Podcast on uh on location stuff have you guys done you guys are coming up on 200 episodes now right have you recorded 200 yet not yet i think we just did 194 dang dang like six six away that's crazy that's crazy it's funny i at what point did it we're already recording by the way here um, I'm sure you knew that. Was there a point where it kind of just became second nature?
Like this is something that you do the first 15, 20, it's still, you got to be part of the schedule, but after a certain period of time, it's, this is part of the routine. This is what we do. At what point did you kind of get that feeling? I would say after 50. Yeah. Maybe after 50, I think it was like, like, it's not even in the back of your mind anymore.
You know, you just know what you're doing you're going in there you're going to do it you know how the editing process happens you know how to promote the show and it just became a routine yeah yeah that's that's fun doing something on the side talking a lot of interesting people it's just wild when i look back at at the people you've had on episodes that listen to and look back at people i've had on it's it's it's wild just the amount of information that
you learn the interesting people that are around and it just seems absolutely impossible to even really scratch the surface of the amount of interesting people in alaska oh it's it's it's crazy how many there are and there's still a lot more you know i'm sure you're getting you're getting people you know messaging you or saying hey have you heard about this person or that person or look at this what this guy's doing it's just it's just endless which
is which is great for us you know because there's endless content pretty much to put out there and cool people to talk to and i was trying to do the math yesterday it's like man i'm not a real big talker normally in regular life i actually will like avoid people if i see them at the at the grocery store or something like that but it's funny because you know i've done what almost 200 episodes and all our episodes are at least two hours so that's that's
at least 400 500 hours of talking so if i see you in the grocery store you You're probably going to see me and walk away from you. Yeah. Well, there's an interesting difference between like just the general small talk. So if you say, hello, I love that. Hey, what's going on? Oh, not much. And then that's kind of it, but I'm not good at, like you said, just. In the grocery store in a random aisle talking for 15 minutes about who knows what, like, what are we, what are we doing here?
We can't do like a Safeway aisle podcast, but when you're, when you're sitting down and you know, this is about asking questions and about getting to the kind of the crux or the insight to life. And it makes it much more interesting than just your, your basic aisle talk. Yes. I'm the worst small talk guy. I'm ready to like cut it off right away.
Yeah for sure so to cut off the small talk let's get right to it so last year in december you had knee surgery i did what exactly was it total knee replacement oh what did that entail like are you got animal stuff parts in you dude i'm full bionic man i'm the robo man now so basically i've i've had multiple this is my fifth surgery i've had two acls two meniscus and then an arthroscopic surgery, and about 15 years ago when they did my meniscus, they cut almost 50% of it out from the front.
And so all that eventually leads to bone-on-bone arthritis.
And it got to the point where i just couldn't do the stuff i wanted to do you know if i went on a hike or i went on a hunt especially if i went on a mountain hunt i mean i would be devastated for like two weeks afterwards i mean i can't go anywhere i'm like icing it barely able to go to work probably taking probably taking a few too many anti-inflammatories like there's advil for for pain but you start popping nine or so a day for a couple days that's not great on the liver,
yeah i totally i actually even just stopped i just stopped doing it and i was like i'm just gonna ice it and let it go because at one point i was just taking advil or leave like every single time like anytime i have a game every time i go on a walk with the family it just became like oh i gotta go back and take some sort of anti-inflammatory and i actually found that i got less than flamed when i stopped taking that stuff but the pain was still there it's weird yeah,
so uh so it just became a point it just became a point where i couldn't do the things i wanted to do anymore without so much pain and then it was pain at night i think that was what the crux of it was like when i started feeling pain at night and i couldn't sleep and i'm supposed to be relaxed but i can't i can't sleep because the pain that's when i decided i was like you know what i just gotta i just gotta get this done and i talked to so many people about it like any.
Anytime someone brought it up in like small talk or like oh yeah my knee I would just like ask him who's your surgeon what'd you do how do you feel would you do it again and every single person's response was I wish I would have did it earlier it's the best thing I ever did I shouldn't have waited so that just like solidified my my idea to just get it done so you have the surgery and then And about a month and a half or so later, you drew the mountain goat tag.
So right after a surgery, what was your mindset? And then once you draw the tag, was it like, okay, we got to do this. What were your emotions?
Well i had been putting in for that tag for like 10 years so i went on that hunt about 10 years ago with my brother and his buddy and they had a party started goat hunt and we were successful then and so ever since then i've i've been wanting to go back i was like i know how to get there i know that the goats are there it's somewhat close to anchorage so you can you can time the weather and so i've been putting in with brandon
because brandon went with me as well and we were party hunting this whole time, like for the last nine years. And then this year, I was like, I'm just going to put in myself because, you know, if we get it, I don't know if I'm going to be able to go anyway, because my knee, I'll still be recovering. You're not supposed to do anything for a year, they say. It takes a year to recover. And lo and behold, of course, I put in by myself, just, you know,
throwing a dart in the air. And of course, of course, I get it. And I'm like, oh no, now put the pressure on me to really, really hit the rehab hard, really start planning. I'm like, okay, am I going to be able to do this? I definitely knew I was going to need to bring at least the other people with me because there's no way two people, well, two people can do it, but not, I didn't trust my knee yet. So I was like, I better bring as many people as possible so that people can carry shit. Yeah.
What was the mindset when you first, like, at what point were you, you're a month and a half into the rehab. So like, you're just barely doing anything.
Are you like walking with a cane at this point? Are you, you're not doing lateral hops or anything like that so what was the rehab like at that point so at that point i was i was pretty much in the bed just doing stuff at home walking around i was on a walker i was actually on a walker for like three weeks, And then from there, I went to a kid's crutches, and I'm going to physical therapy twice a week. And I actually became really good friends with my therapist.
He's an awesome guy, Pearson, who moved here from New York, but he's totally into hunting, and he's totally into hockey. He's totally into all the things that I love to do. So, I mean, I got a big shout out to him because he's the one that he pushed me so hard. I mean, I would dread going in there. I would cry in there. It was, I would whine, I would bitch, I would be just hurting so bad. Like, I don't want to go.
And he's like, you're going to, you're going to want to do this. Think about that goat. You know? And he's just like, he's bending my knee, making me cry. I'm like, Oh, I don't want that goat. Yeah. I've had a couple of former players when I was coaching basketball tour the ACL and whatnot. And then, you know, they even talk about adults going through some periods of like depression because you have your good days where the rehab is good, but it just seems so long.
And it seems like you're not making the improvements that you need to make. Did you have some, some days where you were kind of down in the dumps or were you able to stay pretty positive? Oh man, I definitely had some days where I was like, is this thing right? Like, did they put it on? Right. You know, did they align it? Right. Like, is this thing? And you know, you go online and you're like, okay, what does it feel like after three months? What does it feel like after five months?
You know, and you're looking and like, okay, yeah, this is normal. This is normal.
And then, you know it was definitely down days there's days where like i don't know if i'm gonna be able to do this you know i'm on the bike and it hurts and you know it's it was definitely a roller coaster up and down when did you first start to feel like you were like this was going to happen like you were you were on your way to to making this was this like a spring thing or was it kind of touch and go into the summer
i would say i would say right around june yeah so that was maybe six months, I think in June, I started feeling good. I was able to ride the bike outside. The weather changed. You know, it was warmer. And I just felt like, oh, man, this thing is really getting better. You know, I'm getting stronger. The swelling is not swelling up so much. So I think right around then. But what really sucked is, you know, I had the hot dog stand, and I didn't have anybody to really work.
So I had to be the one pushing that card on. And I had to be the one standing there all day. And just standing still was like the worst thing. So anybody that came by the stand this summer, they see me. I'm over there doing my bends. I'm doing my lunges. I'm doing a bunch of stretching while I'm at the stand. Like, what's this guy, the aerobic hot dog guy over there, just doing stretches all day? So let me do my thing, man. Nothing to see here.
Yeah, once spring starts coming around and then summer, you just get that boost of of adrenaline and excitement and i mean if if you're coming back from an injury that's a that's a whole different thing but the amount of juice that you get you come out of it and you're ready to really start to make things happen yeah 100 100 and then once i was able to start going on like ikes you know and pushing myself a little bit there i was like oh you know what this is this
is this is going to be good you know i felt like i was ahead of schedule so i got in a few good hikes in the summertime you know with the backpack on and and didn't go too crazy but it it really improved my confidence thinking okay you know what i can i can i can get after this on i can i can do it if i if i watch the weight i have in my pack and i stretch really good and mentally focused i felt like i felt pretty confident that i could do
it and the team i brought with me also i mean that was amazing that they came to basically just helped me. Yeah. Carrying weight and hiking is the only way to really get prepared for carrying weight and hiking. But I've found like, like reverse lunges with some weight is like a really, really great exercise. Was there an exercise that you felt that they kind of helped you out? I think sometimes you're in, you're out.
We just get used to, well, I've done this before, so I'm just going to do what I usually do. But sometimes you want to be in better shape. So is there anything that you thought, hey, this is actually a really good exercise and it's preparing me and this is going to be part of my annual get back into shape or stay in shape type thing. I think you nailed it on the head, the lunges and the reverse lunges.
That i had like little weights at my house and i had like ankle weights and stuff like that and so any kind of downtime where i'm just kind of sitting around i would just be like let me hit a couple lunges real quick let me try this backwards and there was one i don't know what it's called where you put your back foot like up on a chair or something and then you do the then you bend down as you're holding weight i mean that one was that i felt like that one was really interesting
because at first it's just like really wobbly and then after you get used to it and you're getting stronger then you can hold that position like oh man this feels good yeah i think it's the elevated or the bulgarian split squat yes yes yes that that that yes oh, man that was tough yeah they're good i would be doing that at the hot dog stand with my back as i'm like holding like 10 packs of hot dogs i didn't forgot the weights yeah perfect perfect All right.
So what was the first hunt you went on the year? So that was kind of the first challenge. Did you get out early for caribou or sheep or anything? No, the first hunt was the goat hunt. Okay. When was that? We went, so the plan was to go Labor Day weekend and we're going to leave Thursday and have all the way to Monday. So that was like five days. And we weren't a hundred percent sure that we're going to get to if the weather, but I had made plans to go.
So I was going to go on the goat hunt it September and then I was going to go on the moose hunt and then if I hadn't got the goat we were planning to go back in October to go back and get the goat because I think the season went all the way to the 15th so we had a really big window there and we want to play it by weather because you know you get up in the mountain and it's clouded in or fogged in or snowed in and I mean you're just kind of stuck there right yeah so the first the first
plan actually was successful, So I ended up going with Tyler Bryan, who is Rome Wild. He's an insane photographer and videographer. He wanted to come and film and take some pictures for us, which I thought was amazing. And then Brandon, of course, is coming. And then Emily, who's such a hardcore trooper, she came along too. Jack was going to come, but he was going on a sheep hunt with somebody else.
So my plan was to have five of us, and it ended up being four of us, which actually ended up being perfect.
So we'll start the hunt what uh what would you do what was it like so the hunt was a hunt where you go on on the lake we went on Kenai lake I don't mind telling people where it was I mean if you saw this hunt just give me a draw because I'll show you I will help you well I don't know if I'll go up there with you but I'll tell you how to get there yeah so you go on the Kenai lake and we were gonna camp at the entrance where that we knew there was kind of
a path and we went when When we went 10 years ago, we had marked the trail with flagging tape. And I was like, oh, you know, that was 10 years ago. It might still be there. I kind of know the way, but hopefully we can find some of these pink flagging tape pieces we left up. And so we go to go to, we're going to camp and we're going to just stay there. And then the next morning we're going to hike up to the top and we get there
and there's like a big church group that had rented this area. And we're like, oh no. So they're like, well, we have this whole area right here, but there's a little island across. You guys can go on Porcupine Island and there's nobody over there, which actually worked out to the benefit of us because we ended up going to that Porcupine Island and it gave us a vantage point of the whole front face of those mountains.
So we were able to park set up the camp pull up the boat and start glassing right there and so as we're glassing i see two and then i see we see two and it's tough to tell what they are their nannies or their billies and then i saw one like up to the left by himself and i was like oh that one's substantially bigger and by himself and he's in like this crazy spot i was like that has to be a billy of course so that that was that was very encouraging right we're like all right
well there's some right there we it's actually the way we're going to go you know so the next morning we get up early and start the hike and i mean it's just brush it's it's it takes all that it's one of those where it's you know three miles but it takes you know 10 hours right so there's rocks and there's timing and there's cheese and we did find some of the flagging tape and someone else must have gone up there because of another flagging tape and luckily we found because
you get to this certain spot and you're supposed to go back down this ravine and then go back up to go follow this, to follow the ridge all the way up. And luckily we found that somehow. And then once we got through there, we kind of.
We kind of took a bad turn can you hear me yeah i got you okay i think my uh my earbuds are by, it does so anyway so we get past the ravine and we kind of took a wrong turn and we had a brush blur brush through brush and and get all the way up before we clear the tree line and finally got way to the up to the top and you know that was that was that's probably the most brutal day is just try to get all the way up to the top there you know going from whatever it is to almost 5 000 feet and we get
up there and the wind is just howling it's just howling like crazy so we set up the camp in like a little nook that's kind of out of the wind at least from one side and.
And you know they're decided the next day we're going to go walk around and go look because by the time we got up there it was already kind of kind of late and so we uh set up the camp or whatever and the teepee and emily was in her tent and tyler was in his tent and and then we're glass and we don't see anything we don't know what happened to those three that we saw and then the next day we uh we wake up early and go hike up and start looking down all the bowls,
and we don't see anything at all we don't see actually we saw a ram we saw a ram when we went up there which was cool yeah that area is closed for sheep it used to be open before, and actually that was the first time i went up there both 13 years ago was for my buddy's sheep which we didn't get one and now they since closed it yeah because i don't know i don't know what the numbers are they're not looking good but we did see a ram which was really cool it was maybe
maybe seven years old which which that was really encouraging and cool to see something so we went hiking all day looked in there and then the weather came in and fogged us all the way in and we sat it out for like two hours i'm like all right well let's just go back to camp it's not going to get better of course you get all the way to camp and it clears up of course, So we get to camp and we're eating dinner and getting ready and getting ready for bed, actually.
And then I go to use the bathroom and I'm down kind of away from the camp. And I look over and I see this white thing just running towards us. I was like, oh, shoot, there's a goat right there. And it happened to be that huge Billy. And so he went and he laid down and then he got up and it's getting dark. It's already like 1030 at night. And so we're watching him. I'm like, go get everyone out of the tent. I was like, oh, there's a goat, there's a goat, there's a goat.
And this thing went all the way down. Like, we think it went all the way down to the lake to get water. And we're like, okay, well, it went down all the way there. So we stayed up as long as we could until we couldn't see anymore, hoping that we would see which way he would come back up. But we never saw him come back up. So we went to bed that night, almost lost the teepee that night. The wind was insane. And we messed up on the teepee. I mean, we slept on the teepee lots and lots of times.
And you always want to put put up some sort of rock or something on those stakes so in case the wind gets absolutely crazy and it pops the pops the stake but we all we had was there was like some sharp edges on some of those rocks and as the wind was turbulating and just popping that thing ended up breaking some of the guidelines yeah that was connecting the thing and then it just was pure mayhem at like three in the morning yeah i wake up and brandon wakes up like oh no oh, the Taz is slapping.
You know, water did on us. We're like, oh, no. I'm holding the pole. Brandon runs outside to try to, like, you know, stake the thing down. And we're like, oh, no. And then from there, there's no sleeping because it's like, is this thing going to hold? You know, it's still going. We had to, like, make shifts, tie this thing because it ripped. And so, like, one more time I had to get up because I popped another one.
And so it was just a really, really bad night of sleep that night. What kind of TV was it? He was a black diamond Megalite. Okay. And then other gear that you have, was it Stone Glacier, rain pants, jacket, pack, and what else you got camping-wise or gear-wise? Yep. Yep. I use the Stone Glacier pants, the rain pants, which are amazing. The M5s? Actually. Or the M7s? Yeah, the M5s. The M5s. And I have the M7 jacket,
which is nice because it has that fleece on the inside. and it doesn't make you feel clammy. If you have just a shirt underneath, you don't feel all that sticky clammy, which I like. It's a little bit burly. It's probably better for a really late season. Maybe even snow would be better, but it worked really well. Then for a sleeping bag, I have a Western Mountaineering Alpenlight, which is super puffed up, and that thing compresses down to nothing.
That's been my go-to bag for mountaineering. names but i did go with all stone glacier stuff this year i want to test out uh that jacket and i and i bought a pair of their pants i get with the haviland haviland pants yeah i mean those things are super burly yeah they're nice i almost feel like those are almost those are like almost a little toothpick for that for that hot hot hot time we win i would think that would be really nice for like moose hunting or something yeah
i like the vents on those and you can go like if it's colder and you're not hiking a whole lot you can go like long johns underneath and then and then those and they're they really stand up to the brush down here really well but usually things are so wet i usually go with the m7s and the m7s are super good against the brush i've had a lot of opportunities seven pants yeah i got the m7 pants and they like you get you square up a bush or a piece of brush
and that's where like the weak stuff will tear would put like a little nick in it but man these things are tough so i'm really a big fan of that stuff but then you look at the other stuff too it's not that cuyu sucks or that sitka sucks like it's all really really good stuff it's just a matter of what you can get your hands on and then kind of what you excuse yourself to buy. Yeah exactly exactly and i have everything i mean i'm wearing first light pants right now and i've done.
The q i love the attack pants brandon's wearing a bunch of sick and emily has a deal going with caparo so she's doing a bunch of caparo stuff and and tyler had a bunch of q stuff too and i mean all that stuff it's pretty comparable it just depends on what what you want to wear what color you like really i do like watching films of people that are all like mixed and matched so you have like three or four buddies who.
Are out hunting and everybody is just it's a garage sale of whatever is available i think that's really cool when everybody is wearing brand new stuff from the same brand you're like ah oh yeah you know what i'll be honest i was that guy like 15 years ago where i'm just straight all vs camo q you you know head to toe and then after a couple years i'm like ah you know what i don't i don't i don't want to be that guy yeah when you replace one
thing at a time too like this jacket goes and so rather than replace it with the same one you have maybe try something else so i was able to get my hands on my first system was a sitka system but then as i added more stuff i i got some stone glacier stuff so it's kind of a mix and match of both of those things but i think for our body types like you and me we're kind of tall like link lanky kind of guys that stone glacier stuff is like fit for us yeah it's a little bit bigger
it's it's like taller a little bit bigger a little bit longer like the the sleeves a little bit longer because that's my problem i have really long arms so a lot of times like the fit will be good but then like i can't raise my arms because the sleeves are going to come up to my right yeah.
All right so now we've got the gear down uh back to back to the hunt so you slept hardly at all you wake up and it's on yeah so we wake up after that terrible night with the tipi and we're just kind of having coffee having some breakfast the goal is to to go a little further this time and look through more of the bowls because we know those goats are somewhere around there. And we're like, oh, that one that we saw last night must have came up in the night and we didn't see him.
So we're kind of getting ready. And then Emily's like, well, I'm just going to go look around, go look down over there real quick. And she goes, and here comes the goat coming up that drainage. So we get all excited. We start putting all our stuff on. Like, all right, there he is. Let's watch him. Let's watch him. So he gets up, and he goes, and he digs out this bed.
He digs out this bed, and he's literally like the same level we are, but there's a huge ravine, so we're going to have to go around.
And he's just laying there he dug this huge ravine out and you could tell he's a big boy that's the way he was coming up out of that drainage he's like struggling he's like oh you could just see his muscles working and he's he goes and he lays down and it's and it was sunny that day so he's just so in my mind i was like oh he's just gonna lay there all day he went all the way down he got his water he struggled to come back up he's probably tired dug his hole he's gonna lay there all day
i was like he's in a perfect spot we're gonna go up and around we're gonna come down and find him laying right there we'll get him right there so we get all our stuff on and we go up and we go around to where we think he is and coming down and it's kind of like plateau to plateau to plateau going down one of those endless like next ridge oh no there's another one oh there's another one and so we get there and before we get to
where we think he is i gotta credit emily she's she's like you know what why don't we go look to the right because if we keep going down we'll blow ourselves out if he happened to move to the right. I was like, all right, that's a good idea. Let's go to the right and just make sure that area is clear before we come back to the left. Because if we go left right away, he would see us if he's sitting on the right and then he'd run off.
So we go to the right and he happens to be laying down over there. So he got up from his spot. I don't know if he spotted us when we were moving up the mountain or something spooked him, but he ended up being laying down in this other ravine and so we get all stoked and it's probably the worst like shooting spot you could ever it's that like a you know like i don't know 50 degree angle.
And there's no laying down there's no knee there's no it's just brush it's just like how am i gonna get this thing yeah go ahead. So I lay down and I ended up scooting up and I found a spot where he must have been laying down. And there's actually a bunch of goat shit right there. And I just nestled in right in that. It was like the only little tiny flat spot. And I kind of stuck my barrel through these grass.
It's like I could see him right there. I think he was like 67 yards just down in this ravine. And so Brandon comes down to they're trying to film it. And he's right behind me and Tyler's up above trying to film.
Him and brandon he says he said something to me which he we can hear in the video but i was so locked in because he was he was wanting me to tell him when i'm gonna shoot and i got down and as soon as i got in position he like got up the goat got up and i was like oh i was like oh no he heard somebody or saw someone so i didn't even hesitate i was just like boom yeah i just hit him and it was the perfect shot and he just started tumbling down the mountain and you know
we're all hooting and hollering and yeah we got him and all that and and then it became like okay well what's.
What's the plan and and and i remember from last time we went we messed up last time and went right down after him and realized that our camp is all the way back at the top so i told i told the i told the crew i was like well let's just go back because he's not obviously not right here he tumbled who knows how far he tumbled and if we go down there we're probably not gonna be able to come back up because it's like that scree stuff right that like
you know you can't go up that stuff if they're impossible so i was like all right well let's go back and get to camp so we go all the way back we get to camp and our plan is like we're just gonna go all the way down i was like we'll figure it out he's down there somewhere we'll find him and then we'll go all the way down to the lake and then we'll have to just walk the lake all the way back back to the boat.
And so we start going down and it got so sketchy jeff it was a couple man there was a couple of spots dude like i've only been like i don't know what the word is where you're just scared motionless you know because you you figure you got yourself in a spot that's like you can't go back up you can't go left you can't go right you can't go down and you're mad at yourself like why did you get yourself in this position and i think it happened to all of us because we're all trying to pick
our best way down this like cliffy area and man jeff man i got to this spot man i was just just scared motionless i was just like what am i doing man why did i go right here you know and turned out to be like you know hands and knees grabbing the rock just barely sliding and had to do like a crazy butt slide down this thing and we finally made it out of that which was super scary and this thing man this thing rolled all the way down literally like 900 feet on the lake.
So it was a good call that we went back up and got the camp because there would have been absolutely no way that we were going to go back up that way and there was no way we wanted to go back up around the way we came either like well that's just part of the mountain now if we left it there yeah yeah that getting frozen stuff man it's it's pretty it's pretty spooky down here we don't have as much of that scree, we do have a little bit of it, but it's mostly that monolithic glacial carved stuff.
So last year, actually on a mountain goat hunt, there was a point where we were going up and it was this straight up and it was kind of Heather. Covered rocks for the most part, but it was straight up and it started to kind of rain. I didn't have my gloves on. So my hands were really, really cold and we're like climbing straight up. And so I, I, I started thinking in my head, I put myself in this situation, but also my wife in this situation and it's straight up.
And I have my knees dug into the side of the mountain. I got my hands like clawing as I'm going up. And I just started thinking about what if I grab and like through the heather, a, a rock like falls.
Abby wasn't right behind because she's smart you know you don't hike right up behind someone she was off to the side a little bit but you know i got falling rocky all kinds of stupid stuff so i got to the top and i was just kind of needed a second to take my breath and then i it it i it occurred to me once i got to that point it would have been way easier to just kind of go around a little bit but some of these areas you don't have any
other way like this is it and that's that's horrible yeah that's the position we were in. It was like, this is the only way. And it was really scree, which was nice. I love going down scree because that's easy on the knee and you can just kind of like ski down that scree. But then it got cliffy and right when it got cliffy, it started pouring rain. Oh my gosh. That was like the worst thing because it's already, it's already like sketchy and then it's raining. So it's slippery.
So everything's like glossy and all those rocks are loose. Like I'd be like trying to grab one and be like, is this thing going to come off if I pull it on there? And it starts to pop off the mountain. And we're actually coming down on their own. And like halfway down, we're like, man, well, did we miss this thing? Like, did it get hung up somewhere else? And Brandon sees a bunch of birds up top, like circling. And we're like, oh no.
I was like, no way. We passed this thing up. Like, how do we miss it? You know? And we're like, well, we can't go back up. So let's just go down and hope that we didn't miss it. And that's at the bottom. And luckily it was, it was down there at the bottom.
Nice. So you get to it. you take care of it process it and how long did that all take well there was uh all four of us getting in on it and the bugs were insane because once we got down there the sun came out and then it was just hot and the flies and it was like head net like brandon refused to put a head net on but i was the rest of us put a head net on he's like i can't put a head net you know trying to be all manly oh that sounds like him for sure
i was like okay you do whatever you want man i'm I'm going to put my headlamp on because I can't be swinging my arms around hope. It's nice. Yeah. And so we cut that whole thing up and you know i wanted it i wanted to bring out the entire hide.
Just to get it tan i'm not doing like a i'm not doing like a mount or like a shoulder mount nothing i just want the tan hides i could put it up in the cabin and that thing man that thing's that thing was so heavy dude i can't believe how heavy that hide was it was because it's all muddy and wet because it was raining and then he fell down and luckily none of the horns broke off, um it was still intact and we only had to go 900 yards
i would say down to the bottom but it was probably the hardest 900 yards i've ever done in my life because the scree ended so you're actually trying to like not fall on this rock and you know i probably have like 140 pounds in my pack and it's definitely the most weight i've had in my pack and i'm thinking about my knee i'm going extra slow because i was like don't hurt yourself right now you know so it took a long time to get down to the bottom and then uh once
we got them all packed up and down to the bottoms you know we realized. Well shit we're gonna have to walk the lake all the way back to where the boat is so it took us like so we're like all right well brandon brandon and i will go you guys hang out and if you see a boat go by you know try to flag them down and he can give you guys a ride it'd be a lot quicker, and i guess some boat guy went by but he was it was a foreign rain and he just wasn't looking to the side.
So Brandon and I thinking, oh, we're just going to walk the edge of the lake all the way back. Like there's a trail. There's no fucking trail. No, no. We're having to go out into the lake like waist deep because there's trees down and rocks and there's no way you can go above it. So we're going out and it's like already getting dark. It's like 11 p.m.
And that lake is not a it's not a warm lake there's no no it's a glacier lake you know and actually felt really good on your feet because once you commit you're like that well we got to get this and it felt really there's your feet are just burning from that hike and that climb, and we're just so we it took us i think almost an hour and a half two hours to get to the boat.
And walking and just walking and i remember the face when we came around the corner and there was this guy out by the boat from the church group and he looks at us he's like holy he's like we didn't say that yeah i was gonna say he was he was real surprised he was surprised he's like where did you guys come from like where could you just see me and brandon looking rugged just all wet you know bloody and like just came out of nowhere you know he's like oh my he's like oh yeah we he's like oh yeah
we thought someone told us that there's some guys up there and hopefully we weren't too loud i was like oh we didn't hear you guys and so he actually helped just get the boat off and went back and got the boat and and tyler and emily had started a fire which was like glorious to see when we got there but it's just pouring rain and we're wet all the way up to our waist and just the fire was just amazing and there was some beers
in the boat and oh man we're cheering and having the fire and it was just it was it was such a great family nice that's awesome so you felt total redemption the knee was was fine did you have to ice it down a little bit, or were you just like kissing it and thankful for the doctors?
Oh man they did so good so good jeff i haven't felt any pain like i feel soreness in my muscles because i lost maybe half my quad and half my half my calf you know from the from sitting around for that long and not doing much so i felt soreness but not oh my like i used to you know yeah i was so excited i'm so i was so happy with there and and just like oh my gosh just felt like i could do anything now yeah there's a big difference between like joint pain and muscle
soreness So after you go for a run or after you go for a hike, like your muscles are going to be sore, that's expected. But if your hip itself hurts or your knee hurts or inside the ankle joint hurts, it's like, that's not, that's not what we're doing. That's not, that's not good. Yeah. And I'd even say there's a difference between that and arthritic pain because I had, I had a lot of arthritis before and that arthritis pain, man, it just feels like just throbbing in there.
And someone's just keeps like jabbing a pencil in there.
Like feel it, you know? oh man so not feeling that was amazing so then you get back and shoot you got the you got the goat so it's all gravy now you go out and you go to moose camp and get an awesome bull yeah so literally like three days later we did the full turnaround and like loaded up the six by and the four wheelers and the meat trailers and and we i mean you've been on a moose hunt i mean that's like luxury you know i'm we're bringing everything we're bringing everything possible
you know the biggest pad the biggest sleeping bag the best biggest tent grills beers steaks you know like egg bacon just like we had so much shit it was unbelievable but we're like after that suffer fest we kind of did i was like we're gonna go we're gonna go live it up and we sure did live it up man so we ended up going to our buddy chad's spot and.
Hey sorry my kids are getting red bunches up there so we ended up going to uh chad's spot his spot is up there by up there by toke between kind of toke and chicken area and that's a hell of a long drive right and we get all the way up there and we spend the night and we go in on the trail and it's one of those trails where it's like you know seven miles but it takes you eight hours you know to get there and a lot of a lot of mud a lot of winching and you know we're so heavy going in and we're
actually heavier coming out which was nice but we get to his spot and there's some dudes there so we're like whoa he's like man so you kind of like talking to these guys and those guys like well we've been here since 2002 oh boy i haven't seen you i've been here the last eight years in a row i've never seen you you know and chad is kind of upset because he's made his little plateau spot beautiful dug out places to like hang your rope and places to put your tent and like places to sit
and it's just a really really awesome spot right so we're kind of bummed we're like well do we turn around and go back to the road and just try out one of these other trails because you know as you're driving you just see chow here chow there like who knows where these chows go so we're like okay well that sucks that we unloaded and did all this and have to go back and he's like well no we'll just let's just push further and see if we can cross this creek.
And we'll just go on the other side of this creek and then we'll kind of be out of these guys way and that actually was the move because we ended up getting the moves all the moose would come from that way and then they'd cross the creek and go in front of chad's camp and so we kind of like.
Unfortunately kind of blocked those guys because we're far away from them but like the moose were coming from that way and obviously we would get to them first before they made it across the creek, so and and in hindsight like we actually had probably the best spot of the whole area. Yeah, I've never heard people talk about spots or camps more than a moose camp. Obviously, down south, you have your whitetail camp because that's private property or whatever.
But as far as keeping things secret and as far as making camp nice and having your spot, moose hunting is far and beyond anything else. Like when you said it's, it's like in the token chicken area you talked about, it's an area like the size of, you know, a state or something like that's a massive area.
So you're not even really giving anything away, but yeah, that's, that's tough when there are some people who've cut trails down here in Southeast for access up to mountain goats or access for deer. And they will just not say anything about it. If you happen to come upon one of their trails, you just like use the trail and you don't say a word about it.
You just happen to be there and that is it and people are you know it's not your wilderness it's not your outdoors it's not your your spot but there is definitely something to be said for respecting people who've maybe put some time in to build a trail or improve the campground or something like that yeah oh 100 100 and and you know when you run into that like you want to definitely give enough space for those guys and and go find your own spot and and people you know
you're not supposed to but people be leaving shit you know people leave you know like the the wall tent frame or people will stash stuff in a barrel somewhere and you run across that stuff all the time when you're out just like you know cruising around looking for new spots and you realize okay well this is someone's kind of established area let's take a note of that and make sure we're well beyond beyond their area so you make camp but what's your it doesn't seem like
a lot of i've never been on the moose hunt i like i love talking about it as a way to kind of educate myself. Some people will stay in the same spot for seven to ten days and they will call within 100 yards or so of camp and they're not going out walking around they're not going out scouting it's a matter of something coming towards camp in that vicinity or calling it in and if not then not but you're not seeking out from that point so what's your what's your strategy yes so that that is.
That is the that is the main strategy to do that but you know it's so hard to do that, you know especially for guys that go out and go mountain hunting and and hiking a lot and all that stuff like it's the toughest thing to just sit there every single day especially if you don't see something. And, you know, all of us are, are big time mountain hunters.
And so Chad and, and his, and we went, so obviously we didn't sit still, we would, we would sit there and then we're like, all right, well, there's nothing here. Let's, let's hike back around and see if we can see what's on the other side of this thing.
And so every day, a couple of us would go do a little trek, like a little, maybe, maybe a mile and a half to this other vantage point that you could see, like kind of the, the valley behind the valley we're looking at and of course that's where all the bulls are at and of course you can't get to them because they're just so far deep so we're like trying to call them, from there to hopefully bring them closer towards the camp and i want to say like the fourth day.
We're back there oh can you hear me still yeah i got you okay hello yeah i got you okay sorry my earbuds i had to go i had to go direct to phone so of course like the fourth day we're back there and we could see the hill from from the camp the hill that we're glassing and calling we could see it from back there and so we get back there and as soon as we get there and it's not like easy walk dude there's tussocks and it's you know and my buddy josh
he's you know he's kind of a big boy and he hadn't been on a hunt like that he's like he's struggling dude and sweating and you got to climb up this half the side of this mountain so you get some elevation to look and of course we get all the way there you know it takes about an hour to get back in there and we get there and we look back and there's two bulls right by the camp perfect they go great great great so we're like i told you we should have stayed there and you know it just became
a thing so we ended up busting ass all the way back all the way back to the camp and we ended up calling one and started coming right to the camp but it was already getting dark and this thing came maybe like 400 500 yards from the camp and just kind of stopped in these like spruce trees and it wouldn't come any closer and i was like ready but then it got too dark i was like even if this thing comes like i'm not gonna be able to see it so we just ended up
being like all right forget it hopefully he's there in the morning. Got up early the next morning he's gone he's nothing there it's all it's all fogged in and I think we got fogged in for like two days after that. The weather came, the rain came. I mean, it was snow came. It was just, we were just weathered in, right? And then the last day came around.
We're supposed to leave on the sunday but the season didn't close till tuesday so we kind of had like a audible there like well let's just stay till the end we're finally moving around like the first like seven days they weren't they weren't reacting at all but then in the last like two days, they started coming to call like all right well we can't leave now you know so everyone calls their families and calls your work and whatever and lets them know that we're going
to get a little bit longer and and actually we couldn't we couldn't go back anyway because all that rain had risen that creek so there was no going out of there anyway so we had to basically wait wait for the river to come down to even get out of there but that kind of benefit kind of made us have to stay right yeah and so then the next morning after the fog and we decided it's sunday now then we wake up and there's always a couple guys that would get up really early and
and do start the calls real early you know 5 a.m and all that stuff and then there's different strategies you know i'm more of a crack of noon kind of guy on the moose i do i don't mind getting up early here you know a few times but i think you should take turns and let somebody do it and then some people stay up at night and some people are there at noon when everyone's taking a nap.
But anyway we get our buddy chad he's like oh there's one there's two over there there's two on the hill by the camp and one's and one's one is coming to the call so i get up and i think it's like eight in the morning and get all my stuff on and and this thing got called in all i mean even would have came right to the fire if we wanted it to this thing was just on a rope they say and it was just coming coming coming i got in position and it could
have been an archery hunt the way this thing was coming so close but i was so excited i was like first opportunity this thing presents i'm just gonna take it in my mind that's what i'm thinking these guys are like oh it's coming it's coming they're literally on the camp chairs watching it you know sitting there drinking their coffee and i'm like i'm gonna go down the hill a little bit because what if he comes around this way and first opportunity this thing just barely gets past the street i
just boom i was like i'm gonna hit this guy and then there was a good shot and he ended up going down and i was They're like, man, you could have waited. It would have came all the way. I was like, I'm not waiting. I was like, I'm not waiting for nothing, man. I've been waiting 10 days. I've been waiting my whole life for this moose. So that was a good day, man. Got that beautiful, beautiful moose.
Got Sonny, and we went back, and Brandon made us go back and get beers and get music and all the stuff. And the two other boys went back to the other spot to continue because they had another tag. And there was this monster in the back there that we went going on that little hike back there. That was the biggest moose I've ever seen in my life. I mean, this thing might have been 80, 80 inches. This thing was a massive, massive, just like running.
He had like 11 cows around him, but he would not move from his spot. Like other bulls would come and then they'd leave. Other bulls would come, cows would come, and he would just stay in that spot. Like he knew like nothing can mess with me right here where I'm at. And he did not budge the whole time. But they kept going back and hoping that he'd come out of there, but he never did. He never came out of there. So he's there next year. Waiting for you at the new spot. Yeah.
That's awesome, man. what a year what a year starting off with uh with the rehab and then drawing the tag and then just epic yeah man it's you know i've been skunked the last three years in a row and so there was plenty of room in the freezers yeah for this year so i am very excited and very happy and very thankful to uh to my buddies that came and helped me and and all the food and all the meat we got now man it's It's very, very happy. Yeah.
So what's next on the agenda or what's the winter schedule looking like? So winter schedule, I went back to playing hockey. So I've been skating with the boys here once a week. And my plan mostly this winter was to come to the cabin, explore all these lands around here. Ended up buying this little old snow machine that'll be perfect for ice fishing.
Go explore around and do a lot of ice fishing and and see what happens i don't have any really hunt plans we do gonna do some bird hunting with the kids and and that but mostly we're gonna just do some ice fishing and snow machining around this winter and and then see what happens for next year nice loving it you already put in for the tags for next year or are you a wait to the last minute type i'm normally not my way to the last minute type normally i like
to get it done soon but i have not even looked at it yet. Yeah i have not even looked at it at all like i have no i i do know i we do have a couple plans i know we want to go do the and i know you've done it before but brandon and i were talking about going to do the the terrible archery hunt up there on the north slope yeah, I want to really go experience that. He wants the redemption on that because they went forward and didn't get one.
So he kind of figured, okay, well, this time we need to bring a pack raft, and we'll do this and do that. So I think that's one that's on the books for next year. And then I got invited to – my brother's been going with some of his buddies and coworkers to their camp, their moose camp. And they're older fellas, and they've kind of passed down his spot to my brother. And I've been invited a few times, but every time I had a different plan.
So I think next year, the plan is to go up to my brother's new spot and kind of make that our own now. You know, we've been kind of looking for a place. I've been going on different moose hunt every year for the last, you know, however long, 15, 20 years. To new areas, different spots, float hunts, this hunt, this hunt, four-wheeler hunts, raft hunts. And I never had my own spot, you know. And so now that my brother got this passed down to him, I think we're going to try to make that.
Make that our family's spot nice that's a great plan for years and years to come, yeah i'm excited both my kids are excited to go and i'll probably bring the older one with me this year and bring my buddy brandon and josh out there and do that and until we get bored with that spot i definitely want to do some other float hunts and things like that but you know I really miss the caribou hunting.
I wish, I wish, I know there's that winter 40 mile caribou hunt, but ever since they closed that Nalchina, man, that was like, that was like my go-to hunt. I would take the whole family and go out there with my kids. And I knew the area so well, but since they closed that, I'm kind of like itching for another caribou spot. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many opportunities. It's, it's nice. If you're up there on the road system, you can just kind of drive these spots.
It's a matter of time and miles, but down here it's takes a little bit more planning and then figuring out what to do but we got a lot of cool hunts down here too it's you just.
Do a little planning in advance and see what you want to have for an experience and enjoy it yeah i think wherever you're at in the state i mean there's definitely opportunities around your area and like you said you guys aren't on the road system but you guys have amazing deer deer hunting you know like that stuff like to me i love deer hunting you know it's kind of like a mountain hunt well actually it is a mountain hunting depending which way you do it but i for
us in anchors you got to have someone with a boat that's going to take you to prince william sound and take you out there and the weather's crazy and you have to be ready to go at like you know tuesday and i was like well i can't just go on a tuesday you know for sure so a little envy of that if you guys can just get going after those deer pretty much all winter right yeah till the end of november i think they were in some areas you
can hunt through the end of december but most people kind of stop at that point because they're pretty rutted out and at that point it's a matter of all right you made it we'll let you we'll let you finish this thing out and hopefully you'll be around next year yeah yeah so uh alaska wild project give me the pitch for that and let everybody know where you can find that stuff or order merch or go to events yeah so for as far as alaska wild project we're putting
out the show every week we do have a youtube version that comes out on saturdays the audio version comes out on mondays um we redid the website this past december.
We kind of moved everything to a different easier way to do merch we have a whole bunch of shirts and t-shirts and hats if you go to alaskawildproject.com we're plugging away every week and talking to new new people and i think right now we're booked all the way to february so we have so we have a whole bunch of cool people coming on we are gonna do our which i think were you around this year we're going to do our draw release party again and i
believe that's february 21st i think it's the friday i think it's the third friday of february and that's going to be a double shovel and we're going to have uh backcountry hunters and anglers and a bunch of our sponsors and have a moose call competition and trivia and all that so that's kind of the next main event, for alaska wild project other than doing the weekly shows and and going to support some of these other film festivals and things that
are happening around town yeah i was up there for a conference just before i think i think it was late january i was up there for a conference so i missed out on the on the draw results party and i also missed out on drawing anything so there it is. Yeah i don't have high hopes of drawing anything i think i got really lucky on this on this last one so i don't ever let that get my hopes to up too high on those treasures for sure Sure.
Well, uh, good talking to you, man. Always a great catching up and, uh, I was a big fan of what you guys have going on up there with, uh, with the podcast and everything. So, uh, stay in touch and, uh, thanks again. All right, Jeff. Thank you. See you, man. Bye.