A New Narrative: Western Bear Foundation

the world of hunting the icon of North American wilderness. There, we'll talk about tactics, gear conservation, but will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet chasing battery. On this episode, we're in Cody, Wyoming at the office of Joe condellas the founder of the Western Bear Foundation. We have a intriguing conversation about why bears

are amazing critters, the history of bears in the West. Also, we talk a lot about grizzly bear conflict and mitigation that's going on right now in the very complex issues of the grizzly bear world in the West. And Hey,

you check out the Western Bear Foundation. These guys are doing a lot out West, and Hey, if somebody doesn't stand up and say that, as big predator managers and hunters and people that utilize the wildlife related commodities of big predators, if somebody doesn't speak up for us, then nobody's going to in the anti hunting community is going to have the first rights to the narrative of big

game hunting and specifically large predator hunting. People like Joe Condeles in the Western Bear Foundation are putting action into our narrative of why we're the of guys, why we care about wildlife, and why that we want to continue on with the ancient and honorable tradition of hunting large creditors and managing the landscape for the betterment of all wildlife. All at the same time of us enjoying hunting and loving the challenge of it and taking some satisfaction and

getting to hunt big predators. You're gonna enjoy this podcast. Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. We are again in Cody, Wyoming. Colby and I are heading back from our Montana hunt and I just met a guy for the first time that I feel like I've known for a long time because we have Yes, it is bizarre that we've never met face to face. I feel like you can develop relationships over phone and email that are almost like you've known each other for exactly. So that's

that's what's happening today. I've got Joe Condellas with me. We're in his office here, yeah, Cody, yeah, yeah, And so let me I'll give a introduction to you just a little bit, but then I'm gonna hand over to you to give a better introduction. But Joe is uh, Joe is the founder with Western Bear Foundation. Is that statement. So that's part of what this podcast is gonna be. We're gonna hear about the Western Bear Foundation. We're gonna I want to I want Joe to go into detail

of the of the the grizzly situation. I mean, we're at we are at the heartthrow place for all this controversy about grizzly bears. You're sitting about well, you know, fifty miles from the park right here. Everything that's grizzly bear related that is basically stemmed out of this range right here. It's just you're you're in the I mean

the hub. Yeah. So this is like the hot topic of our time right now for large predator management and there it's such a complex issue and uh, so I want to hear from you because your foundation is doing so much inside of that. Um. But before we do that, tell me, So, I met you years ago when I had started the Arkansas Blackbarrasis. That's when I contact time ago. Yeah,

like probably two thousand eleven or something. Now, when did when did the Western Bear Foundation officially we got our five oh one C three status and like, oh, well it's in, but we got we kind of were loosely trying to build this thing up to where we were federally in like oh seven seven, so, but in in ten and eleven, that's what I remember messaging you on Facebook because I saw, Hey, this guy's starting bear association out west and I was doing a similar kind of

thing in Arkansas at the time, and so I remember reaching out to you, and it probably wasn't It was. It was sometime later that we really connected more when I got into Bear Hunting magazine. Um. But uh, but just for information sake, members of the Western Bear Foundation receive a copy of Bear Hunting Magazine. Yeah, and it's been that's a huge part of our membership. Like people want something you know they want to cause, but they

also want something to return. And I mean, we're a bear hunting organization, conservation and hunting, but what a better thing to offer him? Like, we can't afford to put out a publication. We don't know what we're doing when it comes to that. So it was just like reached out to Clay right away and it was like, Hey, would you guys be interested in doing this? And so basically Bear Hunting Magazine is our subscription that our members get, you know, so it's a it's a huge value for them. Yeah,

right on. Well it's been a great relationship for us and uh so to get into well, let me and take it a further further step back. Tell me about your I mean, you're a you're a businessman here, you're you're a hunter. Yeah, what was your intrigue with bears that hooked you into this? Yeah, it's kind of a crazy story, but you know, I grew up hunting in southwest Montana, grew up in Butte. Uh family of hunters.

My grandpa came over from he was in Minnesota and moved his whole family grew up there and they moved out to Montana and and you know, my dad grew up hunting, and everyone grew up hunting, but no one in our family was really bear hunters. They were strictly at that time, my grandpa was subsistence hunting, you know, they needed the meet yep, just for food on the table.

And and my dad, you know kind of really I grew up, you know, at a young age being out with my dad, but we never really bear hunted much. And uh, I just kind of went through the motions through you know, junior high in high school, going out deer hunting, hil hunting, and I just always thought, man, it'd be really cool to get a bear one day. Well at that time time, you know, and the early nineties in southwest Montana, at least, I would say bear hunting hadn't really taken on the space that it is

now it's a lot more popular. Um So, there was very few people that did it well. And um so it was just kind of an unknown thing. And we're in high school and me and my the guy that I actually co founded this organization with, uh, Joe Cambick. Uh, we always wanted to kill a bear. We all we wanted to figure it out, and we didn't know what

we're doing. We could drive now, so we would puts around the hills and in the spring and the sun, you know, early summer, because it ended June fifteenth, where we grew up trying to find bears and didn't have a clue, you know, just hunting bears like we we would all kind of you know, park on a ridge and go and um, yeah, it didn't work, Like I, I can't find We couldn't find bears to save our life. And uh just didn't really know anyone to show us around.

And this is a long story short, but we were we were together and he got his first bear, and oh nineties, I can't remember. We were just out of high school and I was just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And so it kind of became a quest. He's a little bit older than me, so he got to get first shot. So then it became a quest

for me to get one. And we're still pretty new and I finally got one, and in that day ninety seven, maybe I think maybe maybe later gosh, I have to look um that that changed me as far as like actually shot one then never found it. I shot two bears before I and didn't recover him, and it was just devastating to me, you know, like I'm not going

to figure this out. And then when I ended up finally harvesting one, it was actually in the in early two thousand, I ended up harvesting one beautiful chocolate bear uh in a place where I grew up in southwest Montana hunting deer and elk, and and it was just a pristine high mountain meadow. Hiked in there, and that thing was just out in the middle chowing down on these white flowers, and it was just like that was meant to be in the color that I always wanted.

And from that day on, I just have been fascinated by not hunting them. It's the knowledge of bears that I feel like it has driven me to the point where I'm at now. It's like no one, you know, a lot of people really don't understand a lot about bears.

So I started just diving into it. And and the more I started looking and trying to teach myself about bears, habits, biology, you know, just the total ecology of everything surrounding bears, I kind of was like, man, there's just really not a lot of information out there, aside from other hunters, and a lot of bear hunters are not in this

part of the country. I don't know about where you guys are at, but they're not very good at sharing information because their bear spots are like, you know, that's gold, you know, that's sacred. So I thought, man, we kind of would be nice if there was a group out there to help people out that was in my same shoes, not having a clue. And then also there just wasn't a group out there really focused on bears, and we

had talked about it for years. Joe and I joke and got it, wouldn't that be cool if there was a bear founded, you know, something for bears and bear hunters out west. Did some research, I'm like, gosh, Michigan's got a strong one, Wisconsin, they're strong West Virginia. And we're like, we could do something like that, but man, I'm a business student and he's a game warden, so we're like, I don't know how to put something like

this together. And it just ate away at me. I moved down here in oh five, down into Cody for for work, and it was just still driving me crazy. And then when I moved here, it really it propelled me even further because now I'm on the grizzly bear scene in the right in the middle, and I'm just seeing, man, there's no work done for black bears. Everyone knows if a grizzly bear takes a crap anywhere from the West coast to here, we know, well, we couldn't tell you.

I mean, the state of Wyoming and Idaho hardly know, um how many bears are in their state. And I'm like, that's not right for black bears. So let me let me stop you right there. To go back to something you said that ties into that is that people. You made a statement that generally people don't really know that much about bears, and that's true. And you know, the the outdoor media revolution of the last let's say twenty five years since outdoor television came on, people started learning

about white tails, learning about elk. I mean, the average white tail hunter can tell you more about the biology and habits of a white tailed deer then probably an expert white tail hunter could have in the nineteen sixties, you know what I'm saying. I mean, just an average guy like my ten year old son probably knows more like head knowledge about white tail deer than an expert hunter in the in the nineties. I mean, just like information,

we have so much more information. And that's exactly what I found and was the reason that we did what we did was I was in Arkansas and it was like nobody cared about bears, nobody knew about bears, and they were it was and it was exactly it was. It's funny to hear you tell your story because it's just like mine. I was just like I killed the bear,

massively intrigued by it. And Joe when I the first bear I killed was in two thousand one, and and I've been a white tail hunter, and when I walked up to that bear, I realized that I knew nothing about it. It's crazy. I mean, you know, it is magnificent animal, incredible animal, and and I realized that I knew nothing about it, and and that that the hunt

to me felt hollow. That's the way I descried. Was twenty one years old, and I was just like this, I mean, it wasn't like I did something wrong, but I was like, this isn't right. I need to learn about this animal. And that set me on a quest to learn everything I could about black bear and They're incredibly, incredibly unique animal. The biological strategies they use are crazy, you know, just all this stuff. But anyway, so it's true, I'm overly biased because to me, they're the most fascinating

animal on the planet. Bears in general, um there their willingness to adapt to any environment meant I was very similar when I shot that bear. It it had taken me multiple years to finally put my hands on my bear, and I think it was like that whole struggle and not knowing and like slowly learning that was really just like, I mean, I've shot my first elk. It wasn't like that big of a struggle or deer. It's just like, wow,

this is a big deal. It is monumental for me, and just like wanting to know so much more and not having information because like there wasn't a lot of that stuff out there, you know, social media and the the hunting television was not like it is today to where you can even learn. And then just like you said, no one cared about bears. I mean until not that long ago in Wyoming. You gotta bear with your oak.

You got a bear tag with your oak tag, and they're like kill you know, they didn't have any respect for him. They just thought they were a predator. And to me, that's that's tragic, you know, like we do so much and and and it's right we do so much for ungulates in the West, and we need to, but there's a whole another east to the equation in black bears that just get left out. And that made me sick to my stomach for so many years. And I just thought one day, and I'll never forget the time,

and I was like, screw it, I'm doing it. I was just like it ate away at me for so long, thinking I feel like I have to do this just to be like in ten years if it doesn't work out. I tried, you know, like and and just for me personally, like give it a shot. And I was sitting and standing in the shower one day and I was just like, the hell with it, We're doing it. And I called

him and tried to come up with the name. At that time where the Yellowstone Country Bear Hunters Association, which didn't really give us much UH arena other than around Yellowstone Park, But at that time we thought that was the right way to go. But you know, fast forward to now or the Western Bear Foundation doing everything we can in the West. So it was a long, a

long slog up to that. But I think being like you, being around him and just being fascinated, you find a passion point in life sometimes that you're just like you never knew you were gonna have like five five years be for doing that hunt and shooting that bear. I I never in a million years thought I'd be here today talking to you about a foundation and your your magazine and what you did with the Arkansas Black Bear

found It maymes it's beyond me. But sometimes in life things like that happened and I was like, you know, we got to do something, and it's been incredibly successful. Um slow, and I'm an impatient guy, like I want everything to be like now, and so that's been a struggle for me. We're all volunteers, so that's a struggle to um a lot of work on the volunteers, and you can only grow as fast as your You know, money is a big thing, you know when it comes

to these foundations to tell money. So you know we're doing the best we can. But now I know that you have dealt with and asked questions to some of these bigger foundations. I mean like, uh, I mean you've tried to model this. I mean, give me the kind of give me the architecture of the Western Bear Foundation and kind of even just as simple as what your

mission is some of the things you're doing. Yeah. Yeah, So we tried to, you know, not knowing anything about running a foundation or an organization and nonprofit, we we had to look at the ones that were successful, and the biggest one to us in the West was Racking Mount Elk Foundation. You look at what they did and similar thing. A bunch of guys got together that are super passionate about Elk and they created something that's a monster now and it's done so much good for for

Elk in the country. Um, so we're like, well, let's model it similar to that. You know, we'll be membership driven to raise funds to do projects on the ground. Initially when we started, Joe and I said that in order to ensure that we're doing it for the right reasons.

No one's getting paid for this. So for for us that was really important in the beginning because as you and not every groups like this, but when money starts changing hands, people start doing things sometimes for the wrong reasons, and for us, it had to be about the bears and bear hunters. So we always said, you know, no one's gonna get paid for this. Now we're getting to a point where we might have to do something like

that and change a little bit. But um, so we tried to do it like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation where we had a board and and we don't really have chapters, but we thought, you know, that would be somewhere where we would want to go. And initially we were just going to focus on Montana, Ida and Wyoming, Idaho and Wyoming because that's where a lot of the grizzly bear issues were and um, the largest amount of black bears you know, in the West, in these three states,

so we thought we'd stay there. And you know, over the years we've as we went to Western Bear Foundation. Now we're doing work in Our actual first chapter is going to be formed in Washington State. Believe it or not. Yeah, we got a guy over there and some really passionate hunters over there that want to start a chapter there right and all the by laws right now, So we'll

have our first chapter in Washington State. And I think it's just gonna make it a lot easier for us to have a Montana chapter and Idaho chapter because right now I kind of managed the three with people in each state to help me out, like, hey, what can we get to this? Can we do this? And and you know, working closely with the state agencies that manage our bears and manage our hunting seasons. We do a lot of that, but a lot of that falls on

me right now. So giving these up in the chapters will will take a lot off of me and make it a little bit easier for me to do some of the administrative stuff that takes up a lot of time, you know. So that's kind of how we're set up now. UM. We do have memberships, UM most of our money raises through like raffles and grants. I'll write grants for for projects on the ground, and that's what we're really probably the most proud about right now, is the grant work

and the projects we're doing on the ground. I mean, for being small, this year, we'll do over thirty dollars for projects on the ground and that's all just fundraising. What's one of what we've done in the past a lot of is conflict mitigation, So UM, we do uh in the state of Wyoming, We've done a lot of bear boxes and you'll see him on the National Forest and Wyoming and especially where we have grizzly bear use. We have to have boxes, bear proof storage containers on

in campsites. So it keeps bears out of food. It really you know, it mitigates habituation to human foods and then it keeps bears out of trouble. And our model has always been, you know, the more bears we keep on the landscape, that's more for hunters, photographers, just anyone to enjoy. We don't want to see bears getting taken out management actions because they're they're habituated to food or they're causing problems. You know, that's one less for us

to enjoy. What's the what's the what's the mission statement of Western Bear Foundation to protect and develop bears and bear hunting in the Western United States. Yeah, and in short, you know, so we've kind of went from being super focused on hunting rights. You know, like initially on we're like, we've got to make sure we have our rights as hunters. And we're still really focused on that, Like we're doing a lot of work, especially in the last year with

this bear bait band. But what we've done the most lately is conflict mitigation stuff on the ground to ensure a future for bears in the West and keeping bears out of trouble. Um So we do the bear boxes up in Montana, we've been doing a lot of bear fences on the Rocky Mountain Front. Those fences are electrical, electrified fences that go around chicken coops, um lambing pins,

any of that that keeps the grizzly bears out. Um Man, that's a perfect prime example of hunters truly showing their the the intent of why we do what we do. It's not just to go out and kill all the bears. We want animals on the landscape. That's been so important to us to be a hunting group doing these projects because right now in Montana we have a few anti hunting groups funding a lot of these projects. And to us that was there's a hunting group now that can

do that. Now, granted we don't have the money that some of these groups. I won't name names, but um we're slowly breaking into that where it's like, hey, we can buy the bear proof garbage cans for the Anaconda

Township in Montana, they got a lot of bears. Like, maybe we can do that now and rather than be an anti hunting group, now we have a pro sportsman, a pro a hook and bullet clock and these these dumpsters and so much of what we're doing now, Joe, inside the outdoor industry, it seems is that we're we are doing a better job at showing the intent of conservation based hunting, Like, because the narrative for the anti hunting community is that we're just bloodthirsty guys that want

to go shoot stuff with our guns. And so I really like, I like what you're doing because it's it's on the ground, actually doing the work, showing people, showing people that hey, we are, you know, trying to reduce bear conflicts so that these bears don't have to be

euthanized when they come into this camp. You know, we're it's exactly like but it's it's it's the it's a philosophical position that I like, you know, it's yeah, I think what we're trying to do too is make it that you know, bear hunters and I don't have to tell you this are very much malign. Did in the

commune in the United States. When it comes to all hunters in general, I think predator hunters get the worst trapping the side from trappers and they've got a really bad rap which we support trapping and everything, but it's an effort to to try and like change the way

people look at bear hunters. And if they look at a group like the Western Bear Foundation that's out here and it's like, well, they are a hunting based group, but gosh, this year, we're spending twenty dollars on callers in the state of Wyoming to put on black bears so we can do a population study. You know, there's not been another group that's that's anti hunting or anything that's even approach. The Department said, we want to do this. This is a hunting group that's doing it's hunters that

are doing this, and that's that's to benefit everyone. And you know, we might not agree with some anti hunters, but we're gonna put more bears out there so you can go take pictures or you can just walk around and enjoy it. And and that's important to us. You know, we gotta managed for while we were just talking with Jim Sessions over here and uh. And he was talking about and maybe you could add to this about how

many bears right now? He said, this morning, driving from his house, he saw two gaming fish trucks with bear traps and they're going to their going to somebody's house that has a bear problem. They're gonna catch that bear. And there's a certain point when these bears have to be put down. And so it's like, so just in in theory, we could say maybe that, and you may know the exact numbers, but let's just say there's X number of bears being euthanized by government officials because these

bears get in trouble. I mean, are are are we saying, as sportsman, hey, why don't we have a managed hunt eighteen bear quota A female quote? I mean, just something so minuscule that it would have Basically, it would have It would have zero net effect on the population. Truly,

it's true, but it would. But a hunted population of animals acts so much differently, and you tell me they act so much differently than an unhunted group of anyway, what I guess what we're saying is, hey, let's sportsman, take these twenty bears a year out that have to

be taken out. It's gonna generate funds. I mean, it's all these positive things that to manage the resource and and and it's been it's been a really crazy five or six years with this grizzly bear deal, because we went from having him d listed and I think it was oh nine and they got the court ruling put them back on the list. The the give it give us. Just for somebody that knows nothing of this, and some

people back east that listen to this podcast don't. So the grizzly bear and the lower forty eight in the United States was on the endangered species list. If it's on the endangered species list, it cannot be hunt it. There's there's qualifications for what an animal, biological qualifications that you know, indicate whether an animals should be on that list.

When it when those qualifications, I mean like when a certain number or recovery quote unquote is a dablished, then that animal can be taken off of the endangered species list.

All endangered species are managed by the federal government, that's correct, but when they're off the endangered species list, they could be managed at a state level, which is essentially what would happen is if the grizzly bear in the lower forty eight were taken off the endangered species list, they could be managed by Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and these states managed through hunting basically, and so then these bears could be hunted. That's the that's like the super condensed version

for somebody that knows nothing about this. Yeah, and it's what we've really tried to shoot for is state management, right because the people that have recovered the bear are primarily state agency people. They're the biologists, and Wyoming was tasked with managing their bears under the federal government. We receive a very small amount of money, but up towards to the tune of forty million that was spent on

ott of Wyoming's budget to manage these things. We we spent the majority of the money to bring the bears back from the brink. We've we've bought what we've got one of the best staffs as far as conflict mitigation. We've got a recovery team. We've got guys out there every day that are doing grizzly bear stuff, and so does Montana and so does Idaho. So we funded this recovery and now the time comes to delist them and

put him into state control. And we're like, let's let the people that know this bear the most manages bear

sustainable population. And you know, just this recent ruling by Judge Christensen to basically he said you cannot delist a distinct population, which we tried to delist while we being the the Inner Agency Grizzly Bear Committee, who was super oversees the recovery of the grizzly bear, they tried to delist just a greater Yellowstone bear, not the Bob Marshall, not the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem, and not the set

of that's up in Montana. So we have we have several distinct Greater yone ecosystem would include Wyoming, parts of southwest Montana, and parts of southeast Idaho, correct yep. And so they tried to just delist that, and that the judge says, amongst a few other things, he said, you can't do that because we don't know what effect that's

going to have on the other populations. And they said, well, they proved everything basically in their paper that said there is no issue with genetic diversity, and and there it's I mean, this is a scientific thing, and he had a couple of other things saying that you're not using the most available science to count these things. And so back now we're back on the list, and the states are funding this recovery continually. Why sportsmen are paying for

that through tax dollars, through licensed dollars. But yet we everyone else gets to enjoy the bear. You know, you get to take pictures of it, sell those photos. We can't kills which we've killed, We killed double what the quota was gonna be, just in Manna him in actions. See, Okay, that's that's what I want to talk about. I mean, that's the point I was making earlier, is that, so how many we're killing forty bears? Are you? It was

it was an they're they're uthanizing. We're paying government people to go out and trap these bears, prouble bears, and I mean, I'm sure they're doing the absolute best they can to not uthanize them. So I'm not saying there, but those animals could have been I mean, a it wouldn't be those specific animals, but basically hunters would go

into wherever they can hunt kill bears. They would open up more space for these bears that are getting in trouble because they're leaving habitat going into more fringe habitat coming into the city. And so it's like, if you take out some of the bears in the core area, it's gonna make room for these bears that are now

in the fringe. Is what what Jim told us is he said, he said, we're seeing grizzly bears here in habitat that they haven't been And I mean, so it's like the core population of bears is spanding quite rapidly. They and then and a great analogy that I heard him saying many many times is the bucket is full. We can only house so many grizzly bears in Yellowstone Park and the surrounding area. And now as we're looking, you know, as feed as ungulates is what they eat,

moves out of Yellowstone, so do the predators. And now we have so many bears residing outside the park because there's better habitat for them. Um, now we're starting to see this um bucket of full buckets, full mentality. And when the buckets full, they gotta move because you know, dominant boars aren't gonna live in the same range you know, they're gonna either kill each other. You know, a young boars got to move out. Steak has claimed somewhere new.

And we see that with Salsing cubs moving out, you know, because boars will kill cups and so they're like, hey, we're out of here. There's a dominant boar running around. We're gonna get on the I mean we get them right here, right outside of town. I mean there was a could you take us, I'm not saying that we would do this. Could you take us this afternoon? Yes, for drive up the Northfark, I would guarantee with one

and it's it's it's great. I love seeing them, but like we also have to manage that resource, just like we manage everything else. The federal government gets it, us Fish and Wildlife Services on our side. A lot of people think they're not they wanted them to list it and we are not a group. And we get a lot of flak for this because we have been pro de list for a long time. But we listen to

the people that know what they're talking about. And when the Wilming gaming fish in the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and Idaho departments say we're good. I mean, like, we can hunt a few of these bears. We have to listen to them because we're not scientists. They're the ones tasked with recovering it. And what we want to see as an organization, is this a sustainable population for

thirty years down the road. We have grizzly bears out here in the West, a rugged wild place that people can come see grizzly bears, but we can also you know, we can have a little bit of both people who go hunt them and there's a small quota and we're shooting a few bears, but we're also managing for sustainability and what all the hunting seasons that the states put into place, because we had to have hunting seasons, we had to have it all documented, and we actually had

draws and everything. Wyoming, we had draws and people drew tags. People drew tags. They never got drew tags. It basically the low they said they could have went over that quota, but they really really low and they said, you know, if we get to a level where too many bears have died throughout the year and we don't have enough in our threshold, we won't have a season. I'm like,

what a better check and balance. We're good, you know, we're not gonna over harvest this thing down to levels that it was when it got put on the endangered species list. So the states were really good about it. I thought it was a win win um. But here we are today with no So what what happened was that the grizzly wear was delisted and this has actually happened multiple times. It was officially de listed, and then anti hunting groups sued the federal government. Uh. He was

fishing Wildlife Service. Uh. And so then it went to a judge in Missoula, and Judge Christensen ruled in favor of them. Let me ask you something about that, and maybe you can say something. Maybe you can't. Do you feel like this guy was Was it a just decision? To me? No, And I'm I'm maybe a little biased. The guy had the lawsuit on his desk for months. Months. We got to this deadline where the seasons were gonna open in Wyoming. I think it was August fifteen. These

first guys are gonna go out and hunt him. He didn't even like see. The trial didn't even happen in Missoula until like that week. And then he said, I need more time. So it was they filed an injunction to stop the hunt for two weeks. So they filed

in junction. Said yeah, so it stopped the hunt for two weeks, and then it took like two more weeks former rule and you finally said no. So now the US Fish and Wildlife Services appealing that in district court, which the district court that it's in I heard is

not very favorable for us. So I think what we're in now is the same situation with well, you know, we're in litigation, which unfortunately, wildlife should never be managed in a court of I saw a statistic the other day, and to be honest with you, I can't save is with wolves or with grizzlies. But it was a statistic that told the gazillions of dollars that the US government has paid in litigation fees fighting these anti hunting grounds.

I mean, all it takes is for somebody to follow lawsuit and to have big money, which they do, they do, and they can they can tie this thing up in court for that's the end game for them decades for or maybe forever. And plus they have that equal active justice, which I'm sure you're familiar with where the groups if they sue and win, they recoup percentage of their attorney fees from the federal government. So that it's a we need to repeal, we need to get that out of there.

But it just seems it just seems so unjust. I mean, even even if you if you were to just pull out of this planet and go somewhere else where, there was a fair and equal judgment system for human morals and ethics, and we're to present this case, it would be it's crazy. It's and you know, a big thing that we've always said that these these organizations stay relevant with their population base, that their constituency by lawsuits. That's

how they stay relevant. Because if they're not fighting this, they can't raise money. That's how they raise money. Is there, Well, grizzly bears are a hot point. Let's sue get rid of we get that taken care of. Its almost They really don't even they don't care about the animal. Otherwise they'd be out here with us putting collars on bears trying to figure out, they'd be putting fences up. They don't care, you know, and we're the ones with no

money trying to do all this stuff. And that's what's always been frustrating to us, is when it comes time to come to the table and do something for bears, no one's to be found. But when it comes time to hunting, it's like everyone in the world has got an opinion and none of them are doing anything other than suing. And it's just a publicity stunt for them, because you know, it's grizzly bears. And when it's not

grizzly bears, now it's bear baiting. And it's kind of incredibly easy sell to someone that has no context for conservation based hunting of North America, which is the and I mean every time I open my mouth I say this, but I mean, you know, the reason we have big game is because of hunters. I mean we all know that, but but I still don't think people really understand that. Well even hunters don't understand that, but non hunters not at all. No, I mean, it's such an easy sell.

It's such an easy sell to put up a billboard here. Well, I know, I've seen I've seen your social media post. I drive by twice a day. It's just uh and and you know a lot of it boils down to like the as hunters were a consumptive user, and we pay for the resource, and and part of that money is back to wildlife management, whether it's to ensure hunting seasons or just to do some habitat work on on the landscape too, for better LK habitat, you know. But

that's all consumptive money. That's money that hunters are spending. And we got the anti hunters that basically don't pay a dime to manage to bring these populations to where everyone can enjoy. And as hunters, we're supposed to feel guilty about hunting. It's like we're the ones that are bringing this resource back, we're managing it and and as hunters we have to always defend ourselves. You know, I

want to stop you right there. A lot of people would know this, uh, A lot of hunters that are kind of in the know, especially if they listen to the Meteor podcast, they would know what what we're saying when we say that hunters are paying for conservation. I've meant reference to me your podcast just because they they've done some in depth podcasts about the funding for conservation whatnot.

But what we're talking about is the Robertson Pittman Act, which is an excise tax on hunting gear, firearms, and ammunition. So basically in the nineteen forties under Roosevelt's or somebody, Um, yeah it was, it was it was uh Franklin uh fdr. Yeah, that's what he's the one that signed it in I believe. And basically they said, we're gonna a tax more on hunting,

hunting and fishing gear and uh and ammunition, firearms. That money is gonna go into a big fund and the federal government that's gonna be distributed to the states for wildlife conservation, for buying land, for I mean, all this stuff. So that's what we mean when we say now I

think it's a people have got to know that. I mean, like the guys, the guys in the I mean, I bet if I pulled the average Arkansas hunter that has a hunting license, not a guy that's really into it, just a guy that bought a tag maybe gonna go shoot,

he doesn't know that. He can't tell somebody that. No. So we have a lot of friends that are international that that have no context for hunting, but they know our family and they know that I make a living in the hunting industry, and I've had very good conversations with the people, and that's one of the first things I bring up is that we have paid for wildlife conservation,

and boy, that rings a bell with people. So you guys are the only ones that you know basically basically you know when you look at and Rynella has talked about it. You know, the big mounds of buffalo skulls back east, you know, in the bone yards, and and there was no wildlife on this landscape in the early nineteen hundreds. And now we've hit epic uh populations of deer and elk, you know, and deer always in the west,

mule deer. We have more bears now than we ever have in continental wide black bear in this region, bears. And that's all through management and and hunting dollars. And we've we've managed to bring all these animals to record levels of populations, all while hunting them, all while hunting them so nothing if we take out hunting, there might be a few more, but we know the consequences of that, you know, disease and just it's wherever an animal has value.

And this is an old drum that we beat because it's true. Wherever an animal has cultural value, it will be protected. It'll succeed and and it gains cultural value and has for us, and it has worked through hunting. You know, we will value it. We want to be able to partake of the resource, so we protect it and just take a small little sliver the population back so that we can have bear rugs and bear steaks.

One of the biggest things that we've We've said for a long time and I heard this in one of a grizzly bear seminar, And you know, public perception is probably the biggest point right now when it comes to recovery of an animal and the grizzly bear, the public reception of the grizzly bears poor. And I I've said this for a long time. If you want to create advocates for grizzly bears, hunters are the best advocates. But

we've gotta be able to hunt them. And if you let hunters, you'll start getting guys that are like, I'm the biggest grizzly bear passionate hunter. I'm like that guy, just like I was with black you know, just like I was a black bears. Pretty soon you're gonna have guys out there just like wolves there like all I care about grizzly bears. And you can be damn sure that guy is gonna make sure that that grizzly bears always on that landscape and he's on it. And so

you got to create those passion points. And we've got a hundred and fifty years of history to prove that that's true. Yep, it's not just a guess. No, No, it's since the Native Americans run this landscape. You know, they hunted them. Yeah, well, and and and specifically what I'm talking about is Roosevelt and Grinnell and the guys that started the Boone and Crockett Club that introduced fair Chase and and and later that rolled into wildlife management,

the North American model of conservation. They did that because they hunted them. They didn't they didn't do that because they like to take photos. It's true, it's true. You take a photo of a bear. I mean, I get it. There are people that are truly passionate about bears that

all they take this photos. But man, if you're a bear hunter, you're passionate about bears being there, you are you want them there and then, and I think it all boils down to one other thing that we have a lot of tough trouble with in this state, which we're we're on the beginning stages of trying to do something about it, is you know, in Wyoming you don't have to take the carcass, which to me just makes it so much easier to to cause problems when you're

talking to black bear. Yeah, and so you don't one towny you do as you know, um, because you've hunted up there. Uh, you've got to take the carcass and everything. In Wyoming you can leave the carcass. And so it really makes hunters in Wyoming, regardless if you leave it or not, black bear hunters look like trophy rug hunters exclusively. And so those are archaic laws that are not helping the image of hunter is in the general I the public's eye that we have to change and there there.

You know, we're not gonna get that changed done easily, and there's gonna be a lot of hunters that are going to disagree with us, but you know, at the end of the day, we have to do something that's going to sustain our ability to hunt bears and if we look like a bunch of rugthirsty dudes out there hunting, that's not good for hunting in general and the sport of hunting. And and there's a there's a common misconception

about bear meat out here in the West. You know, I've been I've hunted the East, I've hunted Canada bears out there, and that that's priced, you know, the fat and everything, and out here it's like, what are you gonna do with that? And I'm like, well, I'm gonna eat it. You know, we butcher all our own stuff. And and and it's important to us trying to get that message out to other people, like hey, and if you don't want to bring it out, and we'll get

someone that does. But that's something that I think needs to change out here. And that just lends to that hunters being this evil, you know, trophy driven species and that and that is our biggest thing. And and for what we've been trying to Barning Magazine is to change that perception, you know, to to tell a different story, to tell a story of of the bear is an

incredible animal for wildlife related commodities. I mean, there's just all these uses that you can have for bear and uh and just telling the telling the news story of who the bear hunter is. You know when you guys

have done a great job with that. Since you've got that and taken over, you can really see that publication is just it's taken huge leaps into that respect of not just being grip and grin articles, but you know, really explaining what bear hunting is in biology and you know, what to do with the meat and all that stuff. I mean, it's just been so good. And then the podcast and the movies that the video, the films that you're shooting is all helping that out. And we needed

that as bear hunters. We needed a group or someone that had the ability to put that message out there because a lot of times is bear hunters and I've seen this, um, bear hunters tend to be a pretty quiet, like not very you know, out there group of people because I think we're always defending what we do, so we tend to just kind of sit in the back and like, don't bring it up because it's gonna be

a problem. And so now to have a group out there, like you guys that are just really bringing a positive light to bear hunting and you know, One of the things that I that is that is important to me is that, you know, the reason that bears are the low hanging fruit for the anti hunting community and even misunderstood people that hunters that misunderstand bear hunting is because of some of the tactics that we have to use to manage bears, baiting bears and running hounds, those two things.

And and this is a sad This is a sad thing to me is I think there's a lot of hunters today that don't understand the macro picture of the goals the anti hunting community that would say we should just give that to them. They would say, it's not important to me. It's such a small little fraction of our hunting, you know, and it's kind of you know, there's not well, there are plenty of other animals that we bait that it's totally ethical, totally Oh, everybody in

Arkansas bait white tail. People don't know how to quit learn like we quit deer hunting whitetail. We we quit being hunters about twenty years ago when Walmart started selling corn in Arkansas. I'm I'm joking about myself, but I mean it's true. But point being debat a bear just seems so to someone that doesn't understand. They misperceive how that it's uh, the difficulty of it. They think it's easy. They misperceived the motivation, they misperceived the amount of work,

they misperceived all this crazy stuff about it. But one thing that I am intently harping on is that the methodology that we use that our game agencies who want animals to thrive have prescribed in the different regions of the country to hunt bears are there for a purpose, for conservation based reasons. In Arkansas, if all we had was spot and stock hunting, there would be twenty five bears killed in the state of Arkansas every year. The bears would I mean, we would have all kinds of problems.

We gotta bait bears on private land in Arkansas to harvest the bears that we need. You got to manage that resource. And those game and fish managers use baiting and they use hound hunting as a tool in their bucket to manage That's all it is. That it's not a it's not a way to be like, let's kill all these bears. Are like, we're not harvesting enough bears. We need to figure out how. And they do it

in Idaho. They do baiting is loud wyoming in certain parts of the state where we don't have grizzly bears, and it's a tool and mean and if we got rid of it, we'd have a bunch of guys out there that don't know nothing about bear hunting spot in stock and we'd struggle, you know well. And and what I want to say to the wider hunting community is that the strategy of anti hunting communities is incrementalization. They

want to chip at us piece by piece. So right now they're after baiting hounds all over the country in Maine, in different places. All these associations are are geared towards defending bear associations Michigan, Wisconsin. And if we give that to them, then the next thing will be the next It's well, and then eventually, when my son is thirty five years old, they'll be after him for bo hunt.

I mean, it's just like we can't. We we've got nothing left to give the anti hunting community and we need the wider We need anybody who cares about hunting in our way of life in North America needs to help us defend baiting in houns. That's that's what I want to say to people. Ultimately, you hit it on the head because if we give up one thing, one thing, I don't care what it is, we're gonna lose it all. And we've stressed it so much. In the bear hunting community,

there's decisive there. There's people that are divided, and we get spot inst guys that will trash on bait guys because they don't spot in stock hunting. They bait and not supposed to be easy. And we get bait guys mount At, matt At, Houndsman and Idaho because they're rigging off of their baits. I'm like, guys, we are all bear hunters at the end of the day, and they are like loving this because we're divided in our own ranks and we can't be that way. And and we've

always said we'll support any hunting organization. We do a

lot with non hunting organizations. We do anything we can because we know that we're gonna need people to come to bat for us one day as bear hunters, and and you know we support any you know, Rocky Mountainel called us said we need to do something with this or the sheep Wild Sheep said, you know, we're all about wildlife, and it's like we need that approach to bears, Like all hunters need to look at it and say, I don't hunt bears, but the antis are attacking that,

and if we lose that then it's just gonna spiral. Then I think that's the direction we're headed, Joe as a as a community. You know, just in the last ten years, we've really had social media. Just in the last really five years, podcasts have come up. In Podcasts are such an effective way to communicate, even probably more than the written word, because people can excess that, people

can hear. But I feel like we're building to this point where the let's just say, well, let's just say bears in general, but specifically I'm talking about black bears because where we can hunt them, we're adding value to black bear hunting. On a national level, We're adding value to black bears. People are starting to pay attention. People are starting to go on massive adventures like we've been on out West to go on to do it yourself

spot and stock hunt. Guys in Arkansas and Oklahoma are becoming like serious bear hunters, like all of a sudden, the street cred the bear is elevating. People are gonna start caring about it more, and then we're gonna have more of this influx of Wow. We got to defend this if we love it, just like they did with sheep, just like they did without Now for those, for those their problems where they didn't have them, they didn't to

have the habitat. Our problem is not habitat. Whatever's happening in North America ecologically has been extremely beneficial to black in Iowa. Now, I mean habits that I don't think. So it's like we've got this ripe resource and we need people to step up to bath And I mean we my hat right here, Joseph's bear hunter. I mean we're trying to build this thing of an identity a bear hunter. We need that I'm a bear hunter. We and it. Basically, what you're saying is we need to

create advocates. We need hunter advocates out there, and there hasn't been a lot for bear hunting. As bear hunting gets more popular, it's a double edged sword. As bear hunting becomes more popular, you've got guys that don't like it because now all of a sudden, I have the same drainage I would I would bear hunt in but at the same token, we now have more people that will fight to fight for us, and we need to and we're still so far behind what a lot of

these groups are. We got to keep building that out. And that's why it's so important to create advocates for hunting bears. And like I said, bear huntings popularity is exploded and and we're kind of on the front of that right now, and we were like, we need to build that out because the more people that buy bear tags are advocates for bear hunting, you know, and that's what we need. That's our defense mechanism, right It really doesn't and you know, talking to you, it's like this

idea has grown as even as we're talking. But it almost doesn't make sense that the icon of North American wilderness the bear has not been elevated to this high position of cultural significance in the hunting community, because the same thing that you experienced here is what I experienced in Arkansas, that we had a world class resource and

people just didn't really care about it. But that's changing and it and it changes when people like us step up and say, wait a minute, this is awesome that the foundations of our North American hunting culture were built on bear hunter. I mean, you know, I used that phrase a lot, and and I didn't make it up. I've read it somewhere. Bears the icon of North American wilderness, like in in so many of our the patriarchs of the North American hunting that we know identified themselves as

bear hunters. And specifically I'm talking about Teddy Roosevelt and Daniel Boone among many others. I mean, they identified themselves as bear hunters. You know, Boone, I think killed and fifty five bears one winner. And you were a bad dude if you bear hunted back in Yes, you were a man's man, that's right. I see pictures of you know, uh, Roosevelt and Buffalo Bill Cody at their hunting lodge up here at Pahaska from the old days, you know, black and white pictures and they got cheap and eak and

stuff and two bears and like that. It's been going on forever, you know, the in Arkansas. I read some literature one time, and one author said that it was a status symbol back in the eighteen hundreds to have a big bear drying on your barn. I mean it was like it was like man that and it was was deeper than just you know, like Ego, he killed

a big bear. But if you killed the big bear back in eighteen thirty seven, man, you had enough lard for the winter, You had enough meat for the wind, had a heck of a rug that you could either sell or keep. Like it was a status symbol. It was. It was like having a Porsche park in front of

your house, you know. But that's that's the And I think what I've kind of discovered, and I think it's kind of it's maybe interesting that I'm from Arkansas, a place that people hit nationally wouldn't know as a bear state. But it's kind of cool because Arkansas was once start

in the as the bear state. But more importantly than that, from what we're trying to do from a media perspective, is, you know, we just came back from Montana and had an incredible world class do it yourself adventure in the back country of Montana and killed the nice bear. And like, this is like a totally new experience for me, even in I mean, I've done it several times now, but if you look at my whole life, I did not

grow up doing that kind of hunt. And so it's like it's it's the bear encompasses such a massive range, all these different methods of hunting, and it's almost like I feel like, you know, a guy just coming out here and just discovering this incredible world. And that's yeah. And you know what's funny to me as we talk about all the opportunities for bear hunters in North America down to Mexico, there's bears, I mean the black bears in Old Mexico. Yep. We I look at a group

like the Wild Cheap Foundation, how successful they are. They've built that organization with hunters that may never hunt a wild cheap. They spend most of their money on wild They spend a lot of money going to wild Cheap, which Wild Cheap are very Um, how do I want to say this? Uh, they're susceptible to disease, are fragile species, and we got to do a lot to protect them. And I don't discredit what they're doing. They've done an amazing job and I hope one day I can. But

people will spend erroneous amounts of money. I shouldn't say erroneous. They'll spend a lot of money. I'm gonna get in trouble here. They'll spend a lot of money for a foundation for sheep, and it's a species they may never get a hunt in their life. Meanwhile, we have bears that you can buy tags for over the counter, and people, I think take that for granted. I think if bears were so obscure and so limited an opportunity, we would

maybe be in a different conversation right now. We would be talking about something like the wild sheep does and they're like, we have a bunch of people that really want to hunt sheep, so they're going to spend the

money to ensure that there's a future for sheep. We don't have a problem for the future of bears really, so people take for granted, like if we didn't have a lot of really good maybe people would be a little bit more in tune with bear hunting and bears and be like, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna do whatever it takes to make sure what you're describing is the

good old days of bear hunting. I mean, let's flip the equation and all of a sudden, the bear becomes the desirable game species for people to hunt, advocate for, and care about. Well, guess what, there's enormous amounts of opportunity in the direction you drive. So it's like we're in the glory years. I mean, you take it back

to your analogy of the sheep. Imagine if you could buy over the counter sheep tag ins wouldn't be you know they would it wouldn't be they weren't naturally in that many but but it wouldn't be that big of a deal. You know that the Wild Sheep Foundation as a foundation wouldn't probably be as successful as they are.

And and it's it's it's funny to me. That's like when you have a species that's so readily available that you have such a tough time advocating for it and a tough time getting people to be passionate about it. But you take a species that you may never hunt in your life and you're the biggest fan of that because you may never get to do it, you really want to one day. It's crazy. Yeah, it is. Well, that's incredible stuff. Incredible stuff. Um, hey, tell us a

bear story. Uh what what like have you you've encountered grizzlies obviously, I mean, like, what's it I've you know, hunt in Montana where we were at. There was certainly possibilities to you because there's there's surely some grizzly bears in that country where you guess, I mean we were. We were prepared. We had bear spray and good pistols. I mean, like we were totally prepared to be in like real bear country. But there's just not that many

up there right where we were. We talked to people and they're like, you know, there's the odd grizz that comes through here, but it's certainly not like here, like we were hunting black bears here. I mean, you'd be in it's like over here if I go hunting, you know, spotting stock hunting, because we can't bait over here where the grizzlies are, so we spawned stock hunt over here. And I mean it's literally like if I go out, I might for every six grizz maybe see one black bear.

I mean, and it's it's black bears don't want to be where the grids are. Yeah, And that's a big concern of ours has been like what is this population of grizzly bears done to our black bear population. You know, you put an apex predator on the landscape that they're fighting for the same food sources of black Beard, who's obviously not the same size and not as aggressive in nature. How well are they doing, you know? And so that's

something that we've talked to. I've I've i've I've asked the department a lot about and there's just not a lot of information yet. So hopefully maybe they can't imagine that they're winning. And there's a lot of black bears over here, but you tend to see them move around more in the daytime. Why the grizzly bears are moving more in the morning and at night. So and I think you have to change your tactics. But you know,

the grizzly bears around here. I don't have as many stories while black bear hunting as I do just deer and elk hunting, and just some fascinating encounters as far as you know, like having to have guns drawn on bears and so close and and and I've been lucky enough not to have one charge me. Um. I've had him next to my tent in that country for hunting, and you can hear them breathe and they're trying to get your dear meat out of your cash, you know.

And um, you know, there's a lot of stories of guys losing their animals to to grizzly bears, you know, after the kill, and then I've been lucky. It's never happened to me. But I know if I spend enough time over there, and it will, you know. And I've seen him up close, really close. And you know, I walk in in the dark, and I hunt on foot a lot, you know, and so it's just a matter of time. But you've got to be super vigilant. I mean,

like spray on your chest. I carry a gun underneath my binal harness and then I carry my bear spray on my hip on my pack belt. So I always have to and I've never known, you know, I've actually had more scary encounters with black bears than I have grizzly bears. But I've seen tons of grizzly bears, but most of them I've seen it as at a distance or I've seen him to where I'm like I have time like last year, we were deer hunting, and uh, we were in an area we'd shot a deer the

week before. So okay, automatically, that's like that carcass is like gonna probably have a bear by there. And we've seen bears in that drainage a bunch. We knew an outfit or had been hunting the other drainage right next to it and shot some deer the day before. And so we were walking up and there comes why to go and which drainage and we picked the one on the right where the outfit had been and seeing a bunch of crows and stuff, and we wanted to push

farther back in there. And it was just kind of like, all right, let's think about this. There's two carcasses at least up there from deer, and this is the prime time for grizzlies to be out, you know, scavenging these carcasses. Let's just be smart and turn around, you know. So you have to manage manage the risk versus reward a lot, I think in this country, you know, and like be

be smart. But you know, um, they're there and they're they're they're just aggressive and they're not afraid of people, which is is a problem. I mean that they they don't run like most black bears. Would um when you see him. And I've seen little ones do it, but I've seen big ones to stare you down and just walk like, just keep doing. You're in my world and you better know that. Let me ask you a question, what does Joe Condella's pool when he sees a charging bear?

That's that's a great question. I've asked myself a billion times. I wish I could do both with my rifle three handed. I've asked myself so many times. You go through the scenario in your head because I think if you don't, you're being ill prepared. You have to understand what's going to happen and what could happen, and and that's a crazy thing to think about every day when you go

out hunting. It's like I could get backed. It does and makes it way more real being out there and knowing that, like at any minute, you could come around a corner in your head lamp and there'll be a sow with two cubs on that same trail and you're done. And most attacks happened under five seconds, So that's what you got, and you got to make that decision in your head, and there's no way to prepare for that.

So I think going over the scenario in your head and in my mind, I've always I carry bear spray because they've proven it's they say it's successful in mitigating conflict. But like to me, it just seems like I'm grabbing my pistol. Now is that the right thing to do? And I don't know. You know, bear spray becomes ineffective in the cold, wet, really cold, if it's windy. We're in Wyoming, it's always windy. I mean, it's always windy

out here. So if you gotta gust going sideways and you you deploy your bear spray and it just blows or she just gets a you're you're getting it. So I don't know. For me, like I and my pistol, I don't know why. I just think that I'll grab for that. Um. The one time up there, two years ago, we had a bear come up off a carcass and was real curious, didn't charge, but it came up to us and I had my rifle down, but I had time. You know, I don't know, I think, uh, I think

I to grab my pistol. But you know what, my my philosophy has been has been carry bear spray and pistol that we did Montana, and if you have time and feel like you can mitigate the situation with a bear spray, obviously you pulled one. So if you're if you're at your camp and you see agree is eighty yards away and you're like, oh crap, you know, you pull out the bear spray and you're and you're ready.

But I feel like, in the heat of the moment, you're grabbing your pistol your life, and if you come around the corner there's a bear, you're grabbing the pistol your life and death. And I think that's what I carry both. I think for that reason. You know, if you see one and you're like, okay, we might have a problem here, I'm ready. I got my bear spray off.

My gun is a backup. But that the old joke around here is most guys carry both the bear spray to to prevent its charge and then the gun to end your life when you've been mauled and you're gonna die, you know, to ease your suffering. But um, i've been seeing I've been encouraged to see a lot more people that come out because there's a lot of people that will come out here hunting that have no knowledge or

they just refused to think it's real. And non residents come out here deer hunting and their galvant and around, no bear spray, no pistol, and they're just like what. And I'm like, dude, you know where you're hunting. Do some research. And so I've been encouraged to see a lot more people. And we've always tell people like, get bear spray, and if you do carry a pistol, know how to use it, because you could carry a pistol all you want. If you can't shoot it, you're not

gonna do any good. You just as well throw it at him and hope it hit him square in between the eyes, and then it's just gonna make more mad. So, and don't carry a pistol that I carry a tin. Um. I've just been it's a Kimberton Um. I've just been more doing a lot of research. Fort is okay, But I think you want something like a tin to for the stopping power. Yeah, And I carry it a lot of times when I'm baiting or if I'm just bear hunting. What what was your hairin situation with a black bear? Well,

I've had him, um like we outside of Missoula. Uh, years and years ago, we shot a black I shot a black bear and we couldn't find it. So we were stalking it, uh, falling the blood trail and it was down in this choked draw and uh, I'll never forget this, but I was standing next to my buddy. We were about ten yards apart, and I hit that bear. It was it was I was shooting down off of this ridge and the bear was walking. I tried to hit him right here, and I hit him in the face.

And so he's walking and he's bleeding all over the place, you know. And then he bedded down and we walked right up on that thing and it stood up on its hind legs and it was like gonna come at my buddy, and and he's trained pistol guy, and like he pulled it out. It was just like he couldn't even I mean, like just a black bear, like couldn't even get it to Like bear turned around, wheeled off and went round up the hill and we shot it.

But it was just like that quick, you know. And so but I've had him climb tree stands and you know, I've I've had him woofing at me out of sow and uh, two cubs of South put the run on me. In the in the big hole Southwest Antana spotted this bear a long ways off and that's all we could see was that one bear. So we make a run on it and we got in the timber and we're sneaking up and I hear, you know, the claws going up a tree, and I'm like, oh, I climbed the tree.

And I just turned around to my right and she's wolfing at me coming. She stops and I'm like, well, so I figured the cubs had climbed the tree, you know. So we turned around and walked back, and then she kind of came back down the hill to make sure we weren't gonna stick around, and we gotta look, and

she had two cubs climb up the tree. You know, I've had stuff like that, and I haven't had him, you know, around here, I see all those videos and I've hunted Canada where you got those bears that won't leave your bait. We don't get that around here, like they won't. They're so nervous around people around here a lot of times. But I have had them, you know, like when you're in the stand, or if they're pretty pretty good with you, like sniff pretty hard or you know,

chomp or wolf. I had a bear do that to me last year, but I think it's I think it was more like, dude, I know you're there, but it's still like yeah, yeah, so more like that. And and you know, but I've been very fortunate and knock on wood, I haven't had an issue with the grizzly bear, but gosh, I could tell you fifty million stories of close friends and people around here that have and it happens every year. We get guys getting mauled or and it's not just hunters,

it's hikers and everything else. And it's just you can do everything right that you can think of and it can still happen to you. But we just have so many and it's just it's it's just a chance. You're you're fighting the odds, I mean, anymore. And and it's changed some of my old hunting tactics, like I can't

backpack hunt. I love to backpack hunt, I can't backpack hunt ilk in some of these areas because if I get an elk down in a grizzly area, there's a good chance I can't get that ilk out by myself, you know, five six miles in one trip, so I'm gonna have to make multiple trips. And and there's just a good chance on that next trip back and I don't have horses, that there's gonna be a bear on

the on the carcass. So it's like, it's it's crazy to think that one animal can change what you do, but you know, and I never thought it would, but it does, it does, it does, and then they're remarkable to see out in the wild. I had a mountain goat permit for the wilderness up here right on the edge of Yellowstone Park, and my best friend came down and hunted with me, and he's like, he's from Southwest Montown.

He's like, I've never seen a grizz in the wild I was like, well, we were hunting behind this thing called the bear Gate. It's a place where they drop a lot of the bears that they have to relocate because you can bring a culvert trap in there, and then the gate closes until July, and then in July to September it's open. It's a it's a beautiful bear habitat Big Big Peaks, it's gorgeous right on the park border. And I said, well, Bud, you're gonna see some grizzly bears.

And I said, if we don't have a close encounter, I'll be shocked. We hunted in there for seven days and didn't see one grizzly bear. He's like, dude, I hear all these stories, and I'm like, we were. I don't even know how happy I am and how lucky I feel. He's like, I just wanted to see one far away. And I was like, well, but we I mean I could, honestly, you could drive up the North Fork today and probably see one. Yeah, it's incredible. That

is incredible. Well, hey, this has been a super good conversation. Yeah, any closing thoughts, No, just keep up the good work, man. We need what you're doing out there. And you know, if anyone's hunting in the West and and and we I feeled a lot of calls for guys trying to figure out how to bear hunt, you know, And like I said, that's what we're here for. We're not only a group out there building fences and and keeping bears

out of trouble. We're there for the bear hunter. The prospective bear hunter that wants to learn or has questions and you know, um, that's what we're here for. And when you pick up the number you get on our website, you call you, you call me, or you email me personally, and and so we're really really hands on that way. And um, just love to talk. And we've met so I met so many people doing this that it's just been it's been truly a pleasure. So and finally get

to meet you in person, it's been great. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad it worked out today. And uh, hey, I'm gonna say the exact same thing back to you doing what you're doing. Man, for real, I got a lot of respect, thank you for what you guys are doing it. And I think it's really just the beginning. And I I mean, you see, I just really believe that as the the status of the big game animal, the bear continues to elevate, that there's gonna be more and more

emphasis put on conservation and advocacy for bear hunting. And you guys are the thing in the West right now. We're we're hoping to growing off to where we're really effective and being that voice for bears and bear hunters. In the West where it's like we're the go to and and I think in twenty years you and I are going to sit down and just be like thankful we did what we did, even though that a lot

of it was a struggle. I think we're doing the right thing for future generations and that's important to me. Right on. Man, Well, well thanks boys. Great. I didn't even introduce to couldn't get a word in I driving planning. Uh now, Kobe, Kobe just keeps me on trackbe anything else we need to cover here. I mean, I guess the only thing I was thinking about is whenever you're thinking about different types of hunting, you just have to

look for the challenges that that group does. So, I mean, my first bear hunt was last year and it was on a baited hunt with an outfitter. Uh And on the last by the way, yeah it was good. Um, but on the last day there wasn't uh like, I wasn't on a hunt. So I went and I actually like ran the line with the outfitter and helped baiting. Man, I was I was dying out there. It was a

lot of work. Even though he had a four wheeler and could get to him there's a lot of misconceptions about bait hunting, and I don't have to tell you because you do a lot of it. And I put in a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of money to do it. And I was talking that we had an event down in Rock Springs,

and I'll make this short. We had an event down in Rock Springs and they all bait hunt down there, you know, And and I They're like, man, i'd love to go spot stock hunt in Montana, this one couple. And I was like, well, if you do want to goal, I can point in some areas. And so I was talking around the phone the other day and she's like, I don't need to do this with bait. I don't need to do this. She's like, holy crap. Spot stock hunting sounds so much easier in bath hunging. I'm like,

it's not as easy to find them. But I said, they all have their challenges. And I said, bait hunting is time consuming and it's a lot of work if you're gonna do it right. Houndsmen have other challenges. They got the amount of money they put into their dog days all year round just to hunt a few months out of the year. So every one of them has their challenges, like you said, and I think it's key to to explain that to people, like people have never bait hunted, like I would love to take you, and

so you can understand what it is. You know, and just because you put bait out there doesn't mean you're gonna shoot a bear. I mean, I wish it was that easy. That's that's that's awesome that you said that. Now I have a thing that I say in private, and I'll make it public here. I had. I had a spotting stock given me a hard time about bait

and bearing. I'm a friend totally. We were just ribbing each other and he was talking about how easy it would be to hunt bear of her bait, and I said, way to minute, you're telling me that you just wake up in the morning on the day you decide you're gonna hunt and strut out to some hilltop glass of bear from a long ways away that doesn't know he's being hunted, and walk over to him and shoot him from two hundred yards. And I'm like, you're telling me

that that that sounds easy to me. It's a joke, a joke. It's just like you're hunting an animal that doesn't even know he's been hunted. Come on, man, that's not even fair. Chase. You know, I always say this. I have a joke too, I said, well, feeding bears is easy because they're gonna eat, but killing him on bait is a totally different story. I don't care how

dialed in you are. And I I've been humbled just about the time I think I got bears figured out, I get a year, I'm just like, what am I doing? You know, they just totally will humble you. And it's like, that's why I love him so much, and their individual qualities and every body they're like people. Every bear is different and some days are in good moods and some days are in crappy moods. And a cool thing about baiting that I grew up bot stock hunting and it's

my passion. I love it, um, but I never got to really observe and be around bears like I do now. Baits. There's no other hunt for North American big game that you get to interact as closely with an animal for as long a period of times as a baited black bear hunt. And it'll change your view and your respect level for bears when you get to sit there. I mean, I was in Alberta hunting and it got dark, and you know in Canada, and I did a similar thing. I brought my own four wheeler up and I ran

baits and I did. I was like, you're not. And I was up there for like ten days and I hunted this one bait for this whopper bear that had on camera and I sat. I sat the last day. I sat from morning until dark and didn't leave there. And that dumb thing never came in, but that like ten other bears came in. And by the by it got dark, it was like eleven or twelve, and I was like, well, I'm gonna walk down to my fore whether it's dark, and this baits like seven yards away

and there's bears. The one sole came up the dang tree and it was just western in there, and I loved every second of it. But I'll never forget as long as I live, and I get chills talking about it. And they've baited with a lot of beef and meat scraps up there, and you can hear those things down there snapping bones. And these aren't even whopper bears. You know, five footers, they're just snapping bones and crunching, and you

had to crawl down the stand. The barrels here like right across from and you had to kind of go in between the stand and the barrel and like eight yards to get out of there. And I'm like, here we go, man, you know what alive? What a way

to feel alive. But yeah, everything is. But baiting has made it to where I can really pay attention bears and I don't know how many years I've not shot bears and I've just sat there for nights and just watched them and took pictures and just loved being not close and just seeing them and gosh, their manners and they're amazing. I can talk about it forever. That bated hunt is what like gave me that appreciation for bearers because they just every single one had a different characteristic

or mannerisms are the way that they acted. So it was just like knowing that they have a personality light the spotting stock spoiler alert, it kicked my butt. Yeah, well you went from to Montana, who different, just different. They all offer their own challenges and and not one's worse than the other, better than the other They're all awesome and I I've yet to do a hound hunt. That is my I'm going to. I was gonna try and do one this year, and I got that Grizzly tag,

so that one on the on the snide. So I've got to get behind hounds chasing bears one of these days. Whether I take one or not, I just want to do it. I've chased cats with dogs, but I want to do a bear one so bad, uh, because I want to experience it all. And I know that's something be easy either. I just love it. It's a whole different challenge everyone, and that's what's so cool about it, all these different challenges. Hey, we better wrap it up here. Yeah,

thanks bunch, Joe, thank you guys. Good to be here. Keep you wild places wild, because that's where the bears going pretty well be