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Speaker 1: Outrageously Dependable. My name is Clay Nucoman. I'm the host
Speaker 1: of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your
Speaker 1: host into the world of hunting the icon of North
Speaker 1: American wilderness. There, we'll talk about tactics, gear conservation who
Speaker 1: will also bring you into some of the wildest country
Speaker 1: on the planet. Chasing batter Welcome to the Bear Hunting
Speaker 1: Magazine podcast. On this episode, we're talking about shot placed
Speaker 1: on black bear. This is a very misunderstood topic and
Speaker 1: we often relate in this podcast to ideology that people
Speaker 1: are coming from an understanding of white tailed deer shot
Speaker 1: placement and then coming into bear hunting and applying those
Speaker 1: same principles, and there's several places where they just don't
Speaker 1: totally cross over. I believe that this is probably one
Speaker 1: of the most densely compacted pieces of information about shot
Speaker 1: placement on black bear, probably around so you're gonna learn something.
Speaker 1: Spring bear season is quickly approaching. Last podcast, we talked
Speaker 1: about a very wide swath of information about spring bear hunting.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make two quick corrections from the last episode.
Speaker 1: Number one, there is no spring bear season in Nova Scotia.
Speaker 1: There is a fall bear season. I had a listener
Speaker 1: from Nova Scotia contact me to let me know that,
Speaker 1: so I want to make that correction. Secondly, the only
Speaker 1: Western state that we left out of the list that
Speaker 1: has a spring bear hunt, it's Wyoming. Wyoming has a
Speaker 1: quota hunt, and we listed all the other states except
Speaker 1: for Wyoming. At the Global headquarters right now, we're working
Speaker 1: on the May in June issue of Bear Hunting Magazine,
Speaker 1: and we're also working on a new video that's gonna
Speaker 1: be released sometime probably in the next week on our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel about a brown bear hunt that Billy Moles did.
Speaker 1: So we're having We're gonna have a new episode of
Speaker 1: Bear Horizon out and the new issue of Bear Hunting
Speaker 1: Magazine coming out soon. Thanks for checking this episode out.
Speaker 1: You gonna enjoy it. Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast.
Speaker 1: We are at the Global headquarters of Bear Hunting magazine.
Speaker 1: It is March the in We are going to have
Speaker 1: a couple of episodes here where we're gonna just get
Speaker 1: to the nitty gritty technical side of some very relevant
Speaker 1: bear hunting related topics. The topic that we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about on this episode is shot placement on black Bear,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get into several different topics that are
Speaker 1: highly relevant. But before we get into the episode, I
Speaker 1: want to introduce who I've got with me here. I
Speaker 1: have directly to my left, Ryan No greb Ryan greb
Speaker 1: Ryan is Uh a long time good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: And Ryan was killing bears while my mama was still
Speaker 1: wiping my nose. It's true. Now Ryan is Ryan's traveled
Speaker 1: with me all over Canada. But more than that, Ryan's
Speaker 1: hunted in Arkansas for years. Ryan's been on the podcast before,
Speaker 1: but he's he's hunted bears in Arkansas since well for
Speaker 1: years and years, killed a lot of big bears, bow
Speaker 1: hunted bears a lot, and so I consider Ryan an
Speaker 1: expert for sure. So he's here. And then on my
Speaker 1: right someone that you well, Kobe has been on this
Speaker 1: podcast before. I've got Colby moorehead. Colby has is now
Speaker 1: news to all of everybody. He's working full time for
Speaker 1: Bear Hunting Magazine. So Kolbe is also a longtime friend
Speaker 1: of mine that uh is now he's full time working
Speaker 1: for Bear Hunting Magazine helping us with all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: So if you ever call the global headquarters, you'll probably
Speaker 1: talk to Colby. And Kolby is a bear hunter. He's
Speaker 1: a new bear hunter, went on his first bear hunt
Speaker 1: back in the fall and took a really nice bear.
Speaker 1: And so we've got a good mix right here, and
Speaker 1: that uh, we've we've got a lot of experience. But also, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Kobe's new to bear hunting, so you might
Speaker 1: have some questions or you might hear us talking to
Speaker 1: might have some insight and something that somebody else might have.
Speaker 1: I just feel sorry for him. What he is to
Speaker 1: hang with you here in the office during every day,
Speaker 1: all day, and he's right underneath the big bear over here.
Speaker 1: You need to make him a cubicle over here where
Speaker 1: you don't have to look at you like box him in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can box him in. But well, hey, let's let's
Speaker 1: jump right into this. And I'll kind of give the
Speaker 1: precursor to why this is relevant. Most people in North America.
Speaker 1: Most of the guys that are listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: have been trained on white tail deer anatomy for shooting,
Speaker 1: well for shooting any big game. We've been trained to
Speaker 1: hunt ungulates, deer, elk, moose that all have a really
Speaker 1: similar body structure. They have a similar bone structure, they
Speaker 1: have a similar um anatomical or organ structure. But they
Speaker 1: also have short hair, they don't have big layers of fat.
Speaker 1: And so basically shooting a bear is different than shooting
Speaker 1: and ungulate, and there's lots of different variables inside of
Speaker 1: it that are important for a first time bear hunter
Speaker 1: or even a veteran bear hunter. I mean, the truth
Speaker 1: is that in most situations, and right would you agree
Speaker 1: with this most situations, if you just took a deer
Speaker 1: hunter out and didn't tell him anything, he could probably
Speaker 1: go out and shoot a bear, I mean and not
Speaker 1: have any problem. But in the finer tuned points of
Speaker 1: bear hunting, and if you took that same guy, and
Speaker 1: this is the way I would describe it, if you
Speaker 1: took that same guy that was trained as a white
Speaker 1: tail hunter and put him on ten bear hunts, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say three of those ten he's gonna mess up
Speaker 1: simply because of lack of understanding of a few principles.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that a good and is that a yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, a bear postures constantly changing, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're looking for that broadside shot more often than not.
Speaker 1: I mean, dear, that's preferred to shot anyway, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people pack the quartering away shots. But you know, bears,
Speaker 1: the if you can get that broadside, that's usually money. Well,
Speaker 1: let's start off by talking about bar anatomy. I read
Speaker 1: a a article that was written very recently that was
Speaker 1: circulating on uh Facebook, clicked on it. It was about
Speaker 1: ten ten I think it was ten things about spring
Speaker 1: bear hunting, and one of them was about shot placement.
Speaker 1: And this this author said that bear organs are further
Speaker 1: forward than a deer, which I want to quickly say
Speaker 1: is exactly opposite of what I have found, not just
Speaker 1: in what I've read, but we did the first year
Speaker 1: Barrenny magazine we killed. We went up to Alberta and
Speaker 1: we killed six bears in five days. We actually did
Speaker 1: a knee cropsy on a bear where we took the
Speaker 1: carcass with the all the internal organs inside and stripped
Speaker 1: off the layers of rib or the stripped off the
Speaker 1: rib meat so that you could see into the rib
Speaker 1: cage and tried to determine like where the lungs would layout,
Speaker 1: and man, we made some incredible diagrams that were in
Speaker 1: Barrenning magazine. They're also online. And to make a short summary,
Speaker 1: beare vitals are slightly further back than a white tail?
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that? Right? So there, so let
Speaker 1: me just say that is a big premise of black
Speaker 1: bear shot placement and brown bear for that matter. The
Speaker 1: vitals they're not it's not like they're just like in
Speaker 1: the middle of the body, but they extend slightly further back.
Speaker 1: I found um that the lungs of these bears went
Speaker 1: all the way back to the very last rib, which
Speaker 1: if you can imagine shooting a white tail at the
Speaker 1: very last rib, you'd be pretty far back. You would
Speaker 1: kill that, you'd kill the deer because you'd get liver.
Speaker 1: But the lungs of I mean the very tip of
Speaker 1: that long and I'm not saying that all the way
Speaker 1: back at the last rib there was eight inches of lung.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. That the lungs are like oblong shaped.
Speaker 1: You know, they're like they're like long and deep towards
Speaker 1: the front of the animal, and they go back like this,
Speaker 1: and so the back to the very last rib there
Speaker 1: was a little bit of lung. So I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that's where you want to hit them. The second part
Speaker 1: of that, Kolbe has some experience with this, Kobe, you
Speaker 1: really made a mistake by shooting the bear far back
Speaker 1: on the first hunt. Ever with me, you were like
Speaker 1: the prime target to just make an example out of,
Speaker 1: but you got the right posture for it here. I'm
Speaker 1: glad I could take on that for one. Oh man,
Speaker 1: it was on video, it was all there. But for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, and this perhaps is it has to do
Speaker 1: with the the anatomical structure of the bear. But you
Speaker 1: can shoot a bear further back than a white tail
Speaker 1: and be okay. There was an article that we had
Speaker 1: published a few years years ago called the Middle of
Speaker 1: the Middle, which there are a lot of Canadian outfitters
Speaker 1: that tell their clients to shoot a bear in the middle.
Speaker 1: And I think the way it started out was they said, hey,
Speaker 1: shoot the bear in the middle, and the client said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean the middle? And the guy in
Speaker 1: the outfitter goes the middle of the middle, I mean
Speaker 1: straight up middle of the bear. And uh what this
Speaker 1: article is written by a guy named Rob Nive, Saskatchewan
Speaker 1: outfitter that I know, and uh he was taught that
Speaker 1: by some other old outfitters. And man, when you shoot
Speaker 1: in the middle of the middle, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of room for error. And that's the whole point of it,
Speaker 1: room for air. Now, I do not suggest I don't
Speaker 1: like shooting them in the middle of the middle. I
Speaker 1: like to go about four inches back towards the shoulder
Speaker 1: from the middle of the middle. And when I say
Speaker 1: the middle of the middle, I'm talking about the distance
Speaker 1: between the front legs and the back legs. I'm not
Speaker 1: including like the head of the bear, but like the
Speaker 1: middle of the middle. I like to go about three
Speaker 1: to four inches back towards the shoulder, so slightly further
Speaker 1: back then then you would like try to heart shoot
Speaker 1: a bear. And that's maybe the biggest thing that's different
Speaker 1: about bear hunt bear hunting versus deer hunting is that
Speaker 1: as deer hunters, we were always taught to try to
Speaker 1: heart shoot the deer. Okay, which would be low and tight.
Speaker 1: You don't want to do that with a bear. Do
Speaker 1: you agree, Ryan? I agree? You got all that hair
Speaker 1: hanging down below. You know that hair could be two
Speaker 1: inches long, could be four inches long. So definitely want
Speaker 1: to try to get it the vertical line in the middle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the body. Yeah, you the problem with low and tight
Speaker 1: on him on a bear is that what Ryan said.
Speaker 1: Imagine a big mature board that's got two inches of
Speaker 1: fat beneath the rib cage. He's also got uh hair
Speaker 1: that's a minimum of two inches, but could be hanging
Speaker 1: down as much as four inches. And so what you
Speaker 1: perceive as the silhouette at the bottom of that bear
Speaker 1: is actually probably six to eight inches above. That would
Speaker 1: be vital. And so a veteran bow hunter that was
Speaker 1: hunting with me at one time, who had taken a
Speaker 1: lot of white tails with a bow, I mean ate
Speaker 1: a lot of white tails bear hunting for the first time,
Speaker 1: and he just tried to heart shoot this bear, I
Speaker 1: mean just low and tight, and he ten ringed right
Speaker 1: where he was aiming. We never found that bear, totally
Speaker 1: hit it in the brisket, and he was fooled by
Speaker 1: the silhouette of that bear. Um. Now have you ever
Speaker 1: have you ever hit a bear low and tight. I
Speaker 1: don't think I ever have. Now the two thousand and
Speaker 1: sixteen up uh bear pro safar as you know, shot
Speaker 1: that one low and back, but I've never shot one
Speaker 1: low and forward. I wasn't sure if you had, because
Speaker 1: I have another story of a friend of ours here
Speaker 1: in Arkansas that had a monster bear come in and
Speaker 1: it was just kind of one of those deals, or
Speaker 1: I think he would say he was probably just on
Speaker 1: autopilot and was just trying to heart shoot it and
Speaker 1: shot low and tight, and it was a big bear,
Speaker 1: so it was exaggerated, long hair, lots of fat, thick
Speaker 1: rib cade, and so I mean he just basically shot
Speaker 1: the bear in the brisket, where if it had been
Speaker 1: a white tail, he would have tendering that that's a
Speaker 1: big deal with black bears that you don't want to
Speaker 1: do with archery shots. It's low and tight. You want
Speaker 1: to be further up and Number Another thing is that
Speaker 1: a bear doesn't jump the string like a white tail.
Speaker 1: I mean, especially with the with V E O and
Speaker 1: all the stuff on that we're seeing now, almost a
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the time these white tails are dropping
Speaker 1: at the sound of an arrow, even if you still
Speaker 1: kill the deer. I mean, like we've killed all these
Speaker 1: deer with bows, not on film, and you just you
Speaker 1: kill the steer. Those deer dropping a lot, sometimes dropping
Speaker 1: sixteen inches before the arab gets there at like a
Speaker 1: thirty yard shot. A white tail as a prey and
Speaker 1: only as a flight response to danger, a massive, quick
Speaker 1: flight response. A bear has some of a flight response,
Speaker 1: but not near as much as a white tail, would
Speaker 1: you agree in terms of dropping and going. He's not
Speaker 1: on pins and needles all day long like a deer is,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking he's gonna get eat. He's an apex
Speaker 1: animal and probably stays relaxed, you know, most of the day,
Speaker 1: so he's probably not sensing a lot of danger. And
Speaker 1: so the translation of that into bear shot placement is
Speaker 1: that you don't have to aim low like it's bow hunter.
Speaker 1: As we've been taught to aim low on a deer. Man,
Speaker 1: you don't want to hit low on a bear because
Speaker 1: that silhouette is so deceptive. And I would say that's
Speaker 1: those are the biggest things. Like, if we're talking about
Speaker 1: shot placement slightly further back than a bear, don't be afraid.
Speaker 1: Most people aim so far forward because they're afraid to
Speaker 1: hit so far back because in the white tail world
Speaker 1: we have been preached to our whole life, don't hit
Speaker 1: them far back, don't hit them far back. And honestly,
Speaker 1: I would rather hit a white tail far back than
Speaker 1: I would further forward. I think people that that has
Speaker 1: been preached us so much because guys have really not
Speaker 1: been very good blood trailers. That's the truth. I've found
Speaker 1: that inside of my excursions inside of other hunting circles,
Speaker 1: is that guys sometimes make a shot that they probably
Speaker 1: could recover that animal, but they really don't have the
Speaker 1: skill to blood trail that animal, and so a marginal
Speaker 1: shot all of a sudden becomes marginal, but more shot
Speaker 1: becomes an unfounder. And obviously I'm not suggesting shooting dear
Speaker 1: far back at all, but that fear that's been put
Speaker 1: in us to hit an animal too far back has
Speaker 1: pushed us forward to the animal. But with a bear,
Speaker 1: you can be a little bit further back, a little
Speaker 1: more forgiving, little more forgiving if you're hitting in that
Speaker 1: middle of the middle or you know that that mid
Speaker 1: section from Kobe tell us about your bear, just kind
Speaker 1: of like where about where you perceived the shot to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a straight up gut shot, you know.
Speaker 1: I uh, I was aiming like the middle of the middle,
Speaker 1: but then he started moving and I was already in
Speaker 1: my shot sequence, so uh so, like vertically it was
Speaker 1: in the middle. And I think that was what made
Speaker 1: things come together in the end, was just that and
Speaker 1: then backing off for the night and waiting until the
Speaker 1: next morning to to look for him. But I mean
Speaker 1: he was pretty riggered up, like he had died, like
Speaker 1: he'd been dead. Awhile mechanical or no. I was shooting
Speaker 1: a four bladed fixed Yeah it passed through. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: passed all the way through. I mean it didn't get liver.
Speaker 1: It was like way back and uh we we backed out,
Speaker 1: came back the next day. And now, granted, this is
Speaker 1: a situation where somebody who didn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: experience might have had a hard time trailing that bear.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie about that. But Corey Grant all trained,
Speaker 1: he's a good blood trailer, and I mean we we
Speaker 1: just we found just spots of blood. I mean just
Speaker 1: I mean it was a tough trail, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: but the bear ran probably two hundred yards to fifty
Speaker 1: and Um, we easily recovered the bear. I mean, now
Speaker 1: we had to we had to fight for it a
Speaker 1: little bit. I mean just in that there were times
Speaker 1: when we lost it and we were going off a
Speaker 1: scuff mark and the leaves going down the hill. But
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, within forty five minutes we were
Speaker 1: standing over the bear. Yeah. I think the thing that
Speaker 1: surprised me was when the blood stopped hitting the grounding
Speaker 1: you just started seeing smudge marks on the side of trees. Ye.
Speaker 1: You gotta you gotta use everything in your arsenal when
Speaker 1: you're telling any kind of animal. Like if we had
Speaker 1: just been looking for bright red blood drops on the ground,
Speaker 1: we would never found that bear. But we were staying
Speaker 1: on game trails. We started splitting up going down different
Speaker 1: game trails, and you you learn to look at the
Speaker 1: backside of all these leaves because this bear. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk about how bears are notorious within with a not
Speaker 1: ideal shot. They're notorious for not bleeding much. But the
Speaker 1: point is we found the bear, no problem. That's what
Speaker 1: these middle of the middle guys say all the time.
Speaker 1: It's like they say they'd rather have a gut shot
Speaker 1: bear than a bear that was shot too far, low
Speaker 1: and forward or shot straight in the shoulder, you know,
Speaker 1: because you are not going to break through a bear's
Speaker 1: shoulder with archer equipment, I don't believe. I mean, perhaps
Speaker 1: there's a you'd have to be very lucky tho. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you probably have to hit some kind of artery something
Speaker 1: to even kill something with a far forward shot lock
Speaker 1: at and he's you know, I've never trailed a bear
Speaker 1: and recovered one as far as Kobe's. You know, usually
Speaker 1: if you get yards, that's really that's been your experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I've had some bad shots, and you know,
Speaker 1: I've trailed them jokers like you say, three four hundred
Speaker 1: yards and on minimal blood never find them. But usually
Speaker 1: a lethal shot on a bear, you know, a hundred
Speaker 1: yards are less. They just don't you know, they don't
Speaker 1: carry their weight that farest seems you know, they kind
Speaker 1: of give out quick if they're hit good. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and jump into what I was saying about
Speaker 1: how and how a bear bleeds and the importance the
Speaker 1: whole point of this is gonna be the importance of
Speaker 1: getting two holes with so this would factor into the
Speaker 1: shot angle, but also your equipment that you're using but
Speaker 1: a big priority with bear is to get two holes.
Speaker 1: So it goes back to what you said at the beginning.
Speaker 1: A A broadside shot is what you want. A broadside
Speaker 1: shot gives you the shortest distance between two points when
Speaker 1: the era is going through and even if the era
Speaker 1: is not sticking in the ground on the other side,
Speaker 1: but if the broadhead at least penetrates the skin on
Speaker 1: the other side, you've got two two holes. That bear
Speaker 1: is gonna bleed more. But bears are notorious for not
Speaker 1: bleeding because they are they do have a lot of fat.
Speaker 1: They do have a lot of a lot of fur,
Speaker 1: which is like a mop. I mean, it's soaking up
Speaker 1: some of that blood, not all of it. And you
Speaker 1: know if you just double double lung tin ring a bear,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's gonna bleed pretty good. But when you
Speaker 1: get into that marginal category, like with Colby's, if you
Speaker 1: had only gotten uh, had one hole, didn't have an
Speaker 1: exit wound, you know, we would have had a much
Speaker 1: more difficult time finding that bear. But he he was
Speaker 1: bleeding on two sides because we got that pen traction.
Speaker 1: And so that goes back to on whitetail, a quarter
Speaker 1: and away shot is a pretty good shot. Smaller animal,
Speaker 1: smaller bone, not a stick of hide, not a stick
Speaker 1: of hair. You could probably gonna you know, you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna get a pass through. And unless you hit that
Speaker 1: offside shoulder on a cord and away shot on a deer.
Speaker 1: And I mean we even look for a quarter and
Speaker 1: away shot on a deer oftentimes. Um, but boy, you
Speaker 1: want to get you want to get two holes. The
Speaker 1: other thing about getting two holes is that most bears
Speaker 1: are being shot out of tree stands, especially in a
Speaker 1: bait situation. And if you get one hole from a
Speaker 1: high elevated position, that means your entry hole is gonna
Speaker 1: be high on that animal and that dude is gonna
Speaker 1: bleed very little lower hole. Yep, you know that's where
Speaker 1: you're gonna get you. I guess you could set up
Speaker 1: a dungeon type set up where you had a hole
Speaker 1: underneath and whether you're shooting up into the bears, oh man,
Speaker 1: like dig a hole. It's a whole new setup. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to laugh that cold, ye, then your entry hole
Speaker 1: would be on the bottom of the bear. That's for
Speaker 1: all those duck hunters out there, they can just you know,
Speaker 1: like yeah, like a like a duck hole, like a
Speaker 1: what would you call a yes yes? Well okay, so
Speaker 1: getting two olds okay, and that even goes into your equipment.
Speaker 1: Like we at Bear Hunting Magazine, we are pretty much
Speaker 1: adamant about not using the expandables for bear Okay, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a ton of people that maybe even listen
Speaker 1: to this podcast that will say they have killed bears
Speaker 1: with expandables, as have I. But I have heard too
Speaker 1: many stories and seen for myself too many examples of
Speaker 1: when they have not performed as well as a fixed
Speaker 1: blade broadhead. I mean, just by very principle, it does
Speaker 1: remove energy from an arrow. For those blades to expand
Speaker 1: large cutting diameter is gonna cause more friction on that arrow,
Speaker 1: reducing the energy driving that eraw into the animal. If
Speaker 1: the whole objective is to get two holes on a
Speaker 1: big animal, I mean a big white tailed deer is
Speaker 1: maybe at most twenty inches too. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: a big Canadian deer would, or big Midwest deer be
Speaker 1: inches wide. I doubt it. Like you're trying to penetrate
Speaker 1: block eighteen inches with a big bear trying to penetrate
Speaker 1: thirty inches, I don't know, if that's accurate or not
Speaker 1: not counting the all the hair you're traving yep to
Speaker 1: shoot through. Yeah, the conclusion that we've come to is
Speaker 1: just that if your priority is to get two holes,
Speaker 1: it's best to use a fixed blade broadhead. And there's
Speaker 1: all kind of fixed blay broadheads, there's all kind of
Speaker 1: uh cut on impact broadheads. I would rather have a
Speaker 1: small hole but have two of them than have one
Speaker 1: big hole. I've also heard stories of from reputable, reputable
Speaker 1: bow hunters and archers that they have seen uh expandable
Speaker 1: heads get clogged up in hair like like they hit
Speaker 1: a bear, had reduced penetration, killed the bear, extracted the
Speaker 1: mechanical broadhead to find it just covered in hair like
Speaker 1: where it was catching hair and dragging hair into the animal.
Speaker 1: Do you have any experience with expandables. I've killed probably
Speaker 1: half of the bears. Okay, I've shot with expandables and
Speaker 1: had great luck. I haven't had one fail yet. But
Speaker 1: you know, I've been shooting uh fixed four blade for
Speaker 1: the last four or five years. But you know, in
Speaker 1: early years, when I first started bear hunting too, I
Speaker 1: just shoot a three blade and yeah, it's all no, no,
Speaker 1: and seeing a with a good shot, like a broadside
Speaker 1: shot at a reasonable distance when you're not having a
Speaker 1: crazy angle. I mean, I agree with you can probably
Speaker 1: kill everybody in the woods with an expand yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: shooting high pounded. You know, I'm shooting right at seventy
Speaker 1: pounds and all my shots or you know, fifteen yards
Speaker 1: or less, and you're trying to take that broadside and
Speaker 1: any percent of the time you are gonna punch through.
Speaker 1: You know the rif did you get penetrate? You've got
Speaker 1: to hold a lot of pass throughs. Yeah, yeah, almost. Um, well, okay,
Speaker 1: tell us why you're using a fixed blade head now,
Speaker 1: just you know, I didn't really think about it. Then
Speaker 1: you want to not your eyes cross your tees. I
Speaker 1: can see you know, a fixed blade, you are going
Speaker 1: to get that penetration. You are gonna get that passed
Speaker 1: through on most every shot. So you know, just trial
Speaker 1: on air. And I've got to wear a feel more
Speaker 1: comfortable shooting a fixed blade, you know, uh, confidence in it.
Speaker 1: And like you say, I think, uh, you don't have
Speaker 1: to have the big gaping hole and uh you know
Speaker 1: if you I guess the question is what you gain
Speaker 1: by by shooting a expandable. You know, I guess the
Speaker 1: volume of the cut. You know, maybe you're cutting a
Speaker 1: few more arteries or something like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: there is always that thought in the back of your mind,
Speaker 1: off that broadhead failing and not performing, Yeah, like it
Speaker 1: should fix blade. You pretty much eliminate that. What you
Speaker 1: see is what you get. Yeah, you know, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the expandable broadhead is made for white tail. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a smaller animal, not a lot of hair, not
Speaker 1: thick hide, not thick bones. And they're great. And if
Speaker 1: you get a marginal shot, and I've killed a gobb
Speaker 1: of white tails with expandable heads back in the day,
Speaker 1: And if you get a marginal shot on a white tail,
Speaker 1: I would rather be shooting a big fat expandable. But
Speaker 1: they're really not made for bear. They're really not designed
Speaker 1: for a big bone, thick haired, thick fat animal. That
Speaker 1: means so it's kind of you know, you could kill
Speaker 1: every a bear in the woods with an expandable. That's
Speaker 1: the truth. But I believe and in somebody that's as
Speaker 1: good as you ride and as experienced as you. I'm
Speaker 1: being serious, like you're not gonna you're not a good
Speaker 1: example for someone to show an expandable, that's messed up.
Speaker 1: But I would say for the average guy, if he
Speaker 1: were the average bow hunter with you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's all these different levels of experience that people have.
Speaker 1: If he was shooting expandables at ten bears, it's gonna
Speaker 1: cost him a bear in ten bears, I believe. And
Speaker 1: you may be on your fifth bear and it's not
Speaker 1: cost you a bears, so you're still going when if
Speaker 1: you had been shooting the fixed blade, you'd have killed
Speaker 1: all ten. That's what I believe. And now everybody's got
Speaker 1: to do what they think. But that's a pretty good topic.
Speaker 1: Let's talk real quick to about set up. A lot
Speaker 1: of people ask about archery setups for bear and the
Speaker 1: question is can't I use my white tail set up?
Speaker 1: And my answer to that is basically yes. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I'm not, I'm shooting around sixty pounds. Actually the
Speaker 1: bear that I killed in Oklahoma this year batman pound bear,
Speaker 1: I was shooting a fifty well it may have been
Speaker 1: sixty pounds. I want to say it was the high fifties.
Speaker 1: Just tendering, you know, no problem, I hit to ended
Speaker 1: up hitting kind of the offside shoulder. He had his
Speaker 1: leg down, so I didn't get just a complete pass
Speaker 1: through with him. Yeah. Right, you were there with me
Speaker 1: on the recovery. You know that bear was crouched and
Speaker 1: he had his elbow back like this and hit him
Speaker 1: right here, and it actually went down through his shoulder
Speaker 1: and like was sticking down in his inside the hide,
Speaker 1: but in his front leg. So when you getted the bear,
Speaker 1: you found the arrow actually, and remember were to recover
Speaker 1: James Lawrence's bear. Ten days later, David Miller found my
Speaker 1: iron wheel broad head on the ground. Yes, uh, trying
Speaker 1: to think it was still It's a kind of a
Speaker 1: mystery to me what happened because I never found an
Speaker 1: exit hole. But David Miller found eight inches of arrow
Speaker 1: in my two d and five grain iron wheel broadhead.
Speaker 1: We were tracking James kilderbarrel over there in the same place.
Speaker 1: We went over there and tracted and he came back
Speaker 1: and handed me that, And I said, where did you
Speaker 1: find that? Because David was with us when we recovered it,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, so anyway, it was just a
Speaker 1: weird deal because I mean that that bears front legs
Speaker 1: were you know, ten inches in diameter, so in in
Speaker 1: that arrow, just at the steep angle. But point being,
Speaker 1: you don't need super heavy pounded drying shooting seventy pounds.
Speaker 1: What was your bow set up something? Yeah, yeah, you were.
Speaker 1: You were shooting pretty low pounded average way there. I
Speaker 1: figured your aarrawwaight, Kolby was in the four hundreds. I
Speaker 1: mean you're shooting a hunter grain trick, Yeah, slick trick magnum,
Speaker 1: and that's a great head. I mean I love a
Speaker 1: slick trick broadhead and have for a year. Um, I
Speaker 1: did shoot the iron wheels this year mainly because of
Speaker 1: my traditional stuff. Um. But if if you and I'm
Speaker 1: sponsored by no broadhead company, but if you just said
Speaker 1: to Clay pick your poison for broadheads, I would I
Speaker 1: chide a hunter grain slick Trick Magnum. Now for for compound,
Speaker 1: I've actually shout their Viper trick, which is not a
Speaker 1: traditional not not a not a traditional you know, traditional
Speaker 1: archery head like that. But so the main thing would
Speaker 1: be just getting the right broad head and shot placement.
Speaker 1: It's not about having an eighty pound bow, so you
Speaker 1: can't use your white tail set up. People evaluate aero
Speaker 1: penestration based on kinetic energy momentum is actually the correct
Speaker 1: way to men to evaluate the possibility for aero penetration.
Speaker 1: But basically momentum measures of vector which vector momentum measures
Speaker 1: the the directional force. Kinetic energy measures force just like
Speaker 1: like an explosion almost just like just like it just
Speaker 1: measures how much energy is present in this thing. Basically,
Speaker 1: what I'm getting to is arrowweight is more important than speed.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a time when an archery everybody
Speaker 1: was worried about speed. You know, it's just like, shoot
Speaker 1: a really fast bow with a light arrow. But a
Speaker 1: really fast bow with a light arrow does not penetrate
Speaker 1: as well as a slower bow that's shooting a heavier arrow. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this is all nerd talk, but momentum is the correct
Speaker 1: way to measure arrow penetration. Not CONNECTICU. Energy didn't speed
Speaker 1: come from where you're wanting to get it there faster,
Speaker 1: so the white tilt didn't duck as much. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: my dad, who who is bow hunted his whole life,
Speaker 1: he loves speed, and it's because he didn't want after
Speaker 1: judge yardage. He always wanted a bow that would shoot
Speaker 1: flat to thirty yards, so that just any there that
Speaker 1: showed up in the woods of Arkansas, which basically most
Speaker 1: time you can't see much more than thirty yards. If
Speaker 1: a deer showed up, he just put his first pen
Speaker 1: on it because in his experience shooting slow bows all
Speaker 1: through the seventies and eighties was he was missing deer
Speaker 1: because of misjudging yardage. They didn't have range finders, you know,
Speaker 1: they're good range finders. He had these range finders that
Speaker 1: like combined images. Have you have you seen those rhynd
Speaker 1: where it's like you put your eye in and you
Speaker 1: dial it and it like combines the old school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so so his whole thing was speed so that
Speaker 1: he didn't miss judge yardage. As I went through that,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, we we've got range finders. Now
Speaker 1: you're set in a tree and you can range everything.
Speaker 1: So you pretty much no yardages for tree stand white
Speaker 1: toil hunting, for bear hunting. So I would rather shoot
Speaker 1: a heavier arrow and get more penetration because I did
Speaker 1: have some mishaps with uh, not getting penetration with white
Speaker 1: tells when I was younger. We've talked about barre anatomy,
Speaker 1: we've talked about shot angles. We haven't talked as much
Speaker 1: about shot angles, But like you, you really don't want
Speaker 1: to take a super steep quarter and away shot on
Speaker 1: the bear. Now, if that's all you have, you can
Speaker 1: certainly kill a bear that is at a steep quarter angle,
Speaker 1: but you're probably gonna forfeit that exit hole, and so
Speaker 1: you just gotta be prepared for that, and you gotta
Speaker 1: make sure you're on your a game. Ryan mentioned this earlier,
Speaker 1: is that one of the biggest differences between deer and
Speaker 1: bear is that a bear, first of all, is a
Speaker 1: black animal. Black. The color black is designed to absorb
Speaker 1: light and to not give away much. I mean, like
Speaker 1: if you just look into a black piece of paper,
Speaker 1: it's like all you see is black. But if you
Speaker 1: looked at a white piece of paper that maybe was
Speaker 1: folded just a little bit, like you could see the shadows.
Speaker 1: White show shadows shows shape, and so a black a
Speaker 1: bear can often look like just a black trash bag.
Speaker 1: And you can't see where the shoulder comes up, you
Speaker 1: can't see the ribs, you can't no definition where a
Speaker 1: white tail. Ryan has short hair, light colored hair, has
Speaker 1: a very defined muscular body. I mean, you can see
Speaker 1: the shoulder, you can see the ribs, you can see
Speaker 1: the rump, you can see the muscles. So when you
Speaker 1: look through the peep on the boat a white tail,
Speaker 1: you can see right where you're aiming. A lot of
Speaker 1: times with a big bear or a little bear, you
Speaker 1: pull up and look for a peep and you feel
Speaker 1: like you're aiming at a black trash bag. And I mean,
Speaker 1: even inside of me having killed some bears, I still
Speaker 1: struggle with that. Sometimes at close range, like close range,
Speaker 1: you draw and you're like, holy cow, Like in the
Speaker 1: bear that I killed in Oklahoma. I don't know why
Speaker 1: that one got to me, but I drew the bow
Speaker 1: bear just right there, I mean like ten yards and
Speaker 1: I looked through the peep and all I could see
Speaker 1: was black. And I was looking around my peep to
Speaker 1: try to get a you know, trying to just figure
Speaker 1: out where my pen was, and that would lean back
Speaker 1: in and look and lean back in and look, and
Speaker 1: finally I felt like I had where I wanted to hit.
Speaker 1: I shot, and if you remember, I shot far forward.
Speaker 1: I've had that same problem in low light conditions before dark,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to see through your peep and like say,
Speaker 1: no definition on a bear. You want to make sure
Speaker 1: that body is not cupped. You know, sometimes they'll roll
Speaker 1: them hips to the side and be cupped. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: not the best. Just wait for him to maybe expose
Speaker 1: that leg or just you know, completely broadside. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it can be tricky sometimes we'll see. And
Speaker 1: that's that's the next point is that a bear can
Speaker 1: do a whole lot more stuff than a white tail.
Speaker 1: A bear could be sitting on his butt, a bear
Speaker 1: could be standing up, a bear could have his feet
Speaker 1: up on a tree. A bear could be cupped. And
Speaker 1: that's probably to me one of the things that gets
Speaker 1: most people. We've made some videos about this. But a
Speaker 1: bear could look like he's broadside, but actually his spine
Speaker 1: would be like in a u A deer can't even
Speaker 1: do that hardly. But like a bear could be appear
Speaker 1: to be broadside looking at you, but actually eighty percent
Speaker 1: of his vitals be covered because he's cupped like a
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, like a like a dog. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's not a good example, but yes, or or
Speaker 1: a lot of times with inbated situations, bears come in
Speaker 1: and lay down. Lots of guys have shot bears laying down,
Speaker 1: and again, you can do it, but it's trickier because
Speaker 1: those vitals are compacted. He's literally laying on his rib cage.
Speaker 1: Those ribs flex and you you know, shooting a bear
Speaker 1: laying down, you're probably shooting at a target that is
Speaker 1: twenty percent less in size than it would be if
Speaker 1: the bear was standing up. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1: I mean, like that that rib cage would flex just
Speaker 1: a little bit and those vitals would those vitals would compress.
Speaker 1: So basically a deer doesn't just have the flexibility to
Speaker 1: do what a bearer does. That throws people off run people,
Speaker 1: especially people that aren't familiar with seeing bear. As a
Speaker 1: bear comes in, he might be standing up, he might
Speaker 1: be laying down. He might be setting on his haunches,
Speaker 1: you know, licking his bottom feet. He might be he
Speaker 1: could do all kinds of stuff. I've seen you do
Speaker 1: that yourself, and licking my feet, you know occasionally that
Speaker 1: man that's massively. When I first started hunting bears, I
Speaker 1: remember just kind of being like confused by watching a
Speaker 1: bear move. And I think that's kind of what freaks
Speaker 1: people out sometimes when they're hunting bear for the first time.
Speaker 1: It's just to see an animal that that's just different
Speaker 1: than what they're used to. Kobe was at your experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really surprising, like first being so big, they're
Speaker 1: pretty pretty since they are like they're pretty, like they
Speaker 1: know what movements they're making. It's like they're so articulate
Speaker 1: with their movements. I guess it would be the things
Speaker 1: they're definitely in the the yoga animal. You know, if
Speaker 1: you like to do yoga, the bears your your spirit animal.
Speaker 1: Ryan's big in the yoga the yoga. That's one more
Speaker 1: thing let's talk about. So we most of what we've
Speaker 1: talked about here would relate directly to archery hunting. I
Speaker 1: do want to say that hunting with a rifle is
Speaker 1: gonna be different. Now, bar anatomy stays the same, all
Speaker 1: the stuff stays the same in terms of the actual bear,
Speaker 1: but with a rifle, shooting a high powered rifle, you're
Speaker 1: kind of been a different ball game because you can
Speaker 1: shoot a bear straight in the shoulder, high in the
Speaker 1: shoulder and just drop them. You can shoot a bear
Speaker 1: that's facing you. I would never suggest shooting an archery
Speaker 1: bear just head on. I mean, I know it's worked
Speaker 1: for people. I mean I'm sure it has, uh, but well,
Speaker 1: you know, bullet you're getting that shock, that energy hydro
Speaker 1: static shock, you're shutting down the electrical system. Basically, shoot
Speaker 1: him in the shoulder, head on, like you're talking about
Speaker 1: quarterin away a little more forgiving on. Definitely a rifle, right,
Speaker 1: So with a rifle, I would have to say that
Speaker 1: it would be fairly similar to a white tail in principle.
Speaker 1: I mean, because you can shoot them the shoulder, you
Speaker 1: can shoot him head on, you can shoot him quarter
Speaker 1: in a way that wouldn't be a problem. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to obviously judge for you don't need
Speaker 1: to shoot low because they're not gonna jump the string.
Speaker 1: I mean, so rifle hunting is quite different. And this
Speaker 1: podcast really isn't about rifle caliber, but a lot of
Speaker 1: questions about caliber rifle, and it kind of goes back
Speaker 1: to the same thing with archery. You can kill a
Speaker 1: bear with a thirty thirty and a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: grand bullet. I mean there are lots of air it
Speaker 1: probably thirty thirties probably killed as many bears as any
Speaker 1: any caliber, just from the old days of when guys,
Speaker 1: when that was a main cartridge. But you the bigger
Speaker 1: the better, the bigger the better with with bear because
Speaker 1: they are a big animal, you do want to hit
Speaker 1: them hard. Uh. You know, my gun of choice currently
Speaker 1: for black bear rifle of choice mag with a two
Speaker 1: grain bullet out of my my Best of the West rifle.
Speaker 1: But I did want to just clarify that a lot
Speaker 1: of the delicate things that we're talking about in terms
Speaker 1: of shot placement for black bear does include is about
Speaker 1: archery hunting, not as much about about rifle hunting. But hey,
Speaker 1: closing comments or thoughts, Ryan Um, let me ask you
Speaker 1: a question, what would you say would be the biggest
Speaker 1: mistake that you have seen? First time bear hunters are
Speaker 1: just inexperienced bear hunters make on shot placement biggest mistake.
Speaker 1: You know, Bears aren't like dear people are excited to
Speaker 1: finally you know, Hey, I've got a bear here in
Speaker 1: front of me, and you know it's in range. I
Speaker 1: need to hurry up and get take the shot. Bears
Speaker 1: are pretty patient, you know, especially on a baited hunt.
Speaker 1: You can wait and wait and wait for that perfect shot.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be in a rush. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people want to take that first shot
Speaker 1: opportunity just to wait for the right shot. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: I've made mistakes and you know, not made the right shot.
Speaker 1: But you know it's all about patients. But I guess
Speaker 1: you know it just comes with experience. So um, more
Speaker 1: bears you get a chance to be around and and harvest,
Speaker 1: you'll learn from that and take it to the next hunt.
Speaker 1: But like I said, just be patient, wait for the
Speaker 1: right shot opportunity. You don't have to be in any hurry.
Speaker 1: That's a. That's a great example because in white tail hunting,
Speaker 1: most of the time you have a very short window
Speaker 1: to execute a shot on a big buck. I mean,
Speaker 1: like take the first shot you get, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, that's a that's a good ethical shot.
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of the way we're preached to because
Speaker 1: most time these animals are just moving through areas that
Speaker 1: we're hunting. But especially on a baited hunt or even
Speaker 1: on a spring a spring hunt, when a bear is
Speaker 1: feeding out in the meadow, you got time. If that
Speaker 1: animal is feeding, he's gonna be there for a while,
Speaker 1: and so you don't have to rush it. So you're
Speaker 1: number one thing when the first time bear hunter, new
Speaker 1: bear hunter would be rushing the shot. Yeah, yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know I'm basing that on hunting over a bait
Speaker 1: where the bears occupied. You know, like you said, he's
Speaker 1: not passing through. Uh, you're gonna have some time to
Speaker 1: especially if the wind's right and he don't know you're around,
Speaker 1: You've you've got a little bit of time to play with.
Speaker 1: And I can say, the right opportunity to present itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very good, Kobe, What do you think? I mean, those
Speaker 1: are the things that Corey told us or told me
Speaker 1: whenever I went up there. It was just you know,
Speaker 1: to be patient and make the right shot. And we
Speaker 1: were patient, I mean watching We watched that bear for
Speaker 1: a while and the right opportunity was there. Um. I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that happened I didn't realize
Speaker 1: he was he was moving, you know, And so I
Speaker 1: think what happened was I was looking through the peep
Speaker 1: like once I should close my other eye and just
Speaker 1: like focused on him. I couldn't tell that he was moving,
Speaker 1: you know, because it was the right opportunity. He just
Speaker 1: started moving right at the wrong time. So you probably
Speaker 1: hit right where you were aiming. He just wasn't in
Speaker 1: the same spot he moved. Yeah. Well, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a good thing to to think about is that
Speaker 1: once you initiate that shot cycle, you've got to be
Speaker 1: super flexible. I mean, your shot cycle has to be quick.
Speaker 1: And when I say shot cycle, I mean like draw
Speaker 1: your bow and from the time you make the decision
Speaker 1: to shoot until the time you actually execute the shot,
Speaker 1: you need to be able to back out of it,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean like because in that situation, you
Speaker 1: were like, Okay, I'm gonna shoot, and then two seconds
Speaker 1: time he moved, you know, and you went ahead and shot,
Speaker 1: you know. Now, I think that I think that's just
Speaker 1: learning being in bow hunting situations in archery and executing
Speaker 1: the shot, you know, which is anybody could have made
Speaker 1: the mistake. But yeah, I think, uh I I had
Speaker 1: been drawn back for a while. I think that if
Speaker 1: I there, if in the future, like whenever I get
Speaker 1: an opportunity or I think I have one, I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just, you know, if I'm drawn back for
Speaker 1: too much time, just let it down and just reassessed,
Speaker 1: you know what. Though that being said, my strongest trait
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to actually taking an animal,
Speaker 1: especially with a compound bow, it's knowing when to draw.
Speaker 1: And I love drawing before they get there. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I like doing what you did. Yeah, I felt
Speaker 1: like you did the right thing. I mean like the
Speaker 1: bear was just at any second gonna step into a
Speaker 1: correct shooting position. So you were drawn and ready. Now
Speaker 1: once you start holding up for over a minute or something, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like if you start to fill your body
Speaker 1: be compromised and like, yeah, you should have let you
Speaker 1: you can let down that situation. But like, the biggest
Speaker 1: thing that I see people do is like a deer
Speaker 1: or bear is coming and they wait till it's in
Speaker 1: position to shoot before they draw their bow. Man I draw.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about like draw a minute before it
Speaker 1: gets there, but I'm anticipating the shot, drawn and ready,
Speaker 1: and boy, when it steps to where I want to shoot, shoot,
Speaker 1: And that's probably more a white tail thing because a
Speaker 1: lot of times they're moving. And but hey, we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna end this podcast. I hope that you've learned
Speaker 1: something here, and uh, yeah, you know, ultimately our goal
Speaker 1: is to make as many good at the gold quick
Speaker 1: killing shots as possible. And uh, bears are big, tough,
Speaker 1: unforgiving animals, but when they're hit right, they go down easy.
Speaker 1: And so hey, guys, thanks for being on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have We're gonna continue, We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a few more podcasts that are kind of this style
Speaker 1: where we're just talking about a specific issue. Hey, keep
Speaker 1: the wild places wild. Why keep us? For the bears
Speaker 1: b