To MDI the word Brotherhood has a few deep meanings.  For us of course, it’s the friendship we built on a mountain that quickly grew in to a bond as if we were bore from the same parentage. It too has the meaning of being part of a group of outdoors men and women who have the same passion for the outdoors and hunting as we do.  Many of you reading this know exactly what I am saying.  Maybe its a relative, co-worker, tech at your archery shop or a random stranger you bump into at public place that you strike a conversation up with about hunting and, next thing you know you are sharing stories, pics, etc but you can feel that connection with them.

Now we will probably ruffle a few feathers with these next few statements but bare with us on this one to the end.  One thing I too have noticed in the aforementioned conversations usually is a sharing of information or as we like to call it the final connection of the Brotherhood.  For years we too, were just as guilty.  We would strike up a conversation or get brought into a conversation and be as tight lipped about any type of information as possible or maybe we may have given miss-information with regards to hunting information so as to protect what we felt was ours.

Let us be clear.  At no point are we saying when we are in these situations we all need to get out our maps and GPS¹s and pinpoint our honey hole to everyone who asks but how many of us that spend a lot of time afield each year, if we are doing it correctly, have four or five good areas scouted in preparation for season?  I would venture to guess its is most of us and, in most instances in those situation mentioned above, most of us can tell almost immediately who the new hunters in those conversations are or, maybe they are not a local but you know almost immediately they do not know where to start with regards to locating game.

Here is where the Brotherhood and the future of our passion and ability to hunt public lands comes in.  Think of this scenario.  You meet a new or non-local hunter at a local store and a conversation strikes up.  This hunter is looking for a spot to hunt public land where they may have some success.  You as history and life has taught you wishes them the best of luck and parts ways with no guidance or information given, that hunter spends the next week hunting hard and has no success and in some instances thus becomes a bit frustrated and/or never hunts in that state again.

Besides the economical impact this has on your state, area, community it hurts us all as hunters as we lose another strong advocate and vote regarding our rights as hunters and our rights to public lands.

Now play this scenario a little different, all aspects of it start the same however, this time we as a Brotherhood share with this new hunter one of our areas where we have seen some game movement and activity.  Maybe this hunter is successful, maybe not but if by chance they are or at a minimum they get on some game, their passion is fueled and they too now are hooked, they support your state, they support our local community with monies spent in it and most importantly their voice now joins ours when it matters the most.

Be a part of the Brotherhood, be good stewards of the land and share all that comes with it.