a police officer and he'd be out guiding.
people would just like walk in.
It was crazy.
Oh my gosh.
Holy
Yeah, it was crazy.
Yes, it did.
That's a story I've never actually told.
There were some really, really weird things that happened.
But there were some really awesome things that happened and I met some incredible people.
And you know, life happens, how it happens.
And in my mind, I don't know how something weird could happen out of something so beautiful, but that just goes to show the things that we share and the way that people interpret those things.
Yes.
It is different levels for everybody, right?
It is different levels.
It is so crazy.
Yes.
If you go to stonehousephoto.com, that is my photography website, and that has the photo on it.
Or you can Google Hannah Stonehouse and TEDx and you can hear the whole story.
on it.
few weeks, probably.
because sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong.
Then you add in the whole AI weirdness.
And people are making videos from the photo, which
get into the ram.
copyright ramifications of that.
Yes, yes.
Well, that's one of the reasons
one of the reasons I got into studying how things go viral.
And there are some things that happened afterwards that I started my journey of studying what what happens when the internet takes hold of things.
call them parasocial relationships.
Yeah.
for
yes
Right, and you don't know the whole story of anything, of anything.
Everybody takes a photo like that and they make it their own story, or they twist the real story to make it something that applies to them.
And then they're out there broadcasting that and it's like, whoa, let's pump the brakes a little bit because let's stay true to this or at least try to, right?
Right.
And so that's why it's one of those things when I teach people when you do go viral is you can either concentrate on the negative or you can go, okay, so what are the positive things that can come from this?
What are the things that you can help people discover about themselves rather than yelling into the ether?
Okay.
Let's celebrate your relationship with your dog.
Let's celebrate the love you have for a person that you were caretaking for.
Because those are the conversations that we need to have.
And so you, as the person who is in the spotlight, you're the one who can, to some extent, control the path of that conversation.
So that's your responsibility.
was
Yes, and all over the world.
That is the thing that connects many of us is that unconditional love.
One of the coolest things that happened was I started to be able to have conversations and see conversations in the comments with guys who missed their dogs.
necessarily comfortable
expressing that until this happened.
And it was really cool.
And I still talk to a lot of these people 14 years later, but it is being able to, and that's the other thing I do.
I am a grief scientist now.
I study how talking about grief is really, really healthy and helps mitigate some
some chronic health issues, but that's another story.
But that's
show.
kidding.
But one of those things is photography can do that for people.
You know, I was talking about how people would be so excited to tell me a decade later that the thing, the photo they had for me of them and their dog or their dog was so good for them because they got to look at that and see joy.
Those are the conversations.
Saying that stuff out loud.
talking about it, talking about the people and animals you miss is really important.
You want to get that out.
It's healthy.
It's extremely healthy.
Sure.
I
pets.
Oh, wow.
That's something.
I have a lot of dog hair from various dogs.
I could probably do that without it.
This
Yes.
I am.
to me about that?
Because that's an
everybody.
So I am an evidential medium, meaning I would never win the lottery.
I am not a psychic.
But when I started getting my masters in basically in grief, it's called Thanatology, I ran into all these because I'm a scientist.
I ran into all these studies about evidential mediumship, about
quantum physics and electricity and how things are connected.
I've known my, it's fascinating.
I have known my whole life that I just know things.
I tell people to be very clear.
I don't hear or see anything.
I just know things.
And being on Lake Superior and being married to a Native American man, an Ojibwe man, it was very interesting because
Everybody talks about that.
It's not unusual there in Bayfield and Redcliffe, Bad River, Ashland, Washburn.
It doesn't matter that area.
It doesn't matter who you are, what you're doing.
Everybody either knows stuff, sees stuff, anything like that.
And after my husband passed away, some very interesting things happened, including like light bulbs exploding.
And other widows have talked to me about this.
This has happened.
and I
probably eight years after he passed away I was fishing on the lake on Lake Superior and I looked at my friend and I said why are there guys who are like they're waving at me and I didn't really see it I knew it
explaining how they were like tied to a mast and they were they had ice all over them
And he looked at me very oddly, and we go around, we're going around Madeleine Island, and he looks at me, he's like, you don't know about that?
I said, what are you talking about?
He said, well, that's the shipwreck where all the guys that we were over, they all tied themselves to the mast because, and they were covered in ice because a storm came through.
There's this very, there's this shipwreck that I didn't know anything about.
And so I discovered, like, not everyone knows things or sees things in their mind's eye.
And I decided to just get really loud about it because I don't care what people think.
Yeah, I think
is not
think.
I said screw it.
Yes.
can't
Certain people in restaurants are making food.
That is when they are most attuned and it's where yeah, it's a very Just what you're saying.
And
We've got recipes this week and There is nothing better about this time of year and this season than when you get out and
hunt and fish and forage and you get to eat it at duck camp the next day or while you're out there in a shore lunch.
Man, that is just the best.
Nothing better in the world than when the days are getting a little cooler at night and you are eating a hot meal that you have literally harvested that year with you.
Freezers empty again and you're trying to fill it and you take that duck breast right from the field.
to the dinner table and falls the best time to do it, provider chef Ellie Lawton.
What do you got in store for us for the eating
Well, I thought we would talk a little bit about kind of the fall food trends that are coming up and kind of that where we've been experiencing and going into 2017 because as a chef,
We talk about constantly, what are the trends?
Where is the culinary inspiration coming from?
I'll be
Well, it's very interesting because we've talked about it a little bit recently, but the top trends right now is comfort foods with a twist.
So the classics with a twist.
And what I mean by that is
you know, the really good comfort dishes with like a maybe a new spicy component to it or dark rich fruits are really trendy right now.
We have new, new words like, sweaty.
So sweet and sweaty.
That reminds me
Okay.
So Tahin is a great example.
I mean, every time I go to a store, I feel like there's a new flavor of Tahin out because we have
So many folks out there now that they want the sweet, they want the heat, they want those old classic flavors, but they want kind of those new bold flavors tied into it.
So like a spicy meatloaf or maybe like a sweeter kind of wild game stew.
And I don't mean like
Sweet like you eat it and it tastes like candy.
I mean like you still get those good umami like rich meaty flavors But then maybe you have like a black cherry flavor in there like a essence to it
yes, and you have some of the seasonings that have like a little hint of orange in them that that Asian spice the really nice garlic Black garlic is super trendy right now
um anything like very like rich bold flavors and we talk about you know we're going into fall my absolute favorite thing the evenings especially here in wisconsin are so beautiful cook over your fire anytime you can if you don't if you can't make a bonfire in the backyard and cook over the beautiful coals make get a little fire pit just it's so much fun and you can do everything over that and it's just
to get in touch with mother nature and the earth and be outside at night cooking a good meal over a fire and using some of these new trends like trying
plums and maybe your sauce for your steak or something.
Just try something new.
There's so many good trends.
Go on the internet, type in current food trends.
You'll see so many of these cool things.
Brown butters are really trendy right now.
Again, the spicy, the heat, the black garlic, anything like that, so good.
Yes, so we are continuing in my district to build upon our scratch cooking.
wonderful.
A lot of districts do a lot of package stuff.
That's the stuff that they can get for cheap, but we like to incorporate a lot of scratch cooking.
So we've done bison burgers before where we mix bison and beef.
Awesome.
That's one thing that the students loved to see.
We love to pull out cranberries coming up in a couple
zucchini muffins.
Zucchini.
Bacon a ton of banana bread always for our breakfast our district loves our banana bread I
want to point something out because so often we're losing kids into hunting angling in the outdoors now because we're losing Losing them to the iPads and the video games and the things that happen in two dimensions And I think cooking like you just mentioned is really a way to bring them back You know, they're not
It's not only square slices of pizza anymore.
You're talking about incorporating real food and real Wisconsin and Midwestern berries and fruits and forage into that which I think is really a fascinating thing and I'm excited to hear about that.
I want to wrap things up though.
We've got Hannah Stonehouse here whose life in the media really was catapulted by her
photograph of a man and his bird dog and shows the love of dogs in this country and the importance they have to hunting.
I want to just kind of leave the last word to you.
What is it that America, the Midwest needs to see, needs to focus on to go to get our roots activated again?
in the outdoors as we continue to lose hunters and fishermen.
What is needed?
What is the base that's going to propel us into that conservation attitude and putting meat on the table that we harvest ourselves?
be open to having conversations with people about just going outside.
I think it's really important to be curious about why people might not want to hunt.
I think it's really important to be curious about where our food comes from.
And I think it's really important to be excited about taking kids with you or just buying them new equipment or inviting them to come along with their parents.
Because sometimes people want to learn
And it doesn't matter if you're a woman, a guy, it doesn't matter.
You want to learn, but you don't know who to ask.
So being non-judgmental and just being able to just say, yeah, I'll help you.
That's huge.
Because if you don't know how ask somebody, I didn't start hunting till I was 38 years old.
And now,
I make it a mission to take folks out there to give them their first experiences because once they have that in three dimensions, they'll never go back.
We'll see you next week on Raised in the Woods.
What's up, everybody?
This is Raised in the Woods.
My name's Joel Clayfish, Captain of the Blind.
Does that work?
Captain of the Blind?
Captain of the Ground Blind?
I'll take Captain.
Captain Kam go Roo.
No, no.
Now you're just.
Well, I'm doing the best I can over here.
I'm so excited.
My skin is about to jump out of itself because this to me is the time of the year that is unrivaled, unequaled.
The golden glow of the golden hour of the day, starting around five o'clock.
Now you start to have that
golden sunshine setting on the farm fields that are just about to get taken off.
You got some weed off already and hunting season is around the corner and I couldn't be more excited about that.
Hunting season is coming.
Eating season also.
There is nothing better in the world than getting up before the sunrise, setting up in a field.
You get your decoys out there, your layout blinds, or you're, you know, you're hidden in a natural blind and those first goose honks you hear in the distance.
Yes.
Get the flags ready, the calls ready.
You start your calling, trying to draw them into you.
Having those birds set.
and knowing that you're gonna get some on the ground, that's gonna be literally dinner that day.
It does not get better.
I'm so excited about this show today because Hannah Stonehouse is here.
She is literally an icon in the Midwest in the outdoors and she is a world famous.
I'm gonna say it because it's true.
I apologize.
She's a world famous photographer of bird dogs.
You know, Chad Belding is
really into his dogs.
He names all of his dogs after Guns N' Roses members, because it's the best band ever.
And I'm not gonna necessarily dispute that.
Guns N' Roses is fantastic.
That is, yes, but you should know his opinion as fact.
Well, I was named after the house I was conceived in.
you know.
So it was a Stonehouse.
It was the Stonehouse.
Grandetor, Illinois.
cool.
John Deere built it when he came
Right, Hannah
Tractor.
right?
Hannah Green.
Hannah
Yes.
No, he built the house in the 1840s for the people who were coming over from Vermont.
And the women couldn't get pregnant on the way because it was too long of a journey to Illinois, obviously, his first factory in Grand Detour, Illinois.
And that's where babies came from.
And my parents, who
are hilarious and I am definitely their daughter, named me after where I was conceived.
I've always wanted to know where babies came from.
Stonehouse.
They lived there
Thank you.
It's awesome.
You are famous, and I'm gonna drag this out just a little bit.
You're famous for a particular photo, but that's not the only thing that you do.
You have kind of made a living shooting bird dogs.
Bird dogs are your, that's your forte.
How important, you know, when we're out there, when you are sitting in a blind or you're walking on a field, upland hunting,
and you drop birds from the field that are coming in, that are coming right to the hole, and you get to see that dog work, very few things are as satisfying and cool as that in the field.
That is my favorite thing about photography, is when you capture an animal, a dog, doing what they were bred to do, the look on their face.
the just whether it's their muscle structure their breed standard any of that when I get to capture that that is that's why I'm here in some ways because
That especially when you have a dog who's so important to you, who is your hunting partner, and I get to find out later that those are the memories you have of them in the field because you've been able to be present with them and be able to hunt with them.
And you tell me 10 years later that those are the things that bring you happiness when you look at my images.
That is everything to me.
Thank you.
It is why I do what I do.
How important I want to get into some of the logistics of this you know for for the folks listening who are serious waterfall hunters who spend a ton of their time training their dogs sending their dogs off to be trained training them themselves that payoff that happens when you have the dog in the blind with you and that dog is I mean
Ansier than all get
out.
Yes, I had seen
All they want to do is make their owner happy, right?
They just want to make everybody happy.
They want to do their job.
But to them,
They literally live for it.
How important is it, do you think, for dogs to be involved in hunting?
And how is that become such a part of Americana and the culture of hunting?
It is extremely important if they are trained correctly.
And we can talk about this till we're blue in the face.
If you have a dog who is
has not had the right, much like a human, exposure to hunting, you can cause an issue and you've wasted some money.
So it's really important to have a dog that's trained appropriately that you respect.
and that the dog respects you.
Because that dog has skills that you have it there for.
overthinking it or consistently missing shots.
It's really important in my estimation to be extremely practiced yourself when you have to also train yourself.
and to do that.
Right, and avoid that
that you can
buddy, right?
Right, and I've had photos of dogs glaring at their owners, and
Oh, very much so.
especially frustration, happiness, joy.
I mean, joy translates with dogs in the field.
You see they're doing what they're meant to be doing, and whether it's bird dogs, sled dogs, and any of those.
They're happy.
When you
Yes.
so special.
Very, very much so.
Yes.
Incredible.
Yeah, it is.
I love it.
Yes.
Very
mean.
I have left before.
I have left before.
On a photo shoot.
I have said this is no longer happening.
And you're not respecting your dog.
You're not treating them appropriately.
And this is done.
Correct.
I am not talking
That is true and a lot of the time what I've seen from a dog behavior issue or a human behavior issue is they're trying to be confident.
The human is trying to be confident but doesn't have the base of knowledge because they haven't been around other people who interact with dogs appropriately.
And I'm not trying to be judgmental, but it's also really important to make sure that you know what you're doing.
I mean, if you're gonna have fun and you're gonna do the things that make you and that animal happy, you know, do it for the love of it in a way that is...
is joyful.
I mean, I keep using joyful, but that's what it is.
It shouldn't be a source of frustration.
Make sure you have a breed that's appropriate for you.
That's one of the biggest things is people get a breed because they fall in love with it.
But they don't actually know that that dog may need more or less exercise than another one.
you're aging and you need a dog that you need to be able to get out in an emergency.
I mean, I love like Brittany's spaniels or any of the smaller spaniels because for people
mean I'm a short person who you know if there's an emergency out in the field I'm not gonna be able to pick up
110-pound lab, right?
Wait,
they use a lot of those in
It's fine.
I think it's
It's just important to be about picking the breed that is right for you and your family because that's what makes it fun.
We've got Chef Lawton and a special guest today.
We've got lunch lady Lynn Morris.
with us who is part of a local school district.
She's the becoming world regionally but world famous lunch lady and she's gonna be making some appearances here on the follow life podcast and are raised in the woods show which I'm pretty excited about but what I am most fascinated by when it comes to dogs is there are real
pros and cons to having a dog in the field.
But any dog person will tell you there are no cons with the right training and trained dog.
And I want to get into that a little bit because if a dog is running around the field while you're out there and birds are coming in, they can very often reduce your chances for that to happen.
So I want to talk about those kind of specifics.
This is awesome.
We've got a fantastic guest with us today, Hannah Stonehouse, with a storied multi-decade history in the outdoors, of course, Chef Long.
I'm excited to get in there and peel the layers back.
And I'm excited about our cooking segment.
That's for sure.
I am here with a fantastic guest, someone who has been in the outdoors of Wisconsin, who's covered waterfowl hunting, who's covered upland hunting, who's covered big game hunting.
You've covered and been exposed to just about every type of hunting.
You've been in radio, TV, written media for decades.
Yes.
Hannah Stonehouse.
All of it.
I know.
I love it.
We love it.
We've got Chef Ellie Lawton, the official provider chef and lunch lady Lynn with us today.
Hannah, I want to talk to you how I think people
think it's very easy.
Everybody says, oh, I want to make a life in the media.
And we had Patrick Durkin on talking about that.
And that was fascinating conversation with him.
It is not something that's easy.
It's not something that's just plain fun.
It's as much work, if not harder work than trying to do a corporate job or, you know, a blue collar job.
There's work involved and the pay isn't great.
I mean, how were you drawn into doing outdoor media and radio and TV?
And how did you get a start?
What was the...
Place where was the place that lured you into this life?
Well, I'm a third-generation broadcaster grew up in the radio industry and I was not planning on Really going into radio and then or writing or any of that stuff and I met my husband Jim Hudson and was in northern, Wisconsin and we started his guide service and a person who is
myself who grew up in marketing and radio.
I helped him grow his guide service with writing, with photography, with all of those things.
And so I was sort of an assumed person to do all of the outdoor communication and I fell in love with it.
The fishing and hunting communities are amazing and I don't think people understand that enough.
And I
I can't, it's really funny because I can't really talk about things other than fishing and hunting unless I am prompted to talk about something else.
So it's a problem.
I don't think that sounds like a
Right.
And nobody in my family hunts and fishes, hunts and fishes.
And not because they're anti at all that just wasn't something we did we will be canoed we kayaked we went hiking we did all the things we foraged all of that and so my Life running that guide service on Lake Superior being out in the in the woods with dogs all of those things That was my entire life because when you work in the outdoor industry you work
you know, they say, I'm trying to avoid a 40 hour job and you end up working like a hundred hours a week.
That's what it is.
if you're pre-fishing or you're, you know, doing food plots or you're doing any of the things that you need to create content from, you're, you know, during the day doing that.
And then at night, you're editing photos or you're writing articles or you're recording or you're doing YouTube, all of those things.
And so that
It's all consuming and what became my entire life and I would not change a thing
Yes,
Red Cliff the
Yes,
Yes.
And so I can only speak for my knowledge from Jim, from Jim Hudson, Red Cliff Ojibway and his mother who taught me.
I moved to Wisconsin in the 90s when the spearing conversation was going on.
And I knew nothing about it because I was not from here.
I did not know about tribal rights.
I did not know anything like that.
I go to Northern Wisconsin.
I meet Jim in a bar the week.
Well, where else do you meet in Northern Wisconsin?
Well, the week between open with a week before ice fishing and open water.
He didn't drink.
He was a cop and he didn't want to be drinking around people that he had arrested.
So he walked up and I knew I was going to marry him right away.
exposure to hunting and fishing was through his eyes.
So I thought everybody, you know, fished 12 hours a day.
I thought everybody had a hunting season from September 1st to December 30th.
I had no idea.
But I also assumed everyone put tobacco down and said thank you
you take an animal.
I assumed everyone in my very
you know, Pollyanna way, I assumed everyone protected the waters that they had as a resource.
And I think so often the conservation mindedness is lost today.
on the general public who does not hunt, I don't think there is such the realization that true and ethical hunters and anglers are the ones contributing the most to conservation in Wisconsin.
But I want to talk more about the Native American influences you had, how you got into the media.
I want to learn about that famous photograph you took, and I can't wait to talk about food.
Also, something on your resume we're going to get into that I do find fascinating and want to ask you about Hannah Stonehouse is a medium.
A medium.
We're going to learn about that.
My name is Joel Clayfish.
This is the Midwest and this is a place that if you're spending time in the outdoors, waterfowl hunting or big game hunting or angling, they're really
I think is a hidden gem here that the rest of the country may not fully know about.
And somebody who's spent a great portion of their life in the outdoors, in the Midwest, in several states throughout the Midwest, is Hannah Stonehouse.
She's been in Duck Blind.
She's been in Upland Field.
She's been on the Great Lakes, the Backwater Ways.
She's been a writer, an award-winning writer, award-winning journalist.
for three plus decades and she's got some real insights and what a cool guest she is to have.
Of course, we've got a provider chef, Ellie Lawton with us.
Lunch lady Lynn is here too.
My name is Joel Clayfish.
I get to be the host, the Midwest host of The Foul Life.
And I'm really excited because hearing your past and your history,
First of all, I see parallels to mine, which is exciting and fun.
But we've been talking about your photography of bird dogs and your love and passion for bird dogs.
There is a famous painting, picture, photograph.
I mean, it's been how many
that.
if you are
This is a photo of my friend John with his dog Shep in Lake Superior.
He and I
We walked our dogs together.
He lived down the street and one day he came to me and said that he may have to put Shep down and that he would be in taking Shep into Lake Superior and Shep would fall asleep.
Could I come take photos of him and Shep?
right?
At this point, 17.
Okay.
Yeah, 17.
He died a year later and was 18.
Okay.
And yes, he was very old, very arthritic.
And that summer, the lake was not very cold.
So he would take him down into the lake, hold him, and I got, you know, it's like...
three or four minutes, maybe less.
And I got a shot of them and shared a photo of the back of my camera to Facebook and it
went nuts.
And then I, this is like in the early days of going viral when you actually people
And it was
It was, I can't really explain the craziness that happened.
I did a TEDx talk about it because it was, my phone would like, fill up with messages multiple times a day.
We were on the Today Show, Good Morning America, all these crazy things and people would drive like six to eight hours trying to find John and they would walk into our house.
They would open the door and my...
The husband had just retired from being a police officer, and he'd be out guiding.
people would just like walk in.
It was crazy.
Oh my gosh.
it was crazy.
Yes, it did.
That's a story I've never actually told.
There were some really, really weird things that happened.
But there were some really awesome things that happened and I met some incredible people.
And you know, life happens, how it happens.
I'm
And in my mind, I don't know how something weird could happen out of something so beautiful, but that just goes to show the things that we share and the way that people interpret those things.
Yes.
It is different levels for everybody, right?
It is different
If you go to stonehousephoto.com, that is my photography website, and that has the photo on it.
Or you can Google Hannah Stonehouse and TEDx and you can hear the whole story.
You can
Superior.
Yes, you can
viral now every few weeks, probably.
Yeah, like there'll
stuff like that.
Yes, which are hilarious to me because sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong.
Then you add in the whole AI weirdness and people are making videos from the photo, which is I won't even get into the ram of copyright ramifications.
of that.
like that.
Yes, yes.
Well, that's one of the reasons I guess one of the reasons I got into studying how things go viral.
And there are some things that happened afterwards that I started my journey of studying what what happens when the internet takes hold of things.
call them parasocial relationships.
Yeah.
you don't know the whole story of anything of anything well And I think that's
or
because
or at least
Right.
And so that's why it's one of those things when I teach people when you do go viral is you can either concentrate on the negative or you can go, okay, so what are the positive things that can come from this?
What are the things
that you can help people discover about themselves rather than yelling into the ether, okay, let's celebrate your relationship with your dog.
Let's celebrate the love you have for a person that you were caretaking for.
Because those are the conversations that we need to have.
And so you as the person who is the sort of the spotlight in the spotlight, you're the one who can
to some extent control the path of that conversation.
So that's your responsibility.
Yes, and all over the world.
That is the thing that connects many of us is that unconditional love.
One of the coolest things that happened was I started to be able to have conversations and see conversations in the comments with guys who missed their dogs.
they didn't feel necessarily comfortable
expressing that until this happened.
Yeah.
And it was really cool.
And I still talk to a lot of these people 14 years later, but it is being able to, and that's the other thing I do.
I am a grief scientist now.
I study
how talking about grief is really, really healthy and helps mitigate some chronic health issues.
But that's another story.
Yeah, exactly.
No kidding.
But one of those things is...
Photography can do that for people.
You know, I was talking about how people would be so excited to tell me a decade later that the thing, the photo they had for me of them and their dog or their dog was so good for them because they got to look at that and see joy.
Those are the conversations.
Saying that stuff out loud, talking about it, talking about the people and animals you miss is really important.
You want to get that out.
It's healthy.
extremely
something.
I have a lot of dog hair from various dogs.
I could probably do that without it.
This
Yes.
I
So I am an evidential medium, meaning I would never win the lottery.
I am not a psychic.
But when I started getting my masters in basically in grief, it's called Thanatology, I ran into all these because I'm a scientist.
I ran into all these studies about evidential mediumship, about
quantum physics and electricity and how things are connected.
I've known my, it's fascinating.
I have known my whole life that I just know things.
I tell people to be very clear.
I don't hear or see anything.
I just know things.
And being on Lake Superior and being married to a Native American man, an Ojibwe man, it was very interesting because
Everybody talks about that.
It's not unusual there in Bayfield and Redcliffe, Bad River, Ashland, Washburn.
It doesn't matter that area.
It doesn't matter who you are, what you're doing.
Everybody either knows stuff, sees stuff, anything like that.
And after my husband passed away, some very interesting things happened, including like light bulbs exploding, and other widows have talked to me about this.
This has happened.
Yes, and I
probably eight years after he passed away I was fishing on the lake on Lake Superior and I looked at my friend and I said why are there guys who are like they're waving at me and I didn't really see it I knew it
explaining how they were like tied to a mast and they were they had ice all over them
And he looked at me very oddly.
And we go around, we're going around Madeleine Island, and he looks at me, he's like, you don't know about that?
I said, what are you talking about?
He said, well, that's the shipwreck where all the guys that we were over, they all tied themselves to the mast because, and they were covered in ice because a storm came through.
There's this very, there's this shipwreck that I didn't know anything about.
And so I discovered, like, not everyone knows things or sees things in their mind's eye.
And I decided to just get really loud about it because I don't care what people think.
think.
I said screw
My little Italian mother, my little Italian Catholic mother used to call it a sixth sense.
And I think, and I will go so far as, and you can think this is goofy, I have a sixth sense about hunting.
And whether that day is going to be a successful day or that day is going to be a day I enjoy the beauty of the woods without a harvest.
And I think everybody has got a sixth sense
in them to explore if they want to.
And I think that that is part of the very nature.
And I think that grows as you spend time in the outdoors.
Yes.
I
No, it can't be.
Seriously.
Certain people in restaurants are making food.
that is when they are most attuned.
And it's where, yeah, it's a very, just what you're saying.
And speaking of eating, I'm really excited.
We've got recipes this week and there is nothing better about this time of year and this season than when you get out and
hunt and fish and forage and you get to eat it at duck camp the next day or while you're out there in a shore lunch.
Man, that is just the best.
Nothing better in the world than when the days are getting a little cooler at night and you are eating a hot meal that you have literally harvested that year with you.
Freezers empty again and you're trying to fill it and you take that duck breast right from the field.
to the dinner table and falls the best time to do it, provider chef Ellie Lawton.
What do you got in store for us for the eating portion of the show?
Well, I thought we would talk a
very interesting because we've talked about it a little bit recently, but the top trends right now is comfort foods with a twist.
So the classics with a twist.
And what I mean
by that is you know the really good comfort dishes with like a maybe a new spicy component to it or um dark rich fruits are really trendy right now we have new um new words like swicy
So sweet and spicy.
So Tahin is a great example.
I mean, every time I go to a store, I feel like there's a new flavor of Tahin out because we have so many folks out there now that
They want the sweet, they want the heat, they want those old classic flavors, but they want kind of those new bold flavors tied into it.
So like a spicy meatloaf or maybe like a sweeter kind of wild game stew.
And I don't mean like sweet, like you eat it and it tastes like candy.
I mean, like you still get those good umami, like rich meaty flavors.
but then maybe you have like a black cherry flavor in there, like a essence to it.
That Asian spice, the really nice garlic.
Black garlic is super trendy right now.
Anything like very rich, bold flavors.
And we talk about, you know, we're going into fall.
My absolute favorite thing, the evenings, especially here in Wisconsin, are so beautiful.
Cook over your fire anytime you can.
If you don't, if you can't make a bonfire in the backyard and cook over the beautiful coals, make, get a little fire pit.
It's so much fun.
And you can do everything over that.
And it's just to get in touch with Mother Nature and the earth and be outside at night cooking a good meal.
over a fire and using some of these new trends, like trying plums in maybe your sauce for your steak or something.
Just try something new.
There's so many good trends.
Go on the internet, type in, you know, current food trends.
You'll see so many of these cool things.
Brown butters are really trendy right now.
Again, the spicy, the heat.
The black garlic, anything like that, so good.
Yes, so we are continuing in my district to build upon our scratch cooking.
Oh, that's wonderful.
A lot of districts do a lot of package stuff.
That's the stuff that they can get for cheap, but we like to incorporate a lot of scratch cooking.
So we've done bison burgers before where we mix bison and beef.
That's one thing that the students loved to see.
We love to pull out cranberries coming up in a couple months.
You were just talking about zucchini muffins.
Zucchini.
Lovin' bacon, a ton of banana bread always for our breakfast.
Our district loves our banana bread.
I
want to point something out because so often we're losing kids into hunting angling in the outdoors now because we're losing them to the iPads and the video games and the things that happen in two dimensions.
And I think cooking, like you just mentioned, is really a way to bring them back.
It's not only square slices of pizza anymore.
You're talking about incorporating real food and real Wisconsin and Midwestern berries and fruits and forage into that which I think is really a fascinating thing and I'm excited to hear about that.
I want to wrap things up though.
We've got Hannah Stonehouse here whose life in the media really was catapulted by her
photograph of a man and his bird dog and shows the love of dogs in this country and the importance they have to hunting.
I want to just kind of leave the last word to you.
What is it that America, the Midwest needs to see, needs to focus on to go to get our roots activated again?
in the outdoors as we continue to lose hunters and fishermen.
What is needed?
What is the base that's going to propel us into that conservation attitude and putting meat on the table that we harvest ourselves?
be open to having conversations with people about just going outside.
I think it's really important to be curious about why people might not want to hunt.
I think it's really important to be curious about where our food comes from.
And I think it's really important to be excited about taking kids with you or just buying them new equipment or inviting them to come along with their parents.
Because sometimes people want to learn
And it doesn't matter if you're a woman, a guy, it doesn't matter.
You want to learn, but you don't know who to ask.
So being non-judgmental and just being able to just say, yeah, I'll help you.
That's huge.
Because if you don't know how to ask somebody, I didn't start hunting until I was 38 years old.
And now I make it a mission to take folks out there to give them their first experiences because once they have that in three dimensions, they'll never go back.
We'll see you next week on Raised in the Woods.