Ep. 310: An Eight Second Encounter

Seth Night here. Good in the special guests, Uh, John Miller. Now, we're gonna play you a titilating little clip here just to get utitilated. I used it twice in one sentence to the late tittilating clip to get you titilated. Tittilate and Phil, we came down this path right here, saw and two cubs cans rolling across tax I put a three in wind meg in the bear's back on top. He shoots a pistol round ten. Mill comes to me. It starts making this way after what six rounds in

it it does there. That was the voice of our guest, John Miller, and engineer who's interesting for two reasons. One he's involved in this is just this hunting season. Right, it was saved a friend of his who was getting mauled by a bear hunting Wyoming. Um, and here's the only reason you're interesting your friends with my friend from growing up, Matt Mallard. Yeah, it's a weird coincidence. He he he's probably he's in a weird spot when he gets asked what he does. Why is that? Because I

hate talking about the brother while he's not here. If you're engineering a part and you need to know how it's going to hold up over thousands of hours of use and abuse. He makes equipment didn't mimics abuse like automotive aerospace makes equipment that mimics the abuse. So you can put the part in a room, turn the abuser machine on and vibrated at certain frequencies, and then watch what will happen. Right, that's correct. That's actually how we

know each other. We work in the same industry, vibration technologies. We're My company is a little more general. But yes, whose company is better? Oh? Of course mine? Ill I'll you know, I always like Matt Mallard a lot growing up.

And um, you know how later in life you look back on dudes from growing up and you sort of have realizations about them that you didn't at the time used to like a nice guy, I'm telling you, And I can't say this about myself, and I can't say to what most people if I review, I don't think that that man ever uttered a negative word about anybody. And to say that coming out of junior high and high school, that's impressive. Just an honorable guy, certainly. UM

he's the one who introduced us, right he is. Shout out, ma'am Millard. If you want to find out what some of your ship's gonna do and it vibrates real bad, call Matt. He'll build a machine for you. Do you want to say what company you work for to plug it? D? Why not? What is it? Did you go to the same school mat went to? I did not, So did you study engineering? I studied in South Dakota State my undergrad and then UH. I got my graduate degree in

University of Minnesota UM. But the company I worked for is UH do we soft so we make test equipment for all sorts of UM R and D, specifically in the automotive, airspace and UH defense, power and energy type markets. Did you when you went to graduate school as you get a master's degree or a PhD. I got a master's degree. Yeah. Usually if you get the PhD, you kind of end up there forever and him to be calling you Dr Miller right now. Okay, before we get

back to this, uh real interesting hunting story. UM, I got a couple things to cover off on once Chester. No, sess not here right now, but I was gonna there's something I want to like. Oh, call call, you know what call set up? Is he available? Yeah? He's available? Should I throw him on speaker phone? Guys want to tell him something? All right? This is about Seth upcoming wedding Chester, Seth. Can you hear me? Steve? You know how I got to become I need to become a

minister to to do your wedding. Yeah, I was reading up on that. It's real easy. Um. I can't remember the name of the church, but it's like some church out of Seattle. I'll become ordained. It takes about three seconds. But you know what I was reading in Montana? You can actually get because you know how you and Chester have this problem where you can't do the walleye tournament. Well we can't do that one? You can? You can?

You Montana is one of two states where you can have a proxy stand in for you at your wedding. I'm serious. In Montana you can have a proxy stand in for you at I could do you and Chester can fish. I can like officiate and stand proxy. Wow, or do you just have cold be there because it's like cal stand proxy. I wouldn't be bouncing back and forth a whole bunch. Yeah, you just let me know where to put my hands. I'll do the rest. Hey, Steve, why don't you tell me this like three weeks but

I actually got married? It is Oh, you got married in Montana three ds ago. You could have done it by proxy. I could have went fishing. So Seth, you're back on um. And this is just a shot out because I know that as we try to court a boat a boat sponsor for you guys, a lot of boat sponsors might be like, yeah, well they're not fishing all the tournaments because what he's got to go to that wedding. Now, I think boat sponsors are going to be perked right up knowing that you, in fact, will

be able to hit all tournaments perfect man. And I'm sure Kelsey will have no problem with this whatsoever. Yeah, ask her about who she wants to proxy. Um, alright, for you, I'll do it. I don't okay, Ill said he'll do it. Whatever, figure it out. That's when you know you work with a good group of guys, is when they'll stand in for you at your wedding. It's problem solving. It's a perk here. It's a perk when you come into get employment here. So good luck, rest

easy now on the Walleye tournament. Everything's in shape, awesome, Well, thank you guys, really appreciate it. No problem, man, my pleasure later seth Uh. Oh, here's the thing. So our season ten on Netflix, which launched in two chunks February second, part two. A bunch more episodes coming up February second. Uh. Spear fishing, I mean Caligro spear fishing with Kimmy Werner. Um that that was one of my favorites. Man, That was a very turned out to be a very good episode.

Go Hunt in Hawaii. Uh, shooting bows at goats. Feral goats looks a lot like a goat you'd find in your farm barnyard. But they're they're just running around? Were they too? Are they tough to kill? What else is in there. It's just there's just so many of them. Any individual one is but when like any and if I said, like, oh go get that one out there,

you might find that to be extraordinarily difficult. But it's like once bump, that one just turned slightly to the right, and here comes another three, you know, I mean, it's just like it's just mean we at all do they smell? Yet each individual one seems to be slightly varying degrees of wariness. There's just so many, and they're not all doing the same thing, and they're not hip to your effective range. So like they have great eyesight, they can see you, but they also are aware of how close

other dangerous things get to them. And I believe the most dangerous thing out there is a vehicle going sixty and then one of the things like you imagine a herd out They all are sort of operating on the same information, meaning like if you went into an area, if you go into an area and like you know, spooked the bijeebas out of like a pack of cows,

it's not like the ones over fifty. It's a way they're probably gonna go leave too, but they're not on that program, and some might be like grazing north, but they're sort of passing a group that's grazing south. It just it doesn't It's just it's there are so many of them. Um. I think we even talked about this, I think now and then. Didn't they in the past cal do a thing and drove a bunch of them

into the ocean? This sounds horrible and despicable, but if you were to get an idea of how many, you quickly see how many goats there are out there and how and if somebody were to say, like, do you think these could out eat the cattle on the ground, then you're the wheels would start turning as to why

that's an issue. And I've heard this from a number of different sources, so I think in some regards it has to be true where a means of culling would be to get a bunch of folks together and do a big push goat jump they call it, and get them down to the cliffs above the sea and try to push the goats into the sea. I gotta point out too, that there's a lot of people pounding it out on public ground in Hawaii, and it's probably not the case. But we're on a private ranch where they

want to get rid of goats. But it's not like you can't just pull over and start, you know, go on, there's a real it's because I asked Jimmy about this a bunch because down on the Captain Cook site, UM, that state park there, they um had to cull some goats and they had a lottery for people to just come pick up a goat to take to take home, just to get a dead goat and bring it home or a live goat live or dad, I believe um. And I was like, is anybody going to participate in this?

And she was like, yeah, everybody's about like the easiest goat meat. But for some reason, it's like if somebody's gonna go head out into the tall jungle grass with their archery equipment, they don't want to go after a goat. They want to go after a sheep or access to her. You know, wherever they are depending hunting farm animals. But pretty much exceptionally take those places in Hawaii and there's place and why were there hunting? Um, you can hunt

feral cattle freezer. There were so many of them while you guys were out hunting. I was just seeing how close I could sneak up to him. Yeah, I'm just for funzies. Yeah. So Netflix February two, Oh Grant pointed out too, it's also Groundhog Day that day, but they're changing the national holiday and meeting or Season ten Part two day. They're gonna make a Bill Murray movie called that.

Um here's another thing. Man struck me like a diamond bullet. Uh, next year's calendar and and you know, and we sold a mountain of funked up old tree stands calendars. Picture this funked up old taxidermy. That's Part two. A lot of material there. We already got the website, we already got the email address set up. So here's what. Here's what we're not doing, much to Karne's chagrin, Krin is into and it's just like it's just karn is into the type of tax dremy where people make like, like, uh,

Harry Potter type stuff. Yea. Like when I say, if I hear the word taxing, which is the thing that comes to my mind, which is like getting your buck stuffed so you hang it onto your wall. You're hunting lodge, what comes to Krin's mind is a griffin. It's just like the you know, uh panda with a pheas his head. I don't know, it's just like where her mind. That's her.

This is not this calendar. Maybe we'll give in the back on the back page, we can give a page with a bunch of things to satisfy cringe needs, and she can just leave hers open to that page all year. It'll be a bunch of these things people make, like a bunch of things people make to ourn't animals. But we're looking for like pictures of legitimate like the worst tax dury on the planet. I have a private museum that I've told you about in Idaho that we can go do a photo shoot and that it is like

just pulling up right now. Don't send in the ones that are already circulating the internet. No, these need to be original, they can't be a favorite. Sets sent one in the idea it was like some guy had it up was like the worst coyote you've ever seen. The caption on Instagram with sir, your Kyle is ready for pick up. Hey, you know there's a really good one where we're going to be next week. That's like I desperately want to go, Yeah, we have the worst mountain

lion mount you've ever seen, um bad. And then yeah, that's the crane that's right up Cran's alley. I feel like that's off that Christmas movie, Ye little kids Christmas movie. So the emails, Oh you know who's got an go Matt Cook those weasels he's got on his fireplace, mantle contenders Navy. Here's what you might need to do, though, I think like, send what you got, and what might happen is if it's if it's appropriate. When we make our selections, we might either if possible, we might and

we'll pay for all this. We might box, we might have you like we'll pay for shipping, but we might have you package your stuff to send us to photograph. But just start making your submissions now, because that's got nothing to do. Um. You can send them to fucked Up Old Taxidermy at the meat eater dot com, or if you're a kid and you're not allowed to swear yet, send it to f you oh at the mediator dot com.

So message to my kids. If you submit, you better submit under f U O T at the meat eater dot com and not the other version and we will start digging through. But your worst old like I'm talking Grandpa's old deer with the newspaper print sticking out of his ear, bad taxidermy great calendar, a lot of audience blowback, Brodie, you better speak to this. Uh, my opinion hasn't changed based on the blowback. So Brodie doesn't even remember saying because that's how much how how I just don't think

it's important. But obviously some people really love their Golden Retrievers. And Brody said they're the dumbest dogs in the world, and he got he might as well have said that he like, Um, I don't know, like beat up mother Teresa, yep, exactly. Anyway, Um, people really love their Golden Retrievers. They're not and and and they're not the dumbest dogs ever, according to all these people that wrote into us. Um. Here's a quote here from a listener named Pat who's a pheasant hunter,

and he ends with an invite to go pheasant hunting. Yeah, I might take him up on it. At the end of that trip he takes his spot. You gotta be like that dog really is dumb Um, that really is the dumbest dog I've ever seen. Uh So for the correction, he says, my dog's name is Tucker, and he's a four year old Golden Retriever. He is not only a phenomenal hunting dog, he's also the best family dog I have ever had, which you know, family dog, I don't. I don't disagree with that. I gotta see the dog

hunt first though. Um. He is with me seven and also enjoys the podcast. He's a damn smart lab the podcast. Um. He can have his dumb moments like all animals, but when it comes to work, Golden Retrievers are not the dumbest animal in the world. Yeah, invited out of the North Dakota, which isn't terribly far away. Who wasn't trying to fend you fat Pat or any other Golden retriever Well Krin said some people were likely actually legitimately mad.

People get worked up about dogs, and you got to keep in mind when you're an angry Golden Retriever owner, you have hours and hours of brushing birds out of their hair with you this stuff. Here's a mad email we got. Okay, but here's the thing. The guy's got a tone of like the guy's got points he's got legitimate points. This guy is mad about our and we've see here's the thing Americ like. You know, I heard a really funny joke one time. Um, A TV executive once said to me, I think he's the guy from

History Channel. Yeah, guy from History Channel once said to me. The only other country our audiences in arrested in is Alaska. But Europe is a big old place. Okay, Europe is a big old place full. You know, how are you countries in Europe? Bunch, it's continent. They got them packed in way tighter. US Americans don't know the answer to that. But they pack in countries like we pack in states.

And they all got their own little governments, cute little garments, all their free this and free that somewhere care uh So we're always talking about what goes on in Europe as though it's like a place and our credit. We have mused, we have mused about finding a sort of pan European hunting authority who would come in and be like, here's the lay of the land, the same way someone might come in and do a seminar on the differences in the way the fifty States, the fifty U s

States the differences in how they manage, like from management approaches. Right, you got like this, you can actually still you know, set a bear trap in Maine. You know, you can ventce your deer in in Texas and like walks through Like here's how they're all different, but here's all they're the same. Different. We've mused about this. Yanni is actually going to Latvia to do an investigative dig deep on lavian hunting. So we're trying to get educated, well at

least know how one of the hunting in Europe goes down. Okay, so letter goes like this, Hey, Steve, you can start making that noise you use to describe people who hears something on your podcast, then rite to you to say you're full of ship that annoying. No, no, no, I think it's not that. It's not no, no, no no, it's this.

So you'd have to replace the ends with d s because in this case, you are full of ship, he says, and you're see this is Here's the thing is, I got this email a long time ago and I just didn't get to it and then it was resent to me. So this sent is resent to me yesterday, just like a heads up, like a follow up on its anniverse. It was the anniversary of the original scent. But it's

all fair stuff, you said. In your recent podcast covering the flooding in South Dakota and the challenges that presents to sort out the legal issues of access, both you and Callahan blurted out righteous intonation at the concept of landowners setting bag limits for fish in the water they own quote own. We're talking about these floods in North Dakota and South Dakota that like you think of a flood like goes up and comes back down, but these

are floods that stayed. So in this old podcast episode, maybe maybe you can find it and tell us what it was called. That was one where we had a guy on that blew was trying to jump up out of his layout B line. Oh yeah, and blew two of his toes off, and you think helew the edges off, but he blew the middle toes out. Yeah, great guy. It happened so fast he still shot at the goose. But during shooting at the goose he realized what had happened and didn't know if he even hit the goose.

He like blew his toes out, shot at the geese then was like, oh, just blew my toes out. I think said his foot fell hot or something. Let me laugh at the brother. Well he was laughing about it, but his foot looks funny. I think we put it on your Instagram. Was this hunting the anthroposyne? Yes, So anyways,

you got farmers who or whatever. You have landowners whose land is now under a lake, and so like state managed fish swim over your land and it's covered in water, and and these are lakes that used to exist, but they've they've taken over farm So there's there's this dispute

like can a farmer go? And what's going to really confuse was we also just talked about the same thing the other day in North Dakota, but I'm talking about we talked about it a year ago in South Dakota, UM where landowners were like putting out strings of Booey's to sort of like hold portions of the lake that sat over their property as their own thing. And it's

just a lot of big piston match. Anyway, in this conversation, apparently calnt I blurted out with righteous, righteous indignation, I'm back to quoting at the concept of landowners setting bag limits for fishing the water they own, of course, being totally this quote from the writer the person writing in of course being totally clueless. You boys compared that to the European system, where landowners set bag limits. He says, not that's not true, and he says it's something you've

done before. I hope this email prevents you from doing it again. Goes on to say, I try to give this information to Calahan, but he just blew it off. My take on you is that you're more of a fact based person who does not blow information off just because it contradicts your finally held beliefs. He attached some articles which John he's gonna read up on a new book reports down the road here when he gets a minute. He goes on to mention a fella that that we're

all familiar with. And I've met Chris Eberhardt, who tragically passed away quite young, um, not too long ago, but the guy right and then says, you know Chris Eberhart. I discussed the problem of ill informed American hunting celebrities with him, and he made some interesting observations. First off, it's pretty typical of you and every other American to dismiss all of Europe as an elitist hunting and fishing

club controlled by wealthy landowners. Wrong on count one. Second, that game management is a private affair with landowners making myriad, potentially harmful decisions all across the landscape. Wrong, continuing to quote it's all dictated by state biologists and failure to follow their management plan will result in fines. And finally, Chris points out that the American model is great and it's phenomenal at increasing populations, However, it sucks at controlling populations.

The European model excels at that. Because private landowners are not allowed to make hunting off limits or restrict the take in hopes of growing trophies, it is easy to manage populations. That is a problem we are facing in many places in the US where private non hunting land

as a haven for overpopulation. Too quick counterpoints. I feel a little bit like the person, like this individual is sort of committing the same mistake that we're committing, where he's generalizing in a way that I'm sure there are probably exceptions. I don't think that all of Europe is by mandate open to hunting. I bet you how many countries they got over there. They count in half of Russia.

M I'm not sure if they're uh so. The other to Shay is that in my life, um, in my adult life, I've really come to rethink what people mean when they say overpopulated wildlife. I had a kid right in m This is not quoting. I had a kid right in the ore day. He's a high schooler and he wanted to interview me for a school project he's doing. And he's doing a thing about how you should be able to hunt bears in his state. You can't currently

hunt bears in the state. And he's like, maybe he wants to make a documentary shown that you should be able to hunt bears because they'll become overpopulated. And I don't. I've never been in a place where I thought there was too many bears, Like I can't think I've ever think of there's too many bears. New Jersey might be

headed that way. I don't know him, right, but yeah, but you also have never been like a farmer in have you populated bear country where bears are raiding your It's it's yeah, I think that When I was Yeah, you're right, I was gonna say it's a very it's a very subjective thing, right, it's a very SUBJECTI thing. When I'm sitting in my dear stand, I seldom of thinking there's too many dear it's a suggest. It's like a farmer probably think there's way too many. A vehicle

insurance person probably think there's too many. Someone in the state that this kid is talking about, probably and he has an orchard, or he's a b person that has what's that called an apiary m what's the beekeeper called? That's that's correct, an apiarist. I don't know beekeeper. He probably think there's too many bears. But a bear hunter who just drew a bear tag, why not think there's too many bears? I'm saying subjective. Um, read the articles.

This is going back and to say, even if you don't want to provide your listeners with the truth, you'll be informed enough to make too. Maybe stop feeding them a pile of horse ship cut the crap. Quit being an idiot. Oh, I forgot a little bit a buttlepart. European hunters are no less passionate and committed to conservation than are we Americans. You do them a horrible disservice and insult them when you slander their system without knowing

shit about it. That's fair, like, it's fair. It's fair point, and I do think he makes it. Also, there's a good point he makes in there also. I can read here and quote that in Germany over six the population eats while the game because it is available commercially. He asks, what do you do? What do you think that does to encourage the general population to approve of hunting. My personal experience is that in Germany the populace looks forward

with relish to the availability of wild as they call venison. Nope, not into that, not into it. Not into it. I'll never give. I should say i'll never give because I like to stay open to information. But I I know, I understand all the arguments how you should be able to sell venison in the areas where there's like a wide consensus the deer overpopulated. But I'm not into it.

I don't think it's a good idea. Well, I think you would think it was a good idea if it meant that we would get your offspring and your afstrings aspring would get to continue hunting in our country. If that was the only way. If God came down to me and said, the only way your children will be able to hunt, as if people can sell venice in New Jersey, I'd have it would be a different conversation until that point. Yeah, that's why I said I'm open

to change in my mind, because he might. I always think of wild mushrooms, just mushroom sitting there on a hillside, mine its own business until somebody puts a price tag on it, and then it said, God damn battle ground of people being assholes to each other in parking lots, packing guns around, all sorts of nasty unts, including giant piles, are human feces you mean at the morel spots, at the morrel spots, or the commercial guys come in and okay, you're like, oh, kind of ceased to be a mushroom

once there was a price tag on it. And that's a thing that can't run away, get in front of other people. It's just plugged right into the ground. You've also got the public land private land thing here that like isn't an issue there, you know what I mean, Like market hunting on public land, you know what I'm saying here, versus like you know, I understand all the arguments against it. I just think that it's also a very interesting argument, something that should make you think that

if we don't have six approval of hunting, do we? Yeah, it's much higher in the US until you started asking specifics, it's higher than six. You call people. You can find all these studies online, all these serveys online. But it only works until you get specific. If you call people and say, do you support the regulated do you support like regulated hunting for food? Right? I don't know. I don't think you gotta put that way. Then you get I don't know. It's it's higher now than it wasn't

the nineties. The minute you say something like do you support um hunting grizzly bears with traps? Trapping grizzly bears? The word trophy in there, Yeah, but any like it would be like if you went instead like do you support hunting game birds with the use of dogs, it'll go down like any detail puts it down. But the general idea of like regulated hunting is acceptable until you put a face to it. If you had a little picture of a little fawn and you're like, do you

support hunting this? Right, you'd probably have a low score. Yeah. I mean, one thing you gotta keep in mind too, it's a big difference between the US and and and Europe is cultural. Right, So you have in the US, we all share a common language and we have slight

cultural differences. But in Europe, I mean it's it's almost, um, it's almost like you know, different ends of the world where you have different languages, you have different cultures, you have different mannerisms, and a lot of that goes and plays into um, you know what the the I guess hunting. Yeah, like less likely to find some well traveled person who has a detailed, nuanced understanding of all the different states game management approaches because you can go to a conference

and hear all their biologists talking in English. Yeah. And I think that even the environment is quite a bit different. So what you're gonna find in like the old Slavic region versus the Scandinavian region versus Spain. You know, they're very different, Um, just language wise, weather wise, check out, though it's not as different as the north slope of the Brooks Range is from the Buyou country of Louisiana.

You're You're absolutely right. And I think the big big is that is that there's you know, it's tough to have somebody that's an expert in all those languages as well to do that, So might have to get three or four people. Karn's gonna figure it out. Sure, there's a lot of people who have traveled across Europe and hunted a lot of different places. Do you know who I bet would know all this stuff? Man, Um, Craig Boddington, That dude is hunted, he's probably, he's probably he's hounty

countries I don't even know about, never heard of. That might be interesting. He's a gun writer, Craig real, real, nice fella. He's military to write. Colonel Colonel Craig Boddington put that new notes, Krim put that new notes and smoke it. A badger found a bunch of Roman treasure in Spain? You like that segue? John's um. The guy was looking at a badger burrow. You know about this count Let's be up here here. Guy was looking at a badger burrow and like some gold coins are laying

out where he'd been digging around. They blame it on the unsea. They blame it on the very severe weather that northern Spain had as though this particularly harsh winter caused this badger to work extra hard and insert its legs and the even smaller cracks than normal next to his den, and this hard winner drove him to discover this cash of coins. It's a nice hypothesis to not once someone went and checked it out. Two nine coins dating back to what between the third and fifth centuries?

A d uh way back when in my youth, when I was guiding antelope points outside of win At, Montana, there was a badger, maybe a family of badgers that had inhabited the win At Cemetery, and I mean just had no respect for the folks buried out there at the win At Cemetery. He's like, hey, you would you respect where my ancestors are buried? But not. Uh. Many times over the course of several years, I witnessed firsthand people shooting into the women went at cemetery trying to

protect the bones of their grandfather's. Yeah, and every year, man, you'd see those tombstones and and uh, things just get like more and more Caddie want us as everything was getting undermined in there see a badger of carrying around an old flask or something like that. Carrying around granny shoulder blade. Yeah, one of the ranch hands on one of the places that we knew had had passed away.

And you know, so we uh were real, real familiar with the date of internment and uh gotta gotta witness the progression of badger activity out there off of off of a known date. Yeah. The this this article about the this article about the badge you finding those coins ends with a very interesting superlative because they wanted to close it with a superlative. So it's it's highly qualified. This was the largest trove of Roman coins found in a cave in the north of the country on Tuesday.

I want to know what happened at the bad I want to know how big a stash of Roman coins were found in the central There's some wealthy match out there that they're not talking about. Uh, okay, do this little uh do your report. This is not a call to action, but this is a ridiculous I think this is ridiculous. Oh yeah, so this past fall, a muzzle loader hunter in Colorado shot and fatally wounded a archery hunter killed. Yeah, well, fatally killed would be redundantouldn't it.

I was gonna say that I stopped myself. I heard you stop yourself. I just wanted people to know that he was dead. Well all right, so he uh yeah, nothing to laugh about anyways. That has spurred people talking about how to make um the UH coinciding muzzleloader and archery season in Colorado safer. Um. Both of these groups have over the years since they've started having these seasons, which is sometimes in the seventies, when they've had a

coinciding UH muzzloader season and an archery season. Right, Muzlowos have a little farther range. Um, you know, it's a rifle. They're both primitive, so they both both archery and mussloders are primitive, so they've both requested to hunt during the

run to make the hunt easier. And so basically the musloder hunters get a nine day season roughly the third week right rodeo September, and archery season goes basically the whole month of September, give or take the dates a little bit, but um, you have a nine day period where it overlaps. To this point. Archie hunters just get to go in full camo. Musloder hunters have to wear just like rifle hunters in Colorado five square inches of

daylight orange. It's a lot um so uh. Since uh that year in the nineteen seventies, there has been three uh instances where hunters have been or archie hunter has been shot by muzzloader hunters. Two of them were fatal um but one a decade, no one more than a decade to five. We gotta get just like a person in here from around it's like, oh we got one. Yeah, it would be like you know, point seven five or

point eight? Oh sorry I met one point five decades yeah, um yeah, man, we should do a lot of math stuff with this guy. Uh. So they're proposing now that during that nine day season that archery hunters, to make it safer, that during that nine day coinciding season, that the archer hunters would also be required to wear the five square inches. Oh they're so, they're throwing down on the full freaking five five. Yeah. I read up. I read up, and it is a full five hondo. Um,

but only while muzzle order season is in. Uh is in and only on public land? Do you know how long that muzzle latter season is? Not only public land only? While most loaders let you report it's over because I'm gona tell you what I would do. Ah, they have they have other options that are getting thrown out there, other alternatives like separating the regular archery and muzzleloader seasons, um, leaving it the same. Ah. But yeah, it's getting actually

voted on today as we're as we're discussing this. Mm hmm. What would you do, Steve? If I was the Emperor of Colorado, I would and I probably wouldn't get it done immediately. I would scrap all this talk. I'd scrap all the orange talk for archery hunters, and I would put my best people. Um, I'll put my best people

on bringing our this is the Omber of Colorado. I'd be like, I want you guys to call everybody all the other states that have elk archery hunts and muzzleloader hunts, and I want you to come to me with proposal that separates the hunts so that when it's archery season, like,

the archery season stays as a archery rut hunt. And we're gonna make like everybody else, We're gonna make Um, We're gonna figure out what that like allocation is and impacts on her dynamics and wintering range and all that garbage, like a very well calculated thing. We're going to figure out how to have archery during the rut. We're gonna run our firearms seasons. Then we're gonna run the muzzloader stuff later, and the muzzleloader is gonna be like on

its own late season. It's not going to be You're just gonna kick the muzzlers right on out of September. Hey, this is coming from a guy that's hunted muzzleloader in Colorado during archery season. Okay, that's if I was the Emperor of Colorado, I would say, I want to buy twenty twenty three season. I want this all separated. You would have to be the emperor to get that ship passed. I think in this hypothetical it's only valuable to talk about like like it's just like if you're talking about

what you would do. I'm just something like if I, yeah, if I was not the emperor, that that won't be the answer. I'm saying, like, if someone came to me with the problem, that's what I would say, because it's it's it's a proven formula all around the damn country it is, but the only place where you've got muzzloader guys and archery guys. Why I can await at the same time. But you've you're all about traditional use patterns, and that's a traditional use. I'm not taking it away.

I'm not taking it away. You're taking that rut hunt away from buzzleloader hunter. Yes I am, which is traditional in Colorado. Okay, but not it's twenty five years. I'm not stripping a privilege. I'm finding a way. Like, what, what's your big I mean, I'm just what's the big qualm with wearing some orange during archery season? I think I know the answer, but like, what what you know? What you're here's the thing I'm here's if I was the Emperor, my plan? Uh isn't I'm not responding. I

should clarify this. I'm not responding to the orange part. The orange part. I would say, there's an inherent risk of going outside with with weapons and wild animals and stuff, and like, yes, we've had a couple of fatalities over twenty five years. Um, we've had a lot more people die from exposure. It's like it's inherently risky. You have a weapon, you're dealing with animals up close, people shoot elk and then the elk stands up and kills them.

That happened last year. It's like, I like, we can't like there is risk involved in life. We're not gonna legislate to We're not gonna like create legislation to prevent a fatality every eight years among a user group that is wilfully going to engage in an activity. That's the first thing I would say if I was an emperor, and I'd say, but I do think it's goofy. Separate them because I just think it's a little bit goofy. And I've done it and I'll do it again, but

I think it's a little goofy. That's all I was just interested in. You know, the state Idaho, all of their firearm seasons require zero orange. It's like if you want to wear it, great. Um. When I was hunting Idaho all the time, Uh, I always have like a blaze orange cap with me. Um, and I'll wear it all the time or wear it some of the time,

just depending on what's going on. Um. You know all these stupid pictures of people when they pack out bucks that for whatever reason, the fad now is to put the antler straight up the way you look like a buck coming You know that way you look like a buck coming through the woods season right? Uh, like a buck back and through the woods. I don't do that, but I always throw a chunk of Blaze Orange up

on top of my pack during those circumstances. UM. I just want to say that the interesting thing that pertains to this kind of station is UM. I was like, boy, Idaho must not have a lot of hunting fatalities, because it rarely comes up that they need to start requiring blaze orange for hunting seasons. UM. But certainly in comparison to the Colorado statistics that Johannes rattled off, Idaho's on par with hunting related UH shootings and fatal shootings. Are they? Are?

They ahead of the curve it went when calibrated for percentages since nineteen eighty, which was the um as is for a lot of places the start of the hunter education program. UM, the average is one point nine fatalities. Since Let's see, since the inception of Idaho's hunter Education program, hunting seasons have averaged one point nine fatality the's and five point eight non fatal shootings per per season. Once someone who's real good on the internet. Find uh find

that for Michigan. I know that the Hunter's Safety program cause fatalities to plummet. Yeah, I think Dirkin wrote an article about that on our website. You know what's funny about Colorado is they don't require orange for small game and bird hunting, like you're using a gun, and yeah, I wouldn't. You don't need it here for bird hunting. But I wouldn't gripe if they if all of a sudden you had to wear an orange hat bird hunt,

I wouldn't have I wouldn't have a fit. But it's just weird how their nitpicking this situation and in the regulations because obviously we're all reading them all the time. It's amazing how much print each state that doesn't require orange for upland bird hunting, how much print they take up in the rags strongly encouraging to wear. And they could have been quicker just to make it that you

head to wear. It would just be quicker. Yeah, you know, it's such a part of upland bird culture anyway, It's like, yeah, like they build it into bird vests and stuff. You know, it's gotta be related to why they don't do. It's got to be like a mechanism to free up wardens to do like more important warden work, I imagine than

just chasing around people with not enough orange on. In Michigan, they felt that the remember being a kid and people saying that the reason they had on a hunters orange laws is sold the game wardens could find you quicker. Maybe you couldn't hide from game wardens. Um you'd be like, well, I thought it was because people shoot each other a lot, right, and you know the bad guys aren't taking those vests off. Yeah, it's like, ah, I'm gonna give up poach now they

passed this hunter sword law. My whole program sunk. Do you want to hear how many people have died in Michigan real quick? Please? Uh? Thirty eight hunting related injuries eighteen deaths between need put that to our engineer, Well, we really need to know how many hunters on each It's that's just seasons, you know what I mean? Is there quite a bit more? And then the other other side too, is that's probably a lot more wooded hunting.

So are you shooting that is like a lot of that people shooting through brush obviously that's unacceptable, but much higher density of hunters. Hey has an engineer? Have you been in? Uh? Where are they? No? I haven't do him. Well, we took him down to put the tiki bar sign up there, and I haven't put it back up, son of a bitch. Phil. You might want wander over later on and take a look at that. Oh sure, the odds of the turkeyo walk pass if you don't do

anything I like that in the woods. Um, thank you, Johnnie. Well we'll get back, Like I said, Durkin wrote a whole thing about this, all right, So ready we can't go on all damn day. Man, do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do Friends and neighbors coming to you. I'll be good, Okay, agree to disagree on that. Should have gone with it, never give up. Well, yeah, there's the Uh we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the seas. That one. So this fights about Yellowstone. Um back to

the wolf desk, fighting the hot springs. Uh. We've been following this off and on for I don't know how long, a few months now, right, this northern Yellowstone wolf situation where uh, wolves that live at Den in the park are wandering past the northern border of Yellowstone onto public land in in Montana and getting shot. And I think it was a few months ago the first one got shot and they've been whittling him away. One of the

first things I want to tackle is do they wander? Well? Sure, I mean that, that's the whole thing, like this, this whole situation wandering, That's the whole thing is this situation is based on the premise that these are somehow quote yellow Stones wolves they got lost, um, which is that's a really good point. He might not think that he wandered anywhere, and if you asked him where he lived, he might point to Montana. Yeah, he goes, No. When

I'm over in Yellos, I'm occasionally wander over there. Yeah, but I just happened to get my picture taken a lot more when I'm over that way, which lends people to think that, Yeah, let's assume that these wolves spend the majority of their time in Yellowstone, they den there, they raise their pups there, whatever, I think that's probably the case. Um. Anyway, I think the last time we checked in, like three of these wolves had been killed.

Now we're up to twenty and uh, the Phantom Lake pack has now considered eliminated after most are all of its members were killed h since October UM, so an entire pack basically is considered eliminated from Yellowstone part of the park. Is the calling it a setback species long term viability. Uh, which that's a debated point. With a setback of research, I have a hard time behind me. Yeah,

I don't. I don't think so. Um these will like Montana relaxed some regulations or changed some regulations just north of the park to allow more wolves to be harvested in that that region of Montana. Um, the park superintendent is not happy about it. Some wolf advocates are not

happy about it, and uh kind of button heads. Park superintendent called cam Shaley has raised concerns kind of calling out Montana Governor Gen Forte to to shut things down, like, you know, just end the season now g and Forte is not having that, and U basically says, you know, this is we're gonna manage wolves in our state, how we're going to manage them. And the season is continuing.

So that's kind of where we're at. Remember that quote Yellowstone is two point two million acres of paradise surrounded by Reality's um you know, like I understand if an entire pack has been you know, essentially eliminated, that you know, there's some concerns there maybe, But um, I just I don't I feel like this as usual, This wolf thing is definitely being portrayed in the media without a real deep dive into things, into the wildlife management. It's just

like twenty wolves killed, twenty Yellowstone wolves. They you're never gonna hear here and referred to it and half probably had names. Sure, they had numbers, for sure, callers and numbers, and well, I mean who did the population level quote? Like that's that, I'll eat my hat if that's biologist who said that, Like, oh that there's only ninety four wolves in Yellowstone? Know that the taking these wolves out is going to have a population level effect on these things?

What's the main headline? Sure? How many puffs are going to be born this spring? Right? Yeah? I mean it's just not and when we're talking we want to talk about a population, talk about a population if you want

to talk about um individuals within a population. But the other thing it's not mentioned is like wolves go to war with each other all the time, and like one wolf will go pack will go wipe out another, and you know, this vacuum of space is created where there are no wolves for a while, and then it's filled back up. You know. I think although these are human, fatality is you're probably gonna run into the same the same situation, like some wolves are gonna occupy that territory

at some point. Yeah. That was my main takeaway from Diane boys podcast with us was that, like that population fluctuates by every year, so if it truly is ninety four, then when all those pulps are born, it'll bump up to h Come on quick, math. Yeah. She said that that at pupping season the population is usually down, then it bounces doubles, and then it probably goes, you know

back down. Yeah. If they're so mad or worried about all these wolves getting you know, killed, then they should stop the other packs from killing the other wolves because that's what kills wolves as Also, that's what she said that the number the lead caused of death and Yellowstone wolves as Yellowstone wolves, Well, I don't even think we'd be hearing about it if these weren't Yellowstone wolves. No,

I don't. I don't think you would. The two primary things that I remain interested in, Like, the main interesting points to me are that we're still the yell the greater yellostone ecosystem, a term that I want to think of a replacement for, um, the g y E. We're still above the objective that everyone agreed to in the early nineties as what recovery would look like. So I'm trying. I'm kind of like, I have a hard time understanding why did that understanding of a recovery objective? Like what

has happened to make that so wrong? Yeah? Why is that recovery objective now dismissed? The other part that I think it's interesting just to just to watch from the sidelines, I guess I'm not on the sidelines. I'm I'm in it is um to what degree is y also national park or any national park gonna dictate wildlife management across its borders, Which is like a really interesting fight, and it has implications for bison, has implications for predators, Like you have a national park and it has its own

rules and it has its supporters and visitors. To what degree does that rule bleed beyond those borders? With these buffer zones and other things we've toyed with. It's just a really interesting, like look at wildlife law and it's it's this fed versus state thing that's building up, like

you're gonna see it with grizzlies too. Yeah, that's like there's an undertone of that, right, there's the undertone of local management, federal oversight, Washington d C. Telling you how to live and that As soon as the debate was happening with the introduction of wolves into Yellowstone, there was also the yeah, but what happens when they go out

of Yellowstone? Like the same breath, same page. There was never a thought that, oh, no, these are Yellowstone wolves, therefore they will stay in Yellowstone and that's going to be that. I'll tell you what happens when they go out of Yellowstone. They go down to Colorado and kill the first cattle and first beef cow in seventy years. Great segue, bread hit it. Yeah, that was way better that thing about those badgers. Um in a in a place Walden, Colorado, where Jannest and I have spent some time.

Um a few weeks back. First livestock predation by wolves confirmed live stock predation by wolves in seventy years just happened. They should put a roadside attraction sign there, like you go down the road and says like you know, a historic side ahead. And they got one those wooden signs of someone chiseled into words. But here's the first. This is where the first UH commins seventy years is killed

by wolf in Colorado. Yeah, and it gets juice here because the I assume wolves from the same pack just killed a ranch dog, a border Collie named Buster. May he rest in peace. Remember New Mexico and that woman's um dog got caught in a snare and the dog they made a law. Yep, that was like, what the hell's that dog's name? Pucci. Let's say it's like Pukam's anti trapping law. The anti trapping law became like Pugam's law. Yep. I want there's gonna be an anti wolf law called

Buster's law. I don't know. This is for a Buster. My buddy, his bird dog just got caught in kyote trap in Pennsylvania. To get it out, he did, yeah, and he was fired up and wanted to get something done about it. The game was, do you want to get some traps? The game. They wanted to see that guy punished somehow. It's like, dude, like, was the guy doing anything illegal? No, there's a name on the trap. It was legally placed. Game. Warden was like, sorry, I

can't do anything. Keep Dog on Leach buddy. Now, rud, who's going to remake the set? What's that is a foothold? Yeah? Dog was fine. Yeah, who's gonna remake the set? Very some scent proof gloves and remake this set? But moving on. Good job Brodie, everybody, Brodie Anderson, thanks speaking speaking speaking on gloves, if you had any chance to try out those, Yeah, we're good. Yeah, I really like them. I'm worried about durability, but so far so Yeah. I wear uh for cold weather,

wet stuff, setting decoys, pulling shrimp pots and whatnot. Like an insulated atlet. Wherever the hell that the atlas Vinyl Love it's called Vinyl Love. You know, like seven eight bucks. I feel like I still like to say the three four bucks, but not three four bucks. They have that that insulated glove on the inside. Yeah, um well no, not the one that comes out, but I have both so that the kind of comes out, which is far superior because when you're the other one's wet. I mean

they're wet for like three years, especially up at the shack. Yeah, you get the kind of where the insulation doesn't come out, you get that soaked. Uh took mom up to the fish shack. Steve noticed that she had the kind where the insulation stays on the inside, and you made that comment to her, and uh, she gripped on the inside with her fingernails, I'm guessing, pulled the liners out, cut a little lying around them. So now they're removable, and fix that some bit. Yeah, my whole life. She made

it removable. That's a thirty seconds out the removable and now it was removable liners. So but dexterity is poor. Um. And then Yanni discovered a new kind word. Man, you could do brain surgery and those things. Yeah, I'm bummed. I bought four pairs. One pair was for me, and uh my wife was like, oh, but you know, my your father in law would probably also like to have a set of those gloves. So I can't even don't even have a set. All my buddies and family are

wearing it. What Showa tamriy s smile to eighty two Yeah, it's like an insulated rubber. When you find online, you'll think you're looking at those vinyl Atlas gloves. Yeah, but I said, you could do brain surgery and you can count coins in it. But um uh, I'm a little worried that I don't. I don't know. I was tipped off by product designer about him, who said that a lot of uh, like ice climbing mountaineer folks that do a lot of climbing in the winter and ropes and whatnot,

that they were using that glove. They're probably good for ice fishing too. You can get a pack of those Atlas gloves twelve or forty bucks on him. That's how I buy them. Yeah, that's how I buy them. Put him Like Steve said, you can actually do things with these, but I buy them in packs. And you know what I do when I leave people, I think this is wasteful. When I leave my fish shack, the last thing I do on my way out is burn my pair. So I'm never tempted to wear him again. It's like guarantee

their full of holes. They get, they get funk. I used always trying to keep them nice. Now I'm like, once they get a hole on them. I just get rid of them. Uh watch this transition. You know how elk you know how wolves eat out sometimes. Yeah, Well, they got an elk hunt in Virginia first whatever mm hmm. Virginia is gonna have its first elk draw. They're opening up an elk hunt lottery. This year. They did their

this is a quick turnaround. They did their reintroduction of elk into Virginia between two thousand and twelve and two thousand fourteen. February one, application period will open for the inaugural hunt. They got bulls running around already that they're They got three bulls running around nine pounds three the hunt. So this will be the hunt for the three season now. The hunt will be October eight of this year, October four,

five antlered tags. Application period opens February one, closes March thirty. It's probably residents only, right, I don't know. I was gonna ask if it was open and on. Great news for Virginia, man. Pretty soon those all those eastern elk populations are gonna start connecting with each other. It'll be cool and that happens. I got a hot tip for

you if you want some easy pickings. Draw the first year. Yeah, I think that you will get a close standing still shot, I imagine, so uh quick note, we covered real heavily and uh what was the name of that episode kran get out of my airspace? What was it called? No? The last thing we do with Dave Wilms, all up in your airspace, all up in your airspace, in all

up in your airspace. We covered this corner crossing issue where um, some guys did a corner jump on a corner that had been Uh they had to use a ladder to get over obstructions that the landowner who owned the private chunks of the corner had put up. And a lawyer wrote into us, He's got a picture of the corner. I'm not gonna tell what the sign says, but it's a no trespassing sign and a chain strung up.

And a lawyer wrote in saying that why is the landowner not being cited for having his obstruction chains in the public airspace? So he's violating the same airspace argument that he's arguing. He's saying, when you step from when you do a corner hop, your body is crossing my airspace. Yet his obstructions, his chains are in public airspace is problem. Your argument for has to acknowledge the argument against right,

Like if you believe in evil, thereby you believe in good. Yeah. Yeah, So he's like, I don't want your stuff over my airspace, so to prevent that, I will put my stuff over your airspace. Man, we took this to Dave Willis even has some Latin that I don't understand, but he said, um, it sure seems he doesn't know. He hasn't looked into it. He's just he said, taking it like so he's like

cursory inspection. He points out that there is a thing called the Unlawful Enclosures Act guarantees the right of access to all public lands UM, which dates back to the eighteen which backs dates back to five. He goes on to say, I don't I haven't done enough research know how it's pertinent here, but there is a thing here, And he said it it's an interesting idea to look into. Um And well, we'll cover updates on that case again sometime soon. Okay, want to speed to the Minnesota deal.

I like it because of the guy bleaches his hair. That's a sure tip off. You know how in these articles they always like to point out if the purp has a like a prior rap sheet that was real prominent in this that UM. I can't remember if it was like domestic abuse or like substance abuse. Anyway, the guy apparently was a bad egg, which isn't supposed to matter. But a Minnesota deer farmer had a Minnesota deer farm. He had c w D infected animals, and what was

he doing with him? He was dumping them on public ground right outside his enclosure. And the what was the DNR found, UM evidently like evidence of prions in the area where these deer were being dumped, And so the deer farm got shut down. They said, you gotta put some up ten ft high bearrier around this to keep other deer and humans out of the area. He refused to do so, UH got charged with several different things. UM. Whereas it Beltram County pronounce where it lays out what

he got charged with. UM broke the law in four ways, moving quarantine deer off his farm, dumping their carcasses on public land, failing to test all his worms dead deer for c w D, and failing to maintain accurate herd records. Included unreported dear death, so they nailed him. Uh, he refused to put up the barrier, so the state of Minnesota did at the cost of a thousand dollars. And uh, they're trying to get this guy to pay for it. It's probably not gonna happen. I don't know, maybe it will.

But anyway, if you found a guy passed out behind a street club in Las Vegas and rolled him over exactly, Um, anyway, he's he's his argument again there. The argument against his argument is that this is government overreach. It's not the kind of barrier they put up around other places. It's it's overstepping what needs to be done. You know, I'd argue, not enough is being done, but uh, I was gonna say better not let Doug durn get ahold of this guy. He sent it to us. But they don't say how

big this guy is. I guarantee would take this guy from Richland County. UM. A good point here is c w D represents a major economic threat. Deer hunting represents a five hundred million dollar industry in Minnesota. And what does the captive servant industry represent economically? And I would think the captains servant industry would say this guy is

a poor representation of captains. It would be like if if someone yeah, this can't be taken because if if some guy had poached like thirty deer, okay, would we be sitting here being like just goes to show them hunters. It's like, yeah, I don't wanna this is not a I don't think this can be taken as as like that's how they are. But it is just like an

extraordinarily kind of like shitty thing to do. Yeah, to take a bunch of a bunch of infected deer then in haulm off off your land and dump them on private land and then act like it's not your problem when they want, I'm sorry, you take infected deer off your place, dump on public land and then be that it's not my problem when they want to fence it off. So more so, do you aren't running around on your little homemade toxic site, which I mean this is. This

is the entire argument wrapped up in a nutshell. It's like this guy read the history of the conflict between the captive servant industry, the UH proposed regulation history of Okay, well, we need stricter testing, we want a double barrier so wild individuals cannot come in contact with captive or farmed individuals.

And he's like, uh, huh, got it, got it? It was a there was a dozen deer more that they Yeah, well, I think at one last point that's important here is uh, this is being watched closely by hunters, officials, lawmakers, and the commercial deer farm industry because what this what ultimately deer farmers end up being responsible for clean up? Wise could like this could have applications on that in the future.

I can see that. Yeah, I can see that this could wind up the chunker grounds eleven acres as we say that, So you just lost eleven acres of public land. Well, his is enclosure was eleven acres m this spot they're they're fencing all right. Yeah, you know people in that area just lost not a catastrophic loss, but they lost eleven acres of public ground, which is now behind a fence to keep people out. Yeah, you're bumbing if you had a tree standing at eleven acres with a nice

deer trail walking underneath it. All right, John Miller, you ready, First thing I gotta say, did you know that John Miller from Minnesota? Yeah, that's how you could use that as John from Minnesota got a baritack. John Miller, you gotta be hard to look up. I bet your old girlfriend's ears can't even begin to try to find you on on on Facebook, John Miller. How many does think John Miller running around? I'm actually the sixth. So my dad's John Miller and his dad's John Miller, and you

know about six of them that you're related to at least. Yeah, hard gutta fun. Okay, how does how does the story begin? Um? So? I think the first thing I gotta start with is, you know, kind of um building up, you know, the situation from you know, the actual grizzly attack. Right, Yeah, you know what when I say how it's the beginning? What were you doing? So we're out out con um and so it's something you do a bit like you like to get around. You do a lot of hunting,

so yeah, I do. I do a lot of traveling for work, and uh, I like to experience a lot of different unique types of hunts and fishing and things like that. And this is my first big elkhonic trip. Actually I've I've had a cow tag before, but this is my first bull tag, and um, so we went out for a gun season. I'm more of an archery guy, like the archery hunt, but um, you know, it takes a lot more time. And so this time we drew general tags and uh we went for the rifles season

and you were in what mountain range? There? The astroca or some people call him a zorkis, Um, how do you pronounce them? Well, there's two different things, um, the Absorker arrange, but the Absorkies is something different. Right when people say I thought it was a city at one point in time, but then I've heard people use it, there is a there is a little town over there. Yeah, okay, well anyway, um, so we went out and season started

on October one. So in October one, one of the guys in the group shot a bull and uh so we quartered that out. One of the guys in your party, correct, Yeah, So there were six of us in camp and one of them shot a bull on October one, and so we quartered out, brought all the meat back to camp, hung it, and uh, but left kind of the I guess the gut pile and carcass, if you will, deboned and as one does, as one does, Um, I'll just throw that in there. Some people didn't think that was

it would be a lot to pack. Um. So there was a carcass sky in that area that night. I went out on October one in and to a different area couple miles south and didn't see anything. And with horses are on ft um. We had horses there in camp and we'd kind of used them, but you know, if you got close to something, obviously you tie up the horses and go off on foot. But um, so

let's just fast forward to day two. UM. So October two. UM, you know that on that first day we had seen a herd of elk beyond where that first bowl was killed that got spooked after after that, UM, so we went back to see if you know, that herb was still there. And so we actually we went up to this this really nice knob where we could see this whole valley and it's kind of a burned area. So just kind of describing it for the listeners. You know, it's really open, really and you could see quite a

long ways. UM. The part of the area that was um that had vegetation was all burned off, and then there was a really barren ridge that kind of went down and while we were glassing, we saw a herd elk at maybe yards to our north and and we were sitting there and we're no hurry. They were all bedded down. We could see the carcass from yesterday. Um, and so we we even talked about it. We looked at it and it's how many yards from you I would say at that time about five Um, so it's

it's a decent bit. But and and you know, we could see a hundred two hundred yards all around that carcass, and and it looked like it hadn't been touched or moved or drug around or anything like that. And obviously see elk quite a ways out, and so your your focus kind of switches to, you know, to the elk.

And so we started to make a play on these elk, um me and another guy and um, so you know, we started walking down, walking down this ridgeline that there was a trail that kind of it was cutting to the side of this hill and to probably ten ten fifteen yards to our to our right. Um, it was almost like a cliff that dropped into this real big valley.

And uh, you know, we're walking towards the elk at yards and we're taking our time, stopping kind of glassing to our left because that's where we can see everything is often this burn vegetation, and you know, we're just looking for we don't want to spook anything to our

herd or anything like that. Taking our time. And I would say probably on that we would walk about a hundred yards, stop glass a little bit, you know, taking our time, and you got a blunt to the right, You've got sort of it rolls over a blind spot

but then drops off sharp. Yeah, and and you know we've been over there and looked at um kind of over that that ledge and it really you would not expect anything, you know, it's just it's just I would say, six hundred feet kind of down into this big valley and you know, there's just there's really not much there. Um, so,

are you going towards the gut pile? We are, but we're probably we're probably gonna stay the closest we would have gone on that on that trail would probably about a hundred yards, you know, but we're we are headed in that general vicinity. And uh so, I would say, in our third stop. But you've already seen the gut pile this. We've seen it and everything around it. Yeah, and it's just it's not disturbed. Yeah, so you're kind

of your guards down little bit, you know. And uh so we stopped maybe the second or third time, just to glass to our left, and I just remember hearing it was more like a squeal than anything, your brody squeal. Let's let's hear your best squeal. It was like that a little bit more aggressive than that. Ma, just can you can? I don't even to embarrass you, but I

just like, yeah, I knew you're gonna ask me. Um, let's let's do like a like do like a similar to similar to like almost what you think like a wart hog or something we do, you know, yeah, kind of who did that? Um? Yeah? And so and so I'm I'm literally looking and both of us, both of us are looking through our binoculars to our left, you know, into the burn, and you hear the when you hear

the noise, which is effectively over our right shoulder. So so we look over our right shoulder and there is a surly bear at it's ten a fifteen yards, I mean it's close, and it is running full speed ahead, and and there's two cubs trailer and coming from the direction of the gup pilor like as far as you know, like not related to the gut pose. So well, we can come back to that, but over the cliff effectively,

so to our right. She came up out of that stuff, not out of the stuff I meant really off the other edge is a rock cliff that you would you would struggle to walk up without ropes. It's like a ridge line right skyline. It's a ridge line. She's coming from that stuff. She's coming from that ridge on the other side of that ridge. And you know, I would say, I would say, so, so let let me kind of

describe the I guess the situation here. I'm standing with my binoculars looking to my left, look over the right, over to the right, and there's the silence two cubs. And you know, the first thing, you know, the first thing I would love to say, The first thing went through my mind was like, let's fight. You know that that is not what happened, you know, is how do

we get out of this? Right? So I took a couple of steps back and I watched that that sou basically um kind of redirect redirect her her trajectory and you know it started. It went for the other guy and ahead of you. He was ahead, he was ahead of me. Um. And I may have seen it, seen her first because I kind of had a better vantage point from looking over my shoulder and whatnot. And so you know, I kind of described that as almost like a national geographic film of like watching a bear attack,

like a clueless animal or something. It was just real graceful, just real fast, and like her mind was made up before we saw her that she was coming to eat and um. And so you know, I've listened some of your podcast and you talk about your big mistakes. I'm gonna talk about three of my big mistakes right here. So I have a have a I have a cannabaar spray. I also have a rifle. Um, I do not have a side and we can talk about that in a second. But um, you, hare's only so much gear guy I

can take, but in my rifle. So I'm kind of a meticulous guy, right. I like to keep my gear really nice. And you know, I've kind of changed my mind since this incident, but you don't want it nice anymore. Well, I had a scope cover on, which is a little absurd, right. So I had a scope cover on and UM, I had UM. I had bullets in the magazine, but not in the chamber in my scope as people do, yes, as people do. UM. And I had my scope set to it wasn't max. I think it was at ten power.

Now I do think you're dumb. The first two I'm like, I could see it. I could see it. But that's inexcusable. That is excusable. But I'm not saying that from a bear persuctive. I'm saying that for like no doubt, no doubt. Um. And And the other thing that's have you been the guy who killed the elk the prior day? Then I'd be like, sure, I get it, you're sure long shot never adjusted it. The other thing is, you know I kind of got into, um, you know, some some long

range stuff. So I really you guys probably totally arguing the here. I like the first focal plant scopes, UM, nobody uses them from hunting for really like for hunter. UM use I guess you correct me if I'm wrong, But do you have do you use the first vocals? I've had them, but no, not not on my hunting guns. No, Because the big complaint there is obviously like you know, your cross hairs are real fine when you're zoomed way out and whatnot, and so um, anyway, so I had

the first focal plant scope scope. That's what you're saying is as you dial the scope, the cross hairs get thicker and thinner. Correct, like the cross hairs magnify out, magnify it. And what's neat about it is like you're you know, your Christmas tree below is always correct regardless of what power you're on, right, And so it's great if you're making five, but not I think you can have Yeah, I should say that because I have. You can have those that are extremes, and you can have

those that it always stays pretty nice. I'm not sure you don't they you can get them where it's like very fine threads right or where it's sort of like uh like a usable thickness no matter where you are, where you can still find it against a dark object. Sure, but I think we're getting hung up. Yeah, um, well just one last comment there. If you have illuminated, it really helps. But anyway, um, there wasn't time to throw that on. But so anyway, I've got some issues here.

So within I would say, let's kind of run down the timeline here. I have no idea there's a bear. Looking through binoculars, I see a bear, and then within I would say, within a probably a second, maybe a second and a half, that bear is eating the individual in front of me. Um, it's on top, just going to town. And I actually can't see describe what a grizzly bear eating your buddy looks like. Well, um, so there's so. I would say. When it was a couple maybe ten feet away from him is when I started

scrambling to get a rifle. So I missed. I missed the the event where it smoked him, like you know J. J. Watt would like, you'd expect a linebacker just to blindside somebody. That's really about what happened. Um. And from my vantage point at this time, I can't see a human at all. I can see just a bear and I can't see the head, but I can see the neck muscles like it's devouring, right, So I can see like they're both

looking away from me effectively so that the bears. I can see the bears rear and I can't see its head. Is your partner on his belly around his back, you know, tough dude, great, great reaction to everything. He actually got on his back, and what was going on at the time was he had stuck his left arm out trying to draw his side arm, which is in a shoulder holter. But the bear, it immediately just grabbed his hand. And so from from my perspective, I can't see any of that.

I could just see a bear and I know my you know, my buddies underneath him, and so that's that's what I see. So I remember a couple like very cognitive decisions going through my head right The first one is how do we get away? The second one is, you know, we're not getting away? This is this is

happening right now. And so I I grabbed the rifle, chambered around, threw the cover off, and brought it up, you know, to my cheek, and and uh, surprisingly, I remember like immediately finding the bear, you know, like you would think the bear and only the bear, you know. I think I must have been having like two eyes open or something. It's I seemed incredibly confident where I was aiming at that time, you know, especially incredibly confident.

And I remember thinking to myself, like, well, I can't shoot here, which is where I would like to shoot, because I'm shooting you know, three D three hundred wind mag twitter and eighty five grain bullet at six yards ten yards and it's probably coming out the other side, right, so you don't want to you know, I didn't want to shoot there. And so what actually went through my head was, you know, if if I just shoot, the barrel probably gets booked and run off, which is well,

we can get in that later. But so I remember just aiming where I thought kind of the vitals were, and I was like, well, I can't shoot here, so I just brought it up to kind of the higher

part of its back. That's what I was kind of trying to explain video where I had an adrenaline running, but so I kind of brought it up higher on the back and just squeezed and she went off, and that that bear immediately let up turn earned and started charging me, and and I guess I would describe it as like, you know, the the film kind of changed, right, So at first it was this now this beautiful national geographic film of a bear kind of going going in for a kill, and then all of a sudden, it

was like the Revenant where the bears angry, really angry, and so um, so the bear immediately starts letting up, which actually allows um, you know, the other guy to to to draw his side arm on his left hand, draw his side arm with his right and kind of get up while while discharging around, which was awesome. And I remember thinking to myself after the shot, Um, you know, I really hope that you know that the individuals live

on the other side. And so I remember kind of looking around the bear and he was standing up and you know, like victory, right, and immediately followed by oh shit, now hold on when he's getting up he said, he discharged a shot too. He also did, Yes, so the bears between you guys, consider your location as you were of his location. Um, I think for sure. Honestly, he kept his wits real quite quite well. And he's got a ten millimeter pistol, you said, correct, correct, you know, Um,

the sample size is very small. But there was a statistic floating around after these guys that just sort of meta analysis of all these bear encounters, and it was in context of spray versus pistols, And I do you guys remember this that pent of the time a firearm is discharged during a bear attack, it hits a person. Geez, it was a lot. That's crazy. I can think of like multiple stories of things just in the last few

years of that happening. Well, I don't know, but like I said, man, it's like, how big is this saying? You know, I don't know. I don't know about I remember that was just that was out there floating around. Um. So, so back to the story. So the bears now charging me another you know, he discharged the one round and

then I remember trying. Um, I basically took two steps back, and you know, actually after the incident, I listened to your guys podcast about you diving out of the way, Steve and and um who is the other individual, Alex maybe from Alex Messenger, the guy, the canoe guy. He also out of the way, Like you guys are crazy. My my philosophy was get on my back. So I dove to my back and I had my rifle basically kind of a front of my neck, and I stuck out.

You know, I brought my foot up and I my philosophy was kind of a hail Mary, I'm gonna kick it in the face. I'm gonna kicking this out. There's no time to rack another round, no, I mean and and actually, UM, I think subconsciously I tried because like my my hand got jammed under my bolt which was out. So I had pulled the bolt out and hadn't even

really been able to drive another round in. And so I'm on my back and the bears coming, jaw open, snapping, and you know, it gets to that last step and I kick and I just kind of mess and I hit something, you know, but I miss, I don't really hit anything solid, right, and um, and the bear now is all of a sudden kind of quartering away and you know, trying, trying almost I don't get away or

circle around or or something. But something happened, right, So so the other digital follows the bear, you know, it gets um gets quite close. And when the bears kind of circling around or or making its way away, UM, he's looking at his his hand, which his thumb is quite quite mangled. UM. And and I see his pistol, and so I go and grab that pistol. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm not doing around two of this, UM, and so I put three more UM pop pop pop

and uh and a real quick yeah. And the bear is not that far away when you're in the video, correct, And at that time the cubs were actually um and I kind of left that out. The cubs almost were near me almost the whole time. And so I am I'm kind of finishing off the bear with the cubs running past me to go to that south um, and the bear kind of was the what was the age class on the cubs? Um, the year cubs last year?

You know, it's this year's cubs and they were real small um and so yeah, so um, effectively, you know, five rounds are fired, the situation is neutralized, and now it's time to kind of attend the medical situation because that's obviously the as. So the bear has been shot twice, it runs, you shoot a cup more times and then it does like piles up like dead or and dead or like piles up like and then rolls round for a long time. Um. There was no like, you know,

like a death moan. People talk about death moans of bears. It really didn't do that. Um. So so just to kind of run through it, you know in fast you know, in fast motion, so maybe one or two seconds before the bear is on top of the other other individuals. The bear is shot, you know, probably half a second second. UM, well on top Um then immediately charges me. You can imagine how long that took. Maybe half a second or a second. And then it's trying to get away. The

three other shots are fired. You know, I grabbed the pistol, fire three other shots, and the whole event I would say six to eight seconds from from not knowing there's a bear to firing the last round thinking to myself that did it. And and I would say the last round it kind of just buckled, you know what I mean. It just you know when you hit something that you're like, okay, that hurt, you know. Um. And so so then the cubs go and they go and hang out on on

that sell and uh. And so then we're kind of addressing the situation. And so UM, I go through my pack and another mistake we also, I don't have a I have a first aid kit back at camp right, I don't have any in my back, but I do have a spare set of woolf socks. And so we kind of put the thumb back in the where it's supposed to be, and and I wrapped one sock around real tight and almost tight like a knot or a splint, and then put the other sock over the top just

to kind of apply pressure to the wound. UM, and then obviously keeping it elevated and whatnot. UM. Pretty much that whole area we did not have any cell service, but actually right on that ridge, UM, we were able to call nine one one and and uh explain the situation. UM. At that time they mentioned the helicopter or to get a helicopter, it would have come from Riverton, UM, which is little ways out, and they couldn't take off for another hour. So as you were talking, three or four

hours before a helicopter would come. And really, if you looked at the you know, the scenery, it wasn't really somewhere you could land it nicely. Let's just say that. So we made the decision to ride out. UM. So UM we contacted the other UM a couple other folks in the hunting party, and they brought the horses down UM and we rode out, and uh we were met

by a mirage of people that obviously at the trailhead. UM. You know, you got your game in fish UM Search and Rescue teams, helicopter that had landed the trailhead, um ambulance, so on and so forth. For it was actually, um, this is kind of a funny. Jim Zombo was there, um, just to see what's going on. Yeah, I'm not really sure. Um and uh, you know, it's kind of embarrassing probably on my my behalf. But another I that was there was like, hey, you know who this is? You know?

And I look at him and no, I have no idea. I did not know who Jim Jumbo was at the time. But um, so anyway, I can't say i'd recognize him either. So just there would be like, what's going on? Um, he must live nearby. Yeah, I know he's in Northern Wyoming. He's playing the Captain Quint character. Like when you get there, he's like, I'll catch you a bear. Yeah, is your buddy real quick? Is your Is it just his hand

that's messed up? Yes? So, um, it seemed like from my perspective that that took a long time, but I think it was quite quick. Um. And and yeah, um really the uh, the only the only real injury is the hand, um you know, I had. I actually had a little tiny scratch on my on my shin which I still have a little bit of a mark there, but from the bear, that's correct. Yeah, what's that do through nail? You know that that half and when I tried to kick and it tried to lunge. Are you

just hoping it's the bear? Could have been it's a little it's it's really just it'll be gone. And it's like it'll be gone in six months. Right, it's not really scar but I would go see if someone could help me keep that. Um so you you made it to the trailhead. I'm really curious. On the hook for the helicopter. Um so there was um the individual um that that got that needed the quick medical attention actually had helicopter insurance. Um So not necessarily on the hook,

but good timing. I guess purposely get it for that hard or you had it for work. He had had it for UM some time before. So um you know, you never you never know when you're gonna need it. But it makes you wonder if I had that, do you have that without knowing it? I wonder is it like a real specific that I don't know? I think I think we we have God that was somewhere when he when you thought he was being eaten barrows on top of him. Uh, what was what? What's his perspective?

What was going on? Um? His perspective was kind of like that. It was playing with him like a dog almost, Yeah, mauling his thumb. Yeah. So it stayed on his hand as it grabbed his hand, grabbed his hand and pushed him down. It stayed with his hand in his mouth. Yeah, his hand was in its mouth the whole time, in her in her mouth yeah. Um. Maybe not even plural, um, but close, you know. Um. And it's what's amazing is no claws were used, right, I mean you would think

that you got the leverage. You're the bear, You got the leverage. All you gotta do is stretch the stretch the arm out with one of your claws and you I mean, who knows, she probably would have gotten to that if you hadn't a shot or sure. Um so um. So that's kind of the um. That was the first run through, and that was kind of what I had learned and and I guess um went through the first time. Then then all of a sudden, now it's kind of

what you're bringing. Now, now we gotta bring the game and fish back, um to to evaluate the situation as as everyone would know and understand. And so yeah, uh this just for listeners, this is a the grizzly bear in the Rocky Mountains and lower forty eight is listed as threatened and has endangered species at protections, which means that, um, if you kill one, they're going to make sure that

it was legal. And it's like obviously legal to kill one in defensive life, but they're still gonna come check it out. And I believe that's the only reason that you can kill it defensive property right or game or anything like that. So UM, so we ride in. UM there's uh, four folks from the state that come in. UM. There's a biologist, um I think kind of an apprentice. There's the game warden for that region, and then his supervisor. UM. So we ride in about six miles so it took

about it was about six miles there one way. UM. So we ride in six miles UM and then I basically reenact what happened, UM, and and it was you know, pretty clear, there was blood trails and and things like that. And actually when we arrived, UM, you know, the cubs were still there. UM. So we we they have to do an investigation. So, um, we needed to remove the cubs from the from the sow in order to perform

the investigation. It's in the news that they euthanize the cubs. Um. And so I go through, I kind of uh, you know, run through, reenact my position, reenact to the other individual's position, and kind of follow, you know, where the bear had come from and and gone, and you know, the whole just to kind of paint the radius for the listeners. You know. Um, it starts maybe ten or fifteen yards to to to my right and ends maybe ten or fifteen yards to my left. So the whole thing, I mean,

the whole situation is a thirty yard line. I mean it's very close quarters. Um. And so I wonder above treeline again, so it's it's all clear field of view, not a lot of brush, not a lot of deadfall. There is, um, you know, where where the grizzly died was kind of the beginning of the timber line, but it was a burned area, so it's kind of uh, you know, it's easy to see, but that's where. So it was kind of a burned area. Just to paint

the picture. Um, And so UM, one thing they wanted is they wanted to find some brass for the for the investigation, if you will. UM. And so I knew there were five five rounds. UM. The rifle was obviously easy one to find. UM. And UM we only found one one of the pistol rounds. But one of the the one pistol round that we found, UM was actually UM kind of covered in blood. So the casing was covered in blood, which, UM, it's kind of interesting and we can kind of I think I have some ideas

of where that came from. UM. And then and then the next step in the the the investigation, if you will, is to really you know, go look at the story and then look at you know, the the evidence or or the I guess, the makeup of the bear. How long is this whole like investigation procedure taking. Are they all like detail business oriented like taking their time or um? Yeah, it's pretty thorough. Um, you know, it's obviously it's not something that happens every day. I think they mentioned that

I was the fifth um that year. Um. However, it was the first bear recovered. So I don't know if that means that somebody got attacked and got away. I don't know, and I don't know if that means, you know, shot was fired to the bear. I'm not really sure what that means. But um, you know, the the ride obviously took the longest amount you know, you're twelve miles

round trip, um. But the investigation, I mean it took you know, hours, um and right there, Yeah, I I assisted in that, so you know, it's kind of from my perspective, it was kind of um, you know, it was kind of neat to be a part of that, you know, because you know, you you know how it played out, right, and then so then you can see, you know, where the individual bullets landed on that, on that bear, and you can kind of then start to put the pieces together on like why did this happen?

Why did it play out that way? Why did the bear um change direction and not lunge at me at that last second? Right um? And so there were some things that were really really evident, um. And so skinning out the bear, you know, I mean the first thing that was remarkable and it's obvious kind of when you say it out loud now, but the difference in damage from the three wind bag to the ten millimeter right I mean, it's a high powered rifle versus a handgun, right,

so you obviously expect a lot more. But so let's let's kind of talk about the the individual bullets. Right. So the the shot with the rifle had entered um kind of upper mid but the right side of the back of the of the bear, and the exit hole was kind of out near the neck front front, right quarter, and the exit hole was quite large. UM. And so that's the first thing that you're kind of like, well, I'm glad that exit hole didn't you know, contact anybody. UM,

And you know that's um. But UM. Then then we kind of started looking for more more bullet holes just to see, um, you know, play it out and so zipping out you know, more of the more of the hide. UM. There were two ten millimeter rounds that had passed UM through are the kind of like almost gut shots really UM.

And you know, when you're shooting a running animal in a couple of yards, you never know, so there's a kind of it was basically a clean pass you know, kind of you know, a rear gut shot that kind of came out the other side, and then another one that kind of came out the other side, so like kind of quartering away gut shots, if you will. Two of those passed all the way through, all the way

through um and what do they look like? There was a lot of trauma there or so those were using those buffalo boar rounds, which you know deep penetration and a lot of a lot of people talk about deep penetration and whatnot. And one thing in the brain, another thing in the right soft parts, right right, and so you know, originally we found those three shots, and everybody knows they're gonna punch it right between the eyes, right. I mean, when you're like getting already, you're like a

long I hit him right head exactly right. And so every you know, we found those three shots originally, and you know, I kind of I was thinking of myself, there's gotta be more, right, like you know, and I know we shot five times, and so I kept carving away and I actually found another one that was almost like dead center of the back in the vertebrae, and it kind of like got lodged in the vertebrae, and like I don't know if I got tracked, you know, like there's like a hollow area there and kind of

got lodged in there. I kind of thing that was the one that clammed it up, you know what I mean, almost paralyzing it the final shot there um. But you know, so so that's really um did you find the last shot? Um? You know it could have been on there um. Sometimes it's hard to see through fat when there's not a lot of trauma and you have just a bullet, you know, a bullet hole. Um, it's just you're you're searching for quite a small target and you know, we're not really

caping this thing out. We're not saving a cape or anything like that. So it's not like it's a nice clean you know. And I don't get the impression with the spine shot you were like, oh, here's this massive broken spine on this bear. No, it was clearly so that one we found an entrance hole. And uh, I mean the Game of Fish had a metal detector and we're trying to like find the bullet and carve it out and whatnot. We never found anything, but um, we didn't spend a ton of time on it. We also

didn't really have the right tools. They brought a melo detector, they did. You know, me and my six year old just got a melod detector. We're gonna get into that big time. I'll save that for another episode though, sure sure, um and so uh yeah. So those are the four bullet holes that we found. There could have been another one kind of in the back or in a fatty air. You know, these guys taken note of all this stuff.

You know, they're taking a lot of pictures and notes and collecting samples and um, doing stuff that's you know that I'm not really paying that much attention to. You gotta still be a little razzled. Is that a word? Razzle? Yeah? The same day, same day, Yeah, same day, long as day. I hapened right away in the morning. I mean it happened. I think it was like some fifteen am rolled out,

rolled back in again. I'm a little surprised that they kind of put you back into that situation after going through that, I would say, they didn't put me in that situation, you know, And they weren't. I mean they are certainly actually they I got a lot of respect

for the folks that we worked with. I mean they were they were very good about it and very did you professional and did you get a sense of like their attitude like oh no, not again, or like they're like, you know what kind of how they felt about the whole like grizzlies in general and probably not. But you know, I think they were real professional about it. You know, um yeah, nobody likes nobody likes um. You know, they were certainly more excited to investigate a dead bear than

a dead human. You know. Their thing is it's got to set the mood when you have an injured person. Were they're not going into it like these guys panic, Sure he shot at forty yards away just because I was looking at Yeah, you got like a wounded dude, so probably you're probably going to not so much with your like, uh you know, inspector mode. Right. Yeah. I was just curious if it's like, oh, the's like if they had yeah at the trail, had did they split

you guys up and get each story? Um? I mean it was such a cut and dry story, you know, like like Steve says, you know you've got a guy with with with a bite. You know, obviously you're close if you're getting bit um. I do believe they took a DNA sample of the bite to match it to the bear. Umi, a friend of mine who was a journalist. He was always when he was interviewing people who were

involved and stuff like this, he was always, Um. One of the things he would look for is anytime someone said and then I proceeded to he said that that always sort of made like a little alarm and his head go off, like they had thought about what they're gonna say, ahead, it's out, and then I proceed you to do. And you said, you'd be surprised. How often do you hear that when you're hearing a story, that

maybe everything doesn't add up right right? Um? So you know that that was, Um, that was kind of the investigation. So as you know, they took recording of what I you know, me going through the motions. Um. You know, the bear was kind of dissected, um, and you know each shot was kind of analyzed. Now, they took a bunch of pictures and documentation and whatnot. I didn't, um, you know, I didn't really know if that was my place,

you know, per se did they impound your weapons? They keep your No, they did not, um you know it the day I'm sure impounded your bear hide right. Um. They actually kind of just destroy everything, um, you know, and yeah, I respect that. I mean, you know you're not. Oh they're taking they're taking the hide, so nobody else does you didn't? No, no, Um, you know it's pretty they're they're pretty strict about you know. Um, everything's got

to be destroyed or you know, there's no there's no trophies. Right. Let me tell you a quick story. Understand, tell a quick story. In Alaska, they auction all that stuff off. So they have these like personal like bears killed for property defense, like life and property defense. Um, when you kill one, you guess sam at the hide and school and they have an auction. I know about a guy that skinned his like he did. He skinned his like the gutless method and split it up the back. I

don't know why. Okay, he went to the auction. They got all these damn bears and there's only one so he can know which one to say skinned up. I don't know if he was gaming it at the time. That's just how he did because they said bring the hide, So whatever reason, he made a slip the back and somebody got to hide off the thing went to the auction. God his bear and he said he knew it because like, who else would do that? That's what I heard. I don't know the guy, but I heard the story. It

could be like a live story. I don't think it's a lie story. Yeah, I do recall, um specifically the skull, right. Um. The supervisor there was and they all feel really bad about everything, you know, I mean they're they're super understanding and yeah, and he was kind of like, you know, I hate to tell you this, but I need you to to give me the skull. You know, my hands

already dirty, and I'm just curious. Right, So I got it all out and scutted a lot of it out, and so I cut the head off for him and handed it to him. And they destroyed it with like hatchets or hammers or something like that, just to destroy value, just to Yeah, I mean, which, whatever did you end up? I have a problem. I understand all that. Like, sorry, you end up getting an age on the bear? Um.

You know there's gonna be an official report on it. Um. You know, I'm not able to get my hands on it for for some time, but I'm I'm thinking that will all be in there, and I'm curious to read it for sure. Yeah. No, they're collecting a lot of data. Did the UM what what wound up being the relationship you have with the end of the guy that was getting his hand mauled up? M Um, like like what

kind of happened when you guys had a chance to talk? Um, you know is kind of a sombering, sombering moment for everybody. You know, UM is you know is uh is once in a lifetime experience. UM. You know, I think we hope, we hope. UM, you know, we built a lot of respect for each other, you know, in the way that the situation was handled, and um as he uh was is he pretty rattled about it? Was he pretty strong about it? That he was really strong about it? I mean,

Um'm not afraid of the mountains. No, no, no, you've got any different feelings about Grizzly bearer country besides some procedural ship No, UM, you know, I got a lot more respect for the animal, that's for sure. UM. I definitely, UM yeah, I definitely have a lot more respect for

forum grizzly bears. And you know, my my mentality of um staying out of those situations and having different equipment and different um locations of equipment will will be will be changed where it was on the outside of my pack. Did you ever think about grabbing it? Um? Hold on like outside of the pack, like unreachable reach on the waist belt like right here? Do you ever think about

grabbing it? I didn't. I mean, like in hindsight, UM, I would say at the moment, the thought process was the rifle is the job, you know, I mean it's kind of like, what are you gonna blind everybody here and hope for the best? You know. Um, I didn't spend I didn't do well much time thinking I'm gonna go after my bear spray, you know what I mean? UM, had that been sixty yards out, yeah, reolutely I think

I would like to think that. I think my first choice at sixty yards out in that situation would have been bear spray. So no one what you now know? What would be your like, what's your bear protection system

the next time you do it? Um? So before that incident, you know, I really I really had this UM this I'll say it false mentality that you know, if you if you shot a bear with let's say like a forty five a CP or something like that, you know, like it would realize that it's, um, it's up against a real match here, and it would probably deter it and leave after shooting it with a three windmag and

watching it charge like a a very piste off animal. Um, bigger the better for if you have to shoot um first, First of all, question on that could when you guys did the netcrops see did you got it to see? When you said that the the path of that went, did it cut? Did you catch vitals on that? I personally gutted it. Um. The heart was fine, The lungs looks fine, the liver looks fine. The intestines which the bullets passed through. I never even saw split in that.

So you're three hundred wind bagground went above the vitals, above the vitals. Yeah so um, so actually didn't happen. We didn't really put this all together t you know, obviously then the whole thing's done. Right now, we're the we're back in camp and we're talking about how crazy the event was, and you know a couple of takeaways there.

You know, we just started talking about, um, you know, the just the odds of the to two sets of odds, right first set, you know the odds of getting in that situation incredibly unlucky to get in that situation right and and you know the only thing I could think of is the bear had winded that carcass and was made be making its way there and then got like a burst of scent, was starving, ready to eat, and just came ready to came over that tailtop, just ready

to eat. Um. So it's obviously very unlucky timing. Had we sit up on that knob for ten more minutes, you might see a bit aware of it and was circling it, trying to figure off as a big board there or whatever something. You know. Um, it is hard to Um, you'll never know. You'll never know that. But obviously no stomach contents undigested help meat. Oh um, that's a great point. I did not open the stomach. Um.

I don't know if anybody else there did. Did you guys ever take a look at the carcass afterward to see if it had been it hadn't been messed. No, you have like you don't have to, but you gotta be like there has been some relationship. Is the relationship that predators like to travel on ridgelines or they like

to travel on nicely defined trails. You know, I would think that the you know that the bear had winded the carcass and had just been working its way that direction thinking, you know, I'm hungry, there's something here, um, and so so I really think that, you know, that's

what kind of brought it to the general vicinity. Um. The tracks of the animal for the last hundred yards indicated that it knew we were there and kind of followed us along the back side of that ridge and popped over when we were when it was close and we were close. Yeah, Um, So it wasn't like we stumbled into it and it was it was defensive. You know, it seemed like it was it smelled us and was starving. A bad news organization would say when the hunter becomes

the hunt. So going back to going back to what we're kind of talking about it. You know, back at camp, you know, the odds of the situation were incredibly unlucky or low and unlucky. How do you want to look at it? Then, once we were in that situation with the bear coming, you know at ten fifteen yards, I don't know another situation that plays out that ends up

better than that. You know, Um, when it bears on top of somebody you know, had had you know, a shot landed a little bit differently, you know, does it. There's just a lot of different Like it's fame could have punctured his brain pan, it could have like just severed its spine with its claw. Right, there's just I mean I look at that and I think if I redid that nine out of ten times, I think nine of them are really bad. You know. Um, your friend uh said that his perspective was that the bear was

playing with him. At what point did his perspective change? Did he ever talk about that? Um? I would say after that, I mean once that rifle shot went off, you know, it let up, you know, I mean, so then it kind of its focus changed, um to coming coming towards me. Um, and really, um, you know kind of kind of putting all those pieces together back at camp actually is when we kind of put it all together where um what what what I think happened was,

you know, obviously incredible unlucky timing. The bear comes and not really in a hurry, not really threatened, just ready to eat, and so it's kind of taken its time, um, starts doing its job, gets hit in the back, um and kind of you know, the the rifle shot really rendered the front right useless. I mean, it just it detached a lot of those muscles right, just kind of hamburgered this area. And then it it went and turned

around and charged full speed to accelerate. You know, if you kind of look at the anatomy of the animal, it's it's gonna use its high and legs to really drive and start start running. And what it seemed to me is it went to lunge there at the last second, and it went to my I left, which would would line up perfectly with its right shoulder failed, so it basically went to push off. And when it went to push off one side, you know, just pushed it that

direction and it probably swiped bit I kicked. We collided in some manner, but not really hard at all, And that was the mental change of the bear for it to realize I've lost some motor skills. And then it was heading out and then it was probably trying to get into a safe zone. But you know, at that time, I didn't even know if I hit the bear, you know, I mean I think I did, but I could have shot clean over the top of it. And you know,

I have no idea what's exactly going. I don't No one knows, as much as we like to talk about it, no one knows what they would do in that situation. I like to think that I would have done what you did and shot some more. Ye like the point of commitment, unless you're like one of these guys that like it's it mauled me and then it kind of wanted off, and then it came back and alled me some more. You know. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know,

it was just really an impulse decision. And looking back, you know, it's kind of like, well, that bear bite somebody. I think they're probably gonna take DNA sample, try and find the bear and probably put the bear down anyway. You know, I know it's been hit because why else would it not have just completely killed me right there? So you already have an injured animal, it's already known to have bite somebody. Let's just finish the job right here. You know, that was and I don't even think I

went through that process. I think my process was more like I have no idea how we just came out of that, But I'm not going for around two. Yeah, how's your buddy's hands? Uh? Remarkable? Um, you know, I mean the doctor kind of mentioned, you know, it's infection that really is the problem, you know, um, And so an hour more later that becomes a much different animal. Did you notice this story for another time? But I have a very similar bear circumstance and nothing ever happened

with it other than bears ran away. But it was related to a ridgeline. It was related to elk carcass Um. Did you notice One of the things that I noticed being that close to bears was the smell of him. Did you do you have any like recognition of a distinct smell of a bear, because that's something that I took away. I was like, holy cow, this the smell of a bear? Man? Was you know? I didn't um that that does not come to mind. Ums, that's not

what you're thinking. Yeah, I wasn't thinking let's go smell the roses here, you know, I mean, um, you know, um, yeah, I would say that I don't recall a smell from that incident. Yeah. Well, man, I'm glad you're alive. Yeah. Yeah, give Matt millarda hug for me, I will. I will tell him, tell him that I'm glad he's alive and your body I'm glad he's doing good for sure? For sure. You know, I got one last question. For sure. It's a hard one to answer. Are you glad it happened? Um?

You know that the experience obviously when it's when it's a um, when it's a good story whenever. What I mean by good is when everybody came away. Okay, you know, I mean some injuries for sure, but you know nobody nobody is you know, crippled, nobody, you know, nothing like that. And so I mean, I definitely appreciate the experience. If you told me would would you go into um, what would you go into that situation again? And um, how

how do I weard this? Um? The same scenario doesn't necessarily play out, but you get to redo that situation. I would say no, absolutely no, Like I can't tell you what's gonna happen, but a bear will be on somebody. Yeah, I would absolutely not do that again, UM, because I think that the probability is so low of the outcome that we got, UM, that that is that that that wouldn't be worth it for sure, UM, you know being the problem being that you know, the the outcome that

we got. UM, I can appreciate the experience for sure. Um. You know, I think one thing that you just never consider, and you know this is every bear story is unique, you know obviously, Um, but you know this one's unique

for different reasons. And the one thing that you know you mentioned, everyone thinks, so I'll shoot square in the eye, you know, square in the square between the eyes, you know, And um, you know, the one thing that I never considered was not only am I not going to be able to like get a good shot, but there there'sn't there's instances out there where you can like actually not

shoot the vitals, you know what I mean. Like I would have loved to put that bullet and gave that Barrett Texas heart shot and hope for you know, blow out every right. And that's um, you know that that's that really changes the game. Um, just because had you been using a much smaller caliber. For instance, let's say I did have a side arm there, I would have

gone for the side arm just out of habit. And that's what you think you should do, and you could probably get more shots off and so on and so forth, but you might be pretty scratched up right now too. I mean, that side arm is not going to take that quarter out. You know, it might it made you something differently, but I don't think that. You know, the side arm is gonna turn Hamburger into a quarter of that bear and render render that part of the very useless.

I wish we had these little awards, said, uh the Mediator podcast Nerve of Steel Award. Well, I'd give you one. Well, I I sure don't think you would, because you know all the listeners are gonna hear that video about steel feels like a best possible outcome certificate. Yeah, but you got the best possible outcome in the world of probabilities. That that one. That one I'll take. Um, I got a guy I work with. It always uses the line and rather be lucky than good. That's one of those,

for sure. That's how you're feeling right now. That's one of those, for sure. Well, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. I appreciate it, man, very instructive. It reinforces uh, my primary theory about bear attacks having never uh is uh. Well, I think it's something like I'm quoting Joe Rogan, who is quoting so one else, which is, um, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face. That was that Mike Tison I was remember hearing it from him.

But yeah, everybody's got planned till they get punched in the face. It's very accurate, alright man, Thanks a lot, Thanks John,