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Speaker 1: Outrageously Dependable. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host
Speaker 1: of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your
Speaker 1: host into the world of hunting the icon of North
Speaker 1: American wilderness and bear We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation
Speaker 1: that will also bring you into some of the wildest
Speaker 1: country on the planet. Chasing band. So we are on
Speaker 1: a bear hunt. I believe the day eight is May
Speaker 1: May the nineteenth, May seventeen, and we are in it's
Speaker 1: I think we've been in camp for five days. Maybe
Speaker 1: this is a sixth day. This is a sixth day
Speaker 1: that we've been in camp. And we are in the
Speaker 1: coast mountains of British Columbia, Canada, and we're with Devin
Speaker 1: Jewel of Pacific Bear Outfitters. Myself and my long time
Speaker 1: really great friend Daniel Rupe is here and so Devin
Speaker 1: Jewels here, Daniel Rupe is here. We're sitting in a
Speaker 1: wall tent camp slash tarp camp with the soft wood
Speaker 1: Canadian fire crackling in the near well close, so we're
Speaker 1: being warned by the fire. I would say it's in
Speaker 1: the high sixties and we have so we've been bear
Speaker 1: hunting and I don't spoiler alert. There are two bear hides,
Speaker 1: salted bear hides within about twelve ft of us to
Speaker 1: our northwest. Totally made up that direction, but no. So
Speaker 1: this is this is a really unique hunt for Daniel
Speaker 1: and I. I've hunted with Devon in me and my
Speaker 1: father in law came up here in Daniel w Roupe
Speaker 1: has been. He has been out of the country Wild Wild,
Speaker 1: Daniel Wild Group has been. He's been out of the
Speaker 1: country for over ten years, working out of the country.
Speaker 1: He and his family, and so they were back in
Speaker 1: the States. They planned a trip back to the States
Speaker 1: for a couple of months several years ago and we said,
Speaker 1: I said, Dan, you got to go spring bear hunting
Speaker 1: with me. But before that, in two thousand and seven ish,
Speaker 1: when Daniel and his family were planning to go overseas
Speaker 1: long term, what did we say, Dan in seen ten
Speaker 1: years from then right, man, let's go bear hunting. What
Speaker 1: if we went bear hunting in Canada? Well, we actually
Speaker 1: said Alaska. I messed up this story, no, so but
Speaker 1: remember saying we're gonna go bear hunt in And what's
Speaker 1: what's cool about that is that at that at that time,
Speaker 1: I mean, that was like the first it might as
Speaker 1: we might as well have said, because neither one of
Speaker 1: us were in their position to go on a bear hunt.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. I wasn't doing bear Hunting magazine. I
Speaker 1: had not started the Arkansas Black Bear Association with your health.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know if you lived that long. True,
Speaker 1: I'm just I was just tottering away. So so back
Speaker 1: then we were like, we're going on a bear hunt
Speaker 1: in and we were like yes, and then here it
Speaker 1: is and it has here we are, here we are.
Speaker 1: And so a little history of Dan and I. So
Speaker 1: we grew up in towns close to one another, but
Speaker 1: we didn't really meet until we went to college and uh,
Speaker 1: we're both were married and our families met, and then
Speaker 1: Dan started bow hunting with me. So how that, um,
Speaker 1: I think for me just being buddies and I remember
Speaker 1: being buddies of you and hearing you tell these stories
Speaker 1: about hunting and it was just so much fun. I thought, Man,
Speaker 1: I would love to do that. And I never really
Speaker 1: had the chance to do anything like that for whatever reason. Um,
Speaker 1: but my wife bought me a bow for my birthday,
Speaker 1: and um we were living and I was in grad
Speaker 1: school in Kentucky and I had a week long fall break.
Speaker 1: It was in November of two thousand and three. Shepherd
Speaker 1: new ed Yes, two thousand three November, had a week
Speaker 1: and flew back to Arkansas and we went to Madison
Speaker 1: County and Wildlife Management aream and Clay took me down
Speaker 1: to this little shelf on the side of an Ozark mountain,
Speaker 1: put me up on a big old pine tree, and uh,
Speaker 1: I've never been the same. Yeah, you ruined me. It was.
Speaker 1: It was your first bow hunt ever, first bow hunt ever. First.
Speaker 1: I had gone deer hunt one time with another buddy,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't as good as a buddy as you were.
Speaker 1: You never even told me that. Look at the side
Speaker 1: of those bear HUDs. Devin is gonna continually bring up
Speaker 1: the fact that there's some big bear hunts. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: So hey, back back to the Madison County story though,
Speaker 1: So first, his first bow hunt of all time and
Speaker 1: put him up in a climbing tree stand click clack,
Speaker 1: click cluck, click clut way up in the tree everything.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what I was doing. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember, but when I going up the tree,
Speaker 1: I remember pulling up my bow and I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: thought the bow was gonna fall off the string. I
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything. At one point, I think I
Speaker 1: knocked an arrow and the arrow kind of slid out
Speaker 1: of the rest. I didn't have a whisker biscuits, so
Speaker 1: and then actually, I my bow I didn't really fit me.
Speaker 1: So I shot out of my left eye to get
Speaker 1: my left exactly, you know, which, Maybe I should go
Speaker 1: back to you. Worked out pretty good. It worked out okay,
Speaker 1: But I mean everything, Clay put me in the stand.
Speaker 1: I remember you saying, if if Doe come through, don't
Speaker 1: shoot him because a buck might be behind him. And
Speaker 1: these two dog came through, and it's like your little
Speaker 1: voices in my head, so don't choose, don't don't shoot,
Speaker 1: And sure enough here came Uh. What I thought was
Speaker 1: it's not a huge but a medium, little little six
Speaker 1: point buck came in, seven point seven pointer man I
Speaker 1: pulled back on and he walked down and touched his
Speaker 1: nose to the base of my tree and then turned around.
Speaker 1: He must have not liked my tree, and he turned
Speaker 1: right around and walked out the other way. As he
Speaker 1: was walking away, he turned around and looked back and
Speaker 1: we locked eyes, got him put an arrow in his neck.
Speaker 1: And so this was this was such an iconic moment
Speaker 1: because I come back and there was another good friend
Speaker 1: with us. We come back and Dan's like, I killed one,
Speaker 1: and so we track it and we actually had an
Speaker 1: old video camera that we we used to film the recovery,
Speaker 1: and and that that piece of footage is kind of legendary.
Speaker 1: It's deep in the archives, deep in the archives. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm actually planning to dig it up and maybe
Speaker 1: use it on the episode of Bear Horizon that your
Speaker 1: Bear Hunt's gonna be on. So then I have a
Speaker 1: a fun history. But then, like right about the time
Speaker 1: we started hunting, you kind of deserted me. You went
Speaker 1: to Kentucky, you went to places far far away, and
Speaker 1: so we it's we've it's not like we've hunted every
Speaker 1: year together anything, but that's so that's why that's not
Speaker 1: so cool. Because we get to go. We've we've we're
Speaker 1: on a seven day hunt British Columbia. First of all,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to just just describe this scenario
Speaker 1: for those who may not understand the big world of
Speaker 1: black bear hunting. But British Columbia is kind of a
Speaker 1: el primo destination for black bear because of the size
Speaker 1: of bears, but probably even more so because of the
Speaker 1: epic nous of the landscape in many places. We're in
Speaker 1: the coast mountains. So the coast mountains basically start at
Speaker 1: near the Pacific coast at near sea level. M my correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they stayed at sea level, and so what's unique about
Speaker 1: them is they start at sea level and what's the
Speaker 1: biggest mountain that we've seen Probably nine thout the biggest
Speaker 1: one we've seen right there. Okay, so what's cool is
Speaker 1: they go from sea level to nine thousand feet and
Speaker 1: so these mountains have these massive relief and so relief
Speaker 1: would be the actual amount of vertical feet from the
Speaker 1: top bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain.
Speaker 1: So like let's say you're in Colorado and you're on
Speaker 1: a mountain that's fifteen thousand feet, Well, the base of
Speaker 1: the mountain may have been at ten thousand feet, so
Speaker 1: the mountain only looks like it's five thousand feet tall.
Speaker 1: But you get the point there. They're spectacular mountains, so
Speaker 1: almost any direction that you look, I mean like you
Speaker 1: go around a corner and you're looking at the snow
Speaker 1: capped mountains, but you're down in these lush, thick, forested,
Speaker 1: moss covered, big tree, big, fast moving glacial river valleys.
Speaker 1: It really does look like Lord of the Rings. It
Speaker 1: looks like Lord of the Rings. Yeah, And so in
Speaker 1: the world of Canadian bear hunting, there's really no rivalry
Speaker 1: for a place to black bear. When it comes to
Speaker 1: epic beauty, just sheer beauty. All the other provinces um
Speaker 1: are well, I'm not gonna beauty is found everywhere, truly is,
Speaker 1: but just in terms of grand scale every beauty. So
Speaker 1: the way, let's see, do we want to say anything
Speaker 1: else about I'll say something. Being from the south, so
Speaker 1: we live in Arkansas, most of our large rivers are
Speaker 1: slow moving rivers because the elevation change between point A
Speaker 1: in point b is is yeah, is small, and so
Speaker 1: you might have this big like like the Arkansas River.
Speaker 1: We crossed the Arkansas River. Often it's a big river.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like half mile across in some places,
Speaker 1: but it's muddy and it's fairly slow moving. I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't see like white cap. So when I come
Speaker 1: up here, we see these rivers, which this river is
Speaker 1: not like a half mile across. This river might be
Speaker 1: like a hundred hundred yards across in some places, bigger
Speaker 1: in some places, even begger. But this is like white cap,
Speaker 1: white water, fast moving water all the way through. So
Speaker 1: you're just I'm I'm impressed with the volume of water
Speaker 1: coming out of these mountains. Let's talk about where the
Speaker 1: water comes from. There are waterfalls everywhere. So Dan and
Speaker 1: I every time we pass the waterfall would be like,
Speaker 1: that'd be a state park in Arkansas. They'd make that
Speaker 1: what did you say, they would make that one up
Speaker 1: unesca World Heritage site right there, and I think it
Speaker 1: was a drainage ditch. Yeah. Yeah. We drive past like
Speaker 1: a little crevice in the mountain and there's this like waterfall.
Speaker 1: I mean like literally you could see cascading water for
Speaker 1: two feet, not like a vertical drop, but like like
Speaker 1: a thirty foot fall hits a rock and then I
Speaker 1: mean just spectacular waterfalls all coming out of these white
Speaker 1: Cap mountains. So above these waterfalls, these white Cap mountains,
Speaker 1: you can yesterday just randomly we got at the trucks
Speaker 1: of glass and across the valley there were three huge
Speaker 1: waterfalls just so just beautiful the water work to this
Speaker 1: place or spectacular. So the way, let's any anything else
Speaker 1: about anything else we want to describe Devon. This is
Speaker 1: where you live, man. Lots of trees, a whole lot
Speaker 1: of so that's actually that's another thing is just for me,
Speaker 1: the scale of everything and the scale of the trees.
Speaker 1: So again co Clay lives up in northwest Arkansas. I'm
Speaker 1: down the river, yes, amen. And the trees, you know,
Speaker 1: the like the trees on my family's farm. A huge tree,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty maybe seventy five tall. Um there uh,
Speaker 1: a medium tree here is twice that size. And I
Speaker 1: think looking through the binoculars and just looking out over
Speaker 1: this vast uh watershed valley and and seeing all these
Speaker 1: different features that you're describing, and everything is just so big,
Speaker 1: just huge, And that's actually a in our bear hunting
Speaker 1: has been calibrate. We've had to calibrate our eyes to
Speaker 1: the scale. It took us a few days. Are a
Speaker 1: few times of glassing when we were glassing for these bears.
Speaker 1: I don't and I'm going to get into the way
Speaker 1: that we hunted, but basically Dan and I were looking
Speaker 1: for bears that would have been the size of like
Speaker 1: school busses. And Devin would be like, there's a bear
Speaker 1: right in the middle of that that block, and we'd
Speaker 1: be like what, and he'd be like, there it is.
Speaker 1: He tell us where it was. We'd look at it
Speaker 1: and it would look like a speck of pepper. Dan
Speaker 1: and I were thinking it was gonna look like I
Speaker 1: mean like three times four times is big, and I
Speaker 1: think what was it would take you. Devin would see
Speaker 1: it almost immediately, you know, we just pause and parked
Speaker 1: the truck for a second, hid whip up his binoculars,
Speaker 1: and oh, there's one in that cut block, this area
Speaker 1: where they had cut a bunch of trees down the
Speaker 1: logging had cut some tree And it would literally take
Speaker 1: me five minutes to find it. In the first few times,
Speaker 1: he would you tell me right where it was, right
Speaker 1: and you see that shadow, you see that tree, and
Speaker 1: I just couldn't even find him. They're just so right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so Devin describe to me the so like down down
Speaker 1: low with the lower elevations, it's almost like rainforest here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the way the rain shadow works is obviously the
Speaker 1: Pacific Ocean influences the weather. So we have a mountain
Speaker 1: range running north south, so as the weather comes in
Speaker 1: and hits the west side of the mountain range and
Speaker 1: continually just like dumping water on it. So you just
Speaker 1: get more growth, right, more berries, more trees, more or
Speaker 1: anything that's gonna grow, gets just way more water than
Speaker 1: the east side of the mountain range. You get almost
Speaker 1: like a desert condition because the water is always on
Speaker 1: the west side, so it really even with snow and everything,
Speaker 1: or just way more Yeah, on the west side of
Speaker 1: the mountain. We're on the west side of the mountain range.
Speaker 1: Yet that translates where there's more food, where there's more resource,
Speaker 1: where there's more nutrients. That translates into more of our animals, instant,
Speaker 1: more bears and bigger bears. That's where they've got. So
Speaker 1: you live though, on the on the east side where
Speaker 1: it's dry, about six seven hours from here, six seven
Speaker 1: hours from here, so we just come down for our
Speaker 1: hunting seasons. The guy yeah, and so back over in
Speaker 1: your part of the world historically has been big mule
Speaker 1: deer country, big mule deer country, pretty good moose country,
Speaker 1: and I mean there's bears there too, but not to
Speaker 1: the densities we see on the coast side. So Devon
Speaker 1: and his wife, they're like British Colombian folk. And I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how great a hunter Devon is, but we
Speaker 1: know his wife is a great hunter. She I can
Speaker 1: definitely vouch for her. So yeah, Well, so Devon and
Speaker 1: Ashley flew in last year to a place in northern
Speaker 1: BC and Devon killed a sixty four inch Canada moose, which,
Speaker 1: for those who don't understand, that's a massive Canada moose.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's not had it officially scored yet, but
Speaker 1: pretty certain that it would make the all time Boone
Speaker 1: Crockett record. So I mean, so, I mean, so the
Speaker 1: way moose work is that Yukon moose are the biggest moose.
Speaker 1: Yukon moose live in Alaska and the Yukon Northwest territories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so those moose can I mean, the sixtien Yukon
Speaker 1: moose is a massive moose. Heck yeah, they can get
Speaker 1: up to seventy. Yeah, so but Canada moose tipa, most
Speaker 1: people are shooting Canada moose are shooting forty to fifty
Speaker 1: in moose, right, Well, yeah, you'd like to see a
Speaker 1: benchmark of fifty. I guess in the northern part of
Speaker 1: this is a big moose. Yeah. So anyway, Devin Devon
Speaker 1: shot at sixty four in moose last fall. So it's
Speaker 1: a Devon's a no. Devon is an accomplished, very very
Speaker 1: accomplished big game northern hunter. He and he's a he's
Speaker 1: a guy in the gods in the Arctic. Uh and
Speaker 1: this guy in northern British Columbia for stone, sheep, doll sheep, everything, yep, caribou, moose. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So now when you're with Devin, it really is neat
Speaker 1: because he's he's a just a just a veteran northern
Speaker 1: big game hunter and so it's always it always kind
Speaker 1: of it's fun to hear those stories. So so when
Speaker 1: we're hunting here in British Columbia, there's primarily two ways
Speaker 1: that we're hunting these bears. I mean, basically, these barriers
Speaker 1: have come out of dinning. They've been out of the
Speaker 1: den for a while now. At this point. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: maybe like mid April, they're starting roaming around, so there's
Speaker 1: lots of green vegetation, there's lots for him to eat.
Speaker 1: But one of the primary food sources this time of
Speaker 1: year is a plant called fireweed. And we have learned
Speaker 1: that fireweed. It's it's just kind of like a two
Speaker 1: foot tall plant, just you would just think it was
Speaker 1: a weed. It was in your yard, you spread with the
Speaker 1: the round up. But if it was in my yard,
Speaker 1: I would pick the tops off and make a salad
Speaker 1: because it's good. We've been eating fireweed this week and
Speaker 1: devon uh carries ranch dressing with him everywhere he goes.
Speaker 1: So this cli can eat fireweeds. No, I'm We're just kidding,
Speaker 1: but we did eat something. It tast really good. So
Speaker 1: there's two ways that we're hunting the roadways. Roadways in
Speaker 1: this part of the world lust sunlight to hit the
Speaker 1: forest floor and so the ditches grow fireweed and clover
Speaker 1: and just different vegetation the bears reading. So in this
Speaker 1: dense forested region, roadways are an attractor for bears, so
Speaker 1: the bears want to be on the roadways. These roadways
Speaker 1: are like forestry roads that have very little vehicle traffic
Speaker 1: on it. But some of them might be big, nice roads,
Speaker 1: but you could walk on that road for a day
Speaker 1: and never see a vehicle. They're they're so good because
Speaker 1: of the four stry Logging basically built these roads. So
Speaker 1: one thing that we did, and we did this on
Speaker 1: Dan's Bear, is that you walk these roads and you
Speaker 1: see bear scat where these bears are feeding. So you
Speaker 1: might walk a stretch of road that's a half mile
Speaker 1: long on and find ten or twelve piles of bear
Speaker 1: scauting the road, see grazed fireweed, and you're like, there's
Speaker 1: a bear here the road. See tracks in the dirt
Speaker 1: on the road. And so what you'll do is you'll
Speaker 1: wait till the wind currents are favorable, which typically the
Speaker 1: wind currents that Devon is using is the thermals. So
Speaker 1: late in the evening after the sun is set, the
Speaker 1: thermals are moving down and then most the rest of
Speaker 1: the day they're moving So you kind of got to
Speaker 1: be strategic how you walk these roads. But basically you
Speaker 1: walk these roads and just kind of creeping around the
Speaker 1: corners looking and you'll see bears in the road. So
Speaker 1: on this hunt, well we'll let me go ahead and
Speaker 1: just say we walk roads. And then the second way
Speaker 1: that we're hunting is that densely forested region. The forestry
Speaker 1: practices here are really unique. Like in Arkansas, we have
Speaker 1: what we call clear cuts, and they just take square
Speaker 1: blocks of land and just like cut everything. And there's
Speaker 1: some selective cutting. There's a lot of forests here. It's
Speaker 1: much more regulated and like, so there would be this
Speaker 1: huge mountain covered in trees and there'll be an irregular
Speaker 1: shape maybe if it could be five acres or it
Speaker 1: could be acres that will be cut. And inside of
Speaker 1: that cut there'll be islands of trees left for bird sanctuaries,
Speaker 1: there will be strips of trees left down drainages, and
Speaker 1: so you have this like patchwork opening. And the first
Speaker 1: year that they make a cut, it's not that good.
Speaker 1: But the second year, when the fire weed comes in
Speaker 1: or and or clovers, it is super hot for bear
Speaker 1: and so we're looking for a second year. Second year
Speaker 1: cuts are prime. Third year is good, but second is
Speaker 1: like prime. And then once they get much older than
Speaker 1: that fourth they drop off big time. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't seem anything sapling start, just that new lush growth
Speaker 1: is just waned right, And so like in Devon's hunting area,
Speaker 1: every year there's new cuts and so like this year
Speaker 1: we're watching loggers cut, and so in Devin, you know,
Speaker 1: Devin's like, well next year that would be good. And
Speaker 1: so it's like this constantly rotating cyclic change. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's good that way, you're always into new areas to
Speaker 1: hunt different values for bear, right, So it kind of
Speaker 1: spreads out the pressure to Yeah, in this area is
Speaker 1: a thousand square miles, so you know, we're driving as
Speaker 1: far as two hours to go and hunt from camp
Speaker 1: closer in our case, but as much as when I
Speaker 1: was here, so we're years ago. I mean we were
Speaker 1: driving like two hours to go ahead. So he's trying
Speaker 1: to spread out the pressure across this vast area so
Speaker 1: that he's hunting you know, old mature males that's working.
Speaker 1: So so there's two ways. So we're hunting on the
Speaker 1: roads where we're also hunting these cut blocks, and some
Speaker 1: of these cut blocks are helicopter cut blocks, which means
Speaker 1: they dropped Well I don't know if the largers walk
Speaker 1: in if they're dropped in, but basically it will be
Speaker 1: this island with no roads to it, like in the
Speaker 1: side of the steep forty degree mountain and those places
Speaker 1: are great but hard to get to. Most have roads.
Speaker 1: Most of these cut blocks have roads that you can
Speaker 1: get to. And so when you're hunting these cut blocks,
Speaker 1: you're just getting in there and glass them or trying
Speaker 1: to get away from them to glass them to right
Speaker 1: across the vala. A lot of times the best place
Speaker 1: to glass is not in the cut, but it's on
Speaker 1: the other mountain looking into the cut. And we did
Speaker 1: that too. I saw a bear from like two miles
Speaker 1: away and then moved in and just got right on it.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that in a second. But so
Speaker 1: it's fun, so you're you're you're moving around, but it
Speaker 1: can also be a lot of work. So on the
Speaker 1: first so on this hunt, Dan was up to bat first.
Speaker 1: So our plan was two on one deal and so
Speaker 1: I was I was filming them. And so the first
Speaker 1: day when we arrived, what do we do? First day
Speaker 1: we arrived, we we got to camp the night before,
Speaker 1: real late, I don't know what time, um, but we
Speaker 1: slept in good, super comfortable, had a great breakfast, Dave
Speaker 1: cook and everything else just always feeds us real good.
Speaker 1: And then we got in the truck and went out
Speaker 1: pray by mid afternoon, drove an hour and there road.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're gonna see the occasional logging truck, but
Speaker 1: I mean you see nobody out of it. It's just wilderness. Um.
Speaker 1: So drove for an occasional burnt car with bullet hole
Speaker 1: with bullet holes in it. Don't be that guy. Um.
Speaker 1: And then we got out and we hiked, hiked the road,
Speaker 1: hiked the roadway up this, up one kind of spur
Speaker 1: valley off of the big valley that that Devon runs
Speaker 1: and um hiked for about six miles in would you say, yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the whole time, you know, Devin's super knowledgeable. And
Speaker 1: so there's large stretches of this where there's not any
Speaker 1: fireweed on the side of the road. But you're still again,
Speaker 1: you're looking for scat, you're looking for tracks. Every once
Speaker 1: in a while, you're gonna pause because there's a break
Speaker 1: in the the woods and you can see a cut
Speaker 1: block across the way, and so you're gonna glass and
Speaker 1: speed anywhere. Yeah. So we could be walking down the
Speaker 1: road and maybe you get a glimpse of any I mean,
Speaker 1: a bear could just speak anywhere. An easy way to
Speaker 1: get around, so they're not just feeding on the roads,
Speaker 1: they're also just traveling down the road. And at one
Speaker 1: point we came around were coming the road turned right
Speaker 1: and kind of went down pretty dramatically down this hill
Speaker 1: and and and that's where we thought, oh, we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna see a bunch of bear. Right there was
Speaker 1: one of the real potential areas, but we didn't. The
Speaker 1: winds were a little wrong. The wind was a little
Speaker 1: bit wrong. But what we did see across the way,
Speaker 1: and it took me about fifteen minutes to find it
Speaker 1: after Devin saw it was a grizzly bear up on
Speaker 1: this cut block way far to easily two miles away
Speaker 1: um and literally it would have taken I never would
Speaker 1: have seen it in my life had Devin not pointed
Speaker 1: it out showed us where to find it. And I
Speaker 1: think that's when I realized. When I'm looking across the
Speaker 1: way at a cut block and I think it's covered
Speaker 1: in you know, knee high shrubs and grasses, in reality,
Speaker 1: I'm looking across the way and those knee how shrubs
Speaker 1: are as tall as a you know, as tall as
Speaker 1: a house, and the trees on the edge are two
Speaker 1: hundred ft tall. Yeah, that was a cool experience, you know,
Speaker 1: to see that grizzly bear. So we we had been
Speaker 1: hiking for a couple of hours and we really did
Speaker 1: walk about six miles in and we knew that because
Speaker 1: all these logging roads are marked every kilometer, so it's
Speaker 1: like you're in the wilderness. In every kilometer there's a
Speaker 1: sign that says one k m, two km, three k
Speaker 1: it's for the loggers to keep track of where they're
Speaker 1: at and so and then Dan and I, being the
Speaker 1: math geniuses that we are converted kilometers to miles because
Speaker 1: we have no idea how for our kilometer is. And
Speaker 1: we were really proud of ourselves when we realized we
Speaker 1: hiked like twelve miles that first day. When when we
Speaker 1: had hiked like eighteen kilometers or whatever, we didn't we
Speaker 1: didn't think that was very cool, okay, but when we
Speaker 1: realized there's twelve miles with that was cool now. The
Speaker 1: brown but the grizzly bear was really a unique experience.
Speaker 1: We're sitting here glassing for bear down the road and
Speaker 1: Devon just goes, there's a grizzly bear and it is
Speaker 1: way the heck over there, and many of you would
Speaker 1: know that this year British Columbia officially closed the grizzly
Speaker 1: bear hunt and so this area is not not a
Speaker 1: prevalent grizzly are high identity grizzly area now, but I mean,
Speaker 1: the first day of our hunt, we saw what we
Speaker 1: believe was probably a big male. Yeah. It looked like
Speaker 1: a big like a large old boar, so yeah, And
Speaker 1: I kept trying to talk him into the fact that
Speaker 1: it was just a huge color phase black bear, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't. And we we watched it for a long time.
Speaker 1: It fed in this opening midday, middle of the day
Speaker 1: hot just below the snow line up above us. But
Speaker 1: we got to see a British Columbia gas there, which
Speaker 1: was my first Yeah, definitely the first for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we hunted out the rest of that evening and
Speaker 1: we were trying to catch the thermals before they shifted down,
Speaker 1: and we were a little late coming out of there.
Speaker 1: And when we came to this prime spot of road
Speaker 1: that we that Devon was like, there's a big bear here,
Speaker 1: because Devin had seen a big bear two days before,
Speaker 1: two different times while driving on the sex in the road.
Speaker 1: A big crinkle eared bear that went by the name
Speaker 1: Mr Fuzzy. Mr Fuzzy. Um, we were coming out of there,
Speaker 1: and I mean in the exact place that Devin thought
Speaker 1: he would be, and we're slipping pretty we're moses, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're we're hunting, and but the wind was wrong and
Speaker 1: there's nothing we could just not like we could go around.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, we gotta walk back to the
Speaker 1: truck that way. It's not like we go well the
Speaker 1: winds doing this. Let's take a different game plan. We're
Speaker 1: six miles from the truck and it's getting dark, and
Speaker 1: we gotta walk back that way. We walk into this area,
Speaker 1: and sure enough Mr Fuzzy on the road, walking right
Speaker 1: on the road, and minutes before, like maybe thirty seconds
Speaker 1: before this, Devin kind of looked over his shoulder and said,
Speaker 1: now keep your eye on the ditches because a lot
Speaker 1: of times they'll they'll be down in the ditches. And
Speaker 1: sure enough, we were on this little bend and he
Speaker 1: was right in the ditch, but he had scented us,
Speaker 1: and all I saw was this kind of big blur
Speaker 1: of black fur moving diagonally across the road, and I
Speaker 1: pulled the rifle up, but didn't even get him in
Speaker 1: the scope, and he was gone. He was gone. He
Speaker 1: was gone. And so when we got up even with
Speaker 1: where the bear, I mean, it's probably like fifty yards
Speaker 1: from us, and we got to be even with the bear.
Speaker 1: We could hear him down in the brush, moving and
Speaker 1: laughing at us. He laughed at us. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: like to just for the record, um, just bring up
Speaker 1: the point that you guys were out in front, but
Speaker 1: I was the one who saw the bear first. I
Speaker 1: mean I just for the record, Okay, there's ever historical
Speaker 1: dispute who saw Mr Fuzzy. I don't know what y'all
Speaker 1: were doing, but I was like, I actually he I
Speaker 1: will say that when you did that, his head turned around,
Speaker 1: he took off. Dang it. I spooked Mr Fuzzy. You're like, hey, okay,
Speaker 1: so Mr Fuzzy, where's Dan going. Oh? Dan's going to
Speaker 1: get some more wood for the fire. So so that
Speaker 1: was it, and that's when Devin said, hey, tomorrow. We
Speaker 1: basically we walked back to the truck and Devon says, hey, tomorrow,
Speaker 1: we need to do the same thing, but we need
Speaker 1: to hit the thermals, right. Yeah, he said, we need
Speaker 1: to do the same thing. We need to hit the
Speaker 1: thermals and we need to keep Clay from hissing when
Speaker 1: so then what happened Devon the next day? Yeah, we
Speaker 1: just started later and came up the valley close are dark,
Speaker 1: so thermals are against us. And we got up to
Speaker 1: pass where we've seen Mr Fuzzy into another like a
Speaker 1: semi slide semi feed area coming up through there where
Speaker 1: we had actually heard a bear in the brush the
Speaker 1: day before, and he came around the corner and there
Speaker 1: was a bear. Oh man, it was like it's like
Speaker 1: in our face, it really was. And we've been hiking
Speaker 1: along I think at that point the second day. First
Speaker 1: day we hiked twelve miles if our kilometer to mile
Speaker 1: math is is even half right, And then the second
Speaker 1: day we hiked shorter, just probably about ten miles, so
Speaker 1: but we were all the way in, uh so we
Speaker 1: had hiked five miles. Devon. I like him a lot.
Speaker 1: One of the things that don't like about him is
Speaker 1: his really long legs, and so he just effortlessly bounds
Speaker 1: through the woods like a young gazelle. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: a great that's a great thing there because Dan and I,
Speaker 1: let's describe this. Dan and I are roughly the same size.
Speaker 1: I'm probably a little bit taller. Actually, today today we speddle.
Speaker 1: We we're gonna settle a two decade old dispute. We're
Speaker 1: gonna We're gonna speddle. We're gonna settle a two decade
Speaker 1: old dispute of who's taller at twelve noon. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it till Dave gets back to camp. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so as I was walking behind Devon, who's like
Speaker 1: six too, and he's not only six too, but his
Speaker 1: legs are like way longer than a normal six ft
Speaker 1: two man legs. He's got like the trunk of like
Speaker 1: a dwarf. He's in the legs of like a six
Speaker 1: eight man. I would recommend him as a guy, but
Speaker 1: not as like a clothing model. Yeah. And so as
Speaker 1: we walked for like a total of like twenty five aisles,
Speaker 1: as I was walking behind him, I would see his footprints.
Speaker 1: You do things kind of to just pass the time.
Speaker 1: I would see where his footprints stepped in the dust.
Speaker 1: And I calculated that his stride is four inches longer
Speaker 1: than mine. And so when we did the math, Dan
Speaker 1: and I had to walk like twice as far as Devon.
Speaker 1: So right, Devon, okay, so where are we are? Okay?
Speaker 1: So now it's it's they two. We've hit the thermal's
Speaker 1: right day one when we went all the way in
Speaker 1: and the road you know, turned right and went downhill.
Speaker 1: Now Devon has put us in a perfect spot where
Speaker 1: we went all the way back, but the road is
Speaker 1: is turning left and going up. So we've come in
Speaker 1: opposite and sure enough, just like he thought, we're wait wait, wait,
Speaker 1: don't say I forgot about a really important part of
Speaker 1: this story. You forgot to remember and I forgot to remember.
Speaker 1: This is your first bear hunt? Oh gosh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think we said that. This is okay? So here yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So this is my first bear hunt, and it's also
Speaker 1: my first other than you know, Arkansas coons with a
Speaker 1: you know, ten twenty two. This is my first never
Speaker 1: even killed a deer with a gun. Everything I've ever
Speaker 1: done has been with my bow. Um. I shot this
Speaker 1: really nice gun that Clay has a couple of times
Speaker 1: before we left to come up to Canada. Um. So
Speaker 1: I'm on several fronts. Honestly, I'm pretty nervous, um and
Speaker 1: kind of the last thing I wanted to happen was
Speaker 1: I need, I need. I wanted to have a really
Speaker 1: good rest. I wanted to have time. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to kind of make the shot real quick like Mr
Speaker 1: Fuzzy the day before you kind of a black beard.
Speaker 1: I think probably a normal bear hunter could have made
Speaker 1: that happen. No, yeah, I don't know, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Thanks for if you're lying to me, that's very helpful. Um,
Speaker 1: but I just I really didn't want to mess it up,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get a good shot. And really
Speaker 1: also I really wanted to get a bear. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: the that morning priority list was not necessarily to get
Speaker 1: a big bear, my priority list was to get a bear. Uh,
Speaker 1: it really was. I really wanted to get a bear.
Speaker 1: I just always dreamed of this, and so I had
Speaker 1: prepped you for this time, like this is this is
Speaker 1: I mean, so, yeah, you never know when you come
Speaker 1: to you never know. And I knew that we were
Speaker 1: going to get on some bear. But also it was like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's hunting, this is tough. We might hunt really hard
Speaker 1: for a week and you never know, you might you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking my kind of expectations you set the expectations,
Speaker 1: and then I lowered them even further just to kind
Speaker 1: of prepare myself, you know, just not knowing anything. I
Speaker 1: just thought, um man, we could hunt all week and
Speaker 1: I might get one shot. Uh, and so I better
Speaker 1: not mess that up. In reality, Devin, highly knowledgeable, worked
Speaker 1: his tail off. Every day we've seen bear. We've basically
Speaker 1: been multiple bear and been very We were seven yards
Speaker 1: from a bear yesterday. I mean, it's just insane kind
Speaker 1: of how it is up here. I just had no idea.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I didn't know all that. This is day two.
Speaker 1: I'm still kind of it's evening, but I'm probably just
Speaker 1: kind of half awake at this point. And uh, and
Speaker 1: we start heading slowly up this turn in the road.
Speaker 1: The winds are in our favor coming down the hill.
Speaker 1: We're going up the hill and sure enough, Uh, just
Speaker 1: for the record, Devon saw it first, and he he
Speaker 1: didn't He didn't hiss or cackle or anything like that.
Speaker 1: So the bear stayed, the pair didn't run off. That's weird.
Speaker 1: I was shocking. Um. So we we come around the critic.
Speaker 1: Of course enough, Devin's hit me on the shoulder right there. Um,
Speaker 1: And so you know, I had already jack the shell
Speaker 1: in there, and I got down on the ground and
Speaker 1: put the rifle on the left knee and at that point, uh,
Speaker 1: the bear was on the left side of the road
Speaker 1: in a little bit of fire weed, just kind of munching.
Speaker 1: Had no idea we were there far with him. Oh,
Speaker 1: I would say it was forty yards away. Yeah, something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, close close, he was very close. But
Speaker 1: again for me, that might as you know, it could
Speaker 1: be four hundred I'm just not super comfortable with a rifle.
Speaker 1: But got down on one knee, felt good about it.
Speaker 1: And another thing that again I had no idea about.
Speaker 1: I had no idea about all this. But Devon said,
Speaker 1: you know, as soon as we see a bear, don't
Speaker 1: just shoot. He needs to sex the bear, determine if
Speaker 1: it's a male or female. And then he also needs
Speaker 1: to judge kind of the size of the bear, because
Speaker 1: you don't want to just unlike me that I just
Speaker 1: want to shoot a bear. He he really wants to
Speaker 1: help you get a really nice bear. And we have
Speaker 1: been on a bear earlier. That Uh. I had a
Speaker 1: really good rest and again Devon set us up really
Speaker 1: good for that, and I bet I watched that bear
Speaker 1: for an hour through the scope and I really wanted
Speaker 1: to shoot it, but you know, he he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a really small bear. You don't want
Speaker 1: to do that. So um, this time, I'm basically I'm
Speaker 1: waiting for the go ahead from Devon and I'm hope
Speaker 1: you are hardly waiting that. I mean, like the trigger
Speaker 1: was like squeezing. Oh my good man. I could feel
Speaker 1: I could feel you like, oh man, I really I
Speaker 1: was just I mean, I was just and I I
Speaker 1: think I was saying, Devin, I'm surprised I didn't scare
Speaker 1: the bear off saying Devon's name, and the whole time
Speaker 1: before you know, Devon was like yeah, wait, wait wait,
Speaker 1: and that bear was too small. Um. So I was
Speaker 1: just waiting for a half of a positive remark from
Speaker 1: Devon and I was gonna peel it off. And the
Speaker 1: the problem was is that the bear took two steps off,
Speaker 1: kind of away from the road, further into the the
Speaker 1: the greenery on the side of the road, and I
Speaker 1: could no longer see it from my knee uh, from
Speaker 1: my knee rest, And so I had to step up
Speaker 1: and hold the rifle up and get back on the bear.
Speaker 1: And again I said Devin, and he said, I think
Speaker 1: he said something like that's a that's a pretty good bear.
Speaker 1: It's the inflection of his voice, like he said, it's
Speaker 1: a pretty good bear. But sorry, because he's speaking Canadian
Speaker 1: that a lot of times, I don't even know what
Speaker 1: he's saying. He said that, and I heard that's a
Speaker 1: monster boom, and and I shot. And at that point,
Speaker 1: the scope, in my mind, the scope was just full
Speaker 1: of that bear. Uh. And I really felt like, uh,
Speaker 1: how was the positioned he was? Um, he was his
Speaker 1: hind quarters were closer to me, and he was quartering away.
Speaker 1: His left uh, left shoulder was was in my his
Speaker 1: hind quarters and his left shoulder and he had turned
Speaker 1: around to look at us. Wait a minute, I think
Speaker 1: that's the way it was. Well, what do you think
Speaker 1: he was? He was quartering to us? He was quartering
Speaker 1: to us. Yeah, yeah, which bear did you shoot? Shot
Speaker 1: a different There were three and I shot the one
Speaker 1: in the middle. Well, no, the bear was the bear
Speaker 1: was facing us. His front left shoulder was closest to us,
Speaker 1: and he had his head up looking at us. His
Speaker 1: rear end was further way. That's what I said. Okay, anyway,
Speaker 1: So so basically you could tell. All I saw was
Speaker 1: there was fur in the scope. And I remember, Clay,
Speaker 1: you haven't said, you know, just hit the center of
Speaker 1: the center and I put those crossing. What what we
Speaker 1: what we talked about was a broadside shot is really
Speaker 1: what you want, but you're not always going to get that.
Speaker 1: And with a big high powered rifle like three or
Speaker 1: wind mag I'm shooting a tune or twelve grain bullet.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a that's a big gun. So what
Speaker 1: then I talked about was if a bear is facing
Speaker 1: you and we have to take a frontal shot, you
Speaker 1: kind of want to shoot for center mass of the body,
Speaker 1: cavity at the bear, like if he's facing you, like
Speaker 1: right in the chest. And if you at many from
Speaker 1: many angles, center mass with a big gun like that
Speaker 1: is going to do the job. That's what you remembered
Speaker 1: now that Yeah, it is early and I have only
Speaker 1: had I mean, that's what you said. I was just clarifying. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: so Devin kind of gave the half nod. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: an okay bear. I think somebody not in my shoes
Speaker 1: probably would have waited and gotten a much bigger bear.
Speaker 1: But I I wanted a bear. Yeah, and I shot,
Speaker 1: And I just haven't shot that gun a few times.
Speaker 1: I know that I had the tendency to when I
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger to kind of in in anticipating the
Speaker 1: kickback to jerk and oh man, what if I what
Speaker 1: if I did that? What if I missed? What My
Speaker 1: first immediate thought was, that's an amazing opportunity. This is awesome.
Speaker 1: I sure hope I didn't mess it up. Because what happened, Devin,
Speaker 1: what did the bear, I mean tell us look like
Speaker 1: at the shot? It just immediately left. I guess you'd
Speaker 1: say there's no real reaction, or like a hit reaction.
Speaker 1: I would say there was, there wasn't. I just left. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that, to me that was odd. And now I
Speaker 1: don't have extensive experience shooting black bears with rifles. I
Speaker 1: expected the bear to flinch when it got hit with
Speaker 1: a tuner in twelve grain bullet flying flying second the bear.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you had missed, it would have looked
Speaker 1: the exact same. Yeah, if I if we had stepped
Speaker 1: on a twig and scared it, I feel like it
Speaker 1: would have looked he just didn't even move. I mean
Speaker 1: it didn't, it didn't flinch. It just ran off, and
Speaker 1: that that kind of shocked me. And what I was
Speaker 1: anticipating too, was because the way the bear was facing,
Speaker 1: I felt like, if you hit it in the chest,
Speaker 1: that there's just no way it just could have taken
Speaker 1: that past and just like not even flinched. And so
Speaker 1: we were just kind of like, oh, man, we weren't sure.
Speaker 1: But Dan was like, man, he's like there was a
Speaker 1: lot of bear in the scope when I pulled the trigger,
Speaker 1: which is terrible because any basically anybody in the world
Speaker 1: would have been able to hit that bear until either
Speaker 1: I had somehow magically shot him in a way that
Speaker 1: it it went through him and missed all of his bones,
Speaker 1: you know, because we said if it if it had
Speaker 1: been a shoulder head, if it had it a major bone,
Speaker 1: you would have seen the bear react. If it just
Speaker 1: passed through flesh, potentially the bear would have it wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been like a thud. Yeah, we didn't hear a thud. No, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, but it was so close you probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have had the delay just just yeah. So so in
Speaker 1: my mind were statistics. We weren't sure. It's almost dark,
Speaker 1: it's like right on the verge of dark, right on
Speaker 1: the verge of dark, and it seems like statistically the
Speaker 1: odds that I missed it are higher than somehow I
Speaker 1: shot it without it right, you know, So we uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're all excited. I'm real nervous. And we
Speaker 1: go over and we look around and um, we're trying
Speaker 1: to see are is there any blood? Is there anything?
Speaker 1: And again it's getting really dark, and Devin first spotted
Speaker 1: some blood, but not a whole lot, just the smallest
Speaker 1: spec dull, dull speck of blood. And from hunting, I
Speaker 1: mean from hunting deer, I know that, and I know
Speaker 1: that I know now that bear are really different and
Speaker 1: because of the fat layer around him that a lot
Speaker 1: of times they're not going to bleed a whole lot.
Speaker 1: But again, as a deer hunter, I'm I'm expecting and
Speaker 1: hoping to walk over there and just see a bode
Speaker 1: deer hunter, I'm expecting to walk over there and see
Speaker 1: this about just bright red pile of blood and it's
Speaker 1: the tailtale sign of everything's okay, victory. But we walk
Speaker 1: over there and instead we look around for a few
Speaker 1: minutes and Devin finds this, you know, one spot basically
Speaker 1: a dull blood. And I even said, are you sure
Speaker 1: that's blood? Yeah, it didn't even. Yeah, yeah, I didn't even.
Speaker 1: It's just a small speck of blood. And and so
Speaker 1: then the you guys said, let's not go in let's
Speaker 1: not go in there because it's getting dark. We don't
Speaker 1: want to push him. Um, let's just give him some time.
Speaker 1: And um come back to which is awful that not.
Speaker 1: You know, we got back to camp and you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's like, oh, we got a bear, and I was like,
Speaker 1: we didn't know, We don't know if we got a bear,
Speaker 1: you know. And I remember just kind of eating dinner
Speaker 1: and just be like, oh man, this is awful, just
Speaker 1: really really hoping that I got it, but hoping that
Speaker 1: I hadn't messed it up. And um, so the next
Speaker 1: morning we wake up, we load up in the truck
Speaker 1: and well, let's not skip over the fact what happened
Speaker 1: that we walked like six miles in the dark truck. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I blocked that out. Yeah, Devon, that was
Speaker 1: about fifteen steps for Devon and about for Clay and yeah. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so we hyped back quite as many for me because
Speaker 1: I'm so a a little taller and Okay. So the next morning,
Speaker 1: we we we get in the truck, we drive all
Speaker 1: the way back out there, and in my mind, I'm
Speaker 1: geared up for a half a day of grueling. It's
Speaker 1: because once you get off of these roads into the woods,
Speaker 1: it's really it's a jungle. It's a jungle, and it's
Speaker 1: just the mosque covers lots of stuff. It's hard to
Speaker 1: see stuff. It's just really hard to penetrate these woods
Speaker 1: and go through it. And so it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: grueling half day of tracking, and um, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: find it. Yeah, that's basically what I'm thinking. Right, And
Speaker 1: we walk up park about you know, fifty or twenty
Speaker 1: yards from where we shot at. Look around again. There's
Speaker 1: really not a lot of blood at all. We'll hope.
Speaker 1: I was hoping to kind of say, oh, the sun's
Speaker 1: that we saw a whole lot more blood, but we didn't.
Speaker 1: And you looked in over this fallen true from the
Speaker 1: spot that we were the night of the night the
Speaker 1: night before, but it had gotten so dark that we
Speaker 1: couldn't see much, and you said, I see the bear
Speaker 1: And I thought you were a kidding And I thought,
Speaker 1: how can he not know that? My entire soul was
Speaker 1: wrapped up here, like, this is not the time to joke.
Speaker 1: You know, usually you're dumb and I can understand that,
Speaker 1: but not now, now, Clay. But there he was, and
Speaker 1: I said, you're joking. He said, no, I see the
Speaker 1: bear and how many feet from where we were standing?
Speaker 1: Twelve twelve and there he was. Man, he didn't make
Speaker 1: it twelve yards from where he shot him. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: And we didn't hear him crash or was down, and
Speaker 1: so we went in. It was a boar and we
Speaker 1: we we looked to see where the shot was. And
Speaker 1: so the shot was the bear was quartering to us,
Speaker 1: and if the quartering two means the front on the front,
Speaker 1: left shoulder was the close this body part to us, okay,
Speaker 1: and Dan hit from that angle behind the shoulder, so
Speaker 1: the bullet would have entered right behind the left front shoulder.
Speaker 1: And the mushroomed bullet was pushing out the skin on
Speaker 1: the bear's right hind quarter, so it passed through all
Speaker 1: the goodies all but didn't exit. I mean it just
Speaker 1: it was literally pushing the skin and it went the
Speaker 1: entire length there. So the bear was down, like yeah,
Speaker 1: it was toast. It was just too dark and we
Speaker 1: just didn't I couldn't see at that point in real yea.
Speaker 1: And so it was awesome, man, it was fantastic. Did
Speaker 1: drug him out of there? Yeah, we drugged him, put
Speaker 1: him in the track. You know, another really fun thing
Speaker 1: about British Columbia is you've got these pictures. Number one,
Speaker 1: there's a bear in it. And for a guy like
Speaker 1: me from Arkansas, you know, that's just that. I mean,
Speaker 1: there could have been like a you know, used car
Speaker 1: lot in the background, and I would have been real happy.
Speaker 1: But you have these pictures and you got this bear
Speaker 1: in it, and you're hunting British Columbia and there's these
Speaker 1: snow capped mountains and some epic photos. Ludicrous. The whole
Speaker 1: thing is just crazy awesome. Yes, we took some great photos.
Speaker 1: Took some great photos. Yeah. And so there's a running
Speaker 1: joke that Devin's cell phone pictures are better than my
Speaker 1: pictures off of my Cannon five D Pro level camera,
Speaker 1: I would say, not a running joke, but fact, dang it.
Speaker 1: So we had some great pictures and and the cool
Speaker 1: thing too, is we got all this on video, so
Speaker 1: people be able to watch this whole hunt on Bear Horizon,
Speaker 1: first Bear Man, British Columbia. You can see Devon's camp,
Speaker 1: get to see the whole organization. Yeah yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: too bad he's not here. But the heart and soul
Speaker 1: of this this place, it's Dave Dave. You got to
Speaker 1: use his name, Old old Dave, who's not He's still alive.
Speaker 1: He just went. He just he's just not here right now. No,
Speaker 1: Dave Dave is Devin's really good friend. He's a he's
Speaker 1: retired retired school teacher, and he's the cook. And he's
Speaker 1: like the nicest guy on the planet. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so old Dave, Old Dave is always around. He's
Speaker 1: always doing something for you. He's always cooking something for you.
Speaker 1: He's always like hey, giggling, and he's always like he
Speaker 1: does putting your towels up so they'll dry, or rolling
Speaker 1: up the somebody did it wasn't me. He didn't put
Speaker 1: my towel up. What do you do with yours? He
Speaker 1: threw it in the dirt. He didn't like you as
Speaker 1: much he likes me. So so anyway, that is a story,
Speaker 1: Dan Bear, you know, and I think, just kind of
Speaker 1: thinking back on it, there's no I'm not. I'm the
Speaker 1: furthest thing from a highly skilled hunter. I love to
Speaker 1: hunt and I love being outdoors. Um, and this whole
Speaker 1: trip was a gift from my wife to me, and
Speaker 1: I just didn't know what to expect. And seriously, like Devin,
Speaker 1: you worked so hard and super knowledgeable, really friendly, got
Speaker 1: us right where we needed to be. UM, to me,
Speaker 1: it's a dream come true that you know, I really
Speaker 1: don't think would have happened had and for me, it
Speaker 1: never would have them had you guys not been got
Speaker 1: me and and doing this and making it happen. So uh,
Speaker 1: I'd come back and dinner every time. Tell him if
Speaker 1: a huge adventure, beautiful story of a lot. So that's
Speaker 1: Dan's bear. And to hear the story of my bear,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit small, you'll have to listen to
Speaker 1: the Yeah, to hear the story of my smaller bear
Speaker 1: from Devon's picture. You look at Devon's picture, you would
Speaker 1: think my Maror was smaller and the picture really you
Speaker 1: have to listen to the next the next halpisode at
Speaker 1: so sign just talking trackling fire with warm coffee got
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