Bear Grease - Ep. 73: Bear Grease [Render] - Moose Hunt, Three-Yard Bear, and Black Panthers

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

On this episode of the Render we're doing things a little different. The guys are sitting around a campfire with James Lawrence (Hall of Fame Member), Gary Newcomb, Justin Michau and Gerald Brewer. They talk about Bear Newcomb's big bear and how they got it out of the woods. Clay goes into detail about his recent moose hunt, but not before James and Gerald talk about black panthers. Clay also tells about the bear he shot at three yards. It gets wild. They didn't get a chance to catch up on the final Holt Collier episode, but they plan to hit it on the next Render.  Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Welcome to the Bear Grease Render podcast.

My oh my, do we have an incredible show for you today. So we're sitting around a nice white oak wood campfire in the mountains of Arkansas. And we've got an eclectic group of guests today. Today's going to be a little bit different. So for those of you who might not be super familiar with what we do, the Bear Grease podcast is what, Justin? I don't know how you want me to describe that. The Bear Grease podcast is a documentary-style podcast.

We have multiple guests, very polished and produced, that tells a story about a specific topic, a person, whatever we're talking about. The Bear Gris Render is this, which is this, Justin. This is a discussion about the polished podcast. Right. And it's a random group of people. But today it's not so random. So typically on the render, we would discuss the previous week's podcast.

And we're not going to do that today, though. We're going to do something a little bit different because we've had some pretty wild stuff happen. And I've got a pretty wild group of men here that I will introduce from left to right. To my left is Justin Micho. Justin, welcome, brother. Thank you, buddy. Tell us, tell everybody what you do. I am a photographer and videographer.

Who do you work for? you. That's right. Different brands. Can you tell us some of the brands you work for? Needer, first light, lacrosse, Danor, vortex. So you're a professional videographer, professional photographer. You live in the great state of New York?

Yes, western New York. You told me that your kids, the first day of school the other day, had to, like, tell about themselves. Yeah. What would you say about yourself if you were in the second grade and your teacher said, Okay, right, five things about yourself that make you special. What would you say? Do I have to name five?

Well, just two. I like biscuits and gravy. Because you're originally from South Carolina. Well, you knew that would come up. Mm-hmm. Yep. You're a deer hunter. I'm a deer hunter.

Love coffee. Love what I do for a job. It doesn't feel like work. Love my wife. Today is my anniversary. Oh, wow. Yeah. How many years?

22. Congratulations, man. Yes, sir. Yeah. That's big. That is big. Commitments good. She makes it real easy.

Good. Well, to Justin's left is a man who needs no introduction on the Bear Grease podcast. I just let James know yesterday, Dad, that he is a member of the Bear Grease Hall of Fame. You named too. I didn't. So James Lawrence, an original inductee in the Bear Grease Hall of Fame. O.G. How you doing, James?

Doing good. Well, we're at— Proud to be inducted. Yeah. When I told him, I said, I explained to him what the Bear Grease Hall of Fame was, and I said, James, here are the people that are in it. James Lawrence, Daniel Boone. And he got a chuckle when Daniel Boone was the second one. But it's quite serious, very serious.

And then, you know, the other guy, it's Warner Glen, Roy Clark in Tennessee. What you've just heard is a white oak acre and falling about 30 feet out of a big tree hitting a tin roof if you heard that thud. James Lawrence, Daniel Boone, Warner Glen, probably 87 now, Cowboy in Arizona. Roy Clark, Plot Man extraordinaire in East Tennessee. Frederick Gerstocker, who was a hunter in early Arkansas history. And then George McJunkin, who was the former slave that found the Folsom Archaeological Site. So you're amongst quite the company, brother. Wow.

Well, I feel privileged. James, we're like in your home turf down here, man. We're right in the cradle of Lawrenceville. It's good to see you. It's good to be here, especially in the home ground. Listen to this. I probably never said this. In 2010, when I started my career in the outdoor space, we were pioneering and starting a regional magazine.

And do you know who was in the very first issue of that magazine, James Lawrence? I went to James because he had a story of the biggest buck you ever killed when you were how old? 12. Yeah. So you've been hunting for how many years now? Well, I'm 74. Yeah, 62 years. And so I'd hunted three or four years before I killed that one.

Yeah. Been hunting since probably nine. And so to this day, the biggest buck you ever killed was when you were 12, and it was a real unique story. And you'd found the shed horns of this deer. Back during the time when there weren't a lot of deer, you'd found three years of shed horns that killed this deer. about 160. It was just an incredible story. So I went to James and wrote an article about him, and there's a picture of me and James in that magazine holding those shed horns and that buck. Well, when I went to work for meat eater, and they said, Clay, you got to start a podcast.

You know who the first person I went to was? That's pointing to James. James Lawrence. I went to James's house and I said, I'm going to do a podcast on the shedhorn buck of 1962. So thanks, James. Thank you. He pretty much chose his career to you. I do. Man, hey, for real. What I've made, what I love about what I do is finding people that didn't get the attention of the outdoor channel.

You know, and when I learned of James's story and got to know him, I was like, this is cool stuff. And nobody knows this story. Nobody. And there's people like that all around. I forgot one guy that's in the Hall of, Fame, Oralee, Lee Province. I was telling James about

Orr Lee. They live in different parts of the state, so James never knew or Lee. But like O'R. Province, you know, nobody would have

ever known that story. So James Lawrence is here. Hey, let me say something about James. Clay came to me about that same time and said, who would be the best

hunter in Polk County? And, of course, I don't gun hunt, but I knew James would be up there. But I said, go ahead and call Joe Liles. I mean,

he'll tell you, for sure who the best hunter is. And we kind of suspicioned it's going to be James, but he said, no question. James Lawrence, he's the man. Yeah. Anyway, I think that's how you originally, you went up knocked on his door and said, hey, man, you got a pretty high reference. Yep.

Yeah, Joe Liles, he's the one who said, go talk to James. I went and knocked on his door and we've been best buddies ever since. That's right. That's right. I remember that day. Yeah. You knock on the door and you took out your hand and introduced yourself, and we went out in the garage and sat down and talk deer stories.

Did you know him before then? No. I met him when he knocked on my door. Yeah, I was writing a story about hunting big woods, white tails. To James's left is our star guest who's not been on the Bear Grease podcast at all before. Who's good in smoke in their eyes? Who's getting some smoke in his eyes? Gerald Brewer.

Gerald, great to have you on, man. Good to see you. Thank you. Gerald, how old are you? 82. 82 years old. Yeah. And you got a head full of hair like a movie star, man.

Gerald, don't know about that. Gerald, what kind of work did you do? I was in the auto parts business before I retired. Yeah. How long did you do that? I did that for 35 years. Auto parts business. Yeah.

Small town, Arkansas. Yeah. But you're a lifelong hunter. I am. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us, so we are at your camp. And now don't tell us, don't tell anybody where it's at, but tell us about your camp and kind of the history of this property.

We can tell you it's in the mountains? Can we say that? We've said that. Okay. Yeah. Okay, this, where we're at here is part of a 160-acre homestead that local people homesteaded back in the day. It's a few miles on either, in any direction, any direction, but before you come to more private properties. So this is, so. are unique that we're and where we're at here we have two sides of national forest yeah good place to hunt so how long have you had this property i've had this uh i was thinking about that last night or this morning i'm trying to figure it up i think about 35 years okay yeah and then you originally had you've got a big metal um metal covering over an area where you backed your camper trailer in for years is that right right yeah so you had deer camp out here with a camper trailer but then when did you when was this cabin built james built the cabin uh 2019 it's not it's not that old yeah but yes this uh where we're sitting at here sort of typical a lot of our building around here evolved you know

we'd add on a little every year yeah and uh originally when we when my brother and i started this we didn't and we weren't really thinking about a cabin. We just wanted a shed to get out of the rain. Then we put a wood stove in and built a shed for our trailer. And then we enclosed all of this with a siding. And then in 2019, we built the new cabin here. And then we kept the old one and just took all the walls off. And now we have an outside purview.

Yeah. With an outside kitchen and so forth. Well, it's a beautiful spot. And then the cabin, and you said James Lawrence built this cabin. Yes, right, yeah. And runs off solar. We're off a grid out here. Correct, right.

And, man, James, me and Justin were admiring your trim work inside there. Yeah. Really nice. I enjoyed doing that. Y'all did every part of this, huh? Build everything but the siding and another guy built put the siding on. Yeah. And the roof on.

But other than that. Did it all. Done all. Did it all. We're proud of it. Yeah. So we've had our bear camp out here the last several years. Three or four years or maybe this is the fourth year.

Yeah. Yeah. Probably so. Right. Yeah. So we'll come back to Gerald, but to Gerald's left, Gary Newcomb, the believer himself. Yeah. Got my believer hat.

Hey, do y'all see his hat? Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Do you all know what that means? No. Okay. I don't. It's got a black panther on it.

Mm-hmm. So the first. one of the first Bergeries podcasts, I was interviewing dad about mountain lines because he had seen the mountain line in Arkansas. And I asked him, or he said something about Black Panthers. And anyway, long story short, he believes in Black Panthers. Gerald, do you have any mountain line stories? I saw on the mountain here behind us back. I can't remember how many years it is, probably about 10 years ago.

I was turkey hunting right on top of the mountain. And when I first saw it, I thought it was a deer. But then when it started jumping from one rock to another, without I knew it was a cat. But what was ironic about all that, just within days, there was an article in the local paper that some, I'm thinking, if I recall, it was some biologist had sent,

and that if anyone saw any mountain life, and Cougars to have a phone number or whatever to please call that number. Do you call them? Don't recall. I don't recall if I did or not. I may have, but I really thought that it was a little bit. So you thought maybe they had seen some or knew about some? Yeah.

Now, would you be, would you fall into the category of someone that believe that there were mountain lines here before you saw one? Like when you saw it, did it confirm what you already knew, or did it surprise you? It sort of surprised me, but not a great lot because I won't be surprised to see any type of animal out in the wild. I mean, it might surprise me initially. But I guess what I'm getting at is like growing up in these mountains, did people believe there were mountain lines out here? Well, when we're talking about mountain line, I'm talking about what we also call a cougar. A cougar? I don't think they believe that, but now we had Panthers, the smaller black cats.

Okay. Yeah. Really? Here's my man. I've been looking for this guy. You found him. Right here, brother. Now, tell me about that, because that's what Dad's hat is all about.

Now, why do you, where have you heard that? Tell me the origin of that. James gave a thumbs up, too, so he's on board with that. The black cats, the Panthers. Well, where I lived then was down in Montgomery County, still in Washington, but in the late summertime, maybe around August, whatever, when it would be dry. Well, for some reason, the cats would come down, or if I said the cats, maybe it was just one, and start there screaming, and it was spook to horses and things like that, you know.

But it really spooked. Now, you've never seen one, though. I never have seen one myself, but now people, other people saw them. You knew people that had seen them. Yeah, and I believed them, yeah. Yeah, absolutely, man. James, what do you think about, well, number one, have you ever seen a mountain line? Like a tan.

Have you really? Yeah. Tell me about that. Can I start back with the Panthers first? Okay. I live with my grandparents, and we'd go to town. once a week, Saturday, which is a gravel, I mean, a paved road now, but it was just dirt road to you get over the mountain toward the old Dallas.

And on that mountain, at different times, we've seen them cross the road. Sometimes there's one, and a lot of times they're two. And they were black, beautiful animals, but it just gave you chill bumps to see one. And always down, just seen them cross the road, you know, headups, where they're going off the mountain or coming up the mountain, several times. I was... I'm looking...

These are the best sources. These are the best sources I've heard. I mean, we're going to have to get these guys some believers hats. We might need to get them to church. Get them to repent of their sins. These boys are going to be stretching the truth. Well, I'm the only survivor. My grandmother and my granddad,

but I won't say regular basis, but it pretty frequent. And it was on Saturday because we always went down on Saturday, parked at the same spot, they grocery shop, we'd come back home on a gravel road over the mountain that's paved now. And we'd see them on top crossing the road several times. You would see regular mountain lions too. Tan ones would cross all black.

No, I was, shoot, I was grown before I've seen the cougar. Really? They always just call these panthers. Yeah. Pretty, pretty, pretty animal. If you'd look at it that way, kind of give you chill bumps from you saying them. I've seen them cross the roads, the Cougars.

I was hunting on down the road in Montgomery County, and my son, and during the rut, dough come by, buck come by, I shot the buck, and then another buck come by. So my boy was furthered down the mountain, so I got him and brought him back up. And then I was going to go move my Bronco around where the access would be easier to get it off. I get back up there and he said, you've missed something.

What do you mean? He said, go down there and look at your deer. That panther had come up to holler, and he said it was just an orbit crawling, sneaking up on that deer. And it got, I mean, it's done major damage to the deer trying to drag it back down the holler. Huh. Because if anything, we'd had a camera or phones in, but that's been 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Yeah. But I've seen them, I've seen them, oh, over them, deer hunting, seen them come through.

And a lot of dog hunters back then, and I had a cougar to come by with the dogs after them. Really? So you've seen the deer dogs running a mountain line? Well, the cougar come through, and then I could hear the dog's coming, and they brought it on to it. I mean, the dog's obviously chasing it. I'll be done. Big. Black. No, this was a cougar.

Just a regular tan. Yeah. Big one. Of course, you probably know Clay, but all dogs will not run a cat. Mm. Just, I mean, like deer dogs, you might, out of four or five, you might have one that would run a cat. But the rest, some of them will follow. Yeah.

Follow the lead dog, but they don't pursue it very fast. Yeah. Did you grow up hunting deer with dogs? Gerald? Yes, that was the only way we knew. I think that was more or less out of, well, that's the culture then, and probably out of necessity because there were so few deer that you almost had to have a dog to locate them.

When I started hunting, it was probably back in the 1950s, but we had two deer seasons then. The first one was the second week in November, started on a Monday, went through a third. Saturday, you did not hunt on Sunday. Because it was illegal or because your family wouldn't let you? Well, no, it was illegal. There was not a, no season.

So it goes Monday through Saturday. James, did you ever hunt on Sunday when you weren't supposed to? Don't tell it, James. He's thinking. That's a loaded question. He said that this does not have to be truthful. Gerald asked him beforehand if. No, I'd never hunted on Sunday.

I have and I Oh, Geraldine. Yeah, well. Wow, man. Yeah. But anyway, the, back to the hunting with dogs. And that was just the culture, you know. Right.

We knew, we didn't know any other way to hunt. But I guess I saw my first turkeys in, somewhere in early 1970. Yeah. And I had no idea. It was raining. We were driving around during the deer season, deer hunting. And I didn't really know what there were. I saw them.

They just standing there, you know, in the rain. But anyway, I started turkey hunting, and I started seeing deer. I thought, you know, a person could deer hunt this way. You don't need dogs, you know. Oh, okay. You know. Just sitting around out in the woods. Yeah, I was sitting there a turkey hunting, and I started seeing deer.

So anyway, my brother and I hunted together. And we had started hunting. Okay, our dogs is getting old, and we decided we're going to not have dogs anymore. A lot of work, a lot of trouble. Yeah. If you're never on hunting dogs. Yeah. But anyway, so after we didn't have dogs any longer, we started hunting over in this area here,

because this homestead here I'm talking about, part of it had been abandoned then. There was still some old fields. and, you know, deer were hanging out in there. And so we started, we just camp up on top the mountain, or we had another place up here to pull out. We'd camp in her trailer, you know, and we'd come down and hunting this area. Just hunt off the ground, hunting terrain features and stuff.

And that was just new, huh? Right, it's new because we had, we'd been hunting with dogs all the time. We didn't know. And, of course, that was a little bit before. any type of climbing stands or anything, but on top of the mountain here, there were remains of some old wood platforms. There were probably Jameses.

People had built. When he hunted on Sunday. Yeah. He never did say if he did. When he black panther hunted on Sunday. But anyway, that's when I started just staying hunting or still hunting for deer. It was when I started turkey hunting. And we never look back.

Never looked back. And so what we started doing, after that, my brother and I and those guys that hunted with us, we would build ground blinds and the little saddles and divides in here, you know, out of just whatever's on the ground, you know. And sometimes we'd build a comfortable seat, you know. and so we'd use those year after year. Yeah. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls

and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right?

That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers

who just want to start making good. turkey noises and getting action. I want to talk about two things. I don't know if we can cover it all. I want to tell people about my moose hunt because the last bearish rendered, like I've been on every single bearish podcast except for the last one because I was in Alaska. And my wife, Misty, ran the podcast.

And they told everybody that I was in Alaska moose hunting. So I want to give an update, but so much has happened since then. I don't know that we can cover it all because me and Justin yesterday had a pretty big adventure in the mountains here in Arkansas that ended up with a bear getting a ride out of the woods on the back of a mule. So I want to tell about that too, and all you guys were involved in that. Where should I start, Dad? And then bears bear. Yeah.

I mean, that was phenomenal. Why don't you tell us about that? Tell us about, and tell who Bear is. Bear John Nukum, my son. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, he's a 16-year-old kid, and Clay has raised him where he's kind of like a man. I mean, he drove that truck.

Judy couldn't, my wife couldn't believe it. She said, I can't believe they let Bear drive that truck with a mule trailer down here by himself. Several hours. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a three-hour drive with that truck, you know, in the mule. So anyway, he drove down here from Fayetteville. And, you know, he went to a stand in the first morning.

He had a big bear coming in. And, you know, he's in a saddle. Tethered tree saddle. Okay. That's what kind it was. Okay. It's pretty good. Climbing and using it.

Yeah. Yeah. And sure enough, I think so much about when y'all hunted in Oklahoma, and there were two big bears. They eventually ended up being. 550 and I'd say a minimum of 6.50. Two bears coming in and I don't care where you hunted. I mean, they had two or three different locations best I remember.

And the first morning it seemed like every time those bear would come in and show themselves and turn around to leave. So the big bears, they don't like any hint of human odor. Right. And so bear goes in there and, of course, he's... he climbs up in his tree and this bear comes in 340 pounds field dress so you know weighs 410 425 big bear and uh the bear comes in turns around leaves smells him can i tell you what what he did oh i know what he did tell us well you know clay and i have this argument about scent control did the bear tell you what he did

oh i know i know i know Clay loves sync control. Yeah. So anyway. But I've got, I could, we could have a little conversation about what I think happened to. Okay. But don't tell your side of the story. Okay, so.

He's wearing a believer hat. He's a sick control believer too. So Bear, Bear and I are talking. And I said, Bear, I know, I said, you can't tell you dad this. We were sitting out here, I think. Were you here? Gerald told on you. Gerald said, they were talking today.

Yeah. They said, your dad's not going to prove this. So anyway, I said, okay, bear, if you really want to kill that bear, and of course, you never know if this is true or not, but I believe it. I mean, absolutely, no question. Yeah. That bear was not going to come in without synch control. So I said, Bear, you come by the house in the morning. He told me what time he could be there.

And I've got a scent-lock box where I just keep my main hunting gear, and I took that stuff and dried it. And then I went and got some of my The scent shop The product. The product. Like the carbon activated. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. The hood. Yep. The whole thing. Yep. And rubber boots.

So I got him two real good pair of rubber boots. I got all my scent stuff out. And I got some of my scent control spray. And I said, now if you're going to do this, you're going to do it right. And this, keep this in mind. I said, This is something you don't do for every hunt. This is something you do maybe once a year, maybe once every two years.

But if you got a really big buck, you got a really big bear, it's not going to cost you, but about an hour's worth of work. And I said, you walk to that stand in about a hundred yards or whatever you feel comfortable with. You stripped down. I gave him underwear. I said, you stripped down, but naked. And you take this big old bottle of spray and you bathe in it. And when you walk to your stand, you either walk in your underwear or you put your pants on, but don't put shirts and stuff on.

I gave them two pair of gloves. And you guys out there in Radio Land can laugh at this, but I'm telling you, you're wrong. Steve Ronella, you're wrong. So anyway, so I asked him later, I said, did you do everything I told you to? He said, I did it almost to the teeth. So I said, when you get to that stand, don't put your tops on and stuff, you know, either at the base of the tree, if it's not too hot, you know what I mean, put it at the base. And I said, when you go up that ladder, don't be using your hands. Use this pair of scent gloves.

You go up the stand and you got your, you got your, you got. your spray in your pocket. And it was a big bottle. And I said, once you get up there, you put all, you spray down again everywhere. And you take, I got him deodor. I said, you do your arms, the back of your neck, your sternum, back of your legs, whatever you, you know, there's places. And I said, once you get up there, you just drench yourself again.

And then spray your boots. I had him a good pair of lacrosse boots that didn't have the foam on them. Yeah. You know, which is, that's not a big deal. But if you're going to go to this much trouble, do it right. Right. Yeah. So he had the lacrosse boots and, and the birdie.

And so he gets up in the stand, sprays down. And I said, about every five or ten minutes, shoot that stuff around. And sure enough, that sucker came in and he killed it. Hey. And you know what? Those big bear, I mean, I heard so many stories of y'all having those big bear comes. them in. And when did you kill that 550 pound bear when you got sent free? 100%. But instead of spending $300 on this stuff I gave, I just gave him that stuff.

I said, hey, man, you kill that bear. You can just keep all that stuff. And so that bear that you killed, you did not kill it until you were sent free. And how did you get sent free? You spent about $7,000. Not quite that much. Scent-free blind is what the first time I hunted out of a redneck blind for this big bear we were after I killed him. The first time I hunted. So scent is 100% the limiting factor on big bears. So I've got nothing to refute. But, you know, I said, now look bear, if that wind, even what you're doing, if that bear, if you got the wind of your back and it's blowing to that bear, you're probably still going to get detected.

but if that you know if the wind is anywhere you know thermal's going up if there's no wind at all that better come right under your stand yeah and that's exactly what happened man my world is just spinning backwards today between the black panthers scent control and i'm just ready to just be like okay well yeah clay when we were in canada clay was barking about scent control and you know yesterday we were like drowned rats in that blind because every 10, 15 minutes, he'd be like, can I spray you? Can I spray you? Yeah, I was hoping you were doing that.

I wanted to tell you to take some spray with you. Well, we did. And, you know, we were hiking in a mile and a half uphill. 93 degrees. So, I mean, we were covered in sweat. And it was just, I just didn't know how to not do that. But once we got in there, we had some scent shield spray. I mean, we just bathed our set.

We had scent-free wipes that we wiped down. You know, that helped. And it, you know, we still had bears smelling us. But, well, and I can just a little bit more about Bears' Bear, and then we'll tell our story. But so Bear kills this big bear, you know, probably close to 400 pounds. Actually, I don't want to take away weight from Bear's bear, but they say that a field-dressed bear, his guts only weigh about 13% of his field dress weight. Oh, really?

I was thinking 20 was low. Well, I know. It seems low. And I've never really verified it with, like that number, just everybody says it and nobody verify. I mean, maybe some guy who didn't know was the one that said that. I want to hear a real bear biologist say, I have weighed 180 different bears and they all come into the 13% range.

I've never heard that. Just that's what people repeat. That'd be 40 pounds roughly. Yeah. So it's usually, the guts are potentially a lot less than what you might think. And his bear, by the way, had very little fat, right, James? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't a fat bear.

This bear was lean and mean. I mean, if he had had, what, two or three inches of fat off? Yeah, he would have been a really, really monster. So, you know, he shot this bear and. Killed it with his bow. It killed it with his bow. And, I mean, it. it did to moan and it just went what 35 yards probably maybe 30 probably 30 and uh so and this is

something that i've come to believe on the bear moan is that you know you hear guys well yeah mine you know well what i've noticed is if you kill that bear on the spot he's dead he's running dead he's going to moan so if you get a margin shot where the bear's going to die, but he's going to run 100 yards. I mean, he might bear moan out there as he's dying, but you're not going to hear it. Yeah. But these bear that you've killed that I've been around and bears bear and when I hear guys tell stories, this one you kill yesterday, it did a little moan, didn't it?

But it fell real quick. Yeah. And so you got two 74-year-old guys out there helping bear get that bear out of the woods. Yeah. And I don't know what James thought. You know, I was thinking James wouldn't, he'd have a better way of doing it. But I had a hundred foot rope and you had 20, 30 foot of strap in there. And we just backed the truck in as close as we could, tied it on it and pull that bear out.

And, you know, it. How'd y'all get it in the truck? How'd we do what? Oh, James had us back up where the tailgate was almost flat with the side of the hill. Just kind of rolled it in. yeah well they're hard to move when they're that big yeah yeah yeah we had bear too i mean little bear man that's that's that was a circus oh yeah yeah we got him just right up to the truck and he fell that we actually okay i gotta say brent reeves claims he claims that he was totally out of the loop

on because brent was over there and he he showed me the text messages he had with bear about how Anyway, Brent wasn't there. So, yeah, I mean, we can't count on Brent. Brent blamed the communication skills of the Newcombs on him not being there. Since Brent isn't here, I will say there's a few other ideas that I had about that. I called him, talked to him, and he said, I ain't coming up there. No, not really. No, he had a good, it was just miscommunication, and there was, Brent was out of cell range,

and we were, or y'all were in. I was in Alaska. What was wild is that I am on my in-reach in Alaska on trying to navigate flying out, and people are, T, Misty's saying, have you heard from Bear? And I'm like, no. And Brent, I think Brent even texted me. I mean, I'm right in the middle of it, man. And I'm telling the whole meat eater crew what's going on.

All week while we were in Alaska, I was talking about, you know, I was missing bear hunting, and I was talking to him about my bear pit. And, oh, everybody was rooting for bear. Steve Rinella and Sam Bates and Dirtmouth, my cameraman, I mean, they were like getting play-by-plays. He's in the stand, wins out of the east. You know, bears messaging me from his cell phone to my in reach in Alaska. and oh, I couldn't hardly moose hunt for,

and I told Misty, I said, it stressed me out when he killed it because I knew that Dad and James were the only ones there to help him get it out. I was worried about you guys, man. Yeah, if that bear had gone 100 yards, I mean, I guess you would just quartered it up. Well, hey, that's what I was going to say.

You know, as good as bear is at skin and stuff, I told him he should have just quartered it. up right there in the spot. That's what I would have done. Rather than, because it just increases the work so much, you know, to move them. I'd have just quartered him up. But, yeah, there's pretty good. We had to tie it to a tree just to get it.

Yeah. Field dress it. Yeah, get his legs up. Steep, huh? Oh, it was steep. Yeah. It was steep. Yeah, we tried to hold it.

Finally, we just tied it to a tree to field dress it. Yeah. And that took a lot of weight off of it. Yeah. Well, it was quite the ordeal, and I really was proud of bear. Bear is not a man of many words, humble kid. And when I was going to Alaska, my Alaska trip overlapped the intense time period before opening day when we're baiting bears. And anybody that's never baited bears, welcome to not being in the know of how much work goes into.

The most work of anything I do is baiting bears. people think, oh, baiting bears is for lazy guys that don't want to get out in the woods. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah. Most work I do is baiting bears. Yeah. And so I wasn't going to be here for most of it. And so Bear, he's going to school during the week, but there were two Saturdays that I said,

bear, I need you to go bait my bears. And the place I'm baiting, we can't drive into it. There's no vehicular access. And so you've got to take the mules and we haul bait in on the mules. and it is an expedition to leave where we live, drive there. I mean, it's an all-day deal. You got to catch mules. You got to pack the right tack.

You got to pack the right bear bait. You got to know how to handle those mules and not hurt yourself. I mean, there's just a, you got to drive into the access point. I mean, you're in and out of four-wheel driving, crossing creeks and navigating in rough terrain and just even in the truck hauling the trailer. And so I knew Bear could do it. And he took one of his buddies one Saturday. And they went in there and took in probably 500 pounds of bait on those mules and baited it.

He said they were in there like 12 minutes. You know, I said, I told, I gave him real specific because I said, I don't want you in there in the morning. I don't want you in there in the afternoon. I want you in there between 11 and 1 o'clock. So that means you're going to have to leave our house at 6 o'clock in the morning. You know, like I really gave him some specifics, and he did it. And then the next time he went in by himself.

The next Saturday he didn't have help because it was the day he was hunting, and he went in there by himself. So anyway, I was real proud of him. He did good. You know, I think about me being that age, I would be telling my grandfather, man, I drove that stinking truck down with those mules. pass scars or you know i'd be i'd be bragging about it he never said a word even no big deal man he just came down here and did what he had to do and it's pretty it's pretty cool really yeah

cool kid well i was proud of him just for executing and and getting a good shot on the bear you know that's what i i was coaching him on in reach i was saying don't take anything but a broadside shot of a standing bear don't get too high you know i didn't want him to get up 25 feet and have a real sharp shot angle. He was wanting to get back like 25 yards from the bait, and I told him that's too far. I said, you don't want to take a 25-yard shot, get into about 18 yards, get up about 18 feet. And, you know, he could have got up higher for cent, but boy, when you start getting a super steep shot angle, you just, it's tough.

And so he did everything right. You know, the bear bait was where he had some limbs in the way. so he positioned some of that bait where the bear would move just a little out so he'd have a shot and that bear walked up exactly where he wanted it to and stuck one arm in the bait barrel which opened up his vital cavity and man he just stuck it broadhead slick trick right right in there in the heart gerald you told me something you heard bear do right which was 16 Yeah. Okay, I thought this was rather mature of him.

He mentioned to your dad when they were having this conversation here about the scent control and everything. And, okay, this was the first evening he was there hunting, and he saw the bear, but he thought it sent it in him and it sort of veered away. but he left something either in the tree or in his stand and I assumed it was a piece of clothing because he said the bear would on the camera it was showing he was in there, the bear was in there three or four hours every night. So he left that so that the bear would get used to his scent.

I'm assuming that. I thought that was real smart of him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's good. Well, you just blew my scent control deal. Forget it, guys. That's why I did it. Yeah.

I was going to say this. I was like you got through. One or the other. I don't know. But I've always thought what he did was very smart. And I thought about, you know, I've baited bear here at my place. And I know, I've baited bear here at my place. And you, uh, and I know, y'all.

done this too i would i'd meet them coming back you know they would be heading up there i don't know if they're smelling me if they heard me or what you know but they got used to my presence there somewhat yeah yeah they can sometimes yeah well uh what should we do here jeston should we talk about the moose or our bear that's up to you well what's in your heart jeston you're my cameraman uh well i could tell the moose story Yeah. Because this would be number six, five or six. Every person.

So Justin got to Arkansas within an hour of me coming back to Arkansas from Alaska. So basically I went from that trip to this one. And so Justin's been with me ever since they got home with Alaska like every minute of every day, basically. And every time I come to somebody new, I got to tell them the Alaska story. So I told Misty and the kids. He heard me tell Dad. You heard me tell James. James.

So anyway, you've heard the story many times. Yeah. It's a good one. I think you should go with that one. Go with Alaska? Well, so when I, we left for Alaska on September the 7th, and I went with Steve Renella, and we filmed an episode of Meat Eater,

so everybody would be able to watch this at some point on Meat Eat Eater Season 11. It's undisclosed where it's going to be. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. It's kind of like the Black Panther. That's right. Yeah. So much mystique around this.

So what we did, what we did was what they call a ridge hunt, which it's a fly-in camp where we, and it was a do-it-yourself hunt. So we were with what they call a transporter. So there was no guide, no outfitter, but basically you hire bush plant. to take you into a spot. And kind of the, what you know is that they're taking you into a spot that's going to be decent and have moose. But they don't tell you anything.

They legally can't. They just drop you off. And, you know, they don't say, hey, you should camp over there and the moose are going to come from here. You know, it's, it's, it's, do it yourself. It's called a ridge hunt because it's, the area we were in,

was rolling hills with the highest mountains in the area being about 4,400 feet or so, and the river bottoms being about 3,000. Now, off in the distance, you know, 60 miles away, you could see white-cap mountains, big, big Alaskan mountains. But basically, these airplanes can land in certain areas on these ridges. They can't land down in the tundra. The area consists of big spruce thickets, which would just be big green patches of woods. And then willow thickets, which are going to be smaller trees, but thick, super thick.

And then there's tundra. So, I mean, that's a general description of the top of terrain. You're either going to have spruce, willow and aspen, or tundra. And the tundra can have blueberries, cranberries and crowberries in it, a lot of it. You wouldn't believe the amount of blueberries, cranberries, that were, I mean, everywhere. We all were covered in stains of berries in just random places, just because, you know, you sit on the ground everywhere you go. So, I mean, you just sit on blueberries.

Everybody had blueberry stains on their knees. I had a blueberry, blueberry stains on my backpack where I leaned down on the ground. we ate black blueberries the whole time but when they drop you in these camps basically when you're moose hunting you're limited to how far you can go after a moose based upon how easily you can get it back to your camp because this thing is going to weigh between

you know 1,000 and 1,500 pounds and so it's an incredible amount of work to get the meat back to the airstrip because that's where you got to get it. So basically, it's not like elk hunting. When you're elk hunt, you might walk 15 miles and you're looking for one, and an elk is just enough smaller that, you know,

you might have a big, heavy packout, but you can pretty much get one out a couple of guys of about anywhere. A moose is just enough bigger than an elk that most moose hunters would say they're not, going to shoot a moose much past a mile beyond their camp. So you're out in this huge wilderness and you can't go to a lot of moose that you can see because you're the best spot that we had for glassing. So you have your camp tucked away somewhere where it's secluded and we were kind of out of the wind behind a little bluff and we would walk out every day from our camp and go to

one of two glass and spots. One of the glass and spots was about a mile from our camp, but you could see it from our camp. It was a big gravelly knob about a mile away through open tundra. It looked like you could just walk over there in 10 minutes, but it took forever to get there. The other one was just over the ridge, and from these glass and spots you could see for miles.

And I mean that. you could see across this river. We were overlooking a river that was 1.9 miles away. And you could see all the mountains clear as a bell on the other side of the river. And you could glass them. You know, we had good optics, you know, spotting scopes and binos on tripods. And so you just sat there for hours every day, literally all day. And just glass.

And you just learn every nuance of the land. We saw the first night we were there, we saw a pack of 14 black wolves across the river. Really? Jet black, all 14 of them. Wow. I asked Steve if he'd ever seen anything. I mean, it was the first night we were there. It was the first animals that we saw.

Steve was on the other side of the mountain, and I was glassing and saw him. And I said, wolves. and there were five of them and I was like one two, three, four, five black wolves, wow, can't believe it. And they were going through open tundra and they just kept coming. Just more, more, more, more.

Finally, there were 14 in the line. Every one of them looked the exact same. And Steve came over and looked at him and Steve has a vast amount of experience in Alaska and the West and Wolf Country and asked him if he'd ever seen anything like that and he said no. He said he's seen, you know,

You know, usually you see three or five. You know, five would be a decent size. And we saw them multiple times. And they played like German Shepherds out in that tundra. They'd just wrestle and wag their tails and fight. And then you'd see one sit down on his haunches and throw his head back and how. And then about five seconds later you'd hear, oh. You'd hear him howl and you'd be watching him.

I mean, it's neat. Really? We watched them for, we saw them at least three different times, and they stayed right in that area. Yeah. But, so, back to moose. When you're moose hunting, you're hunting the rut. You're hunting the moose rut.

And basically, you're trying to call these moose to you. And when it's just like any, it's just like turkey hunting, in a lot of ways, and just like the elk hunters say, and I'm not a big, I'm not a good elk hunter. But you're hoping that the moose are doing what they're supposed to be doing and responding to calls. And sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. And basically during our time there, the moose weren't responding to calls that good.

And the moose weren't moving around. We kind of had these local moose that we were watching that just kind of were living there and they were there when we got there. and when you know it's really good is when every day you wake up and there's new moose in your area or you see a moose two miles away that's moving and he just they're you know they're just on the prow and and we did not see that until the last day basically we messed around with these local moose that didn't want to come to our calls for for eight days and we uh It was so cool because you'd be looking at a moose like 1.2 miles away.

One of our best spots where we watched, what I believed was a 60-inch moose. Watched him for five days, but couldn't, didn't want to move in on him because we thought we could call him to us. You would, you'd be looking at him and you would call, moose call just with your mouth, you know, just, ah, loud. and he'd be looking a different way and then a few seconds afterwards he'd you know he'd look at you

and just he'd acknowledge you and he could hear you from that far which is pretty wild but finally on the last day day number nine we woke up and there were we saw several moose we tried to work some moose nothing happened and we had to leave the next day

we had to leave the next day oh we're getting some more fire here more wood on the fire the airplanes were coming at 730 the next day this is day number nine we are at noon on day number nine, we were basically done. We had to be done. And we basically shot the final scene of the video where Steve and I were frustrated and just kind of like, man, we tried, we had all this. And there were a couple of stalks that were almost killed one on day four. Steve had a couple of close calls, but nothing ever happened.

And so we shot the Indian scene of the film. and I mean we're just bummed that we had and it's a strange feeling I mean you guys know it when you invest that much time and energy I mean you can't just go to Alaska and be gone five days

I mean this is like a 13 day trip which is the biggest commitment of my year and you know I mean I didn't really expect to kill a moose so it's not like I was disappointed in that sense but the sense of you just worked so hard and you don't really have much to show for it other than just an experience, which is good.

I mean, we're all used to that and okay with that, but it's still kind of a bummer. Well, that afternoon, one of the producers of the show said, hey, we really can't kill a moose. Like, we're done because if we killed one, we don't have time to get it out before we got to leave. and Steve looked at his name is Chester, my friend Chester, Steve looked at Chester with kind of a grimace and said, we'll figure that out if it happens. And after the morning hunt and we're done, the whole crew is sitting in a tent with a wood stove in it,

just talking about, you know, how we're going to go home without a moose. And Steve walked in at 416 and said, Clay, I'm going to walk up to the porcupine. And we'd named the head of this big holla, porcupine. Because they'd seen a porcupine there, of all things. He wasn't saying Clay come with me, cameramen come with me. He was just going to go on a walk.

And I said, I'll go with you, Steve. And so I jump up. And so here's our two hunters walking out. And we weren't, like Steve wasn't even going to tell the cameraman to come. but because they're good guys, Dirt Myth, his name's Garrett Smith, but he goes by DirtMet. Dirt myth is his name.

Dirt goes, well, I'll come. And everybody goes, you're going to bring a camera? And he's like, well, I guess I might as well. And then so when he did that, Laura and the other cameraman, who's a great guy, say, well, I'll go to. You're going to bring a camera? I guess I will.

And we had unloaded our packs. and took all our gear out that we needed to process moose. We didn't have bags. We didn't have, you know, some of the guys didn't have headlamps. We didn't have, I mean, we were just preparing to go. But we took our rifles and cameras and went to the porcupine. How far is that? Probably a half mile from where we were.

And we got up and set on porcupine and glass and glassed. And we had not seen a single bull moose in porcupine. Orcupine in nine days. So why Steve wanted to go there, I don't know. You know, he just probably because we hadn't been there in a day or two. Well, we're sitting there, and Dirtmouth goes, what is that way out there? And we look across the tundra probably four miles, way out in the river flats, and we see a big black object moving.

You could see it. I actually don't know if you could see it with your naked eye. but I put the binos up and it looked like an argo. Steve Ronella pulls his binoes up and said, that's an argo. That's not a moose. And then I said, no, I think I see horns on it. And Lauren said, no, that's the cowboy hat of the driver.

And when he said it, you looked at it, you're like, it kind of does look like an argo with a man wearing a cowboy hat in front. anyway, Steve pulls out the spotting scope, but sure enough, it's a big bull moose just hooking it across the tundra. And Steve goes, we could call that bull moose in if he was over here close. It was the first time we'd seen a cruising bull. So that was the indicator.

Like, it was the first time we just saw one just plowing across the tundra looking for a cat. That was fun to see, but way out of play. I mean, just might as well have been on a different planet. The rut just started when y'all are fixing to leave. Yeah. Basically. That sounds that way.

Well, not five minutes after we saw the Argo Bull, one of the cameraman sees a bull directly below us, like within play, like eight, nine hundred yards away. If you're within 800 yards of a moose out there, you're, it's like being within 30 yards of a deer here. I mean, like, 800 yards is like, wow, we're close to that thing. Big country. Well, we see a moose and look at it, and it's a small moose. And a legal moose has to be 50 inches wide or have four brow tines. This bull clearly was not legal, but it was cool that we saw a bull. There's a bull.

We watched him, and we called to him. Didn't acknowledge us, but the bull just kind of disappears. Well, not three minutes later after that, I spotted a single paddle of a bull 1247 yards away, just sticking up out of a spruce thicket. And I said, man, there's a bull right there. We all look at it. Steve goes, man, that's a big one. That's a legal one.

We call at it and rake. You take a stick. And Steve had an oil can, like a plastic oil bottle like from Walmart. Yeah. Cut the butt of it out, stuck a stick into the spout, taped it, and had a little handheld, and if you can imagine, an open-ended plastic oil can, raking it up and down trees, sounds incredible. And he started raking, and I started calling, and that we saw that bull one time acknowledge

that it heard our call, but disappeared. Well, Steve looks at me, we've got two hours of daylight left. The planes are coming at 7.30 a.m. and basically I don't remember exactly who said what but basically we were like it's the last day of season let's go and so we just bailed off the mountain going to them and man when you bail off a mountain over there it's a commitment I'll be honestly the whole time I was thinking every step we're taking down this mountain we're going to have to walk back up and we were moving fast and we were just plowing down the mountain

and we gained about 300 yards, and so now we're about 900 yards from where we saw the moose, and Steve climbs up a dead spruce tree about 12, 13 feet, and is glassing over the willows trying to see if this bull's coming, and he can't see it. And we sat there for 10, 15 minutes, call, rake, and we think we're going to be able to see this bull if he's coming. We see nothing.

and so after 15 minutes we look at each other just with our hands up and just go well I guess I guess he's just like all the other bulls and just didn't going to come and directly we heard the brush cracking about 100 yards to our left I mean like big stuff breaking and all of us were like there's a bull coming and he's right here So Steve and I kneel down behind a tree, or behind the fallen log, and about the time we get knelt down, we can see the bushes swaying. Because these bulls, huge animals, big horns, coming through these willow thickets, I mean, they're just pushing over brush, intentionally making noise.

And he's out there about 100 yards, and we start seeing the trees move, and then you start seeing flashes of horn. And I mean, he's coming. and we assume it's the big bull that we just saw. And as soon as it kind of comes into view, we see that it's a little moose. It's like that 30-inch moose that we probably saw at the beginning. And it comes in to 19 yards and just stares at us.

And it's still kind of behind the bushes. And we're excited to have a moose that close because it's the closest we'd been to one all week for the most part of bull, but we're also kind of bummed because it's not legal. So Steve and I are sitting there side by side. And then directly, we hear the brush cracking beyond the bull that's standing still right in front of us. And, you know, it took a minute to figure out what was going on.

And somebody said, there's another one. And we go, oh, man, you're right. Look, I see the trees moving. Oh, wow. Get ready. And we know this one's the big one. Steve Ronella had told me, I mean, Steve has been on multiple moose hunts, successful moose hunts, and has never killed a great big moose because he's always letting somebody else shoot.

I mean, that's not always the story, and he has killed a moose before, but not a great big one. And there's multiple meat eater episodes where someone else shoots, you know. and so on this hunt our agreement was that if a big one came in he was going to get to shoot it and i mean he told me that from the beginning and i was like perfect love it yes i'm glad to go and be second shooter i want you to kill big moose steve and so this big one's coming we know it's legal we know it's big and just to clarify because both of us are sitting there with guns and one time before in the hunt he had said clay you shoot when we think thought something might pan out.

So just to clarify, I said, Steve, you're shooting the bull. I'll back up. And I mean, this bull is coming. I mean, like, we're now seeing him. He's getting closer. And he looks at me and he says, no, you shoot. And I go, this is all on camera, so you'll be able to see it at some point. And I said, I said, no, Steve, that's a big bull.

You shoot the bull. And now the thing is like probably 40 yards. coming. And he goes, I'll never forget it. I mean, it was like he was mad at me. He said, Clay, get out there and kill that bull. I mean, he stuck his finger up and just,

I mean, something had to have, somebody had to dictate what was going to happen. And so, I mean, the bulls right there. I wasn't going to argue a second time. And so I said, okay. And there was a, there was a dead spruce that, falling over about five, six feet in front of me that had a big fork. The roots made the perfect fork. And so the bull couldn't see me, but I needed to be a little bit more out in the open.

So I just snuck out and knelt behind this big root ball and laid my gun right in that fork. It was just perfect. And man, that sucker showed up about the time that I got my gun up. and I can't describe to you what it what it's like to see an animal that big that close pushing over willows grunting moving his head side to side I mean really it was like a dinosaurus like a stegosaurus I mean big old tines coming out off the front of his head and it was thick though even though he was 19 yards it was super thick and at first I thought he might come into a little opening and I let him pass when I could have shot because there was some sticks

and then I started looking the way he was going and was like, man, I'm going to have to shoot through some stuff to kill this moose. But I'm carrying a 300 wind mag weatherby. I know I got a lot of gun and basically the next time he came into an opening, I mean, I just shot through a bunch of twigs about as big as your fingers at 19 yards.

Boom! And I hit him just right behind his shoulder and he went down on the back end and kind of spun towards us and I shot him again. And he just went down right there. When he hit the ground, the earthquake. I bet. I bet. And, man, it was neat.

It was neat because Steve let me shoot. Like, I really, it wasn't one of those deals where it was like, somebody's like, you shoot. And they were like, oh, no, you shoot. But really, you want to shoot. I literally, I wanted, it wasn't like that. I really wanted Steve to shoot and I was going to be thrilled just to be there when it happened, you know. And so that was pretty neat the way that all went down.

And so we shot it. And then we had, we thought we were a long ways from the airstrip. But we pull out our on-ex and do a line distance on the on-x. And we're 800 yards from the airstrip, which is half a mile. So, I mean, it really wasn't that far. Did the small bull? Now, did he leave when he heard the big one coming? They were standing side by side.

Really? Yep. I don't know how to explain it. Hey, standing side by side. I would like to say that I've always liked Steve. You can tell he's a quality guy, but that just put the icing on the cake. I mean, he probably got a really. real kick out of doing that but i think it just shows what kind of a guy you're working for yeah uh and

one other thing that i would like to have people that don't know about moose hunting i was shocked to hear you say that you just don't go even you you got this mile perimeter you don't go out in there because once you go out there they'll never come back in there for two or three days yeah i mean you you take a position and keep it yeah so when you guys you guys you guys you guys you dropped off that mountain. If you'd had another day to go back, they would have vacated that place, wouldn't they? That's the principle.

The principle is you try to be as low impact as be as low impact as possible and just hunker down. The guys that are real good at that ridge hunting that have done it year after year after year. Like for instance, we talked to a guy at the airport before we left that had hunted the same ridge for 11 years, and they call their ridge the prison because they don't let you go on walks. There's one place that they call from, and they go nowhere else other than from their camp

to the place they call back and forth. Like they're just trying to be in this tight little world, you know. And yeah, because you can, you go beating around and you, you go beating around and you, blow your moose out. Well, one other thing I thought was interesting at one point when it looked like there was not going to be any success, you guys took off after a moose and violated that principle. Yeah. But, I mean, you know, there's no set in concrete deals.

I mean, I understand that. Yeah, a couple of times we, towards later in the week, when they wouldn't respond. Because the only way that works is if they're responding to your calls. and basically they say if you stay there for 10 days eventually they're going to respond but you know about day five six we were like man we got to make something happen because we're watching bulls out there further that we felt like we could stalk and every single time you left your camp you're your little area excuse me every time you left your little area you were gravely disappointed at how difficult it is to stop

Because you're up on a ridge looking down into this stuff and you think you're going to be able to see these moose or you feel like it's low bushes and stuff. And you get in there and it's 14 foot willows. And it looked like it was four foot willows. I mean, and just over and over we would go, well, that doesn't look too bad. And you'd get down there and it would just be miserable. Alaska is a pretty miserable place. Yeah. One other thing.

You're on the ground on foot. One other thing that I found very interesting is when you're a successful hunter, and I feel like you guys will agree with this, it's not your skills quite as much as your ability to just stay with it, you know, just to be out there. And I've noticed stories I hear Claytale how, you know, I went to extra mile. I did, you know, I just did stuff that just most people wouldn't want to foot. with and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but renella after nine days i mean you were whipped yep whipped down to nothing yep and ronella goes let's go or you know i'm going yep i mean that was pretty impressive pretty stinking impressive yep so anyway yeah i i told dad uh i mean i it wasn't my

idea to go up there. I was good with the hunt being over, which usually I'm not. I mean, I really was whipped down. And so I owe that bull to Steve more ways than one, just even

that we went up there. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime Cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm going to go I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest it's just not going to happen but when I run

this call I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for I have a great turkey hunting track record if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods they're not going to win calling contest right that's who I listen to I can make those sounds on my cut I also hunt with phelps's cut and I hunt with clay's cut because they're all three great cuts check out prime cuts at phelps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut

for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. I know you mentioned it, but I just had never comprehended the idea that if you venture out too far from camp, you just won't get the meat back.

Right. That's just mind-blowing, like you said with elk, you can get, you can head back in and pull all that meat out. But the fact that you might get too far from camp that you can't get all that meat back, even before, you know, it spoils or whatever. But, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was an incredible experience. We saw one black bear, grizzly and a sow cub, just one.

There was a bear scat all over the mountain where we were at, but, never had any grislies close to us. Really? Yeah. When we killed that moose, we started a big fire right beside it. And we had a camera crew, and we had everybody there, so we were making a lot of noise. But the whole time we were skinning it in the dark, we were hooping and hollering. I mean, just everybody, if somebody hadn't hollered in two or three minutes, somebody would just,

whoo-ee, just, you know, just hooping, hollering. Y'all were scared, man. It was scared to death. Scared boys. Yeah. So. Hey, one other thing, I don't want to hog the show here, but I found it interesting, especially as a dad, that when you get on this plane, Gerald, they go, hey, you got your parachute with you? I mean, it's not really a parachute, but they want to make sure you got a sleeping bag, food, a way to make fire.

Because the chances of you'd crash. I mean, there is a chance that that little plane's going to have to land on top of a tree. Every time you get in one of those planes, you have to have with you everything you'd need to survive. And so it was kind of interesting because, like, in our situation, there were food bags that's where all our food was. Well, they flew me in and they said, do you have food? And I was like, no, it's in the food bag. And they were like, well, you need some food because do you have a sleeping bag? Do you have a shelter?

So basically, everywhere you go, there's a chance that you're going to get dropped off and not be picked up. On the way out, I was the last one on the ridge. Just the way it laid out, like they flew out the cameraman, flew out Steve, flew out everybody. and they can only fly people out one by one, even though there were multiple super cubs. And when they left me, I was the only one on the airstrip,

and I made sure I had a gun, some food. Right. Just because they might fly back to town and then a storm roll in for three days. Yeah. And cover that mountain, and they can't come get you.

Weather's a major deal. I mean, the first day we almost didn't get to even hunt because they couldn't fly us into our ridge because it was covered in thog. And it can happen in a matter of 30 minutes. They can go from a bluebird day to socked in for three days. And so, like, when they left me, it was like, you good? And I'm like, yep, I'm good.

And, you know, there's a chance they may not come back for you. Well. You know, but by the day we left, it was beautiful weather. So it was not an issue. but I did tell them not to forget me. I said, y'all aren't going to forget me when y'all get back over there, are you? I will remember you. There was a story, though.

When they came and picked me up, they took us to a, to a, like a middle ground air strip. So there was a bigger air strip out in the wilderness that they flew the Super Cubs to, and then we got on a Cessna and flew back. while we were waiting on our Cessna, my Super Cub pilot told us the story of a guy that was not with this company. It was another transport company.

Basically, a guy, they couldn't pick him up because of weather and he got killed by a grizzly bear while he was waiting on the airstrip. They couldn't pick him up for two days. The guy was like sleeping in trees and basically was running from this grizzly. Bear for two days when they couldn't pick him up.

He's a gun. He's community. I don't know the story. I have no idea, but the guy got killed and the company that he had contracted to transport him actually lost their license. This is the story I heard. I'm not mentioning any names. I don't know. It was not anyone I know of.

It's kind of like the Black Panther these guys are talking about. Yeah. questionable. Oh, that stuff's really serious. No, no, I, it happened. But I'm just saying I don't want to... Yeah. Well, it happened two years ago.

Holy cow. Yeah. So, you know, stuff happens. Wow. Well, that's my moose story. We didn't even get to our bear story. Long story short, we killed a bear last night at three yards with a stone point. Three yards?

Was that three yards or three feet? It was this far, Gerald. One, two, probably two and a half. Mm-hmm. from about here to that red chair. Two and a half yards. Yep. So we'll tell you that story another time.

Did he just happen to, was that his normal route coming in? So we were in our bear pit. I made a ground blind. Have you seen a picture of it, Gerald? No, I've heard of other people. Basically, we dug a pit. It's about three and a half feet deep in the back. It's got a wooden, uh,

roof covered in dirt and leaves. We thought it might help with our scent. I needed to get close because I was hunting with a stone point, a traditional bow. The whole idea of the pit was to have a very close shot for penetration, for getting a low entry wound. I didn't want to be shooting out of a tree and for accuracy. I just wanted to be close. So it was really an issue of efficacy building this blind and getting that close. I just didn't want to miss.

I wanted the error to do what it was supposed to do. We're making a film. It's going to be on Meteor. We filmed it. And I used a specific style of Stone Point that hadn't been used in about 10,000 years. This is your traditional bowl, that's just a recurve? The traditional ball I was using as a hybrid recerve. Okay.

Excuse me, hybrid longbow. The Timber Ghost hybrid longbow. Okay. Called a smoke for anybody interested. I'll post some pictures of it on my social media. The bow was nothing. Nothing was not, I mean, the bow is a modern bow. Yeah.

The arrow and the stone point is what was super primitive. And basically these bears were coming off the top of the mountain and they were, my bear pit essentially made a topographic obstacle that they had to go around. Oh. And so there were two bear trails that split right behind the blind and one went to the right and one went to the left. Oh. There was a little hole about as big as a golf ball in our blind that we could see out,

and we would see bears walk past us no more than five feet from us. Am I exaggerating? Not at all. You'd just see black fur cover that golf ball hole, and you'd know, here they come. And we saw a couple of bears. Some bears were smelling us. We know for sure. Some bears didn't.

We had two bears coming yesterday, maybe three, that didn't smell us, that came in real close. and we're within five yards those multiple times. But right last night at last light, we learned that you had to be super ready because you can only see one direction out of this blind. And when you see them, they're in range. And you can't hear them because it's like you're in a cave. You know, you can't hear real good.

And basically, I was sitting there with my bow ready. Justin has camera ready. And when it got to prime time, we were just on red alert. We'd been sitting there for eight out. We've been sitting there since noon. And we'd let a couple of bears come in on us that I was like, shoot, if that had been a shooter, he'd have got away. One bear came in, looked at us and left just that quick. So we knew we had to be ready, especially with the big one.

And, I mean, I don't know what I was doing, but I wasn't looking at the golf ball hole. Justin just goes, there is, there is, there is. And I grabbed my bow, three fingers under the knock, and I say, which side of the blind? goes that side, right side. About the time he said right side, that bear came around that blind. And rather than just going straight down in front of it, he got to the front of our blind and hung a left, which just, I mean, basically he just turned and, I mean, just walked right in front of the blind.

Like he was coming in. And I didn't even aim, James. I'm serious. I just... You don't have to, that class. I don't even think I probably pulled my bow all the way back. I just went, p'o. and hit him

hit him he was quartering to me just a touch but it hit him right behind his shoulder and hit the top of his heart area didn't penetrate real deep a lot of the air was sticking out he spun the air broke off on a tree

he ran out there 45 yards and died I mean you had probably 10 inches of penetration though from where it broke off but it went through a bunch of meat if I'd hit him in the ribs if he was really broadside I think it would have got a lot more penetration

but it did the trick man and it was it it it ended up being a pretty good bear he had a wingspan of six foot 11 which is a it was a it was a bore a younger bore but a decent bore you know in the 200 pound range probably so that's that story I guess I will tell that story I guess we do have time you were basically hunting out of a foxhole with a sod roof on it. That's right. You got it. That's it.

That's right. You'll be able to see that video later this year. Yeah. It's going to come out. And the video is not about bear hunting. The video is about something else. The bear hunt is just a small part of it. Right, Justin?

Yep. Well, it'll be a good bear in this winter. Yeah. Oh, man. Hey, we got there yesterday after leaving our two chairs, which one wasn't a chair as a crate, but it was what Clay needed. And my chair was thrown out where the bait was. We couldn't, as far as we could see, couldn't find Clay's chair. So he stacked two rocks and sat on them. They carried my chairway. You guys were intruder.

Yeah. So they were, they, trust me, they were in there. Yeah, there was Bear Scat in the blind when we got there. You've got pictures of those bear just climbing over it. I mean, they're on top of it. Hey, what a great guy, man. He's got some stuff. You know,

I still say that if you ever get bored, take some toys out there and tie them to a tree, little plastic rings and stuff. I mean, I've had stuff happen with bears that just tell me they're looking for a party. What was the difference in yesterday and the day before? I just think this bear just came in and he didn't, come in yesterday.

It's the first time we'd seen that bear, like, with our own eyes. I'd seen him on camera because he had two yellow tags in his ears. Well, you know, what do you mean? Within 30 minutes of us leaving on the first night, there was, like, what, three or four bears that came in? Two. Yeah, so that was there. Like, almost like they were sitting just out of range.

Just waiting for us to leave. By the time we got back to the truck and got served, they were there. but you didn't see any that day, did you? I saw one. Didn't we see one the first day? Small bear. But how many did you see yesterday? The day did you kill them?

Probably four? I think we saw four bears yesterday. What was the difference in the two days? I wonder. I don't know. I think it might have been the fact that, I mean, that first set, you know, like we said, our wind was iffy. You just don't know what it's doing, you know?

when you're in a tree, you can kind of have some kind of a determination on like what your wind might be doing. And there, we thought maybe it was being held, maybe it was circulating inside. But the way, you know, these bears were reacting at different times, it could have been peeling over the top. And the thermals, you know, come into play too. But we just didn't know. So I think we had that full day of sitting in there the first day, had the young bear.

come in. But then we had bears come in during the night, and then we had bears there, three or four bears there yesterday morning around 10. We were there. 10.30, 10 o'clock. Yeah. Before we got there. Before we got there. Well, we were talking to you. Yep. So I think it was probably some, uh, them acclimating to our scent. Uh, because it, because they wanted to come in there, but like, they're not being any scent in there. Um, they're not being any scent in there. on the first day and us just sitting there wafting, you know, whatever direction that was going, probably they just weren't interested,

but they knew like everything was good for at least that 24-hour period, I think that they got a little bit more accustomed to it. That blind was really interesting because I would take my puffer and puff in that blind and the puff would just kind of stay in there. Sometimes it would drift a certain direction, but you would step out of the blind

and put your head up out of the pit and the wind would just be really you go back in and just be quiet I feel like it really would have helped for scent control if you were trying to get bears within 20 yards of you. Yeah. The problem was,

and this is why I didn't know, is that the bear trails, the bears want to come from the high, usually they want to come from high to low. You'll rarely see a, bear come to a bear bait from the bottom up like they almost always come from up high well the bear bait was below the the pit so the bears were coming from behind the pit and they were walking within five feet of us to get to the bait and that's where the bears would spook we saw a couple of bears come in that we never saw again we'd see

him past the golf ball hole and then poof and so basically the blind did not conceal our scent when there was a bear within five feet of it but that bear made it to within five feet so if you'd have been in a tree you'd have killed him way back there you see what i'm saying like he they were coming in to a radius easily of 20 30 yards with no problem that's that's you think that's sure right yep so to some degree the bear pit did help contain our scent but not 100%

yeah yeah you know so unique experience and again I did it so that I could get close be on the ground and be concealed movement it was neat

because I mean we were in there moving around and talking and you know they weren't going to see you but well guys hey thank you Gerald, it's been great to have you. Thanks for letting stay at your camp.

Any closing thoughts? I'm just glad to be here. Yeah. Appreciate you inviting me in on this. Yes. James, good to see you. Good to have you. Good to be here.

Yep. Look forward to it every year. Yep. Justin, better get home to your wife for your anniversary. Yeah. Moral of the story of these two stories, it's good to have a camera guy with you. Those camera guys saw all those moose That's right, you're right

You saw the very, I wouldn't have been ready If you hadn't seen that there I wouldn't have been ready either Yeah, we just got lucky Yep All right Thanks for listening guys Very good

Oh Justin Alhoot I gotta hear your alhut Justin has one of the best Alhutes I've ever heard It stand up and do it You got to stand up Why?

Because you can't Al Hoots it down. Oh. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's a good one. Good tone. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God. He doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce.

And the true. Truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person.

He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.