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Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the
Speaker 1: Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into
Speaker 1: the world of hunting the icon of North American wilderness. There,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about tactics, gear conservation, but will also bring
Speaker 1: you into some of the wildest country on the planet
Speaker 1: chasing battery. On this episode, we're in Cody, Wyoming at
Speaker 1: the office of Joe condellas the founder of the Western
Speaker 1: Bear Foundation. We have a intriguing conversation about why bears
Speaker 1: are amazing critters, the history of bears in the West. Also,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about grizzly bear conflict and mitigation
Speaker 1: that's going on right now in the very complex issues
Speaker 1: of the grizzly bear world in the West. And Hey,
Speaker 1: you check out the Western Bear Foundation. These guys are
Speaker 1: doing a lot out West, and Hey, if somebody doesn't
Speaker 1: stand up and say that, as big predator managers and
Speaker 1: hunters and people that utilize the wildlife related commodities of
Speaker 1: big predators, if somebody doesn't speak up for us, then
Speaker 1: nobody's going to in the anti hunting community is going
Speaker 1: to have the first rights to the narrative of big
Speaker 1: game hunting and specifically large predator hunting. People like Joe
Speaker 1: Condeles in the Western Bear Foundation are putting action into
Speaker 1: our narrative of why we're the of guys, why we
Speaker 1: care about wildlife, and why that we want to continue
Speaker 1: on with the ancient and honorable tradition of hunting large
Speaker 1: creditors and managing the landscape for the betterment of all wildlife.
Speaker 1: All at the same time of us enjoying hunting and
Speaker 1: loving the challenge of it and taking some satisfaction and
Speaker 1: getting to hunt big predators. You're gonna enjoy this podcast.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. We are again
Speaker 1: in Cody, Wyoming. Colby and I are heading back from
Speaker 1: our Montana hunt and I just met a guy for
Speaker 1: the first time that I feel like I've known for
Speaker 1: a long time because we have Yes, it is bizarre
Speaker 1: that we've never met face to face. I feel like
Speaker 1: you can develop relationships over phone and email that are
Speaker 1: almost like you've known each other for exactly. So that's
Speaker 1: that's what's happening today. I've got Joe Condellas with me.
Speaker 1: We're in his office here, yeah, Cody, yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: so let me I'll give a introduction to you just
Speaker 1: a little bit, but then I'm gonna hand over to
Speaker 1: you to give a better introduction. But Joe is uh,
Speaker 1: Joe is the founder with Western Bear Foundation. Is that statement.
Speaker 1: So that's part of what this podcast is gonna be.
Speaker 1: We're gonna hear about the Western Bear Foundation. We're gonna
Speaker 1: I want to I want Joe to go into detail
Speaker 1: of the of the the grizzly situation. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: at we are at the heartthrow place for all this
Speaker 1: controversy about grizzly bears. You're sitting about well, you know,
Speaker 1: fifty miles from the park right here. Everything that's grizzly
Speaker 1: bear related that is basically stemmed out of this range
Speaker 1: right here. It's just you're you're in the I mean
Speaker 1: the hub. Yeah. So this is like the hot topic
Speaker 1: of our time right now for large predator management and
Speaker 1: there it's such a complex issue and uh, so I
Speaker 1: want to hear from you because your foundation is doing
Speaker 1: so much inside of that. Um. But before we do that,
Speaker 1: tell me, So, I met you years ago when I
Speaker 1: had started the Arkansas Blackbarrasis. That's when I contact time ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like probably two thousand eleven or something. Now, when did
Speaker 1: when did the Western Bear Foundation officially we got our
Speaker 1: five oh one C three status and like, oh, well
Speaker 1: it's in, but we got we kind of were loosely
Speaker 1: trying to build this thing up to where we were
Speaker 1: federally in like oh seven seven, so, but in in
Speaker 1: ten and eleven, that's what I remember messaging you on
Speaker 1: Facebook because I saw, Hey, this guy's starting bear association
Speaker 1: out west and I was doing a similar kind of
Speaker 1: thing in Arkansas at the time, and so I remember
Speaker 1: reaching out to you, and it probably wasn't It was.
Speaker 1: It was sometime later that we really connected more when
Speaker 1: I got into Bear Hunting magazine. Um. But uh, but
Speaker 1: just for information sake, members of the Western Bear Foundation
Speaker 1: receive a copy of Bear Hunting Magazine. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: been that's a huge part of our membership. Like people
Speaker 1: want something you know they want to cause, but they
Speaker 1: also want something to return. And I mean, we're a
Speaker 1: bear hunting organization, conservation and hunting, but what a better
Speaker 1: thing to offer him? Like, we can't afford to put
Speaker 1: out a publication. We don't know what we're doing when
Speaker 1: it comes to that. So it was just like reached
Speaker 1: out to Clay right away and it was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: would you guys be interested in doing this? And so
Speaker 1: basically Bear Hunting Magazine is our subscription that our members get,
Speaker 1: you know, so it's a it's a huge value for them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: right on. Well it's been a great relationship for us
Speaker 1: and uh so to get into well, let me and
Speaker 1: take it a further further step back. Tell me about
Speaker 1: your I mean, you're a you're a businessman here, you're
Speaker 1: you're a hunter. Yeah, what was your intrigue with bears
Speaker 1: that hooked you into this? Yeah, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: crazy story, but you know, I grew up hunting in
Speaker 1: southwest Montana, grew up in Butte. Uh family of hunters.
Speaker 1: My grandpa came over from he was in Minnesota and
Speaker 1: moved his whole family grew up there and they moved
Speaker 1: out to Montana and and you know, my dad grew
Speaker 1: up hunting, and everyone grew up hunting, but no one
Speaker 1: in our family was really bear hunters. They were strictly
Speaker 1: at that time, my grandpa was subsistence hunting, you know,
Speaker 1: they needed the meet yep, just for food on the table.
Speaker 1: And and my dad, you know kind of really I
Speaker 1: grew up, you know, at a young age being out
Speaker 1: with my dad, but we never really bear hunted much.
Speaker 1: And uh, I just kind of went through the motions
Speaker 1: through you know, junior high in high school, going out
Speaker 1: deer hunting, hil hunting, and I just always thought, man,
Speaker 1: it'd be really cool to get a bear one day.
Speaker 1: Well at that time time, you know, and the early
Speaker 1: nineties in southwest Montana, at least, I would say bear
Speaker 1: hunting hadn't really taken on the space that it is
Speaker 1: now it's a lot more popular. Um So, there was
Speaker 1: very few people that did it well. And um so
Speaker 1: it was just kind of an unknown thing. And we're
Speaker 1: in high school and me and my the guy that
Speaker 1: I actually co founded this organization with, uh, Joe Cambick. Uh,
Speaker 1: we always wanted to kill a bear. We all we
Speaker 1: wanted to figure it out, and we didn't know what
Speaker 1: we're doing. We could drive now, so we would puts
Speaker 1: around the hills and in the spring and the sun,
Speaker 1: you know, early summer, because it ended June fifteenth, where
Speaker 1: we grew up trying to find bears and didn't have
Speaker 1: a clue, you know, just hunting bears like we we
Speaker 1: would all kind of you know, park on a ridge
Speaker 1: and go and um, yeah, it didn't work, Like I,
Speaker 1: I can't find We couldn't find bears to save our life.
Speaker 1: And uh just didn't really know anyone to show us around.
Speaker 1: And this is a long story short, but we were
Speaker 1: we were together and he got his first bear, and
Speaker 1: oh nineties, I can't remember. We were just out of
Speaker 1: high school and I was just like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: this is amazing. And so it kind of became a quest.
Speaker 1: He's a little bit older than me, so he got
Speaker 1: to get first shot. So then it became a quest
Speaker 1: for me to get one. And we're still pretty new
Speaker 1: and I finally got one, and in that day ninety seven,
Speaker 1: maybe I think maybe maybe later gosh, I have to
Speaker 1: look um that that changed me as far as like
Speaker 1: actually shot one then never found it. I shot two
Speaker 1: bears before I and didn't recover him, and it was
Speaker 1: just devastating to me, you know, like I'm not going
Speaker 1: to figure this out. And then when I ended up
Speaker 1: finally harvesting one, it was actually in the in early
Speaker 1: two thousand, I ended up harvesting one beautiful chocolate bear
Speaker 1: uh in a place where I grew up in southwest
Speaker 1: Montana hunting deer and elk, and and it was just
Speaker 1: a pristine high mountain meadow. Hiked in there, and that
Speaker 1: thing was just out in the middle chowing down on
Speaker 1: these white flowers, and it was just like that was
Speaker 1: meant to be in the color that I always wanted.
Speaker 1: And from that day on, I just have been fascinated
Speaker 1: by not hunting them. It's the knowledge of bears that
Speaker 1: I feel like it has driven me to the point
Speaker 1: where I'm at now. It's like no one, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people really don't understand a lot about bears.
Speaker 1: So I started just diving into it. And and the
Speaker 1: more I started looking and trying to teach myself about bears, habits, biology,
Speaker 1: you know, just the total ecology of everything surrounding bears,
Speaker 1: I kind of was like, man, there's just really not
Speaker 1: a lot of information out there, aside from other hunters,
Speaker 1: and a lot of bear hunters are not in this
Speaker 1: part of the country. I don't know about where you
Speaker 1: guys are at, but they're not very good at sharing
Speaker 1: information because their bear spots are like, you know, that's gold,
Speaker 1: you know, that's sacred. So I thought, man, we kind
Speaker 1: of would be nice if there was a group out
Speaker 1: there to help people out that was in my same shoes,
Speaker 1: not having a clue. And then also there just wasn't
Speaker 1: a group out there really focused on bears, and we
Speaker 1: had talked about it for years. Joe and I joke
Speaker 1: and got it, wouldn't that be cool if there was
Speaker 1: a bear founded, you know, something for bears and bear
Speaker 1: hunters out west. Did some research, I'm like, gosh, Michigan's
Speaker 1: got a strong one, Wisconsin, they're strong West Virginia. And
Speaker 1: we're like, we could do something like that, but man,
Speaker 1: I'm a business student and he's a game warden, so
Speaker 1: we're like, I don't know how to put something like
Speaker 1: this together. And it just ate away at me. I
Speaker 1: moved down here in oh five, down into Cody for
Speaker 1: for work, and it was just still driving me crazy.
Speaker 1: And then when I moved here, it really it propelled
Speaker 1: me even further because now I'm on the grizzly bear
Speaker 1: scene in the right in the middle, and I'm just seeing, man,
Speaker 1: there's no work done for black bears. Everyone knows if
Speaker 1: a grizzly bear takes a crap anywhere from the West
Speaker 1: coast to here, we know, well, we couldn't tell you.
Speaker 1: I mean, the state of Wyoming and Idaho hardly know,
Speaker 1: um how many bears are in their state. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's not right for black bears. So let me let
Speaker 1: me stop you right there. To go back to something
Speaker 1: you said that ties into that is that people. You
Speaker 1: made a statement that generally people don't really know that
Speaker 1: much about bears, and that's true. And you know, the
Speaker 1: the outdoor media revolution of the last let's say twenty
Speaker 1: five years since outdoor television came on, people started learning
Speaker 1: about white tails, learning about elk. I mean, the average
Speaker 1: white tail hunter can tell you more about the biology
Speaker 1: and habits of a white tailed deer then probably an
Speaker 1: expert white tail hunter could have in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I mean, just an average
Speaker 1: guy like my ten year old son probably knows more
Speaker 1: like head knowledge about white tail deer than an expert
Speaker 1: hunter in the in the nineties. I mean, just like information,
Speaker 1: we have so much more information. And that's exactly what
Speaker 1: I found and was the reason that we did what
Speaker 1: we did was I was in Arkansas and it was
Speaker 1: like nobody cared about bears, nobody knew about bears, and
Speaker 1: they were it was and it was exactly it was.
Speaker 1: It's funny to hear you tell your story because it's
Speaker 1: just like mine. I was just like I killed the bear,
Speaker 1: massively intrigued by it. And Joe when I the first
Speaker 1: bear I killed was in two thousand one, and and
Speaker 1: I've been a white tail hunter, and when I walked
Speaker 1: up to that bear, I realized that I knew nothing
Speaker 1: about it. It's crazy. I mean, you know, it is
Speaker 1: magnificent animal, incredible animal, and and I realized that I
Speaker 1: knew nothing about it, and and that that the hunt
Speaker 1: to me felt hollow. That's the way I descried. Was
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, and I was just like this,
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't like I did something wrong, but
Speaker 1: I was like, this isn't right. I need to learn
Speaker 1: about this animal. And that set me on a quest
Speaker 1: to learn everything I could about black bear and They're incredibly,
Speaker 1: incredibly unique animal. The biological strategies they use are crazy,
Speaker 1: you know, just all this stuff. But anyway, so it's true,
Speaker 1: I'm overly biased because to me, they're the most fascinating
Speaker 1: animal on the planet. Bears in general, um there their
Speaker 1: willingness to adapt to any environment meant I was very
Speaker 1: similar when I shot that bear. It it had taken
Speaker 1: me multiple years to finally put my hands on my bear,
Speaker 1: and I think it was like that whole struggle and
Speaker 1: not knowing and like slowly learning that was really just like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've shot my first elk. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: that big of a struggle or deer. It's just like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is a big deal. It is monumental for me,
Speaker 1: and just like wanting to know so much more and
Speaker 1: not having information because like there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff out there, you know, social media and the
Speaker 1: the hunting television was not like it is today to
Speaker 1: where you can even learn. And then just like you said,
Speaker 1: no one cared about bears. I mean until not that
Speaker 1: long ago in Wyoming. You gotta bear with your oak.
Speaker 1: You got a bear tag with your oak tag, and
Speaker 1: they're like kill you know, they didn't have any respect
Speaker 1: for him. They just thought they were a predator. And
Speaker 1: to me, that's that's tragic, you know, like we do
Speaker 1: so much and and and it's right we do so
Speaker 1: much for ungulates in the West, and we need to,
Speaker 1: but there's a whole another east to the equation in
Speaker 1: black bears that just get left out. And that made
Speaker 1: me sick to my stomach for so many years. And
Speaker 1: I just thought one day, and I'll never forget the time,
Speaker 1: and I was like, screw it, I'm doing it. I
Speaker 1: was just like it ate away at me for so long,
Speaker 1: thinking I feel like I have to do this just
Speaker 1: to be like in ten years if it doesn't work out.
Speaker 1: I tried, you know, like and and just for me personally,
Speaker 1: like give it a shot. And I was sitting and
Speaker 1: standing in the shower one day and I was just like,
Speaker 1: the hell with it, We're doing it. And I called
Speaker 1: him and tried to come up with the name. At
Speaker 1: that time where the Yellowstone Country Bear Hunters Association, which
Speaker 1: didn't really give us much UH arena other than around
Speaker 1: Yellowstone Park, But at that time we thought that was
Speaker 1: the right way to go. But you know, fast forward
Speaker 1: to now or the Western Bear Foundation doing everything we
Speaker 1: can in the West. So it was a long, a
Speaker 1: long slog up to that. But I think being like you,
Speaker 1: being around him and just being fascinated, you find a
Speaker 1: passion point in life sometimes that you're just like you
Speaker 1: never knew you were gonna have like five five years
Speaker 1: be for doing that hunt and shooting that bear. I
Speaker 1: I never in a million years thought I'd be here
Speaker 1: today talking to you about a foundation and your your
Speaker 1: magazine and what you did with the Arkansas Black Bear
Speaker 1: found It maymes it's beyond me. But sometimes in life
Speaker 1: things like that happened and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: we got to do something, and it's been incredibly successful.
Speaker 1: Um slow, and I'm an impatient guy, like I want
Speaker 1: everything to be like now, and so that's been a
Speaker 1: struggle for me. We're all volunteers, so that's a struggle
Speaker 1: to um a lot of work on the volunteers, and
Speaker 1: you can only grow as fast as your You know,
Speaker 1: money is a big thing, you know when it comes
Speaker 1: to these foundations to tell money. So you know we're
Speaker 1: doing the best we can. But now I know that
Speaker 1: you have dealt with and asked questions to some of
Speaker 1: these bigger foundations. I mean like, uh, I mean you've
Speaker 1: tried to model this. I mean, give me the kind
Speaker 1: of give me the architecture of the Western Bear Foundation
Speaker 1: and kind of even just as simple as what your
Speaker 1: mission is some of the things you're doing. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we tried to, you know, not knowing anything about
Speaker 1: running a foundation or an organization and nonprofit, we we
Speaker 1: had to look at the ones that were successful, and
Speaker 1: the biggest one to us in the West was Racking
Speaker 1: Mount Elk Foundation. You look at what they did and
Speaker 1: similar thing. A bunch of guys got together that are
Speaker 1: super passionate about Elk and they created something that's a
Speaker 1: monster now and it's done so much good for for
Speaker 1: Elk in the country. Um, so we're like, well, let's
Speaker 1: model it similar to that. You know, we'll be membership
Speaker 1: driven to raise funds to do projects on the ground.
Speaker 1: Initially when we started, Joe and I said that in
Speaker 1: order to ensure that we're doing it for the right reasons.
Speaker 1: No one's getting paid for this. So for for us
Speaker 1: that was really important in the beginning because as you
Speaker 1: and not every groups like this, but when money starts
Speaker 1: changing hands, people start doing things sometimes for the wrong reasons,
Speaker 1: and for us, it had to be about the bears
Speaker 1: and bear hunters. So we always said, you know, no
Speaker 1: one's gonna get paid for this. Now we're getting to
Speaker 1: a point where we might have to do something like
Speaker 1: that and change a little bit. But um, so we
Speaker 1: tried to do it like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
Speaker 1: where we had a board and and we don't really
Speaker 1: have chapters, but we thought, you know, that would be
Speaker 1: somewhere where we would want to go. And initially we
Speaker 1: were just going to focus on Montana, Ida and Wyoming,
Speaker 1: Idaho and Wyoming because that's where a lot of the
Speaker 1: grizzly bear issues were and um, the largest amount of
Speaker 1: black bears you know, in the West, in these three states,
Speaker 1: so we thought we'd stay there. And you know, over
Speaker 1: the years we've as we went to Western Bear Foundation.
Speaker 1: Now we're doing work in Our actual first chapter is
Speaker 1: going to be formed in Washington State. Believe it or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got a guy over there and some really passionate
Speaker 1: hunters over there that want to start a chapter there
Speaker 1: right and all the by laws right now, So we'll
Speaker 1: have our first chapter in Washington State. And I think
Speaker 1: it's just gonna make it a lot easier for us
Speaker 1: to have a Montana chapter and Idaho chapter because right
Speaker 1: now I kind of managed the three with people in
Speaker 1: each state to help me out, like, hey, what can
Speaker 1: we get to this? Can we do this? And and
Speaker 1: you know, working closely with the state agencies that manage
Speaker 1: our bears and manage our hunting seasons. We do a
Speaker 1: lot of that, but a lot of that falls on
Speaker 1: me right now. So giving these up in the chapters
Speaker 1: will will take a lot off of me and make
Speaker 1: it a little bit easier for me to do some
Speaker 1: of the administrative stuff that takes up a lot of time,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's kind of how we're set up now. UM.
Speaker 1: We do have memberships, UM most of our money raises
Speaker 1: through like raffles and grants. I'll write grants for for
Speaker 1: projects on the ground, and that's what we're really probably
Speaker 1: the most proud about right now, is the grant work
Speaker 1: and the projects we're doing on the ground. I mean,
Speaker 1: for being small, this year, we'll do over thirty dollars
Speaker 1: for projects on the ground and that's all just fundraising.
Speaker 1: What's one of what we've done in the past a
Speaker 1: lot of is conflict mitigation, So UM, we do uh
Speaker 1: in the state of Wyoming, We've done a lot of
Speaker 1: bear boxes and you'll see him on the National Forest
Speaker 1: and Wyoming and especially where we have grizzly bear use.
Speaker 1: We have to have boxes, bear proof storage containers on
Speaker 1: in campsites. So it keeps bears out of food. It
Speaker 1: really you know, it mitigates habituation to human foods and
Speaker 1: then it keeps bears out of trouble. And our model
Speaker 1: has always been, you know, the more bears we keep
Speaker 1: on the landscape, that's more for hunters, photographers, just anyone
Speaker 1: to enjoy. We don't want to see bears getting taken
Speaker 1: out management actions because they're they're habituated to food or
Speaker 1: they're causing problems. You know, that's one less for us
Speaker 1: to enjoy. What's the what's the what's the mission statement
Speaker 1: of Western Bear Foundation to protect and develop bears and
Speaker 1: bear hunting in the Western United States. Yeah, and in short,
Speaker 1: you know, so we've kind of went from being super
Speaker 1: focused on hunting rights. You know, like initially on we're like,
Speaker 1: we've got to make sure we have our rights as hunters.
Speaker 1: And we're still really focused on that, Like we're doing
Speaker 1: a lot of work, especially in the last year with
Speaker 1: this bear bait band. But what we've done the most
Speaker 1: lately is conflict mitigation stuff on the ground to ensure
Speaker 1: a future for bears in the West and keeping bears
Speaker 1: out of trouble. Um So we do the bear boxes
Speaker 1: up in Montana, we've been doing a lot of bear
Speaker 1: fences on the Rocky Mountain Front. Those fences are electrical,
Speaker 1: electrified fences that go around chicken coops, um lambing pins,
Speaker 1: any of that that keeps the grizzly bears out. Um Man,
Speaker 1: that's a perfect prime example of hunters truly showing their
Speaker 1: the the intent of why we do what we do.
Speaker 1: It's not just to go out and kill all the bears.
Speaker 1: We want animals on the landscape. That's been so important
Speaker 1: to us to be a hunting group doing these projects
Speaker 1: because right now in Montana we have a few anti
Speaker 1: hunting groups funding a lot of these projects. And to
Speaker 1: us that was there's a hunting group now that can
Speaker 1: do that. Now, granted we don't have the money that
Speaker 1: some of these groups. I won't name names, but um
Speaker 1: we're slowly breaking into that where it's like, hey, we
Speaker 1: can buy the bear proof garbage cans for the Anaconda
Speaker 1: Township in Montana, they got a lot of bears. Like,
Speaker 1: maybe we can do that now and rather than be
Speaker 1: an anti hunting group, now we have a pro sportsman,
Speaker 1: a pro a hook and bullet clock and these these
Speaker 1: dumpsters and so much of what we're doing now, Joe,
Speaker 1: inside the outdoor industry, it seems is that we're we
Speaker 1: are doing a better job at showing the intent of
Speaker 1: conservation based hunting, Like, because the narrative for the anti
Speaker 1: hunting community is that we're just bloodthirsty guys that want
Speaker 1: to go shoot stuff with our guns. And so I
Speaker 1: really like, I like what you're doing because it's it's
Speaker 1: on the ground, actually doing the work, showing people, showing
Speaker 1: people that hey, we are, you know, trying to reduce
Speaker 1: bear conflicts so that these bears don't have to be
Speaker 1: euthanized when they come into this camp. You know, we're
Speaker 1: it's exactly like but it's it's it's the it's a
Speaker 1: philosophical position that I like, you know, it's yeah, I
Speaker 1: think what we're trying to do too is make it
Speaker 1: that you know, bear hunters and I don't have to
Speaker 1: tell you this are very much malign. Did in the
Speaker 1: commune in the United States. When it comes to all
Speaker 1: hunters in general, I think predator hunters get the worst
Speaker 1: trapping the side from trappers and they've got a really
Speaker 1: bad rap which we support trapping and everything, but it's
Speaker 1: an effort to to try and like change the way
Speaker 1: people look at bear hunters. And if they look at
Speaker 1: a group like the Western Bear Foundation that's out here
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, they are a hunting based group,
Speaker 1: but gosh, this year, we're spending twenty dollars on callers
Speaker 1: in the state of Wyoming to put on black bears
Speaker 1: so we can do a population study. You know, there's
Speaker 1: not been another group that's that's anti hunting or anything
Speaker 1: that's even approach. The Department said, we want to do this.
Speaker 1: This is a hunting group that's doing it's hunters that
Speaker 1: are doing this, and that's that's to benefit everyone. And
Speaker 1: you know, we might not agree with some anti hunters,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna put more bears out there so you
Speaker 1: can go take pictures or you can just walk around
Speaker 1: and enjoy it. And and that's important to us. You know,
Speaker 1: we gotta managed for while we were just talking with
Speaker 1: Jim Sessions over here and uh. And he was talking
Speaker 1: about and maybe you could add to this about how
Speaker 1: many bears right now? He said, this morning, driving from
Speaker 1: his house, he saw two gaming fish trucks with bear
Speaker 1: traps and they're going to their going to somebody's house
Speaker 1: that has a bear problem. They're gonna catch that bear.
Speaker 1: And there's a certain point when these bears have to
Speaker 1: be put down. And so it's like, so just in
Speaker 1: in theory, we could say maybe that, and you may
Speaker 1: know the exact numbers, but let's just say there's X
Speaker 1: number of bears being euthanized by government officials because these
Speaker 1: bears get in trouble. I mean, are are are we saying,
Speaker 1: as sportsman, hey, why don't we have a managed hunt
Speaker 1: eighteen bear quota A female quote? I mean, just something
Speaker 1: so minuscule that it would have Basically, it would have
Speaker 1: It would have zero net effect on the population. Truly,
Speaker 1: it's true, but it would. But a hunted population of
Speaker 1: animals acts so much differently, and you tell me they
Speaker 1: act so much differently than an unhunted group of anyway,
Speaker 1: what I guess what we're saying is, hey, let's sportsman,
Speaker 1: take these twenty bears a year out that have to
Speaker 1: be taken out. It's gonna generate funds. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: all these positive things that to manage the resource and
Speaker 1: and and it's been it's been a really crazy five
Speaker 1: or six years with this grizzly bear deal, because we
Speaker 1: went from having him d listed and I think it
Speaker 1: was oh nine and they got the court ruling put
Speaker 1: them back on the list. The the give it give us.
Speaker 1: Just for somebody that knows nothing of this, and some
Speaker 1: people back east that listen to this podcast don't. So
Speaker 1: the grizzly bear and the lower forty eight in the
Speaker 1: United States was on the endangered species list. If it's
Speaker 1: on the endangered species list, it cannot be hunt it.
Speaker 1: There's there's qualifications for what an animal, biological qualifications that
Speaker 1: you know, indicate whether an animals should be on that list.
Speaker 1: When it when those qualifications, I mean like when a
Speaker 1: certain number or recovery quote unquote is a dablished, then
Speaker 1: that animal can be taken off of the endangered species list.
Speaker 1: All endangered species are managed by the federal government, that's correct,
Speaker 1: but when they're off the endangered species list, they could
Speaker 1: be managed at a state level, which is essentially what
Speaker 1: would happen is if the grizzly bear in the lower
Speaker 1: forty eight were taken off the endangered species list, they
Speaker 1: could be managed by Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and these states
Speaker 1: managed through hunting basically, and so then these bears could
Speaker 1: be hunted. That's the that's like the super condensed version
Speaker 1: for somebody that knows nothing about this. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: what we've really tried to shoot for is state management,
Speaker 1: right because the people that have recovered the bear are
Speaker 1: primarily state agency people. They're the biologists, and Wyoming was
Speaker 1: tasked with managing their bears under the federal government. We
Speaker 1: receive a very small amount of money, but up towards
Speaker 1: to the tune of forty million that was spent on
Speaker 1: ott of Wyoming's budget to manage these things. We we
Speaker 1: spent the majority of the money to bring the bears
Speaker 1: back from the brink. We've we've bought what we've got
Speaker 1: one of the best staffs as far as conflict mitigation.
Speaker 1: We've got a recovery team. We've got guys out there
Speaker 1: every day that are doing grizzly bear stuff, and so
Speaker 1: does Montana and so does Idaho. So we funded this
Speaker 1: recovery and now the time comes to delist them and
Speaker 1: put him into state control. And we're like, let's let
Speaker 1: the people that know this bear the most manages bear
Speaker 1: sustainable population. And you know, just this recent ruling by
Speaker 1: Judge Christensen to basically he said you cannot delist a
Speaker 1: distinct population, which we tried to delist while we being
Speaker 1: the the Inner Agency Grizzly Bear Committee, who was super
Speaker 1: oversees the recovery of the grizzly bear, they tried to
Speaker 1: delist just a greater Yellowstone bear, not the Bob Marshall,
Speaker 1: not the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem, and not the set
Speaker 1: of that's up in Montana. So we have we have
Speaker 1: several distinct Greater yone ecosystem would include Wyoming, parts of
Speaker 1: southwest Montana, and parts of southeast Idaho, correct yep. And
Speaker 1: so they tried to just delist that, and that the
Speaker 1: judge says, amongst a few other things, he said, you
Speaker 1: can't do that because we don't know what effect that's
Speaker 1: going to have on the other populations. And they said, well,
Speaker 1: they proved everything basically in their paper that said there
Speaker 1: is no issue with genetic diversity, and and there it's
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a scientific thing, and he had
Speaker 1: a couple of other things saying that you're not using
Speaker 1: the most available science to count these things. And so
Speaker 1: back now we're back on the list, and the states
Speaker 1: are funding this recovery continually. Why sportsmen are paying for
Speaker 1: that through tax dollars, through licensed dollars. But yet we
Speaker 1: everyone else gets to enjoy the bear. You know, you
Speaker 1: get to take pictures of it, sell those photos. We
Speaker 1: can't kills which we've killed, We killed double what the
Speaker 1: quota was gonna be, just in Manna him in actions. See, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I want to talk about. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the point I was making earlier, is that, so
Speaker 1: how many we're killing forty bears? Are you? It was
Speaker 1: it was an they're they're uthanizing. We're paying government people
Speaker 1: to go out and trap these bears, prouble bears, and
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure they're doing the absolute best they
Speaker 1: can to not uthanize them. So I'm not saying there,
Speaker 1: but those animals could have been I mean, a it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be those specific animals, but basically hunters would go
Speaker 1: into wherever they can hunt kill bears. They would open
Speaker 1: up more space for these bears that are getting in
Speaker 1: trouble because they're leaving habitat going into more fringe habitat
Speaker 1: coming into the city. And so it's like, if you
Speaker 1: take out some of the bears in the core area,
Speaker 1: it's gonna make room for these bears that are now
Speaker 1: in the fringe. Is what what Jim told us is
Speaker 1: he said, he said, we're seeing grizzly bears here in
Speaker 1: habitat that they haven't been And I mean, so it's
Speaker 1: like the core population of bears is spanding quite rapidly.
Speaker 1: They and then and a great analogy that I heard
Speaker 1: him saying many many times is the bucket is full.
Speaker 1: We can only house so many grizzly bears in Yellowstone
Speaker 1: Park and the surrounding area. And now as we're looking,
Speaker 1: you know, as feed as ungulates is what they eat,
Speaker 1: moves out of Yellowstone, so do the predators. And now
Speaker 1: we have so many bears residing outside the park because
Speaker 1: there's better habitat for them. Um, now we're starting to
Speaker 1: see this um bucket of full buckets, full mentality. And
Speaker 1: when the buckets full, they gotta move because you know,
Speaker 1: dominant boars aren't gonna live in the same range you know,
Speaker 1: they're gonna either kill each other. You know, a young
Speaker 1: boars got to move out. Steak has claimed somewhere new.
Speaker 1: And we see that with Salsing cubs moving out, you know,
Speaker 1: because boars will kill cups and so they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're out of here. There's a dominant boar running around.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get on the I mean we get them
Speaker 1: right here, right outside of town. I mean there was
Speaker 1: a could you take us, I'm not saying that we
Speaker 1: would do this. Could you take us this afternoon? Yes,
Speaker 1: for drive up the Northfark, I would guarantee with one
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's great. I love seeing them, but
Speaker 1: like we also have to manage that resource, just like
Speaker 1: we manage everything else. The federal government gets it, us
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Services on our side. A lot of
Speaker 1: people think they're not they wanted them to list it
Speaker 1: and we are not a group. And we get a
Speaker 1: lot of flak for this because we have been pro
Speaker 1: de list for a long time. But we listen to
Speaker 1: the people that know what they're talking about. And when
Speaker 1: the Wilming gaming fish in the Montana Fish, Wildlife and
Speaker 1: Parks and Idaho departments say we're good. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: we can hunt a few of these bears. We have
Speaker 1: to listen to them because we're not scientists. They're the
Speaker 1: ones tasked with recovering it. And what we want to
Speaker 1: see as an organization, is this a sustainable population for
Speaker 1: thirty years down the road. We have grizzly bears out
Speaker 1: here in the West, a rugged wild place that people
Speaker 1: can come see grizzly bears, but we can also you know,
Speaker 1: we can have a little bit of both people who
Speaker 1: go hunt them and there's a small quota and we're
Speaker 1: shooting a few bears, but we're also managing for sustainability
Speaker 1: and what all the hunting seasons that the states put
Speaker 1: into place, because we had to have hunting seasons, we
Speaker 1: had to have it all documented, and we actually had
Speaker 1: draws and everything. Wyoming, we had draws and people drew tags.
Speaker 1: People drew tags. They never got drew tags. It basically
Speaker 1: the low they said they could have went over that quota,
Speaker 1: but they really really low and they said, you know,
Speaker 1: if we get to a level where too many bears
Speaker 1: have died throughout the year and we don't have enough
Speaker 1: in our threshold, we won't have a season. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what a better check and balance. We're good, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna over harvest this thing down to levels
Speaker 1: that it was when it got put on the endangered
Speaker 1: species list. So the states were really good about it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a win win um. But here
Speaker 1: we are today with no So what what happened was
Speaker 1: that the grizzly wear was delisted and this has actually
Speaker 1: happened multiple times. It was officially de listed, and then
Speaker 1: anti hunting groups sued the federal government. Uh. He was
Speaker 1: fishing Wildlife Service. Uh. And so then it went to
Speaker 1: a judge in Missoula, and Judge Christensen ruled in favor
Speaker 1: of them. Let me ask you something about that, and
Speaker 1: maybe you can say something. Maybe you can't. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like this guy was Was it a just decision?
Speaker 1: To me? No, And I'm I'm maybe a little biased.
Speaker 1: The guy had the lawsuit on his desk for months. Months.
Speaker 1: We got to this deadline where the seasons were gonna
Speaker 1: open in Wyoming. I think it was August fifteen. These
Speaker 1: first guys are gonna go out and hunt him. He
Speaker 1: didn't even like see. The trial didn't even happen in
Speaker 1: Missoula until like that week. And then he said, I
Speaker 1: need more time. So it was they filed an injunction
Speaker 1: to stop the hunt for two weeks. So they filed
Speaker 1: in junction. Said yeah, so it stopped the hunt for
Speaker 1: two weeks, and then it took like two more weeks
Speaker 1: former rule and you finally said no. So now the
Speaker 1: US Fish and Wildlife Services appealing that in district court,
Speaker 1: which the district court that it's in I heard is
Speaker 1: not very favorable for us. So I think what we're
Speaker 1: in now is the same situation with well, you know,
Speaker 1: we're in litigation, which unfortunately, wildlife should never be managed
Speaker 1: in a court of I saw a statistic the other day,
Speaker 1: and to be honest with you, I can't save is
Speaker 1: with wolves or with grizzlies. But it was a statistic
Speaker 1: that told the gazillions of dollars that the US government
Speaker 1: has paid in litigation fees fighting these anti hunting grounds.
Speaker 1: I mean, all it takes is for somebody to follow
Speaker 1: lawsuit and to have big money, which they do, they do,
Speaker 1: and they can they can tie this thing up in
Speaker 1: court for that's the end game for them decades for
Speaker 1: or maybe forever. And plus they have that equal active justice,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure you're familiar with where the groups if
Speaker 1: they sue and win, they recoup percentage of their attorney
Speaker 1: fees from the federal government. So that it's a we
Speaker 1: need to repeal, we need to get that out of there.
Speaker 1: But it just seems it just seems so unjust. I mean,
Speaker 1: even even if you if you were to just pull
Speaker 1: out of this planet and go somewhere else where, there
Speaker 1: was a fair and equal judgment system for human morals
Speaker 1: and ethics, and we're to present this case, it would
Speaker 1: be it's crazy. It's and you know, a big thing
Speaker 1: that we've always said that these these organizations stay relevant
Speaker 1: with their population base, that their constituency by lawsuits. That's
Speaker 1: how they stay relevant. Because if they're not fighting this,
Speaker 1: they can't raise money. That's how they raise money. Is there, Well,
Speaker 1: grizzly bears are a hot point. Let's sue get rid
Speaker 1: of we get that taken care of. Its almost They
Speaker 1: really don't even they don't care about the animal. Otherwise
Speaker 1: they'd be out here with us putting collars on bears
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, they'd be putting fences up. They
Speaker 1: don't care, you know, and we're the ones with no
Speaker 1: money trying to do all this stuff. And that's what's
Speaker 1: always been frustrating to us, is when it comes time
Speaker 1: to come to the table and do something for bears,
Speaker 1: no one's to be found. But when it comes time
Speaker 1: to hunting, it's like everyone in the world has got
Speaker 1: an opinion and none of them are doing anything other
Speaker 1: than suing. And it's just a publicity stunt for them,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's grizzly bears. And when it's not
Speaker 1: grizzly bears, now it's bear baiting. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: incredibly easy sell to someone that has no context for
Speaker 1: conservation based hunting of North America, which is the and
Speaker 1: I mean every time I open my mouth I say this,
Speaker 1: but I mean, you know, the reason we have big
Speaker 1: game is because of hunters. I mean we all know that,
Speaker 1: but but I still don't think people really understand that.
Speaker 1: Well even hunters don't understand that, but non hunters not
Speaker 1: at all. No, I mean, it's such an easy sell.
Speaker 1: It's such an easy sell to put up a billboard here. Well,
Speaker 1: I know, I've seen I've seen your social media post.
Speaker 1: I drive by twice a day. It's just uh and
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of it boils down to
Speaker 1: like the as hunters were a consumptive user, and we
Speaker 1: pay for the resource, and and part of that money
Speaker 1: is back to wildlife management, whether it's to ensure hunting
Speaker 1: seasons or just to do some habitat work on on
Speaker 1: the landscape too, for better LK habitat, you know. But
Speaker 1: that's all consumptive money. That's money that hunters are spending.
Speaker 1: And we got the anti hunters that basically don't pay
Speaker 1: a dime to manage to bring these populations to where
Speaker 1: everyone can enjoy. And as hunters, we're supposed to feel
Speaker 1: guilty about hunting. It's like we're the ones that are
Speaker 1: bringing this resource back, we're managing it and and as
Speaker 1: hunters we have to always defend ourselves. You know, I
Speaker 1: want to stop you right there. A lot of people
Speaker 1: would know this, uh, A lot of hunters that are
Speaker 1: kind of in the know, especially if they listen to
Speaker 1: the Meteor podcast, they would know what what we're saying
Speaker 1: when we say that hunters are paying for conservation. I've
Speaker 1: meant reference to me your podcast just because they they've
Speaker 1: done some in depth podcasts about the funding for conservation whatnot.
Speaker 1: But what we're talking about is the Robertson Pittman Act,
Speaker 1: which is an excise tax on hunting gear, firearms, and ammunition.
Speaker 1: So basically in the nineteen forties under Roosevelt's or somebody, Um,
Speaker 1: yeah it was, it was it was uh Franklin uh fdr. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what he's the one that signed it in I believe.
Speaker 1: And basically they said, we're gonna a tax more on hunting,
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing gear and uh and ammunition, firearms. That
Speaker 1: money is gonna go into a big fund and the
Speaker 1: federal government that's gonna be distributed to the states for
Speaker 1: wildlife conservation, for buying land, for I mean, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's what we mean when we say now I
Speaker 1: think it's a people have got to know that. I mean,
Speaker 1: like the guys, the guys in the I mean, I
Speaker 1: bet if I pulled the average Arkansas hunter that has
Speaker 1: a hunting license, not a guy that's really into it,
Speaker 1: just a guy that bought a tag maybe gonna go shoot,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know that. He can't tell somebody that. No.
Speaker 1: So we have a lot of friends that are international
Speaker 1: that that have no context for hunting, but they know
Speaker 1: our family and they know that I make a living
Speaker 1: in the hunting industry, and I've had very good conversations
Speaker 1: with the people, and that's one of the first things
Speaker 1: I bring up is that we have paid for wildlife conservation,
Speaker 1: and boy, that rings a bell with people. So you
Speaker 1: guys are the only ones that you know basically basically
Speaker 1: you know when you look at and Rynella has talked
Speaker 1: about it. You know, the big mounds of buffalo skulls
Speaker 1: back east, you know, in the bone yards, and and
Speaker 1: there was no wildlife on this landscape in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds. And now we've hit epic uh populations of
Speaker 1: deer and elk, you know, and deer always in the west,
Speaker 1: mule deer. We have more bears now than we ever
Speaker 1: have in continental wide black bear in this region, bears.
Speaker 1: And that's all through management and and hunting dollars. And
Speaker 1: we've we've managed to bring all these animals to record
Speaker 1: levels of populations, all while hunting them, all while hunting
Speaker 1: them so nothing if we take out hunting, there might
Speaker 1: be a few more, but we know the consequences of that,
Speaker 1: you know, disease and just it's wherever an animal has value.
Speaker 1: And this is an old drum that we beat because
Speaker 1: it's true. Wherever an animal has cultural value, it will
Speaker 1: be protected. It'll succeed and and it gains cultural value
Speaker 1: and has for us, and it has worked through hunting.
Speaker 1: You know, we will value it. We want to be
Speaker 1: able to partake of the resource, so we protect it
Speaker 1: and just take a small little sliver the population back
Speaker 1: so that we can have bear rugs and bear steaks.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest things that we've We've said for
Speaker 1: a long time and I heard this in one of
Speaker 1: a grizzly bear seminar, And you know, public perception is
Speaker 1: probably the biggest point right now when it comes to
Speaker 1: recovery of an animal and the grizzly bear, the public
Speaker 1: reception of the grizzly bears poor. And I I've said
Speaker 1: this for a long time. If you want to create
Speaker 1: advocates for grizzly bears, hunters are the best advocates. But
Speaker 1: we've gotta be able to hunt them. And if you
Speaker 1: let hunters, you'll start getting guys that are like, I'm
Speaker 1: the biggest grizzly bear passionate hunter. I'm like that guy,
Speaker 1: just like I was with black you know, just like
Speaker 1: I was a black bears. Pretty soon you're gonna have
Speaker 1: guys out there just like wolves there like all I
Speaker 1: care about grizzly bears. And you can be damn sure
Speaker 1: that guy is gonna make sure that that grizzly bears
Speaker 1: always on that landscape and he's on it. And so
Speaker 1: you got to create those passion points. And we've got
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty years of history to prove that
Speaker 1: that's true. Yep, it's not just a guess. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's since the Native Americans run this landscape. You know,
Speaker 1: they hunted them. Yeah, well, and and and specifically what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about is Roosevelt and Grinnell and the guys
Speaker 1: that started the Boone and Crockett Club that introduced fair
Speaker 1: Chase and and and later that rolled into wildlife management,
Speaker 1: the North American model of conservation. They did that because
Speaker 1: they hunted them. They didn't they didn't do that because
Speaker 1: they like to take photos. It's true, it's true. You
Speaker 1: take a photo of a bear. I mean, I get it.
Speaker 1: There are people that are truly passionate about bears that
Speaker 1: all they take this photos. But man, if you're a
Speaker 1: bear hunter, you're passionate about bears being there, you are
Speaker 1: you want them there and then, and I think it
Speaker 1: all boils down to one other thing that we have
Speaker 1: a lot of tough trouble with in this state, which
Speaker 1: we're we're on the beginning stages of trying to do
Speaker 1: something about it, is you know, in Wyoming you don't
Speaker 1: have to take the carcass, which to me just makes
Speaker 1: it so much easier to to cause problems when you're
Speaker 1: talking to black bear. Yeah, and so you don't one
Speaker 1: towny you do as you know, um, because you've hunted
Speaker 1: up there. Uh, you've got to take the carcass and everything.
Speaker 1: In Wyoming you can leave the carcass. And so it
Speaker 1: really makes hunters in Wyoming, regardless if you leave it
Speaker 1: or not, black bear hunters look like trophy rug hunters exclusively.
Speaker 1: And so those are archaic laws that are not helping
Speaker 1: the image of hunter is in the general I the
Speaker 1: public's eye that we have to change and there there.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not gonna get that changed done easily,
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be a lot of hunters that are
Speaker 1: going to disagree with us, but you know, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, we have to do something that's
Speaker 1: going to sustain our ability to hunt bears and if
Speaker 1: we look like a bunch of rugthirsty dudes out there hunting,
Speaker 1: that's not good for hunting in general and the sport
Speaker 1: of hunting. And and there's a there's a common misconception
Speaker 1: about bear meat out here in the West. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been I've hunted the East, I've hunted Canada bears
Speaker 1: out there, and that that's priced, you know, the fat
Speaker 1: and everything, and out here it's like, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do with that? And I'm like, well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: eat it. You know, we butcher all our own stuff.
Speaker 1: And and and it's important to us trying to get
Speaker 1: that message out to other people, like hey, and if
Speaker 1: you don't want to bring it out, and we'll get
Speaker 1: someone that does. But that's something that I think needs
Speaker 1: to change out here. And that just lends to that
Speaker 1: hunters being this evil, you know, trophy driven species and
Speaker 1: that and that is our biggest thing. And and for
Speaker 1: what we've been trying to Barning Magazine is to change
Speaker 1: that perception, you know, to to tell a different story,
Speaker 1: to tell a story of of the bear is an
Speaker 1: incredible animal for wildlife related commodities. I mean, there's just
Speaker 1: all these uses that you can have for bear and
Speaker 1: uh and just telling the telling the news story of
Speaker 1: who the bear hunter is. You know when you guys
Speaker 1: have done a great job with that. Since you've got
Speaker 1: that and taken over, you can really see that publication
Speaker 1: is just it's taken huge leaps into that respect of
Speaker 1: not just being grip and grin articles, but you know,
Speaker 1: really explaining what bear hunting is in biology and you know,
Speaker 1: what to do with the meat and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just been so good. And then the
Speaker 1: podcast and the movies that the video, the films that
Speaker 1: you're shooting is all helping that out. And we needed
Speaker 1: that as bear hunters. We needed a group or someone
Speaker 1: that had the ability to put that message out there
Speaker 1: because a lot of times is bear hunters and I've
Speaker 1: seen this, um, bear hunters tend to be a pretty quiet,
Speaker 1: like not very you know, out there group of people
Speaker 1: because I think we're always defending what we do, so
Speaker 1: we tend to just kind of sit in the back
Speaker 1: and like, don't bring it up because it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a problem. And so now to have a group out there,
Speaker 1: like you guys that are just really bringing a positive
Speaker 1: light to bear hunting and you know, One of the
Speaker 1: things that I that is that is important to me
Speaker 1: is that, you know, the reason that bears are the
Speaker 1: low hanging fruit for the anti hunting community and even
Speaker 1: misunderstood people that hunters that misunderstand bear hunting is because
Speaker 1: of some of the tactics that we have to use
Speaker 1: to manage bears, baiting bears and running hounds, those two things.
Speaker 1: And and this is a sad This is a sad
Speaker 1: thing to me is I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: hunters today that don't understand the macro picture of the
Speaker 1: goals the anti hunting community that would say we should
Speaker 1: just give that to them. They would say, it's not
Speaker 1: important to me. It's such a small little fraction of
Speaker 1: our hunting, you know, and it's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: there's not well, there are plenty of other animals that
Speaker 1: we bait that it's totally ethical, totally Oh, everybody in
Speaker 1: Arkansas bait white tail. People don't know how to quit
Speaker 1: learn like we quit deer hunting whitetail. We we quit
Speaker 1: being hunters about twenty years ago when Walmart started selling
Speaker 1: corn in Arkansas. I'm I'm joking about myself, but I
Speaker 1: mean it's true. But point being debat a bear just
Speaker 1: seems so to someone that doesn't understand. They misperceive how
Speaker 1: that it's uh, the difficulty of it. They think it's easy.
Speaker 1: They misperceived the motivation, they misperceived the amount of work,
Speaker 1: they misperceived all this crazy stuff about it. But one
Speaker 1: thing that I am intently harping on is that the
Speaker 1: methodology that we use that our game agencies who want
Speaker 1: animals to thrive have prescribed in the different regions of
Speaker 1: the country to hunt bears are there for a purpose,
Speaker 1: for conservation based reasons. In Arkansas, if all we had
Speaker 1: was spot and stock hunting, there would be twenty five
Speaker 1: bears killed in the state of Arkansas every year. The
Speaker 1: bears would I mean, we would have all kinds of problems.
Speaker 1: We gotta bait bears on private land in Arkansas to
Speaker 1: harvest the bears that we need. You got to manage
Speaker 1: that resource. And those game and fish managers use baiting
Speaker 1: and they use hound hunting as a tool in their
Speaker 1: bucket to manage That's all it is. That it's not
Speaker 1: a it's not a way to be like, let's kill
Speaker 1: all these bears. Are like, we're not harvesting enough bears.
Speaker 1: We need to figure out how. And they do it
Speaker 1: in Idaho. They do baiting is loud wyoming in certain
Speaker 1: parts of the state where we don't have grizzly bears,
Speaker 1: and it's a tool and mean and if we got
Speaker 1: rid of it, we'd have a bunch of guys out
Speaker 1: there that don't know nothing about bear hunting spot in
Speaker 1: stock and we'd struggle, you know well. And and what
Speaker 1: I want to say to the wider hunting community is
Speaker 1: that the strategy of anti hunting communities is incrementalization. They
Speaker 1: want to chip at us piece by piece. So right
Speaker 1: now they're after baiting hounds all over the country in Maine,
Speaker 1: in different places. All these associations are are geared towards
Speaker 1: defending bear associations Michigan, Wisconsin. And if we give that
Speaker 1: to them, then the next thing will be the next
Speaker 1: It's well, and then eventually, when my son is thirty
Speaker 1: five years old, they'll be after him for bo hunt.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like we can't. We we've got
Speaker 1: nothing left to give the anti hunting community and we
Speaker 1: need the wider We need anybody who cares about hunting
Speaker 1: in our way of life in North America needs to
Speaker 1: help us defend baiting in houns. That's that's what I
Speaker 1: want to say to people. Ultimately, you hit it on
Speaker 1: the head because if we give up one thing, one thing,
Speaker 1: I don't care what it is, we're gonna lose it all.
Speaker 1: And we've stressed it so much. In the bear hunting community,
Speaker 1: there's decisive there. There's people that are divided, and we
Speaker 1: get spot inst guys that will trash on bait guys
Speaker 1: because they don't spot in stock hunting. They bait and
Speaker 1: not supposed to be easy. And we get bait guys
Speaker 1: mount At, matt At, Houndsman and Idaho because they're rigging
Speaker 1: off of their baits. I'm like, guys, we are all
Speaker 1: bear hunters at the end of the day, and they
Speaker 1: are like loving this because we're divided in our own
Speaker 1: ranks and we can't be that way. And and we've
Speaker 1: always said we'll support any hunting organization. We do a
Speaker 1: lot with non hunting organizations. We do anything we can
Speaker 1: because we know that we're gonna need people to come
Speaker 1: to bat for us one day as bear hunters, and
Speaker 1: and you know we support any you know, Rocky Mountainel
Speaker 1: called us said we need to do something with this
Speaker 1: or the sheep Wild Sheep said, you know, we're all
Speaker 1: about wildlife, and it's like we need that approach to bears,
Speaker 1: Like all hunters need to look at it and say,
Speaker 1: I don't hunt bears, but the antis are attacking that,
Speaker 1: and if we lose that then it's just gonna spiral.
Speaker 1: Then I think that's the direction we're headed, Joe as
Speaker 1: a as a community. You know, just in the last
Speaker 1: ten years, we've really had social media. Just in the
Speaker 1: last really five years, podcasts have come up. In Podcasts
Speaker 1: are such an effective way to communicate, even probably more
Speaker 1: than the written word, because people can excess that, people
Speaker 1: can hear. But I feel like we're building to this
Speaker 1: point where the let's just say, well, let's just say
Speaker 1: bears in general, but specifically I'm talking about black bears
Speaker 1: because where we can hunt them, we're adding value to
Speaker 1: black bear hunting. On a national level, We're adding value
Speaker 1: to black bears. People are starting to pay attention. People
Speaker 1: are starting to go on massive adventures like we've been
Speaker 1: on out West to go on to do it yourself
Speaker 1: spot and stock hunt. Guys in Arkansas and Oklahoma are
Speaker 1: becoming like serious bear hunters, like all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the street cred the bear is elevating. People are gonna
Speaker 1: start caring about it more, and then we're gonna have
Speaker 1: more of this influx of Wow. We got to defend
Speaker 1: this if we love it, just like they did with sheep,
Speaker 1: just like they did without Now for those, for those
Speaker 1: their problems where they didn't have them, they didn't to
Speaker 1: have the habitat. Our problem is not habitat. Whatever's happening
Speaker 1: in North America ecologically has been extremely beneficial to black
Speaker 1: in Iowa. Now, I mean habits that I don't think.
Speaker 1: So it's like we've got this ripe resource and we
Speaker 1: need people to step up to bath And I mean
Speaker 1: we my hat right here, Joseph's bear hunter. I mean
Speaker 1: we're trying to build this thing of an identity a
Speaker 1: bear hunter. We need that I'm a bear hunter. We
Speaker 1: and it. Basically, what you're saying is we need to
Speaker 1: create advocates. We need hunter advocates out there, and there
Speaker 1: hasn't been a lot for bear hunting. As bear hunting
Speaker 1: gets more popular, it's a double edged sword. As bear
Speaker 1: hunting becomes more popular, you've got guys that don't like
Speaker 1: it because now all of a sudden, I have the
Speaker 1: same drainage I would I would bear hunt in but
Speaker 1: at the same token, we now have more people that
Speaker 1: will fight to fight for us, and we need to
Speaker 1: and we're still so far behind what a lot of
Speaker 1: these groups are. We got to keep building that out.
Speaker 1: And that's why it's so important to create advocates for
Speaker 1: hunting bears. And like I said, bear huntings popularity is
Speaker 1: exploded and and we're kind of on the front of
Speaker 1: that right now, and we were like, we need to
Speaker 1: build that out because the more people that buy bear
Speaker 1: tags are advocates for bear hunting, you know, and that's
Speaker 1: what we need. That's our defense mechanism, right It really
Speaker 1: doesn't and you know, talking to you, it's like this
Speaker 1: idea has grown as even as we're talking. But it
Speaker 1: almost doesn't make sense that the icon of North American
Speaker 1: wilderness the bear has not been elevated to this high
Speaker 1: position of cultural significance in the hunting community, because the
Speaker 1: same thing that you experienced here is what I experienced
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, that we had a world class resource and
Speaker 1: people just didn't really care about it. But that's changing
Speaker 1: and it and it changes when people like us step
Speaker 1: up and say, wait a minute, this is awesome that
Speaker 1: the foundations of our North American hunting culture were built
Speaker 1: on bear hunter. I mean, you know, I used that
Speaker 1: phrase a lot, and and I didn't make it up.
Speaker 1: I've read it somewhere. Bears the icon of North American wilderness,
Speaker 1: like in in so many of our the patriarchs of
Speaker 1: the North American hunting that we know identified themselves as
Speaker 1: bear hunters. And specifically I'm talking about Teddy Roosevelt and
Speaker 1: Daniel Boone among many others. I mean, they identified themselves
Speaker 1: as bear hunters. You know, Boone, I think killed and
Speaker 1: fifty five bears one winner. And you were a bad
Speaker 1: dude if you bear hunted back in Yes, you were
Speaker 1: a man's man, that's right. I see pictures of you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt and Buffalo Bill Cody at their hunting lodge up
Speaker 1: here at Pahaska from the old days, you know, black
Speaker 1: and white pictures and they got cheap and eak and
Speaker 1: stuff and two bears and like that. It's been going
Speaker 1: on forever, you know, the in Arkansas. I read some
Speaker 1: literature one time, and one author said that it was
Speaker 1: a status symbol back in the eighteen hundreds to have
Speaker 1: a big bear drying on your barn. I mean it
Speaker 1: was like it was like man that and it was
Speaker 1: was deeper than just you know, like Ego, he killed
Speaker 1: a big bear. But if you killed the big bear
Speaker 1: back in eighteen thirty seven, man, you had enough lard
Speaker 1: for the winter, You had enough meat for the wind,
Speaker 1: had a heck of a rug that you could either
Speaker 1: sell or keep. Like it was a status symbol. It was.
Speaker 1: It was like having a Porsche park in front of
Speaker 1: your house, you know. But that's that's the And I
Speaker 1: think what I've kind of discovered, and I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of it's maybe interesting that I'm from Arkansas, a
Speaker 1: place that people hit nationally wouldn't know as a bear state.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of cool because Arkansas was once start
Speaker 1: in the as the bear state. But more importantly than that,
Speaker 1: from what we're trying to do from a media perspective, is,
Speaker 1: you know, we just came back from Montana and had
Speaker 1: an incredible world class do it yourself adventure in the
Speaker 1: back country of Montana and killed the nice bear. And like,
Speaker 1: this is like a totally new experience for me, even
Speaker 1: in I mean, I've done it several times now, but
Speaker 1: if you look at my whole life, I did not
Speaker 1: grow up doing that kind of hunt. And so it's
Speaker 1: like it's it's the bear encompasses such a massive range,
Speaker 1: all these different methods of hunting, and it's almost like
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, a guy just coming out
Speaker 1: here and just discovering this incredible world. And that's yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know what's funny to me as we talk
Speaker 1: about all the opportunities for bear hunters in North America
Speaker 1: down to Mexico, there's bears, I mean the black bears
Speaker 1: in Old Mexico. Yep. We I look at a group
Speaker 1: like the Wild Cheap Foundation, how successful they are. They've
Speaker 1: built that organization with hunters that may never hunt a
Speaker 1: wild cheap. They spend most of their money on wild
Speaker 1: They spend a lot of money going to wild Cheap,
Speaker 1: which Wild Cheap are very Um, how do I want
Speaker 1: to say this? Uh, they're susceptible to disease, are fragile species,
Speaker 1: and we got to do a lot to protect them.
Speaker 1: And I don't discredit what they're doing. They've done an
Speaker 1: amazing job and I hope one day I can. But
Speaker 1: people will spend erroneous amounts of money. I shouldn't say erroneous.
Speaker 1: They'll spend a lot of money. I'm gonna get in
Speaker 1: trouble here. They'll spend a lot of money for a
Speaker 1: foundation for sheep, and it's a species they may never
Speaker 1: get a hunt in their life. Meanwhile, we have bears
Speaker 1: that you can buy tags for over the counter, and people,
Speaker 1: I think take that for granted. I think if bears
Speaker 1: were so obscure and so limited an opportunity, we would
Speaker 1: maybe be in a different conversation right now. We would
Speaker 1: be talking about something like the wild sheep does and
Speaker 1: they're like, we have a bunch of people that really
Speaker 1: want to hunt sheep, so they're going to spend the
Speaker 1: money to ensure that there's a future for sheep. We
Speaker 1: don't have a problem for the future of bears really,
Speaker 1: so people take for granted, like if we didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of really good maybe people would be a
Speaker 1: little bit more in tune with bear hunting and bears
Speaker 1: and be like, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna do whatever
Speaker 1: it takes to make sure what you're describing is the
Speaker 1: good old days of bear hunting. I mean, let's flip
Speaker 1: the equation and all of a sudden, the bear becomes
Speaker 1: the desirable game species for people to hunt, advocate for,
Speaker 1: and care about. Well, guess what, there's enormous amounts of
Speaker 1: opportunity in the direction you drive. So it's like we're
Speaker 1: in the glory years. I mean, you take it back
Speaker 1: to your analogy of the sheep. Imagine if you could
Speaker 1: buy over the counter sheep tag ins wouldn't be you
Speaker 1: know they would it wouldn't be they weren't naturally in
Speaker 1: that many but but it wouldn't be that big of
Speaker 1: a deal. You know that the Wild Sheep Foundation as
Speaker 1: a foundation wouldn't probably be as successful as they are.
Speaker 1: And and it's it's it's funny to me. That's like
Speaker 1: when you have a species that's so readily available that
Speaker 1: you have such a tough time advocating for it and
Speaker 1: a tough time getting people to be passionate about it.
Speaker 1: But you take a species that you may never hunt
Speaker 1: in your life and you're the biggest fan of that
Speaker 1: because you may never get to do it, you really
Speaker 1: want to one day. It's crazy. Yeah, it is. Well,
Speaker 1: that's incredible stuff. Incredible stuff. Um, hey, tell us a
Speaker 1: bear story. Uh what what like have you you've encountered
Speaker 1: grizzlies obviously, I mean, like, what's it I've you know,
Speaker 1: hunt in Montana where we were at. There was certainly
Speaker 1: possibilities to you because there's there's surely some grizzly bears
Speaker 1: in that country where you guess, I mean we were.
Speaker 1: We were prepared. We had bear spray and good pistols.
Speaker 1: I mean, like we were totally prepared to be in
Speaker 1: like real bear country. But there's just not that many
Speaker 1: up there right where we were. We talked to people
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, there's the odd grizz that
Speaker 1: comes through here, but it's certainly not like here, like
Speaker 1: we were hunting black bears here. I mean, you'd be
Speaker 1: in it's like over here if I go hunting, you know,
Speaker 1: spotting stock hunting, because we can't bait over here where
Speaker 1: the grizzlies are, so we spawned stock hunt over here.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's literally like if I go out,
Speaker 1: I might for every six grizz maybe see one black bear.
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's it's black bears don't want to
Speaker 1: be where the grids are. Yeah, And that's a big
Speaker 1: concern of ours has been like what is this population
Speaker 1: of grizzly bears done to our black bear population. You know,
Speaker 1: you put an apex predator on the landscape that they're
Speaker 1: fighting for the same food sources of black Beard, who's
Speaker 1: obviously not the same size and not as aggressive in nature.
Speaker 1: How well are they doing, you know? And so that's
Speaker 1: something that we've talked to. I've I've i've I've asked
Speaker 1: the department a lot about and there's just not a
Speaker 1: lot of information yet. So hopefully maybe they can't imagine
Speaker 1: that they're winning. And there's a lot of black bears
Speaker 1: over here, but you tend to see them move around
Speaker 1: more in the daytime. Why the grizzly bears are moving
Speaker 1: more in the morning and at night. So and I
Speaker 1: think you have to change your tactics. But you know,
Speaker 1: the grizzly bears around here. I don't have as many
Speaker 1: stories while black bear hunting as I do just deer
Speaker 1: and elk hunting, and just some fascinating encounters as far
Speaker 1: as you know, like having to have guns drawn on
Speaker 1: bears and so close and and and I've been lucky
Speaker 1: enough not to have one charge me. Um. I've had
Speaker 1: him next to my tent in that country for hunting,
Speaker 1: and you can hear them breathe and they're trying to
Speaker 1: get your dear meat out of your cash, you know.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, there's a lot of stories of
Speaker 1: guys losing their animals to to grizzly bears, you know,
Speaker 1: after the kill, and then I've been lucky. It's never
Speaker 1: happened to me. But I know if I spend enough
Speaker 1: time over there, and it will, you know. And I've
Speaker 1: seen him up close, really close. And you know, I
Speaker 1: walk in in the dark, and I hunt on foot
Speaker 1: a lot, you know, and so it's just a matter
Speaker 1: of time. But you've got to be super vigilant. I mean,
Speaker 1: like spray on your chest. I carry a gun underneath
Speaker 1: my binal harness and then I carry my bear spray
Speaker 1: on my hip on my pack belt. So I always
Speaker 1: have to and I've never known, you know, I've actually
Speaker 1: had more scary encounters with black bears than I have
Speaker 1: grizzly bears. But I've seen tons of grizzly bears, but
Speaker 1: most of them I've seen it as at a distance
Speaker 1: or I've seen him to where I'm like I have
Speaker 1: time like last year, we were deer hunting, and uh,
Speaker 1: we were in an area we'd shot a deer the
Speaker 1: week before. So okay, automatically, that's like that carcass is
Speaker 1: like gonna probably have a bear by there. And we've
Speaker 1: seen bears in that drainage a bunch. We knew an
Speaker 1: outfit or had been hunting the other drainage right next
Speaker 1: to it and shot some deer the day before. And
Speaker 1: so we were walking up and there comes why to
Speaker 1: go and which drainage and we picked the one on
Speaker 1: the right where the outfit had been and seeing a
Speaker 1: bunch of crows and stuff, and we wanted to push
Speaker 1: farther back in there. And it was just kind of like,
Speaker 1: all right, let's think about this. There's two carcasses at
Speaker 1: least up there from deer, and this is the prime
Speaker 1: time for grizzlies to be out, you know, scavenging these carcasses.
Speaker 1: Let's just be smart and turn around, you know. So
Speaker 1: you have to manage manage the risk versus reward a lot,
Speaker 1: I think in this country, you know, and like be
Speaker 1: be smart. But you know, um, they're there and they're
Speaker 1: they're they're just aggressive and they're not afraid of people,
Speaker 1: which is is a problem. I mean that they they
Speaker 1: don't run like most black bears. Would um when you
Speaker 1: see him. And I've seen little ones do it, but
Speaker 1: I've seen big ones to stare you down and just
Speaker 1: walk like, just keep doing. You're in my world and
Speaker 1: you better know that. Let me ask you a question,
Speaker 1: what does Joe Condella's pool when he sees a charging bear?
Speaker 1: That's that's a great question. I've asked myself a billion times.
Speaker 1: I wish I could do both with my rifle three handed.
Speaker 1: I've asked myself so many times. You go through the
Speaker 1: scenario in your head because I think if you don't,
Speaker 1: you're being ill prepared. You have to understand what's going
Speaker 1: to happen and what could happen, and and that's a
Speaker 1: crazy thing to think about every day when you go
Speaker 1: out hunting. It's like I could get backed. It does
Speaker 1: and makes it way more real being out there and
Speaker 1: knowing that, like at any minute, you could come around
Speaker 1: a corner in your head lamp and there'll be a
Speaker 1: sow with two cubs on that same trail and you're done.
Speaker 1: And most attacks happened under five seconds, So that's what
Speaker 1: you got, and you got to make that decision in
Speaker 1: your head, and there's no way to prepare for that.
Speaker 1: So I think going over the scenario in your head
Speaker 1: and in my mind, I've always I carry bear spray
Speaker 1: because they've proven it's they say it's successful in mitigating conflict.
Speaker 1: But like to me, it just seems like I'm grabbing
Speaker 1: my pistol. Now is that the right thing to do?
Speaker 1: And I don't know. You know, bear spray becomes ineffective
Speaker 1: in the cold, wet, really cold, if it's windy. We're
Speaker 1: in Wyoming, it's always windy. I mean, it's always windy
Speaker 1: out here. So if you gotta gust going sideways and
Speaker 1: you you deploy your bear spray and it just blows
Speaker 1: or she just gets a you're you're getting it. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. For me, like I and my pistol,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I just think that I'll grab
Speaker 1: for that. Um. The one time up there, two years ago,
Speaker 1: we had a bear come up off a carcass and
Speaker 1: was real curious, didn't charge, but it came up to
Speaker 1: us and I had my rifle down, but I had time.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know, I think, uh, I think
Speaker 1: I to grab my pistol. But you know what, my
Speaker 1: my philosophy has been has been carry bear spray and
Speaker 1: pistol that we did Montana, and if you have time
Speaker 1: and feel like you can mitigate the situation with a
Speaker 1: bear spray, obviously you pulled one. So if you're if
Speaker 1: you're at your camp and you see agree is eighty
Speaker 1: yards away and you're like, oh crap, you know, you
Speaker 1: pull out the bear spray and you're and you're ready.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, in the heat of the moment,
Speaker 1: you're grabbing your pistol your life, and if you come
Speaker 1: around the corner there's a bear, you're grabbing the pistol
Speaker 1: your life and death. And I think that's what I
Speaker 1: carry both. I think for that reason. You know, if
Speaker 1: you see one and you're like, okay, we might have
Speaker 1: a problem here, I'm ready. I got my bear spray off.
Speaker 1: My gun is a backup. But that the old joke
Speaker 1: around here is most guys carry both the bear spray
Speaker 1: to to prevent its charge and then the gun to
Speaker 1: end your life when you've been mauled and you're gonna die,
Speaker 1: you know, to ease your suffering. But um, i've been
Speaker 1: seeing I've been encouraged to see a lot more people
Speaker 1: that come out because there's a lot of people that
Speaker 1: will come out here hunting that have no knowledge or
Speaker 1: they just refused to think it's real. And non residents
Speaker 1: come out here deer hunting and their galvant and around,
Speaker 1: no bear spray, no pistol, and they're just like what.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, dude, you know where you're hunting. Do
Speaker 1: some research. And so I've been encouraged to see a
Speaker 1: lot more people. And we've always tell people like, get
Speaker 1: bear spray, and if you do carry a pistol, know
Speaker 1: how to use it, because you could carry a pistol
Speaker 1: all you want. If you can't shoot it, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna do any good. You just as well throw it
Speaker 1: at him and hope it hit him square in between
Speaker 1: the eyes, and then it's just gonna make more mad. So,
Speaker 1: and don't carry a pistol that I carry a tin. Um.
Speaker 1: I've just been it's a Kimberton Um. I've just been
Speaker 1: more doing a lot of research. Fort is okay, But
Speaker 1: I think you want something like a tin to for
Speaker 1: the stopping power. Yeah, And I carry it a lot
Speaker 1: of times when I'm baiting or if I'm just bear hunting.
Speaker 1: What what was your hairin situation with a black bear? Well,
Speaker 1: I've had him, um like we outside of Missoula. Uh,
Speaker 1: years and years ago, we shot a black I shot
Speaker 1: a black bear and we couldn't find it. So we
Speaker 1: were stalking it, uh, falling the blood trail and it
Speaker 1: was down in this choked draw and uh, I'll never
Speaker 1: forget this, but I was standing next to my buddy.
Speaker 1: We were about ten yards apart, and I hit that bear.
Speaker 1: It was it was I was shooting down off of
Speaker 1: this ridge and the bear was walking. I tried to
Speaker 1: hit him right here, and I hit him in the face.
Speaker 1: And so he's walking and he's bleeding all over the place,
Speaker 1: you know. And then he bedded down and we walked
Speaker 1: right up on that thing and it stood up on
Speaker 1: its hind legs and it was like gonna come at
Speaker 1: my buddy, and and he's trained pistol guy, and like
Speaker 1: he pulled it out. It was just like he couldn't
Speaker 1: even I mean, like just a black bear, like couldn't
Speaker 1: even get it to Like bear turned around, wheeled off
Speaker 1: and went round up the hill and we shot it.
Speaker 1: But it was just like that quick, you know. And
Speaker 1: so but I've had him climb tree stands and you know,
Speaker 1: I've I've had him woofing at me out of sow
Speaker 1: and uh, two cubs of South put the run on me.
Speaker 1: In the in the big hole Southwest Antana spotted this
Speaker 1: bear a long ways off and that's all we could
Speaker 1: see was that one bear. So we make a run
Speaker 1: on it and we got in the timber and we're
Speaker 1: sneaking up and I hear, you know, the claws going
Speaker 1: up a tree, and I'm like, oh, I climbed the tree.
Speaker 1: And I just turned around to my right and she's
Speaker 1: wolfing at me coming. She stops and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: so I figured the cubs had climbed the tree, you know.
Speaker 1: So we turned around and walked back, and then she
Speaker 1: kind of came back down the hill to make sure
Speaker 1: we weren't gonna stick around, and we gotta look, and
Speaker 1: she had two cubs climb up the tree. You know,
Speaker 1: I've had stuff like that, and I haven't had him,
Speaker 1: you know, around here, I see all those videos and
Speaker 1: I've hunted Canada where you got those bears that won't
Speaker 1: leave your bait. We don't get that around here, like
Speaker 1: they won't. They're so nervous around people around here a
Speaker 1: lot of times. But I have had them, you know,
Speaker 1: like when you're in the stand, or if they're pretty
Speaker 1: pretty good with you, like sniff pretty hard or you know,
Speaker 1: chomp or wolf. I had a bear do that to
Speaker 1: me last year, but I think it's I think it
Speaker 1: was more like, dude, I know you're there, but it's
Speaker 1: still like yeah, yeah, so more like that. And and
Speaker 1: you know, but I've been very fortunate and knock on wood,
Speaker 1: I haven't had an issue with the grizzly bear, but gosh,
Speaker 1: I could tell you fifty million stories of close friends
Speaker 1: and people around here that have and it happens every year.
Speaker 1: We get guys getting mauled or and it's not just hunters,
Speaker 1: it's hikers and everything else. And it's just you can
Speaker 1: do everything right that you can think of and it
Speaker 1: can still happen to you. But we just have so
Speaker 1: many and it's just it's it's just a chance. You're
Speaker 1: you're fighting the odds, I mean, anymore. And and it's
Speaker 1: changed some of my old hunting tactics, like I can't
Speaker 1: backpack hunt. I love to backpack hunt, I can't backpack
Speaker 1: hunt ilk in some of these areas because if I
Speaker 1: get an elk down in a grizzly area, there's a
Speaker 1: good chance I can't get that ilk out by myself,
Speaker 1: you know, five six miles in one trip, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to make multiple trips. And and there's just
Speaker 1: a good chance on that next trip back and I
Speaker 1: don't have horses, that there's gonna be a bear on
Speaker 1: the on the carcass. So it's like, it's it's crazy
Speaker 1: to think that one animal can change what you do,
Speaker 1: but you know, and I never thought it would, but
Speaker 1: it does, it does, it does, and then they're remarkable
Speaker 1: to see out in the wild. I had a mountain
Speaker 1: goat permit for the wilderness up here right on the
Speaker 1: edge of Yellowstone Park, and my best friend came down
Speaker 1: and hunted with me, and he's like, he's from Southwest Montown.
Speaker 1: He's like, I've never seen a grizz in the wild
Speaker 1: I was like, well, we were hunting behind this thing
Speaker 1: called the bear Gate. It's a place where they drop
Speaker 1: a lot of the bears that they have to relocate
Speaker 1: because you can bring a culvert trap in there, and
Speaker 1: then the gate closes until July, and then in July
Speaker 1: to September it's open. It's a it's a beautiful bear
Speaker 1: habitat Big Big Peaks, it's gorgeous right on the park border.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, Bud, you're gonna see some grizzly bears.
Speaker 1: And I said, if we don't have a close encounter,
Speaker 1: I'll be shocked. We hunted in there for seven days
Speaker 1: and didn't see one grizzly bear. He's like, dude, I
Speaker 1: hear all these stories, and I'm like, we were. I
Speaker 1: don't even know how happy I am and how lucky
Speaker 1: I feel. He's like, I just wanted to see one
Speaker 1: far away. And I was like, well, but we I
Speaker 1: mean I could, honestly, you could drive up the North
Speaker 1: Fork today and probably see one. Yeah, it's incredible. That
Speaker 1: is incredible. Well, hey, this has been a super good conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: any closing thoughts, No, just keep up the good work, man.
Speaker 1: We need what you're doing out there. And you know,
Speaker 1: if anyone's hunting in the West and and and we
Speaker 1: I feeled a lot of calls for guys trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to bear hunt, you know, And like
Speaker 1: I said, that's what we're here for. We're not only
Speaker 1: a group out there building fences and and keeping bears
Speaker 1: out of trouble. We're there for the bear hunter. The
Speaker 1: prospective bear hunter that wants to learn or has questions
Speaker 1: and you know, um, that's what we're here for. And
Speaker 1: when you pick up the number you get on our website,
Speaker 1: you call you, you call me, or you email me personally,
Speaker 1: and and so we're really really hands on that way.
Speaker 1: And um, just love to talk. And we've met so
Speaker 1: I met so many people doing this that it's just
Speaker 1: been it's been truly a pleasure. So and finally get
Speaker 1: to meet you in person, it's been great. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad it worked out today. And uh, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say the exact same thing back to you doing
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Man, for real, I got a lot
Speaker 1: of respect, thank you for what you guys are doing it.
Speaker 1: And I think it's really just the beginning. And I
Speaker 1: I mean, you see, I just really believe that as
Speaker 1: the the status of the big game animal, the bear
Speaker 1: continues to elevate, that there's gonna be more and more
Speaker 1: emphasis put on conservation and advocacy for bear hunting. And
Speaker 1: you guys are the thing in the West right now.
Speaker 1: We're we're hoping to growing off to where we're really
Speaker 1: effective and being that voice for bears and bear hunters.
Speaker 1: In the West where it's like we're the go to
Speaker 1: and and I think in twenty years you and I
Speaker 1: are going to sit down and just be like thankful
Speaker 1: we did what we did, even though that a lot
Speaker 1: of it was a struggle. I think we're doing the
Speaker 1: right thing for future generations and that's important to me.
Speaker 1: Right on. Man, Well, well thanks boys. Great. I didn't
Speaker 1: even introduce to couldn't get a word in I driving planning.
Speaker 1: Uh now, Kobe, Kobe just keeps me on trackbe anything
Speaker 1: else we need to cover here. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: the only thing I was thinking about is whenever you're
Speaker 1: thinking about different types of hunting, you just have to
Speaker 1: look for the challenges that that group does. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: my first bear hunt was last year and it was
Speaker 1: on a baited hunt with an outfitter. Uh And on
Speaker 1: the last by the way, yeah it was good. Um,
Speaker 1: but on the last day there wasn't uh like, I
Speaker 1: wasn't on a hunt. So I went and I actually
Speaker 1: like ran the line with the outfitter and helped baiting. Man,
Speaker 1: I was I was dying out there. It was a
Speaker 1: lot of work. Even though he had a four wheeler
Speaker 1: and could get to him there's a lot of misconceptions
Speaker 1: about bait hunting, and I don't have to tell you
Speaker 1: because you do a lot of it. And I put
Speaker 1: in a lot of work, a lot of time, and
Speaker 1: a lot of money to do it. And I was
Speaker 1: talking that we had an event down in Rock Springs,
Speaker 1: and I'll make this short. We had an event down
Speaker 1: in Rock Springs and they all bait hunt down there,
Speaker 1: you know, And and I They're like, man, i'd love
Speaker 1: to go spot stock hunt in Montana, this one couple.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, if you do want to goal,
Speaker 1: I can point in some areas. And so I was
Speaker 1: talking around the phone the other day and she's like,
Speaker 1: I don't need to do this with bait. I don't
Speaker 1: need to do this. She's like, holy crap. Spot stock
Speaker 1: hunting sounds so much easier in bath hunging. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's not as easy to find them. But I said,
Speaker 1: they all have their challenges. And I said, bait hunting
Speaker 1: is time consuming and it's a lot of work if
Speaker 1: you're gonna do it right. Houndsmen have other challenges. They
Speaker 1: got the amount of money they put into their dog
Speaker 1: days all year round just to hunt a few months
Speaker 1: out of the year. So every one of them has
Speaker 1: their challenges, like you said, and I think it's key
Speaker 1: to to explain that to people, like people have never
Speaker 1: bait hunted, like I would love to take you, and
Speaker 1: so you can understand what it is. You know, and
Speaker 1: just because you put bait out there doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: gonna shoot a bear. I mean, I wish it was
Speaker 1: that easy. That's that's that's awesome that you said that.
Speaker 1: Now I have a thing that I say in private,
Speaker 1: and I'll make it public here. I had. I had
Speaker 1: a spotting stock given me a hard time about bait
Speaker 1: and bearing. I'm a friend totally. We were just ribbing
Speaker 1: each other and he was talking about how easy it
Speaker 1: would be to hunt bear of her bait, and I said,
Speaker 1: way to minute, you're telling me that you just wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning on the day you decide you're
Speaker 1: gonna hunt and strut out to some hilltop glass of
Speaker 1: bear from a long ways away that doesn't know he's
Speaker 1: being hunted, and walk over to him and shoot him
Speaker 1: from two hundred yards. And I'm like, you're telling me
Speaker 1: that that that sounds easy to me. It's a joke,
Speaker 1: a joke. It's just like you're hunting an animal that
Speaker 1: doesn't even know he's been hunted. Come on, man, that's
Speaker 1: not even fair. Chase. You know, I always say this.
Speaker 1: I have a joke too, I said, well, feeding bears
Speaker 1: is easy because they're gonna eat, but killing him on
Speaker 1: bait is a totally different story. I don't care how
Speaker 1: dialed in you are. And I I've been humbled just
Speaker 1: about the time I think I got bears figured out,
Speaker 1: I get a year, I'm just like, what am I doing?
Speaker 1: You know, they just totally will humble you. And it's like,
Speaker 1: that's why I love him so much, and their individual
Speaker 1: qualities and every body they're like people. Every bear is
Speaker 1: different and some days are in good moods and some
Speaker 1: days are in crappy moods. And a cool thing about
Speaker 1: baiting that I grew up bot stock hunting and it's
Speaker 1: my passion. I love it, um, but I never got
Speaker 1: to really observe and be around bears like I do now. Baits.
Speaker 1: There's no other hunt for North American big game that
Speaker 1: you get to interact as closely with an animal for
Speaker 1: as long a period of times as a baited black
Speaker 1: bear hunt. And it'll change your view and your respect
Speaker 1: level for bears when you get to sit there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was in Alberta hunting and it got dark, and
Speaker 1: you know in Canada, and I did a similar thing.
Speaker 1: I brought my own four wheeler up and I ran
Speaker 1: baits and I did. I was like, you're not. And
Speaker 1: I was up there for like ten days and I
Speaker 1: hunted this one bait for this whopper bear that had
Speaker 1: on camera and I sat. I sat the last day.
Speaker 1: I sat from morning until dark and didn't leave there.
Speaker 1: And that dumb thing never came in, but that like
Speaker 1: ten other bears came in. And by the by it
Speaker 1: got dark, it was like eleven or twelve, and I
Speaker 1: was like, well, I'm gonna walk down to my fore
Speaker 1: whether it's dark, and this baits like seven yards away
Speaker 1: and there's bears. The one sole came up the dang
Speaker 1: tree and it was just western in there, and I
Speaker 1: loved every second of it. But I'll never forget as
Speaker 1: long as I live, and I get chills talking about it.
Speaker 1: And they've baited with a lot of beef and meat
Speaker 1: scraps up there, and you can hear those things down
Speaker 1: there snapping bones. And these aren't even whopper bears. You know,
Speaker 1: five footers, they're just snapping bones and crunching, and you
Speaker 1: had to crawl down the stand. The barrels here like
Speaker 1: right across from and you had to kind of go
Speaker 1: in between the stand and the barrel and like eight
Speaker 1: yards to get out of there. And I'm like, here
Speaker 1: we go, man, you know what alive? What a way
Speaker 1: to feel alive. But yeah, everything is. But baiting has
Speaker 1: made it to where I can really pay attention bears
Speaker 1: and I don't know how many years I've not shot
Speaker 1: bears and I've just sat there for nights and just
Speaker 1: watched them and took pictures and just loved being not
Speaker 1: close and just seeing them and gosh, their manners and
Speaker 1: they're amazing. I can talk about it forever. That bated
Speaker 1: hunt is what like gave me that appreciation for bearers
Speaker 1: because they just every single one had a different characteristic
Speaker 1: or mannerisms are the way that they acted. So it
Speaker 1: was just like knowing that they have a personality light
Speaker 1: the spotting stock spoiler alert, it kicked my butt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you went from to Montana, who different, just different.
Speaker 1: They all offer their own challenges and and not one's
Speaker 1: worse than the other, better than the other They're all
Speaker 1: awesome and I I've yet to do a hound hunt.
Speaker 1: That is my I'm going to. I was gonna try
Speaker 1: and do one this year, and I got that Grizzly tag,
Speaker 1: so that one on the on the snide. So I've
Speaker 1: got to get behind hounds chasing bears one of these days.
Speaker 1: Whether I take one or not, I just want to
Speaker 1: do it. I've chased cats with dogs, but I want
Speaker 1: to do a bear one so bad, uh, because I
Speaker 1: want to experience it all. And I know that's something
Speaker 1: be easy either. I just love it. It's a whole
Speaker 1: different challenge everyone, and that's what's so cool about it,
Speaker 1: all these different challenges. Hey, we better wrap it up here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks bunch, Joe, thank you guys. Good to be here.
Speaker 1: Keep you wild places wild, because that's where the bears
Speaker 1: going pretty well be