Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trotlining and just in general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
Speaker 1: by Case Knives from the Store More Studio on Meat
Speaker 1: Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the
Speaker 1: airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair
Speaker 1: or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.
Speaker 1: Cinnamon bears and chocolate gravy. Good night, nurse. We got
Speaker 1: a lot to talk about this week. I left y'all
Speaker 1: hanging just when the action was getting good. The wait
Speaker 1: is over, the fishing to go bear hunt, Meet me
Speaker 1: at the fire and let's get started. Last week I
Speaker 1: told you the story of the struggle of getting me
Speaker 1: in all my plunder across the border into tim Hortonland.
Speaker 1: It wasn't really all that hard, and it could have
Speaker 1: been a lot worse had it not been for a
Speaker 1: couple of employees of the airline everyone up north seems
Speaker 1: to love to hate. They took an unsolicited interest in yours, truly,
Speaker 1: like them or not. The unnamed lady in Toronto and
Speaker 1: Joscelyn and Saskatoon sought me out in an effort to
Speaker 1: offer assistance after I'm sure seeing a look of despair
Speaker 1: on my face. If you miss that one, go back
Speaker 1: and listen. We'll wait for you right here. We ain't
Speaker 1: waiting on nobody. They'll catch you up. So now that
Speaker 1: the slackers are out of here, let's get into camp,
Speaker 1: meet the rest of the cast, and start chasing bears.
Speaker 1: I introduced you to Nick Goss last week. Nixa a
Speaker 1: young man and a professional lineman who builds the big
Speaker 1: power transmission lines that push electricity through the endless miles
Speaker 1: of Saskatchewan, the big suspension towers that supply power to
Speaker 1: the bubbs around the rinks where all the little hockey
Speaker 1: players practiced really hard to come in second place at
Speaker 1: the Olympics. He met us back in Stony Rapids and
Speaker 1: flew with us. Waiting there to help get our gear
Speaker 1: unloaded was Spencer Richards. Spence is a native of Nova
Speaker 1: Scotia and a wildlife by alogists working on his master's degree.
Speaker 1: Spence is smarter than a lot of folks. I know.
Speaker 1: He's quite reserved, and his muscles have muscles. I thought
Speaker 1: I was gonna have to take steroids just to watch
Speaker 1: him in the kitchen. He would serve as our chef
Speaker 1: in camp and was a college football teammate of our
Speaker 1: host and lead guide, Dante Tobaku. The three of them
Speaker 1: ranged in age from twenty five to twenty seven, and
Speaker 1: I'll admit when we pulled into the dock and started
Speaker 1: unloading our stuff, I had mixed thoughts about the kind
Speaker 1: of week we'd be having. I was in the guiding
Speaker 1: business for a long time with my brother Tim Hunting
Speaker 1: camp atmosphere usually coincides with the folks that run it,
Speaker 1: with the COVID era of college sports, giving these boys
Speaker 1: some extra rounds of college life. I dreaded the thought
Speaker 1: of that lifestyle all over again. I wasn't worried about
Speaker 1: Dave Gardner and I. We were there to do a job.
Speaker 1: Turned out I didn't need to worry about anything. Dante
Speaker 1: Tobaccu's father was a Romanian immigrant who met Dante's mother
Speaker 1: in the Land of the Living Skies thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: And while Dante's only been present on this spending or
Speaker 1: we all called home for the last twenty five years,
Speaker 1: the last decade he's been guiding in one fashion or another,
Speaker 1: with each passing year being more in depth as he
Speaker 1: deald further and further into the business and the lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Dante played quarterback at a Kadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia,
Speaker 1: quite possibly the greatest college town name in the Milky Way.
Speaker 1: Why their mascot is in a wolf is a complete
Speaker 1: mystery to me. But during the off season Dante came
Speaker 1: back to Saskatchewan to guide fishermen and hunters. A few
Speaker 1: years ago he partnered with Patrick Babcock and has been
Speaker 1: operating this part owner of Pilot's Lodge. We were in
Speaker 1: what I affectionately referred to as Fort Fondelock, the remote
Speaker 1: cabin and area I had just flown into. That's part
Speaker 1: of the bigger concern headquartered over at Cree River. The
Speaker 1: log cabin was built in the sixties, seemingly with plans
Speaker 1: drawn up by Dick prinike And that would be our headquarter.
Speaker 1: And if you don't know who mister Prinikey is, do
Speaker 1: yourself a favor and look him up. Anyway, the main
Speaker 1: cabin housed the kitchen in the rooms for Dante, Nick
Speaker 1: and Spence. David I would share an a frame bunkhouse
Speaker 1: with separate rooms for each of us. Dave's entry door
Speaker 1: faced the long cabin mine faced the river. On the
Speaker 1: east side of the a frame was a tool and
Speaker 1: equipment shed. Adjacent to that was a metal building that
Speaker 1: sat on a concrete foundation. Concrete that was flown in
Speaker 1: a few bags at a time until the requisite number
Speaker 1: was obtained. Inside there, bar bait was stored, secured with
Speaker 1: a heavy metal door hinged across the top that took
Speaker 1: two folks to safely open and tie it off, or
Speaker 1: an ATV winch. If you were there alone, And if
Speaker 1: you were there alone, you were most assuredly by yourself
Speaker 1: as far as humanity went. The closest community of people
Speaker 1: were forty one miles away by air. I think that's
Speaker 1: like six hundred kilometers or something, not really sure. But
Speaker 1: by yourself as far as nature went, No, sir, you
Speaker 1: were in the very hub of activity. Underneath the doorframe,
Speaker 1: where it sealed against the concrete foundation of the bait shed,
Speaker 1: was an eight inch trench dug out by bears trying
Speaker 1: to get into the bait cache of oats and Greece.
Speaker 1: How do I know that bears did that? I saw
Speaker 1: him do it. The second morning I was there. But
Speaker 1: I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's let's take it back
Speaker 1: to the walk around. North and east of the main
Speaker 1: lodge was the privy or the outhouse. Now we'd call
Speaker 1: that a two holder where I grew up, and a
Speaker 1: plywood wall separated each seat. It was more than reasonably
Speaker 1: comfortable to tend to one's business there. One side had
Speaker 1: a door for the more modest guest, while the other
Speaker 1: offered a more scenic view of Saskatchewan as that portion
Speaker 1: that had been repurposed for a casting deck in one
Speaker 1: of the boats tied up along the dock. The absolute
Speaker 1: can do spirit of true Canadian outdoors men and women
Speaker 1: always brings a smile to my face and warms my
Speaker 1: heart as they thrive among the elements, making do with
Speaker 1: what they have and using only what they need. It
Speaker 1: is a common thread between all of the Canadian provinces
Speaker 1: and the people I've been blessed to meet and interact with.
Speaker 1: On the west side of the log cabin was a
Speaker 1: shower room. West of it was another bunkhouse. So that's it.
Speaker 1: That was it. That was the whole camp. An easy
Speaker 1: football pass from one end to the other, sitting on
Speaker 1: the north side of the Fonderlaut River, less than seventy
Speaker 1: miles from the southern border of the Northwest Territories. Dave
Speaker 1: and I got unpacked and we made a plan to
Speaker 1: actually start hunting that afternoon. Dante said we had plenty
Speaker 1: of time and the bait site he wanted to try
Speaker 1: first was less than thirty minutes away up river by boat.
Speaker 1: We wanted to grab a bite to eat. I needed
Speaker 1: to shoot my boat, and Dave had to get his
Speaker 1: cameras operational time was not of the essence. We were
Speaker 1: in no real hurry to get going for the evening hunt,
Speaker 1: even though it would be after two PM when we
Speaker 1: decided to load up and hit up river. It's late
Speaker 1: June and northern Saskatchewan where it never gets dark enough
Speaker 1: that you can't see how to get around in the
Speaker 1: darkest portion of the night. You wouldn't need a flashlight
Speaker 1: and open terrain to tell man from beasts. My boat
Speaker 1: seemed to be dialed in. I shot two groups in
Speaker 1: camp the same distance I'd be shooting at that bait.
Speaker 1: Both groups were where I was aiming, and Canada may
Speaker 1: have temporarily misplaced the case with my boat, but they
Speaker 1: hadn't allowed any misfortune to bother the sights. The weather
Speaker 1: was warmer than I expected, and at times the mosquitoes
Speaker 1: were worse than I remembered. I deal with mosquitos in Arkansas.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, the worst experience I've ever
Speaker 1: had with mosquitoes was an hour away from my house
Speaker 1: on the White River levee on an August coon hunt
Speaker 1: a few years ago. I have never seen them worse
Speaker 1: than they were then. The dogs and us were absolutely
Speaker 1: covered if we stood still on the levee for any
Speaker 1: period of time, so we kept on the move, and
Speaker 1: they weren't nearly as bad down in the bottoms away
Speaker 1: from the high ground here, though they seemed to be
Speaker 1: worse in different spots. Thermo cells did a great job
Speaker 1: of keeping them at bay when we were out on
Speaker 1: the bait, and if the wind picked up enough to
Speaker 1: make those less effective and blue mosquitoes away, so it
Speaker 1: worked out. The only time I really ever noticed them
Speaker 1: is when the thermo cells weren't running and the wind
Speaker 1: wasn't blowing. But inside was a different story. I burnt
Speaker 1: a cord of mosquito cours the week I was there.
Speaker 1: Normally i'd get back to camp, and about an hour
Speaker 1: before I take a short piece of coal and let
Speaker 1: it fog up my room like a cheech and chong
Speaker 1: van while I sat in the cabin with the rest
Speaker 1: of my contemporaries. By the time I retired for the evening,
Speaker 1: the coal was burnt out, and so were the mosquitoes.
Speaker 1: The floor was littered with enemy combatants, the likes of
Speaker 1: which I took great pleasure in sweeping out the door
Speaker 1: each morning, along with any sand I attracted him. The
Speaker 1: evening before our first evening hunt started a little after
Speaker 1: six when a young black bear walked into the bait.
Speaker 1: He was totally aware of our presence and absolutely unconcerned
Speaker 1: with us being there. He took up position at the
Speaker 1: barrel and began to feed. Here's the deal of hunting
Speaker 1: bears over bait. I'll say it here and will not
Speaker 1: entertain any discussion to the contrary. Anyone can argue against
Speaker 1: it all they want, and I, along with members of
Speaker 1: my family, served the nation where you have the freedom
Speaker 1: to oppose it. I have zero concern over any opinion
Speaker 1: saying it's unethical or cheating on any chance. Meeting with
Speaker 1: this bear on a spotting stalk where time is on
Speaker 1: their side, and decisions have to be fast as whether
Speaker 1: you shoot or don't shoot. I'd have probably started flinging
Speaker 1: arrows at him. Having him stationary at the barrel and
Speaker 1: being able to really look him over good allowed us
Speaker 1: the opportunity to judge his age, the size, and form
Speaker 1: an overall opinion that this bear had some growing to do.
Speaker 1: So we just sat and watched him. Even at twenty yards,
Speaker 1: using binoculars really gives you a good look. You just
Speaker 1: wouldn't get any other way other than walking up to
Speaker 1: him while he stuff just galloped full of oats and
Speaker 1: cooking on the latter of which he'd more than likely
Speaker 1: take a fence at. But giving him the once over
Speaker 1: with the buyos revealed huge bite marks and puncture wounds.
Speaker 1: Some were very fresh and and what can only be
Speaker 1: described as looking like gorilla glue. It was nasty and brutal.
Speaker 1: He had puncture wounds on his head and his throat,
Speaker 1: his chest, and his shoulders. Stark reminder that regardless of
Speaker 1: the perception of black bears being in contrast to grizzlies,
Speaker 1: which in most cases they undoubtedly are, they could still
Speaker 1: open up a can of who flung the chunk when
Speaker 1: they want to. And there was another bear out there
Speaker 1: somewhere that had opened one up on him, and that's
Speaker 1: the one I wanted to see. It wasn't long before
Speaker 1: Bear number two showed up, another black colored bear, about
Speaker 1: the same size as the chewed up one, but way
Speaker 1: more timid. He didn't have a mark on him, but
Speaker 1: he wouldn't commit to the bait while the battlescarred bear
Speaker 1: was there, and he showed no signs of leaving. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, he got in so relaxed that
Speaker 1: a couple of times he went to sleep. Bar number
Speaker 1: two slipped around behind us and out of sight in
Speaker 1: the bushes and was whining a kind of low key moaning.
Speaker 1: I never deciphered if it was directed at us or
Speaker 1: the snooze and bear that was laying on the groceries.
Speaker 1: He eventually he ambled his way out from behind us
Speaker 1: and back toward the barrel, bypassing it and the napping
Speaker 1: bear to disappeared for a while down the ridge toward
Speaker 1: the water. The bait was located at the back of
Speaker 1: an unnamed bay off the fond of Lock River, thirty
Speaker 1: yards from where we parked a boat and fifteen feet
Speaker 1: above it, in the elevation where the gentle slope wouldn't
Speaker 1: peak until reaching another thirty feet higher one hundred yards
Speaker 1: beyond where we sat. Our blind was makeshift and built
Speaker 1: from dead limbs and fresh cut jack pines, piled and
Speaker 1: stacked around like a fortification. There was no roof, and
Speaker 1: we were subject to whatever fell upon us, just as
Speaker 1: the as the bears were. As far as the piled
Speaker 1: up limbs went, they were mostly there for esthetics and
Speaker 1: peace of mind. The bears one hundred percent, No, you're there,
Speaker 1: and a wastehil pile of bramas ain't going to keep
Speaker 1: them out if they want to get in there and
Speaker 1: rummage through your plunder. I tell people who asked me
Speaker 1: for advice about hunting bears from the ground that the
Speaker 1: best thing to do is to not look like you
Speaker 1: taste good, or at least not as good as anyone
Speaker 1: sitting with you. That's worked for me so far. Those
Speaker 1: two bears hung around, rambled back and forth, and eventually
Speaker 1: moved away. By now, light was fading a little and
Speaker 1: the sun was dipping behind the ridge to our southwest,
Speaker 1: and it looked more like it was really cloudy than
Speaker 1: actually getting dark. I checked my watch. It was ten PM.
Speaker 1: We loaded up gear and called it a night. We
Speaker 1: were a day ahead on gathering content. The hunting wasn't
Speaker 1: officially scheduled to start until the next day, but because
Speaker 1: of a smooth transition flight from Saska to Too Stony
Speaker 1: Rapids and then a floatplane hop that got us in
Speaker 1: camp plenty early enough, Dante said we could go. Dave
Speaker 1: and I were there to hunt and tell a story.
Speaker 1: So we went to work. Supper was ready when we
Speaker 1: got back, and that's the way it would play out
Speaker 1: the following days. We'd go out, sit and look at bears,
Speaker 1: just waiting on the one that would stand out as
Speaker 1: the one I wanted to take home with me. Another
Speaker 1: part of the daily routine was looking both ways before
Speaker 1: stepping outside. Every morning. There wasn't a day that went
Speaker 1: by that I didn't either wake up to a bear
Speaker 1: in camp or see one out the window before the
Speaker 1: coffee got ready. And by outside the window, I mean
Speaker 1: right outside the window. They've got drone footage of the
Speaker 1: barris in camp. It's a statement for what Dante and
Speaker 1: the folks at Pilot's Lodge have done for the game
Speaker 1: in that area, which is mostly leaving it alone, hunting
Speaker 1: it with very minimal pressure, making as little impact on
Speaker 1: the land as possible. Now before anyone gets their drawers
Speaker 1: in the not thinking okay, here comes Brent's commercial for
Speaker 1: Pilot's Lodge. Since they let him come up there and
Speaker 1: hunt for free. Well, number one, you ought to know
Speaker 1: better than that, but now, and number two, that ain't
Speaker 1: the way we do things here. I paid what everybody
Speaker 1: pays to hunt there. I don't owe them anything for
Speaker 1: us filming there. If it had been a bad time,
Speaker 1: I'd be telling them that story instead of this one.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't a bad time. We made a team.
Speaker 1: From the beginning. Supper conversations were about hunting and strategy,
Speaker 1: for sure, but that was only part of it. I
Speaker 1: learned about Spencer and his family and the work he
Speaker 1: has left to do on his master's degree, along with
Speaker 1: the research he's done in connection with salmon that he
Speaker 1: calls salmon. There's an l plainly end of spelling there, Spence,
Speaker 1: So I hope that's not a question your master's degree test. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he should be a guest on Steve's podcast with the
Speaker 1: facts and the figures and the interesting stuff. He was
Speaker 1: spitting out at the supper table, Spence learned some stuff
Speaker 1: about Dave and I. One story was when New York
Speaker 1: State born Dave Gardner was down in Arkansas filming a
Speaker 1: squirrel hunt with me and Clay. We went to a
Speaker 1: cafe for breakfast one morning and Dave saw biscuits and
Speaker 1: chocolate gravy on the menu. Chocolate gravy is as southern
Speaker 1: as it gets. If you're unfamiliar, that's a whole other
Speaker 1: podcast for another day, so just relax. Anyway. I showed
Speaker 1: them the picks of Dave's face as he tested his
Speaker 1: first biscuit in chocolate gravy, and according to Dave, it
Speaker 1: was a life altering event and all for the better.
Speaker 1: I tell you that story to tell you this. One
Speaker 1: one evening, after coming in from hunting, Spence had looked
Speaker 1: up a recipe for biscuits and one for chocolate gravy
Speaker 1: and had them waiting for us when we got there. Now,
Speaker 1: how cool is that Not only had he been paying attention,
Speaker 1: but he nailed the chocolate gravy recipe. His biscuits were
Speaker 1: good enough, but the gravy was what made the effort
Speaker 1: shine like a diamond. And the coons behind. Then there
Speaker 1: was Nick, an accomplished fly fisherman and fishing guide himself
Speaker 1: with a little girl of wife back home in southern Saskatchewan,
Speaker 1: counting the minutes until he got back to him. I
Speaker 1: never saw him when he wasn't smiling or looking for
Speaker 1: something to work on, clean up, cook or improve. He
Speaker 1: showed legitimate concern for the success of our hunt and
Speaker 1: reminded me of my brother Tim, easy going with a
Speaker 1: big laugh and telling one story after another about guiding
Speaker 1: and dealing with people. The concerns I had upon a
Speaker 1: rival was short lived. Each of these guys had roles
Speaker 1: to play, and they played them very well. It made
Speaker 1: it very easy for Dave and I to do our work,
Speaker 1: which was to tell the story while waiting for a
Speaker 1: good bear and allowed the story to play out on camera,
Speaker 1: and then try to bring a bear back to Arkansas.
Speaker 1: We sat at another bait further upriver, but something always
Speaker 1: brought us back to the unnamed Bay. It was our
Speaker 1: third sit that the action peaked for us. It was
Speaker 1: two hours before we'd really expected to see anything when
Speaker 1: Dave heard a bear from over four hundred yards away
Speaker 1: across the opposit side of the bay. Slashing through the water.
Speaker 1: We watched through by nos as he slowly but steadily
Speaker 1: made his way purposefully in iron direction, crossing the swimming streams,
Speaker 1: hugging the edge of the bay as he closed in
Speaker 1: on where we sat. It was the one that had
Speaker 1: been there on day one that wouldn't commit. He repeated
Speaker 1: the same thing this time as well. Heventually moved off.
Speaker 1: A short time later, the first bearer we'd seen their return.
Speaker 1: His wounds didn't look any better or worse, but he
Speaker 1: also didn't appear to have any fresh ones. He only
Speaker 1: stayed a fraction of the time that he had the
Speaker 1: first time when we saw him come, before leaving at
Speaker 1: a steady pace with plenty of food left. Now the
Speaker 1: bear hunters listening are probably thinking, oh, some bickers coming
Speaker 1: for him to abandon his post like that. I was
Speaker 1: thinking the same thing, and we were both right. The
Speaker 1: bears in the northern Saskatchewan do not carry the weight normally.
Speaker 1: The bears in the south do. They have the frames,
Speaker 1: but they're more lean. As a rule, they make up
Speaker 1: for poundage with bigger skulls. That's not unusual for a
Speaker 1: two hundred pound bear there to have a twenty inch
Speaker 1: skull or better. There's just not a ton of calorie
Speaker 1: rich food sources for them to choose from up there.
Speaker 1: That's what makes the baits such a good source to
Speaker 1: choose animals in or past their prime to take off
Speaker 1: the landscape. Killing bears comes with a cost and responsibility
Speaker 1: that would be validated about twenty minutes later, after I
Speaker 1: looked up to see a mature, cinnamon colored bear approaching
Speaker 1: the bait from the direction that the last bear had left.
Speaker 1: That bear walked from behind the bait, passed the barrel
Speaker 1: and stopped a few yards between it and where we sat.
Speaker 1: He could see us sitting there and could smell the
Speaker 1: bait bucket if we'd sat less than ten yards away
Speaker 1: to our back right. I came to full draw as
Speaker 1: he walked to our left, and at less than fifteen
Speaker 1: yards he stopped. Dave whispered that there was a tree
Speaker 1: between the camera and the bear. Now, if I had shot,
Speaker 1: it would have defeated one of the purposes that we
Speaker 1: were there. The story that we were telling was how
Speaker 1: I had transitioned from behind the camera to be in
Speaker 1: in front of it, and then when Dave told me
Speaker 1: not to shoot because he couldn't see it. I knew
Speaker 1: the position, and he was in I'd been there before.
Speaker 1: I let my bowt down and watched that bear disappear
Speaker 1: to my left and the bushes where the barrel on
Speaker 1: the first day had gone and stopped and stayed behind us. Well,
Speaker 1: this bear didn't do that. I could see the tops
Speaker 1: of the small jack beares and willis shaking as he
Speaker 1: made his way through them on a course that would
Speaker 1: have him come out within a few feet of where
Speaker 1: we sat. He didn't stop, he never even slowed down.
Speaker 1: He kept the same face as he had when he entered,
Speaker 1: and he walked behind us within fifteen feet and stopped
Speaker 1: at the bait bucket, where he promptly stuck his face
Speaker 1: inside to clean up what was left. And there we
Speaker 1: all sat Dante. To my immediate right beside him was Dave,
Speaker 1: and fifteen feet behind Dave was a wild Northern Saskatchewan
Speaker 1: cinnamon colored bear running the search warrant on what was
Speaker 1: left of the bait for his next trick. He got
Speaker 1: up and walked down to the boat, climbing inside and
Speaker 1: messing with bags of oats he had stashed in the back.
Speaker 1: From there, he made his way back up to the
Speaker 1: bait barrel. I came to full draw and at twenty
Speaker 1: yards a liver shot. The prettiest color face barrier I'd
Speaker 1: ever seen in the wild. Now, I was less than
Speaker 1: excited about the shot placement. That I torqued the bow
Speaker 1: by squeezing the grip. I don't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: All I knew was that I didn't gut shoot him. Now,
Speaker 1: that's a very distinctive pop, and this shot didn't have that.
Speaker 1: It was one hundred percent liver shot. That was confirmed
Speaker 1: thirty minutes later when we went over and looked at
Speaker 1: the air, dark livery blood, and zero gut smell. The
Speaker 1: blood trail started not far from the bait, and it
Speaker 1: was considerable for about sixty yards and then it stopped completely.
Speaker 1: It was like you'd cut the faucet off. It's not
Speaker 1: uncommon occurrence. When the raw goes in and comes out
Speaker 1: on the same plane. You know, can seal off the
Speaker 1: exterior holes, and long thick hair can soap up what's
Speaker 1: coming out, and unless the bear rubs up against something,
Speaker 1: there could be little to no blood to see. For
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. We started over and over trailing the blood
Speaker 1: looking for clues, but lost it. Each time at the
Speaker 1: same spot. We walked out to the corner of the
Speaker 1: bay on a path the bears had been used coming
Speaker 1: to and leaving that bait site, but there was nothing
Speaker 1: but tracks, no blood. We decided to go back and
Speaker 1: pack up our stuff and come back later in the morning. Now,
Speaker 1: in my mind, I was gonna make the argument when
Speaker 1: we got back to camp to just wait a while
Speaker 1: and bring Spence and Nick back with us and start over.
Speaker 1: I would never get to plead my case, because once
Speaker 1: we got back to the ridge where the bait was,
Speaker 1: Dave looked across the corner of the bay less than
Speaker 1: fifty yards from where we'd stopped, and saw over the
Speaker 1: tall grass where we'd been unable to see, and there
Speaker 1: he saw my bear laying face down on the trail.
Speaker 1: He'd gone less than two hundred yards. In my urging,
Speaker 1: we walked over and Dante followed him up with a
Speaker 1: shot from his rifle, and that then, I do not
Speaker 1: apologize for killing animals. My regret lies not in the
Speaker 1: taking of life. It lies in the way it all
Speaker 1: came about. And I don't have to preach the folks
Speaker 1: hear about the value and the necessity of conservation stewardship
Speaker 1: and how regulated scientific based management is and how it works.
Speaker 1: It was my improper sight alignment that turned what should
Speaker 1: have been a short window between impact and death of
Speaker 1: only a minute or two to almost forty five. I
Speaker 1: don't know what else to say about it, other than
Speaker 1: I will continue to shoot and practice the safeguard from
Speaker 1: similar events in the future. Now we ain't even talked
Speaker 1: about the fishing, and guess what, we ain't gonna have
Speaker 1: time too this week. I'm I have to tell you
Speaker 1: about that on the next episode, A law with some
Speaker 1: fishing that I'll be doing closer to home. Matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving here when I get done with this to
Speaker 1: head down to Louisiana the World Championship Squirrel cook Off.
Speaker 1: It's happening September the twelfth at the JB. And John L.
Speaker 1: Hunt Family Ozark Highland's Nature Center in Springdale, Arkansas. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be there, My whole family's going to be there,
Speaker 1: and Lake Pickle's going to be there, the professor at
Speaker 1: the Backwoods University. Also going on right now is the
Speaker 1: Auction House of Oddities. Media does this every year and
Speaker 1: we raise money for the Land Access Initiative. One of
Speaker 1: the items is this bowl right here, so Matthews Verdict's bow.
Speaker 1: It's got a dialed archery side on it. It comes
Speaker 1: with the quiver. There's lots of life left in this bow,
Speaker 1: and I used it to take the life out of
Speaker 1: that bear hanging on the wall back there, among some
Speaker 1: other critters. It's a good call, lots of fun. Next week,
Speaker 1: don't forget. I'll be back. We're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: the fishing that went on that I hadn't told you about,
Speaker 1: and we don't fixing them. We'll do so until next week.
Speaker 1: This is the Brett Reeves signing off. Y'll be careful.