ISSUE 46, 6 October 2026

Welcome back to The Bend!

The Bend follows a simple rhythm each week. The Eddy Line opens with a one-line thought or observation, something short enough to remember but worth thinking about. What the Current Pulled Toward dives a little deeper into where the previous week’s energy went, whether that’s a project, a partnership, or a personal lesson learned. Signal Fire highlights a person, place, or initiative that deserves some attention. From the Field, shares a small anecdote about the broader outdoor recreation economy from Oxbow’s non-profit arm, the VA MTNS Outdoor Collective. And One Thought Worth Sitting With closes things out with a brief reflection or quote that will hopefully help guide you through whatever you may be dealing with.

It’s part journal, part field note, and hopefully something that makes you pause for a moment before diving back into the current.

Author’s note: the views, opinions, and observations expressed in The Bend are my own and do not represent any employer, public agency, organization, or individual. Where applicable, they reflect only my work through Oxbow Strategies and the VA MTNS Outdoor Collective.

The Eddy Line

“Thinking for yourself requires the courage to question both the crowd and yourself.”

What the Current Pulled Toward

This week the current pulled toward discernment.

Let’s talk just a little bit about how easy it is to inherit an opinion. Your supervisor has one. Your political party (if affiliated) certainly has one. Your professional association has one. Ever had a friend you trust says something with so much confidence that it becomes tempting to simply adopt the conclusion and move on? I think most of us have fallen victim to that. Public service isn’t immune to that.

Through the years, I’ve sat in plenty of rooms where you could tell a position or decision had been settled long before the conversation ever started. Sometimes it was the result of loyalty, while other times it came from politics. I’ve definitely seen it come from organizational culture and sometimes, I suspect, it was simply easier to agree than to be the person asking an inconvenient question. Whether we like it or not, there’s a cost to that.

Independent thinking doesn’t mean disagreeing for the sake of being difficult. I’ve known people who seemed to believe that being contrary was proof of intelligence. I prefer discernment as the bellwether. When forming an opinion or a stance on a particular issue, I find it most beneficial to listen, ask questions, and separate the person from the idea. I think it’s easy to skip to the end when you just don’t like someone but we all know that’s not helpful. Look at the information in front of you and then decide what you actually think. Perhaps most importantly, leave enough room to change your mind. Let me say that last part again: leave enough room to change your mind. It feels increasingly difficult to do that. We’ve somehow turned changing an opinion into evidence that someone lacks conviction, when oftentimes it’s evidence that they’ve learned something.

I’ve changed my mind on plenty of things over the years. I’d say most of that came from a combination of experience and people who challenged me. It’s also safe to sat that some came from realizing that a position I had defended pretty confidently just didn’t hold up particularly well once I slowed down and looked at it from another angle. I’m definitely better for all of it.

Public servants have an obligation to exercise judgment. The title on the door doesn’t relieve us of that responsibility, nor does the opinion of the person sitting in office on either side of you. There will always be pressure to pick a side quickly but discernment gives us an opportunity to take a beat and to ask whether the choice in front of us is actually the choice we have been told it is. It allows us to consider whether someone on the other side might have a point and occasionally (brace yourself) to say, “I was wrong.”

- Mike.

Signal Fire

The mission of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) is straightforward: guarantee all Americans quality places to hunt and fish. Its approach is built around partnership.

The organization works with 64 partner groups spanning hunting, fishing, wildlife, public lands, conservation, industry, and recreation. Rather than asking every organization to agree on every issue, TRCP looks for areas of consensus, coordinates around shared priorities, and brings those positions to policymakers.

Conservation debates can get complicated quickly. Landowners, hunters, anglers, businesses, agencies and communities do not always enter the conversation with the same priorities. TRCP doesn’t pretend those differences disappear. Rather, it works through them.

A recent example is its support for bipartisan efforts around wildlife migration corridors in the West, where sustained cooperation among states, federal agencies, and conservation partners has helped improve habitat and migration data for species including elk, deer and pronghorn.

Consensus doesn’t require everyone to think alike but it does require enough independent thought to recognize when somebody with a different perspective may still be trying to solve the same problem.

From the Field

Conservation can be treated as a cost but the numbers tell a broader story. TRCP notes that hunting and fishing are part of a $1.3 trillion U.S. outdoor recreation economy, and conservation spending supports the habitat, access and public lands that make much of that activity possible. Recent research cited by TRCP found that conservation spending generates roughly $115.8 billion in economic activityand supports more than 575,000 jobs nationwide. Those benefits eventually show up locally. They show up through guides and outfitters and in lodging and restaurants. It especially shows up in rural communities near public lands and in places where healthy habitat and public access give people a reason to visit, spend money, and (hopefully) come back.

There’s a policy lesson in that, too. Investments in conservation are often discussed in environmental terms but it’s important to also treat them as investments in infrastructure, tourism, small business, and local economies. The better decision becomes clearer when we’re willing to look at the issue through more than one lens.

One Thought Worth Sitting With

“If I must choose between righteousness or peace, I choose righteousness.”

- Theodore Roosevelt