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Speaker 1: And for me. For me, number one, it is family.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, I can't do any of this
Speaker 1: if I'm sacrificing really what's important in life. But if
Speaker 1: I build that right, and my wife and I are
Speaker 1: were a partnership, and and and and I'm supporting her
Speaker 1: and the things she wants to do, and I'm providing
Speaker 1: for her, and I'm I got all and my kids
Speaker 1: are fathered, and I mean, you know, it's like all
Speaker 1: this stuff is in order, then Clay can be gone
Speaker 1: for eighteen days like I have been this month. I
Speaker 1: had an old fred Bear hat. I mean I was
Speaker 1: a little chubby kid with Fred Bear had on Always
Speaker 1: dream is free, but the hustle is sold separately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really good way to say. I've been waiting
Speaker 1: for episodes of this to say that. Usually I say,
Speaker 1: go to a black Bear and if you're gonna if
Speaker 1: you're gonna go guided going to Black Bear and it's affordable,
Speaker 1: um and uh yeah, and it's fun. My name is
Speaker 1: Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast.
Speaker 1: I'll also be your host into the world of hunting
Speaker 1: the icon of the North American wilderness bear. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about tactics, gear, conservation, but will also bring you into
Speaker 1: some of the wildest country on the planet Chasing the Bear.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast. I believe the
Speaker 1: date is May six, and we are in British Columbia, Canada.
Speaker 1: We are at jeff Landers Camp, primitive out fitting in
Speaker 1: would you guys say, we're in central British Columbia. I
Speaker 1: haven't even looked at the man. I have no idea
Speaker 1: where we are even know. I know we're like fifty
Speaker 1: yards from that railroad track and seventy from the kidchen.
Speaker 1: But if you got on that railroad track, you would
Speaker 1: end up in like Kansas City, no doubt. And then
Speaker 1: from Kansas City you could probably get home, depending on
Speaker 1: how fast the train was it hits you. I guess
Speaker 1: where you landed. Well, we are in British Columbia, and
Speaker 1: I did look at a map and I would describe
Speaker 1: this as central eastern British Columbia, kind of kind of
Speaker 1: more to the east. This is the sixth day of
Speaker 1: our black bear hunt. And I've got with me here
Speaker 1: in the what do they call this cabin? What does
Speaker 1: Aeron call this cabin? He calls it his happy place.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they call it his favorite place
Speaker 1: in the world because his phone doesn't work here. It
Speaker 1: does not work here. Now we're at so jeff at
Speaker 1: primitive outfitting he's got they've got a super nice like uh,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it a lodge, but a nice camp
Speaker 1: where a lot of the guys stay. But then there's
Speaker 1: who's like outer bunk houses that were probably built in
Speaker 1: the sixties. I don't know when this was built, but
Speaker 1: that's where we're at right now. And Aaron, we're talking
Speaker 1: about this, Aaron Snyder, he hunts up here a lot.
Speaker 1: And Jake's good friend of Aaron's. But so let me
Speaker 1: introduce my guests. I've got with me Brent Reeves, who's
Speaker 1: been on the podcast several times. Brent's job is just
Speaker 1: to sip his coffee, try not to make slurping noises
Speaker 1: and to just like maybe comment like every I'm kiding print. No, no, no, Prince,
Speaker 1: You're supposed to say stuff like Chile today hot to Molly.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of stuff just to say. Okay, so
Speaker 1: y'all know Brent. But Jake Downs. I just met Jake
Speaker 1: this week, and uh, Jake is a I'm gonna let Jake, Well,
Speaker 1: this conversation is gonna be a lot about Jake. But
Speaker 1: Jake is an accomplished, accomplished traditional archer, a young man.
Speaker 1: Jake's thirty one. Um. I guessed him a little bit
Speaker 1: older by the amount of critters that he's stacked up
Speaker 1: with that tread bow. But not Jake, tell us just
Speaker 1: a little bit about yourself. It's like where you're from
Speaker 1: and and uh kind of what's going on. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I'm from a little town Shattered, Nebraska, northwest Nebraska. UM.
Speaker 1: An electrician there. My wife Lana, and I got a
Speaker 1: little two year old Alexa um and we pretty much
Speaker 1: live outdoors. It's uh, it's my life. Um, and I'm
Speaker 1: super lucky. Like I said, my wife is is a
Speaker 1: big part of why I get to do what I
Speaker 1: get to do because she supports me and takes care
Speaker 1: of everything while I'm gone. And I got brothers that
Speaker 1: worked for me, my own my own business. So um,
Speaker 1: I can work hard when I need to and play
Speaker 1: hard when I want to. So it's it works pretty good.
Speaker 1: Yeah man, that's awesome. Um. Now you well, let's see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's we'll go ahead and get into this. So you
Speaker 1: have you've taken the super tent with a traditional bow. Um,
Speaker 1: and you said some the other day while we were
Speaker 1: out there shooting. You said that, Uh, well, so the
Speaker 1: perception of someone that gets to travel and hunt. And
Speaker 1: for clarification, the su pertend, let's talk about what the
Speaker 1: super ten is. The super ten is. Basically, it's a
Speaker 1: a way to describe taking the tin species kind of
Speaker 1: big game animals in North America, which would be what
Speaker 1: tell us what the superten is. I've said this a
Speaker 1: bunch of times, but I'll just I'll just lift them off. Um. Basically,
Speaker 1: so the twenty nine is all big game animals recognized
Speaker 1: by Hope and Young or whatever. Um, So it's one
Speaker 1: out of every subspecies. So it's one dear, one elk,
Speaker 1: one bear, one moose, one caribou, mountain lion, um antelope,
Speaker 1: and then you got sheep, goats, mountain goat, and then um,
Speaker 1: what am I missing yep, pison or or muskox. So
Speaker 1: so the the twenty nine big game species in North
Speaker 1: America would be all those butt inside of like moose.
Speaker 1: There's like three different types of moose. There's a Canada moose,
Speaker 1: Shiris moose, and Yukon moose. So the superten just says, hey,
Speaker 1: just just harvest one of those animals. Yeah, it gives guys,
Speaker 1: uh something to shoot for, you know, the twenty nine
Speaker 1: Uh it becomes a rich man's game. Not necessarily, but
Speaker 1: I mean there are some like polar bear, um stone sheep,
Speaker 1: some stuff that it's just not realistic. I mean I'm
Speaker 1: not saying I could never get there. I may be
Speaker 1: mortgage in the house to do it, who knows, but
Speaker 1: you know, I'd never want to cut myself off of
Speaker 1: a goal or or whatever. Not that I'm going after that,
Speaker 1: but uh, it just gave me something to shoot for. Um.
Speaker 1: I was about halfway there and I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'll just keep you and I like going to new places,
Speaker 1: new things. So well, so getting to the point out
Speaker 1: and that we've defined what the per ten is And
Speaker 1: what you said to me was that, you know, typically
Speaker 1: or the stereotype would be that that would be a
Speaker 1: rich man's game to be able to do all those things.
Speaker 1: But you said, you said, uh, if a guy can
Speaker 1: be disciplined, if he can plan ahead and you know,
Speaker 1: pay for some because some of these sings you have
Speaker 1: to be guided on. UM. Some of them you draw for,
Speaker 1: and you work hard for the draws. But I mean
Speaker 1: basically you've played the system very well and have succeeded.
Speaker 1: I mean inside of now, which of those hunts did
Speaker 1: you have to be guided on? Um? Technically? I mean
Speaker 1: the Mountain Goat I was guided on and now I
Speaker 1: had to that was in Alaska. In Alaska, I could
Speaker 1: have obviously waited and drawn that tag maybe like an
Speaker 1: Idaho or I could have you know, I sent in
Speaker 1: for all those states. But UM, point creep has gotten
Speaker 1: so bad. You know, I'm young enough that I and
Speaker 1: I didn't start early enough that I it's not really
Speaker 1: didn't start putting in when you're nine years old? No,
Speaker 1: I didn't. Uh my dad used to take us hunting,
Speaker 1: you know, we do that. But I didn't really start
Speaker 1: doing the points until I was almost twenty, so I
Speaker 1: was kind of out of the game. You can always
Speaker 1: get lucky, but I I just you know, decided, like
Speaker 1: I told you, just Um, some of these hunts you
Speaker 1: can just book in advance a couple of years. Usually
Speaker 1: good outfitters are booked out at least a year or
Speaker 1: two in advance. Anyway. UM, so the BIS and I
Speaker 1: was guided on. Because of that reason, the bis and
Speaker 1: I was guided on, and that would be a really
Speaker 1: tough one to get without a guide. But you can't
Speaker 1: do it Arizona. You can draw a tag. And there's
Speaker 1: some other spots that are that are there's only the ones,
Speaker 1: and I'm by no means an expert, but there are
Speaker 1: there are I believe three while bison herds, one in Alaska,
Speaker 1: one in Alberta. I think Pink Mountains in Alberta. UM.
Speaker 1: But but anyway, that's neither here nor there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's a few. There are places where you can
Speaker 1: hunt bison. A guy could actually do it. The place
Speaker 1: to live would be Colorado to do it, because they've
Speaker 1: got the big eight um, which is of course they're
Speaker 1: missing caribou. Um. So Colorado has eight of them. Well
Speaker 1: don't if you count the bison, which there's there's some
Speaker 1: places that are there are considered free ranch bison Colorado,
Speaker 1: they don't have any that well, um yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they that is a free range Uh yeah, but that
Speaker 1: would be a guided hunt because that's a ranch. There
Speaker 1: is no draw on bison in Colorado. But they're Big eight.
Speaker 1: I think they consider a white tail and a mule
Speaker 1: deer in that. So there's two deer on on the
Speaker 1: Big eight. Because I've leave they're missing well, I know
Speaker 1: they're missing caribou. Um, they'd have a mountain lions and yeah,
Speaker 1: they'd have everything except for caribou bison. I mean as
Speaker 1: far as drawing it, um, that might be it maybe,
Speaker 1: but anyway, yeah, I know it's uh, it's doable, you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you budget your time and budget your Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in no way making minimum wage. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that. But what I'm saying is when I started,
Speaker 1: I was working. Uh I think honestly, I was making
Speaker 1: like thirteen bucks an hour, twelve bucks an hour, and uh,
Speaker 1: I was just like, I want to go bear hunt.
Speaker 1: So I just booked a two thousand dollar bear hunt
Speaker 1: and paid on it for a couple of years and
Speaker 1: went bear hunting, and I that was what opened my eyes.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I do this? Bear was the
Speaker 1: first one you went on bear? You Sparrow was, you
Speaker 1: know first? I think that's notable on the Bear Hunting
Speaker 1: Magazine podcast for real, because black bear really is probably
Speaker 1: the most accessible it is got, you know, traveling guided
Speaker 1: hunting because of the opportunity there bears everywhere, the hunts
Speaker 1: are relatively inexpensive, and there the seasons are happening at
Speaker 1: the time in the spring when not much else is
Speaker 1: going on. So I tell people that all the time.
Speaker 1: People ask me, you know, what do I what do
Speaker 1: I do? What? You know? I've killed, I've you know,
Speaker 1: I've killed antelopen deer. I wanted something else and once
Speaker 1: something new, What should I go do? And usually I say,
Speaker 1: go to a black bear. And if you're gonna, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna go guided, going to black bear and it's affordable,
Speaker 1: um and uh yeah, and it's fun like, um, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a spotting stock hunt. Uh And I love it.
Speaker 1: This is fun. It's fun to sneak on bears. But
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, it's fun to sit and watch bears
Speaker 1: come to you. I mean, you know, I have no
Speaker 1: problems with bated hunts. Uh. I've sat on bait for
Speaker 1: long hours and not seen it. I sat for my well,
Speaker 1: my very first hunt, I went to Idaho and I
Speaker 1: sat for a full week and never saw a bear.
Speaker 1: Never never laid eyes on a bear. Um. I always
Speaker 1: joked because, uh, there was actually a blind guy in camp,
Speaker 1: and I always say, Well, what I say is there's
Speaker 1: two guys in camp that uh I didn't see a
Speaker 1: bear and one guy shot one. So yeah, this guy
Speaker 1: sat behind him and lined him up and it's crazy.
Speaker 1: So so it wasn't like I went to a bad spot. Um.
Speaker 1: I made a good friend with with the guy there.
Speaker 1: They the outfit changed names. I've never been back there,
Speaker 1: but um yeah, I mean people get a you know,
Speaker 1: you can come up to Canada and you can go
Speaker 1: to some places it's just crawling with bears, but you
Speaker 1: can also I've been in Canada and uh, one of
Speaker 1: the places I went, I didn't end up with a bear.
Speaker 1: I saw two bears in a week. And so I mean,
Speaker 1: do your research if you're gonna go bear hunting, Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe not look for the biggest deal out there. But um,
Speaker 1: even those places a lot of times are good. And
Speaker 1: what's cool about bear hunting. You don't have to get
Speaker 1: up at four o'clock in the morning and walk your
Speaker 1: butt off. Usually you're hunting the afternoons. You're hunting the afternoons.
Speaker 1: And when you're in Canada, a lot of times you
Speaker 1: go fishing. I mean, it's a it's a family thing
Speaker 1: to take your family. It's you know, your family can
Speaker 1: hang out in the cabin. There's a lot of places
Speaker 1: that have cabins that are really fun. Right on the water.
Speaker 1: That was one place me and my dad went and
Speaker 1: uh fished all day. He caught fish and cooked it
Speaker 1: every night. I mean, it was it's Bear hunting has
Speaker 1: got to be one of the most fun things to do.
Speaker 1: And there's nothing else to do in the spring, like
Speaker 1: other than turkeys, you know, but if I got choice
Speaker 1: between turkeys and bears, I'll go, you know, hunt bears. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And what's it's awesome that you just said all that,
Speaker 1: because that's what that's what we say all the time,
Speaker 1: is that what other big game animals can you hunt
Speaker 1: in the spring? What other big game animals are as
Speaker 1: widely distributed and the opportunities there and and jeez, we
Speaker 1: found out and have experienced it again this week. This
Speaker 1: is a challenging hunt. The challenging hunt. UM. So before
Speaker 1: we jump into bears, because what I want to do
Speaker 1: is I want to I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about your traditional archer hunting. UM. But then
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about this week. So let's
Speaker 1: go back to the super ten. So what got us
Speaker 1: there was you said that the first outfitted like traveling
Speaker 1: hunt you did outside of Nebraska was a bear hunt. UM,
Speaker 1: so you took these animals with a traditional bow. When
Speaker 1: did you start traditional archery hunting? And what what was
Speaker 1: that transition like was? I think that's a lot of
Speaker 1: the questions A lot of people have. Lots of guys
Speaker 1: are shooting compound archery. I mean almost everybody. There's there's
Speaker 1: a very few people that are just rifle hunters anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean, like everybody's got a compound bow, and more
Speaker 1: and more we're seeing people that are getting interested in
Speaker 1: traditional archery. It's become, um, it's become a more mainstream
Speaker 1: to shoot traad boats. But the thing that messes with
Speaker 1: everybody's mind is is if I go traditional, am I
Speaker 1: gonna quit killing game? You know. I mean, so how
Speaker 1: do you make that transition? I know, for me, for
Speaker 1: ten years, I mean I got my first trad boat
Speaker 1: early on, I mean, uh two thousand three or something.
Speaker 1: And for ten years, basically I just kinda I was
Speaker 1: on that fencive I could carry this, but it's gonna
Speaker 1: limit me so much, and you know, and at the time,
Speaker 1: I was just a young hunter, just happy to take
Speaker 1: game anyway I could. So it's like I did, I
Speaker 1: wasn't quite ready to have that limitation. And then in
Speaker 1: the last five and six years I've taken on that
Speaker 1: challenge more readily. But what was your transition? Like, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm I'm extremely on the weird side. I
Speaker 1: guess I've told that. So when I started bow hunting,
Speaker 1: I when I was a kid, my dad bow hunted.
Speaker 1: He killed a bunch of big white tales with a
Speaker 1: bow and uh he was He shot a old I
Speaker 1: don't even know what it was, old tiny wheel compound,
Speaker 1: no sights and with fingers. Um. And so that's how
Speaker 1: I started with a compound. That's how I killed My
Speaker 1: first year was with just a bare, bare bow com
Speaker 1: tiny wheels. Yeah, that was my nickname. Um well, so
Speaker 1: that's how I started. I killed my first few deer
Speaker 1: with that, and uh, it was just a gradual you know.
Speaker 1: It took me a few years to kill my first dear.
Speaker 1: I think I might have been fifteen, sixteen, I don't
Speaker 1: you know, start you start when you're twelve. We hunted
Speaker 1: elk every year with muzzleloaders. I mean I I started
Speaker 1: out kind of that way, but I loved the bow.
Speaker 1: Like um, I can remember going elk hunting when I
Speaker 1: was twelve and taking my bow, not to hunt elk with,
Speaker 1: but to shoot grouse or whatever. Like that was my thing.
Speaker 1: The bow. I had an old Fred Bear hat. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was a little chubby kid with Fred Bear hat
Speaker 1: on always. My transition was weird. I I killed my
Speaker 1: first couple of year, and then when I was probably
Speaker 1: I don't know, I was probably sixteen ish, I bought
Speaker 1: a Hoit game Master Recurve because I was I think
Speaker 1: I was shooting Hoits compounds and it just looked cool,
Speaker 1: you know, it has them, had the machine riser. I
Speaker 1: was like, man, this is this is cool looking. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to be like Fred Bear, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna That's what my theory was so I started shooting
Speaker 1: it and struggling, and of course I did what everybody
Speaker 1: shouldn't do. I bought a fifty five pound bow, and
Speaker 1: because I was shooting sixty pounds on my compound, I thought, well, heck,
Speaker 1: I can do this. So um, so I struggled with it.
Speaker 1: I killed a rabbit with it, and uh, I think
Speaker 1: I hunted with it for like a year, missed some deer,
Speaker 1: just had had trouble, and sold it, went back to
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure I really went back to a compound.
Speaker 1: I kind of took some time off there, and then
Speaker 1: I finally went was going to college and working and
Speaker 1: and uh, I bought another game master somewhere right around
Speaker 1: that nineteen It all gets kind of blurry. Um those years.
Speaker 1: But um started shooting that struggling again, and I did
Speaker 1: the same thing. I bought a heavy bow. And there
Speaker 1: wasn't all this. There wasn't an Aaron Snyder out there,
Speaker 1: uh talking about tuning and how to actually work into it,
Speaker 1: and the and the clubs out there where you could
Speaker 1: get on and what you know by their video and
Speaker 1: actually learned form all the good stuff that people have
Speaker 1: the available to them these days. So I guess long winded.
Speaker 1: To answer your question, I am very range. I worked
Speaker 1: from instinctively shooting moved into a compound because when I
Speaker 1: you start, you started with kind of the yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can. I think when I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: might have had sites on my bow at one time
Speaker 1: or another, but I don't really remember having sites on
Speaker 1: my bow ever as a thing until I was about
Speaker 1: twenty ish and I had this recurve and I had
Speaker 1: some extra money, so I was like, all right, And
Speaker 1: I was at this point, I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: fred Eichler, so he was kind of switching back and forth.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I'm gonna buy a compound with
Speaker 1: sites and do all that and then I can hunt
Speaker 1: with the recurve. And the I did find myself still
Speaker 1: when I still hadn't killed much, going on an antelope
Speaker 1: stock and having both in the truck and grabbing the
Speaker 1: re curve. It was just something I I knew I
Speaker 1: didn't have as good of a chance with it, but um,
Speaker 1: it's just the recurve. You I was drawn to it.
Speaker 1: I like the simplicity of it. It was just, um,
Speaker 1: so did you So you did some? You did some
Speaker 1: compound hunting then in your twenties then is that right? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean I still hunt with a compound now
Speaker 1: and then, Uh, this year I haven't done as much.
Speaker 1: Last year I killed a couple of animals. Usually it's
Speaker 1: for me. It's kind of like my rifle hunt people.
Speaker 1: I still don't. I still don't. There's times when you don't.
Speaker 1: You don't choose your weapon as the limiting factor. That's
Speaker 1: the way that I describe some of my hunting. It's
Speaker 1: like sometimes the hunt, I don't want the weapon to
Speaker 1: be the limiting factor. The animal, the terrain, the maybe
Speaker 1: even the environment. I mean maybe I'm going somewhere with
Speaker 1: friends and family and I just their rifle hunting and
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, you know what I'm gonna you know,
Speaker 1: so you choose where you want that limiting factor to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I it's funny. I have friends of mine that
Speaker 1: asked me, like, how do you choose what boat you're
Speaker 1: gonna take? And I'm like, you know, I it's I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know. I I killed some stuff with
Speaker 1: the with the re curve. That's my main weapon. Um.
Speaker 1: And then antelope for a good example in Nebraska. Uh,
Speaker 1: we don't have a lot of water holes. The rains
Speaker 1: pretty open. I got a few spots you can get
Speaker 1: pretty close, but not you know, pretty close being forty yards.
Speaker 1: And I love eating antelope, so almost every year I
Speaker 1: grabbed the compound and I go shoot one. And that's
Speaker 1: one of those hunts where I just want an antelope,
Speaker 1: you know. To me, that was what we're describing here,
Speaker 1: is the ability to move from weapon to weapon. And
Speaker 1: when I first started, when I first got into traditional archery,
Speaker 1: the mentality was inside of like the hardcore traditionalist guys,
Speaker 1: was that if boy's all or nothing. I mean I
Speaker 1: literally had the guy that kind of mentored me and
Speaker 1: a great man that I respected this day and thank
Speaker 1: him for getting me into traditional archery. I mean he
Speaker 1: was kind of like and in some ways he was right.
Speaker 1: He was like, if you want to be proficient with
Speaker 1: the ad bow and actually do good, you gotta go
Speaker 1: all trad And I mean I totally get that, but
Speaker 1: but so I struggled with that because I wasn't ready
Speaker 1: to dive all the way in. But now I think
Speaker 1: what we're seeing is guys that are that you can
Speaker 1: move back and forth and it's not just like the
Speaker 1: ultimate sin to move back and forth. I tell guys
Speaker 1: all the time like I've heard that one too, and
Speaker 1: I've heard I had one guy tell me that. While
Speaker 1: he wasn't telling me, an outfitter told me about him.
Speaker 1: Apparently he was a terrible, terrible shot with a with
Speaker 1: a recurve, but that's what he wanted to hunt with.
Speaker 1: But he decided to shoot his recurve left handed because
Speaker 1: he shot his compound right handed. That was his so
Speaker 1: he didn't mess up his form, so he didn't mess up.
Speaker 1: That sounds like something Brent would. I've heard some crazy stuff,
Speaker 1: and to be honest, for me, Um, I shoot my
Speaker 1: recurve every single day for the most part of me.
Speaker 1: There are some days where work gets in the way
Speaker 1: and I just run in a daylight. But I'm probably
Speaker 1: the most hardcore recurve guy as anybody. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you stuck with it on all the hunts that you
Speaker 1: have no doubt you're not you're not. I I'm very
Speaker 1: hardcore traditional, but I get to go on enough hunts
Speaker 1: where it's still fun to pick up the compound, and
Speaker 1: for me, it does it doesn't change the way I hunt.
Speaker 1: I've shot. I've only shot one animal past thirty five
Speaker 1: yards with a compound. Uh. And that was an antelope
Speaker 1: last year. So for me, I don't change the way
Speaker 1: I hunt. It just makes me you know, that thirty
Speaker 1: five yards shot thirty five forty yards shot, that's more
Speaker 1: of like a twenty yard shot with my stickbow. So
Speaker 1: it just makes me a shade more proficient. And I
Speaker 1: can pick up my compound and shoot at forty yards. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that's for me, It makes me a
Speaker 1: better shot with my compound because I don't um if
Speaker 1: I shoot my compound the way that I shoot my
Speaker 1: trad bow. And I'm not saying like grip and rip
Speaker 1: it type of stuff, But if I just put that
Speaker 1: pin where I know I would be looking and just
Speaker 1: let it and just let the bow go off, it
Speaker 1: lands there. You know it's um. What is the so
Speaker 1: of all of all the supertan, what was the toughest hunt? Uh? God,
Speaker 1: I should have known you were gonna ask me that. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: let me I'll give you mentally or some of the
Speaker 1: hunts were mentally tough, like the goat hunt. That was
Speaker 1: very mentally tough because that was the most I'd ever
Speaker 1: spent on an animal as far as uh, and it
Speaker 1: was mentally tough because the terrain was tough. I was
Speaker 1: in Alaska. We uh we got rained out for three
Speaker 1: days and uh, you know, so there's three of your
Speaker 1: I think it was a six or seven day hunt. So,
Speaker 1: UM that that one was mentally tough knowing and then
Speaker 1: also the fact that, um, and this is most case says,
Speaker 1: but if you wound one, you're done. If you draw blood,
Speaker 1: you're done. So I wanted a close shot, so that
Speaker 1: that's that puts a lot of pressure on you just
Speaker 1: to make a good shot and and hope that it
Speaker 1: doesn't fall off a cliff to somewhere where you can't
Speaker 1: get it. I mean that hunt was was it was.
Speaker 1: It was mentally tough because the pressure um, as far
Speaker 1: as actually taking the goat was not as I don't
Speaker 1: know make I'm not gonna make light of it. We
Speaker 1: did see I killed my goat on the second day
Speaker 1: of hunting, full full day of hunting. We we hiked
Speaker 1: up the morning before stocked. A billy got within twenty
Speaker 1: nine yards and I wanted to get just a little closer,
Speaker 1: and it moved and and caught my silhouette on a
Speaker 1: on a hill ridge top and he was gone. And
Speaker 1: then the next day we didn't find any billies until
Speaker 1: midday and they were clear across and we ended up
Speaker 1: making a a big long stock. And you know, I
Speaker 1: tell people I'm lucky a lot, and I really feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of hunting is luck. But you gotta
Speaker 1: make that luck. It's not like I'm like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: just wandering all around the woods shooting and getting lucky.
Speaker 1: It's you work hard and then eventually it's just something
Speaker 1: happens exactly. The animals are not lucky that day because
Speaker 1: I mean, we this goat we had saw we we
Speaker 1: really had saw the goats from Afar, but we knew
Speaker 1: there was goats where we were hunting. So we were like, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna try to find these goats. And those goats
Speaker 1: laid up there all morning till noon, and finally we're like,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna go after him. So we made a huge, long,
Speaker 1: probably hour long stock, ended up getting above where we
Speaker 1: thought this goat was just in time, like he probably
Speaker 1: within five minutes he got up below us because we
Speaker 1: couldn't look over the ledge. He was probably within ten
Speaker 1: yards of us, but there was a billy up on
Speaker 1: the hill looking towards us. So we had no idea
Speaker 1: and we were both me and the guy, who was
Speaker 1: an amazing guy. We were looking at each other like
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do now? And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden we just we didn't have to make a decision.
Speaker 1: It got made for us. And then Billy walked out.
Speaker 1: I want to say yards and that's a long poke
Speaker 1: for tread. Somebody is really good it, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: And and I'll be honest, I didn't make a perfect shot,
Speaker 1: but I hit him a little far back. He ran
Speaker 1: down the hill and if an animals still standing, I'm
Speaker 1: still launching and arrows. So I ran up to a
Speaker 1: little knoll and he stopped about forty yards quarter in
Speaker 1: pretty hard away, and I angled one, just passed his
Speaker 1: hip into him and he ran up and uh, and
Speaker 1: he went up onto a snow bank, got kind of high,
Speaker 1: and he got on this big ice patch snow patch
Speaker 1: and lost his legs and just slid to the bottom
Speaker 1: and he was done, like he um. You know. It
Speaker 1: only took me basically a day and a half to
Speaker 1: get this billy on the ground. But in my mind,
Speaker 1: if we were through that Scott stock up, there was
Speaker 1: enough goats up there that I was gonna get plenty
Speaker 1: of stocks. Like I I felt pretty confident I was
Speaker 1: gonna get a good shot. Um. That's one good thing
Speaker 1: about goat hunting. And they you know, they're not, um
Speaker 1: that weird because there's not that much for predators up there.
Speaker 1: I mean the US there fairly not easy to stalk.
Speaker 1: But terrain, Yeah, the terrain is what makes it tough
Speaker 1: just because of something. And where we were was fairly mild.
Speaker 1: I mean there were some spots where it wasn't so
Speaker 1: mild where we were, but where we stocked him was
Speaker 1: was extremely mild for goat country. Um. And then you
Speaker 1: uh so just moving kind of moving quickly through the
Speaker 1: super tin the sheep. That would probably be a big
Speaker 1: thing that people would just say, Man, how am I
Speaker 1: going to ever afford you know, sheep hunts somewhere? But
Speaker 1: you drew a U tag in what state? Nevada? He
Speaker 1: he told me the story last night. But you drew
Speaker 1: a U tag in Nevada over the counter and went
Speaker 1: in and did your homework and uh and killed killed
Speaker 1: a U over water. Well and I'll just you said
Speaker 1: over the counter, but it is actually a drink. You
Speaker 1: didn't buy it out. You didn't. It wasn't out, No,
Speaker 1: it was um. It was a UM and and now
Speaker 1: it's I've sent in for it since. And uh what
Speaker 1: happened was they made the Nevada game parks put this
Speaker 1: um I think there was They gave three tags and
Speaker 1: then it just started the year that and a buddy
Speaker 1: of mine found out about it and told me about it,
Speaker 1: and me and him and another guy sent in for it,
Speaker 1: and two of us drew. Of course that found out
Speaker 1: about it didn't draw. Now it's only I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like a fift because more people found out of it.
Speaker 1: That was the first year, so nobody knew about it,
Speaker 1: so nobody seen you just we I got lucky that
Speaker 1: he let me in on that. And uh, that was
Speaker 1: a really fun hunt went up there. And and it
Speaker 1: would have been it would have been tough with the
Speaker 1: stick on the ground just because of the it's so
Speaker 1: open and it was real shelley and and pretty loud
Speaker 1: stalking and I was getting forty yards easy. But like
Speaker 1: I said, I had set up a ground blind. I
Speaker 1: had no I didn't even think that that was gonna work,
Speaker 1: but it ended up working. And and see that's that's
Speaker 1: what it is. I mean, just your your track record
Speaker 1: is telling me you just have a way of figuring
Speaker 1: out how to make it work. And that's what a
Speaker 1: good hunter does, is just figuring out how to make
Speaker 1: it work. You're you're moose. That's another one. People might
Speaker 1: be like, well, heck, how am I going to afford
Speaker 1: dollar Yukon moose hunt? Well, he you drew a tag
Speaker 1: in Colorado, a cow tag, and so you know, when
Speaker 1: I looked through the pictures of your Super ten, I
Speaker 1: thought it was awesome because you had a you had
Speaker 1: a U sheep, you had a big old cow elk,
Speaker 1: which would have been a chiris, I mean, you know
Speaker 1: in the lower forty eight, right, um. And uh so
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like you. I mean I think
Speaker 1: it's cool. I mean you you worked it, and you
Speaker 1: experience those hunts you experienced call you know, taking these
Speaker 1: animals the meat, and and I've seen this week that
Speaker 1: you're not a you don't really care about the head gear. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I know you'd like to kill big critters, but I
Speaker 1: mean you're just as tickled to take whatever. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, it's and that's I always you know, I've
Speaker 1: bring fred Eichler up a lot. And I know, you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's commercialized a little bit. Now. I think he's
Speaker 1: still the same kind of guy. But you know, you
Speaker 1: can't blame a guy for for jumping on the money train.
Speaker 1: But back when I was watching him and he had
Speaker 1: his old videos and stuff, and he was, you know,
Speaker 1: shooting doze or cow elk and and actually he's the
Speaker 1: one that I got the idea for the sheep and
Speaker 1: the moose. That's how that's what he has. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's got a one of his sheep is a you
Speaker 1: and one of his and his shivers moose is a cow.
Speaker 1: And so that, you know, that's what And I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. He got to go and hunt and you
Speaker 1: get the same experience. I mean like when you killed
Speaker 1: that when you killed that sheep, you said that there
Speaker 1: were big, huge rams standing right beside the you that
Speaker 1: he killed. I mean, you know you could have did it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could have killed it. I could have killed a ram,
Speaker 1: and I could have. Honestly, on the moose hunt, the
Speaker 1: moose might have been one of the tougher hunts because
Speaker 1: on the moose hunt, all I was seeing was big bulls. Um,
Speaker 1: it was harder to find a cow was to find ah.
Speaker 1: And you wouldn't think that, you know what I mean? Uh,
Speaker 1: And a lot of times people don't realize that, you know,
Speaker 1: if you go with a cow tag. Any time I've
Speaker 1: ever had a cow elk tag, I've seen nothing but
Speaker 1: bulls and any and in the cows are are smarter
Speaker 1: than the bulls, you know, I mean if honestly, they're
Speaker 1: in survival mode always. You know, bulls are you know,
Speaker 1: they can tell them right and and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: a big old bull isn't smart, but he can let
Speaker 1: his guard down and a cow I don't think ever.
Speaker 1: So Um, it doesn't take away from the challenge. There's
Speaker 1: more of them, that's the only advantage there is. But
Speaker 1: sometimes that's a disadvantage because if groups up, sometimes they're
Speaker 1: grouped up. You know, the females are going to be
Speaker 1: grouping out. Um brand any thoughts on the supertank because
Speaker 1: I want to transition into this hunt, because because Jake
Speaker 1: killed the bear this week and we're still after one.
Speaker 1: This is this is the question I got. How do
Speaker 1: you how did you get to the point to where
Speaker 1: you you thought, well, hey, you know I've got I
Speaker 1: think I've got all these animals here. I can do this, this, this,
Speaker 1: and I can have a super tend to somebody say, hey, Jake,
Speaker 1: look at what you've done here. Or did you start
Speaker 1: out at the beginning saying this is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill this, do the super teen right? Um No? Actually, uh,
Speaker 1: I was probably about halfway before I thought I could
Speaker 1: probably get it done, you know, and actually went after it.
Speaker 1: I mean I knew about it all, you know, always
Speaker 1: thinking it would be kind of a cool. Honestly, when
Speaker 1: I was younger, uh you know, guys like you know,
Speaker 1: I read um Chuck Adams book, you know, the Super
Speaker 1: Slam book, and then uh Fred went and did it
Speaker 1: with the with the re curve, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that is cool, but that is there's no you know,
Speaker 1: I've killed you know, handful of deer and an antelope
Speaker 1: and this and that and and a bear or whatever.
Speaker 1: Actually it was a mountain lion that I'd killed. But um,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, that'd be cool. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a lifetime goal, like I can do this. And then
Speaker 1: as I knocked a cup more off the list got
Speaker 1: about halfway done. I was, I'll just keep you know,
Speaker 1: every year, I'll try to go on another adventure and
Speaker 1: and every year, you know, I got my business, so
Speaker 1: I was able to um have a little more free
Speaker 1: time at certain points, and it's only gotten a little
Speaker 1: better and better. UM. So it kind of I always
Speaker 1: knew about it, but and it was maybe always kind
Speaker 1: of a goal in my head as far as eventually.
Speaker 1: But when I got four or five animals, then it
Speaker 1: was like all right, and and it kind of went
Speaker 1: I'm very goal oriented it once I set one. It
Speaker 1: it's just let me follow that. Let me follow that
Speaker 1: question that with this one. Was it when you first
Speaker 1: knew about it, when you first learned about it, about
Speaker 1: the super tan and then you started clicking them off?
Speaker 1: Was it harder than you thought it would be more
Speaker 1: of a challenge or was it easier? Did it come
Speaker 1: to you like, man, I can't believe that this is happening. Um.
Speaker 1: At the beginning, it was. It was hard. I went
Speaker 1: on quite a few. Actually, that's funny because the bear
Speaker 1: was one of the harder animals to get for me. UM.
Speaker 1: I had a couple hunts or I didn't see any,
Speaker 1: didn't get a shot, and uh, I was bargain hunting.
Speaker 1: All the places I went were good places. I never
Speaker 1: had a bad bad experience. I'm not saying I but uh,
Speaker 1: I mean there just wasn't the mass bears like you see.
Speaker 1: So once I got that accomplished, Um, it started clicking
Speaker 1: a little bit more as I went. I mean it
Speaker 1: seems kind of well. It mean that makes sense. But um,
Speaker 1: the first few animals to get we're tough and and elk.
Speaker 1: When did you complete it? Uh? Last year? What animal
Speaker 1: completed this? Lam My bison? I actually shot? It was Uh,
Speaker 1: last year was kind of a crazy year. I shot
Speaker 1: a mountain goat in September and then a bison and
Speaker 1: December to finish it. So and so you're thirty one
Speaker 1: years old. That's that's pretty cool, you know. To me,
Speaker 1: always a guy, I got. The cool thing about hunting
Speaker 1: in North America is that a guy can find the
Speaker 1: challenge that is scripted just for him and what he
Speaker 1: needs to do. I mean, like, I'll probably never even
Speaker 1: attempt to do this supertend my goals right now inside
Speaker 1: of my life, or to bear hunt all across this
Speaker 1: great land and and experience all that the bear huntingware.
Speaker 1: I mean like that's pretty unique challenge. I mean, not
Speaker 1: many people are trying to do that, but for my
Speaker 1: world that those are my main goals. Now I'm still
Speaker 1: doing a lot of other stuff. But but because I
Speaker 1: think sometimes like the reason we're having you on this
Speaker 1: podcast is not to elevate the slam to this thing,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of people that are never going
Speaker 1: to do that. And that's not But what I like
Speaker 1: about what I see and here inside of you is
Speaker 1: that you set a goal, You built your you build
Speaker 1: your business, you build your family, and you kind of
Speaker 1: built your life like pointed in this direction. And it
Speaker 1: took a lot of coordination and it took a lot
Speaker 1: of and and now I don't know your family and stuff,
Speaker 1: but you know, I know there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: that have wrecked their families pursuing goals and and and
Speaker 1: I when I hear you talk about your family and wife,
Speaker 1: like I I I hear that you've calculated them into
Speaker 1: the equation. And so it's like you kind of got
Speaker 1: this think prioritized and uh, it just and if you
Speaker 1: prioritize your life and you get a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: right And for me, for me, number one, it is
Speaker 1: family I mean it's like I can't do any of
Speaker 1: this if I'm sacrificing really what's important in life. But
Speaker 1: if I build that right, and my wife and I
Speaker 1: are we're a partnership, and and and and I'm supporting
Speaker 1: her and the things she wants to do, and I'm
Speaker 1: providing for her, and I'm I got all and my
Speaker 1: kids are fathered, and I mean, you know it's like
Speaker 1: all this stuff is in order, then Clay can be
Speaker 1: gone for eighteen days like I have been this month. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people miss that, Jake.
Speaker 1: And uh, because there's a there's there's guy. I was
Speaker 1: reading a book yesterday. This it's a hunting book, and
Speaker 1: this guy just nonchalantly made a comment that he hunted
Speaker 1: as a guy trying to train a pack of hounds.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna name the book. And he and his
Speaker 1: wife left him just because he hunted too much. And
Speaker 1: he just said it like it was just like no
Speaker 1: big deal and he just moved on. And I anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm a family man, Jake, I mean me too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And see that's what people don't understand. I actually had
Speaker 1: a guy comment here's what I get, Um, I get
Speaker 1: the comment, Oh, you're so lucky, You're you're so lucky
Speaker 1: to get to to go um or it'd be nice
Speaker 1: when do you work? And you know, I don't even
Speaker 1: it doesn't honestly bother me. But when I get those
Speaker 1: calm ments, I'm like, well, so anyway, I I said
Speaker 1: something about that, you know, hey, uh, I can't remember
Speaker 1: what I was doing. But um, it's gotta be a balance.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a balance of everything. I spend
Speaker 1: a ton of time with my family. I spend a
Speaker 1: ton of time working. I mean, my brothers are big
Speaker 1: help to me when I'm when I'm gone, they're taking
Speaker 1: care of things. They you know, they work for me.
Speaker 1: There I can trust them. That works. And like you
Speaker 1: were saying, I built every part of my life around
Speaker 1: this and and people. You know, I drive a fourteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollar truck, not a fifty thousand dollar truck. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I live in a pretty nice home. But
Speaker 1: it was just by sheer luck and it didn't cost
Speaker 1: me that much. But so I don't even really know
Speaker 1: what I'm getting at. But there's gotta be a balance.
Speaker 1: You can't spend all day Sunday watching football and expect
Speaker 1: to you know, Sunday, if I'm home, me and the
Speaker 1: family or hiking, or me and the family are going
Speaker 1: fishing or um, you know, if I'm home, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. I'm spending my time with my family. Think
Speaker 1: what you're trying to say, Jake, is the dream is free,
Speaker 1: but the hustle is sold separately. Yeah. That's a really
Speaker 1: good way to say. I've been waiting for episodes to
Speaker 1: say that. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to say it. It.
Speaker 1: Um you know, I mean I when I'm at home,
Speaker 1: usually I'm up by four o'clock in the morning. Uh,
Speaker 1: and uh, I'm doing something paperwork or sometimes I'm playing
Speaker 1: with my little girl because she's awake to Uh sometimes
Speaker 1: she's doing paperwork. Yeah, I wish she could. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's just well, what what I'm here. I
Speaker 1: think it's really clear what you are saying and what
Speaker 1: we're seeing is that you work hard for this. I
Speaker 1: mean you're not you're not a rich boy that just
Speaker 1: gets to do what he wants and has the money
Speaker 1: to go. I mean you're working for this stuff, and
Speaker 1: and that's that's what's cool and that I guess it's
Speaker 1: probably surprising and would be to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Um is that these things are doable if if it's
Speaker 1: what you want to do. But and I'm not suggesting
Speaker 1: that everybody should do it either, because I don't want
Speaker 1: I don't want all the competition, you know. Leave the
Speaker 1: U tags for Jake, That's right, that's all. I gotta
Speaker 1: stop talking about that stuff because people are are definitely
Speaker 1: getting more involved in that because um but yeah, I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Most of the people that actually say
Speaker 1: that that you're so lucky, they don't even hunt deer
Speaker 1: when they can, I mean in their backyard, so it's
Speaker 1: just a thought, you know. And they romantic size hunting.
Speaker 1: They don't. A lot of people romanticize hunting. And a
Speaker 1: lot of people bear hunting this like, and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying bear hunting is easy. That is not what I'm
Speaker 1: saying at all. I'm just saying it's more laid back
Speaker 1: than like a backpack elk hunt. When you're grinding every
Speaker 1: day all day and you know you're eating your mountain
Speaker 1: house in the tent, going what am I doing up here?
Speaker 1: This is the insane. I would rather go back to work.
Speaker 1: It's tough, you know. I mean some of the vacations
Speaker 1: and I use the air quotes on that, uh, that
Speaker 1: I take are not vacations. I mean I'm working harder
Speaker 1: when I come back from some hunts, I tell my
Speaker 1: wife because you know, the perception is you've been out
Speaker 1: for a week doing something you're passionate about. And I say,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've been in a war. Exhausted. Now
Speaker 1: it's time to get rest of that. Ba. What did
Speaker 1: I say? You know, when we left the lodge as
Speaker 1: while to come over here to do this. That's something
Speaker 1: I've been leaving back to work. So I get some red. Yeah, exactly. Hey,
Speaker 1: we're at uh let's let's we've got about ten minutes here,
Speaker 1: and uh, I want to just briefly. We got I
Speaker 1: gotta go kill a bear. This is seventh sixth day
Speaker 1: in my hunt. We gotta leave tonight. Um, but I
Speaker 1: want to talk just real briefly about so this hunt.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even gonna get into my side of it.
Speaker 1: We'll all do that later. But you killed the bart
Speaker 1: on the first day. Well, I'm not very picky. Um,
Speaker 1: you know. For me, Uh, opportunity is my window. And
Speaker 1: to be honest, I've killed a lot of big animals
Speaker 1: that way. Uh, And I've killed some small ones and
Speaker 1: and my bear is just an average bear, just you know.
Speaker 1: We we snuck up on it and the guide was
Speaker 1: back and forth, all shoot it, man, I don't know,
Speaker 1: he's not very big. He shooted. I don't you know
Speaker 1: he he was? And you were like, let me help
Speaker 1: you make that? Yeah, you know. Um, for me, uh,
Speaker 1: it's just a I love to hunt and I have
Speaker 1: all I've killed some big bears I killed. I think
Speaker 1: we weighed that when I killed last year, and he
Speaker 1: was like three fifty three sixty not a huge skull
Speaker 1: like I think he was like eighteen and three quarter
Speaker 1: eighteen and five eights. I don't know something, my tax
Speaker 1: terms measured it whatever, But um, I'm not a trophy hunter.
Speaker 1: I like to kill big animals, mature animals, but I
Speaker 1: don't have to for a hunt to go to be successful.
Speaker 1: For me, I I this bear is gonna eat really good.
Speaker 1: And and I love I loved you know. I didn't
Speaker 1: know you at all coming into this hunt. And the
Speaker 1: first thing you said, really before you even knew who
Speaker 1: I was and what my mission inside of you know,
Speaker 1: hunting is, you said, man, I'm here for the meat. Truly,
Speaker 1: you truly like bear mate. Yeah, I do. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: funny because not very many people go bear hunting for
Speaker 1: the meat. It's it's kind of funny. It's it's actually
Speaker 1: terrible because if they knew what they were missing out on.
Speaker 1: I mean that awesome buco. I can't wait to make that,
Speaker 1: and that's awesome. It's gonna be like eight families that
Speaker 1: were represented at that at the camp up over there
Speaker 1: or that are here in camp now. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: making that recip Bears are in trouble when we start,
Speaker 1: when we've been seeing bears across the road, would be
Speaker 1: like there goes to Assabuka as they make assa buco
Speaker 1: out of the forearm of of well, any critter, but
Speaker 1: bear it. Uh yeah, bear in a slow cooker is
Speaker 1: honestly my one of my favorite of all time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love bear meat and my wife loves it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm a meat hunter. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and tell you that I don't like
Speaker 1: to hunt for big animals. And I'm not gonna say
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't you know. After a few more bears
Speaker 1: passed the bear, I shot, uh, but I'm plumb happy.
Speaker 1: But but now that it's happened, you're glad you did
Speaker 1: because yeah, uh, because we've struggled, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's not that we hadn't struggled. There's two other boat well,
Speaker 1: myself and another guy are bow hunters, who are three
Speaker 1: bow hunters in camp, and uh and here it is
Speaker 1: the sixth day, and now I have been close to
Speaker 1: a couple of smaller bears that you know, we're within
Speaker 1: tread bow range. Um. And then uh, Cody has just
Speaker 1: it's been a miracle that he's not killed a bear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he can shoot a long way as too. And uh
Speaker 1: uh the wind has just been destroying. And these bears
Speaker 1: they're not stupid there. If they catch, they're not giving
Speaker 1: anybody any second chance. And if they catch a if
Speaker 1: they catch just a slight movement, which is is rare
Speaker 1: I think or not rare. I shouldn't say that because
Speaker 1: this is my first spot in stock But uh, well,
Speaker 1: what what Jeff said. We described it in another podcast.
Speaker 1: These we're seeing grizzly. I mean, you guys saw eight
Speaker 1: foot plus mountain grizzly yesterday in a place that we've
Speaker 1: been stalking bears crawling around on the edge of these
Speaker 1: fields on our hands and knees for the last four days.
Speaker 1: So these bears are on edge. There's a high population
Speaker 1: of black bears and a very high population of grizzly
Speaker 1: and so these bears heads are on a swivel, so
Speaker 1: a lot of times when they're spooking from us on
Speaker 1: a stalk, where in different places that stock probably would
Speaker 1: have killed eighty percent of the bears in North America.
Speaker 1: Here they haven't. But the main thing that's killed us
Speaker 1: has been the wind. We have not lacked for seeing
Speaker 1: super bears every single day, but man, we've we've had
Speaker 1: I mean I've been like on the perfect stalk, I mean,
Speaker 1: like everything was right and then the wind just dumps
Speaker 1: in the back of the neck. Bear just skirts off.
Speaker 1: They're done. But you just give us like a three
Speaker 1: minute version of your hunt. Uh well, uh, I honestly
Speaker 1: didn't even see the bear. Um the guide Ryan, he
Speaker 1: he was. We were cruising down the road and actually
Speaker 1: we had just uh it was the very first I
Speaker 1: mean we flew in, drove in, grabbed her stuff and
Speaker 1: went out and we had saw one beard. It was
Speaker 1: a really nice bear and and he caught our wind
Speaker 1: or actually, well anyway, we had to drive past him
Speaker 1: and we're gonna come back after him. Drove down the
Speaker 1: road aways and I didn't even know what was going on.
Speaker 1: He drove by. I could tell he might have saw something,
Speaker 1: and he pulled off the road and we just snuck back.
Speaker 1: And we had just driven past the clear cut, and
Speaker 1: we we snuck back, and then I could see a
Speaker 1: bear milling around. So we got in the ditch and
Speaker 1: it was that deep, deep ditch, and then it came
Speaker 1: up to the where the clear cut was and worked
Speaker 1: to where we were in line with it, and uh
Speaker 1: just sat there and watched it and watched it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to say we were probably there for a
Speaker 1: half hour, watching at mill around and and it was
Speaker 1: probably only out there about thirty yards, but it was
Speaker 1: kind of easing towards us, and he was going back
Speaker 1: and forth. Oh it's you know, it's it's not huge,
Speaker 1: but it's all right. Well, maybe it's a sow. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it's a he goes. You can
Speaker 1: shoot it if you want, he goes, But we got
Speaker 1: six six days, you know, it's up to you. And uh,
Speaker 1: well that's all I needed, So I said, I just
Speaker 1: told him, I said, if it comes to under twenty yards,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot it. And all right. So and it
Speaker 1: did it. It worked around this big stump and I
Speaker 1: want to say it was probably fifteen yards and uh
Speaker 1: was angling by and it was getting close to it
Speaker 1: was getting close to dark. Um shot got a complete
Speaker 1: pass through. It ran off. It kind of tried like
Speaker 1: it kind of moved off. I almost shot another arrow
Speaker 1: at it, but um, it wasn't moving very fast and
Speaker 1: we thought, oh, it's it's done. And we ended up
Speaker 1: looking at the arrow and it it looked like good blood.
Speaker 1: I felt like the shot was a little high, but um, anyway,
Speaker 1: it kind of went off and got under a big
Speaker 1: branch and we thought, well, it's gonna die there we
Speaker 1: saw good blood. I mean it just it just looked
Speaker 1: like it was done. You know. It didn't bail off
Speaker 1: into the trees. So our decision was to get in
Speaker 1: the truck and Joe go back and see if we
Speaker 1: could get on that other. See if that other Yeah,
Speaker 1: Cody was with us, so we were gonna go check
Speaker 1: that out and let this bear go, you know, die.
Speaker 1: So we didn't run into having it charges or whatever.
Speaker 1: So we did that, came back and and now it's
Speaker 1: getting pretty dark, and uh we walked over to where
Speaker 1: it had been and there's no bear. I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I know better than to not try to put another
Speaker 1: arrow into a bear. And I was kind of kicking
Speaker 1: myself and and I don't know what I was not
Speaker 1: seeing the Ryan he uh Cody or Ryan and Cody
Speaker 1: were behind me, and Ryan was over here and he
Speaker 1: saw the bear walking away from us when he walked
Speaker 1: in and he I guess he said that, but I
Speaker 1: didn't hear him. So I'm only here looking under this tree.
Speaker 1: And he kind of walks over and he's like, it's
Speaker 1: it was going over there. Oh no, it's still alive.
Speaker 1: Like so anyway, we just start kind of walking along
Speaker 1: and uh, he was right here beside me walking and
Speaker 1: something jumped up like five feet away from us, and
Speaker 1: kind of you can hear it clawn the tree, and
Speaker 1: I mean it was right there, and he's like, it's
Speaker 1: right here, And so I came around the tree and
Speaker 1: just put one right through its boiler and it just
Speaker 1: climbed up the tree just a little bit and then
Speaker 1: fell off and uh died right there. It was over
Speaker 1: on the first day. My hunt was over. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I for me, it's it's not a big bear. Uh
Speaker 1: but uh that really wasn't what I was here for
Speaker 1: so well. I mean the thing, the thing about traditional
Speaker 1: archery is that you the hunt really does become about opportunity,
Speaker 1: and that's what it has has been lacking for me
Speaker 1: here so far, is that, uh, you know, you're hunting
Speaker 1: for a chance. You know that's within range, that that's
Speaker 1: within the limitations of the self imposed limitations that you've
Speaker 1: chosen for the hunt, which we have, which we're hunting
Speaker 1: with trad bows. But man, well, congratulations on the bear.
Speaker 1: And it's been awesome getting to uh hang out with
Speaker 1: you in camp this week and inspiring uh stories about
Speaker 1: the super ten and it was fun to shoot with
Speaker 1: you out here and that it's been a good It's
Speaker 1: been a great week. I've had a ton of fun.
Speaker 1: I uh yeah, I wish Aaron could have come up
Speaker 1: with us, but uh yeah, it uh it worked out
Speaker 1: good for me. Yeah, Brent closing concluders, what you guys
Speaker 1: are all you know, I'm a bow hunter, but I
Speaker 1: don't I don't do the trash stuff, but I enjoy
Speaker 1: watching you guys said goals practice. You practice more than
Speaker 1: anybody doing anything that I've seen. I mean, you guys
Speaker 1: are always shooting, to the point that it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to nap at times because you hear yeah, and
Speaker 1: then what I what I listened for is I hear
Speaker 1: the string and then I hear the thump. But my
Speaker 1: favorite one was when I hear the string and I
Speaker 1: don't hear the thump because I know somebody's shut in
Speaker 1: the ground, somebody's got to crawl over the fence and
Speaker 1: go find an era. But it's fun, man, it's it's um,
Speaker 1: it's unique experience following somebody around with the camera and
Speaker 1: watch them do this because it's it's ain't easy. It
Speaker 1: ain't easy. Well, lots of fun. Well that's good. We're
Speaker 1: gonna close down right here in an hour. Thanks for
Speaker 1: checking out the Barrowning Magazine podcast and keep the wild
Speaker 1: Places wild because that's where the bears live to