Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 085: Afognak Island Elk Hunt

Transcript

Ep. 085: Afognak Island Elk Hunt · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is me Eater podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: can't predict anything, all right, you freeloaders. There's two, uh two,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: three super important things. I'm gonna tell you about two
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of them, and then as a bonus, the Eagle, the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Latvin Eagle, your honest who tell us, is gonna tell
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: you about the third thing you can do for us.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: So this is a three for one um as a
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: total freeloader who doesn't pay for squat and just listen
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to this the digital radio program with like no end
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of their own, no skin in the game of their own.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: The thing you can do to mitigate that some of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: your guilt for doing that is go on to the
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  Speaker 1: the the the sixty percent of you who are listening
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: on iTunes, go on to iTunes and give the me
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  Speaker 1: Eater podcasts are ripping five star review. It doesn't really
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  Speaker 1: matter what you right, just's go give it a five
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  Speaker 1: star review. So like, do that right now and subscribe. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: five star review and subscribe. Just do it right now.
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• 1:37
  Speaker 1: go click five. Okay, you got it. Okay, thank you. UM.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: If you listen to if you're part of the other percent,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the twenty sum or thirty percent, to listen on stitcher,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: you do the same thing that that's thing one. UM.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: The second thing you need to do is that was
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: it the right subscribe? Yeah? Yeah, subscribe, So that that
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: was the easy one. Now the eagle is gonna tell
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you his little part of this this message. Mm hmm.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: You go to the meat Eater store which is at
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: the Meteor dot com and look at some of the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: badass branded first Light gear that we have in stock
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: bow coup Chalma hoodies in camo and it's solid patterns
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: with a cool Meter logo on them. There are brimmed beanies.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: What else was there? Hats, T shirts, decals. Yeah, the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: new hats are nice. We have new um richardson one,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: twelves with the cipher new first Light cipher Camo on
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: him with the Meteor logo. And Ridge Pounders. Ridge Pounder
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: has been rocking one of those Yeah, yeah you are
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: do you wear in Chicago when you're just kicking around
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: town all the time? He says, yeah, But he's got
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: that going for him. But he cannot cook squirrel and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: rabbit at all. That's it, right, that's it. Not for
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the program. Now, I know that listeners have grown accustomed
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to the impeccable sound quality of this year digital radio program,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and that's gonna be a little compromised because we're in
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a teepee tent in the rain. And I know this
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: has happened a handful of times throughout the history of
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: this program, um, but you just have to bear with it.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So if you're hearing a gentle pitter pattern punctuated by
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: loud gusts of wind, that is the weather of a
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: fog nack island, which not many folks have heard of.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: But a fog nack is separated by a narrow channel.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Remember what's that channel called? You know? Uh no, not
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: between the islands. I'm not sure. I think just fog
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: net trade or something. Yeah, I don't quote me on that.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Well you're quoted, um, but well, well, yeah,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I understand Raspberry straight straight, separated by a narrow channel
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: from Kodiak Island and dirt here knows Kodiak as being
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: an inferior brand of chew. No good Kodiak is good
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: or not good good? Oh grizzly Yeah, do you think
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Grizzly was trying to nose in on Kodiak's business. Kodiaks
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: known for big grizzlies. What's the chew? You said? It's
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: like a low grade choo that you don't need to
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: chew because you have a good job, Grizzly, that's what
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: my pops choose, not that he has a bad job,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: but he's he's he's more frugal, he's better with what
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: what do you got packed in right now? Dirt school baby?
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: If anyone, if anyone's followed the saga of dirt trying
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: to quit you, you can see that uh I wasna
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: saying no progress has been made on the quid you
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: have to try though? Really well? Yeah, because now he's
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: hit to a homeopathic thing he's taking, which she feels
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: is gonna mitigate the damaging effects of chew by taking
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: what are you eating? Licening and fresh air? Licening is
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the pill? So you take a pill to just a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: prolong how long you can chew because it's it's counteracting
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the carson genic effects of your chew. What is my
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: own theory? Yeah? No, I like it. I like it. Um,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So we have a riding the storm Out, and you know,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: if anyone's spirit the Rio Speedwagon song Riding the Storm Out,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: it has you know, it's like a real powerful song
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: that gets everyone amped up, and it's like really um dramatic.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: But in the song where he's really right, he's like
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: at some kind of cabin scheme and he's just kind
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: of saying like I'm not missing the thing Riding the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Storm Out, and it's really sort of like, you know,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: it's kind of blase for his it's hard hitting of
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: a tune. Riding the Storm Out is and if he
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: was a real skier, he'd be out there. No, it's
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: just like you feel like he's being more metaphorical, right,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Like you feel like when he's like ride in the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Storm Out, you feel like like it's metaphorical. You feel
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: like he's in Miami during a hurricane. Yeah. Yeah, like
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: but but if you listen carefully, just like he's in Colorado,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I think, or more metaphorical, like he's got like a
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: love triangle going on and just or he's going in
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: to get um, he's going in to get a prostrate exam,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: which I just had my first stuff recently, so yeah,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: like going into that when I had to get on
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: my elbows on the map. I was in my head
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: was you know it might have been like I might
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: have done better had I been thinking riding the storm out.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: But um, it's really like if you listen to it's
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: kind of more of a Limp Dickey song because he's
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: just up like skiing and he gets stuck in a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: cabin for the night. It's it's one of the songs.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: It isn't as good. Um, no songs better. This is
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: just a quick diversion for you get back to what's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: going on in fog Nack Island. Uh. The Bob Seeger
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: song Night Moves. Do you know what that song is about? Yes,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: tell me what it's about. Well, only because I've I've
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: had a conversation with you while you dissected it and
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: told me about what it was about. Night Moves is
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: about senescence. It's about growing old where he for a
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: lot of the song is reminiscing about being out with
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: some gal behind back behind the corn field in the fifties,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Chevy working on their night moves. So he's like, you know,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: perfecting the heart of love making I gather and but
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: in the end of the song, it was like a
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: PostScript to the song, and in the end of the song,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Uncle Bobby Bob seeger crystals like you're from mission. You
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about? What you're talking about? Uncle
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Bobby says, I woke last night to the sound of thunder.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: How far off I sat and wondered. So here he is.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: He's painting this picture of like someone wake up in
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the middle of the night, counting time. Right, I started
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: humming a song from nineteen Isn't it funny how the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: night moves when you don't don't seem to have as
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: much loose? He's it's it's from the perspective. It's an
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: old man waking up at night, coming to terms with
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: his own death and thinking back on this thing that
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: happened to him. Isn't it funny? All the night moves
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and he just don't seem to have that much to lose.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And now here he is, you know, maybe his prostates gone.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, Farnack Island, me break break it
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: down fourth the island itself? Just do you have a
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: whole spiel picture? Yeah, So we're in a valley, but
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the mountains jet up pretty high. It's all uh, most
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of its volcanic activity. What all these mountains come out
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: of the ocean front A lot of vol can and
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: hundred feet to be exact. When we were up at
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: top Tony on the ridge we're camped at, three were
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: camp blowing, not that doesn't matter, low enough, but about
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: like a hundred yards most we got, uh, silver salmon jumping,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, fresh out of the ocean, clean salmon to
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: being caught. Yeah, they're pretty aggressive. Ramy actually caught one
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: on his first cast cast, which is a giant on
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: his first cast. But anyways, there we are Farnack Island. Yeah,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and so there's uh, just a few different animals running around.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Elk Roosevelt elk, which were introduced. Then there's blacktail deer
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Cia blacktail deer, and then you've got the Kodiak brown
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: were which is the king of the island. But it
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: is biggest brown bears in the world, biggest brown bears
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: in the world. You have pounds, so if you think
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: about them, it's a bear that's about the weight of
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: two standard Montana elk or more. That's a big bear.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: That's huge. But these elk are no These elk are
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: no joke either in weight, they're about four hundred pounds.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I would say somewhere in there some of the biggest body,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: biggest boggy dulk in the world. Yep, for sure. And
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I think it's just because there's there's what you've seen
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the grass. It's just head high, high protein grass from
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: what I've heard. Yeah, we're kind of in It's weird
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: about this island. Is you kind of in like a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: you're in almost like a grassland environment. Yeah, you would think,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: but I mean there's obviously there's spruce forests and then
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: there's old growth forest on the other side, just this
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: mountain behind us um. But this grass is you just
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: notice all the seed and everything on the top of it.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: And this morning I found bear crap out back. There's
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: just full of the grass seed. So it's obviously a
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  Speaker 1: pretty rich food source and easy to gather for the
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: elk and the the deer and well, I don't know,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I would imagine the deer do a little more browsing
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: on some of the other plants growth. Yeah, everything grows
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: larger here. Garrett was calling it, Kong Island is big. Yeah,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: And there's a thing like in in you know, we've
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: talked about Bergman's rule or Bergman's principle number of times
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: that mammals tend to be. Mammals tend to be the
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: largest specimens of mammals tend to be at the most
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: northern point of their range, which has to do with
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: heat retention and heat dissipation. So if you just imagine,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: like imagine the white tailed deer um the most you
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: know the diminutive forms of white tailed deer, like down
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: in the Florida keys we have keys deer like very
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: small deer, and everybody knows like the really big bodied
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: bruisers from Alberta. So if you imagine the white tailed deer,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: like a large white tailed deer has a lower surface
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: area ratio than a small white tailed deer, so which
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: is beneficial for heat retention. A smaller bodied white tailed
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: deer has higher surface area, which is good for heat dissipation.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: The same way, if you think about an African elephant
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: has big, huge ears and a wooly mammoth had very
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: small ears because they use those ears to cool their
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: blood by sending blood into their ears, which is exposed
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to the air to cool it. And then other things
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: have strategies by which they try not to expose blood
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to air. But there's the reason that bring that up.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: There's a principle with islands were generally on islands, mammals
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: tend toward diminutive form, and here you have but these
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: are huge. See. The weird thing is they're huge islands. Yeah,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: they're they're huge. They become almost like not they become
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: almost like an island, like when they're so huge because
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: you know, like there's there's enough. Probably everything is smaller
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: on an island because there's not as many resources, so
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: they just tend to be smaller. But there's a surplus
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: of food here. There's more food than animals, and there's
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: large predators. So the populations, the populations here, especially for
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the deer, are an extreme flux. Last year was a
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: phenomenal deer season. The year before, or maybe it was
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: two years before, it was all you could do to
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: find a buck. I mean, just hunting hard. Last year,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: bucks everywhere, good antler growth, unbelievable season. This year is
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: kind of down a little bit. Yeah, but it most
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: takes sometime, I am for that to even out, because
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, like the thing has to be born and
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: grow up. Yeah, I mean three to four. You know,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: you've got your babies and then about every three years
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: or whatever to grow like a like a mature buck. Yeahs,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the winners are a lot harder here. So like even
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the black tails where you're at, say, if you're hunting
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: black sick of black tail and Prince of Wales, these
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: black tails are way bigger, way bigger body. Yeah, and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: then their antlers get can get bigger. But they don't
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: have as many trophy quality bucks all the time because
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: extreme fluxes in the population and the horn grow antler growth.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So there's good old days and not good old days. Yeah.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: When I'm looking at pictures of sick of black tails,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I can pick out the cordiac black tails. Oh yeah,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: this is such a look to them. When you're packing
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: one out, it feels like packing out a meal deer
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: from Montana. People think black tails are just tiny deer,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: not the ones on Kong Island. On Kong Island, now
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Remy is here's a good segue. Remy is hunting blacktails.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Remy does have a black tailed tag, but we're manly
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: pursuing elk and so on Fogna Fognack Island, there are well,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: there are handful of islands and coastal Laska that have
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: elk kirds. Edeln Island, Yeah, what's that? Raspberry Island, Fognack
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Island have elk kirds and they're all limited draw hunts.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: You know what the draw odds here? Um? Now, probably
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: I'm just guessing from when I looked a while ago.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: And how many years ago was it that you drew
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: this tag the first time? Oh I'm not four years
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: four years ago? Yeah, and talk about what happened that
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: made it be that you said you would never ever
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: do this again. Oh, it's just brutal pack out, just
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: such a large animal, and it was me and my
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: brother on that hunt, and so it was. Yeah, it's
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: one of those trips where you're doing it and you
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: just are saying, why did I suffer through that? Why
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: did I choose to do this? And then the day
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: you leave, you think about it and you go, that
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: wasn't so bad. You're like proud of yourself for accomplishing it.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: But the elk, we're not anywhere close to where we
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: were camping, so we had to go up over the range,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: down the valley to the other side, shoot an elk,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: carry it all the way back up and his was
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: another six miles past mind, same deal up over range,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: dropping down, going through brush and terrible. Yeah, there's nowhere
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: to land aircraft around now. I mean you can land
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: aircraft on floats in and you know you can land
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: aircraft on floats. There's a couple like shoreline bars where
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you can down, like at sea level where you can land, Yeah,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: depending on the tide and the winds. But little there's
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: some low lakes where you can land, but there's no
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: way to get You can boat into some places, but
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: then you got all but you got peaks out here
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: that are a couple of thousand feet high. Yeah, so
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: you're you're always going to be climbing from close to
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: sea level to a couple of thousand feet And now
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: you could have it luck out and they'd be where
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: you camp, but it just hasn't been my experience. We
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: tried that last year my dad drew in alk Tag
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and we had them spotted the day before the season,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: like near the coast right we're camping. Storm rolls in
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and the next morning they were three miles up and
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: some other hunters were actually up there, and then by
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the time they got done getting spooked around, they were
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: just in a place where you had taken five days
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to pack out. Talk about the time and the hours
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and distance you guys spent pack in the elk up here.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I have it on my because I did log it,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: and I hate saying what wasn't right, but it was.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I can't remember at this point. It was what I
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: have on this thing that I saw the other day.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: It's eighty hours of packing. So that might have been
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: forty forty hours of person or it could have been
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: eighty hours total. I can't remember now. But you're going
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: from this location, you're going up feet and then down. Yeah,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: because you're almost back down on the sea level. Yep,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: we're on his ball. We did to get from camp
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: to visible and back was five thousand feet five thousand
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: vertical vertical feet. So and we would start we started
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: an hour before sun up, hike up there, get there, um,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: get there just about a noon lunchtime, and be back
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: just after dark. And then you had to move of
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: seven pounds, six pounds, six hundred pounds, and and that's
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: boned out. You know. Over the I've been putting in
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: for this tag for well, different versions of it. I've
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: been putting in for like some version of these tags.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Different spots because there's many units on like Raspberry Island,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and here's a bunch of units, a lot of units here.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Some are easier to draw than others. And I've been
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: like putting in for him for over a decade. It
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: never drew it. And then Rammy drew it four years
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: ago and vowed to never come do it again. And
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: then I said, let's put in his partners and he
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, so we won't draw it anyway, so
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. And then we drew it. And then
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: we drew it. And so now you sit in the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: rain with fog in a tent. I would do it
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: with you because I know that it would It would
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: be actually easy. There's just a certain people I would
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: do this hunt with my brother, helicopter ceties, celebrities and
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: helicopters and you knew you were going to draw. Yeah, exactly,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: because that's how it works in Alaska. But it's a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: big like just to be totally transparent. Um, well, the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: like the guys that we the guys we work with
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: on our crew, they were you know, we're here filming,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and the guys who work with on our crew, um,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: we always split meet up after our hunts usually like
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: even Stephen, everybody packs me. So it really is a
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: like a tremendous advantage when you have because we're going
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: up the hill with six packers. When you have six
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: packs and six people, that's that is two additional days
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of two people. That's huge. So you think about we
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: shot two bowls and we had two guys, So if
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: it was one trip with six guys, well in each bull,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: you have three trips. But it was actually more than that.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah. What was what we did on on one
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: of them was we did like point A to B
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: two see two D to E to F and just
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: had it in trees the whole way, so we the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: whole thing bounced the whole thing like in a continuous line,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and then we got it to A so you didn't
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: have to go all the way back every day. You're
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: still walking the same amount of miles you are, but
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: it gets the cash because you've got you've got bears.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: You just go from tree to tree, so you're never
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you don't want to. You can't just skin it out
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and just leave it at the kill site and I'll
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: be back here, you know. And the other thing is
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: we can check on it at a closer point, because
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: my thought is if it's hanging in a tree at
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: camp or hanging in a tree four yards away or
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a mile away, it doesn't matter. It's hanging in a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: tree at something and it needs to come back to camp.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: But you can utilize your time a little bit better
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: if you get a bowl down, you start ferrying him
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: from points because to go, and because you have a
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: mountain in the middle, you know, so if you get
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: everything to the base of the mountain or to the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: top of the mountain, it's a lot easier than having
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to walk up that thousand feet there that the main
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: pass and then drop back down and then drop back up.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: You know, you get up there and do your work
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and try to move the whole thing. You know, when
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: when you draw the tag um, the Fish and Game
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Department well sends you kind of like a little no
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: illustrating some of the challenges, and with this one they
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: seem to be they're particularly pointed about the challenges of
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the hunt. And I noticed that when I drew a
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Copper river um buffalo tag they had that there was
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: like a long letter, was like a couple of page
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: letter being like but now that you have this thing
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: this tag here are some things you should pay attention
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to UM and it had to do with you know,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: ice flow and free and access issues and just really
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: lays out for you in a way that's almost kind
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: of pessimistic sounding. Here. The note that your tag comes
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: with is about one, these things are huge and people
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: shoot them too far away and get in over their heads.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: And two it says, you know, the carcass the killsite
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: will be claimed by a bear. Yes, usually within the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: first night. Yeah, so saying you have to get the
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: meat away from the guts. When I shot my bowl,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: we had to. We had to actually go a different
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: route to stock him because there was multiple bears amongst
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the herd of elk, big bears like big boars, and
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: there's a couple there's one south cubs on the other side,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: so we're kind of dodging bears. We watched one go
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: into where we were actually planning on walk like this
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: patch all thats we're planning and walking down through, So
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I mean rerouted around that patch of alders. I shoot
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: my bowl. We get up to it. The bear decides
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: to wake up out of the patch of alders. The
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: winds blowing toward him and he's just got his nose
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: up as we're skintting clean. I mean, he knew it
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: was there, and and so we had essentially with the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: two of us, one guy on bear watch while the
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: other guy's cutting it up because it's it was thick
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: in there, and we knew that the bear knew where
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: we were and he was coming our way. At some point,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: they're fully habituated to gunshot being a meal here enough,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's enough of that, but they know,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: they just know they smell dead elk, and I mean
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: maybe they're definitely aware of the probably like kill elk,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: calves and kill well to interesting bear stories. So one
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: has to do with what we're talking about. One does,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: and I'll tell the one that does. At first, we're
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: doing a caribou a couple of weeks ago, and the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: pilot that flew us in and dropped us off from
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the bush while we were hunting, he was telling a
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: story where he's flying along in a in a super
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: cub and sees a big chocolate colored grizzly, like big
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: mature grizzly dragging something and he gets curious what it
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: is and circles around. It's a big grizzly dragon a
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: subadult grizzly, and over the next hill is probably that
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: bears litter me another subadult grizzly running off and the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: bear is still limp like he just killed the thing.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: The next plane that came over, the guy that this
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: guy works with flew over and by that point the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: bear was burying the grizzly, and a couple of days
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: later they flew over and he was sleeping on top
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: of it, so he was full on eating it. The
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: second story is the guy we flew in with here
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: does some flying for biologists with fishing game. And they
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: were out collecting collars like they have been working on
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: a collaring project with brown bears, and they had a
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: glitch where, um, I don't know if it's a glitch,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: but they had You know that the collars are times,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: so they're good for two years and the collar will
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: fall off and they'll go out and pick up their collars.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And they're out the other day picking up collars and
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: they go to where they had a grizzly or brown
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: bear the same thing. Um picking up a collar and
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the collar is laying next to a elk carcass, a
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: big bull. So when his collar fell off, he was
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: in the in the act of feeding on a big
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: dead bull he had killed or found, Yeah, probably killed. Yes,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: that leads me to a question, because he weighs twice
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: or not. I mean, he weighs like a lot more
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: than I mean, they're big with big bears. But it's like,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: you know, lions will kill deer and elk a weigh
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: three or four or five times that they weigh. He's
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: not gonna care, no, I think that. I mean, I
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: definitely think that they follow those herds because it's it's
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a food source. It's right there, and they'll eat other
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: things along the way. But if something happens, or especially
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: they're running now, I would imagine bulls get injured or
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: wounded or tired from running really hard, and they're bedded
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: up and they aren't thinking as clearly as they might
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: other times a year. So this time of year right
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: now seems to attract more bears, and there the elk
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: are making a lot of noise. So I think that
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that's a an of audio que to the bears saying,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: oh food over here. You know, they can smell them,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: they can hear them, and he just attracts them. We
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: were one time, pulls it up on a glass and
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: tip watching a group of moose, and we went down
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to me and my older brother went down and start
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: putting the moves on a bull that was in this
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: group of moose, and our bodies stayed up on the tip.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: We're just observing from high above. And they saw a
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: grizz they come in while we were stalking these moose.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Agrees he came in and attacked calf. Really in the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: group we're stalking, I mean, they're just in there, mixing
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: it up with big, giant freaking animals. Man, And if
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: he uses out eating grass eating barries, why not do
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: that in proximity to all these big, mewing, bellowing protein piles.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: He's like, why not? You might have an opportunity to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: get something a little better than grass. Yeah, it's like
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: you could drink. If you're single, you could drink at
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: home or drinking a bar. It's like, at least if
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: you at the bower, who knows something good might happen
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: to you exactly? You could be drinking anyways. Is there
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: a different have they done studies on like ratio of
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: plants versus like game protein on these brown bears versus
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: other regions like these much higher animal because they because
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: they eat so much salmon and they can't distinguish between
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: that or like dear or elk as far as Oh, oh,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I'm sure if you go and do yeah, I'm sure,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: if you go and look at like the actual isotopes
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: in them, you would tell what they're eating. They can
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: get a really detailed analysis on it, those like by
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: looking at like stabilized stopes. We were down in Salt
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Argentina and my wife and we went to have you
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: ever heard of those children that the inca's Um would
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: sacrifice on mountaintops. They take them up, you know, fifteen
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: sixteen thousand feet and make these little rock holes and
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: just knocked the kids in the head and leave them
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: in there as sacrifices, and they would just basically freeze
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: dry in the high elevations. Well, yeah, we went to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: see that. These this one in Salt Argentina. This now
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: in like a climate controlled thing in a museum. And
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: this it was a boy. He's so well preserved. I
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: can't know. There's three children. And they made a deal
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: with the indigenous people that they only display one at
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: a time, and why aren't even talking about this? Oh,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I don't want to talking about this isotope. So they're
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: so well preserved. They had feathers in their hair and
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: the feathers are still perfect, and they still have coca
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: leaves dried on their lips. I mean, this kid looks
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: like he would stand up and walk away, but he
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: was killed and probably like around right like just pre
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: contact height of the Incan Empire. And it was three
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: kids they buried all together. There was a thirteen year
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: old girl and she had been hit on the head.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: They were all full of of of alcohol, fermented like
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: a fermented potato drink, so they probably got them drunk,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: left them up there. The girl probably realized what was
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: going on. Maybe they had to hit her in the head.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: One of the kids was later struck by lightning at
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: some point. It's kind of burned a little bit. But no,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: they're perfect. They're perfect, clothing, everything bottles perfect. But they
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: can by looking at tissue samples, they can tell that
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: these kids had for most of their life eating nothing
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: but potatoes, virtually nothing but potatoes, but in the last
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: months of their lives had an extremely varied enriched diet
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: as they were getting and also had hundreds of trinkets
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: from around the Incan Empire. So they're like taking them
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: around on this big tour of the empire, and we're
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: probably being fed fish and llama meat and all this
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff and giving all these gifts and partying
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: it up in order to then be taken up and
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: left on the mountain. And so they're able to tell
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: not just like what it was eating, what they ate
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: throughout their life, with the sequencing of it. Yeah, well
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: that's so that does. I am curious then why these bears,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: these brown bears on the fog neck, are so much
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: bigger than other bears that have the salmon protein and
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: the black tail and elk options. It has to be
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: some well you got like a genetic factor, because what's
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: interesting about these bears, they've been genetically isolated for ten
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: thousand years. There's been there's like they feel that it's
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: the islands far enough off the mainland. There hasn't been
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: any genetic exchange between these bears and other populations for
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: ten thousand years, so they're kind of off on their
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: own trip, right, And I think that you have phenomenal
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: marine resources, like very rich salmon resources and in a
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: large game and like great grass and it's a dry
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: area so they're much pressure. That's a trophy area as well.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: But you know, the writer and the and the food
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: plays a huge part and that's why it is. Yeah,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: but they're not I mean they're not. But the elker
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: introduced so that hasn't like changed. I mean, the bear
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: has been big for a long time. The hunting writer
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: uh and guide Tony Ross, he's got a he's got
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a book about grizzlies and brown bears and he talks
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: about that big board like an actual like food source.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: An important food source for grizzlies is grizzlies. That the
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: older boars on these islands are full on praying on
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: cubs and it's like a food source for them. So
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: they're coming out of hibern nation eating grass for a
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: while and then devoting time and energy to just eating bears,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: not to spread their genetics through breeding, but just for
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: a food source. That's the thing you hear all the
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: time that it's a it's a weird thing when it
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: comes like behavior and people talking about like genetic and
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the reasoning what animals do. So boars tend to like
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: large boar, bear, black bears, grizzlies, whatever, tend to feed
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: more on bears than other bears do, and because it's
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: easy to do, they tend to kill cubs and eat them.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: The thing that people say is that they're like, there's
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: a real there's a there's sort of a uh, a
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: sexual advantage or an adaptive advantage to the boar killing
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the cubs, because the like when a female has, a
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: female will have her cubs in February or March in
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a den. She'll come out of hibernathan with hibernation with
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: those cubs and will not be receptive to breeding. She'll
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: spend the entire summer and fall with her cubs, den
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: with them again, emerge from the den with them, and
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: then we'll become receptive to breeding that June July. Yeah,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: so she's always skipping. She's always skipping a whole year.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Like a bear doesn't drop. It's like a deer that
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: will drop fun every drop cubs possibly every other year.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: So when a bore, so if you look like a bore,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: is the one going around doing the infanticide, the eating
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: of one's own offspringer one's own species. They commit infanticide,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the thinking being that that sound will come into rut
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: that year that year. So if he's out in April
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: and May austin off cubs, sALS that would not normally
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: breed with him are now going to become receptive to breeding.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: He might breed him. And it's like, so advantageous of
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: a thing that seems like they will kill cubs that,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: because of proximity to their home range, are very likely
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: their own cubs to rebreed that same sou. Yeah, so
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: it's like, but it's like you look at and be like,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: so that's why the bear does it, but I don't, like,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: you can't really don't really know like why the bear doesn't. Right,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: It could be that the bear does it because he's
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: just big. He's not he can confront a sow and
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: not get killed buyer, because he's so much bigger than
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: she is, and he can eat the cubs. It doesn't
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: he doesn't need to get into a giant fight trying
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: to kill the sow, And a result of that is
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: that she becomes receptive and he breeds her. So it
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: would like reinforce that behavior. But it might not be
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: that the bears thinking huh, man, it's a bummer that
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: she's not gonna want to do it this summer. If
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I eat her cubs, she'll become receptive and I'll be
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: able to pour the coals that were and have like
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: new offspring. So it's like when you say, like why
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: he does it, it's different than what the result of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: he does. The geneticist Stephen Gould talks about that where
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: people like, look at a tree and like, bark's brown.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: What is the selective advantage of bark on a tree
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: being brown? And it might be like there is no advantage.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: It's like, what is advantageous is that bark is thick
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and protective. Maybe a result of it becoming thick and
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: protective makes it brown. But the brown doesn't do any
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: advantage for the tree. It's just some It's like some
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: random offshoot that doesn't really matter. So when you look
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: at like nature and you think that everything has a purpose,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: something's are the result just or yeah, the result of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: other issues like why do you salmon jump so much
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: into getting ready to spawn? Some people say it's because
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: they're trying to knock their eggs loose, which they have
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: a very hard time believe. And do you hear that. No,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I've never heard that they're trying to loosen their eggs act.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: That doesn't make any sense. I don't know why do
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: they jump? There might be no doubt, only do he
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: have reason for the females. You start to come up
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: with the reason for the male and females jumping. So
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: when people are like why do they jump, and I'm like,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know that jumping is really
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: doing them any good. It might be some other a
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: product of something that does make sense that makes them
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: have the tendency to do that, but it's not like
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: they're getting something out of it. So they can get
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: out of the water and see where they're going. Yeah,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: bears up there, so yeah, the bears are huge and
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: that's a good point. So like the el we'll get
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: back to elk. But bears out here are drawing. This
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: is another draw I put in for every other you
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: only put in every other year. Every other year I
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: put in for nonresident non guided cody at counts. What
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: that means is anybody wants to help with a guide
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: can go anytime they want. No, they have to draw
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: as well. I'm pretty sure they draw Outfitter sponsored tag.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: What you're gonna get, yes, something, yeah, something like that.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: What's hard to get is it's hard for a non
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: guided resident to draw. And I can hunt here without
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: a guide because my brother is a resident of Alaska.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: But that's a very difficult tag as non guided, nonresident.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: But there are a lot of outfitters sponsor. It's much
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: easier to draw a tag with a sponsored outfitter, like
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: their clients get preference. The resources managed the resource, the
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Brownberry Resources managed to support the guiding industry in this area. Yeah,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly how many tags they would get
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: or whoever gets the tags. I haven't really looked at. Well,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: you have a you have a much money. If you
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: sign up with the outfitter, you have a much higher
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: chance of drawn then than a hunter host. But you
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the case of having a
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: much higher chance of drawing than a resident hunter. I
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: believe that it is, man because I could be. I
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: could because a lot of people. What's that you're in
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: the same pool you are, as far as I recollect,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: we don't have the paperwork with us. I know it's
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: in my tent um because I've put in for uh
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: cheap tag in the chew catch. Yeah, but that's a
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: whole different place and thing. Yeah, but if it's uh,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I honestly don't know. I don't
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: think that you're saying that there's a draw an outfit
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: or draw the outfitter. The brown Bear outfitters have a
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: quota all their own. Oh I'm not Yeah, I'm not
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: sure about that. I don't know. I would. I have
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: no cliff. So I put in a ton of times. Well,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: every other years always be the spring hunt. So every
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: other year I put in for a non guided, non
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: resident spring Kodiak hunt and never draw it. Yeah, what's
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: a tough tag to draw? So yeah, that helps have
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: big gass bears. Then in an area where you're allowed
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: to kill, in a road accessible area where you allowed
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: to kill, where residents are allowed to kill two grizzlies
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: a year, it tends to put a crimp on the biggins,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: tightens them up. Yeah. Now back to ELK. What are
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on the whole deal on the ELK here?
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you come like what does it
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: compare like in your mind to like hunting Rocky Mountain ELK? Yeah,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I mean it's it's similar to hunting elk in an
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: area where there's there's a big herd, but that one herd,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: you know, moves around. So there's a lot of similarities
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: between Rocky Mountain elk and these elk um you know.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: I think the only difference is just the terrain that
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: they're in might be a little more open, well at
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: least or roar hunting. It might be a little more
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: open than some other elk areas. But what I noticed
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: both times is you don't really get those in Montana.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: You might have five elk here and a herd of
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: twenty elk there, and these different basins. It's almost like
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: they all group up right now, and they're in one group,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of no elk country. It looks
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: like there should be elk and you don't see anything.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of miles in between where the
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: elk are, But once you find them, you're in them thick,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: and then they might just be gone somewhere else. Yeah.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: The bull the bulk of the of the normal like
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain elk hunting that I've done has been in
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: an area where in the firearms season, like during the
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: early archery season, they're pretty well dispersed. Yeah, but by
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the time the late firearm season starts in late October,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: they group up into these giant groups and it's like
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: hunting them kind of well. People talk about where is
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: the herd because you're chasing after these balls of three
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: four traveling together, and it means that there's one place
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: that has elk in a lot of places that don't,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: which I have kind of grown to hate. It's terrible,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: it really is. Because it's nice to get to go
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: up on a ridge and glass this valley and go
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: okay and think there's a possibility that there will be
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: an elk here, but if immediately there's either a hundred
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: of them or there's none of them, and that kind
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: of sucks. It makes it tough because you have to
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: travel a lot. It makes it easy to find them
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: when you're in the area where they're at, obviously, but
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: because you're not down to it's all that down time
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: in between, you're not gonna miss the ball out that
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: big no I mean socially, yeah, they'll be standing, they'll
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: be making noise, they'll be doing something, so you can
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: find them if you're in that close enough proximity where
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: you have a line of sight to them, but that oh,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: I might bump one on the way there, and you
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: just you just don't. What's preventing us right now from
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: even hunting is rain and fog. Yeah, which you which
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: is like that's a factor everywhere, But fog is like
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: a peculiar thing of like the coastal environments, and there's
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: nothing that shuts you down as hard as fog shuts
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: you down. You need to be able to see. Rain
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: is one thing. If it's high cloud and it's it's
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: just wet, you can still figure out where they're at.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: But when you're talking about going five miles and they
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: might be at the end of this and you need
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: to I mean, you're trying to run into one herd.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: It just is not advantageous to do it when you
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: can see twenty ft we I was on a goat
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: hunt here in the Laska one time, hunting mountain golts,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: and we hiked into an area that we knew to
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: have some and sat in the fog for three days,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: just going insane. We actually found an old mining camp
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: and so we found a torch, a pro pain tank,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: backpack that stuff back to our camp and we're like
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: spending time experimenting with heating rocks with a with a
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: weed burning torch and then bring the rocks into our
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: tent to see how warm we could make it. I mean,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: just like honestly killing time. And then one day the
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: fog blows out and realized that the whole type and
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: sitting there it's just there are just goats everywhere above us,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: like they would have been just there there the whole time.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: There's no way to see them. Yeah. You well, if
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: you had a week of fog and you're hunting, you
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: could do in two hours of clear no fog what
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: would take a week of figuring in the fog? Or
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: more like we might Yeah, if we wake up to
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: my own clear it's it's gonna be like easya, you
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: gotta go, Yeah, you just gotta go. It's a different
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: it's a different game. What were you saying, The success
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: rate of that of the harvest of the Roosevelt's extremely low, right,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: I yeah, I mean last the time. I think it's
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: a combination of factors. I think that people get the
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: tag and they don't hunt real hard, or they don't
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: want to or can't physically get to the animals and
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: get them back to and just don't show up and
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: don't show up. A lot of people wants to have
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: very low not just low success, but they have low
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: participation because it's to get out because you think like, oh,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: I'll do like, I'll put in and then the more
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: you find out about it, distance, time, money, whatever, people
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: just like wind up like, uh, never mind. Yeah. Well.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: The other thing is, if if I was someone that says,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd really like to shoot at Roosevelt Elk,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: I would suggest them not come here to do it.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a million places that you could go,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: and it would be a hell of a lot easier
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: to get to, a lot easier hunt, and probably more animals.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: But it's just the fact of there's something different, it's
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: in a cool place, and not that many people have
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: done it, and you just so I'm just drawn to
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: give it a try. The first time I ever put
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: in for this, I had no clue about it. It It
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: was more of an accident than anything I put in
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: for everything else. So put in for Elk here, and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: my brother called and says like, hey, we drew Elk tags.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, what I forgot about that ship? I
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: better try to figure out where these things even are. Yeah,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I think that there's some things. There's just some like
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: there's something to a handful of people, like really seductive
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: about the idea of coming to this part of the
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: world and come to these crazy islands and these crazy
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: giant bears and hunting these giant damn elk call them, yeah,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: because I mean they're aunts are actually pretty small, but
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: their bodies are huge. Yeah. They don't have big old no.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I mean the last one I got was a giant
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: like for this for Alaska, for the area, I mean,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: a pretty large six by six, which I think is
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: you know, it was way above average. Um. But I
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: was pretty lucky to get a good bull like that.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: And then we saw another one. My brother could have
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: got one, but we ended up calling in. When we
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: were trying to call the big bull, a small bull
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: came in and he just said that was it was
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: so cool to have that bull in his lap was
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: five by five. He just shot it. I was like,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: all right, awesome, gave up on the big one. Yeah,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: he just he was like, it was more about the experience.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: We could have hunted and snuck in on the big one,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: but to have that bull just come right in and
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: be calling and just that cool. I mean he just
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: looked cool and him the bulls screaming, and my brother
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: shot it pretty close. It was just a cool experience.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: So you know, is it just about the experience, not
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: necessarily the rack or any thing, um. But yeah, I
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: mean it's you can go other places and hunt the
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: same species a lot easier, bigger ones or whatever. But
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: it's just something to try and doing different. Yeah, I mean,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know, there's a lot of people that. Yeah,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: there's not a lot of people say, oh, yeah, I
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: shot a knock on a fog knack Island. No. You know,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I think about like the participation success thing. Um. The
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: year earlier I was talking about, like John kind of
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: a similar like a similar sort of hunt, which was
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: the Copper River you know, bison hunt in Alaska. Remember that,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: like that year. Remember they gave out twenty four tags
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: for that hunt and at the end and that's an
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: eight month long season. Wow, you can start hunt I
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: think sometime in September and hunt through March. Is that
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: eight months? No, it's a big long season, six months
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: long season, whatever it is, it's a long season. Well,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna add it up right now in my head
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: it is, yeah, so so six months long season or
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: so yeah, because I can't remember the exact dates, but
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: like it's at least half the year long. Out of
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: the tags, only four people got one of the animals,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: and I think the vast majority of the of the
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: holders never did it, didn't go, or they might have
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: gone and just said it's too hard, that's too far,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: that's too hard. Well, that hunt you either got to
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: like you're you're either in it or not in. It's
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: kind of like this one. There's no way to come
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: and do a light version. Well you could. You could
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: go and see him at the top of that rage
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: and go, you're here, but you go, ah, I don't
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: know if I want to carry one back up this mountain.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a sensible way to approach it. It happens, Yeah,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: so I would picture of that. Yeah, people probably come
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: and they're like, if we can get land somewhere and
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: maybe have some come close, we'll maybe do it. Not well,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: hunt deering for salmon. That happens a lot, because to
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: be honest, the killing, like to kill an elk here
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: didn't seem to me that difficult. It was the the
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: more of the hunt. Some hunts are you struggle all
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the way up to the point where you get one.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: This hunt was more the opposite, where it was medium
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: tough to actually get one. Not. I mean, I shot
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: mine the first morning of the first day, and but
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: of the hunt was after you pulled the trigger. It
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: was just the packing and the grinding and getting the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: dang thing out. Yeah. So yeah, I mean there's those
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: hunts where you just struggle all the way up until
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: to kill, and then everything afterwards is just that quick
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: pull the truck up the process. And then there's those
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: hunts where you can go out and get something fairly fast,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: but you're spending it entire week or more getting it
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: back home. Yeah. We made an initial uh kind of
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: a like a like a somewhat quixotic walk up the
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: hill today, knowing that we would just walk up into
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: the fog because you can tell from here it's very foggy.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: So we walked up there and said, wow, it's really foggy,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: and then walk back down. Um, And the whole time
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I was doing that, all I'm thinking about, well, the
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: whole time we've been here, except for when we were
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: like thinking about how great the salmon fishing was. All
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about is the pack out. Yeah, it's just
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: like weighing on my mind. And maybe because I the
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: sucking depending suppending suck, the depending suck is all I
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: think about, and I'm worried about, like maybe I over
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: oversold the suck. But for that, for the two of
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: us where we shot our bulls, it was sucked. Like
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: me and Jason both are per fashional elk packers. We
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: carry elk for a living, like we guide out. We
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: carried to elk a week most weeks for some years,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: ten weeks out of the air. It's like, we know
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: what carrying elk is. You know, we pack out a
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: ton of animals. Yet this was just a miserable pack
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: out you were and I mean, and obviously I got.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: I drank some bad water and got really that was
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: midway through because I drank it the first day, but
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: it took a while for whatever I drink it. Yeah,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: So we're landed on a lake and we're on the lee.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: We're kind of on the know around the let the
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: lead around the wind driven side of the lake and
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: the lakes full of dead salmon and beaver chewed sticks,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: so you know, there's beaver fever and he's needs here waters.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: And we found a little trip coming in flowing off
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: under a hill, and my first thought was that trip
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: is great and drank it, and then remy talk about
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: haven't gotten sick up here before, So now I'm kind
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: of like half waiting around to get sick. Yeah, but
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: that's I know that one will be fine. Yeah, Well
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I got I got me a little emergency pack of ciproal,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: so when things go down from water, I'm gonna be.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: You'll be fine, I'll be I'll give you You're always
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: supposed to take full doses, but I'll share my sip
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: rose perfect. Now I think, uh that water filtration is
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: one thing that I should probably get better at. I
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: hardly ever take water filtration well. Once we got on,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: like I used to take more shortcuts and be lazier,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: but then we got on the sterry pens and that's
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: what I need to ultra violet ultra violet little ultra
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: violet wands. And I've had the same one now. I
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: think I've had the same sterry pen for five years.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I think I'll start using that. I mean another typically
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: just sterilized that part of it. I mean, I'm real
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: careful about where I get my water. And I know
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: I and my brother looks at you like shakes his head. Nah.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: And I tasted it and thought it was that that
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: real soft water and it feels like that horrible taste
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: in that like silky texture in your mouth, and I said,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: this is perfect for bacteria. Yeah, my girl got sick
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: off elk water. What was that young? I was gonna say,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: you weren't really wanted to go the easiest, lightest way.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: You could always just drop I had done, Yeah, just
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: purification tablets. Yeah, that's why I got sick in Arizona once,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: is because I didn't feel like doing that, and also
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: because we kind of got screwed up a little bit
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: and didn't have any water out in the desert and
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: hit some water and I was like there was like, well,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna put some tablets of mine and wait, and
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm thirsty. This looks all right, And
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: I got sick as a mofo man. Yeah, that was
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: the beginning of a long with you for more than
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: three days. I think I don't like I don't like
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: using iodion for more than three days because it can
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: mess you. It's not recommended for repeated use. Yeah, I
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: carry iodi and tablets in my kid, but no one's
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: in my emergency kit. But it's not recommended to just
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: use that as a strategy. Now I'm spending day after
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: If you're spending like weeks out of the woods ever,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: you just can't be drinking all that iodine. Yeah, kills
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the good bacteria in your system. You never feel refreshed.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: You always. It's that weird. I don't know. The water
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: just isn't the same, isn't the same? No, ridgie, you
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: haven't said anything. Hanging it in, man, I'm riding the
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: storm out, Chris gil Ridge Pounder right in the storm.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: You have nothing that's on your mind. I did have
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: a thing about Ramy's point about over exaggerating the suck
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: and that I don't think that you are over exaggerating
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: the stuck based on like the minor hike that we
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: did today with like the waist tall grass, like grabbing
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: at your feet and doing that with like a super
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: heavy pack of meat. I feel like that's a I
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: feel like that's going to be a pretty tough, pretty
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Oh the little our little foray today didn't make me
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: be like, Oh, if anything, I think it's it's steep
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: in that the grass. It's steep. Yeah, when everything in
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: my power to go back face first down the mountain,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: you're a full summersault. Well we're I was looking for
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: you to pop up. You were downhill, like twenty ft
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: from where I started to disappeared. You took a roll
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: in the grass of today. My foot got hung up
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: and I just went straightforward, face forward. It doesn't look
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: like shintang from a distance, but it's it's got some
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: shintang qualities like New Zealand shintang. I thought we were
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: introduced to shintang in British Columbia. I thought that's where
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: it grew. What's the stuff that in New Zealand and
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: talked about the really bad to walk through stuff. Oh,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: it's like come yeah, yeah, that's the real thick that's
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: the sticker stuff. Yeah. Shintang is like, um, it's like
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: carpet juniper. It's like when you get like stunted growth
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: first because it too high wind bad or high elevation
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: where they grow not high but out. Yeah, it's very
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: difficult to well that monkey scrub because you just like
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: you look like a monkey crawling through it. No, here's
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: the thing I want to bring up and get you
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: guys o paint on it. We kind of touched on
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: this and the reason that I want to bring this
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: up is because it relates to a previous episode where
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: my brother Matt was on and we were talking about
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: stealing people's spots, stealing people's hunting spots, and we're having
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: a debate, Um, if you go It started out like this,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: if you go hunt with a guide, so you're going
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: to guided trip, is it ethical for you to just
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: go back the next year and hunt that spot. Well,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: you're your guide. Know what you're gonna say. Give me
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: your take on it. Here's my take on it. I
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: am a stickler when it comes to hunting spots. I
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: will never hunt a spot that someone else takes me into,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: and I expect the same from other people. I think
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: that it's now Here's the other thing that is, if
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: you communicate with the person and say hey, I'd like
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: to go hunt this spot and they're like, yeah, that's cool,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: then you can do it. And the same as a guide.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: If there's somebody that hunts with me and they're like oh,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd really like to hunt this next year.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Then I would be like, Okay, let me give you
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: some really good spots to go into. They don't because
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: the places I hunt or in proximity to what makes
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: it convenient. There's a million places that I would love
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: to hunt, but I'm not gonna go drive thirty five minutes.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: But if you're just coming from wherever, you might as
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: well go hunt that spot because I'm not going to
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: be there, you know, so let me help you out.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Here's the places to go. We won't be we won't
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: be interfering with each other. Yeah, because this last week,
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: there's well we were talking about this is in Montana.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: It seems like there was an influx of nonresident hunters
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: this year, and I think partially due to the fact
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: that there was a world record bowl killed on public
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: land in Montana. So everybody sees that and they go, oh,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt Montana this year, So they pick a
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: spot in Montana and maybe places where I don't know.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I think the people that did this were from Minnesota
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: or Michigan or Minnesota. But it's like in Montana, you
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: especially elk season during the rut, you're doing a lot
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: of calling. Don't really want to space yourself out between
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: other hunters. You know, it's not advantageous to you or
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: the other the whole lake. There's one dude, you go
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: drill hole next to day. So they these two people,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: these two individuals had that mentality. They parked behind my
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: truck and just like, walk into this small area. Were
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: you guys hearing any bugle in? We are, well, no ship,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: you're here bugling right up on the ridge and you're
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: walking toward it. Because it's it makes no sense. It's
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: a different mentality, but maybe we're there from that's the
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: way that they do it. They see a truck, that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: must be a good spot, hang our stand there. It's
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: just fishing. I accept that with fishing. Like if I'm
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: out on a lake right and I got some holes
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: drilled and a guy shows up, I think he'd be like,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: I'm gathering the dance where the fish are and he
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: comes over, and I would think nothing negative about that person.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Duck hunting, it really bothers me. Well, yeah, and it
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: bothers me even way more. Big game hunting now now
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: rifle season, when there's people everywhere, Yeah, vehicles get stacked
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: up at trailheads, this, that and the other thing. That's
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: completely acceptable. But when you're bow hunting and you're calling
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: and you're trying, the success is based on you working
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: an animal and tricking its behavior is a certain way.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: And they're calling and you're calling, and you're calling each
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: other in and the elk and all that ends up
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: at the end is two hundred staring each other in
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: the face. I mean, yeah, it just doesn't make any sense.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: So but but but you kind of veered off on
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: me there. But I'm saying, that's the spots spots, so
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: he so we had this conversation, were like, if you
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: were on a guided trip, is it okay to go
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: to that spot? And my brother was saying, I can't
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: remember how how like fervent he was in his belief,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: but he's saying, like, it's different in that situation because
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: you were paying. You were paying someone, so it makes
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: it a different relationship. But you're paying for that trip,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: you're not paying for like the spot. If you guide,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy your spot. The guy would say, well then,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: because I don't view this as being me selling you
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: the spot. Or if you're like, here's a blank check,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: give me all your hunting spots right now, and whatever
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: number you think it's worth on it, and then you know,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: if you buy like his knowledge, then it's one thing.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: But I don't think it's I don't think it's ethical.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: So we're kicking it around. This isn't even what I'm
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: meaning to bring up. I'm just as a prelude. He
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: was pointing out that it is a different relationship than
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: a friend thing, and he was saying he agreed with everyone.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: It's in the conversation that the primary crime, a capital crime,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: I'm talking out behind the wood shot twenty two round,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: behind your ear crime is to have a friend take
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: you hunting and then to go in and hunt his spot.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, without without sayings, especially if that guy were
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to say that, don't hunt this spot. Yeah. Now, the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: only crime worse than that crime is to go in
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: there with other people, yeah, and introduce those other people
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: to the spot to the point where we're young. My
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: dad was like, it's just He's like, it doesn't work.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: You cannot do it. You never ever take anyone friend
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: or not ever, no one into a spot, was his
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: perspective on it. Yeah, that's that's I agree. So we're
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: having this whole conversation, and Matt, after discussing this, just
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: had it happened to him. He took someone he works
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: with into one of his favorite spots. That person things
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: along her boyfriend. Then apparently it just happened where that
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: couple takes another group of people and they go in
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and hunt the exact spot, and he just found out
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, that's so when I'm talking to someone
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: about hunting or in areas that I hunt, I will
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: never ask them intentionally. I will never say, oh, where'd
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: you or because I I do not want to know
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: anywhere someone is hunting, because I will find on my head.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: I don't want it in my head because I will
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: find that spot on my own, and I do not
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: want someone to So when I go to like a
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: new area or whatever, I generally just ask questions. But
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I like to find my spot myself because I know
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: that if I find a spot that's good, I want
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: to be able to go back there as many times
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: as I want. I would rather find it on my
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: own than have someone tell me and me not be
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: able to do what I want, because I probably would
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: have found it either way. So that version of that
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: happened to me where I got accused because my my again,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: my older brother. He goes hunting and turns out that
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: there's a guy at work with standing at the trailhead
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: of the spot that he had been really wanting to
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: check out, and he right away it comes to me,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: He's like, what's up with that? And I'm like, I swear,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: I swear I did not say, and it turned out
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: it was pure coincidence. In the investigation. Then the ensuing investigation,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: it turns out that that person was operating on a
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: whole other tip that had its own lineage, and those
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: pure coincidence. But dude, I was very nervous when confronted,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: like maybe I screwed up and said something. But this
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: situation he's in now, yeah, he knows the story better.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Am I doing right with the story? Yeah? You can
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: nailed it. Oh, it's excuse me. It just makes me
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: feel sick. It could be that water I drank, but
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: there has been a long enough incubation period. It just
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: makes me feel sick. Stealing people's spots, Yeah, and I
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: think that that right there is the barrier to entry
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: to hunting, because nobody wants to share their spots. Because
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: people are apt to just jam because they'll just steal it.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: They will, and of course other people it's like, of
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: course it's not your spot. People will find it on
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: their own. But it's just like it's just a thing
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: that I had a friend a few years ago line
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: me out on some spots, you know, and I had
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: them in my GPS, and they were in my GPS
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: for a while, and I eventually went through and I
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: was like, you know what, it's really not right. And
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: I went through and deleted all those way points because
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: they had names that were like, um, like Richard's Bowl. Yeah, nicknames. Yeah,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: like a way point that says Richard's Bowl. And I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: would look and see that in my GPS, like if
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: I lose my GPS and so guys, like there was
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: a shot of bull right right there, and I deleted
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: it for fear of ever being the source of a leak. Yeah.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: I have a I have a smap book in this
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Nevada map book that I used to you know, I
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: used to use a while ago, and I would mark
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: my spots, but then I would mark fake spots because
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: there was so many times that I'd have to give
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: the map to someone. You're like, oh, yeah, you know,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: and they needed that map, but there was a lot
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: of hidden so that thing coded. Yeah. I mean, let's
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: just say if Hillary Clinton's emails were encrypted like that
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: map problem problem. That thing was locked tight. There's markings
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: all over. But now I looked at it and I
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: was like, I have no clue. Way, You're like, I
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: don't remember seeing shiploads of deer up there, but that's
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: not true. Why would've written in this year map book? Yeah,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: big bullason. I'm always a little incredulous I'm looking at
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: a map would be like Deer Mountain. I'm always a
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: little bit like, it can't be that way anymore. No.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like at the time maybe it was an
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: aptly named, but generations of dudes looking at Deer Mountain
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: that's probably made it not so. And sometimes it's that
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Iceland Greenland thing. They just named it that. And then
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: no buck Hills, the spot that really really strikes my interest.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Another way, point I had that I deleted from the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: same guy that lyned me on and some elk spots
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: is away. Point was called the laundry Shoot. His naming
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: was because elk come pouring through there as though it
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: were in a laundry shoot. So I had it on
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: my GPS and I'm like, hey know, someday maybe, But
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: then I'm like, because the no one's gonna look at
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: that and know what that means. But I got rid
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: of that one. To the laundry shoot. Yeah, lest someone
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: steal my GPS and look at that name and be like,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: m provocative title, let's go there to the shoot. Yanni
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: got anything do you need to on the uh that
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: topic there? No. I feel bad for your brother. He
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: asked me first if he was being a dick for
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: calling these folks out on going to the spot with
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: other people, and I said, hell no, he did an
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: ethics check on me about you. Oh where you went
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: in to meet up with him? Somewhere is this year?
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Last year? Yeah, you know he called me about this.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: So Yan is going to meet my brother hunting and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: the minute Yanni gets there, my brother killed a bull
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: already same day. Yeah. So you get there and he's like,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: I just killed the bull. So you went and helped him,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: uh pack up and he loads his elk onto his
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: lamas and hikes it out. Yeah, but we had to
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: cut it up and get it hung a tree. Yeah,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: that would take us until three o'clock in the morning.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: It's long night three in the morning because he lost
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: the elk in there to a grizzly once, or lost
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: a bunch of lost meat to a grizzly. That's the
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: thing I should add. This is a grizzly hell, whole
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: lots of grizzly bears. He refers to it so lovely
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: as the grizzly pit. The grizzly pit um lots of bears,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: and they haven't been haunted since nine and do not
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: give a ship about people. They just don't care. Ye,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: no fear. So he stay hikes out out to bring
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: his elk up to a cooler where he can get
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: it in a walking He gets in and gets an
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: updated weather forecast and it's a bunch of snow coming.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: So he calls me, and I got him on speaker
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: phone with my wife and he calls me. He's like, hey, man,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I need to like do an ethics check with you,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: because I don't want to go back up in there
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: just to get dumped down with snow. But Yanni's up there.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: What how would he sort of take or how would
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: he view if I just didn't show up for a
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: few days until the snow melts and everything and it
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: gets all nice, and I said, you cannot do this
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: to me. You can't do this to me. And he's like,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: all right, I'll go buy some warm clothes because he
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: hadn't even packed his warm clothes with. Yeah. I wouldn't
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: have been pissed. I would have been understanding. It just
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been fun on my end. Yeah, mostly because
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: you'd be wondering, you know, you start wondering, Yeah, you
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: mind up hiking out to go figure out that have
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: them to him? So yeah, I told him I presented
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: like he'd be almost kind of doing it to me
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit, So you owe me. I appreciate it.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: It's nice to have company in the grizzly pit. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: we didn't see any um, but we saw a few
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: of their tracks after that big snow. I mean some
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: of these tracks we did it. We put I put
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: both of my boot tracks inside of one pad. I
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: put both my boots inside of it, and you could
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: see the outline of the Grizzly Bear track in the snow.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: Well that's a big Bear track because too is how
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: in the distance. Sometimes when you look at a grizzly
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: bear track, you're like, oh, is that a human walking?
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: At first, you know, because it's just like they're both tracks, right,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: But then when you really look back at your own
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: track and you look at that thing, the only way
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: you can confuse it too would be if a human
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: was walking in snowshoes, because it makes you have that
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: wider gate right, because we walk, we almost put like,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: you know, one ft in front of the other. That's
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: saying even when when he's that's right, when he's walking
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: or she, I mean there's you know, eight to twelve
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: inches between you know, with wise between the two tracks. Yeah,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: um duncan Gil Chris, I remember reading this long ago,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: like like I gotta I gotta back up. When there's
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: ways of measure of bears. Ways people discussed bears. There's
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: three ways people discussed the size of bears. In the East,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: they talk about how many pounds the bear was. The
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: reason they do that is because they have bears that
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: you can get at right. You can like you can
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: put them on a scale, shoot him, get him into
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: a truck, and then go away the bear. So they'll
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: be like this bear wade x pounds. No one like
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: in Alaska, Like Jenny is never gonna tell you what
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: a bear wade. It's extrapolated from other things, um so
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: one the other. The second way to that people just
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: gouss bears is it's squared hide. So you skin of bear,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: lay the skin out, and then you need to not
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: stretch it, but like kind of pull it tight and
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: let it lay there on on its own accord, not
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: like pegged out, and you adjust it until you have
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: the tip of nose to tip of tail measurement the
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: same as the claw tip to claw tip front leg measurement.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: So he's splayed out arms outside of like a cross.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: And in order not tweak it where you're like really
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: get the clause far apart, which shortens up the you
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: know you're pulling hide and shorten up the length. It's
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: called squared so you get him to wear tip of tail,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: tip of nose is Let's say you're looking at a
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: black bear and it's six ft two. Then you measure
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: tip of front claws to tip of front claw and
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: that's six ft two. You'd say it's a six two bear.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: Squa aired guys that just pull him to grab the
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: nose and grab the tail and pull and then measured.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: That's like just the bullshit measurement. The third and final
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: way you measure bear, the official way as you dry
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: the skull for I don't know, you clean the skull,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: dry it for six months, measure the length, measure the width.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: Add those two numbers together, right, that's it. That's it
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: school size. That's like the main official way to measure,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't really reflect condition of the bear because
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: theoretically you could have some freak bear that had a
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: giant skull in a dinky body. Oh yeah. In fact,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: Prince of Wales bears genetic yeah, Prince of Wales bears
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: tend to have a much bigger skull to bodies, a
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: bigger skull to bodies aze racial than other bears, so
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: they get big skulls without being giant squared hides. Same
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: with bears in like Vancouver. But and I think a
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: lot of it to you is uh the amount of
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: time the bears spend out as well. But like California
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: has bigger scold bears and they don't hibernate as long
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: as say Montana bears and coastal bears don't, So I
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: don't know why that would affect there, but the overall
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: size there's yet it seems to be a correlation. There's
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: interesting correlations with bears. I only get back to measuring
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: bears um because what remind me to get back to
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: tracks and Duncan Gil Chris and stuff. But another interesting
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: correlation of bears is if you take a map that
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: shows rainfall annual precipitation and lay over that a map
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: that shows high prevalence of color phase bears. Color phase
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: bears occur in arid areas. And I could be wrong,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: but I think it's like if a place gets twenty
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: inches of rainfall, the bears are jet black. Less than
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: twenty you get higher prep the the d ried is
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: the higher prevalence of blonds, browns, reds. The more rain,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: the more likely with black bears that they're gonna be
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: jet black. That makes sense when you start line ended
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: up with like places you know, Yeah, you go down
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: New Mexico, southern Colorado like dry places, it's like they
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: get geeked out to find a black bear. Yeah, And
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: then you go other places like California and or no
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: black ones are rare there. But if you go the
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: coastal coastal areas, you know, to find a color phase
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: one there, it might be near impossible. I've looked at many, many,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: many bears in coastal like coast Alaska, many many you
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: know they're just black because like bears are black. You
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: do you think that if the Now what I'd be
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: curious is if the area receives more rainfall. I don't
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: think that they be more black because where I can
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: it would be such a slow process. Where I guide
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: for bears just it seemed like all we ever saw
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: was color face bears. Now we can't find any color
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: face bears or not as many. I think it would
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: be too slow. I think to the to like track
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: the phenal the phenological response to increase precipitation would take
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: thousands of years. Where do you think it's something of
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: like what they have to eat? My feeling is that
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: it has to do with um the camouflage and the
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: lushness of the vegetation the air bears just as a
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: theory that bears that are living in lush vegetation where
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: there's like a dark understory, right, they can get away
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: with that jet black eridescence down in the shadows. And
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: bears that are living their lives out in black bears
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: are living their lives out in the open and sun
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: baked areas. It's a couple of things. I think it's
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: better camouflag lag and they're not sucking up as much heat.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: They're not getting as hot because they have that. If
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: you're a bear in Arizona, right and you need to
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: be out like eating uh prickly pear, you know, when
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: you're out there in its ninety five degrees and your
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: jet yourridescent black, it's gotta be a much more miserable
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: experience than it is when you're a blonde face bear
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: as far as he the same way, like in super
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: hot areas they run rend angus and not black angers cattle,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: and they run black angers cattle in cold places. Back
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: to Dunk. So the three ways to measure things. Duncan
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: Gil Chris says that if you want to know what
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: a bear is gonna square, you measure the width of
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: his front pad and add one. And he says that
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what the barrel square. I've yeah, I've
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: done that and it seems to be fairly consistent. Yeah,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: I've go by it. I don't know, I've gone and
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: measured after shooting the bear like it's a five and
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: a half foot bear, and be like, yep, and I'll
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: just measure the pad. It's four and a half inch pad,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: just measuring on the multi tool, just casually, not like
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: getting all scientific about it. But generally I found that
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: it's generally kind of true. So if you find a
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: six if you find a black bear pad that's six inches,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: you're looking at a nice big and you gotta do
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: the front front pad should be the rounder one, not
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: the elongated one. Not the elongated with the front, Yeah,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: the front widest. So if you're finding a track like that,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, you look at the real point being I
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: haven't laid a tape measured with your boots. But if
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: you're looking at the track that's full on that big,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: you're looking at like a legit, Well yeah that's I mean,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: I'm doing it right now. And outside the outside probably
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: nine inches, maybe even a little bit bigger. See that's
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: where I feel. That's what the reason the kind of
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: reasons bringing it up. There's there's no way that there's
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: are ten foot There's no way there's a ten foot
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: grizzly down there. Remember that was in the snow too,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: like deep snow because you know, so that changes the
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: change like a track that you found in the mud,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: you know, or the dirt. Yeah, because if I find
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: a track in the mud, that's five inches, I don't
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: add an inch the mud where it splayed out. Yeah,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: And when I was checking it, when I've checked it,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: I was checking it, like I said, measuring the actual
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: paths you need, like a nice good track, not that
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: he's all splayed out in some sandy beach trips, you know,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: squishes out to the sides um dirt, you final and
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: it comes to your mind. Yeah, we're talking about the
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: the inevitable suck upon us, hopefully. And it conjured up
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: a quote I always hold in my mind that came
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: from a buddy and as Rusty Willis. We were talking
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: about he built a cabin or he's building a cabin. Uh,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: kind of a hard to reach place, and I asked
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: him about, you know, why why put all this effort
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: towards something kind of like what you were saying. You
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: can get a Roosevelt elk in many places. But uh,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: He's like, you know, people are always wondering, you know,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: is the effort versus is the effort worth the reward? Like,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: what you're putting into something, the struggle does the payout
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: you know sufficient? And he said, mind my old man,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: he's building the cabin with his old man. He said,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: are our mentality is the effort is the reward. And
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: I think in a case like this that you know
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: that is like you're saying, when you guys got done
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: with that packout, that effort was more satisfying than the
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: actual you know, lining up and shooting this this nice elk.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: So that's on percent true because the story I tell
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: is about the pack out. The last thing I talked
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: about is how big the plus and the most times
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: first thing, Oh, I got a giant, big old six
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: by six, big old heavy bases scored me to you know. No,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh yeah, the pack out all fifty Yeah,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: you bring your story like that one time we were hunting.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: I was like, one time we were packing elk. Yeah,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: it's not even not even the hunt partner, just the
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: pack part That was the whole, the whole kid in caboodle. Yeah,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: well you'll remember forever. So I'm looking forward to the
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: effort on this trip kind but I'm I'm kind of
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: looking forward to well before Steve when you asked if
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: I wanted to put in. I said, yea'll put it
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: in if you get packers. It was like the condition
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: because I was like, I've done this, I don't I
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: did it with two guys, I don't need to do
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: it with you guys again. I mean, I think if
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: it comes easy this time, great, But now I got
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: my bows, so I figured that'll be the challenge in itself.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, it'll be a little bit easier with
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: six of us. Well, quite a bit easier. Yeah, three
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: times easier. Right. Well, I don't know, it's it's like
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: an in the moment kind of thing. You know. We
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: could be all out there a couple of days from
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: now and uh feeling in our own heads that's the
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: sock is just as bad. Yeah, I don't think it's
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: It won't lessen the suck. And yeah, and you can't
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: look at a guy and quantify his suck level. It
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: only lessens the suck for me because I'm the only
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: one with the memory of the previous suck. But it
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: can still suck. So I would be going, oh, this sucks,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: but this is man ever really sucked before. This is great,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: And you guys be like this yeah. But the meat, Oh,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: the meat. That's one thing I will bring up. This
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: is the best game meat. Those olker that it's the
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: best game meat I've ever had in my life. I'm
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: saying it's very good. It is. It is like the
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: wago beef of elk. It is the just the tenderloin,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: the inner tenderloin that's all you packed. Yeah, that's sock.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: It is softball size. It's the size of an elk
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: or a beef filet mignon. I mean, you could cut
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: fatty flame mignons out of that tenderline because the way
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: that they're just compact there like a they're built like cattle,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: just short and squat and stout, and just the muscle
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: every muscle group is just extra large. That's were all
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: the way over the final one. Now it's that meat
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: is almost I know I'll say it about it, but
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: black tail meat is really good figure as well, and
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: it almost has that same quality. Is the black tail
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: meat where it's almost like it's a marbled fat. It's
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: almost like that when you cut into that steak you
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: can see the the meat broken down into those lines.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain it. When I'm talking
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: about where it's Yeah, it's like that tender, fat, good
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: piece of meat. It's funny mentioned black tails. I always
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: think of like the really really good meats, um doll, sheep,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: black tail, elk of course, and then uh, select mule, deer,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: select resold. Just be like when you and I don't
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: care if it's a big buck or not, when you
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: start skinning that deer and he's got like an inch
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: and a half tall on his realm. This is good.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: This good, dear man. No, I've had some range muled
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: here too, but I mean select mule they are extremely good.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: So now I don't I will pick your brain on
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: this because some people say, like the black tails, at
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: least the ones around here, like most deer have that
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: tallow type fat. It's that real waxy fat. But these
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: black tails melted down and put wax our boots with it. Yeah.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: Now these back black tails have almost a less tallow
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: and more of like a regular fat, like a bear fat.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: Like they're fat is like bear fat, not like deer.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: Somehow diet related. Yeah, I don't, I mean, but and
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: it makes the meat it almost like we would will
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: me and my dad on the last time we had.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: We shot two bucks, cut off the bacon and fried
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: that bacon like deer bacon on the rocks. And it's good,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: like the fat good to eat. But it's like, I
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: don't even know. I you describe it squishy fat. Yeah,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: it doesn't doesn't wax up in your mouth real bad. Yeah,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: it doesn't wax up. It's not waxing only deer. But
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: people are saying that I've heard, you know, the old
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: timer thing around here is that it's a different kind
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: of fat because they need to absorb it faster. I mean,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: different animals have different kinds of fat process different ways,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: Like like a buffalo in the summer's got like full
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: on orange fat, looks like a carrot. Yeah, you know
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: that's how that when they're eating green certain green feet,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: it's like, so I'm open to the eye. There's something
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: about what they're eating that gives they're fat different quality. Um.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: Sure they don't have a bad winter here too, either,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: these critters, which must help them there. I think they do. Yeah,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: they generally do have it. They can have tough winters.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: They it's judging from the weather that these like the
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: bother was just talking to the pilot about the winter.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: And yeah, the reason that the fluctuation and uh is
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: so different than like say Prince of Wales is because
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: they have the hard winters kills. A lot of animals
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: die in the winter here. I think that I can
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: it's about that. Is that like in Prince William Sound.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: In other is the southeast Alaska, the deer you know,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: the high country fills up with snow, but they have
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: such good shelter down in the big old growth forest
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot you know, there's a lot of
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: like protection from weather down there. Yeah, they go down
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: to the shore lines in the old girls and can
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: do pretty well here. It's just there's so much more
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: exposure here. If I'm not having that those those giants
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: the exposure because I was just accounting for the snow
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: because they're like, yeah, the snow doesn't really hang around,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: you know, at sea level especially, Yeah, I can see
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: it being like maybe a little bit nastier conditions and
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff, like southern part of Kodiak
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: is that more open, more like that. A lot of
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: the lot of it's like this where it's got it's got,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: but doesn't have those giant swass of old growth I
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: mean there are something. I mean, you can see him around,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're flying over. We saw we have
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: to see it because it's being fogged in. But if
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: you go over the ridge and down to the water,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: do you ever hit like thicker forest at the water's edge?
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: Is it stay open like this the whole way stay scrubby, scrubby.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: But I mean just on this side it's all forest,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: So the you should be the north part. Yeah, did
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: you do your concluder? No dirt? Did the effort? Is
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: the reward? I like that that was a good conclud No.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't really have a concluder. Yeah. I just continue
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: to talk and ask questions, Oh, is there more things
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: you need to know? By all means, I'm feeling good.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: I'm ready for a house. Yeah. And then uh, we
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: still have like to do. We still need to do
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: our hunt. There's two things we didn't get the top about.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: I wanted to do like a status update on public lands,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: which we're gonna have to talk about next time we talked.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to talk about, um, why Remy is
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: packing around his bow and arrow this time and what
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: happened for him. So we're gonna return to those thoughts. Yeah,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: we might have more packing and shooting iron, we might
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: have more time sitting in this TP possibly talk about that,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: um Rich tod, yeah, blank man, Remy, anything you want
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: to add. No, I mean, I hear the rain stopped.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: I would love to just take this headset off and
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: go glass off a buck right now. Yeah, I didn't
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: even notice the rain did stop. Stuff. The sound quality
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: went back to normal sound quality right now. Uh, here's
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: my concluder. Uh, this is a cliffhanger episode. This is
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: like the episode we did one time when Yanni couldn't
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: get a turkey and I we did an episode and
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: everybody had all tagged out on turks and then I
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: had to get up the next day and go out
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: and get Joanni squared away on in Turkey. But we
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: left to hang him or no one really knew if
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: he was gonna be able to pull it through. So
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: this is one of those situations where you're gonna have
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: to come back to find out did those fellers really
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: get to experience the suck or did they have to
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: go home with no suck? So stay tuned and find
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: out