00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is a me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely fog bitten in my case, underwear listening hunt don't Eat podcast. You can't predict anything. Uh, you're honest. You're earlier you were researching a product. I was thinking, you know, when you're talking to Ridge Pounder, if you put it on to the listeners, they might have input. They could email into you about the product you're researching. Is that's a polarizer for my new spots. It was a little earlier, it wasn't there. I think that will solicit way too much. So I think that every Some people would have adamant opinions about it. Some people would be aghast. And if you're in laws in the South, have a problem now with what goes on. Um, I'm drinking bourbon right now, which I just do not like. I think that. Uh. I remember one time I got grounded for a long time. My dad let us go on a canoe trip instead of being grounded, which I still don't fully understand how why he let us do that. But we were grounded for for lying and and inn lying some more to to to cover up the lie. And then things went down hill from there and we got grounded, but we're allowed to go on a Conune trip. I remember sitting and drinking. I was fifteen, my brother was sixteen, and I remember sitting there at the head of the White River um drinking. I think it was Canadian hunter. And since that day, I just have never liked this stuff. Is that even bourbon? That's Canadian whiskey. It's a blending this stuff man bloom, Yeah, any of this stuff, I like, uh, Roman vodka. This has gotta be one of the more boring beginnings that I've done. Mark, What do you see this morning here in camp? Well, this is Mark Kenyon pulled up in my tent door and literally the first thing I saw, not the grass, not the sky, Mama Grizzly and cub riding camp five ft away from the crew, the very tent we're sitting in. Yeah, oh yeah, we're in a tent right now. If you hear like noise, pitter pattern noise, that's rain. So if you don't like the sound quality of this show, that means you don't like nature, So you should go listen to the Rob Bishop podcast. But but this is uh yeah, the pitter patter sounds and we've had like um, yeah, Johnny talk about the grizzly, the other grizzly, A lot of grizz Yeah, that was the wee'd already. We think more than likely that was the same Mama. Oh, I know, I'm just saying that we had we We've been watching the sound or cub for better well, probably half a day yesterday as they ate berries as a vacuum berries across the tundra. But the first grizz was also right below camp and we had just come in after looking at some caribou, and uh, it was the first day we got here, so we couldn't hunt. Ye in Alaska generally think it's fair to say germally, in Alaska generally you cannot hunt on the same day you fly, preventing people from spying a critter from the air and then landing near it and shooting let a nighttime pass. I believe now that um because they felt like even the day before was giving too much advantage. I believe there are some sheep units now where it's up to like three or four or five days. That's a fact checked out. But I think there's guys that have to go in and basically scout for five days. Before they hunt if they want to take a plane in or or you can walk in. Yeah, I know they're like, there's some stuff with not even be able to uh, not being able to scout from the are difficult doing force, but not being able to scout from there? There we are, there, we are are you guys had all gotten back to camp first, and uh, what's that doing? I must have just peeled off to get a little footage looking at something, and uh, yeah, I noticed a big blonde blob right below Geart's tent. I came over here and we walked over the edge and found it. And it's probably what, I don't know, hundred fifty yards away. We saw it, we washed it hunting it was. It wasn't eating berries, it was hunting rodents, ground squirrels. I guess it needs mostly ground squirrels. Or is it like a vole mole type thing there? I mean they could be voles moles. They could be looking for something subterranean. Because today on the way hike back we saw some of the diggings and it's like they just take two or three quick swipes, dig a hole about a foot deep and then move on. Yeah, it's amazing well, how much trouble they'll go through to unearth something so small. Yeah, but it's if you think about its probably don't mean power bar probably has more calories than one of these things that they're eating. Yeah, and they'll dig up, you know, a bunch of head sized boulders and dig a big hole to get it out. But then if you looked at how much time he needs he spends to get that caloric value of blueberries, it's probably still a good deal to dig up ground squirrels. Oh, you think spends more energy sucking up blueberries. What I'm saying, it's like just to you know, watching them eat blueberries is voraciously as the blueberries, where it almost seems like they're really mad at the blueberries. Um, that takes time to write. So if you put if you put a couple of minutes into a ground squirrel, it might be that you're getting more calories. And if you put a couple of minutes into eating lower quantity blueberries, So does that grizzly then well then we had a whole other adventure. You know what. Let's go, we'll take it in somewhat chronological order. I'm gonna like, let me lay some ground one we talked about the dr day, we're out hunting. Um. We're in a tent out hunting caribou in what is called the forty Mile Herd. So there's a river near here, the forty Mile River, and and the was a caribou heard here called the forty Mile Herd. Now I'm being highly redundant. We've been discussing this every which way on our hunt. But in Alaska you have about thirty five herds of caribou. UM. A herd is defined down to groupings of caribou that have distinctive calving summering grounds. So these herds might overlap in the winter, but they have distinct having summering grounds. So there's thirty five groupings of caribou of varying numbers. The forty Mile Herd is comprised of about fifty thousand caribou right now. The number fluctuates wildly. So in the twenties it was down to caribou no, no, yeah, that's when it was at its high. Clarify a mark well in the twenties because of one of the theories, as you mentioned during our hunt, was that because of domesticated dogs coming in with a lot of the miners and different people homesteady and checking it up. Possibly disease was transferred to the wolves. You had such a low predator population that that prey population the caribook exploded. I can't remember the numbers. Quarter million, quarter million, five times as many as today in the twenties incredible, and then by the seventies I believe it was that number had dropped as low as seventy three that did an account, and this herd had six thousand, five hundred caribou, which is the lowest it's been and known his On the bright side though, right it's it's rebounded again and now it's held steady that they just did a new account. Um the figures aren't in yet, and these are pretty accurate accounts because they're waiting until the they're waiting until the cariboo are bunched up in the summer on feeding grounds, and then there they get heavily pressured by mosquitoes and it forces them to go into these groupings in like a little ideal habitat places like on snow fields or wind swept ridges where you get away from the bugs, and it gets some grouped up pretty tight and so they'll fly surveys at those times, and it's like it's not like crazy ship like when you're trying to count wolves or trying to count grizzlies when you're running like models. They're out literally photographing and counting caribit. Yeah, it was interesting. When I was flying in, my pilot was talking about the process and he said that for a handful of years now they've been trying to do this, but it takes such a specific set of circumstances to get the cariboo to group up to that degree where you can get that done accurately, that for three or four years they've been trying to haven't been able to get it. And then, like you said, just this year, finally they did have those circumstances, They got the right conditions, so they'll have some new numbers, which is interesting. Yeah, I think, like earlier, there's some sort of evidence that suggests that the hurd has seems to have helped have stabilized at around fifty thousand. But see that caribra herds are like, you know, wildly cyclical, and it's not always understood what's causing them to go up and down. It seems like a valve that they can use to to to a valve that can be turned our wolves. So they did a mortality study up here. There's two thousand four. They did a mortality study up here, and at the time they had they figured at a time they had north of forty six thousand caribou and they had some collaring projects going on. They did a mortality studying. They figured that in a year, if you ever heard of forty six I think it was like an estimated forty six thousand, five hundred caribou. And in a year they figure seven thousand are killed by wolves, around four thousand are killed by grizzly bears, around two thousand, five hundred are killed by other pre editors, about a thousand die by accidents, drowning and rock slides and all kinds of are things, and and avalanches are a bitch on caribou. And then about those I think they not about they know this one exactly. I think goes eight hundreds some killed by human hunters um And that's a lot of attrition, man, But the herd still grew from there, just from from you know, just natural birth. So that's where we are hunting. The forty mile heard, the forty mile heard, Like in Alaska they have weight somewhout different tag types on this show, like different hunting permits where you have you know, over the counter tags, limited draw tags. Um, we gotta like put your name in a lottery to get awarded a hunting permit, governor's tags where like they go to the highest bidder um which is very contentious cont tag the contag you hunt when you hunt the forty mile heard is a is a registration permit and they they have they have a mortality cap. There's a certain number of animals that will allow to be killed and then they'll end the season. But anyone that comes to hunts needs to register to do the hunt. So we're hunting on registration tags and um. When this herd right now, they're very far removed from any kind of roads. But now and then this herd will drift over and get out of the highway near the highway system where people can really get after him, and the hunt can end in days because so many people get after him. But right now they're very well. They have like a moat of they're protected by a vast moat of roadless, riverless country like you just can't get in done what to get in here as an aircraft. And you can't hunt using rotary wing aircraft. You can only hunt out of fixed wing aircraft. So you're gonna use fixed wing aircraft to transport for hunting. And so there's very limited places to put a plane down. You know, you can't just go laying on the plane like you can a helicopter. So they're wee well buffet right now. Um, and we flew in how long was I think last year? Um? For context, I think last year and we were here, we flew out on around they're back in toke and the and the quota was filled, was it? Yeah? Or they were saying they were saying that there was one or two or three left, but like it was, it was nearing the end. The galley checked me and said that the one that we killed that I killed was probably one of the last ones. I didn't I didn't even catch that. When did the season starting? Yeah, that we're not percent year on sou Yeah, flew in using an air carrier. So we've we've got our names in um what was it two thousand seventeen. Now, we we made a plan, like we made a reservation to fly into this area back in two thousand and sixteen. It's like you gotta be you know, early bird gets the worm out on booking, on booking a bush pilot if you want a good reputable bush pilot. So we made a reservation a long time ago to get flown in to this area and flew in here, landed you canunt. On the first day, went into a little scout about and shp loads of Cariboan like we're in the herds moving, but how many? How many do we see the first day, first day of hunting, her first day scouting, first day of scouting, hundred give or take dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens dozens. Um ran into that grizzly that night any time datnight. No, no, but we only like we're scouting for a couple of hours time we got our camp set up. The whole time we're setting our camp, this cable. Then um, the first day we wake up, we go and get on a glass and tit and then it was like then they were just coming through. That was hundreds, you know, oh yeah, easily hundreds of at least five hundreds. It was. It's kind of interesting though, when and we talked about this being maybe like a product of our our Discovery Channel world we live in where we just understand these areas based on a nature documentary. But when I envisioned coming out here and seeing hundreds or thousands of cariboos, I imagine this one single large mass, like an amiba of cariboo flowing down the hillside. And it's not like that. We see hundreds and hundreds of caribou, but it's like a trickle, but it's like endless trickle. Or here here's a dozen, or there's two, or there's five, But you can look any different direction and here they are, and there's more, there's more. Probably single biggest group is that we've seen, I don't know, like on top of those flats. That's a good point mark that you bring up, um, is that if you, okay, imagine that, it's like plopped you down here with with If I just plopped you down and gave you a pair of bnoculars and said, describe what you're seeing, you wouldn't say, oh, I'm watching a caribou migration. You would think I'm seeing a like a scattering of caribou everywhere I look. But then a couple of hours later, you might be like, and I'm noticing that this scattering of cariboos spread out over many miles, are sort of kind of moving east, sort of kind of being the key the key words sort of kind of moving east, except for when they really are hauling ass east um. And they move not like in like not like in hardnal directions, but they're so they're just following contours, hitting like going down ridge lines, upstreams, catching little saddles and passes, and I think that the whole moving mass of caribou. So you have fifty thousand cariboo on the move, but the front, if you will, like like, it's fifty thousand cariboos spread over twenty twenty mile width. That's what my pilot had told me, moving in an easterly direction, and you're somewhere in that twenty miles, and when you're on a good tip, you're looking at let's say three miles three mile width or two mile width, and they have this way of like kind of following each other. But it changes, not just throughout, it changes day to day and also throughout the day where you'll see a band come through and then a while later a band that isn't related to that band will follow their exact line, and you realize that you're witnessing in like from your glass and tip, you're picking out that there's sort of like today for instance, we had remember their carry we were calling ridge runner. I don't know live. We call all caribou fabio because the males are getting their winter pellage and they get a big long, white flowing main. But uh, there's that line okay, going down the ridge, crossing the river and then coming up by by Nipple Peak. Then there's like the line of going up that creek all the way to its head and crossing by gut Pile number one. Then there's a line of coming across the high mesa by the by the by the terraced plateau and then peeling off and going down through the um spruce. Then there's sort of a line that comes off the terraced Mesa and just comes right down through gut Pile one. I love the vocabulary with our developed to describe our entire set. Have to. Yeah, there's certain themes that come up anatomical parts. That's pretty consistent every hunting place that anatomical parts generally female, no no, no, definitely not actually like a scroll mountain and just you know what they're are kind of resent that because when I say nipple, beute thinking male nipples. Yeah, female nipples because of this nothing nothing sexually. No, you're no, you're yeah. I think that like ships, people tend to name. Yeah, there's like a name you're in dear too. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot more Maggie's nipples on the maps, and there are Fred's nipples. That's true now, you know by our fish shack um nem. Not not gonna say this never mind. Another point though about the migration too, because sometimes you think, like, man, they are really going every single direction, but like you said, it's like twenty miles wide, maybe it's forty miles long, who knows, And within the just your little uh you know zone that you can see, they could be going north for a little while, but end up still like eventually, over the course of three days, they've still moved east. You might have even seen him going west for a little bit through the whole time you saw him, they were going west. But again, over the course of three days, they eventually ended up farther east than they were at the beginning. Of three days. Does that make sense because you're just like, You're like, these things are going to every direction, but in the course of three days, they they're like going the direction they're supposed to be going. I think that if you took any caribou and marked them at when we get up on our glass and knob, and then you marked that caribos any care where we see, you marked his location and then remarked it eight hours later, that new mark would be in some way east. Over the course of eight hours, he would have moved eastward by whatever routed. And then they get disturbed and then do weird stuff, and they'll they'll get disturbed and go back direction they came from. Something. I gotta I gotta have you clarified, because I thought it was really cool on the on the terms of migration is like when Mark got his caribou, you made the comment that this caribou more than likely had never been in that area before, and it were at the same like a lot of a lot of the area we're hiking on and hunting on, there's a good chance there hasn't been you know, humans. I mean there there could be, but yeah, just like there's a lot of little places you could walk to be reasonable, that like pretty reasonable that you could be like, I bet you know guys ever stepped right here before, but not unreasonable. On the same note, though, how these caribou they're not like this is not their area. They're just passing through. So you're they're seeing the country for the first time to some extent, and you're seeing them in that that space for the first time, which is crazy that they're just passing through. But they still have all these trails just beaten down into the mountain. When you're flying over, you can't believe the trails, like thousands of years of caribou walk in the path. It's like, you know, it's pretty fragile ground. Everything is extremely slow going, so you can have you know, it's probably possible that you can have a hundred cariboo comes stamping down something and then a year later, see, I mean it's a it's a fragile landscape. Man. A year later it would be that that vegetation hasn't recuperated. Now, you do that down in southeast and the the rainforests eats it back up. But here it's like if you you know you're walking on mosses and lichens, and they just cut trails everywhere. And yeah, it's not like a trail is being used every day. But yeah, yeah. To to the to Dirt's point, which is a point I was making, is that an interesting thing about caribo in some Cariboo migrate a thousand miles you know, um, these ones don't. They don't migrant you know that far. But it's reasonable that not a reasonable probable that when you're watching caribou, you're very likely seeing them passed through a place for the first time in their life, especially if it's not like a particularly old animal, because they take these routes, these routes very like like, for instance, a couple of years ago, this much of this herd. And again you can't always say like the herd, because then some will peel off and do their own thing and not stay with the main grouping. But a couple of years ago this group wound up going into Ukon territory and winnering in Yukon territory, and then that hasn't happened again in a few years. So they don't have, you hear, like like term five ledy with wildlife. They don't have fidelity, just specific zones. Um, they have like some places they go habitually, but they take different routes going through there. And then again it's only like in a general sense where they're going to show up. So like if you get used to you know, white tailed deer who lives his whole life within what Yeah, I mean they can expand beyond that for a day or two or weeks here and there, you know, during the rut. But a core a core range could be forty acres and then a little larger maybe three acres. They spend another five percent other time. But tight, yeah, long story, shorts. Tight. So I already said I don't wanna talk about who's here real quick. Um, as Mark Kenyon from do you mainly like like your main gig is Wired to Hunt, the Wired Hunt guy. I'm the Wired Hunt guy. That is what keeps the mortars paid. So Mark Colsa a politic cast called podcast called wire to Hunt and and focuses um a lot of his love and attention on on America's dear and that's the truth. And then uh, as though dealing poker. But you have a website too, right, yeah, yeah, so start out just as a website Wired Hunt was a website and then expanded to a podcast. The website was just like Tips Tricks, it starts a blog, so it was how twos and then my own experiences and stories and news and conservation and all that kind of stuff related to the white tail YouTube the whole nine yards. Why the name Wired Hunt. You're playing on two things there. Yeah. Yeah, So the long the short story would be, I was working an internship in New York City and my job was basically two work with bloggers and the digital media to help promote products. And so I read all sorts of stuff related to that Wired magazine being one of them, and also so that just would always bring to my mind different things related to technology everything like that, and I wanted to create a deer hunting website but for the next generation that was tech savvy, and also the audience would be tech savvy. But then also the way I would communicate things that related to deer hunting would be in a different way. So that's where weird Hunt came. So that the the tech side, but then also I'm just wired different, right, those people that absolutely love to hunt. You're wired to hunt. It's in your blood. It's just part of you. So yes, double meaning worked out kind of nicely and it stuck and then um, the eagles here now, and then uh, mr Doug darn hello anything else you? When I add Dug, I would say, um. When we were talking about this caribou behavior, I was surprised at how uh I mean, I expected to see groups moving together, then moving generally in a direction, But I was surprised at how many individuals I saw doing there their own thing. Yeah, just sort of meandering their way seemingly with total disregard with for what everyone else was doing. Generally youngsters and cows. Yeah, yeah, the occasional bull. But if you notice the biggest, the big bulls, like the I mean the it's a percent a percent of what you're looking at. Our big bulls. The big bulls are are two things with a bunch of other big bulls with cows. I got a question, is this similar to, again going back to my bread and butter white tails? So white tails have bachelor groups in the summer, all these guys are all together, but as that testosterone rises towards the rut, eventually those groups break up and then you see them much more and much more solitary fashion. Will that happen with the caribou. Are there on those sort of bachelor groups now, but as they head into later in September and October, are they gonna break up? Man? That that's that's a great question. I'm sure just pe they could answer really well. But a couple of thoughts on one. I don't know if there's I don't know if those groupings you're seeing when you're when you're seeing it, like it seems like when you get into the really big bulls, so like the big dominant bulls tend to be in packs of three, four or five that seemed to be affiliated with a group of cows. I don't know if those groups of bulls are just changing all the time, you know that, Like I don't know that those bulls are because there's you're talking about so many animals moving all the time. I kind of picture it, at least picture it being that those that those groupings are fluid in nature. And then if you went a month ago, that the a little bit surprised that the groupings were the same a month ago. But I don't really know. I'm sure there's people that could know, and I'm sure they'll get ahold of us and tell us where I'm wrong. The other thing is I always thought that down the road you would have them become more aggressive. Remember hunting in early October and still seeing bles traveling in big groups. So I don't know when it is. I don't know if the relationship is quite like elk where they turn into or deer so many other things where other servants, where there's that same level of hostility from one bull the next. You do see these bulls fight, you know, you know you see him fight inspire. But I don't know if they get as intolerant of other males being really close to them. Is some other animals get intolerant of other males being close to them? I think so. The only thing I read about the run as we were getting ready for this trip was that, unlike elk to keep a harem or try to protect the harem once it gets going, these bulls don't protect the harem. They protect a zone, They protect a chunk of land, and so any other bull it tries to come into his zone gets run out, and the cows that come into his own must get bread, but he lets him go. He doesn't like keep a harem. But yeah, we have to get we have to get some kind of caribou expert down because what's what's hard for me there is that would mean that all the movement ceases unless he's got a traveling zone. It could be he's got like they he's got a bubble that moved, Yeah, a bubble of influence that he carries with him through all these passes and valleys. But what I do know is this first, so guy here had a little and that grizzly, like a lot of grizzlies, like you know, you kind of get as close as you get as close as as responsible because you'd like to observe them. And then he's very close to camp, So then we're kind of thinking, at the end of observing him, I'm like, would be a good idea to have him move along his way and not be hanging out here. So we're gonna try to spook him off a little bit, let him know we're here so he doesn't just then turn around and feed right back up into camp and potentially get himself and do a whole bunch of trouble and stand up and start getting the old hey, and like a lot of grizzlies, that entices that at first just means that it gets his attention. He starts coming towards you. It happens all the time, and then you get up and raise Holy hell, and you can usually move him along. Um that happened. Woke up in the morning, went up to a knob. And then you start trying to put together like, well, what is a big bull? And that just comes from watching, you know, like facting, like trying to like to see what's possible out there, right, I mean, you get in. The opportunities you have are so many because you're just seeing so many of them go through. And if you watch like a hundred of them and a bunch of bulls, you start going like, so that's what a large one looks like. You need that reference point, and then you establish your reference point. We had the exceptional out of the average. It's funny though, right when we landed, me and Doug came in first and we got dropped off for anybody else, and me and Doug was gushing because like, oh my gosh, that was the hugest bull. It was monstrous, And now as I look back on it, after we've seen hundreds of bulls, wasn't really that big? Or just because the first one we saw we had nothing to compare it against. And I think we get a picture of that bull, I don't think, well, I don't think so, because it'd be interesting to look at it because and and like all the other bulls, you see a whole bunch. I mean, I don't know, what do we see a hundred colls and calves to every bullet you see, so you know, whatever number that happened, But it's it's definitely more calls and calves and young bulls and stuff until you see bigger bulls. And like with that group, when we first flew in, there were all these other caribou, and then he was there and he was significantly bigger than the rest of him. And so of course that's your reaction or our reaction, and uh, and it was I would say it's what was a white tail hunters reaction when when looking at like the place I used to do that I've done maybe most of my yeah, probably most of my carribou hunting. I think it's been on the north slope of the Brooks Range, in areas where you're not really able to get in on. I mean, it's possible that could happen. But generally you're not able to get in on these big, these big you know, migration paths of caribous. You're you're you're looking at caribou in summeringe ground dispersed over a vast, vast area. And yeah, it would be like to go up there on the north slope on a road system hunt. It would be laughable that you would be able to sit around and cherry pick bulls, like we're cherry picking bulls. Therell be like if you see a bull, you'r you better just get your ship together and go, because you count yourself lucky, you know. But here is that you just get I mean it's not even it's like hunting, but it's like a little different than hunting. But hunt for that one you want, the big player is still hunting, but it's it's unlike anything I've ever so different than most honey, But the excitement will be equivalent. When you see the one that is stands out, that thrill will be there. You won't be like that's another you know, another bulle. It's gonna be like, oh, that's the one. Yeah. But you know what's missing. What's missing is the idea of and it happens antelope hunting too. What's missing is the idea that you won't get one, the fear of, not not the fear of, but like a lot of times in hunting you're like, it's like, will I get one? Yeah, okay, and that's the thing, but you said it can't shut off, like there is a slight chance and not probably they just it on but tomorrow, and it was Yeah, but as much as hunting, it's about putting yourself in the middle of this spectacle. You know, hunting is almost secondary to the hunting is secondary to the experience of being there, the experience of like being and seeing like sounds. But it's true in this case, I think that's the perfect word. Yeah, no, it is. It's like you're witnessing a mass migration of large mammals. You'd never understand it unless you came here and saw it. You just you just wouldn't know. So there was that was some hunting mixed in, but it's like it's just not like I'm even like, you know, people spend a lot of time, myself included, talking about fair chase issues and you kind of get into like like caribou hunting in a situation. In a situation like this, which which for men who will be a once in a lifetime situation, I've seen it. I've I hunt a tremendous amount. I'm in my early forties. I've seen this twice. So you get into a situation where it's like, uh, you know, all of the stuff we talk about fair chase and all that, I don't know. I don't know if if this is this fair, I don't know to go ahead, to go get any individual one, to go get any individual one is like it feels to me like it has the level of uncertainty that we would expect from a from what people like to describe as a fair chase hunt, but when taken in the whole population and the ability to get a animal seems like a pretty foregone conclusion the minute you hit the ground. Well, that's a good example of what I what I'm talking about is like the one that we saw that you and Doug went after and it just didn't work out any part I want to get. Yeah, that's a great point. And we're watching all these ones. The minute we pick one out and go that's the one, somebody give us the slip. I can't find them, and that's your that you're like bar of scale from there they're on out. Yeah, yeah, there's certainly I mean, you gotta climb mountains, so you gotta run after him. You might get fogged out, Like there's fair chases, there's elements of over one just trying to like be out in a place it's very inhospitable. And then a lot of people aren't comfortable deal with grizzlies, which is a daily occurrence, yeah, or daily occurrence, seventy sleeping in a tent and seventy mile hour goss, the potential of getting annihilated by biting insects. So yeah, I mean there are like tons of things that make it. But I'm just talking about that like distinct, you know, when it when it's the kind of hunt that the minute you get out of your tent you could start shooting caribou and then you could shoot them until the sun goes down. It's just it's different at all point. I'm not saying it's less. I love it, but it's just different. And I will say that it is certainly not less. The difficulty of the hunt for someone, um like me, who's you know, I'm I'm a white Midwest white tail hunter. Um and yeah, I got ready for Yeah, that was an interesting you put in there. That's how a white Midwest white tail hunter. Oh sorry, you got this talking juice here in front of me, tasteful. I'm sorry, yeah, but no, I know, thanks for the correction. Uh oh you are. I am a white Midwest white tail hunter. I sweetly am. So there's so many parts there. I've never done anything like this. Um. I know you guys do way more difficult hunts than this, but this is the most difficult hunt that I've ever done, and it is the most interesting hunt that I've ever done. But when it came down to the moments with the decision that we went after the first one, you talk about that because I want and sticking to my chronology, talk about talk about that we finally find one and then you can't then you turn out that you can't get them, and yeah, and that, and that caribou was exceptional based on what I had seen in the first four hours of hunting, but it wasn't even that. He was just exceptional to everything that we had seen up to that point. And so I'm at that point, I'm like, Okay, now I understand, and away we go and into thin air. Gone except for these guys said, oh no, you you guys went down there and they were already around you. And and uh, yeah, because you're trying to Yeah, you're trying to head. I mean every time we've gone after cariboo, you're trying. You're you're trying to one. You spot them way off, you try to get you try to figure out their trajectory, which is somewhat predictable because you look at whoever was out at whatever group came before them, and then you got to make up your mind and in this hull ass and try to get there before they do. And I would say we missed them by way, yeah, And I would say about that when you said before that, then you could shoot. You could get out of your tent and start shooting cariboo and shoot caribou all day long. Yeah, but that, of course we could. And that's just such an unusual thing to be around. But then to go out there and pick that, and then we began to hunt because you are I mean, you're spotting, and then you're hunting, and you're going you're anticipating where they're going. You're trying to get there, and every bit of that was a part of a spotting sock as far as I was concerned. And you know, we were disappointed, and uh we didn't I didn't find that animal. And we took kind of a loop and we're coming back and here come up. Here come a bunch of younger caribou, and amongst them were a couple of bulls, and one was a really nice bull, and he closed within seventy five or eighty yards of us. In there, some of them run run away, some of them running a circle away from you, and then they come back because they're sort of curious about your They don't understand what you are, but they're definitely alerted to you. And uh, most of them have no human experience. They just doesn't clip. They don't see you and going, oh ship right right run. And so this which was an extremely suitable bull um, came within seventy five yards of us and gave us a show of uh fabulous of defiance of interests. I am the animal was spectacular, and I never picked my rifle up. I was so caught up in the whole thing, and I asked you a couple of times, what do you think? And you said, that's a heck of a You may have said that's a hell of a uh, that's a dandy. That's I mean, he said several times, and you know, you can shoot that one, and I or, yeah, I totally understand if you did. And I just point out that it wasn't the one we were looking. That's the other part of it. I had that exceptional one to to compare it to. And I just got um completely caught up in the moment of watching all that happening, and if and I realized now or I realized in retrospect that I knew that it could happen again. I knew that it would happen again. I would have been surprised after that it would happen again. So I enjoyed that, And I didn't regret not shooting that caribou. Yeah, I think it was. Part of it was that he just wasn't the one we went after. And then it felt like, um, like an unearned thing. I don't know what it was. I could I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, and I can't put my finger on it now. It was that was my first encounter like that, and it was just that was enough, and he wasn't. And you said to be a couple of times used with that look, and that's he's he's not like the one that we were we went after. That's not the one we went after. And when you're seeing so many of them, you kind of wanted to be the one you're going after. Yeo shows up. But that's that's where it is. Like, that's the thing that always trips me up is how much sort of mental masturbation is going on at a lot of mental masturbation. It's very difficult to explain that that would have a very difficult time. Like if I went home and I was like, oh man, you know, hundreds of them coming by. My wife said, well why why, why wouldn't you just be done right away? Then I had to be like whoa, you know, it was someone else, like an outside perspective. You never really get to where they were satisfied. I mean you could shoot one opening morning and still enjoy the spectacle for three days. You never got introduced. Bro we quit the introductions. Yeah, Brodie Henderson happy to be here with it, witnessing the spectacle, those little guy fishing guiding and the works with us guidance season is all done. Yep, thank god. Um yeah, witnessing the spectacle. So me and dog got dupe. Then we go back up to the glass and tips and lo and behold here comes some legit, full on balls out migrators, right Mark, Yeah, talk about that. Yeah, So you guys got back up there. We sit down, we eat some Sammy's kind of relaxed a little bit, not relaxing well, getting that we're glassing as we sat and that we were looking across that whole bowl where the terraces were in the tops and everything, and I just remember looking across there, just to the right and below the terrace and just spotting these white these fabios, and be like, I think those are new bulls. And we pulled up the glass on him and yeah, five new balls, and then a big old stream of other cows and calves above them, and then unique to a lot of the other ones we saw, which were more than meandering type. These guys are on a mission. And so if I remember right, we we looked him over pretty good. Didn't take too long to realize there was there was one or two in there that were worth our attention. So they kept piling down that hill and then you're like, hey, we should make a move on them. So we grabbed our gear and took off down the hill. They disappeared behind this one knob, not number one, right, And all I remember is we go scooting down into this little ridge, this little rise, and then I just remember when the whole herd peeked over that first knob, and I just felt like I was watching like I don't know, something in the Africans serengetti, like just this massive. This was like a miniature version of what I imagined it would be, like this mass of like flowing animals down the hillside. Many tons worth of animals, Yeah, many tons worth of animals of mass. Yeah yeah, let off by this big old white man bulls. Yeah, they were up front, they were that bull. Um was he is either out of all the hundreds of care but we've seen in two and a half days of observation, he's either number one or number two in which respect the biggest ones we've looked at. Yea, so here's that he might be number two, number one being the first. I think the slip, I can't, I don't know. I wish how happens though it looked like, yeah he would, Yeah, he would. I put a bet on the fact that the one that gave us a slip was bigger as it should be. Yeah, lives on, he lives on. But yeah, but the Serengetti is coming, Seenge is coming our way, and man, like it was just for me. It was the weirdest experience maybe I've ever had hunting. Like it was just this like moment of there's so many different things going on, right, I mean, it was so different than any other hunt I've ever been on, and just the whole spectacle of it, not only the Willer spectacle, but also then our whole deal, all these different people. You know, there's four or five of us sneaking down there. Um, we got laid down, We saw there angling our away. We had a good spot to set up and uh laid down, put the rifle on the backpack. You were so kind to share your range acto with me for a little bit. Bigger gal like yeah, And then they just came angling down our way, and I was like, holy sh it, this is actually gonna happen. And it's funny. At some point you go like, oh, they are going to come through here. In that veer off in some crazy as direction. Yeah, and like it wasn't though, Like I feel like in most other hunts, you get to like mentally process what's happening and like all right, yeah, like this is the anual I'm going to shoot and kill her. This is happening, or yeah, I want this to happen. It was like I'd gotten on a roller coaster at the top of that hill and then I was just tearing down it all the way through this moment, and um, going into this whole thing, I was like, I really hope I don't shoot one on the first day. I really want this to be like a long experience and to feel all the way. But this was just like I was tearing down that hill on the roller coaster and it was happening. I was like whoa. And so he comes up and he's angling and we're ranging him, and he's like, you know, two seventy five to fifty. I just remember like two thirty five somewhere with this last range I've gotten And then like you said, blow or blouch or whatever it is you'd like to say, but yeah, it was funny because there's him and another couple and they were kind of stacked coming in and out, and they were just moving there on the move. So I tried to find a moment when the other ones weren't behind him and let him have it, and unfortunately was able to get the job done. But here's the thing about so you kind of bummed me out now about the first day thing. You don't know what's like I've seen plenty of times and all of a a sudden, just what is it right now outside? Oh yeah, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not disappointed anyway, can see fifty yards because it's like there are so many things that screw you. Oh yeah, it's just like it's like it's clear, that's a big bowl. Oh I'm glad we do what we did. I'm glad it happened. At might you wake up to my own and it's fog, and then it's fog, and then it's fog the next day and nothing ever happened. It's like you have to just pick your moments. But in that scenario when you've been for whatever at that point, we've been out in the field for six eight hours, well maybe more twelve counting the day before, and you're just like, oh, that's the hundred i've seen, like, you know, you're feeling pretty cocky about it. It was wild, but I don't even know if I wasn't like I feel like because you Doug went on that stock, and so this whole time was like Doug was hunter. I was an observation mode and then like that switch flipped all of a sudden, Bam, You're in hunter mode. And it was that transition all of a sudden, like my mind was readjusting to my new reality. And it was just it was a super crazy, interesting, unique, once in a lifetime experience the whole thing and um, and then walking up on that animal was pretty like it was all like started becoming so real like that as an incredible animal. Just just it was also different wild and for me too from sitting the distance that I was watching this unfold, and I've seen other people shoot white tails from a distance, but it wasn't any just completely unique experience watching this happen unfold in front of me, and I thought it was a completely different, uh distance, it seemed like they were closing, closing, closing. Boy's gonna let him get really close. And then we got down there and went, holy man, he shot this thing at two or thirty five yards. Yeah, in these areas, distance becomes very difficult perspective. Things are far the way than you think they are. They're closer than you think they are. You start walking towards something that seems a million miles away, and in fact it's not. Yea, we've talked about that. Um. Then we butchered out, and just as we're leaving, we wanted to hunt some more. We want to go back up to our glass and tit and butchered out. And I was because of grizzlies. I was like, let's move, um, the meat away from the guts because when air comes in, they just go and eat the anything's gonna come, and just eat the soft tissue first, because you just goulup down because they don't know, as far as they know, a bigger bears gonna come and steal the whole damn thing from them, So when they swoop in, they just want to like, you know, you get what you can get and then work on the other stuff later. A couple years ago, my brother lost the elk to a grizzly and he had had all four legs on the bone and boned out everything else and it ate all the boneless meat and buried the bone in meat. So they do know like what they can gobble up quick and what takes time, and and and like think about that. So we move the meat I don't know, not even a hundred seventy five yards away, not just to give a little buffer. And we knew we're gonna be sitting there staring right at it. And we get back up to the tent and here here comes the griz out and we watch that thing cover two miles. Do you think it's that far? Oh? Yeah, I think it's from the plate where it popped up to where it ended up running at a run. And I'm like, the wind wasn't right, but I'm watched to say. I'm like, after a while, me and dirt almost made a bet. I couldn't have sound like it's unmer it's undeniable. This bear is jogging with its nose in the air, is jogging over an incredible distance towards this gut pile. But the wind was wrong, So I'm like, how would it be aware of it when the wind is what it's doing. And then it turns out that just for some inexplicable reason, it was running all that way toward us, because it finally gets within like easy striking distance of that gut pile, stops dead ass cold, and spends the next hour eating blueberries slightly upwind of it, like it was in kind of some rocky, sparse vegetation hit that that barry buffer lush stuff. Yeah, because she was traveling across just open you know, just rock and moss really and then yeah, and I think she had her nose near like she might smell. I don't know if they got an ability to smell good concentrations of blueberries, but she just traveled through the shitty ground, that little cub, bouncing a long bind her. He stopped rassling with the cariboan at one point he like barrel rolled down the hillside sat and she winds up getting down into the blueberries and just sets to eating, and then kind of paralleled us when we got our meat, and headed back kind of parallel us the whole way, and then we're staying in our camp this morning. I never got that ship pull circle wise. Garrett, poor Garrett though this morning. So I opened that tent door and holy crap, there's a mama and cub. And I didn't hear you, right, I see it hop by my tent. Start yelling and then it starts to meet up. Kind of was like kind of half away. I think, you know how you kind of gotta take away. Oh um here like grizzling camp. And then so I yell and then she kind of speeds up a little bit and goes over the hill and I'm like, all right, we're all good on the other side of the yelling and I'm like, oh ship, he's right there. Girls is calmly out there waving it. I was brushing my teeth. I was like, well, if the yelling doesn't do it three yards and she stood up when I first when we first like she saw me up. I was not aggressively, but I think like trying to figure out what was going on. And then uh, Janice and Chris and the tent that she had passed, you know, very recently prior started yelling. She kind of took off. But there was a moment there where I was like, well, we'll see what happens, because you just don't know what and you can't. I mean, I knew like if she was threatened, I didn't have anything that was gonna prevent her I don't think you want to do with me. Some years ago, we had a grizzly coming toward our camp and you know what he was there. We were shooting rocks in front of it, like full on shooting rock trying to stop it. We tried a lot of stuff before that, but the eventually we're resorting to like shooting and it still keeps coming. You still know what their aunt he is gonna be like, man, yeah, and like the fact that you know who knows it. With the cub, I always just even extra cautious or you know literally that they're gonna be more aggressive. I feel like you were lucky in that scenario. I mean, that's as as bad of a situation as you want to get into. Is surprising a mom on the cub and she didn't see you know, she didn't see me when she first came over. But I don't be loved. If you've gotten a little bit of a scuffle with that, well me too, if I got a scar out of it, and that's all, I would love that. I've always thought that would be good. I'm knocking on wood because just a scratch how to come in there slinging on you to halfter. But that's the most casual reaction to a grizzly bear ever. I well, we'll see what happens. Oh bullshit, in this one. That was amazing. Yeah, they're they're a gray animal, man. I mean, they really get your attention. Yeah, you know, I used to be kind of I used to be more afraid of them. Um it used to be more afraid of But now, like, I still have a lot of respect for him, But I also kind of like when I see him, I'm always kind of rooting it. They'll come closer, but not too close. Internet I like having them near me. I would put our observations and encounters with grizzly bears in this trip as just as enjoyable for me as the spectacle of seeing all the cariboo and even killing a cariboo. Like I enjoyed our grizzly encounters just as much. Like when I go back, that's going to be something that I'll remember forever. Just Male's face when he stood up or came up where we could see him, that's burned into just the coolest critters. Yeah, no here man, Just like the room they have, the room, you know, Yeah, the fact that there was two points to intersect like us in them such a vast landscape, you just realize how special that is. You can just watch him not be you know, in a survival mode, and they can you know, they can get pretty old, but you still get the sense that, um, when you're out here and looking at it, you still at the sense that like this is probably or you know, it would stand the reason that this is his first encounter, this is his first reckoning with a person. Yeah, it's a way different kind of Grizzly than you'd see in Montana or I don't and that gets a different version of who's had experience kind of knows what to think about still, And I've said this over the course of the past couple of days a few times as we've talked about some things related to us. But it's just like it's good for my soul to know that there are still places that that can happen, Like to know that that could be really that Grizzly has not encounter person before. Like that's just like a satisfying notion. Oh for sure, man, glad to know that's the case possible. But it's the thing that happens to people. Where is the thing that has people where they tend to I think that people tend to be like, oh, places like Alaska, Well, that's a suitable place for wilderness. But then not think about not think about like equivalence at home, you know, and don't and and don't strive towards, um, don't strive towards thinking about the possibility of of of things being more steem, more appear, more wild closer to home. We have this thing like you relegated to this other locale because you come up here and like what's up here it just isn't what's here isn't replicable anymore down there, you know, A good way puts. I was talking to my brother. I think I might talk about this before, but one of my brothers, Um, you know, he's he's a fisher, he's ecologist and does a lot of work in Alaska, and we were talking about conservation and he was saying that, Um, that the difference between his line of work done here in his line of work done in the lower forty eight is there not here. They're not in rebuild mode. They're trying to understand something that they're in a position of trying to understand something that exists and head off trouble down the future. But you're not rebuilding anything. And the lower the eight conservation is rebuilding. It's repair and appear in a lot of places there's not like there's it's not repair, it's holding the line, you know. And those are like two very different views on are two like very different ways to comprehend wildlife and wildlife conservation equally important, I guess the right man. But yeah, you're you're approaching it from a position of you can kind of and this is the broad generalization, but you can kind of approach it to be like, yeah, you're not Yeah, you're you're looking to head off problems rather than fix them. In down there, we're fixing things, you know, trying to get things back or you know, in many ways very successfully, right, very very successfully, but trying to like somehow set a clock back in some way fix the mistakes of the fifty years ago and then things were later here where people were a lot more like once there's starting to be such a big human footprint here and it's gonna grow. But um, people, you know, some of those some of those some of those moments when we were most rampant in our destruction. There wasn't also a very loud enlightened voice. And I think that right now, as you know, as you can, you know, as people comprehend more development in Alaska, more industry in Alaska, there's like like a pretty loud enlightened voice that has taken a lot of lessons that we're learned in other parts of the country and using them to like avoid mistakes that we've made. Now just understanding the interconnectedness of things and realizing that the things that you do have there's implications to the actions you take. It's interesting that the same pressures are still there from the other side too. You know, I don't know who said this stuff, but history might not always repeat itself, but it usually rhymes. And I feel like, let you see that kind of thing happening. I hadn't heard that. That's good. That's good. So today we had that Grizzly went out hunting, and um, you realize that like kind of like plays out in the same way. Watched and watched him, watched, watched and watched him, watched. Finally some big bulls came rolling through and then then Doug wept into action spring. It might be worth noting his close call earlier where he really wanted that one bull dog, like that whole scene there, we're on that side hill, he's coming up the hill. I'm looking at him. That's a nice bull I've been walking. I've been walking like where he's headed. It would be a downhill hike. Already told you that morning he was thinking about going on quote a mega hyke. Doug didn't like the sound of that. I didn't want to talk you out of that bulldog, but I was trying to, like by by not paying it a whole lot of attention, attention and scanning the distant horizon. I was trying to convey to you that we had yet arrived. Steve went and sat like thirty yards away, just kept looking at the stuff. Can't see over there. Yeah, I was like acting like that bull wasn't I mean, no disrespect of that bowl. I was trying to pretend that he wasn't there in an effort to influence your thinking. And then it was funny. Doug looks at me. He's like, Hey, I'm gonna go over at Steve and and tell him that I think that, you know, maybe I want to take this bullets. Good situation and if Steve wants to go over there, he can, he can just go and I'll hang out here and watch to see what this one. So douges walking over there. A sist next to Steve and he says it and here's kind of like we'll look at these over here. But he also said, I appreciate you. You're willing to let over there and you'll stay here. And I don't want I mean, let's you know, let's face it, I'm the old guy in the group and I'm u. I'd like to say that I'm like the old the old bull. I'm the last one always um, you know, hanging I'm not hanging back. I'm just slow. That's along and the short of it. And I don't want to influence. I don't want that to necessarily influences, uh, someone else not doing what they want to do. And uh. And I would have been perfectly content to what to sit there and watch that ball and not necessarily shooting, but to watch you all the way around there, thinking it's just like would be the world's biggest mooch for you to go all the way around there and and maybe they bump and come that way. But but I also appreciate the fact that one you were recent said, I appreciate that that and at that time comes I'll let you know, but um, I don't think you want to shoot that ball. And I was pretty sure I wanted to shoot that bull, but you just never know what's coming over and you know, but if we go over here, and so we did, and you know, and it turned out to be a fantastic, fantastic afternoon. I think it's something we should cover because this is weird conundrum when we keep saying like, oh, it's a nice bull, that's a nicer bull, like they're all nice. Of course. Yeah, but he said it pretty good when he said we just hadn't arrived yet. We just needed to walk a little bit more, look around a little bit longer, much like I didn't shoot that one. After we went that and saw that really big one, and it wasn't I mean, everything that went through my mind when I saw that that other and Cayman was near us, that I just I just wasn't. It just wasn't right. And I don't know how else to describe it. And and so that's why I didn't and and uh, my wonderful friend here, you know, he said, let's let's let's go over here, and uh so we did. I know, I know what you're getting at, young, because like this weird luxury to like play this game that you're talking about, this mental masturbation. We're like, if we were really hungry, we wouldn't be doing any of this bullshit, Like we'd be in Bang bang bang and be done. But that's what that that's that's what I'm beginning about. The mental masturbation game is like I mean, you know me, well, I like meet and antlers meet more than antlers, but in this case you get to have both. Yes, I read a quote the other day also like to have them, but I don't feel like I just read a quote. Guys, I really you know, I hunt, um let's help for meat, and I've really developed a taste for six. Yeah, it's like, yeah, the main thing I'm after like if like you know, I've thought this before, if you if I had a dead Caribo land or anything carriboo, what we've seen anyone at all? And I had a dead Caribo Land there and and in God came down and said you gotta you can take the rack or the meat. I wouldn't even think about it, right, I'm gonna take the meat. But here, that's what I'm saying. Part of the thing is there's so many of them, and you're trying to to to milk out the experience. And I do like to have antlers around a lot um. I really just like that and like to look at him and think about him and hold him and talk about them and all kinds of stuff that here you can be like, Okay, barring some dramatic weather change, which I'm watching for, and I'm and I'm willing to alter my plans accordingly, barring that in this moment, I'm gonna look for the biggest damn caribou I can find. I got a theoretical question as as an observer, as a cinematographer photographer, to clarify this to me, I'm not pulling the trigger, you know, I'd love to in a different you know, circumstances. No, I would prefer the photographies of but um. Say, like we were in a situation where you guys hadn't had an intended hunt on a specific animal. We pop over a ridge and up though one. It's just like a hand me that you haven't done anything specific to hunt that that caribou bowl, but it is the one would you hesitate for lack of the experience of hunting that specific animal, or if it was big enough and it was just like a staying there it wasn't an intentional, you know, strategic process. Put it this way. You could even make it easier. You could be like you unzipped the tent just there. He isn't camp and he like won't leave and he's think about you think about it. The camera guys, he's still standing around like some dudes like making coffee. Still standing around ability It depends on how good I am at mental masturbation, how good I am a playing with my own mind. Well, i'd ask all of you, because I would. I would say I would say that it wouldn't be it wouldn't be as good, it wouldn't matter to me as much, it wouldn't be as valuable to me. Okay, But I would also be like, but you'd be happy to go get this one if you snuck up on it and so here it is. Yeah, it's really tricky, but here's nothing of value to mean. This is all part of the mental masturbation game, not mental master. I don't want to short sell it because it's not mental masturbation. It's it's like all part of the way in which we perceive our world and set goals and values and expectations. For instance, if if someone said to you, would you rather come up with a really good idea and earn a hundred million dollars from that idea or would you rather just have publishers clearing house show up and give you a hundred million dollars? Most people are gonna say, um, well, given my druthers, I'll go with the cool idea. And you'd be like, well, what's the difference. It's a hundred million dollars that you get. Why do you give a ship? Because? How I god, it matters to me. It doesn't every aspect the same reason, like the same reason that going to prostitutes isn't like that alluring to me. It's like there's a there's a way in which you go after the things that you want, which you don't you know, And I see that and what you guys are talking about and that analogy. But I think if you know, leaving out all the morality issues, just like it's like yeah, so if he's standing there, I wouldn't like it as much, but it would trip me up because I'd like, but there it is, you know, but there it is. But yeah, and I'll point out and this is a value. I mean, I can't act this to be a value of anything else. The two bulls we've gotten had no clue we were there, and that is very important to me. We were not. We have not shot a bull that was looking at us. You shot bulls that we I mean, you know, it's it's not I don't want to oversell it. It's not like like killing the elk that doesn't know you there is way different than killing the care but it doesn't know you there. It takes a lot more skill to consistently kill elk that I have no idea you're there. There's no belly crawling going really on. I was answered my question, it's the bigger part is that intentional effort to come to that. I enjoy the journey, Yes, enjoy the journey. I'd say it was honoring the experience. And part of that was not that's why I didn't shoot the one that I did, and then in shooting the one that I did shoot. Um, So Steve says, let's go over here and so I don't know. We take a quite a hike and it looks like we're gonna take a very long hike. And we get over to this spot where we sit down and we're glassing and that's all. Let's have the same thing. Let's have some sandwiches. It's like sandwiches. If you you need something to show up, you say, let's have sandwiches. And I'm sitting there looking, I can't believe we walked all the way the hell over here to have a sandwich and not see any carabol and we saw some you were thinking that, well a little bit, but what I was really thinking up on top of that, I just said so but they weren't. But they weren't. They didn't. They didn't appear, and they took a little while. But that now we're glass and caribou that are another mile and a half away and talking about them, and I'm like, if they think I'm gonna walk over there, you know, And then I was like, I'm gonna get my mind right in case we're gonna walk over there, so I'm gonna have my sandwich. I'm gonna get my mind right, and then like magic, they appear up there. Although predictable magic. I suppose they these this group appeared up on top of that ridge and you guys saying when you talk about these packs of six seven bulls, the guy antlers you know, as tall again as they are at the shoulder, and when they started coming over to skyline and just look up and it's just like it looks like Timber. It's like everything Timber coming over to skyline. Man, what was I had something? I was going to add that the whole like uh mail, masturbation and Ladies of the Nights experiences. Oh yeah, I know what it was. Um, honey Free is a life journey, Okay. So it's like there's like a set of things that that you're like, there's a bunch of experiences you're building, and it's a discipline and it's a thing that you strive to get better and better at. Right and to understand better and better and better in any particular moment can't really be separated from that greater life journey. So here you are in this in this like hunting paradise for a couple of days, but still within that are you know, the skill parts, the things you strive to be good at, which is like identifying an animal, selecting that animal, and then getting up on it without it being aware of your presence, and then killing it in the very clean fashion. So yeah, you're still trying to like exercise that life discipline thing, even in a situation where it might not be necessary. Like the lack of necessity doesn't make those things less valuable to me, exactly. I was thinking about this a lot after I killed my caribou, and back to like, oh day one, you know, jeez, was that like it just happened so fast? Didn't work for this? Did I earn this? And I I literally thought of the story you told earlier that day. I think when you were talking about the Picasso story where he drew a picture on a napkin and someone asked, you know, I can't be worthy whatever you said, however much it was worth. But he said that it only took you five minutes to draw that. But then he says, yeah, but it took me a lifetime for it to be worth that much money. It was like, yeah, this is a lifetime worth of work and experience that got me year in whatever way to this experience. Um, while it may have only been a day and a half, actually out here in the tundra. A lot of things led to this point exactly, exactly. Yeah, it can't be like being here to see this. You can't really divorce it from the broader context of things that even made you aware to know to come do it. Yeah, life's journey man, that's the truth. I wish your honest his dad was here, guys, his dad to be in a hog having talked about life journeys. Life journey here like figuratively and literally with the caribou, they're on a life journey. And finally Dirt myth is here. Oh hey, guys, we don't know if it was effective or not because we don't know yet, but but Dirt is. Yeah, Dirt is. Uh. I know Dirt didn't want to bring him up because he doesn't want to um. Dirt doesn't want to seem as though he's taking advantage of his of his position with desperate within our friendship and organization. But but Dirt is looking for a house, sitting position in the Bozeman or ranch, same position the Bowsman thing within thirty mile radio. If you have property, horror or ranch property, and Dirt was born on a damn ran, Yeah, I can be useful even a song that I was gonna say. Doug wasn't impressed by that. Um, the handiest handyman on the planet knows how to take pictures well, fixed stuff, troubleshoot, tinker, no animal identification skills. Really, that doesn't know if if house sitting your property involves telling chipmunks some squirrels, that's a big part of it. If any defeat docks and uh chickens, he can do that, thank you. Yeah. And like Dirt, Dirt lives is somewhat nomadic lifestyle and in his his lover um and you guys call each other, she loveses somewhat nomaddic lives a somewhat nomadic lifestyle. But um, and so it doesn't always make a lot of sense for Dirt to go and have like a regular dole missile that most people would recognize as such. Um It oftentimes lives out of his truck. But he, being the most responsible guy on the planet, is looking for that thank you. Yeah, I want to give like rentals in there in there if it was out of town. We're looking for ideally, yeah, caretaker, just to have that that responsible degree. Are you willing to work like how much hours do you have to really put in your taking care of said individual's property, like on average over a month maybe ten? Yeah, like that's yeah. I mean that the ideal situation would just be to disallow a place to fall into the discrepancy or decrepit decrepance. So I don't think you can add the e n cez it's been too long. I'm saying no, But just to allow the crepit state to maintain a place not to milk your cows or so if there's a cow that needs to be mild, you out just because I have a job that I love, and then away forth. But if someone said, hey, man, um the fences like could use some TLC over time, get yeah, and you you would take that on. Or if they were saying, like, hey, this rusty hunkle medal I wish was permanently affixed to this other rusty hunkle medal, you would go and get that. Hey we got this like old two Toyota to comas in the bar a little TLC. Rebuild that second, you'd rebuild it from the game. So that's that, I guess. Get get a hold of me through uh the process. Let's give out your phone then somebody else have me like something they need to sell or anything. Now I feel bad. No, no, I appreciate this is not a service I really like to provide. But for you, I'll provide it home placement service. Um. But but for you, for you, I would do anything. It's a life journey. Who knows? Finally, Oh you're honest. Remember Yeah, this has all been a test to see if John, you can remember something. And now we'll see. Oh now it's got dark. I can't read my notes anymore. There we go. You look at notes, Well we're gonna talk about the your vortex. Well I don't even look at notes for it. So see who I am after all doing it? So? Uh, our good body is a vortex? Do the thing called your vortex? Right? It's a it's a contest and to end of the contest somehow, somehow, what's what to do again? You canna submit video clips, unedited video clips of your experiences that um you feel jive with the your vortex? Um, how would you put it? Like like great great moments, great captured moments by non edited doesn't mean bad moments, but like you don't need to get in there and manipulate the clip like get a great moment from your life hunting whatever that really, you know, it makes you feel pumped up about. I feel like there's gonna be thousands of hunting related ones. I feel like the winner of the contest is gonna be a non hunting related your vortex. You watch, someone's gonna come up with something slick. It's not gonna be like it. It's gonna have like a hint. Obviously this has to be a connection, right, or maybe not, because it could be just a shooting sports enthusiast submits a you know, an unentited clip. Yeah, but I can't really speak to that world as much as I can. So imagine you've got some amazing little clip of uh you like, rip out of you, rip out a bugle, and all of a sudden, some giant bull from the craziest screaming bull right steps off ten times, a hundred times. I'm gonna get more excited. And I'm not gonna get to judge. I don't know, maybe I will, but I'm thinking like someone's little kid you just catch like your boy just picking up the buyos for the very first time, and he puts them up and he's like looks through him, holds him steady, and then looks back and he's like, Daddy, Molly, I just glass stuff for fill in the blank. Yeah, so stuff video clips like that and you sent them in um and you get as as as as marcover at Vortex put it glass, rich and famous because if you win, you get you get like a like a get cool, expensive guarantee for life optics. And then your video clip also becomes part of a broader thing made from all the best emissions. So go where do you going to join? For their website, they got a button hashtag your Vortex. Go there, you can read all the rules and regulations. Yea, they were so clearly explained. Here are not so clearly. Go in a bunch of stuff your Vortex contest, get after it. Anybody else have anything they want to add, selling, buying, renting, ridge pond or you're not even I gott a mike, but you got anything you want to add? I'm just taking all in man, Okay, So you're not selling anything, trying to get anything out of this, no, okay, just to enjoin it. Roughly a year, I guess a while, man, Yeah, happy to be back. No, over a year June June of last year. Yeah. Here, we are happy to have you back. I'm stoked to be back. Um. I'm not gonna let everybody do a concluding thought because it's too many concluding thoughts, but I would like to invite uh first, Mark, would you like to do a concluding thought? Yeah, but I think if someone really has a rip already did his housing. If you have something to add, Gary, do you do? All right? Thank you? So start with Mark, who's actually being invited to have one. Well, I appreciate that invitation. Is there anything you'd like to add? You know, I think it's I think we've talked about it over and over again, but it's just been an unbelievable all around experience. Everything from the landscape to seeing the wildlife, to the interactions with grizzlies, actually filling our tags, the caribou, the social you know, experience has been awesome, the whole thing, incredible experience. Um, but being a white tail guy, you know, growing up doing that, there's so many people that live in a place where there's white tails and they love it and they eat it and they breathe it and they sleep it, but they never go outside of that boundary. And I've been lucky the last few years to be able to experience these different things, starting elk hunt, one of my first animal hunt, on my first caribou hunt. And I think I would just encourage all those hardcore white tail guys who absolutely love it and think I would never want to do anything else. This is all I need that there really is a lot of value in experiencing these different places, these different species. Um. And it's very doable. Yes, this specific type of hunt is a little bit out, maybe outside of the easiest economical or achievable hunt for the average guy. But there are places where you can go have an incredible experience, many times on public land, which is an awesome privilege we have that is very affordable, not too terribly difficult. So I'd say go out there and try these things. Do these things, go to new places. Um. I'm really, really glad I've been able to. Very thankful. Well done, Mark, thanks for coming on man, thanks for coming on the trip with us, Thank you for having me. It's been unbelievable. Your honey, that was a good closing thought, Mark, Thank you. App um M, Yeah, and I feel like this one I read when Mark and I talked that was a long time ago, at least we had. We did a podcast and you asked me what I recommended him. Maybe it was after the podcast we stayed on the line. You're like, I think about going to Alaska, which I do. I was like, Man, if I was gonna go, now that I've kind of done, I've I haven't done it myself, but because we've been filming shows, I've seen some moose hunts, I've seen caribooans, blacktail, black bear, doll sheep. I was gonna just recommend someone go and do going a hunter, go and get like the Alaska spirit experience. I would go do caribou. It's like you get the landscape and you get to see an amazing migration a bunch of animals. Um, I feel like you can do it. Sent me affordable, much more affordable than mountain goat grizz or doll which you're gonna have to get guided and you're looking at probably you know, unless you got kid folk like me, see I kin folk like Steve Um Yeah, fifteen and twenty dollars black bears. I feel like there's a lot of opportunity in lower forty eights killed though, so I don't you know, I mean, I know it's a special kind of black bear hunt up here, but still can be done in lower forty eight moose they're cool, but man, you just don't get the action. No, you're putting in a lot of times action, but here like this hunt and and and what I'm saying is because again I don't think it's it's exorbitant, Like I think you really could. If you pinched it, you probably do it for less than five k. Well no, not if you do well, I don't know. Oh yes, no, no no, no, if you road system d I y, but I think it almost be worth it to skip paying the flight that year to go do the road system hunt for two or three grand and you know, save another year so that you could fly into the bush and come and see the hundreds of animals every day. Yeah, I've done I've done well. Four I think four road system Carribo hunts had great experiences and all of them, but like you said, you didn't see this being able to fly in real special I feel like this is as a lasking of an Alaska experience as you could ever ask for the bush plane flight alone. Oh my gosh, when when we were flying in, this is kind of embarrassing. But when we're flying in and I'm sitting back there just rubber neck in the whole time, I literally broke out into like laughter, like giggling, smiling, like I can't believe this is real life right now. This is the most incredible thing. The really about doing caribo. If you're looking to like dip your toes into um, you know, if you're looking to dip your toes into a self guided hunt, and I really would, there's no like, I don't Yeah, it doesn't mean don't don't go hire a guide to want to caribou one just go? Um? Because what was that? What's what's wrong that? Well, because I think you're you're assuming that everybody has the experience. That's what That's what I was gonna That's what I was gonna get to. Um. I think you'll be able to figure it out. I think it takes the least. It's just it's very circumstantial, but I think like you can pull it off with a lot less life experience. Then one would need to pull off a lot of other non guided hunts in this state. You know, It's like operating up here is always is. Operating up here in any kind of in a non guided sense, operating up here is vastly more difficult than anything you will do in the lower forty eight. It just is everything is different, the gistics and the safety and all that is what you gotta be good at rather than being some super badass hunt. Yeah. Yeah, you need to be good at like thinking through situations you might get into because you can't walk out to the truck and when the weather is bad, a plane is not gonna come get you, and so you need to be ready to be stuck and you need to be ready to solve your own problems. Is not going to be a quick response time. There could be you could be days away from help in an emergency. So there's that, right, which is not a small thing. But I would say that just the level of expertise needed um in terms of finding it, like just everything. Man. I just think it's like a great and it's a great introduction and why like why bring in the why bring in the insulation and buffer of a I when you could go have a more real, genuine experience of figuring it out on your own. Kind of add to that because he just brought it up a little bit, the whole mouney with the guide thing and there's the installation, right. And I've had this sort of a ongoing debate argument with some other people that um our guides themselves. They go hunt with guides, and they're like, mat love going home with guides. It's like they like they know the country, they know like where the best of the best is. It's just like this great trip for me, you know, like all that I love about it. And I feel that those people just don't value like the challenge of having to go in there and figure out on their own or what you just described, Like you have to want to have that challenge and to be like, Okay, I gotta figure this out on my own because I don't have the dude that you know, knows this basein or knows how to walk out of here. You know that unknown it to highly value that um to go that route. There's some grown ups that read Harry Potter, right, and there's something that read pension. It's just like there's like different kinds of people, you know, there's two kinds of people. People who hunt with guys because they've developed this relationship with them and they want to go hunt with their buddy. Every year there a guide who has become a very good friend, you know. Okay, yeah, but since they didn't have like hours to explain my perspective and like roll in every possible caveyat, I'm just saying that that this is a doable It's a doable thing. If you're going to pick an Alaska hunt, an unguided a last hunt, this is the one. It's a doable thing if you never hunt. Yeah, I don't. I don't even know why I'm even engaged in this conversation, Brodie, what do you got precluding thoughts? I'm pretty much good. I mean, I'm just I'm glad I got to meet Mark and Doug and it's been awesome. No, no, this is for the first time. My concluder is I hope I don't have to hold onto my my tent pole the night, but get touch Hurricane Force wins the first night. I'm gonna bring it up because this is the ship that maybe maybe the camera guys need to start stepping it up. And when there's gale Force wins, you guys just gotta plug in the batteries and get out in there and start filming so they can make it into the because we had like death hikes that don't make it into the show. And now the first night we were here, it blows. It wasn't quite enough to hold me up. I tried leaning into it a little bit as I was out redoing the stakes, and it wasn't quite that. But when I woke up, bro you can finish up here, because that's got your stories worse. When I wake up, finally opened my eyes. Well, we've been in and out of leap because it was the wind was shaking the tent a lot, but I'd wake up and he was all good. And then finally opened my eyes once and I'm like, holy ship, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris. And I can see Chris on the other side of the tent, but I can also see all of the tundra behind Chris. Chris the ground anymore, and I'm thinking, I need to just wake him up so he will grab the edge and just pull it back to the ground and hang on to it so I can restake, which is pretty much what happened, right Chris, Yeah, so we did that, but we did what that happened is we restaked Brody's up restaken too over his cent. I'm like, all right, he's got he got taken care of. So Chris and I each dig out some ear plugs somewhere, putting our ear plugs and go to sleep. Sleep the rest of the night. But we didn't hear Brody. Well, it got worse, got a little wind ear and the wind kind of shifted around to a different direction, and uh, half the tent blew up. And these tents have one big, long it's not like a teepee style tent. Yeah, he's in the gear tent, and I'm in the gear tent, which means like a lot of like expensive ship that we need to make the show with. And and and the tent blows up and the only thing holding it here is the main steak. So for probably twenty minutes, I'm just holding onto that steak, hoping the tent doesn't blow into the canyon below us, and uh, trying to yaunt. These guys come and help me. But they had some real good ear plugs in. Eventually it died down enough where I could get get some rocks on the tent and have it hold till the morning. Not only to play good camper, bad camper, but ridge Pounder can bag me up on this. I I'm sleeping in a little three person, three person nemo tent hornet, nice low profile, load of the ground, profile, lowder the ground. And not just that. But as I explained the Pounder, I found the lee of a hill. Then within that I found the lee of a rock outcrop, and within that I rocked the I like had a small quarry going on and staked out and then piled rocks on my stakes and I slept through that thing. You were playing a long game with your tent, choosing spot, and I went around spreading word to other campers in my vicinities rocking out their tent. I'm very gladd well these tents were Look, these tents were rocked out. It was blowing hard enough that that wind was moving those rocks with you. And this is a very different beast because you're in You're in the big gear tent. I'm in little little profile tam. Yeah, that that support pole was buckled in the wind man. It was pretty impressive. Alright. So dire, I guess you get like you know, because Jannie came to your defense. You get a second go around on a concluder. I would just say it has been spectacle ler filming and photography photographed. It's been spectacular to cover this, uh the spectacle up here on a forty mile herd. Sweet is it? Yeah? Anyone else any last thoughts? Oh? Dog got his concluded? You know? I, Um, I didn't and sorry, no Jo. I'm just happy to be here, um, which I really am just happy to be here. But you know, for someone who's done of his hunting on private land, and uh, not just that but land you own. Yeah, um, you know, I've been supportive of conservation on public land as well, but my focus has been conservation on private land. To come up here and to be a part of this and too be in this, to fly over it, to fly into it, to be dropped in the middle of it. Um, it's just very overwhelming, quite honestly, to be to be here, and I'm so happy that it exists, and um, very happy that I now have a public land story to tell. Was that the first big game animal you've you've taken that was not a white tail? It's pretty awesome. Y. I didn't you know, we talked about that, but I hadn't really hadn't really occurred to me until until tonight. All right, man, well, let's let's do a moment of silence to to to just experience the um the rain on tenth m hmm do you have. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining talking