Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 152 - Wounding

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Talking about wounding an animal is taboo for most people – Join Cam Hanes and James Williams for a deep dive into wounding and the steps you can take to prevent it from happening, and if it does happen, what you can do to recover the animal. This is IMPORTANT, and this is why we’re talking about it. Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes  Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/  Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com  Timestamps: 00:00:00  Stats: Wounding Game with a Bow VS Rifle 00:05:17  Ethics in Hunting 00:10:12  Different Types of Shots: Arrow & Bullet Wounds 00:15:39  A Bull Cam Wounded 00:18:58  Different Types of Blood: Knowing the Difference When Blood Trailing 00:27:06  Everything Matters: Confidence in Your Shot 00:30:12  Why Talking About Wounding in Taboo 00:34:55  1994: Wounding a Blacktail Deer 00:38:20  Following Tracks 00:44:39  High Percentage Shots 00:46:15  “Cute” Shots 00:48:54  Selecting the Right Broadheads 01:02:40  Final Thoughts Thank you to our sponsors: Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Grizzly Coolers: ⁠https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/⁠ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off

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or any order on their site. Just use code keep hammering and checkout and get America's coffee. today. Okay, this is a keep hammering, with James Gideon, this is not shit talkin. This is not shit talkers 12. No, we're on our best behavior. No, by the book. Yeah.

This is serious. No talking about, you know, body hair on women below the eyebrows at all. No. There should be none below the eyebrows. I mean, I guess the back of the hair is a little, okay. So maybe, maybe from the neck down. No. Nose down.

No. Scratch that part. I don't know. I mean, you can leave that in. But today, kind of a serious topic, actually. As serious as I get, really. This is about wounding. And I said last week or this week or whatever week that I was going to talk about wounding because it's a thing.

I don't have the stats on it. I did talk to, man, the biologist at Wild Country Outfitters or Adventures. And like the wounding differences between their bow hunters and their rifle hunters. And I believe he said it's kind of about the same. So hunting is not perfect. Killing is not perfect. Killing a wild animal with an arrow or even a bullet is not an execution. It is hunting.

And there are variables that weigh in and these animals are very tough and they can withstand a lot and survive. And so I want to talk about it. The wounding kind of being similar is I think surprising because everyone always says. Yeah, bow hunters, they get the bad rap through winding for sure. But I brought up, I'm a little, you know, I don't rifle hunt, but I know the long range shooting is a thing now. And the guns can do it. But just because the guns can do it does not mean the shooter can do it. Oh, it's just like a bow.

Just like a bow. I mean, doesn't mean everybody should be shooting 100 yards of the bow. I don't think anybody should be. And same thing with rifle. So, you know, I shot, I know last year, we set up that sig with Katie and I shot at 900 and rang the steel. And it's like, yeah, you can do that. Yeah. That was steel, not moving.

I had a rest in a shooting house. It's like, that's absolutely perfect conditions. Actually, it was a little windy and there was a flag up there. So I had to adjust for the wind, hold on the edge of the steel. But point is, that does not mean that I should. and shoot 900 yards as an animal. And so when you say that, well, wounding with the bone with the rifle, they're similar, I think the long range thing on that, I asked them, I said, is this making it worse?

Because the firearms can do it, the bullets can do it. Theoretically you can do it. People show it all the time. There's a shooting contest. And he said he hasn't, it hasn't like showed itself as far as being that they're wounding more. because, and I think there it's pretty controlled. You know, they're not going to say, hey, yeah, 700 yards take it. Right.

That's not public land. You know, this is on public land when you got a guy who has been busting his ass for a week in the snow and finally sees one bull and it's at 600 yards, some people, because of that, those challenges are going to shoot. Yeah. And they might not hit perfect. Yeah, I mean, that's a, I mean, 500 yards now is like, nobody even scoffs at it. I know.

It's so far, dude. Yeah, that is a poke. So far. I know I had Katie last year. I can't remember. Did you, you filmed her, right? Yeah. How far was that first where I had her laying down?

Was it 400? Yeah. Or like 425? Yep, 425. And obviously, it's the same gun Tanner has right now. And so we know, and you know, I'm not going to spoil his story, but we know the gun can shoot. I think that might be. the gun that I shot 900 yards with.

But the point is, I wasn't going to have Katie shoot at 425. So we circled around, got the wind right, and got like 80 or 100, whatever it was. And she smoked that buck and dropped in this tracks. So yeah, the guns can do it.

The bows can shoot, say, 100. That does not mean everybody should be doing that. I don't think hardly with a bow, for sure, hardly anybody, maybe Levi Morgan. and under perfect situation could, you know, get a kill at 100 yards with an arrow. I'm not going to do it, but I don't make the rules for everybody. I just want to talk in like pretty candidly about wounding.

So we know that it happens. We know that that's part of hunting. How do we mitigate that as hunters? What is the approach? my approach and you know growing up on public land uh nobody really talked about wounding um you didn't want a wound i don't remember i don't even know what the laws are on it i know you probably shouldn't go out and be wounding you know four or five animals having them laying out they're dead yeah so you know a big part of archery and even rifle hunting is we police ourselves

There's game wardens, but way more hunters than game wardens. And they can be everywhere. And we're in the middle of, you know, the mountains. And there's no audience, as we've talked about. There's no crowd. It's just you. And you, part of being a hunter, is you have a responsibility to offer the animal a merciful and compassionate death.

Right. Yeah. I mean, I remember in hunter's safety, like the huge, huge section on ethics is like it might not be illegal, but is it ethical? Is it right? Yeah. You know right or wrong. Right.

And a law can't cover that, you know, it's, so there's ethics. There's big, big ethics. Um, for me personally, how it is now and I've evolved, you know, as I've said before when I first started, I didn't, I didn't even care really about, wouldn't you think about that I was killing an animal or what it meant or the, the gravity of the situation. I was a kid and I'm just like, hey, yeah, I'm gonna go try to kill a buck. Shoot a buck. Right.

Cool. Take a couple pictures. That's it. That's it. I don't even know what it meant. It meant that I was a hunter. And so I had, you know, kind of, I was trying to earn my stripes or whatever you do as a hunter, kind of grow, mature, and you learn and you, you know, gain perspective.

And over the years now, so I killed my first buck when I was 15, and now I'm 58. Carry the one. Carry the one. Yeah, remainder. Yeah, whatever. 43. Long time. Okay.

I've been hunting a long time. And I've changed over 43 years, as I hope most people would. And now it's all I care about is a merciful, death and not screwing up. I don't want the animal to suffer. I don't want to make a mistake. I don't want to make a poor shot. And still,

I'm human. Nobody is perfect. As I've said, you can be perfect on the target range. People are doing it all the time. 300 scores, 60 X's that paper's not moving. Whatever.

You can be a machine. In hunting, it's never going to be that way. And, you know, I've shared on this podcast before, too. I had like a three, I think, well, like a two and a half or three or stretch where I shot nine arrows and killed nine bowls. And at that time, I was a little bit overconfident. I thought I got this. I got this figured out.

You know, I didn't, I didn't have it figured out and I don't have it figured out. You know, there's, I'll just think about. about I'll just be honest, I have lost animals. And to me, there's a big difference in wounding an animal that's a fatal wound and a superficial wound. And how I navigate that now is if I shoot an arrow and I believe based on where the arrow hit, how the animal reacts and the blood on the ground, if that animal is going to die, I'm done. That's my animal.

whether I get it or not. Right. I'm not killing multiple animals during the same season in the same state with the same tag. I'm going to kill one. It's up to me to recover that animal to make a good shot

to put that animal down quickly. And if I don't, if the animal is wounded and regardless of, you know, what I think, but if the blood is telling me that I think the animal's going to die and it's a fatal wound

or maybe there's gut material, period on the arrow or mostly it'd be guts that you don't find. It's guts or liver. Those are the top. Those are the ones that I think are going to die and you might not get them. If you don't do everything right, you might not get them. An ass shot, usually if you're going to kill it with, if you hit it in the ass, if you're way off and it's a poor shot, I'm not even going to talk about the Texas horse shots.

who's basically shooting up its ass, which I can't stand that. I can't stand when people show it, talk about it, whatever, because I don't think it's ethical. I think it's you're shooting at something. You got to get up that pelvis, basically up the ass, through the hole in the pelvis into its guts, liver, lungs. And if you're not perfect, it's just drilling the pelvis and no penetration. So that said, you can hit in that hole there and get the full penetration to the guts

in the liver and lungs. Or you can get lucky and catch your femoral artery, which runs. Basically, it's down the spine, splits down the inside of the leg, the back legs, and we have a formal formal artery too. If you cut that thing,

you are dead in about 30 seconds. So if you get lucky and you hit that on an animal, the animal's going to, it's going to, there's going to be like a gallon of blood on the ground and it's going to die quick. but chances of hitting femoral artery which is about the size of my pinky is not great because it's

on the inside also it's on the inside of that lake terrible shot uh not where you want to hit and um if you if you get that animal you got lucky normally the arrow would be stuck in his ass and you're not getting it could the animal survive that yes they are very very resilient arrows are recovered or animals are killed with old arrow wounds in them or pieces of arrow all the time. It's not, they're not us. Yeah. If I have an arrow in my back, I'm not running around. I'm being hurt.

A bull, you can, you know, I'll just say last year, I shot a bowl in Oregon. I hit it quarter and away, hit it high. and that arrow, I think, rode up the rib and about this much of it was in that bowl. Arrow came out, broke off. And I looked for that bull for three days and could not, I mean, it went uphill. It was, you know, I had determined this bull's not going to die. So I went to, I can't remember, I think I went to Utah. Then I came back and I actually two weeks later killed that bull.

And that piece of arrow was in it. And there wasn't even a wound on the hide on the outside. It was like I couldn't even tell that the arrow it hit. So the point is like these arrows are so clean and so precise. It's like a scalpel cut that can that can heal. That can definitely heal. And this is not going to get infected for the most part. I mean, their immune system is crazy.

They're so resilient. But an arrow is not like a bullet. And I kind of mentioned this on the previous podcast. but a bullet causes it kills by damage and shock. And so it's breaking muscle, bone, or I mean, ripping up muscle, breaking bone, shocking that animal. It is really hard for an animal to recover from a rifle wound. It's just an open wound that has a hard time healing.

An animal can very easily recover from an arrow wound. And that's just not being, I'm not trying to be, because I'm a lifelong bow hunter. I'm trying to be unbiased. I'm just going by what I know, what I see, what I hear, what I've researched. Animals recover from arrow wounds all the time, not so much from rifle wounds.

That said, they can recover from a rifle wound that's not like in the vitals or not, you know, I've seen, you know, legs get blown off. They're not recovered. It's going to be tough to recover from that. And arrow is not going to blow a leg off. It's going to go in. It's going to cut. An arrow kills by hemorrhage. How we kill is we get into the vitals. Himmridge, hopefully in the lungs or the heart, and the animal dies very quickly. With a rifle, you kind of go the same thing, but with a rifle instead of behind the shoulder like you would with an arrow so you get that penetration into the chest, you might go right through the shoulder because an bullet has so much more energy and damage potential and power.

and speed, you know, it's 3,000 foot a second compared to 300 feet a second. So that bullet can break down even a bull through the shoulders, you know, but for sure a buck. So where you go behind the shoulder with an arrow to hit to get in the chest and hemorrhage, you might go right through the shoulder or right through the front of the chest, a frontal with the rifles, no big deal. It's just a little small target with an arrow. That's a low percentage shot. So we just talk about that. And, you know, You know, that wounding example I had, that was last year, maybe it's a year before. Year before. It was a year before, yeah.

So Tanner was filming that. You filmed me last year. Yep. And that one also is like that one, it wasn't. It looked pretty dang good on film. But it's, yeah, there's a lot that goes into killing a bull elk with an arrow. Yeah. And I was, I started to say,

I had I wounded a bull so quartering away and 33 yards so it wasn't far but I felt I felt really good and there was a little bit of brush I remember and I thought I had a good window with an arrow ticked one of the pieces of brush

and it hit two inches to the right and so where quartering away would be like the animals not really facing away, not broadside to you, but halfway in between. And so I thought, well, if I go behind the back rib, okay, then the chest. And you want to aim when you're on a shot like that for the opposite shoulder on the far side. So I thought, well, if I get this arrow here and I hit that far side shoulder, it's going to go through everything, hit the brush. And it, instead of hitting behind the rib, it hit a little bit to the right.

And it hit the hip. No penetration. Arrow hit the hip, like two or two or two. three inches and just did not penetrate. So what did I do? Well, you got to get on blood. And I didn't know exactly what would happen. Didn't think it was anything close to be able to get a formal, but, you know, that's,

that's why you blood trail. That's why you track them. That's why you get on and see what you can learn. And so I tracked that bull for hours and hours. and normally a fatally wounded animal won't go uphill. They'll either side hill or downhill because they're hurt. And if it's a good shot, they'll go and then basically just death sprint, die in 50, 100 yards. This bull went up the hill.

And normally, that's not a fatally wounded animal. But you stay on the blood. And the blood told me it was muscle blood. The blood told me that if I would have got behind that last rib, that would have been guts and stomach and that's, you know, they're not gonna recover from a gut shot. They're gonna die eventually. And I wasn't seeing any gut fluid on the ground.

I wasn't, there was no indication of that I got in the body cavity. It was muscle blood and it was on the one side. So the arrow didn't go in just like I saw it. I mean, it didn't get penetration because I hit that head. hip bone. And yeah, so pretty soon, and we all know how this works of blood. You might have your hopes up because, you know, a sharp broadhead will cause some damage. It will, it's a laceration that's going to bleed. And so you might, you might be confident to start, but then eventually the blood slows down, slows down to a trickle. Then it's maybe a pin drop.

maybe brushing up on side of, you know, here in Oregon be ferns there. It might or some, oh, you know, if you're hunting Rocky Mountain Bowls, it might be some other type of brush. But pine needles, who knows what. But it's, you're going to be looking for pinpricks of blood. Right. And then it's gone. Talk a little bit about like the difference in blood, gut fluid, that kind of thing.

Obviously it's a, you know, you have to play your own detective. You have to put all these clues together. It's like CSI a little bit. You're kind of doing a, you know, it's good to learn and to do autopsies, essentially, on these animals to see exactly what happened when you're successful or it'll help you figure out what happened if you're not successful. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, I remember that big bowl right over there that I killed last year in Colorado. People saw that kill shot and he spooked and he's up there in the timber and I thought I had a good shot. But I think on that one, there's a tree on the left that kind of was like in my mind that I need to stay away from that tree.

So I hit like a few inches to the right, which if I would hug that tree, I would have got the lungs. But I was a little bit to the right. So I went liver. And also hit something. Yeah. It caught a little piece of moss up there. And we saw that fall on the video. So you guys can go back and look that up.

But on that one, I told you to stay there. and I snuck up because I wanted to see if my arrow was there and what the blood looked like. And what I got up there is I saw his tracks kind of running down the backside of the hill, digging in deep like they do when they're getting out of there. And you can learn a lot from tracks too. I mean, when a bull runs like that, its toes are going to be splayed out. Bulls are heavy, heavier than cow, so they're really digging in. But what I saw was the blood on the ground is on the left side.

That's where I hit that bull. It looked dark. It looked liver blood to me. So I came back to you and I said, I'm going to have to give him some time. It got his liver. And I didn't know for sure. Right.

But that's what that was telling me. My experience told me that was liver blood. And on a liver shot, the bull's going to die. The problem is they can die. I mean, the liver's not usually a quick death. It can be like maybe an hour, two hours. but generally it's between four and 12. So it's a big window.

Not ideal. Yeah. And it's not too dissimilar than guts other than it bleeds more. So if you get back in the stomach, you're going to have to give it about 12 hours. And if you don't push them, he won't be that far. But bulls get uncomfortable or if the arrow is still in them and they'll get up on their own and move.

But you don't want to push them because a gut shot is not going to bleed. Right. It's, there's intestine, there's fat, there's different things down there. They got thick hide. Normally, and if you're shooting like a, like a, or not a fixed blade, if you're shooting an expandable head like this and you got to think about that stomach, if they've been eating and it's full of grass or brows or whatever it is, and this arrow hits, it's basically like if you shot a bag target with a broadhead, it goes in a little bit and you can't get

that thing out. That bag's, well, a stomach full of grass is not too dissimilar than a bag target. Right. So a broadhead might not penetrate very well. If an arrow goes in this far in the stomach and there's no exit hole to bleed, there's no, the entrance hole has an arrow in it and it's kind of plugged with fat and maybe some guts, you're not going to get blood there either. So a gut shot is not going to bleed. If you push that animal, you're probably not going to get it. Right. because there's nothing to go off of. And they are sick, so they're not running, so they're not digging in deep.

Even a big bowl is not going to leave you very good tracks. He's going to walk because he's hurt. Right. And they can walk a long way. And if he walked for a mile and you have no blood, you're not getting that thing. So on that bowl, I said, let's back off. And I, you know, I went and I killed a buck that night too.

and during what we're giving it that time and uh i remember west told me uh west yoder he's like man he goes i hit one in the liver and i got on it too soon and uh trailed it for like 12 hours and they didn't get it and it it was um so to that to that point is they can survive for quite a while on a liver shot they're going to die they're definitely going to die and a gosh that's going to die too but how soon you get on it matters or how much time you give it matters. So I said, okay, let's take care of this buck. Let's come back first light in the morning because it was it was like at six at night. So we could be back in there in about 12 hours, which, you know, as I said, they can they can survive for 12 hours. And we came back in there, blood trailed that bull, a couple hundred yards. And he had died sometime during the night.

And I got him, you know, he built the meat didn't get a waste. Everything was. fine but if I would have that night got on him right after we shot if I wouldn't have noticed that was liver blood I doubt if we would have got him he would have we would have pushed him and he would have he wasn't bleeding a ton no he didn't go far and he didn't go far but remember how quiet I was being yeah and that's another thing you got to be quiet people get way too noisy and if that animal's laying there he's going to hear that and he's out of there so I remember on that one I was like psycho about everybody be quiet sneak out of here just like we're hunting and then back in the morning let's sneak in here like we're hunting because that bull i don't know what that bull is is alive or dead

everything as i've said before everything matters everything every decision you make matters especially when you're trying to kill with an arrow right and you have to look at it i mean those animals are built to survive out there man and they're good at it yeah and you're you're in their house and trying to find them can be almost impossible. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a huge challenge. And then what happens is when I'm glassing ridges for elk or mule deer, I can't afford to miss any movement. That's why for the past two seasons, I've been using six-hour binoes and I absolutely love them. These optics change the game. The binoes I've been using are the Zulu image stabilizing. That means no more shaky glass after a long hike, no more.

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hit the animal but where it hits the animal is a big deal and in your state of mind the decisions you make, your technique, picking a spot, using the right pin, dialing your sight, a good release, feeling that trigger, keeping the pin there, everything matters, everything. And people oftentimes get so worked up in that moment because they've been thinking about it so long, they don't remember any of that shit. All of a sudden they shot and they're like, what happened? I have no idea what happened. I have no idea, What pin I used, what I did. So slowing down, being in control, being in control of that moment and that adrenaline is key. But it's not easy.

Right. It is so hard. Yeah. And it's not to say that all the practice and the hours of work that you put in before isn't important. Everyone makes mistakes. But the more you can do, I feel the less likely it is or the more prepared you are. Yeah. You know.

You got to do everything. you can to put the odds in your favor. Yeah. Control the controllables. That's right. So that's reps, you know, leading up to season. That's, as we talked about last time, I weigh all my arrows. My broadheads are brand new, razor sharp.

Everything is perfect. And still, still there's no guarantees. And as I said, I've talked about a couple where I've wounded. I didn't believe the animals were going to die. If they were going to die, I would have been done. that's my animal. That's my tag. I'm not, I'm not continuing on and wounding multiple animals unless I believe it's a superficial wound and the animals are going to be fine. And you can trick yourself, you can convince yourself, you can say all the right things because you, maybe you're

trying to convince other people. I mean, I've been in camps where, you know, the guys come in and they're like, yeah, I don't think he's going to die. And then you're like, well, where'd you hit him? A little bit back. And then you get the arrow and it's like solid guts. And they had, because they want to keep hunting. Yep. They said, I think he's going to be fine. It's like, no, he, you ran this arrow right through his fucking guts.

He's going to die. He's going to die. What are you talking about? But they want it. They don't want to fail. Right. Being done without killing an animal is failing, essentially. Yep.

And so they're trying to play the game a little bit by saying, you know, I've seen guys. you know, go from the arrow. Yeah, he's going to be dead. It's perfect to, oh, you know what? Actually, I don't think. I think he's going to be okay. It's like, so what changed? Now we have the blood on the ground.

Now we have the arrow. Now we know the truth, really. And so. So kind of along those lines, why do you think it's taboo to talk about wounding? People don't want to talk about their failures. Yeah. And wounding is, that hurts.

that it's nobody wants to you know again i've been in camps and when somebody wounds everyone knows and that does not feel good i mean that does not feel you know it's either uh cam killed cam wounded two big differences yeah right one man all that hard work paid off the other one you let everybody down you let your family down, you let yourself down, your hopes and dreams are shattered, you let the camp down if you're in a camp, if you're a public land, you're out there dealing with it yourself and just like, you know, wondering, questioning, do I have what it takes to do this or am I not built for this? Right. So big difference. Yeah. And sometimes it's this much different. A shoulder blade

or a double lung could be this much difference. Right. How do you think, I mean, talking about it helps. I just want people to know that this is this happens. This is real. I would like people to adopt maybe the same mindset I have where my tag is good for one animal. If that I release an arrow and I believe the arrows, the animal is going to die. That's it.

Right. If, I mean, it's bow hunting and mistakes happen. Animals survive from poor shots all the time. So if that's the direction that it looks like you shot when and maybe that's going to be the result, then okay, if it's a superficial wound, a muscle wound, these animals, they survive much worse than that all the time. They got big tines.

You find them stuck in their necks all the time. I found a dead, I shot a dead bull. I didn't know. I thought he was bedded down and I got snuck into 20 yards and shot him and he didn't move. And I go up there. He's dead. A bull killed him.

There's a tine right in his neck. So they die from that, but oftentimes, like, the bull, let's see, what bull was it? Oh, it was a bull I killed in Colorado this year, had big jab wounds and bruises and bloodshot on his ass from another bull. Right. Oh, it's brutal out there. These fissures are tough. And so we should be able to talk about it, but nobody wants to because it's admitted. we weren't perfect.

Right. And as we know on social media, especially, everyone's perfect. Yeah, I kind of think, too, the more people talk about it, possibly the more or the less shame people will feel, and maybe they will try and recover that animal. It's like instead of making excuses to why it's going to live, it's like, no, we got to go back out in the morning and look. And if they aren't so embarrassed by it,

maybe they'll tell the truth of what actually happened. Yeah. I think some people, like we talk about trying to skew the truth in both ways, you know. Some of it is intentional. Some of it is just subconscious. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to fail. So you like, and I've done this before too, or I mean, I have them, but I remember you can change what happened to what you wanted to have happened.

And I remember Tanner shot this buck. He was a kid, super young kid. And I think it would have been his first bow kill, but this giant buck came in and he shot and he hit it in the neck. and the arrow just kind of went through the meat. And I'm like, I go, how'd that shot feel? I was filming. And he's like, I smoked him, dad, right behind the shoulder. And I'm like, why am I thinking that it hit it in the neck?

And I said, I don't, I mean, I was filming so it's hard to see through that camera, but I think you hit in the neck. He's like, no, what are you, dad, why are you saying that? It was perfect. I'm like, okay, well, let's just look at the. film we did right through the neck that buck was on camera with a hole in his neck like i don't know when it was but on a different camera and he survived and it was but point the whole point to that was tanner knew what he wanted to see and he changed what happened to what to that that's not what

happened so people can can convince themselves that it was a perfect shot but when you get up to that blood will tell you, the arrow will tell you. You'll figure it out if you're good. Now, I have recovered a lot of animals on long, hard blood trails. So I'm not saying that if the animal's not 50 or 100 yards, that he's going to survive because I've had to shoot animals again and got him killed. I've been on like in 1994. I remember the bucks in, in, um, my garage over there i have a shoulder mount but he was a nice big four point i hit him like high shoulder out of a tree stand i don't even know how the hell i hit there and back then i used you know fixed blade heads it's all we could use here in oregon because expandables were illegal to up until like

a handful of years ago and uh i was like there's no blood and i'm like i cannot believe i've This stuff, fucked up the shot like late season black towel out of a tree stand. And, you know, a 20-yard shot made, maybe even less. But I remember it's in the pines. Not a lot of brush. And basically I was like, I'm just going to, I'm going to walk until I can't walk anymore and try to figure out what happened where this buck is. And somehow I was like in this wide open field.

and on a piece of grass, brown grass, I saw a little, like a little streak of blood. And I'm like, looking at it going, is this? Is this blood?

And there's a trick where you can, you know, Cord Wilkins did this, this year on his bowl. But middle of the day, he had his flashlight on like this, like looking like under the trees, like on the pine needles looking for blood.

And so that, in that case right there, Like where I saw that blood, like a little, like you could use your phone now and kind of sometimes blood will kind of reflect and shine. And but anyway, at that time, I didn't have a phone to do that. And I was like looking at that grass. I'm like, is this fucking blood? And so then I'm like looking through the grass and I'm like, well, the grass looks like it's kind of bent and broken like this way right here. And you can look, there's signs.

There's either, you know, animals. Well, I'll talk about elk mostly, but this was a deer, obviously. But animals don't kick things with their hooves usually. Like they're not kicking rocks and kicking sticks. So if you see a rock out of place or a stick that has been, you know, maybe it was in the mud a little bit, but moved, that's usually not normal. So hunters do that all the time. But if there's no hunters in there, something went through there. and if an animal normally like a bull won't be kicking that stuff,

it might when it's wounded. Right. And I would, so I look for all these little things kind of out of place. Like, is there something out of place? Well, I remember on that, you know, this was 30 years ago or whatever, but that grass looked out of place to me or something bent over. Then I would like look and I was, did a hoof like step here? So anyway, I was on that line.

I had that what I thought was bullet on that piece of grass. And I went 100 yards. that buck was laying there under pine tree dead. And it was one, at that time, it was my best black tail. Oh, damn. And so there's been blood trails that aren't perfect that just take, you got to, just like life,

you got to grind some shit out sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes it's going to be on your hands and knees with a flashlight, middle of the day, looking for any drop, a pin prick. If you haven't had blood for 50 yards, it could be any direction, right?

But when you get that pin, You know that it's from that last blood to this blood. That's his line. Normally animals, once you get that line, they're going to kind of stay on that line. Right. So a pin prick can give you the line and you need a line. And like with the onyx now, you can put your waypoints in there. You're what, put the mark on there. And then you can really have a visual for like, okay, I think I know where this buck or bull's going. He's on this either, uh, sometimes it's like, they'll get on a level of elevation, they'll kind of stick with it. Normally they're not going up or down crazy. They'll path of least resistance if they're hurt. And they'll just kind of, they want to get away from where they got hurt,

first of all. And if they have strength, they'll get as far as away as they can until they get sick. But a lot of times there's going to be, I mean, a bowl for sure is going to leave signs of where he went. Right.

If you're around a lot of elk, and there's a lot of elk in that country, then those tracks are going to be, it's going to be tough to tell what tracks what. But if I'm hunting a big bull, I can tell a bull track. Just because bulls generally, their hooves aren't as sharp,

they're a little heavier. So when they walk, their hooves are hitting stuff and getting worn down, either rocks or whatever, a cow, smaller animal, the hook, the track is going to be sharper. So if you have a big like bull track that's that's a dull

because it's kind of been beat down the front of his, this hood's been, you know, hitting stuff and kind of getting worn down, you can identify. I followed a bull track for a long time with no blood. One time I remember one of the first times I ever went to that Utah hunt that I've done now for, I don't know, 15 years. But I followed this bowl for about seven. miles through three different

drainage just and on that one I had hit it was like 60 yards and I hit Arrow kind of went in and I hit a little low and it didn't get in his chest but it cut like or didn't get his heart but it got in and it cut a bunch

of stuff right here so what happened is that bull did not want to step hard on his left leg because it kind of hit the back shoulder of that left leg I could tell, like, I could see his hoof print on the right was good. And then this left one was light. I'm like, that's him.

He did not want to step on that. So I'm like, following in the mud through all these lost cameraman, cameraman, cameraman I can't keep up. I'm like, whatever, go back. I don't care. Because I, this is a long, long trail. And I remember one of the land boys, they were upglassing way on top of the.

Ridge and they called on the radio and this is like seven miles like I said but it a long way and they're like on the radio cam I got him he's bedded down and I snuck in there and shot him and it but that never would happen if I hadn't stayed on those tracks for hours do you remember how far you were from him when they finally radioed in probably let's see yeah I was probably half mile headed in the right direction head in the right direction head in the right Yeah, but I didn't there was no blood. That's crazy. Yeah, but he he was hurt because this had been This was the next day and I got in there got him killed and uh you know it took sometimes it takes everything it takes and also a little luck and also You know, yes we want to make perfect shots on them I'm giving some examples of

marginal shots because that's what we're talking about that still resulted in and it in the animal dying or you know like I said a superficial wound I've had a lot of perfect shots also. So I don't think that every kill is like some disaster waiting to happen. But that one, that was one of the longest blood trails I've been on. And yeah, I mean, I think it was Tyson who saw him. But yeah, got him killed. Point is sometimes just like with hunting, you got to dig deep. You got to outwork everyone.

and it might pay off. Yeah, I think the other thing with that story, too, is you kept following because you could. And so it's not like, oh, this, yeah, there's no, there's no blood or whatever. I'm just going to give up. It's like, I think a lot of people would have said that. Yeah. I think a lot of people would have said, oh, must have just grazed him. He's not bleeding.

He's went so far. He'll be okay. And you can convince yourself of a lot of shit. Right. and they might have believed that. And they might have pulled out and not, you know, not stayed on that bull and not got that bull. And that was a big six by six.

And I got them. So, yeah, we, it's hard to know when, when to quit and when to stay on it. If you have blood, you never pull off. If you have tracks in barely any blood, I never pull off. I'm staying on the tracks for as long as I can. Right. Because you never know.

And I'm ready. I got an arrow knocked. I'm hunting all the time. I'm always ready. And I think a lot of people get down and they start dragging their feet. They start like I screwed up. And then all of a sudden they jumped that animal and they weren't ready. And that could have been, they could have got another arrow in it.

So yeah, it's a. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot to cover. Just in general on, so let me talk about shots. I don't like frontal. I don't like ass Texas hard shots. I like broadside and quartering away. I like high percentage.

And still, it's challenging. But if you take high percentage shots, obviously that high percentage means something. What does that mean? A greater chance of success. right that's what we that's what we talk about when we say high percentage so broadside leg forward if possible because a leg back that shoulder blade on a bowl out could cover up a lot of the lungs that leg forward or coming in from the back rib and in going up and going towards that opposite leg that's the way to do it um so we have to be disciplined we have to be committed we have to be

clear thinking, we have to be poised in the moment. How do you do all that? That's just experience. Right. Right. Nobody, nobody is born great. Okay. That takes years and time and reps. So yeah, don't, if you've screwed up, it's okay. I mean, it's not, I mean, it's not okay, but it happens.

And it's part of the journey. And it's, we're never, were never just yeah shit whatever what it's just hunting no it's it's very serious but you're not immune to screwing up right and if you do it long enough i guarantee you're going to yeah what about you know you've talked about before just kind of people that get hyper focused on the crease or maybe they've been shooting foam target you know yeah the whole time talk about kind of maybe not getting so cute with your shot and and being more realistic about the area, you know, where you need to aim. Yeah.

And, you know, I'm just going to, I'm just going to, I've been doing this a long time. So I'll be honest and I'll say I've been overconfident. And I remember thinking back when I was a kid, like if I had a tree and there was like a gap through the trees and I could see the animal and I would be like, I mean, I practiced shooting through trees all the time. I would be like, yeah, I can kill that animal from here. Where I could have maybe taken three steps to the side and had a wide open shot. But I'm like, no, I like this little, you know, like playing horse.

You know, you want to like drain the hard shot. If you have, I had too much confidence, I'm like, I'll thread the needle right here and kill this thing. That doesn't always work. I mean, I've hit trees before doing that. I don't remember wounding an animal by being cute like that. But that's just dumb. Right. That's just dumb.

Make the best decision for that most high percentage shot you can. I don't care how good you are. Yep. Take those two steps to the side. Get wide open. So now I'm very like on the bowl that I just killed in Utah, Truitt filmed it. And you saw me readjust a couple times because I'm,

like, no, I need this perfect. I need, because as I said, I've ticked brush before and hitting brush with your arrow can really fuck it up. And you're not going to hit where you, where you thought you were. And then that animal might suffer. So now as again, as again, over 40 some years, now I'm like, I've made every mistake. Okay. I'm not, I've, anything I'm talking about, any, any lesson I'm saying to keep in mind, it's because I've learned it the heart. And I've fucked up. I have, I have, I've, I've wanted to quit Bowenny. It hurt so bad.

It hurt so bad because when it's all you care about and you screw up, oh, my God, that is, that is the worst. So yeah, I mean, it's, uh, it happens. Um, I want to talk a little bit about selection on, because again, as I've done this for so long, I've used about everything. And I'm going to go through like how I decide. You know, we talked about arrows last time, but I didn't really talk about broadheads specifically. And I said earlier that in Oregon,

expandables were illegal for many years. So we had to use fixed. And for a long time, well, these were tough to be right here. These blitz. And they quit making these. These are Rocky Mountain Broadheads or Rocky Mountain. What is it? Broadhead Company?

or no, Rocky Mountain Premier broadheads. And these were, I bought so many of these because they were so good, I knew they were going out of business or they sold or some fucking thing. But these blitz were incredible. And I remember the blades came off on the side. So it was like as your arrow, you know, we have these veins are at an angle. So your arrow kind of has direction. There's helical on it.

And you want that arrow spinning. The faster it spins is slower it goes. so you don't want it spending too fast. You don't want too much helical. But these were kind of billed as the blades came off the side. So in my head, the arrow would go in and then it would kind of twist and make a wound channel. And I thought that the blood trails with these were incredible.

So we shot fixed blade. I shot these for a long time. These are Montex. This is a Montec. And these indestructible, because they're one, he's, but G5, right? What those are called?

Yeah, Montec G5, yeah. But these were, I don't need, this might be as sharp as it was. So it's about as sharp as this coffee cup. I know a guy who he would, this is crazy. I haven't seen anyone do this, but he would sharpen him.

He would take that and he would have a little leatherman and he would just. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, no, that's good idea. Broadhead. That's a good idea. You know, here's the thing.

my buddy my friend's buddy this is how far this bow hunting thing has come i remember a hundred years ago before i even bow hunted i remember i knew where these bucks were up at marcola and i we're at lane community college me and my buddy and i was like hey i said you got a bow he's like uh my dad does and i go oh i don't know where these big bucks are i said you do you have you should get a i mean you got a tag right he's like yeah i got a bow tag and he goes me and my dad were going to go out um but But I can just take his bow. And I'm like, yeah, cool. I know, let's go try to find a buck.

So that was as serious as we were. Like, oh, your dad has a bow? Grab that. Good to go. Then my other buddy said, his dad said, it's better to shoot dull broadheads because they, they rip a bigger hole. I'm just telling you how far bow hunting has come.

All right. Yeah. If you look at the pictures of Fred Bear, Chuck Adam, or whatever from back in the day, they would have 16 arrows in their quiver. Like it was, they were, you know,

arrows in the quiver, don't deliver. If you want to kill something, you got to get an arrow on the air. So it's so much different now where you're so precise and everything matters, but that's just the evolution of bull hunting.

And that's probably why the wounding rates are, you know, down, or similar to rifle now. Maybe they were way high back. I mean, you're shooting dolebone. broadheads because it rips a bigger hole or you're borrowing your, obviously you're going to

wound shit, right? So, but these were, the knock on these is they were not sharp. So then they came out with a CS. These were like the Montec's CS and these were, I can't, carbon steel. That's what it was. And they were sharper. Okay. Just as tough, a little sharper.

You're like, okay, that's good. So I killed a bunch of bowls with these things. then so now expandables oh okay let me just talk about this if just in general like these these heads right here let me think like a like a montec that's a cutting tip right so that's sharp there this iron will that's sharp so what that means is it starts cutting right from the get-go whereas a head like this well even even like this one this doesn't cut this is expandable but this has a cone tip and it's not technically sharp like a blade but that has to push through before it starts to cut that's actually a little sharper than well there used to be some like say thunderhead 125s

had that chisel tip and they're not sharp so it has that chisel tip has to push in which is taking some penetration, taking some energy, and then it gets to the blades, right? If you have a cutting tip, now that's cutting from the get-go. So as soon as that hits, hide, it's cutting. The drawback with something like this, this is a two-blade head with a couple little bleaters, this is iron oil, it's a great head,

it's indestructible, sharp as hell, two blades. What does that mean? That means you're only getting a slice, essentially. Where this, I think the best, I know there's men who use this and they pull a lot of weight and shoot a heavy arrow and it's fine. I want more blood than this is going to result in. Because you got a slice instead of, this is what I use now. This is a big carnivore with 2.75 inches of cut. it's going to cause a huge wound channel, a hole, much bigger than this.

So why would you use this? Well, because to kill with an arrow, you have to get into the vials. If you shoot light poundage, you're younger, maybe you're not as strong, maybe you're a woman, maybe whatever. And you can't shoot 80, 90 pounds. And you don't shoot a heavy arrow because you have a 25 inch drop. because you're maybe a woman or a young bow hunter and your arrow weighs 400 grains, which isn't that heavy,

you're going to need something that helps penetrate so it gets in that chest. A broadhead like this that only has two blades and is only cutting a slice and starts cutting from the get-go with the cutting tip is going to penetrate. It's going to penetrate better

because this has to push in and open up all these blades. But if you have the power to do that, which, you know, I had 90 pound bow. This is a 400 and I think it's 80, 84 or 81 grain arrow. At that, you know, at that energy that I shoot, that's going to push in. And you look at this has blood all the way up to this killed something. I don't, I mean, it's got blood all the way up here.

So I got penetration on that and I cut a huge hole. That's high poundage. It's a heavy arrow. If you don't have that, this is a way to go. This iron will is going to penetrate if you hit it. I mean, if you hit it in the shoulder blade, it's not going to. If you hit it, you know, there's some hard things that's not going to penetrate. But if you get ribs in between the ribs behind the shoulder there, even at, say, 50 pounds,

just going to get in there and can kill the bull. Yep. This has killed a lot of bulls. And there's guys who shoot heavy pounder jet for whatever reason. are concerned about penetration or like the durability of this, they're going to use this. That's, it's not my choice,

but I respect. You want, you believe in what you use? Great. Yeah. That's all that matters. I, it took me,

took some convincing because I was like fixed blade forever. And like when I looked at, when I looked at a fixed blade, I was like, okay, that's good three blade head. These were a little noisy when they flew because is the cutouts there.

So I remember they, you could hear that, that arrow flying towards a target. And I was like, that animals hearing that arrow and their reaction times are so fast at the speed of sound. Speed of sound is so 1100 feet a second. Whereas your bow, like I said, might be 300. So the speed of sound of the arrow getting there is three times that of your arrow. And the animal's going to react if they can hear that coming. That's why I shoot like the quieter, lower profile veins.

And this head does not cut wind like this does. And anytime you're cutting wind, that's what's making noise. Now, this head here, another, you're not going to, that's as indestructible as it comes, because this is very thick right here. This is going to be harder to tune. It's just all there is to it. That's going to be able to plane unless you're bow, unless you're shooting like a super heavy arrow, maybe lighter poundage

or your bow is just so tuned perfect and your form is perfect if this flies, great. It's just tougher to get to fly perfect. And there's no knock on these heads. These heads are all, I mean, I shoot all these because I like knowing how my bow performs when,

I mean, a head like this is more critical. That's all there's to it. That's a lot of metal out there to get flying straight. It's going to be more critical. like to practice with this or with these because I can see if I'm screwing up or my bow's out of tune or whatever. I'm not going to hunt with it, but people do and that's great. I mean, I, I'm, I want people to make a living in archery and I want, I want, I want people to have like,

uh, uh, choices on, on what they select, uh, you know, a four blade. I don't know what this is. I don't think that's replaceable, but a four blade fixed head there. We got a two blade. here. We got one of these little, I think that's a slick trick maybe, but that looks pretty good. It's a little small for my liking. That looks tiny. I want a big wound, especially because I'm hunting big animals. But yeah, all these will work. All these will kill. It's this, the T2. T2, this is from G5. This is killed a lot of animals too. So it's what you decide. I think like the key is what matches up your equipment and your ability and your maybe the poundage you shoot, how your bow set up, what matches that to where you're putting the most things in your favor

to be successful? Light poundage, I think an iron oil head is good, heavier poundage. I want a big wound channel. And Wayne talked to me into shooting this. I was like a fixed blade guy, like I said, forever just because they weren't legal in Oregon. And about, I don't know, five years ago, I think. I was going to go to Idaho to do a deer hunt. I killed, I don't know, I don't know where that buck is, but it's around here somewhere. But a big wide four point, it might be, I think it's that buck.

No, no, that's Colorado. Anyway, so I was going to go kill a buck. And Wayne said, you need to try these carnivores. He showed me like he'd killed some big black towel up in the snow with like, I think the Karna 3 or the 3 blade. these are grim reapers and so I said all right I'll try it and I shot this buck and I hit a little bit high and a little back of shooting straight down in the wind like at 36 yards and I was like I shot and I hit him like oh god that was not it's a little high and back then the buck runs out there 80 yards and

tips over and I was like whoa that was different and that's pretty cool yeah because I think if I would have hit it with this, I think it would have went quite a ways. Probably, probably would have got it. It would have been hard. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I remember in Utah last year, the, the wound on the bully you shot was yeah. I mean, I think you posted a picture of it or maybe Adam did, but yeah, it was yeah, ridiculous. It was devastating. Yeah. So when you have almost three inches of a hole in an animal in the chest, it's not going to go far. Yeah. So it's, uh, I've killed like a lot of bowls with this setup right here over the years. And any failures I've had were just failures on me.

It's not on the equipment. I've never, a blades never broke off. A blades never, I mean, not opened. It's, they've performed. So that's just what I use. But people use, you know, a lot of different things. Yeah, I had a buddy who used a broadhead like that, just kind of the flat. Which one? This one.

Yeah. Yeah. And he was so anal. He built his own arrows, but he was so anal about it. He would make sure that every arrow, the insert when it was fully twisted down, was in line the same way, every time. I love that. Yeah. I love that's what it takes.

Yeah. I mean, well, that's not what it takes, but that's okay. It's a controllable. It's a controllable. And if you think about everything and try to control everything, yeah, I mean, it's going to pay off. It's going to pay off eventually. It might be maybe one out of 20 years, but that one year, if you fail one year, that hurts, dude. That hurts for a long time.

So I like the people get so intense and like, what is it? Just invested. Yeah, invested in what they use. I love it. Everybody's passionate about this shit and we should be because this is life and death for the animal and so it matters it's a big deal um yeah i just uh what i don't like i don't like people who i don't expect i guess i don't expect everybody to take it as serious as me or like your buddy that you mentioned yeah but i think the bottom end we can take it a little more serious i don't want

it i don't want it to be like when we were growing up it's like hey does your dad have a bow that's to me that's unacceptable we were idiots yeah and it's like i learned I'm talking about it. I don't want people to be like that. I don't, I'm embarrassed. I was like that. But I'm not anymore. And, you know, I haven't been for decades.

But I understand that when you're just getting into it, you might not understand the nuance in how all this matters and plays in. And you might not understand how bad it hurts to work your ass off and dream about something and then blow it and think that the animal's out there suffering. It's, there's, it's a lot of, it's a lot of angst and pain and second guessing. Yeah. And it's miserable. You're on the mountain by yourself questioning everything, your life, life choices.

I don't want people to do that. So I'm not saying that if you think about all the shit, you're immune to that because you're not. Because I've, I've still been, you know, humbled. And, oh, that's what I'm going to say. I don't, I don't care. who you are, bow hunting is going to humble your ass eventually. Yeah. It is so hard.

And the line of success and failure is so razor thin, you were going to be humbled and it's going to hurt. But you can count on it. I guarantee you. And if, you know, you have the constitution to get through it to survive, it to learn from it and to come out on the other side and find success your life you're going to be a different man yeah you're going to be you're going to be different you're going to grow you're going to you're going to evolve you're going to change and bow hunting can do that and uh i just want people to take it

very serious and to think about this and um yeah we're not perfect i'm not perfect i'm not saying i'm perfect. I'm not saying every choice I've made on this gear and equipment is perfect, but I just, I think about it a lot. And, uh, yeah. Yeah. I think it's, I don't know, I think people find that hopefully, uh, something they can kind of align with or relate to, you know, talking about all of that wounding and also, you know, controlling the controllables, giving your best, trying to find the animal, not giving up on it and, you know, mistakes happen, but you had to do your best. Yeah. Well, that's the discussion I wanted to have.

Yeah, it's probably not a popular one or it's probably not one I've ever really heard discussed. I don't think on a podcast, but I think it's important to talk about. Yeah. That's that. All right. Okay. Keep hammering, guys.

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