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Speaker 1: its Federal Season, the official podcast of Federal Ammunition. My
Speaker 1: name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear
Speaker 1: Honey Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the
Speaker 1: world of hunting the icon of the North American Wilderness fair.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will also bring
Speaker 1: you into some of the wildest country on the planet,
Speaker 1: chasing bear. All right, We're at the Bear Hunting Magazine
Speaker 1: global headquarters and we just settled a pretty significant issue
Speaker 1: that uh that came up and I had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it, but I was. I had to score
Speaker 1: a deer for my friend Matt Taylor, who's here with
Speaker 1: his son Western Taylor, also known as the Eagle, and
Speaker 1: my son Bears here as well. Um, Matt, tell me
Speaker 1: just a little bit about what just happened. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we Uh, I've been hunting with the same group of
Speaker 1: guys for about twenty years deer hunting, and uh, nineteen
Speaker 1: years ago tomorrow I killed what we think is the
Speaker 1: biggest deer our camp, you know, record holder in terms
Speaker 1: of big buck and uh, this year one of my
Speaker 1: hunting buddies, Cody Umney, shot a really nice eight pointer
Speaker 1: opening more in a muzzloader season, and uh, I thought
Speaker 1: we might have a record breaker, so we needed an impartial,
Speaker 1: third party official judge to settle it. Western. Were you
Speaker 1: there when Cody killed that buck? Yeah? I was there
Speaker 1: right camp. You were there at camp? Did you think
Speaker 1: it was bigger than your dad's Dear, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it was close. Just when you saw it, What did
Speaker 1: you think we'd be like, oh man, this is gonna
Speaker 1: give Dad's buck a run for the money, sort of yuh,
Speaker 1: you kind of thought maybe it would steal your family's honor.
Speaker 1: So when did you kill your buck mat like in
Speaker 1: or something. It was two thousand and one, so the
Speaker 1: camp record was killed in two thousand one. So you
Speaker 1: brought Cody's deer over here, and uh we we scored
Speaker 1: it pretty quick. And I told you, I said, uh so,
Speaker 1: I I scored for Boone and Crockett, but we we didn't.
Speaker 1: We kind of gave like the the deer camp version
Speaker 1: score like we didn't. So when you're scoring a deer, guys,
Speaker 1: Bear would know it. He seen me do it. But
Speaker 1: when you're officially scoring a deer, Western you mark the
Speaker 1: baseline of the times, which so that means like, so
Speaker 1: there's the main beam, but then there's the times, and
Speaker 1: you have to have a baseline to determine where that
Speaker 1: time starts so you can know really how long it is.
Speaker 1: So usually you put a you put a piece of
Speaker 1: tape at the base of every time, and then you
Speaker 1: lay a wire. I've got a little cable actually, it's
Speaker 1: a cable over the top of the main beam. As
Speaker 1: if you were going to take a saw and cut
Speaker 1: that tying off flat, so the main beam would just
Speaker 1: would just be a main beam with no times like
Speaker 1: you you this envision, you know, this this invisible line
Speaker 1: that would go across there. You would mark it on
Speaker 1: the tape because you don't want to draw on somebody's
Speaker 1: dear an, let's put mask in tape there right there.
Speaker 1: And uh, but we didn't do that because this was
Speaker 1: a deer camp. This wasn't official. This was like deer camp,
Speaker 1: which in many ways is more official. Okay, um, because
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of liberty. But uh, Cody's buck
Speaker 1: was an eight point beautiful eight point dark racked, heavy
Speaker 1: horned The longest time was like ten and a half inches,
Speaker 1: I think, which is a tall time, real naughty, gnarly
Speaker 1: basis gnarly bases, uh, sixteen and a half inches wide
Speaker 1: or so, which is pretty typical of a good deer.
Speaker 1: And uh it scored like one thirty one and something,
Speaker 1: which is a really respectable eight points, especially for around
Speaker 1: here on public ground. So here's what was wild is
Speaker 1: that Matt thought for all these years that the deer
Speaker 1: that his deer which is a tent which which is
Speaker 1: a main frame ten point with a split brow time,
Speaker 1: so it's an eleven point. You thought it scored one
Speaker 1: would headed at one thirty two and a half. So
Speaker 1: you had that written on the back of the mount
Speaker 1: from two thousand one. Yeah, yeah, my rough measurements back then.
Speaker 1: Who knows where we got the information on how to
Speaker 1: measure it. Yeah, and so we just scored it and
Speaker 1: it scored. What did it score on a half? One
Speaker 1: and a half. It's like a surprise. This is like
Speaker 1: this thing has been on the wall for decade. It's
Speaker 1: not even been off the wall almost two decades. You
Speaker 1: pull it off the wall and it's ten inches bigger
Speaker 1: than you thought. Is this like change your life a
Speaker 1: little bit? I feel a little more accomplished. These guys
Speaker 1: are gonna have to work a little harder to be
Speaker 1: this camp record. I know. I'm really I was hoping
Speaker 1: Cody beat it like it's time. Yeah, yeah, I'm with it.
Speaker 1: It's been too long for one record. We we need
Speaker 1: something else to shoot. Would it would kind of give
Speaker 1: the camp a little bit of momentum to think that
Speaker 1: the record has been broken. Yeah, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: the world record typical White Tail was killed and I
Speaker 1: think nineteen um up in Saskatchewan by Hanson. Who golly,
Speaker 1: it's been so long. See, that's just it. It's been
Speaker 1: so long since the world record white too, Milo Hanson,
Speaker 1: that's his name. It's been so long since the world
Speaker 1: record white tail hit the dirt that we've forgotten the
Speaker 1: guy's name. Yeah, you don't even shoot for it anymore.
Speaker 1: It's just not achievable. Western were you going for a
Speaker 1: world record white tail this year? Sort of sort of hoping? Well, now,
Speaker 1: it would have given the camps the momentum. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say that Cody's buck. You could, you could find
Speaker 1: other categories like biggest eight point Yeah, yeah, it would
Speaker 1: definitely hit that. You know, we we've fast some good
Speaker 1: deer over the years. In fact, my oldest son, Jackson,
Speaker 1: killed a big eight point four years ago that uh,
Speaker 1: I would say it was maybe just under Cody's but
Speaker 1: we get a decent one every year. Yeah. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: so what we're gonna do on this podcast is I
Speaker 1: want to get around to butcher and a bear, how
Speaker 1: to process and butcher a bear, and all the different
Speaker 1: things that we can do with bare meat and bear fat.
Speaker 1: In Matt this year just got finished butcher and one
Speaker 1: killed a bear. We're gonna talk about that. But I've
Speaker 1: got Weston and Bear and Matt in here, because all
Speaker 1: of you guys have had an incredible season. I have not.
Speaker 1: Uh so Western You first second day of muzzleloader season
Speaker 1: killed the biggest buck of your life? Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 1: Were you excited about that? Very public land? Yeah? What
Speaker 1: just tell briefly tell me the story. I saw us
Speaker 1: sitting on the ground. Um, he dropped me off about
Speaker 1: four o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah, yeah, after he shot
Speaker 1: a dough that morning. Okay, that's right, you killed one
Speaker 1: that morning. Now set settled down about five o'clock. This
Speaker 1: dere it comes coming down and you could hear him coming,
Speaker 1: and um, he starts to get closer. I'm getting ready
Speaker 1: and he's I couldn't really see where he was until
Speaker 1: he started hook bushing, hook bushing, and uh see the
Speaker 1: tree just going back and forth, and um, I sort
Speaker 1: of sweart. I was going in my bag trying to
Speaker 1: can call it towards me because I thought I saw
Speaker 1: it going away from me. But I thought I messed up.
Speaker 1: And they're giving some sound effects. I don't think that. Okay,
Speaker 1: go ahead and uh wait, wait wait when you okay,
Speaker 1: let me just keep you and how we're gonna do this.
Speaker 1: When he said something, I need some sound effects, like
Speaker 1: if he says combustion, like I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: a camp term these guys have. I need to hear that.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, go ahead, okay, and uh he turns and
Speaker 1: starts coming right to me, and she turns go ahead.
Speaker 1: And I looked at my gun and clicked back the hammer,
Speaker 1: and all I see is his head and his neck, like,
Speaker 1: this is the only shot I have. So I took
Speaker 1: it and he went down just right in his tracks.
Speaker 1: Next shot, yeah, next shot right in the white patch. No.
Speaker 1: It was like if I was an inch off, it
Speaker 1: probably would have missed it. Oh yeah, I got lucky, okay,
Speaker 1: and went down. I was shaking real bad, trying to
Speaker 1: get the cap out, struggling. I finally got all loaded,
Speaker 1: waited a little bit. Then I walked up on it
Speaker 1: and it was big, big, nice public land six. Yeah awesome. Well,
Speaker 1: Weston had to sit there with that deer for two hours.
Speaker 1: We didn't have any communication in the mountains, and I
Speaker 1: told him I'd come and get him at dark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, I was walking in and it was after dark.
Speaker 1: I had my flashlight and I got almost two of
Speaker 1: them and out here, Dad, hurry, oh boy, something that happened.
Speaker 1: I bet that was a long two hours, wasn't it. Yeah? Now, okay,
Speaker 1: so Weston killed the gobbler in the spring too. It
Speaker 1: was your first gobbler and then on the very same day,
Speaker 1: was it not? So Baron Western or fourteen your fourteen
Speaker 1: no night yet you okay? Okay, thirteen bears fourteen and uh,
Speaker 1: you killed the gobbler. We got a text message from
Speaker 1: them on open a day youth season and uh, we
Speaker 1: didn't even know they were going turkey hunting. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I text you. I said, hey, are you home?
Speaker 1: We got something to show you? Yeah? Yeah, and uh
Speaker 1: and we were down we were at turkey hunting. And anyway,
Speaker 1: bar ended up killing one late in the morning. So Bear,
Speaker 1: so y'all both killed gobblers. And then Bear tell me
Speaker 1: give me the like Abrevier did version of your Halloween Buck. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I got home pretty late at like three thirty
Speaker 1: or something. West excuse me. I need sound effects anything
Speaker 1: that any action word, any verbs. This is like English class.
Speaker 1: I need some sound effect. Okay, quality is not the
Speaker 1: issue here. Just energy energy. Okay, this rings energy, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need this, okay, all right. So it's Halloween Day
Speaker 1: and I got back from school pretty late, about the
Speaker 1: time i'd want to get in the stand. And so
Speaker 1: I got home and I quickly got dressed because I
Speaker 1: knew that I wanted to go. So I asked River,
Speaker 1: my sister, if she could drive me over to this place.
Speaker 1: She could drive me over to this place about half
Speaker 1: a mile from her house, and I took a climbing
Speaker 1: stand in me. But you calculated the wind because I
Speaker 1: told you to go somewhere else. Yeah, the wind was
Speaker 1: out of the south, blowing north, and so I knew
Speaker 1: this stand where you would call that a south wind, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's something that maybe not everybody would understand. But
Speaker 1: a wind that's blowing to the north as a south wind.
Speaker 1: So the wind is categorized about the direction that comes from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I knew that the wind at the spot
Speaker 1: I would sitting will be blowing into a field where
Speaker 1: I didn't think that the deer would come from. So
Speaker 1: I went and I climbed this wide oak tree after
Speaker 1: trying to climb a shag bark hickory tree with a
Speaker 1: climbing stand. Oh you didn't tell me that you tried
Speaker 1: to climb hill tree is not the kind of tree
Speaker 1: a lot of climbate of climbate. I got like six
Speaker 1: ft up and decided that you're like, not, this is
Speaker 1: not gonna work easy to come down. They're hard to
Speaker 1: go up. Yeah, because the way that the way the
Speaker 1: bark lies. Yeah. So I went to this like white
Speaker 1: oak tree, probably like ten ft from it, climbed up.
Speaker 1: It got up probably a like four forty five, a
Speaker 1: lot later than i'd want to be up getting dark
Speaker 1: at six yeah, before time change, and so I waited
Speaker 1: about fifteen minutes before I started calling. I would do
Speaker 1: an extra spleet and then I would do like attending grunt.
Speaker 1: Like we're like, we need, we need, I need to
Speaker 1: hear this, but we're like it'd be like a couple
Speaker 1: of deep your mouth like a round, you know, like
Speaker 1: the extra sleet, and then like an okay, So the
Speaker 1: extras bleet would be like a long, higher pitched bleat
Speaker 1: that ends with a little crescendo yeah yeah, and then yeah,
Speaker 1: and then attending grunt is like a deeper grunt and
Speaker 1: it's kind of like that there's like a buck tending
Speaker 1: a dough basically, And then so I was doing that
Speaker 1: like when they're doing that Western if you heard about
Speaker 1: grunt in the woods. Yeah, they when they're with a
Speaker 1: dough that they're kind of like corraling and trying to
Speaker 1: you know, do what they do. They he's like back
Speaker 1: back back, just I mean, like it's an incredible thing
Speaker 1: to hear. I've heard it, you know a few times,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's kind of like hearing a turkey go,
Speaker 1: which like you know, something special is happening. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so I was doing that probably like every fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: about the time that like whenever I had grunt that
Speaker 1: like I would think, if a deer here's this, it'll
Speaker 1: come in. But then I would wait until like whichever
Speaker 1: deer that was that would have been there would be
Speaker 1: I've decided to not come basically. So I was doing
Speaker 1: that probably every fifteen minutes. And at about five thirty
Speaker 1: almost exactly, I did that, and about forty five seconds later,
Speaker 1: I see a rack of like a big, bigger rack
Speaker 1: than anything that I've ever shot coming down the hill
Speaker 1: and he was just coming straight towards me, and he
Speaker 1: was grunting every time you take a step. He got yeah,
Speaker 1: and he got He just walked right behind me like
Speaker 1: perfect at seventeen yards and I drew back a grunt,
Speaker 1: stopped him, shot hit him a little high, so he
Speaker 1: just dropped and then you know, I shot him and
Speaker 1: dropped him, dropped him with a bow nice ten point.
Speaker 1: I was I was hunting somewhere else and he texted
Speaker 1: me what was funny? And this is the way this
Speaker 1: is kind of what you you kind of live for
Speaker 1: in the fall, is that moment when things shift because hunting,
Speaker 1: I'm in this stage of hunting right now where it
Speaker 1: just almost seems impossible, Like I hadn't whitetail hunted this
Speaker 1: much in years. I mean, I've just spent an incredible
Speaker 1: amount of time in the woods and I have yet
Speaker 1: to I did draw my bow on a shooter buck,
Speaker 1: but then that's it. I haven't killed one. And so
Speaker 1: you just get to thinking like this is just an
Speaker 1: impossible task. And then just all of a sudden things change.
Speaker 1: Because I had texted Bear and he was like, you
Speaker 1: see anything, and I was like, no, have you know nothing?
Speaker 1: You know, just like this pretty typical exchange we'd have
Speaker 1: and then like four minutes later, big ten point down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was exciting, and it was Halloween night and a
Speaker 1: bunch of people were coming over to our house for
Speaker 1: a kind of a bonfire, and that made it all
Speaker 1: the more fun. You'll probably once in your life kill
Speaker 1: a deer like at a time when like a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of people are gonna be like coming to your
Speaker 1: I'm being serious, like usually it's kind of a solo
Speaker 1: thing and you share the experience with people after the
Speaker 1: fact or through technology, or you call somebody and tell
Speaker 1: them it's pretty special when you kill a deer and
Speaker 1: you can bring but I know it deer camp. You guys,
Speaker 1: would I mean you have that experience that deer camp. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I started say. It's it's incredibly the parallels these boys
Speaker 1: have had this year between killing that their first gobber
Speaker 1: on the same day and then this year both of
Speaker 1: them getting a good buck. Western had a similar experience.
Speaker 1: On our way into camp. We use CB radios up
Speaker 1: there in the mountains, and our radio to head to
Speaker 1: the camp. As we're coming up the mountain, and the
Speaker 1: guys answered, I said, hey, Weston is bringing another big
Speaker 1: one into camp. Get the hanging tree ready and we
Speaker 1: got up there. Man, it was real special. Everybody gathered
Speaker 1: around the truck and they're high five and just a
Speaker 1: really cool moment. And so bear got to experience that too,
Speaker 1: I know. Yeah, yeah cool. Well, and then, uh, Matt,
Speaker 1: you've had a heck of a year. We were just
Speaker 1: going through, like, give me a give me an overview
Speaker 1: of how your year so far? And then but I
Speaker 1: want to get to the specifics of the bear. Sure,
Speaker 1: but yeah, give me an overview. Yeah, well, the bear
Speaker 1: kicked it all off. Really. That was October two. Uh,
Speaker 1: we went and hunted that bear and and got got
Speaker 1: it with a bow. I kicked off the season. Man.
Speaker 1: That that I guess we'll talk more in detail about
Speaker 1: that later. But uh, Weston and I and and our
Speaker 1: our buddies, we all camped the week of musloader season.
Speaker 1: It's a big week for us. And we went down
Speaker 1: there and my oldest daughter, June is six years old,
Speaker 1: and she came with us this year for the first time.
Speaker 1: And uh, Saturday and Sunday we didn't see anything. Weston
Speaker 1: got his two deer on Sunday, and then Monday morning,
Speaker 1: June and I got a seven point buck together and
Speaker 1: so that was pretty incredible. The next morning, UH, June,
Speaker 1: Western and I all hunted together and and we had
Speaker 1: Weston set up on a hot trail and and a
Speaker 1: nice nine point came in behind June and I I
Speaker 1: wasn't expecting to come from that way. There's no way
Speaker 1: Weston was going to see it. So I had to
Speaker 1: do the shooting, which I sure hated to do, but
Speaker 1: but I got that one. So we we killed bucks
Speaker 1: two days in a row. So I had a had
Speaker 1: a bear in two bucks at that point. And then uh,
Speaker 1: later that week, I was still hunting with a muzzloader.
Speaker 1: UH still had dough tags and got a bobcat, which
Speaker 1: I've been trying to kill a bobcat my entire life.
Speaker 1: I've shot at him. I've never gotten one until this year.
Speaker 1: So that kind of came together. And then this past weekend,
Speaker 1: Western and Bear and I went back to deer camp.
Speaker 1: They were able to hunt with rifles, my youth and
Speaker 1: I took my bowl, thinking, you know, I'm still still
Speaker 1: after a dough and Uh, Saturday evening, right before dark,
Speaker 1: a big wild hog came through and I was able
Speaker 1: to get him. So a bear, two bucks, a bobcat,
Speaker 1: and a hog. Wow, man, and this hog, uh, this
Speaker 1: hog was quite the word deal. You don't have to
Speaker 1: go into all the details. But you shot this hog
Speaker 1: right at dark and y'all trailed it for now. I've
Speaker 1: i've i've kind of mind this story out of all
Speaker 1: of you, individ, Julie and I have pretty much come
Speaker 1: to the same story. So I know you're not lying,
Speaker 1: But the collective ideas that trailed this this hog close
Speaker 1: to a mile, that'd be my guess. I know. Walking
Speaker 1: hard back to the truck up a creek bed took
Speaker 1: us probably an hour. Yeah, so and and and we're
Speaker 1: trailing this thing, crawling through briars, you know, after this
Speaker 1: big wounded bore, no weapon, you know, flashlight, and went
Speaker 1: in and weren't really prepared. We're just going to retrieve
Speaker 1: my arrow. I thought I missed it. Oh, so we
Speaker 1: went in totally unprepared, and so by the end of
Speaker 1: it we trailed. We got a knife in one hand
Speaker 1: and a flashlighting, not knowing what we're gonna walk up on.
Speaker 1: But we eventually did find him. Well. And so go
Speaker 1: ahead and tell kind of the end of the story.
Speaker 1: You you give up on the trail. Yeah, he made
Speaker 1: it to a field, and uh, there was five of
Speaker 1: us looking, two of my buddies, Rustling Cody and then
Speaker 1: me Bear and Weston and Rustling Cody. We're gonna going
Speaker 1: ahead and try to figure out where we were because
Speaker 1: we we lost our sense of direction. Moon hadn't coming
Speaker 1: up yet middle of the night, and they're gonna try
Speaker 1: to find They think they know where a road is,
Speaker 1: so they leave us, and we we lost blood trail
Speaker 1: after a while. And I'm like, boys, that's it, I said,
Speaker 1: all for none. Man, We're just gonna have to go
Speaker 1: and try to find those guys and get out of here.
Speaker 1: We take about what ten or fifteen steps Weston and
Speaker 1: I here, and I shined the light over and we
Speaker 1: are what ten ft from this bore. I mean he's
Speaker 1: right there and standing up like he's yea, oh man.
Speaker 1: That shook us up pretty good. But he was he
Speaker 1: was almost expired, like he didn't charge us or anything.
Speaker 1: So we uh again, didn't have a weapon other than
Speaker 1: I for none of us were brave enough to dive
Speaker 1: in on him, so we uh, we just we had
Speaker 1: to leave. No. Can you believe it? Wow? Well, I'll
Speaker 1: say that's a pretty uh I mean wild boars are
Speaker 1: if they're not just stereotype to be aggressive, I mean
Speaker 1: they really are aggressive. Um so, I mean it's pretty unusual.
Speaker 1: I would say if he had enough life to be
Speaker 1: standing there, that he didn't at least take a round
Speaker 1: at you could have been dangerous. He was chopping his
Speaker 1: jaws at us. This is not a small hawk. Is
Speaker 1: that big hawk? I would say, over three pounds and
Speaker 1: big tusks? Big tusk yeah, probably two two and a
Speaker 1: half inches long. Yeah, yeah, he was big. Well, man,
Speaker 1: that's quite the Uh. The Arkansas slam right there to
Speaker 1: get a wild hog, buck and a bear West to
Speaker 1: kill a turkey. So the family, the family slam our
Speaker 1: best year ever for sure. Yeah, well that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That is pretty cool. Well, um, Matt, so let's talk
Speaker 1: about let's talk about our bear hunt. Um. I wasn't
Speaker 1: planning on I wasn't planning on inviting you. I wasn't either,
Speaker 1: I was working that day. Yeah, Now I kind of
Speaker 1: felt like this would happen. Is that? So the first weekend,
Speaker 1: all the kids hunted and I kind of just I
Speaker 1: was saving my tag to kill a bear in the mountains.
Speaker 1: This is the this is a short version. I was saving.
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't want. I didn't plan to kill
Speaker 1: a bear over bait, even though we were baiting bears
Speaker 1: and had bears on bait. So after the weekend, the
Speaker 1: first weekend ended and the kids went home, and that
Speaker 1: meant it's my turn to hunt. I went into the
Speaker 1: mountains and checked a bunch of spots that if I
Speaker 1: was gonna kill a bear in the mountains without bait,
Speaker 1: this is where it was gonna happen. And I quickly
Speaker 1: saw that it was gonna be real tough just because
Speaker 1: the mass crop was scattered. It was, it was not
Speaker 1: a dry year. There was many factors that made bear
Speaker 1: hunting the mountains tough for the way that I hunt
Speaker 1: and the places that I hunt. So I spent a
Speaker 1: day and a half hunt in the mountains and pretty
Speaker 1: much ran all my little traps, you know. And uh,
Speaker 1: and so it came to be Monday, and I had
Speaker 1: been there had been one spot. And if anybody follows
Speaker 1: Barony magazine stuff, they would have seen the video we
Speaker 1: did with River the mule bait you know where she Uh.
Speaker 1: It was a video called Rivers Bear on Barony Magazine YouTube.
Speaker 1: And and we we had this this private land. We
Speaker 1: can only hunt bear bait bears on private land in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and so we've got a piece of private land that's
Speaker 1: that you can't get to with a vehicle, essentially, so
Speaker 1: we have to pack in bait on mules. Well, I
Speaker 1: had neglected that bait this year, Matt. I probably told
Speaker 1: you this. I baited that thing like three days before season,
Speaker 1: only one time because I didn't intend to hunt it
Speaker 1: because it's so hard to get to and where we
Speaker 1: hunt with James Lawrence and that's where we dedicated our
Speaker 1: whole weekend and our whole bear camp was in his
Speaker 1: part of the world. And uh so I wasn't even
Speaker 1: gonna get I wouldn't. I wasn't even gonna hunt the
Speaker 1: mule bait. But I just couldn't stand not baiting it.
Speaker 1: So I had gone in there one time and baited
Speaker 1: and hadn't even gone back to check it. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: let me think of the sequence. Let me think of
Speaker 1: the sequence. Yeah no, no, no, no, that's not that's
Speaker 1: not true. I didn't bait it at all. I didn't
Speaker 1: bait it. Uh No, I baited it twice. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened. Three days before a season, I
Speaker 1: baited it, didn't go back in there, went to the mountains,
Speaker 1: decided I wasn't gonna kill a bear in the mountains.
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, maybe I'll go kill a bear
Speaker 1: at the mule bait. But I'd only baited it one
Speaker 1: time three days before, and I knew how all the
Speaker 1: bears were responding on our other baits, which was pretty poor.
Speaker 1: On years when there's good mass crop, the bears don't
Speaker 1: respond to bait that well. So I knew that at
Speaker 1: the mule bait it would probably just be average. But
Speaker 1: and I I just you know, I knew I wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna The only way I was gonna shoot a bear
Speaker 1: over bait this year was if it was gonna be
Speaker 1: a real nice bear. Well, I figured i'd go into
Speaker 1: the mule bait and just law of averages and having
Speaker 1: baited and hunted a lot, you know, the chances of
Speaker 1: killing a really big bear on October the two were slim.
Speaker 1: But and I didn't have any intel, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a part of a bear kill up there,
Speaker 1: And I, you know, I just thought it to be
Speaker 1: a shame for me to let a nice bear walk by,
Speaker 1: just because I didn't want to kill it. And so
Speaker 1: Matt works real job. And uh, I called you? Did
Speaker 1: I call you the morning of? Yeah? You sent me
Speaker 1: a text at like nine thirty that morning. Hey, going
Speaker 1: bear hunting at eleven o'clock. I want to go. M hmmm,
Speaker 1: let's see. I can't. I've got too much to do. Yeah. Sure, Hey.
Speaker 1: That is why I texted you, because I could have
Speaker 1: sent that text to a lot of people at nine
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning and they would have been like, ah,
Speaker 1: thanks for the invite, Clay, but I can't do it.
Speaker 1: And I would have been like, check, I'll remember that
Speaker 1: for the next ten years. And and I just had
Speaker 1: a feeling I had given you a tip the night
Speaker 1: before though. Do you remember I said, what are you
Speaker 1: doing tomorrow? I got yeah, kind of a cryptic what
Speaker 1: what are you doing tomorrow? And I'm like, where's this going?
Speaker 1: I will. I'm not afraid to say that sometimes I am.
Speaker 1: It's hard to get me to commit when it comes
Speaker 1: to hunting, because you know, the scenario changes constantly. Like
Speaker 1: and I had the thought the night before ought to
Speaker 1: invite Matt to go up there with me, Like that
Speaker 1: just crossed my mind. And so you know, many variables. Well,
Speaker 1: I wonder if he could go. I figured he'd want
Speaker 1: to go, but it's like, I wonder if he could go.
Speaker 1: So it's just like, what are you doing tomorrow, Matt?
Speaker 1: Because I mean, I'm I'm thinking maybe I ought to
Speaker 1: go to the mountains and hunt on the mules. Maybe
Speaker 1: I ought not to even go up to up there,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh So, anyway, I sent that text,
Speaker 1: and then finally at like nine thirty the next morning,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm going to the mountain and I
Speaker 1: want to bring you know, somebody. They're not just somebody.
Speaker 1: I don't just take somebody. I mean I I wanted
Speaker 1: to take you. And so I was like, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: leaving eleven if you want to go kill Beart And
Speaker 1: and I was very upfront about our deal, was I not?
Speaker 1: Not exactly. I don't think he presented a deal until
Speaker 1: we were on the way down. Are you sure? No?
Speaker 1: I don't remember, because I said, I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like this is what happened. I feel like I said, Matt,
Speaker 1: if there's a big bear, I'm gonna shoot it, because
Speaker 1: that's this's just what I said. But if there's a
Speaker 1: bear that I don't want to shoot, or if a
Speaker 1: bear that I don't want to shoot comes in first,
Speaker 1: I just felt like there was gonna be. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just gonna be one big bear coming in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be. And And to give some context to this,
Speaker 1: I was completely cool with that because man, I I
Speaker 1: killed a bear back in two thousand five, just uh incidental.
Speaker 1: I was deer hunting and got a bear. And I
Speaker 1: had a lot especially deer hunting and in bear country,
Speaker 1: like my son Jackson killed a bear four years ago,
Speaker 1: just you know, while we were dear hunting. They're up there.
Speaker 1: But I haven't seen a bear in fifteen years. And
Speaker 1: so when you said, you know, if it's one I
Speaker 1: don't want to shoot, you can shoot it. Like, that's
Speaker 1: fine with me, man, any bear, right, because I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: by bears. I want I wanted another bear and you
Speaker 1: just don't see him there. Yeah, I think you. I've
Speaker 1: heard you'd call them black ghosts. They literally are. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and I knew you'd be okay with with that deal.
Speaker 1: And and I and I knew that probably leaned towards
Speaker 1: your favor because I knew what I was after would
Speaker 1: we'd have to been pretty it's been pretty good fortune
Speaker 1: for me to go in there and shoot a I
Speaker 1: was probably looking for a fifty pound plus bear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so we so we so we have to load
Speaker 1: We load up two mules, We drive down there, saddle
Speaker 1: up the mules. Um, I'd say, well, we left at
Speaker 1: eleven and uh we were up on the mount hunting
Speaker 1: by about three o'clock. About three o'clock we were in
Speaker 1: the stands. So we rode up the mountain and uh
Speaker 1: and the way we hunt that places we tie mute bears.
Speaker 1: Never hunted up there with me, have you. You didn't
Speaker 1: hunt it up there with the bat. Yeah, not at
Speaker 1: the bait. So we we get about a quarter mile
Speaker 1: from the bait and just tie the mules up. Better
Speaker 1: time up good, or they'll get away and run on
Speaker 1: the bottom of the mountain. That's happened before. Um and
Speaker 1: uh so we just parked them, leave and go hunt.
Speaker 1: And uh. So that's what we did. And so I
Speaker 1: checked the camera while I was as soon as we
Speaker 1: got there, and there were there was a bear coming
Speaker 1: in there that I would have shot. But it was
Speaker 1: real weird because there were hardly any daytime photos. There
Speaker 1: were actually only two bears on camera and both of
Speaker 1: them were what appeared to me and quick analysis on
Speaker 1: the phone was large adult males, both of them probably
Speaker 1: over three hounds. That's what I analyze. So it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's two good bears. But they weren't coming in daylight,
Speaker 1: which is odd because no human pressure up there. These
Speaker 1: bears aren't being hunted like see. You often think about
Speaker 1: animals going nocturnal, like thinking, oh, well, they know hunting
Speaker 1: seasons around, they know they're being pressure. They they're trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, protect themselves from human predation. I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily think that's I think that can be true.
Speaker 1: But even with these places that are totally unmolested, these
Speaker 1: big animals just feed at night sometimes. And I think
Speaker 1: it has to do with lunar cycles. I think it
Speaker 1: has to do with photo period. You know how there's
Speaker 1: some mystery with animal movement nocturnal and daylight movement that
Speaker 1: is is a is a hard riddle to solve. But
Speaker 1: these bears had not been coming in the daytime to
Speaker 1: the States. I was discouraged by that. Typically with a
Speaker 1: bear bait, as you're anal lies and photos, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of common sense. But I mean
Speaker 1: if there had been a daylight bear there the day before,
Speaker 1: in the in the evening, I would have been like,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good chance he'll be back. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: didn't seem very optimistic if you look at the pictures,
Speaker 1: like you gave me the impression like we're probably not
Speaker 1: gonna see one. Yeah, and uh, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: kept my optimism just being there. You know, I've never
Speaker 1: been around bear bait before. That's that experience was new.
Speaker 1: And I think I told you, I said, if we
Speaker 1: just see it bear like, this is a huge win
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah. Yeah, well and then we said. I
Speaker 1: remember sitting there, so so I had one one stand
Speaker 1: up in the tree and it was just a lock
Speaker 1: on stands and you setting the lock on standing. I
Speaker 1: sat in my saddle. I just tied my tree saddle
Speaker 1: right beside you. And uh, And I said, this bait
Speaker 1: has been out for such a short amount of time,
Speaker 1: it's possible that new bears could be finding this bait
Speaker 1: for the first time. Because this was an established bait,
Speaker 1: like it had been used for a couple of years
Speaker 1: so and used extensively. A lot of bears were hitting it.
Speaker 1: So I knew that a pretty large number of bears
Speaker 1: knew where this bait was, and they ken on food
Speaker 1: sources at times, specific points, you know, like uh, bears
Speaker 1: have I've read some research where bears have an incredible
Speaker 1: memory for where food sources like down to like a
Speaker 1: specific tree on a mountain you know that is highly productive,
Speaker 1: or or berry patch in a certain place. So they
Speaker 1: have these vast home ranges, and they have big brains.
Speaker 1: They're they're omnivores. They can see color, they they can
Speaker 1: their ability to categorize and remember food sources what makes
Speaker 1: them so suc tessful. So like a bait site, they
Speaker 1: hit it one time, they remember that for the rest
Speaker 1: of their life. They're not ever gonna be like, where
Speaker 1: was that place when I was a cub where Mama
Speaker 1: took us? It's like they hone in on it. Have y'all,
Speaker 1: have y'all. He heard me tell the story of this
Speaker 1: didn't happen to me, but it happened to some guys
Speaker 1: that really taught me how to bait bears, The Beastons,
Speaker 1: some friends of mine here in Arkansas, Will and Adam
Speaker 1: beast and there early when I started baiting bears, they
Speaker 1: were real. They gave me a lot of good info,
Speaker 1: but they had truill cameras up. They had a really
Speaker 1: established great bait site and they had traill cameras up
Speaker 1: and for whatever reason, they had cameras up before they
Speaker 1: put out a bait. And I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was a camera that they left up the whole year
Speaker 1: and the batteries lasted that long as it was intentional.
Speaker 1: But basically every year, their whole strategy was like clockwork,
Speaker 1: put out the bait ten days before season, bait hard
Speaker 1: for ten days as much as they would, as much
Speaker 1: as the Bears beat, and that's what they did. So
Speaker 1: you know, for years, every single you know, September theft
Speaker 1: or you know what. Back then opening day it was
Speaker 1: October the one, so you know, like you know, September
Speaker 1: twentie let's just say they would put out bait September,
Speaker 1: twenty September, twenty September for years. Well, uh, as the
Speaker 1: season started to change, their their their dates got off
Speaker 1: like the season then moved up and moved back anyway,
Speaker 1: the Bears one time showed up on like September for
Speaker 1: the first time and there was no bait there. Um,
Speaker 1: so they weren't coming into scent. They were coming into
Speaker 1: this is when this is supposed to be here, you know.
Speaker 1: And Ryan Grab had stories like that too. But so
Speaker 1: all that to say, I said, there could be new
Speaker 1: bears still finding this bait. And uh, anyway, like prime time,
Speaker 1: you know, the last probably hour of daylight, you know,
Speaker 1: we hear, we hear a large animal. You know. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like footsteps like Weston heard of his buck coming in.
Speaker 1: It was just like just just a stick pop, a
Speaker 1: little bit of a shuffle, just light noise, but enough
Speaker 1: to know that's not a squirrel exactly. Yeah. It was
Speaker 1: like I remember, after probably ten seconds, like I was
Speaker 1: convinced it was a bear. Yeah, I wasn't sure what
Speaker 1: it was. You know, like I could hear it. I
Speaker 1: knew it was it had to be a large animal,
Speaker 1: but man, it seemed like it was right there and
Speaker 1: I couldn't see it. It's kind of like when you're
Speaker 1: looking for a deer and and it's a squirrel, you
Speaker 1: can't see it, you know. It was like that, but
Speaker 1: it didn't sound like a squirrel. So finally you saw it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was right there. It was. It was probably
Speaker 1: had come into the open, but the shadows this black
Speaker 1: animal that I'm not used to seeing I was overlooking at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a it was. It came out of a
Speaker 1: pawpaw thicket, if you remember that. But we were kind
Speaker 1: of kind of in open woods, I mean not really open,
Speaker 1: but for that area, semi open, but there was a
Speaker 1: thick papa patch right there, and uh that those I knew.
Speaker 1: I just felt like they would come from that direction,
Speaker 1: you know, and we hear some popping in anyway, I
Speaker 1: see the bear out there, and I immediately recognized that
Speaker 1: it's not a bear head on camera because it wasn't
Speaker 1: big enough. And it was it ended up being a
Speaker 1: really nice bear, but I just knew it wasn't that
Speaker 1: three fifty type pound bear that I had seen on camera.
Speaker 1: And I at first glance, I was like, this is
Speaker 1: bear for Matt. Shoot, yeah you immediately I think that's
Speaker 1: what you whispered to me. When I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's right there, and you're like that's your bear, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, are you sure that? I think it's
Speaker 1: big and man, that bear. So first of all, I
Speaker 1: had not seen that barrow on camera, but really the
Speaker 1: way that bear acted told me that it had never
Speaker 1: been to that bait. It hadn't been to the bait
Speaker 1: that year. The bait had just been put out. I
Speaker 1: believe it was that bear's first time into that bait
Speaker 1: because it took it fifteen minutes. Yeah, that was incredible
Speaker 1: to watch. And I got shaken some bad just because
Speaker 1: it took so long. It would take one step and
Speaker 1: then just sniff and look and sniff and look and
Speaker 1: then finally take another step and just so cautious. It
Speaker 1: was just incredible to watch. Yeah, Yeah, I've rarely seen
Speaker 1: one come in quite like that. It uh it, guys,
Speaker 1: It just I mean it would just it would pick
Speaker 1: up its feet like a cat just set its feet now,
Speaker 1: I mean just walked in, I mean almost silent after
Speaker 1: we saw it, Yeah, and uh and it just eased.
Speaker 1: I mean just it took forever for that thing to
Speaker 1: walk probably fifteen yards to get into range and be broadside.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the way they approach, you know,
Speaker 1: a bear bait, Well, any kind of congregated bear feeding area,
Speaker 1: whether it be a white oak ridge that's full acorns
Speaker 1: and there's bear sign and bear scent, you know, these
Speaker 1: bears coming into it, new bears. You're gonna be real cautious.
Speaker 1: They're afraid of other bears. Well that I remember asking you.
Speaker 1: I said, why bears don't really have any natural predators?
Speaker 1: I said, why are they so incredibly cautious? And that's
Speaker 1: what you said, was there. They don't want to be
Speaker 1: around other bears. Yeah, I mean big male bears are
Speaker 1: are uh, you know, cannibals can be. I mean they'll
Speaker 1: they'll kill you know, in fantaside. You know, they'll kill cubs. Um.
Speaker 1: They're highly territorial for the most part. I mean, if
Speaker 1: they if you see two or three bears the debate side,
Speaker 1: which is common when you're baiting bears, I mean, they're
Speaker 1: just tolerating each other. They're not like herding up like
Speaker 1: deer and gonna run off and hang out together. The
Speaker 1: odd times you'll see pairs of bears is usually sibling
Speaker 1: bears that have that are two years old and for
Speaker 1: whatever reason just kind of had a bond that they
Speaker 1: hadn't split up yet. But you'll rarely see other than
Speaker 1: you know, like a breeding pair in the spring or something.
Speaker 1: I mean, bears are solitary animals and they want to
Speaker 1: be solitary. And uh, any bear is capable of killing
Speaker 1: any other bear. I mean, they've got they so you know,
Speaker 1: they're just super cautious, you know. And um, so this
Speaker 1: bear just crept and crept in, crept in, crept in,
Speaker 1: and finally it got in abroad. I remember one time
Speaker 1: I could, you know, it was It's a kind of
Speaker 1: a fun experience, and I've I've done it before, but
Speaker 1: never for that extended period of time. But you know,
Speaker 1: we were at a super steep angle, like we were up.
Speaker 1: We were all up probably eighteen feet off the ground,
Speaker 1: but the ground sloped off. He was down below us below,
Speaker 1: so we were probably above this bear, maybe not that
Speaker 1: high above it, but and in this and and it
Speaker 1: was the first time I had set in these this
Speaker 1: stand because I moved the bait slightly on this property.
Speaker 1: And so when we got up there, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, we're super close. So I knew we were
Speaker 1: gonna be shooting like straight down. And I also knew
Speaker 1: that that is a really tough situation to be in.
Speaker 1: Shooting a bear is shooting straight down a lot of
Speaker 1: and it's boy, it's easy to wound a bear. It's
Speaker 1: easy to get a bad shot. So I was watching
Speaker 1: you like a hawk and and uh and and I
Speaker 1: you know, I won't immense words about it, like guys
Speaker 1: that have killed I have seen guys that have killed hundreds.
Speaker 1: Like literally one of my guy know real well, good
Speaker 1: friend of mine, veteran white tail hunter, one of the
Speaker 1: best white tail hunters I know, probably one of the
Speaker 1: best white owners in the country, hunting with me years ago,
Speaker 1: and uh wounded a bear at like twelve yards. Got
Speaker 1: this guy's killed like three deer with his bow and uh,
Speaker 1: first bared ever shot at and just got rattled and
Speaker 1: just made a bad decision and shot despair wrong. And
Speaker 1: I mean like he was the last person I had
Speaker 1: any I mean, this guy is a killer. And and
Speaker 1: I put him in a bear stand and I was
Speaker 1: just like, dude, just kill a bear, no big deal.
Speaker 1: Big bear walks in and he gets rattled and just
Speaker 1: makes a poor decision. Wounds, Despair would never find it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I don't take anything for granted. You're a
Speaker 1: you're a veteran hunter that I was watching you and uh, man,
Speaker 1: that bear started to get up even with us where
Speaker 1: it was almost broadside but not quite and I saw
Speaker 1: your hands started to kind of tighten up on that string,
Speaker 1: and I remember saying, I don't remember exactly what I said,
Speaker 1: but I was like, wait, yeah you did. Wait wait wait,
Speaker 1: because I I just really wanted him perfectly broadside or
Speaker 1: slightly quartering away. Didn't want to take any any kind
Speaker 1: of front, you know, any kind of quarter in two shot,
Speaker 1: y'all understand what that means, guys, quarter and two okay,
Speaker 1: broadside would be a deer bear that his his back
Speaker 1: hips and his front shoulders are equal distance to you.
Speaker 1: He's like flat like the face of a barn, like
Speaker 1: broadside like a barn. If he's quartering to you, it
Speaker 1: means that his front shoulders are closer to you than
Speaker 1: it's But does that make sense, Like his head would
Speaker 1: be right here if he's quartering away. In the whole
Speaker 1: quartering thing has to do. It has to do with
Speaker 1: the angle, like like if if this were a compass,
Speaker 1: Like if we had a comp and this is getting
Speaker 1: this is digging into the weeds. But you know, like
Speaker 1: if we had a compass, hundred and eighty degrees would
Speaker 1: be like in front of you like quarter and would
Speaker 1: be like twenty five for cent. So it has to
Speaker 1: do with the angle like it was on a compass, okay,
Speaker 1: but quartering away Weston would be if his butt was
Speaker 1: closer to you than his shoulders, And that's a much
Speaker 1: better shot because you can slip a bullet or an
Speaker 1: arrow in and the forward movement of the bullet is
Speaker 1: going to carry it into the vitals. If he's quartering
Speaker 1: to you, you gotta shoot through the front shoulders anyway,
Speaker 1: and we've got a compound angle because we're up so
Speaker 1: high as well. Account for that too, and that's the
Speaker 1: hardest part of it. So anyway, the bear, the bear
Speaker 1: is probably eight yards from the base of the tree.
Speaker 1: It wasn't not, and we're probably twenty five ft above
Speaker 1: the bears. I mean, we're just shooting straight down on it.
Speaker 1: But he finally gets broadside and beyond. Because once he
Speaker 1: gets broadside and we were kind of and there was
Speaker 1: a little bit of brush at the perfect broadside moment,
Speaker 1: there was a little bit of brush there, I had
Speaker 1: to let him get a little further, so he was
Speaker 1: slightly quartering away. But man to be that patient. I
Speaker 1: was glad you told me to wait, because I'm not
Speaker 1: used to be impatient. Like even deer hunting, like we
Speaker 1: don't hunt with any bait ever, like I've never I
Speaker 1: never had moments like that most of our shots, Like
Speaker 1: you see the deer, you better get ready and shoot,
Speaker 1: they're passing through, you know. And uh so to wait
Speaker 1: and be that patient was real hard for me. But
Speaker 1: I'm glad I did, and I'm glad it came in
Speaker 1: that slow, because man, I was shook up when I
Speaker 1: first saw it. But like I said, it's been fifteen
Speaker 1: years since I've seen one in a while, and uh,
Speaker 1: it just you know, it's it's emotional in a way,
Speaker 1: and and you know, you you get the jitters and
Speaker 1: the adrenaline. And I had time to breathe a little
Speaker 1: bit and try to calm myself down before the shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you drew back shot hit him, hit him kind
Speaker 1: of where'd you hit him? High on the shoulder, man, right?
Speaker 1: Really where I want it too, And it was weird.
Speaker 1: I've heard listening to your podcast and and and reading
Speaker 1: bar Hunt Magazine helped tremendously because you talk a lot
Speaker 1: about shot placement and how you've even talked about you
Speaker 1: don't see the defined shoulder like you do on a
Speaker 1: dyer And I had all that in my mind, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's absolutely true. Because that peep site and Alex
Speaker 1: he is black and shooting at a fifty gallon trash
Speaker 1: bag up with a Yeah, it's like it wasn't like
Speaker 1: just obvious where that shoulder is and what you're even
Speaker 1: shooting at. I had to kind of look back out
Speaker 1: of my peep and get back and settle in and
Speaker 1: get comfortable. And what I tried to do was was
Speaker 1: hugged that front shoulder pretty tight and and shoot a
Speaker 1: little bit high, thinking that downward trajectory would get done
Speaker 1: into the vitals. And and that's what we did. Released
Speaker 1: the arrow. Uh, Barry gave out a moan and went
Speaker 1: down and kind of rolled around and uh. And I
Speaker 1: think I was grabbing for another arrow when you said
Speaker 1: put another one in it, and I was already on
Speaker 1: my way, and we did, and it it didn't even
Speaker 1: get out of sight. Yeah, well it uh it Uh,
Speaker 1: it had to you know, that high shoulder will just
Speaker 1: drop them to Yeah, you know. So it either clipped
Speaker 1: the clipped the spine a little bit or the high shoulder,
Speaker 1: but it did it. It passed through though, didn't it did? Yeah,
Speaker 1: somebody and it may have clipped something in that spine.
Speaker 1: I'm not real sure, it didn't stop the arrow, But yeah, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: you know what I call that. I call that getting
Speaker 1: blacked out when you look through your peep site and
Speaker 1: all you see is black. Yeah, And it's pretty common
Speaker 1: if you're shooting a bear inside a fifteen yards, especially
Speaker 1: if it's a very big bear. And this was a
Speaker 1: This was a good size bear. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it was easily two fifty pounds, I would say. I
Speaker 1: remember when we were skinning it. Remember it kind of
Speaker 1: rolled down the hill and we had to drag it
Speaker 1: back up and barely could. Yeah, it was it was
Speaker 1: a fat bear. Um, So I mean, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: small bear. Um. But yeah, yeah, I call it getting
Speaker 1: blacked out. And you did the right thing, and that
Speaker 1: is not to panic and you I did the same
Speaker 1: thing kind of the last time that happened to me,
Speaker 1: as I looked around the peep and then back in
Speaker 1: the peep, and around the peep and back in the peep. Finally,
Speaker 1: you just kind of figure out where you need to
Speaker 1: aim and you just kind of gotta let it go.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's a tough situation. It is. And
Speaker 1: it's funny I had the exact same thing happened with
Speaker 1: that hog on Saturday evening that you just look up
Speaker 1: and see black and it was forty yards so and
Speaker 1: it was a losing daylight. So uh but yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 1: It's not like shooting it a deer. Very different. Well,
Speaker 1: and then the fun began because we're there's no way
Speaker 1: we would have I mean, we could have like quartered
Speaker 1: that bear up and hauled it out ourselves, but they
Speaker 1: would have been a pretty the major or a deal
Speaker 1: without the mules. Yeah, that wouldn't have been fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we we went back and got the mules and
Speaker 1: by this time it's dark and and uh but we
Speaker 1: we know we're gonna have to break the bear down
Speaker 1: out in the field. And I went back and got
Speaker 1: the mules and it was pretty cool. Bear. You should
Speaker 1: have been there, because uh it was is he's fifth
Speaker 1: bear to haul out? So is he's my mule, and uh,
Speaker 1: this is our fifth bear to haul out, and uh
Speaker 1: every so basically the first four bears. She pretty much
Speaker 1: responded the same way, which was she didn't want that
Speaker 1: bear on her back. I was talking to somebody about
Speaker 1: it the other day. I think, Um, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of equine guys try to put a animal on
Speaker 1: a horse or mules back, and I mean their natural tendency.
Speaker 1: I mean, like the vast majority of animals are not
Speaker 1: gonna want you to do that, and so they're gonna
Speaker 1: throw a fit, They're gonna be scared, They're gonna respond
Speaker 1: in a flight response. No, I don't want something bloody
Speaker 1: and strange or a predator on my back. But what
Speaker 1: I'm learned is you can condition them if you handle
Speaker 1: them right in the field to where they'll gradually just
Speaker 1: get better and better and better and better. But you
Speaker 1: gotta take you can't take no for an answer. I mean,
Speaker 1: when is he first kind of balked at me wanting
Speaker 1: to put a bear on her? I mean it was
Speaker 1: more than balk. I mean she went nuts, you know,
Speaker 1: but I just was I just was like, well, you
Speaker 1: don't have a choice, is he I'm going spars going
Speaker 1: on your back? And eventually I got it on her back,
Speaker 1: snorting and kicking, and and uh, I was afraid that
Speaker 1: maybe that's just what I was gonna be up against,
Speaker 1: because you do hear the odd story of a mule
Speaker 1: or horses just totally just doesn't care from the first one,
Speaker 1: just like just whatever that's not the norm, but that
Speaker 1: does happen. And so what I think it happens in
Speaker 1: the equine world is that those mules kind of get
Speaker 1: the good reputation of yep, some will do it and
Speaker 1: some won't. Just they either will or they won't. But
Speaker 1: Izzy would have been in the category of the ones
Speaker 1: that won't. But you know, you saw how she acted.
Speaker 1: I mean, she didn't fuss at all. You know what
Speaker 1: I did though, after we skinned that bear, I had
Speaker 1: blood on my hands and you know, smelled like a bear.
Speaker 1: And when we walked back to her, the first thing
Speaker 1: I did was I put my hand up and let
Speaker 1: her smell it, and she kind of snorted a little bit,
Speaker 1: and then I just pat her and talked to her
Speaker 1: and just put my hands on her nose. And finally
Speaker 1: she was just like, oh, we're haulding out a bear. Okay,
Speaker 1: got it, walked back in and she never really balked
Speaker 1: much at all after that. Um So, anyway, I was
Speaker 1: really thrilled about that. But hey, the reason that we're
Speaker 1: having this podcast, though, Matt, is to talk about what
Speaker 1: you did with that bear. Um So, if you kill
Speaker 1: a bear, uh like, So this would have been the
Speaker 1: second bear that you skinned. What what what would you
Speaker 1: tell somebody that would be different than like a skin
Speaker 1: and a deer. I think, uh, one thing, Well, we
Speaker 1: skinned this one on the ground after dark. But but
Speaker 1: prior to that, the last one I skinned was the
Speaker 1: one my oldest son killed four years ago, and uh,
Speaker 1: he killed his in the mornings. We skinned it in
Speaker 1: daylight at camp and just hung it up like you
Speaker 1: would a deer um from its hind legs and skin
Speaker 1: it down. It's it's, uh it's different in that you
Speaker 1: hear about bears being greasy. It's it's gets oily like
Speaker 1: on your hands as you're skinning it. Yeah, it gets
Speaker 1: real oily and and and that's different. But other than that, uh,
Speaker 1: we skinned. We skinned that one just like you would
Speaker 1: have dear, just skinning down. And what's different about how
Speaker 1: you and I did it is, you know, for one,
Speaker 1: skintting it on the ground, but then two we harvested
Speaker 1: the fat, which at that time, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about being able to use the fat for anything,
Speaker 1: so we just threw it away. Yeah, we kept all
Speaker 1: the fat. And then we also after we skinned it,
Speaker 1: we just cord it up bone in and uh we
Speaker 1: we used to do that with deer, and uh, man,
Speaker 1: it just makes for so much more work in the
Speaker 1: kitchen for me. I've always processed all my own game,
Speaker 1: and uh we found that, you know, if you can
Speaker 1: hang them up, especially, it's it's so much easier in
Speaker 1: the field for me to cut the meat off the
Speaker 1: bone and just bring the meat home. Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: de boning them in the field, yeah, while while it's hanging,
Speaker 1: and I never bring the bone in the house. Now
Speaker 1: with the bear, it might be different on some parts
Speaker 1: of it because you might want to cook it bone in,
Speaker 1: and we actually did that with part of it. Uh,
Speaker 1: Colby cooked part of his. He made that awesome Buco,
Speaker 1: and my wife and I made that recipe at home
Speaker 1: and we we used a picture. Yea, what do you
Speaker 1: think of it? I loved it. The family like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: awesome Buco. I don't remember if you ain't any of it,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think you were there, not for
Speaker 1: some reason. But our whole family loves while game. My
Speaker 1: wife cooks a ton of it, and it's just a man,
Speaker 1: just an amazing organic alternative adds variety to our diet
Speaker 1: and when we get a ton of it. See my
Speaker 1: my wife doesn't. She loves to cook it and she
Speaker 1: does most of the cooking. So but yeah, the ausobucco,
Speaker 1: we cooked bone in with part of that hot it.
Speaker 1: I cut it with a saws all the bone so ausobuco.
Speaker 1: The November December issue of Barony magazine, uh Colby did
Speaker 1: an article on ausobucco where you you take the shank,
Speaker 1: which is like the least desirable cut of meat on
Speaker 1: any animal, like the front the lower section of the
Speaker 1: leg on the front quarters its grind meat. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's sinewy, it's tough, and you and you and you
Speaker 1: slice it like you're slicing the loaf of bread. Leave
Speaker 1: the bone in and then you Colby cooked it in
Speaker 1: a in a what he cooked in a is that
Speaker 1: what you did too? It was? In fact, man, we
Speaker 1: that's our go to for a lot of meals now
Speaker 1: and especially wild game meals. It's fast and it really
Speaker 1: breaks it down and and and makes it so tender.
Speaker 1: It's pretty incredible. But yeah, we made that with it. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what got me on that was you might
Speaker 1: want to leave some bone in for things like that,
Speaker 1: but other than that, like I don't like to take
Speaker 1: bone in the house. It's it's a lot more work
Speaker 1: for me breaking it down in the house than it
Speaker 1: is hanging out in the field. And we uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: we hey talking about bone in Let me just interject
Speaker 1: this because you guys are a part of it. Remember
Speaker 1: that ham that I yeah, that y'all ate with us.
Speaker 1: That was incredible And that was the first real well
Speaker 1: I've cured pork hams before. That was actually the first
Speaker 1: bear ham that I cured. Now I had smoked bear
Speaker 1: ham before and just basically had smoked meat. That was
Speaker 1: so when you say the word ham, you're talking about
Speaker 1: the back back lag of the animal. But a cured
Speaker 1: ham would be like a Christmas ham. Cured ham would
Speaker 1: be like pink meat. That's characteristic of a cured meat.
Speaker 1: Usually it's pork that we cure. Well, we cured a
Speaker 1: bear ham and uh we did an article on it
Speaker 1: and like the September July August or September issue of
Speaker 1: Barnie magazine. Yeah, man, you know I overcooked that meat
Speaker 1: a little bit, Isn't that what we decided. It's been
Speaker 1: a little while. You said you did, and maybe you did,
Speaker 1: but man, I thought it was fantastic even the next day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you sent some home with me in the next day.
Speaker 1: It's just fantastic. And what did you just put honey
Speaker 1: on it? Right? Well, I glazed it with honey. But
Speaker 1: you know it had a special cure. I mean, you
Speaker 1: do have to get the Instacure. Uh. I ordered it
Speaker 1: off Amazon really easy. You get Instacure, and and you know,
Speaker 1: you just you do have to follow this recipe and
Speaker 1: it's a wet cure, so you leave it like a
Speaker 1: like one. You let it brian for one day per
Speaker 1: pound of the ham. So this was a nine pound ham,
Speaker 1: and I think we let it brian for seven days,
Speaker 1: maybe eight days, and uh oh it was just right.
Speaker 1: So we brind it and then we smoked it and
Speaker 1: I let it stay on the smoke for like four
Speaker 1: hours and then put it covered in the oven for
Speaker 1: like another three hours or something, so it cooked like
Speaker 1: a total like seven hours. But like that would be
Speaker 1: a good example of bony and stuff. But uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I just want to say to just for somebody that
Speaker 1: listened to this podcast for this thing about like how
Speaker 1: to butcher a bear, like always say this, like people
Speaker 1: are intimidated about killing a bear. And butchering it. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised at that, because if you know
Speaker 1: how to skin of deer, it's no different skin and
Speaker 1: a bear other than you're gonna have to joint out
Speaker 1: the feet. That's the only thing different. Then uh like
Speaker 1: a like a white tail, and uh, I keep going
Speaker 1: back to Barony magazine. You remember all the pictures we
Speaker 1: took of jointing out. Yeah, those weren't great pictures because
Speaker 1: we were we were hot, and it it's like my
Speaker 1: phone was fogging up. But basically, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: any four legged animal that has hair, you're gonna cut
Speaker 1: it up the center. You're gonna cut down from the
Speaker 1: wrists down to the chest, down to the legs, skin
Speaker 1: the hide off, and it's just got four quarters, backstraps,
Speaker 1: and loins and ribs and neck meat. That's all it's got. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it complicated a little bit because I wanted to
Speaker 1: keep the hide and head. Yeah, And the most people
Speaker 1: that are killing the bears, they're gonna do that. Um,
Speaker 1: But we in the field, we leave the feet in
Speaker 1: the hide and the head and the hide, so there's
Speaker 1: no reason to Most of the time, the text rmers
Speaker 1: takes care of that. But you do just have to
Speaker 1: get to the risk joints and you know what we
Speaker 1: would call and the ankle joints, and you just gotta
Speaker 1: you know, it's actually really simple and and I even
Speaker 1: sometimes it's still when I get to it could be
Speaker 1: a little bit like dang, this is gonna be hard.
Speaker 1: But basically, if you just if you just slow down
Speaker 1: and just move those feet, move the feet and kind
Speaker 1: of locate where that pivot point is and then get
Speaker 1: your knife in there and start poking around, you'll pop
Speaker 1: that joint and then be able to cut that foot
Speaker 1: off and then you just skin that hide and then
Speaker 1: that bear just has four quarters, two backstraps, two inner
Speaker 1: tender loins, neck, meat and ribs and fat. And you
Speaker 1: carried it all out. If you got a mule, you
Speaker 1: put it on your mule. If you gotta to fourteen
Speaker 1: year old boys, you put it in their backpass. You
Speaker 1: have them carried off the mountain bear. Do you remember
Speaker 1: when we I killed rock Slide and I took you
Speaker 1: up to get him. Bear was with me when I
Speaker 1: killed that mountain bear. Man, that thing was like skinning
Speaker 1: a beached whale up on the side of the mountain.
Speaker 1: We had six guys and we all carried out parts
Speaker 1: of it. My my packway ninety eight pounds coming off
Speaker 1: that mountain. What yours way? Bear would have been like, uh,
Speaker 1: well it was it was hold would you have been?
Speaker 1: It was seven years ago? Like eight I think, Okay,
Speaker 1: the total derailed. But I gotta say this because I remember, man,
Speaker 1: we were coming off the mountain in the dark out
Speaker 1: of ninety eight pound pack, and I was carrying my
Speaker 1: gun too, and uh it was dark, and I had
Speaker 1: my seven year old son with me, and we had
Speaker 1: to cross a pretty fast flowing creek and uh, I
Speaker 1: remember Bear was in front of me where it's dark,
Speaker 1: and I mean we're just like, I'm just running off adrenaline.
Speaker 1: You know. I've been up since way before daylight that morning.
Speaker 1: Now it's way after dark. I've killed this what we
Speaker 1: believed was a five pound bear. I mean, just like
Speaker 1: this incredible day. We're coming out of the woods and
Speaker 1: we come to this creek and I had carried him
Speaker 1: across on the way there, but now I got a
Speaker 1: ninety eight pound pack on and and I just say
Speaker 1: bear across that creek and I could see him getting
Speaker 1: nervous and kind of like not really knowing how to
Speaker 1: do it. And man, I just grabbed him up by
Speaker 1: one arm and just stormed across that creek. And I
Speaker 1: just remember thinking, adrenaline is an amazing thing because there's
Speaker 1: no way I could have I felt like I could
Speaker 1: have done that if i'd have been like in my
Speaker 1: right mind, like because I don't know, he probably weighed
Speaker 1: forty pounds at that time. I don't know, maybe not
Speaker 1: side anyway sidetracked, but that was a good packout story.
Speaker 1: Um So, what are you gonna do with you? Bear? Matt?
Speaker 1: So we've eaten I think three, no, four meals, I
Speaker 1: think already. So we've had We had the ausabuco. We
Speaker 1: we ground a lot of it. Um and then ground
Speaker 1: bear meat is incredible ground meat. Oh yeah. We we
Speaker 1: had chili one night with it, which fantastic. We had
Speaker 1: um man, we had bear stew the other night, and
Speaker 1: how good was that? Weston ground chunks just so so
Speaker 1: like stewed stewed up chunks. And my wife cooked it
Speaker 1: in the insta pot and she just kicked it first
Speaker 1: in the insta pot in the insta pot. Really good
Speaker 1: with some some oil. I'm not sure what she used.
Speaker 1: It was some sort of that would stand a high temp,
Speaker 1: seared it really good, and then uh worked her magic
Speaker 1: from there. Man just put everything in it and cooked
Speaker 1: it in that thing for a while and it was incredible.
Speaker 1: And then the other meal that Shepherd's pie we head
Speaker 1: was bear. Wasn't it what you think of that? I
Speaker 1: thought it was really good? What? Okay? So this being, uh,
Speaker 1: how do you handle if somebody says, hey, Matt, what
Speaker 1: about trickin nosis? I would say, you know, from from
Speaker 1: all the research I've done, which a lot of it's
Speaker 1: been from education from you. I know, Ranella did a
Speaker 1: thing on it where he actually contracted it right, and uh,
Speaker 1: just just to be careful, you know, just use common sense,
Speaker 1: clean all surfaces, but then just cook it. I think
Speaker 1: what one it dies instantly? That you nailed it, and
Speaker 1: if you cook it for a long enough period you
Speaker 1: don't even have to get to one forty four? Right you?
Speaker 1: You nailed it so few people. I mean that that
Speaker 1: data that you just said is what I got off
Speaker 1: the government website. I can't remember what it what it
Speaker 1: would be the c d C I don't know. Is
Speaker 1: that what it is? U S D A Y in
Speaker 1: it and it and it was talking about pork because
Speaker 1: tea and pork used to be a big thing. Dies
Speaker 1: instantly at a hundred forty four degrees and and it
Speaker 1: there's a gradual scale, so at one forty three and
Speaker 1: I'm just making this up now, but just so you
Speaker 1: get an understanding, at a hundred forty three degrees for
Speaker 1: three seconds, it would die. At a hundred forty two degrees,
Speaker 1: at six seconds, it would die. And it goes all
Speaker 1: the way down to like if you cooked it for
Speaker 1: and I'm just making this up, so nobody go and
Speaker 1: do this, but like you know, some you know, for
Speaker 1: three hours and a hundred twenty degrees, it would kill it.
Speaker 1: Like there's this graduated scale where it dies. So this
Speaker 1: idea that you just gotta cook bear meat till it's
Speaker 1: black is just not true. And most foods we are
Speaker 1: accustomed to cooking to one sixty five. And I'm not
Speaker 1: suggesting you cook all your bear to one four. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, go ahead and cook it to one sixty ish.
Speaker 1: But you kill that trickin nosis a long time before that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's what we do. And I have zero fear
Speaker 1: of it. Honestly, I would have more fear of getting
Speaker 1: salmonilla poison something by the store. Um. But the only
Speaker 1: difference in what we do with deer meat and bear
Speaker 1: meat because of that is with my dear tender deoins,
Speaker 1: I cook them kind of like a steak on the
Speaker 1: grill and we'll we'll rob olive oil on them, put
Speaker 1: something pepper on them. Just see here, I'm really good,
Speaker 1: and leave them pink in the middle. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: won't do that with bear. But but other than that, man,
Speaker 1: anything we use deer meat for, we use bear meat for.
Speaker 1: And so so you would ground meat, did you do?
Speaker 1: You go ahead and cut it up in the steaks
Speaker 1: before you freeze it. I don't what I left was,
Speaker 1: and I think I labeled them bear hunk, So just
Speaker 1: hunk of clean meat off the back hand, and then
Speaker 1: so you'll thaw it out and then you'll cut it
Speaker 1: up into stew. Me cut it up in the stakes
Speaker 1: into whatever. Yeah, we can decide later what we do
Speaker 1: with it. Um. And that's how we did that. And
Speaker 1: and there's obviously a lot of ways you can freeze meat.
Speaker 1: A lot of people use the vacuum sealer or I
Speaker 1: used to use just ziplock bags past few years. I
Speaker 1: use freezer paper. Okay, so you don't even put any
Speaker 1: kind of plastic or something anything. I wrap it in
Speaker 1: freezer paper, Uh, tape it up good. And I just
Speaker 1: make sure I eat all my wild game before the
Speaker 1: next season starts. And I've never had an issue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I I like to cut my meat to
Speaker 1: it's finished product before I freeze it. It's just a preference,
Speaker 1: just so that I can just pulled out. So I'll
Speaker 1: this la. We can some deer in the last ten days,
Speaker 1: and I Misty has been wanting cubes for she just
Speaker 1: does a lot of stuff with just cubed meat. So
Speaker 1: I went ahead and cubed everything. I made roasts, made
Speaker 1: tender loin. The tender loins I would cut into sections,
Speaker 1: kind of like a servings, you know, like for a family.
Speaker 1: Take a whole tender loin and cut it three times
Speaker 1: and put it in a ziplock back. But and I'm
Speaker 1: just using ziplock bags. I'm pretty old school. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'll end up getting the vacuum sealer pretty soon, just
Speaker 1: because that's the trendy thing to do. I used one
Speaker 1: for wise didn't like it. Some of the seals wouldn't
Speaker 1: wouldn't take, and it just this contraption that you're fighting.
Speaker 1: I just so you were there and went back. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I went from ziplock to vacuum seal to freezer paper.
Speaker 1: You know, Matt, you're kind of an old fashioned kind
Speaker 1: of guy. A little bit. When y'all told me that
Speaker 1: y'are back in the boonies the other night and didn't
Speaker 1: have on X, was like, this is a real woodsman.
Speaker 1: It's either a real woodsman or just somebody real frugal technologically.
Speaker 1: Um no, so um. I was, okay, fat, give me
Speaker 1: you you harvested? How much? How many pounds of fat
Speaker 1: did we get off that broad? I didn't weigh the poundage,
Speaker 1: but uh, it was a lot, and I didn't. You
Speaker 1: did some tutorials on it, I think, and I was
Speaker 1: kind of going based off that, but I didn't really
Speaker 1: know what I was doing, so I don't know if
Speaker 1: I did it right or not. But what I did,
Speaker 1: I didn't freeze it first. I just cubed it up
Speaker 1: in the house, and then I took it outside into
Speaker 1: like a turkey fryar and threw it in that fire,
Speaker 1: turned the fire on on, and walked away. And that
Speaker 1: was my first mistake, and I'm bad to do that.
Speaker 1: That's why my wife didn't let me cook. I'll turn
Speaker 1: it on and leave. But I think I started burning
Speaker 1: it at the time I went back out. I had
Speaker 1: had you put it all in at one time I did.
Speaker 1: That might have been a mistake to um, But I
Speaker 1: started burning a little bit, So I turned my fire
Speaker 1: down and started stirning it up a little bit. And man,
Speaker 1: I was expecting like twenty minutes. I took it. I
Speaker 1: cooked it for a long time, like probably over an hour,
Speaker 1: and it still didn't get it all to melt. Um
Speaker 1: We Weston helped me jar it, and uh we we
Speaker 1: got thirteen point jars out of it, and I still
Speaker 1: had a lot of little cubes that were solid in
Speaker 1: the pot. But I've found that a pound of bear
Speaker 1: fat will make about a pint of oil, So we
Speaker 1: probably had about thirteen pounds fifteen pounds. I would say
Speaker 1: if all of it would have rendered down to a liquid,
Speaker 1: I would have probably had twenty pounds. Yeah, that's probably
Speaker 1: about it, right, Yeah, I bet we had. I bet
Speaker 1: we got twenty pounds of fat off that bed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but man, it was just as brown and clear and beautiful. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was awesome. I mean it did turned kind of
Speaker 1: cloudy and white overnight, is it cooled down. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we just poured in the jars. I put lids on them.
Speaker 1: A lot of them actually popped and sealed. Yes, Uh,
Speaker 1: report you just so all you gotta do. There's not
Speaker 1: there's no there's no tricks. I mean, I you just
Speaker 1: use Mason jars with the syllable is just like you
Speaker 1: would use if you were cannon vegetables or something. And
Speaker 1: I mean you just pour the oil in while it's hot.
Speaker 1: I typically let it cool down just a few minutes
Speaker 1: before I put the lid on, but you can pretty
Speaker 1: much put the lid on right away and that's it,
Speaker 1: that in that jar. I have used bar oil, and
Speaker 1: I probably said there's a hundred times on this podcast.
Speaker 1: I guess I keep saying it. I've used bear grease
Speaker 1: that's setting a window sill for a year and a half. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it was still usable. I could start to taste
Speaker 1: kind of an off taste in it at a year
Speaker 1: and a half and it wasn't it wasn't off putting,
Speaker 1: it wasn't soured. But I could just I could I
Speaker 1: could be like, yeah, it's kind of old, so man,
Speaker 1: and if you kill a bear, I would say, you've
Speaker 1: for sure got a year of good use. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I would absolutely take advantage of it because it's it's
Speaker 1: we probably already used four or five yards. What are
Speaker 1: you doing with man? We used it a deer camp.
Speaker 1: We fried deer meat in it. We fried taters in it.
Speaker 1: I uh, I agrease our biscuit pan at at deer
Speaker 1: camp so the biscuits don't stick. It works incredibly well.
Speaker 1: I'll grease my frying panting home before I cook eggs.
Speaker 1: Just rub some in it. They don't stick. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. I love it. Yeah, I love bar grease
Speaker 1: man bargrease. Well, um, it's it's great for frying fish too.
Speaker 1: I haven't tried that yet. Yeah, you guys got to
Speaker 1: catch some fish. Westing just kind of shallow fry as
Speaker 1: Honespitela says, uh, you know, about a quarter inch, a
Speaker 1: little bit more of oil and just flip the fish.
Speaker 1: But yeah, bar oiled fried potatoes. I don't know that
Speaker 1: there's anything better. I mean, like in terms of you
Speaker 1: couldn't have a better oil, you know. And and now
Speaker 1: what they're finding is that the science, the data, the
Speaker 1: nutritionists are now saying that animal fat is some of
Speaker 1: the healthiest oil that you can use. Like, so, don't
Speaker 1: feel like you're compromising your health when you're cooking in
Speaker 1: barrel oil. Uh. So this guy that was on Ronnella's
Speaker 1: podcast the other day, Carnivore m d Um, what's going
Speaker 1: on here? Guys? They're get they're throwing hand six. Yeah,
Speaker 1: y'all gonn play basketball here in a minute. But just wait.
Speaker 1: Uh a guy named Carnivore m d. He's a medical doctor,
Speaker 1: and he's doing some experiments on eating only carnivorous diet,
Speaker 1: and he says that there are certain things about animal
Speaker 1: fats that are actually more healthy than even olive oil.
Speaker 1: Because you know, like right now, Barnet, like, if somebody's
Speaker 1: listening to this and they're still using like a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, using canola oil and vegetable oil for frying,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just killing yourself. I mean, and that's
Speaker 1: what we yeah, and and and and you know, once
Speaker 1: or twice a year, I'll still use it just because
Speaker 1: it sometimes you have to. And that's what fast food
Speaker 1: stuff is fried in. So I mean, it's just like
Speaker 1: poison to the human body. And it's very different than
Speaker 1: end product, Like even with the deer meat, it's not
Speaker 1: is like oily when you used when we use the bargrease,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that bargrease, I don't know where
Speaker 1: it goes. It cooks out. Yeah, it's going up in
Speaker 1: the air somewhere. But we had to keep adding even
Speaker 1: to the taters. But well, it's it's it's the healthy
Speaker 1: choice boys, healthy oil, God's oil. Bear grease, bear grease. Man.
Speaker 1: I love bar grease. I love it. I love it. Um.
Speaker 1: One thing I was gonna say, just for we've had
Speaker 1: podcasts about this, videos about this and stuff, but best
Speaker 1: practice for rendering bear fat is to grind the fat
Speaker 1: before you and and and it's it's a lot of
Speaker 1: work to do that you don't have to. So what
Speaker 1: I was gonna say is like, probably a better thing
Speaker 1: to have done would have been to turn that turkey
Speaker 1: for on lowest heat possible and probably not put it
Speaker 1: all in it once. And you gotta stir it pretty.
Speaker 1: You gotta stir it a lot at first, because those
Speaker 1: first pieces of fat that hit are gonna want to
Speaker 1: stick and sizzle and burn and cook it more like gravy.
Speaker 1: Keep it stirring, keep it stirring, and once it once
Speaker 1: it once, you get a layer of oil at the
Speaker 1: bottom of it that kind of like lubricates the rest
Speaker 1: of it. But when you chunk it up, you'll never
Speaker 1: utilize all the oil because you'll it'll always just render
Speaker 1: down to a certain point and you end up having
Speaker 1: maybe cracklings. You know where you have about will be
Speaker 1: solids and uh and you can take those solids out
Speaker 1: and salt them and pepperam and eat them the dogs them,
Speaker 1: or put him in zip like wags and use them
Speaker 1: as dog treats in the next year. Hey, I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you that. So when I'm when I'm skinning
Speaker 1: the deer and cutting up the meat, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of waste. You know, you're you're what you call it,
Speaker 1: the not the tending starved with an ass send you
Speaker 1: send you. I never know what to call it, but
Speaker 1: a lot of that waste. I always just chunk it
Speaker 1: up and feed it to my dogs and it'll, you know,
Speaker 1: it'll it'll keep us from buying dog fit for a
Speaker 1: week or two. I didn't do that with the Bearer
Speaker 1: because I wasn't sure about the thesis going to the dogs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good question, um, and I don't have a
Speaker 1: scientific answer. I know that dogs, My dogs have eaten
Speaker 1: bear meat and and show no symptoms of anything in distress.
Speaker 1: If you and I ate raw bear meat and got trichinosis,
Speaker 1: we'd get sick. Yeah, you know. Um, but just like
Speaker 1: that bear, for whatever reason, a bear can carry trickin
Speaker 1: nosis and not affect him. Yeah, I mean because he's
Speaker 1: not I've never heard anybody speculate on like what that
Speaker 1: parasite actually does to that bear. But the healthiest bears
Speaker 1: on the planet might have trickin nosis. So it's almost
Speaker 1: like they're a host, but they're unaffected. We when we're
Speaker 1: a host, it kills us or you know, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna die from trichinosis, but untreated, you know it could
Speaker 1: mess you up. So does it hurt the dogs. I
Speaker 1: don't think so, but I don't know why. I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell you why. Yeah, I probably wasted some then, because
Speaker 1: all that that's I'm gonna research that. I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: because my dogs have eaten bear meat and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they've all got trichinosis, but they all still hunt
Speaker 1: and do fine. Yeah, it may not matter. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. But um so, anyway, best best
Speaker 1: practice is to get that fat, cube it up, get
Speaker 1: the fat cold, and you know, put in the freezer
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes and then grind it and you'll get
Speaker 1: about a nineties seven percent efficiency rate in turning fat
Speaker 1: into oil. You'll have a little bit of crackling, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of scuzz. Scuzz is the wrong word. I mean,
Speaker 1: just like you know, grains, you'll just because it's so
Speaker 1: finely ground. But that's best practice. But you know, other
Speaker 1: than it, maybe approaching it wrong. It was super easy.
Speaker 1: Like I thought we'd have to strain a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff out of it. Man, it poured off just clean.
Speaker 1: I didn't have to strain it at all. I see.
Speaker 1: I usually strained mine through cheese cloth. I used my
Speaker 1: wife's got a little it's not a colander, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of shape like one, but it's more like
Speaker 1: a screen door would be. Yeah, that that and I
Speaker 1: used that but it didn't catch much and the grease
Speaker 1: just came out clean. So awesome. Well, um that's that's
Speaker 1: that's good stuff. Man. Really utilizing the bear meat, I
Speaker 1: mean you know, we say it all the time, but
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a time when people didn't eat
Speaker 1: deer and they ate bear. They were like, they killed
Speaker 1: deer for their hides and bear for the meat. You know,
Speaker 1: I can see why. And it's funny because most people
Speaker 1: I talked to like, you can eat bear. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I prefer bear over deer. Yeah. I think it's it's
Speaker 1: more tender. It's just we love it. This is a
Speaker 1: symptom of our society trying to push out the backwoodsman
Speaker 1: mentalities and ways out of the culture. Boys were bringing
Speaker 1: it back. Baker for bringing it back. All right. There
Speaker 1: was a time when a bear hide being being salted
Speaker 1: and hanging on your barn was a status symbol. It's
Speaker 1: like having a Porsche parked down in front of your house.
Speaker 1: You drive by somebody's house, They're like, oh, man, they
Speaker 1: killed a bear. They're gonna be living high on the
Speaker 1: bear this year. The guy that didn't have the bearer
Speaker 1: were like, man, sorry, I feel sorry for that guy.
Speaker 1: It's like driving past the guy that's you know, got
Speaker 1: like the nineteen Toyota Corolla out in front of this house.
Speaker 1: It's like, man, I dude is having a hard time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think when I when I go up, it was
Speaker 1: big catfish heads the status simple Southwest Arkansas. People would
Speaker 1: hang them from uh like road signs and stuff in
Speaker 1: front of their house. Yeah, yeah, look what I caught. Hey,
Speaker 1: thank you guys, uh Weston. Congratulations on the on those deer.
Speaker 1: Thank you Bear, Congratulations on your deer. Matt, congratulations on
Speaker 1: your deer and bear and Bobcat and big wild hog.
Speaker 1: Thank you man. Thank you for for taking me that
Speaker 1: you know, the whole adventure from Ryan the mules up
Speaker 1: that rugged mountain to to seeing the bearer taking in
Speaker 1: utilizing every piece of it. Like, what an incredible adventure.
Speaker 1: And I didn't have to do any of the work.
Speaker 1: You know, you've baited it and you were available part
Speaker 1: of part of Sometimes good fortune comes to those who
Speaker 1: have built their world in such a way that they're available. Well,
Speaker 1: I told you, I said, next year, when it's time debate,
Speaker 1: I'll go help you bait and and not even hunt,
Speaker 1: I'll help do the work next time. Well, I tell
Speaker 1: you what, here's here's how you can repay me. And
Speaker 1: you've already mentioned this, and I was going to bring
Speaker 1: this up not on the podcast, but if you say
Speaker 1: stuff on the podcast, it becomes official because then like
Speaker 1: other people hear it and you kind of have to
Speaker 1: be accountable to it. Whatever you say. I mean, you
Speaker 1: could say no, but I need some help. Flesh and
Speaker 1: all these coon hides and the one skunk cod that's
Speaker 1: I've got. I've got to bobcat hides too. I've got okay,
Speaker 1: we've got to bobcat hides a skunk cod in a
Speaker 1: bunch of coon hides. Weston's got one or two coons
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, that's right, that's I was trying to
Speaker 1: remember why I had you guys chalked. That's ones that
Speaker 1: we're gonna help. It's because y'all got coons in there. Still,
Speaker 1: we need a good cold. They didn't have to be cold,
Speaker 1: but just like a Saturday that's not hot and not
Speaker 1: during hunting season, probably decent. Well, we need to do
Speaker 1: it soon to beat all the guys to the tannery
Speaker 1: because all the trappers are about to start trapping and
Speaker 1: they're gonna send their stuff that tannery. I got big
Speaker 1: plans for my Bobcat that I killed. Yeah, big plans.
Speaker 1: Are you're gonna make a hat? Yeah? Yeah, I'd love
Speaker 1: to see that hat. Yeah, I got big plans for
Speaker 1: those those coons too. That's for another podcast. All right, guys, Well,
Speaker 1: do y' all know what we say at the end
Speaker 1: of the podcast. Do you know Weston, you don't bear?
Speaker 1: You know, keep the wild places wild because that's where
Speaker 1: the bears live. Nailed it.