Ep. 310: An Eight Second Encounter

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
bug bitten and in my case, underwear. Listening Hunt podcast,
you can't predict anything presented by First Light, creating proven
versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear.
For every Hunt, First Light, go farther, stay longer. All right, everybody,

(00:36):
we've got a great episode for you today. We're joined
right now by Yanni cal Seth Jester, Seth Night here,
Seth Night here. Good in the special guests, Uh, John Miller. Now,
we're gonna play you a titilating little clip here just

(00:56):
to get utitilated. I used it twice in one sentence
to the late tittilating clip to get you titilated. Tittilate
and Phil, we came down this path right here, saw
and two cubs cans rolling across tax I put a

(01:16):
three in wind meg in the bear's back on top.
He shoots a pistol round ten. Mill comes to me.
It starts making this way after what six rounds in
it it does there. That was the voice of our guest,
John Miller, and engineer who's interesting for two reasons. One

(01:37):
he's involved in this is just this hunting season. Right,
it was saved a friend of his who was getting
mauled by a bear hunting Wyoming. Um, and here's the
only reason you're interesting your friends with my friend from
growing up, Matt Mallard. Yeah, it's a weird coincidence. He
he he's probably he's in a weird spot when he

(01:58):
gets asked what he does. Why is that? Because I
hate talking about the brother while he's not here. If
you're engineering a part and you need to know how
it's going to hold up over thousands of hours of
use and abuse. He makes equipment didn't mimics abuse like

(02:22):
automotive aerospace makes equipment that mimics the abuse. So you
can put the part in a room, turn the abuser
machine on and vibrated at certain frequencies, and then watch
what will happen. Right, that's correct. That's actually how we
know each other. We work in the same industry, vibration technologies.

(02:42):
We're My company is a little more general. But yes,
whose company is better? Oh? Of course mine? Ill I'll
you know, I always like Matt Mallard a lot growing up.
And um, you know how later in life you look
back on dudes from growing up and you sort of
have realizations about them that you didn't at the time
used to like a nice guy, I'm telling you, And
I can't say this about myself, and I can't say

(03:04):
to what most people if I review, I don't think
that that man ever uttered a negative word about anybody.
And to say that coming out of junior high and
high school, that's impressive. Just an honorable guy, certainly. UM

(03:27):
he's the one who introduced us, right he is. Shout out,
ma'am Millard. If you want to find out what some
of your ship's gonna do and it vibrates real bad,
call Matt. He'll build a machine for you. Do you
want to say what company you work for to plug it? D?
Why not? What is it? Did you go to the
same school mat went to? I did not, So did

(03:47):
you study engineering? I studied in South Dakota State my
undergrad and then UH. I got my graduate degree in
University of Minnesota UM. But the company I worked for
is UH do we soft so we make test equipment
for all sorts of UM R and D, specifically in
the automotive, airspace and UH defense, power and energy type markets.

(04:09):
Did you when you went to graduate school as you
get a master's degree or a PhD. I got a
master's degree. Yeah. Usually if you get the PhD, you
kind of end up there forever and him to be
calling you Dr Miller right now. Okay, before we get
back to this, uh real interesting hunting story. UM, I
got a couple things to cover off on once Chester. No,
sess not here right now, but I was gonna there's

(04:30):
something I want to like. Oh, call call, you know
what call set up? Is he available? Yeah? He's available?
Should I throw him on speaker phone? Guys want to
tell him something? All right? This is about Seth upcoming
wedding Chester, Seth. Can you hear me? Steve? You know

(04:52):
how I got to become I need to become a
minister to to do your wedding. Yeah, I was reading
up on that. It's real easy. Um. I can't remember
the name of the church, but it's like some church
out of Seattle. I'll become ordained. It takes about three seconds.
But you know what I was reading in Montana? You

(05:12):
can actually get because you know how you and Chester
have this problem where you can't do the walleye tournament.
Well we can't do that one? You can? You can?
You Montana is one of two states where you can
have a proxy stand in for you at your wedding.
I'm serious. In Montana you can have a proxy stand

(05:37):
in for you at I could do you and Chester
can fish. I can like officiate and stand proxy. Wow,
or do you just have cold be there because it's
like cal stand proxy. I wouldn't be bouncing back and
forth a whole bunch. Yeah, you just let me know
where to put my hands. I'll do the rest. Hey, Steve,

(05:57):
why don't you tell me this like three weeks but
I actually got married? It is Oh, you got married
in Montana three ds ago. You could have done it
by proxy. I could have went fishing. So Seth, you're
back on um. And this is just a shot out
because I know that as we try to court a
boat a boat sponsor for you guys, a lot of

(06:17):
boat sponsors might be like, yeah, well they're not fishing
all the tournaments because what he's got to go to
that wedding. Now, I think boat sponsors are going to
be perked right up knowing that you, in fact, will
be able to hit all tournaments perfect man. And I'm
sure Kelsey will have no problem with this whatsoever. Yeah,
ask her about who she wants to proxy. Um, alright,

(06:37):
for you, I'll do it. I don't okay, Ill said
he'll do it. Whatever, figure it out. That's when you
know you work with a good group of guys, is
when they'll stand in for you at your wedding. It's
problem solving. It's a perk here. It's a perk when
you come into get employment here. So good luck, rest
easy now on the Walleye tournament. Everything's in shape, awesome, Well,

(06:59):
thank you guys, really appreciate it. No problem, man, my
pleasure later seth Uh. Oh, here's the thing. So our
season ten on Netflix, which launched in two chunks February second,
part two. A bunch more episodes coming up February second. Uh.
Spear fishing, I mean Caligro spear fishing with Kimmy Werner.

(07:25):
Um that that was one of my favorites. Man, That
was a very turned out to be a very good episode.
Go Hunt in Hawaii. Uh, shooting bows at goats. Feral
goats looks a lot like a goat you'd find in
your farm barnyard. But they're they're just running around? Were
they too? Are they tough to kill? What else is
in there. It's just there's just so many of them.

(07:49):
Any individual one is but when like any and if
I said, like, oh go get that one out there,
you might find that to be extraordinarily difficult. But it's
like once bump, that one just turned slightly to the right,
and here comes another three, you know, I mean, it's
just like it's just mean we at all do they smell?

(08:10):
Yet each individual one seems to be slightly varying degrees
of wariness. There's just so many, and they're not all
doing the same thing, and they're not hip to your
effective range. So like they have great eyesight, they can
see you, but they also are aware of how close

(08:32):
other dangerous things get to them. And I believe the
most dangerous thing out there is a vehicle going sixty
and then one of the things like you imagine a
herd out They all are sort of operating on the
same information, meaning like if you went into an area,
if you go into an area and like you know,

(08:53):
spooked the bijeebas out of like a pack of cows,
it's not like the ones over fifty. It's a way
they're probably gonna go leave too, but they're not on
that program, and some might be like grazing north, but
they're sort of passing a group that's grazing south. It

(09:15):
just it doesn't It's just it's there are so many
of them. Um. I think we even talked about this,
I think now and then. Didn't they in the past
cal do a thing and drove a bunch of them
into the ocean? This sounds horrible and despicable, but if
you were to get an idea of how many, you

(09:38):
quickly see how many goats there are out there and
how and if somebody were to say, like, do you
think these could out eat the cattle on the ground,
then you're the wheels would start turning as to why
that's an issue. And I've heard this from a number
of different sources, so I think in some regards it
has to be true where a means of culling would

(10:04):
be to get a bunch of folks together and do
a big push goat jump they call it, and get
them down to the cliffs above the sea and try
to push the goats into the sea. I gotta point
out too, that there's a lot of people pounding it
out on public ground in Hawaii, and it's probably not
the case. But we're on a private ranch where they

(10:24):
want to get rid of goats. But it's not like
you can't just pull over and start, you know, go on,
there's a real it's because I asked Jimmy about this
a bunch because down on the Captain Cook site, UM,
that state park there, they um had to cull some
goats and they had a lottery for people to just
come pick up a goat to take to take home,

(10:46):
just to get a dead goat and bring it home
or a live goat live or dad, I believe um.
And I was like, is anybody going to participate in this?
And she was like, yeah, everybody's about like the easiest
goat meat. But for some reason, it's like if somebody's
gonna go head out into the tall jungle grass with

(11:06):
their archery equipment, they don't want to go after a goat.
They want to go after a sheep or access to her.
You know, wherever they are depending hunting farm animals. But
pretty much exceptionally take those places in Hawaii and there's
place and why were there hunting? Um, you can hunt

(11:28):
feral cattle freezer. There were so many of them while
you guys were out hunting. I was just seeing how
close I could sneak up to him. Yeah, I'm just
for funzies. Yeah. So Netflix February two, Oh Grant pointed
out too, it's also Groundhog Day that day, but they're

(11:50):
changing the national holiday and meeting or Season ten Part
two day. They're gonna make a Bill Murray movie called that.
Um here's another thing. Man struck me like a diamond bullet. Uh,
next year's calendar and and you know, and we sold
a mountain of funked up old tree stands calendars. Picture

(12:11):
this funked up old taxidermy. That's Part two. A lot
of material there. We already got the website, we already
got the email address set up. So here's what. Here's
what we're not doing, much to Karne's chagrin, Krin is
into and it's just like it's just karn is into
the type of tax dremy where people make like, like, uh,

(12:34):
Harry Potter type stuff. Yea. Like when I say, if
I hear the word taxing, which is the thing that
comes to my mind, which is like getting your buck
stuffed so you hang it onto your wall. You're hunting lodge,
what comes to Krin's mind is a griffin. It's just

(12:55):
like the you know, uh panda with a pheas his head.
I don't know, it's just like where her mind. That's her.
This is not this calendar. Maybe we'll give in the
back on the back page, we can give a page
with a bunch of things to satisfy cringe needs, and
she can just leave hers open to that page all year.
It'll be a bunch of these things people make, like

(13:16):
a bunch of things people make to ourn't animals. But
we're looking for like pictures of legitimate like the worst
tax dury on the planet. I have a private museum
that I've told you about in Idaho that we can
go do a photo shoot and that it is like
just pulling up right now. Don't send in the ones
that are already circulating the internet. No, these need to

(13:38):
be original, they can't be a favorite. Sets sent one
in the idea it was like some guy had it
up was like the worst coyote you've ever seen. The
caption on Instagram with sir, your Kyle is ready for
pick up. Hey, you know there's a really good one
where we're going to be next week. That's like I
desperately want to go, Yeah, we have the worst mountain
lion mount you've ever seen, um bad. And then yeah,

(14:03):
that's the crane that's right up Cran's alley. I feel
like that's off that Christmas movie, Ye little kids Christmas movie.
So the emails, Oh you know who's got an go
Matt Cook those weasels he's got on his fireplace, mantle
contenders Navy. Here's what you might need to do, though,
I think like, send what you got, and what might

(14:24):
happen is if it's if it's appropriate. When we make
our selections, we might either if possible, we might and
we'll pay for all this. We might box, we might
have you like we'll pay for shipping, but we might
have you package your stuff to send us to photograph.
But just start making your submissions now, because that's got

(14:44):
nothing to do. Um. You can send them to fucked
Up Old Taxidermy at the meat eater dot com, or
if you're a kid and you're not allowed to swear yet,
send it to f you oh at the mediator dot com.

(15:05):
So message to my kids. If you submit, you better
submit under f U O T at the meat eater
dot com and not the other version and we will
start digging through. But your worst old like I'm talking
Grandpa's old deer with the newspaper print sticking out of
his ear, bad taxidermy great calendar, a lot of audience blowback, Brodie,

(15:28):
you better speak to this. Uh, my opinion hasn't changed
based on the blowback. So Brodie doesn't even remember saying
because that's how much how how I just don't think
it's important. But obviously some people really love their Golden Retrievers.
And Brody said they're the dumbest dogs in the world,
and he got he might as well have said that

(15:50):
he like, Um, I don't know, like beat up mother Teresa, yep, exactly. Anyway, Um,
people really love their Golden Retrievers. They're not and and
and they're not the dumbest dogs ever, according to all
these people that wrote into us. Um. Here's a quote
here from a listener named Pat who's a pheasant hunter,

(16:13):
and he ends with an invite to go pheasant hunting. Yeah,
I might take him up on it. At the end
of that trip he takes his spot. You gotta be
like that dog really is dumb Um, that really is
the dumbest dog I've ever seen. Uh So for the correction,
he says, my dog's name is Tucker, and he's a
four year old Golden Retriever. He is not only a

(16:34):
phenomenal hunting dog, he's also the best family dog I
have ever had, which you know, family dog, I don't.
I don't disagree with that. I gotta see the dog
hunt first though. Um. He is with me seven and
also enjoys the podcast. He's a damn smart lab the podcast. Um.
He can have his dumb moments like all animals, but

(16:55):
when it comes to work, Golden Retrievers are not the
dumbest animal in the world. Yeah, invited out of the
North Dakota, which isn't terribly far away. Who wasn't trying
to fend you fat Pat or any other Golden retriever
Well Krin said some people were likely actually legitimately mad.
People get worked up about dogs, and you got to

(17:15):
keep in mind when you're an angry Golden Retriever owner,
you have hours and hours of brushing birds out of
their hair with you this stuff. Here's a mad email
we got. Okay, but here's the thing. The guy's got
a tone of like the guy's got points he's got

(17:36):
legitimate points. This guy is mad about our and we've
see here's the thing Americ like. You know, I heard
a really funny joke one time. Um, A TV executive
once said to me, I think he's the guy from
History Channel. Yeah, guy from History Channel once said to me.

(17:57):
The only other country our audiences in arrested in is Alaska.
But Europe is a big old place. Okay, Europe is
a big old place full. You know, how are you
countries in Europe? Bunch, it's continent. They got them packed
in way tighter. US Americans don't know the answer to that.

(18:19):
But they pack in countries like we pack in states.
And they all got their own little governments, cute little garments,
all their free this and free that somewhere care uh
So we're always talking about what goes on in Europe
as though it's like a place and our credit. We
have mused, we have mused about finding a sort of

(18:43):
pan European hunting authority who would come in and be like,
here's the lay of the land, the same way someone
might come in and do a seminar on the differences
in the way the fifty States, the fifty U s
States the differences in how they manage, like from management approaches. Right,
you got like this, you can actually still you know,

(19:04):
set a bear trap in Maine. You know, you can
ventce your deer in in Texas and like walks through
Like here's how they're all different, but here's all they're
the same. Different. We've mused about this. Yanni is actually
going to Latvia to do an investigative dig deep on
lavian hunting. So we're trying to get educated, well at

(19:26):
least know how one of the hunting in Europe goes down. Okay,
so letter goes like this, Hey, Steve, you can start
making that noise you use to describe people who hears
something on your podcast, then rite to you to say
you're full of ship that annoying. No, no, no, I
think it's not that. It's not no, no, no no, it's this.

(19:51):
So you'd have to replace the ends with d s
because in this case, you are full of ship, he says,
and you're see this is Here's the thing is, I
got this email a long time ago and I just
didn't get to it and then it was resent to me.
So this sent is resent to me yesterday, just like
a heads up, like a follow up on its anniverse.

(20:12):
It was the anniversary of the original scent. But it's
all fair stuff, you said. In your recent podcast covering
the flooding in South Dakota and the challenges that presents
to sort out the legal issues of access, both you
and Callahan blurted out righteous intonation at the concept of
landowners setting bag limits for fish in the water they
own quote own. We're talking about these floods in North

(20:37):
Dakota and South Dakota that like you think of a
flood like goes up and comes back down, but these
are floods that stayed. So in this old podcast episode,
maybe maybe you can find it and tell us what
it was called. That was one where we had a
guy on that blew was trying to jump up out
of his layout B line. Oh yeah, and blew two

(20:57):
of his toes off, and you think helew the edges off,
but he blew the middle toes out. Yeah, great guy.
It happened so fast he still shot at the goose.
But during shooting at the goose he realized what had
happened and didn't know if he even hit the goose.
He like blew his toes out, shot at the geese

(21:18):
then was like, oh, just blew my toes out. I
think said his foot fell hot or something. Let me
laugh at the brother. Well he was laughing about it,
but his foot looks funny. I think we put it
on your Instagram. Was this hunting the anthroposyne? Yes, So anyways,

(21:38):
you got farmers who or whatever. You have landowners whose
land is now under a lake, and so like state
managed fish swim over your land and it's covered in water,
and and these are lakes that used to exist, but
they've they've taken over farm So there's there's this dispute
like can a farmer go? And what's going to really

(21:59):
confuse was we also just talked about the same thing
the other day in North Dakota, but I'm talking about
we talked about it a year ago in South Dakota,
UM where landowners were like putting out strings of Booey's
to sort of like hold portions of the lake that
sat over their property as their own thing. And it's
just a lot of big piston match. Anyway, in this conversation,
apparently calnt I blurted out with righteous, righteous indignation, I'm

(22:23):
back to quoting at the concept of landowners setting bag
limits for fishing the water they own, of course, being
totally this quote from the writer the person writing in
of course being totally clueless. You boys compared that to
the European system, where landowners set bag limits. He says,
not that's not true, and he says it's something you've

(22:44):
done before. I hope this email prevents you from doing
it again. Goes on to say, I try to give
this information to Calahan, but he just blew it off.
My take on you is that you're more of a
fact based person who does not blow information off just
because it contradicts your finally held beliefs. He attached some
articles which John he's gonna read up on a new

(23:05):
book reports down the road here when he gets a minute.
He goes on to mention a fella that that we're
all familiar with. And I've met Chris Eberhardt, who tragically
passed away quite young, um, not too long ago, but
the guy right and then says, you know Chris Eberhart.
I discussed the problem of ill informed American hunting celebrities
with him, and he made some interesting observations. First off,

(23:29):
it's pretty typical of you and every other American to
dismiss all of Europe as an elitist hunting and fishing
club controlled by wealthy landowners. Wrong on count one. Second,
that game management is a private affair with landowners making myriad,
potentially harmful decisions all across the landscape. Wrong, continuing to

(23:52):
quote it's all dictated by state biologists and failure to
follow their management plan will result in fines. And finally,
Chris points out that the American model is great and
it's phenomenal at increasing populations, However, it sucks at controlling populations.
The European model excels at that. Because private landowners are

(24:12):
not allowed to make hunting off limits or restrict the
take in hopes of growing trophies, it is easy to
manage populations. That is a problem we are facing in
many places in the US where private non hunting land
as a haven for overpopulation. Too quick counterpoints. I feel
a little bit like the person, like this individual is

(24:34):
sort of committing the same mistake that we're committing, where
he's generalizing in a way that I'm sure there are
probably exceptions. I don't think that all of Europe is
by mandate open to hunting. I bet you how many
countries they got over there. They count in half of Russia.
M I'm not sure if they're uh so. The other

(25:00):
to Shay is that in my life, um, in my
adult life, I've really come to rethink what people mean
when they say overpopulated wildlife. I had a kid right
in m This is not quoting. I had a kid
right in the ore day. He's a high schooler and
he wanted to interview me for a school project he's doing.
And he's doing a thing about how you should be
able to hunt bears in his state. You can't currently

(25:21):
hunt bears in the state. And he's like, maybe he
wants to make a documentary shown that you should be
able to hunt bears because they'll become overpopulated. And I don't.
I've never been in a place where I thought there
was too many bears, Like I can't think I've ever
think of there's too many bears. New Jersey might be
headed that way. I don't know him, right, but yeah,

(25:43):
but you also have never been like a farmer in
have you populated bear country where bears are raiding your
It's it's yeah, I think that When I was Yeah,
you're right, I was gonna say it's a very it's
a very subjective thing, right, it's a very SUBJECTI thing.
When I'm sitting in my dear stand, I seldom of
thinking there's too many dear it's a suggest. It's like
a farmer probably think there's way too many. A vehicle

(26:06):
insurance person probably think there's too many. Someone in the
state that this kid is talking about, probably and he
has an orchard, or he's a b person that has
what's that called an apiary m what's the beekeeper called?
That's that's correct, an apiarist. I don't know beekeeper. He
probably think there's too many bears. But a bear hunter
who just drew a bear tag, why not think there's
too many bears? I'm saying subjective. Um, read the articles.

(26:33):
This is going back and to say, even if you
don't want to provide your listeners with the truth, you'll
be informed enough to make too. Maybe stop feeding them
a pile of horse ship cut the crap. Quit being
an idiot. Oh, I forgot a little bit a buttlepart.
European hunters are no less passionate and committed to conservation

(26:54):
than are we Americans. You do them a horrible disservice
and insult them when you slander their system without knowing
shit about it. That's fair, like, it's fair. It's fair point,
and I do think he makes it. Also, there's a
good point he makes in there also. I can read
here and quote that in Germany over six the population

(27:15):
eats while the game because it is available commercially. He asks,
what do you do? What do you think that does
to encourage the general population to approve of hunting. My
personal experience is that in Germany the populace looks forward
with relish to the availability of wild as they call venison. Nope,

(27:36):
not into that, not into it. Not into it. I'll
never give. I should say i'll never give because I
like to stay open to information. But I I know,
I understand all the arguments how you should be able
to sell venison in the areas where there's like a
wide consensus the deer overpopulated. But I'm not into it.
I don't think it's a good idea. Well, I think
you would think it was a good idea if it
meant that we would get your offspring and your afstrings

(27:58):
aspring would get to continue hunting in our country. If
that was the only way. If God came down to
me and said, the only way your children will be
able to hunt, as if people can sell venice in
New Jersey, I'd have it would be a different conversation
until that point. Yeah, that's why I said I'm open
to change in my mind, because he might. I always
think of wild mushrooms, just mushroom sitting there on a hillside,

(28:22):
mine its own business until somebody puts a price tag
on it, and then it said, God damn battle ground
of people being assholes to each other in parking lots,
packing guns around, all sorts of nasty unts, including giant piles,

(28:44):
are human feces you mean at the morel spots, at
the morrel spots, or the commercial guys come in and okay,
you're like, oh, kind of ceased to be a mushroom
once there was a price tag on it. And that's
a thing that can't run away, get in front of
other people. It's just plugged right into the ground. You've

(29:08):
also got the public land private land thing here that
like isn't an issue there, you know what I mean,
Like market hunting on public land, you know what I'm
saying here, versus like you know, I understand all the
arguments against it. I just think that it's also a
very interesting argument, something that should make you think that
if we don't have six approval of hunting, do we? Yeah,

(29:31):
it's much higher in the US until you started asking specifics,
it's higher than six. You call people. You can find
all these studies online, all these serveys online. But it
only works until you get specific. If you call people
and say, do you support the regulated do you support
like regulated hunting for food? Right? I don't know. I

(29:52):
don't think you gotta put that way. Then you get
I don't know. It's it's higher now than it wasn't
the nineties. The minute you say something like do you
support um hunting grizzly bears with traps? Trapping grizzly bears?
The word trophy in there, Yeah, but any like it
would be like if you went instead like do you
support hunting game birds with the use of dogs, it'll

(30:15):
go down like any detail puts it down. But the
general idea of like regulated hunting is acceptable until you
put a face to it. If you had a little
picture of a little fawn and you're like, do you
support hunting this? Right, you'd probably have a low score. Yeah.

(30:36):
I mean, one thing you gotta keep in mind too,
it's a big difference between the US and and and
Europe is cultural. Right, So you have in the US,
we all share a common language and we have slight
cultural differences. But in Europe, I mean it's it's almost, um,
it's almost like you know, different ends of the world
where you have different languages, you have different cultures, you
have different mannerisms, and a lot of that goes and

(30:58):
plays into um, you know what the the I guess hunting. Yeah,
like less likely to find some well traveled person who
has a detailed, nuanced understanding of all the different states
game management approaches because you can go to a conference
and hear all their biologists talking in English. Yeah. And
I think that even the environment is quite a bit different.

(31:21):
So what you're gonna find in like the old Slavic
region versus the Scandinavian region versus Spain. You know, they're
very different, Um, just language wise, weather wise, check out,
though it's not as different as the north slope of

(31:42):
the Brooks Range is from the Buyou country of Louisiana.
You're You're absolutely right. And I think the big big
is that is that there's you know, it's tough to
have somebody that's an expert in all those languages as
well to do that, So might have to get three
or four people. Karn's gonna figure it out. Sure, there's

(32:06):
a lot of people who have traveled across Europe and
hunted a lot of different places. Do you know who
I bet would know all this stuff? Man, Um, Craig Boddington,
That dude is hunted, he's probably, he's probably he's hounty
countries I don't even know about, never heard of. That

(32:28):
might be interesting. He's a gun writer, Craig real, real,
nice fella. He's military to write. Colonel Colonel Craig Boddington
put that new notes, Krim put that new notes and
smoke it. A badger found a bunch of Roman treasure
in Spain? You like that segue? John's um. The guy

(32:52):
was looking at a badger burrow. You know about this
count Let's be up here here. Guy was looking at
a badger burrow and like some gold coins are laying
out where he'd been digging around. They blame it on
the unsea. They blame it on the very severe weather
that northern Spain had as though this particularly harsh winter
caused this badger to work extra hard and insert its

(33:16):
legs and the even smaller cracks than normal next to
his den, and this hard winner drove him to discover
this cash of coins. It's a nice hypothesis to not
once someone went and checked it out. Two nine coins
dating back to what between the third and fifth centuries?
A d uh way back when in my youth, when

(33:39):
I was guiding antelope points outside of win At, Montana,
there was a badger, maybe a family of badgers that
had inhabited the win At Cemetery, and I mean just
had no respect for the folks buried out there at

(34:01):
the win At Cemetery. He's like, hey, you would you
respect where my ancestors are buried? But not. Uh. Many
times over the course of several years, I witnessed firsthand
people shooting into the women went at cemetery trying to
protect the bones of their grandfather's. Yeah, and every year, man,
you'd see those tombstones and and uh, things just get

(34:26):
like more and more Caddie want us as everything was
getting undermined in there see a badger of carrying around
an old flask or something like that. Carrying around granny
shoulder blade. Yeah, one of the ranch hands on one
of the places that we knew had had passed away.
And you know, so we uh were real, real familiar

(34:49):
with the date of internment and uh gotta gotta witness
the progression of badger activity out there off of off
of a known date. Yeah. The this this article about
the this article about the badge you finding those coins

(35:09):
ends with a very interesting superlative because they wanted to
close it with a superlative. So it's it's highly qualified.
This was the largest trove of Roman coins found in
a cave in the north of the country on Tuesday.
I want to know what happened at the bad I

(35:31):
want to know how big a stash of Roman coins
were found in the central There's some wealthy match out
there that they're not talking about. Uh, okay, do this
little uh do your report. This is not a call
to action, but this is a ridiculous I think this
is ridiculous. Oh yeah, so this past fall, a muzzle

(35:58):
loader hunter in Colorado shot and fatally wounded a archery
hunter killed. Yeah, well, fatally killed would be redundantouldn't it.
I was gonna say that I stopped myself. I heard
you stop yourself. I just wanted people to know that
he was dead. Well all right, so he uh yeah,

(36:24):
nothing to laugh about anyways. That has spurred people talking
about how to make um the UH coinciding muzzleloader and
archery season in Colorado safer. Um. Both of these groups
have over the years since they've started having these seasons,
which is sometimes in the seventies, when they've had a

(36:46):
coinciding UH muzzloader season and an archery season. Right, Muzlowos
have a little farther range. Um, you know, it's a rifle.
They're both primitive, so they both both archery and mussloders
are primitive, so they've both requested to hunt during the
run to make the hunt easier. And so basically the
musloder hunters get a nine day season roughly the third

(37:07):
week right rodeo September, and archery season goes basically the
whole month of September, give or take the dates a
little bit, but um, you have a nine day period
where it overlaps. To this point. Archie hunters just get
to go in full camo. Musloder hunters have to wear
just like rifle hunters in Colorado five square inches of

(37:28):
daylight orange. It's a lot um so uh. Since uh
that year in the nineteen seventies, there has been three
uh instances where hunters have been or archie hunter has
been shot by muzzloader hunters. Two of them were fatal

(37:51):
um but one a decade, no one more than a
decade to five. We gotta get just like a person
in here from around it's like, oh we got one. Yeah,
it would be like you know, point seven five or
point eight? Oh sorry I met one point five decades yeah,

(38:11):
um yeah, man, we should do a lot of math
stuff with this guy. Uh. So they're proposing now that
during that nine day season that archery hunters, to make
it safer, that during that nine day coinciding season, that
the archer hunters would also be required to wear the

(38:32):
five square inches. Oh they're so, they're throwing down on
the full freaking five five. Yeah. I read up. I
read up, and it is a full five hondo. Um,
but only while muzzle order season is in. Uh is
in and only on public land? Do you know how
long that muzzle latter season is? Not only public land only?

(38:57):
While most loaders let you report it's over because I'm
gona tell you what I would do. Ah, they have
they have other options that are getting thrown out there,
other alternatives like separating the regular archery and muzzleloader seasons, um,
leaving it the same. Ah. But yeah, it's getting actually

(39:17):
voted on today as we're as we're discussing this. Mm hmm.
What would you do, Steve? If I was the Emperor
of Colorado, I would and I probably wouldn't get it
done immediately. I would scrap all this talk. I'd scrap
all the orange talk for archery hunters, and I would
put my best people. Um, I'll put my best people

(39:42):
on bringing our this is the Omber of Colorado. I'd
be like, I want you guys to call everybody all
the other states that have elk archery hunts and muzzleloader hunts,
and I want you to come to me with proposal
that separates the hunts so that when it's archery season, like,

(40:03):
the archery season stays as a archery rut hunt. And
we're gonna make like everybody else, We're gonna make Um,
We're gonna figure out what that like allocation is and
impacts on her dynamics and wintering range and all that garbage,
like a very well calculated thing. We're going to figure
out how to have archery during the rut. We're gonna

(40:25):
run our firearms seasons. Then we're gonna run the muzzloader
stuff later, and the muzzleloader is gonna be like on
its own late season. It's not going to be You're
just gonna kick the muzzlers right on out of September. Hey,
this is coming from a guy that's hunted muzzleloader in
Colorado during archery season. Okay, that's if I was the
Emperor of Colorado, I would say, I want to buy
twenty twenty three season. I want this all separated. You

(40:50):
would have to be the emperor to get that ship passed.
I think in this hypothetical it's only valuable to talk
about like like it's just like if you're talking about
what you would do. I'm just something like if I, yeah,
if I was not the emperor, that that won't be
the answer. I'm saying, like, if someone came to me

(41:11):
with the problem, that's what I would say, because it's
it's it's a proven formula all around the damn country
it is, but the only place where you've got muzzloader
guys and archery guys. Why I can await at the
same time. But you've you're all about traditional use patterns,
and that's a traditional use. I'm not taking it away.
I'm not taking it away. You're taking that rut hunt
away from buzzleloader hunter. Yes I am, which is traditional

(41:34):
in Colorado. Okay, but not it's twenty five years. I'm
not stripping a privilege. I'm finding a way. Like, what,
what's your big I mean, I'm just what's the big
qualm with wearing some orange during archery season? I think
I know the answer, but like, what what you know?

(41:57):
What you're here's the thing I'm here's if I was
the Emperor, my plan? Uh isn't I'm not responding. I
should clarify this. I'm not responding to the orange part.
The orange part. I would say, there's an inherent risk
of going outside with with weapons and wild animals and stuff,
and like, yes, we've had a couple of fatalities over
twenty five years. Um, we've had a lot more people

(42:18):
die from exposure. It's like it's inherently risky. You have
a weapon, you're dealing with animals up close, people shoot
elk and then the elk stands up and kills them.
That happened last year. It's like, I like, we can't
like there is risk involved in life. We're not gonna
legislate to We're not gonna like create legislation to prevent

(42:42):
a fatality every eight years among a user group that
is wilfully going to engage in an activity. That's the
first thing I would say if I was an emperor,
and I'd say, but I do think it's goofy. Separate
them because I just think it's a little bit goofy.
And I've done it and I'll do it again, but

(43:04):
I think it's a little goofy. That's all I was
just interested in. You know, the state Idaho, all of
their firearm seasons require zero orange. It's like if you
want to wear it, great. Um. When I was hunting
Idaho all the time, Uh, I always have like a
blaze orange cap with me. Um, and I'll wear it

(43:26):
all the time or wear it some of the time,
just depending on what's going on. Um. You know all
these stupid pictures of people when they pack out bucks
that for whatever reason, the fad now is to put
the antler straight up the way you look like a
buck coming You know that way you look like a
buck coming through the woods season right? Uh, like a
buck back and through the woods. I don't do that,

(43:49):
but I always throw a chunk of Blaze Orange up
on top of my pack during those circumstances. UM. I
just want to say that the interesting thing that pertains
to this kind of station is UM. I was like, boy,
Idaho must not have a lot of hunting fatalities, because
it rarely comes up that they need to start requiring

(44:11):
blaze orange for hunting seasons. UM. But certainly in comparison
to the Colorado statistics that Johannes rattled off, Idaho's on
par with hunting related UH shootings and fatal shootings. Are they? Are?
They ahead of the curve it went when calibrated for

(44:33):
percentages since nineteen eighty, which was the um as is
for a lot of places the start of the hunter
education program. UM, the average is one point nine fatalities.
Since Let's see, since the inception of Idaho's hunter Education program,

(44:56):
hunting seasons have averaged one point nine fatality the's and
five point eight non fatal shootings per per season. Once
someone who's real good on the internet. Find uh find
that for Michigan. I know that the Hunter's Safety program
cause fatalities to plummet. Yeah, I think Dirkin wrote an

(45:17):
article about that on our website. You know what's funny
about Colorado is they don't require orange for small game
and bird hunting, like you're using a gun, and yeah,
I wouldn't. You don't need it here for bird hunting.
But I wouldn't gripe if they if all of a
sudden you had to wear an orange hat bird hunt,
I wouldn't have I wouldn't have a fit. But it's
just weird how their nitpicking this situation and in the
regulations because obviously we're all reading them all the time.

(45:41):
It's amazing how much print each state that doesn't require
orange for upland bird hunting, how much print they take
up in the rags strongly encouraging to wear. And they
could have been quicker just to make it that you
head to wear. It would just be quicker. Yeah, you know,
it's such a part of upland bird culture anyway, It's like, yeah,

(46:04):
like they build it into bird vests and stuff. You know,
it's gotta be related to why they don't do. It's
got to be like a mechanism to free up wardens
to do like more important warden work, I imagine than
just chasing around people with not enough orange on. In Michigan,
they felt that the remember being a kid and people

(46:26):
saying that the reason they had on a hunters orange
laws is sold the game wardens could find you quicker.
Maybe you couldn't hide from game wardens. Um you'd be like, well,
I thought it was because people shoot each other a lot, right,
and you know the bad guys aren't taking those vests off. Yeah,
it's like, ah, I'm gonna give up poach now they

(46:46):
passed this hunter sword law. My whole program sunk. Do
you want to hear how many people have died in
Michigan real quick? Please? Uh? Thirty eight hunting related injuries
eighteen deaths between need put that to our engineer, Well,
we really need to know how many hunters on each
It's that's just seasons, you know what I mean? Is

(47:07):
there quite a bit more? And then the other other
side too, is that's probably a lot more wooded hunting.
So are you shooting that is like a lot of
that people shooting through brush obviously that's unacceptable, but much
higher density of hunters. Hey has an engineer? Have you
been in? Uh? Where are they? No? I haven't do him. Well,
we took him down to put the tiki bar sign

(47:28):
up there, and I haven't put it back up, son
of a bitch. Phil. You might want wander over later
on and take a look at that. Oh sure, the
odds of the turkeyo walk pass if you don't do
anything I like that in the woods. Um, thank you, Johnnie.
Well we'll get back, Like I said, Durkin wrote a
whole thing about this, all right, So ready we can't

(48:03):
go on all damn day. Man, do do do do
do do do do do do do do do do
do do Friends and neighbors coming to you. I'll be good, Okay,
agree to disagree on that. Should have gone with it,
never give up. Well, yeah, there's the Uh we shall
fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the seas.

(48:25):
That one. So this fights about Yellowstone. Um back to
the wolf desk, fighting the hot springs. Uh. We've been
following this off and on for I don't know how long,
a few months now, right, this northern Yellowstone wolf situation
where uh, wolves that live at Den in the park

(48:48):
are wandering past the northern border of Yellowstone onto public
land in in Montana and getting shot. And I think
it was a few months ago the first one got
shot and they've been whittling him away. One of the
first things I want to tackle is do they wander? Well? Sure,
I mean that, that's the whole thing, like this, this

(49:08):
whole situation wandering, That's the whole thing is this situation
is based on the premise that these are somehow quote
yellow Stones wolves they got lost, um, which is that's
a really good point. He might not think that he
wandered anywhere, and if you asked him where he lived,
he might point to Montana. Yeah, he goes, No. When

(49:29):
I'm over in Yellos, I'm occasionally wander over there. Yeah,
but I just happened to get my picture taken a
lot more when I'm over that way, which lends people
to think that, Yeah, let's assume that these wolves spend
the majority of their time in Yellowstone, they den there,
they raise their pups there, whatever, I think that's probably

(49:49):
the case. Um. Anyway, I think the last time we
checked in, like three of these wolves had been killed.
Now we're up to twenty and uh, the Phantom Lake
pack has now considered eliminated after most are all of
its members were killed h since October UM, so an

(50:12):
entire pack basically is considered eliminated from Yellowstone part of
the park. Is the calling it a setback species long
term viability. Uh, which that's a debated point. With a
setback of research, I have a hard time behind me. Yeah,
I don't. I don't think so. Um these will like
Montana relaxed some regulations or changed some regulations just north

(50:36):
of the park to allow more wolves to be harvested
in that that region of Montana. Um, the park superintendent
is not happy about it. Some wolf advocates are not
happy about it, and uh kind of button heads. Park
superintendent called cam Shaley has raised concerns kind of calling

(50:59):
out Montana Governor Gen Forte to to shut things down, like,
you know, just end the season now g and Forte
is not having that, and U basically says, you know,
this is we're gonna manage wolves in our state, how
we're going to manage them. And the season is continuing.
So that's kind of where we're at. Remember that quote

(51:21):
Yellowstone is two point two million acres of paradise surrounded
by Reality's um you know, like I understand if an
entire pack has been you know, essentially eliminated, that you know,
there's some concerns there maybe, But um, I just I

(51:44):
don't I feel like this as usual, This wolf thing
is definitely being portrayed in the media without a real
deep dive into things, into the wildlife management. It's just
like twenty wolves killed, twenty Yellowstone wolves. They you're never
gonna hear here and referred to it and half probably
had names. Sure, they had numbers, for sure, callers and numbers,

(52:08):
and well, I mean who did the population level quote?
Like that's that, I'll eat my hat if that's biologist
who said that, Like, oh that there's only ninety four
wolves in Yellowstone? Know that the taking these wolves out
is going to have a population level effect on these things?
What's the main headline? Sure? How many puffs are going

(52:29):
to be born this spring? Right? Yeah? I mean it's
just not and when we're talking we want to talk
about a population, talk about a population if you want
to talk about um individuals within a population. But the
other thing it's not mentioned is like wolves go to
war with each other all the time, and like one
wolf will go pack will go wipe out another, and

(52:50):
you know, this vacuum of space is created where there
are no wolves for a while, and then it's filled
back up. You know. I think although these are human,
fatality is you're probably gonna run into the same the
same situation, like some wolves are gonna occupy that territory
at some point. Yeah. That was my main takeaway from
Diane boys podcast with us was that, like that population

(53:13):
fluctuates by every year, so if it truly is ninety four,
then when all those pulps are born, it'll bump up
to h Come on quick, math. Yeah. She said that
that at pupping season the population is usually down, then
it bounces doubles, and then it probably goes, you know

(53:33):
back down. Yeah. If they're so mad or worried about
all these wolves getting you know, killed, then they should
stop the other packs from killing the other wolves because
that's what kills wolves as Also, that's what she said
that the number the lead caused of death and Yellowstone
wolves as Yellowstone wolves, Well, I don't even think we'd

(53:53):
be hearing about it if these weren't Yellowstone wolves. No,
I don't. I don't think you would. The two primary
things that I remain interested in, Like, the main interesting
points to me are that we're still the yell the
greater yellostone ecosystem, a term that I want to think
of a replacement for, um, the g y E. We're

(54:17):
still above the objective that everyone agreed to in the
early nineties as what recovery would look like. So I'm trying.
I'm kind of like, I have a hard time understanding
why did that understanding of a recovery objective? Like what
has happened to make that so wrong? Yeah? Why is

(54:38):
that recovery objective now dismissed? The other part that I
think it's interesting just to just to watch from the sidelines,
I guess I'm not on the sidelines. I'm I'm in
it is um to what degree is y also national
park or any national park gonna dictate wildlife management across
its borders, Which is like a really interesting fight, and

(54:59):
it has implications for bison, has implications for predators, Like
you have a national park and it has its own
rules and it has its supporters and visitors. To what
degree does that rule bleed beyond those borders? With these
buffer zones and other things we've toyed with. It's just
a really interesting, like look at wildlife law and it's
it's this fed versus state thing that's building up, like

(55:20):
you're gonna see it with grizzlies too. Yeah, that's like
there's an undertone of that, right, there's the undertone of
local management, federal oversight, Washington d C. Telling you how
to live and that As soon as the debate was
happening with the introduction of wolves into Yellowstone, there was
also the yeah, but what happens when they go out
of Yellowstone? Like the same breath, same page. There was

(55:45):
never a thought that, oh, no, these are Yellowstone wolves,
therefore they will stay in Yellowstone and that's going to
be that. I'll tell you what happens when they go
out of Yellowstone. They go down to Colorado and kill
the first cattle and first beef cow in seventy years.
Great segue, bread hit it. Yeah, that was way better

(56:09):
that thing about those badgers. Um in a in a
place Walden, Colorado, where Jannest and I have spent some time.
Um a few weeks back. First livestock predation by wolves
confirmed live stock predation by wolves in seventy years just happened.
They should put a roadside attraction sign there, like you

(56:32):
go down the road and says like you know, a
historic side ahead. And they got one those wooden signs
of someone chiseled into words. But here's the first. This
is where the first UH commins seventy years is killed
by wolf in Colorado. Yeah, and it gets juice here
because the I assume wolves from the same pack just

(56:53):
killed a ranch dog, a border Collie named Buster. May
he rest in peace. Remember New Mexico and that woman's
um dog got caught in a snare and the dog
they made a law. Yep, that was like, what the
hell's that dog's name? Pucci. Let's say it's like Pukam's
anti trapping law. The anti trapping law became like Pugam's law. Yep.

(57:17):
I want there's gonna be an anti wolf law called
Buster's law. I don't know. This is for a Buster.
My buddy, his bird dog just got caught in kyote
trap in Pennsylvania. To get it out, he did, yeah,
and he was fired up and wanted to get something
done about it. The game was, do you want to
get some traps? The game. They wanted to see that

(57:37):
guy punished somehow. It's like, dude, like, was the guy
doing anything illegal? No, there's a name on the trap.
It was legally placed. Game. Warden was like, sorry, I
can't do anything. Keep Dog on Leach buddy. Now, rud,
who's going to remake the set? What's that is a foothold? Yeah?
Dog was fine. Yeah, who's gonna remake the set? Very

(58:00):
some scent proof gloves and remake this set? But moving on.
Good job Brodie, everybody, Brodie Anderson, thanks speaking speaking speaking
on gloves, if you had any chance to try out those, Yeah,
we're good. Yeah, I really like them. I'm worried about durability,

(58:20):
but so far so Yeah. I wear uh for cold weather,
wet stuff, setting decoys, pulling shrimp pots and whatnot. Like
an insulated atlet. Wherever the hell that the atlas Vinyl
Love it's called Vinyl Love. You know, like seven eight bucks.
I feel like I still like to say the three
four bucks, but not three four bucks. They have that
that insulated glove on the inside. Yeah, um well no,

(58:43):
not the one that comes out, but I have both
so that the kind of comes out, which is far
superior because when you're the other one's wet. I mean
they're wet for like three years, especially up at the shack. Yeah,
you get the kind of where the insulation doesn't come out,
you get that soaked. Uh took mom up to the
fish shack. Steve noticed that she had the kind where

(59:04):
the insulation stays on the inside, and you made that
comment to her, and uh, she gripped on the inside
with her fingernails, I'm guessing, pulled the liners out, cut
a little lying around them. So now they're removable, and
fix that some bit. Yeah, my whole life. She made

(59:24):
it removable. That's a thirty seconds out the removable and
now it was removable liners. So but dexterity is poor. Um.
And then Yanni discovered a new kind word. Man, you
could do brain surgery and those things. Yeah, I'm bummed.
I bought four pairs. One pair was for me, and

(59:48):
uh my wife was like, oh, but you know, my
your father in law would probably also like to have
a set of those gloves. So I can't even don't
even have a set. All my buddies and family are
wearing it. What Showa tamriy s smile to eighty two Yeah,
it's like an insulated rubber. When you find online, you'll

(01:00:10):
think you're looking at those vinyl Atlas gloves. Yeah, but
I said, you could do brain surgery and you can
count coins in it. But um uh, I'm a little
worried that I don't. I don't know. I was tipped
off by product designer about him, who said that a
lot of uh, like ice climbing mountaineer folks that do

(01:00:30):
a lot of climbing in the winter and ropes and whatnot,
that they were using that glove. They're probably good for
ice fishing too. You can get a pack of those
Atlas gloves twelve or forty bucks on him. That's how
I buy them. Yeah, that's how I buy them. Put
him Like Steve said, you can actually do things with these,
but I buy them in packs. And you know what
I do when I leave people, I think this is wasteful.

(01:00:52):
When I leave my fish shack, the last thing I
do on my way out is burn my pair. So
I'm never tempted to wear him again. It's like guarantee
their full of holes. They get, they get funk. I
used always trying to keep them nice. Now I'm like,
once they get a hole on them. I just get
rid of them. Uh watch this transition. You know how
elk you know how wolves eat out sometimes. Yeah, Well,

(01:01:15):
they got an elk hunt in Virginia first whatever mm hmm.
Virginia is gonna have its first elk draw. They're opening
up an elk hunt lottery. This year. They did their
this is a quick turnaround. They did their reintroduction of
elk into Virginia between two thousand and twelve and two
thousand fourteen. February one, application period will open for the

(01:01:38):
inaugural hunt. They got bulls running around already that they're
They got three bulls running around nine pounds three the hunt.
So this will be the hunt for the three season now.
The hunt will be October eight of this year, October four,

(01:02:00):
five antlered tags. Application period opens February one, closes March thirty.
It's probably residents only, right, I don't know. I was
gonna ask if it was open and on. Great news
for Virginia, man. Pretty soon those all those eastern elk
populations are gonna start connecting with each other. It'll be

(01:02:23):
cool and that happens. I got a hot tip for
you if you want some easy pickings. Draw the first year. Yeah,
I think that you will get a close standing still shot,
I imagine, so uh quick note, we covered real heavily
and uh what was the name of that episode kran

(01:02:43):
get out of my airspace? What was it called? No?
The last thing we do with Dave Wilms, all up
in your airspace, all up in your airspace, in all
up in your airspace. We covered this corner crossing issue
where um, some guys did a corner jump on a
corner that had been Uh they had to use a

(01:03:06):
ladder to get over obstructions that the landowner who owned
the private chunks of the corner had put up. And
a lawyer wrote into us, He's got a picture of
the corner. I'm not gonna tell what the sign says,
but it's a no trespassing sign and a chain strung up.
And a lawyer wrote in saying that why is the

(01:03:28):
landowner not being cited for having his obstruction chains in
the public airspace? So he's violating the same airspace argument
that he's arguing. He's saying, when you step from when
you do a corner hop, your body is crossing my airspace.

(01:03:52):
Yet his obstructions, his chains are in public airspace is problem.
Your argument for has to acknowledge the argument against right,
Like if you believe in evil, thereby you believe in good. Yeah. Yeah,
So he's like, I don't want your stuff over my airspace,

(01:04:14):
so to prevent that, I will put my stuff over
your airspace. Man, we took this to Dave Willis even
has some Latin that I don't understand, but he said, um,
it sure seems he doesn't know. He hasn't looked into it.
He's just he said, taking it like so he's like
cursory inspection. He points out that there is a thing

(01:04:35):
called the Unlawful Enclosures Act guarantees the right of access
to all public lands UM, which dates back to the
eighteen which backs dates back to five. He goes on
to say, I don't I haven't done enough research know
how it's pertinent here, but there is a thing here,
And he said it it's an interesting idea to look into.

(01:04:56):
Um And well, we'll cover updates on that case again
sometime soon. Okay, want to speed to the Minnesota deal.
I like it because of the guy bleaches his hair.
That's a sure tip off. You know how in these
articles they always like to point out if the purp
has a like a prior rap sheet that was real
prominent in this that UM. I can't remember if it

(01:05:20):
was like domestic abuse or like substance abuse. Anyway, the
guy apparently was a bad egg, which isn't supposed to matter.
But a Minnesota deer farmer had a Minnesota deer farm.
He had c w D infected animals, and what was
he doing with him? He was dumping them on public
ground right outside his enclosure. And the what was the

(01:05:44):
DNR found, UM evidently like evidence of prions in the
area where these deer were being dumped, And so the
deer farm got shut down. They said, you gotta put
some up ten ft high bearrier around this to keep
other deer and humans out of the area. He refused

(01:06:05):
to do so, UH got charged with several different things. UM.
Whereas it Beltram County pronounce where it lays out what
he got charged with. UM broke the law in four ways,
moving quarantine deer off his farm, dumping their carcasses on
public land, failing to test all his worms dead deer

(01:06:29):
for c w D, and failing to maintain accurate herd records.
Included unreported dear death, so they nailed him. Uh, he
refused to put up the barrier, so the state of
Minnesota did at the cost of a thousand dollars. And uh,

(01:06:51):
they're trying to get this guy to pay for it.
It's probably not gonna happen. I don't know, maybe it will.
But anyway, if you found a guy passed out behind
a street club in Las Vegas and rolled him over exactly, Um, anyway,
he's he's his argument again there. The argument against his

(01:07:13):
argument is that this is government overreach. It's not the
kind of barrier they put up around other places. It's
it's overstepping what needs to be done. You know, I'd argue,
not enough is being done, but uh, I was gonna
say better not let Doug durn get ahold of this guy.
He sent it to us. But they don't say how

(01:07:33):
big this guy is. I guarantee would take this guy
from Richland County. UM. A good point here is c
w D represents a major economic threat. Deer hunting represents
a five hundred million dollar industry in Minnesota. And what
does the captive servant industry represent economically? And I would

(01:07:54):
think the captains servant industry would say this guy is
a poor representation of captains. It would be like if
if someone yeah, this can't be taken because if if
some guy had poached like thirty deer, okay, would we
be sitting here being like just goes to show them hunters.
It's like, yeah, I don't wanna this is not a

(01:08:15):
I don't think this can be taken as as like
that's how they are. But it is just like an
extraordinarily kind of like shitty thing to do. Yeah, to
take a bunch of a bunch of infected deer then
in haulm off off your land and dump them on
private land and then act like it's not your problem
when they want, I'm sorry, you take infected deer off

(01:08:38):
your place, dump on public land and then be that
it's not my problem when they want to fence it off.
So more so, do you aren't running around on your
little homemade toxic site, which I mean this is. This
is the entire argument wrapped up in a nutshell. It's
like this guy read the history of the conflict between
the captive servant industry, the UH proposed regulation history of Okay, well,

(01:09:05):
we need stricter testing, we want a double barrier so
wild individuals cannot come in contact with captive or farmed individuals.
And he's like, uh, huh, got it, got it? It
was a there was a dozen deer more that they Yeah, well,

(01:09:27):
I think at one last point that's important here is uh,
this is being watched closely by hunters, officials, lawmakers, and
the commercial deer farm industry because what this what ultimately
deer farmers end up being responsible for clean up? Wise
could like this could have applications on that in the future.

(01:09:49):
I can see that. Yeah, I can see that this
could wind up the chunker grounds eleven acres as we
say that, So you just lost eleven acres of public land. Well,
his is enclosure was eleven acres m this spot they're
they're fencing all right. Yeah, you know people in that

(01:10:10):
area just lost not a catastrophic loss, but they lost
eleven acres of public ground, which is now behind a
fence to keep people out. Yeah, you're bumbing if you
had a tree standing at eleven acres with a nice
deer trail walking underneath it. All right, John Miller, you ready,
First thing I gotta say, did you know that John
Miller from Minnesota? Yeah, that's how you could use that

(01:10:34):
as John from Minnesota got a baritack. John Miller, you
gotta be hard to look up. I bet your old
girlfriend's ears can't even begin to try to find you
on on on Facebook, John Miller. How many does think
John Miller running around? I'm actually the sixth. So my
dad's John Miller and his dad's John Miller, and you

(01:10:54):
know about six of them that you're related to at least. Yeah,
hard gutta fun. Okay, how does how does the story begin? Um? So?
I think the first thing I gotta start with is,
you know, kind of um building up, you know, the
situation from you know, the actual grizzly attack. Right, Yeah,
you know what when I say how it's the beginning?
What were you doing? So we're out out con um

(01:11:17):
and so it's something you do a bit like you
like to get around. You do a lot of hunting,
so yeah, I do. I do a lot of traveling
for work, and uh, I like to experience a lot
of different unique types of hunts and fishing and things
like that. And this is my first big elkhonic trip.
Actually I've I've had a cow tag before, but this
is my first bull tag, and um, so we went

(01:11:39):
out for a gun season. I'm more of an archery guy,
like the archery hunt, but um, you know, it takes
a lot more time. And so this time we drew
general tags and uh we went for the rifles season
and you were in what mountain range? There? The astroca
or some people call him a zorkis, Um, how do
you pronounce them? Well, there's two different things, um, the

(01:12:01):
Absorker arrange, but the Absorkies is something different. Right when
people say I thought it was a city at one
point in time, but then I've heard people use it,
there is a there is a little town over there. Yeah, okay,
well anyway, um, so we went out and season started

(01:12:22):
on October one. So in October one, one of the
guys in the group shot a bull and uh so
we quartered that out. One of the guys in your party, correct, Yeah,
So there were six of us in camp and one
of them shot a bull on October one, and so
we quartered out, brought all the meat back to camp,
hung it, and uh, but left kind of the I

(01:12:43):
guess the gut pile and carcass, if you will, deboned
and as one does, as one does, Um, I'll just
throw that in there. Some people didn't think that was
it would be a lot to pack. Um. So there
was a carcass sky in that area that night. I
went out on October one in and to a different
area couple miles south and didn't see anything. And with

(01:13:04):
horses are on ft um. We had horses there in
camp and we'd kind of used them, but you know,
if you got close to something, obviously you tie up
the horses and go off on foot. But um, so
let's just fast forward to day two. UM. So October two. UM,
you know that on that first day we had seen
a herd of elk beyond where that first bowl was

(01:13:24):
killed that got spooked after after that, UM, so we
went back to see if you know, that herb was
still there. And so we actually we went up to
this this really nice knob where we could see this
whole valley and it's kind of a burned area. So
just kind of describing it for the listeners. You know,
it's really open, really and you could see quite a
long ways. UM. The part of the area that was

(01:13:45):
um that had vegetation was all burned off, and then
there was a really barren ridge that kind of went
down and while we were glassing, we saw a herd
elk at maybe yards to our north and and we
were sitting there and we're no hurry. They were all
bedded down. We could see the carcass from yesterday. Um,
and so we we even talked about it. We looked

(01:14:05):
at it and it's how many yards from you I
would say at that time about five Um, so it's
it's a decent bit. But and and you know, we
could see a hundred two hundred yards all around that carcass,
and and it looked like it hadn't been touched or
moved or drug around or anything like that. And obviously
see elk quite a ways out, and so your your
focus kind of switches to, you know, to the elk.

(01:14:28):
And so we started to make a play on these elk,
um me and another guy and um, so you know,
we started walking down, walking down this ridgeline that there
was a trail that kind of it was cutting to
the side of this hill and to probably ten ten
fifteen yards to our to our right. Um, it was
almost like a cliff that dropped into this real big valley.

(01:14:50):
And uh, you know, we're walking towards the elk at
yards and we're taking our time, stopping kind of glassing
to our left because that's where we can see everything
is often this burn vegetation, and you know, we're just
looking for we don't want to spook anything to our
herd or anything like that. Taking our time. And I
would say probably on that we would walk about a
hundred yards, stop glass a little bit, you know, taking

(01:15:11):
our time, and you got a blunt to the right,
You've got sort of it rolls over a blind spot
but then drops off sharp. Yeah, and and you know
we've been over there and looked at um kind of
over that that ledge and it really you would not
expect anything, you know, it's just it's just I would say,
six hundred feet kind of down into this big valley

(01:15:32):
and you know, there's just there's really not much there. Um, so,
are you going towards the gut pile? We are, but
we're probably we're probably gonna stay the closest we would
have gone on that on that trail would probably about
a hundred yards, you know, but we're we are headed
in that general vicinity. And uh so, I would say,
in our third stop. But you've already seen the gut

(01:15:54):
pile this. We've seen it and everything around it. Yeah,
and it's just it's not disturbed. Yeah, so you're kind
of your guards down little bit, you know. And uh
so we stopped maybe the second or third time, just
to glass to our left, and I just remember hearing
it was more like a squeal than anything, your brody squeal.
Let's let's hear your best squeal. It was like that

(01:16:20):
a little bit more aggressive than that. Ma, just can
you can? I don't even to embarrass you, but I
just like, yeah, I knew you're gonna ask me. Um,
let's let's do like a like do like a similar
to similar to like almost what you think like a
wart hog or something we do, you know, yeah, kind

(01:16:40):
of who did that? Um? Yeah? And so and so
I'm I'm literally looking and both of us, both of
us are looking through our binoculars to our left, you know,
into the burn, and you hear the when you hear
the noise, which is effectively over our right shoulder. So
so we look over our right shoulder and there is

(01:17:02):
a surly bear at it's ten a fifteen yards, I
mean it's close, and it is running full speed ahead,
and and there's two cubs trailer and coming from the
direction of the gup pilor like as far as you know,
like not related to the gut pose. So well, we
can come back to that, but over the cliff effectively,
so to our right. She came up out of that stuff,

(01:17:25):
not out of the stuff I meant really off the
other edge is a rock cliff that you would you
would struggle to walk up without ropes. It's like a
ridge line right skyline. It's a ridge line. She's coming
from that stuff. She's coming from that ridge on the
other side of that ridge. And you know, I would say,

(01:17:45):
I would say, so, so let let me kind of
describe the I guess the situation here. I'm standing with
my binoculars looking to my left, look over the right,
over to the right, and there's the silence two cubs.
And you know, the first thing, you know, the first
thing I would love to say, The first thing went
through my mind was like, let's fight. You know that
that is not what happened, you know, is how do
we get out of this? Right? So I took a

(01:18:07):
couple of steps back and I watched that that sou
basically um kind of redirect redirect her her trajectory and
you know it started. It went for the other guy
and ahead of you. He was ahead, he was ahead
of me. Um. And I may have seen it, seen
her first because I kind of had a better vantage
point from looking over my shoulder and whatnot. And so

(01:18:30):
you know, I kind of described that as almost like
a national geographic film of like watching a bear attack,
like a clueless animal or something. It was just real graceful,
just real fast, and like her mind was made up
before we saw her that she was coming to eat
and um. And so you know, I've listened some of

(01:18:51):
your podcast and you talk about your big mistakes. I'm
gonna talk about three of my big mistakes right here.
So I have a have a I have a cannabaar spray.
I also have a rifle. Um, I do not have
a side and we can talk about that in a second.
But um, you, hare's only so much gear guy I
can take, but in my rifle. So I'm kind of
a meticulous guy, right. I like to keep my gear

(01:19:12):
really nice. And you know, I've kind of changed my
mind since this incident, but you don't want it nice anymore. Well,
I had a scope cover on, which is a little absurd, right.
So I had a scope cover on and UM, I
had UM. I had bullets in the magazine, but not
in the chamber in my scope as people do, yes,

(01:19:34):
as people do. UM. And I had my scope set
to it wasn't max. I think it was at ten power.
Now I do think you're dumb. The first two I'm like,
I could see it. I could see it. But that's inexcusable.
That is excusable. But I'm not saying that from a
bear persuctive. I'm saying that for like no doubt, no doubt. Um.
And And the other thing that's have you been the

(01:19:55):
guy who killed the elk the prior day? Then I'd
be like, sure, I get it, you're sure long shot
never adjusted it. The other thing is, you know I
kind of got into, um, you know, some some long
range stuff. So I really you guys probably totally arguing
the here. I like the first focal plant scopes, UM,

(01:20:15):
nobody uses them from hunting for really like for hunter.
UM use I guess you correct me if I'm wrong,
But do you have do you use the first vocals?
I've had them, but no, not not on my hunting guns. No,
Because the big complaint there is obviously like you know,
your cross hairs are real fine when you're zoomed way
out and whatnot, and so um, anyway, so I had
the first focal plant scope scope. That's what you're saying

(01:20:37):
is as you dial the scope, the cross hairs get
thicker and thinner. Correct, like the cross hairs magnify out,
magnify it. And what's neat about it is like you're
you know, your Christmas tree below is always correct regardless
of what power you're on, right, And so it's great
if you're making five, but not I think you can
have Yeah, I should say that because I have. You

(01:20:57):
can have those that are extremes, and you can have
those that it always stays pretty nice. I'm not sure
you don't they you can get them where it's like
very fine threads right or where it's sort of like
uh like a usable thickness no matter where you are,

(01:21:20):
where you can still find it against a dark object. Sure,
but I think we're getting hung up. Yeah, um, well
just one last comment there. If you have illuminated, it
really helps. But anyway, um, there wasn't time to throw
that on. But so anyway, I've got some issues here.
So within I would say, let's kind of run down

(01:21:40):
the timeline here. I have no idea there's a bear.
Looking through binoculars, I see a bear, and then within
I would say, within a probably a second, maybe a
second and a half, that bear is eating the individual
in front of me. Um, it's on top, just going
to town. And I actually can't see describe what a

(01:22:02):
grizzly bear eating your buddy looks like. Well, um, so
there's so. I would say. When it was a couple
maybe ten feet away from him is when I started
scrambling to get a rifle. So I missed. I missed
the the event where it smoked him, like you know J. J.
Watt would like, you'd expect a linebacker just to blindside somebody.

(01:22:24):
That's really about what happened. Um. And from my vantage
point at this time, I can't see a human at all.
I can see just a bear and I can't see
the head, but I can see the neck muscles like
it's devouring, right, So I can see like they're both

(01:22:45):
looking away from me effectively so that the bears. I
can see the bears rear and I can't see its head.
Is your partner on his belly around his back, you know,
tough dude, great, great reaction to everything. He actually got
on his back, and what was going on at the
time was he had stuck his left arm out trying

(01:23:06):
to draw his side arm, which is in a shoulder holter.
But the bear, it immediately just grabbed his hand. And
so from from my perspective, I can't see any of that.
I could just see a bear and I know my
you know, my buddies underneath him, and so that's that's
what I see. So I remember a couple like very

(01:23:34):
cognitive decisions going through my head right The first one
is how do we get away? The second one is,
you know, we're not getting away? This is this is
happening right now. And so I I grabbed the rifle,
chambered around, threw the cover off, and brought it up,
you know, to my cheek, and and uh, surprisingly, I
remember like immediately finding the bear, you know, like you

(01:23:56):
would think the bear and only the bear, you know.
I think I must have been having like two eyes
open or something. It's I seemed incredibly confident where I
was aiming at that time, you know, especially incredibly confident.
And I remember thinking to myself, like, well, I can't
shoot here, which is where I would like to shoot,
because I'm shooting you know, three D three hundred wind

(01:24:19):
mag twitter and eighty five grain bullet at six yards
ten yards and it's probably coming out the other side, right,
so you don't want to you know, I didn't want
to shoot there. And so what actually went through my
head was, you know, if if I just shoot, the
barrel probably gets booked and run off, which is well,
we can get in that later. But so I remember
just aiming where I thought kind of the vitals were,

(01:24:40):
and I was like, well, I can't shoot here, so
I just brought it up to kind of the higher
part of its back. That's what I was kind of
trying to explain video where I had an adrenaline running,
but so I kind of brought it up higher on
the back and just squeezed and she went off, and
that that bear immediately let up turn earned and started

(01:25:01):
charging me, and and I guess I would describe it
as like, you know, the the film kind of changed, right,
So at first it was this now this beautiful national
geographic film of a bear kind of going going in
for a kill, and then all of a sudden, it
was like the Revenant where the bears angry, really angry,
and so um, so the bear immediately starts letting up,

(01:25:23):
which actually allows um, you know, the other guy to
to to draw his side arm on his left hand,
draw his side arm with his right and kind of
get up while while discharging around, which was awesome. And
I remember thinking to myself after the shot, Um, you know,

(01:25:46):
I really hope that you know that the individuals live
on the other side. And so I remember kind of
looking around the bear and he was standing up and
you know, like victory, right, and immediately followed by oh shit,
now hold on when he's getting up he said, he
discharged a shot too. He also did, Yes, so the

(01:26:07):
bears between you guys, consider your location as you were
of his location. Um, I think for sure. Honestly, he
kept his wits real quite quite well. And he's got
a ten millimeter pistol, you said, correct, correct, you know, Um,
the sample size is very small. But there was a

(01:26:27):
statistic floating around after these guys that just sort of
meta analysis of all these bear encounters, and it was
in context of spray versus pistols, And I do you
guys remember this that pent of the time a firearm
is discharged during a bear attack, it hits a person. Geez,
it was a lot. That's crazy. I can think of

(01:26:48):
like multiple stories of things just in the last few
years of that happening. Well, I don't know, but like
I said, man, it's like, how big is this saying?
You know, I don't know. I don't know about I
remember that was just that was out there floating around. Um. So,
so back to the story. So the bears now charging
me another you know, he discharged the one round and

(01:27:10):
then I remember trying. Um, I basically took two steps back,
and you know, actually after the incident, I listened to
your guys podcast about you diving out of the way,
Steve and and um who is the other individual, Alex
maybe from Alex Messenger, the guy, the canoe guy. He
also out of the way, Like you guys are crazy.

(01:27:32):
My my philosophy was get on my back. So I
dove to my back and I had my rifle basically
kind of a front of my neck, and I stuck out.
You know, I brought my foot up and I my
philosophy was kind of a hail Mary, I'm gonna kick
it in the face. I'm gonna kicking this out. There's
no time to rack another round, no, I mean and
and actually, UM, I think subconsciously I tried because like

(01:27:58):
my my hand got jammed under my bolt which was out.
So I had pulled the bolt out and hadn't even
really been able to drive another round in. And so
I'm on my back and the bears coming, jaw open, snapping,
and you know, it gets to that last step and
I kick and I just kind of mess and I

(01:28:19):
hit something, you know, but I miss, I don't really
hit anything solid, right, and um, and the bear now
is all of a sudden kind of quartering away and
you know, trying, trying almost I don't get away or
circle around or or something. But something happened, right, So
so the other digital follows the bear, you know, it

(01:28:40):
gets um gets quite close. And when the bears kind
of circling around or or making its way away, UM,
he's looking at his his hand, which his thumb is
quite quite mangled. UM. And and I see his pistol,
and so I go and grab that pistol. And I'm
thinking to myself, I'm not doing around two of this, UM,

(01:29:01):
and so I put three more UM pop pop pop
and uh and a real quick yeah. And the bear
is not that far away when you're in the video, correct,
And at that time the cubs were actually um and
I kind of left that out. The cubs almost were
near me almost the whole time. And so I am
I'm kind of finishing off the bear with the cubs
running past me to go to that south um, and

(01:29:26):
the bear kind of was the what was the age
class on the cubs? Um, the year cubs last year?
You know, it's this year's cubs and they were real
small um and so yeah, so um, effectively, you know,
five rounds are fired, the situation is neutralized, and now
it's time to kind of attend the medical situation because

(01:29:48):
that's obviously the as. So the bear has been shot twice,
it runs, you shoot a cup more times and then
it does like piles up like dead or and dead
or like piles up like and then rolls round for
a long time. Um. There was no like, you know,
like a death moan. People talk about death moans of bears.
It really didn't do that. Um. So so just to
kind of run through it, you know in fast you know,

(01:30:10):
in fast motion, so maybe one or two seconds before
the bear is on top of the other other individuals.
The bear is shot, you know, probably half a second second. UM,
well on top Um then immediately charges me. You can
imagine how long that took. Maybe half a second or
a second. And then it's trying to get away. The
three other shots are fired. You know, I grabbed the pistol,

(01:30:31):
fire three other shots, and the whole event I would
say six to eight seconds from from not knowing there's
a bear to firing the last round thinking to myself
that did it. And and I would say the last
round it kind of just buckled, you know what I mean.
It just you know when you hit something that you're like, okay,

(01:30:52):
that hurt, you know. Um. And so so then the
cubs go and they go and hang out on on
that sell and uh. And so then we're kind of
addressing the situation. And so UM, I go through my
pack and another mistake we also, I don't have a
I have a first aid kit back at camp right,

(01:31:15):
I don't have any in my back, but I do
have a spare set of woolf socks. And so we
kind of put the thumb back in the where it's
supposed to be, and and I wrapped one sock around
real tight and almost tight like a knot or a splint,
and then put the other sock over the top just
to kind of apply pressure to the wound. UM, and

(01:31:35):
then obviously keeping it elevated and whatnot. UM. Pretty much
that whole area we did not have any cell service,
but actually right on that ridge, UM, we were able
to call nine one one and and uh explain the situation. UM.
At that time they mentioned the helicopter or to get

(01:31:55):
a helicopter, it would have come from Riverton, UM, which
is little ways out, and they couldn't take off for
another hour. So as you were talking, three or four
hours before a helicopter would come. And really, if you
looked at the you know, the scenery, it wasn't really
somewhere you could land it nicely. Let's just say that.
So we made the decision to ride out. UM. So

(01:32:19):
UM we contacted the other UM a couple other folks
in the hunting party, and they brought the horses down
UM and we rode out, and uh we were met
by a mirage of people that obviously at the trailhead. UM.
You know, you got your game in fish UM Search
and Rescue teams, helicopter that had landed the trailhead, um ambulance,

(01:32:43):
so on and so forth. For it was actually, um,
this is kind of a funny. Jim Zombo was there, um,
just to see what's going on. Yeah, I'm not really sure.
Um and uh, you know, it's kind of embarrassing probably
on my my behalf. But another I that was there
was like, hey, you know who this is? You know?
And I look at him and no, I have no idea.

(01:33:04):
I did not know who Jim Jumbo was at the time.
But um, so anyway, I can't say i'd recognize him either.
So just there would be like, what's going on? Um,
he must live nearby. Yeah, I know he's in Northern Wyoming.
He's playing the Captain Quint character. Like when you get there,
he's like, I'll catch you a bear. Yeah, is your

(01:33:28):
buddy real quick? Is your Is it just his hand
that's messed up? Yes? So, um, it seemed like from
my perspective that that took a long time, but I
think it was quite quick. Um. And and yeah, um
really the uh, the only the only real injury is
the hand, um you know, I had. I actually had
a little tiny scratch on my on my shin which

(01:33:52):
I still have a little bit of a mark there,
but from the bear, that's correct. Yeah, what's that do
through nail? You know that that half and when I
tried to kick and it tried to lunge. Are you
just hoping it's the bear? Could have been it's a
little it's it's really just it'll be gone. And it's
like it'll be gone in six months. Right, it's not

(01:34:15):
really scar but I would go see if someone could
help me keep that. Um so you you made it
to the trailhead. I'm really curious. On the hook for
the helicopter. Um so there was um the individual um
that that got that needed the quick medical attention actually
had helicopter insurance. Um So not necessarily on the hook,

(01:34:38):
but good timing. I guess purposely get it for that
hard or you had it for work. He had had
it for UM some time before. So um you know,
you never you never know when you're gonna need it.
But it makes you wonder if I had that, do
you have that without knowing it? I wonder is it
like a real specific that I don't know? I think
I think we we have God that was somewhere when

(01:35:00):
he when you thought he was being eaten barrows on
top of him. Uh, what was what? What's his perspective?
What was going on? Um? His perspective was kind of
like that. It was playing with him like a dog almost, Yeah,
mauling his thumb. Yeah. So it stayed on his hand
as it grabbed his hand, grabbed his hand and pushed

(01:35:22):
him down. It stayed with his hand in his mouth. Yeah,
his hand was in its mouth the whole time, in
her in her mouth yeah. Um. Maybe not even plural, um,
but close, you know. Um. And it's what's amazing is
no claws were used, right, I mean you would think
that you got the leverage. You're the bear, You got

(01:35:42):
the leverage. All you gotta do is stretch the stretch
the arm out with one of your claws and you
I mean, who knows, she probably would have gotten to
that if you hadn't a shot or sure. Um so um.
So that's kind of the um. That was the first
run through, and that was kind of what I had
learned and and I guess um went through the first time.

(01:36:03):
Then then all of a sudden, now it's kind of
what you're bringing. Now, now we gotta bring the game
and fish back, um to to evaluate the situation as
as everyone would know and understand. And so yeah, uh
this just for listeners, this is a the grizzly bear
in the Rocky Mountains and lower forty eight is listed

(01:36:28):
as threatened and has endangered species at protections, which means that, um,
if you kill one, they're going to make sure that
it was legal. And it's like obviously legal to kill
one in defensive life, but they're still gonna come check
it out. And I believe that's the only reason that
you can kill it defensive property right or game or

(01:36:49):
anything like that. So UM, so we ride in. UM
there's uh, four folks from the state that come in. UM.
There's a biologist, um I think kind of an apprentice.
There's the game warden for that region, and then his supervisor. UM.
So we ride in about six miles so it took
about it was about six miles there one way. UM.

(01:37:10):
So we ride in six miles UM and then I
basically reenact what happened, UM, and and it was you know,
pretty clear, there was blood trails and and things like that.
And actually when we arrived, UM, you know, the cubs
were still there. UM. So we we they have to
do an investigation. So, um, we needed to remove the

(01:37:31):
cubs from the from the sow in order to perform
the investigation. It's in the news that they euthanize the cubs. Um.
And so I go through, I kind of uh, you know,
run through, reenact my position, reenact to the other individual's position,
and kind of follow, you know, where the bear had

(01:37:52):
come from and and gone, and you know, the whole
just to kind of paint the radius for the listeners.
You know. Um, it starts maybe ten or fifteen yards
to to to my right and ends maybe ten or
fifteen yards to my left. So the whole thing, I mean,
the whole situation is a thirty yard line. I mean
it's very close quarters. Um. And so I wonder above

(01:38:14):
treeline again, so it's it's all clear field of view,
not a lot of brush, not a lot of deadfall.
There is, um, you know, where where the grizzly died
was kind of the beginning of the timber line, but
it was a burned area, so it's kind of uh,
you know, it's easy to see, but that's where. So
it was kind of a burned area. Just to paint

(01:38:35):
the picture. Um, And so UM, one thing they wanted
is they wanted to find some brass for the for
the investigation, if you will. UM. And so I knew
there were five five rounds. UM. The rifle was obviously
easy one to find. UM. And UM we only found

(01:38:57):
one one of the pistol rounds. But one of the
the one pistol round that we found, UM was actually
UM kind of covered in blood. So the casing was
covered in blood, which, UM, it's kind of interesting and
we can kind of I think I have some ideas
of where that came from. UM. And then and then
the next step in the the the investigation, if you will,

(01:39:21):
is to really you know, go look at the story
and then look at you know, the the evidence or
or the I guess, the makeup of the bear. How
long is this whole like investigation procedure taking. Are they
all like detail business oriented like taking their time or um? Yeah,

(01:39:42):
it's pretty thorough. Um, you know, it's obviously it's not
something that happens every day. I think they mentioned that
I was the fifth um that year. Um. However, it
was the first bear recovered. So I don't know if
that means that somebody got attacked and got away. I
don't know, and I don't know if that means, you know,
shot was fired to the bear. I'm not really sure
what that means. But um, you know, the the ride

(01:40:04):
obviously took the longest amount you know, you're twelve miles
round trip, um. But the investigation, I mean it took
you know, hours, um and right there, Yeah, I I
assisted in that, so you know, it's kind of from
my perspective, it was kind of um, you know, it
was kind of neat to be a part of that,
you know, because you know, you you know how it

(01:40:27):
played out, right, and then so then you can see,
you know, where the individual bullets landed on that, on
that bear, and you can kind of then start to
put the pieces together on like why did this happen?
Why did it play out that way? Why did the
bear um change direction and not lunge at me at
that last second? Right um? And so there were some

(01:40:49):
things that were really really evident, um. And so skinning
out the bear, you know, I mean the first thing
that was remarkable and it's obvious kind of when you
say it out loud now, but the difference in damage
from the three wind bag to the ten millimeter right
I mean, it's a high powered rifle versus a handgun, right,
so you obviously expect a lot more. But so let's

(01:41:12):
let's kind of talk about the the individual bullets. Right.
So the the shot with the rifle had entered um
kind of upper mid but the right side of the
back of the of the bear, and the exit hole
was kind of out near the neck front front, right quarter,
and the exit hole was quite large. UM. And so

(01:41:34):
that's the first thing that you're kind of like, well,
I'm glad that exit hole didn't you know, contact anybody. UM,
And you know that's um. But UM. Then then we
kind of started looking for more more bullet holes just
to see, um, you know, play it out and so
zipping out you know, more of the more of the hide. UM.

(01:41:56):
There were two ten millimeter rounds that had passed UM
through are the kind of like almost gut shots really UM.
And you know, when you're shooting a running animal in
a couple of yards, you never know, so there's a
kind of it was basically a clean pass you know,
kind of you know, a rear gut shot that kind
of came out the other side, and then another one

(01:42:17):
that kind of came out the other side, so like
kind of quartering away gut shots, if you will. Two
of those passed all the way through, all the way
through um and what do they look like? There was
a lot of trauma there or so those were using
those buffalo boar rounds, which you know deep penetration and
a lot of a lot of people talk about deep

(01:42:38):
penetration and whatnot. And one thing in the brain, another
thing in the right soft parts, right right, and so
you know, originally we found those three shots, and everybody
knows they're gonna punch it right between the eyes, right.
I mean, when you're like getting already, you're like a
long I hit him right head exactly right. And so
every you know, we found those three shots originally, and

(01:43:00):
you know, I kind of I was thinking of myself,
there's gotta be more, right, like you know, and I
know we shot five times, and so I kept carving
away and I actually found another one that was almost
like dead center of the back in the vertebrae, and
it kind of like got lodged in the vertebrae, and
like I don't know if I got tracked, you know,
like there's like a hollow area there and kind of

(01:43:22):
got lodged in there. I kind of thing that was
the one that clammed it up, you know what I mean,
almost paralyzing it the final shot there um. But you know,
so so that's really um did you find the last shot? Um?
You know it could have been on there um. Sometimes
it's hard to see through fat when there's not a
lot of trauma and you have just a bullet, you know,

(01:43:44):
a bullet hole. Um, it's just you're you're searching for
quite a small target and you know, we're not really
caping this thing out. We're not saving a cape or
anything like that. So it's not like it's a nice
clean you know. And I don't get the impression with
the spine shot you were like, oh, here's this massive
broken spine on this bear. No, it was clearly so

(01:44:07):
that one we found an entrance hole. And uh, I
mean the Game of Fish had a metal detector and
we're trying to like find the bullet and carve it
out and whatnot. We never found anything, but um, we
didn't spend a ton of time on it. We also
didn't really have the right tools. They brought a melo detector,
they did. You know, me and my six year old
just got a melod detector. We're gonna get into that
big time. I'll save that for another episode though, sure sure,

(01:44:29):
um and so uh yeah. So those are the four
bullet holes that we found. There could have been another
one kind of in the back or in a fatty air.
You know, these guys taken note of all this stuff.
You know, they're taking a lot of pictures and notes
and collecting samples and um, doing stuff that's you know
that I'm not really paying that much attention to. You

(01:44:50):
gotta still be a little razzled. Is that a word? Razzle? Yeah?
The same day, same day, Yeah, same day, long as day.
I hapened right away in the morning. I mean it happened.
I think it was like some fifteen am rolled out,
rolled back in again. I'm a little surprised that they
kind of put you back into that situation after going
through that, I would say, they didn't put me in

(01:45:11):
that situation, you know, And they weren't. I mean they
are certainly actually they I got a lot of respect
for the folks that we worked with. I mean they
were they were very good about it and very did
you professional and did you get a sense of like
their attitude like oh no, not again, or like they're like,
you know what kind of how they felt about the

(01:45:31):
whole like grizzlies in general and probably not. But you know,
I think they were real professional about it. You know,
um yeah, nobody likes nobody likes um. You know, they
were certainly more excited to investigate a dead bear than
a dead human. You know. Their thing is it's got

(01:45:52):
to set the mood when you have an injured person.
Were they're not going into it like these guys panic,
Sure he shot at forty yards away just because I
was looking at Yeah, you got like a wounded dude,
so probably you're probably going to not so much with
your like, uh you know, inspector mode. Right. Yeah. I

(01:46:14):
was just curious if it's like, oh, the's like if
they had yeah at the trail, had did they split
you guys up and get each story? Um? I mean
it was such a cut and dry story, you know,
like like Steve says, you know you've got a guy
with with with a bite. You know, obviously you're close

(01:46:34):
if you're getting bit um. I do believe they took
a DNA sample of the bite to match it to
the bear. Umi, a friend of mine who was a journalist.
He was always when he was interviewing people who were
involved and stuff like this, he was always, Um. One
of the things he would look for is anytime someone

(01:46:55):
said and then I proceeded to he said that that
always sort of made like a little alarm and his
head go off, like they had thought about what they're
gonna say, ahead, it's out, and then I proceed you
to do. And you said, you'd be surprised. How often
do you hear that when you're hearing a story, that
maybe everything doesn't add up right right? Um? So you
know that that was, Um, that was kind of the investigation.

(01:47:18):
So as you know, they took recording of what I
you know, me going through the motions. Um. You know,
the bear was kind of dissected, um, and you know
each shot was kind of analyzed. Now, they took a
bunch of pictures and documentation and whatnot. I didn't, um,
you know, I didn't really know if that was my place,
you know, per se did they impound your weapons? They

(01:47:40):
keep your No, they did not, um you know it
the day I'm sure impounded your bear hide right. Um.
They actually kind of just destroy everything, um, you know,
and yeah, I respect that. I mean, you know you're not.
Oh they're taking they're taking the hide, so nobody else
does you didn't? No, no, Um, you know it's pretty

(01:48:01):
they're they're pretty strict about you know. Um, everything's got
to be destroyed or you know, there's no there's no trophies. Right.
Let me tell you a quick story. Understand, tell a
quick story. In Alaska, they auction all that stuff off.
So they have these like personal like bears killed for
property defense, like life and property defense. Um, when you

(01:48:23):
kill one, you guess sam at the hide and school
and they have an auction. I know about a guy
that skinned his like he did. He skinned his like
the gutless method and split it up the back. I
don't know why. Okay, he went to the auction. They
got all these damn bears and there's only one so

(01:48:43):
he can know which one to say skinned up. I
don't know if he was gaming it at the time.
That's just how he did because they said bring the hide,
So whatever reason, he made a slip the back and
somebody got to hide off the thing went to the auction.
God his bear and he said he knew it because like,
who else would do that? That's what I heard. I
don't know the guy, but I heard the story. It

(01:49:04):
could be like a live story. I don't think it's
a lie story. Yeah, I do recall, um specifically the skull, right. Um.
The supervisor there was and they all feel really bad
about everything, you know, I mean they're they're super understanding
and yeah, and he was kind of like, you know,
I hate to tell you this, but I need you
to to give me the skull. You know, my hands

(01:49:24):
already dirty, and I'm just curious. Right, So I got
it all out and scutted a lot of it out,
and so I cut the head off for him and
handed it to him. And they destroyed it with like
hatchets or hammers or something like that, just to destroy value,
just to Yeah, I mean, which, whatever did you end up?
I have a problem. I understand all that. Like, sorry,
you end up getting an age on the bear? Um.

(01:49:47):
You know there's gonna be an official report on it. Um.
You know, I'm not able to get my hands on
it for for some time, but I'm I'm thinking that
will all be in there, and I'm curious to read
it for sure. Yeah. No, they're collecting a lot of data.
Did the UM what what wound up being the relationship
you have with the end of the guy that was

(01:50:08):
getting his hand mauled up? M Um, like like what
kind of happened when you guys had a chance to talk? Um,
you know is kind of a sombering, sombering moment for everybody.
You know, UM is you know is uh is once
in a lifetime experience. UM. You know, I think we hope,

(01:50:30):
we hope. UM, you know, we built a lot of
respect for each other, you know, in the way that
the situation was handled, and um as he uh was
is he pretty rattled about it? Was he pretty strong
about it? That he was really strong about it? I mean,
Um'm not afraid of the mountains. No, no, no, you've
got any different feelings about Grizzly bearer country besides some

(01:50:51):
procedural ship No, UM, you know, I got a lot
more respect for the animal, that's for sure. UM. I definitely,
UM yeah, I definitely have a lot more respect for
forum grizzly bears. And you know, my my mentality of
um staying out of those situations and having different equipment

(01:51:13):
and different um locations of equipment will will be will
be changed where it was on the outside of my pack.
Did you ever think about grabbing it? Um? Hold on
like outside of the pack, like unreachable reach on the
waist belt like right here? Do you ever think about
grabbing it? I didn't. I mean, like in hindsight, UM,

(01:51:38):
I would say at the moment, the thought process was
the rifle is the job, you know, I mean it's
kind of like, what are you gonna blind everybody here
and hope for the best? You know. Um, I didn't
spend I didn't do well much time thinking I'm gonna
go after my bear spray, you know what I mean? UM,
had that been sixty yards out, yeah, reolutely I think

(01:52:00):
I would like to think that. I think my first
choice at sixty yards out in that situation would have
been bear spray. So no one what you now know?
What would be your like, what's your bear protection system
the next time you do it? Um? So before that incident,
you know, I really I really had this UM this

(01:52:23):
I'll say it false mentality that you know, if you
if you shot a bear with let's say like a
forty five a CP or something like that, you know,
like it would realize that it's, um, it's up against
a real match here, and it would probably deter it
and leave after shooting it with a three windmag and
watching it charge like a a very piste off animal. Um,

(01:52:50):
bigger the better for if you have to shoot um first,
First of all, question on that could when you guys
did the netcrops see did you got it to see?
When you said that the the path of that went,
did it cut? Did you catch vitals on that? I
personally gutted it. Um. The heart was fine, The lungs

(01:53:12):
looks fine, the liver looks fine. The intestines which the
bullets passed through. I never even saw split in that.
So you're three hundred wind bagground went above the vitals,
above the vitals. Yeah so um, so actually didn't happen.
We didn't really put this all together t you know,
obviously then the whole thing's done. Right now, we're the

(01:53:33):
we're back in camp and we're talking about how crazy
the event was, and you know a couple of takeaways there.
You know, we just started talking about, um, you know,
the just the odds of the to two sets of odds,
right first set, you know the odds of getting in
that situation incredibly unlucky to get in that situation right

(01:53:54):
and and you know the only thing I could think
of is the bear had winded that carcass and was
made be making its way there and then got like
a burst of scent, was starving, ready to eat, and
just came ready to came over that tailtop, just ready
to eat. Um. So it's obviously very unlucky timing. Had
we sit up on that knob for ten more minutes,

(01:54:14):
you might see a bit aware of it and was
circling it, trying to figure off as a big board
there or whatever something. You know. Um, it is hard
to Um, you'll never know. You'll never know that. But
obviously no stomach contents undigested help meat. Oh um, that's
a great point. I did not open the stomach. Um.

(01:54:35):
I don't know if anybody else there did. Did you
guys ever take a look at the carcass afterward to
see if it had been it hadn't been messed. No,
you have like you don't have to, but you gotta
be like there has been some relationship. Is the relationship
that predators like to travel on ridgelines or they like

(01:54:56):
to travel on nicely defined trails. You know, I would
think that the you know that the bear had winded
the carcass and had just been working its way that
direction thinking, you know, I'm hungry, there's something here, um,
and so so I really think that, you know, that's
what kind of brought it to the general vicinity. Um.
The tracks of the animal for the last hundred yards

(01:55:20):
indicated that it knew we were there and kind of
followed us along the back side of that ridge and
popped over when we were when it was close and
we were close. Yeah, Um, So it wasn't like we
stumbled into it and it was it was defensive. You know,
it seemed like it was it smelled us and was starving.

(01:55:41):
A bad news organization would say when the hunter becomes
the hunt. So going back to going back to what
we're kind of talking about it. You know, back at camp,
you know, the odds of the situation were incredibly unlucky
or low and unlucky. How do you want to look
at it? Then, once we were in that situation with
the bear coming, you know at ten fifteen yards, I

(01:56:04):
don't know another situation that plays out that ends up
better than that. You know, Um, when it bears on
top of somebody you know, had had you know, a
shot landed a little bit differently, you know, does it.
There's just a lot of different Like it's fame could
have punctured his brain pan, it could have like just
severed its spine with its claw. Right, there's just I

(01:56:28):
mean I look at that and I think if I
redid that nine out of ten times, I think nine
of them are really bad. You know. Um, your friend
uh said that his perspective was that the bear was
playing with him. At what point did his perspective change?
Did he ever talk about that? Um? I would say

(01:56:49):
after that, I mean once that rifle shot went off,
you know, it let up, you know, I mean, so
then it kind of its focus changed, um to coming
coming towards me. Um, and really, um, you know kind
of kind of putting all those pieces together back at
camp actually is when we kind of put it all
together where um what what what I think happened was,

(01:57:13):
you know, obviously incredible unlucky timing. The bear comes and
not really in a hurry, not really threatened, just ready
to eat, and so it's kind of taken its time, um,
starts doing its job, gets hit in the back, um
and kind of you know, the the rifle shot really
rendered the front right useless. I mean, it just it

(01:57:34):
detached a lot of those muscles right, just kind of
hamburgered this area. And then it it went and turned
around and charged full speed to accelerate. You know, if
you kind of look at the anatomy of the animal,
it's it's gonna use its high and legs to really
drive and start start running. And what it seemed to
me is it went to lunge there at the last second,

(01:57:58):
and it went to my I left, which would would
line up perfectly with its right shoulder failed, so it
basically went to push off. And when it went to
push off one side, you know, just pushed it that
direction and it probably swiped bit I kicked. We collided

(01:58:18):
in some manner, but not really hard at all, And
that was the mental change of the bear for it
to realize I've lost some motor skills. And then it
was heading out and then it was probably trying to
get into a safe zone. But you know, at that time,
I didn't even know if I hit the bear, you know,

(01:58:39):
I mean I think I did, but I could have
shot clean over the top of it. And you know,
I have no idea what's exactly going. I don't No
one knows, as much as we like to talk about it,
no one knows what they would do in that situation.
I like to think that I would have done what
you did and shot some more. Ye like the point
of commitment, unless you're like one of these guys that

(01:59:00):
like it's it mauled me and then it kind of
wanted off, and then it came back and alled me
some more. You know. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know,
it was just really an impulse decision. And looking back,
you know, it's kind of like, well, that bear bite somebody.
I think they're probably gonna take DNA sample, try and
find the bear and probably put the bear down anyway.
You know, I know it's been hit because why else

(01:59:20):
would it not have just completely killed me right there?
So you already have an injured animal, it's already known
to have bite somebody. Let's just finish the job right here.
You know, that was and I don't even think I
went through that process. I think my process was more
like I have no idea how we just came out
of that, But I'm not going for around two. Yeah,

(01:59:41):
how's your buddy's hands? Uh? Remarkable? Um, you know, I
mean the doctor kind of mentioned, you know, it's infection
that really is the problem, you know, um, And so
an hour more later that becomes a much different animal.
Did you notice this story for another time? But I

(02:00:05):
have a very similar bear circumstance and nothing ever happened
with it other than bears ran away. But it was
related to a ridgeline. It was related to elk carcass Um.
Did you notice One of the things that I noticed
being that close to bears was the smell of him.

(02:00:25):
Did you do you have any like recognition of a
distinct smell of a bear, because that's something that I
took away. I was like, holy cow, this the smell
of a bear? Man? Was you know? I didn't um
that that does not come to mind. Ums, that's not

(02:00:47):
what you're thinking. Yeah, I wasn't thinking let's go smell
the roses here, you know, I mean, um, you know, um, yeah,
I would say that I don't recall a smell from
that incident. Yeah. Well, man, I'm glad you're alive. Yeah. Yeah,
give Matt millarda hug for me, I will. I will
tell him, tell him that I'm glad he's alive and

(02:01:11):
your body I'm glad he's doing good for sure? For sure.
You know, I got one last question. For sure. It's
a hard one to answer. Are you glad it happened? Um?
You know that the experience obviously when it's when it's
a um, when it's a good story whenever. What I

(02:01:34):
mean by good is when everybody came away. Okay, you know,
I mean some injuries for sure, but you know nobody
nobody is you know, crippled, nobody, you know, nothing like that.
And so I mean, I definitely appreciate the experience. If
you told me would would you go into um, what

(02:01:55):
would you go into that situation again? And um, how
how do I weard this? Um? The same scenario doesn't
necessarily play out, but you get to redo that situation.
I would say no, absolutely no, Like I can't tell
you what's gonna happen, but a bear will be on somebody. Yeah,
I would absolutely not do that again, UM, because I

(02:02:18):
think that the probability is so low of the outcome
that we got, UM, that that is that that that
wouldn't be worth it for sure, UM, you know being
the problem being that you know, the the outcome that
we got. UM, I can appreciate the experience for sure. Um.
You know, I think one thing that you just never consider,

(02:02:42):
and you know this is every bear story is unique,
you know obviously, Um, but you know this one's unique
for different reasons. And the one thing that you know
you mentioned, everyone thinks, so I'll shoot square in the eye,
you know, square in the square between the eyes, you know,
And um, you know, the one thing that I never
considered was not only am I not going to be
able to like get a good shot, but there there'sn't

(02:03:06):
there's instances out there where you can like actually not
shoot the vitals, you know what I mean. Like I
would have loved to put that bullet and gave that
Barrett Texas heart shot and hope for you know, blow
out every right. And that's um, you know that that's

(02:03:27):
that really changes the game. Um, just because had you
been using a much smaller caliber. For instance, let's say
I did have a side arm there, I would have
gone for the side arm just out of habit. And
that's what you think you should do, and you could
probably get more shots off and so on and so forth,
but you might be pretty scratched up right now too.

(02:03:48):
I mean, that side arm is not going to take
that quarter out. You know, it might it made you
something differently, but I don't think that. You know, the
side arm is gonna turn Hamburger into a quarter of
that bear and render render that part of the very useless.
I wish we had these little awards, said, uh the
Mediator podcast Nerve of Steel Award. Well, I'd give you one. Well,

(02:04:13):
I I sure don't think you would, because you know
all the listeners are gonna hear that video about steel
feels like a best possible outcome certificate. Yeah, but you
got the best possible outcome in the world of probabilities.
That that one. That one I'll take. Um, I got

(02:04:33):
a guy I work with. It always uses the line
and rather be lucky than good. That's one of those,
for sure. That's how you're feeling right now. That's one
of those, for sure. Well, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.
I appreciate it, man, very instructive. It reinforces uh, my
primary theory about bear attacks having never uh is uh. Well,

(02:04:56):
I think it's something like I'm quoting Joe Rogan, who
is quoting so one else, which is, um, everybody's got
a plan until they get punched in the face. That
was that Mike Tison I was remember hearing it from him.
But yeah, everybody's got planned till they get punched in
the face. It's very accurate, alright man, Thanks a lot,
Thanks John,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Steven Rinella

Popular Podcasts

True Crime Tonight

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 310: An Eight Second Encounter