Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm in north central Idaho. We're on a non resident
Speaker 1: hound hunting trip. I'm here with my good buddy Bradley Dammerman.
Speaker 1: We're finishing up the sugar trip. Fortunate to harvest a
Speaker 1: great call yesterday that everything I wanted in it in
Speaker 1: a cat. So we're going to kind of skip the
Speaker 1: traditional question and answer that we take from our listeners
Speaker 1: and just kind of jump in the conversation here with Bradley.
Speaker 1: But if you have questions for myself and my guests
Speaker 1: are Dirt and his guests, feel free to email them
Speaker 1: to us at CPD at phelpsgame Calls dot com and
Speaker 1: we'll do our best to get them on the podcast.
Speaker 1: So we're just going to kind of jump right in
Speaker 1: to hound hunting. And we have a lot of side
Speaker 1: conversations that I wish we could actually you know, we
Speaker 1: bottle them all up. So today I'm just going to
Speaker 1: kind of just talk about what we do as we're
Speaker 1: driving around the woods looking for tracks and looking for
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that we were brought
Speaker 1: up earlier this morning as we were talking is, you know,
Speaker 1: the perception that hound hunting isn't tough. And I think
Speaker 1: from the outside, until you get to go with the
Speaker 1: hound hunter, it may you may think of that as like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: the dogs did the work this or that, and you
Speaker 1: basically walk up and shoot them. But it couldn't be
Speaker 1: further from the truth. And being Dirk were kind of
Speaker 1: joking that hunting from a clear cut and city is
Speaker 1: the easy way, Like you could easily make the argument
Speaker 1: that baiting is a harder way because you're putting in
Speaker 1: all this effort or hound hunting. So can you elaborate
Speaker 1: a little bit on how much work goes into hound
Speaker 1: hunting and not only being successful keeping your dogs in shape,
Speaker 1: the almost your own commitment to being a hound hunter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well thanks for having me on your podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that there. I definitely get a lot of comments
Speaker 2: like hound hunting's easy, and you know, why don't you
Speaker 2: hunt the hard way? And I just shake my head because, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, first of all, you got to get a
Speaker 2: commitment that you want to be a houndsman, and then
Speaker 2: you gotta find find a good line of dogs that
Speaker 2: you want, whether it's plots, walkers, or and then just
Speaker 2: find some good dogs, and then you get a pup,
Speaker 2: you know. And then well then you got to train it,
Speaker 2: you know, and that's time consuming, especially if you've never
Speaker 2: done it before or you don't have any older dogs
Speaker 2: to train it with, you know. So there's that journey,
Speaker 2: which could be a really long journey, you know, and
Speaker 2: a lot of time, a lot of money. And then
Speaker 2: you get that part kind of down after years sometimes
Speaker 2: that you know, I remember in my younger years of it,
Speaker 2: I went days without catching stuff, you know, and uh
Speaker 2: but just kept at it, never gave up, you know,
Speaker 2: and and just kept pushing. But uh, yeah, so you
Speaker 2: got that part of it well then, and then the
Speaker 2: hunting part of it, you know. You know, we still
Speaker 2: get up extremely early as you know now, Yeah, get
Speaker 2: up early, we get out there. I mean, you got
Speaker 2: to have all the equipment, tons of equipment, you know,
Speaker 2: get get out there early, get everything unloaded. That's all work,
Speaker 2: you know, And and then you got to try to
Speaker 2: find a bear or lion or whatever you're doing. And
Speaker 2: sometimes it might you might go two or three days
Speaker 2: before you find what you're looking for. And then you
Speaker 2: find what you're looking for, and then it's like okay,
Speaker 2: and my dog's even going to catch it. You know,
Speaker 2: as you've seen yesterday, that wasn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was not easy at all, and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, multiple attempts and and some stuff
Speaker 1: where're like, oh, this is not going to go in
Speaker 1: our favor where you thought it was going to go
Speaker 1: in your favor and just the unknowns.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And they got in the rocks yesterday and
Speaker 2: I kind of thought he was going to get away
Speaker 2: there for a little bit, and you know, and just
Speaker 2: hiking in there. I know, we're all a little bit
Speaker 2: sore this morning.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it was so that's easy. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: And and uh, we'll get back to the easy. Like
Speaker 1: the I want to touch on the physical side. But
Speaker 1: you you mentioned something there about equipment. You don't just
Speaker 1: get to have a snowmobile. You don't just get to
Speaker 1: have a four wheeler. You don't just get to have
Speaker 1: a pickup truck, the trailer, the callers. I mean you
Speaker 1: you've got your investment into all this equipment to make
Speaker 1: these hunts happen, whether you got to go high, whether
Speaker 1: you got to stay low. You know, people can say
Speaker 1: easy because you're on a machine, but you're out there freezing,
Speaker 1: you're cold, you're putting tons of miles on tons of
Speaker 1: road like just time on the machines, and isn't easy
Speaker 1: And I'll I want to say now when I say
Speaker 1: the difficult side and Bradley's talking about the houndsman side,
Speaker 1: for the hunter side, I would agree, it's it's a
Speaker 1: little easier right by hunting bhyd hounds, like I would say,
Speaker 1: and easy really just comes into play, like do you
Speaker 1: consider driving up, getting out of your pickup truck and
Speaker 1: sitting on a clear cut easier than the hike we
Speaker 1: did yesterday? Like, yeah, I would say it may be
Speaker 1: easier to find success. I guess that part, but not
Speaker 1: always right there. There's times the weather didn't cooperate, you know,
Speaker 1: and so so how much I mean, is there any
Speaker 1: other equipment I didn't miss? And just to the extent
Speaker 1: of you know, you're getting you around, you're getting your
Speaker 1: clients around, like you got to have multiple machines, you know.
Speaker 1: You guys were telling me the story the other day
Speaker 1: about thinking you had enough snow and you went up
Speaker 1: and ruined your snow and bill tracks, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's yeah, there's all of this, and so I mean
Speaker 1: you just got a ton of equipment into this and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ton of equipment. I mean, yeah, like the other day,
Speaker 2: I you know, it's been a rough winner. So I
Speaker 2: had enough snow where I started ended up running out
Speaker 2: of snow. And they were brand new skis, you know
Speaker 2: that we're close to three hundred bucks. And I paid
Speaker 2: for them and I toasted them that very next day
Speaker 2: after I put them on, and a lot of that
Speaker 2: was I knew better, but it happens, you know. And yeah,
Speaker 2: the gear, like I have a couple of different four
Speaker 2: wheelers ready to to hunt with the hounds, like bear hunting,
Speaker 2: because I know how breakdowns are, you know, and when
Speaker 2: you're hunting every day and you're kind of in that routine,
Speaker 2: you know, you got to have a backup plan, so
Speaker 2: you got to have I have extra callers because callers
Speaker 2: always go bad. They're three hundred bucks apiece, three point
Speaker 2: fifty actually now for the ones I like, and I've
Speaker 2: got twenty of them, you know, And yeah, pick up
Speaker 2: the wearing hair and pickups. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 2: I could sell you anyone in my.
Speaker 1: Pickups, right, You wouldn't want a buddy to buy them?
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't want to sell them to a friend,
Speaker 2: you know. So they're really, it's just it's hard on everything.
Speaker 2: It costs a lot of money, and yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: it's it's it's a big commitment to be a houndman,
Speaker 2: you know, and there's no doubt about that new baby,
Speaker 2: and it's you don't really get that money back, you know.
Speaker 2: It's just you got to love it. And it's like
Speaker 2: a boat, they say, you know, you just keep dumping money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so touch back on the physical side. We
Speaker 1: we you know, we went and we weren't very far
Speaker 1: from the road, but you couldn't picked a much steeper canyon,
Speaker 1: you know for this cat to be in. You know,
Speaker 1: you let off in one place. It was one of
Speaker 1: the longer cougar chases that you said you've been a
Speaker 1: part of at times, and you didn't know if they
Speaker 1: were gonna you know, a tree, and then when you
Speaker 1: get there it's like it's rugged. And then it just
Speaker 1: so happened that when we showed up between then and
Speaker 1: when we got to the dogs, it had moved trees,
Speaker 1: and and uh, we're that's when we're side helme. Snow
Speaker 1: is involved. You know, usually your hunters are in more snow,
Speaker 1: so you're you're dealing with steep slopes, lots of snow,
Speaker 1: and you're not the easiest to get around in and
Speaker 1: and all. You know, not that I'm in the greatest shape,
Speaker 1: but when I got to the tree, like I was
Speaker 1: a little bit cooked already, you know. And then I mean,
Speaker 1: so it's just because you're behind dogs doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a cake walk to an animal, or that
Speaker 1: they don't tree two miles that way, and it takes
Speaker 1: you two hours.
Speaker 2: To get to the tree, right, Yeah, I mean, yeah, yesterday,
Speaker 2: you know, it ended up jumping twice on us. So
Speaker 2: it jumped the first time, which then we had to
Speaker 2: walk quite away and then treed and then we were
Speaker 2: fooling around there looking it over, and then it jumped again.
Speaker 2: Well then it went to you know, baying the dog,
Speaker 2: so then we had to cover more ground. And yeah,
Speaker 2: there was nothing easy about it. I remember I had
Speaker 2: a client last year that hunted with me, and I
Speaker 2: took anyways. He was he was older and kind of
Speaker 2: out of shape, and we treated this lion in some
Speaker 2: deep snow, you know, And it was it was probably
Speaker 2: only six seven hundred yards from the road, which doesn't
Speaker 2: sound far, but anybody that's familiar with TPS is in Idaho, right,
Speaker 2: But anyways, I got the guy. He made it about
Speaker 2: halfway and he was so whipped and he was ready
Speaker 2: to quit, you know so, and the snow was over
Speaker 2: my past my knees, you know. So I just made
Speaker 2: a pass with my snow shoes like two or three
Speaker 2: times to make him a walk way, and just got,
Speaker 2: you know, a little bit out of time and stuff.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I'll tell you what I was with
Speaker 2: that day, harder than any l kind I'd ever been on.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's not not guaranteed, not easy. The
Speaker 1: other thing where I feel, you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: as a deer and L hunter. We had about a
Speaker 1: month season maybe the and when I think of easy,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people think of how much
Speaker 1: work did I put in that day? But then I
Speaker 1: look at like, what are you doing for the whole year?
Speaker 1: Like you're out there, you know, I know, you know,
Speaker 1: you've been to some trade shows and you do deer
Speaker 1: and l hunting. But I mean you're out in the
Speaker 1: field two and fifty days a year.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's safe to say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so I mean, like I said, I'm going
Speaker 1: back to the helendsman, and I think the Helensman typically
Speaker 1: get more you know, more guff than I do as
Speaker 1: the hunter even or you know, maybe maybe not, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to kind of put the
Speaker 1: rest the idea that like helen hunting is easy in
Speaker 1: some form, it's it's not. I will I would agree
Speaker 1: that helen hunting probably has a high your success rate
Speaker 1: if you're going to be a I mean obviously bears,
Speaker 1: cats or whatever you're gonna you're gonna have a better
Speaker 1: chance of success, But doesn't necessarily it's.
Speaker 2: Easy to get there, right, And then I would say
Speaker 2: on the success part, you know, it all depends on
Speaker 2: the pack of dogs.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I mean I've seen guys you know that are just
Speaker 2: getting into it or maybe good hunters, good hound hunters
Speaker 2: that it had really good dogs at one time and
Speaker 2: then kind of lost their line or you knows, wipe
Speaker 2: them out, you know, and then they're back to square
Speaker 2: one and and so they're hound hunting trips aren't so Yeah,
Speaker 2: productive and productive, Yeah, but yeah, I would say, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's easier and it's easy to I can see why
Speaker 2: people think that it's easy, and especially with social media nowadays,
Speaker 2: you know, you see these little clips and guys, you
Speaker 2: know they're they're basically just showing.
Speaker 1: Law.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, turning dogs loose tree, shoot, shoot it, knock
Speaker 2: it out. That's it. And that does look pretty easy.
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of stuff that ain't shown. It
Speaker 2: is not easy. I can promise you that.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna I'm gonna keep throwing you some hard ones. Bradley.
Speaker 1: You know, one thing the antis like to use, or
Speaker 1: one thing they always say, is that hunting behind hounds
Speaker 1: isn't fair. I want to hear your opinion that. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna follow it.
Speaker 2: Up, okay with a twist there. Yeah, so yeah, fair Chase.
Speaker 2: You know they do use that. It's not fair, Chase.
Speaker 2: And I mean you just heard us talk about what
Speaker 2: how much time and equipment and stuff that goes into
Speaker 2: two hound hunting. So again, I'll bring back the lion hunt.
Speaker 2: Yesterday the thing almost got away. Yeah, there was actually
Speaker 2: a better chance of it getting away yesterday than us
Speaker 2: getting it. We happened to get it yesterday. Bear especially.
Speaker 2: I know Dirk's been with me on on times that
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: The bear got away, Well you have to that beat
Speaker 1: up bear. We just couldn't do anything with it.
Speaker 2: And so when I think a fair chase, I think
Speaker 2: about all the bears and lions that got away from hens,
Speaker 2: you know. So I mean, in my mind that's fair
Speaker 2: chase because they do have a chance to get away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I'm gonna when I think of fair,
Speaker 1: I come back to the management and I'm gonna not
Speaker 1: use the word fair, but I'm gonna look at like
Speaker 1: you in particular, the way that you manage hellnd hunting,
Speaker 1: You're not. It's it's the most fair way. You're not
Speaker 1: just shooting, you know, a female line across the canyon.
Speaker 1: You're you're pursuing the biggest, most dominant males. You're doing
Speaker 1: it in a way that's more sustainable. And when I
Speaker 1: say fair, like, I still see us as hunters, whether
Speaker 1: it's a heund hunter, whether it's a spot stock hunter,
Speaker 1: like we are a management tool and the fair in it, like,
Speaker 1: in order to go into this North American model a
Speaker 1: wildlife and use it how it is, we need to
Speaker 1: take some of these larger toms out. And if we
Speaker 1: target that, we're making sure we've got good line population.
Speaker 1: We're not trying to wipe them out. And so I'm like,
Speaker 1: find me a fair way to do this, use us
Speaker 1: as management tools and to use dogs. Go look at
Speaker 1: a cat in a tree and be like, you know what,
Speaker 1: too young, We're gonna let them. We're gonna let him
Speaker 1: out of the tree. Or yeah, that's a target animal,
Speaker 1: or that's a female, we're gonna let her go so
Speaker 1: she can stay and repot, you know, breed and and
Speaker 1: do it. It's not like you don't want to see
Speaker 1: these things wiped off the face of the earth. And
Speaker 1: that's where I think people look at houndsmen or people
Speaker 1: that hunt mind hounds and like those people want to
Speaker 1: wipe every animal off face of the earth. That it
Speaker 1: couldn't be further from the truth, especially hunting with you
Speaker 1: maybe maybe some heundsmen and we're gonna get into you know,
Speaker 1: bad bad raps or you know, kind of get a
Speaker 1: bad rap as a houndsman at times. And in some
Speaker 1: of these these things that have affected it. But I
Speaker 1: would say the majority, and you know, more helmsmen than me, aren't.
Speaker 1: You know, they're not out there thirst killing, They're not
Speaker 1: out there trying to kill everything on the landscape. You know.
Speaker 1: They want to manage. I mean, and not everything doesn't
Speaker 1: have to come back down to dollars or cents. But
Speaker 1: you make part of your living off of having big
Speaker 1: toms to kill, yep, And so it's like there's there's
Speaker 1: multiple reasons, and regardless if you took the money away,
Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't think that they all needed to be
Speaker 1: killed anyways, even if there wasn't a reason. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I think fairness, to me, is the best tools we
Speaker 1: have available to manage the population in a certain way
Speaker 1: or manipulate that population, and to me, held hunting is
Speaker 1: the best way to do it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I agree one hundred percent. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean that's what I should have been talking about,
Speaker 2: is how many how much stuff I've let go in
Speaker 2: my life, way more than I've killed. You know, I
Speaker 2: might I might catch a say eighty bear, you know,
Speaker 2: in a spring and fall or whatever, and maybe shoot
Speaker 2: four or five of them. I'm not kidding either. I
Speaker 2: mean I've done that several times. I mean, and like
Speaker 2: you said, you know, you can look them over good
Speaker 2: and okay that one's that one's a female, or you
Speaker 2: know that one's young, or or I don't know his
Speaker 2: his his hide ain't looking that great. You know, you
Speaker 2: can let you know, there's lots of reasons you can
Speaker 2: let him go where. And I'm not picking on any
Speaker 2: hunter group obviously, I'm for everything.
Speaker 1: But you know, we're.
Speaker 2: You you spot and stock. You know, you might see one
Speaker 2: three hundred yards and not and get up to it
Speaker 2: and be like, oh, man, didn't size it up right,
Speaker 2: that's only eighty pounds, you know, eighty pounds bare I
Speaker 2: thought it was bigger. Are the same with you know,
Speaker 2: mountain lions or or you know, you might spot and
Speaker 2: stop one of them and shoot and be like, oh, shoot,
Speaker 2: that was a female you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, yeah, knowing right.
Speaker 2: Not knowing we're hounds, you know every time what you're shooting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or you just have Yeah, the opportunity, I think,
Speaker 1: just the opportunity for let's say you're not buying hounds
Speaker 1: and you're just out there trying to find it, you're
Speaker 1: gonna the opportunities are slim. A lot of times, people
Speaker 1: getting a rush, you're going to shoot the one they see, yep,
Speaker 1: because it's legal, and there there's no like set you know,
Speaker 1: target animal, you know, you call it trophy hunting, call
Speaker 1: whatever you want. I don't care what people call it.
Speaker 1: To this point, like and in our opinion, it's the
Speaker 1: best way to manage that species is an overall is
Speaker 1: behind helens and I.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you take heunds out of any state
Speaker 2: and watch the predators. Yeah, it's it's it's a wonderful tool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in Washington where you know, any helmsman that's
Speaker 1: left is the rebel at this point. You know, some
Speaker 1: of them stayed on but and it might just be
Speaker 1: more time I spent in the woods. But I've seen
Speaker 1: more cats on the on their feet like daylight in
Speaker 1: the last ten years, and I did for the twenty
Speaker 1: years before then, you know, And it's our cat populations
Speaker 1: are bad, which you know, I'm not going to sit
Speaker 1: here and get into you know, unridd populations. And there's
Speaker 1: these ebbs and flows, and we're just not in a
Speaker 1: good spot right now. And as much as you say
Speaker 1: they'll balance themselves out, they will. But now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, these cats are day and you're starving because
Speaker 1: now there aren't enough, and it's like, well, I don't
Speaker 1: want to see the cat stuff for either, So let's
Speaker 1: just balance them, keep the deal. Let's keep them all
Speaker 1: as high as we can get them and have the
Speaker 1: best population is you know, basically the highest density of
Speaker 1: the landscape. Behold is what we should shoot for and
Speaker 1: then balance everything to that. But yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting and and I hate when people say it's not.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, show me a fair way to manage
Speaker 1: cat populations. There isn't one than no behind hounds. I
Speaker 1: don't believe, you know, bears maybe bait. You know, bait
Speaker 1: could be argued potentially, yes or no. You know, we
Speaker 1: we got to bear hunt last year, and sometimes it's
Speaker 1: sometimes tough to get your big bears up a tree
Speaker 1: and and maybe hew, you know you have you said
Speaker 1: you've preed big bears as well as little ones, though
Speaker 1: you know there're maybe bait is just as equal or
Speaker 1: maybe better worse than certain spots, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: aside from that, like just you know, gloss of them
Speaker 1: and stuff. Sometimes unless you're in the right train, just
Speaker 1: isn't the best way to to manage those either.
Speaker 2: No, no, it's not.
Speaker 1: We're gonna roll into a little bit of the image
Speaker 1: of the hound hunter, and I'm curious. I'm gonna kind
Speaker 1: of preface us with I think there's bad apples in
Speaker 1: every group, but can you kind of elaborate a little bit.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this, like you know, you talked about
Speaker 1: an area where some hell hunters you know, just refuse
Speaker 1: to throw us some paperwork and got it shut down
Speaker 1: for all you guys, and some of this stuff like
Speaker 1: the perception of Helen hunters. Can you like clarify that
Speaker 1: or elaborate a little bit on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like you said that a few bad
Speaker 2: apples can make the whole tree look bad, because I've
Speaker 2: seen it so many times. And I would just encourage
Speaker 2: anybody that's listening and thinking about getting in hounds or anything,
Speaker 2: you know, just just remember, you know, we don't have
Speaker 2: the greatest name unfortunately from those bad apples. So I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I know hound hunters have broke a lot
Speaker 2: of gate locks off the gates. I mean that's to
Speaker 2: go get their dogs or go get their dogs, and
Speaker 2: you know, and I get it in wolfy country and
Speaker 2: they're nervous, you know, some of them, you know, might
Speaker 2: have made that decision on that. I don't know, but
Speaker 2: it's not good. You know. We just need to we
Speaker 2: need to prove to everybody that you know, we're we're
Speaker 2: fair chase and we're responsible enough to do this, and
Speaker 2: we're not tearing up roads or tearing up gates or
Speaker 2: or trespassing on property. You know, we've got to you know,
Speaker 2: be aware of all that stuff and and keep keep
Speaker 2: it clean. And but I've seen it. I think the
Speaker 2: biggest thing with with hound guys is how they take
Speaker 2: care of their dogs. I've heard that from you and
Speaker 2: other people so many times. You know, I've been at
Speaker 2: trade shows and had people walk up to me and say,
Speaker 2: I just don't like how you guys take care of
Speaker 2: your dogs. You know, you guys so like again back
Speaker 2: to the few business. So yeah, I mean unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 2: I you know, hound hunters, a few of them, you know,
Speaker 2: especially the old school ones were pretty rough on dogs,
Speaker 2: maybe shooting them and shooting them in front of people
Speaker 2: or whatever because they did something they weren't supposed to,
Speaker 2: or are beating them with a stick real hard. And
Speaker 2: you know, now we've got shot collar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, technologies helped you guys out in the training.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, I was telling you the story
Speaker 1: earlier a guy that I knew, and it was specifically
Speaker 1: cat dogs. Right, So what you sometimes run is bear kyos.
Speaker 1: Everything else is trash. They only want them to run cats.
Speaker 1: And I can remember, you know, dogs getting back to
Speaker 1: the truck and getting on the wrong whack, you know,
Speaker 1: getting beat and you know, I didn't ever see any
Speaker 1: get cold, but you know, you hear about like these
Speaker 1: guys were so hardcore that you know, if you didn't
Speaker 1: you know, belong in the bloodline, and they felt it
Speaker 1: was like their dude to take it out. And you're like,
Speaker 1: holy smokes, I try. Even though I hunt, I still
Speaker 1: love animals, and like, I don't know, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: they get a bad rap on on a lot of
Speaker 1: that in the way that they treat their animals. And
Speaker 1: like you said, you're you know, if it doesn't hunt,
Speaker 1: then it'll make somebody else a pet, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I like that because it's not maybe the way
Speaker 1: it was back where I come from, you know, where
Speaker 1: there were hound hunters, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've gave a handful of them away that I
Speaker 2: knew they were going to get hunts, and shoot, they
Speaker 2: lived really good. The next thing they know, they're living
Speaker 2: in the house and just one of the they make
Speaker 2: a great pet, really, I mean a great house dog,
Speaker 2: a hound kind of like a black lab or something.
Speaker 2: You know, they're real calm dogs for the most part,
Speaker 2: especially when they get older. But yeah, I've never I've
Speaker 2: never agreed with shooting a dog because it didn't you know,
Speaker 2: it didn't work out for you, or it didn't do
Speaker 2: what you wanted it too. So that's bad. Again, that's
Speaker 2: only a few people that we're talking about, you hound guys.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I'm gonna spur I'm gonna kind of
Speaker 1: take this bad rap there and hopefully we want to
Speaker 1: talk about this and not just told me to go fight. Guys, like,
Speaker 1: some of your dogs do get injured in the process
Speaker 1: of hound hunting, right, and you found veterinarians that label
Speaker 1: hound hunters as bad people, that you're putting your dogs
Speaker 1: at risk. And you guys struggle sometimes to find anybody
Speaker 1: that'll repair your dogs. And you treat these things like
Speaker 1: your family, so it be like some doctor telling you
Speaker 1: I'm not going to fix your kid up. You know
Speaker 1: it is, basically, But you guys struggle even finding bets
Speaker 1: that want to work on you know, hunting dogs or
Speaker 1: work dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that seems to be getting hard. That seems
Speaker 2: to be getting really hard. If you have a great
Speaker 2: bet and you're a hound guy, and you're listening, You're lucky.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, unfortunately, I've got some you know, taking
Speaker 2: dogs in for bare bites and stuff. And again, these
Speaker 2: dogs are doing what they They're hurt and want to
Speaker 2: keep hunting. They love it. I mean you've seen them.
Speaker 2: They hate to be left home. But yeah, every once
Speaker 2: in a while, you know, they'll get caught by a
Speaker 2: bear and need stitches or whatever. And I've got some
Speaker 2: strange looks at bets and had them you know, pretty
Speaker 2: much tell me they weren't well. Actually, all this backup.
Speaker 2: So I have this three legged dog not gatling. Actually
Speaker 2: she had four legs, her back legs she couldn't use
Speaker 2: very well. And I wanted to make a cross before
Speaker 2: she died with another male I had and anyway, so
Speaker 2: I tried to make the cross with them. Well, her
Speaker 2: back hit. She just fall to the ground every time
Speaker 2: mel got on her. You know, they couldn't do it naturally.
Speaker 2: So I really wanted to cross. I said, well, I'll
Speaker 2: just do it artificially. I'll just get a hold of
Speaker 2: the bet. And so I got a hold of the
Speaker 2: bet and made the appointment. I had a bear hunter,
Speaker 2: I think client here, So I called and asked my
Speaker 2: mom if she could run the two dogs over for
Speaker 2: their appointment and get that done, and yeah, I'll do that.
Speaker 2: And anyway, she called me and said, hey, the bets
Speaker 2: wouldn't do this, and I was like, what do you
Speaker 2: mean they wouldn't do it? And she said, well, they're hounds,
Speaker 2: so they refused to do it. And I was like,
Speaker 2: you're kidding me, and so yeah, I'm don't use that
Speaker 2: bet again, but they but yeah, I was just blown
Speaker 2: away that when they found out they were they were
Speaker 2: fine with doing it until she got there and they
Speaker 2: realized they were hunting dogs, and then they refused to
Speaker 2: do it, and that's just like really But anyways, so yeah,
Speaker 2: a good bet, you got one, keep it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy that they would discriminate against like
Speaker 1: hunting dog or what purpose was versus a you know,
Speaker 1: a non hunting dog. But anyways, well we're gonna jump
Speaker 1: into like in your opinion, like the the impact of
Speaker 1: hound hunting on like wildlife populations. We can all agree that,
Speaker 1: you know, killing predators has an impact on the but
Speaker 1: then those predators would also kill you know, the ungulits,
Speaker 1: and so how does this all kind of balance out?
Speaker 1: Like in your opinion, is how you know, how does
Speaker 1: hound hunting insert itself as a management tool, you know,
Speaker 1: for for the health of all species.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I couldn't imagine what our deer and
Speaker 2: elk population would be without hound. I mean, I just
Speaker 2: here in Idaho because I've hunted these cats for years now,
Speaker 2: and I've seen one. Let me let me say this though,
Speaker 2: about cats. I will say this about cats that I
Speaker 2: can't say about wolves. I've found a lot of kills
Speaker 2: that you know, deer and elk that mainly deer. I
Speaker 2: do finding more deer than I do l but I've
Speaker 2: literally seen them. They most of the time, they eat
Speaker 2: that kill all the way up. They cover it up
Speaker 2: every night they come back, so they're only killing what
Speaker 2: they eat. And I like that about lions. But again,
Speaker 2: you know, a big tom like you killed yesterday is
Speaker 2: killed a lot of deer and elk. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know for sure, but I would say he's probably killed,
Speaker 2: especially in an adult life, he's probably killed every seven
Speaker 2: to fourteen days, because I've tracked him around and seen
Speaker 2: where they killed and then tracked him and where they've
Speaker 2: killed another one. You know, and I've actually hunted them,
Speaker 2: you know where they were. I didn't catch him for
Speaker 2: several days back to the easy right and several days
Speaker 2: to catch him. And literally known he's been traveling for
Speaker 2: four days. I know he hasn't eight. He's looking for
Speaker 2: something to kill. But so you add that up, that's
Speaker 2: just one lion. I mean, if you don't manage them.
Speaker 2: And again I don't kill every lion I catch, and
Speaker 2: I don't kill females. But that's killing a lot of
Speaker 2: deer and elk. So I mean, if you took if
Speaker 2: you took the hound hound hunting out of that, holy smokes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because because there's nothing I mean we talked yesterday,
Speaker 1: you know, aside from wolves and they got a big
Speaker 1: tom's just gonna run up a tree. Still, it's take
Speaker 1: like big cougars don't have any natural creditors for the
Speaker 1: most part, right, they live on the landscape is an
Speaker 1: apex and you know these things, like you said seven
Speaker 1: to fourteen days, so you know everybody always says one
Speaker 1: a week, but let's say seven to fourteen. You know
Speaker 1: they're killing at least forty to sixty you know, deer,
Speaker 1: elk or kills throughout the year. And it's like that's
Speaker 1: a lot in the you know, same with bears. You know,
Speaker 1: he hunting bears. You know, those things are eating a
Speaker 1: ton of fawns in the in the you know, spring
Speaker 1: and when they start to drop or you know, early
Speaker 1: summer at that time, and it's like you know, the yeah,
Speaker 1: they will you know, take berry, they'll take whatever. There
Speaker 1: there's an opportunist. And so it's like by by helping
Speaker 1: you know, manage that bear population as well, you're making
Speaker 1: sure that you know, you're you're you're keeping your ungulate
Speaker 1: population is hopefully as healthy as you can, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I've seen I've seen where bears, you know,
Speaker 2: especially it really worked the fawns over in kyotes. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't hunt coyotes much, but that's another thing that
Speaker 2: there's a lot I feel like coyotes. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: glad you guys are making predator calls because you know,
Speaker 2: I mean I've seen it, you know, lion hunting in
Speaker 2: the wintertime where these coyotes are taking down deer, like
Speaker 2: three or four of them. I've seen it, you know,
Speaker 2: in the snow, don't lie. You can see that they've
Speaker 2: ran them down and caught them, whether they had a
Speaker 2: broken leg the deer or whatever. I don't know, but
Speaker 2: so that's another thing. Predators need managed bad. I mean,
Speaker 2: all of them, and I don't want to wipe them
Speaker 2: out because I enjoy hunting them, you know. So it's
Speaker 2: a fine line, you know, And and that's why, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to say I necessarily four quotas or anything,
Speaker 2: but you know, quotas on females, you know, I think
Speaker 2: is a good deal. So you don't completely wipe them out,
Speaker 2: you know, but but you kill enough of them to
Speaker 2: because you know, again I don't kill females, but you
Speaker 2: think of a female raising three yearlings. They're killing a
Speaker 2: lot of deer. Yeah, yeah, she's killing a lot of
Speaker 2: the feed. Yeah, they probably kill more. Well, I know,
Speaker 2: they kill more than a tongue. So let's rule.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna quote Dirk scientific fact, and I don't
Speaker 1: know the study. He was mentioning that there was a
Speaker 1: study where you know, a cougar, you're seven to fourteen days,
Speaker 1: but then they found that this cougar was killing more
Speaker 1: and more, you know, three to five times a week,
Speaker 1: right in the study. And then you look back and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, that cat was killing on necessity
Speaker 1: because it kept getting its kill stolen from the wolves.
Speaker 1: You know, until you add this in where it's like
Speaker 1: you had wolves back in the landscape. Now these cats,
Speaker 1: which are maybe better killers than these wolves, are now
Speaker 1: killing three to five times as much. And now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it doesn't take long for the balance
Speaker 1: to be way out of whack, right, because these wolves
Speaker 1: now moved in and this created this killing is free basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean, lions are killers.
Speaker 2: You know, I feel like they're more successful. You think
Speaker 2: of your house cut out here killing these mice and everything.
Speaker 2: I mean, lions are successful hunters and more successful I
Speaker 2: think than the wolves. But I think a kill a
Speaker 2: lion killed, one lion can eat on a kill longer.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So if you've got to pack of wolves and I
Speaker 2: know this is this has happened, you know where they're
Speaker 2: fallowing the lion around, you know, that's creating a lion,
Speaker 2: you know, running the lion off the kill, that's creating
Speaker 2: the lion.
Speaker 1: To kill more.
Speaker 2: And that's not good. And yeah, it's just.
Speaker 1: Unbalanced, del and you get you mentioned a little bit,
Speaker 1: and it might even be changing the characteristics of these
Speaker 1: cats a little bit. Where they're having to be a
Speaker 1: little bit tougher and realizing like, all right, maybe I
Speaker 1: can fight off these wolves. Well, you know it's over.
Speaker 1: You've talked about like the effect that it's even you
Speaker 1: guys feel maybe he's had on your dogs as of late,
Speaker 1: where these cats getting a little bolder, a little tougher,
Speaker 1: and let you know what, I've you know, warded off
Speaker 1: some wolves on enough like maybe I'm gonna I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, start to not be so scared of your
Speaker 1: dog is at a point which isn't good for Heleneman
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: No, And I mean that's just their survival.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: They they've been around for a long timeline, so they
Speaker 2: they know how to survive. And I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 2: know this, this is my theory, you know. But this
Speaker 2: would have been in like I want to say, two
Speaker 2: thousand and five or something. The wolves are bad here.
Speaker 2: I'm they're managed now and where it's better here in Idaho.
Speaker 2: But but a lot of wolves. And we were hunting
Speaker 2: and I had had a buddy with me with a
Speaker 2: nice hound that he had plot dog, and I had
Speaker 2: a plot dog. Anyways, I had an old track, so
Speaker 2: I ended up walking with these dogs for a while.
Speaker 2: Well they ended up taking this track. And anyways, I
Speaker 2: heard this. I'm telling the story pretty quick, but I
Speaker 2: heard this got awful squeal down there that I thought
Speaker 2: that was the dog, but I wasn't sure. And I thought, well,
Speaker 2: did they jump and go out of hearing already or what.
Speaker 2: But I just never heard the sound again. Well, anyways,
Speaker 2: in the meanwhile, my dog had veered off on another track,
Speaker 2: going backwards, actually on a track, and my buddy's dog
Speaker 2: was off to the right, you know, I could tell.
Speaker 2: And I was still using the peepers back then. But anyways,
Speaker 2: I walked down to where I heard the noise just
Speaker 2: to kind of see. And I get down there and
Speaker 2: I see nothing but blood just everywhere. And there's that
Speaker 2: plot dog, Frank was his name, laying there dead, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, what in the world. And I started looking
Speaker 2: there and the lion had to kill, you know, and
Speaker 2: was laying there, and the dog jumped up on the
Speaker 2: log there and the lion was just waiting for it.
Speaker 2: I could see what everything happened, and it just bit
Speaker 2: it one time through the top of the head. It
Speaker 2: just had those puncture holes in the top of the
Speaker 2: dog's head. And so my theory was always that they've
Speaker 2: learned to fight, because I mean, anybody the town hunting
Speaker 2: for a long time, it's rare. I mean, yesterday was
Speaker 2: rare with your lion. You know, it bade the dogs
Speaker 2: and stuff. But you know where there's trees where we're
Speaker 2: hunting up here in northern Idaho and stuff, and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of trees like it is so rare to
Speaker 2: bay up and for a lion to fight. I think
Speaker 2: I can only think of about three times it's happened
Speaker 2: to me in thirty years of whatever doing it. So
Speaker 2: I always felt like, and that's like I said, again,
Speaker 2: that's when the wolves were real bad. I always felt
Speaker 2: like and it was a big tom, big tom. I
Speaker 2: always felt like it had to learn to fight canines
Speaker 2: and it probably had fought some wolves off when a
Speaker 2: hound was nothing, you know. And again that's just me thinking,
Speaker 2: but I think there's probably a lot of truth to Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and let's get into you know, you guys,
Speaker 1: you know, call them found that. I don't want to
Speaker 1: equate them to your kids, but you know, for a
Speaker 1: lot of you guys, they're they're part of your family.
Speaker 1: Dog safety. And then we're gonna roll. We're kind of well,
Speaker 1: we'll tell h you know, my hunt story, and we'll
Speaker 1: kind of roll into some times where I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want this on my shoulders, and you know,
Speaker 1: throughout this hunt, so we we you know, we finally
Speaker 1: get to the your location and we get down there,
Speaker 1: you know, and we get to the tree and we're
Speaker 1: we're looking at shot angles and it was in a
Speaker 1: great spot and then we thought we had a shot. Well,
Speaker 1: then he would slump on the tree and vidals, Well,
Speaker 1: what you do to protect your dog? Because these animals,
Speaker 1: whether it's a bear or whether it's a cougar, they're
Speaker 1: they've got fear of the dogs until they're wounded or
Speaker 1: until they can't run anymore. Right, right, They're willing to
Speaker 1: go away from the dogs, but you've now put a
Speaker 1: fatal shot or a non fatal shot, and they're not
Speaker 1: as fast and the dogs get to them. It's it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be good typically, right, So we get to
Speaker 1: the tree. We're trying to fiddle around and look at
Speaker 1: every different angle. We got guys going everywhere trying to
Speaker 1: look at shot angles. It was way too steep. I
Speaker 1: wasn't comfortable using my bow. So we were him and
Speaker 1: hand around and you go one thing that you I'm
Speaker 1: all hounds, but not just you. You got you go
Speaker 1: and leash all your dogs to the tree right before
Speaker 1: that time. If we're getting ready to shoot it. You
Speaker 1: do not want your dogs to be able to get
Speaker 1: to this cat during this wounded expiration phase, right, So
Speaker 1: that's one thing that you do. So we're sitting there,
Speaker 1: so that's that's vital. It's for the dog safety. You
Speaker 1: care about these things. So the tree, we start to
Speaker 1: see him get antsy and starts to get himself down
Speaker 1: the tree. We're all out of position, dogs are, so
Speaker 1: I remember it was a mad dash. You guys were
Speaker 1: trying to keep it up the tree by knocking on it,
Speaker 1: and the cat just didn't care, jumped out over our buddy,
Speaker 1: your buddy, Tim's I just met him yesterday, Tim's head
Speaker 1: and he's off again. Well then it's a mad scramble.
Speaker 1: We'll get the dogs loose so we can hopefully retreat
Speaker 1: it because now we're working again, it's time. One thing
Speaker 1: I love about technology is you had ran off in
Speaker 1: the direction that the cat and then your dogs quickly
Speaker 1: went and we were trying to get all of our gear,
Speaker 1: grab packs, do everything, you know, grab leashes, and we
Speaker 1: come in here and we all kind of get back
Speaker 1: to your everbody sit down. They're coming back. You could
Speaker 1: see on and we sat down, and you said, it's
Speaker 1: not very rare. I just assumed, well, this always happened
Speaker 1: this way. Like you can see this cat start slothering
Speaker 1: down the creek and then it turns right in front
Speaker 1: of us at what forty yards? Yeah, And I always
Speaker 1: assumed on these cat races that it's everything's sprinting all
Speaker 1: out right. No, this cat was low, he was tired, quiet,
Speaker 1: I mean, but he was and he held dogs dogs
Speaker 1: close to him, just like he was gonna slowly get away.
Speaker 1: Dogs came around the corner maybe twenty seconds behind, kind
Speaker 1: of get there, catching up to him. Getting the track
Speaker 1: heated up, and you'd mentioned the dogs were a little tired,
Speaker 1: you know. I had to have some time off with
Speaker 1: all your trade shows. And they finally they're milling around
Speaker 1: and they're on the same trail and at the same time,
Speaker 1: we're watching the cat get higher on this steep steep
Speaker 1: rock and we're watching the dogs and and you kind
Speaker 1: of watch this cat like he doesn't really want a tree.
Speaker 1: He doesn't really want to get away from the dogs anymore.
Speaker 1: Like we didn't know at this time what was going
Speaker 1: to happen. And one of your dogs, you might know
Speaker 1: which one bark was. It was on the kind of
Speaker 1: what I'm my terminology is horrible, a hot bark, like
Speaker 1: it was a different bark than what they had been doing.
Speaker 1: And the cat skewed it real quick. But you we
Speaker 1: got the coolest sillho whatever. This cat walks out onto
Speaker 1: this rock, which looked very flat from from our side, right,
Speaker 1: and then you see it turn around. And the first
Speaker 1: thing that goes through my head is all these desert
Speaker 1: hunts or Rocky Mountain, you know, rocky southern desert hunts
Speaker 1: where you know they bay upcause don't have a tree
Speaker 1: to climb at times. And I think you and Tim
Speaker 1: and everybody, I think we all thought about the same
Speaker 1: Illinois's going to bay up, and you you weren't. I
Speaker 1: don't blame this on you. You're just letting me know a situation.
Speaker 1: I know this isn't good for the dog. You know
Speaker 1: you mentioned something I'm gonna get a dog killed here
Speaker 1: or something, so you you kind of take off me
Speaker 1: and you bump way forward and I think dirt chase.
Speaker 1: And then we got up there and then you you
Speaker 1: put a lot of pressure on me because you're like
Speaker 1: you've got to make a good shot here because my
Speaker 1: dogs are there, Like this isn't in a tree, they're
Speaker 1: not leashed up, a little different situation than ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of them. Is this cat, you know? And for
Speaker 1: those that don't know Beta bears cats, basically, they're not
Speaker 1: climbing a tree at this point. They're gonna sit and
Speaker 1: fight on the ground and swipe and hiss and they're
Speaker 1: they're now defending their ground at this point, this cat,
Speaker 1: we assume had been on the rock before, very sharp,
Speaker 1: very tough for the dogs to get out to where
Speaker 1: this cat had got to. But like so I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna jump into the shot right now, but explain when
Speaker 1: now we're in a different situation than the first tree.
Speaker 1: You don't have dogs on the leash. Your dogs are
Speaker 1: tree to be all over this cat. Now we're shooting
Speaker 1: and hoping that dogs, you know, Like we're making very clear,
Speaker 1: like we can't see the dogs because we're very steep,
Speaker 1: rocky pinnacle country where we're trying that me and you
Speaker 1: were talking like where to hit him? You know, you
Speaker 1: almost want to shock the spine, so there's a move
Speaker 1: You need to get a lethal shot so he's not
Speaker 1: just sitting there paralyzed. What's that like as a hell
Speaker 1: and guy? When the cat's on the ground, Like, have
Speaker 1: you seen them like expire and not move whereas like
Speaker 1: are typically is there going to be a little bit
Speaker 1: of a skirmage afterward? Like what's the risk both bear
Speaker 1: and cougar for when these things get wounded? Are they
Speaker 1: just more tenacious the dogs? You can get on and
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a fight? Like what are all your
Speaker 1: concerns at that point for dog safety?
Speaker 2: And well, yeah, there was a lot going through my
Speaker 2: mind yesterday, you know, I mean when you were talking
Speaker 2: to back up a little bit when it was coming
Speaker 2: through the tree. You know, we talked about maybe shooting then,
Speaker 2: but you're better off to have a a bay up
Speaker 2: job without a wounded cat, I mean, no doubt. And
Speaker 2: when a gunshot goes off, the brains leave from the dogs.
Speaker 2: They just assume it's dead, you know, And so the
Speaker 2: cat's adrenalines going, the dog's adrenalines going, and that's when
Speaker 2: something gets hurt. So that's why I made it, because
Speaker 2: you had a shot, you know, but I just didn't
Speaker 2: feel good about it. So I was split second decision
Speaker 2: and decided not to shoot there. Okay, Well, then when
Speaker 2: it got on the rock, you know it was, I
Speaker 2: was pretty confident there wasn't no dogs around it. I
Speaker 2: don't have a lot of experience with cats on the
Speaker 2: ground because they don't bay, especially in this country where
Speaker 2: we're hunting like that very often. I mean, it's rare.
Speaker 2: So so I did have a lion tagg in my pocket,
Speaker 2: and I know that, and I appreciate it, you know,
Speaker 2: You're like, hey, you know you want to shoot it
Speaker 2: because I don't want to hurt a dog, and I do.
Speaker 2: I really do appreciate that. But my good buddy Dirk
Speaker 2: has told me how well you do under pressure, and
Speaker 2: you definitely proved it yesterday.
Speaker 1: So but.
Speaker 2: So I just say, like I bear you know, the
Speaker 2: ones I've killed on the ground myself personally, I had
Speaker 2: shoot him, you know, And I thought about having you
Speaker 2: head shooting. Now. I know you could have got it
Speaker 2: the way I watched to shoot yesterday, or a good shot,
Speaker 2: but I just figured behind the front shoulder and I
Speaker 2: knew in my head it was going to roll off
Speaker 2: the rock, and I knew there wasn't a dog there.
Speaker 2: My biggest fears the dogs were going to get closer
Speaker 2: because they hadn't got up on the rock yet, and
Speaker 2: they would have, you know. And so I think it
Speaker 2: just the timing worked out perfect. I seen you had
Speaker 2: to rest and the dogs weren't right in his face yet,
Speaker 2: and I was like, he's gonna shoot, and if he
Speaker 2: hits it right, it'll roll off the back of that rock.
Speaker 2: And I think the dogs will be smart enough if
Speaker 2: we would have waited and the dogs were more face
Speaker 2: to face, you know, and you made a bad shot.
Speaker 2: And I've seen this and heard about it. You know,
Speaker 2: where a cat, you know, if you would have made
Speaker 2: a bad shot and there was a dog right there,
Speaker 2: it's going to grab a dog and go off the
Speaker 2: place with the dog.
Speaker 1: And that was my big spirence.
Speaker 2: So I just felt good. And typically we would have
Speaker 2: been probably better off, Like if even if I would
Speaker 2: have been by myself, I might have tried to walk
Speaker 2: up there and just get the dogs with a leash,
Speaker 2: holl them off, you know, then taking the chance to
Speaker 2: wound it. But again, I had confidence in you, and
Speaker 2: you know you did good.
Speaker 1: It worked out good, like we you know, caught all lungs.
Speaker 1: We shocked the spine on the way through. Let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about weapon of choice. There were times
Speaker 1: I wish I had a gun with the scope, but
Speaker 1: you guys, it seems like thirty to thirty is always
Speaker 1: the gun of choice. Or you know some lever action?
Speaker 1: Is that for quick follow up shots? Is that for
Speaker 1: is the is that bullet going slow enough where it's
Speaker 1: gonna put all of its energy? Like explain why you
Speaker 1: go open site and bagun and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, open sites definitely. I have learned. And the guy,
Speaker 2: you know, several years of guiding, now, I actually like
Speaker 2: scopes too. If I have a client that that here
Speaker 2: hunt and I want him to have a scope because
Speaker 2: you know, most people are good at shooting the scopes.
Speaker 2: But the reason I had you guys bring a thirty
Speaker 2: thirty is just experience, you know, and most of the time,
Speaker 2: I mean, our original plan was you were going to
Speaker 2: shoot it with the bow. Yeah, you know, and I knew.
Speaker 3: That if I if you made a bad shot with
Speaker 3: the with the bow, we're probably now it's going to
Speaker 3: be on the ground and now it's going to be
Speaker 3: getting shots off really quick.
Speaker 2: And that's where the open sites come in handy, because
Speaker 2: you can see what's going on around you. And I
Speaker 2: definitely like that on a bait up bear because you
Speaker 2: go shooting at a bait up bear with a scope,
Speaker 2: you can't really see where the dogs are, and then
Speaker 2: it's really dangerous for the dog. You might shoot a dog.
Speaker 2: And so there's there's some of the reasons I like
Speaker 2: a good and thirty thirty. You know, you can't go
Speaker 2: wrong with a good old thirty thirty.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, I'm glad you guys had you and
Speaker 1: Tyrell didn't have a whole lot of faith in my
Speaker 1: archery ability because the gun was down the hill with us.
Speaker 1: This way, he ultimately needed to use it, So I know, reality,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this guy can shoot a bow,
Speaker 1: so just bring the gun in case. But no, it
Speaker 1: worked out good. Like and I'm gonna touch on this
Speaker 1: a little bit and some people might frown up me.
Speaker 1: I look at when you've treed a cat or a bear,
Speaker 1: Archery at that point doesn't matter to me. Like archery
Speaker 1: elk is different, archery deer is different. You're like this
Speaker 1: scene is trapped in a tree. To me, it's just
Speaker 1: a weapon to dispatch the animal at that point, and
Speaker 1: so I wasn't that hung up. I did bring my bow.
Speaker 1: I like, you know, it's cool, but it's like man,
Speaker 1: in the end, it's just a way to dispatch the
Speaker 1: animal that's stuck in a tree. Yep, you know. And
Speaker 1: that's what I looked at it. It wasn't didn't need
Speaker 1: to be a bow kill.
Speaker 2: But yeah, one hundred percent. I mean, I I'm the
Speaker 2: exact matter of fact, you know, which I've only killed
Speaker 2: a couple lions personally myself, and I've said that before,
Speaker 2: but you know I've been responsible all of the a
Speaker 2: lot of them dying. But I I'm the same way
Speaker 2: Jason and I've killed. I don't matter of fact, I
Speaker 2: don't even hunt here with a bow. You do, and
Speaker 2: not that I wouldn't. Just we have a good rifle
Speaker 2: season around here where I hunt stuff and I do that.
Speaker 2: But you know, I've killed lots of bear, a few lions.
Speaker 1: I love to.
Speaker 2: Archery elkut, especially with Phelps game appreciate it.
Speaker 1: But so.
Speaker 2: I I could have shot lots of barn lions with
Speaker 2: a bow. But I'm kind of like you were. It's like,
Speaker 2: I may as well just use a gun. It's right here.
Speaker 2: So I kind of agree with you. And I get
Speaker 2: a lot of clients that bring bows, and they asked me,
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, I don't want it to be
Speaker 2: a deal breaker. You can bring your bow and stuff.
Speaker 2: But I will say that I and I've trapped plenty
Speaker 2: wounded with a rifle too though. But you know, like
Speaker 2: this year, we wounded one and I hated to see that.
Speaker 2: And once once you shoot, and the problem with the
Speaker 2: cat in the tree most of the time, once you
Speaker 2: get one shot and it goes airborne of the time,
Speaker 2: and you're lucky, even with an open sites, you're lucky
Speaker 2: to get another shot most of the time. So you
Speaker 2: have one shot, and then I'm not willing to turn
Speaker 2: my dogs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't know if they're going to get you're
Speaker 1: gonna get back up a tree, if they're going to
Speaker 1: bay up at that point, so your dogs are out
Speaker 1: of the Yeah, it's just you and the cat at
Speaker 1: that point.
Speaker 2: It's just me and the cat. Because I just feel
Speaker 2: like that's and there's a lot of people that turn
Speaker 2: loose on on I'm not trying to say they're wrong
Speaker 2: or anything, But I personally ain't turning my dogs loose
Speaker 2: on a wounded cat because that's just asking for it
Speaker 2: for a dog to get hurt that bills, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to. They are like my kids, like you
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier. I mean, these dogs are part of my family,
Speaker 2: have been my whole life, and I don't know what
Speaker 2: I do without them. So like, the last thing I
Speaker 2: want to do is put them.
Speaker 1: In harms way.
Speaker 2: They're in harms way and not ye, yeah, that's really
Speaker 2: putting them in harms way. And and they're special. These
Speaker 2: dogs are special, you know. I mean you've hunted with
Speaker 2: Mallory and stuff. And I've done this for a really
Speaker 2: long time, my whole life. You know, I always say
Speaker 2: twenty five thirty years, but really a good since uh
Speaker 2: my dad was packing me in the trees. You know,
Speaker 2: I've done this for a really long time. And I
Speaker 2: know you take a dog like my Mallory dog there,
Speaker 2: and I know in my mind that I probably will
Speaker 2: never own another dog like her. I mean, she once
Speaker 2: in a lifetime dog and it I couldn't replace her.
Speaker 2: There's no, there's no I've been offered a lot of
Speaker 2: money for you know how much money I've put in,
Speaker 2: and she's not for sale because I will never ever,
Speaker 2: probably more likely own another dog like that. And and
Speaker 2: that's I can say that because I've done this so
Speaker 2: long and I've owned a lot of good ones, but
Speaker 2: a dog like that would be beat or hard to beat.
Speaker 2: So I just any of them, even my worst dog
Speaker 2: down there, I don't want to put in harms. They're
Speaker 2: really special to us.
Speaker 1: So those wounded want you know, you're just you're they're
Speaker 1: tied up from that point on and you were your
Speaker 1: client or you're on.
Speaker 2: Foot just like you're ilk looking for blood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, that's yeah. So I mean, like
Speaker 1: we got to see some cool stuff. Got to see
Speaker 1: a cat try to slither away through the woods, like
Speaker 1: I don't know if he knew we were there or not,
Speaker 1: but he acted like he didn't know we were there,
Speaker 1: just kind of you know, snuck through there and you know,
Speaker 1: bad up. And it was a cool hunt, like like
Speaker 1: you say, And there were times, you know, if we
Speaker 1: had like a reader board over our head with like
Speaker 1: percentages of killing this thing, we started a one hundred
Speaker 1: percent and then when that thing jumped out of the tree,
Speaker 1: I want to say we were down in single digits,
Speaker 1: maybe because one now we're racing the clock to get
Speaker 1: to a new tree before dark. You know, all of
Speaker 1: these things working against us. And we you know, as
Speaker 1: he came up and bade up, right, we're back up.
Speaker 1: But then the risk of hurting a dog goes up.
Speaker 1: You know, I had no doubt it would die, but
Speaker 1: is it going to die fast enough before it gets
Speaker 1: ahold of the dog or multiple dogs? And no, it
Speaker 1: all worked out good. It was you know, I can't
Speaker 1: think you enough for for you know, helping me out
Speaker 1: alongside me, and it was awesome. And yeah, like I
Speaker 1: say that, you know, we've got to help with you
Speaker 1: a couple of times, you know, bear and cougar. Dirk's
Speaker 1: got to hunt with your cougar Bear and now cougar again.
Speaker 1: And you know this was a buddy hunt. But you
Speaker 1: know you do outfit for these as well. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know I can thank me and Dirk both put
Speaker 1: our stamp of approval on you know, you and Amy,
Speaker 1: you know, work your tails off run a great operation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know, I appreciate it, you know, even
Speaker 1: as far as you know, like you tell a lot
Speaker 1: about by people's kids, Like your kids are awesome, Like
Speaker 1: you guys do an awesome job. It's a family, you know,
Speaker 1: it's family run. You know, coops out there. You know.
Speaker 1: It's just it's cool. I really like the experience. And
Speaker 1: like I said, I think you do it right. And
Speaker 1: one thing that you can never explain through these and
Speaker 1: you try to get across, it's just like how hard
Speaker 1: you're gonna work for your clients. You know. It's like
Speaker 1: you you know, and I can tell this this hunt
Speaker 1: we're kind of waiting for the right weather, and you
Speaker 1: could just tell like how nervous you were to to
Speaker 1: have us come early or to like be here when
Speaker 1: we don't have the right weather. And you know, like
Speaker 1: and you know, talking to Tyrol yesterday is like man
Speaker 1: if Bradley had like you know, paying clients right now,
Speaker 1: he would be in a nervous wreck, like trying to
Speaker 1: make all this work. But ye know, we appreciate everything
Speaker 1: you guys do. Like I said, it's it's it's awesome,
Speaker 1: you know, glad to have this friendship. And yeah, if
Speaker 1: you ever have any you know, I think as a houndsman,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they get a bad rap, but you know,
Speaker 1: Bradley's doing it right, and I can't thank you enough
Speaker 1: for all You're welcome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's always a great time hanging out with
Speaker 2: you guys. And I just I really like your story.
Speaker 2: You know, how where you where you've been through and
Speaker 2: how hard you worked. You know, you've told me the story.
Speaker 2: We won't go into it, but how you you know
Speaker 2: you had a regular job and started your calls on
Speaker 2: the side and stuff. I just really respect that American dream.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, I'm as same thing you guys are doing,
Speaker 1: expanding and it's been awesome. Well, can you tell of
Speaker 1: our our listeners how to find more about you, where
Speaker 1: they can find you, ways to get a hold of
Speaker 1: you if they're interested.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so i'dhole whitetailguides dot com. We have a website
Speaker 2: and I'm on Instagram in Facebook. It seems like I'm
Speaker 2: on Instagram more. I've done that when I started that
Speaker 2: about when covid hit that Instagram thing and trying to
Speaker 2: build that up and stuff. So yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Follow them, yeah, go check them out. We appreciate everything.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, until next time, we're thinking about coming
Speaker 1: back maybe May or June and chasing some bears around,
Speaker 1: so I'll look forward if we can make that happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's we better get her done. Yeah yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: last time, I think somebody got your bear.
Speaker 1: No, nobody owns a bear, but no. I used to
Speaker 1: hold that against dirt, right, thank you, it's all good,
Speaker 1: all right, take care?
Speaker 2: Yeah thanks.
Speaker 1: I'd like to also let you know my Mountain Lion
Speaker 1: film is currently live right now on the Philips and
Speaker 1: Calls YouTube channel