Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine Hunt Cast with me Koby Morehead. We're gonna nerd out on bears hunting in the outdoors. We'll tell stories, talk biology, tactics, gear, and the fight to protect the pursuits that we hold dear, So, grab your bino's, lace up your boots, load up your barrels, and gather the helnds as we venture on this journey together. All right, welcome to another episode of the Bear Hunting
Magazine Hunt Cast. So last the last episode we had talked about what you bring to a hunt, talking about getting into hunting and the things that you bring. And this time is instead of jumping into tactics or anything, We're going to talk about something that is really coore to your experience in the outdoors, which is finding your tribe or finding the people to surround yourself with whenever you are out in the outdoors. And I'm bringing in one of my good buddies today to talk about this.
Who is all about community in regards to the outdoors.
So Jared Newman.
He's the founder of the Hunt League podcast, I mean the Hunt League app. And basically what the Hunt League app is, this is a personal journal where you can log all your hunts, you can go back and look through the experiences that you had and what notes that you take. And then there's also it's deeply community based so that you can share. You can share aspects of
your hunt. You can share photos on a community wall, and they just have a really good collective community there of just and if if there's any stinkers, they get they get the boot.
True.
Yeah, but uh, anyways, and I'm not saying that you know your tribe is something that you have to find.
I know.
For me, let me just give a little context. The reason that I want to have this conversation is there's a buck that I've been after for two years and I finally caught up to him about a week and a half ago, and just a stud of a buck. I've got a lot of history, uh with this deer, but it was something that was so special to me.
My first thought was not to go put it on social media, Like I still haven't put it on social media, but I sent that photo out to my tribe to like all of my close friends who I really who have heard about this buck, who have been close to the process, who would just celebrate with me and uh, and that's something that is important. Just killing that buck and just achieving that goal wouldn't have meant as much. It wouldn't have been important to me if I didn't
have the people to share it with. And so I think that having that built around you is something that is very core to your outdoor experience and your longevity inside of hunting. Like we all want people to celebrate with that have our back center going to support us, and then you know, hopefully they have have something to
add to your process. You know, they can help you in different aspects as far as troubleshooting, like, oh, maybe you should key in on this and on this particular time and and keen on this food source right now. Like there's a lot to be to be shared and gathered from from your tribe. And so welcome Jared.
It is an honor to be here. And I got to say congratulations on finally attacking that buck. I mean that was a moment that we got to celebrate together. I mean the morning you shot at getting that text message from you, you know, when came together.
Yes, that's what it's all about. It's fun.
Oh you heard a lot about that buck because last year we were going to Oregon, and that was I mean, we spent what over forty five fifty hours plus and a truck together over a week and a half.
Got to hear you sing all your favorite Garth Brooks tunes. It was good.
It's true, It's true. I'm a Garth Brooks fan. I'm on a Luke Comb's kick right now.
Okay, But.
You know when you talk about like community in that, I go back to a moment of just I used to love mountain bike. I still do, but when I was in college, used to love mountain biking, and I remember when I would go with buddies, we used to always say, like it wasn't you didn't really ride unless you flipped over your handlebars at least once. Yeah, at least once for it the counters ride. And I remember
riding with buddies and I absolutely loved it. But then I would also go solo and those times where you would endo when your solo and you flip over your handlebars, and I just remember, like all those thoughts, like.
What am I doing out here?
Would I why would I put myself in a position where I could get hurt? Nobody's out here to help me? All those types of things. And then but when you would do it with a friend, even if you were hurt, like it hurt bad, like you could laugh about it, you'd be like, oh my gosh. But like being there
with somebody made all the difference in the world. So when it comes to like those outdoor experiences, and I think about that from solo hunts, you know, getting a solo bowl in twenty nineteen and then having nobody to like high five share it with, it's like, man, it actually does take something away from that experience. It's an awesome accomplishment, but finding your tribe and having people there to celebrate the ups and downs, you know, being able
to shed tears. I mean I had that happen with a group of guys that one of my buddies this year has been hunting for fourteen years, trying to get an elk with his bow. He's had seven tags all those years. He lives in Mississippi. He came out this year finally tagged his first ball and being able to celebrate that there were four of us out there, you know, hugging, praying, crying.
It's a I mean, that's what it's about.
Yeah, I mean it's so special to share those moments with someone and to share them with people that understand what you're going through. I think that you can share them with somebody will be like, oh, that's cool, but not have the context and the depth of understanding of what all went into that experience, you.
Know, so well cool, Well absolutely so.
There's a lot of different ways, and basically like this would be a good you know, refresher, you know for guys that have hunted all their lives, but you know, particularly talking to people that are interested in getting into hunting or you know, maybe did it a while back, just you know, finding their way back into it or whatever. But how do you there's all different kinds of ways, But how.
Do you.
Find a hunting buddy or like find your tribe or the people that you share your experiences with.
That is a great question, and it's probably something that is not necessarily universally going to be accepted or adopted by people. I think for me, I recognize one of the biggest barriers to hunting is you know, not receiving an invitation. Like there's a lot of people that would love to go, but they've never been invited. They don't know how to take the first step. They don't know, you know, they don't know how do I even get a tag? Once I get a tag, where do I go?
There's a lot of obstacles, and I think hunting can be intimidating, and I am constantly aware that the best way for people to start that journey is a simple invitation. And I am probably different from a lot of hunters and the fact that I care more about inviting people and getting people involved than I do my own personal success. So I used to do a lot more solo hunting, and it meant more for me to fill a tag.
I don't know if it's just stage of life or where I'm at, or the enjoyment that I get from taking others. At this point in the game, it's all about the invitation. So to me, I'm constantly inviting, maybe to my wife's even chagrin there or she's like, how many hunting trips can you do? Or you have people calling you all the time from different states, from all sorts of places, Hey, could you come do this hunt with me? Could I come out to Colorado and do
this hunt with you? And you know, to be honest, like, I'm really open handed with that invitation, and I've taken a lot of strangers into the woods, which a lot of people are not going to be comfortable or not going to be happy about, because they have a particular outcome that they're looking for in the hunt, or they want to pursue game in a particular way like some you know, elk cunning is really my bread and butter
out here in Colorado. I've done some bear hunting and some other types, but you know, for me, I think I'm pretty open handed with that community, and I love sharing those experiences because I know if I get to have a shared experience with somebody in the woods, that creates like a bond that almost I mean, it's like
it lasts a lifetime. I just met a guy, Joseph Murphy from Mississippi that came out hunted for the first time with the guy take cunning hand this year, took a twelve year old boy, took a sixteen year old boy, like my season.
If I look back at it, I'm like.
These are all first time hunters or first time elk hunters or that kind of thing that I got to share those experiences with, and that's going to be something that I carry forward the rest of my life, you know. So I would say I'm a little bit different than a lot of people. A lot of people like finding their specific three guys that they may go share with and they hunt with those same guys year over year.
To me, that guy is Noah Bodkin.
He's the first guy that invited me to go on an elk count with him. I think we did that in two thousand and seven. And Noah and I outside of I think one or two years. One year was an injury year that we had a motorcycle accident up in the high country right before an elk season that delayed us from being able to hunt that year together. But outside of that, we hunt every elk season together.
So I still have.
My tribe with like close guys that I hunt with year over year. But then I'm always looking to expand that tribe and have an open invitation to outsiders.
Yeah, and it was that your entrance into the outdoors or entrance into hunting, you.
Know, as a little boy, anytime I was near water, wild open spaces, I was up early trying to hunt, fish, do something. But I had very little big game hunting experience until I moved to Colorado, and it was when I started doing those elk hunts with Noah is what
really opened my eyes. And having those shared experiences. There was nothing else that I did in life that I felt like connected me with another, you know, with somebody else, and like the way that like a week of elk hunting did like the I don't know, there's something unique
about it. Whether it's because it's so elemental and just you know, basic survival skills of what you're doing, or you know, instinct tribal type things, but it was those relationships that I feel like I forged in the woods and on these hunts are something that I think transcend a lot of just other relationships that I think get built. We're meeting at a coffee shop with somebody.
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like your entrance into a big game with Noah would have been a blueprint that produced the way that you go into things now of like taking somebody else along in the woods and stuff. So I don't know, maybe it imprinted something on you, you know, and I think inside of you know, if we were going to talk about bear hunting specifically, you really see that kind of pattern inside of predominantly hound hunters,
especially up in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, there's a they can give their tags to someone else, and so there's a lot of hound hunters that are taken special needs kids out on their first bear hunting experience that want to want to get a bear. And you just really see a rich culture where guys who just want to get out there and run their hounds take someone else as as the hunter and get them introduced into the outdoors.
I mean, even down here in Arkansas, it's much easier to take somebody, you know, small game hunting, like if you're if you're wanting to get into big game hunting yourself. There's a few things that I would a few ways that I see people connecting.
Just throughout my life.
One is if you just go out and you're hunting a specific area, like you just key in on that area. A lot of times you'll start seeing the same vehicle you know, around the same area that you're hunting, and eventually you'll see him come out and you just like strike up a conversation. And it's something I've seen down here, and I've also you know, Garrett Weaver up in Oregon,
I've hunt I go up there. I've gone up there several times over the last few years and hunted with him and Cody and some of his best hunting buddies he met that way, you know, even you know up in the West, I've seen my dad growing up.
We would always be on the river.
Uh, and he's met really good hunting buddies that way. And Uh, there's something about just getting out and then being somebody who is pursuing something when you talk to someone else who's you know, pursuing the same thing. You know, if you can get over that awkwardness of like, hey, you're after the same uh stuff I'm after in the same area. Like if you can get over that competition and just like have a converse station, you can have
some really really good relationships grow out of that. And even with the buck I killed this year, I got connected with one of the neighbors and we've been sharing, like we've been sharing all of the information of bucks from our cameras. And that was another cool scenario that helped me, and it actually helped me know what that buck was doing. And because I had gone into his bed and jumped a deer and I was wondering if
if it was that buck or not. And all of a sudden, just that night, that buck started showing up at his place, and so I knew that I had bumped that buck out of his bed in this area, you know, and it was a place that he had been before, and at least I had a strong suspicion.
Yeah.
You know, when you talk about hunting a specific area and how that works, you know, I'll be more specific to where I'm at in the West, you know, I do a lot of backcountry wilderness hunts, you know, where you're four or five miles deep in certain canyons, certain places, and a lot of times I'm kind of looking for
places that other people don't want to go. Yeah, and so when you find somebody else back there, it's an easy conversation because you already recognize there's some like mindedness between us, Like when you talk about going to a certain area, like out here in Colorado, Like if I pull up to a trailhead and the same truck is there, or those kind of things. A lot of times I realize we're probably hunting the same species. We probably have
a passion for, you know, something similar. We're probably looking at similar trains. When we're doing e scouting and other things like that, Like you start realizing there's probably some overlap in the way that we see our.
Approach to hunting.
So I think a lot of times when people are trying to find a hunting buddy, they're looking for some level of compatibility in the way.
They want to it's their game.
And I think when you pull up to a trailhead and somebody else is at that same trailhead, rather than seeing that as competition or an enemy or man, this is just the frustration of public land. I mean, right, and yeah, those those things exist, like there's some some level of truth to that, but I also see that as man, these are probably some like minded people, and these are these are my new buddies. Yeah, there's just you know, like a laboratory retriever out there. You're just
so happy to see somebody you need something. And I mean, I can't tell you how many times too, when you're back in a canyon and you meet somebody and if somebody's got an elk down like it's but yeah, you can help people, like legitimately help people, and you know in the midst of that, like you help pack somebody's animal out like you get.
A bond, yeah, you know. And the other thing that I mean, even a platform. I'm like Hunt League. I mean, whenever I went up to Oregon, a lot of those guys that are really helping each other each other out met each other through the through the app, and so it could be something like even an app, I mean. And whenever I got my big buck, there was a guy that I had met at the archery shop that we exchanged info, like you seem like a pretty good dude, and we've been keeping up. Well, he can help me
drag out my buck the other day. Now we're gonna go hunt some public land tonight, you know, together after we record this. And so I think it's one of those things where you have to have a mindset where you know you're not against other hunters and you just have to have kind of that that thought that there. You know, it's not something you want to walk out alone.
And uh, you know, you also don't go into it like starving for like needy, you know, or or trying to like puff yourself up like you are the best hunter in the world, like you just have to. Really, I think authenticity is the thing that has sold me on everyone that I hunt with or that I exchange information with. It's people aren't aren't like ruffling up their feathers and puffing up like. It's just good guys who are authentic, who like to do the same things that I like to do.
And it doesn't even have to be.
Like you know, Garrett and Cody up in Oregon, like I like to use them because it's they're just really good guys and I know everything that's going on in their elk season, in their blacktail season, like, and those are animals that I don't chase, but I mean, we're a voice of support for each other. We're just like they get excited and pumped up for when I succeed. I get pumped up and excited for when they succeed. And that's really what you're looking for. It doesn't always
have to be someone local. It doesn't have to be somebody you know, I think. I think sometimes you just have to have the mentality that you know, you cast a wide net, and who you connect with and really jive with is who you you know, who you just jive with, you know?
Yeah, No, I mean I think about like what the hunting gap has done for me When I created it, I wanted to have the opportunity, like I really built it just for me and my friends for are elk counting, Like I wanted to have a detailed journal where we could sit in at the end of an elk season, we could go through our notes together, we could share some notes, we could see, all, right, what time of year was this happening? This happening, so that we could
actually become better elk hunters. We could use the information that we were gathering in the field and hopefully record it in a way that we weren't going to forget it. So the original intent of Hunt League was really just building an app that me and my buddies could use to become better elk hunters.
As you start.
Building it, you realize like, well, you don't really just release like an app in the app Store that is like a private app just for you and your buddies. So it expanded to other species. It expanded to like, well, I was like, well, surely, like if this is good for me and my buddies, like other people and their buddies would love to use this, And through as it evolved, you know, then there became leagues, and there became a
community page or people are sharing. So when you're talking about Cody, like Cody's in Montana right now, you know, out on his mule to your hunt, He's hoping that the wind is going to die down because it's been thirty five mile an hour the last couple of days. Yeah, And I'm like, I know all these things because like through this app, like it's connected with these guys, and these are guys that like you've hunted with Colby, and it's through this connection of Hunt League that like all
these types of things have come together. You know, Garrett was who you talked about, was instrumental and like he invited me and my son. My son got his first bear and organ when he was eleven years old, you know, thanks to that invitation from Garrett. You know, like that's something that wasn't on our radar, that wasn't something that
seemed like in the realm of possibility. But that's where like that simple invitation, the open door, the conversation, it's really easy for sometimes I think some of the guys that really struggle finding community or like man, I don't have anybody, and they kind of it's guys that are just trying to brag and show their own accomplishments and they just need somebody to praise them for that. Well, you put two of those guys in the same room and they walk out as enemies because it was never
about celebrating the success of the other person. It was I just need somebody to celebrate me and my success in my ego. And it's like what I love about the humbley gap is like, yeah, we have these leagues, and we have these it's competitive where somebody wins, you know, a league title. Like just this past week we announced the Sweet September League winner, which is an archery ELK league, you know, and we had three finalists, one from California,
one from Oregon, one from Mississippi. Two of those guys hunted out of state. One guy hunted Arizona, one guy hunted Colorado.
The Oregon guy hunted his own state.
But I'm talking to the judges about these three guys, and those are all guys like I shouldn't really know them in real life, you know, Like, but it's like through the app that we've connected. Rich came out here and hunted Colorado with me two years ago with a guy with Tucker from Vortex. Daniel is a mutual friend of my buddy Noah. He came out from Mississippi's been hunting with us. Oregon is Wolfgang trock Soul, who I met through the app.
But like I know, I remember Wolfgang Wolang's man. You know, he's out blacktail hunting right now. He's got a blacktail season, and I know what's happening. So I'm talking to these judges. You know, So I got a judge from Missouri. I got Racksaw from Missouri, Austin. I don't know if you've met him. Colby's close to you, but awesome guy. You should definitely get to know Austin. So I'll help expand your circle in this car.
Chris hog does you know archery because this is archery specific league, Lucas Paul from Hogu Hunting, and Tom Diceing who does mile high note game calls. Those guys were like our judges panel, helping select the finalists, helping select the winner. And I'm talking to them about each of these finalists and their stories, and they're you know, I can describe in detail all three of those finalists like season,
and it's because I followed it the whole time. Day, shared pictures, day, shared stories, you know, and it's like we're already talking. Wolfgang asked me if I wanted to go hunt Montana with him, like either next year or the year after. Rich I think has five or six points out here in Colorado and he's planning to come, uh, you know, cashing those and I'll take him and we'll go into a special unit here in a year or two when he draws.
You know, Daniel, I got to.
Be there when he harvested his first ball this year, Like I wasn't with him when he shot or those things, but helped him with the packout. Like these guys have become my community, my friends, the guys I spend my fall with. And it's and it came about through you know, this app, which was really built just to kind of serve the group of guys that I hunt with, but it has really exponentially expanded my universe.
And it's how you and I met Colby.
And you know, I can't wait to hear hunting stories, whether it's turkey, snow goose hunting, the.
Next I need to get better at logging stuff.
I just never think about it.
You're basically the worst, but.
I really am.
You know, I'm not ever going to fault people for that though, because everybody likes you know.
It's like, what do you want out of a hunt? What do you want to record? What do you want to take away?
I'm a guy that likes the I like the journal side. I liked I like tracking stuff. I like seeing where I've been. I like seeing how much work I've put into something like I can look in my app right now and tell you how many days I've worked out this year. I can tell you how many days you know, I've shot my goals at the beginning of the year. Where there's three daily checkboxes, there's uh, there's one that's.
Called invest which is investing yourself for others.
And that's a little bit of something where people can define that in a different way, meaning that could be your practicing, your ELK calls, your turkey calls, you're you're listening to podcasts, you're doing an ELK one oh one, like course, you know, like you're investing yourself, you're investing in others, you're mentoring somebody. It's a little bit ambiguous, but it's ambiguous for a reason because certain leagues might want to define that invest in a certain way, and
so we kind of allow that to be. But like if I were to ask you, all right, you check this box one hundred and fifty times this year, what does that mean to you?
Then you should be able to answer what that means? For me?
That invest is I'm using it is my daily Bible reading. It's like I'm investing in myself and that has nothing to do with the hunt, but like that's what I'm chruo going to use that for because I know likes I stay connected, you know, with the Lord, and I'm full of the word like I'm a better person. I'm going to be better for everybody to hunt with. I'm going to be more at rest in my spirits, soul,
all of that stuff. So that's an important part for me because I want to be able to go into a hunt, I want to be able to go into time with my family all of that stuff feeling like man, i am connected with the Lord and I'm walking in his power, not my own.
So that's the invest for me.
Their train is how many days I'm training in the gym, And you can only check that box once a day, So even if you did two in a day, you're not. You don't get two workouts, just one one checkbox a day and then the other one is shoot, so how many times you shot. So at the beginning of the year, I wanted to do at least three hundred invest, two hundred train, one hundred shoot, and I'm proud to say it is November twentieth and I have completed.
I've already succeeded.
I'm getting over three, two hundred and one hundred on all those things this year. But what's fun about that is I can see that like people that are using the app actively, Like I saw that Rich Mays who just won the Sweet September Archery League, he shot his bow over two hundred.
Days this year, which that's just impressive. You know.
It's like meditation and the works that these guys are putting in and I can see and keep track of that just in the app, which has been a really It's added a lot of value to me. But I'm not going to fault you Colby for not checking all. I know you work out three sixty five. I'd be a two a day guy, but yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, But I'm not going to fault you for not checking those boxes.
Getting there, getting there, Well, we're kind of coming to a close on time. But the last thing that I want to say is I want to talk about a few red flags. So whenever you are finding these people, there's a few things that you should look for, or if you find yourself being this type of person, you might want to assess. But one thing is is I never want anybody to feel like they need to when they send something to me, like a photo of something
that they got. I don't want them to feel like they ever have to say not the biggest, you know, decent, you know whatever. Like I don't want to have a relationship to where somebody feels like if they share something with me that I'm want to look at it with some sort of inferiority thing or that you know, I'm not gonna come back with like should have let it
whatever or should have whatever. It's like, oh man, that's awesome, Like I don't care if it's got a half a spike, you know, like uh, you know, and like as far as bears, I'm gonna celebrate. I'm gonna celebrate whatever. Anytime that somebody punches the tag it shit it's it. It success, you know, it's a cause for celebration. A plan came together, even if it was on accident, Like something came together and all of a sudden, they've got they've got a fur,
a hide, and maybe some antler. And and that's something that I see over and over again on social media, Like if you go on Facebook, people will unless they shoot a two hundred inch buck, they're gonna be like not the biggest or you know, you know, I'm happy with it, or you know whatever.
And I hate that culture.
And that's something that I really like about Hunt League is I don't see guys whenever they post stuff, putting that on the front end. It's like they know that everybody's gonna be pumped that that they succeeded. And a lot of guys are even you know, adult onset hunters, you know, guys getting into it. And I think that's really the culture that we need to build inside of the hunting community. You know, it's never going to be
that way on social media. There's too many trolls and too many people wanting to show that they.
Know more than the next guy or whatever.
But when you want to surround yourself with people who you know first off are going to celebrate your accomplishments, celebrate your success, and then they'll reserve any critiques. If you're searching it out, you know, there might be things that you might have questions, like, well, I got this one, I was trying to get on the other one. Do
you think, Like, how do you think I should? You know, if I'm wanting to to Just like, I had a guy the other day that he's just getting into whitetail hunting and he had decided that he wanted to start out with a trad bow and I was like, man, that'd be really cool if you can pull it off. And I was like, you know, just I just told him. I was like, you have to decide what your success equation is if it's tradbo and white tail. I'm like,
be prepared to for frustration. I'm like, you're you're inviting a lot of hardship inside of a process that you know you're not gonna probably taste success for a while and it's gonna be a harder road. But if that's what you feel like you want to do and it's important to you because you want to make it hard, man, go get it. You know, it's like, but the thing
is is we fall. We fall in this in this this rut to where either we're trying to push our goals and the things that are important to us on somebody else, or we are pulling that off of other people and trying to put it on our own selves. You know, like if you wanna if you want to hunt deer over a feeder, like over bait, like I do that sometimes I love it, but there's a lot of times like I'll never hunt the bait that I
put out. I'll go hunt other areas. And you know, like it wouldn't matter if I'd killed this buck overbate or not. A lot of things had to go right for that to come together. I had to come up with a game plan. I had to have the wind right, I had to have the right scenario. I had to figure things out. It wasn't by accident, and even if it had been some other buck I had no history with,
it would have been awesome and I don't. And I want to make sure that that's something that we're thinking about is you know, just need to be supportive for however people do it. And that's something that we see inside of the bear hunting world, where you know there are guys that are hard against baiting bears. They have no idea what it's like. Even if they say that they do. They have whatever experience they have, but their experience is going to be granular on on some level.
Yeah, I could go into a whole discussion by that.
I did my first baited bear hunt this year, and I can't even begin to tell you how much I learned Kolby through that experience. And I told I went with Arkain Optics, I went with Josh Greer, and he invited me on this bear hunt and I just said, hey, look, I've never done a baita hunt. I don't know exactly how I feel about it yet, and I don't ever want to shoot an animal that I don't feel. I don't ever want to feel pressure to shoot an animal like.
I don't want to be in a situation and feel like, you know, if I don't kill something, it's not a success. And I told him upfront, I said, hey, success is going on this trip with you, getting this time, seeing animals up close, all of that, being able to capture some on camera. That is success for me. Whether or not I get an animal is not dependent on It's not how I define success.
So I kind of let him know, and I was like, I.
Just need you to be okay, Like if I get up there and I just don't feel good about shooting an animal over bait, are you okay with that? So we kind of had that discussion. But I could dive into that whole thing, and there's a whole story there of how much I learned, what I loved about, how much it actually can benefit the population. There's there's a
whole story there that we won't go into. Party at the end of the time, Yeah, I would just say, like, you know, when it comes to the community side and how you respond when somebody sends you a message instead of like thinking about like projecting your thoughts about that. You know, it's most of the time, I mean almost every time if somebody sends you something, it's you know, they're looking for some kind of form of agreement, congratulations,
just affirmation, like they're wanting to share their story. You know, it's like, this is my story. I want to share it with you, whether or not it's the story they want it or not. And then I think that a more appropriate response is, like you know, what did you learn from this experience? Like I think that's always the best because I want to be a constant learner. I
want to learn every time. And like somebody may have taken that smaller buck for a reason, and rather than just judging somebody based on they shot a small buck, you know, that's there's somehow a fault in that. It's like, no, tell me the story, Like I want to know the story of everything that went into it. What made you pull the trigger on out? Why'd you decide? How did that make you feel?
All that?
And like if you shot that buck and you don't feel good about it, or you feel like you have to hide behind it or you you know, it's like, well, don't shoot another buck, like in the future, like if you're not going to feel good about it, Like, don't don't shoot an animal that isn't and it's not because the size the animal should be the thing that brings you joy. But it's like if you if it's not, if you don't feel good about it, like don't don't take the life of an animal, you know, But it's
like you can learn from those experiences. So helping people self reflect on that and gain that experience. Like then they can make that determination next year and they can say, you know what, I was just as happy taking this button buck as I would have been this other one because it just did something for me. Yeah, you know, next year they're not going to feel bad about taking the same button buck because they they just you know, they're thankful and grateful for the opportunity.
And all that. So I think looking for like what did you learn from it?
Is all he is going to be a better takeaway than how you can tell somebody the lesson that they should have learned.
Yeah.
No, And I think that we have to understand whenever you're starting something, there's a maturity process that goes through and like and also like the ending part of that maturity process is all related to you and not like a hunting community as a whole. You know, like at some end of a maturity process, some guys will just be hunting for meat. They're like, I've attained everything that I want. I just want to put meat in the freezer. Some guys are like, I want to hold out and
kill the most mature animal that I can. Some guys go out and they're like, I want to do it the hardest method possible. I want to shoot a self bow with wooden shafts, you know, like yeah, this, that or the other. And I think that's important to know that you're that what it is, the way that you do it is, it's really a personal a personal development, Like it's a it's very personal to you and not
anyone else. And you know, tying it back to community and tribal like you want people surrounding you that will support support the things that are important to you and without any any like pushing or pulling, you know, just people that authentically want you to do well and you know, and talking about success. You know, this year as of right now, I haven't killed a bear in Arkansas. We
we baited. The weather was bad, well not the weather, the the hard mass like just dropped all at once and and early, and bears weren't hitting baits like we tagged out in our zone in less than.
A full week or right out a full week last.
Year, and we hadn't even I mean we're a couple months into the season now and we haven't even punched the initial quota and so it's just a hard year. Well after not seeing a bear the first day that we sat. I had had some cameras that were seeing bears pretty consistently on a pond on public and so I went out there and I and I sat down and hunted the evening. And the first time that I tried to go find a bear on public land, it's like I found a bear on public land. I had
a bear come in. I could have shot it, and I decided to pass on it. But that was the biggest success that I could have had. And I didn't come out with some fur meat or anything, you know, And I saw the bear and it's like, you know, if it would have been anybody else, i'd have been like, hey, that's a bear that you saw in public, like shoot it. But for me, it's like I had just come back
from I got a big bear in Canada. I don't need the meat, and to shoot this bear would just be like me punching the tag, like I don't need it. But the success was in finding a bear and seeing the bear and having an opportunity where I could have harvested it. And you know, I could attend ring this bear. I mean it was seventeen yards, it was standing still like.
It would have been done.
And but I decided to pass on it, and that bear went out there and started swimming around in the in the pond in front of me, and I was like, this is just the coolest experience. And if I'd have shot that bear would have taken away from the experience because it's like I value that more right now than I do actually pulling a critter out of the out of the wild. And so that's you have to decide
what your success equation is. And then everybody that I shared that experience with, nobody was like, oh, you should have shot it. They were like, man, that's awesome, you know, yeah, and uh, and that's what you want. That's those are the people that you want sur to surround yourself with, and you want to be that person inside of your group two that you want people to share things with you and know that it's like you're just going to be there for then you know, absolute support.
So yeah, you know, when I look at like social media stuff, a lot of times social media you want to highlight kind of the special success moments. You're only wanting to post the picture with you with the big animal or those types of things, and it's it's really more or less about the accomplishment and you're you're not sharing the journey. What I love about the Homtling community and the Honley Gap is I like seeing the post of like Cody you mentioned earlier, his post that he
put up yesterday saying, hey, it was super Wendy. You know, the conditions were terrible, but we still were able to locate some that was a huge win. And I look at it and I'm like, those are the things where I'm like, man, I can't wait to hear what happens today because it builds on it and you're actually capturing the whole story, not just like the highlight moment or not just you know, the sitting behind the antlers or
sitting behind the big bear piled up. It's like, I want to know every I love being a part of the journey. And I think what's special about hunt League is like it's a place where you can share what some people would call their failures or failed attempts, like
your story of seeing that bear. That's what we celebrate inside the Huntley community because it's you know, it's like that's what it's all about, like getting out there and having those experiences, logging the fact that you saw a bear on public land.
That's a big deal.
And so you know that that's what we want to be able to celebrate, and that that's what I really love about, you know, the way that that app is designed compared maybe to like the highlight reel of what you would see like on a YouTube video or just a social media post.
Yeah, yeah, well cool, Well I think that is a good place to shut her down. But uh yeah, uh, if you guys want to check out the Huntley Gap, it's a it's a pretty pretty cool app. I'm kind of curious how some of you hound guys could log stuff in there to keep up with what your dog's doing and how they're how the puffs are coming along a stuff too. I bet you guys can find some use out of that.
But yeah, I'd be interested too, even getting some hound guys on there, just how they how they use the app and what they would maybe want to see happen, because I don't have experience with hound hunting, so I'd love to get some feedback even from some of those hound hunters saying, hey, you know, here's how you have this set up to like log these hunts. You know, here's what would be helpful for US houndsmen, because I think that would be a really cool thing.
There's a lot of people they would love to see.
What happens on a hound hunt just so they like see the experience of it. And if we had people journaling that, you know, it'd probably get a lot more people interested in wanting to go booking those trips that type of thing, just because they can see, you know, the inside story of what goes on inside of hunting.
Yeah. Plus you can track.
I mean, you'd be able to log how much a dog ran on a particular day, when's the last time you ran them, how many days you hunted that dog, and then whenever you go to do some trading around you can tell somebody exactly what kind of dog they're getting, how many bears they've been on, stuff like that.
So yeah, yeah, well cool. Well thanks Jered, We'll catch you next time. Appreciate it, Thank you for listening.
The Bear Hunting Magazine Hunt Cast is recorded by a Bear Hunting magazine and produced by Mountain Gravity Media. Be sure leave us a five star review on iTunes and keep guarding the gate