Speaker 1: Okay today, honest I want you to say, welcome to
Speaker 1: the me Eater podcast and Lavian you can't give me
Speaker 1: just a little bit of a head zone, come the
Speaker 1: Meta podcast and Laban and then introduce everyone in Lavian.
Speaker 1: I don't speak Lavian, so you can can do it well.
Speaker 1: Spade and Nan Ms knock him shorty in No Bozeman, Montana.
Speaker 1: Met Podcast leads in st Steve Ornella, Ryan Callahan, Britney Brothers,
Speaker 1: Helen Shoe, Jan Pool telling ladies, gentlemen, and Latvian. We're
Speaker 1: recording the media podcast out of Bowsman, Montana. We're in
Speaker 1: a place called Flats on Maine, joined by Ryan Callahan
Speaker 1: of he's famous for working at First Light, and he's
Speaker 1: famous for um his mustache, and he's famous for saying
Speaker 1: once addressing a bear, smell us, not a lady. And
Speaker 1: Brittany Brothers who works with us at meat Eater, Helen Shoe,
Speaker 1: who works with a meat Eater, and then um, the
Speaker 1: Lavian lover your honestly tell us who works with us
Speaker 1: at meat Eater. And we just got back from Helen
Speaker 1: and Britney's firs hunt. We're gonna talk about first hunts.
Speaker 1: But first I was talkt with something that happened to
Speaker 1: me in be honest. This morning, we're driving back from Damn,
Speaker 1: New York, Canada, just east of Glacier National Park where
Speaker 1: you enter the planes. There's these little island mountain chains
Speaker 1: out there, and we were hunting there and we're driving
Speaker 1: back to then we happened to stop in and visit
Speaker 1: with Uh. We had to stop in the long the
Speaker 1: long drive home and visit with this outfitter. And we
Speaker 1: we pull in there and there's a a mule deer
Speaker 1: laying on a piece of plywood land between two sawhorses,
Speaker 1: and it was it was funny because the multitys season
Speaker 1: had been closed for some time and it's laying there
Speaker 1: and it had in the snow around it as all
Speaker 1: these magpie tracks and it's frozen rock solid, and uh,
Speaker 1: we're told this story about how some guy was out
Speaker 1: and had killed it a couple of weeks earlier, and
Speaker 1: UM didn't want it and they were going to donate
Speaker 1: it and did we want it? And it had been
Speaker 1: there two weeks and I was so depressed UM leaving
Speaker 1: there and we had a big I had like a
Speaker 1: big like uh, like a crisis. We almost took it
Speaker 1: family that was gonna get it. It's just and it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, just the whole thing is weird and ugly.
Speaker 1: And then put me into a funk and we're driving
Speaker 1: on the road and I'm like talking about game wasters
Speaker 1: and how much how much I don't like them, and um,
Speaker 1: Yanni has some comment was like, well, yeah, well not
Speaker 1: everyone had a upbringing where that stuff was respected, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's like an education thing more than anything else.
Speaker 1: And and and and as I'm saying is I'm almost
Speaker 1: ready to tell Joannice about how I was like, I
Speaker 1: was gonna tell him this story where I was like,
Speaker 1: my old man would even go check other guys gut
Speaker 1: piles to get the heart and liver out of a
Speaker 1: gut pile. And as I'm about ready to tell Joannice this,
Speaker 1: we blow past a gut pile off in the field.
Speaker 1: We actually heard the cold, right, you guys did too,
Speaker 1: So apparently these guys up in this area had gotten
Speaker 1: onto herd it out. They came out into the flat,
Speaker 1: and um, I heard rumor. I can't say this is true.
Speaker 1: And I say a rumor because it's not. It's it's
Speaker 1: very illegal but they apparently got after these elical cell phones.
Speaker 1: And there was a herd of like twenty seven cows
Speaker 1: and two spikes, and was all said and done. All
Speaker 1: the cows are dead. And uh, I mean legally tag
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't I don't know that that
Speaker 1: is what a guy said. It might that might have
Speaker 1: not been true at all. But here's his gut pile
Speaker 1: on the side of the road out in the egg field.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know what, turnaround, and I'm so
Speaker 1: upset about what happened earlier that day. I'm gonna turn around.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go and get the heart and the liver
Speaker 1: out of that gut pile. So Yanny turns around, drives back.
Speaker 1: I walk out on the field of my knife, start
Speaker 1: digging through the gut pile. I'm looking for a ziplock back.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for a ziplock bag in the back of
Speaker 1: the truck. And the heart and liver had been taken
Speaker 1: by the hunter's And then I was back, and then
Speaker 1: I was back into a good mood again, meat season groceries.
Speaker 1: And then I was back in a good mood, and
Speaker 1: I was back in a good moon. We had a
Speaker 1: nice drive home. Wow, that's like, did you guys check
Speaker 1: if her heart and liver telling them there when I
Speaker 1: when I blew through, the guys were out there skin
Speaker 1: they were got another one across the street. I guess
Speaker 1: he called across county road. They were got another one.
Speaker 1: Did you stop in and asking about the heart and liver?
Speaker 1: I did not. That brings us to what we were
Speaker 1: doing up in this in this chain of hills. And
Speaker 1: why don't you guys introduce selves Brittany and Helen. Helen
Speaker 1: has been on the podcast before you guys took me
Speaker 1: fly fishing for the first time. First for Helen crafted
Speaker 1: with catch and release fishing. Did you release anything that day?
Speaker 1: You shouldn't release it, She shouldn't release her. Help. So
Speaker 1: talk a little about what you do and and what
Speaker 1: we did. Don't talk about what we did. Talk about
Speaker 1: what you do, Like how you came to be introduced
Speaker 1: all this? Oh? Um, well, so I worked for z
Speaker 1: p Z, I work for meat Eater, worked with you
Speaker 1: probably for four years, four years, four years. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Basically we started the social media since the world within
Speaker 1: when you were in travel Channel and built the knee
Speaker 1: eater um social press presence from the ground up. So
Speaker 1: had you. Uh that was your introduction to hunting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I met you through your photos. Actually, Like I remember,
Speaker 1: one of my first jobs at CPZ was to scan
Speaker 1: all these photos from this like personal you know, like archive,
Speaker 1: and I'm going through this photo album and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like this kid, I don't know, he's
Speaker 1: like maybe four years old or something like it gets
Speaker 1: progressively like this kid gets older and older, and it's
Speaker 1: like every single animal, you know, it's like snakes, raccoons,
Speaker 1: And I was like, who the hell is this dude? Um? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how it was introduced you first, and I was
Speaker 1: like wow, I mean it's like every I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I grew up in New York. It's like I'd never
Speaker 1: seen a moose, like someone holding a moose like that,
Speaker 1: or like you know, like dear um hanging. I mean
Speaker 1: everything just born Helen was born and raised and lives.
Speaker 1: Were you born raised in Manhattan? I was born in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: raised in Brooklyn, still live in Manhattan today and even
Speaker 1: went to you went to n y U for college.
Speaker 1: So the point is your New York to the core. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I mean my mad, mad New York He's trying
Speaker 1: to learn to have a zip, your zip your way
Speaker 1: of communicating. He's learned, Mad Brick. I don't even know
Speaker 1: that one. Apparently it's very cold anyways. Yeah me, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I've I've also worked for ZPZ. I worked for
Speaker 1: zz for like four years now, I think, and have
Speaker 1: worked for Meat Eater since the beginning in some capacity
Speaker 1: or another. Started out in the equipment room, started out
Speaker 1: down the Deep South, started out in the Deep South. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. Um, but yeah, I have
Speaker 1: been lived in New York for seven years. You guys
Speaker 1: still fly that Confederate flag down here now now they
Speaker 1: took that down goodness because they lost right a long
Speaker 1: time ago. I guess they're yers had to come down
Speaker 1: there and show you guys house done. Yeah. Well, you
Speaker 1: know my families from the North. Originally, I was born
Speaker 1: in Michigan. I don't have that. I was born in
Speaker 1: ann Arbor. Yeah, so I don't have this. You're like
Speaker 1: a cart you guys are. Your family is like a
Speaker 1: tarpetbagger fall um. But yeah, eventually made my way to
Speaker 1: New York. I went to college and yeah, I started
Speaker 1: working for z b Z in equipment well as an
Speaker 1: intern for Helen. Actually Helen hired me, so we go
Speaker 1: way back, is that right? Yeah, she hired me is
Speaker 1: an intern. There's some highs and lows went along, just
Speaker 1: all high. One of my first jobs as an Internet
Speaker 1: EPC was trying to find a powder blue tuxedo for
Speaker 1: Ron Jeremy. That's a that's a true story story, um,
Speaker 1: and that's my life has never been the same since. Um.
Speaker 1: But I started working on mediator and equipment, um impact
Speaker 1: all the gear, and it was always just like the dirtiest,
Speaker 1: messiest gear that we got back. I was just like
Speaker 1: what goes on? Always something broken? What do you mean
Speaker 1: by gear like camera gear? UM? I mean we were
Speaker 1: in charge of camping gear too, so we you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you would come down to the second floor and
Speaker 1: like all the tents were oute. It looked like nobody
Speaker 1: wanted to come to the second like the smelliest smelly man.
Speaker 1: That must not have been my tent. I don't know
Speaker 1: who's tent. That's weird. That a personal problem. I just
Speaker 1: I just slept on the cot next year, and I
Speaker 1: want to be specific about saying I slept on the
Speaker 1: cot next to you for the last for four nights
Speaker 1: and I never smelled the lady lady smell. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I worked in equipment. The gear was always horribly messy
Speaker 1: and dirty, and I spent many nights cleaning it. Um
Speaker 1: and uh, I was just always kind of curious what
Speaker 1: went on, what was going on out there? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And you grew up thinking that, um, the hunters were
Speaker 1: like the devil spawn. Well, you know, I grew up,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm not saying this is all you
Speaker 1: know Southern hunters, but I grew up thinking that they
Speaker 1: were just a bunch of like hillbillies drinking beer and
Speaker 1: shooting things for the hell of it. Well those aspects
Speaker 1: of that. I'm sure they're handful of those people. But
Speaker 1: I literally never thought of hunting is like a source
Speaker 1: of food at all. I just thought it was just
Speaker 1: like again, like people just like to go out and
Speaker 1: shoot things. Yeah, I don't know anyone who ate wild game, No,
Speaker 1: never at all. I mean even today, Like none of
Speaker 1: our friends eat wild game. I mean people people who
Speaker 1: work you know, on the show. But I know a
Speaker 1: handful of people now now back home, and I mean
Speaker 1: I never realized before. But yeah, but then from equipment
Speaker 1: I worked started working in social Media strangely enough, um,
Speaker 1: and pretty much solely worked I mean we you know,
Speaker 1: we had all our other shows, but Media was sort
Speaker 1: of like the main show that I worked on. And
Speaker 1: that's really like how I came to know you, how
Speaker 1: he came to know the crew a lot better. Um,
Speaker 1: not just our smells else and from smells to smiles,
Speaker 1: some smells to smiles, oh my god. Um. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then and then I worked on that cookbook shoot last
Speaker 1: year because Dan got super sick and so I kind
Speaker 1: of had to like take over the logistics of that,
Speaker 1: um which is super fun. That was a crash course
Speaker 1: and all things wild. Games are coming out for another year,
Speaker 1: but I mean just to mention it. And we started
Speaker 1: all talking about we start talking about doing this trip
Speaker 1: one year ago. Was it really a year ago? Feels
Speaker 1: like long long than No. I think it was, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: probably a year. Well, we kept bugging you, like you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it was remember, but we
Speaker 1: talked about this at in in Vegas. Had shot show
Speaker 1: last year and I said, Antelope, that's right, that would
Speaker 1: have not shots too far. I don't think it is.
Speaker 1: I think we talked about it a shot. We did
Speaker 1: we definitely talked about that. I might have talked about it,
Speaker 1: but I would have said the shots are too far.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, okay, I got you, not shot shots,
Speaker 1: shots you real quick. There's this big trade. It's like
Speaker 1: all shooting, sportsman's hunting, outdoor trade, that's what it stands for.
Speaker 1: But it's all out it's all um all firearm industry stuff,
Speaker 1: so stuff from like mall cop stuff to hunter stuff too.
Speaker 1: I think calam put it best when he was saying
Speaker 1: that you're talking to people and one guy comes up
Speaker 1: and he's a mall cop. The next guy come up
Speaker 1: and he's killed a hundred people in Afghanistan, and it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to tell which one is which correct all
Speaker 1: firearm related vote from hunting to military. Yes, I make
Speaker 1: and make a strong point to just be very polite,
Speaker 1: you know, in all circumstances, because you just can't tell
Speaker 1: us going other. So we were at this thing shot
Speaker 1: show and it's it's gigantic trade shown Apparently we talked
Speaker 1: about perhaps going Antelop Punton. It took a long time
Speaker 1: to settle on the Elk thing that we we we
Speaker 1: we just are coming right now. Today. We left camp
Speaker 1: this morning from hunting cow Elk and you know near
Speaker 1: the Montana Alberta line, and UM and you guys, I
Speaker 1: was pressuring you guys to do a something easier. I
Speaker 1: wanted to go to Doug Durn's place and hunt white tails.
Speaker 1: And I just found out that they had the worst
Speaker 1: white tail opening day on record. My god, wow, I'm
Speaker 1: glad that we didn't do that. Said he couldn't see
Speaker 1: seventy five yards? Why is that fog? Driving snow and fogg.
Speaker 1: Nothing happened, No one got anything, worst year on record.
Speaker 1: So you guys got lucky. And I tried talking to
Speaker 1: doing that. I tried talking to doing all manner of things,
Speaker 1: and you guys said you wanted to go to um Alaska,
Speaker 1: Montana Alaska. Then what was cool about it is you
Speaker 1: got you guys, UM had to do hunter safety. How'd
Speaker 1: that go? I mean, what was your impression? I mean
Speaker 1: it was it was an eight hour online course and
Speaker 1: then like a five hour classroom session with a very
Speaker 1: interesting instructor, super nice guy, and we was surprisingly enough,
Speaker 1: we got a bunch of people from ZPC to do
Speaker 1: it too, not only just one session, but like a
Speaker 1: second session that we were not a part of, Like
Speaker 1: we were surprised by how many people are interested at
Speaker 1: least like fifteen yet right, I had not. I had
Speaker 1: shot a gun on the cookbook Shoot with You was
Speaker 1: the first time I ever shot a gun in my life.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I've never shot a gun. So you're in
Speaker 1: Hunter's Safety and was it like, because here's the thing
Speaker 1: most people, like most people the grow up around hunting,
Speaker 1: Like you've already been hunting a lot or been around it,
Speaker 1: and then you go to Hunter's Safety. You have a formality,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, but you went I haven't really like no,
Speaker 1: it was like it's probably was presented. He was like,
Speaker 1: honestly new material. Yeah, it was. I remember doing the
Speaker 1: online course part of it on the subway and they
Speaker 1: have I'm not kidding, and part of like I remember
Speaker 1: it was like an interactive you know, each course would
Speaker 1: be somewhat interactive. So there was one part where they're
Speaker 1: showing you the different parts of like the rifle, and
Speaker 1: you can click on the bolt, you know, it shows
Speaker 1: you and it would be like click this to like,
Speaker 1: you know, move the bolt, and it would just show
Speaker 1: you how everything moves. So you can click the different
Speaker 1: parts of the rifle, like now, pull the like click
Speaker 1: on the trigger to pull the trigger. You're doing it
Speaker 1: on the subway. Yeah, well, I mean, you know it's
Speaker 1: an eight hour of course, and it didn't arrest. You know,
Speaker 1: you got a lot of weird glances. You know. I
Speaker 1: got picked up in the New York subway for having
Speaker 1: a knife story. Yeah, talking like Crocodile don d style,
Speaker 1: Like just like this right here, like a clip on knife.
Speaker 1: But it has to be a certain You can't have
Speaker 1: something it's like a certain length. This is a um
Speaker 1: Saga pentagon only the one that I lost was a
Speaker 1: bench made same style deal years ago. I had a
Speaker 1: clip to my pocket, okay, And I'm walking at the
Speaker 1: I got off at the fourteen I was going to
Speaker 1: a business thing I'm going to. I'm at the fourteenth
Speaker 1: Street Union Square station and I'm walking to go to
Speaker 1: a meeting at a restaurant. And we're actually meeting with
Speaker 1: the people who run the restaurant. So I'm walking and
Speaker 1: I got the knife in my pocket, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, there's like, uh, a hobo figure next to me,
Speaker 1: but he's not I just think he is. And he
Speaker 1: flashes a badge. He says, what are you doing with that? Knife.
Speaker 1: I said, I just carry this knife around and I
Speaker 1: was living in Alaska an Alaska driver's license. So first
Speaker 1: they take they take me this little this little police
Speaker 1: station in the subway station, and they got my driver's
Speaker 1: license and they're grilling me about Sarah Palin Okay. And
Speaker 1: then they're like, why do you have a knife. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just have the knife. It's like I don't. I'm not.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, the only I had in my
Speaker 1: hand was a New Yorker magazine and a bench made
Speaker 1: knife click in my pocket, and an Alaska driver's license.
Speaker 1: And they're baffled by what I'm doing here and why
Speaker 1: I have what I have, And in the end they
Speaker 1: steal my knife. I guess they would say confiscated it
Speaker 1: and give me a summons to appear in court for
Speaker 1: having a concealed or some kind of weapon. And I said,
Speaker 1: if I thought it had to be that it was
Speaker 1: like a long or three inches or whatever. And he said,
Speaker 1: it's a open assists knife, meaning you can had a
Speaker 1: thumb stud on it and you can open it with
Speaker 1: one hand, which made it an illegal thing to have. Now,
Speaker 1: one thing leads to another, and a well connected gentleman
Speaker 1: makes a couple of phone calls it within forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: I'm instructed to tear my summons up. Wow, you gotta
Speaker 1: be good to be Steve Ronella. And I asked, and
Speaker 1: I asked, well, what about the knife? And this gentleman
Speaker 1: looked at me like I was the in moron and said,
Speaker 1: forget about your knife at the end of it, because
Speaker 1: I've heard a couple of times, Mr Callahanna, are you
Speaker 1: aware that you have a bench wor enough? Nobody told
Speaker 1: me to anything out then, and I learned not then
Speaker 1: from then on when I'm on those subways, and then
Speaker 1: got I'm done ever being on those subways ever again. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm real nervous about betraying interest in any kind of weaponry.
Speaker 1: So I'll even you know, I'm like, I'll be reading
Speaker 1: like a sporting magazine and I always feel like people
Speaker 1: are looking at you know that are kind of like,
Speaker 1: give me the stink guy. It's just paranoia. So there
Speaker 1: you are studying for hunter safety on the thing. So
Speaker 1: you guys, then you have to learn to shoot. Yep,
Speaker 1: that was interesting. It was very interesting. I Mean, who
Speaker 1: knew that there was a shooting range out on State night.
Speaker 1: You had to help a lot one time. How are
Speaker 1: the steps in order to be like, okay, guns bullets
Speaker 1: shooting range. We spent quite some time out there, though
Speaker 1: they closed the range down the first time we went
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, I think they're a little nervous. We
Speaker 1: told them we're coming on, we're gonna be shooting, and
Speaker 1: know that they closed dogs. We wanted to come out
Speaker 1: and film. But a body of mine is a is
Speaker 1: a member in good standing at this Staten Island range.
Speaker 1: And we went out there and they treated they like
Speaker 1: treated you guys like royalty out there. Man, How far
Speaker 1: can you shoot? East Coast Gun Range june Yard Bank.
Speaker 1: It's like the oldest or longest. There's something like longest running.
Speaker 1: It's called Colonial Gun Range. And this is a gun
Speaker 1: range in like an urban area and they spend most
Speaker 1: of their i'm an energy keeping themselves open. It's like
Speaker 1: every day is a new challenge to keep this range open.
Speaker 1: Great dudes, tons like tons of former cops. My friend
Speaker 1: out there is a is a driver drives for to
Speaker 1: stay so he'll drive like politicians and stuff for the city.
Speaker 1: But he's a member out there. Tons of former law
Speaker 1: enforcement guys are members out there and they go there
Speaker 1: and shoot, and we went out and started learning how
Speaker 1: the first time I went out, we took a seventeen
Speaker 1: h MR I think seven millimeter remy to magnum, I
Speaker 1: take your maybe two seventy. Yeah, I think we took
Speaker 1: something seventy and we're powerful, Yeah, because one was crazy loud.
Speaker 1: One was super loud and really like it packed a punch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which seventy now yeah, him into seventy. We shot a
Speaker 1: whole We shot a ton of room fire around at targets,
Speaker 1: and then we all from the bench and you guys
Speaker 1: shot some center fire, like some bigger rounds, and then
Speaker 1: you kept going back. So how many times, like how
Speaker 1: many rain sessions? You had a number of range sessions
Speaker 1: after that with Joe, we went like once a month,
Speaker 1: I would say, for three or four months. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: the point where you're honest night before it's honest. We
Speaker 1: went down to the range here in in outside of Bozeman,
Speaker 1: and you guys are shooting for fantastic groups. Um Brittan,
Speaker 1: you hit a gong at what's the farthest going there,
Speaker 1: hit a going to hit it going at three right,
Speaker 1: it went at four thirty and then all of your
Speaker 1: shots were within a palm sized group at huntred yards,
Speaker 1: shooting from the bench, prone over a backpack, and sitting
Speaker 1: with a with a bipod. Over all very good shooting.
Speaker 1: I gotta just say, I think that's amazing and it's fantastic,
Speaker 1: but it kind of irks me at the same time
Speaker 1: because I know so many people that have never ever
Speaker 1: practiced those shots. No, you go to the range and
Speaker 1: shooting then anything, that's it. Yeah, they shoot three shots
Speaker 1: at paper and they're like, oh, yeah, that's two more
Speaker 1: or less. Time we go hunting, you know, said yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're never gonna shoot a big amy from a bench.
Speaker 1: They never, But it's like it's unlikely. Yes, it's unlikely. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of what we Helen and I had
Speaker 1: And be honest, we all covered this week. It was
Speaker 1: like things are not going to be perfect. The more
Speaker 1: you can have in your head that things are not
Speaker 1: going to be perfect, it's not gonna be like some Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna set up, get things rock solid, the Elk
Speaker 1: is gonna step out, gun deal, get the bench set up,
Speaker 1: get the sand bags out. So yeah, you guys got
Speaker 1: cracking on the rifles. And then we took off and
Speaker 1: the hunt we did was there's a there's this area
Speaker 1: up there where in Montana. The way it works is, uh,
Speaker 1: you buy what's called a general elk license and the
Speaker 1: general elk license depending on how many units are, and
Speaker 1: so that the states divided into seven regions. Each region
Speaker 1: is divided into a bunch of units, ten or more
Speaker 1: units per region. And when you buy a general elk tag,
Speaker 1: it's like that tag has different value, so to speak,
Speaker 1: depending on what unit and region you're in. And we're
Speaker 1: hunting in a region where a general elk tag is
Speaker 1: not good for a bull. Generally, a general elk tag
Speaker 1: is good for a branch antler bull and brow tine
Speaker 1: bull and not a cow. But in this unit, a
Speaker 1: general elk license is good for a antler lists or
Speaker 1: cow elk. So we're around a cow elk hunt and
Speaker 1: Eve enough to it. I correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: I think I said many times that success or failure
Speaker 1: on the hunt will come down to um walking up
Speaker 1: and downhills. He did say that, It's true. What was
Speaker 1: your first impression when I was like, okay, first time hunt,
Speaker 1: We're going after elk. You have to do it. And laugh.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm joking, why Donna, Like, is it a
Speaker 1: good idea to do Elk for the first hunt? Yes, Like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're taking Helen and Brittany from thirty ft above sea level.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming somewhere it's like straight up at depends on
Speaker 1: what apartment you're in, apartment elevation. Yeah, it depends on
Speaker 1: the crowd and the character. But you know, they're rambunctious girls.
Speaker 1: They're already jump, you know, both feet in earlier started
Speaker 1: with like a squirrel hunt, you know, and and then
Speaker 1: go to it. Let me put it this. We didn't
Speaker 1: want we didn't want that, Yeah, like just because we're women,
Speaker 1: we didn't want to be you know, like I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: did you exactly exactly exactly? They went to hunt deer
Speaker 1: at Bubbly Doug's not the first time, the first time
Speaker 1: they went to Montana deer not in the damn mountains,
Speaker 1: not out be honest. How long did it take you?
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you're you know, you're a rambunctious male.
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to kill an Elk?
Speaker 1: Took me three years and I grew up in Montana
Speaker 1: bumbling around the woods. Why do we weird deal because
Speaker 1: my first elk hunt was it was a drop camp,
Speaker 1: and then we did so poorly in the first four
Speaker 1: days that the outfitter that put us in this cabin,
Speaker 1: my father and a friend his. We did so poorly
Speaker 1: they invited us over for dinner. We're like, there's no
Speaker 1: elk in these hills. We got ripped off. We roll
Speaker 1: over to the main camp. Super yeah. We rolled into
Speaker 1: the main camp. They're like, oh, we killed six bowls
Speaker 1: and we were tagged out three days ago. You know, like, really,
Speaker 1: there's holk in these hills. So the outfiter took pity
Speaker 1: and took us up the hill. Next day about killed
Speaker 1: my dad and his buddy. Going up the hill, I
Speaker 1: just stop and be like, dude, serious, I think my
Speaker 1: dad's gonna like not make it up this hill if
Speaker 1: we don't slow down. Anyways, we make it up there.
Speaker 1: He takes me into the woods. Right, we've been hung
Speaker 1: in the same area all week. We walk in there,
Speaker 1: he bugles one time. I'm like, wow, that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: You know, we're sitting there in like thirty seconds later,
Speaker 1: here you know, stick pops and here comes the herd
Speaker 1: coming up through the timber. This is the outfit or
Speaker 1: you know, like he took me out like twenty cows
Speaker 1: filtered through the timber, like fifty six yards, then to
Speaker 1: five point bulls come up to about fifty six yards
Speaker 1: and the first one turns around, starts sparring with the
Speaker 1: second one, and they spa in front of us for
Speaker 1: like ten minutes, just like a nice light little you know,
Speaker 1: kind of later October sparring definitely inspired by the bugle
Speaker 1: the outfitter sets. Of course, it was like, yeah bugles once,
Speaker 1: it was the you know, no no, no no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that just made him come up through this area. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I gotta hang out with that guy. What's this guy's number?
Speaker 1: Round up the herd? Yeah he doesn't he retired, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I hit the bull, but but I lost did Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first bull I ever killed. I didn't find him.
Speaker 1: Somebody else found him like four days later. But that
Speaker 1: right there put the drive and me to, you know,
Speaker 1: make better next time. But then basically by a year
Speaker 1: later thing six days, sixty five days later I was
Speaker 1: an elk hunting guide. It better, maybe sixty minutes together
Speaker 1: in the woods, and then me calling him the following
Speaker 1: months saying, hey, I need one of those beagle tubes.
Speaker 1: How did you do that? YadA, YadA, YadA. He's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, why don't you come up and you
Speaker 1: know spa on spending three months in the fall with me.
Speaker 1: I would uh run around the woods from an hour
Speaker 1: in the morning. Then I would like sand and staying
Speaker 1: cabins all day long, and they would run around the
Speaker 1: woods for about an hour in the evening. For when
Speaker 1: you take your first client out that next fall. How
Speaker 1: were you? H'm just killing that here. I think I
Speaker 1: had a couple of misses. Um, but I didn't have
Speaker 1: anybody been in on in your career guided or including
Speaker 1: my own, No, your own, you guiding friends, I don't
Speaker 1: know close to a probably all right, you gotta excuse
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Speaker 1: Square Space, Build it beautiful. Where were we? So? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He did you think it was a good idea to
Speaker 1: take these guys? Like, no one gets to go hunt
Speaker 1: for their first hunt unless it's unheard up. You know what,
Speaker 1: My first hunt was chipmunks. For like years, we hunted
Speaker 1: chipmunks and we smiled about it. And we didn't have
Speaker 1: chipmunks to hunt. We hunted pine squirrels. We didn't have that.
Speaker 1: We got the okay to hunt first starlings because they
Speaker 1: were introduced. It's not that we don't want to hunt squirrels.
Speaker 1: We do. You know you didn't want to do anything,
Speaker 1: but and I understand why, Well, no, we didn't specifically
Speaker 1: say I don't remember were saying we wanted to want
Speaker 1: to hunt Montana or right. We wanted to do something
Speaker 1: that was going to be challenging, you felt, you know,
Speaker 1: and I love where your head's at Montana or Alaska.
Speaker 1: That's yeah. But elk is just I mean, as you know.
Speaker 1: Now again, I don't think we did not gus by elk. No.
Speaker 1: And in fact, at Shacho last year, we were sitting
Speaker 1: at dinner. Remy was there and he I remember him saying,
Speaker 1: you can't. You should not go for elk is your
Speaker 1: first hunt, because you guys, if you get an elk,
Speaker 1: you'll be ruined. That's what he said. Yeah, remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I told Bratty this four or five times, at least
Speaker 1: yether day I haunted. I moved to Montana and haunted elk,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty or so days that year, hunted out
Speaker 1: twenty or so days, and next year, and then killed
Speaker 1: an elk the third year, and by then i'd probably
Speaker 1: I'd probably killed my elk on my first elk, which
Speaker 1: was a calf that I shot with my bow, and
Speaker 1: probably my forty five day of elk hunting. Sounds about right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the point of this. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: guys trying to make us feel that I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that we're just it's a good idea to
Speaker 1: take people on their first ever any hunt of any
Speaker 1: kind on a on an elk con And it's just
Speaker 1: like it depends on the person. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of parallels. I'm trying to think of parallels, like I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think like sexual things or food things or whatever.
Speaker 1: It'd be like I think a lot of them, but
Speaker 1: that's not really appropriates. It's so challenging, Like for me,
Speaker 1: it was one of the biggest accomplishments, you know, to date.
Speaker 1: At that point, I was like, I actually I finally
Speaker 1: did it, Like this is an help, Yeah, just it
Speaker 1: finally happened because there were so many days and so
Speaker 1: many failures, and so many days without ever seeing or hearing,
Speaker 1: you know, deciphering like you know, two weeks old wind
Speaker 1: Loan elk crap in the pentlers, Like I guess they're here.
Speaker 1: I'll just keep walking, you know. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: very challenging hunt to start out with. So, um, well,
Speaker 1: what do you guys think should be like our first
Speaker 1: or what do you think would be a good like
Speaker 1: the first first five hunts for somebody squirrels and cotton
Speaker 1: tail rabbits for a year, and then they should do
Speaker 1: some deer hunting. I think ducks and geese are fantastic
Speaker 1: to get a shoot. Not that any wrong. What happened
Speaker 1: you guys got the major crash course. So we want
Speaker 1: this place. We want this this small island mountain chain
Speaker 1: and mountain range. And we set up a tent camp
Speaker 1: in a little canyon bottom um and started hunting. We
Speaker 1: had four four whole hunt days. And the way this
Speaker 1: place works this there's this sort of this resident herd
Speaker 1: in this mountain range numbers anywhere, depending on the air,
Speaker 1: from two four hundred animals. And they tend to, depending
Speaker 1: on who you ask, either they spend their entire year
Speaker 1: all balled up in a big ball, or they once
Speaker 1: the weather turns bad, they ball up into a big ball.
Speaker 1: And if you've never owned up for it's like there's
Speaker 1: this there's this term used in elk counting called like
Speaker 1: the herd, right, and if you imagine that you go
Speaker 1: to your buddy's farm, he would never and you're hunting
Speaker 1: white tails, he would never be like the herd will
Speaker 1: come through here in the morning because like the deer
Speaker 1: maintained individual identities, you know, like there's like the white
Speaker 1: tail hangs out here in some white tails hang out
Speaker 1: there and like they might come out into the field
Speaker 1: at night, but that doesn't mean that they all are.
Speaker 1: But in this mountain chain, this range that you call
Speaker 1: the chain, like a small range, this big wat of
Speaker 1: elk is only in one place at any even times.
Speaker 1: So it's essentially to to a to a degree, it's
Speaker 1: almost is like you're hunting one animal, but it just
Speaker 1: happens to be many, many tons and spread out over,
Speaker 1: you know, a big area, just this heard about that
Speaker 1: drifts around. And the goal every day and you wake
Speaker 1: up is to try to find like the herd and
Speaker 1: it's six d I don't know, three eyeballs staring at you,
Speaker 1: looking for you, you know, and you're trying to intercept
Speaker 1: this this moving target as this heard runs around. So
Speaker 1: we started out just by climbing essentially climbing up into
Speaker 1: the into the high country to try to glass up animals.
Speaker 1: And nobody had ever hunted here before, none of us
Speaker 1: have been there before. Talk to some guys that do
Speaker 1: hunt there. We open up some maps, we get given
Speaker 1: some maps. Yanni printed out some maps. A guy said,
Speaker 1: here's a couple of good glass and spots. And the
Speaker 1: first morning we're out. I go to the first good
Speaker 1: glass and spot and lone behold, there's two people there.
Speaker 1: And he's said, like the guy that gave me the tip,
Speaker 1: failing that, go to this glass and spot and go there,
Speaker 1: and there's four people on that glass in spot. We
Speaker 1: saw that night after hunt all day we finally saw
Speaker 1: two spike both. I think I was home with Brittany.
Speaker 1: Steve and Brittany. We're a team. Ryan Callahan and Helm
Speaker 1: were a team. So our first day we pounded the
Speaker 1: glass saw more mule deer than fella has a right
Speaker 1: to see every book. Who had his nose up a
Speaker 1: doze ass just rutting way hard. Brittany glassed up a man,
Speaker 1: another hunter who was defecating, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: First it struck me the the indifference this man had
Speaker 1: to his his little creation there. Didn't do just stepped,
Speaker 1: pulled down his pants, did his thing. His friends, friends
Speaker 1: are right in front of him. Does it very brisk
Speaker 1: little clean up, just kind of throws the toilet paper
Speaker 1: to the wind, pulls his pants back up, takes two
Speaker 1: or three steps, glances back, you know, just to see
Speaker 1: like just checking out his health or whatever. And that
Speaker 1: has followed his buddies back to the truck. I understand
Speaker 1: anything like it. The only people watching complete disregard for
Speaker 1: all the people who are just pounding glass that day,
Speaker 1: and happened to be wondering about what was wrong with
Speaker 1: the guy somebody that might be walking that trail or yeah,
Speaker 1: or the guy whoever owns the lamp. So we glassed
Speaker 1: from a number of high points that day and saw
Speaker 1: a lot of bucks, and then we um went back
Speaker 1: at at dark. At dusk, we went back to another
Speaker 1: prominent point that was a positioned way above camp and
Speaker 1: spotted up a couple of spikes and but the problem
Speaker 1: is this area we're in, Um, can's gotta find cow out?
Speaker 1: And then climbed down and that was your That was
Speaker 1: like your first elk right, Oh absolutely, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it was. It was incredible. It was like, first of all,
Speaker 1: I'm looking all over the place. I finally spotted like
Speaker 1: some muleteer. That was the first thing that I pard Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and then you spotted that, which I was like, I
Speaker 1: have no, I couldn't find him on binoculars. You pulled
Speaker 1: them up on the spotting pull pull up kout. Yep,
Speaker 1: you guys saw kat. He's looking like he's all majestic
Speaker 1: up on this peak. Yeah, she got onto scope and
Speaker 1: found another one. He had a body with him yea um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean that was like the the coolest
Speaker 1: thing I've ever seen, like I had. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: seen pictures of elk, but i'd never like seen one
Speaker 1: probably in real life like that. So better than Google images,
Speaker 1: better than goes easily. We get down to Can't that
Speaker 1: night and Callahan comes down and his his story is
Speaker 1: looking in the same area he saw spike and maybe
Speaker 1: a cow, you know, the dark one. I just couldn't
Speaker 1: find horns and the spotting scope was that the only
Speaker 1: Alky guys found that day. No, we saw a bull
Speaker 1: uh um in the other drainage, all bedded down by
Speaker 1: himself the middle of the day he was out. We
Speaker 1: saw him first thing in the morning, he was bedded down,
Speaker 1: and then at like eleven o'clock in the morning he's
Speaker 1: up feeding on this wide open hills. And at that
Speaker 1: point I was like, this is gonna be good like
Speaker 1: or this elk knows that this is a general tag
Speaker 1: cow only area. The King's X Yeah, nobody can touch him.
Speaker 1: So but I mean, for Helen right, we saw mule
Speaker 1: deer at off off the bat later on that would
Speaker 1: not be such a novelty. And then we saw the
Speaker 1: two spikes that you guys saw, but there was also
Speaker 1: a five point bowl in there that you guys didn't
Speaker 1: see that we saw. And yeah, I mean that that
Speaker 1: pretty much was it. But then we saw those what
Speaker 1: turned out to be the two spikes come back out
Speaker 1: of the timber at last night, after we spent all
Speaker 1: day on top of the mountain bucking the wind, and
Speaker 1: Janice got in a lot of push ups, got in
Speaker 1: a lot of team up. Our second day out, we
Speaker 1: just talk about second day. I was still the first day.
Speaker 1: That was all the first day. That was all the
Speaker 1: first day we did the big hike. Uh, correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, please, But Helen looks stunned. Helen looked
Speaker 1: like she had had the shock and all campaign done
Speaker 1: to her. That, yes, my impression. Also, I tried to
Speaker 1: pick the most efficient way up the mountain that still
Speaker 1: got us to the top of the mountain in in
Speaker 1: a timely fashion. And um, what did you what were
Speaker 1: you so shocked? And not about? I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know everything. You weren't yourself. It was the most mind
Speaker 1: blowing yourself. I think it was after the first day.
Speaker 1: Only the first day we kept me, are you okay, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm okay. What I was just being quiet. I think
Speaker 1: I was just like taking it all in, you know, right.
Speaker 1: I think it was more that than like being like
Speaker 1: worked over anything like that, because you told me numerous times,
Speaker 1: You're like, man, I just can't believe I'm here. I
Speaker 1: can't believe I'm on the side of this mountain. I
Speaker 1: can't believe I'm way up on this mountain and looking
Speaker 1: at it all this like it's just so much. That
Speaker 1: morning Trophy Country, and that morning when we finally got
Speaker 1: to the top, we got the top, and when we
Speaker 1: drove into this mountain range, everything was the skies were
Speaker 1: clear everywhere, but the mountain was shrouded in clouds. Then
Speaker 1: we slept in our tents and woke up and climbed
Speaker 1: up and before it got light out and got to
Speaker 1: the top of the mountain and it was reversed. The
Speaker 1: top of the mountain was sunny and you were looking
Speaker 1: out at a sea of clouds below you. It was
Speaker 1: like you were it was like you're on everests. Man,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. And there's and then they got clear a
Speaker 1: little bit and there's snow underground and Mulder, to me
Speaker 1: are ghosts. Like against the snow, Elk looked like orange
Speaker 1: and warm, but like Mulder looked just like a little
Speaker 1: like ghosts, you know, like a little haunted apparitions. Man,
Speaker 1: They're just like crawled that day. It was November nineteen,
Speaker 1: just box everywhere. That was an amazing day. I think
Speaker 1: it's also really cool is like to see how train
Speaker 1: the hunter's eyes, you know, like even when we're driving around,
Speaker 1: like Steve would be like, oh, look there's a man dragon,
Speaker 1: a colbody in the back here. You're like, where do
Speaker 1: you see that? You know? Or like or like Ryan
Speaker 1: would you just be like, you know, walking around and
Speaker 1: be like two bucks, Like I'm like looking to my
Speaker 1: min oculars, like you know, I'm like shaking, like where
Speaker 1: do you see that? He's like with your with your
Speaker 1: naked eye, and how in the world did you see that?
Speaker 1: Like it's like could be a tree, it could be
Speaker 1: a bush. Like it's it's completely an acquired thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I felt like towards the end, you know, I was
Speaker 1: like more careful, had a system going of like hot
Speaker 1: glass and like, yeah, it's totally acquired, just like having
Speaker 1: a game eye. It's just I think you get a
Speaker 1: sense of the shapes, like shapes and colors. I really don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know movement shapes and colors. Like an is
Speaker 1: like deer and elk, they have eyes that are um
Speaker 1: out to the sides of their head. They have a
Speaker 1: poor ability to focus on things, but they have a
Speaker 1: great depth or what do you call it, peripheral great
Speaker 1: peripheral vision to see movement. I think, like picking up
Speaker 1: my movements really important. But we have like eyes centered
Speaker 1: in the front like predators, and um, we can make
Speaker 1: out shapes really well. So I think it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like a movement shape thing and color thing. Because
Speaker 1: when you're hunting, you spot your first something. It might
Speaker 1: take you forever to find spot your first something, and
Speaker 1: then you spot it and you know what you're looking for,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, the landscape comes alive with it.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, now I see what that thing looks like.
Speaker 1: And then you're also like, oh, there that is there?
Speaker 1: That is there? That is um second day, we go
Speaker 1: out and Callahan had gone off after the spikes to
Speaker 1: see who else is hanging out there. We saw those
Speaker 1: leaves and then we had just a rip snorton of
Speaker 1: a climbing day. I don't think aiming happened that day, No,
Speaker 1: I mean that was when we That was the first
Speaker 1: day we I think we attacked the like the screen
Speaker 1: slide area did have that day. Right at dark, we
Speaker 1: saw four cows, two fours, two dark, way far away,
Speaker 1: way far away, mayards away going the other direction, spooped.
Speaker 1: But those you can see with without binoculars easily. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was exciting. I was laying some deep stuff on
Speaker 1: you too when I spotted him. Oh yeah, we were
Speaker 1: talking about hunters, talk about female hunters. What are you
Speaker 1: guys talking about? We're talking about female hunters. I was
Speaker 1: giving the pros and cons, pros and cons of female hunters. Well,
Speaker 1: your cons were more. The cons were more just like
Speaker 1: about new hunters and hunters in general. My like, for instance,
Speaker 1: my brother. I was explaining to to Britney my brother. Okay,
Speaker 1: me back up one step. What was the most disappointing
Speaker 1: thing the first day we hunted? What was the thing
Speaker 1: we talked about most How many hunters there were other
Speaker 1: hunters looks like a pumpkin patch on some of the hills, right,
Speaker 1: Orange Vessel everywhere, other hunters. Everyone knows. You go out
Speaker 1: hunting and you see other hunters, you're like son of
Speaker 1: a bit, you know. He's like, no one wants to
Speaker 1: run a new bunch of other hunters. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I talk about an advocate to some extent
Speaker 1: hunter recruitment, and my thinking is that if if, if
Speaker 1: we have more hunters, we have more political clout, and
Speaker 1: we have more cloud un conservation issues, and we're a
Speaker 1: stronger voice. Right, My brother thinks that hunter recruitment, He's like,
Speaker 1: why would you ever want more hunters? Why would you
Speaker 1: want more times when you're out in the woods and
Speaker 1: there's no place to go. And he says, in the
Speaker 1: same people to talk about hunter recruitment talk about access issues.
Speaker 1: There's not enough access. Why is there not enough access?
Speaker 1: Because there's too many hunters for how much space we
Speaker 1: have done, it's too hard to get tags, like you
Speaker 1: can draw your whole life and not get such and
Speaker 1: such tags. And he says the only people that really
Speaker 1: want huntery cruitment is the industry because they want to
Speaker 1: sell more gear to more people, and so they camouflage
Speaker 1: their desire to make customers as being something that's for
Speaker 1: the betterment of hunting, okay, And I was laying us
Speaker 1: all out so and all of a sudden, here's his
Speaker 1: elk go in the other direction. And I optimistically thought
Speaker 1: we caught him where that we knew where there at betting,
Speaker 1: and they were coming out to feed that they looked
Speaker 1: a little bit nervous. And the next day we go
Speaker 1: down and realize that some guy had been running around
Speaker 1: on the side by side like a quad runner, and
Speaker 1: he come right down through that timber patch and clearly
Speaker 1: had spit those elk out spooked him out of there
Speaker 1: that day for us. Did you lay any heavy stuff
Speaker 1: on Helen? I don't think so, did I I think
Speaker 1: that until we saw that heard. Yeah, and and that
Speaker 1: intimately made it was like the highest high and the
Speaker 1: lowest slow in the exact in the in the same moment, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that was awesome. Well, why is that what happened? Well,
Speaker 1: we were sitting up on this mountain and ripping wind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, we were just trying to keep warm, and
Speaker 1: while we're eating snacks and doing jumping jacks, the herd
Speaker 1: of elk had heard had just passed us. By, and
Speaker 1: we didn't even we didn't even hear them. We were
Speaker 1: making a very what we were doing. You're having like
Speaker 1: a gym class of the wind was you know, the
Speaker 1: wind was housing and we're making a very calm mistake.
Speaker 1: We make it often. A lot of hunters make it often.
Speaker 1: We're sitting on top of some peak and where everybody's
Speaker 1: looking at like a half mile plus, nobody's even thinking
Speaker 1: about like that role that like inst every five minutes,
Speaker 1: you're gonna walk out, tune your yards and peek over
Speaker 1: that edge. A lot could be going on, and obviously
Speaker 1: a lot went on. And every every time I went
Speaker 1: to peak it was purely because I was freezing. So
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm gonna walk down this hill and
Speaker 1: walk back up. And so one of these points, you
Speaker 1: guys are having a little gym class out there, strolls by,
Speaker 1: a couple head out. I literally making our second round
Speaker 1: of sandwiches for today, Like you were on sandwich position. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my better pot part there. Yahni was like, don't have
Speaker 1: another bar, have a sandwich, and while you're at it,
Speaker 1: make me so how over and we're like, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: going to leave for tour. We're two cold we're gonna
Speaker 1: walk around and we see the tracks and everyone just
Speaker 1: stops and it's like, can you do you guys, Like,
Speaker 1: this is not the This didn't just happen right, Like,
Speaker 1: we didn't just miss like hundreds of elk just going
Speaker 1: by right in front of us tracks on top of
Speaker 1: our tracks. And you one of the trails was like
Speaker 1: a foot and a half beat. Yeah, like it was
Speaker 1: a thundering herd. That's crazy. So then immediately we you know,
Speaker 1: go down that hill and try to try to follow them, yeah,
Speaker 1: to see if you know, I mean, we don't. It
Speaker 1: looks super fresh. Were like maybe they didn't go too far.
Speaker 1: And as we're walking, Ryan just like slow down, get
Speaker 1: down right there, you know. Um, so what do we do?
Speaker 1: We did we do the slide down? We did this?
Speaker 1: We did slide Yeah. So uh it's like a yoga
Speaker 1: position or something almost y're at You're on your heels,
Speaker 1: your hands and the heels of your boots and you're
Speaker 1: like crab walking with your rightfule in your lap. It's
Speaker 1: the most deadly approach. I think we never did that.
Speaker 1: It's tough on me. Right, check check this one out,
Speaker 1: you know, speak its deadly approaches some conditions you have
Speaker 1: to be coming down. What's deadly about it is when
Speaker 1: you get with the thermals are right, or the winds right,
Speaker 1: and the winds blowing uphill, and you're above elk, and
Speaker 1: they always are not always they tend to look downhill.
Speaker 1: One The assumption is that trouble's coming from down there.
Speaker 1: I'm at the kind of the top. Anyways, I need
Speaker 1: to watch down and you're up above them and your
Speaker 1: crab walking and your crab walking down, sliding along with
Speaker 1: your weapon bow or rifle in your lap. And then
Speaker 1: when it happens, you just sit up and do it.
Speaker 1: You just sit up and well, I think it's also
Speaker 1: worth mentioning that when we go on hunts, it's not
Speaker 1: just like two people. You know, we have cameraman and
Speaker 1: it's like not you know, so it's a group of
Speaker 1: people trying to do the same thing, trying to capture
Speaker 1: you know, the heard I was complaining about that very
Speaker 1: fact today. What that is a group of people get
Speaker 1: I mean with what like forty yards less forty yards
Speaker 1: something insane? You know, you didn't shoot any with a rifle, however,
Speaker 1: did not what was the shooting situation? So we were
Speaker 1: looking downhill and there they were, you know, and I
Speaker 1: was like, this is this is my moment, Like this
Speaker 1: is this is going to happen right now. And I'm
Speaker 1: looking through the scope and Ryan's like, you have to
Speaker 1: find your shot. You have to find your shot. Make
Speaker 1: sure there's no elk behind them, um behind the cow.
Speaker 1: So I'm scanning across and it's just they're everywhere. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I could shoot any one of these elk, just pick one,
Speaker 1: you know. But as I'm scanning a ass, it's like
Speaker 1: I could see I'm like, I would stop at one
Speaker 1: and be like, I've got a shot. As soon as
Speaker 1: I thought I had a shot, I would see a
Speaker 1: head from behind just creep up right behind it, or
Speaker 1: like a butt of one just like slowly moved back,
Speaker 1: you know. So and I guess one of them got
Speaker 1: So the situation is if you take that shot, that
Speaker 1: bullet could potentially pass through that animal that gave you
Speaker 1: the nice, perfect Google image shot opportunity and injured or
Speaker 1: kill another animal. I've seen it on several occasions. Right,
Speaker 1: it does have right, And I didn't feel comfortable taking
Speaker 1: the shot, you know, because I didn't know I couldn't
Speaker 1: see what was behind it, so I wasn't for sure
Speaker 1: that it was a clean shot. And how many animals
Speaker 1: were there? I mean two hundred, right, I mean something
Speaker 1: like a hundred and fifty two hundred, both bulls and cows,
Speaker 1: you know. But I just couldn't see behind it. It
Speaker 1: was just you know, too sloped, and I couldn't see
Speaker 1: how far back they were. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, we kept You can never see through somebody
Speaker 1: else's scope, right, you can't see exactly what they're they're saying.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying, well, look to the far left.
Speaker 1: It's the far left there, that one from the left,
Speaker 1: and it's literally it's like this swirling ball of elk,
Speaker 1: and you know, for a brief second, one would you know,
Speaker 1: from my perspective, like stand out just slightly apart from
Speaker 1: the rest of the group. Uh, And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they were gone. And then they were gone,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, like I mean long gone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's it, it's over. Now was the
Speaker 1: end of your second hun day? Ye? And I kept
Speaker 1: asking everyone like did I have a shot? Because I
Speaker 1: kept replaying that you know image, but there's no way
Speaker 1: to answer that question, because that question is it's for
Speaker 1: each person, right, I might be in a situation from
Speaker 1: like I would have put a box of shells into
Speaker 1: those out, but wouldn't be a shot for a lot
Speaker 1: of other people. And there's other people who would have
Speaker 1: said I would put two box of shells in those out.
Speaker 1: I just yeah, I didn't feel comfortable taking this hell
Speaker 1: and kept saying to us, was great, there's two d
Speaker 1: elk right in front of me, and I couldn't even
Speaker 1: kill one, Like what what would people think? Like forty
Speaker 1: yards away at two d I can't even kill one.
Speaker 1: So that that to me kind of stood out was
Speaker 1: like the lowest low of the whole. Huh. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was like, I mean, it was amazing to see like
Speaker 1: that many, you know, that many animals and that many elk.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it was like it was
Speaker 1: like almost like a tease, like there were all these
Speaker 1: animals so close, yet I couldn't you know, I couldn't
Speaker 1: make the shot. So it was definitely like, you know,
Speaker 1: I had dreams about that, you know, from the eight
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of elks. You know, it was the tease.
Speaker 1: It happened exactly that way because it had to happen
Speaker 1: that way, you know, right, the hunt went perfectly because
Speaker 1: as you killed it then, I mean, think about what
Speaker 1: you would have missed. It happened then after forty tons
Speaker 1: about So now we're on the best conservative day three
Speaker 1: here we wake up and I go down to reconnoiter
Speaker 1: the five four or five cows and two spikes. Well,
Speaker 1: go down there to reconnoiter it. Run into a bowl,
Speaker 1: can't shoot it anyway. Realize that what bumped the elk
Speaker 1: out of the timber patch wasn't that they're just moving
Speaker 1: from that timber patch to feed them back into the
Speaker 1: timber patch. But some guy was in there driving around,
Speaker 1: got a side by side stuck in snow, and spook
Speaker 1: the alco out of the timber patch. Gets set up
Speaker 1: in the windiest place on the planet. A calf elt
Speaker 1: comes pouring through a pass. We're going to try to
Speaker 1: intercept the calf out and intercept a gentle named Kenny instead,
Speaker 1: and had a long talk with Kenny. Never found the
Speaker 1: calf Then Kenny informed us that um he in fact
Speaker 1: was trespassing. Well, I'm not saying where he was or
Speaker 1: what his name was, Kenny. I think there's a handful
Speaker 1: of Kenny's run around Montana. I'm pretty sure it was
Speaker 1: Kenny G the saxophonist. I'll let it out. It was
Speaker 1: the saxophonist, and he was standing on public land, which
Speaker 1: he didn't realize, but he had accessed it by cutting through,
Speaker 1: so he's very frank about it. We had a nice
Speaker 1: chat and it seemed like that was a common thing
Speaker 1: because as we broke cant that's how it works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as we brought camp today, another fella and a young
Speaker 1: gentleman came strolling up through our cane that we've been
Speaker 1: camping for four days, you know that we had access to,
Speaker 1: and they were just like, hey, yeah, we're supposed to
Speaker 1: be here. Kind of really me when I don't know
Speaker 1: what was funny there too? How do you guys find
Speaker 1: out about this spot? When I told Kenny, I was like,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, Kenny blm land not terribly.
Speaker 1: Wasn't like a surprised or happier disappointed by that information,
Speaker 1: just irrelevant so trying to put the moves on his
Speaker 1: calf could ever find it. I had just a miserable day,
Speaker 1: glassed up some elk that were very far away on
Speaker 1: what became known as stink hole Mountain, climbed up in there,
Speaker 1: crawled a freaking mule deer couldn't find um, I couldn't
Speaker 1: find the elk. But I just want to talk about
Speaker 1: that for a second, because the whole time, like I've
Speaker 1: been trudging up these mountains, hills, whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call them. But I want a little credit for hauling ass.
Speaker 1: At that point, I gave you a pep talk yeah
Speaker 1: and motivated you. It did well, And I mean it
Speaker 1: was just like over there you're saying it was your motivator.
Speaker 1: That wasn't that adrenaline. It was like right over there
Speaker 1: we had to get, you know, to cross all these
Speaker 1: other very large hilltops to get over there. And to
Speaker 1: clarify to one of those people on a weight loss
Speaker 1: TV program, I was so inspiring. It was like the
Speaker 1: Gettysburg address. Yeah, you need to find it in you
Speaker 1: to kill these out. And she just was like, you're right,
Speaker 1: damn it. What like, let's go to the beautiful you smart,
Speaker 1: intelligent man and see if that's really clarified. Though trudging
Speaker 1: is the correct term many many many times in now counting,
Speaker 1: it is one ft in front of the other. I
Speaker 1: gotta be frank, with you on that chase. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that the hell hole that was between us and
Speaker 1: Stinkhole Mountain. And when we got to the bomb that thing,
Speaker 1: I looked up. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.
Speaker 1: I did not feel like going up there. Then we
Speaker 1: tried to leave after dark by a strange route that
Speaker 1: brought us pretty much into Canada up three tests from
Speaker 1: mile from Canada watching side, a bunch of people walked
Speaker 1: down the road with the headlands and rifles, basically walking
Speaker 1: parallel to the border. In the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: Montana Militia North settled the score. That was our third
Speaker 1: day hunt. So we get a little have sat in
Speaker 1: the same spot essentially, Yeah, Ni les you guys too, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're bouncing back and forth between two saddles all day long,
Speaker 1: working on a hunch that these elk are going to
Speaker 1: magically appear in one of these saddles. And we we're
Speaker 1: definitely seeing orange all day, popping in and out of
Speaker 1: some of the lower saddles and even right up where
Speaker 1: we are. And we go as far as building a
Speaker 1: blind because the forty mile per hour wind is right
Speaker 1: in your face. How did you construct that blindness? With
Speaker 1: some pine, some large pole bottles. We used juniper you know,
Speaker 1: nice dance um and stacked it in with a bunch
Speaker 1: of you know, just dead fall and uh yeah, it
Speaker 1: worked out, worked out nice. You could just see right
Speaker 1: into the saddle. But the only problem was you just
Speaker 1: had this ripping wind right in your face and it
Speaker 1: wears you down. Man, it makes feel like you're losing
Speaker 1: your mind. Yeah. Absolutely. Mofolon told me last week. He said,
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know what it is when I'm
Speaker 1: standing in the wind. I cannot think. He's like, I
Speaker 1: cannot form a thought. And yeah, I mean it definitely
Speaker 1: makes you think like that, um or not think. But
Speaker 1: so we're back. Really didn't move once we got to
Speaker 1: the top. We did not move all that much basically
Speaker 1: because we were every direction we wanted to go, there
Speaker 1: was somebody else already. You know. He came across milk tracks.
Speaker 1: We followed the Elk tracks. All of a sudden their
Speaker 1: boot tracks that dumped in on the Elk tracks. I
Speaker 1: had that problem a lot. Turn around, go back the
Speaker 1: other direction. We're like, well, maybe we'll go up to
Speaker 1: the other saddle, um where the you know, the herd
Speaker 1: came through the other day and I look up there
Speaker 1: and there's two people sitting up there. Um, so I
Speaker 1: guess you know, we're stuck. And then we get this
Speaker 1: distress call. Wasn't it was a well composed distress call,
Speaker 1: but it was we are going to need a pickup
Speaker 1: on the County Road in Canada. Basically, we're going to
Speaker 1: follow the strainage. We we're gonna follow this drainage to Alberta.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean we were probably an hour and
Speaker 1: a half from dark at that point, and you know,
Speaker 1: we were all the way on top. I wanted to
Speaker 1: play out to day, but you know, our friends are
Speaker 1: facing it along windy cold a couple of hours on
Speaker 1: the road no matter what at that point. So that's
Speaker 1: definitely wearing on us. Yeah, the road, like the mccormi
Speaker 1: mccarfew novel, The road that's our journey, that's our journey
Speaker 1: turned into when hours and hours went by and no
Speaker 1: sign of call, what six miles or more, we got
Speaker 1: off my map. We had a big map of the area.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't even know anymore. We just
Speaker 1: left the map miles ago and hour is out, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to like we're talking about trying to find a
Speaker 1: farmer and be like, oh yeah, and my bodies with
Speaker 1: the guns who are out in the ditch, they're gonna
Speaker 1: need to ride like, you know, the friendliest guy on
Speaker 1: the crew and then me a woman, so it's not
Speaker 1: like super creepy. And they're like, oh, I didn't mention
Speaker 1: my friends in the ditch with the rifles. They're open
Speaker 1: to catch a live too. They're pretty cool. We were
Speaker 1: like before we heard from you, snacks and coffee. They
Speaker 1: love them. So I'm having this internal crisis that I'm
Speaker 1: trying not to relate to Helen. So we're running out
Speaker 1: of time, all right, but I want to get this out.
Speaker 1: You want to finish up the hunt the blind. When
Speaker 1: I'm constructing the blind, what you're like, does this ever work? Well?
Speaker 1: It just seems so perfect. You know, you were making
Speaker 1: it level to like my perfect you know, I was
Speaker 1: trying to get a good shot and whatnot. And you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think things about these blinds
Speaker 1: is that you never stay here long enough for it
Speaker 1: to work, you know. So anyways, you get the distress
Speaker 1: call no, so like, well we'll walk around warm up.
Speaker 1: Then I want to end up at the blind because
Speaker 1: I just know the elk are gonna come through that
Speaker 1: saddle for some stupid reason. And we end up at
Speaker 1: the blind. The wind is just still just ripping through
Speaker 1: that saddle, and you know, the whole cur you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's kind of like, well, should we just call it
Speaker 1: because we gotta go pick those guys up, and and
Speaker 1: I'm torn, and I'm like, I want to sit this
Speaker 1: is gonna work. I want to sit here. And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be positive, you know, let's just you know,
Speaker 1: it's really windy, and I don't think anything's gonna come
Speaker 1: out early, So let's just get up on top of
Speaker 1: the next little knobs. We can look all the way
Speaker 1: down the ridge and look at the whole timberline. And
Speaker 1: we walk two hundred yards words from the blind, and
Speaker 1: I look over and there's seven cow up staring at us,
Speaker 1: and I internally immediately I'm just like, you dumb, You're
Speaker 1: like what I was saying, No one stays in the
Speaker 1: blood that I mentioned. And so like I sit down,
Speaker 1: you know, Laura profile, and I'm halfheartedly and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get ready for the shot that's not gonna happen
Speaker 1: because there's no way in hell these chicks are gonna
Speaker 1: hang around long enough to provide a shot. And the
Speaker 1: grass is like three ft tall. For some reason, I'm
Speaker 1: just beat mentally at that. I was just like na,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was like, should have put around
Speaker 1: the chamber. And at right at that point, they all
Speaker 1: turn and blow into the timber, gone like ghosts vaporize,
Speaker 1: and I make second stupid decision of the day, which
Speaker 1: I never do because I've learned so many times it's
Speaker 1: a terrible decision, which is I leave our packs, like,
Speaker 1: just drop everything, frustrated, Like, just leave everything. We're gonna
Speaker 1: run up here to the next tree and see if
Speaker 1: for some reason we get a shot at something. So
Speaker 1: we drop our packs, run up to the next tree,
Speaker 1: which always leads to the next tree, and I'm just
Speaker 1: just sit here if they come back out again. Internal
Speaker 1: dialogues reading as there's no in hell these cows are
Speaker 1: gonna come back out again until dark. But if they
Speaker 1: come back out again, it's gonna be right at dark.
Speaker 1: So just get set up for a shot. As soon
Speaker 1: as you see you knows throw around in the chamber.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about this all day. If you get
Speaker 1: a shot. Shoot, I'm gonna run back and grab her packs.
Speaker 1: So I take that opportunity to have a little alone time.
Speaker 1: I walk back your packs and beat myself up even
Speaker 1: more about how I just screwed up the perfect opportunity
Speaker 1: that I just wasted an entire day of a four
Speaker 1: d a l hunt setting up, and I totally blew it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I just ruined Helen's l count. I
Speaker 1: just ruined the entire opportunity, you know, that was it.
Speaker 1: And I pick up the packs. I turned around and
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, what, what the what do you when
Speaker 1: people are frantically waving. I turn around and is there
Speaker 1: it's kind of a jazz hand. Yeah, it's like they
Speaker 1: don't they don't want to really wave because they're afraid
Speaker 1: they're gonna scare something off. But it's like, yeah, jazz hands,
Speaker 1: I think is what I was going for. And so
Speaker 1: now I sprint down to the tree with the packs
Speaker 1: and look around the tree and it was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, look at and I see like four balls
Speaker 1: like the very tail end of the herd, and it's
Speaker 1: like three fifty yards and win. And so I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's pick up the stuff. Let's go. We all butt
Speaker 1: up around the timber, drop half the packs, drop the
Speaker 1: tripod that we've been packing around, dropped the Helen's back, uh,
Speaker 1: and basically it's set for the sprint. And then we're
Speaker 1: cruising through the timber. And I mean, it's your story.
Speaker 1: Take it from there. What happened? I don't know. You
Speaker 1: were doing all this crazy like crouch running and crawling
Speaker 1: on the ground, and I was I felt like I
Speaker 1: was so awkward to the movements, like you were so
Speaker 1: graciously just like trudging through the snow, and every movement
Speaker 1: seemed like, you know, it's like wait on me, Like
Speaker 1: I couldn't move fast enough, you know. And we don't
Speaker 1: remember what happened. Like we ran up to this one
Speaker 1: We've got this behind this one tree. The whole time
Speaker 1: we were like we want to have some cover, right, um.
Speaker 1: So we get to this tree and we don't have
Speaker 1: the tripod um and you you're pointing them out again
Speaker 1: the hunter's eye, Like I'm like, I can't see them.
Speaker 1: It's like all the adrenalines, you know, rushing through me
Speaker 1: and I'm like I can't see them. You're like you're
Speaker 1: like breathe, like you see right there. You're pointing at
Speaker 1: all these different landmarks. You see the dark the dark
Speaker 1: patch of timber. Um. I find that in my scope,
Speaker 1: but it runs away, like basically as soon as I
Speaker 1: get in my scope, it just balks away. And I
Speaker 1: look at you and I'm like, this is happening again,
Speaker 1: Like it's in my scope, and then it's gone. And
Speaker 1: You're like, there's another one right to the left of it.
Speaker 1: Do you see that one? How like two d seventy
Speaker 1: yards maybe less or more. The furthest was like two
Speaker 1: sixty and the closest was and so so I see
Speaker 1: the one that he's talking about and I look at
Speaker 1: it in my scope, but then there's a bull in
Speaker 1: front of it, and I'm like, this is this is
Speaker 1: like replaying, This is like deja vu, just happening again.
Speaker 1: I don't have a shot. And as soon as I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm still waiting, waiting, the bull just slowly
Speaker 1: walks away and it's like the cow elk is clear,
Speaker 1: and I don't know. I was like so nervous, but
Speaker 1: like if we didn't have a stand, I'm like trying
Speaker 1: to sit down, trying to get a shot. But those
Speaker 1: all that, Um, what was it stage or something, but
Speaker 1: just grab sweet grass right so I couldn't I couldn't see,
Speaker 1: so you were like, sit up, you prop up the backpack,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh. And then I just look at round.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm going to shoot this cow. I'm at
Speaker 1: that point, I was kind of like, whoa, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, that's like the most firm statement I've ever
Speaker 1: heard of. I'm gonna shoot and uh. And then because
Speaker 1: it was so windy, you had kind of pointed me
Speaker 1: to shoot um at the shoulder right and that was
Speaker 1: that and and and then I couldn't tell, like my
Speaker 1: hands were shaking. Afterwards, I was like I kept asking
Speaker 1: you like did I miss, like you know, and you
Speaker 1: you kept like walking like, let's walk forward, look through
Speaker 1: the binoculars, have your rifle ready, and you were like
Speaker 1: these things are tough, like you might have to shoot
Speaker 1: it again. And I looked you like what, like okay.
Speaker 1: It was very clear at that moment that nobody had
Speaker 1: said hey, sometimes you know sitting there, um, so yeah,
Speaker 1: we're getting close to it. And you kept looking through
Speaker 1: the blockers. I kept looking through my blockers, but my
Speaker 1: hands was shaking. So you kept being like what do
Speaker 1: you see And I was like, I can't see anything
Speaker 1: my hands, um, but yeah, you know, we approached it
Speaker 1: and it was amazing. It was just like one of
Speaker 1: the most amazing spe um. I don't know I was
Speaker 1: telling I think I was telling you guys earlier, like
Speaker 1: I felt. I was really emotional when we made the
Speaker 1: first approach earlier that day to the two bowls. Then
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I think when I came up
Speaker 1: to it, I was just like in awe, how huge
Speaker 1: this animal was and beautiful, you know, yeah, absolutely beautiful. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to make this quick, so you guys had
Speaker 1: no fourth hunt day. You got the butcher and hang out, socialize,
Speaker 1: be warm. That's not true. And me and Brittany were
Speaker 1: out pounding the mountain and right off the bat we
Speaker 1: got we go up basically to where Helen tagged out
Speaker 1: and got onto the herd and tried to catch him
Speaker 1: before they got in the timber. But they're already in
Speaker 1: the timber. And we picked up the trail which you
Speaker 1: can't miss anybody be able to track him. It's like
Speaker 1: it looks like a roto tiller. I went through the
Speaker 1: snow ye and you can smell them to smell him
Speaker 1: loud and clear, never you like, can you smell them?
Speaker 1: And I was like and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I was just like wow, yeah, absolutely, And we got
Speaker 1: just minutes into the timber, hundred fift yards in the timber,
Speaker 1: and it was just elk from what I mean, just everywhere.
Speaker 1: And it's a thick packer pole, lodge pole, dog hair,
Speaker 1: lodge pole, however you want to put it. And um,
Speaker 1: it's just all these gaps and every gap is filled
Speaker 1: with some amount of elk or parts of elk or
Speaker 1: tons of elk. And we crab, we crab walked and
Speaker 1: what happened? Have no idea? Tell about that chase, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap it up like just from your perspective, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I mean you pointed them out and I finally
Speaker 1: I saw them through the trees. Um we went after.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you're like just like one camera guy.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, oh, this is kind of
Speaker 1: hell is how it works, like you know, like the
Speaker 1: boss on the scenes, and we get we we find
Speaker 1: like a tree or something, and you kind of you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: rest the rifle against this tree and chamber around and
Speaker 1: like chambered around, and I'm like looking through the scope
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I mean, I can't tell what's what.
Speaker 1: I just see bodies, I see heads, I see, butts
Speaker 1: I see, but I don't see, like, you know, a
Speaker 1: whole elk and I don't know what's behind it. And
Speaker 1: there are so many trees that I just don't don't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable. And the herb starts sidehilling and we're just
Speaker 1: ghosts in it above probably eight yards away, but the
Speaker 1: timber is so thick. I can see glimpses. They can't
Speaker 1: see us, and we're moving along. I'm like, there has
Speaker 1: to be a gap in the timber or screen slide
Speaker 1: or that's all we've been seeing. Something like we're gonna
Speaker 1: hit if we keep going, they're gonna have to cross
Speaker 1: an opening. We're gonna lay out and they turn. We
Speaker 1: do the same thing all over again, and it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: and so we eventually, I mean they we eventually lose them, right,
Speaker 1: and so we're kind of tracking them. We find like
Speaker 1: this big you know a lot of tracks basically go
Speaker 1: down like this crazy steep hill. I'm like, at some point,
Speaker 1: I'm just like I'm not even trying to like walk
Speaker 1: with my feet. I'm just like sliding down on my
Speaker 1: butt basically, and we go down, um and see we
Speaker 1: hit the bottom. We hit the bottom, well, we see.
Speaker 1: But before we hit the bottom, this was my last
Speaker 1: chance as we see those elk, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: four or five cows like right across with this like
Speaker 1: little valley or whatever you can call it, um, like
Speaker 1: a cross canyon shot. Yeah. And you set me up
Speaker 1: on your pack and I'm looking through it and you
Speaker 1: um use your range finder and it's like what three
Speaker 1: and seventy yards or something like that, and You're like,
Speaker 1: this is you know, this is this farther than we
Speaker 1: agreed on and it's super windy, it's you know yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and I have like some branches in the scope, like
Speaker 1: I have the elk in my scope, but then there
Speaker 1: are branches, and I just didn't feel comfortable at all,
Speaker 1: like it was too far. And meanwhile I was spike
Speaker 1: about six yards away, like what's just hanging around here
Speaker 1: in range? Um? Yeah, And then they they left, they
Speaker 1: went into the next patch of timber, and then you know,
Speaker 1: but we we tried to chase after him a little bit.
Speaker 1: We followed the trail and lost the trail and that
Speaker 1: was it. Many bummer for sure, But I already emailed
Speaker 1: already well a text message Doug. When we got all done,
Speaker 1: Brittany said, I wanna go, uh do the thing that
Speaker 1: I had originally suggested. We're gonna go. But I respected
Speaker 1: you like I respected your work ethic and I respected
Speaker 1: you professionally, and now I respect you in the way
Speaker 1: that only comes from trudging through the mountains of someone.
Speaker 1: And what's cool about you is I don't know if
Speaker 1: I was telling you this or someone else's. Most people
Speaker 1: I think they're more they're they're capable of more than
Speaker 1: they actually are. Right, You're like, oh, yeah, I'll go
Speaker 1: up that mountain, no problem. But he can't. You're capable
Speaker 1: of more than you think you are, or more than
Speaker 1: you let on, so you'll be like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to go to that mountain. You just go up the mountain.
Speaker 1: Most people are like, oh, yeah, let's go. And they
Speaker 1: get halfway and they're like, oh, I got a problem
Speaker 1: with my A C L or like you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, they come up with something that's wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they come up with something like oh you know this
Speaker 1: boot like, uh, you know, I put these new uh,
Speaker 1: you know, insuls and you know, and it's like he
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, it's not gonna happen, Like you told
Speaker 1: me it was gonna happen, and now it's not. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't without my chair of a complaint
Speaker 1: went up. It was funny because at the end of it,
Speaker 1: I was exhausted and I realized you went the same
Speaker 1: distance I went, and it was I'm glad it without
Speaker 1: nearly the experienced training preparation that you have. I'm glad
Speaker 1: and I'm glad to have a couple of days off now.
Speaker 1: But I'm just gonna throw it because I was. I
Speaker 1: was there for a lot of this hiking. I just trudging, humping,
Speaker 1: whatever you wanna call it. We climbed big mountains, steep mountains,
Speaker 1: lots of elevation, and today we went on a little
Speaker 1: bonus hunt. Hunt was all We're done filming. We just
Speaker 1: had to go on another hunt. Me and Yanni and
Speaker 1: Kal Yeah, trying to get more trying to get more
Speaker 1: more meat, and everyone's I was thinking. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just wake Brittany up and see Joanska. And I
Speaker 1: was informed that I would get punched in the mustache
Speaker 1: and the mustache. We'll save what happened on our hunt
Speaker 1: for another podcast because we're out of time, but I
Speaker 1: will mention that all of us, Steve included, we're saying
Speaker 1: how we'll be glad to get a couple of days
Speaker 1: off of humping the hills and not do it again
Speaker 1: like tonight. We'd ratter just sit in a hotel room
Speaker 1: and got some dinner and get some rest. Unbelievable job
Speaker 1: though about what happened this morning, But I'm not going
Speaker 1: to give a teaser about I think we should just
Speaker 1: already have their own little private screw up. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think we should give some accolades to our first
Speaker 1: time hunters. Now, I guess the time. There you go.
Speaker 1: That's the attitude it was. It was a great it
Speaker 1: was a great ny. It was a great year long
Speaker 1: journey from my perspective. And you guys did like a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of like education, training, taking the responsibility of shooting.
Speaker 1: Um you had. I never I never heard of with
Speaker 1: Helen or seen with you any desire to take shots
Speaker 1: that rod of your league. A lot of restraint, um
Speaker 1: you had, like you went into it knowing what you
Speaker 1: wanted and how you're gonna do it, and you didn't
Speaker 1: alter that in the moment in order to get one,
Speaker 1: and like, let me try to hit it that kind
Speaker 1: of bullshit. You guys are fantastic job. Oh the again,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be go on Dug's farm right at home,
Speaker 1: you guys know, Ynnie, I can't tell you the story joke, no,
Speaker 1: unreal man. I was incredibly impressed, incredibly impressed. So, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: hats hats off both of you. Good job, keep well.
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I don't know, I don't. I
Speaker 1: think we're just like incredibly fortunate that we could hunt
Speaker 1: with pretty much two of the best hunters that are
Speaker 1: out there, and like nobody, not very many people get
Speaker 1: that opportunity. So absolutely very thankful for you. Yes, know one.
Speaker 1: That means a lot coming from you guys. It was fun.
Speaker 1: Let's do it again, so dogdurn if you're listening, you'll
Speaker 1: have to put up a couple of extra blinds. On
Speaker 1: flat countries, they need to be the same elevation as
Speaker 1: the farm much and we would like mid fifty daytime
Speaker 1: high maybe lows around forty um son would be nice,
Speaker 1: and uh and some bucks rolling in. We don't wanna
Speaker 1: be there too long before they show up, maybe like
Speaker 1: cocktails at the end of the day, maybe around seven
Speaker 1: thirty AM, some bucks will show up. Um and cocktails
Speaker 1: are five all right? From Bows in Montana, Helen Choe,
Speaker 1: Britney Brothers, Ryan Callahan, you're honestly tell us and me.
Speaker 1: Steve Ronella signing off me Eater podcast. Take Care