The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 868: Clay and Bear’s Alaskan Coast Black Bear Hunt | 12 in '26

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Clay Newcomb gives behind the scenes details and answers viewer questions about the Alaska boat-based black bear hunt feature in the new film for the MeatEater “12 in ‘26” film series.  Both Clay and Bear Newcomb hunt black bears along the Alaskan coast–Bear with a modern rifle and Clay with a primitive self bow. Watch the film now on MeatEater's YouTube channel Connect with MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips Subscribe to MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. This is Bear Newcomb's first time to Alaska. He's 19 years old. I really think it's going to impact probably the rest of his life. There's just some landscapes in the world that just seem to just grab you.

It's hard to describe. This place is like exotic and wild and dangerous and beautiful and just has a whole different vibe. that's what's so incredible about planet earth is you go different places and you bring something home with you that's unique i'm really excited to see what bear brings home hey everybody this is clay newcomb and the clip that you just heard is from our film southeast alaska boat base bears that's on the meat eater youtube channel and it was this film's about when me and my son bear john went to southeast alaska last spring 2020 and hunted with our friend and outfitter David Bennett's on his big old crabbing boat and shrimp and boat, the sandpiper.

It was an incredible hunt, an incredible time, and it's episode three of meat eaters 12 and 26. And this, what you're listening to, what you're watching, so there's a video of this on Meat Eater podcast YouTube channel, but you could also listen to this on audio. If you're listening to this, this is the companion podcast where we're going to give behind the scenes. And like I said before, there's only so much that a video can show. I mean, imagery is beautiful and powerful, and you can see, but there's just so much that goes on behind the scenes. And that's what we're going to talk about today. I have with me my main sidekick, Josh Landbridge, Spillmaker, and we're about to talk about this whole hunt. with Bear, which was really special.

I mean, kind of the key features of it were, first of all, southeast Alaska, which is just a phenomenal place. I mean, anybody that loves wilderness, hunting, epic landscapes, I mean, Southeast Alaska rivals any place I've ever been on planet Earth, number one. Number two, what was cool about this film was I got to go with my son. Bear is now 20 at the time he was 19 years old, and it was his first trip to Alaska. I've heard somebody say it. People have said it since they saw the film,

but there's a pretty famous quote about somebody saying, don't go to Alaska when you're young. Oh, really? Yeah, they're like, don't go to Alaska when you're young because everywhere else you go after that will be a lesser place. I mean, that's kind of the idea.

And obviously, the intent of that. So you've ruined your son, basically. Well, really what the guy's saying is that Alaska's an incredible place. and you should go. But I took bear John there for the first time, and it was really awesome. Well, great. Well, this is, like Clay said,

this is a companion podcast. If you haven't watched the film, go to YouTube, search the Meat Eater channel, and watch the film called Southeast Alaska boat-based bears. And you'll get to see the film and then get to follow along with what we're talking about today. Also,

if you're listening to this podcast, podcast on one of our audio platforms know that there's a video of it on YouTube as well. So come enjoy the video of this companion podcast. But we've got some great clips. You know, you kind of mentioned Alaska and that it's a special place. Is there anything specifically that makes it a special place specifically for hunting? Well, just the – I said early in the film that it's arguably the best place in the world to hunt black bears. for numbers of bears that you're going to see

and for even size of bears. I mean, for many, many years, the biggest bears, black bears in North America in the world, black bears are endemic to North America. They only live here was on Prince of Wales Island, which we were hunting within 100 miles of Prince of Wales Island. Okay, okay.

So the bears there, big, have big skulls. Bears are measured by their skull. Right. So it's not necessarily weight. The biggest bears weight-wise in the world are typically in the southeast, North Carolina. The growing seasons are longer, but for skull size, southeast Alaska has big bears, so bears just get old there. Southeast Alaska is a rain forest.

They get over 100 inches of rain per year, and that's one of the biggest challenges of hunting there, but it also makes for this incredibly productive and, rich environment that just causes animals to bears to grow big and it's partly because well southeast Alaska is is not I mean it's sea level right it is far north right but like it doesn't have really extreme winters so the bears actually stay out of their dens you know typical to to what bears in the lower 48 would like okay now a bear in the interior of Alaska would be sleeping for as many as much as six months of the year. Wow.

In my bear book that's coming out spring of 27, we cite the longest hibernating bear ever recorded by science, which it was in Alaska. Interior Alaska. I'm not going to give that number. You're going to have to check the book out. But it was incredibly, it was more than half of the year. Wow. The bear was hibernating.

Wow. But these bears just. That means smaller bears. Does that? Right, right. They're just out less, they're eating less. Right. These coastal bears are out for longer and they grow bigger. And they're eating primarily? I mean, they're eating a lot of vegetation, but in the early spring, the woods, the berries haven't produced yet.

I mean, think about the cycle of the spring. It's wintertime, there's no berries. Vegetation has to grow and then berries grow. So like midsummer is when berries through the end of the summers when berries and stuff come out. Right. So early spring, I said it, southeast Alaska has really big tide swings, which means, I don't understand the science of it, but there are places where tide swings are much less. So like the water would go down, like, say a foot or two, it would expose just like small amounts of the shore every day. Man, in parts, we were seeing places where the tide would push out like hundreds of yards daily. Really? Yes. Like in daily? Daily.

Wow. Like multiple times per day. It would, the, the edge of the water would be way up there. And then four hours later, the edge of the water would be hundreds of yards. Well, you mentioned the difficult, at one point you mentioned the difficulty of getting to the shore without, you know, without having to get water above your boots. That's one of the biggest challenge is that like somebody like me who wouldn't know just the ends. I mean, I've been there several times, but still like the ends and outs of how to navigate that country, anytime you go to the shore, you got to be thinking about the tide. Right. Because if you get out of the boat and you're gone for an hour, you could come back and your boat could be on dry land. Yeah.

And you'd be sitting there for six, eight hours, whatever the cycle is. And that, it might be the middle of the night before, you know, the tide comes back. You know, the tide comes back. in and then you can't drive in the night. So there's all kind of challenges. And that's probably the biggest thing that stands out to me when I go there. And honestly, why going with somebody that's a veteran like David Bennett's or, I mean, I don't even know that I would have enjoyed it if I had gone by myself because of how treacherous it is. Yeah. I mean, you're on big water. We were crossing like this big channel that took. you know, I don't want to say multiple hours, but huge channels, like out of like big open water

and like these small skills. Just, which to me is scary. Because if you go down, you die. Right. I don't want to jump ahead, but like you asked, in that intro said Alaska is like scary and exotic. And it is to me. That's like the top of the list. Like if I were just listing the things that stood out to me on any hunt in southeast Alaska. It's a little bit of fear. And that may just be me. But, I mean, just like being on that big water, and so many times I've been with Steve Ronella,

I've been with David, been with others, and I always ask the same question. We'll be like a quarter mile from the shore. Like, you just feel like you could just like jump in and just like swim. Right. And I say, if we went down right now, would we survive? And everybody's like, no, you're dead. there's a high potential for risk there it is and those guys just don't think of thing about it

it's just every day just go wow wow well we've got uh we've got some great clips coming up we've also got some questions and comments from uh our audience who've watched the film and left comments on social media and on youtube so without further ado we're gonna jump into our next clip so we're open to do some shrimping a little crabbing this week. Eat some good food. We're going to get back into a little cove that's secluded from the wind and we're going to anchor and we're going to set out our pots and then this afternoon we're hoping to do some bear hunting. This bear hunting with weather like this it's really only going to be good probably the last couple of hours of daylight but the days are long.

It's in the middle of May, but maybe we'll catch some shrimp. Oh yeah, we got some shrimp. Look at there. Sweet. Wow, those are a lot bigger. You know, there's some meat on that one. Good. Dungeonous crab.

Look at that guy. Go ahead. You cut up some more bait bear, rebate these. You got lots. Good, when I have friends over. To an end. Lander, like me, the availability of this exotic protein is wild and is one of the coolest parts of being with David on the sandpiper. Seafood.

Dungeonous crab and spot shrimp are a rare delicacy. But we'll need full bellies for the long afternoon hunt. Man, that's good. We're crawling around the bottom of the ocean about two hours ago. So, for guys here in Arkansas, going to Alaska. tell us what it was like to be able to add that as part of your trip. Have you ever been to Captain D's? Once or twice.

Is that what it's like? Oh, it's almost as good as Captain D's. That's the only thing we have to relate to here in the Southern New York. Captain D's, you get their seafood combo platter and you get an actual shell of a crab. Yes. Like a real crab. Captain D's. So this video is sponsored by all.

On X and Moultry Trail cameras, but not by Captain D's. Not by Captain D's. You know, that was always one of the things. I've known David for a long time and follow him on social media, and we've been friends for over a decade. And that was one of the most intriguing things he always showed pictures of was his shrimp and crabbing. David's a commercial crabber, catches dungeness crab. and that's what that boat primarily is used for.

And yeah, it's a lot of work. You know, it seems to me when I watch this, any of these videos, you know, just shows it's just like pitching a pot in the water and coming back and shrimp in it. Like that was hours long work. So you guys pitched those off like in the morning and then went back in the evening and got them? Yeah. Was that, was that?

We let him sit for a night. Okay, overnight. Yeah. So we put them out the first day on the way into the bay. And the logistics of the thing, I said it, but you can't just park that boat out in, like, the main channel and sleep. I mean, the water just gets too crazy. Right. And so you got to find this, like, we found this, David Newett, this little secluded cove that was really tight and just, like, kept you, you know, away from the wind and stuff.

And so we would, on the way there, we dropped our shrimp pods. Okay. And there are real specific rules about non-resident, shrimpin, and, you know, in the original cut, we had this whole section about the legality of us catching shrimp and how many we could keep and all this. We ended up cutting it, but, you know, there's a lot of regulation. You have to report to the elastic given fish how much shrimp that you catch. Okay. It's pretty wild. Like, they're keeping track of all that, you know.

So he's got a log of all that. Yeah, yeah, and so we submitted all that. Did you guys eat shrimp and stuff every day? No, not every day. We had two big cookouts where we ate dungeness crab and shrimp. I'll be honest with you. What I realized was how critical hush puppies, French fries, and coleslaw are because we had all this incredible first-rate seafood, and I was kind of like,

hey, man, where's the carbs? Where's the koslaw and the potatoes? Yeah. I can't comply. It was really great. Camaschika Xbox. This is a YouTube commenter? This is a YouTube commenter and said,

I wanted to see more of the cooking on the boat. The meals looked amazing. He basically boiled all that. He had a propane cooker and a big pot. He seasoned it all? I mean, it was pretty just straightforward. Man, if we'd have been in Louisiana, we would have. He seasoned it some, but it wasn't heavily seasoned.

Yeah. It's pretty disliked. A shrimp were huge. They were. Yeah. You'd be surprised how much they cooked down, though. Like, those spot shrimp would be as long as your hand. Like, I mean, for real, that long.

And when they would cook down, they would be like that long. Oh, really? And, you know, big as your thumb. You know, bigger, a little longer. Yeah. Cool. Well, let's go to our next clip here. For those of you on the audio platform,

we're watching a video of Clay shooting the self-bow on the deck. of the boat. This Osage came off our property, but I made this bow last summer. Killed a couple critters with it, but it's got copperhead skins on the back there, some turkey feathers, pronghorn. Osage Orange is the king of North American wood for making bows. This is the most primitive archery tool. I mean, we could have used like a sinew string. This is a modern string. our broadheads are going to be modern metal broadheads, but the actual bow itself is as primitive as they come. It's one piece.

It's called a self-bow. And a self-bow means that it's, what does that mean? It relies on itself for strength. Yeah, it doesn't mean that you made it. A self-bow means that it relies on its own self for strength, as opposed to a laminated bow. And this thing is full, This thing will kill any animal in North America, period.

But you're limited. I mean, you need to be close. And I'm going to try to be within 10 yards. And so it's going to take probably a lot of stalks. We're going to have to try to find the right bear that's doing the right thing that's in the right place. And then bear with his rifle, looking for a big one. Going after a bear.

Yeah. So in the film you mentioned the hunter education requirements for bear, you're hunting with the bow that bear made. Now, was the original intent for bear to hunt with that bow? Yes, it was. Okay, so tell us about that. So Bear, Newcomb and I were headed to Alaska, both of us with our self-bows that he made. We were going to do, we were both going to hunt with them. And on the way there.

So you had two self-bos? We did. Okay. And on the way there, I woke up, like, in the night, just, like, my eyes just, like, sprung open. And I remembered from, like, 10 years ago when I bow-huntered in Alaska, I had to get a bow-hunter's education course and card to be able to bow-hunter in Alaska. From the state of all? Not from Alaska, but just, like, a certified bow-hunter education course.

Okay. I was able to take it here in Arkansas, but you get this card. Okay. And it's good, you know, all the states honor it. And I realized that bear didn't have that. And so I go, bear, you can't legally bow hunt in Alaska, which is just such a technicality. But, but obviously, we had to honor. And so we were able to get, we actually borrowed that 6.5 PRC from Janus Putellus.

Okay. Just like at the last minute. Okay. send it up there. And so, yeah, Bear was really bummed. But it ended up working out good. I wish I could have shot the rifle and Bear could have bow hunted, though. Right.

You know? Yeah. Because it was just way harder than I thought it was going to be. It just, I mean, well, we can get into it. I want to say something else about that clip. Misty Newcomb, my wife, keyed in on this comment. This guy tagged that section. And he said, typical dad move.

Son builds a bow with his own hands. Dad explains. There were a couple of people that were like, my goodness, Clay sure talks a lot. You know, and Misty loved those comments. She was spreading up. She was like showing everyone. She was reposting those. She was like, oh, yeah.

I mean. So in that same vein, tell us a little more about that, bow. I would gladly tell you about Bear's self-bow. How many pounds was the bow? The bow was 50 pounds. Okay. Which is, you know, just about the right weight. And I had some people say, oh, that bow's way more.

You could shoot an animal further than that. And you absolutely could. Right. That was like a self-induced regulation of my own. You know, I just knew for my proficiency. And I have hunted with a traditional bow. enough to know that I just wanted to be inside of 10 yards. Honestly, I wanted to shoot one at 5.

And so I just in my mind just committed to that. And it was harder than I thought. And I just felt like there was going to be more terrain features that would help us get close to bears. That's what I thought. And I found a lot more of these bears just on these wide open beaches. There were sections of where we were hunting that was like real rocky. Like big, bluffy stuff like on the ocean. But it was, first of all, why would a bear be there?

The beaches where there was all this grass and the low tides where they were coming out to feed on muscles and different stuff. Like that's where they wanted to be. So we were trying to find one like up in the rocks, but we just never... truly did. Well, you'd see them, but then the wind might be blowing so hard that, like, you couldn't get the boat up there without, without problems. And so we just kept making stock after stock. So, you know, you talked about the gamut of hunting, you know, modern versus primitive.

You know, most modern would be a, you know, a rifle like that, a precision rifle, like that with a scope, all the way to, you know, kind of down the list would be like a compound bow and then like a recurve. Yeah. And then you've gotten all the way to a self-bow, which is, you know, homemade one piece of wood. Right. Tell us, you know, for those who wouldn't have a lot of knowledge of hunting with primitive

weapons, like, what's the motivation in doing that? Why limit yourself? Why use something that wouldn't be as effective as a rifle? Why those self-imposed restrictions? So everywhere that I've ever bear hunted, to me, the landscape and the numbers of bears and the numbers of opportunity kind of dictate what kind of weapon I've going to use. I've hunted out west in Montana spot and stock before. And you can go out there and hunt for a full week and just. see a handful of bears and maybe get one opportunity.

Okay. I would never dream of taking a self-bow there. Right. Because, I mean, in my experience, I think I've been to Montana seven times and hunting the spring for like a week at a time. And typically on average, I get one to two opportunities at a bear in a whole week. You know? So, Southeast Alaska, I knew we would see multiple bears per day.

I don't know how we didn't say this in the film, but one day we saw 19 bears. Wow. A couple of days we didn't see any bears because it was just raining and we didn't hunt. How many miles of coastline would you say that you... David Bennett's is a wild animal in that skiff. He would drive...

I'm telling you, we were in that skiff sometimes for... I don't want to exaggerate, but I want to say 12 hours. I mean, like driving. Wow. I mean, we were going 50, 60, 70 miles. I mean, like, it was more than I wanted. I hope David doesn't watch this. David, I love you so much.

The stories you've told me about David Bennett's, that dude is hardcore. He is a veteran, Alaskan hunter and God. And just relentless. Like that first day, you know, when I said it was just pouring rain and cold. And we got in that boat and went on like a summer. six-hour afternoon run. And I was like, did you expect, are you surprised we didn't see a bear? And he was like, no, I didn't think we'd see one.

I mean, what I wanted to say was- So I just wanted to spend six hours of cold. Why didn't we stay in the boat and drink coffee? I mean, I'm usually on a hunt the one wanting to go. And I would much rather have a hunting partner that was wanting to go rather than one you were like dragging around. I mean, that's kind of a, to me, a requisite for a good hunting partner. partner is somebody that just wants to go. Right. Because we all know, I mean, man, I can tell you, success in hunting is all about just going.

I mean, we all know people that maybe just don't have quite as much drive. And they enjoy hunting for different reasons. Right. I mean, just being there and the experience. But David is, David's hardcore. And we spent some brutal days in that dang boat. Yeah. And he was used to it.

I mean, it's just like if you went mule riding with some of these guys that I ride with over here, we might ride for 12 hours, and maybe we don't think much of it. Right. You take somebody that's not been on a mule much, and they would be going, holy cow, how do you do it? Same way being in a boat on that water, cold, wet, windy. To me, it was like that. It was just like, holy cow. And, I mean, a film can only show so much.

The other thing is that I kept talking about bad weather, and like every scene it opened up with me going, man, the weather's great. It's true. It's true. I thought about that. I mean, obviously, we only filmed during good weather. Right. So in eight days, you saw all the windows of good weather.

If that makes sense. I mean, there were, I think two full days that we pretty much lost. And then even on those good weather days, there would be periods that it would just be bad weather. Yeah. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with

Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go,

I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right?

That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers

who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Mr. Spacely, 3021 on YouTube said, I guess when you get to Clay's level, you try to make the hunt as difficult as possible for the thrill of it. Is that your motivation of weapons? No, I didn't finish what I was saying about why I chose what I chose. I knew in Southeast Alaska, I would have a lot of opportunity, and I just felt like it would be the place to get really close to bears. Yeah. And I wanted to, I mean, I used to, for seven, a little trad history, for seven years, probably from 2015 to 2021 or to traditional archer was my primary weapon. Like, I didn't always, sometimes I rifle hunted, but that was my go-to thing that I brought. And I killed multiple bears, killed deer, killed, I mean, I had success with it.

And then, man, just to be completely frank about it, it was so much work and so hard that I just kind of was like, hey, I did it. Yeah. I think I'm going to go back to the compound. And it's kind of funny inside of hunting circles. You'd have people that would be like, oh, you know, he shouldn't have done that or a sellout or something. Man, I don't view it. I used to would have. Yeah.

I've also learned that it's kind of problematic to have opinions about hunting. because people can disagree with you. But, I mean, I grew up with a very exclusive mentality about bow hunting being like the superior way to hunt. And I just don't, it's just not true. Yeah. I don't believe that anymore. There are times when I love to limit myself to the extreme. And then there are other times when I'm like thrilled to be out there with a rifle.

Right. And so that's just the way I think about it. and I wanted to use that bow because bear had made it. I wanted to, I mean, really, that was honestly why I did it. Like, if I had just gone with somebody else, I might have taken a compound or might have taken a rifle. I just wanted to kind of honor bear. So you limited your range to the self-bow to 10 yards.

Had you had a compound, what would be the difference between shooting the primitive bow and the modern bow? I would have killed the bear probably on the first. or second day. And effectively, you could reach out how many yards? I mean, that's, again, a subjective question, but I would have shot a bear for sure out to 40 yards. Yeah.

And I mean, you know, and you had many opportunities. I wouldn't say, I don't want to exaggerate how many of the 21 stalks, but I was within 30 yards of that seven foot bear on like day five. Yeah. I was within 40 yards of several of them, you know, that were. and I said it it's kind of not that hard to get to 50 yards

right to close the distance inside of there you've got to do a lot of things right yeah and I man you see your weakness when you are exposed that much to stalking bear I mean I've never stalked that many bears in a week

and so you learn so much and boy there's there's a lot of different skill levels. David was critiquing my stocks, you know. I mean, he's... Does he primitive hunt? He doesn't. He does bow hunt.

He exclusively bow hunts. Okay. And most hunting in Alaska is spot and stock. So, I mean, he's a master, I would say. I mean, that's just the way he hunts. Right. I'm probably proficient. You know, most of the same.

of my hunting for archery stuff has been out of a tree stand or ground blind. I mean, we don't do as much stalking. So I don't claim to be the best spot and stock hunter in the world at all. That was a dumb way to say it. But, I mean, like, I don't, it's not like. Let's just say you're the best spot and stock archery hunter in the room. Well, you're probably pretty good, Josh. But.

Well, great. Well, let's watch another quick clip here. This is the not fun part of southeast Alaska. It just rains all the time. I was so cold right there I thought I was going to die. Really? I'm serious. We didn't see a bear.

No? Really? I tell you, I think that's very, I don't like the rain. So I'm trying to do the best I can to waterproof these Fletchons. That didn't work at all. Really? No. We're going to be in some serious.

David laughed at me when I put that on a whole week. It didn't really. work. If I was using, you know, just modern archery equipment, I would be using veins, which are plastic fletchings, but these are real, real feathers. And they'll get matted down if they get super wet, and it affects air flight. But this little magic powder will help a little bit. May I have to do it a couple times over the trip. I was a little bit worried we were going to get stopped by the Coast Guard and they were going to see this little Ziploc bag of white powder. What was that? What was that stuff? It's like a Teflon powder. It's made for archery equipment.

Perhaps in like a drizzle, it would keep your feathers up. But just in like nonstop downpour, it really didn't do that much. That's another reason why I wanted only 10 yards. Right. Because air flight at longer distance becomes exaggerated by things like, if your feathers are matted down or whatever. So, like, that was another reason I was just like, I'm probably going to be shooting a bear with wet feathers. Right. I want to be close.

So the weather definitely came into play. I mean, that limited the amount of time you could hunt. That's right. Yeah, for sure. Okay. All right. Let's watch this next clip here. We spot a big bear on the shoreline.

Sometimes they're stationary and feeding and they're just staying there. But a lot of times they're traveling. And this one is moving. We make a move to interceptor. They left me at the boat. They were like, you stay at the boat, young man. Man, that was crazy. Big bear.

I don't think I've ever shot a bear in such a pretty place. That was wild. I saw the whole thing holding the boat down there. I think we got it. Godly, it looked big. Yeah, he looked huge. He looked huge. Did you get a good shot?

I think so. You finding? Yep. Yep. Oh, man. Alaskan bear, man. Dang. Man, these Alaskan bears have some big old pads on their feet.

Yep. So a big bear there. It was. What did the bear square? The bear squared six foot six to six foot eight. Okay. I can't exactly remember, but. It was a top shelf bear.

I mean, a seven-footer is like big. Yeah. In all, you hear people, oh, yeah, let's get on this, how big bears are. For years, I had Bear Hunting magazine, and for a decade, like, bears were my entire world, and people writing about bears, talking about bears. And I was amazed at all the people that always talked about seven-foot square, bears. And the square of a bear is you take a green hide, like a freshly skinned high, stretch it out, measure from the base of the tail to the tip of the nose. That's one measurement. Right. And then measure

claw to claw on the front arms of the bear. Take the average of that number. Okay. So add those two together, divide by two. That's the square. Are they typically close? Yeah. Yeah, usually. They are. and I've always been amazed at how many people told me that they had killed seven foot bears or seen seven foot bears. The only, I've seen like with my own eyes in a camp, and I used to hunt a lot in Canada and would be in camps where multiple bears per week were being killed. And I have personally only seen with my own eyes

maybe two seven foot bears that were killed. So they're incredibly rare. Wow. It's kind of like a typical 170 white tail. It's like there's just not that many of them. And maybe people say, yeah, it's a 170, but really when you score it is 163. Right. You know, so I find that to be with bears.

And so when I say that a six and a half foot square to six foot eight square bear is top shelf, I think that's pretty accurate. That bear, so when we checked it, we sent the tooth, they took a tooth. They took a tooth. And the Alaska Game of Fish does a really good job. They sent Bear a letter. And that bear was 15 years old. Tell me what the name of that process was, you said.

Cementum annuli. So, you know, they tooth age estimates on toothwear for deer. Like you just kind of look at a jaw. And guys give estimates. And we all know that those vary inaccuracy. But cementum annuli, it's basically like they cut a tooth. and half and look at the annual growth rings like a tree. Okay. Okay.

Diet, look at it under a microscope. It's done at a professional lab. Me and you could take the teeth of any animal that we wanted. You could pull one of your teeth, and we could send it in to have it cementum annula aged. Okay. At the Matson Lab in Montana. But Bear's Bear was 15 years old. Somebody made a good comment.

They were like, bear and that bear were almost the same age. It's true. It's true. Another thing that's interesting to me is that if you had told me bear was going to kill a 15-year-old boor, I would have been tempted to be like, oh, man, I better be a boon and crockin animal. I better be seven-foot square boon and crockett. And bears are just like people. Me and you are about the same age, but like I'm just smaller than you. Smaller frame. Bears are the same way.

So that bear wasn't getting any bigger. Okay. Would that bear have changed skull size over the years? I've debated that with so many people, talked to biologists all over the country, and I don't think anyone really knows the full answer. But like a bear, like, is your skull getting bigger with age? I hope my brain is getting bigger.

Your ears are in your nose. My ears of my nose. Then my mustache. That's actually a fact. I wasn't, you know, poking fun of it. They score language. It's about the size of their mustache. Yeah, size of their mustache.

It's possible that a bear could calcify parts of its skull and get a little bit bigger. But really, I've never had a biologist tell me, and, like, science isn't necessarily trying to understand the answer of that because there's not a big reason for it. So I don't know if they get bigger. They obviously get bigger up until the time they're fully mature. The biggest bear that I have ever killed on the Boone's Crockett scoring system was six years old. The bear weighed 360 pounds and had a 20 and 8 16th inch skull. Okay. That's a Boon and Crockett skull.

And I have also killed more than one 500 pound bear that did not score Boone and Crocker. That would be much older. I've killed an 11-year-old, 9-year-old, and another older bear. and none of them scored Boun & Crockett. The six-year-old bear scored Buna Crocka. So it's genetics. That was 140 pounds lighter. Yep.

Wow. Okay. Interesting. We had an Instagram question talking about, how did you get the meat back to Arkansas? So David has a commercial freezer on the sandpiper. We corded that bear up, put it on there, and then put it completely,

frozen in ice chests and just had it shipped back to Arkansas. So in the town we were in, they shipped a lot of salmon. Okay. And so there were commercial companies that shipped frozen goods. So we took it to this place. Okay. And they packaged. They ship whole quarters. Yeah. Just shipped it right here. Okay. Yep. Pretty wild. Awesome. You can also check a cooler. You know, duct tape the cooler. I mean, it's not cheap. It's never cheap to do that, but yeah, it was good. Do you know approximately how many pounds of meat you got?

I don't even remember. Okay. We got another clip here, quickly following that bear kill. So these are some stone knives. This one I made, this one, buddy made me. But these are flint-napped and they're razor-sharp. But this is what people would have skinned animals with for long before we got here. And so we're going to try them out on this bear.

It's believed the first humans to come on to the North American continent pass through southeast Alaska. And without a doubt, they use stone tools to kill and butcher game. In a world where a lot of young people spend a lot of their lives behind screens, I'm glad to see Bear John interested in primitive hunting technology. I'm grateful for steel blades and technology but I think skinning a bear with a rock you put the modern world in perspective So tell us what that was like

So using this, do you feel like How effective were they? Were they, I mean, did you find yourself at a significant disadvantage Using the flint nap knives Over a modern steel knife? Yeah, I would say If you characterize it like that

It would take a lot longer To use a flint knife, it just would have But still effective. It works. If it's all you had, you could absolutely skin it. And those were flint. Yeah. Those blades were flint.

Yeah. And they can resharpen them. So we did a video a couple of years ago where we, me and Steve Ronella and Ryan Callahan and Spencer Newhart skinned the entire bison using stone tools. And we had a guy there that was sharpening them for us as we went. Because they get dulled just like a knife. Sure. Tap, tat, tat, tat. nap it, get it sharp again.

And, I mean, it probably takes twice as long, but I mean, that's not that big a deal. Like, if it took you, like, an hour to skin a bear, it would take you maybe two. Yeah. And, and again, the video can't show everything, and we weren't trying to be, we were trying to show exactly how it happened. You see a picture of David helping him skin that with a regular knife, and David did. Yeah. Like, we, Bear just jumped in there, and it was getting dark.

And they had to get back to the boat before dark. And so we had some time constraints. So I didn't want to be like, I mean, I guess in some ways you might think, well, he skinned the whole bear by that with that. But David actually helped him, you know. Yeah. But you absolutely could, if all you had was a flint knife and a way to sharpen it, you could skin any animal in North America. People have been doing that for longer than we had steel. You know, that's, it kind of blows your mind when you think about it.

how long have we had steel as humans? I mean, a couple thousand years that we were using. I mean, we were using stone technology for who knows how long. Way longer. We've had steel. And humans survived. They lived. They ate.

They butchered meat. We know that. I mean, it's pretty kind of a neat idea. And I really bear. it is cool that he is focused on those things. Speaking of that, I actually didn't even mean for this to happen, but we had a big rain last night in Arkansas, and I was wandering around the mule pasture this morning

and picked up these stone tools out of my front yard. These are broken stone points, airheads, or, you know, Adalattle dartheads that were in a mule pasture this morning. Apped by someone a long time ago. Evidence of ancient. Bo Hunting right here

where we're amazing recording this podcast. So what was it like getting to watch bear

kill that bear from a distance there and just seeing him do that it had to be pretty

rewarding and fulfilling. Oh yeah. Yeah, it was cool. You know, you've got four kids and

they've all at times hunted, you know, differing levels of engagement and passion about hunting.

But watching bear do something that you're also passionate about. Man, that's got to be cool to see. It really is. And I, it may seem like

this was all planned for Bear to just be a really passionate hunter. But it really wasn't. I mean, we never like made our kids, you know, follow these passions that I had. Right.

We just kind of took them. It was a major part of their life. And Bear, is of the kids is the one who's kind of taken it to furthest so far you know but all the others like to hunt too yeah all right here's our next clip bear didn't believe in whales he hadn't see one first before he believed it didn't believe him it was just wasn't totally convinced that there's a giant fish that just jumps out of the water a mammal of like things that suckles its young with milk this is ridiculous but now we believe

believe. They're right there. Wow. This was a humpback whales. Yep. This was so crazy. I would have given anything to bring one of those rib bones back. If we pick it up, yeah. We just can't take it home. You can't keep them. I mean, they're just going to get to our old. Yeah. That's a rib bone. I guess, yeah. What will have real? It looks like a dinosaur. Yeah. Wow. That is why. So you said, David, that for a year and a half after this whale died, the wolves, eagles, and bears

were just having a heyday over here. Yeah, it lasted a long time. It was a soupy mess. You can see the bears. Yeah, look, that is. These are all teeth marks. And what? This is the skull.

The bow, yeah. Look, that's like the... I wonder if I got that name right. How's that for... Wow. That's unbelievable, that vertebrae. I'm a believer. Well, it's real. So tell us more about that.

I mean, that's unbelievable. Did I get the name right, the Magnum Forman? Magnum Forman. I was... For those of you, aren't watching, I was looking at the skull of a whale and like the hole in the back of the neck, like where the spinal column comes into the skull. I believe it's called the Magnum Foreman. That was, I mean, almost one of the highlights of the trip for me. I don't really know why.

Foreman Magnum. Oh, Foreman, Magum. I reversed the words. David said that that carcass for like, did I say two years? Year and a half. Year and a half was rotting. And just, I don't know if every time you drove by there, but like, that's where the bears were. And he actually let a client shoot, as I remember it, a client killed a bear close to there. And after he skinned it, he said, I'll never do that again. the smell was so putrid.

Oh, I can't imagine. And the bear had just been... Think about rotting meat for a year and a half. The bear had just been all over it. He said that even the bones, after all the flesh had been gone for a long time, still smelled terrible. So how long ago had that well?

I couldn't tell you. Probably. Three or four years, probably. Three or four years. And you could still smell a little bit of that bone. Unbelievable. But, yeah, there were humpback whales all over the place.

I mean, just every single day without exception, we would see humpback whales. How close would they be? Well, you'd just be driving your boat, and they would just pop up. You know, sometimes we were seeing their spouts. You see the spouts of water that goes up, you know, 10, 15 feet in the air.

You can see that from like a mile away. You just see. But then just randomly you're driving and one just pops up like 50 yards. away or maybe maybe you see him and you're going that way and you have to kind of drive by them just to get where you're going you know and yeah pretty incredible well that's that was really interesting to watch on on the film okay here's here's one of the first still bummed about this stalk watching clay stalking a bear and then all of a sudden he takes off into the wood it's

embarrassing to watch yourself run waiters swirls the bear wins me while he's inside at 10 yards but still quartering to me. And when he spooks, I opt to chase him and try to run him up a tree. It actually works that I just can't get a shot. He was about eight yards, but still didn't get a shot.

Such as trad hunting. So was that a spontaneous move? Was that something you thought, hey, if I see a bear and he goes in the woods, I'm going to chasing? It's kind of just in the bag of tricks. You've ever done that before? Yeah.

Uh-huh. Yeah. And it's worked before, too. So we weren't able to show that whole stock. That stock was money, okay? Right at dark, we see this bear just trucking down the woodline. We're able to get way in front of it. I'm able to get out, walk down the woodline towards it, ducked deep in the timber.

And he had just been walking down the woodline for a quarter mile. just right on the edge and I get tucked in behind this tree and just am waiting for him and peek out and here he comes he's been walking for a quarter mile the wind basically when he got 10 yards just kind of swirled

I mean just like inside of this small perimeter of a human in that kind of turbulent environment with like waves and water and the wood line and the open area like you just

It's hard to predict what the wind's going to do. I was on the downwind side of it. The winds hit me in the face. But when he got, he was inside of 10 yards, but quartering to me. Okay. Right. Because he's walking towards me. Right.

So, I mean, like, he's in range, but I can't shoot him. He's got to, like, come past me or at least get even with me. Because with that trad bow, you don't want to shoot one quartering to you. Got to be broadside. Right. And so he gets, like, right at 10 yards and makes a, and kind of throws his head up. And I'm just like, no. And he makes a loop.

And basically I knew it was busted, but he was so close. I thought maybe I can run him up a tree. And I would have shot him out of a tree, you know. And basically, you can't see it. It's so dark, but he jumped up on a tree. You could see it in the video if you stopped it. The bear has his head out from behind the tree looking at me, and I'm very close to him.

but all I can see is his head. He's like around the tree. And then he ended up not running up the tree, but running off. But originally he jumped up on the tree when he saw me coming and it was like, what is this guy doing? And then he took off. And so it was over. But in British Columbia one time, I stalked the bear actually through a culvert. It's on the, it's on the bear grease channel.

Okay. There was a bear. There's this big, like, commercial grass. road for log trucks. Okay. Imagine a four-foot culvert underneath this deal. I'm watching a bear feed

right beside the end of a four-foot culvert that has water running through it coming away from the bear. I sneak up on the other side, walk through the culvert. The air is pushing down with the water.

And I basically poke my head out and there's a bear like five yards from the mouth. Wow. And I wish I would have taken the bear. It was a bore, but it was young, and it was early in the hunt. Right. And I've got my trad bow.

This is British Columbia several years ago. And I see the bear, and I'm wearing a GoPro on my head. You can watch it on YouTube. Wow. And I just go, hey, bear. And it looks at me just coming out of the culvert and just takes off. And then I just chase it, and it goes right up a tree. And I just stand there.

Wow. But anyway, so that can work pretty good chasing them. I've never killed one like that, but it works. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime Cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts.

Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good. turkey noises and getting action more clips everyone more clips would prove to be we're gonna be watch that's a three-legged bear primarily had to do really what's look at him wins not bear eyes you see look at that he's missing a front left leg well for our

listeners right now we're watching kind of a montage of man it took us an hour a few of the 21 different stalks that clay did on bears hard to see but this part of Alaska doesn't have a ton of grizzly. I find black bears easy to stalk within 50 yards. The bear finally breaks the 10-yard mark. This is the good one. Seven yards, but now he's facing me and he's way too close. I can't move.

I try to shift my weight to get in better shooting position and he hears me, sees me, and finally spooks. This was a big bear, probably nearing the seven-foot square. mark. And once again, I got to inside of 30 yards, but just couldn't close the distance. I'm starting to doubt if I can make it happen. 21 different stalks. Mm-hmm. 21.

So over the course of how many days? Eight days. Well, bear hunted kind of two days. So really six days. Okay. Seven days. We'll give bear one day of full stalks. Of those stalls, I mean, from those stalls,

and being in a place that's unique for hunting bears. Tell us some of the things that you learned and maybe some things that you would have done differently. Yeah. Number one, I would have planned on wearing some type of moccasin. You almost had to wear rubber boots because it was so wet. Right. But I started carrying some little stalkicons,

little shoes that you put on. But it was so late, in the game, I actually never used them. I would have used them a lot more. It's very hard. Those bears were hearing me. Really?

Yeah. And I had a cameraman with me, like right on my heels. So it's like two people walking. And those bears hurt us probably 30% of the time. Okay. And again, they wouldn't have heard us. Like, if you were just trying to get the 30 yards,

you'd be okay. Right. From 30 to 10. Yeah, there's a lot more you hear in 10 yards that you don't hear. And they can hear. They can hear so good. They just hear so well.

And, you know, a bear is not a prey animal like a deer, so they don't have quite that response, but they are very concerned with other bears sneaking up on them

because they'll kill them. I mean, it was grizzly country too. Okay. Did you see any grizzly bear? No. Okay. No, not a lot of gris. But, I mean,

it was in bounds for gris to be, especially on the Alaska mainland side we were on. And so bears here very well. So your feet. Number two, the wind, there's just nothing you could do. You're just at the mercy of the wind and where you could park the boat.

And again, getting inside of 30, 40 yards, the wind would typically stay pretty good. But in that inner cone, you know, inside of 30, even if the wind's hitting you in the face, like we've all felt that when the wind is blowing consistently and then it stops. Yeah. And there's like a little bit of a drag in the wind just kind of eddies.

And man, it just got me almost every time. Really? Like now, we may talk about the successful stock, but the successful stock had two things going for it that the other 20 stocks didn't have. Okay? Number one, that bear was within 20 yards of a creek. That was... Let's actually, we have that coming up here in just a second. Let's save that one.

but anything else that maybe you would have specifically done differently besides the stalkersons? Man, David Bennett's has guided hundreds and hundreds of bear hunters. And he says the thing that most people do is they're too slow. Oh, really? Yeah, he said on this kind of hunt, volume is what he finds that kills bears. And he would rather you get out of the boat and just do the boldest move possible. Really? Yeah.

Do the boldest move possible, and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. What I was doing was getting out and like just trying to be like, this is the stock. I have to give it my everything. And we'd end up spending an hour on this bear that was probably going to be blown whether I took my time or I didn't. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so David was just like, Clay, you're too slow.

you know and I'd be like you think and he'd be like yep you just he said why did you try to get up in the woods and sneak around I was like well I didn't want him to see me and he was like he wouldn't have seen you if you'd have just laid low and just like walk straight towards it and so but again it's like taking instructions from a pro basketball player when you're playing in the G league you know it's like that's the way I felt I really was humbled not that I thought that I was going to do good. Right. I don't mean it like I had high expectations for myself,

but it was harder than I thought it would be. And I mean, I stocked plenty of bears. Joe Etlinger 3423 says, Clay, there is no rule in bow hunting that you have to stalk every animal to the point of failure. If 30 yards is the closest you can get, just stay put and see if he comes your way.

It seems like you may have learned that one on that on the one that went up the tree. Joe T. Linger 3, 4, 2, 3. That's a good comment. I understand what you're saying. You don't have to like push, push, push until the animal spooks. What Joe doesn't understand is the constraints that were bigger than just what you see on the film. Yeah. Like, like to get a full picture by a 48-minute film. Well, and just like what David was saying, he was like, Clay, don't mess around. Just get in there and try to do it. If you're spook one, no big deal, we'll go on to the next one, and eventually you're going to find the one that's just right. So I see what he's saying, and in some cases, like, if you were in a place where you were going to see three bears in a week, you better do what Joe Linger 3, 4, 2,3 says,

is don't push it, just get to where you can get and then just wait. Yeah, I probably could have done that. This was a volume hunt, though. Sure. And there was also a timestamp with David sitting out in the boat navigating the tides. Okay. You know, he would pull me, most of the time, he would pull me up, I would jump out, then he would go back out because the waves are just like slamming the boat. Right. So he's out there just like, you know, like messing around, waiting for me.

It's not like I had three hours that I could see what the spirit. How long, that's a good point, Joe? How long did some of those stalks last? Well, I mean, a couple of them lasted two hours. Most of the time they lasted 10 minutes. Okay, okay. Off-road Tech Double Zero said, Great episode.

The Alaska shows are full of amazing scenery, except Clay's butt. There was way too much of it. Must remember, stalk hunts equal watching butts. Hey, brother. You ain't wrong. That's the first thing that I noticed when I watched the draft. I was like, wow.

This is like feature. Clay was watching. He's like, does this stalk make my butt look? The feature-length film of Clay's butt. I am so sorry, people. All right. He ain't wrong. Well, we've got one more clip here we're going to show. Clay's butt. The bear is tucked in. More of Clay's butt. ...tree, which offers some great cover to get close. He's just feeding on grass. And there's also a running stream really nearby that covers my sound. This is perfect. This is what I've been waiting for.

I hit it right where I was aiming. You aimed in the wrong place, Clay. I got on the other side of that tree. The bear was laying down right there. Air hit right where I was aiming. But it didn't go in very deep. It's not good. It's not good at all.

David, I don't think it penetrated past the broadhead. I felt like I hit him right behind the shoulder, but I must have touched the tip of his shoulder. His elbow must have been back because it broke that broadhead. And I mean, we're going to come back in the morning and look, but that bear is not mortally wounded.

And that was my biggest fear, and that is why I limited myself to 10 yards, and I hit right where I was aiming. And so I don't know what to say other than, I messed it up, but that's just part of the game. I think that bear will be fine. It's a bummer to hit a bear and not recover it, but my hunt's over, such as the drama of the self-bow.

So kind of walk us through that thing. Well, so that stock was so good, and it took 21 stocks to, get one that was just perfect. There was a fallen tree that completely shielded the bear from anything going on the direction I was, okay? There was also a stream that flowed out into the ocean there that did two things. Flowing water typically pulls air currents.

So my wind was kind of like going out on the water. You know, you'd puff and it would just be going out of the water. By that, by that little creek. That creek was like 20 yards from the bear. And then number two, it was loud, the sound of that water. So, I mean, it was like the perfect start. So I just peek out around that tree and that bear is there 10 yards. Was it a good bear?

It was just an average male bear. I mean, we know because the bear got killed like two weeks later. And I was told that it was like, you know, just a decent, younger, type boar. Probably a 200-pound animal. Okay. You know, it wasn't a big one. Right.

And I wish we could have got better footage of the actual shot, but we were so worried about spooking game. Right. Dirt was... Being so close. Dirt myth was your camera? Yeah. Garrett Smith, Dirt myth was a cameraman, and he just did the best he could without, you know,

having to get out further than me and like spook the bear. and as I watched the film I said it like three times and it could come across as me trying to make an excuse and maybe I probably was but I was like I hit right where I was aiming I kind of kept telling myself

well I hit where I was aiming well I mean I aimed in the wrong spot you know and I've said this for years and it's hard to compensate for but on a shorter haired animal like a deer okay a deer has you know

this like half inch to one inch fur. You can see the contour of that animal. You can see a shoulder. A black bear is like shooting at a black trash bag that's been blown up like a balloon. You don't see the contour of its body quite as much because it's a longer hair. Number two, the difference between shooting a bear

and shooting a deer is that a bear has a lot more ability to contort its body. And what I've always told people is a bear can make itself into a sea Like envision a bear being broadside But his butt and his shoulder are closer to you than the middle Like his last rib like the middle of his body It's like a dog He can like curvers back

A deer really can't do that Right Think about that So when he's when that bear is like curved like a sea If you're aiming Like kind of where the vitals should be At this black trash bag that you can't see much contour on you will hit his shoulder.

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it folds in. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And so-huh. It narrows the picture. So you could actually shoot in the place that on a 3D target you would shoot, but if that bear is cupped toward you in a sea, you're going to hit its shoulder.

And that's what happened. Like, just in the moment, I wasn't able to see that that bear was actually maybe just slightly cupped. Right. And like, I always say that a bear can do so many things that a deer can't. A bear can sit on his butt. that bear was actually laying on his belly when I first saw it, like laying flat on its belly with its paws,

flat on the ground like this, like this chomping grass. I mean, just, and like, if I had come up and that bear would have been like that, that shooting target would have been compressed and different than if it was just standing there with, like, its ribs kind of like fully extended hanging down. So most people, including me,

mess up on a bear when a bear is doing something unusual. And it's not like he was, he was just standing there broadside in my mind, and I just hop, and just hit that shoulder. I knew that a lot of error was sticking out, but I actually thought that everything was okay,

because, you know, I'm telling myself, I hit right where I was aiming. Right. Do you feel like you're, did you feel like you had a full draw? You feel like, all the shot was okay? I mean, that's where any traditional archer

will tell you it's easy to what they call short stroke when you're in the heat of the moment. Right. Where you're just in such a hurry, you don't like get your full extension. I don't know. It's possible. I mean, I was so, Josh, being inside of 10 yards. And I mean, I had time and I walked through my shot sequence consciously.

I was like, bow arm up, focus one where you want to hit, draw to your anchor point. I mean, I did everything. But who knows? I think so much of human memory is flawed. Right. It's true. It's true. You know, like even me saying I hit right where I was aiming, it's like, I wish the foot, you cannot see it.

You cannot see the arrow in the footage. I don't know why. You just can't. Who knows if I truly did. I do know I hit the shoulder because we know that for a fact. Because a couple weeks later, and this is maybe the most bizarre part of the story. So we go check bears bear with the Lyska gaming fish. You have to take the animal actually to a biologist that pulls the tooth,

that takes a hair sample, that does all this stuff. And so we're talking to them. And I'm like, man, I shot one and got away. You know, I told him. Right, right. And so David knew the guy that we were with really well. Right. And a couple weeks later, David sends me a text message and said,

found your broadhead and I'm pretty sure some guys from Texas killed that bear with a rifle. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And they pulled the broadhead out. They just were skinning it and found a broadhead and thought it was interesting. And when they took it into the game and fish, they were like, hey, we found this. And the guy was like, I think I know whose that is.

Wow. And, you know, I was true. I almost, you know, part of me didn't want to tell that part of the story because, I mean, animal, the ethics of just the treatment of animals. It's not the right words I'm saying there, but I'm like, you don't want to shoot a bear and not find it. Right. You don't want an animal running around with the broadhead and shoulder.

You guys went back the next morning and looked for it. Oh, we did. We did. We went back the next morning and looked for it. Found nothing. Yeah. You know, and the bear was fine except for he got shot by a guy from Texas. You know, so I don't know if it's from Texas. That's what I remember being said. But so that's the story.

Well, that was great. Man, the film was fantastic. And we, another comment here, did you feel fortunate? The bear ended up okay after you hit it. And also, I didn't see any firearms on your stalks as a safety backup. man I've read that comment and nobody carries firearm backup

on black bear hunts and when I say nobody obviously there are exceptions to that rule right but I would say 80 plus percent of people hunting black bears are not if they're bow hunting are not carrying a firearm backup

now if you're hunting gris country you probably would there's been times when I've carried a pistol almost just for the fun of it. But I would say 95% of my black bear hunting, I've never had firearm backup. Gris is a totally different story. Yeah, yeah. Much more aggressive bears.

So just, it's just not, you're just not going to be attacked by a bear while you're hunting them. You might be attacked by a bear while you're at your camp, you know, and wants to eat your food. Or you run into a sow with a cub while you're out hiking. Another comment here He says Caleb Allen says Just finish the episode Still can't believe what happened

to Clay's arrow Do you think maybe the constant moisture May have weakened the wood At the broadhead point I would have imagined Even with a self-bow With that type of broadhead Would have struggled to get

I can't imagine Even with a self-bow That that type of broadhead Would have struggled to get more penetration Yeah that's a good point I don't know I don't think wet wood necessarily means weak wood, if I'm understanding his comment. It's possible, though.

Definitely the water on the string and water on the feathers would have slowed the bow to some degree. But again, that's why I was limiting myself to 10 yards because I felt like at that distance, it really wouldn't have mattered. I mean, the bottom line is I hit the shoulder. Right. And with any, I mean, even with a compound, if you hit the... the shoulder, potentially you're going to have problems. Right. And so hitting that animal ends your... It does. There's legality of such is different in many states, but in Alaska, if you draw

blood on an animal, that's your tag. Yeah. And in most places, and in most people that I've been around, even if that's not the law, it's typically the way that I would manage something. If you have one bear tag and you wound one, just check your tag. Yeah. You know? I wouldn't, I'd say most of the time that's what a lot of people would do anyway. Man, thank you guys so much for watching this companion podcast for Meat Eaters 12 and 26 film. This is episode three of our Southeast Alaska boat-based for bears.

Check it out on YouTube. If you haven't watched it, please go watch it. It's a lot of action. I tell you what, it's a lot of action. And it was a really special time to get to spend that with my son, Bear John. And, man, I hope you guys get to get out and hunt this spring. And thanks so much for checking this out. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls

and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to.

I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps Game Calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.