Speaker 1: You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation, brought to you by
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Speaker 1: guess joined the next big thing on social media. My
Speaker 1: name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear
Speaker 1: Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the
Speaker 1: world of hunting, the icon of North American wilderness and bear.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation, but will also bring
Speaker 1: you into some of the wildest country on the planet
Speaker 1: chasing bear. Welcome to the Bear Hunting magazine podcast. I
Speaker 1: think this is our fourth podcast. I'm not sure, but
Speaker 1: we are at the global headquarters of Bear Hunting Magazine.
Speaker 1: Me and my good buddy Colby Moorehead just got back
Speaker 1: from the wilds of Northern Manitoba. We got back two
Speaker 1: days ago, so we're just now recovering from an epic
Speaker 1: road trip and an empic hunt. So what we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about in this podcast is we're gonna We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about our hunt. We're gonna detail out this is
Speaker 1: ciffics of what happened. We're not holding anything back. We're
Speaker 1: gonna share it all, spill all our guts here. But
Speaker 1: we're also gonna talk about some specific topics inside of
Speaker 1: the hunt that were relevant, like shop placement because Mr
Speaker 1: Moorehead made a very unique shot that turned out great
Speaker 1: and I think we can all learn something from it. Right,
Speaker 1: And uh, we're gonna talk about fall bear hunting. Way
Speaker 1: up north, most Canadian bear hunting is done in the spring,
Speaker 1: and there's some super benefits to hunting in the fall.
Speaker 1: I've only bear hunted in Canada in the fall one
Speaker 1: other time, So we're gonna talk about kind of the
Speaker 1: differences between spring and fall bear hunting. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about our friend Corey Grant and all trained bear hunts
Speaker 1: at Bear Hunting Magazine. A big part of what we
Speaker 1: do is represent outfitters bear hunting outfitters. A lot of
Speaker 1: them are from Canada, and so Corey Grant is a
Speaker 1: longtime Bear Hunting Magazine advertiser. He uh, he has been
Speaker 1: an outfitter since nineteen. The former owner of Bear Hunting
Speaker 1: Magazine hunted with Corey Grant back in the mid two
Speaker 1: thousand's and killed the Boone and Crocket bear with him,
Speaker 1: and so the magazine has a lot of history with Corey.
Speaker 1: This is the first time that I've hunted with Corey,
Speaker 1: first time that Colby hunt it with Corey, and we
Speaker 1: we had a good hunt with him, We really did.
Speaker 1: We will also spill the spill the beans about how
Speaker 1: my hunt went, which I can't I cannot tell yet exactly.
Speaker 1: I can't tell the people yet what happened. But we
Speaker 1: partook in some world class walleye fishing um which was
Speaker 1: a new thing for me. I fished quite a bit
Speaker 1: up in northern Canada, but usually we're in big pike waters,
Speaker 1: but we were in a tremendous while I like, and
Speaker 1: then we'll close out this episode by talking about the
Speaker 1: road trip home and Colby and I like, a couple
Speaker 1: of bandits from the South were able to evade the
Speaker 1: law on three different traffic stops. And we've got a
Speaker 1: routine that we think will help all bear hunters and
Speaker 1: outdoorsmen in general be able to when they fight the
Speaker 1: law to win. It's about documentation, documentation and overwhelming them
Speaker 1: with information, lots of movement. No, So I want to
Speaker 1: introduce to you Kobe moorehead. Kobe is from Dallas. This
Speaker 1: was your first bear hunt. Yeah, yeah, I've never seen
Speaker 1: a bear before this. So you're you, dear? How did
Speaker 1: your whole life you fish? You grew up, grew up hunting,
Speaker 1: and then when did you want to start bearing? After
Speaker 1: coming across Bearing magazine, just you know, following the content
Speaker 1: and how much much fun it is and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it always seemed like people have a good time, very
Speaker 1: relational um inside of the hunts, and so it just
Speaker 1: seemed like a good group to to uh traverse with.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, you know, bear hunts and bear camp
Speaker 1: in the far North is typically pretty laid back, as
Speaker 1: opposed to a lot of other different kinds of hunts.
Speaker 1: And this is something that we talked about all the time. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, not that it's well, it's you're at a
Speaker 1: bear camp and typically you're just hunting in the evenings
Speaker 1: and so you have a lot of time during the
Speaker 1: day to fish too, just relax. So a lot of
Speaker 1: these northern hunts are kind of laid back as compared
Speaker 1: to a hunt that you're waking up at the crack
Speaker 1: of dawn and you're going out and hunt in the
Speaker 1: mornings and evenings. So it's a different it's a different
Speaker 1: style hunt which all of us like to really challenge
Speaker 1: ourselves and kind of have that type too fun when
Speaker 1: it comes to hunting, which is something that's fun later,
Speaker 1: not necessarily fun at the moment, you know, which like
Speaker 1: sometimes whitetail hunting and and lots of different types of
Speaker 1: hunting can be and bear hunting can be as well,
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit more laid back and just
Speaker 1: a unique hunt. Bear hunting over bait in Canada is
Speaker 1: you're gonna see a lot of game that's usually a given,
Speaker 1: not always usually given. If you're going with a really
Speaker 1: good outfit, are in a good region, you're gonna see bears.
Speaker 1: You may not see bears every hunt, but for the
Speaker 1: most part, you're probably gonna see game every hunt. And
Speaker 1: one thing that I always say is that abated bear
Speaker 1: hunt you get to interact with a big game animal
Speaker 1: more intimately than any other type of honey. And when
Speaker 1: I say intimately, I just mean close personal. You're you're
Speaker 1: getting to see these animals for long periods of time.
Speaker 1: Most types of hunting, like when you see your target animal,
Speaker 1: I mean you are trying to take advantage of that opportunity.
Speaker 1: You're trying to shoot that animal as quick as possible,
Speaker 1: so you actually don't get to see that animal do
Speaker 1: what it does when you're not there. That's the cool
Speaker 1: thing about abated bear hunt is you are are first
Speaker 1: of all, Usually the first couple of bears that come
Speaker 1: in are not target bears, or maybe you sit for
Speaker 1: days without seeing a target bear, and so the place
Speaker 1: that you're sitting is the destination of where these animals
Speaker 1: want to go. You know, you're at a bait site,
Speaker 1: and so you get to watch these animals be bears.
Speaker 1: So we saw bears fighting, we saw bears, lots of
Speaker 1: bear vocalizations, we saw young bears. Now you you work
Speaker 1: with me when I saw the sow with three cubs,
Speaker 1: but you did see a different sow with three cubs,
Speaker 1: didn't you. Well, we saw the three cubs without the
Speaker 1: cell right right right, Yeah, So when you guys went
Speaker 1: into Betas spot when I was not by myself, so
Speaker 1: you got to see some pretty unique bear behavior. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really cool. I think the vocalization has really
Speaker 1: shocked me as far as like how how many they
Speaker 1: actually have, So it was really cool, and you could
Speaker 1: start to anticipate by the you know, the way they
Speaker 1: would that they would move, and like what they would do,
Speaker 1: like what they were about to do, and just to
Speaker 1: try to learn like the characteristics of each individual bear
Speaker 1: because they weren't alllways the same, you know. I think
Speaker 1: that was the biggest takeaway is that there were no
Speaker 1: two bears that acted identical, you know. Yeah, so it
Speaker 1: was pretty cool to see those those individual characteristics that
Speaker 1: they had. They all do have personalities, and there were
Speaker 1: certain bears that were that are like aggressive and we
Speaker 1: can say that not aggressive necessarily towards us, but like
Speaker 1: we're just aggressive towards other bears, aggressive towards defending the bait,
Speaker 1: aggressive towards well towards us. I mean could come over
Speaker 1: to our ground blind or come over to where we
Speaker 1: were and want to check us out. They were always
Speaker 1: looking at us. And then there were other bears that
Speaker 1: when they came in, they knew we were there, but
Speaker 1: they never it was almost like they never gave us
Speaker 1: the the the the honor of even looking at us
Speaker 1: in the eye. I mean, it's kind of like they
Speaker 1: knew were there, but they didn't they didn't really acknowledge
Speaker 1: us the bear you killed. It's like that. I find
Speaker 1: that the bigger, older, mature bears will often come in
Speaker 1: and they might know you're there, which is a unique
Speaker 1: thing for wilderness hunting, and when you talk about that,
Speaker 1: he might know you're there, but it's like he's not
Speaker 1: gonna acknowledge you really, Whereas some of these little bears
Speaker 1: come in and they're just like bam, they're just looking
Speaker 1: at you and they're circling you and they're wanting to
Speaker 1: come up to you and mess with you and uh.
Speaker 1: And then the lesser bears are usually pretty vocal, pretty active,
Speaker 1: moving around a lot, wanting to fight and wolf and
Speaker 1: pop their teeth and do all kinds of stuff. So
Speaker 1: it's it's fun to see the different personalities of these bears.
Speaker 1: And and going back to my point about big game hunting,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't understand hunting over bait, you know,
Speaker 1: they feel like it's not exciting or whatever. But there's bit,
Speaker 1: there's there's pros and contest everything do I mean, I
Speaker 1: enjoy a spotting stock hunt that's just a just to
Speaker 1: go out, find animal in their natural patterns and hunt them.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a lot of what I do, and
Speaker 1: it's some of my favorite hunting. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: hunting animals over bait is also some of my favorite
Speaker 1: hunting because number one, it's a conservation tool to be
Speaker 1: able to manage bears in places where you would not
Speaker 1: kill bears at all if you're just spotting stock hunting.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Far North is absolutely is thick as
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's super thick. Can't see you're never
Speaker 1: gonna find these bears. So so modern hunters like us
Speaker 1: have to view it in the way it is is
Speaker 1: that it's a conservation tool to be able to manage
Speaker 1: bearing numbers in places where there are compromised populations of ungulates. Moose.
Speaker 1: You know, Corey was talking to us. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a good moose area up there, and their bear hunting
Speaker 1: plays a role in that. So baiting bears is part
Speaker 1: of a conservation hunting strategy. Number two, it ain't easy.
Speaker 1: I mean to kill a target bear over bait anywhere
Speaker 1: is not easy. I mean, if you've never done it,
Speaker 1: you think you just go out and put out bait
Speaker 1: and go shoot an older age class mature mail bear
Speaker 1: just you know, yogi bear walking up to a pilot donuts.
Speaker 1: Not so. I mean it's not so. I mean if if, if,
Speaker 1: if I could jump to well, I don't want to
Speaker 1: give away my hunt, but let's just say I hunted
Speaker 1: for an extended period of time and only encountered a
Speaker 1: few target bears. Um. So, it's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's a challenge, especially here in Arkansas, Oklahoma and places
Speaker 1: in the lower forty eight than for whatever reason, to
Speaker 1: get more pressure there. Bears are much more educated, they're
Speaker 1: they're super difficult to kill. I mean, it's I almost
Speaker 1: think you'd have a better chance spotting stocking and older
Speaker 1: age class mail in some places and hunting them over
Speaker 1: bait because they just get smart to you. So, so
Speaker 1: I say that to say it is a challenge. So
Speaker 1: and and then the other pro is that you just
Speaker 1: get to see you get to see animals. You get
Speaker 1: to see a lot of animals. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: And it's just interacting with a predator. For somebody that
Speaker 1: is mainly used to hunting deer, it's like a whole
Speaker 1: new experience. What was that like for you? I mean
Speaker 1: just because this was the first the first bear you saw,
Speaker 1: it was actually on the drive into bear Camp. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we saw a bear across the road. Yeah, there's high five. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We were like, first bear, Yeah, first bear, and then
Speaker 1: we saw another one that was cool on the drive.
Speaker 1: On the drive end the bearcat. We saw two bears
Speaker 1: cross from yeah, and then one swimming the lake from
Speaker 1: camp camp was awesome. Yeah. But hunting predators, it's definitely
Speaker 1: it's definitely different. It's like if they come close, I
Speaker 1: might not be as comfortable. Like if a white tail
Speaker 1: comes up a few yards away, it's like, that's just
Speaker 1: a cool interaction. But yeah, if if there's one looking
Speaker 1: at you from closest, like, how am I going to
Speaker 1: deal with this? Yeah? What's my response in this situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's unnerving for some people how a bear
Speaker 1: responds to us. I mean, we are used to animals
Speaker 1: when they see us in wild places, running wanting to
Speaker 1: get the heck away, but in some bears act that way,
Speaker 1: but over bait typically they don't. And so it's a
Speaker 1: little unnerving, you know, to to see an animal that
Speaker 1: just doesn't really care that you're there. And uh, but
Speaker 1: it's just an interesting hunt, interesting hunt for sure. So
Speaker 1: so we drove Kobe drove from Dallas to northwest Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and then we drove together from northwest Arkansas to northern Manitoba,
Speaker 1: toss in Manitoba, which is if so if Manitoba, if
Speaker 1: you measure the length of Manitoba, we're about three quarters
Speaker 1: of the way up. So we were probably three hundred
Speaker 1: miles south of the none none of it territory, I
Speaker 1: believe geographic lesson here. I'm pretty sure it's none of
Speaker 1: it that's north of Manitoba. And uh, Corey was telling us,
Speaker 1: and I actually didn't know this, but they're polar bears
Speaker 1: on northern Manitoba. He was showing his pictures of polar bears,
Speaker 1: like like two hundred miles north where we're hunting, right, So,
Speaker 1: I mean this is like way north. This is like
Speaker 1: far northern part of part of Canada. And it was
Speaker 1: about a twenty two hour road trip for us. I
Speaker 1: have chosen to drive to Canada the last two years
Speaker 1: when i've had the opportunity to um for several reasons. Namely,
Speaker 1: I get to leave when I want to and come
Speaker 1: home when I want to, and win carry a bunch
Speaker 1: of gear um and it's and usually I'm going with somebody,
Speaker 1: so it's been kind of convenient. People haven't understood that.
Speaker 1: They're like, why don't you fly? Man? I hate flying.
Speaker 1: Flying stresses me out. If I'm flying somewhere, like two
Speaker 1: days before I fly, I'm just like, I find myself
Speaker 1: stressed out. If I drive, it's kind of a little
Speaker 1: more laid back. But so what do you think about
Speaker 1: the drive? It was as bad as I expected. That mean,
Speaker 1: it's a long I mean it's a day at least
Speaker 1: if you're driving straight. Yeah, and uh no, I know
Speaker 1: it wasn't bad. Uh, a lot of new stuff to see.
Speaker 1: I had never been that far north, so just to
Speaker 1: see the landscape change was was really cool. And uh,
Speaker 1: you get into Canada, it's like a whole another world
Speaker 1: because everything is so thick off the side of the road.
Speaker 1: So you go from you know, planes to just you're
Speaker 1: in wilderness, and and the further you go back just like, man,
Speaker 1: I wonder what old wildlife wildlife is out of here,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, watching the roads and just thinking
Speaker 1: it's like, wait, there are any white tail up here?
Speaker 1: You know. So it's like the change in wildlife from
Speaker 1: from you know, just in within a couple hundred miles
Speaker 1: is crazy too, you know. It's it's interesting because yeah,
Speaker 1: we leave here and we're on the fringe of the
Speaker 1: Eastern deciduous forest, like basically from the Arkansas line all
Speaker 1: the way to the Atlantic Ocean is you know, if
Speaker 1: you're talking then massive. Uh uh let's see what would
Speaker 1: be the right word, uh, not topographical, not geographical, but
Speaker 1: just like um climax forests were in the Eastern deciduous
Speaker 1: forest from here all the way to the Atlantic Ocean
Speaker 1: would have before European settlers got here, been forested from
Speaker 1: the border of Arkansas to basically the Rocky Mountains is
Speaker 1: the plains. I mean, you get very far into you
Speaker 1: start heading west in Oklahoma, you get into like flat country,
Speaker 1: great plains, I mean, big time stuff. So we drove,
Speaker 1: we kind of we kind of cut the edge of
Speaker 1: the deciduous forest and the plains went up through southern Missouri,
Speaker 1: and then once we get into Iowa, you're still you're
Speaker 1: still in the eastern deciduous forest. But then we started
Speaker 1: to kind of move west, and that's when we transitioned
Speaker 1: into South Dakota, North Dakota, and that's like big flatland plains.
Speaker 1: Southern Canada is big egg land, I mean bread basket
Speaker 1: of the planet type land. And then you get into
Speaker 1: the border forests. About a third of the way up
Speaker 1: in the Manitoba you hit the boreal forest. And the
Speaker 1: boreal forest is an amazing place. It's not spectacular beauty
Speaker 1: like the Rockies, or it's not like majestic beauty like
Speaker 1: setting on top of you know, the continental Divide in
Speaker 1: Montana and seeing snow capped mountains. It's more of a
Speaker 1: to me, it's more of a nuanced, rugged beauty of well,
Speaker 1: it's jackpines, it's spruce. There are a lot of poplar,
Speaker 1: but these trees only get to grow for five maybe
Speaker 1: six months a year. Average snowfall is like super deep
Speaker 1: and so it's like a rugged environment. And to me,
Speaker 1: that's where the beauty comes from. Is you know that
Speaker 1: anything that has survived up here is an ultimate specialist.
Speaker 1: You know they that animal, that tree, that plant has developed.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's designed for that environment. And
Speaker 1: uh So, to me, the beauty comes in just understanding
Speaker 1: the difficulty of being a living thing there. And just
Speaker 1: like you said too, as you travel north, you get
Speaker 1: into the different the different wildlife transitions, and up there,
Speaker 1: the only things that are there as far as big
Speaker 1: game are the odd caribou, which are some Cariboo there, Moose,
Speaker 1: black bear, and wolves. That's it, those four things. And
Speaker 1: I mean in Cariboo we work in the scenic Cariboo
Speaker 1: where we were at. I mean they might get the
Speaker 1: odd herd that would come through. Small herd now moose, yes,
Speaker 1: a lot of this good classic moose country, but really
Speaker 1: the thing that dominates the landscape is black bear. I mean,
Speaker 1: the boreal forest was made for black bear and uh
Speaker 1: and also wolf. To diverge slightly, just because I said
Speaker 1: the term wolf. A lot of our outfits and Bearning
Speaker 1: Magazine offer wolf tags for on their fall bear hunts,
Speaker 1: and some of their spring hunts. I've always kind of
Speaker 1: thought that was just like a constellation prize that maybe
Speaker 1: just happened really randomly with hunters. But while we were there,
Speaker 1: we realized what a real possibility is to shoot a
Speaker 1: wolf in the fault. I mean, one of the guys
Speaker 1: we weren't so cold. So Corey has two camps in
Speaker 1: Northern Camp Southern camp. Colby and I were just it
Speaker 1: was just us in the southern camp, and there were
Speaker 1: five or six hundreds in the northern camp. And on
Speaker 1: the first night one of the guys in the north
Speaker 1: killed wolf with a boat. Yeah. Um. And we were
Speaker 1: seeing wolf pictures on trail cameras, probably not every day,
Speaker 1: but often on the baits we were hunting. And on
Speaker 1: the final day of my hunt, we bumped a wolf
Speaker 1: off of the bait. We didn't see it, but we
Speaker 1: saw the truck coming. Pictures later we bumped a wolf
Speaker 1: off of the bait while I was there, And I mean,
Speaker 1: so when I climbed up in the tree, it was
Speaker 1: like a wolf was here like thirty minutes ago, sitting
Speaker 1: right there, and they're actually eating the corn and grease. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then Corey spotted a wolf on the way up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when we were headed out of account if yeah, if
Speaker 1: we had played our cards just right, we'd have seen it.
Speaker 1: We were following the outfitter out on the way out
Speaker 1: one night and he saw a wolf across the road.
Speaker 1: So I mean wolves are up there big time, and
Speaker 1: I mean it's a real possibility to shoot a wolf,
Speaker 1: which was cool. So the wildlife, the transition. So we
Speaker 1: said all that to say, it's pretty cool the road
Speaker 1: trip to the far North. And you know, economically, I
Speaker 1: haven't done the math, but for two people we definitely
Speaker 1: save money. I mean we would have spent six hundred
Speaker 1: bucks apiece and then rented a car and then drove
Speaker 1: another eight hours probably, so we we would have had
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars and travel expenses probably between the two
Speaker 1: of us. And so we've probably spent uh it wasn't
Speaker 1: that much. Seven hundred bucks and fuel maybe hying that
Speaker 1: much combined comebin yeah, yeah, so combined it travel expence
Speaker 1: was a lot less. Now we were traveling for a
Speaker 1: good part of this. When we when we switched over
Speaker 1: the old white Betty Chevrolet to kilometers per hour, we
Speaker 1: had her pegged out at a hundred and forty kilometers
Speaker 1: per hour. We had no idea how fast we're going.
Speaker 1: Turns out that's about eighty miles per hour. So we
Speaker 1: were averaging about eighty miles and the loading wasn't around
Speaker 1: in Canada laws on the road man. When we got
Speaker 1: to Canada and you started hitting the speed limit signs
Speaker 1: that are in kilometers per hour and just f y, well,
Speaker 1: it's probably just Americans let into this, but if perhaps
Speaker 1: a Canadian listens to this, Americans have zero understanding and
Speaker 1: native ability to translate kilometers per hour into miles. Prom Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had no idea how fast we're going, so we
Speaker 1: decided that since we didn't know that, maybe the laws
Speaker 1: just didn't apply to bear hunters, so we just just
Speaker 1: we were passing those Canucks left and right. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh totally safe though. We were totally safe now. So
Speaker 1: so that gets us start through our road triple. So
Speaker 1: we we at Thompson, Manitoba, and to get to bear Camp,
Speaker 1: we drove about forty five minutes out of Thompson, put
Speaker 1: all our stuff in a boat, and then took a
Speaker 1: boat to his what he calls his outpost camp, which
Speaker 1: is uh super nice. I mean, I guess you'd call
Speaker 1: it a lodge. I mean it's not like one large building,
Speaker 1: but it was multiple log cabin buildings, sleeping quarters, and
Speaker 1: then the main lodge. It's a small lodge, rustic but
Speaker 1: nice clean. You know. We weren't roughing it. We were
Speaker 1: not roughing. It felt like the lap of luxury. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: off the grid style. Yeah, totally off the grid. You
Speaker 1: can't drive, I mean, the only way to get there
Speaker 1: is by boat. Um and uh, or if you're cool,
Speaker 1: by float plane. Yeah, if you're yep. Corey brought in
Speaker 1: this float plane the first night. So the only way
Speaker 1: to get there was by boat. And so we ended
Speaker 1: up taking the boat to every day we hunted, which
Speaker 1: to me added a neat a neat field to the hunt,
Speaker 1: you know. But so just a little bit about the camp.
Speaker 1: So we we stayed in our own bunkhouse and uh,
Speaker 1: right on the lake shore. Uh, the cook and the
Speaker 1: cooks were fishing every day right off the dock. We
Speaker 1: didn't fish off the dock much, but I mean, just
Speaker 1: a spectacular hundred and eighty degree scene of this Canadian
Speaker 1: lake up there, and you guys be able to watch
Speaker 1: it on Bear Horizon when we released that episode. You'll
Speaker 1: you'll see kind of where we stayed super nice. We
Speaker 1: had three way too big meals every day. We ate
Speaker 1: a lot, so this was not roughness, but in a
Speaker 1: daily shower that that was pretty yeah. Good food, yeah, electricity,
Speaker 1: it was, it was, it was nice. We saw a
Speaker 1: piece of the Northern lights. Yeah yeah. The second or
Speaker 1: third night while we were there, while we're coming back
Speaker 1: from a bear hunt. The clouds were low, but above
Speaker 1: us was an open sky. It's pretty neat riding back
Speaker 1: on that boat with no lights at night. I mean,
Speaker 1: Corey knows how to navigate that lake really well. A
Speaker 1: lot of trust and a lot of instant trust. Yeah
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, but we could see we could see the
Speaker 1: Northern lights. U just too. I tried to convince Colby
Speaker 1: that the Northern lights were to the south of us,
Speaker 1: but it only worked for just like a few seconds,
Speaker 1: and it's like, wait a minute, So we did see
Speaker 1: the Northern lights for just a second. They get some
Speaker 1: spectacular views the Northern lights pretty often photos on Quarry's phone.
Speaker 1: They were just phenomenal. Yeah yeah yeah, So the let's
Speaker 1: go like so the first day, so our plan was
Speaker 1: is that Kolbe was gonna hunt and I was gonna
Speaker 1: try to hunt with him and film and so this
Speaker 1: will be your first bear hunt. So this is the
Speaker 1: first day, Corey Texas to a spot that's got like
Speaker 1: a two man stand and uh, just just walk us
Speaker 1: through the Yeah. Yeah, so it was screwed up just
Speaker 1: a little bit closer to our bid go. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it was I mean, at least by this time I've
Speaker 1: seen three bears, just none none up close. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: we got in the stand. Corey set everything up, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to make sure that the that the bears would
Speaker 1: stay in the area. Um, whenever we're there. It seemed
Speaker 1: like there was quite a bit of bait out and
Speaker 1: so yeah, we would have We had a bear come
Speaker 1: in first, and he was pretty cautious. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: he was more interested in the in the corn than
Speaker 1: he than he was with us, and he would come
Speaker 1: back and check us out every once while he stood
Speaker 1: at us lunch with you know, which was cool. And
Speaker 1: we had a second bear come in and then that's
Speaker 1: when it got really cool to see them interact with
Speaker 1: each other and that you know, each bear had its
Speaker 1: own bubble that it was comfortable with giving other bears
Speaker 1: room and then they would um, you know, they would
Speaker 1: vocalize and chase each other a little bit. Um. And
Speaker 1: what was really cool is whenever the big bear was
Speaker 1: coming in, um, the one that we that I actually
Speaker 1: got that it. Um, they just started acting acting out
Speaker 1: like you knew something was coming. They were just really uncomfortable. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so all of a sudden he walks under the
Speaker 1: stand and and you just you watched him walked by,
Speaker 1: and you could just see how white he was, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, all of a sudden he goes up by
Speaker 1: a barrel and Clay looks over. He's like, he's not
Speaker 1: fitting in that barrel. So, yeah, he was just he
Speaker 1: was a really big barrel. Would you say, were you
Speaker 1: guessing around three fifty? I mean we think he was
Speaker 1: three fifty and I would say he was minimum three fifty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he looked pretty heavy. Had Clay noticed he had really
Speaker 1: really big pads on his on his paws, and so
Speaker 1: he just he was in there, and then he chased
Speaker 1: a few of the smaller bears off a few times,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, it was clear that this was
Speaker 1: was a good specimen to take out a good a
Speaker 1: good mature board to harvest. And so I, uh, he
Speaker 1: came back from chasing a bear off and he was,
Speaker 1: you know, standing up, and he was just quartering towards
Speaker 1: me and then he uh, I was like, as soon
Speaker 1: as he turns, there's my shots. So I drew and
Speaker 1: then he turned and I kind of got in my
Speaker 1: my shot cycle, and then he started walking and it
Speaker 1: was like, I couldn't put an arrow back, so I
Speaker 1: hit it a little far back. It was still middle,
Speaker 1: but it was about eight inches went about eight inches back.
Speaker 1: It was a straight gut shot, and uh, I just
Speaker 1: felt terrible. As as soon as the arrow left, I knew,
Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't the shot that I, uh, that
Speaker 1: I had planned on. And so we've been patient, We
Speaker 1: watched steam, we took our time, but you know, in
Speaker 1: the end, it was one of those things where it
Speaker 1: was just, you know, it was a bad judgment call Um.
Speaker 1: And so then he he ran off for what about
Speaker 1: thirty forty yards something like that, and stopped out in
Speaker 1: the woods, and then one of the other bears that
Speaker 1: we had been watching came out and chased after him.
Speaker 1: Um went out there and stood up at him, and
Speaker 1: then we didn't hear anything else side of the bear,
Speaker 1: and the other came back and fed until Corey came
Speaker 1: and picked us up, and uh that I had a
Speaker 1: lit knock on my arrow and it was just mocking me.
Speaker 1: It's like, made a bad decision these twinkling alternating red
Speaker 1: and green knocks and just watched out there. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I was. I was pretty hard on myself for the
Speaker 1: time it took for core to get out there, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's just time to shift gears from uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the shot was bad, So now what's the right right decision?
Speaker 1: And so it's like, no matter what it takes, we're
Speaker 1: gonna find this bear, you know. And so I just
Speaker 1: had to have that hope that we were recovering well.
Speaker 1: And so there's two there's two things I want to
Speaker 1: talk about about this, which is a shot. But before
Speaker 1: we talk about the actual shot, because we've said it
Speaker 1: was far back, um, which that's gonna be important, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the decision to shoot this bear.
Speaker 1: I think that's the biggest thing with a bated bear
Speaker 1: hunt where people mess up, is that they shoot a
Speaker 1: lesser bear when they could shoot an older bear. And
Speaker 1: there's like, so this these were the first bears that
Speaker 1: you've ever seen from the stand, and now you've you
Speaker 1: have been tutored by the Bear Hunting Magazine vlog. You've
Speaker 1: been tutored by Bear Hunting Magazine for several years. So
Speaker 1: I would assume that you're above the typical grade. Now
Speaker 1: it really is hard. I mean, like the first glimpse
Speaker 1: that you see a bear, I mean you're like, man,
Speaker 1: that's a big bear. I mean like the first time
Speaker 1: I saw the bear that walked in first, I was like,
Speaker 1: I mean in my heart, it was like that's a
Speaker 1: big bear. And then immediately saw his ears and head,
Speaker 1: and I was like, just an average bear. I mean,
Speaker 1: immediately you're able to interpret it. A lot of it
Speaker 1: has to do with scale, A lot of it. It's
Speaker 1: multiple factors. If you lean on just one factor to
Speaker 1: judge bear, you'll end up messing up. Like all these
Speaker 1: bears were fairly tall. They weren't short bears. They weren't
Speaker 1: like two year old bears. There were probably three to
Speaker 1: five year old bears. We had these two bears that
Speaker 1: came in for both of them boars, and we could
Speaker 1: tell there were boars, and and I'll tell you I
Speaker 1: leaned more on this hunt for whatever reason, on telling
Speaker 1: the bear was a board by seeing the hair that
Speaker 1: hanged down on the front of him, off of the
Speaker 1: off of their sheath. You could see this like three
Speaker 1: or four inch hair that would hang down off about
Speaker 1: the middle of their belly, you know, and that was
Speaker 1: pretty visible. But the but a boar is typically just
Speaker 1: gonna be taller, you know, just he's just gonna look
Speaker 1: taller and lankier. The sALS are squatty and short. Um.
Speaker 1: But you can tell a younger bear by a narrower head,
Speaker 1: a more immature head. A big board is just gonna
Speaker 1: have a big, blocky, rottweilder looking head, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of other factors too. I mean,
Speaker 1: we saw several mature looking boards that probably only weighed
Speaker 1: in the two five pound two fifty pound class, that
Speaker 1: had a lot of features of big bears, and I
Speaker 1: can see somebody shooting them thinking they were shooting them
Speaker 1: three and fifty to four and a pound bear. They
Speaker 1: just weren't. And so you need things for scale, you
Speaker 1: need you know. What we used on this one was
Speaker 1: the barrel. A lot of these bears went and laid
Speaker 1: down by a barrel that was laid over and I said,
Speaker 1: do you think you could fit that bear into the barrel?
Speaker 1: I had an old bear outfitter tell me that one time.
Speaker 1: He says, when you see a bear that won't fit
Speaker 1: into a gallon drum or you don't have a hard
Speaker 1: time putting it there, kind of a graphic image shoving
Speaker 1: a bear in there. But he's like, that's a shooter.
Speaker 1: So these two bears that came in, when they laid
Speaker 1: down by the barrel, and you're like, they would easily
Speaker 1: fit in that forty five gallon drum when but more
Speaker 1: than that, there were other features. I mean, they're there.
Speaker 1: Their paws and feet weren't huge, ears and face were narrower. Um,
Speaker 1: they just weren't that big. Bear didn't have a big
Speaker 1: drooping belly. So when we saw this bear came in
Speaker 1: beneath us, immediately noticed just how thick it was, and
Speaker 1: it was just a notch bigger than these other bears,
Speaker 1: which these other bears would have been shooters in many
Speaker 1: camps across North America. They really would either one of
Speaker 1: those two bears. This bear came in, he had big
Speaker 1: when he when he was walking away from us, I
Speaker 1: watched him walk and I saw his pad kind of
Speaker 1: come up and I saw it and I could tell
Speaker 1: that it was over five inches probably six inches wide.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just looked like a just a huge
Speaker 1: pad and that's what I was like, Man, that's a
Speaker 1: that's a big bear. But it was a nuanced difference,
Speaker 1: like if you just would have glanced at it, like
Speaker 1: maybe you wouldn't have noticed. But anyway, he went overlaid
Speaker 1: by the barrel. He was he was just bigger than
Speaker 1: all these other bears, but made the decision to shoot it,
Speaker 1: and uh, and then it was on. So those are
Speaker 1: just a few few tips there about judging bears that
Speaker 1: might be helpful, but it's it's a challenge. I mean,
Speaker 1: even for me, I've seen a lot of bears taking
Speaker 1: a lot of airs, are right, it's still a challenge
Speaker 1: to really judge um. So moving to the shot. We've
Speaker 1: we've written articles, we've talked about shot placement for years
Speaker 1: and years. Bears are one of the hardest big game
Speaker 1: animals to get a good clean shot on for multiple
Speaker 1: reasons that we've talked about so many times. They've got four,
Speaker 1: you know, two to four inches of hair all over
Speaker 1: their body, which exaggerates their size. So they're really not
Speaker 1: as big as they look. Number one. Number two, especially
Speaker 1: in the fall, they've got two to four inches of
Speaker 1: fat over a good portion of their body, which the
Speaker 1: fat is going to be non vital area. So there
Speaker 1: again exaggerated to really how big they are, so their
Speaker 1: vitals and where you're trying to hit is smaller than
Speaker 1: what it looks like. Number three. They're solid black, and
Speaker 1: a solid black animal doesn't show the features of the
Speaker 1: animal in the light like a short haired, light colored
Speaker 1: deerwood like you could see where you'd see the shadows
Speaker 1: on a deer's shoulder or where it came up, you
Speaker 1: could see where the hip came up, like the light
Speaker 1: just shows up better on a black bear. It's just
Speaker 1: like you're just looking into a shadow. So it's hard
Speaker 1: to like just pick out the exact spot that you
Speaker 1: want to hit. Number four. Their bottles are slightly different
Speaker 1: than the white tails. Not not a lot, but slightly different.
Speaker 1: There's slightly further back and you can and it was
Speaker 1: proved this week that you can shoot one way back
Speaker 1: and you've got a really good chance to find an animal.
Speaker 1: We've published an article in BARONNY magazine several years ago
Speaker 1: called middle of the middle where a lot of these
Speaker 1: Canadian outfitters say that shoot a bear in the middle
Speaker 1: of the middle, like literally from from the shoulders to
Speaker 1: butt in the middle and then up and down vertically.
Speaker 1: If you were just to pick the spot from the
Speaker 1: top of the back to the belly the middle, which
Speaker 1: on a white tail that would be way back, I
Speaker 1: mean way back in the guts. But on knee cropsy
Speaker 1: that I've on on multiple bears, I have seen that
Speaker 1: the lungs extend back beyond the midpoint of the bear,
Speaker 1: and then behind those lungs lay the liver and a
Speaker 1: lot of other good stuff. And so by aiming at
Speaker 1: the middle of the middle, basically you have the most
Speaker 1: room for air of any shot on the bear. If
Speaker 1: you're for ing just to the right, you're really in
Speaker 1: the sweet spot of where you want to be. If
Speaker 1: you're forward of eight inches to the left, back into
Speaker 1: the guts, you're still you're not gonna hit liver and
Speaker 1: and lungs, which you did not, but you're still gonna
Speaker 1: kill an animal. I talked to an old Sasketchman outfit
Speaker 1: here one time that told me, he said, he said,
Speaker 1: I have found almost every gut shot bear that we've
Speaker 1: ever had clients take. I personally had not recovered a
Speaker 1: bear that was gut shot quite like yours. And so
Speaker 1: while we're in the stand of telling Klobe this, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the best shot, but I think we're gonn
Speaker 1: to find that bear. And uh. And so to cut
Speaker 1: to the end of the story, and and I mean,
Speaker 1: you hit just like basically right in front of the
Speaker 1: hips of that bear, passed all the way through using
Speaker 1: the four blades slip trick, brought it super sharp, good broadhead,
Speaker 1: passed all the way through. We found that bear. It
Speaker 1: took some good blood trailer. I mean, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: There was not a lot of blood. Like if you
Speaker 1: had just stumbled out there and just started wandering around
Speaker 1: looking for blood like, probably wouldn't have found it. But
Speaker 1: we blood trailed that bear and it probably took forty minutes.
Speaker 1: And and I do not believe the bear run more
Speaker 1: than twoundred yards. Uh. The bear was bleeding and there
Speaker 1: drops of blood on the ground at first, and then
Speaker 1: he quit bleeding like that, and pretty much we were
Speaker 1: then following places where he had rubbed on the trees.
Speaker 1: So what we started doing we learned is wed. You'd
Speaker 1: kind of see tracks where the bear, you know, fresh
Speaker 1: not not like tracks in the mud, just like scuffed leaves.
Speaker 1: We could tell the animal to walk through press down vegetation,
Speaker 1: and you'd kind of go, well, I think he went
Speaker 1: that way, and you'd you know, kind of crawl ten
Speaker 1: feet and look kind of underneath a leaf and you'd
Speaker 1: see a smear of kind of this dark, you know,
Speaker 1: dark red blood. I mean it almost wouldn't even blood,
Speaker 1: I mean, just looked wet. But we kept following that.
Speaker 1: I mean we found the bear, yeah, pretty during easily. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I believe the bear did not live very long. I
Speaker 1: mean I think the bear was dead within thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: So the point of all that is to say is
Speaker 1: that if you're gonna air on a shot on a bear,
Speaker 1: air to the far back of the animal. I wounded
Speaker 1: a bear in Saskatchewan this year by shooting too far
Speaker 1: forward his shoulder. I mean the bear is still out
Speaker 1: in Saskatchewan right now, being a bear. I didn't even
Speaker 1: hurt him, party got any penetration. If I had been
Speaker 1: four inches towards the back of the animal, I would
Speaker 1: have taken that animal. So just as an encouragement to people.
Speaker 1: You know, if you shoot one far back, don't track
Speaker 1: it right away. Yeah, give it some time. Uh, but
Speaker 1: just take your time on the blood trail, don't get
Speaker 1: in the hurry, and you'll find that bear. So so
Speaker 1: when we found it, uh, the bear kind of circle
Speaker 1: back around the direction that had came. It came from
Speaker 1: behind us, but when it ran out, it ran out
Speaker 1: away from us, and I kind of had a feeling
Speaker 1: that it was gonna want to get back in the
Speaker 1: direction I did, and sure enough it did. It circled
Speaker 1: out in front of us and then started heading back
Speaker 1: towards the spig swamp behind us. And uh, I wish
Speaker 1: you hadn't made it to that big hill. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it went downhill and uh but we walked up to
Speaker 1: the bear. What was it like? Man, it's great for me.
Speaker 1: It was more of like relief. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: want to like because it seemed like he had gone
Speaker 1: down pretty quickly. You know, the last thing you want
Speaker 1: is to injure an animal and have it out there
Speaker 1: suffering or or whatever is going on inside of their mind. Uh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, it was just like instant relief. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh, thank god, It's like it was one
Speaker 1: of those things where it's like you told me dead
Speaker 1: bear and I wasn't gonna be like excited until I
Speaker 1: saw it myself. I was like, are you sure, man?
Speaker 1: Is it? Is it a stuff? So no, it was.
Speaker 1: It was fantastic and I was glad that there are
Speaker 1: other people with me whenever I got there. I think
Speaker 1: that's the important thing about hunting is just like the
Speaker 1: other people being with you. If I if that had
Speaker 1: happened on my own, it wouldn't have had the same
Speaker 1: value to it is as the collaborative the collaborative nature
Speaker 1: of you know, you and Corty being there and like
Speaker 1: working just as hard, if not harder than me to
Speaker 1: find the bear. You know, there are a few points
Speaker 1: like I saw you like on your hands, just like
Speaker 1: looking low seeing if you can find stuff. And man,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I could have found the bear
Speaker 1: on my on my own, just like you know, I
Speaker 1: haven't had a lot of a lot of experienced blood trailing,
Speaker 1: but it was it was cool to see people that
Speaker 1: have been through and down several blood trailers to to
Speaker 1: watch the process. And I think there's there's almost a
Speaker 1: point of of a mentoring inside of that respect, whenever
Speaker 1: you're watching people that have done things more than you,
Speaker 1: and like you're just trying to take in whatever you
Speaker 1: can so that you can improve for the next time.
Speaker 1: And I bet you I never make that same shot again. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought I was erring on the side of caution,
Speaker 1: and I guess I just got in my shot cycle
Speaker 1: and I didn't think that that bears just started walking
Speaker 1: and it was it was just too late. Well, that's
Speaker 1: there's something to learn from that, because that is a
Speaker 1: critical things when you initiate that shot cycle. You pull
Speaker 1: the bow back. Now you'd actually held the boat for
Speaker 1: probably thirty forty seconds, maybe longer. It was a while.
Speaker 1: You held the boat for a long time, but then
Speaker 1: mentally you executed the shot cycle because you were thinking,
Speaker 1: when the bear turns fully broadside, I'm gonna shoot, yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's really where a guy's got to then kind
Speaker 1: of complexify a shot cycle. And then I'm gonna shoot
Speaker 1: if he stops, if he is turned right, And so
Speaker 1: you shot in the bear was still walking. So that's
Speaker 1: what happen you probably I told you. I think initially
Speaker 1: you said, man, I was like way off, and I
Speaker 1: was like I don't think you were. I think you
Speaker 1: probably hit right where you're aiming. Bear was just moving,
Speaker 1: you know, and that comes with experience inside of bow
Speaker 1: hunting is managing that moment of truth. And that's what
Speaker 1: we talked about, you know, like uh and Matt, I
Speaker 1: was impressed with how calm you were. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I think I think I was more nervous than you.
Speaker 1: I man, when I'm in a tree stand with somebody
Speaker 1: that's gonna shoot, I'm like nervous as a cap. It's like, ye,
Speaker 1: my heart was pumping. I was filming. It was fun.
Speaker 1: But so I mean, I guess just more cognizance in
Speaker 1: the moment and just like really being sure, you know,
Speaker 1: because we've all every bow hunter has made that same
Speaker 1: mistake and so you just you just wear and luckily
Speaker 1: on this one it didn't really matter. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you'd made a great shot at the bear, would a
Speaker 1: run forty yards rather than two hundred, which really was inconsequential. Um,
Speaker 1: so it was awesome bear. We didn't weigh the bear,
Speaker 1: it was so far back in the bush, weren't able
Speaker 1: to like bring the animal out whole. But we really
Speaker 1: believed that Wade three fifties. We bore. Um, it was
Speaker 1: a good one. Scored the skull eighteen four or something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, six ft nine square, it was. It
Speaker 1: was six and a half foot six and a half
Speaker 1: foot from those to tail green hide, so you know,
Speaker 1: green hide stretched out six and a half foot and
Speaker 1: then the wingspan was seven foot so square. You take
Speaker 1: the length of the bear nose to tail divided by
Speaker 1: the width of the bears, basically the average of those two.
Speaker 1: And uh so it was a super bear, I mean,
Speaker 1: super duper bear. So that was day one and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna speed us along here because so now Colby's hunt
Speaker 1: has done and he's gonna film me. Um. And the
Speaker 1: first afternoon that I hunted, we were sitting on the ground.
Speaker 1: I told Corey that I wanted to hunt on the
Speaker 1: ground and I was gonna hunt with the re curve,
Speaker 1: and you know, the it's a little you know, I
Speaker 1: continue to learn every time I'm going to hunt, because
Speaker 1: you're constantly like gauging, like how good the hunting is,
Speaker 1: what your expectations are for the hunt, what you would
Speaker 1: like to bring home, like as far as like the
Speaker 1: best possible scenario, and then kind of the reality of really,
Speaker 1: what are your chances for bringing that home? I mean,
Speaker 1: like I kind of taking a complex look at the
Speaker 1: whole hunt, and like, for instance, like if we had
Speaker 1: hunted with you the first day and it had been
Speaker 1: like super tough hunting and we hadn't seen a bear,
Speaker 1: they would have calibrated me to be like, buddy, you
Speaker 1: better take advantage of every opportunity that you get. But
Speaker 1: when it's as awesome as it was on the first day,
Speaker 1: it kind of sets you up to think, man, this
Speaker 1: is this is we're in, We're in the chips. You
Speaker 1: know this is gonna be good. This is the first
Speaker 1: bait that we sat on. We killed the top notch bear,
Speaker 1: so we've got four days left to hunt. I can
Speaker 1: be picky, like that was what I thought, and I
Speaker 1: don't regret thinking that. Okay, So the first day we
Speaker 1: went into this bait, we knew what was there. We'd
Speaker 1: seen church A pictures. We knew there was a color
Speaker 1: phase bear there. We knew he was a good one,
Speaker 1: didn't know exactly how good. And basically the first couple
Speaker 1: of hours we're a little bit slow, but at about
Speaker 1: eight o'clock gets dark, about nine o'clock. At eight o'clock
Speaker 1: bears just started piling in. We're on the ground, and
Speaker 1: the first bear in was a nice boy that I
Speaker 1: would say most clients of any Northern Canada bear out
Speaker 1: for probably was shot. I mean it was. It was
Speaker 1: a nice boar, older board, kind of had squatty ears.
Speaker 1: He was one of those boards that I think can
Speaker 1: fool you and make you think you're shooting a foreigner
Speaker 1: pounder because he wasn't a young bear. Um. But I
Speaker 1: didn't want to shoot that bear. And then the second
Speaker 1: bear that came in was his color face bear, and
Speaker 1: oh he was he was. He was spectacular just just
Speaker 1: the coloration of him. But he was not as big
Speaker 1: as your bear. And so in my mind I really
Speaker 1: valued size and age of the bear over color of
Speaker 1: the bear. I'm probably the first person ever at Corey's
Speaker 1: camp to pass up a color face bear like that
Speaker 1: because it was good size. Yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: You know, at the time I said it was a
Speaker 1: six ft bear, but it probably was like a six
Speaker 1: three six four type bear. Um. I don't think it
Speaker 1: weighed three under pounds. I could be wrong. I posted
Speaker 1: a picture on Facebook a minute ago and I looked
Speaker 1: at that bear and I was like, dang, that's big bear.
Speaker 1: But in my heart of hearts, I don't think it
Speaker 1: weighed three and pounds. And in my mind in the fall,
Speaker 1: I was wanting to shoot at least a three or
Speaker 1: pound bear. So when I saw the bear, I immediately
Speaker 1: I was just like, I'm not gonna shoot that bear.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why, because when I was in
Speaker 1: Saskatchewan two months ago, I learned something that I hope
Speaker 1: I don't forget. We we we hunted the whole week.
Speaker 1: In the first like minute of bear hunting, I'm not
Speaker 1: kidding you, in Saskatchewan, a color face bear Cameman. I
Speaker 1: mean the first day we got there hunting with Bear
Speaker 1: Prosafaris Colby Morrison. I mean, we sit down and here
Speaker 1: comes a color face bear and it's a nice bear.
Speaker 1: It's probably, I don't know how big, it was two
Speaker 1: durn thirty forty pound spring bear, which is a good bear.
Speaker 1: And we end up watching that bear all week. For
Speaker 1: five days. We see that bear every single day. I
Speaker 1: passed him on the first day, and then on the
Speaker 1: last day of the hunt, I decided to shoot that bear.
Speaker 1: And I ended up shooting that bear and wounding it,
Speaker 1: and it just left a terrible taste in my mouth
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons, but really more internally because I felt
Speaker 1: like the old saying that we've heard hunters say our
Speaker 1: whole life, don't pass up anything on the first day
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't shoot on the last for people say that,
Speaker 1: but so you could you could switch that old proverb around,
Speaker 1: you know, and say, why shoot something on the last
Speaker 1: day that you didn't shoot on the first, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's like that bear. I didn't want to take
Speaker 1: it then. And then at the end of the hunt,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, rather than going home at the hand,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot this bear. And I did made a
Speaker 1: bad shot, and it just, you know, I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of lessons to be learned inside of hunting
Speaker 1: that are broader than just what happens in the natural,
Speaker 1: you know, and and I and I just I just
Speaker 1: didn't feel right about it afterwards, not not just that
Speaker 1: I wounded the animal, but it was just like I
Speaker 1: felt like I kind of compromised my value system. So
Speaker 1: we passed this. But well, when I saw this by
Speaker 1: this bear was almost identical to the Baron shout in Saskatchewan,
Speaker 1: and I just kind of had this like taste in
Speaker 1: my mouth. It's like, I don't want to shoot that bear.
Speaker 1: Just it wasn't rational, it was like internal, you know.
Speaker 1: And uh I used to not really listen to that
Speaker 1: voice very strongly as a young hunter, but I do now.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I turned to Kolbe, who was filming,
Speaker 1: and I just said, I don't think I want to
Speaker 1: shoot that bear. Did that surprise you? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I was on the ground step and stand, so it
Speaker 1: looked big to me, so, uh, yeah, yeah, I was surprised.
Speaker 1: So so this is my first day to hunt. This
Speaker 1: bear comes in. This is the bear we're there to kill,
Speaker 1: and I decided to shoot it, and uh we watch it.
Speaker 1: Another color face bear comes in, a color face Sal,
Speaker 1: beautiful color face Sal comes in. And then another big
Speaker 1: black south. So at one time we had four bears
Speaker 1: within twenty yards of us. One of the bears was
Speaker 1: we We said, there's different class sifications of the way
Speaker 1: that bears respond to you when you're on the ground.
Speaker 1: There's some that are just curious and they'll come over
Speaker 1: to you, maybe get seven or eight feet from you
Speaker 1: and kind of booger off after they get a good
Speaker 1: look at you and smell you. And there's others that
Speaker 1: are what I classify as highly interested, which those are
Speaker 1: the ones you kind of gotta watch. And one of
Speaker 1: the boards was highly interested in us, and he I
Speaker 1: don't know how many times he circled around came very
Speaker 1: close to us, but probably six seven times in an hour,
Speaker 1: maybe more than that. It was. I mean, he just
Speaker 1: kept coming in a different side of what they do, yeah, differently,
Speaker 1: And what they always do when they do that is
Speaker 1: the first time they'll come to like this buffer zone
Speaker 1: that they have in their mind, and then next time
Speaker 1: they'll come two foot closer, and then next time they'll
Speaker 1: come two foot closer, and I mean the cycle ends
Speaker 1: when they're in the blind with you. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't you don't let them get to that situation. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's all we had was a bow. He can't carry, Uh,
Speaker 1: you can't carry pistol or anything. So it wasn't have
Speaker 1: a gun. I had bear spray and uh, the bear
Speaker 1: when he came in he could kind of lower his
Speaker 1: head and look at you in the eye. I mean,
Speaker 1: I didn't like that bear, and so I had the
Speaker 1: bear spray out and I don't know if you can
Speaker 1: see it on film. But after about two times of
Speaker 1: them doing that, I dug the bear spray out, and
Speaker 1: a couple of times I almost just popped him just
Speaker 1: because he was getting pretty close. One time I talked
Speaker 1: to him and he walked away. But so we at
Speaker 1: one point it was a amazing evening. I mean, like
Speaker 1: this bear will be coming in from this side, and
Speaker 1: we'd be kind of looking over our shoulder because there
Speaker 1: was another bear, you know, eight yards from us over here,
Speaker 1: and two bears fighting out here. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: just a cluster of bear activity, which is super fun.
Speaker 1: So this is the day number two, and then I'll
Speaker 1: go back to the calibration of the hunt. This adds
Speaker 1: to the the It adds to the story that this
Speaker 1: is gonna be an easy hunt. Maybe not easy, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna have some opportunity to be picky, you know,
Speaker 1: be picky. And so I'm feeling good. We come back out.
Speaker 1: You killed the big one on the first day. Second day,
Speaker 1: I passed up this bear, and then third day comes,
Speaker 1: we sit in the same spot as we did not
Speaker 1: before and didn't see a single bear, didn't see a
Speaker 1: single bear. Scump skunked, and so they were like dang,
Speaker 1: the only skunk in northern man So and then at
Speaker 1: that point, that's when I was kind of like, maybe
Speaker 1: this is gonna be harder than we thought, because then
Speaker 1: I only had two days left, five day hunt. Spent
Speaker 1: one day hunt with you. Thanks for that. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: glad I did. And uh so, to make a long
Speaker 1: story short, and hunted the next two days after that, Um,
Speaker 1: the next night we actually saw six bears and a
Speaker 1: shooter bear came in, I mean a dark thirty I
Speaker 1: mean it was like it was it was light enough
Speaker 1: to be able to see a silhouette up against some
Speaker 1: of our reference points for us to go, that's a
Speaker 1: good bear, but it's too dark to shoot. Didn't shoot him.
Speaker 1: So we saw lots of action that night, saw a
Speaker 1: lot of our activity, but didn't kill a bear. And
Speaker 1: then here we are at the last day and I
Speaker 1: still like, killed a bear and we don't really have
Speaker 1: just a I mean we had tons of options. I mean,
Speaker 1: Corey's got tons of baits, tons of bears coming in
Speaker 1: and bears like coming in that we haven't seen yet
Speaker 1: camera Like what happens with these bears in the fall though,
Speaker 1: is even if there's not hunting pressure. What they end
Speaker 1: up doing is they turned nocturnal. I mean even on
Speaker 1: these baits that have not even been hunted this fall.
Speaker 1: So it's not from hunting pressure, but it's just like
Speaker 1: the lunar cycle and just the way that they start
Speaker 1: to respond to falled inning, that's that they get more
Speaker 1: and more nocturnal. So we had some really big bears
Speaker 1: of a nocturnal and anyway, finally on the last day,
Speaker 1: I hunted by myself. We're trying to be a little
Speaker 1: more incognito rather than bringing in two people. Uh, these
Speaker 1: bears are pretty sensitive to people. Been in some places
Speaker 1: in the far North where you could bring your family
Speaker 1: in there and have a picnic, and these bears don't
Speaker 1: seem to care. These bears did. They were pretty concerned
Speaker 1: about us being there, you know. So we were trying
Speaker 1: to watch our scent and watch the wind and I
Speaker 1: was running an os onyx and you know, we were
Speaker 1: doing some stuff to try to help our scent. Anyway,
Speaker 1: in the final day came and uh, we bumped a
Speaker 1: wolf off the bait. And this was a new bait,
Speaker 1: so I had to I guess we had I hunted
Speaker 1: three different spots, four spots counting yours in a five
Speaker 1: day hunh um And I said, in the final day,
Speaker 1: and I had a nice, like really nice bore come in,
Speaker 1: but just he just wasn't. He just wasn't what I
Speaker 1: went up there to kill. Watched him feed mostly even
Speaker 1: and had a south come in with three cubs right
Speaker 1: at dark, which is fun to watch them. And then
Speaker 1: in the sunset the Manitoba evening and house over and uh,
Speaker 1: so I didn't kill a bear. I didn't kill a bear,
Speaker 1: And I don't like that that that puts a cramp
Speaker 1: in my my systems. Uh. I mean, you know, with
Speaker 1: the magazine, I mean I make a living gathering bear
Speaker 1: hunting content and we've got some great content. But I mean,
Speaker 1: you always hope to bring on a bear. And now
Speaker 1: this is two hunts in a road in Canada that
Speaker 1: I have not brought home a bear. So in five
Speaker 1: years of traveling extensively with Bear Hunting magazine, that's never happened.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've almost killed bear on every hunt except
Speaker 1: for Alaska. Um And uh, once I went to Alaska
Speaker 1: didn't kill a bear. I've been spotting, I've been hunting
Speaker 1: in Montana twice without killing bear. I've been to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was Quebec one time. I didn't kill a beart
Speaker 1: so the odd hunt don't bring bring home a bear.
Speaker 1: But so but I felt good. I left and I
Speaker 1: felt like I hadn't compromised my value system. We could
Speaker 1: have on the last night. Corey said you could go
Speaker 1: back to where you saw the color face bear on
Speaker 1: the first night, and he gave us that opportunity. The
Speaker 1: bear was coming back in. We had pictures of the
Speaker 1: bear there um and we really could have gone back
Speaker 1: in and probably killed that bear. And I just said,
Speaker 1: nahn't want to do it, because that's the exact same
Speaker 1: thing I did in Saskatchewan. Passed the bear on the
Speaker 1: first day, came in on the last day, shot it
Speaker 1: didn't turn out good, and I was like, nah, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do it. If I passed that bear, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna take it on the the last day. So went in,
Speaker 1: didn't kill him. So I was super impressed with Corey.
Speaker 1: Grant all trained Baron hunts like. He's very he's very managed,
Speaker 1: he's very ordered. He's a man of his word. If
Speaker 1: he says he's gonna do something, he's gonna do it.
Speaker 1: His intent really is to get people on Big Bears,
Speaker 1: his intendance to give you a first class northern experience.
Speaker 1: He's a veteran um. I mean I say that because
Speaker 1: I've been in camps that weren't well managed, and most
Speaker 1: of them are. I mean I kind of cherry picked
Speaker 1: my hunts these days and just go with people that
Speaker 1: I really feel like a gonna gonna represent our magazine
Speaker 1: well and stuff. And I mean Corey totally fits in
Speaker 1: that category. And and I'd highly recommend him to anybody
Speaker 1: that's wanting to Northern Canadian hunt and to go back
Speaker 1: and to it. We're gonna end this quickly here, but
Speaker 1: the fall hunt is pretty awesome because these bears are
Speaker 1: getting ready to go to sleep for six months and
Speaker 1: they're eating like crazy. They've got a lot more weight
Speaker 1: on them than the spring bears do, and their coats
Speaker 1: are absolutely fantastic. I mean, they are getting ready to
Speaker 1: go survived the northern winter coach or I think they're
Speaker 1: better than spring coats. They're thicker, they're finer um and
Speaker 1: uh no, we didn't see any rubbed bears at all.
Speaker 1: Bears were all fully fully haired out. Underbellies were fully
Speaker 1: haired out. Yeah, slick shiny coats I mean l primo coats. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think we saw that. No, No, I mean
Speaker 1: and we saw I don't know how many bears, bears
Speaker 1: about twenty bears. Um. So we left that night, got
Speaker 1: out of the stand, got in the boat, motored back
Speaker 1: to the camp. Colby was like, let's go home, and
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, if you drive. So we uh
Speaker 1: we got to the truck. We realized there was a
Speaker 1: break lad out on the truck. Okay that we didn't
Speaker 1: notice before. So we drove all the way from Northern
Speaker 1: Manitoba northwest Art and saw with a tail lie out
Speaker 1: and we did get pulled over three times the trip.
Speaker 1: The first guy, the first state trooper, was in South
Speaker 1: Dakota and the first thing he said was he saw
Speaker 1: the first light sticker on the back of my truck.
Speaker 1: And then Colby was wearing the first light and so
Speaker 1: was I. Cobe was still at his get up from hunting.
Speaker 1: I mean he had like cannabs on his rubber boots.
Speaker 1: Is uh first light shirt? Anyway, this this cop comes
Speaker 1: to our truck and he's like, I like that first
Speaker 1: light here. I was like, wow, this guy's and then
Speaker 1: he saw the deer horn hanging from my key chain
Speaker 1: shows you how perceptive they are. And he was like,
Speaker 1: he was like scanning our truck. He's like the first
Speaker 1: light deer horn. And then he saw my my crested
Speaker 1: arrows in the back of my truck and he's like
Speaker 1: your traditional bow hunter. And I was like, this is
Speaker 1: a good cop. This guys like totally dialed us in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh. I was like, yeah, I'm a traditional boy.
Speaker 1: So he's like he's like real professional. It's like, sir, um,
Speaker 1: did you have a cruise control cruise control set? And
Speaker 1: I was like yeah, and he was like, we're going
Speaker 1: eighty six miles per hour, but what saved this was
Speaker 1: from eighty mile per our speed living South Dakota, so
Speaker 1: that wasn't terrible. And he was like, yeah, my cruise
Speaker 1: control is said and I said, man, we're coming home
Speaker 1: from Manitoba. We just we just got off this hunt.
Speaker 1: And then Kobe and this is where our strategy rolls
Speaker 1: into how to get out of a ticket on the
Speaker 1: way home from a hunt. Colby is like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I just killed my first bear. You want to see
Speaker 1: the picture and bam, the situation it's like flipped flipped,
Speaker 1: and so Kobe pulls out the phone starts showing in pictures.
Speaker 1: The guy started talking to us about hunting, and I mean,
Speaker 1: we knew we were in the clear. Yeah, And then
Speaker 1: he kind of surprised us when he said, sir, do
Speaker 1: you mind stepping out of the car and going back
Speaker 1: with me from my cruiser to the cruiser? And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, that's not customary here in Arkansas or
Speaker 1: Texas the whole time, what's going on? And I was like, oh, okay, uh,
Speaker 1: And so I get out, go to his cruiser, sit
Speaker 1: with him in the car. Like when I got to
Speaker 1: the door, I'm like, you want me to like get
Speaker 1: in here? And uh he was like yeah. And so
Speaker 1: I sit in the cruiser with him and we talked
Speaker 1: about hunting for twenty minutes. I'm serious, it was a
Speaker 1: whole I didn't know how long it was. I mean
Speaker 1: it was I was maybe my exaggerating was I don't
Speaker 1: feel like it. I mean, we we talked about hunting
Speaker 1: in South Dakota. We talked about him hunting back in
Speaker 1: the western part of the state and trying to find
Speaker 1: deer in the east, talking about hybrid whitetails, milled deer.
Speaker 1: I mean, we had extensive conversation. I told him about
Speaker 1: Bare Hunting magazine. Uh. Anyway, we had a good conversation
Speaker 1: and he's just like, I'm just gonna give you a
Speaker 1: verbal warning. He said, we really just want you to
Speaker 1: slow it him a little bit. Now it's like ten four, buddy.
Speaker 1: And so then but so then on the way home
Speaker 1: after it got dark, we did not get pulled over
Speaker 1: for speeding. If that cop is listening right now, officer
Speaker 1: in South Dakota. We did pretty much keep it under
Speaker 1: control the rest of the way, but we did get
Speaker 1: pulled over for the tail lights. Yeah, and so Colbe
Speaker 1: and I are both concealed carry permit holders. And so
Speaker 1: what we learned was the second you see the lights,
Speaker 1: get your license concealed carry permits out, got the registration out.
Speaker 1: It turns out my proof of insurance was out of date.
Speaker 1: I am insured, for the record, but I didn't have
Speaker 1: the actual proof of insurance. So we had two driver's
Speaker 1: license to concealed carry permits, the registration. So we hand
Speaker 1: him this like massive amount of information and he's like
Speaker 1: trying to process, like what all this stuff is, and
Speaker 1: we're like, we're both concealed carry permit holders. And he goes,
Speaker 1: do you have a gun in the truck, and we go, no,
Speaker 1: we don't. We just got both because we just came
Speaker 1: from Canada. Canada handguns in Canada. I mean, we're just
Speaker 1: like overwhelming him with information like before you even asked
Speaker 1: for it, and don't have a gun. The owner of
Speaker 1: the truck has to be in the passenger So I'm
Speaker 1: driving both sets of yeah, yeah, yeah. So so Coby's driving,
Speaker 1: I'm in the passenger seat and like he and then
Speaker 1: Colby's gone, it's his truck, but he's driving blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: blah blah. And then right when all that, like the
Speaker 1: moment that he processes what he's got in his hands,
Speaker 1: Colby is like, I just killed my first bear. And
Speaker 1: then every single cop was like highly impressed with that.
Speaker 1: We're like really the picture and we were like man,
Speaker 1: and then I turned, you know, I chime in, I'm like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: we've been driving. We just came from Northern Manitoba going
Speaker 1: to our and they're like really you drove all yeah,
Speaker 1: And then they all wanted to know what was in
Speaker 1: the ice chest. Okay, the other thing that threw them
Speaker 1: off was the Oriyan ice chest in the rack on
Speaker 1: the back of the truck that covered our license plate.
Speaker 1: Oh man, if there's one tip for traveling, I would say,
Speaker 1: even if you have a truck and if you've got
Speaker 1: room for it in the back of the truck, don't
Speaker 1: put in the back of the truck. Put it on
Speaker 1: the rack on the back covers the license plate. Because
Speaker 1: it just the cops are just like, it's not illegal,
Speaker 1: it's them off, throwing them off. It's just one more
Speaker 1: thing they had to ask. And Orange bright Orange. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The cop in South Dakota was like, what kind of
Speaker 1: ice chest is that? And I was like, oh, right, man,
Speaker 1: it's really nice ice chest. Man. In Tennessee, they make
Speaker 1: kayak to you can sell them down the river and
Speaker 1: be good. Oh man, I'm serious. I told him the
Speaker 1: whole story of O Ryan and so. But then they
Speaker 1: go every single cop asked if the bear was in
Speaker 1: the ice chest and we were like, yep, he yess
Speaker 1: it is. It's it's totally and they all of one
Speaker 1: of them, I think, wanted to see it. He didn't.
Speaker 1: He didn't quite We didn't quite get there. But it
Speaker 1: was like his next question was gonna be like, can't
Speaker 1: I see it? He didn't and it was it was frozen.
Speaker 1: The whole balled up. But so anyway, overwhelmed them with information.
Speaker 1: We made it home. Um, but we had one more stop.
Speaker 1: It's just the second stop. Yeah, that was the second stop.
Speaker 1: The last one went about the same the last one went.
Speaker 1: I mean, we nailed this guy. It's like we got
Speaker 1: pulled over and like forty minutes ago. Yeah yeah, like
Speaker 1: we're like, we know the tail lights out, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: know the man's killing our time. Yeah yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: We were trying to get home to see the family.
Speaker 1: But so overall, epic road trip, epic hunt. You got
Speaker 1: your first bear, he had your first northern bear experience,
Speaker 1: the first trip to Canada. Um as for my first time,
Speaker 1: I'm with all terrained bear hunts. Corey Grant super impressed.
Speaker 1: Would love to go back. Hope to go back and
Speaker 1: uh man, awesome, awesome hunt. I want to go back
Speaker 1: on a moose hunt. Yeah, he's in a super mooser. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be that would be very epic. Corey has
Speaker 1: like twelve moose tags I think that he uses every
Speaker 1: year and he he killed a Boone and Crockett like
Speaker 1: sixty in Canada. Moose they kill some super nice moose.
Speaker 1: Canada moose. Canada moose are the smaller moose. I mean,
Speaker 1: the Yukon moose are the big moose that are in Alaska.
Speaker 1: In the Yukon, Canada moose are the most that are
Speaker 1: just all across most of Canada. A big Canada mooses,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously I get big, but the average Canada
Speaker 1: moose is probably in the forty forty inch range. I
Speaker 1: mean they're not a giant moose. And then a small
Speaker 1: loss moose is the Shiers moose was Sharers moose are
Speaker 1: the moose center in the lower forty eight Shiers moose
Speaker 1: would be like in Idaho and Montana and Maine. Man
Speaker 1: this Maine is not a Sharers moose. Main is a
Speaker 1: Cannaba Monson bture. But neither here nor there. He's got
Speaker 1: a good moose hunt for sure. All right, Hey, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. You'll be
Speaker 1: able to watch this hunt in Colby's Hunt on Bear
Speaker 1: Horizon on our YouTube channel. And for those of you
Speaker 1: if somebody's listening to this that has not seen our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, that's where most of our content is going
Speaker 1: right now. Video content. But we also have two channels
Speaker 1: on Carbon TV. We've got our from the Global Headquarters
Speaker 1: blog and we've got our Bare Horizon series around season five.
Speaker 1: This is the fifth year that we've um takee video
Speaker 1: to all our hunts across North America and you'll be
Speaker 1: able to watch Colby's whole hunt. So hey, check out
Speaker 1: baron a new magazine. If you're not a subscriber, check
Speaker 1: it out. Every single one of you needs to get
Speaker 1: this magazine in the mail. Why wouldn't you want to
Speaker 1: get it in the mail every other month to your house.
Speaker 1: I mean, you strike to your house. You get to
Speaker 1: hold it in your hand print magazine or businesses, businesses
Speaker 1: put outduring the coffee table. Yep, yep, yep. So all right,
Speaker 1: until next time, Keep the wild places wild, because that's
Speaker 1: where the bears live.