Speaker 1: My name is Clay Neukleman. This is a production of
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where
Speaker 1: we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f h
Speaker 1: F Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear
Speaker 1: that's designed to be as rugged as the place as
Speaker 1: we explore. Welcome to the Bear Grease Render. We are
Speaker 1: we're on assignment on assignment from really the Good Lord,
Speaker 1: but also a Gary Gerald Brewer. We're on assignment. We're
Speaker 1: at uh, we're at our bear camp and we've we've
Speaker 1: completed the bear camp for this year. Bear season is
Speaker 1: still going. They should close the bear season after our
Speaker 1: bear camp is done. Yeah, it should just be like, hey,
Speaker 1: y'all done, Yeah, Okay, season's over. Shut down that that's
Speaker 1: not a good idea. But did it before we started?
Speaker 1: What's that? So they kind of shut it down before
Speaker 1: we start? Mother Nature We're gonna So it's great, great
Speaker 1: to be out in the wild today. We're at our
Speaker 1: We're at our camp here in Arkansas. I have a
Speaker 1: great guest, a great group of people here with me.
Speaker 1: Josh Lambridge Spilmmaker. Hello, Brent reeves bear, John Newcomb here,
Speaker 1: and we've got you've been on the podcast before, but
Speaker 1: this is Anthony Ballard from Mississippi.
Speaker 2: In a in a different capacity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, but you're still the bear biologist from Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Well it's not Spencer. We gotta get y'all mixed up
Speaker 1: that well, expert.
Speaker 2: There's there's some I wonder about the intentionality of that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's some stories. I'm just intern anyway. Yeah, well most
Speaker 2: of your mom Yeah, that's true, added to some confusion.
Speaker 1: Oh, we gotta tell that story. Okay, So this is
Speaker 1: Anthony Ballard. He does work for the Mississippi Department of
Speaker 1: How did they say, what's.
Speaker 2: Their md WFP Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks.
Speaker 1: It's a bad one.
Speaker 3: That acronym is too much to.
Speaker 2: Say, it is. Yeah, when I'm on the phone, I
Speaker 2: just say Wildlife and Fisheries because it's just that's what
Speaker 2: your maleean. It's cumbersome.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then we have uh, Spencer Daniels, the intern.
Speaker 4: Yep, the intern.
Speaker 5: I'm a graduate student of Mississippi State on the bear
Speaker 5: project and Anthony worked together a lot and uh yeah,
Speaker 5: just get my master's there and kind of working on
Speaker 5: bear stuff.
Speaker 4: I do my thesis.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the other morning, we were up real early,
Speaker 1: and Spencer wasn't up as early as us. He didn't
Speaker 1: have to go as far as they were sleeping in
Speaker 1: an extra hour and we were like creeping around downstairs
Speaker 1: making you know, like making sandwiches in the dark and
Speaker 1: being real quiet. And I said, Anthony, I said, is
Speaker 1: Spencer the only one a sleep up there? And he
Speaker 1: was like yeah, And I was like, he's just an intern.
Speaker 1: I flipped on the lights. About ten minutes later, he
Speaker 1: comes walking down and he goes, yeah, I was just it.
Speaker 1: He heard me.
Speaker 5: You apologized if you woke me up, and I said,
Speaker 5: don't worry about it.
Speaker 4: I'm just an intern.
Speaker 1: Okay, So tell the story about your mother meeting someone
Speaker 1: in the airport.
Speaker 5: Yeah, a little background first. Brent put out a video
Speaker 5: when y'all came down to do din checks with us,
Speaker 5: and he kind of introduced the video saying, y'all are
Speaker 5: down here with bear biologists Spencer Daniels and Anthony Ballard,
Speaker 5: and we joked about it for a while because technically
Speaker 5: I'm not a bar biologist. I'm a wildlife biologist that
Speaker 5: researches bears for my graduate stuff right now. You know,
Speaker 5: then i'd say something and say trust me, I'm a
Speaker 5: bar bolog just that kind of thing. But uh, that's
Speaker 5: kind of the setup for it. My parents went on
Speaker 5: their anniversary trip up to Mackinaw Island and they stopped
Speaker 5: over in Michigan.
Speaker 4: I forget the name of the airport, but they.
Speaker 5: Stopped over there and my mom's at the counter and
Speaker 5: she hears this voice that she recognized and she turns
Speaker 5: around and there's Steve Vanilla standing there talking on the phone,
Speaker 5: and she like freaks out and goes, call.
Speaker 1: Your mom would have recognized Stephennilli.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we watched Meat Eater and you know
Speaker 5: all that stuff at the house, y'all. Yeah, pretty much
Speaker 5: household names. But yeah, anyway, she goes and grabs my
Speaker 5: dad and it's like there's Steveniller right over there.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: They waited around, wait around for him to get off
Speaker 5: the phone, and he starts to pack up like they're
Speaker 5: about to walk out, and hangs up the phone about
Speaker 5: at the same time, and so she's just she just
Speaker 5: stops him and says Steve, and he kind of turns
Speaker 5: and looks at her and it's like, excuse me, Like
Speaker 5: there's some strange lady just trying to stop Steve Rnell
Speaker 5: at the airport.
Speaker 4: But so he's just think, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: Uh, you know, she does the proud mom thing, talks
Speaker 5: about me, and eventually she gets around to saying he's
Speaker 5: the the bear bologist in Mississippi. So Steve Vernell apparently
Speaker 5: thinks some of the bear bologists Mississippi but.
Speaker 1: And your mom does.
Speaker 6: Yeah, apparently, then did she tell didn't she tell him
Speaker 6: that you were coming hunting with us?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: They kind of mentioned that, and that's when he kind of,
Speaker 5: you know, he was he was cool with him, hung
Speaker 5: out and took some pictures and stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh cool, yeah, x U s see, Steve, he'll be
Speaker 1: like I asked all you were with that bear biologist
Speaker 1: that main bearp will be like Anthony and he's.
Speaker 5: Well, my mom swears that his follow up question was
Speaker 5: how long has he been in that position?
Speaker 4: But my dad said he never did, so I don't know.
Speaker 4: I can't get that straight.
Speaker 1: That's funny, that's funny. Well, you guys have been bear
Speaker 1: hunting with us, and this was your Well, okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna on the bear Grease Render if you're if you're new,
Speaker 1: we we talk about the past week's podcast. Every two
Speaker 1: weeks we come out with what we really call the
Speaker 1: Bear Grease Podcast, which is a documentary style podcast. Then
Speaker 1: the Renders and we just gather up a bunch of
Speaker 1: folks and we talk about that this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a little bit different. We're gonna end this week's episode
Speaker 1: with talking about bear Camp. Is that okay with y'all?
Speaker 1: It makes sense because I think I think if we
Speaker 1: get to talk about bear Camp, we're not gonna want
Speaker 1: to come back to Deer Stories. So this last week
Speaker 1: we we did our annual Deer Stories episodes, which is
Speaker 1: one of my favorites. I hear a lot of people
Speaker 1: say that it's some of their favorite podcasts of the
Speaker 1: year because it's it's a collection of stories. This this episode,
Speaker 1: I think had five stories. Usually we have six or seven.
Speaker 1: All of them were kind of longer this time. And
Speaker 1: and we're doing another interesting thing is hu a week
Speaker 1: from now will be meat Eater's White Tail Week YEP,
Speaker 1: which is gonna there's gonna be a ton of sales
Speaker 1: on First Light all the deer hunting gear, Phelps game calls,
Speaker 1: you can get your Acorn Pro two grunner. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of sales and stuff that's connected to Whitetail Week,
Speaker 1: but that's not what we're really talking about. We're talking
Speaker 1: about deer stories. There were multiple really good ones. What
Speaker 1: was what was y'all's favorite story? Favorite?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like the elephant in the room.
Speaker 6: Everybody's got everybody's got the gonna have the same favorite,
Speaker 6: and I think we should talk about that one last
Speaker 6: before week.
Speaker 1: Okay, what was your second favorite story? I like Lake's
Speaker 1: Lake Pickle story. Yep, really yeah.
Speaker 6: The you know, I'm crazy about nostalgia and history and
Speaker 6: family legacy and all that kind of stuff, and story
Speaker 6: him taking that deer on his grandfather's land.
Speaker 1: I think it was his grandfather other daddy Dole.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that that that really resonated with me
Speaker 6: because everything you know, from pocket knives to shotguns to
Speaker 6: even lineage of dogs in my family has always been
Speaker 6: so important.
Speaker 1: And I really.
Speaker 6: Identified with with how Lake felt and the way he
Speaker 6: described the feeling of taking that deer, and how proud
Speaker 6: his grandfather and grandmother would have been of him.
Speaker 1: It was I really liked it. He did a good
Speaker 1: job telling the story too. Yeah, very good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, okay, I really I really like Lakes two.
Speaker 3: I think I think first of all, likes a great storytelling.
Speaker 1: Don't give you don't get late too much credit.
Speaker 3: Sorry, like we don't even like it.
Speaker 1: I mean you like Pickle loucked into a decent story.
Speaker 2: Okay, looked into a decent buck. Andy.
Speaker 1: Did you know Anthony lives within walking distance like Pickle up.
Speaker 2: Right around the corner yep, rough neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 3: I love the unusual thing of him walking through the
Speaker 3: grass and crinting.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 3: I never never thought to even try that if I
Speaker 3: was in that situation.
Speaker 1: It worked. Yep, A good calling sequence. What I hear?
Speaker 1: That's a crow?
Speaker 2: A crow?
Speaker 1: No, it's like coming in and out. Oh it's all right?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 1: What well? What was your favorite story? The second favorite story?
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: For real?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I like you guys didn't like the bear story?
Speaker 5: That's what that was my favorite just because they had
Speaker 5: a bear in it. I mean, here's what.
Speaker 1: I here's what.
Speaker 6: Every time every time you ask somebody what their favorite
Speaker 6: story is or second favorite story, and if they.
Speaker 1: Don't say the one, you think they're crazy. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you either tell us what you want us to say,
Speaker 1: asking you could just have a little bit of thick
Speaker 1: skin defend yourself.
Speaker 2: That's not an option. What's your second favorite story?
Speaker 1: My second favorite story by far would have been Mitch
Speaker 1: Syke's story him shooting the bear. Mitch. It's pretty interesting
Speaker 1: because I would have known Mitch pretty much my whole life.
Speaker 1: We just grew up together in a small town. But
Speaker 1: he was six years older than me, so it's not
Speaker 1: like I really even knew him, knew him, just knew
Speaker 1: of him and his family, went to school with his
Speaker 1: little brother. And I actually hunted with Mitch one time,
Speaker 1: like one hunt up in northwest Arkansas, and he killed
Speaker 1: a buck and we drug it out together. But Mitch's
Speaker 1: friends with a lot of people that I'm friends with
Speaker 1: in our world's just kind of overlapped. But I haven't
Speaker 1: talked to Mitch in twenty years. Oh really? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: I heard about his bear story years ago from my
Speaker 1: friend Scott Brown. And Scott Brown is he told me
Speaker 1: just like he just told the story, was just like
Speaker 1: precision about what happened to Mitch. He told me that
Speaker 1: story years ago. I have since told Mitch's story many times,
Speaker 1: even publicly about Mitch getting charged by that bear. And
Speaker 1: so when I actually sat down with Mitch is from
Speaker 1: this well. When I actually sat down with Mitch and
Speaker 1: was like, hey, tell me that story about that bear,
Speaker 1: I thought that. I was like, there's no way that
Speaker 1: I got this story right. So did you? Well, I
Speaker 1: was a little nervous because I just was like, I've
Speaker 1: told this story with such confidence for so many years,
Speaker 1: and I'm telling you I could have told that story.
Speaker 3: He was like mouth on the words as Mitch was.
Speaker 1: Scott Brown, if it was if it was a story
Speaker 1: of tell you know it game a telephone, yeah, you
Speaker 1: would have been surprised at how accurate it was. Because
Speaker 1: Scott told me he was like, Mitch came down a
Speaker 1: little holler and did a ninety degree turn and come
Speaker 1: up to his stand, and that bear walked every step
Speaker 1: the way he That's the story. That's the story I told.
Speaker 1: Bear comes up, bear runs up the tree, one time,
Speaker 1: comes back down, and the second time he comes up.
Speaker 1: He was coming around the platform of the tree stand
Speaker 1: when Mitch shot it in the face with his bow.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the story I told him. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what Mitch said happened. And Mitch is such a credible guy.
Speaker 1: He works for Farm Bureau. He's a Farm Bureau insurance agent.
Speaker 1: And I mean a really good hunter. I mean just
Speaker 1: a good hunter. And yeah, he said in that story
Speaker 1: he was afraid to even tell people what happened because
Speaker 1: he didn't think they would believe him because it was
Speaker 1: highly unusual. What do you think that bear was doing?
Speaker 1: I mean, like, was it just straight up trying to
Speaker 1: get him? I mean it was it. Predatory attacks on
Speaker 1: humans in North America is increasing, like period, this happened
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago. I don't that bear acted like what
Speaker 1: happens when a bear attacks someone and eats them, like stalk,
Speaker 1: like trailing them up and like purposely trying to fight
Speaker 1: a big bear. No, he said it was like a
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty to two hundred pound bear.
Speaker 3: And still wouldn't want to fight one on a tree stand.
Speaker 1: Especially in a tree stand. Yeah, and no, I mean
Speaker 1: the chance, the likelihood of that bear like climbing up
Speaker 1: in that tree and pulling him out, I mean it's
Speaker 1: so low, but I mean it had to happen once
Speaker 1: it was four feet from him. It was four feet
Speaker 1: from him when he shot it, and yeah, so, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, it was uh, it was wild.
Speaker 1: The thing about uh, you know, black bears are extremely
Speaker 1: docile and like not wanting to hurt you in general.
Speaker 1: But the black bear range is so widespread, there's so
Speaker 1: many bears, there's so much human overlap that you just
Speaker 1: get at that anomaly bear that for whatever reason, is
Speaker 1: aggressive towards people. And there's more and more people across
Speaker 1: the country getting messed up by black bears. But it's
Speaker 1: still you'd still have a better chance of getting struck
Speaker 1: by lightning. But anyway, and then he kills the buck,
Speaker 1: which I thought was calling was a real nice buck.
Speaker 1: I'm going to post a picture of the of the
Speaker 1: of the buck the target book. Yeah, and there the
Speaker 1: one that he killed. But so that was my That
Speaker 1: was my second favorite.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: That Lake Pickles story wasn't your second favorite. That really
Speaker 1: hurts my feelings.
Speaker 2: At least is at least your third favorite.
Speaker 1: Pick Let me think about that, Miles Malone.
Speaker 3: Miles Malone story is pretty good too.
Speaker 1: What stories were there? There was a Jude, the story
Speaker 1: of Juju in the Bar and the Mule Lake Pickle.
Speaker 1: Miles Malone Mitch and and Mad Palmers. Yeah, so there
Speaker 1: was five. Yeah, Lakes would have been. I like my
Speaker 1: story too, though, You've got to give some credit. He's
Speaker 1: a limb following in front of a camera.
Speaker 3: He's a hard he's a hard deer hunter, that guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was your favorite, Anthony?
Speaker 2: I probably like Lakes too because sorry, gonna be sorry, Sorry,
Speaker 2: dang it.
Speaker 1: Lake is my good friend. I'm giving Lake a hard time.
Speaker 2: It was a great story, Lake, So it's just the reason,
Speaker 2: I guess, the reason that that it resonates with me
Speaker 2: was a lot of you know, I was like cussing
Speaker 2: you in my mind, Brent, because you were taking all
Speaker 2: my answer. But you know, like those stories that resonate
Speaker 2: that tell stories about your grandparents or you know, historic
Speaker 2: land that you've always hunted and have that you know,
Speaker 2: history established where the woods are literally just full of
Speaker 2: memory and stories of particularly your formative years coming through.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that kind of stuff is what roots people,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's when somebody tells a story like
Speaker 2: that and you can have so many parallels to your
Speaker 2: own upbringing, and you know, like you said, Lake and
Speaker 2: I grew up in similar areas. You know, hundred similar areas,
Speaker 2: probably had a fairly similar childhood and and that sort
Speaker 2: of thing. It's a it's something that just kind of
Speaker 2: you just kind of fall right into it and follow it,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: But doesn't you pipe and smoke it? About that?
Speaker 7: Cheers the Lake Pickle Lakes We're story Sham and Spencer all.
Speaker 1: That was great? That was great? Yeah, which was your favorite? Spencer?
Speaker 5: That's probably the one with the bear. I forget what
Speaker 5: was the guy's name, Mitch, Mitch? Yeah, like that's that.
Speaker 5: That's pretty intense story. Yeah, and that bear stalking basically, yeah,
Speaker 5: which is not common at all, like you said, so, yeah,
Speaker 5: that's pretty cool.
Speaker 6: Yeah, as you know, you guys study bears. We've probably
Speaker 6: talked about this in in the bear camps. But how
Speaker 6: long do y'all get any reports of that through the
Speaker 6: through the year that are credible?
Speaker 1: Any any documented attacks in modern times of bears in Mississippi.
Speaker 2: No documented attacks. There have been a couple of incidents
Speaker 2: where it was a self defense type situation and as
Speaker 2: far as we know, they were found to have been credible.
Speaker 2: But you know, most of the kills that we've had,
Speaker 2: they've been pretty low amount and they've all you know,
Speaker 2: buy and large been illegal kills that somebody just saw
Speaker 2: bear and shot it for some reason.
Speaker 1: But wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But there there was one particularly in the in
Speaker 2: the in the Delta north of Vicksburg, that was deemed
Speaker 2: to be a pretty credible self defense situation. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it was. It was kind of the same version of
Speaker 2: the bear charge and in the tree stand, except the
Speaker 2: gal was on the ground and he was making his
Speaker 2: way to his state. And as the story goes, the
Speaker 2: first was a warning shot kind of over the bear's head,
Speaker 2: and rather than turning and going away, the bear just
Speaker 2: hit another gear towards him, and he racked another round
Speaker 2: and killed it like as it was coming towards him.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Wow, interesting you shoot him right head on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow yeah. And that's I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 2: our law enforcement guys are great, and those things are
Speaker 2: investigated just like a murder scene would be. And so
Speaker 2: you're bringing into account every single thing, you know, how
Speaker 2: the projectile traveled, where were the tracks, where was the bear,
Speaker 2: like all that stuff is put together and so, like
Speaker 2: I said, as far as we know it was, you know,
Speaker 2: it was legit, like you said, it happened m you.
Speaker 1: Know in the community I grew up in there's a
Speaker 1: handful of legitimate stories of people being really spooked by bears.
Speaker 1: You know. Dad always talks about a guy named Truman
Speaker 1: Richmond who was he was out in the mountains and
Speaker 1: uh and and and and got a real good woodsman,
Speaker 1: real good woodsman. Is it is it legal to dig Jensen? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Can you dig Jensen?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You sure check him before he tells us.
Speaker 1: This happened like forty years ago.
Speaker 2: So anyway, he was.
Speaker 1: Charged by a bear and this was like a real woodsman,
Speaker 1: and he thought the bear was gonna get him. I
Speaker 1: don't know the whole story all these Anywhere there's bears,
Speaker 1: there's going to be stories of like close encounters, you know.
Speaker 1: But uh, let's talk about let's talk about Med Palmer story.
Speaker 1: So this was Miles Malone is the one who connected
Speaker 1: this to Med Palmer. M E. D. Palmer.
Speaker 3: And he's a surgeon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just kidding.
Speaker 2: He meds a lot of things, surgeon.
Speaker 1: He'll tell us about Mad.
Speaker 2: That was, I mean, obviously that's the favorite. And talking
Speaker 2: about having connections, I mean since I came to work
Speaker 2: with wildlife and Fisheries in twenty fifteen, I've known Med
Speaker 2: and he's on Capai County Wildlife Management Area, which is
Speaker 2: only an hour from where I usually work most of
Speaker 2: the time. And you know, I knew Gunner, I knew
Speaker 2: Med hadn't hunted much with him, but I mean, just
Speaker 2: one of those guys where you know, if you if
Speaker 2: you run into him on the w ma A, you
Speaker 2: better carve out twenty or thirty minutes because you're gonna
Speaker 2: be talking for a little while. And just the most personable,
Speaker 2: down to earth guy you'd ever want to know. And
Speaker 2: so you know that that whole story. I watched it
Speaker 2: unfold firsthand, you know, and was one of the ones
Speaker 2: that were, you know, helping with the process, sending text messages.
Speaker 2: You know, the whole thing was like navigating that. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was it was almost a family thing, what it
Speaker 2: felt like in in Wildlife and Fisheries. It's not a
Speaker 2: huge agency compared to a lot of other state organizations,
Speaker 2: and so you know, when something like that happens, it
Speaker 2: it hit everybody. Man like there was there was nobody
Speaker 2: in the agency that was not affected by that story.
Speaker 2: And so it was to hear him tell it, you know,
Speaker 2: in somewhere like this and that would actually do it
Speaker 2: justice and more people could hear. It's just it's a
Speaker 2: really cool thing, really personal.
Speaker 1: And that a lot of people told me that they
Speaker 1: remembered that, even on like national news when it happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh and and I didn't realize it, but I
Speaker 1: had heard people refer to these you know, these boys
Speaker 1: that got killed on the river duck hunting, Like that
Speaker 1: was in my mind that in recent years, some boys
Speaker 1: got killed on the river. Well, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: we were going to I didn't know where this story
Speaker 1: was leading. We just we just heard from Miles. Hey,
Speaker 1: this guy med Palmer, he lost his son on the
Speaker 1: river and he ended up killing a deer that that
Speaker 1: boy was after. And where I'm like, well, would he
Speaker 1: tell us that story on the podcast? And Miles was like,
Speaker 1: I bet he would. And so anyway, it all finally
Speaker 1: painted the big picture of what happened. And even my
Speaker 1: mom knew about that. She was like, I heard it.
Speaker 1: I watched that on the news.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's also got if you ever get a chance
Speaker 2: to have him again, he's also got a Turkey story
Speaker 2: that's very similar.
Speaker 1: We got it, okay, foreshadowing awesome Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's hard to it's hard to even talk
Speaker 1: about the story because it's you kind of just want
Speaker 1: to let Med tell it. But I mean, if you
Speaker 1: hadn't listened to it, you know, he lost his son
Speaker 1: and another boy that we didn't really even bring up.
Speaker 1: I just I don't know the story with that family,
Speaker 1: but uh, these two boys were on the river there.
Speaker 1: They never never recovered, never recovered the boys. And uh
Speaker 1: and then Med goes and uh, you know, a month later,
Speaker 1: goes hunting one time and kills this buck that his son,
Speaker 1: Gunner had been after it was it was a powerful story.
Speaker 1: It was very much people. People we were messaging me
Speaker 1: all day on Wednesday of last week telling me that
Speaker 1: they were like pulling over on the side of the road, crying,
Speaker 1: walking into work, crying at the gym, crying.
Speaker 6: Camp, crying yeah, yeah, yep, yep, confirm yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's just one that's just a story you just
Speaker 3: can't help but put yourself in the position of and
Speaker 3: and it's just like you got to have some serious
Speaker 3: grace from God to be able to walk through that.
Speaker 3: And I feel like I feel like Med did a
Speaker 3: great job exemplifying how you should walk through it, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. He wasn't angry. He wasn't he
Speaker 3: wasn't just tore up to the point where he was debilitated.
Speaker 3: But he you know, obviously that's a that's a heavy
Speaker 3: load to carry. But he did what he had to do.
Speaker 3: And I think I think the fact that he spent
Speaker 3: so long searching on the river. You know, he told
Speaker 3: us and behind the scenes that he put forty seven
Speaker 3: hundred miles on his boat looking for looking for Gunner,
Speaker 3: and uh yeah, and.
Speaker 2: He still goes to the river to this day, he
Speaker 2: still goes. Yeah, really yep.
Speaker 3: So I think I think he just he it was
Speaker 3: a good example because he just yeah, I think he did.
Speaker 3: He didn't carry bitterness, but he just he found ways,
Speaker 3: good ways to be able to walk through it into
Speaker 3: and to kind of move past it.
Speaker 1: I I appreciate that. You know, as he was telling
Speaker 1: the story, it was clear that he didn't he didn't
Speaker 1: go He didn't give us the full version of the
Speaker 1: of of Gunner. I mean, like it was he was
Speaker 1: telling us a dear story that included that, So I
Speaker 1: mean it was like it was a very condensed version.
Speaker 1: But I appreciated how he he knew he had to
Speaker 1: take on the grief of it head on.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 1: He was like, I needed to go. I needed to
Speaker 1: go to our land and walk past those stands. I
Speaker 1: needed to be by myself. I knew it was going
Speaker 1: to be hard, Like he just kind of like took
Speaker 1: it on like it was a job.
Speaker 3: He didn't avoid it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was just like, this is what I gotta do.
Speaker 1: And I mean I can only imagine, you know what.
Speaker 1: That's all I can do is is imagine what that
Speaker 1: would be like. But I do think that there are
Speaker 1: versions of that story where where someone is just debilitated,
Speaker 1: maybe forever. And I didn't get that sense from him.
Speaker 1: I mean, like he's he's he's still, he's strong and
Speaker 1: and just seems to be I mean I didn't know
Speaker 1: him before yeah, bet a minute, but he seems to
Speaker 1: be doing good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I mean there's a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: people that would in that situation would just stop hunting, yeah,
Speaker 2: or stop being outdoors or like just avoid those things,
Speaker 2: like you're saying, just just shut that part of your
Speaker 2: life off, just you know, avoid it all together. And
Speaker 2: he doesn't do that. I mean, he's still and another
Speaker 2: thing that that he wouldn't tell you that I will is.
Speaker 2: There are some people that are just put on this
Speaker 2: earth to kill stuff, and Med is one of those dudes.
Speaker 2: He is you could put a turkey on the surface
Speaker 2: of Mars, one turkey, and he would go up there
Speaker 2: and he would find it and kill it. I mean,
Speaker 2: he is just an absolute And Keith.
Speaker 6: Keith Poke sent me a message after he listened. He said,
Speaker 6: if you have the opportunity to go hunting with Med Palmer,
Speaker 6: he said, you better jump on it. He said, because
Speaker 6: you're going to learn some stuff.
Speaker 2: Yes, you will learn things about turkeys that you never knew.
Speaker 2: But anyway, said all that to say, just just in
Speaker 2: casual conversation, I talked to him, you know, in the
Speaker 2: years following that, like hey, are you are you still
Speaker 2: going hunting? Are you doing this and that? And during
Speaker 2: turkey season there were several times that you know, I
Speaker 2: would talk to him. He'd say, yeah, I've had I've
Speaker 2: had five or I've had seven turkeys within shooting range
Speaker 2: and just didn't pull the trigger, you know, or or
Speaker 2: sometimes that he did, or you know, he would take
Speaker 2: another youth, another kid. You know, I've got this, I
Speaker 2: got this so and so hunt with this organization, and
Speaker 2: you know, we went out and this kid killed a turkey.
Speaker 2: I called it up for him. And so like he's
Speaker 2: he's still very much involved in in the outdoor world
Speaker 2: and even with other other kids and helping like that's
Speaker 2: one of his favorite things to do, is it's still
Speaker 2: helping youth fulfill those dreams for themselves.
Speaker 3: He does a lot with wounded veterans too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what'd you think in the story? Bear? Well, you
Speaker 1: didn't hear it? Yeah, no, I didn't. Let didn't hear it?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so I was actually.
Speaker 3: Right now in front of us. Just watch them, Yeah,
Speaker 3: just watch them tear up what what?
Speaker 2: Where? You leave and you don't come back.
Speaker 1: And I forgot that you hadn't heard it. Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: I was wondering what story we're talking about when you
Speaker 1: were first describing it. It was pretty confusing. Well, it'll
Speaker 1: it'll go down in the archives, man. That's what's so
Speaker 1: for me that what's so fun about doing what we're
Speaker 1: doing is that you're collecting you're you're collecting people's kind
Speaker 1: of most precious, valuable memories and stories and they come
Speaker 1: in all kinds of different versions, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the focus isn't is an animal? Sometimes the
Speaker 1: focus is a person. Sometimes a focus is uh is
Speaker 1: something you know, life changing that happened inside of it.
Speaker 1: But uh, but to me, Med's story told on Bear
Speaker 1: Grease will go down as Ah is one that I
Speaker 1: won't forget. Yeah, there's a handful of stories that I
Speaker 1: could just if I met somebody, if I met Spencer's
Speaker 1: mom in the airport, I might be like, and she'd
Speaker 1: be like, what do you do, young man? I go, well,
Speaker 1: I have a podcast and we tell stories like and
Speaker 1: I would yeah, Med Palmer's story about Beyond There, and
Speaker 1: she'd go, are you the lead bar biologist in Arkansas? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have another Dear Stories episode coming up, so
Speaker 1: it'll be it'll we got we got one more. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be great, and we're gonna get to Ostiola. We
Speaker 1: we had we interviewed Stirling Harjoe and we were gonna
Speaker 1: follow it directly with the with the Ostiola series. But
Speaker 1: it's gonna come later on October.
Speaker 2: YEP.
Speaker 1: So well, so we've we've had we've had a good
Speaker 1: bear Camp. It's been tough. Who wants to start talking
Speaker 1: about bear camp?
Speaker 2: Not men?
Speaker 6: You tell us about your bear hunt? Well, you at
Speaker 6: first you need to put some context to it. Okay,
Speaker 6: you know this is the one thing we all look
Speaker 6: not the one thing, but this, this hunt, this camp
Speaker 6: right here is something I would give up just about
Speaker 6: anything to be here every year.
Speaker 1: And it's usually, you know.
Speaker 6: Pretty sporty on the first opening day when everybody gets
Speaker 6: here and we come from all points of the compass
Speaker 6: to get here. Then we got here and it's raining
Speaker 6: acrens like hailstorm, and everybody immediately thinks this may be
Speaker 6: pretty tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll let you take it from Well, we're in Arkansas.
Speaker 1: We can hunt over bait on private land, so we've
Speaker 1: got we've got places that we've been baiting. And typically
Speaker 1: the the success of the hunt is really in a
Speaker 1: high correlation to the amount of acrons that are falling.
Speaker 1: So a bear just period a bear would rather eat
Speaker 1: an acre and as he would anything that you can
Speaker 1: put out, So as the acrons start to fall, the
Speaker 1: bear activity on your baits just decreases. But usually the
Speaker 1: season opener is at a time when you know some
Speaker 1: of your bears are leaving, but there's still some hanging around,
Speaker 1: and it's always this fight with the calendar, and every
Speaker 1: day you go further into the fall. You know, bears
Speaker 1: are more and more keying in on natural food sources
Speaker 1: and really more and more moving into their fall ranges.
Speaker 1: You know, bears have these big, huge ranges. And Anthony
Speaker 1: could tell me tell more about it than I could,
Speaker 1: but in general, you know, a bear has a huge range.
Speaker 1: You know, let's say it's let's say it's fifteen square
Speaker 1: miles for a bore or something, and he'll he'll focus
Speaker 1: on different parts of that range at different parts of
Speaker 1: the u year. But their fall ranges are typically pretty standard,
Speaker 1: and that's just where they want to be. Now, if
Speaker 1: your bear bait is inside of that that area in
Speaker 1: a secure location that he feels comfortable in the daylight
Speaker 1: and he wants to be there anyway, that's money. But
Speaker 1: usually that's not the case. Usually on the private land
Speaker 1: that we're able to gain access to debate, usually you're
Speaker 1: on the fringe of like core bear ranges and and
Speaker 1: the odd property is you know, like just where you
Speaker 1: want it. But uh, anyway, we had we had quite
Speaker 1: a few bears. Like if you if I just showed
Speaker 1: you pictures, if I showed Spencer's mom the videos of
Speaker 1: the bears that we had on camera she would be impressed.
Speaker 1: I mean, like we had some no shortage of like
Speaker 1: big bears and uh, but they just they just come
Speaker 1: in at night. They're they're sporadic. And by opening day,
Speaker 1: I mean we were what was it like? What what
Speaker 1: was it like? Community? Because I I communicate with Anthony
Speaker 1: every day for three weeks, like sending in beaar pictures.
Speaker 2: Well, and that was one thing that kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of said on the on the front end
Speaker 2: that I want to I'm really excited about this experience
Speaker 2: to learn more and if I kill a bear, that'll
Speaker 2: be icing on the cake. And I really didn't mean
Speaker 2: that and I still do, but to kind of to
Speaker 2: kind of place myself in the hunting aspect of something
Speaker 2: that I really haven't been able to do because obviously
Speaker 2: I'm from a state that doesn't allow it, and I've
Speaker 2: never been outside, so.
Speaker 1: He's never been outside of the state of MISSI outdoors.
Speaker 2: I don't, Yeah, I don't. I don't get out much
Speaker 2: at all. But anyway, so that's why I've never met
Speaker 2: Steven Ell at an airport. But anyway, so to kind
Speaker 2: of see how how everything let up, you know, you
Speaker 2: you said that it's it's very depending on acronfall obviously,
Speaker 2: but just to see the difference in the bears activities
Speaker 2: in in you know, a forty eight hour period and
Speaker 2: that just precipitous drop in traffic and activity around that
Speaker 2: bait site in that one short little period. Because, like
Speaker 2: you said, as you were sending pictures one after the other,
Speaker 2: I was like, it's just a matter of shopping for
Speaker 2: which bear I want, yeah, and shooting. And that's what
Speaker 2: a lot of people think when you're you know, hunting
Speaker 2: over bait. You know, the argument is even made that
Speaker 2: it's not ethical and that it's cheating because you're just
Speaker 2: and this process really opened my eyes to like, look,
Speaker 2: that bear is wired to utilize what we call pulse resources.
Speaker 2: So it's hard mass in the fall, it's a lot
Speaker 2: of berries and other soft mass in the spring, and
Speaker 2: when those resources come available, they are on them and
Speaker 2: they are on them until they're gone hot and heavy.
Speaker 2: And if they don't have to come to your bait
Speaker 2: to supplement that, they're not going to And so that's
Speaker 2: you know, it's one of those things like you kind
Speaker 2: of know in the back of your mind, but to
Speaker 2: actually see it firsthand was was a really eye opening experience.
Speaker 1: He saw it firsthand. Yeah, yeah, not seeing a bear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, daylight to dark. I think we I think we
Speaker 2: hunted all but about two or three hours of daylight
Speaker 2: both the first two days, so upwards of you know,
Speaker 2: thirty hours in the stand and either saw the same
Speaker 2: yearling twice or saw two different yearlings in all that
Speaker 2: time put together.
Speaker 6: In a spot, in a spot where some big bears
Speaker 6: were using.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it was a that was a it was
Speaker 1: a good spot. Yeah good. I mean really that that
Speaker 1: that spot. I would I would hunt any year and
Speaker 1: feel confident.
Speaker 3: So because it is rain and acrons here.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is. It is. So the interesting thing about
Speaker 1: this is I have a philosophy that when you're when
Speaker 1: you buy people to bear camp, that you should order
Speaker 1: to anything. You should just like kind of communicate where
Speaker 1: they stand in the in the in the in the Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I told I sent word to Spencer through Brent.
Speaker 1: Now you this is like me telling Mitch Psych's story.
Speaker 1: You know, my story was like hyper communicated or it
Speaker 1: was accurate with So when I was gonna inviite Anthony
Speaker 1: and and I only had what I felt like was
Speaker 1: two good spots and so Bear was gonna hunt one,
Speaker 1: Anthony was gonna hunt one, and uh and I said,
Speaker 1: well h Brent and I collaborated and were like, let's
Speaker 1: invite Spencer. And I said, okay, I said, but you
Speaker 1: just tell him that he's getting the third best spot,
Speaker 1: and the third best spot isn't always that great. Was
Speaker 1: that communicated to.
Speaker 5: You a little bit?
Speaker 1: Yeah, get gar hold a little bit.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say that was my impression, but I knew
Speaker 5: had the third best spot.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you knew it. Brent did a good job.
Speaker 1: He was diplomatic.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know you're this. This counts nothing towards how
Speaker 6: we how we love you, Spencer.
Speaker 1: It's just the look of the drove.
Speaker 4: I know where I stand.
Speaker 1: We could have we could have. I could have like
Speaker 1: drew up on a whiteboard like daylight before daylight at
Speaker 1: opening day and had like bare place number one, number two,
Speaker 1: number three, And I'm like, okay, now we're going to
Speaker 1: draw straws to see who who gets to go, and
Speaker 1: I like rig it to where they all get it. Sorry, Spencer,
Speaker 1: looks like you're going to garhole number three. But what
Speaker 1: the heck happened at garhole number three? Man?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean it turned out so the first day
Speaker 5: we I mean I didn't go out, you know, at
Speaker 5: the crack of dawn like these two, because we checked
Speaker 5: the cameras. We decided to check the cameras the next
Speaker 5: morning and just see how it looked, because otherwise I
Speaker 5: was just going to go still hunt the mountains, you know,
Speaker 5: because I hadn't had a chance to do that.
Speaker 4: That would have been nice.
Speaker 5: But we checked the cameras and there was one big
Speaker 5: sal she was coming in at night and not looking
Speaker 5: too good on that. But there were a couple of
Speaker 5: yearlings and you know, kind of a bigger small bear.
Speaker 5: I guess I'll put it that way. But it looked okay,
Speaker 5: And since it was already you know, late in the
Speaker 5: first day, I decided I'll go up there that afternoon
Speaker 5: and see how it felt. And at about four o'clock,
Speaker 5: a bigger bear, well bigger, smaller bear came in and
Speaker 5: I spent forever arguing with myself whether or not I
Speaker 5: wanted to shoot it, and it gave me broadside about
Speaker 5: five or six times, and I just know I had
Speaker 5: three hours left on the first day.
Speaker 4: I was like, I'm not going to shoot this bear,
Speaker 4: So I didn't shoot came back in.
Speaker 2: That's like the beat sounds like we're being shot at yea.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And we talked about it that night and it's like
Speaker 5: they're still not really coming in in the morning. So
Speaker 5: I'm I'll check the cameras early to the next day,
Speaker 5: and we did, and he came back at like seven
Speaker 5: thirty that morning while I wasn't out there. So I was,
Speaker 5: you know, kicking myself for that, because once we looked
Speaker 5: at the camera pictures, it actually looked bigger than I thought.
Speaker 1: So you were being conservative and you were like, when
Speaker 1: you saw it, you thought that's not a bear I
Speaker 1: want to shoot. We go back and review the pictures
Speaker 1: and they were like, hey, that's actually a decent bear.
Speaker 1: It looked like a boar yep, and that's typically what
Speaker 1: we're trying to shoot.
Speaker 5: Right, And so after looking at the pictures, I was like,
Speaker 5: you know what, I will try to kill that bear
Speaker 5: upon further reviews.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it.
Speaker 5: Had come in that morning, and like I said, I
Speaker 5: didn't go out like these guys again. But I wound
Speaker 5: up getting in the stand about nine thirty or so
Speaker 5: and sat all day saw year ling, you know, didn't
Speaker 5: shoot anything. And the final day, I went out all day.
Speaker 5: That was my plan was to go out all day
Speaker 5: and hope he came back in. And he came in
Speaker 5: at seven fourteen. I smacked him like maybe minute and
Speaker 5: a half, two minutes after he showed up.
Speaker 1: So the guar hole produced.
Speaker 4: It worked out.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of a I say in one of
Speaker 2: the old guys at deer Camp has told me one time.
Speaker 2: It says, you can be the best hunter in the world.
Speaker 2: You can know all the things to know, you can
Speaker 2: have all the track and experience and all the knowledge
Speaker 2: you ever want to have, but you can't compete with
Speaker 2: dumb luck. About dumb luck, that's a quote, that's not
Speaker 2: that was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't necessarily directed at you, even though it was
Speaker 1: told after. It was a coincidence, just random thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just thinking about things. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well so we uh it was cool getting to see
Speaker 1: you kill a barr first bear and uh and we
Speaker 1: we processed that bear. I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: gall bladder on that thing. Uh.
Speaker 3: So you know I did like how much you got
Speaker 3: for it on the black market.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get into.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: No, I actually have never really intentionally looked for a
Speaker 1: gallbladder and a bear. And for those who wouldn't know,
Speaker 1: gallbladders are sold on the black market for a lot
Speaker 1: of money, and it's highly illegal to sell them in
Speaker 1: some places. It's illegal to have them in possession, you know,
Speaker 1: like to keep them. I'm post them. Yeah, And so anyway,
Speaker 1: when we were gutting the bear, we were just we
Speaker 1: found it. And I had never messed with it before,
Speaker 1: or never even really looked at one. But I've been
Speaker 1: reading quite a bit about the the gallbladder trade in Asia,
Speaker 1: and there's a couple of ways that they do it.
Speaker 1: They kill wild bears. There are Asiatic black bears that
Speaker 1: span from Afghanistan to Japan and kind of this like
Speaker 1: crescent moon shaped like thousand mile long rain and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of Asiatic bears and moon bears, you know.
Speaker 1: There's these different versions of ursids that are in Asia,
Speaker 1: and they'll kill wild bears and just extract the gallbladder.
Speaker 1: But more so they have bile farms in those places
Speaker 1: where they'll have and I'm pretty sure today it's illegal
Speaker 1: in every country in the world to have a bear
Speaker 1: bile farm, but it's so deeply entrenched in some of
Speaker 1: the cultures that it's not as enforced, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of like blind eyes turned to it because it's not
Speaker 1: like something that popped up in the eighties and they're doing.
Speaker 1: This is stuff that's been going on for thousands of years,
Speaker 1: just like deeply entrenched into into these cultures, you know.
Speaker 1: And and basically they'll have you know, like dog kennels
Speaker 1: in its bears, and they have like catheters basically on
Speaker 1: them getting bare bile out and then they sell on
Speaker 1: the black market for all kind of you know it
Speaker 1: just you name it bare byal curate, you know. And
Speaker 1: and it's possible that there is some medicinal was it
Speaker 1: you Spencer those telling?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So Anthony and I went to the Eastern Black
Speaker 5: Bear Workshop twenty twenty three and Dave Garcelis did a
Speaker 5: talk on this, and there's kind of some I don't
Speaker 5: know if you i'd call it argument, but kind of
Speaker 5: a gray area on the ethics of it, because there
Speaker 5: actually is some legitimate medicinal value to it, and it
Speaker 5: helps helps some people out that wouldn't otherwise have access
Speaker 5: to it, and you know, there I think there's he
Speaker 5: mentioned that there's actually some farms where they they let them.
Speaker 5: You know, they're basically in a zoo, but they're not
Speaker 5: locked up all the time, so it's a little bit
Speaker 5: better than just being an a dog kil the whole time.
Speaker 5: And they'll actually train them to walk in and they
Speaker 5: have the catheter and they kind of get up. I
Speaker 5: don't know, that's kind of up to your own interpretation.
Speaker 2: Whether that's I think, but yeah, yeah, there's kind of
Speaker 2: that moral dilemma because you know, on one hand, and
Speaker 2: you've got bears in captivity, they're basically being farmed for
Speaker 2: the sole purpose of extracting this bile. But then on
Speaker 2: the other hand, it could be argued that those bill
Speaker 2: farms are one of the reasons why the wild population
Speaker 2: hasn't had such of a hit, because the demand hasn't
Speaker 2: really gone anywhere, It hasn't really changed that much. The
Speaker 2: question is what where's it being sourced from, And so
Speaker 2: it's kind of one of those like lesser of two
Speaker 2: evils thing. You could sort of make an argument for
Speaker 2: either one. I'm not informed enough to really, you know,
Speaker 2: go much further than that, but that was kind of
Speaker 2: the point of Dave's presentation that we saw was like,
Speaker 2: you know, is it really the evil that people make
Speaker 2: it out to be or is it actually you know,
Speaker 2: the lesser of two evils, because there's not really a
Speaker 2: great option either way, right.
Speaker 1: And Man, something like that that's so steeped in the
Speaker 1: culture is interesting to me because I mean America, you know,
Speaker 1: we've had an official country here since seventeen seventy six,
Speaker 1: and we feel like we've been here, you know, we
Speaker 1: just it's like deep root of culture. Man. Some of
Speaker 1: those places over there, like perhaps the country name has
Speaker 1: changed in different things, but I mean those cultures are
Speaker 1: going back thousands of years. And uh. And I'm not
Speaker 1: suggesting that Bareby is something that should be should be
Speaker 1: I'm not even I'm not informed on it enough either.
Speaker 1: It's just interesting. And yesterday, if you know anything else,
Speaker 1: really negative. But yesterday we we we pulled this. It
Speaker 1: felt like you're holding a small water balloon, just this thin,
Speaker 1: thin skin kind of greenish bluish, grayish, and uh, and
Speaker 1: we we poked just the tiniest hole in it and
Speaker 1: you just kind of squeeze it and it would shoot
Speaker 1: out this like kind of glowing liquid. Yeah, like almost
Speaker 1: like neon colored oil. I got some in my coffee.
Speaker 1: I can see in the dark now I.
Speaker 2: Can get you good one in the morning.
Speaker 1: Uh No, anyway, Yeah, you don't want to mess around
Speaker 1: with gall bladders. I mean they'll they'll the feds will
Speaker 1: be at your door knocking on your door at three am.
Speaker 1: So glady nukemb is not messing around with gall bladders.
Speaker 1: But you do have to gout a bear, so you
Speaker 1: do have to check them out. But pretty interesting. So anyway,
Speaker 1: great bear spencer, thanks man. The other bear hunter amongst
Speaker 1: us will tell us about your hunt bear. Well, I
Speaker 1: was hunting out of the bear pit which is where
Speaker 1: you killed the bear two years ago with a stone point,
Speaker 1: and I was hunting out of it with the self
Speaker 1: bow that I made the copper head, And yeah, it
Speaker 1: was the same deal. We had a lot of bears
Speaker 1: coming in and then it just started raining acrens and
Speaker 1: they all kind of just disappeared. Bears said acres were
Speaker 1: falling out of trees and bouncing into the bear. They
Speaker 1: were literally white oak acorns bouncing into the pit. Whenever
Speaker 1: the wind would come through. It sounded like a hailstorm.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just like cover acrons. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so pretty much all the bears maybe, I mean a
Speaker 1: week before season almost all the big bears were nocturnal
Speaker 1: or just not there. And then just like the day
Speaker 1: before season, there wasn't even a bear in there in
Speaker 1: the daylight. Yeah, so we went in there and there
Speaker 1: was a big sow that we've been keeping track of
Speaker 1: for the last what three or four years, and she
Speaker 1: just has like a real blonde face, so she's real recognizable.
Speaker 1: Never had cubs, but she was big and old and
Speaker 1: she was coming in there pretty consistently. And then there
Speaker 1: were just some other smaller bears. But we went in
Speaker 1: there the first day right at daylight. We sat until
Speaker 1: four didn't see anything, and I was kind of sitting
Speaker 1: on this like little. I had to dig the front
Speaker 1: of the pit out because my bow's ten years. We
Speaker 1: had to do. We had to do a remodel on
Speaker 1: the bear pit. We dug it about probably eight inches deeper, yeah,
Speaker 1: because his bow was longer than mine.
Speaker 3: Granite countertops and ship lap.
Speaker 1: Siding, yeah yeah. We redid the roof. Very tasteful, but
Speaker 1: uh yeah. And so there's kind of like this ledge
Speaker 1: and I was just sitting on that ledge like a
Speaker 1: bench all day. And so I was sitting, you know,
Speaker 1: like this, and I just see a bear head and
Speaker 1: just stick out like literally six feet from me. We
Speaker 1: measured it after it was seventy three inches like roughly.
Speaker 1: I used my bow kind of to measure it, and uh,
Speaker 1: this bear just walks right out in front. So when
Speaker 1: you're in the pit, all you can see, your world
Speaker 1: becomes very triangular. You sat in there for like fourteen
Speaker 1: hours and you're looking at this triangle window, so everything
Speaker 1: around you is black, and then the daylight is like
Speaker 1: right in front of you, and it's it's insulated too
Speaker 1: with with dirt and logs and maw and leaves that
Speaker 1: makes the roof so you can't hear a thing other
Speaker 1: than what's in front of you. Yeah, and so bears
Speaker 1: typically coming from behind you, so they just appear just
Speaker 1: like just right there, you know. Yeah, And I mean
Speaker 1: this one just like straight up just appeared. There was
Speaker 1: no warning at all. It was just there was a bear.
Speaker 1: I mean it appeared so quick my heart rate didn't
Speaker 1: even go up. It was just like old, dang, there's
Speaker 1: a big bear, shooter bear. I mean I could I
Speaker 1: could have poked on my bow and it stood there
Speaker 1: probably six foot from us. We've got this on a
Speaker 1: Moultrie trail cam video. Yeah, it's a cool video. And so,
Speaker 1: Lauren Malten, I'm I happened to be interrupting you a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for that. Lauren Malton cameraman for me either
Speaker 1: was in the in the blind with bear filming, but
Speaker 1: this happened so quick and then the bear just like
Speaker 1: looked at them. They couldn't turn the camera on. So
Speaker 1: but we did capture this moment on the Moultrie video
Speaker 1: had it on video mode out there. Yeah, So, and
Speaker 1: it was tough finished the story. At this point, we'd
Speaker 1: sat like ten hours, so we were kind of just
Speaker 1: like numb to everything that was around because we've been
Speaker 1: looking at the same thing for ten hours. When you
Speaker 1: close your eyes, do you see a triangle light? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm dreaming about Yeah, that's all I could see now.
Speaker 1: But so, yeah, we were just kind of it's hard
Speaker 1: to just stay alert for fourteen hours. But this bear
Speaker 1: just pops out six foot from us, and it stands
Speaker 1: there and kind of just like looks around and looks
Speaker 1: right into the bear pit and just like looks right
Speaker 1: at me. And I'm still sitting the exact same way
Speaker 1: I was before. Because it was so close, I couldn't
Speaker 1: move that bear thought that it was a bear's kindergarten
Speaker 1: picture exactly. And so I'm just sitting there like this,
Speaker 1: just looking that bear right in the eyes, and it
Speaker 1: sees two dudes in there, and it's like what on earth?
Speaker 1: And it took off. It went out of like twenty
Speaker 1: yards and sat down. But it took off. We couldn't
Speaker 1: get a shot at it. And uh, we sit for
Speaker 1: another hour and then we hear something, this time real loud,
Speaker 1: sounded like breathing. So I get on my knees, get ready,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, just like a bare head just sticks
Speaker 1: out on the left side. But immediately it's looking in,
Speaker 1: so it must have smelled us or it knew we
Speaker 1: were there trying to take a peek. Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: it didn't come around. You know. The big one came
Speaker 1: around and looked around, then looked at the bare pit.
Speaker 1: This one immediately just turned its head straight into the pit,
Speaker 1: saw us, and it was two just yearlings, and there's
Speaker 1: another one back behind it, and they saw us and
Speaker 1: took off. So that was pretty discouraging, just having two
Speaker 1: bears come in and not being able to Yeah, they
Speaker 1: just you know, the second one just knew we were there.
Speaker 1: The big one. The shooter just looked right in, saw
Speaker 1: us and took off. We sat for the rest of
Speaker 1: the day, didn't see anything. Let's talk about the strategy
Speaker 1: of the bare pick, because a lot of people have
Speaker 1: asked me, like, why did we do that? Uh huh.
Speaker 1: The The whole purpose of the bear pit was to
Speaker 1: get a five to eight yard shot at a bear
Speaker 1: from the ground, because shooting primitive equipment like the year
Speaker 1: I built it, I was shooting a stone point out
Speaker 1: of a traditional bow, and I did not want to
Speaker 1: shoot out of a tree stand because I knew I
Speaker 1: was gonna probably not get an exit wound and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to and I knew it had to be close.
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna shoot it at thirty yards, so I
Speaker 1: knew I was gonna be shooting straight down at some bear,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want an entry hole way up here,
Speaker 1: and it'd be hard to track. So I just was thinking,
Speaker 1: how could I shoot a bear like I really honestly
Speaker 1: wanted to shoot it at five yards with a bow,
Speaker 1: and that's all I could think of was a pit.
Speaker 1: And I also felt like it could help with scent
Speaker 1: if the wind was blowing into the pit and we
Speaker 1: covered the pit with dirt, and I think it I
Speaker 1: think it helps. It's not fool proof obviously because there's moles,
Speaker 1: but that you know, and I mean, the wind can
Speaker 1: swirl and roll out. But like for instance, with that
Speaker 1: the bear that I killed and the bear, the big
Speaker 1: one that came in on you that first day, it worked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't smell us. They just got right in front
Speaker 1: and saw you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that was another thing I was going to
Speaker 2: add about the difference between the two locations. We were
Speaker 2: in a ladder stand and so you know, you're up
Speaker 2: off the ground, and the wind never stayed out of
Speaker 2: the same direction. It swirled the entire time. It would
Speaker 2: be in your face one minute and be at your
Speaker 2: back the next. And I think that made a difference too,
Speaker 2: because the yearlings that we saw, they didn't actually even
Speaker 2: come into the bait, and they came from directly down
Speaker 2: wind from us. And so I have no doubt in
Speaker 2: my mind that, like I said, either the same bear
Speaker 2: or those two different bears smelled us before they even
Speaker 2: got to the bait. And so you know, that little
Speaker 2: thing might have been the difference between the bear smelling
Speaker 2: you possibly too late, after you've already gotten a shot
Speaker 2: or smelling you on the front end, and you never
Speaker 2: knew it was there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how. That's the reason that big bears it's
Speaker 1: hard to kill, really big bears on bait. There is
Speaker 1: no shortage of people really anywhere you can bait bears.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm talking about Arkansas. Everybody's got pictures
Speaker 1: of big bears. Do you talk to anybody and they're like, man,
Speaker 1: you ought to see this bear and they show you
Speaker 1: some picture of a four hundred to five hundred pound
Speaker 1: bear and they're like, we can't kill him. And it's
Speaker 1: because of that very reason is that those bears know
Speaker 1: they know the game one hundred percent, and so they
Speaker 1: you just never see them. I mean, they come in
Speaker 1: down wind, they smell you, they don't come into the
Speaker 1: bait while you're there. Now, the anomaly of that is,
Speaker 1: first of all, younger bears will sometimes come in even
Speaker 1: if they smell you. Number one, number two, some percentage
Speaker 1: of bears, I don't know. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: in a month, four days out of the month, that
Speaker 1: big giant bear just would ignore his nose and come
Speaker 1: in anyway, or if it's bears, or if it's like
Speaker 1: one out of eight bears, no matter if he's five
Speaker 1: hundred pounds or three hundred pounds, just ignores his nose
Speaker 1: and comes in. Because that's why I kept telling Anthony
Speaker 1: was telling me the wind was swirling. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll see a big one out there at fifty
Speaker 1: sixty yards smelling you, and he'll sit there and eventually,
Speaker 1: like right at dark, he'll just come in anyway, you know,
Speaker 1: But most of them don't do that. So you know,
Speaker 1: you're trying to catch that anomaly, you know. So the
Speaker 1: wind is the wind is tough. Yeah, And so the
Speaker 1: second day we go in right at dark or right
Speaker 1: at daylight. Planning was sit till dark and we were
Speaker 1: actually we were making bets on when the we were
Speaker 1: going to see our first bear. And the first guess,
Speaker 1: Lauren's guess, was eight am. And we didn't see a
Speaker 1: bear pretty much all day, and so, like you know,
Speaker 1: we kept getting along. We're like, okay, maybe noon, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well okay, well when's it going to come in now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Eleven the time, and uh, anyway, so we do that
Speaker 1: all day, don't see anything, right, and then you know,
Speaker 1: obviously my final bet was one's going to come in
Speaker 1: right at dark and uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the only.
Speaker 1: And so, uh the last hour of daylight, I was
Speaker 1: just sitting on my knees, ready to ready to shoot,
Speaker 1: just because I could. I couldn't do that for all
Speaker 1: fourteen hours, but whenever I had like a deadline, I
Speaker 1: knew I could do. The trouble forgive me for in erupting.
Speaker 1: Uh the trouble. The trouble with sitting in that blind
Speaker 1: is you can't hear or see anything, and the bear
Speaker 1: just appears. And the bear that I killed, I was
Speaker 1: like I learned that you just had to like almost
Speaker 1: be in shooting position, just just ready, you know, during
Speaker 1: prime time.
Speaker 6: Even when there was nothing that you knew, nothing was
Speaker 6: even out.
Speaker 1: And it's taxing because you're just like because you know,
Speaker 1: if your boat there's a little hanger in there, if
Speaker 1: you like hang your bow and have all kind of relaxed,
Speaker 1: and then when he steps out at five feet, I
Speaker 1: mean you got to grab your boat, get situated, turn
Speaker 1: and shoot. It's like too late. So bar did what
Speaker 1: he should have done, just like be ready. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: for the last hour I was just sitting there on
Speaker 1: my knees with my bow and at seven I think
Speaker 1: it was like seven twenty three, so that would have
Speaker 1: been like fifteen minutes until it was totally dark. It
Speaker 1: uh like twenty minutes. I look out in front and
Speaker 1: I just see a black blog moving towards us. So
Speaker 1: we kind of got lucky that it came out of
Speaker 1: the front of it, popping out right in front. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I got ready, I got situated, and as
Speaker 1: it gets closer, I could see it's that big sow
Speaker 1: and she comes around kind of on the right side,
Speaker 1: which wasn't ideal because you know, we were trying to
Speaker 1: get it on a camera and the right side was
Speaker 1: kind of a blind spot where I could see but
Speaker 1: Lauren couldn't. And she goes and sniffs a GoPro that
Speaker 1: we had, and she kind of like sticks her left
Speaker 1: arm in front and was just like perfect shot. But
Speaker 1: she was just so calm. She didn't even look in
Speaker 1: the pit, even though she'd seen two dudes in there
Speaker 1: of the day before. She just yeah, she just kind
Speaker 1: of sniffed the GoPro and but she was so calm.
Speaker 1: I figured she was just gonna walk right in. We
Speaker 1: were going to get a good you know, everything was
Speaker 1: going to be just broadside, all in the center, you know.
Speaker 1: But about the time I passed up that shot, she
Speaker 1: turns and looks in the pit and sees us and
Speaker 1: turns just totally away from us. Her butt's facing me.
Speaker 1: And at this point, i'm, you know, imposition, and I
Speaker 1: draw back, and she's walking away at this point, and
Speaker 1: I just kind of whistle at her. I just kind
Speaker 1: of do something like that, and she stops out there
Speaker 1: at maybe like ten yards and quarters. You know, she
Speaker 1: was facing totally away from me, and she turned and
Speaker 1: looked back, and in my mind, I felt like she
Speaker 1: was a lot more. It's like a lot what lot's wife? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: come back? Yeah, And uh, I felt like she was
Speaker 1: a lot more.
Speaker 2: What's that that can get you too?
Speaker 1: I felt like she was a lot more broadside than
Speaker 1: she really was. But you know, I was at full draw,
Speaker 1: and I mean it was just like split second that
Speaker 1: I had to make a decision to shoot or not.
Speaker 1: And so I shot her, and the at like ten
Speaker 1: yards and I couldn't really tell where my arrow hit.
Speaker 1: I could just I saw it sticking out, you know,
Speaker 1: more than I would have liked it to been sticking out,
Speaker 1: And I thought it might have been a little low
Speaker 1: and so, and it ran off, went like forty yards
Speaker 1: out there and stopped, and I thought she was about
Speaker 1: to tip over, you know, if I made a good shot.
Speaker 1: Seems like usually on a bear, if you just yeah
Speaker 1: double on them, they don't go far. And she stops
Speaker 1: there at forty yards and then takes off again, and
Speaker 1: I felt sick because I kind of figured I made
Speaker 1: a bad shot on her. And we watched the video
Speaker 1: and it was just it was too hard to really tell.
Speaker 1: But what I could tell is that she was definitely quartering.
Speaker 1: It was a lot steeper angle than I thought, and
Speaker 1: it probably like if I did it again, I probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have taken the shot. Just it was in that
Speaker 1: moment everything just felt a little better. And I was
Speaker 1: on my fold there for fourteen hours, yeah, waiting for that.
Speaker 1: He was a split second, and it was like literally
Speaker 1: it was a split second of either you shoot or
Speaker 1: she gets away and I shot and anyway, so I
Speaker 1: was not feeling good about it at all, and I
Speaker 1: actually I thought I might have just hit her like
Speaker 1: right in the back of the leg and at such
Speaker 1: a steep angle, like two inches off is a totally
Speaker 1: different shot. Yeah, like it just and so it looked
Speaker 1: like I just hit her, maybe right in the back
Speaker 1: of the leg or just barely clipped her. And so
Speaker 1: I thought, I really thought that. Well when he called
Speaker 1: me and he said, I shot the bear, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a great shot. And you know, the luxury
Speaker 1: of having a camera in the in the stand with
Speaker 1: you filming the shot was big, and he he was
Speaker 1: actually able to send me a video of the shot.
Speaker 1: And I didn't think it was a mortal hit. I
Speaker 1: thought he just kind of like, H hit it in
Speaker 1: the leg, to be honest with you, and H and
Speaker 1: I said, well, hey, y'all just stay in the pit,
Speaker 1: and it was dark by now, and I said, I'll
Speaker 1: ride Izzy up there, and you know that'll be forty
Speaker 1: it'll take me an hour to get there, and we'll see.
Speaker 1: I felt like we were just gonna kind of do
Speaker 1: some due diligence and be like, this bear's not hurt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And whenever I went and looked like right where I
Speaker 1: shot her, immediately there's blood. But I tracked it for
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen yards, and it like in that fifteen yards
Speaker 1: it started out real hot, but like immediately started to
Speaker 1: kind of yeah, it was like looking for little spots
Speaker 1: and I was just like, that's it. Yeah, she's got
Speaker 1: an arrow in her leg. And I was that's never
Speaker 1: the feeling you would have after a shot. And so
Speaker 1: we sat in the baar pit waited for you to
Speaker 1: get up there uneasy, and we start tracking it and
Speaker 1: there's pretty consistent blood, but it kind of still doesn't
Speaker 1: look great, just looks like a like a flash wound.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We just keep waiting for it to to piddle out,
Speaker 1: and man, it doesn't. It just keeps getting It doesn't
Speaker 1: really get better, but it just stays really solid. And
Speaker 1: and and we we tracked the bear for i'd say
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty yards. Yeah, and it it the bear.
Speaker 1: Anytime you're tracking an animal, man and the animals trending downwards,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in hilly and mountainous train. I
Speaker 1: kept waiting for that bear to turn and go up
Speaker 1: because that's just where that's the place, that's where they
Speaker 1: want to go, and that area is up and uh,
Speaker 1: and it just kept kind of trending down and I
Speaker 1: was like, huh, this bear just kind of keeps going
Speaker 1: down and uh, we found the arrow. Found the about
Speaker 1: one hundred yards and it got maybe a foot of penetration,
Speaker 1: and but it was a pretty it was a good
Speaker 1: arrow set up, real heavy broadhead, real sharp broadhead thanks
Speaker 1: to Anthony sharpening it. But it uh yeah, it got
Speaker 1: like a foot of penetration and darrow didn't break somehow.
Speaker 1: But so it kind of started to like at that point,
Speaker 1: I was like, there's no way I killed the bear.
Speaker 1: But then when we found the arrow and the blood,
Speaker 1: just like kept staying consistent, started thinking maybe it, you know,
Speaker 1: we might walk up on it. Yeah, and anyway, we
Speaker 1: we trailed that bear walking full speed. I mean we
Speaker 1: never even stopped, there was that much blood. But and so,
Speaker 1: you know, I I was optimistic.
Speaker 6: At what point did after from did you start feeling
Speaker 6: a little better about it?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: Found we never felt better about it. I just kept
Speaker 1: thinking this is about to end. Yeah, And then finally
Speaker 1: bear looks up and he goes, there's the bear and uh,
Speaker 1: I actually I actually it's silly, but I had my
Speaker 1: knife out because I didn't bring my pistol or bear
Speaker 1: spray or anything. And I told him, I said, this
Speaker 1: bear could be alive, you know, I told him to Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually right before bow I'm strung and I said, dude,
Speaker 1: string that bow and anyway, yeah, yeah, And it actually
Speaker 1: was a great shot for the for the steep angle
Speaker 1: that it was. He hit it like in the one
Speaker 1: spot he would have killed. He just tucked it, I
Speaker 1: mean just right behind the shoulder and it was a
Speaker 1: little far forward to actually get the heart, but the
Speaker 1: era went up in and and got a major artery
Speaker 1: up and you know, north of the heart basically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean it ended up being a very difficult shot.
Speaker 1: It just kind of threaded the needle. So good job.
Speaker 1: I told him, you really shouldn't be shooting the stuff
Speaker 1: that steep quartering. Yeah, definitely. I definitely would not take
Speaker 1: that shot again. And I'll say, like, of all the
Speaker 1: animals that I've ever made a bad shot on, I
Speaker 1: think that might have been like the first time I've
Speaker 1: ever gotten the benefit of the doll. Yeah. Well, we
Speaker 1: were your mother, your grandmother, me, We were all praying
Speaker 1: that it would happen, so for sure, Well it was.
Speaker 1: And then we we got the bear out. We uh,
Speaker 1: you want to get that that thing beeping. We have
Speaker 1: a we have an inReach message. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: Whatever the message is, we'll share it with you. So
Speaker 1: we uh, that animal had an incredible amount of fat.
Speaker 1: So we harvested all the fat, all the meat, carried
Speaker 1: it out and yesterday we spent most of the day
Speaker 1: rendering bear grease and we got how many jars? Twenty
Speaker 1: four pints? All right, I bet an acre hits Is
Speaker 1: that here, truck? Josh, it'll be a brief pause. It's
Speaker 1: from Misty.
Speaker 6: We'll be back after going to send you a text.
Speaker 6: Oh once she gets out here. Okay, great, that was
Speaker 6: the message.
Speaker 1: So we rendered twenty four pints of bear grease. What
Speaker 1: do you guys think of the bear grease rendering?
Speaker 2: It was very interesting, really interesting. It was funny telling
Speaker 2: the camera, well, it looks like bear killed a bear
Speaker 2: in the bear pit. But it was cool, man. I
Speaker 2: was like, and that was one of the things that
Speaker 2: I wanted to do here was to see a bear
Speaker 2: killed mine or somebody else's and just see the process
Speaker 2: from from that point of that perspective, you know, just
Speaker 2: to to make me a better rounded biologist. And you know,
Speaker 2: at some point that's what we hope happens, is we
Speaker 2: have a bear season in Mississippi, and so you know,
Speaker 2: if I've equipped myself to know what that process is like,
Speaker 2: and have learned about it, then that's going to make
Speaker 2: me able to make better decisions, you know, down the road.
Speaker 2: So be a part of the process and and seeing
Speaker 2: specifically the rendering and then you know the different cuts
Speaker 2: that you made, the different cuts of meat, and and
Speaker 2: like the whole process was was That's exactly what I
Speaker 2: set out to do.
Speaker 4: It was not as difficult as I anticipated either, watching
Speaker 4: y'd render that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's really it's really simple.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely gonna have to kill a fat bear next time.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Yeah, Well, Anthony, we we indoctrinated you on
Speaker 1: the way of the unsuccessful bear hunter. So now you'll
Speaker 1: be able to you'll be able to identify.
Speaker 2: Make me appreciate people.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, well, now this really.
Speaker 3: Is We forgot about Spencer's real story.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we're going to talk about that. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been waiting.
Speaker 4: The story the first night.
Speaker 1: The first night, Oh, I forgot about that. Lie tell it,
Speaker 1: tell us, make it, make it. We're we're we're running
Speaker 1: low on time here. But this, yeah, we should have
Speaker 1: started with this. I I'm sorry, I keep well, I
Speaker 1: was just kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So the I talked about the first day I went
Speaker 5: out there late. I think it was like noon thirty
Speaker 5: or so, and I saw the bear I wanted. I
Speaker 5: didn't want that day, but later wanted at four. And
Speaker 5: then it gets around the last bar.
Speaker 2: I was about to close, all right.
Speaker 5: It gets around the last light, and I'm thinking maybe
Speaker 5: something else will come in. So I'm getting ready, and
Speaker 5: you know, I'm sitting there standing up with my bow,
Speaker 5: and it's I'm looking to the right of the stand
Speaker 5: just in case something comes from somewhere else then where
Speaker 5: I saw that bear from, and it kind of catch
Speaker 5: something out of the corner my eye. I was just like,
Speaker 5: you know, half second of trying to register what it was. Oh,
Speaker 5: deer's walking in. Go watch this deer. And I look
Speaker 5: up and there's just kind of this tan figure walking
Speaker 5: real smooth, not slow but not fast, kind of across
Speaker 5: this this game trail about forty yards from the stand,
Speaker 5: and I get to looking closer and it's got this
Speaker 5: long swooping tail behind it, and that there's a mountain
Speaker 5: lion just crossing up there on the hill. Brent loves
Speaker 5: to tell I'll let you tell the next one.
Speaker 6: Oh man, this is a classic. Our host Gerald Brewer
Speaker 6: was here. Josh was here messing around, and me and
Speaker 6: and me and Spencer, everybody else was out hunting. They
Speaker 6: walked away and Spencer said, I took video of that bear.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna show it to you. And he's standing behind me,
Speaker 6: and I'm sitting there holding my phone or his phone,
Speaker 6: and I'm sitting there holding and looking at this bear
Speaker 6: and I was.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, you know, that's a pretty good bear.
Speaker 6: And out of the blue, Spencer behind me says, y'all,
Speaker 6: y'all have a mountain lions here, and you know, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, they're they're around. And I thought, what an
Speaker 6: odd question. I thought, Now, why would he ask me
Speaker 6: that when I'm looking at this bear? And I turned
Speaker 6: around and looked at him, and his eyeballs are this
Speaker 6: bear around? He said, I just saw one ten minutes.
Speaker 1: You can't tell you, So, I mean he is a
Speaker 1: well laught by.
Speaker 4: I knew what I had seen. Yeah, but if he
Speaker 4: told me no.
Speaker 3: What percentage would it have dropped?
Speaker 4: If he told you, we wouldn't have changed what I thought.
Speaker 3: But I didn't change what you said.
Speaker 4: I'm a fairly new biologist and your reputation, reputation can
Speaker 4: ruin it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, myself, good or bad. Yeah, I can't believe I
Speaker 1: didn't bring this up at first. She reminded me, this
Speaker 1: should have been the first thing we talked. I hadn't
Speaker 1: been able to forget it.
Speaker 6: I don't know you.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, no, No, in all seriousness, I
Speaker 1: one hundred percent believe you.
Speaker 4: I'm glad you changed your mind.
Speaker 1: I still think you're a liar. But it wasn't black.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a black panther. No. So I told James
Speaker 1: Lawrence your story and he said, he's a James, he's
Speaker 1: in his late seventies and and he's seen two and
Speaker 1: he saw one like this summer right over in the community.
Speaker 1: Oh really, Oh yeah, yeah, Well he hadn't even told me,
Speaker 1: he said that. He said, I hadn't told many people this,
Speaker 1: but you.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't believe me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably, So I just want to be scrutinized a
Speaker 1: BYuT uklay. But uh, oh it did. It didn't surprise
Speaker 1: him at all. He was like, oh, yeah, I saw one.
Speaker 1: I mean, go in any rural community and ask some
Speaker 1: body if they've seen him outline, and you're going to
Speaker 1: find somebody that says that. So that's not always the
Speaker 1: way to determine if the story is true. But uh
Speaker 1: but uh, I think they're here.
Speaker 2: And if he's had a song written about him, that's
Speaker 2: got to lend a little credibility to him.
Speaker 1: James Lawrence. Yeah, yeah, Well it's been great to host
Speaker 1: you guys. It really has been a lot of ton
Speaker 1: of fun.
Speaker 5: So I can't tell you how much I appreciate it,
Speaker 5: even even if you did garhold happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, time happily gar hoold yep.
Speaker 1: Well, uh anything else, guys, Nope, close her down. Well,
Speaker 1: keep the wild places wine that's where the bears.
Speaker 6: Live, and the poolas and the point line from Puma
Speaker 6: point
Speaker 1: H