00:00:00 Speaker 1: M. My name is Clay and Nukeleman. This is a production of the bear Grease podcast called The bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Welcome to the bear Grease Render Podcast. My oh my, do we have an incredible show for you today. So I am. We're sitting around a nice white oak wood campfire in the in the mountains of Arkansas and we've got an eclectic group of guests today Today is gonna be a little bit different. So for those of you who might not be super familiar with what we do, the bargar Rease Podcast is what justin, I don't know how you describe. The barg Rease Podcast is a documentary stole podcast. We have multiple guests, very polished and produced that tells a story about a specific topic of person whatever we're talking about. The bargar Rease Render is this which what is this? Justin? This is a discussion about the polished podcast, right, and it's a random group of people, but today, it's not so random. So typically on the render we would discuss the previous week's podcast, and we're we're not gonna do that today though, We're gonna do something a little bit different because we've had some pretty wild stuff happen, and I've got a pretty wild group of men here that I will introduce from left to right. To my left is Justin Michow. Justin, Welcome brother. Than you tell us, tell everybody what you do. I am a photographer and videographer. Who do you work for you? That's right? Different brands across Can you tell us some of the brands? We eat our first light, lacrosse dinner or text? So your professional videographer, professional photographer. You live in the great state of New York, Western New York. You told me that your kids the first day of school. The other day I had to like tell about themselves. What would you say about yourself? If you were in the second grade and your teacher said, okay, right, five things about yourself that make you special? What would you say? Do I need Do I have to name five? Well? Just I like biscuits and gravy because from South Carolina, Well you knew that would come up your deer hunter. I'm a deer hunter. Love coffee, love what I do for a job doesn't feel like quirk. I love my wife. Is my anniversary? Oh wow? Yeah? How many? How many years? Two? Congratulations? Man? You know that's big. That is big commitments. Good. She makes it real easy. Good. Well to Justin's left is a man who needs no introduction. On the Beargrease Podcast. I just let James know yesterday Dad that he is a member of the Beargrease Hall of Fame. So, James Lawrence and an original inductee in the Beargrease Hall of Fame. How you doing, James? Good? Well, we're proud to be inducted. Yeah. When I told him, I said, uh. I explained to him what the Beargrease Hall of Fame was, and I said, James, here are the people that are in it, James Lawrence, Daniel Boone. And he got a chuckle when Daniel Boone was the second one. But it's quite serious, very serious. And then you know the other guy. It's Warner Glenn Roy Clark in Tennessee. What you've just heard is a white oak acorn following about thirty feet out of a big tree hitting a tin roof. If you've heard that, sud James Lawrence, Daniel Boone, Warner Glenn eight probably eighty seven now, uh, cowboy in Arizona, Roy Clark plot man extraordinaire in East Tennessee. Frederick Gerstalker who was in was a hunter in early Arkansas history. And then George mcjunkin, who was the former slave that found the Falsome archaeological site. So you're you're amongst quite the company. Brother, I feel privileged. James were like in your home turf down here, man, we're right in the cradle of Lawrenceville. It's good to see you. It's good good to be here. Hey, I especially listen to this. I probably never said this. In two thousand and ten, when I started my career in the outdoor space, we we were pioneering and starting a regional man magazine and do you know who was in the very first issue of that magazine James Lawrence. I went to James because he had a story of the biggest buck you ever killed when you were held. So you've been hunting for how many years? Now years? I'd hunted three or four years before killed that one too. Yeah, I've probably nine and so to this day. The biggest buck you ever killed was when you were twelve, and it was a really unique story. And you'd found the shed horns of this deer back during the time when there weren't a lot of deer. You'd found three years the shed horns killed this deer. It scored about one sixty Just an incredible story. So I went to James and wrote an article about him, and there's a picture me and James in that magazine holding those shed horns in that buck. Well. When I went to work for Meat Eater and they said, Clay, you gotta start a podcast. You know who, the first person I went to was Dad's point to James, James Lawrence. I went to James's house and I said, I'm gonna do a podcast on the shed hornbuck of nineteen sixty two. So thanks James, Thank you. He pretty much chose his career. Hey, for real, what I've made what what what I love about what I do is finding people that didn't get the attention of the outdoor channel, you know. And when I when I learned of James's story and got to know him, I was like, this is cool stuff, and nobody knows this story nobody, and and there's people like that all around. I forgot one guy that's in the Hall of Fame, or a Lee Province. I was telling James about or a Lee. They live in different parts of the States, so James never knew or a Lee, but like or Province, you know, nobody would have ever known that story. But so James Lawrence is here, Hey, let me say something about James. Clay came to me about that same time and said, who who would be the best hunter in Polk County. Of course I don't gun hunt, and but I knew James would be up there. But I said, go ahead and called Joe Lyles. I mean, he'll tell you for sure who the best hunter is. And we kind of suspicioned it's gonna be James, but he said, no question, James Lawrence, he's the man. So yeah, anyway, that's I think that's how you originally you went up and knocked on his door and said he yeah, you got a pretty high reference. Yep. Yeah, Joe Lyles, he's the one who said go go talk to James. I went and knocked on his door and we've been best buddies ever since. That's right. I remember that day. Yeah, you knocked on the door and stuck out your hand, introduced yourself and we went out and garage sat down and talk dear stories. Did you know him before then? I met him when he knocked on the door. Yeah, I was writing a story about hunting, hunting big woods, white tails. To James's left is our star guest who has not been on the Burgary podcast at all before. Who's good and smoke in the Who's getting some smoke at his eyes? Gerald Brewer? Gerald, great, too great to have you a man, Good to see you, Gerald. How older? You eighty two years old? And you got a you got a head full of hair like a like a movie star. Man. I don't know about that, Gerald. What what kind of work did you do? I was in an autoparts business before I retired. Yeah, how long did you do that? I did that for thirty five years, autoparts business, small town, Arkansas. But you're a lifelong hunter, I am. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us. So we're at your camp and now don't tell us, don't tell anybody where it's at, but tell us about your camp and kind of the history of this property. We can tell you mountains, we've said that. Okay, yeah, okay, this where we're at here is part of a one hundred and sixty acre homestead. Then uh, local people homestated back in the day. It's a few miles on either in any either direction, any direction. But before you the more private property. So this is sort of unique that we're where we're at here. We were have two sides of the national forest. Good place to haunt. So how long have you had this property? I've had this Uh, I was thinking about the last night or this morning, trying to figure it up. I think about thirty five years. Okay, yeah, and then you originally had You've got a big metal um metal covering over an area where you back to your camper trailer in for years, is that right? Right? Yeah, so you had deer camp out here with a camper trailer. But then when did you win? Was this cabin built? James built the cabin, uh twenty nineteen. It's not it's not that old. Yeah, but yes, this uh where worst they did not here star typical. A lot of building around here evolved, you know that on a little every year. And uh, originally when we when my brother and I was harder this we didn't we weren't really thinking about a cabin. We just wanted to shed to get out of the rain. And then we put a wood stove in and build a shed for a trailer, and then we enclosed all of this with a siding. And uh. Then in twenty nineteen we built uh the new cabin here and then we kept the old one and just took all the walls off and that way having outside and prevail you yeah, with an outside kitchen and so forth. Well it's a it's a beautiful spot. And then the cabin that and you said that James Lawrence built this cabin right and uh runs off solar where I f agreed out here and uh man James, me and me and uh justin we're admiring your your trim work inside there. Yeah, really nice. Enjoyed doing that. Y'all built. Y'all did every part of this high built everything but siding and another guy built put the siding on. Yeh. But other than that, yeah, did it all. We're proud of it. Yeah. So we've had our bear camp out here in the last several years, were or four years or the fourth year? Yeah, probably? So Yeah, so we'll come back to Gerald. But to Gerald's left, Gary nucle the believer himself. Yeah, I got my believer hate y'all see his hat? I like that. Do y'all know what that means? Ok? It's got a black panther on it. So the first one of the first Barris podcasts, I was interviewing Dad about mountain lions because he had seen the mountain line in Arkansas and Uh, I asked him, he said something about black panthers, and Uh, anyway, long story short, he believes in black panthers. Gerald, do you have any mountain lion stories? I saw on the on the mountain here behind us back. I can't remember how many years it is, probably about ten years ago. I was stark hunting right on top of the mountain and Uh, when I first saw it, I thought it was a deer. But then when it started jumping from one rock to another, that I knew it was a cat. But what was ironic about all that? Just within days there was an article in the local paper that's some I'm thinking if I recall, it was some biologist to sit and if anyone saw any mountain lions and cougars to uh had a phone number or whatever to a police call that number. Do you call them? Don't recall I don't. I don't recall if I did or not. I may have, but I really thought this a little bit. They had seen some or knew about something. Yeah, yeah, would you be would you fall into the category of someone that believed that there were mountain lions here before you saw one? Like when you saw what? Did it confirm what you already knew? Or did it surprise you? It's not a surprise me, but not a great law because I won't be surprised to any type. I don't allow the while. I mean, it might surprise me initially, but I guess what I'm getting at is like, growing up in these mountains, did people believe there were mountain lions out here? Well, when we're talking about mountain lion and talking about what we also call it cougar cougar, I don't think they believed that. But now we had panthers, the smaller black cats. Okay, yeah, really, here's my man. Tell me tell me about that, because that's that's what Dad's had. It's all about that. Why do you where have you heard that? Tell me the origin of that? James gave a thumbs up too, So he's on board the black the black cats, the panthers. Well, where lived then was m down't in Montgommer County. Still don't watched all mountains, but in the uh late summertime, maybe around August whatever, when it will be dry. Well, for some reason the cats would come down or thought, I said, the cats and maybe it was just one and uh start there screaming and it was spooked the horses and things like that, you know, but it really spooked that. You never seen one though, I never have seen one myself, but now people, uh other people saw them and people that see yeah, and I believed yeah, absolutely, yeah. Uh James, what do you think about? Well? Number one, have you ever seen a mountain lion like a tan? Have you really tell me about that? I d can I start back with the panthers. First, I live with my grandparents, uh, and we'd go to town once the week Saturday. Which is it? I mean the paved road now, but it was just dirt road. Do you get over the mountain toward the Dallas and on that mountain At different times we've seen him across the road. Sometimes we won, and a lot of times they're two and they were black, beautiful animals, but it just gives you child months to see one, and always down to see them across the road, you know, head where they're going off the mountain or coming up the mountain. With several times I was the best sources I've heard. I mean, we're gonna have to get these guys, some believers had we might need to get them to church to repair their sins. That could be stretching the truth. Well, I'm the only survivor my grandmother and my granddad. Uh. But I won't say regular bases, but pretty frequent so and it's on Saturday, because we always went down on Saturday, parked with the same spot that grocery shop. We'd come back home on the gravel road over the mountain that paved now and we'd see him on top crossing the road. Several times, uh mountain last to tan ones would crowd. No, I was su I was grown before. I've seen them, the cougar. They always just called these panthers. Pretty pretty pretty animals if you look at it that way, kind of give your Chillbut from the saying, um, I've seen him across the roads, the cougars, Uh, I was hunting them down the road in Montgomery County and my son and uh, there in the rut, don't come by, buck come by. I shot the buck and then another buck come back. So my boy was further down the mountains. So I got got him and brought him back up, and then I was going to move my bronco around where the access would be easier to get it off. I get back up there and he said, you miss something. What do you mean he's should go down there and look at your deer that panthered come up the holler. And he said it was just an all but calling sneaking up on that deer and it grab grab What I mean, it's done major damage to the deer trying to drag it back down the hollar. Huh uh, give me anything. We've had a camera phones in, but that's been twenty years ago, thirty years ago. Yeah. Uh, but I've seen him. I've seen him. Oh over them deer hunting, seen him come through and that there's a lot of dog hunters back then, and I had them a cougar to come by with a dog there him. M hm. Really, so you've seen the deer dogs running a mountain with the cougar come through, and then I could hear the dogs coming and they they brought it onto I mean the dogs obviously catching it. Um big black, No, this was cougar. Big. Of course you're probably play but all dogs will not run a cat, just I mean, like your deer dogs. You might out of four or five, you might have one that would run a cat, but the rest someone will follow, follow the lead dog, but they don't pursue it very fast. Did you grew up hunting deer with dogs? Yes, that was the only way we knew. I think that was more or less out of it, well, abstually the culture then, and uh, probably out of necessity because they were so few deer that you almost had to have a dog to locate them. When I started hunting, it's probably about nineteen fifties, but we had two deer seasons then. The first one was the second week, and November started on a Monday. I went through a Saturday. You did not hunt on Sunday because it was illegal or because your family wouldn't let you. Well, no, it was an illegal There was no season, so it goes Monday through Saturday. James, did you ever hunt on Sunday? When you weren't supposed to, don't killing was thinking, that's a loaded question. He said that this did not help to be truthful before If no, I never hunted him, I have and I man, yeah, But anyway, the back to the hunting with dogs, and that was just the culture. You know, we knew we didn't know any other way to hunt. But I guess I saw my first turkeys and uh, somewhere in early nineteen seventies, and I had no idea, and it was raining, and we were driving around during deer season deer hunting, and I didn't really know what there were. I saw him. They just in there, you know, in the rain. But anyway, I started turkey hunting and I started seeing deer. I thought, you know, a person could deer hunt this way. You don't need dogs, you know. Okay, you know that's sitting around sitting our turkey hunting. And I started seeing deer. So anyway, my brother and not hunting together then, and we had started hunting. Are okay, our dogs is getting old, and we decided we're going to not have dogs anymore. A lot or a lot of trouble if you're never on hunting dogs. Uh, yeah, it's a it's a but anyway, so after we didn't have dogs any longer, we started hunting over in this area here because this homestead here I'm talking about part of it hadn't been abandoned then there were still some old fields and you know, old deer hanging out in there. And uh so we started we just counted up on top of the mount or we had a another place up here and pull out with company or try, you know, and and would come down and hunting this hunt off the ground, hunting terrain features and stuff. And that was just new. Huh, that was it is new because we had we've been hunting from dollars all the time. We didn't know and uh of course that was a little bit before any type of climbing stands or anything. But on top of the mountain here there were remains of some old wooden platform. They were probably James people people had been when he had it on Sunday. Yeah, he never did safe many black panther. But anyway, that's when I started to just uh staying hunting or still hunting for deer. It was when I started turk hunting, and uh and we never looked back, never looked back, and so what we started doing after that, my brother and UH and those guys hunting with us, We would wouldn't build ground blinds into a little saddles and divides and here, you know, I don't know, just whatever is on the ground, you know, and sometimes wouldn't be car you know, And so I wouldn't use those year after year. Yeah, I want to talk about two things. I don't know if we can cover it all. Um. I want to tell people about my moose hunt because last the last Barger's Render, like I've been on every single Barger's podcast except for the last one because I was in Alaska and my wife Misty ran the podcast and they told everybody that I was in Alaska moose hunting. So I want to give an update. But so much has happened since then. I don't know that we can cover it all. Because me and justin yesterday had a pretty big adventure in the mountains here in Arkansas that ended up with a bear getting a ride out of the woods on the back of a mule. So I want to tell about that too, and all you guys were involved in that. Where should I start that? And then bears bear, Yeah, I mean that was phenomenal. Why don't you tell us about that? Tell us about and tell who Bear is? Bear John ncom my son. Yeah, yeah, Well, you know he's a sixteen year old kid and Clay has raised him where he's kind of like a man. I mean, he he drove that truck. Judy couldn't my wife couldn't believe it. She said, I can't believe they let let Bear drive it truck with a mule trailer down here by himself in several hours. Yeah yeah, I mean three it's three hour drive with that truck, you know on mules. So anyway, he drove down here from Fayetteville, and uh, you know he went to stand in the first morning. Um, he had a big bear coming in and you know he's in the saddle, tethered tree saddle. Okay, that's what kind of was. It's pretty good climbing, isn't it. Yeah? Yeah, And uh sure enough. I think so much about when y'all hunted in Oklahoma. In in in there were two big bears. They eventually ended up being five fifty and I'd say a minimum of six fifty two bears coming in and I don't care where are you hunted. I mean, they had two or three different locations best I remember, And the first morning it seemed like every time those bear would come in and show themselves and turn around the leave. So the big bears they don't like any hint of human odor. And so bear goes in there and course he's he climbs up in his tree and his bear comes in three forty pounds fill dress, so you know, weighs four ten big bear. And uh, the bear comes in, turns around and leaves, smells him. Can I tell you what he did? Oh? I know what he did? Tell us? Well, you know, Clay and I have this argument about sin control. Bear, tell you what he did? Oh? I know, I know control. So so anyway, but I've got I could we can have a little conversation about what I think happened to Okay, so tell your side of say. Okay, so he's wearing a believer bear. Bear and I are talking, and I said, Bear, I know, I said, you can't tell you dead this. We're sitting out here. I think, were you here? Gerald told on you? Gerald said they were talking. I said, your dad's not gonna prove this. So anyway, I said, Okay, Bear if you really want to kill that bear. Of course, you never know if it's just or not. But I believe it. I mean absolutely no question. Yeah, that bear was not gonna come in without sinking. So I said, bear, you come by the house in the morning. He told me what time he could be there. And I've got a cent locked box where I just keep my main hunting gear. And I took that stuff and dried it, and then I went and got some of my the product, the product of the carbon activated yeah, yeah, the hood, yeah, the whole thing. Uh, and rubber boots. So I got him to real good pair of rubber boots. I got all my sent stuff out, and I got some of my scent control spray, and I said that now, if you're gonna do this, you're gonna do it right. And this is keep this in mind. I said, this is something you don't do for every hunt. This is something you do maybe once a year, maybe once every two years. But if you got a really big buck, you got a really big bear, it's not gonna cost you but about an hour's worth of work. And I said, you walk to that stand in about a hundred yards or whatever you feel comfortable with. You you stripped down. I gave him underwear. I said, you stripped down but naked, and you take this big old bottle of spray and you bathe in it. And when you walk to your staying, you either walk in your underwear or you put your pants on, but don't put shirts and stuff on. I gave him two pair of gloves. And you guys out there in radio land can laugh at this, but I'm telling you you're wrong, Steve Ronnella, You're wrong. So anyway, so uh, he I asked him later, I said, did you do everything I told you to? He said, I did it almost to the teeth. So I said, when you get to that stand, don't put your tops on and stuff, you know, either at the base of the tree if it's not too hot, you know, I mean, put it at the base. And I said, when you go up that ladder, don't be using your hands. Use this pair of sink gloves. You go up to stand and you got your you got your spray in your pocket and it was a big bottle. And uh. And I said, once you get up there, you put all you spray down again everywhere, and you tell I got him the odor, I said, you you do your arms, the back of your neck, your stirringham, back of your legs, whatever you you know, there's places. And I said, once you get up there, you just drench yourself again and then spray your boots. I had him a good pair of lacrosse boots that didn't have the phone on them, you know, which is that's not a big deal. But if you're gonna go this much trouble, do right. So he had to lacrosse boots and and uh the birdie And so he gets up and the stand sprays down, and I said, about every five or ten minutes, shoot that stuff around, and and sure enough that sucker came in and he killed hey. And you know what those big bear I mean. I heard so many stories of y'all having those big bear come in. And when did you kill that five? When you got sent free? But instead of spending three hundred dollars on this stuff I gave, I just gave him that stuff. I said, hey, man, you kill that bear, you can just keep all that stuff. And so that bear that you killed, you did not kill it until you were sent free. And how did you get sent free? You spent about seven thousand dollars that I sent free blind. That's what the first time I hunted out of a red neck blind for this big bear, where after I killed him the first time hunt. So sent is a hundred percent the limiting factor on big bears. So I've got nothing to refute. But you know, I sitting there, looked bear. If that wind even what you're doing, If if that bear, if you got the wind to your back and it's blowing to that bear, you're probably still going to get detected. But if that you know, if the wind is anywhere, you know, thermal's going up. If there's no wind at all, that bear will come right under your stand. Yeah, and that's exactly what happened. Man, in my world is just spending backwards today between the black Panthers sent control and I'm just ready to just be like, well, yeah, Clay. When we were in Canada, Clay was barking about sent control and you know, uh, yesterday we were like drowned rats in that blind because every ten fifteen minutes he'd be like, can I spray you can spread? Yeah? I was hoping you were doing that, and I wanted to tell you we we did and it it Uh you know, we're we're hiking in a mile and a half and so, I mean we were covered in sweat and it was just I just didn't know how to not do that. But once we got in there, we had some sense sent shield spray and I mean we just bade their said we had sent free wipes that we wiped down. You know, that help and it you know, we had we still had bears smelling us. But well, and I can just a little bit more about bears bear and then we'll tell our story. But so bear kills this big bear, you know, probably close to foreign pounds actually, I mean, I don't want to take away weight from bears bear. But they say that a field dress bear his gut's only way about thirteen percent of his field dress. Really, I was thinking low, Well, I know it seems low, and I've never really verified it with like that number. Just every he says it and nobody verified. I mean, maybe some guy who didn't know was the one that said that. I want to hear a real bear. Biologists say I have weighed a hundred and eighty different bears and they all come into the thirteent range. I've never heard that. Just that's what people repeat that forty pounds. So yeah, so it's usually the guts are potentially a lot less than what you might think. And his his bear, by the way, had very little fat, right James, Yeah, yeah, I mean it wasn't a fat bear. This bear was lean and mean I mean if he would have had what two or three inches of fat all, you know, he he would have been a really really monster. So you know he shot this bear and kill it with his bow. It killed it with his bow, and I mean it it did the moan and it just went what thirty five yards probably maybe thirty probably thirty and uh so, And this is something that I've come to believe on the bear moan is that you know you hear guys, well, you know mine didn't moan. You know. Well, what I've noticed is if you kill that bear on the spot, he's dead, he's running dead, he's gonna moan. So if you get if you get a marginal shot where the bear is gonna die, but he's gonna run a hundred yards. I mean, he might bear moan out there as he's dying, but you're not gonna hear it. But these bear that you've killed it I've been around and bears bear and when I hear guys tell stories, this one you kill yesterday. It did a little moaned, but it felt fell real quick. And so you got to seventy four year old guys out there helping bear get that bear out of the woods. And uh, I don't know what James thought. You know, I was thinking James wouldn't he'd have a better way of doing it. But I had a hundred foot rope and you hadt of strap in there, and we just backed the truck in as close as we could tie it on. It a little bit bear out and uh, you know, how did y'all get it in the truck? How do we do? What James had is back up where the tailgate was almost flat with a side of just kind of rolled it in. Yeah, well they're hard to move when they're that big. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We had bear too, I mean a little bear man that agrees. Oh yeah, yeah, we got he just right up to the truck and he fell out. We actually, okay, I gotta say. Brent Reeves claims He claims that he was totally out of the loop on because Brent was over there and he he showed me the text messages he had with Bear about how anyway Brent wasn't there, So yeah, I mean we can't count on Brent. Brent blamed, Brent blamed the communication skills of the nucoms on him not being there. Uh, since Brent as a here, Uh, I will say, there's a few other ideas that I had about that. I called him talking to him and he said he ain't coming up there. Yeah, uh no, not really, No, he had a good he it was just miscommunication and there was there. Brent was out of cell range and we were or y'all were in I was in Alaska. What was wild is that I am on my end reach in Alaska on trying to navigate flying out and people are tech misty saying have you heard from Bear? And I'm like no, and Brent I think Brent even texted me. I mean, I'm right in the middle of it, man, and I'm telling the whole meat eat or crew what's going on? All week while we were in Alaska. I was talking about, you know that while I was missing bear hunting, and I was talking to him about my bear pit and uh oh, everybody was rooting for Bear and Steve Ron Ella and Sam Bates and Dirt myth my cameraman. I mean they were like getting played by plays. He's in the stand wins out of the East, you know, bears. It bears message in me from his cell phone to my end reach in Alaska, and uh oh, I couldn't really mose hunt for and I it. I told Mr. I said, it stressed me out when he killed it because I knew that Dad and James were the only ones there to help him get it out. And I was I was worried about you guys man. Yeah, if if that bear had gone a hundred yards tunerd yards, I mean, I guess you. We just quartered it up, and well, hey, that's what I was gonna say. You know, as good as bear is that skin and stuff. I told him he should have just quartered it up right there in the spot. That's what I would have done rather than because it just increases the work so much, you know, to move him. I just quartered him up. But yeah, there's pretty good. We had to tie it to a tree, just get it. Yeah, I get his legs up. Oh, it was steep, steep. Yeah. We tried, he tried to hold it. Finally we just tied it to trade to feel dress. Yeah, and I took a lot of weight off. It was. It was quite the ordeal, and I really was proud of Bear. He Bear is not a man of many words. Humble kid and uh. When I was going to Alaska, my Alaska trip overlapped the intense time period before opening day when you were baiting bears. And and anybody that's never bated bears welcome to not being in the know of how much work goes into the most work of anything I do is baiting bears. You know, people think baiting bears for lazy guys that don't want to get out in the woods. Ha ha ha. Most work I do is baby bears. And so I wasn't gonna be here for most of it, and so Bear he's going to school during the week. But there were two saturdays that I said, Bear, I need you to go bait my bears in the place I'm baiting. We can't drive into it, there's no vehicular access, and so you gotta take the mules and we haul bait in on the mules, and it it is an expedition to leave where we live drive there. I mean, it's an all day deal. You gotta catch mules. You gotta pack the right tack, You gotta pack the right bear bait. You gotta know how to handle those mules and not hurt yourself. I mean there's just a you gotta driving to the access point. I mean you're in and out of four wheel drive and crossing creeks and navigating rough terrain and and uh, just in even in the truck, halling the trailer, and uh, so I knew Bear could do it. And uh he took one of his buddies one one Saturday, and uh and they went in there and took in probably five pounds of bait on those mules and baited it. He said, they were in there like twelve minutes. You know, I said, I told, I gave him real specific I said, I don't want you in there in the morning. I don't want you in there in the afternoon. I want you in there between eleven and one o'clock. So that means you're gonna have to leave our house at six o'clock in the morning, you know, Like I really gave him some specifics, and he did it. And then the next time he went in by himself. The next Saturday, he didn't have help because it was the day he was hunting and he went in there by himself. So anyway, I was real proud of him. He did good. You know, I think about me being that age, I would be telling my grandfather. I mean, I drove as thinking truck down with those mules, I passed cars, you know what I mean. I'd be bragging about it. He never said a word even no big deal, man. He just came down here and did what he had to do. And it's pretty it's pretty cool. Really. Yeah. Well, I was proud of him just for executing and and getting a good shot on the bear. You know. That's what I was coaching him on end reach. I was saying, don't take anything but a broadside shot of a standing bear. Don't get too high, you know. I didn't want him to get up twenty five ft and have a real sharp shot angle. He was wanting to get back like twenty five yards from the bat, and I told him that's too far. I said, you don't want to take a twenty five yard shot, Get into about eighteen yards, get up about eighteen ft and uh, you know he could have got up higher for cent, but boy, when you started getting a super steep shot angle. You just it's tough. And so he did everything right. You know, the bear bait was where he had some limbs in the way, so he positioned some of that bait where the bear would move just a little out so he'd have a shot. And that bear walked up exactly where he wanted it to and stuck one arm in the bait barrel, which opened up his vital cavity. And man, he just stuck at broadhead slick trick right right in there in the heart. Gerald, you told me something you heard bear do, which was a sixteen Yeah, okay. I thought this was rather mature of him. He mentioned to your dad when they were having this conversation here about the scent control and everything, and uh, okay, this is the first evening he was there hunting and he saw the bear, but he thought it scented him in it her beard away. But he left something either in the tree or in his stand, and I assumed it was a piece of clothing mm hmm, because he said the bear would uh on the camera it was showing he was in there, the bearer than there three or four hours every night. So he left that so that the bearer will get used to his sin. I'm assuming that. I thought that real smart of him. Yeah, well that's good. He just blew my sink control deal forget it, guys, that's why I did it. Yeah, I was gonna say that. I don't know, but i've I've always thought what he did was very smart. And I thought about, uh, you know, I've madeed bard here at my place and you and I know y'all have done this too. I would i'd meet him coming back. You know, they would be heading up there. I don't know if they're smelling me, if they heard me or hot, you know, but until they got used to my presents their somewhat, yeah, they can sometimes. Yeah, well, uh what should we do here? Justin? Should we talk about the moose? Are bear? That's up to you? Well, what's in your heart? Justin? You're my cameraman. Uh, well I could tell the moose story because this would be number six every person. So Justin guy to Arkansas within an hour of me coming back to Arkansas from Alaska. So basically I went from that trip to this one and so every so Justin has been with me ever since I got home with Alaska, like every minute of every day basically, and every time I come to somebody new, I gotta tell him the Alaska story. So I told Misty and the kids. He heard me tell Dad, You heard me tell James. So anyway, you've heard the story many times. It's a good one. I think you should go with that one, go with Alaska. Well. So when I we left for Alaska on September seven, and I went with Steve Ronnella and we filmed an episode of Meat Eaters. So everybody will be able to watch this at some point on on Meat Eater season eleven. It's undisclosed where it's gonna be Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's kind of like the Black Panther, that's right. Yeah, so much mystique around this. So what we did. What we did was what they call a ridge hunt, which it's a fly in camp where we and it was a do it yourself hunt. So we were with what they call a transporter, so there was no guide, no outfitter. But basically you hire bush planes to take you into a spot and uh and kind of the what you know is that they're taking you into a spot that's gonna be decent and have moose. But they don't tell you anything. They legally can't. They just drop you off and uh, you know they don't. They don't say, hey, you should camp over there, and the moose are gonna come from here. You know. It's it's it's uh, do it yourself. It's it's called a ridge hunt because it's the area we were in was rolling hills, with the highest mountains in the area being about four four the four hundred feet or so in the river bottoms being about three thousand. Now often the distance, you know, sixty miles away, you could see white capped mountains, big big Alaskan mountains. But basically these airplanes can land in certain areas on these ridges. They can't land down in the tundra. And the area consists of big spruce thickets, which would just be big green patches of woods, and then willow thickets, which you're gonna be smaller trees but thick, super thick, and then there's tundra. So I mean, that's a that's a general description of the type of terrain. You either gonna have spruce, willow and aspen or tundra. And the tundra can have blueberries, cranberries and crowberries in it a lot of it. You wouldn't believe the amount of blueberries cranberries that were I mean everywhere, we all were covered in stains of berries and just random places just because you know, you sit on the ground every where you go, so I mean you you just sit on blueberries. You everybody had blueberry stains on their knees and had a blueberries blueberry stains on my backpack where I leaned down on the ground. Um, we ate black blueberries the whole time, you know, But but when they drop you in these camps. Basically, when you're moose hunting, you're limited to how far you can go after a moose based upon how easily you can get it back to your camp, because this thing is gonna weigh between you know, a thousand and fifteen hundred pounds um, and so it's an incredible amount of work to get the meat back to the airstrip because that's where you gotta get it. So basically, it's not like elk hunting. When your elk hunt, you might walk fifteen miles and you're looking for one and an elk because just enough smaller that you know, you might have a big, heavy pack out, but you can pretty much get one out a couple of guys of about anywhere. Um, a moose is just enough bigger than an elk that most moose hunters would say they're not going to shoot a moose much past a mile beyond their camp. So you're out in this huge wilderness and you can't go to a lot of moose that you can see because you're you're the best spot that we had for glassing. So you have your camp tucked away somewhere where it's secluded. And we were kind of out of the wind behind a little bluff, and we would walk out every day from our camp and go to one of two glassing spots. One of the glass and spots was about a mile from our camp, but you could see it from our camp. It was a big gravelly knob about a mile away through open tundra. It looked like you could just walk over there in ten minutes, but it was took forever to get there. The other one was just over the ridge, and from these glass and spots you could see for miles and I mean that, uh, you could you could see across this river. We were overlooking a river that was one point nine miles away and you could see all the mountains clear as a bell on the other side of the river, and you could glass him. You know, we had good optics, you know, spotting scopes and binos on tripods, and so you just sat there for hours every day, literally all day, and just glass and you just you just learned every nuance of the land. We saw. The first night we were there, we saw a pack of fourteen black wolves across the river, jet black, fourteen of them. Wow. I'd asked Steve if he had ever seen anything. I mean, it's the first night we were there. It was a first animals that we saw. Uh and uh. Steve was on the other side of the mountain and I was glassing and saw him and I said wolves. And there were five of them and I was like one, two, three for five black wolves. Wow, I can't believe it. And they were going through open tundra and they just kept coming just more more more more, Brobably, they were fourteen in the line. Every one of them looked the exact same. And Steve came over and looked at him. And Steve has a vast amount of experience in Alaska and the West and the wolf country, and asked him if he'd ever seen anything like that, and he said no, he said he's seen you know, usually you see three or five. You know, five would be pretty decent sized. But and we saw them multiple times and they played like German shepherds out in that tundra. They just wrestled and wagged their tails and fight and then you'd you'd you'd see one sitting down on his haunches and throw his head back and how. And then about five seconds later you'd hear, oh, you hear him how, and you'd be watching him. I mean, it isn't eat. We watched him for We saw him at least three different times, and they stayed right in that area. But so back to moose. When you're moose hunting, you're hunting the rut, you're hunting the moose rut, and basically you're trying to call these moose to you. And when it's just like any it's just like turkey hunting. It's in a lot of ways and just like the elk hunters say, and I'm not a big I'm not a good elk hunter, but you're hoping that the moose are doing what they're supposed to be doing. And responding to calls, and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. And basically, during our time there, the moose weren't responding to calls that good, and uh, the moose weren't moving around. We kind of had these local moose that we were watching that just kind of were living there and they were there when we got there. And what when you know it's really good is when every day you wake up and there's new moose in your area, or you see a moose two miles away that's moving and he just they're you know, they're just on the prowl. And and we did not see that until the last day. Basically, we messed around with these local moose that didn't want to come to our calls for for eight days and we uh, it was so cool because you'd be looking at a moose like one point two miles away one one of our best spots where we watched what I believed was a sixty inch moose, watched him for five days but couldn't didn't want to move in on him because we thought we could call him to us. You would, you'd be looking at him and you would call moose, call just with your mouth, you know, just a loud and he'd be looking a different way, and then a few seconds afterwards, he'd, you know, he'd he'd look at you and just he'd you know, acknowledge it and that he could hear you from that far, which is pretty wild. But finally on the last day, day number nine, we woke up and there were we saw several moves. We tried to work some moose. Nothing happened, and we had to leave the next day. We had to leave the next day. Um oh, we're getting some more fire here or wood on the fire with the airplanes were coming at seven thirty the next day. This is day number nine. We are at at noon on day number nine, we were basically done. We had to be done. And uh. We we basically shot the final scene of the video where Steve and I were frustrated and just kind of like, man, we tried, we had all this and there were a couple of stocks that were almost killed one one day four, Steve had a couple of close calls but nothing ever happened. And so we we shot the Indian scene of the film, and I mean, we're just bummed that we had uh and it's a it's a strange feeling. I mean, you guys know it when you invest that much time and energy. I mean, you can't just go to Alaska and be gone five days. I mean, this is like a thirteen day trip, which is the biggest commitment of my year. And uh, and you know, I mean I didn't really expect to kill a moose, So it's not like I was disappointed that since, but this sense of you just worked so hard and you don't really have much to show for it other than just an experience, which is a good I mean, we're all used to that and okay with that, but it's still kind of a bummer. Well, that afternoon, one of the producers of the show said, hey, we really can't kill him moose, Like we're done because if we killed one, we don't have time to get it out before we got to leave. And Steve looked at his name is Chester, my friend Chester. Steve looked at Chester with kind of a grimace and said, we'll figure that if it happens. And uh, after the morning hunt and we're done, the whole crew is sitting in a tent with a wood stove in it, just talking about, you know, how we're gonna go home without a moose. And Steve walked in at four sixteen and said, Clay, I'm gonna walk up to the porcupine. And we named the out of this big Holla porcupine because they've seen a porcupine there. Of all things, he was he wasn't saying Clay, come with me, cameramen, come with me. He was just gonna go on a walk. And I said I'll go with you, Steve, and so I jump up and so here's our two hunters walking out and we weren't like Steve wasn't even gonna tell the cameraman to come. But because they're good guys, Dirt Myth his name is. His name is Garrett Smith, but he goes by Dirt Myth. Dirt Myth is his name. Um, Dirt goes, well, I'll come, and they everybody goes, you're gonna bring a camera, and he's like, ah, I guess I might as well. And then so when he did that, Laura and the other cameraman who was a great guy, said well, I I'll go to you're gonna bring a camera, I guess I will. And we had unloaded our packs and took all our gear out that we needed to process moose. We didn't have bags, we didn't didn't have you know, some of the guys didn't have headlamps. We didn't have I mean, we were just preparing to go. But we took our rifles and cameras and went to the porcupine. How far is that? Probably a half mile from where we were, and uh we got up and sat on porcupine and glass and glass and glass, and we had not seen a single bull, moose and porcupine in nine days. So I why Steve wanted to go there, I don't know, you know, he just probably because we we hadn't been there in a day or two. Well, we're sitting there and dirt myth goes, what is that way out there? And we look across the tundra, probably four miles way out in the river flats, and we see a big black object moving. You could see it. I actually don't know if you could see it with your naked eye, but I put the binos up in it looked like a It looked like an argo. Steve Ronella pulls his bottos up and said, that's an argo. That's not a moose. And then I said, no, I think I see horns on it, and Lauren said, no, that's the cowboy hat of the driver. And when he when he said it, he looked at it. You're like, it kind of does look like an argo with a man wearing a cowboy hat front. Anyway, Steve pulls out the spot and he's going, sure enough, it's a big bull moose just hooking it across the tundra, and Steve goes, we could call that bull moose in if he was over here close. It was the first time we'd seen a cruising bull, so that that was the indicator. It was the first time we just saw one just plowing across the tundra looking for the cat. That was fun to see, but way out of play. I mean, just as well have been on a different planet just started. When you are fixing the leaf basically, that's well, not five minutes after we saw the Argo bull, one of the caraman sees a bull directly below us, like within play, like eight nine hundred yards away. Eight. If you're within eight hundred yards of a moose out there, you're it's like being within thirty yards of a deer here. I mean like eight hundred yards is like, wow, we're close. To that thing big country. Well, we see a moose and look at it, and it's a small moose and the legal moose has to be fifty inches wide or have four brow times. This bull clearly was not legal, but it was cool that we saw a bull. There's a bull. We watched him and we called to him. Didn't acknowledge us, but the bull just kind of disappears. Well, not three minutes later after that, I spotted a single paddle of a bull twelve hundred and forty seven yards away, just sticking up out of a spruce thicket, and I said, man, there's a bull right there. We all look at Steve goes Man, that's a big one. That's a legal one. We call at it and rake, but would you take a stick? And Steve had a an oil can, like a plastic oil bottle like from Walmart, cut the butt of it out, stuck a stick into the spout, taped it and had a little handheld And if you can imagine an open ended plastic oil can raking it up and down trees sounds incredible. And uh he he started raking and I started calling and that we saw that bull one time. Acknowledge that it heard our call but disappeared. Well, Steve looks at b we've got two hours of daylight left. The planes are coming at seven thirty am. And uh and and and basically I don't remember exactly who said what, but basically we were like, it's the last day of season. Let's go. And so we just bailed off the mountain, going to him and man, when you bail off a mountain over there, it's a commitment. And I'll be honestly, I was. The whole time. I was thinking, every step we're taking down this mountain, we're gonna have to walk back up. And we were moving fast, and we were just plowing down the mountain and we gained about three hundred yards and so now we're about nine hundred yards from where we saw the moose, and Steve climbs up a dead spruce tree about twelve ft and his glassing over the willows, trying to see if this bull's coming, and he can't see it. And we sat there for ten fifteen minutes. Call Rake and we think we're gonna be able to see this bull if he's coming. We see nothing. And so after fifteen minutes we look at each other just with our hands up and just go, well, I guess, I guess he's just like all the other bulls and just didn't gonna come. And directly we heard the brush cracking about a hundred yards to our left, I mean like big stuff breaking, and all of us were like, there's a bull coming, and he's right here. So Steve and I kneel down behind a tree or behind the fallen log. And about the time we're getting out down, we can see the We can see the bushes swaying because these bulls, huge animals, big horns coming through these willow thickets thick. I mean, they're just pushing over brush intentionally making noise. And he's out there by a hundred yards and we start seeing the trees move and then you start seeing flashes of horn and I mean he's coming, and uh, we assume it's the big bull that we just saw, and um, as soon as it kind of comes into view, we see that it's a little moose. It's like that thirty inch moose that we probably saw at the beginning. And it comes in the nineteen yards and just stares at us, and it's still kind of behind the bushes, and we're excited to have a mooset close because it's the closest we've been to one all week for the most part of bull. But we're also kind of bummed because it's not legal. And so Steve and I are sitting there side beside and um, and then directly we hear the brush cracking beyond the bull that's standing steel right in front of us. And you know, it took a minute to figure out what was going on, and somebody said one, and we go, oh, man, you're right. Look I see I see the trees moving. Oh wow, get ready, and we know this one's a big one. Steve Rinella had told me. I mean, Steve has been on multiple moose hunts, successful moose hunts, and has never killed a great big moose because he's always letting somebody else shoot. I mean that not always the story, but it and he has killed a moose before, but not a great big one. And uh like there's multiple mediator episodes where someone else shoots, you know, and uh so on this hunt, our agreement was that if a big one came in, he was gonna get to shoot it. And and I I mean he told me that from the beginning, and I was like perfect love it. Yes, I'm glad to go and be second shooter. I want you to kill big moose, Steve. And so this big one is coming. We know it's legal, we know it's big. And just to clarify, because both of us are sitting there with guns, and one time before in the hunt, he had said, Clay, you shoot when we thought something might pan out. So just to clarify, said Steve, you're shooting the bull. I'll back up. And I mean this, this bull is is coming. I mean like we can. We're now seeing him. He's getting closer, and he looks at me and he says, no, you shoot, and I go this is all on camera, so you'll be able to see it at some point. And and I said, I said, no, Steve, that's a big bull. You shoot the bull. And now the thing is like probably forty yards coming, and and he goes, I'll never forget it. I mean it was like he was mad at me. He said, Klaite, get out there and kill that bull. I mean he stuck a figure up and just just I mean something had to have. Somebody had to dictate what was gonna happen. And so I mean the bulls right there. I wasn't gonna argue a second time, and so I said okay, and there was a there was a dead spruce, said, falling over about five six ft in front of me that had a big fork. The roots made the perfect fork, and so the bull couldn't see me. But I needed to be a little bit more out in the open, so I just snuck out and knelt behind this big root ball and laid my gun right in that fork. It was just perfect. And man, that sucker showed up about the time that I got my gun up, and uh it, I can't describe to you what it what it's like to see an animal that big, that close, pushing over willows, grunting, moving his head side to side. I mean it really, it was like a dinosas like a stegasaurus. I mean, big old time's coming out off of front of his head. And uh it was thick though, even though he was nineteen yards, it was super thick. And at first I thought he might come into a little opening, and I let him pass when I could have shot because there were some sticks. And then I started looking the way it was going and was like, man, I'm gonna have to shoot through some stuff to kill this moose. But I'm carrying a three wind mag weatherby I know, I got a lot of gun. And basically the next time he came into an opening, I mean, I just shot through a bunch of twigs but as big as your fingers at nineteen year words, and I hit him just right behind his shoulder and he went down on the back end and kind of spun towards us, and I shot him again and he just went down right there when he hit the ground the earthquake, and uh, and man, it was neat. It was neat because Steve, uh let me shoot, Like I really. It wasn't one of those deals where it was like somebody's like you shoot and they're like, oh no, you shoot, and then but you really you want to shoot? I literally I wanted. It wasn't like that. I really wanted Steve to shoot. And I was gonna be thrilled just to be there when it happened, you know. And so that was pretty neat the way that all went down. And and so we've shot it, and then we had we thought we were a long ways from the airstrip, but we pull out our on X and do a line distance on the on X and we're eight hundred yards from airstrip, which is half a mile, So I mean, it really wasn't that far. Small ball he live when he heard the they were coming, he's they were standing side by side. Really, I don't know, I don't know how to explain it. Standing I would like to say that, uh my, I've always like Steve. You can tell he's a quality guy. But that just put the ice it on the cake. I mean, uh, he probably got a real kick out of doing that, but I think it just shows what kind of a guy you're working for. Yeah, and one other thing that I would like to have people that don't know about moose hunting. I was shocked to hear you say that you just don't go even you you got this mile perimeter, you don't go out in there because once you go out there, they'll never come back in there for two or three days. I mean, you you take a position and keep it so when you guys dropped off that mountain, if you'd had another day to go back, they would they would have vacated that place, wouldn't. Hey, that's the principle. The principle is you try to be have as low impact as as as be as low impact as possible and just hunker down the guys that are real good at that ridge hunting, that have done it year after year after year. Like for instance, we talked to a guy at the airport before we left that had hunted the same ridge for eleven years and they called their ridge um the prison because they they don't let you go on walks. They there's one place that they call from and they go nowhere else other than from their camp to the place they call back and forth like they're just trying to You're just trying to be in this tight little world, you know, and um, yeah, because you can. You go beating around and you blow your moose out. Well, one other thing I thought was interesting. At one point, when it looked like there was not gonna be any success, you guys took off after a moose and violated that principle. Uh. But I mean, you know, there's no set in concrete deals. I mean staying that, But yeah, a couple a couple of times we it towards later in the week, we when they wouldn't respond because the only way that works is if they're responding to your calls. And basically they say, if you stay there for ten days, eventually they're gonna respond. And uh, but you know, about day five six, we were like, man, we gotta make something happen because we were watching bulls out there. Further that we felt like we could stalk. And every single time you left your camp, you you're a little eric. Excuse me, every time you left your little area, you were gravely disappointed that how difficult it is to stalk them because you're you're up on ridge looking down into this stuff and you think you're gonna be able to see these moves, or you feel like it's low bushes and stuff, and you get in there and it's fourteen foot willows and it looked like it was four ft willows, I mean, and and and just over and over. We would go, oh wow, that that doesn't look too bad, and you'd get down there and it would just be miserable. Alaska is a pretty miserable place. One other one other thing on the ground on foot. One of the thing that I found very interesting is when you're a successful hunter, and I feel like you guys will agree with this, it's not your skills quite as much is your ability to just stay with it, you know, just to be out there. And and I've noticed stories. I hear Clay tell how you know I went to extra mile? I did you know? I just did stuff that just most people wouldn't want to fool with. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But Ronnella, after nine days, I mean you were whipped yep, whipped down to nothing, and Ronella goes, let's go or you know, I'm going yep. I mean that was pretty impressive, pretty stinking impressive. So anyway, yeah, I told Dad, uh, I mean, I it wasn't my idea to go up there. I was I was good with the hunt being over, which you know usually I'm not. I mean, I really was whipped down. And so I owe that's the that bowl to Stephen more ways than one. Just even that we went up there. I knew you mentioned it, but I I just had never comprehended that comprehended the idea that if you venture out too far from camp you just won't get the meat back. That's just mind blowing. Like you said, with you can get you can head back in and pull all that meat out. But the fact that you might get too far from camp, that you can't get all that meat back even before you know it spoils or whatever. But yeah, that's it's amazing. Yeah, yeah, well it was an incredible experience. We saw one black bear grizzly in the South cub just one. It was a bear scat all over the mountain where we're at, but never had any grizzlies close to us. Yeah, when we killed that moose, we started a big fire right beside it, and uh and and we had you know, we had a camera crew and we had everybody there, so we're making a lot of noise. But the whole time we were skinning it in the dark, we were hooping and hollering. I mean, just everybody. If somebody hadn't hollered in two or three minutes, somebody would just whoo, just you know, just hooping, holler, and y'all were scared. Man was scared to scared boys. So uh, hey, hey, one other thing. I don't want to hug the show here, but I found it interesting, especially as a dad, that when you get on this plane, Generald, they go, hey, you got your parachute with you. I mean it's not really a parachute, but they want to make sure you gotta sleeping bag, food way to make fire because the chances of you crashing, I mean, there is a chance that that little plane is gonna have to land on top of a tree. Every time you get in one of those planes, you have to have with you everything you'd need to survive. And and so it was kind of interesting because like in our situation there with food bags, that that's where all our food was. Well, they flew me in and they said do you have food? And I was like, no, it's in the food bag. And they were like, well you need some food because do you have a sleeping bag? Do you have a shelter? So basically everywhere you go there's a chance that you're gonna get dropped off and not be picked up on the way out. I was the last one on the ridge. Just the way it laid out, like they flew out, the Caraman flew out, Steve flew out everybody, and they can only fly people out one by one, even though there were multiple super cubs. And when they left me, I was the only one on the airstrip and I made sure I had a gun some food just because they might fly back to town and then a storm roll in for three days and cover that mountain and they can't come get you. Weather is a major deal. Mean, the first day we almost didn't get to even hunt because, uh, they couldn't fly us into our ridge because it was covered in fog. And that can happen in a matter of thirty minutes. They can go from a bluebird day two, socked in for three days. And so like when they left me, it's like, you're good, and I'm like, yep, I'm good, and you know there's a chance they may not come back for you, you know. But by the day we left it was beautiful weather, so it was not an issue. But I did tell him not to forget me. I said, yeah, yeah, aren't gonna forget me. When y'all get back over there, I'll remember you. Um. There was a story though, when when they came and picked me up, they took us to a to a a like a middle like a middle ground air strip. So there was a bigger air strip out in the wilderness that they flew the super Cubs too, And then we got on a Cessna and flew act While we were waiting on our Assessina, my super Cub pilot UM told us the story of a guy that was not with this company. It was another transport company. Basically a guy they couldn't pick him up because of weather and he got killed by grizzly bear while he was waiting on the airstrip. They couldn't pick him up for two days. The guy was like sleeping in trees and basically was running from this grizzly bear for two days when they couldn't He's community. I don't know the story. I have no idea, but the guy got killed in the company that he had contracted to transport him actually lost their license. That This is the story. I heard him not mentioned any names. I don't know. It was not anyone. I know. It's kind of like the Black Panther. These guys are talking about, Oh, that stuff's really serious. No, no, I it happen, but I'm just saying I don't want to. But it happened two years ago. Yeah, so you know, stuff happens. But well, that's my moose story. We didn't even get to our bear story. Long story short. We killed the bear last night at three yards with a stone point three yard? Was that three yards or three ft? It was this far gerald one two probably two and a half from about here to that red chair. So we'll tell you that story another time. Dude, he just happened? Was that a normal route? Well? Coming in? So we were we were, We were in our bear pit. I made a ground blind. Have you seen a picture of it? Gerald? You know? Basically we dug a pit. It's about three and a half feet deep in the back. It's got a wooden uh roof covered in dirt and leaves. We thought it might help with our scent. I needed to get close because I was hunting with a stone point, a traditional bow. The whole idea of the pit was to have a very close shot for penetration, for getting a low entry wound. I didn't want to be shooting out of a tree, and for accuracy. I just wanted to be close. So it was really an issue of efficacy building this blind and getting that close. I just didn't want to miss. I wanted the era to do what it was supposed to do. We're making a film. It's gonna be on meteor. We filmed it, uh And I used a specific style of stone point that hadn't been using about ten thousand years. And you're traditional bowl. Let's just a recurve. The traditional ball was using as a hybrid recurve excuse me, hybrid longbow, the timber Ghost hybrid longbow called a smoke For anybody interested, I'll post some pictures of it on my social media. The bow was nothing was not. I mean, the bow is a modern bow. The arrow in the stone point is what was super primitive. And basically these bears were coming off the top of the mountain and they were my My bear pit essentially made a topographic obstacle that they had to go around. And so there were two bear trails that split right behind the blind and one went to the right and one went to the left. There was a little hole about as big as a golf ball in our blind that we could see out, and we would see bears walk past us, no more than five feet from us. And my exaggerating, you just see black fur cover that golf ball hole, and you know, here they come. And we saw a couple of bears. Some bears were smelling us, we know for sure. Some bears didn't. We had two bears come in yesterday, maybe three that didn't smell us, that came in real close. And we're you know, we're within five yards. It was multiple times, but right last night at last light, we were we learned that you had to be super ready because you can only see one direction out of this blind, and when you see them there in range and you can't hear them because it's like you're in a cave, you know, you can't hear real good. And basically I was sitting there with my bow ready, Justin has camera ready, and and when it got to prime time, we were just on red alert. We've been sitting there for eight out. We've been sitting there since noon, and and we'd let a couple of bears come in on us that I was like, shoot, if that had been a shooter, he'd got away. One bear came in, looked at us, and left just that quick. So we knew we had to be ready, especially with the big one. And I mean, I don't know what I was doing, but I didn't wasn't looking at the golf ball hole. Justin just goes there there is and I grabbed my bow three fingers on the knock and I say which side of the blind? And he goes that side, right side. Aboy the time he said right side. That bear came around that blind, and rather than just going straight down in front of it, he got to the front of our blind and hung the left, which just I mean basically, he just turned and I mean just walked right in front and and I didn't even aim, James, I'm serious, I just don't have to that. And I don't even think I probably pulled my bow all the way back. I just went and hit him, hit him. He was quartering to me, just to touch, but it hit him right behind the shoulder and hit the top of his heart. Aera didn't penetrate real deep. A lot of the Arab was sticking out. He spun the Arab broke off on a tree. He ran out there forty five yards and died of penetration though from where it broke off. But it went through a bunch of meat. If I had hit him in the ribs, if he was really broadside, I think it would have got a lot more penetration. But it did the rick man and it was it. It ended up being a pretty good bear. He had a wingspan of six ft eleven uh, which is a It was a It was a boar, a younger bore, but decent board, you know, in the two pound range probably. Uh so that's that story. I guess I will tell that story. I guess we do have time. You were basically hunting out of a foxhole, sod roof on it. That's it. That's right. You'll be able to see that video later this year. It's gonna come out and and and the video is not about bear hunting. The video about it is about something else. The bear hunt is just a small part of it, right, justin Well, Uh, it'll be a good bear in this winter. Hey, we got there yesterday after leaving our two chairs, which one was in a chair as a crate, but it was what Clay needed. And uh, my chair was thrown out where the bait was. We couldn't, as far as we could see, couldn't find Clay's chair. So he stacked two rocks and sat on them. They carried You guys were intruder, Yeah, so they were. They trust me, they were in there. Yeah, there was bear scat in the blond when I got there. You've got pictures of those bears just climbing over it, I mean top of it. Hey, what a great guy man, He's got some stuff. You know. I still say that if you ever get forward take some toys at there in time to a tree, a little plastic rings and stuff. I mean, I've had stuff happen with bears that just tell me they're looking for a party. What was it? What was the difference from yesterday and the day before? Yeah, I just think this bear just came in and he didn't come in yesterday. The first time we'd seen that bear, like with our own eyes, I'd seen him on camera because he had to yellow tags and his ears. Well, you know, what do you mean? Within thirty minutes of us leaving on the first night, there was like what three or four bears that came in to Yeah. That was like almost like they were sitting just out of range, just waiting and you guys, waiting for us to leave. By the time we got back to the truck and got they were there. But you didn't say any of that day, did you? I saw one? Didn't we see bear? Like? How many did you say yesterday? Today? Probably four? I think we saw four bears yesterday. What was the difference in the two days to under? I don't know. I think it might have been the fact that I mean that first sit um, you know, like we said, our wind was iffy. You just don't know what it's doing. You know, when you're in a tree, you can kind of have some kind of a determination on like what your wind might be doing. And there you we thought maybe it was being held, maybe it was circulating inside. But the way you know, we were, these bears were reacting at different times. It could have been peeling over the top and the thermals you know, come into play too, but we just didn't know. So I think we had that full day of sitting in there. The first day had the young bear come in, but then we had bears come in during the night, and then we had bears there, three or four bears there yesterday morning around before we got we were talking to you, So I think it was probably some uh, them acclimating to our scent, because because they wanted to come in there, but like the they're not being any sent in there on the first day and us just sitting there wafting, you know, whatever direction that was going. Probably they just weren't interested, but they knew like everything was good. For at least at twenty four hour period. I think that they got a little bit more accustomed to it. That blind was really interesting because I would take my puffer and puff in that blind, and the wind and the puff would just kind of stay in there. Sometimes it would drift a certain direction, but you would step out of the blind and put your head up out of the out of the pit, and the wind would just be really you go back in and just be quiet. I feel like it really would have helped for sent control if you were trying to get bears within twenty yards of you. The problem was, and this is why I didn't know, is that the bear trails. The bears want to come from the high. Usually they want to come from high to low. You'll rarely see a bear come to a bear bait from the bottom up like they almost always come from up high. Well, the bear bait was below the bear the pit, So the bears were coming from behind the pit and they were walking within five ft of us to get to the bait, and that's where the bears would spook. We saw a couple of bears come in that we never saw again. We'd see him past the golf ball hole and then and so basically the blind did not conceal our scent when there was a bear within five ft of it, But that bear made it to within five ft, So if you'd have been in a tree, you'd have killed him way back there. Do you see what I'm saying? Like he they were coming in to a radius easily of twenty thirty yards with no problem. That's you think that's true? Right? So to some degree the bear pit did help contain our scent, but not a yeah, you know, so unique experience. And uh and again I did it so that I could get close, be on the ground and be concealed movement. It was neat because I mean we're in there, moving around and talking and you know it just they weren't gonna see you. But well, guys, hey, thank you Gerald. It's been great to have you. Thanks for letting stay at your camp. Any closing thoughts, I'm just glad to be here. Yeah, I appreciate you invite. I mean and this, Yes, James, good to see you, good to have you. Good to be here, yep, look forward to it every year. Yep. Justin better get home to your wife for your anniversary. Moral of this story, of these two stories, it's good to have a camera guy with you. Those camera guys saw all those moose. You're right, you saw the bear. I wouldn't have been ready. If you hadn't seen that, I wouldn't have been ready either. Yeah, we just got lucky, all right, Thanks for listening to guys. Very good, Oh Justin al hoot, I gotta hear your ol hoot Justin as one of the best out has ever heard it. Stand up and do it. You gotta stand up because you can't. Al who sitting down. Whoo whoo, whoo hoo. That's good. That's good, that's good. Good tone,

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