Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 194: Summon the Squall
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: This is Me eat podcast coming at you shirtless, severely
- 0:13Speaker 1: bug bitten in my case, underwear listening podcast. You Can't
- 0:18Speaker 1: Predict Anything presented by on X Hunt creators are the
- 0:22Speaker 1: most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the Hunt
- 0:26Speaker 1: app from the iTunes or Google play store, nor where
- 0:29Speaker 1: you stand with on X. Okay, we'll get the introductions
- 0:35Speaker 1: in a minute, but I want to I guess I
- 0:37Speaker 1: want to ask you guys one thing first, because this
- 0:39Speaker 1: is the thing I always try to explain to people, Um,
- 0:44Speaker 1: what are the things as outfitters, as guides and you
- 0:49Speaker 1: guide mountain hunts? What things prevent people from realizing their dreams?
- 0:58Speaker 1: I'm talking about clients of the things that prevent clients
- 1:01Speaker 1: from realizing their dreams when they go on a guided
- 1:07Speaker 1: mountain hunt. Is it ger or like r Is it
- 1:15Speaker 1: that their boots don't fit right? You know? I I
- 1:21Speaker 1: think a lot of it there. We've taken a lot
- 1:23Speaker 1: of people really don't know how to hunt. Uh. I'll
- 1:27Speaker 1: be I'll say, well, let's go over here, and I
- 1:30Speaker 1: can hear them. They're they're talking loud there, They're they're
- 1:34Speaker 1: heavy with their feet on the ground. They don't sometimes
- 1:37Speaker 1: realize or sense the fact that that mere thudding through
- 1:42Speaker 1: the timber is something that animals pick up on very quickly.
- 1:49Speaker 1: And uh, in fact, I've I've done some experiment and
- 1:51Speaker 1: when I've trying been trying to make a stick or
- 1:53Speaker 1: a snake, I've taken sticks, and uh, with my walking,
- 2:00Speaker 1: I'll change up my rhythm of my walk so that
- 2:02Speaker 1: I'm not known as a man walk through the timber.
- 2:06Speaker 1: And I think it's it's been advantageous. But those are
- 2:09Speaker 1: things that I've observed from people that they don't know
- 2:14Speaker 1: how to hunt an animal, how to sneak on an animal,
- 2:16Speaker 1: and they just take for granted that maybe the outfit
- 2:19Speaker 1: is gonna just magically be able to beam one over
- 2:22Speaker 1: on the hill and they're gonna be able to shoot it.
- 2:24Speaker 1: And so there is it's a it's I think it's
- 2:26Speaker 1: a learned you know, I've had to tell hunters, you
- 2:29Speaker 1: guys have got a step more quiet, watch what you're
- 2:31Speaker 1: stepping on. Um, because if they if they're merely there
- 2:36Speaker 1: just to let you be their eyes, the whole experience
- 2:38Speaker 1: is really not a realize full hunting experience. I want
- 2:44Speaker 1: to get okay, go ahead, they land, and then we're
- 2:47Speaker 1: gonna do our intros. I just want to lead in
- 2:49Speaker 1: with the sizz Well. I was gonna say from my
- 2:53Speaker 1: my standpoint, one of the biggest challenges is a physical
- 2:56Speaker 1: capacity of the hunter. UM. Obviously at the elevation that
- 3:01Speaker 1: we hunt at, UM, guys coming from two thousand foot
- 3:04Speaker 1: of elevation, if they're in poor shape, poor condition, they struggle.
- 3:08Speaker 1: Obviously we hunt with horses, but to get them from
- 3:11Speaker 1: the horse to where we need to get the shop made,
- 3:14Speaker 1: sometimes that window closes before they can get in position.
- 3:18Speaker 1: They're huffing and puffing and out of breath because the hike,
- 3:22Speaker 1: you know that fifty ye hards away from the horse
- 3:23Speaker 1: just blew their doors off, and they struggle to get
- 3:28Speaker 1: their guns steady enough to be able to make a
- 3:31Speaker 1: good shot. So physical fitness, physical fitness, very important. Is shooting.
- 3:38Speaker 1: Is shooting ability up high on the list most definitely,
- 3:42Speaker 1: and knowing where your gun shoots, UM, and knowing obviously
- 3:46Speaker 1: the range that we shoot, you know, not we don't
- 3:49Speaker 1: like anything much over four fifty, you know, but we
- 3:53Speaker 1: want guys to feel comfortable with those longer ranges. UM.
- 3:56Speaker 1: And if they're coming from you know, the eastern side
- 3:58Speaker 1: of the state, sometimes those shots that they take aren't
- 4:03Speaker 1: necessarily they're not used to that long range shot and
- 4:07Speaker 1: so spending time behind the scope learning the timing of
- 4:11Speaker 1: the cross hairs, I'm getting that down is a key
- 4:13Speaker 1: part to being able to make a good shot. Uh.
- 4:17Speaker 1: My last comment before we do to our intros is, uh,
- 4:20Speaker 1: I'm speaking to well Landing and Stuart. Uh. My favorite
- 4:25Speaker 1: quote from the week was when Stewart was telling a
- 4:30Speaker 1: story about the second nicest bark he'd ever laid eyes on,
- 4:36Speaker 1: and the client took a shot and as he expressed it,
- 4:39Speaker 1: he said, and he didn't even spook it. Yes, hold on,
- 4:48Speaker 1: I'd like to find I'd like to find out since
- 4:50Speaker 1: you have to ask where shooting ability falls in in
- 4:54Speaker 1: the ranking, I'd like to know where a positive mental
- 4:58Speaker 1: attitude falls in in the the ranking, to you know, to
- 5:01Speaker 1: help someone's success, Like, is that high very important? Well,
- 5:05Speaker 1: there's no doubt it's important because I think and I've
- 5:10Speaker 1: hunted in a few other areas and uh, one of
- 5:15Speaker 1: the things is can be very discouraging to two people
- 5:18Speaker 1: are thinking we're spotting four hundred yards away across the
- 5:22Speaker 1: canyon or five. I don't know if I've got that
- 5:26Speaker 1: kind of ability, and so there's there is a mindset
- 5:29Speaker 1: that because a lot of our clients have been, like
- 5:32Speaker 1: Landing alluded to that they're shooting maybe a hundred yards
- 5:37Speaker 1: because that's what their terrain and and uh, you know,
- 5:42Speaker 1: the scrubbery and trees allow anything more than that, then
- 5:46Speaker 1: they don't see the animal. And so when they come
- 5:49Speaker 1: out here, they're kind of at awe at the fact
- 5:51Speaker 1: that they can see an animal for such a distance
- 5:54Speaker 1: and trying to close that gap mentally to think, you know,
- 5:58Speaker 1: there's a chance. And that's quite honestly, I believe that's
- 6:02Speaker 1: where some of the experience, you know, Landon's have been
- 6:05Speaker 1: dragging him up there since he was a four year
- 6:07Speaker 1: old boy. Um, I've been up there a little over
- 6:11Speaker 1: thirty years now, and it makes a difference when you
- 6:13Speaker 1: know the terrain, when you watch the behavior of animals
- 6:17Speaker 1: when they're under pressure, where they go, what they do, Um,
- 6:20Speaker 1: that's what that can That can help if if they
- 6:23Speaker 1: have confidence in the outfit ors from that perspective as well.
- 6:27Speaker 1: But the pausitive attitude, I mean, I've had guys that
- 6:31Speaker 1: when I got out there, they just thought this is
- 6:33Speaker 1: way too tough, it's way too physical. You know, I've
- 6:36Speaker 1: got the horse to deal with. You know, there's too
- 6:39Speaker 1: much Uh. How how long does it take for that
- 6:42Speaker 1: to creep in on someone? I think it depends on
- 6:47Speaker 1: a lot of the circumstances they come in contact with.
- 6:51Speaker 1: You know, if if they have a bad experience right
- 6:53Speaker 1: at the front of the hunt, you know, where a
- 6:55Speaker 1: horse spook him or has a tendency to intimidate them
- 6:59Speaker 1: because of us situation. I think we've seen guys it
- 7:03Speaker 1: impacts them to the point that they're nervous to get
- 7:06Speaker 1: on the horse. And there's been some guys that just
- 7:08Speaker 1: to throw the talent and said, hey, well we're done,
- 7:11Speaker 1: We're not hunting anymore, you know, we've got too much
- 7:13Speaker 1: to lose or whatever. Um and So I think there's
- 7:16Speaker 1: just a lot of things that can happen depending on
- 7:18Speaker 1: how strong they are when they come mentally, um, how
- 7:21Speaker 1: where their confidence level is and their ability physically um
- 7:26Speaker 1: and uh. And then you know that first day, what
- 7:29Speaker 1: they see, the excitement that's generated from the animals, and
- 7:32Speaker 1: there's a combination of things. I think they play into that.
- 7:36Speaker 1: Now let's go, well, um, I'm landing Peterson. I've been,
- 7:43Speaker 1: like my dad said, I've been with them going ever
- 7:45Speaker 1: since I was a four year old boy. UM. I
- 7:48Speaker 1: loved hunting from a just beginning, and I always I
- 7:53Speaker 1: would get left at home and I hated that. UM.
- 7:56Speaker 1: So when I had the opportunity at the age of
- 7:58Speaker 1: twelve to go on, you'll be able to go up
- 8:00Speaker 1: there when there weren't clients on your camp. So we
- 8:03Speaker 1: went up in the summertime, and that's when we would
- 8:05Speaker 1: do this, the fishing and stuff. But I wasn't allowed.
- 8:08Speaker 1: You know, I didn't get to go up when we
- 8:09Speaker 1: were doing a hunt because I was too small and
- 8:11Speaker 1: I didn't have the physical capacity to keep up. And
- 8:14Speaker 1: so I look forward to that, you know, when I
- 8:16Speaker 1: got to do that at the age of twelve. So
- 8:18Speaker 1: I've been up in the hills every year since I
- 8:21Speaker 1: was twelve years old, hunting up in that area. And
- 8:23Speaker 1: you're you're born in Coltville, whelming I was born actually
- 8:26Speaker 1: in Price, Utah and moved here when I was a
- 8:28Speaker 1: year old. So yep, and tell everyone the name of
- 8:32Speaker 1: your guys business, Crooked Sky Outfitters is the name of
- 8:35Speaker 1: our business. UM, and I I bought in with my
- 8:38Speaker 1: dad as an actual partner. UM bought an uncle out
- 8:42Speaker 1: who had been a partner with my dad. I bought
- 8:45Speaker 1: him out, uh six years ago and uh, and it
- 8:49Speaker 1: was I just was my dream to have an opportunity
- 8:52Speaker 1: to step into that role. My uncle was getting to
- 8:55Speaker 1: a point physically where he wasn't able to keep up,
- 8:58Speaker 1: and so then I was able to step in by
- 9:00Speaker 1: him out and become an equal partner with my dad
- 9:03Speaker 1: in the business. Adam Weatherby, Yeah, it was your second
- 9:08Speaker 1: time on the show. Yeah, kind of old news around here,
- 9:11Speaker 1: I guess right. Yeah, it was on back in the spring,
- 9:16Speaker 1: I think with Brenda, my wife, and uh, but I'm
- 9:20Speaker 1: Adam Weatherby. Uh this should be your job to tell
- 9:22Speaker 1: everybody what we've just been up to in the mountains. Yeah,
- 9:25Speaker 1: you can do it, or can do it so anyways,
- 9:30Speaker 1: Adam Weatherby weather be seventy four year old firearm's business,
- 9:35Speaker 1: get to run it. Took it over from my dad,
- 9:37Speaker 1: who took it over from my grandpa. That's what we do.
- 9:41Speaker 1: But I mean, what we've been up to, like what
- 9:43Speaker 1: we've been up to you so well, I gotta call well,
- 9:47Speaker 1: you're honest. We started talking back earlier this year, and
- 9:51Speaker 1: I knew that Johannese and Steve had a bunch of
- 9:54Speaker 1: points for mule deer in Wyoming, and I had moved
- 10:00Speaker 1: to Wyoming, move my business there. Let me back you
- 10:02Speaker 1: up for a second. Just sure people are tracking, okay,
- 10:05Speaker 1: meaning we had applied unsuccessfully for whelming eight years. Well
- 10:11Speaker 1: it's not quite okay, go ahead putting in for put
- 10:17Speaker 1: different points. There's some regions in wow I mean it's nonresidents.
- 10:20Speaker 1: Break it down. Break it down that some regions in
- 10:24Speaker 1: in Wyoming that are harder to draw than others. And
- 10:28Speaker 1: get a tag in and Stephen Janice here wanted to
- 10:31Speaker 1: go shoot a nice buck, and so they put in
- 10:34Speaker 1: for several years. And if you put in unsuccessfully you
- 10:38Speaker 1: can obtain a point, or else you can just buy
- 10:41Speaker 1: a point. Correct. I think I think a lot of
- 10:44Speaker 1: those years we probably bought the point. How much is
- 10:46Speaker 1: the point for the mule deer thirty for an animot
- 10:52Speaker 1: for you put in over three bucks over a period
- 10:56Speaker 1: of eight years, that's correct, And then you bought the tag,
- 11:00Speaker 1: puts in the perspective which probably cast another few in boxed. Actually,
- 11:03Speaker 1: then I want to say the tags were around a
- 11:05Speaker 1: few six. Yeah, that's about what a non resident ELK
- 11:11Speaker 1: tag is. But what about a half non Uh it
- 11:17Speaker 1: was four hundred fifty. I can't remember now what the
- 11:20Speaker 1: non resin on the deer is. So there we were,
- 11:25Speaker 1: so there you were. So you guys Janice and Steve
- 11:29Speaker 1: here had then put together this hunt that really started
- 11:33Speaker 1: a couple of years back talking to a family member
- 11:36Speaker 1: of these guys about doing this kind of dream southwestern
- 11:41Speaker 1: Wyoming high country mule deer hunt. Yeah you guys that
- 11:45Speaker 1: Uh well you know what law Stewart introduced himself. Oh yeah, yeah,
- 11:51Speaker 1: real quick, okay, and I'm Stewart Peterson. I have been
- 11:55Speaker 1: in this outfitting business with initially with my uncle. Uh
- 11:59Speaker 1: started back in the mid to late eighties, so right
- 12:04Speaker 1: at about the thirty year mark, I've been marching around
- 12:07Speaker 1: up there. I was raised in Cokeville as well. Um
- 12:12Speaker 1: raised on a ranch, a cattle ranch here, and then
- 12:16Speaker 1: I went to school for a bit and decided that
- 12:20Speaker 1: wasn't really quite what I was interested in. But I
- 12:22Speaker 1: I wanted to come home and ranch, and Dad and
- 12:25Speaker 1: mom said no, we we think you need to get
- 12:27Speaker 1: an idea what you want to do better than ranching.
- 12:30Speaker 1: So I discouraged becoming a cattle rancher. They discouraged me
- 12:34Speaker 1: from kind of because things worked tough, you know, we
- 12:38Speaker 1: it was always toun. I grew up with was six,
- 12:41Speaker 1: There were six siblings in the family, and we lived
- 12:45Speaker 1: on a little house south of town, south of Cokeville,
- 12:47Speaker 1: about seven miles and we uh kind of nicknamed that
- 12:52Speaker 1: place the little House on the Prairie. And that's where
- 12:55Speaker 1: we grew up with very little were there were six
- 12:59Speaker 1: kids in a two bedroom home. Um, so very tight
- 13:04Speaker 1: quarters has grown up and we just didn't seem like
- 13:07Speaker 1: there was that much money. And I think that's what
- 13:09Speaker 1: boiled down to for mom and dad and just said, hey,
- 13:11Speaker 1: you've got to have a better life than that. It
- 13:13Speaker 1: was a struggle. It was a wrestle, and so we
- 13:16Speaker 1: that's what we grew up with. And and uh, I
- 13:19Speaker 1: took a lot of shop classes in high school, would
- 13:22Speaker 1: working that type of stuff, and and so I was
- 13:24Speaker 1: pretty intrigued with that. And so I've been doing uh
- 13:28Speaker 1: custom home rustic furniture cabinetry for a number of years now,
- 13:34Speaker 1: and that's what's been my main livelihood. The outfitting has
- 13:38Speaker 1: been my love. That's been what I've wanted to do.
- 13:41Speaker 1: And and you know, of course in a while, I
- 13:43Speaker 1: mean the draw has always made it a difficult challenge
- 13:46Speaker 1: for us. We can book hunters, and we would book
- 13:49Speaker 1: year after year the same hunters if they could get
- 13:51Speaker 1: tags year after year. And so what it's uh, it's
- 13:55Speaker 1: you know, really been a difficult path to try to
- 13:59Speaker 1: hang on and make sure that we're able to feed
- 14:02Speaker 1: a string of horses through the winter. And and uh
- 14:05Speaker 1: we do do the summer pack trips and that helps
- 14:08Speaker 1: uh to cover some of those costs. But the reality
- 14:10Speaker 1: of it is is that the the outfitting business is
- 14:13Speaker 1: something that I've enjoyed doing, um ever since I got
- 14:17Speaker 1: into it. But it was something that I inspired, had
- 14:20Speaker 1: aspired to do because my dad was a guide and
- 14:23Speaker 1: I couldn't wait till when I was Back in our day,
- 14:26Speaker 1: we had to be fourteen to go hunt, and I
- 14:30Speaker 1: begged Dad to go up before that. He said, no,
- 14:32Speaker 1: you can't tell your fourteen. So when I was fourteen,
- 14:36Speaker 1: it was it was like having Christmas hit the week
- 14:42Speaker 1: that we could go and it was mostly elk cunning
- 14:45Speaker 1: at that time because the school led us out for
- 14:47Speaker 1: a couple of days on the weekend so we could
- 14:50Speaker 1: go up and and you know, four days we could
- 14:53Speaker 1: be up in camp and I just ate that up
- 14:56Speaker 1: you know, and of course I've always loved horses, and
- 14:59Speaker 1: he had just really seem to meet my need to
- 15:03Speaker 1: be up in the mountains on a good horse at
- 15:06Speaker 1: the risk of getting ahead of ourselves. Uh, And Adamburn
- 15:09Speaker 1: will come back to the whole what we're doing. But
- 15:13Speaker 1: if you were discouraged by your parents from being a rancher,
- 15:18Speaker 1: how did it feel when your son, who's sitting here,
- 15:23Speaker 1: Landing got into ranching. Well, I I I've I've had
- 15:30Speaker 1: the you know, the frank conversation about you know, it's
- 15:33Speaker 1: it's a good life, but it's a tough life. You know,
- 15:35Speaker 1: the markets are up there. You know, you never know
- 15:38Speaker 1: sometimes what your crops will do to you, Um, how
- 15:41Speaker 1: the calves are gonna come in a way out so
- 15:43Speaker 1: that you've got you know, what the price will be
- 15:45Speaker 1: for those calves. So it's it's one of those it's
- 15:48Speaker 1: it's you know, just about as good as maybe going
- 15:52Speaker 1: to Las Vegas and and uh playing a chip because
- 15:57Speaker 1: so he could be doing just as good he Mike
- 16:00Speaker 1: could just I mean, but but Landing is going about
- 16:03Speaker 1: it in a way that uh, you know, perhaps being
- 16:06Speaker 1: a little smaller unit he can do. My dad was
- 16:09Speaker 1: in the corporation with with two other brothers, and so
- 16:11Speaker 1: they grew you know, and they built quite a cowherd
- 16:15Speaker 1: and uh, and that was just how they did things,
- 16:19Speaker 1: but there was never much that came back to it.
- 16:22Speaker 1: Now they've been since been able to move some of
- 16:25Speaker 1: the land that they had acquired and had paid off
- 16:28Speaker 1: and and it's made their lives comfortable. For Heaven's sakes, sir, my,
- 16:32Speaker 1: my folks are eighty two, so it came late in
- 16:36Speaker 1: life for them to really enjoy some of the benefits
- 16:38Speaker 1: that could have been earlier. And I think that's really
- 16:40Speaker 1: why they steered me away. And I wouldn't say that
- 16:43Speaker 1: they I think they're proud of what Landing is doing,
- 16:45Speaker 1: as I am, um, but I think they've probably you know,
- 16:50Speaker 1: crossed their fingers at markets will stay good and that
- 16:53Speaker 1: the uh you know, hay prices won't be you know,
- 16:57Speaker 1: so costly. So all of that comes into play. But
- 17:01Speaker 1: it's I'm I've been excited for him to be able
- 17:03Speaker 1: to have mostly that his home back home. We have,
- 17:06Speaker 1: you know, they're cute little family there on a regular
- 17:10Speaker 1: basis in our home and we just enjoy we enjoy
- 17:14Speaker 1: the family scene. So for us, maybe as much as anything.
- 17:18Speaker 1: I've been glad that that was one way to getting
- 17:21Speaker 1: back home because there's not a lot of opportunities. But
- 17:24Speaker 1: his entrepreneurial spirit has uh has compelled him to be
- 17:27Speaker 1: able to to move in the direction of trying to
- 17:30Speaker 1: build a cowherd. And h seems to be finding some
- 17:34Speaker 1: success at some of the things he's been, you know,
- 17:36Speaker 1: consistently researching, and so he's done. He's done a lot
- 17:39Speaker 1: of homework, and uh, I think it's paying off. And
- 17:43Speaker 1: we're excited his his mother and I are very excited
- 17:47Speaker 1: to have him be in the neighborhood again. Okay, adn't
- 17:49Speaker 1: get back to it now. So there we were, me
- 17:52Speaker 1: and An. He waited eight years patiently, and we finally drew.
- 17:57Speaker 1: Finally drew uh unit region in southwestern Wyoming known for
- 18:06Speaker 1: having mature, really nice bucks. So I moved weather be
- 18:14Speaker 1: our gun business from California and Wyoming, and I've been
- 18:17Speaker 1: here a little over twelve months, which means that I
- 18:19Speaker 1: can gain residency in Wyoming. So then I'm different than
- 18:24Speaker 1: you guys. So at that point I'm special. Just go
- 18:28Speaker 1: where everyone whenever you want, so I could go in
- 18:30Speaker 1: for like forty bucks or whatever it is and just
- 18:34Speaker 1: say I want to go hunt with Janice and Steve
- 18:36Speaker 1: and then just go do it that day. And so
- 18:40Speaker 1: that was put kind of how this thing how I
- 18:42Speaker 1: hopped on board here was really jumping in with you
- 18:45Speaker 1: guys is something that's really been a dream of yours. Uh,
- 18:48Speaker 1: and I'm passionate about, you know, the high country, mule deer,
- 18:52Speaker 1: back country horses, everything you guys were doing. And so
- 18:56Speaker 1: at the slightest little conversation, I jumped in to team
- 19:01Speaker 1: up with you guys and then Crooked Sky to head
- 19:03Speaker 1: in for a week long pack trip to some pretty
- 19:07Speaker 1: high elevation area with the high concentration of alchy mule
- 19:11Speaker 1: dere but with the whole specific purpose of rifle hunting
- 19:14Speaker 1: mule there. And that's what we did. It was a
- 19:16Speaker 1: great job. Yeah, that was good. And I learned from
- 19:20Speaker 1: Steve talked about talking about the story about how he
- 19:25Speaker 1: met up with Crooked Sky, about the relative of these guys.
- 19:31Speaker 1: Perry what's his last name? He wrote a letter to
- 19:35Speaker 1: make you guys blush. I wish I had it. I
- 19:39Speaker 1: wonder if I could full it up real quick. We
- 19:41Speaker 1: had a lot of letters, but it caught our attention. Yeah,
- 19:44Speaker 1: I did. Perry emailed me today see how that was? Yeah,
- 19:50Speaker 1: he just uh we must have been talking about it
- 19:52Speaker 1: on the podcast Talk Our Aspiration to draw a region
- 19:55Speaker 1: g tags yeah yeah, and then he and then he
- 19:58Speaker 1: emailed and said, if you do just so happens that
- 20:01Speaker 1: my family has been running an outfit in business up
- 20:04Speaker 1: there for how many years? Well, my uncle had started
- 20:08Speaker 1: back in the real early sixties, so I you know,
- 20:11Speaker 1: from about sixty on that TU was outfitting You guys
- 20:16Speaker 1: are coming up on sixty years with yeah, yeah, I
- 20:20Speaker 1: haven't been on this planet. Well I happened just about
- 20:22Speaker 1: on this planet that long. So uh, but that's kind
- 20:26Speaker 1: of when he started. But he was it used to
- 20:28Speaker 1: be S. R. Dayton Sharon read Dayton was his name
- 20:32Speaker 1: with outfitters. When when when he brought me in, uh
- 20:36Speaker 1: we obviously I was looking for a you know, opportunity
- 20:39Speaker 1: to put a spin my spin on it, and we
- 20:41Speaker 1: I said to me, maybe we can think up a
- 20:42Speaker 1: name when we became partners and it went to Magic
- 20:46Speaker 1: Mountain Outfitters. And then when Lanta came in, he says, dead,
- 20:49Speaker 1: I think would be good if we could, you know,
- 20:51Speaker 1: move in the direction of something where he's being involved,
- 20:54Speaker 1: and that's when Crooked Skuy Outfitters evolved. And what was
- 20:58Speaker 1: wrong with Magic Mountain sounds a little Spacey's in California
- 21:06Speaker 1: in many in many ways, when you ride a horse
- 21:08Speaker 1: up there in the mountains, it's like a theme park,
- 21:10Speaker 1: right because it could get pretty wild, but you know,
- 21:14Speaker 1: it's there's there's something magic about the hills and and
- 21:18Speaker 1: uh and continues to be. But perhaps with Landing's uh
- 21:22Speaker 1: you know, entrance into it, that kind of gave and
- 21:25Speaker 1: up gave way for an opportunity to maybe elevate to
- 21:28Speaker 1: something that was a little more updated to what people
- 21:32Speaker 1: might see and envision in a So where did Crooked
- 21:36Speaker 1: Sky how did how did that come about? A good question? Well,
- 21:39Speaker 1: there's there's kind of a combination of things there. Um.
- 21:43Speaker 1: One is is the train that we hunt is very jagged.
- 21:46Speaker 1: As you stand in the bottom, there's big elevation, you know,
- 21:49Speaker 1: climbs that you look up, you know, to the horizon
- 21:52Speaker 1: and you see the jaggedness of the mountains. But the
- 21:56Speaker 1: other part of it that we felt like would be
- 21:58Speaker 1: beneficial it's because of my dad's experience, you know, former
- 22:03Speaker 1: in his life, um where he was able to play
- 22:07Speaker 1: some roles in some different movies, one of those being
- 22:10Speaker 1: Against the Crooked Sky UM. And so that was part
- 22:14Speaker 1: of the where the name came from as well. That
- 22:17Speaker 1: we thought maybe it would give us the ability for
- 22:20Speaker 1: people to make that connection UM and want to come
- 22:24Speaker 1: and hunt with with a guy that you know that
- 22:26Speaker 1: maybe they had grown up watching UM as a young man. UM.
- 22:31Speaker 1: And and so that was kind of there was a
- 22:33Speaker 1: couple of different reasons that we decided to go that direction. Stewart,
- 22:37Speaker 1: you didn't include that in your he doesn't like talking
- 22:40Speaker 1: about we had the pride out of him. We uh,
- 22:47Speaker 1: you know when when we were talking about the name change,
- 22:51Speaker 1: we we listed we had probably oh names of just
- 22:56Speaker 1: you know, off the brainstorm and uh time that we
- 23:00Speaker 1: did that we wrote down and we just let it
- 23:02Speaker 1: sit and stew for a bit. And then we actually
- 23:06Speaker 1: had family kind of uh say, weigh in on it.
- 23:10Speaker 1: Atlanta's got to five other siblings and and we kind
- 23:15Speaker 1: of talked about let them give some input. And when
- 23:18Speaker 1: it boiled down to its we just thought, well, maybe
- 23:20Speaker 1: this is it's the time is is okay? I'm I'm
- 23:25Speaker 1: far enough past the the window went my age to
- 23:28Speaker 1: to have maybe lost some of the um recognition, but
- 23:35Speaker 1: yet I was, and I guess I was kind I've
- 23:37Speaker 1: always been a little bit apprehensive about using the film
- 23:42Speaker 1: uh status as a way to promote my success. Um.
- 23:48Speaker 1: I wanted to try to do it in a way
- 23:50Speaker 1: that I felt like I wasn't cheating anyway, because people,
- 23:53Speaker 1: I wanted people to do it when they when they
- 23:56Speaker 1: met me personally, that they would feel good about and
- 23:58Speaker 1: not feel like, well, you know, this is kind of
- 24:02Speaker 1: a make believe character. You know that he was in
- 24:04Speaker 1: these other films, and is that how he is today
- 24:07Speaker 1: or so? I guess I've always been a little apprehensive
- 24:10Speaker 1: about it because I saw how people would treat me
- 24:13Speaker 1: differently because if they knew who I was, and I
- 24:18Speaker 1: I always had a little bit of a guard up,
- 24:22Speaker 1: you know, with protecting myself that way, saying do they
- 24:26Speaker 1: like me because of that or because of who I am?
- 24:31Speaker 1: That was? That was probably one of the reasons that
- 24:33Speaker 1: I've drugged my feet and drugged my feet about ever
- 24:35Speaker 1: using the film status. Well, I think also, you're you're
- 24:40Speaker 1: you're kind of you're like an inherently modest person and
- 24:44Speaker 1: you're not boisterous, so it probably makes it feel it's
- 24:47Speaker 1: probably awkward. There's a lot of people would never let
- 24:50Speaker 1: you forget that. Well, let's you know, I'll never forget
- 24:54Speaker 1: the day somebody asked for my autograph and I thought,
- 24:58Speaker 1: you gotta be kidding. I mean, I'm thirteen, and I thought,
- 25:01Speaker 1: what's what's a What's a piece of paper and a
- 25:03Speaker 1: name written scratched on there with my name on it?
- 25:06Speaker 1: What what's it really worth? It didn't have any value
- 25:10Speaker 1: or I couldn't see any uh you know. I in fact,
- 25:15Speaker 1: I don't know that I've to this day, I've ever
- 25:17Speaker 1: asked for even the people that I worked with, I
- 25:19Speaker 1: had him sign a book, but to to to go
- 25:22Speaker 1: up and ask for any of them for their autograph,
- 25:25Speaker 1: I just never did it. I just wasn't something that
- 25:28Speaker 1: And I'm sure you guys have had to do a
- 25:29Speaker 1: few of those, but for me, I was just it
- 25:32Speaker 1: was an awkward I just felt awkward as could be.
- 25:35Speaker 1: Um so in in uh you know, in that history
- 25:40Speaker 1: early history as a young boy, um who wanted to
- 25:44Speaker 1: be so normal in so many ways, and yet I
- 25:48Speaker 1: was I wanted to excel in sports, and that's what
- 25:51Speaker 1: I focused on in high school and and uh you know,
- 25:55Speaker 1: but I but I've met the same resistance. It was
- 25:59Speaker 1: almost like I was a wrestler in high school. And uh,
- 26:03Speaker 1: I remember a tournament once we were at one of
- 26:07Speaker 1: the other teams that was there a guy that was
- 26:10Speaker 1: in my weight to send a little one of his
- 26:12Speaker 1: younger buddies in the lighter weights come over to let
- 26:15Speaker 1: me know that I would be counting the lights pretty
- 26:18Speaker 1: quick if I was going to wrestle him. And uh,
- 26:23Speaker 1: I thought to myself, you gotta be kidding me. I mean,
- 26:25Speaker 1: this guy didn't even know who I was, but yet
- 26:27Speaker 1: because I was a movie star, you know, he was
- 26:31Speaker 1: gonna whoop me and it was gonna be some feather. Uh.
- 26:35Speaker 1: And it was the same way in football I have.
- 26:38Speaker 1: You know, you had to tell us the resolution of
- 26:41Speaker 1: that match. Well, we met in the championship and I
- 26:44Speaker 1: went and made him count lights. So it was you know,
- 26:48Speaker 1: it was for me that it kind of fueled the fire.
- 26:52Speaker 1: I was competitive by nature, and when I got told
- 26:56Speaker 1: that that was gonna happen, I thought, well, you, you
- 26:58Speaker 1: dirty bugger, I'm gonna show you something different. So, you know,
- 27:03Speaker 1: it was and it was a relief because it was
- 27:05Speaker 1: it was a tournament here in town. Uh. And so
- 27:08Speaker 1: I thought, I can't. I can't let this happen in
- 27:12Speaker 1: my hometown. So you know, those are those are things
- 27:17Speaker 1: that that all evolved with the film business. I guess
- 27:20Speaker 1: at this point I was ready to say okay for
- 27:24Speaker 1: the sake of helping my son in this business, for
- 27:26Speaker 1: if he's gonna be able to carry it on, we've
- 27:28Speaker 1: got to build it and and the name is going
- 27:30Speaker 1: to have to do it. But I also want to
- 27:33Speaker 1: make sure and recognize that when we're involved in this thing,
- 27:37Speaker 1: we have a responsibility to what happens in the outdoors
- 27:41Speaker 1: up there. I have a tremendous amount of respect for it.
- 27:44Speaker 1: It's a it's a very very spiritual place for me
- 27:48Speaker 1: to be, uh, pondering who I am? How do I
- 27:52Speaker 1: treat people? Am I am? I truly becoming a better person.
- 27:57Speaker 1: And consequently our goal is is we hope that when
- 28:01Speaker 1: we rubbed shoulders with good people up there, they improve
- 28:04Speaker 1: us and we improved them. Yeah, you don't have any
- 28:07Speaker 1: reason to be bashful about Uh. I don't think that
- 28:11Speaker 1: that's you know that you got tangled up and doing
- 28:15Speaker 1: movies when you were a kid. Um, because in the mountains, uh,
- 28:20Speaker 1: and out running your business, you work incredibly hard and
- 28:26Speaker 1: are very focused and extremely knowledgeable and very professional. And
- 28:31Speaker 1: it's not I wouldn't even get I wouldn't even worry
- 28:34Speaker 1: about having people be like, oh I didn't get you
- 28:38Speaker 1: know what I thought I was gonna get. And it's
- 28:40Speaker 1: just some Hollywood I mean, come on, that's that's all.
- 28:44Speaker 1: It's just not But but it's an interesting it's an
- 28:47Speaker 1: interesting talking point. It is. I mean, it happened to
- 28:49Speaker 1: you when you were very young, and you deliberately walked
- 28:51Speaker 1: away from it. Um, it just wasn't in my genetic
- 28:57Speaker 1: makeup to want to be knowledge because of the film business. Now,
- 29:03Speaker 1: if I debated knowledge, you know, in all of my
- 29:06Speaker 1: accolades and in sports, that would have been fine. And
- 29:08Speaker 1: it did happen, and it was much more pleasurable. But
- 29:12Speaker 1: for some reason, I just was caught up in that. Uh.
- 29:15Speaker 1: The thought is, I I don't want the film business
- 29:18Speaker 1: to define me as being impressive in somebody's eyes. I
- 29:22Speaker 1: wanted to do it on my own because I think
- 29:24Speaker 1: that's what happens with a lot of these guys in
- 29:26Speaker 1: the film business, is that all of the attention that
- 29:29Speaker 1: they get makes them think that they have done it,
- 29:33Speaker 1: you know, they've arrived, and in many cases they their
- 29:37Speaker 1: lives become destroyed because they cannot they cannot accept living.
- 29:44Speaker 1: You know what, I don't know. It's hard for me
- 29:47Speaker 1: to explain it, but what I see is I see
- 29:49Speaker 1: it too often where these people who rise to the
- 29:52Speaker 1: status of of star symbol and almost to a worshipful
- 29:57Speaker 1: symbol in many people's eyes, and then they can't measure up,
- 30:02Speaker 1: they find themselves not measure up to And I think
- 30:05Speaker 1: we see a lot of that happening. And for some reason,
- 30:09Speaker 1: my my instincts were that I never wanted that to
- 30:13Speaker 1: be the reason why I felt good about me. Yeah,
- 30:16Speaker 1: it just it just wasn't wasn't the case. Um oh,
- 30:21Speaker 1: you know what Seth introduced yourself, Seth Morris, you've been
- 30:25Speaker 1: on a thousand times, a couple a couple of times.
- 30:29Speaker 1: Seth is kind of replacing Janni, because yes, that's gonna
- 30:32Speaker 1: be doing uh kind of like doing Yanni's job coming
- 30:35Speaker 1: up here in South Dakota. That's right. Yeah, Yanni's going
- 30:38Speaker 1: on a big Colorado adventure. Not the first. It'll be
- 30:44Speaker 1: the second um Meteor episode that I haven't produced since
- 30:48Speaker 1: I started producing him. One was I was out for
- 30:51Speaker 1: a knee surgery. But this is the first time we're
- 30:54Speaker 1: gonna do it deliberately. That's a good trip to Uh.
- 30:58Speaker 1: Do you you seth do you you you be honest?
- 31:02Speaker 1: Do you be honest? Uh? Do you est more like
- 31:05Speaker 1: a like a mentor or someone you need to knock down?
- 31:11Speaker 1: No mentor, for sure, You're not like I'm gonna know,
- 31:15Speaker 1: I'm not trying to replace bust your other need. You're
- 31:17Speaker 1: not thinking that I'm still trying to learn from Okay, good, Yeah,
- 31:20Speaker 1: I'm not ready to knock him down. Okay. Um, at
- 31:24Speaker 1: some point that people does have to walk away from
- 31:26Speaker 1: the teacher. There is a thing that someone explained to
- 31:29Speaker 1: me that happens in a mentorship situation is uh, I
- 31:32Speaker 1: can't remember who. There's some philosopher someone who discussed this
- 31:35Speaker 1: that in a mentor relationship, there's a part of the
- 31:40Speaker 1: the mentee, part of the mentees development. Um. I think
- 31:47Speaker 1: it's a necessary part of the development is to develop
- 31:51Speaker 1: an animosity towards the mentor. M But I think that
- 31:56Speaker 1: that has to happen for that person to to move on.
- 32:01Speaker 1: So Steth give me a heads up. Well, that just
- 32:06Speaker 1: makes me think. Now I'll be thinking all night we're
- 32:09Speaker 1: sharing this uh room over here. I'll be thinking, when
- 32:12Speaker 1: is my mentor Stephen Roella, what am I gonna gain?
- 32:15Speaker 1: That animal? Just got that big old buck. They explain
- 32:23Speaker 1: for folks. What explained for folks like how you're guiding
- 32:27Speaker 1: business works because of the thousand ways people guide. Right,
- 32:29Speaker 1: you could Lisa ranch and and you know, you could
- 32:33Speaker 1: own a ranch or Lisa ranch and clients come out
- 32:35Speaker 1: and they hunt the ranch. You could you know, whatever
- 32:39Speaker 1: you like, you got like guys that run bear baits.
- 32:41Speaker 1: And so a client comes and they hire a guide
- 32:44Speaker 1: and the guide sets them out to watch a bear bait.
- 32:46Speaker 1: Just kind of talk like real general terms people who
- 32:48Speaker 1: aren't familiar with Western hunting or guided hunting, sort of
- 32:53Speaker 1: like what is the what is the package you provide
- 32:56Speaker 1: or what is the experience you provide. We're referred to
- 32:59Speaker 1: as what is a full service guide guided hunt, where
- 33:04Speaker 1: in which we from the time they arrived with us,
- 33:09Speaker 1: we and get them into camp. We are providing the
- 33:12Speaker 1: services of their meals and their horses, their attack, everything
- 33:19Speaker 1: but their personal gear and their license, and we take
- 33:22Speaker 1: care of that every day during that hunt. And uh
- 33:26Speaker 1: which means that the hunter we try to make sure
- 33:30Speaker 1: that their horses uh fit them, their saddles fit them,
- 33:35Speaker 1: and uh, the saddles are you know in place. We're
- 33:40Speaker 1: we're aware of those kind of things because we we
- 33:42Speaker 1: we we've been around the block a little bit now
- 33:46Speaker 1: we know that if saddles aren't tightened up, that's when
- 33:49Speaker 1: any experience writers can can get hurt because they're not
- 33:53Speaker 1: aware of when the saddle starts to slip what they
- 33:57Speaker 1: need to be doing. And you're comfortable putting a totally
- 34:00Speaker 1: inexperienced rider on a horse on the ones that we have, uh,
- 34:05Speaker 1: we don't. We've got some that we know they're just
- 34:07Speaker 1: not ready for for guys that don't know have don't
- 34:11Speaker 1: have much horsemanship skill. We just we have to we
- 34:15Speaker 1: have to know the horses, um, pretty intimately to the
- 34:19Speaker 1: extent of knowing where they are and where they are,
- 34:22Speaker 1: where they fit in the pecking order of our horses,
- 34:26Speaker 1: because that makes a difference. We we need to know
- 34:28Speaker 1: a little bit about the person well a lot about
- 34:30Speaker 1: the personality, because quite honestly, people and horses can have
- 34:35Speaker 1: personalities of clash, and we see that on a regular basis.
- 34:40Speaker 1: Sets horse uh would uh physically assault the horse in
- 34:48Speaker 1: front of it my horse was it was it was
- 34:51Speaker 1: an ass buyer for sure. Well, and some of that
- 34:54Speaker 1: because she's a mayor and uh and and sometimes the
- 34:57Speaker 1: mayors have those little nippick issues that they like to
- 35:02Speaker 1: get after another horse because they are a mayor. And
- 35:05Speaker 1: and that doesn't say anything about womanhood. I'm just saying that.
- 35:09Speaker 1: That's if you talk to anybody that knows, uh, horses,
- 35:13Speaker 1: A lot of your people like to use guildings because
- 35:17Speaker 1: guildings are way more even kill castrated mail. Yeah, and uh,
- 35:23Speaker 1: your mayor's, especially if they're cycling, they can be kind
- 35:28Speaker 1: of contentkerous and they have a hard time dealing with
- 35:31Speaker 1: other horses under those conditions. And some are just have
- 35:34Speaker 1: that kind of a continued personality like that, and we
- 35:38Speaker 1: don't know why, but they And that's one of the
- 35:40Speaker 1: things you have to understand, you know, as you get
- 35:42Speaker 1: to know horse flesh a little bit, is it, they
- 35:46Speaker 1: have a personality just as distinct as people do. They think, oh,
- 35:50Speaker 1: a horse, four legs, they run beautifully, they you know,
- 35:53Speaker 1: they're athletic and this and that. But there's a lot
- 35:56Speaker 1: of personality that you have to be aware of when
- 36:00Speaker 1: you're watching a horse in your string and how they
- 36:03Speaker 1: perform around different people. We ask people, what's your experience? Now?
- 36:08Speaker 1: If they're honest. Uh, those that are honest, we can say, well,
- 36:12Speaker 1: we've got one that's gonna fit the bill. But if
- 36:15Speaker 1: we have if they tell us, well, I've ridden quite
- 36:17Speaker 1: a few times, and then we put them on a
- 36:18Speaker 1: horse that has a little more fire under their tail,
- 36:22Speaker 1: then they then they get they get kind of intimidated
- 36:25Speaker 1: or thinking, I'm not as good as I thought I was.
- 36:28Speaker 1: Did you know, did you realize that one of our
- 36:29Speaker 1: camera guys, Mike, Uh, I feel like he hadn't hadn't
- 36:33Speaker 1: he had never first time he did? He tell you
- 36:35Speaker 1: that was the up front about that, about that. And
- 36:38Speaker 1: then I've ridden a handful of Uh, maybe I get like,
- 36:43Speaker 1: maybe I get on a horse. I probably don't get
- 36:46Speaker 1: on a horse every year even right, but I've had
- 36:49Speaker 1: occasion to ride here and there. Um, I would say, though,
- 36:55Speaker 1: and you know better than me, I would say that
- 36:57Speaker 1: the topography uh, and and the trails and lack of
- 37:05Speaker 1: trails where you guys ride would have to be that
- 37:09Speaker 1: like if you're gonna put like riding on a you know,
- 37:14Speaker 1: like a one to ten and severity, you're like up
- 37:16Speaker 1: there there, you'd agree, right, I mean, you're you're in
- 37:20Speaker 1: the nine. I felt like we were ten every day. Well,
- 37:26Speaker 1: Seth has a horse allergy. So Seth has a horse allergy,
- 37:30Speaker 1: and his horse fell, so he was like from he
- 37:32Speaker 1: was out from and I have no experience and no experience. Well,
- 37:36Speaker 1: I think one of the things that we run into
- 37:39Speaker 1: is each time we get with new clients, you try
- 37:42Speaker 1: to associate and get a feel for what number one,
- 37:45Speaker 1: what their confidence level is, number two, what their experience
- 37:48Speaker 1: level is. And then also the physical makeup of the
- 37:51Speaker 1: individual is another component that we look at, what you mean,
- 37:54Speaker 1: as far as their size, UM, and we try to
- 37:58Speaker 1: you know, kind of pair them up with a horror.
- 38:00Speaker 1: We feel like we'll work with them, like my dad mentioned,
- 38:02Speaker 1: personality wise, but also in their ability and their stature
- 38:06Speaker 1: to be able to carry a person um because a
- 38:08Speaker 1: lot of times the horses are more than capable of
- 38:10Speaker 1: carrying them, you know, and following the horse in front,
- 38:14Speaker 1: which is typically your guide. UM. And so we try
- 38:18Speaker 1: not to put people in a situation where they feel
- 38:20Speaker 1: like their life is in danger um because of their inexperience. UM.
- 38:26Speaker 1: But uh, you know, obviously there's there is that confidence level.
- 38:30Speaker 1: We do have certain horses that, based on the way
- 38:32Speaker 1: they move and the way they travel, they just have
- 38:34Speaker 1: the capacity to help settle or um, I don't know,
- 38:41Speaker 1: bring a little bit of peace to the people that
- 38:42Speaker 1: are riding them. I like it that Janice took you
- 38:45Speaker 1: guys aside and said, the get hurt all over the
- 38:53Speaker 1: slowest I got, the slowest in the world. She's a
- 38:59Speaker 1: nonreact her. She she really does. She doesn't get excited
- 39:03Speaker 1: about much unless she's in the lead. When I used
- 39:06Speaker 1: to ride her, I wrote her for a couple of
- 39:07Speaker 1: years and uh, she she was really spooky when she
- 39:13Speaker 1: was the lead. Because your lead horse is your alarm.
- 39:17Speaker 1: Watched and you told me that taken off and I
- 39:19Speaker 1: and I thought about it watching Blues ears because Blue
- 39:22Speaker 1: had an opportunity to be out front. Today you said,
- 39:24Speaker 1: the lead horse will do its ears different than the
- 39:27Speaker 1: horses behind. They turn them and angle them forward. That
- 39:32Speaker 1: was weird to see that she she does that and that,
- 39:34Speaker 1: and and they are you know, and every horse behind
- 39:37Speaker 1: the lead horse is somewhat in a cat more casual,
- 39:41Speaker 1: relaxed feel because they know that if there's something that's
- 39:45Speaker 1: gonna bugger the front horse they're a little safer. It's
- 39:48Speaker 1: kind of like that old adage about if you're being
- 39:50Speaker 1: chased by a bear with your buddy, it's who's the fastest,
- 39:53Speaker 1: you know it's gonna happen. And they kind of get
- 39:56Speaker 1: relaxed in that second position knowing that the first one
- 40:00Speaker 1: is is the one that's going to take the hip
- 40:02Speaker 1: if something ever happens. Yeah, Seth was saying his horse
- 40:06Speaker 1: doesn't like to be first or last. No, High Heels
- 40:10Speaker 1: was when when when she would be in the back,
- 40:15Speaker 1: she would constantly like her head would constantly be off
- 40:18Speaker 1: to the side behind looking behind it. And that's and
- 40:22Speaker 1: that's typical of of the hind horse as well. They
- 40:25Speaker 1: are somewhat the watchdog on the back and so they're
- 40:28Speaker 1: they're a little more antsy about what's gonna come up
- 40:31Speaker 1: and bite them on the butt. Yeah, she didn't like
- 40:33Speaker 1: that at all. And uh, they that's just but the
- 40:37Speaker 1: horses in the middle they're kind of cool, you know.
- 40:40Speaker 1: They think, well, the front, the back, they've got us covered.
- 40:45Speaker 1: Old Hi Heels love the middle. Yeah, she's the middle horse. Interesting, Blondie,
- 40:51Speaker 1: the horse I was riding, she didn't like to be
- 40:53Speaker 1: out front too much. She liked to be the second horse. Yeah, yeah,
- 40:57Speaker 1: there's uh and some of that by nature and some
- 41:01Speaker 1: of us by habits. You know, you ride a horse
- 41:04Speaker 1: enough in the front, they get used to liking to
- 41:06Speaker 1: be in the front. Um. But then there's those and
- 41:09Speaker 1: and people are the same way. You know. I I
- 41:12Speaker 1: make a lot of being raised on a ranch, I
- 41:14Speaker 1: make a lot of comparisons between cattle and people. And
- 41:17Speaker 1: my wife doesn't always appreciate that. But that's something I
- 41:21Speaker 1: observed and I thought, yeah, that's just like so and sober,
- 41:24Speaker 1: that's just like that person. And that's just because you
- 41:27Speaker 1: you see, they're not just something that stands out in
- 41:32Speaker 1: the field and is dumb. They they have a personality,
- 41:35Speaker 1: they have a mind, um, and so you you do
- 41:38Speaker 1: recognize that. And those are those are really those those
- 41:41Speaker 1: are important issues in the field to try to help
- 41:44Speaker 1: you understand how to be safe. We when we're shopping
- 41:47Speaker 1: for horses to replace uh, some of our older stock,
- 41:51Speaker 1: we're pretty uh cognizant of what we see in their eye. First,
- 41:56Speaker 1: because there's something in the eye of a horse when
- 41:58Speaker 1: you look at him, and without them really looking at you,
- 42:02Speaker 1: but just watching their behavior, you get a sense or
- 42:04Speaker 1: feel are they one that trust people trust you or
- 42:08Speaker 1: they always watching you. Uh. The ones that are always
- 42:11Speaker 1: watching you sometimes are the ones that can really uh
- 42:16Speaker 1: get messed up in a in a string. Uh. Growing up,
- 42:19Speaker 1: my dad always said, you know, horse talking about the
- 42:22Speaker 1: difference between horses and mules. And you know, maybe people
- 42:26Speaker 1: in the mule businesses have a way different experience, but
- 42:30Speaker 1: Dad said, you know, a horse will let you actually
- 42:32Speaker 1: hurt him into a position of being hurt um, whereas
- 42:38Speaker 1: a mule. And we had a few meals through the
- 42:41Speaker 1: years and they just wouldn't they flat out if they
- 42:44Speaker 1: thought they were gonna get hurt, were in a predicament
- 42:46Speaker 1: that they weren't gonna let you do it. And that's
- 42:47Speaker 1: why they'd say stubborn as a mule, they'd lock up.
- 42:50Speaker 1: You couldn't get them to do what you thought, and
- 42:54Speaker 1: you'd get get on a horse and you can make
- 42:56Speaker 1: them do that. And uh. And so we see that
- 42:59Speaker 1: a lot, uh with our animals. There's a trust factor.
- 43:03Speaker 1: So we look at we look at their you know,
- 43:06Speaker 1: not only their physical stature and their their athleticism. But
- 43:10Speaker 1: Landing alluded the fact that not every horse that your
- 43:13Speaker 1: ride that's really good on flat land is going to
- 43:15Speaker 1: be good up in in the hills. It's it's a
- 43:18Speaker 1: different style of balance and between rider and slope. Um.
- 43:24Speaker 1: I had the conversation with Adam a little bit about
- 43:27Speaker 1: you know sometimes why some horses feel like they slip
- 43:30Speaker 1: a little bit. Well, some of that's due to the rider,
- 43:33Speaker 1: because of the way the rider balances himself, you know,
- 43:38Speaker 1: is he working against the horse on a side hill
- 43:42Speaker 1: for instance. We've talked about that early on. I I
- 43:45Speaker 1: tell my hunters all the time, don't lean into the mountain.
- 43:49Speaker 1: I mean, you're just taking a folks on point and
- 43:51Speaker 1: it's it's like you're almost as getting and leaning. They
- 43:54Speaker 1: get they get nervous because they're on a side hill. Yeah.
- 43:57Speaker 1: We walked one night after dark. We walk next to
- 44:00Speaker 1: a cliff that would have been absolute death. It would
- 44:04Speaker 1: be like if you went off the cliff, you die,
- 44:07Speaker 1: You and the horse would die. And and uh and
- 44:11Speaker 1: I sat there more like what does the horses sort
- 44:13Speaker 1: of awareness of the fact that it would die if
- 44:16Speaker 1: it fell off that cliff? And you could definitely feel
- 44:19Speaker 1: your body wind lean like lean the horse into a
- 44:24Speaker 1: safe a motorcycle. Yeah, And I remember what you were
- 44:26Speaker 1: saying is like let the horse balance itself. Don't the
- 44:30Speaker 1: same thing happened when when because Bandy, my horse slipped
- 44:34Speaker 1: on some shale one day and slipped on some ice
- 44:36Speaker 1: going up a hill. And I've ridden uh a decent
- 44:40Speaker 1: amountain had horses when I was young, and yet I
- 44:43Speaker 1: found myself timid going up the ice. It was pretty
- 44:45Speaker 1: steep and it was pretty icy, and she was slipping.
- 44:47Speaker 1: She felt me being timid, and I was kind of
- 44:50Speaker 1: pulling her back, like whoa, okay, let's go one step
- 44:52Speaker 1: at a time, he said. One of the horse's best friends,
- 44:55Speaker 1: or momentum in that case. So I was holding her
- 44:57Speaker 1: back from her natural instinct. She's like, dude, I'm gonna
- 44:59Speaker 1: power or this Adam, it's no big deal. It's just
- 45:01Speaker 1: a little icy slope. Let me go. I didn't. She slipped.
- 45:05Speaker 1: My fault, and from the rest of the trip, when
- 45:08Speaker 1: he gave me that momentum motivational speech, like we'd get
- 45:11Speaker 1: to something that I'm like, that's pretty shaley, uh, pretty icy,
- 45:14Speaker 1: pretty snow, and just go, you know, and just start
- 45:17Speaker 1: kicking and we can just truck up this thing. And
- 45:18Speaker 1: she had no problem with it. And that's a big
- 45:20Speaker 1: thing I think too, is that whole trust factor at
- 45:23Speaker 1: night without our head lamps on, it's that same thing
- 45:25Speaker 1: right when we're on the side of the cliffs. It's like,
- 45:27Speaker 1: this horse can do it. Let it do it, and
- 45:29Speaker 1: don't hold it back. Explain to people a little bit
- 45:32Speaker 1: like what happens on a trip where in terms of
- 45:39Speaker 1: sort of to get out to your camp, like the
- 45:42Speaker 1: length of ride and then and then what you arrive at. Well,
- 45:48Speaker 1: basically from Cokeville, what we do is we drive two
- 45:51Speaker 1: hours by truck. Um. From that point, we trail head
- 45:54Speaker 1: out and and we ride from the trailhead another seven
- 45:58Speaker 1: miles on horseback through a variety of up and downs
- 46:02Speaker 1: and and and some some steeper country um. And so
- 46:07Speaker 1: you know, it's definitely one of those things when we're hunting,
- 46:11Speaker 1: you're staying on the mountain tail dark, and you're typically
- 46:14Speaker 1: leaving in the dark from camp, and so you spend
- 46:17Speaker 1: a lot of time and can't spend a lot of
- 46:18Speaker 1: time on the horse in the dark, and and so
- 46:21Speaker 1: people can get intimidated by that, wondering if their horse
- 46:24Speaker 1: can actually even see, if they're going to be able
- 46:26Speaker 1: to follow the trail, And so the tendency for a
- 46:29Speaker 1: lot of people is to put their head light on,
- 46:30Speaker 1: which it actually impedes the ability the horse to see. Um,
- 46:35Speaker 1: that's a that's a I know that, that's true. That
- 46:40Speaker 1: was a difficult thing for me too. That was that
- 46:43Speaker 1: would do it at times, but at times I had
- 46:45Speaker 1: to turn my light. Well, it was a it's a
- 46:47Speaker 1: trust issue, and that's what I guess. We were in
- 46:53Speaker 1: that trail so many times and times and some of
- 46:55Speaker 1: those darker timber patches. It really is. It's it is
- 47:00Speaker 1: no different then when you're in a roller coaster and
- 47:03Speaker 1: it goes through the dark tunnel and you can't see
- 47:05Speaker 1: your hand. They might not have a tree branch at
- 47:07Speaker 1: I level. On the trail. There could be tree branches
- 47:11Speaker 1: at I level. Like Walt Disney doesn't like hold a
- 47:16Speaker 1: spruce bow like out, Yeah, as you're going through the tunnel,
- 47:20Speaker 1: slap you in the face of the thing. If I
- 47:22Speaker 1: had multiple people in front of me and they weren't
- 47:25Speaker 1: going out, I'm like, cool man, I'll turn my light off.
- 47:28Speaker 1: But when I'm out. When I happened to be in
- 47:31Speaker 1: front for a little bit, I couldn't let my I
- 47:33Speaker 1: I theoretically I understood I was like the horse stay
- 47:36Speaker 1: on the trail, but I couldn't bring myself to do
- 47:38Speaker 1: it well. So I needed to know if I was
- 47:40Speaker 1: gonna get smacked in the face when I rolled out
- 47:42Speaker 1: the other night, Saturday night, when I left the trail
- 47:44Speaker 1: or left camp about ten thirty at night, UM, I
- 47:48Speaker 1: would periodically turn my light on to look back and
- 47:50Speaker 1: check the pack horse. So I was leading out to
- 47:52Speaker 1: make sure the packs were square. Every time I turned
- 47:55Speaker 1: my light on to look back, they would stop because
- 47:58Speaker 1: they couldn't see anymore. Um. And so at that point,
- 48:02Speaker 1: like I just knew that I needed to shut my
- 48:04Speaker 1: light off and and just periodically check. Which there's nothing
- 48:07Speaker 1: wrong with that, but it shows the fact that it
- 48:09Speaker 1: does impede their ability to continue to see. Yeah, your Stewart,
- 48:13Speaker 1: you kind of I don't even want to call it
- 48:14Speaker 1: passive aggressive. I was out front one at one moment,
- 48:18Speaker 1: I want to in front for a minute, and I
- 48:20Speaker 1: had my lamp on, and uh, you said to me,
- 48:24Speaker 1: isn't it amazing how they can find their way in
- 48:27Speaker 1: the dark too? Me turn your head later. Uh you
- 48:37Speaker 1: guys camp, so you're camp something that you have a
- 48:39Speaker 1: camp in the National Force? Yep, it's all public um,
- 48:42Speaker 1: and so you know really the thing that sets spart
- 48:45Speaker 1: is to be able to get back in that back
- 48:46Speaker 1: country and and and get away from the public because
- 48:50Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that don't want to go
- 48:51Speaker 1: to the effort of getting back there, um, and so
- 48:54Speaker 1: we rely on the horses to do that because it's
- 48:56Speaker 1: just a matter of trying, I mean another transporting gear,
- 48:58Speaker 1: but transporting games. Yeah, you knock something down seven miles.
- 49:02Speaker 1: Who wants to pack an elkout and have to make
- 49:04Speaker 1: four trips It's not gonna be and just going down. Yeah,
- 49:07Speaker 1: it's not just a downhill. You got up and down
- 49:10Speaker 1: and you're climbing in elevation of probably two thousand feet
- 49:14Speaker 1: at any given point. So and then you so it's
- 49:19Speaker 1: on National forest, but you guys have um, you have
- 49:23Speaker 1: an arrangement with the National Forest. We have a special
- 49:26Speaker 1: use permit that that we have you know, the rights
- 49:31Speaker 1: to for a period of time and then we can
- 49:34Speaker 1: renew that. For instance, we just renewed ours this year,
- 49:38Speaker 1: which will be good for another eight years um. And
- 49:41Speaker 1: then they periodically you know, go over things. They want
- 49:45Speaker 1: to make sure you're abiding by the rules that are
- 49:47Speaker 1: set out by the Forest Service to uh be able
- 49:50Speaker 1: to run a camp uh and do it right. We're
- 49:54Speaker 1: governed kind of by two bodies that where we're hunting
- 49:56Speaker 1: on the Forest Service ground and we have some we
- 49:59Speaker 1: hunt on on some other uh government grounds. But uh
- 50:04Speaker 1: speaking of the Forest Service, UM, we we fill a
- 50:07Speaker 1: report out to them every year at the year's end
- 50:11Speaker 1: saying what we had for clients, how many days they
- 50:15Speaker 1: were on the forest and uh and we pay a
- 50:18Speaker 1: fee and and uh so that's where the fee comes
- 50:21Speaker 1: to place and how much you're using it. We we
- 50:23Speaker 1: we pay a flat rate fee for the camp so
- 50:25Speaker 1: and then and then we pay a percentage of the
- 50:27Speaker 1: gross income at the end of the year. Uh. And
- 50:31Speaker 1: then we're governed also certain as far as the outfitter
- 50:34Speaker 1: license which I hold uh for Cricket Sky Outfitters. Um,
- 50:41Speaker 1: they kind of govern us as well, making sure that
- 50:43Speaker 1: we're abiding by the laws, the game and fish laws
- 50:46Speaker 1: and as well as the Forest Service. Uh, you know,
- 50:50Speaker 1: responsibilities that we have there. And what you have. The
- 50:53Speaker 1: infrastructure you have is pretty lights. You have a small
- 50:55Speaker 1: corral which is large as composed of brush and log YEP.
- 51:00Speaker 1: I gathered that one time it was the site to behold. Yeah,
- 51:03Speaker 1: one time, the you know, the snows get pretty deep
- 51:06Speaker 1: up there and and break down your fences. That we
- 51:09Speaker 1: had a bucking pull crail fence all the way around,
- 51:13Speaker 1: but the snows of since dilapidated that and sometimes we've
- 51:17Speaker 1: never had the time to go up because it takes
- 51:19Speaker 1: a lot of energy to try to drag dead lodge
- 51:22Speaker 1: pull pine from off the mountain there, you know, two
- 51:25Speaker 1: ft or two hundred yards or three hundred yards up
- 51:27Speaker 1: that drag it down. And uh, it's been probably twenty
- 51:31Speaker 1: years since we did the crail initially like that, so
- 51:35Speaker 1: it's lasts a long time, but it's as as you
- 51:37Speaker 1: can see. You know, the weathers has warrant. The horses
- 51:41Speaker 1: crib on it, and you see poles break after that.
- 51:44Speaker 1: But you know, that's that's one of the things. And
- 51:47Speaker 1: we've appreciated at least the Forest Service Department that we
- 51:51Speaker 1: work without a camera. They've been good people who work
- 51:54Speaker 1: with and and have been been very helpful. And um,
- 51:59Speaker 1: we've been great that we've had that fortunate first of
- 52:03Speaker 1: all that Uncle Sharon was able to get that camp
- 52:05Speaker 1: back in the early sixties. Uh, even when he didn't
- 52:09Speaker 1: use it that much back then, and it wasn' until
- 52:12Speaker 1: I came in that we started to really use that
- 52:14Speaker 1: upper camp because we have a we have a lower
- 52:16Speaker 1: base camp and that was accessible by and still as
- 52:20Speaker 1: accessible by vehicle. Um so, but I've always been in
- 52:26Speaker 1: the upper camp and so I've always enjoyed the aspect
- 52:29Speaker 1: of what we have there. It's a lot more work
- 52:31Speaker 1: because we have to pack all our feed in by
- 52:34Speaker 1: by horses. We have to you know, make sure that
- 52:37Speaker 1: we've uh got that feed in because it's a long
- 52:40Speaker 1: ways to go back and get feed. If you don't
- 52:42Speaker 1: have quite enough m yeah, you don't. You don't graze
- 52:45Speaker 1: your horses out, you don't pass your horse, don't pass
- 52:48Speaker 1: it on the forest land. We don't have to bring
- 52:50Speaker 1: in your food. We bring the food in and uh
- 52:53Speaker 1: and so it's it's it's just it's a pretty labor
- 52:56Speaker 1: intensive you know. We often say it's a labor of love. Well,
- 53:00Speaker 1: we do, and it truly is because we all know
- 53:02Speaker 1: that when when you really love something that you do
- 53:05Speaker 1: as hard as it is and physically demands it is,
- 53:07Speaker 1: it's not something you despise because it's work. Yeah, it's
- 53:11Speaker 1: something that you just say, I love what Every job
- 53:15Speaker 1: has its uh, I call it grunt work jobs You know,
- 53:18Speaker 1: stuff that you just don't like to do, uh, but
- 53:22Speaker 1: we like doing just about everything, even though it's physical,
- 53:25Speaker 1: it's it's demanding them. Yeah, and you have a you
- 53:29Speaker 1: have a crowd, you have a cash you guys built
- 53:31Speaker 1: out a beetle kill pine where you can put some
- 53:33Speaker 1: stuff over year, and then you have a tarp structure
- 53:35Speaker 1: for your tag yep. Then you have a couple of
- 53:38Speaker 1: tent platforms we did. We set up wall tents on
- 53:40Speaker 1: those tent platforms and put woodstoves there. We used to
- 53:43Speaker 1: have the wood floors with with a large pull pine
- 53:47Speaker 1: frames that we can just pull our tents over, and
- 53:50Speaker 1: then we'd put the tents away and then then you know,
- 53:53Speaker 1: the frames would stay up, but those frames would uh
- 53:56Speaker 1: would often be caved in the next spring when we'd
- 53:59Speaker 1: write in and we'd have to rebuild. And so it's
- 54:02Speaker 1: been probably what ten or so years ago, close to
- 54:06Speaker 1: ten years eight to ten years ago that we uh
- 54:09Speaker 1: I decided to see if I couldn't get approval from
- 54:11Speaker 1: the Forest Service to redo the floors, you know, like
- 54:15Speaker 1: they were only uh, make them structured a little a
- 54:18Speaker 1: little more sound. And then because I noticed today that
- 54:22Speaker 1: you guys had uh they're put on sonitudes. Well we
- 54:27Speaker 1: you know, we were packed in uh cement and report
- 54:32Speaker 1: uh the concrete columns. Um, we couldn't put any rebar
- 54:36Speaker 1: because that was an agreement that you know, we wouldn't
- 54:39Speaker 1: do put it rebar. And I was looking at those.
- 54:41Speaker 1: I was looking at those I was called pilings, what
- 54:43Speaker 1: do you call them? The other columns, the cement columns.
- 54:48Speaker 1: So that made it possible for us to to you know,
- 54:52Speaker 1: build the floor a little more stable because they do
- 54:54Speaker 1: have a footing. You know, we we enlarged the footing
- 54:56Speaker 1: with the son below the sontitude. Um, I'm sorry, I'm dense.
- 55:01Speaker 1: What is the word you're saying? Sauna tube is a
- 55:03Speaker 1: cardboard form? Sauna sa I'm picturing like a room with woods,
- 55:08Speaker 1: a lot of Yeah, it's probably like calling a tissue
- 55:12Speaker 1: of kleenex, right, it's it's so, it's a it's a
- 55:17Speaker 1: kind of a cardboard type were familiar with has never
- 55:20Speaker 1: heard that term sato tube, and and so that's what
- 55:24Speaker 1: we were. They were willing to let us, uh to
- 55:26Speaker 1: do that, you know, improve the look and the camp site.
- 55:31Speaker 1: But then I asked him if we could if we
- 55:33Speaker 1: put a metal frame in there. So I got some
- 55:35Speaker 1: and they proved that, and we got you could have
- 55:39Speaker 1: the whole thing down in an hour, right yep. And
- 55:41Speaker 1: and so we we've got the metal can do it
- 55:44Speaker 1: frames that allows us to be able to pull those
- 55:46Speaker 1: tints on there. And it just makes a comfortable camp
- 55:49Speaker 1: site and a bigger stainless sink, stainless stink and woodstoves.
- 55:55Speaker 1: The stainless stink came in on a horse, right, five
- 55:57Speaker 1: big mule, five ft stay was sink. It's it's actually
- 56:01Speaker 1: eight foot long, three bays three three sink bays in it,
- 56:07Speaker 1: and then a drying rack on the end. And you're saying,
- 56:10Speaker 1: the mule that carried it in couldn't lift his head
- 56:11Speaker 1: up all the way because he had that thing on him.
- 56:14Speaker 1: It had it had that on the on the we'd
- 56:16Speaker 1: raise it up on the we're packing in some cots,
- 56:19Speaker 1: and we put those in some hard paniards and we
- 56:21Speaker 1: were able to elevate it off the top of her head. There.
- 56:25Speaker 1: She couldn't raise it up all the way. She had
- 56:27Speaker 1: to walk with her head about shoulder level all the way.
- 56:32Speaker 1: I remember walking the tent the first time and saw that.
- 56:34Speaker 1: I was like, now, how did that get here? She
- 56:38Speaker 1: she was a good old meal. That it's an old
- 56:42Speaker 1: We called her Molly. She was just the fact Landing
- 56:45Speaker 1: was four years old when I put her, put him
- 56:47Speaker 1: on her, and she just took care of She tried
- 56:49Speaker 1: to brush him off on under pine boughs. Everyone's she
- 56:53Speaker 1: was a big She was used a mule last year
- 56:56Speaker 1: that was ginormous. In her name was Molly. That's fine,
- 56:59Speaker 1: probably her she was, she's dead. She's she was about
- 57:03Speaker 1: thirty when she died, so it would be a different mule.
- 57:05Speaker 1: Then she'd been around the block. We packed her out
- 57:10Speaker 1: of a you know. We fact, if we had real
- 57:12Speaker 1: steep terrain to pack an elk out or a mule deer,
- 57:16Speaker 1: we usually took her. Is it true that people tell
- 57:20Speaker 1: me this all the time. Is it true that a
- 57:22Speaker 1: horse or a mule will deliberately go under a sweeper
- 57:29Speaker 1: to try to dislodge the rider or is it just
- 57:31Speaker 1: that it knows it can fit and it doesn't think
- 57:33Speaker 1: about whether or not there's a rider who's gonna get dislodged.
- 57:36Speaker 1: I think there's a little both. Uh. I watched Landing
- 57:40Speaker 1: with Molly, and she deliberately would walk close to trees.
- 57:43Speaker 1: The trail wasn't under the tree. She would deliberately walk
- 57:48Speaker 1: under it, and he just kind of laid back and
- 57:49Speaker 1: then he popped up like one of those little blow
- 57:52Speaker 1: up things that he had come right back up in
- 57:55Speaker 1: the saddle there like you know, that was no big deal.
- 57:58Speaker 1: He just ride around some more. But I watched her
- 58:00Speaker 1: and it was very deliberate. Um, And I've seen it
- 58:04Speaker 1: with other horses. I've I've ridden horses that too, seemed
- 58:07Speaker 1: to be a little more deliberate in their approach to
- 58:09Speaker 1: Rather than going around the tree, even when the trail
- 58:11Speaker 1: was taking you around, they shortcut it. And uh so
- 58:17Speaker 1: they're they're a little smart in which you think. I've
- 58:19Speaker 1: seen some funny things. I saw a hunter. Uh we'd
- 58:22Speaker 1: seen some milk and we were galloping up the hill
- 58:24Speaker 1: because I'd kicked my horse and into a gallop and
- 58:27Speaker 1: we were It wasn't steep hill, but it was enough.
- 58:29Speaker 1: We had some momentum going. And he was the last
- 58:32Speaker 1: guy and he wasn't hadn't had no control that horse,
- 58:36Speaker 1: and she took him under a great big dug fur
- 58:38Speaker 1: that had There was a pine bough that would have
- 58:41Speaker 1: been probably about all three inches across hanging out from
- 58:47Speaker 1: the tree at least twelve to fourteen feet, and it
- 58:51Speaker 1: was low enough at saddle horn heights when she went
- 58:53Speaker 1: underneath that, and that started in the flecks of that
- 58:57Speaker 1: finally could only go so far. It just cat have
- 59:00Speaker 1: pulled him off the back door. It was it was
- 59:02Speaker 1: a cartoon to behold because it just it blew him
- 59:06Speaker 1: right off the back of the horse. All the other
- 59:08Speaker 1: guys were laughing at him. He wasn't too too excited
- 59:11Speaker 1: about that, but they will, I mean they in that case.
- 59:15Speaker 1: I don't think the horse was thinking how to get
- 59:16Speaker 1: the rider off. I'm I'm just trying to catch up
- 59:19Speaker 1: with the rest of the group, and he didn't. He
- 59:21Speaker 1: wasn't right directly behind, and that guy didn't control the horse,
- 59:25Speaker 1: so he ended up in a fine bow you know,
- 59:29Speaker 1: catapult reason. But once we set out to start hunting,
- 59:36Speaker 1: I feel like you probably did do this. I felt
- 59:38Speaker 1: like you kind of wanted to work close first, and
- 59:42Speaker 1: then as the days go on, you kind of gradually
- 59:45Speaker 1: start doing bigger forays out and uh well, and where
- 59:49Speaker 1: our camp is situated, I think we have some of
- 59:51Speaker 1: the prime hunting just within a very short ride. I
- 59:54Speaker 1: mean you're talking right above camp. You're here in our bugle.
- 59:58Speaker 1: You're seeing deer within the ten minute ride of being
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: outside of camp and we've even spotted deer from Camp Um.
- 1:00:05Speaker 1: And so that's one of the great things of where
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: we're located is that you have that nucleus, if you
- 1:00:11Speaker 1: like Um, where you can just branch out and then
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: we know there's other country out there that we can
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: go out and and if we needed to, like we
- 1:00:19Speaker 1: did this trip to try and see if we couldn't
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: find I mean, we saw plenty of bucks. We just
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: needed to see what else was out there and if
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: we could find you know, that one big buck that
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: was hanging out that was just maybe on the perimeter.
- 1:00:30Speaker 1: But that's the definitely the benefit of where we're at.
- 1:00:34Speaker 1: That first day out one Adam and I rode off
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: with Stewart, I mean we must I think we saw
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: fourteen bucks or something like that. Fourteen bucks I think
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: was at the day thirty forty elk and two bears.
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: It was understood. I was undisturbed, like it was undisturbed.
- 1:00:53Speaker 1: It was the opening day, yeah, And we didn't go
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: far and it was just dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear,
- 1:01:00Speaker 1: and in the middle of it getting distracted by out
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: bugling and all the other cool things out there, and
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: Jason after a bear. Oh man, Yeah, we saw a
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: bear and decided to go run it down on the
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: side of a you know, pretty rocky hill and go
- 1:01:12Speaker 1: after it. But yeah, I mean that was all well.
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: We went a pretty good distance even that first day though,
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: didn't We mean we went this fonsy that made dear
- 1:01:20Speaker 1: though it was well. And the other thing, um that
- 1:01:24Speaker 1: we we we feel like, I mean, they sense your
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: presence and uh, we don't like to just you know,
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: keep it so tight that perhaps it makes it that
- 1:01:35Speaker 1: much more difficult, but it also gives the hunter another
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: perspective because you can see, uh, maybe from where you
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: went the day before country back looking back on some
- 1:01:47Speaker 1: of the country, you were a little better angle in
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: which you experienced because of the fact that we had
- 1:01:52Speaker 1: been there a couple different times looking off in that
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: same spot, but because of our perspective, we could not
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: see everything it was below us. You know what's funny
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: about that spot is the first time we went there. Um,
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: you were talking about how bucks like to lay on
- 1:02:09Speaker 1: this cliff face. It's not a cliff face, but very
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: crazy full of avalanche shoots and fingers and fingers of
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: timber and rocky, and you're like, they like to lay here. Um,
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: And you started creeping along peering over the edge, and
- 1:02:25Speaker 1: Adam said to me, I I do gather they'd like
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: to lay here based off Stuart's like very intense focused
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: down the hill. You know, you're expecting to find one
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: that's where you shot your Yeah, but that's all I
- 1:02:42Speaker 1: was gonna talk about. We twice crept along, twice crept
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: along that glass and down those avalanche shoots and seeing
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: deer laying here and there on it, and possibly twice
- 1:02:59Speaker 1: because he was a little bit farther down, possibly maybe
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: twice walked past the buck that I got. But then
- 1:03:07Speaker 1: it wasn't til it wasn't ntil. We then went around
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: peer back onto that hillside, and then it wasn't even
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: like we said. I I sat down with landing to
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: start glass in the hillside between snow squalls, and I
- 1:03:19Speaker 1: didn't even have my tripods set up, and He's like,
- 1:03:23Speaker 1: you know, there's a buck like and I was like, man,
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: one of our camera guys lost the sunglasses about fifty
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: yards in that buck, you know. Uh. But looking back
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: on it was interesting because there he was. And that's
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: and that's what's kind of fun about it. It's difficult
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: country from the uh perspective of not being able to
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: see it in a in a clear, concise, imaginary way
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: of saying, this is how I would imagine it would
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: have played out. And then you get on, you know,
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: you go around on the other side, looking back, and
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: you can see where timber, the lay of the land,
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: and how the timber and the shadows fall on it.
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: You say, now, I can see why we didn't see
- 1:04:02Speaker 1: as many or see that buck there because he was
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: able to hide in such a fashion that we couldn't
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: see him from above. He could only be seen from
- 1:04:12Speaker 1: the angle down below or on another I don't want
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: to give away too many of you guys trade secrets,
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: but in the daytime and the warm part of the
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: day or in the midday, you guys like to be
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: up looking down a face knowing that it's so steep
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: that the deer gonna bed Basically they're bedding up against trees.
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: They dig out little beds, and they're on the top side,
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: on the top side, and you're not gonna see him
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: from across. But then in the mornings or evenings you
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: can go around and peer back onto the hillside when
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: they might be on their feet. But in the daytime
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: you'd like to be a bedding time, you'd like to
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: be peering straight down. And what that men in this
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: terrain was often several miles and several thousand feet of elevation.
- 1:04:59Speaker 1: You don't running over there. It's not like let's go
- 1:05:01Speaker 1: to the bottom now, like you know yesterday or whenever
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: that was day before. I guess went with your honest book.
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: I mean, it was three miles around to get to
- 1:05:10Speaker 1: where we could see, you know, from that other angle.
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: So with the terrain, it means a lot of moving.
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: But it's either that or nap mid day, which I
- 1:05:17Speaker 1: know you do like Steve, I like it under certain conditions, um,
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: when you can't be productive during that noon now and
- 1:05:24Speaker 1: when it's very nice and warm. I took one like
- 1:05:29Speaker 1: this this week. I took one ten minute. Now that's
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: all I got, one ten minute. You're honest, how many
- 1:05:34Speaker 1: do you have? At least three good ones? Like one
- 1:05:38Speaker 1: period of time? Oh good enough for me? It is
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: like ninety minutes plus the very first day we were out,
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: we're probably pushing two and a half just laid low,
- 1:05:52Speaker 1: got hot, you know, and it kind of you know,
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: the action died down, and but we did end up
- 1:05:57Speaker 1: seeing a lot of bedded bucks this weeked Man finding
- 1:06:00Speaker 1: bedded bucks. That's especially exciting it is. We one time
- 1:06:05Speaker 1: had a did a did an episode of our show
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: where I crept, crawled up on and shot a bedded
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: antelope and got a handful of emails people all riled
- 1:06:15Speaker 1: up about that it's non sports been like, I'm like,
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: you go creep up on a bedded down antilope, Come
- 1:06:22Speaker 1: tell me it's not sports been like, it's not easy
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: to creep up on him. Well, yeah, and there's that
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: argument too of like yeah, like it's somehow better to
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: shoot one it's staring at you. Well, and that's and
- 1:06:35Speaker 1: that's exactly and that's why, you know, like, uh, the
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: day that Adam shot his buck, we had decided to
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: let and I call it to get off and do
- 1:06:44Speaker 1: an Indian hunt because I respect their their method of
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: how they had to hunt in the early day. They
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: had to they had to sneak up on things they
- 1:06:56Speaker 1: didn't have. The didn't have the high powered rifles or
- 1:07:00Speaker 1: or the good binoculars to to really help their cause,
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: and so everything was very stealth driven. And I like
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: that style of hunt where you go into a patch
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: of timber that you know is a place where they
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: bed down on a regular basis, and you're you're matched
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: with their sense, their keen sense of smell and hearing
- 1:07:24Speaker 1: um and whatever the other sense that they have that
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: seems to if they sense danger, they're out of there.
- 1:07:30Speaker 1: And will you try will you try to pull off?
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: I just I just call it a still hunt. Will
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: you try to pull that off with a client into Yeah, yeah,
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: I've done that. In fact, I'll put them in front
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: of me and I'll just say, then you'll say, hey,
- 1:07:44Speaker 1: back up, because you missed the deer. I'll just say
- 1:07:47Speaker 1: I'll say, we're gonna walk just a couple of steps quietly,
- 1:07:51Speaker 1: and we're gonna glass, and we're gonna glass, and then
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: we'll make a few more. So it takes you a
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: long time to get through a patch of timber, but
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: you know, I've not through the ears and depending on
- 1:08:01Speaker 1: the terrain. Um. I've always been amazed at how an
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: animal will see you coming and and are blowing out
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: the timber when you're thinking, God, I didn't even see them. Well,
- 1:08:15Speaker 1: that's because their eyeballs are usually down, you know, maybe
- 1:08:19Speaker 1: knee heights because they're bedded down, and that's where a
- 1:08:22Speaker 1: lot of your your brush sometimes and at least in
- 1:08:24Speaker 1: our terrain is less, so they see your leg movement
- 1:08:29Speaker 1: and you can't see them. Yeah, So it's it's you know,
- 1:08:32Speaker 1: it's absolutely critical if you're gonna go in there, your
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: heads up in the fur needles and stuff, and they're
- 1:08:37Speaker 1: looking and they're seeing low so they see that movement
- 1:08:39Speaker 1: and that's something that is a set off to them,
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: even though there may be no scent, it's something different
- 1:08:46Speaker 1: and it alarms them. And so you I I like
- 1:08:49Speaker 1: the challenge because when you go through like that, Uh,
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: if you're gonna just march prayed through a patch of
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: timber and think you're gonna get a buck, the buck's
- 1:08:58Speaker 1: really got to be tired and sleep be. It occurred
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: to me just while we're having this conversation that of
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: the three deer we got, um we got to be
- 1:09:09Speaker 1: using three very different methods. We got one sort of
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: like the one I got was like very like very
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: textbook spot and stock like spotted from way off. While
- 1:09:21Speaker 1: we're like sitting there and intentionally glass in a distant hillside,
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: crept up on it and you know, sniped it from
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: ways off, and then Adam got one still hunting, creeping
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: through the timber, and then ye only got one of
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: the classic almost like deer drive, not almost classic classic.
- 1:09:42Speaker 1: Well I don't always say almost because like more deer
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: drives don't happen on anybody can say classic unless you
- 1:09:49Speaker 1: were the one driving with Stewart. Do you want me
- 1:09:54Speaker 1: to unpack mine? And then we silly story. We just
- 1:09:58Speaker 1: you know, you and I Steve were he came around
- 1:10:02Speaker 1: on this hill where we knew there was a bunch
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: of timber and you were going down. What were you told?
- 1:10:06Speaker 1: Maybe three yards below me? Can of stop from the
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: I'm then I'm gonna let you just go. Have you
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: heard the term still hunt me? No? I have, I have,
- 1:10:17Speaker 1: but I guess you know through the years, I'm not
- 1:10:20Speaker 1: I'm not taking offense. I'm not taking offense that that
- 1:10:23Speaker 1: saying it like an Indian hunt. But I mean in
- 1:10:27Speaker 1: the East he called a still hunt, and it means
- 1:10:29Speaker 1: like going. I remember my dad writing a letter to
- 1:10:31Speaker 1: the editor because the guy wrote an article. He had
- 1:10:33Speaker 1: the letter. The letter to the editor was published and
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: he kept in his office where a guy wrote an
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: article describing his still hunting strategy, and my dad calculated
- 1:10:42Speaker 1: it by the end of the day he would be
- 1:10:43Speaker 1: fifty yards from his truck because his description that he
- 1:10:50Speaker 1: takes a step and waits five minutes or whatever. My
- 1:10:52Speaker 1: dad got to thinking, well, he wouldn't make it anywhere.
- 1:10:58Speaker 1: But so you have heard the term I have heard,
- 1:11:01Speaker 1: murse I was misleading because you're not being still like
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: you think, like, how is sitting in a tree stand
- 1:11:06Speaker 1: not still hunting? You're still, no one's going anywhere. But
- 1:11:10Speaker 1: it means to still hunt means to not be still well,
- 1:11:14Speaker 1: and then be still and then not be still. Yeah,
- 1:11:16Speaker 1: I think the way I've always twisted it to make
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: make it make that term makes sense to make head. Yeah,
- 1:11:23Speaker 1: that's a good way of putting it is that you
- 1:11:26Speaker 1: move in such a way that if something looks at you,
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: it would perceive you as being still. That's what you
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: had to do to make that makes sense. That's fine, Okay,
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: go ahead, Adam. Sorry, that's why I wanted to get
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: I wanted to get into I wanted to get into
- 1:11:41Speaker 1: the Norman clature a little bit. So yeah, so we
- 1:11:46Speaker 1: we headed into this patch of timber knowing a few
- 1:11:48Speaker 1: different things. Number One, if we were to spook a buck,
- 1:11:52Speaker 1: you gotta be ready, like really quick. Sometimes what that
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: means is you've gotta be ready with your rifle really quick.
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: So whether it's slung on your shoulder holding in your hand.
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: Number Two, you may not have a lot of time
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: to judge its size, and that makes it a little
- 1:12:07Speaker 1: bit more challenging as well. But it also brings about
- 1:12:10Speaker 1: a different sort of adrenaline. You know, when you just
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: boom it it's right there, and what am I gonna
- 1:12:14Speaker 1: do in that moment? Yeah, you feel all of a sudden,
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: you feel very present. Yes. And and it also even
- 1:12:20Speaker 1: right when you hop in the brush the timber at
- 1:12:22Speaker 1: that moment, even though you have no clue if there's
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: a deer in there or where the deer is, you
- 1:12:28Speaker 1: feel like you're stocking something. And you have that they're like, okay,
- 1:12:32Speaker 1: lets me real quiet. You know, you just even to
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: yourself and I'm gonna go because there's probably one right here,
- 1:12:36Speaker 1: and there's probably what So it it's kind of exciting,
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you can't nap while steel, honey. Yeah.
- 1:12:42Speaker 1: And then also Stewart was pretty precise. He's like, you
- 1:12:46Speaker 1: go that far, you go that far, we'll meet you
- 1:12:49Speaker 1: over here. Is this getting into zones? No, No, it
- 1:13:00Speaker 1: was I was gonna be at the top, Steve, you
- 1:13:02Speaker 1: were going to be at the bottom, nearer, nearer to
- 1:13:05Speaker 1: where there was kind of an open bench. And so
- 1:13:09Speaker 1: so I went in towards the top and there's all
- 1:13:11Speaker 1: sorts of sign in there, both elk and deer, um
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: and bear. Actually it's the same area that we've seen
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: the black bear two days before, snow fresh and it
- 1:13:21Speaker 1: had snowed that morning. Is when it snowed. I believe
- 1:13:24Speaker 1: this is day three of our hunt. So we've gone
- 1:13:26Speaker 1: day one, day two. We'd seen a lot of bucks
- 1:13:30Speaker 1: every day. Uh, they'd all been small, nothing, I don't believe,
- 1:13:33Speaker 1: whider in their ears on those first couple of days.
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: And so we kind of I punched in there, and yeah,
- 1:13:39Speaker 1: saw the bear heading the same direction that I was heading.
- 1:13:42Speaker 1: With what would have been in the last five to
- 1:13:44Speaker 1: six hours a bear had been through there in that
- 1:13:46Speaker 1: same direction, came through a whole lot of elk signed,
- 1:13:49Speaker 1: a whole lot of deer sign a lot of beds, Uh,
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: beds were everywhere in there. I mean the smell was there.
- 1:13:54Speaker 1: So all your senses, I mean it's fine, you know,
- 1:13:56Speaker 1: I mean all your senses, you're seeing tracks, you're doing
- 1:13:59Speaker 1: all these things, and uh, it's so, you know, it
- 1:14:02Speaker 1: was awesome. So we get to the middle of probably
- 1:14:06Speaker 1: this section and i'd put, you know, on ax where
- 1:14:09Speaker 1: Stewart was going to be at the end, you know,
- 1:14:10Speaker 1: a little put a little way point where we're gonna
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: meet up, and so really kind of sidehiling, and all
- 1:14:15Speaker 1: of a sudden, stepped in this open area in the
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: middle of this timber where there's probably fifty yards of clearing,
- 1:14:20Speaker 1: and there was a buck standing there and probably stood
- 1:14:25Speaker 1: there for a second or two and then trot it
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: off a period of three to four total seconds. Not
- 1:14:30Speaker 1: enough to get my glass up, not it wasn't that
- 1:14:32Speaker 1: far though, at the same time, not enough to get
- 1:14:34Speaker 1: my rifle scope up. You know. It was just like
- 1:14:36Speaker 1: there's a deer that you know, you're just kind of
- 1:14:39Speaker 1: taking off guarden. He didn't stand there for a long
- 1:14:41Speaker 1: time like sometimes they might do, and I was surprised,
- 1:14:44Speaker 1: to be honest, that we were able to sneak up
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: on him like we did. He was on the other
- 1:14:48Speaker 1: edge of this kind of little open measure him he
- 1:14:51Speaker 1: had probably stood up. Yes, yeah, definitely there, because when
- 1:14:56Speaker 1: we walked over there a couple of minutes later is
- 1:14:58Speaker 1: a bed right there. So I decided. I decided, I'm like,
- 1:15:03Speaker 1: usually if you bump a deer in that case, the
- 1:15:06Speaker 1: deer's gone and okay, let's keep going through. And then
- 1:15:09Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, now, we probably just went through and
- 1:15:10Speaker 1: bumped the whole stinking, you know side of the hill
- 1:15:13Speaker 1: and everything's gonna be gone. Yeah, you don't generally decided
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: to go and check out where it went, but I did. Well.
- 1:15:21Speaker 1: I I just said, I wonder if I knew in
- 1:15:23Speaker 1: that case, in the midst of timber, there's no way
- 1:15:26Speaker 1: on earth you'd ever in a million years gonna be
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: able to catch up buck right, I mean one in
- 1:15:29Speaker 1: a million. But I said, if there's an open clearing,
- 1:15:33Speaker 1: we could kind of I could kind of truck through
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: this timber and maybe see it going up clearing it stops.
- 1:15:38Speaker 1: Broad said for a second, looks back at you, right,
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: that sort of thing, And so pull up the map.
- 1:15:43Speaker 1: It kind of looked along there and saw quarter mile,
- 1:15:46Speaker 1: half mile something like that further down this hill, you know,
- 1:15:51Speaker 1: sidehiling it so further in the direction I was already
- 1:15:53Speaker 1: gonna be going, but slightly down a little towards the
- 1:15:57Speaker 1: border of my zone and your zone. Steve close to
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: that but not across it. You just just I found you. Wait, wait,
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: I'm working at the lower end. I found you well
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: below me. I got on a hunt. I was hunting.
- 1:16:20Speaker 1: It was fair chase, and I was chasing. You went
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: into like a third zone hadn't been discussed zone. That's correct,
- 1:16:30Speaker 1: that's correct. I cannot confirmed order that. So basically I
- 1:16:34Speaker 1: go down through here and I kind of went up
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: pirate first thing, and I looked down because I thought
- 1:16:39Speaker 1: the angled direction that the buck did leave was more
- 1:16:41Speaker 1: down in the in the same direction that I had
- 1:16:44Speaker 1: been going. And so anyways, I get to where this
- 1:16:47Speaker 1: clearing is and I get to look out in the
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: clearing and there's no buck. But as I look towards
- 1:16:53Speaker 1: the left down the hill, I see the rack through
- 1:16:57Speaker 1: the trees. With my bare it was yards away. It's
- 1:17:02Speaker 1: hard to range because it was through the trees, and
- 1:17:04Speaker 1: if I moved my head three inches or six inch
- 1:17:07Speaker 1: to the right left up or down, like I'd lose
- 1:17:09Speaker 1: the deer. It was one of you know, when you
- 1:17:11Speaker 1: just zone in. And it was like eyeball to eyeball.
- 1:17:15Speaker 1: With the window me looking straight at this deer straight on,
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: I could see it was wider in its ears, and
- 1:17:20Speaker 1: it was wider and aning we see. I couldn't see
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: due to all the trees and branches. It couldn't see
- 1:17:25Speaker 1: the forest, couldn't see more, you know about thickness, et cetera.
- 1:17:29Speaker 1: So I stopped and stared at this buck and got
- 1:17:34Speaker 1: my buyos, and the buck didn't move, didn't blink, didn't
- 1:17:37Speaker 1: twitch and hear, and just stared right at me. It's
- 1:17:39Speaker 1: crazy when you talk about Stewart, how the deer can
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: see you, because I I felt pretty lucky that I
- 1:17:45Speaker 1: saw this deer through this window and it obviously saw
- 1:17:48Speaker 1: me right away. And so I'm looking through this thing
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: and I put up the buyos and I'm just wanting
- 1:17:53Speaker 1: him to turn his head so I can get a
- 1:17:55Speaker 1: clear look from the side. Wouldn't turn his head, wouldn't
- 1:17:58Speaker 1: move things straight on one and then uh, I ended
- 1:18:02Speaker 1: up picking up my rifle. And and the thing is
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: it was at that type of heights where I couldn't
- 1:18:08Speaker 1: I certainly couldn't go prone, I couldn't sit down, and
- 1:18:11Speaker 1: I have that tripod, you know, and they can go
- 1:18:13Speaker 1: up and down or whatever, and uh that can use
- 1:18:15Speaker 1: his sticks. Uh. If I was standing like at a
- 1:18:19Speaker 1: regular standing heights number one over a hundred yards, I
- 1:18:22Speaker 1: don't like to do free standing, specially with the visibility there.
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: It was a crouching position. It was like the most
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: awkward position, uh, that you can have, is this crouching position.
- 1:18:31Speaker 1: Is the angle I could see the deer at I
- 1:18:33Speaker 1: knew if I left this window, the deer was gone.
- 1:18:36Speaker 1: And so I'm sitting there and I get my steak.
- 1:18:38Speaker 1: It must have looked like the most uncoordinated setup because
- 1:18:41Speaker 1: I'm like this, My feet kind of kept falling, and
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: so I get the rest and I have the crosshairs
- 1:18:45Speaker 1: on the deer, but I can only see kind of
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: from the chest up half the chest up. It's looking
- 1:18:49Speaker 1: straight on. And so at that point I knew the thing.
- 1:18:54Speaker 1: I was hoping the thing would turn and then i'd
- 1:18:56Speaker 1: have maybe a second or two for it to step across,
- 1:19:00Speaker 1: maybe a wide enough clearing, maybe it's body length, and
- 1:19:03Speaker 1: for me to judge its antlers and pull the trigger.
- 1:19:06Speaker 1: And so I was sitting there and I was thinking,
- 1:19:09Speaker 1: but you know, how it is once you have your
- 1:19:10Speaker 1: cross hairs on the animal, once the animals looking at you,
- 1:19:15Speaker 1: I can see it's wider in its ears. I even
- 1:19:17Speaker 1: turned to my cameraman behind me, who was with me,
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: and said, I'm gonna kind of wait and see, and
- 1:19:22Speaker 1: I was like talking to him and just wrestling it
- 1:19:24Speaker 1: through my mind. As soon as he turns his shoulder,
- 1:19:27Speaker 1: I'm gonna engage it. Well, sure enough, I finally get
- 1:19:29Speaker 1: in position and it it had been minutes of just
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: a direct stare off right there, and the deer turns
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: presents its shoulder and I just pulled the trigger. I
- 1:19:42Speaker 1: just it was that instinct of like, there's the shoulder,
- 1:19:45Speaker 1: there's the cross hairs through the trees, and uh down
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: it went in that one shot, and uh so I
- 1:19:53Speaker 1: run around even kind of just leave my packs at
- 1:19:55Speaker 1: my spotting scille down everything kind of on the ground
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: steep hill, and I just because of the brush, I
- 1:20:00Speaker 1: wanted to kind of get over to the side to
- 1:20:02Speaker 1: just see what's going on, what had happened. But I
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: could see that the thing just went straight down and
- 1:20:07Speaker 1: and sure enough it it didn't move but five or
- 1:20:10Speaker 1: ten feet um from where we found it, and walked
- 1:20:13Speaker 1: up on the buck and UH started taking some you know,
- 1:20:17Speaker 1: some pictures and whatnot before we'd got it out and celebrating,
- 1:20:21Speaker 1: and honestly, you know, i'd I'd been looking probably for
- 1:20:25Speaker 1: a larger buck, but in that moment, it was the
- 1:20:27Speaker 1: end of day three and we hadn't seen any shooter
- 1:20:29Speaker 1: bucks yet, and I just said, oh, let's get something
- 1:20:30Speaker 1: on the ground. And I was, you know, I didn't
- 1:20:32Speaker 1: wait eight years. It's a general tag for me. I'm like,
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: I'll just come back next year if I want to.
- 1:20:38Speaker 1: This guy's gotta wait until, like my kids are grown
- 1:20:40Speaker 1: and married and probably had children before. So then I
- 1:20:44Speaker 1: recovered the buck, and then all of a sudden, I
- 1:20:46Speaker 1: see Steve walking clearly into my zone down Stewart and
- 1:20:53Speaker 1: they both heard the shot and UH and came up
- 1:20:56Speaker 1: and it was I would say, probably pretty close to
- 1:20:58Speaker 1: your zone, Steve. It was, but it had traveled like
- 1:21:01Speaker 1: I'd spotted it well in my zone. And so I
- 1:21:04Speaker 1: don't know where that is in a book of hunting tactics,
- 1:21:08Speaker 1: but no, I think if you're on a hot trail,
- 1:21:11Speaker 1: you get to just I think, okay, how often do
- 1:21:15Speaker 1: you bump a deer while st still hunting, look at
- 1:21:18Speaker 1: something on a map, go and find it and shoot it.
- 1:21:20Speaker 1: But I would have shot that bug had I come
- 1:21:22Speaker 1: across it. Yeah. Yeah, is afternoon to day three, which
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: incidentally just a point that I hadn't thought about. All
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: of the bucks we shot this week, we're in the evening,
- 1:21:36Speaker 1: early even hours. That's a good point. Well, you're right, Uh,
- 1:21:41Speaker 1: the one, the one I got. It's interesting story. But
- 1:21:44Speaker 1: the highlight of my trip, Um, besides me to you guys,
- 1:21:50Speaker 1: I'm watching you work with the horses and and and
- 1:21:53Speaker 1: all that, which is really educational. Uh, the highlight of
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: my trip was something I glimpsed. It's it's words really
- 1:22:00Speaker 1: do it justice. But Uh, when we're all hunting, there's
- 1:22:04Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot of deer around, and we
- 1:22:05Speaker 1: have a long time and we're all admirers of big mulders,
- 1:22:11Speaker 1: so we're trying to find you know, mature box big
- 1:22:15Speaker 1: racks on them. Uh, and then kind of wrestling with
- 1:22:19Speaker 1: this equation of how much time do you have left? Right?
- 1:22:22Speaker 1: And I'm like, I'm definitely gonna get a buck, so
- 1:22:23Speaker 1: I'm gonna wait and wait, but I gotta wait too long.
- 1:22:27Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like I'm willing to go home with
- 1:22:28Speaker 1: no buck. I'm gonna keep waiting. And you know, you're
- 1:22:30Speaker 1: wrestling all this out in your head, and meanwhile you're
- 1:22:32Speaker 1: looking at you're already seeing deer. And so every time
- 1:22:35Speaker 1: you see a mule deer's rump through the timber or
- 1:22:39Speaker 1: wherever it is, um, no matter what I mean, you
- 1:22:43Speaker 1: gotta sit down and assess that thing and see what
- 1:22:45Speaker 1: it is like. Is it a buck? Is it a
- 1:22:46Speaker 1: big buck? And there was a time I was I
- 1:22:50Speaker 1: think I was was. Yeah, I was with Steward. I
- 1:22:51Speaker 1: can't remember who else is there, but I was with
- 1:22:53Speaker 1: you and we I think you had spotted a deer
- 1:22:56Speaker 1: in September. And then I started looking in there and
- 1:23:00Speaker 1: and we started to put together there's three of them
- 1:23:03Speaker 1: in there, and we see two of them. We see
- 1:23:07Speaker 1: there are just two little ones, and there's a third one.
- 1:23:10Speaker 1: We're waiting for the third one to reveal itself. And
- 1:23:15Speaker 1: one of these other boxes, he'd stepped into a spot
- 1:23:18Speaker 1: where he's just got the bright sunlight on his rump
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: and they really shine. And the buck that I was
- 1:23:25Speaker 1: waiting to see, I couldn't see him at all. Now
- 1:23:28Speaker 1: he's completely behind a tree. But all of a sudden,
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: I see the most perfect shadow of his rack on
- 1:23:37Speaker 1: the sunlit buck, to the point where I was like, oh,
- 1:23:41Speaker 1: it's a three by three because it's shadow was like
- 1:23:44Speaker 1: someone doing like finger puppets on the bedroom wall, blasted
- 1:23:49Speaker 1: against this deer and it lasted like this fleeting glimpse.
- 1:23:52Speaker 1: But it was the most bizarre thing I've seen a while.
- 1:23:55Speaker 1: It's like a perfect like I didn't even need to
- 1:23:58Speaker 1: stick around to let him come out of where he
- 1:24:02Speaker 1: was hiding because of how perfectly shadowed his uh deal was.
- 1:24:07Speaker 1: But the day I got the buck I got, we
- 1:24:10Speaker 1: kind of scoured around a fair bit and it was
- 1:24:12Speaker 1: real snowy, and the kind of strange thing that's really
- 1:24:15Speaker 1: fortuitous series of events happened where we saw a dough,
- 1:24:19Speaker 1: where we saw a deer, and by the time we
- 1:24:22Speaker 1: get set up a spotting scope this, the snow picked
- 1:24:25Speaker 1: up so bad you couldn't see. So you went and
- 1:24:27Speaker 1: hit out in some trees. You got out of the wind,
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: made a little fire and it got clear. And the
- 1:24:32Speaker 1: minute it got clear, right, well, let's go run down
- 1:24:35Speaker 1: and look at the hillside we were trying to go
- 1:24:37Speaker 1: look at and I'm still set up my spotting scope
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: and Landing's like, there's deer that looks like a buck.
- 1:24:44Speaker 1: I set up my spine and scope like, wow, that's
- 1:24:46Speaker 1: a that's a nice I mean nice buck. Was all
- 1:24:48Speaker 1: the whole trip like that's a nice buck. And I
- 1:24:50Speaker 1: remember you had said, quote what a stud and so
- 1:24:55Speaker 1: the buck not me and it was that was it
- 1:24:59Speaker 1: like nine yards away or something that's quite quite a
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: ways way? And all of a sudden, our our camera
- 1:25:06Speaker 1: guy Lauren remarks like, man, is there a squall headed
- 1:25:10Speaker 1: our way? And I look up the mountain and just
- 1:25:12Speaker 1: like this wall of white is coming and this wall
- 1:25:15Speaker 1: of white and it was fog, intense wind and a
- 1:25:21Speaker 1: lot of snow just engulfs Us and Land and I
- 1:25:26Speaker 1: kind of look at each I were like, you know,
- 1:25:29Speaker 1: we could walk over there like this buck would never know.
- 1:25:33Speaker 1: And we literally just ran threw a white out, arrived
- 1:25:40Speaker 1: at where we were, like below the buck. The white
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: out is so strong that we're able to pick which
- 1:25:46Speaker 1: sort of tree would be best to hang out at
- 1:25:49Speaker 1: hunker down that eventus you could kind of see the
- 1:25:51Speaker 1: base of the hill, then you can make out some timber.
- 1:25:56Speaker 1: Then it cleared and just there's the buck. Two and
- 1:25:58Speaker 1: fifty yards away. Nothing works out like that. It was perfect,
- 1:26:03Speaker 1: I mean the wind. We kept watching the wind to
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: make sure that the our wind was right, and the
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: whole situation was just a perfect uh, perfect stock And
- 1:26:12Speaker 1: it couldn't been any better because we caught him right
- 1:26:13Speaker 1: in that window between the snowstorms, and then we were
- 1:26:17Speaker 1: able to use the snowstorm as our cover to then
- 1:26:19Speaker 1: get within a range where he didn't even know we
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: were there because we had a bare hillside with opa
- 1:26:23Speaker 1: pockets that we needed to be able to get through
- 1:26:25Speaker 1: to get down to him. But then the snow also
- 1:26:28Speaker 1: helped muffle the noise, you know, the wind and everything,
- 1:26:31Speaker 1: and then it got like beautifully calm. And the other
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: thing that we both observed later that never happens. We
- 1:26:35Speaker 1: had a landmark which was the shiny white the shiny tree,
- 1:26:39Speaker 1: nag uh. And a lot of times you kind of
- 1:26:42Speaker 1: move aways and your landmarks ceased to make sense. But
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: we got up and as it started to clear, we
- 1:26:49Speaker 1: were in agreement, like that's the tree, yea, And then
- 1:26:52Speaker 1: lo and behold, like the bark was under the tree.
- 1:26:57Speaker 1: It was nothing, I mean not nothing ever works out
- 1:26:59Speaker 1: that way. But that was one of the more amazing.
- 1:27:00Speaker 1: That's how good crooked sky is. They can call into
- 1:27:03Speaker 1: salls some of the squall. We had that kind of
- 1:27:11Speaker 1: power sometimes. But so how and how far was that?
- 1:27:15Speaker 1: How far did you get then when you stopped? Was
- 1:27:17Speaker 1: it to something? We stopped and hunkered down and waited
- 1:27:20Speaker 1: for the water to clear. And when the bucks stepped
- 1:27:24Speaker 1: I mean he still I say he stepped out, But yeah,
- 1:27:28Speaker 1: he stepped out. We we couldn't see him in all
- 1:27:29Speaker 1: sinar he was two six yards. Nothing ever works out
- 1:27:34Speaker 1: quite like that unless Stewart says, I've got a plan.
- 1:27:38Speaker 1: Let's drive this piece of timber up here at on
- 1:27:41Speaker 1: the side of the Shale Mountain and you just go
- 1:27:44Speaker 1: and sit down at the end of the Shelle Mountain
- 1:27:45Speaker 1: and wait for a buck to come to you. Your
- 1:27:47Speaker 1: word for it doesn't give away your spot. That's your
- 1:27:49Speaker 1: own personal term for it. Or do people know it
- 1:27:52Speaker 1: as I think you said, huh, you know, I don't
- 1:27:56Speaker 1: know that we we uh, we gave it a name,
- 1:28:00Speaker 1: but I don't think there's any name on a map
- 1:28:02Speaker 1: like that. But we gave gave it a name of
- 1:28:04Speaker 1: dangling gardens because you're virtually hanging when you're coming around
- 1:28:09Speaker 1: patch of timber. You're grabbing for any kind of pine
- 1:28:12Speaker 1: bow to keep you upright, because it's just it's really
- 1:28:16Speaker 1: steep on the on the side, slant with rock and
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: and uh it's a workout. They'll have you in a lather,
- 1:28:24Speaker 1: just in a in about a half a mile, you know, hike.
- 1:28:28Speaker 1: I tripped eleven times and slid downhill on that drive.
- 1:28:34Speaker 1: For you, you had a little counter pressing the button
- 1:28:37Speaker 1: every day. My my film guy just kept laughing and
- 1:28:40Speaker 1: then other way back he kept doing it. That was
- 1:28:43Speaker 1: and that's the thing, man, So much respect for you,
- 1:28:45Speaker 1: steward of of the I mean the physical nature. We
- 1:28:48Speaker 1: talked at about horseback, but I mean that that day,
- 1:28:51Speaker 1: uh that you shot your Bucky on us, I mean
- 1:28:53Speaker 1: it was you know, there's I think I looked it
- 1:28:55Speaker 1: was eighteen miles and maybe ten of that was on horseback,
- 1:28:58Speaker 1: and eight we didn't stop for fourteen hours. We were
- 1:29:02Speaker 1: just just going, yeah, I know, it was a beautiful
- 1:29:05Speaker 1: day to walk around the mountains. And he was just
- 1:29:08Speaker 1: yeah that good horse rides. Oh No, I want to
- 1:29:14Speaker 1: tell the story of the things that I think it
- 1:29:16Speaker 1: kind of demonstrates. One year hunting was someone who spent
- 1:29:19Speaker 1: thirty years hunting the area. Yeah, just like talking about
- 1:29:24Speaker 1: how that played out with the buck he got. Well.
- 1:29:27Speaker 1: Prior to that was the first day I got to
- 1:29:29Speaker 1: hunt with Steward prid Of that had been hunting with
- 1:29:30Speaker 1: Land and we've been hunting sort of the other side
- 1:29:33Speaker 1: of this drainage and looking over at this mountain which
- 1:29:37Speaker 1: dangling gardens dangle on, and he kept saying, you know,
- 1:29:43Speaker 1: there's bucks in that patch of timber, and like when
- 1:29:46Speaker 1: you're seeing them. Well, no, well he's seen him there
- 1:29:49Speaker 1: in the past. And Adam went by it one day
- 1:29:52Speaker 1: and he's like, man, it's just like a big rocky hillside.
- 1:29:55Speaker 1: There's probably not any bucks over there. And then the
- 1:29:58Speaker 1: next day or no, that same afternoon, I hunted it
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: backwards and I looked over there some and I'm like, yeah,
- 1:30:03Speaker 1: it just doesn't look like a real bucky spot because
- 1:30:06Speaker 1: it's just like rocks to right. Yeah, yeah, Um, it
- 1:30:12Speaker 1: wasn't Wasn't there a story of the past where we've
- 1:30:14Speaker 1: done the same thing and a lot of bucks came
- 1:30:16Speaker 1: out there. Yeah. We had a hunter from Pennsylvanian and
- 1:30:20Speaker 1: he'd been all over he'd been to Africa and so
- 1:30:23Speaker 1: he you know, when he was he was a good hunter.
- 1:30:25Speaker 1: But he was in there his older years, and so
- 1:30:27Speaker 1: that was a way for there. It couldn't have been
- 1:30:30Speaker 1: that old. Well he was, he was in his uh
- 1:30:33Speaker 1: he would have been in his late late sixties, early seventies,
- 1:30:38Speaker 1: and uh he was a bigger fellow and and but
- 1:30:41Speaker 1: pretty physical and robust even at his age. But we
- 1:30:45Speaker 1: rode him. We got him, uh, dropped off at the
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: point that would have been close to where on horseback
- 1:30:52Speaker 1: he wasn't gonna get off. So we we we we walk.
- 1:30:57Speaker 1: That was a drop off, not the not the high through,
- 1:31:00Speaker 1: but we we went through that same batch of timber.
- 1:31:04Speaker 1: We'd had it. It was a tough we were having it.
- 1:31:06Speaker 1: It was a dry, uh kind of an almost Indian
- 1:31:09Speaker 1: summary type hunt week, and so everything was just really
- 1:31:13Speaker 1: tough and held up in the timber tighten. We thought,
- 1:31:16Speaker 1: this is one of our only options is to see
- 1:31:18Speaker 1: if we can walk through this, uh, this strip of
- 1:31:20Speaker 1: timber which has kind of a natural funnel effect. They
- 1:31:24Speaker 1: don't like to go down on that. They they'd rather
- 1:31:27Speaker 1: traverse around because they've got to cover and feed. And
- 1:31:30Speaker 1: we haven't dissed. We don't have time to get into
- 1:31:33Speaker 1: we haven't discussed the slide like this is the most
- 1:31:36Speaker 1: slide rock intensive location I've ever been. It's it's it's
- 1:31:41Speaker 1: a lot of rock and and a lot of we
- 1:31:43Speaker 1: call it slide rock up that you know from our tourman.
- 1:31:45Speaker 1: Nothing wants to walk on that stuff. They don't, they
- 1:31:47Speaker 1: don't like to, and so that's part of the you know,
- 1:31:51Speaker 1: that timber was kind of nestled in such a way
- 1:31:53Speaker 1: that as it came around in a tree line fashion
- 1:31:58Speaker 1: on that on that mountain that in the past we
- 1:32:01Speaker 1: had driven that and we had driven out. When we
- 1:32:04Speaker 1: got over, we heard a shot get around. He just
- 1:32:06Speaker 1: killed a buck. And the guy says, I had to
- 1:32:09Speaker 1: do something. He says that there were thirteen bucks went
- 1:32:11Speaker 1: in front of me and I had to take so,
- 1:32:14Speaker 1: you know, he just you know, he just it blew
- 1:32:17Speaker 1: him away that that would even because I think and
- 1:32:20Speaker 1: I thought the same thing early on is when you
- 1:32:22Speaker 1: glass that, you're thinking, there's no way it's too rocky too.
- 1:32:26Speaker 1: But they like it does have brush in there that
- 1:32:28Speaker 1: they like to nibble on. But there's there's the places
- 1:32:31Speaker 1: that they've through the years of you know, pawt out
- 1:32:35Speaker 1: to make a bed on the uphill side of it. Yeah,
- 1:32:37Speaker 1: they like excavate their beds, and they do. That buck
- 1:32:40Speaker 1: I got was in a place I feel a lot
- 1:32:42Speaker 1: of I feel most hunters would would not scrutinize the
- 1:32:47Speaker 1: hill where I found the buck because they're gonna be
- 1:32:49Speaker 1: looking at the meadowy stuff, right, You're gonna see all
- 1:32:52Speaker 1: those beautiful grassy meadows, not realizing that those older box
- 1:32:57Speaker 1: are in the not there in like like hidie holes,
- 1:33:02Speaker 1: like weird spots. You know. When we walked through those
- 1:33:04Speaker 1: trees doing the drive and I saw a bed and
- 1:33:07Speaker 1: I was like, how did this bed even hardly get made?
- 1:33:10Speaker 1: I mean it's like, how do you even level it out?
- 1:33:12Speaker 1: I mean it's but they felt safe up there. I
- 1:33:15Speaker 1: mean we didn't think they were there. Probably nobody thought
- 1:33:17Speaker 1: they were there. I didn't think there's anything living on
- 1:33:19Speaker 1: the side of that dangling gardens. That's that's their bed
- 1:33:23Speaker 1: down the site. You all that they can, especially when
- 1:33:26Speaker 1: it's cold, they can go around it. It gets that
- 1:33:29Speaker 1: it's on a south facing slope and they can get
- 1:33:31Speaker 1: that sun. And yet they've got escape routes you know,
- 1:33:35Speaker 1: out the wazoo. Uh, they can go down if they're spooked.
- 1:33:39Speaker 1: But you were pretty confident when we were there ahead
- 1:33:42Speaker 1: of time with the honest you know, we even said,
- 1:33:44Speaker 1: well wouldn't they go down or whatever? They'll go usually
- 1:33:47Speaker 1: go right around to go around. Yeah. Yeah, when we
- 1:33:51Speaker 1: were looking at it from across the way, you kept saying,
- 1:33:53Speaker 1: see how that bandit timbers rafts right around that point,
- 1:33:56Speaker 1: you know, and it narrows down. It just necks down
- 1:33:59Speaker 1: to where if they want to stay near any kind
- 1:34:01Speaker 1: of timber they have to take this one path. Um.
- 1:34:07Speaker 1: So yeah, anyways, I hate to skip through all that
- 1:34:10Speaker 1: all this day because we had this just this wonderful
- 1:34:12Speaker 1: day of hunting that culminated in this in shooting this box,
- 1:34:16Speaker 1: because we had seen prior to that, I think eight
- 1:34:20Speaker 1: other bogs. We had three inches of fresh snow that morning,
- 1:34:24Speaker 1: like the biggest snow we had gotten. It was the
- 1:34:26Speaker 1: morning after you killed yours. That squall had come in
- 1:34:28Speaker 1: that allowed you to kill yours, laid down about two
- 1:34:31Speaker 1: or three inches depending on where you were in the mountains.
- 1:34:34Speaker 1: And it was just like that. You couldn't pick a
- 1:34:36Speaker 1: better morning. And that's something I'd like to remark on.
- 1:34:38Speaker 1: Did you notice how the weather seemed to really like
- 1:34:41Speaker 1: it was either like very nice or you'd have this
- 1:34:44Speaker 1: like crazy squaw move in and holy shit, and then
- 1:34:48Speaker 1: that would last for not too long and then all
- 1:34:50Speaker 1: sudden just be beautiful again. There wasn't a lot of
- 1:34:55Speaker 1: in between. There's a lot of putting clothes on and
- 1:34:57Speaker 1: taking them off. Laters are very important for um. But yeah,
- 1:35:05Speaker 1: we hiked around a good bit. Like Adam said, we
- 1:35:08Speaker 1: did basically one whole hunt and then decided to continue
- 1:35:11Speaker 1: up the mountain, got back on our horses, and that's
- 1:35:14Speaker 1: when we like, I felt like we graduated to level
- 1:35:17Speaker 1: ten horse riding was that afternoon because we just went
- 1:35:21Speaker 1: off the trail and straight up, straight up. It was
- 1:35:24Speaker 1: the Man from Snowy River, but uphill down. If you
- 1:35:27Speaker 1: watch that movie backwards, it was man, it was it
- 1:35:33Speaker 1: was cool. Um, where do we get to? We got
- 1:35:36Speaker 1: to like, uh, we got to a pass. We got
- 1:35:39Speaker 1: up to a rim that that had could look down
- 1:35:41Speaker 1: into a bowl, great big bowl. It was actually the
- 1:35:44Speaker 1: only time we stopped all day. Did lunch there for
- 1:35:46Speaker 1: about a half hour, and other gnat from dark to dark.
- 1:35:48Speaker 1: We didn't stop moving, right, I mean, other standing glass. Yeah,
- 1:35:53Speaker 1: other than the time when we got up to the
- 1:35:55Speaker 1: top of this unnamed peak and Stewart said I've got
- 1:35:58Speaker 1: a plan and involve you, Adam and Stewart walking the
- 1:36:05Speaker 1: dangling gardens. And I was gonna get to walk down
- 1:36:07Speaker 1: the ridge and go sit and wait for bucks to
- 1:36:08Speaker 1: come around the corner. And uh, yeah, it worked out perfectly.
- 1:36:14Speaker 1: I got Also, I got nestled in and I had
- 1:36:16Speaker 1: a nice little shooting perch when I had my tripods
- 1:36:19Speaker 1: set up where I could shoot zero to two or
- 1:36:22Speaker 1: fifty yards if they came close and if they got
- 1:36:24Speaker 1: by me. And it's kind of spilled out in this
- 1:36:27Speaker 1: big open basin that was to my left. I had
- 1:36:29Speaker 1: my pack already set up so I could switch positions
- 1:36:32Speaker 1: and get on my pack and make a longer shot.
- 1:36:33Speaker 1: You had your mees on plas. Yes, that's culinary term. Yes, four,
- 1:36:40Speaker 1: all your stuff in order. Yeah, you're prep um. I
- 1:36:46Speaker 1: used to do a lot of MEAs in plas. Uh
- 1:36:50Speaker 1: do you know what she was trying to remember? The term? Now,
- 1:36:55Speaker 1: when you cut like a real fine dice, like a
- 1:36:59Speaker 1: quarter inch, what's that called? You gotta have like quarter
- 1:37:02Speaker 1: ins dice carrots and your musing plus come on, you know,
- 1:37:06Speaker 1: I know that when you get your carrots and your onions,
- 1:37:08Speaker 1: your mushroom diced up. It's a mere plais Yeah, no mushroom,
- 1:37:12Speaker 1: so just selary but not to diverge. Um. I was
- 1:37:20Speaker 1: ready and it took a while. You called on the
- 1:37:23Speaker 1: radio and he said are you ready? I said, yeah,
- 1:37:25Speaker 1: said we're starting in. And a lot of times on
- 1:37:28Speaker 1: the drive, I feel like, if it's gonna happen, it
- 1:37:30Speaker 1: happens pretty quick, because you bump something as soon as
- 1:37:32Speaker 1: you get into the patch that you're gonna push, and
- 1:37:34Speaker 1: the deer or the elk or whatever goes through its
- 1:37:36Speaker 1: own and it happens. Well, like fifteen minutes went by,
- 1:37:40Speaker 1: and I'm chatting with Tyler, the camera guy, and I'm like, yeah,
- 1:37:43Speaker 1: I'm half expecting these guys just to pop out at
- 1:37:46Speaker 1: any moment, you know, we'll be getting on out of here. Well,
- 1:37:49Speaker 1: I'm telling myself, stay ready, stay ready, And sure enough,
- 1:37:52Speaker 1: like right on the point of the ridge, here comes
- 1:37:55Speaker 1: two bodies, you know, two bucks coming together. Yep, and uh,
- 1:38:00Speaker 1: they were probably I don't know, a hundred yards hundred
- 1:38:04Speaker 1: fifty yards below me, kind of wrapping around and at
- 1:38:07Speaker 1: some point, for whatever reason, when they were maybe twitter
- 1:38:10Speaker 1: yards away, they decided to come straight up the hill.
- 1:38:12Speaker 1: But I knew they wouldn't go over the top because
- 1:38:14Speaker 1: it's all that shale rock and you know, just there's
- 1:38:17Speaker 1: no nothing to travel on and so they want to
- 1:38:19Speaker 1: kind of hit that stuff. They turned. It almost made
- 1:38:22Speaker 1: it tough because they were coming almost at me. I
- 1:38:25Speaker 1: didn't really have a shot. I would have shot him
- 1:38:26Speaker 1: earlier had he give me, give me a broadside shot
- 1:38:29Speaker 1: when he came and kept just coming at me side
- 1:38:31Speaker 1: to wait until they finally just like the angle decreased
- 1:38:35Speaker 1: and he became broadside and that was probably there was
- 1:38:39Speaker 1: somewhere between fifty and seventy yards. It's pretty close. Piled
- 1:38:44Speaker 1: him up, Yeah, yeah, shot I had. I was shooting
- 1:38:48Speaker 1: for like chest, like front of the front shoulder because
- 1:38:51Speaker 1: he was quartering two pretty severely, and uh he was moving.
- 1:38:55Speaker 1: He just had a little gap that he went through,
- 1:38:58Speaker 1: and uh I touched off, caught him in like the
- 1:39:00Speaker 1: lower neck, lost my neck, grosstst half of one shoulder.
- 1:39:07Speaker 1: But a piled up you didn't go anywhere. There was
- 1:39:10Speaker 1: three three bullets fired and three bucks down. I remember
- 1:39:14Speaker 1: hearing that shot from across the canyon because yeah, and uh,
- 1:39:20Speaker 1: I just listened for the radio chatter after that, and
- 1:39:23Speaker 1: Stewart came on the radio asking if Yanni had shot
- 1:39:26Speaker 1: and Joanni said, I had to shoot him almost in
- 1:39:28Speaker 1: self defense. Yeah, he was gonna go for me. It
- 1:39:36Speaker 1: was good. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do my concluders,
- 1:39:40Speaker 1: My concluders A two part concluder. Okay, um, part my part.
- 1:39:46Speaker 1: One of my concluder is we had there was a
- 1:39:51Speaker 1: big winter kill, two big winter kills in western Wyoming.
- 1:39:55Speaker 1: And don't don't they estimate that about fifty of the
- 1:39:57Speaker 1: mule deer got killed. Well, our phone mortality was over
- 1:40:03Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know what the total, but you know,
- 1:40:05Speaker 1: you look you lose over your your phone crop that severe.
- 1:40:11Speaker 1: And we had talked about doing this hunt a couple
- 1:40:13Speaker 1: of years ago in Landing. Uh generously in character with himself,
- 1:40:20Speaker 1: UH said, you know, you guys might want to wait
- 1:40:23Speaker 1: a little bit to see kind of how things are
- 1:40:25Speaker 1: gonna shake out with the meal to your population. Um.
- 1:40:29Speaker 1: And there's still some chatter, you know, in in in
- 1:40:33Speaker 1: Um people who like to hunt this area to some
- 1:40:35Speaker 1: still some chatter about is it worth it or not?
- 1:40:39Speaker 1: And how are the mule that you're doing? Uh? My
- 1:40:43Speaker 1: sense after looking around, is that barring another weather catastrophe Um,
- 1:40:52Speaker 1: this place is gonna be special in a couple of
- 1:40:54Speaker 1: years because there are a lot of up and coming
- 1:40:58Speaker 1: I don't know if it always seems like that, but
- 1:41:00Speaker 1: there seems to be like a lot of up and
- 1:41:02Speaker 1: coming bucks, like a lot of like classic four by
- 1:41:06Speaker 1: four mule deer Bucks on the mountain right now that
- 1:41:10Speaker 1: are younger your three and four year old bucks. Yeah.
- 1:41:13Speaker 1: And if, like unless something some kind of other catastrophe
- 1:41:17Speaker 1: would happen, I'd have to think that things are gonna
- 1:41:18Speaker 1: be like things are gonna be kind of back to
- 1:41:22Speaker 1: the good old days. The genetics, the genetics are all there,
- 1:41:26Speaker 1: and and the ones that survived that those tough winners
- 1:41:29Speaker 1: are only going to pass on those good genetics and
- 1:41:31Speaker 1: continue to build our herd. Um And. So I you know,
- 1:41:35Speaker 1: I think what we saw this week, you know, I
- 1:41:38Speaker 1: we probably saw forty or fifty different bucks, um and,
- 1:41:42Speaker 1: and a good chunk of those, I think, being four
- 1:41:44Speaker 1: point that are up and coming gonna be the majority.
- 1:41:48Speaker 1: This is really surprising, the majority. It almost you always
- 1:41:51Speaker 1: have to worry about the where are all the forkys?
- 1:41:55Speaker 1: So I don't know where you guys are gonna be
- 1:41:56Speaker 1: at five years, but in one or two years. That's
- 1:41:59Speaker 1: what they know. And that points out the fact when
- 1:42:01Speaker 1: you don't see that many forkies, that you realize that, yeah,
- 1:42:04Speaker 1: that the fun mortality was up. That was two years ago.
- 1:42:07Speaker 1: Whenn't it well too well, I think too back almost
- 1:42:09Speaker 1: back to back, we've had the almost comparable. It's true
- 1:42:13Speaker 1: we did not see a lot of films. There are
- 1:42:15Speaker 1: a lot of like books that are like like Doug
- 1:42:17Speaker 1: during says, there are a lot of nice buck next
- 1:42:19Speaker 1: year's Um. That's my one observation. The second we don't
- 1:42:25Speaker 1: do many um a lot of us with you, none
- 1:42:28Speaker 1: at all. We don't do many hunts to go out
- 1:42:31Speaker 1: with outfitters. Uh. But man, it's real eye opening. Um.
- 1:42:39Speaker 1: I realized that it's almost like a kind of it's
- 1:42:44Speaker 1: almost like a like a like a kind of vanity
- 1:42:47Speaker 1: or something, or like a kind of pride that uh
- 1:42:51Speaker 1: would prevent one partially to prevent one from wanting to
- 1:42:56Speaker 1: go and like have someone else be really in the
- 1:42:59Speaker 1: driver's seat, you know. Um, you get to relacate, like, oh,
- 1:43:02Speaker 1: I know how to do you know, I know what
- 1:43:03Speaker 1: I'm doing. I'll do it, by God, I can do
- 1:43:06Speaker 1: it myself. Uh. And I kind of over the years
- 1:43:10Speaker 1: developed that sentiment a little bit. And and there's another
- 1:43:12Speaker 1: friend of ours, Jay Scott, who I've spent something he's
- 1:43:15Speaker 1: a guide and spend some time around him. Um, and
- 1:43:18Speaker 1: you learn a lot. It was fun, Like it was
- 1:43:20Speaker 1: really fun to be out with you guys and see, Um,
- 1:43:24Speaker 1: you have phenomenal game eyes. I want to know if
- 1:43:28Speaker 1: you have a good game. I in looking for those
- 1:43:33Speaker 1: animals in that spot. I'd love to see if you
- 1:43:36Speaker 1: got a good game I somewhere else. I don't know,
- 1:43:39Speaker 1: like if you were in Michigan, would you be spotting
- 1:43:41Speaker 1: deer through thick brush all the time? Would you'd be like,
- 1:43:44Speaker 1: there's a dear ankle twenty yards away? Or um, you know,
- 1:43:48Speaker 1: you guys have phenomenal game eyes. And then just the
- 1:43:50Speaker 1: stuff about the horses, and I appreciate and hanging out
- 1:43:54Speaker 1: with you guys. That's why I would just so hardly
- 1:43:56Speaker 1: recommend people that want to go do a hunt like
- 1:43:58Speaker 1: this to hook up with you guys. Is um you
- 1:44:02Speaker 1: you teach like you guys teach without lecturing. I don't
- 1:44:07Speaker 1: know quite know how to put it, but in a
- 1:44:09Speaker 1: very like gracious, friendly way of just wanting not wanting
- 1:44:15Speaker 1: to like get people to do what you want to do,
- 1:44:17Speaker 1: but just wanting to get people to um have an experience. Yeah,
- 1:44:22Speaker 1: like you have an experience and come away a better person.
- 1:44:24Speaker 1: Like you really shared a lot of information. You shared
- 1:44:28Speaker 1: a lot of information in a very cool way, like
- 1:44:30Speaker 1: a really digestible, friendly way. Um without ever yeah, without
- 1:44:39Speaker 1: ever seeming like you guys are look down on your clients,
- 1:44:43Speaker 1: are annoyed by your guests, right, or that you're there,
- 1:44:48Speaker 1: like you'd got it done so fast if they weren't
- 1:44:51Speaker 1: there kind of attitude. It was really fun. But I
- 1:44:54Speaker 1: had a really really great six days of hanging out
- 1:44:59Speaker 1: with you. Well it's like I told you guys that
- 1:45:02Speaker 1: before we left. You know, it's fun to hunt with
- 1:45:04Speaker 1: guys that are willing and game hunters to do what
- 1:45:09Speaker 1: it takes to hunt in a fair chase style. Uh,
- 1:45:13Speaker 1: and know that there's always a chance that you might
- 1:45:16Speaker 1: not find that uh dream buck that you imagined that
- 1:45:20Speaker 1: you were going to see behind every tree. I think
- 1:45:24Speaker 1: you honest, And I've talked earlier about the you know,
- 1:45:27Speaker 1: the tough winner, and that there was always that possibility.
- 1:45:30Speaker 1: We hadn't really seen what what we were gonna experience,
- 1:45:34Speaker 1: but what it became apparent and I have to be honest,
- 1:45:36Speaker 1: I was nervous knowing that you guys had you know,
- 1:45:40Speaker 1: eight eight points. That's a lot of points, UH had
- 1:45:44Speaker 1: taken and cash in on those to come and hunt
- 1:45:47Speaker 1: with us this year. Uh, maybe it'd be a disaster
- 1:45:50Speaker 1: that we wouldn't see any dear that it was. It
- 1:45:53Speaker 1: was gonna be that tough, But you guys made it
- 1:45:59Speaker 1: worthwhile to with because you guys had good game eyes,
- 1:46:02Speaker 1: which improves our ability of saying, Okay, we know the train.
- 1:46:07Speaker 1: You guys you know may have seen that buck. Now
- 1:46:10Speaker 1: we know how a little bit how to get to that.
- 1:46:12Speaker 1: Those are things that to me, the experience of the
- 1:46:16Speaker 1: hunter that comes and hunts with us is is overall,
- 1:46:20Speaker 1: whether it's in camp, whether it's on horseback, because the
- 1:46:23Speaker 1: more you can enjoy the horseback ride, the more you'll
- 1:46:26Speaker 1: enjoy the overall hunt, because uh, it's no fun if
- 1:46:29Speaker 1: if if you're just if you got you know, puckered up,
- 1:46:33Speaker 1: but in the saddle thinking thinking when this ride gonna
- 1:46:40Speaker 1: be over? You know, I I to me it it
- 1:46:43Speaker 1: just I could empathize because I knew I grew up
- 1:46:46Speaker 1: on a horse and the first time I went with
- 1:46:48Speaker 1: Dad hunting as a fourteen year old boy and we
- 1:46:51Speaker 1: were traversing across a sidehill that was slick and snowy,
- 1:46:56Speaker 1: and my horse slipped. It just frightened me to death.
- 1:46:59Speaker 1: And that Wow, I don't know if i've it's not
- 1:47:02Speaker 1: very comfortable scenario. Yeah, it's been a lot time wondered
- 1:47:05Speaker 1: what's like to have one of those things roll over
- 1:47:07Speaker 1: on you. But you had you rolled over on you.
- 1:47:11Speaker 1: You were all right in the creek. Gotta get out
- 1:47:13Speaker 1: of the way. Yeah, seth, what you got You got
- 1:47:16Speaker 1: a good concluder, even bad conclue. I don't care. Um,
- 1:47:21Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm quite a horseman yet. No,
- 1:47:24Speaker 1: you're allergic to horses stuff the whole time, says the
- 1:47:27Speaker 1: eyes are water and his nose is running. Um, it's
- 1:47:31Speaker 1: like being out on a boat with honest. After this week,
- 1:47:35Speaker 1: I respect horses in a way that I've never I've
- 1:47:38Speaker 1: never done before. Um, I've always kind of like just
- 1:47:41Speaker 1: rode him off because I'm, you know, always miserable when
- 1:47:44Speaker 1: I'm around them. Grow Let's thing. You grew up on
- 1:47:46Speaker 1: a farm, though, but you guys raise hogs and whatnot.
- 1:47:49Speaker 1: We had horses too when I was younger. Just I
- 1:47:51Speaker 1: never like, I don't know, I just never pay attention
- 1:47:53Speaker 1: to never drawn to him. Yeah, I never drawn to him. Um,
- 1:47:56Speaker 1: But watching Landing and Stewart do what they do with
- 1:47:58Speaker 1: horses and and just like the overall experience this week,
- 1:48:03Speaker 1: um makes everybody want to be a cowboy on that.
- 1:48:06Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was like riding out being like, where
- 1:48:09Speaker 1: would I keep a horse? Yeah? Seems like you know what,
- 1:48:13Speaker 1: maybe I'll keep one out in Maths place. Honest, I
- 1:48:17Speaker 1: asked you the same thing on the way out today
- 1:48:19Speaker 1: we were riding MI. So you think you'd ever get horses? Right? Yeah, first,
- 1:48:24Speaker 1: I I'm just gonna start with some chaps and a hat.
- 1:48:29Speaker 1: I mentioned getting a horse and keeping the mats, and yeah,
- 1:48:31Speaker 1: it's like, oh yeah, just let it go feral. And
- 1:48:33Speaker 1: I'm like, probably probably that I'd get kicked in the
- 1:48:36Speaker 1: head by it and sell it. But if you just
- 1:48:38Speaker 1: weared the cat, the hat and the shaps, you'll be
- 1:48:40Speaker 1: considered a drug store cowboy until you've been through and
- 1:48:42Speaker 1: had that hat banged up a few times and stepped
- 1:48:45Speaker 1: on him. Well, that's partly not true. His land And
- 1:48:49Speaker 1: was the saying that he does even he wears his
- 1:48:51Speaker 1: baseball cap out riding horses and doesn't put his cowboy
- 1:48:55Speaker 1: head on until he goes to buy a horse there's
- 1:49:00Speaker 1: or a cow, yeah, or a cow. Those hats don't
- 1:49:03Speaker 1: come cheap. These chaps that Stewart's got it on pretty
- 1:49:08Speaker 1: nice here, Stewarts. And they're muddy too, they're still muddy.
- 1:49:13Speaker 1: That's horse power mud. But it could be a little
- 1:49:15Speaker 1: blood on there too. But uh, you know, all of
- 1:49:19Speaker 1: the stuff that we experience, you know, you're you're realizing
- 1:49:21Speaker 1: through the years for us. Uh, I was raised on
- 1:49:25Speaker 1: a ranch like cowboys, a lot out on the range,
- 1:49:28Speaker 1: but most of my cowboy was done without a hat
- 1:49:31Speaker 1: and with tennis shoes because I had an image of
- 1:49:35Speaker 1: a cowboy, you know, because of what I had seen.
- 1:49:37Speaker 1: Some of the cowboy images I had weren't the kind
- 1:49:39Speaker 1: of heroes that I you know, there are a lot
- 1:49:41Speaker 1: of great cowboys that I could probably call heroes, but
- 1:49:45Speaker 1: back in my day, of people that I observed weren't
- 1:49:49Speaker 1: weren't cowboy heroes. Uh. And the dress didn't impress me. Oh,
- 1:49:54Speaker 1: I got you associated with reality rather than the mythics exactly.
- 1:49:58Speaker 1: And so you know, it wasn't until I got out
- 1:50:01Speaker 1: of high school that I, you know, really engaged and
- 1:50:05Speaker 1: wearing the Wrangler pants all the time. Found out they
- 1:50:07Speaker 1: were comfortable, they wear good and uh cowboy boots were
- 1:50:10Speaker 1: comfortable and and uh, but I like a hat in
- 1:50:14Speaker 1: the mountains because it is a it that brim sticks
- 1:50:17Speaker 1: out and it becomes my uh you know, my test
- 1:50:21Speaker 1: against pine bows. If I feel pine bows starting to
- 1:50:24Speaker 1: hit my hat, I know to duck my head. Instead
- 1:50:27Speaker 1: of a hat band, you leave your head lamp on
- 1:50:28Speaker 1: there all day long. That true. I forget to put
- 1:50:32Speaker 1: it in my pack because you know we're leaving in
- 1:50:34Speaker 1: the dark and we'll go headed home in the dark.
- 1:50:36Speaker 1: So and in a rainstorm where those hats sure keep
- 1:50:41Speaker 1: that rain from running down here that in the pine
- 1:50:43Speaker 1: needles they don't get down. The back of your neck
- 1:50:45Speaker 1: is easily snow too. I have some epic photos of
- 1:50:48Speaker 1: Stewart in a snowstorm, just snow drying neck, snow laying
- 1:50:53Speaker 1: on top of his hat. I can't wait to get
- 1:50:55Speaker 1: home those photos of anywody got Oh man, we had
- 1:51:02Speaker 1: Tyler and I got to ride a bucking blondie who
- 1:51:05Speaker 1: are attached at the hip figuratively, and uh, we got
- 1:51:11Speaker 1: our horsemanship marit badge. I felt at least an honorary
- 1:51:14Speaker 1: horsemanship Marrit Badge. The day that you guys left us
- 1:51:18Speaker 1: hunting in that zone to go and where you guys
- 1:51:21Speaker 1: found your buck, remember that. And so we got well
- 1:51:25Speaker 1: we knew on radios at some point in the day,
- 1:51:27Speaker 1: but then we got there and there's a little note
- 1:51:29Speaker 1: in my gun scabbard and said that's where it was. Yeah, yeah,
- 1:51:34Speaker 1: because that's where I was gonna probably go to first.
- 1:51:37Speaker 1: But you had an us. There's a lot less horses
- 1:51:39Speaker 1: than where. Yes, yeah, but I said, we've gone up
- 1:51:43Speaker 1: the mountain and you boys get back after dark on
- 1:51:47Speaker 1: your own, and uh, let us know what you're up
- 1:51:50Speaker 1: to landing, And uh it was so we knew we
- 1:51:55Speaker 1: had h ride by ourselves. So we left a little
- 1:51:59Speaker 1: bit earlier than I probably would have if Landing was there.
- 1:52:02Speaker 1: We had maybe thirty minutes of light left, and uh,
- 1:52:06Speaker 1: it was snowing a little bit. It was quiet like
- 1:52:11Speaker 1: it is after a fresh snow, and just you know,
- 1:52:15Speaker 1: only two horses and just we didn't talk and there
- 1:52:17Speaker 1: was no headlamps and we kind of rode and it
- 1:52:20Speaker 1: just darkness slowly felt. I mean that's why you call
- 1:52:23Speaker 1: it Magic Mountain. I mean, just like an amazing like
- 1:52:27Speaker 1: people pay ten thousand dollars to experience that. You know,
- 1:52:32Speaker 1: it was probably on the way in. I think it
- 1:52:34Speaker 1: took us two hours. I bet you we got back
- 1:52:36Speaker 1: to camp and just over an hour because when they
- 1:52:38Speaker 1: go back to camp, they're using third gear, not first. Yeah,
- 1:52:41Speaker 1: they know they're headed back, man, But man, was it
- 1:52:45Speaker 1: cool in the darkness. Well again, fresh snow and maybe
- 1:52:48Speaker 1: a touch of moonlight coming take that same route out
- 1:52:50Speaker 1: of there we were coming around. I think we still
- 1:52:54Speaker 1: had the lake near us. We're on a pretty open
- 1:52:59Speaker 1: hillside and we're kind of coming out of the timber
- 1:53:01Speaker 1: and maybe only fift twenty yards away. There's a small
- 1:53:05Speaker 1: cow elk standing on the trail facing us, and the
- 1:53:09Speaker 1: horse didn't see her quite as soon as I did.
- 1:53:11Speaker 1: If she took like three more steps and then stopped
- 1:53:14Speaker 1: and they just kind of had a stare off, and
- 1:53:15Speaker 1: finally the cow elk spooked. After that, Blondie was not
- 1:53:19Speaker 1: taking the lead anymore. I had been in the lead,
- 1:53:21Speaker 1: and she went up the hill and then just stood
- 1:53:23Speaker 1: there and looked over her shoulder and Bud had to
- 1:53:25Speaker 1: take the lead after that. Yeah, um, but yeah, it
- 1:53:30Speaker 1: was it was a special evening. Special ride out. Um
- 1:53:34Speaker 1: so yeah, man, I mean like you were saying, what
- 1:53:36Speaker 1: a special experience. I think that's it's it's an iconic
- 1:53:41Speaker 1: hunt to go into the mountains ten miles on horseback, um,
- 1:53:48Speaker 1: hunt off of horseback. When you read about it, people right, novels,
- 1:53:54Speaker 1: you know, many hunting magazines have stories of him and
- 1:53:57Speaker 1: every fall about the adventure. We just did it, you know,
- 1:54:00Speaker 1: And if you want to do one with some capable
- 1:54:03Speaker 1: and trustworthy outfitters that have their program tight, these guys
- 1:54:09Speaker 1: be the ones to do it with. I agree, Steve,
- 1:54:11Speaker 1: can I say a couple of so I didn't, Oh no, no.
- 1:54:21Speaker 1: I felt like you know when somebody invites you to
- 1:54:23Speaker 1: their home and you know, the shoes come off and
- 1:54:27Speaker 1: you're just you're comfortable, and maybe you're commenting on the
- 1:54:30Speaker 1: taxidermy on the wall. You go into the garage and
- 1:54:32Speaker 1: see what they have, and you just you feel like
- 1:54:35Speaker 1: they just open up to you. That's how I felt.
- 1:54:37Speaker 1: I think with Stewart and Landing, it was like, especially
- 1:54:40Speaker 1: for Stewart because of all the years and even Landing
- 1:54:42Speaker 1: since what going up there since you were four is
- 1:54:45Speaker 1: I mean every every tree. I mean we even commented
- 1:54:48Speaker 1: on the way out today on the horses. How we
- 1:54:50Speaker 1: went in there and we'd looked on you know, the computer,
- 1:54:53Speaker 1: different things you know, on AC and Google, you know, uh,
- 1:54:56Speaker 1: you know, Earth or whatever. But we went in and
- 1:54:58Speaker 1: came out felt like we knew that so much better
- 1:55:00Speaker 1: after a week. Imagine thirty years or you know, twenty
- 1:55:03Speaker 1: years or whatever it is to see it. And I
- 1:55:05Speaker 1: felt like we got a view kind of into their
- 1:55:07Speaker 1: living room, you know of them. Well tonight we got here,
- 1:55:10Speaker 1: you remember the restaurant was closed. Yeah, we we got
- 1:55:15Speaker 1: here after nine pm. Within and both their wives were there. Yeah,
- 1:55:20Speaker 1: pancakes and bacon, all those things. But then to go
- 1:55:22Speaker 1: up there too, I felt like it was such this
- 1:55:24Speaker 1: they have this pride and all those rocks and the
- 1:55:28Speaker 1: you know, the you know, the crooked sky and all
- 1:55:30Speaker 1: those different things, and that I felt like they had
- 1:55:33Speaker 1: this like they just opened it up. And and I
- 1:55:35Speaker 1: think it was an honor for us to be able
- 1:55:37Speaker 1: to be brought into something that was so special for them.
- 1:55:40Speaker 1: For me anyhow, Okay, you guys get to do years,
- 1:55:43Speaker 1: but one of you. I hate to tell what a
- 1:55:46Speaker 1: man what his concluder needs to be, but you should
- 1:55:49Speaker 1: tell people how to come and find you, the best
- 1:55:51Speaker 1: way to come find you and like and what you offer.
- 1:55:55Speaker 1: You know, what kind of hunts you guys do well? UM.
- 1:55:59Speaker 1: Obviously all guests go on on the beginning that, UM,
- 1:56:05Speaker 1: we have an Instagram page, we have a Facebook page,
- 1:56:07Speaker 1: We've got a website up, UM that we'd invite you
- 1:56:10Speaker 1: to go check out. UM or we are a little
- 1:56:14Speaker 1: bit lacking in some of that stuff. UM, but we're
- 1:56:17Speaker 1: trying to make it better. UM. But we would encourage that.
- 1:56:20Speaker 1: We do like to talk with people on the phone
- 1:56:22Speaker 1: so we can be very up front and direct and
- 1:56:24Speaker 1: tell him kind of what we got. So you know,
- 1:56:26Speaker 1: emails work. We don't mind correspondence through emails. We'd encourage that.
- 1:56:30Speaker 1: But you know, give us a call. We're not afraid
- 1:56:32Speaker 1: to spend time talking with you, talking, you know, and
- 1:56:35Speaker 1: if you got a buck tag that you've been putting
- 1:56:37Speaker 1: in for you know, eight years, you know we're gonna
- 1:56:40Speaker 1: be honest with you if we feel like it's gonna
- 1:56:41Speaker 1: be a good year. UM. But ELK, a guy could
- 1:56:45Speaker 1: come on ELK on two to three points, two to
- 1:56:48Speaker 1: three points and and we saw I'm gonna interrupt and
- 1:56:52Speaker 1: just mentioned like if you had two or three points
- 1:56:55Speaker 1: right now for Wyoming, I'd really recommend coming we saw Yeah, yeah,
- 1:57:03Speaker 1: I'm I got a boatload of outpoints, but I'm I
- 1:57:07Speaker 1: know it's pretty cool, really neat bulls. You know one
- 1:57:14Speaker 1: bull we got on videos three fifty plus. I mean,
- 1:57:17Speaker 1: there's some really good genetics there. Our age group of
- 1:57:20Speaker 1: our bulls is where they needs to be. Our bowl
- 1:57:22Speaker 1: of cow ratio is really high. UM. But you know
- 1:57:25Speaker 1: that's the thing that you know, as an outfit or
- 1:57:27Speaker 1: we hope to be able to provide an expert opinion
- 1:57:31Speaker 1: for people to be able to spend their money as
- 1:57:33Speaker 1: as best as possible. Um. You know, so if they
- 1:57:36Speaker 1: come and hunt with us, they know that their best
- 1:57:39Speaker 1: interest is going to be held within it within us
- 1:57:42Speaker 1: to say, hey, you know, this year is a good year.
- 1:57:44Speaker 1: We're gonna do everything we can to get you because
- 1:57:46Speaker 1: we know, you know, money doesn't always come easy for people, UM,
- 1:57:50Speaker 1: as it hasn't for us UM growing up. And so
- 1:57:54Speaker 1: that's one of the things we want people to feel
- 1:57:56Speaker 1: confident in is that you know, money is really not
- 1:57:59Speaker 1: our motive. UM. And so the way we manage the
- 1:58:02Speaker 1: area we try to not over over hunt. UM. We
- 1:58:06Speaker 1: try to be very good stewards of the area that
- 1:58:09Speaker 1: we hunt to give people a good experience, and that's
- 1:58:12Speaker 1: ultimately what we try to pursue as an outfitter UM
- 1:58:16Speaker 1: and I guess that's what you could say we live
- 1:58:18Speaker 1: by UM. Money does not drive what we do. It's
- 1:58:22Speaker 1: the love of giving people the opportunity to experience, to
- 1:58:26Speaker 1: fulfill dreams that they've had. You guys were very clear
- 1:58:30Speaker 1: with us about what uh, what you expect and what
- 1:58:34Speaker 1: you've seen, and there was nothing but pleasant surprises. Man, Well,
- 1:58:40Speaker 1: we appreciated what hunting with you guys. I think that
- 1:58:43Speaker 1: was one of the things that was most impressive to
- 1:58:45Speaker 1: me was you know, obviously you guys know how to glass,
- 1:58:47Speaker 1: you guys know how to hunt. That was very apparent,
- 1:58:50Speaker 1: But it's the way you interact and the way you
- 1:58:52Speaker 1: treat people. You know. We we felt, you know, very
- 1:58:55Speaker 1: much UM at ease with you guys. And so, you know,
- 1:58:58Speaker 1: I had a lot of people ask, you know, what
- 1:59:01Speaker 1: was it like to hunt with them? What was it like?
- 1:59:02Speaker 1: What are they like as people? You know, obviously people
- 1:59:05Speaker 1: portray a certain way when they're on the video, you know,
- 1:59:08Speaker 1: what are they like in person? And I never felt
- 1:59:12Speaker 1: from a single one of the crew any kind of
- 1:59:14Speaker 1: look down upon because of your status, you know, because
- 1:59:17Speaker 1: of where you are at um in your life and
- 1:59:21Speaker 1: what your your social status is. Would never felt that
- 1:59:25Speaker 1: from any of you guys, and so we appreciated being
- 1:59:27Speaker 1: able to hunt with you. It was a great experience
- 1:59:29Speaker 1: that we learned, you know, things as we watched and
- 1:59:31Speaker 1: observed how you hunted and and and how you went
- 1:59:34Speaker 1: about things. You know, the little butt pad, I think
- 1:59:36Speaker 1: we're gonna take that and adopt that. I mean, it's
- 1:59:40Speaker 1: it's one of those things that if you guys can find, um,
- 1:59:44Speaker 1: if you guys can find half of a ridge rest,
- 1:59:47Speaker 1: you guys can hold on. If you get half of
- 1:59:50Speaker 1: ridge rest each have two butt pads. Well that's what
- 1:59:52Speaker 1: we want because I mean, those fine bows they only
- 1:59:55Speaker 1: work for so long. So that was one thing we watched.
- 1:59:59Speaker 1: You know, we do spend a lot of time on
- 2:00:01Speaker 1: our butts glass and that was something we saw from
- 2:00:04Speaker 1: you guys that thought, you know, that's probably a worse
- 2:00:06Speaker 1: while thing to do. Especially yes, and this time of year,
- 2:00:10Speaker 1: you never know what the weather's gonna be like. And
- 2:00:12Speaker 1: mine doubles as a napping pad, that's right, Stuart. Do
- 2:00:17Speaker 1: you have any final observations, well, any any kind of
- 2:00:21Speaker 1: thing doesn't matter. Well, for me, it was it was
- 2:00:24Speaker 1: just a fun experience with you. You guys like to hunt,
- 2:00:28Speaker 1: enjoy the outdoors. I I find more pleasure and I
- 2:00:31Speaker 1: I find my friendship. This kindled quicker with people that
- 2:00:35Speaker 1: appreciate that, like I love it and appreciate it. I
- 2:00:39Speaker 1: never felt like at any point was the honey area
- 2:00:44Speaker 1: um overrun by the thought of I can throw my
- 2:00:49Speaker 1: trash or my sacks anything, because I and I've made
- 2:00:54Speaker 1: it clear with hunters in the past that and maybe
- 2:00:57Speaker 1: it was the older generation because I had to get
- 2:00:59Speaker 1: after my own dad to do you that you're saying
- 2:01:01Speaker 1: people would like to put their like a little sandwich bag.
- 2:01:03Speaker 1: You under put the sandwich bag or there might Back
- 2:01:08Speaker 1: in the early days when my dad guide it, they
- 2:01:10Speaker 1: used to put out a little cana. I don't know,
- 2:01:13Speaker 1: some these a little cans of juice, and uh. I
- 2:01:18Speaker 1: remember hearing some of that generation say, well, it's just
- 2:01:21Speaker 1: a monument to what you know, the people have sat
- 2:01:24Speaker 1: down on this mountain before. I mean, I don't want
- 2:01:26Speaker 1: that kind of monument. I wanted to be pristine because
- 2:01:29Speaker 1: I often find myself thinking about when I'm on top
- 2:01:32Speaker 1: of a ridge looking across the expanse of the mountain range,
- 2:01:36Speaker 1: you know, ahead what may have been like as a
- 2:01:40Speaker 1: as an early explorer of that country, laying ice for
- 2:01:44Speaker 1: the first time on that land. I think about it
- 2:01:48Speaker 1: often and and it it causes me to to be
- 2:01:51Speaker 1: a little bit nostalgic in my thought process. And so
- 2:01:55Speaker 1: people that respect and have an enjoyment, I have a
- 2:01:59Speaker 1: you know, my friendship is kindled right away in my
- 2:02:02Speaker 1: interest in your own lives. And lastly, is it And
- 2:02:07Speaker 1: I've said this to Landing many times, and I learned
- 2:02:10Speaker 1: this a lot from my uncle, who he said, we
- 2:02:13Speaker 1: want to do good in the world, and I think
- 2:02:16Speaker 1: if we can, we can do good in the world
- 2:02:18Speaker 1: by showing people the beauties that God created for man
- 2:02:23Speaker 1: to enjoy, which we did. I think that's that to me,
- 2:02:28Speaker 1: is one of the greatest fulfillments of what I get
- 2:02:31Speaker 1: out of it. My wife says, why do you like
- 2:02:33Speaker 1: it so much? It's so hard, You're late nights and
- 2:02:36Speaker 1: early mornings, it's cold, it's stormy, And I said, it's
- 2:02:40Speaker 1: hard to explain. But when I share the view of
- 2:02:44Speaker 1: a beautiful scene upon a mountain under a horse or
- 2:02:49Speaker 1: not under the horse. Hopefully we're on top to horse,
- 2:02:51Speaker 1: but on top of a horse, a good horse. And
- 2:02:53Speaker 1: and uh, you're just saying, man, well, look at that
- 2:02:57Speaker 1: landscape or look at that uh you know, look at
- 2:03:00Speaker 1: that big bull, beautiful big bull, or the sunset all
- 2:03:04Speaker 1: that stuff. For me to enjoy that with another person
- 2:03:07Speaker 1: that enjoys that. Uh, it's like we were kindred spirits
- 2:03:12Speaker 1: that we we must have liked the same things, you know,
- 2:03:16Speaker 1: before we ever landed on earth, so that we would
- 2:03:18Speaker 1: have this opportunity to cross pass and enjoy it again.
- 2:03:21Speaker 1: Because to me, this is uh, that's what it's all about,
- 2:03:23Speaker 1: is enjoying what's before us. I guess early on, you know,
- 2:03:29Speaker 1: as a as an outfitter and as a guide. Uh,
- 2:03:33Speaker 1: it was tough for me to to not get an animal,
- 2:03:35Speaker 1: you know, because my first several years I never missed.
- 2:03:38Speaker 1: I I was sure I was gonna get my game
- 2:03:41Speaker 1: as soon as the start of guiding that quit. I've
- 2:03:44Speaker 1: probably in in thirty years, I've probably only killed maybe
- 2:03:48Speaker 1: four or five animals. Never asked you about the last time,
- 2:03:52Speaker 1: yell he says about decade ago or somebody. It's just
- 2:03:54Speaker 1: it's just one of those things that Now, the fulfillment
- 2:03:58Speaker 1: is being able to share what I know to hopefully
- 2:04:03Speaker 1: be successful in getting somebody an opportunity to fulfill a dream,
- 2:04:08Speaker 1: to to experience something that becomes a memory burned deep
- 2:04:13Speaker 1: in their inside it says, hey, that was worth doing.
- 2:04:17Speaker 1: One thing that illustrates, uh, you guys capacity for reverence. Uh,
- 2:04:22Speaker 1: that I thought was quite impressive was what you went
- 2:04:25Speaker 1: through to be able to go to church with your
- 2:04:28Speaker 1: families on Sunday, to hunt all day and then after
- 2:04:33Speaker 1: dark strike off on horseback to ride seven miles seven
- 2:04:37Speaker 1: miles and then drive I don't know how many how
- 2:04:40Speaker 1: long you got home at three am to go to
- 2:04:44Speaker 1: church and your families then come riding back up into
- 2:04:46Speaker 1: the mountains. Well, you know, we were a lot of
- 2:04:49Speaker 1: people don't want to go a mile down the road.
- 2:04:53Speaker 1: You know, we years ago we established the policy that
- 2:04:56Speaker 1: we try to rest our horses and our guide just
- 2:04:59Speaker 1: much on the side the day, just to help revive them,
- 2:05:02Speaker 1: help them to stay in good spirits. And and we've
- 2:05:05Speaker 1: even found that that hunters that have come with us
- 2:05:08Speaker 1: may initially think I'm not sure I want to be
- 2:05:10Speaker 1: able to hunt on Sunday. When they've had that break,
- 2:05:13Speaker 1: say it's there that their hunt takes a Sunday in
- 2:05:16Speaker 1: the middle of there, Uh, their hunt that they're thinking,
- 2:05:20Speaker 1: we're grateful to heal up a few saddle sores and
- 2:05:23Speaker 1: and it just revived the physically, and then they're they're
- 2:05:25Speaker 1: they're ready for another day. But the reality of it
- 2:05:28Speaker 1: is that we feel like that, uh, that heavy Father's
- 2:05:31Speaker 1: been really good to us. Um. We've had very few
- 2:05:34Speaker 1: incidents with people being injured on the mountain, and I
- 2:05:37Speaker 1: think it's because we try hard to to reverence that
- 2:05:40Speaker 1: day for us and and uh the back country and
- 2:05:44Speaker 1: the animals and and so it's yet it's sometimes seems
- 2:05:48Speaker 1: like a sacrifice, but it's always been a wonderful blessing
- 2:05:51Speaker 1: to to be able to get out and and and
- 2:05:53Speaker 1: refocus on some things that really are most important. That's
- 2:05:56Speaker 1: the family. Uh. And even if even it's only for
- 2:06:00Speaker 1: half a dozen hours and then back in to something
- 2:06:03Speaker 1: that we can you know, we're ready, we're ready to
- 2:06:06Speaker 1: be geared up to do it again. Uh. So it's
- 2:06:08Speaker 1: it's it's a fun thing. Oh yeah, I didn't. I didn't. Yeah,
- 2:06:11Speaker 1: I didn't find it any kind of annoyance. I thought
- 2:06:13Speaker 1: it was I thought it was admirable. Well, we we
- 2:06:17Speaker 1: appreciate that those are things to us that mean a
- 2:06:20Speaker 1: lot to us. Uh and uh as I sensed us.
- 2:06:23Speaker 1: We've talked with you guys on the mountain, which is
- 2:06:25Speaker 1: a fun thing about how you you know your families.
- 2:06:29Speaker 1: The family is where the lasting happening is really will
- 2:06:32Speaker 1: come over over and above any of the other stuff
- 2:06:35Speaker 1: that that we may you know, achieve in life. Yeah,
- 2:06:40Speaker 1: you know it's good in in Uh. You guys pulled
- 2:06:44Speaker 1: some long days and it and it is you you
- 2:06:48Speaker 1: come out, you guys. But I guess sometimes you guys pulled.
- 2:06:50Speaker 1: You guys pulled twenty hour days there there they'll end
- 2:06:53Speaker 1: up with twenty hours and you you know, you you
- 2:06:55Speaker 1: come down a little jaded, you lose a little weight,
- 2:06:57Speaker 1: but it doesn't take you long and put that weight
- 2:06:59Speaker 1: back and you know when you get hold. But let
- 2:07:01Speaker 1: me also comment though, because they're saying all these things
- 2:07:03Speaker 1: that when Stewart and I did go to recover my buck,
- 2:07:07Speaker 1: he did put a rifle in his scabbard and I said, oh, Stuart,
- 2:07:10Speaker 1: what are you doing? I said, you never know if
- 2:07:12Speaker 1: we're gonna jump a big old buck up there, are
- 2:07:15Speaker 1: we gonna go tell Steve and you're honest, and he
- 2:07:17Speaker 1: just gotta gives me this smirk, so he still got
- 2:07:21Speaker 1: it into he said, I got a tag. That's good. Well, guys,
- 2:07:27Speaker 1: thanks so much, um for taking us out. Thanks for
- 2:07:30Speaker 1: coming on the show. I know you've been you you
- 2:07:32Speaker 1: put in a very long week this week, so I'm
- 2:07:33Speaker 1: glad he could come join us on the show. But
- 2:07:35Speaker 1: I was I was very excited to kind of share
- 2:07:38Speaker 1: some of your perspectives in the details of your business
- 2:07:41Speaker 1: with with our listeners. So I know quite often people, um,
- 2:07:46Speaker 1: you know, who don't have a lot of experience will ask, like,
- 2:07:48Speaker 1: what would be a good way to kind of dip
- 2:07:50Speaker 1: my toes into this whole thing, and it's it's nice
- 2:07:52Speaker 1: to have found um, not that you, but some other
- 2:07:56Speaker 1: people too. Uh guides. We know that where you'd be like,
- 2:07:59Speaker 1: that would be a worthwhile Uh, that'd be a worthwhile
- 2:08:03Speaker 1: venture to go on to hook up with you guys
- 2:08:05Speaker 1: on a trip. So I encourage people to come find you.
- 2:08:09Speaker 1: We appreciate that that that means a lot coming from
- 2:08:12Speaker 1: guys that know how to hunt, and it's fun, Like say,
- 2:08:15Speaker 1: it's fun to hunt with guys that like to hunt
- 2:08:17Speaker 1: and know how to hunt. Yeah, it really does. We
- 2:08:20Speaker 1: we learned from you, like to say, the butt pad idea.
- 2:08:24Speaker 1: We call man a debt factor. Coming back was it?
- 2:08:28Speaker 1: What night was it was? It was Sunday night, coming
- 2:08:30Speaker 1: back in. I had seen a little pad sleeping pad
- 2:08:34Speaker 1: that fell off somebody's back back, probably during the archery
- 2:08:39Speaker 1: d and I've ridden past the time or two, you know,
- 2:08:43Speaker 1: several times. But after seeing what you guys, I thought,
- 2:08:46Speaker 1: I told Land and I said, hey, pick that up, book,
- 2:08:48Speaker 1: cut that up. So a last but not least if
- 2:08:55Speaker 1: you had to raise our group as her horseman, not individually,
- 2:09:03Speaker 1: because I want you to point out one guy that
- 2:09:05Speaker 1: really sucked on a horse. Yeah. Yeah, and don't cut
- 2:09:08Speaker 1: the fact to be four days to figure out how
- 2:09:10Speaker 1: to tie a quick release. Not as a group. Yeah,
- 2:09:17Speaker 1: you can be one to ten. Yeah. I would say
- 2:09:20Speaker 1: that you started out probably in the three to four range.
- 2:09:24Speaker 1: That's pretty good places. And I think by the end
- 2:09:27Speaker 1: I think you were, you'd gained probably another three or
- 2:09:29Speaker 1: four points that I did. I you know, obviously you
- 2:09:35Speaker 1: got used to the horse that you were riding. You
- 2:09:37Speaker 1: were comfortable, and I thought it would be fun if
- 2:09:39Speaker 1: you switched it up, because the more horses different personality
- 2:09:43Speaker 1: horses ride, the better you become. Oh, instead of being
- 2:09:46Speaker 1: used to the same how the horse behaves, a true
- 2:09:50Speaker 1: horseman is becomes adaptable to the type of horses riding
- 2:09:54Speaker 1: at that time. But did you guys be honest when
- 2:09:57Speaker 1: you guys went into your bunk at night, did you
- 2:09:58Speaker 1: guys goof on seuth a little bit? I didn't get
- 2:10:03Speaker 1: the se seth too much. I did. I did talk
- 2:10:06Speaker 1: a little bit about Mike's ability to control his horse,
- 2:10:11Speaker 1: because if he had decided they wanted to go off trail,
- 2:10:13Speaker 1: it was going off trail. A lot of it had
- 2:10:15Speaker 1: to do with the fact that, uh, he didn't have
- 2:10:18Speaker 1: a hold of the reins other way up on the ends,
- 2:10:21Speaker 1: which has no control, so he was he was on autopilot. Yeah,
- 2:10:29Speaker 1: that was fun. It's great. That was an awesome, awesome trip. Alright, guys,
- 2:10:32Speaker 1: thanks again, Thank you,