MY TURN: Idaho's hunting and angling community stands as one

The recent attempt to sell off up to 3 million acres of public lands during Congressional budget reconciliation was a serious threat to one of the cornerstones of our outdoor lifestyle in the American West. But it did come with a silver lining in the historic showing of the support among Idahoans for our public lands. Sportsmen and women often get stuck in our own circles, arguing about how we like to enjoy the outdoors. One side wants you to practice catch and release fishing while the other wants to enjoy a nice trout cooked over a fire. Some rifle hunters want the “long range” guys to get closer to their target, while muzzleloader and archery hunters say rifle hunting is too easy. Even archers are often split between compound and traditional shooters. The list goes on, with the result that we spend more time discussing our divisions than our common ground.

But when public lands were on the chopping block, the story was different. Instead of arguing about the “right” way to do something, we saw fly fishermen and gear fishermen unite with long range rifle and traditional bowhunters to push back our elected representatives in the House and Senate to let them know that we unequivocally do not want our public lands sold off through a rushed budget reconciliation process that gave no real opportunity for the public to weigh in.

During this time, the Idaho Wildlife Federation was constantly meeting with our Congressional staffers and working to keep Idaho’s sporting public up to date on the constantly changing details around the mandatory public land sale portion of the Big Beautiful Bill. Along with partners, IWF also helped coordinate letters of opposition to our elected officials — and in the end a big thank you letter to Sens. Risch and Crapo and Rep. Simpson for their efforts to get mandatory public land sales language removed from the budget reconciliation process.

We won this round and it was because Idaho’s sporting public was able to come together and make it known that we must keep our public lands around now and for future generations to enjoy. This fight is not over, so, while we have a celebratory drink — and maybe get back to arguing about if you should be able to keep a trout or not, let’s be ready to come together again and fight for our public lands.

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Kyle Maki is the North Idaho field representative for the Idaho Wildlife Federation.