Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 205 - John & Jenn Rivet

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

John and Jenn Rivet are back again to talk about bear hunting. The Rivet’s renowned big-game outfitters, wilderness guides, and co-owners of The Rivet Company (formerly Livin' the Dream) based in Northern Alberta, Canada. With over 30 years of outfitting experience, they specialize in trophy Canadian black bear, whitetail deer, and wolf hunts. Follow John: https://www.instagram.com/johnnyrivet/ Follow Jenn: https://www.instagram.com/jennrivet_/  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 – Measuring Bear & Taxidermy Work 00:03:42 – Presentation & a Montana Knife Company Surprise 00:11:00 – Rivet’s Bear Hunt Giveaway & Bear Camp 00:13:12 – Hate Against Bear Hunting 00:17:11 – Tactacam & Hunting with Trail Cameras 00:26:09 – Colored Bear, Giants, and Smart Old Bear 00:29:25 – Cam’s 2026 Spring Bear Hunt 00:34:48 – Bear Management, Conservation, & Sex Differences 00:42:00 – The Quality and Taste of Bear Meat 00:44:46 – Hard Work & Shout Out to Kawasaki’s Quality 00:51:02 – What Screws Up Bear Hunts 00:55:39  – John’s Chainsaw Accident 01:01:05 – The Promise Land: Deep Country Bear & Returning Hunters 01:13:53 – Leaning on God & Wounded Bear 01:21:20 – The Impact of Strong Women Leaders  01:26:20 – Cam’s Spring 2026 Bear 01:33:22 – Rivet’s Bear Hunt & Bentley Giveaway 01:35:40 – Exceeding Childhood Dreams 01:39:41 – John’s First Hunt 01:43:02 – Bear Bait: Beavers and Carp 01:45:55 – Bear Color Variations and Grizzlies 01:49:05 – Measuring Bear Capes & Skulls 01:53:55 – Taxidermy, Bear Meat, and Traveling After the Hunt 01:58:00 – Broadheads and Final Thoughts Thank you to our sponsors: ALP: https://alppouch.com/ use code CAM for 10% off your first order Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 15% off Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 10% your order Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics

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 is so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. This is the Keep Hammer Collective.

I'm with John Rivett, Jen Rivet, my family from Alberta. You guys, we kill Big Bear, and is there any greater place to bear hunt than your outfit? We got Big Bears. Are you biased? We're biased? We're biased. Yeah, we have the best place. Even without that.

I know some other place that are pretty good, too, some guys that do well. But we only like to promote ours. We work harder. We work harder. And smarter. And you got better smile. Piss them all off right now because they'll be watching a podcast. Oh, they're going to hate.

I mean, they really hate when we say. They're already pissed off that you shot another eight foot. I know. And that you were measuring it wrong somehow. Okay. Is it that effing complicated? It's. If we're squaring him, length and width.

Divide by two. Yeah. That's it. It doesn't seem that. A skull, length and width. Now, not with a tape like this. Like some idiot. I got a 23-inch bear skull on a bumper.

No. Calipers on each side on each end. The longest and the widest. Add that up. There's your number. The one guy, and I understand, I mean, it's competition. Yeah. You know, he's got hunters in camp.

Yeah. And we say, oh, giant bear, his hunters are like, and they kill good bear too. Yeah. Yeah. So, for sure. It's, you know, it's how it. And we're not going to measure it the shortest. can be. Of course not. We're going to measure it as long as we can measure it. Well, when you take a

picture, you want to make the animal look as good as it can be. You want to represent that the best qualities of that animal. You don't sit in front of them and hold their hours or their head here. You want to feature the animal. Yeah. And like 40 years ago when I started, there was no measurements in Canada of square. We didn't know what that was. We learned that from Alaska. All the Alaska guys, a square bear, they go with, boom. But when you take the skin down hide and you stand on the back of the Kawasaki and you hold it and we hold out the legs you're not lying I mean six foot you can tell tail to nose and then that wingspan to be fair to all those other outfitters that are measuring when we measure the square if we're measuring a wide square it means it's been skinned

for a rug it's been skinned up the throw it's not tube if it's right you're a foot and a half less right right so it's a it's a bear that's skin for a rug is what we're measuring yeah and it's you know these are big bear yeah and when the taxidermist makes a rug out of it he's not shrinking it he's stretching it. He's pulling. They're pulling and stretching the whole hide. Well, that Orion taxidermy they can't take any more clients. I've never had a

life size bear. Yeah. So Jammer is the nicest life size I've ever seen. We just got it back right before we came. It looks incredible. That chocolate one? Yeah. Oh, so beautiful. I shot it in 2022 and I kept it for a while, wasn't sure where I wanted it and it was just like this is a bear of a lifetime. Like I just don't want to. So I humed and And then we started talking with him, started working with him, and I started looking at his bears. And I'm like, I think he can do it.

He did it. Oh, man. It's freaking awesome. And some of our taxes on us have been two, three, four year turnaround. This guy is a year. He's already calling. We dropped the bears off. Say it was, was it Tuesday?

We dropped the bears off Tuesday. Wednesday morning, clients are getting calls asking what they want done with their bear. We're like, wow. They're on top of their pros. Yeah. It was fantastic. Paul Deagle just got his in New York. And he showed picking that up at the door.

It's not in a cardboard box. His bear rug was in a plastic. towed with locks on it where you're not going to damage the skull you're not going to damage the head or the claws anything it's so safe in there plus if customs wants to open it open the latches go in don't have to tape the box it's sweet they get their shit figured out it's a well so the the presentation right yeah that's like the next quality next level of quality is when you buy a good product or you get a good animal or something like that but then the presentation like i think montana knife i think we need to talk about yes don't you guys have something we want to we want to talk about

here. Let's do this right now. Yeah. But Montana Knife is. We're talking to Brandon. We're like, we want to do something on the podcast that Cam can do a giveaway. Yeah. And I'm thinking, let's do the pack out skinner. Your pack out, the cams pack out. Let him, let him just open it. Let him see what it is. And then Brandon goes, I got a better idea. I got a better idea. How about we do something that? Oh, the MKC chopper? Look at the packaging. I know. Why didn't you spend so much on packaging? Because it's freaking beautiful. If you give that as a gift, you think of the guy receiving that, he's like, okay, this means something. This is nice. And I, I, I love. I, I love, I love, I love, like this like this this little quality detail right here who did this i can't read from that

yeah it says uh sharpened by brand it says brand it says brandon quality control dylan packaged by dylan so it's just like they can track it means something to them it's like every step means something and then this is just incredible you get the sticker for your rig your little pericord here when your name is on it you're going to do it to perfection because they're going to know it's you yeah it's like our old pastor used to say you just don't want fans, you want raving fans. Right. How do you get raving fans going over the top? Look at this stunner.

Check at this out. Oh, my God. Oh, look at that. You see that? You know what I, you know what I'm going to use this for? This is my. Oh, my God. No.

That's it. That's your knife for running up on the bears. Look at that. This is my counting coup knife. Oh, yeah. Now, because you give him the left arm, stab him with this. Yeah. And this.

That's a moment. Yeah. Look at this. Solid, so it's not gonna... You can chop wood with that one. Oh yeah. It's not gonna fold up on you or anything. I want one.

Oh man. They did the sweet logos on it. I was like, he says, let me surprise you. He says, I'll surprise you. This is beautiful. Yeah. She's sharp. Sericote is what they put on those.

I know, I'm very sharp. So shout out to Montana and I if you guys are awesome. First glass. Always above and beyond what you expect. Shipped it next day, next day shipping. I love those guys. you know, it's like such a success story. Yeah.

And, you know, Josh Smith as a lineman, a working class guy, nine to five guy out there, busting his ass on poles, you know, string and power lines. And then had a dream. Yeah. Always loved sharpening knives making as a knife maker. And now that dream is incredible. I mean, we were both at the grand opening of their new facility. That was awesome.

Incredible. It's amazing. I was in tears walking through. They were just seeing the success. But you've seen the crowd that's around them. everybody's cheering the other guy on. It's not like, oh, or they're all negative. Everybody's excited for-

There's plenty negative out there, but not at the thousand people that were there. No. But I think the negative is just people who are, you know, they see somebody else's success as their own failure. Yeah. Yeah. It's not. It's like we can all win. Yeah. That should be an inspiration to you. Yeah. I like that saying we can all win. Yeah. We can all win. It's like I was talking to somebody lately and goes, there's enough oxygen for all of us. I know. I know, but there's There's some people out there that they just want to strangle you for what? Yeah. The crab bucket mentality. I'm cheering you on when you're succeeding.

I'm cheering these guys on when I succeed it because I know I'm next. Plus if you guys win, I win. Oh, this is incredible. Thank you, Montana Knife. I mean, these guys have been the best partners, you know. I mean, we're lucky to have, you know, grizzly coolers, Montana Knife. We have the best, the very best partners. And it's, speaking of packaging and partners.

So, do you remember Travis? Here's my softie. Guys are fucking crazy. Yeah, that's Travis. He was in Bear Camp with us and just a great guy. The most generous person. And, you know. I have a freaking roll.

I have a fake roll. from 25 years ago. Now you got a real one and that thing is nice, dude. I don't even know how to open it or how to do anything. That thing is nice. It is beautiful. And so he, he wanted me to give that to you on the podcast.

Where's the camera? They're picking. They're everywhere. Good job, Travis. You got me good. Sneaky. I know. He's talked to him quite a bit.

Yeah. Wow. I actually dropped the boat. That's not long ago that you did this. Yeah. It's not amazing. Yeah. So this is,

this is what happened. happens when you're not opening up on yeah let camp open it because he's a pro at it I don't want to break anything not not really but such a baby I said I'm not going to cry on this podcast this time we watched a bit of last years right now yeah I was crying again were you I don't even remember when I was talking about my life story and why I'm appreciative yeah yeah here you go I'm known to be a little aggressive when I'm opening stuff and I can cut myself or hurt myself or break something yeah so there you go see how does that work look at that yeah it's pretty Isn't that? Isn't that nice? So Travis, thank you. I mean, wow.

What his last name? Hassey. Hassy. Yeah. I'm, it's just, you know, what a guy. I gave away for that carbon watch company. They've been so generous, but I gave way to one to one of my followers too. And it's just, you know, a watch like that is a lifetime gift. Yeah. You know, that's quality. That means something. But it's just, it's not even that the quality. It's just like, it's just what it really. represents. It's just Travis came up there. He respects so much the hard work you guys put forth, how much you care about the bears, how much you care about the clients and doing it the right way. And when you carry yourself like that and you make decisions like that and you treat people

the way you treat them, this is what happens. And when people, you know, people, there's people who might behave a certain way because they want something in return. But when you don't, you don't need anything in return, things happen. Yeah. And it's just, I'm so happy you got that. It's just, yeah. That's amazing. Thanks, Travis. Now you don't have to try to find them. I've been looking for one since Christmas. I don't even know what to say. So beautiful. So beautiful. Yeah. So Travis, Carbond watch company. Yeah, this is, this is amazing. And these, a Rolex, dude, that's, there you go. You got to keep that. When I get dressed nice, I got a nice watcher put. There you go. Or like Cam, we can skin bears with it. Cam, Travis.

Oh, I know. I wore his like really nice night. Working on a $100,000 to watch all I know. Yeah. And he sent James a, what was that a tutor? Tutor, yeah. Yeah. And James is a complete fuck up. He doesn't deserve a watch.

He's going to say here. That didn't get the pop I was hoping for it. Wow. So also, oh, what I was going to do. say i kind of screwed up my delivery so on the note of this giveaway here wait how the how do i open this again it flips friend flip magnet flip so god that's a nice knife this is a cool but what what we want to talk about is we're going to give away a bear hunt with the rivets so i'll announce it here on the podcast it's going to be like the old giveaways that we've done where you just get some merch and you're inter to win

in a bear hunt with the rivets, which is, I mean, I've done a lot of bear hunting. It's the best black bear hunting I've ever been, been lucky enough to experience. And we love sharing. We love sharing. We've been blessed. Yeah. I think, I don't think anybody would argue or we wouldn't argue by saying we've been blessed. We're very lucky.

Yeah. Right. So to me, just because we've been blessed so much, it's kind of our duty to give back also. Yeah. And I want to give away a bear hunt. I want people to experience what it's like to see the giant black bear you guys have. And also just be what I like about it too. And I love like where you guys are letting me give like the little pet talk before.

Because I love talking about, hey, this is how this camp works. And this is how it works the best. When everybody's contributing and everybody's cares, everybody's invested in it, you know, we take ownership over the whole process. And every, it's, it's incredible. That camp that we had this week, or I mean this year with Travis and and Brendan for Montana Knife and everybody who's there, everybody was like, you'd say, hey, we need to go do this. Everyone was out there.

Sure. Like, dad, I can't even work. Like everybody's doing it. Yeah. And that's, to me, that was like. That was the best help ever. That week was incredible. Yeah.

But it was different coming from you. Like for me, I do it every week. It's kind of like that record that just gets played over and over and over again. Yeah. And I just want people to succeed. That's why I do it. And then coming from you. coming from you, it was pretty awesome.

And then the next week, you were on the phone. You called in and we did a FaceTime and you gave them all tips and everything. They loved it. They were really, yeah. They were really, yeah. They really appreciated it. Yeah. He's becoming a lifelong bear hunter.

He's booked. Is he? Yeah. Yeah. We took a bunch home, cooked it up. He's like, I know. This is amazing. Yeah.

Was he getting a little bit of like hate? He got lots of love. Tons. He got like 99% love. Yeah. Had just a little bit of hate. What was that about? His followers go after them.

Just stick to beef. It's meat church. Do you think we're not going to kill anything? It's meat church. Because it was bear me? Yeah. Because it was bear. Yeah.

Yeah, they went after them. It went on Nat Geo. Nat Geo sent all the people after them. This guy's going to bear. Hey, bears need to be managed just like deer and elk. Yeah. I mean,

what I would say when people question me on why would you kill a bear. Yeah. I always say, well, somebody has to. And if you won't, I'll do it for you. Yeah. Just say thank you. Yeah. Well, you look at the grizzly population right now in Alberta.

There's a lot of trouble bears right now. Like there is so many. They're having to shut down areas where people are going because the bears are going after people. Through BAMP, Jasper, there's been attacks. There's been, you know, a lot of close calls. Yeah. Nothing's managing it. They're the top of the totem pole.

And an elderly couple just got killed in Saskatchewan by Black Bear. Yeah. Like people, oh, it must have been a grizzly. No, black bears. Black bears kill more people than Grizzlies. It's because they're everywhere. I know. So many bear.

They're like in their 70s and they never, nobody heard from them. So they went to check on them. and one was dead by the cabin, one was dead drug in the bush. Wow. That's horrible. Oh, there must have been something wrong with that black bear. No, that's a black bear doing black bear. Predator.

That's what they do. Yeah. They eat whatever's easy to get. Yeah, they'll eat, you know, if something's dead, they'll come across, they'll eat it. If they have to kill, they'll do that too. Moose cabs, they're pretty good. They're pretty good at. And you never know.

They went fishing. They got fish smell on their pants, on their hands. Or there was something there that the black bear claimed, whether it was blueberries around their cab and who knows. that was his food source. Yeah. You're coming into my area. He's going to take care of it.

Yeah. I think. So my friends in Manitoba had to deal with, we knew the guy that was the police officer. We knew the guy that was the paramedic and then the body removal. This is years ago, probably 20 years ago, 15 years ago. Elderly guy. He went in his backyard. He had fruit trees, beautiful garden, and he went to pick some fruit.

And he didn't come back in for a while. His wife finally looks outside and there's a bear eating him. Bear was eating his face off. Oh. Yeah. I think people just, they, I, I think they see a lot of stuff online where black bear can be harmless. They can also be very dangerous.

But people like get lulled into a false sense of security with animals just in general. But with bear, you got to respect them. Yeah. You know, I just shared one the other day. It's a coup do somewhere. It must have been in South Africa. But guy fed it. Then he was like rubbing his forehead.

Yeah. Thing, you know, charged him. And he had big scars on his or cuts on his face. And it's like, guys. It's made good decisions. I'd rather be a wild animal. I'd rather be a bear than a bison. Oh.

Do you see that guy that went flying? Oh, my God. He got launched. Yeah. He got launched. But then you get down, like, poor old guy, poor kids, all this stuff. I feel bad for them. But then on the other hand, us that have some wisdom, we're like, you don't go mess with them.

They're wild animals. They're not like pets that they let out during the day. Yeah. Yeah. The stupidest question a park ranger ever got was somebody asked them, where do you guys put the animals at night? Where do you put them away at? People are just, are clueless. Some people are clueless.

They're so detached from the wild that, you know, they think it's like TV or something. Or it's not real or it's pretend. It's like, no. I see those big bison. I'm like, mm. Because I used to, I used to think maybe we'd do a ranch. I wanted to have bison on it. Oh, yeah.

I love the meat. I love watching them and everything. Hard to handle. And they're just bulldozers. All of our friends that have had bison have been damaged at some point. Really? Badly hurt. Yeah.

I know Rich Fronian, one of the guests that I've had here is a CrossFit guy. He has bison. Yeah. And yeah, they're big animals, you know. Huge. And they can be aggressive. And those bulls, you don't know what the bull. Or even the females, if they got, you know, little ones running around.

Yeah. That's always a, that's a whole other thing. Yeah. You know, those buffalo calves, they're going to protect them. Yeah. They're going to stomp your ass. So I decided no on that. So.

Well, since we were doing gifts, I have one for Cam. We have one more. This relates to bear season, some of our success. Okay. Okay. Okay, brand new. Just got launched. Brand new models just came out right now.

Oh, sick. It's not in all the years yet, but it's getting there. This, because I. 4.0 Pro. Oh, this is great. Dual cameras on it, dual lenses on it. Man. It's not going to make noise when it takes pictures.

It's a huge battery. Is it a cell cam? Yeah. Oh, sick. And the whole bottom is a battery now, so you get a ton more battery time with it. It's incredible. So Blacktail, Elk, whatever, whatever you want to do. I run these for Blacktail.

I mean, this is key for Blacktail. And I would expect that camera to be. three, four hundred bucks, I'd pay anything for it. It's a hundred and something. Well, like, one twenty nine for the non-pro and one-five nine for the pro. And Tacticam is like, we've talked about this just in camp. Thank you, Tech-Cam. But in camp, like, how much has changed your guys' operation? So, so explain, explain what it's done to how you guys. It's one of the keys to success. Like, even on a, on a wolf hunt, okay, we've got cameras, we got cell service. Well, even places where there's poor cell service, the cameras have such a powerful antenna.

That they're getting, your phone has no bars or one bar, and that'll have several bars. And just, it's amazing where it works. But on a wolf fund, okay, so if we're headed to a wolf bait, if the wolves are on a bait and we drive in there, you're going to blow them off and you're not seeing them for a week. Before we get there, we can check the cameras. Oh, shit, they're there. We're not going in right now. Let them leave first, and then we'll sneak in.

So for that, it's incredible. On those ones, you can use a solar panel, so you'll never have to change batteries. Like on the ones watching our house, they got solar panels. They're 100%. We're sitting right now in Jordan, Texas, hey, mom, there's a strange vehicle. Go on the app, look at it. I'm like, oh, okay, that's buddy. He's got a different truck.

He's cutting everything. All right. All's good. Yeah. With the bears, though, the solar panels don't work so good because the bears like to eat them. If you touch it, the bear want to find out. They want to mess with it. They want to find out what's going on.

But in the spring with those cameras now, now you can go again on the app and you can look, you can check all the time. And they come automatic on your phone. And it's like, oh, you're waiting for this big board or show up or whatever. And it's like, oh, they're there. Well, you know, once he's in he's got maybe three four days to capitalize on it so you can go in there with the non-cellular as we'd check you know we'd rebate all the base at least once a week so you're

doing the and then you're checking tips yeah yeah it's like oh crap he was there monday and now it's saturday already it's like well you guys are your country's so spread out too i mean it's hours from from the furthest one way to hours north is five hours of driving right so you can't get to how many bays you have 60 yeah you can't get to 60 base no and take advantage you said like yeah Sometimes it might be two days. A boar might have a sow there that's in heat and he wants to get her bread and go take off. So I know last year, Raven that I killed is the first eight footer. That bear, we saw it was on in the morning.

That's right. It gave us that hit on the cell camera. And we got to run over there and got him killed him like an hour. Yep. And normally if it was like the old days, might have checked that chip maybe a couple days later. Yeah. And, oh, there was a bear here a couple days ago that doesn't help us. Yeah, exactly.

But you guys, I mean, it's like such a game changer, especially because we only want to kill these old males. Yeah. So it's not like that, you know, every bait has multiple bear on it. And people, I think they get a little confused because they say, oh, this hunting doesn't look hard because there's a million bear there. Well, those aren't shooters. We're only after those big old males because that's what's. best for the, you know, for the management of the species. And, uh, if we focus on those, well, you have to be able to keep track 60 base. They'll, they'll be like 20 big bore, but

yep, on what one. And he may only make a mistake once in five years, once in seven years. Yeah, because your bear was once in five years. Hers was once in seven years. No one had seen it in seven years. And same same with that was a scarface last year. Like how often you guys hadn't seen him and he'd been around for years also. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. No corporate playbook, just a brand that does its own thing and doesn't apologize for it. That's what got my attention.

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ketones are your brain's preferred fuel source. So instead of that spiked caffeine feeling, the focus feels calm and controlled. It lets me push without leaning on caffeine or sugar. I'm not chasing another cup of coffee or something sweet just to get through a workout or a long day. I can train, work, and think without that roller coaster of energy. Physically, I feel ready to go. Mentally, I'm locked in. That combination matters when you're putting in long after. hours and real work. Visit ketone.com backslash cam for 30% off your subscription order plus receive a free gift with your second shipment or find ketone IQ at target stores nationwide in the hydration of protein aisle and get your first shot free. So being around or like coming on

camera at night is different than hey he's on there right now with the house out. Nice thing with us is we don't have a lot of problems with nocturnal bears. Well it doesn't get dark till 11 o'clock night right so you got a lot of hours of day time to get them it's daylight at four in the morning it gives you a bit of advantage though too of course like with our weather when it started raining i mean there's places you can't they're not accessible so it's like okay then you kind of look at the cameras okay i can't really get well you could get in there but it's going to take an extra hour and a half to get to that bait or two hours to get to that bait so you can really adjust where you're taking who and plan out and what's safest and what's best and yeah it sucks

that they banned them in uh utah's ban now outside of hunting hunting season. Oh, the trail cameras. Yeah. You can use them outside of hunting season, but not during the season. I think two weeks before you got to quit or something. Yeah. Kind of crazy.

I mean, it doesn't, it's not going to make you help you. It'll help you get one, but it's not going to make it guaranteed to get a bit of. No. Still hunting. Just another scouting. You see a picture and it's like, okay, well, we're going to get there. Well, it's still going to be anywhere from an hour to two and a half three hours before you're going to get there.

If you can get there. And also, those big boar, I mean, I had to be perfect to kill that scar. face last year yeah I mean he I would see him saw him a few times yeah but those old bear because these bates have been you've been baiting for years there so it's like some of these bears that are 20 80s they might be 30 years old they know how it works yeah right so they know like okay the stand's usually here I'm keeping my eye there yeah and those old bore they're not gonna stand for any funny business and they'd rather chase females than eat yeah but the young bear are in there and they're coming up to you all the time and people see these videos and they're

like, oh, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. It's like, that's not what we're trying to kill. We're trying to kill that one that's standing back there that won't come in unless you're perfect. And if you make a little tiny bit of noise, like I've told these guys, it's like, you know, it doesn't ruin the hunt, but they're back there listening. You make any noise. He's just like, I heard that. We're going to give it another hour now. They're 200 yards. Yeah. Or I smell that. That's, or I smell that. That's. That's different. Yeah.

And you see him sometimes, well, with my big brown one, circling. Yeah. Way out there, circling. Didn't want to come in. Then the Sal finally came in. And he's circling, circling. We waited for two hours. Finally he started.

But he never stopped. He never came into the bait. He skirted the edge of the bait going after where she went. And I just had a window. Yeah. Took the opportunity. Other than that, he wasn't coming into the bait. Still got to get lucky.

You still got to do everything perfect and get lucky. Yeah. Yeah. You got to hit him the right spot. The key is there are giant black bear. So that's the first part. Yeah. We got that out of the way.

There's giant black bear in this country. Now. It's such a different animal. Right. Now can we get lucky a little bit? Can we make good decisions? Can we not screw up when we're sitting there? Can we get a little favorable wind?

Can maybe a sow can drag them in? Yeah. You still need things to go your way. But there's giant bear there. So at least there's that. Because a lot of people are, they're bear hunting where there's no big bear. And they're holding a hoe for a big bear. Yeah.

But the outfitter might say, hey, any bear shows up, you better kill it. Oh, yeah. And sometimes that's how a lot of five foot bear get killed. That's right. Because that's just what that's just what that area produces like is. Remember the old saying color phase bears don't get that big. They just don't get big. Yeah, they do if you let them grow.

They do. But everybody wants to kill them when they're five foot because nice fur. Yeah. Mine was over eight foot square. That's insane. And you guided one like that this spring two. I did another one this year. Yeah.

Massive massive. That was incredible. How big was that one? Where did it go? Did you go? I should write it down. I did write it down somewhere, but... Like 7, 8 or something, was it?

Yeah, I-7. Wide, crazy wide. Yeah. It was way bigger than the barrel. Big bear. Yeah. And that bear, no one had ever seen him.

We seen them on camera. No one had ever seen them again. Same thing. Those giants, no one had seen them. And I don't... Some of them are really smart. Some of them, I think, are just lucky. where the timing, you just weren't at the right place at the right time.

Because that one hit, he used to hit two, three different baits. This year he hit four baits. He went further. It was on that? He traveled about 20 miles. One of the north ones, yeah. Yeah. He traveled about 20 miles.

I don't even want to say the numbers. Then everybody's keeping track of the next. Exactly. But he travels. And he travels. He's a big bear ridge, wasn't he? He just looked, yeah. He's just looking for salas.

He just wants to breed everything there, which is amazing how many he's bred there. Because remember there's a lot of sour dates. Yeah. brown sow that's over 20 years old. She's made so many babies that are that color. Well, him, same.

We think there's like a 30 year old sow. Yeah. That one with no teeth with the white all over its face, the gray, gray face. Gray hair speckled all three. We never hunted there this year. I never had to. Well, you think, though, we say that. But there's always going to be bears that come through that you just have never seen.

Yeah. You don't know how far they're coming from. Or have they always just had kind of little sections somewhere where it's really crappy to get into and that's their little honey hole and they've got enough Girls work. Black Bear lives in 10 square miles generally, except in the rut. Well, and you guys have so much country. That's another thing. It's just like it's northern Alberta, but it's like. It's over three million acres. It's crazy. So, and it's so thick. This is why baiting is really the, the best way to manage these animals. Yeah. Because we don't want to shoot sows. We don't want to shoot young male. Yeah. And we need to be able to get a good look at them. Yeah. And sex them sometimes. It's like, it's hard to tell a giant sow from.

from a boar. Yeah. Because there's seven foot sow. I mean, you talked about that one real old one,

that's a huge bear. We had that big chocolate come in last year up on that log. Yeah. Yeah. And that thing was a seven foot most beautiful bear.

You'd swear it was a bore. Yeah. And she had three cubs with her. Yeah. We're like, whoa. All different color kind of. Oh yeah.

She came in again. She had a trifecta. She had a trifecta. Yeah. We're like, wow. She's massive. She is big. She's big.

There's so many color phases on that bait. go that that hunt my my spring that's all I really look forward to in the spring is just going up and hunting with you guys and it's like just being in camp and eating french toast and james even said he loves being up there yeah I know so I guess we need to talk about what happened this year more I know we posted on social and stuff about this year's bear yeah bear's what happened pretty freaking awesome you don't have to spend nine days this time I know you're done like three quarters of the week and then you're normally you'd be on a plane going home because you're busy at the

get back to work to your day time right yeah yeah now you were able to sit there we relaxed it was amazing oh it was so fun it was so fun i just i just love the whole i love it all i love the camp i love the people like we have good clients you know it's it's feel really lucky to normally i don't have to share camp with very many people you guys kind of keep my week separate but we had a great great camp this year everybody was done early somewhere went home early yeah So with your first bear, we went into two. So we do have some little holes in the bottoms that we just can't get cell service. Right.

So we still have to go old school. Yeah. So this is one of those holes. So we're baiting a run. And this is one of the holes that we hadn't got to check the camera for a while. So we decided you and James, we went in there to check that camera rebate and everything. Yeah. Just no big bears live there.

It's a lot of country behind it where they can come from. Yeah. And there's always lurkers there. We barely hunt some of those baits. Like you just don't have time. Yeah. There's so many bears on some. on so many bates that you, some of the baits, you end up not even on them.

And some of them, it's like, because you have to go pull that card, it's a little bit more of an effort. And it had rained like crazy. The trails were. It's a lot of mud to get there. Yeah. It was a shit show. There's a washout or there was a wash out there.

You guys went to bait it. You went to check the camera. We went in in the morning to bait it. And we got in there and it was like, oh, there's a bear there. Oh, there's a big bear there. And it's like, figured out it was a big bore and a big sal. And we're like, oh, baited it. And they're kind of hanging around.

So we did all of that. Yeah. Coming at you guys or anything? Or what was he doing? Yeah, he was, uh, yeah, I mean, he was not wanting to leave. Yeah. Well, his girlfriend was there. And we were kind of squeezing in between him and the girlfriend, I think.

He wasn't too happy about that. No. So we went back to camp and we were thinking, what do we do? And there again, I tell people, if you want to, if you want to kill a bear, don't come with me. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, don't shoot that bear.

He's not big enough. I'm like, and I'm like, he's beautiful. You didn't see him. I saw him. I'm like, he's a beautiful bear. You know bear. You saw him. He was a beautiful bear.

Yeah. Big white marking on his chest. I was like, so when we're deciding where we want to go and you're like, I think we should go back there. Just so the viewers know, Cam is not a bear hog. Cam doesn't kill all the biggest bears we have. He's happy killing a nice bear. And this was a beautiful bear.

Like you see a seven foot bear with a nice coat. Yeah. He's getting shot. I'm like, no, wait. We want to get a big one. I love, yeah. Like, I don't follow the script as well as like you would like me to. Yeah.

Because I just like bow honey. I have to bargain with you. okay, we're not shooting until later tonight. We're going to see what else coming in first. Yeah. Well, and I was with you this year, and I was like, that's a beautiful bear. Yeah. But the kicker was, so long story short, they seen it online, is like we did go back in and we're getting,

we weren't into the bait yet. And we seen the sow up there and she took off. Yeah. And then off to the left, I guess, way in there, we saw another bear. And I'm like, so he went in spotting and stocking him. Yeah. So it wasn't your normal bear hunt. Like, he had to go in after him.

And he was not a small bear. No. He's freaking beautiful bear. Yeah. And you're like, oh, good job. Did you count Kuh on that one? Did, yeah. Got a really good one.

Yeah. Yeah, which we still haven't figured out the right way to show that. I don't know what there is the right way. Yeah. I've seen the kill shot and it's amazing. Yeah. I heard because I was following behind you guys. I didn't want to rush in behind because I wanted to make sure everything was good.

Like I don't like doing that. I'm not him. I'm not going to run up behind you. Yeah. Because I'm not a good runner in woods with the knees. He just explodes when the arrow goes through. I know. Yeah.

And then he did have quite an intense death bone. He did. But he was done. Like he just laid there and it was done. I could see it all. And I was just like, well, and you get goosebumps and all that. Because everybody's like, oh, they kill is so great. That's the main thing.

No, it's this. The whole process of years and all the dynamics and the work and just everything worked out that he was there. Yeah. Because we took a gamble. Yeah. Because if we went in there and he wasn't there, well, then, okay, we'd have to decide are we going to sit here?

We're going to back out. Go to a different bait. Yeah. But I think it was meant to be because it was pretty epic. Yeah. And that one, he was sitting when I shot and it's a little bit different when their vitals kind of change with their stand up or they sit it's a little they hang or position a little differently so

I thought I smoked him but I took off after him and I'm like did I smoke him? Yeah yeah. Because he was at the tree like this like kind of going up started to go up the tree and he's looking at me and I was like running up to him and I'm like wasn't sure. sure but then he kind of went down I mean he was he was hurt but yeah it was intense it's intense but mostly I just like to be there to thank them yeah for their sacrifice for for allowing me to you know I'm gonna eat that meat yeah yeah I killed them that life means a lot to me um I don't take it for granted so I just want to thank them but it's it's an intense experience yeah it's yeah

for many times we would get have tears well up in our eyes because it is so powerful that that moment and just what it means to us. And then, of course, an animal died. So it's, it's. Yeah, we don't. We don't. Yeah. We love our bears.

We protect our bears. Like, we harvest the ones that need to be taken at the right time. But other than that, we don't want a bear killed for another. No. Like a farmer, you know, a farmer that's having bear problems, they're eating this crop and everything. And they call me and say, can you come kill all these bears. I'm like, no, I can't.

I'm not going to shoot. We're not so out with cubs. No, I can legally. Those bears can all be taken because they're damaging his crop. But I can't get really hard for us. Yeah. So like you're attached to them, but they're very important. And you value every part of them.

It protects all of our sows. Oh, I do. You're not shooting any sows at our place. Yeah, I think that needs, we need to talk about that too. That's, like I said, there's many outfits that if a bear comes in, they tell their clients shoot it. Brand new hunters with us this year, they're rebooked again for next year and they're going to come every year, I believe. The thing that hit them was they've been to other camps. been to other camps there was never a talk about a sow or conservation or what it means how to

manage a big bear you shoot it yeah yeah so us talking of you talking about we don't harvest sows we let them get we let but i explain why and they get it before that first time bear hunter they don't know they just want a bear yeah well there's a difference between a bear and the good bear yeah like and i mean if i was i guess kind of a jerk would be like yeah shoot whatever bear you want it's your first bear who what hooray but it's not it's like with that same same I was sitting on a bait with him and this beautiful color phase came in and I looked right away okay it's a sow it's got we saw the genital we saw the we saw the vagina hair so it's like okay it's a sow and she's by herself walking around for an hour and she's acting kind of weird I thought

she's probably got a little cubs something new little newborns and all of a sudden a couple hours later out of the tree right above us here comes this little brown thing and it was hers yeah I said to him says, now if you were somewhere else, that bear come in, you'd have shot it because they wouldn't have warned you about anything. And now those bears are all dead. And then those babies are dead. That's why we manage them. That's why you go to watch.

And if a sow does come in and like, oh, well, they have no cubs or whatever, if they act all agitated or weird or they're pacing or they're circling and all that, normally it's because they got babies. Maybe not right at the bait. It could be 200 yards out. Yeah. If they're yearlings, they'll be with her. But if they're like this, newborn, or first thing in the spring, you're not going to see for a while.

Yeah. Yeah. And how that, I don't know if there's any worse feeling than killing a bear and it's a sow and then you see it's lactating. Yeah. Because then you know cubs are going to die. Yeah. And that, you know, hunting is like, it's hard. It's hard. Yeah. But you don't want to make a poor decision.

And then because sometimes those decisions you think about them for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not like we just kill and we forget. It's like, I don't care about these animals. It means a lot. And then you think about like, then you think about you killed a sow and then you wonder about those, the fate of those cubs. And that's, I don't, that is hard.

But here's the flip side of that. If you can be that person, which I definitely cannot be, that can do that and be like, oh, whatever, there's more. Oh, whatever. It'll die. It's nature taking its course. I'm like, no, no, no, that's not nature taking its course. Like, that's why I impressed so much about checking what type, you know, what sex to bear is. You inserted yourself in there and killed that style.

That wasn't nature. I mean, maybe a bore will get a cub or something will happen to wolf or something like that. That's nature. That's what we control the controllables. You have, that's why we had people come, no binoculars. I'm like, I say on my list, bring binoculars like, we're sitting 20 yards. Why do we need binoculars? How else do you see it?

Well, you said you saw the vagina hair and that's what people, you know, like, where they pee out the back that. it bleaches those hairs sometimes on a female. Yeah. And then a male will have like penis hair, like it has the penis, but then there's longer hairs. Like on a dog when they're walking. Yeah. And I started doing this years and years ago and he's like, what I'm trying to figure out what.

Because people said the ears are big, the head to size, the paws of this. It's all general, but you've seen some of ourselves. Mm-hmm. You with that big brown one. I know. Absolutely positive for that. Couldn't be a big boy. But then as she's walking, it's like, no, that's a big mama.

Yeah. Yeah. And then we do the beaver pool, hoping that they, you know, that they'll go up and stand up. And then if it's a sow and she's like to, you'll see right away on her chest that she's nursing. Or that she has spots where she has in the past. And then if it's a bore, well, obviously you see like we'll call it the twig and berries. They're right there. You can't miss it. Right.

I mean, somebody said, Stevie Wonder could have seen those ones. So, you know. But one, you know, a lot of time those big bear come in low light, even when they're standing, you still have to have those binoculars on that. Low light, you just don't shoot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that last 10, 15 minutes where you're not sure, it's going to be hard to judge. It gets tougher to make a shot too.

You're looking at black, you know, trying to narrow. And if I'm sitting with clients or like, what do you think? I'm like, I cannot see. This is my job and I cannot. I can't. Yeah. It's just too dark. And I'm like, I'm calling it.

Well, there's 15 minutes. We can sit until the end. Yeah. But we're not shooting because I'm sure you can't see. And you guys want people to kill just as bad as they do. Yeah. But I want it to successful kill. It's got to be the right one.

It's got to be the right one. And when it's low light, you know how tricky it is to see, because you say you always want to pick that hair. Yeah. Well, in the dark, when it's low, low light on a black bear. Can't see. It's tough. And also, like, you'll have a bear come in that's like, might be borderline, might be six, six and a half, which early in the hunt, a six and a half foot bore, maybe you want to wait for a seven. But that bear comes in in in light and you're like, oh, it's a six and a half foot bore.

Yeah. It comes in last 15 minutes. That's a giant. Yeah, they grew. That outline of them is dark. And it gets a little bigger because of the low light. Yeah. You're convinced it's a seven foot bore.

It's the same bore. The hunter's with me. There's a big one. It's massive. It's massive. And you see it. Nope. Same bear.

And then the other thing too is so that low light, maybe it's a bigger bear. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's the same little one that came back in. What I also tell the guys in the moment you forget about it. I'm like, our policy is if you draw blood, that's your tag. So if you mess up and it's a smaller bear, well, still your tag. tag, you still get a bear, but if you do a crappy shot or the bear moves or you can't get a good shot in.

We have a hunter say, that's not fair. That's not fair to the hunter. No, but it's fair to the animal. It's fair to the animal. Exactly. So, and they're like, oh, yeah. And it's not. You know which line I'm fed up of hearing online is the, you know, in the woods with bear or other

animals. People are like, well, you're in his domains. Like, well, where's our domain in the freaking city? Yeah, right. We'll put here by God, too, to have dominion over all these animals and fish. we're no different. We're just as welcome out there as they are. Yeah, we're part of it too.

That's where, you know, people say, well, can't Mother Nature take care of itself? It's like, we got cities all over that we interfered with habitat. Yeah. So now all the animals that maybe could have survived. Yeah. That habitat is shrunk. So now we can't have as many animals as it once where we need to control it for the habitat they have.

That's hunting. Yeah. And they are here for us to eat. Yeah. Yep. For sure. Yeah. I like steak. I like it.

We had beer nachos the other day at Wayne Alisa's. Oh, really good. Really good. The bear you cook. They're canned bears. So good. Oh, I know. Yeah, Wayne, I got a bunch of canned bear from, from, from, from, from, from Wayne too.

And it's just, it's so people, I don't know. Every time we cook bear hams up there with you on the Trigger. Yeah. People are always blown away by how good that meat is. And it's good. You would never know. If I, if I didn't tell you it was bear. No.

You think. This is pretty good beef. And because she always marines it for a couple, two, three days before. People are like, oh, yeah, well, you can marinate anything and make it taste good. Well, you don't have to marinate. She could do it without marinate it. It would just as good. Yeah.

I'll say it again. I do it. So this is the first time you're going to taste bear. And I could give you a piece just normal, like backstrap or whatever. It'll be good. And that's cool. But do I want just an okay or do I want a raving fan? I want them to taste it and be like, wow.

Yeah. This is amazing. Then they get in their head. They understand why we love it so much is because we love to eat it. It's no different. than somebody brining a turkey or marinating your steak for. I did, on the weekend here, I did a whole bunch of pork butts. I married him for a couple days because I like that infusion of flavor.

Just so it gets in and it just, I don't know, it's just what I like to do. We try to, we measure the animals to the best of their ability. We take pictures to make the animals look the best and we prepare it to make them taste the best. Yeah, because we value it. Right. It's, yeah. So we put that extra effort in there. That's what it's about. Yeah.

And like, why would you criticize? that. I don't understand it. When you get, okay, this person say they're criticizing, if you do eat meat and you go to the store and you buy yourself like a really nice tomahawk, beef tomahawk and you're going to spend 30, 40, 50 bucks for that one steak, are you just going to throw it like in the oven with nothing? No. And let it get all brown and nasty and shriveled and well, you're going to take care of. You're going to make it. You're going to make it. You're going to put garlic butter on anything. It's going to taste good. No. I know. I know. people I don't know what the motive of people is enough positive ones out there that yeah who cares yeah I know we really enjoy eating it we really enjoy cooking it and sharing it and introducing people kind of like what we love to do and when you're up there we'll feed you moose we'll feed you milk we'll feed you grouse yeah we'll feed you whatever deer like I like people to experience some people have never tried any bit I'm supposed to do it before but when I get home I'm making a bunch of bear jerky oh yeah so good we made some for luke one time on us we met

him at Calgary at a show and they took a few bags on the bus and they ate it fast. Like they were they were half an hour down the road and it was gone. I always take pepperoni down there, Joe's when I do his podcast. We need about a 60 hour day. I know. Yeah. And then I can start catching up. We don't sit down until she's got us outside work until 11 o'clock at night and then we

get in and have a bite and go to bed. That's what day. That's what I always try to impress on that when I give the talks is like how hard you guys work and why it in and out of the season right and why it it means so much because it's so much effort is involved you guys have been doing this for decades yeah but also just then you then you go you know go in a little tighter on it it's like every year so much work it's like when you're deep in the back country and everything depends on your gear your knife can't be the weak link that's why i teamed up with montana knife company to build the keep hammering pack out what matters to me in all things is

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You're getting better because it used to be like had to go get the oats. You know, now you have them deliver. And it's like, we got fuel at the farm. And the side by side by sides, like those Kawasaki side by sides with the enclosed cab. Game changer. That'll be even better. With the tactic cam trail cameras. So fine-tuning everything is still built all around giant bear.

But the process is getting even better. The skinning, the butchering, the packaging. We try it. We're pouring a concrete pad at the skinning shed. Yeah. Got your Rivenco sign up at the skinning table. That's cool. I was like, good idea, Cam.

That branded. But no. Everything's just getting just a little bit better, but it's still the name of the game is Big Bear. This spring was my less stressed spring forever. You know why? Why? They didn't have to fix anything. Cowitz copies.

I know you were always. The other brand, I was fixing all the time. One day a week. At least one day a week. Something's going to break. I'm going to have to change parts. You're like a master mechanic out there. I can fix.

Rebuilding those things. Yeah. I've done it too much. And you say like the seal on the hubs or the axle. It's like. Breaks. Everything. Yeah.

It's just, you know. And our clay is brutal on stuff. Oh, it is. Those Kawasaki's are built so good. Like everything

that was the problem with the other brand, they've done to perfection. How many times? What did we have to fix this season? I changed breaks once. After a year. Yeah,

a year ago. Yeah, when I told how many miles I got, I got 3,000 miles on a set of breaks are like, are you serious? Wow. It's incredible. Well,

I never touched the brakes. We're putting around like old grandpa's hunting. We're not racing. We're not going. jumping shit. No. Hall and heavy bear around. Yeah.

And bait. No, I'm so impressed with it. I'm like, now I have a new windshield coming in for the other one, so I'm pretty excited about that. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, now we're getting a little bit spoiled. Yeah. Now we're like, where's a windshield in this? Everything goes good.

We'll have three crew caps with full air conditioning. Right? We were in, were you with me? Who was with me the day? It was pouring and all that rain was coming off the front. Just covering us in rain.

You don't care? Oh, it doesn't. Well. We went ice fishing in minus 30. with it on a lake. No, she was in the open one. Oh, the open one.

Because somebody took the one with the windshield because he was going further. So I'm like, okay, cool, we'll do this. And you're like, rain gear, goggles on. And you're soaked. And I was like, okay, I'm doing this, but I'm not happy about it. Yeah. Wow. We'll get the enclosed one.

Everybody would be happy and comfortable. It's so good. Yeah. It's amazing. It's definitely, I think it's, I mean, I love all my hunts, but just because it's for so many reasons, This is my favorite one of the year. Just being up theirs.

Yeah. I just can't wait every year. Well, we like it. So we always try to keep your week. So when you come up and everybody's like, oh, once I'm going to be there? People are trying to get your week. And they're like, hey, I want this week. I won't say what week it is.

I want this week. I'm sorry, it's booked. And it's like, we like it if you can come up and you can just kind of like chill. We get how crazy busy you are all the time. And it's like, and then we can just chill. Yeah. You know. It's fun.

Hunt. Kind of do our own schedule. I'm hoping to kill a big bear this fall. I know. It's been a lot of years. I don't even remember the last one I killed. We went out a few days. We had what, two days?

Yeah. Three days. Kind of really two, three days after the season was done. All our clients were gone just to go check stuff out. And we sat. And he just, the one. I had a window. I had a window to kill him, but I missed it.

Missed it. Yeah. He was in. I was too busy. Yeah. Was that the tail end of season? And we were like, oh, well. Tail end, he was there right after, right after the last group left.

Yeah. What? It was raining. I'm like, screw it. Yeah. No. It's been a long year. Well, the trail was.

Oh, yeah. Horrid. It's a ways back there, too. I mean, it's a ways. Two hours, two and a half hours to get in there. Yeah. Two and a half hours. Yeah.

And I'm like, this is, this is tough. Yeah. But. It's a long way. What do you think is the biggest factor for people not getting a big bear? Like what, what sabotage? How do they sabotage? Well, you've only got five days.

So not everybody's going to get a giant. Right. realistically. Because a giant has to come. them in you have to be perfect as we talked about yeah but there's no guarantee but even to get a good bear like i don't want to make it so like even those seven footers they're pretty smart they'll make a little bit more mistakes but the older they get they learn stuff i probably from being with sitting with a bunch of a bunch of hunters for a lot of years maybe they get complacent

they're like nobody's because they're sitting alone now and it's like well i can get away with this movement or i can they'll pee off the stand which is fine but if you're peeing 15 times off to stand. Your sense is there. The bear smell it. If that big one. Just, I'll just say, I've never peed off a stand. So I know people can do it. I'm like so. I pee at the bait all the time. I'm so. But they're used to my smell. Yeah. It's true. You're up there all the time. But I don't take any chances. I mean, I always take the practice shot. Yeah. I don't move around. Yeah. I don't pee or like, I'm like, I pretend like their white tail almost. Your practice shot is a nice confidence building. Yeah. Yeah. I think people take.

take for granted, like what we kind of touched on before is because the smaller bears are coming in and the average bears are coming in and you can like, oh, my zipper or a bag or a can or a cough or whatever. And it's like, oh, they look at you and they keep going. The more mature they are, they usually don't mess up. Right. Unless they're really, really distracted. Yeah. They're not giving you that those second, third chances. So we've talked before about some of the old wife's tales of bears like that bear's eyesight is poor. Yeah. Totally not true. It's got about the same eyesight as a human. The other one, the other line I've been hearing late.

I'm like, it's so, it's such bullshit that when you see a bear, he's as scared of you as you are of him. Oh, yeah. That is the biggest bullshit line ever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, what I, what I, I think one thing, I don't know, it's kind of hard is just like those old bear, you just, you just can't screw up. Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, I, I even went so far like where I killed. last year, so I made that other separate blind on the side because he was so dialed in on and he was just never coming in ever. No, because he'd walk in and he'd look. He'd look for where you were supposed to be. If he saw something there, because we're sitting on the ground where we know, so I'm kind of sabotaging myself in that way where I like being on the ground, you're definitely

making it harder to kill. If you're in the tree in the tree stand, that's a way to kill a big bear for sure. Yeah. I mean, so people say, I want to sit on the ground. Just know, okay, you're kind of screwing yourself. Yeah. And they want to sit with us. They want to sit with me.

Yeah. And I'm like, if you really want to kill a big one, go sit by yourself. Sit the tree stand. Yeah. They won't know you're there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And plus, I won't let you shoot anything either. Yeah. I think people too is maybe they, I don't know, maybe they're not quite realistic. Because I know people have said, I want to sit on the ground. I'm going to kill one on the ground. You leave them on the ground.

All of a sudden, they're up in the tree stand. Yeah, because they're like, at least the stand is there that they can go up. It sounds good to sit on the ground. They're harassing you.

Like, because, yeah, and right. And where I killed Scarface last year, there's two like younger bear in there now that are aggressive. And yeah. Yeah, Lisa found that out.

Yeah, that's, it's not fun. Yeah. Because you don't know what they're going to do. Yeah. You don't care about bears and they were bugging you to the point where it's like, no,

I had to chase a one. Yeah. Because he was, like doing all my normal stuff, the knife pointing, and he's just like, nope. Want to play? That's all you got? You got that knife? I got 10 knives.

That new knife there will be good. That one was orange. That'll reach this one. That will reach all the vitals. But I think people think that, oh, yeah, I want to kill one on the ground too, until they get a bear from me to you. Yeah. And then they're like, I don't know if I like this anymore. You see them fighting trying to kill each other.

Yeah. They did that to them, to them? What about me? Yeah. Or you see like a sow might chase a younger bore or an old boar might chase something. But and they run just as fast up the tree as they did on the ground. That's right. And you're like, what?

Yeah. They are so athletic and fast and powerful and strong. And then you're sitting there like just with your little camo jacket on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We do very easy. Yeah.

Definitely. Our skin is very, very soft. Yeah. His chainsaw incident this year. He, uh, yeah. tour very early. Oh yeah.

Very, very easily. That wasn't fun. No. Yeah. That was scary. I bet. Well, that's, that's another part.

There's risk out there with you guys doing the work every day. So prepping before hunters come. We're going out. The snow's finally almost gone. We're clearing the trails because, I mean, all the trills fall in everywhere from the winter. So you're out there.

And he was going to go by himself. And our son Jordan's like, no, dad, I'm going to go with you. No, no, I'm just going up here before. I go to town. Do this one bait real quick. Let's go to this one bait. I'll come back. Then we'll go to town base.

It's like, no, we're not going, because we talked about this. We're not going solo anymore because there's just things can happen, which it happened. I know. He was chainsawing, kicked back. Running too big of a chainsaw. Normally I use my little 16-inchers for cutting brush, clear, and trail, and you're moving around quick. You're cutting, doing it 40 years, so you're used to it. You do it fast.

Yeah. And to get into those bates, like the first trip into those bates in the spring, you're chainsawing for an hour to clear all the trees. It's a lot of work. Yeah. A lot of work. So it takes time to get all the first initial baiting done. And yeah, I nicked my leg, pants all tore. You were chainsawing.

Jordan was chanceling. There was snow on the ground and I didn't, I didn't know that it hurt me that bad and Jordan looks and he goes, Dad, he heard a noise. He looked at the ground, there was a different noise. And it's born out. I'm like, holy freak. No medic kit with me this time, nothing. And Jordan rips off his hoodie and ties a knot around it.

We jump on that four-wewer and he's trying to get self-service. There's none for 10 miles. Well, he also did volunteer fire department for quite a few years. So he kind of knew a bit. Yeah. I'm driving. And I'm backing out of there ruts and snow and trees all around us. And at first I'm panicking a bit.

I'm backing up to get the hell out of there to get home and not bleed to death. Because my first thought was, you're going to bleed to death out. You're going to bleed out and you're going to die here. Could happen. Yeah. It could. And the enemy is just, of course, he's after you. Yeah.

I'm like, God, don't let me die here. I'm okay with going to heaven, but I don't leave my family without me right now. Not quite yet. One of those moments that kind of make you think about everything. So then I'm like, okay, don't drive like an idiot back up nice so you don't get stuck or break something. Because then you're screw it. no cell service here. You're 10 miles out. You will bleed out here. Right. So it took it easier. Jordan's got the phone up all the way trying to reach cell service to them. And he's getting

service. We find out this after. So they come into the yard and Jordan's like all, where I'm trying to your phone. Dad got hurt, whatever. And he's on the deck. And I come out and like, what? I didn't know. I was on the back deck, pressure washing the triggers in the back deck, getting ready for clients. Julie's got her headset on, busts out, clean up all the rooms. Like, we have clients coming in a couple days. And we're like, oh, crap. And I thought it can. be that bad. If there's ever an emergency, we're not trying to reach you guys. No. We're, well, I was pressure washing. But anyways, you're going to see. And I was like, okay, yeah, we took a peek. I'm like, let's go to the hospital. You need stitches. So

you end up having to get stitches and stuff. And then, yeah, take it easy. Don't put any weight on it for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're on baiting tomorrow. We got work to do. Benged it up good and went baiting. But it could have been worse because where it snagged on his pants, you could see like where the chain, where the blade, I guess, of the salt, you know how it kind of skips a little bit. You can see what it was back towards the back of the calf where all the meat is and it kind of hit more on the front where the bone is so there wasn't as much meat. The most pain I've ever felt in my life is when he stuck the needle in there to freeze it before stitching it. Really? Holy shit. I grabbed my pantom. Was it off? Because on the shin?

Yeah, right on the front of the shin. Holy shit. I know. I'm watching. And he's digging around. Oh, God. But he wasn't doing it nice. Like I'm watching him and he's just in there poking and putting it. Jen's enjoying watching it because I've never had pain. I never had surgery really yeah i'm just sitting there and i'm just kind of grin he's like you need to you you need to stop that and i'm like i'm sorry i don't like that you're heard but yeah you know when you go to the dentist and they freeze you with the needle yeah they usually go in the other room and work on somebody else for a few minutes a little freeze he starts stitching immediately after the needle i'm like ow oh you shouldn't feel it i'm like well give it five minutes to freeze at least

and then he stitches again he's the second one oh yeah and then a third one it finally froze and i could watch him do it because i didn't feel it anymore that was yeah i mean it's so imagine if that was just a little deeper yeah you know or exactly you know where that or that femoral comes down in here it does go down yeah yeah your your your lower leg too you can get a big artery down there yeah yeah well think if you're alone well we yeah we carry we we we've got the medic kids i've so the pants the protective pants for chain sawing the chabas said last year they were in the garage on the shelf the helmet the goggles all that that's what everybody says so where's your protective gear you should see me cut

now I'm so careful. Yeah. I used to just move around. Now he's like, I was a big 20 inch. Saw too, heavy saw. That thing's getting put away except for cutting firewood

or big logs, you know. Right. So we got these electric duels now. Yeah. Beautiful. Take your finger off the trigger and they stopped. Yeah.

That's great. I guess the positive note is it makes you take a step back and say, okay, let's just not charge forward. We have to be a little bit more careful. And we don't go anywhere alone. No.

And we're not as young as we used to be. Yeah. Big country there, man. There is. There is something happens. Oh. Break a leg. I know.

You're going to lay there and no cell service until someone finds you, hopefully. Or we'll feed you. Yeah. Back where that, you know, the bear that you were wanting to kill, imagine if something you broke down or something happened back there. There's very few people that come save you there, first of all, because they can't get there. Was that like 40K back there? Yeah. Yeah.

And some of it, you've got to be on tracks depending how much water there is. It's like 25, 30 miles. Yeah. You're hurt? Yeah. And it's a shit show to get in there, period. Yeah. What?

You want to access that area because you want to access new bear. We're always expanding. It's wild country. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you're always like, what could show up? Yeah. Is it a nine-foot black bear back here?

Exactly. That's never seen a human. That's always like the, what if? What if? Yeah. Well, he's always at, well, what if we just go a little bit further, little bit deeper? Yeah.

Totally. It's got to be better on the side, right? It is. I know. Get to those spots, all of a bear comes in with no teeth. Yeah. That's what keeps you going. It's like always like the what if.

But it's what's crazy is like where I killed Scarface, that's not even very far back. That's right. So you don't have to be a million miles back. You just have to be where it's been managed right. Exactly. And you guys have shot the right bear. Let the right bear go and grow. We do well on baits that we set up last year.

We do well on baits that I've had for since the late 90s. Late 80s. Sorry. Late 80s. Right. And see there again, the baiting is a key. So at that bait, you have. have, yeah, sows, average bears, whatever, but you can watch. If you wouldn't congregate all those bears together, your chances of seeing that big boar? Yeah. Next to nothing. Yeah.

Because you're actually bringing in because he might eat a little bit, but he wants, he wants the sow. Yeah. And you guys are always evaluating like what's, what's best for the hunt? Like, where I kill that bear, there was a bait close to the, that you stopped baiting because you thought it might be pulling bear off, you know, harder to patter. Yeah. It was only 3K away. It was reaching other bears in the different area there. Well, there's lots of beaver ponds and all the stuff. You got to assess all that to the creeks and everything. So you're like, yeah, this one always did good.

But this guy, for some reason, he was always doing some traveling. So we're like, okay, let's just not bait that. And then all the other bear that are there that he's after will congregate here too. So it's just you can direct, you can try to direct traffic. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think on the one road wasn't the bore like from 25K to 3K. Yeah.

I mean. He did that in one day. Yeah. So that's a long, long way. Examine the photos like, is it him? Is it the same? Yeah, it's him. He was looking.

Yeah. So they'll travel. They will travel. Yeah. So you don't necessarily have to be a million miles back. No, that's right. It's just got to be in the right place the right time. Yep.

My dad always said, if there's bush, there's bears. People are like, is there bears out here? If there's bush, there's bears. Yeah. Bush dragons. There's bears right here outside of town. Yeah. For sure.

Yeah. No, it's a man. James, when's Bush Dragon four coming out? Yeah, James. Can we get back from our three weeks and... Oh, yeah. Tuck, yeah. Yeah, no.

Nice. It's going to be a good one. We're still taking care of booking people from three and two. Yeah, we better let it settle down and then we can get it out. Yeah. I don't know, you guys are going to be all sold out by then. Okay, so how do I deal with this? All the hunters that, well, almost all the hunters that came this year are rebooking for next year.

They just want to keep coming back. And they want their same weeks. So we're ending up now with more lifelong bear hunters than before this. Usually there's very few people that hunt bear every year. Yeah. They do it once or twice. And their wife's like, okay, you got your bear, go hunt something else. Right.

And now it's like they're coming back every year. I mean, they want to eat bear. They want to, they want to be there and hunt with us. Why do you think, what do you think's change? Is it, is it just the, just the camp and just. A bunch of people that have booked over the last two years have heard us on the podcast with you and they've heard us talk about God. And they're like,

We're believers. We want to go to Canada. We might as we go with you guys. We're believers. We don't want to be in a camp with a bunch of drunks that are screaming and fighting and stuff like that. Like the old days was like that anymore. Right. So yeah,

that's been crazy how many people are booking because of that. Or some people have said, hey, we heard you guys talk about God and the peace that you have. I want that. So I'm going with you guys. Yeah. Or they're going through a tough time and they're like,

hey, they just, God's bringing them to us and we're going to love on them. and I mean, that's what we're there for. The way we talk about it is it's so positive. It's hard work, yes, but there's reward to it. There's fellowship. There's a lot of positive that I think people,

there's a lot of people in life who don't have that. They're missing that. I think it's a combination of all of that. Yeah. It's a lot of stuff. Because a lot of time, if you're a single guy going, not meaning single like not married, but one individual going to a camp all by yourself,

yeah. It can be pretty. daunting. Yeah. Like, just think you're going to an event and you're all by yourself and you don't know anybody. You feel kind of like a fish out of water. Right.

Well, we try to always welcome everybody in like, nobody's above anybody else. We love on everybody the same. They're like favoritism on bait. No, that doesn't happen. But I think they see now that, especially because we talk about all this stuff, I mean, we want them in. We want them to help them succeed. Like, not everybody becomes part of the family, of course, because some people you

never see again. But we try to treat everybody like family. I mean, and that's why I like to keep it the size that we are. Yeah. Which is getting tough because everybody's like, hey, how many do you want to take a week? And I'm like, holy, no way. Okay, I'll say this on the podcast. So people that are listening are clients, new clients, old clients,

they can kind of figure out what they want to do because everybody that was there this spring wants to rebook the same days. They like the week that they were there. They want the same week again next year. Well, last year after Bush Dragon 3 and the year before after Bush Dragon 2, people are calling and they're booking and they want it a certain week, you know. Well, there's people in that week now. Now, the guys are there this spring want the same week, and they should have rights to the same, to choose the same week, but people are booking years ahead.

Right. So now, how do we do this? The people that are coming and want a week every year, they're going to have to book a few years in a row. Yeah. Like, send a deposit for 26, 27, 28 if you want to guarantee that week. If you don't care what week, well, then we can try to squeeze you in somewhere. Yeah. It's supply and demand.

Yeah. I mean, there's only so many days, so many weeks, and there's more hunters than weeks. Yeah. So, yeah, it gets, got to see. There's only so many tags. I know. It's not, not a problem. It's just.

No. It's never when you, no, it's growing pains. Yeah. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. It's, it's success. It's like there's sometimes success breeds challenges. Yeah.

And this is just something you got to deal with. That cuss right now. Yeah. We just like to keep everybody happy. Yeah. Yeah. We want, what I like about it too is what I just like being around people who like what I like. And I know when we're out shooting.

the bows getting ready to go out on the hunt. I like being out there with the guys looking at what they're using. Watching them shoot. Maybe if I have any, I'm not saying I'm an expert, but I might have some things I've learned. I can share with them. And or like I think I gave, I think I gave Brandon a couple broadheads,

you know, to use the carnivores on the bear. And it's just, so it's just, we're all there to, we want everybody to be successful. Yeah. It's like, it's not a competition.

I just like being there. making sure people are set up, sharing what I might know, it might help them. Yeah. And seeing that they're, you know, proficient with their equipment. Yeah. Yeah. And it works. That's the other thing too, though.

Like I was saying with the single guys or a couple guys together, they all get in the group. They don't know any each other. They've never met each other. They don't know. And by day two, day three, they're all buddies. Oh, yeah. And they're all talking to each other still. And they're going to archie challenges together, meeting up and going to hunt together.

I'm like, that's what it's all about. It's making the community bigger and stronger. For sure. It's cool. Yeah, it reminds me of Joe's second or third trip with us when there was a group of people there for Keep Hammer and they were there to be there with you and eight different guys and none of them knew each other and Joe figured they were all buddies that came together because everybody was so friendly, yeah.

And he's like, you guys don't know each other? No, we just met. Yeah. That's the beauty of a hunting camp. That is a beauty of a, you know, you see online and you see like, God, these guys are all kind of dicks to each other. It's always like an ego thing or like a, you know, dick measuring contest, not in camp. In camp, it's like all that fake social media, that's not real. Yeah. Yeah. People are real. And when you can look somebody in the eye and shake their hand and

shoot bows with them and skin a bear with them, that's real. Yeah. That's real. And you see like you can really like learn a lot about somebody, spend a few days with them doing that. Yeah. And I've never in your camp, it's been all positive. It's been all. I think it's like at a job, you know, if the owners or the bosses are kind of dicks, it kind of flows down. You got employees that are the same way. It's like, what the hell? And you look at the boss, like, oh, yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

Right. In a hunting camp, however we lead by example or whatever we do, like Matt Pittman, Meachurch, he was up and then he was on a trip in BC fishing. And the guy's like, so how was you awake? Did you drink a bunch? He goes, well, John doesn't drink. So no, I haven't drank for a week. Yeah.

He's like, wow. Yeah. I was so proud of Matt Pittman, Meachurch, for posting his bears, posting the bear picture, the dead bears. and posting the meat, cooking the meat and everything, which is great. But, I mean, it's risky. This guy's got spices in the big chains. Yeah.

Like, if the antis go after him, they can contact those chains and try to cancel them. Hey, don't sell his spices. He killed this bear. So he didn't care. But it's part of the circle. And he's like, I, that's his game. Meat Church. It's all about cooking meat, grilling meat, feeding people.

Yeah. So I think it's like, and your talk that you start the camp with, it just kind of gets everybody on the same page about how. serious we take this and how serious you take it and why it matters and it's not like you know if you gave a talk like yeah we're going to kill a bunch of bear and you guys are going to you know we'll drink every night it'd be a whole different thing it'd be like well what is this is this is this isn't like the camp I want to be in we got no problem with somebody having a drink after after dinner to have a drink yeah no but it's not the focus of the of the week it's not there to we're not there to party

we're there to hunt you party at home yeah we're there to like experience It's the best bear hunting in the world, black bear hunting in the world. And we want to make sure they're using good equipment. And we want to honor that. Yeah. Yeah. Like all the controllables you try to do to the best of your ability. Yeah.

That's what I think we are obligated to do. Yeah. The baiting, you know, the machines, all of that stuff. If you're lacing up boots before sunrise, loading up a pack, stepping into the garage gym, or logging miles while the world's still quiet, you don't need soft fuel. You need something built for a rebellion, the disciplined kind. Black Rifle Coffee didn't discover grit in 2026. They were founded on it. Built by veterans who understand early mornings, quiet courage, and doing hard reps, nobody applauds. The ready to drink cold brew is made for motion.

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Yeah. Yeah. That's how it works. Did we have any miracles this spring? Yeah, we did. Some bears that you thought you'd never find. There's no blood trail. A little tiny broadhead that I didn't know the guy was shooting a little tiny broadhead and then you don't, there's no blood trail. So you're just walking trying to find.

That's probably my bad because usually I try to go check. Normally we see what they're shooting. See what broadheads they got. Make sure it's the right equipment and everything. Yeah. Just a little. little two blade with little teeny tiny kickers. Yeah, I know.

And then you search for hours and not finding this bear. And it's fine. You hate to lose a bear. Oh, I know. And if he's still alive, good, that's fine. But if he's dead, we want to find him. So there's one time, it was like one in the afternoon already. We searched all night before.

We searched all morning that day. And it gets to a point, too, where you're going to be too late. If it's hot, it's going to be too late and it's going to be spoiled. Yeah. And I thought, okay, God, we're ready to leave. And I'm like, okay. God's like one more time. Let us find him.

We do a big loop. I said, God, if he's dead, let me find him. And I come around, we're almost done the big loop. And I see this black thing ahead. I mean, I'm like, no way. There he is dead. No blood trail. Just walked and fell over.

It wasn't that far. It was 200 yards, but with no blood trail. Yeah. A needle in a haystack and that dead falls everywhere. Does that? That was cool. That was, God helps us. There's times, a lot of times where we've prayed.

We had another one. You and I were looking for the next. morning. It's a blur. And it was that one, that one was alive. We had to finish it. Yeah. Oh. At the last week. That's hard on us. No, no. That was the same week with the same guys. Yeah. There was two one week. So that guy had to, I don't say names because it doesn't matter. Yeah. Things happen. Yeah. Right. He's hunting. Um, he had to leave early. So I went out the next morning to find it. I had his tags and everything in case we found it. Because we looked that night and it was pouring rain. We followed the blood trail as far as we could. And then it just gets to a point where I do. I talk to

God. I'm like, I want wisdom. He's got wisdom. I want to be safe. I'm a nana. I like my kind babies. I want to be around for a week while. And he's got little kids. So it was like we got to this one point where it went from down in the swamp stuff. And this is the true hard facts about hunting because most people wouldn't even talk about this because you don't want people to think an animal suffered. And it happens. And it was hard on us. It was not on Jen and I both. So it went up a big hill off this. It was like a swampy area. And we got there and I could see where it kind of hit the side. And I thought, okay, there's quite a bit of blood there. Whatever. You know, all my justifications and then this big hill up but it was pitch black it was raining and there was no

blood and i could smell bear and i'm thinking okay what do i do god what do i do and in my gut it was just like it's time to back out and i kind of i knew he was leaving do i push it and i'm like hey buddy you've had a lot of those hey were god's like okay no back out of here and usually those were still alive the next day and you'd have got hurt so hey buddy i says i think we should back out i said i've got grandbabies, you've got little ones. I said, I don't think it's dead yet. I can smell it, but it was just and it's raining. I said, we'll come back first thing in the morning. So he left first thing in the morning. You had to go catch a flight. And then me and him went in there. And we went walking in there to where the blood was, checking out everything. And we saw, man,

we walked every trail, every buried trail, look at there was no blood. We got with so much country split up. There was nothing. So then finally, we came back to the same spot. You're trying to look for something else. Like you do that a hundred times. And he's like, I'm just going to go up here and deep in here and I'm going to go way to the other side of that. Sometimes you get a feeling where they like to go or where you think they would go if they're hurt, you know. I'm going to go way to this other side around this big pond area to see if like I missed something. Turns out we're both apart in different areas.

We can't even hear each other at that point. And we both prayed when we talked after. We had both prayed. God. Let us find him. If he's wound. Because we knew he was wounded. It was two seconds after I said that.

I'm looking. It's like, oh, crap, there he is right there down in that swamp. Yeah. And I didn't have my scope on my shotgun. And so I'm like, I'm yelling at her to come with her. Her's got the big scope on it. And I can't hear him. So I think, why are you yelling at me?

Bring a shotgun. But it's hard to hear. And we had to finish him. And he'd have to finish him in front of us. I had to get up pretty close to finish him. That's hard. Yeah. It shook me.

And then we talked about it. I mean, he, I actually did what you did because he couldn't go anywhere. So I walked up and I was touching him as he was dying and I was bawling. She counted coup. And I was like, and then we talked after. I said, this sucks. It happens. It happens. It's a fact. It happens. You can do a perfect shot and it still can happen.

Yeah. And I told him, I said, you know, what, because I prayed about it. And I'm like, I think at this point, if you don't get this, you need to quit. Yeah. I'm touching the bear telling him we're sorry. We're sorry and stuff. And it was tough. It was rough. But what did you say after that? Because we both felt like crap. We felt like, you didn't want to do this anymore. Yeah. And she's like, if I ever get to the point where I don't feel that anymore, I quit. Because it is. It's suffering. It's waiting. That's how much we care about the same. We need to respect their life. Such bloodthirsty killers, eh? Yeah. And he had to go all the way back and he got the stretch for and made him carry. It took a while. Yeah.

Because I had a hope he carried it. It was heavy. You're tough. I can't believe you carried that out. And then we took it back. We skinned it, got the hide done, the skull done, butchered it up, did all of that. Yeah. And tags, all that other stuff.

Put it in the freezer and took it to the tax dermis. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it worked out. It's, those are the tough ones. You know. And it's a reality. It is.

It's like, I'm just glad that it didn't lay out there and waste. Yeah. Right. You know, because that happens. Yeah, exactly. And you guys work so hard to make sure that that wasn't the result. Yeah. And I just think, I don't think people understand.

I mean, for you, I mean, I think it's like when we talk about God, because you, because God has had such an impact on both your lives. But you've, I've seen. your eyes water up three or four times yeah on this talk yeah and talking about just because that's how much it means and how much it's it's it's we've been blessed by god with this but also it's like it's not just over that god gave us this opportunity it's like it's every day is trying to to live up to what that means and it's like it's such you know it's i don't know it's so heartfelt and you can tell like anytime you talk about it yeah we're supposed to be your

Do words, right? Yeah. We're supposed to manage and take care. Yeah. Well, if you manage and take care of something you love, you respect it, you honor it, you want to do justice to it. Yeah. Not just, whatever, shoot this, shoot that, and who cares?

Yeah. No. I know. And that's another thing people, I guess they, well, they tell us, and I didn't expect to hear this because we just, we're just us. This is what we do. Yeah. I mean, it's how we live our life.

And then multiple messages. And I was like, oh, okay, it's more impactful than I think. And I'm like, it's just us. And we're just us. But we take for granted that other people haven't had that opportunity. Yeah. Whether it's hunting or to have experience with God or just have a peace or to have people that actually care about what they're doing.

Oh, you guys are religious. No, it's not religious. And religion does suck. I agree with you. Yeah. It's a relationship with God as well. Come to camp. You'll see me not be religious when something goes wrong.

We enjoyed going to church with you Sunday. That was cool. Oh, yeah. Church. Pastor Rick's awesome. I know. A little bit of cussing comes out here and a little bit of attitude comes out there. But I mean, you're human, right?

Yeah, but I also do want to say something that I've witnessed at your camp. And it's like just strong women. Like you are so strong and such a good hunter, but a leader. And then I see your daughters exhibit those same characteristics. Yeah. And then also it kind of attracts, then I see Lisa with her daughters. Yeah. You know, Lisa Indycock from here.

Yeah. And it's like I love seeing strong women in a men's world, right? So to speak, bear hunting. Yeah. But be leaders. Yeah. You know, and like Lisa will take her daughters by herself with, Wayne has never even been out there.

Has it? No. No. No. So it's, but like, you're, that example is like you live that every day. And it's you've impacted your. next generation with your daughters, but also everybody who comes up there witnesses that also. And I know that's making an impact when they go home.

Yeah. And so I just don't, I don't know if you think about that or if anybody said that, but I think about that. And I'm just so impressed. And it's like, I'm not surprised, but I just love seeing it. I don't remember who was in camp, but there's times where you and I will argue about something. We'll banter.

And we had argued and it got pretty pretty. I'm already said a couple choice words because that's usually what I do. And then two minutes later, we're fine again. And a couple minutes later, we're fine. Or we'll apologize to each other. And one of the hunters is like, that was impressive. Like in my world, we'd have been mad at each other for a month. Yeah.

You guys just boom and it's gone right now. Yeah. It's, I mean, it took years to learn that. It didn't come easy. No. I mean, two people, two different lifestyles, two everything. But I mean, with God, again, that foundation, like I've seen, said before. It's kind of like that bouncing point. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. My grandpa

always said that. Never go to bed, angry at each other. Always forgive. But and then the other thing that we were talking about, I never thought of it that way until people talked about it to me is like, because I just do what I do. And I think the more I do it, the strong, the closer I get to God and understand how he works, I think the more confident I am. Like there's a lot of things within the last few years. And plus with a cancer scare and all that different stuff, it's changed my my thinking and it's like I just want to do my best I want to stay busy I want to do my best I want to do my work my my family all of that stuff and if people don't like it I don't care anymore I used to care I used to care so much about what people would think and women in the hunting industry can be barbaric there's like just like

high school yeah and I see that and I'm like I don't do high school right and I get along great because we both think the same it's like I don't I'm not in the clicky stuff no I'm not in the showy stuff but for many years for 20, 25 years, it was tough. You know, trying to tell a guy, hey, we're going to go after this moose or this deer or this bear. And people like, what do you think, John? He's like, you better talk to her. She's your guy. Guys don't like listening to other guys, let alone another woman.

Now with social media, the guys that are coming, I've seen enough to know that you want Jen to take you out. Yeah. No, I'm always impressed with your talks and you're just how you're just good. I mean, I don't care whether it's... She pays attention to detail. A man or a woman, you're just a good guide. You know, it doesn't matter. Yeah, she goes.

I love skinning a bear with her. I work my butt off. Like I try. And like I said, the controllables, the details. And sometimes he's like, he likes to be more the optimist. We'll just kind of roll with it and see how it goes. And I'm the other one is like, I like to know where I'm going, how I'm going to get there. Like, I map out.

It just, it's how God made me. Yeah. And we kind of blend that way. Well, it works. Because if we're all my way, it would be a shit show. If we're all his way, it would be a shit show. So it's a good blend. And I mean, my girls, they're bad asses.

Like, number one, because they're moms, which is fantastic. But yeah, they're strong. They're women. They're strong women. Just like Lisa's girls. They're strong women. I know. I love it.

We want them to, but the dads played a big part in that too, because they didn't want their little girls just to be princesses. We can play princess. Yeah. But we can also go, you know, four wheeling in the mud. We can also go shoot grouse, whatever. It's just, yeah, I like it. And now my granddaughters.

I know. Oh, man, Hazel's. The highlight of life. And even Addison now, she'll be three this fall. Yeah. Oh, she's all about going in the Kawasaki for a ride. I bet. That's a good life.

It's a good life. Hazel wants a skin. She wants a skin. Oh, yeah. She has her own knife now. Yeah. She is full of. Papa, get me my Montana knife.

Yeah. Yeah. And we're like, Kay, make sure it's not that sharp. Yeah. I know. She's so funny. love Hazel. I mean, I love everything about the camp, to be honest. But I just know that just your impact and your influence. I just wanted to mention that too. Thank you. I do appreciate.

I really appreciate it coming from you because you kind of know us now. It's not like, yeah. We've known each other for a while. So you talked about that first bear. Yeah. And then you got a second one again. Yeah. You got two bears again. What happened with the second one? Like, what's that about? Was that Thursday night? Yeah, because you were done for Friday and Saturday. You were just hanging out. Was I? I think. that was Thursday night you got done which is crazy let's see which was the second one where was I you were same place as Raven oh yeah yeah yeah camera wasn't working for some reason that's right okay yeah so we we had a feeling oh so I got a call from uh from John Barclow we were talking about

sick uh and when we're baiting that that that yeah that I was going to be uh we're at the bay free to free to make other camo choices right so I was talking to Barclow about that and we're baiting up but the camera wasn't working so we didn't know what was in there yeah we were and so uh just decided hey i killed raven there last year big eight-footer might as well just go see what's in there there's big bears big bears big bears didn't have a picture of one right just because it wasn't working and we found the pictures on the camera later when we downloaded the chip oh did you oh yeah okay he was just there okay yeah yeah so just kind of rolled the dice and we were sitting there we didn't see a bear for a while i mean it wasn't it like

a while james it was like hours or something like that but yeah without a peep yeah yeah and then james is like uh he's sitting up in the tree stand because he's scared no i just like getting him out of my hair no uh he's up in the tree stand filming i was on the ground it's a tiny little ground blind at that one so yeah it is a small small ground and it's close Yeah. It's pretty close to that, that bait. So, uh,

that's where one jumped in with you last year. Yeah, I did kind of kind of blind. I know. That was a little squirrely one. But, uh, yeah, so James he there's a bear.

I can see a bear back in the timber back behind us. There's at the road you come in on with the side by side. I can see that a bear back in the timber. I couldn't really tell. But I think it started is going back and forth. And it started following, uh, James kind of got a, just like a quick glimpse of it.

And he, thought it was a sow and a cub yeah because it was a bigger bear and a smaller bear and uh i saw the bear come the bear that he thought was a cub i was like it's like a six-foot sow yeah so if that's the cub what's this and it was a big old boar yeah and a giant bore and he came in and we got him uh got a good arrow into him took a little bit uh to get the right position because i think people can they think that it's close and you think you can't screw up that shot you can definitely screw up that shot yeah so you got to definitely think about the angles think about where that shoulder is where you want to hit on that the hair hanging down the light everything else but made a good i was uh patient on that one

made a good shot and got the counting coup on him too and he he was a big one yeah he was a big big old bear but big bear you got no room in here i know you need a bigger place i think that would Was that, is that the bear I'm doing for Joe? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be life size for studio.

I know. That's going to be sick. Oh. So you can look people 10 feet. He is huge. He's massive. That bear is huge. So, yeah.

I mean, it's just been blessed. Allegedly, it's eight foot square. Allegedly. Yeah. Oh, people are funny about that. Can you find the guy that measured it? Maybe we could ask them. Yeah.

Maybe they'd know better than us. Yeah. Some wisdom on the internet. there. People are funny. I think people probably had comments about every animal in here at one point or another that and yeah, you just kind of get used to it right. And it's like, hey, when you're successful, go ahead and talk. Go ahead and talk. Yeah. We got the proof right here. But yeah, just, I mean, blessed with another amazing year up there with you guys. Uh, giant bear. Yeah. Amazing camp. I don't know. I, I, I feel. I couldn't be happier. Could I didn't feel more blessed. The bear that I'm after, you've seen the pictures of them. Can you imagine what he's going to look like in the fall?

No, he looks mean. In spring, he's running nonstop. He barely goes to a bait. And he's giant and his face looks mean. Yeah. Doesn't it? I think he's going to be over 22 inches. I can't imagine in the fall.

I just want to see him in the fall. What did Jordan name him? Hodor. Yeah. What would he weigh in the fall, do you think? Easy to recognize. He's got an ear missing. I know.

Well, bears like that, I mean, from one of the years ago, the biologist was saying, they could gain a couple hundred pounds from spring till fall the way they're going to eat. On a giant like that. Would he be, it'd have to be over 500? Oh, he's 500 in the spring. Yeah.

Yeah. He'll be 700. Oh, God. He's huge. We've built 600 plus in the spring with no fat. Oh. So that was a 22 and 516 skull. Yeah.

It's a giant bear. And the biologist said, how much did the biologist say he could get two in the fall? In the fall, he'd be 800. Oh, my. That is. It's as big as they get. Can you imagine you see that? It's like a Volkswagen beetle walking into the bait.

Well, I know that like that, I think it was a second bear I killed, the big bear. But we had it in the cooler that night. Yeah. By another good six and a half foot bear. Yeah. Six eight maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it looked tiny compared to. And it was a, that's a trophy bear. Yeah. But that's, that's an example of what you guys have. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah. when they're laying there because when you looked at the bear like individually you're like oh that's a big bear oh that's a that's a big bear too yeah but side by side then you see the difference well look when you put them on skinning table yeah how big the skinning table is yeah I know and then it's like you put one on it and like man this is pretty big bear and you're skin in it then you put that sucker on they're like okay yeah yeah the whole hind end is almost off the head is off yeah we've got a a client that's building us a custom skinning table sweet they build tables for hospital hospitals and place like that.

So they're like, hey, we want to build you one. I'm like, you don't have to do that. We don't need that good of a table. Like, he says, no, no, it'll be epic. I'm like, all right. So I'm excited to see it. We like it. I like it.

We're going to concrete that floor this summer. Yeah. So we can clean it up nice after we're done skinning. Oh yeah. Sprayed off. Always tweaking stuff. Always working on stuff. Always trying to improve stuff.

Yeah. Make it better for the clients. Make better function. Do you know all the hunts you're going on this fall? Yeah. How many elk hunts are you doing? Three. You do Oregon every year.

Yeah, I'm not doing San Carlos. I'm doing this other hunt instead. Nice. Yeah, so it should be good. It was about the same price. I really do not want to eat a tag on that hunt. No, no. So, yeah, we got time.

We can make it happen. James, what do you got over there? You got questions? So you talked about that you're giving away, you're going to give away a bear hunt. Yeah. And just so the viewers know, it's not. Us giving away a bear hunt.

Cam's buying a bear hunt and giving it away. Yep. Yep. I'm paying for it. I want to share it. I want a lucky listener to be able to experience what we've talked about here and hopefully be impacted like I've been impacted. We'll have some goodies to go along with that as well.

It's the plan that he'll get one of those coolers. We haven't talked about the cooler yet. Yeah. And the knife is going to be in that deal. Awesome. Yeah. There'll be more add-ons as we go. A custom grizzly cooler that says bush dragons.

Yeah. Bush dragons. That logo. That logo. Yeah. And, uh. I have some other things. I just,

I wasn't able to pull them all together to get them here because it was quite the show to get here. But anyways, I have some other ideas. Okay. I was have things in my back pocket. He's like, what are you doing?

I just, just let me see if I can get it done first. Then I'll tell them. Oh, so I'm like, and he's like, oh, that's pretty sweet. Chris Lee and Montana and I did great to get it done

in short time, short notice. Yeah, they're the best. Well, I'm very thankful for them and thankful for you guys. But yeah,

I just want to share, like I said, it's impacted me so, greatly and I want somebody else to experience it. And so yeah, we're going to buy it. And you giving away the Bentley. Coming up soon, probably like probably a month. I think we think we've got another month. How's it going? Do you think people want it as much as the trucks? Like it's a pretty sick car. It's a sick car, but the insurance. Yeah. Like I bet I had a hard time getting insurance on it. So yeah. So yeah. I mean the and if you have to work on that thing, I would

think whoever's going to win it yeah it's just gonna sell it probably gonna sell it i mean it's so much money yeah you know and like unless you're rich already and you don't need money which i i don't know anybody like that i think somebody's gonna sell it probably drive it for a little while then it'd be that's pretty sweet that's fine too because yeah they'll be able to sell it for you know 160,000 bucks yeah that's pretty sweet that's a pretty nice gift yeah and i i just can't wait to and then i give them 10,000 cash hand on the keys yeah and it's like for me Did you ever think as a kid you'd be doing that? No.

For me, it's like I want it. It's like being able to give like that. It's just like I never expected, I never expected I'd be in this position. So I just feel very grateful. So you always ask us questions. How about we ask you a question? When you were young, say teenager, what did you think? I know the story about you getting into hunting and Roy taking out hunting and all that stuff.

Where did you think you'd be at like 40, 50? Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, I thought, I mean, I've said this before, but my, I seriously thought I would live in like a trailer. And I'm not saying that's bad. Yeah, yeah. I didn't mean bad at, but working at the mill, but yeah, it's a great job for. Yeah.

We're at the mill here. What's your options here is, would be the best job. Yeah. Probably the best potential job I could have had because that shift work at the mill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You'd be like, I guess what I'm asking, kind of, what did you think your future would look like? Like what? Because every kid growing up, you have these ideas. And for girls, it's usually, oh, I want to have a white house with a white picket fence and nice little, this. Not to negate anything or I want to become a doctor or a lawyer or whatever. It's like everybody has their aspiration.

My mom is like 83 or 84 this year. 84, 85. And she reminds me almost every time I talked to her that I told her that this is what I was going to be doing. Really? You wanted to hunt for a living. You want to take people hunting for a living. And his dad, always said if you're going to get a job if you can get one that you love then you'll never have a

day at work it'll it'll be work but it'll always be something you love yeah so yep he did tell me that yeah i man i i mean i think for a while there i said i wanted to be a writer yeah but everybody said you are a good writer you are a good writer very good writer oh thank you but that's not the feedback i got was not positive And then I remember I killed this like a four point way smaller than that and that was like so I was hunting I was rifle hunting at this time and I killed a four point I was with my girlfriend and like just walking through the rain and so skid road and shot this four point a little basket four point But killing a four by four was was a trophy right and I think I was probably like 18 or 17 maybe and I remember my brother said told this girl at school Cam got a four point and she's like, oh, where's he going to school at?

And he's just like, school wasn't, we never even cared about school. So it was like, no, you got a four point buck. And it's like, so hunting was kind of the thing. I kind of want to be a writer, but I was kind of just a screw up. So I thought that I would just be like probably get drunk on the weekends, go to the mill maybe and work. Or I had a job at a warehouse at that time. live in a trailer manufactured home and hopefully had a decent truck. And that was the dream.

Yep. Yep. And I would have been fine. And you'd be happy with that. I would be happy with that too. Yeah. So that was as good as it was going to get. Yeah. So I never thought I'd be giving away a Bentley for sure. I didn't even know what a Bentley was.

So one of our friends texts me today from Salt Lake City. He's a pastor there now. He was a pastor in Jacksonville, Florida before. Loves you. He's a runner. He's a hunter. Everything, same as us. And he's at an Airbnb in Idaho today.

And this is what's in there on the wall. Oh, wow. There's your book on the wall of the Airbnb. Oh, that's sick. That's awesome. We got one book out there somewhere. Yeah. So he picked a good Airbnb.

He's like, yeah, I picked the right one here. I guess so. I guess so, yeah. So I guess you could say, I mean, for all of us, we've kind of exceeded our dreams. I mean, I guess you dreamed of it, but like, was it realistic or not? But we're living. Yeah. I mean, you guys live in the dream.

Yeah. That's the name of your. We are living in the dream. But when you thought of it, did you think you'd be taking people hunting or you'd just be hunting? Probably just me hunting. Yeah. Because he just loved to be outdoors. I didn't know what a guide was at the time when I was really young. Just being outdoors fishing and hunting. Right. As a little boy, that would be your dream. I only shot my first big game animal when I turned 15. I turned 15. I shot my first moose. Me too. It was awesome. That was my first. My dad held it. The night before we went calling at this spot way in there and there was a bull answered. I never heard it. That says there was one answered. a mile or two away by the time he gets here it'll be dark so we'll just leave and come back here in the morning and you'll get him so dad and his buddies they're getting up in the morning and they're kind

of hanging around camping i'm like i'm going i'll see you guys later i'm going where that bull was so i'm 15 years old on my honda three-wheeler 200m Honda three-wheeler and i'm it took me like 30 minutes to get there on the three-wheeler so i get over there and it's daylight and i look where we had my dad had put our own scent that we were making back then already for moose. My dad had put scent on all the branches before we left that night. So if he showed up there during the night, he'd stay around. Yeah. And there's a cow there. Yeah. So I get there and I look like right where we put the scent, he's beaten all those bushes. Really? Holy shit. And I had a 30-od six Remington model 7400,

semi-auto open sites with scope on it. So I thought, I gotta get close. I can't screw this up. Like my first moose, I want to make my dad proud. I want to kill this thing dead. So I'm sneaking in and I'm I'm thinking he's going to see me. So I'm taking off. You don't have to wear orange in Alberta. You can wear anything. So the coat comes off. It's on the ground.

And there's a little skiff of ice that morning. It was just getting cold enough where things are freezing up a bit. And then I had hip waiters on because it was wet and muddy going in there. And the metal clips that are that you tie onto are making noise. I'm like, oh, he's going to hear that. I'm going to screw this up. I take off the boots. So then I realized, shit, my hoodie is blue.

He's going to see me. Take off the hoodie. So I'm in pants, socks, no shirt, and there's ice on the ground. And I'm sneaking up behind pine trees to get close to this loose. Like an Indian. I get into like 100 yards and I give him two and they were side by side and he just crumbles. Like, wha. No way.

By myself, so nobody's share it with. I get on that three, put my clothes back on. I'm soaking wet from walking through the water and the ice. Get on that three-wheeler and that 30-minute drive took about seven minutes to get back to Cal. lying and dad can hear it swam yeah and he told the guy's just we'll see if if he goes and parks it there he doesn't have one but if he just pulls out in front and doesn't even stop the machine and jumps off he's going yep that's exactly what I did really god of my first moose I was hooked that was a good feeling about that was awesome yeah that's incredible

moose that you can eat for the whole year oh man moose at 15 by herself yeah that's great I was already making moose calls because dad made moose calls for himself yeah I can do this and sell them yeah that's four I'm making moose galls out of birch bark like the Indians made him, laced him with rawhide, sold that to hunting stores, and we still do that today. Yeah, that's incredible. Wow, what a journey, huh? 15 years old.

I know. I'd hunt a small game before that, birds, rabbits, all that stuff since I was tiny, tiny. My brother and I would go on cross-country skis with our 22s or shotguns and do like what we saw in the Olympics, eh? Yeah. So we'd be down to ski. There you go. Find a rabbit. Glenn would be happy.

It's a way to do it. Yeah, that's a good way to do. I mean, people should hunt off skis, I bet. If you can move. You can get a lot. It's pretty quiet, too. Yeah, you can get way back. Good stuff.

You got any questions? Yeah, I got one. Yeah. I was just hoping you guys could give me the secret recipe for your carp juice. Okay, I have that recipe. Man. So that is suckers and carp in a plastic five-gall pail, and you leave them in there for about,

five years. You let them ferment until they just disintegrate into juice. And that's what James smelt on the video. Oh my gosh. Was that the, uh, the gagging video? No one is bad. Like that one will not much makes me gag. That stuff can do it. The beavers like when he gets that pressure built up in those barrels from that the lids are sealed. Yeah. You got to open those things. Yeah. I think you got some on your lip last year, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. I did. At the end of season this year was getting pretty gross. You're trying to hang them and they're just like melting apart and maggots everywhere. You can set up a brand new bait that's never had a bear there before and it's not three days for them to get there.

It's the same day. Yeah. They smell it from 10 miles and they just come right to it. Oh, yeah. I don't, this could ruin like people thinking about eating bear meat. But when they pull that beaver and like some of its guts go over its face and the bear is just fine with it. Yeah. That's rough.

That's one of his favorite meal. out there. Here's another thing that we've always thought to. And it's, yeah, we've done lots of testing on it lately. And it's like, okay. So we think the more rotten, the better. It's great for smell and it brings them in from far. But we've, we've done the two where they can take a pick. Yeah. They ate the fresh one. The fresh one. Okay. So we're sort of on the same page. They'll rub all over the rotten one. Use it as perfume. Get it all over themselves. I wonder what that, what is that for? I don't know. It's like, you're going to get eaten by a grizzly. Yeah. Well, you look at, okay, our dogs. So if they're rolling. If anything that's stinky, disgusting, nasty, they'll roll in it and they'll come like, hi, mom, pet me.

Yeah. I wonder what the, I don't totally get that. I wish I had to, I'm going to record it next time. Our doctor from Salt Lake, he gave us the exact scientific rundown on what happens to a bear when he death moans, you know? He's dead, but the lungs. Yeah. And he explains it and fooled him. I'm like, I should have recorded that.

That'd be so cool. I'll record it next time I'm with him. Yeah, that'd be good to know. Yeah. There's such a doctor's excellent. explanation of how hours. Well, same where we're skin in it. And I'm like, okay, you got to get this button here.

This is where you got to cut. And he's like, that's the Atlas. Yeah. Atlas joint. Yeah. And it's just a knob at the back of the skull where it connects to the spine. Yeah. I'll tell everybody you push in behind like he cut through to get into the voice box.

You put your thumb in there and I'm like, that's the button. And he's like, I says, what is it, doctor? And he's like, it's actually called the Atlas. And I'm like, okay, now I'm like, my doctor says it's called the Atlas joint. I still call it a button. But it's just so you can find it and you can cut it, get off the skull. without cutting any bones, just use the joints. You guys have skinned out a lot of bear over the years.

How many yet now? I just found a couple pictures today of, because we've killed them every color phase right down to white. We haven't gotten a glacier bear. We've seen a couple, but haven't gotten one, but we've killed two white ones. That's like a bluer. It's kind of a bluish chin.

They're so beautiful. They're more popular in British Columbia and Alaska. There's a lot of glacier bears. So yeah, I found a picture of two white ones. One of them's done full mountain, one's half mount. Just pure white bears, not albino, just white bears. Light, light, light. That's what we need.

Yeah. That's next. A white eight-footer. Yeah. We have to call them ghost. Yeah. I know. Be in trouble for killing polar bear.

Can you imagine though in our woods being a white bear of that size? Yeah. You stick out. Have you guys seen white deer like albino deer? I've never seen one up there. No, I've never seen one up there. Tony Drake's got some on his farm. Yeah.

I've, there used to be one out where I went to high school. Really? We always see a doe. Oh, yeah. On Windling Road, that's the road I lived on. And I don't know what happened to her. I've seen online, like, what is the name they call it? Piebald.

The piebalt. The one that's the one that's, yeah. That, like, even that has piebald, white tail right there. Okay. She has white. Yeah. But. I've never seen that in Alberta.

I mean, there might be some. Yeah, that's like there's either the piebald or albino. I've seen albino. Yeah. Which is freaky. Yeah. Not in real life. Like not in Alberta.

You've seen him on videos. No, I thought we saw an albino moose. Yes. Yes. Not far from the farm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A calf, I think it was.

Yeah. Yeah. We also seen a caribou not far from where we are, which it was totally out of its range. I don't know. It was delusional. To the south and to the north of there. I know, but still.

It was going through farmland trying to jump fences. Way, way far away. I was like, what the heck? We'll take the, we'll take the caribou. boo, just not leave the grizzlies. The grizzlies can stay. Yeah. Maybe stay far away.

We don't want them messing up our baits. Yeah. And killing our black bear. Yeah. But man, what an awesome. I just love hunting with you guys. I can't wait to give away this hunt to have,

share it with somebody up there. And super thankful for you guys. They are hard on the black bears because we were looking at numbers yesterday in one of the parks in Alberta and there was about 60 grizzlies in there and 20 black bears. So that was numbers from like 20. Normally black bears are more planetful than anything else. 2024 or something. They kill them in the den, out of the den.

They love digging them out of the den because the grizzly is out a month before and a month after. So he goes, finds a den and then kill them. And every once in a mile somebody will get it on video. Like he's like, hey, you got to see this. I'm like, I know what happens. Yeah. I don't see it. I don't want to hear it.

Or saying what was last fall, it was some big bull elk that was running and there was a pack of wolves on him trying to take him down. I know. I don't like, I don't even like, I don't like, watch. I'm like, I know what happens. Yeah. I can't watch it. I just, I understand it.

I just, yeah. I used to be able to watch. I wouldn't even care. But now I'm just getting softer. Yeah. I'm like, yeah. Me too. It's harder to watch those things.

Did you have notes of anything that we didn't want to miss? Oh, no, I did notes. Like, I was doing all these notes and thought I'm going to be like all factual and all this stuff. But I really didn't. We kind of kept most of it. Recap the 26, huh? I mean, we talked about, oh. Are you coming back next year?

Yeah. Okay, remember last time from the spring, people like how you measure and stuff, just define when we say nose to tail and square. Just put it out there factually because they're like, what do you mean, you're not measuring it right, blah, blah, blah. You did the divide and stuff. So you're going to get longer when you skin it out for a rug. It's going to be longer than what it was on the carcass because skin stretches.

And the taxiderm is going to stretch it to make a rug. So you get what you're going to get when you stretch it. I mean, this. This is probably tube. Yes. This wolf. So you could, you could say how that'd be different. Yeah.

So if. Yeah. Yeah. So what we're talking about is, that's a good example. Yeah. We'll cut up here for the rug. Yeah. Yeah.

You can cut right up to the chin on it. So you can see how much this is going to. So this. So this, so we would measure like this, claw to claw. That's the way. But if you split it like for a rug, that's going to be whiter. Yeah.

This whole thing is tubed, right? Yeah. So, and then that, and then we go, nose. Yeah, so this wouldn't be a true square because he's not skinned up. Yeah. Nose to tail. Nose to tail. Yeah.

Yeah. So that plus that. If we tell you the bear is seven feet nose to tail, that's there to the end of the tail, to the longest hair. Yeah. So that, that would be nose to tail. But if we say square, it's that plus the claw to claw divided by two. Yeah.

And that's what they do in Alaska with brown bear. Yeah. That's what everybody does. Yeah. So we're like. The only difference is if it's tubed or if it's covered. Exactly. Exactly. If it's not, if it's tube, you're not getting the width.

No. Yeah. So even if you cut that one, you'd get like another foot. Yeah. Out of that. Yeah. So that's how we measure. If people are wondering or if they think we're being unfair and measuring too big.

That's how we do it. And that's how we're going to do it. And so. And I think what people might be like, do they not stretch it? Yeah. And they say, so you're just supposed to throw it there and just measure however it's laying? Yeah. Yeah.

We just kind of lay it. I watch a taxidermist make the rugs. much they stretch it. Okay, here's a good one. Okay, so you get a big elk or a big mule deer. Are you just going to look at it and say, yeah, I think it's about this. That'll, that'll be good. He looks like he could be like a 140. You're going to measure him exactly. Hey, for the fishermen, if you're going out to get a big, whatever, like for us, a big walleye or whatever, you have to measure it. That's a big elk. Hey? You have to measure it. Yeah. Oh, you know what doesn't lie? The skull size. Well, if the guys measure it right. Yeah. I was listening to these guys one time.

like yeah we kill a bunch of 22 inch bears no you didn't no doesn't exist you had me that big there's the odd one killed but yeah here's a monster yeah so everybody gets a 22 inch bear so they were measuring they were taking a tape and they were going like this yeah and then take a tape and go like this well yeah you're gonna get freaking yeah and grisly sized black bear yeah so what you say your calipers and you go to the longest or we just go like there you go yeah or you just like this Yeah, if you can put it in a box. They have boxes to measure skulls. So you just go straight up.

Yeah. And you measure that. Yeah. And then you go on the widest point. You go right there. Yep. And then it's. And you know on deer or any other animal, there's shrinkage, right?

Your deer, say he scored 160. Yeah. When he dries and shrinks, you're going to lose a little bit because things narrow down. He tighten up. They shrink. Dry out. Dry out. On a bear, they can actually get bigger.

Really? Yeah. I didn't know that. What did he end up, you know, after shrinking, after 60-day waiting period, bigger. And the reason you don't see, you got a blackguard skull? I think that's what you're saying, there. Oh, but you can show it on that. That's a black thing.

Yeah. Yeah. So when it's drying, these things right here will pop. Oh, I see. So it gets wider instead of shrinking. And also, if you have the bottom jaw on, they say you can count the, like, if that, uh, like, if that, That the tooth goes a little bit further than that tooth. You can go to that, the bottom tooth.

But we're just talking like 16th of an inch. Yeah. But we're just going that straight up. Yeah. And width straight up. Yeah. So that's the skull. We showed the hide.

That's what we're doing. Yeah. And in the meat, it's just delicious. Yeah. For sure. What other notes you got? It's cool to have a lot of beside that. Believe or not, I think we touched pretty good on everything.

I think we did good. I think it was a good discussion. Oh yeah. I think it was pretty cool. Do you think we missed anything? Because we talked and we're like, okay, what do we talk about this time we do? I don't want to always talk about the same stuff. No. But it's like good information. Yeah, it's all new stuff. It's just stuff that I see a lot of questions on or I get questions on. But mostly you just want to talk about our love of hunting and fellowship. And we like the questions. So if you do come to Alberta, hunting. You can take the bear meat, the bear skull, everything back with you. I'm going to clarify that because I get a lot of questions about that. Absolutely, your hunting license is your export permit. You can take it home with you. The catch is if you want to leave it, then we have to get a CITES permit. So if you're going to get it, take it to our taxidermist or whatever, which is usually pretty. And that's easy. The taxidermist does it all. They do it all. They ship it all. They take care of it all.

But the biggest thing is if you want meat, you have to take it home. That's the only thing we can't ship. we're not allowed to ship wild game into the state so right yeah so if you want me with you bring a good grizzly cooler yeah fill her up and take her home yeah and our taxidermist yeah and our taxidermist ohrian is the one that does the shipping for all the other taxidermis he's the shipping exporter that gets all the permits the cites permits and everything so it's great that he's our taxidermis he does not going to somebody else to get shipped he does it all boom and it's gone yeah and just so you know i mean you can just load up coolers and you just pay for them is extra luggage. Yeah, exactly. And so I pay, I think, I don't know, a couple hundred bucks.

Are you shipping them? Are you like, oh, they're going on the plane with you? Yeah. Yeah. So, and there's, there's a weight limit on the cooler. So you just got to know what that is for your airline. It might be 75 pounds. It might be 100 pounds. Yeah. But just know what it is for your airline. So you don't have to mess with meat at the checking counter. Yeah. Yeah. Know that ahead of time. And then just have the cooler. And then we can weigh it just like we did mine this year and yeah, went through no problem. Yeah. With you on your person, like I said, said, it's just your hunting license. That's your export permit. You don't need anything else. You have to declare it, of course, but that's it. They have all the information they need right

there. And then on your night in the city, before you get on your plane the next day, we use a hotel that's got a walk-in freezer. One of the only ones that's still got a walk-in freezer where the guys can put their coolers in there, let them keep freezing, or let them stay frozen. If we want you to succeed, but we also want you to get your game home safe, whether it's your hide, you're taking your hide and your mate or either or. It's this way it can stay frozen overnight. I'm just going to get home. Like in those coolers, they'll stay frozen for days. Yeah, I do get that question all the time.

Yeah. About the meat and how I got at home and all that. So that's really good to cover. And we try to get it all froze. Yeah. Frozen before you leave. Oh, you got you do a great job. If it's not all frozen,

when you get to the hotel, you put it in their walking freezer and then overnight before you fly the next day. Those grizzly coolers keep them froze for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Where's my drink cup? This thing here.

I'll put ice in there. And I'm using. I'm using it for two days with the same ice where I keep on, I drink it all, and then there's all the ice left. And then I'll pour another drink in there, another black rifle energy drink or water. And I got ice in there still for another day. It's amazing. It's insane.

Yeah. It's a long way from those little foam. Remember those foam little coolers? Just get that disintegrate. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. So those big Grizzly 450 is their biggest cooler that they make.

That's my ice bath. So when we go to the taxidermy shop and bring all the bears from all the clients from the spring, yeah. We took this year, 19 or 20 bears. We can put 10 frozen bears per cooler with skulls. That's how big they are. You can put an elk and a half in there. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. The whole quarters. So the next thing I want to get efficient on is when we freeze them, I want to figure out kind of what the average is going to be so I can put it in a box or a crate. So it'll freeze the right size because sometimes your bear. There was no getting your bear into one cooler. Right. That was like putting three bears in a cooler.

It's like. Yeah. You had to do a jigsaw puzzle to try to get it as close as possible. Yeah. And when they're bigger, you got to take off the hawks. And I, so I figured out a couple ways. Our next big build or whatever we're doing next is a walk-in freezer, walk-in cooler. Yeah.

Oh, that would be great. Well, thank you guys. This has been fun discussion. Yeah. Yeah. Can't wait for the next. Again. Do you know which podcast is?

This is our sixth, I think. Including the Skinning Table ones. Hey, people love it. I kind of miss not doing that this year. I know. Next year we're doing it. I don't know what we did. Yeah.

So much happening. There was. Next year we got to get James to film Jen's spiel on the Bears too. Yeah. And put that up on YouTube. That's what we'll do. See if they're not coming with us, they're going somewhere else. They can watch that and go, okay, this is what I need to look for.

This is what I need. That's excellent info. Yeah. I know. I love that talk. Yeah. No, that's, we'll definitely do that. That'll be popular.

It's been refined and adjusted many times over. And now it's kind of like, this is what we need to talk about, the basics. Yeah. even a packing list. I'm serious. When he went to Alaska with you, we're like, okay, what do you pack? He's never done this. He's never been there. Like, you get all these questions. Oh, I know. And I think it would be good to talk about like good broadheads. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just the basics on for people going on the first bear. Yeah. Yeah. And for bears never a two blade, not even with little kickers. It's like taking a knife and stabbing it into something. And when you pull it back out, bears have like, they're flabby, big skin.

lots of hair and it'll kind of just seal it back up. It's not like with an ancillor, you punch it and it kind of pops. Yeah. It's just thick. You want a good blood trail to follow. Yeah. Yeah. I used to have some of those.

Oh, I think it's in here. But yeah, you want a big old hole. Yeah. Yeah. Those carnifores make a hole the size of a shotgun, like a 12-gauge slug. Yeah. Yeah. Right here.

So when you, as you, as opposed to a two blade that does a knife, you put a hole like that in them. Yeah. That's going to bleed. and that's not going to seal up. Yeah. Or you talk about that kind of fat kind of goes over. A hole like that is not going to seal up. You think like a two blade.

I'll use this. Yeah. So it's basically this. Yeah. Like this. And then it has a little kicker and a little kicker. If you punch that into the side that's really like a bear flabby, lots of hair and you pull it out, you don't see it. Yeah. Just do it like after when you butcher something, you stab it in, you pull it out.

You can't even see you stab it in. Right. Yeah. Black bear is pretty easy to poke through. Yeah. Yeah. They're high. You still want enough poundage to shoot a four.

laid like that because it's more resistance, right? So it's going to show things down. And then again, in Alberta, in order to shoot archery, it has to be 40 pounds, right? Legal to hunt big game. Yeah. So, yeah, we'll film that next year, put that up. That would be great. And this way people, there's still going to be lots of questions, but at least they can go

to it and say, hey, this makes it a little easier. Because you can tell me stuff and I'll forget in five minutes. I'm trying to remember when you're saying who else. And I'm like, who else was it? My gosh. It kind of all blurs. And each year, because a lot of them are repeat. it kind of blurs, it's like, which week were they there?

I'm trying to remember. Not my week. What helps memory? Where time goes by fast. I can't believe it's fall season is going to open up right away. I know. I know. So we get home from here.

We go to a wedding in Montana and then on the 11th, we start baiting bears again of August. Never ending. He's excited. He can't wait. Well, I got to go shoot my bow right now. Yeah. Sounds good. I'm getting ready.

Yeah. Well, thank you guys. I've always dialed in. Oh, my God. Is it? Every time of year, when we're here at this. this time Wayne and the guys dialed in and get everything set up got our new Hoyt's and boy there's it fast we were at the farm last night because I hadn't got to work on mine yet I'm

shooting 525 grain arrow and I'm like at 300 some some of the chronos were 302 or just 290 something that is so much energy yeah that's gonna hit hard like how is there that much difference from my previous year boat to where now I can dial to 140 150 really Before I'd be touching, fletching on the housing at like 1.10, 1. He's out there giggling like a little kid. I'm shooting off Wayne's deck at 125, 140. That's fun, isn't it? I was practicing just in case you showed up and we were going to compete or something.

So fun. And then he worked with me last night, tweaking everything. And I was like, okay, doing this. Wayne tweaked your last night. I haven't shot a lot. He's like, hey, Jen, do this, this, this. Like, he's like the Sansei. What do you call, sense?

What are you? He's like, okay, do this. He's like, try this. Whacks on. Tick, tick. and I went from like this to like this now it's four arrows touching like Wayne's like my group's not even that tyrant I like mine either

I'm like okay I'm done let's walk away the herd bowl's a better teacher than shooter these days yeah he's an awesome teacher that starts to suck yeah well thank you guys for this camera holy moly thanks Travis I see I'll be texting you buddy I love this how lucky are we yeah well yeah I know I just keep doing yeah so we really wanted you to have that for your blacktail hunt or whatever

I love it. I mean, you'll look from home and go, holy shit, look what's there now. Super thankful. Yeah. They're legal in Oregon. Yeah. Yeah, this is great.

It's perfect what I knew for Black time. Huge bag. You packed so it lasts a long time. Yeah. I scored. Yeah. Hey, in the Bible says giving it shall be given. Mm-hmm.

Well, I'm not gonna argue with the Bible. Yeah. It is true. You give and I mean, it's just, it's fun to give. Yeah. It is definitely. It's a principle like gravity. Whether you believe it or not, it works.

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Right on. Thanks for having this, Cam. It was nice to be on the podcast again, Cam. Love you guys. Love you too.

Thank you. Keep hammering, guys.