July 10, 2019 • 56 mins
In this episode of the Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast we sit down with traditional archer Jake Downs. Jake is one of the few hunters who have completed the North American Super Ten with traditional archery equipment. We talk to Jake about some of the highlights and challenges that happened along the way and his journey with traditional equipment. Enjoy!
Note: Have you heard of the North American Super Ten? The 29 north North American animals can divided into ten categories: antelope, bears, bison/muskox, cats, caribou, deer, elk, goat, moose, and sheep. The super ten is taking one species from each category.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:27):
And for me. For me, number one, it is family.
I mean, it's like, I can't do any of this
if I'm sacrificing really what's important in life. But if
I build that right, and my wife and I are
were a partnership, and and and and I'm supporting her
and the things she wants to do, and I'm providing
for her, and I'm I got all and my kids
are fathered, and I mean, you know, it's like all
(00:50):
this stuff is in order, then Clay can be gone
for eighteen days like I have been this month. I
had an old fred Bear hat. I mean I was
a little chubby kid with Fred Bear had on Always
dream is free, but the hustle is sold separately. Yeah,
that's a really good way to say. I've been waiting
(01:11):
for episodes of this to say that. Usually I say,
go to a black Bear and if you're gonna if
you're gonna go guided going to Black Bear and it's affordable,
um and uh yeah, and it's fun. My name is
(01:36):
Clay Nukeleman. 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 bear. We'll talk
about tactics, gear, conservation, but will also bring you into
some of the wildest country on the planet Chasing the Bear.
(02:07):
Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast. I believe the
date is May six, and we are in British Columbia, Canada.
We are at jeff Landers Camp, primitive out fitting in
would you guys say, we're in central British Columbia. I
(02:28):
haven't even looked at the man. I have no idea
where we are even know. I know we're like fifty
yards from that railroad track and seventy from the kidchen.
But if you got on that railroad track, you would
end up in like Kansas City, no doubt. And then
from Kansas City you could probably get home, depending on
how fast the train was it hits you. I guess
where you landed. Well, we are in British Columbia, and
(02:52):
I did look at a map and I would describe
this as central eastern British Columbia, kind of kind of
more to the east. This is the sixth day of
our black bear hunt. And I've got with me here
in the what do they call this cabin? What does
Aeron call this cabin? He calls it his happy place.
(03:13):
I don't know what they call it his favorite place
in the world because his phone doesn't work here. It
does not work here. Now we're at so jeff at
primitive outfitting he's got they've got a super nice like uh,
I wouldn't call it a lodge, but a nice camp
where a lot of the guys stay. But then there's
who's like outer bunk houses that were probably built in
(03:36):
the sixties. I don't know when this was built, but
that's where we're at right now. And Aaron, we're talking
about this, Aaron Snyder, he hunts up here a lot.
And Jake's good friend of Aaron's. But so let me
introduce my guests. I've got with me Brent Reeves, who's
been on the podcast several times. Brent's job is just
to sip his coffee, try not to make slurping noises
(03:59):
and to just like maybe comment like every I'm kiding print. No, no, no, Prince,
You're supposed to say stuff like Chile today hot to Molly.
That's the kind of stuff just to say. Okay, so
y'all know Brent. But Jake Downs. I just met Jake
(04:21):
this week, and uh, Jake is a I'm gonna let Jake, Well,
this conversation is gonna be a lot about Jake. But
Jake is an accomplished, accomplished traditional archer, a young man.
Jake's thirty one. Um. I guessed him a little bit
older by the amount of critters that he's stacked up
(04:41):
with that tread bow. But not Jake, tell us just
a little bit about yourself. It's like where you're from
and and uh kind of what's going on. Yeah, No,
I'm from a little town Shattered, Nebraska, northwest Nebraska. UM.
An electrician there. My wife Lana, and I got a
(05:03):
little two year old Alexa um and we pretty much
live outdoors. It's uh, it's my life. Um, and I'm
super lucky. Like I said, my wife is is a
big part of why I get to do what I
get to do because she supports me and takes care
of everything while I'm gone. And I got brothers that
(05:23):
worked for me, my own my own business. So um,
I can work hard when I need to and play
hard when I want to. So it's it works pretty good.
Yeah man, that's awesome. Um. Now you well, let's see. Yeah,
let's we'll go ahead and get into this. So you
have you've taken the super tent with a traditional bow. Um,
(05:49):
and you said some the other day while we were
out there shooting. You said that, Uh, well, so the
perception of someone that gets to travel and hunt. And
for clarification, the su pertend, let's talk about what the
super ten is. The super ten is. Basically, it's a
a way to describe taking the tin species kind of
(06:13):
big game animals in North America, which would be what
tell us what the superten is. I've said this a
bunch of times, but I'll just I'll just lift them off. Um. Basically,
so the twenty nine is all big game animals recognized
by Hope and Young or whatever. Um, So it's one
out of every subspecies. So it's one dear, one elk,
(06:33):
one bear, one moose, one caribou, mountain lion, um antelope,
and then you got sheep, goats, mountain goat, and then um,
what am I missing yep, pison or or muskox. So
(06:56):
so the the twenty nine big game species in North
America would be all those butt inside of like moose.
There's like three different types of moose. There's a Canada moose,
Shiris moose, and Yukon moose. So the superten just says, hey,
just just harvest one of those animals. Yeah, it gives guys,
uh something to shoot for, you know, the twenty nine
(07:19):
Uh it becomes a rich man's game. Not necessarily, but
I mean there are some like polar bear, um stone sheep,
some stuff that it's just not realistic. I mean I'm
not saying I could never get there. I may be
mortgage in the house to do it, who knows, but
you know, I'd never want to cut myself off of
(07:41):
a goal or or whatever. Not that I'm going after that,
but uh, it just gave me something to shoot for. Um.
I was about halfway there and I was like, hey,
I'll just keep you and I like going to new places,
new things. So well, so getting to the point out
and that we've defined what the per ten is And
(08:02):
what you said to me was that, you know, typically
or the stereotype would be that that would be a
rich man's game to be able to do all those things.
But you said, you said, uh, if a guy can
be disciplined, if he can plan ahead and you know,
pay for some because some of these sings you have
to be guided on. UM. Some of them you draw for,
(08:23):
and you work hard for the draws. But I mean
basically you've played the system very well and have succeeded.
I mean inside of now, which of those hunts did
you have to be guided on? Um? Technically? I mean
the Mountain Goat I was guided on and now I
(08:44):
had to that was in Alaska. In Alaska, I could
have obviously waited and drawn that tag maybe like an
Idaho or I could have you know, I sent in
for all those states. But UM, point creep has gotten
so bad. You know, I'm young enough that I and
I didn't start early enough that I it's not really
didn't start putting in when you're nine years old? No,
(09:07):
I didn't. Uh my dad used to take us hunting,
you know, we do that. But I didn't really start
doing the points until I was almost twenty, so I
was kind of out of the game. You can always
get lucky, but I I just you know, decided, like
I told you, just Um, some of these hunts you
can just book in advance a couple of years. Usually
(09:29):
good outfitters are booked out at least a year or
two in advance. Anyway. UM, so the BIS and I
was guided on. Because of that reason, the bis and
I was guided on, and that would be a really
tough one to get without a guide. But you can't
do it Arizona. You can draw a tag. And there's
some other spots that are that are there's only the ones,
(09:52):
and I'm by no means an expert, but there are
there are I believe three while bison herds, one in Alaska,
one in Alberta. I think Pink Mountains in Alberta. UM.
But but anyway, that's neither here nor there. But yeah,
(10:13):
there's there's a few. There are places where you can
hunt bison. A guy could actually do it. The place
to live would be Colorado to do it, because they've
got the big eight um, which is of course they're
missing caribou. Um. So Colorado has eight of them. Well
don't if you count the bison, which there's there's some
(10:34):
places that are there are considered free ranch bison Colorado,
they don't have any that well, um yeah, I mean
they that is a free range Uh yeah, but that
would be a guided hunt because that's a ranch. There
is no draw on bison in Colorado. But they're Big eight.
I think they consider a white tail and a mule
(10:54):
deer in that. So there's two deer on on the
Big eight. Because I've leave they're missing well, I know
they're missing caribou. Um, they'd have a mountain lions and yeah,
they'd have everything except for caribou bison. I mean as
far as drawing it, um, that might be it maybe,
(11:18):
but anyway, yeah, I know it's uh, it's doable, you know,
if you if you budget your time and budget your Um.
I mean, I'm in no way making minimum wage. I'm
not saying that. But what I'm saying is when I started,
I was working. Uh I think honestly, I was making
like thirteen bucks an hour, twelve bucks an hour, and uh,
(11:42):
I was just like, I want to go bear hunt.
So I just booked a two thousand dollar bear hunt
and paid on it for a couple of years and
went bear hunting, and I that was what opened my eyes.
I was like, man, I do this? Bear was the
first one you went on bear? You Sparrow was, you
know first? I think that's notable on the Bear Hunting
(12:03):
Magazine podcast for real, because black bear really is probably
the most accessible it is got, you know, traveling guided
hunting because of the opportunity there bears everywhere, the hunts
are relatively inexpensive, and there the seasons are happening at
the time in the spring when not much else is
(12:24):
going on. So I tell people that all the time.
People ask me, you know, what do I what do
I do? What? You know? I've killed, I've you know,
I've killed antelopen deer. I wanted something else and once
something new, What should I go do? And usually I say,
go to a black bear. And if you're gonna, if
you're gonna go guided, going to black bear and it's affordable,
(12:46):
um and uh yeah, and it's fun like, um, you know,
this is a spotting stock hunt. Uh And I love it.
This is fun. It's fun to sneak on bears. But
I'll be honest, it's fun to sit and watch bears
come to you. I mean, you know, I have no
problems with bated hunts. Uh. I've sat on bait for
(13:07):
long hours and not seen it. I sat for my well,
my very first hunt, I went to Idaho and I
sat for a full week and never saw a bear.
Never never laid eyes on a bear. Um. I always
joked because, uh, there was actually a blind guy in camp,
and I always say, Well, what I say is there's
(13:31):
two guys in camp that uh I didn't see a
bear and one guy shot one. So yeah, this guy
sat behind him and lined him up and it's crazy.
So so it wasn't like I went to a bad spot. Um.
I made a good friend with with the guy there.
They the outfit changed names. I've never been back there,
(13:51):
but um yeah, I mean people get a you know,
you can come up to Canada and you can go
to some places it's just crawling with bears, but you
can also I've been in Canada and uh, one of
the places I went, I didn't end up with a bear.
I saw two bears in a week. And so I mean,
(14:12):
do your research if you're gonna go bear hunting, Uh,
maybe not look for the biggest deal out there. But um,
even those places a lot of times are good. And
what's cool about bear hunting. You don't have to get
up at four o'clock in the morning and walk your
butt off. Usually you're hunting the afternoons. You're hunting the afternoons.
And when you're in Canada, a lot of times you
go fishing. I mean, it's a it's a family thing
(14:33):
to take your family. It's you know, your family can
hang out in the cabin. There's a lot of places
that have cabins that are really fun. Right on the water.
That was one place me and my dad went and
uh fished all day. He caught fish and cooked it
every night. I mean, it was it's Bear hunting has
got to be one of the most fun things to do.
And there's nothing else to do in the spring, like
(14:55):
other than turkeys, you know, but if I got choice
between turkeys and bears, I'll go, you know, hunt bears. Yeah. Uh.
And what's it's awesome that you just said all that,
because that's what that's what we say all the time,
is that what other big game animals can you hunt
in the spring? What other big game animals are as
widely distributed and the opportunities there and and jeez, we
(15:17):
found out and have experienced it again this week. This
is a challenging hunt. The challenging hunt. UM. So before
we jump into bears, because what I want to do
is I want to I want to talk a little
bit more about your traditional archer hunting. UM. But then
I do want to talk about this week. So let's
(15:37):
go back to the super ten. So what got us
there was you said that the first outfitted like traveling
hunt you did outside of Nebraska was a bear hunt. UM,
so you took these animals with a traditional bow. When
did you start traditional archery hunting? And what what was
that transition like was? I think that's a lot of
the questions A lot of people have. Lots of guys
(15:58):
are shooting compound archery. I mean almost everybody. There's there's
a very few people that are just rifle hunters anymore.
I mean, like everybody's got a compound bow, and more
and more we're seeing people that are getting interested in
traditional archery. It's become, um, it's become a more mainstream
to shoot traad boats. But the thing that messes with
everybody's mind is is if I go traditional, am I
(16:21):
gonna quit killing game? You know. I mean, so how
do you make that transition? I know, for me, for
ten years, I mean I got my first trad boat
early on, I mean, uh two thousand three or something.
And for ten years, basically I just kinda I was
on that fencive I could carry this, but it's gonna
limit me so much, and you know, and at the time,
(16:44):
I was just a young hunter, just happy to take
game anyway I could. So it's like I did, I
wasn't quite ready to have that limitation. And then in
the last five and six years I've taken on that
challenge more readily. But what was your transition? Like, uh, yeah,
I'm like, I'm I'm extremely on the weird side. I
(17:05):
guess I've told that. So when I started bow hunting,
I when I was a kid, my dad bow hunted.
He killed a bunch of big white tales with a
bow and uh he was He shot a old I
don't even know what it was, old tiny wheel compound,
no sights and with fingers. Um. And so that's how
(17:28):
I started with a compound. That's how I killed My
first year was with just a bare, bare bow com
tiny wheels. Yeah, that was my nickname. Um well, so
that's how I started. I killed my first few deer
with that, and uh, it was just a gradual you know.
It took me a few years to kill my first dear.
(17:48):
I think I might have been fifteen, sixteen, I don't
you know, start you start when you're twelve. We hunted
elk every year with muzzleloaders. I mean I I started
out kind of that way, but I loved the bow.
Like um, I can remember going elk hunting when I
was twelve and taking my bow, not to hunt elk with,
but to shoot grouse or whatever. Like that was my thing.
(18:10):
The bow. I had an old Fred Bear hat. I mean,
I was a little chubby kid with Fred Bear hat
on always. My transition was weird. I I killed my
first couple of year, and then when I was probably
I don't know, I was probably sixteen ish, I bought
a Hoit game Master Recurve because I was I think
I was shooting Hoits compounds and it just looked cool,
(18:33):
you know, it has them, had the machine riser. I
was like, man, this is this is cool looking. I'm
gonna try to be like Fred Bear, you know, I'm
gonna That's what my theory was so I started shooting
it and struggling, and of course I did what everybody
shouldn't do. I bought a fifty five pound bow, and
because I was shooting sixty pounds on my compound, I thought, well, heck,
I can do this. So um, so I struggled with it.
(18:57):
I killed a rabbit with it, and uh, I think
I hunted with it for like a year, missed some deer,
just had had trouble, and sold it, went back to
I'm not even sure I really went back to a compound.
I kind of took some time off there, and then
I finally went was going to college and working and
(19:18):
and uh, I bought another game master somewhere right around
that nineteen It all gets kind of blurry. Um those years.
But um started shooting that struggling again, and I did
the same thing. I bought a heavy bow. And there
wasn't all this. There wasn't an Aaron Snyder out there,
uh talking about tuning and how to actually work into it,
(19:41):
and the and the clubs out there where you could
get on and what you know by their video and
actually learned form all the good stuff that people have
the available to them these days. So I guess long winded.
To answer your question, I am very range. I worked
from instinctively shooting moved into a compound because when I
(20:07):
you start, you started with kind of the yeah. I mean,
I can. I think when I was a kid, I
might have had sites on my bow at one time
or another, but I don't really remember having sites on
my bow ever as a thing until I was about
twenty ish and I had this recurve and I had
some extra money, so I was like, all right, And
(20:27):
I was at this point, I'm a big fan of
fred Eichler, so he was kind of switching back and forth.
So I was like, I'm gonna buy a compound with
sites and do all that and then I can hunt
with the recurve. And the I did find myself still
when I still hadn't killed much, going on an antelope
stock and having both in the truck and grabbing the
(20:49):
re curve. It was just something I I knew I
didn't have as good of a chance with it, but um,
it's just the recurve. You I was drawn to it.
I like the simplicity of it. It was just, um,
so did you So you did some? You did some
compound hunting then in your twenties then is that right? Yeah? Yeah,
(21:12):
And I mean I still hunt with a compound now
and then, Uh, this year I haven't done as much.
Last year I killed a couple of animals. Usually it's
for me. It's kind of like my rifle hunt people.
I still don't. I still don't. There's times when you don't.
You don't choose your weapon as the limiting factor. That's
the way that I describe some of my hunting. It's
like sometimes the hunt, I don't want the weapon to
(21:34):
be the limiting factor. The animal, the terrain, the maybe
even the environment. I mean maybe I'm going somewhere with
friends and family and I just their rifle hunting and
I'm just saying, you know what I'm gonna you know,
so you choose where you want that limiting factor to be. Yeah.
But I it's funny. I have friends of mine that
(21:55):
asked me, like, how do you choose what boat you're
gonna take? And I'm like, you know, I it's I
don't know, you know. I I killed some stuff with
the with the re curve. That's my main weapon. Um.
And then antelope for a good example in Nebraska. Uh,
we don't have a lot of water holes. The rains
pretty open. I got a few spots you can get
(22:16):
pretty close, but not you know, pretty close being forty yards.
And I love eating antelope, so almost every year I
grabbed the compound and I go shoot one. And that's
one of those hunts where I just want an antelope,
you know. To me, that was what we're describing here,
is the ability to move from weapon to weapon. And
when I first started, when I first got into traditional archery,
(22:38):
the mentality was inside of like the hardcore traditionalist guys,
was that if boy's all or nothing. I mean I
literally had the guy that kind of mentored me and
a great man that I respected this day and thank
him for getting me into traditional archery. I mean he
was kind of like and in some ways he was right.
He was like, if you want to be proficient with
(22:59):
the ad bow and actually do good, you gotta go
all trad And I mean I totally get that, but
but so I struggled with that because I wasn't ready
to dive all the way in. But now I think
what we're seeing is guys that are that you can
move back and forth and it's not just like the
ultimate sin to move back and forth. I tell guys
all the time like I've heard that one too, and
(23:21):
I've heard I had one guy tell me that. While
he wasn't telling me, an outfitter told me about him.
Apparently he was a terrible, terrible shot with a with
a recurve, but that's what he wanted to hunt with.
But he decided to shoot his recurve left handed because
he shot his compound right handed. That was his so
(23:41):
he didn't mess up his form, so he didn't mess up.
That sounds like something Brent would. I've heard some crazy stuff,
and to be honest, for me, Um, I shoot my
recurve every single day for the most part of me.
There are some days where work gets in the way
and I just run in a daylight. But I'm probably
the most hardcore recurve guy as anybody. I mean, if
(24:05):
you stuck with it on all the hunts that you
have no doubt you're not you're not. I I'm very
hardcore traditional, but I get to go on enough hunts
where it's still fun to pick up the compound, and
for me, it does it doesn't change the way I hunt.
I've shot. I've only shot one animal past thirty five
yards with a compound. Uh. And that was an antelope
(24:28):
last year. So for me, I don't change the way
I hunt. It just makes me you know, that thirty
five yards shot thirty five forty yards shot, that's more
of like a twenty yard shot with my stickbow. So
it just makes me a shade more proficient. And I
can pick up my compound and shoot at forty yards. Um.
And I think that's for me, It makes me a
better shot with my compound because I don't um if
(24:51):
I shoot my compound the way that I shoot my
trad bow. And I'm not saying like grip and rip
it type of stuff, But if I just put that
pin where I know I would be looking and just
let it and just let the bow go off, it
lands there. You know it's um. What is the so
of all of all the supertan, what was the toughest hunt? Uh? God,
(25:16):
I should have known you were gonna ask me that. Um. Well,
let me I'll give you mentally or some of the
hunts were mentally tough, like the goat hunt. That was
very mentally tough because that was the most I'd ever
spent on an animal as far as uh, and it
was mentally tough because the terrain was tough. I was
(25:40):
in Alaska. We uh we got rained out for three
days and uh, you know, so there's three of your
I think it was a six or seven day hunt. So,
UM that that one was mentally tough knowing and then
also the fact that, um, and this is most case says,
(26:00):
but if you wound one, you're done. If you draw blood,
you're done. So I wanted a close shot, so that
that's that puts a lot of pressure on you just
to make a good shot and and hope that it
doesn't fall off a cliff to somewhere where you can't
get it. I mean that hunt was was it was.
It was mentally tough because the pressure um, as far
as actually taking the goat was not as I don't
(26:24):
know make I'm not gonna make light of it. We
did see I killed my goat on the second day
of hunting, full full day of hunting. We we hiked
up the morning before stocked. A billy got within twenty
nine yards and I wanted to get just a little closer,
and it moved and and caught my silhouette on a
(26:46):
on a hill ridge top and he was gone. And
then the next day we didn't find any billies until
midday and they were clear across and we ended up
making a a big long stock. And you know, I
tell people I'm lucky a lot, and I really feel
like a lot of hunting is luck. But you gotta
make that luck. It's not like I'm like, oh, I'm
(27:08):
just wandering all around the woods shooting and getting lucky.
It's you work hard and then eventually it's just something
happens exactly. The animals are not lucky that day because
I mean, we this goat we had saw we we
really had saw the goats from Afar, but we knew
(27:32):
there was goats where we were hunting. So we were like, well,
we're gonna try to find these goats. And those goats
laid up there all morning till noon, and finally we're like,
we're just gonna go after him. So we made a huge, long,
probably hour long stock, ended up getting above where we
thought this goat was just in time, like he probably
within five minutes he got up below us because we
(27:54):
couldn't look over the ledge. He was probably within ten
yards of us, but there was a billy up on
the hill looking towards us. So we had no idea
and we were both me and the guy, who was
an amazing guy. We were looking at each other like
what are we gonna do now? And then all of
a sudden we just we didn't have to make a decision.
It got made for us. And then Billy walked out.
(28:14):
I want to say yards and that's a long poke
for tread. Somebody is really good it, uh, you know,
And and I'll be honest, I didn't make a perfect shot,
but I hit him a little far back. He ran
down the hill and if an animals still standing, I'm
still launching and arrows. So I ran up to a
little knoll and he stopped about forty yards quarter in
(28:36):
pretty hard away, and I angled one, just passed his
hip into him and he ran up and uh, and
he went up onto a snow bank, got kind of high,
and he got on this big ice patch snow patch
and lost his legs and just slid to the bottom
and he was done, like he um. You know. It
only took me basically a day and a half to
(28:58):
get this billy on the ground. But in my mind,
if we were through that Scott stock up, there was
enough goats up there that I was gonna get plenty
of stocks. Like I I felt pretty confident I was
gonna get a good shot. Um. That's one good thing
about goat hunting. And they you know, they're not, um
that weird because there's not that much for predators up there.
I mean the US there fairly not easy to stalk.
(29:21):
But terrain, Yeah, the terrain is what makes it tough
just because of something. And where we were was fairly mild.
I mean there were some spots where it wasn't so
mild where we were, but where we stocked him was
was extremely mild for goat country. Um. And then you
uh so just moving kind of moving quickly through the
(29:44):
super tin the sheep. That would probably be a big
thing that people would just say, Man, how am I
going to ever afford you know, sheep hunts somewhere? But
you drew a U tag in what state? Nevada? He
he told me the story last night. But you drew
a U tag in Nevada over the counter and went
(30:06):
in and did your homework and uh and killed killed
a U over water. Well and I'll just you said
over the counter, but it is actually a drink. You
didn't buy it out. You didn't. It wasn't out, No,
it was um. It was a UM and and now
(30:28):
it's I've sent in for it since. And uh what
happened was they made the Nevada game parks put this
um I think there was They gave three tags and
then it just started the year that and a buddy
of mine found out about it and told me about it,
and me and him and another guy sent in for it,
(30:49):
and two of us drew. Of course that found out
about it didn't draw. Now it's only I mean, it's
like a fift because more people found out of it.
That was the first year, so nobody knew about it,
so nobody seen you just we I got lucky that
he let me in on that. And uh, that was
a really fun hunt went up there. And and it
(31:09):
would have been it would have been tough with the
stick on the ground just because of the it's so
open and it was real shelley and and pretty loud
stalking and I was getting forty yards easy. But like
I said, I had set up a ground blind. I
had no I didn't even think that that was gonna work,
but it ended up working. And and see that's that's
(31:30):
what it is. I mean, just your your track record
is telling me you just have a way of figuring
out how to make it work. And that's what a
good hunter does, is just figuring out how to make
it work. You're you're moose. That's another one. People might
be like, well, heck, how am I going to afford
dollar Yukon moose hunt? Well, he you drew a tag
(31:51):
in Colorado, a cow tag, and so you know, when
I looked through the pictures of your Super ten, I
thought it was awesome because you had a you had
a U sheep, you had a big old cow elk,
which would have been a chiris, I mean, you know
in the lower forty eight, right, um. And uh so
(32:12):
it's it's kind of like you. I mean I think
it's cool. I mean you you worked it, and you
experience those hunts you experienced call you know, taking these
animals the meat, and and I've seen this week that
you're not a you don't really care about the head gear. Obviously,
I know you'd like to kill big critters, but I
(32:34):
mean you're just as tickled to take whatever. Yeah, yeah,
I know, it's and that's I always you know, I've
bring fred Eichler up a lot. And I know, you know,
he's he's commercialized a little bit. Now. I think he's
still the same kind of guy. But you know, you
can't blame a guy for for jumping on the money train.
But back when I was watching him and he had
(32:56):
his old videos and stuff, and he was, you know,
shooting doze or cow elk and and actually he's the
one that I got the idea for the sheep and
the moose. That's how that's what he has. I mean,
he's got a one of his sheep is a you
and one of his and his shivers moose is a cow.
And so that, you know, that's what And I was like, man,
(33:17):
that's awesome. He got to go and hunt and you
get the same experience. I mean like when you killed
that when you killed that sheep, you said that there
were big, huge rams standing right beside the you that
he killed. I mean, you know you could have did it. Yeah,
I could have killed it. I could have killed a ram,
and I could have. Honestly, on the moose hunt, the
(33:37):
moose might have been one of the tougher hunts because
on the moose hunt, all I was seeing was big bulls. Um,
it was harder to find a cow was to find ah.
And you wouldn't think that, you know what I mean? Uh,
And a lot of times people don't realize that, you know,
if you go with a cow tag. Any time I've
ever had a cow elk tag, I've seen nothing but
(34:01):
bulls and any and in the cows are are smarter
than the bulls, you know, I mean if honestly, they're
in survival mode always. You know, bulls are you know,
they can tell them right and and I'm not saying
a big old bull isn't smart, but he can let
his guard down and a cow I don't think ever.
(34:24):
So Um, it doesn't take away from the challenge. There's
more of them, that's the only advantage there is. But
sometimes that's a disadvantage because if groups up, sometimes they're
grouped up. You know, the females are going to be
grouping out. Um brand any thoughts on the supertank because
I want to transition into this hunt, because because Jake
(34:45):
killed the bear this week and we're still after one.
This is this is the question I got. How do
you how did you get to the point to where
you you thought, well, hey, you know I've got I
think I've got all these animals here. I can do this, this, this,
and I can have a super tend to somebody say, hey, Jake,
look at what you've done here. Or did you start
(35:06):
out at the beginning saying this is what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna kill this, do the super teen right? Um No? Actually, uh,
I was probably about halfway before I thought I could
probably get it done, you know, and actually went after it.
I mean I knew about it all, you know, always
thinking it would be kind of a cool. Honestly, when
(35:28):
I was younger, uh you know, guys like you know,
I read um Chuck Adams book, you know, the Super
Slam book, and then uh Fred went and did it
with the with the re curve, and I was like, man,
that is cool, but that is there's no you know,
I've killed you know, handful of deer and an antelope
and this and that and and a bear or whatever.
(35:49):
Actually it was a mountain lion that I'd killed. But um,
I was like, man, that'd be cool. It's kind of
a lifetime goal, like I can do this. And then
as I knocked a cup more off the list got
about halfway done. I was, I'll just keep you know,
every year, I'll try to go on another adventure and
and every year, you know, I got my business, so
(36:10):
I was able to um have a little more free
time at certain points, and it's only gotten a little
better and better. UM. So it kind of I always
knew about it, but and it was maybe always kind
of a goal in my head as far as eventually.
But when I got four or five animals, then it
(36:33):
was like all right, and and it kind of went
I'm very goal oriented it once I set one. It
it's just let me follow that. Let me follow that
question that with this one. Was it when you first
knew about it, when you first learned about it, about
the super tan and then you started clicking them off?
(36:54):
Was it harder than you thought it would be more
of a challenge or was it easier? Did it come
to you like, man, I can't believe that this is happening. Um.
At the beginning, it was. It was hard. I went
on quite a few. Actually, that's funny because the bear
was one of the harder animals to get for me. UM.
I had a couple hunts or I didn't see any,
(37:15):
didn't get a shot, and uh, I was bargain hunting.
All the places I went were good places. I never
had a bad bad experience. I'm not saying I but uh,
I mean there just wasn't the mass bears like you see.
So once I got that accomplished, Um, it started clicking
a little bit more as I went. I mean it
(37:36):
seems kind of well. It mean that makes sense. But um,
the first few animals to get we're tough and and elk.
When did you complete it? Uh? Last year? What animal
completed this? Lam My bison? I actually shot? It was Uh,
last year was kind of a crazy year. I shot
a mountain goat in September and then a bison and
(37:57):
December to finish it. So and so you're thirty one
years old. That's that's pretty cool, you know. To me,
always a guy, I got. The cool thing about hunting
in North America is that a guy can find the
challenge that is scripted just for him and what he
needs to do. I mean, like, I'll probably never even
(38:19):
attempt to do this supertend my goals right now inside
of my life, or to bear hunt all across this
great land and and experience all that the bear huntingware.
I mean like that's pretty unique challenge. I mean, not
many people are trying to do that, but for my
world that those are my main goals. Now I'm still
(38:40):
doing a lot of other stuff. But but because I
think sometimes like the reason we're having you on this
podcast is not to elevate the slam to this thing,
because there's a lot of people that are never going
to do that. And that's not But what I like
about what I see and here inside of you is
that you set a goal, You built your you build
(39:00):
your business, you build your family, and you kind of
built your life like pointed in this direction. And it
took a lot of coordination and it took a lot
of and and now I don't know your family and stuff,
but you know, I know there's a lot of people
that have wrecked their families pursuing goals and and and
I when I hear you talk about your family and wife,
like I I I hear that you've calculated them into
(39:24):
the equation. And so it's like you kind of got
this think prioritized and uh, it just and if you
prioritize your life and you get a lot of stuff
right And for me, for me, number one, it is
family I mean it's like I can't do any of
this if I'm sacrificing really what's important in life. But
if I build that right, and my wife and I
(39:46):
are we're a partnership, and and and and I'm supporting
her and the things she wants to do, and I'm
providing for her, and I'm I got all and my
kids are fathered, and I mean, you know it's like
all this stuff is in order, then Clay can be
gone for eighteen days like I have been this month. Um.
And I think a lot of people miss that, Jake.
(40:07):
And uh, because there's a there's there's guy. I was
reading a book yesterday. This it's a hunting book, and
this guy just nonchalantly made a comment that he hunted
as a guy trying to train a pack of hounds.
I'm not gonna name the book. And he and his
wife left him just because he hunted too much. And
(40:27):
he just said it like it was just like no
big deal and he just moved on. And I anyway,
I'm a family man, Jake, I mean me too. Yeah,
And see that's what people don't understand. I actually had
a guy comment here's what I get, Um, I get
the comment, Oh, you're so lucky, You're you're so lucky
to get to to go um or it'd be nice
(40:50):
when do you work? And you know, I don't even
it doesn't honestly bother me. But when I get those
calm ments, I'm like, well, so anyway, I I said
something about that, you know, hey, uh, I can't remember
what I was doing. But um, it's gotta be a balance.
(41:12):
It's got to be a balance of everything. I spend
a ton of time with my family. I spend a
ton of time working. I mean, my brothers are big
help to me when I'm when I'm gone, they're taking
care of things. They you know, they work for me.
There I can trust them. That works. And like you
(41:33):
were saying, I built every part of my life around
this and and people. You know, I drive a fourteen
thousand dollar truck, not a fifty thousand dollar truck. Um.
I mean, I live in a pretty nice home. But
it was just by sheer luck and it didn't cost
me that much. But so I don't even really know
what I'm getting at. But there's gotta be a balance.
(41:53):
You can't spend all day Sunday watching football and expect
to you know, Sunday, if I'm home, me and the
family or hiking, or me and the family are going
fishing or um, you know, if I'm home, that's what
I'm doing. I'm spending my time with my family. Think
what you're trying to say, Jake, is the dream is free,
(42:15):
but the hustle is sold separately. Yeah. That's a really
good way to say. I've been waiting for episodes to
say that. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to say it. It.
Um you know, I mean I when I'm at home,
usually I'm up by four o'clock in the morning. Uh,
and uh, I'm doing something paperwork or sometimes I'm playing
(42:38):
with my little girl because she's awake to Uh sometimes
she's doing paperwork. Yeah, I wish she could. Um, you know,
and uh, it's just well, what what I'm here. I
think it's really clear what you are saying and what
we're seeing is that you work hard for this. I
mean you're not you're not a rich boy that just
(42:59):
gets to do what he wants and has the money
to go. I mean you're working for this stuff, and
and that's that's what's cool and that I guess it's
probably surprising and would be to a lot of people.
Um is that these things are doable if if it's
what you want to do. But and I'm not suggesting
that everybody should do it either, because I don't want
(43:21):
I don't want all the competition, you know. Leave the
U tags for Jake, That's right, that's all. I gotta
stop talking about that stuff because people are are definitely
getting more involved in that because um but yeah, I mean, uh,
that's the thing. Most of the people that actually say
that that you're so lucky, they don't even hunt deer
(43:43):
when they can, I mean in their backyard, so it's
just a thought, you know. And they romantic size hunting.
They don't. A lot of people romanticize hunting. And a
lot of people bear hunting this like, and I'm not
saying bear hunting is easy. That is not what I'm
saying at all. I'm just saying it's more laid back
(44:05):
than like a backpack elk hunt. When you're grinding every
day all day and you know you're eating your mountain
house in the tent, going what am I doing up here?
This is the insane. I would rather go back to work.
It's tough, you know. I mean some of the vacations
and I use the air quotes on that, uh, that
(44:25):
I take are not vacations. I mean I'm working harder
when I come back from some hunts, I tell my
wife because you know, the perception is you've been out
for a week doing something you're passionate about. And I say,
I feel like I've been in a war. Exhausted. Now
it's time to get rest of that. Ba. What did
I say? You know, when we left the lodge as
(44:47):
while to come over here to do this. That's something
I've been leaving back to work. So I get some red. Yeah, exactly. Hey,
we're at uh let's let's we've got about ten minutes here,
and uh, I want to just briefly. We got I
gotta go kill a bear. This is seventh sixth day
in my hunt. We gotta leave tonight. Um, but I
want to talk just real briefly about so this hunt.
(45:09):
And I'm not even gonna get into my side of it.
We'll all do that later. But you killed the bart
on the first day. Well, I'm not very picky. Um,
you know. For me, Uh, opportunity is my window. And
to be honest, I've killed a lot of big animals
that way. Uh, And I've killed some small ones and
and my bear is just an average bear, just you know.
(45:30):
We we snuck up on it and the guide was
back and forth, all shoot it, man, I don't know,
he's not very big. He shooted. I don't you know
he he was? And you were like, let me help
you make that? Yeah, you know. Um, for me, uh,
it's just a I love to hunt and I have
(45:53):
all I've killed some big bears I killed. I think
we weighed that when I killed last year, and he
was like three fifty three sixty not a huge skull
like I think he was like eighteen and three quarter
eighteen and five eights. I don't know something, my tax
terms measured it whatever, But um, I'm not a trophy hunter.
I like to kill big animals, mature animals, but I
(46:14):
don't have to for a hunt to go to be successful.
For me, I I this bear is gonna eat really good.
And and I love I loved you know. I didn't
know you at all coming into this hunt. And the
first thing you said, really before you even knew who
I was and what my mission inside of you know,
(46:34):
hunting is, you said, man, I'm here for the meat. Truly,
you truly like bear mate. Yeah, I do. Uh. It's
funny because not very many people go bear hunting for
the meat. It's it's kind of funny. It's it's actually
terrible because if they knew what they were missing out on.
I mean that awesome buco. I can't wait to make that,
and that's awesome. It's gonna be like eight families that
(46:58):
were represented at that at the camp up over there
or that are here in camp now. It's gonna be
making that recip Bears are in trouble when we start,
when we've been seeing bears across the road, would be
like there goes to Assabuka as they make assa buco
out of the forearm of of well, any critter, but
(47:18):
bear it. Uh yeah, bear in a slow cooker is
honestly my one of my favorite of all time. I mean,
I love bear meat and my wife loves it. Um. Yeah,
I mean I'm a meat hunter. I mean, I'm not
gonna sit here and tell you that I don't like
to hunt for big animals. And I'm not gonna say
(47:41):
that I wouldn't you know. After a few more bears
passed the bear, I shot, uh, but I'm plumb happy.
But but now that it's happened, you're glad you did
because yeah, uh, because we've struggled, That's what I'm saying.
It's not that we hadn't struggled. There's two other boat well,
myself and another guy are bow hunters, who are three
bow hunters in camp, and uh and here it is
(48:04):
the sixth day, and now I have been close to
a couple of smaller bears that you know, we're within
tread bow range. Um. And then uh, Cody has just
it's been a miracle that he's not killed a bear. Yeah,
he can shoot a long way as too. And uh
uh the wind has just been destroying. And these bears
(48:26):
they're not stupid there. If they catch, they're not giving
anybody any second chance. And if they catch a if
they catch just a slight movement, which is is rare
I think or not rare. I shouldn't say that because
this is my first spot in stock But uh, well,
what what Jeff said. We described it in another podcast.
(48:47):
These we're seeing grizzly. I mean, you guys saw eight
foot plus mountain grizzly yesterday in a place that we've
been stalking bears crawling around on the edge of these
fields on our hands and knees for the last four days.
So these bears are on edge. There's a high population
of black bears and a very high population of grizzly
and so these bears heads are on a swivel, so
(49:08):
a lot of times when they're spooking from us on
a stalk, where in different places that stock probably would
have killed eighty percent of the bears in North America.
Here they haven't. But the main thing that's killed us
has been the wind. We have not lacked for seeing
super bears every single day, but man, we've we've had
(49:31):
I mean I've been like on the perfect stalk, I mean,
like everything was right and then the wind just dumps
in the back of the neck. Bear just skirts off.
They're done. But you just give us like a three
minute version of your hunt. Uh well, uh, I honestly
didn't even see the bear. Um the guide Ryan, he
(49:54):
he was. We were cruising down the road and actually
we had just uh it was the very first I
mean we flew in, drove in, grabbed her stuff and
went out and we had saw one beard. It was
a really nice bear and and he caught our wind
or actually, well anyway, we had to drive past him
(50:14):
and we're gonna come back after him. Drove down the
road aways and I didn't even know what was going on.
He drove by. I could tell he might have saw something,
and he pulled off the road and we just snuck back.
And we had just driven past the clear cut, and
we we snuck back, and then I could see a
bear milling around. So we got in the ditch and
(50:35):
it was that deep, deep ditch, and then it came
up to the where the clear cut was and worked
to where we were in line with it, and uh
just sat there and watched it and watched it. I mean,
I want to say we were probably there for a
half hour, watching at mill around and and it was
probably only out there about thirty yards, but it was
kind of easing towards us, and he was going back
(50:58):
and forth. Oh it's you know, it's it's not huge,
but it's all right. Well, maybe it's a sow. Well,
I don't know, maybe it's a he goes. You can
shoot it if you want, he goes, But we got
six six days, you know, it's up to you. And uh,
well that's all I needed, So I said, I just
told him, I said, if it comes to under twenty yards,
(51:19):
I'm gonna shoot it. And all right. So and it
did it. It worked around this big stump and I
want to say it was probably fifteen yards and uh
was angling by and it was getting close to it
was getting close to dark. Um shot got a complete
pass through. It ran off. It kind of tried like
(51:42):
it kind of moved off. I almost shot another arrow
at it, but um, it wasn't moving very fast and
we thought, oh, it's it's done. And we ended up
looking at the arrow and it it looked like good blood.
I felt like the shot was a little high, but um, anyway,
it kind of went off and got under a big
branch and we thought, well, it's gonna die there we
(52:05):
saw good blood. I mean it just it just looked
like it was done. You know. It didn't bail off
into the trees. So our decision was to get in
the truck and Joe go back and see if we
could get on that other. See if that other Yeah,
Cody was with us, so we were gonna go check
that out and let this bear go, you know, die.
(52:26):
So we didn't run into having it charges or whatever.
So we did that, came back and and now it's
getting pretty dark, and uh we walked over to where
it had been and there's no bear. I was like, oh, man,
I know better than to not try to put another
arrow into a bear. And I was kind of kicking
myself and and I don't know what I was not
(52:48):
seeing the Ryan he uh Cody or Ryan and Cody
were behind me, and Ryan was over here and he
saw the bear walking away from us when he walked
in and he I guess he said that, but I
didn't hear him. So I'm only here looking under this tree.
And he kind of walks over and he's like, it's
it was going over there. Oh no, it's still alive.
(53:09):
Like so anyway, we just start kind of walking along
and uh, he was right here beside me walking and
something jumped up like five feet away from us, and
kind of you can hear it clawn the tree, and
I mean it was right there, and he's like, it's
right here, And so I came around the tree and
(53:31):
just put one right through its boiler and it just
climbed up the tree just a little bit and then
fell off and uh died right there. It was over
on the first day. My hunt was over. And uh yeah,
I for me, it's it's not a big bear. Uh
but uh that really wasn't what I was here for
(53:53):
so well. I mean the thing, the thing about traditional
archery is that you the hunt really does become about opportunity,
and that's what it has has been lacking for me
here so far, is that, uh, you know, you're hunting
for a chance. You know that's within range, that that's
within the limitations of the self imposed limitations that you've
(54:16):
chosen for the hunt, which we have, which we're hunting
with trad bows. But man, well, congratulations on the bear.
And it's been awesome getting to uh hang out with
you in camp this week and inspiring uh stories about
the super ten and it was fun to shoot with
you out here and that it's been a good It's
been a great week. I've had a ton of fun.
(54:37):
I uh yeah, I wish Aaron could have come up
with us, but uh yeah, it uh it worked out
good for me. Yeah, Brent closing concluders, what you guys
are all you know, I'm a bow hunter, but I
don't I don't do the trash stuff, but I enjoy
watching you guys said goals practice. You practice more than
(55:01):
anybody doing anything that I've seen. I mean, you guys
are always shooting, to the point that it's hard for
me to nap at times because you hear yeah, and
then what I what I listened for is I hear
the string and then I hear the thump. But my
favorite one was when I hear the string and I
don't hear the thump because I know somebody's shut in
(55:22):
the ground, somebody's got to crawl over the fence and
go find an era. But it's fun, man, it's it's um,
it's unique experience following somebody around with the camera and
watch them do this because it's it's ain't easy. It
ain't easy. Well, lots of fun. Well that's good. We're
(55:43):
gonna close down right here in an hour. Thanks for
checking out the Barrowning Magazine podcast and keep the wild
Places wild because that's where the bears live to
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(00:27):
And for me. For me, number one, it is family.
I mean, it's like, I can't do any of this
if I'm sacrificing really what's important in life. But if
I build that right, and my wife and I are
were a partnership, and and and and I'm supporting her
and the things she wants to do, and I'm providing
for her, and I'm I got all and my kids
are fathered, and I mean, you know, it's like all
(00:50):
this stuff is in order, then Clay can be gone
for eighteen days like I have been this month. I
had an old fred Bear hat. I mean I was
a little chubby kid with Fred Bear had on Always
dream is free, but the hustle is sold separately. Yeah,
that's a really good way to say. I've been waiting
(01:11):
for episodes of this to say that. Usually I say,
go to a black Bear and if you're gonna if
you're gonna go guided going to Black Bear and it's affordable,
um and uh yeah, and it's fun. My name is
(01:36):
Clay Nukeleman. 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 bear. We'll talk
about tactics, gear, conservation, but will also bring you into
some of the wildest country on the planet Chasing the Bear.
(02:07):
Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast. I believe the
date is May six, and we are in British Columbia, Canada.
We are at jeff Landers Camp, primitive out fitting in
would you guys say, we're in central British Columbia. I
(02:28):
haven't even looked at the man. I have no idea
where we are even know. I know we're like fifty
yards from that railroad track and seventy from the kidchen.
But if you got on that railroad track, you would
end up in like Kansas City, no doubt. And then
from Kansas City you could probably get home, depending on
how fast the train was it hits you. I guess
where you landed. Well, we are in British Columbia, and
(02:52):
I did look at a map and I would describe
this as central eastern British Columbia, kind of kind of
more to the east. This is the sixth day of
our black bear hunt. And I've got with me here
in the what do they call this cabin? What does
Aeron call this cabin? He calls it his happy place.
(03:13):
I don't know what they call it his favorite place
in the world because his phone doesn't work here. It
does not work here. Now we're at so jeff at
primitive outfitting he's got they've got a super nice like uh,
I wouldn't call it a lodge, but a nice camp
where a lot of the guys stay. But then there's
who's like outer bunk houses that were probably built in
(03:36):
the sixties. I don't know when this was built, but
that's where we're at right now. And Aaron, we're talking
about this, Aaron Snyder, he hunts up here a lot.
And Jake's good friend of Aaron's. But so let me
introduce my guests. I've got with me Brent Reeves, who's
been on the podcast several times. Brent's job is just
to sip his coffee, try not to make slurping noises
(03:59):
and to just like maybe comment like every I'm kiding print. No, no, no, Prince,
You're supposed to say stuff like Chile today hot to Molly.
That's the kind of stuff just to say. Okay, so
y'all know Brent. But Jake Downs. I just met Jake
(04:21):
this week, and uh, Jake is a I'm gonna let Jake, Well,
this conversation is gonna be a lot about Jake. But
Jake is an accomplished, accomplished traditional archer, a young man.
Jake's thirty one. Um. I guessed him a little bit
older by the amount of critters that he's stacked up
(04:41):
with that tread bow. But not Jake, tell us just
a little bit about yourself. It's like where you're from
and and uh kind of what's going on. Yeah, No,
I'm from a little town Shattered, Nebraska, northwest Nebraska. UM.
An electrician there. My wife Lana, and I got a
(05:03):
little two year old Alexa um and we pretty much
live outdoors. It's uh, it's my life. Um, and I'm
super lucky. Like I said, my wife is is a
big part of why I get to do what I
get to do because she supports me and takes care
of everything while I'm gone. And I got brothers that
(05:23):
worked for me, my own my own business. So um,
I can work hard when I need to and play
hard when I want to. So it's it works pretty good.
Yeah man, that's awesome. Um. Now you well, let's see. Yeah,
let's we'll go ahead and get into this. So you
have you've taken the super tent with a traditional bow. Um,
(05:49):
and you said some the other day while we were
out there shooting. You said that, Uh, well, so the
perception of someone that gets to travel and hunt. And
for clarification, the su pertend, let's talk about what the
super ten is. The super ten is. Basically, it's a
a way to describe taking the tin species kind of
(06:13):
big game animals in North America, which would be what
tell us what the superten is. I've said this a
bunch of times, but I'll just I'll just lift them off. Um. Basically,
so the twenty nine is all big game animals recognized
by Hope and Young or whatever. Um, So it's one
out of every subspecies. So it's one dear, one elk,
(06:33):
one bear, one moose, one caribou, mountain lion, um antelope,
and then you got sheep, goats, mountain goat, and then um,
what am I missing yep, pison or or muskox. So
(06:56):
so the the twenty nine big game species in North
America would be all those butt inside of like moose.
There's like three different types of moose. There's a Canada moose,
Shiris moose, and Yukon moose. So the superten just says, hey,
just just harvest one of those animals. Yeah, it gives guys,
uh something to shoot for, you know, the twenty nine
(07:19):
Uh it becomes a rich man's game. Not necessarily, but
I mean there are some like polar bear, um stone sheep,
some stuff that it's just not realistic. I mean I'm
not saying I could never get there. I may be
mortgage in the house to do it, who knows, but
you know, I'd never want to cut myself off of
(07:41):
a goal or or whatever. Not that I'm going after that,
but uh, it just gave me something to shoot for. Um.
I was about halfway there and I was like, hey,
I'll just keep you and I like going to new places,
new things. So well, so getting to the point out
and that we've defined what the per ten is And
(08:02):
what you said to me was that, you know, typically
or the stereotype would be that that would be a
rich man's game to be able to do all those things.
But you said, you said, uh, if a guy can
be disciplined, if he can plan ahead and you know,
pay for some because some of these sings you have
to be guided on. UM. Some of them you draw for,
(08:23):
and you work hard for the draws. But I mean
basically you've played the system very well and have succeeded.
I mean inside of now, which of those hunts did
you have to be guided on? Um? Technically? I mean
the Mountain Goat I was guided on and now I
(08:44):
had to that was in Alaska. In Alaska, I could
have obviously waited and drawn that tag maybe like an
Idaho or I could have you know, I sent in
for all those states. But UM, point creep has gotten
so bad. You know, I'm young enough that I and
I didn't start early enough that I it's not really
didn't start putting in when you're nine years old? No,
(09:07):
I didn't. Uh my dad used to take us hunting,
you know, we do that. But I didn't really start
doing the points until I was almost twenty, so I
was kind of out of the game. You can always
get lucky, but I I just you know, decided, like
I told you, just Um, some of these hunts you
can just book in advance a couple of years. Usually
(09:29):
good outfitters are booked out at least a year or
two in advance. Anyway. UM, so the BIS and I
was guided on. Because of that reason, the bis and
I was guided on, and that would be a really
tough one to get without a guide. But you can't
do it Arizona. You can draw a tag. And there's
some other spots that are that are there's only the ones,
(09:52):
and I'm by no means an expert, but there are
there are I believe three while bison herds, one in Alaska,
one in Alberta. I think Pink Mountains in Alberta. UM.
But but anyway, that's neither here nor there. But yeah,
(10:13):
there's there's a few. There are places where you can
hunt bison. A guy could actually do it. The place
to live would be Colorado to do it, because they've
got the big eight um, which is of course they're
missing caribou. Um. So Colorado has eight of them. Well
don't if you count the bison, which there's there's some
(10:34):
places that are there are considered free ranch bison Colorado,
they don't have any that well, um yeah, I mean
they that is a free range Uh yeah, but that
would be a guided hunt because that's a ranch. There
is no draw on bison in Colorado. But they're Big eight.
I think they consider a white tail and a mule
(10:54):
deer in that. So there's two deer on on the
Big eight. Because I've leave they're missing well, I know
they're missing caribou. Um, they'd have a mountain lions and yeah,
they'd have everything except for caribou bison. I mean as
far as drawing it, um, that might be it maybe,
(11:18):
but anyway, yeah, I know it's uh, it's doable, you know,
if you if you budget your time and budget your Um.
I mean, I'm in no way making minimum wage. I'm
not saying that. But what I'm saying is when I started,
I was working. Uh I think honestly, I was making
like thirteen bucks an hour, twelve bucks an hour, and uh,
(11:42):
I was just like, I want to go bear hunt.
So I just booked a two thousand dollar bear hunt
and paid on it for a couple of years and
went bear hunting, and I that was what opened my eyes.
I was like, man, I do this? Bear was the
first one you went on bear? You Sparrow was, you
know first? I think that's notable on the Bear Hunting
(12:03):
Magazine podcast for real, because black bear really is probably
the most accessible it is got, you know, traveling guided
hunting because of the opportunity there bears everywhere, the hunts
are relatively inexpensive, and there the seasons are happening at
the time in the spring when not much else is
(12:24):
going on. So I tell people that all the time.
People ask me, you know, what do I what do
I do? What? You know? I've killed, I've you know,
I've killed antelopen deer. I wanted something else and once
something new, What should I go do? And usually I say,
go to a black bear. And if you're gonna, if
you're gonna go guided, going to black bear and it's affordable,
(12:46):
um and uh yeah, and it's fun like, um, you know,
this is a spotting stock hunt. Uh And I love it.
This is fun. It's fun to sneak on bears. But
I'll be honest, it's fun to sit and watch bears
come to you. I mean, you know, I have no
problems with bated hunts. Uh. I've sat on bait for
(13:07):
long hours and not seen it. I sat for my well,
my very first hunt, I went to Idaho and I
sat for a full week and never saw a bear.
Never never laid eyes on a bear. Um. I always
joked because, uh, there was actually a blind guy in camp,
and I always say, Well, what I say is there's
(13:31):
two guys in camp that uh I didn't see a
bear and one guy shot one. So yeah, this guy
sat behind him and lined him up and it's crazy.
So so it wasn't like I went to a bad spot. Um.
I made a good friend with with the guy there.
They the outfit changed names. I've never been back there,
(13:51):
but um yeah, I mean people get a you know,
you can come up to Canada and you can go
to some places it's just crawling with bears, but you
can also I've been in Canada and uh, one of
the places I went, I didn't end up with a bear.
I saw two bears in a week. And so I mean,
(14:12):
do your research if you're gonna go bear hunting, Uh,
maybe not look for the biggest deal out there. But um,
even those places a lot of times are good. And
what's cool about bear hunting. You don't have to get
up at four o'clock in the morning and walk your
butt off. Usually you're hunting the afternoons. You're hunting the afternoons.
And when you're in Canada, a lot of times you
go fishing. I mean, it's a it's a family thing
(14:33):
to take your family. It's you know, your family can
hang out in the cabin. There's a lot of places
that have cabins that are really fun. Right on the water.
That was one place me and my dad went and
uh fished all day. He caught fish and cooked it
every night. I mean, it was it's Bear hunting has
got to be one of the most fun things to do.
And there's nothing else to do in the spring, like
(14:55):
other than turkeys, you know, but if I got choice
between turkeys and bears, I'll go, you know, hunt bears. Yeah. Uh.
And what's it's awesome that you just said all that,
because that's what that's what we say all the time,
is that what other big game animals can you hunt
in the spring? What other big game animals are as
widely distributed and the opportunities there and and jeez, we
(15:17):
found out and have experienced it again this week. This
is a challenging hunt. The challenging hunt. UM. So before
we jump into bears, because what I want to do
is I want to I want to talk a little
bit more about your traditional archer hunting. UM. But then
I do want to talk about this week. So let's
(15:37):
go back to the super ten. So what got us
there was you said that the first outfitted like traveling
hunt you did outside of Nebraska was a bear hunt. UM,
so you took these animals with a traditional bow. When
did you start traditional archery hunting? And what what was
that transition like was? I think that's a lot of
the questions A lot of people have. Lots of guys
(15:58):
are shooting compound archery. I mean almost everybody. There's there's
a very few people that are just rifle hunters anymore.
I mean, like everybody's got a compound bow, and more
and more we're seeing people that are getting interested in
traditional archery. It's become, um, it's become a more mainstream
to shoot traad boats. But the thing that messes with
everybody's mind is is if I go traditional, am I
(16:21):
gonna quit killing game? You know. I mean, so how
do you make that transition? I know, for me, for
ten years, I mean I got my first trad boat
early on, I mean, uh two thousand three or something.
And for ten years, basically I just kinda I was
on that fencive I could carry this, but it's gonna
limit me so much, and you know, and at the time,
(16:44):
I was just a young hunter, just happy to take
game anyway I could. So it's like I did, I
wasn't quite ready to have that limitation. And then in
the last five and six years I've taken on that
challenge more readily. But what was your transition? Like, uh, yeah,
I'm like, I'm I'm extremely on the weird side. I
(17:05):
guess I've told that. So when I started bow hunting,
I when I was a kid, my dad bow hunted.
He killed a bunch of big white tales with a
bow and uh he was He shot a old I
don't even know what it was, old tiny wheel compound,
no sights and with fingers. Um. And so that's how
(17:28):
I started with a compound. That's how I killed My
first year was with just a bare, bare bow com
tiny wheels. Yeah, that was my nickname. Um well, so
that's how I started. I killed my first few deer
with that, and uh, it was just a gradual you know.
It took me a few years to kill my first dear.
(17:48):
I think I might have been fifteen, sixteen, I don't
you know, start you start when you're twelve. We hunted
elk every year with muzzleloaders. I mean I I started
out kind of that way, but I loved the bow.
Like um, I can remember going elk hunting when I
was twelve and taking my bow, not to hunt elk with,
but to shoot grouse or whatever. Like that was my thing.
(18:10):
The bow. I had an old Fred Bear hat. I mean,
I was a little chubby kid with Fred Bear hat
on always. My transition was weird. I I killed my
first couple of year, and then when I was probably
I don't know, I was probably sixteen ish, I bought
a Hoit game Master Recurve because I was I think
I was shooting Hoits compounds and it just looked cool,
(18:33):
you know, it has them, had the machine riser. I
was like, man, this is this is cool looking. I'm
gonna try to be like Fred Bear, you know, I'm
gonna That's what my theory was so I started shooting
it and struggling, and of course I did what everybody
shouldn't do. I bought a fifty five pound bow, and
because I was shooting sixty pounds on my compound, I thought, well, heck,
I can do this. So um, so I struggled with it.
(18:57):
I killed a rabbit with it, and uh, I think
I hunted with it for like a year, missed some deer,
just had had trouble, and sold it, went back to
I'm not even sure I really went back to a compound.
I kind of took some time off there, and then
I finally went was going to college and working and
(19:18):
and uh, I bought another game master somewhere right around
that nineteen It all gets kind of blurry. Um those years.
But um started shooting that struggling again, and I did
the same thing. I bought a heavy bow. And there
wasn't all this. There wasn't an Aaron Snyder out there,
uh talking about tuning and how to actually work into it,
(19:41):
and the and the clubs out there where you could
get on and what you know by their video and
actually learned form all the good stuff that people have
the available to them these days. So I guess long winded.
To answer your question, I am very range. I worked
from instinctively shooting moved into a compound because when I
(20:07):
you start, you started with kind of the yeah. I mean,
I can. I think when I was a kid, I
might have had sites on my bow at one time
or another, but I don't really remember having sites on
my bow ever as a thing until I was about
twenty ish and I had this recurve and I had
some extra money, so I was like, all right, And
(20:27):
I was at this point, I'm a big fan of
fred Eichler, so he was kind of switching back and forth.
So I was like, I'm gonna buy a compound with
sites and do all that and then I can hunt
with the recurve. And the I did find myself still
when I still hadn't killed much, going on an antelope
stock and having both in the truck and grabbing the
(20:49):
re curve. It was just something I I knew I
didn't have as good of a chance with it, but um,
it's just the recurve. You I was drawn to it.
I like the simplicity of it. It was just, um,
so did you So you did some? You did some
compound hunting then in your twenties then is that right? Yeah? Yeah,
(21:12):
And I mean I still hunt with a compound now
and then, Uh, this year I haven't done as much.
Last year I killed a couple of animals. Usually it's
for me. It's kind of like my rifle hunt people.
I still don't. I still don't. There's times when you don't.
You don't choose your weapon as the limiting factor. That's
the way that I describe some of my hunting. It's
like sometimes the hunt, I don't want the weapon to
(21:34):
be the limiting factor. The animal, the terrain, the maybe
even the environment. I mean maybe I'm going somewhere with
friends and family and I just their rifle hunting and
I'm just saying, you know what I'm gonna you know,
so you choose where you want that limiting factor to be. Yeah.
But I it's funny. I have friends of mine that
(21:55):
asked me, like, how do you choose what boat you're
gonna take? And I'm like, you know, I it's I
don't know, you know. I I killed some stuff with
the with the re curve. That's my main weapon. Um.
And then antelope for a good example in Nebraska. Uh,
we don't have a lot of water holes. The rains
pretty open. I got a few spots you can get
(22:16):
pretty close, but not you know, pretty close being forty yards.
And I love eating antelope, so almost every year I
grabbed the compound and I go shoot one. And that's
one of those hunts where I just want an antelope,
you know. To me, that was what we're describing here,
is the ability to move from weapon to weapon. And
when I first started, when I first got into traditional archery,
(22:38):
the mentality was inside of like the hardcore traditionalist guys,
was that if boy's all or nothing. I mean I
literally had the guy that kind of mentored me and
a great man that I respected this day and thank
him for getting me into traditional archery. I mean he
was kind of like and in some ways he was right.
He was like, if you want to be proficient with
(22:59):
the ad bow and actually do good, you gotta go
all trad And I mean I totally get that, but
but so I struggled with that because I wasn't ready
to dive all the way in. But now I think
what we're seeing is guys that are that you can
move back and forth and it's not just like the
ultimate sin to move back and forth. I tell guys
all the time like I've heard that one too, and
(23:21):
I've heard I had one guy tell me that. While
he wasn't telling me, an outfitter told me about him.
Apparently he was a terrible, terrible shot with a with
a recurve, but that's what he wanted to hunt with.
But he decided to shoot his recurve left handed because
he shot his compound right handed. That was his so
(23:41):
he didn't mess up his form, so he didn't mess up.
That sounds like something Brent would. I've heard some crazy stuff,
and to be honest, for me, Um, I shoot my
recurve every single day for the most part of me.
There are some days where work gets in the way
and I just run in a daylight. But I'm probably
the most hardcore recurve guy as anybody. I mean, if
(24:05):
you stuck with it on all the hunts that you
have no doubt you're not you're not. I I'm very
hardcore traditional, but I get to go on enough hunts
where it's still fun to pick up the compound, and
for me, it does it doesn't change the way I hunt.
I've shot. I've only shot one animal past thirty five
yards with a compound. Uh. And that was an antelope
(24:28):
last year. So for me, I don't change the way
I hunt. It just makes me you know, that thirty
five yards shot thirty five forty yards shot, that's more
of like a twenty yard shot with my stickbow. So
it just makes me a shade more proficient. And I
can pick up my compound and shoot at forty yards. Um.
And I think that's for me, It makes me a
better shot with my compound because I don't um if
(24:51):
I shoot my compound the way that I shoot my
trad bow. And I'm not saying like grip and rip
it type of stuff, But if I just put that
pin where I know I would be looking and just
let it and just let the bow go off, it
lands there. You know it's um. What is the so
of all of all the supertan, what was the toughest hunt? Uh? God,
(25:16):
I should have known you were gonna ask me that. Um. Well,
let me I'll give you mentally or some of the
hunts were mentally tough, like the goat hunt. That was
very mentally tough because that was the most I'd ever
spent on an animal as far as uh, and it
was mentally tough because the terrain was tough. I was
(25:40):
in Alaska. We uh we got rained out for three
days and uh, you know, so there's three of your
I think it was a six or seven day hunt. So,
UM that that one was mentally tough knowing and then
also the fact that, um, and this is most case says,
(26:00):
but if you wound one, you're done. If you draw blood,
you're done. So I wanted a close shot, so that
that's that puts a lot of pressure on you just
to make a good shot and and hope that it
doesn't fall off a cliff to somewhere where you can't
get it. I mean that hunt was was it was.
It was mentally tough because the pressure um, as far
as actually taking the goat was not as I don't
(26:24):
know make I'm not gonna make light of it. We
did see I killed my goat on the second day
of hunting, full full day of hunting. We we hiked
up the morning before stocked. A billy got within twenty
nine yards and I wanted to get just a little closer,
and it moved and and caught my silhouette on a
(26:46):
on a hill ridge top and he was gone. And
then the next day we didn't find any billies until
midday and they were clear across and we ended up
making a a big long stock. And you know, I
tell people I'm lucky a lot, and I really feel
like a lot of hunting is luck. But you gotta
make that luck. It's not like I'm like, oh, I'm
(27:08):
just wandering all around the woods shooting and getting lucky.
It's you work hard and then eventually it's just something
happens exactly. The animals are not lucky that day because
I mean, we this goat we had saw we we
really had saw the goats from Afar, but we knew
(27:32):
there was goats where we were hunting. So we were like, well,
we're gonna try to find these goats. And those goats
laid up there all morning till noon, and finally we're like,
we're just gonna go after him. So we made a huge, long,
probably hour long stock, ended up getting above where we
thought this goat was just in time, like he probably
within five minutes he got up below us because we
(27:54):
couldn't look over the ledge. He was probably within ten
yards of us, but there was a billy up on
the hill looking towards us. So we had no idea
and we were both me and the guy, who was
an amazing guy. We were looking at each other like
what are we gonna do now? And then all of
a sudden we just we didn't have to make a decision.
It got made for us. And then Billy walked out.
(28:14):
I want to say yards and that's a long poke
for tread. Somebody is really good it, uh, you know,
And and I'll be honest, I didn't make a perfect shot,
but I hit him a little far back. He ran
down the hill and if an animals still standing, I'm
still launching and arrows. So I ran up to a
little knoll and he stopped about forty yards quarter in
(28:36):
pretty hard away, and I angled one, just passed his
hip into him and he ran up and uh, and
he went up onto a snow bank, got kind of high,
and he got on this big ice patch snow patch
and lost his legs and just slid to the bottom
and he was done, like he um. You know. It
only took me basically a day and a half to
(28:58):
get this billy on the ground. But in my mind,
if we were through that Scott stock up, there was
enough goats up there that I was gonna get plenty
of stocks. Like I I felt pretty confident I was
gonna get a good shot. Um. That's one good thing
about goat hunting. And they you know, they're not, um
that weird because there's not that much for predators up there.
I mean the US there fairly not easy to stalk.
(29:21):
But terrain, Yeah, the terrain is what makes it tough
just because of something. And where we were was fairly mild.
I mean there were some spots where it wasn't so
mild where we were, but where we stocked him was
was extremely mild for goat country. Um. And then you
uh so just moving kind of moving quickly through the
(29:44):
super tin the sheep. That would probably be a big
thing that people would just say, Man, how am I
going to ever afford you know, sheep hunts somewhere? But
you drew a U tag in what state? Nevada? He
he told me the story last night. But you drew
a U tag in Nevada over the counter and went
(30:06):
in and did your homework and uh and killed killed
a U over water. Well and I'll just you said
over the counter, but it is actually a drink. You
didn't buy it out. You didn't. It wasn't out, No,
it was um. It was a UM and and now
(30:28):
it's I've sent in for it since. And uh what
happened was they made the Nevada game parks put this
um I think there was They gave three tags and
then it just started the year that and a buddy
of mine found out about it and told me about it,
and me and him and another guy sent in for it,
(30:49):
and two of us drew. Of course that found out
about it didn't draw. Now it's only I mean, it's
like a fift because more people found out of it.
That was the first year, so nobody knew about it,
so nobody seen you just we I got lucky that
he let me in on that. And uh, that was
a really fun hunt went up there. And and it
(31:09):
would have been it would have been tough with the
stick on the ground just because of the it's so
open and it was real shelley and and pretty loud
stalking and I was getting forty yards easy. But like
I said, I had set up a ground blind. I
had no I didn't even think that that was gonna work,
but it ended up working. And and see that's that's
(31:30):
what it is. I mean, just your your track record
is telling me you just have a way of figuring
out how to make it work. And that's what a
good hunter does, is just figuring out how to make
it work. You're you're moose. That's another one. People might
be like, well, heck, how am I going to afford
dollar Yukon moose hunt? Well, he you drew a tag
(31:51):
in Colorado, a cow tag, and so you know, when
I looked through the pictures of your Super ten, I
thought it was awesome because you had a you had
a U sheep, you had a big old cow elk,
which would have been a chiris, I mean, you know
in the lower forty eight, right, um. And uh so
(32:12):
it's it's kind of like you. I mean I think
it's cool. I mean you you worked it, and you
experience those hunts you experienced call you know, taking these
animals the meat, and and I've seen this week that
you're not a you don't really care about the head gear. Obviously,
I know you'd like to kill big critters, but I
(32:34):
mean you're just as tickled to take whatever. Yeah, yeah,
I know, it's and that's I always you know, I've
bring fred Eichler up a lot. And I know, you know,
he's he's commercialized a little bit. Now. I think he's
still the same kind of guy. But you know, you
can't blame a guy for for jumping on the money train.
But back when I was watching him and he had
(32:56):
his old videos and stuff, and he was, you know,
shooting doze or cow elk and and actually he's the
one that I got the idea for the sheep and
the moose. That's how that's what he has. I mean,
he's got a one of his sheep is a you
and one of his and his shivers moose is a cow.
And so that, you know, that's what And I was like, man,
(33:17):
that's awesome. He got to go and hunt and you
get the same experience. I mean like when you killed
that when you killed that sheep, you said that there
were big, huge rams standing right beside the you that
he killed. I mean, you know you could have did it. Yeah,
I could have killed it. I could have killed a ram,
and I could have. Honestly, on the moose hunt, the
(33:37):
moose might have been one of the tougher hunts because
on the moose hunt, all I was seeing was big bulls. Um,
it was harder to find a cow was to find ah.
And you wouldn't think that, you know what I mean? Uh,
And a lot of times people don't realize that, you know,
if you go with a cow tag. Any time I've
ever had a cow elk tag, I've seen nothing but
(34:01):
bulls and any and in the cows are are smarter
than the bulls, you know, I mean if honestly, they're
in survival mode always. You know, bulls are you know,
they can tell them right and and I'm not saying
a big old bull isn't smart, but he can let
his guard down and a cow I don't think ever.
(34:24):
So Um, it doesn't take away from the challenge. There's
more of them, that's the only advantage there is. But
sometimes that's a disadvantage because if groups up, sometimes they're
grouped up. You know, the females are going to be
grouping out. Um brand any thoughts on the supertank because
I want to transition into this hunt, because because Jake
(34:45):
killed the bear this week and we're still after one.
This is this is the question I got. How do
you how did you get to the point to where
you you thought, well, hey, you know I've got I
think I've got all these animals here. I can do this, this, this,
and I can have a super tend to somebody say, hey, Jake,
look at what you've done here. Or did you start
(35:06):
out at the beginning saying this is what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna kill this, do the super teen right? Um No? Actually, uh,
I was probably about halfway before I thought I could
probably get it done, you know, and actually went after it.
I mean I knew about it all, you know, always
thinking it would be kind of a cool. Honestly, when
(35:28):
I was younger, uh you know, guys like you know,
I read um Chuck Adams book, you know, the Super
Slam book, and then uh Fred went and did it
with the with the re curve, and I was like, man,
that is cool, but that is there's no you know,
I've killed you know, handful of deer and an antelope
and this and that and and a bear or whatever.
(35:49):
Actually it was a mountain lion that I'd killed. But um,
I was like, man, that'd be cool. It's kind of
a lifetime goal, like I can do this. And then
as I knocked a cup more off the list got
about halfway done. I was, I'll just keep you know,
every year, I'll try to go on another adventure and
and every year, you know, I got my business, so
(36:10):
I was able to um have a little more free
time at certain points, and it's only gotten a little
better and better. UM. So it kind of I always
knew about it, but and it was maybe always kind
of a goal in my head as far as eventually.
But when I got four or five animals, then it
(36:33):
was like all right, and and it kind of went
I'm very goal oriented it once I set one. It
it's just let me follow that. Let me follow that
question that with this one. Was it when you first
knew about it, when you first learned about it, about
the super tan and then you started clicking them off?
(36:54):
Was it harder than you thought it would be more
of a challenge or was it easier? Did it come
to you like, man, I can't believe that this is happening. Um.
At the beginning, it was. It was hard. I went
on quite a few. Actually, that's funny because the bear
was one of the harder animals to get for me. UM.
I had a couple hunts or I didn't see any,
(37:15):
didn't get a shot, and uh, I was bargain hunting.
All the places I went were good places. I never
had a bad bad experience. I'm not saying I but uh,
I mean there just wasn't the mass bears like you see.
So once I got that accomplished, Um, it started clicking
a little bit more as I went. I mean it
(37:36):
seems kind of well. It mean that makes sense. But um,
the first few animals to get we're tough and and elk.
When did you complete it? Uh? Last year? What animal
completed this? Lam My bison? I actually shot? It was Uh,
last year was kind of a crazy year. I shot
a mountain goat in September and then a bison and
(37:57):
December to finish it. So and so you're thirty one
years old. That's that's pretty cool, you know. To me,
always a guy, I got. The cool thing about hunting
in North America is that a guy can find the
challenge that is scripted just for him and what he
needs to do. I mean, like, I'll probably never even
(38:19):
attempt to do this supertend my goals right now inside
of my life, or to bear hunt all across this
great land and and experience all that the bear huntingware.
I mean like that's pretty unique challenge. I mean, not
many people are trying to do that, but for my
world that those are my main goals. Now I'm still
(38:40):
doing a lot of other stuff. But but because I
think sometimes like the reason we're having you on this
podcast is not to elevate the slam to this thing,
because there's a lot of people that are never going
to do that. And that's not But what I like
about what I see and here inside of you is
that you set a goal, You built your you build
(39:00):
your business, you build your family, and you kind of
built your life like pointed in this direction. And it
took a lot of coordination and it took a lot
of and and now I don't know your family and stuff,
but you know, I know there's a lot of people
that have wrecked their families pursuing goals and and and
I when I hear you talk about your family and wife,
like I I I hear that you've calculated them into
(39:24):
the equation. And so it's like you kind of got
this think prioritized and uh, it just and if you
prioritize your life and you get a lot of stuff
right And for me, for me, number one, it is
family I mean it's like I can't do any of
this if I'm sacrificing really what's important in life. But
if I build that right, and my wife and I
(39:46):
are we're a partnership, and and and and I'm supporting
her and the things she wants to do, and I'm
providing for her, and I'm I got all and my
kids are fathered, and I mean, you know it's like
all this stuff is in order, then Clay can be
gone for eighteen days like I have been this month. Um.
And I think a lot of people miss that, Jake.
(40:07):
And uh, because there's a there's there's guy. I was
reading a book yesterday. This it's a hunting book, and
this guy just nonchalantly made a comment that he hunted
as a guy trying to train a pack of hounds.
I'm not gonna name the book. And he and his
wife left him just because he hunted too much. And
(40:27):
he just said it like it was just like no
big deal and he just moved on. And I anyway,
I'm a family man, Jake, I mean me too. Yeah,
And see that's what people don't understand. I actually had
a guy comment here's what I get, Um, I get
the comment, Oh, you're so lucky, You're you're so lucky
to get to to go um or it'd be nice
(40:50):
when do you work? And you know, I don't even
it doesn't honestly bother me. But when I get those
calm ments, I'm like, well, so anyway, I I said
something about that, you know, hey, uh, I can't remember
what I was doing. But um, it's gotta be a balance.
(41:12):
It's got to be a balance of everything. I spend
a ton of time with my family. I spend a
ton of time working. I mean, my brothers are big
help to me when I'm when I'm gone, they're taking
care of things. They you know, they work for me.
There I can trust them. That works. And like you
(41:33):
were saying, I built every part of my life around
this and and people. You know, I drive a fourteen
thousand dollar truck, not a fifty thousand dollar truck. Um.
I mean, I live in a pretty nice home. But
it was just by sheer luck and it didn't cost
me that much. But so I don't even really know
what I'm getting at. But there's gotta be a balance.
(41:53):
You can't spend all day Sunday watching football and expect
to you know, Sunday, if I'm home, me and the
family or hiking, or me and the family are going
fishing or um, you know, if I'm home, that's what
I'm doing. I'm spending my time with my family. Think
what you're trying to say, Jake, is the dream is free,
(42:15):
but the hustle is sold separately. Yeah. That's a really
good way to say. I've been waiting for episodes to
say that. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to say it. It.
Um you know, I mean I when I'm at home,
usually I'm up by four o'clock in the morning. Uh,
and uh, I'm doing something paperwork or sometimes I'm playing
(42:38):
with my little girl because she's awake to Uh sometimes
she's doing paperwork. Yeah, I wish she could. Um, you know,
and uh, it's just well, what what I'm here. I
think it's really clear what you are saying and what
we're seeing is that you work hard for this. I
mean you're not you're not a rich boy that just
(42:59):
gets to do what he wants and has the money
to go. I mean you're working for this stuff, and
and that's that's what's cool and that I guess it's
probably surprising and would be to a lot of people.
Um is that these things are doable if if it's
what you want to do. But and I'm not suggesting
that everybody should do it either, because I don't want
(43:21):
I don't want all the competition, you know. Leave the
U tags for Jake, That's right, that's all. I gotta
stop talking about that stuff because people are are definitely
getting more involved in that because um but yeah, I mean, uh,
that's the thing. Most of the people that actually say
that that you're so lucky, they don't even hunt deer
(43:43):
when they can, I mean in their backyard, so it's
just a thought, you know. And they romantic size hunting.
They don't. A lot of people romanticize hunting. And a
lot of people bear hunting this like, and I'm not
saying bear hunting is easy. That is not what I'm
saying at all. I'm just saying it's more laid back
(44:05):
than like a backpack elk hunt. When you're grinding every
day all day and you know you're eating your mountain
house in the tent, going what am I doing up here?
This is the insane. I would rather go back to work.
It's tough, you know. I mean some of the vacations
and I use the air quotes on that, uh, that
(44:25):
I take are not vacations. I mean I'm working harder
when I come back from some hunts, I tell my
wife because you know, the perception is you've been out
for a week doing something you're passionate about. And I say,
I feel like I've been in a war. Exhausted. Now
it's time to get rest of that. Ba. What did
I say? You know, when we left the lodge as
(44:47):
while to come over here to do this. That's something
I've been leaving back to work. So I get some red. Yeah, exactly. Hey,
we're at uh let's let's we've got about ten minutes here,
and uh, I want to just briefly. We got I
gotta go kill a bear. This is seventh sixth day
in my hunt. We gotta leave tonight. Um, but I
want to talk just real briefly about so this hunt.
(45:09):
And I'm not even gonna get into my side of it.
We'll all do that later. But you killed the bart
on the first day. Well, I'm not very picky. Um,
you know. For me, Uh, opportunity is my window. And
to be honest, I've killed a lot of big animals
that way. Uh, And I've killed some small ones and
and my bear is just an average bear, just you know.
(45:30):
We we snuck up on it and the guide was
back and forth, all shoot it, man, I don't know,
he's not very big. He shooted. I don't you know
he he was? And you were like, let me help
you make that? Yeah, you know. Um, for me, uh,
it's just a I love to hunt and I have
(45:53):
all I've killed some big bears I killed. I think
we weighed that when I killed last year, and he
was like three fifty three sixty not a huge skull
like I think he was like eighteen and three quarter
eighteen and five eights. I don't know something, my tax
terms measured it whatever, But um, I'm not a trophy hunter.
I like to kill big animals, mature animals, but I
(46:14):
don't have to for a hunt to go to be successful.
For me, I I this bear is gonna eat really good.
And and I love I loved you know. I didn't
know you at all coming into this hunt. And the
first thing you said, really before you even knew who
I was and what my mission inside of you know,
(46:34):
hunting is, you said, man, I'm here for the meat. Truly,
you truly like bear mate. Yeah, I do. Uh. It's
funny because not very many people go bear hunting for
the meat. It's it's kind of funny. It's it's actually
terrible because if they knew what they were missing out on.
I mean that awesome buco. I can't wait to make that,
and that's awesome. It's gonna be like eight families that
(46:58):
were represented at that at the camp up over there
or that are here in camp now. It's gonna be
making that recip Bears are in trouble when we start,
when we've been seeing bears across the road, would be
like there goes to Assabuka as they make assa buco
out of the forearm of of well, any critter, but
(47:18):
bear it. Uh yeah, bear in a slow cooker is
honestly my one of my favorite of all time. I mean,
I love bear meat and my wife loves it. Um. Yeah,
I mean I'm a meat hunter. I mean, I'm not
gonna sit here and tell you that I don't like
to hunt for big animals. And I'm not gonna say
(47:41):
that I wouldn't you know. After a few more bears
passed the bear, I shot, uh, but I'm plumb happy.
But but now that it's happened, you're glad you did
because yeah, uh, because we've struggled, That's what I'm saying.
It's not that we hadn't struggled. There's two other boat well,
myself and another guy are bow hunters, who are three
bow hunters in camp, and uh and here it is
(48:04):
the sixth day, and now I have been close to
a couple of smaller bears that you know, we're within
tread bow range. Um. And then uh, Cody has just
it's been a miracle that he's not killed a bear. Yeah,
he can shoot a long way as too. And uh
uh the wind has just been destroying. And these bears
(48:26):
they're not stupid there. If they catch, they're not giving
anybody any second chance. And if they catch a if
they catch just a slight movement, which is is rare
I think or not rare. I shouldn't say that because
this is my first spot in stock But uh, well,
what what Jeff said. We described it in another podcast.
(48:47):
These we're seeing grizzly. I mean, you guys saw eight
foot plus mountain grizzly yesterday in a place that we've
been stalking bears crawling around on the edge of these
fields on our hands and knees for the last four days.
So these bears are on edge. There's a high population
of black bears and a very high population of grizzly
and so these bears heads are on a swivel, so
(49:08):
a lot of times when they're spooking from us on
a stalk, where in different places that stock probably would
have killed eighty percent of the bears in North America.
Here they haven't. But the main thing that's killed us
has been the wind. We have not lacked for seeing
super bears every single day, but man, we've we've had
(49:31):
I mean I've been like on the perfect stalk, I mean,
like everything was right and then the wind just dumps
in the back of the neck. Bear just skirts off.
They're done. But you just give us like a three
minute version of your hunt. Uh well, uh, I honestly
didn't even see the bear. Um the guide Ryan, he
(49:54):
he was. We were cruising down the road and actually
we had just uh it was the very first I
mean we flew in, drove in, grabbed her stuff and
went out and we had saw one beard. It was
a really nice bear and and he caught our wind
or actually, well anyway, we had to drive past him
(50:14):
and we're gonna come back after him. Drove down the
road aways and I didn't even know what was going on.
He drove by. I could tell he might have saw something,
and he pulled off the road and we just snuck back.
And we had just driven past the clear cut, and
we we snuck back, and then I could see a
bear milling around. So we got in the ditch and
(50:35):
it was that deep, deep ditch, and then it came
up to the where the clear cut was and worked
to where we were in line with it, and uh
just sat there and watched it and watched it. I mean,
I want to say we were probably there for a
half hour, watching at mill around and and it was
probably only out there about thirty yards, but it was
kind of easing towards us, and he was going back
(50:58):
and forth. Oh it's you know, it's it's not huge,
but it's all right. Well, maybe it's a sow. Well,
I don't know, maybe it's a he goes. You can
shoot it if you want, he goes, But we got
six six days, you know, it's up to you. And uh,
well that's all I needed, So I said, I just
told him, I said, if it comes to under twenty yards,
(51:19):
I'm gonna shoot it. And all right. So and it
did it. It worked around this big stump and I
want to say it was probably fifteen yards and uh
was angling by and it was getting close to it
was getting close to dark. Um shot got a complete
pass through. It ran off. It kind of tried like
(51:42):
it kind of moved off. I almost shot another arrow
at it, but um, it wasn't moving very fast and
we thought, oh, it's it's done. And we ended up
looking at the arrow and it it looked like good blood.
I felt like the shot was a little high, but um, anyway,
it kind of went off and got under a big
branch and we thought, well, it's gonna die there we
(52:05):
saw good blood. I mean it just it just looked
like it was done. You know. It didn't bail off
into the trees. So our decision was to get in
the truck and Joe go back and see if we
could get on that other. See if that other Yeah,
Cody was with us, so we were gonna go check
that out and let this bear go, you know, die.
(52:26):
So we didn't run into having it charges or whatever.
So we did that, came back and and now it's
getting pretty dark, and uh we walked over to where
it had been and there's no bear. I was like, oh, man,
I know better than to not try to put another
arrow into a bear. And I was kind of kicking
myself and and I don't know what I was not
(52:48):
seeing the Ryan he uh Cody or Ryan and Cody
were behind me, and Ryan was over here and he
saw the bear walking away from us when he walked
in and he I guess he said that, but I
didn't hear him. So I'm only here looking under this tree.
And he kind of walks over and he's like, it's
it was going over there. Oh no, it's still alive.
(53:09):
Like so anyway, we just start kind of walking along
and uh, he was right here beside me walking and
something jumped up like five feet away from us, and
kind of you can hear it clawn the tree, and
I mean it was right there, and he's like, it's
right here, And so I came around the tree and
(53:31):
just put one right through its boiler and it just
climbed up the tree just a little bit and then
fell off and uh died right there. It was over
on the first day. My hunt was over. And uh yeah,
I for me, it's it's not a big bear. Uh
but uh that really wasn't what I was here for
(53:53):
so well. I mean the thing, the thing about traditional
archery is that you the hunt really does become about opportunity,
and that's what it has has been lacking for me
here so far, is that, uh, you know, you're hunting
for a chance. You know that's within range, that that's
within the limitations of the self imposed limitations that you've
(54:16):
chosen for the hunt, which we have, which we're hunting
with trad bows. But man, well, congratulations on the bear.
And it's been awesome getting to uh hang out with
you in camp this week and inspiring uh stories about
the super ten and it was fun to shoot with
you out here and that it's been a good It's
been a great week. I've had a ton of fun.
(54:37):
I uh yeah, I wish Aaron could have come up
with us, but uh yeah, it uh it worked out
good for me. Yeah, Brent closing concluders, what you guys
are all you know, I'm a bow hunter, but I
don't I don't do the trash stuff, but I enjoy
watching you guys said goals practice. You practice more than
(55:01):
anybody doing anything that I've seen. I mean, you guys
are always shooting, to the point that it's hard for
me to nap at times because you hear yeah, and
then what I what I listened for is I hear
the string and then I hear the thump. But my
favorite one was when I hear the string and I
don't hear the thump because I know somebody's shut in
(55:22):
the ground, somebody's got to crawl over the fence and
go find an era. But it's fun, man, it's it's um,
it's unique experience following somebody around with the camera and
watch them do this because it's it's ain't easy. It
ain't easy. Well, lots of fun. Well that's good. We're
(55:43):
gonna close down right here in an hour. Thanks for
checking out the Barrowning Magazine podcast and keep the wild
Places wild because that's where the bears live to
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