Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome from another episode of The Hunting Collective.
Speaker 1: I'm Ben O'Brien and today I'm joined by a very special,
Speaker 1: really a very badass individual. His name is Brad and
Speaker 1: Brad was a part of um a bear attack on
Speaker 1: a falk Neck island. He is been willing to give
Speaker 1: us here at the unt Collective the exclusive story of
Speaker 1: this attack. It wasn't only just an attack, it was
Speaker 1: a maeling. He sustained some very minor but also some
Speaker 1: very serious injuries along the way of this attack. He
Speaker 1: was hunting elk with somebody's there and UM, just an
Speaker 1: amazing story unfolded. You'all be you'll you'll know a fog
Speaker 1: Neck Island from Dmitri podcast from From the Meat Eater
Speaker 1: with Steve Rinella, Remy Warren, Be Honest, Pitelis and others.
Speaker 1: A fog Neck Island has become a place where bare
Speaker 1: attacks in the news are are fairly frequent. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you don't know about a falk Kneck Island, it's
Speaker 1: It's in the Kodiak Island Archipelago on Coastal and Coastal Alaska.
Speaker 1: It's about twenty miles long and forty miles wide. There's
Speaker 1: just about thirty nine people that lived there. Who knows
Speaker 1: if that's even if that's even the right number. It's
Speaker 1: not a lot. Um. There's no roads, there's no stores.
Speaker 1: There's just herds of Roosevelt elk and hundreds of Kodiak
Speaker 1: brown bears, which are uh it's one of the largest
Speaker 1: bears in the world. They could be up to thirteen
Speaker 1: hundred pounds their giant um you know, on the elk,
Speaker 1: the out there Roosevelt elk, and they were they were
Speaker 1: transplanted from the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State and in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen twenties and a lot of guys love
Speaker 1: to go hunt them, as did Brad and his four friends,
Speaker 1: but one ensued. It was one of the craziest stories
Speaker 1: you'll ever hear. And it's exclusive to this podcast, so
Speaker 1: please listen, enjoy, and learn from Brad and his bear
Speaker 1: attack on the Brad. What's up? Man? As much? Man,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me here, Thanks for having me Sunny, Sunny, Sunny,
Speaker 1: San Diego. You got it. Um, there's lots to talk about, obviously,
Speaker 1: but um, first things first, when you know, we get
Speaker 1: into situation where I need it, this is this is
Speaker 1: the story. People are coming for the story, right, They're
Speaker 1: coming for the bear attacks story, of course. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna make him wait a minute. We're gonna make him dispense,
Speaker 1: give him a little bit suspense. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about Kodiak and a fog neck islands.
Speaker 1: Um in the environment there first, because you spent some
Speaker 1: time around bears prior to been there for two and
Speaker 1: a half years now, So tell me about, um, your
Speaker 1: time in Kodiak and you know your experience of bears
Speaker 1: or what kind of place it is, sure sure well
Speaker 1: first and foremost like the bear populations insane there. So
Speaker 1: it's it's the common occurrence of seeing bears. There's nothing
Speaker 1: short from what I'm used to. You know, my drive
Speaker 1: to work, I see a bear like pretty much every day.
Speaker 1: So let's back that up. If I drive to work
Speaker 1: pretty much the bear pretty much. No. Uh So I
Speaker 1: live out and what's called the flats there's section Kodiak
Speaker 1: off and most people don't realize, but Kodiak is a
Speaker 1: huge island. It's actually second biggest in the US, I think,
Speaker 1: next to the big on Hawaii. But it's huge, but
Speaker 1: only like a ten percent of it. People actually live on.
Speaker 1: There's just the top right corner and that's where people live.
Speaker 1: And then that's it, and then there's like a few
Speaker 1: outlying a little like Port Towns type deal. But I
Speaker 1: think it's sixty seven miles of paved road. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's about as far as you can drive and go.
Speaker 1: I'm flowing over in the plains a couple of times
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, that's yeah, exactly so, and I
Speaker 1: know you're aware of this, but just for you know,
Speaker 1: for the people listening straight, it's section off basically to
Speaker 1: the main part of town. And then you've got the
Speaker 1: flats and everybody out there is called flat rats, and
Speaker 1: that makes me a flat rat. So there a little
Speaker 1: ways out in town. But you've got bears that they
Speaker 1: just get named by where they feed on the rivers
Speaker 1: down there, and there's just ample amounts of salmon the river,
Speaker 1: you know, going everywhere. But Sergeant's Creek is one of
Speaker 1: them where you just see people just line up on
Speaker 1: the side road taking pictures and uh causing traffic DRAMs
Speaker 1: kind of it's real pain. But uh no, so that
Speaker 1: between the busking Bear and Sergeant's Creek, it's like you're
Speaker 1: just seeing bears all the time. I've almost hit bears
Speaker 1: like I've hit deer back home, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: just it's a very common occurrence. And uh, ironically enough,
Speaker 1: I think it was like a week maybe a week
Speaker 1: and a half before the actual incident itself. There was
Speaker 1: a friend it was coming over to the house and uh,
Speaker 1: I lived in a guesthouse next to, you know, the
Speaker 1: main house, and we're all kind of gathered together in
Speaker 1: the main house and it was late at night, real
Speaker 1: real dark out, and I was just going back over
Speaker 1: to my house to grab some you know, food and
Speaker 1: drinks and bring back over. While I stepped out of
Speaker 1: the house and there's horses on the property. But I
Speaker 1: come out of the house and a lady that was
Speaker 1: over there, I had her pickup truck, you know, just
Speaker 1: kind of parked in the driveway, and I didn't think
Speaker 1: anything of it, and I you know, ran by and
Speaker 1: I heard some you know, kind of footsteps, and I
Speaker 1: just thought it was one of the horses. Well I
Speaker 1: just make it by the pickup truck and I just
Speaker 1: see this massive bear and it's just walking around like ship.
Speaker 1: You gotta be kidding me. And uh, fortunately, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't intact mood or anything startled it off. It
Speaker 1: was getting into some garbage and I actually shot it
Speaker 1: off the property. To that point, I had my my
Speaker 1: concealed carry on me and just just scared away, just
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, shoe, get out of here.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, it just goes to show like
Speaker 1: that if that bear wanted me, it was only ten
Speaker 1: yards away when I was just walking by, like pitts black,
Speaker 1: like there had been nothing that I could have done.
Speaker 1: There was some trash there for sure, like that's all
Speaker 1: it was interested in. And it's like, oh food and
Speaker 1: um uh right along those lines too, you know, after
Speaker 1: this whole thing has happened, and even before that, we've
Speaker 1: noticed real recently on Kodiak, uh, the bear kind of
Speaker 1: dynamic and what they're interested in. This past year has
Speaker 1: really changed, I think than the seasons prior. And I
Speaker 1: this is just a theory. I mean, Fish and Game
Speaker 1: could probably really dial it in, but the Reds didn't
Speaker 1: like run it all this year really just absence didn't happen.
Speaker 1: The salmon runs in general just started very very late.
Speaker 1: You know, even the Silvers when they finally came in,
Speaker 1: and it was a great season at the end, but
Speaker 1: I think the bears are really really hungry in the
Speaker 1: beginning and they're still kind of playing catch up because
Speaker 1: everywhere in town all we just see is just like
Speaker 1: bears pop and I'm getting into trash like way more
Speaker 1: than I've seen before in the past, and other guys
Speaker 1: that I know they've lived there for twenty plus years
Speaker 1: saying the same thing, like gathers it. Yeah, and and well,
Speaker 1: unfortunately that I haven't been aggressive, but just like I
Speaker 1: don't know, bold and like getting into people's trash like that,
Speaker 1: I mean just everywhere in the sea, like right by
Speaker 1: dogs and other people's houses, and like they don't care.
Speaker 1: And I would say that's the difference is their city bears,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the equivalent of a city bear versus
Speaker 1: you know, the rural uh tunder type bear that you're
Speaker 1: gonna see out like hunting and stuff. And uh but yeah,
Speaker 1: they've they've really really been bold lately. And it's it's nuts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of companies that run bear tours
Speaker 1: and things on kodiaks. I'm sure you're well aware, right,
Speaker 1: And it's just it's it's the most interesting part about
Speaker 1: the dichotomy that exists there of like you live there,
Speaker 1: you see bears every day, like I see you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a deer every day or something like that. So
Speaker 1: the comparison of the two is is eerie to me,
Speaker 1: almost the same way that you know your daily your
Speaker 1: daily experience with a bears, like oh there's one, there's one,
Speaker 1: there's another one. That's that's unreal. H oh, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's wild. So I I grew up in Maine, so
Speaker 1: black bear, you know, it's huge up there. But even
Speaker 1: growing up there, I mean we lived out in the sticks,
Speaker 1: like small town six hunr people, and I could count
Speaker 1: on my hands the amount of times I've seen it bear.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. I mean, like, and I grew
Speaker 1: up hunching my entire life. So to my father, and
Speaker 1: you know, he finally, you know, he got one, and
Speaker 1: he's been trying for years and years and years, but
Speaker 1: you just don't see him. The recluse, you know, just wild,
Speaker 1: but not that is oh salmon, Yeah, I'm just trash
Speaker 1: main Street. We don't care. Yeah, I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: black bears are pretty much every state at this point,
Speaker 1: and um other than you know, Florida, is pretty famous
Speaker 1: for having a lot of black bear incidents. I mean,
Speaker 1: now new jerseys in the headlines around black bears. It's
Speaker 1: gonna shut the season down. Um. But but you don't.
Speaker 1: It's not something you know. I grew up in on
Speaker 1: the East Coast two and there were bears around, but
Speaker 1: I saw I think I can remember seeing one as
Speaker 1: a kid while hunting, and so I'm not sure there's
Speaker 1: many places on the planet Earth where you would see
Speaker 1: a bear every day on the tribute to work, it isn't. Um. So,
Speaker 1: how like when you when something like that happens, you
Speaker 1: come out, you see a bear in the trash can
Speaker 1: Is that something that ums talked about or is that
Speaker 1: a daily occurrence? Is that something that you know, bears
Speaker 1: that close to you know, the dwelling bears that close
Speaker 1: to you know. Yeah, And I think most pupils experiences
Speaker 1: just they all come from the city, you know, and
Speaker 1: like being in those type environments. And I think those
Speaker 1: bears specifically are just they're more skittish, you know, they
Speaker 1: don't they don't want anything to do with you for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, Like they're not trying to protect anything, even
Speaker 1: the garbage and stuff. They don't really like you know,
Speaker 1: have dominance over. I've never seen anything like that or
Speaker 1: her any incidents. I do think it's probably a matter
Speaker 1: of time, but it's definitely talked about, and of course,
Speaker 1: you know scares people, especially just seeing the size. Most
Speaker 1: people don't understand or really like they can't get the
Speaker 1: scale of it. You know, all you ever see is
Speaker 1: like TV and video and pictures and everything, and soon
Speaker 1: you see like a massive bear. It's like it's pretty
Speaker 1: big eye opening image. Especially uh, you know the differences
Speaker 1: between the lower forty eight kind of bear where people
Speaker 1: may have seen him before and then going to like
Speaker 1: Kodiak and I would think the same thing if I
Speaker 1: ever saw you know, polar bear like stepping it up
Speaker 1: in that realm too. It's like the more massively creature
Speaker 1: that more like yeah, really really like it's eye opening
Speaker 1: and funny enough, I've had that conversation with you know,
Speaker 1: differences and grizzlies and brown bears and you know the
Speaker 1: coastal are in then uh, and yeah, they just get
Speaker 1: huge off that salmon, you know obviously where the Kodiak
Speaker 1: brown bear gets his name. But yeah, I know people
Speaker 1: definitely talk about it, but for the most part, it's
Speaker 1: always just stories of like, oh, they come out and
Speaker 1: turn lights on or making noise and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and bear just like runs off. That's what I was
Speaker 1: getting there. You know, you just don't it changes the
Speaker 1: first time somebody gets attacked in the front yard or
Speaker 1: somebody gets taking the garbage out and it gets you know,
Speaker 1: gets mauled, oh for sure. And it still worries me
Speaker 1: because we just see him around town. All I keep
Speaker 1: thinking is like, man, that one kid waiting at the
Speaker 1: school bus stop, you know that one time. And I
Speaker 1: grew up in the same thing as like in sticks
Speaker 1: and like nobody would ever know, you know, unless there
Speaker 1: was a bunch of other kids or something like that around.
Speaker 1: But they're so small and like kind of easy targets
Speaker 1: that that's what I worry about. Like if that bear
Speaker 1: is hungry enough and finally sees that, and I'd be like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna capitalize on this, and there's you know, that's
Speaker 1: what's going to change everything, and yeah, then that would
Speaker 1: be gosh, that'd be terrible. But yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's just there's a different dynamic cohabitation. When you're cohabitating
Speaker 1: with a charismatic charismatic megafauna, giant fucking predator that could
Speaker 1: could could swipe you like that. I mean, it just is,
Speaker 1: you know, cohabitation with uncle, it's you're just you're helping
Speaker 1: manage that popular like the relationships a little bit easier
Speaker 1: to manage than when that's happening. But I have not
Speaker 1: you know, I know we both we have mutual friend
Speaker 1: Cole Cramer, Like I've talked to him a lot and
Speaker 1: hunting codyac with him a couple of years ago. It
Speaker 1: was in December, so we didn't see any bears, ye,
Speaker 1: thank god. Um, but just talking with him about that,
Speaker 1: I mean's a bear guide. Some of the stories that
Speaker 1: you know that he will tell. He's been on this
Speaker 1: podcast and if you go back and listen to UM,
Speaker 1: I think it's episode eighteen with with Cole, you'll hear
Speaker 1: some of these stories. But bears are killing machines and
Speaker 1: they're just important, Like there's their meat processing four legs.
Speaker 1: They're just yeah, and that's all they're thinking about. So, Um,
Speaker 1: the fact that you're living in this place, you know
Speaker 1: that you somehow, I mean you have to. There's no
Speaker 1: way that you're not getting used to habitually. You know,
Speaker 1: like habituated with bears, you are see him every day.
Speaker 1: Your your lens with which you see a bear is
Speaker 1: different than mine. Oh yeah, and I think, well one
Speaker 1: of the whole experiences definitely eye opening. And I don't
Speaker 1: think you ever really took it for granted. It definitely
Speaker 1: opened my eyes. But finally being you know, mauled and
Speaker 1: attacked really opened my eyes to me being a very
Speaker 1: big solo hunter and uh you know, just me and
Speaker 1: my bear spray. Yeah, not even that, It's like it
Speaker 1: was always having my my gun on me and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's definitely opened my eyes and changed
Speaker 1: my my thought process on doing that from now on.
Speaker 1: But ironically, myself and the guy who ended up, you know,
Speaker 1: shooting the bear, both of us prior to the attack
Speaker 1: had gotten our deer. You know, I bagged our first
Speaker 1: year on the road system solo, like we by ourselves. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: mine was on opening day, got mine opening day. And uh,
Speaker 1: Cody acts like a jungle in the in the spring
Speaker 1: summertime like before that in opening days August first there
Speaker 1: and it is it's so the I mean the grass
Speaker 1: there and all and all the growth is over my
Speaker 1: head like there would be no question me being like quiet,
Speaker 1: doing the same thing, not having anybody else, Like I'm
Speaker 1: not making any noise that it could adjust as easily
Speaker 1: happened the same way. Like you know, speaking up on
Speaker 1: bear or something like that, like this guy, you know,
Speaker 1: like makes you think again, and I'm like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought I had this kind of dialed in, Like Nope,
Speaker 1: not so much. Yeah, I mean there just is, there
Speaker 1: is a general helplessness when it comes to proximity to bears.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can be prepared as you'd like, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, you can have a side arm, you
Speaker 1: can have a rifle, you can have bear spray, and
Speaker 1: we'll get into your experience here in a minute. But
Speaker 1: you know, most not most times, but there are plenty
Speaker 1: of times where none of that matters. No matter how
Speaker 1: prepared you are, you're still helpful. You're still helpless because
Speaker 1: this is a giant killing machine for sure. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're out there, it's uh, you're not really in
Speaker 1: the food chamber. Doesn't make you the top of the
Speaker 1: food chaining, you know, like those things can do whatever
Speaker 1: they want. And I'm sure we get you know, machines
Speaker 1: that make us a little more capable than they are.
Speaker 1: But no, it's an extremely massive and powerful animal. It's
Speaker 1: you know, built to do a lot of dating ball
Speaker 1: of hair and muscle, or of sucking pussies, you know,
Speaker 1: really compared to the com Yeah, I mean, like I said,
Speaker 1: I'm I've been in a lot of wilderness situations where
Speaker 1: we're talking before we hit recording, like, I'm just lucky
Speaker 1: enough to have never I've had experience where I've seen
Speaker 1: bears and but just lucky enough never to really I've
Speaker 1: had to make any real decisions around Um, you know
Speaker 1: my proximity to to a bear. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: I live in Montana. There's lots of people that that
Speaker 1: go hunting in Montana and Wyoming and all over Canada
Speaker 1: and Kodiak every year put themselves in a situation where
Speaker 1: the odds are low. They're very low, but there are odds.
Speaker 1: That's say, you're gonna run into a grizzly band, You're
Speaker 1: gonna have to make a decision. Um, And that's you know,
Speaker 1: doing doing that willingly is taking on an immense, immense risk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, for sure, for sure, I know you're talking
Speaker 1: to you bro, No, No, I know it's I'm humbled
Speaker 1: by the experience for sure. And you know there's I
Speaker 1: got no ill will towards bears at all, Like I
Speaker 1: was just looking forward to getting back on the horse
Speaker 1: and unfortunately missing all the seasons now, But I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It doesn't phaze me. I think like a
Speaker 1: lot of other people talk about it or think that
Speaker 1: you'll have some sort of like hate towards bears now,
Speaker 1: like kill all bears are all terrible things. He's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: not at all, Yeah, not at all. Yeah. So, and
Speaker 1: you grew up hunting, he said, with your dad's main
Speaker 1: for plenty of bears in Maine. Yep, plenty of bears.
Speaker 1: You know what what was your um? You know, how
Speaker 1: how did you come up? How did you grow up hunting?
Speaker 1: How did you get introduced to it? Like, you know,
Speaker 1: prior to living with Kody Ak, what was your so?
Speaker 1: Uh lived down in the sticks log having my father built.
Speaker 1: You know, I lived in the same house. You know,
Speaker 1: our entire lives and um prior to me, you know,
Speaker 1: going off to college, that's just all we did every
Speaker 1: fall and the hunting seasons they are very, very different
Speaker 1: and much more stringent. I guess than a lot of
Speaker 1: other states, as I came to find out. But you
Speaker 1: only get one one dear season, like that's it, white
Speaker 1: tail deer, and like boom, you're done. I think there
Speaker 1: might be some uh you might be able to get it,
Speaker 1: like a second one with some of the extended seasons there,
Speaker 1: but it makes you a hard hunter growing up in
Speaker 1: Maine and try to hunt. And I'm sure you know
Speaker 1: some of the other states are similar, but there is
Speaker 1: no warm hunting there. Like the coldest I've ever been
Speaker 1: in my life is, without a doubt, been times when
Speaker 1: I was hunting in Maine and just like sitting in
Speaker 1: the tree stand for five hours and like negative twenty
Speaker 1: and just freezing my sucking ass off. There's no way
Speaker 1: to give more. No, your blood's not moving, You're just
Speaker 1: sitting there. And that was the true test. And and
Speaker 1: the funny thing is is those are some of the
Speaker 1: best times I've ever had with my my pops, you know,
Speaker 1: growing up was just sitting in the tree stand like
Speaker 1: waiting or you know eventually we you know, split up
Speaker 1: and take a couple of different fields of fire there
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, just waiting for our gear. And it
Speaker 1: was a big deal, and that there's just no questions,
Speaker 1: like the more time you spend out, the more chance
Speaker 1: that you're gonna you know, see something or run into something.
Speaker 1: And I never grew up really doing stocking because the
Speaker 1: main woods it's it's it's it's almost impossible something at
Speaker 1: least in the areas that we were in. There's probably
Speaker 1: some more open open woods in different areas, but no,
Speaker 1: it's so thick they're and the time is season, everything's
Speaker 1: just snaps, it's crunchy, like you can't like it's it's
Speaker 1: almost some possible to actually like stock hunt deer there.
Speaker 1: The big, the big thing they're is just like sitting
Speaker 1: in the tree stand doing you're scouting and stuff in
Speaker 1: the preseason and find out where they're going to be
Speaker 1: and then just you know, waiting and setting up to
Speaker 1: their you know, your your dopist or whatever and accounting
Speaker 1: for the wind and have a different a couple of
Speaker 1: different sites. And father taught me everything for sure, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I started going with him well before I was able
Speaker 1: to hunt myself. And ten ten years old is the
Speaker 1: legal hunting age there. And uh, finally when I was ten,
Speaker 1: and this is one of my favorite stories actually, but uh. Uh.
Speaker 1: We had this place called Peas Farm and it was
Speaker 1: the uh and uh that was just a family that
Speaker 1: owned it, like back in the day. It's it's not
Speaker 1: there anymore, but huge tree stand at my pipe. My
Speaker 1: grandfather and his friends built up on this this huge
Speaker 1: back lot. Uh god, I don't even know how many
Speaker 1: years ago, and my father and I he wanted to
Speaker 1: take there's like okay, it's really big open spot and
Speaker 1: we're gonna go out, and ten years old and uh
Speaker 1: you know and not a stranger as the cold, but
Speaker 1: not really adept at it either. Finally go out and
Speaker 1: we're sitting there and of course, like I get cold
Speaker 1: within however, you know, an hour or two hours, because
Speaker 1: of course we're there before the sun rises. And it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: no ten year old has ever hunted nuts that I'm cold. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's inevitable. And so it's like okay, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: do you remember your way back to the truck, and
Speaker 1: like yeah, it's like okay, we'll just go back to
Speaker 1: the truck and and turn the heat on and uh
Speaker 1: and you know, warm yourself up and then if you're
Speaker 1: ready to like come on back out. And so I
Speaker 1: go to the truck and um, I'm just sitting there
Speaker 1: and uh. The other funny part was is I was
Speaker 1: too nervous to turn the truck on because of the noise,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I didn't want to do it,
Speaker 1: so I just thought I could just turn the truck
Speaker 1: on and like the heat would come out, but of
Speaker 1: course that's just air blocking, so I didn't actually really
Speaker 1: get warm, you know. Just the kind of the walk
Speaker 1: made me get warm, I think. But I was sitting
Speaker 1: in the truck for a little while and my uh,
Speaker 1: Pops comes back open to the truck, is like zach
Speaker 1: Zac come out. He's like, there's a there's a deer,
Speaker 1: and he's like, okay, so I get my right. When
Speaker 1: we go out and we're kind of stalking. At this point,
Speaker 1: he remembered seeing the duck and it was a duck
Speaker 1: buck and uh, it was just a young buck. And
Speaker 1: finally we week he sees it kind of down this
Speaker 1: path and uh, we get up on it and I
Speaker 1: can't see it, and him like he's like, it's right,
Speaker 1: it's right here. And I'm kind of like looking and like,
Speaker 1: oh I see it. I'm trying to see it through
Speaker 1: the scope and it's on full powered. I just can't
Speaker 1: get on and like I don't see it. I don't
Speaker 1: see it, and he's like it's right there, and he's
Speaker 1: kind of cracking up laughing at the same time. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this we just had to win, just right in the bucks,
Speaker 1: like laying down and like very very fortunate. Man. I
Speaker 1: finally see it, like, oh yeah, I see I see it,
Speaker 1: and then uh yeah, I get get eyes on and
Speaker 1: take my shot. And it was laying down, didn't get up.
Speaker 1: It was just it was it was done, and I
Speaker 1: was just so excited and go over and get my
Speaker 1: first first deer kill. But it always just crapped me up.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it is just the worst deer kill that
Speaker 1: you could fussily imagine. I didn't do any work. Whoever
Speaker 1: out I tapped out, get out of the truck. You
Speaker 1: could have fallen over, like you were a safe. It
Speaker 1: was just about on pars what we call heat or
Speaker 1: hunting up there where people are just driving so you know,
Speaker 1: just you know, scouting glass in the fields, like what
Speaker 1: if anything is in the field after, you know, while
Speaker 1: I'm eating his donut. You know, my father hated that.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, those guys don't pay for it. No.
Speaker 1: One time I was in Saskatchewan hunt and they were like, here,
Speaker 1: what something call though? What's the thing called heater body suit?
Speaker 1: They were like, put this on. It was like negative twenty,
Speaker 1: like you're talking about. And I was like, okay, well
Speaker 1: you know what is it. It's like kind of like
Speaker 1: a sleeping bag. It's got heaters inside it, and so
Speaker 1: you sit there, you're totally comfortable. So I get up
Speaker 1: in this tree, stand, put on this little sleeping bag
Speaker 1: and turn it on, and I'm asleep in five minutes.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm as sleep at five minutes. I mean
Speaker 1: I heated sleeping bag and I slept for like three
Speaker 1: hours working to get out of the tree. But but yes,
Speaker 1: I grew up much the same way. And so and
Speaker 1: the first year that I were killed, first year I
Speaker 1: was shot at fact, I just skinned her. I remember
Speaker 1: my my dad put shooting sticks on the ground. I
Speaker 1: put a rifle down. He's like, she's right there, she's
Speaker 1: fifty yards away. Like I don't I don't got it, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do. I think I see
Speaker 1: the sky, but I'm not sure. And eventually popped a
Speaker 1: shot and skinner right shoulder. But yeah, I wish I
Speaker 1: had one laying down that great, yeah, exactly, Like it
Speaker 1: was easy killing there, but it was simpler that those
Speaker 1: times are simpler, you know, like that he weren't worried
Speaker 1: about how big it saidlers were or old spikeline. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't need anything then you were just meat on
Speaker 1: the table. Yeah, first year kills the simplest form of
Speaker 1: hunting because it's just there's a deer, and I everything
Speaker 1: that goes into the actual killing of the deer is
Speaker 1: more important than the deer at that point, like getting
Speaker 1: your cross airs on it, exactly, hecty. I think the
Speaker 1: third line got was dough you know, the first time
Speaker 1: I got my my dope because you gotta get a
Speaker 1: permit to get dose up up there and yeah, well
Speaker 1: I got it. But you guys do a lot of
Speaker 1: venicity eating growing up. Yeah, Yeah, for sure. I'm always
Speaker 1: interested to ask, like how how it was cooked up,
Speaker 1: because there's always this like my dad cooked everything. Yeah no, no,
Speaker 1: I totally hear you. And it's funny because I've played
Speaker 1: around with like all kinds of different stuff and I
Speaker 1: really get into the cooking thing now, especially since all
Speaker 1: I do is eat game. Now. I don't even go
Speaker 1: to the grocery strud not for meat anyway, Like protein
Speaker 1: is halbot salmon, I'll go, dear, you know that's that's
Speaker 1: the freezer. You know, Phil it up and just changed
Speaker 1: it up every day. But no, I grew up with
Speaker 1: uh yeah, a lot of venison, um moose on a
Speaker 1: few occasions, caribou. My father went up to Canada and
Speaker 1: got some caribou at one point in time. Uh what else?
Speaker 1: We did have the black bear? When you got a
Speaker 1: black bearer at one time and eat, you know, country
Speaker 1: to belief, it's not that great eating, but you can't
Speaker 1: eat black bears like it's it's reasonable. And but his
Speaker 1: way was just straight up. It's like pan seared with butter,
Speaker 1: salt and pepper, and it's like that's it. And I
Speaker 1: was like, you know who put that cookbook out? Because
Speaker 1: it's not bad. I mean my like this last Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: my dad tried up some tender learn I'm like, this
Speaker 1: tastes like my childhood and it's good. It's good. It's
Speaker 1: not good for you, but good. There must have been
Speaker 1: just a cookbook where somebody wrote like this is like
Speaker 1: three page cookbook and the first page said butter, the
Speaker 1: second page said salt, on the last page said pepper,
Speaker 1: and that was it. And seen it was like, that's
Speaker 1: what that's what my dad did. So I was wondering
Speaker 1: just being a couple of like generally East Coast kids,
Speaker 1: that that's what. Oh, that's that's that's definitely what it was.
Speaker 1: And I found my own ways of you know, what
Speaker 1: I prefer, and I don't mind it that way at all,
Speaker 1: but it always did crack gap saying no, that's all
Speaker 1: I want. And I'm like, well, it's kind of no wonder.
Speaker 1: My mom, you know, never really liked eating Man. She
Speaker 1: really didn't. She never liked it. She didn't like the
Speaker 1: gaming flavor. And I was like, well, that's because Pop's
Speaker 1: never prepared it any better way, like the kind of
Speaker 1: your flavorings. What if I put, uh differ kind of butter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, get some fancy spices or some ball son
Speaker 1: like Connor, you know, marinate it, you know, yes, something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's funny that that generational change. I mean,
Speaker 1: it really is. It's something that I've experienced with my dad.
Speaker 1: My dad. I love my dad to death, and and um,
Speaker 1: there was just a different way, just a different way
Speaker 1: to treat treat the hunting and the meat, which I
Speaker 1: feel like the hunting parts almost more simple, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a simpler effort than some of the things we
Speaker 1: do today. But surely, um the meat still had reverence,
Speaker 1: but it just didn't have the same There wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: there's no fine point on how to on how to
Speaker 1: prepare it. It was for sure, what do you you
Speaker 1: want to stew or I'll pry it up. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's all we got. Yeah, it wasn't any other differences
Speaker 1: in no other way. And I think part of that
Speaker 1: was because my mom didn't need it, so he didn't
Speaker 1: really make it anything. He's like, I'm gonna I like it.
Speaker 1: So but you know, my uh my pops, you know,
Speaker 1: they're pretty poor grown up, especially when the kids. So
Speaker 1: the deer was just all about, you know, just getting
Speaker 1: food and meeting the freezer, feeding the kids. Like That's
Speaker 1: how it was. Even from my bay when he would
Speaker 1: uh go and get the deer, and he was all
Speaker 1: about eating like whatever extra parts and organs and everything else.
Speaker 1: Loved the heart. Heart was his favorite. Yeah, I still
Speaker 1: love the heart myself, and and liver as well, and
Speaker 1: even with the deer that I just killed a h
Speaker 1: on opening season and Kodiak like that was the first
Speaker 1: thing I did, is like all those organ meats and everything,
Speaker 1: and just like I stewed him up and now they're
Speaker 1: you know, they're frozen. I was waiting for, you know,
Speaker 1: the little colder because it was you know warm for Kodiac.
Speaker 1: It was like you know there, yeah, exactly, So in
Speaker 1: my mind I was just thinking, yeah, okay, too warm. Nope,
Speaker 1: I gotta wait for the nice cold, deep heart of
Speaker 1: winter and break that stuff out and yeah, delicious, you
Speaker 1: know it transporting back to the Cody Act across the world,
Speaker 1: basically across the country for sure. Yeah, yeah, as far
Speaker 1: as you can go. Time I've spent time in a
Speaker 1: coastal in a coastal Alaska environment, of any Prince of
Speaker 1: Wales comes to mind, you know, Kodiak comes to mind.
Speaker 1: Of course, the falcon that comes to mind. I always
Speaker 1: come away thinking this is a rich place, like this
Speaker 1: is game rich, wildlife rich. I mean, Prince of Wales
Speaker 1: is just jaw dropping with with what you see and
Speaker 1: experience there from wildlife perspective. But so is Kodiak. Um.
Speaker 1: But the second thing I think is what a harsh,
Speaker 1: harsh environment. Um, and that's you know, I would I
Speaker 1: would say the starkness of that relationship, and in most
Speaker 1: of the coastal Alaska is what draws me to it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure what draws you to it. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can have just amazing When we went to Kodiak with coal,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was bald eagles and blacktail deer and
Speaker 1: silver foxes, and I mean it's just it's it's a
Speaker 1: rich place. But then the river froze and we were
Speaker 1: struggling to get home, so turned a little harsh. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: has that been your experience kind of going through the
Speaker 1: seasons on Kodiak. Yeah, there's a lot of similarities to me.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what drove me there in in the
Speaker 1: first place. But Kodiak doesn't really have that that full
Speaker 1: fourth season kind of effect. It's more of winter and
Speaker 1: then summer. The shoulder seasons are just kind of mixed in,
Speaker 1: and the summer there isn't really warm. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just those long days because being close to the you know,
Speaker 1: the Arctic circling up north the poles, you get those
Speaker 1: really really long daylight hours and then they're really really long,
Speaker 1: uh well, dark hours, I guess lack of lack of
Speaker 1: daylight hours. And the harshness is definitely like the driving
Speaker 1: point and in me being there and really testing the limits.
Speaker 1: And it's even in May never grew I never really
Speaker 1: grew up with the the harsh range you get there.
Speaker 1: I say, the rain is like almost the worst. And
Speaker 1: I've never been at Washington Seattle like that kind of
Speaker 1: climate where you just hear about it raining all the time.
Speaker 1: But I swear to God, it will get below thirty
Speaker 1: two degrees in Kodiak and it will still be raining somehow.
Speaker 1: And it's the harshest thing that you ever have to
Speaker 1: deal with. Is especially like out hunting or doing anything
Speaker 1: in in the woods, is be on the kid through
Speaker 1: that because it's just like, how is this even possible?
Speaker 1: And you're just you can't stay dry, It's almost impossible.
Speaker 1: I've tried so many different types of clothing and gear
Speaker 1: and and and you know, that's what I really enjoy
Speaker 1: doing anyway, And man, is it wild being out there.
Speaker 1: And then you just get hit with these you know,
Speaker 1: maritime winds, and it's that really salty air and it's
Speaker 1: just corrods and and crushes everything. They don't even salt
Speaker 1: the roads, but your vehicle has got like a ticking
Speaker 1: time bomb. You know that salty air is gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: do its own damage. But it is. It's a very
Speaker 1: very unique place and the same that you see with
Speaker 1: a snowpack. There, um do a lot of snow work
Speaker 1: and travel, and uh, that maritime snowpack is just you
Speaker 1: might have like a a good day of powder when
Speaker 1: it's like initial and then it just turns the ice
Speaker 1: just this solid crust of ice and um and guys
Speaker 1: get their experience that even if they don't go out
Speaker 1: and hunt really quick as you're familiar with, and and
Speaker 1: flying in and out of coach because it's it's its
Speaker 1: own beasts and you're just you're gonna expect if you're there,
Speaker 1: you will get a delayed flight or canceled flight. Oh
Speaker 1: and bless the pilots that live on Codia. These are
Speaker 1: insane human beings. These people, Yeah, they're they're the most skilled.
Speaker 1: But also I've never met one that wasn't just I mean,
Speaker 1: i'mous crazy. Yeah, I gotta a few of them I met.
Speaker 1: I won't name a name, but one time they uh
Speaker 1: landed us in the lagoon drop us off on the beach,
Speaker 1: had to go hike up after blacktail deer. And we
Speaker 1: landed and kind of tax it up to the to
Speaker 1: the beach there and before we could even get our
Speaker 1: packs or anything out of the out of the plane are,
Speaker 1: our pilot was running up a hill with a pistol
Speaker 1: with like a ten mill chasing a black tail around
Speaker 1: on the beach. Of course he was he was like, hey,
Speaker 1: hold the line, hold the plane here, I gotta I'll
Speaker 1: be back. You think, run up there, like that's about
Speaker 1: far for this course. That sounds the screws are some
Speaker 1: of the screws are a little bit loose. Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: And that's that's exactly how you'll just see it happened.
Speaker 1: Like later on in the season. A lot of people
Speaker 1: who really enjoy the hunting and kind of the whole experience,
Speaker 1: you know, going out and trying to find a deer. Ah,
Speaker 1: we'll go out and just brave it and get through
Speaker 1: just the ship terrain that involves. And the terrain is
Speaker 1: hands down the worst part. You have the drain and
Speaker 1: the weather, and really only in Kodiak can you find
Speaker 1: such extremes to have the salt water right there coastline
Speaker 1: and then it just it just explodes up and it
Speaker 1: is extremely extremely steep alpine climates and yeah below the
Speaker 1: alpine climates are like hummocks that you can barely walk
Speaker 1: on when it can and uh as I we talked
Speaker 1: about earlier than my opening uh day hunt and the
Speaker 1: vegetation there's just like jungle like there's certain parts if
Speaker 1: you're not going to the right place, like it's impassable.
Speaker 1: It really is, especially getting a steep train and you
Speaker 1: can't even your body will not push any further, like
Speaker 1: through the uh salmon berries, you know, glorified uh thorn
Speaker 1: bushes you know up there that just like tear you
Speaker 1: up and getting through that's just insane. But the other
Speaker 1: uh ironic part there that most people aren't aware of
Speaker 1: is that unlike Colorado spent a lot of time there,
Speaker 1: the alpine there is usually like eleven thousand feet give
Speaker 1: or take, and in Codiac's eleven feet and that can
Speaker 1: be a blessing and a curse. Like it's a good thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, obviously you're not fighting altitude or anything like
Speaker 1: that high up, it's it doesn't it doesn't affect you. However,
Speaker 1: it's just just shows you that extreme either change that
Speaker 1: just happens in such a short amount of time where
Speaker 1: you're just going from sea level to eleven feet and
Speaker 1: you're just going to be in it like ridiculously high winds,
Speaker 1: like getting blown over. Yeah. I mean in general, that's
Speaker 1: not that far up, not at all. You know, you
Speaker 1: can do two thousand feet in some place in New
Speaker 1: Zealand and other places that it's not really you know,
Speaker 1: not really that harsh. Yeah, But on Kodiak it's different.
Speaker 1: It's it's insane and the So another funny story here.
Speaker 1: The the day that I showed up in Kodiak, you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of went right in. It got with you know,
Speaker 1: some friends that already dow they were there and I
Speaker 1: want to go out and spend some time overnight, uh
Speaker 1: in the field. And it was right around hunting time again,
Speaker 1: hunting season. I got it there in like late July
Speaker 1: and hunting season open on August one, and I was
Speaker 1: really really motivated and like, okay, I don't know this
Speaker 1: are at all. I was talking to some guys like okay,
Speaker 1: where do I go? So they're kind of pointing me
Speaker 1: in this direction, like hey, go go this right out
Speaker 1: and and I'd never experienced the same type of jungle
Speaker 1: ship show as I did uh in Kodiak, and I
Speaker 1: swear to god, I was going out the night before.
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go out, bivvy out
Speaker 1: overnight and hunt the following morning, you know, break it down,
Speaker 1: like be upgrady to go. I had a good place
Speaker 1: in mind, like took my maps and everything, and of
Speaker 1: course I wasn't to wear bears at this time or
Speaker 1: either I knew sneer they were there and went out
Speaker 1: and I thought it was a prank. I thought the
Speaker 1: guys are just like they're pulling my chain. They have
Speaker 1: them and over on me, and I was just pissed
Speaker 1: the entire time. I'm like, how do you get through this?
Speaker 1: And like there's no way. They were saying, there's no
Speaker 1: way I can get all the way up there, and
Speaker 1: like in this it was just horrible. They call that,
Speaker 1: they call it the gar hole. I'm like, and they
Speaker 1: actually really meant it. But there was just like I
Speaker 1: really got a full appreciation of deer paths there and
Speaker 1: understanding it's like, Okay, there's definitely a level of suck
Speaker 1: that you're gonna have to put yourself through, but I
Speaker 1: was still experience gonna you know, or of the false
Speaker 1: presumption that I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna go through and
Speaker 1: find a place that just like opens up and I
Speaker 1: can walk in like a origin line or something, and
Speaker 1: it's like it never did. They're like, no, this this
Speaker 1: dear path, like if you step one step sideways, like
Speaker 1: you're off it and you'll never find it again. And
Speaker 1: it's it's just one of those brutal quick learning experiences. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And I think maybe the Kodiak Island Tourism Board might
Speaker 1: not like this podcast. Yeah, it's true. Man, if you like,
Speaker 1: if you know, there's there's companies like companies like sick
Speaker 1: of Gear and other companies that that really rely on
Speaker 1: folks like coal and others that that live and hunt
Speaker 1: in that environment to test the gear, because again, it
Speaker 1: is one of the harpstist and harshest environments that you
Speaker 1: will come across in question anywhere in the world, I feel.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's a good setup to get
Speaker 1: into what happened to you. Um, and we also have
Speaker 1: to get into what you know, a falk Knack island.
Speaker 1: I think a falkneck island from a lot of folks
Speaker 1: listening to this and even for those who haven't heard
Speaker 1: the Themitre podcast, which is Steve Rinella um Remy Warren
Speaker 1: in a bunch of camera guys, they're filming the Mediator
Speaker 1: podcast of doing a Medior podcast filming for the Mediator
Speaker 1: TV show on a fog neck. Um. I think this
Speaker 1: would have been last year, and they were charged by
Speaker 1: a big old bear and uh an interesting story ensued.
Speaker 1: Luckily there no one was injured at all, rather than
Speaker 1: some um some mental hurdles to get over after the fact.
Speaker 1: But that's where I first heard about Falkneck, and I
Speaker 1: think that's probably where a lot of people first heard
Speaker 1: about a fog Neck because Kodiak is um a familiar
Speaker 1: name to those in the hunting industry and the fishing
Speaker 1: industry and even you know, just regular folks at large.
Speaker 1: But a fog Neck is just a different place, oh
Speaker 1: for sure, so uh for the people unaware. So everything
Speaker 1: is is a part of Kodiak, but it has so
Speaker 1: many outlying islands, and a fog Neck is kind of
Speaker 1: the northern big island just attached from Kodiak proper. There's
Speaker 1: about a bunch of other islands up there. Raspberries a
Speaker 1: really well known one for its elk and um and
Speaker 1: likewise with a fog neck, and there's also a marmot
Speaker 1: and spruce and all these other ones. But we were
Speaker 1: out on a fog neck specifically for the elk hunting,
Speaker 1: really really well known for its elk population out there,
Speaker 1: and these elk are ah incredible. First of all, we
Speaker 1: had done a hunt me and some of the other
Speaker 1: guys the prior year and just capitalized and it was awesome,
Speaker 1: had a great time and uh, these are just massive.
Speaker 1: They're not like the Colorado or Wyoming type elk w
Speaker 1: you have, you know, the massive racks, but they're just huge.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest body and uh and we had
Speaker 1: a fantastic time. And I got to go with another
Speaker 1: guy um the same year prior to that, and uh
Speaker 1: he he drew, so he had a draw and he
Speaker 1: actually did his on Raspberry and did win there. So
Speaker 1: I've had a couple of good elk hunts there and
Speaker 1: we wanted to repeat this year. So it just puts
Speaker 1: a lot of good meat and the freezer for everybody.
Speaker 1: And I think that answers the question of after I've
Speaker 1: heard Remy and Steve's story. You know, the question becomes
Speaker 1: why a fog mack? Knowing you know the inherent danger
Speaker 1: of the environment. I mean it's harsh, harsh environment, especially
Speaker 1: the times that you were there and when those guys
Speaker 1: are over there. So I mean it's rain, it suck,
Speaker 1: it's hard to move around, it takes you know, oh,
Speaker 1: we only have to get a mile that direction. Well
Speaker 1: that's gonna take us four hours. Um, so it's it's
Speaker 1: we'll get into you know, let you describe a little
Speaker 1: bit of your experience. Is there. But you know the
Speaker 1: question of why becomes it's close to where you live.
Speaker 1: It's a plane right away, and there's giant elk there
Speaker 1: that can give you a year's worth of meat. That's
Speaker 1: probably four pounds of meat, yes easily, you know you
Speaker 1: split it up, and it's it's incredible and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I know the boys and I, uh so I go
Speaker 1: for an elk hunt and uh we took a boat
Speaker 1: over actually, um and got to our kind of hunting
Speaker 1: spot where we do how uh let's say like an
Speaker 1: hour and a half. That's not long. No, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not bad at all. Um, not from the main
Speaker 1: like Dog Harbor area, and Kodiak anywhere you launched from it.
Speaker 1: That's probably where most people launch from anyways, Dog Harbor,
Speaker 1: And it just kind of depends on, of course, the
Speaker 1: sea state and the tides because there's some passes that
Speaker 1: you can take to get there. Um, they can get through,
Speaker 1: otherwise you gonna go all the way around. They'll take
Speaker 1: a lot longer, but I think about an hour and
Speaker 1: a half that is what it was. And as a resident,
Speaker 1: is it pretty easy to grab a tag to go
Speaker 1: over there? Yeah? No, Um, the registration hunt opens. Um
Speaker 1: all on the kind of for lack of a better term,
Speaker 1: I guess, quota on on how the draw hunts go.
Speaker 1: So the ELK has really really highly regulated, and it
Speaker 1: was let's see two seasons prior to this one where
Speaker 1: none of us actually got to go. We were trying
Speaker 1: to make it work and get everybody organized, and they
Speaker 1: shut it down. So the way it works is the
Speaker 1: draw hunts all happen and then uh, I guess some
Speaker 1: years they might not even open it, but they'll open
Speaker 1: it on the same date. Uh remember what it it was
Speaker 1: this year. I think it's November or something like that.
Speaker 1: That sounds about right. Maybe, Oh, no, October would be October. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it had to be so October I think is when
Speaker 1: it opens for the public and you just go pick
Speaker 1: up your tag. It's free, and every day to call
Speaker 1: in find out if it's still open, and then as
Speaker 1: soon as you do get one, you're required to call
Speaker 1: it in I think within forty eight hours really the
Speaker 1: same day as oftenly what you want to do, um,
Speaker 1: just to let them know what the population is, and
Speaker 1: then whether whatever quota they set fishing game does then
Speaker 1: it's like closed down and unlike all you know, most
Speaker 1: other hunts you have like five days, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: five days calling, but it's like the Elk is very
Speaker 1: very strict and um because it's all it's all herds
Speaker 1: there and um, I don't know where that's going on that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, October three, and we kind of switched out
Speaker 1: with some other guys on this hunt and sent some
Speaker 1: other guys over there first and then we swapped out
Speaker 1: with them and they didn't have any any luck whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And as you well know, and I know he has
Speaker 1: get some good experience over there. I've seen some of
Speaker 1: the shows and podcasts as well. But the weather is
Speaker 1: just also just as crazy over there, even probably more so,
Speaker 1: I think, um, because there is no roads, no really
Speaker 1: well taken past or trails. Like if you're gonna find something,
Speaker 1: your goal is to kind of get up the ridgeline
Speaker 1: and and then hopefully you can see but at the
Speaker 1: cloud cover is low enough, you're not gonna able to
Speaker 1: see anything, Like you just can't get anywhere. And uh,
Speaker 1: obviously come to find out, it's like the bear population
Speaker 1: there is is well aware of elk and and the
Speaker 1: people there, and they're not city bears. You know, they're
Speaker 1: very u well versed in in being the primal creature
Speaker 1: over there. Did you like when going into this this
Speaker 1: particular hunt and you hunt up before obviously, and um,
Speaker 1: going into this hunt, what's your you know, what's your mindset?
Speaker 1: You know if this would be a lot of questions
Speaker 1: in one but had you had any bear experiences on
Speaker 1: a fog neck prior and going into this hunt? What
Speaker 1: was your preparation as far as communication with the mainland
Speaker 1: um and medical supplies and and protection from bears? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, like that's informed by just your general knowledge
Speaker 1: of wilderness or medicine and and what you've done in
Speaker 1: the past, but that's also informed by you know what
Speaker 1: you've seen over there, and UM, so yeah, me and
Speaker 1: the boys, Uh, it's always standard for us every time
Speaker 1: we're going out bringing a STAP phone. Um, we always
Speaker 1: have a SAP phone with us. At least one guys
Speaker 1: have that. We actually had multiple dorm in reaches with us.
Speaker 1: A fantastic yeah, and well it's funny enough. I've got
Speaker 1: to get a story on that when we when we
Speaker 1: get to it. UM in comparison, I guess, but uh,
Speaker 1: and then guys have gps is and cell phones as
Speaker 1: well that we use for gps is. All of us
Speaker 1: pretty much use the Guy app on our cell phones.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's great, but no, those are kind of
Speaker 1: our our primary like electronic devices that we use. UM.
Speaker 1: And then we always have a first aid kit that
Speaker 1: everybody has pretty much standard with them as well as
Speaker 1: turning kits. And then every guy's got one of those, UM,
Speaker 1: and then everybody's carrying with them. Some guys will have
Speaker 1: like a little bit more or less depending but you know, everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody's got one of those. The dorm injury which is
Speaker 1: I think we had at least two, and then at
Speaker 1: least like a plethora of rifles. You know, and and
Speaker 1: pistols combos thereof, so I think we pretty much covered
Speaker 1: our bases. And to be honest, like when this all
Speaker 1: went down, I still think it went down textbook like
Speaker 1: couldn't win anybody better under the circumstances, and uh, never
Speaker 1: had any better experiences over there before, and honestly before
Speaker 1: that had never even seen. Yeah, it was kind of
Speaker 1: kind of surprised even us. So the year prior to
Speaker 1: when we did the elk cunt um, we kind of
Speaker 1: came up with this system. We did it all in
Speaker 1: one go and got the elk scunum, brought all the
Speaker 1: meat away from the carcasses, and then built kind of
Speaker 1: a new site with a fire at it. And arthury
Speaker 1: is just you know, having the fire hopefully keep the
Speaker 1: air away or at least kind of determined for a
Speaker 1: little while. And then we just kind of did this
Speaker 1: uh shuffling uh short movements. Um, we just go a
Speaker 1: few hundred yards, make another fire, bring the meat over there,
Speaker 1: and then just cart back and forth and then just
Speaker 1: basically go fire to fire to fire to fire until
Speaker 1: we got back to the boats on the beach. And
Speaker 1: system really really worked good. Never saw any bear. Uh.
Speaker 1: The only thing we saw at that point was foxes.
Speaker 1: The foxes obviously he's like, who meat, you know, like
Speaker 1: on the on these islands. Oh for sure, we've done
Speaker 1: a buffalo hunt. Um. I think first year I was
Speaker 1: there down towards the south end of the island, and uh,
Speaker 1: that was the first thing that I saw pop up.
Speaker 1: As soon as our buffalo wing down, like that great
Speaker 1: fox came like right up to me. Didn't care all,
Speaker 1: he was just like, hey, what's up. It's like just
Speaker 1: nose in the air, like looking it's like, oh I
Speaker 1: smell smell meat and he was ready to go. But uh,
Speaker 1: it never really came up before. But that's another thing
Speaker 1: I think with the wildlife in Kodiak is there's no
Speaker 1: real predators. I think, uh, like other places, the bear,
Speaker 1: as much as I know that they can take down
Speaker 1: like deer, elk and buffalo, it's not really a normal occurrence.
Speaker 1: They rely on you know, meats or meats, berries and
Speaker 1: twigs that they're inland or if that's where they're going
Speaker 1: for and then mainly the salmon of course, and that
Speaker 1: that's always their main food consumption. So I think they'll
Speaker 1: take carcasses and stuff like that when it's when it's
Speaker 1: there and ready, and especially the more hungry they are.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I think just probably a waste
Speaker 1: of energy for them, so they don't actually try taking
Speaker 1: them down. More scavengers, um, but yeah, no predators there.
Speaker 1: But anyway, uh yeah, back back to the fog neck
Speaker 1: and I would say, like as a um, you know,
Speaker 1: to make your point a little bit, you'll go to
Speaker 1: Kodiak Island and look at how many blacktailed deer there are.
Speaker 1: There's no way that that predation is that strong. What
Speaker 1: you look, the predation numbers can't be that high because
Speaker 1: they're deer every everywhere everywhere. Well I have to go
Speaker 1: on a tangent on this one now, but specifically with
Speaker 1: the deer, it wasn't. This year was great, phenomenal, fantastic
Speaker 1: deer everywhere. The deer looked really really healthy, a lot
Speaker 1: of fat on them. Both mine and the ones other
Speaker 1: guys that I work with killed like really really good,
Speaker 1: healthy deer, which is really great to see because the
Speaker 1: year prior was horrendous. Almost nobody got dear, very very scarce.
Speaker 1: And the reason for that, in my hypothesis and other
Speaker 1: guys that I've talked to, is all because of an
Speaker 1: kind of an early freeze, and it just killed off
Speaker 1: all of the salmon berries. There was no salmon berries,
Speaker 1: uh like on island at all. There was no season
Speaker 1: because a lot of people go out and harvest and
Speaker 1: pick them and you know, make stuff with them, pies
Speaker 1: and juices and whatever else, and completely killed them off.
Speaker 1: And therefore I think that, you know, the deer population
Speaker 1: really hurt, not probably just because of the salmon berries,
Speaker 1: but other things that that that frost could have killed
Speaker 1: as well, just to hurt the population so much. But
Speaker 1: the deer just thrived there. And from what I've been
Speaker 1: told is like the entire population of deer on Kodiak
Speaker 1: started with like seven deer on a separate island on
Speaker 1: Long Island, just off the coast there, and I think
Speaker 1: some down in the south then as well, and they
Speaker 1: just dropped them off. And the deer from Long Island,
Speaker 1: you know, they swam over and the ones in the
Speaker 1: south are like that, all just like populated, just like
Speaker 1: blew up, completely just thrived there, hearty creatures with the
Speaker 1: harsh conditions, but of course with no predators. That's that's
Speaker 1: what takes it down. It's it's it's the harsh conditions
Speaker 1: and the weather and event nevitally that's so it's not
Speaker 1: like they're dealing with coyoutes and wolves and you know,
Speaker 1: other predators to take them. Yeah. I mean with low
Speaker 1: predation generally low predation numbers, and winter kill being you know,
Speaker 1: winter kill and predation being kind of a habitat loss
Speaker 1: kind of being the three things that normally will drive
Speaker 1: population numbers down. There's not a whole lot of any
Speaker 1: of those things other than winter kill going on. But
Speaker 1: do you know I could just scratch the surface. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the one time that I hunted blacktail deer
Speaker 1: and codyak. I mean you could look across the flats,
Speaker 1: look across the Hummack flats and it would be two
Speaker 1: deer and one. I mean, I have photos of two
Speaker 1: deer standing in one flat cheese over there. That's I'm
Speaker 1: swarm of secrets. You can't tell you where's right, I
Speaker 1: get it. But yeah, but but that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: my experience on one small part of the island. But
Speaker 1: for sure is in that harsh environment, to see those
Speaker 1: animals fry like that, that's that's um. It was always
Speaker 1: amazing to me. Yeah, you know they're like you said,
Speaker 1: hardy animals. Back to falkneck another tangent, all good tangents,
Speaker 1: but podcasts are about are all about tings. So so
Speaker 1: you had never you had quite the system for for
Speaker 1: getting your meat out, um, and never had any any
Speaker 1: bare experiences to this point, but still very prepared. I mean,
Speaker 1: you guys are all carrying side arms for not not everybody.
Speaker 1: Some guys that side arms, and uh, some guys had
Speaker 1: rifles and then some guys didn't have anything. At the point.
Speaker 1: It just kind of like because of the situation where
Speaker 1: we did, uh go for the elk, things had kind
Speaker 1: of changed over the course time. At first everybody everybody
Speaker 1: had a rifle on them, um, but our our goal
Speaker 1: had changed, like okay, we're only getting one elk, and
Speaker 1: uh that was really the deals, like okay, we're only
Speaker 1: getting one elk. This times like just bringing out because
Speaker 1: kind of setting up for that. Uh, the guys prior
Speaker 1: hadn't seen anything. The conditions were just horrible. They were
Speaker 1: just got awful, Like it was really really high winds,
Speaker 1: heavy rains, cold, and we just wanted to focus on
Speaker 1: normal conditions, normal normal conditions there and even the cloud
Speaker 1: cover was was low a lot of the times and
Speaker 1: of course affected visibility. So first we were gung ho
Speaker 1: and I think we were there for two days and
Speaker 1: hadn't seen anything. We didn't even see any deer, like
Speaker 1: we're just talking about the deer population. Didn't see any deer,
Speaker 1: didn't see any elk and see any bear, didn't see anything,
Speaker 1: no fox. That's like, I didn't see anything living practically,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you gotta be kidding me. It's like nothing,
Speaker 1: and we're like, okay, that was a little disheartening, and
Speaker 1: the other guys with the same way and like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: it's definitely it's a relatively big island. When you're on
Speaker 1: foot and having to work, like you've mentioned before, it's
Speaker 1: like it takes you hours to go anywhere, so you
Speaker 1: gotta kind of set yourself up, and not knowing where
Speaker 1: the actual like population of elk is like can really
Speaker 1: hurt you. Did you guys bring any like bear fencing
Speaker 1: or when you camped every night or did you just
Speaker 1: no just camping yep, just asses out and hope nothing
Speaker 1: bad happens. Talk about that a lot, because we spent
Speaker 1: a lot of days out in the field, like sleeping overnight,
Speaker 1: and uh, spent a lot of nights out in the
Speaker 1: field in a biddy and just this you know, small
Speaker 1: like rainproof sack and just call a bear burrito because
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a bad day if that bear decides
Speaker 1: that you just fell really good and decides to take
Speaker 1: you open there. Yeah, exactly, And nope, that's all we
Speaker 1: had is just our shelters, and we were down more
Speaker 1: towards the coast, and because of the numbers, we weren't.
Speaker 1: We've never really had issues Before's as soon as you
Speaker 1: have the meat and all that, I think that's when
Speaker 1: it changes everything. They're willing to you know, they're willing
Speaker 1: to inch a little bit further in because of the reward,
Speaker 1: rather than you know, how many guys you have in
Speaker 1: your in your univeing myself, yea five people. That's a
Speaker 1: good determ for a better But when there's the the
Speaker 1: encouragement to come and check that meat out, it's probably
Speaker 1: a little bit more. I think the I don't know,
Speaker 1: people have different theories and their own stories, and I
Speaker 1: think fire always helped to do so. It's like when
Speaker 1: you have a base game, you know, having that fire,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like Okay, I think I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're cooking something that's going to change stuff, But
Speaker 1: as soon as you have a fire in the smoke,
Speaker 1: I would think that, you know, the bears don't really
Speaker 1: like that, but then again, maybe they do. There's some
Speaker 1: theories on the gunshots and Kodiak being like dinner bells.
Speaker 1: You hear that all the time, and it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the time that you have to be most aware,
Speaker 1: like bear aware, as they saying, because is like as
Speaker 1: soon as that happens, like you're just waiting. Did you
Speaker 1: guys ever consider bear spray as as something you would do?
Speaker 1: Would you do? You know? Like, and I know I
Speaker 1: got a lot of guys use it. I'm not a
Speaker 1: huge proponent of it. Um. I still prefer, you know,
Speaker 1: a side arm if I'm gonna carry something and not
Speaker 1: carry a full rifle. Otherwise I always try to carry
Speaker 1: a full rifle with me. Um. I don't know. The
Speaker 1: bear spray supposedly works, but as we talked about with
Speaker 1: the the guy that was just uh just got mauld
Speaker 1: in Montana, you know, hit twice by that sow and
Speaker 1: she obviously ran straight through the bear spray. And I've
Speaker 1: heard other accounts of that, and I think with the
Speaker 1: bears that are there, if they want you, if they
Speaker 1: want what you have, they're gonna get it. It's only
Speaker 1: for Yeah, I think that kind of bear that's kind
Speaker 1: of curious. That makes you feel more uneasy, like in
Speaker 1: all honestly, like with with a bunch of guys around,
Speaker 1: like you're probably gonna scare the bear off. The bears
Speaker 1: probably not gonna like have any interest and eventually go away.
Speaker 1: He might get close, that might scare you, but like
Speaker 1: you're probably pull out the bear spray. I think in fear.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think a lot of times like
Speaker 1: you hear about the you know, the false charges and
Speaker 1: people shooting bear and it does kind of suck. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you can't protect yourself and others, but when
Speaker 1: a bear is just kind of like, hey, you're in
Speaker 1: my area and just kind of like yeah, the charges,
Speaker 1: that's a confused. It's hard and you know, I know
Speaker 1: other hunters have have had those experiences plenty of times before,
Speaker 1: including Coal, as we discussed before. I love the guy
Speaker 1: and you know what's up Coal, But when when he
Speaker 1: actually hitting up path event event when he found out
Speaker 1: and he gave me like, hey, assholes, supposed to be
Speaker 1: me to get to Like I'm the bear guy, Like
Speaker 1: this is supposed to happen to me first, not you.
Speaker 1: So he gave me plenty of ship. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: know it's a very real thing. And the bear spray
Speaker 1: if if you're gonna if that's all you got, awesome,
Speaker 1: you know that that's all you got. But definitely strength
Speaker 1: numbers and you guys always stick together when you're when
Speaker 1: you're in a place, and that was, you know, the
Speaker 1: part of the thing. But um, again, we were just
Speaker 1: focused on the elk then, you know, not seeing anything else.
Speaker 1: The last thing any of us were expecting to run
Speaker 1: into is bear, um in those conditions, and well let's
Speaker 1: let's get into it. Yeah. So so you guys had
Speaker 1: a hunted a couple of days not seeing hot nor hair. Yeah, nothing,
Speaker 1: I think it was and I take that back. I
Speaker 1: think it was the end of the second day, just
Speaker 1: as the sun was going down, where another guy was
Speaker 1: with me, he spotted them. Finally, we're like, we're just
Speaker 1: trying to find different spots, like going through the spruce
Speaker 1: and uh and and finding open areas where you can
Speaker 1: kind of glass and see whatever we can see. And
Speaker 1: finally high up on a ridge line, I saw like
Speaker 1: two to four of them, I think, well now three four,
Speaker 1: like four alcayop on the bridge line. Way, thank god, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's like we finally saw something. We know that they're
Speaker 1: they're awesome. Immediately, like all right, let's break down, let's
Speaker 1: head back, let's see where we can get the boats
Speaker 1: in like with you know, with the surf and the
Speaker 1: wind that the way they were, we want to make sure.
Speaker 1: And I kind of make this plan of attack to
Speaker 1: get up to where they were the following morning. So
Speaker 1: always scolpted it out, looked on some maps, just kind
Speaker 1: of glass the area, and uh found this bridge line
Speaker 1: that we decided to take, and um made our plan
Speaker 1: and you know, set up following morning, got up early,
Speaker 1: early before the sun and started hiking up and certainly
Speaker 1: no easy going there. You know, it took us, took
Speaker 1: us a little while, but we made it up, and
Speaker 1: I think the line was still the best that we
Speaker 1: could have taken. And finally got up on the ridge
Speaker 1: line and hadn't seen anything, and conditions were still terrible.
Speaker 1: I think the weather predicted that, you know, it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be better. Of course it was not the opposite.
Speaker 1: It was actually more rainy, and uh I didn't seem
Speaker 1: at first, and we had our suspicions because if people
Speaker 1: aren't aware, you know, elka very no mac they're not
Speaker 1: like deer would say, oh sun goes down, like they're
Speaker 1: gonna graze a little bit, maybe bed down, like they'll
Speaker 1: probably be there, and then moving the elk and move
Speaker 1: like really great distances like off in the night. And
Speaker 1: so of course we get out there are like, shit,
Speaker 1: my gosh, damn it, like where are they? And I
Speaker 1: started walking the ridge lines more and finally saw them,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't for as the whole herd, and I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen a full herd of elk yet. Um no,
Speaker 1: well in Kodiak anyway, like I've heard it like okay,
Speaker 1: there's always you know, big herds of them, but we've
Speaker 1: always just seen like one of twos and that's what
Speaker 1: we hunted, and honestly that's kind of better just because
Speaker 1: you don't have so many eyes on you. But finding
Speaker 1: the herd was like really really nice to were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we were just extent, you know, really really excited finally
Speaker 1: finding them. So we're at the top of the ridge
Speaker 1: line there at the bottom of the valley, and then
Speaker 1: it was kind of like great, but now what do
Speaker 1: we do? And of course we're just sitting there for
Speaker 1: a while looking around and how far below you are
Speaker 1: they at this point, I don't know what elevation we
Speaker 1: were at. We were pretty high, we had we were
Speaker 1: definitely above alpine, so I don't think we're at the
Speaker 1: top elevation feet or so, and then they were almost
Speaker 1: probably at sea level, yeah, not not very much higher.
Speaker 1: So um, there was very little cover getting down to them.
Speaker 1: A lot of older but not really like good spruce
Speaker 1: where you're gonna get a shot anyway. So that was
Speaker 1: really the talk is like, Okay, how do we get
Speaker 1: down to these elk um within range, get a shot,
Speaker 1: and then of course getting him out else or out afterwards.
Speaker 1: And we figured probably just take the valley out, but uh,
Speaker 1: we decided like, hey, there's five of us, let's split up,
Speaker 1: three go on one side of the herd and to
Speaker 1: stay on the other side of the herd, and we
Speaker 1: basically just kind of trying to make our way down
Speaker 1: and pray that they don't just find out we're there.
Speaker 1: And then jet on the other side of the alley.
Speaker 1: Hopefully they'll just kind of like either move one way
Speaker 1: or the other. Because they weren't really moving too much.
Speaker 1: They were they seemed a little weird, little off. We
Speaker 1: couldn't really tell what it was. And so we're just like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's just split them, get down. Then whoever can take
Speaker 1: a shot. We'll hear the shot and like cool, that's it,
Speaker 1: and then go to the other guys. And uh so
Speaker 1: we started moving, and myself and two other guys with
Speaker 1: the three man group and I started moving to to
Speaker 1: one side of them, making our way across the ridge
Speaker 1: line then eventually down and then of course we run
Speaker 1: into three other hunters and as it seems, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. We were just just in awe.
Speaker 1: One we'd already been there two days. Like it was
Speaker 1: definitely like a piste off moment. And they were below us.
Speaker 1: They never saw us, um far far down below it.
Speaker 1: They were just glassing and it's like, okay, rightfully, so
Speaker 1: however they got there, you know, they got there. They
Speaker 1: were clear, they're in front of us. But it piste
Speaker 1: us off because no tact whatsoever right out in the open,
Speaker 1: moving straight towards the alkin like okay, no, one of
Speaker 1: the elk are kind of like weird, you know, their
Speaker 1: eyes are up all on the hills. Were like, well,
Speaker 1: there we go. It's like these you know whatever, gentleman exactly, yeah, gentlemen.
Speaker 1: I don't know who they were, but it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely annoying. They're probably just they wanted to be fair
Speaker 1: chase yea yeah, right, and uh, you know, they were
Speaker 1: doing their thing and whatever. Maybe it worked out for
Speaker 1: all I don't know, but obviously it ticked us off
Speaker 1: and like, okay, well rightfully, so these guys are lower
Speaker 1: and to get them sort of like the right away,
Speaker 1: but like we're not gonna end here, like all right.
Speaker 1: The three of us decided like, hey, let's book it
Speaker 1: back to the other side, kind of kind of climb
Speaker 1: back up the bridge line, make your way over, trying
Speaker 1: to spook the elk, and then get back with the
Speaker 1: other two guys. We're like, okay, from there, we're just
Speaker 1: gonna try to make our way down and uh get
Speaker 1: on the other side. So it's like, hey, if if
Speaker 1: we get down low enough we take a shot first,
Speaker 1: then so be it. Or if they take a shot.
Speaker 1: Hopefully they'll kind of like push them drive them towards us,
Speaker 1: so we're kind of be ready. So I kind of
Speaker 1: took the lead, running, sprinting my ass off to link
Speaker 1: up with the other two guys, and um, the two
Speaker 1: that were with me were behind me, and we're just
Speaker 1: kind of moving across the bridge line. I start making
Speaker 1: my way across and then eventually down and I'm just
Speaker 1: kind of starting to break down out of alpine into
Speaker 1: the order of the thick brush there, and I saw
Speaker 1: the hats sticking out of the order of one of
Speaker 1: the other guys, so that was kind of my eye.
Speaker 1: And uh, one of the guys that was with me,
Speaker 1: he got my attention. He's like, hey, he's like, we
Speaker 1: want to take another line down. And we were separated,
Speaker 1: you know, a good distance at this point. So I
Speaker 1: started my waking making my way up towards him. And
Speaker 1: this is a really really steep hill and a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, there's a there was a cliff kind of
Speaker 1: separating us. Um, not huge or anything, but it's probably
Speaker 1: you know, thirty wide, maybe like tall, just enough that
Speaker 1: it's like he's not gonna like jump down over it.
Speaker 1: It's like he's going to be above it with the
Speaker 1: other guy, and I'm below it, and we're kind of
Speaker 1: converging at that cliff and then paralleling at that point.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of just coming up towards the cliff,
Speaker 1: kind of kind of back up the hill at this point,
Speaker 1: and I step over this rock, kind of climb over
Speaker 1: like terrain feature, so to speak. And as soon as
Speaker 1: I do, I stand up and turn and right down
Speaker 1: the older five yards away there she is. And immediately, like,
Speaker 1: you know, just stop frozen and at this like what's
Speaker 1: she doing? She looking at you, she looking away. So
Speaker 1: so that was it was like when I saw it
Speaker 1: was just just a big ball for like, no features,
Speaker 1: no anything. I just see is this big thing of fur,
Speaker 1: and you know, I just I just stopped him, like
Speaker 1: I couldn't really make out anything. And of course everything
Speaker 1: immediately like slows down. And the way I really have
Speaker 1: related the story with other people that I've told is
Speaker 1: kind of like the state of flow, where I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: everything immediately went slow motion. I got like no concept
Speaker 1: of time from this point on, like everything we slowed down,
Speaker 1: making all the decisions in my head, and um so
Speaker 1: for me, I'm just say you know, the gears are turning,
Speaker 1: and the first instinct I didn't know, you know, I
Speaker 1: just big thing of fur. Okay, what is it? You know?
Speaker 1: My mind's like okay, processing, processing, because I'm not even
Speaker 1: think about Bear. I'm thinking about Elk, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's not the right color. And the color was actually
Speaker 1: like grayer. It wasn't really brown like even brown Bear
Speaker 1: and Elk, and I'm like okay, processing. But of course,
Speaker 1: no time whatsoever. I just I just stand up there.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I did, I took a step back,
Speaker 1: and because it kind of dawned at me, finally, okay, this,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it's not good. I know I know better,
Speaker 1: and took one step back, and whether it was the
Speaker 1: point where she finally heard me or finally smelled me
Speaker 1: and caught wind of me, she just turned her head
Speaker 1: and charged like immediately, and and as soon as I
Speaker 1: took the step back, I knew that was going to
Speaker 1: be the case. Anyway, Like I said, with my experiences
Speaker 1: as the Bear, it's like everything's good, fine and dandy,
Speaker 1: because you don't surprise them like you never surprised at Bear,
Speaker 1: Like they know you're there well before you do otherwise,
Speaker 1: like you're hunting it from like hundreds of yards yards away,
Speaker 1: you know you're glassing them, but like if you're that close,
Speaker 1: like no way they know you're there. And so as
Speaker 1: soon as I did him, like there was no doubt
Speaker 1: in my mind, like this is gonna happen, Like there's
Speaker 1: there's no getting out of it. You don't feel like
Speaker 1: she was processed anything she smelled it was instinct, like
Speaker 1: there was instinctual like there's danger, something's not right. I
Speaker 1: have to address this issue. There was no and and
Speaker 1: be five yards, but I don't have to exaggerate the
Speaker 1: distance where or I know I know five yards very well.
Speaker 1: And for people unaware, you know that talk about running
Speaker 1: away from bears and stuff, bears running thirty plus, Like
Speaker 1: that's that's a leap, you know, a way that the
Speaker 1: bears can just they're insane. That's like somebody fast. You'd
Speaker 1: be in five yards from the hood of a car
Speaker 1: and somebody flooring it. You're thinking you're gonna jump out
Speaker 1: of the way. They could cover a let's see, five
Speaker 1: yards and in a millisecond really well a top speed.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it took a little bit longer than that.
Speaker 1: But in real time, Like that's a second really, and
Speaker 1: how long I mean you're when you're processing you see
Speaker 1: the bear, you're processing it, it's moments until it charges you.
Speaker 1: I mean no, no, it was almost instantaneous. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I stood up, and and I did take a step
Speaker 1: back because it once it immediately clicked, which is you know,
Speaker 1: probably a millisecond. She probably as soon as I stood up,
Speaker 1: probably smelled me or whatever, and it took her probably
Speaker 1: a millisecond to just a turn. So I don't really
Speaker 1: know that the time wise there, but I just knew
Speaker 1: there was no she didn't she wasn't standing up. There
Speaker 1: was no like snore, there was no like you know,
Speaker 1: kind of bluffing beefing up. It was just like like
Speaker 1: it startled her, you know, scared, and she's like what
Speaker 1: is this that just really snuck up behind me because
Speaker 1: just by her head turn she was facing downhill and
Speaker 1: and my suspicion as well these other guys she's probably
Speaker 1: hunting the same elk. We were like I wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: something to do with whether she was going to hunt
Speaker 1: them or like you know, capitalize on something else. She
Speaker 1: was there for a reason, like right near the elk,
Speaker 1: and she was just hunkered down and the older either
Speaker 1: sneaking weight making her way through or just like waiting.
Speaker 1: And so when I came up behind her was sheer surprise.
Speaker 1: So of course instinctively, I immediately yelled out there and
Speaker 1: instinctively was pulling my rifle up. I ripped the scope
Speaker 1: cover off and started presenting, you know, my rifle, and
Speaker 1: I knew. I'm like, this isn't gonna happen, and this
Speaker 1: is the first time and I've I've shot it a
Speaker 1: few times now, But I got a new uh a
Speaker 1: new rifles six five creed More, and I was really
Speaker 1: excited about it because it was insanely like my goal
Speaker 1: is I really like guns, and I huge prom like
Speaker 1: I just love shooting in general. But I built this
Speaker 1: specifically to be extremely light, like the lightest rifle I have.
Speaker 1: The whole thing with five rounds is less than six pounds,
Speaker 1: so it's like a toothpick, you know, you're holding it.
Speaker 1: So it's so great, you know, great's gonna be great
Speaker 1: for goats and future out kinds and everything else. But
Speaker 1: of course it's not gonna take down to bear, never
Speaker 1: in a million years. Every it's for people who don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just a little little, teeny tiny round like it's
Speaker 1: it's goes shoot fast and straight and it's gonna take
Speaker 1: a lot of shot placement, but it's it doesn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of power, and especially for a bear, and
Speaker 1: I knew it. My note, I'm like, okay, if I
Speaker 1: get the hip shot, if anything off, it's just gonna
Speaker 1: piss off. It's not gonna take you down. Then I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take five pounds to the face and the body
Speaker 1: and just I'll end up like one of those stories.
Speaker 1: And all of this is just turning my mind. And
Speaker 1: I knew it. Started raising it, threw it down, and
Speaker 1: then I just Superman down the hill. And of course
Speaker 1: when I say that, it's like, yeah, it's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a drop, but I'm not really going anywhere,
Speaker 1: and uh, I just kind of jumped in the alders
Speaker 1: and covered up my head and neck as best I could,
Speaker 1: and again no concept of time, but it felt like
Speaker 1: I didn't even hit the ground, and she was already
Speaker 1: on me. She had a bite in the back of
Speaker 1: my leg, high up on my right leg, just just
Speaker 1: below my ass, and she picked me up just by
Speaker 1: that and just threw me threw me over that same
Speaker 1: like rock like kind of terrain features that I was
Speaker 1: kind of falling down. I I fall on my head.
Speaker 1: She's just kind of like just throwing me around like
Speaker 1: a rag doll. She picks me up and as I'm falling,
Speaker 1: she's trying to rebite me, and she she bites me
Speaker 1: in the nuts and I'm kind of like head down,
Speaker 1: face down. I just feel top two canines like going
Speaker 1: into the taint and like that's not good, like fall
Speaker 1: and she's just bite me in the leg like traveling
Speaker 1: on the leg. Bites me real hard, almost like kind
Speaker 1: of behind the knee at this point. Unfortunately, like the
Speaker 1: guys were Johnny on the spot, of course, this is
Speaker 1: just like second stances are happening and the guy do
Speaker 1: you remember screaming or yeah I did on the first one.
Speaker 1: But it's it's funny, you know, training dogs. I think
Speaker 1: I had a lot to do it. And when you
Speaker 1: train dogs like for for bite working stuff, uh, it
Speaker 1: drives them. Just like when they say of the animals,
Speaker 1: like the whole playing dead thing, it actually has a
Speaker 1: lot of truth behind it because it is it's just
Speaker 1: kind of like this instinctual prey that when you do
Speaker 1: bite or when they bite, like when you scream, it
Speaker 1: just drives them even more to buy the hardest theff
Speaker 1: first when I yelled out, and I'm like, like that
Speaker 1: was obviously making things way worse than like, okay, this
Speaker 1: is it. It's like this is gonna suck, like it's
Speaker 1: gonna be really really bad. And even when I dove,
Speaker 1: like I knew that, like there's no protecting myself, is
Speaker 1: fully relying on everybody else around me to take over
Speaker 1: this point, I'm like, okay, here's trusting the boys, like
Speaker 1: I know they know their ship, like this is it. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just I never let go like just head, you know,
Speaker 1: our hands behind the head and neck and uh you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of got a ash in my eye from
Speaker 1: just getting thrown into some alder or something at some point,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, yeah, I'm not letting go like this
Speaker 1: is you know, this is all I got like to
Speaker 1: to hold onto. And um, right when she was stolen
Speaker 1: the legs, she uh the guy above me took a shot,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh you know, as he tells it too,
Speaker 1: obviously we all collected her own stories after the event,
Speaker 1: and uh he he didn't hear what I said. None
Speaker 1: of them did, Like they're all like somewhat close by,
Speaker 1: but they just they couldn't make out what I said,
Speaker 1: Like I was yelling bear, but I just said at
Speaker 1: once and then I was, you know, mauled, and they
Speaker 1: just heard the scream and then they heard all the
Speaker 1: growling and then then you know, immediately immediately new So
Speaker 1: all I did is get up over the cliff and
Speaker 1: he peered down. He had to kind of make a
Speaker 1: judgment call at that point because I couldn't see me,
Speaker 1: like the bears just like engulfed on me, like couldn't
Speaker 1: see him at all. Made a judgment call and putting
Speaker 1: you know, hiring her back. And wherever that bullet ended up,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but for actually it didn't end up me,
Speaker 1: and and you know I would have done the same thing,
Speaker 1: Like I'm thankful he did it and I didn't kill her.
Speaker 1: You know, it just kind of piste her off and
Speaker 1: not a fear and anger. She beat me again, like
Speaker 1: kind of clawed on my back at this point, and
Speaker 1: backpack definitely stone. I even told calls like hey man,
Speaker 1: like I know you know that all those guys like
Speaker 1: let him know I was like definitely saved my ass um,
Speaker 1: and I got a few claw marks on my back,
Speaker 1: but no, it definitely took some took some heavies and
Speaker 1: uh save me. But she you know kind of got
Speaker 1: uh to the side and then sunk one into my
Speaker 1: arm pretty good, and uh then the second shot went
Speaker 1: out just she just reloaded really quick quick put another
Speaker 1: one in or had a little bit better shot then
Speaker 1: and that one dropped her, you know, kind of at
Speaker 1: that point heard her enough. I heard a very distinct moan,
Speaker 1: kind of that killed shot type type deal, and she
Speaker 1: fell kind of on top of me, but a little
Speaker 1: bit of the side to not really in off of me.
Speaker 1: And ironically it was I was a little more nervous
Speaker 1: at that point, even not being bit, because she was
Speaker 1: right there. I was more nervous about my my the
Speaker 1: back of my head and neck because I couldn't see
Speaker 1: her at all. I'm kind of on my left side,
Speaker 1: you know, with my hands behind my head and neck
Speaker 1: and looking up the hill with the two other guys
Speaker 1: that were with me, um when we split up, and uh,
Speaker 1: all I could see was or all I could just
Speaker 1: feel is just her and like I could hear the
Speaker 1: breath I feel the firm, like, oh god, I'm like,
Speaker 1: just don't bite me, like that's all I kept think.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I'm hoping that bite doesn't
Speaker 1: come like on my head or something. Unfortunately, she started
Speaker 1: kind of crawling away. She was obviously really hurting at
Speaker 1: that point and uh barely kind of stumbling crawling away.
Speaker 1: I couldn't see her. I was just still faced uphill.
Speaker 1: But the other guy that was um with me and
Speaker 1: the other one when we split up, he ran down
Speaker 1: the hill and he had a glock uh twenty on
Speaker 1: him with a ten mill, and uh, he just kind
Speaker 1: of got to me, pulled out the clock, ran by
Speaker 1: me and just dumped a mag you know, just magat
Speaker 1: and finished rock make sure she'd be gonna come after
Speaker 1: us anymore. And um, immediately at that point is when
Speaker 1: I just started taking the backpack off on, zipping clothing
Speaker 1: like trying to get things. Couldn't move my leg at
Speaker 1: all at this point. It was just I knew that
Speaker 1: was the worst of it. And a little side note
Speaker 1: on this one, Unfortunately I was completely unaware of what
Speaker 1: I found out afterwards. Is when they took that first shot,
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, put when her in her in
Speaker 1: her back, they saw a cub out of the alder
Speaker 1: So of course, like I've told everybody, was like not
Speaker 1: having the experience that I do with bears, which is
Speaker 1: pales and compared to some to some people of course,
Speaker 1: but they're not aggressive that they're not nasty. It's like
Speaker 1: a been around Stiles and Cause before and just keep
Speaker 1: your distance. But with the conditions the way they were,
Speaker 1: with the heavy rains and the winds, like a come
Speaker 1: up on her and definitely surprised her. She was probably
Speaker 1: hunting territorial and she had a cub. It's like, there's
Speaker 1: no no, I mean, it's perfect, that's the perfect storm
Speaker 1: lack of a better term, and her height and protective
Speaker 1: instincts any surprised she knows the cub and it sounds
Speaker 1: the covers below her probably yeah, so yeah you were
Speaker 1: you know, so you it was you her and the cub. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never saw the cup at all. You know, it
Speaker 1: was completely out of my sight and out of my mind.
Speaker 1: But ootionally, when people folks think about bear attacks, they're
Speaker 1: thinking about this situation. So cub, yeah it is. It's
Speaker 1: definitely you know, the worst Mama MoMA Baron and cubs,
Speaker 1: like that's what you don't want to mess with. And
Speaker 1: it's that's that's the most precarious when you're getting around
Speaker 1: that type of situation and say, Okay, this isn't just
Speaker 1: a bear like with some fish and like you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you've gotta be more cautious and definitely make
Speaker 1: it aware that you don't want anything to do with them.
Speaker 1: How long do you think the the attack lasted? No
Speaker 1: idea like only seconds, Like I would say, probably still
Speaker 1: under a minute. Um for sure that the whole ordeal
Speaker 1: is probably still only like a minute. And that's that's
Speaker 1: hard to say too. It's a totally different world. Um.
Speaker 1: In plenty of kind of flow type states. In my life,
Speaker 1: we've been under a lot of stress and uh, and
Speaker 1: I don't know. People always ask me too, is like
Speaker 1: did you pass out? Might not? I didn't pass out,
Speaker 1: And I think the adrenaline took over in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways that I wasn't in a lot of pain
Speaker 1: initially either. A lot of it was just like a
Speaker 1: really really heightened sense of what was going on. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the sense where I was like, Okay, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what was gonna you know what I was doing
Speaker 1: or anything. I just knew that my best situation for
Speaker 1: survival was just being extremely keen on everything going on,
Speaker 1: and like, even as the bites are happy, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of thinking to myself like, Okay, I know what those
Speaker 1: wounds could be, like the worst case scenario, like what
Speaker 1: it is, Like, Okay, here that's what I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to do afterwards the treaty. You're thinking practically, yeah, I
Speaker 1: wasn't thinking. I'm like, oh, this is it, this is
Speaker 1: the end that you weren't thinking about your friends, your family,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, it really wasn't. I was just thinking, like
Speaker 1: this situation as it is just really really in the moment,
Speaker 1: and as everything was going on so naturally. Again, as
Speaker 1: soon as that the other guy that had the pistol
Speaker 1: like ran by me. That's initially it was my first
Speaker 1: thought was like, okay, the the you know, the battles over,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's one, it's done, it's taken care of.
Speaker 1: Now it's like, okay, we gotta we gotta treat this.
Speaker 1: Um everything that's going on with me, and I knew
Speaker 1: the other guys had the same process, like they're figuring
Speaker 1: everything out, and um, did you you know, during during
Speaker 1: the attack, do you remember any distinctive sounds or smells
Speaker 1: or things that that paying your memory back to that.
Speaker 1: I certainly remember the growling and everything the bear was making. Um,
Speaker 1: that's unquestionable. Um. Fortunately, there was no like gnarly bone
Speaker 1: breaks training that I had to endure or hear, or
Speaker 1: crunching or anything like that. It was just her and
Speaker 1: I remember kind of the snorts and the breathing and
Speaker 1: the smells. No, I you know, I know that sounds
Speaker 1: kind of funny because I know smells are some of
Speaker 1: the biggest It's it's the number one cent that recalls memory.
Speaker 1: And no, I don't really have a lot of smells,
Speaker 1: probably because there wasn't a whole lot besides moisture in
Speaker 1: the air, you know for me to smell um, given
Speaker 1: the conditions and the winds, and probably the same reason
Speaker 1: why she didn't smell me either. And that's all I
Speaker 1: can think of. But yeah, I hadn't really thought about
Speaker 1: the smells too much. But but they heard the impact
Speaker 1: of her teeth and yeah, no, it certainly felt it
Speaker 1: and um and and new. But it was, you know,
Speaker 1: definitely kind of surreal and it's it's weird because whenever
Speaker 1: I think back upon it, too, is kind of different
Speaker 1: visions of the same thing. Not necessarily PTSD or anything,
Speaker 1: but I definitely, uh think back on it and different
Speaker 1: points of view of being in the first person and
Speaker 1: also in third person just like experienced the same thing.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of unique, but um yeah, quite quite
Speaker 1: the experience there. The the treatment portion in itself was,
Speaker 1: um pretty funny too. One of the um so the
Speaker 1: other two after everything happening, you know, they finished, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: return to the timeline. I definitely had to get to
Speaker 1: it because it is kind of funny. And I got
Speaker 1: a really good bunch of group group of guys with me,
Speaker 1: and one of them has some pretty good medical experience
Speaker 1: he's had in his past, and um, he came over
Speaker 1: and everybody's kind of getting their ducts in a row,
Speaker 1: so to speak, and delegating stuff out and uh, guys
Speaker 1: are reloading because they're also we're also thinking, Hey, the
Speaker 1: cub or multiple cubs could still be around, Like, doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they can't come back, Like cub can mess you
Speaker 1: up just as well as you know, MoMA bear could,
Speaker 1: especially when it might be you know, ticked off them
Speaker 1: protective of mom embarrass The guys were, you know, very
Speaker 1: weary of that as well, but fortunately never never saw
Speaker 1: the cub and uh, they immediately just start breaking out
Speaker 1: the UM SATH phone. Dorman reaches and getting on those
Speaker 1: and UH Dorman reached, they activated the S O S
Speaker 1: beacon was on it, and UM, guys are getting on
Speaker 1: the SAT phone making phone calls. So as this was happening,
Speaker 1: you know, as I said, I'm kicking off my clothing,
Speaker 1: it was a kid just like unzipping stuff and then
Speaker 1: trying to get stuff out. And I had my AID
Speaker 1: kit and I'm telling them where that is, and and
Speaker 1: they were using their own aid kits as well. And
Speaker 1: the guy that was working on me, he's, you know,
Speaker 1: starts to get his shears out and he's cutting all
Speaker 1: the clothing off on me and uh and trying to
Speaker 1: get out the wounds. And immediately when he came up
Speaker 1: to me, I told him like, hey, I need to
Speaker 1: trying to get on my right leg. Um, just practice
Speaker 1: that we've done before, because I knew that the leg
Speaker 1: took the worst and I was nervous about any type
Speaker 1: of like heavy artery damage it could be. And UM,
Speaker 1: certainly where the wounds were Fortunately that wasn't the case,
Speaker 1: but it still could have been under the circumstances, especially
Speaker 1: couldn't move my legs. So was there a lot of blood?
Speaker 1: I mean there was significant, but really there wasn't um
Speaker 1: certainly not enough to put me in the shock or anything.
Speaker 1: Just you know a fair bit of blood just from
Speaker 1: you know, the trauma. But but of course I'm like
Speaker 1: wearing you know, uh ones that of pants and then
Speaker 1: rain pants and then gators and then boots, so everything
Speaker 1: is kind covering everything so you can't really see these sides.
Speaker 1: Just a bunch of puncture wounds everywhere, like holes in
Speaker 1: the clothing. So once he starts cutting everything off, he's
Speaker 1: kind of sees him rolls me over and he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: we can take the turniquet off because like it was good.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna pack this. The blood is not that bad.
Speaker 1: And uh, I was like, and the only thing going
Speaker 1: through my head is because I've had some training with
Speaker 1: tourniquets and stuff before, Like, Okay, we're gonna go real
Speaker 1: slow because I don't I want to lose my leg
Speaker 1: because it's happened before where guys have taken tourniquets off
Speaker 1: too fast and that rush of blood back into the appendage. Well,
Speaker 1: just that's how you lose one. So a little nervous
Speaker 1: on that point. But we're kind of we're going through
Speaker 1: and he's looking at the wounds like, Okay, they're not
Speaker 1: that bad, and I'm trying to point out other wounds.
Speaker 1: But I knew that the leg was the worst. But
Speaker 1: as soon as you kind of get through it, I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm like, but I need you to I need you
Speaker 1: to look at my taint. I'm like, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: know because I remember that. And I was like, ok yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: I was laughing. I was just saying I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: like I'll have to show you pictures afterwards. But I
Speaker 1: was going through the moment of it and I'm like, okay, no,
Speaker 1: homo here, but I really needs you to check my
Speaker 1: taint and he's like, okay. It's like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: un does it pulls up my you know, underwear, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of underneath and looks and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: you're good, but my okay, but I knew something was wrong,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't feel right, and he you know, kind
Speaker 1: of goes back, uh, you know, through looking, you know,
Speaker 1: cutting off other pieces of clothing and uh, I might no, man,
Speaker 1: like something's not right. I needs you to I need
Speaker 1: to really. So he cuts off the pants, like to
Speaker 1: my underwear at least this point, and like lift up
Speaker 1: the underwear and even before you can see the underwear
Speaker 1: or just a whole in it with just blood everywhere,
Speaker 1: and like, damn it. So it lifts it up and
Speaker 1: like yep, I'm like just looking down like just as
Speaker 1: you know, looking underneath minder where I'm like, yep, there
Speaker 1: it is. There's my testicle hanging out like great, and
Speaker 1: uh you know he sees it. Two It's like okay,
Speaker 1: and uh you know, I just reached down like I
Speaker 1: gotta put that back in, pretending like that that happened dude.
Speaker 1: And uh so then of course that's all that was
Speaker 1: on the mine. I'm my gosh, damn it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you gotta be shipping me. And I'm also like still wear.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I know my arm in my back
Speaker 1: is kind of messed up. I'm like, okay, here's one here,
Speaker 1: and I'm like I tell him he cuts it off.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, okay, I see it, and you know,
Speaker 1: they're packing those wounds as well, and but it's still
Speaker 1: in my min. I'm like, hey, does anybody have any
Speaker 1: like a sock or something I can sub down there
Speaker 1: like top out again. I was still attached though. Oh
Speaker 1: it was you know, like little nunchucks, you know, hanging out.
Speaker 1: Baby's still down. There's still good. But so you felt
Speaker 1: like it's attached. Yeah, It's like it's gotta be still good.
Speaker 1: And there's just been like a you know, like the
Speaker 1: bubble is burst. Yeah, And I'm like, man, I know
Speaker 1: guys have like bisectovies and stuff, but like it doesn't
Speaker 1: come out. They just like reached in there and you know,
Speaker 1: make a little snip snip and it's good. You know,
Speaker 1: cut the little whatever it is down there, vas difference
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And uh, I'm like, oh man, you
Speaker 1: gotta be kidding me. And so of course it was
Speaker 1: on my mind. I'm like nervous about it coming back out,
Speaker 1: and so I'm like I was asking that he didn't
Speaker 1: get it like a sock. I I just didn't wanted
Speaker 1: to pop out like what I'm getting moved around and stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm like, gosh, damn it, bandana or yeah, exactly something.
Speaker 1: It's like yeah, it's like it's it's in the underwear,
Speaker 1: like it's good, like not gonna focus on it, but
Speaker 1: of course I'm focused on it. And uh, the jokes
Speaker 1: just start coming out immediately, like guys like, don't worry
Speaker 1: about him, man, you need one, like you still have kids,
Speaker 1: like really like lighthearted guys. And I'm just laughing. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I was in really good spirits to the whole thing,
Speaker 1: like he wasn't gonna die. I knew nothing bad was
Speaker 1: gonna happen. I'm laughing too, and we're cracking jokes and really,
Speaker 1: you know, barely made it out. You know, it's made
Speaker 1: bare jokes as you can make immediately, and it just
Speaker 1: started sation hairy situation, and uh it was great. But
Speaker 1: I know they found some like little scary strip type
Speaker 1: things and put that on there. And of course, you know,
Speaker 1: if you have any type of organs are about, you're
Speaker 1: never supposed to put him back in. So that was
Speaker 1: also kind of a thing like no, I'm gonna that's okay,
Speaker 1: I'll put him back in, Like I don't want that
Speaker 1: thing just hanging around willy nilly, I'm putting that back.
Speaker 1: It's going in against the medical advice. I'm putting it
Speaker 1: back in Alright, there's there's no just yeah, I hope.
Speaker 1: I was like, I never want anybody to experience that
Speaker 1: because that's not a fun feeling just seeing it, like
Speaker 1: hanging out as a podcast host speechless, right, yeah, continue,
Speaker 1: I have nothing to add to the conversation. There's nothing
Speaker 1: I can say, so, uh is at this point I'm
Speaker 1: kind of patched up and the guys are getting out there,
Speaker 1: you know, puff Jacketson's leading Jacketson trying to cover me
Speaker 1: back up because I'm essentially kind of naked on one
Speaker 1: half of my body and giving the conditions, it was
Speaker 1: pretty brutal, and I gotta say with the whole experience,
Speaker 1: that was certainly the worst part was just in during
Speaker 1: the cold. And I'm certainly no stranger to cold living
Speaker 1: up there, being from Maine before that and doing a
Speaker 1: lot of type of outdoor training UM and having experiences
Speaker 1: I know, the cold, but that one I was just Jackhamer.
Speaker 1: It was it was hard going UM waiting on the
Speaker 1: coach guard which we had gotten in contact with UM
Speaker 1: via the satphone, So how quickly, how quickly to the
Speaker 1: wounds are dressed as well as they could the test
Speaker 1: goles back in its place. Everything is is you guys
Speaker 1: feel like stable at this point? How quickly did that
Speaker 1: happen until you were making those calls and expecting the rescue.
Speaker 1: So um, we were on the bird. We had no
Speaker 1: idea what to expect with them as time wise and
Speaker 1: how soon that they would get there. Um getting spun up.
Speaker 1: It's it's not a long flight like it's only like
Speaker 1: I want to say, minutes for them to fly um
Speaker 1: from the base to a to a fog neck. As
Speaker 1: we talked about before. It's a scary thing just because
Speaker 1: the weather you don't know, it changed so quickly exactly,
Speaker 1: and there the cloud cover had kind of lifted. It
Speaker 1: wasn't as low as it had been earlier in the day,
Speaker 1: so that was certainly a blessing, but it still wasn't
Speaker 1: great conditions by any means either, And of course they
Speaker 1: still had to find us. But we were walking them on.
Speaker 1: Guys were joining on the spot with grid coordinates, UM,
Speaker 1: passing them like Latin long whenever they needed to in
Speaker 1: and got them to cordings and walked him on there.
Speaker 1: But I did want to touch out on on one
Speaker 1: piece because you mentioned earlier and that was a learning
Speaker 1: point for us. Is the dorm in reach, so the
Speaker 1: in reach SUS button reactivated it nobody is what like
Speaker 1: the dolrum in reach is a it's a GPS slash,
Speaker 1: you know, GPS communicator that you can text on. I
Speaker 1: use it to text my wife still staying good graces
Speaker 1: when I'm on. And on the side of it, there's
Speaker 1: an s OS button. You can peel back this this
Speaker 1: plastic you know, rubber covering and push this SS button
Speaker 1: that's supposed to send a signal out a beacon and um,
Speaker 1: something happened bad, come get me exactly. That's it. And
Speaker 1: you know, we use it for the primary reason just
Speaker 1: like you said, texting is one of the biggest things.
Speaker 1: When we're off there, we can't text any other means
Speaker 1: and we're not gonna waste minutes in time on the
Speaker 1: SAT phone. So it's been great for that. However, we
Speaker 1: never really knew what the SUS going to do, you know,
Speaker 1: like most of the around for somebody comes save me, know,
Speaker 1: save our souls. You know, that's literally what it is.
Speaker 1: And we activated unfortunately had the SAT or the SAT
Speaker 1: phone with us, but when we activated it, come to
Speaker 1: find out afterwards, the State troopers got it first. Um
Speaker 1: talked to State trooper when I was in the hospital
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, it's like they got the call first,
Speaker 1: but by the time they got the call didn't really
Speaker 1: know what it was. They just knew was some sort
Speaker 1: of emergency beacon no idea this situation. I think it
Speaker 1: gives him uh GPS coordinate and it just tells him
Speaker 1: something bad has happened. That's pretty much it. And probably
Speaker 1: the user name, I think whatever his information is it
Speaker 1: because it wasn't my my dorm and she's somebody else's
Speaker 1: mind was just bright exactly. And so that went out
Speaker 1: and by the time they had any inclination of what
Speaker 1: was going on what it was, coast guards already spent
Speaker 1: up on our way. So saw like they were really
Speaker 1: you know, quick to react like that they were because
Speaker 1: we had him on the SAT without a phone. Then
Speaker 1: it would have been like, okay, they would have had
Speaker 1: to call the coast guard. The coast guard would have
Speaker 1: had no idea what was going on. They would have
Speaker 1: had reached out on the dolorum, you know, And and
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's by a text how that
Speaker 1: would go down or or what, but it would have
Speaker 1: been a little bit different, maybe even longer. And uh
Speaker 1: so as this was going down, Um, I'm just knna,
Speaker 1: you know, sitting there waiting at this point, there's nothing
Speaker 1: else to do. The guys that weren't on the comms piece,
Speaker 1: we're just kind of cutting branches because we knew, you know,
Speaker 1: getting a burden, they're gonna come lift me out. And
Speaker 1: uh so they're just kind of cutting down branches in
Speaker 1: the area, trying to clear you know, pave away couldn't
Speaker 1: really move. Um I think, you know, given different circumstances,
Speaker 1: I didn't have another bunch of guys around me, and
Speaker 1: if I was, so, it would have been just a
Speaker 1: hoilacious straight like who knows would have what or could
Speaker 1: have happened, you know, But fortunately that was not the case.
Speaker 1: The other two guys and other two guys are hunting
Speaker 1: parties still don't know this is going on, or you know,
Speaker 1: they were with us. The other two that were separate,
Speaker 1: they heard all the commotion, they came up. Yeah it
Speaker 1: was it was that guy or one of the two
Speaker 1: that actually he came up and he was one of
Speaker 1: treating my wounds all together. Yeah, everybody's everybody pitched in
Speaker 1: and it was the other guy from the other party
Speaker 1: that he uh, um was on the sat phone and
Speaker 1: he was doing that piece. So kind of everybody's you know,
Speaker 1: finding a job doing something at this point, like I said,
Speaker 1: really really text but couldn't went down any every any better.
Speaker 1: What's far But he's doing, you know, a job or
Speaker 1: looking for something to do, and uh yeah, at that
Speaker 1: point in time, it was just sit and wait and
Speaker 1: they're talking to him on the bird and bird comes
Speaker 1: in and um, you know, hoist the guy down first.
Speaker 1: And he kind of comes and assesses me and ask
Speaker 1: me questions and I'm completely coherent, answering them good spirits, YadA,
Speaker 1: YadA YadA, checking everything over. They come up with a
Speaker 1: plan of action to get the litter down and then
Speaker 1: put me on the litter and then uh and hoist
Speaker 1: me up. Um. The whole process definitely took longer than
Speaker 1: I would have liked. I think it U did it? Ever,
Speaker 1: I don't I know. The incident happened right around one ten.
Speaker 1: I think it's in The attack happened, and I didn't
Speaker 1: have a chance to check my watch and everything. The
Speaker 1: hospital they took it all off, but it was like
Speaker 1: roughly from what I heard about two and a half
Speaker 1: hours later that I was actually at the hospital. So
Speaker 1: blessing going out to the coast guards. Still save my
Speaker 1: ass but that definitely if it was a fatal wound,
Speaker 1: like you know, there's no question there's been a fatal wounded.
Speaker 1: The well out of the golden hour like one hour period,
Speaker 1: we're like, okay, you know my life might have been safe.
Speaker 1: So still save my ass. Um wasn't too happy about
Speaker 1: their their hoist camera that they have so on there,
Speaker 1: Uh they're they're helicopter they have they have a hoist
Speaker 1: camera like going right down the cable like where it's
Speaker 1: lefting me up and immediately immediately as soon as it
Speaker 1: went down, like they had that camera footage of hoisting
Speaker 1: me up, you know, off the ground and posted on
Speaker 1: Facebook like social media. So I love the coach guys
Speaker 1: still saying my ask that they immediately posted that so
Speaker 1: for what a reason, I don't know, for their own reason,
Speaker 1: like hey, you know, save the hiker you know hunter
Speaker 1: or whatever you know, uh from from and again like
Speaker 1: I give it to him percent. It's like, hey, you
Speaker 1: know I would absolutely give them you know, the save
Speaker 1: the rescue and good for them, but I was kind
Speaker 1: of like, man, to post it immediately, it made me
Speaker 1: and other guys more upset because I had other guys
Speaker 1: you know that I know, and they were out in
Speaker 1: the field and or you know, outside of of work,
Speaker 1: and they found out through Facebook before they found out
Speaker 1: from guys like phone calls like hey, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: guy just got mauled, you know whatever else, like through
Speaker 1: any anything else. And uh, fortunately my my folks didn't
Speaker 1: find out that way. You know, I called and when
Speaker 1: I got to the the hospital. But I'm kind of like,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty much. That's pretty messed up to do it,
Speaker 1: you know, so so soon. And I'm like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: didn't make me happy, and I do want to give
Speaker 1: him the rescue everything, but I was like, man, that's
Speaker 1: pretty unprofessional. As far as I would agree with that wholeheartedly,
Speaker 1: it's like marketing their bill of the Yeah, and again
Speaker 1: I'm not against them doing they do a lot of things.
Speaker 1: They're like they are the biggest base you know, is
Speaker 1: in Kodiak for the coach guard, and rightfully so, they
Speaker 1: save a lot a lot of I know, like you're
Speaker 1: saying that, yeah, all props for the life saving efforts.
Speaker 1: But come on, ye, streamline, come on streamline that social process. Ye.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's was there moments in the waiting because
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about like sounds and smells of
Speaker 1: the attack, right, but are there are moments in the
Speaker 1: waiting to be rescued? Um in air quotes? I guess
Speaker 1: where things started to settle in your mind as to
Speaker 1: what happened or was it still a tactical you know,
Speaker 1: I gotta get out of here. I need to stay alive.
Speaker 1: I need to get you know what. You you obviously
Speaker 1: weren't given any duties. You had to you know, lay
Speaker 1: there or be warm and be stable. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1: So during that time, do you remember your mind drifting
Speaker 1: to any particular things other than you know, I was
Speaker 1: pretty focused in a moment still, Um No, I never.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm a very determined, focused kind of individual,
Speaker 1: and guys that know me know the same thing that
Speaker 1: I definitely don't let anybody tell me how things are
Speaker 1: gonna go or how I'm gonna live my life, or
Speaker 1: how things is gonna turn out or odds or anything
Speaker 1: like that really kind of drives me and forces me
Speaker 1: to work even harder so the only thoughts going through
Speaker 1: my mind is like, okay, cool, well, I wonder how
Speaker 1: long this is gonna take before him back to doing
Speaker 1: the same old things I'm gonna be doing. Like nothing
Speaker 1: in my mind was like, oh I'm limp biscuit now.
Speaker 1: Besides like the jokes of like, hm, I wonder if
Speaker 1: I can have kids, but I'm single, Like I don't
Speaker 1: have a girlfriend, you know, no wife, no kids, anybody else.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like, you know what, if I'm gonna
Speaker 1: approved this, I'm gonna prove it. You know, however many
Speaker 1: years down the road, like if that's even gonna happen.
Speaker 1: So uh yeah, the only thing going through my mind
Speaker 1: is like, all right, I wonder how long it's gonna
Speaker 1: take me out of the picture, you know. Just yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of like, okay, what's next. Like I
Speaker 1: survived like none whatsoever, and I was just I was
Speaker 1: really really proud, I guess of the guys that were
Speaker 1: with me and thankful. It was like, hey, it's like
Speaker 1: kind of got me thinking, and um, you know, I
Speaker 1: know we briefly touched on her earlier, uh when we
Speaker 1: talked about like guns and like everybody having side arms
Speaker 1: and uh uh when certain guys like decided like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're only going after the one elk, not everybody's gonna
Speaker 1: get shoot, and some guys decided like, okay, just leave
Speaker 1: the rifles behind. Because we all knew when we made
Speaker 1: our planet, like we already had a base camp set up,
Speaker 1: that this hunt was going to be like Okay, we
Speaker 1: know where there are, this is gonna be super light,
Speaker 1: just bringing the absolute minimum so we can carry it
Speaker 1: the most amount of meat like all in the goes
Speaker 1: that we can and with the amount of guys, like
Speaker 1: we figured five guys, we can definitely haul a whole
Speaker 1: thing out in one go. Like everybody takes like a
Speaker 1: quarter and then you know whatever organ meats and like
Speaker 1: backstraps and turnalains and all that kind of stuff and
Speaker 1: then the uh, the rack. But we're like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: can do this in one go, so everybody's light lightening
Speaker 1: the load and um definitely kind of eye opening, especially
Speaker 1: even me, Like I said, I was really excited about
Speaker 1: having the six five creem more. But now that I
Speaker 1: think about Mike, Okay, well, I'm not so much of
Speaker 1: a you know, an asset. If there is a bear
Speaker 1: in the area or something like that that would have happened.
Speaker 1: And all of us have talked in the past, you
Speaker 1: know what we're doing with the bear charges, and a
Speaker 1: lot of us spend a lot of time with the range,
Speaker 1: a lot of time shooting, and um, very savvy, I
Speaker 1: would say, but all of us kind of know too.
Speaker 1: Is like, especially in this situation, just as mine, no
Speaker 1: time to take a shot, Like if you have a
Speaker 1: pistol or anything like, maybe you get a couple of
Speaker 1: shots off. You never know, But we always say that,
Speaker 1: like that that pistol or that rightfley you have on you,
Speaker 1: it's not for you, it's for the other guy. Like
Speaker 1: you're always carrying it. So if somebody else is the
Speaker 1: one that gets attacked, you're Johnny on the spot to
Speaker 1: go and and take that thing down immediately. So, yes,
Speaker 1: you're there to defend yourself, but the probability is less
Speaker 1: that you're gonna be able to do that. It's in
Speaker 1: defense of you know, somebody else. So um, huge proponent
Speaker 1: of that and thinking that way, But it also got
Speaker 1: me thinking like, okay, well, yeah, maybe I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: carrying that really really light rifle because of you know
Speaker 1: said cases. And so I think that's kind of changed, um,
Speaker 1: some of our standards, you know, for what we're gonna
Speaker 1: do later on. And and for me, I think one
Speaker 1: of the big lessons after as I said, with the cold,
Speaker 1: were like, Okay, as much as we spend time in
Speaker 1: survival and we're tough bunch of guys and very versed
Speaker 1: in the area, is like from now on, carrying those
Speaker 1: little space blankets, throwing in the first aid get like
Speaker 1: along with everything, ounce and like yeah, okay, a little
Speaker 1: bit like another extra ounce or something and ounces to
Speaker 1: equal pounds. But it's like that would would have been
Speaker 1: a night and day difference for you know, kind of
Speaker 1: keeping me from just jackhammering. Yeah, And I think that's
Speaker 1: you know, things like this, like you know, this isn't
Speaker 1: for me, hearing this story from you is not entertaining.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm you know, like I can barely struggle
Speaker 1: even to know what to say to you hearing that.
Speaker 1: But but I think for folks listening these that that
Speaker 1: type of insight is what's valuable here, is to hear
Speaker 1: your story and to everybody got holes in their game,
Speaker 1: and in this case, those holes can lead to death
Speaker 1: or life. And your case, had you not had tourniquets.
Speaker 1: Had you not had a sat phone, you know, had
Speaker 1: you not add four other buddies with you, things could
Speaker 1: could win a lot different, totally different. Yeah, the lessons
Speaker 1: are always you know, learning blood and he saw the
Speaker 1: hard ones. People are stubborn, don't want to change. It's
Speaker 1: like until something serious happens, that's when it kind of
Speaker 1: such things in perspective and you forge out there listening
Speaker 1: to this and you're hunting in bear country. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are things that you need to you know, you
Speaker 1: need to think about. You need to think very hard
Speaker 1: about how you prepare and in what holes are in
Speaker 1: your game, and if something should happen, what the contingencies are,
Speaker 1: because this is I mean, this is this is exactly
Speaker 1: what everyone figures absolutely well. Just you know, when you
Speaker 1: ask me to talk about it, I've got no qualms
Speaker 1: telling the story. I love telling the stories other people.
Speaker 1: I've said, it's just practiced for the grandkids, you know,
Speaker 1: somedays you know, really good to tell all about it.
Speaker 1: And but I did think about them, like, okay, it
Speaker 1: is good perspective and by no means any type of
Speaker 1: expert on the matter now, just because you know I
Speaker 1: went through this experience, But I think it does kind
Speaker 1: of open some eyes and doors to what you can
Speaker 1: tell people because so often it's like you just hear
Speaker 1: people talk, you know, it's like, oh, what do you
Speaker 1: do this type of experience, but really don't have any experiences.
Speaker 1: You know, their experiences ended, you know, with a bluff
Speaker 1: charge that they had once and you use what you got.
Speaker 1: And yes, there's a lot of common sense that comes
Speaker 1: into as as a factor for what you're gonna do
Speaker 1: out there. But uh, you know, definitely being through the process,
Speaker 1: I know it won't always go down the same never
Speaker 1: go down exactly that way ever again you know somebody else,
Speaker 1: but um, it is kind of lesson you know, people
Speaker 1: that I work with and talk to and see now
Speaker 1: it's like okay, now I can kind of touch on
Speaker 1: those things and know what's gonna work and probably Okay,
Speaker 1: this isn't the smart thing to be. Yeah, solo hunting
Speaker 1: and bear country exactly. There is a risk, man, It's
Speaker 1: a hard risk for sure. What the story that always
Speaker 1: comes up and I laugh about all the time is, uh,
Speaker 1: Leonardo Dicapri and the Revenant. Everyone brings out up all
Speaker 1: the time. So I've got a great little picture with
Speaker 1: the meme on it says Leo can suck it as
Speaker 1: he's getting attacked by the bear, and uh, I was.
Speaker 1: I was aware of the hue Glass story well before
Speaker 1: the movie, before the event, and uh and knew it well.
Speaker 1: And that guy's for sure badass. And the movie didn't
Speaker 1: quite do adjice on how it really went down. You know,
Speaker 1: um no, and it doesn't in the real story. You know,
Speaker 1: he didn't he didn't kill it or anything. They finished
Speaker 1: off like with twenty plus dudies or whatever, just you know,
Speaker 1: unloading on it with with guns and he got some
Speaker 1: knife strikes in. But you can see how beat up
Speaker 1: he gotten. That's a lot of the things that we're
Speaker 1: going through. My mind is like as badass as the
Speaker 1: story could have been. And probably everybody wants to hear
Speaker 1: me about me like you know, pulling out my knife
Speaker 1: and you know, stabbing the bear and like fighting it off.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is a five pound animal, seven foot
Speaker 1: bear that it's just born bread and knows how to
Speaker 1: just crush and kill and do everything auntsen. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be a great strug, but that's not that's
Speaker 1: not reality. That's the movies for you, you know. And
Speaker 1: and if I was by myself shore like that, we're
Speaker 1: probably would have changed everything and what I had to do.
Speaker 1: And and who knows if it would have left left
Speaker 1: me alone or if I would have had to fight it,
Speaker 1: and if I had to fight it. Man be hard
Speaker 1: to think about, like who certainly in this situation, it's
Speaker 1: not man versus bear because there's nothing. It's you're not
Speaker 1: facing off with this bear. And and and for point
Speaker 1: of fact, you know you guys killed this bear and
Speaker 1: you were telling me afterwards, this is seven and a
Speaker 1: half foot giant, giant giant bear ya um. And the weight,
Speaker 1: the the impact of of that animal, it's not something
Speaker 1: that you can fight back. No, I just can't, not
Speaker 1: at all. And the of course I'm fascinating the subject
Speaker 1: wasn't even before being around bears all the time. But
Speaker 1: you see the mallings and the stories and and most
Speaker 1: people don't survive the mallings. And they do happen, um
Speaker 1: if they're like actually mauled and not just like you
Speaker 1: know shot, um when it happens, they're just if they
Speaker 1: got anything in the front of you, like people's just
Speaker 1: face faces are never the same again, like they ripping
Speaker 1: out organs everything else, and and I knew that. And again,
Speaker 1: like I said, there's no bravado here, Like my bravado
Speaker 1: was thinking about like if I die, I'm no good
Speaker 1: to anybody. It's like, and then everybody else is gonna
Speaker 1: be the force to deal with that. It's like, I know,
Speaker 1: it's like I don't need to fight back here. I've
Speaker 1: got four other guys that are ready to like there'll
Speaker 1: be Johnny us. But that's a lot of like I said,
Speaker 1: a lot of it was just trust and the guys
Speaker 1: that were with me that I'm like, Okay, all you
Speaker 1: do here is last, Like how am I going to
Speaker 1: last through this? To be able to give those guys
Speaker 1: enough kind of awareness and know what's going on and
Speaker 1: be able to get to me in time to do this?
Speaker 1: Like how can I you know, opens up the best?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, of course it's very limited in what I
Speaker 1: could do, but I you know, yelling Albert, hey, at
Speaker 1: least let somebody know or like not that they heard it.
Speaker 1: They just figured it out through everything else, all the
Speaker 1: other commotion is going on. But uh, and then protecting
Speaker 1: myself because it's it's literally all that I could do.
Speaker 1: There is you know, there's no like, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: block this bear, know, do this? And I've got a
Speaker 1: great photo that somebody sent me and it's Um actually
Speaker 1: said just a cold too, and he's like, guess I've
Speaker 1: got that and I've seen that one and it's bare
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu and it's got all these different pictures of
Speaker 1: like doing these movies bears. But it's like one through
Speaker 1: eight and it's like, you know, you know, bear naked joke,
Speaker 1: you know, like all that's thrown in there, and then
Speaker 1: the very real last one is like, realize that you
Speaker 1: messed up at you know, number two and you died.
Speaker 1: It's like you're not gonna fly thing. Yeah, he's not
Speaker 1: gonna happen. How do you I mean, how do you
Speaker 1: feel now as we sit here? Sometime has passed. Um,
Speaker 1: I can know the answer to this, but I asked
Speaker 1: it anyway. How do you feel about that bear? How
Speaker 1: do you feel about that soal like she's dead, you're
Speaker 1: alive and you guys got in a tussle. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you feel emotionally about what
Speaker 1: happened like that bear and and her death and the experience? Sure?
Speaker 1: Sure so Um, beaten before I get to the all,
Speaker 1: I tap on this too, because this probably kind of
Speaker 1: helps I think a little bit. But so as we
Speaker 1: found out after it was taking a fishing game and everything,
Speaker 1: which is by law actually but the initial estimate, but
Speaker 1: she was like nineteen years old, and and later on
Speaker 1: the guy asked me, he's like thought maybe four. They
Speaker 1: only lived to like five. So this is a very
Speaker 1: old like angry hags out and you mentioned the grayish color,
Speaker 1: and so I've never seen a bear that all Like
Speaker 1: every bear that I've seen is usually the young uns
Speaker 1: because they're the ones that are more ignorant for lack
Speaker 1: of a better word, that's hanging around the town. Um
Speaker 1: just like old bucks. But um so, knowing that, you know,
Speaker 1: she probably didn't have a lot of time left anyway,
Speaker 1: and you know she's seen a lot and had a
Speaker 1: lot of of cubs before that. And the cubs, from
Speaker 1: what the guy said, we're older. They will hopefully be fine.
Speaker 1: But going through my mind, I I certainly don't um.
Speaker 1: I don't agree with the people that get all butt
Speaker 1: hurt and be like, oh the poor bear and like
Speaker 1: everything else, and Mike, that kind of gets annoying. It
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I just got bald. You know,
Speaker 1: like I don't feel bad for the bear at all.
Speaker 1: What I do feel bad for it's like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: the bear could have produced more bears and like and
Speaker 1: and made it for better hunters because, in all honesty,
Speaker 1: the opening season for bear was about to open up. Uh.
Speaker 1: Actually it happened on October six, and I I want
Speaker 1: to say, it was like that day actually bear sheason open.
Speaker 1: It was really it's right around that time. I can't
Speaker 1: quite remember off the top of my head, but it
Speaker 1: opens right up. So I was like, I was looking
Speaker 1: forward to actually going out bear hunting and doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. So she kind of took me away from that.
Speaker 1: But no, I definitely don't. I don't you know, feel
Speaker 1: bad about it or anything besides the fact that it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: it wasn't in the right time, like you know, it
Speaker 1: didn't have my tag or anything to get a bear.
Speaker 1: You know, it definitely was in defense and uh you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the bear that you're really seeking. And um,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't like hunting, but as I say,
Speaker 1: with as many bears are on there, it's like it's
Speaker 1: good control of the bear population. And it's a huge thing.
Speaker 1: That's what I know you talked about a lot, but
Speaker 1: with the real meaning of hunting, especially with an animal,
Speaker 1: you don't you know, you're not gathering meat from um.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, it was unfortunate because I know that
Speaker 1: for her just as much survival in sync with me,
Speaker 1: just she's a more primal creature than I am. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's no communicating, that is communicating. And she
Speaker 1: was just like yeah, it's like, yeah, there's no there's
Speaker 1: no getting out of it. So I know this that
Speaker 1: there was the perfect storm and definitely unfortunate circumstances. But no,
Speaker 1: I definitely don't feel bad about it. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: still living, breathing human being and I'm still alive and
Speaker 1: and thank god. Yeah, I mean if you talk to
Speaker 1: your your buddy then took the shots and like, what's
Speaker 1: the as a group, you know, postmortem, what's like, what's
Speaker 1: the feeling? Yeah, And and no, I mean guys are
Speaker 1: all on the same page, like they're ecstatic about it.
Speaker 1: One just I'm alive. And it was very surreal for everybody.
Speaker 1: And in the moment, more so going through his mind
Speaker 1: was like, God, I hope he's alive. And uh, the
Speaker 1: guy who shot the bear first of the rifle, he
Speaker 1: was more nervous when I stopped talking as I said,
Speaker 1: I said, oh, I can't make any more noise, no
Speaker 1: more scream out or anything in pain or agony. I
Speaker 1: gotta keep my mouth shut. That's gonna get worse. And
Speaker 1: when he took the shot, it was like right after
Speaker 1: that too, and he was he was nervous. It's like
Speaker 1: he didn't know if I was still alive from the
Speaker 1: bear killing me or from him killing me from a shot.
Speaker 1: So that was running through his mind too, and of
Speaker 1: course it made it nervous. But I was fully aware,
Speaker 1: awake and like talking and everything else afterwards, and I
Speaker 1: think that was kind of a relief to him. And
Speaker 1: judgment call and even afterwards he we've had our discussions
Speaker 1: and I certainly owned my life, and uh, he said
Speaker 1: the same thing that he knows that but it done
Speaker 1: the same thing and been there for him, and um,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely the case. But I know the consensus in
Speaker 1: the group are still the same thing. But so many
Speaker 1: guys were just kind of surreal and and some of
Speaker 1: the guys hadn't really been through experiences like that for
Speaker 1: really stressful and kind of for them even it was
Speaker 1: kind of like they weren't getting attacked, but it was
Speaker 1: very like real all of a sudden and kind of
Speaker 1: like holy sh it, like this isn't this isn't you know,
Speaker 1: funning games anymore. This just turned really really real? Is real? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, all hunters, all people that
Speaker 1: spend time in wild places, like these things happen, you fall,
Speaker 1: you get attacked like they happened and frequently, hopefully for
Speaker 1: most of us, but but their realities. And that's why
Speaker 1: people love to read books about um animal attacks. They
Speaker 1: love to read, you know, survival stories. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: we'll love to listen to your story here because you know,
Speaker 1: like I would say, you beat the odds. I would say,
Speaker 1: the odds kind of screwge you when you walked up
Speaker 1: on a bear, but after, during and after the attack,
Speaker 1: you beat the odds. I mean, there's so many ways
Speaker 1: it could have turned out um with your death, but
Speaker 1: it didn't. Absolutely. I mean even now, it's just making
Speaker 1: full recovery. And as you can see him, I'm walking
Speaker 1: around your healing and you be signs some you know,
Speaker 1: mier things in a much tighter Nutsack now you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: surgeons of me, they say, you know, some guys pay
Speaker 1: for this, right, I guess they get older and things
Speaker 1: start sigging, They're like, some guys pay for this year.
Speaker 1: It's like you're gonna be getting good to go. Uh
Speaker 1: so that'll be the advertisement for the people to listen
Speaker 1: to this. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, let's let's I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we're when you came in and we're talking, um,
Speaker 1: you're saying, I still have open wounds. You know, two
Speaker 1: months later, ish a month and a half, two months
Speaker 1: later and you still have open wounds. Your recovery is
Speaker 1: obviously still ongoing. I mean there's probably been a lot
Speaker 1: of rehab, a lot of pain. You know. UM, just
Speaker 1: take you know, briefly, take everyone through what that feels like.
Speaker 1: Because I feel like you have the adrenaline, you've got
Speaker 1: your determination to survive UM and you always hear that
Speaker 1: about life threatening situations. But then when you're in a
Speaker 1: hospital bed or you know, you're waking up every morning
Speaker 1: and pain, I mean I feel like that's where the suffering,
Speaker 1: you know, it really kicks in and where you know
Speaker 1: where the next the next level of of you know,
Speaker 1: difficulties you have to overcome begins when you've got to
Speaker 1: get up out of the bed and like you said,
Speaker 1: get back to your normal life. Yeah. So by the
Speaker 1: time I got the hospital, you know, it was going
Speaker 1: to uh pretty much immediately go into the operating room.
Speaker 1: They were asking a lot of questions wanted to really
Speaker 1: concern with more like food and water because before operating,
Speaker 1: it's gonna make sure I'm pretty much like you aim
Speaker 1: of all that kind of stuff. But uh, um uh sorry,
Speaker 1: And there's another one I get to hit on on
Speaker 1: the ride over. It just kind of cracked me up.
Speaker 1: But I talked about being cold before and this just
Speaker 1: made me think of it again. But um, in the
Speaker 1: bird the helicopter, they were trying to you know, put
Speaker 1: uh you know, I v S and me like get
Speaker 1: some needles in me at first, and just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: Just so cold, like we won't be able to draw anything.
Speaker 1: Even when I got to the hospital, like I couldn't
Speaker 1: draw anything. The lady was there and she's like, you
Speaker 1: just have a really tough time. Finally eventually got one
Speaker 1: in my hand that she could get some blood flowd
Speaker 1: was just so cold though, and made it happen, But
Speaker 1: it was just kind of one of those things. And
Speaker 1: I get to the hospital and they're just taking everything
Speaker 1: else off me and I found the guy to the
Speaker 1: point I'm like I need a warm blank, Like I
Speaker 1: love you guys, thanks for taking care of me. But
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm at the point where I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I am freezing my nuts off here and I seriously
Speaker 1: need a blank or something like cover me back up.
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm really really cold. And so finally that
Speaker 1: definitely toned things down and made stuff better, and I
Speaker 1: was kind of more of a happy place then. But
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, cold does a lot of things
Speaker 1: to to people. And uh, I was kind of had
Speaker 1: one of those snappy crack moments where I'm just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm cold. I'm like, stop taking clothes off, need more
Speaker 1: calls on me? And I feel like there's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like the frustration level has got to be because you're
Speaker 1: you at that point. Well really, as the attack begins,
Speaker 1: you have no control really at that point, hands and
Speaker 1: and no, And I wasn't. I wasn't trying to be
Speaker 1: stubborn into the I'm like okay, let people take care
Speaker 1: of me. I wasn't being like one of those guys
Speaker 1: and um, and it was good, and I did getting
Speaker 1: uh into the room, just kind of waiting and finally
Speaker 1: made a phone call to my folks and let them
Speaker 1: know everything was good. You know, guy brought it in
Speaker 1: a phone for me, and so things are good. Let
Speaker 1: them know, and they're all concerned. But even after the
Speaker 1: operating room and I kind of got through a lot
Speaker 1: of the medical testing and guys asking questions and fixing
Speaker 1: me up, I'm very much a proponent of just the
Speaker 1: kind of positive attitude and healing and and uh, just
Speaker 1: keeping the smile going. And I whenever you in those situations,
Speaker 1: all you can do. And I hate negativity. Like the
Speaker 1: last thing, I really really hate pity, and I don't,
Speaker 1: you know, for the same reason, like I don't take
Speaker 1: pity on really anybody else either. It's and I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think people need that. I think you can.
Speaker 1: I'm probably less empathetic than most people either. It's you know,
Speaker 1: probably something I should work on. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: like even for myself, like I don't want that, like
Speaker 1: anybody who's gonna like come in there, Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm like no, like fun that It's like if you're
Speaker 1: gonna be like have biddy to be like a soft
Speaker 1: story of me to get the hell out like I
Speaker 1: don't neither, I don't want it, like I'm alive. I
Speaker 1: got shipped to do so. And that was kind of
Speaker 1: my my thought process even in the days in the hospital.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I certainly wasn't feeling good and had
Speaker 1: me on a liquid diet, you know, starting out that
Speaker 1: sucked um because especially I was already hungry, you know,
Speaker 1: being in in the field, like for the first few
Speaker 1: days anyway, as you well know, like you do a
Speaker 1: lot of that hiking into that truf drain, you get
Speaker 1: hungry and like hadn't really drank anything, hadn't really eat
Speaker 1: any anything, and quite some time, and I was definitely
Speaker 1: hungry and like just drinking on bone broth and water
Speaker 1: for for a time or two, is uh not my
Speaker 1: cup of tea. And so that took some time. But
Speaker 1: my one of the biggest driving motivators, given the circumstances
Speaker 1: of what was going when I was going going through
Speaker 1: is I talked to you about this before, but I
Speaker 1: had this puppy and hadn't got it yet. But I
Speaker 1: had made plans to get this puppy that I finally,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of cave down. I was like I
Speaker 1: saw a litter up north and I really wanted it,
Speaker 1: and uh I bought it, made the arrangements. I'm like, okay, great,
Speaker 1: Like this puppy is gonna get shipped on Monday. Well
Speaker 1: this incident happened on Friday, and like okay, making sure
Speaker 1: everything's in a row, and uh again things going through
Speaker 1: my mind. Was just thinking on this and like okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta to get this puppy, like I don't care
Speaker 1: if Friday and like what they're saying, like hollong when
Speaker 1: I keep me in my I have this puppy coming in.
Speaker 1: I had to have to be there. I don't want
Speaker 1: somebody else to do it, like the first kind of
Speaker 1: contact and like I want to be her for it.
Speaker 1: So definitely my driving motivator. But the other thing on
Speaker 1: that story is again kind of going back to the
Speaker 1: whole you know self pity thing um the lady who
Speaker 1: had the breed, the litter um who gave me the puppy,
Speaker 1: like you know, shipped me the puppy. As this all
Speaker 1: is happening, I told her what had happened, what was
Speaker 1: going on that things were still gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: all right, I still wanted the puppy. We'll come to
Speaker 1: find out her husband, Um was just climbing the ladder.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was. I think he was
Speaker 1: working on a roof with his brother or something like
Speaker 1: that and fell and you know one of the biggest
Speaker 1: you know, cause of accidents in the US, always like
Speaker 1: falls and stuff. And sure enough, like he fell off
Speaker 1: the roof or fell off the ladder and hit his
Speaker 1: head like internal hemorrhaging and like emergency er and didn't
Speaker 1: know if he's gonna make it. Like all this like
Speaker 1: terrible things, and I'm like I'm going through this and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, of course. I'm just saying to myself,
Speaker 1: like there's always somebody else where that's got it worse,
Speaker 1: that's like so much worse than you are. Like the
Speaker 1: last thing that you need is just like this will
Speaker 1: be like oh, like pour me, like why me? You know,
Speaker 1: like all this is like no, just life happens. Ship happens.
Speaker 1: You know, you play with the bully, You're gonna get
Speaker 1: the horns, my father, you do anything long enough, and
Speaker 1: like something's going to happen along those lines and again,
Speaker 1: like looking back is why I don't regret anything when
Speaker 1: doing anything different. It's just an experience. And unfortunately I'm
Speaker 1: still here. God's gonna plan for me like that. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep going and doing something because I'm still here kicking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So like it didn't really like it just enhance your perspective.
Speaker 1: It didn't like change, It didn't at all, Like no
Speaker 1: negativity towards it whatsoever, doing downfall that I'm experienced. He
Speaker 1: right now is not be able to get on the
Speaker 1: horse soon enough to go back out hunting because all
Speaker 1: the seasons are like ending. You want to get back.
Speaker 1: I have no time, and my plan is to go
Speaker 1: right back out and go skiing and ice climb, like
Speaker 1: as soon as after the holidays ends. That's been my
Speaker 1: my next goal. Because I did bring my my puppy
Speaker 1: here with me, and I did get out of the
Speaker 1: hospital on Monday to go get them, despite them kind
Speaker 1: of wanting me, you know, to stay a little longer.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's been kind of a crawl walk run
Speaker 1: starting out. Couldn't I didn't even leave the hospital bed
Speaker 1: for the first couple of days. Really couldn't. And uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a second or third day.
Speaker 1: I eventually just got up to like stand up. Definitely
Speaker 1: not fun amount of pain. The blood finally just rushed
Speaker 1: back into the leg again. The leg was certainly the
Speaker 1: worst part. And who yeah, that was yeah, that was
Speaker 1: that was a little pain. And uh, they like no
Speaker 1: surgeries other than just something like no major surgery. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just see me back up and with with animal
Speaker 1: wounds like that, we had talked on it. But for
Speaker 1: the everybody else listening, you never have an animal winning
Speaker 1: train dogs and had animal bites and stuff before. And
Speaker 1: when you go through that, you're trying to keep the
Speaker 1: wound open for risky and infection and for it to
Speaker 1: heal inside out. You know, want some you know cave
Speaker 1: hole inside of you just like festering. So they put
Speaker 1: some stitches on some of the bigger wounds just to
Speaker 1: close them up a little bit because they were so big,
Speaker 1: and uh, the after I don't know, like a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks or so, they cut them off and like
Speaker 1: let them go back to healing open and uh, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I'm going through now. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there was eight major punctures on my leg. H two
Speaker 1: on my arms, some superficial like scratches, bite marks wherever
Speaker 1: they were on my back, and then down lower on
Speaker 1: the leg they were like not like full punctures, just
Speaker 1: kind of like still like superficial, but deep enough to
Speaker 1: like warrants some bandages. Um, I think just the clothing alone,
Speaker 1: probably on the lower leg was like the combination of
Speaker 1: like one pair of like soft shell pants, some rain pants,
Speaker 1: uh gators, and boots. Yeah, like just enough that it
Speaker 1: like she squeezed the hell out of it, because I've
Speaker 1: still got nerve damage where I can't feel half of
Speaker 1: my my foot and leg well not really leg but
Speaker 1: lower like heal and achilles, uh calf, that kind of area,
Speaker 1: but did enough to like mess with an her of
Speaker 1: a little bit, not like completely severed or anything, but yeah,
Speaker 1: she she did some damage. Didn't take much of that
Speaker 1: that type of beast. Well, I mean, like you said
Speaker 1: that she still has a little bit to rip through,
Speaker 1: like she could still rip and tear at the clothes
Speaker 1: without really ripping impairing at you. And then I'm sure
Speaker 1: that stone glacier pack you know. For I know those
Speaker 1: guys over there pretty well, they're all good folks and
Speaker 1: they make a nice pack. But I'm sure that impact
Speaker 1: saved you a lot, big, big time. And again that
Speaker 1: went through my mind a lot. And she was a
Speaker 1: little focus on the legs at first, I think, which
Speaker 1: I don't know good or bad. Maybe that's because what
Speaker 1: you know, like you're moving, maybe kicking. Well, it was
Speaker 1: definitely was just the first thing that came to her.
Speaker 1: And the same with my experiences with dogs and like
Speaker 1: like protective, they're gonna go for the first thing, whatever
Speaker 1: it is is like closest out there. To them, it's
Speaker 1: just convenience. That's what they're gonna bite first. And for
Speaker 1: her it was just that was the leg that was there. Again,
Speaker 1: I dove kind of downhill, so she was coming behind
Speaker 1: me at this point rather than like a head on charge,
Speaker 1: and she just grabbed that for that first leg and
Speaker 1: that she she picked me up and just threw me.
Speaker 1: Um so constantly going for the closest thing there and um,
Speaker 1: but the thing with the backpack, it did kind of
Speaker 1: get me thinking. And I know bears are very very
Speaker 1: smart creatures and and um just very keen on everything.
Speaker 1: And I don't think eventually she obviously did you know,
Speaker 1: scratched me in the back and get to the to
Speaker 1: my arm and and the stone glacier back didn't really
Speaker 1: take much damage. And it got me thinking about it too,
Speaker 1: And I had to think that she probably knows that feeling,
Speaker 1: like she knew when she put her paws on me
Speaker 1: and her teeth in me, that like she probably knew
Speaker 1: what flash kind of like feels like, tastes like, all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. That like she didn't want anything
Speaker 1: to do it and that's all she was trying to
Speaker 1: do is just kind of brush that out of the side.
Speaker 1: So again it was like all linked together and nothing
Speaker 1: actually happened to the back, which was awesome, But um,
Speaker 1: if I didn't have that there, yeah, I mean fortunately,
Speaker 1: like just the flat back itself doesn't really have features
Speaker 1: to really you know, grab ahold of it. Who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe she wouldn't have either she could have gotten like
Speaker 1: side or something else. Um yeah, and I and and
Speaker 1: that's gone through my mind. But I had to think,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, you know what, like they probably knows
Speaker 1: exactly what flesh and everything like feels like, tastes like.
Speaker 1: And that's where she was going for. She was just
Speaker 1: moving that ship right out of the way. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's hard you can't put your you can't put
Speaker 1: your mind to what he's going through a bear's mind,
Speaker 1: and that such what she can't I mean, it's impossible,
Speaker 1: and it's such. It was instinctual for you, instinctual for her.
Speaker 1: Like the whole interaction seemed to be just this like
Speaker 1: man versus nature and that's ye. You you know, at
Speaker 1: this this particular time, you ended up ended up bumping
Speaker 1: heads and and um, you came out on the better end.
Speaker 1: But for sure, it's such a eyes wonder about that,
Speaker 1: Like if that were ever to happened to me, how
Speaker 1: it would change me? Like you're way tougher than I am.
Speaker 1: Like you seem like you have a way better perspective,
Speaker 1: you have a way better perspective on on these types
Speaker 1: of things. But I've heard from you know, jhannest tell
Speaker 1: Us and even a little bit from Steven Ella media
Speaker 1: crew they weren't even attacked there. They were charged and
Speaker 1: all came away, you know, fairly unscathed. That it did
Speaker 1: change a little bit about how they felt about one
Speaker 1: in the wilderness. Like they have you know, they have kids,
Speaker 1: they have wives, like they you know, they feel like
Speaker 1: you know, everybody has loved ones family and friends that
Speaker 1: care about them like it. I think it did change
Speaker 1: them a little bit as far as how they think
Speaker 1: about it. Are they not going to go They're going, um,
Speaker 1: just like you are. But you know, I think it
Speaker 1: probably had to change something for you for sure. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Everybody's got their own ways of going through
Speaker 1: life and living and doing their own thing. But it
Speaker 1: life is all about experiences. And you always hear about
Speaker 1: people talking to about being in the moment and all that,
Speaker 1: but I do agree with it. And one they always
Speaker 1: named about it like you're never the same person as
Speaker 1: you were yesterday. Yeah, I constantly like a lot of
Speaker 1: people just don't have those really huge moments I opening
Speaker 1: experience that they think that they do, and like they're
Speaker 1: just those munday tash and everything. But like no matter what,
Speaker 1: like you're getting lessons learning experiences every day, Like they're
Speaker 1: just not as big as as some of the other ones.
Speaker 1: And um, mine was obviously very big, and you can
Speaker 1: take away from that. But uh, ironically, um, I was
Speaker 1: getting some tattoos done and I just had an audible
Speaker 1: book that I was listening to, the Rise of Superman
Speaker 1: and it's all about like the state of flow. And
Speaker 1: I kind of talked about the flow before that, and
Speaker 1: I've read other books spot on and and uh looked
Speaker 1: into the topic and and extremely extremely interesting um for
Speaker 1: people that like look into the subject or not, but um,
Speaker 1: always seeking out those moments where like you learn the
Speaker 1: most because to bump into flow like takes like some
Speaker 1: people have like you know, serious like I don't know
Speaker 1: meditation that they want to do. It takes like hours
Speaker 1: and hours and hours and hours. But then you hear
Speaker 1: about these uh very ad ent you're seeking individuals like
Speaker 1: doing extreme skydiving and free diving and all these other
Speaker 1: adventure type sports and that's where they fine and seek
Speaker 1: flow and big wave riders and mountain bikers and all
Speaker 1: those things. And I love all those things as well.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people think of them as adrenaline
Speaker 1: junkies and it's definitely not the same whatsoever because they
Speaker 1: didn't have any adrenaline during the incident. But I also
Speaker 1: know that the state of flow is definitely definitely going there.
Speaker 1: Um Yeah, it seems like that that that's probably my
Speaker 1: read on it is that's impact you as much as anything,
Speaker 1: and hearing you describe it is having that state of
Speaker 1: flow I mean, you may achieve it while climbing, you
Speaker 1: may achieve it while surfing, but you know, while there's
Speaker 1: some inherent danger there, um, there's some inherent joy there
Speaker 1: as well what you're doing. Um. But in this in
Speaker 1: this case, you achieve that state of flow just in
Speaker 1: a different mental environment where you knew there wasn't any
Speaker 1: good outcome of what was going to happen, and then
Speaker 1: when it was happening. So it seems to me like that,
Speaker 1: you know, having that state of flow and knowing what
Speaker 1: that feels like and moments of extreme stresses is informed
Speaker 1: you in a lot of ways absolutely, Like that's that's
Speaker 1: really where I find that you you really learn the
Speaker 1: most um about yourself and and and other things in life, um,
Speaker 1: is being in those those moments where you just learned
Speaker 1: so much so quick. It's very very eye opening. That's
Speaker 1: why people always seek that, you know, it's not for that.
Speaker 1: It's not the adrenaline rush is like people say, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's definitely adrenaline drunkies. But that's where I find it's
Speaker 1: those individuals are much more short lived than than others
Speaker 1: that just eat that, because then they eventually end up
Speaker 1: just doing something stupid um and not well thought out
Speaker 1: versus other people that have to be they're just kind
Speaker 1: of pushed in those moments, um. And there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with like seeking other ways, with whether it is like
Speaker 1: a two and a half hour session of yoga or
Speaker 1: meditation or something and done that before too. But yeah,
Speaker 1: being in that in that moment was extraordinary eye opening.
Speaker 1: And I don't know I can come out positive from
Speaker 1: the experience because one everything went down textbook nothing really
Speaker 1: all that bad happened. And whether you believe in like
Speaker 1: a higher power wherever, um, you know, whether it's God
Speaker 1: just told me just hey, take take a chill pill,
Speaker 1: like slow down for a little bit, you know, like
Speaker 1: take some time. Yeah, exactly, like whatever it is, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know's you know, things happen for a reason.
Speaker 1: Is some people say, I don't know about that, but
Speaker 1: everything always works out in my suppos It's like yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like maybe not the way that you
Speaker 1: planned or wanted to and like, you know, it always
Speaker 1: happens very very unexpectedly. But yeah, no, no, it's been
Speaker 1: a really really good experience. And you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there was fear, but like describe it, you know, the
Speaker 1: types of fear that you felt while you were there.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's fear for your life, there's feel for
Speaker 1: your you know, for your friends, there's there's all types
Speaker 1: of soul. It's funny. I've had that conversation before, people
Speaker 1: talked about it and this isn't like a form of
Speaker 1: bravado or like you know, manly is um when I
Speaker 1: when I say this, but I don't really think there
Speaker 1: was fear. And I think that was just experience that
Speaker 1: I've had before and having a clear head, because I
Speaker 1: think fear is very, very irrational. It's something that's concocted
Speaker 1: in your heads, um, like sharks in the water that
Speaker 1: you can't see, like that kind of dealing, like people
Speaker 1: to have a fear of that or fear of heights.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure there can be chemical imbalances with some
Speaker 1: people that like cause them to have irrational fears that, yeah,
Speaker 1: it takes a lot to get over. But when this
Speaker 1: is going down, I don't think it was fear as
Speaker 1: much as like a difference between fear and danger. And
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was
Speaker 1: a while ago that I heard Uli Steck talking about
Speaker 1: something similar. A while ago and if people aren't familiar
Speaker 1: with Steck, he did pass away, but he's very well
Speaker 1: known speed climber um, very well known for doing a
Speaker 1: lot of solo crazy stuff and eventually that did uh
Speaker 1: make him pass So you can think about them however
Speaker 1: you want. But he was talking about the different is
Speaker 1: between you know, danger and fear, and when you have fear,
Speaker 1: you're just it's just in your head, like there's no
Speaker 1: reasoning for it doesn't help you out, it doesn't do anything.
Speaker 1: But understanding that when there's dangers is very very real.
Speaker 1: And when that, when that initially happened, of course, everything
Speaker 1: going through you is very instinctiable when you have things
Speaker 1: that you do, and you know, the parasympic UH and
Speaker 1: sympathetic nervous system and fight or flight and freezing like
Speaker 1: all these other different things going on. And I know
Speaker 1: those things obviously happened, but as far as just going
Speaker 1: through my head, I don't think it was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm gonna die. It's like again, what am
Speaker 1: I gonna do? Like how do I control this situation?
Speaker 1: What control do I have? Do I have any control?
Speaker 1: You know? What are the things that I can control?
Speaker 1: And those were the things going through mind because I
Speaker 1: knew that fear in danger. But but yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it was just very um again, it's all a surreal experience,
Speaker 1: but just knowing that it's what you can and can't
Speaker 1: control and being in that situation to be like understanding
Speaker 1: is really is what it wasn't. It wasn't necessarily like
Speaker 1: oh my god fear like I'll stop what I'm you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm dead kind of deal. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: me Like you just exerted some positivity into the and like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like you were like things are great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well this is sprinkles, that's for sure, but like exerted
Speaker 1: some positive force into what was happening, like not like
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm so stupid? Why did I hunt
Speaker 1: on a fogneck? Why am I getting mauled right now?
Speaker 1: More of just uh, what's the next thing? What's the
Speaker 1: next thing? What's the next thing I can do? What's
Speaker 1: the next thing that I can um express to my
Speaker 1: friends to help me get to the next to the
Speaker 1: point I have to get to live and be fine.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that had a lot to do with
Speaker 1: to where we are today. But I guess we can
Speaker 1: close it out by saying, everything's fine. Everything's he's good.
Speaker 1: You look good, man, I mean everything looks fine to me.
Speaker 1: Heal and getting better. Everything downstairs going fine. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: gonna be as far know, it's it's it's good. Uh,
Speaker 1: wounds are almost deal. I'm hoping on Tuesday will be like, okay,
Speaker 1: everything is close enough to the surface to take advantages
Speaker 1: off and let them do their things. Started physical therapy
Speaker 1: already and kind of got the range of motion back,
Speaker 1: you know, no more canes or walkers or anything. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm getting around and uh yeah, you should make it
Speaker 1: full recovery. Back to skiing, nice climbing, doing fun things.
Speaker 1: Hunting next season, Hunting next season. Well, I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: forward to those updates. But it's admirable the way that
Speaker 1: you approach this. Um. Like I said, this is this
Speaker 1: is everyone's worst nightmare in a lot of ways. UM,
Speaker 1: So I admire the way you approach it. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you're sitting here. Yeah, thanks many thanks. That's it. That's
Speaker 1: all another episode in the books Hunting Collective. Um. What
Speaker 1: I'll say about this story and Brad is that I
Speaker 1: was amazed by I was it was interested in every
Speaker 1: facet of it, and I'm very thankful that he uh
Speaker 1: shows us or was willing to tell that story on
Speaker 1: the air here with me the hunt Collective. I think
Speaker 1: it's one of the more useful stories and educational stories
Speaker 1: you can hear about how he survived, why he survived,
Speaker 1: and why it was the folks he chose to have
Speaker 1: with him that were um key to his survival. So
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you to Brad. Glad you're live, bro,
Speaker 1: and you're glad, you're feeling good. So get back to it,
Speaker 1: get back to ice climb and get back to ski
Speaker 1: and get back to hunting, get back to life. Appreciate you.
Speaker 1: What else? What else? Into the next thing? We you know,
Speaker 1: we um. We've got a lot of stuff at the
Speaker 1: meat Eator dot com store. Just check that all out.
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Speaker 1: and I'm happy this podcast is growing and and everyone
Speaker 1: is enjoying our efforts because we're trying our best. So
Speaker 1: right in tell us what we're doing, good or bad.
Speaker 1: We look to hear it all. And until next time,
Speaker 1: take her easy, all right,