The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 310: An Eight Second Encounter

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Steven Rinella talks with John Miller, Janis Putelis, Ryan Callaghan, Brody Henderson, Chester Floyd, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.Topics discussed: Steve becoming a minister; someone else standing for you at your own wedding; Season 10, Part 2 of MeatEater on Netflix coming at ya!; a call to submit your pictures to our F'ed Up Old Taxidermy calendar project; easily offended golden retriever owners; an angry letter about the European model vs. the North American model; when a badger discovers ancient Roåman treasure; the struggle over hunter’s orange in Colorado; Brody's wolf report: Yellowstone wolves or Montana wolves?; a new lottery elk hunt in Virginia; fence chains and public airspace; when you dump your CWD positive deer carcasses on the public land adjacent to your deer farm; the many John Millers; when a griz starts on your buddy; five shots to neutral; when Game and Fish arrive for an investigation; analyzing bullet wounds; a handgun vs. a rifle; a best possible outcome certificate; how everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face; 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.

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First Light. Go farther, stay longer. All right, everybody. We've got a great episode for you today. We're joined right now by Yanni, Brody, Cal, Seth, Chester. Seth's not here. Seth's not here. Good.

And a special guest, John Miller. Now we're're gonna play you a titillating little clip here just to get you titillated i use it twice in one sentence titillate titillating clip to get titillated titillate them phil we came down this path right here a solid two cubs. Sow came rolling across. I put a 300 wind mag in the bear's back on top. He shoots a pistol around 10 mil. Comes to me. It starts making its way. After about six rounds in it, it dies there.

That was the voice of our guest john miller an engineer who's interesting for two reasons one he's involved in uh this is just this hunting season right it was yeah saved a friend of his who was getting mauled by a bear hunting in wyoming um and here's the other reason you're interesting you're friends with my friend from growing up matt millard, it's a weird coincidence. He's in a weird spot when he gets asked what he does. Why is that? Because, I hate talking about the brother while he's not here.

If you're engineering a part and you need to know how it's going to hold up over thousands of hours of use and abuse he makes equipment that mimics abuse like automotive aerospace makes equipment that mimics the abuse so you can put the part in a room turn the abuser machine on and vibrate it at certain frequencies and then watch what will happen right that's correct that's actually how we know each other we work in the same industry vibration technologies uh we're my company's a little more general but yes whose company's better oh of course mine yeah do we self i want uh i'll you know i always liked matt millard a lot growing up and um you know how later in life you look back on dudes from growing up and you sort of have realizations about them that you didn't at the time you thought like a nice guy i'm telling you and i can't say this

about myself and i can't say about most people if i review i don't think that that man ever uttered a negative word about anybody. And to say that coming out of junior high and high school. That's impressive. Just an honorable guy. Certainly. He's the one that introduced us, right? He is. Shout out to Matt Millard.

If you want to find out what some of your shit's going to do and it vibrates real bad, call Matt. He'll build a machine for you. Do you want to say what company you work for? To plug it? Sure. Why not? Did you go to the same school Matt went to? I did not.

Where did you study engineering? I studied in South Dakota State for my undergrad and then I got my graduate degree in University of Minnesota. But the company I work for is Dewysoft. So we make test equipment for all sorts of R&D, specifically in the automotive aerospace and defense power and energy type markets. When you went to graduate school, did you get a master's degree or a PhD? I got a master's degree. Okay.

Yeah. Usually if you get the PhD, you kind of end up there forever and that's not my deal. I'd be calling you Dr. Miller right now. Okay. Before we get back to this real interesting hunting story, got a couple things to cover off on. One, Chester, I know Seth's not here right now, but I was going to, there's something I want to like, oh, call him.

Call, you know what? Call Seth up. Is he available? Yeah, he's available. Should I throw him on speakerphone? Please. I just want to tell him something. All right.

This is about Seth's upcoming wedding. Oh, Chester. Seth, can you hear me? This is Steve. Oh, yeah. You know how I got to become a, I need to become a minister to do your wedding? Yeah. I was reading up on that.

It's real easy. I can't remember the name of the church, but it's like some church out of Seattle. I'll become ordained. It takes about three seconds. You know what I was reading in Montana? You can actually get – because you know how you and Chester have this montana you can actually get because you know how you and chester have this problem where you can't do the walleye tournament yeah well we can't do that one well you can't do the one you can you know montana is one of two states where you can

have a proxy stand in for you at your wedding i'm serious What? In Montana You can have a proxy stand in for you At You and Chester can fish I can like officiate And stand proxy Or you just have Cal be there Cal will stand proxy

That would make it easier for me because I wouldn't be bouncing back and forth a whole bunch Yeah you just let me know where to put my hands. I'll do the rest. Hey, Steve, why didn't you tell me this like three weeks ago? I actually got married. Oh, you did? Yeah, here in Montana. Oh, you got married in Montana three weeks ago? I did. Yeah, you could have done it by proxy.

Where were you a month ago? You could have went fishing. So, Seth, you're back on. And this is just a shout out because i know that as we try to court a boat uh a boat sponsor for you guys a lot of boat sponsors might be like yeah well they're not fishing all the tournaments because what he's got to go to that wedding now i think boat sponsors are going to be perked right up knowing that you in fact will be able to hit all tournaments perfect i'm in and i'm'm sure Kelsey will have no problem with this whatsoever. Yeah.

Ask her about who she wants to proxy for you. I'll do it. I don't know. Cal said he'll do it. Whatever. We'll figure it out. That's when you know you work with a good group of guys is when they'll stand in for you at your wedding. It's problem solving. It's a perk here. It's a perk when you come and get employment here. So good luck. Rest easy now on the walleye tournament. Everything's in shape. Awesome. Well, thank you guys. I really appreciate it. No problem, man.

My pleasure. Later, Seth. See you guys. Oh, here's the thing. So our season 10 on Netflix, which launched in two chunks, February 2nd, part two. Bunch more episodes coming up February 2nd. Spear fishing.

Me and Cal go spear fishing with Kimmy Werner. That was one of my favorites, man. Same. That turned out to be a very good episode. Goat hunting. Goat hunting in Hawaii. Shooting bows at goats. Feral goats. Looks a lot like a goat to be a very good episode. Goat hunting? Goat hunting in Hawaii. Shooting bows at goats. Feral goats.

Looks a lot like a goat you'd find in your farm, barnyard. But there, they're just running around. Were they tough to kill? No. What else is in there? Squirrel hunting? There's just so many of them. Any individual one is, but when, like, any, if I said if i said like oh go get that one out there

you might find that to be extraordinarily difficult but it's like once you bump that one just turn slightly to the right and here comes another 300 you know i mean it's just like it's just i mean are they wary at all do Do they smell you and run? Each individual one seems to be slightly varying degrees of wariness. Uh-huh. There's just so many. Right. And they're not all doing the same thing. And they're not hip to your effective range.

So, like, they have great eyesight. They can see you. But they also are aware of how close other dangerous things get to them. And I believe the most dangerous thing out there is a vehicle going 60 miles an hour. Yeah. And then one of the things like, you imagine a herd of elk, they all are sort of operating on the same information.

Meaning like if you went into an area, if you go into an area and like, you know, spooked a bejeebus out of like a pack of cows, it's not like the ones over 50 yards away. They're probably going to go leave too, but they're not on that program. And some might be like grazing North, but they're sort of passing a group that's grazing south. It just, it doesn't, it's just, it's, there are so many of them. I think we even talked about this. I think now and then, didn't they in the past, Cal, do a thing and drove a bunch of them into the ocean?

This sounds horrible and despicable, but if you were to get an idea of how many, you, you quickly see how many goats there are out there and how, and if somebody were to say like, do you think these could out eat the cattle on the ground, then you're, the wheels would start turning as to why that's an issue. And I've heard this from a number of different sources.

So I think in some regards, it has to be true where a means of culling would be to get a bunch of folks together and do a big push. Goat jump, they call it. And get them down to the cliffs above the sea and try to push the goats into the sea. I got to point out too, that there's a lot of people pounding it out on public ground in Hawaii and it's probably not the case, but we're on a private ranch where they want to get rid of goats, but it's not like you can't just pull over and

start, you know, go hunting. There's a real, it's, cause I asked Kimmy about this a bunch, cause down on the, the Captain Cook site, um, that state park there, they'd, um, had to cull some goats and they had a lottery for people to just come pick up a goat to take, to take home. Just to get a dead goat and bring it home or a

live goat? Yeah, live or dead, I believe. Hmm. Um, and I was like, is anybody going to participate in this? And she was like, yeah, everybody's about like the easiest goat meat. But for some reason, it's like, if somebody's

going to go head out into the, the tall jungle grass with their archery equipment, they don't want to go after a goat. They want to go after a sheep or. Gotcha. An axis deer, you know, wherever they are, depending. Yeah. So.

Hunting farm animals. But pretty much. Exceptionally tasty. There's places in Hawaii and I've met people do it. There's places in Hawaii where they're hunting. Moo cows. You can hunt feral cattle. I'll fill the freezer.

Oh yeah. There were so many of them while you guys were out hunting i was just seeing how close i could sneak up to them yeah just for fonzies yeah so netflix february 2 oh crin pointed out too it's also groundhog day that day but they're changing the national holiday to meat eater season 10 part two day they're gonna make a bill murray movie called that um here's another thing man struck me like a diamond bullet uh next year's calendar and and you know and we sold a mountain of fucked up old tree stands calendars picture this fucked up old taxidermy. That's part two. A lot of material there. We already got the email address set up.

So here's what we're not doing. Much to Corinne's chagrin. Corinne is into and it's just like Corinne is into the type of taxidermy where people make like Harry Potter type stuff. like it just crin is into the type of taxidermy where people make like like uh harry potter type stuff yeah like when i say if i hear the word taxidermy which is the thing that comes to my

mind which is like getting your buck stuffed so you hang it on your wall your hunting lodge what comes to crin's mind is a griffin or she's like the you know uh panda with a pheasant's head i don't know it's just like where her mind that's her this is not this calendar maybe we'll give in the back on the back page we can give a page with a bunch of things to satisfy corinne's needs and she can just leave hers open to that page all year and it'll be a bunch of these things people make. It'll be Groundhog Month. A bunch of things people make to our animals. But we're looking for

pictures of the worst taxidermy on the planet. I have a private museum that I've told you about in Idaho that we can go do a photo shoot in that is like the most amazing place. Don't send in the ones that are already circulating the internet. Idaho that we can go do a photo shoot in that is like the most amazing place. Chester just pulled one up right now.

Don't send in the ones that are already circulating the internet. No, these need to be original. They can't be favorite. Seth sent one in the other day. It was like some guy had it up. It was like the worst coyote you've ever seen. The caption on Instagram was, sir, your coyote's ready for pickup. Hey, you know there's that really good one where we're going to be next week.

That's like, I desperately want to go. Yeah, we have the worst mountain lion mount you've ever seen. Bad. And then, yeah, that's right up Crenn's alley. I feel like that's off that Christmas movie. Yeah. That little kid's Christmas movie. Exactly, yep.

So, the emails. Oh, you know who's got an arm and a leg? Matt Cook, those weasels he's got on his fireplace mantle. Contenders, maybe. Here's what you might need to do, though. I think, like, send what you got, and what might happen is if it's appropriate, when we make our selections, we might either, if possible, and we'll pay for all this.

We might box. We might have you, like, we'll pay for shipping, but we might have you package your stuff to send to us to photograph. But just start making your submissions now because Seth's got nothing to do. You can send them to fuckeduploldtaxidermy at the meat eater.com. Or if you're a kid and you're not allowed to swear yet, send it to F U O T at the meat eater.com. So message to my kids, if you submit, you better submit under F U O T at the meat eater.com and not the other version. And we will start digging through,

but your worst old, like I'm talking grandpa's old deer with the newspaper print sticking out of his ear, bad taxidermy, great calendar, a lot of audience blowback, Brody, you better speak to this.

My opinion hasn't changed based on the blowback. So sit, Brody doesn you better speak to this. My opinion hasn't changed based on the blowback. Brody doesn't remember saying. I don't because that's how much, I just don't think it's important. But obviously some people really love their golden retrievers. Brody said they're the dumbest dogs in the world. And he got, he might as well have said that he like, um, I don't know, like beat up mother Teresa. Yep.

Exactly. Anyway, um, people really love their golden retrievers. They're not, and they're not the dumbest dogs ever. According to all these people that wrote into us. Um,

here's a quote here from, uh, a listener named Pat, who's a pheasant hunter. And he ends with an invite to go pheasant hunting. Yeah, I might take him up on it. At the end of that trip, after he takes you to his spot,

you got to be like, God, that dog really is dumb. Yep. That really is the dumbest dog I've ever seen. So for the correction, he says, my dog's name is Tucker and he's a four-year-old golden retriever. He is not only a phenomenal hunting dog, he's also the best family dog I have ever had, which I, you know, family dog.

I don't, I don't disagree with that. I got to see the dog hunt first though. Um, he is with me 24 seven and also enjoys the podcast. He's a damn smart lab. He listens to the podcast um he can have his dumb moments like all animals but when it comes to work golden retrievers are not the dumbest animal in the world yeah and invited out to north dakota which isn't terribly far away i wasn't trying to offend you pat or any other golden retriever well corinne said some people were like

actually legitimately mad people get worked up about dogs. And you got to keep in mind when you're an angry golden retriever owner, you have hours and hours of brushing burrs out of their hair. With your daughter's comb to stew on this stuff. Here's a mad email we got. Okay. But here's the thing. The guy's got a ton of, like, the guy's got points. He we got. Okay. But here's the thing. The guy's got a ton of, like, the guy's got points. He's got legitimate points.

This guy is mad about our, and we've, see, here's the thing. Like, you know, I heard a really funny joke one time. A TV executive once said to me, I think he's the guy from History Channel. Yeah, a guy from History Channel once said to me, I think he's a guy from History Channel. Yeah, a guy from History Channel once said to me, the only other country our audience is interested in is Alaska. But Europe's a big old place. Europe's a big old place. How many countries are in Europe?

Bunch. It's a continent. They. Okay? Europe's a big old place. How many countries are in Europe? Bunch. It's a continent. They got them packed in way tighter. Us Americans don't know the answer to that. I know, but they pack in countries like we pack in states. That's true. They all got their own little governments. Cute little governments.

All their free this and free that. Some work, some don't. They don't care. How dare they? So we're always talking about what goes on in Europe as though it's like a place. And to our credit, we have mused about finding a sort of pan-European hunting authority who would come in and be like, here's the lay of the land. The same way someone might come in and do a seminar on the differences in the way the 50 states, the 50 U.S. states, the differences in how they manage, like different management approaches, right? You got like this. You can actually still, you know, set a bear trap in Maine.

You know, you can fence your deer in in Texas and like walks through like, here's how they're all different. But here's how they're the same but different. We've mused about this. Yanni is actually going to Latvia to do an investigative dig deep on Latvian hunting. So we're trying to get educated. We'll at least know how one 44th of the hunting in Europe goes down.

Okay. So the letter goes like this hey steve you can start making that noise you use to describe people who hear something on your podcast then write to you to say you're full of shit that annoying na na na thing it's not that it's not na na na it's this so you'd have to replace the ends with Ds. Because in this case, you are full of shit, he says. And you're, see, this is a, here's the thing is I got this email a long time ago and I just didn't get to it. And it was re-sent to me.

So this sent, it was re-sent to me yesterday. Just like a heads up, like a follow-up on its anniversary. It was the anniversary of the original send but it's all fair stuff you said in your recent podcast covering the flooding in south dakota and the challenges that presents to sort out the legal issues of access both you and callahan blurted out righteous indignation at the concept of landowners setting bag limits for fish in the water they own, quote, own. We were talking about these floods in North Dakota and South Dakota. You think of a flood that goes up and comes back down,

but these are floods that stayed. So in this old podcast episode, maybe, Corinne, maybe you can find it and tell us what it was called. That was the one where we had a guy on that blew, was trying to jump up out of his layout blind. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And blew two of his toes off.

And you think he blew the edges off, but he blew the middle toes out. Damn. Yeah. Great guy. Yep. It happened so fast, he still shot at the goose. But during shooting at the goose, he realized what had happened and didn't know if he even hit the goose he like blew his toes out shot at the geese then was like oh i just blew my toes out

i think he said his foot felt hot or something i don't mean to laugh at the brother well he was laughing about it yeah but his foot looks funny i think we put it on um your instagram yeah was this hunting the anthropropocene? Yes, the Anthropocene. Anthropocene. Yep, that's it. Episode 195. So anyways, you got farmers who, or whatever, you got landowners whose land is now under a lake.

And so like state managed fish swim over your land and it's covered in water. And these are lakes that used to exist but they've they've taken over farms so there's there's this dispute like can a farmer go and what's going to really confuse people is we also just talked about the same thing the other day in north dakota but i'm talking about we talked about it a year ago in south dakota um where landowners were like putting out strings of buoys to sort of like hold portions of the lake that sat over their property as their own thing. And it's just a lot of big piss and match. Anyway, in this conversation, apparently Cal and I blurted out with righteous indignation, I'm back to quoting, at the concept of landowners setting bag limits for fish in the water they own.

Of course, being totally, this is the quote from the writer, the person writing in, of course, being totally, this is the quote from the writer, the person writing in, of course, being totally clueless. You boys compared that to the European system where landowners set bag limits. He says, not. That's not true. And he says, it's something you've done before. I hope this email prevents you from doing it again. Goes on to say, I tried to give this information to Callahan, but he just blew it off. My take on you is that you're more of a fact-based person who does not blow information off just because it contradicts your fondly held beliefs.

He attached some articles, which Yanni's going to read up on and do book reports down the road here when he gets a minute. He goes on to mention a fellow that we're all familiar with and I've met, Chris Eberhardt, who tragically passed away quite young, not too long ago. But the guy writing in says, you know, Chris Eberhardt, I discussed the problem of ill-informed American hunting celebrities with him. And he made some interesting observations. First off, it's pretty typical of you and every other American to dismiss all of Europe as an elitist hunting and fishing club controlled by wealthy landowners. Wrong on count one. Second, that game management is a private affair with landowners making myriad, potentially harmful decisions all across the landscape. Wrong.

Continuing to quote, it's all dictated by state biologists and failure to follow their management plan will result in fines. And finally, Chris points out that the American model is great and it's phenomenal at increasing populations. However, it sucks at controlling populations. The European model excels at that because private landowners are not allowed to make hunting off limits or restrict the take in hopes of growing trophies. It is easy to manage populations. That is a problem we are facing in many places in the U.S. where private, non-hunting land is a haven for overpopulation.

Two quick counterpoints. I feel a little bit like the person like this individual is sort of committing the same mistake that we're committing where he's generalizing in a way that i'm sure there are probably exceptions i don't think that all of europe is by mandate open to hunting i bet you how many countries they got over there 44 are they counting half of russia i'm not sure if they're uh so touche the other touche is that in my life um in my adult life i've really come to rethink what people mean when they say overpopulated wildlife i had a kid write in i'm this is not

quoting uh i had a kid right in the other day he not quoting uh i had a kid right in there today he's a high schooler and he wanted to interview me for a school project he's doing and he's doing a thing about how you should be able to hunt bears in his state you can't currently hunt bears in the state and he's like he wants to make a documentary showing that you should be able to hunt bears because they'll become overpopulated and i don't i've never been in a place where I thought there was too many bears Like I can't think of ever thinking there's too many bears New Jersey might be headed that way I don't know

Not if you can hunt them Yeah but you also have never been like a farmer In heavy populated bear country Where bears are raiding your Field Yeah you're right. I was going to say it's a very, it's a very subjective thing, right?

It's a very subjective thing. When I'm sitting in my deer stand, I seldom am thinking there's too many deer. It's like a farmer probably thinks there's way too many. A vehicle insurance person probably thinks there's too many. Someone in the state that this kid's talking

about probably, and he has an orchard or he's a bee person that has a, what's that called has an orchard or he's a bee person it has a what's that called an apiary what's the beekeeper called that's that's correct yeah an apiarist i don't know beekeeper he probably thinks there's too many bears but a bear hunter who just drew a bear tag might not think there's too many bears i'm saying subjective um read the articles this is going back into say Even if you don't want to provide your listeners with the truth You'll be informed enough to make To maybe stop feeding them a pile of horse shit

Cut the crap and quit being an idiot Oh I forgot a little part European hunters are no less passionate And committed to conservation than are we Americans. You do them a horrible disservice and insult them when you slander their system without knowing shit about it.

That's fair. I think it's fair. It's a fair point. I do think he makes it also, there's a good point that he makes in there also that I can read here and quote that in Germany, over 60% of the population eats wild game because it is available commercially. He asks, what do you think that does to encourage the general population

to approve of hunting? My personal experience is that in Germany, the populace looks forward with relish to the availability of wild, as they call venison. Nope. Not into that. Not into it? Not into it.

I'll never give. I should say I'll never give because I like to stay open to information, but I know I understand all the arguments, how you should be able to sell venison in areas where there's like a wide consensus that deer are overpopulated, but I'm not into it. I don't think it's a good idea.

Well, I think you would think it was a good idea if it meant that we would get your offspring and your offspring's offspring would get to continue hunting in our country if that was the only way to make it. If God came down to me and said, the only way your children will be able to hunt is if people

can sell venison in New Jersey, I'd have, it'd be a different conversation. Until that point. Yeah. That's why I said i'm open to changing my mind because he might i always think of wild mushrooms just a mushroom sitting there on a hillside minding its own business until somebody puts a price tag on it yep and then it's a goddamn battleground yeah of people being assholes to each other in parking lots, packing guns around, all sorts of nasty human behavior.

What's on the burns, like the burn hunts. Yeah, yeah. Including giant piles of human feces. Trash. On the morels? Oh, you mean at the morel spots?

At the morel spots. Where the commercial guys come in. And, oh, hey, you're at the Morrell spots? At the Morrell spots. Where the commercial guys come in. And, oh, hey, you're like, oh, kind of ceased to be a mushroom once there was a price tag on it. Mm-hmm. And that's a thing that can't run away, get in front of other people. It's just plugged right into the ground. You've also got the public land, private land thing here that isn't an issue there. You know what I mean?

Like market hunting on public land. You know what I'm saying here? Versus like, you know. No, I understand all the arguments against it. I just think that it's also a very interesting argument. Something that should make you think that if we don't have 60% approval of hunting, do we? Yeah, it's much higher in the US.S. until you start asking specifics. It's higher than 60%?

78 or 80? If you call people, you can find all these surveys online, but it only works until you get specific. If you call people and say, do you support regulated hunting? For food, right? I don't think you got to put it that way.

Really? Then you get, I don't know. It's higher now than it was in the 90s. The minute you say something like, do you support. Hunting grizzly bears with traps. Trap hunting grizzly bears. All you got to do is stick the word trophy in there. Yeah.

But any like, it'd be like, if you went and said like, do you support hunting game birds with the use of dogs? It'll go down. Like, any detail puts it down. But the general idea of, like, regulated hunting is acceptable until you put a face to it. If you had a little picture of a little fawn and you're like, do you support hunting this? Right? You'd probably have a low score yeah i mean one thing you got to keep in mind too it's a big difference between the u.s and and europe is cultural right so you have in the u.s we all share a common language and we have

slight cultural differences but in europe i mean it's it's almost um it's almost like you know different ends of the world where you have different languages, you have different cultures, you have different mannerisms. And a lot of that goes and plays into, you know, what the, I guess, hunting. Yeah, like less likely to find some well-traveled person who has a detailed, nuanced understanding of all the different states' game management approaches because you can go to a conference and hear all their biologists talking in english yeah and i think that even the like the environment environment is quite a bit different so what you're going to find in like the old slavic region versus the you know scandinavian region versus spain you know they're very different um just-wise, weather-wise, habitat-wise. Check this out, though.

It's not as different as the north slope of the Brooks Range is from the bayou country of Louisiana. You're absolutely right, man. I think the big difference is that it's tough to have somebody that's an expert in all those languages as well to do that. So we may have to get three or four people. Corinne's going to figure it out. Sure.

Got it. I think there's a lot of people that have traveled across Europe and hunted a lot of different places. You know who I bet would know all this stuff, man? Craig Boddington. That dude has hunted.

He's probably, I bet he's hunted countries I don't even know about. Never heard of. That might be interesting. He's a gun writer. Craig Boddington. Real nice fella. He was military too, right? gun writer. Craig Boddington. Real nice fella. He was military too, right?

Colonel. Colonel Craig Boddington. Put that in your notes, Crenn. Noted. Put that in your notes and smoke it. A badger found a bunch of Roman treasure in Spain. You like that segue, John? That's nice.

A guy was looking at a badger burrow. You know about this, Cal? This beer up your ass. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Guy was looking at a badger burrow, and some gold coins were laying out where he'd been digging around. They blame it on the very severe weather that northern Spain had,

as though this particularly harsh winter caused this badger to work extra hard and insert its legs into even smaller cracks than normal next to his den. And this hard winter drove him to discover this cache of coins. It's a nice hypothesis. Once someone went and checked it out, 209 coins dating back to what? Between the third and fifth centuries a.d uh way back when in my youth when i was guiding antelope hunts outside of winnett montana there was a badger maybe a family of badgers that had inhabited the Winnett Cemetery. I see where this is going. I mean, just had no respect for the folks buried out there at the Winnett Cemetery.

He's like, hey, would you respect where my ancestors are buried? Bet not. Many times over the course of several years, I witnessed firsthand people shooting into the Winnett Cemetery. Trying to protect the bones of their grandfathers. Yeah. And every year, man, you'd see those tombstones and things just get like more and more cattywampus as everything was getting undermined in there. See a badger carrying around an old flask or something like that. Yeah.

Carrying around a femur. Or granny's shoulder blade. Yeah. One of the ranch hands on one of the places that we knew had passed away. And, you know, so we were real familiar with the date of internment and, uh, got a, got a witness, the, the progression of,

uh, badger activity out there off of a, off of a known date. So, really? Oh, uh, the,

the, this, this article about the, this article about the badger finding those coins ends with a very interesting superlative because they wanted to close it with a superlative so it's highly qualified this was the largest trove of roman coins found in a cave in the north of the country on a tuesday i want to know what happened to the badger I want to know how big A stash of rolling coins

Were found In the central portion There's some wealthy badgers out there That they're not talking about Okay do this little Do your report This is not a call to action But this is a ridiculous

I think this is ridiculous Oh yeah So this past fall a muzzleloader hunter in Colorado shot and fatally wounded a archery hunter killed yeah well I fatally killed would be redundant wouldn't it I? I was going to say that. I stopped myself. I heard you stop yourself. I just wanted people to know that he was dead. Well, fatally wounded is dead. All right. So. Yeah. It's tragic. Yeah. Nothing to laugh about. Anyways, that has spurred people talking about how to make the coinciding muzzleloader and archery season in Colorado safer.

Both of these groups have over the years, since they've started having these seasons, which is sometime in the 70s when they've had a coinciding muzzleloader season and an archery season, right? Muzzleloaders have a little farther range. You know, it's a rifle. They're both primitive, so they both, both archery and muzzleloaders are primitive, so they've both requested to hunt during the rut to make the hunt easier.

And so basically the muzzleloader hunters get a nine-day season, roughly the third week, right, Rody, of September. Yeah. And archery season goes basically the whole month of September, give or take the dates a little bit, but you have a nine day period where it overlaps.

To this point, archery hunters just get to go in full camo. Muzzleloader hunters have to wear, just like rifle hunters in Colorado, 500 square inches of daylight orange. Fluorescent orange. Hat and torso. 500 is a lot of inches. Itorescent orange. Hat and torso. 500 is a lot.

It's a lot. So since that year in the 1970s, there's been three instances where hunters have been, or archery hunters have been shot by muzzleloader hunters. Two of them were fatal. So one a decade. No, one more than a decade.

Since the 70s? Yeah, it'd be like 1.25. God, we gotta get just like a person in here for math problems. All the way around, man. It's like, oh, we got one. Yeah, do that math. It'd be like, you know, 0.75 or 0.8.

Oh, sorry, I meant 1.25 decades. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, man, we should do a lot of math stuff with this guy here uh so they're proposing now that during that nine day season that archery hunters to make it safer that during that nine day coinciding season uh that the archery hunters would also be required to wear the 500 square inches.

Oh, so they're throwing down on the full fricking 500. Yeah. Five hundo. Yep. I read up, I read up and it is a full five hundo. Um, but only while muzzleloader season is in,

uh, is in and only on public land. Do you know how long that muzzleloader season is? Nine days. Nine days. Only public land, only while muzzleloaders are in. Let me know when your report's over, because I'm going to tell you what I would do. Yeah.

They have other options that are getting thrown out there, other alternatives, like separating the regular archery and muzzleloader seasons. Leaving it the same. But yeah, it's getting actually voted on today as we're discussing this. What would you do, Steve? If I was the emperor of Colorado, I would, and I probably wouldn't get it done immediately. I would scrap all this talk. I'd scrap all the orange talk for archery hunters.

And I would put my best people, I would put my best people on bringing our, this is the Edinburgh, Colorado. I'd be like, I want you guys to call everybody, all the other states that have elk, archery hunts and muzzleloader hunts and i want you to come to me with a proposal that separates these hunts so that when it's archery season like the archery season stays as a archery rut hunt and we're going to make like everybody else we're going to make, like everybody else, we're going to make, we're going to figure out

what that like allocation is and impacts on herd dynamics and wintering range and all that garbage, like a very well calculated thing. We're going to figure out how to have archery during the rut. We're going to run our firearm seasons. Then we're going to run the muzzleloader stuff later.

And the muzzleloader is going to be like on its own late season. It's not going to be muzzleloader. You're just going to kick the muzzleloaders right on out of like on its own late season. It's not going to be muzzleloader. You're just going to kick the muzzleloaders right on out of September. Hey, this is coming from a guy that's hunted muzzleloader in Colorado during archery season. Okay.

That's if I was the emperor of Colorado, I would say I want to buy 2023, the 2023 season. I want this all separated. You would have to be the emperor to get that shit passed. I think. I am the emperor to get that shit passed i think i am in this hypothetical yes it's only valuable to talk about like like it's just like if you're talking about what you would do i'm just talking about like if i yeah if i was the i'm not the emperor that won't be the answer but i'm saying like if someone came

to me with the problem that's what I would say. Yeah. Because it's a proven formula all around the damn country. It is, but. It's the only place where you got muzzleloader guys and archery guys whacking away at the same time. But you're all about traditional use patterns and that's a traditional use in Colorado. I'm not taking it away. I'm not taking it away.

You're taking that rut hunt away from muzzleloader hunters. Yes, I am. Which is traditional in Colorado. Okay. But not, it's 25 years. I'm not stripping a privilege. I'm finding a way like. What, what's your big, I mean, I'm just,

what's the big qualm with wearing some orange during archery season? I think I know the answer, but like what, what, you know, what's your, here's the thing. Here's if I was the emperor, my plan, uh, isn't, I'm not responding. I should clarify this. I'm not responding to the orange part. The orange part, I would say there's an inherent risk to going outside with,

with weapons and wild animals and stuff. And like, yes, we've had a couple of fatalities over 25 years. Um, we've had a lot more people die from exposure. It's like, it's inherently risky. You have a weapon, you're dealing with animals up close, people shoot elk, and then the elk stands up and kills them. That happened last year. It's like, I, I, like, we can't, like, there is risk involved in life. We're not going to legislate to, we're not going to like create legislation to prevent a fatality every eight years among a user group that is willfully going to engage in an activity. That's the first thing I would say if I was an emperor. And I'd say,

but I do think it's goofy, separate them. Because I just think it's a little bit goofy. Yeah. And I've done it and I'll do it again, but I think it's a little goofy. That's all. I was just interested in, you know, the state

of Idaho, all of their firearm seasons require zero orange. It's like, if you want to wear it, great. Um, when I was hunting Idaho all the time, uh, I always have like a blaze orange cap with me. Um, and I'll wear it all the time or wear it some of the time. Just depending on what's going on. Just depending on what's going on. You know, all these stupid pictures of people when they pack out bucks that for whatever reason, the fad now is to put the antler straight up. Yeah.

The way you look like a buck coming through You know, that way you look like a buck coming through the woods during firearm season. You look like a buck backing through the woods. I don't do that, but I always throw a chunk of blaze orange up on top of my pack during those circumstances. I just wanted to say that. The interesting thing that pertains to this conversation is I was like, boy, Idaho must not have a lot of hunting fatalities.

Because it rarely comes up that they need to start requiring blaze orange for hunting seasons. Um, but certainly in comparison to the, uh, Colorado statistics that Giannis rattled off, uh, Idaho's on par with, uh, hunting related, uh, shootings and, uh, fatal shootings. Are they, are they ahead of the curve when, when calibrated for percentages? Since 1980, which was the, as is for a lot of places, the start of the hunter education program. Yeah. The average is 1.9 fatalities since, oh, let's see, since the

inception of Idaho's hunter education program in 1980, hunting seasons have averaged 1.9 fatalities and 5.8 non-fatal shootings per season. Once someone who's real good on the internet find a, find that for Michigan. I know that the hunter safety program caused fatalities to plummet. Yeah.

I think Durkin wrote an article about that on our website. You know what's funny about Colorado is they don't require orange for small game and bird hunting. Like you're using a gun and. Yeah, I wouldn't, you don't need it here for bird hunting, but I wouldn't gripe if they,

if all of a sudden you had to wear an orange hat bird hunting. Yeah. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have a fit. But it's just weird how they're nitpicking this situation. And in the regulations, because obviously we're all reading them all the time. It's amazing how much print each state that doesn't require orange for upland bird hunting, how much print they take up in the regs, strongly encouraging you to wear it. Like it would have been quicker just to make it

that you had to wear it? It would just be quicker. Yeah. Yeah. And it's such a part of upland bird culture anyway. It's like. Yeah, like they build it into bird vests and stuff, you know?

Yeah. It's gotta be related to why they don't do it. It's gotta be like a mechanism to free up wardens to do like more important warden work i imagine than just chasing around people with not enough orange on in michigan they felt that the i remember being a kid and people saying that the reason they had on hunters orange laws is so the game wardens could find you quicker made that you couldn't so the game wardens could find you quicker. You couldn't hide from game wardens. You'd be like, well, I thought it was because

people shoot each other a lot. Right. And you know the bad guys aren't taking those vests off. No. Yeah, it's like, ah, I'm going to give up poaching now they passed this Hunter's Orange Law.

My whole program sunk. Do you want to hear how many people died in Michigan real quick? Yeah, please. 38 hunting related injuries, 18 deaths between 2015 and 2020. Put that to our engineer. Well, we really need to know how many hunters on each

it's just seasons. You know what I mean? And then the other side too is that's probably a lot more wooded hunting. So you shoot, that is like a lot of that people shooting through brush, obviously that's unacceptable. Much higher density of hunters. Hey, as an engineer, have you been in – You're completely right.

Have you been in – where are they? Tell them I haven't done them. Well, we took them down to put the Tiki Bar sign up there, and I haven't put it back up yet. Son of a bitch, Phil. You might want to wander over later on and take a look at that. Oh, sure. The odds of the turkey will walk past if you don't do anything. I like that. Out in the woods.

Thank you, Yanni. We'll get back. Like I said, Durkin wrote a whole thing about this. 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. Well, if you're sick of sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts

this season 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 that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about on x here on the meat eater podcast now you um you guys in the great white north can can be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of your, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team.

Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out

if you visit onxmaps.com onxmaps.com onxmaps.com Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Alright, so ready?

Woo! Woo! I can't go on all damn day, man. Friends and neighbors coming to you. That'll be good. Okay. Wow. Agree to disagree on that. Should have gone with it.

Never give up. Well, yeah, there's the we shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the seas. Yeah, that one. No, this fight's about Yellowstone. Back to the wolf death. Fight in the hot springs. We've been following this off and on for, I don't know how long Yellowstone wolf situation where, uh, wolves that live that den in the park

are wandering past the Northern border of Yellowstone onto public land in, in Montana and getting shot. And I think it was a few months ago, the first one got shot and they've been whittling them away. One of the first things I want to tackle is, do they wander? Well, sure. I mean, that's the whole thing. Like this whole situation is- Did he think he was wandering? That's the whole thing is this situation is based on the premise that these are somehow, quote, Yellowstone's wolves, right? Then they got lost one day.

That's a really good point. He might not think that he wandered anywhere. And if you asked him where he lived, he might point to Montana. He goes, no, when I'm over in Yellowstone, I occasionally wander over there. Yeah. Just following the food, man.

Exactly. I just happen to get my picture taken a lot more when I'm over that way. Yeah, which lends people to think that, yeah. Let's assume that these wolves spend the majority of their time in Yellowstone. They, they den there, they raise their pups there, whatever.

I think that's probably the case. That might be true. That's fine. Anyway, I think the last time we checked in, like three of these wolves had been killed. Now we're up to 20. And, uh, the, uh, Phantom Lake pack has now considered eliminated after most or all of its members were killed, uh,

since October. Um, so an entire pack basically is considered, uh, eliminated from Yellowstone. The park, the park is the calling it a setback species long-term viability, uh, which that's a debatable point with a setback for the species' long-term viability, which that's a debatable point. With a setback from wolf research, I have a hard time buying that.

Yeah, I don't think so. These will, like Montana relaxed some regulations or changed some regulations just north of the park to allow more wolves to be harvested in that region of Montana. The park superintendent is not happy about it. Some wolf advocates are not happy about it. And kind of button heads. Park superintendent called Cam Sholley has raised concerns,

kind of calling out Montana governor Gianforte to, to shut things down. Like, you know, just end the season. Now Gianforte is not having that. And, uh,

basically says, you know, this is, we're going to manage wolves in our state, how we're going to manage them. And the season is, is continuing. So,

uh, that's kind of where we're at. Remember that quote, Yellowstone is 2.2 million acres of paradise surrounded by reality. That's right. You know, like I understand if an entire pack has been, you know, essentially eliminated that, you know, there's some concerns there maybe, but, um, I just, I don't, I feel like as usual, this wolf thing is definitely being portrayed in the media without a real deep dive into things, into the wildlife management. It's just like 20 wolves killed, 20 Yellowstone wolves. You're never going to hear them referred to any other way. Half of them probably had names.

Sure. They had numbers for sure, you know, collars and numbers. Well, I mean, who did the population level quote? Like that's, I'll eat my hat if that's a biologist who said that. Oh, that there's only 94 wolves in yellowstone no that the taking these wolves out is going to have a population level effect on on these things what's the main headline sure how many pups are going to be born this spring right yeah i mean it's just not and when we're talking we want to talk about a population talk about a population if you want to talk about um individuals

within a population yeah but the other thing it's not mentioned is like wolves go to war with each other all the time and like one wolf will go pack will go wipe out another and you know this vacuum of space is created where there are no wolves for a while and then it's filled back up you know i i think although these are human caused fatalities you're probably going to run into the same situation. Like some wolves are going to occupy that territory at some point. Yeah, that was my main takeaway from Diane Boyd's podcast with us was that like that population fluctuates by 50% every year. So if it truly is 94, then when all those pups are born, it'll bump up to, come on, quick math, 188.

Yeah. She said that at pulping season, the population is usually down 50%. Then it bounces, doubles, and then it probably goes back down. Yeah. If they're so mad or worried about all these wolves getting killed, then they should stop the other packs from killing the other wolves. Cause that's what kills wolves is also what Diane said. Yeah. She said that the number, the lead cause of death in Yellowstone wolves is Yellowstone wolves.

Well, I don't even think we'd be hearing about it if these weren't Yellowstone wolves. No, I don't think, I don't think you would. The two primary things that I remain interested in, like the main interesting points to me are that we're still the the greater yellowstone ecosystem a term that i want to think of a replacement for um the gye we're still above the objective way above that everyone agreed to in the early nineties as what recovery would look like. So I'm trying, I'm kind of like, I have a hard time understanding why did that understanding of a recovery objective, like what has happened to make that so

wrong? Yeah. Why is that recovery objective now dismissed the other part that i think is interesting just to just to watch from the sidelines i got something on the sidelines i'm in it is um to what degree is yellowstone national park or any national park going to dictate wildlife management across its borders yeah state wildlife which is like a really interesting fight and it has implications for bison. It has implications for predators. It's like you have a national park and it has its own rules and it has its supporters and visitors. To what degree does that rule bleed beyond those borders with these buffer zones and other things we toyed with? It's just a really interesting look at wildlife law.

And it's this fed versus state thing that's building up. You're going to see it with grizzlies too. Yeah. That's like, there's an undertone of that, right? There's an undertone of local management, federal oversight, Washington DC telling you how to live.

I don't know. The, as soon as the, the debate was happening with the introduction of wolves into Yellowstone, there was also the, yeah, but what happens when they go out of Yellowstone? Like the, the same breath, same page. There was never a thought that, oh no, these are Yellowstone wolves. Therefore they will stay in Yellowstone.

And that's going to be that. I'll tell you what happens when they go out of Yellowstone. They go down to Colorado and kill the first cattle and first beef cow in 70 years. Great segue, bro. You hit it. Yeah. See that?

That was a segue. That was way better than that thing about those black badger. In a place, Walden, Colorado, where Giannis and I have spent some time. A few weeks back, first livestock predation by wolves Livestock predation by wolves Confirmed livestock predation By wolves in 70 years

Just happened They should put a roadside attraction sign there Heck yeah You go down the road and it says historic site ahead And they got one of those wooden signs that someone chiseled in the words You can hit a little button and it'll go The first cow the first this is where the first uh cow in 70 years is

killed by a wolf in colorado yeah and it gets juicier because the the i assume wolves from the same pack just killed a ranch dog a border collie named buster may he rest in peace remember new mexico when that woman's dog got caught in a snare and the dog, they made a law. Yep.

That was like, what the hell is that dog's name? Poochie. Let's say it was like Pookums. It was like Pookums law. The anti-trapping law. The anti-trapping law became like Pookums law. Yep. I wonder if there's going to be an anti-wolf

law called Buster's law. I don't know. This is for Buster. My buddy, his's going to be an anti-wolf law called Buster's law. I don't know. This is for Buster. My buddy, his bird dog just got caught in a coyote trap in Pennsylvania. Did he get it out? He did. Yeah.

And he was fired up and wanted to get something done about it. The game warden. Like he wanted to get some traps? The game, oh, he wanted to see that guy punished somehow. I was like, dude, like, was the guy doing anything illegal?

No, there's a name on the trap. It was legally placed. Game warden was like, dude, like, was the guy doing anything illegal? No, there's a name on the trap. It was legally placed. Game warden was like, sorry, can't do anything about it. Keep your dog on a leash, buddy. Yeah. Now you ruined this guy's coyote set. Yep.

It was a foothold. Who's going to remake this set? What's that? It was a foothold? Yeah. Yeah. Dog was fine. Yeah.

Who's going to remake the set? You better get down there and remake, you better get some scent-proof gloves and remake this set, buddy. Moving on. Good job, Brody. Everybody, Brody Henderson. Thanks, Brody.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Hey, speaking of. I got fired up, Brody. Speaking of gloves, have you had any chance to try out those gloves I gave you? Yeah, love them. They're good? Yeah, really like them. I'm worried about durability.

But so far, so good? Yeah. I wear, for cold weather, wet stuff, setting decoys, pulling shrimp pots and whatnot, like an insulated Atlas, whatever the hell, the Atlas Vinyl Love. It's called like Vinyl Love. You know, they're like, I don't know, seven, eight bucks. I still like to say they're three, four bucks, but they're not three, four bucks. They have that insulated glove on the inside? Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, not the one that comes out, but I have both. but they're not three four bucks they have that that insulated glove on the inside yeah yeah um

well no not the one that comes out but i have both so the the kind that comes out which is far superior yeah i got because then you can because when you get the other ones wet i mean they're wet for like three years especially up at the shack yeah you get the kind where the insulation doesn't come out you get that soaked you just have to be really careful with them. When I took mom up to the fish shack, Steve noticed that she had the kind where the insulation stays on the inside. And you made that comment to her. And she gripped on the inside with her fingernails, I'm guessing, pulled the liners out, cut a little line around them. So now they're removable. Oh, yeah.

And I was like, I'll fix that some bitch. Yeah. My whole life I've been cursing those things and all of a sudden she around them. So now they're removable. Oh, yeah. I was like, I'll fix that some bitch. Yeah. My whole life I've been cursing those things and all of a sudden she made them removable. That's awesome. 30 seconds out, they're removable. Now with removable liners. So, but dexterity is poor.

And then Yanni discovered a new kind where, man, you could do brain surgery in those things. Yeah, I'm bummed. I bought four pairs. One pair was for me, and my wife was like, oh, but, you know, your father-in-law would probably also like to have a set of those gloves. So I don't even have a set.

All my buddies and family are wearing them. What are they called? I don't even. Showa Tamryres Model 282. It's like an insulated rubber crab trapping glove. When you find it online, you'll think you're looking at those vinyl Atlas gloves too. Like I said, you could do brain surgery

and you could count coins in it. But I'm a little worried. I don't know how they're going to hold up. I was tipped off by a product designer about him who said that a lot of ice climbing, mountaineer folks that do a lot of climbing in the winter and ropes and whatnot, that they were using that glove.

They'd probably be good for ice fishing too. You can get a pack of those Atlas gloves for $12 or $40 on Amazon. That's how I buy them. Yeah. That's how I buy them. Yeah. That's how I buy them. I put them on. Like Steve said,

you can actually do things with these. Yeah. But I buy them in packs like that. They're like 20 bucks. And you know what I do when I leave? People are going to think this is wasteful. When I leave my fish shack, the last thing I do on my way out is burn my pair.

So I'm never tempted to wear them again because I guarantee they're full of holes. Funky. They get funky. I used to never tempted to wear them again because I guarantee they're full of holes. Funky. They get funky. I used to always try to keep them nice. Now I'm like, once they get a hole in them, I just get rid of them. Watch this transition. You know how wolves eat elk?

Sometimes, yeah. Well, they got an elk hunt in Virginia. First one ever. Hmm. 2022. Virginia's going to have its first elk draw. They're opening up an elk hunt lottery this year. This is a quick turnaround.

They did their reintroduction of elk into Virginia between 2012 and 2014. February 1st, application period will open for the inaugural hunt. They got bulls running around already. They got 350 inch bulls running around. 900 pounds, 350 inches. The hunt, so this will be the hunt for the 22-23 season. No. The hunt will be October 8th of this year to October 14th.

Five antlered tags. Application period opens February 1, closes March 30. It's probably residents only, right? Oh. I don't know. I was going to ask if it was open to none. Great news for Virginia, man.

Pretty soon, all those eastern elk populations are going to start connecting with each other it'll be cool when that happens i got a hot tip for you if you want some easy pickings draw the first year yeah i think that you will get a close standing still shot i imagine so uh quick note we covered real heavily in, what was the name of that episode? Corinne get out of my airspace. What was it called? Yep. Uh, no.

The last one we did with Dave Wilms. Yeah. All up in your airspace, all up in your airspace and all up in your airspace. We covered this corner crossing issue where, um where some guys did a corner jump on a corner that had been, they had to use a ladder to get over obstructions that the landowner who owned the private chunks of the corner had put up. And a lawyer wrote into us, he's got a picture of the corner. I'm not going to tell you what the sign says, but it's a no trespassing sign and a chain strung up and a lawyer wrote in saying that why is the landowner not being cited for having his obstruction chains in the public airspace. So he's violating the same airspace argument that he's arguing. He's saying, when you step from, when you do a corner hop, your body is crossing my airspace.

Yet his obstructions, his chains are in public airspace. Why is that not a problem? Your argument for has to acknowledge the argument against right like if you believe in evil thereby you believe in good yeah yeah so he's like i don't want your stuff over my airspace so to prevent that i will put my stuff over your airspace. Man. We took this to Dave Williams. He even has some Latin that I don't understand,

but he said, um, it sure seems he doesn't know. He hasn't looked into it. He's just, he said taken it like, so he's like cursory inspection.

He points out that there is a thing called the unlawful enclosures act guarantees a right to access to all public lands. Um, which dates back to the 18 which backs dates back to 1885 he goes on to say i don't yeah i haven't done enough research know how it's pertinent here but there is a thing here and he said it's an interesting idea to look into

um and we'll cover updates on that case again sometime soon. Okay. I want to speed do the Minnesota deal. Sure. I like it because the guy bleaches his hair. That's a sure tip off. You know how in these articles they always like to point out if the perp has a prior rap sheet? That was real prominent in this. What's his? I didn't even catch that.

I can't remember if it was like domestic abuse or like substance abuse anyway the guy apparently was a bad egg which isn't supposed to matter but a guy a minnesota deer farmer had a minnesota deer farm he had cwd infected animals and what was he doing with him he was dumping them on public ground right outside his enclosure. And the, what was it, DNR found evidence of prions in the area where these deer were being dumped. And so the deer farm got shut down. They said you got to put up a 10-foot high barrier around this to keep other deer and humans out of the area. He refused to do so, uh, got charged with

several different things. Um, whereas. Beltrami County. I don't know how to pronounce that. Yeah. Where. Beltrami. It lays out what he got charged with.

Um, broke the law in four ways, moving quarantined deer off his farm, dumping their carcasses on public land, failing to test all his farm's dead deer for CWD and failing to maintain accurate herd records, included unreported deer deaths. So they nailed him. He refused to put up the barrier. So the state of Minnesota did at the cost of $194,000. And they're trying to get this guy to pay for it. Probably not going to happen. I don't know. Maybe it will. But anyway. If you found a guy passed out behind a strip club in Las Vegas and rolled him over, it'd be him.

Exactly. Anyway, his argument against. I mean, just like the picture. Yeah. The picture. The argument against, his argument is that this is government overreach. It's not the kind of barrier they put up around other places. It's overstepping what needs to be done.

You know, I'd argue not enough is being done, but, uh. I was going to say better not let Doug Dern get ahold of this guy, but Doug actually sent it to us. Yeah, he sent it to us. Well, they don't say how big this guy is. I guarantee Doug's bigger than him.

Doug would take this guy. If he in from Richland County. Um, a good point here is here cwd represents a major economic threat deer hunting represents a 500 million dollar industry in minnesota and what does the captive cervid industry represent economically and i would think the captive cervid industry would say this guy's a poor representation of sure captains. Yeah. It'd be like if, if someone, yeah, this can't be taken to reflect. Cause if, if some guy had poached like 30 deer, okay. Would we be sitting here being like, just goes to show them hunters.

Right. It's like, yeah, I don't want to, this is not a, I don't think this can be taken as, as like, that's how they are. But it is just like an extraordinarily kind of like shitty thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. To take a bunch of, a bunch of infected deer, then haul them off, off your land and dump them

on private land and then act like it's not your problem when they want to fence. Dump them on public land. I'm sorry. You take infected deer off your place, dump them on public land, and then be that it's not my problem when they want to fence it off. So it off so deer aren't running around on your little homemade toxic site. Which, I mean, this is the entire argument wrapped up in a nutshell. the conflict between the captive servant industry, the, uh, proposed regulation

history of, okay, well, we need stricter testing. We want a double barrier. So wild individuals cannot come in contact with, uh, captive or farmed individuals. And he's like, uh-huh. Got it. Got it. It was a, it was a dozen deer more oh that they know of yeah well i think at one last point that's important here is uh this is being watched closely by hunters officials lawmakers and the commercial deer farm industry because what this, what ultimately deer

farmers end up being responsible for cleanup wise could like, this could have implications on that in the future. Yeah. I could see that. Yeah. I could see that this could wind up. The chunk of ground is 11 acres.

Did we say that? Mm-hmm. So you just lost 11 acres of public land. Well, his enclosure was 11 acres. Mm-mm. The spot. The public land, they're fencing off. You're right.

You're right. Yeah. People in that area just lost, not a catastrophic loss, but they lost 11 acres of public ground, which is now behind a fence to keep people out. Yeah, you're bombing if you had a tree standing at 11 acres with a nice deer trail walking underneath it. All right, John Miller, you ready?

Sure. First thing I got to say with a name. Hey, did you know that John Miller is from Minnesota? Yeah. That's how he knew how to pronounce that county. You could have used that as your

translation. John, you're from Minnesota. Just about got a bear attack. John Miller, you got to be hard to look up. I bet your old girlfriends of yours can't even begin to try to find you on on on Facebook John Miller how many dudes named John Miller are running around I'm actually the sixth so my dad's John Miller and his dad's John Miller so you know about six of them that you're related to at least yeah yeah hard guy to find. Okay. How does the story begin? So I think the first thing I got to start with is, you know, kind of building up, you know, the situation from, you know, the actual grizzly attack, right?

Yeah. Like, you know, when I say how does it begin, like, what were you doing? So we're out out hunting. And so. And this is something you do a bit. Like, you like to get around. You do a lot of hunting. So, yeah, I do. I do a lot of traveling for work and, uh, I like to experience a lot of

different, unique types of hunts and fishing and things like that. And this is my first big elk hunting trip, actually. Um, I've, I've had a cow tag before, but, um, this was my first bull tag. And, um, so we went out for a gun season i'm more of an archery guy i like to archery hunt but um you know it takes a lot more time and so this time we we drew uh general tags and uh we went for the rifles and you're in what mountain range there uh the absaroka or some people call them absorkies um how do you pronounce Well, there's two different things. The Absaroka range. But the Absarokas is something different, right? I thought it was a city at one point in time, but then I've heard people use it.

There is a little town over there. Absarokas. Absarokas. Okay. Well, anyway. So we went out and season started on October 1st. So on October 1st, one of the guys in the group shot a bull. And so we quartered that out.

One of the guys in your party. Correct. Yeah. So there were six of us in camp and one of them shot a bull on October 1st. And so we quartered it out, brought all the meat back to camp, hung it, but left kind of the, I guess, the gut pile and carcass, if you will, deboned. As one does. As one does. I'll just threw that in there so people didn't think that that was abnormal.

It would be a lot to pack out. So there was a carcass kind of in that area. That night I went out on October 1st again to a different area a couple miles south and didn't see anything and you hunting with uh horses or on foot um we had horses there in camp and we'd kind of use them but you know if you got close to something obviously you'd tie up the horses and go off on foot but um so let's just fast forward to day two okay um so october 2nd um you know on that first day we had seen a herd of elk beyond where that first bull was killed that got spooked after, after that. Um, so we went back to see if, you know, that herd was still there. And so we actually, we went up to this, this really nice

knob where we could see this whole Valley and it was kind of a burned area. So just kind of describing it for the listeners, you know, it's really open really. And you could see quite a long ways. The part of the area that was, that had vegetation was all burned off. And then there was a really barren ridge that kind of went down. And while we were glassing, we saw a herd elk at maybe 1200 yards to our north. And we were sitting there and we're no hurry. They were all bedded down and we could see the carcass from yesterday. And so we even talked about it.

We looked at it. And it's how many yards from you? I would say at that time about 500. Okay. So it's a decent bit. And, you know, we could see 100, 200 yards all around that carcass. And it looked like it hadn't been touched or moved or drug around or anything like that. And obviously you see elk quite a ways out.

And so your focus kind of switches to, you know, to the elk. And so we started to make a play on these elk, me and another guy. And so, you know, we started walking down, walking down this ridge line that there was a trail that kind of was cut into the side of this hill and to probably 10, 10, 15 yards to our, to our right. Um, it, it was almost like a cliff that dropped into this real big Valley. And, uh, you know, we're walking towards the elk at 1200 yards and we're, we're taking our time stopping kind of glassing to our left. Cause that's where we can see everything is often this burn vegetation. And, you know, we're just looking for, we don't want to spook anything into our herd or anything like that, taking our time. And I would say probably on the, we'd walk about 100 yards, stop,

glass a little bit, you know, taking our time. And you got a blind to the right. You got sort of a, it rolls over a blind spot, but then drops off sharp. Yeah, and, you know, we've been over there and looked at kind of over that that ledge and it really you would not expect anything you know it's just it's just I would say 600 feet kind of down into this big valley and you know there's just there's not much there. So are you going towards the gut pile from the Davis? We are but we're probably we're probably gonna stay the closest we would have gone on that on that trail would Are you going towards the gut pile from the Davis? We are, but we're probably going to stay.

The closest we would have gone on that trail would probably be about 100 yards. But we are headed in that general vicinity. And so I would say on our third stop. But you've already seen the gut pile this morning. We've seen it, yeah. And everything around it. Yeah, and it's just. It's not disturbed.

Yeah. So you're kind of your guards down a little bit. And so we stopped maybe the second or third time just to glass to our left. And I just remember hearing, it was more like a squeal than anything. Your Brody squeal. Let's hear your best squeal. It was like that? It was like a fawn bleep, Brody.

A little bit more aggressive than that, maybe. I don't mean to embarrass you. Yeah, I knew you were going to ask me to do this. Give me a rough. Or do like a like. Do like a similar to. Similar to almost what you'd think a warthog or something would do. Yeah, kind of.

Who did that? Me. Oh, that was Chester. Yeah, and so I'm literally looking, and both of us, both of us are looking through our binoculars to our left, you know, into the burn. And you hear the noise. Which is effectively over our right shoulder. So we look over our right shoulder, and there is a sow grizzly bear at, it's 10 to 15 yards.

I mean, it's close. And it is running full speed ahead. And there's two cubs trailing there. Coming from the direction of the gut pile, or as far as you know, not related to the gut pile? So we can come back to that, but over the cliff, effectively. So to our right. She came up out of that stuff. Not out of the gut pile. So we can come back to that. Okay. But over the cliff, effectively. So to our right. She came up out of that stuff. Not out of the stuff.

I mean, really off the other edge is a rock cliff that you would struggle to walk up without ropes. It's like a ridge line, right? Skyline. It's a ridge line. Yeah. But she's coming from that stuff. She's coming from that ridge. Yeah.

And the other side of that ridge. And, you know, I would say, so let me kind of describe, I guess, the situation here. I'm standing with my binoculars looking to my left, look over to the right, and there's the sow and two cubs. And, you know, the first thing, I would love you know the first thing you know first thing i would love to say the first thing went through my mind was like let's fight you know that that is not what happened you know how do we get out of this right so i took a couple steps back and i watched that that sow basically um kind of redirect redirect her her trajectory and you know it

started it went for the other guy. Was he ahead of you? He was ahead of me. He was ahead of me. And I may have seen her first because I kind of had a better vantage point from looking over my shoulder and whatnot. And so, you know, I kind of described that as almost like a National Geographic film of, like, watching a bear attack, like, a clueless animal or something. It was just real graceful.

Really? It was just real fast. And, like, her mind was made up before we saw her that she was coming to eat. And so, you know, I've listened to some of your podcasts and you talk about your big mistakes. I'm going to talk about three of my big mistakes right here. Please. So I have a can of air spray.

I also have a rifle. I do not have a cider and we can. I also have a rifle. I do not have a sidearm. We can talk about that in a second. But, you know, there's only so much gear a guy can take. But in my rifle, I'm kind of a meticulous guy, right? I like to keep my gear really nice. And, you know, I've kind of changed my mind since this incident. You don't want it nice anymore?

Well, I had a scope cover on, which is a little absurd, right? So I had a scope cover on okay which is a little absurd right um so i had a scope cover on and um i had um i had bullets in the magazine but not in the chamber and my scope as people do yes as people do um and i had my scope set to it wasn't max i think it was at 10 power okay now i do think you're dumb yep the first two i'm like i could see it yeah i could see it but that's inexcusable that is excusable but i'm not saying that from a bear perspective i'm saying that for like a oh shit no doubt no doubt um and and the other thing that's kind of been the guy who killed the elk the prior day then i'd be like oh no you're down 10 power i get it you're done sure sure long

shot never adjusted it the other thing is you know i kind of got into um you know some some long-range stuff so i really you guys probably totally are getting me here i like the first focal plan scopes um nobody uses them from hunting we're really like for hunter um use i guess you correct me if i'm wrong but uh do you use the first focal point? I've had them, but no, not on my hunting guns, no. Yeah, because the big complaint there is obviously like, you know, your crosshairs are real fine when you're zoomed way out and whatnot. And so anyway, so I had a first focal point scope.

Yeah, so what he's saying is as you dial the scope, the crosshairs get thicker and thinner. Correct. The crosshairs magnify out and magnify in. And what's neat about it is like your Christmas tree below is always correct, regardless of what power you're on, right? And so it's great if you're making a 500-yard shot but not a 500. I think you can have – I shouldn't say that because I have – you can have those that are extremes. And you can have those that it always stays pretty nice.

I'm not sure what you're talking about there, but. You can get them where it's like very fine threads. Right. Or where it's sort of like, like a usable thickness, no matter where you are, where you can still find it against a dark object. Sure. Sure. Well, I think we're getting hung up on this.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, just one last comment there. If you have illuminated, it really helps. But anyway, there wasn't time to throw that on,

but so anyway, I've got some issues here. So within, I would say, let's kind of run down the timeline here. I have no idea there's a bear looking through binoculars. I see a bear. And then within, I would say within probably a second, maybe a second and a half, that bear is eating the individual in front of me. It's on top, just going to town. And I actually can't see.

Describe what a grizzly bear eating your buddy looks like. Well, so there's, so I would say when it was a couple, maybe 10 feet away from him is when I started scrambling to get a rifle. So I missed the event where it smoked him like J.J. Watt would. Like you'd expect a linebacker just to blindside somebody. That's really about what happened. And from my vantage point at this time, I can't see a human at all. I can see just a bear.

And I can't see the head, but I can see the neck muscles like it's devouring, right? So I can see. Because it's devouring, right? So I can see. Because it's biting. Like they're both looking away from me effectively. So the bear is, I can see the bear's rear and I can't see its head. Is your partner on his belly or on his back or on his side? So, you know, tough dude, great, great reaction to everything. He actually got on his back.

And what was going on at the time was he had stuck his left arm out, trying to draw his sidearm, which was in a shoulder holster. But the bear immediately just grabbed his hand. And so from my perspective, I can't see any of that. I could just see a bear. And I know my buddy's underneath him, and so that's what I see. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians

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Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. So I remember a couple like very cognitive decisions going through my head, right? The first one was how do we get away? Second one is, you know, we're not getting away. This is happening right now. And so I grabbed the rifle, chambered around, threw the cover off, and brought it up you know to my cheek and and uh surprisingly i i remember like immediately finding the bear you know like you would think maybe the bear and only the bear you know i think i must have been having like two eyes open or something it's i seemed incredibly confident where i was aiming at that time you know especially at 10

power in close range that's incredibly confident And I remember thinking to myself, like, well, I can't shoot here, which is where I would like to shoot. Cause I'm shooting, you know, a 300, 300 wind mag at 285 grain bullet at six yards, 10 yards. And it's probably coming out the other side. Right. So you don't want to, you know, I didn't want to shoot there. And so what actually went through my head was, you know, if I just shoot the barrel, probably get spooked and run off, which is, well, we can get into that later. But so I remember just aiming where I thought kind of the vitals were, and I was like, well, I can't shoot here. So I just brought it up to kind of the higher part of its back. That's what I was kind of trying to explain that video where I had an adrenaline running, but so I kind of brought it up higher on the back and just squeezed and she

went off and that bear immediately let up, turned and started charging me. And I guess I would describe it as like, you know, the film kind of changed, right? So at first it was this beautiful National Geographic film of a bear kind of going in for a kill, and then all of a sudden it was like The Revenant, where the bear's angry, really angry. And so the bear immediately starts letting up, which actually allows, you know, the other guy to draw his side sidearm but his thumb's gone now on his left hand okay draw his sidearm with his right and kind of get up while while discharging around which was

awesome and i remember thinking to myself after the shot um you know i really hope that you know that uh the individual's alive on the other side. And so I remember I kind of looking around the bear, and he was standing up, and I, you know, like, victory, right? Yeah. And immediately followed by, oh, shit. Now, hold on. When he's getting up, you said he discharged a shot, too?

He also did, yes. So the bear is between you guys. Yes, we shot at each other. Is he as considerate of your location as you were of his location? I think... He had to be disoriented as hell. For sure. Honestly, he kept his wits quite well.

And he's got a 10mm pistol, you said? Correct. The sample size is very small, but there was a statistic floating around after these guys did this sort of meta analysis of all these bear encounters. And it was in context of spray versus pistols. Am I,

do you guys remember this? That 25% of the time a firearm is discharged during a bear attack. It hits a person. Jeez. Wow. That was a lot. That's crazy. Yeah.

I can think of like multiple stories of things just in the last few years of that happening. Well, I don't know. But like I said, man, it's like how big is the sand? You know, I don't know. I don't know enough about it. I remember that was just, that was out there, floating around out there. Sure, sure. So back to the story.

So the bear is now charging me another, you know, discharged the the the one round and then i remember trying um i basically took two steps back and you know actually after the incident i listened to your guys's podcast about you diving out of the way steve and and um who is the other individual alex maybe from alex messenger the guy the canoe guy He also dove out of the way. Like, you guys are crazy. My philosophy was get on my back. So I dove to my back, and I had my rifle basically kind of in front of my neck, and I stuck out, and I brought my foot up.

And my philosophy was kind of a Hail Mary. I'm going to kick it in the face. I'm going to kick in the snout. Because there's no time to rack another round. No. I mean, and actually I think subconsciously I tried because my hand got jammed under my bolt which was out. So I had pulled the bolt out and hadn't even really been able to drive another round in. And so I'm on my back

and the bear is coming, jaw open, snapping. And, you know, it gets to that last step and I kick and I just kind of, I hit something, you know, but I miss, I don't really hit anything solid. Right. And, and the bear now is all of a sudden kind of quartering away and trying to almost get away or circle around or something. But something happened, right? So the other individual follows the bear, gets quite close. And when the bear is kind of circling around or making its way away, he's looking at his hand, which his thumb is quite mangled, and I see his pistol. And so I go and grab that pistol, and I'm thinking to myself,

I'm not doing round two of this. And so I put three more, pop, pop, pop. And at that time— This is all happening real quick. Yeah. Because the bear is not that far away when you're in the video. Correct. And at that time, This is all happening real quick. Yeah. Because the bear is not that far away when you're in the video. Correct. And at that time, the cubs were actually, and I kind of left that out, the cubs almost were near me almost the whole time.

And so I'm kind of finishing off the bear with the cubs running past me to go to that sow. Got it. And the bear kind of buckles up. What was the age class on the cubs? Cubs of the year or cubs of last year? No, it was this year's cubs. They were real small. And so, yeah, so effectively, you know, five rounds are fired.

The situation is neutralized. And now it's time to kind of attend the medical situation because that's obviously the best. So the bear's been that's obviously the person. So the bear's been shot twice. It runs. You shoot a couple more times. And then it just like piles up like deader and deader, like piles up and then rolls around for a long time? There was no like a death moan.

People talk about death moans with bears. It really didn't do that. So just to kind of run through it, you know, in fast, you know, in fast motion. So maybe one or two seconds before the bear is on top of the other, other individual, the bear is shot, you know, probably half a second, second, well on top, then immediately charges me. You can imagine how long that took, maybe a half a second or a second. And then it's trying to get away. The three shots are you know i grabbed the pistol fire three other shots and the whole event i would say six to eight seconds okay from from not knowing there's a bear to firing the last

round thinking to myself that did it okay and and i would say the the last round it kind of just buckled you know what I mean? You know when you hit something that you're like, okay, that hurt. And so then the Cubs go and they go and hang out on that sow. And so then we're kind of addressing the situation. And so I go through my pack. And another mistake. We also, I don't have a, I have a first aid kit back at camp, right? I don't have any in my pack, but I do have a spare set of wool socks.

And so, we kind of put the thumb back in the, where it's supposed to be. And I wrap one sock around real tight and almost tight, like a knot or a splint. And then put the other sock over the top just to kind of apply pressure to the wound. And then obviously keeping it elevated and whatnot. Pretty much that whole area, we did not have any cell service. But actually right on that ridge, we were able to call 911 and explain the situation. At that time, they mentioned the helicopter or to get a helicopter, it would have come from Riverton, which is a little ways out and they couldn't take off for another hour. So you were talking three to four hours before a helicopter would come. And really, if you looked at the scenery, it wasn't really somewhere you could land it nicely. Let's just say that.

So we made the decision to ride out. So we contacted the other, a couple other folks in the hunting party and they brought the horses down and we out, and we were met by a mirage of people, obviously, at the trailhead. You know, you got your game and fish, search and rescue teams, helicopter that had landed at the trailhead, ambulance, so on and so forth. Really? For sure. It was actually, this is kind of funny, Jim Zumba was there. Just to see what's going on? Yeah, I'm not really sure.

And, you know, it's kind of embarrassing probably on my behalf, but another guy that was there was like, hey, you know who this is? And I look at him and I have no idea. I did not know who Jim Zumba was at the time. But so anyway. I can't say I'd recognize him either. So just there to be like, what's going on? He must live nearby.

Or he was on a hunt. Yeah, I'm not really sure. I know he's in northern Wyoming. Yeah, sure. He's playing the Captain Quint character. Like when you get there, he's like, I'll catch you a bear. Yeah. So is your buddy real quick, is it just his hand that's messed up?

Yes. So it seemed like from my perspective that that took a long time, but I think it was quite quick. And, yeah, really the only real injury is the hand. You know, I actually had a little tiny scratch on my shin, which I still have a little bit of a mark there. From the bear? That's correct, yeah. What's that, a tooth or a nail? You know, that happened when I tried to kick and it tried to lunge.

Are you just hoping it's the bear? Could it have been snow? You've got to have a battle scar. It's a little. It's really, it'll be gone. It looks like a battle scar. It's a little. It's really, it'll be gone. It's like a puncture. It's a puncture. It'll be gone in six months, right?

It's not really a scar. I would go see if someone could help me keep that. So you made it to the trailhead. I'm real curious to know if you're on the hook for the helicopter. So there was the individual that needed the quick medical attention actually had helicopter insurance. So not necessarily on the hook, but good timing,

I guess. Wow. Did he purposely get it for that hunt or he had it for work or something? He had had it for some time before. So you never know when you're going to need it, but. Makes you wonder if I have that.

Do you have that without knowing it? I wonder, is it like a real specific thing? Uh, I don't know. I think, I think we, we have,

Oh good. That was in an email buried somewhere. When he, when you thought he was being eaten, the bear was on top of him. Uh, what was, what,

what's his perspective? What was going on? Um, his perspective was kind of like that it was playing with him like a dog. Almost. Really? Yeah. Mauling his thumb. Yeah.

So it stayed on his hand as it grabbed its hand, grabbed his hand and pushed him down. It stayed with his hand in his mouth. Yeah. His hand was in its mouth the whole time. In her mouth. Yeah. In her mouth. Um.

But seconds. Yeah. Um, maybe not even plural um but close you know um and it was what's amazing is no claws were used right i mean you'd think that you got the leverage you're the bear you got the leverage all you got to do is stretch the you know stretch the arm out with one of your claws and you well i mean who knows? She probably would have gotten to that if you hadn't have shot her. Sure, sure. So that was the first run through,

and that was kind of what I had learned and I guess went through the first time. Then all of a sudden now it's kind of, well, now we've got to bring the game and fish back to evaluate the situation as everyone would know and and understand and so yeah uh this just for listeners this is a the grizzly bear in the rocky mountains in lore 48 is listed as threatened and has endangered species act protections which means that um if you kill one they're going to make sure that it was legal and it's like obviously legal to kill one in defense of life but they're still going to come check it out and i believe

that's the only reason that you can kill you can't the Lord of 48. You can't kill it in defense of property. Right, right. Or game or anything like that. So, um, so we ride in, um, there's, uh, four folks from the state that come in. Um, there's a biologist, um, I think kind of an apprentice. There's, uh, the, the game warden for that region and then his supervisor. Um, so we ride in about six miles. So it took about, it was about six miles there, uh, one way. Um, so we ride in six miles. Um, and then I, I basically reenact what happened. Um, and it was, you know, pretty clear there was blood trails and things like that. And actually when we arrived, um, you know, the cubs were still there. Um, so we, we, they have to do an investigation. So, um, we needed to, you know, remove the Cubs from the sow in order to perform the investigation. Yeah, it's in the news that they euthanized the Cubs.

Yep, yep. And so I go through, I kind of run through, reenact my position, reenact the other individual's position, and kind of follow where the bear had come from and gone. And the whole, just to kind of paint the radius for the listeners, it starts maybe 10 or 15 yards to my right and ends maybe 10 or 15 yards to my left. So the whole thing, I mean, the whole situation is a 30-yard line. I mean, it's very close quarters

um and so you're above tree line again so it's it's all clear field of view not a lot of brush not a lot of deadfall there is um you know where where the grizzly died was kind of the beginning of the timber line but it was a burned area. So it's kind of, uh, you know, it's easy to see, but that's where, so it was kind of a burned area, just to paint the picture. Um, and so, um, one thing they wanted is they wanted to find some, uh, brass, uh, for the, for the investigation, if you will. Um, and so I knew there were five, five rounds. Um, the, the rifle was obviously the easy one to find. Um, and, um, we only found one, one of the pistol rounds, but one of the, the one pistol round that we found, um, was actually, um, kind of covered in

blood. So the casing was covered in blood, which it's kind of interesting and we can kind of i think i have some ideas of where that came from um and then and then the next step in the the investigation if you will is to really you know go look at the story and then look at you know the the evidence or the i guess the makeup of the bear right how long is this whole like investigation procedure taking like are they all like detail business oriented like taking their time or um yeah it's pretty thorough um you know it's obviously it's not something that happens every day i think they mentioned that I was the fifth that year. However, it was the first bear recovered.

So I don't know if that means that somebody got attacked and got away. I don't know if that means a shot was fired at the bear. I'm not really sure what that means. But the ride obviously took the longest amount, your 12-mile round trip. But the investigation, I mean, it took, you know, hours. And they skinned it right there. Yeah, I assisted in that. So, you know, it's kind of, from my perspective, it was kind of, you know,

it was kind of neat to be a part of that, you know, because, you know, you know how it played out, right? And then so then you can see, you can see where the individual bullets landed on that bear, and you can kind of then start to put the pieces together on, like, why did this happen? Why did it play out that way? Why did the bear change direction and not lunge at me at that last second, right? And so there were some things that were really, really evident. And so skinning out the bear, you know, I mean, the first thing that was remarkable, and it's obvious kind of when you say it out loud now, but the difference in damage from the 300 Win Mag to the 10 millimeter, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's a high-powered rifle versus a handgun, right? So you obviously expect a lot more, but so let's kind of talk about the individual bullets, right? So the shot with the rifle had entered kind of upper mid, but the right side of the back of the bear and the exit hole was kind of out near the neck front right quarter, and the exit hole was quite large. And so that's the first thing that you're kind of like, boy, I'm glad that exit hole didn't, you know, contact anybody. And, you know, that's, but then we kind of started looking for more bullet holes just to see, you know, play it out.

And so zipping out, you know, more of the, more of the hide, um, there were two 10 millimeter rounds that had passed, um, through the kind of like almost gut shots really. Um, and you know, when you're shooting a running animal at a couple of yards, you never know. We're not going to critique your shot. So there was a kind of a, it was basically a clean pass, you know, kind of, you know, a rear gut shot that kind of came out the other side. Oh. And then another one that kind of came out the other side.

So like kind of quartering away gut shots, if you will. Two of those. Passed all the way through. All the way through. And what did there look like there was a lot of trauma there or not so much. So those were the, using those like 220 grain

Buffalo boar rounds, which, you know, deep penetration, you know, a lot of, a lot of people talk about deep penetration and whatnot. One thing in the brain, another thing in the. Right. Um, soft parts. Yeah. Right.

Right. And so, you know, originally we found those three shots. And everybody knows they're going to punch it right between the eyes. Right. You know what I mean? When you're like getting all ready, you're like, oh, I'm going to hit him right in the head. Exactly right. And so, you know, we found those three shots originally.

And, you know, I kind of was thinking to myself, there's got to be more, right? Like, you know, I know we shot five times. And so I kept carving away and I actually found another one that was almost like dead center of the back in the vertebrae and it kind of like got lodged in the vertebrae and like I don't know if it got tracked you know like there's like a hollow area there and kind of got lodged in there I kind of think that was the one that clammed it up. You know what I mean? Almost paralyzing it. Sure, yeah. The final shot there. But, you know, so that's really. Did you ever find the last shot?

You know, it could have been on there. Sometimes it's hard to see through fat. Yeah. When there's not a lot of trauma and you have just a bullet, you know, a bullet hole. It's just you're searching for quite a small target. And, you know, we're not really caping this thing out. We're not saving a cape or anything like that, so it's not like it's a nice, clean.

But I don't get the impression with the spine shot that you were like, oh, here's this massive broken spine on this bear. No, it was clearly. So that one we found an entrance hole, and, I mean, the Game and Fish had a metal detector and we were trying to like find the bullet and carve it out and whatnot. We never found anything, but we didn't spend a ton of time on it. We also didn't really have the right tools. They brought a metal detector. They did.

Yeah. Me and my six-year-old just got a metal detector. Yep. We're going to get into that big time. I'll save that for another episode though. Sure, sure. And so, yeah, so those are the four bullet holes

that we found. There could have been another one kind of in the back or in a fatty area. And are these guys taking note of all this stuff? You know,

they're taking a lot of pictures and notes and collecting samples and doing stuff that's, you know, that I'm not really paying that much attention to. You got to still be a little razzled.

Is that a word? Razzled? Yeah. Razzled. Same day. Razzled. That's what I meant to say. Same day.

Same day. Yeah, same day. Long-ass day. It happened right away in the morning. I mean, it happened, I think it was like 7.15 a.m. You rode out, rode back in again. Yeah, I'm a little surprised that they kind of put you back into that situation after going through that. I would say they didn't put me in that situation oh you offered yeah for

sure you know and they weren't i mean they were certainly actually they i got a lot of respect for the folks that we worked with i mean they were they were very good about it and very professional and did you get a sense of like their attitude like oh no not again or like they're like you know kind of how they felt about the whole like grizzlies in general and um probably not but you know i think they're real professional about it yeah you know um yeah nobody likes nobody likes um you know they were certainly more excited to investigate a dead bear than a dead human. Sure. You know?

The other thing is, it's got to set the mood when you have an injured person. Where they're not going into it like, did these guys panic? Sure. He shot it 40 yards away just because it was looking at him. There's a wounded bear. Yeah, you got like a wounded dude. So probably you're probably going to not so much with your like, you know, inspector mode, right? Yeah. I was just curious if it's like, oh, these, like if they have an attitude.

Oh, they're like these damn bears. These damn bears, yeah. These damn bullies. At the trailhead, do they split you guys up and get each story? I mean, it was such a cut and dry story. You know, like Steve says, you know, you've got a guy with a bite. You know, obviously you're close if you're getting bit. I do believe they took a DNA sample of the bite to match it to the bear.

Oh, okay. A friend of mine who was a journalist used to. Make sure that you didn't bite him. Right, right. Turns out, yeah. A friend of mine who was a journalist, he was always, when he was interviewing people who were involved in stuff like this he was always um one of the things he would look for is anytime someone said and then i proceeded to he said that that always sort of like made like a little alarm in his head go off like they had thought about what they're

gonna say ahead of time and then i proceeded to and said, you'd be surprised how often you hear that when you're hearing a story that maybe everything doesn't add up. Right. Right. Um, so, you know, that, that was, um, that was kind of the investigation. So it was, you know, they took recording of what I, you know, me going through the motions. Um, you know, the, the bear was kind of dissected. Um, and you know, each shot was kind of analyzed. Now, they took a bunch of pictures and documentation and whatnot. I didn't. I didn't really know if that was my place per se. Did they impound your weapons?

No, they did not. They damn sure impounded your bear hide, right? They actually kind of just destroy everything. Oh, okay. You know, and, yeah, I respect that. I mean, you know, you're not. Oh, they're taking the hide so nobody else does? You didn't get to keep a claw?

No, no. You know, it's pretty, they're pretty strict about, you know, everything's got to be destroyed or, you know, there's no trophies, right? This is no trophy. Let me tell you a quick story. Understand trophy. Let me tell you a quick story. Understandable. Let me tell you a quick story. In Alaska, they auction all that stuff off.

So they have these personal bears killed for property defense, like life and property defense. Sure. When you kill one, you've got to submit to hide and skull. Sure. And they have an auction. I know about a guy that skinned his like he did he skinned his like the gutless method and split it up the back i don't know why okay he went to the auction

they got all these damn bears and there's only one oh so he can know which one is skinned up well i don't know if he was gaming it at the time that's just how he did it because i said bring the hide so for whatever reason he made a slip the back and somehow got the hide off the thing went to the auction god is bare and he said he knew it because like who else would do that that's what i heard i don't know the guy but i heard the story it could be like a lie story i don't think it's a lie story. Yeah. I do recall, um, specifically the skull, right. Um, the supervisor there was, and they all feel really bad about everything, you know, I mean, they're, they're super understanding and yeah. And he was kind of like, you know,

I hate to tell you this, but I need you to, to give me the skull, you know, my hands were already dirty and I'm just curious. Right. So I gutted it all out and scum a lot of it out. and so i cut the head off for him and handed it to him and they destroyed it with uh like hatchets or hammers or something like that just to just to destroy value just to yeah i mean which whatever did you end up uh getting i don't have a problem i understand all that like yeah sorry cal you end up getting an age on the bear um you know there there's going to be an official report on it. You know, I'm not able to get my hands on it for some time, but I'm thinking that'll all be in there, and I'm curious to read it for sure. Yeah, no, they're collecting a lot of data for sure.

Did the – what wound up being the relationship that you of the the guy that was getting his hand mauled up um like like what kind of happened when you guys had a chance to talk um you know is kind of a sombering uh sombering moment for everybody you know um is you know is uh is a once in a lifetime experience um you know i think you hope we hope um you know we built a lot of respect for each It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You hope. We hope. We built a lot of respect for each other in the way that the situation was handled. Is he pretty rattled about it? Was he pretty strong about it?

He was real strong about it. Not afraid of the mountains now? No, no. You got any different feelings about grizzly bear country? Besides some procedural shit? No. You know, I got a lot more respect for the animal. That's for sure.

I definitely, yeah, I definitely have a lot more respect for grizzly bears and, you know, my mentality of staying out of those situations and having different equipment and different locations of equipment will be changed. Where was your spray? It was on the outside of my pack. Did you ever think about grabbing it? Hold on. Like outside of the pack, like unreachable? Reachable. On the waist belt?

Like right here. Okay. Did you ever think about grabbing it? I didn't. I mean, like in hindsight, um, I would say at the moment, the thought process was the rifle is the job, you know? I mean, it's kind of like, what are you going to blind everybody here and hope for the best? You know, I mean, it's kind of like, what are you going to blind everybody here and hope for the best? You know? Um, I didn't spend, I didn't dwell much time thinking I'm going to go

after my bear spray. You know what I mean? Um, had that been 60 yards out? Yeah, absolutely. I think I would like to think. You would have had time to think about it. I would think my, my first choice at 60 yards out in, in that situation would have been bear spray. So knowing what you now know, what would be your, like, what's your bear protection system? So the next time you do it. Um, so before that incident, you know, I really, I really had this, um, this, I'll say, I'll say false mentality that, you know, if you, if you shot a bear with, let's say like a 45 ACP or something like that, you know, like it would realize that it's, um, it's up against a real match here and

it would probably deter it and leave after shooting it with a 300 wind mag and watching it charge like a, a very pissed off animal. Bigger the better if you have to shoot. Follow up question on that. When you guys did the necropsy, did you guys gut it to see when you said that where the path of that 300 win went?

Did you catch vitals on that shot? I personally gutted it. The heart was fine. The lungs looked fine. The liver looked fine. Really? The intestines, which the bullets passed through, I never even saw a split in that. Hmm.

So your 300 win mag round went above the vitals? Above the vitals. Yeah. So, um, so it actually didn't happen. We didn't really put this all together till, you know, obviously then the whole thing's done, right? Now we're back in camp and we're talking about how crazy the event was. And, you know, a couple of takeaways there. You know, we just start talking about, you know, just the odds of the two sets of odds, right?

First set, you know, the odds of getting in that situation, incredibly unlucky to get in that situation, right? And, and, you know, the only thing I can think of is the bear had winded the carcass and was maybe making its way there and then got like a burst of scent and was starving, ready to eat and just came ready to, came over that tail top, just ready to eat. So that's obviously very unlucky timing. Had we sit up on that knob for 10 more minutes, you might see the bear cross. Like it had been aware of it and was circling it, trying to figure out if it was a big boar in there or whatever. Something, you know.

Sure. It is hard to, you'll never know. You'll never know that. And obviously no stomach contents of undigested elk meat. Oh. That's a great point. I did not open the stomach. I don't know if anybody else there did.

That would have been interesting. Did you guys ever take a look at the carcass afterward to see if it had been messed with? It hadn't been messed with. It hadn't been messed with. No, no. But you have, like, you don't have to, but you gotta be be like there has been some relationship between the gut pile and the bear. Or is the relationship that predators like to travel on ridgelines and they like to travel on nicely defined trails? I would think that the bear had winded the carcass and had just been working its way that direction thinking, you know,

I'm hungry. There's something here. And so I really think that, you know, that's what kind of brought it to the general vicinity. The tracks of the animal for the last hundred yards indicated that it knew we were there and kind of followed us along the backside of that ridge and popped over when we were close, when it was close and we were close. Really? Yeah. along the backside of that ridge and popped over when we were close when it was close and we were close really yeah um so it wasn't like we stumbled into it and it was it was defensive you know it seemed like it was it had smelled us and was starving you know a bad news organization would

say when the hunter becomes the hunted right i'll just throw it in there so so going back to going back to what we're kind of talking about it you know back at camp you know the odds of the situation were incredibly unlucky or low and unlucky how you want to look at it then once we were in that situation with the bear coming you know at 10 15 yards i don't know another situation that plays out that ends up better than that you know um when a bear's on top of somebody you know had had you know a shot landed a little bit differently you know does it oh there's just a lot of different like it's fang could have punctured his brain pan it could have like just severed its spine with its claw you could have blown a hole through the guy right

there's just i mean i look at that and i think if I redid that nine out of ten times, I think nine of them are really bad. Yeah. That's a good point. You know. Your friend said that his perspective was that the bear was playing with him. At what point did his perspective change? Did he ever talk about that? I would say after, I mean,

once that rifle shot went off, you know, it let up, you know, I mean, so then it, it kind of, its focus changed, um, to coming, coming towards me. Um, and, and really, um, you know, kind of cutting, putting all those pieces together back at camp actually is when we kind of put it all together where, um, what i think happened was you know obviously incredible unlucky timing the bear comes and not really in a hurry not really threatened just ready to eat so it's kind of taking its time um starts doing its job gets hit in the back, and kind of, you know, the rifle shot really rendered the front right useless. I mean, it just, it detached a lot of those muscles, right? Just kind of hamburgered this area. And then it went and turned around and charged full speed.

To accelerate, you know, if you kind of look at the anatomy of the animal, it's going to use its hind legs to really drive and start running. And what it seemed to me is it went to lunge there at the last second and it went to my left, which would line up perfectly with its right shoulder. Failed. Failed. So it basically went to push off. And when it went to push off, one side, you know, just pushed it that direction. And it probably swiped a bit. I kicked. We collided in some manner, but not really hard at all.

And that was the mental change of the bear for it to realize I've lost some motor skills. Yeah. And. And. And then it was heading out. And then it was probably trying to get into a safe zone. Yeah. But, you know, at that time, I didn't even know if I hit the bear. Sure.

You know, I mean, I think I did, but I could have shot clean over the top of it. And, you know, I have no idea what's exactly going on. I don't, no one knows as much as we like to talk about it. No one knows what they would do in that situation. I like to think that I would have done what you did and shot some more. You've passed the point of commitment. Unless you're like

one of these guys that, like, it mauled me, and then it kind of wandered off, and then it came back and mauled me some more, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it was just really an impulse decision, and looking back, you know, it's just really an impulse decision. And looking back, you know, it's kind of like, well, when that bear bites somebody, I think they're probably going to take DNA sample, try and find the bear and probably put the bear down anyway. You know, I know it's

been hit because why else would it not have just completely killed me right there? So you already have an injured animal. It's already known to have bite somebody. Let's just finish the job right here. You know, that was, and I don't even think i went through that process i think my process was more like i have no idea how we just came out of that but i'm not going for round two survival mode yeah how's your buddy's hand uh remarkable um you know i, the doctor kind of mentioned, you know, it's infection that really is the problem, you know. And so an hour or more later, that becomes a much different animal. Gotcha. Did you notice this story for another time,

but I have a very similar bear circumstance, and nothing ever happened with it other than bears ran away but it was related to a ridgeline it was related to a elk carcass did you notice one of the things that i noticed being that close to bears was the smell of them did you do you have any like in recognition of a distinct smell of a bear that because that's something that i took away i was like holy cow this the smell of a bear man was you know i didn't um that that does not come to mind yeah um it's just that's not what you're thinking no i wasn't thinking let's go smell the roses

here I would say that I don't recall a smell from that incident well man I'm glad you're alive give Matt Millard a hug for me I will tell him that I'm glad he's alive and your body I'm glad he's alive.

And your body, I'm glad he's doing good. For sure. For sure. You know, I... I got one last question for you. Sure. It's a hard one to answer. Are you glad it happened? You know, the experience...

Obviously, when it's a... When it's a... When it's a good story, what I mean by good is when everybody came away okay. You know, I mean, some injuries for sure, but, you know, nobody is, you know, crippled. Nobody, you know, nothing like that. And so, I mean, I definitely appreciate the experience. If you told me, would, would you go into, um, would you go into that situation again? And, um, how do I word this? Um, the same scenario doesn't necessarily play out, but you get to redo that situation. Yeah. I would say no, absolutely not.

If someone's like, I can't tell you what's going to happen, but a bear will be on somebody. Yeah. I would absolutely not do that again. Um, because I think that the probability is so low of the outcome that we got, um, that, that is, that, that, that wouldn't be worth it for sure. Um, you know, being the problem, being that, you know,. Being the outcome that we got, I can appreciate the experience for sure. Sure. I think one thing that you just never consider, and every bear story is unique, obviously, but this one is unique for different reasons. And the one thing that you mentioned, everyone thinks, Oh, I'll shoot square in the eye, you know, square in the square between the eyes, you know, and, um, you know, the one thing

that I never considered was not only am I not going to be able to like get a good shot, but there, there isn't, there's instances out there where you can actually not shoot the vitals. You know what I mean? I would have loved to put that bullet and gave that bear a Texas heart shot. You know what I mean? And hope for blow out everything inside. But you're shooting around your partner. Right.

Yeah. And that really changes the game. Um, just cause had you been using a much smaller caliber, for instance, let's say I did have a sidearm there. I would have gone for the sidearm just out of habit. And that's what you think you should do. And you could probably get more shots off and so on and so forth, but you might be pretty scratched up right now too. Yes. I mean, that sidearm is not going to take that quarter out. You know, it might, it may do something differently, but I don't think that, you know,

the sidearm is going to turn hamburger into a quarter of that bear and render that part of the bear useless. Yeah. I wish we had these little awards that said, the Meat Eater Podcast Nerve of Steel Award. I'd give you one. Well, I sure don't think you would because, you know, all the listeners are going to hear that video and see what Nerve of Steel feels like. A best possible outcome certificate.

Yeah. Sure. This certifies that you got the best possible outcome. In the world of probabilities. That one I'll take. I got a'll take that one. This certifies that you got the best possible outcome. In the world of probabilities. That one I'll take. I got a guy I work with that always uses the line, I'd rather be lucky than good. Sure.

That's one of those for sure. That's how you're feeling right now? That's one of those for sure. All right. Well, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. I appreciate it, man. Very instructive.

It reinforces my primary theory about bear attacks. Well, I think it sums, like I'm quoting Joe Rogan, who's quoting someone else, which is everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face. That's very accurate statement. Was that Mike Tyson? I was never hearing it from him, but yeah. Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face. Very accurate statement. All right, man.

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