Speaker 1: You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network powered by
Speaker 1: Interstate Batteries from your truck to your trail camera. Interstate
Speaker 1: Batteries as you covered. Visit your local Interstate Batteries store
Speaker 1: today or online at Interstate Batteries dot com. Interstate Batteries
Speaker 1: Outrageously Dependable. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host
Speaker 1: of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your
Speaker 1: host into the world of hunting the icon of North
Speaker 1: American wilderness. There, we'll talk about tactics, gear conservation, who
Speaker 1: will also bring you into some of the wildest country
Speaker 1: on the planet chasing battery. Thank you for checking out
Speaker 1: the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. On this episode, we're talking
Speaker 1: to about using mules to access the back country. My
Speaker 1: thirteen year old son and my sixteen year old good
Speaker 1: friend's son are on the three day Christmas whitetail hunt
Speaker 1: hunting in Arkansas. Bear live in wild places and it's
Speaker 1: an adventure to get to them. Bears are iconic of
Speaker 1: North American wilderness and part of the adventure of hunting
Speaker 1: them is getting into wild places. I use a mule
Speaker 1: and have chosen to use a mule to access wild places,
Speaker 1: to get deeper, and to stay longer. That is something
Speaker 1: just in the last few years that I have taken
Speaker 1: on as a challenge, and I have significantly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I have not enjoyed it because I necessarily think it's
Speaker 1: the best strategy for taking game back there. I haven't
Speaker 1: enjoyed it because it's the easiest. It's actually quite difficult
Speaker 1: and has complexified my my hunting. It has put this
Speaker 1: whole other set around my hunting that I truly enjoy
Speaker 1: in my hunting, I am fine tuning the narrative of
Speaker 1: how I enjoy hunting and how I want to hunt
Speaker 1: in unique ways. Hunting with a mule is not necessarily
Speaker 1: the most efficient way or the only way to access
Speaker 1: back country, but it's the way that I have chosen
Speaker 1: to do it. If my only goal was to get
Speaker 1: antlers and meat, I would probably take the money and
Speaker 1: energy that I've invested in these mules and buy lease
Speaker 1: in Kansas and go up there for you know, a
Speaker 1: week and have a chance at a really nice buck.
Speaker 1: I have not chosen to do that. I have chosen
Speaker 1: to drive and too. Probably some of the most difficult
Speaker 1: white tail hunting that there is in low density areas,
Speaker 1: rugged rough mountains, in places where you just don't see
Speaker 1: many deer. And that's I say that because I live
Speaker 1: in northwest Arkansas. I could drive two and a half
Speaker 1: to three hours and being some of the best tail
Speaker 1: hunting in the country, and I've never done it. I
Speaker 1: choose to limit myself and I dear hunt down there
Speaker 1: quite a bit, and that fits the narrative in the
Speaker 1: way that I want to and choose to limit myself
Speaker 1: in hunting, and I do not regret that decision. This
Speaker 1: whitetail hunt is also directly connected to my public land
Speaker 1: bear hunting. I want to make that clear because this
Speaker 1: is the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast where we talk about
Speaker 1: strategies for hunting bear and how to get people involved
Speaker 1: in bear hunting, and well, this white tail hunt takes
Speaker 1: place in a region of Arkansas that I bear hunt,
Speaker 1: and so intimately knowing the land is critical for public
Speaker 1: land bear hunting where we cannot use bait or hounds.
Speaker 1: But we're just hunting these bears basically like deer and
Speaker 1: so on this hunt. Even though we're hunting white tails,
Speaker 1: bear seasons long over, I am storing up information about
Speaker 1: the region for where and how I plan to bear
Speaker 1: hunting next year. Lastly, before we get into the episode,
Speaker 1: I think appreciating diversity and hunting is critical for the
Speaker 1: future of our honey. When I say diversity of honting,
Speaker 1: what I mean is you'll see You'll see videos and
Speaker 1: here podcasts of me talking about hunting bear over bait,
Speaker 1: and I love it. I'm passionate about hunting bear over bait.
Speaker 1: I think it's a challenge. I think it's a beautiful
Speaker 1: bear management tool to be selective. I think it is
Speaker 1: extremely difficult to kill an older, mature mail over bait
Speaker 1: no matter where you're hunting. I love it. If you
Speaker 1: pigeon hold me and too thinking that that's all that
Speaker 1: I appreciated, you would be mistaken. I also love bear
Speaker 1: hunting with hounds. I think bear hunting with hounds is
Speaker 1: one of the most underrated, underappreciated, most misunderstood methods of
Speaker 1: legal hunting in today's world. Thirdly, I love spotting stock
Speaker 1: bear hunting. I love spotting stock bear hunting in the West,
Speaker 1: I love spotting stock bear hunting in the East. And
Speaker 1: my favorite way to hunt bear right here in my
Speaker 1: home state of Arkansas is to just go out in
Speaker 1: the mountains and just hunt them like deer. And I
Speaker 1: value and appreciate all those different types of hunting. And
Speaker 1: I think that sometimes people are so focused on the
Speaker 1: method that they prefer that they think that that is
Speaker 1: the moral high ground or the elite way to hunt,
Speaker 1: and they look negatively, speak never negatively, and look down
Speaker 1: upon other methods of hunting. That, my friends, is detrimental
Speaker 1: to the whole of the hunting community. We have to
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen be people that are supportive of all
Speaker 1: legal methods of hunting, because the anti hunting community is
Speaker 1: after hunting through incrementalism. Every single thing that they take
Speaker 1: from us, we have nothing left to give them. Every
Speaker 1: ele thing that they take from us at this point
Speaker 1: is a win that is going to contribute to more winds.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, it may be bear hunting with hounds today,
Speaker 1: but in five years, ten years, whatever years, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be bow hunting. And after that it's gonna be this,
Speaker 1: and after that it's gonna be that. We live in
Speaker 1: a critical time and unification is the only way forward.
Speaker 1: And I stand and speak on behalf of those who
Speaker 1: are at the bottom of the barrel. Bear hunting is
Speaker 1: the target of the anti hunting community, and we are
Speaker 1: rallying all of our brothers inside the hunting community to
Speaker 1: just stand for it. And by stand for it, I
Speaker 1: mean joint organizations that are defending bear hunting. Don't talk negatively,
Speaker 1: even in your own camps, even in your own families.
Speaker 1: Don't disparage people that hunt in different ways than you,
Speaker 1: but build them up and say, man, we don't hunt
Speaker 1: that way, but man, ifit's legal and it's conservations based,
Speaker 1: scientific based, if it's adding mass to the North American
Speaker 1: model of wildlife conservation, that is the most successful animal
Speaker 1: husbandry human effort on the history of the planet and
Speaker 1: the history of mankind, and we're for it. That's what
Speaker 1: we need to be saying to our kids. That's what
Speaker 1: we need to be saying the new hunters, and that's
Speaker 1: what that's that's where we need to be. So you'll
Speaker 1: enjoy this podcast about hunting in the back country, will
Speaker 1: hear a few of our stories, and then we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the specifics of how we're using this mule. I
Speaker 1: hate it when somebody has to make excuses for audio
Speaker 1: quality on a podcast, but you'll have to excuse some
Speaker 1: part of this podcast because of the wind. Just view
Speaker 1: it through the filter of this is some real hunting
Speaker 1: authenticity the wind house sometimes. Welcome to the Bear Hunting
Speaker 1: Magazine podcast. It is December twenty seventh, is that right?
Speaker 1: Two days after Christmas? Yip? Two days after Christmas? And
Speaker 1: I am here with my son, Bear Newcomb and practically
Speaker 1: my other son, David Spillmaker practically Bears thirteen, David's six team,
Speaker 1: and we are on the right now in Arkansas. There's
Speaker 1: a three day rifle season they call it the Christmas
Speaker 1: Hunt goes and we are on a back country white
Speaker 1: tailed deer hunt. And before we get into the meat
Speaker 1: of the podcast, I want to tell you what we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about. Basically, we're gonna try to keep this
Speaker 1: podcast fairly short, even though Bear Newcomb is extremely long winded. Um,
Speaker 1: we're going to we're gonna talk about access in the
Speaker 1: back country using mules, and we're gonna talk about the
Speaker 1: way that that we do it. And I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: off by saying that I don't profess that it's the
Speaker 1: best way, and I don't profess to have a lifetime
Speaker 1: of experience doing this, but in either just David, but
Speaker 1: the way that I do. It has worked for us,
Speaker 1: and we're learning every single time. And so we've we've
Speaker 1: packed back in here on uh well, using my my
Speaker 1: mule that I've named Ezy, and so okay, so let's start.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about how to use the mule. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about exactly what we're doing and a little bit about
Speaker 1: this hunt. So now we so we we packed back in.
Speaker 1: We're in national forest here in Arkansas. We used the
Speaker 1: mule using a writing saddle and a paniard, which a
Speaker 1: paniard is basically a bag that drapes over a writing saddle.
Speaker 1: So in short, what we do is we use the
Speaker 1: paniard bags to pack all our gear and then we
Speaker 1: get to where and so we lead the mule in.
Speaker 1: So we've only got one mule. There's three of us
Speaker 1: hunting and there's one mule. Basically, the mule carried everything
Speaker 1: in for us, right bear, not your backpack. So what
Speaker 1: we do is we we lead the mule in here,
Speaker 1: so we did have to walk. Well, once we got here,
Speaker 1: we unloaded all our gear and then we had a
Speaker 1: riding saddle underneath the paniard. And like today, you guys
Speaker 1: walked from camp to hunt, but I rode Izzy from
Speaker 1: camp way off and hunted pretty far away using the mule.
Speaker 1: The other part of this that would be that's valuable
Speaker 1: is that if we killed the deer back here, and
Speaker 1: now it's not bear season, but if it were a
Speaker 1: bear season and we killed the bear, typically a limiting
Speaker 1: factor of being back in like this would be that
Speaker 1: if you killed the deer, and we're not terribly far
Speaker 1: back in, but if you killed the deer, you would
Speaker 1: have a hard time getting it out. So that's a
Speaker 1: limiting act your butt. If you've got a mule that
Speaker 1: will carry game, and that's what I'm gonna get into,
Speaker 1: kind of the specifics of some of the things that
Speaker 1: people think about mules that maybe aren't necessarily true, and
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna stay the statement and clarify it later.
Speaker 1: If you have a mule that will haul game, if
Speaker 1: then you could use the mule to haul out game,
Speaker 1: and then we'd come back in and get our camp.
Speaker 1: But now, so let's start off. I said bear, We
Speaker 1: went on this exact same hunt, and camp tried here
Speaker 1: about a month ago, is that right? Ye? On your birthday?
Speaker 1: On my birthday, I turned up here. Yeah, you turned
Speaker 1: thirteen on this mountain, didn't you. I'll be darning. I
Speaker 1: didn't even think about that on this trip. And let
Speaker 1: me let me describe something too about the way that
Speaker 1: we're hunting or or or the time period we were
Speaker 1: back here on November put out these chick cameras. We
Speaker 1: saw some deer, bear actually passed a legal buck back
Speaker 1: in here, and uh, all the activity on the trail
Speaker 1: cameras was the first week of December, which I've decided
Speaker 1: it's probably a good time to hunt the mountains of Arkansas,
Speaker 1: the late November, in the first week of December, because uh,
Speaker 1: the big seven point was actually chasing a dough on
Speaker 1: our truck camera. But I say all that to say
Speaker 1: that we're right in amongst some pretty good deer for
Speaker 1: public land, National Forest. And this is, uh, this is
Speaker 1: David's David's hunted, grew up hunting with us some but
Speaker 1: but you know, you've not hunted a ton with us.
Speaker 1: But so this is your first well it's not your
Speaker 1: first back country hunt because you killed the gobbler turkey
Speaker 1: up here. How old were you when we did that.
Speaker 1: So it's two years ago to fourteen. Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1: We did this exact same thing that the mule, and
Speaker 1: except your dad came. My dad came, about six or
Speaker 1: seven of us. It's right. Che didn't go quite as
Speaker 1: smoothly with the meal that time. Why there's a lot
Speaker 1: of bags falling off and ripping and things like that happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've re sewed the bag, that's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we were. That was one of our earlier back country
Speaker 1: adventures on the mule, and I was intentionally trying to
Speaker 1: push the limits. I mean, we had that mule packed
Speaker 1: with so much stuff it was unbelievable. So it really
Speaker 1: wasn't the mule's fault or the packing fault. We were
Speaker 1: just trying to put everybody's backpack on. We were trying
Speaker 1: to carry goods for seven guys for two days, and
Speaker 1: not just goods, but a lot of goods, water, carrying
Speaker 1: everybody's backpack. The mule was carrying everybody's shotguns. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was quite the ordeal. But we So it was
Speaker 1: opening day of youth Turkey season, and we got ways
Speaker 1: back in here, camped out and opened the morning Turkey season.
Speaker 1: We just walked up on top of the mountain then
Speaker 1: called in to we did we called into gobblers. We
Speaker 1: actually we weren't even sitting down and we just spotted
Speaker 1: too and then just hit the ground real fast, loaded
Speaker 1: the gun and then shot shot this turkey coming by.
Speaker 1: It was pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, we called him in.
Speaker 1: They the wind was howling that morning, so we felt
Speaker 1: really fortunate that we even got on a turkey. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you guys walked out from Camp Bear. You left
Speaker 1: camp what time this morning? Like seven fift seven? I
Speaker 1: don't know. We got we still gotta go backwards. It
Speaker 1: rained last night. We got in here, yesterdy and hunted
Speaker 1: yesterday afternoon, very windy last night, At like seven pm
Speaker 1: it absolutely started to howl. The wind did, and it
Speaker 1: started to rain. It started raining at seven pm and
Speaker 1: did not stop raining until probably six thirty this morning.
Speaker 1: And I mean it didn't just rain. How hard did
Speaker 1: it rain? Well, we have this tarp up here and
Speaker 1: it was just like banging and you could hear like
Speaker 1: water dripping off of it, and it was like thunder
Speaker 1: and lighting. The entire tent would us like flash all
Speaker 1: of a sudden. It was crazy. So much lightning. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty intense night, but we stayed dry. I
Speaker 1: think the only we're staying in just kind of an
Speaker 1: average two man tent. There's three of us in there,
Speaker 1: but it but we we've got a tarp strategically placed
Speaker 1: with about fifteen ties going to different trees. We've got
Speaker 1: our we've got our tent up. I mean, we've got
Speaker 1: a tarp over the tent, which helped some. I think
Speaker 1: that's the only reason we really stayed dry. Okay, bear,
Speaker 1: so you we want we David's larm went off this
Speaker 1: morning at like five thirty, and I told him just
Speaker 1: to turn it off because the rain was just pounding down.
Speaker 1: At five thirty, we all went back to sleep, and
Speaker 1: then I woke up and there was just a little
Speaker 1: bit of twilight out and it had stopped raining. So
Speaker 1: you left the tent about seven fifteen, And what did
Speaker 1: you do? Well? I went down to the spot that
Speaker 1: I was hunting yesterday, and I was thinking, and maybe
Speaker 1: I should go lower this time because David was hunting
Speaker 1: pretty close to me, and so we would have been
Speaker 1: like a couple hundred yards apart. So I decided to
Speaker 1: go lower and I found a nice little spot where
Speaker 1: I could see way out in front of me, and
Speaker 1: I could see the creek at the very bottom of
Speaker 1: the mountain. And yesterday we hiked up this mountain, and
Speaker 1: then by the time we got up here, I mean day,
Speaker 1: would just threw off our bags and just like sat
Speaker 1: down because not tired we were. And I realized that
Speaker 1: I was at the very bottom and I was gonna
Speaker 1: have to do it again. So I sat there for
Speaker 1: probably an hour, and then I heard some like leave
Speaker 1: shuffling over to my far right, and I I got
Speaker 1: I pulled my gun up and I slowly looked over
Speaker 1: there and I saw the head of a turkey and
Speaker 1: it's started coming down, and I realized that there are
Speaker 1: more turkeys with it. And then six turkeys came out
Speaker 1: in front of me, and they all kind of just
Speaker 1: went down the mountain. And one came and was kind
Speaker 1: of curious to see what I was what I was,
Speaker 1: because you know, they see in color. And he came
Speaker 1: really close, like ten yards, and then he went down
Speaker 1: and I moved down a little bit. I moved down
Speaker 1: like probably I don't know, thirty yards, so I could
Speaker 1: see even further out. But there was also this little
Speaker 1: trail an old logging road and I saw another turkey.
Speaker 1: Then here's what it got exciting. This is the most
Speaker 1: exciting thing that happened to us on this hunt. Squirrel.
Speaker 1: Squirrel came up right behind me. Wow, that's exciting. So
Speaker 1: so Bear saw some turkeys. And how long did you
Speaker 1: have Bear all day? I mean Bear walked back to camp.
Speaker 1: I saw him come up the hill at about five
Speaker 1: o'clock maybe five, and so he hunted from seven fifteen
Speaker 1: until let's just say five fifteen. So was that ten hours?
Speaker 1: And you didn't come back to camp. I mean, thirteen
Speaker 1: year old boy walks out here and hunts for ten hours.
Speaker 1: And I know that he sat there for a long time.
Speaker 1: And David basically did the same thing except you. I
Speaker 1: told David to go hunt on this side of the
Speaker 1: ridge this morning, come back to camp, have lunch, go
Speaker 1: back to the other side of the ridge. And so
Speaker 1: I mean you were only in camp for an hour today? Yeah,
Speaker 1: less than that, actually, probably about forty five minutes old together. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: my day wasn't as eventful as Bear. As I did
Speaker 1: see a bird, you know, and and I read a sign.
Speaker 1: It was pretty pretty crazy, you know, that's crazy. As
Speaker 1: Bear wasn't no squirrel. But you know, yeah, wow, that's
Speaker 1: what's crazy about this back country hunting. And when we
Speaker 1: say back country, what we mean is just in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: we've got big blocks of National Forest which are pretty
Speaker 1: much um continual, just big mature timber, very little timber harvest.
Speaker 1: The last twenty years in Arkansas and the National Forest
Speaker 1: has been very little timber harvest. And and I mean
Speaker 1: this big woods. It's beautiful and we like it. It's
Speaker 1: a good bare habitat, but it's a low densities of animals.
Speaker 1: And so I was the only one today that even
Speaker 1: saw deer. And I saw a deer while I was
Speaker 1: riding up the mountain on Issy's back, and she always
Speaker 1: sees game before I do. I saw her poker ears
Speaker 1: up and look, and I knew she saw a deer,
Speaker 1: and immediately it looked up and probably yards away, I
Speaker 1: saw two white tails running up the hill that probably
Speaker 1: wasn't hundred and fifty yards behind our camps. So he
Speaker 1: stuck a gun between her ears. I am gradually training
Speaker 1: her to shoot off of her back. I haven't done
Speaker 1: it yet, but I think I think she do. I
Speaker 1: shot shoot a bow off her back. I do know that. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a great place to to segue into using a
Speaker 1: mule to access this country. So I just want to
Speaker 1: give a little bit of a background, and I'm open
Speaker 1: it up to these young men who both have been
Speaker 1: involved in a couple of back country mule hunts. Now, um,
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, we're not accessing back country that has twenty
Speaker 1: miles of you know, open trail before you start hunting.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're really accessing, comparative to the West, relatively
Speaker 1: small areas of wilderness or national forest. And so that
Speaker 1: one of the techniques that I learned from my my
Speaker 1: really good friend James Lawrence been on the podcast before,
Speaker 1: is packing in using the mule to pack all your garia,
Speaker 1: and then using the mule to ride out from your
Speaker 1: camp to go where you need to go, and using
Speaker 1: the mule to huh back any game they have you kill.
Speaker 1: I want to give some background. I grew up like
Speaker 1: I had a good friend that had a lot of horses.
Speaker 1: I spent quite a bit of time at this house
Speaker 1: and we rode and stuff. But but my family didn't
Speaker 1: have econ animals. So I would be just like any
Speaker 1: of you guys out there that aren't familiar with with
Speaker 1: mules or horses, as I didn't have a ton of
Speaker 1: experience with them. Um And for those of you who
Speaker 1: are experienced horsemen or mule people, then I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: say a lot of stuff that maybe you even disagree with,
Speaker 1: but that's okay, or you you already know. But when
Speaker 1: I had this image of own mule, and I've had
Speaker 1: it for years and years, and I think it started
Speaker 1: as a little boy seeing people in the community that
Speaker 1: I grew up in. All these old men had mules,
Speaker 1: and mules are really kind of a icon of Southern culture,
Speaker 1: and not even Southern culture, but they're an icon of
Speaker 1: American agricultural rural regions. And I knew from growing up
Speaker 1: to um in the Washington Mountain of Arkansas, I knew
Speaker 1: guys that hunted on mules, and I think my dad
Speaker 1: probably told me stories about those guys and meeting back
Speaker 1: in those days. I thought it was cool when they
Speaker 1: did they were using mules to get back in And
Speaker 1: so about three or four years ago, I finally was
Speaker 1: in a position in life where I could had a
Speaker 1: place for a mule, and I just was like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy a mule and I didn't know much
Speaker 1: at all about I figured it was gonna be harder
Speaker 1: than what I thought. But I kind of had a naive,
Speaker 1: this naive idea that you just bought a good mule
Speaker 1: and it was like right, and the foe with her,
Speaker 1: I mean, he just kind of got on it and
Speaker 1: went and you know, you'd have to be a good writer,
Speaker 1: and you have to, you know, take care of it,
Speaker 1: and you have to learn how to load it. You'd
Speaker 1: have to learn about all the tack and all the
Speaker 1: gear and of some of which already knew. But I
Speaker 1: quickly found out that getting into mules and horses is
Speaker 1: a highly complex thing and I had to do a
Speaker 1: lot of learning quick because I don't want to discourage
Speaker 1: anybody from getting a mule, of course for the reasons
Speaker 1: that I have, But I will tell you you better
Speaker 1: have you better be ready for difficulty, and you better
Speaker 1: be ready to learn to love it. And that's what
Speaker 1: I have. And that's the reason I'm talking about is
Speaker 1: because I truly have learned to love mules now that
Speaker 1: I've messed with them and had some bad experiences with
Speaker 1: them too. But Bear, what do you think when we
Speaker 1: first started getting mules, h you were you with me?
Speaker 1: You getn't think much said, was were you with me
Speaker 1: when we got that first mule out of Lamar, Missouri? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was yeah. And then to give you a little
Speaker 1: bit of history about my I think it was June
Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen. I guess, I guess it's only been
Speaker 1: There'll be three years this June. So two and a
Speaker 1: half years ago. I purchased a green broke mule, which
Speaker 1: a greenbroke mule is a mule that basically somebody it
Speaker 1: started to train, but they're not trained. And I bought
Speaker 1: a greenbroke mule, brought it home, started riding it. Had
Speaker 1: some had some good experiences with it, but also had
Speaker 1: some negative experiences with it. I got it. The mule
Speaker 1: ran off with me a couple of times when I
Speaker 1: first got it, which meant I was on its back
Speaker 1: writing it. The mule got spooked and just took off
Speaker 1: running like full throttle. Couldn't get it stopped, I mean,
Speaker 1: basically just out of control. That was the first time
Speaker 1: I'd always heard people talk about getting hurt on ecline animals,
Speaker 1: and you know, I knew not to get kicked. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, you get hurt by getting kicked. I know
Speaker 1: you could get hurt by getting bucked off, but that
Speaker 1: first experience with the running mule made me realize how
Speaker 1: easily you could get hurt bad on a mule. But
Speaker 1: I got her stopped and consulted some good horse trainer
Speaker 1: about what I should do, and UH did that what
Speaker 1: he told me, and it actually happened again. It wasn't
Speaker 1: because of what he told me. It was my fault
Speaker 1: that it happened again. Anyway, long story short, we actually
Speaker 1: had a pretty good relationship with Ellie May, the mule
Speaker 1: that I actually don't own anymore. But then in I
Speaker 1: got a young eighteen month old mule named that we
Speaker 1: named is He, and uh, this is He is a
Speaker 1: mule that we've got right now. So is He's only
Speaker 1: three years old. She's the paint colored mule, which that
Speaker 1: means that she's she's like a paint horse. She's got
Speaker 1: white stocking feet, and she's got some white in different
Speaker 1: places on her. But she's pretty much red sorrel. And
Speaker 1: Uh I trained Izzy from scratch. Uh she had. All
Speaker 1: she'd had on her was a halter. She'd had her Uh,
Speaker 1: she'd been handled just a little bit, but basically hadn't
Speaker 1: been handled much at all when I got her, and
Speaker 1: UH and I and I. It's a long story. I
Speaker 1: won't go into all the training details, but basically, UH
Speaker 1: did some research and a lot of learning and had
Speaker 1: some great advice from some good friends and train this
Speaker 1: mule and I called the project Project Huney Mule, and
Speaker 1: we videoed it, didn't we Bear, because we just needed
Speaker 1: we need some content for the YouTube channel. And I
Speaker 1: was training this mule and ever done it before, and
Speaker 1: I thought, hey, that'd be cool though. Just every week
Speaker 1: for the next six weeks put out a training video. Uh,
Speaker 1: not trying to teach somebody something, but just trying to
Speaker 1: show them what I was doing. I mean literally, I
Speaker 1: was just looking for content and made these series of videos.
Speaker 1: And David, did you know that that episode six of
Speaker 1: Project honey Meal on YouTube has eight hundred over eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand views almost a million views, well maybe not
Speaker 1: almost a million, away from a million. Um, yeah, did
Speaker 1: you know that? Bear? And people cuss your dad every
Speaker 1: day on there, and then some people think I did
Speaker 1: a good job, oh ma'am YouTube. But um, let's see
Speaker 1: what I want to talk about. Two is why mules
Speaker 1: do you guys have any questions that do you think
Speaker 1: people ought to know about using mules? If you're getting
Speaker 1: in the back country like relevant quite jens widely you
Speaker 1: can mule instead of Okay, that's a good question. Why
Speaker 1: would you get a mule cyner horse? Okay? So horses
Speaker 1: are much more readily available to mules. And to start off,
Speaker 1: a mule is a is a cross between a female
Speaker 1: horse or a mayor and a male donkey, which is
Speaker 1: a jack. So jack and a mayor breed to make
Speaker 1: a sterile hybrid, which is a mule. And there's something
Speaker 1: that happens when you when you when you make a
Speaker 1: hybrid animal, so you reread two different types of animals together,
Speaker 1: but they're close enough to getting together genetically that they
Speaker 1: can actually breed and produce offspring. That you have something
Speaker 1: called hybrid vigor. And the mule is the epitome of
Speaker 1: what they call hybrid vigor because there's basically that's where
Speaker 1: you get a synergy that happens because of across A
Speaker 1: synergy would mean like a ampli amplification of positive traits
Speaker 1: that are greater than the sum of the individuals in essence,
Speaker 1: and so a mule. What we would say is that
Speaker 1: a mule has a lot of the really great traits
Speaker 1: of the horse, but it also has a lot of
Speaker 1: the really great traits of the donkey, but doesn't have
Speaker 1: the bad traits of the donkey, and doesn't have some
Speaker 1: of the bad traits of the horse. And so what
Speaker 1: you get in a mule is you get an animal
Speaker 1: that is has more strength and stamina than a horse.
Speaker 1: That's what they say anyway, And I know there's probably
Speaker 1: people that have examples where they weren't, but in general,
Speaker 1: a mule has more stamina than a horse. But the
Speaker 1: main thing that a mule has over a horse that
Speaker 1: has more sure footedness. The feet of a mule are
Speaker 1: typically smaller hoofed and harder hoofed like a donkey, and
Speaker 1: in rough, rocky terrain, a mule can pick through it
Speaker 1: with extreme uh intentionality. And that's why that you know,
Speaker 1: in the in the Grand Canyon National Park, they don't
Speaker 1: ride horses down to the bottom. They ride mules. Um
Speaker 1: mules are sure footed, They're not gonna fall over. Um
Speaker 1: mules are in the South. The part of the reason
Speaker 1: they use mules for plowing and for a lot of
Speaker 1: work on this very mountain that we're on, boys, as
Speaker 1: y'all know this, that they use mules to log this.
Speaker 1: In the early nineteen hundreds, this very mountain, on this
Speaker 1: ridge Gay Roanti, there were men that were up here
Speaker 1: logging using mules to haul logs down. Um. So mules,
Speaker 1: But in the South, mules didn't need as much water
Speaker 1: as horses, and they had more stamina than horses, and
Speaker 1: they could tolerate the heat better than horses. Okay, And
Speaker 1: so why do I use a mule? Partly because of safety.
Speaker 1: A mule will almost not A mule has a very
Speaker 1: strong ability to not get itself in danger. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: like my mule when it gets tangled up in its
Speaker 1: lead rope, which it does sometimes, UM, when it when
Speaker 1: it feels pressure up against it, it doesn't fight against
Speaker 1: that pressure freak out like sometimes a horse could do. Um.
Speaker 1: A mule won't go someplace that it's gonna hurt itself.
Speaker 1: And now that would be in contrast to what people
Speaker 1: would sometimes say about horses is a well trained horse
Speaker 1: would probably run off a cliff if you told it to.
Speaker 1: Um and uh. But there's a lot of really positive
Speaker 1: traits about horses. Horses are faster, horses are more comfortable,
Speaker 1: horses are easier to train, horses are more readily available,
Speaker 1: and horses are are are generally easier to get along with.
Speaker 1: A mule does have that stubborn nature of a monkey,
Speaker 1: which in the end is good because when you get
Speaker 1: a read I've heard some I've heard people say this,
Speaker 1: and I believe when you have a good trained meal,
Speaker 1: he'll never go back to a horse. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to step on horse people's feet because there's tons of
Speaker 1: great mountain horses for doing exactly what we're doing that
Speaker 1: would easily do what we're doing here today, were you
Speaker 1: gonna say something. Also, horses you have to like feed
Speaker 1: them grain every day and you have to like get
Speaker 1: shoes for them. So a mule is much more hardy
Speaker 1: than a horse. I mean, like basically I feed my
Speaker 1: mules just regular old fescue and bermuda hay and very
Speaker 1: very little grain, and they stay fit and healthy all
Speaker 1: year round. Um, horses, you gotta you gotta feed. The
Speaker 1: more you gotta feed them more grain, they're a little
Speaker 1: bit harder to take care of. And shooing them. What
Speaker 1: about shoeing them? Bear? You have shot them like once
Speaker 1: every eight weeks. And yeah, and you have to if
Speaker 1: you can't do it by yourself, you have to like
Speaker 1: pay for somebody else. You gotta pay a ferrier. And uh, anyway,
Speaker 1: we've we've never shoot any of our mules, and we
Speaker 1: ride them in this rough, rocky mountains and they've never
Speaker 1: had any trouble with them. So mules are cheaper. You
Speaker 1: don't have to spend you know, uh a year on
Speaker 1: a ferrier. You don't have to feed him as much.
Speaker 1: They're just easier to easier to maintain their fitness and health.
Speaker 1: And they're just sure footed in the mountains. And I
Speaker 1: just like them. I think that's the main reason people
Speaker 1: have mules is because they just like them, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like why do you drive a Ford
Speaker 1: over Chevy? Well, it's like a Chevy. You just like it. David,
Speaker 1: can you think of any good did you have a question? Well, like,
Speaker 1: I know, um you said, as he was probably carrying,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred pounds. I mean, how much can
Speaker 1: they carry? That's a good question. It all depends up
Speaker 1: upon how far you're you're taking them. Now, she was
Speaker 1: carrying a hundred and seventy five pounds of our gear.
Speaker 1: But I've got a saddle that probably weighs forty plus
Speaker 1: pounds heavy saddle, So so she was probably carrying two
Speaker 1: hundred pounds of deadweight coming up here, and she could
Speaker 1: probably carry You wouldn't want to pack a whole lot
Speaker 1: more on her than that. And if we were going
Speaker 1: real far, like let's say we were in Montana and
Speaker 1: we're packing back in fifteen miles through rough train, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have packed her that heavy. But for a shorter
Speaker 1: pack as we had, which is really probably um less
Speaker 1: than a mile, but but straight up a mountain, um,
Speaker 1: we could have packed her probably a little bit heavier
Speaker 1: even um. But most of your packers are only wanting
Speaker 1: to pack about a hundred and fifty pounds on an
Speaker 1: animal that they're gonna take in very far um. But
Speaker 1: so mules are mules. Mules are readily available in the South.
Speaker 1: I helped a guy up north last year by mule
Speaker 1: because he was up in Michigan and wanted a mule
Speaker 1: and couldn't find one. But down in this part of
Speaker 1: the world, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Southeast Kansas, Tennessee, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have a lot of mules, because that's kind of historic
Speaker 1: mule country. But I have I guess the biggest thing
Speaker 1: that I'll say is that if you're gonna get into him,
Speaker 1: you can't if you don't enjoy the process. It's just
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of work because it does add
Speaker 1: a layer of work. Like, yes, I was able to
Speaker 1: go up to the top of the mountain this morning
Speaker 1: with eavesh you know, I I'm I climbed about feet
Speaker 1: of elevation today and got off my mule with fresh legs. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's pretty good. That would have taken me at
Speaker 1: least an hour, probably an hour and a half carrying
Speaker 1: a big, heavy pack like I was today. So that's
Speaker 1: the beauty of it is that you can get to
Speaker 1: where you hunt and when you're there you'll have fresh legs.
Speaker 1: But what you guys just woke up this morning, put
Speaker 1: on your hunting gear and just left out from camp.
Speaker 1: It took me fifteen minutes, twenty minutes of pretty hard
Speaker 1: work to get Izzy bridled up, sadalon bags, you know,
Speaker 1: all the everything. Just get her, just get her ready
Speaker 1: to go. And then when I got up to where
Speaker 1: I wanted to hunt, I tied her up and Izzy's
Speaker 1: done pretty good at staying uh, staying tied without throwing
Speaker 1: a fit. Like every aspect of this is is what
Speaker 1: you have to train this animal to do. And by
Speaker 1: training it sometimes that means just going out and doing it.
Speaker 1: But you know some animals when your time and leave
Speaker 1: them might freak out and paul the ground and nay
Speaker 1: and throw a fit and make a ruckus and try
Speaker 1: to break loose. So is he's really good? I left
Speaker 1: Izzy today for four or five hours at one stretch
Speaker 1: without going back to her, came back to her and
Speaker 1: she was fine. Um, twice we've let Izzie get away
Speaker 1: from us, bear, hadn't we? Well? Actually it was Elie
Speaker 1: May once tell us about that, Ellie? Or is he
Speaker 1: was Ellie May that got away from us the first
Speaker 1: time we came up here. Do you remember not a lot?
Speaker 1: Well it was it was on your birthday two years ago,
Speaker 1: and we hunted and we came back and Ellie wasn't there.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and then you never went back up Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we we bear And I left Ellie May for six
Speaker 1: hours and came back and she was gone, and she
Speaker 1: had chewed her lead rope. She had chewed I didn't.
Speaker 1: That was something that was new to me. Elliot had
Speaker 1: chewed her lead rope and uh, we were camped on
Speaker 1: the side of the mountain. So we walked back to
Speaker 1: camp in the dark, carrying the saddle because I had
Speaker 1: taken the saddle off of her way up on top
Speaker 1: and came down the mountain and uh and interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: the closest, the closest residents to where we were hunting
Speaker 1: was a bar. And uh, so I went to the
Speaker 1: bar late at night told Bear, I said, son, stay
Speaker 1: in this truck. If anyone comes to the truck, don't
Speaker 1: open the door, and just duck yourself down and hide. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I went into the to this bar and uh, country bar,
Speaker 1: late at night, Saturday night. Have you heard this story, David,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard that. I think I told this at
Speaker 1: church one time. Do you not remember that? And Uh? Anyway,
Speaker 1: I go into this spar and I'm dressed at all
Speaker 1: camo and I mean every head in the place, which
Speaker 1: are probably ten people in there, turns to me and
Speaker 1: they see me walk up to the bar. And what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell this woman is, hey, I lost my mule.
Speaker 1: And if you hear anybody driving down this highway that
Speaker 1: pulls in here and says, hey, there's a mule or
Speaker 1: a horse hip on the highway, like I wanted her
Speaker 1: to call me. I didn't know what was gonna happen anyway.
Speaker 1: I I as soon as the people saw me trying
Speaker 1: to get the waitress the bartender's attention, it was a woman.
Speaker 1: They all every head in the place turned towards me,
Speaker 1: and everybody went quiet. Everybody stopped their conversation and looks
Speaker 1: at me. And I go and there's loud music playing,
Speaker 1: and so I'm yelling and I say, I lost my mule.
Speaker 1: I lost my mule up on the mountain. If you
Speaker 1: see it, I'd like to leave my number and you
Speaker 1: can call me if anybody pulls in here and says
Speaker 1: they saw a mule, and uh and everybody people were like, mule,
Speaker 1: you lost your mule. You'll never find it. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was it was great. Uh so, yeah that happened bear.
Speaker 1: And then the other time, when we're tracking River's bear
Speaker 1: up here, is he get away from us? And what
Speaker 1: I learned about these mules. Two different mules did the
Speaker 1: exact same thing as they went back the direction that
Speaker 1: they came from, and we were able to catch them back,
Speaker 1: not right back at the truck, but basically en route
Speaker 1: to the truck. Both mules were able to catch hours later.
Speaker 1: But that's no fun. But you know, hunting on mules
Speaker 1: has been extremely rewarding for me. But I really enjoy
Speaker 1: riding in the mountains. And one of the biggest things
Speaker 1: for me is, as I've tried to decide, is hunting
Speaker 1: on a mule, where's your flashlight out there? He is
Speaker 1: hunting on a mule um advantageous to killing game, And uh,
Speaker 1: I haven't made that. I haven't decided if it is
Speaker 1: or if it isn't. Sometimes I think it'd be better
Speaker 1: if I just got out of the truck and just
Speaker 1: walked up the mountain and hunted. But I can guarantee
Speaker 1: you one thing, bear, the big buck that we found
Speaker 1: last year, we would have never found because I've jumped
Speaker 1: the buck while I was on the mule, and I
Speaker 1: was back in a place I never would have been
Speaker 1: if I'd have been walking on foot. And so I
Speaker 1: jumped this buck and then later came back in and
Speaker 1: hunted that deer and passed a few deer while I
Speaker 1: was hunting that one. And that's when we started hanging
Speaker 1: cameras back in here bear trying to find these deer,
Speaker 1: and so the mule just basically opens up more country
Speaker 1: to you. It doesn't necessarily make anything easier. That's my
Speaker 1: assessment on it at this point. And uh oh, I could,
Speaker 1: I could talk and give a whole another thirty minutes
Speaker 1: of commentary on on how to buy mule what you're
Speaker 1: looking for. But I will say this, not every mule
Speaker 1: will carry game. I mean, um is he is? He
Speaker 1: will because I've I've gradually, over the course of training her,
Speaker 1: put game on her. The first thing I put on
Speaker 1: her was a coon. And that may sound like reasonable.
Speaker 1: You're like, well, yeah, I throw a con over your mule,
Speaker 1: that doesn't sound bad. But man equine animals are their
Speaker 1: prey animals. They're designed to flee from danger, and they
Speaker 1: are skittish of almost everything unless you train them and
Speaker 1: expose them to that thing in safe situations where they
Speaker 1: realize that it won't hurt them. So by nature, they're
Speaker 1: almost afraid of everything. So we've coon hunted off is
Speaker 1: he and put mules over this or put excuse me,
Speaker 1: coons over the saddle horn. That was the first thing.
Speaker 1: The second thing last year I turkey hunted on Izzy
Speaker 1: and killed a gobbler turkey and carried out the gobbler,
Speaker 1: just put a piece of peara cord between the turkey's feet,
Speaker 1: put that prayer cord over the saddle horn, and just
Speaker 1: came right off the mountain. Um, we're gonna come back
Speaker 1: to Turkey hunting off a mule. Uh. This year, I've
Speaker 1: yet to kill a deer while I've been hunting back
Speaker 1: like this, But this year when I killed, when Bear
Speaker 1: killed the deer a couple of well months or a
Speaker 1: month ago, Um, I I basically exposed the mule to
Speaker 1: the carcass and uh, and fed the mule with a
Speaker 1: carcass like laying at the laying at the mule's feet.
Speaker 1: So the mule had to come over and eat grain
Speaker 1: right by this deer and got really used to it.
Speaker 1: And so now I think if if we killed a deer,
Speaker 1: Izzy would figure she was about to get some grains,
Speaker 1: so she'd be happy. And I eventually got the deer
Speaker 1: honor back, and so is. He's pretty well mannered when
Speaker 1: it comes to games, so I don't think we'd have
Speaker 1: any trouble with her. Now Bear would be a totally
Speaker 1: different experience. I have not exposed her to bear that smell,
Speaker 1: because they do smell. But that being said, now turkey
Speaker 1: hunting is a whole different story. Turkey hunting in the
Speaker 1: big National for us, on meal back is the way
Speaker 1: to go because you ride the mule and just call
Speaker 1: right off her back, like I don't even get off.
Speaker 1: I don't even get off her back. I just ride
Speaker 1: up this ridge calling and if I when I hear
Speaker 1: a gobble, then just get off, tire up and go
Speaker 1: hunt to turkey. Now, the only negative thing is if
Speaker 1: you were calling like that in one gobbled like seventy
Speaker 1: yards away, I mean you'd have to just act quick
Speaker 1: in the in the mule might end up spooking to turkey.
Speaker 1: But most of the time you're gonna hear a turkey
Speaker 1: gobble further off, and you're gonna be able to either
Speaker 1: turn and ride away for um the turkey. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Like you hear a turkey gobble it's a hundred yards, well,
Speaker 1: then just turned dead away and ride back fifty sixty yards,
Speaker 1: get off, tie the mule, and then come back up
Speaker 1: to where you were called worked a turkey, or it
Speaker 1: just gets you back into good country like I ride
Speaker 1: last year, I never heard of turkey while I was
Speaker 1: on is He's back. But I got into some good
Speaker 1: country way back in there, tighter up and then went
Speaker 1: hunting on foot, killed the turkey, then used her to
Speaker 1: haul it all out. So turkey hunting on mule back
Speaker 1: is big um, but you know it's dangerous. That's one
Speaker 1: negative about it. Uh. My daughter River was if you
Speaker 1: listen to one of the first podcasts, I talked in
Speaker 1: detail about a mule wreck that my daughter had back
Speaker 1: in October while we were bear hunting. We used our
Speaker 1: mules to haul in bear bait to a secluded property
Speaker 1: that we couldn't take vehicles into. And uh, on the
Speaker 1: way down the same deal, we're using paniards, bags that
Speaker 1: fall that lay over a saddle. On the way down,
Speaker 1: we took the paniard off and River was just gonna
Speaker 1: ride the mule down and the mule got away from her.
Speaker 1: River lost her balance while ducking under a limb. River
Speaker 1: wasn't used to the mule she was on. The mule
Speaker 1: started to run down the mountain and basically the mule
Speaker 1: was loping down the mountain out of control with my
Speaker 1: fifteen year old daughter on her back, and Uh, the
Speaker 1: river came off buster. Her head had to get How
Speaker 1: many stitches did you have, David, I had. I know
Speaker 1: it was like ten or eight. I don't remember. It
Speaker 1: was a lot. I don't remember either. She also got
Speaker 1: a concussion, Yeah, she got. It was a bad deal.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a father fail, you know, Uh,
Speaker 1: to this day, it was. It was a mistake. Had
Speaker 1: a lot of faith in the mule and in River,
Speaker 1: and still have faith in the mule and river, but
Speaker 1: it was wasn't the best combination. And uh yeah, River
Speaker 1: slic eye open, River sliced her eye open. Limb. My,
Speaker 1: my daughter, Rivers had a tough go out it with
Speaker 1: mules and we've made a couple of visits to the
Speaker 1: er because of it. She loves them exactly, but I
Speaker 1: won't hardly let her ride. But no, she a limb
Speaker 1: sliced her eyelid while she was on the mule, and uh,
Speaker 1: I had to take her. She came back to the
Speaker 1: house bleeding all down her face. It was pretty spooky. Um.
Speaker 1: But I guess I'm I guess I'm saying some of
Speaker 1: the negative things too, because I had kind of a
Speaker 1: romantic view of owner the mule and that I didn't
Speaker 1: think it was gonna be easy, But I guess I
Speaker 1: just didn't know how hard it was gonna be. But
Speaker 1: but boys, this is where this is where the story
Speaker 1: turns awesome. Because things that are really hard, that are difficult,
Speaker 1: that stretch you, that caused you to grow, that caused
Speaker 1: you to have to learn a totally new set of
Speaker 1: skills and test yourself tests your fear are good because
Speaker 1: one of the greatest accompliment external accomplishments, let me describe
Speaker 1: it like that, one of my most my favorite external
Speaker 1: accomplishments that I've ever done is training Issy from scratch.
Speaker 1: And I mean, she's a good mule man. She'll go
Speaker 1: where your pointer, she'll do what you tell her, she'll
Speaker 1: cross water, she'll get in the she'll get in a trailer,
Speaker 1: she'll let a hound ride on her back. Um, she's
Speaker 1: a She's a heck of a mule for a young mule.
Speaker 1: And I had to overcome a lot of year, had
Speaker 1: to overcome a lot of knowledge barriers, had to overcome
Speaker 1: a lot of limitations to do that. And so the
Speaker 1: difficulty of it has actually made me into something stronger
Speaker 1: than what I was. And so just because it's hard
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. And as a testament
Speaker 1: to that, I remember when you bought Izzy because I
Speaker 1: was there. You were there, weren't you. Yeah, And that
Speaker 1: was crazy. That was she was absolutely out of control
Speaker 1: when that happened. But now, I mean we packed stuff
Speaker 1: on her and you know, let her up the mountain
Speaker 1: and she'll do exactly, like like you said, everything that
Speaker 1: you tell her to do. Yeah, yep, Barry, you've never
Speaker 1: been in a mule wreck, hav you? Nope? No? Uh?
Speaker 1: I once well when we were writing ELI one time
Speaker 1: and I kind of like turned her and ship was
Speaker 1: on the back and he flew off. Yeah. Man, we're
Speaker 1: telling all these bad stories. Yeah, like the first two
Speaker 1: weeks we had a mule, It wasn't even the mule's fault.
Speaker 1: My son just fell off and broke his arm. We've
Speaker 1: had a pretty rough go now that we started stacking
Speaker 1: up the casualties. And um, I had a pretty hard
Speaker 1: fall off elim Ay when I first got her. So
Speaker 1: it's not something that you get into lightly, but it
Speaker 1: has it his you know, I may who knows what
Speaker 1: the future holds, but I doubt they'll ever be a
Speaker 1: time in my life where I don't have a mule.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love them, I really do. I enjoy
Speaker 1: riding them. Hunting these mountains is so much fun to
Speaker 1: cruise around on a mule. It's you gotta be tough,
Speaker 1: but it's I love it. And hunting these mountains is
Speaker 1: different than hunting out west. These woods are thick, you're
Speaker 1: fighting limbs, you're fighting super steep hills, you're you know,
Speaker 1: it's mainly the limbs that make it difficult. But all right,
Speaker 1: and closing, this is just supposed to be a short,
Speaker 1: kind of a short podcast, just talking about backcountry hunting
Speaker 1: with mules. Maybe at the later day we could talk
Speaker 1: about what we packed. But the biggest thing that's cool
Speaker 1: about this is like we could have all carried you know,
Speaker 1: fifty pound packs and walked in, but we are living
Speaker 1: like kings up here on the mountain and and where
Speaker 1: we're honey, we can't. We have to carry in all
Speaker 1: our ouwn water because there's no water sources up high
Speaker 1: on these mountains that are that are predictable anyway. There's
Speaker 1: water now because it rained, but yesterday that before that,
Speaker 1: there wasn't any water up here. They probably won't be tomorrow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have to carry water. So for three guys
Speaker 1: for three days. I mean, you know you're talking, you
Speaker 1: need forty pounds of water or more and so bye bye.
Speaker 1: By having this mule, basically we're able to be real
Speaker 1: comfortable in the back country. Have plenty of food, plenty
Speaker 1: of sleeping bags, plenty of tents and tarps, and for me,
Speaker 1: camera gear because I'm I'm filming a lot of these
Speaker 1: hunts and doing a lot of filming, so I got
Speaker 1: a ton of gear that most people don't have. And
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason I carry right of mule
Speaker 1: closing thoughts, guys, closing thoughts, mules for the wind, mules
Speaker 1: for the wind mules for the ones you're closing. Comment
Speaker 1: one time, is he let me get on her back
Speaker 1: while I was coming from a tree? What do you mean, well,
Speaker 1: you tied it to a tree, I climbed, the tree
Speaker 1: dropped down in her back. When when was this this summer?
Speaker 1: Is he or Ellie? All right? Well, hey, I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed our fireside talk. We uh, we're sitting here
Speaker 1: on the side of the mountain and we're gonna hunt tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And uh, but as of yet, we've we've we hadn't
Speaker 1: killed a deer, but such is this mountain hunting. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the Barony Magazine podcast. Do me a favor,
Speaker 1: do all of us a favor? Consider subscribing to Bear
Speaker 1: Hunting Magazine, the only print bear hunting magazine in the world.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty awesome that for twenty years now,
Speaker 1: twenty years Bear Hunting Magazine has been the only print
Speaker 1: all bear hunting magazine in the world. And you know,
Speaker 1: you may say, well, I'm not that big a bear hunter,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to subscribe to the magazine. Well,
Speaker 1: by your subscription to the magazine, you're supporting a very complex,
Speaker 1: dynamic and awesome aspect of North American big game hunting,
Speaker 1: and Bear Hunting magazine kind of represents that sector of hunting.
Speaker 1: And so you know, really, by subscribing to the magazine,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're you're feeding into meat. You whether it
Speaker 1: be our YouTube channel, are our print magazine or social
Speaker 1: media that's promoting ethical, conservation based big game predator hunting
Speaker 1: for bears, and so check it out. We've also got
Speaker 1: lots of cool merchandise on our website. Check out our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. You might even if bear kills a big
Speaker 1: buck tomorrow. You'll probably even see a video of it
Speaker 1: up on our channel. But if he doesn't, you'll never
Speaker 1: hear about it, and this, this hunt will be lost
Speaker 1: like smoking the wind. You still want to hear about it, Well,
Speaker 1: if David does too, yes, or if I do. But hey,
Speaker 1: it's a it's an honor, guys to be able to
Speaker 1: hunt in a place like this in the year it's
Speaker 1: almost twenty nineteen. By the time people here, this will
Speaker 1: be twenty nineteen. For sure. It's an honor, a privilege
Speaker 1: that we have public lands and we can carry our
Speaker 1: firearms intwo pack our mules back in here, put out
Speaker 1: our trail cameras and get pictures of nice bucks and
Speaker 1: be able to hunt. So well, we gotta do what
Speaker 1: you boys have to do, what I have to do.
Speaker 1: Let's keep the wild places wild, because that's where the
Speaker 1: bears live in the deer. You didn't see a squirrel
Speaker 1: to well, bear did, and I believe that he saw.
Speaker 1: I saw a monster grace squirrel. I mean like it
Speaker 1: was a shooter. For sure. We gotta go to bed