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Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nucolman. I'm the host of the
Speaker 1: Bear Honey Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into
Speaker 1: the world of hunting the icon of North American wilderness,
Speaker 1: the Bear. We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will
Speaker 1: also bring you into some of the wildest country on
Speaker 1: the planet, Chasing Bear. Happy spring, folks, It is go
Speaker 1: time for black bear hunting in North America and we
Speaker 1: ourselves as we speak, are in wild places hunting bears.
Speaker 1: We are going to re release an episode called black
Speaker 1: Bear Shot Placement for Dummies. This is a this is
Speaker 1: coming at a great time, and this is again a
Speaker 1: really comprehensive conversation that we have that dissect the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty nerd out just technical talk of bears in Bear
Speaker 1: Hunting magazine, fun and conversational, long form fashion, fun stuff,
Speaker 1: good stuff. You're gonna enjoy this podcast. Use some North
Speaker 1: Woods bear products when you're baiting bears this spring. I
Speaker 1: like the gold Rush friar grease additive. Had a guy
Speaker 1: asked me today what you're supposed to do with that?
Speaker 1: As you're supposed to port on the ground. If you're
Speaker 1: supposed to pour it on the food, pour it on
Speaker 1: the food, pour it on your bait. The grease that's
Speaker 1: been that has the gold Rush in it. Hey, check
Speaker 1: out our friends at w Hunting Supply. They they've started
Speaker 1: a podcast. Check it out all right. Hey, while you're
Speaker 1: at it, check out our friends at at Houndsman XP
Speaker 1: podcast as well. Doing some good stuff and lastly, the
Speaker 1: Western Bear Foundation, nonprofit hunting conservation organization standing up for
Speaker 1: hunters out west, fighting the good fight, fighting the good
Speaker 1: fight that you know, we humans have been hunting critters
Speaker 1: with projectile points for a long time and there's people
Speaker 1: that don't think that we should, and um, so we
Speaker 1: have to. We have to support the organizations that are
Speaker 1: fighting for our rights to be human. So I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy this episode, and I know you will if
Speaker 1: you're interested in bears and good hunting, if you get
Speaker 1: out into a wild place. The topic that we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about on this episode is shot placement on black
Speaker 1: bear and we're gonna get into several different topics that
Speaker 1: are highly relevant. But before we get into the episode,
Speaker 1: I want to introduce who I've got with me here.
Speaker 1: I have directly to my left, Ryan No greb Ryan Grab.
Speaker 1: Ryan is Uh a long time good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: And Ryan was killing bears while my mama was still
Speaker 1: wiping my knows. It's true now Ryan has Ryan's traveled
Speaker 1: with me all over Canada. But more than that, Ryan's
Speaker 1: hunted in Arkansas for years. Ryan's been on the podcast before,
Speaker 1: but he's he's hunted bears in Arkansas since well for
Speaker 1: years and years, killed a lot of big bears, bow
Speaker 1: hunted bears a lot, and so I consider Ryan an
Speaker 1: expert for sure. So he's here. And then on my
Speaker 1: right someone that you well, Kobe has been on this
Speaker 1: podcast before. I've got Colby moorehead. Colby has is now
Speaker 1: news to all of everybody. He's working full time for
Speaker 1: Bear Hunting Magazine. So Kolbe is also a longtime friend
Speaker 1: of mine that uh is now he's full time working
Speaker 1: for Bear Hunting Magazine helping us with all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: So if you ever call the global headquarters, you'll probably
Speaker 1: talked to Colby. And Colby is a bear hunter. He's
Speaker 1: a new bear hunter, went on his first bear hunt
Speaker 1: back in the fall and took a really nice bear.
Speaker 1: And so we've got a good mix right here and
Speaker 1: that um, we've we've got a lot of experience. But also, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Koby's new to bear hunt, so you might
Speaker 1: have some questions or you might hear us talking to
Speaker 1: might have some insight and something that somebody else might have.
Speaker 1: I just feel sorry for him what he is to
Speaker 1: hang with you here in the office during the every day,
Speaker 1: all day and he's right underneath the big bear over here.
Speaker 1: You need to make him a cubicle over here where
Speaker 1: you don't have to look at you like, box him in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can box him in. But well, hey, let's let's
Speaker 1: jump right into this and I'll kind of give the
Speaker 1: precursor to why this is relevant. Most people in North America,
Speaker 1: most of the guys that are listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: have been trained on whitetail deer anatomy for shooting, well,
Speaker 1: for shooting any big game. We've been trained to hunt ungulates, deer, elk,
Speaker 1: moose that all have a really similar body structure. They
Speaker 1: have a similar bone structure, they have a similar um
Speaker 1: anatomical or organ structure. But they also have short hair,
Speaker 1: they don't have big layers of fat. And so basically,
Speaker 1: shooting a bear is different than shooting and ungulate, and
Speaker 1: there's lots of different variables inside of it that are
Speaker 1: important for a first time bear hunter or even a
Speaker 1: veteran bear hunter. I mean, the truth is that in
Speaker 1: most situations, and right would you agree with this most situations,
Speaker 1: if you just took a deer hunter out and didn't
Speaker 1: tell him anything, he could probably go out and shoot
Speaker 1: a bear. I mean and not have any problem, but
Speaker 1: in the finer tuned points of bear hunting. And if
Speaker 1: you took that same guy, and this is the way
Speaker 1: I would describe it, if you took that same guy
Speaker 1: that was trained as the white tail hunter and put
Speaker 1: him on ten bear hunts, I'm gonna say three of
Speaker 1: those ten he's gonna mess up simply because of lack
Speaker 1: of understanding of a few principles. I mean, is that
Speaker 1: a good? And that is that a good? Yeah? You know,
Speaker 1: bear postures constantly changing, you know, Yeah, you're looking for
Speaker 1: that broadside shot more often than not. I mean, dear,
Speaker 1: that's preferred to shot anyway, but a lot of people
Speaker 1: take the quartering away shots. But you know, bears, the
Speaker 1: if you can get that broadside, that's usually money. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: let's start off by talking about bar anatomy. I read
Speaker 1: a a article that was written very recently that was
Speaker 1: circulating on uh Facebook, clicked on it. It was about
Speaker 1: ten ten I think it was ten things about spring
Speaker 1: bear hunting, and one of them was about a shot placement.
Speaker 1: And this this author said that bear organs are further
Speaker 1: forward than a deer, which I want to quickly say
Speaker 1: is exactly opposite of what I have found, not just
Speaker 1: in what I've read, but we did the first year
Speaker 1: had Barrenting magazine. We killed We went up to Alberta
Speaker 1: and we killed six bears in five days. We actually
Speaker 1: did a knee cropsy on a bear where we took
Speaker 1: the carcass with all the internal organs inside and stripped
Speaker 1: off the layers of rib or the stripped off the
Speaker 1: rib meat so that you could see into the rib
Speaker 1: cage and tried to determine like where the lungs would layout.
Speaker 1: And man, we made some incredible diagrams that were in
Speaker 1: Barrehunting Magazine. They're also online. And to make a short summary,
Speaker 1: bare vitals are slightly further back than a white tail.
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that? Right? So there, so let
Speaker 1: me just say that is a big premise of black
Speaker 1: bear shot placement and brown bear for that matter. The
Speaker 1: vitals they're not it's not like they're just like in
Speaker 1: the middle of the body, but they extend slightly further back.
Speaker 1: I found that the lungs of these bears went all
Speaker 1: the way back to the very last rib, which, if
Speaker 1: you can imagine shooting a white tail at the very
Speaker 1: last rib, you'd be pretty far back. You would kill that.
Speaker 1: You'd kill the deer because you'd get liver. But the
Speaker 1: lungs of I mean the very tip of that long
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying that all the way back at
Speaker 1: the last rib there was eight inches of lung. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. That the lungs are like oblong shaped,
Speaker 1: you know, they're like they're like long and deep towards
Speaker 1: the front of the animal and they go back like this.
Speaker 1: And so the back to the very last rib there
Speaker 1: was a little bit of lung. So I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that's where you want to hit them. The second part
Speaker 1: of that, Kolbe has some experience with this, Kobe, you
Speaker 1: really made a mistake by shooting the bear far back
Speaker 1: on the first hunt. Ever with me, you were like
Speaker 1: the prime target to just make an example out of.
Speaker 1: But you got the right posture for it. Here. I'm
Speaker 1: glad I could take on that for everyone. Oh man,
Speaker 1: it was on video. It was all there. But for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, and this perhaps is it has to do
Speaker 1: with the anatomical structure of the bear. But you can
Speaker 1: shoot a bear further back than a white tail and
Speaker 1: be okay. There was an article that we had published
Speaker 1: a few years years ago called the middle of the Middle,
Speaker 1: which there are a lot of Canadian outfitters that tell
Speaker 1: their clients to shoot a bear in the middle. And
Speaker 1: I think the way it started out was they said, hey,
Speaker 1: shoot the bear in the middle, and the client said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean the middle? And the guy in
Speaker 1: the outfitter goes the middle of the middle, I mean
Speaker 1: straight up middle of the bear, and uh what This
Speaker 1: article is written by a guy named Rob Knives, Saskatchewan
Speaker 1: outfitter that I know, and uh he was taught that
Speaker 1: by some other old outfitters. And man, when you shoot
Speaker 1: in the middle of the middle, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of room for air. And that's the whole point of it,
Speaker 1: a lot of room for air. Now, I do not
Speaker 1: suggest I don't like shooting them in the middle of
Speaker 1: the middle. I like to go about four inches back
Speaker 1: towards the shoulder from the middle of the middle. And
Speaker 1: when I say the middle of the middle, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the distance between the front legs and the back legs.
Speaker 1: I'm not including like the head of the bear, but
Speaker 1: like the middle of the middle. I like to go
Speaker 1: about three to four inches back towards the shoulder. So
Speaker 1: slightly further back. Then then you would like try to
Speaker 1: heart shoot a bear. And that's maybe the biggest thing
Speaker 1: that's different about bear hunt bear hunting versus deer hunting
Speaker 1: is that as deer hunters, we were always taught to
Speaker 1: try to heart shoot the deer. Okay, which would be
Speaker 1: low and tight. You don't want to do that with
Speaker 1: a bear, do you agree, Ryan? I agree. You've got
Speaker 1: all that hair hanging down below. You know that hair,
Speaker 1: it could be two inches long, could be four inches long,
Speaker 1: So definitely want to try to get it the vertical
Speaker 1: line in the middle the body. Yeah. You The problem
Speaker 1: with low and tight on him on a bear is
Speaker 1: that what Ryan said, Imagine a big, mature board that's
Speaker 1: got two inches of fat beneath the rib cage. He's
Speaker 1: also got hair that's a minimum of two inches, but
Speaker 1: could be hanging down as much as four inches, And
Speaker 1: so what you perceive as a silhouette at the bottom
Speaker 1: of that bear is actually probably six to eight inches above.
Speaker 1: That would be vital. And so a veteran bow hunter
Speaker 1: that was hunting with me at one time who had
Speaker 1: taken a lot of white tails with a bow, I
Speaker 1: mean ate a lot of white tails bear hunting for
Speaker 1: first time, and he just tried to heart shoot this bear,
Speaker 1: I mean, just low and tight, and he ten ringed
Speaker 1: right where he was aiming. We never found that bear,
Speaker 1: totally hit it in the brisket and he was fooled
Speaker 1: by the silhouette of that bear. Um. Now have you
Speaker 1: ever have you ever hit a bear low and tight?
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever have. Now the two thousand
Speaker 1: and sixteen up Uh bear pro Safar as you know,
Speaker 1: shot that one low and back, but I've never shot
Speaker 1: one low and forward. I wasn't sure if you had,
Speaker 1: because I have another story of a friend of ours
Speaker 1: here in Arkansas that had a monster bear come in
Speaker 1: and it was just kind of one of those deals.
Speaker 1: Or I think he would say he was probably just
Speaker 1: on autopilot and was just trying to heart shoot it
Speaker 1: and shot low and tight. And it was a big bear,
Speaker 1: so it was exaggerated, long hair, lots of fat, thick
Speaker 1: rib cade and so I mean he just basically shot
Speaker 1: the bear in the brisket where if it had been
Speaker 1: a white tail, he would tendering that that's a big
Speaker 1: deal with black bears that you don't want to do
Speaker 1: with archery shots. Is low and tight. You want to
Speaker 1: be further up and number Another thing is that a
Speaker 1: bear doesn't jump the string like a white tail. I mean,
Speaker 1: especially with the with video and all the stuff on
Speaker 1: that we're seeing now almost a hundred percent of the
Speaker 1: time these white tails are dropping at the sound of
Speaker 1: an arrow, even if you still kill the deer. I mean,
Speaker 1: like we've killed all these deer with bows not on film,
Speaker 1: and you just you kill this steer. Those deer dropping
Speaker 1: a lot, sometimes dropping sixteen inches before the era gets
Speaker 1: there like a thirty yard shot. A white tail as
Speaker 1: a prey and only as a flight response to danger,
Speaker 1: a massive quick flight response. A bear has some of
Speaker 1: a flight response, but not near as much as a
Speaker 1: white tail, would you agree in terms of dropping and going.
Speaker 1: He's not on pins and needles all day long like
Speaker 1: a deer is thinking he's gonna get eats an a
Speaker 1: ex animal and probably stays relaxed, you know, most of
Speaker 1: the day. So he's probably not sensing a lot of danger.
Speaker 1: And so the translation of that into bear shot placement
Speaker 1: is that you don't have to aim low like as
Speaker 1: bow hunters we've been taught to aim low on a deer.
Speaker 1: Man you don't want to hit low on a bear
Speaker 1: because that silhouette is so deceptive. And I would say
Speaker 1: that's the Those are the biggest things. Like, if we're
Speaker 1: talking about shot placement slightly further back than a bear,
Speaker 1: don't be afraid. Most people aim so far forward because
Speaker 1: they're afraid to hit so far back because in the
Speaker 1: white tail world we have been preached to our whole life,
Speaker 1: don't hit him far back, don't hit him far back.
Speaker 1: And honestly, I would rather hit a white tail far
Speaker 1: back than I would further forward. I think people that
Speaker 1: that has been preached us so much because guys have
Speaker 1: really not been very good blood trailers. That's the truth.
Speaker 1: I've found that inside of my IT scursions, inside of
Speaker 1: other hunting circles, is that guys sometimes make a shot
Speaker 1: that they probably could recover that animal, but they really
Speaker 1: don't have the skill to blood trail that animal, And
Speaker 1: so a marginal shot all of a sudden becomes a
Speaker 1: marginal but mortal shot becomes an unfounder. And obviously I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting shooting dear far back at all, but that
Speaker 1: fear that's been put in us to hit an animal
Speaker 1: too far back has pushed us forward to the animal.
Speaker 1: But with a bear, you can be a little bit
Speaker 1: further back, a little more forgiving, little more forgiving if
Speaker 1: you're hitting in that middle of the middle or you
Speaker 1: know that that mid section from Kobe tell us about
Speaker 1: your bear, just kind of like where about where you
Speaker 1: perceived the shot to be. Yeah, it was. It was
Speaker 1: a straight up gut shot, you know. Uh, I was
Speaker 1: aiming like the middle of the middle, but then he
Speaker 1: started moving and I was already in my shot sequence,
Speaker 1: so uh so like vertically it was in the middle,
Speaker 1: and I think that was made things come together in
Speaker 1: the end, just that and then backing off for the
Speaker 1: night and waiting until the next morning to to look
Speaker 1: for him. But I mean he was pretty riggered up,
Speaker 1: like he had died, like he'd been dead. Awhile a
Speaker 1: mechanical or fixed blood. No, I was shooting a four
Speaker 1: bladed fixed Yeah. It passed through, passed all the way through.
Speaker 1: I mean, it didn't get liver. It was like way
Speaker 1: back and uh we we backed out, came back the
Speaker 1: next day. And now, granted this is a situation where
Speaker 1: somebody who didn't have a lot of experience might have
Speaker 1: had a hard time trailing that bear. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: lie about that. But Corey Grant all trained, He's a
Speaker 1: good blood trailer, and I mean we we just we
Speaker 1: found just spots of blood. I mean just I mean
Speaker 1: it was a tough trail, don't get me wrong, but
Speaker 1: the bear ran probably two yards to fifty m h
Speaker 1: and um, we easily recovered the bear. I mean, now
Speaker 1: we had to. We had to fight for it a
Speaker 1: little bit. I mean just in that there were times
Speaker 1: when we lost it and we were going off a
Speaker 1: scuff mark and the leaves going down the hill. But
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, within forty five minutes we were
Speaker 1: standing over the bear. Yeah. I think the thing that
Speaker 1: surprised me was when the blood stopped hitting the ground
Speaker 1: and you just started seeing smudge marks on the side
Speaker 1: of trees. Yep. You gotta you gotta use everything in
Speaker 1: your arsenal when you're telling any kind of animal. Like
Speaker 1: if we had just been looking for bright red blood
Speaker 1: drops on the ground, we would never found that bear.
Speaker 1: But we were staying on game trails. We started splitting
Speaker 1: up going down different game trails, and you you learn
Speaker 1: to look at the backside of all these leaves because
Speaker 1: this bear and we'll talk about how bears are notorious
Speaker 1: within with a not ideal shot there, notorious for not
Speaker 1: bleeding much. But the point is we found the bear
Speaker 1: no problem. That's what these middle of the middle guys
Speaker 1: say all the time. It's like they say they'd rather
Speaker 1: have a gut shot bear than a bear that was
Speaker 1: shot too far, low and forward, or shot straight in
Speaker 1: the shoulder, you know, because you are not going to
Speaker 1: break through a bare's shoulder with archer equipment, I don't believe.
Speaker 1: I mean, perhaps there's a you'd have to be very
Speaker 1: lucky too. Yeah, you probably have to hit some kind
Speaker 1: of artery something to even kill something with a far
Speaker 1: forward shot lock at and he's you know, I've never
Speaker 1: trailed a bear and recovered one as far as Kobe's.
Speaker 1: You know, usually if you get yards, that's really that's
Speaker 1: been your experience. Yeah, you know, I've had some bad shots,
Speaker 1: and you know, I've trailed them jokers, like you say,
Speaker 1: three hundred four hundred yards and on minimal blood never
Speaker 1: find them. But usually a lethal shot on a bear,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred yards are less. They just don't
Speaker 1: you know, they don't carry their weight that farest seems,
Speaker 1: you know, they kind of give out quick if they're
Speaker 1: hit good. Yeah, let's go ahead and jump into what
Speaker 1: I was saying about how and how a bear bleeds
Speaker 1: and the importance, the whole point of this is gonna
Speaker 1: be the importance of getting two holes with so this
Speaker 1: would factor into the shot angle, but also your equipment
Speaker 1: that you're using. But a big priority with bear is
Speaker 1: to get two holes. So it goes back to what
Speaker 1: you said at the beginning. A broadside shot is what
Speaker 1: you want. A broadside shot gives you the shortest distance
Speaker 1: between two points when the era is going through and
Speaker 1: even if the ara is not sticking in the ground
Speaker 1: on the other side, but if the broadhead at least
Speaker 1: penetrates the skin on the other side, you've got two
Speaker 1: two holes. That bear is gonna bleed more. But bears
Speaker 1: are notorious for not bleeding because they are they do
Speaker 1: have a lot of fat, They do have a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of fur, which is like a mop.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's soaking up some of that blood, not
Speaker 1: all of it. And you know, if you just double
Speaker 1: double lung tin ring a bear, I mean he's gonna
Speaker 1: bleed pretty good. But when you get into that marginal category,
Speaker 1: like with Colby's if you had only gotten uh, had
Speaker 1: one hole, didn't have an exit wound, you know, we
Speaker 1: would have had a much more difficult time finding that bear.
Speaker 1: But he he was bleeding on two sides because we
Speaker 1: got that penetration. And so that goes back to on whitetail.
Speaker 1: A quarter and away shot is a pretty good shot.
Speaker 1: Smaller animal, smaller bone, not a stick of hide, I'll
Speaker 1: stick of hair. You could probably gonna you know, you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna get a pass through. And unless you hit
Speaker 1: that offside shoulder on a cord and away shot on
Speaker 1: a deer, and I mean we even look for a
Speaker 1: quarter and away shot on a deer oftentimes. Um, but boy,
Speaker 1: you want to get you want to get two holes.
Speaker 1: The other thing about getting two holes is that most
Speaker 1: bears are being shot out of tree stands, especially in
Speaker 1: a bait situation. And if you get one hole from
Speaker 1: a high elevated position, that means your entry hole is
Speaker 1: gonna be high on that animal and that dude is
Speaker 1: gonna bleed very little. You need a lower hole. Yep,
Speaker 1: you know that's where you're gonna get you. I guess
Speaker 1: you could set up a dungeon type set up where
Speaker 1: you had a hole underneath, and whether you're shooting up
Speaker 1: into the bears. Oh man, like dig a hole. It's
Speaker 1: a whole new setup. You're supposed to laugh that cold
Speaker 1: then your tree hole would be on the bottom of
Speaker 1: the bear. That's for all those duck hunters out there,
Speaker 1: they can just you know, ye like yeah, like a
Speaker 1: like a duck hole, like a what would you call
Speaker 1: that pit? Yes? Yes, well okay, so getting two olds okay,
Speaker 1: and that even goes into your equipment. Like we at
Speaker 1: Bear Hunting Magazine, we are pretty much adamant about not
Speaker 1: using the expandables for bear Okay, there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: ton of people that maybe even listen to this podcast
Speaker 1: that will say that have killed bears with expandables, as
Speaker 1: have I. But I have heard too many stories and
Speaker 1: seen for myself too many examples of when they have
Speaker 1: not performed as well as a fixed blade broadhead. I mean,
Speaker 1: just by very principle, it does remove energy from an arrow.
Speaker 1: For those blades to expand large cutting diameter is gonna
Speaker 1: cause more friction on that arrow, reducing the energy driving
Speaker 1: that arrow into the animal. If the whole objective is
Speaker 1: to get two holes on a big animal, I mean
Speaker 1: a big white tailed deer is maybe at most twenty
Speaker 1: inches too. I don't know. Maybe a big Canadian deer
Speaker 1: would or big Midwest deer be inches wide. I doubt it.
Speaker 1: Like you're trying to penetrate block eighteen inches with a
Speaker 1: big bear trying to penetrate thirty inches, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's accurate or not not counting the all the
Speaker 1: hair you're travling yep to shoot through. Yeah, the conclusion
Speaker 1: that we've come to is just that if your priority
Speaker 1: is to get two holes, it's best to use a
Speaker 1: fixed blay broadhead. And there's all kind of fixed blay broadheads,
Speaker 1: there's all kind of uh cut on impact broadheads. I
Speaker 1: would rather have a small hole but have two of
Speaker 1: them than have one big hole. I've also heard stories
Speaker 1: of from reputable, reputable bow hunters and archers that they
Speaker 1: have seen uh expandable heads get clogged up in hair
Speaker 1: like like they hit a bear, had reduced penetration, killed
Speaker 1: the bear, extracted the mechanical broadhead to find it just
Speaker 1: covered in hair like where it was catching hair and
Speaker 1: dragging hair into the animal. Do you have any experience
Speaker 1: with expandables. I've killed probably half of the bears. I
Speaker 1: was shot with expandables and had great luck. I haven't
Speaker 1: had one fail yet. But you know, I've been shooting
Speaker 1: h it's four blade for the last four or five years.
Speaker 1: But you know, in the early years when I first
Speaker 1: started bear hunting too, I just shoot a three blade
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know it's all no, no, I can
Speaker 1: see in a with a good shot, like a broadside
Speaker 1: shot at a reasonable distance when you're not having a
Speaker 1: crazy angle. I mean, I agree with you could probably
Speaker 1: kill everybody in the woods with an expand Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: shooting high pounded. You know, I'm shooting right at seventy
Speaker 1: pounds and all my shots or you know, fifteen yards
Speaker 1: or less, and you're trying to take that broadside and
Speaker 1: any percent of the time you are gonna punch through.
Speaker 1: You know the rif did you get penetrate? You've got
Speaker 1: to hold a lot of pass throughs. Yeah, yeah, almost. Um, well, okay,
Speaker 1: tell us why you're using a fixed blade head now,
Speaker 1: just you know, I didn't really think about it. Then
Speaker 1: you want to not your eyes cross your tees. I
Speaker 1: can see you know, a fixed blade, you are going
Speaker 1: to get that penetration. You are gonna get that passed
Speaker 1: through on most every shot. So you know, just trial
Speaker 1: on air, and I've got to wear a feel more
Speaker 1: comfortable shooting a fixed blade, you know, uh, confidence in it.
Speaker 1: And like you say, I think, uh, you don't have
Speaker 1: to have the big gaping hole and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if you I guess the question is what do you
Speaker 1: gain by by shooting a expandable You know, I guess
Speaker 1: the volume of the cut. You know, maybe you're cutting
Speaker 1: a few more arteries or something like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: there is always that thought in the back of your mind,
Speaker 1: off that broadhead failing and not performing, Yeah, like it should.
Speaker 1: Fixed blade you pretty much eliminate that. What you see
Speaker 1: is what you get. Yeah, you know, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the expandable broadhead is made for white tail. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a smaller animal, not a lot of hair, not
Speaker 1: thick hide, not thick bones. And they're great and if
Speaker 1: you get a marginal shot, and I've killed a gob
Speaker 1: of white tails with expandable heads back in the day,
Speaker 1: And if you get a marginal shot on a white tail,
Speaker 1: I would rather be shooting a big fat expandable. But
Speaker 1: they're really not made for bear. They're really not designed
Speaker 1: for a big bone, thick haired, thick, fat animal. That
Speaker 1: means so it's kind of you know, you could kill
Speaker 1: every bear in the woods with an expandable. That's the truth.
Speaker 1: But I believe and in somebody that's as good as
Speaker 1: you ride and as experienced as you. I've been serious, like,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna you're not a good example for someone
Speaker 1: to show an expandable that's messed up. But I would
Speaker 1: say for the average guy, if he were the average
Speaker 1: bow hunter with you know, I mean, there's all these
Speaker 1: different levels of experience that people have. If he was
Speaker 1: shooting expandables at tin bears, it's gonna cost him a
Speaker 1: bear in tin bears, I believe, And you may be
Speaker 1: on your fifth bear and it's not cost your bears,
Speaker 1: so you're still going when if you had been shooting
Speaker 1: a fixed blade, you'd have killed all ten. That's what
Speaker 1: I believe. And now everybody's gotta do what they think.
Speaker 1: But that's a pretty good topic. Let's talk real quick
Speaker 1: to about set up. A lot of people ask about
Speaker 1: archery set up for bear and the question is can't
Speaker 1: I use my white tail set up? And my answer
Speaker 1: to that is basically yes. I mean, like I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm shooting around sixty pounds. Actually the bear that I
Speaker 1: killed in Oklahoma this year, Batman pound bear, I was
Speaker 1: shooting a fifty well, it may have been sixty pounds.
Speaker 1: I want to say it was the high fifties, just tendering,
Speaker 1: you know, no problem. I hit to ended up hitting
Speaker 1: kind of the offside shoulder. He had his leg down,
Speaker 1: so I didn't get just a complete pass through with him. Yeah. Right,
Speaker 1: you were there with me on the recovery. You know
Speaker 1: that bear was crouched and he had his elbow back
Speaker 1: like this, and hit him right here, and it actually
Speaker 1: went down through his shoulder and like was sticking down
Speaker 1: in his inside the hide, but in his front leg.
Speaker 1: So when you getted the bear, you found the arowack
Speaker 1: lee And remember were to recover James Lawrence's bear. Ten
Speaker 1: days later, David Miller found my ironwell broad head on
Speaker 1: the ground, uh trying to think it was still It's
Speaker 1: still kind of a mystery to me what happened, because
Speaker 1: I never found an exit hole. But David Miller found
Speaker 1: eight inches of arrow in my two grain iron wheel broadhead.
Speaker 1: We were tracking James kilderbear over there in the same
Speaker 1: place we went over there and tracted, and he came
Speaker 1: back and handed me that, And I said, where'd you
Speaker 1: find that? Because David was with us when we recovered it,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, so anyway, it was just a
Speaker 1: weird deal because I mean that that bears front legs
Speaker 1: were you know, ten inches in diameter, so in that
Speaker 1: arrow just at the steep angle. But point being, you
Speaker 1: don't need super heavy pounded drying shooting seventy pounds. What
Speaker 1: was your bow set up? Fifty something? Yeah, yeah, you were,
Speaker 1: you were sho pretty low poundage average weight there. I
Speaker 1: figured your airwaight Kolby was in the four hundreds. I
Speaker 1: mean you're shooting a Hunter grain trick, Yeah, slick trick magnum.
Speaker 1: And that's a great head. I mean I love a
Speaker 1: slick trick broadhead and have for years. Um. I did
Speaker 1: shoot the iron wheels this year mainly because of my
Speaker 1: traditional stuff. Um. But if if you and I'm sponsored
Speaker 1: by no broadhead company, but if you just said clay
Speaker 1: pick your poison for broadheads, I would id shoot a
Speaker 1: Hunter Grain slick Trick magnum. Now for alright, for Compound,
Speaker 1: I've actually shot their viper trick, which is not a
Speaker 1: traditional not a not a traditional you know, traditional archery
Speaker 1: head like that. But so the main thing would be
Speaker 1: just getting the right broad head and shot placement. It's
Speaker 1: not about having an eighty pound bow, so you can't
Speaker 1: use your white tail set up. People evaluate aero penustration
Speaker 1: based on kinetic energy. Momentum is actually the correct way
Speaker 1: to me to evaluate the possibility for ero penetration. But
Speaker 1: basically momentum measures of vector which vector. Momentum measures the
Speaker 1: the directional force. Kinetic energy just measures force, just like
Speaker 1: like an explosion almost, just like just like it just
Speaker 1: measures how much energy is present in this thing. Basically,
Speaker 1: what I'm getting to is arrowweight is more important than speed.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a time when an archery everybody
Speaker 1: is worried about speed. You know. It's just like shoot
Speaker 1: a really fast bow with a light arrow. But a
Speaker 1: really fast bow with a light arrow does not penetrate
Speaker 1: as well as a slower bow that's shooting a heavier arrow. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this is all nerd talk, but momentum is the correct
Speaker 1: way to measure erro penetration, not kinnectic energy. Didn't speed
Speaker 1: come from where you're wanting to get it there faster?
Speaker 1: For the white tilt didn't duck as much. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: my dad, who who is bow hunted his whole life,
Speaker 1: he loves speed, and it's because he didn't want to
Speaker 1: after judge yardage. He always wanted a bow that would
Speaker 1: shoot flat to thirty yards, so that just any deer
Speaker 1: that showed up in the woods of Arkansas, which basically
Speaker 1: most time you can't see much more than thirty yards.
Speaker 1: If a deer showed up, he just put his first
Speaker 1: pen on it because in his experience shooting slowbos all
Speaker 1: through the seventies and eighties was he was missing deer
Speaker 1: because of miss judging yardage. That didn't have range finders.
Speaker 1: You know they are good range finders. He had these
Speaker 1: range finders that like combined images. Have you have you
Speaker 1: seen those rhynd where it's like you put your eye
Speaker 1: in and you dial it and it like combines the
Speaker 1: that's old school, yeah, and so so his whole thing
Speaker 1: was speed so that he didn't miss judge yardage. As
Speaker 1: I went through that, I was like, well, we we've
Speaker 1: got range finders. Now you're set in a tree and
Speaker 1: you can range everything. So you pretty much no yardages
Speaker 1: for tree stand whitetil hunting for bear hunting, So I
Speaker 1: would rather shoot a heavier arrow and get more penetration
Speaker 1: because I did have some mishaps with uh, not getting
Speaker 1: penetration with white tells when I was younger. Okay, we've
Speaker 1: talked about bear anatomy, we've talked about shot angles. We
Speaker 1: haven't talked as much about shot angles. But like you,
Speaker 1: you really don't want to take a super steep quarter
Speaker 1: and away shot on the bear. Now, if that's all
Speaker 1: you have, you can certainly kill a bear that is
Speaker 1: at a court steep quarter and angle, but you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna forfeit that exit hole, and so you just gotta
Speaker 1: be prepared for that, and you gotta make sure you're
Speaker 1: on your a game. Ryan mentioned this earlier, is that
Speaker 1: one of the biggest differences between deer and bear is
Speaker 1: that a bear, first of all, is a black animal. Black.
Speaker 1: The color black is designed to absorb light and to
Speaker 1: not give away much. I mean, like, if you just
Speaker 1: look into a black piece of paper, it's like all
Speaker 1: you see is black. But if you look at a
Speaker 1: white piece of paper that maybe was folded just a
Speaker 1: little bit, like you could see the shadows. White show
Speaker 1: shadows shows shape, and so a black a bear can
Speaker 1: often look like just a black trash bag, and you
Speaker 1: can't see where the shoulder comes up. You can't see
Speaker 1: the ribs, you can't definition, no definition. Where a white
Speaker 1: tail ryan has short hair, light colored hair, has a
Speaker 1: very defined muscular body. I mean you can see the shoulder,
Speaker 1: you can see the ribs, you can see the rump,
Speaker 1: you can see the muscles. So when you look through
Speaker 1: the peep on the boat a white tail, you can
Speaker 1: see right where you're aiming. A lot of times with
Speaker 1: a big bear or a little bear, you pull up
Speaker 1: and look for a peep and you feel like you're
Speaker 1: aiming at a black trash bag. And I mean, even
Speaker 1: inside of me having killed some bears, I still struggle
Speaker 1: with that. Sometimes a close range, like close range, you
Speaker 1: draw and you're like, holy count like in seen the
Speaker 1: bear that killed in Oklahoma. I don't know why that
Speaker 1: one got to me. But I drew the bow bear
Speaker 1: just right there, I mean like ten yards and I
Speaker 1: looked through the peep and all I could see was black.
Speaker 1: And I was looking around my peep to trying to
Speaker 1: get a you know, trying to just figure out where
Speaker 1: my pen was, and that would lean back in and
Speaker 1: look and lean back in and look, and finally I
Speaker 1: felt like I had where I wanted to hit. I
Speaker 1: shot and if you remember, I shot far forward. I've
Speaker 1: had that same problem in low light conditions before dart,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to see through your peep and like, say,
Speaker 1: no definition on a bear. You want to make sure
Speaker 1: that body is not cupped. You know, sometimes they'll roll
Speaker 1: them hips to the side and be cupped. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: not the best. Just wait for him to maybe expose
Speaker 1: that leg or just you know, completely broadside. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, can be tricky. Sometimes we'll see. And that's
Speaker 1: that's the next point is that a bear can do
Speaker 1: a whole lot more stuff than a white tail. A
Speaker 1: bear could be sitting on his button, a bear could
Speaker 1: be standing up, a bear could have his feet up
Speaker 1: on a tree. A bear could be cupped. And that's
Speaker 1: probably to me one of the things that gets most people.
Speaker 1: We've made some videos about this. But a bear could
Speaker 1: look like he's broadside, but actually his spine would be
Speaker 1: like in a u A deer can't even do that hardly,
Speaker 1: But like a bear could be appeared to be broadside
Speaker 1: looking at you, but actually eighty percent of his vitals
Speaker 1: be covered because he's cupped like a you know, I
Speaker 1: mean like a like a dog. Well that's that's not
Speaker 1: a good example, but yes, or or a lot of
Speaker 1: times with invated situations, bears come in and lay down.
Speaker 1: Lots of guys have shot bears laying down, and again,
Speaker 1: you can do it, but it's trickier because those vitals
Speaker 1: are compacted. He's literally laying on his rib cage. Those
Speaker 1: ribs flex and you you know, shooting a bear laying down,
Speaker 1: you're probably shooting at a target that is twenty less
Speaker 1: in size than it would be if the bear was
Speaker 1: standing up. Would you agree with that? I mean, like
Speaker 1: that that rib cage would flex just a little bit
Speaker 1: and those vitals would those vitals would compress. So basically
Speaker 1: a deer doesn't just have the flexibility to do what
Speaker 1: a bearer does. That throws people off, runing people, especially
Speaker 1: people that aren't familiar with seeing bear. As a bear
Speaker 1: comes in, he might be standing up, he might be
Speaker 1: laying down. He might be setting on his haunches, you know,
Speaker 1: licking his bottom feet. He might be he could do
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. I've seen you do that yourself,
Speaker 1: my feet, you know, occasionally that man that's massively. When
Speaker 1: I first started hunting bears, I remember just kind of
Speaker 1: being like confused by watching a bear move. And I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of what freaks people out sometimes when
Speaker 1: they're hunting bear for the first time. It's just to
Speaker 1: see an animal that that's just different than what they're
Speaker 1: used to. Kobe was at your experience, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: really surprising, like first being so big. They're pretty pretty
Speaker 1: since they are like they're pretty, like they know what
Speaker 1: movements they're making. Is like they're so articulate with their movements.
Speaker 1: I guess it would be this things. They're definitely in
Speaker 1: the the yoga animal. You know, if you like to
Speaker 1: do yoga, the bears your spirit animal. Ryan's big in
Speaker 1: the yoga the yoga. Yeah, that's one more thing let's
Speaker 1: talk about. So we most of what we've talked about
Speaker 1: here would relate directly to archery hunting. I do want
Speaker 1: to say that hunting with a rifle is gonna be different.
Speaker 1: Now barre anatomy stays the same, all the stuff stays
Speaker 1: the same in terms of the actual bear, but with
Speaker 1: a rifle, shooting the high powered rifle, you're kind of
Speaker 1: been a different ball game, because you can shoot a
Speaker 1: bear straight in the shoulder, high in the shoulder and
Speaker 1: just drop them. You can shoot a bear that's facing you.
Speaker 1: I would never suggest shooting an archery bear just head on.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I know it's worked for people. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it has. But well, you know, bullet, you're
Speaker 1: getting that shock, that energy, hydro static shock, you're shutting
Speaker 1: down the electrical system. Basically, shoot him in the shoulder
Speaker 1: head on, like you're talking about quarterin away a little
Speaker 1: more forgiving on. Definitely a rifle, right, So with a rifle,
Speaker 1: I would have to say that it would be fairly
Speaker 1: similar to a white tail in principle. I mean, because
Speaker 1: you can shoot in the shoulder, you can shoot him
Speaker 1: head on, you can shoot him quarter in away. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a problem. Um, you know, you don't have
Speaker 1: to obviously judge for you don't need to shoot low
Speaker 1: because they're not gonna jump the string. I mean, so
Speaker 1: rifle hunting is quite different. And this par podcast really
Speaker 1: isn't about rifle caliber, but a lot of questions about
Speaker 1: caliber rifle and it kind of goes back to the
Speaker 1: same thing with archery. You can kill a bear with
Speaker 1: a thirty thirty and a hundred and fifty grain bullet.
Speaker 1: I mean there's lots of bear it probably thirties, probably
Speaker 1: killed as many bears as any is any caliber, just
Speaker 1: from the old days of when guys when that was
Speaker 1: a main cartridge. But you the bigger the better, The
Speaker 1: bigger the better with with bear because they are a
Speaker 1: big animal. You do want to hit them hard. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, my gun of choice currently for black bear
Speaker 1: rifle the choice thin mag with a two five grand
Speaker 1: bullet out of my my best of the West rifle.
Speaker 1: But I did want to just clarify that a lot
Speaker 1: of the delicate things that we're talking about in terms
Speaker 1: of shot placement for black bear does include is about
Speaker 1: archery hunting, not as much about about rifle hunting. But hey,
Speaker 1: closing comments or thoughts, run um, let me ask you
Speaker 1: a question, what would you say would be the biggest
Speaker 1: mistake that you have seen First time bear hunters are
Speaker 1: just inexperienced bear hunters make on shot placement. Biggest mistake.
Speaker 1: You know, bears aren't like dear people are excited to
Speaker 1: finally you know, Hey, I've got a bear here in
Speaker 1: front of me, and you know it's in range. I
Speaker 1: need to hurry up and get take the shot. Bears
Speaker 1: are pretty patient, you know, especially on a baited hunt.
Speaker 1: You can wait and wait and wait for that perfect shot.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be in a rush. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people want to take that first shot opportunity,
Speaker 1: just to wait for the right shot. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: I've made mistakes and you know, not made the right shot.
Speaker 1: But you know it's all about patients. But I guess
Speaker 1: you know, it just comes with experience. So um more
Speaker 1: bears you get a chance to be around and and harvest,
Speaker 1: you'll learn from that and take it to the next hunt.
Speaker 1: But like I said, just be patient, wait for the
Speaker 1: right shot opportunity. Yeah, you don't have to be in
Speaker 1: any hurry. That's a that's a great example because in
Speaker 1: white tail hunting, most of the time you have a
Speaker 1: very short window to execute a shot on a big buck.
Speaker 1: I mean, like take the first shot you get, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like, that's a that's a good
Speaker 1: ethical shot. That's that's kind of the way we're preached
Speaker 1: to because most time these animals are just moving through
Speaker 1: areas that we're hunting. But especially on a baited hunt
Speaker 1: or even on a spring, a spring hunt, when a
Speaker 1: bear is feeding out in the meadow, you got time.
Speaker 1: If that animal is feeding, he's gonna be there for
Speaker 1: a while, so you don't have to rush it. So
Speaker 1: you're number one thing when the first time bear hunter,
Speaker 1: new bear hunter would be rushing the shot. Yeah, yep, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know I'm basing that on hunting over a bait
Speaker 1: where the bears occupied. You know, like you said, not
Speaker 1: passing through, You're gonna have some time to especially if
Speaker 1: the winds right and he don't know you're around, You've
Speaker 1: you've got a little bit of time to play with
Speaker 1: and I could say, the right opportunity to present itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very good, Kobe. What do you think? I mean, those
Speaker 1: are the things that Corey told us or told me
Speaker 1: whenever I went up there. It was just, you know,
Speaker 1: to be patient and make the right shot. And we
Speaker 1: were patient, I mean watching, We watched that bear for
Speaker 1: a while and the right opportunity was there. Um. I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that happened I didn't realize
Speaker 1: he was he was moving, you know, and so I
Speaker 1: think what happened was I was looking through the peep
Speaker 1: like once I should close my other eye and just
Speaker 1: like focused on him. I couldn't tell that he was moving,
Speaker 1: you know, because it was the right opportunity. He just
Speaker 1: started moving right at the wrong time. So you probably
Speaker 1: hit right where you're aiming. He just wasn't in the
Speaker 1: same spot he moved. Yeah. Well, and I think that's
Speaker 1: a good thing to to think about, is that once
Speaker 1: you initiate that shot cycle, you've got to be super flexible.
Speaker 1: I mean, your shot cycle has to be quick. And
Speaker 1: when I say shot cycle, I mean like draw your
Speaker 1: bow and from the time you make the decision to
Speaker 1: shoot until the time you actually execute the shot, you
Speaker 1: need to be able to back out of it, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean like because in that situation, you were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot, and then two seconds time he moved,
Speaker 1: you know, and you went ahead and shot, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think that I think that's just learning being
Speaker 1: in bow hunting situations in archery and executing the shot,
Speaker 1: you know, which is in anybody could have made that mistake.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think, uh, I I had been drawn
Speaker 1: back for a while. I think that if if in
Speaker 1: the future, like whenever I get an opportunity or I
Speaker 1: think I have one, I think I'm gonna just you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm drawn back for too much time, just let
Speaker 1: it down, just reassessed, you know what. The that being said.
Speaker 1: My strongest trait, I think when it comes to actually
Speaker 1: taking an animal, especially with a compound bow, is knowing
Speaker 1: when to draw. And I love drawing before they get there.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I like doing what you did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt like you did the right thing. I mean
Speaker 1: like the bear was just at any second gonna step
Speaker 1: into a correct shooting position. So you were drawn and ready.
Speaker 1: Now once you start holding it for over a minute
Speaker 1: or something, yeah, I mean like if you start to
Speaker 1: fill your body be compromised and like, yeah, you should
Speaker 1: have let you you can let down that situation. But like,
Speaker 1: the biggest thing that I see people do is like
Speaker 1: a deer bear is coming and they wait till it's
Speaker 1: in position to shoot before they draw their bow. Man,
Speaker 1: I draw. I'm not talking about like draw a minute
Speaker 1: before it gets there, but I'm anticipating the shot, drawn
Speaker 1: and ready, and boy when it steps to where I
Speaker 1: want to shoot, shoot, And that's probably more a white
Speaker 1: tail thing because a lot of times they're moving and
Speaker 1: but hey, we're gonna we're gonna end this podcast. I
Speaker 1: hope that you've learned something here, and uh, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately our goal is to make as many good, ethical,
Speaker 1: quick killing shots as possible. And uh, bears are big, tough,
Speaker 1: unforgiving animals, but when they're hit right, they go down easy.
Speaker 1: And so hey, guys, thanks for being on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have we're gonna continue, We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a few more podcasts that are kind of this style
Speaker 1: where we're just talking about a specific issue. Hey, keep
Speaker 1: the wild places wild? Why keep us for the bears?
Speaker 1: Good