00:00:08 Speaker 1: The Hunting Collective is presented by Element. I guess I grew up on an alder. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Hunting Collective. I'm Bet O'Brien and I'm sitting in a by a creek in the Missouri Breaks with Clay Nukele. They Clay, Hey, Ben, how's it going. It's going well, fair, fair to middling, fair, fair to middling. We're not sitting on a cactus, which I just had to make sure I wouldn't. I gotta tell you the other day, I sat down. We were looking for elk, and I sat down in the spot where we thought there might be elk, and I looked right, I'm gonna say about two inches from my sack was I mean, I was close. There's a lot of cactus out here's your camera guy? Cold be that So he's not really camera guy. How would you describe Colby? Colby is uh, he's the he's the bear tech for Bear Hunting Magazine. He's just my main sidekick. Yeah, and that's yeah, your main sidekick is here with us. And I think he looked down first and saw the cactus kind of sidling up to my testicles and alerted me. Thank god. Uh so I feel I'm feeling pretty good. But do you want to describe this country to people that we're in right now? Well, so, so we're elk hunt in public land, elk hunt in Uh we'll just say the Missouri breaks. Yeah, we're not gonna drop your waypoint. You know, this is a this is a distressed landscape. It really is. It was it appeared. I don't I really don't know that the geology of this place, but it appears that at one time it was a a flat or a plane and then some just over time eroded. These big deep draws that almost looks like South Dakota bad Lands ground, a lot of fully exposed just like soft you know, um soft rock. But there's but there's finger ridges that are covered in pine trees that give quite a bit of cover for the elk. But I would say that there's probably like maybe thirty tree cover. The rest is open country, lucky rough, distressed, a few cotton woods down to the bottom, most mostly evergreens up on top. Is it kind of feels like there's there's pockets of what you would think of as elk country, Like there's a little spaces islands of like, oh, that looks good, and then amidst the sea of just endless buttes and you know, stone cliffs and so it's it's, it's, it's been. This has been country I've wanted to hunt in for some time, um, having had stories about it, having you know, known about this area. If I check my on X, I'm pretty sure we're sitting on National Monument ground right now. Um. It's a beautiful country, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt. Is it like you thought it would be? I mean, how much did you? Yeah? I think so, it's it's uh, it's about what I thought it would be. It's it's probably harder than I thought to get on elk, not to see elk. But that's what everybody told me. They said, you'll see ulk, they'll be hard to kill. And that's been exactly true, because we've we've seen a lot of elk. But just because you see him and you hear them bugling, you might be well, it's not even getting on them. It's that they're moving. They move so much. These just don't stay. You can't just put one to bed and then come back the next day and he'd be in the same place. For the most part. This country can be in you know, Montana, especially Elk country can be intimidating, but this, this country kind of isn't as intimidating as some of the some of the stuff I've hiked around before. It has a gentleness to it in terms of how you can navigate it, and I think that certainly helps us. But that helps the elk too, because they can move pretty quickly. Yeah, we're not dealing with high elevations. I think the highest elevations here in the three thousands. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, So you know, I I'm like you, you know, when we're walking around this, I feel I feel poor that I didn't, you know, read about the geology here of the landscape. But I will when I get back and and really study up on what I'm seeing here in terms of how this landscape came to be and some of the more interesting elements it has. But we're sitting here um down by creek in the bottom. We hiked down here this morning and just by the by we might have to go there. We heard a couple of about five yards acrossed. We've heard a couple the bugles in the last half hour, so if you hear, if you hear the headsets drop onto the ground, just some shoving, we'll be back pause. Yeah, it would be an interstitial. We'll put some music in there. Maybe we'll just put some ocean sounds so you can really meditate your way into what might happen for us. But we're we're towards the tail end of our hunt, and we might have an afternoon maybe tomorrow. You're probably listen to this on Tuesday. It's Monday, it's nine am, so we're you know, we're recording for real time basically out here, so we should tell the story of this morning's hunt. Um. I think that way. This morning's hunt, you know, the last couple of hours we've had has very much been um you know, emblematic of the I think the challenge here in general, and the fact that they're giant elk everywhere um or or everywhere being being a term I don't use lightly because they're around for sure, so you want to kick us off them. So we the temperatures this morning, we're in the high forties and zero wind. Yesterday it was very windy, it was very just kind of a bust yesterday aside from late in the evening. You we're out on the south end of this mountain and heard a bull bugle down low and and basically you found an elk that you messed with until dark getting to come in. And so we we were back there this morning. Weather kind of cleared out yesterday afternoon, so we uh, we heard elk right at daylight and just just like what you would want, we're up above him. Man. I just imagine if you this this this uh, the end of this ridge that we're on. Just imagine if you stretch your hand out pointed south and if you look at your fingers, it's kind of what we were hunting. We were up in on the top of your hand where your knuckles are, and there are several finger ridges that you can travel down to intercept these elk that were we come to find out already in the bottom. Yeah, um, continue, yeah, so we uh, we try to course these elk. We hear him. And what we learned earlier in the week is that you can hear these elk from so far or what I learned, Um, you can hear these elk from a mile across the canyon. So you know, you're trying to discern these elk close these elk far anyway, we heard, we heard what we felt like, we're elk that we could get on. We start moving down one of the finger ridges, you know, peeking up over ledges, looking down, waiting for the elk to bugle, and he probably bugled five or six seven times as we were moving down and um, finally we laid eyes on him. We saw him, and he was down in the very bottom. We were probably three fifty yards from him. Maybe. Yeah, they're an other elk across from us. You know, if you imagine that we've now walked down your uh, pinky finger kind of now we've not walked down the pinky finger. He's in between the pinky finger and your next finger over um, down below us, and so we're he's and then we I see him and you described to me a bully you saw earlier in the week that had a club hanging down from I can't remember the side that you described, but in this case it was he had this this elk kind of club hanging down from the right side, kind of above his eye a little bit. Yeh, nonf The came off the base and hung about probably nine to He's impressive, and he had two cows with him, and it was clear. We started bugling, um and we'll we'll do a little bugling for you later on see what we can do. But we started bugling, and he was responding, and he was definitely responding to cow calls. Um My. In my mind, I'm like, well, the strategy here is going to try to challenge him and cut him off. So you were a bugle and I was bugling. You were cutting him off. He was responding. He was fired up. But much like if you've ever have you listened a couple episodes ago to Remy Warren talk about bulldogging, and you listen to Cutting the Distance that I work on with Remy, where we talk about bulldogging, this is this idea where you challengeable and he rounds his cows up and gets out of town. And that's what this bull did. He bugled back at us, He turned, he postured, shifted a bit, and then ran down around you know, the tips of your fingers. If you're still pointing your hand out there, I hope you're still holding your hand up. He's running down the tips of your fingers down to the bottom towards the creek. Now, at this point, I knew from having talked to Remy and learned this strategy that if we could get in front of him, we had a real good chance that he would come stomping up to challenge us. The problem is, as we just are said a little bit earlier, it's hard to get in front of an elk, and it's already in front of these And what we didn't describe fully is that the creek bottom is just a vast open it's a sage flat, sage flat. So once they started moving, once he started moving away from us, those cows were I mean, they were basically trotting and they they it feels like once they decide that they're gonna go across one of these flats, they there's no reason to dottle. Yeah, they move out quick. Yeah. And so these alk when I when we started going, we said we gotta go, like we gotta run. So we ran up this ridge and as we started to run, we could kind of see the elk moving below. There's like some humps in the bottom of these fingers. You can kind of see it moving in the bottom. As we're trying to get down. We picked the um. Basically, there's your middle finger and that's where we were going to go down and cut them off. And so we get on your middle finger and we're walking down and you can kind of we could kind of pick them off. And when I was picking them off, they were moving and I knew, I just knew there's no way we could be fast enough. Was like, there's just no halfway down. I knew it was it was. It just wasn't gonna be good. My only hope at that point was maybe we'll get a satellite bowl, maybe some other bople will peel off this bigger boll. He's going to be pushing these cows unless they stop to take a drink, which it does not look like they want to. Um, they're just going over the other side and get in in safe terror safer territory um as is as is the you know, the way they use this country, apparently, as we're learning through this time. So anyway, continue the Well, so we we side hill, we come down a really steep drainage, We uh go a bunch across across a lot of stuff that looks like the surface of the moon, and basically we when we finally pop out in between one of these ridges into this open flat, we see the elk had already crossed the creek and we're way on the other side, which is not a place that we can hunt. And so we were, you know, probably five minutes behind him. And right where we popped out, there was we saw where the whole herd had crossed the creek and there were it's hard to say how many cows, but quite a few cows. But it was incredible, an incredible bull. The first bull we saw was a was a younger bull, but he did have a non typical point coming off his base. The once we made it out into the sage flat, after we tried to cut him off, we realized that there were multiple bulls. And one of the bulls we saw was I mean, sure enough giant. I mean for for my standards, for sure, I mean, yeah, any standard, any standard measure. He was a giant, big, big elk. Man. I've killed some some big elk on some places that weren't public land. Well, the biggest elk I've ever killed on public land. He was in the three seventies of uh, you know, in terms of a trophy measurement um. And so you described this guy he had I want to say he had six on once. So but I never always make fun of people for saying he was three inches or seven by six, And I'm like, if you had time to count the points, because I rarely ever have time to count the points. I'm trying to figure out how to get over there if I can't. Um, I think he was a six by but I don't know that for sure, which means he would have had six points on one side. But it doesn't matter. He was tall wide, he had tying length from his from his fronts all the way to his tops. He was a real classic big elk um and he was pushing, pushing an entire herd of cows with some straggling bulls up into the country we can't hunt. And you know, this is the first time that I've seen this kind of stuff been. I mean, you know, I've I've now elk hunted two years. So last year was my first year i'll hunting. Me and my son Bear loaded up our mules and went to over the counter unit in Colorado hunting for four and a half days basically and got on a few elk, but just totally you know, ever done it before. Um, So this is my second elk hunt, and uh, I had a little more help this time. Our buddy Joe Fernado kind of hooked up this whole deal for me anyway, had invited me, and uh, it's it's still public land. He'd never been up here to el kunts, so we're all all learning. But I had never seen big elk outside of you know, Yellowstone, you know. I mean it's incredible. If you go to Colorado and he's spottable. Look we spotted this morning, you'd be the luckiest man alive. Yeah. I mean depending on where you're in Colorado, most open, older kind of units, you're not gonna see elk like and you're not gonna have I mean, we're how far away from camp right now, m as the crow flies probably a mile and a half year, So you're not gonna be you know, camping and doing that. And so this we were talking about this experience, you know, and I think this morning why it's lucky that we get to record now and reflect on that, because I think this morning's experience is kind of reflective of of this country and this this hunt that we've had because we've worked hard. But the elk, while they're here and they're big they are tough to get on, they are tough to pattern. The winds are switching no matter where do you go. And then you get into these situations like you're in this morning, where like they start in the bottom and they're gonna cross and you've got one shot to cut them off. And if you do not cut them off, they're into some country you can't get into and you're never gonna You're never gonna catch up to them. So you know, as of this moment, the sun's out for the first time. I'm seeing blue skies in Montana for the first time in a long time just because of the smoke, and so I feel lucky to be sitting in the sun right now. But but that's it seems like these elker they've shut up. They shut up right after we kind of they kind of walked off from us, and we had a few bugles here about a half an hour ago, but it felt like they might have been be gos from beds. You know, these are already laying down, they've been up all night. Um, you know, we've had some full moon phases and so that's hunting, man. Every little thing is a challenge, every little nuances is you know, part of at least most of my hunting success and other for other species been has just been sheer persistence, just trying and just trying for a long time. And uh so this is our seventh day of hunting, and I kind of just figured we'd get lucky. I mean, And when I say that, I don't mean like, uh, I mean all all successful hunters. I mean, the best successful hunters, A big part of their regiment is just persistence and endurance and continuing to stick with a game plan and then at some point quote unquote they get lucky, you know. So I mean that word luck means a lot of different things, a lot of different people. What I mean is I just I just felt like as many miles as we've put on that, you know, at some point we're gonna pop over one of these ridges and there's gonna be you know, uh heck a spike bull um down there at sixty yards and you know, give a calcol and he pops over the ridge. You know, just some fortunate thing happened, and it and it has not. Now. I was I did have an opportunity to stalk some cows on the second day. I mean, I was totally within striking distance of them. And uh on the second day, we were all we were seeing big bulls. We had a lot of hunt left, and I chose not to today. If I saw a cow elk over on that butte over there that I see like miles away, I would like commit my life to trying to kill. Yeah, I mean it's the shifting baseline is always hilarious and and and a hunt like this you start with a goal, especially like we were talking about. There's a couple of points I want to make, but one of them is the transient hunting. The transits you know, travel, If you travel to a place you're kind of you have this idea that you you know you're limited time. And that's where the shifting baseline comes in. Every every time I've ever gone on a guided hunt, your baseline shifts on the first or second day. And the rules always if you would have shooted on the last day, shooting on the first day, like if if, And that's always the best way to handle that. But in terms of you know, how do we how do we look at luck? I think that's an interesting thing to talk about because I look at luck like this confluence of events, right, because We were sitting up on a on the glass and knob the other day talking about all the things that have to happen. Think of all the things that have to happen for you to kill an elk. And this goes to like looking on Instagram or whatever social media and seeing a lot of people killing elk. Um. I'm happy for those people, But it does always nor could it represent how hard it is to to do sometimes, um, And other times it seems like it's simple as could be, you know. Other times it seems like just what you said happens. I had a buddy that walked out on the ridge this year, calcold twice and killed the bull. Um. I've done that a lot, and I've never and I don't think he's necessarily that skilled at calcohol more than I am. But you know, that's just a confluence of events that elk had to be there. He had to be there, you know. And so um, think about all those what were accounting like eight elements the other day. So you have to, you know, find the country, and you've got to you've gotta, yeah, not just find the country, You've got to find the elk inside the country. I mean, like that's the number one challenges. You go to a new spot, it's gonna take you a couple of days to find Elk. And it's real frustrating. I've done it twice now in both hunts, and at first twenty four hours you just think there's no Elk here, or I do anyway, Uh, I've not done it enough to know that if you exert this much energy, this much effort, you're going to find ELK. And I was with our buddy Bryce and he he was just you know, he was like, oh, yeah, we're gonna find out. And I was like, really, you think we'll really find out? Oh yeah, we'll find out now. So you gotta find out. And then, uh, they've got to be bugling for you to really be able to work them and and navigate around on them. Um, you've got to find a responsive one it's willing to work with you. I can't remember all the other things, the things you listed, but it goes all the way down to it. You've got to make a shot. I mean, you could do everything right and then the bull steps out at forty three yards behind a pine tree, and man, it's that was a lot of things got to come together. That's where repetition comes into if you keep doing it. So if you haven't have to have those eight things right, the other things are like, you gotta find the elk, right, you gotta you gotta pattern them. They have to be vocal. And then you it comes into what happened this morning. Once you find the elk, you have to be in the right spot. If if they're not going to come to you that you gotta get yourself in the right spot. Once you're in the right spot, it has to present an ethical shot. And once you it presents an ethical shot, you have to draw your bow. Once you draw your bow, you have to send an arrow. Once that arrow hits the animal, it's got to hit the animal and in a verily precise spot so it doesn't run off and die somewhere you can't find it, or never die or um take run for a mile, you know, and so but then you have to blood track it and find it. And then finally, this confluence of events has led to success. Any one of those things goes wrong in the midst of all of that, and it's difficult, you know. And so what you're talking about walking over here, I said, man, at least with a hunt like this, whether it's failure involved um, you know, no, but you didn't miss a bowl, I didn't miss a bull way to any but but the failure being just not able to close the distance or you know, draw our bows. Can I say sound them about what you said about to try traveling hunt like man, there is this kind of potential to be deceived by people's success at anything could be. It could be squirrel hunting, that could be bear hunting, that could be elk hunting. But man, when you're traveling and you're picking out seven days on a calendar months in advance, and you say that's when I'm going to that place, and you've got to and you're driving there and you're you're there during that time, it's not even in the same it's not even the same game as the guy that lives there and his hunting and nothing against him because back in Arkansas, that's me. I mean, guys talk to me all the time about bear hunting in Arkansas in National Forest, and I mean, and I'm an open book most of the time other than just telling people where to go, and deep in my heart, I'm like, good luck, dude. That the reason that I'm successful because I live there and I'm able to go on a Tuesday afternoon when the weather is good, or I'm able to say, man, i found a bunch of good sign yesterday, I'm gonna spend the next three days hunting, where if I had just picked a date on the calendar would have been talking. So you know, you you see all these guys killing Alcan. Man, that's incredible, it's awesome. Everybody has something that they're approximate to that helps them. And I'm not saying you can't kill them traveling because we know great, there's plenty of people that do it all the time, so it's not but I'm learning that that um that the real challenges inside of the transient hunter, you know, and that's fun. Um it's uh, but it's it is frustrating. It is frustrating. Yeah, and I think that's that's Yeah. You add all those things up on the way you're talking about earlier, becomes like what's the definition? What are you looking for at the end of the day, And you and I could seriously say I want to kill an ELK. I'm not gonna go on the internet and be like, well, you know, it was a good time getting to no clay a little bit better and hiking around this beautiful clip. No. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that immensely. Um, it was a valuable thing to want to kill an elk. But I want to kill an elk. I'm not I'm not sitting here saying like, well, you know, the value in the hunting is the experience. Nope, Nope. I was a great experience, and I'll remember the experience. But I'm in the in the mode right now where i want to kill an elk, and I'm not gonna im mince words. And part of that is when I moved to Montana for the exact same thing you just said, because I lived in places where I felt as if being a transient hunter was about my only option or getting rich and buying a ranch, you know, if you're talking about Texas, and so then you come here and now I have a chance to build these credentials, to build this skill set over time, and so now I'm at beginning of that journey where I'm learning to call. So you've been in Montana about two and a half years. Just have been my second residence season. The song of my second resident September and so for me, I get to now say, like I'm adding, I've writ it in my journal every night, kind of like stuff that happened, stuff I'm learning just a little. You weren't kidding about that? No, I wouldn't getting about that. Did I say that earlier? That a kid? I'm serious? Um, And I draw, I say Clay was nice to me today a picture. Yeah, I like Clay. Will he go honting with me tomorrow? Yes? Or no? Check one? But yeah, I mean I do. I do think that that is that is rewarding in and of itself, knowing that I'm closer to one day being out here and realizing I'm good at this now, Like I know that I wouldn't and I would never have gotten here if I didn't do it the way, you know, if I didn't get the intellectual property on my own, if I didn't struggle, if I didn't hunt public land, if I didn't really become a hunter in the way that of the experience of failure. Well, that sounds like a bugle. Colby, Colby's gone, Colby is off, Colby's probably he's probably up there bugling at us to distract us. Anyhow, We'll see if the elk comes down. But um, I just I lost my train of thought because I want to kill an elk. I don't know why I'm even here podcasting now. I think I might just go for a swim. There's there's a lot of value and learning something and that's the same journey that I'm on. Different in that, Um, you know, I guess I'm just kind of putting my feet in the water of the elk world. And uh, It's funny been last year my son and I decided three weeks before we left that we were gonna go. Like it never entered our mind to elk hunt until about August the seventh last year, and uh, and I talked to my wife and talked to my son Baron. I said, let's let's roll to Colorado and go elk hunting. So I ordered some game calls and learn a bugle and do some calcolon and so like I've you know, the hunting world as glorified elk hunting so much, and rightfully so. It's the probably the most majestic horned beast antlered beast on the continent. I mean, moose would be debatable, you know, but I mean it when I say they glorified. I don't mean that in a negative way, but at the same time, it's a very tough hunt. It's a low percentage just about anywhere you go. Anywhere you go, there's about a ten success rate for elk hunters. And I think it's I think it's specifically okay, but I don't know that. Well, that's probably right. And then we heard, uh was it Joe the other day that said of the ten percent that are successful, if you broke that cat those people down, it would be a very small percentage of successful hunters that are inside of that ten percent. Like basically it's the same ten percent of people. Yeah, that the transient hunter idea is the successful transing hunter is a small percentage of that ten percent. And and I think that that's where a guide comes in. That's where somebody, that's where these hunts where you either hire you know, I mean, we could have hired a guide for public land here, um if we wanted to, or we could have you could have went and paid um what it would have taken to to hunt this country with a guy. Um. But again, it's just even even as somebody who travels and I know guys that travel from Texas to Colorado every year. I know guys that travel from Pennsylvania to Wyoming every year. UM. I have friends that would only wish to one day do what we're doing. And we're probably listening to this, or we'll listen to this and we'll wonder if this could be them, if they could be here in this beautiful country having chased giant elkin failed miserably. U. UM. And it can it can, yeah, it can be you. Um. And you can choose to you know, to to approach in any of which way, you know, whether it's you really want to kill him up, but just to go elk hunt is to see it, to test the waters. As you said, to dip your toe in. I dip my toe in. Over the last five or six years. I killed an elk every year for four straight years before I moved to Montana and then Montana and I felt like, and I said this when I moved, I felt like, this transient is a very successful transient elk hunter who wasn't learning the craft. You come to my house, you would walk around my house and be like, man, this dude is an elk killer, Like look at these giant elk Uh. Yeah, you don't want to see where right above it's a stamp um. But you caught to my house and you'd be like, look at this. You would ask me about the elk, and we would look at him, and when you would marvel at how big a couple of them are. Um, But that doesn't mean that, uh, that I know what I'm doing. That doesn't mean that I know this craft and I have the skill set to transfer what I've learned on those killing those big elk into what I'm doing now. And so in a way, I had to start over and really commit myself both my both for myself and and I appreciate the honesty of that, you know, because it's not all just about having a big animal, but it's about the way and not that those have any less value. Let me just say I'm not I'm not. I wouldn't be like WHOA, I would say the honesty of this elk because I got to go to a place and somebody helped me, showed me where they were, and I got it done from there. If we go back to like the eight elements of the things that have to come together to be successful in those instances, you eliminate a few of them, four of them probably, but you still have to do that. In a guided situation, probably land situation, you're losing some of those things become less important, exactly, those challenge factors exactly. Well, the biggest elk I've ever killed was on public land and the place I've never been before, and so that I can't say that, but I didn't Again, I was still a transi hunter. I didn't know how to call them. I didn't really know how to use the country other than that there were a lot of them. And I was lucky to be in the area that I was in, um in Utah, And I was lucky to draw a tag that would allow me to hunt a place where it was abundant with giant l and I was lucky enough to have a rifle in my hand. Um And so you know, it goes back to stuff we talked about all the time. What kind of challenge do you want and what kind of outcome do you desire? And then once you get that outcome, like me, would you shift the baseline to say, like, killing a big elk is great, but being able to take you out and your son bear out in a couple of years and really have this down, Um, I think is just my goal shift. My goal shifted too that and and that's kind of why I want to kill it so bad, because I want to see this payoff, because I have spent a lot of time away from my family and and you know, I feel that I like the idea of coming back to a specific place here after year, if you could get the tag and really learn it. My most my most valuable hunting experiences have been in places that I was connected to the place in that connection doesn't have to mean that you're from there or your dad hunted there, not that, but just I'm now, I've spent seven days of sweat on these mountains and uh, and spend it with good friends here. And um, Colby, did you hear in the elk? I heard? That's the same one. He's in his bed, isn't he? He'll come down the water. We'll kill him. See if he could push him over here? Why don't you walk around and take it enter. We're gonna take it interstitial you guys can test my new bugling abilities and see if you like it. We'll take a quick interspecial break for me to bugle at this elk. Hang on, go ahead, and go ahead and narrate this. So yeah, Ben is uh, he's got his Phelps bugle tube here, got chested out. You have to test out and make sure that you didn't blow out the late text. Ben. Ben has had a challenge finding a diaphragm called fit his mouth. I've heard um, but he's a He's like, okay, here we go, listener. Ben makes odd gyrations when he bugles, moves from side to side. It really gives the sounds and yeah, realism, realism. Yeah, I don't want to be a stationary bugler. I'm I'm working on the like the l bulls, like the building of the Woo, like the Yeah, I'm working on the bridge and uh and in the other parts. So whatever. But yeah, I'm like you, dude, I picked up an alcohol two years ago and I thought, you know, I saw I've been around again. I've been around hunters that are exceptional at calling some of the best in the in the country, in the world, and um, having seen that, I'm like, well, I got a long way to go, but it's nice to be getting there. It's nice to be like traveling down the road to really learn something really really well on this hunt. What I learned been last year in Colorado, we we actually called a bull in on the third day, two bulls that I didn't realize were legal, and so I was at full draw and passed the bull at eighteen yards that ended up being legal, and I didn't know it because I didn't know fully the rigs. But that was the only elk and counter I had ever in a hunting situation. This hunt has been really valuable to me because we we have been watching elk, We're kind of watching what they do. I'm able to come back to the same place day after day and see, you know, answer some of these questions of like, well they were elk clare today? Are there going to be elk there tomorrow? And most of the time in this country the answer has been no. Um. But a few times they've been in the same areas. But just been able to watch these elk, listen to them vocalized, listen to them bugle Uh. This is the first hunt I've heard an elk bugle ben in Colorado. Last year, even though we called in two raghorns, we did not hear a bugle the entire hunt we were there early. But so this, yeah, this has been an incredible experience. Yeah, I mean, and we're not. We didn't hit the rud either. I mean, this is not uh, we're getting there. They're starting to round up their cows and and move them around the bigger bulls. But we're not. We're not in the peak of it. You know, if some people think of it like like there's a day where it turns on and that day shifts depending on where you are. But there's a day where you just feel like they're slobber and elk willing to run to ten feet if you just to check you out of you make the right sounds. We haven't quite experienced that, but it's been close to that. We had it. Yesterday was a windy crap of a day kind of but today is beautiful. That wind blew out all the smoke and today is a beautiful blue sky day. And and and this morning you just you know, when the light came up and the and the drainage were in like they just started up. You know, for the first time I've seen a couple of weeks, it started to kiss the tops of these ridges and you felt like you were in you know, late September l And so there's there's definitely a feeling there too. And there's nothing more fun than that chess game we played today because I would say, just you know, by the bye on the point that we were making about learning how to be an elk hunter, really learning, we made the right place. Yeah, we were cautious enough to get above them and see where they were and what they wanted to do. And then when they moved, we moved. We ran, and we moved, asked, and we were just I mean, we miss him by ten minutes. Um. If they would have stopped and got a drink of water, if they would have if a bull would have came and and challenge them, that bull with the club, you know, maybe they would have stopped for ten minutes. And if we can't we popped out into the creek. Where we did, we were right on them. We were on solid tracks where you know, they would have been eighty ninety yards from where we popped out. We could have made a call and then where he completed the bulldog and that we talked about earlier. So I mean, it's you know, it's closest, it closest close. It feels good to be close, but it's still it still irks you a little bit. Uh, but you brought your boy out here. Huh yeah. So so Bear Bear is fourteen years old. He did have to miss some school, but they're doing quite a bit of virtual schooling. So my wife and I made the decision that he was gonna come with me. And uh, man, here, Ben, you've got younger kids, I've got older kids. This is what I've learned when they turned sixteen. You you often think when they turned eighteen and like go to college, you kind of lose, you know, they break away just a little bit. Well, when they turned sixteen and get a car and start getting jobs, they can't go with dad for ten days wherever they want. And so it bears fourteen. And I told my wife, I said, you know, there's only a couple more years where you know, he's not gonna have a Usually our kids get a job when they're sixteen, and we try to start introducing them to being a normal, good human and working. And so I I wanted Bear to come. I wanted him to to experience this. And uh, we've we've worked him. Um yeah, so it's been great having him here. Yeah. What I mean is that you guys are gone on another Hunt's obviously. Do you see changes in him when he comes to this country. Do you see like that he appreciated the time with you, the time in camp, the time like you know, I think there's value at different levels. There's a to me, there's like this responsibility that he's learning from. I talked to him about at school, you know, just like, hey, man, if you're gonna come, you're really gonna have to You can't do bad in a class, I will be in. My reputation will be ruined. Uh So, there's responsibility of if you're gonna do this kind of stuff, you have to be responsible in other areas of your life. And Ben, that's something I talked about all the time. As hunters. We talked about limiting factors in our hunting, and we try to be like better elk callers and better and better shape and all this and a lot of us. If we took care of the other parts of our life better, we would have more time, and we would in that time would be more quality time because we wouldn't be um stressed out about all the chaos that's in other places. Let me just say this point is a great point, because preparedness for hunting is directly correlates with what you just said. How much time you spend shooting your bow, how much time you spend getting your gear prepared, how much time you've spend looking at onyx maps. Is how much time you have to do those things and can commit to those things. I I fascinated. Sometimes I'm like, I'm really prepared and other times, like, man, work was crazy, kids were crazy. Kids started school in September, um it got wild. Um And what I'm saying is that limiting factor often is uh is time. Like that's the biggest thing, is just like your time away. So what I'm teaching Bear is that, hey, you take care of business and these other portions of life and then you'll have the time. So that was the number one thing because last year when I took him Ben and my wife readily brought this up to me. He came back and kind of had a hard time jumping back into the routine. And so I told him, I said, hey, you think you can do that? And so that was a personal challenge for him, and and he's he's already done a lot of his work. Um. So that's this like real functional responsibility thing, um Man. When a young kid is fourteen years old. They a young boy. They every kid is different, but you know, they're starting to find their own identity, and in part of that identity sometimes it's seeing your dad or maybe where your dad wasn't always right. I mean, they're kind of just awakening into adulthood. And uh, you know what I wanted for bearing on this trip was you know, I wanted to uh. I wanted to show him that valued him enough to bring him on something that was really important to me. And so I think this this trip for us has been Uh. I think he's he is appreciated that I brought him if I could. It sounds really simple, but bears not super expressive. I told, I told somebody yesterday, he's probably the least visibly expressive of any of the kids, you know, uh in uh, but so that's important. Man, for a kid to just know that his dad loves him. That sounds simple, but we all as adults, even deal with this fatherly issue inside of our life, have wanted to be validated, wanting to be accepted, um, wanting to be challenged and given instruction from my father. We all have that desire, we really do, even if it's hard sometimes so yeah, it's been I think that's been. That's been good for us. Um and Bear is a good woodsman man. I tell you what I would I would take. I would put he's inexperienced. But I would put I would say, Baron Ukelem, saddle up that mule and ride all the way over that mountain and see if you find elk. And he'd do it. Oh yeah, he saddled up. He's I'm gonna go glass for Elk on this nob. And he just sat up a mule and and off he went. I thought, why, I know some thirty year old men that couldn't do that, or wouldn't do that, or might fall off that mule. Probably Bear's got a lot of desire to for hunting, like all my kids have hunted, uh and have different varying levels of true interest in it. Bear, I mean I really think, I mean, he's going to be a hunter. He he has a lot of desire um. And not every kid's gonna have that the same. You know, I've said many times before, I don't. I mean, yeah, I want my kids to be hunters, but they're not supposed to take it as serious as I am. I mean, like that's the other thing inside hunting is, like you here, not everybody has to take it ultruth serious. There's there's value in the guy that goes to deer Camp three easy year and buy his hunting license and contributes to conservation and you know, kills a deer. Then there's also the value and the guys like us that are like dedicated our lives to it, like to the extreme, and it found a way to you know, provide for our families through it financially. Not everybody's supposed to be like that, So I don't think I don't need all my kids to be that. But but Baar loves it, and he yeah, I would almost you know, I don't know. I hate to even speculate about this, but you know, my son is about to turn four, and I think of this idea that I don't want him to try to be. What if he said, Dad, I want to have a podcast, I would say, okay, if that's what you really want. Um, I want you to take part in the things I take part in, but I want you to find your own way to it. You know, I found my own way. My dad hunts, but I found my own way, and then I eventually brought him along with me, UM, which is awesome for both of us, I think. And so if he said, Dad, I want to be a wildlife followed, that would be I would be so thrilled to hear that, because he would find his own way to the appreciations that I've found instead of trying to copycat. Is you know, even at any age really, but you know, and I know at some age you just want to follow your dad. And that's how I was. I've been like twelve years old. All I want to do is follow my dad. I didn't really care where, and hunting was very much just like having a sandwich with him in the woods. It was. Man, that's valuable. Being to have a twelve year old or fourteen year old that wants to follow their dad is a big deal. And in the trend of the age is um is broken up families in whatever way, and anything that can bring that back together is a positive thing. Yeah, yeah, you're right, and that those those years for me defined a lot of what I do UM in a strange way, and like it. And I think you put it well to say that you know, you really want to follow your dad, but you also want to have this relationship that has a little more definition to it, and in the woods there is definition to it. I'm the leader. You follow me. I tell you. I tell you to point and shoot. I tell you when to take the safety off. I tell you what how to be safe with a with a firearmor, archery, tackle, I how I tell you how to shut the door, not to be too loud. I tell you when it's time to eat lunch, and when it's time to take a nap, and when it's time to get real serious about um being successful and so those I think those things are helpful interactions too with the kid to define those roles and um man it I just we didn't do. I regret not doing a podcast with my dad when he was we al khind last week. He has followed me on Instagram. You saw a little bit of that action. But um, you know it was time. I think he wanted to spend with with my kids. So did he have I know he had a great time, But like did he did he have a great time? Yeah? I think I think he did. And the same thing we were talking about coming up the creek here after we didn't get into those bulls like we wanted to today you're tired. You're you're thinking hard about like the little failures and little idiosyncrasies that didn't go right. You're tired. You you are if if you're like me, and you're really starting to get um hard on yourself and competitive, and you know, like that inner voice that says, like you can do better, you need to do better, you need to work harder, and this is something you really want to get good at. I think he had that, which I thought was really cool. Um. I thought it was interesting to see him go through that because he got a new bow. He got a new Matthews bow. He shot a crossbow for years, so he worked hard and he was calling me. That was almost the coolest part of our on For him to call me twice a week, or him to send me pictures of his groups every time he should bow. Um, that was almost as cool as anything. And then to see him he has my dad has a great appreciation for nature, um, and a great appreciation for all wildlife. He knows every bird, he knows every tree. He understands the rhythms of nature. And to see him hike up on a ridge with me and look over into a valley and and see this like most beautiful vista and just have him kind of be like, hey, let's stop a minute. You want to just stop a minute and look here, and and you know a lot of wows, a lot of amazing A deer hunter back in Maryland. Yeah, yeah, mainly deer hunter. I think, you know, like I was saying earlier, I think he found he found these other types of hunting through me when I got into the industry and started doing some things and started really being realizing my own passion expanded from what we did as kids. You know, we were to those weekend deer hunters. As kids, we hunted a lot of deer as much as we possibly could. And you know, you're dodging, like you are now, you're dodging your new job and your your sports, and you're you're kind of doing that, so you kind of become a weekend hunter only by the the only time you have to go. And he would have to go because he ran a small business. But yeah, we were very much like the very common Eastern weekend warrior deer hunters. We pointed as much as we couldn't have fallen. That's kind of all we see acronym for that common Western Weekend Warrior Deer Hunters sued seed. Yeah, we can work on it. We got a lot of marketing atis. We'll talk about bargaries here in a minute what we can do with that. But see, that was it. I mean that, you know, it felt really normal, It felt very communal. It felt, um, just like another thing that we did. Uh. We also sat around and watch sports a lot. That was just another thing we did, you know. But Honey was just like, that's pretty cool that you could bring him out here and pretty much hunt from the house if you know, you're driving from your house, and yeah, he was seeing your kids. That's cool. Yeah, it was a good common family family deal. We would hunt in the morning and then go grab launch and I would work, and he would see my kids and and spend time with his grandkids because he doesn't get to see him as often as I know. He and I would both like and so that was a good combination, like a weird mix, a weird transitional mix in our lives, I think, because eventually, hopefully those two boys will be with us, you know. Um, and you know what, I'll say this honestly, and this is something I don't didn't know that I wanted would say publicly, but I will is that it I got. I like, I got desperate for him to live a long time. You know, I was debt like walking around the woods of him being like man, you know, because he had heart surgery this year, yet um hard issues, that's hard issues for a long time. And walking around the woods with him and seeing him with my young children, I got that was like this and not even quiet desperation. This was like a very loud desperation that this man lived for a very long time and so we could see this kind of all come come back, you know, to have a my son's has twelve year olds with him, and me like, I gotta have that. So I'm if you're cardiologists, call me up. I need tips from my old man. Um. So yeah, that they're That was part of it too, an interesting part of it. That's something that was more internal for me than I thought it would be. But um, you know, end up doing it during a pandemics also kind of makes you realize lots of things. I said, we're probably elk hunters are probably a few in in in the statistical category of small. What am I trying to say? We're the only people in North America right now that aren't hadn't washed their hands in seven days. That's what I'm trying to say. I was looking at my fingered that was when I was making that hand analogy. I'm like Jesus, let's say, looking good or using hand sanitizer. We're all like cooking food with each other and then reaching in the pickle jar. Here's a good point that I like to hear your your thoughts on I feel, and I probably said this on the show before. I do feel and a hunt like this. It takes me about a day and a half to two days slough off society, to get rid of it, to to slough off any kind of work life balance, things that are family balanced, things that are bothering me work, you know, slough off this idea that I could might go be able to sit on the couch, or I might be able to go in the air conditioning, or it might be. You know, it takes me about two days to kind of mentally and physically, you know, expel all of that softness and then it starts to get good. You know, you can hike a ridge and think like I haven't looked in a mirror in three days. I don't know what I look like. I don't care. I don't know what I smell like. I don't care. All I care about is this hill in that elk and the rest of it is gone. Yeah, I'd say that's that's really close to what how I would describe it. It's a unique feeling that I don't know that a lot of humans get to have. Um, there are there are other people that are using outdoor the outdoors and in extended for extended time periods, but they're few and far between. I mean, like, what other thing would cause us to come out here for seven days and camp like this. I mean, we wouldn't just come out here to camp. We very few people would come out here just a hike for seven days. Like the hunting experience is one of those things that draws us into wild places, and it does take some time to adjust to that. And by about day three, and especially on day four, you don't even know what day it is. I think by by the fourth day, you don't know if it's uh, Tuesday or Wednesday or I find I lose track of that, and and then you're just kind of in this rhythm and it feels it always on the first part of the hunt, it always feels like you've got this enormous amount of time, and then by about the fifth day, the days just fly by in every opportunity just seems like it's doubled in speed. And here we are on the seventh day. And uh and I mean I honestly, I don't feel fatigued. Uh. I guess mentally maybe a little bit, just because we've not killed an elk, but like almost I was. I just I just feel like this is where I live. My God, man, I could not express how much I think this is where I should be. Like, I can't express how much like wearing these first light clothes feels like what I should be doing all the time. I when I take them off and wash them in the wash, I am so sad that I now have to like put on on a collar shirt or I just it. Man, I could never I'll never I don't know. Maybe I'll write a book one day, but I'll never be able to express how much this feels like what I ought to be doing. What what were we saying yesterday been that they estimate that there's been a hundred and eight billion humans that have ever lived on the earth and most of those humans were hunter gatherers, most of them. Yeah, I mean they they this was their life. Yeah, I mean, I you know, we're not rough and we're in a camp. We made antelope, you know, potatoes onions last night. And but it's like that that even that element of it's still you're without some of the things that become negatives in your life. You know, you're kind of without some of the modernity that that kind of ken if you allow it to become poisonous um and and it just it just feels like when you're pride, when you're when it's rhythmic, like you said, when you're in a rhythmic situation with the landscape, like we are here, what are we doing right now? These elk are laying down? What are we doing when they're elk? Goal was taken a nap when when the elk are on their feet, were on their feet, were working hard. Um, we want to go we want to be at water when they go to water, you know. And so when you get in that rhythm and that's kind of your primary other things that are destroy actions from that. You know that to me, that element is perfect, It's perfect and it it eliminates this idea that I have to be clean, or have to look a certain way, or have to act a certain way. The only thing that matters is I'm willing to get up at four thirty in the morning and do whatever I have to do, you know, to to be in that rhythm and to experience that. And that's it. We did this every day of our life, and our our means of survival was actually acquiring meat and and edible goods and finding shelter and whatnot. We'd get real good, real quick, and knowing what was worth expending energy towards. Yesterday, the wind was blown thirty miles per hour, and we all got up and went out hunting, and we said after the morning, we were like, when you have seven days to hunt, hunt on days like this, like, yeah, you don't stay back. You just can't. But if we if if we did this three and sixty five days a year, this is the day that you stay back at camp and put on calories from what you killed three days before. I mean, our limiting factors here are like the thing that we left, this is the society family. I don't want to this is not in a negative connotation in any way like the pushing pool of this experience in terms of what limits us from being out here forever is the things we have back home, is the things that we have as responsibilities. As things we have is are you know, the things that give us fulfillment back there um and our priorities in our lives. That's the push pool ultimately of the time. When you say seven days seven days is about as much time as you can expend doing this and still have a functional life when you get back um and not do any real harm to your daily life or your work life or or anything like that. Then my wife's rooting for us. She uh, she the first I mean, I feel most pressure ben from her, for she wants to eat an elk. She loves elk. She wants to eat an elk. And on the second day over here in this other little draw um, when I was within striking distance of two velvet spikes and a couple of cows, I took this video, and Bear was with me, and I videoed these elk and then I spun it around to Bear, and then I ended up later sending that to Misty, and she said, she said, what's the problem. Why didn't you shoot those up? And I said, well, they were only cows. I didn't tell her about the spikes. I said there were cows, and she said, ah, there's the problem, Clay. Those are not cows. Those were elk Yea. Sometimes sometimes your spouse says something and you realize that they ain not be on the same page as you. That's the problems. Those aren't Cal's Clay, those are elk Yep. You're not really, you're not tracking this man. Yeah. I mean my wife's the same way. She she wants to eat elegant and she that's her favorite meat. And and she my son is rooting for me, like they have a vested interest in this too, because they know why I'm here and they want I think they want success for me, but I think they also want, you know, this all to be validated, this time spent away from them, to be validated in a way that and that validation is awesome when you all this comes together, like the sacrifices they're made with not having me around, because it certainly is a sacrifice for both of them, all of them, um, and the sacrifices I've made to try to do this. When that when that culminates in like a nice steak dinner that adds I mean, it doesn't just add to the feeling. It kind of defines the feeling of when that happens. That's why it gives all this value. You know, Like we sometimes hunters think that we are kind of independent, and like we we like to go out in wild places, usually by ourselves. I mean, I hunt like this, we're with other people. But really what gives that that solitude, in this independent experience value is that we have someone to share it with. I mean, that's what gives it value. I mean, if if we didn't have family, if we didn't have friends, if we didn't have these other people, this wouldn't have as much value. That's what I'm seeing more and more is that so much of the value of what we do is not just in this because what if we just did this and we had no one to share it to. I think there's a Brandy Carlyle song that says uh. I think it says, uh, these lines on my face tell the story of my life. But if there's no one to tell the story too, they don't mean anything. It's true, And that goes back to the push did I get it right. Colby is thinking that now we're just getting too It's like it's you know, let's look for elk man Brandy Carlile. That may be the first Brandy Carlile reference ever on the podcast and about two of talking well done, Clay, well done. But yeah, I mean I get him in that the push pool is that is kind of washed over by that idea too, that that you want to get back to them and share this with them. And I think that might be to bring maybe bring it all around for me talking about you know what why I moved to Montana, why I wanted this to be UM kind of the place we we stay for until they kick us out, is is all of that, you know, all of this together to be able to learn a craft, share that with my children, allow them the paths and opportunities to do do those things that I appreciate, UM and to see to see like in their backyard that they can go killing elk, they can enjoy its flesh, they can UM have that be a part of their lifestyle and the way that they live in the way that they connect not only to the outside but to their family and the people, their friends, people around them, like I want all that for them, And I see public land, and I see elk and deer and bears as a vector of of that thing that I want for them ultimately. And then you know, that desperation to have my dad around long enough to for him to also see that come from film, because he's the reason that that that that would happen if it does. So I think all of that is kind of what I'm looking for, um, you know from Montana. Yeah, that's all you gotta do for me, Montana. It's just just just do it. Now. We should talk about bear grease. There's no really transition to bear grease from what we were just talking about, but we should talk about bargreas. Can you to just just define your relationship with Barrier, Like what you're wearing a hat that says bear grease? Colby's wearing camp the other day. Uh, one of the guys we were with was like, what is colbe and I both have these hats on it say Bargeras And he said, what is bar grease? And um no, so, Ben, bear grease is a real thing, and it is actually a rendered rendered fat from the from the fat of a bear. You heat fat and it Uh, it turns into a liquid oil that doesn't go rancid as quickly as as pork lard. So historically, in much of North America, bear fat, especially from the you know, from the time of European exploration and colonization up until you know, probably the Civil War, bear fat was a very common way too. Uh. You know, you needed you needed grease for for cooking, for all the different things you can use lard for. And so anyway, bear grease is that. And um, but it's more than that. It's more than that. UM. Feed me along here if I'm not. If I'm not, because we talked about this extensively, but now that my One of my favorite books is written by a guy named fred Frederick Gerstalker, uh eighteen between eighteen thirty seven and eighteen forty four. He he traveled in Arkansas, and he was a guy. He was a rich kid from Germany that had a really good education. He was twenty one years old when he got here, and he traveled and hunted with within what then was the Frontier. And uh he did a lot of bear hunting in Arkansas, and he had his favorite dog was named Beargrease. And uh, now beargrease has always been something special to me for whatever reason, just that they it's it's it's really a kind of a folksy thing, you know. They say that you can forecast weather with beargrease, and I've been airmtten without first several years and uh, barg rease does change inconsistency based upon bar metric pressure and different things. And there was a man named Gordon wim Sat in uh I think White Cloud, New Mexico, that became world famous for predicting weather in earthquakes with burger ease. What was his name, I'm pretty sure it was Gordon Wimsat. We wrote an article about him and Barony magazine and he has he has a chart. We we have the chart. Uh we we published it with permission a few years ago. But he has a whole chart of when you put a jar Burgers in the south facing window, what it does and what that means. And he was actually on like the Today Show in the nineties seventies because he predicted an earthquake in South America. Yes, um, but now Burgaris has lots of practical uses. You know, you can that's pretty practical. Yeah, if you could predict major you know catastrophes. The actually predicted a global pandemic last year. We didn't say anything about it. You forgot, I forgot to mention it. We're so worried about, you know, the grease. The grease. Yeah, all right, what else can it do? Like, are you like you want? Like actually what people use it for? Well, I can cure baldness, Yeah, yeah, they they they very much so are adamant about the the old literature that it h you're not balt cold even wearing a hat all week. He's got a full head of hair. At least your hair. Yeah, this looks good. You're not gonna need any grease anytime soon. Now, you're fine, You're fine. They can you can use it for conditioning leather. It's it really doesn't totally waterproof it, but back in the day it would have done a better job of water proof than anything else. What I like to use it for is cooking ben like anything you're frying, if you're frying fish, if you're frying elk, back strap. Man, I wish we had something if you're frying anything. Barrel oil is a very clean, very uh you know, has a it's just great fry like pan frying oil. UM. They used to use it to lubricate anything that was metal, like a flint, like muzzleloaders, different things. They would loop up their patch and ball in a musket with bear grease. Lots of different usage usages. And what I the reason I like that phrase and we use that so much is because the bear grease deal is it's it's kind of like this lost thing. Like when we started rendering bear fat writing stuff about it, it was it was kind of like this this lost commodity that at one time was super valuable and then the world bypassed it. And you know, we're kind of I like coming back to some of those things. We can't have a get tupop here because we need our bear pop relations to remain intact. But it doesn't you know, it points back to a lot of things we were You and I were talking a little bit about kind of the bedrocks of your life and some of the things that you've crafted that you know, I hope people can go listen to your podcast Bear on a magazine podcast and UM learn about But those bedrocks are kind of like faith, family, outdoors, UM. And there's a lot of traditions you're what you told me you were eighth or not your eighth generation kids eight generation. And you know that is connected to a lot of things, you know, the way that you live, what you value, the ways you see the world. You know, and I think funny, it's funny that bear grease is is very analogous to that. In some ways. There's a lot of things that probably that you that your family done have been passed by in the modern age that you can always draw back to. And um that is still that are still useful are people? Um? So just tell us all the things. What are all the things that people should know about everything? Everything? But we were talking about one thing I think we can close on and I know this can be some somewhat difficult to talk about, but it's important. Is your this idea of of your faith and how it translates to what you do. And right now you know that's something you're comfortable talking about. Sure, No, you know, my my faith is the bedrock of everything that I do. It's the foundation of my it's the foundation of why I want to bring my son here with me. Um. You know, um in in hunting is not that I hear some people in the outdoor world, talking about like you know, the outdoors is my church or that's where meet with God. That that can be that can be true. But if this is the only place that that you you meet with God, and for me, that wouldn't be enough. Um. But my yeah, just this is this is this is Uh. I'm always looking for ways to connect what I'm doing in life back into UM. Well, no, that's the wrong that's the wrong way to say it. I'm I'm scrambling around here, Ben, That's all right, forgive me no free ofness needed. Like I said, these so of these things are just hard to it's hard to articulate. Yeah, but you know, I think it's important for people. It's something that we skip over and on this podcast we often try to go dive head first into something that might be uncomfortable or controversial. I think faith, strangely has become one of those topics. Um. I'm nowhere nearest devout as you. My faith is probably different than yours, but I think I appreciate and want to learn about the way that you practice and the way that intertwines with the things that we're doing this week, and and um talk about it rather than you know, fight about it or or disagree about it, or project our other checked our own ideologies on each other in terms of like our own faith or the only way we see those things. But but I think, I mean, it's you know, for me when I think about you, and I know that's a big part of your you know life. We have known each other for very long, but I know that's a big part of your life. And I very much appreciate your perspectives on everything, specifically specifically hunting and what we're doing now. So the crossroads of those two things is I'm sure important has to be. Yeah, well, you know, and when we're talking about faith, I mean, I guess it it it We've got to talk about specifically what I'm talking about. I mean, I would I would say, we strive to live a biblically based life, you know. And uh, you know, I think the connection to this is that I do believe in a creator. I believe God created this place. I believe there's some some some of the modern Christian ideologies of creation and stuff that don't mix with science. I wouldn't like. I think science validates God in so many ways. And that's actually kind of a personal journey that I'm on right now reading about uh, you know, the trying to understand the origins of humanity from science, And I'm amazed then at the at the at the similarities between um, you know, a biblical story of creation and and what we actually find in science. There's a lot more that meshes than isn't. Honestly, it all depends on who you talk to. But that's a good way to put it. Yeah, but there's there's a there's there's a way where I think it all meets together. But uh, now, I live by a value system. I have a value system, and and I want that value system transferred to my kids. Hunting is not my salvation. It's just a it's just a portion of who I am. I don't draw my identity from my hunting. My my identity as a man comes from you. Just like I was talking about with my son, a lot of his identity will come from me validating him, his relationship with me and how I build him. If you could distill my faith in my relationship with God down, it would be that man we are. We are spiritual beings massively different than animals. I mean, there's a lot, you know, a lot of people. I've heard lots of different things, a lot of people that don't think we are different than animals. I do. I think physically we are like animals, but we clearly have something that's undeniably different. And I think that thing is Uh. I think that thing is is God inside of us. I think it's God's He can He put a transmitter inside of us that he didn't put inside of other animals, and that means we can connect to God and uh. And so that value system comes from that connection, you know. Um And that's a that's a massive part of my life. And I think where we were talking yesterday about how hunting would maybe fit into that is that I think hunting brings us back at some level to original design. Like um Man in the beginning was I mean, we were hunter gatherers, were life was pretty simple. It was very hard, but very simple, and Uh. I think a lot of what's happened today is we've moved away from a lot of our original the original design of humanity. And I'm not saying that everybody should be a hunter, because they really shouldn't, but there's certain things in life that draw us back to something that's really primitive and human, and I think that has value and um, and I'm not saying that that's uh, I'm not trying to over spiritualize that. But there's a lot of things that right now is taking us away from if I could just say it that way, taking us away from original design. And I think a key is is staying staying close to original design, and hunting would just be a super tiny part of that. And that original design, to me would would be uh, you know, families and fathers and mothers and and in families that are able to transfer values in the kids that aren't so much man Godly there's I'm sorry interrupted, but I was thinking, well, what we were just describing about our families, like how they were rooting for us and they depend on us and we want to bring the meat back and we depend on them to to tell them these stories and bring this to them. That that's not new. That's not new at all. It's been going on for as long as we've been bi pedal um and able to and I you know, since we're on the plains of Africa throwing rocks a hyenas and so you know that plays into what you're talking about. Certainly it certainly do you. Hey, here's a good example, Ben. This might this week. Uh, me and Colby and Bear took an afternoon off from hunting to go zoom into a meeting that our church had that was really important to us. Uh. It was a meeting that was planned at the last minute, and uh we just found out about it and we were like, dang, we're gonna be in. We're gonna be in Montana, and um to my wife, I mean I actually thought about not coming. I mean that was in the books, you know, just like, hey, Montane is done, We'll just eat the thousand dollars. This is what we value, you know. I wanted my son to see that that I wasn't gonna shirk. Really what's important for, you know, for for something, even though we could rationalize it, Oh, I've got a thousand dollar tag. Oh, we got people planning for us to come. Like really, I I was Kobe can tell you we talked about not coming and uh and uh but after talking to my wife and and uh, we said, you know what, we can zoom We could zoom in. And so we took the day off. We we went over and uh and we participated in in a It was kind of just a you can meet unique meeting that we had. You know, I won't go into the details of it, but it was really important to us and man that, right, there's the way you transfer a value system to your kid. Show him that, you know, because he sees how passionate I am about hunting. He knows I'll sacrifice just about anything for hunting. That's not gonna be hard for him. What's gonna be hard for him is to see, Ah, that's where where there is true value that has to be adhered to no matter what, and there's creative ways to do it. And we we participated in the meeting. It was it was cool our faces we were dressed in camo in the truck and our faces were up on the screen at this meeting because everybody else was in there in person. But they made you know, they were like, yeah, Clay and Colby and Bear, they're gonna be zooming for Montana and so there we are, you know, wearing our camo and um, you know, all that I've said probably doesn't make much sense. I hope that makes sense to you. Where there's value, you've got to be able to realize it in in a real functional way. Livid you know, yeah, yeah, I mean that's ass and fathers and brother you know. I always say that I have like a lot of things that I have to do be good at and have to balance. And I've learned this from other people. But I want to be a father, husband, friend, you know. I want to you know, be a good good at my job. I want to be a good you know. The pandemic has really taught me that being a neighbor is one thing I would add to that being a good neighbor, um, you know. And I think you would add a servant of Christ that probably um you know, and so and I've struggled. We could talk about my faith forever, but I struggled with it in many ways. But you know this is that's what you're talking about. It's just like, how do you when you think about your life and what you really need to be good at UM and you really need to put time and put pressure on yourself to really value over other things Like I didn't say hunter and those things I just mentioned. You know, I didn't UM, and I wouldn't UM, and I there may be other times of my life where I might have UM and I don't if somebody would say to me, like, I'll you know, I would sacrifice being a good father or a good husband to be to kill this out boy, check yourself at the door. That one. That's that's crazy. Um, But I think that's I don't think anybody would say that, right. But you certainly there's certain people that see these obsessions and let let those things push them a little bit further from their their priorities. So we've got to have balance. I mean, you know there's there's balance and everything, and you know there there are if your life is built in a certain way and strong enough, you have a strong enough relationship with your wife, If you have a strong enough relationship with your family, you know you can expend. You know where you can you can go, you can do stuff and it's okay and it doesn't hurt anything and it actually helps things. You know. I think if you're if you're doing things right and in finding the architecture for your life. If I could insert that phrase, what's the architecture for your life? Not everybody that I know has the should go elk hunting for nine days in September. I mean, like there were times in my life when I could not have. But right now that fits inside the architecture I can bring my son. My wife is you know, excited about that. Um, it's it's part of my career. You know. There's just all these things. But a good a good leader of a home has to be able to discern the correct architecture for his family and then and then live with it and go with it, you know. And that architecture is going to be different at different times when my kids were young, I don't know that I've been able to do this. You know, drive twenty four hours. Um, your situation is different. You're a lot closer to home. You know, you could be home this afternoon if you wanted to. Like, that's the key man balance finding the architecture for your family, not shirking responsibility where there needs to be responsibility. But you can still come out here and give everything you've got and be an excellent hunter. And I and I love, I love, I love people that have dedicated their lives to a craft and whether and for me, that's hunting. For other people, it's knife making, it's I T stuff, it's uh being a veterinarian, you know, whatever, dedicate yourself to it, be an expert at it, and I think that makes us a better human, really do. Like you've got to be passionate about something. Let me tell you about alcoholing in terms of what you just said. I find myself because there's a while, like you said, Like you mentioned earlier, I had issues with mouth calls. I got a thin palette. It's caused other issues with my sleep and things like that. So I discovered this recently. Oh man, I got this thin palette. Mouth calls. Have never quite worked time worked on it. Now that I know that, I knew that I worked on and I got it right, and I figured it out, and and from here I'll go on. But I felt and feel so much better as a man, as as a functional human, as a man, having started to learn something and feel competent as something I previously had hoped to acquire as part of my skill set. I feel more confident. Ah, I'm better served to to tackle problems in my daily life as simple as learning to alcohol and hearing today and all the other days I've hunted this year, Elk correspond to my alcohol. Elk come running into me. Um, I set my mind to something I wanted to do. I decided that that this was going to be something a craft that I wanted to over the long haul really get good at. Um. And to see that realized in terms of like the start of the journey has been huge for me, and like how good I feel it's when I wake up in the morning. Um. And so that's what hunting add that's this is just one little part, you know. Now, you know when I go outside and shoot three good airs every night, I feel good about that too. Um. I'm a little further down that journey than I am without calling. But nonetheless, how many different levels are there. I recently took up like, I'm gonna learn everything there is about knife sharpening. You know, I'm gonna learn. I've got my work sharp I'm gonna learn every single thing there is to know about sharpening everything, Um, understanding the blades, the material, the edgy, all of it, you know. And I think that's what you're talking about. Hunting is full of crafts. It's full of acquired skills, um. And the application of those skills is one of the things that brings a reward back to you and then wraps around all the things we already talked about. So I'm with you man, I I I could couldn't replace that. I don't think only because it's a three dimensional This is a three dimensional skill craft. Not only if I learn, you know, I think I've I learned I guess, I guess you learned woodworking and you build a table and then you're eating with your family on that table, you've kind of realized the entire experience. Same thing here. If you learn how to sharpen a knife really well, and you learn how to call and you're how to shoot your bow, and that all comes together and then you get to experience that with your family, that's I think that's probably the definition of that craft. And you know, dedication to craft any if you were to dissect you know, like a great knife maker or a great musician, or a great elk hunter or a great woodworker, they you would you would be able to fundamentally get down to the same essential qualities of people that had persistence, they had curiosity, they had they had to gain knowledge, they had to practically apply that knowledge because there's all these different steps that people don't follow the way through. Like maybe you have the knowledge, but you never sharpen your knife, you never dedicate the time to actually scratching on it, or maybe you scratch on a stone all the time like I did when I was in college for six months and never could stink and get the knife sharp. And then you realize, ah, there's a knowledge base and you you know, you learn actually the technology of an edge and like. But all these like whatever it is, all these things funnel down to a character inside of a person. I feel like, and um, and that's what ultimately has value because that character then can flow into other parts of your life. And that's true, man, it really does, it can and uh um, so yeah, and it's never and you never. Look. I'm thirty four, you know, and I've been in the hunting industry for eleven eleven years, twelve year, I don't know how long it's been. It's been a while, it'spen over a decade, um. And I don't I'm not like, I don't have any ego. I'm not a finished product. I don't think I'm better at this than anyone. And I hope I never will, even if I actually am, even if the time comes. With those elk heads in my house came from you know, a foundational learning experience and craftsmanship woodsmanship instead of money and a guide, you know, and so you know, even when that happens, I hope to still you know, eliminate these parts of like, well I'm good at this now, um, and continue to just find other things to improve upon. About a month ago, we we interviewed a guy and I don't know that we're gonna get to air the interview because he was I'm not going to tell the state, but he was. He was a government lion hunter and uh and honestly, he's probably one of the best lion hunters on the continent right now. And he told me, well, what's interesting being about him was because he's a government lion hunter. He didn't have an Instagram pay age, he didn't have a website, he's not trying to sell hunts. He it was like the distillation of this man. He there was no ego. He was his job was to catch lines with hounds and he used mules and uh and he hunts, I mean three hundred days a year catching lions and uh. And he told me he talked about another man in another state that he said was the best dry ground lion hunter that ever drew a breath of air on the earth and that man was this man's mentor. I wish I could say all their names. And he said, what makes that man so great was the fact that he never knew how good he was, and he still doesn't. His humility led him through life and led him on a search for knowledge that he's still on even though right now he's probably the best. You know, the mentor other guy that I hadn't met yet. And I said, wait a minute, you're telling me. I stopped him and I said, you're telling me that humility is what makes that guy great. And he said absolutely. He said, when you think you know what, you stop learning. When you know that you don't know, you keep learning. And there's no cap to that never ends. And it was so simple. But you take that into any part of your life. You know, we feel you know. And this even goes back to you know, Biblical value system. I mean, humility is a key definer of should be of all of our lives, is that we know that we don't know, but we're in a search to know. Not a false humility that's just like oh what was me? But just a humility brings realism, humility brings yeah, I know, I'm not a good elk hunter. Um, I'm trying to be in a good elk hunter. I'm gonna learn um. Anyway, I thought that was powerful if we just turn inward for a minute, you think about like the hunting world and what the hunting world both of you, both of you and I are both in hunting media. We both have been so for a while. We both do it for a living. And kind of the things that the hunting industry itself searches for this expertise, the representation of product, you know, the the authenticity. All of those things I think are important, But I think we grasp for them too hard. I think we we pursue them with too much fervor. We don't sit back and say, you know, how can we represent what we're talking about to the people that want to get into hunting? Understand it's going to be hard. There are certain people that have ways of doing things that they've they've crafted over years and years and years of experience and conditioning. They they are sharpening themselves and they can help you get going. You know, are they experts? Yes? Um? Is there ultimate expert in any one of these pursuits? Absolutely not, UM, And I wish I kind of wish someone would have told me way earlier, and maybe I just had to get to this place. But like, don't microwave it. Don't microwave it, because if you if you think that, you can skip ten steps and all of a sudden start killing big stuff. And that's the purpose. Hopefully what I've said here today. I don't think I've talked about this on the show very much at all, but hopefully that story that I've told about kind of my own journey could teach anyone out there that. And even this hunt, we you came all the way up here from Arkansas, spent all this time and probably aren't going to go home with an elk unless we get a Hail Mary at the last moment here. Um. Yet that's a part of a larger journey, and that's an important part of that journey. And so you know, don't microwave it. If you're out there and you've got an Instagram page and you want to get don't cheat the process. Yeah yeah, I mean, because even if you go on you can fake yourself, you can go you can kill you can kill three giant elk this year, um and and put those out and and and start to gain notoriety for that or whatever. But but as you said, the process is always going to be there, and it always requires one thing of you, which is dedication and humility. And so that's where the real value of everything that we do in our life has to be about the process. Like I'll go home from this hunt and and if I if I go home without an Elk, I will have valued the process. I really will. I mean, there's just no way to get there. Like if the end goal was Elk horns, it would have been better off for me to stay in Arkansas and save up fifteen thousand dollars, which I'm just not gonna do and you know, buy some hunt somewhere. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to do it this way, and um yeah that so there, there's there's got to be value, you know, honor inside of that and and personally, and I'm not looking for that. There's gonna be no honor on Instagram for the sunset pictures I post. Well that's what I was gonna say. I still, I still don't mistake me for saying that I didn't come here to kill an Elk and that I failed. I don't mistake that for for me, you know, fluffing this up and and saying, hey, guys, I'm the same man. I came here to killing el I came here to kill an elk, and I didn't. So I'm not saying that I came like that. I'm accepting the failure as some sort of consolation prize. I'm not pisses me off extremely. I'll be thinking about it every night until I actually get one of these things on the ground. But there are there is a parallel to that that I also have to take parts of this failure and apply to the craft I'm trying to learn, you know, and that both those things could be true at the same time. This is this is just one one hunt in the bigger, bigger puzzle, and that puzzle will come to completion at some point. For sure. I know it is for me, I mean, and and I'm still trying to figure out how big that puzzle is. You know. I thought, Colorado, Yeah, Colorado over the counter last year we almost killed an elk, actually could have been passed it. Didn't know it was legal, maybe already told that story. And then I thought, well, okay, well, then here's this piece. We'll go to Montana, and I really thought we'd we'd kill now and AND's not over. You're right, we still we still got we still got some time. But it's just part of the part of the puzzle. And you've got to you've gotta value that journey. Yeah, And so the the end of our journey is probably would be we should probably sit here. We're sitting by a creek. There's water. We know there's an elk probably six yards up in this timber bedded was his cows. And I really hope he gets thirsty soon. I really hope he's sitting up there across that creek that we can't what's she's up there going? God, I feel parched. I can really use a beverage. Maybe I'll just jump down over the hill track a bottle open. I just jumped down over the hill and take a little sippy sip and then next thing you know, Clay Nico sneaks up and gives him one. Anyhow, well, man, it's been fun. It's been a fun week. Um. I think hunting with you is is we can have these conversations. We can you know, we can really learn some things from each other and and are willing to kind of go deep on some of these subjects that otherwise probably wouldn't. But laughing hiking around hard country. Um, as I said before, there's no place I'd rather be in September. Yeah, yeah, I've had a great time. It's been fun hunting withy band. Well, um, we got no fill today. Phil is on my weight. Oh never mind. I thought I was looked at my bow. I thought I lost my state blizer. But I see I was looking at the wrong thing. Uh, it's been a long week, trust me. Anyheah, we have no fill today. Uh. He's back in Bozeman, probably comfortable. He's probably playing video games or something. Um So, hi Phil, you'll have to listen to this to edit it. But hi Phil. And in terms of what we got coming up and what we hope to achieve on the show, here we have we we will play you the Paul Bashir interview that I can promise you. We talked about that last week. In the prior week, we did interview PAULA Scher, one of the co founders of a prominent animal rights group called Anonymous for the Voiceless. It was a very interesting, compelling, maybe mad thing, maybe inspiring who knows to be up to you for that. Um. I had hoped to get Clay's reaction to that in a podcast as well, but we just don't have the audio right and we're waiting on a password to get the audio from Zoom, our friends at Zoom. So if anybody listens to us who works at zoom, hit me up. We need your help. So we will uh exume that audio and we will get that to you at some point as soon as we are confident that that audio is going to be good enough for you to enjoy that interview. But next week the return of Ask the Eagle. Clay asked the Eagle with the great and powerful Yanni patel Us, who actually did kill an elk his first elk? This makes you might make you feel better. I guess who just killed their first elk with archery tackle? Oh? Was that his first archery elk? Yeah, I'll be honest, but tell us so if it makes you feel it probably makes you feel a little bit better that you know that guy's he's a crack elk caller. He's he was a guide and the just kill his first elk with archery tackle in Colorado. So we'll talk to him about that. We'll take your questions and asked the eagle. Has has that been going on for a few weeks? Man? That asked the eagle, Yeah, the second the eagle. We've adopted Yanny over here at THHC, and we're gonna keep having him answer your questions live on the air from the studio. I hopefully i'll get a shower before he's locked in there with me. But we'll also have the great and powerful Fred Eichler coming up. Talk, guiding Talk, Hell, hunting Talk, antelope talk, Meal, dear talk, everything Eichler, And we'll keep on keeping on and the hunting collected. So we'll see you next week. Say bikelay, take care of guys. See yup, you know, because I can't go a week without doing run oh without drinking

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