British Columbia Black Bear Pt. #2

of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world of hunting the icon of North American wilderness and bear We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation that will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet. Chasing band. We are in British Columbia, Canada. How about you guys introduce yourselves to my To my right is Devin Jewel, owner Pacific Bar Openers in British Columbia, Canada. Kevin Jewel. To my left is Daniel Rupe. What do

you do? Dan? I am the owner of Nothing. Come Clay's buddy and uh my along for the ride and having the time of my life. That's right. So we're sitting at bear camp here at Pacific Bear Outfitters in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. That's what they say on their license plates. Beautiful British Columbia, Canada. They are not lying, They're not They're not lying at all. So we got a fire crackling in front of us. It's about sixty degrees. Spoiler alert. Dan and I no longer have bear tags.

We did add bar tags that were unused. Now our barre tags argused. And so this the first the last episode. Dan told us his story and we gave quite a bit of context for this hunt in our relationship. And so as just a quick recap, Dan and I are like long time friends. Our families have been friends for a long time. We're both from Arkansas, but Dan has been out of the country for about Dan and his wife family have been out of the country for about

ten years. And so Dan and I bow hunting together back in the early two thousand's and just had some We were just like Dan kind of got into bow hunting, uh through me, and we just had an awesome time. So that's Dan and I its history, and they're back in They were back in the States for a short time and we've been planning this hunt for a long time.

And so Devin Jewel, Devin W. Jewel had I had a W into most people's things because of the very monumental time in my life when President George W. Bush was our was our president. So I just added W to everybody's name. I don't know why. Devin W. Jewel he uh. He graciously graciously Hattison as camp this year. So Devin and I were the only ones in camp. And I want to give just a little bit of a context of British Columbia is an el primo place

to hunt black bear. When you look at the scope of northern bear hunting, black bear hunting, British Columbia is at the at the top of the heap in terms of in many places. And it's not it's not necessarily that there's this is the only place to kill a big bear. But when I say at the top of the heap, I mean it's These are some of the more expensive hunts in Canada. On an outfit and hunt, you've got to have an outfitter to hunt. A non

resident has de an outfitter to hunt in Canada. And the the epic beauty of this place is what stands out. We're in the coast mountains of BC, which this is basically the I mean, would you say this is the northern stretch of the Rockies. No, No, the Rockies is totally different. So Rockies border Alberta, BC. This is totally cost range just runs up the ocean, starts in like northern California ish and but it's not big there, and then runs up into like Alaska. Ok. Yeah, through So

it runs all through BC and up into Alaska. And it's one of the newest mountain ranges in North America. So it's very point, very pointy, very new, very glaciated place. Yeah. Really dramatic, Yeah, very dramatic. So from almost any vantage point we can we are in dense forest, but can see the tops of snow covered mountains. We talked about last episode about the epic water features of this place,

big glacial, fast moving rivers, waterfalls around every corner. That if they were in Arkansas, we would have a state park there. You know, one thing we did you saying almost from any vantage point we can see SnowCat mountains just kind of I think. Another thing that makes this place and this hunt really fun is you feel like you're a part of this again from Arkansas and rarely seeing snow on the ground for more than about fifteen minutes, being in a land where you're surrounded by these snow

cat mountains. But I'm walking around a T shirt. You know, I'm hiking. I'm getting warm. We're not freezing. I mean, we're super comfortable. It's uh, were stand there nice. Yeah, that's a good point. So it's kind of like the best of both worlds, mild temperatures, super comfortable, but we're looking at the snow cat mountains, which is like crazy. Usually when you're in a place where it's really wild and are out, you're also I feel like, at least

I have been weatherwise also really uncomfortable. Yeah, and that's what I'm talking about. So anytime I've done stuff like this, it's been in the Himalayas, and you're either struggling with altitude sickness or you are freezing your tail off no matter what you're doing. You could be sitting on the fire and you're still cold. But here, I mean, you've got all the beauty of that, but no problem with altitude, and you are just fit as a fiddle weatherwise, it's

no problem. Yeah. Amazing. Now, So Dan and something He's been on a couple of pretty big adventures. And uh, how far did y'all hike? You doing on a five day backpack trip in the Himalays and summited a nice mountain. We didn't make a summit the weather closed in US, but we hiked up to sixteen thousand five feet um and then that's pretty tall. Yeah, that's pretty The oxygen of eighteen thousand feet is uh when it's half of the oxygen content for sea level. So basically it takes

two breaths to do what you normally do. But you're you're you know, you're you're working a lot harder to wow. Wow. So British Columbia is this beautiful place to me this the water, the mountains, but also the bear hunting tell us a little bit about just devn like like maybe maybe just recap what we said last time about how the western side of these mountains are more lush and so critters are bigger. Yeah, so for especially when it comes to bears, So rainfall kind of equates to like

numbers of bears and quality of bears. So you get on the west side of the coast range, just like precipitation is measured in like feet a year, right, so the others on the east side, of course it's much drier, almost like air in desert. So on the west side of the mountain ra and you get just get more more berries, more growth, fire. We just a longer growing season and far more plentiful growth from that. So of

course higher densities of bears and bigger bears. Yeah. Yeah, So British Columbia, you know, talking about it being a a primo destination for black bear. These bears have, like the older mature males in this region are known for having big frames, big guerrilla like frontal like big arms, big chests, big frames. I mean, every every destination kind of has something that's unique, you know, And I would say that that's a feature of here is just big

old bears, gorilla like bears, and a lot of bears. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. For me, that really surprised. We've had some really cool bear encounters. Before we get into my hunt, maybe we'll talk about the encounter we had yesterday rant. So we we already used our tags. We were actually going out to shoot some b roll for for video, and we stopped at just a random location that had some nice vistas and we get out of the truck and Devon goes, holy cow. Canadians don't say holy cow,

they say other stuff. He said, holy expletive, there's a bear. And we look over and what did we see, Devon. There's a brown like a brown chocolate colored sow. Uh, just across the road ground. It's on like a big stump garden, like an older tree, which must have a covenant. So she was just sitting at the base of the tree, watching just across the road, setting on this huge, like four ft stump. I mean, it was a spectacular to see this bear standing on the stump. And so we're

all thinking this bear is gonna run away. So we're like scrambling to get the cameras. Dan's grabbing the five D and we're just like taking pictures. We're thinking we're gonna have like thirty seconds towards the bear jumps off the stump and leads, and we just like keep taking pictures and keep taking video. And it's like, this bear doesn't seem to be that worried about spying here. So I'm like, hey, Dan, walk up to that bear fit on me and I'm a bigger idiot for doing it.

And so he just kind of starts like creeping towards this bear, and the bear doesn't move, creeping, creeping, creeping, and you're like eight yards from this bear. He's just standing there, beautiful chocolate colored color phase bear. And then the bear hunting community like a color phace bear is a is a unique animal. So it was just a spectacular and it wasn't large. I mean, we knew it wasn't a big bear, but it was an adult bear.

It wasn't a it was an adult and you know, after assessing the situation, Devon was like, guys, that's a female and she's probably has a cub because she would not move and then she started getting aggressive. So Dan's like seven yards from her taking pictures. I'm like, probably I'm hiding in the truck. I'm in the truck, hanging out in the window, going get closer, and this bear finally like wolf's I mean, we sat there. So the longer story is we ended up setting there for thirty

minimum thirty minutes filming this bear. She was wolfing, popping her teeth. She would she would jump towards us and stomp the brush, and clearly the bear was was guarding a cub that was either up a tree or in a hole. She did not want to move, and she wasn't gonna move. She actually got closer to us, and so you know a situation like that, you don't want to push it, but it was hard to leave. Like we just kept Devin like was like in the truck,

just like, okay, guys, what we needed? Yeah, Daniel on that we were just like how do we We're just like watching this bear, I mean it and it got real comfortable with us. I mean, even though it was being aggressive, it was kind of odd because it you got comfortable it's being there and just like sit down and scratch its here wasn't super worried because now when

we got closer, that's when she got aggressive. And you know, in a situation where you're on a baited hunt, you see things like this, like you're seeing bear close proximity, a lot of bears. But on a spotting stock hunt, which in British Columbia that is the only legal method of harvest is spotting stocks, you can't use uh well it's not. You can. You can hunt with hounds for

black bear British Columba. You cannot hunt over bait in British Columbia and so but it was just a unique experience and and uh so that was that was that. So Dan killed a bear and then the first episode of this you would have heard about damn tunt which he killed the bear on the second day. So on the third day was my first time to hunt, and I was hunting with a new rifle that I got.

I got the Best of the West Hunter Elite rifle, which is a spectacular long range guns, one of the I mean the l primo long range gun made in my opinion. And uh so this gun is it has a custom turret that's built by the guys at Best of West three win mag basically Best of the West calibrates this gun for you. Drop Data, builds a custom turret, sights it in like the packages hunting ready when you get it. And this is this gun has got a turt that goes out to nine h yards and is

guaranteed accurate out that far. Now can I shoot it that far hunting accurate? No? I mean that to be able to shoot that far takes a lot of practice, a lot of skill. And I'm a proficient shot, but but not not a long range expert. At all. But so I'm carrying this Best of the West rifle, and Dan killed his bear walking the roads, which that's a There's two ways that we hunt here, walking roads because

road ditches in a heavily forced to region. The ditches let sunlight touch the forest floor and so all kinds of vegetation that the bears the primarily fireweed growing the ditches, So the bears are along these logging roads. So we walk the logging roads and find bears. The second way is hunting cut blocks, which are forestry chunks out of the timber where they've cut all the tree second year cut blocks ats are the hot spots. Hot spots, man, Just look at those huge bear hides. Wow, look at

them all. Wow, spectacular bear hides within twelve feet of us. So so I told these guys that the way I preferred to kill bear in British Columbia was glass in these cut blocks. That just to me, that's the way. When I envisioned killing the bear here, I envisioned glassing in some beautiful glacial valley and seeing black speck far away eating fireweed in a cut lock. So it's the

third day of the hunt. Devon takes us into this area that has a lot of two year old cut locks, and he had been in there some this year and had seen some Did you see some sALS and cubs in there? Cubs? I didn't see singles, I don't think. I think just salus and clubs. I'd seen so, but that was like two weeks ago or yeah, before you got near by a bit yea, So you never know.

So we go back in there because like just the scenario is right for there to be a bear there, and it's Clay's first day to hunt, and I get out of the truck and we start walking down the road. Before you do you want to talk about you were telling us what a group of bears was called. Yeah, so this this, this will play greater significance into the story later. At some point earlier in the day, I had asked a bear trivia question to Devon and Damn, and I said, do you guys know what a group

of bears is called? Because there's a name that's not a family yet. What it's like sound cubs? So animals animals have grouping names like a covey of quail, a herd of elk, a flock of geese, pride of line, pride of lions, a a sounder of pigs, a snickerdoodle of squirrels, isn't that it? Yeah, snicker dood I can't tell if you're joking. I'm joking. It's like, man, snickerdoodle squirrels. So, so there's these names that describe groups of animals. Now,

bears are typically not in groups. So I asked them the question and Dan guest, well, the answer to the question is a sleuth, which is a sleuth of bears. So if you were to see a grouping of bears, perhaps like in a clear cut, and they were all together, you'd say, Man, there was a whole sleuth bears up there. I might not say that Dan would. But so Dan was like, that's kind of a stupid dab. He's like, and then what do you say they need? Bears are

just being here. Bears are just really awesome and big, and if you have a group of bears you want not there should be a cooler like a pride of lines. That's an awesome So I said it would be like a council of bears. Yeah, And and Devon was like, oh, yeah, council of bears. That sounds very cooler. Yeah, it sounds very cooler. More like I didn't even know sleuth of theirs. So, so that happened sometime earlier in the day, and so we're now hunting in later in the evening, I will

say that. Yeah, And so now it's kind of like prime bear time, like the last four hours of the day. We parked the truck on the kind of like at the first section of these two year old cut blocks, and we're gonna walk about a k into And for all you Americans, no idea what a k is? We don't either. We're just trying to sound like Devon thousand based everything on ten not whatever it is. Y'all came up with random measurements. There's nothing more natural than feat. Yeah,

it's biblical. It's the biblical measurements feet, feet. It just engaged. You don't understand that he gave you two so you can get it. So we're we're gonna walk about okay into Wait a second, he also gave you ten, oh ten fingers tint toes. Yeah, I can't do this anymore. Then. I've had challenged this whole trip, translating kilometers in the metric system back into something that we understand. So we're

gonna walk. We're gonna walk back in here. And on either side of the road, so we're on kind of a slope, and on either side of the road are these big cut blocks. And I mean you could see up to probably five yards and some places to the to the right of us was this big cut block that I think I range the furthest point, like five and thirty seven yards to the furthest point. Was it worth saying? So before I ever did any bear hunting or knew anything, you'd say cut block, and I had

no idea what you're talking about. It's just a large swath of the forest that they have very strategically. The logging companies have taken the log taking the logs out. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's a good point because when you come to different parts of the world to hunt, people have different ways it said. I would call it a clear cut, and that technically is not at all a clear cut. But in Arkansas that's always say that's a clear cut

clear cut. I mean just generic place where logging has happened. But technically a clear cut would be where they cut every single tree. Then they don't just like flatten the place, so that is not but Devon calls him cut blocks. And Devon's always right here. He is in Arkans saw.

We'd put him in his place. Uh. So we're walking through these cut blocks, and so to the left, as you can see five or six yards to the to the to the right of U student, to the left of us, we're looking up this hill and this cut block, and you know, we're kind of ranging as we go, and I mean, like the furthest distances we're seeing here

around four yards. And so these cut blocks are not just empty and void of trees, but they're strategically leaves strips of trees leave clumps of trees, and they're stumpy and rocky, and there's debris and downfall and so but more importantly there's fireweed. Where are we after sausage? Where there's fireweed growing in these cut blocks. So it's Clay's first day to hunt. Ten minutes into huh. I mean, we're hardly out of side of the truck. And and I just happened to be I think the first one

that just looked up this direction. And there's a bear. And I say, there's a bear, guys, And I see the bear moving quickly, which is an unusual I mean, like I wouldn't expecting to see a bear just like moving fast. And this bears moving fast coming down off of a bank. And I feel like the bear is like either he's been spooked and he's moving from us, or he's just traveling across. And so I'm like, there's

a bear. He's moving to the left, and he went what appeared to me he went into this strip of trees. So we actually, rather than go forward, I MINSNC was to go backwards the direction of the bear, and I feel like we're gonna see the bear on the other side of the strip of timber. So we backpedal like fifty sixty yards and I arranged where the bear was, and the bear was like a hundred and seventy seven yards, so hud seventy seven yards uphill from us, pretty significantly.

Be the wind was going to the thermal. The thermal left was pushing our center. Devon, our guide went forward, yeah and play you called him back. You and I pulled back, and he probably sent it us and not Devon. Devon was further down the road and the way the wind was going, yeah, they have he probably said it you, well, I don't know, probably smelled mustache. Your mustache smells like tacos. We haven't had tacos and months moose tacos, tacos, moose tacos.

So well, but turns out the bear hadn't smelled us at that point. Dan. Yeah, because we go back like for like probably like eight minutes. We're expecting to see this bear move in the direction we thought he was moving, and we're thinking he's gonna pop out, and Devin finally starts creeping up the road and Devon's like probably eighty nine yards in front of us down the road and he starts flagging us over. He's like, come on, come on, and we know what that means. He had seen the bear.

So what he saw the bear, he was just in there feeding eating some fire. He was right where I saw it. Yeah, he just was there. I mean the cup locked you would think is like flat, but it's actually like super fissured, right, and there's like stumps, so I mean they can disappear in all those little crevices

for a little bits they're eating easily. Yeah, And so what I thought was a moving bear was actually a bear that was just like moving to relocate to like eat a different patch in Yeah, just graves in a different spot. And so here in starts. The interesting part of this story is that we have to judge this bear and so, well Clay's picky because he killed like five bears. True, well not true. Anyways, I've killed like ford and I think you you're you're not just wanting

to kill any bear. You're also not wanting You're you got this new gun. Uh, and normally you're shooting was a bowl and that's real close range. You're wanting a long shot? Yeah, like I I didn't. I didn't want to do anything unethical or unnatural. It's like, it's not like I wanted to see a bear and like back up to shoot it, you know what I'm saying. But in my heart of hearts, I was hoping for a

three hundred plus yard shot. It really wanted even a little bit longer, because we we had shot this gun pretty extensively beforehand. I mean, this man at forwarder yards is like a chip shot with a good dress with no wind with time and so the longest shot I'd ever shot at an animal with a rifle is probably

a hundred yards. So this bear is a hundred seventy spared hundred seventy seven yards and and I'm gonna tell the story just like it happened, because Devin and let me, let me preface the story, was saying that Devon is an expert at judging bears on the pall, on the on the hoof bear. He's he's an expert. And I'm gonna go ahead and say that I'm I'm fair Jojo bears myself, just from seeing a lot of them and

studying it. But this is what's cool though, And Devin said this, and I've never heard anybody say it, but part of the fun of oh, part of the fun of hunting bears is not only just like sexing bears, but like judging bears, because it's not they don't have antlers, right, They're just a ball fur. So you gotta try and like learn all these like character traits that would indicate it being a big male or a young male or intermediate male or whatever you're looking at, or potentially a giant. Right.

It's not just like it's a four point got them, it's there's a giant blob with a head. Yeah, I wonder how big it is? So it is very easy to make mistakes. Yeah, there's no it really is a whole different I mean being a guy that again you know, a deer hunter from Arkansas. Uh, I feel like in a lot of ways you have to know a lot and it really is a lot of skill. I'm also not really I don't consider myself a super knowledgeable hunter, but I can look at a buck, a white tail buck,

and I know what kind of bucket is immediately. But with a bear, especially on the hoof, on the pall, it's an entirely different skill set. It's a whole different, but it's a different universe as far as what kind of an animal is that. Uh, it's super impressive fascinating to me. Well, and what I liked was that Devin said that is part of the fun and intrigue of

bear hunting is is judging the bear. Because when I first saw the bear, I don't know if you guys remember it, but I told you I thought it was a small bear. I mean, like I said, I saw a bear, and I said, I think it's a small bear. Well let's let's stop right here, though, and let's talk a little bit about judging bears. Like what are you looking for in an older mature male two hundred yards or five hundred yards trupy belly body posture that'd be

like a huge part of like judging a posture of body. Yeah, big shoulders, like more of a rectangular body shape. Head to body rature should be small, but the head should look like solid obviously. Like if the first thing a non bear hunter says is I saw a bear is huge, huge head, well a bear hunt it, that means that's probably a small bear. Because if it's all head, that means it's just a young bear, right, lanky body, ranky body bear. So yeah, just looking for that. Like I

use the head as like a judge. So like if you just average out a black bear head, it's probably like, let's just say, for ease of math, it's twelve inches. So how many like head lengths could you get into the body if you had time to like perfectly horizontally length in the bear with its own head as a scale, right, because here you can't use like trees or stumps or sticks or rocks because everything is so like you can

have a tree it's a six inch diameter. You can have a tree that's like a six foot diameter, so you have no scale from the vegetation whatsoever. So yeah, just tricks you learn, right, So I would I would say for me that a bore is always going to be taller like sALS or shorter sALS are pear shaped like their their chest is gonna be smaller that butts gonna be bigger. Um, would you say that resembles human people? All that? Damn comment on that? Uh? No comment, okay,

but it may or may not. So Uh one thing that I look for, and it's harder at longer distances. But like front feet, I mean like a bear, a mature male, and even on a lesser scale, an immature male, it's gonna have wider pads, thicker ankles a sow has

like skinnier wrists, smaller feet. Um, you are looking for the how much daylight is under the belly, But that can be deceptive because you can be looking at a hundred fifty pounds sow bear with a droopy belly that's six inches from the ground, and if you don't understand the scale, you'd be like, that's a monster bear. Look, it's bellies jagging the ground. Well, it's a four and a half foot bear man. So scale is everything, and

that's what got me on this bear. With scale. So you're looking at you're looking for feet, you're looking for front shoulders, you're looking for rectangular shape, you're looking for just thickness. Like I've noticed, when you see a big male bear, you just think he's thick. He's thick, yeah, and you you you're not. You know. I noticed in retrospect after we spoiler alert past the bear, I remember thinking back and what I saw, and I saw a

bear that didn't have much of a neck. It was like his shoulders just went into his head, and and that indicated that he was just like this big stocky. Whereas that little chocolate bear that we bumped into, she had a really long neck. I remember her setting up on that stump and we were seven yards and she just looked out and her nose would go out and she just had a very significant neck. And she was

also a pretty small bear. Yep, yep. And so I would just say that scale is everything because you just got to know what you're looking at. But but a big mature male is just gonna look thick. So and I'm gonna tell this whole story because I've already told you that Devon is an expert, and so Devin and and he kind of said this like tongue in cheek, but I told him it was a small bear. Devin goes out in front of us, seized the bear feeding almost in the same spot. I saw it originally, but

was fooled into thinking that it had moved. And Devin waves us over, and you know it's the it's the I see a bear wave. I think we all know that wave. It's like, come on, come on, come on, come on. I mean, I knew he was looking at the bear. We go up there and he says, there's your seven foot bear. And he kind of said it like I knew he didn't like mean that fully, but he was trying to say, Clay, that's a big bear. Devon is Canadian and he's hard to understand sometimes true. True.

I thought he was telling a metric system seven metrics seven, which would be giant. Okay, no, And so so we I run down there. Dan gets the camera set up. I dropped down on my knees and I'm looking up the mountain at this bear and the wind is hitting us right in the back of the net going straight to this bear, and through the scope, I see this bear at a hundred seventy seven yards, bobbing his head up and down, dipping his nose into the into there.

He's winding us, and we know that our time is limited. And immediately Devin says, I don't think that bear seven foot? He says, nah, And I hear that that kind of like I wonder what tone like if we're playing piano. That tone, Nah, like a B flat, like a beef. I hear like a B flat note. I think to me, you know that that's the third day of the hunt. I hunted the first two days, and in the morning of the third day, we're basically going after my bear

and kind of getting it back to camp. So literally, you have four more days of four more whole days of hunting ahead of you. And you wanted a really long, much longer shot. You wanted a big bear, and we weren't sure this was a big bear, and were certainly wasn't a long shot in and none of us wanted to take a take a smaller but I mean, like I wanted to get a big bear. Devin wanted me to get a big bear. So all the things were stacked against us to make a mistake on this bear.

And so but immediately Devon goes, no, I don't think that's a seven footbear. And I and you know, and I'm just like, well, what do you think should I shoot? I mean, and okay, the bear wins us and the bear doesn't run away. The bear just starts just moving towards the woodline, just moving slowly towards the woodline. He'd stop and look back. I don't think he's sauce a doubt he would have seen us with his eyes, but

he could smell us and he would just walk. And so I've got the gun up and I'm ranging, and I'm like, ah, he's he's two now he's two twenty five. And Devin is totally giving me the option to shoot this bear. He's like, it's like, that's a good bear. And he said, you know, i'd say six plus and then he said, that's probably a six and a half footbear. That's what he's that's what you the conclusion you came to, yeah,

you that's a six and a half foot bear. And and I but still I was like, should I shoot that bear? Because and I learned something on this hunt that I'm gonna come back to and I'm gonna tell you now though six and a half ft bear. Now, I'm gonna tell you something later. That's the conclusion of this whole thing. But I'm going to tell it to you now so that you know it so when I tell it to you later sense you'll make more sense. Spoiler alert. Now you're talking. It's a joke. It's a joke,

like a humorous joke, but not humorous. It's a humorist joke. Was thought, really that funny. A six and half foot bear is a whopper bear. I don't care what you say. I don't care what your outfitter says. Six and half foot bear. It's a big bear, good bear, that's what I'm saying. So anyway, But at the moment, at the moment, we decided that Clay wasn't gonna shoot at six foot six and a half ft bear, right right. I mean, even now you can tell we're a little hesitant about it.

But so many things pointed against it, right and so well, And and the primary thing for me was I had been hunting for ten minutes, the bear was moving away. We were gonna have to make a rush decision. And there was there was doubt in everyone's voice. Every voice around me was like, well, Dan, Dan kind of was like he he was like, he was like, man, there's we got it on film, Clay, you know, it's like this maybe your chance. And in my expertise, that's a

ten ft bear. Dan's like, that's the world record black bear. No, so we video the spare and basically the bear walks off and I don't shoot and almost didn't really care at the time. At the moment, at the moment, we were kind of like proud of ourselves a little bit right now, Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is like we are the epitome of selective harvest. We were like, in two years, that bear will be a whopper. I think I said that.

Two minutes later we we keep walking and it took me about a total of five minutes to like deepen my spirit, Like my my mind was still rationalizing why this was such a brilliant decision to pass this bear, but deep in my heart I was like, holy smull, that was a nice bear. And the further we got, the more Dan was like trying to make me feel good about it. He's like, you're gonna be glad you passed that bear, and I was like, yeah, you know, I really want to I'd like to get like a

just a whopper. Anyway, we go about a k down the road and we're talking, we're strategizing about how we're gonna get back on that bear. Devin starts saying, like, you know, we could probably glass room right here if we need to get back on that bear later in

a week. It's like we could probably And I'm I mean like I'm already seeing this thing like play out like and I'm like, we're gonna be hunting this bear of the rest of the week, like and and Devin had his camera with him which had a really good zoom, and he had zoomed in really on this spar and he starts watching the footage and he at some point looks at me and goes, I think we made a mistake.

And he says, look at this and it it shows the bear and he has this like it's like a bear as a swagger, Like it's like there's a joint in the middle of his back and his front legs just like pivot. Anyway, I look at it and I go, damn, you're right. And I'm looking and I'm thinking about what I saw in the scope. What I saw in the scope with the thickness, I saw very little. I mean, I saw a belly that hung low. I saw thick shoulders,

I saw, I saw thickness. But for some reason, and I think it had to do with that, the first ten minutes of the hunt, it was rushed. I had initially, when I immediately saw the bear, I thought, oh, that's not a very big bear. And you know when we were looking at Devon's camera after you pass it walking k down, looking at the pictures of that bear that zoomed in on that and seeing him walk like that, that's when I just immediately I back to thinking a

council of bears. And that's when I looked at that picture, saw him just kind of in his majesty presiding over that big cut block, and I said, the councilman, the councilman. So Dan names the bear the councilman, the councilman. And we realized that maybe we had made a mistake, and I really, I'm not gonna take this. I'm not gonna

give this responsibility. This is I had chose, and Devin totally was like when I had the opportunity to shoot me the first time, He's like clutched your decision, totally your decision. Like he wasn't saying, don't shoot the bear. He didn't say that at all. He was like, your decision, your decision. It's a nice bear, your decision. Well, well yeah, but you help. And so then we're like regret me. But and this is when, this is when and I

got I just gotta tell the folks back home. When I gave my spiel about why I believe that bear would come back. The day before we had bumped a bear off the road. Two days before, we bumped a bear off the road, and humans walking down a logging road with no trucks, no gravel popping, and all of a sudden, the bear that's feeding to what he feels like it's a secure place, gets bumped off the road by human odor. I feel like that bear And I'm not saying he's not gonna come back a little wiser.

He'd be a little wiser about what happened. But there's been a lot of active logging in this region. Like we we saw logging trucks as we were coming in and out. We actually saw tree planters about a a k up the road that we're moving around, and this bear had only smelled us, and so I said, hey, I don't think we really hurt this bear much. I don't think we bumped him that bad, because we're down on the road, we're tunity yards from him, and he had just smelled us. And so there was this inkling

of hope that the bear would come back. But I think, deep down, at least Odd deep down, did not think that he would come back that night. Now, tell me, honestly, what did you think? Good? I guess I like, but at the moment, like in the hunting situation, usually usually things don't work in your favor, no, generally, So you know, I was thinking we'd come back tomorrow. Yeah, probably. But Devin Devon uses a a lighter to test the wind, and so right now currently the wind was coming up

the mountain, like blowing back into where bear wind. Yeah, the initial like whift that had scared him pushed him off the first time. And so Devon says, well, let's wait till the thermal shift and we'll go back to where we saw the bear and just maybe he'd be there. And and you know, when you're holding the gun. When it's your time to hunt, you just don't. A lot of times you just don't think it's gonna work out perfect. It couldn't possibly work out. The councilman. Surely he's no dummy.

He's no dummy. He didn't get that big and be elected as councilman by being stupid. And so we sat there for like thirty minutes, and we're regret I'm regretting it. I'm starting to feel that regret. And Devin's lighting is lighter, and there's just like a tipping point in the evening when the thermal's just are to fall down the mountain. And so the second that happened, we said let's go, and we walked. I would say, no more than a hundred yards down the road. Devon's out maybe thirty or

forty yards in front of us. We're still the men

the decision, Yeah, we really were. And Devin gives us the I see a bear wave and I heard him say there is just like there is, And I just man that the thrill of hunting to me is found in the first encounter with an animal, or like the first like to me, when I'm white tail hunting every season, I look forward to the first deer that I see of the year from the stand, and I to this day, if it's a dough, if it's a faun, my heart skips a beat and it's just like it, dear, you know,

when I'm bear hunting, that first flash of black fur from hunting over bay or what I mean, it's like And that's what I was like for me, he said, there is, and it's just like, you're kidding. I mean, that's that's that's my that's my expletive, you're kidding, you dirty canuck. You line to me, you can't trust them.

And so he goes there he is, and he gives us, gives us the bear the bear wave, and I go, come on, d and we just like start moving fast and bam, I hit the ditch because there's a there's a pretty nice little ditch there that I knew I could get my body lower than the road and get kind of a natural angle where I could be totally prone on the ground because he's significantly yeah, he's I would say, elevation wise, he was, yeah, two plus feet

above us, and he's in the woodline. And he had all he had done was he went into the woods. We watched him walk into the woods, and I mean he just went up there and just laid down for an hour. Bath room took him nap. Yeah, you could. We could speculate on what he did. Well, they probably attended chambers. Had what attended the chambers the council chambers anymore. You said he probably went to the bathroom, looked at the magazine. Maybe Red Bear. Don't even tell him thinks

you guys have been plotting. They've been plotting against me all week as publisher Barony Magazine. We won't bring that up though. So the councilman had gone into the gone into the woods, and I mean just popped out in the same spot. But he's what he's not as this at the same spot that he was when we passed on him. He's in the same cupblock, but he's further away. So the first shot hundred seventies something this one, I'm laying on my belly with briars like piercing me. You're

behind me with a camera. Devin's on his knees right to the right of me, you know, glass and telling me what the bears doing. And I range and I get a range of four hundred some yards. So you know, I mean, you know, this is a shooter bear. He's a great bear. We've had lots of time to think about it. And not only that, but now he is, he's a It's gonna be a significant shot, which is

what I wanted. That's what I wanted. I wanted it and wanted it, and so I'm prone and I dialed the Dillar tour at to four hundred yards on your husk, the mall on my five by twenty and zoom that bad boy up to twenty power and and I'm I'm on the rest. And I truly was, um I was. I was a little bit surprised at how nervous I was. I was surprised at how my heartbeat impacted the bounce of those cross hairs all over that bear at that distance, you know, like you just it was just like boom, boom, boom,

and like the gun was jumping with my heartbeat. And I wasn't tired from walking anywhere. It literally was like adrenaling and excitement. I knew I needed to settle down, but we also had lots of time. But and this is where people mess up is you got lots of time. But you there's this thing, there's this predatory instinct inside of you that just wants to do it quick. I mean,

you're just like gotta get this done. I would say from my experience with harvesting animals, that is the biggest mistake that people make, is that like, when you see what you're after, you think you've got to get it done. And there are certain situations when you do. Yeah, there's there's certainly situations when you when you when you have to act quickly if you're gonna capitalize on an opportunity. But yeah, I mean a mature hunter is gonna know

when that's the case and when it's not. And so I had to like talk myself down to like this bears not going anywhere because actually moving down the mountain, I've got plenty of time. I can wait for my heartbeat to slow down, breathe, and so at that point like talk myself down, and the situation just unfolded. I had a veteran bow hunter from from Arkansas one time tell me something is really simple, but it it's meant a lot to me over the year. It's really simple.

But he said, most bow hunters make a mistake because they don't let the situation unfold before them. They try to ach or the opportunity. They don't make the opera. They don't let the opportunity unfold. They try to make the opportunity happen. Force it. You can't force it. If you force it, you'll mess it up. You can't force the council. You can't force the councilman to do anything. Not this, not no. So Devin has given me the play by play of what he's doing because he's thinking

I'm gonna shoot at any second. He's like broadside bears behind a rock quarter in two. I mean, it's a great commentary. It's like having a spotter that's just and I'm watching the bear, but it's it's confirming. He's confirming what my eyes are seeing. So it's given me confidence.

And it actually played out really good one time, because I thought at one point I thought the bear was quartered away, just because like this black blob is just like moving through brush through rocks, And at one time my perception of what happened was contradictory to what he said, and I was actually about to shoot, and then he said I was like, wait a minute, and I reevaluated what I was seeing, and I was like, oh, the bear is actually quartering to me, so you know, he's

like spotting for me, just like broadside quartering to moving down behind the rock, brushing away. Da da da da dada. When the bear was close to four in her yards,

he was broadside and I was actually gonna squeeze. I mean, it was on and I waiting, you know, trying not to anticipate when the gun is gonna go off, and the squeeze just gets harder and harder and harder, and I really know the trigger pulling, it's kind of shot it enough and pretty much I realized I'm like jamming on the trigger and I'm like the safety time click. So I had, you know, lift my head, clicked the safety off de breath, you know, because I just knew

I was about to squeezed the trigger. Safety was on. Well, by this time, the bear's reposition moved and it was probably another solid five minutes before I shot. How long y'all think we actually did that? When we watched him for a long time, I think it was five minutes. And when you're looking through the scope at a bear, that's a long time. So so the bear moves down and he was at four hundre yards to begin with, and every time he's moving, he's actually getting closer to us,

kind of just snaking down through this cut block. I'm ranging from my belly and it was really disrupting to have to range because you're you're down on the scope and you got him found, you're on twenty power. He's hard to see kind of and then he's moving and you're like, well, he's probably moved ten and fifteen yards and range him again. So you raise your head up, you range him, and by the time you find him again,

he's moved a little bit further. And so Devin kept saying he's moved, but it's not a significant distance, or he's moved laterally, so there's not any further than he was. So that was helpful because because I would be like, i gotta range him again, he said, no, he's he's basically at the same range. So that was helpful. And so finally the bear turns roadside boom, and the bear

was at three and fifty yards per the range. Founder and I lose track of the bear in the scope, but these guys are both watching it and they see the bear run up the hill maybe eight yards, and it's really kind of spectacular to me, the bears running up pretty steep incline and just tips over backwards with feet straight up in the air and just starts rolling down the hill. I mean it was like, and I was jacking in another shell to shoot him again, because

all that I saw was a shot and the bear ran. Yeah, And so I'm jacking another shell in and before I can even get another shell in, Devon's like, he's down, He's paws up, paws up, and Dan says, Councilman's down. Meetings of journey. The meetings of journed. Councilman. Session is closed session, it's closed. And so I was excited, I really was. And and to me it was a unique experience student animal at For me, what was long range?

I mean for Western guys, that's pretty far for real, for real life panting three fifties, not close, right, yeah, And so so most of my hunting of recent years has been very close range, I mean hunting with traditional archery. Man, I want to be within twelve yards of him, and so, but this was an equal compelling experience to shoot one of that far and the way I would describe it is that it's almost like you know, uh, it's it's it's like a it's like a magical experience to be

that far from an animal and to boom and he dies. Well, it's a whole different skill set and very specific that differs widely from traditional archer or a bow hunting. And it's super I mean when you say every time your heart beat, those crosshairs would bounce as would bounce a foot is the bear, you know. It's so it's crazy and and it what gave what was really cool was

having a very accurate weapon. I mean that gun is a shooter big time, and so that gives you the confidence that the bullet's gonna hit where the crosshairs are on that And it's a great thing about it is you can trust that gun. The bad thing about it is if there's a mess up, you only have one person to blame. Yeah, So we go up to the bear and it just spectacular scenery. I mean, you're just you feel like you're on top of the world. That's what you were saying. It's like you killed a bear

onp of because you did. We're we're looking at across this huge glacial valley, snow capped mountains, just spectacular, and to me, that was the highlight of it to me to kill a bear. You know, bears are iconic of North American wilderness, and you need to kill a bear in the wilderness and it that's the experience, that's the adventure, that's the fun, is where these critters live. And so that was so cool. And so we get up to the bear and I mean, he's just he's a thumper.

I mean, there's no way. I just don't know how anybody would pass this bear. I think immediately from you know, again, no one very little about bear, but no one the bear that I had shot the day before, and I'm so devon again, probably would want me to wait, but I just wanted one so bad. But then seeing immediately walking up on this bear, it was like, oh, okay, that's a big bear. It's just huge, spectacular coat. Oh man, the fur on these bears is as good as any

fur I've ever seen on a black bear. Now I want to measure the fur on the rump of my bear. I mean, it's got to be five inches long, and I'm going to confirm that it's long. At the highest point, you know, at the longest point, but the bear and so here's the here's the here's the cut to the chase. Is the bear ended up square and six and a half foot exactly exactly what Devon a ridged in the league. You know, when he really evaluated, he was like from

sixth and far and so. And then to go back to the spoiler alert that already spoiled you with minutes ago, that I'm gonna spoil you with now, is that a six and a half foot bear is a whopper, especially if it's thick. I mean, I suspect you could shoot a six and a half footbear that didn't weigh as much as the spear. I'm I'm kind of funny when it comes to wait. I usually I try to estimate on the underside of what it weighed. I think that bear in a range would have weighed three to three

seventy five probably pretty close. Yeah, yeah, And that's a toad of a spring bear. So this bear was you know, the six six and see in the bear oting community like seven foot is like the mark. But I want to draw the mark and say seven foots at whopper bear. I've killed a lot of bears. I've never killed as a true seven ft square bear, and I and and I've killed bears that way five pounds, four and thirty

five pounds. Uh. So what I'm saying is is that kind of in hunting, you know, you you get these things like, oh, you gotta kill a hundred and fifty white tail. Well I'm telling you I travel across the globe to kill a hundred forty white tail in my bow. That's just the truth. Now, if I've lived in Iowa and it was a resident hunter, I mean maybe that'd be different. But so I'll just go on the record saying I'll travel across the globe to kill a six and a half foot big, old, mean, stinky black bear.

Hell yeah, yeah, yes, so awesome, awesome experience in the high country of British Columbia, Canada. Um, we got the bear out, We took out all the meat, even cut off a little rack of ribs, which, uh, the meat is gonna be holly utilized. And Devin, what do you have to say about all this? Just another day in

the Canadian wilderness? Boys now closing comments? Devin, just like, do you have any like anything you would add to or just even your experience with guiding hunters or fair hunting is definitely like an adventure a hunter should try because it's so it's not anything like hunting the antlered species, right, so it's just a totally different thing. A spring bear hunting especially is nice because they're so day active. Um, so it's an awesome adventure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I

throw in a little tidbit of trivia here? It is your podcast, so we kind of have to listen. I don't even have a podcast, okay. No. Devin Devon told us last night that his first memory. He tricked us because he said, hey, guys, what's your first memory? And me and Daniel said something stupid like I remember like riding my bike down the hill. And Devin goes, my first memory was I was in my yard. Can I tell this? Is it? Okay? Yeah? I think it's cool.

I don't know if I'm comfortable with you opening up Devon's deepest well he said, it's okay, fire discussion. No, no, I'm not gonna no, no, no, he said. He said his first memory as a little boy, he was in his front yard and Bruce, Columbia, Canada, and bear walks by and no one had told him about bear hunting. No one had told him that humans could kill bears. And hold would have been like three four somewhere, and he thought, I want to kill that bear, gun shaped stick, root,

kill that bear. I don't want to kill that bear. And now here we are, and that's what Devin does killing bear where thing was even at four years old he was six to Yeah, you could walk over a mountain and three sticks and he had legs like I'll get your raft way out of proportion to the rest of his body. Uh So, Dan So closing thoughts, Devin Jewels, Pacific Bear Outfitters, come check it out. Yeah, you got put in a shameless plug for your find organizations. Bear

Outfitters custom high quality hunts for large coastal black bear. Yeah. And I will say that Devin is the god. I mean, like you're not been here and there's not like six in camp. I mean Dave, Dan and I are the only hunters in camp. Uh Now, Dave our our hero. Dave is a cook and it's here just like as

a support. He's an awesome guy. So I mean, like Devon, if you come here, I would said, there's a good chance that Devon will be guide in here if if there were two people that needed God's Devon has close friends that are guides that will guide as well, that know this area that can. But but a lot of times you go on to guide and hunt and you book hunt with an outfitter and then you spend the week with some kid you don't know. Ye, And that's not a bad I don't want to paint that as

like a negative thing. That's just the way it is. Yeah, And so the in every every camp there's a little bit of something different that might appealed to somebody. But if you talk to Devon, he's the one you're gonna be hunting with ya, you know, And so that's cool. I think that's cool. So he he takes a lot of personal responsibility for the success of these hunts, and I mean, he just works hard. And that's why I'm

back for the second time. And I will tell you as publisher Barony Magazine, Uh, you know, have access to a lot of different opportunities, which comes to Black Bear. And so for me to go to a place twice means means something. It really does. I mean for me just being a normal guy, and I come because I'm your friend. I'm on you know, taking your word for it. But I just had no idea of about bear hunting, just seeing pictures of it and heard stories, but had

no idea everything that goes into it. And I intentionally set my expectations really low. But in my heart of hearts, I wanted everything. I wanted all I wanted, uh like dramatic scenery, amazing experience, adventure. I wanted fun. I wanted to laugh the whole time with a friend. And and I want I thought, I want to spend a whole week with a guy that I don't even know. Is how's that gonna be? What's that gonna be? Like I wanted to kill a bear. I wanted to eat and food,

you know. On the I had set my expectations a little bit deep down. I wanted everything, and all of it has way exceeded anything I could have ever won. Like on the way here, everybody may have been like three days before when you're at my house, I really hadn't told you, like the arrangements of camp that we would each have our own wall tent, and and Dan was like I thought it was gonna be me and you in the outfit a little a little pop up

tent on the side of something mountain. He was like totally pumped for months thinking about this hunt, just thinking we'll be like roughing it. But but man, we're at a really comfortable camp. Each you know, all of us have different quite large wall tent. I got my stuff just like Strode out all. It's like my cabin up there, and so it's real comfortable and eating. We're eating hot food. We're you know, we got we just got what we

need here. Um. And I will say to this would be something different than I've seen before for bear outfitters, is that that Devon uh fleshes and salts the entire bear so that you don't have to take it home frozen. And they also clean the skulls while you're here, if possible, Yeah, if you if we have enough time, if you don't kill a bear on like the last day. Yeah, And so basically he saved us a couple of hundred bucks

minimum in texting the work. We still have taken this bear to the text on us to get whatever done with that. We're going to do with it. But usually you'd have to pay someone quite a bit to take out the paws take out the head, flash the hide, salta hide. So he's done a lot of work. So that's pretty unique, and it'll be super easy. It's easy for us to get it back through Canadian customs. We

don't have to worry about lots of these huts. I'm worried about a frozen hide, Like you pull the hide out and it's frozen, and you're on the time clock after that, and so you're worried, Well, what if it gets lost on the way back and I have to wait two days for it to arrive and the hides run. I mean, these highs are salted and they would be good for months. Yeah, so they're they're good list. So

that's a little Thing's awesome. We've ate good. We've had lots of coffee, We've had lots of gatorade, We've had lots of French toads. And he made some whopper awesome double fried French fried and he's gonna do it again today for us. He's gonna make those franchise make the cut, those French fries amazing, amazing form real Canadian potatoes. Yeah, not that Idaho. So eight