Bear Camp 2020 with Gary Newcomb and James Lawrence

My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world of hunting the icon of the North American wilderness Prepare. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation, but will also bring you into some of the wildest country off the planet chasing bare. This week we're at bear Camp in Arkansas and we have to Bear Hunting Magazine legends on the podcast. Well three, make it three. We've got my dad, Gary newcom you hear me talk about him

a lot. We've got James Lawrence, my Arkansas mountain man buddy. And then the third legend is Kolby moorehead himself, the Bear Tech. We're sitting around literally a camp fire, and we're at our Arkansas bear camp. We talked to my dad and James about a little bit about their hunting. Kolby talks about his bear hunt. I'm not gonna tell you what happens. He'll tell you what happens. But this is a very fun podcast with a fun crew. I'm holding to my hands right now a c V A muzzloader.

It's an Accura mountain rifle in maxwe Camo. This skun is a it's a it's a breakover. I've just broken it over. It has a breech plug that you can screw out by hand. You don't need any tools, which is pretty revolutionary for muzzloaders. All the other muzzloaders had you had to use a special tool so you can take out this breech plug in the field. I like this mountain rifle, Accurate mountain rifle. It's got a twenty four and a half inch barrel, it's light, and it

has a Sarahcoat finish on it. I will be using this gun in Arkansas in just a few weeks. I've got to put a scope on it, but Hey, check out c v A Muzzleloaders. They've got some incredible products, a full range of muzzleloaders, and an incredible guarantee on all their stuff. We're also getting geared up for some hound hunting this winter. We're getting the squirrel dogs ready.

We're getting the coon dogs ready. And check out W Hunting Supply for all your hounder lated needs, whether it be garments stuff, whether it be leashes and collars, whether it be specialty hound gear for in hound merchandise, hat shirts. Our friends at W Hunting Supply Buddy woodberry Man. If you're buying anything but as I do with dogs, buy it from W and Buddy and his team. Check out

our friends as well at the Western Bear Foundation. These guys are a nonprofit hunting conservation organization filling a very special place in the bear world in in our lifestyle of guarding the gate. Check out the Western Fair Foundation. A vital component of this week's hunt in Arkansas was Northwoods bear products. We use Northwoods on all of our bear baits. We use some of their gold dust powder.

We also used their gold rush friar grease additive. If you're baton bears, you need to be using commercial sense that just doesn't make sense not to, and Northwoods Bear Products makes the highest quality, best bear sense around. Check them out at Northwoods Bear Products dot Net. Also check out their Instagram and all their social media stuff. Right now they're posting a bunch of photos of fall bear hunts of people using Northwoods. Check it out. You're going

to enjoy this podcast. Gary Nukam, James Lawrence Kolby, and myself. Man, it's starting to feel like fall, would y'all say? Yeah, pretty incredible weather for the first weekend of Arkansas bear season. We're we're sitting around a open fire our outside. We're in the Washingtaw Mountains out here in Arkansas, and uh, Kobe, this is a pretty legit set up here. Our guests super legit because I know he doesn't know it now

he knows how much his name comes up on the podcast. Yeah, we've got some legendary bear hunting magazine podcasts guests on the podcast. Today. I've got I've got my dad, Gary newcom I can't hardly do a It seems that your name comes up a lot. You know it, don't you? Well? I hear it, um, I hear you lying to the public. Yea. But but you know what what I think when I hear that is everybody talks about you know, when I was in business, people would come in and go, my

mama told me this, my daddy told me this. I mean that stuff counts. So you know, if you're if you're a parent, stuff you're saying will resonate for the rest of your kid's life. There'll be eighty years old and they'll go, my daddy told me something. So I don't think of it as me. I think that's the way we were made. We're made to think our parents no more than they really do. Well, let me ask you, did you or were you like? No, I'm not like

most paryers. I mean I was thinking genius, okay, but no, you know, I'm like, I'm just kidding. But no. Anytime I do a podcast, especially outside of just our bear hunting podcast, your your your name constantly comes up. Man, the wind is just picked up. Yep, it'll be all right, Will it be all right? We'll figure it out. Well, if you hear some wind noise, it's because we're that's yeah, it's that fall coming. Yeah. Well. Hey. The other name that comes up a lot is James Lawrence, how are

you doing, James? Been good and good? You always doing Bear season? Yeah? Man, James, when uh now, you don't listen to the podcast so, or at least I don't think you do. So I don't think you realize how often I end up talking about you. Um. You know your name has been mentioned on the Meat Eater podcast, which is the biggest podcast in the land, and your name was mentioned, not directly, but I talked about my dad.

But no, so uh no. Everybody that follows what we do knows these two guys right here, and of course they know Colby moorehead the bar Tech, which Kobe is going to be the one of the stars of this conversation. Don't tell him why. But now, James, how long have we been bear hunting and having kind of a bear camp several years now? I don't I don't know when we started really, yeah. Um look forward to it every year.

There's time of year especially yeah for bear season. Deer season used to be my Now it's bear I love to the way we hunt, the way we do bait. Yeah, and get kids involved in particular. Um, that means a lot to me. I enjoy it them as much as I do hunt myself, I'd rather them, Yeah, but I mean, I still enjoy it. But it's just seeing what we can come up with, the bating that we do, how

we do it. You grew up here, so you uh so, we're not gonna say exactly where we're at, but we're in just a little rural community in the wash Dolls and James, you've you've been here your whole life. You're seventy two, seventy two. When's your birthday? March seventeenth? When's your birthday? Just a little bit older? Yeah, it's you know, you're smarter than me. You were about to say that that's six months. Six months made a lot of you

learned a lot of stuff I missed out. Uh Now, James, I think we I think the first time we baited bears back in here was in two thousand ten. I think it's two thousand ten. And you let me and Lee Walt hunt your piece of property over there, and Dad was helping us bait, and we came in and Lee ended up killing the bear over there, and we came back and you hadn't even told us that you were bear hunting. You didn't you you know, you just let us bear hunt over there. And I didn't know

you that well at that time. Um, And now the way I knew you is because I wrote an article about you. Uh that was in Arkansas Sportsman. And I was gonna write an article about you for North American Whitetail and then you nearly died. I had permission from from shoot. His name is escaped me, a longtime editor

of North American Whitetail. Um, what's his name, Collie. I'm embarrassing myself anyway, like I had, And I was gonna write an article about your shed hornbuck of nineteen sixty four, finding these shed horns and finally killing this deer when you were just a boy. While your dad and uncles were off hunting without you, you stayed home and still hunted this deer and killed it. And uh and then you got real sick and uh in that kind of we just we just weren't able to do the article.

But you're back. Can I say something about James. You know, I'm a self taught hunter. No one in my family deer hunted, so you know, I'd never professed to be a great deer hunter. But I love people who knew how to deer hunt. I started hearing James Lawrence, Daniel Lance legendary figures and I always wanted to meet James, but I thought, man, this guy, I mean, this is

like meeting Daniel Boone. It will never happen. So Clay came to me one day and he said, Dad, I I want to meet I want to meet the best hunter in Polk County. And I knew that James would be on the target list, but I had no way of connecting Clay to James. So we went through Joe Joe Lyles. I said, Joe is a real good hunter, and Joe is raised here and he will put you

on the guy. Well, what I was trying to do, and this is a different article, as I was trying to write an article about mountain hunters, you know, just hunting that National Forest, just hunting in the mountains. And that's when I called Joe Lyles and and uh and Joe Lyles is a good hunter, but he told me about you, and so uh yeah, I just went and knocked on James door. And we've been best buddies ever since.

You know, he he was just an iconic figure. Two guys like me, I mean, we just everybody knew the name, but you never had the opportunity to meet the guy unless you were local. So anyway, it was a pleasure to get to know what a humble, gud and wonderful person James is. So anyway, yeah, I wouldn't be that humble. I would be telling you how good of a great hunter I was. Everybody, I mean, monkey with me. I'm too good man. Hey, okay, this is the James segment.

Yesterday we were in James's garage and he's got He's had the He's had to expand his white tail wall because he filled the whole wall up in his garage. So now he's hanging him out on the porch. But the old set of deer from when he was even a kid through the seventies and eighties is all in his garage. And these are things that I wouldn't really notice, because I would expect James to remember a lot about

those deer. But Misty took note. My wife was standing there and and I just randomly went over and touched a couple of deer horns. If you remember, there's one that big old brow times and these are just skull plates screwed on the wall and I touched the big old buck and James said, he told us right where he killed it. He said, you know, I killed that back there, and it was told us the date. And then I just I didn't think you think about it,

and I just went to the next one. Said, man, that one right there is a cool deer, and and James would say, man, that was eight four and we Gene and I had packed back in on the horse and died, and I and Misty came back and she said he remembered every one of those deer. M h But I thought that's pretty cool. I hope I don't lose that. Yeah, I do, and I'm say a hundred percent, but I know there's a story behind all of them. M m hmm. If I can remember, I'm so far

I can. Yeah. Well, that that one he was talking about was a special one. Anyway, that that is the time was the biggest deer I've ever seen. And they had that unusual set of horns. The high guards are brow times whatever you call it was extreme. Yeah. Different people looked at it and they said, that's g two. You don't have brow times drye guards. What do you think? Oh, I'd say, those are as a Buona crocket score, those

would be g one brown times. They're probably nine inches long, a pair of brow times that they curve up just kind of match each other in symmetry. On just a big old eight point, big gnarly eight point he killed out here. Yeah, well, you know, we don't. Back then, we didn't have a lot of deer. It's like everywhere. You know, I'm not saying that you were handicapped, but you didn't have a lot of deer in the seventies

and eighties, and I'm sure before that. And uh so every area has their tradition of what a trophy buck is. And James was killing the big bucks. Now if you compare it to an our guy just like just like you, I mean, there's no comparison to even Missouri. Uh but even South Arkansas as far as that, you know, the farm land down there, really nice big bucks. Yeah yeah, these mountain bucks. There's an exception once in a while,

but that's that's a good average. You know, County has killed a few Boone and Crockett and you over the years, about every ten years there will be a hundred and sixty inch buck to Oild. In fact, when you were a kid. I was on I forget the name name of the guy, but it was a hundred sixty seven inch buck on uh a particular road that goes through the mountains, and I actually hunted that deer. But you know, I just can't stand to hunt big bucks for some reason. Really,

I mean, it just seems I just didn't. I just I said on a bucket one something more kidding, he'd better go sit where he sees a bunch of deer. You know, I just I don't have patience. I don't you know, so many things go against me for killing big bucks, even though I've had plenty of chances. But this buck had huge rubs. I mean, I was just

like going nuts. And I could follow this buck for over a hundred yards on a trail that you knew it was this buck um and for around here that's pretty rare, and you know where it was, I'll tell you. I mean, uh, you know, I mean it was just crazy. I'm going like, I've never seen this obvious of a sign. And two weeks later, sin as gun season opened or whatever, the guy killed it. I never, seriously, I never even

put a stand up. I said on a bucket one morning before church in a honeysuckle patch and that, you know, I just thought, so, you know, I'm not a great hunter, but I've killed a lot of deer, you know, I've killed a whole lot of deer, a lot more deer and a lot of people, but nothing that you wanted. You just eat it and you're really good at uh killing. There there the way you wanted to kill him with a bow on public land, and we're doing it back

before many people were doing it. Well back before, yeah, many people were doing it. You were doing it. Yeah, you know. My buddies would be raised up gun hunters. Their whole family gun hunted. My family didn't gun hunt. They couldn't kill a deer with a bow, and I

could it. And it was weird. It was really weird because I didn't know much, but I just knew where you could go killed thoh and bucks would come in and you know, but anyway, it was kind of funny back in the seventies how the guys that should have been good hunters could not kill deer with a bow. You know. Ye, so, but I've never you know, I just don't kill big stuff, you know, it's too hard to get him out of the woods. You know, there's there's larger factors that play hard to get down of

the woods. Now, there's larger factors that played to what you're talking about. And to give somebody context, you were killing any deer with a bow back before people were killing deer, and so that became really valued to you, just to kill a deer with a bow on public land in Arkansas, and our guns seasons start in the rut. Our guns seasons are pretty liberal here, and so our

guns seasons are starting the first week in November. So you had basically the month of October to kill there, and you were just interested in filling your tags, and so it just never became that big of a priority. I would put my my archery equipment up November five. I mean to never. I mean, you know, every now and then I'd go out, but very seldom, maybe once ever five years. I might hunt some time in December. But and you know, that's where you set your goals.

I mean, it's just a it's a truism. Claise heard me say this a lot about life. You set your goals low, that's what you're gonna achieve. You know, if i'd have said I want to kill big Bucks. I probably, even though I've had plenty of opportunities. You know, I probably would have killed a bunch of big Bucks instead of killing a lot of small deer. I probably would have killed a few big Bucks. But I don't want to do that. It's too boring to me. I mean, I'm just not geared to be I'm a geared to

be a scouter. That's it. Sting. Yeah. I always allowed patience with the name of the am and older I get the less patients. Uh. I gotta go to stand in the morning with a light and leave that stand at night with a lot. And my granddad always said three days and SAMs much of killer deer. So sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong. But if you sit there from daylight the dark, which I can't do anymore. Um, that was one of my secrets, was just back to

three days, find a good scrape line. And back in the seventies I killed more deal over scrapes nine o'clock in the morning. As a rule, i'd go to work ten. I'd be there until nine. And now I don't know what happened, didn't It doesn't work that way. Anymore. But back in the seventies, you find a good scrape, he said, on it daylight, the dark, and three days you have me. So that way, you just look for the biggest track, the biggest cook push. So what do you mean it

doesn't work? You're being literally I can't scrape anymore. I mean I can't do any good scrape hunters. They you just don't see the deer. I just don't. I don't have any activity. I can sit there. But well, I didn't have cameras then. We didn't have cameras. Uh, we just went by the sun, you know, in the tracks. I've had cameras back then, I wouldn't have been sitting there because it wouldn't be getting no pictures. It's always

not they and they don't run scrapes. Of course, we got a lot more deer now than we had dan, but back in the seventies, scrape hunting was a way to go. You know, I think there's something biological and what you've said, because I've heard some really good local hunters. Y'all would know who I'm talking about. Tell me the same thing as they said. They said, and I can't explain it, but they they noted. The trend over a long period of time is that the buck sign is

different than it used to be. And and I mean, I wonder if it just it hadn't to do with low deer density and then hide deer density, because now we have a lot more deer and maybe somehow that's affected the way they're using and making sign. I mean, it sounds crazy, but I've heard too many people say what you just said, it was it was so much fun. Could you find the scrape a good scrape? I mean you don't just you know they make them, But do

you find a main scrape? But he've been frequent and twisted limbs towards scrape, sit there for three days and you kill him? You know, I used to have that theory that three days, but I I just could never set them stand three days. That it worked for me back in the seventies. It don't anymore. But in the seventies that was a scrape line important to you. I try to I always call him a main scrape. If you find a scrape, scrape, scrape, you find a main scrape.

He frequency and it's not just one deer either. You sat there for three days, you loveously three or four bucks come to the same scrape, which I didn't know that. Uh, but I would find what I call the main scrape, one big scrape. I think, a little polled place. You sit on those you might, but you found the main scrape. Um, I can't. Now I've tried it. I don't have the patience to set in one spot on the scrape. Now

now I've got a camera so I can tell. Yeah, But then I didn't have This may sound crazy that I took twine. I found the main scrape didn't have any It was over by the cabin and I had time that year. I took some twine around the scrape, hung it in bushes around the scrape, all complete circle, and then I would watch that the next morning I had it'd be up when i'd leave at night. The next morning. You can see where we come down and broke a little twine, opened up the scrape and left.

I didn't have a time, but I knew I was there from daylight the dark. Um. I don't know how many days I'd hunted it, but I give up at noon and walked down to my cabin. I wasn't a quarter of a mile from my cabin. And I get back to my stand and there's the twine broke where he'd come off the mountain, opened up the scrape, and where he'd went off the side of that ridge that I was on. So basically that deer was watching me.

I believe that that deer was up on the mountain above me, either smelt me or saying me, because he he opened that scrape up while I was gone for thirty minutes for lunch break. I quit. I quit. That was the last time, and I really and truly die hard set on the scrape. If I'd had cameras, it wouldn't take long to figure it out the time element, but that's the only way I could figure out where he was coming from. When he come off the mountain.

He broke that little twine and I just had circled. Yeah, and he's done that what I was going to lunch. So we whip you know, we we had that happened down in southern Arkansas. We've we've found scrapes that were like the size of your truck. I mean, I can't remember. They were just unbelievable to a young hunter. You're just going you got to be kind, man, this is crazy. We would leave, maybe finding at ten. This happened one time, find it maybe ten o'clock. I'm just making that up.

Then we go back to camp, mess around, come back that afternoon, and the scrapes worked, you know, so that to our period worked. And then one day I had a I like to hunt acorns, and I'm sitting here watching a spike buck eat all my acorns, and finally I run him off. And when I run him off, I look and there's a huge buck. One of our old spots had been sitting up on side that he'll watching the spike eat all those acorns, probably about ready

to come down. And I mean he he was one of the he was one of the really big bucks in that area. Had some big rubs around in different places. And uh, anyway, that's just hunting. That's how they get big. They let their little ones go in first. But if you can find a doe in heat early, just one, I mean, it just goes crazy. The woods goes crazy. And you know, I've only had it happen in forty

years of bow hunting. I've only had it happen a couple of times where a doe would come in around the twenty October of October, and I mean, you know, you just remember Clay was off in college and he came home. I said, Clay, you gotta get out here, you gotta hunt this buck. And uh, you know I had a shot thirty two steps and you know, you know, I just shot under it. It was huge, twelve point one of those beautiful twelve points, you know, bam bam bam.

In Uh October, dog comes in next Saturday. I mean I waited a full week to hunt it. The next Saturday, the buck comes in again. I had a ten point eight point a six point one Sunday morning before before church, and uh, I mean it was just crazy. That's particular spot and this buck would come up and click. I might have told this I think, you know, the clicking buck. I mean, it was just I learned more in that one setting. I guessing I've ever learned in my life

about deer hunting. You know, I wonder, I wonder how much our knowledge of deer hunting is anecdotal. And the word anecdotal meaning based upon experience, not necessarily based upon science, or based upon perceived experience, like you know, because like we have all these experiences in the woods and we

come to a conclusion pretty quickly. Like predators humans in general, we perceive data, you know, like you perceive something that's going on, and then you come to a conclusion of what happens, and then you build a strategy around that conclusion and if that, if it works, then your your

your conclusion is validated. But I think sometimes we even have we perceived data what's happening, we come to a conclusion that may not be right, but we use that and we're successful and build kind of ideologies that maybe aren't even fully true, but they kind of work for us a lot of the time. Does that mean I think I think hunters do that a lot because we're dealing We're not dealing in hard science. We're dealing in perceived perceived. I mean, it's not like we're log and

entries and we're actually conducting research. When we're out there, it's all anecdotal. We're sitting in a stand and we think this happened, but really maybe something else happened. But regardless, it doesn't matter because guys like you and Dad figure

out how to make it work, you know. And um, so I find that the people and what I've learned from both of you guys, is that get a strategy and stick to it and become highly proficient at whatever method you have that works, and you'll be a successful hunter like Dad hunting like white oak acorns on public land.

It's like he had that down to a science. You have down to a science slip hunting the national forest and uh and moving through timber and and monitoring buck sign and I mean, you just can't hardly keep James from killing a buck. James doesn't know this, but every year he says the same thing every year for the last ten years. This time of year he says, Man, I can't find a buck. There's no bucks around here. And then by the end of the season he's got

two big racks hanging on the porch that he killed. Now. I've wrote something about James the other day in the magazine. I said he has an uncanny ability to uh just draw out game in places where other people can't. So James, you can keep telling me there's no big bucks around. He's a liar, man. Maybe that's what it is you're holding back. Man, give me a break. Uh. Hey, I gave him some intel yesterday where a big buck was because we saw one across the road National Forest, a

good buck. But he says there's a lot of people hunting over there. So now, um, yeah, well, hey we're here to talk about bear camp. But all this to me, this is this is good, good context to talk about bear camp because our our bear hunting here in Arkansas

is supplementary to our deer hunting. That's just the truth. Like, we don't bear hunt like this for the whole season, you know, we bear hunt like this for a few days or maybe a week because these bears leave our baits and it's so time consuming, so energy consuming to keep these baits going. It's like we have this flurry of activity that leads up to this one weekend where we can all get here where the kids can be

here and we have this uh fun weekend. This week we this this year, we stayed at a real nice uh cabin out here that James built. This cabin. Uh it runs off solar James carpenter, James as a carpenter and and more than that, and he and his son hooked up all the solar and this is a super cool place. But um, what do you why is this weekend special? James? Like, why do you like this so much. What's the That's a hard question. But I I look

forward to it from one year to the next. When we're slowing down from this, you know, three or four days. I hate to see that go, But I think about the next year, there's three or four days here where we maybe that we put a lot of effort into it, and it's worth every bit that we put into it. Yeah. I enjoy kids experience and what I did when I was a kid. A lot of people don't get to do that now days. Yeah, but a few days of bare suasan just see the smile on people's face. Yeah,

I like to rent. Last night he couldn't wipe that. Grin office say uh uh yeah, well we've got uh. I think we're working with between David's, we're working with let me hold that we've got it. The problem with having these old guys on the podcast is a get up move around. It's getting this coffee. Um. I think we've got five baits sites out here, and we can only bait on private land in Arkansas. Everybody knows that, and um we it's funny that everybody has heard us

talk about these baits. Some baits are just prone to have big bears and some aren't. Our baits out here kind of hit and miss with big real big bears, but we always have bears. And uh, let's just start. So I was in uh everybody heard the last couple of podcasts, and I, me and Kobe were in Montana elk hunting, and so James was doing all the work for us, and we kind of, you know, I'm kind of in charge of gathering bait and I bring it

down here. And then James is kind of in charge of keeping the baits going because he's living you know, he lives pretty close to these places. And so before I went to Montana, I went and uh got got some bait. James also got some bait because I couldn't locate any bread up where I'm from, so James had

to drive. But I've been baiting these bears for about three weeks coming up to this, I think, And um, so I brought three kids down here, Bear River and Shepherd, and uh now Bear Newcom has made a commitment to not kill a bear over bait. He's sticking to it, and to try to kill a bear the National Forest. Yeah for his first bear. Yeah, yeah, he I talked to him about three years ago because I knew we could put him on a bear bait and get him

to kill a bear. And uh, there are several factors that went into it, but with bear in particular, I felt like that he had enough internal drive and I just you know, every kid is different, and I just wanted to give him a goal that he could move towards. And he had hunted with me quite a bit out in the mountains and he he loved it, like he man as as a parent, and you built this inside of me, Dad, is that you shape the value system of your kids. You show them what has value and

and hunting bear of verbait has incredible value. But with bear in particular, we've hunted National Forest for deer and bear, and I really emphasized that to him that hey, this is a tough way to hunt him. This is a difficult way. You gotta be a woodsman to do this. You gotta have persistence. You can't think about this in terms of a single season. You gotta think about this in terms of multiple seasons. And uh. And he I could see he was matching onto this, and I said,

I tell you what, how about what it? And I let him make the decision. But I said, what if you didn't kill a bear over bait? And that's a tough decision for a he made that he made he pretty much he made that commitment when he was twelve.

He's fourteen. Now, that's a tough decision for a twelve year old to not take his bow and go out here and sit on a not a for sure deal because it's not but a pretty for sure deal while his brothers and sisters are killing bears and getting validated by people and getting pictures put up on Facebook by their mama. You know what I'm saying in the bear just every year, just like Nope, I'm gonna kill one out in the mountains, gonna kill one out in the

mountains and uh so, um he'll, he'll. That's that's the decision that he's made. So we got a tough road to hold to get him on a bear out there, but we're gonna try. Um but River and Shepherd hunted this weekend, And but who got the hot seat was Mr Kolby, the bever Tech morehead. Um Kolby, So this is your first time to come here. Yeah, I tell you that you're in a coveted chair here. Brother. Yeah, no, what's what's been like for you? Oh it's been great.

I think the thing I was looking most forward to was meeting James here. His names so much around the office and this is like Scott, is he for real? Now we find out it's been lying to us where they were all the time? Yeah? No, No, Meeting James has definitely been a highlight of the weekend. And uh, just the kind of guy is like not I mean, not even knowing him, like all the history about all the bucks he's killing everything. Just like meetings, we meet

somebody's quality. It's just like that makes it makes a trip worth it, you know. And so I think for me that's been a highlighting. And I mean, yeah, getting to hunt with Shepard was awesome too. You know we sat describe describe your hunt then. Yeah, so my hunt. We we had a bait that we decided to hunt in the morning, but we had to watch and make sure there weren't any bears up there, so we stayed and stayed back. Probably the wind is howling, the kids

are falling, leaves are blowing. Yeah, so we probably got within like two hundred yards of the bait and glass for a little while and saw that there was a bear there, so we had to wait for for for to clear out. And with this particular bait, we were thinking maybe maybe if we got one early enough, we'd have an opportunity to another one. So we thought that we could maybe killed two bears. Maybe. Yeah, we had a stand in this particular spot. It was a big

platform stand where I'm private land. Yeah, you guys are hunting with him walking this since where we're staying. Yeah, so that's pretty unique. And they're literally walking up the hill hundred yards to a bear bait. Yeah. Yeah, it hadn't been bad at a matter of fact, you guys had it really easy. We had it really easy, and we had a lot of space. The hardest thing was we didn't know we needed to take chairs, so we had to. We had to deal with the hard plywood.

I I know, I mean I thought we were gonna be dealing with strict luxury and we just I didn't talk about it. I didn't think about it either. I just the big platform. Yeah, I didn't know you we endured. No, it wasn't it wasn't bad at all. No, it was just fun hang out with Shep out there, and just not often that I hunt with other someone else inside the stand. Shep and I have been, you know, playing basketball together and stuff. So it was just fun to

do something different. And uh yeah, so you hunted the morning opening morning, you you saw a bear from about a hundred hundred and something yards away. Yeah, the hunt. The hunt was on before we even got in the stand. And hey, that's exactly what I tell people to do, Kolbe, is that if you're hunting bears in the mornings, you gotta be careful because the bear is gonna be there all night. And if you all have walked in there before daylight with flashlights, you would have spooked that bear,

oh for sure. So you waited until daylight, and sure enough there was a bear there, and you let it walk off, and then he went to the stand, and then you hunted the whole morning. It never came back and never came back, and then uh we we I think we probably could have stalked the bear, but we didn't want to blow it out. We didn't know what the wind would do, so we just tuned the morning until about ten thirty and then just came out and went back that that afternoon round four, and uh, I

just sat there and that bear came out eventually. It was real light and nervy, um, and then it left and then it came back. I'm just like you. I mean, just like it had done this a million times, like I had this whole thing, like it was smelling the wind and just like real nervy. And so it finally came in and we were able to get a shot off on it. And uh, anyways, it looked like a great shot, you know, twenty yards, yeah, twenty exactly, how

you know, I'll give the abbreviated version the bear. Probably an hour and a half before dark, they saw the bear pacing up on the ridge, which is real typical. These bears are coming in down wind of these baits and staging out there, and so this bear smelled them and knew they were there, and uh so it wasn't coming in. And then some yard dogs about it's actually about a half a mile away, but started barking. We can the dogs actually came up there. Oh yeah, ate

some of the bat and everything. Yeah, dogs, man and and so. But the dogs were still over there across the road. They started barking, and the bear just left out just took off up up the hill. The dogs quit barking, and U the bearings that were coming back like fifteen minutes later. Yeah, yeah, and so they have to get the shot off. And we played it back and it looked like I looked like a team tin ring. It's like that bear is just laying up there, you know.

And so but Sheep he he was like, I think it might have been a little far back, and we think he saw like my fletching or something. So the way the bear acted wasn't typical, like it ran up the hill a little bit, stood there for a minute and then just mosied off like nothing had ever happened. And so that didn't make sense to with like what I saw or what my shot did. Bro it made sense with what Sheep thought he saw. And so I

was like, acted like it was hit far back. Yeah, I was thinking, it's like he felt like it was a double lung. Yeah. I thought it was a great shot and shut. And so I was like, well, maybe I didn't see it right because that bear was kind of acting like like that. So we I we had filmed it, and so I punched in on it, and I mean it looked like a perfect shot, and so I'm feeling really good and so we um. Anyways, we looked the video a couple of times. That's a great shot.

That's where you want to put it. We go up there to track it, thinking it's gonna be an easy track, and uh, we're not finding a whole lot of blood, and then we start finding a little bit of blood and a little bit more blood, and that barely let's let's stop right there. You came back to camp. Yeah, I didn't tech the arrow or anything. I just backed out. And by the time you got back here, my mom

and dad were here, James and David. They were probably fifteen people here within wide oakakring on the tin roof. I don't know if they could hear that. Uh, probably fifteen people here. And when we went up there, I bet there were eight of us tracking that. Barrett. Honestly, it's not an ideal situation, but nobody wanted to stay back. Yeah, it's too easy, It's just let's walk up. Everybody was

just like, let's go. Yeah. That's if if it had been uh, a little bit different situation, I probably would have said, hey, let's let's let's just get about three of us and go up there, but the kids wanted to go and so anyway, so we go up there, thinking it's gonna be a fifty yard trail job, and we don't find it. Dad, he just tend ring that bear tend ringed it and there was no blood and

the bear didn't hardly act like it was hit. And we finally found blood twenty thirty yards, I mean started finding good blood, probably thirty yards from where the bear was shot. And it was deep red, kind of like mustley cavity type blood. And I thought, well, he's hit it, yeah and low well and even the arrow didn't look the arrow was almost clean. You and we're we're we're gonna describe something to you here that's typical of bear,

which is that that was the cleanest pass. Yeah, the arrow, if he had just put it in his quiver, you probably wouldn't have been able to pick out which era had been shot. And damn press you, yes this and and so we we finally get on decent blood and we trail this bear and we find where he laid on, right up against a big pine tree. Um and I said, oh man, this bear bedded down. That's not good because it wouldn't the bed down wasn't laying there. But we

saw good blood coming out of the bed. So, you know, it's been two and a half three hours, and so we're like, well, let's just go a little bit further. We got another ten twelve yards and there's another bed and we go, oh man, that's not good. But we see good blood and the bear starts to turn downhill and so and I'm telling the kids to get back. And you know, I think probably the most dangerous thing we do is bear hunters is trail wounded game, especially

at night. I mean, that's how you could get chewed up. I mean, of all the things we do, aside from driving on the highway, getting chewed up by wounded bear is a real possibility, especially or something like that. So I'm thinking about that with all the kids, and so I'm saying get back, get back, everybody, and we're trying to track the bear and anyway, we go down another ten yards and there's another bed, and finally I say, that's it. We gotta get out of here. This you know,

you this bear is alive. And so we all back out and uh, to make a long story short, we go track another two bears, not one. We tracked Brent's bear and Aaron Marshall's bear, and we get back here and we'll talk about those two. But we get back here at eleven something probably always later. That wasn't it was no one was started. But okay, we get back here. Yeah, okay,

we about eleven o'clock. We go back up there, and that bear had ran fifteen yards past where he last was, so I mean laid down one more time by some big bended four times and probably sixty seventy yards and uh. And so we do a knee cropsy. That's a new word, James, that we've learned. It's not an an autopsy is specifically for human. Is that right? So if you if you are examining the internal organs of a dead human, it's called an autopsy. If you're examining an animal, it's called

a knee cropsy. It's our understanding. Yeah, I've done on a horse before the vet. Okay, So we're curious as to what where he hit this bear, and so we opened it up real, real delicately, and the bear was hit in the lower portion of the lungs. Dad double lung shot and two of those slick trick blades, rake down the heart. There were actually cut the heart and hit two lungs, and that bear bedded four times and

was bleeding this you know, dark maroon blood. I mean just still Now, did the bear die in the amount of time that it was supposed to? Yes, the bear died within a hundred yards, that's normal. The blood was not normal, the bedding down was not normal. And the way the bear acted was pretty abnormal because it ran off real fast and then it just walked. Usually you double on them, they do just like a death run.

So there's a lot of weird things about it. And I don't know what to say other than just every bear is different. I think a lot of blood trails have to do with the amount of fat a bear has. And we've been talking about this year how every bear we've skin has had an incredible amount of fat. What are your thoughts, hey, you know, I'm sure this is not right, but this is what I think that dear that bear did not even know it was hit. It's like a beasting and it goes, it jumps and it

takes off running and it looks around. He thinks, well, there's no you know, there's no bee, there's no I mean, and so it just it just says, man, I don't feel good. I think I'm gonna take a nap, and then it gets restless and it goes you know, I think, you know, I want to get away from here. And I don't think that the bear knew it was even hit.

But when you say it's abnormal for a double long heart shot animal to bed four times in seventy yards, well, very very but I think that the animal probably died, like you said, in the appropriate amount of time, you know, I mean, it died within three minutes, eight minutes, ten minutes. But but every time it would bed down, you would think, I'm not feeling good. I've got it. And it just all came together for me that the that the arrow was in the very bottom the lungs, like, so it's

still had a lot of its lungs. I heard somebody talking the other day about how not all liver shots are created equal if you just nicked the liver. If so, I think that era went through a pretty I mean, any part of the lung is vital, but it went through the very lower section of the lung and it just scratched the heart I think that bear just had a little bit more life in it, even though it

was very much so mortally wounded age. Yeah, well for your first Arkansas bear, you've killed a bear up in Canada. Yeah yeah, my first standard dodging dodging smoker. Yeah, I'm getting smoked out. Uh yeah, my first US bear. Yeah. So you killed a baron cannon. Were you excited? Yeah? Yeah, after it finally was like, oh yeah, it was good. Oh there's always drama, man, you wonder if you kill

them or not. Hey, I would like to say that the picture of those two bear and with bear the human bear with his eight point buck there was one of the prettiest bear pictures I've seen. I mean, it was beautiful. You probably see it, did see it? Yeah? Yeah, they'll see it in Bear Hunting magazine. Well and and so now that's a great segue into where those other animals came from. So Brent Reeves, everybody Brent Reeves who's

been on the podcast a lot. Brent was hunting over here a couple of miles and uh, now Brent had wasn't really part of the camp that much because he just drove in real quick and started hunting. Um, but he shows up at camp and says, hey, I killed a bear, and so you'd kill the bear. He'd kill the bear. Yeah, And so we go over to help Brent. All of us, just the whole mob of people go over to help Brent. Trackis Baron. He had heard it death mom five times. Yeah. So Brent's killed two bears

and both of them have death mound. I can't remember the last time a bear I killed death Mond for real? Your first bear did? Yeah? Yeah, Dad was with me the first bear killed it, death Mond. But so we go over there and when we get there, some of our other friends. This is just a small, tight knit community. That's the that's the answer to We we get over there and on the side of the road is a truck that we recognize and it's uh, they wouldn't mind

us saying their names. It was. It was Aaron Marshall and his dad Ken, and uh, they say, well, we've shot a bear, and uh, it's funny because Aaron listens to this podcast and and uh he told me where he shot it, and he said, you know, he said they'd listen to I can't remember which podcast he listened to. Well, we find Brent's bear. I'm coming. I'm gonna come back to Aaron because we learned some stuff on his bear

as well. Um, we find we find Brent's bear relative of ly easy because it didn't only run about forty yards and it was a very nice bore. We think three fifty plus. Um, James found it. James found it. Yeah, we were all over the hillside Dad this bear. There's just almost a straight cliff and we find this bear wrapped up around kind of a tree, about a two inch sapling on the side of this cliff. And Brent and I get to the bear and I pick up its head to look at it, and we're high fiving.

And when I picked up its head, the body shifts and that bear just goes to the bottom, I mean just disappears and goes all the way down the creek. It was a Bob's letter y, So we relocated our we relocated to the creek and U no, So Brent just made a great double long hit you know, mid mid body, you know, dead center to lungs. The bear

didn't go far. And so then we got Aaron had shot a bear and it was his first bear, and it was just a little ways up the road, and so we said, well, let's all go help Aaron track his bear. And so we go up there and we tracked the bear and it was almost identical to your blood trail exactly in one night. Yeah, we're just kind of a mystery what happened. It was this deep red blood. UM found multiple beds within a hundred yards and finally after the third bed, and it had been like five

hours since he shot it. So we waited the appropriate time, which that's the biggest thing is give him time. And we at the third bed, I was like, we gotta get out of here, guys, this is we We just got to come back in the morning and getting real thick. Yeah, and so that's what we did. We all dropped out, and then Aaron and then went back this morning and found the bear twenty yards from where we stopped. And uh so they came by this morning and had the bear in the back of the truck and we helped

them skin at the bear. It's been cool, so the bear was in good shape. Um, so they were able to You know, if you do you have any safety tips on tracking a bear like that? Is it legal to carry a pistol? I mean, I mean it's it's dangerous. I think back about that bear we tracked and Oklahoma, how crazy that was. I mean, we were out there this bear, you know, I thought later, you know, man, I mean it's it's amazing more people aren't hurt tracking

a bear to night. Um, but anyway you gotta track them. Yeah, you know. The only safety tip I would give is, yeah, if it's legal to uh uh, if it's legal to carry a side arm, do it. And in most places it would be for tracking a bear. It is here, we can carry it. You know. I had a warden one time. I specifically asked him in Arkansas if I could carry a side arm, and he said, what kind of side arm? And basically he was like, if you're

carrying a two seventy then that's uh not okay. And I said, I'm carrying a ten millimeter glock with a four inch barrel and he's like, that's fine. So his in Arkansas, at least his ideology this one warden was just carry a gun that shows intent. You know, don't carry a don't carry your three mag with a scope on it during archery season out in the woods. But if you're carrying a side arm, you know a pistol short barrel pistol. You're probably okay, and now don't somebody

needs to check with their war but I don't. I usually don't carry a side arm around here, but a lot of people do and it's probably a good idea too. But but yeah, so we So there's our three bears that we had and then bears buck. You had to so this. We got this cool photo of Kolbe's bear, Brent's bear, and then bear KNUKELM my son had. Because he wasn't bear hunting over bait, we let him deer hunt. James put it, just put him slap, put him on

a buck. And uh, I mean the first two hours a daylight bear had shot a nice eight point buck with a crossbow. Uh. He was supposed to get a compound bow but it hadn't come in because of COVID and uh so bar had killed the buck. So we got the buck and the two bears and uh just a great weekend man. Question. You know, I'm not much of a bear hunter, and act I'm not a bear hunter. I enjoy it, but I don't. I don't do it much if ever, But when I looked at the bear,

Kobe killed. That shot looked perfect, but technically it was low based on what you're saying. So I mean, if you if it, maybe when Clay does the magazine he might even circle that and show where he shot that bear, because I mean it was it was perfect. It was six inches up from the silhouette of the bottom when you looked at it. Did you think the shot was perfect?

But it was low? It was low? So I mean that is crazy And your observation is pretty interesting too, that uh, shooting low in the long would allow that bear to live another three minutes or five minutes, and that and that, and that's a good way to look at it. And animal living another three minutes and having a lot of energy in that three minute time frame can be the difference in finding it or not. And you know that that bearer was reacting to its body.

You know it was going, man, I don't feel good, I need to move, I need to go get an asper and I need to do something. So you know, they say have asper now here. So anyway, James gives it to him in the bait. Pretty intriguing deal, really, I mean it's there's a lot to be learned from that shot. I think, well man, people ought to go back and listen to if they have questions on shot placement. I tell you what, I've been in a lot of bear camps, and wounded bears are a real deal. They're

just so different than white tails. And I mean we could I don't want to go into all the details of the shot placement on this one, but there's it's nuanced. You better make sure you got your ducks in a row before you pull a trigger on a bear. How you know what I would say, but I wouldn't do it. I'd follow your instructions. But when you see a shot like kobe Head and you know it's a good shot, go ahead and stay with the bear. You wait three hours, the bear is dead. I mean he's dead as a

stinking hammer when y'all turn around. So so really you should have went ahead and said, you know, hindsight, the best thing does come back. But technically, when you see that ara and it's going through buth lungs, that that sucker is is dead is a hammer man? You ight have seen the era though. If you have seen that era, you would have said it was an optical illusion what we saw. Well, you know, when when that thing goes

through what it's when it goes through a deer. You know you're gonna see that thing's going through hair on the way out. It's almost like you got it. You got a filter out there cleaning your arrow off. Yeah exactly. But anyway, yeah, yeah, it was it. There's always a lot of nuance inside of these things. That's that's hard

to predict. That James was saying. Every year something new happens and where there's always some drama, you know, and we always you know, we usually we almost always recovered the animals, but there's none of them are the same. But I like those blood trails like Brent had that just you know, you want to hit the center of the vitals for sure. Do you ever track blood? No? We well they heard it, they heard it moan just right over there. So we were just looking for a bear. Yeah,

and it wasn't very far. You know, I just wonder if that moan is not when you get the perfect kill shot. Yeah. I thought about that last night. What dictates a death? Moan? You know what? Brent asked me on the way back. Brent and I we were up till four am last night. We had to go into town to get ice, and he said, uh, he says, what do you think about the death moan? Clay? And I didn't really know what he was getting at, and I just said, I said, it's pretty uh, pretty incredible.

There's only a couple of as far as I know, there's only two big game animals that death moan, and one of them is some type of buffalo, maybe a cape buffalo. Uh, the only big game animals that do that. And a death moan for those who wouldn't know it. Some I found about twenty of bears that are killed death mona how would this be? Only twenty percent of them were shocked where they're gonna die within forty yards that that bear knows absolutely he is a dead animal.

I mean you've hit him center of center or heart and he goes, hey, man, this is it. So I'm gonna do my moan. So where if you shoot just a little low. I mean he he didn't even know. I don't think your bear knew knew that he was

even hit. I think you're onto something there. Because I had I had the the or the beginnings of that thought, and I didn't pull it all the way through, but I had the thought for the first time yesterday, I wonder if there is some type of if you could really get the data to see, okay, on this type of shot, bears death moan and on these type they don't.

I do know for certain. Well, here's this is true, is that when they like if an animal goes off and if it's like a liver shot and they die a couple of hours later, which is not ideal, but it happens, they only moan on a first dear that bear that you killed. I doubt if we did an autopsy on it. But do you remember where you hit? It's just a perfect it was shot double that that bear knew it was dead. I mean, it knew it

was rand fifty yards are thirty? Yeah, I mean it and it was a little downhill and he only got I remember thirty yards. It could have been fifty. And um, I think that's it. I mean, if you kill that bear and you've got the perfect shot, it's gonna go, oh, this is my clock is expired. And the other guy didn't even always hit. Yeah, Brent was saying that, he

said it it affected him to hear the bear. Do that, you know, because it it really does bring to a very intense focus that you've taken the life of an animal. You know, you shoot a deer and it runs off and dies out of sight. You you you have shot that animal. You've been a part of its death. You've been the cause of its death. But a big majestic beast like a bear shooting it and then it going out there, and if you've never heard it, you won't

believe it when you do. I still haven't heard one. Yeah, Oh, it's it's incredible. Um when h James had to step out for a second. Theory, James, have you heard one death mon a bear death Moon? Yes, the first one I killed with the bow. Um, I went about thirty yards just out of sight in death Mond. Uh, I had too. M hm. Both of them are young boers. Yeah, they wouldn't Uh. The bigger ones then death Moon, but the first one in third or fourth Mond Brent said

his Yeah, that's what we were just talking. James had to step away for a second. Yeah, we just went through all that. We were talking about the death mon multiple times. Well, it's it's a mysterious it's mysterious. I would like to understand the biology. But because there's a reason everything that happens in the natural world, there's a there's a reason, there's a purpose behind it that can

be explained in some way. And I've never heard much commentary on the death moon, but it certainly makes you be very aware that you've taken the life of an animal and uh and makes you want to utilize that animal to the highest levels of responsibility that we can as as hunters, for sure. But well, incredible weekend. It's great to be able to spend it with all you guys, for sure. For sure. James, any closing thoughts you ready for next year? He's thinking about it. We're gonna do

anything different next year. I hope it's the same place. Yeah, m m yeah, same outcome, I hope. Yeah, plenty of bears. Well there should be. Dad closing thoughts. Good good hunt, beautiful photo mm hmm. Colby, No, I'm just glad to be able to participate this year. Yeah, yeah, well it really was good. I got to meet a lot of new cool people and yeah, just have a good bear camp.

Good bear camp. Well, all right, we are We're gonna do the kids are going to continue to do some hunt in this afternoon, and then I'm gonna be hunting National Forest, so I haven't really hunted this weekend. I've just been kind of chauffeur and people and skinning bears. That's the main thing I'm That's what I'm good at, just skinning bears. That's all get some practice in yep.

But uh, you know, they say, James, they say that bear grease helps us and hands and stuff, and you mine and yours, particularly our hands are I kind of have a nice sheen on my hands right now from all the bear oil it's been on them. It kind of makes you feel good. I feel more sturized. I think it's like rocket fuel for your soul to have your fingernails just full of bear grease. Yeah, m hmmm, Well I appreciate it. Guys. Keep the wild place as wild because that's where the bears live. Ye