Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 117 - Casey Anderson

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Casey Anderson, American filmmaker, wildlife naturalist, and television presenter known for translating human relationships with the natural world and wild animals.   Cam and Casey cover how Casey got into wildlife photography and filmmaking, personal animal attacks, wildlife management 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 Casey: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grizzlyguy/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@endlessventure  Thank you to our sponsors: MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.com/cam use code CAM for 15% off  MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Timestamps: 00:00:00 How Casey Got into Wildlife Photography 00:07:27 Animal Language - Magpies 00:11:08 Learning to Hunt from Predatory Animals 00:16:41 Wolves Hunting Instincts & Behavior 00:21:05 Behavior When the Wind Changes 00:22:16 How Predators Kill 00:27:28 Brutus - Raising a Grizzly Bear 00:29:22 Ad Break 00:31:46 Bear Personalities & Understanding Their Body Language 00:43:34 Learning Tracking & Animal Behavior in Africa 00:49:44 Timothy Treadwell 00:58:09 Animals in Filmmaking 01:04:45 A Love for Animals & Hunting 01:07:37 Casey’s Appearance on Oprah 01:10:52 Animal Protection VS Management 01:21:22 Money in Wildlife Viewing 01:24:34 Telling Stories Through YouTube 01:30:03 Treasures from the Wild 01:35:13 Montana Knife Packout Skinner Knife 01:36:53 Q - F#*k, Marry, Kill - Brown Bears, Mountain Lions, or Tigers 01:44:43 Bart Schleyer 01:48:03 Q - Does Bigfoot Exist 01:53:51 Q - Combatting Fear While Being Alone in the Wilderness? 01:58:46 Q - Getting Your Blood Sucked by a Vampire Bat 02:03:28 How Heart Surgery Changed Casey’s Life - Running Ultras 02:10:11 Getting Attacked by a Mountain Lion 02:13:49 Getting Attacked by a Pack of Wolves 02:17:56 Outro

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 a Keep Hammering Collective.

Normally I do, do you have to do that every time? I don't know why I do that. That's like the clicker on the. Yeah, exactly. Keep Hammering Collective with Casey Anderson. How you doing? Not doing. They're doing good.

Glad to be here. man I'm pumped we I've been following you for I don't know I don't know how long but a while and uh your content is cool I mean that's I think that the first one of the first clips that I really noticed was when that bear walked up to you and I don't know where you were in the last guy soon yeah but uh it was fishing and you were just kind of explaining you know body language and you weren't worried about it because whatever so that's what you do huh that's all I do man yeah I mean I don't know to do anything else yeah i mean all my life yeah that's all i know i mean i couldn't get a real job how how did i mean so how did this become your job man it's a hard it's a tough question i've never

done anything else and on instagram just for people it's grisly guy so just at grisly guy at grisly guy yeah you check out of stuff youtube's endless venture okay that's our new launch right now so that's the thing i'm yeah i'm trying to keep with the kids these days how's the so you're putting video out on YouTube just same type of stuff or like films we're building some new con like original content little shorts 15 20 minutes okay little episodes yeah and various things we just tracking animals all over the world you know exploring undiscovered caves finding cool native american religious sites and stuff up in the mountains just yeah i mean yeah it's everything that i've been doing for the last 50 years yeah so right i kind of interrupted you so how did it how did it start just obviously that was what

you enjoyed doing, but how did it turn into a job? You know, you know, growing up in Montana, you know, being with a dad who was a mount man of sorts, hunter, tracker, that's all I knew how to do. That morphed into me going to college, trying to study wildlife biology, you wanted to do something with animals. That college wasn't really a great thing for me. Then I was like one day, it was how it actually really happened. I went to Montana State, and Montana State's very close to Yellowstone.

So I'm down in Yellowstone. and I meet this guy from L.A. who's carrying this big camera. He doesn't know where to go look for grizzly bears or wolves or how to, you know, find herds of elk. And he sees me and he's like, hey, you know, if you carry this big backpack and can find me some grizzly bears, I'll give you some money. Really? And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, yeah. So that just morphed into doing things like that. So I was like behind camera for a long time, just guiding, tracking stuff, finding stuff for guys who didn't know how to find it.

Did you market yourself to do that or did it just word of mouth kind of? Yeah, it was word of mouth. So photographers would hear about you and want to go to Yellowstone. It reminds me of that grizzly and the wolf, you know, that shot that everybody had a couple years ago. That was in Yellowstone, right? Totally. Yeah, yeah. So it's, I know a lot of people had shots of that, but probably the local people knew exactly where to go.

Maybe got contacted, hey, have you seen this? And so that's kind of how it worked was worth. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And so, and I think that just that morphed into one thing to know next, the next, that same guy, he was from L.A. He had this big series on TV. He needed to make wildlife content. And I remember one day he called me.

I was probably 20, something like that. And he's like, are you really thinking about going back to college? And I'm thinking about it. He's like, hey, I got something for you. We're going to do 26 episodes. And your job would be we're just going to travel the world and you're just going to try to find the craziest wildlife stuff for me to film. What do you think of that? And I'm like, no.

I want to, I'll do chemistry. Yeah, exactly. So that's all I've been doing. And then that morphed into, you know, one day being in front of the camera and, you know, it is. And then I'll say, you know, you never think that you're going to be doing this stuff. You know, and then I got a series on National Geographic and did a bunch of shows for discovery and BBC.

And then it just turned into a thing. And then I look back and I'm like, okay, I'm turning into an old man. I can't do anything else. I couldn't get it real job. I don't have any other skills. Yeah. So now, you know, that's where I'm at. I'm just, you know, continuing the adventure, trying to share the wisdom and the experiences

that I've got over the last 30 years of doing this professionally. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's quite a lifestyle. I like that, I guess, let me think what I like about it most is it's like hunting. You know, we talked about this a little bit before we started, but whether you're killing something or not, you're hunting. Yeah. You know, you're out there.

And I like that for the most part, yeah, you can hire somebody, a local to take you to this place if you're not from the area. But for the most part, it's your success relies on how often you're out there. Yep. The more you're out there, the more you're going to see, the more you're going to capture,

the more experiences, the more decisions you get better at making. And so it's just, it's reps, it's decades, right? It is. Every day. I mean,

I'm not a weekend warrior, you know, every single day, I'm outside doing something like that. And I have been. And I've had to. You know, again,

I'm a hunter. I'm a trapper, but sometimes I'm not killing them. I have to, you know how it is. This feeds my family, you know, being able to go and close the distance and capture behavior of a rare animal feeds my family. Sometimes, you know, it's just a check in the mail. Sometimes it's literal. Like I was thinking about something I'd love to share with you. I was tracking his mountain lion for eight years, which was crazy.

I would see her every day for three months. Oh, man. So I, like, got to know this cat's so good. And so one winter, she killed, I'd say about 25 mule deer kills that I found. And it was a heyday for me because I was getting this behavior on camera that was amazing, right? And it's such a rare thing to get a Mount 100 is so elusive. And so it was a heyday for me because that footage was worth so much. But every time I went to a kill, I'd sit there and I'd watch the coyotes and the magpies pick those backstraps.

So eventually, I started dating. picking those back straps out those kills. And I bring him home and I'm like, hey, honey, I got, you know, I brought home the bacon, basically. We fry those things up. And it just cracked me up because, again, I was a scavenger in the moment. But at the same time. Just like those other animals. Just like the other animals.

But I was taking something from my knowledge, you know, and being able to track her down. Yeah. And, yeah, I just always think that's hilarious because some people are just like, you know, they got an organic grass-fed free range. Well, how about organic grass-fed, free range, mountain lion killed? Yeah. I mean, that's, yeah, that's, that's amazing. Yeah.

And also, like, there's a saying I've used it before that the mountains provide. So that's another way the mountains providing. You just knowing that lion and knowing, hey, going to be able to get some meat off this thing if I follow her around. And absolutely. Yeah. And that'll help sustain you. But, yeah, I did see another post you had on Instagram, a cool one. Because I think that, like, to be, to be good at what you do or to be good at what you do or to be good

at what I do, man, you have to be so in tune with what's going on out there, but you had a, kind of an observation about magpies and just tell me about what that said or what, what magpie, what you learn from magpies out there? Magpies are, they're my best intern. I mean, I've learned so much by listening to them. And magpies are just part of the equation. And if you are out there all the time and listening, the animals are telling you stuff. They're telling each other stuff all the time.

we have there was a point in human evolution or whatever you believe in that we were really in tune with it because we had to be to survive yeah we'd listen and you could hear it and those who spent a lot of time out there that language you know it's like if you and i went to china right now we would walk around we'd be able to communicate at all but if you get you're there and immersing and listening long enough you start to learn the language and there's no different when you're in the wild and magpies and other animals but magpies are great in the northwest because they are always watching and they're always watching and they're always saying things. They're saying very specific things. I didn't know that. Oh, all the time. Like, if I hear a magpie, I know if they're looking at a cat. I know if it's looking at an owl. Okay. And it's just a, it's a cadence and the thing. And it's, and it's what's so cool now

is that, you know, with AI and stuff like that, they can prove it. You know, because there's little discrepancies and the sounds that they're making. Oh, it breaks it down. But they're literally saying, there's a wolf. There's a wolf. There's a wolf. And if you learn that language, man, it's like a cheat code. Yeah.

Yeah, I bet. And so magpie is when, especially when I'm looking for mountain and things like that and bears. And, you know, I might be falling tracks and tracks run out. And I'm standing there. And I just say, if you sit down long enough and listen, there's an animal that's telling you where it's at. And it's, it's a cheat code.

Are they, are they normally like on a kill and making those calls about the lion or the wolves that they see? Or is it just random, do you think? Because you're generally, you're tracking them, hoping they kill something, right? so you can get photos on video. Yeah, right. And is that generally when you hear the magpies is on when they're on a kill?

Sometimes on a kill. So the kill sounds very different. If they're looking at a cat, it's a very different call than if they're on a kill eating. Oh, I see. But I know them both pretty well. Okay. Yeah. And yeah.

And so, again, it's just, there's a story being told all the time. And if you can start to tune into it, it makes you magic, man. It really does. But it's one of those things you talk to the Native Americans or some of these old trappers who just really depended on that, they knew all this stuff. They knew it so much more deep than that. Oh, yeah. That's, you know, where I hunt down there on San Carlos,

I remember one of the Native Americans down there told me that, I don't know, I mean, you kind of make assumptions and you make, I don't know, these things just work out, and all of a sudden it's your verifying thoughts that you might have had. But he was hunting this bull, and he said something about that he was thinking, he's thirsty, so he should go to water because he's thinking if he's thirsty, the bull's probably thirsty. So they both went to water at the same time. But the point is, is just being that in tune with that animal, the conditions, how he was feeling,

and also not just not making it individuals, like just thinking, well, I wonder how this is affecting the animal I'm after. You know, and it was right, he was right. But that's just that level of you say being in tune. and listening and just being aware. It's just time. Like you said, it's reps, right? And now you just see you're out there. And I think we're all available.

We all have the ability to do it. It's a matter if we're willing to listen to it. If we're a matter, when we're out in wild, we put our phones down for a bit and just sit there and listen and watch. When I was a kid, my dad would take us out hunting and we would sit on a ridge sometimes and watch other hunters move up the hill. And there's like this idea of like these like almost circles around them. Like as they move, you know, they influence this.

Right. And this influences it. And you watch people and those who are good, their bubbles really small, right? And it's because they know how to move across the landscape. They're paying attention to things. Sometimes they don't even know that they are. It's just instinctual. Right.

And the more reps you're out there in the wild, those instincts become part of your behavior. And you're successful. And so you just watch these things. And I think a lot of time, as a hunter, what I love about watching the best hunters on the planet, Mount lions, wolves, things like that, is learning how to be a hunter from them. You know, if you watch a mount lion move on a mule deer and you can actually use some of those same strategies,

you're going to be good, man. I mean, it's just like, and you know this. I'm talking, I'm preaching the choir here, but, you know, just getting the state of the mind of that mountain lion, it's like, you know, they lock in on something and there's no lateral movement, right? Right. This is what an elk's going to see, right? Everything becomes very focused.

They find the shadows. They stay in them. You know, and they slip and they move and they're watching that elk and they just make that. And there's those moments where they make these crazy moves in there, right? And it's and you're like, I would never do that. Like to the animal or like? Towards the animal. They close that gap and like, I don't know.

There's a thing. But it's not, it's not to kill it. It's before that. It's before, yeah. So they're just taking advantage of a subtle moment and they make these aggressive move towards them. You know, and they slip in real quick. So like if the bull's eye was blocked by a rock or something. Right.

Maybe it just dips its head down and they just bent really quick. You know? See, I haven't seen a lion hunt before. Yeah, and they just make these crate. Like, I remember this one time I watched this cat. She was stocking up on two cow elk, and they both put her head down. And there was this big bunch of crunchy snow that was in front of her. It was probably 20 feet.

And she had to get across it somehow. And she watched those heads go down. And she just, as soon as they went down, she made this huge jump towards them. I mean, over it. Over the top, and then landed and just froze. That's awesome. She knew that this was going to make noise. Yeah.

She'd been there, done that and been busted thousand times. Right. And she knew that she was going to wait for that right moment. As soon as those heads went down, she just leapt right over top of it and just hit the ground like a ninja and just froze and just waited again. Yeah, I wait for another opportunity. And, you know, the other thing I learned is, you know, with hunting. And again, I've killed a lot of elk with my bows, but not like, not like you or a lot of, I mean, I'm mid of the, mid of the pack kind of guy. Well, Montana, you got some good hunting there for sure. Yeah, it's good.

But man, I said one of the one of the strategies that's like, you know, you're in close to those elk. When those cats get in there, they don't waste time. Because the longer you sit there, the more chance of the wind's going to change, the more chances of cow elk's going to walk over here and spot you. So when they get in there, there's this thing. When they've closed the gap, they're aggressive. And I've used that tactic in hunting, and it's something I've learned literally

by watching Mount lions, and it makes my success rate go up. I used to, I haven't done it lately, but back in the day when I first started, because I was hunting very high-pressured elk, but I would like run in the middle of the herd. And it wasn't when I was after like giant bulls, but I'm after like any bull, right? So I would run, I was like envisioning what you were just explaining into the middle of the herd.

And you could get a shot before they figured out how to react, what to do, which way to go, and you're just standing in the middle of them. And they're all just staring, but you know, you can take advantage of that. In that confusion. Yeah, right? They're in that moment. they're all confused. You don't, you don't give them a time to think about it. And by the time

that they're thinking about it, there's an error already in the air. Yeah, it's, uh, you know, I think one of the, one of the things you mentioned too about how, and we both have about how always learning or being out there and observing, I think until you get all those reps and you know how it is, you take somebody new hunting, they're just focused on the one step in front of their feet. And they're trying not to kick rocks, step on sticks, not have, you know, make this noise. And they're not, their head's not up. They're not looking. looking around, they're not observing anything other than the one or two feet in front of them. And then what I've noticed too, because I've taken so many people, is like, I mean, I don't know.

You said maybe it's not even conscious, maybe it's subconscious, but I barely glanced down. Most of the time my head's up and I'm always, and I don't have to look down on my feet or it's either peripheral or whatever. But just little stuff like that, that just comes with time. you know, just reps and just noticing things. And you said like the lion stays in the shadow, always stay in the shadow. You say that lateral movement. I know I'm always like trying to keep my arms in close,

walking with my bow like this. My arms aren't like this. Even my legs definitely aren't like this. They're in that line. So when you said that, I was thinking, and I do think about that. Like I want my profile to be as unmoved, just as static as possible. focused, right? You almost feel your body. It's kind of just sink in like that.

Right. Because, you know, the biggest thing people could do is, of course, the back of their hands and, like, point is something like that. If you, that far away from your body and animal, I don't even know how they could be a long way away and see that movement. Right. So it's just that's, that's an extreme example. But just staying tight, you know, as you mentioned. What have you learned from wolves? I mean, the way they used a landscape. You know, one thing about wolves, a lot of the pack animals is you'll see a pack of wolves moving on a group of elk, right? And you think, okay, point A to point B, they're going to work this like this. And you know, so they stop and they'll back up and they'll start going back this way. And you're thinking, where are the hell are they going, right? Well, they know the landscape in a grand form. Yeah.

Right. They know how the winds move. They know if they go straight at it, those wolves are going to, or those elk are going to, see them, the wind's going to switch to their back and they're going to be gone. They're going to be gone. But they know if they run this ridge up, the backside of it. And they come over this way. And then they all line out here. Those elk are going to feed right into them. So their knowledge of the landscape is, you know, it's something like they just, they stop down. They all just think about it. And then they all start to move. They all know it. Right. And they just go and they get in that

position. And they have to. I mean, that's how they eat. Right. And if they make mistakes, it's crazy. But I think with animals, and I've seen the bears and mountain lions, and wolves and all kinds of them. We think of them being just a super instinctual creature. You know, I got to eat, eat now. Yeah, you know. And they're thinking. They're thinking all the time.

And when they go out there, they've learned. They know these areas. They've got a map in their head. They know that they can go back a mile this way and go catch us a little gully up like that, pop over the ridge over here, and they're going to nail it. They know that map. And that there's a complexity about animals if you sit there

and watch them over and over and over. over again, it's kind of mind-blowing. Because, you know, there's some aspect I think as humans, we don't want these animals to be thinkers. You know what I mean? Right. That gives, we have that advantage, we think. Right.

Yeah. And so when you see them have these kind of complex strategies and stuff like that, that's, uh, it's, it just, it makes me want to know more. I mean, the longer I'm out there, the more I'm witnessing animals doing stuff, the more I realize, the less I know. You know what I'm saying? Right. Yeah.

And there's so much to learn and to see these animals, the wisdom that they have. have. You know, a bear in the landscape can live to be 30 years, right? Right. Yeah. They're out there every day. A lot of life experience. And to think about that, the wild wisdom that they have. Yeah. So if you can sit there and just watch them for a little bit and try to just gather a piece of that, man, that's, that's huge. Yeah. I mean, we talk about, well, if you hunt all of September, man, you hunted a lot. Imagine these animals all day, every day, every minute for decades, for 30 if you're a bear. And yeah, so we think we're getting good at hunting by hunting a month straight. Yeah.

I don't know. It kind of reminds me of I'm a big UFC fan. So if you talk about like they have fighters go train with Khabib over in Dagestan, and they're like, oh, I'm going to be, you know, it's spent five weeks over there. I'm on a whole other level. I'm like, well, he's been doing this for 20 years. Yeah. You're not even close to making that gap up.

And then all the wisdom his dad had they handed on. And there's just a community of like wisdom from. generation generation, which animals have the same, which is insane. You know, that example you shared with the wolves, it reminds me, because you said they might know this goalie, they go back a mile and a half. That's a big advantage. Hunters wouldn't really do that. Hardly any hunters would go back a mile and a half, even though if a wolf was doing it,

it must be the best way to take advantage of whatever that herd of the elk was doing. but because they're in such good shape or can cover so much country, I mean, they're not working out to get in shape, obviously, but they can cover countries so easily a mile and a half is nothing. They'd probably do that and I don't know how long. And then they're in position for that herd of elk.

But that's, yeah. Yeah, you're like lazy two-leger. You watch them do that. Sometimes you think they're leaving. And then you watch them and then you realize when you see it all come together, like that was all strategy,

all that out. They know how to move on the landscape. Like you said, and they're fit. And you're fit because they're out there all the time. Right. They can, I mean, you get me into all kinds of things about my opinion. But if you're hunter, man, you should be fit. That's just the bottom line.

Yeah. You don't see any big fat, lazy wolves and grizzly bears out there. They're all ripped. We're pretty lucky that it's not survival to fit us these days. Yeah. Because we wouldn't have many people surviving. But yeah, it's, I don't know. I think that's interesting, too.

I wonder, so have you seen wolves, you know how when you're hunting, the thermal switch mid-morning and start going up, you can come in from the top then to get in bow range. Do wolves or animals know that the wind's going to change like that and take advantage of that? For sure. Oh, yeah. And in fact, I've watched actually African lions do this and wolves do this, so pack animals. So they know that the thermal is going to switch. so you'll see them split, right?

So three quarters of the pack will go and get in a spot where the downwind, and then they'll send one upwind and purposely. So when the wind switches, they all kind of get in a spot. And then when the wind switches, they send that one out. Now that whiff of that one wolf just comes and drills the herd. Herds just starts, ears all go up, they all start pointing. They're looking that way. And then they slip in behind.

And as they start panicking and start moving, they just move right in the they're back. And it's, again, it's one of those things you sit there and watch, you're just like, what? I just did that on purpose. Right? And it's like, could we do that? You know what I mean? Yeah. And you can. It's what's crazy to think about animals so we can take these tactics or learn from them how they have to get their mouths on these animals. Yeah, they're killing with their mouth. Their mouth. And it's like, we can barely get in bow range or, you know, if you're good, it happens. But our mouths aren't on these animals killing them. No.

It's such another level. I mean, every single day that they eat, they kill with their mouth. Mount lion is one of my favorite because it's soon by itself. Right. It's taken out elk, animals that are so much bigger than they are sometimes. And this was one female, that one I was telling you about that I followed year after year. I mean, I learned so much from her. I bet.

So there's, Mount lions kill one of three ways in general. they usually pinch the trachea. They bite on right here and they just hang on until it chokes out. Or a big male is often they'll bite in the back and break the vertebrae. But the way she killed is a kind of a more unique way is that she would put her mouth on their mouth. And she would just hang out with their claws on their shoulder and kind of come up underneath and just put her mouth and suffocate them with her mouth. And I wouldn't think I'd love about it. It's kind of unethical, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly. But what was so cool is that that animal is, that animal is. last breath was her breath. Yeah. And they're looking right in the animal's eyes and watching them. Could you imagine? Not the best way to go. No, no, not the best way to go.

But every time she ate. How long does it take? How long would that take? Depended. But I mean, I'd say about 10 minutes. It's a long 10 minutes. Yeah, and you're hanging on for a long time. And the animal's doing everything it can to get away.

And it's a rodeo. Every, but imagine every time you wanted to eat something, you had to go put your, kill something with your mouth. I was thinking about that too. Most people, you know how meal prep is a thing? Like me, oh, I got a meal prep because I want to lose weight. They can't even do that.

Right. And they go to McDonald's or wherever. There's like, well, you couldn't cook a couple chicken breasts because that's a hassle. Meanwhile, these animals are out killing with their mouths every single time they want to eat. Yeah. There's no. Yeah, there's no other options, really. No, and they get hurt.

You know, that's the other thing. It's like, it's tough. I mean, they get beat up. Yeah, I bet. I mean, so many times I've watched animals and limp away from the thing that they just killed. And then they go lick their wounds and then they sit there and they try to recover and they go back and eat. And sometimes they don't come back. Yeah, it's a, I have, I do respect, I've seen animals.

I don't know why this made me think of it, but I like how animals just kind of get to work on whether it's, whether they get hurt or I've even seen dogs get all muddy. They don't, like if somebody gets muddy, they're looking down on themselves. was there like, oh my God, I'm such a mess, this and that, what I've got to do? A dog will just come in from being muddy, lay down and just start licking. Just start, hey, let's get this cleaned up. There's no, I don't know, it's just so different. But even like getting hurt trying to kill something, you say they go lick their wounds. Would they literally lick their wounds?

They got to clean this out. I've got to see what's wrong, figure out how I'm still going to kill. I mean, I don't know what they're thinking in their head, but that's what I'm imagining. And they just like, way it goes. Oh, yeah. You're going to get back because it can't stop doing it. No, got to get this cleaned up. And some that don't live, you know, some die from it. Yeah.

I've seen Mount Lion got beat up enough that she probably broke some ribs, had some internal injuries, and she ended up dying from it. Yeah. Yeah. And that was just all from tackling an elk and getting smashed on the rocks. Brutal. Well, hey, want to try one of these? I do, yeah.

I've been curious about this for a while. Okay. What did I say? It was like a, it's kind of like a cookie dough blizzard. All right. That sounds pretty good. Let's see what you think. Yeah, exactly.

Cookie Dog Blizzard. It's an acquired taste. It's actually not terrible. When I first, I thought it was terrible, terrible, but now I'm used to it. Now I kind of like it. Yeah, and I found that things that are usually pretty good for you don't usually taste that great. No, that's why I don't eat vegetables. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so that's, but I do think this. That's pretty good. It actually works. I mean, I don't know. I'm kind of addicted to him now. Before I go running or before I do a podcast, I do it all the time. I'm supposed to help with cognitive and what tour de France guys use it. So it must work, right?

You must, yeah, and we'll see how it works. We've got some time here and see if I kick in and get more smart or not. Yeah, I think another thing when I was like researching you is so I tell my wife I'm doing when I'm on my phone all the time. I'm doing research. I mean you are. Dude, I have the same conversation with my wife. We have a weird job.

Yeah, for sure. And sometimes, I mean, you get to be on your phone for hours looking at stuff like that. Right. And that's part of the job. And sometimes you get ideas from, it might seem like you're wasting time, but like I know real ideas I always get from watching other reels. Yep. 100%. Whatever.

It's probably not the most productive, but it works. Oh, yeah. So Brutus. Tell me about that. Yeah. That was a big part of your life for a while. A huge part of my life. Yeah.

So, you know, going back and forth, filmmaking, a lot of times I would go work at a wildlife park or something. And I was working at a wildlife park and they had a grizzly bear. And they had two grizzly bears. And they ended up having cubs. And it was this place that they basically, the cubs were a bit of an attraction. And then once the cubs kind of got big enough, they didn't necessarily want them around because they were like, people love to look at little cubs. people look at, look at big bears.

Yeah, but they don't want to look at this, like, awkward little teenage bears. So they were going to get rid of this bear, and I was aware of it. And I was 20, 25 years old. And I thought to myself, I need a grizzly bear. That is awesome. And so, yeah, I just got permits and stuff and arranged to get him. And I raised a bear when I first got him, he was about that big. Yeah, so cute.

And it's one of those things. You know, as a Montana kid, you go out and you see grizzly bears. You hear about grizzly bears all the time. It's usually not good. Right. But there's always the intrigue, the romanticism of like raising a grizzly bear, grizzly Adams. You hear about that stuff too.

Yeah. I used to watch that show. Yeah. And so it's like, you know, I had this opportunity and I made it happen. And I think when you're 25, you think you're smart. Oh, yeah. And it was a crazy-ass idea. I mean, crazy.

Because, like, I always like to say there's not a man. annual like how to raise a grizzly bear right you just you know there's not like a lot of dudes run around they know how to do it so you just learn and yeah so I raised him and um he grew up to be you know he lived up 20 years old and you know he was 800 pounds when he was full grown so you know eat nine feet tall but you know it taught me a lot you know bears are interesting you know bears they're just they're an interesting animal and I think when you you start thinking about bears particularly They're dynamic. You know, I like to make this comparison, and I've done this before, but to dogs, right?

We all have had dogs. We all have had buddies who have dogs. We've met these individual personality dogs, right? There's the big fat, lazy dog. There's a dog you pull the frisbee out, and it's going to go hyper and chest frisbee all day long. There's a mean dog. There's a good dog. There's all these dogs.

They all have these different personalities. We know that with dogs. But when we think about bears, we don't think about that. We think that bears, a bear is a bear. Right, yeah. You know, it's, you know, eat sleep shit, you know, hibernate, do it all over again. But bears are, they're just so dynamic. They have, you know, they live long on the earth.

They have, they're all these experiences. There's kind of the recipe of who they are, just like us, right? Yeah. And they're born a certain, but it's a certain personality type too. And this, and Brutus was just the most laid back, chill, forgiving, patient bear. Like, you just, you know, and I think that, you know, raising a bear, you know, obviously that's the kind of bear you want when you're reading the pair. Yeah, for sure. And I started learning that. And there's other bears that I've around

and, and would see. But then even being around him, I'd go out in a while doing my job. And there's things that I learned from him. You know, we're that close every day to a bear. Talk about body language. Yeah. Like you start learning such a little subtle thing. And when you go out in the wild and you start watching bears, you're like, oh, he's going to, he's going to get up or he's going to scratch his back. Or he's going to go to that tree right there. I already know that. And everybody looked at me like, how do you know that? I'm like, yeah, because I live with a bear. I have a bear.

When I'm out here filming bears, I go home to a bear. And then when I'm done with that, I go back out in the wild bear. So you spend enough time, you just start getting these little intricacies. But with that, you know, it's like, you know, bears are interesting because like people and like dogs, like the thing I just laid out there, those personality types, there's bad ones too. You know? And you've got to know that. And what I love about that is when you're out in the wild,

and you're around bears and other animals to know that there's kind of an array of personalities. Yeah. To me makes it more interesting. Definitely. You know, because when you encounter a bear, that situation's going to be very different every single time,

just as if you go out in Eugene right now and there's different parts of town that you go out, walk around at midnight, and there's a different type of people that might be out during that time. It's the same with bears. You know, you might walk into a bear who's had a really rough go,

who's maybe dealt with people in a different way before and it's going to turn them take it out on you. Yeah. But you have to be able to recognize that. It's life or death, you know. And what I gained from Brutus, I mean, I think that was the main thing. You know, when you hear about a bear and most people, listening to you, I mean, everybody, most of the time, it's because they've done something wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's made a headline, you know, bear mall's bow hunter. Right. I mean, and it's, but are bears out there mall and bow hunters all the time? No. No. But usually, if you dig into it, it's a pretty bad. luck. You know, a guy stumbled on a bear and got too close and there's a carcass around the corner

or had a cab or something. Or he doesn't know how to make a cow call right and he called it in. Yeah. Yeah, but most of the time, bears are pretty chill. But there are times. I mean, I've ran, I mean, I probably have had, man, not hundreds of thousands, but probably 10,000 bear encounters in my life. And I've been charged probably five times. I've charged bears more than I've been charged. Yeah. Is it like what I was going to get your perspective on this.

But to me, when that's happened, it's been like juvenile, it seems like males. Like maybe that have maybe got their ass kicked. Maybe life's not going that great. Just like you're a regular teenage boy. It's a tough time. Are those the most aggressive ones that you've seen? They're the most unpredictable. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, maybe that's a better way. Yeah. They're the ones, like when I said, I've charged more bears and I've been charged. Just like a teenage boy is a great analogy. Because when you encounter them, they are insecure. They've been picked on. And bears are, they play this game of space in nature.

If you see them together, they're always trying to take each other's space. Right. And space is everything. Right. So if they've had their space. That's their currency, really, isn't it? Yeah, totally is. Yeah.

So when they encounter another animal and they've been being picked on, on, they look at you and go, I'm going to take this dude's space. And they come over and they try to. They start to crowd you. They start giving you this. And if you give it to them, even this much, they see that like that, and they're going to take another bit. And they're going to take a little bit more.

And then it gets going to be bad. Yeah, yeah. So those teenage males that you're talking about, they're the ones that have scared me the most with the exception of one big male that I can tell you that story. But in those situations, What you do is everything. If you give in, like, I'm not kidding yet. Like, it goes like this at you and you just do this.

One little tiny bit. It sees that like a billboard. Yeah. And it's going to go for it. Right. So it's a matter of understanding that, having confidence enough to know that game. And when that bear gives you this and that you either gave it a step back, straight back to it. Right.

Or just hold your ground so hard and believe it's a game of mental chicken. Yeah, for sure. You got to believe that you're 200 pound ass. is going to take that thing on in your head. Because if you don't, that weakness is going to shine like a billboard on you. And it's just this game. It sounds so crazy when I talk about this. But these are the things I learned from Brutus.

Yeah, I bet. And it's just, again, the repetition of being around these bears and watching them and feeling it. And again, you know, I get out there. I've had tens of thousands of encounters. And I know every single time that I go out there that could be my last. It's the reality of being in nature. A bear could kill me tomorrow. People wish for it on the internet all the time.

Yeah. People are nuts. And I know that. And I think it's part of it is that you got to put, you know, you put that in your head, but then you say to yourself, how can I prepare myself to be the best wild version of myself? How can I go out there and live and survive? And, you know,

and it's preparing yourself a knowledge, man. You shouldn't be out there playing these games if you don't know. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, when you were explaining that, that just like these micro movements, it made me think, because you know I hunt with the rivets up there and now bird all the time,

and it's just black bear, but they're still, whatever, they're still wrists with black bear. But I sit on the ground all the time, so you're even smaller, right? So you get this bear that's probably weighs, I don't know, maybe 250. When I'm sitting on the ground, I look small.

He's like, oh, he's got the advantage, right? Well, the one time I was thinking about is I was sitting there and I had a knife in the tree sticking above me, but I was kind of like, I can't remember how I was. But he started to come and to stand up. I had to like lean back to push against a tree to get leveraged to use my legs because I had my bow there. All I did on my knees, tree right here, bear right here, like maybe just four yards away. but I just leaned back just to just to feel where the tree was so I could push up but lean back maybe not even six inches that was it here he comes yeah and John was like no you know he yells at him just like as you said you got to as it's you got to take a step forward or match their aggressiveness something but it was that exact scenario where it was inches but when it's an animal who can't say hey I don't want any problems or I'm going to kick your ass. they're all body language. That's it.

All body language. So they're just, everything you do is speaking to them essentially. But your explanation of that just reminded me of that perfectly. No, you were in the mix. I mean, I'm sure there was food involved too. Yeah, definitely.

It's all, it's very. Yeah. There's a lot of dynamic factors to consider. And other bear. Yeah. No, for sure. And I don't know what happened.

You know, normally the younger bear would come in. And then when the big bore comes in, it's like, I had this on a video too. I was going to ask you about this, but I've had bear where I couldn't, they couldn't smell. The wind was coming to me.

They couldn't see because it's thick, but they knew that the big bear was coming. And I thought in my head, they're so in tune with picking up, like, you know, steps that they knew it was a heavier bear could just tell. What do you think about that? I think that we're full circle back to what we were talking about with birds. Yeah. I think that the forest told them. And I'll tell you what's amazing about the big bear like that.

Okay. It's not that something went mhm, ma'at, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am. And the tree instead there's a big bear. Often it's no sound at all. Oh. And I'll tell you when you're in nature. Just dead quiet.

And there's no sound, that's that's scarier than anything. Because that means if everybody's shutting up, yeah. That means there's a big dude around. Okay, I see. And that's, I'll, guarantee that's what it was oh that there's like the forest you know has its normal kind of din right right there's just always you know a squirrel over here a bird chirping over here there's always this din but

when everything goes quiet it's usually because they're all focused on something that's gonna that's that scares them i see yeah and so i bet i bet i'll that's my guess is that if you know if there was no wind there was no sight involved those bears heard something else change and they heard the silence across the forest that realized it's like the big dudes here get ready everybody yeah Because I was, that makes sense. I was, I think why I put that together was I saw a smaller bear. It seemed like trying to walk harder. And I don't know.

We, I don't know, I don't want to give these bears too much credit. But also on another time, I'm like, maybe I'm not giving them enough credit. Right. But I saw this younger bear kind of, and I was like, is he trying to sound heavier? Well, that behavior, you know, that behavior is a posturing of. Right. Yeah. So maybe.

I mean, that's interesting. I never thought of that. Here, I mean, it's one of the thing is, like I tell you from the top, I'm learning all the time. time. Well, and why do they do that to solve that? I don't know. Maybe that's why. That's the beauty of animals, I guess, and like, and also having that mindset of learning. You know, you just said, you've been out there as much or more than, I don't know, 99.9% of people on this earth, and you're still learning. So it's like, that's when we stop learning is when we think we know

it all, we're not picking anything up. But when you always have that, yeah, what can I learn today or just observing, man. It's changing all the time, too. That's the thing. I mean, as the world's changing, we live, we know that, right? I mean, I've watched the animals adapt and change their behavior. And I've got some great examples of that. I've watched a mount lion kill a mule deer.

And the reason why it was successful is because there was a 747 flying over the top. I've used that sound. Yeah, right? And animals are doing the same thing. Do they listen and they wait and there's just something to distract? They're going to utilize that time. Yeah, I mean, and that just shows right there. Your experience of knowing that you can use that airplane going over the top

to close the distance, that's, I mean, that shows that you're in tune as much as they are. Yeah, I mean, I, well, yeah, you take advantage of whatever you can out there. I was curious where I've learned the most from people is Africa. It's like there's so much to me, I know there's some really good people here. I'm not taking away from anything from what you do and your skills that you've earned. But I don't know. It's like their ability to track in ground that because I'm just like magic, dude, magic.

I don't know so healy, but I know enough to be like, ask, you know, what are you seeing? I mean, it's rock, dude. There's nothing there. It's rock. 100%. I spent a couple years in Botswana and I was, there's a guy who kind of took him under his wing. who was a Sahn Bushman. Okay.

Some of the best trackers in the world. That's who you want to learn from. Yeah. I want to hunt with the Messiah too at some point. Oh, I agree. I want to go hang out with those guys and learn because they, but it's so magic. Again, it's, it's thousands, millions of years of knowledge. Mm-hmm.

And they're so close to that time when they had to know these things. Right. To survive. And I've had that exact same thing. Guy's name is Julius. And he would say, he'd call me, bear man. Three lion. and I'd look at the grass and I'd go,

what the, you talk, and there's just a grasshopper. Yeah. Right? And, you know, and we're like in tune guys. We're like, you really want to learn.

I'm like, just show me what you see. Right. He says, you don't see that. I'm like, no, I don't see that.

And then you follow it and you go up and there's three big male lines. Yeah. Like, what? Right. And it's sort of what he was seen. Was he seen the grass spread where they had walked or did you,

did you ever figure it out? Well, he said, It's, you know, L tracking is pattern recognition. Yeah. And some, he said it was grass doing this. Catching. Oh, I see.

But it was so few and far that your eye would never see it. Right. But he, that disruption of pattern, regular pattern, he was so keen to it. Yeah. That he could see that. And then he knows width of a male between a female and a male walking, which is about that far. Right. And to see that amongst that pattern recognition.

Oh, that's awesome, dude. It looks like magic. That is awesome. Yeah, I could tell you so many stories about the songs. They would say things like, I remember one time I was trying to look for a chameleon. And I've been looking for chameleons, looking for chameleons. And he's like, I know where a chameleon is. This guy hasn't even been in the area.

He's like, go to this pan, take this trail. There's a, and there'll be like four trees and there'll be one in the top. And I'm like, whatever, dude. Like, no way. Like, there was no way after I put my head together. Like, is there any way he would think there's a chameleon there? So one day we drove down there and we go to that tree and I look over and it's shine like and there's a camellian sitting there.

And I just, I have no explanation for it. Yeah. Magic. It's, yeah, that's what. And what I've noticed too, well, the rocks and on that time, there was some scuff marks. But I mean, you know, we think we're good if we're in dirt or mud. Right. And we know what a bull kind of a stride length is as opposed to a cow.

Yeah. And like, oh, man, we're really dialed in. we got this down you know but they're like looking at a scuff mark from a hoof on a rock maybe every 30 yards and that's that's the path it's like and it's so clear to them yeah it's like it might someone just wrote a note right until exactly the size and then the sex of the animal and put it right there in their mind i mean and they're so good but here's the thing camp we're all capable of it right well i really are i've tried but i think it takes more than three weeks in tanzania Um, one thing, oh, God, what was I going to say? Uh, oh, also they're very so good, which as a bow hunter,

you know how hard it is to, well, for most people to go where the animal was when you shot. You know, obviously if it's a longer shot, it's even harder. But, um, most people shoot. Some don't even know what pin they used or whatever. We'll just, we'll just assume we did better than that, right? But they shoot at the animal and then they're over there looking for their arrow or where they're the animal was, that is hard. Yeah. When you're, say, 60 yards from the animal, you take a shot knowing, wait, was it, was it by this one or was it by, you know, that, they can go exactly where that animal was and usually

right to your arrow if it went through or right on the, I mean, right on the, and I'm just like, I am, I have so much work to do to get better. Yeah. And no, that's exactly right. I mean, it's so inspiring. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to, I want to live, not live over there. We have, we have a pretty good here.

But I want to learn, you know, and just being over there is, it's a wild place, definitely. You know, it's like, you know, human life is, it's valued a little differently over there. But man, from those guys, you can learn so much. No, I agree. It's been kind of a bucket listing to go and, like, just immerse myself for a year and just go live and follow. So try to get this, if you could pick up that much. Oh, imagine how good you'd be. Yeah.

I know I think that, I mean, that's just one of those things. It's just like, it's part of the reason why it keeps you going out there every time. Because every time you go out there, you'll learn something new. And if you, you know, you take that and you kick the next day and the next thing, you learn a little bit more. I think that's, you know, again, you can crack in the code. Yeah. And they like, they're used over there. What I noticed, they're used to usually rich white guys who don't really know shit.

They're just completely distracted. Yeah. And they don't want to learn shit. No. So it's like they, I had, every time I've been over there, it's been great. We got along great. I could just learn. They'd let me, you know, do whatever.

And I just feel really lucky. But I think it makes a difference with your attitude that you take over there. And are you really a student? Yeah, they see it in your eyes. Oh, yeah. They know they want to, they know who's, they're going to give you, they're going to give you that time. Yeah.

If you want it. of it. I've never learned more than I did over there for sure from, from those people. So Brutus, was he hired out for movies and stuff too? Did you do that? We did a little bit of that. Yeah.

Yeah. And we only did. It was one of those things that I never really wanted to get into it, but there was some opportunities where I knew that it was going to be fun for him because he really did love to just go and do things. And it was a time when I could, you know, pull up the trailer, load him out. out of his area and he'd see that trailer pull up and it was like pulling the leash off of for a dog and they were going somewhere.

Yeah. And we would go do something cool. Go on a walk. Yeah. And it was always fun because I mean, I could take him out and I could set up a, you know, a huge area for him to run around and do something. So if there's opportunities came along and it would make a little money, we would do it. But only if it was fun because I think that was a part of it. You know, I'm a hypocrite, man.

Mm-hmm. You know, I'm not that. Yeah. We all are. Yeah. I'm not that into, like, can. captive animals and stuff, you know, like, but I had of grizzly bear. Yeah.

You know? And I think a lot of times it goes wrong when some of the stuff that you see on TV is because people are making an animal do something. And if you're pushing a big predator to do something every single day, that's scary. Yeah. And I never, you know, I was smart enough to know, like, I'd watch him and if it was something and he looked at me and gave me that look, I'm like, not going to do it today. And he never was aggressive towards me.

I mean, the only time, never had an issue. No, you know, again, he would go, maybe or something at me. And I would go, okay, I'm done. Like, for different reasons. You know, like, I'm just trying to think of an example. Like, you know, maybe I'm taking something away that he wanted. Right. And he would just give me like, no, I want to keep this.

Yeah. And that's a, it's a bad game because if I let him keep it, then now I'm showing weakness, you know? But, you know, the only time you ever hurt me is like, you know, rolling over on top of me, 100 pounds. Not an accident. Yeah, would hurt. But, you know, I'm lucky.

And again, again, there's a lot of internet warriors about this guy's going to get killed by his bear. Well, they were right with Timothy Treadwell. They were. No. And, you know, and gosh, that's a whole other can of worms, that guy. He's nuts. He was an interesting guy. I mean, I'll tell you, but I mean, you want to talk about that?

Sure. I mean, I've been there that same spot. I've been to the place he's been killed. I've spent the same amount of time. Was it on the peninsula or on an island? It was in catmai. Oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah.

And talk about, and those bears there are some of the chillest bears on the planet. I mean, if you know the game there, you can get away with a lot. You know, he was a guy who obviously had some issues. But he did live there for 14 summers and never nothing and nothing happened. Yeah. By himself. Yeah, that's. Which is crazy.

A lot of contact time with bears. And so there's something that, you know, and I don't like to just. judge anybody I've never shook their hand and looked him in the eye. Yeah. And, you know, and if right now of, you know, Connor took our archive footage from your hard drive and my hard drive and decided to make a character piece about us in the way he wanted to. Yeah. He could make a pretty bad crazy on, right? It can make us pretty crazy. So I, knowing all that, Trudeville obviously had some issues, but I'm not going to, I can't judge him too much. And from what I know about that bear that killed him and his girlfriend. That bear would have killed you and me that day. Yeah. The problem was

is that we as humans are not capable of going mono-e-mono with a big bear who's hungry. And if you don't take bear spray, you don't take a handgun, you don't put hot wire around your camp, you're going to play even ground out there in nature. You're not going to win. Yeah. And that's where it went wrong with him. Was this bear hungry, you think? Yeah. Okay. It was October hyperfated. was an older bear who was not fat, desperate bear, desperate bears man, desperate anything. Yeah. There's lines that most animals won't cross. Thank God for us.

But when they're desperate, they think about crossing that line. And that day, that bear decided, I'm hungry. The salmon runs terrible. I have to go in hibernation and try to live off the body fat that I've got for six months and I don't have any. And there's two people over there and a little twinker, twinky wrapper. Yeah. Yeah. And he come, you know, and that's what he did.

He went over there and he engaged and they had no way to protect themselves. And he ate them. Yeah. It's, I think it seems like Treadwell would have been a little more dialed in. No, because there's one thing about camping out there if the, if the creek or river's full of salmon. Yeah. I mean, full of salmon, you probably don't have much to worry about. But as you said, with the slow run or whatever it was, that late in the year, got to be smart.

I understand where you're at. Yeah. I mean, situational awareness. It's like, yeah, a bear in the wrong situation this time of year, it's pretty risky. And be prepared, man. I've had, I've encountered that same bear, not literally that same bear, but that same state of mind. And I've had a bear look at me that was desperate and it was going to kill and eat me.

And I was prepared. I had bear spray that day. And I knew what to do in the situation and how to react to that situation. But if I didn't that day, I'd be just like him. and everybody would be talking about me right now. Yeah, what an idiot. Yeah, and they would. Yeah, yeah.

And there's probably some truth to that. Yeah, that, I mean, obviously he had issues, but apparently he loved Bear too. You know, he's out there. You said 14 years. It's like you don't spend that much time unless you care about what you're doing, I guess. Yeah, and he, you know, he predicted it.

It's probably the way he was going to go. Mm-hmm. And he wanted to live on their level. I mean, at one point he did have a hot water on his camp, he did have bear spray and he decided that he didn't want it anymore. I saw him swimming with one, didn't he? Wasn't he out there in the water with one? I'll tell you.

I would actually love to take you there at some point. Yeah. It's a mind-blowing place. Yeah, that'd be fun. Because we, every time I ever go there, we always talk about Treadwell because you have to. Yeah. It's this iconic. And you think, I think it's a crazy shit that guy did.

They're there for two weeks. You're like, I think I could touch that bear. Yeah. You do. Yeah, I bet. They kind of just coax you to this crazy space. Yeah. Because they just don't give a shit about you.

Right. They don't sometimes don't even look at you. I mean, like you've seen the video. Yeah. Right. I mean, they'll come out and you watch them

and you're thinking, this bear's not aggressive. This bear doesn't even know I'm here. This bear don't care. Or this bear's coming over just to look at me. Yeah. And it'll just come over and just plop right down next to you and look at you. And in most cases,

if you don't know bear behavior, it can be very terrifying, right? Because, I mean, and I think this happens all the time, and it's a whole other can of worms. But I think people engage with bears because they think they're being threatened. But half the time, it's not even a threatening situation. They're just freaked out because they don't understand. Yeah, the bears reacting to their reaction.

Yeah. And I mean, I watched a video other day, and you may have seen this. It was a guy walking around the woods and just like a herd of cows came over to him. And he had never, he was probably a steady guy. He'd never been around cattle at all. Like beef cows? Yeah, they were like a bunch of steers. Okay.

friendly. I don't know if you ever had that. They come over. They're like curious. Oh, yeah, for sure. So he starts freaking out. And in his mind, in that situation, that guy really thinks that he's going to die. They're attacking him. Yeah, and he's freaking out. And he ends up bears. Papanum. And he ends up bears frown. What? Yeah. And when you watch it, it's hilarious. Oh. But he just, he didn't know. And I think, honestly, a lot of people encounter bears in the wild. And they think they're in danger. And the way that they react and the way they engage actually causes the problem.

Yeah. And there's a lot of people that'll be tell me, you know, whatever. But that's just the simple truth. They just don't know. And it's okay. But if you're going to go in bear country, not only prepare yourself by carrying a handgun or a bear spray or whatever, but prepare yourself about the animal that you might encounter and try to understand them a little bit. I mean, if you're going to go in the wild and then play in the wild, man, do something, right? Prepare yourself. Yeah. No, that's good advice for sure. Just, yeah, learn a few, at least a few habits. tendencies, things like that. Yeah, especially if you're, if you have bear spray, potentially going to use it, no, don't be spraying cows. What do you do? No, you got to see that video. It's hilarious. Yeah, I think that, you mentioned something there.

I also reminded me of something else. But when I did, when I was with Under Armour, we did a commercial with a wolf. And like you talked about, if you took something away from Brutus, he might react. Well, it reminded me when we did this commercial, this wolf had been domesticated for 11 years, but it's still a wolf. And they said, for the commercial, we wanted to make it snarl, like, because we were going after this bull elk and then I got it.

The wolf was supposed to be mad because I had the antlers on, whatever. But they said, okay, yeah, we can make a snarl, but once we, because I took elk meat there, it said, once it knows about the elk meat and we take it away. we're done. The filming's done today. Yeah, yeah. Because he's not going to forget that. It's going to be a while.

So, yeah, I mean, we had to do the last scene was this meat, take it away. The wolf was mad. But, yeah, that was the end of the day. Wild animal, man. No matter how long of it. Right. Yeah, 11 years getting its belly scratched, add meat to a wolf's life. Yeah.

It's still a wild animal. You cannot forget that ever. Right. And that was pretty. interesting to me but just knowing that even though I had been domesticated for so long that some things never change they don't and that one remember I asked how much that that wolf cost I think it was like 5,000 a day we used it for a couple days but yeah so it just made me think about filming with Brutus and if he's ever in movies because some of those like uh god what was it

i love the movie uh the edge oh yeah yeah yeah that uh that bear was in And it seemed like quite a few movies. Yeah, Bart. Bart the bear. Oh, is that Bart? Yeah. Yes, a guy out of Heber City over in Utah, he had, he had Bart 1 and Bart 2. Probably the guy. I mean, I know Doug Seuss is his name.

Okay. And that's how they made a living, is making movies. I mean, the edge, was that one, there was a few of them that there was. There's one of Legends of the Fall, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And that bear, it was a Kodiak. Yeah, it's huge.

Huge. I mean, a Kodiak is big, but a Kodiak that's been eating Twinkies and ice cream for it sometimes. You're like, dude, 2,000 pounds. Right. And I think in those movies, well, I know Legends of the Fall that's supposed to be Montana. Yeah. I think I'm like, that's a big bear for Montana.

You're not going to see that one in Montana. Yeah, it's like 1500 pounds. No, that bear was huge. And also a big, gentle giant. Yeah, it looked like it. I mean, they made him react. So he did a good job. I mean, good actor.

Yeah. I don't know what they did. Yeah, no, he's opened his mouth for a marshmallow or something. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And sound, and it sounds like it looks like you're going to get killed. Oh, it's so good. Yeah, that was an epic scene at the end.

You know, putting the, what was it, the spear and the rocks. Yeah, let him impel himself. What's the chances of that actually working? In real life. I'll tell you what. You'd have to have a lot go right, would you? Oh, so much. This reminded me something I completely forgot about.

There was a guy. This was probably 15, 20 years ago. Okay. He came to, he found something. how find more information. He's like, I want to meet with you. I got this crazy proposition or this idea I want to talk to you about. I'm like, okay, so I met with him. And as soon as I see this guy, he looks, he looks like, he looks like, he looks like, you know, boss rooting. Yeah. Yeah. He looks he looked just like that guy. Pretty scary. Yeah. And he comes walking over to me and I'm like,

who's this dude? And he was like an ex-Navy seal or something. Okay. And he wanted to go kill an Alaskan brown bear with a broad sword. That's, and he was trying to find an outfitter that would do it. And no outfitters would want to do it. But he had a guy who... They don't even like bow hunters, these outfitters, let alone sword. But he believed he could do it. So he wanted...

And it was an interesting thing. He's like, I want to talk about tactic. I want to know if this is possible. Very similar to the edge. Like, you know... Can it engage with me and I somehow can, you know... The problem with movies is the bear doesn't engage that way. A bear does not run up to you and stand up and go...

No. A bear is coming at you as fast as a racehorse and it doesn't even break stride when it mows you over. And you don't even see... it coming. It's a missile, right? You think a linebacker hits hard? Oh, exactly. And so that's, that's how it's going to come. So if you can pull your broadsword out, it hits something 30 miles an hour in his spot. Yeah. And so I kind of talked him out of it, but he was 100% really wanted to try to do this. That's the thing. They're lightning fast. Yeah. And they're smart. You know, there was, there's stories of, they used to do these things in California, bear bull fights. It's like in the

1600s. It was very early on. Yeah. And they put these bears and bulls together. and there was kind of this Super Bowl of Bear Bull fights and this big California grizzly at the time had killed every bull had ever been put in front of it. And so what they were going to do for this kind of Super Bowl thing was run bulls at it until it died and see how many. This bear killed 13 bulls before it fatigued enough that one finally gourd it.

Whoa. But he had a tactic and that bear would rush him and he would just kind of like a Matador just stepped aside and then come back with that paw. Oh, the bull would rush him. Yeah. Yeah. And he would just smash him.

the back of that right in the back of the head and kill the bull break his neck like that and the bear knew how to this tactic yeah and knew how to deal with these bulls and this shows that they're not only this perfect fighting specimen yeah smart too which is amazing yeah and and fat i mean that just tells me how fast they are so but coming up with a tactic yes that's that's a little scary but you know i've thought about this too uh that's a fascinating story i hadn't heard that but if you've been in Africa, you've seen the baboons. And like, I've sat on, been sitting in water before. And like, a baboon shows up and you're just like, whatever.

Then another one shows up. And then they're like kind of talking a little bit. And then all of a sudden there's a bunch of them. And I remember I was sitting there going, if these fucking things actually decided to like, hey, let's get that dip shit. You know baboons. I mean, their teeth are giant, nasty and huge. And they're scary looking.

And I was like, you kind of like, kind of low yourself into confidence and they're not going to, they don't communicate like that. But man, if they did, not good. No. But that story kind of like, well, God, maybe these animals are smarter than what I gave them to credit for. They definitely are, man. I think that's one of those things. And it's a tough, it's a tough thing, you know. I'm pretty pragmatic.

Yeah. I want to talk about facts, right? Especially when it comes to animals, you know, especially, you know, we talk about. about this earlier a little bit. Just people look at me, when I tell them I hunt elk and I eat elk and I've done that in my entire life, they're like, what?

Aren't you like an animal lover? And the truth is I'm probably one of the biggest animal lovers in the world. I make a living by being around them and understanding them. And when it comes to these things, I just want to tell you what I know, right? I didn't go to school for this. I have a PhD of just being in the wild. And I don't pretend to know everything.

But I think when you start to learn about these animals and start to see them for what they really are for, factually, it just changes your mind a little bit about them. You know, and I think you got to combat the extremes, right? You know, there's a lot of people out there that think wolves are killing every elk on the planet. Bears are going to maw you every time you go on the woods. All that, there's some fact there.

And then there's the other side of me. I like to call it the Jeff Rose versus the moonbeams. There's like every predator needs to die. And then there's like, I have a connection with a wolf. I look to me in the eye and the full moon and it loves me. Yeah. And the truth is that it's something in here, right? And I think that moving forward with animals and understanding animals,

whether it's management or how we're going to interact with them and coexist with them on the planet, we have to kind of understand this part, right? Right. Because if we live over here, we live over here, this is going to shut down hunting forever and everything is going to be a, it's going to be a chaos. You go over here, we're going to knock ecosystems out of balance, we're going to mow down.

It's going to be chaos. Chaos. Yeah. Right? Just different way. And I think you've got to try to figure out that middle ground. And part of it's just understanding them, you know? And we want to go out in the wild and live with these wild animals and we have wild spaces, right?

And part of it's just trying, the world's changing. They're adapting. We're trying to adapt for them. What can we get away with, right? And I think part of understanding how we can do is understand who our neighbors are. And I think that that's important. And bears are smart. they're willing to change we can teach them things we can you know you know you see these female bears

they're raising their cubs next to roads and the reason why they're doing it's they're smart because they know they know because big males and packs of wolves won't come close to the road so they they learn that if they can tolerate people there's plenty of food along the road for them to eat the other animals their threats don't tolerate people they've got this little safe haven there right and you start seeing this over and over with these animals, it's so cool to understand that it's not just, they're actually using their brain. Yeah. And then you start to realize that. You're like, okay, this is a compromise. It's okay. Let's let them be there. Right. Yeah. Figure it up. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a, yeah, good points for sure. Um, I was thinking too, uh, yeah,

just as you're, as I said, I've had a million thoughts, couldn't sleep last night. But, I don't know why this one came up, but I did see that you had made an appearance on Oprah. Yeah. How did that happen? Some producer reached out. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And wanted, I've been done two shows with her. Oh, you have? Yeah. Okay. You know, dude, you never took Brutus there. No, we were going to. God, that would do it.

Yeah. We couldn't do it. We were going to go there. And then the lawyers got involved, right? Oh, God. Can't have a grusly beer in the studio. Why? Yeah.

Yeah, no, but it was, again, it was one of those things. I mean, let's be honest. Brutus was the reason why anybody can give a shit about me. Yeah. You know? And there was a period of time I had this responsibility, not only just making sure that he had a good life, but also the responsibility to be able to talk reasonably about it, you know?

Like, what do you mean? I mean, okay, you know, you say again, in front of the beginning, like he said, you know, you look at your profile and says animal activist. Yeah, right. Honestly, most animal activists don't talk reasonably about things. That's true. You know? And so...

The extreme is thrown in there. Extreme animal activists. Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. And I think that there's something there. It's like I, there's this responsibility. People are going to come to me like Oprah. I've been on Conan. I've been on Good Morning America.

I've had the platforms, right? And when you're on those platforms, you got to make sure you talk, you're not talking shit. You got to talk in fact. And the fact is based on something that you've seen with your own eyes and felt with your own heart. That's something that some dude told you down the road because you got what's already gone through a filter. Otherwise, you're on those extremes we talked about. Yeah. Right.

And so I think that, you know, when I talk about grizzly bears, I'm only talking about my experiences with grizzly bears. And I've had a lot of them. And I just want to talk the facts. I try not to draw a hard line because I know I'm still learning. I hear things from people. I've seen things that have changed my mind and I will tomorrow. You know, and I think, but I think that, yeah, getting on Oprah, that was a huge, it was a huge platform because, you know, it's a lot of, you know, who watches Oprah. They're not, they're not people who are thinking about grizzar bears or talking about grizzly bears, but they're people who are voting.

They're people who are making decisions, you know, and so when they see somebody who loves and high fives the grizzly bear and gives it a bear hug, but also goes out and kills an elk with his bow every year, and you can talk about how there's a balance there. We can do both of these things. We can love the grizzly bear and kill elk at the same time. We can figure out, hey, guess what? If grizzly bears are overpopulated, guess what's what we got to do? We got to manage them, right? When they hear me say that, it freaks people out. What, what, dude?

I'm like, this is how this. There's a way this works. You'd kill your friend. Exactly. But there's a way this works. And we've got to find, we've got to find that middle ground. Right. And so when you get a platform like that, it's important because it's not you and me voting.

It's everybody. Right. And you just got, I try to be reasonable. It's a huge responsibility. And I try to talk about the whole spectrum. Yeah, because you get influence millions with what you say on a platform like that. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, 100%. You know, when people, especially, I mean, we're talking about predators particularly, right? Wolves, grizzly bears, mountain lions. There's things that I'm, that I've made of living being able to film. And people look at me as an expert on those things. And these are animals every, you know, every year. there's some legislation thing comes up and it's like, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? And I think a lot of people come to me and there's, you know, there's the different

silos that come to me that want me to reinforce what they think. Right. And I just tell them what I feel and see. You know, again, I'm not, it's not a, it's not a feeling thing. It's more of a factual thing. Because I do think right now we are, there's a lot of legislation around animal management is based in fantasy and fairy tales and feelings. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, if you don't see Mount lions out there. They're going extinct. We got to save them all. We can't hunt them anymore. Yeah. You know, bears, they're grizzly bears. They're teddy bears. We can't hunt them anymore. And the bottom one. They're endangered. They're endangered. Yeah. You know, and it's in the big, bad wolf thing. I mean, wolves, yeah, they kill elk. They make populations of elk go down. Do we need to

manage them? We do. Right. And when some, when people come to me and they hear that from me, that's just, I'm not, it's not a feeling. It's just a fact. Right? And it's, it's the way it works. You know, we live in a place now where there's a lot of human influence in the wild, right? And the more we understand about all these animals, elk, deer, moose, bears, wolves, the more we understand them, the better we can make decisions about how we can live with them, right? And I think that I'm out there trying to learn. I'm trying to help that movement, right?

And I think that that's just it. And it's important to have the right facts. And every day I go out there, again, I don't know everything. it's always changing, but I'm trying to find out, and I'm trying to give back to the people through knowledge that'll help them make the right decision. You know, I don't know, man, I could go on. I mean, it's like, it's, you know, I'm very anti-ballot box biology.

I, it just drives me crazy because it's based on feelings, right? Yeah. And feelings and nature never, never worked that way. No. And to think, again, I don't want to soapbox right now, but it's like to be so arrogant to think that whether you believe in God or evolution or whatever, that for somehow we as humans, our feelings are going to fix that. Yeah. It's figured itself out for millions of years, right? And it's, and it's, so we got to like embrace that.

And it's, you know, and it's not, I love wolves so much. I think we need to bring them back to Colorado because I got a really cool poster on my wall. Yeah. No, you know, there should be a community, you know, biologists who are professionals understand what a balanced ecosystem looks like. And there should be a committee of them who make a decision say, you know what, no, we don't need wolves. Or we need a lot less wolves.

Or, yeah, we need a wolf here or there that's going to make it better, right? Yeah. But it's not built that way. Right now we have some politician who never even, has never been out in the woods making decisions. We've got people that live in downtown Denver who are checking, I want wolves and put it in the thing. and there's some ranchers who's going to down the road who's going to hate it. Yeah.

And it shouldn't be that way, man. It should be people that are professionals to understand who've been out there, who put the time in, who put the reps in, who understand how it works. Yeah. And now for the best interest of everybody. Yeah. I think what's frustrating for most people is that the people in the cities who don't have to deal with these repercussions are making the decisions, just how the voting populace works.

You know, it's ranchers who have wolves in their pasture all the time killer. cows or or lions who killing you know sheep or goats or whatever else it's like they're the ones dealing with it and not and they're minority and they're minority and no one's listening to them very often and you got you have to and they're living they're living it yeah right i think you said something earlier too is like that that you i can't remember how you word it but you love animals you know you hunt and animal activists you're like well how do you balance both these things but i feel the same way i i love I love animals. I mean, yes, I kill him and it seems weird,

but when I kill them, it's with reverence and respect. I don't enjoy the killing part, but it's what I do. It's just how I survive. It's how I eat is what my family eats. It's just like how it's going to have to be. Animals have to die for us, whether we're killing it or paying somebody else to do it for us. But I love, I mean, I do have a poster or a picture of a wolf on my wall.

I also have a wolf hide right there. Yeah. You can be both. You can be. And I think most people are. You know, I joke about this. You know, there's, we were talking about this, the Jethroes and the moonbeams, right? Yeah.

These are extremes. But what doesn't exist is what I call the radical center. And the radical center needs to talk because it's the majority of us. We need a fight for what we have because otherwise the squeaky wheels, these are the squeaky wheels out here. And they're getting, they're getting everything. Yeah. And the pendulum swings every time there's something changes. We go from like, kill all the predators to let's hug all the predators.

Kill all the predators. Let's hug all the predators. No, dude, most people are like you and I. And we're right here. Right. We love to be out there hunting where there's packs of wolves and grizzly bears on the landscape. We want to be part of the predators. Yeah.

You know, it's the wild places. These intact ecosystems are good for everybody. They're good for hunters. They're good for tree huggers. They're good for Jethro. they're good for everybody. And I think that that's where we've got to find. I mean, that's just it.

It's just hard, that radical center, whatever, needs us to talk and start to, you know, because we're usually basing our, it's unselfish, it's not feelings, it's coming from fact. And that's where we got to find. Or else it's all going to go away, man. That's just the way it is. Yeah, for sure.

No, and I think that I like that, you know, the radical center, because when politicians, You never really know what politician is up to. So in Colorado, there's people who think that, you know, they want the wolves and the predators in there to knock down the animals we hunt, the prey animals. So then there doesn't need to be hunting because there's no animals to hunt. So then you don't need guns.

So there's like, and I don't know if that's true or not, but I don't trust politicians. No. You know, so I have my own thoughts on it. If I had a politician who was just honest about it, how refreshing would that be? Like, yeah, hey, from the, hunter's point of view, here's what I hear. And I understand that from the ranchers,

from the anti-hunters, whatever. Just be logical about it and just be honest. And it's like, that's so hard to get because when you don't have that, then you fill in the blanks. You know, hunters fill in the blanks like, yep, they're trying to take our guns. See? Yeah. No, that's so right. It's hard, man. It's hard. And I think it's just, we've got to try to find the, the pendulum's going to swing. We just got to make it swing less. Yeah. Get it in here. It's going to do this maybe a little bit. But I mean, I think it's perfectly what you said. I mean, it's that balance. Can you have wolves and grizzly bears on the landscape and still kill elk?

Yeah, if you do it right. If you do it right. Yeah. And I think there's something like that. I mean, you know, right now in Montana, it's real close to me. It's like I have friends who are outfitters who have been decimated. Their business has been decimated because wolves have knocked the elk population now. Right?

Yeah. But I also have friends who are who are guides who make tons of. the money's. In fact, the county I live in makes $50 million on wildlife viewing every year. It's the number one way above ag, way above hunting. So there's those people too. Yeah. So now you look at it, I'm like, okay, I got my buddy Warren, who's a outfitter who's having a little harder time, you know, getting the fat guys to kill big bulls. Yeah. But he's still killing big bulls, right? And I've got my buddy Evan, who's got having a hayday because there's a lot of wolves on the landscape and a lot of people are coming to see him. But can, is there a space where

Evan can still have his people come see wolves and Warren's still killing some big, big, big, bulls? Yeah. And I think that we got to find that. We got to care about our neighbors. We've got to care about everybody's perspective. And how you find that is simple. It's God's plan already. It's evolution's plan already. Whatever you believe in, there are aliens put it here. Is a balanced ecosystem? Yeah. We'll work for both. Now, will fat Billy be able to kill a six point bull off the side of the road every year anymore probably not but you know what i call that participation trophy hunting yeah right you should be a good hunter to be able to kill a big six point bowl yeah you should be able to go out there and you know and so you know can moonbeam see a wolf every single day or she got to get

out of her car and walk up the trail a little bit yeah but if you find it in here maybe they can both i mean and who it's win win right yeah but i think to your point too it's like the the right people make the are best suited for getting us in that position. You know, I mean, it can't be the ballot box people. It's got to be the professionals. 100%. And how can we do that? Yeah.

Right? I think we just got to demand it. Yeah, for sure. Because right now, Montana, we're in the swing right now. They're like, you know, the same thing in Utah, trying to kill 40% of the mountain population. And they're, well, how many malignes are there? We don't know.

How can you kill 40% of them? And it's just, it's a knee-jerk thing that some guy in legislators deciding. Yeah. And it's short. It's short-sightedness, man. And again, it's just, there's a mule deer population are taking a hit, right? Mm-hmm.

But mountain lion do kill mule deer. Yeah. Right? So you take a couple of mountlines out and some mule deer population might go up. But simultaneously, they still have do tags. And it's like, okay, wait a minute. Yeah.

Okay. So then, and then it's, and I guess the other short side of this is, it's like most of biologists say, you know, it's a little more complicated than that. You take a bunch of cats out. Everything kind of gets out of whack. We can take,

We should take some cats out, no doubt, but you take enough cats out, the coyote population goes up. Now you've got an animal who kills a mule deer once a week, and you've got coyotes now that kill a mule there every other day. Yeah. And so you think that that, you know, A equals B, no, it doesn't work that way. Nature is much more complicated. Yeah.

And, again, back to that, to think that we're so arrogant that we can go to the violet box and do God's work. Yeah. With one decision. That's not realistic. But it's, you know, you mentioning the 50, million dollars for you said photos right it's just wildlife viewing oh yeah it's uh because that to me then you got people who will say oh so that's the answer see we don't need hunting we can we can

still protect these local communities resources by having people come in just to view the animals you don't have to kill them and you know this has been talked about in africa too and what happens in africa on a photo safari which i'm sure you've been on is like for some I don't know about most of them, some of them, but they go to the exact same places all the time. So they are ruining the habitat, basically, because they keep going. And to get the animals there,

they're killing animals to put, to get the lions in there. So it's like you're not really doing what, you might think you're doing something different, but you're not really. No, man. Tough on the habitat, killing animals.

It's such, it's a big thing. And it's a filmmaker who goes out in the wild. And like, you know, I'll go to Alaska, for example, I think you saw, and film these bears, right? And I take that back and it goes on the screen.

Next time I go there, there's 200 people there on the same place that I was saying, this is the most wonderful wild place ever been. Guess who did that? Yeah. I did. Yeah. And so it's again, back to that. I'm a freaking hypocrite, dude.

I just, it's one of those things you've got to protect it. You know, back to Yellowstone, you know, you stop killing predators. You stop managing predators in that same place. The ecosystem, we live in a world now that humans are a big part. of the ecosystem. Yeah. And without management, because we're taking away habitat all the time, we're doing all kinds of things, we're making it out of whack. Without making proper management decisions and taking some predators off the landscape, all those animals that everybody's going to go try to take pictures of are all going to get sick and die. Things are going to get out of whack.

So it's just understanding that balance and understanding how it works, but no one wants to. Yeah. No. That takes, yeah. Nuance has kind of lost its way these days. People just want these me jerk reactions but sometimes you do have to look a little deeper and yeah understand it a little better and that's why you can't vote on it because most people who vote aren't spending the time i mean when when half only half the people vote on the presidential election it's just like voting there's some flaws in voting yeah we definitely don't want them deciding what animals are on the landscape um so oh that's what i was going to say so you you had uh brutus on Oprah in 2009 And when was the other time?

Probably like 2012 after that. Oh, yeah. After that? Yeah. You guys still buddies? You and Oprah? I haven't heard anyone real for a long time. She didn't call me.

Yeah, you better call me after this. Yeah, no, she didn't call me after that. Yeah. No, but that's a cool opportunity, though. It was not huge. And again, from our conversation we just had, you can see the value in those. Oh, yeah. No.

Yeah. And I think anytime anybody wants to talk about, I don't care who were at what side of the fence they're on. I ride the fence. I'm a hypocrite that rides a fence all the time. Oh, no. I mean, you have to understand both sides, you know, to be able to address both the issues on both sides.

But what's like, what's your big project now? What are you working on? The big thing now is, like I said, all the kids are, you know, there's no one's making planet Earth for, no one's doing any of that stuff. So I'm going to YouTube route. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

With your channel, yeah. Yeah. And I think that's it. You know, I'm going out there. I'm just trying to do what I've been doing like trying to find cool stories In fact, you know, it's one of those things like anybody listening to this

if you've got a cool story Because that's the thing Almost all the stories That I'm working on my endless venture right now Yeah Are people that I've met over the years And like come up to me and go, dude I know where there's this cave

Me and my buddy stuck our head in it But we never went any farther But I think there's something back there Okay And I'm like, all right, this is an episode We're gonna go figure out what's in that cave Yeah You know one of my buddies

I don't know if you know Tyler Johnerson, one of the best, yeah, best hunters I know. Him and I were following cat tracks, and we followed him to this cave, like little cave opening, and we dug some dirt out, and we went down in this cave, and there was this big waterfall and stuff,

and it was just, and we couldn't go any farther, and we backed out. I forgot about this thing. So 13 years later, I went back to this cave, and now it's opened up where we've discovered about a mile

of undiscovered cave. No one's ever been in. Really? Yeah. And so, like, there's episodes like that, This other episode A buddy of mine was up

El Cunning and he crawled up in these rocks And he glanced across and thought he saw A bighorn skull in kind of a window rock Sitting there perched And he's told me about this for like 20 years And I'm just like we gotta go see what this is Because that seems kind of weird A big horn skull where he was describing it

We climbed up there It was obvious this big horn skull was placed In this like beautiful spire I took an archaeologist up there We found this huge spear point. This thing's been there since a revolutionary war. It was a complete hunting magic offering by the Tukadika, the sheep eater people. So telling that story.

Oh, yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, so it's that. And then I'm going to Nepal tracking man-eating tigers. I'm going to, I'm going to be next month, I'm going to be in the Himalayas, tracking Himalayan brown bears and snow leopards. That'd be sick. So it's all that, like going out, just kind of adventure raw, pretty,

you know, not super produced, just kind of in the moment kind of stuff. Are you filming yourself or do you take somebody to film? I've got a little right-hand man, kind of like you've got old James over there. Yeah, I got two. They're not really men, but. The right-hand boys. Yeah, no, me and Riley. We just, it's a two-man team, quick and simple.

Not Riley Reed. No. Okay. Yeah, just quick and simple. Like, it's just usually just me and him and we just, I, you know, try to find crazy wild places and tell stories. Again, and hopefully get out to the masses. people can kind of get a feeling what the wild is all about.

Yeah, that's, I love stuff like that. That, man, that sheep story with the, dude. I'll tell you. That's like what you're out there. That's what you hope to find every time, like some, it's like a treasure. Dude, so this, in the tracks of the lion, in the tracks of the Mount Lion, this is no coincidence. I have found so many Native American arrowheads or spear points or things.

And it's because the greatest hunters on the planet walk in the same tracks. I'm not looking for that stuff. I'm just following mountain tracks. They just always take me to cool Native America stuff. Incredible. And I always thought, this is just like the most amazing thing. And this spot where this big horn sheep's goal is,

I've tracked cats to. When you go out there, it's a big ram. And so when that thing was killed, you know what a big ram head weighs. Yeah. Right. It was a sketch climb.

Like we needed ropes when we brought the guy back because when I went on it, I thought I was going to die. So then I imagined that there was some dude 300 years ago, arrows, this big horn sheep, cuts its head off. No, had landscape awareness

to know where this perfect rock hole thing was like eye of the needle. Carried that thing sketch, like, you know, Alex Honnold Free Solo. Yeah. With this head, put it there. And then probably what the guy

the archaeologist said, and then napped this, it's actually made out of quartz, beautiful courts point at the site and probably fasted four days and sat there and had like a vision quest and to sit in the place of that the other thing about that that was just it was so like that's my church man when i see that stuff like is this a video did you make this yeah it's gonna it's kind of coming out oh it's not not out yet yeah yeah i can't wait to see this but being in the presence of this thing just gave me like i had just like chills and goosebumps and then it just then it was just like

sadness that sat over me because 300 years ago that was like one of the last wild native he did not know what was coming. You know, he was still doing these things and living with the big horn sheep and killing him with freaking arrows and sitting up on this. Life was good then. Yeah, and this, off in the distance, man,

it was just like there was a revolutionary war in these coasts happening and things were about the change. And there was something about that that made that story more powerful. Yeah, but that's that kind of stuff. I mean, it's not just animals. It's just telling stories that buddies have told me

all outfitters. There's an old outfitter guy who's going to take me to this cave that's got some like cave art in it. that no one ever has ever seen except for him. Yeah. So I'm gathering stories because people have always told me these crazy stories. And you know, you hear about 50% of them are real.

Yeah. I put a little filter on that and I'm chasing these crazy stories. That reminded me. San Carlos again said there's like a three-story cave and like a mummified body and 27 arrows. And so I walked down this creek drainage for miles because I'm like, like wait, so where was it? But I mean, could you imagine finding something like that?

Let's go find it. That's like that is all I need. Let's go. I'm not kidding. I love that. That's like I guess they barred it up because somebody went in there and stole the arrows, but they got all of them but one back. But so anyway, point is, it's like I love stories like that.

And it's just like I'm always, when I'm out hunting, I'm half the time just looking for stuff. Just like exploring. Oh, totally. Yeah, 100%. Exploring. How many times have I gone out looking for something and found something else? Yeah.

In fact, okay, so down in that neck of the woods, Arizona. Yeah. I had a producer send me a note and said, hey, do you think you can find Mount lions in this area? I said, well, maybe, you know, they're very rarely seen this area that he was talking about, but I can go. So he's like, literally my job was just to go try to find Mount lions. So I go down there, start tracking mountain lions. And I end up on this ranch, big, like, right near the Grand Canyon, big rocky cliffs. It's a huge bulk in that area.

And I'm following this mountain track. And it's, like, mixed mud and snow, and it kind of goes under this big pine tree and the cat scrapes. Right. And I look down in the scrape where that pine leg kick that big old pile of pine needles up. And on top of it, there's this freaking perfect arrowhead. just sitting there. God. I mean, it's the most perfect arrowhead I've ever seen.

I just remember looking at it. And I had just seen these huge bull elk down there. And I'm just like, this is so cool. Because like that lion was no doubt probably hunting these elk. That dude, just no doubt hunting these elk. It's in this beautiful, crazy landscape. And there's this point, a rock that some dude is sat and like intricately carved. Yeah.

That he's going to strap on an end of a stick and they're going to shove through an elk to eat. And it's just like, and then I look at that. stuff and it's just like um yeah i mean i would you could just have be in that moment have even a fraction of the skills that cat and that dude ever had i know that's the goal and this the honor to be able to like spend just sit in the footsteps of those yeah people and that animal yeah that's uh that's that's what makes it special that's the mounds are i don't know never gets old and here what do we got I want to give that to you.

Dude. This is mine? That's it. Yeah. This is the one you just described? Yeah. What? The best arrowhead I've ever found.

Oh, my God. Probably around, I mean, look out, look out, look how intricate that's. Do you try to not touch it? You can touch it. Okay, good. That is a perfect. I've never found one more perfect. Do we got to zoom in on this thing?

Can we zoom? Camera 12. Yeah, camera 12. Yeah, I thought, you know, it's one of those things that I know, I know you have a connection to that part of the world. Oh my God. You've killed elk, big elk down there. Yeah, that's amazing. Look at that

perfect arrowhead. And I know you have a, you need have connection not only the land, but to honor that person, here's the thing. Dude, thank you. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. No, my pleasure. That means so much to me. That guy, think about the wisdom that that guy

had. Think about how in tune that guy was. Think about how much that meant to him. And I always thought to myself, it's like, okay, that guy's long gone now, but if he knew all that hard work that he put into that was now in the hands of one of the best boners on the planet today, I mean, that's an honor, I think. That is, that's incredible.

Thank you very much. You're welcome. Yeah, that is a beautiful head. I can't believe how per. You're right. Oh, they don't. The thing is, is that it was in the duff of those needles probably buried down and that cat just happened to scrape it up.

Scrape it up. That is beautiful. You don't ever see him like that. No. Yeah. That is beautiful. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, and that's probably around 800 years old. Yeah. How sick is that? Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. Why do I want to kill something with it? Yeah, I don't know what you're going to do. You can put it in your lip like a Zinn or whatever you want.

I want to put it on a necklace. I want to do something with it, but it's badass. Thank you very much. Yeah, and I think that, like I said, you have a connection. to that part of the world. I know you'd honor that more than anybody would. No, it means a lot to me to hunt down there with the, you know, the patchies down there. Yeah, I'd want to put it into your lift like a zoo or put it in a necklace or take it back, bake it back home, whatever you want to do, man.

It's yours. That's beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, I love it. Man, that's treasures that we find out there. You guys got your questions? Yeah. This usually leads to more.

good discussions well not usually because they're usually stupid questions but oh yeah nice bang I found this in the Grand Canyon no which one is that oh this is mine the pack out skinner dude yeah I'm gonna open it for it just so you can look at it this is the kind of gift trade and I like to do arrowheads for knives yeah I mean and Montana Knife has the best packaging dude their knives I don't own one. I actually have reached out to him trying to make a deal

but I guess I'm probably too much of an animal activist for him. I know. But my buddy, James's buddy, Eli, we killed my bull this year. I was, you know, I had like one of those

disposable, what are they called? Havelin kind of play. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I was working on it and he broke out his Montana Knife Company knife, dude, and just cleaned it up.

And I was like, I got to get one of these. now you got one. Thank you. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And I've been real curious about this.

And you helped design this. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good knife. I mean, I just like, I don't like too big of knives because I like getting in there and getting, you know, to get the tendroins sometimes in between the ribs. If you, if you're whacking away on stuff. Thank you. Yeah.

Of course. Yeah. It does. It does it. I mean, it's, I hope you like it. But this. Oh, I love it. It's not as meaningful as this in my eyes, but.

This is awesome. Yeah. No, thank you. Yeah, no problem. No problem. Yeah. So what questions we got, boys? Okay. Well, you may have heard we have kind of a new section or a new segment and it's called Fck Mary Kill. Okay. So just so we don't get the weird bestiality people in here for filming, fuck Mary kill, brown bears, mountain lions, or tigers.

Oh. Wow. Brown bears, mount lions, tigers. Ficked Mary Kill. For photos. Yeah. Or video. I always joked back in the day. Like, Mount lions are my favorite animal.

And I always thought of Brutus heard that he'd be really hurt. But they are. They've always. So I guess that's marry a mountain lion. Okay. Falk him brusley. And kill, probably a tiger. Because tigers are, you know, I'm a North America guy.

Right. I love tigers. I mean, I've spent a lot of time with tigers recently. Have you? Yeah. And it's so, I mean, in an area, you can go see tigers. You can go sign up and go drive around with a bunch of your friends. You never met in your life in India and, you know, and gone safari.

Yeah. But I learned in southern Nepal, there's an area that's very well. It's a lot of tigers. But they kill a lot of people. There are 63 people who have been killed in this little area in the last three years. Yeah. Good hunting. And, but it's one of the only places on the planet that you can track tigers on foot.

Huh. And so I've been going there the last three years tracking tigers on foot. Really? Yeah. Like how long would it track go before you catch up with the tiger? Well, it gets back to what, so when I'm there on the ground, learning how to track tigers, I mean, obviously going like an old river bed and you can fall into the sand. But how the natives, people there, track tigers.

tigers about listening in the forest. So, you know, there's the orchestra of all the animals. I mean, you go there and it's like, it's a jungle. It's a dry jungle. So there's just so many birds and monkeys and deer. And there's so much noise. But they are so in tune that you literally can go close your eyes like this and you just listen and all the sudden you're like, amongst that orchestra, if you can imagine the orchestra's playing and then there's a flute over here that's out of tune and you hear it. It's that thing saying tiger. And then you just close your eyes and then I hear it and you hear the trumpet over here that hits the weird note and you're like oh so the tiger's moving like this and then you just you just gauge the distance and you're like

okay 200 yards right there in the thick trees there's a tiger moving right to left and you go over there there's a tiger and so being there over and over and over again you start to get tuned into this and so you just go there and start listening so again I opened up a can of worms here I go there and And you can't help when you're there to meet people who've been affected by tigers. Every single person you meet, like they've been chased by a tiger. Their brother has been killed and eaten by a tiger in front of them. Their neighbor was killed by a tiger yesterday. It's such a part of their lives.

But the habitats are so small. Tiger population, the growing, human population growing, the overlap is just crazy. But the people there, they are people of the forest. They love the forest. And they have to go to the forest to survive. They also know that if the tiger is not in the forest, the forest doesn't survive anymore. So they can't just go kill the tigers.

Right. So they're always trying to figure out a way to live. And you go there and I went to this village, kind of this little town square and these ladies that have to go in the forest and collect berries and grass the next day had just pulled their two friends out two weeks before. And they're terrified. That tiger's still in the forest.

And so they're begging me. They think, you come over there, a white guy from the United States, you're going to have some answer for them. And they're just begging me. What can you do? what can you do? And I'm driving home that night. And I'm thinking about how we track tigers. And I'm thinking about all this stuff going on with AI. And I don't know if you ever use the Merlin app on your phone. You should check that out. But the Merlin app is this AI app. If you literally let it listen to the forest, it recognizes the sounds of certain bird calls.

And it'll say, oh, Robin or Blue Jay or whatever, it knows the sound. And it tells what you're hearing. So I thought in this moment, what if we can figure out a way that we put listening to the, devices in the areas that these people go that listens to the forest. And when they hear those alarm calls, somehow it notifies that there's a tiger in the area. And you can let those people know there's tiger in this section today. So today in B3, don't go there. Because all the birds and the monkeys and the deer are going, tiger, tiger, right? So I worked with this group over in the UK who are these bioacoustic experts.

And we've been developing these listening devices that basically tells us. where the tigers are around these communities. And then the ranger will go to them and say, okay, today don't go in this section. And it's seemingly working, but it all boils down to that primitive language that we all once knew, listening to the forest.

Yeah. Yeah, that was a long... Wow. And now you got an amber alert for tigers. Yeah. We're not completely there yet. We're almost there, but I've been going back there

and tracking tigers and building on this ancient language slash hybrid of AI. Again, these seem like they would be contradictory. Yeah. But this is where we're going in the world right now. It's like we just got to figure out a way to make it work.

That's, yeah, that's incredible. It's, uh, you kind of screwing the tigers, though, because now what are they, they're supposed to kill people to eat them. Yeah. No, I mean, it's, it's in the end. They'll find something else. It's,

it's, it's that pendulum swing and the tiger population's going up. If there's not enough deer, and there's not enough everything else for the meat, then they're to starve and they're going to die. Right. Um, but they don't want to kill them. It's crazy. I met with this guy at the spot his wife was killed just a few days before

and we literally went over the spot there's fresh tiger tracks on the ground there's blood on the ground her earring was there and you can see where she was drug off and he still didn't want to kill a tiger now I asked him I said that's what I said to him and go are you mad at the tiger and he says no that he says we are people of the forest sometimes we go to the forest and we get food to eat and sometimes we go to the forest and we are eaten and that's the way of the forest Yeah. And it was such a shocking thing because you imagine in the United States today, if there were 63 people killed by any animal in three years, we would nuke it.

Yeah, for sure. They wouldn't be one of those things around anymore. But they realized the importance of nature being intact so much to their own well-being that they're willing to be part of nature. Yeah, I love that. It's so beautiful. Dude, I love that. Yeah.

I mean, I've said that about, you know, smart. or stupid, whatever. But I usually don't, I don't take a firearm with me when I'm hunting bear, grizzly, brown bear, black, it doesn't matter. I'm, I'm trying to kill it. If I die in return, it's just the way it goes. So I kind of, yikes. Yeah, I don't know if that's real or not, but that's what I tell myself in my head.

Maybe in that moment, I'd be like, fuck, could I have a gun? Anybody got a gun? But I can identify with kind of what you're saying. about what the villagers over there think. You don't carry bears spread? Man, I'd at least do that. No. Now you're starting to tip into that Timothy Treadwell.

I know, I know. Now it sounds a little crazier, but in my head it makes sense. I mean, I'll tell you, because a bit injured bear. Yeah, I know. I understand. It makes your shot placement, probably you're getting real focused there. Yeah, it's, I don't know. That's just how I look at it.

What was I going to say? Oh, yeah. So your tiger story reminded me of, did you ever know Bart Shiler? You ever heard that name? I've heard the name. So Roy, my buddy from Alaska, Foster's taxidermy, great. I've had them, they mount like the ram I killed up in Alaska, but great people. Roy would always go to Foster's taxidermy and hang out, and Bart Shiler worked there.

So Roy would tell me, hey, there's this guy, Bart Shiler, he's like, he's a freak. He's the probably best hunter, toughest guy. this or that. Nobody really knew him. But I think he was from Montana originally. Either him or the guys that hunted with, that he hunted with. Like there's a book called Silver Tip, Paul Schaefer. He's from, I know he's from Montana. But anyway, Bart, he was always on Codiac, hunted up there.

I think he, I don't know if he killed a ram, but he made his own bow, made his own heads, went doll sheep hunting on. I'm pretty sure he killed one, but I can't remember how the story goes now. But he also went down and did and studied tigers. So that's why it reminded me of that. It's just like your guys' stories are kind of overlapping in that regard. But he loved tigers also did, you know, I think radio call or type things. And he look him up, but there's an article in outdoor life.

I remember I sent this to Rogan because I talked about him on Rogan before. But it's called The Last Wild Man. an old article you could look up bart shy oh i definitely yeah okay this is i know the story total stud yeah but like lived a enchanted life yeah you'd love it yeah he got killed i think he was uh i mean mostly he's spent enough time out doing stuff like this whatever yeah it's uh you know risky but he got killed in canada they say he was hunting moose and a grizzly killed him and ate him is what they figure you know they just i don't think they ever really found the body but uh yeah look that up but your will for sure your story's kind of parallel his in in some respects but uh i just

i just love people like that like you like that are so immersed in the mounds and in learning and i don't know there's so many as you know this man and there's so many of people that're out there doing stuff they're way cooler than what i'm doing yeah they just don't have tv shows right they're just like you know like tyler johnerson we talked about him earlier like yeah that dude uh he's such a good hunter and stuff he never hear about him you know there's like he gets after that guy's out there every day too I know did he was he in that film was it the

100 Rams yeah yeah I was his yeah I was his yeah didn't he guide that guy to his or what was that story I can't know what his his mentor Lee Hart that's what it was yeah yeah it was on this by chance was going to be his 100th ram right he ever guided and in Tyler grew that tag

that's what it was yeah yeah what it was a very heartfelt awesome story yeah for sure no I I I think I met Tyler it had to be in Kodiak. I was, Cole Kramer was there. And we went to somebody's house there on Kodiak and watched like films,

hunting movies. Yeah. Pretty fun. But I'm pretty sure Tyler was there. Yeah. What else we got? Okay. As someone who spends a ton of time in the woods,

tracking animals, does Bigfoot exist? Oh, man. I love this question. Dude. Obviously. This is, this is. leading me to a big thing here. This is a big secret too. Yeah. No. I get that question a lot, I'm sure. You know, I've yet to see any evidence of Bigfoot. However, I haven't actually

properly went out hunted Bigfoot. I haven't actually went out and tracked Bigfoot. So to say that without a doubt, which I'm pretty much leaning towards, that there's no Bigfoot, yeah. But, you know, there was a time there's this animal called the Ocopi and it lives in the Congo River Basin and it and it's an animal you find in a zoo now it kind of looks like a hybrid between a zebra and a giraffe but 1950 there was this animal that lived in the jungle that looked like a hybrid between a giraffe and a and a zebra and it was crazy and around where it was and everybody thought it was a crypto and everybody thought it was as crazy as a big foot and it didn't exist in science and you hear about the story and it's like and then all of a sudden some scientists went out there and there really was

one right and it was a massive animal that was under the radar in this crazy place so when you hear stories like that it's like so there is a chance right there's that one million chance tell me there's a chance so this might want to put this on on record or I don't care on record off record but so I've had enough people come to me and say is there a big foot do you think there's a big foot and there's a lot of people to believe that there is right and there's some people with a lot of money who want to believe there is a reason, wants to want to know. Yeah.

And every Bigfoot show that's ever been out there is just like some hillbillies out there going, whoop, whoop, come here, Bigfoot, Big Feet, you know, whatever. And it's like, okay, if you're going to look for Bigfoot, let's get serious about it, right?

And so some guy reached out to me, goes, what would serious look like? And I said, I'd put together the best team on the planet. We'd get military-grade technology, and we would go to these hotspots that when we would go and we would, and I, and I, And I wanted to make a film about it or a show about it called Killing Bigfoot.

And the idea is kind of a double meaning. It's that we're in order to make fact or fiction of Bigfoot, we're probably have to bring a body back. Yeah, or kill the myth. Or kill the myth. Yeah. And I wanted to go full tilt with this. And I said, let's go.

Because in the tracks of Bigfoot, we're going to find some cool shit. If we are going hard looking for Bigfoot, we're going to find something. We're going to probably find a Wolverine in a place that never been found before. Yeah. You know, we're going to see a heat signature in a cave and go in there thinking it might be Bigfoot, but we're going to find some other crazy shit. How cool would that be? I mean,

great. Yeah. So I had this idea and I kicked it around and I have a buddy in Montana named Rob O'Neill. Do you know what Rob O'Neill is? Yeah. Yeah. So Rob O'Neill is like, dude, I want in on this. So then I thought, okay, talking about a TV show hook, the guy who fucking shot Osama bin Laden,

yeah, wants to go find Bigfoot. Yeah. There you go. So now here's here's the pitch. Rob O'Neill, Casey Anderson, Cam Haynes. Well, there you go. I'm not shitting you. I love it.

Well, yeah, because you figure if the guy who killed bin Laden is involved, pretty good killing like high, high value targets. Oh, yeah. Right? So Bigfoot's right in there. Totally. Yeah. I mean, we're kind of in. And also if you think about it too, well, Rogan went, he went out one time with, was at Lee Strobel or Lee Trowell.

Stroud. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what it was. And I think he actually did, because I remember the first time we were in Bear Camp up in Alberta is like 2014, he asked me that. He goes, do you think there's there's Bigfoot? And I was just like, no. And we were watching the show and it was like the show that you talked about. Like does it was not the, I think he went with them. But anyway, point is Joe likes to believe in stuff. Yeah. Alien. You know, always have this hope that there's something cool out there, right? But if you think about it, this is. sort of bigfoot country, maybe up more north, Washington, but it's like in some of those in the big timber deep in the mountains where maybe satellites and trail cameras and all this wouldn't work that well, who knows what the hell's out there? There's something out there. I mean, who knows? Yeah, there's something out there. I mean, people are seeing something. I doubt with all the trail cameras people have, if it was around where people hunt, we would know. Yeah. But fun to think about. I mean, there's something out there. I mean, there's something out there. I I did went to the Himalayas and talked to some people who've seen yeties.

And I met a guy who was 75 years old, a yak farmer. He had seen three yeties. And when you talk to this guy has no stakes in the game, he's not selling, I saw Bigfoot t-shirts. This is an old dude who saw something, right? Probably not a yetty, probably a bear, probably some other weird animal. But he saw something. And so he believed it was a Yeti.

And I think that's just exactly right. In the pursuit of Bigfoot, quote unquote, it's not out. But if you went and dug around in these deep forests where it could exist, you're going to find something. Right. And that would be, as I mentioned earlier, exploring is a big part of hunting. Yeah. And you know, you know, watch all these hillbilly shows. It's like, you know, they see a heat signature with their in the distance and they all run away from it.

This is good, you know, it's, Rob, Cam and Casey aren't running. We're going to, we're going to it. We're going to shake it off the list. Be pretty sick. Hell yeah. I'm not kidding you, dude. This is, to me, it's like such gold. You could sell that.

Definitely sell that. I think so. That's an easy one. That would be, I mean, for the record, I don't believe in Bigfoot, but who knows what we'd find? Yep. You'd hunt him. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So this next one, Cam has talked about in his backcountry bow hunting book, how at first, you know, the woods when you're alone are intimidating.

I talked about some times where I thought I was going crazy sleeping in my tent alone. I'm assuming, you know, you had a similar experience. So how do you kind of combat that intimidation or fear when you're alone? in the woods. You have to make uncomfortable home. That's it, man. I think that's, it's important for everything.

I think about this all the time. If you can make uncomfortable home, then you're just home. And I think the more time you spend out there, the more reps you spend out there, you start to make it home. And that's like a simple way I can put it. You know, I think that,

you know, I spend a lot of nights in a tent. And sooner or later, I mean, I sleep better in a tent than I do in town. I just sleep better than a tent than I did last night. And I hear the highway go by. And it's like, you know, for silence sometimes, that's scary for people. But silence to me is home, right? Yeah. And I think uncomfortable, I'm uncomfortable more days than I'm comfortable.

So it's become a home. So when you get out there, it's not a place that's, it's not a place that I'm not used to. It's a place that I recognize as home. I like that. It's, you know, you hear people talk a lot about, I've seen this say this about Gagons, because what you said just reminded me Gagins. He'll say like make uncomfortable, comfortable, or something like that, which is kind of what you're saying. But I've heard people say like about Gagons, are you ever happy?

And it's like, I don't know what people mean by happy, right? Because to me, happy is what most people say is suffering. that's what I'm happy. Yeah. I'm not happy sitting on the couch watching TV eating popcorn. I do it. It's not like what I'm happy when I'm getting in miles where I'm hunting or when I'm suffering. So it's just like what is happy?

It's all relative, right? Yeah. It's like you're happy probably isn't my happy. My happy probably isn't yours. So it's like like people will say, don't you ever want to be happy? Yeah, I am when I'm miserable. Yeah, I get it. And you know what?

I have three kids. I'm there six, four and two. Okay. So I was a little late the game. Good spacing, though. Yeah. I mean,

I was, yeah, I'm regular. I thought it's about as often as I get it. The, hopefully your wife doesn't listen. She probably will. But you teach comfort to your children.

And, you know, if you go outside and go, ooh, it's cold out here. It's raining. Let's come inside. Children don't know.

that they learned that from mom and dad right and my little girl six who got the adventure soul man i'd never taught her that and her happiness is uncomfortable too and it's one day we're walking up the ridge it's early spring the wind's blowing like 30 miles an hour it's just cold and i look back and here's this little at the time four-year-old trudging up the mountain and i i remember i'm uncomfortable in the moment i think gosh she's got to be uncomfortable and i say are you okay and she looks at me dad and she He goes, dad, the wind makes my blood feel wild. And I just remember when she said that, and I just said, how I react right now is.

And I just say, hell yeah, does, let's go, right? And it's just like, it is, it's a state of mind. Happiness is a state of mind. Comfort's a state of mind. And if you can marry the two, if you can find happiness and comfort, then you can be a happy dude a lot. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, happiness and discomfort? In discomfort. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that's way, yeah, because I don't comfort. Yeah. It's a fleeting. Who knows what it really means.

I know what it means to me being comfortable and it wouldn't. But yeah, it's to your point, yeah, if you can make uncomfortable happy, yeah. Yeah. It's no different than make pain your friend and you're never alone, right? Yeah. It's similar to that. Totally. No, I mean, if you're doing what we do and you go out in the wild and you're always

uncomfortable and you're not at home, it's going to be so hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, and I'm sure you've seen it. as much as I have, but most people get out there, and it's not like a long hunt. It's not like weeks. It's like hours, and they're ready to go.

It's like, they are, I don't know what they expected, but, or they weren't ready for what it is, and they're ready to go. They expect the edited version that they saw on TV. Right. Yeah. Yeah. On Outdoor Channel, this is a 22-minute show. Yeah.

No, that's so true. And it makes or breaks, people. And I'll tell you what. Thank goodness, man. Yeah, I know. I like that. I want it to be uncomfortable out there because he keeps the people away. Me too.

Me too. Okay. What else you guys got? The next few, I did a little preparation and, of course, texted Eli. Oh, no. If some of these are no-goes, you don't have to answer them. We can edit it.

Yeah. This one should be, though. I hear you're possibly a vampire. You got your blood sucked by vampire bad. I did, yeah. Dude, this is a. Eli gave you that one? Yeah.

Adda boy, Eli. Yeah, this is one of my favorite stories. So in a southern Mexico, on the Guatemalan border, they have a lot of vampire bats. And in the area, due to habitat change and a lot of mowing down the jungle and building cattle ranches, the bats have learned to go to the cows. What a great source of blood, right? So if you don't understand how that vampire bat works, I'll just tell you. So a vampire bat will find like a cow. And they'll literally, a cow's laying in a pasture,

it'll actually land on the ground and kind of crawl up and sneak up on it because it doesn't want its host to be afraid. Right. And then crawls up on it. And then they bite and they have this kind of anticoagulant antiseptic saliva. They don't feel it. They don't feel it. And then it's just kind of leaks.

And then they lap it up, right? So what's been happening in that area is that some of the ranch hands and stuff are out sleeping on their hammocks. and a bat will see. I'm then go over and jump on on the bottom. So this area specifically, I'd heard about this, so I wanted to go document it. So I'd go there, and it's like one branch guy's telling me

about how three of his ranch hands in the last couple weeks have been hit by it. So we set it up. And I wanted to do it. Everybody, my producer, everybody didn't want to do it because it sounded crazy. But then at the same time, they're like, this is such a good hook.

But I just wanted to get down into my underwear, lay in a hammock, in the same spot. These guys have been sleeping and see if a bat will come near me. So we did that instead of time lapses on me and whatever and I laid there and laid there I was probably laying there for like five hours and I'm like this not going to happen. So I'm dozing off and I hear one of the guys he goes because he's got the thermal camera because it's all dark.

Oh, okay. There's a bat on the on the hammock and sure shit man a bat lands on the hammock is sitting there and just assessing me for probably half an hour and then it just creeps down the hammock comes over to my calf and then sticks its face up against my calf and just sits there probably for 10 minutes but I can feel it just touching my leg and then all of a sudden it just freaking bites and then trust me man those cows have hurt

tougher than I am because it hurt but I knew I just I couldn't I just let it bite me and it sat there and lick my book where's the antiseptic yeah didn't feel that yeah or anesthesia I guess is what it would be is that what's antiseptic an antiseptic's like a mouthwash yeah or like wound

cleaner oh okay right what's what's the other word yeah I mean I'm about but it licked my blood and then flew away mm-hmm so I had I've had my rabies vaccinations did did you get was that on video oh yeah oh nice yeah it's on video so I think I'm the only person's ever been documented being bit by a vampire bat but then I after I that happened and that show came out it was on it was a travel channel series of a while ago I had all these like year dose man like who saw that yeah that were like probably like like closet vampire people who I was like suddenly their god like they might and I always joked I

should just like you know every time I see the light I should go yeah but they they think they really thought that I was a vampire now were you just in a what was that movie that was sort of an end about vampires was that you yeah no no saraanto yeah have you seen that not sarato yeah have you I've not but I know the character yeah maybe it's you it could be that's a good story yeah I mean, that's shocking. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, and you're fine.

I was fine. I had to go get like a rabies booster the next day and they had to check me out. But you get bit by a bat. You should. I would say so. Some bad things can happen if you don't pay attention to it. They look intense. Just looking at them.

They're one of the coolest animals again. One of those animals that are missed, like people just think bad things about them. Right. If we didn't have them like down in like Texas down in Austin. Yeah. There's 12 million bats that live under that bridge. They eat one ton, 100. tons of bugs every night.

Whoa. So if that bridge fell in and those bats died, yeah. Farmers are in trouble. So it's one of those things. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

It's all, you know, we talk about you can't, can't, overthink or out with or fix God's plan. No. You know, I mean, so it's got to figure it out. What else we got? This scares me a little bit. So yeah, I've heard that you had heart surgery. I did.

I kind of want to hear about that journey, how that impacted your life. Oh, man. So I, yeah, five years ago, I mean, heart surgery is a bit of a, I mean, this heart surgery. Five years ago, I mean, I'm a fit guy, I'm running around the woods. I was out digging, making a trail along a pond of my little girl. And I just started feeling like shit. And I remember to call my wife over and said, hey, I don't feel very good. And she's like, well, you're afraid dehydrated or whatever.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm dehydrated. So I'm drinking some water And then cut to like a 15, 20 minutes later I'm like feeling like I've never felt before I'm like fatigued and I just don't Yeah, I don't know what's going on But I'm being that, I'm being a guy I'm like not going to the hospital

I live about a half hour from the hospital Probably a little bit more And my little girl came over to me and said Daddy I hope you're okay And she hugged at me and looked at me in the eyes And I remember looking at her going shit I better do something here I don't know I'm not in this living for me anymore

Yeah So I went to the hospital And it turns out, I had this thing going on that was called super ventricular tachycardia. So basically my blower part of my heart was like going like this and my top part was trying to beat normally. And they had to shock me my heart back. In fact, the doctor said why, there's no reason why you should be alive. I've been going through this for as long as you did. So they literally had to take the paddles to me and shock me my heart back.

So then I went in and I'm like, I want to know what, what's doing this. Yeah. Right. Were you awake when they shocked you? No. I was on ketamine, which is even weirder actually. Gotcha. I was like in this crazy highness getting shocked at the same time.

But I want to know what the hell was going on. Yeah. You know? And so I remember the doctor gave me this list. He's like, have you, have you been bitten by a venomous snake stung by a scorpion, did cocaine, drank too much, eat too, drink too many rock stars or whatever? literally the whole list I could have went like, yep, yep, yep, yep, yeah, exactly.

So they're like, we're never going to know why this happened, but it did. So they can go in there, which is cool about the electrical unit of the heart. They can go in there and find, like, where the short circuit is. And they run this thing up through your artery and just go in there and like, saw it, like, like find the little short circuit and burn it. Wow. So cut to, they did that. And my heart's fine.

I mean, the thing is, it's like, when you're an athlete, I consider myself pretty athletic all my life. And then something like that happens to you randomly. It's humbling. Oh, yeah. So I did, it was my midlife crisis because the next thing I decided that I was going to do after that,

start running ultras. Oh. And that's what I did. Really? Yeah. That's what I've been doing since then. I didn't know you did ultras. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, no, that's why I was telling James. I'm like, what the fuck? We're not doing run lift shoot. I do all those every day. That's awesome. Yeah. That was my mid-like crisis.

I've been running 50Ks, kind of embracing it. And my big goal, which I know is something you did, kind of full circle. Montana backyard, Native American connection. My goal right now is around the crazy amount 100. Those mountains are rough. Yeah. They're good mountains. But it would be, that would be epic.

That's my goal. You could do it. I'm trying. I mean, I'm running. Right now I'm doing 50 miles a day or a week on a day. 50 miles a day I could do it. Yeah. 50 miles a week right now, but I'm, yeah, no co-co.

Dona, the coca donna. I know. I wish I wasn't doing that either. Hopefully I get hurt. No. No, Crazy Mountain.

Yeah. God, those mountains are awesome. I love that country. They're haunting, man. They're haunting mountains. They are something about them.

They're just like, they're spiritual. I'd never been in there before, but you saw plenty during that race. Yeah. No, I mean, I got to do it.

It's kind of my goal. I'm turning 50. I'm not going to do it this year. I'm trying my goals. next year. I'm going to chalk up some 50-mileers this. Yeah. That's good. I mean, it's, like I'll run a flatter 100 somewhere. Yeah, no, that's what I was trying to talk James into doing. He's talking about doing 100K and I'm like, 100 miles. How many 50Ks have you done, James? One? Oh. And no marathons. Yeah, I skip marathons too. Yeah, no. I mean, you won that 50K though,

didn't you? For my division, yeah. Yeah. Shit. Non-binary. He was the only one. But I love it. I mean, I think the one thing I wish I had got into it earlier in my life instead of waiting until this long, but it's such a good thing for what we do. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's just like knowing that you can move long distances

across the landscape in any given moment being fit like that. You're going to be following animals around, man. You better be right with them. Yeah. And I love, I was a sprinter. I'm like a football player, rugby player, kind of a guy, you know? And so running long distance was. such a hard transition.

Yeah. But the hard thing, man, it was that thing I'm like, you know, go out run five. Okay, run seven, run 10. I'm like running a mountain marathon for fun one day. And I'm like, this is, I can do this, right? Yeah. I just kind of get into it. And again, you're kind of the same.

People look at us to think, you're sprinter, right? You're not a long distance guy. Yeah. And you can train your body to do anything. Yeah, definitely. You know, it is a big advantage of the mountains. You know, you just make better decisions, you know? I mean, you don't take shortcuts.

You think and clear. You can focus on what you're there for instead of that you're tired or gassed or whatever else. I mean, I think that's one of the coolest things. I mean, you brought, you made bow hunting an athletic event in some level. Like you put that in perspective. It's just like, you know, if you're going to be out there, you've got to train for it. And I've always kind of believed that.

I mean, it's like what we do, there's no doubt the better shape that you're in, the better you're going to perform. Yeah. And performance is how you pay the bills and how you feed the family. And that's just, I mean, my guy, man, I make him train. He's out there running with me. He's lifting all the time. He's doing himself.

And if you're not doing that, you're not hanging. I mean, Eli is buddy who's been with me. I mean, you got to be fit when you're out there. Because if you're not fit, you're a liability. Right. And if you're a liability, man, you're just, you're off the team. Yeah. You're out of the pack.

It's too. And trying to make a living doing this, it's like it's competitive, you know? I mean, the more you can get, the better content you can get, the more you're out there, the more reps you're introducing to yourself or your camera or whatever else. Yeah, the better quality of product you're going to have. So yeah, it's people want to discount it and say, oh, well, you don't need to. Look at this guy.

He does all this and he's not in shape. It's just like you're focusing on the wrong stuff. Yeah, you need to. Yeah, yeah. Well, ask Eli question. He just said, ask about the mountain line and wolf attacks at the wildlife ranch. Yeah, those are good ones. I mean, again, part of the, that winning and losing and learning from mistakes,

So, you know, again, worked in some captive wildlife places. I've got scars all over my body from making mistakes. And it was stacked by a mountain lion. I was stacked by a pack of wolves at a place. Whoa. Yeah. And by myself both times. Gee.

Yeah. In a Mount Lion one, it wasn't technically by myself, but it was one on one. I had this cat, I had helped raise. And it turned into like 140-pound male. And we were doing this. A handful. Yeah. We were doing this thing with this artist.

His artist was like making this video where he was like sculpting clay of a mountain lion and he wanted them outline and kind of lingering around the cliffs. So I was with this cat. When I used to do with this guy, it's kind of play cat and mouse like a run around the cliffs and he would chase me

and I would hide and it would stalk me and we were playing this game. We did it all the time. Well, Raschut was over. The cat was sitting next to me. He was off his leash and I kind of looked down at him and he just had this like that crazy cat look in his eyes. And he jumped to try to bite me in the throat.

and I caught him by the throat like this. And he took his claws, wrapped him up around me like a cat does, and just started pulling his mouth towards my throat. And I'm pushing as hard as I can, and I'm losing that game. I'm trying to bench press the power of this cat, and I'm not doing a very good job.

And the next thing this cat does is what they often do is bring its back claws up and try to gut me out. Yeah. And I have this, like, Carhart, heavy denim coat on, and he just starts ripping and shredding the front of it. But what happens in that moment is this game of leverage, right? His feet are off the ground now. So now I've got leverage.

So I take him and I just basically almost suflame him and just come around and slam him down on the ground. And when he hits the ground, he stops. And in that moment, I recognized the change in behavior that I wanted. And I knew I had to take over. So I just grabbed his leash, put it around his neck, and just started walking him. Just took control, right? which trust me is very hard to do after something like that. I bet.

But I knew I had to. And I walked him about a quarter mile down to this truck was waiting and loaded him up. And then I let down and I just was ripped here. I got across my back or my chest in my back and on my arm. And this one right here was this squirting blood. And I'd wrap that up and had to go to the hospital. But yeah, I mean, it was one of those things. Like, again, wild animals wild no matter what, no matter where his life is,

you can never forget that those animals have the instinct. I don't know why he decided he was going to, get me that day. It's triggered. Something got triggered. Something triggered. And I learned a lot from it. I mean, it's just one of those things.

It's just like you walk away and I look at my scars all the time and I always try to dig into why I have them and what what mistakes are made. What could I have done different? How can I make sure that doesn't happen again? And in some way, I mean, to be honest, it's kind of cool. Look down to Mount Lion's scar. Yeah. No, I was going to say I want a few scars. I mean, you learn scars again.

It's like a tapestry, man. You look at your body and you see all those scars and you're just like, it's part of who you are. It's part of your DNA. It's who's made you. They're often mistakes. It is those mistakes that define you. And in the wild, if you're lucky enough to walk away from one of those mistakes,

you better fucking have learned from it. Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. You don't get too many of those chances. Sometimes just one. So what about the wolves?

Wolfpack was in his big enclosure I went in there There was a couple wolves in there that I'd raised And they were like my puppies I was gonna gather him up I went into the middle of the enclosure And I called one of them over And he came over to me

And he was slinking over to me Kind of being submissive And as soon as he came up to to me He snarled at me And I remember I stand up And I go, no You know And as soon as I did that

I get throttled from behind And there's nine wolves in this enclosure And I'm by myself And as soon as I get bit, I turn around to see who bit me and as soon as I turn around, that wolf is starting on me, bit me from behind.

So now, classic wolf thing, they surround and try to invoke panic. And whatever wolf I'm not facing, and at that time, kicking and punching as hard as I can, the other ones are biting me from behind. So I,

and they're pulling them. I also have Carhart's on that day of Carhart coveralls and they're trying to pull me down the ground and they're biting in the back of the ham in the back of my butt and I'm just I'm just turning like a tornado kicking and punching and screaming for help and more I'm panicking the more that their eyes they literally disdilate and their tails are going fast and just coming in and nailing me the next thing I know I find myself in my back against the fence and I just do like a Fosberry flop I just jump up over the top and just land on the ground and they're all just right there at the

fence just all jacked up and I look down I have like Daisy Dukes on And my legs are just bleeding, drive myself down to the hospital. I pull up in front of the emergency room. I remember walking towards the reception nurse sees me walking with Daisy Dukes and bloody legs. And she comes out and goes, what happened? And I said, I just got tacked by a pack of wolves. And she just looked at me like, I could see immediately she wanted to go with a

straight jacket because I lost my mind. But then my doctor, he knew what I did for a living at the time. And he knew that I probably did. And yeah, I had some real good scar on my calf and a couple of my hamstrings. but that wasn't that was it I was really young I was like 19 when that happened and that was one of those things where I was like maybe I should be a lawyer do something different yeah that that would be I don't know that'd be pretty intense a pack of wolves because I just know how a dog like when you're running and a dog comes out all aggressive that's enough you know it's all the fundamental things

that's the thing about it all the same I mean dogs have got all those instincts you know and how you react in that moment's everything. Yeah, what you said was no is exactly. I just did this like two days ago. This dog right over here came running out of the garage that they just got or the owner just got home with it or was in the garage, whatever, but I was running by. I took a, I just, no, like that. It's just like, so that that did work. Yeah, I mean, holding your ground and being confident is more not aggressive, but confident. Yeah. It works so much with animals, especially animals who are always trying to invoke chaos and invoke panic. And that's how canines, they thrive off.

That's how they win. A wolf pack, that's how they kick down elk. They create panic. It's how they kill bison. They create panic. The soon as you take the confidence and erase it from those animals, they win. You see those big bull bison to hold their ground and say, come on, bring it in here, dude. They live.

Yeah. So you've got to be that bison. Right. And then that's the same with a wolf pack. I mean, again, I learned so much. I've not encountered that their wolf packs being aggressive, but I've never. encountered, you know, other dogs, I've encountered bears. I've counted mountain lions in the wild, and I've played the game with them. Mount lions definitely, you've got to, Mount lions,

you show them one inch. You, it sounds ridiculous, but, you know, the wild mountain lion encounters that have when they've been aggressive, you've got to go out and like, you're going to kill them. And just got to be aggressive, make them think that they're potentially on the menu. And they'll run, they'll run way like crazy. Yeah, that's good advice. I mean, tough to do. It's tough, But I think what's your other option? Right. Getting bit. Doesn't sound that great either.

No. Yeah. That's, yeah, great advice. Is that, that's all you guys had? That's it. Yeah. I don't know. Dude, this has been, I mean, this is kind of a long podcast, but so, such good stories.

I love it. Yeah, no, I appreciate this. We're, uh, we're definitely going to do a lift run shoot at some point. It's, uh, if I didn't have this freaking book thing, I'd, all I've been, well, not all I've been thinking about because we've been having a, good discussion. But this, these book signings are haunting me right now. It's just like, all I can think about is like, God, I just got to freaking knock these things out. They were hassling about where I'm out with it. But once we get past this, yeah, we'll have, we'll have you come out,

get you dotted with the new bow, we'll do a lift for unshoot and get you ready for crazy mountain. How does that sound? Let's do that. Awesome. That sounds awesome. Well, thank you, brother. Thank you, sir, man. Appreciate it. A great discussion. I knew it would be, and I think everybody's going to love it. Check out what god now I can't remember grizzly guy at grizzly guy at grizzly guy yeah and endless venture YouTube there's some great stuff coming out yeah and uh you heard all the stories so yeah it shouldn't be surprised at how sick this stuff's going to be but Casey Anderson thank you very much I appreciate you're welcome all right keep hammering