This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast.
You can't predict anything.
The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for el, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com, f I R S T L I T E dot com. I'm gonna have Krin set up a complaint hotline where people could complain about dirt myth.
Oh whoa, let me tell you why.
It's be a short list.
Man, we.
What what?
What do you doing? What do you got going on with the chest?
Okay, so our plan? A year ago, a year ago to almost to the to the t we recorded an episode traveling down the highway in Alaska in a van.
Mm hmm, great.
Episode, great episode.
Yeah, a lot of energy, Yeah, a lot of energy.
Great episode, little road trip. Very successful. I know this is a very successful episode. Some people say the most successful episode. Really podcast, I'm trying to make it seem like you know, I'm really kind of like trying to build up so people get extra mad at Dirt. The plan was, we're gonna do that the same thing, the second annual, same stretch of highway, same time of year show.
Uh well we.
Get just getting ready to do it, and now a little complication. The meantime is now we launched these episodes. These episodes are available on YouTube video.
An old Dirt can't do myth, it's never been men says that it can't be done.
It can be done with what we got going on?
What do you button into?
This forces the senator record straight.
I've been watching driving scenes since Strange Brew.
With a lot of gear behind that scene.
There's a driving scene in Strange Brew. I've been watching driving scenes since I was a little kid.
Scooby Doo cartoon man.
Well, okay, never mind that example, Hazard Dukes of Hazzard. I've been watching driving scenes my whole life. Somehow, Dirt says they can't be made.
Not in our set, not with the equipment that we have.
So we're stuck filming. Not that I have any problem with this. We're in a little bunk house.
Pretty cool mm hmm. Airplanes fly around.
Static.
We're gonna make We're gonna make do a lot of listeners know that the reason you're not getting served up another phenomenal mediator podcast, Van Life, episode Part two is because of dirt.
You'd get carsick if you watch that episode, it.
Would be a little bouncy.
I don't think that's fair because I don't.
Mean if we told people where we're at, like the general vicinity of the planet Earth, we're in eastern Alaska. Yeah.
No, I just think that it's not fair to blame that on dirt, that this podcast isn't happening in a vein because of him.
But what do you think the problem.
Is, Well, there's a lot more that would have to go into it to be able to film that. Yeah, there would have to be special camera rigs set up and.
Send your complaints to h.
H okay, a lot of feedback. You were you there? You know you weren't there. We interviewed the esteemed historian Elliott West.
No there. It was a great episode.
On that episode, I debuted an old saying I came up with I'm trying to like get an old saying going, like I made one up. Well, I made up saying. It's new, but it's like an old saying. And it was what prompted it was like, if you tell your kids to go out and pick the pole beans.
And they you'd be like, well, how many do I pick? I might pick all of them, put them all.
They'll come in and be like I picked them all, and you go out there and look and they didn't get them all. No way, Or you'd say someone's like I'll go pick strawberries. I'm like, pick them all and they go dig around on the strawberry bad and then you go, look, they didn't get them all.
Yep.
So my old saying I came up with is a fresh set of eyes will.
Always find more beans. And I'm like trying to get it going. I'll use that people don't like it, I'll prostalyze that what people just the family.
People wrote in. My wife doesn't like it. She thinks stupid.
That's important.
Phil says, it's got no like, it doesn't roll off the tongue.
I mean it could be helpful though, because a lot of human life is spent looking for lost stuff. I mean a fair I'd say twenty percent of life. People wrote in with some edits.
Yeah Saint Anthony, remember we talked about this, say that St.
Anthony deal stuff at camp.
Yeah, it's dirt knows this. Yeah, Saint Anthony, say Anthony, police come around, something's been lost and cannot be found. And then at a bam and say that while you're looking for something, you find it.
Yeah, and that's a that's a that's a Catholic saying.
And Clay mentioned that he goes right to the big he goes straight to the bottle.
Yeah, he cuts, he circumvents, he goes around, cuts around the middleman.
Yeah, that's right. Some edits came in. It's getting better.
So what I'll say is it has applicability and find And somebody even pointed out for sure, like even be encounters has ability in finance, like like you're looking for your deductions, you know, look at tax time you're.
Looking for it's always But what about that new wall that you bought, You carry you work stuff in that wall. That's a business expense.
Count that beans, so fresh set of eyes will always find more beans. I thought it had a lot of broad He thought it had applicability in glassing. Someone's like, no, a glass that whole hillside, nothing up there and away right, So Edits came in a new view gathers more beans. No, No, a second look invested brings more beans digested.
I like clever, but yeah.
A fresh set of eyes will always find the prize.
No bean mentioned.
New eyes find new beans.
Too, boring.
A fresh set of eyes, we'll see where the beans lie.
Or my buddy Matt DROs wrote in he said, also, this is a text message I got. I appreciated the relatability of your made up old saying about relooking for beans. Whether it's beans, pickles, by which I think he means cucumbers, morel's or whatever. One highly tuned in individual can always find more, even after someone just quote picked them all. Maybe the saying should be a fresh set of eyes yields more of the prize.
That's preaking. I think there should be Jack and the beanstalk somewhere in there. That's not gonna work there, that's a magic bean man.
A couple announcements and clear you're gonna be here for some of this. We have a live tour coming up. Uh, this is gonna be great fun. Clay's gonna hit something, but he's gonna be out wolf trapping for some of it.
Mm hmm.
Me and Dirt, Oh, you and dirt gonna be wolf trapping me and dirt. We're like mud and clay. Dirt and mud, dirt and clay. You get kind of dry clay, kind of loamy.
Yeah, better for some plants to grow in. Yep.
Clay's working on a Bear Grease road show about uh, he's he's profiling a wolf trapper. He's he's working on a Bear Grease road show about a wolf trapper. So he's gonna miss some of the live tour dates. Our live tour is gonna begin on December sixth.
I really would appreciate people really coming out, so uh the Laughing Eagle.
Yeah.
Petels will be there for all the show. We're still putting everything together. He'll be there for the shows. Spencer Newhars can be there because all the shows are going to have a local trivia component to them. Lot's going on a bunch of other people joining friends, special friends, special guests every night. Wednesday, December sixth, first show of the tour. We're gonna be at the Mission Ballroom in Denver, Colorado.
Let's go Denver.
Yeah.
December seventh, anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Kansas City.
Let's go KC.
Foley Theater, Kansas City. We're gonna take a night off on December eighth. I've got to find something fun to.
Do that night.
December ninth, Saturday, December ninth, Davenport, Iowa. You're about an hour from Cedar Rapids in about two and a half hours from Chicago Capital Theater. December tenth, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Home field advantage for Yanni. I didn't grow up far from there. My wife's from there. Yanni's from there. Kalamazoo State Theater. We've done that place before, as has Bob Dylan.
Who got more views us.
Yeah, we sold way more albums. December eleventh, my daughter's birthday. Royal Oak, Michigan, SO Greater Detroit Area, Royal Oak Music Theater, twelfth taking off. I canna find something fun to do. December thirteenth, Cleveland, Ohio at the Agora. December fourteenth, mon Hall, PA, SO the Greater Pittsburgh area, Carnegie Homestead, Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall. Friday, December fifteenth, Glenside, PA, Greater Philadelphia area area, Keswick Theater.
Meeting your live show. Nice.
It's gonna be big man laughs. Trivia prize winning funny stuff. Another thing we're working on this this week. Need this is a listener we we this is listener help. I've been thinking about doing We've been thinking about starting a thing that'd be a part of the show, which would be a dissection of trailcam mysteries, because we get a lot of these where people send in trail camp.
Phones, like what the hell is that? Is that a mountain lion?
Sam squatch? Ones too, pray yep?
Is that a sasquatch? Is that a mountain lion? Why is that Buck? What's wrong with his eye? I recently got one where Bucks at one of that that there's a weird virus that deer get like it's like a like a part of the herpes complex that makes their eyes get all this growth over them. So someone sent that in, right, or someone might send in is that a bobcat? Or it's like they're like, is that an old naked hippie whatever, And you can't tell what's going on?
Just Clay Nukeles picking the beans out there, fresh.
Out of us.
So what we need are we need your We need your trail cam mysteries. And here's the thing, here's the brand promise. When you send us a trail cam mystery if winds up being like biological in nature or whatever like this herpes complex, deal that blind's deer or cactus bucks, whatever crazy stuff from your trail camp or what is
that is that a mountain lion? Questions we will get We will go through our contacts of many biologists and experts and ecologists, disease specialists, whatever hippie experts, naked hippie experts. We will get you the answer. Then we will post We will post your photo with the feedback and we will cover it and discuss the photo on the podcast to get you a great answer of of like like whatever it.
Is from the experts.
With everyone just you. Yeah.
Well, I what kicked us off is the other day I had a great trail camphoto from my otter cam where I couldn't tell if it was a beaver's butt or an odds butt mm hmm, And it sparked a little bit of a spirit debate about whether that's the butt of an otter or the butt of a beaver. So that got me thinking that this would be a great service and I would have submitted my own photo to expert panel, which I did because I just through professionally I know a lot of great people.
Oh yeah, so I sent it to a guy.
That has handled thousands and thousands of beavers and hundreds of otters and ask them, well, whose butt that was?
Right?
We will be able to provide this service for listeners who have crazy trail camphotos. All you need to do is go to send it. Send your trail camphoto. Just put the title like crazy trail camphoto or whatever and send it to the met Eater podcast at the meaeater dot com. The meat Eater podcast at the meeater dot com also complaints about dirt can go there as well. Hey, so, do like complaint dirt in the subject line or if it's trail cam just trail camlet me let me.
I could probably be of help. I'm not an expert at a whole of many things, but I am the world's expert, the best in the world. I'll debate anybody on this fact at identifying American black panther trail camera photos. You send me a feeline that you suspect is an American black panther, I will and you'll take it to you. You'll take it to your father. Yeah, Well, I mean I have people, but I get them all the time.
As we're talking about this, I had a couple of trail cam photos come in on the cell camera as we're talking. No, it's pretty straightforward. It's a white tailed dough and a cow elk in the field together.
God nice.
So that's a service that we're going to provide. And when when your thing gets selected, you know, we'll even send you some kind of present. I'm gonna regret saying that, say, some kind of president. If your think gets selected, we'll post a photo, we will get expert testimony, and we will have an actual debate and explanation.
Of the photo.
And if you watch on YouTube, we'll just have the photo up if you listen, you just go on social media to view the photo and weigh in and what the hell you're looking at? It's called I think we should call it the what in the hell is this thing? From my trail cam?
Simple? Yeah, everyone wins in this something like that.
Y'all didn't get the punchline to my black panther deal. There are no black panthers in America. So the answer is always why did I buy that believer hat?
That's not what Gary Nucer says.
Believe them? Why do we sell a black panther believer hack just I mean half of this country believes in them, and my dad's like the president.
I once read we've talked about this, but I once read or someone said, a black panther is a wet panther. M.
What do you think about that? It's a wet mount line. I mean, I hear you they could be. It's definitely make them darker. You don't think that that's always no, No, I think people are seeing uh, they're seeing black house cats. They're seeing labrador mix breed dogs like flashing in front of their camera and like a streaky photo that makes
his tail look a little longer than it is. M. They're seeing usually it is off scale feline house cats that that just it looks big in the in the picture, but it's actually not big.
Or if you hear one that you think as a panther.
See people don't you know the vocalizations of the mountain lions. Sure, they vocalize, but so do bobcats, and so I think a lot of people mistake the bark of a gray fox for some top of big cat.
God.
I mean, gray foxes make a kind of a harrowing.
Mhm.
You do that a little louder. It's kind of like that.
Drink. It sounds like throwing up.
It's like a it's too much thunderwater. Filter it out. It's kind of a it's an odd sound you wouldn't expect coming from a little gray fox. I think people think that's a panther screen.
Yeah, they want to believe it it's a panther.
They want to believe this is a this is an announcement, Rich, This is a where you're in an announcement, Rich bunk house. Right now, A new Dirty dozen calendar for twenty twenty four has been on sale at the Medior store. Go get one hour, Get five now.
Cow. So we do calendars.
Years ago we did fucked up old Your stands great calendar, I mean fucked up old t acid ermy phenomenal calendar. But this year it's just so happened that and this is gonna tie somewhere and talk about now it just so happened, that just so happens that you got how many months are in a year, Clay twelve twelve?
OKAYU hold that in.
The back of your head and try to stay with you.
Twelve months in a year. We are just now releasing season twelve of Meat Eater. Twelve years. You've been doing it, Steve, and.
The way we do it is a season winds up be in a year's worth of episodes. It could be you know, it could be in the old days, we might have done sixteen, we might do six whatever, but we do It's like a season is a year's worth of episodes. We we vacated our theme. I wanted to do fucked up old fish, cleaning stations in boats and.
Just people.
Fucked up on individuals.
But the whole franchise is on hold because of the fortuitous like the serendipitous deal that twelve seasons aligns with the twelve months of the year. So we've made a very memorable calendar, a wonderful.
Gift where each month is a year, so it's each month. January is all behind the scenes photos, good times and laughings is all. January' is all behind the scenes followsome season. Want to meet it her? Sweet Guess what February is?
Dirt Valentine's Day?
No second season, it's all it's all behind the scenes photos from the second season. So you'll see so many of your favorite like memorable characters from over the years. Dirt's in the calendar, Clay's in the calendar, Cess in the calendar, Joe Rogan's in the calendar, Kevin Murphy's in the calendar.
I saw the calendar and there was a lot of scowling Steve photos. Yeah, there's a lot.
There's like a lot of like this, a lot of Steve.
Camera lot this Parkins back. Yeah, like Parkins back to.
You know, we didn't put it there as any of my hospitalization photos that came out of the show in the.
Hospital that could be its own calendar.
I should have thought of that to put some of that in there. So it goes back to when Yanni. So the calendar goes back so far in time that you'll see when Yanni was working for us but didn't realize he was getting paid. That's big. We hired Yanni to carry a backpack on a sheep hunt. He thought he was just going to hang out, and then someone gave him his tax paperwork at the end of it and he's like, what's this say so you can get paid? Oh,
I saw we were dicking around. Then went on to produce dozens of episodes, probably more than anybody.
Yeah, that's so cool, man.
So the calendar covers a great span of time. That's a really fun calendar. So check that one out, Dirty dozen.
Calendar.
Sweet.
A lot of set photos in there, probably, Yeah, a lot of set photos.
From season eight yeah eight ford m hm my photos lot was.
Taking pictures when you're wiping your mom's nose.
That's right close close, So check that out. Uh. A lot of dirts photos in there, Oh.
Dirts cut photos in there. So here here's the other thing about this whole deal. So if you're listening to this right now, this all ties together. If you're listening right now, our latest season of Meat Eater, season twelve is out. It launched on October twelfth on the meat eating website so themeter dot com and on the media to YouTube channel.
Wait a minute, Season twelve is where on our own website, what date? October twelve? Okay, got it?
Oh, it's would be good.
Yeah, man, it's gonna be good.
So if you're listening right now, it's out right now, October twelve, meter website, on the media to YouTube channel, And it is like I said, some days long time.
Ago, we would make sixteen. How many we got this year, we did six six wait October twelve, Yeah, October. If you're listening and it's past October.
Twelve, then you can go watch it right now.
Right now. We're rolling out a episode a week. Okay, so for six weeks starting October teven. Yeah.
So I drew this crazy elk tag of Montana called the Buffer Zone.
I missed that one that center.
Yeah, you went in November, November and you're hunting, like right on the edge of the park.
They give up five tags a year and you get this little ship and chunk of ground not very big. You got a hunt on and it's right on the edge of the park and you're catching elk migrating.
Out of the park.
M You know, everybody thinks of migrations is going south in the winter, but they're actually my in this place. They're migrating like northward, just elevation change, right. So we got that coming out. We got another phenomenal where we took our buddy Kevin Murphy to Michigan Cottontail Rabbit Bonanza with rabid eagles, Squirrel Bonanza with squirrel dogs, a raccoon that the dog's tree, a squirrel try to try to picture this get by a dog under this tree.
I did that dog dog squirrel at that exact moment. Yeah, he was firing up.
Man and I had poison ivy and I took a bunch of Ben and drill.
Wasn't really thinking.
About it, and I thought I was aging, Like, uh, you're.
Blaming it on a I thought I would like I was in a time of capsule poisoning.
A squirrel got hung up in the tree and I tried to climb up the tree. I couldn't got to the tree, and I thought I was like, I thought I was dying of old age. And then it occurred to me that he Ben and drill mid day, and it even affected my vision.
I was so hopped up on ben and drill. You should have taken away my firearm.
You're still plinking them squirrels though.
Yeah, because well that's was your heart rate down. It makes you a good shot. But when it comes to squirrels retrieving, So we had a squirrel. You'll see this happen in this episode. The odds of this are so infinitesticly small. Where the dog trees a squirrel, the squirrel runs up a tree and stops comes to rest. Was it eighteen twenty inches.
Yeah, that's the coon happened to be in the tree this daytime. Yeah, the squirrel passed the coon up and plasters himself against the tree. So there's a scroll in a raccoon twenty inches apart.
He got double tap on that one, which.
Drew our attention to both the raccoon and the squirrel.
I think that raccoon was on the ground when we set the dogs loose, and he really caught him by accident in an area, because.
Why would the squirrel be up that tree too?
Well, No, no, I think the raccoon when we got out and set the dogs and they started barking whatever that if you if you recollect the tree that that raccoon was in, no raccoon would ever be in.
I think.
But why would a raccoon and a squirrel go up?
No, I think the raccoon heard us from a distance and was like, I'm gonna get up a tree. This is the only option I have at the moment.
There's a lot of trees in there.
Yeah, but that was there was not a lot of big trees there, and it just it just so happens that the squirrel ran up the same tree.
It was.
Let me tell you, I'm a long time doing it, since your mama was still wipping your nose. This is the unanswerable riddle. Your mom wiped Dirt's nose, got way back, unanswerable riddle. Anyway, you're stepping into the declare that no one's gonna know. It was the sequence what anybody was thinking. Just you have to do exit interviews. Yeah.
Yeah, if you looked.
At the tree that the raccoon was in, you'd be like, no way, a raccoon is gonna climb in that tree just to sleep for the day.
No, it actually sounded like the start of a good joke. Raccoon and a squirrel in the same tree. Four guys walk up to the tree. One guy says, look at the coon. The other guy says, look at the squirrel. The other guy says, that dog. Just who gets to shoot the squirrel? Yeah, the dog got so excited a bit Dirt. Yeah, it was what to do with himself?
Yeah, he was wound up. Man. So Kevin Murphy didn't even know him. He's the small game guru guru Clay.
Yeah, but Kevin mur SAIDs he's had it happen before, which I'm like a slightly incredulous sob no disrespect. Uh, so that one revisit something you're saying what I like what you're saying.
Okay, it was a little.
Wasn't a hemlock?
Was it a hemlock? I don't remember exactly. It was a clump of trees.
Yeah, why did yeah like if it was that that because that was not where a.
Coon had just lay up for the day.
No, because he'd lay.
Up where he could just get on a big old limb way up high.
Yeah, Hey, guys, could it be could it be that there was a concentrated food source there that the coon and the squirrel were hammering together. No, and then because that squirrel went a long ways to get there. Really so just maybe totally coincidential.
I think that it was one of the few conifers, and they knew that that confert offered some protection. But it's hard to picture that these two unrelated creatures, of all the trees and all the woods, that these two creatures, unless they were hanging out, would have not only gone up the same tree, but would have gone up the same tree the saint to the same height and sat there.
One of the great mysteries.
But you got him and lined up there and retrieved them or the coon.
One of them fell out and one of them didn't fall out.
I think the squirrel fell out. Go watch the episode and see what.
Oh yeah, that's right into the Meteor podcast at the meter dot com. Yeah, we'll take any explanations. We'll just take them as fact. Idaho mule deer, we don't kill the giant.
Well.
I was on fire with tag draws. I did draw anything this.
Year, and cool tags used them last year.
But I was on fire with tag draws last year. I drew I drew a your.
Take down in Idaho and got just a stomper if you want to see.
It was just one of those deals.
It's almost like misleading and this happens on them, like we have a lot of episodes or nothing happens, you get skunked.
Whatever, not many that would it happens.
It happens, And they had a lot of episodes where it's kind of normal hunting or you got to grind it out.
Just one of those, just one of those like.
Just I don't know, there's just good stars aligned.
Yeah, just like everything like just box you could go do that and I've seen this happen because we've had some great hunts. Then your buddies go back and they do it again and again and again and it's never like that again. Or I've got spots we hit every year and you're always chasing. Ten years ago, it was just something with just a ton of bucks man and then really good intel, really good intel.
On both those well, no, on one.
It was like I had some friends that had hit this area hard for archery and I had great They were like, we saw a lot of action here, like, don't bother looking there.
So you kind of reduce this huge.
Area down into a little area because they're like, yeah, I don't waste your time. Don't waste your time now up there, I would definitely spend some time. And if not there, I'll go spend some time over there. But right, so you go into it like really armed and man, we had a good time and I had more fun than anybody.
Yeah, like eighty plus bigger that was it, tutor there, smaller that one eight, smaller, ninety six four waller three smaller yeah really one three two, I don't know.
Changes.
Yeah, I dried it in the bucket of water, so it should still be the same. Yeah, but stick in there, aged in the bucket of water.
So I don't think anything changed. That's in there. Your biggest mulder?
Uh no, No, for real? Was the Idaho?
I like, I'm like, he's in the club.
Did you kill a Yeah?
Was that Idaho?
Years ago?
He's in that book? The was it big Bucks of Idaho or something?
Great box of great mual to your box of Idaho?
Really that buck will probably be in the calendar, I imagine.
No, it's not. Really, there's not a lot of big old there's not a lot of grip and grins.
The the Idaho buck is on the cover of this Slash season season twelve. Now oh that new Yeah, yeah, the old, the over two hundred one is not in there.
You know what's the funny thing about? Like I've hunt a mulder and you know I've hunt a mildier in Montana for over twenty years. Yeah, over twenty years.
Well, Ce's mama was still cess.
Mom will still wipe my nose. And when I started hunting, okay, and have covered a lot of ground and just hunted a lot of like a ton of public land milder. Yeah, in Montana twenty years worth. But when you go look at my like my wall where I have my like big stuff collection, listen to this, not one of those boxes from Montana. Really it's like you look like I just looked, look look look like a decade whatever.
And you go to some of these other states to the south, you know, Gangbusters, other directions, and you're like, oh, there's like more big Bucks than I ever saw. Here's the hunting.
It's just the toll, the toll of having like of having these long six week rifle seasons that run through the rut that it's just you just aren't making you know, they're not the state is not prioritizing. I'm not critical. I'm not criticizing for this. They're not prioritizing.
They're prioritizing opportunity, opportunity over quality. But it's just amazing that you can go you know, you saw Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico and it's like, oh, there's the MULEI I've always wondered where they all are.
Yeah, they're here.
Yeah, Like what happens when you don't just gun for him so hard?
But with that being said, there are some running around in yeah.
For sure, but which I mean it's not like you can take an empirical approach to it and just go look at Boon and Crockett entries.
M you know, yeah, for sure.
I mean they're they're there. They are there.
But like on public ground, I haven't killed a I've never killed I don't think I've ever killed a muley buck on private ground. I've never killed a bull elk on private ground.
I have a buddy that killed a two hundred inch mule deer buck in Montana on block management.
Yep.
I would count that as public But it's just.
One of those things where right time it was the rut. Yep, he probably moved off a piece of he made, he made a mistake.
Yep. Yeah, suicide, so it can happen.
So, speaking of the lie shows, remember early I was plugging our live shows coming up. Uh years ago, me and Yanni were at a live show.
I keep seeing action out that window.
I'm looking for horns.
We were at a live show years ago, and it was funny because we were at a live show, I believe in Idaho.
We did a live show and or somewhere kn't me aware, and a dude named Richard Martinez came up and he said to me and Yani, you should come hunt turkeys in the Everglades mm hmm with me, and he.
Gave me a book. He brought me a gift and gave me a book about the Everglades. And I started. At that time, me and Yanni started applying for state gaming areas and it took years for us to draw the state game area tag. I feel we were pretty consistent about our application.
Oh I bet you guys were so ben should we drew because we wanted to both have it.
So we were like party app right, and we party apped and eventually drew our Everglades turkey tags and got to hook up with this dude, Richard Martinez, passionate about who's a very good turkey hunter, really serious outdoorsman and what's funny about this hanging out with this guy? We got a whole episode. This is one of the just to return back. This is one of the season twelve episodes where we go, I see all the turkeys with
our buddy down there in Florida. How cool it was, But it just so happened through some other work stuff. I spent a bunch of time in Florida and this is not the knock, but like there's a lot of people, like it's pretty common. This is gonna really piss a bunch of people off, and people that aren't pissed are gonna wonder why this would.
Piss people off. But there will be some pissed people.
There are states where you where you hear a lot of unhappiness from hunters and anglers. You know, there's just like states that generate a lot of resentment.
On how it's managed or yeah.
Management success rates whatever. There are just there there are states where there are states where you just get.
We're a lot of unhappy both hold the smokes is Florida on them. I couldn't believe.
It, Yeah, which is kind of surprising.
Yeah, like some states you go there and you know, like here, here's the thing to that. And this is the point I make oftentimes everywhere you go into a country and I've been and I've been able to you know, I've been. I've had the great fortune over my career as a writer and doing TV and other other enterprises I've been involved in. I've been able to just to go everywhere, right I've been, I've been able to. I haven't hunted. I mean, I've been to all the states.
I've hunted and fished in most of them, and I just get to meet and talk to a lot of people. And the thing that I've always marveled at and puzzled over was that everywhere you go, you'll you'll hear two stories, versions of two narratives. And these narratives could come from people who are next door neighbors.
There's there's this, there's.
Narrative, A narrative A is uh, all the good spots are gone. Everything got you know, outsiders came in, the outer staters ruined it. The wolves ruined it, the coyotes ruined it, fish and game ruined it.
Hopeless.
It's like, I don't even go anymore. I lost my spot. Uh you name it? Okay? And then next door.
Everywhere you go, next door not always next door, but I mean like in the same universe.
The same is is you can't even scratch the surface. Ye I can't wait to get out of bed in the morning.
That was rich.
You can't do it all.
The question is which one are you seth So he's a can't scratch the surface. Yeah, So this is ours just been like a thing of mine. And it's funny because here's this dude that we hang out with, who like is just a can't scratch the surface guy.
Man.
But dude, he scouts hard. Yeah, he like if he's not hunting, he's looking.
For hunting spot. Might like scouting more than he.
Works his ass off.
But he just like in a place that's in a place, and he hunts a lot of areas in a place where it's like just it just generates a lot of you know, they got it. They got so many cougars now and deer population as you're down. But here's a guy just consistently consistently deer on public land, turkeys on public land, working his butt off, can't scratch the surface, can't get to.
It all kind of guy. Yep, I liked hanging out at a.
Little hard worker behind the scenes of that Florida trip. Off topic, ping pong, I smoked you.
Oh we had a ping pong table, that's right, everybody eating everyone. That was kind of a weird deal, man, like, and you were shook up about it.
Well, here's why I was coming in hot, because it was like we had just got our kids. This little net you stretch out across your kitchen table. Yeah, so for nights, dude.
Every night we ate dinner, we cleared the table, we stretched that net out and just played ping.
He came in there and thinking he was Joe ping pong, so I washooked.
I was pretty hot.
And I also felt because I was playing on a slightly smaller kitchen table table row and I've been in the table is one of those ones that looks like it was cut from one huge tree, so it's got curvy edges. So if I was kicking my kids butts on that thing, I thought I was gonna come in and whoop you guys then at ping pong, because I'm like beating my eight year old, beating my ten year old, sometimes beating my thirteen year old. So I came in there like just ready to mop you guys up, man,
and just everybody beat my ass, dude. And I was coming in fresh off the home table. But a thing I hadn't figured, man, is like this is an outdoor ping pong table.
Wash. Those are susceptible the wind drift yep and the sun direction there was everybody was subject to the same wind drift yep. But man, just everybody, yann dude, you just beat my butt. Yeah, Oh, yeah, he's good. He got like you just seem he looks like a dude to be good at ping pong.
There.
Yeah, I got my ass kicked at ping pong bad every night.
So when you're watching that episode and you've seen me having a good time turkey hunting, I want you to picture me just getting my ass kicked at ping pong that night.
And taking it out and Osio this baby. You were the first tag out. That was a good trip, man, what a cool space.
I was second to tag out Dirt. I was gonna ask you, when did you start filming for.
Me eater twenty fifteen?
So what season was that? Like? Season four or five? I thought you you were in early dye.
That was early yeah, briy four season four?
Maybe so you filmed four through twelve.
I'd have to look, but yeah, fourth or fifth season.
Sometimes he'll get off on other stupid projects.
Might racle this, it's not won't can't.
Yeah, get he's an international player. Many continents have you filmed on dirt? Count North America, North America, South America?
It's like twenty two, twenty three countries continents? Yeah, countries is yeah, a little over twenty you.
Filmed in twenty countries. Yeah, that's incredible.
My favorite is America. Yeah hell yeah.
Oh yeah, brother, I've said this cold sey Tis. But we're in Alaska right now. It reminds me of it. One time a TV executive said, I don't want to say where, but a TV executive said to me, the only other country our viewers are interested in is Alaska.
That's a fair kind of look.
You're so there's that episode that it was a really Oh you were on this one too, dirt.
I think I only missed those two bad.
Yeah, Spearfish and Bahamas. Oh yeah, what like you can swim too?
Yeah?
Oh yeah there it's like a little otter shark bait's.
Perfect camera man slicking the water. Oh yeah, dirts. If you got bad country camera man.
Well, backcountry hiking hauling. He was hauling moose meat.
Ah, you guys, come on.
He was hauling, no doubt, one hundred and twenty pound pounds, ridiculously stomping me carrying probably a eighty five pounds.
Yeah you've been butchering you guys.
Be a sturdy little feller.
He is.
Sturdy little feller.
Bahamas was a sweet that blew my mind.
Uh when guy was caught in that episode, he was trying to keep count. I think he came in that we had sixteen and a half species.
Wow, Hue. That was because one of those.
Fish came in just half of it.
Sharks.
The sharks were gnarly on that one.
Yeah, but uh man, some lot like nice groupers speared. A lot of nice groupers had just look at the window, Steve, Oh, oh, nice moves. We're looking at the window at a guy putting a big moosehreck in the back of a truck. Good for Wow, seem bigger.
Sixteen and a half? Yeah, is that counting the deep drop stuff? Oh?
Yeah, so we had Yeah.
So we were with Kimmy Kimmy Werner and then Cameron kirk Connell. Cameron kirk Connell. We for those of you who've listened to our show, our Campfire Stories series. So one of one of the things we make, because we make this thing called Campfire Stories. So we did me eater Campfire Stories. It's an audiobook. It's an audio original. It's not an audiobook. It's an audio original. It's like very edited storytelling from disparate voices. And if you haven't
heard it, you should definitely check it out. And we had volume one Close Calls, and then Volume two was narrow Misses and more close Calls. We have volume three coming up, which is Discoveries, so people find in crazy stuff, bodies, money, whatever. It's like crazy Discoveries. Beans, bodies means yeah, I'm gonna do a whole episode on me finding more pole beans after my kids have picked them all, after they've picked them all, I would go and pick fifty more.
And uh.
But in Close Calls, Cameron kirk Connell, we even ran it. People will says, you know this because when we were promoting meters campfire stories, close Calls, we promoted it with our Cameron kirk connell story. So Cameron kirk connell grew up in Florida but spends a ton of time in the Bahamas, and he tells a story about when he was a tarpain guide. It's if you listen back in
episode you'll find it. He was a tarpain guy but went spearfishing one day and they were chasing after a Couberra snapper and Cameron kirk Connell's dive partner had a blackout. So Cameron kirk connell is down deep his dive partner was supposed to be on the surface or taking turns watching each other, but the I almost seen something from the surface and went after it. So Cameron kirk Connell's down deep and here comes the guy sinking in a sort of like upright Chriss cross apple sauce formally.
Known as Indian style legs.
Yeah, they don't call it that anymore. When you go to school. My kids they don't even know what that is. They think it's criss cross apple sauce. Oh, how you say so Chris Cross apple sauce. And he's sinking, passed out, and Camra kirk Connell's gonna shoot him because he's on air and he's on his way up, and so he's like, he's at least gonna try to shoot him with the spear shaft.
So he can drag him back to the surface and shoot him in the calf.
Yeah, but the body's spinning, so he's already down on his way up, and he has to go crossways to get to him, and there's no way he's gonna drag him up.
They're both gonna die.
He spins, and then his only shot is to shoot him in the in the five, but he's afraid if he shoots him in the thigh is going to bleed to death. So he lowers down and shoots him in the fin with his spear gun. Long shot too. There's guy's on the boat. So he gets up to the surface.
He's like Polo.
And they drag this dude up and resuscitate him. He tells, is just an insane story, he tells.
So that's how he and I became friends. He's he's a guide, he's got it all over the world fishing, and he's he's like, he's he's a boat captain. He's whatever, like boat class, you know, like they do like Merchant Marine, right, Well, yeah, but they do. You know, you're a captain for whatever tonnages. He's a captain any class, super dial. So he could drive my ARC sixteen sixty. That's what I'm trying to say, Wow, what about the bigger could maybe my canoe, my CEA ARC sixteen sixty.
Let him go, baby, he's got.
Or you know, the Princess Ocean Liners, Titanic, No.
Man watching you guys dive that stuff was so you want to talk.
About a good diver. And then Kimmy Warner is a phenomenal die. It's like a show where you watch me get my ass kicked.
By Oh you were crushing.
Yeah, well I was doing good. I was new as good as those guys. Those guys are good, man, those guys are good in the water.
That recovery has only been recent. Right after that the hurricanes and eighteen or something in Bahamas yep'.
Then then there's more, lastly.
Alaska with Doctor Randall and Clay nukembe Oh Black Bears epic and that is the epic wet suit.
Black Bear hunt. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I didn't seen it. I didn't show it to you.
I don't know why I didn't show it to you. Usually i'll show it to people.
You've never showed me a single episode of on before it came out. Maybe I'll say sometimes I show it to people. I show it to anyone to ask. I'm trying not to be a pain. Johanni.
He always wants to see. He always got comments.
I didn't know that was an option.
Oh yeah, Yan, get right in there, mm hm. Because he'd be like, hey, but what about remember that time we did X. I'll be like, I forgot about that.
Man, I dig around and find stuff that we had forgotten about. I've got middle notes like an elephant. Really.
Oh well, that's good to keep mind because Yanni would quite off be like, dude, why why didn't they use the stuff about.
The whatever or whatever. I'm just making that and then we'll dig in there and find it. Mhm. Is there still time on the he's done.
So when we're working on an episode, what we do is like we film, we come back, and first someone goes to and scours it for everything usable we do produce or know which lays it out. I'll often have some stuff I'll talk about like well, like this is the sort of the main thing we're after and this is all what I'm interested in.
Then it'll go to us called a rough cut.
We'll get the rough cut and it'll have like scratch VO and then I'll start writing v O yeah, and we'll do like general like well this is kind of boring and that should be moved around, it's not really understand what about the owl right, that kind of stuff, and then it'll go to fine and then usually have fine. I would show it to Yanni if he's in it or whoever. Then from Fine, it goes to picklock, and then from picklock it goes to sound and sound.
And color color correction.
I think you and then you don't want to dig back into it. Everybody gets riled up. Yeah, sure, just.
Get one point back about the Bahamas. All the beautiful underwater filming was not me. That was just.
Kimmy Werner's husband us from Turkowski Paring parent James Paron, James, those are just some little river riders.
To those when they'd get the guns they were smoking, they could shoot too, dude. Legendary underwater.
Yeah, very good underwater cinematographers. Wherever you call him underwater camera guys about to call.
Them that works.
Yeah, the very habit man Season twelve access.
Can be good.
Mm hmmm.
October twelfth job.
That's when it starts. There's there's pumping it up.
Man, this fancy cops from the scene. X.
So, Clay, give us a quick give us a quick wrap up what we've been doing, Clay. So, we've been in we're we are currently in Alaska. We've been on our moose hunt, our annual an old moose hunt, and uh, this year we were on a different ridge than last year. And we I've never honted the same ridge top twice, so we came to a new ridge. And this kind of hunting, you fly in there's a small airstrip that
you're able to land super cubs. You camp close to the airstrip and you you can only kill a moose as close as you can get the moose tot them back up to the airstrip. We planned this hunt for nine days and planned the hunt so that it ended in the latter part of the season, because the closer you get deeper you get into September, the better the moose right's going to be guaranteed really anywhere. And so we started our hunt on September the tenth.
I believe the eleventh.
Yeah, And and what we say all last year, what we hear from people, what Steve's experience, This is my second moose hunt, so clearly I'm an expert now is that just every day you see the rut pick up more and more. And it's a calling game, so you don't have a lot of mobility like in elk hunting. You you you can, you're moving around, you're calling. You might see elk two drainage is over and you figure
out how to get over there. This is not that you you pretty much have a stationary place that you're calling from and you're you're calling kind of long term calling. The way I think about it is there's a lot of calling that you get an immediate response, and you know if you're calling with successful ye within seconds or minute when you're calling some ducks, calling ducks for seconds, calling.
Elk, call a turkey and gobbles back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is more like you're just feeding seeding calls into the into the this very vast land.
And if I want to point out, if you don't call them, you ain't gonna get them.
That's right.
I mean it could happen, but it's like it would not be a reliable strategy. You're just gonna wait and one's gonna.
Walk by it.
Yeah.
So we're hunting this like rolling rolling hills, big bigger mountains, and so what you can see is probably only forty percent of what is actually there. I mean, you know, rolling off into these big drops the other right, or your call is going down into this draw that you can't see what's going on down there. And so we got into this spot the first day. Is this about the pace you want the story to go, great job. Okay, So we get in here the first day and the
clouds parted. We had a little bit of cloud cover, I'm pretty sure. The first day. Got in there late in the morning, and within thirty minutes we saw a bull within about two miles of where we're sitting. This The landscape is willow flats, spruce drawls and patches and just tundra, and so some of it you can't see
real well, but some of it you can. Where we were sitting, we could see a big saddle between two ridges, and we could but we could also see miles and miles away on these like high alpine tundra e mountains that if we saw a moose there, it really meant nothing to us other than just it was fun to see him. I mean, we were spotting moose five miles away.
So the first the first morning, within thirty minutes, we saw a moose two miles away, which is semi in play because potentially that moose could hear us and we could call him and maybe two days later he'd show up in our draw.
We called one. We called one from two miles one day and he came in in about it over about the course of about an hour it passed. Yeah, and some could have even been we debate it was a minimum of two miles minutes.
And they can hear and you can always tell when they can hear you, because you you have a we have a we've got a new call that we're prototyping from Phelps and you moose call and you can see the movie. They always they'll turn and look at you and just stare if they hear you, you know, and you two satellite dishes just be like, yeah, yeah, they'll sit, they'll lock up, just and spend minutes without moving, staring.
Right in the right direction with them big old satellite years out Yeah, with their horns.
So you can tell, like if one's way out there, you call and you watch him and you're like, he can hear us, and then you you measure your calling from that.
How much he cares is who knows, but you'll know like absolutely he hears you.
A lot of times you'll call and you'll see him like start raking a bush. Like they'll kind of be like that excites me, not gonna come over there, but I'm gonna rake this one. You come here, and we're doing three types of calling, cow calls, bull grunts, and raking. So actually taking Steve was using the scapula of a bull moose from another year, and scraping on the trees. And these are basically the three communication mechanisms. Day one,
we see a bull way off. Later that afternoon we spot seth spots two bulls we believe five miles away. First day, three bulls. Second day we roll in. We're sitting in the same spot. We have this. We have a in our where we're hunting is a again a saddle between two ridges, and we can probably see out eight or nine hundred yards in this saddle, two big draws coming up from either side. And second day, I believe it was like ten or eleven in the morning, we see a good bull come into our saddle. We
had no knowledge that he was really around. He just appeared in our saddle.
Had been calling all morning.
We've been called all more so possibly he was coming to our calls. He appears, We start calling to him more aggressively, try to get him in close. He'll he came into like six hundred and seventy five yards, locked up in a spruce patch, grunded down. Well, no, you left that was pretty prime. I'm just okay. Grunting, yeah, crash and brush. Yeah, we thought it was on give us a moose grunt yeah yeah, yeah, you know, like you're walking through the woods and you get a little
your little nut tap from the brush on it. Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's good. So this was day two and this is we believe a mid fifties bull. So in the in the world of big moose hunting, like American moose are gonna be smaller. You're gonna hear guys in Montana, Idaho, you know, fifty inch plus moose in those places is going to be pretty big Shyrish moves. And then the Canadian mood. It's going to be smaller in the yuk in the Alaska Big Alaska Yukon moose, which would also
be in in the Yukon. British Columbia. Yeah, I don't think it's I don't think it's British Columbia. British Southern British Columbia is Canada moose. Yeah, I want to say the upper part of BC is probably Yukon. But I don't know, I don't know, but but but a good shooter moose is going to be in the fifty inch range. Fifty inch plus top end would be like seventy inches.
Very few people oftentimes the regulations go that. So, like in the state of Alaska, they'll tweak moose regulations. Different units will have different open dates, different units have different closed dates, and you'll quite often see it's pretty typical that a moose has to be fifty inch tip, so.
A fifty inch spread, and or.
They'll specify how many browtinns it needs on one side, so he might be in an area that has a it's a three what they would call a three browtying unit, meaning if one of his sides has three brow times is legal. You could be in a four browtying unit where if one besides his four brow times, he's legal. But he could have zero brow times and be fifty or he could have no paddles but have four brow times.
So it's either work right and this bull would have was plenty legal in both ways. Yeah, he had a lot of browtimes, was well over fifty inches wide, and we felt like we were going to kill him. On day two, he betted down. We messed with him for several hours. He was within seven hundred yards for several hours. He betted down three different times. But the more we called to him, the more he hung around, the less he was interested, and he fades off into the willow brush,
going away from us two o'clock that afternoon. That was the last action we had on day two. We go into day three, we see nothing but a cow moose.
We sit on that hill for twelve hours. So the sequence of our hunt is is that these are long days up here right now, twelve hour days, and we wake up when the sun starts, you know, when the sky starts to get light, have some coffee, have a little breakfast, head out when you can see good, get on the side of the mountain and literally be there to sit there for twelve hours.
If you really you could sit till seven thirty. But you could still probably shoot till eight thirty. But at a point you just gotta be like, at a point, you've been there twelve hours.
Yeah, that's a long set. And so it's a long set when you're not seeing anything. So that that third day we didn't even see the far off bulls. So sometimes you're just entertained by watching through the glass these bulls way off and thinking the other day is day.
Three, we saw the BlackBerry we're ripping through.
Yeah, I think so, Yeah, that was like the only thing we saw that day. I think.
Yeah, we did see one black bear. We had a black bear tag, but couldn't it just we just saw a flash of a black bear? Yeah, Day four, So that was a tough day. We all said that that was a tough day. And the other thing about this hunt is that the temperatures seem like they're reasonable. You know, let's say mid twenties to mid forties to mid forties, and it's like that's not that cold. But man, when you're out there for ten days constantly battling that, and
when in high humidity, we were freezing to death. We were just sitting to so damn windy and you're just sitting yep. So it's a real struggle to just stay warm, even with good gear and like all the gear you need. We were making a little fire.
You can do it, like you can really get layered up and be good, but it's just you're just not doing anything to generate any warmth.
Yeah, like I said, ten twelve hours, so yeah, yeah, but you know, but we talked about how much this this type of hunting is so different than many other hunts. It's a it's a unique hunt and you got to be in the right state of mind to sit in the same place for potentially nine or ten days, for twelve hours a day and not be validated by not seeing game.
Yeah, and a lot of whitetail hunters will say, oh, that's easy. I do that all the time in November. It's just different. I mean, I've done lots of all day sits for white tails. It's different.
Yeah, So day day four we didn't see anything either, did we our neighborhood I saw, I saw a glimpse of the same, probably.
The same saying those long bulls, I think.
Yeah, I picked the day four we saw the bulls that were five miles away or one bull five miles away and a cow close. So that's two tough days and and it's it's taxing mentally, and uh, we're you know, it is fun when you're with a group of guys, though you're all talking the whole day and eating snacks, whispering and and we we were all all of us were calling, and so we we named. Everybody has a little different tone and frequency and vibe with their moose call.
We decided that Dirt probably had the best cow moose call, Seth was clearly the best bullgrunner. I'll take it, and uh, and so on day five comes around and it's just a game of odds.
I like a hunt.
That's just a game of odds. I can sit somewhere for a long time. I'll sit there and I like it when that's what you're working against. Yep, Like it doesn't take a total lot of skill to just sit.
There tacity just for days. Yeah, what did you guys say? It's like there's physical suffrage, and there's.
There's two there's two ways of suffer hunting. Yep, there's more, but like like just general stuff that's physically taxing yep. You know it's like getting up and pounding it out and pounding it out and hiking back up out of the mountain, hiking back up the top of the mountain, hiking through the swamp, whatever the hell it is. And then there's just like the mental like, yeah, sitting and you're looking at such a like it's.
Being like like a friend of mine who does it, He's like it's trusting the process that there are these things they're called moose, and they are going to get into the rut and they're gonna start moving, and they're gonna be receptive to calling, and you need to be there calling and they're gonna hear it and they're gonna.
Come, and it might not happen till the last day. Having for ten days, one of the one of the boys that's seen us when we landed today saw that other that other moose had. Oh that's what they look like. They've been out right ten days not even seen a moose. Yeah.
Yeah. Anyway, so day five comes, we go to our spot. We it's like you you feel like it's gonna happen, but you never feel like it's gonna happen today. Yeah, you know, you're like, I know, I just feel like we're gonna kill a moose. We're doing the right stuff, but it probably won't happen today. That's the way I always feel.
It's hard to happen, it's hard to picture it happening. Yeah. Yeah, But we did see a cow in that same zone that we had seen that bull on day two, which was yeah.
Yeah, we had a cow in our in our in our saddle that was kind of in our zone. You know, within eight hundred yards of us, saw a cow and and again the moose. Shrut's picking up, and we we know that's happening, not because of what we're seeing, but just because we know it is happening. And about ten o'clock, day five, Seth looks in a direction that we weren't focused on a lot of attention. Well, he moved.
Mm.
He had been glassing for four days. From one spot. He moved like six feet.
He moved down slope to a spot he'd never before sat in.
Wow.
Yeah, had a feeling.
He moved down slope ever so slightly. And the minute he got there, that's say to him, seeing a move he said, he said, I got a bull and the spruce and this bull was would we say it was a mile away? At least I think it was a mile. I'll tell you how far it was away it was. It was, it was close to a mile. Maybe I would have said three quarters.
Of it was.
Okay, this is like ten o'clock, right ten o'clock in the morning. And what we learned is on this landscape there's let's just say there's three things going on. Tundra, willows, and spruce, that's all there is, and that's part of Alaska, and we man the bulls just stick.
It's like a willow aspen birch mix.
Yeah, yeah, you're right, aspen birch.
Yeah.
It all looks very similar, assiduous hardwood.
It's brushy, yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
And there's small The least of those is the spruce. Where we're at, there's a little drawls of spruce. And anyway Seth sees a bull sees satellite paddles. And what you're looking for when you're glassing for these moose is not you're not looking for moose. You're looking for paddles.
Yeah, they're white, big white.
Big white paddles out but it takes you a while to understand the scale of what one looks like. The first one you see every year, you're like, oh, oh, that's what they look like from a mile and a half. And they're always smaller than you think. But when I see the one, when I saw the ones you found Seth, five miles away, they were bigger than I thought they would be.
I thought the same.
But when the bull was in our saddle six hundred yards away, he was way smaller than I thought. He would be. It's like this game of scale, like trying to figure out what they look like. So he sees one. We rip a cow call and man, he slams our direction. We know he hears this. He locks in on us. Now all four of us looking trying to find the bull, and we're like, oh, we see him.
There he is.
He's looking at us, and then directly we see him moving our way. And that's always a good sign when you get a quick response. He just kind of moving our direction. But we're not too fired up. He comes around the point of this kind of on the spine of this little ridge.
It's a mile away mile sorry mile, Yeah, nevermind, I can't tell.
Okay, in and out with the vegetation.
Oh yeah, you can't see him the whole you can't see him. So so but he but he's coming our We see him like fifty yards from where he was, and he's coming our way, and we get excited hit him again with a call. And you're always trying to understand how much calling do we need because we felt like we might have overcalled the bull that was real close to us the other day, and so you're like, what, what does this bull want.
To hear, you're like feeling him out.
And so we noticed that every time that I called, he would start moving before the he got to the point where he would stop. I would call, he would start moving towards me before I even finished the call. Yep, And that tells you he likes it. And so we called a lot and just kind of trying to guide
him in. And then he got into the thick aspen willow brush and we could just see bits and pieces of him, and the sequence from him coming to the spruce to coming within three hundred yards was probably I would say a forty minute ordeal thirty thirty plus, and were seeing bits and pieces of him. And at first, Steve Vnellas, I remember you said you didn't get the vibe that he was a real big bull. I said, he's not a seventy incher. Okay, okay, we can review
the footage. I just remember, this isn't this isn't bad. I'm just saying, this is what you're going through. I'm trying to describe when you first see it.
Well, let me tell you why. Okay, I was doing Okay, here's where I screwed up. Early on, I was doing a comparison of looking at the fronts and the paddles. Mmm, that'll get that'll get you on this And when you see this particular animal, you will understand why.
Because you're like, well, what.
Why is his why why is he why does that at his fronts? Yeah, which led me to have just it just threw it was throwing me off. Then later I was starting to get auch. Once I saw the extent of it, I was starting to get a much different vibe. But early on I was just I wasn't like, it didn't look like sheets. It didn't look like half sheets supply would come in.
Through the woods. Yeah. So when need to wrapt this up in five minutes, don't don't don't spoil the end. So the bulls coming in were we're trying to we know it's a shooter. It just looks like from the from the man I've learned with moose, when I see paddles, no matter what distance, I'm like, it's a monster. I'm just just like yeah. But I when the first second I saw this moose, all that registered on my mind was I was like, golly, that's a lot of paddle.
It just looked it was just the volume of paddle was big, and man, the closer he got, the bigger he got, and pretty soon we're getting we're all getting really good looks at him, and and he's just big, huge fronts and you're you're looking for brow times on these bulls, and you know you're you're happy if you see one with four brow tons on each side. Bulls got ten brow times on both sides. Just super Nova,
I think that's its name. And loving your call, yeah, yeah, And we're we're constantly trying to decide how much to call. Every time we call. He's moving, so we keep giving him what he wants, and he's not coming directly to us. He's swinging around trying to get down win, which is what they typically do. And but he I mean, we got him because he's got a cross through a man.
I like everything I'm here, and I like everything I'm hearing, but I just like to get a little sniff before I just I don't want to go barging there without a little sniff yep, Like I want to get a lay of the lane, like who's.
Up there or what's going on? Is it a bull?
Is it?
Yeah? Sniff sniff's yeah. So but we got to wrap this up quick. He doesn't desperately want to get down win, but he wants to get down with Yeah, and we feel like every time we call it, he's just pulling a little bit tighter to us. I don't know if that was true.
Yeah, I think so.
But we were calling a lot and you'll see this on the one day this will come out and you'll get to watch it. And man, I mean it was that forty minute sequence was as good of a hunt as there is on planet Earth. I mean, for real, just watching him come, the excitement of trying to gauge how big he is. Is he gonna come?
Is he not?
We've been here, we worked so hard to get here. This is a crazy place. We're cold, we're tired where and here he comes and then he's big, and I mean, it's just it was. It was exciting. One of the last things we witnessed him do.
As he went to thrash in a tree and for some reason stuck his horn down in the ground like a spade shovel and.
Flaw threw up a cloud of soil.
And kept walking. Yeah, like they ain't nothing.
Is he still out there? Is he still out there? Or is he in the van? Stay tuned? Is that the way we're gonna leave it. We're gonna leave it like this.
Oh my gosh, was that a miser hit or you don't know?
And one more yeah, stay tuned. Nice ri On.
Seal Bran shine like silver in the sun, right right on alone.
Sweet.
We don't beat this day horse to death, so taking a new one and ride away. We're done beat this damn horse today, So take a new one and ride on. H