July 14, 2011 in Sports, Outdoors

Landers: Nugent’s beliefs don’t connect with most hunters

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Picture story: Ted Nugent: Loud and outspoken

Don’t dismiss Ted Nugent for being a windbag. The rock-star hunter is enviable to some degree because he’s so good at it.

Like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, The Nuge is a marketing genius with whom sportsmen must reckon.

The 63-year-old musician can drum up a few million ears to his often controversial opinions on guns or hunting as effectively as the Humane Society of the United States can milk money from little old ladies.

Sportsmen can’t ignore HSUS – or Ted Nugent.

During his ear-punishing concert in Spokane last Thursday, Nugent said his “Spirit of the Wild” TV hunting program is the No. 1 show on the Outdoor Channel.

He told me in a preconcert interview that he reached a potential audience of a billion people in one week when he was interviewed by the BBC, CNN’s Larry King, radio shock jock Howard Stern and a dozen national talk shows plus numerous publications.

He also told his fans the instrumental interlude he played last week after “Cat Scratch Fever” was “the greatest guitar lick in the history of the world.”

It’s all debatable.

But millions of people listen to what The Nuge says about hunting and game management, and some of them believe it.

That’s why I’m devoting a little more space to his passage through the Inland Northwest.

The Nuge – and too many others – are masters at dividing sportsmen in an age when it’s never been more important that they should come together to challenge development and preserve habitat.

“What is your common ground with all hunters, and on what main issues are you content to be divisive?” I asked him.

“First of all, if you’re divisive with me, you’re wrong,” he answered. “I’ve never missed a hunting season in 62 years. …

“If somebody tells me I can’t have a scope on my muzzleloader, he’s an idiot. …

“The divisiveness comes from an ignorance, a pettiness and a mean spiritedness.”

Nugent probably knows that anyone can mount a scope on a muzzleloader and hunt in a Washington modern rifle season, but that gun would not be allowed in the “primitive weapons” season.

He’s not divisive; regulations are, Nugent contends.

“So the government needs to stay out of everything” he said. “Let we the people decide.”

His no-compromise mantra whips his right-wing base into a rousing round of “Oh yeah!” and “Right on.”

But he conveniently neglects to mention that most of the rules he condemns were enacted at the request of sportsmen or at least with considerable support after discussion and debate.

“We the people,” is one of the most common phrases Nugent used in the interview I conducted before his Spokane concert. He’s also used the phrase when he’s shared stage spotlights with Sarah Palin and the president of the NRA.

“I think the most important political office in this country is we the people,” he told me.

But when he says we the people shouldn’t tolerate “more than about nine grizzly bears in Yellowstone Park” or we the people “should kill every coyote on sight” it’s clear that we the people isn’t an inclusive term.

Hunters across the country routinely dump their woes on him regarding overregulation and wildlife officer harassment, he said.

Maybe that’s a product of the hunters he attracts with his love for baiting and whacking and stacking large numbers of critters and slinging lead with semiauto and even automatic weapons.

In my hunting camp, we hoist a toast at the end of the rare day when we get checked by a wildlife enforcement officer. We play by the rules and we wish more officers were in the field making sure other hunters are doing the same.

During the Fred Bear song in his concert, The Nuge is featured in a video skewering about a dozen whitetail bucks with arrows, pumping his arms in victory and screaming with joy after each one.

“I’m an entertainer,” he said, explaining why he should be excused for his hyperbole or for suggesting Obama should suck on the end of a replica assault rifle he’s waved on stage.

That’s a pretty good pillow to fall back on for someone who’s a pro at shooting off his mouth.

It’s a cushion the politicians he criticizes don’t have; nor do the wildlife biologists who must make the hard decisions of matching science with the wide range of public opinion.

“I rock and roll all summer long,” he screams to his concert crowds. “The rest of the year I just kill (rhymes with fit).”

That approach to hunting is repulsive in my camp, where we still approach every downed animal with a sense of quiet respect.

We are thankful for what God has provided for the thrill of the stalk and the feast to follow.

We the (other) people who make up a significant segment of sportsmen don’t need to whack ’em and stack ’em to get that sense of fulfillment.

Contact Rich Landers at (509) 459-5508 or email richl@spokesman.com.

Six comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  mickib on July 14 at 10:41 a.m.

  Amen.

• 

  Theanticscontinue on July 15 at 8:50 a.m.

  If you ever listen to Ted on his program he too thanks God for giving us the animals of the woods to enjoy the thrill of the hunt and the healthy food it offers.

  I think he is an energetic performer who may celebrate the hunt and life differently than you do Rich. That doesn’t make him wrong.

  Did you bother to debate Ted directly when you were there interviewing him?

  Or is it now in the safety of your office at the Review when you choose to question his positions and rebut his comments?

  Seems kind of chicken to me, but oftentimes I believe reporters use that opportunity which they are afforded with by sake of their job to do just that. Ted’s not here to counter you now, but he was when you interviewed him. I heard no point-counterpoint going on, just questions and Teds positions on those questions presented.

  I for one applaud Ted Nugent and have done so for 30+ years. I find him a follower of the constitution, a person that stands up for individual rights and less government intrusion… All of which I support. And he belts out some mean ol’ soul music!

• 

  Hunt4life on July 16 at 9:21 p.m.

  Irony - Mr. Landers calls Ted divisive but goes on to make clearly divisive and unproductive statements himself.

  Don’t like baiting, Rich? Don’t like semi-auto rifles? Don’t like people who enjoy filling their tags? You showed disdain for the “right-wing” that agrees with Ted. Somehow your quiet respect is superior to another’s happy celebration at the time of kill? All of that makes you better than Ted? Makes you better than me? Makes you better than millions of hunters who do enjoy such things?

  I find this hit piece to be not only divisive, but misleading and beneath the standards of responsible “Outdoor” journalism.

  The Spokesman Review should be ashamed that their hunting editor would so irresponsibly drive wedges between sportsmen by looking down his nose at them for their legal hunting method, choice of rifle, political leanings and respect for someone they admire - A “someone” who has the #1 viewed show on the Outdoor Channel, no less.

• 

  Hunt4life on July 17 at 5:11 p.m.

  I wonder how many parents of terminally ill children bring them to Rich Landers to bring smiles to their faces and their final hunts? How many wounded warriors seek out Rich Landers and get invited to share a campfire and hunt at his ranch? Happens all the time in Ted’s camp.

  One time, I told Ted about the plight of a 12 year old kid with terminal brain stem cancer. His family wanted to take him on one last hunt but they had no money and the boy wasn’t expected to live long. Ted was out of the country but worked into the wee hours brain storming, saying call this person, call this ranch, call this department at the airlines, tell them Ted Nugent with do this and that if they get on board…

  A week later the boy and his entire family were flown to a ranch, had a visit from the local fire department, was given a key to the city and a the hunt of a lifetime. He died 2 weeks later. This kind of thing goes on all the time at Tribe Nuge, yet nary a word of it in the press from divisive Nuge haters like Rich Landers. Go figure.

• 

  Traveler on July 17 at 6:01 p.m.

  Yeah, good ol’ Ted. A dying human wants to take another living creature with him — not because he needs to eat, just because he wants to kill something — and Ted’ll bend over backwards to make that happen.

  At least the slaughtermeister gives himself a fig leaf by saying he whacks and stacks all those animals for the food — the obvious joy he takes is, I’m certain, because he’s such a “sportsman” and he’s showing his respect for the noble fight the deer put up from a few hundred yards away. He’s only marginally a hunter, but he’s a wholehearted killer. Not like Rich and his ilk, who, how did he put it? “… approach every downed animal with a sense of quiet respect.” What a bunch of *$$holes those guys are.

  Go up against a bear using only a knife. If you win, then you’ll be the “sport” in “sportsman”; otherwise, you’re just pointing and shooting at something that can’t defend itself and didn’t even know you were gunning for it.

  As for the “healthy food” hunting offers, you can find that in stores. You may have to read the labels a little closer, however, and in a worst-case scenario, hunt for the organic section.

• 

  richl on July 18 at 10:36 p.m.

  To Hunt4Life: You didn’t read all of the related stories and audio from my interview with Ted Nugent. His relationship with the military and terminally ill youths is clearly presented.