WEBVTT - Ep. 371: #vanlife #akmoose 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:13.320 This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.680 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening un podcast. 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:23.360 You can't predict anything presented by first like creating proven 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.840 versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:35.960 for every hunt. First light, Go farther, stay longer. Yeah, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.760 we're good. Yep, we're recording now. Why didn't Steve sound 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.360 as loud as ours? We are in a Ford Sprinter 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.720 from Enterprise. I don't think, well, I don't know Ford 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:52.559 whatever the hell sprinter type man cargo though, no seats 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.080 except for the front and back, front and passenger. Steve, 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:01.040 what moment? Hold on, We're trying to get something on 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.040 your voice. There's a knob broken off of this that 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:09.120 I didn't see. Um, what where's the chord here? Going 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.520 to Steve? Just as Steve's right here, this one and 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:17.800 that is the one without the knob. Man, it's a 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.720 lot harder to podcast in a van down by the 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:23.880 then you would think, all right, so you've got to 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:31.959 change that too, right, Okay, Steve, talk again? You turned 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.640 me off? Now you should be good, right, not romantically, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:37.680 but just can you hear us? Now? No, I can't 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:44.400 hear anything? Well his his Oh here we go, so 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:50.000 new snow on the hills. Miles to go, No more 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.960 than that, oh on fuel fuel and to the next 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:57.360 gust nation, shake one down, best of around, miles to 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.640 go to go in the van. Is it on? It's 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.600 still a little hot? Uh, it's well, it seems hot 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.480 to me. Try it now again, No, my things on? 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.520 Well you just turn it off again. Are you there? 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:16.400 Phil recording? A little up on him? Just a tiny's 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:21.600 coach halfway test test. There you go. Are we rolling? 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.359 We are recording. This can all be in the show. 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:32.079 It'll help. Yeah, okay, everybody, welcome to me either podcast. 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:36.639 Now everybody is realized. We we struggle hard, We struggle 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.840 mightily to bring you, you know, three episodes a year 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:45.640 and of quality programming. And in my mind that quality programming. 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.840 There's two things that go into that. On one hand, 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:55.280 good quality content, right, stuff well considered thoughts. Um, you 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.920 know news, Uh you know that keeps you up to speed. Um, oh, 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.840 good entertainment, right, so you learn stuff. Two is we 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.720 strive for good audio quality, which is impossible right now 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:11.919 because Chester keeps messing with my thing. Look at that, dad, 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:17.720 Look with Steve. I will apologize, but I'm really trying 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.160 to hear you're peaking, which means that your little levels 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.760 are hitting the red line chesters in the back of 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:25.919 a band. We're on a road trip right now. I'm 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.840 trying to set it up. We're trying to set it 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.000 up like it's a special episode, and you keep turning 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:41.000 my thing down. Well, Telty, we're crossing cathedral rapids. We 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.000 try very hard to bring you a quality show that 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:45.960 sounds good. That's why we have filled the engineer and 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:50.520 we have our studio and everything. But it just so 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:57.200 happens right now. Circumstances have worked against us. And I 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:01.640 checked with with our our of it producer, Karin, and 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:03.960 we need to roll with this. We are recording the show. 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.920 My apologies to you on audio quality. We are recording 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:14.240 the show in a van driving through interior Alaska. So 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.760 if you imagine Alaska and you go all the way 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:23.040 east where it butts up to Ukon Territory, and then 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.679 you go pretty much dead nuts between top and bottom 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.760 north to south, that's about where we're at, driving down 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:32.960 the road in the new kind of van that I 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:38.119 think it's like like vans, what do they call these vans. 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.920 Everybody calls him a sprinter, but a Ford it's a 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:50.040 rental for no, because like a creeper van is like 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.800 my old van. This is like a like a high 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.800 end van podcast van. This is the cool it's like 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.200 these days. It's the kind of van where people go 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.240 stay in the van for a summer and have a 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:06.920 van life experience. Yeah, it's pretty nice. I kind of 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:11.880 want one of these for fishing. Oh no, you just 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.080 drill holes in this, drill holes down through the ice. 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:21.200 A tuber tubanbile mobile. We're on a road trip. It'll Alaska, 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:22.720 and we're recording the show from here, and it's the 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.440 same show, same titillating subject matter, but we're just in 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.520 a van. And I was just explaining to the boys. 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.000 Off to the left, we have some beautiful snow capped mountains, 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:32.720 and I was explaining to the fellows, here do we have. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:39.799 We're joined by Lauren Molten, driver UH clayt nwcom Chester 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:45.760 Floyd and UH fan favorite dirt myth how Hannie Uh. 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:48.679 I was explained to the boys that on this drive, 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:50.599 which I've done the number quite a number of times 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.360 over the years, on this drive at this time in 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.960 the evening this time of year, if one takes a 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:02.680 speedy glance down all of the gravel roads coming into 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:07.679 the highway, you will often catch grouse out pecking grit. 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:13.120 But we haven't seen any yet, but I'll keep you 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.320 listeners a prize on that situation. I'll point out on 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:16.880 our thing because I did this drive one time with 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.160 my son coming back from Caribo hunting, and we saw 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:24.320 seven grouse. And my son pointed out that every grouse 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:26.280 we saw it was on the left side of the road. 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:30.920 Was he sitting on the south side of the road, No, 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.600 he was on the right side. I was, But that's 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:36.760 how it went, and it was true. And once I 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:41.920 reviewed it in my mind, he was cracked sharp kid. Well, yeah, observant, 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.240 almost a little rain manny, not him, the observation, but 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:50.280 I appreciate it. Uh so for companies to get into 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:55.040 up top here as we as we cruise along. Um oh, 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.919 this is good. So I'm pretty this this is exciting 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.520 in a little a proud thing for me. We have 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.719 a whole new season and meat Eater coming up soon, 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.160 Season eleven of meat Eater. What we are able to 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:13.360 do now, what we're able to do now. Um, we 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.920 just filmed the end of the season coming back from that. 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:20.320 Right now, what we're able to do now is we 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.440 are going to here's a TV here's a little TV 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:30.280 business tidbit. Uh. We've always so me and my my 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:34.880 original partners at zero point zero and now our our company, 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:40.240 Meat Eater, We've always owned, um, we've always owned our shows. Right, 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.280 We've only ever licensed our shows out, meaning like normally 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.680 if you make like normally if you watch TV show 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:51.280 on cable TV or whatever. Uh, the distribution channel owns 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.080 the material. So a production company will make a show 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.560 for someone, Um, and then once you produce it and 0:07:57.640 --> 0:07:59.560 make it, it's like a contractor who makes a house 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:01.040 for some and like you hand over the keys of 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.000 the house, you never walk back in there again. Right, 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.880 and then the you know, the distribution the distributing platform 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.600 owns the material. We've always owned Meat, We've only ever 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.720 licensed our show out. So we are able to now 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.480 do something that's pretty cool. We're able to do our 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.480 sort of first window on our own platform. So when 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.840 we kick out the new season eleven of Meat either 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.080 the first place we're gonna kick it out as we're 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.199 going to kick it out on our own website. So 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:35.599 at the meat Eater dot com is where you'll be 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:40.439 able to go watch the show early first before it 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.520 appears anywhere else. And that will be coming up pretty 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.880 soon and I'm excited about that. Meanwhile, over at YouTube, 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:53.120 Mark Kenyon's Uh Deer Country show has launched. A few 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:57.439 episodes are already out. The show runs through mid October. 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.920 Go find it at the meat Eater YouTube channel. Stay 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.880 if he came and hunting with me? I think the 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:06.240 episodes out the one you hear it, Yeah, he came, 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.439 he came down to Arkansas, man and uh killed a 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:14.719 deer public land. So tune into that Folks for Love 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:16.880 and that Mark Kenyan's Deer Country on YouTube at the 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.800 Meeting YouTube channel. Uh. Not thing is It's like this 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.000 is a even though we're on a road trip through 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.600 Alaska for a couple of hours. Here we're and Lauren 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.280 observed that we have enough gas to get us to 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:36.160 the next gas station plus one mile to Delta Junction 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:41.760 and the tank said one miles to go. Excellent. Uh, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.920 here's a little show business tidbit. Are It's so frustrating 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:52.160 when camp Fire Stories Volume one came out, so it's 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:57.239 Meat Eaters, camp Fire Stories, Close Calls. When that came out, instantly, 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.679 uh was the best seller, and and it got it 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.559 was best seller a bunch of platforms. But then it 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:06.880 made the New York Times Audio Book best Seller, which 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:08.559 is a weird thing for an audiobook. And I'll tell 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.400 you why. Most books that make most books that make 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.280 the New York Times best seller list in audio are 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.360 books that were print. So a big book will come 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.400 out in print, and it'll become big best seller in print, 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.200 and then the audio hit. And that that that print 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.679 thing kind of generates a little bit of buzz, right, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.280 and the audio hits and the audio does correspondingly. Well, 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:37.000 it's exceptionally hard to break into the audio book best 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:42.120 seller list with an audio first book. But Meets Can't 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.719 Our Stories, Close Calls did just that. Now we just 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:51.720 released this is very aggravating. We just released Meetators, Can't 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:56.240 Fire Stories, Narrow Misses, and more Close Calls. Now we 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.280 have intimate transparency into the sales of this thing. We 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:07.320 know how it's doing. It very much earned its position. Well, 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:13.280 let's hear me out. It very much earned its seats, 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.080 but we don't have seats. But carry on, no, you're 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.600 actually no, they're sitting on Duffel bags in the bag 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:21.439 of man, I'm writing shotguns, I can watch for the 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:28.199 grouse um and or it had the numbers like it, 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.000 it earned its spot on the list, but it got 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.800 flagged for this reason by The New York Times as 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.160 the best anyone's been able to explain to us there 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:45.319 was an overconcentration of sales from a particular source. It 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:49.240 seems as though the overconcentration of sales from a particular 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:53.960 source was those crazy e's over at Apple. Mm hmm, 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.599 the folks who brought you the iPhone and where you know. 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.199 Historically the vast majority of podcasts or listen to is 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:08.880 at Apple. Too. Many of our listeners bought their copies 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.160 from this single source. Now, if it's a print book, 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:15.280 the New York Times will put an asterisk next to 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:19.439 the title and point out that something fishy has gone on, 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.719 and they'll asterick it like it might have had a 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:26.280 big single sale or a bulk purchase, or something weird, 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.199 or someone trying to buy their own book onto the 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:34.320 bestseller list by ordering a ton from a weird bookstore somewhere. Okay, 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:39.839 I understood, we have no such anomalies, no kind of 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.840 weird sales, no kind of any purchase that would happen 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:48.720 like our number one place we sold Apple and they 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.160 docked us for it, docked it and because with audio 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.280 they don't do the asterix marker, you just get kicked 0:12:55.320 --> 0:13:02.240 off the list. Mm hmm. What we're gonna do so irritating. 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.679 We need to go and turn around and repair it. 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.080 So we're gonna stick another. We're gonna put I didn't 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.720 really want to do us. We're gonna put our probably 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:16.760 my favorite story, no offense Clay, no offense taken, probably 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.319 my favorite story from narrownesses and more close calls. We're 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.640 gonna tack it onto the end of the episode. Oh 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.480 this episode. Yeah, we're gonna put it on here because 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.520 that helps a lot. Now, keep in mind, if you 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.760 heard the camera Kirkconnell's story where the guy shoots his 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.000 body through the fin to save his life, here's the 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.640 story has to do with a guy shooting himself. It 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:43.520 is a harrowing, very touching story. Instead of a guy 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.920 saving his body's life by shoot him through the fin underwater, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.959 a guy's dog saves his life. You're gonna hear the 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.760 story and then hopefully you'll be so inspired you'll go 0:13:53.880 --> 0:14:02.160 out and we'll make this October list. Okay, Uh there 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:03.960 you know when you get this though, there's still hours 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:05.839 worth the material you haven't heard you were you're just 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.120 getting like a smattering, right, But we're gonna stick that 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:10.719 on the end of the show here to help move 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:16.000 that thing along. And another news bit a former podcast guest, 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.120 Duke waste Me who works for First Light. He's been 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.000 on the show before, he's been this show before. Uh 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.040 the dude was out he drew a big horn tag 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.160 dude was out hunting big horns and him and his 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.920 wife they lost their home. There was they have a 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.960 condo and part of the condo complex whole damn thing 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:39.360 burned to the ground. Everything he had is gone. Uh, 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.400 we've been we've been driving people towards to go fund 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:44.600 me site. So if you happen to be out there 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.120 and you're you're you remember being uh, you know, doing 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:52.680 athletics with uh Duke or hunting with Duke, or you 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:54.320 know Duke from when he used to be a customer 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:57.320 service rep first Light. He always liked that guy. We 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.360 have a go fund me set up go fund me 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.840 dot com him. Um, it's helped Duke waste and eat 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.680 w A S T E n E Y recover from 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:13.000 a house fire, go fund me, and we've been to Steve. 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:14.760 Let me say something about Duke. Can I can I 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:16.640 give a Can I tell him about Duke just a 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:22.160 little bit? Yeah, So Duke. Duke is like an eccentric, incredible, 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.960 great guy. He's like five seven probably ways about a 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.120 hundred and forty pounds, is an ultra marathon runner, and 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:35.360 he can run. A former Division one wrestler and he 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:39.120 he ran track, he was a bull rider, and he 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.600 is an absolute hunter of hunters, the guy and and 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.480 just a great guy. I mean, you can't There's never 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.600 been somebody that met Duke that didn't like him, and 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.840 so it's pretty tragic that he lost his his house. 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.600 And uh yeah, so just trust me, you'd like Duke 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.120 and you'd want to give him some money. Uh. Moving 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:03.240 on to the Wyoming Corner Crossing. Thanks for that, Clay. 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.680 Moving on to the Wyoming Corner cross or case update. 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:11.280 This is interesting part of this deal we had the 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.200 This is also like Duke was a former podcast guest 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.200 We had the guys. If you're not familiar, if somehow 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:19.880 you haven't been listening to the show and you're just 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:24.000 catching this one. Now. We've covered extensively, including having like 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:29.080 the defendants came out from Missouri to be on the podcast, 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:31.840 the Wyoming corner crossing case where some guys used the 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:37.800 ladder two cross from one piece of public land onto 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.120 another piece of public land. They had to cross where 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:44.080 the two set corner sections meet. Never stepped foot on 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.440 private land, but they were in for like some second 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:49.200 or whatever the hell, however long it takes you to 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.960 jump over a little step ladder. They were in the 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:57.520 air space of a rancher. Uh, they got criminal, they 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:00.440 got they got a criminal trial, had to go to 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:05.560 a jury trial, a criminal jury trial. In the criminal trial, 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.600 they were found not guilty. They were found that, uh, 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:13.720 no trespassing had occurred. Who Lauren hold On really click 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:18.359 gotta pass? We just blew passed and desan rogue. So 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.600 get out of the way, Jack, So oh you know 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.320 what here? You know, remind me of the new song 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:29.639 in a second. But let me finish this corner crossing deal. So, uh, 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:35.600 we're gonna hype that song for us even written we listen, 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.480 I gotta get you gotta piss on your post. So 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.400 in the corner cross the case that the defendants came 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.240 on the podcast after they were found not guilty in 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.520 their criminal trial. If you remember back though, remember back 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.200 to O J. Simpson. There was once a famous football 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.560 player the name O. J. Simpson killed his wife in 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.399 a waiter with a knife. And if you remember, he 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:03.119 had his criminal trial and then when he was acquitted, 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:07.200 the glove don't fit right, you gotta acquit. He then 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.560 turned around and had his civil trial and he was 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:15.560 found guilty in the civil trial, and the judge baked 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:20.040 all this symbolic stuff into like his punishment. And when 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:22.280 they had the trial and the guilty verdict and all that, 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.160 and it was basically like they're saying, like, you committed 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.520 the crime, now you have to pay. He never paid 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.160 the families the money, but he lost his civil trial. 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:36.399 The owner of Elk Mountain Ranch and Wyoming, who's got 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.000 a real case of the ass against the corner crossers, 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.520 is now pushing for a civil trial. And this is interesting. 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:52.560 He is claiming seven million dollars and damages from four 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:58.360 Missouri hunters who used a step ladder to cross from 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.080 from public land into public land on a surveyed corner 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:08.280 having never actually stepped foot on his land. That cost 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:14.160 him seven million and damages. M hmm for them being 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:22.480 in his airspace seven million. Well you know why. Here's 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:27.800 why it's seven million in damages. Because they had felt 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:32.200 as though they had felt as though that ranch and 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.720 all the public land on it was private, and it 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:37.680 seemed like that because no one could go on it. 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.800 Now they're like, well, now that the public land is public, 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:46.000 it's not my private land. The private land lost some 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.160 value in their mind because they thought it was valuable 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.440 how they had public land that no one could use. 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.000 And now they're saying the damages. I used to have 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.720 all this extra acres that didn't pay taxes on and 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.159 didn't actually buy but at exclusive to it. Now I 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.680 don't own that. I don't kind of quote own that anymore. 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.000 Any Joe schmuck can go on there and hunt out, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:14.399 and that's putting me out. I don't think I had 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.200 heard a really interesting rumor. It hasn't been corroborated that 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:23.240 I was to be subpoenaed for this um very interesting. 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:29.720 Now we uh the their legal defense fund, the corner 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:34.439 Cross is legal defense fund. I'll just tell people this. Uh, 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.840 it's short money right now. There's short some jingle And 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.399 I just was checking some emails, and I know Callaghan, 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:45.480 our own beloved Ryan Callahan, is fixing to take some 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.840 of the money that we have in our Land Access initiative, Kittie. 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.480 He's doing like a property shopping thing. We're hoping to 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.919 buy land to turn it over for public access. But uh, 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:58.960 he's hoping to draw a little money from our pool 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.880 to kick in on the legal defense fund. But they're 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:06.960 a little short and the legal Defense Fund and hoping 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.520 that they don't wind up that it's seven million damages 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:15.520 for four Missourians having their shoulders go through the air 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.680 over your place for a couple of minutes. I know 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.280 people who've had their house broken into that didn't get 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:29.840 that kind of damages. Mhm hm. Uh, this is something. 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:32.119 Chester is gonna be quaking in his little boots back there. 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.800 What do you have on your feet? Chester? Wow, he's 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:37.760 qua He quaked in his boots so hard as boots 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:42.000 fell off. Uh. We put out a call for a 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:46.959 polygraph examiner. We have a lieutenant for the Detroit Police 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:53.160 Department works in homicide. He's a polygraph examiner for the department. 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:55.680 He will come out and test people for us. He 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:58.920 has the equipment. Just let him know. So that's happened. 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.320 What do we what do we test it for? Who 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:06.000 stole my cooler? Fish at work? And I wasn't gonna 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.520 get into this letter. And that's why Chester in his 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:14.000 boots say something after We got a guy right in 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:18.680 that he's already solved the mystery based on when we 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:23.520 discussed in the past. He feels the Chester failed to 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:28.520 put it in the freezer. Oh, once it rotted, because 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:31.760 he left it land somewhere. Once it rotted, he dumped 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.920 the rotten contents out through the cooler because this happened 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.960 to him. This happened to him in a different cooler. Git, Yeah, 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:41.040 but he don't know Chester. Yeah, but I wouldn't lie 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:45.159 about that. Well, we'll find out when you do the 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:50.800 polygraph about polygraphing. Let me tell what I learned about polygraphing. 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:55.879 You start off, Chester, You listen up. When this guy comes. 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:58.640 You're gonna see that he starts out with some real softballs. 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:02.080 He's gonna be like, what's your name? I'm not very 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:04.880 good at hitting softballs, Like, is one of your name? 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:08.000 Is Chester? The molester. Then he'd be like, where'd you 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:11.800 grow up? They're not your chimman. Where's the fish man? 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.640 And we'll find out. And you know what I'm gonna say, 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:19.359 I don't know. We will tell you. I'm going to 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:21.960 try a hot tip on how to beat a polygraph. 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:26.800 He's I'm gonna polygraph this the driver, Yeah right, because 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:30.920 he was probably one of the disgruntled parties who felt 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:35.320 like some of that fish was his fish. Steve, I've 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:38.160 got a question for you some am I a yeah, 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:41.520 my fish got stolen. I've got a question for you. 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:45.200 Come look at my freezer. Did you ever grab fish 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:49.240 out of that freezer? No? Okay, Well then and I'll 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:52.879 take a polygraph. Yeah okay. Well, so I talked to 0:23:53.040 --> 0:24:00.399 Breathe the other day, who is CEOs assistant exactly the system, 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:06.920 and she I went in there and dropped stuff off 0:24:07.040 --> 0:24:09.119 in that cooler, and I don't know what else it 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:11.760 would have been, because it was in that same time 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:15.400 frame she saw me put it in there. I'm gonna 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:20.520 polygraph her, She said, Yeah, how certain are you, Bree? Yeah, 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:23.560 here's the other thing. You know who also gonna polygraph 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:25.919 just just because I know what it's gonna score. It's 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:29.280 gonna score perfect is I'm bringing my neighbor, Pottery Pat, 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:32.200 and I'm gonna polygraph him because Pottery Pat was with 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:36.879 me when we discovered the theft. I was like, I 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:39.000 was like, Pat, you don't need to worry about fish. 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:41.040 Bro I got fish coming out of my ears and 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:45.280 I take him down to the office to get my fish. Weird, 0:24:45.480 --> 0:24:49.520 you miss you're missing the whole cooler. Yeah, we recovered 0:24:49.560 --> 0:24:56.480 the cooler fish there, but it's empty. Huh, you got chester. 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:08.200 I can't even eat gestures. Forgot about that one. How 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:10.920 come you know what I got? Polygraph him about the fish? 0:25:11.560 --> 0:25:16.320 How come you are like? How much? I can't wait? 0:25:17.160 --> 0:25:22.680 He's not allergic to tuna. Yeah, anyways from Detroit homicide dude, 0:25:22.760 --> 0:25:24.639 this guy is gonna be one of them hard boiled 0:25:24.760 --> 0:25:30.720 detective types. And he's before before he comes. I want 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:34.000 to tell you in private, my my hot tip on 0:25:34.080 --> 0:25:35.840 how to be a polygraph. I can't say it on 0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:37.600 the air man because I don't want all these people 0:25:37.640 --> 0:25:41.879 learn it. I don't Steve, you have to take that 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:46.840 test too, absolutely, yes, then Clay can't give you any tips. Oh, 0:25:48.160 --> 0:25:50.840 everybody in this tell me the tip right now. Well, 0:25:51.000 --> 0:25:52.639 if we all know, then it will all be equal 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:55.040 because they kind of, like my understanding is they kind 0:25:55.040 --> 0:25:58.120 of fine tuning. Okay, so they ask you a softball 0:25:58.200 --> 0:25:59.960 questions that are the truth, and so they get a 0:26:00.119 --> 0:26:08.719 baseline reading of your of your lie because your name 0:26:08.760 --> 0:26:15.000 is it's in your voice and something about it bumps up. 0:26:15.600 --> 0:26:18.440 You know, there's like a baseline. I don't even This 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:21.320 guy says that you hold a water bottle under the 0:26:21.440 --> 0:26:25.080 table and water bottle and when you tell the truth, 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:29.200 you squeeze the water bottle so that like intensity comes 0:26:29.320 --> 0:26:38.040 out of you even when you're telling the truth unseen like, yeah, 0:26:38.240 --> 0:26:43.119 I got you, I got graphic diameters. So I go. 0:26:43.280 --> 0:26:45.080 My name is Clay Nukele, and I squeezed it. You 0:26:45.119 --> 0:26:48.320 see my forearm flag my name is Clay Nukeles. That 0:26:48.520 --> 0:26:54.399 his gums kind of received. Here's a hot. If you're 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:56.840 giving a polygraph exam, make sure they don't have a 0:26:56.880 --> 0:27:01.479 water bottle under the table. That's a hot. That's how 0:27:01.560 --> 0:27:05.440 polygraphic standards can beat people who are beating the polygraph. 0:27:05.800 --> 0:27:08.720 The guy who who told me that that technique was 0:27:08.840 --> 0:27:12.000 used to win a big Buck contest where a polygraphing used. 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:24.760 Moving on, let's break from this company. I gotta get 0:27:24.760 --> 0:27:29.480 into this like the whole pit toilet thing. Who the compost? Well, no, 0:27:30.800 --> 0:27:34.400 the guy that this story is really just blown out 0:27:34.440 --> 0:27:36.679 of proportions, the guy who got stuck in the pit toilet. 0:27:38.280 --> 0:27:41.320 I'll bring everybody up speed a lot of major developments. 0:27:41.359 --> 0:27:43.680 We have a very exciting guest coming out of the show. 0:27:45.320 --> 0:27:49.919 Really is involved? Really coming on the Evolved? Did they 0:27:50.280 --> 0:27:53.080 shower up before they can come on the show? We're 0:27:53.119 --> 0:27:55.840 gonna be able to answer a lot of questions about this, 0:27:56.080 --> 0:28:01.440 But in the meantime, today we we uh, Clay, you 0:28:01.600 --> 0:28:04.920 sing the first, you sing the chorus as much of 0:28:04.960 --> 0:28:07.080 the course as we have, and then we'll all do 0:28:07.200 --> 0:28:10.480 the course and so people can get the course twice. Well, 0:28:10.520 --> 0:28:12.920 I mean, do they need any context for how this 0:28:13.040 --> 0:28:16.440 song was written? Uh? Yeah, okay. So if you're approaching 0:28:16.480 --> 0:28:18.639 an area that you think there might be a bear in, 0:28:20.200 --> 0:28:22.840 it's customary to yell stuff, and a lot of times 0:28:22.880 --> 0:28:25.040 people are at a loss for what to yell, and 0:28:25.119 --> 0:28:30.000 you'll just yell hey bear. Yeah. Well one time we 0:28:30.119 --> 0:28:32.359 had had a run in with a bear. And then 0:28:32.359 --> 0:28:34.960 everybody's trying to scare the bear. The bear is already 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:37.360 in amongst us. People are trying to scare the bear 0:28:37.480 --> 0:28:41.440 by yelling hay bear. And I said, it's stop saying bear. 0:28:41.560 --> 0:28:43.440 Unless you see the bears. I can't tell if people 0:28:43.440 --> 0:28:46.920 are like, hey a bear, hay bear. So I was like, 0:28:47.000 --> 0:28:52.320 no more hay bear, Um, just whatever, go whoa yeah 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:57.120 yeah uh so. But today we're doing we were doing 0:28:57.200 --> 0:29:01.600 hay bear to to approach a kill site. We're approaching 0:29:01.640 --> 0:29:04.920 to kill site where we had stashed meat, and we 0:29:05.040 --> 0:29:07.160 were doing hey bear, just to give a bear a 0:29:07.280 --> 0:29:12.080 chance to run off. Yeah, and Clay we started to 0:29:12.120 --> 0:29:14.720 write a song about it, and Clay came up with 0:29:14.880 --> 0:29:18.800 just a Ripper, Just a ripper, great little jingle, and 0:29:19.280 --> 0:29:21.040 we've got a lot of the parts of the song, 0:29:23.120 --> 0:29:25.800 but Clay kind of came up with the what do 0:29:25.840 --> 0:29:28.360 you call that in a song? It's it's it's it's 0:29:28.400 --> 0:29:34.360 the chorus. Course. Yeah, of course, Okay, Clay hit him 0:29:34.360 --> 0:29:36.800 with the course. So we're walking, we're walking down the 0:29:36.880 --> 0:29:43.120 hill me steven Chester, and we said, hey bear, what 0:29:43.360 --> 0:29:46.920 you're gonna do when we come and take that moose 0:29:47.000 --> 0:29:51.960 meat away from you? Hey bear? What you gotta do? 0:29:56.280 --> 0:30:03.440 From d what you're gonna do? We take that moves 0:30:03.600 --> 0:30:06.960 meat away from me? And then I wrote a really 0:30:07.200 --> 0:30:10.120 really great part that they're trying to cut out of 0:30:10.160 --> 0:30:13.240 the song because they're trying to cut me out. So 0:30:13.640 --> 0:30:16.400 you can keep the guts in hide, but you can't 0:30:16.520 --> 0:30:22.040 have the meat. I got family to feet, dude. The 0:30:22.240 --> 0:30:25.440 sun is coming up and the super cubs are coming down. 0:30:25.880 --> 0:30:31.160 I gotta get back to Mama. We're headed for town. Bear, 0:30:31.840 --> 0:30:37.720 what you gotta do when we take that away from you? 0:30:42.160 --> 0:30:45.240 And then we did have the one that we said, hey, Bear, 0:30:45.520 --> 0:30:48.440 I'll make a deal with you. You can keep the 0:30:48.520 --> 0:30:50.760 guts and hide, and that's as far as we go. 0:30:52.000 --> 0:30:54.720 I'll make it with you. I'm gonna sing it if 0:30:54.800 --> 0:30:57.440 we get it all together. I'm gonna sing it in 0:30:59.480 --> 0:31:02.560 Moose Hunt. I mean that that that's what's about. If 0:31:02.640 --> 0:31:05.840 I have time to write the rest. So I've never 0:31:05.920 --> 0:31:08.040 played an instrument in my life, and I can't sing. 0:31:09.480 --> 0:31:11.480 I'm joking. If Chester has time to work out with 0:31:11.600 --> 0:31:13.880 Clay Chess is gonna play it when he opens for 0:31:13.960 --> 0:31:17.840 Trampled by Turtles in Atlanta, Georgia on December one, tenth 0:31:18.160 --> 0:31:25.560 Buckhead December one, six days before the Pearl Harbor anniversary. Chester. 0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:28.480 So you're sitting there saying, uh, you know to your husband, 0:31:28.760 --> 0:31:31.280 Oh you know, Pearl Harbor anniversaries coming up in six days. 0:31:31.800 --> 0:31:34.239 You'll be like, oh ship. Chester was playing at night 0:31:34.240 --> 0:31:36.680 in Atlanta. He's opening for Trampled by Turtles and he's 0:31:36.680 --> 0:31:40.360 a French dan. Uh, he's got Chester. There are a 0:31:40.520 --> 0:31:46.800 lot in Chester. Up to forty five minutes. I told 0:31:46.880 --> 0:31:52.360 Chester about the curse of the opening act. I have 0:31:52.520 --> 0:31:56.760 been trying to implore Chester the grouse you see it. 0:31:57.320 --> 0:32:02.000 I didn't see it up. Yeah, they switched over from 0:32:02.000 --> 0:32:05.440 the other side since a couple of years ago. Uh, Chester, 0:32:06.360 --> 0:32:10.200 I was telling them this. I didn't. I said, I said, 0:32:10.320 --> 0:32:13.360 nothing personal, right, yeah, no, yeah, you said that before 0:32:13.440 --> 0:32:15.760 you went into this. I said, we're sitting a seek tent, 0:32:17.160 --> 0:32:19.960 which usually means it's very personal. It's very person it's tight, 0:32:20.880 --> 0:32:24.640 it's warm, it's tight, a lot of wet clothes drying out. 0:32:24.840 --> 0:32:28.080 But it's a lot of steam in the air. And 0:32:28.480 --> 0:32:32.000 I said to Chester, in this uh, warm, steaming environment, 0:32:32.880 --> 0:32:39.040 I said, Chester, nothing personal, buddy, but and I hate 0:32:39.080 --> 0:32:40.760 to say it to you, Chester. Remember I said all this, 0:32:40.880 --> 0:32:44.720 like yeah, and people aren't there for the opening act. 0:32:46.640 --> 0:32:51.320 Some are maybe just my mom and dad, but most ain't. 0:32:51.880 --> 0:32:53.840 And what you don't want to do no, no, what 0:32:54.120 --> 0:32:55.720 what you said was a great descriptor of it. You 0:32:55.800 --> 0:33:00.120 said people typically have the attitude of just endure in 0:33:00.240 --> 0:33:03.000 the first act of live music, waiting for it to start. 0:33:03.520 --> 0:33:06.720 Just they're just there, you know, they're just enduring it. 0:33:06.880 --> 0:33:08.440 Like when I went I just recently got to go 0:33:08.560 --> 0:33:12.240 see Chappelle, but he was doing this thing with He's 0:33:12.280 --> 0:33:14.400 doing this thing with it was this thing with John Mayer. 0:33:14.880 --> 0:33:17.000 So I'm sitting there waiting for Chappelle, but I listened 0:33:17.000 --> 0:33:19.400 to John Mayer sing songs. I don't want to do that. 0:33:20.080 --> 0:33:23.200 I want to get to the Chapelle part, and I'm like, hey, hey, 0:33:24.320 --> 0:33:28.040 and my wife's like, oh, I just love him, so 0:33:29.760 --> 0:33:35.720 you know, so I never got to my advice. My 0:33:35.800 --> 0:33:42.520 advice was six songs. Keep it tight, keep it because 0:33:42.520 --> 0:33:43.880 you know what they're gonna give you the ben for 0:33:43.960 --> 0:33:47.320 the doubt. No, I like that advice, Steve, keep it tight. 0:33:47.520 --> 0:33:50.640 No one's gonna be like, um, you could have people 0:33:50.760 --> 0:33:55.640 won over at at twenty four minutes that you've really 0:33:56.360 --> 0:34:01.840 really lost at forty five minutes. Just professional advice. We've 0:34:01.880 --> 0:34:04.760 covered diminishing returns. You gotta find that sweet spot. We've 0:34:04.800 --> 0:34:08.200 covered publishing. You know what I'm gonna try to do. 0:34:09.360 --> 0:34:11.200 Here's what we'll try to set up between now and then. 0:34:12.680 --> 0:34:14.680 We'll try to get a call in. Here's what are 0:34:14.719 --> 0:34:16.960 you comfortable with this? I don't know what you're gonna say. 0:34:18.280 --> 0:34:21.480 We'll get, we'll get, we'll get We'll get Luke to 0:34:21.560 --> 0:34:25.480 call in to the podcast, and we'll just put the 0:34:25.560 --> 0:34:30.240 question to Luke. Yeah, this is good if you agree 0:34:30.360 --> 0:34:33.000 to go with what he says. But so, how do 0:34:33.040 --> 0:34:34.920 you feel that forty five minutes if you just just 0:34:35.000 --> 0:34:38.080 want Mike drop and walk off the stage? He gets up, 0:34:38.239 --> 0:34:40.319 he leaves them hot and bothered, and he walks off. 0:34:40.760 --> 0:34:42.839 And well, and you you also advised him to play 0:34:42.880 --> 0:34:47.360 strongly on his his his true authentic Wisconsin roots, like 0:34:47.560 --> 0:34:52.640 just stay true to bear song. Okay, use carlt. So 0:34:53.000 --> 0:34:54.920 here's the thing about the pit toilet deal. And this 0:34:55.040 --> 0:34:59.800 is where it really gets rich. After we got the 0:35:01.719 --> 0:35:04.960 after we covered the mysterious case of a man who 0:35:06.800 --> 0:35:10.600 dropped his phone into a vault toilet at a fishing 0:35:10.640 --> 0:35:16.359 access site in Montana, something stripped down. Get this, He's 0:35:16.400 --> 0:35:24.719 stripped down buck naked, okay, and climbed down into the 0:35:24.800 --> 0:35:32.120 vault where he got stuck. Oh I read this littlemportant detail. 0:35:33.320 --> 0:35:39.760 I'd say his phone fell in there. Yeah, totally naked, 0:35:43.640 --> 0:35:47.680 nothing between him and the lord except the house. I'm 0:35:47.719 --> 0:35:52.480 not gonna well, uh down in the pit toilet and 0:35:52.680 --> 0:35:55.279 he was rescued. Now we have we put out that 0:35:55.360 --> 0:35:59.600 we really were dying to get anyone we can on 0:36:00.080 --> 0:36:04.880 um to cover this more thoroughly important news item, and 0:36:05.000 --> 0:36:09.400 we have a phenomenal podcast guest teed up. People are 0:36:09.400 --> 0:36:10.960 gonna be on the edge of their sea is it 0:36:11.080 --> 0:36:13.720 the guy who fell into the edge of their seats 0:36:13.719 --> 0:36:17.560 to get it when they hear this, when they hear 0:36:17.760 --> 0:36:22.520 this harrowing account of being stuck in and being stuck 0:36:22.560 --> 0:36:27.000 in a fishing access toilet vault. And we got an 0:36:27.040 --> 0:36:29.640 email on If you go on my Instagram at Stephen Ronelle, 0:36:29.640 --> 0:36:31.959 you'll find a very intriguing picture of a young woman, 0:36:33.520 --> 0:36:37.279 a cheery young woman half in and half out of 0:36:37.320 --> 0:36:41.839 a toilet like the toilet top add about her waistline, 0:36:41.920 --> 0:36:45.680 and she's trying to fish her phone out with her feet. Yeah. 0:36:45.840 --> 0:36:49.480 I would They were able to recover the phone with 0:36:49.640 --> 0:36:52.440 a grabber, as they described they found someone with a grabber. 0:36:53.080 --> 0:36:57.960 We also got a sign from a humpy road. We 0:36:58.040 --> 0:37:00.320 got a sign from a pit toilet thing and handed 0:37:00.360 --> 0:37:02.480 though where it's like things you're not supposed to do 0:37:02.520 --> 0:37:04.480 in the pit toilet, and one of them include someone 0:37:04.600 --> 0:37:08.280 standing there with a fishing rod fishing in the toilet. 0:37:09.160 --> 0:37:11.480 And it came from a guy who the joke came 0:37:11.560 --> 0:37:13.560 from when they found a guy who was trying to 0:37:13.760 --> 0:37:19.000 use a fishing rod and awaited hook recover his phone 0:37:19.200 --> 0:37:25.960 out of the pit toilet man. Okay, we get a 0:37:26.120 --> 0:37:31.200 letter from northwest New Jersey where they have in one 0:37:31.239 --> 0:37:32.920 of he doesn't say it, but he says it's one 0:37:33.000 --> 0:37:36.799 of New Jersey's best wallet lakes. Uh, there's a state 0:37:36.920 --> 0:37:41.400 park and they have a car top boat launch so 0:37:41.560 --> 0:37:43.520 not the kind of boat launchry back trailer into the 0:37:43.560 --> 0:37:47.080 water where you can unload canoes and small craft. Okay, 0:37:47.360 --> 0:37:50.360 that's Walleye Links. And they have a pit toilet, a 0:37:50.680 --> 0:37:54.919 state park and a pit toilet there. Now here's where 0:37:54.920 --> 0:38:00.239 this gets interfesting. This individual's friend is a local fire fighter. 0:38:02.160 --> 0:38:05.759 They get a call on their system about a man 0:38:06.480 --> 0:38:11.439 stuck in the our house. They think it's a joke 0:38:11.560 --> 0:38:16.719 and don't respond. They think it's a prank call man. 0:38:16.960 --> 0:38:20.239 The call comes across again and again, at which point 0:38:20.280 --> 0:38:24.239 they're like, really, maybe a guy un They run down 0:38:24.320 --> 0:38:28.799 there with their fire truck equipment. They find a grown 0:38:28.880 --> 0:38:31.800 man stark naked, stuck up to his chest in the 0:38:32.000 --> 0:38:37.080 seat based portion of the toilet. Why the nakedness He 0:38:37.200 --> 0:38:43.600 tried to want to get his clothes off fishing access sites. 0:38:45.560 --> 0:38:48.759 They question him what happened. He says he was attacked 0:38:48.800 --> 0:38:55.520 by another man and stuck in them. Shouldn't laugh, that's 0:38:57.280 --> 0:39:00.320 let's listen. Why did this seem fish you to the 0:39:00.360 --> 0:39:03.920 first responders, Well, his clothes were folded up on the 0:39:04.040 --> 0:39:11.200 floor and his phone was on top of the stack 0:39:11.320 --> 0:39:15.880 of clothes. There's a woman pacing around out in the 0:39:16.040 --> 0:39:20.400 parking lot. They asked her if she has any relation 0:39:20.520 --> 0:39:22.279 to the man in the thing and if she knows 0:39:22.320 --> 0:39:26.000 anything about it. She says, he called me to help him. 0:39:27.920 --> 0:39:31.320 But where did I just say? His phone was on 0:39:31.719 --> 0:39:33.960 the top of the clothes. He doesn't have access to 0:39:34.080 --> 0:39:37.040 his phone. He's start naked in the in the toilet 0:39:37.080 --> 0:39:40.640 bolt m they called before they loom him up with 0:39:40.760 --> 0:39:45.719 warm water and dish soap. Still cannot free him. They 0:39:45.840 --> 0:39:49.719 then pry the seat off the vault top and he 0:39:49.880 --> 0:39:58.960 goes into an ambulance. Where this is from a firefighter. 0:39:59.040 --> 0:40:02.439 They're like, bring out the heavy duty drama. He goes 0:40:02.600 --> 0:40:07.360 into an ambulance wearing the toilet seat. It sounds like 0:40:07.440 --> 0:40:12.800 a cartoon. Well, here's where the story gets interesting. It 0:40:12.920 --> 0:40:19.440 already is. Further questioning. Further questioning reveals that this man 0:40:19.960 --> 0:40:26.920 is a fetishist oh, and that the curious woman pacing 0:40:27.000 --> 0:40:35.319 around was involved in this man's fetish Oh. I don't 0:40:35.360 --> 0:40:38.759 want to say it because it's a family program. So 0:40:39.080 --> 0:40:41.680 point being the guy says, to sum up, you're just 0:40:41.800 --> 0:40:44.879 like man be where everyone gets stuck in the toilet ball. 0:40:46.719 --> 0:40:49.200 So it might be. It might be the kind of 0:40:49.280 --> 0:40:54.719 thing where we need to bring the polygraph to this interview. Wait, 0:40:54.800 --> 0:40:58.440 he's coming to them. No, no, no, no, that's a 0:40:58.480 --> 0:41:06.160 guy in New Jersey. This is just a wet Yeah. 0:41:06.200 --> 0:41:07.880 Give us a road up day, Lauren. We got the 0:41:07.960 --> 0:41:10.640 law pulling somebody over up ahead of us. Yeah, that 0:41:10.800 --> 0:41:13.279 probably us. Uh, they're gonna pull us over. No, No, 0:41:13.400 --> 0:41:17.520 we're good. That dealta junctions. Last sign I saw thirty 0:41:17.560 --> 0:41:23.640 seven miles in our fuel to emptiest as Sam ahead 0:41:23.640 --> 0:41:25.680 of us, maybe you should Sam's ahead of us, she 0:41:25.719 --> 0:41:30.080 could tow us. Let's see let down because there's a 0:41:32.400 --> 0:41:38.719 get some better mph dang Man. Very intriguing story. A 0:41:38.800 --> 0:41:42.719 couple of corrections. Dobs and Iowa. We had someone a 0:41:42.800 --> 0:41:44.840 lot of corrections of stuff that I screwed up and 0:41:44.960 --> 0:41:46.560 other people screwed up. I kind of want to get 0:41:46.560 --> 0:41:49.920 to doves I always had. We were talking the other 0:41:50.000 --> 0:41:51.960 day about how Iowa for a long time didn't have 0:41:52.080 --> 0:41:54.759 a dove season, and we were wondering if they had 0:41:54.840 --> 0:41:58.920 gotten themselves a dove season going. And someone said, you know, 0:41:59.000 --> 0:42:04.960 Idaho has had a third Sorry, Iowa, my bad has 0:42:05.000 --> 0:42:09.920 had a duve season since so starting an Iowa got 0:42:10.160 --> 0:42:12.920 got their dove season put in place, and they've been 0:42:12.960 --> 0:42:17.080 having great. Uh. They've been having great duck hunts since then, 0:42:18.080 --> 0:42:22.759 barring a bunch of emotionally charged reactions to the I'm 0:42:22.960 --> 0:42:29.120 distracted by the law enforcement action, so that that that's correction. 0:42:29.320 --> 0:42:31.600 We we questioned whether they ever got it. They've had it. 0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:35.680 They've had it for over a decade. M here's another one, 0:42:35.719 --> 0:42:37.719 and this is one I caught. Someone said, and for 0:42:37.800 --> 0:42:39.640 whatever reason, I didn't feel like jumping on him. We 0:42:39.920 --> 0:42:41.640 guests said this, I didn't feel like jump in their 0:42:41.680 --> 0:42:43.359 case about it. But I even knew it was wrong. 0:42:46.400 --> 0:42:48.480 The size of a snake, that it's a myth that 0:42:48.600 --> 0:42:52.080 a small snake has more. It's a myth that that 0:42:52.200 --> 0:42:57.920 it's like getting zapped by a small snake is more deadly, 0:42:58.360 --> 0:43:01.279 more venomous, because they like can't control. There's like this 0:43:01.360 --> 0:43:04.000 thing that they can't control how much venom they're giving you, 0:43:05.400 --> 0:43:07.920 and an older one can control. And so getting zapped 0:43:07.920 --> 0:43:10.920 by a young rattlesnake, he's he can't she doesn't have 0:43:11.080 --> 0:43:13.480 a good shut off valve and gives you more venom. 0:43:15.040 --> 0:43:17.680 There's nothing to that. That's a wives tale. And I 0:43:17.800 --> 0:43:21.320 was wrong about that. Another thing you talked about me 0:43:21.400 --> 0:43:24.920 being wrong about is I we were talking about someone's 0:43:24.960 --> 0:43:29.759 bringing up if you go to change your motor oil 0:43:30.440 --> 0:43:33.000 and if you pour your used motor oil out in 0:43:33.040 --> 0:43:35.279 the dirt, are you just putting it back where it 0:43:35.400 --> 0:43:38.520 came from, meaning it came out of the earth, and 0:43:38.640 --> 0:43:40.560 so you're just putting it back into the earth where 0:43:40.600 --> 0:43:44.160 it belongs. Yeah, of course that all right. And I 0:43:44.280 --> 0:43:47.480 made a thing like if I take rattlesnake venom and 0:43:47.560 --> 0:43:50.680 put it on your food. Uh Am, I just putting 0:43:50.719 --> 0:43:52.919 it back where it belongs because it'll get back into 0:43:52.960 --> 0:43:58.719 the earth. And someone said, uh, pointed out that I 0:43:58.880 --> 0:44:02.759 might be that's very faulty logic. And he points out 0:44:02.880 --> 0:44:06.560 the snake venom would most likely not impact a person 0:44:06.680 --> 0:44:10.880 if ingested. Now that might warrant. That's not that's more 0:44:10.920 --> 0:44:15.880 of a call for expertise. He doesn't say, He's just 0:44:15.960 --> 0:44:19.200 saying that that logic is faulty. And it's like it's 0:44:19.280 --> 0:44:23.759 meant to be administered into muscle tissue, right, and that 0:44:23.880 --> 0:44:28.480 you ingesting rattlesnake venom, right, whatever. So it would be 0:44:28.600 --> 0:44:31.239 great if a snake expert, I imagine to be something 0:44:31.239 --> 0:44:32.680 that would be right up. Helfle finger. Would you know 0:44:32.680 --> 0:44:37.360 a helffle finger got kicked off Instagram? You know, he 0:44:37.480 --> 0:44:40.160 keeps saying he doesn't know why, but I don't know. 0:44:40.280 --> 0:44:42.279 He doesn't He does a lot of shooting tournaments, like 0:44:42.360 --> 0:44:45.480 they kicked him off for shooting legally shooting his gun 0:44:45.560 --> 0:44:50.520 at a shooting range. I don't understand. It's horrible. Uh. 0:44:51.560 --> 0:44:55.080 I think he's trying to find out what his account question. 0:44:55.719 --> 0:45:00.279 They banned his account. M hm, but havelf a finger 0:45:00.480 --> 0:45:04.080 Instagram was heppal finger um who knows everything about everything? 0:45:04.360 --> 0:45:08.839 I bet you he can answer to us. Why uh 0:45:09.560 --> 0:45:12.560 if if like, what is up with ingesting, rattlesnake venom 0:45:13.440 --> 0:45:15.440 clay you know a guy that knows? Yeah, yeah, we 0:45:15.600 --> 0:45:18.400 we need Dr Chris Jenkins from Georgia to answer that 0:45:18.520 --> 0:45:23.120 for us. Here's a thing, herpetologist, do you want to 0:45:23.160 --> 0:45:27.360 hear this? So a guy ruining um. Snake size plays 0:45:27.400 --> 0:45:29.520 almost zero role on how bad a snake bite can be. 0:45:30.840 --> 0:45:34.160 The largest role and how bad a snake by is. 0:45:34.280 --> 0:45:36.279 This is I'm quoting from the person that wrote in 0:45:37.440 --> 0:45:40.800 Very Informed Gentleman. The largest role and how bad a 0:45:40.840 --> 0:45:45.600 snake by is depends on when the snake last fed. Hm. 0:45:47.560 --> 0:45:50.080 If you are bitten by a snake that fed within 0:45:50.200 --> 0:45:54.400 the last day, then you get almost no venom. And 0:45:54.520 --> 0:45:57.600 if the snake hasn't fed in a week or longer, 0:45:57.840 --> 0:46:04.480 you will get a very nasty bite. That's good to know. Man. Again, 0:46:04.640 --> 0:46:07.040 I know we're taking a vote of whether that is 0:46:07.160 --> 0:46:09.719 always true. Well, you got herpetolog just gonna come and 0:46:09.760 --> 0:46:12.239 tell us. Can you get us feedback from the first 0:46:14.400 --> 0:46:18.040 because when they you know, I just don't think that's 0:46:18.440 --> 0:46:22.760 uh well, I'm I'm not answering because we're doing corrections 0:46:23.280 --> 0:46:26.040 stuff we got wrong. I need to know because I 0:46:26.040 --> 0:46:29.000 got a bad snake problem at the fourteen Steve, Well, 0:46:29.200 --> 0:46:31.520 what's that? I got a bad snake problem at fourteen 0:46:31.600 --> 0:46:34.320 on the river plate? Kind of snakes? You got dirt rattlers, 0:46:35.040 --> 0:46:39.719 i'd say, western divingback like real bad. Really, so I 0:46:39.760 --> 0:46:41.920 need to know if I'm feeding them, maybe it's not 0:46:42.040 --> 0:46:46.200 as bad, you know, if your feed a couple of weeks. 0:46:47.840 --> 0:46:49.800 Here's a here, here's one of you guys. Listen, you 0:46:49.840 --> 0:46:53.239 guys got paid careful attention. This is like I want this. 0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:55.759 I like this to be like a quick panel discussion. 0:46:57.000 --> 0:46:58.880 You know, I caught this this news stories all over 0:46:58.920 --> 0:47:04.600 the place. But there's a moose draw okay in the 0:47:04.800 --> 0:47:09.360 British Columbia Cariboo region. Caribou not spelled like how we 0:47:09.560 --> 0:47:12.239 spell Cariboo. We spell Cariboo c A r I b 0:47:12.400 --> 0:47:15.440 o U. This is Cariboo c A r I b oo. 0:47:16.239 --> 0:47:20.800 So British Columbia's Cariboo region. They had a moose draw, okay, 0:47:21.880 --> 0:47:24.160 and this guy's party, him and his friends were very 0:47:24.200 --> 0:47:27.920 excited to have drawn moose chat tags and they're chosen 0:47:28.080 --> 0:47:34.360 area first year they ever went into the lottery. The 0:47:34.440 --> 0:47:40.080 BC government had increased tag allotments this year and they 0:47:40.600 --> 0:47:45.240 put in and they drew recently and he's here's these articles. 0:47:45.280 --> 0:47:46.880 These are articles that people have sent me, but I 0:47:46.920 --> 0:47:49.960 haven't heard anybody impact from that. Recently, a couple of 0:47:50.160 --> 0:47:54.200 articles have come out regarding the indigenous nations of the area. 0:47:55.760 --> 0:47:59.880 So the first people's nations of this particular area in 0:48:00.000 --> 0:48:06.239 British Columbia asking hunters not to come and hunt in 0:48:06.320 --> 0:48:12.040 that area. Their claim is that the government's population studies 0:48:12.080 --> 0:48:14.839 are incorrect and the tag amount should not have been 0:48:14.920 --> 0:48:17.840 increased this season and there's not enough for them to 0:48:17.960 --> 0:48:22.680 hunt and other people to hunt too. However, he goes 0:48:22.760 --> 0:48:26.800 on to say, drawing these tags seems like it is 0:48:26.880 --> 0:48:31.120 a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience something amazing 0:48:32.000 --> 0:48:37.400 and grow as hunters ourselves. Having the request to abandon 0:48:37.520 --> 0:48:41.040 our tags definitely feels like a dampener on the situation. 0:48:41.160 --> 0:48:44.319 I would be interested to hear your opinions on where 0:48:44.400 --> 0:48:48.359 the responsibility lies, whether it falls on the hunter who 0:48:48.520 --> 0:48:51.800 drew a tag or the government who issued them. I 0:48:52.280 --> 0:48:54.520 don't even think of it that way. I would think 0:48:54.560 --> 0:49:00.319 of it this way. Your governmental game management agent, see 0:49:02.040 --> 0:49:05.480 is the law of the land. Yeah, they issued you 0:49:05.680 --> 0:49:08.880 a legal tag. If you wish to go, I would go. 0:49:09.719 --> 0:49:16.040 I would not bow to any kind of public pressure 0:49:16.120 --> 0:49:19.719 campaign to make you feel unwelcome in doing something that 0:49:19.880 --> 0:49:24.520 your government is allotted you the opportunity in a way 0:49:24.600 --> 0:49:27.000 to draw the tag to go moves I would not listen. 0:49:28.480 --> 0:49:31.719 If there's not a suitable population there, some of might 0:49:31.800 --> 0:49:33.879 go like, oh, they got it all wrong. Who better 0:49:34.000 --> 0:49:36.600 to know? Then It's like, let's say they do have it. 0:49:36.960 --> 0:49:39.840 Let's say let's say they're off a little bit. Whose 0:49:39.920 --> 0:49:43.680 work is? Whose work do you view if you view 0:49:43.760 --> 0:49:50.560 it from like a standard contemporary Western scientific based principle 0:49:50.680 --> 0:49:56.000 of of of game allocation and wildlife counts, who do 0:49:56.120 --> 0:49:58.040 you think is doing a better job to determine that 0:49:58.080 --> 0:50:02.640 they're wrong? No, well, I would go absolutely, I would go. 0:50:03.840 --> 0:50:07.000 I think that if a person were trying to be 0:50:08.480 --> 0:50:10.680 super responsible and look at both sides of it, I 0:50:10.719 --> 0:50:13.040 mean I would want to say where where is where 0:50:13.239 --> 0:50:19.200 is the the indigenous nation getting its information biological information? 0:50:19.320 --> 0:50:23.279 And say why are your studies different than their's like, 0:50:23.440 --> 0:50:26.120 where is the credential for this? You know what, why 0:50:26.200 --> 0:50:28.040 do you feel that that? How did it all sun 0:50:28.120 --> 0:50:31.200 be that we have three miles till in Oh yeah, 0:50:31.400 --> 0:50:35.160 three miles to go. That's according to the computer in 0:50:35.200 --> 0:50:44.640 the car. We're probably that according to Steve, I agree 0:50:44.680 --> 0:50:46.400 with you. I'm just saying it would be interesting to 0:50:46.480 --> 0:50:49.920 see why these people are saying this, like what is that? 0:50:50.480 --> 0:50:52.239 Because why would they want to deal with more people 0:50:52.280 --> 0:50:55.880 in the area? Right right, yeah, I mean we we 0:50:55.960 --> 0:51:00.640 can assume that if there's a legal play, that there's 0:51:00.680 --> 0:51:02.959 a legal play that they're gonna make. I'd make making 0:51:03.080 --> 0:51:07.160 the courts. I wouldn't make it with this like don't 0:51:07.239 --> 0:51:09.480 make it with this request to people and like ruin 0:51:09.560 --> 0:51:13.560 their time. And I'm and I'd be very very uncomfortable 0:51:13.600 --> 0:51:17.520 with the idea of I'd be very uncomfortable with the 0:51:17.640 --> 0:51:22.160 idea of sorting out in a sort of uh like 0:51:22.400 --> 0:51:25.879 like bring in some kind of like historical context into 0:51:25.960 --> 0:51:29.080 sort of who gets and doesn't get to go hunting 0:51:29.120 --> 0:51:31.920 the area, and that you're supposed to not only go 0:51:32.120 --> 0:51:36.759 to your game management agency, but also go and check 0:51:36.800 --> 0:51:38.719 and make sure it's cool with everybody else before you 0:51:38.800 --> 0:51:42.040 go hunting. You know what I beg there's a lot 0:51:42.120 --> 0:51:44.200 of people in Canada they wish you didn't hunt at all. 0:51:46.440 --> 0:51:48.680 Should you listen to them? If you heard it? Call 0:51:48.840 --> 0:51:51.400 animal rights people have asked hunters to not go hunting. 0:51:52.040 --> 0:51:54.640 Would you be like, oh, I better not go right? 0:51:54.840 --> 0:51:57.279 Of course not. Of course someone doesn't want you to go. 0:51:59.560 --> 0:52:05.400 At the Fox Roadhouse convenience story where gas is available 0:52:06.320 --> 0:52:09.560 before Delta junction. Yeah, we're back in the mentalis and gentlemen, 0:52:10.120 --> 0:52:23.560 eight dollars of gallons. Alright, we're back full tank of gas. 0:52:23.680 --> 0:52:28.080 That was a hell of a gas station. That was 0:52:28.120 --> 0:52:30.840 a hell of a gas station. Yeah. So the first 0:52:30.880 --> 0:52:32.400 thing I knew, the first thing I'll tell you the 0:52:32.440 --> 0:52:34.520 first thing I liked about it is we walked in 0:52:34.640 --> 0:52:36.840 and I saw that there was a guy putting on 0:52:37.160 --> 0:52:43.640 a for youngsters, putting on a trapping seminar like you 0:52:43.680 --> 0:52:47.440 saw a brochure for brochure. It was for area youngsters 0:52:47.480 --> 0:52:51.120 who wanted to earn a little extra jingle um. And 0:52:51.200 --> 0:52:57.800 he was gonna talk about Martin Links and Wolverine. And 0:52:57.880 --> 0:53:00.279 then we got to talking with the woman who ran 0:53:00.360 --> 0:53:04.800 the place, and they had a lot of furs for sale. 0:53:05.000 --> 0:53:10.800 They had some interesting tax basically, basically it was it 0:53:10.920 --> 0:53:12.920 was a nice little gas station and they had a 0:53:13.160 --> 0:53:16.319 very strong display of what I would call p DT 0:53:16.640 --> 0:53:20.160 public display of tax germy. And so on the Barriers 0:53:20.239 --> 0:53:25.440 podcast we did a whole podcast road trip dedicated to 0:53:25.719 --> 0:53:29.880 p DT. We went around looking for gas stations that 0:53:30.040 --> 0:53:32.799 still had taxidermy displayed in the But this place had 0:53:32.840 --> 0:53:35.840 a had a brown bear, a full body musk ox, 0:53:35.960 --> 0:53:40.000 a full body bison, full body bear, full body wolverine, 0:53:40.160 --> 0:53:43.840 had doll sheep, had lots of furs for sale. It 0:53:43.920 --> 0:53:47.120 was a great store, great store, but hit a little 0:53:47.160 --> 0:53:54.520 detail near here they are there used to be, uh, 0:53:55.239 --> 0:53:57.160 there's a military presence here, but it was it was 0:53:57.640 --> 0:54:01.279 heated up for quite a while. Uh. And prior to that, 0:54:01.440 --> 0:54:05.680 they had introduced bison that actually came out of Montana. 0:54:06.840 --> 0:54:12.839 They put them on a train in Montana, took them 0:54:12.880 --> 0:54:15.839 by rail. I can't here how this went like, took 0:54:15.880 --> 0:54:18.200 him by rail to Seattle, then put them on a 0:54:18.320 --> 0:54:21.480 ship and sent them by a ship to Whittier. And 0:54:21.719 --> 0:54:23.920 from Whittier they went on a train. Eventually went on 0:54:24.000 --> 0:54:26.360 a truck and they turned them loose around Delta Junction, 0:54:27.360 --> 0:54:31.440 which is a hundred miles away, by the way, and 0:54:31.560 --> 0:54:33.239 I know they had a lot of pictures in there. 0:54:33.560 --> 0:54:35.040 They had a lot of pictures in there from the 0:54:35.120 --> 0:54:39.720 Delta hunts. You know, you can still draw a tag 0:54:39.960 --> 0:54:46.160 to hunt those bison in Delta Junction. Now, when I 0:54:46.280 --> 0:54:48.719 did the Copper River buffalo hunt, what's interesting is that 0:54:48.960 --> 0:54:54.120 heard once the military started establishing a stronger presence, they 0:54:54.200 --> 0:54:56.319 had too many buffalo and they're trying to get rid 0:54:56.320 --> 0:54:58.000 of something. So they just dumped some here and there. 0:54:59.360 --> 0:55:02.080 They put some in this Farewell area, and they one 0:55:02.160 --> 0:55:04.239 day put them on a truck and drove a bunch 0:55:04.280 --> 0:55:06.520 of them out to a place called the Salanta Road 0:55:06.640 --> 0:55:10.640 at the Slant of Mine and turned some twenty of 0:55:10.680 --> 0:55:12.560 them out. I can't remember now how may many they 0:55:12.640 --> 0:55:15.400 turned out. And they just did what's called a hot release. 0:55:15.520 --> 0:55:17.760 So if you're doing a wildlife releases, you're here cold 0:55:17.840 --> 0:55:21.160 and hot. A cold release is where you take animals 0:55:21.200 --> 0:55:23.759 and bring them to a release site. Okay, let's say 0:55:23.760 --> 0:55:26.200 you're trying to establish them in some mountain range. You know, 0:55:27.719 --> 0:55:30.480 you bring them out there and put them in and 0:55:30.760 --> 0:55:35.719 enclosure on site mm hmm, and feed him there and 0:55:35.920 --> 0:55:39.600 get them used to the area. Okay. And then one 0:55:39.680 --> 0:55:43.359 day you leave the door open, okay, and they they 0:55:43.480 --> 0:55:45.880 kind of one day, Oh they can wander out, but 0:55:45.920 --> 0:55:48.919 they're already sort of they feel safe, they've been around there. 0:55:49.920 --> 0:55:53.360 They're more inclined to stay local. A hot release is 0:55:53.400 --> 0:55:57.200 you just bring something in and you're like, just drop 0:55:57.360 --> 0:56:02.799 the tailgate, drop the tailgate. They did a release near 0:56:02.840 --> 0:56:07.360 the slant of mine, and then they lost track of 0:56:07.440 --> 0:56:16.240 those animals for a decade. People thought they uh died, 0:56:16.400 --> 0:56:20.759 got eaten by wolves, whatever. And eventually they turn up 0:56:22.040 --> 0:56:27.440 hundred miles away. And that's that Copper hunt that I 0:56:27.560 --> 0:56:29.840 wrote about in my Buffalo book, and that um, the 0:56:29.920 --> 0:56:32.359 Copper River hunt. And then you still apply for those 0:56:32.360 --> 0:56:35.160 permits today. And that's all out of this. So in 0:56:35.280 --> 0:56:38.080 that gas station, all those that whole lot of room, 0:56:38.239 --> 0:56:42.440 that whole room full of dead buffalo land and the snow, 0:56:43.280 --> 0:56:48.200 that's all Alaska hunts. That's neat uh hell of a 0:56:48.239 --> 0:56:54.160 gas station. Clay, Why don't you wan, don't you take 0:56:54.239 --> 0:56:57.359 over from the back of the van and uh tell 0:56:57.400 --> 0:56:59.520 people a little about what we've been up to and 0:56:59.760 --> 0:57:02.920 some of your impressions of it. Yeah, and um, yeah, 0:57:03.000 --> 0:57:04.120 you know, you know you need be going into like 0:57:04.239 --> 0:57:07.719 harrowing detail, but just yeah, what what what do you 0:57:07.760 --> 0:57:11.880 think about? So we've so we have been in Alaska 0:57:12.160 --> 0:57:21.240 on a ten day Alaska Yukon moose hunt. The road 0:57:21.560 --> 0:57:25.160 Kyle calf unit, Oh, that would be bad coming through 0:57:25.200 --> 0:57:28.400 that one shield. Wow. We got a cow and a calf. 0:57:28.440 --> 0:57:32.480 We got a guy stopped in the road for us, 0:57:33.280 --> 0:57:38.440 big running across the Wow. So we've we've been in 0:57:38.480 --> 0:57:42.000 Alaska for ten days. We just no longer. Well, we've 0:57:42.040 --> 0:57:43.960 been in Alaska for let me bring that bowl out 0:57:44.280 --> 0:57:51.240 twelve days. And uh, yeah, we've been listening to that 0:57:51.440 --> 0:57:58.200 for twelve days. It's a good call. That's not the man. 0:57:58.280 --> 0:58:01.080 They'll bring them out. So this was this was a 0:58:01.200 --> 0:58:04.840 true wilderness hunt. We not wilderness with the capital W, 0:58:05.040 --> 0:58:09.800 wilderness with a lowercase W. We flew back in and uh, 0:58:10.720 --> 0:58:14.320 we're dropped in an area that is known to have moose. 0:58:14.480 --> 0:58:16.760 Is not a guided hunt, so as to do it 0:58:16.840 --> 0:58:21.080 yourself hunt. Steve Ranella and I both had tags in 0:58:21.160 --> 0:58:26.240 our pockets. Um and I have Actually you're seeing deltas 0:58:26.280 --> 0:58:33.080 a hunter miles, Well, the hell you're talking abouts I have. 0:58:34.320 --> 0:58:36.520 I'm gonna say that I've not moose hunted though I 0:58:36.720 --> 0:58:40.240 have had an Alaska moose tag before. Once while I 0:58:40.320 --> 0:58:42.480 was on a brown bear hunt, I had a moose tag. 0:58:42.560 --> 0:58:49.640 But but so we were dropped camp, dropped out, we 0:58:50.960 --> 0:58:55.040 backcountry camp for ten days. We would wake up every day, 0:58:55.400 --> 0:58:59.000 walk out to different calling points on the mountain. This 0:58:59.640 --> 0:59:02.240 you hunt these moose during the moose rut, and so 0:59:02.520 --> 0:59:05.400 you're trying to sound like a cow moose called these 0:59:05.480 --> 0:59:09.320 moose in Steve is an experienced moose hunter, has been 0:59:09.400 --> 0:59:12.680 on lots of I mean you've you've been on lots 0:59:12.720 --> 0:59:16.400 of hunts. I've been on like I've been on a 0:59:16.520 --> 0:59:20.000 number of moose kills over the year, been on moose hunts. 0:59:20.200 --> 0:59:24.280 But I have a lot to learn. So basically, you're 0:59:24.400 --> 0:59:26.440 you're put into an area and that the challenges that 0:59:26.480 --> 0:59:29.120 you're running into when you're moose hunting is that you 0:59:29.280 --> 0:59:35.480 cannot realistically transport that moose much more than a mile 0:59:35.720 --> 0:59:41.280 from your camp and that could be broken. Yeah, there's 0:59:41.280 --> 0:59:45.080 a lot of variables, but in general, most people you're 0:59:45.160 --> 0:59:49.960 trying because you've got to haul this potentially pound animal 0:59:50.960 --> 0:59:55.600 back to your camp, back to the how whatever your 0:59:55.640 --> 0:59:57.960 transport is. So, whether you're hunting on a river, we 0:59:58.080 --> 1:00:00.320 were hunting in a flying area, so we would had 1:00:00.360 --> 1:00:02.680 to get all this moose meat back to an air strip. 1:00:02.800 --> 1:00:04.760 Can I cut him in from him? Yeah? I didn't 1:00:04.760 --> 1:00:09.840 need to ask. Really, Le'll just do it. I just 1:00:09.920 --> 1:00:12.120 want to I quickly want to touch on this this 1:00:12.320 --> 1:00:15.000 moose pack in situation. That's because you got you got 1:00:15.080 --> 1:00:17.760 a bunch of camera guys willing to carry meat. They're 1:00:17.760 --> 1:00:22.080 not willing. You gotta gotta cajole them into it. I like, 1:00:22.160 --> 1:00:27.600 you guys are don't know about three miles. You haven't 1:00:27.640 --> 1:00:31.200 heard what I'm gonna say. Do I need to stop 1:00:31.280 --> 1:00:39.080 this van? Stop this van to come back there? Hey 1:00:39.520 --> 1:00:42.520 stop the man. Let me tell you something. I just 1:00:42.640 --> 1:00:46.600 wanted to tell you. The most I've moved one is 1:00:46.680 --> 1:00:49.320 we moved to bowl three miles. But that was five 1:00:49.400 --> 1:00:55.200 people and it was downhill. Oh okay, that's report detail. 1:00:55.280 --> 1:00:57.680 And it wasn't like bad downhill. It was like nice, 1:00:57.960 --> 1:01:02.200 not like degree in client, which would be misery. It's 1:01:02.240 --> 1:01:05.560 like a you know, downta And it's so it really 1:01:05.640 --> 1:01:09.600 matters in terms of walking conditions. But a lot of 1:01:09.720 --> 1:01:13.760 times moose are in really boggy areas or you're on 1:01:14.000 --> 1:01:18.440 you're out on tussocks like tussocky tundra, and oh it 1:01:18.520 --> 1:01:22.200 can be horrible walking on And so I would say though, 1:01:22.280 --> 1:01:29.480 I would say that in general, in general moose hunting circles, 1:01:31.880 --> 1:01:35.320 if you went out and found a hundred good moose 1:01:35.360 --> 1:01:39.520 seasoned moose hunters, I would say that, uh, you would 1:01:39.560 --> 1:01:42.720 probably find a general consensus of people that are they're 1:01:42.760 --> 1:01:44.840 willing to move them maybe about a mile or so, 1:01:45.080 --> 1:01:48.080 but no one's gonna like it. I have a friend 1:01:48.160 --> 1:01:53.200 that used to guide moose and sheep. He is hard 1:01:53.280 --> 1:01:55.400 to think of how hard hunting doll sheep is. The 1:01:55.520 --> 1:01:58.280 miles you gotta put on, you're walking ten miles, fifteen 1:01:58.320 --> 1:02:03.160 miles a day. It's like it's it's brutal. He quit 1:02:03.280 --> 1:02:07.800 moose hunting. M hmm because he said, and I'll quote him, 1:02:07.880 --> 1:02:09.880 he said, I am never gonna move one of those 1:02:09.920 --> 1:02:14.800 swamp donkeys again. And he said to me, every hunter 1:02:15.360 --> 1:02:19.280 you book, it is all about how he's gonna help 1:02:19.320 --> 1:02:25.560 you pack that moose. He goes every single time they 1:02:25.680 --> 1:02:29.520 make a half trip, and you take six and a 1:02:29.600 --> 1:02:35.600 half loads. Was that buck? But so I just want 1:02:35.640 --> 1:02:38.680 to give a little that's just put an electro meat 1:02:38.720 --> 1:02:43.160 on the bone. In terms of moose packing. That's a 1:02:43.280 --> 1:02:47.960 real consideration when you're that was new to me in 1:02:48.080 --> 1:02:49.919 the in the when you're hunting an animal, this big 1:02:50.160 --> 1:02:53.000 the first thing you said when you beheld one as 1:02:53.040 --> 1:02:58.000 you said, that is bigger than my mule. Hey for real? 1:02:58.840 --> 1:03:02.240 So well, we we're cutting to the chase. No no, no, 1:03:02.360 --> 1:03:04.360 no no no, we could have found one. Okay, well 1:03:04.480 --> 1:03:07.480 I want to come back to that. I'll come back 1:03:07.480 --> 1:03:13.720 to that. But so so, basically, for for for ten days, 1:03:14.240 --> 1:03:17.720 Steve and I hunted. We would sometimes hunt together, sometimes 1:03:17.840 --> 1:03:21.880 we split up. I went to different calling points, and 1:03:22.240 --> 1:03:25.120 you're trying to hit the moose rut when the moose 1:03:25.240 --> 1:03:29.320 responsive to cow calls into raking. Essentially, there's two types 1:03:29.360 --> 1:03:33.720 of calls that you're doing. You're raking with basically to 1:03:33.880 --> 1:03:40.960 sound like a like a bull raking his horns. You're right. 1:03:42.880 --> 1:03:46.080 I have seen people rake with canoe paddles. I've seen 1:03:46.120 --> 1:03:50.360 people rake with a fiberglass bullhorn. I've seen people rake 1:03:50.440 --> 1:03:54.120 with a caribou antler. I've seen people rake with a 1:03:54.320 --> 1:04:04.000 dried moose scapula mm hm. But never have I raked 1:04:04.080 --> 1:04:09.800 with something I like as much as an empty one 1:04:09.960 --> 1:04:14.480 court motor oil plastic motor oil can with the bottom 1:04:14.520 --> 1:04:19.160 cut off. I don't know how I feel about it first, 1:04:19.320 --> 1:04:23.440 So so what what Steve did was and he was 1:04:23.520 --> 1:04:26.760 shown this by a gentleman that we met, um Well, 1:04:27.000 --> 1:04:29.120 a bush pilot who doesn't look heavy stuff in his plane. 1:04:29.560 --> 1:04:31.440 I was walking around the hunk apply when he's like, 1:04:31.520 --> 1:04:33.800 tell you do with that? He didn't want that thing 1:04:33.840 --> 1:04:38.520 in his plane. Took a pocket knife and cut the 1:04:39.440 --> 1:04:44.120 bottom off of a like a valveoline oil can or 1:04:44.200 --> 1:04:47.560 not canned oil bottle, and then Steve stuck about an 1:04:47.680 --> 1:04:53.080 eight inch sapling into the nozzle and basically had an 1:04:53.120 --> 1:04:56.720 oil an oil bottle with a handle, and you would 1:04:56.800 --> 1:04:59.560 use that to rake. And it sat that that oil 1:04:59.600 --> 1:05:04.360 bottle sounds like the horns of a of a moose 1:05:04.840 --> 1:05:08.200 raking against the trees. And what we learned over the 1:05:10.560 --> 1:05:14.160 oh yeah, if we had windows in the back of 1:05:14.240 --> 1:05:18.720 this van. We don't have windows back here about it. 1:05:18.960 --> 1:05:22.680 But so you're calling your your your female moose calling 1:05:22.720 --> 1:05:26.040 and you're raking. And basically that's what we did for 1:05:27.200 --> 1:05:33.000 for ten days. And we had very little response to 1:05:33.120 --> 1:05:36.360 our calling for much of our time. And it's been 1:05:36.440 --> 1:05:39.080 told us. And what we saw was that the rut 1:05:39.360 --> 1:05:43.040 was an odd display in terms of timing of when 1:05:43.160 --> 1:05:47.240 things really started kicking off. And uh, we were seeing 1:05:47.320 --> 1:05:50.760 plenty of bulls. We were seeing some good bulls. They 1:05:50.800 --> 1:05:54.640 weren't responding to our calls, and a lot of people 1:05:54.640 --> 1:05:57.320 would say, we why didn't you just go to them? Steve, 1:05:57.400 --> 1:05:58.920 do you want to talk to him about why you 1:05:58.960 --> 1:06:02.920 wouldn't just go to a bull that would be in 1:06:03.000 --> 1:06:05.640 a place that we would see. Because when I message 1:06:05.720 --> 1:06:08.960 and reached a few people back home, I said, man, 1:06:09.080 --> 1:06:12.000 we've been watching a bull a mile away, and their 1:06:12.080 --> 1:06:15.560 first response was get him, go get him. Of course 1:06:15.920 --> 1:06:17.200 that's what I tell him. I be like, what are 1:06:17.200 --> 1:06:20.240 you guys lazy? Yeah, but why couldn't we do that? 1:06:21.320 --> 1:06:25.760 You're dealing in um if you're not familiar with with 1:06:26.560 --> 1:06:31.720 hunting in Alaska. Uh, well, I'll let me starting that's 1:06:31.720 --> 1:06:36.200 all by saying I'll put it this way. Um, My 1:06:36.320 --> 1:06:39.920 brother Danny lives in Alaska, and whenever he comes down 1:06:40.000 --> 1:06:42.880 to hang around in Montana, he's always just blown away 1:06:44.480 --> 1:06:51.800 by walking around in dry grasslands and he'll threaten to 1:06:52.000 --> 1:06:56.320 move down to Montana or Wyoming now and then, as 1:06:56.400 --> 1:06:58.840 he puts it, to just get a break from the 1:06:58.960 --> 1:07:05.800 wet ass. Bro. Yeah, you're dealing in There's there's a 1:07:05.920 --> 1:07:10.360 very low and interior Alaska. This is not an area 1:07:10.400 --> 1:07:13.720 where I'm an expert, but I've just been around quite 1:07:13.720 --> 1:07:16.120 a bit. For someone who doesn't live here, I've been around, 1:07:16.400 --> 1:07:19.560 like I've had a great fortune to experience a lot 1:07:19.600 --> 1:07:22.040 of parts of the state. In the interior, there's a 1:07:22.200 --> 1:07:24.520 very low biodiversity. I was explaining to this I think 1:07:24.640 --> 1:07:27.840 this morning or yesterday or something where you can learn 1:07:28.000 --> 1:07:31.480 like six trees and shrubs and seem like a vegetation 1:07:31.600 --> 1:07:35.720 master because you got there are many species of willow, 1:07:35.760 --> 1:07:41.520 but you got willow, you got dwarf birch, you got aspen, right, 1:07:43.000 --> 1:07:46.680 you got older okay um, and you got you know, 1:07:46.840 --> 1:07:51.000 like a you got like high bush and low bush, blueberry, cranberry. 1:07:51.760 --> 1:07:55.360 But you have a lot of shrub and then you 1:07:55.440 --> 1:07:59.600 got spruce stands. But the shrubs that are here, the willow, 1:08:00.600 --> 1:08:04.200 the dwarf birch, the young aspen, particular stuff that comes 1:08:04.240 --> 1:08:10.120 in after a burn. It's just thick and you'll always 1:08:10.200 --> 1:08:11.920 look at it. If you're flying over the country, you 1:08:11.920 --> 1:08:13.880 guys like, oh, I'm gonna run over there and run 1:08:14.000 --> 1:08:17.800 down there and go through that until you get in it. 1:08:19.000 --> 1:08:20.320 A lot of times from the area, you're like, what 1:08:20.520 --> 1:08:23.120 it must be like way steep. You're thinking it's probably wasteep. 1:08:24.760 --> 1:08:29.200 It's not man, you it's it's it's eight ft high, 1:08:29.320 --> 1:08:32.400 it's ten feet high, it's twelve feet high. And for 1:08:32.520 --> 1:08:36.040 a lot of it you're walking through it, imparting it 1:08:36.520 --> 1:08:39.599 with your hands. Yeah, you're making it. You're you're You're 1:08:39.640 --> 1:08:43.240 just you're walking. It's like you're doing the breaststroke. You're 1:08:43.280 --> 1:08:45.840 going like your hands are out, you spread, you walk through. 1:08:45.840 --> 1:08:48.360 Your hands are spread, you walk through. But there's there's 1:08:48.400 --> 1:08:52.120 topography here where we're at. It's it's not steep. There's 1:08:52.160 --> 1:08:56.080 some steep parts, but there's topography. There's hills, and there 1:08:56.120 --> 1:08:59.160 are little open pockets in the brush here and narrow okay, 1:08:59.240 --> 1:09:02.400 Like maybe is a little area that's predominantly blueberry and 1:09:02.479 --> 1:09:04.680 it is neat and it is knee high. But this 1:09:04.840 --> 1:09:08.920 is like a little half acre opening, you know, And 1:09:09.000 --> 1:09:10.960 there's a hill. So you're on one side of a 1:09:11.040 --> 1:09:13.559 valley looking across the valley and there and some little 1:09:13.640 --> 1:09:19.040 gap in the vegetation like oh there's one okay, And 1:09:19.120 --> 1:09:21.240 then you'll sit and look back on that spot for 1:09:21.280 --> 1:09:24.360 the next three days and never ever find that thing again. 1:09:25.280 --> 1:09:27.320 And the thing is, you're gonna go over there, But 1:09:27.439 --> 1:09:31.559 the thing is you can't. Like you quite literally, I mean, 1:09:31.720 --> 1:09:33.880 you just get lost in it. And we'll have a 1:09:34.000 --> 1:09:37.320 story to back up how bad it is from from Yes, 1:09:37.400 --> 1:09:40.320 that was a good story. Uh, you just get lost 1:09:40.400 --> 1:09:46.879 in it too, because the probability of success and not everywhere. 1:09:46.920 --> 1:09:48.559 There's a lot of places you can hunt moose up 1:09:48.600 --> 1:09:52.840 in the alpine where it's it's mostly knee high, mostly 1:09:52.880 --> 1:09:56.559 wayside vegetation, and you can actually make a play on animals. 1:09:56.640 --> 1:09:58.880 But in this area it's just with the brush you can't. 1:09:58.920 --> 1:10:02.640 And here's their thing. Doing a stock on one or 1:10:02.640 --> 1:10:05.080 an approach on one, you have a pretty low probability 1:10:05.120 --> 1:10:07.800 of success because it's so hard to navigate and hard 1:10:07.840 --> 1:10:10.320 to find anything. And even if you do get up 1:10:10.400 --> 1:10:14.000 on it, you're in eight foot tall stuff. So you 1:10:14.080 --> 1:10:16.120 can let okay, let's say it all works out and 1:10:16.200 --> 1:10:18.200 he and you call you get too into his area, 1:10:18.320 --> 1:10:21.519 you get two yards away, you call him in, he 1:10:21.680 --> 1:10:24.240 comes into thirty yards. You know what, You've never seen him. 1:10:25.439 --> 1:10:29.480 You've never seen him. Um, And so it's like, oh, great, congratulations, 1:10:29.560 --> 1:10:32.120 you call the bowling and never even saw it. Yeah, 1:10:32.960 --> 1:10:36.200 so low probability success. But you go in there and 1:10:36.240 --> 1:10:38.120 you're gonna be spooking moose. You didn't know we're there, 1:10:38.840 --> 1:10:40.720 because all the time you're like, oh, there was a moose, 1:10:40.760 --> 1:10:43.000 and then you never see it again. All day you 1:10:43.080 --> 1:10:45.400 stay right in that same spot, can't find them. They're 1:10:45.439 --> 1:10:46.880 just in there and you don't know they're there. So 1:10:46.960 --> 1:10:48.639 you go in, you're gonna spook a bunch of moose. 1:10:50.200 --> 1:10:53.600 You're gonna leave sent all over. And what your strategy is, 1:10:53.800 --> 1:10:56.960 you're operating out of an area where you're up high 1:10:57.160 --> 1:11:00.800 and you're in lower like you're you're hunting purposefully in 1:11:00.920 --> 1:11:04.679 a low in a low vegetation area, because your long 1:11:04.880 --> 1:11:08.639 term plan is you're gonna call him out of all 1:11:08.720 --> 1:11:11.559 that fixed ship up where you can see him up 1:11:11.560 --> 1:11:15.360 into your opening. If you go down there, rummage and 1:11:15.360 --> 1:11:18.400 around all the time, you're spooking them and you're leaving 1:11:18.479 --> 1:11:21.639 scent everywhere, and you're doing things that aren't gonna work out, 1:11:21.840 --> 1:11:24.200 And then by doing things that don't work out, you're 1:11:24.240 --> 1:11:26.680 just gonna be pushing more moose away and making the 1:11:26.760 --> 1:11:29.400 thing that you're actually trying to do, which is called 1:11:29.400 --> 1:11:35.080 a bull up out of the stuff. You're making it harder. 1:11:35.240 --> 1:11:37.720 It's this is the rule everybody gives you. Everybody you 1:11:37.760 --> 1:11:39.880 ask who hunts this way and these kind of areas 1:11:39.920 --> 1:11:43.720 like here's my tip. Don't move, don't walk around. I 1:11:43.800 --> 1:11:45.960 got a friend that he could they their spot. They 1:11:46.040 --> 1:11:49.439 called it prison ridge because his friends are like, he 1:11:49.520 --> 1:11:54.439 won't let us even move. We gotta sit. I guess 1:11:54.520 --> 1:11:58.080 the same tree for ten days and so they and 1:11:58.200 --> 1:12:02.120 they told us, they said us the process, process and 1:12:02.160 --> 1:12:06.200 the processes. You call you rake. And the way I 1:12:06.360 --> 1:12:10.000 described it, Steve, was when you call a white tail deer, 1:12:10.280 --> 1:12:13.679 you call a duck, or you call an elk, you're 1:12:13.720 --> 1:12:17.400 looking to get, for the most part, an immediate response. 1:12:18.040 --> 1:12:20.240 And you you see that animal, do you hear a 1:12:20.280 --> 1:12:22.720 vocal response from that animal, and you get a read 1:12:22.800 --> 1:12:27.759 on it. Moose hunting, sometimes you're making calls that maybe 1:12:28.040 --> 1:12:32.400 responded to two or three days from now. I mean 1:12:32.439 --> 1:12:37.519 that's because a moose could hear you and be so 1:12:37.680 --> 1:12:39.880 far away. They have such incredible hearing, and we heard. 1:12:39.960 --> 1:12:42.479 We saw that with our own eyes. We saw their 1:12:42.520 --> 1:12:45.080 hearing with our own eyes. And I'll explain that this 1:12:45.240 --> 1:12:48.479 week so many times because these moose would be I 1:12:48.520 --> 1:12:55.160 mean a mile away, a mile away. They would turn 1:12:55.240 --> 1:12:57.720 and look at us when we called at them. And 1:12:57.800 --> 1:13:00.639 so we have an episode where we called one from 1:13:00.680 --> 1:13:07.519 about three miles away. Incredible. But the thing with these mooses, 1:13:08.000 --> 1:13:11.920 they're they're like these ladies. We watched him coming the 1:13:11.960 --> 1:13:17.679 whole way. I was thinking, ni sr No that took Yeah, yeah, 1:13:17.720 --> 1:13:20.040 he just wanted he just showed up one day. When 1:13:20.080 --> 1:13:23.120 a moose isn't fired up, which we saw a lot 1:13:23.439 --> 1:13:27.080 this trip. We'd see him stand up, we'd see him 1:13:27.360 --> 1:13:32.320 feed thirty yards and then they'd lay down and you'd 1:13:32.400 --> 1:13:36.639 watch them all day, and some of them moved ards. 1:13:37.120 --> 1:13:43.640 Well I'm just a moose out here. We had some 1:13:44.840 --> 1:13:49.200 we had some observations. Yeah, we saw some lazy moose. 1:13:49.240 --> 1:13:54.200 We're kind of putting some words to their lives. But no, 1:13:56.000 --> 1:13:59.880 so we'll go ahead. Chester World. Well, I was just 1:14:00.040 --> 1:14:04.320 saying you were talking about how you're expecting to you know, 1:14:04.479 --> 1:14:06.320 they might come in a day later, and I've just 1:14:06.439 --> 1:14:09.400 wanted to point out, like if they're not fired up 1:14:09.439 --> 1:14:12.120 and running like that one that Steve called from three 1:14:12.200 --> 1:14:16.280 miles away, over a whole over a day. They're moving slow, 1:14:16.400 --> 1:14:18.559 and we saw a lot of slow moose. Yeah. Once 1:14:18.680 --> 1:14:21.439 dirt and I saw a moose basically stay in a 1:14:21.600 --> 1:14:25.040 hundred square yard area form for a full ball, like 1:14:25.200 --> 1:14:27.720 from daylight pretty much till dark and here in your 1:14:27.760 --> 1:14:31.880 call look up. But you know, I'm like, like I said, 1:14:32.000 --> 1:14:34.160 I'm very much a moose novice. But I had someone 1:14:34.200 --> 1:14:36.680 who is very much a moose expert, and I was 1:14:36.720 --> 1:14:38.879 talking and I used to guide it is very successful 1:14:38.880 --> 1:14:44.400 at moose hunting. Um still active now. Uh. He was 1:14:44.439 --> 1:14:46.400 putting his like, I don't care about those ones. They 1:14:46.400 --> 1:14:49.720 don't exist to me. He's looking for a hot one. 1:14:49.800 --> 1:14:53.000 He's like, you know, I'm looking for the right bull 1:14:53.080 --> 1:14:54.920 in the right mood. There's a lot of bulls are 1:14:55.000 --> 1:14:56.880 in the right mood for me. And I don't care 1:14:57.040 --> 1:14:59.439 if he doesn't play the game he lives. It's like 1:14:59.479 --> 1:15:01.040 if I'm watching the moose two miles away and he 1:15:01.080 --> 1:15:03.720 doesn't care, I don't care about him. I'm here for 1:15:03.840 --> 1:15:08.800 the big one. Did wants to play? Yeah, and that's 1:15:08.840 --> 1:15:12.840 why I'm here ten days. But it's hard when you 1:15:12.920 --> 1:15:16.840 sit there for nine days. Yeah, So we we set 1:15:16.960 --> 1:15:19.720 for nine days and could not find a moose that 1:15:19.920 --> 1:15:22.920 really wanted to play. A couple of times we made 1:15:23.000 --> 1:15:26.120 some stocks on moose where they were kind of playing 1:15:26.120 --> 1:15:28.120 a little bit. They would they would come to a 1:15:28.240 --> 1:15:30.360 hundred yards and you'd have to go to them a 1:15:30.520 --> 1:15:37.120 thousand yards fired up bull will they walk and they 1:15:37.160 --> 1:15:40.040 have like a very plodding, like deliberate walk, but they'll 1:15:40.080 --> 1:15:43.320 start swinging their head and they kind of swing it 1:15:43.400 --> 1:15:45.400 to the rhythm of how their feet strikes. So as 1:15:45.439 --> 1:15:49.120 his right front goes forward, his head swings right and 1:15:49.200 --> 1:15:51.879 he's just doing his big heads sway they could display 1:15:53.120 --> 1:15:59.200 and he'll be going m m m hmm. We one time, 1:15:59.479 --> 1:16:04.200 it wasn't all yesterday that we got one to sway 1:16:04.280 --> 1:16:08.000 his head maybe twice, Yeah yeah, and walked direction. Yeah, 1:16:09.920 --> 1:16:13.800 well he doesn't he's swaying his head and walks off. 1:16:15.560 --> 1:16:22.120 And after that the whole group morale was just fresh 1:16:22.200 --> 1:16:27.400 in the process for the first what five days? Process? 1:16:28.880 --> 1:16:32.760 But how did it like the first love it a 1:16:32.800 --> 1:16:37.400 little bit? Sure? I trust in the process. I put 1:16:37.439 --> 1:16:40.840 immense faith in the process. Keep telling the story, Clay, Well, 1:16:41.000 --> 1:16:46.040 we it's it's a challenging hunt because you feel like 1:16:46.240 --> 1:16:48.479 you need to be doing something like if you're l hunting, 1:16:48.520 --> 1:16:51.719 you're pounding the mountains, calling, you're moving, you're doing stuff, 1:16:51.800 --> 1:16:55.960 you're bringing, trying to go to new areas. Um, when 1:16:56.000 --> 1:16:59.080 you're moose hunting, you're locked, like this guy said, you're 1:16:59.120 --> 1:17:01.320 locked in a prison and you're trying to call these 1:17:01.360 --> 1:17:03.600 bills to you. And we what we learned is that 1:17:03.920 --> 1:17:07.559 it's kind of a combination. Uh that we found success 1:17:07.640 --> 1:17:09.640 in was you gotta go to him a little bit, 1:17:09.800 --> 1:17:11.800 but you still got to call him into you. Well, 1:17:11.800 --> 1:17:15.280 there's peculiar I want to point out just there's peculiarities 1:17:15.320 --> 1:17:18.800 of of a fly and drop off hunt. If you're 1:17:18.840 --> 1:17:21.640 doing a river trip for moose, you can call a 1:17:21.680 --> 1:17:24.559 new place every day, so you're kind of like trying 1:17:24.600 --> 1:17:26.599 new stuff. Right, it doesn't make sense to go call 1:17:26.720 --> 1:17:29.280 for a half hour, but you let's spend six Let's 1:17:29.280 --> 1:17:32.080 do a six hour set and and then next day, 1:17:32.160 --> 1:17:34.320 next day, next day. If you're hunting out of our 1:17:34.360 --> 1:17:36.400 goals or a t V s right, let's try here, 1:17:36.479 --> 1:17:37.960 we'll try there, We'll try there, We'll spend a day 1:17:38.000 --> 1:17:40.680 call on here. You know whatever. If you just get 1:17:40.760 --> 1:17:46.320 dropped on an isolated airstrip somewhere and you have no 1:17:46.479 --> 1:17:50.400 way to move. You can't move from a simple factor. 1:17:50.640 --> 1:17:52.800 You can't go have a spike camp three miles away 1:17:52.800 --> 1:17:54.639 because how you can get that moose back to the airstrip. 1:17:55.720 --> 1:17:58.400 So that's kind of that kind of few the processes 1:17:58.479 --> 1:18:04.600 like you're you're your by sort of fact constrained and 1:18:04.800 --> 1:18:07.120 have to deal with that, and said, so how best 1:18:07.160 --> 1:18:10.080 do you play that situation? You play it by being 1:18:10.320 --> 1:18:13.599 very gentle on your spot, because you got a spot 1:18:14.280 --> 1:18:20.200 right and you you you call over long periods of 1:18:20.280 --> 1:18:29.320 time and long story short the ninth the tenth day day, 1:18:31.160 --> 1:18:34.000 we'll start with the first story from that morning. Steve 1:18:34.680 --> 1:18:37.240 is that we had split up. That morning, I went 1:18:37.360 --> 1:18:41.320 to a spot, saw the team with me. We spotted 1:18:41.360 --> 1:18:47.000 a bull and spotted two bulls. Steve came over and 1:18:47.120 --> 1:18:51.519 we got Steve brought him over and we watched these 1:18:51.560 --> 1:18:54.640 two bulls with two cows. Called to a bull, he 1:18:55.240 --> 1:18:57.680 looked at us, turned and went the other way. We 1:18:57.800 --> 1:19:03.200 watched his head and the promising looks promising. We watched 1:19:03.240 --> 1:19:10.679 a bull bullets. Okay, So the other constraints in all 1:19:10.800 --> 1:19:15.000 the regulations for legal bulls would be different in different places, 1:19:15.080 --> 1:19:17.840 but we were hunting in an area that for a 1:19:18.120 --> 1:19:21.040 non residents of Alaska. We had to shoot a bull 1:19:21.520 --> 1:19:26.040 that met one of two requirements, which would be either 1:19:26.200 --> 1:19:29.000 fifty inches wide, which would be the widest point of 1:19:29.040 --> 1:19:33.960 that rack, or have four brow times, which you'd have 1:19:34.080 --> 1:19:37.320 to look up what the time one on one side. 1:19:38.120 --> 1:19:40.400 Uh And so you'd have to look up what a 1:19:40.520 --> 1:19:42.880 brow time of a bull is. But it's pretty simple. 1:19:42.920 --> 1:19:45.200 So he had to be fifty inches wide or have 1:19:45.520 --> 1:19:47.960 four brow tins on one side, which we found was 1:19:48.000 --> 1:19:50.439 a pretty tall order because we saw a lot of 1:19:51.280 --> 1:19:54.680 immature bulls. Into someone who didn't know moose hunting man, 1:19:54.760 --> 1:19:57.720 you'd see a forty five inch bull out there, he 1:19:57.840 --> 1:20:01.799 looked like a giant he uh. And not all fifty 1:20:01.840 --> 1:20:05.360 inch bulls have four brow times, and not all four 1:20:05.439 --> 1:20:08.920 brow times bulls are fifty inches. But in all honesty, 1:20:09.000 --> 1:20:12.160 there's like a there's a loose correlation. You know, if 1:20:12.200 --> 1:20:14.280 someone tells you they killed like a sixty inch bull 1:20:14.320 --> 1:20:18.599 and you look at a picture, it's gonna if four 1:20:18.720 --> 1:20:21.200 or five six. But then some guy will kill a 1:20:21.240 --> 1:20:24.760 sixty inch bull with two brow times. But generally like 1:20:24.920 --> 1:20:26.720 the bigger they get, the more brow times they throw, 1:20:26.800 --> 1:20:30.240 and it's it's very difficult to judge a moose based 1:20:30.320 --> 1:20:33.559 upon its spread, and it's a serious game violation. If 1:20:33.720 --> 1:20:35.639 if we had shot a moose that was forty nine 1:20:35.680 --> 1:20:38.840 inches wide, that's like a major violation. I mean, you're 1:20:38.920 --> 1:20:42.479 you're you're getting your animal confiscated, you're getting citations. So 1:20:42.600 --> 1:20:45.560 they take that stuff real serious. And so Steve and 1:20:45.800 --> 1:20:50.080 Steve coach me on on on spread. But pretty much 1:20:50.120 --> 1:20:52.760 we decided we were only gonna shoot bulls based off 1:20:52.840 --> 1:20:56.920 of four brow times because that is very easily easy 1:20:57.040 --> 1:21:00.439 to distinguish unless the bulls just ridiculous and yep, unless 1:21:01.200 --> 1:21:05.200 and and there's certain ways that the antlers, some moose antlers, 1:21:05.720 --> 1:21:08.800 the paddles go up and are really vertical. Some moose 1:21:08.840 --> 1:21:15.160 antlers the paddles lay flat. Guys, uh, you know there's 1:21:15.200 --> 1:21:18.720 a thing that eyeball to eyeball their ten inches. So 1:21:19.439 --> 1:21:21.559 you can look and be okay, I got ten inches. 1:21:22.439 --> 1:21:25.600 Then you gotta imagine that on the outside of that, 1:21:25.760 --> 1:21:29.400 you got that spread twice more on each side, and 1:21:29.520 --> 1:21:31.960 be like, okay, you might do that. And then people 1:21:32.000 --> 1:21:34.400 got all kinds of stuff like if he turns his head, 1:21:34.479 --> 1:21:38.160 how does his antler tip pass over his hump? What 1:21:38.280 --> 1:21:42.519 else were saying like thirty ears when the erect ears 1:21:42.600 --> 1:21:46.160 of a bull that's facing you. His full grown moose 1:21:46.200 --> 1:21:49.280 has ears that are thirty inches and his ears are 1:21:49.400 --> 1:21:52.599 nine nine inches long, and said, hope, nine to ten 1:21:52.640 --> 1:21:55.880 inches long. All kinds of little things. But as my 1:21:56.000 --> 1:21:59.280 brother Danny put it to me, when doing these things, 1:21:59.479 --> 1:22:05.320 leave some wiggle room, meaning it's got to be just ridiculous. Yeah, 1:22:05.520 --> 1:22:11.200 like a ridiculous bull, like or for sure for yeah, yeah, 1:22:11.400 --> 1:22:15.800 it's it's very shoot him off brown times is real 1:22:15.920 --> 1:22:21.400 comfortable shoot him off with you know, Uh, Steve, I 1:22:21.520 --> 1:22:24.599 read an article in bow Hunter magazine one time, um 1:22:25.720 --> 1:22:29.760 where the editor of bow Hunter misjudged a bull. I 1:22:29.800 --> 1:22:31.800 mean he wrote this article. It was it was a 1:22:31.840 --> 1:22:34.800 good article where he misjudged the bull and it was 1:22:34.920 --> 1:22:38.200 like forty nine inches and he had to turn himself in. 1:22:38.360 --> 1:22:42.080 This was a this was a good standard. Yeah. Anyway, 1:22:42.120 --> 1:22:45.840 he wrote about it. It sounded hard, It sounded really bad, man. 1:22:45.880 --> 1:22:48.560 And they all look big, man, they do they do. 1:22:49.320 --> 1:22:52.200 So we split we that moose shook his head. This 1:22:52.320 --> 1:22:54.679 is the last day. I got all excited. It started 1:22:54.720 --> 1:23:00.519 yelling at everybody, whisper yelling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I said, 1:23:00.960 --> 1:23:03.800 maybe I think it was at that point, or maybe 1:23:03.840 --> 1:23:06.240 it was a little earlier that day or the night before. 1:23:06.280 --> 1:23:10.080 I said, Steve, there's got to be a point when 1:23:10.200 --> 1:23:14.000 we just got to kind of say it's too late 1:23:14.320 --> 1:23:15.840 to shoot a moose, because how are we going to 1:23:15.880 --> 1:23:20.720 get him out? And he because I'm sorry, and he said, uh, 1:23:21.680 --> 1:23:24.960 I will figure it out. That's what people are saying 1:23:24.960 --> 1:23:27.439 annoying stuff to me. I will figure it out. But 1:23:28.400 --> 1:23:32.600 to my defense, I I've never done this before, and 1:23:32.720 --> 1:23:35.240 now they have doing it, I would would have a 1:23:35.280 --> 1:23:37.840 little bit different opinions. Well, because what happens is on 1:23:37.960 --> 1:23:40.600 these hunts you have to schedule when you leave, and 1:23:40.680 --> 1:23:43.479 so we knew we had to leave on Saturday morning, 1:23:43.880 --> 1:23:47.360 and so on Friday after, like Friday light morning, we 1:23:47.479 --> 1:23:51.200 see this bull bed. We see we spook one from 1:23:51.240 --> 1:23:53.880 our calling. We see one bed. I don't think that's 1:23:53.880 --> 1:24:00.400 what happened. Well, he was, that's before two things. There's 1:24:00.439 --> 1:24:03.120 two bulls together. We kind of lost track of one, 1:24:04.120 --> 1:24:07.040 took one's temperature with some calling. He shook his head 1:24:07.080 --> 1:24:10.799 too or three times and then fed his way away 1:24:10.880 --> 1:24:14.160 from us. We're like, did we play it too hot? 1:24:15.720 --> 1:24:19.439 Did he wind us? Because we'd lost track of the 1:24:19.479 --> 1:24:22.760 one bull. Later a while later, we realized the other 1:24:22.840 --> 1:24:26.160 bull is right there. I think that bull had got 1:24:26.240 --> 1:24:28.639 what by that bowl or wasn't getting anywhere those cows. 1:24:29.000 --> 1:24:32.519 And then we asked the moose expert if you spook 1:24:32.560 --> 1:24:35.080 a bowl, and he wins you. Well, he walked away 1:24:35.160 --> 1:24:36.960 feeding on willow. He's like, no, he's just gonna be 1:24:37.000 --> 1:24:38.600 getting out of here. He's not gonna like feed his 1:24:38.680 --> 1:24:41.720 way out of there. I think that that boll came in, 1:24:41.920 --> 1:24:44.400 checked out those cows. The bull was there, there were 1:24:44.439 --> 1:24:49.720 the bull, the bulls giving him no quarter, And uh, yeah, 1:24:50.479 --> 1:24:52.360 I know you don't think that, No, no I do, no, No, 1:24:52.560 --> 1:24:56.920 I just meant our Colling pushed him away. That's all 1:24:56.960 --> 1:25:00.160 I'm saying. Our Colin pushed him away for whatever. And 1:25:00.720 --> 1:25:03.479 so it's it's late in the morning, the last day 1:25:03.680 --> 1:25:07.639 planes coming tomorrow morning. It's it's eleven o'clock in the day, 1:25:08.240 --> 1:25:12.280 and we all of a sudden regain sight of a 1:25:12.360 --> 1:25:15.960 big bedded bull that is not brow time illegal, but 1:25:16.240 --> 1:25:19.200 we believe have reason to believe he's potentially over fifty. 1:25:19.640 --> 1:25:27.160 And we dive bomb in. Bull was standing and we 1:25:27.960 --> 1:25:31.800 go into the brush, go into thick brush, going to 1:25:31.920 --> 1:25:33.559 try to find this bull, and we know it's gonna 1:25:33.560 --> 1:25:36.160 be a tall order because you get inside there and 1:25:36.200 --> 1:25:38.880 you can't you can't see. You're trying to find an 1:25:38.960 --> 1:25:42.400 opening where you could shoot. And we always had elevation 1:25:42.560 --> 1:25:45.439 on these bulls because we're up on a ridge and 1:25:45.520 --> 1:25:47.559 so you can kind of see down into the jungle. Well, 1:25:47.560 --> 1:25:50.360 when you get in the jungle, you can't see very far. Well, 1:25:50.400 --> 1:25:58.120 imagine a tick on your dog's back waiting through the Yeah, yeah, Well, 1:25:58.240 --> 1:25:59.960 I'm gonna get to the good part of this story, 1:26:00.680 --> 1:26:04.000 which was we finally we know where the bull was 1:26:04.160 --> 1:26:06.760 when we left. It took us probably thirty minutes to 1:26:06.840 --> 1:26:12.360 get to our new vantage point. And yeah, and these 1:26:12.400 --> 1:26:14.720 moose don't move much, so we we assume that he's 1:26:14.760 --> 1:26:17.519 gonna be right where we left him. We get into 1:26:17.640 --> 1:26:21.599 the dog hair, thick willows and aspen. We can't see, 1:26:21.720 --> 1:26:26.080 can't see moving moving, moving, making noise, winds blowing, and 1:26:26.520 --> 1:26:29.599 we come to what I believe is probably within gun 1:26:29.800 --> 1:26:32.360 range of where the bull was. You know, we're inside 1:26:32.400 --> 1:26:35.200 of four hundred yards and there's a spruce about as 1:26:35.280 --> 1:26:41.479 big as dirt's calf and uh, and I say, like 1:26:41.680 --> 1:26:44.240 the brushes high, I say, hey, I'm gonna climb up 1:26:44.280 --> 1:26:47.639 that spruce and see if I can see down into 1:26:47.680 --> 1:26:49.720 the draw where the bull was, just so we can 1:26:49.760 --> 1:26:51.840 get a bead and see if he's still there. So 1:26:52.000 --> 1:26:56.080 I shimmy up a little spruce about probably eight feet, 1:26:56.200 --> 1:26:58.559 just enough to get me over the top of the willows. 1:26:58.640 --> 1:27:01.280 I thought you were gonna bend it for it was Yeah, 1:27:01.400 --> 1:27:03.560 it wasn't. It wasn't the best tree, but it was 1:27:03.600 --> 1:27:06.120 the only tree. And I'm looking down to where the 1:27:06.200 --> 1:27:10.439 bull was, and he's not there. He's gone. And so 1:27:10.600 --> 1:27:12.599 I stay up there for probably a minute or two, 1:27:13.479 --> 1:27:16.040 and and I'm looking looking, and finally I turned to 1:27:16.080 --> 1:27:18.080 the guys and say, I don't see the bull. I 1:27:18.200 --> 1:27:20.599 think he's gone. I think we've spooked him. I think 1:27:20.680 --> 1:27:24.800 he's left. And then I'm looking out four yards. I 1:27:25.000 --> 1:27:28.120 draw my gaze in and all of a sudden, I 1:27:28.360 --> 1:27:34.639 see the bull bulldozing through the willows at fifty yards 1:27:34.760 --> 1:27:40.160 probably of us busting all that rush. He heard us 1:27:40.280 --> 1:27:43.600 coming down the mountain, and again going back to the 1:27:43.720 --> 1:27:48.320 idea that that breaking brush is a communication method with 1:27:48.439 --> 1:27:51.600 these these moose. They hear it, they know it, and 1:27:52.000 --> 1:27:54.760 he was coming to fight us. He thought we were 1:27:54.840 --> 1:27:58.479 another moose coming into his territory. Well, there there was. 1:27:58.680 --> 1:28:02.840 So I was watching the us from above. Yeah, there 1:28:02.960 --> 1:28:06.439 was a cow to that had MOSI in the right 1:28:06.560 --> 1:28:10.160 direction of where you guys were, and he was actually 1:28:10.720 --> 1:28:17.280 on her tail, following her, and I think that brought 1:28:17.439 --> 1:28:21.280 him in close enough where he was like, now he 1:28:21.400 --> 1:28:24.080 can hear what he thinks there's another ball. And that 1:28:24.200 --> 1:28:27.679 actually helped h because he's thrashed. He was thrashing, brushing, 1:28:29.439 --> 1:28:32.400 and so I go, oh, he's right there, he's fifty 1:28:32.479 --> 1:28:35.920 yards fifty yards and I actually was My instinct was 1:28:36.040 --> 1:28:38.720 to stay in the tree. Steve. I was gonna just 1:28:38.800 --> 1:28:40.840 stay in the tree and let you shoot him, because 1:28:40.880 --> 1:28:43.240 I'm scared. I thought he was just gonna walk right up, 1:28:44.200 --> 1:28:46.559 and uh, Steve was like, get out of the tree. 1:28:47.439 --> 1:28:52.000 And so I come down. The moose keeps coming and 1:28:52.160 --> 1:28:55.519 by this time, the wind, I mean this time he's 1:28:55.560 --> 1:29:00.240 probably inside. Was he thirty yards yards because he's but 1:29:00.320 --> 1:29:05.439 you see the trees, trees and in the wind just 1:29:06.240 --> 1:29:08.320 swirled when it was he was that close, and the 1:29:08.439 --> 1:29:10.960 and the moose spooks in the way. You know what 1:29:11.080 --> 1:29:14.720 moose spooks is you never see him again. Things are 1:29:14.800 --> 1:29:17.720 hot he's coming in. You see the brush movement, and 1:29:17.800 --> 1:29:20.439 it is an incredible of all the hunting that I've 1:29:20.479 --> 1:29:22.960 ever done in my life, I would say that watching 1:29:23.040 --> 1:29:27.160 a bull moose way in the willows bobbing his head 1:29:27.280 --> 1:29:31.920 like that, intentionally making noise is one of the most 1:29:34.000 --> 1:29:37.040 I'm not gonna I don't know if it's intimidating or exhilarating. 1:29:37.280 --> 1:29:40.600 His head is taller in your head. Yeah, it's like 1:29:40.960 --> 1:29:44.679 it's like a seventeen hand mule with big antlers coming 1:29:44.720 --> 1:29:48.160 at you. And uh so we spook that bull, but 1:29:48.400 --> 1:29:50.840 he responded to us. We learned a little bit. The 1:29:51.000 --> 1:29:53.599 hunt is over, man, We've been doing this for nine 1:29:53.640 --> 1:29:59.240 and a half days. It's now noon. Steve raised down 1:29:59.320 --> 1:30:01.880 in the middle the willow brush and takes a nap. 1:30:02.160 --> 1:30:09.759 He's so frustrated, like I throw up the orangeling system. 1:30:09.840 --> 1:30:14.479 Back to the people on the hill and literally we're like, man, 1:30:15.200 --> 1:30:17.800 this has been fun, but we have been beat to 1:30:17.920 --> 1:30:21.920 the pulp by these moose. And we go back up 1:30:21.960 --> 1:30:26.280 the hill and I make a pot of percolator coffee. 1:30:27.080 --> 1:30:30.200 We we go back to our camp and I remember 1:30:30.280 --> 1:30:32.760 being in the tent with the guys, the camera crew 1:30:32.840 --> 1:30:34.479 because we filmed this. You'll be able to see this 1:30:34.640 --> 1:30:37.120 on uh can we tell him where it's gonna be? 1:30:37.439 --> 1:30:46.559 Already were paying This will be on Meat Eaters season eleven, 1:30:46.640 --> 1:30:49.400 which you can find on the Meteor dot com. And 1:30:50.680 --> 1:30:52.519 we were in the tent and the guys asked me, 1:30:52.680 --> 1:30:54.240 They said, hey, have you talked to Steve? Do you 1:30:54.360 --> 1:30:58.439 even think we're going out? And I said, I doubt 1:30:58.560 --> 1:31:00.519 we're even going to go out, like I mean, I 1:31:00.680 --> 1:31:02.720 thought we might go for a little walk, but we 1:31:02.840 --> 1:31:05.880 really we didn't have time to kill and pack and 1:31:05.960 --> 1:31:09.920 it was raining. I mean, everything was saying game over, boys, yeah, 1:31:09.920 --> 1:31:13.160 because we've been doing this for so long. Well, at 1:31:13.240 --> 1:31:18.160 four sixteen, after Steve had given Chester quite a bit 1:31:18.200 --> 1:31:23.320 of input about his uh his live show in Atlanta, UH, 1:31:23.479 --> 1:31:26.320 Steve says, hey, I want to go walk up to 1:31:26.520 --> 1:31:29.719 the porcupine, which is the head of a big hollow 1:31:29.840 --> 1:31:34.160 that we that we named the Porcupine and uh, and 1:31:34.240 --> 1:31:37.120 I said, well, I'll go with you. And so when 1:31:37.200 --> 1:31:41.720 I went, then it instigated. It caused the producer of 1:31:41.800 --> 1:31:44.519 our show to go, well, the camera guys should go too, 1:31:45.200 --> 1:31:48.479 and so Dirt and Lauren pack up their camera gear 1:31:48.800 --> 1:31:52.759 and willing En and Sam and I grab a twenty 1:31:52.800 --> 1:31:57.600 two and go chase Tarmigan. I had just indulged in 1:31:57.840 --> 1:32:03.760 some wonderful beef struggle peak instant meal, thinking this is 1:32:03.840 --> 1:32:08.560 my dinner and this is where this is where the 1:32:08.600 --> 1:32:12.280 story gets good. Can I one little nuanced thing, because 1:32:12.320 --> 1:32:15.800 we all acknowledge we did it. Everyone left there, most 1:32:15.840 --> 1:32:18.040 of their ship in there, most of their stuff in 1:32:18.080 --> 1:32:24.360 their tent. It's like, this is gonna just be a sunset. Like, Yeah, 1:32:24.520 --> 1:32:27.400 I did the opposite. I wore my my slippers for 1:32:27.560 --> 1:32:30.960 camp and loaded up the lenses I hadn't used for 1:32:31.000 --> 1:32:34.200 a while, thinking, oh, yeah, we're going to the Porcupine. 1:32:34.240 --> 1:32:38.040 We're gonna sit there. Some macro get some time lapses 1:32:38.160 --> 1:32:40.680 finished this deal out. Yeah. Well, I mean what we're 1:32:40.680 --> 1:32:42.760 talking about is only like a few yards of our camp, 1:32:42.800 --> 1:32:45.439 but it's just a way to call into a valley. Yeah, 1:32:45.920 --> 1:32:47.240 so we go for a while, because we got like 1:32:47.360 --> 1:32:50.840 two valleys that kind of head up off our off 1:32:50.880 --> 1:32:54.000 our ridge, and we're gonna go call the valley where 1:32:54.280 --> 1:32:57.080 not a lot happens. Yeah, we're the Porcupine is not 1:32:57.240 --> 1:32:58.760 the place you wanted to go. We said that. We 1:32:58.960 --> 1:33:02.120 we looked into that valley for nine days and I've 1:33:02.200 --> 1:33:06.160 only seen a couple of cows, and uh, we went 1:33:06.240 --> 1:33:08.360 there just because we hadn't been there in a few days. 1:33:18.439 --> 1:33:22.000 Can I t t this up for you? Yeah, So 1:33:23.200 --> 1:33:26.840 we're walking on a ridge, Sam and I shooting Ptarmigan. 1:33:27.040 --> 1:33:31.479 We're shooting at him and talking loud, and we're walking 1:33:31.560 --> 1:33:37.960 along and we come to a chair, Lauren's glass and chair, 1:33:38.600 --> 1:33:43.280 and no one's sitting there. What happened? So? What happened there? 1:33:44.000 --> 1:33:48.720 So we were sitting there glassing and uh, we were 1:33:48.720 --> 1:33:51.280 actually probably looking for a bear that we had seen 1:33:51.320 --> 1:33:53.160 on the side of this hill a few days before, 1:33:53.400 --> 1:33:55.680 not even a hunted necessarily, just look. Yeah, we just 1:33:55.800 --> 1:33:57.200 knew there was a bear on this side of the 1:33:57.240 --> 1:34:03.240 hill eating blueberries. And Lauren all of a sudden says, Okay, 1:34:03.479 --> 1:34:07.200 Garrett had a dirt saw a moose that had to 1:34:07.240 --> 1:34:11.360 have been four miles away cooking, going across an open 1:34:11.600 --> 1:34:15.320 barren tundra, such that when Steve pulled up his binos 1:34:15.360 --> 1:34:18.280 and looked at it, he said, that's an argo. That 1:34:18.439 --> 1:34:21.559 thing is moving so fast. That is an a TV 1:34:21.960 --> 1:34:26.240 or an argo. And it was just buzzing across the landscape. 1:34:26.479 --> 1:34:28.439 And Steve pulls up the spotter and it's a bull 1:34:29.360 --> 1:34:32.120 and he is moving, and Steve said, that bull you 1:34:32.200 --> 1:34:35.479 could call in. That bull's cruising. That's what we've been 1:34:35.520 --> 1:34:39.839 looking for, these bulls just lounging around, not responding to calls. 1:34:40.120 --> 1:34:42.880 We need bulls that are moving, that are that are 1:34:43.000 --> 1:34:45.600 serious about the rut. So we see the what we 1:34:45.680 --> 1:34:49.800 called the Argo bull. Within minutes, Lauren says, there's a bull. 1:34:50.600 --> 1:34:53.960 He says, there's a moose down in the valley below us, 1:34:54.160 --> 1:34:56.400 and it disappears into the willows. He wasn't even sure 1:34:56.439 --> 1:34:58.280 it was a moose moose, thought it was a moose. 1:34:58.960 --> 1:35:02.400 We start looking directly, we see a small, probably two 1:35:02.520 --> 1:35:05.320 year old moose come out, and we were just all 1:35:05.360 --> 1:35:08.320 pretty surprised hadn't seen moose there. We say, oh my, 1:35:08.560 --> 1:35:12.280 there's a moose. Let's call at him. So we called 1:35:12.320 --> 1:35:19.160 the moose, and directly we see a bigger moose a 1:35:19.360 --> 1:35:23.040 mile away, well twelve hundred and forty seven yards away, 1:35:24.040 --> 1:35:27.880 not quite a mile. A couple of days prior, we're 1:35:27.960 --> 1:35:35.599 thinking up until that point, right, say that again, like that, yeah, 1:35:35.640 --> 1:35:40.400 that distance, like it maybe an hour prior, we were 1:35:40.479 --> 1:35:44.040 thinking there was no play, right, there's not gonna be 1:35:44.120 --> 1:35:51.519 an opportunity. We've now got two hours of daylight. Oh no, no, no, wait, 1:35:51.840 --> 1:35:55.439 I'm saying we were raring to go. There was no 1:35:55.520 --> 1:35:58.639 doubt about No. No, I'm saying at camp though, at 1:35:58.760 --> 1:36:01.880 camp before we and out, Oh we thought we were 1:36:01.960 --> 1:36:06.040 just done. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, No, I knew game on. 1:36:06.720 --> 1:36:09.960 So we finally see illegal bull because the young bull 1:36:10.040 --> 1:36:12.599 wouldn't be legal, he wouldn't be fifty or have four 1:36:12.680 --> 1:36:16.200 brown times. We see a big, huge paddle sticking out 1:36:17.160 --> 1:36:20.519 seven yards away and we call at it, put a 1:36:20.560 --> 1:36:21.960 spot in skull b on it, and I was like, 1:36:23.160 --> 1:36:29.040 legal bull, And so Steve and I look at each 1:36:29.040 --> 1:36:32.680 other and basically they're like, let's go to lose. We've 1:36:32.680 --> 1:36:35.639 got nothing to lose. Is the last two three hours 1:36:35.720 --> 1:36:38.599 of the season. The season ends today, not just for us, 1:36:38.720 --> 1:36:41.360 but the most season in this zone. We're gonna go 1:36:41.439 --> 1:36:44.160 down shooting. So we barrel off the ridge. We know 1:36:44.240 --> 1:36:45.800 we've got to close the distance. We think if we 1:36:45.880 --> 1:36:48.200 can get inside this bull's bubble, we might respond. But 1:36:48.600 --> 1:36:51.400 we're going into thick willows, so we know that we're 1:36:51.400 --> 1:36:54.360 gonna lose visibility of him. It's gonna be difficult, and 1:36:54.800 --> 1:36:58.360 we probably gained three hundred yards on him. Steve calls, 1:36:58.640 --> 1:37:03.599 but what you forgot to make when we put eyes 1:37:03.720 --> 1:37:07.120 on that bowl as far away as he was, and 1:37:07.200 --> 1:37:11.040 they can hear for miles. As far away as he was, 1:37:11.560 --> 1:37:14.639 you couldn't ignore the fact that he was holding stock 1:37:14.800 --> 1:37:21.120 still with his head point in our direction. Not budget right, 1:37:21.880 --> 1:37:24.920 something he was interested because we had been calling at 1:37:24.960 --> 1:37:27.120 that little bull to see what his response would be, 1:37:27.880 --> 1:37:31.000 and there was reason to believe that he was like, huh, 1:37:31.880 --> 1:37:36.000 what do I hear? Not for sure because plenty of 1:37:36.360 --> 1:37:39.720 there's plenty of moose they're looking at you and it's coincidence, 1:37:40.520 --> 1:37:46.679 but he was looking our way. Yeah. So we dive 1:37:46.760 --> 1:37:49.920 off the mountain and I know what me we were 1:37:49.960 --> 1:37:53.360 all thinking, is that every step we go down this mountain, 1:37:53.400 --> 1:37:57.040 we gotta go back up it. But man, this is 1:37:57.080 --> 1:37:59.439 the last chance we've got, and we get We gained 1:37:59.439 --> 1:38:02.680 probably three yards on the bull. Steve climbs up a 1:38:02.880 --> 1:38:06.880 spruce about probably ten twelve feet to get vantage to 1:38:06.960 --> 1:38:10.000 look down into the willows, and we're expecting if the 1:38:10.080 --> 1:38:12.719 bull has responded to our call, to see him coming 1:38:12.840 --> 1:38:15.160 through the willows because we've got a little bit of 1:38:15.200 --> 1:38:18.559 elevation on him and sometimes and and he's in an 1:38:18.680 --> 1:38:22.439 open creek bottom and you can see their horns on 1:38:22.520 --> 1:38:25.160 a big bull sticking up out of some of the stuff, 1:38:25.320 --> 1:38:28.960 and we see nothing. And Steve's tree climbing days paid 1:38:29.000 --> 1:38:31.200 off because he zipped up that sucker. Right. Yeah, I'll 1:38:31.200 --> 1:38:34.400 point out that was a dead tree too. That's particularly perilous. Yeah. 1:38:34.760 --> 1:38:38.080 I was seeing, man, this could go bad before and 1:38:38.479 --> 1:38:41.560 he was breaking and breaking stuff on purpose on the 1:38:41.640 --> 1:38:44.280 way up the tree because we were He was calling 1:38:44.360 --> 1:38:48.120 to that bull while he's going up, breaking limbs, stomping limbs, 1:38:49.000 --> 1:38:54.560 and uh. Basically, after about fifteen minutes, I kind of 1:38:54.600 --> 1:38:56.880 look at Steve and shrugged my shoulders and just like, 1:38:57.120 --> 1:39:00.400 I don't know, I guess he's not responding. And then 1:39:01.400 --> 1:39:08.800 Lauren goes, Okay, more to the story. Okay, I was 1:39:08.840 --> 1:39:12.479 about to get credit for something. You'll get your credit, buddy. 1:39:16.120 --> 1:39:18.439 I could see. The one thing I could see real 1:39:18.560 --> 1:39:24.880 clear was out past where he was, and I'm up 1:39:24.960 --> 1:39:30.320 in my tree. Is that moose in the road? Man? Sorry, 1:39:30.320 --> 1:39:37.599 it's right ahead, a little jumpy. So there's there's important 1:39:37.640 --> 1:39:41.040 part here. Yeah, Yeah, he's he's standing by a little 1:39:41.760 --> 1:39:47.320 a little spruce patch an island spruce. Yeah, and oddly 1:39:48.520 --> 1:39:53.080 everything beyond that is was burned off and not growing 1:39:53.160 --> 1:39:58.680 up good. I know that he hasn't gone left, right 1:39:58.840 --> 1:40:02.000 or away from us, because if he did, I would 1:40:02.040 --> 1:40:05.320 see him from the tree. I'm like, I can tell 1:40:05.360 --> 1:40:08.720 you if you divide the world into like into like 1:40:09.040 --> 1:40:11.960 directions coming off that thing, whatever the hell north, south, east, 1:40:12.000 --> 1:40:14.920 west was like, he didn't go south. Let's say we're 1:40:14.960 --> 1:40:17.280 to the north. He didn't go south, he didn't go west, 1:40:17.320 --> 1:40:19.080 he didn't go east, because that's the three places I 1:40:19.120 --> 1:40:22.120 could tell if he went there, and he wasn't any 1:40:22.120 --> 1:40:25.360 of those places. And our direction was thick willows, so 1:40:25.439 --> 1:40:27.760 if he came our direction, potentially wouldn't say. I'm like, 1:40:28.080 --> 1:40:30.600 I don't know, I don't know what happened, but I 1:40:30.680 --> 1:40:33.920 can tell you where he didn't go. He didn't go 1:40:34.000 --> 1:40:38.880 in any of the bad directions. And we got down 1:40:40.400 --> 1:40:44.799 and I started heading downhill trying to find an opening. 1:40:47.439 --> 1:40:56.200 We got to an opening and then he praise says, hey, 1:40:56.520 --> 1:40:59.840 I just heard some brush cracking over to the left, 1:41:00.720 --> 1:41:06.400 kind of to the east, and uh, sure enough, Steve says, 1:41:06.520 --> 1:41:08.920 I thought I heard something too. Now I'm half deaf, 1:41:09.000 --> 1:41:12.559 so I didn't hear it at first, and sure enough 1:41:12.840 --> 1:41:16.040 it we hear a distinct crack again that we know 1:41:16.320 --> 1:41:19.479 is not just a tree falling, and we know there's 1:41:19.520 --> 1:41:22.000 a bull moose coming in. So Steve and I cast 1:41:22.120 --> 1:41:27.640 come halfway up that hill. He's come yards this this, 1:41:27.960 --> 1:41:32.080 this bull has and in a matter of probably fifteen minutes, 1:41:32.160 --> 1:41:34.120 all the while you guys have been calling and raking, 1:41:34.320 --> 1:41:36.400 we've been calling, and he was coming to meet us. 1:41:36.680 --> 1:41:40.560 And what we didn't we didn't know it. And so 1:41:40.720 --> 1:41:45.080 Steve and I crouched behind the log, and all of 1:41:45.120 --> 1:41:48.960 a sudden we see the brush splitting, and we see 1:41:49.040 --> 1:41:51.720 the tree top swaying. And man, I'll go back to 1:41:51.920 --> 1:41:56.240 I've been in a lot, I mean, killing whitetail, deer, 1:41:56.400 --> 1:42:01.160 killing goblin goblin, turkeys, killing bears. Man, there, I don't 1:42:01.200 --> 1:42:04.200 know that much comparison with seeing a big bull moose 1:42:04.800 --> 1:42:09.200 wading through stuff coming to you. Just the top swaying 1:42:09.400 --> 1:42:12.920 like some big coming. He was just knocking huge trees 1:42:13.000 --> 1:42:16.680 and shaking. He's coming for you, and it's like it 1:42:16.760 --> 1:42:20.960 was a guerrilla coming. And then I always think Jurassic Park, 1:42:21.000 --> 1:42:24.000 You guys, remember that the raptors coming in, just parting 1:42:24.040 --> 1:42:29.639 all the I'm thinking of dinosaurs coming. Well, we see 1:42:29.680 --> 1:42:33.080 a bull. We we see his shape through the trees, 1:42:33.200 --> 1:42:38.760 and started grunting a little bit, and and Steve and 1:42:38.840 --> 1:42:41.600 I both have a tag and and I know that 1:42:41.800 --> 1:42:45.479 Steve wants to kill a big bull moose and has 1:42:45.520 --> 1:42:47.720 been on many trips. And I will say this of 1:42:47.840 --> 1:42:51.479 Steve Ronella is that he is always letting other people 1:42:51.640 --> 1:42:55.640 shoot stuff that he's on hunts with. That's true. Yeah, 1:42:55.720 --> 1:43:04.880 don't tell that, Ryan Callahan, well except except for sorry 1:43:04.960 --> 1:43:11.679 cal So, this bull's coming and I say, Steve, shoot 1:43:11.760 --> 1:43:14.200 this bull, and he says, no, you shoot the bull. 1:43:14.240 --> 1:43:16.679 And I said, if it's a big bull, you shoot 1:43:16.720 --> 1:43:21.960 the bull. And then directly a small bull appears twenty 1:43:22.040 --> 1:43:24.280 yards from us. I stepped it off today and it 1:43:24.400 --> 1:43:30.720 was under twenty yards yards nineteen yards and a young, 1:43:30.960 --> 1:43:33.960 immature bull steps out and I go, man, it's a 1:43:34.080 --> 1:43:36.559 it's not legal. I can see it better than Steve, 1:43:36.640 --> 1:43:40.000 just because I'm where I'm at, and uh, and Steve goes, 1:43:40.080 --> 1:43:44.160 I can't believe it's that small bull. And so we're 1:43:44.720 --> 1:43:46.880 it's fun that we're twenty yards from a bull that 1:43:47.000 --> 1:43:50.320 came in. Our hearts are racing, but it's a bummer. 1:43:50.360 --> 1:43:54.760 That's a small one. Well, the bull standing still and 1:43:54.920 --> 1:43:57.840 kind of directly behind him. You can still see the 1:43:57.920 --> 1:44:02.200 brush cracking and moving back behind him. And I don't 1:44:02.240 --> 1:44:04.400 know who, if it was Lauren or Dirt or who, 1:44:04.960 --> 1:44:07.800 but people said there's there's another bull coming. I like, 1:44:07.960 --> 1:44:14.160 Steve heard it too, and and so we know that 1:44:14.320 --> 1:44:15.960 this one has got to be the big bull that 1:44:16.080 --> 1:44:18.880 we saw. And so we're crouched behind a log and 1:44:18.960 --> 1:44:20.800 I say, Steve, it's a big bull. You shoot it. 1:44:20.880 --> 1:44:23.880 And he says, no, Clay, you shoot the bull. And 1:44:23.960 --> 1:44:26.400 so I say okay, and me and Dirt jump up 1:44:26.439 --> 1:44:30.240 and move about ten ft behind a spruce stump that 1:44:30.400 --> 1:44:33.360 had uprooted, and it was a perfect cover. I laid 1:44:33.479 --> 1:44:36.360 my gun right and the why and man, here comes 1:44:36.439 --> 1:44:39.400 this what to me is a giant bull moose, still 1:44:39.600 --> 1:44:44.280 very dense, like what visibility is like, yeah, yeah, you 1:44:44.320 --> 1:44:49.000 couldn't see very far. And and so now there's a 1:44:49.320 --> 1:44:52.800 thirty inch bull moose and then this giant to what 1:44:52.960 --> 1:44:56.080 to me is a giant bull moose twenty yards from us. 1:44:57.000 --> 1:44:59.920 I've got the gun up. He comes through an opening, 1:45:00.160 --> 1:45:02.560 but there's a lot of limbs and I realized that 1:45:02.600 --> 1:45:08.120 I'm gonna have to shoot through limbs, and he continues 1:45:08.200 --> 1:45:11.080 to move and gets the nineteen yards. I shoot through 1:45:11.120 --> 1:45:14.639 some brush, hit him in the shoulder, Moose goes down 1:45:15.120 --> 1:45:17.800 on his back end. Shoot him again. Moose goes down, 1:45:18.320 --> 1:45:22.679 and we got a big bull moose. On the tenth day, 1:45:23.560 --> 1:45:27.320 six thirty in the evening gets dark about eight o'clock, 1:45:27.680 --> 1:45:31.320 and I heard I heard the two shots from above, 1:45:31.439 --> 1:45:36.400 and I'm like, I can I can't believe it. Like, yeah, 1:45:36.680 --> 1:45:40.160 I couldn't believe it. Just the whole week. We had 1:45:40.240 --> 1:45:43.320 been trying so hard, and then it finally came together 1:45:43.400 --> 1:45:45.519 on the last day. And I'll say, now this is 1:45:45.560 --> 1:45:47.400 where I'll get back to what Steve said earlier when 1:45:47.439 --> 1:45:50.000 I said this thing is bigger than my mule. That 1:45:50.280 --> 1:45:54.400 moose was was about as big as a seventeen hand 1:45:54.479 --> 1:46:01.040 mule in my assessment. Uh, monstrous animals. I mean just yeah, 1:46:01.160 --> 1:46:03.240 you can't even especially when they fall on the trees 1:46:03.320 --> 1:46:07.120 like that. I mean you can't even kind of move them. No, 1:46:08.160 --> 1:46:11.720 I mean you just gotta start. You skin him up 1:46:11.760 --> 1:46:15.080 the back. It just gets get whatever side happens to 1:46:15.120 --> 1:46:18.160 be facing up skinned off. You're not gonna like roll 1:46:18.280 --> 1:46:20.040 him on his back and got them out and not 1:46:20.160 --> 1:46:23.760 in that kind of cover. So we had airplanes coming 1:46:23.840 --> 1:46:26.719 at seven thirty in the morning and it's six thirty 1:46:27.240 --> 1:46:30.920 and we've got a moose down. But good for us. 1:46:31.040 --> 1:46:33.040 He was only about eight and fifty yards from the 1:46:33.040 --> 1:46:36.679 air strip, but uphill probably a thousand feet of elevation. 1:46:36.800 --> 1:46:41.800 Game and uh so we had a good team with us. 1:46:42.080 --> 1:46:45.280 The camera guy's Chester, Samantha Bates, was with us. So 1:46:45.360 --> 1:46:49.320 there were six how many of the six six of us. 1:46:49.520 --> 1:46:52.280 I was impressed with how I mean, I was impressed 1:46:52.360 --> 1:46:55.479 with that hunt, but also the reaction to the time, 1:46:55.600 --> 1:47:00.479 sensitiveness of man, we had that sucker. Yeah, owned out 1:47:00.680 --> 1:47:03.200 in a couple of hours. When that kind of stuff happens, 1:47:04.560 --> 1:47:06.680 as much as you know how much work it's gonna be, 1:47:07.000 --> 1:47:10.000 it's very exciting at the same time because you're like, 1:47:10.320 --> 1:47:13.200 we're gonna be up till midnight. They had a fire 1:47:13.320 --> 1:47:18.000 going down there. It's just like a cool moment, like 1:47:18.200 --> 1:47:21.200 my favorite moment of the trip. And we're all they're 1:47:21.400 --> 1:47:24.400 boning out the meat and putting it in game bags 1:47:24.520 --> 1:47:28.400 and pack it out and big old fire. I learned 1:47:28.400 --> 1:47:30.240 a new recipe when you bone out of the shoult 1:47:30.320 --> 1:47:33.719 the scapula, stand the scapula up next to the fire 1:47:33.800 --> 1:47:36.479 until the meats all kind of whatever little bits around 1:47:36.520 --> 1:47:38.840 there charred a little bit and then you scrape them 1:47:38.840 --> 1:47:41.000 all off with a knife and eat them. You're saying, 1:47:41.000 --> 1:47:43.680 bring salt, right, Oh, we didn't have salt. Would have 1:47:43.680 --> 1:47:45.920 made it ten times. So the reason you make a fire, 1:47:46.280 --> 1:47:49.040 you make a big fire for it helps for light, 1:47:49.280 --> 1:47:52.120 but also to keep grizzlies away, because when you're in 1:47:52.160 --> 1:47:55.759 Alaska and you kill a moose, you're immediately a grizzly target. 1:47:56.160 --> 1:47:58.160 So we did a lot of whooping and yelling, and 1:47:58.320 --> 1:48:00.960 it's it's comforting too when you're out there in the dark. 1:48:01.120 --> 1:48:03.479 Just it's nice to warm up and have a fire. 1:48:04.040 --> 1:48:07.360 And another thing, so we beg all this meat up 1:48:08.200 --> 1:48:11.320 and the planes fly it out the next day. One 1:48:11.400 --> 1:48:13.920 of the things that before this trip, I'm like, how 1:48:14.080 --> 1:48:17.479 are we going to get all this meat back? Usually 1:48:17.520 --> 1:48:21.679 we throw it in like yetti, you know, soft sided 1:48:21.760 --> 1:48:25.760 YETI coolers and like fly back with it all. But 1:48:25.840 --> 1:48:28.960 you can't really do that with a moose too. We've 1:48:29.040 --> 1:48:32.439 done it. It gets real pricey. Yeah, So we found 1:48:33.760 --> 1:48:36.400 so we found a guy who's got a business that 1:48:36.640 --> 1:48:43.240 revolves around getting people's meat back to the States, and 1:48:43.560 --> 1:48:48.160 he's it's an Alaska Trophy Express and he just picks 1:48:48.240 --> 1:48:52.559 up your meat from whatever locker that there is. It's Tim, 1:48:53.040 --> 1:48:55.240 I think his name is Tim, and he'll pick it 1:48:55.360 --> 1:49:00.080 up and he's gonna drive it down to Arkansas. So 1:49:00.160 --> 1:49:04.880 we got frozen game bags, he's got the skull, he's 1:49:04.880 --> 1:49:08.679 got a sweet shot I found and we'll keep you updated. 1:49:09.360 --> 1:49:12.040 And he's gonna pick it up and bring it down 1:49:12.080 --> 1:49:17.840 in a refrigerated truck. Yeah, Alaska, Alaska, say the Alaska 1:49:17.960 --> 1:49:24.880 Trophy Express. With the guy on how communicative he was 1:49:25.040 --> 1:49:27.760 he talked to me on the phone today. I felt 1:49:27.960 --> 1:49:30.360 very certain that he was gonna take care I was 1:49:30.560 --> 1:49:34.479 very concerned about my antlers. I mean, it's like, dude, 1:49:35.080 --> 1:49:37.320 you're gonna take care of these for me. The whole 1:49:37.360 --> 1:49:42.000 thing get busted, just like not ever seeing him again. 1:49:43.680 --> 1:49:48.439 Very nice guy. Yeah, that's wild. We're talking about getting 1:49:48.479 --> 1:49:53.599 out there. You go from you know, flying from Montana 1:49:53.680 --> 1:49:59.080 and Arkansas to be in out and I don't know 1:49:59.160 --> 1:50:02.880 how many miles into the wild country without any establishment, 1:50:03.080 --> 1:50:07.160 and the transition is so quick you almost can't help 1:50:07.640 --> 1:50:10.599 process where you're at and I was just thinking, it's 1:50:10.640 --> 1:50:14.439 only twenty four hours. Wait, we were skinning a bull moose. 1:50:15.200 --> 1:50:17.760 Twenty four hours ago. We were skinning a bull moose 1:50:19.160 --> 1:50:22.839 next to the fire in the wilds of Inland, Alaska. 1:50:22.960 --> 1:50:25.920 Now we're in a van doing a podcast. Just crossed 1:50:25.920 --> 1:50:33.120 the river. Just crossed the river. Yeah, it's a good trip, man, trip. 1:50:33.240 --> 1:50:35.640 I had come to peace with. I had come to 1:50:35.680 --> 1:50:39.080 peace with not getting one. Yeah, that's Souff bugs me, 1:50:39.120 --> 1:50:41.800 but it never but I mean, you know it bugs me. Yeah, 1:50:42.560 --> 1:50:43.760 he tears me up a little bit. But I had 1:50:43.840 --> 1:50:45.040 come to peace, and I was like, man, we had 1:50:45.080 --> 1:50:47.720 to help a trip, you know. And I thought, Chester said, 1:50:47.720 --> 1:50:49.320 you think we did it again, we would have got one, 1:50:49.439 --> 1:50:52.600 And I'm like, yeah, because I learned enough where I 1:50:52.680 --> 1:50:54.200 was like, I learned enough where I think if I 1:50:54.280 --> 1:50:58.360 could do this over again, I would we would. Yeah. 1:50:58.680 --> 1:51:01.760 But it's a lie that it's it's it's a lot 1:51:01.880 --> 1:51:05.599 of work to get up there. It's a big commitment. You're, 1:51:05.880 --> 1:51:08.680 you know, away from family, so it is kind of 1:51:08.760 --> 1:51:10.400 a bummer when you go up there and sit there 1:51:10.439 --> 1:51:14.840 for nine days. But we're there for the entire season. 1:51:15.600 --> 1:51:21.320 It's pretty Yeah, it's it's an interesting hunt. To sum 1:51:21.439 --> 1:51:25.840 it up, it's like, bring some books. Yeah, bring a 1:51:25.920 --> 1:51:28.800 zero degree bag. I learned that in the hardware. Yeah, 1:51:28.960 --> 1:51:33.240 you can't um you like, no matter what, you're gonna 1:51:33.320 --> 1:51:38.080 underestimate the cold because you're just sitting. Man. We're there 1:51:38.120 --> 1:51:44.240 on some days like humidity, you know, lows in the thirties, 1:51:44.600 --> 1:51:47.240 and you're just sitting, sitting, sitting, sitting, sitting. It wears 1:51:47.360 --> 1:51:51.720 on you. Yeah, Lauren, how far are we away from Fairbanks? 1:51:52.520 --> 1:51:57.519 We're getting close now. We're probably another forty miles away. 1:51:58.920 --> 1:52:04.160 Not too bad. Good all right, ladies and gentlemen. It's 1:52:04.160 --> 1:52:09.200 getting dark. Sun is setting, Sun is setting. The whole 1:52:09.240 --> 1:52:15.439 growl thing didn't happen. Still trying to booze, closing in 1:52:15.520 --> 1:52:39.000 on Fairbanks, Alaska. We love you all. Ninety night, Lucy. 1:52:39.680 --> 1:52:49.919 By Vince Merritt. This story came to us from Vince himself. 1:52:50.680 --> 1:52:53.200 He submitted it to us through email, and then we 1:52:53.280 --> 1:52:56.759 had a hard time getting hold of him again. After 1:52:56.880 --> 1:53:00.880 his submission, he wrote back to say, quote, Luckily, my 1:53:01.040 --> 1:53:04.800 lifelong friend and hunting buddy Michael is a bit a 1:53:04.920 --> 1:53:09.120 lot more computer savvy than I. Although I have an 1:53:09.200 --> 1:53:12.760 email account, I just recently set it up and had 1:53:12.840 --> 1:53:18.479 no idea the unbelievable amount of junk emails one can acquire. 1:53:19.320 --> 1:53:23.720 I would much rather talk in person, if that's possible. Unquote. 1:53:24.960 --> 1:53:29.559 You'll see why Vince feels that talking is a strong point, 1:53:29.880 --> 1:53:35.679 because he is a vivid, somewhat immaculate storyteller. His attention 1:53:35.720 --> 1:53:40.559 to detail is pretty astonishing. I also like how he's 1:53:40.600 --> 1:53:45.479 able to talk about shooting himself without any real self 1:53:45.560 --> 1:53:48.920 consciousness or shame. He just takes it as something that's 1:53:48.920 --> 1:53:53.040 a matter of fact. My dad liked to brag that 1:53:53.120 --> 1:53:56.280 he got through World War Two without ever getting scratched 1:53:56.320 --> 1:53:59.599 by a bullet, only to come home and get shot 1:53:59.640 --> 1:54:05.280 in the at hunting rabbits. I've heard countless stories of 1:54:05.800 --> 1:54:10.080 shooting accidents out hunting, but I'd be being dishonest if 1:54:10.120 --> 1:54:13.040 I didn't admit that some of them are just kind 1:54:13.080 --> 1:54:15.479 of funnier, or they're just so weird, and they have 1:54:15.600 --> 1:54:18.000 this tone to him that when you hear him, you 1:54:18.120 --> 1:54:20.719 kind of want to laugh. We all know the story 1:54:21.320 --> 1:54:24.639 where Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face while 1:54:24.720 --> 1:54:28.320 hunting quail, and it should be said that the most 1:54:28.439 --> 1:54:33.440 common hunting injury like gun related hunting injury is that 1:54:33.520 --> 1:54:36.280 you get shot by a shotgun. A lot of people 1:54:36.400 --> 1:54:41.000 feel that big game rifles with the requisite blaze orange 1:54:41.080 --> 1:54:43.680 that that's where the danger lies, but it's not as 1:54:43.720 --> 1:54:46.760 bad as shotguns. I recently heard a story from a 1:54:46.840 --> 1:54:51.800 friend of mine about a very rotund man that he 1:54:51.960 --> 1:54:56.480 knew who was out hunting rabbits. This guy gets down 1:54:56.560 --> 1:54:59.320 on his hands and knees to check under a junk car. 1:54:59.440 --> 1:55:02.200 In any rare hunter will know that rabbits like the 1:55:02.240 --> 1:55:05.480 hide under jumped out cars. For whatever reason, realizes that 1:55:05.560 --> 1:55:07.880 he can't get back up. He doesn't have that kind 1:55:07.880 --> 1:55:12.120 of mobility, so he grabs his pump action four ten 1:55:12.280 --> 1:55:14.760 shotgun by the barrel to use it sort of like 1:55:14.840 --> 1:55:17.920 a cane or walking stick, and with this gun as 1:55:17.960 --> 1:55:21.200 a support, manages to get himself back up on his feet. 1:55:21.680 --> 1:55:25.200 But he gets the muzzle of the shotgun under one 1:55:25.280 --> 1:55:27.800 of his fat rolls and he's kind of lodged on 1:55:27.920 --> 1:55:30.840 it and can't get himself up and off it. So 1:55:31.000 --> 1:55:34.360 what he decides to do is kick the stock of 1:55:34.440 --> 1:55:36.680 the shotgun in order to kick it out from under 1:55:36.720 --> 1:55:39.480 his gut. When he kicks it, it goes off and 1:55:39.600 --> 1:55:43.360 his gut fat absorbs the full force of that four 1:55:43.480 --> 1:55:48.800 ten load, no injury to his internal organs. A couple 1:55:48.840 --> 1:55:50.800 of years ago on the Meat Eater podcast, we got 1:55:50.880 --> 1:55:55.880 kind of wrangled into this discussion about what we call 1:55:56.040 --> 1:55:59.200 accidental discharges. Right, so when your gun goes off and 1:55:59.280 --> 1:56:03.720 you didn't mean it, and the marine wrote in to say, 1:56:04.320 --> 1:56:07.760 there's no such thing as an accidental discharge. There are 1:56:07.880 --> 1:56:14.800 only negligent discharges. Where these stories lose their humor is 1:56:14.880 --> 1:56:21.480 when you get into fatalities or permanent injuries. Recently, someone 1:56:21.920 --> 1:56:26.200 recommended to me a book called Dying to Hunt in Montana, 1:56:27.080 --> 1:56:31.040 and a large section of that book is devoted to 1:56:32.080 --> 1:56:38.360 firearm fatalities, many of them self inflicted accidents. I got 1:56:38.600 --> 1:56:41.080 a couple of pages into that book and had to 1:56:41.160 --> 1:56:44.480 put it away and never opened it back up again. 1:56:45.120 --> 1:56:48.520 It was just too upsetting to imagine those things happening 1:56:48.960 --> 1:56:53.440 to my friends, or particularly to my kids. It's not 1:56:53.600 --> 1:56:57.000 all a joke. The story you're about here could have 1:56:57.160 --> 1:57:02.040 easily it almost did, turn into one of those deeply 1:57:02.680 --> 1:57:07.400 sad and tragic stories. But we all know this is 1:57:07.440 --> 1:57:17.520 called close calls, so ultimately it's about triumph. My name 1:57:17.600 --> 1:57:22.280 is Vince Merritt November five. It was of two thousand 1:57:22.400 --> 1:57:29.560 and five. I was duck hunting in uh, a little 1:57:29.640 --> 1:57:32.880 lake up in northern California where I live, ten or 1:57:32.920 --> 1:57:35.960 fifteen minutes away from my house. Me and a couple 1:57:36.000 --> 1:57:37.760 of buddies of mine, we're gonna go out and jump 1:57:37.880 --> 1:57:39.760 this lake and see if we could kill any birds. 1:57:41.000 --> 1:57:43.640 I parked about three quarters of a mile away from 1:57:43.680 --> 1:57:47.240 where I was going to launch my little boat, got 1:57:47.320 --> 1:57:51.360 out of the vehicle and uh, it was cold. We 1:57:51.520 --> 1:57:54.840 had a good storm that weekend, left the dusting of 1:57:54.960 --> 1:57:58.320 snow on the ground, and figured it'd probably pushed some 1:57:58.400 --> 1:58:01.920 birds down. I stopped about a hundred yards short of 1:58:02.000 --> 1:58:05.000 the lake. I was just gonna drift down the creek 1:58:05.680 --> 1:58:07.320 time it so I can hit the lake. Just at 1:58:07.360 --> 1:58:11.120 shooting time, a flock of birds came in and sat 1:58:11.160 --> 1:58:14.000 down right at the mouth of the street. So foolishly 1:58:14.640 --> 1:58:19.040 I loaded my gun up all a five brownie and 1:58:19.120 --> 1:58:21.200 as my dad's gun, who had just passed away a 1:58:21.240 --> 1:58:24.440 couple of years before this, figuring, this is gonna be 1:58:24.520 --> 1:58:28.840 an easy, easy blast. And at this point I was 1:58:28.840 --> 1:58:31.680 still waiting for my buddies to show up. One of 1:58:31.760 --> 1:58:34.200 my buddies was coming over the damn one was coming 1:58:34.240 --> 1:58:37.920 from the boat launch, just covering the exits, because uh 1:58:38.640 --> 1:58:40.800 to these birds do. They'll they'll roost on the lake 1:58:40.880 --> 1:58:43.320 all night and then at first light they take off 1:58:43.360 --> 1:58:46.560 in all different directions going out in the lake. So 1:58:46.960 --> 1:58:50.760 with like two minutes left my buddies, I realized weren't 1:58:50.760 --> 1:58:52.640 gonna make it, or they were running late. They weren't 1:58:52.640 --> 1:58:55.760 gonna be there a shooting time, so I wasn't waiting anymore. 1:58:57.200 --> 1:59:00.080 I had my black lab Lucy with me, but he 1:59:00.120 --> 1:59:01.720 didn't want to take her in the boat, being this 1:59:02.080 --> 1:59:03.720 small of a boat it was, and she had not 1:59:03.840 --> 1:59:06.280 been in a hunted out of a boat before anyway, 1:59:06.960 --> 1:59:09.440 so I kind of left her on the bank. Got 1:59:09.520 --> 1:59:12.520 in the boat. I was on my knees and I 1:59:12.600 --> 1:59:15.840 had the gun alongside me, with the barrel pointing up 1:59:15.880 --> 1:59:19.680 in the air, leaning up against the seat, I grabbed 1:59:19.720 --> 1:59:23.440 the oar, pushed off the bank with the oar and 1:59:23.640 --> 1:59:27.440 pushed right into a sandbar and it just stopped the 1:59:27.520 --> 1:59:31.800 boat just like I ran into a brick wall. And 1:59:31.880 --> 1:59:34.480 when the boat stopped, just solid like that, the gun 1:59:35.200 --> 1:59:37.920 slid down off the bed. Sheat hit the bottom of 1:59:37.960 --> 1:59:45.280 the boat and went off. Now, I I didn't realize 1:59:45.320 --> 1:59:48.360 at that time that's what happened, because as I remember 1:59:48.480 --> 1:59:52.160 is hearing a shot and thinking, damn it, somebody shot early, 1:59:53.120 --> 1:59:54.960 because all the birds, of course, took off as soon 1:59:55.040 --> 1:59:57.920 as the gun went off. And then I started thinking, 1:59:58.480 --> 2:00:00.880 how could somebody have shot earlier? I I'm the only 2:00:00.920 --> 2:00:04.840 one on the lake. But I looked down and my 2:00:05.000 --> 2:00:07.640 guns laying on the bottom of the boat, and there's 2:00:07.680 --> 2:00:11.120 smoke drifted up out of the barrel. I realized it 2:00:11.200 --> 2:00:13.720 was my gun that it went off, and I remember 2:00:13.760 --> 2:00:17.280 thinking in my head, you dumb s ob. You know 2:00:17.360 --> 2:00:21.400 you're so lucky you just didn't shoot yourself. I had 2:00:21.440 --> 2:00:23.640 a pair of my what I had on was near 2:00:23.680 --> 2:00:27.440 primum hip boots at the time. And then I realized 2:00:27.840 --> 2:00:30.440 right at the bend of my knee, and there was 2:00:30.480 --> 2:00:32.240 a hole in the waiters about as big as a 2:00:32.320 --> 2:00:36.400 beer can. Maybe there's blood trickling out of the waiters. 2:00:36.960 --> 2:00:40.480 And I remember thinking, you did shoot yourself. But I 2:00:40.520 --> 2:00:44.000 couldn't feel any pain whatsoever. So the first thing I thought, 2:00:44.040 --> 2:00:46.400 of all, it can't be too bad, but I better 2:00:46.440 --> 2:00:48.680 get out of this boat, because I figured I'd blown 2:00:48.720 --> 2:00:51.800 a hole in the boat. So I tried to stand up, 2:00:52.560 --> 2:00:56.080 and as soon as I put weight on on my 2:00:56.200 --> 2:01:00.200 bad leg, I flipped over the edge of the oat. 2:01:01.320 --> 2:01:04.400 My but HiT's the bottom of the of the creek 2:01:04.760 --> 2:01:08.040 and uh, I'm in about chest high deeper water and 2:01:08.200 --> 2:01:11.240 my right leg literally just floated up to the top 2:01:11.320 --> 2:01:14.040 of the creek. I remember and watching my leg kind 2:01:14.080 --> 2:01:18.280 of float back and forth in the current. I realized 2:01:18.280 --> 2:01:21.480 at that time I had screwed up pretty bad. My 2:01:21.640 --> 2:01:24.880 leg was at least busted I do. I remember telling 2:01:24.960 --> 2:01:27.080 my dog Lucy right there, I better make some good 2:01:27.120 --> 2:01:29.680 decisions from here out out, girl, I'm gonna be in trouble. 2:01:31.080 --> 2:01:34.040 I had three quarters of a mile back to my car. 2:01:35.560 --> 2:01:38.280 It was one option where I could go across, get 2:01:38.320 --> 2:01:40.680 back in the boat, attempt to get back in the boat, 2:01:41.200 --> 2:01:45.040 and go across the lake to my buddy's house. He 2:01:45.200 --> 2:01:46.840 was the third one that was supposed to show up 2:01:46.920 --> 2:01:51.640 hunting up order that didn't. Or I could go to uh. 2:01:52.560 --> 2:01:55.200 One side of the lake is a campground and there's 2:01:55.240 --> 2:01:58.560 year round hosts that stay at the campground. And I 2:01:58.600 --> 2:02:02.760 could actually see the big fluorescent light from the campground. 2:02:03.640 --> 2:02:06.880 It was closer than my car was. If I get 2:02:07.000 --> 2:02:09.840 back to the car. There's I didn't even think I 2:02:09.960 --> 2:02:12.040 was gonna be able to get into drive it with 2:02:12.200 --> 2:02:15.600 my right leg being busted up. So I make the 2:02:15.680 --> 2:02:22.680 decision two head to the campground. I start crawling across 2:02:22.800 --> 2:02:27.160 the the creek and it starts getting over my head immediately, 2:02:28.040 --> 2:02:32.880 so I I kind of swam dog paddled with my 2:02:33.080 --> 2:02:35.120 good leg in my arms and my other leg was 2:02:35.240 --> 2:02:39.000 just kind of dragging behind me. Crawl out the other side, 2:02:40.200 --> 2:02:43.720 and I realized I left my shotgun in the boat, 2:02:45.240 --> 2:02:47.880 and I was worried that someone was gonna steal my 2:02:47.920 --> 2:02:50.720 gun if I left it in the boat. So my 2:02:50.880 --> 2:02:55.160 dumbmass crawled back across the creek hold the gun out. 2:02:56.120 --> 2:03:00.160 I remember putting the gun but in the mud and 2:03:00.360 --> 2:03:03.600 helping myself out of the creek with the gun butt. 2:03:04.640 --> 2:03:06.520 That's what it dawned on me, I should probably should 2:03:06.760 --> 2:03:09.400 unload the gun all the way where I was going 2:03:09.440 --> 2:03:14.080 to shoot myself a second time. I jacked a couple 2:03:14.200 --> 2:03:17.560 more times, made sure the gun was empty, drugged myself 2:03:17.640 --> 2:03:20.440 out of the other side of the creek, and there 2:03:20.520 --> 2:03:23.040 I remember looking back at the creek and they're being 2:03:23.360 --> 2:03:28.160 blood on both sides of the creek. Just a trail 2:03:28.240 --> 2:03:29.920 of it heading out to the lake. It was going 2:03:30.000 --> 2:03:32.920 down to the current, and I was thinking, damn you 2:03:32.960 --> 2:03:37.600 other losing quite a bit of blood already. I knew 2:03:37.640 --> 2:03:40.320 I hadn't hit an army or anything bad. It wasn't 2:03:40.480 --> 2:03:44.040 it wasn't spurting out, but I could see this little 2:03:44.080 --> 2:03:47.200 hole filling up and draded and filling up and draded 2:03:48.280 --> 2:03:52.160 right underneath the kneecap on the inside of the knee. 2:03:53.640 --> 2:03:55.760 By this time, my dog had swam across the creek 2:03:55.840 --> 2:03:59.560 and was right alongside me. I'm on my butt crawling. 2:04:00.400 --> 2:04:05.080 We're using my good leg to push me backwards. I'm 2:04:05.200 --> 2:04:07.120 looking at my leg the whole time and watching it 2:04:07.240 --> 2:04:10.320 fill up and drade, and I thought, tourniquet. I better 2:04:10.360 --> 2:04:13.280 get a tourniquet on it. I had my duck calls 2:04:13.320 --> 2:04:17.240 around my debt. I pulled those off and used the 2:04:17.360 --> 2:04:20.080 landard for my duck calls and tied my leg off. 2:04:21.000 --> 2:04:22.640 And I was thinking, I don't know if that's dowd 2:04:22.640 --> 2:04:27.320 any good or not. Start dragging myself again, just pushing 2:04:27.360 --> 2:04:31.960 myself on my butt, going backwards, crawling towards where I 2:04:32.000 --> 2:04:35.480 know this campground is, but the lake kind of loops 2:04:35.520 --> 2:04:38.560 around there, so I had to had to go around 2:04:38.600 --> 2:04:45.040 in the lake. Actually, it's pretty dense timber, gnarly brush 2:04:45.160 --> 2:04:48.600 that you just you can't hardly walk through or crawl through. 2:04:49.960 --> 2:04:52.960 I was probably two d yards away from my boat 2:04:53.000 --> 2:04:56.160 at this time, so it taken me forty five minutes 2:04:56.240 --> 2:04:59.240 or an hour to get that far, pushing myself with 2:04:59.360 --> 2:05:03.440 my good leg on my butt backwards and then picking 2:05:03.520 --> 2:05:06.480 up the gun and moving at five ft in front 2:05:06.520 --> 2:05:10.680 of me and crawling five more ft. I noticed my 2:05:10.800 --> 2:05:15.080 tourniquet it came off, so I took my belt off 2:05:16.600 --> 2:05:21.800 and tied it around my leg. I don't remember see 2:05:21.920 --> 2:05:26.080 it slowed down blood wise, I'm feeling paind some, but 2:05:26.840 --> 2:05:30.440 not like you would expect. So obviously I was in 2:05:30.560 --> 2:05:34.640 shock because my leg was literally just kind of flopping 2:05:34.720 --> 2:05:39.440 and dang wood. I'd hunted all around that lake, so 2:05:39.560 --> 2:05:41.560 I know if I get to that trail, I pretty 2:05:41.640 --> 2:05:44.800 much got a straight shot. I must have found an 2:05:44.880 --> 2:05:47.560 opening through it. I don't remember exactly how it worked, 2:05:47.640 --> 2:05:52.360 but I remember I crawled through the manzanita, up the 2:05:52.400 --> 2:05:56.440 little embanquet to the trail, and probably been an hour 2:05:56.560 --> 2:06:00.120 since I shot myself, and now I'm pretty beat. I 2:06:00.240 --> 2:06:02.520 remember I was gonna, I'm telling myself, I wanted to 2:06:02.560 --> 2:06:05.800 take a nap at that time. I lead up against 2:06:05.840 --> 2:06:10.080 a big pine tree and my dog just starts going nuts. 2:06:11.640 --> 2:06:16.840 She's just barking, going crazy, doing circles around me, and 2:06:17.000 --> 2:06:19.520 I remember yelling at her to shut up because I 2:06:19.640 --> 2:06:22.320 was trying to take a nap, and she just kept 2:06:22.400 --> 2:06:26.120 going nuts. I didn't realize it at the time, but 2:06:26.360 --> 2:06:30.400 she obviously was saving my life. Then as long as 2:06:30.440 --> 2:06:35.480 I'm crawled, she's okay. I stopped a second time, I 2:06:35.560 --> 2:06:38.680 don't know, maybe ten or fifteen minutes later. Again I 2:06:38.840 --> 2:06:42.560 was getting pretty tired, and again as soon as I stopped, 2:06:42.760 --> 2:06:47.280 she just starts going nuts and and going crazy. I 2:06:47.360 --> 2:06:52.760 remember thinking that I wasn't gonna make it. On the path. 2:06:53.840 --> 2:06:57.000 There was no tracks through the snow because I remember, 2:06:57.000 --> 2:07:00.080 they're just being a dust in the snow. So the 2:07:00.160 --> 2:07:04.280 campground hosts had not been out there lately. I didn't 2:07:04.320 --> 2:07:07.600 know if they were year around hosts or what. I 2:07:07.680 --> 2:07:09.800 really didn't know for sure if this place had a 2:07:09.920 --> 2:07:13.200 landline or not, but I knew the cabin was there, 2:07:13.440 --> 2:07:17.800 so that was my destination. I started crawling again. I 2:07:17.800 --> 2:07:19.960 remember thinking to my Dad, and I think I even 2:07:20.000 --> 2:07:22.320 said this out loud. It looks like I might be 2:07:22.440 --> 2:07:24.760 coming to join you a little sooner than we thought, Pops. 2:07:26.680 --> 2:07:29.640 I came to a couple of outbuildings at this time, 2:07:29.720 --> 2:07:32.480 and it was a big cook shock. For when they 2:07:32.560 --> 2:07:36.320 had huge campouts they did all the cooking. At this shock. 2:07:37.640 --> 2:07:39.680 They sat through a rock through the window of the 2:07:39.760 --> 2:07:42.280 cook house, and I assume I was trying to make 2:07:42.280 --> 2:07:44.480 an alarm go off or something. I really I don't 2:07:44.520 --> 2:07:48.360 remember a lot about that. It was probably an hour 2:07:48.440 --> 2:07:50.760 and a half after I'd shot myself. At this point, 2:07:51.880 --> 2:07:54.880 I didn't have my gun anymore. The realization came to 2:07:55.000 --> 2:07:58.000 me that I had left my gun somewhere, probably leading 2:07:58.120 --> 2:07:59.960 up against the tree when I was trying to take 2:08:00.000 --> 2:08:03.600 a nap. I wasn't making very good time, and I 2:08:03.640 --> 2:08:06.720 knew that. I knew I was probably pushing it and 2:08:06.840 --> 2:08:08.720 needed to get to this cabin and get some help. 2:08:10.000 --> 2:08:12.880 During the last I don't know, ten or fifteen minutes, 2:08:12.960 --> 2:08:15.400 and it dawned on me I should start whistling and 2:08:15.440 --> 2:08:19.200 maybe I could get somebody's attention. So every every couple 2:08:19.240 --> 2:08:21.640 of minutes, I would put my fingers to my mouth 2:08:21.800 --> 2:08:28.480 and and whistle. I could whistle pretty damn loud, and 2:08:28.560 --> 2:08:31.440 I would yell I need help if anybody could hear me, 2:08:32.560 --> 2:08:38.720 I need help. No response, so I I just kept crawling. 2:08:39.560 --> 2:08:43.560 I'd lost my tourniquet. The second tourniquet my belt that 2:08:43.640 --> 2:08:46.760 didn't have enough loops that tightened make it real tight 2:08:46.840 --> 2:08:49.760 all the way down around my leg. And apparently it 2:08:49.840 --> 2:08:52.600 had come off while I was dragging myself, because my 2:08:52.720 --> 2:08:55.680 pants and everything went around my ankles. At this point, 2:08:55.760 --> 2:09:00.720 I'm pretty much pushing myself bare butt down this creek. 2:09:02.000 --> 2:09:04.520 That's why I decided to make a crutch see if 2:09:04.520 --> 2:09:07.360 I could make a crutch and hop and that didn't 2:09:07.400 --> 2:09:10.240 work to crutch snapped. I hit the ground pretty hard. 2:09:11.520 --> 2:09:14.680 I remember camel crawling forward for a little bit at 2:09:14.720 --> 2:09:17.960 that time by my elbows and one knee, just dragging 2:09:18.040 --> 2:09:21.240 myself behind me. But that was just way too hard 2:09:21.320 --> 2:09:25.640 to do. I can see the cabin now actually was 2:09:25.680 --> 2:09:30.400 a house. There's like a three ft tall cyclone fence 2:09:30.480 --> 2:09:34.480 all the way around this house. I crawled down the 2:09:34.600 --> 2:09:37.760 fence towards the walkway going up to the house to 2:09:37.880 --> 2:09:41.760 the gate, and sure enough there's a paddleog. I remember 2:09:41.840 --> 2:09:44.360 that bumming me out in a couple of different ways. 2:09:44.800 --> 2:09:47.240 For one, I realized that meant more than likely there 2:09:47.320 --> 2:09:50.400 was nobody at the house. Secondly, it meant I was 2:09:50.440 --> 2:09:54.880 going to have to go over the fence. I remember 2:09:54.920 --> 2:09:58.680 whistling again right then, praying that there was somebody in 2:09:58.760 --> 2:10:02.480 the house that would hear me, even though I'm staring 2:10:03.280 --> 2:10:06.960 at a paddle lock on this front gate. No response. 2:10:08.440 --> 2:10:11.400 My dog can't jump the fence, so this is where 2:10:11.400 --> 2:10:15.120 I lose Lucy. She's she's on the outside of the 2:10:15.200 --> 2:10:19.800 cyclone fence. I stood on my good leg and went 2:10:19.960 --> 2:10:23.720 over the top of the little the cyclone fence, flopped 2:10:23.760 --> 2:10:27.920 on the ground, and at that point I remember being 2:10:27.960 --> 2:10:31.000 in a lot of pain. I remember hitting the ground 2:10:31.040 --> 2:10:33.720 on the other side and and really hurt, and I 2:10:33.840 --> 2:10:37.280 knew at that point I was really pushing the limits 2:10:37.280 --> 2:10:38.520 of whether I was going to make it out of 2:10:38.560 --> 2:10:41.760 this situation alive. And I remember shaking my head thinking 2:10:41.800 --> 2:10:44.640 how ironic this is gonna be that I'm gonna end 2:10:44.720 --> 2:10:48.480 up dying being being the safety guy I've always been 2:10:48.600 --> 2:10:50.920 with all my buddies, I'm gonna end up end up 2:10:51.000 --> 2:10:55.080 dying over the stupid gunshot. I remember thinking I just 2:10:55.360 --> 2:10:57.720 have too much life to live. I can't. I'm not 2:10:57.920 --> 2:11:04.200 giving up. I crawled up to the front porch and 2:11:04.320 --> 2:11:06.680 I'm still whistling, hoping there was somebody in the house. 2:11:06.760 --> 2:11:09.200 It's I didn't know what time it was, but I 2:11:09.280 --> 2:11:11.320 knew in my mind it was still early enough where 2:11:11.360 --> 2:11:15.160 these people might be sleeping. And I checked the check 2:11:15.240 --> 2:11:17.920 the front door to see if it was unlocked, and 2:11:18.000 --> 2:11:22.000 it wasn't. Pounded on the door and yelled a couple 2:11:22.040 --> 2:11:25.480 of times, I need help. They've got a big picture 2:11:25.520 --> 2:11:29.480 window into the living room, and I remember looking at 2:11:29.560 --> 2:11:34.360 that thinking I could probably go through that window. But 2:11:34.560 --> 2:11:37.280 the porch extended all the way along the front of 2:11:37.320 --> 2:11:39.560 the house, and there was another window at the other 2:11:39.760 --> 2:11:43.120 end of the porch going into the house, and I 2:11:43.160 --> 2:11:47.280 could see a telephone in the bedroom, and I remember thinking, okay, 2:11:47.360 --> 2:11:51.960 they definitely do have landline here. There was furniture, patio 2:11:52.040 --> 2:11:55.480 furniture on this front porch. I hop over and picked 2:11:55.560 --> 2:11:58.800 up one of the chairs, and on one leg, I 2:11:59.120 --> 2:12:02.360 spun around and put the chair through the window and 2:12:02.440 --> 2:12:07.120 shattered out the bedroom window. The bed in the bedroom 2:12:07.240 --> 2:12:10.880 was was close to the wall right there, and I 2:12:10.960 --> 2:12:14.760 remember flipping in backwards into the house, trying to land 2:12:14.840 --> 2:12:19.080 on the bed. What I did actually is missed the 2:12:19.160 --> 2:12:22.360 bed and fell right down in about a ten or 2:12:22.400 --> 2:12:24.840 twelve intes crack in between the bed and the wall. 2:12:26.160 --> 2:12:30.680 At that point I remember a lot of pain. You 2:12:30.760 --> 2:12:32.960 might say I was old man then, because every little 2:12:32.960 --> 2:12:34.680 bit of it came out of me. I remember screaming. 2:12:34.760 --> 2:12:36.760 At that point, I was in a lot of pain. 2:12:38.360 --> 2:12:42.120 I crawled around the bed, got up on the chair 2:12:42.320 --> 2:12:46.600 that had the wheels on it, rolled over to the telephone, 2:12:46.720 --> 2:12:50.480 picked up the phone and it was dead. No dial toad. 2:12:52.280 --> 2:12:55.200 A lot of people up there have summer homes, so 2:12:55.600 --> 2:12:59.640 they take off and leave for the winter months, shut 2:12:59.680 --> 2:13:02.360 the water off, shut the power off, and shut their 2:13:02.400 --> 2:13:06.600 phones off. And I assume that's what had happened. There 2:13:06.720 --> 2:13:10.040 was a computer on the desk and they say I 2:13:10.240 --> 2:13:12.920 punched in a help me. I had no I never 2:13:13.080 --> 2:13:14.960 used a computer before in my life at that time. 2:13:15.840 --> 2:13:19.360 But they said I used the keypad and punched in help. 2:13:19.480 --> 2:13:23.040 I need help. A few times, I figured I was 2:13:23.080 --> 2:13:24.920 a dead man for sure. At that point. There's no 2:13:25.160 --> 2:13:28.880 dial tone on the telephone. There was a note paper 2:13:29.560 --> 2:13:32.000 on the on the desk there. I was going to 2:13:32.080 --> 2:13:34.600 write a note basically at that point to let my 2:13:34.720 --> 2:13:39.200 mom know what happened. I was real close to my mother. Um. 2:13:39.520 --> 2:13:41.080 I was a baby in the family. I have older 2:13:41.120 --> 2:13:44.080 brother and older sister, and I was quite the moment's boy, 2:13:45.400 --> 2:13:47.680 and I was ever thinking it's just gonna devastate her. 2:13:49.680 --> 2:13:51.000 So I was gonna write out a note and let 2:13:51.080 --> 2:13:55.800 mom know what happened. Earlier in the crawl quite a bit, 2:13:55.840 --> 2:13:58.200 I remember thinking, God, I'm thirsty. I wish I had 2:13:58.240 --> 2:14:01.320 something to drink. So at that point I thought, well, 2:14:02.040 --> 2:14:04.160 I'm gonna check refrigerator and see what they got to 2:14:04.240 --> 2:14:06.800 think to drink. I said, I've always been a beer drinker, 2:14:06.840 --> 2:14:08.800 and quite frankly, I think I'm gonna go out with 2:14:08.840 --> 2:14:10.320 the beer. See, I'm gonna see if they've got a 2:14:10.320 --> 2:14:13.720 beer and refrigerator. So I didn't write the note yet. 2:14:14.560 --> 2:14:16.400 I'm on the chair with the wheels behind it, so 2:14:16.440 --> 2:14:18.920 I'm able to push myself with my one leg out 2:14:18.960 --> 2:14:22.120 of the bedroom, and I was using the walls to 2:14:22.200 --> 2:14:25.000 push myself out of the hallway, and I remember there 2:14:25.800 --> 2:14:27.920 looked like they were in a bunch of kindygardeners admitted 2:14:27.960 --> 2:14:32.120 their hand painting because there was blood head handprints on 2:14:32.240 --> 2:14:34.520 all their walls from my hands when I was pushing 2:14:34.560 --> 2:14:39.280 myself through. So I pushed myself around the little wall 2:14:39.440 --> 2:14:42.880 into the kitchen, and right next to the refrigerator there's 2:14:42.920 --> 2:14:47.680 another telephone. It's blinking oh one, like there's a message 2:14:47.680 --> 2:14:51.080 on the telephone. And I told myself, don't get your 2:14:51.120 --> 2:14:53.720 hopes up. The other phone is dead. There's there's no 2:14:53.800 --> 2:14:55.640 way there's gonna be a dial tone on this phone. 2:14:57.000 --> 2:15:01.160 So I popped refrigerator open. There was an beers unfortunately, 2:15:02.000 --> 2:15:05.680 but they say I ate a banana and drank a 2:15:05.800 --> 2:15:08.240 V eight, which I don't. I don't remember doing either 2:15:08.280 --> 2:15:11.560 one of those things. And the time I'm staring at 2:15:11.560 --> 2:15:14.960 the phone, going you've You've got to check it. I 2:15:15.040 --> 2:15:17.240 grabbed the phone, put it up to my ear and 2:15:17.400 --> 2:15:20.200 went damn, and hung it up, and I was like, 2:15:20.320 --> 2:15:22.360 wait a minute, and I picked it up again, and 2:15:22.440 --> 2:15:25.480 there was a dial tone. I remember even putting my 2:15:25.600 --> 2:15:28.400 finger up and and clicking the button a couple of times, 2:15:29.280 --> 2:15:31.760 just so I wasn't, you know, making stuff up in 2:15:31.840 --> 2:15:34.040 my mind. At this point, there really was a dial tone, 2:15:34.440 --> 2:15:36.240 and I couldn't figure out why there wouldn't be a 2:15:36.320 --> 2:15:38.520 dial tone on one phone, and there would on another one, 2:15:39.400 --> 2:15:41.840 but I thought, you better quit thinking and and make 2:15:41.920 --> 2:15:45.160 a damn call, because at this point there's not a 2:15:45.240 --> 2:15:47.880 lot of blood coming out of my leg, and I 2:15:47.960 --> 2:15:51.320 knew it wasn't good, and obviously it was because I 2:15:51.360 --> 2:15:54.320 had lost most of my blood at that time. I 2:15:54.440 --> 2:15:58.320 remember the emergency operator coming on and she's as the 2:15:58.360 --> 2:16:01.480 regular routine, what is what is your medical emergency or 2:16:01.520 --> 2:16:04.680 whatever she said, and I told her I shot myself. 2:16:06.360 --> 2:16:10.000 I remember unlocking the dead bolt and opening the door, 2:16:10.680 --> 2:16:12.400 and you could see how I could see out the 2:16:12.480 --> 2:16:17.040 front door down the driveway to where they had a 2:16:18.200 --> 2:16:22.560 a big gate out front that was locked up. First 2:16:22.640 --> 2:16:26.240 ambulance pulls in and uh, it stops at the gate, 2:16:27.640 --> 2:16:29.960 and then another ambulance pulls right in behind it, and 2:16:30.080 --> 2:16:32.840 they're both at the gate, and I'm sitting in this 2:16:33.080 --> 2:16:36.199 chair and I'm like, okay, they're they're at the right spot. 2:16:36.280 --> 2:16:40.000 Send them in. One renounced to me at the time, 2:16:40.879 --> 2:16:45.600 anytime there's a gun involved accident, the sheriffs have to 2:16:45.680 --> 2:16:49.240 be the first one on the sea. So you know, 2:16:49.480 --> 2:16:51.440 I had no idea about that at this time, and 2:16:51.520 --> 2:16:53.840 I couldn't figure out why the ambulances weren't coming in. 2:16:55.280 --> 2:16:57.400 It was hard for me to stay conscious at this time. 2:16:57.600 --> 2:17:02.080 I remember not in quite an it just barely being 2:17:02.120 --> 2:17:07.000 able to stay awake. And then I saw the second ambulance. 2:17:07.320 --> 2:17:12.320 The passenger door opens up and I see the passenger 2:17:12.400 --> 2:17:15.680 get out of the second ambulance goes by the first 2:17:15.800 --> 2:17:20.240 ambulance and swings opened the gate and came in and 2:17:20.280 --> 2:17:22.920 shot down the driveway, and I remember thinking, wow, it's 2:17:22.920 --> 2:17:26.560 a bad time for an ambulance to break down. They 2:17:26.640 --> 2:17:30.800 wheeled me out, started getting fluids into me. I hear 2:17:30.800 --> 2:17:32.760 a couple of wor cars pull up outside that and 2:17:32.879 --> 2:17:35.800 the sheriffs had pulled up and out. I remember them 2:17:36.240 --> 2:17:39.120 put me in the back of the ambulance, and I 2:17:39.160 --> 2:17:41.000 remember telling the sheriff, hey, I don't know where my 2:17:41.080 --> 2:17:44.640 dog is right now, but somebody needs to find her 2:17:44.640 --> 2:17:48.360 because that dogs saved my life, There's no doubt. The 2:17:48.480 --> 2:17:52.200 ambulance doors closed. I remember the bigging a banger or 2:17:52.280 --> 2:17:54.160 the back door or something, and one of the sheriff's 2:17:54.200 --> 2:17:57.640 opened up the back door and told me he Dominic's 2:17:57.640 --> 2:18:01.000 here and he's got your dog. When the nine one 2:18:01.080 --> 2:18:03.360 one call went out, another friend of mine over the 2:18:03.520 --> 2:18:07.360 scanner had heard the nine one one call, had heard 2:18:07.440 --> 2:18:11.440 my name and called my house. I told my mom, 2:18:12.640 --> 2:18:14.560 I don't know what's going on, but Vince was shot. 2:18:17.000 --> 2:18:18.960 My mom knew Dominic was supposed to be hunt with 2:18:19.040 --> 2:18:22.920 me that morning, so she called Dominic. When he answered 2:18:22.959 --> 2:18:24.280 the phone, she said, I don't know what the hell 2:18:24.400 --> 2:18:26.840 is going on, but Vince has been shot. You need 2:18:26.920 --> 2:18:30.320 to get to the lake. The next time I remember 2:18:30.360 --> 2:18:34.640 waking up was in the in the recovery room. My 2:18:34.800 --> 2:18:38.080 son was standing over the top of me. I had 2:18:38.120 --> 2:18:43.039 a sheet pulled up to my waist and he could 2:18:43.080 --> 2:18:46.080 see I had both my feet there, and he says, uh, 2:18:47.400 --> 2:18:50.880 you still want both your legs. He said, yeah. They 2:18:50.920 --> 2:18:54.160 made me sign a waiver awhile back that said they 2:18:54.200 --> 2:18:56.040 can take your leg if they needed to to save 2:18:56.080 --> 2:19:00.320 your life. I remember telling him, boy, you are damn 2:19:00.480 --> 2:19:03.280 lucky they did not take my leg, because I'd have 2:19:03.320 --> 2:19:07.600 been would piste off guy at you. The first X rays, 2:19:07.680 --> 2:19:11.600 I saw that they took um the plastic wad and 2:19:11.959 --> 2:19:15.039 every baby from that shotgun shell was under my kneecap. 2:19:16.400 --> 2:19:19.440 They drilled a hole in my fever and put a 2:19:19.480 --> 2:19:23.920 pin in it and attached my knee to that. Thirteen 2:19:23.959 --> 2:19:27.640 surgeries clean out trying to get pellets and everything out 2:19:27.680 --> 2:19:32.920 of my leg dominic. He came in to see me 2:19:33.520 --> 2:19:36.920 and uh he said, Hey, I already cleared it with 2:19:36.959 --> 2:19:42.520 the nurses. Let's go for a walk. And uh uh 2:19:43.320 --> 2:19:46.640 he had brought Lucy with him, so I got to 2:19:46.680 --> 2:19:50.680 throw a few sticks for I vowed then that I 2:19:50.720 --> 2:19:55.960 would never have another dog not named Lucy, my third 2:19:56.040 --> 2:20:00.760 dog since her, she's named Lucy three, and I will 2:20:00.879 --> 2:20:04.879 not have another dog that's that's not daved after that girl. 2:20:04.959 --> 2:20:09.280 There's no doubt she She definitely saved my life that day. 2:20:11.720 --> 2:20:11.760 M