The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 084: Grizzlies in Camp!

Episode Date: October 2, 2017

Caribou camp, AK- Steven Rinella talks with Doug Duren, Mark Kenyon, Dirt Myth, Brody Henderson, Ridge Pounder, and Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew.Subjects Discussed: hunting the 40-Mile Herd; herd mortality from wolves, grizzlies, humans, and accidents; Tit Peak, Nipple Butte, Scro Mountain and other MeatEater landscape terminology; hunt terminology; picking your moment; the challenges of hunting in grizzly country; the peculiar luxury of cherry pickin' bulls; life journeys; Dirt still needs a caretaking job; a ripper of a concluding thought; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwear-less. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. uh janice you earlier you were researching a product i was thinking you know when you're talking to ridge pounder if you put it out to the listeners they might have input they

could email into you about the product you're researching was that the 95mm polarizer For my new spotting scope You're talking about No It was a little earlier in the day It wasn't that It wasn't that

Oh I know what you're talking about I think that will solicit Way too much Fanfare I think that every Everybody would have an opinion Some people would have Adamant opinions about it fanfare. I think that everyone, some people

would have adamant opinions about it. Some people would be aghast. And if your in-laws in the South have a

problem now with what goes on, I'm drinking bourbon right now, which I just do not like. I think that

I remember one time I got grounded for a long time. My dad let us go on a canoe trip instead of being grounded, which I still don't fully understand why he let us do that. But we were grounded for lying and then lying some more to cover up the lie. And then things went downhill from there and we got grounded, but we were allowed to go on a canoe trip. I remember sitting and drinking. I was 15, my brother was 16

and I remember sitting there at the head of the White River drinking, I think it was Canadian Hunter. And since that day, I just have never liked this stuff. Is that even bourbon? That's Canadian whiskey. It's a blend of this stuff. Is that even bourbon? That's Canadian whiskey. It's a blend of this stuff, man.

Yeah, any of this stuff. I like Roman vodka. This has got to be one of the more boring beginnings that I've ever done in my entire life. Mark, what did you see this morning here in camp? Well, this is Mark Kenyon. Pulled open my tent door, and literally the first thing I saw, not the grass, not the sky, a mama grizzly and cub right in camp.

Five feet away from the crew. The very tent we're sitting in. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we're in a tent right now. If you hear, like, noise, pitter-patter noise, that's rain. So if you don't like the sound quality of this show that means you don't like nature so you should go listen to the rob bishop podcast um but uh but no this is uh yeah the the pitter patter sounds and we've had like um yeah yanni talk about the grizzly the other grizzly and the other grizzly. A lot of grizz. Yeah, that was the sweet arties.

We think, more than likely, that was the same mama sow. First grizz. Oh, I know. I'm just saying that we had, we've been watching the sow and her cub for better, well, probably half a day yesterday as they ate berries as they vacuumed berries across the tundra but the uh the first grizz was uh also right below camp and we just come in after looking at some caribou and uh it was the first day we got here so we couldn't hunt yeah in alaska generally i think it's fair to say generally in alaska generally you cannot hunt on the same day

you fly preventing people from spying a critter from the air and then landing near it and and shooting you have to let a nighttime pass i believe now that um because they felt like even the day before was giving too much advantage i believe there are some sheep units now where it's up to like three or four or five days i'd have to fact check that but i think there are some sheep units now where it's up to like three or four or five days i'd have to fact check that but i think there's guys that have to go in and basically scout for five days before they hunt if they want to take a plane in or you or you can walk in really yeah and i know that like there's some stuff with not even being able to uh not being able to scout from the air difficult to enforce but not being able to scout from the air difficult to enforce

but not being able to scout from the air so anyhow there you are there we are oh you guys had all gotten back to camp first and uh what was i doing i must have just peeled off to get a little uh footage looking at something and uh yeah i noticed a big uh blonde blob right below garrett's tent i came over here and we walked to the edge and found it. It was probably, what, I don't know, 150 yards away when we saw it. We watched it hunting. It wasn't eating berries. It was hunting rodents, ground squirrels, I guess.

Yep. You think it's mostly ground squirrels, or is it like a vole, mole type thing they're after? I mean, they could be, yeah, voles,es moles they could be looking for the all-manner something subterranean yeah because today on the way hike back we saw some of the diggings and it looks like they just take two or three quick swipes dig a hole about a foot deep and then move on yeah it's amazing how much trouble they'll go through to unearth something so small. Yeah.

But if you think about it, it's probably... I mean, a power bar probably has more calories than one of these things that they're eating. Yeah, and they'll dig up a bunch of head-sized boulders and dig a big hole to get it out. But then if you looked at how much time he needs he spends to get that caloric value of blueberries it's probably still a good deal to dig up ground squirrels well you think he spends more energy sucking up blueberries i'm saying it's

like just to you know watching them eat blueberries as voraciously as they eat blueberries where it almost seems like they're really mad at the blueberries um that takes time too right yeah so if you put if you put a couple minutes into a ground squirrel it might be that you're getting more calories and if you put a couple minutes into eating low quantity blueberries so there's that grizzly then well then we had a whole other adventure you know let's go we'll take it in somewhat chronological order i'm gonna like let me lay some groundwork we talked about cdr day we're out hunting um we're in a tent out hunting caribou in what is called the 40 mile herd. So there's a river near the 40 mile river and there's a caribou herd here called the 40 mile herd. Now I'm being highly redundant because we've been discussing this every which way on our hunt, in alaska you have about 35 herds of caribou um a herd is defined down to

groupings of caribou that have distinctive calving summering grounds so these herds might overlap in the winter but they have distinct calving summering grounds. So there's 35 groupings of caribou of varying numbers. The 40 mile herd is comprised of about 50,000 caribou right now. The number fluctuates wildly. So in the 20s, it was down to 6,500 caribou. No, no, no. Yeah, that's when it was at its highest.

Clarify it, Mark. Well, in the 20s, because of one of the theories, as you mentioned, during our hunt, was that because of domesticated dogs coming in with a lot of the miners and different people homesteading and checking it out, possibly disease was transferred to the wolves you had such a low predator population that that prey population the caribou exploded i can't remember the numbers quarter million quarter million five times as many as today in the 20s incredible and then by the 70s i believe it was that number had dropped as low as 6500 that's right in 1973 they did a count and this

herd had 6,500 caribou which is the lowest it's been in known history on the bright side though right it's it's rebounded again yeah and now it's held steady they just did a new count um the the figures aren't in yet and these are pretty accurate counts because they're waiting till the they wait until the caribou are bunched up in the summer on feeding grounds. And then they're, they get heavily pressured by mosquitoes and it forces them to go into these groupings in like a little ideal habitat places like on snow fields or windswept ridges where you can get away from the bugs and it gets them grouped up pretty

tight. And so they'll fly surveys at those times. And it's like, it it's not like crazy shit like when you're trying to count wolves or trying to count grizzlies where you're running like models they're out literally photographing and counting caribou yeah it was interesting when i was flying in my pilot was talking about this process and he said that for a handful of years now they've been trying to do this but it takes such a specific set of circumstances to get the caribou to group up to that degree where you can get that done accurately that for three or four years they've been trying now haven't been able to get it and then like you said just this year finally they did have those circumstances they got the right conditions so they'll have some new numbers which

is interesting yeah i think like early or there's some sort of evidence that suggests that the herd seems to have stabilized at around 50,000. But see, caribou herds are wildly cyclical, and it's not always understood what's causing them to go up and down. It seems like a valve that they can use to, a valve that can be turned are wolves. So they did a mortality study up here. I think it was in 2004 they did a mortality study up here. And at the time they had, they figured at a time they had north of 46,000 caribou, and they had some collaring projects going on. They did a mortality study, and they figured that in a year, if you ever heard of 46, I think it was like an estimated 46,500 caribou.

And in a year, they figure 7,000 are killed by wolves. Around 4,000 are killed by grizzly bears. Around 2,500 are killed by other predators. About 1,000 die by accidents, drowning and rock slides and all kinds of other things. And avalanches are a bitch on caribou. And then about, I think they, not not about they know this one exactly i think it was 800 and some killed by human hunters um that's a lot of attrition man but the herd still grew from there just from from you know just natural birth so anyhow that's where we are hunting the

40 mile herd the 40 mile herd like in alaska they have we're talking about different tag types on this show like different hunting permits where you have you know over the counter tags limited draw tags um where you gotta like put your name in a lottery to get awarded a hunting permit governor's tags where like they go to the highest bidder um which is very contentious kind of tag the kind of tag you hunt when you hunt the 40 mile herd is a registration permit and they have a they have a mortality cap there's a certain number of animals they'll allow to be killed and they'll end the season but anyone that comes to hunts needs to register to do the hunt. So we're hunting on registration tags. And when this herd, right now they're very far removed from any kind of roads.

But now and then this herd will drift over and get on the highway, near the highway system where people can really get after them and the hunt can end in days because so many people get after them. But right now they're very well, they have like a moat of, they're protected by a vast moat of roadless, riverless country, like you just can't get in, the only way to get in here is an aircraft, and you can't hunt using rotary wing aircraft, you can only hunt out of fixed wing aircraft, so you can only use fixed wing aircraft to transport for hunting, and there's very limited places to put a plane down you know you can't just go laying on the plane like you can a helicopter so they're pretty well buffered right now um and we flew in how long was i think last year um for context i think last year when we were here, we flew out on around the 15th.

We were back in Toke, and the quota was filled. Was it? Yeah. Oh. Or they were saying that there was one or two or three left, but it was nearing the end. The gal that checked me and said that the one that we killed that i killed was probably one of the last ones oh really i didn't i didn't even catch that when did the season start sometime in august yeah that we're not an air carrier, so we've got our names in,

what is it, 2017 now, we made a plan, like we made a reservation to fly into this area back in 2016, it's like, you got to be, you know, early bird gets the worm on booking a bush pilot if you want a good reputable bush pilot. So we made a reservation a long time ago to get flown in to this area and flew in here, landed, came on the first day, went and did a little scout about, and shit loads of caribou. Like we're in, the herd's moving many how many did we see the first day hundreds over 100 first day of hunting or first day scouting first day of scouting

100 give or take dozens and dozens and dozens dozens and dozens um ran into that grizzly that night any time again that night nope no but we only like we're scouting for a couple hours because we got our camp set up the whole time we're setting our camp up this caribou roll yeah then um the first day we wake up we go and get on a glass and tit and then it was like then they were just coming through that was hundreds oh yeah easily hundreds by at least 500 it was kind of interesting though when and we talked about this being maybe like a product of our discovery channel world we live in where we just understand these areas based on a nature documentary but when i envisioned coming out here and seeing hundreds or thousands of caribou i

imagine this one single large mass like an amoeba of caribou flowing down the hillside and it's not like that no we see hundreds and hundreds of caribou but it's like a trickle but it's like endless trickle here here's a dozen or there's 20 or there's five but you can look any different direction and here they are there's more there's 20 or there's five but you can look any different direction and here they are there's more there's more really good point probably single biggest group is that we've seen i don't know 30 i bet you like 30 40 maybe there's been like on top of those flats yeah that's a good point mark that you bring up um is that if you okay imagine that it's like plopped you down here with if i just plopped you down and gave you a pair of binoculars and said describe what you're seeing you wouldn't

say oh i'm watching a caribou migration you would think i'm seeing a like a scattering of caribou everywhere i look but then a couple hours later you might be like and i'm noticing that this scattering of caribou spread out over many miles are sort of kind of moving east sort of kind of being the key the key word sort of kind of moving east except for when they really are hauling ass east yeah um and they move not like in like not like in cardinal directions but they're so they're just following contours hitting like going down ridge lines up streams catching little saddles and passes and i think that the whole moving mass of caribou so you have 50 000 caribou on the move but the front if you will like like it's 50 000 caribou spread over 20

a 20 mile width yeah that's what my pilot had told me moving in an easterly direction and you're somewhere in that 20 miles and when you're on a good tit you're looking at let's say three miles a three mile width or two mile width and they have this way of like kind of following each other but it changes not just throughout it changes day to day and also throughout the day where you'll see a band come through and then a while later a band that isn't related to that band will follow their exact line and you realize that you're witnessing in like from your glass and tit you're picking out that there's sort of like

today for instance we had remember their caribou we were calling ridge runner yes i don't know why we call all caribou fabio because the males are getting their winter pelage and they get a big, long, white, flowing mane. But there's that line, okay, going down the ridge, crossing the river, and then coming up by Nipple Peak. Then there's like the line of going up that creek all the way to its head and crossing by Gut pile number one yes then there's a line of coming across the high mesa by the by the by the terrorist plateau

and then peeling off and going down through the spruce. Then there's sort of a line that comes off the Terrace Mesa and just comes right down through Gut Pile 1. I love the vocabulary we've already developed to describe our entire setting. You have to have it, man. There's certain themes that come up. Anatomical parts. That's pretty consistent. Every hunting place, anatomical parts. Generally female pretty consistent. Every hunting place, anatomical parts.

Generally female? No. Definitely not. I have a picture like a scroll mountain. Baelic peak. You know what? I kind of resent that because when I say nipple beaut...

You're thinking male nipple? Yeah. Female nipple. Just because're thinking male nipples. Yeah. What were you thinking? Female nipples. I think, man. Just because of the size of it. Nothing sexual. No, you're, yeah, I think that like ships, people tend to name, yeah, there's like a name. Something that you're endeared to, yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot more Maggie's nipples on the maps than there are Fred's nipples. That's true. Now, you know, by our fish shack, never mind, I can't say this. Never mind. I want to make another point, though, about the migration, too, because sometimes you think, like, man, they are really going every single direction. But like you said, it's like 20 miles wide. Maybe it's 40 miles long.

Who knows? And within just your little, you know, zone that you can see, they could be going north for a little while, but end up still like eventually over the course of three days, they've still moved east. You might have even seen them going west for a little bit. Through the whole time you saw them, they were going west. But again, over the course of three days, they've still moved east. You might have even seen them going west for a little bit. Through the whole time you saw them, they were going west. But, again, over the course of three days, they eventually

ended up farther east than they were at the beginning of the three days. Does that make sense? They're just following a contour or something. These things are going every direction, but in the course of three days, they're going the direction they're supposed to be going. Yeah, I think that if you took any caribou and marked them at

when we get up on our glass knob, and then you marked that caribou, any caribou we see, you marked his location, and then remarked it eight hours later, that new mark would be in some way east.

Over the course of eight hours hours you would have moved eastward by whatever route and then they get disturbed and then they do weird stuff then they'll get disturbed and go back direction they came from something I gotta

I gotta have you clarify because I thought it was really cool on the on the terms of migration is like when Mark got his caribou you made the comment

that this caribou more than likely had never been in that area before and it were the same like a lot of a lot of the area we're hiking on and hunting on there's a good chance there hasn't been you know humans i mean there there could be but yeah there's a lot of little places you could walk to be reasonable that like pretty reasonable you could be like i bet you guy's ever stepped right here before. That's not unreasonable. Yeah. On the same note, though, how all these caribou, they're not like, this is not their area.

They're just passing through. So it's like they're seeing the country for the first time to some extent, and you're seeing them in that space for the first time. Which is crazy that they're just passing through, but they still have all these trails just beaten down into the mountain. When you're flying over, you can't believe the trails. Like thousands of years of caribou walk in the same path. Yeah, and it's pretty fragile ground. Everything is extremely slow going. So you can have, it's probably possible that you can have a hundred caribou

come stamping down something and then a year later see i mean it's a it's a fragile landscape man a year later it would be that that vegetation hasn't recuperated yeah now you do that down in southeast and the the rainforest just eats it back up but here it's like if you you know you're walking on mosses and lichens and they just cut trails everywhere and yeah it's not like a trail that's being used every day but yeah yeah to to the to to dirt's point which is a point i was making is that an interesting thing about caribou and some caribou migrate a thousand miles you know um these ones don't. They don't migrate nearly that far. But it's reasonable that, not just reasonable,

probable that when you're watching caribou, you're very likely seeing them pass through a place for the first time in their life. Yeah. Especially if it's not like a particularly old animal. Because they take these routes, these routes very, like for instance, a couple years ago, this, much of this herd, Especially if it's not like a particularly old animal. Because they take these routes, these routes vary.

Like, for instance, a couple years ago, this, much of this herd, and again, you can't always say like the herd, because then some will peel off and do their own thing and not stay with the main grouping. But a couple years ago, this group wound up going into Yukon Territory. And wintering in Yukon territory. And then that hasn't happened again in a few years. So they don't have, you hear the term fidelity with wildlife. They don't have fidelity to specific zones. They have like some places they go habitually, but they take different routes going through there.

And then again, it's only like in a general sense where they're going to show up. So like if you get used to, you know, a whitetail deer who lives his whole life within what? Mile radius. Small area. A mile. Yeah. I mean, they can expand beyond that for a day or two or weeks here and there, you know, during the rut. But a core, a core range could be 40 acres and then a little larger maybe 300 400 acres they spend another 50 percent of their time but tight

yeah long story short it's tight so i already said i don't want to talk about who's here real quick um that's mark canyon from do you mainly like like your main gig is wired to hunt you're the wired to hunt guy i'm the wired to hunt guy that is what keeps the mortgage paid so uh marcos uh a podcast called podcast called wired to hunt and and focuses um a lot of his love and attention on on america's deer and that's the truth i'm white tail deer and then uh as though dealing poker but hold on but you have a website too right yeah yeah so it started out just as a website wired to hunt was a website and then expanded to a podcast and the website was just like tips tricks it starts a blog so it was how to's and then my own experiences and stories and news and conservation and all that kind of stuff related to the white tail

youtube the whole nine yards why the name wired to hunt it's you're playing on two things there yeah yeah so the long the short story would be i was working an internship in new york city and my job was basically to work with bloggers and the digital media to help promote products and so i read all sorts of stuff related to that, Wired Magazine being one of them. So that just would always bring to my mind different things related to technology and everything like that. And I wanted to create a deer hunting website, but for the next generation, that was tech savvy. And also the audience would be tech savvy, but then also the way I would communicate things related to deer hunting would be in a different way so that's where wired hunt came so that the tech side but then also i'm just wired different right those people absolutely love to hunt you're wired to hunt it's in your blood it's just part of you so yes double meaning worked out kind of nicely

and then stuck and then um the e here. Howdy. And then Mr. Doug Dern. Hello. Got anything else you want to add, Doug? I would say, when we were talking about this caribou behavior, I was surprised at how, I mean, I expected to see groups moving together, them moving generally in a direction, but I was surprised at how many individuals I saw doing their own thing. Yeah.

Just sort of meandering their way, seemingly with total disregard for what everyone else was doing. Generally youngsters and cows. Yeah, yeah. The occasional bull, but... If you notice the biggest, the big bulls, like, I mean, it's a percent. A percent of what you're looking at are big bulls. The big bulls are two things. With a bunch of other big bulls, with cows.

I got a question following cows is it similar to again going back to my bread and butter whitetails so whitetails have bachelor groups in the summer all these guys are all together but as that testosterone rises towards the rut eventually those groups break up and then you see them much more in much more solitary fashion will that happen with the caribou are they're on those sort of bachelor groups now but as they head into later in september and october are they going to break up man that's that's a great question i'm sure there's people that could answer really well but a couple thoughts on one i don't know if there's i don't know if those groupings you're seeing when you're when you're seeing it like it seems like when you get into the really big bulls so like the big dominant bulls tend to be in packs of three four or five that seem to be affiliated with a group of cows i don't know if those groups of bulls are just changing all the

time you know like i don't know those bulls are at because there's you're talking about so many animals moving all the time i kind of picture it at least picture it being that those bulls are at, because you're talking about so many animals moving all the time. I kind of picture it, at least picture it being that those groupings are fluid in nature. And that if you went a month ago, I'd be a little bit surprised if the groupings were the same a month ago. But I don't really know. I'm sure there's people that could know, and I'm sure they'll get ahold of us and tell us where I'm wrong. The other thing is, I always thought that down the road you would have them become more aggressive. I remember hunting in early October and still seeing bulls traveling in big groups. So I don't know when it is.

I don't know if the relationship is quite like elk where they turn into deer or so many other things where other cervids where there's that same level of hostility from one bull to the next. You do see these bulls fight. You see them fight and spar. But I don't know if they get as intolerant of other males being really close to them as some other animals get intolerant of other males being close to them. I think so. The only thing I read about the rut as we were getting ready for this trip

was that unlike elk that keep a harem or try to protect a harem once it gets going, these bulls don't protect a harem. They protect a zone. They protect a chunk of land. I saw that too. And so any other bull that tries to come into his zone gets run out, and the cows that come into his zone must get bred. But he lets them go.

He doesn't, like, keep a harem. But, yeah, we're going to have to get some kind of caribou expert on him because what's hard for me there is that would mean that all the movement ceases unless he's got a traveling zone. Could be. He's got like a bubble. They sort of just keep their space. He's got a bubble that moves.

Yeah, a bubble of influence that he carries with him through all these passes and valleys. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated.

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As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the, to the on X club y'all. What I do know is this first. So got here, had a little, and that grizzly,

like a lot of grizzlies, like, you know, you kind of get as close as you get as close as is responsible because you like to observe them. And then he's very close to camp. So then we're kind of thinking at the end of observing him, I'm like, it'd be a good idea to have him move along his way and not be hanging out here. So we're going to try to spook him off a little bit, let him know we're here. So he doesn't just then turn around and feed right back up into camp and potentially get himself into a whole bunch of trouble and stand up and start getting the old hay and like a lot of grizzlies that entices that

at first just means that it gets his attention he starts coming towards you happens all the time and then you get up and raise holy hell. And you can usually move him along. That happened. Woke up in the morning. Went up to a knob. And then you start trying to put together, like, well, what is a big bull? And that just comes from watching. You know, like, factoring, like, trying like trying to like to see what's possible out there right i mean you get in the opportunities you have are so many because you're

seeing so many of them go through and after you watch like a hundred of them and a bunch of bulls you start going like so that's what a large one looks like you need that reference point and then you establish your reference point yeah you're weeding the exceptional out of the average yeah it's funny though right when we landed me and doug came in first and we got dropped off for anybody else and me and doug were just gushing because like oh my gosh that was the hugest bull it was monstrous and now as i look back on, after we've seen hundreds of bulls, was it really that big? I think it was average or maybe above average. It was just because it was the first one we saw.

We had nothing to compare it against. And I think we exaggerated a little. Did you get a picture of that bull? I don't think so. Because it would be interesting to look at it. And like all the other bulls, you see a whole bunch. I mean, I don't know. What do we see? 100 cows and calves to every bull that you see?

Yeah. So, you know, whatever number that happened. But it's definitely more cows and calves and young bulls and stuff until you see bigger bulls. And like with that group when we first flew in, there were all these other caribou. And then he was there. And he was significantly bigger than the rest of them. And so, of course, that's our reaction. And I would say it was a whitetail hunter's reaction.

Yeah, we've had a lot of those. Yes, we sure have. When looking at, like, the place I used to do, that I've done, maybe most of my, yeah, probably most of my caribou hunting, I think, has been on the north slope of the Brooks Range in areas where you're not really able to get in on. I mean, it's possible that it could happen, but generally you're not able to get in on these big migration paths of caribou you're you're looking at caribou in summering ground dispersed over a vast vast area and yeah it would be like to go up there on the north slope on a road system hunt it would be laughable that you would be able to sit around and cherry pick bulls like we're cherry picking bulls there would be like if you see a bull you're you better just get your shit together and go because be count yourself lucky you know

but here is you just get i mean it's not even it's like hunting but it's like a little different than hunting but hunt for that one you want the big player is still hunting but it is but it's unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's different than most hunting. But the excitement will be equivalent when you see the one that stands out. That thrill will be there. You won't be like, ah, it's another bull. It's going to be like, oh, that's the one.

Yeah, but you know what's missing? What's missing is the idea of... And it happens to antelope hunting, too. What's missing is the idea of and it happens antelope hunting too what's missing is the idea that you won't get one the fear of not not the fear of but like a lot of times in hunting you're like it's like will i get one yeah okay and that's the thing yeah but you said it can't shut off like there is a slight chance yeah and not probable they just are gone but tomorrow it was last year yeah yeah but as much as hunting it's about putting yourself in the middle of this spectacle

yeah you know yeah the hunting's almost secondary to the hunting is secondary to the experience of being there the experience of like being and seeing like it might sound hokey but it's true in this case i think that's the perfect word. No, it is. It's like you're witnessing a mass migration of large mammals. You'd never understand it unless you came here and saw it. You just wouldn't. So there's that with some hunting mixed in.

But it's just not like hunting. People spend a lot of time, myself included, talking about fair chase issues. And you kind of get into like, like caribou hunting in a situation like this, which for me, it would be a once in a lifetime situation. I've seen it. I hunt a tremendous amount. I'm in my early forties.

I've seen this twice. So you get into a situation where it's like uh you know all of a sudden we talk about fair chase and all that i don't know i don't know if this like is this fair i don't know to go out to go get any individual one to go get any individual one is like feels to me like it has the level of uncertainty that one would expect from a from what people like to describe as a fair chase hunt but when taken in the whole population and the ability to get a animal seems like a pretty foregone conclusion the minute you hit the ground well that's a good example though what i what i'm talking about is like the one that we saw that you and doug went after and it just didn't

work out any part i wanted to get yeah that's a great point and it's like you're still chasing that we're watching all these ones the minute we pick one out and go that's the one yeah somebody gives a slip you can't find them and that's your that's your like bar of scale from there there on out yeah yeah there's certainly i mean you gotta climb mountains you gotta run after them you might get fogged out like there's fair chases oh there's elements of it over one just trying to like be out in a place that's very inhospitable and then a lot of people aren't comfortable dealing with grizzlies, which is a daily occurrence. Yeah. Wind.

A daily occurrence. 70 mile an hour sleeping in a tent and 70 mile an hour gusts. The potential of getting annihilated by biting insects. So, yeah, I mean, there are like tons of things that make it, but I'm just talking about that like distinct, you know, when it's the kind of hunt that the minute you get out of your tent you could start shooting caribou and then could shoot them until the sun goes down yeah it's just it's different that's all i'm pointing out i'm not saying it's less i love it but it's just different and i will say that it is certainly not less. The difficulty of the hunt for someone like me, who's, you know, I'm a Midwest whitetail hunter.

And, yeah, I got ready for this. A white Midwest whitetail hunter? Yeah, that was an interesting note you put in there. A Midwest whitetail hunter. Oh, well, sorry. He is whitetail. I've got this talking juice here in front of me. Oh, it tastes awful, too. I'm sorry, though. I've got this talking juice here in front of me. Oh, it tastes awful, too.

I'm sorry, Doug. I just struck. Yeah, but no, thanks for the correction. Well, you are. I am a white, Midwest white tail hunter. I sweetly am. So there are so many parts. I've never done anything like this.

I know you guys do way more difficult hunts than this, but this is the most difficult hunt that I've ever done. Is that right? And it is the most interesting hunt that I've ever done. But when it came down to the moments, the decision that we went after the first one. Yeah, talk about that because I'm sticking to my chronology. Talk about that we finally find one, and then you turn out that you can't get them. And that caribou was exceptional based on what I had seen in the first four hours of hunting but it wasn't even that he was just exceptional to everything that we had seen up to that point

and so I'm at that point I'm like okay now I understand and away we go and into thin air gone except for these guys said oh no you guys went down there and they were already around you And away we go and into thin air, gone. Except for these guys said, oh, no, you guys went down there and they were already around you. Yeah, because you're trying to head. I mean, every time we've gone after caribou, you're trying to one, you spot them way off. You try to figure out their trajectory, which is somewhat predictable

because you look at whoever was out at, whatever group came before them. And then you got to make up your mind and then just haul ass and try to get there before they do. And we missed them by way. Yeah. And I would say about that,

when you said before that, and you could shoot, you could get out of your tent and start shooting caribou and shoot a caribou all day long. Yeah, but that, of course we could. And that's just such an unusual thing to be around. But then to go out there and pick that.

And then we began to hunt because you are, I mean, you're spotting and then you're hunting and you're anticipating where they're going. You're trying to get there. And every bit of that was a part of a spot and stalk as far as I was concerned. And, you know, we were disappointed and we didn't find that animal. And we took kind of a loop and we're coming back. And here come a bunch of younger caribou. And amongst them were a couple of bulls and one was a really nice bull. And he closed within 75 or 80 yards of us.

And some of them run away, some of them run in a circle away from you and then they come back because they're sort of curious about you or they don't understand what you are, but they're definitely alerted to you and uh most of them have no human experience they just doesn't click they don't see you and go like oh shit run run run and so this which was an extremely suitable bull um came within 75 yards of us and gave us a show of...

Fabulous. Fabulous, of defiance, of interest. Spectacularness. I am... The animal was spectacular, and I never picked my rifle up. I was so caught up in the whole thing, and I asked you a couple times,

what do you think? And you said, that's a heck of a, you may have said, that's a hell of a, that's a dandy. That's a, I mean, you said several times and, you know, you can shoot that one. And I, or yeah, I totally understand if you did. And I just point out too, that it wasn't the one we were looking at. That's the other part of it. I had that exceptional one to to compare it to and i just got um completely caught up in the moment of watching all that happening and if and i realize now or i realize in retrospect that i knew that it could

happen again i knew that it would happen again i would have been surprised after that it would happen again. I would have been surprised after that it would happen again. So I enjoyed that, and I didn't regret not shooting that caribou. Yeah. I think part of it was that he just wasn't the one we went after. And then it felt like an unearned thing. I don't know what it was. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time and I can't put my finger on it now. It was,

that was my first encounter like that. And it was just, that was enough. And he wasn't, and you said to me a couple times, he's with that look. He's not like the one that we were, we went after.

That's not the one we went after. And when you're seeing so many of them, you kind of want it to that we were, we went after. That's not the one we went after. And when you're seeing so many of them, you kind of want it to be the one you're going after. Yeah. Yeah,

not just the chance. Rather than one that just, boom, shows up. Yeah. You know? But that's,

see, that's where it is. Like, that's the thing that always trips me up is how much sort of mental masturbation is going on.

I think there's a lot. A lot of mental masturbation that's very difficult to explain. That I would have a very difficult time like if I went home and I was like oh man you know hundreds of them coming by my wife would say well why

why wouldn't you just be done right away then I'd have to be like well you know and it would start to someone else like an outside perspective you'd never really get to where they were satisfied. Right. I mean, you could shoot one opening morning and still enjoy the spectacle for three days.

You never got introduced, Brody. We quit the introductions. Yeah. Brody Henderson. Happy to be here with witnessing the spectacle does a little fishing guiding and works with us guiding season is all done yeah yep thank god um yeah witnessing the spectacle so me and dog got duped then we go back up to the glass and and lo and behold here comes some legit full-on balls out migrators right mark yeah talk about that

yeah so you guys got back up there we sit down we eat some sammies kind of relax a little bit continue not relaxing well i was glassing getting to that we were glassing as we sat and we were looking across that whole bowl where the terraces were and the tops and everything and i just remember looking across there just to the right and below the terrace and just spotting these white these fabios and be like i think those are new bowls and we we pulled up the glass on them and yeah five new bowls and then a big old stream of other cows and calves above them and then unique to a lot of the other ones we saw, which were more of the meandering type, these guys were on a mission.

And so if I remember right, we looked them over pretty good. It didn't take too long to realize there was one or two in there that were worth our attention. So they kept piling down that hill. And then you're like, hey, we should make a move on them so we grabbed our gear and took off down the hill they disappeared behind this one knob knob number one right and all i remember is we go scooting down to this little ridge this little rise and then i just remember when the whole herd peeked over that first knob and i just felt like i was watching like i don't know something in the

african serengeti like just this massive this was like a miniature version of what i imagined it would be like this mass of like flowing animals down the hillside many tons worth of animals yeah yeah many tons worth of animals of mass yeah yeah led off by these big old white maned bulls yeah they were out front they were that bull um was is either out of all the the hundreds of caribou we've seen in two and a half days of observation, he's either number one or number two. In which respect? Biggest ones we've looked at. Yeah.

So here's my question. He might be number two. Number one being the first big one we saw? I think the one that gave us the slip. I don't know. That's how it happens, though. It looked like, yeah, he would. I'd put a $100 bet on the fact that the one that gave us the slip was bigger.

He had everything. As it should be. Yeah. He lives on. He lives on. But, yeah. But the Serengeti's coming your way. The Serengeti's coming your way serengeti is coming our way

and man like it was just for me it was the weirdest experience maybe i've ever had hunting like it was just this like moment of there's so many different things going on right i mean it was so different than any other hunt i've ever been on and just the whole spectacle of it not only the the will or a spectacle but also then our whole deal, all these different people. There's four or five of us sneaking down there. We got laid down. We saw they were angling our way. We had a good spot to set up and laid down, put the rifle on the backpack.

You were so kind to share your rain jacket with me for a little bit bigger bump there all nice and gentle like yeah and then they just came angling down our way and i was like holy shit this is actually gonna happen and it's funny yeah at some point you go like oh they are gonna come through here and not veer off in some crazy ass direction yeah and like it wasn't though like i feel like in most other hunts you get to like mentally process what's happening and like all right yeah like this is the animal i'm get to like mentally process what's happening and like all right yeah like this is the animal I'm going to shoot and kill or this is happening or yeah I want this to happen it was like I'd gotten on a roller coaster at the top of that hill

and then I was just tearing down it all the way through this moment and um going into this whole thing I was like I really hope I don't shoot one on the first day I really want this to be like a long experience and to feel all the way but this was just like i was tearing down that hill on the roller coaster and it was happening i was like whoa and so he comes up and he's angling and we're ranging him and he's like you know 275 250 245 i just remember like 235 somewhere around this last range i got and then like you said blow or blouch or whatever it is you'd like to say but yeah it was funny because there's him and another couple and they were kind of stacked coming in and out and they were just moving they're on the move yeah so i

tried to find a moment when the other ones weren't behind them and let them have it and fortunately was able to get the job done but here's the thing about see you kind of bummed me out now about the first day thing you don't know what's like i've seen plenty of times and all of a sudden just what is it right now outside oh yeah i'm not i'm not i'm not disappointed anyway you can see 50 yards because the fog it's like there are so many things that screw you. Oh, yeah. It's just like it's clear. That's a big bull. Oh, I'm glad we did what we did. I'm glad it happened. Absolutely.

It might be that you wake up tomorrow, and it's fog, and then it's fog, and then it's fog the next day, and nothing ever happens. It's like you have to just pick your moments. Yeah. But in that scenario, when you've been for whatever, at that point we've been out in the field for six, eight hours, well, maybe 12 counting the day before, and you're just like,

oh, that's the 150th bull I've seen. Like, you know, you're feeling pretty cocky about it. Yeah. It was wild. Yeah. But I don't even know if I wasn't like, I feel like, because Doug went on that stalk, and so this whole time I was like, Doug was hunter, I was in observation mode.

And then like that switch flipped all of a sudden, bam, you're in hunter mode. And it was that transition all of a sudden, like my mind was readjusting to my new reality. And it was just, it was a super crazy, interesting, unique, once in a lifetime experience the whole thing and um and then walking up on that animal was pretty like it was all like starting becoming so real like that was an incredible animal just just it was all so different wild yeah and for me too from sitting the distance that i was watching this unfold and i've seen other people shoot whitetails from a distance, but it wasn't a completely unique experience watching this happen unfold in front of me. And I thought it was a completely different distance. Yeah.

It seemed like they were closing, closing, closing. Boy, he's going to let them get really close. And then we got down there and went, holy man, he shot this thing at 235 yards. Yeah, in these areas, distance becomes very difficult. Perspective and scale is just. Things are far away than you think they are. They're closer than you think they are. Yeah.

You start walking towards something that seems a million miles away, and in fact, it's not. Yeah. We've talked about that. Yeah, it is. and in fact it's not yeah yeah we've talked about that yeah this um then we butchered it out and and just as we're leaving we wanted to hunt some more we want to go back up to our glass and tip and butchered it out and i was because of grizzlies i was like let's move um the meat away from the guts because when a bear comes in they just go and eat the anything's gonna come and just eat the soft tissue first because you just gulp it down because they don't know

as far as they know a bigger bear is gonna come and steal the whole damn thing from them so when they swoop in they just want to like you know you get what you can get and then work on the other stuff later a couple years ago my brother lost the elk to a grizzly and he had had all four legs on the bone and boned out everything else and it ate all the boneless meat and buried the bone in me so they do know like what they can gobble up quick and what takes time and and and like think about that so we move the meat i don't know not even 175 yards away yeah not not just to give a little buffer and we knew we were gonna be and think about that. So we move the meat, I don't know, not even 175 yards away. Yeah, not all that far.

Just to give a little buffer. And we knew we were going to be sitting there staring right at it. And we get back up to the tit and here comes the grizz. It was just like, time to let the grizz out. And we watched that thing cover two miles.

You think it was that far? Oh, yeah. I think it's from the plate. What did you say, Yanni? From where it popped up to where it ended up? It was a long ways. Run at a run. And I'm like, the wind wasn't right.

But I'm watching this thing. I'm like, after a while, me and Dirt almost made it back. I couldn't decide. I'm like, it's undeniable this is is jogging with its nose in the air is jogging over an incredible distance toward this gut pile but the wind was wrong so like how would it be aware of it when the wind is what it's doing and then it turns out that just for some inexplicable reason it was running all the way toward us because it finally gets within like easy striking distance of that gut pile stops dead ass cold and spends the next hour eating

blueberries well it stopped cold just slightly upwind of it like it was in kind of some rocky sparse vegetation as soon as it hit that that berry buffer lush stuff bam yeah because she was traveling across just open you know just rock and moss really and then yeah and i think she had her nose near like she might smell i don't know if they got an ability to smell good concentrations of blueberries but she's just traveling through the shitty ground that little cub bouncing along behind her he stopped wrestling with the caribou at one point, he like barrel rolled down the hillside

for a while. Did some somersaults, fought a caribou antler. And she winds up getting down into the blueberries and just sets to eating. And then kind of

paralleled us when we got our meat and headed back, kind of paralleled us the whole way and then was staying in our camp this morning. Never got to the carcass.

See how I brought that shit full circle? Nice. Poor Garrett, though, this morning. So I opened that tent door and holy crap, there's a mama and cub. And I didn't hear you. Right. I see it hop out of my tent and start yelling. I was kind of half awake.

You know how you kind of got to take a whiz? All of a sudden I hear, like, grizzly in camp. I get your attention really quick. So I yell, and then she kind of speeds up a little bit and goes over the hill, and I'm like, all right, we're all good. My teeth are on the other side of the hill. I hear Garrett start yelling. I'm like, oh, shit, he's right there.

Garrett was just calmly out there waving his arm. I was brushing my teeth. I was like, well, if the yelling doesn't do it how far away was she throw this toothbrush 30 yards 30 yards and she stood up when i first when we first like she saw me stood up all the way i was not aggressively but i think like trying to figure out what was going on and then uh yannis and chris and the tent that she had passed you know very recently prior started yelling she kind of took off but there was a moment there where i was like well we'll see what happens because you just don't know what the response is gonna be and you can't

i mean i knew like if if she was threatened i didn't have anything that was going to prevent her doing what she wanted to do with me. Some years ago, we had a grizzly coming toward our camp. And Yanni was there. We were shooting rocks in front of it. Like full-on shooting rocks, trying to stop it. We tried a lot of stuff before that. But then eventually, we were resorting to shooting. And it still keeps coming.

You still know what their attitude is going to be like, man. Yeah. And, like, the fact that, you know, who knows, with the cub, I always just even extra cautious or, you know, literally that they're going to be more aggressive. I feel like you were lucky in that scenario. Yeah. I mean, that's as bad of a situation as you want to get into

is surprising a mom of the code. She didn't see me when she first came over. I would have loved if you got a little bit of a scuffle with that. Well, me too. If I got a scar out of it and that's all, I would love that.

I've always thought that would be good. I'm knocking on wood though. Just a little scratch. I would have come in there slinging on your back. But that's the most casual reaction to a grizzly bear ever. Well, we'll see what happens. No bullshit in this one. That was amazing.

Yeah, they're a great animal, man. I mean, they really get your attention. Yeah. I used to be more afraid of them um i used to be more afraid of but now like i still have a lot of respect for them but i also kind of like when i see them i'm always kind of rooting that they'll come closer but not too close that interaction i like having them near me i i i would put our observations and encounters with grizzly bears on this trip as just as enjoyable for me as the spectacle of seeing all the caribou and even killing a caribou like i enjoyed our grizzly

encounters just as much like when i go back that's gonna be something that I'll remember forever. That male's face when he stood up or came up where we could see him, that's burned into my memory. They're just the coolest critters. Yeah, and out here, man, just like the room they have to roam, you know. Yeah, the fact that those two points intersect like us and them right such a vast landscape you just realize how special that is you can just watch them not be you know in a survival mode right and they can you know they can get pretty old but you still get the sense that um when you're out here and looking at it, you still get the sense that this is probably,

it would stand to reason that this is his first encounter. This is his first reckoning with a person. Yeah, it's a way different kind of grizzly than you'd see in Montana or Idaho. It's a different version of... Yeah, who's had experiences and kind of knows what to think about stuff. And I've said this over the course of the past couple days a few times

as we've talked about some things related to this, but it's just like it's good for my soul to know that there are still places that that can happen. To know that that could be real, that Grizzly has not encountered a person before, that's just like a satisfying notion. Oh, for i'm thinking about that all the time very glad to know that's the case possible but there's a thing that happens to people where uh there's a thing that has people where they tend to i think that people tend to be like oh oh, a place like Alaska. Well, that's a suitable place for wilderness. But then not think about equivalents at home. And don't strive toward thinking about the possibility of things being more pristine, more pure, more wild, wild closer to home we have this thing like you

relegated to this other locale because you come up here and like what's up here it just isn't what's here isn't replicable anymore down there you know a good way to put it i was talking to my brother i think i might talk about this before but one of my brothers um you know he's a fisher he's a ecologist and does a lot of work in alaska and we were talking about conservation and he was saying that um that the difference between his line of work done here and his line of work done in the lower 48 is they're not here they're not in rebuild mode they're trying to understand something they're in a position of trying to understand something that exists and head off trouble down the future but you're not rebuilding anything in the lower 48 conservation is rebuilding it's repair and up here in a lot

of places there's not like there's it's not repair it's holding the line you know and those are like two very different views on let's do so two two very different ways to comprehend wildlife and wildlife conservation. Equally important, I guess, though, right? Yeah, absolutely, man. Absolutely. But yeah, you're approaching it from a position of, you can kind of, and this is a broad generalization,

but you can kind of approach it to be like, yeah, you're not, yeah, you're looking to head off problems rather than fix them and down there we're fixing things yeah you know trying to get things back or you know in many ways very successfully right very very successfully but trying to like somehow set a clock back in some way fix the mistakes of 150 200 years ago yeah and then things were later here where people were a lot more like once there started to be such a big human footprint here and it's going to grow but um people you know some of those some of those some of those moments when we were most rampant in our destruction, there wasn't also a very loud, enlightened voice.

And I think that right now, as people comprehend more development in Alaska, more industry in Alaska, there's a pretty loud, enlightened voice that has taken a lot of lessons that were learned in other parts of the country and using them to avoid mistakes that we've made now just understanding yeah the the interconnectedness of things and realizing that the things that you do have there's implications to the actions you take it's interesting though the same pressures are still there from the other side too you know oh absolutely man you know i mean we, I don't know who said this stuff, but history might not always repeat itself,

but it usually rhymes. And I feel like we see that kind of thing happening. No, I hadn't heard that. That's good. That's good. So today we had that grizzly, went out hunting, and you realize it kind of plays out in the same way. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Watched and watched and watched. Watched and watched and watched. Finally, some big bulls came rolling through. And then Doug left into action, sprang into action. It might be worth noting his close call earlier where he really wanted that one bull, Doug, right?

I just like that whole scene there. We're on that side hill. He's coming up the hill. I'm looking at him. That's a nice bull. I've been walking. I've been walking. 15 minutes he sat there like that.

I like where he's headed. He's headed up the hill. It'd be a downhill hike back to camp. Well, Steve had already told you that morning. He was thinking about going on, quote, a mega hike. Yeah. Doug didn't like the sound of that. Well, I didn't want to talk you out of that bull, Doug,

but I was trying to, like, by not paying it a whole lot of attention and scanning the distant horizon, I was trying to convey to you that I felt that we hadn't yet arrived. Steve went and sat, sat like 30 yards away. I kept looking at the something three miles away on the other side. But Doug keeps nudging me. He's talking about these bulls that you can't see over there. Yeah, I was like acting like that bull wasn't, I mean, no disrespect to that bull.

I was trying to pretend that he wasn't there in an effort to influence your thinking. And then it was funny. Doug looks at me. He's like, hey, I'm going to go over to Steve and tell him that I think that maybe I want to take this bull. It's a good situation. And if Steve wants to go over there, he can just go. And I'll hang out here and watch and see what this one does.

So Doug goes walking over there and sits next to Steve. And he says it. And you're just kind of like, well, look at these over here. But he also said, I appreciate appreciate that you're willing to let me walk over there and you'll stay here and i don't want i mean let's you know let's face it i'm the old guy of the group and i'm uh i'd like to say that i'm like the old the old bull i'm the last one always um you know hanging i'm not hanging back'm just slow. That's the long and the short of it. And I don't want that to necessarily influence someone else not doing what they want to do.

And I would have been perfectly content to sit there and watch that bull, and not necessarily shoot him, but to watch you go all the way around there, thinking this would be the world's biggest mooch for you to go all the way around there and and maybe they'd bump and come that way but i come my way but i also appreciate the fact that one you appreciate said i appreciate that that and if that time comes i'll let you know but um i don't think you want to shoot that bull. And I was pretty sure I wanted to shoot that bull. But you just never know what's coming over that distant ridge line. How about if we go over here?

And so we did. And it turned out to be a fantastic afternoon. That was crazy. I think it's something we should cover because there's this weird conundrum. We keep saying, like, oh, it's a nice bull. That's a nicer bull. Like, they're all nice. Oh, yeah.

They're all nice. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I've been talking about that. You said it pretty good when you said we just hadn't arrived yet. We just needed to walk a little bit more, look around a little bit longer. Much like I didn't shoot that one after we went and saw that really big one. Right.

And it wasn't, I mean, everything that went through my mind when I saw that, that other one came and was near us, that I just, I just wasn't, it just wasn't right. And I don't know how else to describe it. And so that's why I didn't. And my wonderful friend here said, let's go over here. And so we did. I know what you're getting at, Yanni. We have this weird luxury to play this game that you're talking about, this mental masturbation.

We're like, if we were really hungry, we wouldn't be doing any of this bullshit. I know, but here's the thing. We'd be in, bang, bang, bang, and be done. But that's what I'm getting at about the mental masturbation game. Is like,

I mean, you know me well. I like meat and antlers. Meat more than antlers. But in this case, you get to have both. Yes. Yes.

I read a quote the other day. Would you also like to have the mountain between me and i really like the taste six points but i don't feel like i just read a quote where guys i really you know i hunt um let me say i hunt out for meat and i really developed a taste for six that's right but yeah it's like yeah the main thing i'm after like if like you know i've thought about this before if you if i had a dead caribou land or any of the caribou we've seen anyone at all and i had a dead caribou laying there and and god came down and said uh you gotta you can take the rack or the meat i wouldn't even think about it right right let me take the rack or the meat. I wouldn't even think about it. Right.

You can take the meat. But here, that's what I'm saying, part of the thing is there's so many of them, and you're trying to milk out the experience. And I do like to have antlers around a lot. I really just like that and like to look at them and think about them and hold them and talk about them and all kinds of stuff that here you can be like okay i'm barring some dramatic weather change which i'm watching for and i'm and i'm willing to alter my plans accordingly barring that in this moment i'm gonna look for the biggest damn caribou I can find

I got a theoretical question as an observer as a cinematographer photographer to clarify this to me I'm not pulling the trigger even though I'd love to in a different circumstance

no I would prefer the photography's a me but say like circumstance hint hint no i i would prefer the photography's for me but um say like we were in a situation where you guys hadn't had an intended hunt on a specific animal we pop over a ridge and the one is just like a hand me that you haven't done anything specific to hunt that that caribou bull but it is the one would you hesitate for lack of the experience of hunting that specific

animal or if it was big enough and it was just like a standing there it wasn't an intentional you know strategic process you can put it this way. You could even make it easier. You could be like you unzip the tent. There he is in camp and he won't leave. Think about it. You think about it. You get the camera guys. He's still standing around.

Some dude's making coffee. He's still standing around. It depends on how good I am at mental masturbation. How good I am at playing with my own mind. Well, I'd ask all of you guys. Because I would say that it wouldn't be as good. It wouldn't matter to me as much. It wouldn't be as valuable to me.

But I would also be like, but you'd be happy to go get this one if you snuck up on it yeah and so here it is yeah it's really tricky but here's another thing of value to me this is all part of the mental masturbation game not mental masturbation i don't want to short sell it because it's not mental masturbation it's it's like all part of the way in which we perceive our world and set goals and values and expectations for instance if if someone said to you would you rather come up with a really good idea and earn a hundred million dollars from that idea or would you rather just have publishers clearinghouse show up and give you 100 million dollars most people are gonna say um well given my druthers i'll go with the cool idea

and you'd be like well what's the difference it's 100 million dollars that you get why do you give a shit you'd be like because how i got it matters to me yeah and i would does it every aspect the same reason like the same reason that going to prostitutes isn't like that alluring to me yeah and i would does in every aspect the same reason like the same reason that going to prostitutes isn't like that alluring to me yeah it's like there's a there's a way in which you go after the things that you want in life in a way in which you don't you know no yeah and i see that in what you guys are talking about and that was why is that a bad analogy that is an interesting example yeah but i think yeah you know leaving out all the morality issues, it's just like. Yeah, it's the effort put forth.

Yeah, so if he's standing there, I wouldn't like it as much. But it would trip me up because I'd be like, but there it is. Yeah. You know, but there it is. But, yeah, and I'll point out, and this is of value to me. I can't act this to be of value to anybody else. The two bulls we've gotten had no clue we were there. And that is very important to me.

We have not shot a bull that was looking at us. We shot bulls that we, I mean, it's not, I don't want to oversell it. It's not like killing an elk that doesn't know you're there is way different than killing a caribou that doesn't know you're there. It takes a lot more skill to consistently kill elk that have no idea you're there. There's no belly crawling going really on this one. I was laying on my belly.

I was laying on my belly. No, but that answers my question. The bigger part is the intentional effort to to come to the end because i enjoy the journey yeah yeah i enjoy the journey i'd say it was honoring the experience yeah and part of that was not that's why i didn't shoot the one that i did and then in shooting the one that i did shoot um so steve says let's go over here and so so, I don't know, we take quite a hike. And it looks like we're going to take a very long hike. And we get over to this spot where we sit down and we're glassing.

And it's, oh, let's have the same thing. Let's have some sandwiches. It's like sandwiches. If you need something to show up, you say, let's have sandwiches. And I'm sitting there looking. I can't believe we walked all the way the hell over here to have a sandwich and not see any caribou. And we saw some.

You were thinking that? Well, a little bit. But what I was really thinking. You knew they were right up on top of that bench. I just said so. But they didn't appear. It took a little while. But now we're glassing caribou that are another mile and a half away

and talking about them. And I'm like, if they think I'm going to walk over there. And then I was like, I'm going to get my mind right in case we're going to walk over there. So I'm going to have my sandwich. I'm going to get my mind right. And then like magic, they appear up there. Although predictable magic, I suppose.

This group appeared up on top of that ridge. And you got to say, when you're talking about these packs of six, seven bulls, the guy antlers, you know, as tall again as they are at the shoulder. And when they start coming over to skyline, they just look up and it's just like, it looks like timber. Yeah, everything slows down. It's like timber coming over the skyline, man. I had something I was going to add to that. The whole like, uh, male masturbation and ladies of the night.

Honoring the experience with the ladies of the night. Oh yeah. I know what it was um honoring the experience with the ladies and the experiences oh yeah i know what it was um honeybee is a life journey okay so it's like there's like a set of things that that you're like there's a bunch of experiences you're building and it's a discipline and it's a thing that you strive to get better and better at, right? And to understand better and better and better. And any particular moment can't really be separated from that greater life journey. So here you are in this hunting paradise for a couple days, but still within that are the skill parts, the things you strive to be good at, which is like identifying an animal, selecting that animal, and then getting up on it without it being aware of your presence and then killing it in a very clean fashion. So, yeah, you're still trying to like exercise that life discipline

thing even in a situation where it might not be necessary like the lack of necessity doesn't make those things less valuable to me yeah exactly i was thinking about this a lot after i killed my caribou and back to like oh day one you know geez was that like it just happened so fast did it work for this did i earn this and i i literally thought of the story you told earlier that day i think when you were talking about the picasso story where he drew a picture on a napkin and someone asked you know that can't be worth me whatever you said however much it was worth but you said that uh it only took you five minutes to draw that but then he says yeah but it took me a lifetime for it to be worth that much

money i was like yeah this is a lifetime worth of work and experience that got me here in whatever way to this experience um while it may have only been a day and a half actually out here in the tundra. A lot of things led to this point. Exactly. Yeah, it can't be like being here to see this. You can't really divorce it from the broader context of things that even made you aware to know to come do it.

Yeah. Well, life's journey, man. I wish Giannis' dad was here. yeah well life's journey man it's the truth wish Giannis' dad was here Giannis' dad would be in the hog heaven talking about life journeys and what not life journey here like figuratively

and literally with the caribou yeah they're on a life journey and finally Dirt Myth is here oh hey guys to wrap up our inductions and finally dirt myth is here oh hey guys we don't know if it was effective or not because we don't know yet but but dirt is crossed yeah dirt is uh i know dirt didn't want to bring this up because he doesn't want to um dirt doesn't want to seem as though he's taking advantage of his voice of his position within or desperate within our friendship and organization yeah but but dirt is looking for

a house sitting position in the bozeman or ranch sitting position in the bozeman thing within 30 mile radius within 30 miles if you have property or ranch property, and Dirt was born on a damn ranch. Yeah, I can be useful. There's even a song about it. No one's had to milk one cow. I was going to say, Doug wasn't impressed by that. The handiest handyman on the planet. Knows how to take pictures, weld, pick stuff, troubleshoot, tinker.

No animal identification skills really doesn't know if house sitting your property involves telling chipmunks from squirrels that's a big part of it but if you need him to feed uh ducks and uh chickens he can do that thank you yeah and like dirt dirt lives a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, and his lover, you guys call each other that? Oh, yeah. She lives a somewhat nomadic lifestyle. It doesn't always make a lot of sense for Dirt to go have a regular domicile that most people would recognize as such. He oftentimes lives out of his truck but he being the most responsible

guy on the planet is looking for that thank you yeah i want to get my number for pot like rent rentals in there in there oh yeah if it was out of town we're looking for ideally yeah caretaker just to have that that response so to what degree are you willing to work like how much hours do you have to really put into how much hours do you have to really put into taking care of said individual's property? Like on average

over a month maybe 10. 10 hours of labor. Yeah like but that's heavy duty 10 hours. I mean the ideal situation would just be to

disallow a place to fall into discrepancy or decrepit. Decrepancy. But I don't think you can add the E-N-C-Y on there. A-N-C-Y and decrepit. discrepancy or decrepit decrepence but i don't think you can add the enc y and c y and decrepitness can you mark oh geez it's been too long i'm saying that no no but just to allow decrepit state to maintain a place not to milk your cows or

so if there's a cow that needs to be milked you're out like a trout just because i have a job that i love and i'm away for a lot but if someone said hey man um the fence is like could use some tlc oh yeah over time it'd get oh yeah and you you would take that on or if they were saying like hey this rusty hunk of metal i wish was permanently affixed to this other rusty hunk of metal sign me up you affixed to this other rusty hunk of metal. Sign me up. You would go and get that tip-welded up. Hey, we got this old 82 Toyota Tacoma sitting in the barn. Oh, man.

Needs a little TLC. Rebuild that sucker. You'd rebuild it from the ground up. So that's that. I guess get a hold of me through the processes. Let's give out your phone number. Does anybody else have anything they need to sell or anything? Now I feel bad.

No, no, no. I do appreciate this platform. This is not a service. This is not a service I really like to provide, but for you, I'll provide it. Thank you. A home placement service. But for you, I would do anything anything it's a life journey who knows finally uh janice remember yeah this has all been a test to see if yanni could remember something and now

we'll see oh now it's got dark i can't read my notes anymore there we go you look at notes well we're gonna talk about the uh your vortex well i don't need to look at notes for it so don't look at see here i am after all doing it so uh our good boys vortex doing a thing called your vortex right it's a it's a contest and to enter the contest somehow tell me what to do again you're gonna submit video clips unedited video clips of your experiences that um you feel jive with uh the your vortex um How would you put it? Like great moments, great captured moments. By non-edited doesn't mean bad moments, but you don't need to get in there and manipulate the clip. Get a great moment from your life, hunting, whatever,

that really makes you feel pumped up about. I feel like there's's gonna be thousands of hunting related ones i feel like the winner of the contest is gonna be a non-hunting related i disagree your vortex you watch someone's gonna come up with something slick it's not gonna be like it might it's gonna have like a hint obviously it has to be a connection, right? Or maybe not because it could be just a shooting sports enthusiast that submits an unedited clip. Yeah, but I can't really speak to that world as much as I can. So imagine that you got some amazing little clip of you like rip out a bugle and all of a sudden some giant bull,

the craziest screaming bull, right, steps out. I've already seen that 10 times, 100 times. I'm going to get more excited, and I'm not going to get to judge on this. I don't know. Maybe I will. But I'm thinking, like get to judge on this. I don't know, maybe I will. But I'm thinking like someone's little kid. You just catch like your boy just picking up the binos for the very first time and he puts them up

and he's like, looks through them, holds them nice and steady and then looks back and he's like, Daddy, Mommy, I just glassed up a fill in the blank. Yeah. So stuff, video clips like that. And you send them in and you get, as Mark over at Vortex put it, glass rich and famous. Because if you win, you get a cool, expensive guarantee for life optics.

And then your video clip also becomes part of a broader thing made from all the best submissions. So go, where do you go to join? Go to their website. They got a button, hashtag YourVortex. Go there. You can read all the rules and regulations. Yeah, go win a bunch of stuff.

Because they were so clearly explained here, or not so clearly explained here. Go win a bunch of stuff your vortex contest get after it anybody else have anything they want to add selling, buying, renting Ridge Ponder

you're not even I got a mic but you got anything you want to add I'm just taking it all in man so you're not selling anything trying to get anything out of this no Ridge is just back man I'm just taking it all in, man. Okay, so you're not selling anything? No. Trying to get anything out of this? No. Okay.

Just enjoying this bag of recommendations. Bridget's just back, man. Just back. She's been gone for roughly a year, I guess, right? A little while, man, yeah. Happy to be back. No, over a year. June of 16. June of last year, yeah.

Here we are. Happy to have you back. I'm stoked to be back um i'm not gonna let everybody do a concluding thought because too many concluding thoughts but i would like to invite uh first mark would you like to do a concluding thought yeah but i think if someone really has one if you got a ripper dirt Dirt already did his housing plea. No, I'll pledge. If you got a ripper.

If you have something to add, Gary, you do. All right, thank you. All right, so start with Mark, who's actually being invited to have one. Well, I appreciate that invitation. Is there anything you'd like to add? You know, I think we've talked about it over and over again but it's just been an unbelievable all-around experience everything from the landscape to seeing the wildlife to the interactions with grizzlies actually filling our

tags with caribou the social you, experience has been awesome. The whole thing, incredible experience. But being a whitetail guy, you know, growing up doing that, there's so many people that live in a place where there's whitetails and they love it and they eat it and they breathe it and they sleep it, but they never go outside of that boundary. And I've been lucky the last few years to be able to experience some of these different things starting elk hunt one of my first antelope hunt now my first caribou hunt and I think I would just encourage all those hardcore whitetail guys who absolutely love it and they got it I don't never want to do anything else this is all I need that there really is

a lot of value in experiencing these different places these different species and it's very doable yes this specific type of hunt is a little bit out maybe outside of the easiest economical or achievable hunt for the average guy but there are places where you can go have an incredible experience many times on public land, which is an awesome privilege we have. That is very affordable, not too terribly difficult. So I'd say go out there and try these things. Do these things.

Go to new places. I'm really, really glad I've been able to. Very thankful. Well done, Mark. Thanks for coming on, man. And thanks for coming on the trip with us. Thank you for having me. It been unbelievable yeah honey that was a good closing thought mark thank you appreciate it um yeah and i feel like this one i i when mark and i talked that was a

long time ago at least a year which time we had we did a podcast yeah that was last september and uh you asked me what i recommended maybe it was after the podcast yeah we stayed on the line you're like i'm thinking about going to alaska what should i do i was like man if i was gonna go now that i've kind of done i haven't done it myself but because we've been filming shows i've seen some moose hunts i've seen seen caribou hunts, black tail, black bear, sheep, doll sheep. I was going to just recommend someone go and do,

go and, a hunter, go and get like the Alaskan experience. I would go do caribou. It's like you get the landscape and you get to see an amazing migration, a bunch of animals. I feel like you can do it semi-affordable.

Yeah. Much more affordable than mountain goat, grizz, or doll, which you're going to have to get guided, and you're looking at probably, you know, 15. Unless you've got kinfolk like me. Unless you've got kinfolk like Steve. Yeah, $15,000 to $20,000. Black bears, I feel like there's a lot of opportunity in lower

48 to kill those so i don't you know i mean i know it's a special kind of black bear hunt up here but still can be done lower 48 moose they're cool but man you just don't get the action like no you're putting in a lot of time for a little action. But here, like this hunt, and why I'm saying this is because, again, I don't think it's exorbitant. Like I think you really could if you pinched it. You could probably do it for less than 5K. Well, no, not if you do a haul. Well, I don't know if we should plug in that.

No, no, no. If you go full on road system DIY. But I think it would almost be worth it to skip paying the flight that year to go do the road system hunt for two or three grand and you know save another year so that you could fly into the bush and come and see the hundreds of animals every day yeah i've done i've done well four i think four road system caribou hunts. Had great experiences on all of them. Right.

Like you said, you didn't see this. No. Off those unknown sites. Being able to fly in is real special. I feel like this is as Alaskan of an Alaska experience as you could ever ask for. Yeah. The bush plane flight alone. Oh, my gosh.

When we were flying in in this is kind of embarrassing but when we were flying in i'm sitting back there just rubbernecking the whole time i literally broke out into like laughter like giggling smiling like i can't believe this is real life right now yeah like this is the most incredible thing the other thing about doing caribou if you're looking to like dip your toes into um you know if you're looking to dip your toes and do a self-guided hunt and i really would there's no like i don't yeah it doesn't mean don't go hire a guide to go on a caribou hunt just go um because why is that what's wrong with that well because Well, because I think you're assuming that everybody has the experience level.

That's what I was going to get to. I think you'd be able to figure it out. I think it takes the least amount. It's very circumstantial but i think like you can pull it off with a lot less life experience than one would need to pull off a lot of other non-guided hunts in this state you know it's like operating up here is always is operating up here in any kind of in a non-guided sense operating up here is vastly more difficult than anything you will do in the lower 48 it just

is everything is different the logistics and the safety and all that is what you got to be good at rather than being some super badass hunter right yeah yeah you need to be good at thinking through situations you might get into because you can't walk out to the truck. And when the weather's bad, a plane is not going to come get you, and so you need to be ready to be stuck, and you need to be ready to solve your own problems. It is not going to be a quick response time it could be you could be days away from help in an emergency so there's that right which is not a small thing but i would say that just the level of expertise needed

um in terms of finding it like just everything man i just think it's like a great it's a great introduction and why like why bring in the why bring in the insulation and buffer of a guide when you could go have a more real genuine experience of figuring it out on your own. Can I add to that? Because you just brought it up a little bit. The whole hunting with the guide thing and there's the insulation, right? And I've had this sort of an ongoing debate argument with some other people that are guides themselves.

They go hunt with guides. And they're like, man, I love going to hunt with guides. It're like man i love going to hunt with guides it's like they like they know the country they know like where the best of the best is it's just like this great trip for me you know like all that i love about it and i feel that those people just don't value like the challenge of having to go in there and figure out on their own or what you just described like you have to want to have that challenge and to be like okay i got to figure this out on my own because i don't have the dude that you know knows this base or knows how to walk out of here you know that unknown you have to highly value that um to go that route yeah well there's some grown-ups

that read harry potter right and there's some that read Pynchon. It's just like there's different kinds of people out there. You know, there's two kinds of people out there. But there's also people who hunt with guides because they've developed this relationship with them and they want to go hunt with their buddy every year, their guide who's become a very good friend, you know? Oh, for sure.

Okay. Yeah. But since I didn't have like hours to explain my perspective and like rolling every possible caveat i'm just saying that that this is a doable it's a doable thing yeah if you're gonna pick an alaska hunt and unguide the last hunt this is the one it's a doable thing. If you've never hunted, yeah. I don't even know why I'm even engaged in this conversation. Brody, what do you got for dogs?

I'm pretty much good. I mean, I'm just glad I got to meet Mark and Doug, and it's been awesome. Oh, you haven't met Doug before? No. No. No, this is the first time. My concluder is I hope I don't have to hold on to my tent pole tonight. Oh, man, we didn't even get to touch on the gale. Hurricane force winds the first night.

Hurricane sleeping a little difficult. We're going to bring it up because this is the shit that maybe the camera guys need to start stepping it up. And when there's gale force winds, you guys just got to plug in the batteries and get out there and start filming so they can make it into a show because we have like death hikes that don't make it into the show and now the first night we were here it blows hard it wasn't quite enough to hold me up i tried leaning into it a little bit as i was out redoing the stakes and it wasn't quite that. But when I woke up, Brody, you can finish up here because I think you'll get your stories worse. When I wake up finally and I open my eyes,

well, we had been in and out of sleep because the wind was shaking the tent a lot. But I'd wake up, everything was all good, and then finally I open my eyes once, and I'm like, holy shit, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris. And I can see Chris on the other side of the tent, but I can also see all of the tundra behind Chris. None of the tent wall behind Chris is attached to the ground anymore. And I'm thinking I need to just wake him up so he will grab the edge and just pull it back to the ground and hang on to it so I can restate,

which is pretty much what happened, right, Chris? Yeah. So we did that. What then happened is we restaked. Brody's up restaking too over at his tent. I'm like, all right, he got taken care of. So Chris and I each dig out some earplugs somewhere, put on our earplugs, and go to sleep.

Sleep the rest of the night. But we didn't hear Brody. Well, it got worse. worse got a little windier and the wind kind of shifted around to a different direction and uh half the tent blew up and these tents have one big long it's not like a teepee style tent yeah he's in the gear tent and i'm in the gear tent which means there's a lot of expensive shit that we need to make this show with. And the tent blows up, and the only thing holding it here is the main stake.

So for probably 20 minutes, I'm just holding on to that stake, hoping the tent doesn't blow into the canyon below us. And trying to yell at these guys come and help me but they had some real good earplugs in eventually died down enough where i could get get some rocks on the tent and have it hold till the morning now i don't want to play good camper bad camper but ridge pounder can back me up on this i i'm sleeping in a little three person three person nemo tent a hornet nice low profile low to the ground low profile low to the ground and not just that but as i explained to pounder i found the lee of a hill then within that i found the lee of a rock outcrop and within that i rocked the i like had a small quarry going on and staked out

and then piled rocks on my stakes and i slept through that thing you were playing the long game with your tent choosing spot yep and i went around spreading word to other campers in my vicinity that i would advise rocking out their tent. I'm very glad we did. Well, these tents were, look, these tents were rocked out. It was blowing hard enough that that wind was moving those rocks around. No, I'm with you. I'm with you.

And this is a very different beast because you're in the big gear tent. I'm in a little low-profile tent. Yeah, that support pole was buckled in the wind, man. It was pretty impressive all right so dirt i guess you get like you know because yanni came to your defense you get a second go around on a concluder i would just say it has been spectacular filming and photographing photographing it's been spectacular to cover this uh the spectacle up here on the 40 mile herd

it's been good to have you sweet that's it yeah anyone else any last thoughts oh dog got us concluded you know i um i didn't and i'm sorry dog and no i i'm just happy to be here um which i really am just happy to be here but you know for someone who's done 99 of his hunting on private land and uh not just that but land you own. Yeah. You know, I've been supportive of conservation on public land as well, but my focus has been conservation on private land. To come up here and to be a part of this and to be in this, to fly over it, to fly into it, to be dropped in the middle of it. It's just very overwhelming, quite honestly, to be here,

and I'm so happy that it exists and very happy that I now have a public land story to tell. Was that the first big game animal you've taken that was not a whitetail? Yes. That's pretty awesome. You know,

we talked about that, but it hadn't really occurred to me until tonight. All right, man. Let's do a moment of silence to just experience the rain on tent.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for joining. Talk soon. you you you you Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special

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