Ep. 143: Running Dogs for Spring Bear

Dirk and Bradley Dammerman of Idaho Whitetail Guides catch up on Bradley's Spring bear season, and then take a deep dive into a conservation organization that Bradley jus started: North Idaho Houndsmen Association. They talk about conserving the animals hound hunters love to pursue. They also talk about issues Hunting Outfitters here in Idaho are facing with the new tag drawing system nonresidents will face in 2026.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
I'm Dirk Durham and today I've got my good buddy
Bradley Dammerman here with me again. Welcome.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
How you doing, Dirk? Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Doing good, doing good. You guys probably remember Bradley from
previous shows. He's been on here a few times. He's
the owner operator at Idaho Whitetail Guides and not to
be confused with that's all he does is guide white tails.
It's uh, that's one of the many things you got

(00:48):
to rebrand that.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
I know it I do.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, that's hilarious. You know, we haven't got together since
this spring when I was up there, Uh, me and
Jason stay at your place with the guys from NWTF
and for Turkey season. And at that time you were
being a carpenter building a working on your rental house
you've been building on and I'm just wondering, did you

(01:14):
get that thing done yet?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm not done yet, but I'm seeing some light. I
I h can.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
You hear me? All right? You're kind of cut? Okay,
sorry about that?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, No, I'm seeing some light. I just painted it,
primed and painted it. The interior. So just got the
cabinets ordered and they should be going in in a
couple of weeks, and like I should be pretty wrapped
up in a month. I bet I could have somebody
in it. So I'm pretty excited about that. It's been

(01:47):
a long journey on that.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, probably about a year maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah, it's probably been over It's probably been two years
by the time I looked at the property, bought it
and decided what I was going to do on it,
and and getting it done. It's probably been to maybe
even pushing like two and a half years.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
So yeah, yeah, so that's a long process.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, it is. Hopefully it'll pay off someday.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah. Well, you know, it is pretty hard to get
a house built though, when you're you're guiding all the time,
you know, elk hunting, deer hunting, bear hunting, lots of
bear hunting. How did how'd spring go for you guys?

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Spring's been great. You know, I had my last hunter
was a little slow, but we treat some bear anyways.
But uh, it's been going really good. The weather's been good.
We only had a really a week that it was
real hot that where it was kind of tough on
the dogs where I had to get up literally I
still get up early, but you know where I had

(02:49):
to beat the heat. So it's been a real good
smooth bear season. I've been treeing quite a few bears.
It's you know, it's it's uh, it's been a it's
been kind of a slow I mean maybe a little
slower on the on the end of like finding bears

(03:12):
than normal. I really I usually find one every day,
but I'm I'm hunting for them hard.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
You know, there's a lot of hours where.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
I'm you know, not you know, I'm just driving around
and walking old grassy roads or whatever I have to
do to find one. So they're a little tougher to find.
But I'm fighting fying one usually every day.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Now, I had a guy on the podcast who had
dogs that would trail blood and he was saying that
if you get a little bit of rain on on
the blood trail, He's like, it actually helps out their
their blood track. And do you find that like when
you got a little bit of moist weather, not a
you know, a down downport to wash all this in away,
But do you guys do do pretty good when it

(03:53):
when you get some rain, And does that make things
easier to track for the dogs for bears.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, it actually does.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
I like a little moisture for sure, and I mean
you can hear it in the dogs too, you know,
like when it's real dry out, you know, you don't
hear it when they're jumping, when they have a jump
bear and they're running hard.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
You know, you don't hear the barkin.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
That you do when there's like moisture in the ground
and more scent, and that really gets them wound up
and they can really drive the track hard, you know,
when there's a little bit of moisture. So yes, I
agree with that a little bit of do even a
heavy dew really helps. And oh yeah a little rain
don't hurt. You know, you don't want a lot of
rain obviously on the track, but I definitely like a

(04:38):
little moisture because man, when it's dry, you know, July
late July and it's dusty and there's just no moisture,
no dew in the mornings, it's a.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Lot tougher on the dogs to really run run a
scent hard, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense that that moisture just probably
keeps that scent, you know, from evaporating.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Away. Yep, it does. It really helps.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
I like to I definitely like it when it's when
it's a little damp out.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, I don't like walking through it so much.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, it's hard on the old old pant legs and
well North Idaho, I mean, uh, you get wet everywhere.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, well yeah, yeah, Actually, yesterday morning was a perfect
example for that.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Here.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
I loaded the dogs up actually and started leaving and
it started dumping the rain.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
So I was just hunting here from the house.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
So I pulled back in the garage and let it
rain for about a half an hour, and then it
was and then it kind of cleared off, and I
was like, this is gonna be a perfect morning. You know,
if I can find one that moved after this rain,
you know, they'll really And when I did find one,
it took a while to find one. But when I
found one, man, you could hear it and hear it.
They could just run that track hard with that moisture.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Oh yeah, Now, how's your how's your pack of dogs doing?

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now?

Speaker 1 (05:54):
You've had a few setbacks lately since last time I
think we talked on here. You've had a you've lost
a co and your old girl Mallory, she's has she
is she out of the hunt or is she still
able to hunt?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
She's actually hunting a little bit right now.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
So so to answer your first question, my pack is
it's doing okay.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
But yeah I lost.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
If I lose Mallory, which I'll talk more about in
a minute, that's three dogs, really good dogs in under
a year.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
That's really tough on a hound guy, you know, yeah,
I mean they weren't.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
They were you know, some of my better you know,
they're my better you know, and my top range of dogs.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
You know, they were.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
They're ones that really strike well, and they're you know,
as broke as a good hound should be.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
They're just really nice dogs. So it was a really
tough loss.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
And that's kind of how it sucks when you get there.
But you know, you could you could be a good
houndsman and hunt a lot like I do and really
getting a bind. I mean, you even though you're hunting
a lot, you lose two or three dogs and a year,
you know, unexpectedly, it could really damage your pack. And

(07:07):
luckily for me, I have enough dogs down there. I've
been okay. I'd probably be a little weak on like
good strike dogs. If anything, which I have a couple
down there, but the ones I lost were really good
strike dogs. They'll be hard to replace, you know, I
still have Mallory. And then back to Mallory. She's so
she was breathing real heavy. I noticed earlier this spring

(07:29):
when I first started hunting. I'm like, wow, Mallory didn't
hardly run anywhere. You know, she didn't go anywhere, which
is kind of surprising me.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
I mean, you've hunted with that dog.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, I'm like, well, she's you know, she's ten years
old now or whatever. She's ten eleven years old, ten
and a half, I guess, and she's getting up there.
You know, I probably won't move very fast when I'm
old either.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
You know, it didn't drink a lot of it.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
But then, you know, after a couple of weeks, I
started noticing her breathing heavy. She'd come up to the
road and she's breathing really heavy. And then anyways, I
had clients in and out, so I wasn't you know,
I wasn't really hunting her because I could tell something's
wrong with her. But then I went down there and
fed her one night, and it was on a Sunday,
and I mean I didn't think she'd make her till morning.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
You know.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
I was like, I told my wife, I said, I'm
gonna have to take my Allory to the vet. And
you know, obviously you don't want to do that on
a Sunday because they charge you three times as much,
you know. But I'm like, well, I'm going to take
her in. I said, I'm gonna feel horrible if she's
dead in the morning. And I didn't take her. So
I called her in there. It was a late night,
and anyways, they took X rays of her lungs and

(08:37):
their opinion she has a tumor on her lung and
heart and anyways, so I talked to him about the options,
you know, and they said, well, you go to the
university and get.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Chemo done and all this. And I'm thinking, you know,
no way.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
I mean, I love that dog as much as you
could love a dog, but I can't spend twenty grand
on chema right on, you know, ten and a half
year old dog. Right So I she said, well you
can start. We can give her some antibiotics. There's a
slight chance there's an infection in there. But she said,
my years of looking at these X rays it's a tumor,

(09:16):
but you never know, so give her some antibiotics.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
And then they gave her a steroid.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
As well, And I started giving her that steroid and antibiotic,
and I mean, like within like two or three days,
it's like she's up, just jumping around ready to hunt.
So wow, I've been hunting her. I just got done
with another client, so I haven't had time. I'm going
to take her back into a different VET and run
some more tests on her. But I think with that steroid,

(09:45):
the way I understand it can kind of shrink the
tumor and buy her a little time. So oh, it
might be just buying her a little time and hunt
with her a few more times and enjoy her and
then and then we'll see. So we'll just see what happens.
But she's she's old, and she's been a heck of
a dog for me, and man am I going to

(10:05):
miss her when she's gone. But hopefully, I hopefully it
was just an infection and I can get two more
years out of her.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
But but we'll see. Yeah, see on that and then.
But other than that, it's pretty good. I've been.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Training a couple of young dogs and it's a perfect example.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
You know, you can get so much.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Time into these young dogs, you know, and I mean
countless hours and just training and hunting them every day
with the other dogs, and they just might not make it.
And one of them out here, he's scared of the bear,
and which is really unusual in the line of.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Dogs that I got, but he's scared of the bear.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
And so all that time, you know, over a year
and a half of messing with him, I'm you know,
I'm probably not going to keep him. I might sell
him as a cat dog, because he does pretty good
on the cats, and I mean he will run bear
and he'll he'll look good with other dogs, but he's
not what I consider a bear dog. So I'll probably
end up selling him to somebody that just cat hunts.

(11:08):
But it's a lot of time and effort, and then
it's like, now I gotta restart that process and get
another pupp that hopefully turns out. So you can you
can be a really good bear hunter and a really
good houndsman and and and have really good dogs for
ten years and then all of a sudden, bam, you're
down to nothing.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, so yeah, yeah, you never know what about old Gatland,
your three legged your three legged plot dog is he
He's still kicking.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
He's still kicking, and he direct glares at me every
morning when I load the dogs up.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Don't take him. I mean I can just see him
pouting over there. But yeah, I feel bad.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
And you know, I hunted him, I think two or
three times this year, just took him along and he ran.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
He never.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
I don't think he made a tree, you know. But
he's you know, he's ten years old now too, three legs,
and I mean these young dog I was just blow
him away now, but he tries to stay in there.
If I got him in shape, he'd probably actually do
pretty good. The problem I'm having right now is I
can only hault so many dogs on u oh yeah,
my four wheeler. That are my setup that I got

(12:16):
so trying to train these other two young pups. You know,
that takes up two spots right there on it. And
then I got to have you know, another four good
ones to help train those pups. So he's kind of
getting shafted a little bit. He's not getting to go
as much as I used to take him. But yeah,
he's doing good, and he seems to be in good health.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Really.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yeah. Yeah, I've seen some videos Amy said on Instagram
or Facebook or whatever, him kicking around the house with
the kids and just spoiled.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
So oh yeah, we spoil and the kids take him
on walks all the time and tie him out here
on the porch for a while and just let him
kind of lay in the shade, and he's he's definitely
got a good life. He's not hunting as much as
he'd like, but he's got a good life.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah, that's like all of especially whenever it's like when
we get older, you know, I can see all the
old timers and they don't They're like, I wish I
could go hunting like he used to, and maybe go
grouse hunting and kick around camp and cook be the
camp cooked or something. But yeah, I mean ten years old,
that's what dead and dog. You're seventy years old, you know,

(13:21):
so yep, yeah, you're get to be an old timer.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, I'll probably like that shade tree at seventy two. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, So, hey, you put a dog box in the
back of your pickup. Now I know he's a four
wheeler a lot, but now I see you've got a
dog box in the back of your pickup. What's that
all about?

Speaker 3 (13:39):
So I got a new pickup and it's actually a
pretty fancy pickup for me, So yeah, he's all cryed up.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
I follow this guy on older older wood dog boxes.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
I follow him on Instagram, and I always liked his
dog boxes that.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
He builds, you know, I've been following him for two
or three years.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
And anyways, I always told myself, if I get another pickup,
I'll buy a nice.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Dog box for it. So I did, and really I don't.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
I won't use it a lot, but I'll use it
every day, but I'll But what I mean by that
is so how we hunt anymore? Like when I was
a kid, we hunted out of pickups. That's all we
hunted out of.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
You know.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
But now with gates and everything you got to have.
In my opinion, I still see guys hunting a pickup,
but I don't know how, but they hunting a pickup.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
But I use a ATV, you know, a four wheler.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
You've seen my setup, and basically all is my pickup
and dog box is going to do is I'm gonna
load the dogs up in that pick up in the
morning and then go to my hunting spot. And you're
just transporting the dogs out to wherever you're hunting, and
then I'm loading them on four wheler. So that's all
it's really going to be for. I won't necessarily hunt
out of it. I'll just use it to get to

(14:51):
my hunting spots and houle them, or if I want to,
you know, travel somewhere, maybe to another state or something,
hunt a little bit I can. I just got a
nice setup, reliable dog box and reliable pickup because my
other dog box, it was I.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Was either going to have to build another one or
or buy one.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
So I bought one because my other one's got They've
eight holes through it and chewed it, chewed it up
pretty bad. It's I don't know how many years I've
had that thing. It's it's an ice ore. So I
didn't want to throw that in the back of a
new pickup.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, people look at you like weird, Like man, look
at that fancy truck and that old beat up dog
box and the wholes chewed through.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
The side, right.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
But I will say, just to take a note, my
it looks pretty sharp setting out there this pickup and stuff.
But the most good hound guys that I've ever bumped
into and no, personally, no, have the most beat up
Toyota picked up the most beat up dog box you
ever see.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
And those are usually the guys that are catching stuff.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
The fancy guy and the fancy truck and all the
fancy gear.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Not so much know from what I've noticed throughout the years.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
So well, I've kind of noticed though too, like they
kind of some of those guys start out with a
fancy one and by the end of the year or two,
it's like, yeah, that thing's beat up, just like the
rest of them.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
I know it.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Yeah, I've got a couple of trucks out here I'm
trying to sell and I haven't got a hit man.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Man, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Unless you find another hound hunter, it might be hard
to get some of them up.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
They're pretty well wore out when I'm done with them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Oh yeah, So you guys got a really big bear
this spring. One of your clients got a Dandy, Yes
he did, that.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Was a Dandy.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
We just the taxidermists and Cortlane And sorry, I'm I'm
drawing a blank on the name of the taxidermist just
because my hunter dropped it off there. Yeah, but he
sent a message back to my hunter and said he
officially held the biggest bear skull he'd ever held. Wow,
he said, I've been doing this for I don't know,
twenty years or something like that, you know, And it

(16:57):
was it was a big So the what it's green
scored at twenty one and five eights, which you know,
obviously there's some big ones, bigger bear out there, but
that's a big I mean, nineteen inches is a great
big bear here. And I know you know skull, so
twenty one and five eighths is really big.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
It's a giant. Did you guys weigh that thing at all?

Speaker 2 (17:20):
I didn't weigh it, so I estimated it.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
I estimated it at at four hundred pounds.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
And the reason I estimated at four hundred pounds is
because I've killed a bear just a few years ago
that weighed three sixty five gutted. I got to the
house and weighed it, and I know this bear was bigger. No,
I mean, I know for a fact it was bigger.
It was heavier. I mean, I couldn't budget. I burnt
my winch up trying to winch it up into a
flat spot for pictures. Big Man four wheeler yeah, and

(17:54):
we just don't get a lot of big ones like that,
you know. You know, somebody from back east listening to
this might be like four hundred pounds.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Shoot, I killed a six hundred pounder last year.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, and you know, but it was the skull bigger,
you know, right, Probably not, you know, because I can
tell you a four hundred pound bear in this northern
Idaho in the spring is a big bear.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
And I've seen a lot of bear. You just don't
see very many of them like that.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, they're pretty uncommon in that country. I don't know
if it's the is it the is it the feed,
Is it genetics?

Speaker 3 (18:28):
I think it's probably it definitely would be the feed
for sure, And then I would say probably maybe genetic
a little bit. But yeah, they just don't get the
feed they get like back east. Of course, you know,
they're scaling mountains up here.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
They're in a little more shape, a little better shape.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
You know, they're not just setting in a flat cornfield, right,
you know, right, enough pound guys keep them pretty thin down.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
They get a lot of exercise.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, it's a fact.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
That's a fact that it just still blows me away
about bears, Like if if you haven't been on a
bear hunt with dogs. I had no idea until I
went with you how far a bear will run. I'm like, oh, yeah,
they'll probably run over there. Man, they will run over
the top of the mountain, around the other side, come
back over and cross it a couple more times. It's
incredible how far a bear will go.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Oh they're crazy around here. I mean I got on
some runners this year too. I mean, they can just
they impress me. And even though I've seen it my
whole life, it's just like.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
How the heck is that thing still running?

Speaker 3 (19:30):
I mean they got dogs that are in shape behind them,
you know, And yeah, they have a good chance of
getting away.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
You know, your dog's better be.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
In shape on some of these bear You're not going
to look at them. Oh yeah, they're going to get away,
that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Do you know how what that bear's hide measured? Would
that be like a six or seven foot or did
you know all that?

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Shoot? I don't. I should have measured it.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
How do you measure a bear bear hide?

Speaker 3 (19:58):
Were you from the tip of the nose to the
tail the base of the tail? I think is how
you do it? And I should have measured it, but
I guarantee it was five and a half six close
to six foot. I'm assuming, I guess, I don't really
know without measuring it. I should have measured it because
I skinned it. I skinned it right there and I
brought it home here. I could have measured it, but

(20:19):
I didn't think of it. But it was just a
it was just a brute. I mean, I've seen enough
bears to know that it was a real special bear.
And the guy that the client that got it with me,
it was the first time, he first morning, first time.
I think he was probably in his mid sixties somewhere
in there, just guessing on that, but he said it

(20:42):
was his first day of bear hunting, he'd never been
bear hunting before in his life's first day and killed nothing.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Wow, He's like, this is easy, nothing to it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
I wish those big bears were like that under every
tree around there, but just as I know they are.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
No, we did kill a few other nice ones too,
you know.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, Yeah, I remember seeing for sure.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
But that was that was one that that I won't
ever forget. You just I mean, it might be a
long time before I see another one like that around here.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah. Yeah, we're do you do those bears, Let's say,
do they move in from other areas, like they find
new territory or something, or has that bear been living
there the whole time, or do they move in from
like somewhere else, like man, I'm gonna try living over here.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
For a while.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, So you know, I would say they I would
say he moved into the area because I hunt this
where I hunt.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
I hunted a lot, you know.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
And I'm I've killed big bears like him or close
to him before in the past that I I treed,
you know, in the training season, or treed by myself,
and I just didn't feel like shooting it right because
you know, I save it for a client or just
not kill it.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
You know.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
I'm not a big killer. I've killed enough of him,
it doesn't matter to me.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
But I.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
Usually treat them big bear if they're around, all kind
of remember them, like, oh, I treated you last year,
I think, you know. Yeah, this particular bear is like
I said to myself, where in the world did you

(22:22):
come from?

Speaker 2 (22:24):
You know, So I'd say he traveled in.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
But I know, obviously, like right now, the I can
tell out there hunting right now, the boars are are moving.
I got, I treat a pretty nice boar yesterday, and
they're breeding right now, and so I've been getting some
split races where the dogs split because there's two bears there,
you know, Okay, And I know they'll really move around,

(22:48):
and you'll sometimes this time of year you'll catch a
big old boar that you've never seen or didn't know
he was around because he'd wander in looking for females
and stuff.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Okay, yeah, but you.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Know, I mean, I think they live in that they'll
come in from wherever. I think, but I think, like
a lot of the sows, I remember treating a big
sal a big bear too. She was a sal chocolate
bear and I treat her for like three or four
years in a row. The first time I treat her,
I thought it was a big old boar. And then
the next year I treat her, she had two cubs
with her. Oh geez, she was so big, you know,

(23:21):
and I was like, oh, that's the South. And anyways,
I treat her, like I said, three or four years
in a row, and she probably not three miles apart
from where I treat her each year. She just kind
of lived. I don't ever know what happened if somebody
killed her or what. But they So, I know, the
soals and stuff will stick around, but I feel like
the boors kind of will move, you know, yeah, move around.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Prowl around looking for girlfriends.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
So you guys started a new organization, how hunt an organization?

Speaker 3 (23:58):
What's it called again, North Idaho Hound Association.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Okay, okay, Well what what's that all about?

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Well, basically, it's it's just a it's just an association.
To protect and preserve the hound community.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Is our goal.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
So but how it come about was the Eastern Hound
Association reached out and kind of got a group of
us together and thought that, you know, we're at a
point in time that we needed a Northern Idaho chapter
whatever you want to call it, you know, organization up here.

(24:40):
And at first, you know, I was kind of like, wow, shoot,
I have so many things going on right.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Now, you know.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
And yeah, but my heart, I mean, you know me enough,
my heart's in the hound world.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
And and for me personally, I really feel that the
hound guys have got kind of a black eye.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean, I know they do. You know, I've heard
that from the Game department even.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah, and I'd really like to change that somehow or
at least try too, you know, just you know, just
to educate the public that you know, it's it's not
just going out there with hounds and killing stuff. I mean,
you got you're still hunting hard. It's something we love.

(25:26):
It's just it's something that that my kids love, you know,
and something that we do as a family. And it's
just like any good elk hunter, you know, we look
forward to it, you know, we look forward to the season,
and sometimes we clash with other hunters, and I don't know,
I think for me, I just kind of want to educate.
So we'll do some field trials and stuff out here
and then kind of have a have a voice, you know,

(25:49):
when you have an association like that, you have a voice.
So like recently, just for an example, recently they changed
this unit over here that by me that I know
you've hunted some they changed it to a two lion area.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Oh yeah, you know, which you know. The hard part.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
About like that is I know that it don't it
don't need a too lion area personally, like in my opinion,
I mean I've hunted the area.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
I know it. There's just not that many lions in there.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
But on the other end, then you got the deer
and elk hunters that are like sweet, you know, that's
a good thing, you know, kill them all, you know.
And I just I just you've been around this country
where I live a lot. You remember, say in the
late nineties when there was early two thousands, when there

(26:42):
was and there's and I think our elk and deer
population is.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Doing good, so I'm not bashing that.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
But back then there was tons of elk, tons of
white tail, but there was also tons of bear and
tons of lions.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
You know, there were.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah, So just in my opinion, you know, and I
mean you might have a different outlook on it, and
that's fine, but I think in my opinion that I
just think that those are kind of the issues that
this organization, this Sound Association could maybe tackle someday. If
we get big enough and strong enough, we might have

(27:17):
a little more of a voice like, hey, we don't
think it's a good idea to have a two lion
area there. We don't think we should have that season extended,
you know. So that's really what it's all about. And also,
you know, like with the field trials will be fun
you know, to get kids involved and kind of educate
them about hounds and the right way, the ethical way

(27:41):
of doing it, and just you know, just kind of
that's so if that if I explained it good enough,
I don't know, but that's kind of where my heart
is and kind of what we're focused on.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
No, that's that's awesome. First off, if you want, if
sportsmen want to be heard by the their fishing game,
at least here in the Idaho Department fishing game as
an individual or an unorganized group of people, just people
you know, shouting from the streets or shouting from Facebook,

(28:13):
you know, and if you're unhappy with the way some
management practice is, they're not going to listen to you
until you get organized and get start an organization, get organized,
get members and do your research and put together a
professional proposal and talk with them and then you know, work,
try to work together to find a solution. And a

(28:37):
lot of folks just don't know that, which is so
that's that's good. That's the great thing in the step
in the right direction. As far as getting on any
kind of rules changed or you know, any seasons changed
or any you know, like to have that voice actually
heard is good. That's great, that's a great first step.
But also back to your point of like hound hunting

(28:59):
gets kind of a black eye, you know, it really does.
You get a couple of bad actors and all the
good guys get lumped in with the jerks. Right, And
I've met some real guys, some guys that were hound hunters,
that were real doozies, I mean, but as a human
beings they were probably not that great either. So it

(29:20):
unfortunately hound hunting took the brunt of their personality problems. Right.
You know, that guy was a car salesman. You probably
couldn't stand him. If he was he was probably unethical,
did bad stuff, just like you know in the hound world.
You know, it just kind of goes right down there.
But you got guys like you and countless other people

(29:42):
doing it right all the time. They don't get they
don't get that attention. And I think back to the
point of, like what I heard you say in that
whole bit about you know you want to you know,
you want hound hunters to have good optics, You want
everybody to have good thoughts about hound hunt and the
people who do it. Then you also look at what

(30:04):
you said about Hey, we don't need to kill two
cats per person in this unit. Like that right there
in itself, like that right there says we're here trying to,
you know, protect a resource we want. We want these
cats here tomorrow, not just today. Like, yeah, you bet.

(30:27):
It's fun to go cat hut and be able to
shoot cats, right, but when you shoot up your resource,
you kill too many, you kill too deeply, and then
you lose it, You lose that resource. Then they have
to go the other way on seasons and bag limits
to where once you kill it that deeper, they're like, oh, well,
now we're gonna have to go to a draw tag.
Oh you want to hound up for a cat? Oh

(30:48):
you're gonna have to draw a tag now, I mean,
and nobody wants to do that, you know, no, But
back to your point too, Like in the nineties in
early two thousands, we had great deer, we had great
elk and guess what else, Yeah, bears. We had a
lot of bears. We had a lot of cats. We
had a lot of both. And it kind of just

(31:08):
seems like that kind of kind of ebbs and flows
with with the ungulate populations, with the with the with
the predators, so right now, you know, with a with
a lot of a lot of elk and deer on
the landscape in certain areas there, then yeah, there's probably
plentiful predators. But I mean, are they are the cats

(31:32):
devastating the deer?

Speaker 2 (31:34):
No?

Speaker 1 (31:34):
I don't, in my opinion, I don't think so. I
mean they're killing them, they're catching them. But I mean
it's not no worse than ever it was, you know,
any time before. Nothing's really changed in that regard. You know, wolves,
Now that does change things a little bit. Yeah, you
know the fishing game, you know, I know they put
out a research paper here a few years ago that
said it wasn't the wolves that have been killing all

(31:56):
the elk, it was actually mountain lions. But what they
failed tell you is every time a mountain lion kills
an elk or a deer, wolves come and chase it
off and they eat the elk, and they're like the
cat's like, well I got to eat, so they go
kill another one.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
So I feel like they let And I hate to
throw rocks. I'm not a I hate to throw publicly
throw rocks. But sometimes these game organizations they will tell
you a story. But it's not all of the story
once you start asking questions and dig in and dig
deeper and start asking, well, what about this? What about that? Oh,

(32:31):
we kind of left that part out, So yes, take
it for face value for you know, but don't don't
completely drink the kool aid on some of these reports
they give.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, that's for sure, that's funny you brought that up
because it's been shoot, it's probably been three years ago
or maybe four, you know how time flies. But I
was I just set through the trapping class with Cooper,
my boy, and I about fell over in my seat
because they were telling the kids that that actually the
lions are killing more elk and deer than the wolves are.

(33:06):
That was part of their trapping class, and I was
just like, I raised my hand and was like, do
you mind telling me who did that?

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Study?

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Well, I'm not They didn't quite have answer. Yeah, study,
but you know, I I know it.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
I don't want to throw rocks either, because we all
got to work together and it's a sore subject. But yeah,
I just know what it used to be like before wolves,
and I know that there was plenty of bear for
us hound hunters and baiers or whatever. And there was
plenty of elk and deer, so I know that per
a fact. And yes they need manage though, and I

(33:45):
think we do a pretty good job of managing them.
There's there's a few things that i'd like to see
different and this can get on a rabbit trail here,
but so one of the things I'd like to do
with this hound club as far as you know, getting
our voices heard. And I think a lot of hound
guys would go along with this, and I think the

(34:06):
elk hunters would love it is and I might have
brought this up to you before, but so we're we're hunting,
you know, clear till the end of July with our hounds, right. Anyways,
it's pursuit, you know, July is a training season and stuff.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
In most units there's one or two units.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
That are open for kill, but their hides ain't no
good that time of year, so you don't really need
to be killing them. But anyways, I would like to
see and this is my personal opinion, and it's something
I've thought about a lot because as an elk hunter,
as you know, I loved archery elk hunt too, so

(34:45):
I might be kind of biased on this, but Throughout
the years, I've had some interesting notes and I wish
I would have saved.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
Them on my pickup.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
Like I walked to a bear tree, you know, and
I had an elk hunter walk by my truck and
leave me a nice little friendly note.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
You know.

Speaker 4 (35:00):
Imagine how about they just were about to kill a
big six point my dogs come running through. Oh yeah,
so not very happy, and like that's the last thing
as a houndsman, as a good houndsman, I want to
do is tick off some archery hunter down there with
his boy or his cousin or his buddy, you know,
elk hunt.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
I don't want to screw their hunt up, obviously. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
So a way to fix that would be have our
fall season in August, right, hound season, I mean, and
then you don't have that conflict, because I mean conflict.
You know, that's that's just turning two hunting groups against
each other right there. So that'd be something I got,
you know, in the back of my head that maybe
someday we could maybe try to push for that'd make

(35:43):
the elk hunters happy, and it would make the hound
guys happy. I think, you know, I'd have to talk
to more hound guys and see what they think.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
But you know, you just.

Speaker 3 (35:50):
Lay your dogs off for a month and in a month,
you know, just like a human, you're out of shape.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
So you got them.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
You got the dogs in shape in July anyway, So
let's just roll it, roll the fall season over into August.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
It makes sense to me. But yeah, well one thing.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Well, you look at Washington State, they've got they don't
of course they don't have bear hunting but or for dogs,
but they have like August bear hunting, like they're their
fall bear starts and sometimes and I'm not sure on
the exactly on the dates, but it starts in August.
I'm like, man, how come we don't get to go
hunting bears in August? You know, I'd love to be

(36:26):
able to go out, you know, maybe for a week
or two in August to go hunt bears because September comes.
I'm I'm I'm chasing bugles, all right. I don't care
how pretty the bear is. Cool, let's get that out.
But that'd be neat. But yeah, I think, you know, yeah,

(36:50):
and I think conflict management it is important to the
fishing game, you know, I think that's that's very important
to them. So if you can get you know, organizations
like yours and some of the other chapters or whatever.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
What have you.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
If you guys can all get that same type of
messaging and say, hey, this is you know, this is
a good solution, you know, and maybe back it up
with some data or something, and then that would maybe
that would help your your ideas, you know.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah for sure. And then I would add I think.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Just from my so I can only speak for three
or four units over here where I'm at, you know,
in the northern part. I so they did the bear
study and stuff, which you know, always concerns me. I'm
scared of change, you know, because a lot of times
you lose stuff you don't get it back at.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Sure, but.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
I'm saying this, I'm still catching plenty of bears that
don't get me wrong. I don't want to scare any
potential clients away. I don't run a lot of clients.
But I can see a big difference in our bear population,
which is really funny because the fishing game. Again, I'm
not throwing stones, are you know, saying, well, the check
ins down just a little bit, so therefore we feel

(38:09):
like the bear population is pretty strong still. I know,
as a bear hunter, literally a bear hunting for years
here that there ain't the bear. I mean some of
that has to do with the logged areas. You know,
it's a lot more logged off. Again, I'm not picking
on loggers. I was a logger for years, but you know,

(38:30):
but I think the biggest threat right now for like
our bear and lion. You know, I'm talking predator hunter
guys like me that just love to hound hunt, predator hunt,
bear and stuff is the amount of.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
People that have moved here.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
So they have the same check in stats, but there's
twice as many people, right. So to me, the bear
population's down right there with their with their numbers, you know.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Right right, But the amount of people going to the
field every year versus what's getting harvested versus what it
was before. Yeah, yeah, you have less left back. And
you know, however, long ago there are less people enjoying
the resource. Now there's twice as many and less you know,
percentage of success.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
I guess you could say, right, But again there's a
part of me, and again I'm not throwing stones, but
I think the Game Department wants the bear population low
and the lion low in a way.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Oh you know, you know, they're going.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
To cater to the elk and deer hunters, which is
you know, again, I'm an elkin deer hunter, so I
love that part of it. But you know, in a way,
they're they're happy with them down so and that's hown,
guys are we're such a small little group, you know.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
So it's just it's.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
It's it gets confusing and path but I would like
to see some I would like to see some changes,
maybe as scared as I am a changes, I would
like to see a few ure in the future. So
that's another reason, you know, I was happy to join
this association.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, well it sounds like your heart. Your heart's in
the right place, you know, you're you're looking out for
the animals. And you know, sometimes we have we've put
our selfish you know, desires to sidenlay like well, you know, yeah,
it'd be great if we could do this, but sometimes
it don't always. You know, we should always get what
we want all the time, like as far as like

(40:26):
just be able to hunt and kill everything, you know,
we want to kill. Sometimes sometimes we've got to conserve too,
But I get that.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Now, you guys went to to Boise recently, I think
to do some is that did they have to do
with your group here or is that more out on
the outfitter side.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
That was more on the outfitters, uh side of things.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
They're they're they're going to a draw, as I think
everybody knows for non residents, dear Elk.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, so that's really scary too. I think think there's
I'm going to be closer.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
I think there's like one hundred and twenty outfitters in
Idaho and this could potentially put us all out of business.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
So what we went to Boise's four is we had
a committee down there, a tag committee, and the Fishing
Game was there, and the Outfitters Association obviously, and there
was just.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
A group of hand picked people.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
And it was actually my wife on there because she
can keep her cool better than.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
I said it and just listened.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
But she actually, you know, Amy's a big part of
the Idaho White Toe guides. I mean she's she's the one,
you know, penciling things out and knows how the tag
allocations work to a t because she works a fishing
game and does all that stuff. But so that's all
that was about. So basically we're gonna we're they came up.

(41:52):
We sat there for two days and came up with
a bill basically to put into law. So there in
the middle of drafting it up what we all sat
down and talked about and came up with to kind
of protect because.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
It's it's it gets confusing.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
That allocation is really confusing, even for me that's been
in for it a long time. It's it's really, it's
really confusion because it because what might work here for
me on and over the counter tag could put out
put a put a controlled hunt outfitter out of business

(42:29):
if we don't write it right, you know. So I
won't go into super details about the tag allocations, but basically,
again we don't want to be greedy. And this is
another source. You know, you like people get mad like, oh,
all the outfitters are always taking up all the.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Tags and blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
You know, you hear that a lot from the the
do it yourself or boot hunters or whatever, which you
know they have a right to to. But really, if
you look at it and look at the tags that
are given, and I have the numbers that we're only
using three percent of the tags. Oh, yeah, on those
one hundred and twenty outfitters. You know, that's not a
lot of tags, and that basically keeps us in business.

(43:08):
So basically what we want is, say I get twenty
elk tags allocated to me. I want to make sure
that I have those twenty allocations and I don't have
to put my hunters in.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
For a draw, right, So like I just have those tags.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
And so that's what we're trying to because could you imagine,
like so basically I bet sixty five percent of the
elk hunters I take a repeat guys, right, you know
that I put my heart and soul in and hunted
them hard and killed elk with them and and just
just really just made them feel at home here, you know,
and and treated them good and they've treated me good.

(43:49):
And I'm not gonna be able to take those guys
anymore unless they draw the tag. And a lot of
them were groups of guys. Sure, so you know one
of those guys might you know, they can put in
a group. But if you know one of them just
draws a tag, well, then I used to have four
or five guys come to Campbell.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Now I only have one. It's gonna get really confusing,
and then.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Like when the tag sells, when they go on sell
and everything's gonna get hard. So basically I would have
to go to shows on the you know, to fill
up the rest of my years.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Like I said, a lot of them are repeats.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
But like if this is all a draw now, I'm
looking at like going to a show and saying, Okay,
do you want to hunt with me?

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Y'a, I'll hunt with you. Okay.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
Well, I got to put you in for this drawing,
and let's hope to God you draw it right, and
then once you draw it, I hope you pay me.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah, I changed my mind. I don't right that I
want to get.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Just around the corner and it's gonna just be basically,
to sum it up, it's going to be impossible. It'll
put us out of business. So we've been really watching
that close and we've been to Boise two or three
times on it already, and uh, it's it's it's because
you know, I mean, I've dedicated a lot of years

(45:03):
and and a lot of my time and this is
what I do.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
I mean, so we need allocations.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
And really, if you think about it, outfitters, if you
took away outfitters out of the economy of Idaho.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
It would be it would devastate the economy.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
I mean, like just I'm just a small outfitter, and
I mean the amount of guys I hire, and and
you know the houses and cabins that I build out here,
and you know, the local stores, keeping all my junk running,
going to the Nappa.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Store, all these little places.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
I rent an airbnb from my parents every year to
put elk hunters in.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
It's just it would just be devastating. It would be
just be suicide. But the.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
So basically that's our argue, our fight, you know, is
the economy. So that's kind of what we're throwing at
all the legislators and stuff.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Right Honestly, from my perspective, if you don't have those
tag allocations and it's just it's straight up a draw
for everybody, then you know, maybe maybe people are get

(46:18):
drawn tags that are just your DIY guys versus the
outfitted guys. And I don't really run into outfitters that
much when I'm hunting. I'm not running into guided hunters
when I'm hunting typically, So if I just immediately goes
into my brain like well, that may mean i'm running,
I may encounter more hunters just you're more DIY guys

(46:42):
in hunting spots, you know, then randomly then then somebody
that goes with an outfitter. I'm not saying that the
outfitters and DIY guys don't ever, you know, have crosspaths
or you know, hunt the same spots. But a lot
of times they don't. Sometimes they do, depending on the areas.
If I typically try to avoid those kind of areas myself, Like,

(47:02):
all right, they're outfitting up there, I'm gonna go over
this way because they're probably pounding that pretty good and
i don't want anything to do with that. I'm gonna
go somewhere where I'm by myself, but anyway I could. Yeah,
I can see that opening. Yeah no, that's other you know,
things cascading out of that, you know, you know.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yeah, no, that's a good point.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
And thanks for bringing that up, because yeah, I mean, yeah,
I try to keep a pretty low profile. I don't
want to tick off other you know, do it yourselfers.
I mean, that's the last thing I want to do
is tick anybody off. So we we and and really
an outfitter, an outfitter's got to stay in his area.
So like like, so I might have unit whatever over here,
but I can only hunt an eighth of it, you know,

(47:48):
like I have to stay in my guide.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Area where you as a resident.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
Or even if you were just to do it yourself
boot hunter from out of state.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
You could hunt the whole unit, right, you know.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
So we're not taking neces taken up all this ground,
you know, we're kind of like you said, we're in
certain spots and you don't want to be there anyways,
because we've already got the dust kicked up there.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Yeah, yeah, huh man. That's a lot. It's a lot
there to take in and try to find a resolution for.
So I'm glad you guys are fighting for it and
you know, and and working hard because you know, the
public we don't always see what goes on behind the scenes,
right We just we just see a new change to

(48:30):
seasons or new you know, changes to law or whatever.
And a lot of times we don't get normal, average
everyday sportsmen don't get to see what behind the curtain
of all these other discussions and things that have been
going on. So I always recommend, you know, try to
like if you don't know and want to know more,
to get on the Idaho Fishing Games website or whatever

(48:51):
state you live in, get on their website and find
out where their commission meetings are, get involved, go to
the commission meeting. If you you go to the commission meeting,
you'll be little open your eyes of like, what what's
going on. There's a lot of you know, people trying
to do this, a lot of people trying to do that.
The ones I've been to, man, anti hunter people show up,

(49:11):
you know. And if it's the if it's the annual, big,
big commission meeting where they let people get up and speak,
you got like three minutes to air your grievances to
the fishing game, and man, you got some crazy nutty
wolf people getting up there just saying some crazy shit.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Man.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
And and but other issues too, Other sportsmen have issues
about legitimate stuff. But if you don't even know that
stuff's going on or being talked about, it's kind of
hard to get involved. So but yeah, look at your
local your local states Fishing Game commission meetings, and and
there's always meeting minutes. You say, let's say you can't

(49:47):
make it to the meeting or sit in on a
on their zoom call or whatever. They always have minutes
and a lot of times they're recorded to where you
can read up or or listen to it on your
leisure and you'll it'll open your eyes, like and I
need to get more involved.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yes, that's definitely yes, people get involved. I mean, don't
worry like I didn't know a thing when I started
going to this stuff. You know, you just got to
start somewhere, like you said, show up at one of
those commissioner meetings and just start from there and you'll
get a little more educated as you go. And it's
just it's so important. I used to I used to

(50:23):
be that guy that just I know, when my hunting
season is, I just want to stay low and hunt.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
You know, that's that's what it's all about. But really,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Now I know that you you just because we we've
been growing grew up doing it and and hunting all
this ground and hunt like you can see what was
just up for grabs there. Just recently it sounds like
that's not going to go through. But you know, with
the public lands up for sale, it's like it's so
important that we're always tuned into what's going on. And

(50:57):
because if we're not if we're just laying back all
the time, not showing up, and that's when they'll swoop
in and change something or take something away in a hurry.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
So definitely be involved.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Yeah, that center Mike Lee is, you know, he's spearheading,
spearheading that that stuff that goes on the big beautiful
bill about having the ability to liquidate you know, public lands,
and they and they'll say, oh, it's only this much,
it's only like one point three percent, or it's on
a point three or with some minor minute amount, but

(51:29):
that small percentage of millions of acres is still out
of land. And it sets precedents right once you let
them get their foot in the door. Then they're like, hey,
well hey we got to do this other thing. It's like, well,
you let us do it before. It's just you can't
give them an inch on that kind of thing. You know,
this public land, you get it. Everybody has it seems

(51:51):
like everybody has an agenda in that, in that political world.
And and you know, it shouldn't really matter if whether
you're left or right, or who you vote for, if
you if you got dreadlocks or you got a mohawk.
It didn't matter what. Well, you know, this is the
public lands are for all of us. And yeah, but

(52:11):
but sportsman, and you know, not only is the hunting community,
but you know people on the other side. You know,
I think we just made friends with all the all
the granola eaters, right, that's lack of a better term.
I mean, you know, God bless them.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
It sounds like, you know, they're fighting for the same
thing they've been calling to everybody's been calling their senators.
And if you haven't, if you haven't, if you don't
even know what I'm talking about, look this up and
then call your state representative in every other state and
tell them that you don't want to sell your public
lands and you don't want the government to sell them off.
But that's a whole that's an whole other rebit hole

(52:47):
we won't dive into.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
We could talk forever on that, but yes, it's that's
just I can't believe we're even talking about it. Honestly,
I can't believe that it was even on the table.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Yeah, I mean, it's just so you know, you never
know what kind of agenda they're pushing.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
And and yeah, again, there's a lot of things i'd
like to say, but that's a long story.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Oh yeah right, you know. Yeah. Well, on another another topic,
I've been editing our film. We Bradley and I and
our good buddy Cody Wilson. We went elk hunting last
fall together and we had all these high hopes and
this is gonna be awesome, and man, we hunted our
butts off. It was. It was, it was fun, We

(53:29):
hunted hard. But I've been I've been trying to condense
sixteen days at elk hunting into thirty minutes, and unfortunately, everybody,
you're gonna get to see the like the highlight reel
of the of the hunt, I'm gonna cut that into
the funnest, best, bestest parts of the hunt that we experienced,

(53:49):
and even some of the fun stuff, like some of
the sitting around campfire enjoying conversation and stuff. I I
have to cut most of that out too, you know,
just the little thing that we love and enjoy so much.
But you know, I don't think anybody's going to sit
through three hours of a film, no, But anyway, I'm

(54:09):
working on that. I keep your eyes up. I'm not
sure exactly when that's going to come out. Keep your
eyes up open. But the film is going to be
called uncallable, and I can I don't know if you
or Cody might have came up with that name we
should call it uncallable, or maybe the cameraman Dusty did.
I don't know, but yeah, I'm.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Like uncallable out of the perfect perfect title.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Yeah, and I think we all kind of said that
word at the beginning to Hunt, like, oh, yeah, we
hear these things are uncallable, and yeah, well we won't
we won't spoil it. You probably listened to the podcast
we Bradley and Cody and I did last September in
the field. But yeah, we had we had a lot
of fun. But anyway, watch out for that film coming.

(54:56):
And then our buddy Tyrrell Tyrrell funk he drew a
really good tag in Idaho and sounds like we're going
to get to go get together again and then Hunt
with Tyrell this fall. Yeah, I look forward to that.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
I do too.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
I mean, holy smokes here, I like he said, I'm
driving my wife nuts.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
He's so wound up about that tag. Tyrell.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
He's a talker, that guy. If he ain't talking, he's talking,
he's walking.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
To walmart In town before and I could hear him
clear across the others.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
So I'm like, oh, Tyrell talking away.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Oh man, We're gonna have so much fun.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
That should be a good time. I haven't broke it.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
So I have a group of guys that have been
hunting with me for years. You know, however many there
are archer l hunters. I just love these guys. I mean,
they are hard hunters. Well, there's been a few times
they could the whiskey a little too hard, but but
they're they're just good guys, good blue collar, hard working

(56:07):
guys that that that I've been fortunate enough to get
to know when they come out and spend money with
me and hunt and I just really become good friends
with them. Well, they always come the first week of September,
so I haven't broke it to them that I'm not
going to be here. Yeah, but I have a feeling
they'll probably forgive me. Yeah, So I'll send them with

(56:29):
really good guides. I'll send them with my top guides.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
There you go. Yeah, and it's being good hands and
they know it.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
So yeah, So yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
I think I could sounded like Tyrell needed to be
back by like the sixth.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Did he say that, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Yeah, fifth or six or something. So that'll worked good
with my schedule, and then I'll be able to go
hunt with my son a bit before I head to
the Yukon. So it'd be yea be awesome.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
I bet you're looking forward to the Yukon, aren't.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Yeah. Yeah, I've been watching all sorts of YouTube videos,
like I got to figure out how to judge these moos,
I'm sure. So this is a guided hunt, so I'm
sure the guide will have some good input like, yeah,
that's not a don't shoot that one, that one's not
huge because they all look big, right.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
They do, Yeah, compared to our moose.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah, yeah, they're a giant animal. So I look really
looking forward to that. With old Jason Phelps. I told Jason,
I said, hey, you're gonna have here's the deal. You're
gonna shoot. You're gonna hnt with a bow and I'll
hunt with a rifle and you get you get to
shoot first unless it's too brushy and you can't make
the shot and it's and if it's a really big one,
then I gets He didn't like that idea.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
He didn't huh, well, I probably that.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
I know, right, what a jerk, I know it.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
It's funny, what's wrong with him?

Speaker 3 (57:41):
Yeah, so no, I'm super excited to hear how that goes,
and hopefully you guys are sending me some picks.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Yeah, big huge yukon moose.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah, yeah, me too.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
I should be sure.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
We got twenty days up there, man, twenty days, that's great.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
I was going to ask you how you feel about
losing that September time.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
It hurts. It hurts like it's like, hey, you're gonna
have to cut It's like one of those people that
are stuck. That guy that was stuck in the rock
when he was like a rock climber and he had
to cut his arm off to get climb off the rock.
That's how I feel. I feel like cutting my arm
off to go moose hunting. But it is going to
be a once in a lifetime type of opportunity to

(58:25):
so yeah, I'm good with that. Like, I've always wanted
to kill a moose, and I don't know if i'll
ever draw tag here, so right, yeah, I'm pretty excited.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
Yeah, no, you'll there'll be other Septembers and you've been there, done,
that several times. So I think I'm super excited for
you guys, and I can't wait to I can't Are
you taking a camera guy?

Speaker 1 (58:48):
Yeah, Old Dave Frame is coming with us from some
bear hunts with you one time.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
I think I haven't seen him in a while, but yeah,
he's still with you guys.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Yeah, yep, so David Frame will come film and yeah
it should should be awesome. It should. We'll probably get
rained on and snowed on and everything. I feel like
the whole whole Yukon experience is coming. Well maybe maybe
we even get bluffed charged by a grizzly bear.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
Yeah, definitely be packing.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you can't carry you as a
non resident. We can't take pistols up there.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
So you got the old bear spray on the show.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
So yeah, I guess I'll be carrying a three hundred
PRC for that bear. I'll just let that thing eat.
But uh, or you can't have suppressors. You can't take
a suppressor up there. I don't know if they don't
allow them and up there at all, or maybe it's
just a non resident thing, but you can't take your suppressor, so.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
Huh darn it. Yeah, what's wrong with what's the deal
with that? I mean, those are the best things as
a guide.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
You've been around me enough to know my hearing ain't
the greatest, right, I've been muzzle blasted by clients so
many stinking times that and a lot of it's my
own fault. But you know, in the heat of the moment,
and you got a bull out there, you've been hunting
this guy for five days and you're trying to get
him in elk and there he is, and the guy
can't see it, and you're right there, you know, and

(01:00:15):
you're you're looking through your binoculars and you're and then
all of a sudden he sees it. He just pulls
the trigger. You know, he catches you off guard. And
I've had that happen so many times. And I have
a ringing in my ear that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Never quits, like it's there, it's not going away.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
Wow, and background noise and stuff, and it's really damaged
my hearings. So like the suppressors, the guy with the
suppressor is like the best thing that's ever happened to
me as far as a guide. Just nice and quiet. Yeah, yeah,
And I know there's things I should be doing. I
should be wearing the ear plugs and stuff. But you know,
they make those fancy ear plugs that you can hear

(01:00:50):
and talk with and you're walking in the gravel or
an old logging road or something, they don't work. I mean,
I've there when a gut, when a muzzle break goes
off by me, I'll be wishing I had him in.
But yeah, you know, as far as just hunting, they
kind of suck. But yeah, they pick.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Up all the wrong noises along with you know what
you want to hear.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I guess right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
But those suppressors are awesome. I just got a few
in a few in the metal just the other day.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Oh nice. Yeah, I just got a new nozzler one
I wanted to put on my gun. But your gut
always shoots a little differently with the suppressor, so I don't.
I have a limited amount of AMMO. I need to
have Phelps. Okay, listen, if Phelps is listening to this,
he needs to get load me up some more AMMO.

(01:01:38):
I'm shooting handloads and I'm I'm getting running a little low.
So if I if I side in with the suppressor,
but then I have to take it back off for
this trip, then I'm gonna I will burn up all
my ammos. So I'm just I better. I'm gonna have
to wait till I after my moose hunt to put
my suppressor on.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
So yeah, but it surprises me that it surprises me
how hard.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
It is to get one.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
First of all, like how much paperwork, and oh, I
consume it took me forever, and plus I I missed
an answer or answered it wrong on accidentally, and then
it threw it into this ordeal and it took me
another month to get you know. Oh yeah, I mean
they're harder to get than a gun from what I seen.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Oh yeah, yeah definitely.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
But anyways, yeah, hopefully that'll get easier because like I said,
they're sure nice on the ears.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Yeah. Did you make a what do you call that
still of having an individual and did you do a trust.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
On the paper.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Where your suppressor? Yeah? So if you do a trust,
then you can list other people on your trust, like
you list Amy or Coop or whoever. Probably not Coop
since he's not eighteen, but you can always update it.
But if you if you make a trust, then you
can get those suppressors on that trust. That way, people
who are listed on the trust, if they're in possession

(01:02:59):
of them, then they don't get in trouble. But let's
say you want to loan that. Let's say Amy wanted
to take your gun to have the suppressor, and you
weren't hunt, you weren't home, and she went by herself
with that suppressor and had that in her in her possession,
she could be in trouble because her name's not on
that suppressor, just yours.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Yeah, no, I I did not know that, and say,
I'm learning here. I wish I would have done that,
but I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Yeah, but some of the some of those places like
this ain't This ain't a plug for Silence or Central
or anybody, but Silence are Central. They'll do all that
paperwork for you. So I my first suppressor I got.
I got one of the meat eater ones, and they
take care of all that paper. You just you you
tell them all that, they'll say, all right, what about
all this stuff? And you fill in all the information

(01:03:49):
and then they'll come and they'll they'll actually contact you
and make sure that everything's right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
And then yeah, and that's who I bought that. I
will say They were pretty good. Okay, that's who I
bought my from. I actually got the meat eater, that
fat short one for thirty and then I got a
twenty two and a couple of thirty cows.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
But anyways, they were pretty good. But I was back.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
East at at a Great American outdoor show and I'm
sitting there and a guy next to me, a show
buddy next to me, He's like, hey, forty percent off
suppressors for guides.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Holy cow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
So I went up there and I and they kind
of helped me there. You know, they had a big
booth set up the gun thing, and they kind of
helped me with the paperwork and then basically they sent
me a ton of emails and links to click on
and stuff later to finish off.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
It wasn't bad.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
I think the biggest thing is I accidentally either I
can't remember, I didn't answer a question or I answered
it wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
I just was in a.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
Hurry, you know, right, and not really delayed everything and
messed up their system and I had.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
To redo everything and you know, leave it to me.

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
So that's but other than that silence or since there, Yeah,
I mean I would recommend them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
They were they were pretty good to work for. Yeah,
or work or go through you know?

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Yep, well I think, uh yeah, we we just hit
an hour. So uh can you tell people where they
can find you if they wanted to look you up?

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
So I'm on Instagram Idaho White Toe Guides. I have
a website that's up and going right now. And I
actually have dust In your camera guy working on a
new website for me. Oh awesome, so that should be
done here soon. I gotta send them a bunch of pictures.
I got to work on that. But but yeah, I
have a website. And then also the Northern Northern Idaho

(01:05:43):
Hound Association has a website up and going, and you
you can become a member on there. Okay, okay, if
you're interested in being a member, just go on the website.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
And you don't have to be a hound hunter, like,
you don't have to own dogs to be a member.
It's just if you want to support hound hunting and
continue and you know, support that tradition, you could be
a member. Is that right?

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
Absolutely? Anybody can be a member. You don't have to
be from Idaho. O. Yeah, and I can tell you know,
it's it's for all the right reasons. You know, it's
it's I think, just off the top of my head,
I think it's like fifty bucks to become a member
for a year or there is a lifetime one on
their family one.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
You just have to get on there and look.

Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
But yeah, anybody can join, And yeah, you don't have
to be a hound hunter. I mean think a uh,
just think of it, just think as think about it.
If you're an elk hunter, you know how many lions
that the hound guy's harvest, you know that say, you know,
help save your deer and elk in a way.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
And you know, obviously we.

Speaker 3 (01:06:44):
Like I talked earlier, we got to be careful on
how many we kill. But there's got to be a
fine line, you know, and we're willing to work and
listen to other people and come up with good solutions
on how the season should be and where they should
be at and how you know, where the game should
be at. So yeah, definitely don't have to be a
hound hunter to join. We'd welcome anybody awesome. And if

(01:07:07):
you're interested in you know, helping with the field trials
and stuff that we're going to have, you can or
any other questions you might have just message me, probably
on Instagram would be the easiest place to message me.
And I'm not the greatest of getting right back to you,
but I will get back to you eventually.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Okay, Yeah, awesome, awesome, well man, thanks for coming on
the podcast on short notice, and yeah, look forward to
catching up some more of this fall with you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
Absolutely, I'm looking forward to that and thanks a lot
for having me Derek.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
Yep.