Speaker 1: And we're back with another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Dirk Durham, and today I have a man on
Speaker 1: the podcast, someone who I admire a whole bunch. He's
Speaker 1: a family man. He's probably one of the toughest guys
Speaker 1: I know for back country hunting, probably the most fearless
Speaker 1: guy I know for back country hunting, and very talented
Speaker 1: and an accomplished bow hunter. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Ron.
Speaker 1: Is it njolic?
Speaker 2: How do you how?
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of spelled like nisiolic, but it's yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on today.
Speaker 2: Good to see you again.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've known Ron for a number for years. I
Speaker 1: think we kind of got really good, well acquainted back
Speaker 1: in the days, back when I was a co founder
Speaker 1: of a magazine elkhunting magazine called Extreme Elk and Ron
Speaker 1: came aboard to edit articles and to write articles for
Speaker 1: us on there and got acquainted with him and got
Speaker 1: to know about all of his backcountry experiences in the
Speaker 1: beautiful state of Wyoming. And I will I'll kind of
Speaker 1: say one thing that always kind of stood out is
Speaker 1: Barren counters. You always, you know, you always had a
Speaker 1: good elk hunting story, but it seems like there was
Speaker 1: always some barre encounters or one from one way or another,
Speaker 1: you know, every few years, you know, whether it was
Speaker 1: black bears or grizzlies.
Speaker 3: Mostly grizzlies, but yeah, there's there's definitely been a few
Speaker 3: through the years, but this year was just a little ridiculous,
Speaker 3: to put it mildly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, ever since, you know, a
Speaker 1: few years ago, then they got those things listed and
Speaker 1: then we all thought we were going to get a
Speaker 1: bear hunting season, and then that got shut down. So
Speaker 1: I think we've all been kind of sitting here holding
Speaker 1: our breath hoping that we get a grizzly bear season,
Speaker 1: you know, even even if it is a very limited opportunity,
Speaker 1: because I know Wyoming and Montana the grizzly populations have
Speaker 1: exploded and which triple a to Idaho pretty well. So
Speaker 1: what's your take on this, on the whole grizzly hunting season?
Speaker 1: Should we should we open that up and get that
Speaker 1: thing going.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's what should be done. But you know, anymore,
Speaker 3: it seems like seasons are, especially for the predator animals,
Speaker 3: the seasons are determined by voters instead of by biology.
Speaker 3: So voters and or judges, and you know, the grizzly situation,
Speaker 3: it's just the anti hunters find a sympathetic judge to
Speaker 3: their cause and just with a magic wand and they
Speaker 3: just put you know, the season that we did have,
Speaker 3: they put the debosh on it, and it's yeah, it's
Speaker 3: just a pipe dream at this point, I don't know
Speaker 3: if it'll ever happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which makes elk hunting is kind of scary,
Speaker 1: you know, or any kind of outdoor recreation, whether you're
Speaker 1: a hunter or not, just if you're an outdoor enthusiast. Shoot,
Speaker 1: I can't I can't imagine backpacking and why homing with
Speaker 1: my wife and kids, you know, just enjoying a beautiful
Speaker 1: day in the woods and having a grizzly bear wreck that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We Uh.
Speaker 3: My philosophy is I try not to let them determine
Speaker 3: where I'm going to go and what I'm going to do. So,
Speaker 3: you know, if i want to hunt elk in a
Speaker 3: particular drainage, as long as I'm not aware that somebody
Speaker 3: else has killed the bull in there, there might be
Speaker 3: you know, opportunity for Grizzly to be on a carcass
Speaker 3: or you know, just a really well known spot tons
Speaker 3: of bears. You know, for the most part, I just
Speaker 3: go wherever I want. I'm not scared, but definitely a
Speaker 3: little bit cautious and just have a little bit of
Speaker 3: respect for what they can do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I'm sure you probably take some pretty
Speaker 1: good measures and some things you do do do and
Speaker 1: things you don't do when you're in bear country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: We were talking a little earlier about backpack hunting, and
Speaker 1: I know you said you want a real big fan,
Speaker 1: and I feel like backpack hunting and grizzly country, that's
Speaker 1: definitely something you have to be careful with.
Speaker 3: That's now that in particular, I'm not worried about because,
Speaker 3: first off, my philosophy on the bears is I've never
Speaker 3: heard a report of anybody hiking in the dark that's
Speaker 3: been attacked or mauled by a grizzly. And I know
Speaker 3: there have been instance is where they go hopping and
Speaker 3: you know, kill or pull out some unfortunate person and
Speaker 3: chew on them. But for the most part, at night, honestly,
Speaker 3: I just put ear plugs in so I'm not awake
Speaker 3: listening the sounds all night, and I just try to
Speaker 3: get the best night's sleep, and like I said, with
Speaker 3: the ear plugs and then you know, at least I
Speaker 3: won't hear them chewing on me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, now, I that reminded me of the story
Speaker 1: you told here a while ago. A couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I heard you talk about an encounter in your little
Speaker 1: camp with a wolf buddy, and there was some pretty
Speaker 1: good shenanigans that went on there with that fricking wolf.
Speaker 1: If you don't mind telling that story, I'm sure our
Speaker 1: listeners would love to hear it.
Speaker 2: Oh, I can do that.
Speaker 3: So a young friend and I were backpacked in about
Speaker 3: seven miles and we were doing some horn hunting, and
Speaker 3: one of my favorite things to do, at least it
Speaker 3: used to be. Util I got two busted up anyway,
Speaker 3: So we backpacked in one weekend and got the tent
Speaker 3: set up and just a little cooi tent and took
Speaker 3: off going horn hunting and scouting for the rest of
Speaker 3: the afternoon. And we came back to camp that evening
Speaker 3: and the tent's broken down. You know, the poles were
Speaker 3: sticking out everywhere, and it's just demolished by a bear.
Speaker 3: The bear chewed on my buddy's wife's sleeping bag. Left
Speaker 3: mine alone. So anyway, with nothing better to do, he
Speaker 3: just broke the tent down and threw our sleeping bags
Speaker 3: out on the on the ground cloth. So and I
Speaker 3: was on one side, my buddy's on the side right
Speaker 3: next to a big rock, and we had our backpacks
Speaker 3: propped up there. He had his h his socks, and
Speaker 3: his shirt laid out on top of the sage brush.
Speaker 3: I just stuck mine in my sleeping bag to hopefully
Speaker 3: dry him out, and then went to bed. I put
Speaker 3: in my famous ear plugs, and a little while later
Speaker 3: I could I could hear a wolf howlan or a
Speaker 3: couple of them. I thought, man, those things are pretty close,
Speaker 3: and just went to sleep. And I got woken up
Speaker 3: by my buddy just yelling get out of here, get
Speaker 3: out of here. So you know, my immediate thought was bear.
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting up, pulling out of your plugs, finding
Speaker 3: my headlamp, finding my pistol, get all that stuff done,
Speaker 3: and turn on the headlamp. Well there's a dang wolf
Speaker 3: like ten feet from him, of not a young wolf
Speaker 3: but probably medium's eyes black wolf, just sitting there staring
Speaker 3: him in the face from about ten feet away. And
Speaker 3: so he yells, get out of here again. Well, the
Speaker 3: wolf reaches down and this is no bs, like this
Speaker 3: truly happened. The wolf reaches down and grabs a boot
Speaker 3: and takes off running, and my buddy panics and he's
Speaker 3: like he's got my eff and boot, and it's like
Speaker 3: it's a brutal backpack job to get in there. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just it's a lot of rock, so hiking out
Speaker 3: of their barefoot wouldn't have been fun. So the wolf
Speaker 3: stopped like twenty yards out in this age brush. I
Speaker 3: could see him, but he couldn't, so I cranked around
Speaker 3: at him, and you know, the muzzle flash couldn't tell
Speaker 3: what happened. So got up stumped into boot someone out there,
Speaker 3: and I couldn't find any any sign that actually hit
Speaker 3: the wolf. But I did find the boot, and on
Speaker 3: the way walking back to where we were sleeping, I
Speaker 3: found his daypack or his backpack, and so we're looking
Speaker 3: around and I look at the rock where my pack's
Speaker 3: supposed to be right next to his, and mine's gone too,
Speaker 3: So that dang wolf had drug off both of our
Speaker 3: packs while we were sleeping and then come back and
Speaker 3: was sniffing my buddy's face. So, but the story just
Speaker 3: gets better and better because the wolf liked to really
Speaker 3: pick on my buddy. So we get up in the morning,
Speaker 3: or I get up, he's still laying and sleeping bag
Speaker 3: and I go stomping around just looking for any blood
Speaker 3: or any sign that I might have hit the wolf,
Speaker 3: and don't find anything. But before I on my way
Speaker 3: back to camp, I found both his socks with the
Speaker 3: ankle chewed out of one of them, and it was
Speaker 3: the only pair of socks he had. So for the
Speaker 3: rest of that day he hiked around with his ankle
Speaker 3: right on the leather. But so I was just laughing.
Speaker 3: I said, dude, look at your socks, you know. So
Speaker 3: we get we get all dressed, and we take off hiking,
Speaker 3: and we're gone most of the morning.
Speaker 2: And we had.
Speaker 3: Split up and we met up. I was like eleven
Speaker 3: o'clock or so, and he's got this look on his
Speaker 3: face and he's like, dude, smell my shirt. I think
Speaker 3: the wolf piste on it. So I took a whiff,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh my god, maybe you want to vomit.
Speaker 3: You know, it really stunk. So when he put his
Speaker 3: shirt on in the morning, he thought it was damp
Speaker 3: from the frost. You know, that happened overnight, so he
Speaker 3: didn't pay any attention to it. But the wolf really
Speaker 3: did piss on a shirt. So it just kept getting
Speaker 3: funnier for me. I had a big belly laugh, and
Speaker 3: we go, you know, we were all done antler hunting.
Speaker 3: We had to hike out of there. So we go
Speaker 3: walking back to camp and we come down the trail
Speaker 3: and do a little clearing where we were a camp. Well,
Speaker 3: the damn wolf is sitting there, like at forty yards
Speaker 3: just looking at us. Of course we're all excited there
Speaker 3: he is, you know, a little bastard. So anyway, well
Speaker 3: he just kind of trots towards us up to twenty
Speaker 3: yards like what's up, guys, And anyway, it sounded like
Speaker 3: a gunfight when we escorted him out of the clearing,
Speaker 3: went back to camp in the tent or the sleeping bag.
Speaker 3: The camp's fine. So we loaded up and hiked out
Speaker 3: of there with our stuff, and it just got funnier.
Speaker 3: Two days later he texted me again and he's like, dude,
Speaker 3: check your pack. I think he pissed on mine, or
Speaker 3: he did piss on mine. So when he got home,
Speaker 3: he left his pack in and it was really warm
Speaker 3: for a couple of days and when he opened when
Speaker 3: he opened the door, that wolf piss had just been
Speaker 3: marinating in there, and like, yeah, he.
Speaker 2: Said, it just almost made him puke.
Speaker 3: So anyway, that's I just got lots of laugh and
Speaker 3: we figured the wolf picked on all his stuff because
Speaker 3: he had five dogs at the time, so I think
Speaker 3: all that smell kind of spurred on the wolf to
Speaker 3: pick on all of his stuff. So it was it
Speaker 3: was great. And I talked to the game warden the
Speaker 3: night we got out, and he said that a pack
Speaker 3: of wolf, pack of wolves had come out of Yellowstone
Speaker 3: Park and we're kind of terrorizing up in that area
Speaker 3: and they had shoot on site orders for him because
Speaker 3: they were causing so much problems. So anyway, I think
Speaker 3: they got I think they got whacked. But one of
Speaker 3: the one of the ranches up there actually had a
Speaker 3: video that's probably the same younger black wolf. They went
Speaker 3: out and he wasn't scared at all, and they threw
Speaker 3: a ball and he actually went and grabbed it. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: it's pretty crazy. But you know, in the park, it's
Speaker 3: not it's not a pristine environment. They're really habituated to people,
Speaker 3: all the animals there, So that's why he didn't, you know,
Speaker 3: didn't display any fear whatsoever of us.
Speaker 1: He's probably waiting for you guys to throw a twinkie
Speaker 1: to him or something.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Anyway, my buddy said, when he felt and heard that
Speaker 3: thing sniff in his face, he just knew it was
Speaker 3: a grizzly, you know, gonna come eat him. So he's
Speaker 3: little relieved that was just a wolf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thought he's gonna get his face ripped off. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. I bet that was pretty scary and then funny,
Speaker 1: mostly funny, you know, Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3: He was scared a little bit, and honestly, when you
Speaker 3: turn on a headlamp and there's a wolf ten feet
Speaker 3: away staring at you, it's not the best feeling. But yeah,
Speaker 3: when he grabbed his boot, that was probably the funniest part.
Speaker 3: Listening to him in his Panic voice saying he's got
Speaker 3: my eff.
Speaker 2: And boot.
Speaker 1: Man. He love it.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's always good to have a buddy to to
Speaker 1: make fun of, but something like that too, So absolutely,
Speaker 1: I hope something like that happens to Phelps sometimes when
Speaker 1: him and I are out, man, it'll probably happen to me.
Speaker 1: He'll he'll make.
Speaker 3: Sure he's not armed, and then you can pull some
Speaker 3: kind of a good prank on him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, I'll start messing with his stuff. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I think both done into your pack there.
Speaker 3: But.
Speaker 1: String everything out of it. Uh So we have a question.
Speaker 1: So you're longtime archer, very successful, and everybody knows everybody
Speaker 1: likes to talk about elk cutting, and everybody knows I
Speaker 1: love to talk about elk cutting. What what do you
Speaker 1: what's your mode? Are you a spot and stock guy
Speaker 1: or you a call guy or you kind of a
Speaker 1: hybrid guy. What what do you do? What's your tactics
Speaker 1: for for elk?
Speaker 3: I do everything me personally, I prefer the spot in
Speaker 3: stock method of things. But having switched on areas a
Speaker 3: while back, this newer one has a lot more timber.
Speaker 3: That makes the spot in stock plan a little harder
Speaker 3: to execute. So I just incorporate everything that that it
Speaker 3: takes to get it done. You know, hopefully spot them
Speaker 3: first or hear them close. The gap is ninety nine
Speaker 3: percent of the battle I think is is getting in
Speaker 3: there close and then either call or finish the stock.
Speaker 3: But you know, for me, ell cutting is two speeds basically,
Speaker 3: or either you know, covering ground and until you find one,
Speaker 3: see one or hear one, and then you're you know,
Speaker 3: hustling like crazy to get close and then it slows
Speaker 3: slows down either to the calling mode or the stock.
Speaker 3: So but yeah, I do. I do a little bit
Speaker 3: of everything. I've had really good good luck calling lately
Speaker 3: this year, since the bulls seemed to be super call shy.
Speaker 3: When I finally shot the one, I did be agle
Speaker 3: to locate and then I just snuok in quiet and
Speaker 3: I positioned myself up above three three bulls in this
Speaker 3: one narrow little drainage, kind of got above the middle one.
Speaker 3: I was waiting for one of them to come up
Speaker 3: into a clearing behind me and then I'd make a move.
Speaker 3: And the one that I was above, just one hundred
Speaker 3: yards or so, he came up right to me.
Speaker 2: So it made it really easy.
Speaker 1: So you hunt quite a bit of gnarly, steep, deep
Speaker 1: country is probably high elevation. What are you doing to
Speaker 1: get in shape and stay in shape to navigate navigate
Speaker 1: that country and especially with some of your physical imitations,
Speaker 1: like you fought back injuries for years, and how do
Speaker 1: you how do you maintain that mental toughness to push
Speaker 1: through some of that pain in those tough days, to
Speaker 1: just continue to keep grinding.
Speaker 3: My wife would tell you that I'm more stubborn and
Speaker 3: stupid than I am tough, and sometimes I agree with her.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had a long history twenty plus years of
Speaker 3: back surgeries. Ten ten years ago, I had a fusion
Speaker 3: and my third fusion in my back that just didn't
Speaker 3: work made everything worse. So the following year, since I
Speaker 3: was still struggling with it, I had a spinal cord
Speaker 3: stimulator put in and that helped with my legs, but
Speaker 3: it didn't help with my back, so that kept declining.
Speaker 3: Man for the last few years, I missed a lot
Speaker 3: of mostly mornings going out hunting, and I just had
Speaker 3: to tell my buddies I can't go. You know, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: but I'm just not going to make it, and they're
Speaker 3: all pretty understanding. I think it was probably harder on
Speaker 3: me than them, because I don't like to let anybody down.
Speaker 3: And then this last summer I went to the Mayo
Speaker 3: Clinic just for a last try. You know, is there
Speaker 3: anything possible it could be done? Or do I just
Speaker 3: have to suck it up and live with it. So
Speaker 3: and I had doctors in my local area assure me that,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, you know, everything's been done that could be done.
Speaker 3: And the first thing the mayo told me was that
Speaker 3: fusion never took whatsoever. So they recommended, you know, refusing
Speaker 3: that level and also the next one up it was time.
Speaker 2: For that one.
Speaker 3: So anyway, in December, I went there and I had
Speaker 3: the had the surgery. They took the rods out of
Speaker 3: my you know, real low back, put in some new
Speaker 3: ones to cover those new levels. And anyway, it took
Speaker 3: a while for me to get over it or start
Speaker 3: making some progress. I was restricted for three months, so
Speaker 3: March in April or probably April, I you know, I
Speaker 3: was able to at least start walking outdoors a little
Speaker 3: bit and doing things, and so gradually just gotten better
Speaker 3: in better shape over the summer. I'm still fat and
Speaker 3: could roll around the hills if you kicked me. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I just mind over matter whatever whatever it is. I'm
Speaker 3: still limited, you know, I certain things I can't do
Speaker 3: like I like I used to, but you just adapt,
Speaker 3: and I don't know, and maybe that's why, you know,
Speaker 3: I've switched over to more of a calling phase in
Speaker 3: my hunting, so I'm not doing these long you know,
Speaker 3: spot now two or three miles away with an hour
Speaker 3: to go before dark, and take off like a madman
Speaker 3: and go get them just a little bit more patient
Speaker 3: and slower going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you have a pretty good support group
Speaker 1: as far as friends you can call if you get
Speaker 1: a bowl down, that'll come and help help get one out, too, don't.
Speaker 3: I do. The area where I'm hunting has zero cell
Speaker 3: phone reception, so but over in reach, yeah, I'm able
Speaker 3: to send some texts out and I have some awesome
Speaker 3: friends that'll, you know, come help me out at a
Speaker 3: moment's notice.
Speaker 2: Pretty much.
Speaker 3: The other The other thing is I do I still
Speaker 3: prefer to hunt totally by myself. I just think it's
Speaker 3: a lot more effective.
Speaker 2: You don't.
Speaker 3: You're not trying to figure out what somebody else's thinking
Speaker 3: or adapt to how they want to do things. It's
Speaker 3: just all your own decisions. But where I'm hunting, it's
Speaker 3: just you don't. You don't follow an elk up by yourself,
Speaker 3: or if you do, go find it, but then go
Speaker 3: get somebody to come hold legs for you whatever while
Speaker 3: you're breaking it down and moving it away from the carcass,
Speaker 3: so that that's what we try to do. I'd try
Speaker 3: to have, you know, somebody else there to at least
Speaker 3: follow up with me. These grizzlies are just more brazen
Speaker 3: all the time. We've had belt taken like mine from
Speaker 3: this year, you know, whether it's overnight or just an
Speaker 3: hour or two, or we had one that while we're
Speaker 3: actually skinning the bull, seven cubs comes in and they
Speaker 3: don't care that you're there. They just come in and
Speaker 3: take over. In that situation, you're supposed to let them. Legally,
Speaker 3: it's a tough thing to do. I might nowadays, I
Speaker 3: think I might cause a little battle if I was
Speaker 3: actually working on my elk and a bear came in
Speaker 3: and tried to take it like I was there first,
Speaker 3: it's mine, you know, I'd probably do.
Speaker 2: Whatever it took.
Speaker 3: But years past, you know, if that happens, we just
Speaker 3: back out and just be thankful they didn't come in
Speaker 3: batting us around. And so if they do that like
Speaker 3: that first, the first one a few years back, the
Speaker 3: same guy that had the wolf sniff his face. It's
Speaker 3: his first bull, his first bull ever, and we had
Speaker 3: four of us in there and we're working working on
Speaker 3: the thing, his dad heard a bull bugle, so he
Speaker 3: went over to hunt this bull. And so three of
Speaker 3: us are there and we're talking and doing whatever, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden heard a bull bugle. Kid looked up,
Speaker 3: he said, there it is. He's like, no, it's a
Speaker 3: it's a grizzly. And so the grizzly and her two
Speaker 3: full grown cubs came in and I mean as close
Speaker 3: as fifteen yards before we got out of there, and
Speaker 3: and just took it over. We had only had bear
Speaker 3: spray at the time, and it was not on our body.
Speaker 3: It was on our packs, which were leaned against a log.
Speaker 3: So we had we just had nothing. We just had
Speaker 3: to get out of there. So anyway, bad bad deal,
Speaker 3: it can it can happen. It seems to be happening
Speaker 3: more and more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's scary and heartbreaking too. You know, works so
Speaker 1: hard to get an elk and then you know, tim
Speaker 1: monster comes along and steals it.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, and that's what we live on all year too.
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So thankfully my wife has a cow tag, so hopefully
Speaker 3: in November next month will get some milk meat in
Speaker 3: a freezer.
Speaker 1: So reading reading your post, on Facebook here a week
Speaker 1: or so ago. Then I started reading down through it,
Speaker 1: and I always always wait for your posts every year
Speaker 1: because they're always really good. Okay, I talked before you
Speaker 1: you've got to you're a writer, so you have a
Speaker 1: good way to, you know, lay things out. It's always
Speaker 1: a good story. And and and as I'm reading through it,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, this is gonna be a
Speaker 1: good story. And then then I start seeing these these
Speaker 1: uh these numbers start showing up of how many grizzlies
Speaker 1: you saw and what distances you saw them, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the heck's going on. Then I read the rest
Speaker 1: of the story, I'm like, oh my god, I got
Speaker 1: to get ron on here to tell this story. So
Speaker 1: so give us the breakdown how your ELK season went
Speaker 1: this fall.
Speaker 3: So my brother came out to visit while my mom
Speaker 3: had some knee surgery done right at the end of August.
Speaker 3: So I took him to the airport September first, and
Speaker 3: then I was just going to go to the mountains
Speaker 3: September second. Well, of course I got back to town
Speaker 3: and there's still daylight lefts It's like, man, I just
Speaker 3: thought to go. I want to spend the night in
Speaker 3: the mountains at least, so I did that, got there
Speaker 3: up there at dark. So from September second to the
Speaker 3: twenty seventh, I saw forty one grizzlies. Most of them
Speaker 3: I have pictures of, or somebody was with me, and I,
Speaker 3: like my post said, I think it was five or six.
Speaker 3: We're at you know, long distance. A few more were
Speaker 3: under two hundred yards, a few more under one hundred yards.
Speaker 3: And there's twenty six of these instances that were under
Speaker 3: fifty yards. And on five of those occasions we had pistols.
Speaker 2: Out o cow.
Speaker 1: I shot a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I shot once this fall, mainly because I was
Speaker 3: pissed off. I wasn't trying to hit the bear.
Speaker 2: It was a bore that.
Speaker 3: He just didn't care at all that we were there.
Speaker 3: You know, we were walking on along this trail and
Speaker 3: my buddy was leading and he blew out, you know,
Speaker 3: this bear at twenty yards, pretty close, and he took
Speaker 3: off up the hills. So when I got up to him,
Speaker 3: he's like, did you see that? And I said, I
Speaker 3: saw something. I couldn't tell you what it was. He
Speaker 3: said it was a grizzly. So we looked, took a
Speaker 3: couple more steps. Well, the bear he was still only
Speaker 3: at forty yards and as we're standing there talking, he's
Speaker 3: looking at us and he starts coming at us. So
Speaker 3: it wasn't a charge. He was just walking at us.
Speaker 3: But we got our pistols out and then he got
Speaker 3: to twenty five to thirty yards probably, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: that's enough. I didn't know at the time my buddy
Speaker 3: was actually aiming at the bear, practicing getting his psyche pitcher,
Speaker 3: you know, and he didn't know that I was going
Speaker 3: to shoot. So I'm glad when I shot, I shot
Speaker 3: like ten feet to the side of the bear. I'm
Speaker 3: just glad he didn't twitch and actually shoot. He was
Speaker 3: actually aiming, right, So anyway, yeah, there was there was
Speaker 3: that one, and I think he was mainly trying that
Speaker 3: because when I got my bull and we and we
Speaker 3: got charged, and I can go into that story, but
Speaker 3: when that bear came at us, neither one of us
Speaker 3: was using our sights. We were just kind of you know,
Speaker 3: we had we had our stancer whatever, and we're I
Speaker 3: had to grip on the pistol, but we were more
Speaker 3: watching watching the bear, you know, maybe judging its reaction
Speaker 3: before we were gonna start shooting. But both both times
Speaker 3: that bear charged, it was five six yards right in
Speaker 3: that range, and neither one of us shot, and neither
Speaker 3: one of us acquired that site pitcher either. You know,
Speaker 3: bad on our part, but you know we're still learning
Speaker 3: with all this too. But I'm pretty positive how we
Speaker 3: started shooting, the bear was going to be in trouble,
Speaker 3: you know, especially being that close. We might have been too,
Speaker 3: but the bear definitely would have caught some lead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always figured, you know, if I had to
Speaker 1: shoot a bear, I would have to wait till I
Speaker 1: got really close because at a distance even ten twenty
Speaker 1: thirty yards whatever, moving, that's a hard target to hit.
Speaker 1: And I feel like with my level of pistolero ship,
Speaker 1: then that thing's gonna have to be almost just right
Speaker 1: on me, you know. That way, I don't miss, and
Speaker 1: I can give him every bullet I got and hopefully
Speaker 1: they'll take you know, and he maybe he'll die before
Speaker 1: he gets a couple of bites out of me.
Speaker 3: No kidding, And from our experience reinforced this year, they
Speaker 3: don't even care that you're.
Speaker 2: Yelling at him.
Speaker 3: And when I when I shot next to that bear,
Speaker 3: he didn't care. He uh, he kind of moved quick
Speaker 3: to the side, you know, maybe two yards, and he
Speaker 3: started eating again and digging, digging up stuff. He disappeared,
Speaker 3: you know, the front half of them disappeared under a
Speaker 3: pine tree. They're eating the white bark pine and pretty
Speaker 3: soon there's these big swaths of dirt coming out when
Speaker 3: he's you know, just digging up stuff to eat. And
Speaker 3: that was right after I shot.
Speaker 1: It's just that's crazy.
Speaker 3: So yeah, warning shots, which which would be what it
Speaker 3: was if I if I was trying to shoot a
Speaker 3: bear that was charging me at twenty or thirty yards.
Speaker 3: I'm giving them warning shots because I'm probably gonna miss.
Speaker 3: I've always been like minded with you just don't even
Speaker 3: start until they're closed. That way you have more time
Speaker 3: to read the situation. Not that I'm opposed to shooting
Speaker 3: these things, because I'm really not. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: I'm just as happy if I don't have to. So
Speaker 3: I don't know a lot of people might disagree. I
Speaker 3: disagree with myself sometimes on it, like some of these
Speaker 3: things need to start dying, especially the problem ones. But honestly,
Speaker 3: in the situation this year, not with that particular one,
Speaker 3: but with the one that charged us as just doing
Speaker 3: what bears do. Thankfully didn't make contact, so that's about
Speaker 3: the best scenario. We don't get chewed on and the
Speaker 3: bears bears not dead.
Speaker 1: It's crazy that that we hit the bear's behavior like
Speaker 1: you guys, it was coming towards you, cracked off a
Speaker 1: shot and then he just kind of went back to feeding.
Speaker 1: What's going through that bear's mind is like, Hey, what
Speaker 1: are the heck are these things standing here? I guess
Speaker 1: they're no bother. I guess I'll just go back like
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's so weird.
Speaker 3: We ran into that particular bear the following evening as well,
Speaker 3: and that time you did bluff charge just a little bit.
Speaker 3: But honestly, right before that, we were talking to a
Speaker 3: backpacker that was that was coming out and he had
Speaker 3: a cann of bear spray on his back and not
Speaker 3: in an easily accessible area, which happens a lot with
Speaker 3: people around here. They just don't know how fast you
Speaker 3: need to get something into action and that you should
Speaker 3: practice doing that. But we were talking to him for
Speaker 3: a while. He told us what he you know, what
Speaker 3: he had seen up there. He saw some bear tracks
Speaker 3: up high and some mountain lion tracks, and we he
Speaker 3: had told him, like, just back behind you a couple
Speaker 3: hundred yards. The day before was a big grizzly we
Speaker 3: had that encounter with, and he's like, oh, that would
Speaker 3: have been cool to see. So after he left, we
Speaker 3: want two hundred yards up the trail, and there was
Speaker 3: a branch broken off of one of these trees. And
Speaker 3: the bears do that at times to get to some
Speaker 3: of the pine cones. They can reach a branch and
Speaker 3: to pull it down. So I saw the branch laying
Speaker 3: there and I said, oh, look, the bear's been here
Speaker 3: breaking branches. Then I'm like, holy crap, he's right.
Speaker 2: There, and he was.
Speaker 3: He was right in the trees, and he was less
Speaker 3: than thirty yards off the trail that that kid walked by.
Speaker 3: The kid had no idea the bear was there, and
Speaker 3: I might not have either if I hadn't joked about
Speaker 3: that branch. But it just seems like in that one's case,
Speaker 3: he was perfectly content to let people go back and
Speaker 3: forth and go buy them. But so we stopped the
Speaker 3: day before and he didn't like it much, came towards us,
Speaker 3: but he wasn't really aggressive. And but that night he
Speaker 3: didn't like us standing there talking and so he bluff
Speaker 3: charged us, then just back to doing his stuff. I
Speaker 3: filmed him, you know, just grubbing around and eating and digging.
Speaker 3: We went on our way and came back. So on
Speaker 3: the way back, I told my buddy, I said, well,
Speaker 3: you're in charge of this one, because if he charges us,
Speaker 3: I'm going to film you shooting him.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So I was walking along with my with my phone
Speaker 3: up videotape and the whole walk back by there, but.
Speaker 2: We didn't see him.
Speaker 1: Oh man, thank god. Yeah, so tell us tell us
Speaker 1: how it all went down with So you guys, you
Speaker 1: killed this bull, you were tracking it, you found it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So tell us how that all played out.
Speaker 3: I I already told you that I, you know, snuck
Speaker 3: in close to the bugle and that one came up
Speaker 3: the hill right to me, and I had a narrow
Speaker 3: fold to shoot through the trees. It's like thirty yards.
Speaker 3: I shot him and just briefly saw it when he spun,
Speaker 3: But my impression was, oh, I hit him back. And
Speaker 3: it was like seven in the evening, or close to
Speaker 3: their half hour before dark, and like, I'm not comfortable
Speaker 3: following this up today. I know it's a chance, but
Speaker 3: I'll wait until tomorrow. So I got a couple buddies.
Speaker 3: I had a friend there from Oklahoma that was hunting
Speaker 3: the same unit. Got hold of him and he said
Speaker 3: he'd be there in the morning. And my other buddy
Speaker 3: came from halfway across the state to get there in time.
Speaker 3: And so the three of us went up there to
Speaker 3: trap this bear.
Speaker 2: In the morning.
Speaker 3: We get in there, and the one from Oklahoma, he
Speaker 3: doesn't have bear spray. He wouldn't carry bear spray or
Speaker 3: a pistol. It's just his own hunting philosophy, like, if
Speaker 3: he gets taken out, he gets taken.
Speaker 2: Out, it's time. Yeah, But man, when.
Speaker 3: You're trailing these things, I mean, we've had him find
Speaker 3: us in the elk in a half hour's time before.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it might take him two days to get on
Speaker 3: the elk, or it might take four hours, but it's
Speaker 3: happened quick before. So my buddy Randy and I were ready,
Speaker 3: and so we had our ten milimeters fifteen shots each.
Speaker 3: We get in there, I show him where it all
Speaker 3: went down, and then we get on this both trail
Speaker 3: oh and down the hill where he came from the
Speaker 3: night before. I had a trail camera set up over
Speaker 3: a wallow just to see what might be around in there.
Speaker 3: So when I shot this thing, I'm like, man, with
Speaker 3: any luck he ran down there past that camera and
Speaker 3: I'll be able to see where I.
Speaker 2: Did hit him.
Speaker 3: So we get on this trail and the blood trails
Speaker 3: really good. So I'm starting to dit, like, man, did
Speaker 3: I hit him back or not? And we get down
Speaker 3: out of the thick trees into this clearing where the
Speaker 3: wallows are. Blood trail is still good, but he hooks
Speaker 3: up up a little bit and he was too far
Speaker 3: away from the trail camera to pick it up.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 3: We're just turning the corner starting to go into this
Speaker 3: thick patch trees. Well it's not just a patch, it's
Speaker 3: it's dense for its really good bedding area for elk.
Speaker 3: So we were just getting ready to enter into there,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I don't know, six yards six
Speaker 3: or eight yards to the right of Randy and Eddie.
Speaker 3: Eddie's the one without a pistol or spray, and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, I hear a crack and I look up,
Speaker 3: didn't see anything right away, but Eddie said, there it is. Oh,
Speaker 3: it's coming, you know, we didn't say it was a bear.
Speaker 3: He just you know, surprise, oh coming. And he ducked
Speaker 3: back behind Randy. And that's where the bear charged first,
Speaker 3: was at him, and Randy says he was just thinking,
Speaker 3: oh man, why isn't it charging Ron instead of me?
Speaker 2: Get him?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's what That's the first thing through his mind.
Speaker 1: I guess that's a real friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, real friend.
Speaker 3: So anyway, we both we both have pistols out really quick,
Speaker 3: and and like I say, we're just pointing them though
Speaker 3: not not aiming, which wasn't wasn't the best deal. So anyway,
Speaker 3: this bear, Randy must has seen that it was slowing
Speaker 3: down or it turns, it turned its attention over towards me,
Speaker 3: because you know, we're we were yelling. We can't even
Speaker 3: remember what all we yelled. I remember when it charged
Speaker 3: the second time, what I said. But anyway, so the
Speaker 3: bear comes really close to him, you know, five six yards,
Speaker 3: turns and runs back to where it came from, which
Speaker 3: like we could see thirty yards ahead of us, maybe
Speaker 3: that far.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 3: At that point, you know, I saw where it ran
Speaker 3: to you, and then I saw cubs. Didn't know how many,
Speaker 3: but they were big so then I know it's a she.
Speaker 3: Well she charges again. This time she does come at me,
Speaker 3: and I had a few choice words to say to her,
Speaker 3: and I think that's why she stoppedge But yeah, she
Speaker 3: might be opposed to some foul language. Anyway along the
Speaker 3: lines I will blink and shoot you, you know. And anyway,
Speaker 3: she stopped really close. My finger was I was squeezing,
Speaker 3: not shooting yet, but like all the slack was taken
Speaker 3: up and just it wouldn't have taken you know, another
Speaker 3: half a yard or something, and I was going to
Speaker 3: start shooting, but she she broke off. She never took
Speaker 3: her eyes off me until she turned and went back,
Speaker 3: like she wasn't distracted by anything else. But she did
Speaker 3: turn back, which was good. So backed up a few steps,
Speaker 3: and Randy and Eddie backed up, and then they're like,
Speaker 3: let's let's get back out of here, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: I want to. I need to get my bow. Which
Speaker 3: those two steps that I backed up, my bow's laying
Speaker 3: up in front of me. So I did go get
Speaker 3: my bow and we backed up, and man, it was
Speaker 3: around that time I was I remembered, holy crap, we're
Speaker 3: like out in front of this trail camera, maybe we
Speaker 3: got some pictures of all this stuff happening, and we
Speaker 3: did get a and we backed out of there. It
Speaker 3: took a little while, we got things, our pistols holstered up,
Speaker 3: and we're talking and then just finally left. Like we
Speaker 3: were one hundred percent sure that that bear was on
Speaker 3: my elk because it's right where the trail was going,
Speaker 3: so and there's nowhere like we couldn't climb up anywhere,
Speaker 3: climb a tree, you couldn't see where it was really thick,
Speaker 3: there's nowhere to get good look. But pretty confident, especially
Speaker 3: with a little experience with these stupid bears of you know,
Speaker 3: she was protecting a food source, is what I figured,
Speaker 3: because you know, we were we were talking while we
Speaker 3: were trailing, so she knew we were there for a
Speaker 3: while before she charged. We just ended up getting too
Speaker 3: close to what she was protecting. Anyway, it turns out
Speaker 3: the trail camera got a little bit of the action.
Speaker 3: You can never see the bear, but you can see
Speaker 3: one picture has Randy and Eddie on it. The next
Speaker 3: picture has Eddie kind of behind Randy and me up
Speaker 3: to the right, crouch down ready to shoot, and then
Speaker 3: from there on it was just us backing out of
Speaker 3: there and bs and then finally leaving. I did grab
Speaker 3: the camera when we left, just so I could check
Speaker 3: check everything. But so after that all happened, we waited.
Speaker 3: I think it was like five days or so. We
Speaker 3: got dumped on with a bunch of snow, and then
Speaker 3: me and Randy and friend Adam and Mary Miles. Adam
Speaker 3: was out hunting. Mary came with us and she's a
Speaker 3: good pistol shot. She's really quick on the draw too,
Speaker 3: so perfect. She came with us and we had a
Speaker 3: shotgun to go in there to just to try to
Speaker 3: recover the antlers. And they were right there, right where
Speaker 3: we figured they would be. And luckily we got out
Speaker 3: of there. There's just a ton of bear sign. They
Speaker 3: dug up, you know, probably a twenty foot wide by
Speaker 3: forty foot long area where the you know, the dead
Speaker 3: elk was and they just had everything torn up and
Speaker 3: there was nothing left of the elk except the head
Speaker 3: and the antlers, the hide, and the lower legs.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 3: They even the bears even skinned his face and ate
Speaker 3: all the meat off the face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was pretty wild, so hungry.
Speaker 3: Yeh got that got that all, you know, cut off
Speaker 3: with my buddy's standing guarden and we got out of
Speaker 3: there thankfully with the rack. But yeah, no meat. And
Speaker 3: in all honesty, even if we were to would have
Speaker 3: pressed the issue and gone in there and maybe gotten
Speaker 3: in a gunfight with a bear, chances are the elk
Speaker 3: would have been ruined by then anyway, so we would
Speaker 3: have exposed ourselves to a lot more danger, maybe legal troubles,
Speaker 3: and probably still wouldn't have gotten any of the elk anyway.
Speaker 3: So I've heard once they once they start chewing on it,
Speaker 3: the game and fish people says, you don't want any
Speaker 3: you don't want any part of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, probably introduce the meat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they do.
Speaker 1: Plus bears, they like to scrape up a lot of
Speaker 1: pine needles and dirt and covered up and.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they make a mess yep, they do like to.
Speaker 3: And it's amazing if you have a bull dye kind
Speaker 3: of in a grassy area, they make it look manicured
Speaker 3: because they sweep up all the pine needles, pine cones, branches,
Speaker 3: whatever might be there and they pile it over the carcass.
Speaker 3: And the best one of those was a few years
Speaker 3: back buddy Jason Stafford killed the bull, and we got
Speaker 3: all taken apart, moved moved the quarters away from the carcass,
Speaker 3: and came in there like eight people the next data
Speaker 3: to pack it out, and that bear had completely buried
Speaker 3: the carcass. It did go down and it grabbed one
Speaker 3: of the quarters, and the game bag brought it back.
Speaker 3: It was under the pile and he went around and
Speaker 3: he picked up all the lower legs and he put
Speaker 3: those in the pile with everything else too.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, so that.
Speaker 3: Place looked like it was a manicured lawn. He's swept
Speaker 3: it up so nice. It is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Like he had a weed whacker and a rake in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, huh, it was. It was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: In your opinion. How far is far enough ish to
Speaker 1: get your quarters away from the carcass.
Speaker 3: I like to say at least one hundred yards, But
Speaker 3: I want to be where I can see the carcass
Speaker 3: like I want to. I want to be able to
Speaker 3: see the quarters and see the carcass if possible. If
Speaker 3: I If I can't, then I tried to move the
Speaker 3: quarters farther away, which is what we did last year
Speaker 3: with my bull. Adam and Mary had had come up
Speaker 3: I texted them and they came out of where they
Speaker 3: were at and helped me go in there and and
Speaker 3: get my bull cut up. And we packed those quarters.
Speaker 3: Since it was in that same really dense bedding area,
Speaker 3: we packed them about three hundred and fifty four hundred
Speaker 3: yards away, Like we made two trips that day instead
Speaker 3: of making one trip and then coming back the next
Speaker 3: day and getting in there at all close to where
Speaker 3: the carcas was. So just depends, you know. I like
Speaker 3: it best if I can go in there and if
Speaker 3: I can see all these nice white bags, count them up,
Speaker 3: you know, make sure everything's there, see if anything's on
Speaker 3: the carcass, see if it's been buried or not. That's
Speaker 3: what we prefer, just a little sense of comfort if
Speaker 3: you can actually see where a bear might be. Not
Speaker 3: to say they can't be anywhere around there, but being
Speaker 3: able to see all your bags and meat lined up
Speaker 3: on top of a log, in a tree or whatever
Speaker 3: you do with them is the best thing when you're
Speaker 3: coming back for them, because where that's where I think,
Speaker 3: either trailing and out or coming back for me is
Speaker 3: where I think the most dangerized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you always hear folks who have a negative encounter.
Speaker 1: It's oftentimes after they've they've killed a bowl, got the
Speaker 1: stuff in a tree, maybe pack one, load out, and
Speaker 1: then they go back and then that's when when the
Speaker 1: tragedy strikes ye.
Speaker 2: To move it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a few years ago, Well, it was the first
Speaker 1: time I hunted Wyoming in the part that has grizzlies,
Speaker 1: and a buddy of mine. There were three of us
Speaker 1: plus a camera guy, and one of my buddies killed
Speaker 1: this bowl and it was right at the edge of
Speaker 1: this timber but then like kind of a nice little
Speaker 1: hillside with an open meadow you could actually see from
Speaker 1: the highway. You can see it several hundred yards away
Speaker 1: from the highway. So after we broke this bowl down,
Speaker 1: the ore packs loaded. We're in one trip this thing
Speaker 1: out that way. We don't have to go back it
Speaker 1: because it's notorious for a grizzly rice And I said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, because there were bulls bugling in there,
Speaker 1: stills like, that's a good spot. We'd like to come
Speaker 1: back and hunt again, but if there's grizzlies in here,
Speaker 1: we don't want to. So I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's drag that carcass out into this open meadow on
Speaker 1: this hillside, and then we can glass it up from
Speaker 1: a long distance and see if anything's been on it. So,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that's good idea. So we do this, and
Speaker 1: a couple of days later it's like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we'd like to go back in there. So we
Speaker 1: get out, pull over on the highway and we start
Speaker 1: blasting and immediately so I don't know why, but I'm
Speaker 1: the first one got my binoculars out. They're readily available.
Speaker 1: I'm like, huh, the carcass is gone. So I'm looking.
Speaker 1: I'm like, uh, you think it would just be obviously
Speaker 1: right there? And I focus focus into the timber, and
Speaker 1: then the timber, I'm like, oh, there it is. I
Speaker 1: can see the rib cage. And then I focus it,
Speaker 1: like look a little harder. It's like there's a fricking
Speaker 1: grizzly standing over the rib cage and it's this great,
Speaker 1: big sucker, and I'm like, holy cow. And camera guys
Speaker 1: are scrambling, you know, for their for their long lenses,
Speaker 1: and and my buddies are getting their their their stuff out,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, there's another one. And here comes
Speaker 1: another grizzly. He walks out right out in front in
Speaker 1: that little meadow, and I'm like, holy cow, there's another
Speaker 1: one there.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: He's walking out there and he's kind of paces back
Speaker 1: and forth camera guys. You know, of course there's he's like, man,
Speaker 1: where's my big lens this? And there's my big lends that.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, that big bear charges out
Speaker 1: and they start fighting, and I'm just like, oh god,
Speaker 1: they're fighting now. Then they're really scrambling, like they can't
Speaker 1: really get their cameras together quick enough. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: they're fighting, and then all of a sudden, I can
Speaker 1: hear the sound, and the first thing that came to
Speaker 1: mind was, huh, there's somebody riding dirt bikes, like four
Speaker 1: stroked dirt bikes up up in the like, and like
Speaker 1: I might kind of come to to like my senses,
Speaker 1: like that's the bears. You could hear those things roaring
Speaker 1: from that distance. It was a few hundred yards away,
Speaker 1: and you could hear them. It was that loud, which
Speaker 1: I was just blew me away. And those things fought
Speaker 1: and they were just rolling around fighting, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden they just stopped. They froze like they
Speaker 1: had each other in a good barehold bite a bite
Speaker 1: or something. They just froze, and then they separated and
Speaker 1: the smaller one ran off, and the big one he
Speaker 1: kind of sauntered right back up to the carcass, and
Speaker 1: the smaller one we could watch him because this big
Speaker 1: hillside you could just it was just laid out perfectly
Speaker 1: like a like a movie screen, right, and he kind
Speaker 1: of walked down a big pile of brush and walked
Speaker 1: around the corner on the side and he went over
Speaker 1: there and he just plopped down on his butt and
Speaker 1: kind of hung his head like the pout, like was
Speaker 1: pouting like, Man, I just got my ass kicked. I
Speaker 1: can't believe I really wanted some of that elk.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So as we're watching this, I'm like, man, that's cool
Speaker 1: and that's crazy watching that. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: another bear comes up out of the draw out of
Speaker 1: the willows. So this is Bear number three, walks up
Speaker 1: there and he kind of paces back and forth a
Speaker 1: little bit, and then he don't want none of that
Speaker 1: big bear, so he kind of wanders off, and then
Speaker 1: a little bit later another one comes out. We sat
Speaker 1: there for two hours and five different bears. They come
Speaker 1: out from different places you know, so it's not the
Speaker 1: same ones because they'd come out and disappear and go
Speaker 1: a different direction. So I know they weren't the same bears.
Speaker 1: But five different bears came out, and the last bear
Speaker 1: came out, it was getting pretty dark. But the last
Speaker 1: bear that came out, those two fought again like it
Speaker 1: was a you know, there was another fight and they
Speaker 1: got kind of got up into the timber there and
Speaker 1: we're fighting around so you couldn't really see him.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 1: This a little bit too dark, But I was like,
Speaker 1: at that point in my life, I'd never seen a
Speaker 1: grizzly bear, and all of a sudden, I saw five
Speaker 1: in one night, in one setting. And we each other
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yeah, we're not hunting the anymorew we're
Speaker 1: not going back. And my one buddy's like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: now we know where all the bears are, we just
Speaker 1: have to make a big circle around him and get
Speaker 1: back in there. I'm like, yeah, no, what about the
Speaker 1: other ones that haven't made it there yet? Like I'm good.
Speaker 1: I think we need to find a different spot.
Speaker 3: That's pretty interesting. You mentioned that you know what sounded
Speaker 3: you like a dirt bike or something. So when we
Speaker 3: were getting close. We were still out in that clearing
Speaker 3: tracking my bowl, and Randy you know, put his hand
Speaker 3: out like quiet. You know, we listened for a little bit.
Speaker 3: I didn't hear anything. He's like, it must have been
Speaker 3: a four wheeler or something. He heard it, and it
Speaker 3: was I'm sure it was the bear's low growl or
Speaker 3: you know, maybe they were squabbling over the meet her
Speaker 3: in her three cubs and uh, but anyway, he had
Speaker 3: heard that, you know, at first he just blew it off.
Speaker 3: And Eddie and I didn't hear it, but you know,
Speaker 3: Randy just blew it off. Yeah, it must have been
Speaker 3: a four wheeler in the distance or something, but it
Speaker 3: was a I'm sure it was a gral and over
Speaker 3: where we got charged from. So but yeah, if you
Speaker 3: could have heard that, you know, those ones fighting from
Speaker 3: that far away, it'd be pretty cool to listen to
Speaker 3: it up close.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just I wish those camera guys would have you know,
Speaker 1: I wish wou'd have been ready. You know, we had
Speaker 1: no idea we're going to see that, But dang, if
Speaker 1: they'd had their long lenses to capture the bear fights
Speaker 1: and stuff, that would have been so cool.
Speaker 3: I took videos in fact it was. It was before
Speaker 3: I shot shot my elk. I was up hunting it
Speaker 3: a different area, probably a mile and a half two
Speaker 3: miles away, and I was up on this now and
Speaker 3: I watched a bull feed down this drainage, push a
Speaker 3: cow down into some trees, and I was thinking about
Speaker 3: going after him, got all my gear on and started
Speaker 3: down this ridge and then I'm like, well, crap, there's
Speaker 3: four bears. And it was the same sow with three cubs.
Speaker 3: Saw her a few times, and I got to watch
Speaker 3: and video a couple of those cubs just my cell phone.
Speaker 3: It's probably two hundred yards away, but they play fought
Speaker 3: for probably fifteen minutes. I got to listen to him
Speaker 3: watch them. Yeah, it was pretty neat. The third one
Speaker 3: came out and just kind of ignored them, and the
Speaker 3: mom spent most of her time in the trees. So
Speaker 3: I ran into sat and two cubs there one morning
Speaker 3: in the dark when I was going around trying to
Speaker 3: hunt this one drainage in there, and I knew there's
Speaker 3: probably bears around, and I walked into him at forty
Speaker 3: yards in my headlamp. I'm like, well, crap, pistol was out,
Speaker 3: and I was pretty well ready, and I started talking
Speaker 3: to her, playing with my head lamp, put it on strobe,
Speaker 3: and just whatever I could do to make them go away.
Speaker 3: The sow one away, but her two cubs were up
Speaker 3: a tree, you know, probably messing around getting the pine cones.
Speaker 3: You know, grizzlies can climb it, especially at that branches
Speaker 3: and stuff. But I didn't know they were in a
Speaker 3: tree until the mom walked off, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I think I'll go the other way. So I made
Speaker 3: a bigger loop and went and didn't kill a bull
Speaker 3: that morning. But coming back through, it's like, God, dang it,
Speaker 3: I know I'm going to run into them again in
Speaker 3: the daylight, and I did about sixty yards. They didn't
Speaker 3: see me at all, and I was able to circle
Speaker 3: down and around them.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the joys of grizzly country.
Speaker 1: What do you think are the chances of those larger
Speaker 1: type cubs getting involved in a charger or an attack?
Speaker 1: Do they do usually do that or they kind of
Speaker 1: pretty timid still that I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't really know. I'm very curious about that myself.
Speaker 3: So I got to, you know, post incident, analyzing things,
Speaker 3: you know, and that bear charged us. Why didn't. Why
Speaker 3: didn't we shoot? Because I mean, there's plenty close. We'd
Speaker 3: have been fine in that situation doing that. But part
Speaker 3: of me thinks, after the fact, I wonder, you know,
Speaker 3: if we just didn't, like one shot killer outright, I'm
Speaker 3: sure she'd have been growling, snarling, whatever, maybe chewing on us.
Speaker 3: And I wonder if that wouldn't have spurred those cubs
Speaker 3: to do the same, you know, wouldn't have brought them out.
Speaker 3: And then you know, we're trying to shoot out with
Speaker 3: a with four bears instead of one. So I don't
Speaker 3: know the answer, but I think if we would have
Speaker 3: shot that style and she would have you know, gone
Speaker 3: to snow Arlin, growland, whatever, I really think it might
Speaker 3: have brought them out to do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had came to her aid, because like you said,
Speaker 1: they were pretty big, you know, they weren't like, yeah.
Speaker 3: Ne were only you know, twenty five thirty yards away,
Speaker 3: so it wouldn't taken them much to get there.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, and even a bear of that size
Speaker 1: has a lot of power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were big cubs. Like I'm sure she'll kick
Speaker 3: them off this next spring, but you know, and she's
Speaker 3: got we have three new grizzlies out there that no, oh,
Speaker 3: we don't have to fear humans, you know, we just
Speaker 3: go do.
Speaker 2: What we want.
Speaker 3: So they keep, for whatever reason up in this area.
Speaker 3: There's at least two sALS that are having triplets, you know,
Speaker 3: every two three years. However often they pump them out.
Speaker 3: They have triplets almost every year.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow, Well, what what kind of advice do you have
Speaker 1: for our listeners if they're going to go hunt grizzly
Speaker 1: bear country. It sounds like you've dealt with the bears
Speaker 1: for a long time. I'm what kind of advice do
Speaker 1: you got for him?
Speaker 2: First? They need to be honest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, need to be honest with themselves, and they can't
Speaker 3: they do it comfortably. Some people think they can and
Speaker 3: they come here and you know, like the situation you
Speaker 3: were in you saw those five bears. There's times that
Speaker 3: just overwhelms people and they'll just pack up and go home.
Speaker 3: So it just has to do with readiness. And you
Speaker 3: can be the most cocky person on earth. I just
Speaker 3: go in there. I'd shoot them all or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 3: sometimes it really doesn't work like that. They may have
Speaker 3: more enough of an effect on you than you might imagine.
Speaker 3: I guess is what I would say to a lot
Speaker 3: of people. And that's just that's not just trying to
Speaker 3: keep them out of my area, which would be awesome too,
Speaker 3: but it's just not for everybody. Seeing them is seeing
Speaker 3: them one thing is one thing, especially at a distance,
Speaker 3: and it's all that's cool, you know, seeing them up
Speaker 3: and close does something a little bit different to you.
Speaker 3: And then having encounters I don't know, I guess you
Speaker 3: get to see what you're made of. And some people
Speaker 3: have a flight reflex, some people have fight or whatever.
Speaker 3: The group of people that I share camp with not
Speaker 3: every year, just you know, whoever draws tags.
Speaker 2: We kind of hunt.
Speaker 3: Together or follow up, you know, things together, even if
Speaker 3: we can't separate. None of them have that flight reflex.
Speaker 3: Like everybody's there, everybody's ready, We're all experienced with it.
Speaker 3: And the biggest thing if somebody does come hunt Grizzly Country,
Speaker 3: the biggest piece of advice I think is whether you
Speaker 3: carry a gun or spray, practice with it. Be very
Speaker 3: comfortable with it. That's where your hand goes now actually,
Speaker 3: and don't waste time, Like if you hear something you
Speaker 3: don't quite know what it is is, start reaching for
Speaker 3: your spray or your pistol at that time while you're
Speaker 3: trying to figure out what it is that you saw
Speaker 3: or heard, because that could make the difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were telling me about it fast. You're telling
Speaker 1: me about a friend of yours that had an encounter.
Speaker 1: Can you can you tell that story real quick?
Speaker 3: It just happened like just a few days ago. I
Speaker 3: haven't talked to them. I just saw a Facebook post
Speaker 3: about it. But this son and dad were hunting together.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they shot an elk and were
Speaker 3: following it up, or if they'd just gone into the
Speaker 3: trees after some elk. But the son heard what he
Speaker 3: was pretty sure wasn't elk, and he pulled his pistol,
Speaker 3: which happens to be a ten milimeter, and what he
Speaker 3: heard was a grizzly bear, and the grizzly charged it him,
Speaker 3: not his dad, and he was able to He shot
Speaker 3: fifteen times or however many he hit the bear, like
Speaker 3: four times. It turned and it sounded like he hit
Speaker 3: it twice more. So that's pretty good heat of the moment.
Speaker 3: You know, if you could hit one four or six
Speaker 3: times out of fifteen shots, or even get all fifteen
Speaker 3: shots off at close quarters. You know, that's pretty good.
Speaker 3: And then I also read that the dad either didn't
Speaker 3: get his rifle off his shoulder or he did but
Speaker 3: he couldn't get the safety to work. You know, Jack
Speaker 3: in Theeschell gets safety off in time to help out.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it happened fast, and this kid was on
Speaker 3: his toes and he just maybe had that instinct like hey,
Speaker 3: I don't think that elk and he without even seeing
Speaker 3: the bear, he got his pistol out, so he was
Speaker 3: he was kind of ready when it happened. And that's
Speaker 3: just that's just what you have to do, you know.
Speaker 3: Had had Randy been sure like hey, I think that
Speaker 3: was a growl I heard when we were tracking my bull,
Speaker 3: we would have him out right then and been ready,
Speaker 3: but as it was, we didn't. We didn't get him
Speaker 3: out until she was already charging.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well that's awesome. That's that's awesome information and scary too.
Speaker 1: Well man, thanks for coming on the podcast today. Where
Speaker 1: can people find you if they want to look you
Speaker 1: up on social.
Speaker 3: Just my name Ron Niziolic on Instagram and and Facebook.
Speaker 1: Yeah sounds good. Well, I appreciate you coming on. Good
Speaker 1: catching up with you hopefully good to catch up. It
Speaker 1: won't be so long until we catch up again. I
Speaker 1: haven't talked to you for a.
Speaker 2: While, so all right, sounds good?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Well, thanks thanks Jart