Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 086 - “I Eat Bear Meat” with the Rivets

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

Join us for a discussion with John and Jenn Rivet. 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 the misconceptions behind bear meat, bear encounters and more! Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com   Follow John: https://www.instagram.com/johnnyrivet/  Follow Jenn: https://www.instagram.com/jennrivet_  Thank you to our sponsors: MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off GoHunt: https://gohunt.com/ use code CAM when you sign up for $50 towards the gear shop + 10% off the GoHunt store Timestamps: 0:00:00 Intro: Bear Meat is a Novelty 0:10:12 Using Bear Meat for Cooking 0:11:03 John & Jenn’s Part in the Lift. Run. Shoot. Event 0:14:04 John’s LRS Highlight: Cam Shooting an Apple 0:15:19 John & Jenn’s Bow Setups 0:16:35 2024 Success for the Rivet’s Guide Service 0:19:21 The Views on Hunting & Getting Close to Bears 0:26:54 Ad Break 0:28:59 Eating Wild Game, Pet Cemetery & Old Bears 0:32:05 Big Bears & the Key to Killing a Big Bear 0:38:50 The Grind: Filming for the Movie DREAM 0:40:40 August: Baiting Bear 0:43:19 Hunting the Backwoods 0:49:24 Not Just Your Regular Black Bear 0:50:26 Tips for Preparing to Hunt with the Rivets 0:55:47 Losing an Animal After a Bad Shot 0:57:50 Why Cam Likes Bringing People to Hunt with the Rivet’s 0:59:40 The Best Way to Contact the Rivet’s

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. All right, this is Keep Hamry Collective with John and Gin Rivet.

How are you guys doing? Again. I know, again. Well, it was a year ago here. Yeah. But we did Bear Camp. Then we did the Bear Camp at the Skinning Table. Yeah, that was cool.

That was fun. That's in our element there. I know. I love it. That's the rivets version of lift run shoot. Perfect. Right? We lift bears. We lift bears.

We run after bears. We run after bears that are dying. Right after bears that are stealing beavers. And then we shoot. Yeah. Right. You did chase a. I heard she chased the bear off to get the beaver back or something.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. Gin's pretty handy out there. And plus those beavers, hey, those are valuable. We can't just have those, you know, until we're ready to sit. and have a work and have them maybe rip pieces off of. We can't have them take a whole beaver off. I had a big old towel came in and she thought,

hey, I'm going to grab this. What I didn't expect is she grabbed most of it and only left a tiny little piece. And I was like, hey, we haven't even sat yet. Yeah, we need that back, ma'am. So kind of chased her off. Gave her a little piece, said, here, go, be happy and hung the other one back up so we'd have something to say.

Yeah. So did you hear anybody talk about if they liked the bear meat or not from the that was some of the best bear meat I've ever had? was so good. I mean, that's all anybody could talk about too. It was how good the bear was. And that was, so that was the hams off my bear that I killed, or I killed two bears with you guys this year. And that was, we had two full hams. And how did you prepare those? Because it was the hit of the show. The basic thing is just like any other meat from the time you kill it, skin it, skin it, skin it, skin it, and butcher it, all of that stuff, it starts right from there. So right after we,

you got the bear, we skinned it out, we got it into the freezer, trimmed it all up nice. Then we got down here, it's with the bear, I like to marinate it. Some people don't. Some people do. I like to marinate it for a couple days. Just break it down, give it some good flavor. This way, when people try it for the first time, it's like, hey, this is actually really good. Yeah.

Beyond the misconception of, ooh, gross, it has diseases and it has this and it has that, well, probably pretty much any meat or protein you get, whether it's salmon, chicken, pork. They can carry some sort of parasite or worm or whatever, but this bear was clean. Yeah, I think it's, you know, people eat chicken and fish and everything else all the time. So it's just bear is unique already. And if you looked at that under a microscope, you wouldn't need it. All right. You can see everything moving.

And especially like I said, like where chickens are raised, like in the processing plant there, wherever it's just, you know, they're stacked on top of each other. Yeah. We've been in some. It's just nasty. Pretty gross. Then whereas where you look at with these bear live. Yeah. It's middle of nowhere.

Most pristine wilderness. Yeah. And clean food. So just that, if you're thinking on surface level about where they lived before they died. Yeah. Okay, bear has a big advantage. But people just don't have bear. And then what they've heard of bears, oh, it's greasy.

You know, bear's terrible meat. Or you're going to get trichinosis. Those are the three things I hear from people who don't know. Yeah. Or they'll say, oh, it's, or if somebody comes up and says, oh, bear is exactly like pork. I'm going to be like, you can do the same cuts as pork. but obviously you've never had bear you've never seen bear you've never worked with bear meat

especially in the hams and stuff like a bear is an animal that's full of muscle I mean and they use their muscle right for for digging for climbing for for for for for everything that do defending during the rut everything they use their muscle so that's why I like to marinate it is just so when

somebody tries it for the first you can take like I'll take the backstrap take it out season it put it in the fridge for a day and then we'll throw it on the trigger and it'll be fantastic but when somebody hasn't had it You just don't want the, ooh, it was okay. Just like your event, we didn't want it to be, oh, it was okay. We went, wow, this is fucking awesome.

This is amazing. You pull out all the stops. You pull it out because the grain of the meat, I guess the closest thing I could relate it to would be like a big moose or a bison because the grain is quite thick, quite heavy because it's a very muscular animal. It's not like some beef or it's just like, hey, we're going to eat some grass. We're going to lay down. Yeah.

This is chill. Like they constantly move. Yeah. And I think like a beef or a cattle, because they're not working all the time, there's a lot of fat in the muscle. Whereas bear have fat, it's outside of the muscle. But the muscles, like you said, they're using it all the time. And if you see them, they can go full speed running on the ground and pretty much same speed right up a tree. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It's like they are athletes. They can move. Muscles intertwined, like just everything. Like look when you're skinning out the paw and stuff. When you cut the tendons and stuff by the paw, it's like they're massive. If that was in a human, like, I don't know what the strength would be, but that would be pretty incredible. Just look at those cups from when they're born, they spend multiple of their life in the tree.

Yeah. Mausesly climbing a tree to get away for something. Up and such a good workout. Yeah. Yeah. And I know I always wanted to see like what a bear could bench. Yeah. I bet it could bench a lot of weight.

Wouldn't that be cool? Yeah. I bet you could train one. Just talking one into it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We see some of the stuff they move big giant trees or big boulders to get at something to get at some grubs. Yeah. Or tearing up. when you used to have bigger holes in the 55-a-gallon drums like for bait, they just ripped those holes open. Or stick one nail in it and spin it. Do you notice that? Like for me, even if it's three-quarters full, just to kind of get it standing back up

so they have something to judge, they'll walk up, put one claw in it and start to spin it and move it. And I'm like, I feel like a mouse. The whole barrel is 350 to 400 pounds. So with one claw, they're moving a whole barrel around. Yeah, spinning it around. So strong. But yeah, I mean, that's what I wanted to start off this podcast.

is just addressing bare meat and just how palatable it is if it's prepared right. And people, you know, like I said, you had some down at the bow rack. I think you had sliders, right? Yeah. Was it bear meat sliders? Yeah. Yeah. Just, I mean, you had some really good meat there, some beef that you bought.

Yeah. I think tomahawks. And then what was the, what was the bacon? Pork belly burnt ends. Yeah. Yeah. Those are good. But still, even against those type of meats and cuts,

that the bear meat was still what people were talking about. Oh, yeah. It's a, I don't want to say it's a novelty, but it is. It's like if you go somewhere and you've never tried something, but you've heard a lot of talk. It's like, okay, we can try it safely here. And if we like it, cool, but if we don't, you know, we can stina, not have to make a big deal of it.

It's not like if you're sitting at my table and I give you just a bear stick and you're like, uh, can I be an excuse for a minute? But no, everybody loved it. Yeah, everybody loved it. And anything, the bear itself, once you marinate it, It's, it depends. It's not a super dry meat, but when you marinate it, you infuse a lot more flavor and moisture in it.

And then how I smoke it. I'll smoke it on the trigger for about 10, 12 hours overnight. And then in the morning, I'll put it into a big roaster with some more liquid and a bunch of little special things that I put in there. Cover it up and let it smoke for a little bit more. So this way it stays really super moist. So when you pull it apart, you can almost look like cheese strings if you leave it whole and you just peel it apart. Yeah, up there, up at Bear Camp. that you cooked and I think you marinated it for,

was that 13 hours or something like that? Yeah. And that kind of pulled apart like a, it was kind of like roast beef a little bit so it looked like, yeah. Yeah, just so good, so flavorful. And yeah, I mean, if people don't take anything else away from this discussion, just, hey, give bear meat a shot.

I know. It's amazing me. We don't get as many now, but on this last post there was a couple comments of, why would you even want to eat bear? It's not even good anyways. Yeah. What?

I get so irritated because people like say that with so much conviction. Yeah. And it's like, do you even know what you're talking? Why are you acting like you're like the expert on this? Yeah. When obviously you're not. Yeah. And so they come to this place where like you can't even, oh, why would you question it?

It sounds like you know. No, you don't know. Otherwise you'd say it was good meat. Yeah. They just repeat things that they've heard. Yeah. Or even from some people that think they're knowledgeable in it that have an experience. it? Well, I heard this and it was from a guy

that was, you know, whatever. A lot of this repeating stuff they've heard from other people, like bear tastes like pork and blah, blah, blah. Bear don't have good eyesight. No bears have about the same eyesight as a human. They have very good eyesight. Actually, an animal that tastes like pork and cooks like pork is mountain line. Very similar. I mean, even the

coloration of the meat is very similar, but very lean, but delicious there again. And that's another one. Could possibly carry trichonosis, just like your farm-raised pork. Could. The chances of it? probably very slim. I'm going to test the bear.

One of the next bears we get, I'm going to get a test just the show that it probably doesn't even have trickinosis. Probably not. I know Joe said at one point he wanted to test them and cook a medium rare. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I would say like,

I mean, you know, I've killed deer or elk in the back country, cooked it over a fire just on a stick. I would say in that setting, probably a bare backstrap, I would like elk better. in that if you're going head to head cooking over a fire, right? But when you're to be, when it has time to be prepared, marinated, cooked how you cook it on the tray go or even in the instapot here like that we have,

then it almost passes deer and elk. So the preparation is the key to it. The meat is quality. Just cut it right out of the animal might take second place to deer elk. But man, it passes it, I think, when they prepare it like you do. We have some guys that that's their number one. They would rather just eat beer because they know that the nutrient density is so high in it. I mean, you think, say like all the unclets, they're eating the grasses and, you know, that type of stuff.

But the bear, they're eating berries. They're eating little critters. They're eating like such a variety of food that, like, I mean, even they're fat. So we talked about the meat a little bit. The fat, in the spring, we still get some big old boars that have some quite a bit of fat, like inch two, maybe even three inches of fat. Left over from their denning. We'll take and slice that all off. we'll take it on the trigger, we'll render it all.

And it comes out perfectly white like your pork lard. And you can bake with it. You can fry eggs in it, fry steak in it, whatever, whatever you want. Put it on your skin. Yeah. And it's phenomenal. Yeah. But it's not an odory thing.

It's not, it would be equal with beef towel. Like I just got some beef towel from Lisa. And it was just like, it's the same. Yeah, exactly. It's the same. And I think if bear, it's funny, I think if bear didn't have the name bear in front of the meat, people be like, oh, this is cool. Yeah.

Like you make up some corny, whatever Latin name and throw it on it and say, oh, this is this. A lot of people think garbage dump. They think a dump bear. Yeah. I've seen bears at the dump. Yeah. That's true. Yeah, I mean, also, I want to also say that you guys are here because you were here for

my lift run shoot event. It was awesome. You cooked all the meat for everybody. And I'm so thankful that you are part of it because it's, I want people to come here and experience what I do, but also what I do is, you know, I'm friends with you guys. And yeah, we hunt together. So it's like we're more like family. So it's like this is, this is part of me too. Is the rivets here. And so it's, I know it's a big ask and everything coming down from Alberta. But man. Yeah, bear season ended on June 15th. We had her mom's 75th birthday on

June 15th. Jen planned at all. And then we were packed up. The camper was already there at her moms. And the next morning we started driving this way. Yeah. I mean, it's, I know it was hard, but it's you guys make the event. It's like that's almost one of the biggest talking points of the event is your presence and your cooking and your family. You know, just, it's just, I don't know, I'm very appreciative. So it was, it was a great time. We love it.

But what you just said about family, well, that's why we wanted to come down. You're like, hey, the first time, you know, maybe cook some bear. You're like, come check it out. It'll be great to be here. And I was like, ah, and then we started talking about menu and planning and all that stuff. I'm like, yeah, we just don't want, again, just fans, hey, this was cool. This was a nice event. We want people to be like, wow, this was awesome.

Yeah. This is above board. One pastor listened to years ago said, do you want fans, but do you want raving fans? Right. There is a difference. For sure. Raving fans will tell everybody. Yeah.

Yeah. And you don't have to, oh, you should tell them this or you should tell them that. It's like, no, they loved it. Whether it was, you know, a run, food, an event, whatever, they're like, hey, you can't buy that advertising. No. And it's like, it's not just what we're advertising. You know, you get a bow, you get to do all the stuff with me.

It's the little things to me that make it special. It's like you guys with the meat, it's Wayne. Yeah. You know, Wayne. He can just get up there. You know, he said the prayer before dinner, I think that one night. And it's just like, I said, man, you always do such a good job at this. And he's just like, it's not me.

Yeah. Yeah. And so. Yeah, you prayed about it for a couple days for God to help him. Right. Right. So it's that type of influence and impact on people. Yeah.

I mean, you can't put that. in a flyer. No. You could say, hey, come to this because here, Wayne's going to,

you know, have these great words that are going to, you're probably going to carry home with you and think about. I mean, you can't put that in there,

but that's what happens. Yeah. So it's these things that are just, they're ancillary parts of the event, but they make the event what it is. Yeah.

You know, and that's, I don't know, it's, I'm sure people are talking about all of it, but you never know what. I think it makes it so when somebody comes to an event,

especially your event that you just had, you're not just a number, you know? You're just like, hey, you're number five that signed up or whatever, whatever. It's like you're here, you're important, you're a part of it. And then everybody that, you know, that was teaching the little areas or with Wayne or with you, it's like direct. It's like you're here for a reason we want to interact and we want to teach you and want to know about you. And it was really good.

So one of the highlights of the event for me was Jen's idea of, hey, let's get Cam to shoot an apple on a pig's mouth. Yeah, yeah, that was fun. Okay, so here's my question to you. So you're going to shoot the apple out of that pig's, mouth. Are you nervous when you get to something like that now because you can't fail? Like, you got to hit that apple and you hit it dead center too. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm, he did it. I'm not nervous, but, you know, shooting a bow. Yeah. It's not guaranteed. It's tough. But I like, you know, when I'm shooting out here or just shooting by myself, you can lose focus sometimes. And, you know,

I make bad shots. But I used to, when I did the grand opening for Cabellas and stuff, I made this, They just wanted me to cut the ribbon. I'm not, let me shoot it. So then all these can't. I know the pressure's on, but that's, to me, that's what prepares me for when it matters. Like if I'm killing an animal. So, yeah, it's, I don't really get too nervous, but I, you know, I did take a couple shots at that distance with my broadhead just to make sure, okay, we're right on.

So if I do what I'm supposed to do. But yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be good if I stuck one in the pig's eye. No. Yeah. Missy apple. Had to go yard it out. Let me try again, guys. So, yeah, it worked out.

Wayne went through both of our bows and, man, shooting, like, I'm grouping at 100 yards. I'm hitting that little orange spot. Yeah. Out of my five shots, one of them goes into it at 100 yards. Yeah, that's impressive. It's pretty crazy. Well, you guys are good shots. I mean, I...

If the bows, yeah, if Wayne sets it up and it's lined up and everything is, I mean, he paper tunes it in like two shots. It's insane. I've been to places where it's an hour to paper doing something. For sure. Wayne, it's a couple shots and it's paper tuned to. shooting perfect bullet hole. So when you shoot that at 100 yards, you see the difference. And even the sound of the bow, the sound of the bow makes, you know that it's shooting good. Yeah. Yeah. Coming out straight. What boat do you have right now? Is it? I've got the RX seven,

seven. The carbon. Yeah, carbon. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good bow. Yeah. I'm just getting back into it. I hadn't been able to shoot for those about three years. So last year, when I was down, I just started to shoot a little bit and really didn't have much time last fall because there was a grandbaby that came into the pitcher. So for me, hunting kind of got put on the background a little bit because grandbabies only happened once. So, yeah, I took about a month just with that with her. We wanted to get some bears for ourselves this spring, but it was too busy. We had to get caught up from all those COVID years of no clients. So we took a lot of clients and got amazing success.

We averaged seven foot bears again. Yeah, tell me about the, like, pretty crazy. How many people came through camp, do you know? This spring we took 30. Yeah. Yeah. 30. And I never know how many bears we kill.

I never count. how many bears. I just care that we're killing seven plus. Yeah. Big old males. Yeah. It depends. Some guys, they are, we have a couple gals too, but mostly guys. Them it's not about the kill.

They want a certain bear. Like we've had people with us for eight, 10, 15 years. They want a certain bear. They have bears. And they're happy. They just want to sit. They want an eight footer. That bear, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, they don't have to kill to be successful. And they're successful. Their success, I should say, they're there and they have opportunities. I mean, we have the pictures. We're showing them. do the bears always cooperate? Not always, or the weather or whatever.

Even though you're hunting on bait, it's not that easy. No. You know that. There's no such thing. People would say, oh, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. I'm like, no. For an average bear, that will come in to watch bears. You could kill a, you know, six foot bear almost every time you sit.

Yeah. But that would be probably a sow. Yeah. You know, it's just not the bear you guys want to kill them. And I heard you say, or you said before you just want an average bear, you can go somewhere else. Yeah, exactly. You know, and I think that, that's pretty powerful statement, but that's true. We killed some just under eight foot this year.

We killed bears that, we killed bears that go over eight feet. Yeah. Was it? Did I see a big chocolate? Yeah. Yeah. That was a nice bear. Good record book, Pope and Young bear.

Yeah, because you also have color phase up there. Yeah. I mean, more than you'd think. Yeah, there is. There's pretty much color phase on every bait. Mm-hmm. So, and now we keep on expanding every year, reaching out, and we're hunting 5,000 square mile area.

So we've never hunted it at all. You can't even reach most of it. So every year when there's new logging roads going in and stuff, you get in a little deeper instead of the new bait. It's always exciting because it's bears that have never seen people. You experienced some of that. Oh, it's incredible. Those bears don't know what a human is.

And people think that bears come naturally with a fear of man. No, they don't. There's no reason for it. I saw some comments. Those bears don't care that we're sitting there. No, I saw some comments about that too. It's just like, no. Bear should have a good fear of man.

Well, that's if he's being hunted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they haven't been hunted back there. So yeah, they're going to learn it, but they don't have it right now. That's like our grizzlies. They have no fear of men. No.

Because there is no hunting of the grislies in Alberta. Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole other beast, that one. Yeah. And that's why the bears like in Montana, Wyoming, and there are so dangerous and attacking people all the time because they haven't been hunted or the grizzly bear, I mean. So yeah, you have to give them a reason to be afraid or respect man or whatever else.

if they're not hunted, they don't have it. And those, you know, your grizzlies up there too. It's just sucks. There's getting to be so many of them and you can't hunt them. You know what bothers me with people too is that they don't think that we're part of that equation of the humans shouldn't be in that equation of animals. Doesn't make sense. It's like we've always been here. What are you talking about?

We've always been hunting. It's just now where people are saying, oh, you shouldn't, you don't need to hunt. You can just go. It's like, that's just a recent thing. And in Genesis, God put us in charge of the animals. Yeah. Put us in charge of the earth. I'm taking care of it, managing it.

It's pretty clear. It's pretty clear what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be hunters. And how many years do you think it's been like when it, I don't want to say the tides turned a little bit, but I would say probably within the last 30 years, maybe is when it's been like, oh, I don't know if you should hunt. Because before that, the way I grew up, if you didn't hunt, you didn't have food for the winter. That was just, you needed a moose.

You needed a mousse. You needed a deer. You filled a freezer. Even in your life, I mean, if your dad didn't kill a moose. I mean, that was our main. Even my grandpa. My mom was saying when they were young, she was born in the 40s, grandpa didn't get a moose, there wasn't a lot of meat.

They had some dairy cows because he raised them for milk and stuff. You didn't shoot one of those. You didn't kill one of those because that was your bread and butter, literally. But without a moose or even a bear or whatever, that was the rest of your protein that you'd have for the winter. Cream and butter. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the Irish and Scotty. Got to have that. No, we're definitely a little more, well, I don't know if we're spoiled, but we're definitely softer now, nowadays. And people don't have to get out there and earn their or provide for themselves. Talking about soft. Yeah, this is pretty soft, but I almost got myself a scar, didn't I? I know. God, that those, you had two cliffs that just went viral, didn't they? Yeah, the second clip where I tell the bear what to do and it listens. Yeah.

It backs up a little bit, back up a little bit and it does it. It's at 1.3 million this morning. Crazy. Yeah. People love. That's, but if, you know, the truth be told, that's what we love that as much as hunting, killing, doing anything. It's just seeing and being close to interacting with those animals. Animals that we respect and love like the bears. And when else can you be right there talking to a bear? Yeah. You know, that's, that's what I look forward to.

With bow hunting, especially, eh, because you're going to be close. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty unique. But those clips are just great. I see people. I'm going to have to start posting more. We have hundreds of hours of footage of the bears from the last 30 years.

Yeah. And it's not, again, we're not posting the kills. You know, the kill might go up one time. That footage gets appreciated over and over. Well, and you can actually use it. You can educate people with it. It's like the myth is, oh, if a bear's coming, you yell and you make yourself big and you scream. And it depends on the situation.

With that sow, that close with those cubs, you're not going to get up and yell and screaming everything because you're going to trigger her. And she's probably going to come at you. It's like calm, let her know that you're human. And does it work all the time? Probably not. I've had it work so far all the time. I'm not going to say it works 100% of the time because I don't know. My 100% is not done yet.

Every bear's different. Every situation's different. You just got to read it. I mean, can't panic and scream because I remember, I mean, it's a, I had my other book, my Boney and Triumphie Blacktail book, South Cox, he has a, section in there and he snuck in just in California down here these there's a sow with cubs he was just going to sneak in and take pictures yeah so he snuck in there took a picture of the sow well the flash went off yeah and that triggered her to attack him oh wow so he got attacked yeah so it's just

staying calm in the situation if they're not what again it depends on how they're acting but usually like what you did a calm direct voice yeah that's what you want to do because you never know what's going to trigger him up was in the tree beside us was sleeping up in our tree stand. So which was a tree right beside me. So she wasn't happy that he was there. But I mean, if you would have started, I realized I didn't say that nice of words when he came back and showed me the video because I'm like, you got grandkids.

Like, what are you doing? Yeah. Then I find out the cub was above. So yeah, you got to alter kind of your behavior. You feed off of them and figure out what you should do. It would have been the perfect time to get a scar. Though my doctor was with me, he could have took care of me. Oh.

Yeah. So was that the one that swiped? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Same one. Yeah.

I know. That, yeah, that everybody says they watch that footage and then at the end they jump. I know they do. The jump scare. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because she's acting like, you never really know if she's got moving around like this, but they're so fast. I knew it, though.

Like, I don't do it. Like, I can see her ears starting to move back, like pin her ears back. And then she did that. That little posture. And she came out and she did that sideways look. You know, that one they'd pretend they're not looking at you. Not good. Yeah.

But so fast. Yeah. Yeah, they're amazing animals. And that would just to test. us like people like oh what happened after how do you deescalate that there was no deescalation that yeah yeah yeah yeah she wanted to see what you were going to do were you going to scream where you going to jump just like that one that charged james that did a little yeah i know yeah it's a little test yeah yeah or if we're going to run or if we're going to fight yeah yeah or do you like do you back up

are they you know that whole presence thing yeah if they do lunge forward and you back up or they will keep coming that's right yeah yeah they want that reaction they're you know that predator instinct, that takes over. You start retreating. You have a big predator. You have a female that's protecting her cubs. That's kind of her food source and her baby's food source. That's kind of her little domain.

And now you're stuck in the middle of it. On top of it, you're between her and her cup. So there is quite the cluster of dynamics going on at that moment. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. But man, it's a special time being out there. Nothing let that night. I know we talked about it on the skin and table one.

but had a busy night when I killed that my second bear and just awesome, awesome experience. That's where the run came in. You can tell looking at the meat, when we butcher that barrier, and you look at the meat, it's like, that's going to be so good. You can just see the color and just thought what beautiful it was. Vibrant, deep red, like healthy, healthy. Yeah. Imagine the vitamins and the stuff that's coming out.

Oh, I know. And, yeah, and right, it carries so much more or holds so much more protein. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the best. I always say when I eat bear, I feel, I feel better. Big time. I don't know if it's just a placebo effect. It's real. It's true. Yeah. We can tell if we're not eating meat. If we're, if we're traveling like this and we're not getting our protein or something, all of a sudden, we all look at each other's like, we need a piece of deer meat. Yeah. But it's different. I mean, beef is good and we've been enjoying nice beef down here because we didn't

have a freezer full of deer or whatever this time. But after like four or five days, it's like, okay, we need protein. And then you have a B steak. It's good. But it's at the point now, again, where it's like, Joey pulled out a little piece of deer. It's like, we need to have some steak and eggs. Because you're missing that.

It's just what we're used to. Maybe other people are different, but we're used to having like we eat wild game pretty much every day. Yeah. In some form of fashion, whether put into a spaghetti or into a roast steak, whatever, but that's what we have pretty much every day. Well, up there at Bear Camp,

I mean, it seemed like every meal has some kind of wild game, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. We harvest a moose and anything that you get at our place normally that's got like any type of ground meat in it, whether it's burger, spaghetti, lasagna, whatever, it's moose or elk. Yeah. I haven't bought ground beef at home for. I don't even know when. Probably 15 years.

Really? Yeah. Probably 15 years. One thing about your meal prep. Wayne yesterday I said, did you run this morning? You know, he had to go in early so he didn't run, but he said he's getting fat. Yeah. Yeah, he said, yeah. He said the rivets are making me fat. He goes, I said, oh, it is that homemade syrup. He's like, no, I don't eat. I would never eat that. But he goes, it's just too much like meat. Yeah. And it's like, it's too good. And it's, you know. Wayne's going back for seconds and thirds. Yeah. Yeah. He was, he's not really complaining because it's so good, but he's just eating more than normal. Yeah. He's like they'll be going in a few days and then we can get. But man, he burns a day from morning to night. He doesn't stop. He's a busy guy. he goes, he goes all day.

Yeah. He needs that. He needs a little more muscle on him. Oh, yeah. We've been eating ribbys, I think, almost every day for the last. Oh my goodness, ribbyes. Ribyes? For $5.97 a pound.

I go buy every day. Where? At Fred Myers. Really? It's insane. You're paying five or six bucks for a big, thick ribai. Yeah. At home, that's 30.

That's 30 bucks at home. Yeah. Well, it was expensive here, too, but they have their weekly sales or whatever. I went in and I went in and he had already bought some. I was like, I'll just buy two more packs. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's tough to beat a good rib-eye. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm wild game pretty much all the time, but I won't turn down a rib-eye for sure. A couple days ago, I was like, I need stakes. We picked up some of those. And I was like, he's like, what do you want to do for supper? Like the additives on, like the sides. And I'm like, I think we had some farm fresh eggs.

I said, I think I just want steak and eggs for supper. That's what we had was steak and eggs for supper. Hey, how about that bear that we filmed where you got your first bear, that white-faced sour? they came in. Crazy. How old she is. She's flipping old. She's old. I've never seen with a white face like that.

I know. And she's walking like she has a bit of arthritis. Yes. You can tell. It reminded me. She starts eating and she's got no teeth. Did you ever see the movie Pet Cemetery? Yeah.

It's Stephen King. And it's like, so I think their dog got hit on the road. And they took it to this like an Indian thing is what it was supposed to be. Buried it. Then it comes back to life. But it's kind of like rotting. a little bit. So that's what she looked like. Yeah, looked like a bear died. Somebody buried it. Like, okay, at least she'll be back, but a little bit kind of off. Yeah. So she looked tight.

So on a bear like that, I'm going to keep an eye on it. And like this fall, I'll be baiting that bait again until they den up. Yeah. And I'll be checking on her. And if she's, if she's there and she's not putting on weight because of no teeth, we'll have a hunter take her. And we don't shoot salves, but when it's that old, that's probably 30 years old, it's going to die. Never seen a bear that old. That is crazy. That's a nice thing about reaching out to those new baits. Yeah.

And when they get really old like that, they can't really, they can't eat. They have a hard time and then they get picked on and then that's that one old, where we're at? Where did I call her? Bertha that she had just scars all over her face and chunks out of her face and chunks. Just fighting everything that comes in. Just a mean old thing. Chasing everything off. Yeah.

Yeah. Did that big bear come back to that bait? No, the giant one. Not, no, not yet. So maybe this fall next spring for sure. Yeah. We have a camera there with a cell camera. We were hunting a giant.

We figured 500 pounds maybe and disappeared on us. We screwed it up shooting that of the big bear basically. As soon as you, if you're hunting a giant, you shoot something else. You're making it hard to kill that giant until next time or on a different bait or next year. That makes sense. So, yeah. That's fine. I don't know.

all I know is are uh... I like it when those big ones make it. It's nice to get them, but it's nice when they make it because it's something you're hunting. You're after that bear every year. Sometimes when you get it, it's like a letdown almost where shit,

it's over. Yeah. Well, those genetics will spread and then next year it'll just be bigger. Yeah. Yeah. I know.

If it can get, it's like a Volkswagen beetle walking into the baby. That thing is huge. Yeah. We gave a good effort. It did show up. Okay, so. On the other bait.

On the other bait. Yeah. It did. Yeah. So that was like, was that three miles away or so? Yeah. Three and a half miles.

Yeah. That was, all the sows were there. I know. That bait was busy with sows. Jeez. They were going crazy that night. Yeah.

Then I killed that bore off of it. Yeah. That was nice. That was a fun night. That was crazy. When there's sows there and like some people are like, well, it's a big old sow. Could we take her? And I'm like, well, we don't, you know, we don't want to take the sow.

But if the big, big, big sow is there, usually the big, big boars come in. Yeah. And the bigger the sows, the bores. and like, well, I'm like, it's just, I don't know, I can't explain it. And if there's not one there, she'll go get one. Yeah. She'll go find one. The sows will take off and they'll go find one and bring them back.

Yeah. They want to be bred by the dominant boar. You'll see him going in and out of the bait and walking in all the trails. And it's like there's one where I sat quite a bit this year, in and just walking all the trails looping. And then she'd come sit and she'd sit on a log and just kind of like, look around, go do her walk again. Then she brought in like about a seven and a half footer. I was like, ah, that's what she was waiting for. What's the key to killing Big Bear?

patience. Patience. Patience and being ready. Yeah. When one comes in, you might not get everything perfect. Yeah. It might just walk straight. Your key to success is you're always ready.

I see. She's holding her bow. I try to. Just sit all night. So I don't, because I know the more times I have to move something, it's more times I'll fail. Because it's just whatever. I don't know. It's not luck.

It's just what happens. Your bow clunks or your Aero clicks or your Velcro or whatever, whatever. so I'll kind of sit there ready. Yeah. Especially there's certain times. I'll read kind of the activity of like, okay, here comes the sow, you know, whatever. And we've seen on camera. Then you're just ready.

And then as it gets later, it seems like that last 15, 20 minutes of the evening, you just got to be ready. It's like on standby because you know something's going to happen. Being alone helps too, being there alone. Yeah. Only one smile, one, you know. Yeah, for sure. And sometimes a consistent, I'll sit at my bait consistently.

That's all I'll do. You start jumping bates because, oh, I didn't see any. anything tonight. I want to go somewhere else and you keep moving, moving, moving. A lot of times you can go home with nothing doing that. Yeah. If you know there's a big one on one bait and you spend the whole week on them, usually you'll get them. Spend time. Yeah. I think people too, I know you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, but you get used to the sows being in there and you get used to you can get away with a lot. They do. Yeah. And then they think they can get away with the same amount of thing when the bore comes in. And a bore comes in, they haven't been in.

Yeah. You know, so they're they can, you're right. They're. You're right. It's not, you know, they've probably circled and already smelled you. But it's not like you can just do jumping jacks and shoot it. I mean, you can't just because you could get away with it with a young sow. I know. I have to keep reminding hunters because they forget because they're seeing bears coming in and the bears don't care, right? So it's like open a chip bag and cough really loud. Zippers.

I remember. Slow. I can't remember who it was with. Somebody was with us when I killed that last boar. And somebody was like in their backpack looking for batteries. for the camera. I can't remember who it was. And like, who could that have been? I don't know who. Oh my goodness.

Who was that? Did we make it that night on battery car? Fricking Gideon. Yeah, I think six minutes left. Is that what it was? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, he had, he somehow he opened up the Cheeto bag before we got there and put the battery in the Cheeto bag. I guess. I don't know where else it could have been because he was making a racket. But yeah, it's, it's, yeah, you can't, those boars, they won't let you get away with as much as the other bear usually. Especially the older.

Yeah, older, bigger, wiser. Yeah. They've played that rodeo before and they're like, hmm, something's off. Even the one I killed, I mean, it, how long, it was in and out. I don't know how many times. Yeah. You know. Circling at the back, they're trying to figure out stuff.

And they don't like giving you their side. No. The one last year was even worse. Yeah. He didn't want to give us a broad. side. No. You drew seven or eight times. I know. I hate I'm not going to force it. No, bear. That people think, oh, it's right there. How can you screw it up? Yeah. Trust me. Yeah. You don't hit a bear right. It's not going to be good. Yeah. But yeah, I'm so I'm,

I'm pretty particular on waiting for that angle and like that bear this year. He was facing us like they do, you know, because it is almost like that this brown bear right there. Remember how it? It wouldn't. Oh man. He's facing us for a long time. Hours. Hours. Yeah. Straight on. Yeah. And he would take a couple bites and he would start chewing and he would be side to side looking, looking for something else that's coming. It's like,

how can he be so nervous when he's nine and a half feet because there's 10 footers? Yeah. Yeah. Or remember when he ran off and it's like, oh shit, what's coming? This is going to be a 10 foot. Yeah. And it was a black wolf.

Oh, I know. Isn't that crazy? What a special night that was. But yeah, it just goes to the point that they won't. They really hate giving up their side until, I don't know, either you sat there and they're more comfortable. comfortable with it and you haven't screwed around and moved too much.

Yeah. And that's what it took. And I think once it starts the light starts dropping down, they feel a little more comfortable. Yeah, they do. Because when he first came in, it was like an hour and a half before dark. Yeah. It was pretty bright. And they, you know, they're used to moving around in the dark.

Yeah. And they like it. And so when he got a little lower light, he was more comfortable than he kind of turned. And I think, I think he was sitting when I shot him. Wasn't he? Yeah. Yeah. He had his.

Did he have his lit? He was like this. like this with the tree and he was like this on the tree yeah his arm was up yeah he could open up his lungs yeah he was distracted a little bit watch the film when it comes up i don't remember what happened that night oh no it's already out isn't it james weren't you supposed to have that done already yeah james has been pretty busy you guys have been oh my stop i can't the country i i don't want to you just got back from filming again yeah nobody nobody cares about how busy other people People are, but it's been a grind lately.

I can't wait for that film. It's going to be good. Oh, man. It's, uh, yeah, it's an important film, too. It's because it's that, you know, human trafficking is such an issue right now. People aren't really talking about it or don't know about it. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I can't wait for it to come out either.

Yeah. But it's hard work. Yeah. Tell you what. Long days. We were there the other night for 15 hours. Wow. Wow.

That's a girl. That's a grind. I would rather run 100 miles than stand around for 15 hours. But that's just how the movie business goes, I guess, because they got to, you know, just setting up the lights can take two hours. Yeah. Just getting the perfect. They told me the other day, they're like, okay, here's a scene from seven that we kind of want to emulate. And it's like, see how the light comes in here.

There's a guy sitting at a desk like this. Like comes in here. It was like, it was like, kind of like gray, like, like, like, like, you know, like, you know, like, slate kind of light coming in. Then from this side it was warm, different, like softer, different color like orange light. And they said,

this is what we want. So it's like, I was like, looking at it going, God, I wouldn't even notice that. But no, see how it's off the watch?

It's blue. I'm like, okay. Yeah, I mean, I get it. But that takes a while. Yeah.

You know, to get that mood, the mood that they want. Yeah. It's, they're good. They're definitely good. But I didn't know all that was,

what was the, tail to making a movie. Now, now I'm learning and it's hard. Yeah. But I can't wait for August to be here, which is coming fast because I can start baiting bears again. I know. We can bait two weeks before the season opens. So in spring, it's nice because we can bait two weeks before season open. Yeah. But season opens April 1st when the bears are not even out. They're not out for another few weeks. So you got more time essentially. So we can bat in March basically. Yeah. So yeah, fall two weeks before we start baiting and we'll feed them. Even if we're not hunting them, we'll feed them through the whole fall until they den up. Yeah.

They're going in healthy. Nice. We'll make sure the sows are nice and nice and healthy. So this way they'll carry more into the winter. You'd be like, why would you want to spend that kind of money feeding them all? Like we'll spend 20, 30,000 this fall feeding them. Well, that could get that old sow with the white face another year because she can't, with no teeth, she can still swallow the oats. And that's good protein.

That's going to help her in the winter. So that might get her another, who knows, year or two or on her own trying to eat enough with no teeth. teeth, it'd be tough. And it's part of management the way we do it. I mean, we do it on purpose just for the sows. In my brain, it's mostly for the sows to make sure they go in and they put on lots of fat so they can keep those cubs. Because if she's not fat enough or she's unhealthy, she won't, they won't attach and they

won't grow. Right. So, and that's why you're seeing three, four, and sometimes five cubs at a bait because the sows are healthy. Yeah. So now when you see one with just one cup, we're like, I watch her for a little bit and I'm like she's a crappy mom. She should have had more because she's fat enough,

but there was one this year that was a crappy mom just leaving her cub in the tree and taking off and not coming back. I was like... It's a good way for a cub to get killed by a boar. And the boars are coming in and looking because they're crying in the tree and they're waiting. Yeah.

It's not a Winnie de Poo scene. No. There's nothing. And we, you know, you never know who's going to listen to this or if they're a new listener, but how that works is that a boar, which is a male bear, will kill the cubs so the sow comes in heat again. She has the cubs.

She's not going to come in heat. But with no cubs, she could come in heat. And then that boar could breed her. So that emphasize, they're just, that's what they do. That's just what boars are ingrained to do is, hey, you kill cubs so you can pass your. His genetics long. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, the lions do it. Yeah. All the cat families do it. Right. Right. I think most predators do it. I think, yeah, I don't know how many people know about it. Most people have heard us talk.

We've talked about it, but we're getting new listeners every day. So just it's, you know, this is what it goes. We're going to add another dozen new spots this fall for bears. So for next spring, they'll be hot. They'll be, they'll know where they are and they'll be coming on there. New bears that have never seen people. How's, uh, you got a lot of hunters booked up for next year and a lot of interest. Yeah, pretty well, everybody that came this spring is rebooked and bringing more people with

them. So awesome. Yeah. You guys are good. I mean, business wise, you guys are killing it. But it's also so much work. to set up to get that bait to get and even i don't think people realize that those roads a little bit of rain on those roads it changes everything you know it's so hard on your equipment they see it themselves like right this is bad mud yeah they're like oh mud what is that a big deal yeah that mud is yeah that's hard to get somewhere yeah it's uh it's but you're so far back and as such i mean we're 40k back well from that furthest bait where you hunted yeah south

And to the furthest bait to the northwest, it's five hours of driving. Yeah. And we're going to go further. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I mean, it's in the middle of nowhere, basically. Three point something million acres of country, of bear country. But just in that mud on the equipment, just keeping your equipment running is a full-time job.

Yeah. My truck's been clunking in the front right now. And I checked it and it's one of the U-joints in the hub there is. gone. Hammered some leaf springs. Yeah, I got two broken leaf springs in the back. Got to change those. You redid all the pleurices again.

Yeah, so hunting deep comes with a price. Yeah. But I do think that that's what makes you guys unique because there'd be a lot of, I can't speak. I would, I'm not, I don't know an outfit or that I'm talking about, but they would say we don't need to go that far back there. There's plenty of bears in clothes. But the more options you have, then you can dial in where the biggest bears are.

and take the right bear. So it's like you guys, your goal is what, 60 baits or how many? Yeah. Is that what it's going to be? So out of 60 baits and you had 30 hunters, you're gonna pick the best bait with the biggest boars. And yeah, you could, if you're just filling tags, you could do that probably just off one of those main roads.

You know, and you wouldn't have to go 40K back. But that's not your business model. We want success. We want the biggest bears. We want raving fans. Yeah. If it's the theory is all the things that are within the controllable area, the baiting, you can't control the weather.

You can't, I mean, you do your best to keep the equipment up to par, but stuff happens, flat tires, whatever. All the controllables that you can do, you do to your best of ability. I mean, we bait it a lot. And, I mean, we stacked it so that they were like, they were happy. It was like them going into a honeyhole with everything in it. But all the controllables as much as you can, and then weather and stuff, you just got to roll with it.

and you have to have a plant a B C C D I get a little grumpy when the rain comes because I know what it's going to do to the machines we're going to break stuff that I'm fixing and yeah yeah then somebody needs a little like it's it's going to be I need a hug and some love and some Jesus yeah no I understand that's it's so much work I so much respect for you guys I do want to say though it's it's probably the best bear hunting I've ever experienced for black bear for sure But it's still, it's not guaranteed. I just want people to know that you're going to see bear. I can pretty much promise you're going to see bear.

But if it's just a big boar, it's never guaranteed. I mean, because you have the weather. You have boars roam. So don't sit here and think that you go up there. You're 100% going to get a big boar. You'll see bear, but still is hunting. Yeah. Your Texas hunter.

He wanted to get home quick because his daughter was doing something. Oh, graduate. He was a raiding kindergarten or something like that. From Texas, yeah. And he killed with you on the first night, a seven and a half footer, giant bear. He's like, I said, you want, oh, okay, I think I know where we're going to go. I go sit with him. He says, so what do you think?

I'm like, oh, I'll just sit. Because I had seen what was on the camera. Yeah. And he's like, oh, then another guy was bugging. And I'm like, why do you think we went and sat there? It's because it was his first bear. He wanted a good bear. And he shot a very good bear.

Some of those baits, we don't even need to have a picture of a giant bear. We just know, you just know what's living there. and you know how many sows are there, a boy's going to come. And some areas, it seems, it sounds corny, but it seems like it's a travel corridor. Like, whether it's a big ridge or whatever, there's certain places where bears are always moving. Yep. And there's some of those that they're always moving in that you can just. Where they like to hang and congregate from mating.

Or where food and stuff is, too. Yeah, and you guys know these areas because you've been up there for, you know, 25 years now. Basically, the success of a bait is what's behind it. What's back there? How much country is behind it? What can I pull from? or if you got another bait right away close to it, that you're killing them from both sides.

So you're going to hurt your population. Whereas there's always country back there that goes into nowhere. It's not being touched. It's hard. Like we used to do that same thing on Prince of Wales, but it was more visible because you could see the big draw. Yeah. So you'd see like, oh, this is pulling from miles.

And it comes all the way down to this creek that comes to the ocean. And so we got, oh, we're going to pull there. Up there, you can't see that. But you guys know it from the maps. Yeah. You know, and so you guys know where it's not as visible as like a mountain ridge in a basin. Yeah. And pulling down that draw, you guys know where that is.

And it's the same thing because when the bear congregated, the boars know, oh, I need to, that's more of a likelihood to catch a hot sow, you know, in this area because there's more bear. So they love moving through those corridors. And you guys have learned where those are. And then at the baits, they travel in and out of the baits. So whatever smell and scent, I mean, they're checking like that. once I was talking about a while ago, she would walk way out and they check all the trails to see who's been marking because they have their marking trees, their branches that there are

little trees that they rub over and stuff. So they'll go and they'll travel far because you'll see bear sometimes seriously. It's like a white tail checking his scrapes and the rubbs, same thing. Like 10, 20 miles away. You were like, this can't be the same bear. It is. Giant boar looking around. He's taking care of his girls over where he was or whatever, however you want to call it. And he's just roaming to see like, hey, where am I going to travel to? Remember that giant eight footer we saw you and I were sitting there. And it started coming in.

Yeah. I don't get nervous or anything with bears. I was shaking on that one just because I thought we're going to kill him. I know. I never seen him again. We didn't. I think he just showed up on a bait. We think we saw.

Really? Giant over eight foot bear. Oh my God. He walks in and it's like here on his chest is at the barrel and he's just like looking. It looks like you put two barrels in him. People need to realize these black bear are bigger than most grizzlies. Yeah. I mean, they're giant.

Yeah. You know, the average mountain of grizzlies like six and a half feet. So these black bear are much bigger than that. You know, they're not brown bear size, but there's definitely some brown bear that have been killed the same size as these. You know, they're giant. It's not just your regular black bear, but it's because of how remote it is and the work you guys have done

and basically building up this area is incredible. And that's why, again, we like the big sow's breeding with the big boars. It's just genetics. Yeah. Yeah. It's genetics. It is. What's like what tips could you give to people coming up there to prepare?

Like how could you best prepare to be ready when that opportunity arises to hunt with you guys? Shooting from the position that you're going to do at the site. I mean, if it's a tree stand, practice shooting from a tree stand. If you're going to be shooting on a chair, sitting on a chair, then practice shooting on a chair. Because most people haven't. And they get to like, oh, I better try shooting from a chair and see what it feels like because it's a whole different. Well, and just your setup, say if you're sitting in the stand, have your stuff, like I get OCD, I have all my stuff placed if I sit in the stand by myself. Everything's got it spot. Everything's open. You know, thermocels are everything's ready. So you don't have to do all those baby movements.

And on the ground, people think, well, we're on the ground. We can move more. No. And it takes me a couple minutes. I'm noisy when I first get in there and get everything set up. But then I don't have to, you know, mess around with it. Open the bags of Cheetos with a knife first. I only had, I only had my cheeseies. Cheeses. Yeah, they're a Canadian cheesy that are really, really good. But anyways. And I like spending the time on making the blind too, because you can make, that gives you a little more leeway on movement. You get some brush in between you and what are the bear going to be. And I like to put spruce in it because it's the natural smell. And then I'll sit, even if I'm in a stand, I just play with the spruce branches and I'll break the little, because it's a natural cover. Yeah, it helps because some people say they use the scentless soap and all that stuff. They may have, but their clothes or their cologne that they put on.

on, I'm like, don't wear cologne on. Usually their first night of hunting with a new crew coming in on Monday, the first night of hunting can be tough because they're coming in with all those smells from the city. New smells. They got cologne on, they got perfume, they got airport smell. Everything's on them. And they haven't been baiting with us either.

So once the guys come baiting out here, grab a beaver and behind that beaver. That's one thing too. The more you play into the baiting and helping, even if it's just moving stuff, that smell gets on you a little bit. It'll probably go home with you too. The guys that come baiting are going to be the best because they get bait on themselves. Well, that's why Cam sits right in there. he's like yeah well i mean even so if they're helping you bait their scent off your hands and different

things are so the bear are going to smell that person because they're so good yeah i mean you've seen a dog that just stays on one spot and it's like reading all this information bear same thing so it's like yeah even though if you you smell spaghetti sauce he smells every ingredient in that yeah everything yeah what i would say to your point about preparing to shoot how you're going to shoot on the hunt. It's like some people, I mean, a lot of people hit their leg with their cam sometimes because they're like this. They're not used to where to put their legs or anything.

You've got to either sit on something, sit in a chair, but it's definitely different. Yeah, because you might not be able to stand up. You might be able to stand up. Even drawing your bow is. Yeah. I have one other thing, too, is the type of broadhead you use. We've had some over the past, you know, 15 years or whatever come up that used just like a two blade and there's no cutters or anything on it.

You're going to lose a bear on a bow hunt. It's a two-blade brought in. Just because the way the hide, the meat, the fat goes, it'll slice in. Just like if you stab something with a knife and you pull it back out, you know how it'll sandwich up. Especially if you shoot an animal at an angle and the skin is moved this way. And then when he moves back, that skin goes this. Covers it. We had one of those.

It's not so much that the fat, people are like, oh, the fat closed it up. No, it's just. It's a skin. It's a skin. And like there is fat and then there is hair that can, that hair absorb some blood. So if you only have a slit from a two-blade head, yeah. It doesn't take much. It better be dead within 20 yards.

Yeah. Every beer I killed has been with a drone. Just a three blade, fixed, fixed blade. Never had any trouble with blood. Never had any trouble with looking for it. It's the two blade that I was like, some people have used expandable this year and it just cut like giant hole.

And I mean, if you don't hit bone, it's going to go right through. Yeah. There's no really tracking. You're happy with that expandable you used this year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I mean, be tough to.

A lot of people used them. Yeah. It would tough to do a counting coup on a, like a two-blade head. Yeah. You'd be a little ify. Ify. One guy used to an expandable though, and it went, how did you do?

It went through and it nicked a rib and then it lodged on the other side. So the error stayed in. But it didn't get the big hole because it hit bonus. It kind of went in. So you had a little bit and it was just tiny bit of blood coming out until it finally, the bear actually finally hit that. High shot. High shot too.

Finally hit the arrow and the arrow popped out. Then we got a little bit better. That was a long tracking job. Yeah. We did find it. And also it's like the ground that they're in, it's not great for blood trailing. I mean, it sucks up blood too. This was muskeg and that moss has little red dots in it already.

Oh, so tough. I know. And we had sprinkling that night, sprinkling the next morning. It was a more wet, wet season this year. It was good. It put out all the fires. Yeah. Yeah.

I do think that, yeah, I mean, those big heads for sure make a difference cutting a big hole. Are you using a three or a four? Four. Yeah. Yeah. I just think with bear, it's, you know, you're going to be close. The hole was bigger than a shotgun slug. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And they're tough, I'm saying. If you don't hit those things right. Yeah. And in that country especially, you got a log and blood trail. They're hard to find. Yeah.

It's tough. Yeah. I mean, Hans and knees looking for pin drop sometimes and a couple prayers. And then it's like, okay, then you find a pin drop in that like that one bear, one of the first weeks. And there's nothing more disappointing than. No. I mean, if somebody's, the prospect of losing an animal is terrible. So hard on a hunter that night when he goes to sleep and we got to go back in the morning to look again.

Yeah, yeah. Our one guy, I don't think he slept. He was, he was a mess. He's like, I can't, I can't. I'm like, hey, we're going to do our best. Are you going to have a drink of elklet? Oh, yeah, I'm busy talking like normal. I haven't opened it.

Was that the bear that we were at that went like 400 yards? That one was one of them, yeah. We had two this year that were just. Yeah, that one went, four hundred and six. something yards and then came back, did a big loop and came back and was 250 from. Jeez. Blood trail of 400 yards up there. That's a long way.

That was a long time. Because even 100 yards, it's not like you can see them. Yeah. I mean, it's thick country. And at one point when we were tracking, when we were, we were just doing the trails, trying to find a sign of something like I'll look for where the grounds turned up because when they haul butt and run out of the bait, they turn up ground or a broken branch or something. So we were doing that and I found some.

And then we got to one point and I was like, I do, I smell them. But I can't. There's no way to find them. So we did that whole big loop came all the way back down. You always smell them. On those three that we should have lost this year that we got, you smelled all three of them. It's like, nice. They say that's maybe why I can smell and taste, cook better food.

I don't know. Probably. I can smell it. Like if I can smell what's in there, I'm like, yeah, it's good. It's whatever. More sensitive, yeah. But I could smell it. And I'm like, I know we're close.

Where is it? But it was all dead fall and just thick stuff. How do you find it? Then that whole loop when we come all the way back, went back to the bait and started all over again. And I was like, okay, I prayed a little bit. And I'm like, then I found a drop of blood. I'm like, okay, we're on the wrong trail. Went and said where he went like this.

He didn't go this way, but it looked like he did. He went this way. So then you started tracking him. Then we finally found him. We got close and I was like, I smell it again. I went and stood up high on logs and I'm like, I can smell them. We start going, they're going. I'm like, he was right there.

I bet you were within 25 yards of them. Yeah. Like three hours before. Yeah. It's so thick. It's like even 25. yards yeah yeah it's uh yeah so i mean i just think it's it's a great place i love bringing new hunters up there like i brought joe up there we have uh andy didn't he book and he's coming he's not a new

hunter but i think no he's bear hunted i don't know has he killed a bear i don't know yeah we'll find but he's i know he's pumped andy galloping but uh yeah it's just a great place but also the reason why I like to bring people up there is it's great hunting but also you guys have so much well it's harder in confidence I mean people can feel like they're being you know it's a I don't know I just have a lot of confidence in your guys's ability and and and your hunting skill and even blood trailing and just the whole thing it's like a lot of places that I've been it's like well they're good at this but but could be better at this or They're good at this and could you guys are the best at everything.

Thank you. When it comes to bear hunting. And so it's like, for me, there's no, it's no risk. It's like, yeah, this is good hunting. Now these people are like, there's nothing. It's like all positive. Yeah. So I feel great.

We want people to succeed. We want them to have a good trip. And maybe at the end of the hunt, they don't have an animal that they came for that they want to go home with. But everything else we want it to be, like I said, the controllables. Yes. We want the food to be excellent. Like Julia is doing most of the co.

now when I'm out guiding and food is excellent. We try to keep everything good. We, you know, we, we've been doing it for a long time. Yeah. This is your, what, 30, this will be year 37 for him guiding. He started when he was, what, four? Yeah, he's 41 now. Yeah.

Look at that hair. The hair looks thicker. What did you do? It's getting pretty gray. The old silver fox. Yeah. There you go. Well, so, I mean, we'll have all the

links or whatever up for you guys' pages on when I make posts for this. But the best way to find for people to reach out, what, Instagram? I'm easy to reach on Instagram. Yeah. I'm the most, I'm on Instagram all the time. So it's the quickest way to reach me. I never check emails. Jen does. Johnny Rivet and Jenner. Message me on Instagram. You'll find me. Okay. Yeah. Our website's getting revamped right now. So saying that is kind of like, okay. We'll go, we'll go Instagram. But, but yeah. And you probably have a waiting period. Do you, I mean, are you guys booked up? We've always got Hans sold like three years.

ahead, but there's room every year. There's room for a little bit every year. Okay. All right. And sometimes if they don't mind putting, you know, one guy into a new place or, you know what I mean, like on a group because you'll have a group of like four or six and then there's like one spot or two spots. So we try to, we try to fit, juggle stuff around so everybody can fit good where they don't

feel like they're a lone wolf on a different team. Just as long as I'm the only one during my week. Must be nice. Must be nice. I love you guys. Thank you so much for coming in. I want, you know, do another podcast. It's always great to talk about bear hunting.

This was a quick short one, but we got to get on the road and get to Salt Lake City from here. I know. It's good. I wanted to talk about bear meat and just how, I mean, how misunderstood it is. What's the word? I don't want to make it sound like you need to do all this stuff to the meat to make it good. You can take a piece of, well, one of our hunters last fall. from Texas like, do you guys mind if I cook tonight? It's like, yeah, I'm going to cook my bear.

And he killed two bears and he cut the backstraps and he cubed them and he fried them in a pan and he put him in a stew. My goodness. That was better than any beef I've ever had. And that was just quick. So it doesn't take like a week of marinated in there. No, no. That's just my special thing that I like to do just for a highlight. So like in beer camp, I'll do the ham and then I'll do backstrap stir fry or just the backstrap. Just steak. So good. Just season it and do it on the grill. Simple, simple, so you can taste whatever. It's just that way people are like, oh, wow, this is pretty cool. You don't have to spend four or five days on it. But when you do, it's incredible. Well, thank you guys. I can't wait for next spring. And come fast. Yeah, I know.

Thanks for having us down for lift for a shoot. Yeah, it was awesome. Love you guys. Thanks. Thanks. All right. Keep hammering, guys.