00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything. Welcome back to the Meat Eater Podcast. You are about ready to dig into The Meat Tree Part two. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, what I'm talking about is a story about a fog Neck Island and a particular brown bear. This doesn't sound familiar to you, back up a episode and go listen to The Meat Tree Part one. If you've already listened to The Meat Tree Part one and you know that you're in the right place, welcome back. We will now proceed with the story. Are you the first guy it saw it? I definitely heard him first, and I think I expressed some some fear that there was something in the woods right next to us. And then as soon as I heard that breathing and that that deep, you know, panting noise, you started hearing some twig snap and you could hear something coming out as full bore, and then it was like all hell broke loose? Would you agree that's how that's you saw? And then and then made Wayne, Chris and I were sitting did you see him. Yeah, you guys, I saw Pat's face and that, like I am, my attention immediately went to the sound and I just saw like that light color hair just shaking back and forth and locked eyes with him and he was coming. And that was probably that's when that pandemonium of oh, f bombs, shit, this is going down, and it was this is it was like no chance to grab bear, spray pistols, anything. It was like that bear was on top of us before we even knew what was going on. Basically, what was what was your first, registrate, when did you first register it? I think in the same moment, But I knew like the whole time. And this was um complacency on my part. I didn't have any protection and like I didn't cross my mind and look for some sort of spray or I should have been I should have had something. And so like my initial reaction not even seen it, was get behind the separate myself from the sound in the direction all the ship was happening and the tree. So I just ran behind the see it before it was in amongst us. No, I saw only when it wrapped around the tree after all the other Yeah, and that's yeah, And it was right, I saw a charging through the woods. I didn't see that. So you guys saw a char the woods, you suck pounder, When did you see it? I was sitting there eating my sandwich, and I remember looking at Pat and seeing Pat's face and like him registering what was going on. And then all of a sudden, everybody's up and I see the bear. So I'm like looking at Pat and I look laughing, there's a there's a bear, like right there. I had my back to the bear's approach, and I somehow when I saw it, like you know, like you I see all you like the guys that see it, causes me to turn toward it, turned to my left toward it. But then it's like passing. I just remember, it's just teeth passing, I mean within arms reach of the right side of my face coming into I don't, I don't know what the like. You know, there's this there's this idea that, uh, when you remember reading about this thing where this guy is saying that like you tell a dude guy that fell off of his roof, and the feeling that like your life like flashes before your eyes, you know, and then later feeling like you think that it did right. There's this idea that, uh that in that in those seconds you really maybe are processing a bunch of thoughts or there's a there's this argument psychology that you really are like processing quick processing thoughts and fractions of seconds, or the memory you later your mind overlays the memory with thoughts, and that when your life flashes before your eyes in a moment, it didn't. It just becomes overlaid in recollection because you're like thankful that you're still there, and you and you think that they were contemporaneous, they but they perhaps weren't. I remember thinking at the teeth. I remember thinking that, uh, I was like, life will be different now, yeah, because someone is someone is getting um, someone is going to be maimed or killed right now, and life is different. Everything is in life is different from this point forward. It's like, I feel like that happened to me the second I turned and it was like within easy arms reaches, the thing's a gape mouth and the noise it was making that that second was ah, yeah, I feel like I distinctly remember the things that were the most disturbing. Part of it is the things that you were thinking while this is going down. I feel like like, oh, that's the worst case scenario type the worst case scenario. But I distinctly in the moment had thoughts. I don't think it was after the fact, but maybe it will. That's that's because I just like, well, but my my actions of the thoughts that I had, you know what I'm saying. So my thought, my first thought was oh shit, obviously, but what I was thinking of is my pistol is there and the bear is running towards my like I have no protection. This is how we're gonna die. And my thought was as soon as I can get a chance to get that pistol, I'm either gonna get named getting that pistol or I'm not gonna like, you know, because somebody is going to get it here. You know, My first like actual real thought that I know happened because I acted upon it was to dive out of the way of the bear. And I didn't hurt my ankle. I never like twist my ankles, but actually injured my ankle clearing myself of the bear. Do you feel like you got to your feet? No, I don't know. What I did was in a very relaxed like on his side almost like you're supporting your body on your elbow, you're laying down, and especially if you remember that bear coming down within arms reach and those teeth, I almost feel like you must have like moved from a down position to like another down position. I think I just kind of rolled and sprang downhill. That's what I downhill. Yeah, definitely downhill. Yeah, there was no because I was at that little cut out, a little dugout spot. I rolled downhill. Yanni, Now you tell what happened, because this could be a thing that's this could be like a very important part, like what you did. I feel like I'm involved in the pivotal, pivotal moment, but there could be a lot of reasons, like a lot of other uh things that made it a pivotal moment, you know, obviously, just like what the bear decided to do at that moment. But I certainly didn't have have um thoughts. There were There are no thoughts. There was I did I remember pat saying something. I remember like registering that like yes, there's a bear coming in, and then I remember like my sandwich being thrown to the ground. I remember being on my feet. I do not remember picking up hiking poles. I do not remember that. I just remember like, and I don't remember the bear, Like there was like a little gully that the bear came out of, right, and then there was about probably ten to fifteen feet of open grass before he got to us. And I feel like, really, the only thing I remember is being in a very aggressive stance with two ski poles held by the handles in my hands. Yeah, flick locks, fuck saved our lives. And I don't remember making the choice because I had my bear spray on my hip and I just like, on your pack, no, no, no, I had my pistol. I was running in the same thing I ran last week hunting the elk. I was running pistol on the pack, bear spray on my actual belt. That way when you go take a pack off, take a pee or whatever, I'm at least carrying one of the And um, I'm still gonna always have bear spray first, gone second. It's just gonna I think it's gonna be my life rule in Gris Country. We can talk about that later, but um, yeah, it was just there on top on like on top of us. I remember thinking, yes, this is it. I'm going to get mauled and I like, all I can think is that I somehow made not consciously, but somehow somewhere in my head it was fight. And so I swung those poles as hard as I could, right at his face, at his head. And I've already recounted the story a few times, but there's never been a moment in my life where there was a um more unexpected outcome to one of my actions. It was like kids, they don't just go like, okay, then exactly, here's here's kind of here's a I'm gonna try to make a good analogy here. It would be like me stepping into the cub stadium and if someone could give me a picture's name and then throwing a fastball at me Muhammad Ali it was not a picture, he was a boxer, and me taking a ninety mile fastball and swinging that bat and knocking it out of the park. That would be like how unexpected you would think the outcome would be of that action, right, because you'd expect just to whiff and you wouldn't even touch the ball. Maybe you would like touch the ball and foul out behind you, right, But what it felt like was that I hit that ball and then went out of the stadium because as I connected with this with this bear's face, he did a reason or maybe not quite one eight because I felt like he came in if you can imagine like in acute triangle that you're looking from the point down. He came in on one of the sides, and he turned and went off the other side. That was that was a blur of bear that wasn't. That was most surprised to me is that it I was anticipating this being a sort of a drawn This was gonna be a drawn like I feel as though I was thinking that this is gonna be a sort of drawn out thing. The fight that is gonna begin, Yeah, yeah, it wasn't gonna resolve. It was gonna be like someone he's gonna get that a gape mouth is gonna get on someone that we're gonna have to like that that we're in a mix up. Now like the fight has begun, but it ended, so we haven't even got into the saga of dirt myth. Yeah, so you connect on his head, he spins, and what I registered from that moment is that at that point I turned and I feel as though he has dragged is dragging dirt downhill. That's what I thought he had dirt. It was hauling dirt downhill. Dirt's ready because he just spit into his just spit into his high end juice bottle that was orange first light logo and a bear orange logo and a bear going in the same direction. Yeah, I thought he was dragging you down, and I we'll get to the reality. But I thought he was dragging you down. And I was frantically trying to find my pack, which wasn't hard to find, leaning against the tree to get my spray to go down and like that we would all go down and attack the bear with with whatever. I was like, where's the spray, where's the guns? Right, We're go save dirt. But what happened was that so I, like I said, I wasn't opposite of Yanni. My instant deal was flight, Like it didn't ever occur like face this thing and the assess well, because there was but there was something. There was no face. He was like already, um yeah, yeah no, but I'm saying so like funny, I couldn't have a three stooges. But it's just like he was just like it was like he wasn't but I wasn't like looking at my pack for my spray type. I think everybody had that. There was no decisions made. Oh no, I'm sorry. Remy did say he like, I mean I was. I was. My intention was to go because when I said I, well, I didn't add this the story, but I was thinking pistol and it's in front of me where you were. You ran out to the side, and I like start to go to the pistol, and now I'm caught between. Now I don't have any time. So I did this like juke move and jumped to the side. That's when Yanni took two steps up and that bear turned, so I thought, oh shit, Like I I went left, the bear went right towards Janice, and then the bear wheeled around. But Janice was at this point, I couldn't see the action of the swinging. I just saw Janice and bear right here. I mean I was within arms arms reach of the bear, and I think Janice must have turned around. I juked, then he turned around and the bear went down. Yeah, it was so much that I don't even know if if I like made like if I made contact with the bear or not, like in rolling out of the way. It was so fast. It was very fast because it was like here and just to reach across the couch to grab a pistol where you go forward, and the action of going for the pistol made me go, oh funk, I have no time to get away. So like that left right real fast, like which day am I gonna go? And I went right and the bear kind of went right and I went left, and then the bear kind of did that towards Janice. Janice must have swung because I said just after I joked him, the bear turned around and it was and then later your honest was like you know why he turned around? It's like no clue, Yeah, dude. It would be like if you were like sitting in your living room watching TV and then all of a sudden, like the bear doesn't come in through the front door. The bear is just like next to you and you're like, I gotta do something, and it's like that's the reaction speed, Like that's how fast happened. I think what the saga of dirt myth? Yeah, so I was behind the tree, like you said, even though it's happening fast, I remember thinking like something it's going to be messing people up and like assess it kind of and but like the second, I mean that happened split second, and that same second it came on the back side where I was, and I think and try and like, oh, ship you know, it's like it's happening here. Do you mean he went all the way around the tree, so the way like he came in. I don't know if he went all the way around the tree, because if he did, he would have the bottom because he would have had to come over my head and he didn't. I don't think you ever turned around where Steve was sitting. He came down my side of the tree. Yeah, he couldn't have gone around because he would have stepped out all messed up because I like, I've literally been plant back over and over. Yeah, but at some point, so I'm totally like, this is interesting because this whole time I've been thinking he went above like uphill of the tree, wrapped around to where I was at. That's what I thought happened to you and Steve must have ended up in similar places. Yeah, I think. So it's like this freeze frame of this, I mean, ship man that was like four ft broad bear. I feel like I don't know if that's an exaggeration. Big right there and in some movement of mine or being bumped by someone, I think in like trying to get out of the way, I tripped and fell on its back as it was passing by and was riding on its on its bag, on its hump, on my back, just pure coincidence and momentum, like for one Mississippi was on its back act and got bucked off into an alder down he went. You went on him about fifteen feet down and crashed into an alder pack. And I thought when I was on his back, like my thought was like I'm the one that's fucked, like he's this is like he's gonna like I'm gonna drop and he's gonna turn and get me. And when I got bucked and was he already had you? I thought he was carrying you. It looked I was just riding riding him, riding the storm. Later talking about how he got hurt when he got bucked off. He's got a bruise. I've seen it, but the yeah and then then yeah, immediately realized everything was okay, and hear did you guys say, where's Garrett? It was surreal, I mean for everyone, but it was like did I Yeah, I remember somebody yelled to count off. Remember ever he goes, because I I remember seeing Garrett at this point. I had my pistol ready, and I saw you and I started running down in that direction and then you stood up, and I thought like, oh, he's got to be right there because I saw you and bear and going downhill, and I did you because you would have been on that side of the tree by that point as well. No, I saw Garrett right, I thought the bear had Garrett. So at this point, Yanny, you had your you had your pistol by now. Yeah, because I think as soon as he was going downhill with Garrett, I think you were the one saying like, you know, everybody, get your bear sprays, get your pistols. And I said, not all of this is legal or not. I'm assuming it's legal. I said, if that bear comes back, kill it. And I said no, ship yeah I was. I was like, I think at this point we've crossed into because here's the thing you can't okay in Alaska, you know, so in the Lord forty eight bears are covered with the exception, with the exception very recently of the greater you Elstone ecosystem. Uh that you know in Indiana sized hunk of ground of Idaho, Woming, Montana. Until recently, we hold me back. That was a confusing way of putting it. In the lower fort they have ees a protection outside of a very small area. Uh. And so it's like, if you kill a bear to defense, in self defense or in defense, you can't kill it in defensive property. Okay, you can kill it in defensive life. In Alaska you can kill a bear in defense of property. So if a grizzly, if a brown bear grizzly is tearing, is destroying your camp, you can kill the bear. You can't kill the bear to protect your kill. If a bear claims your moose kill and you don't have a permit to kill the bear as a hunter, you need to forfeit the kill to the bear. But in this case, we've been attacked. It wasn't like and there was no access to the meat for this bear. Yeah he would he didn't have it. We've been a hacked. So I yelled out, if that bear comes back, shoot it because you know, because of obvious reasons, Um, sweet have been Yeah, defensive life in that case, uh, suddenly uphill, even though he left downhill, suddenly uphill. We heard him wolfing. So there's different among our group. There's different interpretations. I feel as though it was the same bear. They're so freaking fast, he was just back up there wolfing. Um. There's also the idea that that it had a cub up there, then that cub was wolfing. But I don't think that's what happened. I think that bear just was so freaking he was jack jacked up and fast he was back up there. Um. I mean we kind of surrounded the tree. People everyone facing in different directions. I went up in the tree started cutting meat out. Some people would have just ditched it, but I wasn't. I didn't want to ditch it was I was like, let's get the heck out of here. We we We made a pretty good formation quick though. We circled up. Everybody was pointing in a different trection. We circled up around the tree. Everybody had protection at that point. To Johannest and I were the two with the pistols. Everyone now had bear spray in their hands, so we were we were collecting everyone's at this point, cool headed and collected. Our backs were to a tree, so we couldn't get attacked from the back. We don't see the bear coming in at this point. You were now in the tree getting the meat, started cutting meat down out of the tree. And then anytime somebody went to go get something, we had the pistols and we made we were creating our own confusion. But because we're making a ton of noise, because thinking that, and I know it works, making noise at bears bugs bears. Right, So like an authoritative like hey, I just noticed through a lot of personal experience, like an authority hate of standing up group of guys going hey is intimidating the bears. Dude, my voice is still raspy from you. But we made it rule too, don't say bear unless you see a bear. Hey, and all that's okay, but going hey, bear bar because we kept like causing a little bit confusion about whether someone was seeing it or not. And I'm up in the tree and I got a pretty good view at half the ground around us. Cut the meat down. Then we just grabbed the meat up by hand. I remember looking down from my sandwich and it had been mashed, and it was as mashed as the original bear ship laying under that tree. My sandwich was destroyed. UM hacked to meat down either tree. We just picked up bags of meat and then in defensive formation. It was impressive for guys carrying meat. Two guys with everybody with pepper spray, two guys toting pistols. Do you carry the bone in shoulder with a busted ankle down a hill and down to steve Hill and up a steep ravine and a river crossing until we had a big open area to load up our packs. I was walking point with the shoulder son. Now here's what Here's a little bit about not now we're getting into conjecture. Here's a little bit about what I think might have happened. Like if I had to go, if somehow this had all been captured on film by some secret camera we don't know about, um, and I had to bet like what the footage would reveal, uh, And also if this footage was able to assess the psychological state of the bear and evaluate his motivations. I feel like this is what I kind of feel like this is what happened. I feel as though, um, somehow, in the hours before our arrival, a bear had come in and was like, uh wow, right, some a lot of meat, a lot of stuff going on, a lot of people smell, and he was sussing ship out. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that us approaching, making a lot of noise, hooting and hollering. Perhaps I wouldn't be surprised to learn that we maybe move the bear off. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that. Then we sat down to eat sandwiches, and we're all on the ground. You can't really see what's going on in there. He is in the area he comes back. In fact, it's not like a big, threatening pound bear that's coming and claim to kill site. It's like some low, not very intimidating things under that tree. I think he came in to assert his presence, and I feel was kind I mean, this is so conjectural, almost hesitated even bring it up. But it's like an interpret I'm offering up an interpretation, an unprovable I feel that he ran in it was kind of overwhelmed by what he ran into. Yeah, just the six, like a collection of six yelling, screaming, extremely hands swinging like mayhem, and then also one that jumped on him from his perspective. I think he's telling his buddies, Dude, I gotta check my people. It was we in that situation. I feel like, looking back, we were zebras because they survived in these groups. And when the lion runs in, it's this scattered confusion effect that the predators stretched so many ways they don't know a single target to focus on, and they end up giving up and reassessing. Yeah. One explanation I have is that that like one ham like, how could that that mouth have not gotten to somebody? And I'm like, okay, there's two explanations. One that it was such an explosion of like it might have been expected as much as it expects or whatever. Yeah, I mean, like their predators they attacked you. They know what they're doing. He was attacking maybe a thing that he thought was a thing, a single thing, and in fact it was not. It was out of his line of sight. Was all of this stuff right? And that that he never got ahold of someone or it was never his intention to get his mouth on something. It felt like he was intending. It seemed like it meant to get ahold of something. And I'm sure that it knew whatever whoever it was looking at as it came through the brush. It knew that I am a lot bigger than that thing. I think we should also clarify this would like for people, this was not a bluff charge. This was a full on charge. And he's been false charged and and there's a big difference, like false charges go down a certain way. This was nothing close to a false charge, the type of charge when a guy ends up if he's there gets attacked or dying, the surprise charge that goes a dent of the way. This was that charge. Yeah, false charge being like lots of hooffing, teeth clack and gets up, spins that fifteen yards, maybe comes in and spins that fifteen yards. Yeah, but there is nothing this dude, Yeah yeah. Um. I had a gun pulled on me in the Vata and it took a couple of hours. My hand equipped shaken and I had uh and the time that we got false charged, it took me a couple of hours. My handquipped, shaken. It's like that level of but this was in there was no spin. He crashed through us, um and I think must have gotten confused, got wrapped in the face, uh, got jumped on from his perspective, right, got gang piled. Yeah, he's like what the hell is going on? You know, and and ran down. I have a question. I'm sorry not to do you think, like, how relevant is it that? The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It was one bear and he was back above us, like susten us out even more. Yeah, I don't have it, I mean not really knowing. I have no doubt that that's what I happened. But so in that case, in my mind too, that's very relevant, like to see even though it's super thick, like if that would have all gone down and we would have seen him on the other side of the main creek like just getting out of there and been like, yeah he didn't, I don't know. The fact that he wrapped back around into like a aggressive point contact freaks me out even more, like he was just like still like it that way For that attack to happen again, it was a very confusing moment. It was like in those movies where someone's getting attacked and it's over here then over there. It was very over here over there that we didn't know which way he was going to come back in because we heard, we saw him go down, weird crashing to the side, and we heard noises over here and we heard the wolfing up here. So it was a very orienting thing where he could come in again in any direction. And that was the the almost more scarier for me than the actual charge. Yeah, because the charge was all instinct, You're just like react, but this was like just waiting for it to happen again, and it was intimidating. Man. Now there's this thing and and and and bear deal with bears and bearrass safety. There's this idea that if you are attacked by a black bear, um what you're experiencing as an act of addation and um, that you would fight that bear as long as you could possibly fight, because he's attacking you in an active predation and it's his aim to kill you and eat you. Grizzly bears grizzly you know, brown bears do that too. They do predatory attacks, but they also do attack of that they're startled or threatened or spooked, and their response to the spooking is to neutralize the threat. And a black bear's response to spooking is to act like, you know, everything else in the world run off. So when people say that this whole like playing that idea with a with a brown bear attack, grizzly attack, is that that you're betting on that it's the neutralization of a threat thing that's happening to you, and it once you cease to be any kind of a threat. And he could be like, don't mess with me, man that that maybe you'll be lucky, and he'll then leave you alone because he's like, hey, this thing scared me. I got the situation resolved. Now I'm done. There's all that kind of talk, right um now. And I've always maintained that like when people ask these questions you know about how to deal with bears and bear safety and what you should carry in this, and that I usually say like best practices or or when people who have exhaustively analyzed all these maulings and attacks, like what do they find to be recommended practices? I'll point these out to people, but I oftentimes will awful clarify that if it were actually happening, I don't know how much all of this is going to be really that helpful. And now that I know what happens when it happens, I'm more um, I'm just more aware of of that. It's almost a shrug of the shoulders. It's like how it really goes down is so fast and dizzying and overwhelming that you're not even operating even in a reptilian thing, you know, like meaning like that your brain is like these layers right and deep in your brain or these ideas of just that you need to breathe, okay, like just basic things that you do, and then layered over it are these more you know, like these more like I like emotional ideas and sophisticated actions, right, and I don't. And I feel like the shutdown that occurred for that half second was a very deep shutdown occurred to my brain, like a deep like a deep instantaneous shutdown. And then you then coming out of that was like if you found if you're in a boat, if you're in a boat that capsizes and you're thrust underwater and you need to swim up to the surface, I feel like I had to swim up out of a I had to swim up out of the water to find a breath of air, the breath of air being a clear thought. I had to like swim through a haze to come out with with a clear idea of what to do next. It was such a mental setback of all your thinking and situational awareness, spatial awareness, of just being a person who's like prides themselves on knowing how to deal with bad situations right learned through like being out in the woods, lot hunting a lot, being in in shitty situations. Subjecting yourself to that, you get like pretty good at problem solving. It was like all that was gone for some part, for some collection of seconds, maybe it was just wiped out and I had to like swim to the surface of some very murky water to put my head up and be like, here's what you need to do. Yeah, And in the time it occurred to make that metaphorical swim to the surface of consciousness was probably the time in which you're just in its teeth, not even feeling it. Other maulings play out different ways. Because there was a guy that got killed, you know, by Donaly, and he had been photographing the bear that killed him up until it's very far away and he was still snapping photos of twenty yards then the bear killed him. So there you have like a situation like that. We've had older bears come into our camp or come to claim, like a caribou kill, that you had all kinds of time. But I think that all that time gives someone who knows how you're supposed to behave time to make it not happen through how you present, how you can figure your group, how you use firearms for warning shots. Like, all that time is all the action needed to make it not become a situation. But when the situation is fast like that, I feel that like it would take you would have to live through that six times to be able to become right. Yeah, it's just like my analogy of like skiing giant freaking black diamond moguls fast. Right, the first time you go down that ski run, you're just like, oh my god, oh my god, you fall, You're trapping. This is worrying by you. And then you get to a certain level of feeling comfortable and you're like, even though you're smoking that hill, it's all happening slow, every every single turn and bomb just happens nice and easy. Yeah, it would take a lot of very charges. But the thing but I want to I want to preface. I want to preface. I'm using that the preface one I angles stakes. I am going to turn this into a recommendation, right good, That's where I was gonna go with that, too yet recommendations, So all of that said, I'm gonna turn into recommendation that. UM. I think that that that it's possible to go into an area, and you go into an area, a risky area, and initially you're very aware of the risk, but it's mentally exhausting. Two, it's mentally exhausting to be aware of risk, and I think that some part of your brain wants to get out of the risk mode, and you're like, Okay, we've gone days, we haven't seen a bear, I don't see evidence that a bear has been on the kill, and you just have a gradual letting down of your defenses that that, UM, you maybe wouldn't have made that mistake on the first day when you went into it, ready for this thing to be happening. We were talking about it, we read about it, we discussed it, we were joking about it. But over the course of a few days, it's somehow like a level of complacency took place, UM. And the concrete recommend dation one would be to try to to try to maintain that level of awareness even when it's not being uh reinforced by constant reminders of trouble. Because the first bear eye laid eyes on on that trip was within arms reach. Mm hmm. So there's that in a much more like practical, much more like practical, real time thing. Having your deterrent um on the waist belt of your pack is great when you wear in your pack. But when you take that pack off and set it down and you remove from it and then all of a sudden the bear that you see as an arms reach away, getting it isn't really an option, especially if the first thing you need to do is roll out of the way of the thing. It's like you have to have you have to have it kind of on your chest. Mm hmm. I would even say having it in the holster could be clumsy, you know. I mean you can't just carry it well, I mean if you take your pack off and you're just hanging aroun just having it unholstered with the safety on just close to you all the time. You could have it on your pack, but have also like a secondary location where you if you take that pack off, Like Rammy, you actually had two holsters. Two holster approach. So I promised, I just had a weird feeling about this trip, and I went and bought a second holster in Anchorage on my layover because I was like, and I promised myself, I said, because I got just a weird you know those just you feel a little uneasy, I said, I promised myself, if I take my pack off, I'm gonna put my pistol in my other holster, even if it's just to go take a leak. I was diligent with it, though one time during the trip I did not do it. Was that that time because your packs right next to you, and I think that that well it was, and I remember seeing it sitting there and thinking to myself, I should grab that pistol. I was thinking tap and I sat and then the confusion of someone sitting where I was sitting because I had I actually when we sat down, I unclipped the unclipped the whole the part of the safety catch, so it was ready to grab. Because I was sitting down, I put my hand on it as like a mock pull out, and then I got up to get the water, and then people had moved and I wasn't sitting in that position anymore, and I thought, oh, I'll grab that. But then throughout the week we had met, we we had talked about, oh, our best defense is going to be having six people. A bear wouldn't attack six people, which is which I think, which is actually which I ended up probably saving us or one person from some kind of When I say the group thing, I mean when you have a bear who's like, oh, there's some stuff, I'm gonna go over towards that stuff to suss out what's going on. What they do, They see stuff and they just go toward it. I think having a group of people is is very intimidating to a bear. It is And I think what made because I'm my dad is hyper bear and now bear anoid. And after this experience, I'm gonna go apologize to him because there's a lot of times that I've done dumber stuff than what we did, way dumber and had no consequence. If you were by yourself under that tree, you'd be dead. I agree with the question. Yeah. And and when my brother and I were on the island previously, we took very we were seeing bears, but we also took every precaution. We never loitered around the meat treat. We moved the meat to cash. Is the minute we got to the cash, we climbed to the tree and looked. One person always had their deterrent out. We we had a plan, and we stuck to that plan because there was two of us and we knew that it would probably be one person. One person was always on the lookout, one person was doing things we were. You know, we went in with that plan and said, no matter what, that's what we're gonna do. But with the amount of people we had and not seeing bears and other things, that whole situation got lax, you know. And and that's why my first thought was, like, shot, I'm gonna die without in my pistols. Right there. The best recommendation, the best recommendation, um, don't hunt in bear country. Yeah, but that's not accessible, it's not So you need to work down to a solution that you can live with. Yeah, yeah, that's I think that's very relevant. A solution you can live with is I now realize no one wants to have like extra unneeded stuff hanging off their body, but I can live with the idea of having some annoying contraption, which in in and of themselves are dangerous because I've been holes by pepper spray. It sucks. H M. Handguns have inherent dangers to yourself and your companions. So it's like you're and I have at times been jokingly said, uh, pepper spray is more dangerous than bears. Haven't been involved in a couple of situations where peppers cans blew off, went off inadvertently. So it's like you it's like you're, you're, you're weighing all these things. But yeah, for the real time recommendations, it has to be the reason I say, your chest too. It has to be somewhere where you can get it blind and your waist belt, your jacket covers things, things get in the way. It's get caught out now. I mean it right here is the easiest place to reach, even if you're if you're on the ground, you can defend yourself with your arms and still reach your chest. And I had my GPS unit up front on my waist belt and my spray and the whole damn trip. I kept thinking that I should take a second and reverse them so that the spray was easier to get at, And every time I look at it, I'd be like, oh yeah, I you know, I should really get around to never did it. And that's still the waste belt problem, the waiste belt problem. And to think too that we used to we used to bowl hunt elk. We sometimes have our spray in the lid of our pack. What and the hell good is that? Well? I have hunted this island with spray in my pack. That's stupid. I will never do that again. No, you only hurt yourself probably with spraying your back your gear. I think if I could have a couple of minutes on you take a minute, but there for me the recommendations, Um, I think that for me it's like even a step earlier or two steps earlier, Like I feel like we did a good job coming in there making noise, but then we quit making a noise, right. It's like and you can read like on our website, you can go to the articles about grizzly bear attacks and the prevention stuff and stuff that that Frank van Mannett was talking to us about. It's like constantly making noise. You know. It's like where like bear belts come in you know, to play where people attach them to their backpacks or their hiking sticks whatever, you to avoid like utterly surprising. Yeah, the surprise factor, you know. And I think that us, you know, making noise throughout you know, obviously not taking the break, but making noise throughout the meat retrieval process and basically done what we did after the attack, and and sort of taking that approach without having that bear come in. And again this is hindsight, right, but that's how we should have done it. We should have gone in there with freaking four four sets of eyes, two dudes working the meat, two dudes packing the packs, four sets of eyes looking all directions, constantly making noise, yelling, being bearware, and moved out of there, even if it is two yards, but to a place where we could see and we couldn't get surprised. How do we if we could see a hundred yards every direction, we wouldn't have been surprised. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I was actually gonna add that that, like, and I tried to earlier, I said, like, the first mistake was lingering under the hanging tree. But yeah, like without really knowing, I feel as though had we done what you're just saying, this might not have happened and hooting and holler and the whole time, standing up, big presence, loud presence, deterrence, drawn yelling, hey bear, hey bear, hey bear, getting what you needed to get taken care of, and getting out of there, very loud, lots of noise, clustered together, standing up bodies. Yeah. What I could add is I think when you do that right, you get into this mode where say, say we did that, nothing would have happened. Then you get this mindset like, well, nothing happened, it was a waste of time. Can get that. Yeah, But from if we could lend any advice to anyone is if it feels like a waste of time, it's working. You already know that you're in the mix. Just assume that it's going to happen, and then when it doesn't happen, whatever you're doing is the correct solution. But by us getting that waysy like, oh it doesn't happen, it hasn't. I mean I've spent a good portion of my lifetime in bear country and had nothing happened. Yeah. It's like the first time you go take a growler, you select the growler site where you can see you got the shotgun right with some slugs, you got your spray by the third growler, You're out there in the dark, chalked up some burm. How many times did I ask you where your bear space was? And how come you weren't carrying it? To times? Too many times I was like, I don't, I got too much, I got can't, I got too much stuff, I got time for I don't got time for spray. That's the other unique thing though, too, is filming. You're like in you're on your monitor, not necessarily aware of you know, you guys should awareness, but yeah, you need to. You need to have a system before you go in and stick to the system. And because you aren't having encounters or whatever, you just go like Pooh made it through that day without an encounter. But I'm still doing my system, still doing my system. It's almost like it's a pain in the ass, but it's better than getting mauled. It's almost like like my brother Danny has the thing they do when they're moves on. This has nothing to do with bears, but it's interesting. Thing is people get carried away in the moment when you're moves on. It's hard to pack moves. So he'll go up hunt with a group of his buddies and because they know that you get carried away in the moment, they'll that like, okay, before we go, before we get started, what is the distance that everyone in this group agrees, we will pack a bull and draw that line now and then later. There is no room for someone to be like, ha, guys, I shot one four miles off the river because there's no room for like making individual assessments about what's past. It's like they come into it, we're like, okay, we all agree, we're hunting on our own and everyone here. If someone kills a bull within a mile and a half of the river corridor, everyone's cool, and that's we're packing and unless you want to move it yourself, stay within one point five miles of this river corridor. And it works for them. I feel that a good bear approach would beat that. If you have a hunting partner, um, this doesn't like work for like my brother Matt like largely hunts alone. This is self enforced. But if you have a hunting partner or hunting partners that you would prior to trip. So like, what's our bear plan? Yeah, now, let's make a deal that this bear plant plan is concrete and it is not open to it's not open to like later complacency or different interpretations of it. Like our bear plan is this. At any given time, you have whatever we determined through our own research to be the most effective deterrent for where we are be at a pump shotgun with slugs, a pistol, spray pistol l and spray redundant systems. That our bear plan is such that there's no deviation from this plan, and we agree that that's how I think that that needs to become our way. Yeah. So I just think that one of the most interesting things of this experience to me was the mindset. Okay, so before the event, our mindset was such that we were not going to be attacked by bears and treated it like that. From the moment that bear attacked us till the time we got the heck off the island, we were expecting to be attacked. Everywhere I looked completely flipped. It went from Oh, they don't attack to oh, we are going to be attacked. It was and we did see another bear after, and it was instead of but had we seen that bear before, we thought, oh a bear, no big deal. Now we saw that bear and said that bear wants to kill. Another thing that people another thing This interesting, man is I think about a lot of the lessons I learned from our time talking to the uh Rourke Denver, who's an author and a retired seal commander, and him talking about that they train in practice so much in such real situations that when you're actually doing something, like the training is so real and so ingrained that when you actually go and do it and in his case, that you're actually thrust onto the battle field, it doesn't feel any different to have it be in reality than what it did. That what you were trained to do, Like the training is so real and repeated that it's fluid to go into reality. He didn't even think like when he was actually in situate, he never thought about it being like, oh, this is the real thing because everything was so real. And I feel that a good system with like a good system with sort of managing your deterrence would be that you would with your bodies kind of test it. Right, Do you think you're cool? Like where you is your spray cool? I don't know. Let's let's see, like, okay, get your spray. Yeah, how much time it was? It's like seven seconds? But you get your spray out. That's not a good system. Yeah. Now I have a lot of analogies running through my head about um and Garrett and Pat. You guys can speak to this too, about like staying safe in the back country, you know, learning how to use your avalanche beacon, reading snow, making group decisions, you know, practicing, it's practicing, I mean, yeah, practicing, digging, you know, using your probe. I mean it's proven that, you know, groups, the bigger the group is, the more dumb decisions are made. You know. It's like another similarity. Um. But yeah, I feel like I don't I've I've discharged bear spray. You said you have just you. Yeah, so three out of the six of us have three, haven't That should be mandatory that everybody sprayed it. Yeah, And Dirt was even that we ran out of time. Dirt was even asking about caught loose with a can. Um. Yeah, if you if you carry spray or if they even make like a non act they make a non active ingredient of practice, can do that just to know what I mean. The throw is an impressive cloud. That thing actually kicks when you hit the button. It throws an impressive cloud. But practice with it. The nice thing about the one with no active ingredient is you can see how it works in the wind, because a big problem we had is we were in an area with very high winds and came in with the wind. So, yeah, that's a weird thing too. He came into us traveling with the wind. You all. You know, if someone said to me him and bear is gonna come attack, you'd be like, Okay, he's gonna come from down wind, because he's down wind right now. But he didn't. He didn't, he didn't play the wind. The thing I was thinking about um about the bear plan is like you got all your deterrence and you're all set up and you practice, but a bearrett say, a bear charges you, and neither your shotgun jams or your spray doesn't go off, or something happens in your group and you're with somebody or you're alone and you do end up getting mauled. What's your plan to like get help at that point? Because like that's what I was thinking about. I was like, if somebody here got mauled and I had to be the one to like make a call to the coast guard or whoever the hell they get a HELLI back, like, I don't know how to do that. So like knowing that kind of thing about like where you're at, who you're going to contact, having something on you that allows you to reach the outside world in those situations is a good idea. And that's applicable to any emergency. Oh yeah, because in it most kind of like travel like this. Um, you know, there's like we could have the same discuss if one of us had gotten a compound fracture. We could have a big conversation about having a compound fracture on your femur. So yeah, there's there's that kind of stuff. You guys all know the A K Troopers, which is the line you call for help when you're out in the bush. It's in the SAT phone for that reason. That's good. I also had a emergency beacon on me. Yeah, but their thing is travel with and this is something we do pretty good at, is uh. I mean people come into our organization and and out of it, and I think that the people that stay within our organization are cool headed people. So, um, if you're testing out new hunting buddies and stuff, this isn't like a good place to find out if someone's a good fit. Yeah, do it somewhere else. You don't want to be with a guy that dude. If somebody just freaked out and panic, that ain't bad. Situation gone even worse. Yeah. And I've been with people who a couple of times, I've been with people who like full on legit had like panic attacks about kind of like wilderness travel and and and um, yeah, you just don't want to be around I don't mind like talking to those guys like you know, I don't mind talking to people like that, but I don't like being around him in situations it could turn dicey. But give me. Yeah, it shook me out, man. I mean just like just for me to kind of like for me to kind of summarize it. Um, it was. It was a it was a real eye opener, and it made me reassass a lot of assumptions I had about, uh, how I would like to think I am. And it was because I didn't. I don't like knowing that a real, big bad surprise can snap me, A real big bad surprise can so readily snap me out of um uh, out of my my my mental processes. But without you know, you could get really hard on yourself about that. But also you could be like, well I managed the roll clear of the bear. Yeah, maybe there's some guys somewhere that wouldn't have done that. It's a laid down gotten I don't know. So it's like, so you want to be like nothing happened. So maybe we did as good as we could have done. And this is an important point we talked about a lot among ourselves afterwards. Even if everyone had had no, No, Remy felt that he had times he saw it coming. If I had had a pistol or pepper spray in my actual hand the way I was, there would have never been a safe opportunity to discharge it. Oh No, I would have been where I was, I would have been at risk of shooting one of us because I was behind people. It sounds like Remy and Janice could have possibly had a chance to Oh, had I had it in my hands safely safety and sprayed m Yeah for sure. Yeah so yeah, so yeah, because I had Yeah, I would have had time to it would have had, I think though, the way we were sitting, it would have had to been on my chest because it would have been really hard to you. Yeah, I don't know about that's the thing. Like again, I didn't make the decision, but something like I've been carrying the freaking thing on me for a week. I feel like in all of September, I've had a bear spray on my hip almost and it just like did it didn't come through my head to pull the bear spray? And I don't know if that was no real decision came through my head, except I just was like in this like it was almost like an out of body experience. There's somebody else there like just doing this motion. And then once the bear was running away and we started talking, and again that might have been me swimming through the murky waters of my capsized ship next to it. But yeah, it just it's like it wasn't a thing. And I don't even like even if it was on my chest, I don't know if there would have been the time to pull it out, but we never practiced. I feel like we need to start doing things. Draw. Yeah, like now that someone's just draw and everbody has to whip their ship. Yeah, me and my brother would do that, like, yeah, we do. That's the test. Your say it, like, okay, spray and rip and grab or pistol or whatever you've got or rife, you know, and to see how just like when you're a kid, or even now, I still do it. When I'm wings shooting, I will walk around, I'll throw the gun up, constantly throwing the gun up, even though I've shot Chucker my entire life. In those mountains, I practiced throwing the gun up randomly because when that flush happens, I needed to be instinct to put that gun to my cheek and shoot and I and yeah, there was Well, Dirk got a picture of me practice drawing. Actually I did a couple of times. But yeah. I one time watched uh, I was watching the Green Bray a team train and what they were working on the moment I have to be watching them is they're working on transitioning from your rifle to your pistol. It was like they're doing drills where you drop one and picked the other one up, and like, dude, I never once it was like, so what would happen if I really needed to quickly get my pepper spray out? Um, that's probably a whole lot more would say about it. I got got the elk out, ran another bear on the way that. Well, it's gonna say on a cycle. Like, the biggest thing I'm trying to wrestle with now is keeping that due diligence up, but also being able to enjoy and relax in Bearer country because I love outside of hunting. I'm out in mountains with bears all the time, and I don't want to be I don't want to let this that experience, you know, be a constant anxiety. And I think the way to fight that is to know that you're doing everything you're you can do and then just focus on the enjoyment of of the mountains in the wildlife to no no, but it's it's you know, at a point on that hike out, it was like I just can't deal with us, but you're like, no, I can't. I just gotta be Yeah. I feel like if anybody did after that, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say anything. I would like if you found me, I would would be understanding. But I like the places that I always have liked the place to have them. Like, if you gave me two options, you can hunt in a place that has them or a place that doesn't, I'm always going to pick the place that does because I like there. I like their presence, and I like the knowing that part of that is. Part of that is like um, kind of feeling not comfortable with risk, but kind of feeling like drawn to risk. And that's and I'm I'm definitely no doubt about it back to my normal state with the addition of being diligent on you know, knowing what needs to happen. The physiologist Jared Diamond, Um, he's a bunch of things, but that's one of the things he studied. He had this idea of why is why is really reckless behavior? Why was it not um wiped out through natural selection? Because when it comes to natural selection, you have like sexual selection. In a natural selection, so sexual selection would be things that UM enhance and organisms ability to reproduce. So like having like big antlers, having like giant antlers is in one hand, can be a detriment. Okay, you're putting a lot of energy in the production of those antlers. That's not helpful. You could be putting it into fat reserves. Um, it's harder to get around through the woods, right, you got big antlers on your head, you can't maneuver as good. So that's like a detriment. So what is the point, Well, the point is there could be sexual selection, Like the females look at that and they want to breed with you. And so even though like natural selection might it might not fit with that sexual it makes up for it in sexual selection. He has this idea of like why would it be that you have Like why would it be that you'd have Why is it attractive to a species like the human species to be like that someone can really party hard? Like why would it being a hard partier not have been just eliminated through sexual or natural selection? And there's a sort of thing this idea he gets. I'm not doing a very good job articulating it, but it's a demonstration of fitness to be like I am so fit that I can afford to do something so reckless in such a dramatic expenditure of energy, Like that's how fit I am and come out of the other side of that still walking. So the idea of like why are you drawn towards risk? Like why has it like risk been wheedled out? You know, it could just be that it's like a demonstration. It's like you're demonstrating a level of preparedness and level of fitness by courting disaster and that in hindsight, was amazing experience. Dude, I wouldn't have it any other way. It worked because it worked out. Yeah, alright, Garrett. Concluding thoughts, The experience without the consequence was a gift by Mr Brown Bear a fog neck and with this crew, Like when when we got out of the the swampy waters of our intellect, we were tight tight, like I mean, there was a still fear, but I felt like we it was like I wouldn't want to be with anybody any other people, Like everyone was on the same page. Damn get this meet out of there. There was some group cohesion there. But I also literally and figurative there was something that we didn't mention was after the rest of the No, well, this is I think something that needs to be mentioned before we sign off the rest of the suck of the day. The sock is But yeah, I mean, we had the bear attack. It's a story worth telling. The bear attack and then the gayale force winds which destroyed our camp. So not only do we have a bear attack that same day, we come back to a destroyed camp. To to describe the winds as we're nearing the past, that we've went over I don't know, a half dozen times during the week, some winds come up to the point that Stephen, I think Chris. Chris got knocked over by the knocked down by the wind. And moments later Pat's rain cover gets ripped off of his pack and disappears into the sky like a helium. I mean, like the even chance that you would try to go find everybody in the panel of Florida, it's probably like whatever, freaking little bitches. You don't know what wind is. But it was windy, and so we went. When we crest over the past and look down, I see a sleeping pad from from I think what was a thousand feet above camp, I see a sleeping pad with sheets of rain. Yeah. Yeah, And then having to disassemble tents, redo a bear fence because now we're all to get killed, re set up tents, dry out, wet sleeping bags, fighting hypothermia the entire time. Yeah, it was just it was a very taxing day. It was. It was a mostly taxing you know, hypothermia gets way more people then. Yeah, And I could picture in that situation, I could picture like the like a loan or a pair of inexperienced campers could have gotten in that situation and also on themselves in very serious trouble. I think we had two pretty close brushes with some trouble. Trouble, serious trouble. That's a song by the National Trouble Will Find Me. It found us on multiple occasions. Um Pounder. Uh, My concluding thought was gonna be kind of piggybacking off of what Dirt said. Just thankful to if you know, having to go through that at all, just going through it with a group of dudes like you, guys that are just like level headed and able to handle troublesome situations and be cool with it. You wouldn't trade it. Good Now, I'm gonna go back to your lonely apartment. This is not lonely. I got a lady there. You're gonna go back to Miss Pounder and tell the story. Yeah, I think I would trade it for going in there and doing a few things differently and not having it happen. Oh, to trade it to not have it happen at all. Yeah, I wouldn't. I want to trade it. Now it happened. I'm glad it happened. Learning experience, that's true. Yeah, if you like that that way, I don't want it to happen again. But yeah, I wouldn't trade it. I don't have too much, but I do know that in the net the minutes, maybe half an hour. Like he said, it took half an hour to quick shake, and I didn't get the shakes, but it took me maybe half an hour minutes to catch my breath. Yeah, yeah, I didn't. I didn't get Yeah. I didn't mean to say it for I don't know why I didn't, but I didn't have that like I when I got the gun pulled on me. I didn't get the shakes, but I got something else. YEA, Well, no, I mean the the endorphins, you know, adrenaline. Uh. You know, it's a freaking serious high that you're taking on and then you know, coming down off of that, it's uh. I got emotional quite a few times. I kept thinking about how I really wanted to give my kids a huge I thought about that a lot by the way out of there. Um. But no, that's about it. It was a fun trip. It was an adventure. It's like you said, this is gonna be one of those ones that's fun to talk about later. But wasn't that much fun while you were there? Yeah, because I was gonna ask you your honest just as a direct question. I felt like the you know a little bit afterwards, your demeanor had changed, and I was kind of curious, Now he's not back to normal, and it's you know, is it the family that runs through your mind? Is it the thought of are you mad at yourself for not doing things the right way? Like? Or is it just kind of a general funk where it was like that was a real shitty experience. You're more of a learning lesson. I was just kind of curious on your take on it. Oh yeah, I think it's just just processing it all still. You know, I'm not through processing it, and uh, I feel a lot of responsibility, you know, not really to you, to Remy and Steve, because I feel like you guys just sort of here on other or don't know, different here as a guest, you know, but the guys that you know, I hire, and you know we sort of set up you know, Um, I apologize to all of them from putting it into that. You know, I could feel that on you because like you're you're a natural leader, Like you have leadership tendencies, and when when I could sense that you were down on yourself, I imagined, Um, I imagine that you were feeling like you were feeling like some level of responsibility, which you should know at least, I may be for both of us, like I understand the ticket that I'm signing up for. Oh sure, yeah, yeah, no, I'm I'm not. Yeah, I'm I'm not. No. Yeah, I know that. You know, you guys, you guys get the heads up for sure. But that still doesn't it just like you know, that's what it feels like. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I guess it's just it does suck, you know, because we do. We all keep thinking about like, well would have happened had you know? For me, it keeps like I keep just that moment of like the bear turned, Why did he turn? You know, I have no idea, but he turned, and that like it changed it all right, because you know, you having to call my wife, you know, and because man you're telling something, you know, um, telling her you know, some bad news. Uh, I feel shitty about it. So yeah, just a lot of process. So yeah, I guess, yeah, I think that out of everyone after the situation, you definitely had the most weight on your shoulders of you know, you're responsible for this crew of guys, and I could see that. You know, if I was on a guiding trip and something like that happened, I would feel like it was my responsibility to the people that I brought in there. I can understand, probably even legally. Yeah. But no, Yeah, so that that was That's a lot, it's a lot of process. But you did, you you, I mean that's what I said. I felt at ease afterwards because of your presence. You did do a very good point. You know, I did feel protected because you were there and that behind us with that piste. Yeah, or even like I feel like you were a big part of that whole when we regrouped, like all right, you guys start protecting like Steve's getting the meat. You were, Yeah, you did. You were a leader that made it efficient and safe. Pat, what's your take because you do a lot of you do a lot of things that are more high risk because you like to climb. That's what stuff ice, stuff whitewater. Uhuh And I love that that risk element that's more like that's more risky than el coton. Well yeah, climbing it that's what. That's what. When Yanni called me up and suggested that come on this trip, I was like, hell yeah, that sounds like a badass trip. Like I want to be involved. You know, if he had been if you called me up and said, hey, we're going to Maryland or whatever, I probably would have been like, you know, I'm busy. But I had nothing else going on us, and I was like, hell, yeah, I'll go to Alaska and you know, brown Bear Country and you guys need to call if you guys, are anybody out there looking for work Pat because he always had so much of it. No, no, no, that's not what I've said. But it was like a trip you can't turn down, you know, because of the risk element sort of appealed to me. But like a couple of days before this whole thing happened, I was talking to Garrett. I'm like, I'm not I'm not a hunter, you know im, And we're kind of talking. We both like kayak and do some stuff like that, and I was like, you know what like hunting, Like it's cool being out in these remote places, you know, chasing these animals around, but it's just not like quite the adrenaline rush you know that I get from other activities. And we were saying, like you said to like pulling the trigger might be a yeah, yeah, I've I've never like shot something. I'd imagine that's and like being a part of like the full process. You know, I'm just here too, like carry stuff and shoot some b roll and stuff. But um, yeah, having this happened completely changed my perspective on what hunters have to deal with, you know, like I don't know, it's just crazy. It was way scarier, way more of an adrenaline rush than I've ever gotten from anything I've ever done ice climbing, big wall climbing, kayaking, rafting. Yeah, it's not even close. It was like I've never felt like I was gonna die, like quite as much three seconds that this bear was like on our on our ship, you know, oh my god. Yeah, but yeah, it was really reassuring to be with all you guys who I know have spent your entire lives, you know, dedicated to hunting, being outside. You guys know your ship more than anyone I've I've met. So it was like when we re huddled and the bear was still you know, somewhere out there in the woods, I was scared shitless, but at the same time, it felt really good having you guys there with me too. So yeah, it was a hell of a trip. I'm I'm really glad I was along for the ride. Uh yeah, no, I think um. At first, I was worried that this trip wouldn't stack up to the level of suckage that I had experienced. He was afraid it wasn't sucking off and he'd seem like a guy who blew the suckle arm. You know those guys who are like, oh yeah, that was real tough. And then everyone I was something like, what are you talking about? What a woos you know? And I feel like it met my expectations. I was a little worried we weren't gonna get those gale force winds that I promised the honest would happen, because I was like, it's gonna be windy. Can these tends to handle this and that and the other thing. So we got the wind, we got the bears, we got the hike, we got the water. It just overall reinforced my belief that I don't necessarily have to do that again, but we'll probably find myself there and um, and it also, I think was a good wake up call for me that I needed, uh, because I told myself that I needed that wake up call, but still felt lax and didn't do things I didn't I honestly was felt. The worst part about it is me feeling like I didn't do what I knew I should have done. And maybe it was the group thing because I just don't do things like that. It was just I just felt like I did things that were out of character for the way I would do things, and it led to situations that were bad. So outside of that, you know, you just gotta stick to what you tell yourself you're gonna do and be diligent about the way you do something and not take it for granted. Yeah, because there's yeah, there's your you know, you know, Steve, yourself and this whole crew. We put ourselves in a lot of these situations that if you if you go about it right, shouldn't be a problem. But there's always that element if something could happen. And I'm fully aware of that. I mean, I this last year was hunting water Buffalo completely alone with no emergency system, in just a bow. You know, it's dangerous, it's stupid. I got charged there, but it was not anything is scary? Is that? Baar? Like I legitimately thought, this is how I'm gonna die, And that is not a I've had that happen in a handful of times in my life, and I just really, you know. But on the other hand, I wasn't. I used it more of as a learning lesson than anything. And I hope that you know, with all the platform that we have, ID like to see my life as a good way to take what I've learned and showcase it to other people so they can maybe learn from my mistakes, learn from my successes, and they go out in the field and they can have a better a good experience with having to put in a less amount of time. So I think that if you're listening to the podcast, I don't think it's just six guys sitting here bullshitting about some bear story, because I've heard bear stories before, and I haven't taken away what I should have taken away from those bear stories. I sat down on a couch and a setting like this from a guy that was mauled by a bear in that within five miles of that spot, and I didn't learn from his lessons this morning. His brother got mauled by a bear twenty years ago. But yeah, so I think that if there's a takeaway take away the things that we're talking about, and the other takeaway is it reaffirmed my belief that when it actually goes down, like you're saying, you don't know what you're it's just you play it out in your head a million times, but the actual one that would probably get you maybe semi out of your control anyways, and you just gotta go with knowing that that's how it may go down. I got two concluders. One, if you had this coffee table in a house where you were raising children, you would get nothing done besides taking those children down for stitches. The blade coming out of my side of this beautiful table, it was beautiful. I look at I imagine little kids with cut foreheads think that's what it is. It's a it's a birch burrow. That's a giant. I would think it's a spruce. S don't. Yeah. My second conclusion thought is it's like I always try to you know what I'm thinking about hunting man. When I'll tell people it's like there's two ously there's two things. I'm like, if you remove the food, I wouldn't do it anymore, Okay, um, because it was the tangible thing would be gone and I need that like I need like in my stuff. I really like like tangible results. Um. And if you remove the fun, I wouldn't do it either. Look when I mean a guy who's like, oh, you know, I just I don't believe in industrial livestock production, so I just hunt for my food. I'm like, but you know what, dude, you're having fun hunting. Stop acting like this is not like you're like, oh brother, here we go again. You gotta go hunting again, right, You're enjoying it all right. So I was like, if you remove the fun, I wouldn't like it anymore. Would I wouldn't. I wouldn't do it anymore. If you remove the food, I wouldn't do it anymore. Um. But I almost feel like that needs to be That third thing is like if the surprise was gone, if the not if the every time you wake up, just like being being in a situation, we just can't imagine everything that will happen today that uh, that they would lose something to Callahan. Not long ago, Ryan Callahan was talking about the feeling of someone says, oh, I got a private pond stocked with trout would you like to come fish? Cal's like, you're always gonna go once and he were like, he's right, this is great. There's a lot of fishness pond, but you're never gonna go a second time because you've eliminated the mystery. Well, it depends on the human because unfortunately, talking about the worthwhile ones, that's hard because there's a lot of people that even okay, okay, the kind I like to associate with or I don't know, there's two kinds of people. There's people who think they can divide everyone into two groups, and then there's that's a joke. That was my concluding thought. I love the surprise and mystery. No, for sure, Yeah, you know, I always you know, we uh, my brother and I don't want to say we argue, but we debate about like the name of you know, the hunt e the T shirts, right, and it's just like we'd like someone us want to really push the whole like, oh, you're constantly just you know, hunting for the food, hunting for the food, hunt for the food. And I'm like, really, I mean, yes, for me, I'm not even that much like you are. We're like, I would just give it up if you took away the food aspect of it. I have to get to that point and then think about it. But for me, if you took away the chase and like you're saying, the unknown and the adventure and the exercise and just the whole activity and the process of the hunt, then I would not do it. Yeah. Ite, Like if you were, I was gonna draw some kind of golf analogy, but I'm real bad on golf. I feel like the the there's the same thing applies to to our job, minding Garrett's jobs because I don't always you know, I'm not always on this show working on hunting stuff. But like the same thing, if like the surprise of waking up and like, oh what am I gonna see today went away and stop being fun, I wouldn't do it. Like if I was working on like some show that was like, oh, this is what we're gonna do the same thing every day, I would probably try to find something else to do. Yeah, for sure, And you do some when you're not working with us, you're still doing sketchy ship, doing some rowdy stuff. Yeah, all right, that's it. Thanks for tuning in.