Latest / The Bow Disciples Podcast / Insane Mountain Lion Encounter | Dangerous Hunting Moments

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Insane Mountain Lion Encounter | Dangerous Hunting Moments · The Bow Disciples Podcast

• 0:00
  New pod, new Monica Lapodsky. We have a guest, a very common
• 0:05
  recurring guest, maybe one of our most.
• 0:08
  But I know him. I know this guy very well.
• 0:12
  I know him very well. He's a good guy.
• 0:15
  We got David. Is he?
• 0:16
  Possibly the best. He is great.
• 0:19
  He is do. The hand thing, I can't, I look.
• 0:23
  Like it's just, it's just this, there you go, right there.
• 0:26
  There you go. Now you can do the hand.
• 0:28
  Yeah, possibly. Yeah, yeah.
• 0:31
  But we got Dave in the back and he was on the last episode he
• 0:35
  was on. We did in the driveway at my
• 0:39
  dad's house, my parents house and he got us an A whiskey that
• 0:43
  we were not super fond of. You drink.
• 0:49
  It's it's very harsh. It's an acquired taste.
• 0:51
  It's definitely acquired taste like you're eating a forest
• 0:54
  fire. That is.
• 0:56
  I love it. Great way to describe.
• 0:58
  It makes me hard. Yeah, dude, Brianna I I like bad
• 1:01
  some one night and she goes. I literally made him go wash his
• 1:04
  hands because he got it on his hands and he smelt like a fire,
• 1:07
  but not like the good type of fire because it also smelt like,
• 1:11
  you know, like rubbing alcohol got mixed into the fire and I
• 1:15
  couldn't deal with it. It was on his hands.
• 1:17
  I was like, get out of the bed and go wash your hands right
• 1:19
  now. Yeah, it was, it was something.
• 1:22
  But he he's acquired the taste for it because he can drink it.
• 1:25
  I still cannot. I I, well, let's, let's be
• 1:28
  clear. I can tolerate it with coke, OK,
• 1:32
  You know what I'm saying? But.
• 1:33
  And he doesn't. Drink it straight, that's for
• 1:35
  sure. But I'd never been one of those
• 1:37
  guys who can sip like, like, you know, whiskey or tequila
• 1:41
  anyways. But I appreciate the gift.
• 1:42
  I am going to get through it. I'm not going to dump it out on,
• 1:44
  you know, I'm going to have. It I told you guys you can cook
• 1:47
  with it and like when you when you cook.
• 1:48
  Maybe we should do that We. Could try that when you cook
• 1:51
  with it like it, it's super good do.
• 1:54
  You like smoky foods? Yes.
• 1:58
  Do you not? That's a very, that's a very
• 2:01
  judging, yeah. I never been a fan of smoky
• 2:06
  foods but I do like smoked BBQ so I don't know.
• 2:14
  Here's how you can test it. You can do some like sausage in
• 2:16
  a pan and then you can just pour some of that in there and like
• 2:19
  let it, let it marinate and if it tastes really good after
• 2:24
  that, there you go. And if it doesn't, I'll feed it
• 2:27
  to you. I'm going to try that.
• 2:29
  I'm going to try cooking with it and see how that is.
• 2:31
  But either way, nonetheless appreciated the gift.
• 2:35
  That was a great pod. Got a lot of lessons I.
• 2:38
  Enjoyed the ND filter of the pod that's been a big big fan
• 2:41
  favorite. Well, you know.
• 2:43
  Now I'm convinced she also needs one.
• 2:45
  So I'm surprised she doesn't already have.
• 2:46
  One me too. Considering how much she loves
• 2:48
  camera gear more than we love camera gear, I'm amazed.
• 2:51
  I think it's 'cause she's being a cheap bastard.
• 2:54
  Well also she does. Also she doesn't have any money
• 2:57
  to buy one with so she does she. Spends all of her money, all of
• 3:00
  the time. So it's like, well just spend
• 3:03
  the money on the ND filter then. I have that problem as well,
• 3:06
  yeah. Tries to curb it, but.
• 3:08
  I learned something about an ND filter in Mexico.
• 3:12
  I was filming a clip. It's in the video actually.
• 3:14
  If you guys haven't watched a video, it's on the YouTube
• 3:15
  channel. Anyway, I was filming a clip of
• 3:18
  Brandon inside and he's like, hey, why do you have that ND
• 3:21
  filter on? And I was like, I don't know,
• 3:23
  like I just always have it on and he's like, no, even you're
• 3:26
  inside. Like you take it off and then
• 3:28
  you put it on when you're outside.
• 3:29
  So I've been learning things as I hang out with more people that
• 3:32
  know a lot about cameras. He taught me about that.
• 3:35
  He taught me about like lighting settings and all this stuff, but
• 3:39
  but nonetheless learning. I love the NB filter.
• 3:42
  That was a big, big gift from David.
• 3:45
  And what do you think give give a review of the studio
• 3:50
  aesthetics? It was because you've recorded
• 3:52
  in the original studio. You've also, I believe, recorded
• 3:56
  in the temporary living room studio, if I remember right, and
• 4:01
  the driveway. Studio, it's glorious.
• 4:04
  I love, I love the I love all the signs that that's awesome.
• 4:10
  And then it looks very even as well.
• 4:12
  Symmetric if you will this. One right here gets me that
• 4:17
  something needs to be. Over here, we'll put something
• 4:20
  over here. The reason the sign is like
• 4:22
  Daddy Wampus is cuz usually like when we're filming it cuts about
• 4:26
  here. So it made sense to have it here
• 4:28
  rather than centered. But we'll put something over
• 4:30
  here to kind of balance it out. But yeah, Brianna, Brianna was,
• 4:35
  this was her thing. She basically decided on
• 4:37
  everything. I mean I think I might help
• 4:39
  choose assign locations, but other than that she did pretty
• 4:42
  much everything. All that matters is what's in
• 4:44
  frame. Exactly what's out the frame
• 4:46
  doesn't really matter. Well, that's the tough part
• 4:49
  though, because I wanted to make it, which it is.
• 4:51
  I wanted to make it versatile for how small the room is, so
• 4:56
  like filming shorts and stuff, I wanted a better backdrop for
• 5:01
  doing things like that. So like you could pan to this
• 5:04
  wall and film in front of it for a short.
• 5:07
  You could sit like we are now. Originally I had it set up where
• 5:10
  you could sit on either side of the TV.
• 5:12
  Like say you're doing reviews or like what do you call them when
• 5:16
  you like watch a video? Watch along reactions.
• 5:19
  Reaction videos, yeah, you could put a table in between if you
• 5:24
  wanted to film with a table on either side.
• 5:27
  So it was very versatile. But yes, James made the point.
• 5:30
  Well, everything in the shots for primarily potting will be
• 5:33
  here and there. So haven't decided yet what you
• 5:38
  could still stand here if you wanted to.
• 5:40
  And, you know, film shorts, but I'm thinking like a deer skull
• 5:45
  or something. I'm not sure.
• 5:47
  I don't like the idea of two lights next to each other.
• 5:51
  Well, and you wouldn't and you wouldn't see the other one, but.
• 5:54
  You would and a short. Yeah, sure.
• 5:56
  But like the main thing is the pod.
• 5:57
  I think that's the main thing. So.
• 5:59
  But but David here, OK, so this year he's been doing some
• 6:05
  hunting and one of your Instagram stories or I think
• 6:11
  maybe you text me a video or something, you know, piqued my
• 6:14
  interest. You had a bit of a Mountain Lion
• 6:17
  encounter, a Kitty cat encounter, and I have also had
• 6:21
  some, as has Brianna, believe it or not.
• 6:23
  So I would be curious. I want to hear the story.
• 6:26
  Was this first? First off, was this your first
• 6:29
  time seeing a Mountain Lion in the wild?
• 6:31
  Yes. It's my first time seeing a
• 6:33
  predator, so I'm from Ohio. There's nothing that can kill
• 6:36
  you in the woods in Ohio besides another hunter or yourself.
• 6:40
  So you're going through the woods at night and you're
• 6:43
  basically just skipping through the woods because there's
• 6:46
  nothing. Like black bears?
• 6:48
  Yeah, there are some up by probably Youngstown or Cleveland
• 6:52
  like the on the Pennsylvania border and stuff like that.
• 6:54
  But your chances of encountering 1.
• 6:56
  And I mean, black bears can still be dangerous, but they're
• 7:00
  real small in Ohio and they're not they're not really going to
• 7:05
  mess with you. I I have not heard of any
• 7:07
  stories in Ohio of a black bear attack.
• 7:11
  So it's I've I've never encountered a wild animal in
• 7:17
  Ohio that could do a whole lot of damage to you.
• 7:22
  That's true. Well, I've, I've heard of a lot
• 7:25
  of urban deer that's like to spear dogs.
• 7:29
  And if you want to see if you if you want to see the toughest,
• 7:34
  like grimiest dog that is good at fighting, just get its ass
• 7:39
  whooped, put it up against a, a, a whitetail buck in Ohio, one of
• 7:43
  those urban deer that has all the went, yeah, eating your
• 7:47
  mom's hostas and stuff like that and then killing your dog the
• 7:50
  next day. Yeah.
• 7:51
  I mean, it's got all the that's. Worse than the the Bears?
• 7:54
  Dude, I've seen some hammers in people's backyards in the middle
• 7:58
  of the city. Oh dude, some of the, some of
• 8:01
  the biggest, you know, deer and elk or moose or any, you know,
• 8:05
  some absolute whales live in residential areas because for
• 8:09
  the most part they can't get haunted.
• 8:11
  I mean they can't if you read the regs just right, depending
• 8:14
  on your state you can pull it off, but usually it takes like 3
• 8:17
  or 4 different permissions to be able to do it.
• 8:20
  So it's like really, really tough.
• 8:22
  But they do hold some big mature animals.
• 8:24
  For sure, and you'll you'll only see the true big ones during the
• 8:30
  rut. In, in or in urban environments,
• 8:33
  you'll only see the big ones. I don't know where they come
• 8:36
  from. I could show you a map of where
• 8:39
  I've seen the biggest deer I've ever seen in my life.
• 8:42
  Neighborhoods and two highways to get there and you're like
• 8:45
  yeah where are you camping out the rest of the.
• 8:47
  Year no, you'll look at it it is in the smack dab center of
• 8:51
  Columbus, OH it's it's city for 30 miles in every direction and
• 8:57
  he. Really wanted that boom, he
• 8:58
  traveled. Well, jeez.
• 9:00
  Oh yeah. No, no, seriously, seriously.
• 9:02
  He's he's literally, I have AI have a video of him sitting in
• 9:06
  somebody's backyard and there's a doe about 15 yards away from
• 9:11
  it, from him and she's just eating away and he's just
• 9:14
  staring at her vagina. It's just he's just staring at
• 9:19
  it. He doesn't care about anything
• 9:20
  else but the pussy. Is to think he went like 30
• 9:23
  miles. So he went through Martha's yard
• 9:26
  and then he traveled through, like, the bakers stayed there
• 9:29
  for a couple weeks, you know, fed on their tomatoes.
• 9:33
  And then he moved on to, like, the Johnson residence, you know,
• 9:36
  went a couple more miles into the city, you know, munched on
• 9:39
  their, you know, above ground, you know, vegetable garden for a
• 9:42
  couple more weeks. And then, you know, followed
• 9:45
  that scent all the way in until he got to like, you know, The
• 9:49
  Smiths house and he found that poon that he wanted.
• 9:53
  It sounds like me in 2020, you know what I'm saying?
• 9:57
  I'd be just travelling far and wide.
• 10:00
  You know you did. You did.
• 10:02
  You went like an hour from Ramona all the way down to you.
• 10:05
  Know. Pacific Beach, just to try to
• 10:09
  find some. There was none in between, you
• 10:11
  know, Ramona and Pacific Beach. You had to come all the way down
• 10:15
  here to get it. But the amount?
• 10:17
  The amount of distance in in, in certain eras of my life that I
• 10:23
  drove in attempts to find the the, the glory hole.
• 10:30
  Bro I used to travel far and wide you know, and have very
• 10:35
  very low success rates for many years.
• 10:39
  The encounter. Yes, so.
• 10:42
  Are we jumping to the encounter right now?
• 10:44
  Well, we. Just we started that.
• 10:46
  Time. I mean, we can keep talking
• 10:47
  about no keep talking about deer poon if you want, dude.
• 10:51
  This pod is off the rails. It always goes off the rails.
• 10:54
  Yes it does. Well, let.
• 10:56
  Well, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold up, hold up.
• 10:58
  I want to. Here's what I want to know
• 10:59
  before we jump into the story. So first time you see a Mountain
• 11:03
  Lion, right? Yes, any predator.
• 11:05
  Any predator, but in this case a Mountain Lion, right?
• 11:08
  Is it OK what you've heard? Yeah, but I don't not that's
• 11:13
  gonna. Like a predator that could take
• 11:16
  that is not afraid of humans. Right.
• 11:19
  So when you, we'll get to the story after, but my initial
• 11:23
  question is when you saw the animal for the first time,
• 11:26
  regardless of distance, we'll get to that in the story.
• 11:29
  What was your just initial thought of seeing the animal?
• 11:32
  Because I, each time I've seen a Mountain Lion, I think I've seen
• 11:35
  maybe 8 in my life in the wild. And it is a lot.
• 11:39
  I've seen it, I've seen, I've seen.
• 11:41
  But you got to keep in mind I've been spending so much time in
• 11:44
  outdoors since I was like 5 years old.
• 11:46
  So I've been fortunate to see him a few times.
• 11:51
  Every time I see one, I'm initially hit with this leg just
• 11:56
  like almost awestruck a little bit about how beautiful the
• 12:00
  animal is. And then like other thoughts set
• 12:02
  in. But my first thing is like, wow,
• 12:06
  that's an impression. It's almost like a breathtaking
• 12:08
  thing when you see one, sort of. Did you have that at all?
• 12:11
  No, but mine's a little bit different and I'll I'll tell
• 12:14
  you. Why?
• 12:14
  Yeah, let me hear. It all OK to explain this.
• 12:19
  I was out in a very remote area. I made the decision to go out by
• 12:23
  myself because I I that's what I like to do.
• 12:27
  I like to be kind of I'm, I'm kind of a lone hunter.
• 12:31
  I have trouble per SE. What a loner.
• 12:34
  I'm a loner, man. Yeah.
• 12:36
  I live alone. I hunt alone.
• 12:38
  You have him, you know, but I, I, I always, it's, and it's
• 12:45
  probably because I'm an asshole, but I have, I'm real picky about
• 12:51
  hunting partners because I'm older.
• 12:56
  I'm 34 years old. I will get to wherever I want to
• 13:02
  go. I can still do that.
• 13:04
  And I intend to do that until I'm about 50.
• 13:07
  I can get to wherever I want to go.
• 13:09
  I can go on X and say, oh, that's 4 miles away.
• 13:12
  I whatever. I won't get there as fast as
• 13:16
  some other people, but I am willing to hump it to where I
• 13:20
  want to go and I'm willing to go there.
• 13:23
  And so I, I'm very picky about hunting partners that are going
• 13:28
  to go. I'll be right behind you, you
• 13:30
  know, So I went out by myself to an area and I picked this place
• 13:38
  because my buddy told me, hey, like I saw the biggest buck I've
• 13:42
  ever seen there. And during hunting season, you
• 13:46
  won't see a lot of hunters there.
• 13:49
  And I had haunted it's, it's a big giant area and it's broken
• 13:53
  up into multiple sections. And I was all the way in the
• 13:56
  South section. And I, I went there because
• 14:02
  he's, he's like, you know, you're probably not going to see
• 14:04
  anybody there. And he was right.
• 14:06
  So I went out there alone and I was enjoying every minute of it.
• 14:11
  OK, so I was there for probably about 8 days total.
• 14:18
  I went there for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
• 14:23
  Tuesday, Wednesday. So I was out there for six days
• 14:29
  straight and I like to get up high in places.
• 14:34
  I'm not very good at glassing, but that's something that I like
• 14:38
  to do. I don't get bored glassing and,
• 14:40
  and for some reason I'm terrified of heights, except for
• 14:44
  when it's a mountain. So I'll go up, I'll, I'll go up
• 14:48
  shit and then not think about how I'm going to get down.
• 14:53
  And that's, that's kind of like I'll, I'll, I'll climb up a
• 14:57
  mountain and then I'll be like, holy fuck, how did I get up
• 15:00
  here? Like I don't know how I'm going
• 15:01
  to get down. I always do, but I'm very
• 15:04
  careful with it. But I like to get up high and
• 15:06
  like survey a place and that at first.
• 15:10
  And plus because where I'm hunting is probably still 92°
• 15:15
  and the only place that's cool that has a breeze is up on top.
• 15:18
  So you get that breeze and stuff like that.
• 15:21
  So for the first couple of days I checked out some different
• 15:25
  spots and got up high in places and stuff like that.
• 15:30
  And there was this one Canyon that I was, I was like, I feel
• 15:34
  really good about this. I like that I can see in a long
• 15:40
  way away. It looks like a good spot.
• 15:42
  There's a ton of washes in the bottom of this Canyon.
• 15:45
  And when I was up there, I'm looking at these washes and they
• 15:49
  don't look, they just look like regular washes.
• 15:53
  And it's, it's weird because when you, when you get up high,
• 15:58
  like everything looks a certain way and then once you go down to
• 16:02
  investigate it, everything looks completely fucking different.
• 16:05
  So I was up high for the majority of the first like 4
• 16:10
  days or something like that. And I saw, I saw sheep every day
• 16:14
  that I was out there. And it was, is interesting
• 16:19
  because I, it's a once in a lifetime tag and I'm seeing
• 16:23
  where these sheep are and I'm looking at them.
• 16:25
  I know I, I'd be like, I can shoot that.
• 16:30
  I don't know how I'm going to get to it, or for that matter,
• 16:34
  get it down. I'd have to have a, probably a
• 16:38
  private helicopter to get that thing down South.
• 16:40
  Oh. And sheep hunters, they got
• 16:42
  them. Yeah, dude, I I met a sheep
• 16:44
  guide one time not to by the way, loving the story.
• 16:48
  I met the sheep Sheep guide one time and he was telling me some
• 16:50
  of the budgets that these guys have and and how they get to the
• 16:54
  areas and retrieve the animals and helicopters were mentioned
• 16:57
  numerous times as he was telling me.
• 17:00
  It's a once in a lifetime tag. Well, and you, well, well, it's
• 17:03
  a once in a lifetime tag for us humble poppers.
• 17:06
  But these dudes that are doing these sheep hunts on a regular
• 17:09
  basis, they're dropping often times 600 / a half, $1,000,000
• 17:17
  for the tags and then their guide packages will probably be
• 17:21
  in helicopter ship will be another half million.
• 17:24
  I mean, they're dropping a mil easily on these hunts.
• 17:26
  But that's the only way, or I shouldn't say the only way, but
• 17:30
  like a lot of these sheep hunts, the only way to really do them
• 17:33
  more than one time ever in your life is to drop wild funds.
• 17:38
  So not too many people can do it.
• 17:41
  And you, you, you can get it down.
• 17:43
  But the problem is, is that you're going to have to go a
• 17:46
  mile that way to get up to, like, a Ridge.
• 17:50
  And then you're going to have to walk along the Ridge and then
• 17:53
  come back down. And like, the spots that they're
• 17:55
  in, they just like, run and hop along shit.
• 18:00
  Yeah. Cliff faces.
• 18:01
  And you're just like, like if, if you've got a sheep taking a
• 18:04
  nap on a Cliff face. I don't know.
• 18:08
  I don't know how you're going to like get up there, but.
• 18:11
  I have the same issue in in Hawaii that like 1.
• 18:16
  I do the same thing where like I don't feel any nervousness about
• 18:19
  going up. It's only when I turn around to
• 18:23
  come back down or to start looking down.
• 18:26
  I'm like my little legs just are like they're like it's like when
• 18:31
  you're like trying to touch a cold water and like where's the
• 18:34
  bottom and you can't find it And you're like, I have gone too
• 18:37
  far. I have officially gone too high
• 18:41
  though where like I started rock climbing at a point and realized
• 18:44
  like I'm no longer hiking, I'm rock climbing.
• 18:47
  This is not OK anymore. With a pack.
• 18:49
  On Yep. And then you look up and like
• 18:52
  the goats were another 80 yards up above that.
• 18:55
  And you're like, all right. So then you get to the point
• 18:58
  where like they they move around and they get to the point where
• 19:01
  you can shoot at them. And I shoot at one and shoot it.
• 19:05
  This sucker goes straight to a Cliff wall, straight to it.
• 19:09
  I mean, James Got goes over there and tries to like see if
• 19:14
  there's a way for him to go. And they have these little caves
• 19:17
  on the cliffs or because these are small goats, you know, these
• 19:20
  aren't the big giant things with, you know, whatever those
• 19:24
  are. Testicles with horns.
• 19:26
  Yeah, these are just little little baby goats basically in
• 19:30
  size, even full grown. And so their Cliff walls are
• 19:36
  like this wide. Yeah, like just their little
• 19:39
  tiny hooves are what fit on this thing.
• 19:41
  Yeah, and I mean the. Cave and James is like, I just
• 19:45
  can't. I'm sorry, I can't get out there
• 19:47
  to get that. Like I I can't even walk on it.
• 19:50
  Like one of my feet can't fit on the Cliff wall that this goat
• 19:54
  has disappeared on. Well, in the drops are like for
• 19:58
  for me to retrieve this goat was at least 100 foot drop and I'm
• 20:03
  like, I can't. It's like unless I had a
• 20:05
  repelling gear or something, like there's no way.
• 20:08
  And and and yeah, and another thing too, like dude, if you're
• 20:11
  spending at. A half million dollars or more
• 20:14
  on a sheep? Do you really want to shoot him
• 20:17
  when he's betted right on a Cliff band?
• 20:19
  Because he's going to probably fall and shatter all the horns
• 20:22
  that you paid? $1,000,000 horns you just paid
• 20:24
  for. Pulverize the meat.
• 20:26
  You and pulverize the meat kill the horns like you have to be
• 20:30
  smart where you shoot the sheep, but I bet that was cool to see
• 20:33
  him I'm. Always beautiful.
• 20:34
  And you're seeing were they desert Big Horns or Rockies?
• 20:37
  Because Arizona has both. I.
• 20:41
  Are they smaller bodies or pretty big bodies?
• 20:44
  They're big. They're probably rocky.
• 20:47
  Rockies, you think? Yeah.
• 20:49
  So they're dark with like the the white rump Big yes.
• 20:52
  So as a Rocky, probably, yeah. I don't know that much about
• 20:55
  sheep, I just. Like one that's more elusive
• 20:57
  than the other or. Any.
• 21:00
  I think they're. Let's see.
• 21:03
  I know nothing about sheep, but somehow people like get super
• 21:06
  wet over them and I'm just like, it's a sheep.
• 21:11
  Like I can go hunt sheep for next to nothing in Hawaii.
• 21:15
  Like, I get it there by no means to save my sheep.
• 21:19
  Looks like the sheep you have in your backyard.
• 21:21
  That sheep looks like some that came out of, you know, Pakistan
• 21:25
  or something. But it's like it's a sheep.
• 21:30
  Well, so yeah, there's there's desert, Desert, big horns,
• 21:34
  Rocky, big Rocky Mountain, big horns, doll sheep, stone sheep,
• 21:39
  obviously mountain goats, but they're they're a little they're
• 21:42
  don't really look the same as a curl sheep, but all of them
• 21:46
  there's not a humble popper sheep.
• 21:48
  They're all very expensive. I think it's in Hawaii.
• 21:51
  I think the. Humble popper.
• 21:52
  Sheep. Well, that's and I love sheep.
• 21:54
  About $100. I I love sheep hunting in Hawaii
• 21:57
  I really did but I think the going price right now for a
• 22:01
  desert bighorn it like if you go to Mexico is like 6060 plus.
• 22:06
  Yeah. For a desert. $60.00 I got you.
• 22:09
  Let's go 60,000 shekels. I'm out.
• 22:12
  That's two of my trucks down there.
• 22:14
  Yeah, so anyways, you're glassing the big horns.
• 22:15
  You're seeing beautiful shit. Yes, I saw Doze throughout the
• 22:19
  entire hunt, but I didn't I I did not see any bucks on my
• 22:25
  hunt, but I was I was glad to be out like alone where there were
• 22:29
  there was nobody out there and it was just it was super
• 22:32
  awesome. So the whole point of that is
• 22:37
  after about day three, I, I went around, I, I decided to
• 22:41
  investigate down in, in the Canyon and I was like, it's,
• 22:44
  it's 12:00. Like I don't think anything's
• 22:47
  going to be moving or anything like that.
• 22:48
  And I've got all day. So I went down there and it
• 22:54
  looks real different when you're down there because the little
• 22:57
  wash that you saw down there is a is, is another Canyon with 30
• 23:02
  foot walls that are vertical and you, you, you'd have to have
• 23:06
  repelling gear to get out of that wash.
• 23:08
  But so there's this, so I'm in it.
• 23:12
  I'm in a Canyon and it's got, you know, various flats and
• 23:17
  stuff like that in, in, in on the Canyon bottom.
• 23:21
  And it's got this road that runs through there that it's not open
• 23:25
  to the public. And I don't even think you can
• 23:27
  get you, I don't even think you can get through there with a
• 23:29
  tank, to be honest with you. But it's, it's a, it's a road
• 23:33
  that goes through and then it makes an S shape and then goes
• 23:37
  all the way through and where the S starts or in the middle of
• 23:40
  the S, it, the road turns into the wash or the wash turns into
• 23:45
  the road, whatever you want to call it.
• 23:48
  And that's where the big washes with the 30 foot walls that are
• 23:54
  completely vertical. So it's sort of like an S where
• 23:57
  it, it, it's on top and then it goes down into the wash and then
• 24:02
  comes back up on the other side of the S.
• 24:05
  So I'm, you know, climbing around mountains and shit like
• 24:09
  that. And on Wednesday, on Wednesday
• 24:15
  of my hunt coming out, I took that road and I, I hunt all day.
• 24:20
  I go in at 4:00 AM and get to my spot because that's what I do.
• 24:29
  And I get to my spot, you know, settle down, cool down and stuff
• 24:34
  like that. Do a whole bunch of temperature
• 24:36
  and moisture management because that's what I learned in Ohio to
• 24:39
  make my hunts comfortable and stuff like that.
• 24:42
  And then when the sun comes out up the, your, the glass is
• 24:46
  already there and you start glassing and stuff like that and
• 24:49
  you start looking for stuff. Do that all day.
• 24:52
  And then I wait until last possible light and I set my, I
• 24:56
  set an alarm for 2 minutes before shooting light ends.
• 25:01
  So 2 minutes before, 30 minutes after sunset, because when that
• 25:06
  and it's an audible alarm so that I don't get the whole thing
• 25:09
  where you shoot and then look at your phone and realize it's one,
• 25:14
  one minute past. And then, of course, if you
• 25:16
  shoot a 7mm Remington Magnum in a Canyon, it's going to go, it's
• 25:20
  going to bounce all the way around, and then people are
• 25:23
  going to wonder that's sounds. Like, oh.
• 25:26
  Very sounds like. About the timing.
• 25:28
  I am. Specifically, I am that you're
• 25:30
  ever doing anything illegal with a bow.
• 25:32
  But like, I guess we're just like often times that 30 minute
• 25:36
  after light rule for us. Like you don't even make it to
• 25:41
  that 30 minute mark because you just can't.
• 25:43
  Everybody's eyes are different. And a lot of times you can't
• 25:47
  even see pins or ring to ring. Yeah, exactly.
• 25:50
  You could be 10 minutes past dark light, but if you're in a
• 25:52
  forest sitting a tree stand verse out hunting the open
• 25:58
  cornfield, like you may make it till that 30 minute after sunset
• 26:03
  mark, whereas I am making it 15 minutes past sunset in the
• 26:08
  forest, you know, in my tree stand.
• 26:09
  So I don't even, I just know the sun has set and I'm just like
• 26:13
  checking pin, checking pin and then looking at time like Yep,
• 26:16
  time to get down. And, and honestly, that and with
• 26:20
  with a rifle, that's going to depend on your scope.
• 26:23
  Because I pick up a lot. Of you can pick up like like
• 26:26
  it'll shit in the dark. Yeah.
• 26:28
  I mean, so I usually go I I usually like and and it's not
• 26:34
  that I like I want to get away with something.
• 26:37
  It's just like with with a with a really nice scope, you can
• 26:41
  still see up until up until shooting light is ending.
• 26:46
  Yeah, like you could very easily not realize you just shot long
• 26:49
  past legal. Shooting time and when you've
• 26:52
  got a 7mm Remington Magnum with a brake on it like that, sound
• 26:57
  is gonna carry all the way to all anymore at the.
• 26:59
  End of the room. It's gonna be like.
• 27:01
  And let's. Go, guys.
• 27:03
  In Ohio, it sounds like a war zone when when deer gun season
• 27:06
  runs around. So it's like, it's like you
• 27:08
  can't tell where those shots are coming from and stuff like that.
• 27:11
  But you know, in a, in a place where deer are a are at a
• 27:16
  premium, like you never want to have someone look down at their
• 27:19
  watch. And of course it's going to take
• 27:21
  5 seconds for that, like, you know, 10510 seconds for that
• 27:25
  sound to reach them down in the valley.
• 27:28
  And you know, somebody gets jealous or something like that.
• 27:30
  And they said like, whatever. But so I stay until last
• 27:36
  possible and then I walk my way out in the dark.
• 27:40
  So in the mornings. Pro move.
• 27:43
  In the mornings, I, I'm basically skipping in there.
• 27:47
  I'm not looking over my shoulder, I'm not doing anything
• 27:49
  I like. I feel good, nothing's wrong.
• 27:52
  But Wednesday night, I, I, I, I, it felt really weird walking out
• 28:00
  of there at night. And I, I attribute this to
• 28:04
  growing up in Ohio, where, again, nothing can kill you in
• 28:06
  the woods. So when you, when IA fish out of
• 28:10
  water come out West where there are predators out there that
• 28:13
  will fucking kill you. And you know, because that's
• 28:19
  their job, that's their livelihood.
• 28:21
  I'm looking around all over the place with my light, OK, And
• 28:25
  I've got a lot of extra batteries for my headlamp.
• 28:28
  And I have an extra headlamp for in case that one goes out and I
• 28:32
  know exactly where it is. I know exactly where it is.
• 28:35
  So if that one flickers, I'm going turning it on, switching
• 28:39
  them out. And I've got lots of extra
• 28:42
  batteries. So I'm coming out on Wednesday
• 28:46
  night and I get, I get into the S and then I, I come up and come
• 28:53
  up the ramp from the opposite side of the, the S and I see a
• 28:56
  pair of eyes. And of course, when you see a
• 29:00
  pair of eyes, it's kind of freaky because it's pitch black
• 29:03
  and those eyes light up like nuclear bombs.
• 29:07
  And so I see it on the, I see it halfway up the mountain on the
• 29:11
  other side of the Canyon and I'm just kind of watching it.
• 29:15
  Can't tell what it is. I don't know what it is.
• 29:18
  I'm like, maybe it's a deer. I don't know.
• 29:22
  So I, I stand there and watch it and I have my 9mm on me at all
• 29:27
  times when I'm hunting out there, especially, I don't care
• 29:32
  what Arizona Game and Fish says about how it's fake news that
• 29:36
  there are mountain lions out there.
• 29:38
  I have my 9mm on me at all times with the extended mag for extra
• 29:46
  ammo. And I'm, I'm sitting there
• 29:49
  watching it and I'm just sitting there and it's at 2.
• 29:52
  It's like 2 or 300 yards away, but I it, it, it's very
• 29:56
  apparent. There's a pair of eyes up there.
• 29:58
  And so all of a sudden the eyes blink out of existence and I'm
• 30:03
  like, that was weird. And then it reappears about 350
• 30:07
  yards away and I'm like, OK, it's going away from me.
• 30:11
  And they just blink. They just blink off and then
• 30:14
  they blink on again. And it's super weird.
• 30:17
  It's super crazy. It's.
• 30:18
  Hard because like technically like it's as easy as it turned
• 30:22
  its head to walk away, but it literally looks like it
• 30:26
  disappeared because it's dark so I and.
• 30:28
  Then they reappear in another spot.
• 30:30
  Yeah, it's like, oh, he just stopped and turned and looked at
• 30:32
  you again after he was done walking away or toward you.
• 30:37
  And you're like all of a sudden he just appears closer or
• 30:40
  further and then disappears. But they're not disappearing.
• 30:42
  You just get sealed until their eyes make contact with your
• 30:45
  headlamp, which is the scarier part of it because you don't
• 30:48
  know if you choose to keep going where they're going or where
• 30:54
  they went. Like you just he happened to be
• 30:58
  moving away but. At this point it was moving away
• 31:01
  from where I was going to, so I felt I was like, OK, well, I'm
• 31:04
  going to be ready. So I, I'm like every step I'm
• 31:07
  looking around everywhere, OK, I get back to my truck and I'm
• 31:11
  like, OK, we're good to go. Have a couple of, have a couple
• 31:15
  of pops, as you would say, go back to my go back to my camp.
• 31:19
  And you know, at camp I feel very safe and stuff like that.
• 31:23
  So I had to go back into work on Thursday because I'm saving, I
• 31:28
  was saving time off to go see my niece, which I'm about to do
• 31:31
  tomorrow. So she was just born.
• 31:36
  So I went back to I packed up camp in the morning and went
• 31:42
  back to work on Friday after work, I come back out to the to
• 31:47
  this to the same camp, same spot, OK.
• 31:50
  And Friday, same thing. Walk in the morning, might as
• 31:55
  well have been skipping through there.
• 31:57
  You know, cloud 9, you know, whatever.
• 32:00
  Get to my spot, same thing. And I'm I'm, I'm going
• 32:04
  throughout this entire Canyon each morning and picking up
• 32:07
  different spots and, you know, trying to glass and see stuff.
• 32:13
  Saturday, Saturday night, I it's the same thing.
• 32:16
  I wait till dark hike out of there and I'm getting the same
• 32:20
  creepy feeling where I'm like this something is not right
• 32:24
  here. And I I get through the S and
• 32:28
  come up the ramp and it's on the other side of the Canyon and I
• 32:33
  see the eyes and keep in mind I have already been scared
• 32:37
  shitless by a bird at this point on the ground in the middle of
• 32:41
  the trail, like a like a singular eye.
• 32:43
  And I'm like, what the fuck is that?
• 32:45
  And then all of a sudden the bird decides to fly towards me
• 32:49
  and I'm like, fuck that, you know, and it's just it like I'm
• 32:53
  like, Oh God, it was a bird. Thank God.
• 32:55
  So I'm I'm already kind of like on edge and you know, it's
• 32:59
  already psyching me out because I'm like, is that a bird?
• 33:01
  Is that a a deer or is that a Mountain Lion?
• 33:03
  I don't know. So Friday night, I see the eyes
• 33:07
  on the other side of the Canyon. It's it's about it's about 600
• 33:11
  yards away. You can still see the eyes clear
• 33:13
  as day. And I get back to my truck.
• 33:17
  Same, same routine. OK, go back in the morning on
• 33:21
  Sunday. This is the last day of my hunt.
• 33:24
  After, after today. Once it hits 30 minutes after
• 33:28
  sundown, your hunt is over no matter what.
• 33:31
  So I get back out there on Sunday and this is this is the
• 33:36
  day that I spotted the paratesticles with horns.
• 33:40
  It was a fucking hammer. So I texted my buddy and the
• 33:44
  sheep. The sheep are the only species
• 33:47
  of animal where I'll text all my buddies and say if you know one,
• 33:51
  someone who has a sheep tag, I will give you all the
• 33:55
  information about it, whatever you want.
• 33:57
  Because I mean, there are 75 year old dudes who go out there
• 34:01
  and be like been like, I've been putting in since I was 16 years
• 34:04
  old. And I'm like, you go for it bud.
• 34:06
  Like I'll tell you exactly where it is.
• 34:08
  If you want me to come out there with you and take a day off and
• 34:11
  show you, show you where I saw it, I will do that.
• 34:14
  Like like if it's a lifetime, if it's a lifetime tag, I am all
• 34:19
  down to help you with whatever you need.
• 34:21
  I'll fucking help you pack it out.
• 34:22
  Do whatever you need to do. That's the exact same way I felt
• 34:25
  when I filmed that once in a lifetime bison hunt for Taylor.
• 34:30
  Been on the show, friend of the show, but I felt the same way.
• 34:33
  I was like, I'll say where it is and if someone wants to message
• 34:37
  him for tips and drew the tag, yeah, he's happy to do it
• 34:39
  because it's a once in a lifetime tag.
• 34:41
  Like you're not going to draw it.
• 34:42
  You can't blow the spot out when there's like 2 tags.
• 34:46
  Yeah, I'm saying so well you. Do that even for for elk and
• 34:50
  it's like even that's not a once in a lifetime, but it is like a
• 34:54
  once in every thirteen years you're likely going to draw A
• 34:57
  tag and it's like the species has done rotated through there
• 35:02
  births multiple like every year. Like be helping somebody who has
• 35:08
  A tag that took them 13 years to draw is and they go out and they
• 35:12
  get the big bowl that we dropped them a pin for in the location
• 35:15
  and areas like that is not going to affect my potential.
• 35:19
  A bull's going to be dead by the time you draw the tag.
• 35:22
  Not only that, it could die of old age.
• 35:24
  That's what I'm saying. And it'll be dead for 40 years.
• 35:27
  But before you get that tag again.
• 35:29
  Yeah, exactly. Or for the first time.
• 35:30
  That's not going to affect even for non once in a lifetime tags
• 35:34
  like that animal has done lived its full life cycle before.
• 35:39
  I will likely draw that tag, so it's not affecting anything by
• 35:44
  me telling them where that 300 inch bull is.
• 35:47
  And then I draw 8 years from now, like yeah, by then another
• 35:51
  bull has been born and made it to 300 inches.
• 35:54
  Yeah, you know the three. 100 inches is.
• 35:57
  Great. Exactly.
• 35:58
  That's a tiny 300 is not a big bowl.
• 36:01
  What? It's 360. 404 Four 400.
• 36:04
  That's like that's like the glory standard, a big threat I
• 36:08
  would consider to me as a mule Deer Hunter my whole life, a 300
• 36:14
  bowl is huge, right? Like above 260 if he's a nice
• 36:18
  looks nice but an elk guy would probably call a big bowl like
• 36:22
  330 plus. Well, good for them, but anyways
• 36:26
  nonetheless. In my area it's got to be 380
• 36:28
  and above. Which is, yeah, 380 is like
• 36:31
  giant, but you better be in a premium God Dang unit and be
• 36:34
  ready to pass a lot of three 40s in the 340 scheme.
• 36:38
  I don't. Think I.
• 36:40
  Would I don't, I don't. I don't play the numbers game
• 36:42
  myself because I like I'm all about the story, but and and
• 36:47
  also I like I'm not a big animal killer.
• 36:49
  Yeah, I like I have no bragging rights for anything.
• 36:53
  So it's like it's like, does it have horns?
• 36:56
  Is it an elk or does it have antlers?
• 36:58
  Is it an elk? There we go.
• 36:59
  Yeah, yeah, I got a dude to talk about story, bro.
• 37:03
  Like in Mexico, I was sitting a feeder and out walks the buck
• 37:10
  and then I smoked them. Yeah, it was a good story.
• 37:14
  No, it was a good story, but it's different than like the
• 37:16
  style of hunting that I generally do.
• 37:18
  Or it was a great video. Honestly.
• 37:21
  I'm very proud of the video. Very good.
• 37:23
  And it was still great hunt. I'm very proud of it.
• 37:25
  But I, I know what you're saying.
• 37:26
  Like, I like the hunts. I've always been addicted to the
• 37:29
  hunts that are like the hardest shit, like the really, really
• 37:32
  tough, grungy shit. That's what I like, you know?
• 37:35
  And yeah, the high end hunts that cost a bunch of money are
• 37:38
  cool too. But it's different.
• 37:40
  It's not the same. It's two different things.
• 37:42
  Both are great. I love both, but I agree with
• 37:45
  you. Stories dope.
• 37:46
  I love this. Like, I love the stories where
• 37:49
  it's just like, yeah, I was sitting in my saddle and then
• 37:52
  all of a sudden the booze from the night before kicked in and I
• 37:55
  had to take a shit out of my tree stuff.
• 37:57
  And then like, I had realized I had nothing to wipe with.
• 38:00
  So I just sacrifice one of my socks.
• 38:02
  And as soon as I get done with that, the doe walks out and I'm
• 38:07
  like, shit, you finally. Like, I love those stories,
• 38:10
  dude. Those are the best stories ever.
• 38:13
  Because it's just everything went wrong and then it went
• 38:15
  right. Like dude, I love those stories.
• 38:18
  Drop a comment down below if you're listening to this on like
• 38:21
  a wild hunting story that you've had.
• 38:24
  But anyway, OK, so let's let's hop back into it.
• 38:26
  So it's the last day of the hunt.
• 38:28
  Yes, you hike in there. I saw the I saw the parrot test.
• 38:31
  You saw like horns at 1000 yards and I was like, I don't know
• 38:35
  anything about sheep, but that thing looks like a fucking
• 38:38
  hammer. I can see its testicles from
• 38:40
  here. So, and, and like, it was so
• 38:43
  funny because this, this the reason, the entire reason why I
• 38:46
  saw this guy, he was behind me. OK dude I don't know how people
• 38:57
  listen to her pod. I think they listened because of
• 39:00
  shit like this though. You know, that's when you know
• 39:02
  you're having fun, man. We're having fun.
• 39:05
  That is a nice eagle. So the only reason why I knew
• 39:08
  this, they were behind me. The only reason why I knew and
• 39:11
  it was a it was a bachelor group.
• 39:13
  The rest I had seen were small sheep was because I heard like a
• 39:18
  a giant boulder tumbled down the mountain.
• 39:21
  I was like what the fuck is that?
• 39:23
  And I look, I look and I rearranged my binoculars and the
• 39:26
  2 sheep are just staring at the boulder that they had just sent
• 39:30
  down the mountain. For like 3 minutes they just
• 39:34
  stared at it like the dumbest creatures you could ever see
• 39:37
  Just like what was that? Oh, that was me.
• 39:40
  And so, you know, I filmed them for a while.
• 39:43
  I, I got a whole bunch of video for my buddy because I was like,
• 39:46
  oh, if somebody needs this, like if somebody has A tag in this
• 39:51
  unit, like send it to him. And then I, you know, went back
• 39:54
  to glassing for, for mule deer sun goes down and I'm like, you
• 40:02
  know what, the last two nights that I was out here was really
• 40:06
  creepy. So I'm going to change the
• 40:07
  batteries on my headlamp real quick.
• 40:10
  OK, so I changed the batteries on my headlamp and I went down
• 40:15
  the mountain and of course it's like it's still sort of light.
• 40:19
  So you turn your headlamp on, you go down the mountain, and by
• 40:21
  the time you get down to the flats, it's dark.
• 40:24
  So you can't really tell the difference between your
• 40:29
  flashlight beam when it's when it's brand new batteries or old
• 40:34
  batteries, which is what I had put in my headlamp.
• 40:39
  So I'm walking around and of course I'm like, I'm like, I'm,
• 40:44
  I'm, I'm checking every direction and I get down to the
• 40:50
  S and I get to the I. It goes from the flats down to
• 40:56
  the entrance of the wash where it curves down and then it goes
• 40:59
  back up. So I'm at the curve down and
• 41:02
  there's like a little intersection with it where a
• 41:04
  smaller wash and the big wash intersect and right at that
• 41:10
  intersection my flat my headlamps flickers and I was
• 41:13
  like fuck this shit I'm shit God damn.
• 41:16
  I had put old batteries accidentally into or it or 1 old
• 41:21
  battery with two new batteries doesn't matter.
• 41:23
  The flashlight was not having it.
• 41:25
  So it flickers and I'm like oh damn it and it's completely dark
• 41:28
  by now. So I have the and before I'd
• 41:32
  gone down the mountain, I, I made sure to put the brand new
• 41:36
  unopened pack of batteries in my hip belt.
• 41:39
  OK, so I'm like, I know where they are, don't freak out.
• 41:43
  This is really creepy, but like we're, we're good to go.
• 41:46
  So I, I, I, my flash, my headlamp goes out.
• 41:52
  Right at that moment, I pulled my phone out and I dropped it in
• 41:56
  a Bush and I'm and it was one of those things where you like you
• 42:00
  get it out and then you realize it's starting to go out of your
• 42:02
  hands. So you like, you know, go.
• 42:04
  And so it like flew and I'm like, damn it.
• 42:07
  So it's completely dark. I'm like on all fours trying to
• 42:11
  find my phone to get like to get some sort of light.
• 42:15
  I finally find my phone and of course by now I'm like shaking
• 42:19
  because I'm like, fuck, I did dude, this is so bad.
• 42:22
  It like my adrenaline is pumping.
• 42:24
  I finally get the flashlight on and I'm like, I'm like looking
• 42:27
  around with my phone and shit like that.
• 42:29
  And so I finally like work up the courage to actually change
• 42:32
  my, my headlamp batteries, change it.
• 42:35
  I, I turn it on and it's like, it's like a beacon.
• 42:39
  You like a Superman, like a Batman, like a bat signal and
• 42:43
  like, oh shit, this is really bright now.
• 42:46
  So I'm like, OK, we're good. We're good, we're good.
• 42:48
  OK, I'm looking around. There's nothing out there and
• 42:50
  I'm like, OK, calm down, we're fine.
• 42:53
  OK, so I put my phone in my in my bino harness in, in where
• 43:02
  it's supposed to go. I zip everything up and I'm
• 43:06
  like, OK, deep breath, we're good, we're fine.
• 43:08
  So I'm in I'm in the intersection and I take one step
• 43:13
  into that big wash and my body just locks up.
• 43:16
  Like I start breathing really hard and like my every every
• 43:23
  hair on my neck and what I have left on the top of my head is
• 43:27
  standing on end. And it's this.
• 43:30
  We like human intuition is like a fascinating and weird emotion
• 43:36
  because you know something is wrong, but you have 0 evidence.
• 43:41
  You have the square root of Jack shit to tell you why something
• 43:45
  is wrong. And so I stood there for about
• 43:48
  two minutes and I'm like, something's going to happen in
• 43:51
  this wash. I don't know what it is.
• 43:53
  I don't know what's going on, but I was like, fuck.
• 43:57
  So I have my walking sticks because I'm fucking old.
• 44:01
  And I put him in my left hand because I did want to drop my
• 44:05
  pack and just put him in my pack because that could open you up
• 44:08
  to like, you know, fucking around with your pack.
• 44:10
  And then something comes up and kills you.
• 44:12
  So I put him in my left hand and I pull up.
• 44:14
  I pulled out my pistol. And so I finally like work up
• 44:19
  the courage to step into this wash.
• 44:21
  And again, the walls are 25 to 30 feet high, vertical, and the
• 44:28
  wash is about 30 feet wide. And so I'm walking down this
• 44:34
  wash and I'm checking everything and I get to the middle of this
• 44:38
  this wash and I look forward, left, back, left, forward.
• 44:44
  And I look right and it's a two pair of eyes at the very top of
• 44:49
  the wall of the watch and. Like here's your rose got to
• 44:54
  come back U. So he's just like off to the
• 44:57
  side. Off to the side on the top of
• 44:59
  the wall of the wash so there's nowhere to go.
• 45:02
  Simba like, like The Lion King, Like what Scar?
• 45:05
  Like about to let the dad down. If you climb up that scars just
• 45:09
  get your ass right back down. Yeah, no, I wouldn't have walked
• 45:12
  up. I would have hunkered right
• 45:13
  down. And if you think the eyes are
• 45:15
  big when they're 300 yards away, they're like 2 mag lights just
• 45:20
  staring at you. And I saw the triangle ears,
• 45:25
  that's all I could see the eyes and the triangle ears.
• 45:28
  And I, I stopped and I said audibly ha, gotcha bitch.
• 45:34
  And like all it was very weird because I was, I was like
• 45:39
  shaking walking down that wash and like breathing really heavy.
• 45:44
  And as soon as I saw that pair of eyes, like, I almost relaxed
• 45:47
  because it's it, because now you know.
• 45:50
  Where the? I know what's going on.
• 45:52
  I felt like I had the upper hand because it's going to have to
• 45:56
  get down a course could have jumped, you know, and, and on
• 45:59
  top of me. But at least, yeah, at least I
• 46:02
  have my at least I have my pistol in my hand and it's going
• 46:06
  to have to fly 30 feet to get to me.
• 46:09
  OK, so I, so we're at a, we're at a Mexican standoff right now,
• 46:16
  but I'm staring at it. It stared at me.
• 46:19
  So I, I'm, I'm trying to figure out what to do because I see the
• 46:24
  ears, but at the same time I'm like, I want to make sure that
• 46:28
  this is not a deer or like a bobcat or something like that or
• 46:33
  something else. So I'm staring at it and it's
• 46:36
  staring at me unmoving, unblinking, just eyes straight
• 46:40
  locked on me, squared up. OK, it's squared up to me.
• 46:46
  So I, I was standing there trying to figure out what to do.
• 46:51
  And so I was like, OK, we got to do something here.
• 46:55
  I've got my gun out ready to go. So I feel pretty, I feel pretty
• 47:02
  confident about this. I so I, I wanted to make sure
• 47:06
  that this is not a mount, that this is a Mountain Lion, because
• 47:09
  in the area that I'm in, you are not allowed to kill mountain
• 47:12
  lions. There's no tags, there's no
• 47:15
  anything like that. I assume that if you are
• 47:19
  attacked by a Mountain Lion and you end up killing it that they
• 47:24
  will understand. But at the same time you don't
• 47:27
  want to get back and report that you killed a Mountain Lion and
• 47:30
  they say, oh thanks, here is your $25,000 fine and please
• 47:36
  report to the nearest federal pound me in the ass prison at
• 47:39
  your at your at your closest convenience.
• 47:42
  You know so. Yeah, unless you're in areas
• 47:47
  where, like California, for example, it's been illegal to
• 47:50
  shoot mountain lions or hunt them since like the early to mid
• 47:54
  90s. However, if you're hunting and
• 47:56
  you're in like danger, like you could die, then the you know,
• 48:03
  you're allowed to protect yourself.
• 48:04
  Yeah, but you can't just shoot one because you see it and
• 48:07
  you'll be or else you get all the stuff you just talked about.
• 48:10
  But. For example, you can't because
• 48:11
  that's where it gets questioned like were you in danger?
• 48:13
  You can't then take the Mountain Lion home mounted.
• 48:17
  Oh, no, no, no, definitely no. Usually you would call Fish and
• 48:20
  Game and they're going to harvest that animal themselves.
• 48:23
  If it's, it's right there to be found like you won't go home
• 48:25
  with. It.
• 48:26
  No, no. Correct.
• 48:27
  Yeah. It's just protecting yourself
• 48:29
  from death or harm. But yeah, you, you if he charged
• 48:33
  you, by all means, you're allowed to shoot him if he's
• 48:36
  coming at you. Yeah, you know, so.
• 48:38
  I would have dumped the. Man, and I'm sure but well, and
• 48:40
  you're, you're legally allowed to if your, if your life is in
• 48:43
  danger, for sure, like you're allowed to protect.
• 48:46
  Same with Grizzlies in states. Like you know, you can do that.
• 48:49
  You can do that. But yeah, to your point, you're
• 48:52
  like, he's not, I am not in danger by this cat right here.
• 48:56
  So you're just got to. Well.
• 48:58
  At that point. I, I was it's, it's weird
• 49:05
  because you're technically correct, but I will show you the
• 49:12
  map later and you'll know exactly what he was trying to
• 49:16
  do. Or she, whatever it was you,
• 49:19
  you'll know exactly what it was trying to do.
• 49:23
  So I'm so I'm, I'm standing there, I'm, I'm staring at it,
• 49:27
  it's staring at me. And off to my left, I see a
• 49:31
  little knob in, in the wash wall that it like pokes, pokes up.
• 49:37
  So I'm like, OK, if I keep walking, if I start to walk down
• 49:42
  the wash and it gets to this knob, it's either going to have
• 49:45
  to go on top of the knob to go over, in which case I'm going to
• 49:48
  see its entire body, or it's going to have to go around it
• 49:52
  and then reappear. If it reappears, it is 100%
• 49:57
  without a doubt a Mountain Lion that is hunting me.
• 50:01
  OK, So I'm like, OK, so I have my pistol out.
• 50:05
  I have my walking sticks in my left hand.
• 50:07
  I don't know why I didn't just drop those.
• 50:09
  But so I start walking and I'm, I'm keeping my headlight at at
• 50:16
  the eyes. And the second I start walking,
• 50:19
  it moves with me squared up. The it's, it's like the eyes are
• 50:23
  hovering. OK.
• 50:25
  And so it I make it, I force it to get to the knob and the eyes
• 50:31
  just disappear. And I'm like, OK, fuck.
• 50:35
  So I look on the other side of the knob and about 6 feet on the
• 50:38
  other side of the knob, they just reappear.
• 50:40
  And I'm like, fuck this. We're not playing this game
• 50:44
  today. And so you know how yes, it, it,
• 50:48
  it is very much so. And it was, it was it was
• 50:51
  stalking me so that I at the end of this wash, I have to go right
• 50:58
  and there's AI have to go right. And it's almost like a staircase
• 51:02
  where you go up, but there's like a wall on the other side
• 51:06
  where it was going to, it was going to ambush me at that
• 51:10
  point. So I'm like, fuck this.
• 51:13
  We're not playing this game tonight.
• 51:15
  So you know how when you hear about these stories about how
• 51:20
  people like get ambushed, ambushed by a grizzly bear in a
• 51:24
  Mountain Lion and they just end up shouting shit and like after
• 51:29
  the fact, they're like, why the fuck did I say that?
• 51:31
  That was so dumb. Well, I had one of those moments
• 51:35
  because I was like when I said like, we're not playing this
• 51:39
  game. I just like pointed my gun at
• 51:41
  the wash wall, like right below it.
• 51:44
  And I was like, come get some pussy bitch.
• 51:47
  I popped off around. Oh my God.
• 51:52
  So many normal things you can say, but your mind is not ready
• 51:55
  to say anything normal in the moment.
• 51:58
  I just said some fake tough guy bullshit and popped off around
• 52:02
  and the eyes just disappeared. And like, dude, the, the echo
• 52:06
  lasted for a minute in that, in that Canyon and the eyes just
• 52:10
  disappeared. And I was like, OK, we're good.
• 52:13
  I was like, why the fuck did you say that?
• 52:15
  Why didn't you just shoot at it? I just, yeah, I just blurted it
• 52:18
  out. And so I so I'm like, OK, I keep
• 52:23
  my gun out. And so I, I walk along and, and
• 52:26
  take the right and I'm looking up behind me, all that shit.
• 52:30
  But I did not see the pair of eyes again.
• 52:34
  But the entire time I was, I was, I was really freaked out
• 52:40
  walking back. It was, it was only when I saw
• 52:42
  it, saw the eyes and the ears, did I kind of like relax.
• 52:46
  And then after that, it's the specter of the unknowing that
• 52:50
  really freaks you out. But I, I reported it later and
• 52:58
  they never called me back. Arizona Game Fish never called
• 53:00
  me back. Well, couple couple quick
• 53:03
  clarifications for any any folks listening with their legal books
• 53:08
  out. Obviously you didn't shoot at
• 53:10
  the lion. You.
• 53:11
  No, I mean. Near it, Yeah.
• 53:12
  So you shot near it, scared off. And then also in your story,
• 53:17
  when you yelled you're lying to the lion, did you?
• 53:20
  Did you hold the pistols? I did noise.
• 53:22
  I did not OK, I held I would. Have loved it.
• 53:25
  If you shot it sightly I would have just some, you know.
• 53:30
  No, because that would have been a kill shot man.
• 53:31
  No, you got to hold the sideway point below him.
• 53:33
  I would have loved it some Malibu's most wanted baby, you
• 53:37
  know, That would have been gold. But that's a good story.
• 53:40
  That's a good story, and it's a good learning story.
• 53:43
  And I think you handled it quite well.
• 53:45
  I think you knew what was happening.
• 53:47
  Yeah, he did. I I wouldn't say you handle them
• 53:50
  as smartly. Oh, I disagree, baby.
• 53:53
  I disagree, baby. Yes, I'm going to go slam my
• 53:57
  pants. On my 1 only encounter I have
• 54:01
  seen two now in the wild but the second one was from very very
• 54:05
  far away. I was probably we were glass and
• 54:10
  they at least 1/2 mile, if not a mile away.
• 54:15
  And James was like, that looks really, really big.
• 54:21
  That does not look like a deer. And we were looking at some deer
• 54:26
  and I pan over and like, tell me like subscribe Blair.
• 54:29
  And then sure shit, it's it's Mountain Lion and it was
• 54:33
  probably 100 yards from these deer and like that Mountain Lion
• 54:36
  stalking those deer. So that's the only one I've seen
• 54:39
  through glass. But this time we were in Utah
• 54:43
  and we're out there still hunting around, and nobody ever
• 54:50
  really mentioned to me before like the thought of mountain
• 54:55
  lions. Predator.
• 54:57
  You've actually seen 3 lions, I just realized.
• 54:59
  When was the third one? Oh, the little tiny baby one
• 55:02
  running down the road. Yeah, that one was cute as a
• 55:05
  little baby. His mom was probably somewhere
• 55:07
  and it was running to get to mom.
• 55:09
  Wait, wait, whoa, whoa. Hold on.
• 55:10
  Hold on. Hold on.
• 55:11
  Hold on. Everybody.
• 55:12
  Hold on. Call one.
• 55:17
  Yeah, you got you got some. This is why I can't keep
• 55:21
  anything nice. No rubs, that's for sure.
• 55:24
  But anyways, so yeah, I've seen three actually, but one where
• 55:29
  we're out there and we're walking and we just come up this
• 55:33
  this hill mountain and just right there all of a sudden,
• 55:40
  James, I stop. It's not exactly what happened.
• 55:44
  So we, there were these her, she, she just forgot a little
• 55:49
  part. So there's these like stair
• 55:51
  step, like from old logging roads right there, steep and
• 55:54
  then flat, steep and flat. So we worked up and we actually
• 55:57
  spooked a bowl, right? We spooked this little bowl.
• 55:59
  Couldn't get a shot. And we were on one of these
• 56:02
  shelves walking the direction the Bullhead ran, which was also
• 56:05
  the direction we had to go to get to camp.
• 56:07
  But we're walking the one of the flat benches and it's got, you
• 56:09
  know, dead fall and, and stuff. So we, we had it, we had been on
• 56:13
  that flat for a little while and we, we came around like a bend
• 56:18
  in the logging road and, and that's when we saw it so.
• 56:22
  Yeah, so perched. I call it perched because that's
• 56:26
  what it is. On top of a boulder.
• 56:30
  Is this fucking cat? Yep.
• 56:33
  And. It was.
• 56:33
  I see. It's funny.
• 56:35
  Not a good description for this animal.
• 56:39
  Because it is legit. That's the reason they're called
• 56:41
  mountain lions, because they are the size of fucking lions.
• 56:46
  Like their heads are fucking 14 LB bowling balls.
• 56:51
  Their eyes are like this big. They're like a marble.
• 56:55
  Does not my my eyes a marble. This animal's eye is a fucking
• 56:59
  tennis ball. Lot of fucking mag like lot of
• 57:01
  F. Words in this pod definitely the
• 57:03
  most. But so James is out in front of
• 57:05
  me and it was that is the way to describe it.
• 57:07
  Like we rounded like whatever it was on the on the road, the
• 57:11
  thing there was a log down and we walked around it and so Jane
• 57:15
  saw it before me and like he to whatever he tells me and he
• 57:22
  might may I think the first words out of his mouth were
• 57:25
  Mountain Lion. And I like look to where he's
• 57:30
  looking like Oh my fuck. And we do 2 very different
• 57:33
  things in that moment. We both have bows.
• 57:39
  James reaches for his camera. I immediately like this is
• 57:46
  simultaneous. I reach for the only weapon I
• 57:50
  have, an arrow out of my Cliff. I'm like, what the fuck?
• 57:55
  And he's just like this with the camera.
• 57:59
  And I'm just like, and luckily this cat does not stick around
• 58:04
  like second, he says Mountain Lion and gets the camera up.
• 58:06
  So we got a very short clip of it jumping off the boulder and
• 58:09
  running away. And it runs, you know, it jumps
• 58:12
  down as in toward our direction and then turns and skirts
• 58:15
  straight away from us down this logging road.
• 58:20
  And I'm just like, that was the only way.
• 58:26
  Like, my thoughts, like going through my head were like, in
• 58:29
  that moment, the only thing I had was a fucking bow and arrow.
• 58:33
  And like, you feel so confident going hunting with a bow and
• 58:36
  arrow until you're in that situation.
• 58:38
  And you were like, what was I going to do?
• 58:42
  Like, drop my bow and hope that I just aimed enough to like, put
• 58:46
  the arrow somewhere in that animal.
• 58:49
  Made me realize that, like, I would love to have, you know, a
• 58:53
  small gun to take with me in cases like that because I feel
• 58:56
  very confident until I'm not confident to go out by myself.
• 59:01
  And so I think it was like even the next morning I got up late
• 59:06
  and one morning I got up late and I did not, I would not walk
• 59:09
  to my stand until there was Gray light.
• 59:12
  And then the next whatever morning wasn't like
• 59:14
  consecutively, but the next time I did it, I just didn't even go
• 59:19
  to my stand. I just took the truck down the
• 59:21
  road and glassed from the top of the like flat of the mountain we
• 59:25
  were camping on and glassed from there.
• 59:29
  I was like, no, not not walking to the stand by myself today
• 59:32
  because my stand was before James's.
• 59:34
  So he would he was always there until I reached my stand and
• 59:36
  then he kept going so I never had to walk by myself.
• 59:40
  And it was just like an eye opener to the experience.
• 59:42
  But so to the story, there is like, you react like your body
• 59:49
  reacts and knows what to do to protect yourself in the moment.
• 59:52
  Like, I'm not, I wouldn't say I was calm, but like I did
• 59:57
  whatever I needed to do to protect myself.
• 1:00:00
  But then the animal disappears and you're on freaking high
• 1:00:04
  alert. This one, it's just like, all
• 1:00:07
  right, we're going to go in that direction.
• 1:00:09
  And I look at him like the direction the Mountain Lion, why
• 1:00:12
  he's like, yeah. So just, you know, like be
• 1:00:14
  looking around, keep your head on a swivel.
• 1:00:15
  I'm like. Well, we, we had to because it
• 1:00:20
  was the direction of camp. We needed to go to camp.
• 1:00:23
  But I, I find that it's funny hearing these stories right,
• 1:00:27
  because I think cats, especially when it's your first experience
• 1:00:31
  with one that close, it's like you remember it like in certain
• 1:00:35
  ways, because I would tell the story so much different than
• 1:00:38
  than Brianna, a little bit like the cat, for example, was not on
• 1:00:42
  a boulder. He was on flat ground on the
• 1:00:44
  same he was on the same path as us, facing a sewer, walking
• 1:00:48
  basically a little goat path on the logging.
• 1:00:51
  You have to look at the class. See, This is why I got.
• 1:00:53
  This. Well, no, see, here's why it's
• 1:00:56
  fun 'cause I remember it vividly, right?
• 1:00:58
  But it was funny because we come around the corner like she said,
• 1:01:00
  and there was a down log. So right over top the log, I see
• 1:01:05
  A basketball size head. Yeah, right.
• 1:01:07
  Looking at me like this. And I knew right away what it
• 1:01:09
  was. And she didn't say the distance.
• 1:01:10
  It was like 20 yards. It was very close, right.
• 1:01:12
  So he's facing us and we're facing him on the an eye level.
• 1:01:16
  So he's lower than me because obviously I'm taller.
• 1:01:19
  But we're on the same path. And I remember when I saw the
• 1:01:23
  cat, I go, there's a Mountain Lion.
• 1:01:27
  She goes, what? I go, what?
• 1:01:30
  I go, there's a Mountain Lion right there.
• 1:01:33
  And I had seen him and I had this weird moment as like I've
• 1:01:38
  seen, like I said, now that we mentioned it, I forgot about
• 1:01:40
  that one cat we glassed up last year.
• 1:01:42
  I've probably seen closer to 10, maybe 10 in my life.
• 1:01:46
  But this was the first time I'd seen one.
• 1:01:48
  I've seen some closer maybe once, but they were running
• 1:01:50
  away. This one was just standing on
• 1:01:52
  the same path facing us, walk in our direction.
• 1:01:55
  But I remember I saw him and my mind just went, all right, I see
• 1:02:01
  him. He's looking right at me, but I
• 1:02:03
  can tell that he's not like we surprised each other right here.
• 1:02:07
  I guarantee in his head. Like it was the weirdest thing.
• 1:02:10
  I just had such a connection to him.
• 1:02:12
  Like before I think I even told her I was like, I feel like holy
• 1:02:16
  shit there's a Mountain Lion and he is thinking holy shit there's
• 1:02:20
  a human. Yeah, that's like, you just
• 1:02:21
  walked around a corner and you're just like, what the fuck?
• 1:02:24
  Exactly, that's how I felt and I go, he's not going to attack us.
• 1:02:27
  I could just tell he wasn't. So then I that's why I went for
• 1:02:30
  the camera, because I wasn't in, I didn't feel like he was
• 1:02:34
  seconds away from charging me. And and and then he turned
• 1:02:37
  around and ran down the logging road.
• 1:02:41
  And Brianna's right, I go, all right, we're going to keep
• 1:02:45
  going. She goes, well, he just ran the
• 1:02:47
  same path. And I said, yeah, you know,
• 1:02:49
  we're going to we're going to watch for it, right?
• 1:02:51
  And dude, here's where it gets really funny, right?
• 1:02:53
  Do you want to tell this part or you want me to tell it?
• 1:02:56
  No, I'll tell it. So we're going and he, you know,
• 1:02:59
  he tells me keep my head on the swivel and whatnot.
• 1:03:01
  And I'm now my adrenaline just it's spiked.
• 1:03:05
  My heart is still beating quickly and we don't go more
• 1:03:10
  than like 70 yards. And you just hear like I'm like
• 1:03:16
  a fucking, I thought I had a heart attack.
• 1:03:19
  Fucking skunk. No, you skipped.
• 1:03:22
  You skipped apart. She skipped apart and it also
• 1:03:27
  wasn't a skunk. There was a skunk, remember?
• 1:03:31
  I wanted to shoot it. You went up, you filmed it and.
• 1:03:32
  Everything that was a porcupine. It was a porcupine.
• 1:03:35
  I'm sorry. And you skipped the.
• 1:03:37
  She skipped the funniest. No, I'm getting to that part,
• 1:03:39
  believe me. TMI will be here in a moment,
• 1:03:41
  guys. So it's a porcupine.
• 1:03:44
  We get up close to it and film it and.
• 1:03:47
  Not the part you're saying you're skipping another part.
• 1:03:50
  I know the part you're talking about, but here's where it gets
• 1:03:52
  really funny. So prior to the porcupine, we
• 1:03:56
  start walking and in Utah, high country Utah, yeah, that was
• 1:04:01
  pride. That was before.
• 1:04:02
  That was before the porcupine. No, because I thought that's
• 1:04:06
  what leads me to the TMR. This is why eyewitness testimony
• 1:04:09
  is the. Least see I I know for a fact I
• 1:04:12
  know I. Know one came before the other,
• 1:04:15
  so we'll say OK, the pork pork pine came after.
• 1:04:18
  In high country Utah, there are these lovely birds called
• 1:04:25
  grouse, which is why your bird story had me laughing.
• 1:04:30
  Grouse are fucking loud, so loud when they take off.
• 1:04:34
  It's like when a Turkey like flies down from the roost.
• 1:04:38
  You would think these birds don't fly anywhere as loud as
• 1:04:41
  they are to have to flap their wings to go.
• 1:04:43
  And they're they're big birds are like chickens, you know the
• 1:04:47
  size of chickens. And so their wings are hitting
• 1:04:50
  everything under the sun when they're up in trees and a
• 1:04:53
  fucking flock of grouse go to take off and it's just like,
• 1:04:57
  it's nuts. I freaked.
• 1:05:00
  The IT was it was actually just one grouse.
• 1:05:02
  It might be 1 grouse but they sound very loud and I freaked
• 1:05:06
  out and so then comes the like. Now I fucking have encountered a
• 1:05:10
  God damn Mountain Lion. The grouse scared me.
• 1:05:15
  When it rains, it pours, Yeah. And.
• 1:05:18
  Then comes the freaking porcupine.
• 1:05:20
  The porcupine was when the. Porcupine was after because we
• 1:05:23
  stayed a while to watch the porcupine.
• 1:05:25
  You're correct, the porcupine was after like I said, so we
• 1:05:27
  came across the grouse. But here's the here's the funny
• 1:05:29
  part, right? So the grouse, they are loud and
• 1:05:32
  it definitely made, you know, even me flinch a little and I
• 1:05:35
  go, OK, this is just a grouse. But then we keep going.
• 1:05:38
  And when I really flinched was I'm walking the trail and I hear
• 1:05:43
  something in a Bush, like from here to that tripod, you're
• 1:05:46
  talking like 5-6 feet. I hear like the bushes flinch
• 1:05:50
  really hard. And that's when I'm like, oh
• 1:05:51
  boy, this is it. He's going to dart out of the
• 1:05:54
  Bush, right? And then I see a friggin huge
• 1:05:56
  porcupine working. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you know,
• 1:05:59
  and, and we watch the porcupine for a while.
• 1:06:02
  And then here's Brianna's, the park she'd been working up to.
• 1:06:06
  So Needless to say my anxiety has now shot through the roof so
• 1:06:11
  bad that these animals I could take it no longer.
• 1:06:16
  They have literally scared the shit out of me.
• 1:06:21
  I told James as a James just stay I can't, I can't I'm going
• 1:06:26
  to shit my pants. I booked it about 20 feet from
• 1:06:31
  him and just dropped all layers of clothes and immediately shit
• 1:06:36
  my pants. I, I couldn't hold it any
• 1:06:40
  fucking longer. They had scared the absolute
• 1:06:43
  shit out of me. And if I had, if one more animal
• 1:06:47
  had crossed my path like we're waiting for elk, which is what
• 1:06:51
  we're still trying to still hunt toward camp for.
• 1:06:54
  I was like, I cannot because if I see another and if I see an
• 1:06:57
  elk, I'm going to shit myself. I am going to shit my pants.
• 1:07:02
  I got to get rid of this now or I will not be able to still hunt
• 1:07:05
  back to camp. Like, I can do it.
• 1:07:08
  So James is literally like, this is probably where we were
• 1:07:12
  probably two years in now, but like we hadn't reached quite
• 1:07:16
  this comfort level yet. But I was like, just say I
• 1:07:19
  didn't care how many bushes were blocking me if they were or if
• 1:07:22
  they weren't, just keep your head turned because I have got
• 1:07:25
  to go shit right now. Babe, you're going to see some
• 1:07:28
  things that you're not going to want to see later.
• 1:07:30
  Now we've. Gotten much more comfortable.
• 1:07:32
  Me not as much as James. I'll still choose to put bushes
• 1:07:36
  in my path, some trees and some distance.
• 1:07:39
  There's been to the points where like we've had, I mean this,
• 1:07:43
  this elk hunt for Ted, for example, like 6 feet.
• 1:07:48
  Wow, sometimes it creeps up on me.
• 1:07:50
  You know, and there's no like he could have chosen to go behind
• 1:07:54
  the Bush that he choose that he chose instead, he shits right in
• 1:07:58
  front of the Bush like me Bush him.
• 1:08:01
  I'm like, you could just went around that like it's a soul
• 1:08:04
  Bush, a bushy tree. You didn't have to walk aways to
• 1:08:07
  get around it like you just and bed around the other side of the
• 1:08:11
  Bush, but instead you shat and had a conversation with me at
• 1:08:14
  the same. Yeah, dude, I think that's might
• 1:08:16
  be the difference between men and women because the women are
• 1:08:18
  just like, I want somewhere safe and men are just like, well, if
• 1:08:22
  there's anybody around here with binoculars, they're going to get
• 1:08:24
  a show. I to get to the point where
• 1:08:27
  maybe I'm under the Bush or like go under the juniper where
• 1:08:30
  someone's glassing. They're not going to glass me
• 1:08:32
  taking a shit, James, just like it's like I got to go like and
• 1:08:37
  it's that bad. And then like now we're at the
• 1:08:39
  point we're just having conversations while he's
• 1:08:41
  shitting 6 feet from me or the unit we're about to go and, and,
• 1:08:48
  and where we're going. Remember that, that that's the
• 1:08:52
  first time you'd ever been, I think that comfortable where the
• 1:08:56
  unit you want to go to and we it was just me and you out there
• 1:09:00
  and we hike up in the dark. It's still not Gray light yet.
• 1:09:06
  And he's like, I've, I've got to go.
• 1:09:12
  So he turns around and just goes back from which we came, but
• 1:09:16
  only like 20 feet. And we're at the top of like a
• 1:09:19
  ridgeline. And so the wind is still coming
• 1:09:25
  up the mountain. He lets this sucker go.
• 1:09:30
  And I'm 25. I'm like.
• 1:09:35
  Jeez. Lofted with the scent of his
• 1:09:39
  shit as it's coming out. Oh yeah, that's the booze in the
• 1:09:43
  Curry from last night. Breathe it in.
• 1:09:46
  So just bask in it. I was like, you could just like
• 1:09:50
  go in the other direction from the window.
• 1:09:52
  Nothing would have saved me. It was all coming up the hill at
• 1:09:54
  this point, but it was mouthfuls.
• 1:09:58
  But anyways, that's what they like.
• 1:10:00
  The it's the unknown that really just gets your gut going.
• 1:10:07
  And so now after these few experiences, I have a little
• 1:10:10
  more trouble because I see see people post Valentine's like who
• 1:10:14
  has a problem walking in the dark?
• 1:10:16
  You know, you know, to their tree stand or, or you know, to
• 1:10:20
  get to a glassing point or whatever.
• 1:10:22
  I'm like, I don't think you've had an encounter yet, You know,
• 1:10:26
  for you to feel so safe walking in the dark because once you
• 1:10:29
  have the encounters, you're on much more high alert when you're
• 1:10:33
  walking in the dark, especially when you're in an area that has
• 1:10:37
  predators, like walk into your tree, stand in Illinois, like
• 1:10:42
  what's coming after you? Nothing.
• 1:10:45
  The Groundhog. You know, I don't know, I've
• 1:10:49
  always been pretty comfortable walking in the dark, even after
• 1:10:52
  some sketchy experiences, but I think that it's really weird.
• 1:10:56
  I'm not, I'm not like super. I mean, if I saw it in in my
• 1:10:59
  face, like I was, you know, had a crazy car crash and the lights
• 1:11:03
  are going out, I'm sure I'd be scared to die.
• 1:11:05
  But I'm really not that scared to death.
• 1:11:07
  So like I've almost been struck by lightning twice, come across
• 1:11:10
  lions, come across bears, all sorts of stuff.
• 1:11:12
  I never, I still walk through the dark.
• 1:11:15
  I don't know what it is. It's just like something in my
• 1:11:17
  head where I'm like, if it happens, it happens.
• 1:11:19
  If I'm out hunting, it is what it is.
• 1:11:20
  I and I don't say that to sound hard.
• 1:11:23
  That's just like generally genuinely how I feel.
• 1:11:28
  But I always say too, like one of the things that I think has
• 1:11:31
  led to so much of my hunting success in life, and it sounds
• 1:11:34
  like a joke, but it's it's real, is like, I think you can gain so
• 1:11:39
  much, so many opportunities hunting if you're not scared of
• 1:11:42
  the dark. I tell, I tell people that all
• 1:11:44
  the time. I'm like, I think a ton of my
• 1:11:46
  success is that I've walked into stands or whatever miles deep in
• 1:11:52
  grizzly country, 2 hours in the dark.
• 1:11:55
  You know what I'm saying? And but and out in the dark, cuz
• 1:11:57
  I like you, I'm not leaving in Gray light.
• 1:12:00
  I'm staying till it's over and then I'm hiking like 3 miles
• 1:12:03
  back to camp or what have you. Lightning is the ones that are
• 1:12:07
  like for me have been the scariest is the two times I've
• 1:12:10
  almost been hit by lightning. When I say almost less than 100
• 1:12:14
  yards from trees getting blown up, that is a different type of
• 1:12:18
  I can't even describe what that's like.
• 1:12:21
  That is to me scarier than coming across a lion for sure
• 1:12:25
  because you can't control it and you can't control a lion either.
• 1:12:28
  But maybe you could see it coming or work around it.
• 1:12:31
  Same with a grizzly maybe. But lightning bro comes out of
• 1:12:35
  nowhere. You.
• 1:12:36
  Can't scare the lightning. No, an animal has its own mind
• 1:12:39
  and its own self preservation, so you know.
• 1:12:42
  It's more random. They can.
• 1:12:44
  Choose to run away. The lighting is not going to
• 1:12:46
  stop and turn and go the other direction.
• 1:12:48
  Right where where lightning is is is pretty gnarly and then the
• 1:12:51
  other most scary like this is not good hunting moment that
• 1:12:58
  I've had was getting I. Can't hold it in any longer.
• 1:13:02
  You got a piss or what? We're we're basically done with
• 1:13:05
  this spot anyways. I have what I have like one more
• 1:13:08
  thought about my experience. OK, and then this, this battery
• 1:13:11
  going to die. So anyways, guys, we want to say
• 1:13:13
  real quick, thank you for listening.
• 1:13:15
  Be sure to support all our sponsors.
• 1:13:18
  Subscribe to the YouTube podcast 5 stars Apple Spotify Code Team
• 1:13:23
  BD on badlandsgear.com saves you 20%.
• 1:13:29
  I will say briefly too, since we're kind of talking about fear
• 1:13:32
  while hunting, the most scared I ever think I've I've been was
• 1:13:36
  probably the two lightning strikes.
• 1:13:38
  But then #3 would be one time I was hunting very rural Montana
• 1:13:45
  deep snow. I hiked down into this deep
• 1:13:48
  Canyon trail in this bowl through fresh snow.
• 1:13:52
  And I get down there and like David described, I mean, I end
• 1:13:55
  up in this deep, deep, deep Canyon, all vertical walls.
• 1:13:59
  And by this point I keep walking down and it it it's getting
• 1:14:02
  darker and darker and darker and darker.
• 1:14:05
  And in my head I thought that this Canyon was leading me
• 1:14:10
  toward this road that I could walk back.
• 1:14:12
  And this was pre Onyx and we had Garmin new VGP S S and I hike
• 1:14:23
  down there and it's about this point black, you know?
• 1:14:28
  And I'm like, OK, it should be fine.
• 1:14:30
  But I was like, is it like, I hope I'm right in my navigation
• 1:14:35
  here? And I turn on the Garmin and
• 1:14:36
  hold it like this and I'm waiting for it took him a long
• 1:14:39
  time to boot up back then. And it has to find the
• 1:14:42
  satellites to tell you. And it's like, can't read
• 1:14:47
  satellites. It's because I was too deep in
• 1:14:49
  this hole. And I'm like, OK, shoot.
• 1:14:52
  So I'm freaking out a little bit.
• 1:14:53
  This is grizzly country. It's lion country.
• 1:14:55
  This is like, and it's snowing. It's cold as shit.
• 1:14:59
  I walk more towards the middle. Finally I get a signal and I'm
• 1:15:03
  thinking it's going to say like, this is the direction I need to
• 1:15:06
  go down this Canyon and it won't be a big deal.
• 1:15:11
  It populates in the arrows like you got to go 4 miles this way
• 1:15:17
  back and up. And I'm like, OK, this isn't
• 1:15:21
  super great, you know? So I'm climb this wall sketchy
• 1:15:26
  get out and takes me like hours in the dark hours to get back to
• 1:15:31
  camp. And I finally get back to or
• 1:15:34
  actually to the truck. Get to the truck and I'm like,
• 1:15:36
  dude, my dad's going to be terrified.
• 1:15:38
  Bro. I've been gone for so long in
• 1:15:41
  the dark. I get back to the truck and he's
• 1:15:45
  not there yet. So I'm like, oh God, now I'm
• 1:15:49
  terrified, right? And so I end up I'm like, what
• 1:15:54
  do I do? I guess I just stay here.
• 1:15:55
  So I'm sitting in the truck. I'm like, I'm not sure.
• 1:15:58
  Like it's it had been another hour.
• 1:16:00
  He's still not there. So I decided to start driving
• 1:16:03
  the road back and forth. There's nobody out here.
• 1:16:05
  So I just started driving back and forth.
• 1:16:07
  And what do you know, there's the humble popper walking down
• 1:16:09
  the road, you know, And we both were like, dude, I got a night
• 1:16:13
  to tell you you about. We both, we both got lost on the
• 1:16:17
  same night hunting separately. And I was, dude, I was terrified
• 1:16:21
  for myself. And then for him.
• 1:16:22
  It was just this like old thing. But we are so blessed nowadays
• 1:16:28
  to have such good GPSS, such good watches, such good phones.
• 1:16:35
  It wasn't like that then and that wasn't even that long ago.
• 1:16:38
  So we're so much more blessed now with the technology we have
• 1:16:42
  versus what we had then. And it's just really cool.
• 1:16:46
  I think hunters are definitely stuff can still happen.
• 1:16:48
  This year alone, you saw those two kids and, and I think, I
• 1:16:52
  think it might have been Utah or Colorado.
• 1:16:54
  I think it was Colorado get killed by a lightning strike.
• 1:16:57
  Another guy got killed by a lightning strike.
• 1:17:00
  It can still happen. Like, stuff like that can still
• 1:17:03
  happen, but we're in a safer spot now for sure than ever
• 1:17:07
  before. And that's really, really cool.
• 1:17:09
  And and it opens up your options to not be scared of the dark, to
• 1:17:13
  go push harder, push further, because that's what's going to
• 1:17:16
  make the difference a lot of times.
• 1:17:17
  But yeah, stuff can happen. Hunting, and I think that's kind
• 1:17:21
  of become the theme of this episode, is that if you're
• 1:17:24
  hunting, especially western stuff, big terrain, big animals,
• 1:17:30
  dangerous stuff, lightning storms that can roll up on you
• 1:17:34
  out of nowhere, what are you going to do?
• 1:17:35
  You're 5 miles deep. You know, hunting is dangerous.
• 1:17:40
  So make sure when you're out there, you know someone knows
• 1:17:42
  where you're at, you have communication with somebody
• 1:17:47
  because stuff can happen. And even if you're doing all the
• 1:17:51
  smart stuff, it can still happen.
• 1:17:54
  I mean it still. Happened the garment they've the
• 1:17:57
  garment in reach is what like 300 bucks and it has well, so S
• 1:18:00
  button. I mean it's it's worth the 300
• 1:18:02
  bucks. Just do it.
• 1:18:04
  Yeah, but but you had one more thing.
• 1:18:06
  We're going to run out of battery on this camera.
• 1:18:08
  So let's go ahead and bang it and we'll get this thing moving.
• 1:18:11
  But shout out to David 614 archery on on Instagram.
• 1:18:15
  He's a he's a good dude. He has a YouTube as well. 614
• 1:18:18
  archery and he helps a lot at the Yuma SW Bowhunters range.
• 1:18:23
  They put on some really good shoots.
• 1:18:24
  They have a big tournament coming the end of January.
• 1:18:27
  I think it's the 31st and the 1st if I'm not mistaken.
• 1:18:31
  I will be there competing. David will be there as well.
• 1:18:34
  So yeah, go, go check him out. Support that shoot and yeah,
• 1:18:38
  finish. Send us home here.
• 1:18:40
  I think the one the one thing I I I would have been way less
• 1:18:44
  nervous if I saw it during the day.
• 1:18:46
  It was dirt. All my encounters were during
• 1:18:48
  the night and you're up reading like Teddy Roosevelt's stories
• 1:18:53
  and then Lewis and Clark where they talk about monsters in in
• 1:18:59
  the woods and stuff like that. And then you go, that was
• 1:19:02
  mountain lions and bears and shit like that.
• 1:19:04
  Of course, they went all the way across the United States.
• 1:19:08
  I think the the creepiest thing, the thing that like kind of
• 1:19:12
  makes me the most uneasy about those encounters is it was not
• 1:19:17
  an encounter where I just came around the corner and we came
• 1:19:20
  face to face and we're like, oh shit.
• 1:19:23
  Like who makes the first move? If I showed you the map and I
• 1:19:28
  will show you the map of where I saw all of that shit, that was
• 1:19:33
  not a chance encounter. That thing patterned me over
• 1:19:37
  three nights, and that's the creepiest thing about it, where
• 1:19:42
  it wasn't just a happenstance occurrence.
• 1:19:46
  I took the same route out for the last three nights and it
• 1:19:53
  strategically placed itself on the first two nights where it
• 1:19:56
  could get a different. It's the patience of this thing
• 1:20:00
  where it strategically watched me from two different points and
• 1:20:03
  decided. Where the where my weakest point
• 1:20:08
  was going to be? Where the bottleneck was, and if
• 1:20:12
  I had not seen it, that thing could have killed me.
• 1:20:17
  But I almost felt safer with my pistol than like with my giant
• 1:20:22
  rifle. Because at that point, if it
• 1:20:24
  gets you down on the ground, I can just use it as a belly gun
• 1:20:28
  and just like just empty the mag into its.
• 1:20:31
  But I'm going to be fucked up. I'm going to have half a face at
• 1:20:34
  the end of the encounter, But I mean, that thing is much more
• 1:20:37
  maneuverable than a giant 7mm Remington Magnum.
• 1:20:40
  But that's, that's the like I, I went back and analyzed all of my
• 1:20:46
  and of course, like I've gotten to the point on, on X where I
• 1:20:49
  mark everything. I'll mark water, I'll mark
• 1:20:51
  tracks, I'll mark everything. So pin.
• 1:20:54
  Dropper. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:20:55
  But like, I went back and analyzed it that night and I was
• 1:20:59
  like, that guy was stalking me and it was patient and it
• 1:21:05
  figured out my the point where I was most vulnerable.
• 1:21:10
  And that was the creepiest thing about that encounter was was
• 1:21:15
  looking back on it and going, I know what you, I know what that
• 1:21:19
  thing was trying to do. I know exactly where it was
• 1:21:22
  going to. It was going to hit me.
• 1:21:24
  Yeah, that was the creepiest thing.
• 1:21:26
  Crazy, crazy. Well, hey, great story.
• 1:21:28
  Thank you again. We always appreciate having, you
• 1:21:31
  know, one of my favorite guests we have recurring.
• 1:21:33
  I think Brianna would say the same again. 614 Archery.
• 1:21:37
  Subscribe to the Motorcycles podcast, 5 stars, Apple and
• 1:21:42
  Spotify. Appreciate y'all.
• 1:21:44
  It's been a lot of fun. New episodes every Wednesday at
• 1:21:47
  6:00 AM Pacific and we appreciate you.
• 1:21:50
  We're going to keep them rolling.
• 1:21:52
  But yeah, be careful out there hunting.
• 1:21:54
  Know what you're doing, know the laws, have a sidearm if you can,
• 1:21:57
  bear spray whatever it might be and just don't.
• 1:22:01
  We try to do stuff as smart as we can.
• 1:22:03
  That's the biggest thing because it is dangerous when you're out
• 1:22:05
  in the middle of nowhere with no one close, no hospitals, no anti
• 1:22:08
  venom snakes. There's so much that could
• 1:22:11
  happen. So just be smart, be calculated
• 1:22:13
  and most importantly have fun in nature and try to get the job
• 1:22:17
  done baby while being safe. Yes.
• 1:22:21
  Thank you for watching, we'll see you in the next one.