Successful Sheep Hunt of the South with James Brandenburg

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
you by Outdoor Edge in their complete lineup of knives
and game processing. Kids. These guys right now are doing
an absolutely huge giveaway where you could win an elk hunt.
And not just any elk hunt. We're talking about a
seven or eight mile horseback ride into the back country.

(00:25):
We're talking a one on one and guided hunt. You're
gonna be sleeping in a wall tent, and you're going
to be doing that for five days with the founder
and CEO of Outdoor Edge, David Block. Now, if you've
never been on an elk hunt before, I'm telling you
right now go sign up for this because if you

(00:46):
ever hear a elk bugle, whether it's at four hundred
yards or it's at forty yards, it is a life
changing experience. So here's how you enter. Go to outdoor
edge dot com. There's gonna be a big banner or
for it somewhere on their homepage. All you have to
do is click on that, go fill out some information
I think your name, your email address, maybe some other stuff,

(01:09):
and that's all you have to do. That's how you
are entered. They're gonna be picking a winner. Oh always
from now so you have plenty of time to enter.
Go visit outdoor edge dot com. Sign up today and
if you decide to purchase any products from the website,
enter the discount code Nation thirty. That's the word nation

(01:31):
with the number thirty. After that, no spaces Nation thirty
and you will receive thirty off your purchase. My name
is Clay Nukeolman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting
Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world
of hunting the icon of the North American wilderness. Prepare.

(01:55):
We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will also bring
you into some of the wildest country on the planet
chasing bear. For those of you that have been paying attention,
you've heard us talk about the sheep hunt of the South,

(02:15):
which is our way. It's our metaphor, our analogy of
talking about hunting black bears in the eastern deciduous forest
without the use of bait or hounds, but just hunting
them out in the mountains based upon sign. One of
the original people that I spoke with about this was
James Brandenburg. Well, James, since that time has been planning

(02:40):
a bear hunt here in Arkansas, a sheep hunt of
the South bear hunt in Arkansas and amazingly well, I
don't want to give it away, but James Brandenburg is
on this podcast and he tells the story of an
incredible hunt that took place just a few weeks of
go right here in Arkansas, from his planning, what happened

(03:04):
during the hunt, the execution of the hunt, and details
the whole story. So you're gonna enjoy this podcast with
our good buddy James Brandenburg. This week, I am sighting
in a c V a muzzloader. What I've got is
their Accura Mountain rifle and it's got a Sarah Coat

(03:26):
finish and it's in maxiwe camouflage. It's got a twenty
four and a half inch barrel. It's a breakover gun,
so it's it's kind of like one of these single
barrel shotguns. You know, it just breaks over. You know
that you release, you press the lever the bottom of
the gun, the gun breaks over. It has a breech
plug that you can undo by hand, you don't need

(03:49):
a tool. And I'm getting a scope end this week
and I'm gonna be sighting that gun in and hunting
with it next week in Arkansas for deer. Muzzloader hunting
is some of the most liberal and best times to
be in the woods for white tails, especially. C v
A makes an incredible line of muzzloaders. This muzzleloader is light,

(04:11):
it looks sharp, it feels good. You're gonna want to
check out the c v A line of muzzloaders and
their incredible guarantee that they have on everything that they
send out. Check it out at c v A dot Com,
d you Hunting Supply, w Hunting Supply. Our friends Buddy

(04:34):
Woodberry and his team, they they've had a big week.
Garment came out with their two hundred Eye, which is
their first big jump in handheld dog tracking technology in many,
many years. So Garment just released this two hundred Alpha

(04:57):
and it's uh Buddy Woodberry and in du these are
the guys you need to buy these from. If you're
looking to upgrade your tracking unit, do it. And just
to give a quick, very quick um intro to what
this is. This single track your dogs. You can tone
and stimulate your dogs, but it also has built into

(05:17):
it and in reach device which is a satellite text
messaging and a satellite emergency service request platform from Garment,
So go check it out. W has some great videos
that describe what the two is that you can find

(05:38):
on social media. Check it out. James Brandenburg, Man, you
are this This really wasn't planning to start out this way,
but we've got a trade squirrel dog back here behind
the Global Headquarters. James, you're wearing a shirt. What's your
what's your shirt? Say? She hunted the South, she Hunt

(06:00):
of the South. Can you uh, can you describe what
that means? Yeah? Yeah, I feel like I've got a
pretty good basis on that now. Man. That's a you know,
down here in the South, we've got we don't have sheep.
We got some places to go, some real wild, rugged
places to go around and and chase black bears. And

(06:20):
you want to go out and and a big block
of a national forest or something and spotting stock a
black bear. Man, that's elusive animal, that is it is
very elusive. I have determined, and that is the sheep
hunt of the South. Yeah. So the the metaphor was

(06:40):
originally um developed here at the Global Headquarters because you know,
sheep hunting has this this allure, this this stigma, this
this idea around it that it's super difficult, and I'm
certain that it is. You know, sheep are sheep are
they live in why out really wild places. They're an

(07:02):
elusive animal, and it has this you know this this this,
it's been marketed to us as like this elite hunt,
you know, sheep shape and all this. Well, we got
a little, uh, we got a little jealous down here
and uh and thought some of our escapades and adventures

(07:22):
were being overlooked. So this is you know, what we
termed black bear hunting and national forest without bait or hounds.
We caught up the sheep hunt of the South because
it is extremely difficult. You know, there's no data really
on the odds of success, honestly because so few people

(07:42):
have actually dedicated they're hunting specifically to bear what you've done,
and that's what we're gonna talk about on this podcast.
But you know, most of the bears harvested in the
southeastern United States and even in the Appalachians, not over
bay or hounds, would be opportunistic deer hunters because the

(08:04):
way that things work well, the way things work out
west is typically people have specific tags for specific animals.
So like if you hunt in Montana, like maybe you
bought a bear tag, maybe you didn't. Uh, if you
hunt in Colorado, it's the same way. You know, like
there's these like species specific tags. Most of the Southeast

(08:25):
we have like the sportsman's license. So for thirty five
dollars in Arkansas, resident gets six deer tags, two turkey tags,
a bear tag, all the squirrels you want, all the
small game you want. And so basically every licensed hunter
in Arkansas that has a sportsman's license, which I would

(08:45):
guests would be the vast majority of Arkansas hunters are
gonna have a bear tag. So if they're in a
bear zone and it's legal, and a bear ambles by
them while they are intentionally deer hunting and they harvest
this are wow, God love them awesome. We're gonna celebrate

(09:06):
with you. But that is not what we're talking about.
We're talking about a specific and very targeted hunt with
an animal that is highly elusive. Bears are very patternable,
but they're very hard to find. You have to find
it first before you can figure out what it's pattern

(09:28):
is exactly exactly. And uh so we're gonna talk about
the challenges of this kind of hunt. And uh, but
I just wanted to define what it is. First of all, Um,
so this was your first year bear hunting? Yeah, tell

(09:48):
me why you wanted to get into this. I mean
we and we've talked about like you could go back
and I think it's episode forty four You, Me and
you You. We called it the Beginner's Guide to Bear
Hunting up and basically it turned into a conversation about
how to hunt National Forest and uh, and that has
been been one of our most listen to podcasts of

(10:10):
all time. People really listen to it. We've also I
probably have a couple of notches. I've listened to that
one more than once. Okay, so you're bumping the analytics
on that. I'm sorry about that. Well, So, so we
have history, me, me and you have history in this conversation,
which is why it's so stink and cool that you're
here and you're gonna tell us the story that you're

(10:31):
gonna tell us. But so tell me what drew you
to that kind of hunt? Yeah, Well, as we've talked about,
you know, I'm a uh, I mean, I don't like
the term adult on set hunter, but nobody's come up
with a better one. I just didn't start hunting until
I was an adult. And um, I have just gone
through various stages of that last year, um, between hunting

(10:57):
multiple species starting September for with dove, and and just
going through all the different things, my son and I
hitting all these different seasons, um and and I didn't
really see a lot of deer last year, but I
was working hard to get out there when I could,

(11:18):
and I got to the end of the of the season. Uh,
probably the end of deer season is when I started
thinking about this. And then went through December and January
waterfowl seasons before I really solidified it. But I kind
of got to the point where I was asking myself,
like what was I what what did I want from hunting.

(11:40):
You know, obviously we want to have success in the field.
We want to bring meat home. Um some people want
to bring home a big trophy deer. You know, they
spend a lot of time trying to trying to bring
home a trophy. And and so I was asking myself,
like why am I doing this? Like I enjoy it,
like I look forward to it all the time. But

(12:01):
I was going out in these little tiny blocks of time,
you know, I'd have an afternoon on a Saturday, and
so I'd hustle around and get everything done on Saturday morning,
and I could go out in the afternoon on Saturday.
And or I'd get up super early and and and
go out for a day. Or I remember one weekend,

(12:22):
I drove to Tulsa to watch my son play soccer.
Then I drove back and my intention was to hunt. Um,
I was gonna deer hunt Sunday all day. And my
youngest son had gone with my oldest son and youth
waterfowl hunted in Missouri. And it was fantastic. Dad, you

(12:43):
gotta take me back, You gotta take me back. We
gotta go back. It was so good. So I got
up at like three thirty in the morning and I
took him up to go duck hunt. And then I
came home and then I went out and deer hunted.
I mean, I was killing myself, well, long story short,
was killing himself. What am I trying to get out
of this? And I realized what I haven't had that

(13:04):
I think a lot of people who grew up hunting
have had. I hadn't had a hunting camp experience, and
I hadn't really dedicated an extended period of time to
a particular hunt. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna scout. I'm

(13:26):
going to hunt if I need to keep hunting until
I'm successful, or I'm going to give myself an extended
block of time to hunt day in, day out and
and take what I'm learning in the moment and apply
that to the next day's hunt. And so, um, something
else that you had said, you know at some point

(13:47):
in the Gary Newcom school of hunting was you know,
be be good hunting where you live first, you don't
need to travel. Um, I mean coronavirus happened, but my
decisions were made before coronavirus, you know, so I wasn't
gonna travel this year. That I just said, let me
give this a try and and block out the time.

(14:09):
You know. I think it's I want to stop you
before you answer your question, because I thought it was
a great question to ask. I mean that that has
me thinking about your question, asking myself the question, which
I think if you don't do it very intentionally, you
kind of skip over it. But it's like, I like
that question, what do you want to get out of hunting?

(14:32):
Because sometimes for those for for people that UM hunt
a lot and and that have done it a long time.
Sometimes you forget why you're doing what you're doing, just
because it's just it's just what you do, you know,
And not that that doesn't take away the enjoyment of it.
But I think that's a good place to be self aware,

(14:54):
to be analytical. And it was like, what what's your goal?
Like what why are you do and what you're doing
and are you getting out of it what you need
to be getting out of it? Yeah, it's just a
point to slow down and think about. Yeah, And and
that's my approach to a lot of things in life.
You know, some people can some people don't have that,

(15:15):
and and that's fine, Like not everybody needs to be
self critical the way that that I probably am about myself,
but it's just my nature, Like I'm gonna I'm gonna
ask myself, do I need to be spending time doing that?
You know? Is it is spending time on Facebook? Like
what I need to be doing to to to to

(15:36):
sharpen my sauce, so to speak, and just to be
the kind of personal I think it's okay to say
that everybody needs to be doing that. I mean, I
mean there's some people that have a natural default systems
built inside of them for self reflection and awareness. That's
maybe stronger than someone else. But I'd say that that
is a skill of being human that has made us

(15:59):
successful as a species and as people, and is is
something that needs to be sharpened inside of all of us. Now,
you can do it too much so that you over
analytical and super critical of yourself and stuff like that,
which some people might tend to be that way, But
then there's other groups of people that just have no
self awareness, no self evaluation, and I would say that's

(16:20):
not good either, you know what I mean. You like
what you're saying, So I don't think it's just like, well,
I'm that way and maybe some people aren't. I think
you've spotted a reality that yes you are that way,
and there are some people that are not, but and
it's their choice. But it's good to be aware, analytical,
self reflective, critical to a degree. I mean, if you

(16:44):
want to be successful in anything, you've got to do that.
I like what you're saying. Yeah, So, so in thinking
about all that, what do I want to get out
of my hunt this year or out of my time
in the field. You know, I really wanted to have
that time. Um. You know what I explained to you earlier. Um,
And I think most hunters would would understand this. You know,

(17:06):
when you walk into the woods, you kind of walk
in with a with a bubble around you, and that
you push that bubble out into the woods and and
the game, the birds and the squirrels and whatever's around
you unless you're you know, the faster you move, the
bigger the bubble is around you. Let me put it
that way. And when you get out into the woods

(17:31):
and you and you see, like, um, you sit down
and you sit still, and then you see the woods
come back and you see you can see that bubble
shrink around you when the birds start to get closer
to you, the squirrels start to get active around you.

(17:55):
And and that's the best way that I can describe
what I wanted to have in a total hunting experience
this year. Rather than having a I gotta rush out
for a weekend here, rush out for a weekend there,
or a day or whatever. I wanted to go out
into the woods, plant my flag and then have the

(18:17):
woods kind of shrink back in around me and then
exist where where the other parts of life that are
all important and they have to be balanced in order
for free to do this. But those parts of life
I could very purposely set aside and ignore and just

(18:41):
be immersed in the hunt. Now, whether I was successful
or not, this year, for me, my definition of success
was I'm going to the woods as long as I don't,
you know, injure myself, uh badly run you know, I

(19:04):
have to run out of the woods because I, you know,
terrify myself or something like that. Like if I can
go out there and sit there and do that and
kind of be happy being with myself, that was success.
That was how I defined it this year. I want
to go in the woods. I want to I want
to learn more about the environment around me. So I

(19:25):
spent the year Clay. I spent all summer, I mean
last spring into the summer kind of practicing those skills
like go out in the woods, camp for a night
in the woods, go look around, Ask myself, what is
that tree? What is that plant? Um? What uses that?
Where are the trails? How do I get around? What
happens to me when I put on twenty pounds of

(19:47):
weight in my pack and carry it around? I mean
I did all that stuff and um, but with the
intention that when I got to the end of September,
I was gonna be I was gonna know what I
was getting myself off into. Man, I really like, uh,
I like the way that you describe the bubble, because

(20:07):
the bubble you're talking about is actually real. I mean,
like when you walk into the woods, Like that's a
great description, but it's also internal. And then you know,
you kind of used it as a as an analogy
for even your space as a human for somebody that
there is a lot of value inside of a hunt

(20:31):
that is a longer period of time where you can
go and get away from and not to escape. I
don't like an escapism mentality, like people like act like
their world is just on fire, and then when they
get out in the woods, it's like I can just
get a reprieve from the world, like it's gonna be
waiting for you when you come back. So I like

(20:54):
this holistic idea that that we could build our lives
in such a way and this is what I've seen
you do, that we can plan and we can go
to a wild place and immerse ourselves in it and
our world not fall apart at home, And that gives

(21:14):
you the ability to actually be successful when you hunt
is that you know, and and but it's a pretty
we actually talked about this a few podcasts ago when
we were in Montana. It's a pretty rare human experience
these days to be in a wild place for like
seven days. Even though that's not to say that there

(21:36):
aren't other people other than hunters using wild places for
extended periods of time, but hunters are doing that probably
more than anybody I can't think of. I mean, some
of these guys would be like mountaineering and going back
country camping for like ten days at a time. That's
a pretty elite group of people. Most most people that

(22:00):
are just campers, recreational campers are going out for two
or three days, Max, I mean, do you agree with
that statement? Yeah? I think so. I mean it's hard
to I mean, maybe it's just because they're not taking
pictures and putting them on Instagram that maybe I'm not
following the right Instagram accounts. I don't know, but it
seems like you're right. Well, and I'm not saying that
there's not people that don't. But what I am saying

(22:21):
is is that when you're hunting, you have a reason
to be in the woods for seven days, ten days,
and it's I mean and not to me. Like that's
another part of it too, Like I I enjoy being
out in the woods, but I really enjoy having a
reason to be out in the woods. Absolutely. I have

(22:42):
no qualms with saying that I am not a hiker.
I mean, you like, say, hey, Clay, let's go on
a seven day backpacking trip in Colorado in June, and
I'm like, man, I think I'll stay here. I mean, granted,
maybe there were be a time when I would do
that and love it, but I mean, like when you

(23:04):
become a hunter and you you it's like a lot
of your mental space and recreational space and the outdoors
just becomes focused on a goal, which you spent a
lot of time in the woods during the summer scouting,
but it was mission oriented. It was driven towards this
thing it's coming. You know. What Ben said on that

(23:25):
podcast is sharpening the life knife. That's the term that
he used, and I really liked that and that was, um,
that's what I felt like I was doing every time
I went out scouting. You know, Yeah, I was a
hike and it was degrees sometimes, but I was I
was sharpening that knife and figuring out um a different

(23:50):
I was learning the landscape. I was learning a different skill.
I was understanding how I was going to be able
to perform physically in that environment. So, um, yeah, like
if I can't, if I can't, I feel like at
this point of my hunting career, if I can't be
outside and adding something to my capability or testing something like,

(24:15):
it just drives my wife nuts because she'd be like
on Mother's Day, like we always go for Mother's Day hike,
And in my mind it's a it's an opportunity to
test something out, something a piece of gear or some skill,
you know, So I'll build a little fire or I'm
trekking polls whatever it is. You know. Uh, drives her nuts,
But that's what I gotta do, Sosi. That's right, that's right. Yeah.

(24:41):
Well so what did the bring me along on the
on the So you've you've said aside this time to
go on and go on a big hunt. Yep. Yeah,
So I set the goal. Um, I was going to
go out, and you know, I I wanted to bring

(25:01):
some bodies along with me. So I I have one
guy who I hunt with my buddy Darren from Texas
and we usually hunt together once a year. Well we've
done different things and then, um, I've wanted to get
another buddy Rick to go along with us and uh

(25:22):
experience some of these same adventures because because he's he's
very similar mindset, like he really enjoys the experience of
being outside and just for various reasons, he's not been
able to join us. But I thought this might be
something that I could talk him into. So I started early.
I got those guys involved and they were cool with that.
They're like, okay, yeah, we'll do that. We thought maybe

(25:43):
we'll backpack in somewhere and set it up. Um ultimately
decided I took my camper down and set that up. Uh,
just trying to trying to reduce some of those kind
of hurdles. And then it was really about figuring out
where did I want to go in and then learning
that area. Uh. So I had to pick a spot.

(26:04):
I mean we've talked about this before, like Okay, I've
got one point eight million acres, which fifty or hundred
or five hundred or whatever am I gonna pick? So
I just had to pick something. And then and then
you're talking about acres makes me think of something that's interesting.
So one of the places that I spent quite a

(26:25):
bit of time hunting in national forest, Like I often
evaluate the size of it based upon like how far
I travel inside of that, you know, and so like
I might turn on my on x you know tracker,
and you know, on the average johnt up in there.

(26:46):
If I'm moving quite a bit, maybe not just going
to one place, but maybe I'm scouting and hunting. I
might go four miles or something in a day. Like
that's pretty common. So one day I was like, I
wonder how big the area is that I hunt, because
you know, I we all if you go to a
place over and over, you kind of begin to learn

(27:08):
the boundaries of kind of just where you go. You know,
I go to that ridge that way, I go as
far as over there, I go as far as over
there to the east, and then I start back at
the truck, you know, down in the south. I did
the feature on x Box, Yeah we can box it in.
It was four hundred acres. Blew my mind because well,

(27:31):
because the furthest point that I go one direction and
the furthest point that I go to the other direction
was like two and a half miles mhm. But the
little square was narrow, so it had a real long edge,
but then it had a narrow and it was just
the layout of this particular area, and you could you know,

(27:54):
and uh, and I was just like, holy cow, I
would have thought I was hunting twenty five acres. Yeah,
I was hunting like four hundred and change. Well, and
think about that from the standpoint of the density of
the animal that you're pursuing landscape, Like, how lucky is

(28:14):
it that you find an animal in that small amount
of space exactly, especially with these bears. Man, And we
could nerd out about densities, which that's part of what
makes the sheep hunt of the South so intriguing, is
that the animal densities in the Ozarks, in the in
the western Arkansas Mountains that we are hunting are less

(28:38):
than a bear per square mile. So you know, if
you think about that in terms of acres, you know,
square mile would be acres essentially, and so at any
given time, there is a better chance that there's not
a bear in the square mile that you're standing in
than there is because it's like it ends up being
a little bit well there's this is where they're just

(29:00):
more dense, and there's places where they're absolutely there's there's place.
And that's what it boils down to is that these
spatial the spatial data that they used to gather bear
densities and kind of understand like how bears spread across
the landscape is just a way for us to try
to get some descriptor but it's not accurate really at all,

(29:23):
because we've all seen pictures of multiple bears in the
same frame. I mean, even if it's not overbade or
something like, I've got pictures of multiple bears in the
same frame just out in the mountains, just for whatever reason,
they were there together. And it's like, well, this is
a statistical anomaly. Um, But these bears have these massive ranges.

(29:45):
And I tell you what I've learned from talking with
Laura Conley up from Missouri, Sarah Lida over in Oklahoma
and Myron means here in Arkansas, is that some of
these males have incredibly large home ranges and females as well.
I mean, Sarah a lot of was telling me about
one that was crossing over in Arkansas in Oklahoma that
was traveling I want to say thirty miles. But for

(30:08):
a female, I would have told you before, Nah, they
don't travel that far. The males do. But these males,
I mean, they're travel up in Missouri. They're traveling, like,
traveling hundred seventy five miles in a single direction. And
so so it's crazy to think. I mean, and that's
what makes it so hard to do this hunt. You
might have a picture of a bear that was on

(30:30):
a walk about. They may have just been coming through
and going from you know, somewhere down by the Arkansas River.
He may be going up to He's probably not going
to Missouri. That's a that's a pretty long walk. But
but but that's just that's just what makes it that
much harder. Like I mean, as I sit here and

(30:51):
think about it, I go back and forth on I
haven't ever done a sheep hunt. I probably won't ever
do a sheep hunt. I think, you know, you can
sit in one place and you do a lot of
glass and looking for sheep, and then it's a then
it's a physical test. I think, you know, you've got
to get from here to the top of that mountain

(31:12):
or the top of the next mountain or whatever it is. Well, here.
It's a mental test and a physical I mean they
both have all of this stuff. So I don't want
to denigrate, you know, sheep hunters. But point being the
mental part of it here is you can't see. You can,
I mean you can use I used my binoculars, but

(31:33):
it's for me to be able to see through the trees.
You know. Oh, if you could see a hundred yards
in the places that I hunt, that would be like
a broad vista. Oh yeah, I would feel like Daniel Boone,
like coming over the Cumberland Gap, like looking across Kentucky.
If I could see a hundred yards. Yeah. No. And
the only reason, I mean, that's a mental challenge. But

(31:55):
that's the mental challenge. And then and you know the
physical side of it is still you got to get
out there, whatever the weather throws at you, whatever the
hills throw at you, whatever, and get it done. Man Ay.
I've hunted a lot of places in North America and
these mountains are they're not as big. I mean the
highest elevations we have here in the three thousand foot range.

(32:18):
And and to that, some people would go ops small
mountains because you know, out in different places of you're
hunting mountains much bigger. But what people don't realize is
that most so the actual relief that we're dealing with
with these mountains, which would be the actual amount that
you're climbing, you know, might be in the thousand foot range.

(32:43):
Like that's what you would be classed. So you would
start at like fift feet above sea level and then
go to you know, above two thousand or something, you
know whatever. That's not my point. My point is these
these hills are rugged and filled with auction. The obstruction
is the hard part, and obstruction could be a log

(33:04):
I've heard it said that when you're walking and you
actually have to pick your foot up to step over
a branch or a log, you're exerting like twice the
amount of caloric energy to that step as if you
were just walking on unimpeded ground. We just spend a
bunch of time out in Washington and man, hiking down
a trail going back into where you're hunting is way easier,

(33:29):
even if it's pretty far, even if it's going uphill.
It's not apples to apples what I'm saying. You can't
just say, ah, those little hills down there aren't that hard.
Come down here and walk in them and you'll see
and I've just spent a week and uh the Missouri
breaks and now the Missouri breaks are all in themselves

(33:52):
kind of the same story because they're not high elevation,
and so you think, oh, I don't need to be
in that great shape. It's not big mountains, man, it's
just a pile, you know. And uh so it's yeah,
I think anytime that you have to clear those those hurdles,
it's not just like walking on a path that's gonna
and and I there's a lot of hunting that's like that,

(34:13):
for sure. You know, there's not just a path to
every great hunting spot. But when you throw that onto
into the mix of what you're doing, you you are.
Any hunter that that chooses to hunt that way should
be commended for the effort, the extra effort that has
to be expended to do that, because it it adds
a big dimension to it that has to be overcome.

(34:35):
I mean, it's so that is a mental and physical
part of it, because you have to break some of
those barriers. You have to physically choose I'm going to
go through that rock garden, that briar patch that you know,
that those blowdowns whatever it is, and you and you
go do it. You don't even think about that while
you're doing. And that's another thing that I wanted to

(34:55):
get out of. It was just to challenge myself physically.
And what I learned in that clay is that I
can do that stuff. You know, we were I was
talking to Jonathan about this, you know, our good friend um,
Jonathan Wilkins, and I was talking to him about this
last year in January. He's like, man, we can do
so much more as humans and what we give ourselves

(35:16):
credit for. And through hunting, I have learned that. And
I figured that out again. I had that reinforced for
me on this hunt where man it I need to
go over there. So I went over there. It's just
like okay, you know, just get there, you know, and
there's no substitution for that, like for that in the
field combination of physical aptitude but also mental grit. I

(35:43):
was following Devin Jewel up in British Columbia, who is
probably ten years younger than me, super shape, got legs
like a gazelle. Uh, And I was following him through
the mountains. This is a few years ago and Devon
is a good friend of mine. It was one of
our first times hunting together. I felt like he was
trying to lose me, and I just sat in my

(36:07):
mind that he wasn't gonna lose me, you know, and
I just stayed right on his tail as we were
going up this hill trying to get to this class
and spot, and uh, when when we got done, it
was to the point that I just laughed when we stopped,
and I said, that was fun. And I said, I said,
what do you find with your clients like, because I don't.

(36:27):
I was like, I don't think a lot of your
clients probably would have done what we just did the
way we just did it. And he said, man, he said,
it's all about attitude. He said, you might get a chubby,
fifty year old guy in here that just pounds the
mountain because he's got the desire. And you know, obviously
I have to have some foundation of physical fitness. You're
not just gonna go from couch to that. But he

(36:48):
said most of it, he felt like, was not actually physical,
but was mental. And he's he said, he's seen these
like ripped guys just be really mentally weak. And I'm
not taking anything away from people that focus on physical fitness,
like because we know that there's some incredible guys that
just do some incredible stuff. But at the same time,

(37:09):
it's not everything, but the combination of mental and physical
can be a really powerful combination. Yeah, and so and
so I wanted to test myself in that way. That's
another thing I wanted to get out of the hunt
was um and I had done some of that last year,
you know, hike back in somewhere, you know, walk in water,

(37:30):
fowling area, things like that, and and those things are
physically taxing as well. I wanted to bundle that all
together into one cohesive, comprehensive hunt that I would go
out there, I would hit it hard for multiple days
and be My success was entirely wrapped up in completing

(37:55):
the experience, not not punching my tag, but just completing
the experience. Yeah and uh yeah, bringing home meat was
going to be the bonus if I got to do it.
So we started this by talking about where you know,
like you said, you were talking about your stages of planning,
and you were like, I had to pick up yeah

(38:15):
a spot. Um, I can't. I don't want you to
tell it where you were obviously, but like, how did you?
How did you do that? Well? And while you're at it,
don't give them any tips that's gonna help them, right, Yeah,
because we've we've shared too much already. You know what
this podcast is done. Guys, go to Georgia, go to

(38:36):
East Tennessee. Don't ever come here to bear hunt. It's terrible.
Go ahead, Actually, I'm serious. Georgia is way better than
Arkansas tas to bear tags. And I gay ron t
you that you got more bear than we have. Well
here's a fun little fact for you. So I had

(38:57):
been talking with some of the guys that I used
to be on the Southeast Chapter board with and one
of them is like, I've been hunting for ten years
and I've only ever killed one bear. I don't know
how you went out there and did it in one year.
Like I don't know how I did it either, And
he hunts in Georgia. So yeah, so, um, so how

(39:17):
did I like? What? What? What? I? What I was
looking for, Clay is because I knew that what I
was going to fight was um because we can bait
on private land in Arkansas, and so I wanted to
get as try to find as big a block of
public land as I could find, it still had good
access for me to be able to get into. Like

(39:39):
I knew, I wasn't gonna be able to hike ten
miles in with everything I needed on my back. That's
just I don't have that skill set. So I needed
roads and and I needed some of that. So I've
just looked at different places. UM. We have several federally
designated wilderness areas here in Arkansas. UM, you can pull

(40:00):
out any map and look at any one of them
kind of see the same kind of thing and what
I'm talking about. Um, I just wanted to find someplace
like that where I could get away from. There's also
a lot of walk in hunting areas that are essentially
like wilderness in Arkansas. Yeah that that they have no roads,

(40:21):
but they don't have that specific designation. So for people
looking like that, it's not just those wildernesses. There's big
junks of national forests specifically some of these walk in areas.
But go ahead, Yeah, So that I mean that answers
the question, like that's how I picked where I went.
What about the county? Were you looking at harvest numbers

(40:43):
or anything? I checked? I checked that um and yeah,
I mean it had it probably played a little bit
of a role, but any anywhere that would fit the
first requirement was going to be fine for me as
far as harvest numbers. I mean, and that's just the
way about your what about how far from where you
lived where you interested in? Uh in that didn't bother

(41:08):
me too much or you were willing to drive? Yeah? Yeah,
and it was. I mean it's two and a half
hours from where I lived to get there. So you know,
a scouting trip was a day, you know, that was
a day that I was going to spend gone from home. Yeah. Yeah,
you know, that's the biggest question that like people have
on a traveling hunt is where to start? And I

(41:30):
know with me elk hunting and Colorado and and uh
and and many of the other traveling hunts I've done,
it's just like where to start? And U sometimes you
just gotta go. I mean you just gotta you just
gotta pick a spot with the best data that you
have and just just go. You got to learn it well,

(41:51):
and you know, I think having the time and the
ability to go scout whatever that's gonna look like for you,
that certainly helped, Like I didn't make my final decision
on where I was going to go and tell went
over there probably some time in May, I think, and
drove around um, knowing by that time that I was
gonna I wanted to bring the camper, and so I

(42:11):
wanted to find a place where I could put the camper.
So I had to be able to at least pull
a camper into it. You know, there are some places
that I I scouted out that would have been pretty
sketchy for me. It was tough to get to with
just a truck, so I knew I wouldn't be able
to get in there with a camper. So I did
one loop, looked at found several places so that if

(42:32):
I got over there and that spot was taken, I
could go somewhere else Um And then I then once
I had settled on that, then I just spent the
summer map scouting coming up with places I wanted to
go look at that I'd go over for a day
and look at it and do that. So tell me
about like what you what you found in your scouting,

(42:54):
what you or or maybe jump right into the couple
of days you got over there a couple of days
before season. Yeah, and let's let's talk about like this year,
like what what did you find? My early scouting that
I did over the summer and leading up to it
was just about understanding the terrain. You know, when I
look at this map, what does this mean? Like? Like

(43:18):
you know, getting it. You can look at a map,
but if you don't really comprehend the scale, you don't know. Okay,
you know a thousand feet from that creek to the
top of that mountain, what does that look like? How
hard is that going to be? What does that trail
look like? And so I did a couple of different hikes.
I just went over there and hiked four or five

(43:40):
miles and see what it was like. Then I was
looking for um. I was looking for just basic train features.
I looked for water, I looked for um oak flats,
you know, in the summertime. I was just trying to
look and see what kind of trees were there, stuff
like that. UM. I was pretty otisfied with what I

(44:00):
found on my scouting trips. You know a lot of
people ask if they see a bear in a certain
place or getting pictures of a bear, will it be
there during the bear season. I get that pretty often.
Somebody will send me a picture in July and they'll go, hey,
I got this bear over here. Do you think he'll
be here in October? And um, and I always say

(44:23):
probably not. But that doesn't mean another bear is not
going to be there. That specific bear, I mean, I'd
be surprised if you ever see it again. But you're
in a bear area, which is good, and it's all
about food source. You know, they have these huge home
ranges and that you lose different parts of that home
range at different times of the year. So it's not

(44:45):
a bad sign to find bear signed during the summer,
but it's not necessarily going to be highly relevant come
the end of September when season starts. It's good intel,
but it's not super relevant. Well, and that's what I
was I was kind of I mean, I was hoping
to find sign at least, you know, ye make sure

(45:07):
I wasn't going someplace where there weren't so um. So
my goal with the trip was to go set everything
up a few days before the season opened. I spent
um the Thursday all day and then the next and
then the Friday morning. Um, and we did some scouting
on Friday afternoon too, But um, went just walked in

(45:28):
different areas, just went for a walk, um, just to
look and see. Can I find the hot sign? Do
I find the you know the white oaks dropping up
high versus down low? What do the water holes look like? Um?
You know I ended up finding hogs where I hadn't

(45:48):
seen any hogs before, So you know I had to
I had to process that like that's going to have
some impact on what you know, what's like, what's using
the water ole um? You know, I was looking for
bear tracks. I was looking for bear scat um some
places I hadn't been before. So I was even looking

(46:08):
for access. Just can I get to I want to
get over to that certain place over there? Can I
actually even physically get to it? How rugged is it? Um? So,
So that's what my scouting involved on Thursday and Friday,
and I found it. Yes, I did want to kill

(46:29):
those hogs, but it is illegal in Arkansas to kill
hogs on public land before November one. Wait a minute,
are you seriously? Yeah? I double checked on it, so
I thought it was just on w m as where
they were managing for that. My understanding reading the regulations
was well, you're not allowed to hunt specifically for hogs

(46:53):
on public land in Arkansas. UM, you can incidentally take
them with the method of take that's legal for the
season you're in. So if it's archery season, you can
shoot him with a bow, et cetera. But that doesn't
start till November one. I'll be done. Yeah, okay. See,
because when you told me, you texted me and you

(47:13):
said found hogs, and I said, shoot them, I was
going to man, I had my pistol out, and I
was I was a little bit too far away for
a pistol shot. And this was before like I wasn't
carrying my bow because it wasn't because both season wasn't
open yet. But I had my pistol with me just
in case, and I didn't get a shot, which UM

(47:34):
probably probably a good thing, you know. I see, it
would have been my if you would have said that,
I would have I would have checked the regulations, which
I haven't. Almost every place that hunt doesn't have hogs
right now, so I just hadn't paid that much attention.
But I did know that on the wildlife management areas
you could not shoot hogs. I did not know that

(47:54):
that applied to National Force. What they say is just
public land. Okay, well that's okay. So you so I
scouted Thursday and Friday, my buddy got my buddy Rick
got in town. Um, Darren ended up not being able
to come. A dog got sick and had to have surgery.
So I know it was we all got sick. Darren. Well,

(48:18):
you know, a hunter gathered. I don't even know what Darren.
I'm sure Darren's listened to this. Darren. Yeah, now he
good dog ownership. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, this year
he missed out. He missed out. But Rick got there
and so took him around and show him a few
things and made a plan and uh woke up. You know,

(48:39):
we made a plan. I hadn't really seen anybody. I
had seen people in the area, but I mean, aside
from a little bit of flagging tape here and there,
I hadn't really didn't have any indication of how many
people we have hunting in our area. Five and we're
parked our campers right off the road. Five in the

(49:00):
morning morning opening morning, guy rolls up in a truck.
It's kind of slow, rolls past our campsite, goes down
the road a little ways in parks. Somebody else's could
see lights parking. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, well, we
go out from camp and his truck was right there,
so you know, um and uh, and he knows he

(49:24):
may listen to the podcast and he ended up talking
to Rick later on UM and yeah, he was hunting
exactly the same place I was hunting on Saturday, deer hunting.
He was deer hunting. Most of the people that were
over there were deer hunting. And um, he had no
idea I was there. The only indication that I had

(49:45):
he was there is I found half a bootprint somewhere
on the trail on my way in. Um. Just and
I man, I was real slow getting in there, but
we decided so here's something, um that we decided that
it wasn't worth it to us to get up early
to try to get somewhere because we couldn't see and
we didn't probably know the area well enough to go

(50:07):
bumbling around in the dark. Figured we might as well
still hunt our way in, set up and sit and watch.
So we so he went in. That guy was there
at five. We didn't go out and it was super
foggy that morning. We didn't go out until it might
have been seven o'clock. Six thirty at the earliest. UM

(50:34):
hunted all day Saturday. I hiked, you know, I hiked
in different places that I hadn't been before. I saw
some cool stuff that I hadn't seen. UM spooked some deer.
I actually found some torn up logs that day. In retrospect,
I think I put myself in a pretty good spot. Um.
But it was in the middle of the day and

(50:57):
by early afternoon I and taking enough food with me
to stay out all day. So I just um hiked
out of there. And uh, which I just wrecked myself
hiking out like I picked away to go that climbing
through all the obstacles. I mean, I had a little
not how bluff. It wasn't a cliff as a small

(51:18):
bluff line I had to navigate. I got into a
briar patch that I couldn't hardly get through. UM. Probably
still have the scabs from it. But um, So I
didn't go back out Saturday. I got back probably to
thirty or so Saturday afternoon. I didn't go back out
Saturday night. Sunday I get up. Rick had seen a

(51:38):
nice buck that morning on Saturday morning, UM, I couldn't
get a shot at it. So we were like, well,
maybe maybe we'll be incidental deer hunters. So we went
back in kind of the same area, and plan was
that we were gonna hunt just a few hundred yards apart.
I could never find a place where I wanted to
sit and hunt, so I just kept going farther and
farther and farther and farther, and I made an other

(52:00):
two and a half Yeah, I mean, I ended up
hiking another probably two and a half three miles, made
a big loop. Got back in the afternoon. I was
wrecked again. You know, it was hot too. That was
the other thing. It's pretty warm. I had some lunch,
drank some water, got myself charged up, made a plan

(52:21):
for Sunday night. I went out and thought I was
gonna make just a really small loop Sunday night. Got
into it. I was on the I felt like I
was hanging on by my tone nails on the side
of a hill that I couldn't hardly navigate. But I
found bear scats Sunday night, first scat that I had
found check yep. So that was one of my measures

(52:45):
of success. I had told several people, if I see
bear scat, I'm successful. So I checked that box. It
was old, but I was glad to see it. But
got back on Sunday night and both Rick and I
were like this, these two days are not working. Like
what we've been doing is not working, just hiking up
and down, change in elevation. So made a plan for Monday.

(53:09):
I personally my plan was take more food, stay out
all day, do more sitting and less hiking. And so
UM and Rick UM decided to go into a different
spot that we had scouted we had seen. I put
a camera up on Thursday and we checked it on Friday,

(53:29):
had a deer had walked through there, had seen some
scrapes and stuff. He was gonna go hunt that see
if he could get a deer. So Monday morning, we
go different directions and I get to the trailhead get
started walking in and I walked in probably half three

(53:50):
quarters of a mile, and I get to this drainage. Um,
there's a quasi trail in there, so you know people
have been back in there. And I kind of walk
up this little dry creek bed a little bit and
I get to looking around and I'm like, man, it

(54:10):
really looks like something has been around here, like living here,
you know, it's just what did what did you see
that that? The first thing was just you know when
you're in the woods or whatever, and and the leaves
are fluffy, you know, there's like they've just fallen. Um.

(54:30):
But then when there's been a lot of activity, like
the leaves are smashed, where they're pushed away, you see
clear spots in the ground. Um, there's just some places
where it looked like something had been coming and going.
A whole bunch activity activity the leaves, is what you're saying.
And then I started kind of looking around and I
saw a bunch of torn up logs, um and and

(54:54):
so and and they looked I mean, they looked like
newer activity in that regard. You know, some logs are
just blown apart and it's like no big deal. But
I had seen so many torn up logs and all
the hiking around that I had done, they had started
to be able to look at it and say, Okay,
that's newer, that's older stuff like that. So I kind

(55:17):
of filed that spot away. I kept on. I had
some goals for the day of where I wanted to
get to. I did a couple of different sits through
the day, and ultimately I got myself on this little
point and I was sitting there, I found another pile
of little pile of bear scat out there. It was older.

(55:38):
And ultimately, um, I realized about four o'clock in the
afternoon that I had set myself up under a widowmaker,
under a big tree that was gonna fall, had a
bunch of had a bunch of dead limbs up in
the top of it. And and something I struggled with
that was really the whole time that would bothered me

(56:00):
was wind is supposed to be out of this direction,
a man down in these hollers and everything. It was
just going every which way, supposed to be generally prevailing
out of the north that day, and it was constantly
coming at me from the southwest. And so the wind
is blowing and you know, I hear the tree, to
hear the branches knocking together. I'm like, this is not

(56:23):
the place I'm gonna make my last stand. Like I'm
just gonna go somewhere else. So hey, that's the story
of hunting these Any kind of small cut up terrain features,
whether you're in the Missouri breaks or in the Ozarks,
cut up terrain is just highly unpredictable, especially when you're

(56:47):
off the side of the mountain. Sometimes on top of
the mountains, because the wind is not obstructed, is going
to be fairly, fairly congruent with what you would look
on a weather forecast and see, Yeah, sides of mountains,
hollows are is just gonna be chaos. Yeah, And and

(57:07):
that's exactly what I was finding. I mean, I was
hunting around feet elevation and the mountaintops to the north
of me where two thousand feet. So man, the wind
was just coming over the top and then it was
just rolling and swirling and coming down and doing all
kinds of crazy stuff. So I had seen a pretty

(57:29):
good rub line I had scouted in that area on Friday.
I had seen a pretty good rub line and it
was pretty close to that activity area that I had seen,
And so I decided, I'm gonna go back over to
that spot. I'm gonna sit kind of back up away
from that where I can watch the trail, I can
watch this little drainage area, and just that's where I'm

(57:54):
gonna That's where I'm gonna finish the day. Probably gonna
finish the hunt there because I had to come back
for meetings. So I was like, well, and and Rick
had to leave. So I thought i'd i'd at least
come back and resupply, and maybe if I had to,
I'd go back and and um on the weekend. What
did Rick have that was so important? Family? Rick had

(58:17):
family obligations? Okay, Rick, Rick lives his life in balance,
Clay good. Has he been listening to our pod? I think, so, Rick,
you should have stayed. Yeah. No, he's gonna get his
kudos later on here. So so so I figured, you know,

(58:39):
I'm just gonna go back and sit there. So I
go back, and you and I were trading messages a
little bit, and um, I think I told you at
that point, I figured I had hiked about fourteen miles
over the over the five days, I guess. And so
I get in there and I sit down. I'm sitting
on a log. Um. You know, I think the way

(59:02):
to envision this mentally for people is if it and
I think I told you this, like if you put
your left hand out in front of you and you
make the make the sign for four, every one of
your fingers is a ridgeline running running downhill towards your hand,
your fingertips are high up on the mountain and your

(59:25):
hand is low towards the creek drainage, and then each
one of those spots in between your fingers is is
a holla that where the water is coming down when
it rains and whatever. There's a trail that runs across
the knuckles at the base of your hand, okay, And
that's the trail that I came in on. And I

(59:49):
was sitting essentially at pretty close to that knuckle on
your pinky finger, and I was watching the drainage that
runs between your pinky finger in your ring finger, and
I'm watching the trail that runs across your knuckles. So
off to my right on the trail is where the

(01:00:09):
rub line is, and off to the left up the
drainage is where this uh my yes, um six thirty.
I'm looking out and I can see the hillside across
from me and this and the sun and shadow, the
shadows just creeping up the mountain. But it's getting pretty still,
you know, like it does around dusk. And I'm like, okay,

(01:00:33):
I can make it thirty more minutes. That's when sunset was.
I was only about a half a mile, maybe a
little bit more than a half mile from the truck.
The trail was a quasi trail, so it's really easy
to get turned around, and I wanted to get out
before it was totally dark. I'll make it untill seven
o'clock and then I'm going out. Put my phone back

(01:00:56):
in my pocket and do that. Slow head turned to
the right. Slow head turned to the left, just in
case anything snuck up on me. While I was looking
at my phone and I turned my head to the left,
I see this black fur. I'm like, oh, that's a bear.

(01:01:18):
So I got my bowe in my left hand. I
clipped my release on and it and as it's coming up,
it goes behind a pine tree. And when it goes
behind that pine tree, I come to full draw. This
just happens just like bam. It's it's how close is

(01:01:38):
the bear? Uh? At that point, I don't know how
close it is. I think it's pretty far away. M h.
I mean I mean you tell me, I mean, was
it like forty yards away or like, no, no, it's
like ten yards away. Oh that's very close. Yeah okay, yeah,
so so we um so, so I come to full

(01:02:04):
draw and when that bear comes around that pine tree,
it's face fills my sight picture like looking through your
peep looking through my peep Oh this suckers close. Yeah wow,
And um of course I'm thinking, okay, well I can't
shoot in the face. I had, you know, look at yeah.

(01:02:27):
So so it sees me and stops and then he
goes m hm huff yeah yeah, yeah yeah, and it
jumps up on the base of that pine tree and
and it's just sitting there looking at me. And that
would be a pretty typical response of a spooked bear,

(01:02:50):
like he's trying to make a decision should I run
up this tree to get away from this thing? Like
a lot of times when the bear spooked, it'll put
its front paul up on a tree, you know, because
they can climb a tree like a squirrel. Oh man.
And it was just like it was like on the
ground and then it was on the tree. It was like,
didn't totally latch onto the tree or where its back

(01:03:11):
feet on the ground. Now it was totally on the tree.
So it's just like just jumped spider man. Oh man,
you're at full draw, looking at through full draw, looking
at through my peep site. And I've been I mean,
I've been practicing for this trying to get that automatic
because archree is not my thing either. I mean, I've

(01:03:33):
been working at it all summer long. I pushed that
bow away and I pulled back, you know, get that
back tension, that top pin right in the middle, the
middle of the middle, and I let the areas you're
you're you're looking at like this broadside bear, but it's vertical,
but it's vertical. The Barony Magazine podcast never trained you

(01:03:54):
for that. It didn't didn't And I felt let down
in the moment. It's through my head. I it dot
gun it, Clay. We're gonna have a whole episode on
shooting bears on the side of trees. You did good, though,
aimed for the sort of the middle, and then of
course now at this point the bears later figure out

(01:04:15):
six yards man he was, I mean, he wanted to
get in my lap. I feel like because that's where
he was going, Because he was coming around, he was
going right down that tree, that that log that I
was sitting on. He would have come right down the
uphill side of that log. So errow flies, it hits him,
he runs off with he runs off with the arrow

(01:04:37):
in him, and I hear and I hear it hit yep.
Um looking back, you know it hit him. You know,
spoiler alert, we get the bear. Um hit him in
the shoulder right, not in the shoulder, just behind the shoulder,
basically in the armpit. Um, I got one lung. And

(01:05:01):
then there was a small hole right at the stern um,
so it came kind of so either the bear was
kind of turned towards me, was right behind the left
front shoulder, right front shoulder, right front shoulder, and then
the eric came out in the chest. So it just
it actually hit I mean, it didn't pass through a

(01:05:23):
lot of the bear, right. It probably hit the tree.
Could be my guest that kept it from going through
because he was sucked on the side of that tree.
So it probably hit the tree. But I did come
to find out I got one lung. So, UM, if
I had hit much farther what we would typically say
farther back in this case with him vertical farther down, UM,

(01:05:49):
I don't know if we would have gotten that bear,
because you might not have got the bottles. Yeah. So man,
so he runs off and then you kind of see
him start to slow down out there. Yeah, yeah, he
runs off, and I do you know I'm sitting there.
I go through everything, try to make sure I know
where I am. Where does he go? You have no idea?

(01:06:10):
Like in the moment, I know my memory could be
really bad. So I try to pause and get my
wits about me. And then I go and I check.
And this is pretty quick. After I go and I check,
like what what kind of blood do I have? I
find blood. I start to follow it very tentatively. I
find pretty healthy amounts of blood, so I'm happy about that.

(01:06:36):
Then I find my arrow. I've probably gone twenty or
thirty yards. I find my arrow. By the time I
find my arrow, and I figure out how much penetration
did I get. Then I see the bear up ahead
of me, probably another fort your fifty yards I'm not
quite sure on this point. Get the buydos out. I'm
watching him. I see him try to climb, try to

(01:06:56):
go up the hill. Um, he of falls backwards and
then and then kind of works his way down the hill.
So I think, Okay, this bears hit pretty good. I
want to just sit here and watch. And I watched
and watched, and that as a really good sign. I did.
I really, I mean, I was very very confident. I
just sat there and watched. I was like, I'm not

(01:07:17):
going to go any closer, I'm just gonna watch. But
it seemed like he was not um. It seemed like
he was not just laying down and staying put. And
so this had me a little bit concerned. This is
this is how long after the shot? Ten minutes? Okay,
So if you shoot an animal and he's still alive

(01:07:39):
ten minutes later on his feet, that is a sign
that everything isn't as it should be, right, It's not
necessarily a terrible sign. The good sign is is that
he hadn't run out of the country and that you
saw him. I mean, when you shoot an animal, if
you can keep eyes on it, which rarely can. I mean,

(01:08:01):
an animal that is just non mortally wounded is gonna
be a long ways away after ten minutes. To the
fact that he was still he hadn't gone very far.
He was showing signs of struggle. That's a positive thing.
It would be a red flag that he was still alive.
I mean, like a double lung hit animal will usually

(01:08:24):
live I mean for sure less than a minute. I mean,
and they can even be dead quicker than that. So
that's just kind of ye, and that's what I was
what I was going through in my head was watch
him as long as I can, but also recognize that
I still need to get out of there. If I'm

(01:08:45):
if I'm gonna leave him, I've got to get out
of there without spooking him too much. Because did everything
about trying to get another I thought about it, but
there was no way, Like he was just thick. It
was thick, it was far. You know, it was too
far way for me to take an ethical shot. I mean, yeah,
I could have thrown an arrow, but let me stop

(01:09:07):
you there. In my mind, there's no unethical shot after
the fall. Yeah, that's true. Really, Like if you could
have seen the bears hind quarters and you could have
put an Arab straight in the hind quarter, that's ethical
because you've already initiated anything. He's gonna slow him down.

(01:09:29):
So anyway, that's just a thought to think about. Yeah,
it was pretty thick up ahead, and eventually I did
have I did get another arrow out, and I had
another arrow knocked um, but he moved in a way
that just I could see. He was just in wide
open woods and you could have just shot an arrow. Yeah,

(01:09:51):
I understand that. So when he kind of got where
I couldn't tell where he was. It was getting too
dark and everything. I tried to back out and then
just get away, and I probably didn't get far enough away. Um,
so he probably kind of felt my presence a little bit.
But because I thought I heard some scrambling around, who knows,

(01:10:16):
it could have been a dealer. I want to stay
on this point because I think this is something that
people are gonna encounter, have encountered, will encounter, and maybe
some dialogue around it would be good. There's there's this
when you're retrieving an animal and when you see it
after you've shot it, there's this momentary decision that has
to be made. Do you move in real aggressively or

(01:10:40):
do you back out real conservatively? And there's never an
exact answer. And you did the right thing because you
found the bear. So I'm not saying you did the
wrong thing, but I'm saying there would be a time
and you and you just gotta follow your instincts, yep.
I mean, you just have to follow what you think
is the best thing to do without being rash. Without

(01:11:02):
But you know, there's been times when I've followed up
on animal where I got real aggressive, where I was
just like that sucker's not going anywhere. I'm not letting
him get up, getting up and walking off. I'm gonna
And I was. I was really close at that point.
I was really close to doing that, just going in
um aggressively. Had he stayed where I could see him

(01:11:29):
pretty well, if he'd gone down right there, I probably
would have. But he as he kind of went fell
backwards and then went down the hill back into the
little drainage, I pretty much lost sight of him, and
I was worried about two things, running him needlessly or

(01:11:53):
having him attack me mad. You know well that that
is a legit consideration with A and I and I'm
I am not suggesting that you know, anybody charge up
on a wounded bear, but there could be a time
when you would do that, and you made the right decision.

(01:12:13):
So don't hear me telling you you did something? Yeah no,
no no. So UM got out of there, high tailed
it back to camp. UM celebrated with Rick like that's
probably the best part of the whole hunt. I mean,
I come tearing into camp, I hunked and Rick was
already back then, and I just I jumped out of

(01:12:38):
the truck and and Rick opens a camp or door.
I'm like, Rick, I shot at barries like you did? What? Oh?
So um ate something real quick and made a plan. Decided, look,
I think this bears mortally wounded. I think I know
where it is. Let's go get him, Let's go give

(01:12:59):
him a look, let's go look for him. So we
went went back in about nine o'clock that night. We
had followed the whole trail because he wasn't where I
thought he was, and ended up calling off the search
at midnight. We he there were places where we were
following like pin felt like pen pricks of blood, and

(01:13:23):
eventually he got to a spot where he got up
out of that drainage that's between your pinky and ring finger,
started up onto the ring finger hillside and had we
found blood, small amounts of it all around a tree
and a rock that had a big depression looked like
a maybe a denning spot or something like that, and

(01:13:46):
lost it just there was no more. There was no
more trail, and so we called it at midnight, went
back to the camper. How far was that from the
initial place you shot the bear? That was probably uh,

(01:14:06):
the trail itself was probably hundred and that was probably
a hundred yards. I don't know. It's kind of just like,
so the bear went a hundred yards and he lost blood.
That's what I'm trying to get. Yeah, yeah, yeah, see
I would have I would have been really discouraged when
I saw it starting to go uphill. We were. We

(01:14:28):
were absolutely discouraged, you know. When he went down in,
I was like, Okay, he's gonna go down. And I
walked up that thing and I was like, man, he
is not here. And I didn't find blood either. That
was the other thing. So um So then so it's
the next morning. So it's the next morning. We get
up first light where they're at seven o'clock. We hike in.
I go back. We both go back to where we

(01:14:49):
lost the blood. Rick walks up that drainage between the
pinky and the ring finger just to look and see
maybe went up and then came back down. Nothing comes
up on top of the next ridge, works his way down,
and um we get together and chat for a little bit,
and um, it's like, man, he's got a Rick's gotta

(01:15:14):
go here. Pretty soon I go back. I'm still trying
to find the next blood. He goes down into the
drainage between the ring finger and middle finger, so over
completely over a hill, down into the next hollow, and
that's where he found him, just brand, you know, just
he was just essentially just body cavity, certain body certain Yeah, yeah,

(01:15:40):
just just looking for black fur and he he I
forgot to say, on my way out, I thought I
heard the death moans he moaned three times. Yeah, on
my way out that night I heard. But he moved
from that spot. Well, I don't know, I mean, maybe

(01:16:01):
he had already been Man, Okay, you just threw in
the whole thing. You didn't tell me. Yeah, you heard
the death moone? I think. I mean, I don't know, James,
you can't think you hear the death moone. Well, I
didn't see him die whenever I heard it, So how
do I know? I mean, maybe he was just growning
and being mad about something. Would have been possible from

(01:16:23):
where you heard it that it was where he died.
Oh yeah, okay, we'll see. This is valuable intail because
m the podcast that kind came out today, Uh that
that hadn't hit my phone before. It was delayed getting
up for technical reasons. Me and Dad talked a ton

(01:16:46):
about the death moan, yeah, and about well, you'll have
to hear it. But if you hear, if you hear
anything after a shot like like that, it means he's dead.
I mean when they death moaned, they don't get up. Well,
that's what made me even more confident that we could
go back in there that night and find him. But
he was in the other hollow. He was, but that

(01:17:08):
was you were down low, so you might could have well.
And so so I didn't remember by this point it's dark.
Um it's seven it's about seven sons down. I mean
I can see to get out without my head lamp,
but um, barely. And I am not quite sure where

(01:17:30):
I was on the trail when I heard that. But
these these four fingers that kind of run down together,
so you just heard yep, And I didn't know. I
thought he would. I thought he was still in that
first drainage, Like I wasn't that far away from it,
So I thought he was probably still there. And that's
why I was really confident that I could we could

(01:17:52):
go back and he'd be in So how far from
where you shot him to where you found him? About
a hundred and six the yards straight line, but the
way he traveled was probably more like two to two fifty.
Well that's encouraging because you know, what you learned is
that the bear was had a one lung hit. So

(01:18:13):
the bear only traveled let's say three yards, like if
it was actually walking before it expired. There's a couple
of things to factor into. Um. I mean, you know
it was it was a younger male that you took, yep.
So I have seen I mean, like a four pounder

(01:18:34):
is gonna just have more you gotta do more to
extinguish that life than you do as a smaller animal.
So I think that factored into it, that one long
on a smaller animal is going to be lesser because
I've seen some bad hit big bears that just act

(01:18:56):
like nothing ever happened to him, you know, and that
would have Yeah, so I think that's a factor. Um.
But it's really good intail that he he died quickly
with a one long hit, right you know, Pretto. Yeah,
so I mean he passed, I would say, I mean
because it was about seven o'clock or thereabouts. I mean

(01:19:18):
I shot him right up six thirty six five something
like that, and I backed out of there by seven
I'm pretty sure. And um, if I if that was
if those were the moans you know that I heard. Um,
I mean he died pretty quickly. He was cold when
we found him. That was the other thing. The next day. Yeah,

(01:19:41):
so well man, that is like I like the the
strategy that went into it, the work that went into it,
and that you executed the plan. I mean we communicated
some that weekend. I was hunting too, and you were
like not finding much sign and I was finding the
same thing. You are similar, not much sign. And then

(01:20:03):
the next text I get from you, you go, I
shot a bear. I mean, it just didn't even make sense.
And let me let me well, first of all, I
don't know the full story of the sheep hunter of
the South. I mean, like we started talking about this.
I've been successful hunting this way, but like there's there's

(01:20:26):
there's a lot to be learned, and so I'm learning
from your story. Um, the Here's what I know is
that this is a super tough year to kill bear
in national forest. That's been my observation. It seems like
it just because the signs not concentrated, games not concentrated,
acorns aren't concentrated on years when things are really concentrated,

(01:20:48):
it's much easier. So I think you pulled a needle
out of the haystack for your third day hunting. I mean,
as a matter of fact, I was a little bit upset.
I was like, we're trying to build this us up.
It's like, this is a tough hunt, and then you
go out and just like kill one right away a
podcast and just go out and this is hurting my
narrative of the sheep Hunt of the South. So no,

(01:21:13):
I think you did something extraordinary and uh, and I
love it that it was intentional. I mean, you hear
about guys getting lucky. I mean there's always a guy
that just gets lucky, which more power to him. I mean,
half the time I'm in the woods, I'm just hoping
to get lucky. Yeah. Uh, you know the guy that
just was like, man, I was just deer hunting and
found some side and killed it on the first day.
You know. But how intentionally you were about it, That's

(01:21:35):
what's cool is that you set out to do this,
you learned this, you learned a totally new area. You
you executed your plan, you brought in your friends. Um,
you know, I mean, like so much of this is
so cool. Yeah, it's It's been a great experience. I've
learned so much about myself, about where I live. Um,

(01:21:58):
and the things that I feel like I didn't do
as well as I wanted to just makes me that
much hungry. Hungry, you're more hungry. Let's let's end the
podcast talking about what you learned, Like, what what did
you learn about this type of honey? Well, the first thing,
of course, is you can't be validated by seeing game

(01:22:20):
rule number one. You you have to like the process.
And I really did enjoy the process, just being in
the woods, letting that bubble shrink around me. I mean, yes,
I hyped fourteen fifteen miles. Golly, my pace was really slow,
like I was sneaking everywhere. Um. So just you have

(01:22:45):
to love the process, and and that was fun and
I liked getting out and seeing how I mean, I
learned a lot about the terrain and how animals use
the terrain, Like I never thought about this until probably
on Monday, And I'm like, why in the world when
an animal go from the creek bottom, which was at
roughly a thousand feet where I was eleven hundreds something

(01:23:10):
like that, why would they go why would they run
up and down the mountain a whole bunch. They wouldn't
do that. That's they're wasting their energy. They might run
across the face of the mountain. So just got me
thinking about different ways of hunting. UM. I learned, you know,

(01:23:31):
learned a ton about my gear. UM What can I carry?
What's extra? What do I not need to carry? UM?
I realized when I looked at it on the map
when I was all done, how little of the area
that I intended to hunt, How little of it had
I actually hunted, So much more area to be explored. UM.

(01:23:59):
And the other thing that I learned was to trust
what I was seeing. M hm. I after after seeing
this suspicious spot, going back to it and seeing a
bear there, you're starting to put the pieces together. But
in the pieces together, it's like, look, I mean, if

(01:24:19):
you have some gut instincts about it, doesn't mean you're
gonna sit there today and see something today. But it's
I think I saw a lot more relatively fresh sign.
Then I gave myself credit for it because I wasn't
finding scat see. And that's man. That is essentially the

(01:24:43):
story of becoming a good hunter is that you see sign,
you interpret it, you understand what it's going to take
to kill, to take an animal over that amount of sign,
and it's always nuanced like in the in the best
example would be like me talking about just my ultra
hot spot bear hunt that I would describe as going

(01:25:06):
into a white oak flat finding twelve piles of fresh
bear scat in within sight and beat out bear pads,
and that's what I was looking for. I never find
the I mean, the reason that's so special is because
that's so rare. But like if you find that, man,

(01:25:27):
you better you're gonna kill a bear the first time
you're you're gonna encounter a bear probably the first time
you sit in there, if you do do some stuff right.
There's also the caliber of sign, like the really nuanced
sign like you're talking about, which I think you need
more data points to really draw super strong conclusions exactly.
So not discrediting what happened, because I think you sit

(01:25:50):
on that kind of sign a lot and not sea
bears exactly know what I'm saying. What you're what I
was worried about is that I was just there was
no bears, Like there's no bears, bears, bears well there's bears,
they just might not they're not quite as concentrated. Well,
and I think what I saw because while you were

(01:26:11):
doing this hunt, I as well was hunting in the
mountains and I hiked I don't know how many miles,
but I went through all my little traps, you know,
and found very little bear sign. Um. I think when
you see that concentrated sign, you're seeing multiple bears using
the same area. Uh. I don't know the research of

(01:26:33):
how many times a bear defecates during the day, but
that would be interesting intel because they are just calorie
eating machines. I would imagine it would be multiple times
per day if they would defecate. So, you know, if
you see ten piles of scout, you're like, well, how
does a bear you know, take a you know, take
a dump once a day or three times a day?

(01:26:55):
I don't Yeah, I think it's multiple times when they're
eating a lot. But you know, you the bears are
when the bears are spread out and maybe there's only
one bear using that area, like you're talking about, like,
the chances of you finding his scat or seeing his
actual print in the tiny little mud hole are less
yep yep. So I think that's what you encountered was

(01:27:18):
maybe a place where yeah, there was one bear, as
opposed to this is a hot spot where there's multiple
animals coming in here. Yep. Do you think that's right?
I think so. I mean, I'm pretty pretty certain that
where I was, there would be multiple bears in that
area and and talking at a given time. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:27:41):
and Rick was talking to some people, and I mean
there were several people over in that area who had
yeah yeah, so and so killed a bear over on bait,
you know, a few days ago, or I've killed one
in here before, blah blah blah, you know, and um,
so I know, yeah, that was in a good spot.

(01:28:03):
It was just getting those paths to cross, you know.
The what I what I would say, the the biggest
thing that I learned was more of a personal lesson
of how good it was to share that experience with

(01:28:26):
with a close friend. Um. You know, I've known Rick
for twenty five years, I mean since we were in college,
and and to have him be there to share that with, um,
you know that that's something I've never had before. It
was something that I did want to get out of this,

(01:28:47):
out of this experience, you know, Darren and I had
hunted before together several times and we have had successful
hunts and that's been very enjoyable for sure. This was
one of those things where I put in so much
effort leading up to it that even if I hadn't
killed a bear, it was a great experience. Is good
time in the woods, just catching up. But then to

(01:29:09):
have that success after both of us had hunted so hard,
we all kind of figured like, if one of us
even sees a bear, that's that that would be a win. Um.
I'm still a little bit upset with Darren, but go on, well,
the good news is it sounds like his dog's gonna
be okay. So so I I just that's a lesson,

(01:29:35):
I guess. I mean, I don't know that you need
to learn that lesson, but that's my take one of
my table. I think it is a lesson because you
started out this quest by asking yourself, what what do
I want to get from hunting? Like in part of
that was something a little bit deeper from a human

(01:29:59):
relation ship standpoint, And that brings it back to something
that I like to talk about and I'm exploring for
myself because much of my hunting is solo. Like that's
just been the way I've been successful. Now, my local hunting,
like with the kids and stuff is anything but solo.
But a lot of my other stuff has has been solo.
That's kind of my default, that's my m O. Is

(01:30:19):
just like I'm gonna go do this. And I I
learned that when I was hunting with the guys in
Elk Camp a few weeks ago. I actually learned kind
of about myself and kind of compared myself to these
other guys I was hunting with, and I realized I
was a lot more like solo oriented than some of them.
And it was a negative thing. Yeah, in that case,
you needed like well buddies and stuff. And and if

(01:30:40):
everybody had been like me, it we would have it
wouldn't have been good. So you know, I kind of
was like, Okay, you can't be like this. You can't
be like this all the time. And and my dad
would be the first one to tell you he he
hunts pretty much by himself to this day, seventy two
years old. He goes and sets up a camp for
my hunth and I mean pretty much hunts by himself.

(01:31:03):
In some ways that's cool. In other ways, there's probably
he's missing out. He could be missing out on some things.
It could be and and and so I want to
make sure, well, man, these stories mean nothing unless we
have somebody to share them with. And nobody can deny
like some big tough hunter and be like, I do

(01:31:23):
this for me, I do this for all these different reasons.
You do it because you want to share a story
with another human. I I just I don't care who
you are. That's what gives it value. If you didn't
have I mean, and even like this, I mean, like
like if I killed a bear, I would have been
excited to share it with you because I know you
would be interested in because you're doing It's like you're

(01:31:46):
pursuit of this. That's value to what I'm doing. And
I know you wanted to share it with me. I mean,
we're you know, it's like my engagement with the style
of hunting brought value to you, And so it wasn't
it was a wider experience, you know. And and man,
that goes back and people have heard me say it,

(01:32:06):
and I'll probably keep pounding this drum because I think
we've we miss it sometimes in the outdoor world, is
that the hunting experience, though it is done in isolation,
is actually a very communal thing. The very essence of
hunting was to provide for family, friends, community. That's why
we did it. That's why great hunters were revered inside

(01:32:29):
of indigenous tribes. These guys were the keys to success
of the lodger larger hole. And obviously we're not dependent
upon this meat to survive at this stage. We maybe
after the elections in three weeks, but like provision, you know,
and I think I think the way that we draw

(01:32:51):
that into relevance in today's world is what happened to
you through this process of personal development of you testing yourself,
if you planning, you strategizing, You drawn in other people
that may not have been interested in this is is Ultimately,
I think you provided a template for your kids and

(01:33:13):
for others to be able to set a goal and
accomplish it. Yeah, that's a powerful human thing. So anyway,
I'm I'm drawing this all into like, um, there was
a lot more than a bear killed inside of this,
but there was value drawn from it that can be
used in other parts of life, right, yeah, And it
and the and the value in it and and something

(01:33:33):
that people who don't hunt. Sometimes don't understand is is
that holistic value of what you get from the hunting experience,
and and the not to say that the animal that
you take is secondary or inferior to the human experience
that you get from it. But where we are today

(01:33:54):
as a society, the animal is not required for me
to sur vive, but it allows me to experience a
more a richer human experience, connecting me directly to my food,
connecting me to the brotherhood, the camaraderie of a successful hunt, UM,

(01:34:17):
sharing that with UM, with others, sharing it with my
family and my friends. There's such an intangible amount of
benefit that has come out of this. For me certainly
would have had a lot of that stuff had I
not killed a bear. But killing the bear then ties
that all up. UM. And And like I said, if

(01:34:41):
I do so many things that I want to go
back and do better next time. Um Man, I wish
I had another tag in my pocket. That's why you
should go hunt Georgia, I guess not Arkansas. And I
really enclosing here. What are you gonna do with this bear?

(01:35:01):
You've already eaten some I've already eaten some of it.
It's fantastic. It's all cut up family. Yes, yep, they'd
had some bear meat before, they had had a little
bit of it, but yeah, I mean they liked it.
Um the hide and the skull went um. I was
gonna do the skull myself, and I was like, man,
that's I'm gonna delegate that. So I took that to
a taxidermist and took the hide. I'm just gonna tan

(01:35:24):
the hide. Nothing fancy with make some bear chaps. I
don't think I have. Um, I don't have any animals
to ride, and that's not a it's not a high
priority in the Brandenburg household right now. But you know,
I will say that after hiking around a whole bunch,

(01:35:44):
I could see we're having a mule to ride over.
There would be real handy. So yeah, I mean everything
everything we put a shoulder in. UM just did a
basic stew, you know, potatoes and carrots and what a
little bit of rosemary, a little bit of time and

(01:36:05):
in in the stew, you browned the meat brown. The
meat first left it on the shoulder. Okay, left it
on the shoulder and just put all of that in
the pot together. But you left it on the bone.
I left it on the bone. And you put this whole,
this part of the bare shoulder, whole bare shoulder in
a big pot yep, with all this stuff cooking around it. Yep.

(01:36:26):
Okay at and um, and then you cut it up afterwards,
shredded it, shredded it. Once it tendered up. We just
just shredded it with a fork and put it back
in the stew out and shredded it up. And you
get all that flavor. Yeah, when it when I would
have thought, I would have thought you would have trimmed
all the meat off the bone, chopped it and then

(01:36:48):
put it in this made it into stew meat. First.
We just did it, just put it in there, just
like you got all the bone, all the you get
that broth out of the bone. You get um. How
long as you cook it about six seven hours it
got super tender though. Wow. Good. We put that in
the fridge and then the next day I went out
to get leftovers, and you know, you get the all

(01:37:09):
the fat rose to the top. There's a healthy layer
of it in there. And then I just mixed that
all back up in there. So good as good. You know.
They say that bear meat has uh higher level of
protein than dear meat. Did you know that? I didn't
know that. I've been feeling pretty strong this week. So
you're looking good man, Thank you. No, I'm serious like

(01:37:32):
you look at You can look it up about the
charts for wild game protein and there's multiple charts and
some of them say totally different things, which it's hard
to get a good read on it. Probably the guy
that I trust. Actually he listened to our podcast, guy
named Mark Hall. He's got his own podcast up and

(01:37:53):
from British Columbia. Um, he I'd read something that he wrote,
and anyway, I trust his research on it. And the
uh black bear meat has more protein than almost any
other big game we hunt. Wow, that just makes me

(01:38:14):
want to go back out and next man, man, I
gotta uh yep, I wanted to say something about Mark
the conservation Uh talk for a minute. Yeah. So, um,
you know, I skinned it all out myself. UM, just
took the morning when I got back and I skinned
out the skull. It wasn't terribly difficult. Watched a couple

(01:38:35):
of videos and um did that skin out the pause
down to the down to the clause, and um that
probably you know the taxi dermist told me. That probably
saved me a little bit of money because he didn't
you skinned it all, uh, all the way down you
skinned out the pause. Yeah, I was gonna talk about that.
That's one thing that in the Bears. I've skinned four

(01:38:58):
bears in the last two weeks, um, and every time
with a new bear hunter, and a lot of times
on the feet. I'd never slowed down enough to really
script out exactly how to even just cut the paws
off like joint out, and I really slowed down. And actually,

(01:39:21):
there's gonna be an article and Barony Magazine, the pictorial
article not not about the whole um, just about how
to get the feet off of the bone, and like
if you're gonna do a mound or something. Yeah, and
there's different ways to skin the paw based on what
you're gonna do with it, So people kind of need

(01:39:41):
to know what they want to do with it before
they get started on that. That's something that I learned.
And I just watched a couple of videos and then
I mean my intention because it was as a younger male,
so it's not gonna be a huge trophy or anything.
I just wanted to tan the hide, so I just
cut straight down the pad and then just worked it
out of the picked it out. Yeah. Mark Hall with

(01:40:02):
the Hunter Conservationist podcasts, he's a he's a knowledgeable guy.
So so yeah, I did all that took didn't take
me that long. You know, people might ask, how do
we get it out of there? Um, it's a smaller bear.
So we just found a pole and the two of
us tied him by his wrists to the pole and

(01:40:25):
carried him out that way. Didn pictures of that. It's
just the two of us, man, And we weren't we
weren't selfie mode. So we just carried him out like
that and got him in the back of the truck.
I took him back to camp then, and and did
all the rough cutting back at camp. And Rick had
to take off, so he left me with all that work.

(01:40:45):
You know, he found the bear, so well he got
a pass. He does, he gets past. Well, that's that's
awesome man. Well I'm really happy for you. Um yeah,
and I know this is probably just the start of
your of your bear hunting world. Man. One thing that
I just want to say, it's you know, it's hard,

(01:41:09):
and you know, for somebody who wants to do this,
don't listen to other people that tell you, oh, it's
not worth it, you might as well not even bother
with it. If you have to be validated by killing
an animal, this is not for you. But if you
want the experience and you and you want to try

(01:41:32):
to test yourself against it, go out and do it.
I saw some Facebook comments here recently somebody else was
asking about hunting hunting bears in the in the National Forest,
and some some people had said it, you don't even
waste your time with it, and man, not, just like,
let's let's celebrate the success, let's celebrate the effort. And um,

(01:41:57):
I just feel like people need to know that it's hard,
but it's fun. Like I had a really good time
doing this. I don't think i'd have the same kind
of fun. Um, just just deer hunting, and partially because
there's more deer out there. Like if I hunted this
hard and didn't see any deer, I'd be like, man,

(01:42:17):
I must be just a terrible hunter. But there's hardly
any bears out there, so to speak, or there's fewer
of them. Let's put it that way. Let's just go
out there and hang out and see what you see. Yeah,
it's a different style hunt, different pace hunt. It takes
a different mentality. Yep. Well awesome man, Well, uh yeah,

(01:42:38):
I really appreciate it. Congratulations and yeah let us know,
let me know how you keep using that bear? Mean
will we? Uh? Kolbe just did an awsobuco recipe that's
gonna be in uh the next issue Barnie magazine. I'll
be looking forward to that. I've got four shanks in
the freezer. Yes, it's it's in edible. I I cooked

(01:43:01):
it a month ago, um and um. But he cooked
it and photographed it just a few nights ago, and
he was thrilled. That was that with with his bear
from this year yep, yep, yep, cutting the shank, leaving
the bone in. He did it in an instant pot.
Yeah so just like an hour long. Yeah, I've done

(01:43:22):
in a crock pot when I left it for a
long time. And he did an instant party set up,
super tender, super good, so sweet. All right? Well, uh,
hey man, keep the wild places as well, because that's
where the bears live. Yep.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

Intentionally Disturbing

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Successful Sheep Hunt of the South with James Brandenburg

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

Intentionally Disturbing

All Episodes

Successful Sheep Hunt of the South with James Brandenburg

Dateline NBC