Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 037 - John & Jenn Rivet

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

John & Jenn Rivet have been living the dream together for over 32 years as avid outdoorsmen, big game outfitters, and chefs. Listen in as Cam, John, and Jenn talk about bear hunting, cooking, and living the dream!   Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com   John & Jenn’s Links: https://www.instagram.com/livinthedreamwithjohnandjenn/  https://www.livinthedreamproductions.ca/john-jenn Thank you to our sponsors: Leupold: https://www.leupold.com/ Black Rifle: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first Order Ice Barrel: https://icebarrel.com/CAM use code CAM for $125 off Ketone IQ: https://hvmn.com/CAM use code CAM for 20% MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv  Bass Pro/Cabelas: https://www.basspro.com Go Ruck: https://www.goruck.com use code CAM for 10% off  Timestamps: 0:00:00  Intro 0:01:08  Lift Run Shoot Event Recap 0:04:08  Wayne & The Excitement for Archery 0:08:05  Who are John & Jenn Rivet? 0:12:49  Skinning An Animal You Harvested 0:14:34  Arise. Kill. Eat. 0:17:52  Eating Bear 0:20:55  The Rivet’s Journey as Outfitters 0:29:16  Why Jenn Started Archery Hunting 0:36:37  What Determines a Successful Hunt? 0:42:03  Bear Myths 0:48:25  Alberta Conservation & Hunting 0:52:08  Bear Encounters 0:56:16  The Final Bear Moan 01:03:09  Living the Dream Outfitters Business Growth 01:09:29  Gudining Joe Rogan & Luke Bryan 01:11:34  Memories of Roy 01:16:48  John & Jenn’s Alaska Experience 01:18:38  Hard Work Never Stops 01:25:42  Controversy Behind Bear Films 01:31:54  Respect for Guide Services 01:33:08  Paranoia From Being Burned in the Past 01:37:51  Food Connects People 01:41:31  Knowing Your Purpose 01:46:16  Outro

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coffee today. Every step I take I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking saying the way that I move it's so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with giving my blood so I am relentless. Welcome to the Keep Hammering Collective. I'm here with John and Jen Rivett and this is awesome.

We're so excited to be here. Finally. When you're in Bairgap and you're like, when are you guys going to Oregon again? Like, I don't know. Do you come do a podcast? Like, yeah. And then, oh, by the way, also could you do a little cooking? It worked out perfect, though.

And it was like not a little cooking. I mean, you guys. It just got done. Just got done just this morning. The lift, run, shoot weekend. And Jen prepared with, I mean, with help from you and your daughter. A little bit from me, mostly from Julia. I had to go.

I had to go. Like relations. Yeah. And run errands. You had to go get supplies. I do the grocery store runs. That's hard. Yeah.

The grocery store runs hard. Especially when that's not your forte. Yeah. Yeah. And you're trying to hurry. Yeah. It's a store you don't know. Yeah.

Well, yeah. I mean, so we had the lift, front, shoot weekend. It's just finished today. And Jen prepared all the meal, all the meals for each day. Just incredible food, too. I can't believe how much work that is. Wasn't that a good crowd? Oh.

Like you just never know who you're going to get, right? But this was an amazing crowd. They were all beast. They were all tough. They were. And I've never done anything like this. This was like a kind of a VIP type thing. So it was actually quite a lot of money to do to participate.

And I think that probably made a difference because if you, if you're going to spend that much money, you're going to have, I mean, you're going to want to be here. You're going to be serious about what you're going to be serious. You care. Yeah, you're not going around the corner smoking cigarettes. No. I'm in a beer. No, no. And it's every person, I didn't hear, so we started Friday, Saturday, today, Sunday.

I didn't hear one negative word for three days. Nothing. When I saw their workout, it's like, holy Mac. It was hard. Eric and Nick, we're trying to kill them. Those guys were, they were hurting. It was a challenging workout. I think my comment was, is they paid to come here to get tortured.

I'm like, I love you, but I, I. I don't know if I do that much. That was intense. I'm 10K on the mountain today. I know. I have, you know, some guys that stand out. Everybody is like just great people. But the guy from Australia, yeah, he's so hilarious.

Then there's another guy from San Francisco just like smiling nonstop the whole time. But everybody just so positive, supportive, you know, listening to what people said, appreciating the meals. Yeah. just enjoying such a cool event though to have access to your people I mean to have Wayne and his guys on the bows yes your trainers like everything you do

they got to experience it right then the mountain today and shooting at Waynes and like the bow rack yeah I mean I kept out quizzing people because I you know I'm I want people to be happy but if something was we could do better I want to know that too so I was like you know any how does it have you ever been anything like this how does compare

I never heard anything Yeah. Anything that they were disappointed in or was hoping it was this way and it was this way. Yeah. I don't know. How was it to do the classes four times over for different groups, just to try to repeat yourself? I didn't. You didn't probably.

Mine were all new. It was like everybody got a new one. Wayne's like, did I tell this group or did I tell that last group? But I watched some of his and it was really good, man. I learned a lot. I'd sit in for a little bit. Really? The Triggers were rolling in between filling pellets.

I was. I learned a lot. Yeah. I mean, if I'm being selfish, I didn't get to hear what they said. You know, like I would have liked to hear what Easton said and what Hoy said and what Wayne said and when Gohan said. So I missed out, but. Cool to have some of the best from all these fields. Yes.

All at one place. Yeah, that's the whole goal. But, yeah, I mean, Wayne is so passionate about what he does. He is. It's such a hard worker. It's awesome. I love it. Always.

And to see this type of excitement for. archery in this community is uh you know there's pictures over there of us you know 30 years ago more than 30 years ago and you'd never think that it ever turn into something like this yeah so offense to any other bow shop but the first thing he does when we get there with our bows no matter who set him up he cuts everything off he just starts over from scratch yeah right from the beginning and gets it all right and man the bow shoots so good after that yeah incredible my group tightens up so smooth yeah and he's just like the way he can talk to people now they've been seated on the show but he's just such a good

teacher yeah he's such a good teacher and and you know he's got his ways that he likes to do it yeah but if you've got your own little quirk or something like jenn there's a certain way she has to do it because of her injuries and stuff he's like you know what that works for you keep doing it like don't change to what i wanted you to do that works for you just keep doing it well he's changed then because he used to tell me like because i always put my thumb behind my neck still it's just like what I've done since I was a kid. And for years, he was trying to get me to change my grip and do this. And then I'm like, finally, I'm like, dude, I'm not going to change.

So can we just skip to the next part? The first time we came down when he set up my first bow and I was shooting there at the shop. And he's like, you know, teaching me how to, because I didn't know. I mean, it was kind of like you watch a little bit, but I had just started archery. And he's like, well, you got to hold like this, draw like this and do all the steps. And I was like, I'd do my same little. I kind of curve my hand around. And he's like, why do you do that?

I'm like, well, I have an earring. Well, you don't need to wear an earring when you're hunting. I'm like, I realize that, but sometimes you do. And then how come this? Well, I always have a ball cap and I always have glass. Like, I wear glasses now. So it's kind of that tweaking on how you're comfortable and somewhere's where I can remember where to get it.

And he tried getting me to change it and my arrows would go all over and I'd tweak it a little bit and try to go back to it. And then he's like, I'd do it a couple. And I was grouping pretty decent if I remember, right? Which was pretty remarkable at the time. and he's like, okay, I guess we'll just leave it. It's working. We should just leave it.

And so we're still at the same spot. Yeah. Like seven years later. You were shooting good today, grouping good. Your form looks great for not having shot for quite a while. Since 2020. Yeah. Yeah.

That's, I mean, I'm glad you guys got a chance to break away and do something fun because you've been working so hard. We just took like half an hour. After we were cleaning up, then we sat down and visited with everybody for a little bit because we didn't have much of a chance. And then he went and walked by with his bow and I was like, oh, I better go shoot it. It's been a while.

Ethan was out there shooting too, and he said he'd be ready for you next year. He's going to beat you next year. As you get older, he says he'll... He's a better shot than me. It's all there is to it. He's a good shooter. Yeah, I mean, he's full scholarship, archery.

Yeah. For your scholarship for archery. Yeah. Wow. He's better. It's just like sometimes, you know, so we think about it for a few days, and then there's all this pressure.

Yeah. And then people are around. And so it's, he's telling me, he's shot in front of 2,000 people for like, a gold medal in some tournament and uh one so i mean he can do it but it's still it's still different you know and shooting at a 3d elk instead of they probably usually shoot paper targets you know things like that but yeah i mean i i i love i'm you know people would say i'm too competitive i love

competition it's fun yeah when we shot the other night that was cool and he's such a good kid too but it's like not just him as everybody yeah but it's different when you're shooting around your peers or people that, you know, you've learned stuff from or like even with Wayne, how he teaches and stuff. And then watching you, it's just different. It's a different atmosphere than when you're just shooting at home in your backyard. And nobody can critique every little screw up that you do. It's kind of like you can just go out there.

That's kind of my favorite. When you guys are in bear camp, you're always competing against each other, you and Kip, whoever else is there. Yeah. So I want to back up real quick and just, you know, introduce you guys. You guys are outfitters in Alberta. Yep. I started hunting with you in 2013.

But you guys and people who have, watched Bush Dragons, the latest bear hunting film, the rivets, that's where we're at. And you guys have been doing it for decades. So explain where you started and where you're at now. Well, I'm going to be 54 next month at the end of August. You're old. I'm catching up to you. And I started guiding when I was 18. You got to be 18 to hold a guy's license in Alberta.

So as soon as I turned 18, boom, got that license. Back then it was tough too. You had to write a test. And the test covered everything, covered horseback. even something you weren't going to be doing, you had to pass that too. So this year, this fall will be 36 years? 36 years. We're telling Rihanna and Logan that and they're like, that's how old we are.

I know. I started guide when you were born. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that incredible? We used to always be the youngest people in the group and now we're, a lot of times we're the oldest except around you or Jill. It happens, right?

It does. Yeah, that's a, well, but we get better when we get older too. You get a little more, we get wiser. You get more. Definitely. Yeah. I agree. I mean, I may, my body's older, but hopefully I have maturedness.

And so how, as far as. We don't care so much about little things anymore. No. No. No. Screw it. Who cares? Exactly.

So after I met him, when I was younger, I hunted a tiny bit. Basically, with my stepdad, it wasn't so much girls really hunted. I could go hunt chickens and stuff like that, did lots of fishing. But I spent a lot of time on the farm with my grandpa, which was he had a dairy farm. plus we did trapping, logging, all that stuff. So everything that a little girl's not supposed to do, I've got to do with my grandpa. So shoot guns, drive tractors, four wheels, whatever. DC, I don't know what was a four or something like that, big cats, all that different stuff.

Yeah. So that's kind of where I got a little bit of my background, but I've always been outdoors. We went on a holiday. It was camping and fishing. We never went to no big malls. We never went to Disneyland, none of that. I had to play hockey too, what your dad said. Yeah, he wouldn't let me.

He said they didn't have cups for girls yet. And I'm like, I think I saw it. But anyways. And then after I met him started hunting more big, well, I started hunting big game. So let me think. 30. When I met her, I hit the jackpot. I knew it too.

Like I drove by, we had moved up where she lives. We don't have to talk about that stuff. That's, oh, yeah. That's forever ago. As you know standing in the front yard, it's up in the bush country. Like there's, what is it, slow motion? Like hair blowing in the wind? I just knew that was her.

Yeah. Yeah. And then I found out she could, she could. Flesh of Hyge, it's kind of deer. It's like, yeah, that's the one for sure. Yeah. Well, and, and I mean. She was hot too.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was a long time ago. Still pretty hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, like, yeah, maybe it's not hot. Maybe it's a distinct, or wait, beauty. Just beautiful, natural beauty.

How about that? Rugged. That sounds, yeah, that sounds respectful. Not rugged. Yeah. We're rugged. Guys can be rugged. I'm thinking, oh, what do you wear when you go here and there?

I'm like, uh, try and, with a bunch of stuff. And I was telling Lisa, I'm like, ball cap, t-shirt, sneakers. This is 99% of my life. It's so much fun now that the kids are all grown up. And I mean, when the kids were little, Jen was home raising them. She wasn't going to let somebody else raise her kids. So I was guiding by myself then.

It sucked to be alone for a month or two or three without her in the kids a lot of times. Yeah. I'd get home sometimes. The kids didn't recognize me. They're like. So probably about 32-ish years ago. I got my guides license and started doing that. But I never started guiding because we started family.

I mean, when the youngest one got older, I'd go out a little bit. And I'd do cooking and guide a little bit. But it was kind of like my kids were first. That was my purpose. And then as they got older, then of course I jumped into it more. I mean, they're self-sufficient teenagers, I think. That was scary. And then the turning point was, is as they all got older and old enough to guide and work with us,

they all started working with us. So it's really cool. Yeah. And now you're still out there working on the bears. still cooking. But you're, I mean, you're one of the first ones out there start skinning. Yeah.

I love skinning. Nice with Julia doing a lot of cooking now. Jen could be. She used to do it all. She did the guiding and the cooking and skinning. That used to be tough. Especially for moose hunts. You'd be up at like four o'clock in the morning.

I'd get up, make breakfast, make lunches, get all the gear together. Then you head out and you guide until like lunchtime. Then you come back and make lunch. Then you're out. And it was just like, it's exhausting. I love skinning a bear with her. But it was fun.

Like the three of us together. Or when you and I and Roy skin, grizzly bear and some black, a couple grisle. Goes fast. Yeah. Yeah. A few people that know what they're doing. It's fast and it's nice. But it's a different thing when you're skinning.

Like that animal that you harvested. Yeah. I mean, it's there. You're skinning it. You're talking about the hunt. You're talking about. Yeah. There's so much camaraderie when we're skinning an animal.

Yeah. With you, we got to have some music on. We got to have some Lou Bryan or something. It's fun. It's fun. When you're out in the field, I mean, you're whispering a little bit, talking about what's happening. But it's like at least when you're skinning and butching stuff down, it's like you can talk about everything and you can catch up on everything.

It's kind of that, I don't know, it's more than camaraderie. It's like fellowship. Yeah. Yeah. You're taking off chunks of meat. You're taking off back straps and quarters. Just the act of what we're doing is powerful. Yeah.

You know, it's an animal that we killed on the hunt and now we're taking care of. So just that elevates anything else we're doing to a higher level. Yeah. And then so then if the conversation just feels a little richer, a little more meaningful because of what we're all working on. Yeah. So, yeah, I understand. Yeah.

Takes you back to your roots, your traditions. You're like where you come from. Cool, too, when you're using knives from people you know, you know, Montana knives and things like that. Yeah. Everything fits in so good. There's a couple, you know, thinking of that, there's a couple times when we had Rogan up there the first time. Remember, there's, I can't remember who took the picture, but we had. Morgan hunted bears?

Yeah. Yeah. But remember when he was getting out the. You know, we were skinning out the bear right by the other house there in Swan Hills. Yeah. Yeah. And so that picture's there. And that was a memorable time.

But then also me, you and Roy, having Luke in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, having Luke Bryan playing on the phone while we're skinning out a big brown bear. It's like, that's like once in a lifetime. I'm glad you took me to Alaska. I got to meet Roy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you got to go to.

So in your shirt, tell me about your shirt. I like that. Arise, Kale, eating in Acts 10, 13. Yep. Do you know what, what,

do you know exactly what that one is? It's, they're talking about what was kosher to eat and what was, you know, allowed to eat in the Jewish culture and stuff. And, and at this point,

they're like, just Peter, they was talking to Peter. And it's like, Peter, arise, kill and eat, like, just go eat something.

Yeah. It's not, but it's really fitting. That you can eat. Yeah, it's really fitting. I mean, that's what you do,

right? If, if look back in history, you couldn't go to Costco apartment stores. Like if you didn't get up, yeah. Go do it, go hunt it and get something. You weren't eating. That's just a fact. Right. Unless you had, you know, some

rich king or something that had his little Yeah, we're here because our ancestors hunted. Yeah. Yeah. No, I like that. Yeah. And our ancestors both like, I mean, that's tradition on both sides, trapping hunting. So there's people that used to message us and like, you guys are going to go to hell because you're killing bears. Yeah. Nope. No. I'm pretty sure the opposite. Yeah. And I do like that you got

the rise kill eat into the bear's skull. because so many people like that comment might suggest, but so many people don't even think about eating bear for whatever reason. It's got such a bad rap over time. And then I don't know who was saying that maybe Kip comes up with a lot of facts or history or pseudo facts. But he said that I think the settlers out here would kill deer for hides and bear for meat. And then somewhere along the way it changed.

And then bear were like supposed to not be good meat for some reason. I think it had something to do with Winnie the Pooh. Yeah. Because it might be. Like with all that organization, I hate saying the name of it, but it all became where animals were cartooned and they were like friendly and they had personalities and they had mummies and daddies. Right. You know, it was one great big happy kosher family that everybody got along in the woods.

It's all a lie. It's all a lie. So when you saw Winnie the Pooh, oh, he's so cute, you can't hurt him well. He's on the earth so we can use him. you're going to, you know, eat off of it or whatever, whether it's a deer, elk, whatever. When it comes to, in Canada, with outfitting, with people not eating bear, I think it just came down to some lazy outfitters, honestly.

Yeah. Didn't want to deal with it, didn't want to mess with it. They just want to skin it and discard it. It's definitely a lot less work. Yeah. It's a lot less work, but it's like, are you okay? Yeah. And so to, I think to justify that you're being, quote, lazy, you have to say that the meat's

not good. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So I think that's how. In our camp, Jen cooks it on Friday nights at the bear camp. or land in lakes dealing where she makes walleye usually and bear ham, a bear quarterback, bear backstrap into a stir fry, gets everybody hooked on bear. And they're like, this is bear.

We're taking it all home. Like, hold that bear. We're taking it all. Well, because there's a fallacy because they'd say, well, it's an omnivore, right? The bear eats pretty much everything. He's like a vacuum cleaner wherever he goes. And they say, well, he can carry parasites. Well, that's true.

But so can domestic pigs, chickens, all of that. There's a lot of parasites there. And so they're like, oh, well, you don't have. have to eat it. And like in the regulations in Alberta, you do not have to keep the meat of a black bear. Cougar and black bear you can't carry those parasites. But I mean, for the amount of we need it. But you wouldn't eat chicken rare and you wouldn't eat pork rare. No. No. It's no different. Same thing. Yeah. Yeah. I just think I really love how we've, you know, over this time. Well, you guys have probably always, but since 2013, that's been like sometimes we talk about it more than other times, but it's always

been like eating bear is always a thing. Originally, I remember up there, we had a pretty good group in the tent up there. And we're talking about bear stir fry and how good it was. And it's just one example of an incredible meal you make with bear meat. And that bear stir fry was just kind of a conversation piece. Now that we've showed people that it's delicious to eat, we have more hunters because of it that come hunt with us. We used to have guys came for moose.

They came for deer. They're like, man, I'd love to go shoot a bear with you. but I won't eat it, so I'm not going to shoot something I don't eat. So by showing them that it's delicious to eat, we have more hunters because of it. I mean, it's a dark, super dark, rich, rich, meat. And this is one of my pet peeves because we get people come up and they're like, they look at the bear, or they think they know what a bear is going to be like. And like, oh, it's just like a hog, just like pig, just like that.

The meat is exactly the same. I'm like, and they try to sound knowledgeable. And it's like, well, I guess you've never skinned out a bear, looked at the meat. The meat is very different. I mean, the coloration is different. You can cut it the same, of course, but even it cooks totally different. The grain is, like, in a lot of it, especially in old bear that we want to take out a mature one, the grain of the meat is, like, a lot denser.

It's kind of like moose almost. Yeah, what do you compare it to the most now for meat, like, now that you've cooked a lot of brisket. Okay, so yesterday we had brisket for dinner, and I was telling guys, as they went by, I'm like, that coarse grain of the tissue or the fibers of the meat, that's what I, most of the bear is. Of course, there's some tenderer pieces. Is that a right word? but it's that coarse grain. It's a thick, heavy grain.

So you've got to cook it properly. Right. It'd be just like cooking, I mean, anything else. You have to know a technique in order to make it chewable and tasty. But when you do, maybe because it's so rich, the taste is amazing. We know what you're doing to prepare it. It can be just, you know, the best meat you've ever had in some instances. It's funny because especially bare, I find that it is richer because when you eat it,

You tell people you feel better when you eat wild game and they're like, ah, it's all in your head. But it's absolute truth. Like pretty much since we've been together, 95, 90 to 95% of our diet is always wild game or fresh caught fish. We go catch walleye or whatever, grouse, elk, deer moose, whatever we can get. And I mean, we buy some chicken. But I mean, other than that, like when I eat beef now, I don't eat a lot of it because it's really super fatty. Yeah. Like eating brisket, it was like.

like, oh, this is a different ball game for me. I'm so used to lean meat. Like, we're going to the UFC with you and Joe or something and eating steaks after at 22-aunt ribby or something. You really got to pace yourself. It's like, oh, that's hard to digest it. It's different because of fat content for me anyways. So if I eat it too late, then it's like, whoa, this is intense.

But wild game, you can eat an elk steak at midnight and you feel great the next day. Well, I was interested. I mean, this journey you've been on as. and outfitters and you know obviously raising a family um how how has it been to get where you're at now because where you're at now it feels like to me i don't want to say everybody knows you but it feels like everybody knows you know and knows of you and knows of the bear world we're known well like if you want to go somewhere and succeed on bears come to our place yeah that's that how does that feel feels good feels good it's it's we work hard at it like we don't just

do it half-assed. We do it. Well, everything you do, yeah. Full-speed. I mean, we're baiting as many baits as we can run. We'll go through 120,000 pounds of bait every year. You could do it easier and less work, but you wouldn't have the success that we have.

Yeah, but you're supposed to go all in. Like, Integris, this is your livelihood. This is what you represent. Like, I mean, it's more than just, and I mean, not just the hunt, just everything that we do in camp. I like it to be more, if I can call it more of a family style. Like, we're not big on, you know,

know, and we haven't been for years, is like, all of the, anybody that's a big drinker, you know, really loud mouth or really vulgar, all of that stuff. It's just like it kind of takes away from the novelty of camp. So I really like that, where it's just close-knit, you can go and you can, you know, get to know people. And that's why we do it. Well, I've kind of pushed for that over the years. It's just like, I want to get to know these people that are coming in.

Like I just, you're having a stranger in your home. Right. So it's kind of like you want to get to know this person a little bit, see what they're about. Nowadays, it's great because between. friends of friends, between you, between different trade shows and stuff, usually there's somebody in the circle that, hey, I know this guy, this guy's great, or I hunted with him, or, you know, my outfitter had him a couple years ago. So that's fantastic. It's so different now than, like, when I was a kid, I remember being around lodges and outfitters around my dad

and stuff. And the hunters that were coming from other countries, they were coming and they were drinking a lot. I mean, they were partying. It was pretty rough. It's a different crowd now. Like, it's more, especially being around you, is that fit crowd that's keeping healthy and exercising and taking care of their body, taking care of their temple. Yeah. So we don't get that much drinking anymore. It's pretty rare. Yeah.

That's, so I mean, I think just in general, if you guys wanted to, which a lot of outfit is a hard way to make a living, but I can see a lot of outfiters going, God, I could have double the hunters in here and make double the money. Yeah. You know, because you have so access to so many base. But as, as you've learned over the years, sometimes the camera doesn't work or whatever. Sometimes a bear moves through and doesn't come back, sometimes different things. So you have to have a large inventory of baits and hunt just the best ones.

Whereas many outfitters would just be like put somebody every bait. And they're making whatever thousands of dollars. I've heard of guys that have hunted with us that have been elsewhere before, which is great. Because if they've gone somewhere else and then they come with us, they know the difference. They've been out east where they're put on a school bus and they're dropped off 20, 30 guys. every mile they're dropping somebody off at each bait. No matter what's there. And there might only be one bear there.

And the guy goes back to the outfit of that night and didn't shoot. And he says, I saw one. The guy says, well, that was your bear. Yeah, I should have shot him. Yeah. Yeah. But there's a thing, right, quality, not quantity? Because we used to do quantity.

And I guess financially wise, yeah, it would probably be smarter to a bit more. But the quality is like when you have a smaller group, you can connect more. You can actually work with them. Like we had Caleb up last, no, last spring, yeah. Caleb Brewer. Yeah. So he, he calls him bionic legs. Yeah.

Bionic legs. Yeah. And it was just cool to see him like climbing up the stand for the first time and navigating like the places that that guy walked is crazy. With both prosthetic legs, you climbed the 15 foot ladder stand and went to the top by himself. And it would be like, and that was a busy week because we had eight, eight people in from Black Rifle, which was awesome.

But, you know, if you had 20 people in, you can't connect. Oh, man. You can't meet everybody. like it's you remember their names hopefully but it's like I want to interact we want to you know know the people that are coming and kind of establish like hey and you're more stressed out because you're like you have everybody wants to kill a bear and they're always it to me it's always like if somebody does kill one or see one and the other guy doesn't then the other guy thinks oh you put him on a better spot or I'm in a shit spot or yeah you know so it's kind of stressful I would think

with that many people everybody has all these big dreams about all they want to want to do is kill. Yeah. Well, that's when it's nice when you have like a group, like when you and Kip come up, we have, you know, your group together or like the black rifle guys and gal, Amanda came up. And it was great because they all kind of knew each other and they're all like cheering for each other. And as soon as somebody got a bear, there was like, everybody was like, oh, I'll go help.

I'll go help recover or drag out and skin and process and whatever. It's not like, well, oh, he got a bear. And, you know, that little attitude, which years ago we had because they weren't all of the same group. So it's nice to have like just a group of people. It's nice. We're going to keep it to four to eight people per week. It's something that's fun when there's eight because there's somebody killing every night.

There's something happening. There's action, right? We're all getting into it, skinning and talking about the hunt and the guy's first bear or something. And he's telling stories and he's so excited. Yeah. It's fun every night to get back and see who got something. Tell the stories. The stories are pretty cool.

I know. I know. And everybody has like, oh, this bear was this close to me or this bear did this. at that or ran up the tree or everybody loves being close to bear and that's what to me that's what sets apart your outfit from a lot of others i haven't hunted with a lot of others but um i talk to a lot of guys who have i'm excited to announce a partnership with ice barrel cold plunges you guys know that i'm making a daily ritual to jump into the ice bath before a long run just to get my head right just a little bump An ice barrel has provided a cost-effective solution for your cold plunge needs.

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and also receive free shipping. You know, we talked, I listened to Dan State and his podcast and he was up, I think the exact same time I was up in Alberta with you guys. And his hunt was, you know, if mine was a 10, his was a zero. Wow. You know, not seeing any bear for hours, seeing a squirrel, seeing one bear. You know, and that's, sadly, there are outfits like that. And, you know, I think that at that time, there's always, you can always say, well, there's fires or, I know the fires do affect it.

But, but yeah, I mean, it's, I just think, I think you guys put in so much work and have such expanse of land that you're going to find bear somewhere. Yeah, we're baiting 5,000 square kilometers there. There's a lot of country. And we wanted to be an experience for the guys, too. Because we've heard other stories from different people that go all over and like, well, the hunting was great, but the food was shit. Right. Or the cook was this or the transportation was this.

Or I was basically, I mean, they were expecting to sleep whatever. And then there's other guys that like, well, the food was excellent, but the hunt was shit. We couldn't find a deer for the life of us. So it's kind of that balance. And that's why I think when I treat it more like a family type setting, you know, so it's more comfortable. and we're hoping everything's pretty good. So you can, how do you say?

You control the controllables. Yeah. And with nature and what the bears are doing, you just put in all your effort to make it as good as you can to make sure they're following the program as good as they can. I mean, we bait lots, we trim up everything, we set up as best we can, we find good spots, all that type of stuff when it comes to setting up that.

I mean, you do your best and then usually everything else plays out. You got a good area and you work really hard. You're going to succeed. Yeah. There's a lot of bear up there. There's a lot of bear. And you guys, you know, you guys hunt Crownland, which is for down here. It's public land.

Yeah. But people don't get, when we mentioned public, they think there's going to be people everywhere. There's no people up there. No. Way less people than what, yeah, we might be used to down here. Yeah, I have guys that hunt a week with me for moose and not see a hunter and not see another person. They're like, where's the hunters? This is way up.

There's not much people up here. And especially archery. Yeah. I mean, there is a decent amount of archers in Alberta, but it's not like coming to the states where it's just like, like we were just at tack last week by Salt Lake. Yeah, you guys have bohunters. That was crazy, the intense amount of people. In Canada, yeah, you'll have a few.

We'll bullhunt southern Alberta with the kids for several weeks and not see a hunter. Yeah. Not see another bowhunter. Now when gun opens, yeah, there's some people, but still it's limited draw. So it takes six to eight years to get drawn for a buck tag there. Yeah. And we can bohunt those tags every year for two months. And see, beautiful.

That was the main reason. why I wanted to start archery. It's because years ago I had messed up my shoulder. I dislocated my collarbone, so I couldn't pull a bow, and then finally healed that up. And they had switched it to where a lot of the zones, before you could hunt moose, anybody, any resident can hunt moose, you know, archery full season.

And then they changed a lot of zones where you can hunt archery for moose, but at a than that, you have to put in a draw. And it was like, so I was only shooting rifle back then. So you had to wait like three, four, five, six years. And I'm like, this is BS. Right. Because everybody else is hunting moose and killing moose. and I can't.

And so I actually got pretty pissed off about it. I was like, less you hunt everything. Yeah. Every year. So yeah, pretty much everything during archery season you have an opportunity for. It's not always the best dates, you know. Like for the moose,

they've got it pretty much plan where the bow season ends, the general bow season, and then it gets into gun draws, which takes four, five, six years to get. Depending on what zone you're doing it in. It's when the rut's on. But when you have your bow, you can sneak out and actually get out there, which is nice.

That was my main reason. And you killed a moose with your bow? I killed two. Two. Okay. Yeah. First one at 27 yards, he called it in. That was, I was shaking like, I was going to have, I felt like you're going to have a heart attack because it's so big.

And I've seen it before and I've been on moose hunts and guided them, but I hadn't killed one yet. Sounds corny, but I mean. Talking too much, don't coughing. Yeah. Need a cigarette. Yeah. Calm that, cough down. And then the second one, the second moose I shot was by myself.

I was out, you know, scouting out, and John was actually guiding moose hunters. And I had our daughter, Jenna, Jenna with us. And it was like, let's go check down here, let's look here. And it was like, I looked down this long. We have a lot of cut lines and gas lines. And I saw this black spot about, looked like about a mile and a half in. And I looked with my binos and I was like, holy shit. And I started to vibrate.

And we're like still driving down the gravel road to get to the farm road to get out to the cut line. Right. And Jenna's like, oh, you want me to come? And I was all, like, I rattled. I was so excited. It took me, oh my gosh, probably 45 minutes, because I wanted to sneak along the edge of the bush. I was so freaked out that the moose would see me or hear me,

and you have cows call, like cows moaning, bulls calling. And I was like, if I can get in there, I think I can do this. So I snuck all the way in there, figured out where I should hide. The moose had already taken off, two of them went by, so I think it was a little bull and a cow that went by. And I thought, I know how to call moose. So I started calling for the bull. And then he started answering.

And I heard the cow was moaning, maybe half a mile, whatever away. And then it went silent. So I called again. And then it was closer. And then it was like, seriously, if your heart could beat out of your chest? Yeah, felt like it. Oh, my gosh. So this, long story short, it's this big monster probably.

He was over 50 inches. He started coming in, but he was kind of behind the trees circling around on the other side of the cut line. And I was like trying to get him in. And he wouldn't. He did a loop, did a loop again. He knew something was up. Yeah. I mean, you don't get that big and old.

by being dumb. So anyways, I didn't get him. And I thought, well, this is, this sucks. But I heard another little. So I thought, oh, I'll start calling again. And this one that I shot ended up coming in. He was a pretty young bull, but I was like, he's going to eat amazing. Yeah.

I called him in, got him into about 53 yards, hammered him, and he went maybe 60 yards. I watched the whole thing, fell over. It's a long shot. My heart. Yeah. And I usually don't have any cell service where we're at. So I kind of ran out towards where Jenna was at the truck. and I didn't have self-service.

She texted her dad. And then he came, asked the clients like, hey, do you want to go see Jen? And when they got there, it was like, I don't know. I don't know what to relate it to. Whatever drug makes you go crazy and talk 5,000. And I was 5,000 words a minute and I was vibrating and I wasn't making, I wasn't coherent. Like I was saying, like I was. Adrenalent.

Oh, yeah. And so excited. Yeah. It was insane. Killing a moose with an arrow is not. I mean, that's hard. It is. Yeah.

And they walk in front of you. They're freaking massive. Yeah, they're giant. It's intimidating. Because when that big one was coming in and calling and, you know, they're tilting their head and their eyes are kind of doing that kooky stuff, I was like, oh, I'm just around little poplar trees here. So I actually started looking where I can kind of back myself. So I know they can get pretty, pretty ordinary. Yeah.

So. But that was cool. And then everybody came, help me skin it out and load it. And it was great. Can't beat that part either. It was, and so that bull, I mean, we share it with everybody. Like my mom, my dad's not around anymore. So it's like, bring her some.

You get to share some with the neighbors. And then when clients come up, it's like, it's, I don't know, it just means more when you kill it yourself. Oh, yeah. No. And since then, you've killed big bucks, big bears, all with your bow. Yeah. He says I'm spoiled. John says I'm spoiled because I've killed quite a few nice bears.

I know. I'll sit for them. Yeah. We each have kind of our own. personal bait. I mean, I'll sit there when we don't have anybody every day that we don't have them. Unlike when all that COVID crap was happening, nobody was there. So I was like, I'm going to go sit. So I sat a couple weeks. I'm going to sit again. Going to sit again. I mean. And then finally, you know. Big bear comes in. Big bear comes in. Yeah. Big freaking bear comes in. Yeah.

You're a big bear killer. I know. She is. Yeah. I'm going to, he wants me to get the last two. So I got a giant black bear in 2022. And then I got a giant color phase. Did I say that way? 21 and 22. No. Blur.

See, COVID makes everything blur. Yeah. Both wood and crockett skulls. I know. Giant. So he said we should do full mount on both so we can take him to trade trows and stuff. There you go.

I'm like, that would be cool. It would be like moving a bus. I know. The same is good. Okay. Maybe it'll make you feel better. you know, was having so many clients come up. What do you think?

That is good. You like it? Yeah. Yeah. What do you, I don't know, what determines whether somebody's going to be successful? Because I'm sure you see people, is it messing up in crunch time? Is it not paying attention to the position of the bear and making a poor shot? What screws people up?

Because we've already established you're an amazing country. There's, you guys work your ass off. There's big bear. So what screws guys up who's coming from? I think most people probably come from the U.S. to hunt with you. I think the biggest maybe couple is like, so when everybody gets into camp, we have like full-size Mount Bears there at the house. And you kind of go over shop placement and all the details and if they've never done it before.

I think for me what I found, and most of them will listen pretty good. It's the movement and the smell. It's like we use thermicel a lot. We always have it there. Before thermosel, we had it and it was invented or whatever. I mean, if we were using off or whatever, whatever, must call whatever the, because there is mosquitoes. Yeah. When we'd go in, we'd spray ourselves, of course.

And then when we get to the bait, you'd spray it. So the bears would get accustomed to that. And now with the thermocel, that's just the go-to. Yeah. So, but you get guys, pretty much most of them are guys that we get. They'll come in and they'll, whatever, shower in their old spice. And I was like, well, well, what are you doing? So you go over all of that and you tell them so they do it once and then they kind of forget and they kind of go into their old mode or they'll go out there and smoke a cigar on the bait or chew tobacco, which everybody says that's not a big deal, but they spit it all.

Like if you spit it, the bears know. I mean, they can smell it for what a mile away. They're like, hey, there's something up here. Right. We're not going there. Yeah. So I think the smell and then the movement too, it's if I'm guiding, I totally, I get kind of anal about it, I get. I'm really insistent about it.

It's like if this bear is coming in, because as soon as they see a bear, they're like all excited and they want to move. And the bear is like, oh, bolt, we're not coming in. I'm like, let them come in. It might take two minutes. It might take 15 minutes. I don't know.

Let them come in. Let him get comfortable. Let him start eating because he knows we're here. Yeah. He might not notify you that he knows, but he knows you're there. Like, obviously, let him come in, let him get comfortable, and wait for that perfect broadside.

I mean, maybe a tiny bit. quartering away, but I just, especially when I don't know these people, I don't know how they shoot, I don't know what their track record is. And I mean, you get pretty amped up. You can be like 13 to 25 yards away from a bear. It's pretty intense. Yeah, it's close. So I'm like, broadside. And if they don't listen and they're like, oh, what happened? I'm like, and I'm always whispering to them. I try to sit so I can just relax, wait a, oh, you know, get mad because the bear took off or whatever. And I'm like, just chill. Like, it'll happen. So movement and scent.

Yeah. I don't think really, I don't think there's that much more you can screw up on except shooting him in the ass or something like that. Yeah. I think we're like I've seen people screw up as it's tough to like a shoulder is really visible on an elk. I think that black, the hair is hard to see. And then the hair hangs down. So people are hitting lower than they think they think the body line's lower than it is. And so they're hitting too low on bear sometimes.

Yeah. But yeah, and then bear never seem like they're, I mean, it's different too because it'd be easy to kill any bear. But if you're going to kill an old bear that's been around, you know, a big bore that's at least 10, so it's been through the routine wild, maybe could be 15 to 20 years old. Those bear don't like offering you a wide open rib shot. Well, look at your bear this year. Yeah.

He's like, no, no, no. And he just knew. It's just like he wasn't looking at us, but as you said, you know, they know. They know. It's so crazy. Look at the brown bear in Alaska. Yeah. Spacing us the whole time.

The whole time. Yeah. And we were so quiet. And when we're high. Yeah. It's like how? But yeah, they just know. I mean.

Well, there's times we'll be sitting at the bait and you see the bear walking up straight behind the barrel all the way up. And you're like, okay, eventually he'll come out and he'll give you a broadside. So he comes up at the back of the barrel. And seriously, he'll look at you above the barrel and lay exactly behind it. Big old monster bear feed. Look at you like this out of the barrel. Come back.

And then when he gets up to go, he'll stand up on the barrel and eat and kind of, I'm in my head I'm playing. Yeah, you're just winking at us like, he can't get me. And then when he's done, he dropped down, 180 straight out. So all you get his butt.

And like, seriously, we've had bears that consistently will do those. Yeah. The big ones. They just know that they know, they know, I think, that they're vulnerable and it's perfectly broadside.

And. Look when they're fighting each other. Yeah. A lot of times of the tree between them. Yeah. Yeah, but how do they know? Just it has to, obviously they smell us. And even if you're still as a mouse, it's like, how do they know to be that cautious?

Like what's in their brain to make them that cautious? I think it's like, you know, even if they're not looking at us, if somebody was standing in your kitchen, you wouldn't even have to be looking at them. You'd know that there's somebody in here. So to them, I think they know the woods that well. Yeah. It'd be like, or if something, you hear something fall in your house, you're like, does something just fall in the bathroom?

So they know. even if they're in the trees, they know where they heard that noise. Yeah. You know, so it must be they're just so in tune. It could be another sense that we don't know either. We don't have that we don't. It might. It very well might be.

Yeah. And some guys will say, oh, do you think he sees us? Absolutely. Well, people told me bears have horrible eyesight. I says, well, that's probably a load of crap because they can see. So that one's been repeated by people for the last 40 years that bears have poor eyesight. I think they see very well. Scientists have done research on them.

They have about the same eyesight as a. Yeah. Yeah. You think one's feeding. And like you're, I tell all the guys, like if they're feeding, you know, baby movement. It's just like shooting a white tail. Like, and if you have to freeze, he looks at you, you freeze and you move and he freeze. Like as the bear is feeding, if he looks, guys are like, oh, no, he sees me.

I'm like, just don't move. It's just like stop go. Yeah. Yeah. If you're drawing and you're picking it up and all of a sudden he looks at, you just freeze. Yeah. And so he turns his head and finish it up. And I mean, when they're eating, they're crunching, right?

So their hearing's a little bit less and they're focused on the food, especially a bee. or the sweets or whatever. They got mosquitoes in areas too. You got mosquitoes busting all around. Right. I'm glad it's him, not me. Yeah,

I know. We got thermocels. Thermocels. There's bugs at the... God, it's so nice. But you do know when you ran out of the Boutain? Oh, for sure. Holy smokes.

And I like when it's cold, too, you'll hold those. Yeah. I've seen you doing that this spring when I went up with the thermicill. Yeah, we have some colder days. But, yeah, I think that, you know, just in general,

I think that people really, don't know shit about bears. I think they do. They totally underestimate. They don't know. They don't know what they're talking about. People talk like they know about bears. But you listen to them.

When guys like us that are guys like us, people like us and other friends that are great bear outfitters, hear with those people talking. We just shake our head. To us, they sound like idiots. Yeah. You know? And it could be somebody totally famous that the world looks at as a knowledgeable person. Right.

We hear what they say. It's like, they have no idea. Quite a few years ago, we even had a meeting. Well, this is, I don't know. nine, 10 years ago, whatever it was, eight years ago. And there was a biologist that came into town and we're talking about grizzlies and all of this different stuff because our grizzly season's been shut down since, what, 2005, 2006? Anyway, so he's talking about all this stuff and he's talking about how they find out what bears are

in the area and all this different stuff, how they, you know, figure out numbers. And I'm just sitting there and I'm just, I'm kind of shaking my head. I'm like, well, if you think this is happening in this area of the province, why don't you ask people that are out there? Oh, no, we have our ways. And I'm like, well, outfitters are out there all the time. Trappers are out there all the time. Surveys, all this different.

Like they have constant encounters. There is some good biologists out there, but there is some that some of the local landowners have told me they've been on there. I mean, they've got big acres of land. And they've seen some trucks going by and end up talking to them. And there was a biologist. And they were counting the elk in the area. And the landowner is like, well, I'll tell you. I see them every day.

I know what's here, there. Right. Oh, no, no, it's fine. We're calculating them. How you count them? Are you doing helicopter survey? No, no. So they were in the woods doing grids,

100 yard grids, and they were counting the piles of poop from the elk. And there's some formula. Yeah. Tell them how many elk are there. Yeah, ask the people to see them every day. And I'm like, you realize they move from here, you know, from whatever, the poplar,

and then they'll move over here, and then closer to winter, they'll move towards the farmland, like where we live anyways. So it's like, well, if you're counting all those areas, I'm sure they have some method of madness to it. Yeah. But sometimes I just think it's just about, oh, numbers.

And sometimes I don't think, maybe I'm wrong on saying this, but I don't think all the biologists have. Like, it's not the interest of, like, really hunters or conservation. Some of them kind of lean a little bit. Some of them kind of it, really. Some of it lean, I don't want to say animal activist-ish, but it kind of is that. A lot of times they're going to err on that side.

And it's not like a stewardship type either. It's where just, I mean, it's a couple of the guys that we've talked to. And I was like, I kind of... One of it's because of funding, too. I mean, we can't do helicopter surveys in each unit every year. It's just too much money, right? So a lot of times we're four, five years behind. Yeah.

Where that moose population was going down, down, and it's too late, you know. Right. Every time they say, oh, we should put this on draw or limit how many tags are in this area. Well, it's been hammered for 10 years and now you do a study. And we're out there or, you know, other guys are out there. We see it every year, either going down or going up. Yeah. Right now we're seeing going up where we hunt bears and we're taking out these big mature boars.

We're seeing more moose tracks. We're seeing more moose. every year a little bit more a little bit more and it's all those calves that we're saving yeah i couldn't i mean a big bore man it'd be you know we've seen numbers on grizzly or brown bear what they kill but oh i bet a big black bear yeah oh he can cause damage growing up my dad's always said and he was in the bush all the time prospector geologist involved in wildlife and he always said 50% of the calves get taken by bears every spring well now with those studies in alaska that you guys show yeah i mean it's incredible yeah like 30 40 calves in the

a 30, 40 period. That's insane. All killed basically or three weren't killed or something like that. It's just they get in this killing frenzy and they're just, it's just instinct. They're not like, you couldn't say it's like a human murder or anything. And they're just doing what they're bred to do. Being bears. Being bears and when I see, when I see New is saying there was a person eaten by a bear,

it was very unusual. No, bears kill things. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that bearer. That's what he does. Yeah. He did a, he did his job. Oh, he was a sick bear.

He was probably a sick malnourished bear or something like that. They usually don't promote it very much. They keep it pretty quiet when people get eaten by bears, but we have some all the time. I mean, last year we had that helicopter pilot near Swan Hills by our place. Right. She was flying in tree planters and then she spends the day there waiting for the people to get done and flies them out. She's picking blueberries by the helicopter and the bear gutter. So low on the ground picking blueberries.

That wasn't a sick bear. That was a bear. That was a predator. That was his berry patch that he took over. It's fall. Fall, they take over. and that's their feed before they'd end up. That's where she was.

She was probably down low, bent down, picking berries, looking small. And they're an ultimate predator. It's not like a, you know, a field mouse. They're out there. That's what they need to do. That's what they do. If that helicopter pilot would have had a pistol, it would have probably saved her life. Yeah.

Yeah. But for people who don't know, those are illegal in Alberta. Yeah. You can get a permit if you work in the woods, but it's such a pain that nobody does it. It's where the odd person has. We could do it. We could do it. We keep saying we're going to do it. Yeah.

But it's such a pain. It's got to be trigger locked. It's got to be in your safe. We can take it from home to the gun range. Generally, that's all we can do with a pistol in Canada. You know, I wonder if it feels like,

I know everybody has, they cuss about their fishing game department, but it feels like I wonder if Alberta could do better because I know grizzly numbers are going crazy. Oh, they are. But like where we hunted, like where I killed this big brown bear in Europe, you mentioned hunting with me and Roy.

They, you know, with terms of moose populations, they allow two brown bears to be killed by non-residents and three black bears. So you can go up there and kill one guy, kill five bear because they know that you have to kill that many bears. And that's why. That's because they know they're killing the moose.

They're killing the carib with it. The people need to live off. Yes, right. So they're trying to balance it. Yeah. And so I wonder if Alberta could take a page from Alaska. And, man, wouldn't that be nice? And Alberta has some, I've been to other provinces, Alberta has some of the best management,

some of the best officers, some of the best biologists. Like, we're, it's a good place. Yeah, yeah. But with the grizzlies, like you're looking at it, we know for a fact from where we live. The grizzly was political, just like British Columbia. Right. There was no reason for British Columbia shut down. They have tons of bears.

Yeah. But you think these sows are having two to three cubs every two years. So they got to expand because they're not going to stay in that same territory. So you think now it's been closed for 20-some years? Yeah. Right? The year that they shut it down, 2005, they shut down the grizzly season. The local warden in our town in Swan Hills was a great guy.

I loved him. Yeah. I miss him. He's gone now, but he's passed away. He was the bear specialist for Alberta. He was the bear problem guy. If there was a problem anywhere in Alberta, somebody had a problem. They would fly him in.

He'd take care of the problem and fix it. When they shut it down, the local, the biologist that shut it down was, he did it for political reasons. Yeah. In my opinion, in that game, Warden's opinion, they said the whole Swan Hills region, which is like 100 and something miles by 80 miles, it's a big area, that there was 30 or 40 bears in there. Well, the local warden said there was 40 at the dump. Oh.

Yeah. So obviously I don't have them all at that dump, you know. No, for sure. They're wrong with the numbers. Yeah. And we see them. I mean, they're out into farmland. They're expanding farther than they have been for a long time.

They're in farmland. And they're intimidating when you're not used to running into them. Well, I saw a video this, you know, when you guys were getting the beavers of that bear. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm driving home with the truckload of beavers. Yeah. And there's a police officer watching this grisly. So I pull over and I'm watching them. And all of a sudden the grizzlies, no, it just starts going up. And he smells my truckload of beavers. Meat wagon. Yeah.

Yeah. Beautiful to see them. Oh, I know. But they are intimidating. But they need to be hunted. They need to be hunted. When they shut it down, there was, I think that year, the year before they would give out 125 draws.

So it wasn't just not everybody could buy a tag. Back in the day when I was a kid, you could. Everybody could buy a grizzly tag. It's a hard animal to find, hard to get. So out of that 125 draws, they would kill about 25 bears. Which is decent management. That's better than killing 25 bears that are problem bears for nothing and they just go to waste. Right, exactly.

We also have hunters doing it, managing it. And then the bears are not such assholes when you see them because they're not the top of the food chain. Right. Yeah, they know. It's a big difference when they're hunted and when they're not hunted. Yeah. Every grizzly we see has an attitude. That's what happens in Montana, too.

They, you know, or Wyoming, there's been a lot of attacks there because they just no fear of man. Yeah. They think they were on the show. Yeah. You got to, with hunting, they're reminded that, okay. 20 years ago, I used to say, oh, a bear is a bear is a bear. Yeah. No big deal.

But I had zero experience with grizzlies. And I mean, I grew up and they were around. I just never seen it. Yeah. And then. I grew up in Ontario where there was no grizzlies until age of 14. So I thought same thing. It bears a bear.

No, the grizzly is a different creature. Yeah. My first encounter was pretty freaky because I did not expect it. And long story short, I heard this Christian and crashing and I thought, oh, kind of sound like a herd of something. I didn't know. So this is quite a few years ago. And as it was running through the trees, like just there was tamaracts. It was all tight.

I saw this brown. I'm like, holy crap, because there was elk in the air. I was like, all excited. This could be an elk. It was in the fall. And it was a she. And when she came around the corner, she had a two-year-old cub with her. and everything she did, he did.

And let me tell you, it was just like eye contact and it was my heart sunk. It was the opposite of the moose experience. It was just like, and I thought to myself, what do I do? Because I'm sitting in a stand that's fairly, it was only 10 feet off the ground. And we went in and with the Argo, so it was really marshy, tight willows.

You had to walk out there. We had 45 minutes till dark. And I'm thinking, wow. Like you have a thousand thoughts go through your head. What do I do? How do I do this? I had my son with me. And it was like, okay, don't panic.

I'm the adult here. And it was just like, it was intense. And she came right in, stood right underneath us, and I tried to scare her off. She stood up. And I'm like, if she was right below us, she could have probably touched the bottom of our stand. Like, she was huge. And then that baby did exactly everything she did. Oh, geez.

I had the opportunity to pepper spray one. Really? I would not rely on pepper spray in the bush without a weapon. No. No. Because it was five yards coming straight at me. Jenna was in a tree stand above me. And this bear came straight to me.

And at five yards, I pulled out the spray. And I normally don't have spray with me. I had a can at that time in a backpack. So pepper sprayed it right in the face. And it ran about 20 yards, stopped, sat there and watched me again. And then did it again. Oh, came back again. Yeah.

Holy crap. Somebody that relies just on this. That's dicey. Yeah. That's dicey. And then I sprayed it again at five yards. This time I hit it really good. I aimed really good.

I got it right in the face. and it did the same thing. It ran to the same spot where it felt safe, stopped 20 yards away, looking at me again, I'm like, okay, now. Slug gun. So if it's attacking you or like have that mindset of,

hey, I'm going to kill this, whatever it sees a human ass, probably a human. But I mean, what is pepper spray going to do? Yeah. I mean, even that one that wasn't 100% aggressive,

only went 20 yards and came right back. It's like one that's aggressive, you're in trouble. Make his food spicy? So the third time I blew a slug. I mean a three inch magnitude slug out of my 12 gauge at its feet, blew dirt in its face, and it ran off and stopped just a little past

where it stopped the other two times. Right. And I thought we got to go, let's get out of here. Yeah. Somebody's going to get hurt. Because the next one it would be pretty much, he would probably come at you. The guys wouldn't have messed around.

They know grizzly bears. They would have shot that bear at five yards. Yes. Because your life's, I mean, if it comes at that distance, you're not stopping it. I know, I know. I mean, in those grislies, just a different, attitude you know I mean even you know we saw that just I don't know you I don't know how often

you guys see grizzlies and black bear in on the same bay probably not because you can't you can't hunt where grizzlies are but where we were in Alaska you know the black bear would come in yeah do a black bear would come in 100 different 100% different animal yeah different actions different intensity they've learned to in to take turns yeah like that night we saw a black wolf. We saw black bears and big brown bear. I know. That was cool. Yeah. The black bears don't like to be around when the grisly's around. Usually not. No. I've seen like we used to hunt an area that had grizzlies and black bears before. And we saw them where at first, when the grizzlies first moved into the area, you wouldn't see a black bear. And you'd wonder why the bait would be

there was dead and we're like, what the heck? Yeah, you check the cameras like, oh, grizzly came through. And you're like, oh, crap. But after a while, they did learn to take turns like. Black bear's coming in. The they would come in and later and take turns kind of thing. Kind of like they'd wait way out on the scruiting somewhere and kind of do the movement. They figured out the pecking order. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, you mentioned counting coup. Do you anticipate because, I don't know, it's like a. There's never going to be a hunter that hunts with us that's going to want to count a coup. I know. That's what. There's only one nut job. I see people say that, oh, now people are going to try to do that. I'm like, no, they're not.

Nobody's going to be doing it. In 10 or even said that too. Some people like in the last in the, what's it called Bush Dragons video. Yeah. When they see you make that shot and then you take off running through the forest. And some people might think, oh, you're just going to push the animal. He's got to narrow through both lungs. He's going to weigh about five to nine seconds right now.

He's going to pass out before he's done running. Right. He's going to run as fast as he can. Within seconds, he's going to pass out while he's running. Yeah. Yeah. And I obviously wouldn't do that if it was a gut shot. Yeah.

or in the ass. So it's like there's so much happening so quickly that, yeah, I don't, I don't see anybody doing it. But it's like, I know when I've done it and I'm not telling anybody to do it. And I hesitated even including it. But it's such a, you know, hunting bear means so much to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's in the book, don't you?

Yeah. So we can talk about it here. Then we're good. Yeah. I explain it. But still, you know, hunting is such a personal journey for people. How could anybody know how another hunter feels? You know, how you feel.

You posted the video of us doing it for the first time. Yeah, I do. Was you good? People wanted to kill us. They did. Yeah. Wayne actually called me and said, you should take that down. And I even tried to explain.

Yeah, even with explaining, well, people don't read or listen that much in this. No. No. And that was, that's the one. I included it in there, but I took off the audio. Yeah. Because, you know, that death moan. Yeah.

It's pretty intense. Yeah. I'll explain to people what happened there and why we did it is because, A bear, a lot of times when a bear's double lung, perfect shot, you'll get a death moan as they're expiring. Now, we've always been taught and told that when a bear's doing that, he's dead. He's passed on. And that's just the last thing to go is the lungs. The lungs can still work a little bit. So that's the last breath's coming out. That's making that sound. So that's what we always figured was real, right? But who's ever tested it? So Cam's like, I'm going to shoot a bear

and we're going to go touch it while it's death moaning. Like, you're crazy, but yeah. I got the 12 gauge, what do I care? You're going to be the one in front of me running with a bow. Yeah. I'll follow you with the camera and the shotgun. Yeah. But that first one, I mean, you went to its butt first and it's laying there not moving and it's death moaning.

Yeah. Then you move in your hand further and further up as we realized, yeah, he's expired. He's gone. He can't do nothing. He can't bite you. He can't move. He's gone and it's just the lungs still work. A doctor could explain how that works.

So the lungs are the last thing to go, you know. But I bet you the connection is surreal. Oh, it's incredible. I'm standing above you and you're touching it and you're telling it, you know, it's okay to go. I'm just pouring water. I'm just crying. I'm standing up filming this thing. It almost makes me emotional now.

I mean, that's one of the most emotional hunting moments of my life. But that's what people don't, a lot of people don't get is until you have an experience like that, I don't think you can understand it. And that's not disrespect to the animal. No. That's respect. I mean. Honor beyond honor. Yeah.

Yeah, it's, bear hunting is, I don't know, and I don't know why bear death moan, because you talk about lungs. Well, they're very vocal. You think about all the sounds and everything, I don't want to correlate it to. There are some animals, I think, in Africa that do that too. Is there? Yeah, I heard that lately. But you think about all the animals we hunt, like up in Alberta. Is there anything else that's vocal like that?

No. And I've even seen people watch the video and say, why did you guys add in those sounds that the bear made? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, what are you talking about? You just don't know even more. See, but those sounds, when we're hunting, that's actually what they make. A lot of the National Geographic and all these things.

You hear the sounds like, that's not a bear. No. That's the person doing that one. I was like, come on. Then the kids think the bears walk around making those sounds. And I hear them, I'm like, they don't make those sounds. Not like that. Those sounds are so unique to bear.

Yeah. But it's like they are. They're making sounds all the time and communicating with each other. Yeah. I was after this big bore for a couple days. Well, I only had a couple days this spring. And he ended up coming in. And he had a, first this big old sow came in.

I was like, okay. And then I heard this. It almost sounded like in the distance, like a moose, this low little like little grunt. So she came in, she ate a little bit. She took off, kind of was checking out stuff, wandering around in the back of the bait. And then he finally came in and he destroyed a beaver, ripped a brand new rope, broke it in half. 500 pound test rope. Unbelievable.

Just came in, pulled it, snapped it, walked up. off with it. And then she came back in and she was eating. And it was then she's like, it was like she was looking for him. And she started doing that little, ooh, ooh, ooh, and then she took off walking back out on the trail they came in. And he was way over to the left of me. And all of a sudden you hear him and he's, he didn't come into bait again. Because if he did, he'd probably be dead. But anyways, hopefully, he comes walking across and the whole time he's doing this like, it's like a moose. Oh. Yeah. Like a bull moose following a cow. Yeah. grunting does as he's following her.

And not just like one, it was like the whole time. I actually on my phone, I recorded it and you can hear it. He's grunting and I was, because everything was pretty quiet. I thought that was pretty cool. It's almost the same sound as a sow does when she's making her cups fall or her. Oh, yeah, yeah, the little low. And he was kind of like, oh, oh, oh, like every step he took. And as she walked, he was walking faster.

I was like. He's letting her know he's behind her and he's following her. Man, I don't know. They're such a special animal. Yeah. I mean, there's such a draw to what, for whatever reason, there's a connection there. But, and especially being on the ground, you know, how we hunt them up there. It's like, oh, eye to eye, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. It's like when you're eye to eye from a big bear, yeah. It's just, that's. It's a different level. I love it. I mean, it's. I've heard something a couple times in my lifetime of spending thousands of nights in the bush for bear.

Uh, a sow that was calling. It was cool. If I wouldn't have seen it in front of me, I would have thought it's a wolf calling. Really? I thought it's a wolf howling. Almost like a howl. She's, she was a hot sow and obviously was no bore in the area because she was just walking all over, rubbing on trees and passing over branches and rubbing herself. Yeah.

Some people who don't hunt, like I get a lot of people who don't know, but a hot sow would be, sow and heat. Yeah. And so she's ready to breathe, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then she sat on her butt and she put her head straight up just like a wolf and she just went. Yeah.

Yeah. And just a low moan for like. like a minute, minute and a half straight. I'm like, oh, like it made your hair stand. That's a bear. It's not a wolf. Man. I don't know.

It's, yeah. I mean, so I was going to say, like, earlier, it feels like, are you guys where you want your business to be now? I mean, how do you feel about the outfitting now? I know it's been ups and downs. Then you finally, it felt like to me, like you guys were finally, like all this hard work is paying off. Then fucking COVID.

Yeah. We bought the farm. I mean, instead of being intense and stuff, we finally got a nice house up there. Yeah. 19 was epic. Like 2019 was great and everything was good. So we're getting into 2020, planning everything. And it was like, oh.

There was so many things in the works too, right? Yeah. And kinds of deals with different companies and different people. Yeah. Building a big shop, doing all this different stuff. And then COVID hit and was like, whoa. Well. And then he started to say, well, two weeks.

Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. And we thought, well, in 2020, do you want to talk about the COVID crap for a minute? Yeah, that's fine. In 2020. I just know it screwed up your guys. Oh, it messed us up. Dreams, business, everything you'd worked for. Yeah, because before that, we're like probably at the best we've ever been.

I mean, debt-free, business is going great. Of course, health, all that other stuff. But it was like we were doing good. I mean, all was, you know, all was room to expand and grow. Yeah, there's always challenges. But it was good. Like, we were doing good. And we were really excited about, you know, getting the farm, going to the next step,

getting ready to build a shop and everything. And long story short is when COVID hit, we're like, well, holy crap, we couldn't do anything. And that two weeks, they kept on telling us that. So you prepare, right? We kept on preparing because in two weeks. It's only shut down for two weeks. Yeah, we got to be ready for hundreds and two weeks. Yeah, we were booked.

For two years, we were booked. For moose and deer, you don't have to get any much ready, but for bear, you got to be baiting. Yeah. And if you don't bait, you don't have bears. So it's like two weeks while. It's only going to be two weeks. You bait. So we did that all spring, all fall.

And then the next spring. we started baiting again and we're like, hey, we got to taper off like just a little bit, but it has to open. They were promising it was going to open. No. So you guys are investing money. This isn't like people might think you're using scraps or bread you get from the whatever. You're buying oats.

We're buying oats. We're driving hundreds of miles to pick up all of our supplies and everything that we bait with. And then not only that, you got to kind of be a little bit prepared like at the lodge too. If something, you know, guys can come. Well, you want to be a little bit prepared. Well, running all those baits is. wear and tear on your vehicles, on your quads, on your, whatever it is. It's like, that takes money because there's, that mud is crazy. It'll, it'll lock up axles and you're replacing stuff all the

time or bearings. And so just to the work that goes into baiting, not just the work, but the cost associated and equipment is crazy. And it's everything to build up to the hunt. So we went from 19. I'd be like, I would say the top of where we've been in doing this for what 30 years now to to 2021 being like, holy shit. Like, are we going to keep it? Are we going to keep our? Well, when somebody says I lost my job, yeah. We lost our job.

Yeah. But not because we wanted to. The border was closed. You wanted to work. We were ready to work. We would do whatever we could to work. That's why this spring with all the forest fires almost shutting us down. It was so close.

We were on a three hour alert at one time. Swan Hills got evacuated. Yeah. Yeah. So we're like, we're going to keep grinding. We're going to, we're kind of in the middle of it all. There was fires in every direction from us. We just kept grinding.

And clients were calling it. like saying, should I cancel? Should I cancel my client? We're like, no, come. Come. We're not doing a third or fourth year of no clients. Yeah. God. But here we're going to hunt. Yeah. So instead, so we went from our highest, basically to our lowest. I mean, when we were young, we first started out, I don't even count that because you're learning. You're growing. It's different. Every year you're at the bottom. Yeah. Yeah. Just going to get a little higher. It's like, whoa, wow. We have $5. This is great.

With us, though, no matter what happens, we're never going down in the dumps because we got, I mean, we got faith. We get, you know, we just keep on believe it and keep grinding and keep going and we got back into manufacturing tackle and hunting products. Yeah, yeah. Got on the road with a vehicle full of fishing tackle and hunting products and went sold and the stores were happy to see us. Some of them we hadn't sold to them for years and they were happy to take us back and man, we need product.

I'm glad you're making some and they bought everything we had. So it's not a fortune making fishing tackle, but it paid the bills. Right. We did everything we could to stay afloat. Hustling. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you incur, well, we incurred a lot of debt, but you had to keep the lights on.

You had to keep stuff functioning because when the border did open, you knew you could get back to work. So you can't let it fold. They got dicey. And there was outfitters that sold hunts to residents. And some of them at cheap prices just to get people hunting. And I thought, no way, I'm not doing it. We talked about it. I'm going to save my animals from my clients.

And when it opens up, we're going to kill some big bears. Well, and also if they're residents, then you're like showing them where you're hunting. come back to the area and hunt by themselves and your area is screwed. Right. And I mean, we wanted to stay pretty faithful to our group of people. I mean, we could have. We could have sold it for half price and whatever and brought up residence. It's just not worth it.

And then also in my head, I mean, I'm not dishing any other fitter that did it. Everybody has to do what they have to do. But for us, in my head, it would just say, well, the money was way more important than the commitment we made to you. And I mean, your finances is helping us. that's what makes us a living. So just to go basically, I'll say it this way, just to shit on them to make a couple bucks.

That's not who we are. Wouldn't feel right. To me, that's that animal that I'm raising for you and the other guy and the clients that are booked that are coming. That's what those animals are for us for you guys. So why would I give them away to somebody else? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we need to keep other guys that say, well, we need to keep your guides busy. And we got rewarded. I mean, the clients came, shot big bears and rewarded us with, you know, they know we struggled and we had already spent the money, basically debating for two and a half years. Well, that's a different thing. is an outfitter, right? It's not like, say you're a car dealer, you sell the car, you get the

money, there's the car. Well, being an outfiter, the way we do it, is like you get the deposits in, you're preparing for when those people are coming. So by the time they come, it's like, that money's all been spent in baiting, supplies, trucks, vehicles, sourcing, all that stuff. The bill still come. The bill still come. Yeah, whether the clients come or not. Yeah, they still came, so. Yeah. Well, I've, I mean, there's a while there where it was like on such a good run, You talked about your faith. You never gave up faith. And you always, you know, stayed true to, to what motivates you and doing the right thing.

But there was a time there where Rogan was up there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how did that feel as high? It was amazing. Oh, my God. I mean, so you're up in, you know, it's not like you're in L.A. and there are stars everywhere.

You're in Alberta. Yeah. And there's true stars, celebrities coming to your house. Yeah. It's pretty cool. And bear hunting with you guys. How was that? That was awesome.

It's so good for the problem. I mean, the promote, I mean, we did the TV show with Luke Brian with Buck Commander there on that hunt. Yeah. So good for Alberta. And then Joe coming up with you, that was epic. I mean, like, since you guys have been, when you started coming up, that was pretty cool. Like, it started to change just the dynamics because it's the presence. And it's not just advertising, anybody can advertise.

Right. But when you have somebody that knows hunting, knows what they're doing and has a reputation for hunting and says, hey, these people are decent, you know, this is what they do. It's different. And it's like, it's almost like a referral saying, hey, you can count on this because I do. And then when Joe came up, it was just getting those little blurbs. Like as soon as you mentioned on a podcast or something. Joe was so good for all of us. Yeah.

So good for his friends. He mentions you guys all the time. The phone gets lit up like crazy. And I was like. And all he has to say is my friend John and Jen and Alberta, people find us. They have to search. They have to search. So it's pretty epic.

And he hasn't even been up in like four years probably or? Six. And he still, he still mentions you guys all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We just visited him in March in Austin.

That was cool. I was good to see him. I mean, since the COVID stuff, it's like we say, well, last year, last year. It wasn't last year.

I know. Jeez, it was three, four years ago. Yeah. Yeah. There's stuff that feels like last year, but it's 2019. Yeah,

because I wasn't there for three years. I know. And it's like this time gap. Where did it go? So everything's a blur. It was kind of. I don't know anymore how many birds are shot together.

I lost track. Yeah. One day we'll have to figure it out. We were, we were, we got the three in Alaska. And I was just, I was trying to think.

Three in Alaska in four days, I think. Yeah. Because I think we stayed four days and then left. Yeah. Oh, I was going to ask you about that too before we forget. But everybody, like yesterday,

a lot of people talked about Roy. Yeah. And because I've, you know, I've talked about them a lot. And there's, you know, there's a saying that a person dies twice.

They die one time when they die and they'll leave the earth. And then another time, the last time their name is mentioned. So people were asking me about Roy yesterday, but I was curious on hearing or having the listeners. I know how you, how, you know, you just noticed the table when you said. Yeah. How you feel about right. Yeah.

So this table is like right there. He's born in 65 and then he died in 15. And so this is this is basically a tribute to him because he's the one who got me started boll hunting. That's awesome. But, uh, you, we spent, you know, nearly a week together bear hunting with Roy. What was your impression on him? It was awesome. And I think I took that picture.

Did you? Yeah. When you were walking in Alaska, I'm pretty sure. No, no, no. No, not that one. This was the moose. That was the moose. Yeah, yeah.

No, that was. Yeah, I'm thinking of a picture that I see in one of your videos or in one of your clips. Yeah, with the bear. Oh, I mean, think. It was on the, it was on the way into where you shot the first bear. Yeah. Somewhere in there, that tall grass. Yes.

Waterholes and stuff. Yeah. He was excited like a little kid going on a field trip. Going to Alaska for the first time. The reason I wanted to go is I seen how you act with the bears in Alberta and I thought he's going to die in Alaska. I need to be there to make sure he doesn't die. Yeah. It was pretty exciting.

It's a risk for sure. He used me an old pistol that he's not sure if it still works. Oh God. I know. It's been in the bottom of his pack for years, you know. But he, yeah, I don't know. So, I mean, about Roy, everybody always wants to know what it's like to be around him. What do you remember?

I have images in my head that I can't erase of Roy. Yeah. I went in camp in the morning, sitting on his little chair, and he's got no shirt. He's got his white underwear on. And he's got a pan in front of us on the fire, and he's cooking us bacon. Yeah. And he hadn't brought any butter. So every meal started with a pound of bacon.

Yeah, because that was going to be a grease for everything else. Yeah. A lot of peanut butter and peanut butter bagels with bacon. It's so good. Oh, that's what it was. frying the bagels in the bacon grease. Yes. And then peanut butter and bacon on the sandwiches.

Yeah. Like you said in the woods, you don't throw away the crust. Never. And now. We ate everything. But yeah, that was, I remember, what I remember is the first, first day we got there. I can't remember what time we were hunting, but we were up there and we were glassing for a little while looking for bear, right?

For brown bear. And it had been like probably, I don't even know if it'd been an hour. And I'm like, this is impossible. We're never going to get one killed. I mean, we're joking, but in an hour, we're already like, what is going? And then it was the first stock of the hunt, I'd kill the bear. Crazy. Isn't it cool, though, from our tents, you had a tripod there, like a deer tripod stand, 15 foot high.

Standing on the ground, you couldn't see any bears. A grass is too tall by the ocean there, but you'd get up in that thing and you could glass. And I think we could glass from that stand, maybe 20, 25 bears in every direction from us. I know. And then you think, we're sleeping in that little puppy. So, yeah, nice thing. There was an electric fence around the food tent. where all the grocery bags were right and nothing on the one we're sleeping yeah where we're

fried bacon yeah he was like hmm I'm not sure about this one yeah I really thought they were gonna eat the zodiac boat like yeah we were we beached the boat and we go hunt on the island I thought we're gonna get back that bear's gonna have eaten that boat yeah we'll get out of here I could have I mean that was where I killed that big bear was a little island yeah it's but they were out there set up the way Jonah and and Roy would do that yeah baiting on an island He came back with stories. He was so happy that he got to meet Roy and meet some of his family. We flew out on two different flights, I think, when we flew home.

Yeah. And you flew before us. So I got to spend a little more time with Roy that afternoon before I left. And it was good to talk with him and spend time. Yeah. I talked about Jesus the whole time. Oh, I know. He, that's one thing Trace would always tell me is he would talk to her about me, like he

was worried about me or praying about me. And who does that? You know, I mean, that's only truly people who care about you. Most people are so wrapped up in their own bullshit. Yeah. They don't have time to even care about anybody else truly. I know a little bit more about his history. Actually, listening to the podcast with you and Wayne,

I learned more about you guys, even, about you and Wayne and about Roy in that podcast. And I figured out why Roy was so tough. I mean, you're a concrete guy. Yeah. You don't mess with a concrete or a roof or those guys are tough as nails. Yeah. Yeah. And then also growing up being a trap work, because you guys know, you know, you just learn so much about animals running a trap line.

So that's where that woodsmanship, because a lot of hunting is woodsmanship. You're interpreting sign, reading the woods, you know, predicting what animals are doing. And that's how you catch animals and traps. Yeah. You know, so he had a lot of knowledge there. Yeah. And you've got to adapt. Yeah.

It's not like driving down, you know, a road with pavement and there's a flashing sign you turn there. It's like everything you do, whether it's trees, mud holes. We went to experience Alaska one more time after that. Since then, Jen and I went to Alaska for two weeks fishing and fishing salmon and halibut with a friend that sings. Yeah. Yeah. It was awesome. I bet.

Flew there on his jet. Yeah, I bet because that was out of uniclee, wasn't it? Or? No, somewhere up there. Yeah. Yeah. We're not going to say what the names are. The places just because people like to go out of the summer.

Yeah. And I was, turning 50 was awesome. That was my 50th. Oh, I see. So that was the 19. So 19 was like pretty up there. We did a bunch of stuff that we've, I mean. So we got married young.

We had kids young and jumped right into working family, everything. So it was like there was no big traveling, vacationing anything. It was just like family work and that's what we did. So now like I said earlier, all of our kids are adults now. And it was like we went to see Kip in Maryland, which was pretty cool because we'd never been there before. Yeah. And then we went to.

an itinerary for us planned. Yeah. Every hour of the day where we're going to be, where we're going. He's never done that ship for me. Hey, Brandlin, has you ever done that for you, an itinerary with all the activities? At this day, at this time, we're at, uh, we're at the Colonel's house, having appetizers and drinks, at the hour and appetizers. Yeah, this day we're going fishing with Colby. We're in the Chesapeake Bay on air-condition boat. The coolest thing was there was everywhere as we stayed where he had a staying as we went through our trip, he had elk meat in the freezer for us. I was like that was awesome. I was elk in the freezer. Yeah. Here, help yourself, this that, this, that. It was so cool. Definitely never done that for me. Yeah.

And Gip, if you're listening, I'm scared in your pool. Oh. That's too much information, buddy. He's probably got a security camera. There was cameras everywhere. I don't think they were working maybe, but I'm not sure. Yeah. It was 90-something degrees with 90-something percent humidity. You'd step outside and you're soaked. We're not used to that. Well, you know, I was thinking one thing, too, you guys in particular, you know, the vacation and the good life and like all those opportunities you're, it feels like to me, you guys like working, you know, I mean, you didn't have to come and cook and do all this. Yeah, I know. So it's like working, you know, and I see you in camp, how hard you work. And I think there's a, you know, John gets, it's like you're sometimes

cooking and so you don't get to go hunt as much as John. And I feel like, is that hard sometimes? Because you, I know you love to hunt. She does. I know you love to be with the clients too, but you also have this to prepare meals. But now that we have Julia. It used to be a lot harder. She didn't get away from the kitchen quite a bit. So before it used to be, I do the whole thing cooking everything. Now as Julia's made her way up, she used to help me a little bit, prep a little bit.

And then she started cooking a bit. And then we'd kind of do half and half. And then she'd start prepping stuff so I could grill or do whatever I was doing when I get back. And now it kind of flip-flopped where she'll do probably a lot of time, 90% plus, depending on, depending on who's in camp, what we're hunting and stuff like that. I saw you chicken today was Julia's recipe. She did that. And then those scallop loaded potatoes at the borack on Friday.

But I mean, she started out by like I like to cook. But now I find as I get older, I'm kind of messier than I used to be. Because I used to have OCD really bad. So it'd be I'd cook and I'd have to clean everything. Right. I'd be in its place. And now I just kind of go because I know she's behind me. And she knows how I think, how I like stuff.

I mean, she's my mini-mee. Yeah. So she does, she does excellent on everything she does. And I mean, when I come back, kitchen's cleaned. Everything's in order. And I'm just like, she just washed all the dishes from the event. Yeah. That's, yeah. Sinking the camper. Yeah. You guys are similar as far as like, you know, you're at, you're like, I don't know, very confident. And she's like, she knows exactly what you want. You guys are, you remind me of each other, you know, and it's just, I like it. But what I think of you, when I think of Jen Rivett, I'm like hard worker. Hard worker, good hunter.

And it's like it's hard when you're doing all the responsibilities. So I'm glad she's helping because I love Julian Camp too. She's awesome. But it's, man, you guys got a process. But it's all built on all the sacrifices you've made and the experience you've had over 30 years. And now it's where it's at and you're realizing these rewards. It's awesome. And you realize what's important and what's not.

important. Like over all these years, between, you know, kids coming and going, which is unique, kids getting married, now grandbabies into the picture. And of course, there's sicknesses and different things that happen and financial stuff. And, you know, you lose people. Some you lose, I mean, you get to see them again. So that's the benefit later on. But you just realize what's valuable. I mean, it's your relationships, your family, what you're connected too. And the rest, whatever. And like, seriously, we talked about this a lot, even when we're driving up here or down here. It was like the whole COVID stuff and that. If it would have came, and I never, I never thought we would lose everything. Like, we just, we weren't going to sink.

But in the back of my head, I thought, well, if it is that something happens that we can't make it, we'll make it at something else. We're just, we just. When you're self-complicated, you can't, you can't afford to fail when yourself. No. You'll survive. You'll figure something out. In most of the world, when you're self-employed, it's to get a loan or anything, it's tough because you don't have a regular nine to five. Well, guess what? As a self-employed person, I can't afford to fail. I'm not going to stop. Right.

Yeah, because there's no paycheck coming in. It's like if you decide, well, I'm not working anymore, while you're either living in a tent or going to live back at your parents, like there's not a lot of options. During COVID with the fishing tackle, there was most nights we were grinding away, making hooks till one in the morning, two in the morning, then going on the road for a couple days. but I mean we had that. Yeah. Something when you ought to do. What do we do? Okay, well, we know how to make tackle.

We know how to make hunting products. We know how to build. We know how to do this. Recalibrate. Yeah. It was so hard to get product that would get anything. Components to make anything. Bottles for our deer scent or elk scent are like you couldn't get bottles anywhere.

Every bottle was being used for sanitizer. No matter what the shape or size around the world, they were being used. I ordered stuff in the beginning of 2021. Yeah. And I got stuff in March 2022. supplies. I think there's still back orders. There is. There's still back orders. I got to call the other day. Hey, this just came in. I'm like, that was from 2021. We don't really need it. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, your dad used to always say fighters never quit.

The part I enjoy it. You get knocked down. You just got to keep on going. Manufacturing, tackle and hunting products is the relationship with the stores, all the people that we sell to. Like the ones that we like and love, we go deliver. You know, we get on the road and load up the vehicle, load up the expedition full of tackle right from front and the back. And the trailer or whatever. Stop at all these little towns in Alberta, Saskatchew. I mean, you don't have to. It's not, in some ways, it's not the most cost-effective way. But for us, you go make a connection because there's so much competition with pretty much any business out there.

You go make the connection and it's like, okay, it's Albertans making this at home in Alberta. Like, we're supporting the economy. This is how we make a living. And they're doing the same with their store or whatever they're doing. How could they say no to the product that's very beautiful, well-done product and it's made in Canada, made in Alberta? Yeah. Yeah, no, you make it tough. Yeah, you do that relationship is an investment for sure.

Yeah. And then that connection's there. You're not just, oh, your product A, B, or D. Like, there's something more to it. I actually love the selling part of that too. I love walking into a new store and just go, don't even bring a sample in. Just go in, sell yourself first, and then you can sell them anything. Did we have any bear hunters that are interested from this weekend?

There is, yeah. There is. Yeah. There's quite a few guys that have been asking. So, yeah. It'll be cool. Yeah. It's, I mean, what I would, my dream would be for you guys to charge more per hunter,

have everybody have an opportunity at big, giant boars. Yeah. And not have to work like, you know, a full camp is 24 hours a day at work, basically. But work, make good money, have good times. Yeah. Cultivate these relationships. Share Alberta with people who appreciate it. And yeah.

Then come and do this kind of stuff. Yeah. Whenever you want, like hopefully we have these events. Yeah. And you guys come down and. Oh, yeah. We want to be there. We, you know, Jen mentioned this too the other day.

It's like it's like a way to, to, I think how you termed it was love on people basically to, it's that fellowship that I mentioned. I've heard people yesterday say that this was like some of the discussions were better than church. Yeah, exactly. Because it was. It's real. It's real. And you're there and you can, people can look in your eyes and hear.

hear your voice and know that what you're saying is real and true. And you care. And it's like, so that would be my, my ideal vision. We do this. We kick ass. The bear hunting is amazing. We keep sharing that. Yeah.

Because the film, you know, it's hard making a bear film that it's not going to get just slammed by anti-hunters or threats or like it. So we did it. You know, we made it. It's amazing how little attacks we get now. Yeah, I know. At the beginning, we were getting hammered, death threats from everywhere. I didn't hardly get any from this, that whole film.

I didn't hardly get anything. But the way everything's portrayed, like Amanda, years ago, different programs and stuff, the way they had show a bear hunt. And it was like, I don't want to say it wasn't classy, but it was, there was no really educating. There is no relationship, if that makes sense, with what you're hunting. There was no purpose. It was just like, oh, I'm a big bad hunter.

I got to go kill this. Yay for me. And then it was like, no, there's so much more. The kill shot is like, what, 10 seconds, a minute worth of the whole hunt experience. And with that, you showed so much before and behind. And it gives people a good glimpse of like, it's not just about, oh, I got to go kill this. Yeah, that's your intent you'd like to and you want to. But there's so much more around it.

It's just it's the experience. Yeah. And that, I'm pretty cognizant of that now because we've had to deal with a lot of negative. But even on that bear where this last one I killed, there was a time right when I recovered it where I said something. It's like I was kind of smiling like, man, that was we had to earn that one. And I was smiling. And I was like, take that out.

I said, I want this the moment to be somber because truly that's what it is. Yeah. We do things. We react in different ways because we're talking about different things. And so we might smile for whatever reason. We're not smiling because it bears dead. Yeah. But we're smiling because of sharing it with somebody.

but somebody who doesn't know, they're going to look at that and go, like, look at these guys. They think it's funny. Yeah. You know, so to avoid all that because I've learned lessons a hard way, I'm like, no, let's take that out, make it very powerful this way. Yeah. But it feels like it worked. So I want to do more of that. I love how you always think about how you're going to present it and how are you going to write it.

Like you've done good for the, for bear hunting and animals too. You're telling people a story that they can actually, and. Instead of just right away, oh, killer, meaning, you're going to hell, you're awful person where it's like you actually give them a chance to listen and participate a little bit in the story and like try to evaluate, hey, is this, is this actually something I could listen to? Like, is this educational? Is it, it's not just like, you're like, nutso. Yeah. It's, and hunting is, I don't expect anybody to have my same mindset or your same mindset or yours. Yeah. But just to like know that, okay, I don't feel that way, but I,

I understand why they do. You know, and if it's genuine, then we get a little bit of grace. All we're asking for is grace. You don't have to go kill bear, but here's why we do it. Just think about it. And they've been, they've been very objective with what we put out there. And I think it's helped change just the stigma of bear hunting. You know?

With us having a lot of native reserves near us, well, all of northern Canada, northern Alberta, it's got reserves everywhere. but the natives will not typically shoot a bear. Right. Something spiritual to them, it's ancestors and stuff like that. But in the past, they've used bear products, you know, the bear fat for medicine, for different things. So when we kill a bear. We kill bears.

I mean, we're going to kill 30, 40, 50 bears a year. So we save all the fat, we render it. Jen renders it on the Trigger outside and makes all beautiful little mason jars out of it and we'll go deliver to the elders at the reserves. Oh, man. And it's like you're walking up, seriously, it's like you're giving them a brick of gold, even more precious than that because it's something very, it is very spiritual. Because they don't want to kill a bear.

Right. But they're happy that we're killing them to give them the product and to save the moose at the same time. They understand that. But it's very medicinal for them. Like they'll ingest it for digestive stuff. They'll put it on their skin in their hair. They'll make sabs out of it. Like it's...

For the skin, it's amazing. That's that part I know for sure. I mean, for skin ailments, rashes, excema. Yeah, I mean, we, like this, one of the sponsors I have here, Santa Cruz medicinals, but they got beef tallow. Yeah. You know, so it's like good for your skin. But it's even better.

Yeah, do you think what the bear eats? Yeah. The antioxidants that are in there. Oh, yeah. Fry some steak and some eggs in bear lard. I just call it bear lard because it looks exactly like pork lard. You can't tell the difference. There's no smell.

And people like, oh, it must be gross. I'm like, there's no smell. Right. If I would put it in front of you, you wouldn't know what it was. You'd be like, oh, that's lard. Right. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, over this time, yeah, people's perception on bear,

hunting is kind of changing a little bit and hopefully we can keep keep up with this messaging. It's been, it's such a blessing that from 2013 for whatever reason you sent me a message for to come up there and become. I took a chance on you. I just had a feeling. I just had this feeling, this gut feeling, right, which we know is the God part that's in our lives. And we had guided lots of TV shows and just didn't get much out of it, didn't sell much hunts

out of it. And you can blow a lot of money taking TV shows, especially if you're giving them a free hunt. And if nothing comes out of it, man, you're quickly to go broke. We got a bankruptcy. We learned that fast. Yeah. The hard way. And I remember we were sponsored by Nikon.

You were two at the time. And I saw you in a Nikon, Live in the Dream magazine. That's the name of our company now. I was living the dream. Yeah. And I saw that somewhere in the middle there, this crazy guy from Oregon on a street bike with a backpack with a bow on his back. I'm like, who the hell is that?

So found out about you. John LaCourt had told us about you. And I just had this feeling to take you hunting. And Janet had enough. with guiding TV shows for free and crap like that. Well, no, I was like, he was the big social media buff. I really wasn't paying attention too much. Yeah.

I was busy. Yeah. I'm like, I just feel we've got to take this guy hunting. Yeah. And I was like, I looked up a little bit and read a little bit. I'm like, okay, well, we'll give it a world. Seems okay. Glad we did.

Yeah. So much fun. I wouldn't know Joe Rogan or Lou Bryan. Yeah. I think people have a misconception too because, you know, you mentioned the TV shows. and giving away free hunts. It's like, for me, I respect so much what you guys do and how hard it is. I mean, on all the, I don't even go on free hunts.

I'm not talking about what you guys. I pay for every hunt that I do. Yeah. Full. I don't expect anything for free. So, you know, people talk about, well, TV hunters are like this or social media are like this. It's like, they might be. You don't know me, though.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what I do, I respect how freaking hard. Not just you guys, but any guy. They're out there. They're helping somebody else succeed, right? Or an outfit. They bought the rights to this land or bought this property, whether it's the least or not.

They've, you know, they deserve, I don't expect it for free. Yeah. They didn't get their opportunities for free. So people like might have a, you know, they think everybody's like, oh, well, you just get that for free is why you do it. Yeah. No, I do it because I believe in you guys. Yeah.

And somebody asked me that today about the Triggers. Are you guys just cooking on Triggers because you're, like them or cooking on Triggers because they pay you or and I'm like we love the Triggers. We don't support. We don't do anything with any company or people unless we love them and love the product and the people at the top of the company. Yeah. Unless we learned that over years.

Yeah. We're not doing it. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you guys have been burned just like me. You know, you want to believe in people and then or you might have a feeling about it. And you're like, well, maybe that's, I'm just like being paranoid. And then that feeling. is real and it's like, why did I do this?

Why do I? Now I'm working with this person. So yeah, you learn hard lessons. John can comment on that, a difference of opinion. If I would listen to Jen, most of the time, it would have been a lot better. She always had that gut feeling. Yeah. Just like even when you meet.

Women's intuition. Yeah. Maybe, I don't know if it's woman intuition or whatever, but it's just you pick up on different stuff. Yeah. Like I pay attention to different things and sometimes it's just that little inner voice. They're like, yeah. I think women are better at that.

I think guys. are just like more surface and more like whatever. I think women are better at that. Well, we were talking, Lisa and Julie and I are about and Jess too, kind of like you kind of have to be. You have to be more aware. You have to be more alert. I mean, normally, not always, but normally the mom is with kids,

like when you have your little ones. You have to be, especially nowadays, it's bananas. You have to be paying attention. You have to be, and I don't want to, I'll say it, I people watch when I'm somewhere, especially when Hazel's around or a granddaughter. I people watch. And right away, I'm looking around to see who's there, who's behind us. You know, you have to be safe.

Well, I don't even, I know there's women. I go running at night all the time. And women can't do that. Yeah. You know, but if they do, like you say, you have to be so aware. A guy doesn't have to. Yeah. Maybe we should, but we don't.

And so because you are so have to be in tune, you do, you can pick up on. That's probably what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Jess was telling us yesterday, this guy. homeless or whatever he was, he picked up a two-by-four and was coming towards her at the truck. Yeah. She threw the kid in the truck and closed the door.

Yeah. That's scary. You're going to be aware of what's happening. Now, see, like even what happened to me in Edmonton quite a few years ago, this old guy coming across. And I just, as soon as I seen him walking across the parking lot, I was jumping in Jenna's Jeep. You could tell. And I was just like, just that alarm bell went off. It was like, okay, this isn't right.

I'll say it's that God voice because normally you just don't look at somebody and say, oh, yeah, this is trouble. It's just like, whoa. So I jump in the Jeep, and I'm not used to it. I get the, usually I write in, I lock the door right away. I stick the key in. And in this case, I was taking off my jacket. I locked the door, went to put my jacket on the seat.

That big guy, he was probably 6 foot four, six foot six, huge, huge guy, had a big beard, was at that door banging on the window. So if I wouldn't have pushed that button and locked it. And I was like, no, no, no. And then he started banging it. And then he started trying to open the door. And I'm like, started it, put it and dropped it. reversed and I started backing up and he kept on banging and I was like no no no then I picked up

my phone like I'm going to call somebody and then he carried off and we can't defend ourselves we can't carry pistols yeah in the US a lady would have been oh yeah but do you think if you or John would have got into that Jeep right the guy would have came into the same thing probably not probably not because you'd probably get a you know ran over fist in the mouth or whatever but you're you know yeah so yeah you do have to be better reading people and maybe that's why you have that, you know, instinct or whatever. Back in a day before civilization, you had to have been watching out for animals in the woods and living.

Yeah. Yeah. Learn how to fight. That's why I said if I ever had to, if you could ever have a choice of like what your physique would be and stuff, you know, like program it in, okay, make her this way. I'm like, I told him, I joke about it. I probably said it the other day. It's like I would like to be like about six foot two, six foot four, probably about two 40, ripped.

I don't even, maybe okay looking. I don't even care about good looking. Just badass. So all these people... If I was married to you, I would hope you're good looking. Yeah. But just badass that when people, like, not that they're intimidated by you, but they don't mess with you.

Right. Yeah. Because I know... Yeah. I know some... Yeah. Like, I know some ladies that they're like police officers or whatever into, like, weightlifting and stuff.

Big time. And, like, they're big. Like, they're tough. They're strong. They're confident. And I was like, stature plays apart. Yeah. Look at the bears.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're all body language and stash. Yeah, for sure. So it's like, oh. Yeah, look at when we're dealing with the bears, I mean, just a movement like this. Yeah.

Moving like this. I know. Yeah. If they're getting too close into our zone, what we got to do is go like this and they back off. I know. Simple as that. It is. Wow.

Yeah. See, that's how they communicate. So yeah. But I mean, I think humans can learn from that also and you can add that to your, I mean, that's, you're good at it. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I don't. I don't know. I'm just like, I'm so thankful and grateful for your friendship. I'm, you know, and to be able for you guys to come down here and then connect with all these people here.

I mean, obviously, you've known Wayne for a while, but all these new people who flew in from crazy places. It's epic. Yeah. Yeah. And so now they know of you guys. To me, that that's one of the greatest parts of the weekend is that eat that, you know, food is that it connects people you know when you prepare a meal or you're eating a prepared meal from somebody that then there's like this a relationship yeah you know and so for you to be able to do that

and do it so well and and make such great food these guys will go that's going to be a talking point when they go home you know what I mean that's what I wanted then just to share my life and you guys are part of my life so it's like they were they were all so sweet like very sweet can I help you with anything. Like you're here. You paid to be at this event. Like, I want to serve you. I want to make sure everything's perfect. I want you to go home a raving fan. I want nobody to say, oh, this was off or that was off because your name was on the show. Doesn't matter all the people that involved. If your name's on the headliner, you know, you're the one that's going to get the, yeah, I'll get the, if there's any crap. We always say with what we're doing or what we're doing

with friends. We don't just want fans. We want raving fans. Right. We want them, we want to give 150%. Yeah. And you try to do everything with excellence. And if, if, if you know, not, whether it's bow hunting, being a mom, working at a garage, whatever it is. If you're not doing with excellent or to the best of your ability, why are you doing it? Right. We're not just going through the motions. And it's got to have a purpose. Like you're talking before, everything has to have a purpose.

And I mean, with the ministry part, so I've loved cooking for a long time. Obviously, we have four kids, so you've got to learn how to cook in a big family. So it was kind of that way. But then as I got into it more, I really enjoyed it more. And I found, like, even with our church family and stuff, it would be like, like, well, come over to our house. You know, another family. We're doing okay.

So come over to our house. We'll make lunch for you. We'll make supper for you. We'll take your family fishing. Come over for a fish fry. It was just, I don't know, when you have food on the table and you're feeding people, there's always, it's a different level connection. It is.

Because now it's more intimate. It's like you're cooking something. You're serving something. They're interacting because it's, I mean, they're going to put it in their body. So they got to, you know, kind of like you or something a little bit. Trust that you're not going to try to kill them. Yeah. I don't know.

You know what stands out to me, too, is like that. first meal at the Beaurek that you prepared. It's that, you know, we talk about as hunters were providers. So what stands up to me was the mule deer. You had the dish of mule deer bacon wraps. So that was Julia voluntarily giving her meal deer. Yeah. She's like, you got to bring this down. We got to cook this down there. Right. So we're talking about, hey, we're providers. And then you're providing meat that was actually killed on a hunt. And that means so much more to the people eating it. And it's like, you know, that's this connection that we're forming. But it's like, I'm so, I don't know, I just can't even explain how the chili cheese dip today had Wayne's elk in it.

Without you guys here, it wouldn't have been the same. You know what I mean? It wouldn't have been the same. People got to eat bear from your, it would have been fine. It wouldn't have been, and they may have been fans still, but as you said, they're raving fans. Because it was like, food is such an important part of what we do. We have to be fueled for. for these, you know, we put them through, ran them through the Gaunt. But it's just like, it's just fabric of like, it holds everything together. And so for you to prepare and you guys to come down here and do this, it's like, it made the biggest difference to me personally.

I'm just so grateful. Thank you. It was our pleasure. Our honor. Last week when we were in Salt Lake, we actually didn't have any work to do, basically. So we're sitting one day beside this little lake enjoying the water. It was hot. It was killing us 100 plus degrees.

We're not used to that. Yeah. So Jen's sitting on a lawn chair by the lake. And she's like, wow, is this what it's like to be on vacation? Yeah. It was weird. At home, we stop and we go to bed. Yeah.

When we stop, it's, we're going to bed. And after about half an hour, I'm like, he says, what's wrong? I'm like, I don't know. I'm starting to think about, you know, we're going to Oregon. I already had like menus prepared and all that stuff, but it just, it doesn't shut off until a certain time. So I was like, uh, this is weird. It's just weird to sit. That's what trait, like after this weekend, it's been so busy.

but like Trace knows that like I'm exhausted right I'm tired but tomorrow luckily I have a guest coming in but normally it'd be like by noon tomorrow I'll just be sitting there should be like what are you bored? You went from being exhausted yeah yeah to a half day you're bored and I'm like yeah I'm bored and it's like that's exactly what it is so it's like you get used to like running at this just you know level and full bore ragged edge and that's where yeah it's hard but man feels good too but it's like it's like I don't know maybe not adrenaline all the time but it's like purpose it's like next thing and not like oh so goal like somebody said oh you're so goal oriented I'm like it's not necessarily a goal it's like the end the purpose above it all like why you're doing what you're doing why you want to go why like what drives you I said this in my talk yesterday that a lot of people go through their life and they don't really know what their purpose is they're looking for it they're like

how do you know the bow hunting was this thing you want and so a lot of people don't really know what they're supposed to be doing yeah so you people might say they might write it off as like oh you're too goal oriented yeah but no it's like you're very clear on your purpose here and in that your cooking can create these relationships and it allows people to listen to you and you can you know it's the fellowship piece but it's it's it's very clear that you love love what you're doing. And that's what any person who's been on this podcast, and I've had from gold medalists to, who know, you know, tons of different people, but they all are very clear on why they're here. Yeah. And you guys are too. Yeah. And that, I mean, that's what a lot of people

miss that. And I think that it feel, we're pretty lucky that we know what our purpose is. Yeah. When I cook, I mean, I love it. I still love it. Julie loves the cleanup. So I'm blessed. I love that. I'm over the cleanup. But when I, I cook, it's like, oh, you could just do this or, you know, this is easy or don't, like he says sometimes, don't push the button too far because, you know, I don't cook, I don't cook beef a lot. We don't. It's 99, like I said, mostly wild game. But I can cook brisket and I can do tomahawks.

I mean, meat is meat. Oh, the brisket yesterday, the guys from Texas are like, that might be better than Texas pros that cook brisket, like the smoke ring on it. It was so big. But it's for a purpose. It's not just to say, well, here. I just went to the, you know, whatever, and I'm not knocking any local stores or other caterers. That's not my point or my deal.

It's just like, yeah, you could go somewhere else and sure it'll nourish their bodies. Yeah, it's not the same. But does where it's coming from have a purpose for them, a sandwich or a salad or whatever it is? It's like, yeah, they'll get some meaning out of it, but it's like pulling it out of a wrapper in a box. You can do that anywhere. Yeah. But if you're, if I'm around, and not to sound like a smart ass, but if I'm around, you're not just going to eat a, you know, a burger from this corner store or something like that.

That's not going to happen. Yeah. Well. And if we cook and like Julie is the same way if we're going to cook, it's got to taste good. Because if we don't like it, I'm not going to serve it to you. Oh, I've never had a bad meal. Not even that. That's like sounding disrespectful.

I've never had anything but an amazing meal. That's kind. Let alone from, I'm not even talking bad, but it's not even average. It's just like every time I'm eating stuff. And I'm like, God dang. Some of my guys this weekend looked at me and they ate some of Jen's food. They're like, I can't believe you don't weigh 400 pounds. I know.

I know. And it's because we don't, I mean, unless we have clients, we're not going crazy. Yeah, that's around. When we have somebody to cook for, then it's all out. You want to cook. You want to bless them. You want to take care of them. That's the nature, right?

Yeah. When it's just us. Leave on Saturday. I'm eating leftover. Right. I understand that. It's like, what are we going to have for supper? And I'm like, I'm not cooking.

And you're like, I'm not freaking cooking. we look at each other. I'm like, peanut butter toast? Yeah. Peanut butter toast. Yeah. No, I get that too. Well, I don't know.

I thank you guys for, you know, I wanted to sit down and talk to you guys about your operation, about just our relationship and just what bear hunting and what it means to be, you know, do what we do. It's crazy. We've known you for 10 years. I know. It's been, it's been great. But it's like your friendship and what you guys mean to me is I can't put it into words, but I love you guys.

Thank you for sitting down and talking. Thank you for all you did this weekend. I'm indebted. I appreciate you guys. Thank you. We love it. You're not indebted. That's just,

that's what family does. You know, you want to make it better. You want to spend time together. And I mean, when you asked if we wanted to come, we're like, hell yeah.

What do you do? It doesn't matter what we're doing that week. Yeah, we're coming. Oh, because we haven't been able to be down here for years too. So it was like, oh, yeah, we're going to go.

And Joey's like, well, maybe I'll stay home. Like, no, you're coming. You're coming. I need, I need you. Cam said you have to come and help. It couldn't have. It couldn't have. I mean, everybody with all of the food, with everything like you were saying a while ago with the event, all positive. Like guys blown away. And I mean, that workout, they got their asses, sorry, beat. Like, that was intense. Yeah. I mean. So nice to have Wayne's farm to do it at, though. It is. Nice place. Oh, it's so set up perfectly.

And I feel like, and Wayne also works his ass off. And he loved it. Yeah, he loved it. He loved it. He ran the 10K today too? Yeah. Yeah, he did. I know.

It was cool to see. So kind of a bigger version of it, but like say a bear camp, when you have, you know, multiple guys coming in from different areas of life, never met Joe to Adam. They've never met each other. And then by, you know, day two, their chit chat, or day one, day two. And then by day three, it's like, they've all got each other's information. They're talking about stuff. They're making hunts. Yeah.

Planning to make hunts together. I seen that like in the room people at first were somewhere a little bit more shy, you know, sitting back a little bit at the tables while they're eating. And like as the just even the second meal, it was like you could see all people mingling and talking to each other, getting each other's numbers. Like it's like this, it's that unit, that family. And I really think hunting, if people look at it the right way, it's a family. Because you can go anywhere in the world and you talk hunting to a hunting environment of people. And it's like right away there's a connection. Yeah.

And I was thinking about it as you were. saying that. I was thinking how much different that is because people guys do the same thing like in a bar, right? They might sit there and chat. Nobody's exchanging numbers. Yeah. Because it's not built on something meaningful. Yeah. It's built on drinking alcohol watching whatever. Yeah. But it's not meaningful. Yeah. What we're doing in your camp, in your house at the, you know, bear hunting, it's meaningful. And that's where those connections are made. And, you know, it's a bond then. A group of four individual hunters this spring that came from all different states and they hunted together and they became close friends now they're talking to each other daily like they're booking all of them are coming the same week next

year because they want to hunt together and talking about doing different hunts and remember on one of joe's hunts with us yeah there was all it was all single people from different places eight of us or something and joe's like so are you guys here together like are you guys friends from because he thought they must have known each other before because they're all so friendly to each other and he thought There was a bunch of buddies that came hunting together. No, they were all individual hunters that just met there. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's built on something like that camaraderie can. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. It's a very unique environment. We're blessed to have it.

Nothing like hunting camp. Yeah. And to have people like you coming in. It's, it's really sweet. I mean, we look forward to it. And the years during COVID when we couldn't have anybody and we're like, it was like, it was like sitting there and not feeling empty, but I was like. Yeah.

I was missing something. I need a go. I need a go. And John's like, you need a, we can't go. And I'm like, no, we need to go. So when it was time to come down into the States, like in January when we usually do, I was like, we got to go to the States. We got to see some people.

We got to do some stuff because I'm, I live in a bubble. Yeah. That's my saying out there. It isn't is. It's a beautiful bubble. I absolutely love it. But that's for a season. Yeah, I understand.

And then when that season is done, it's like, okay, you enjoy a little bit of time, family, whatever. And then it's like, okay, onto the next season, it's like, let's go to the States. Let's do some events. Let's feed some people. Let's take care of. And the birthday is always during Winter Strong. Yeah.

At Bert Soren's farm, we have a big event there. This year was pretty cool. Birthday party for January with about 300 people. It's pretty cool. And February is a good time to be out of northern Alberta. Oh, yeah. In the minus 40s. Yeah.

It was nice. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you guys. I mean, this has been a great discussion. I'm, you know, very grateful for everything that you guys have enhanced my life with from friendship to everything else. Thank you. Oh, man.

That should be saying from us to you. I mean, it's the same thing. Thank you. Well, we're going to keep it going. We're going to keep killing Big Bear. You're going to keep hunting bears until you die. Making great memories. And hopefully we keep doing events like this and you guys are part of it. I'm planning on it. I'm like, I'm already talking. Let's make a vision right so you can succeed to it. I know. We did it. This one, you know, you never know how it's going to turn on about this one. Man, if we could replicate this, I think we're on to something.

It was pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you guys. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. This was epic. We were like so excited to come down and finally see you guys down here. Yeah. Love you guys.

Thanks. Love you too. All right. Hoyt archery has been my bow hunting sponsor since 2005. And personally, I really don't care what bow you shoot, what brand it is. I just hope that you have the same level of confidence in your equipment as I have in mind. Because I know if I get one opportunity with my Hoyt, it's going to pay off. It's time to gear up for summer at Bass Pro Shops and Cabellas.

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