March 4, 2025 • 54 mins
Get ready for a thrilling journey into the world of hunting as we sit down with Becca and Dylan Radford, who share their captivating stories ranging from hound hunting in West Virginia to epic African safaris. With a genuine passion for connecting with nature, they discuss how their lives have been profoundly influenced by their hunting experiences, intertwining personal anecdotes with practical advice for seasoned hunters and curious newcomers alike.
Throughout our conversation, we delve deep into the couple's adventures in Montana, where they've adapted to the diverse landscapes and unique hunting opportunities available. They reflect on their early days learning to navigate tracking bears and lions, using their well-trained dogs to successfully navigate the wilderness. Becca, who transitioned from casual deer hunting in Pennsylvania, expresses her newfound enthusiasm for pursuing big game, offering a compelling look into the evolution of a hunter's journey.
Changing gears, the episode highlights their exhilarating experiences in Africa, detailing the awe-inspiring wildlife, hunting ethics, and the powerful connection formed with their outfitter. Becca and Dylan reminisce about their unforgettable encounters with some of the world's most majestic animals. Their stories emphasize the importance of conservation and respect within the hunting community, encouraging listeners to foster their own connections to the land.
With action-packed tales and heartfelt reflections, this episode serves as an invitation to explore your wild side, challenge yourself, and possibly take on the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're an avid hunter or just curious about the outdoors, this insightful discussion is filled with fun, humor, and soul-stirring memories. We encourage you to listen and enjoy! Don’t forget to check out the links to learn more about their adventures and how to embark on your own hunting journey.
Check us out on Facebook and instagram Hunts On Outfitting, and also our YouTube page Hunts On Outfitting Podcast. Tell your hunting buddies about the podcast if you like it, Thanks!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
this is hunts and outfitting podcast.
I'm your host and rookie guide,ken meyer.
I love everything hunting theoutdoors and all things
associated with it, from storiesto howos.
You'll find it here.
Welcome to the podcast.
Hey, I'm glad you guys arelistening in.
We've got another great episodefor you.
(00:33):
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Outfitting or by email,huntsonoutfitting at gmailcom.
All right, so bearhounds, hugemountain lions in Montana plains
(00:57):
, Africa, Cape Buffalo andpoisonous snakes what could all
these things possibly have incommon?
Well, today's guests areconnected to all of that.
We get to hear all about theirstories and adventures dylan
sorry and becca radford.
So becca and dylan um, you guyshave been hunting for a while.
But, becca, were you a hunterbefore you got with dylan, or?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
um, I grew up in pennsylvania and the hound
hunting wasn't as big there.
I think you can do likeraccoons and maybe coyotes, I'm
not even sure about that.
So we deer hunted on and offwith my family, but never
anything remotely as consistentor hard as what he usually hunts
(01:45):
or did hunt.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Right, so then, and then, dylan, you uh, have you
always been a houndsman?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, I pretty well grew up into it.
As long as I can know or I'veknown, you know I've been coon
hunting and bear hunting.
Um, my dad and my uncle,they've been doing it my entire
life.
I think they started around thetime I was born and I kind of
(02:12):
just grew up with it and it'salways been around.
I hunted a lot more when I wasyounger and the older I got, the
more interested in the bearhunting I got into and it's my
favorite.
I mean the more interested inthe bear hunting I got into and
it's my favorite.
I mean I absolutely love it.
And of course I deer hunt,turkey hunt, all hunt, pretty
(02:35):
much any big game.
Yeah, I've been a hunter mywhole life.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Did you grow up in Pennsylvania as well, Dylan?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
No, I'm actually West Virginia.
Okay, yeah, Me and Becca we?
Yeah, yeah, I'm, uh, I'm likeNorth Central West Virginia.
Um, me and Becca grew up.
We're about an hour and 10minutes away from each other.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
We both grew up.
Okay, yeah, and then can you.
In West Virginia, is it true?
Can you guys run bearyear-round?
You can't harvest themyear-round, but you can run dogs
on them year-round.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yes, you can.
A lot of times what we did wewouldn't really start until
after turkey season, which isabout the middle of May.
A lot of times the bear aren'treally out until then, Anyhow,
but yeah, you can run dogs isabout the middle of May A lot of
times.
The bear aren't really outuntil then, anyhow, but yeah,
you can run dogs year-roundevery day of the year, Wow.
(03:34):
And then you know you get theactual kill.
Season is in December, for likethe first Monday of December
until the end of the year, andthen they've kind of played
around with some early seasonsthe past few years.
You know, in September they adda week or two, depending on the
(03:55):
counting and bear populationsand whatnot.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Okay, yeah, do you think I mean here, where I'm at,
that seems late December.
Do you think they wait tillthen so that there's, I don't
know, no one's running, as manybear possibly say during deer
season, is that it?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, I think that's a lot of it.
Our deer season is the last twoweeks in November, normally
runs until like the first weekof December.
There I think a lot of it is.
You know, you got your bowhunting comes in in September
and it runs up until our rifleseason comes in for deer and
then the bear hunting.
(04:32):
You know you get a lot of yoursows that are going to den, that
are going to have cubs, so thatkind of helps the population.
I think that way you don't haveto worry about accidentally
shooting in the south.
A lot of that depends on whatpart of the state you're in.
I'm in northern West Virginia.
(04:53):
I live kind of higher up in themountains.
A lot of our bear they go toden a little bit earlier.
If you go to the southern partof the state they will stay out
a lot later and feed through thewinter and stuff.
So you kind of get a lot.
Some of your bigger bears stayout in the southern part of the
(05:14):
state where it stays a littlewarmer.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense with the sows.
That kind of shows that maybesomebody's working in the office
out there that maybe has a bitof a hunting experience, so
that's a good idea.
Putting the season then,because you know that the sows
are denning up.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, it seems like it.
I don't know Our population.
It's kind of been up and downthe last few years.
It seems like it's been kind oflow.
Of course, we just moved toanathere about a year and a half
ago, so I really didn't hunt inwest virginia at all last year.
(05:52):
But even leading up to that thepopulation kind of went down.
Um, yeah, mange got real bad inour area seems like it kind of
wiped them out.
It just wasn't what it used tobe whenever I first started.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, I mean normally Maine, I don't know.
Sometimes it could be a causeof overpopulation.
Mother Nature just sorting itout.
Yeah, it's too bad.
Hopefully the population doesbounce back a bit for the
helmsman.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I really hope it does .
It's kind of of used to be youcould go out in december and
find a track pretty regularly inour area seems like anymore.
You know, you go out and youfind one a week, you're lucky.
Oh wow, so I don't lose thearea that we hunted it.
It really went downhill pretty,pretty quick um which, like I
(06:45):
said, we kind of live up in themountains, so the winters are a
little worse.
It gets a little bit colder, alittle bit more snow.
So yeah, I don't know if theyjust want to kind of migrate
where it's warmer or uh what.
The main cause?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
there is.
Yeah, they.
I mean mean maybe they do.
They just adapt and learn tomove to a more warmer area.
But, becca, when you messagedme, you were telling me a bit
about you guys, what you've beendoing and stuff, and you were
saying it was kind of like animpulsive spur-of-the-moment
move from West Virginia toMontana.
(07:22):
Was that for work, for huntingopportunities, hunting
opportunities, for adventure orall the above?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Uh, dylan doesn't like to admit that it was mainly
fueled by hunting but, I, thinkit was.
Um, we were actually abouthalfway through building a house
and we had some other stuffgoing on, and he looked at me
one day and said do you justwant to move out west?
And I was like all right, let'sdo it.
So we moved out here.
(07:51):
The first time I had ever beento Montana was the day that we
came out for his job interviewand so yeah it was like yeah,
exactly, I think that, like Isaid, he'll deny that it was for
hunting, but it was for huntingthat's as good a reason as any,
really oh, we loaded up.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
We brought ducks, turkeys, horses, reptiles, cats,
dogs, everything across thecountry and then uh, so then you
know, when in rome kind ofthing, uh, there, there's, it's
cat hunting with hounds, and youwere saying that you guys, just
kind of you know, tried it, anduh, it went, it went well, did
(08:35):
it?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
yeah, we kind of struggled a little bit.
At first we didn't have a lotof snow, um, there wasn't a lot
of tracking, and then when wegot snow, we got a ton of shit
snow and then couldn't getanywhere.
And the one time he went outwithout me they found a cat
track and it was the first timethe dogs had ever been on a cat
(08:56):
and they all made it to the treewow.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So I mean, yeah, tell me about that.
You guys moved to montana.
You see that, oh, there's notjust bear that we can run here
with hands.
There's, there's, you know,mountain lion.
Uh, then you figured, let'sjust try it.
Did you go with somebody that'sdone it before?
Uh, or just just take a shot inthe dark and hope for the best.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Well, I don't know, it's one of those things that,
uh, I don't know.
I kind of always wanted to seewhat my dogs would do on a line
and actually a couple years ago,before we ever even thought
about moving out here, I kind ofreached out to somebody in Utah
about bringing the dogs out andrunning them and that kind of
(09:39):
fell through.
So moving out here, I alreadyknew, knew, I already knew that
you know they had a pretty longseason here and that I wanted to
, you know, was going to throwthe dogs on a line.
Yeah, we kind of just winged it.
We, uh, you know, we got lastspring, we got a couple of
months of bear season to runthem a little bit, and then the
(10:01):
lion season came in there inDecember, them a little bit, and
then the lion season came inthere in december.
And you know we have one buddythat we hunt with and he'd never
he never killed a lion either,ever really been around him too
much.
So, uh, it was all pretty newto all of us.
Um, like I said, like beccasaid, the first couple times we
(10:23):
went out wasn't quite sure whereto go.
Finally started finding a couplefresh tracks and then I went
like two weekends in a row and Ifound some tracks in the area
and I knew that there were linesin this area pretty regularly.
(10:44):
Unfortunately, those trackswere kind of a little bit too
old and you know, we were goingthe next week and I thought you
know what, I'm going back there,we're going to find something
and got lucky enough to justfind the right one and it
actually ended up being a reallynice home that we found across
(11:05):
the road like first thing in themorning.
It was actually a pretty freshtrack.
Unfortunately, where it was, itkind of crossed the road and
went through some products.
We had to walk around and kindof catch up to it.
We walked a couple miles in tofind the track again and kind of
(11:26):
turn a few dogs loose.
We walked them on the track alittle bit and petted them up.
It was the first one theyreally smelled.
They took it and ran it acouple miles and finally just
treated it.
It was a very pleasant surprise.
For the first time I'd everbeen out friend of mine that had
(11:48):
contacted me earlier this yearabout um hunting a cat.
He ended up shooting it out anduh, yeah, it was, it was a lot
bigger than we thought, I thinkthe uh, the skull.
When he measured it turned outto be a Boone and Crockett which
was like 14 and 5 eighths orsomething about what he had, but
(12:12):
I don't know what it is.
Now that it's.
You know.
I don't know how much theyshrink whenever they get dry, so
I'm not really sure where it'sat now, but it's actually a very
nice cat wow, that's so cool.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So you know, you guys ran bare, your dogs had never
been on a cat, seen a cat, youreally hadn't had much
experience with it either.
And then, you know, just wentout, hammered down a track, the
dogs, uh, the dogs got it up atree and and there it was.
That's uh, that's a pretty coolsuccess story super happy with
them.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Like I don't know, I was a little hesitant, you know,
whether they'd really want toor not.
Um, I've tried a couple of mydogs on bobcats before years ago
and they never really wanted tofool with them.
So, um, kind of hesitantwhether they would go or not,
and a lot of you know we, whenwe got to the track where they
(13:08):
could smell it, I'd walk themand let them sniff it and kind
of pet them up and make surethey knew it was okay and just
kind of let them do their thing.
My buddy did have another dogthat has run him before, so his
dog kind of helped out.
He was barking on it.
(13:28):
One of my older dogs went inand kind of got it going.
I think we had four dogs thatended up treeing it.
At the end it turned out realgood.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, that's awesome For the houndsmen listening to
this.
They're probably curious whatkind of hounds are you running?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I kind of run a mixture of everything.
The ones I have now I have six,I have four of them are they
all have the same mom, butthey're kind of mixed up english
red pick and walker, and then Ihave a plot and I have a the
(14:14):
red bone, uh, red bone walker.
Okay, he's a cost as well.
So they're kind of just amixture of a little bit of
everything.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Sounds like they work well, though that's a cool
mixture and they all work welltogether, you find, and
everything.
Are they fairly evenly matched?
Do you see when they're outrunning?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, I mean one thing about, like, I like having
a pack that just runs reallywell together and they all do
that pretty good.
My one dog, my J-dog, she'skind of the older one, the more
experienced one, and she'sdefinitely the leader of the
(14:59):
group and they kind of allfollow her.
But they stick together andnormally, you know, normally we
tree, they're all right theretogether.
I don't really have any thatkind of peel off by themselves
very much.
You know, which is kind of whatI like.
I like it when you turn five,six dogs loose.
(15:19):
You know, by the time you treeit they're all there.
And I'd rather have a reallygood pack that runs well
together than, you know, acouple that kind of veer off and
maybe do their own thing attimes well, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I mean, how old are the dogs that you're running?
From the sounds of it, they'reprobably like what three, four,
um?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
my jade dog.
She's probably six maybe.
And then I've got three littermates that are probably around
three, maybe four, and thenanother one that that's two, and
then I got another one, justjust turned one okay, so you
have a good mixture with theages as well as the breeds.
(16:02):
I try to get one new puppy everyyear or every other year so
that I constantly have new,younger blood coming in.
I have an old dog here thatshe's actually a house dog that
we're retired and she's got asuper, super cold nose One of
(16:24):
the best hounds I've ever huntedor been around and we bred her
three times.
So my four old dogs are all outof her, and then my dad's got
two of them back in WestVirginia still.
So we found a good bloodlineand we kind of stuck with it and
(16:44):
they've done really, reallywell for us.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Okay yeah yeah, I guess if it's not broke, don't
fix it, sort of thing.
You guys found what works.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
She was treated a heck of a lot of bear by herself
.
I've seen her, my old Sophiedog.
I've seen her take tracks thatno other dog would even think
about taking.
Unfortunately, none of herbabies have ended up with the
(17:16):
nose that she has, but they allhave the drive and they do very
well for it.
So yeah, we are kind of we'restarting to get a little bit of
new blood in here.
You know, we moved out here tomontana.
We we got a couple dogs frompeople that hunt out here and,
uh, they seem to do pretty wellso far.
(17:37):
So kind of excited about that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So you guys are kind of getting into, like the cat
bloodlines.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, I mean, it seems like most people are on
cat and bear.
Okay, you know all these dogsout here, they'll run a little
bit of both.
You get a good many people thatrun Bobcat as well, which I
don't know.
I'm not as big on the BobcatNot that I wouldn't run one but
(18:04):
I'm kind of I like the biggerstuff, I guess.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Is there a lot of similarities between running a
lion and a Bobcat, or becausethey're both cats, or is it
actually different besides thesize, obviously I'd be honest,
I'm probably not the best one toask about that.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Um, I've only ran maybe two bobcats my whole life,
uh, and obviously one lion.
So yeah, I'm not the best onefor that.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I was just curious.
I'm sure it's different.
Maybe the bobcat's a littlefaster at first and stuff, or
they don't have that long tail.
I don't know if that tail dragsand helps with the scent any.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I'm curious about that I really don't know.
Couldn't tell you on that one,yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
But I mean, you know enough to get a lion in the tree
and take that.
So no, it's pretty neat.
Like I said just so, you guys,you know, got out there and
wanted to try it and sure enough, it worked.
So, all the excitement you guysare having with the hounds, you
guys have also had a lot ofexcitement going to Africa, and
(19:16):
your first, if you want to talkabout how you kind of got your,
uh, your first trip booked andhow that went.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, so I guess I'll tell this one um, before Dylan
and I got together, he went to ahunting show with his cousin um
and they got drunk and boughtan auction hunt for sheep and it
got postponed with COVID,bought an auction hunt for cheap
and it got postponed with COVIDand by the time the borders and
stuff opened up, we had gottentogether.
(19:43):
His cousin had a kid andcouldn't go, so I went as an add
on and we went over there.
Just absolutely loved it.
It's crazy to see the amount ofgame that you see in a day, the
amount of game that you see ina day, and the people were
wonderful, got to be really goodfriends with them and when we
went back this year will be thefourth time in five years.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So I guess, what part of Africa did you guys go to?
Is it that you guys go to thesame place every time, or does
that outfitter?
Speaker 3 (20:16):
have more than one location.
So we have kind of stuck aroundthe Limpopo province of South
Africa.
As far as like the hunting goes.
We've done a little bit ofsightseeing with them into like
Kruger National Park.
We've been up into Botswana, wewent to Zimbabwe Victoria Falls
(20:39):
.
Yeah, dylan did some fishingover in Namibia, wow.
So this will be.
They actually just picked up aconcession in Zimbabwe to do
more of the like actual biggames like your elephants, your
leopards, things like that.
So not that those hunts are inour near future, but they said
(21:05):
we can tag along if we sell one.
So hopefully, yeah, we at leastget to experience it oh, just
seeing that would be, uh, wouldbe amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
So the Limpopo area I don't know Africa real well,
but is it a bit wetter therecompared to other parts of the
country?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
It depends on the time of the year, so their
seasons are kind of flip-flops.
Their winter is our summer, sotheir peak season is normally
like may, june, july, august, soit would be their winter.
That's primarily when you do alot, most of your hunting,
(21:44):
because it's actually colder, um, and it is drier.
You don't really typically geta lot of rain during those times
.
A lot of your wetter seasonscome later in the fall, going
into the winter and stuff.
So November, december is whenthey kind of get the rainy
(22:06):
season.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Okay, yeah.
So I'm excited and curious ifyou could try to reminisce and
walk us through it.
I mean, you got a couple peoplefrom Montana.
Becky, you're going with Dylan,he's drunk, got this hunt.
You had to wait through COVID.
You finally get there.
You land at the airport.
Can you walk us through whathappened from there?
Did you guys end up bringingyour own guns?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
If you did, was that an ordeal?
Or did you end up just usingsome there the first two years
that we went?
Um, we took our own and we hada layover in ethiopia and we, um
, we get off on the tarmac.
They don't even like take youup to the hub and we get off the
plane and there's a guy thereholding a sign with dylan's name
(22:53):
on it and dylan's aunt that waswith us was like, oh, look,
it's for you, it's for you.
And he was like I don't thinkthat that's good.
And they took him into thebasement of the airport and
would not let me and his aunt gowith him and kind of harassed
him.
We figured out later that theywere trying to solicit bribes,
(23:14):
but we didn't know they weactually had to hold up the
plane for him to make it.
Um.
So that was fun, um.
But once, once we got to southafrica, we had kind of gotten
off the plane.
You know, as soon as you walkinto the, like, the lobby of the
(23:34):
airport, um, merri, as soon asyou walk into the lobby of the
airport, marilise and Ivan arethe name of the outfitters that
we go over with.
Marilise was there, ran up,gave us a huge hug, like she had
known us for her whole life.
She's like all right, let's gopick up your rifles.
We walked in there with her andshe just kind of took care of
(23:56):
everything from there.
I mean, she is a littlespitfire of a woman.
I believe her that you don'tnobody's gonna get one past her
as far as that kind of stuffgoes.
Um.
But after that it's about afour or five hour drive from the
airport to the actual ranch.
(24:17):
Um, and most of that is likeyour dirt roads.
Um, it's kind of funny.
They're like quote-unquote wildroaming animals.
There are mostly like donkeysand um cows.
So you'll be driving like 60miles an hour and have to slam
on the brakes because there's adonkey in the road.
(24:37):
But after that you know got tothe ranch the first year we went
over did a lot of just likesmall game type stuff A couple
warthogs, a gem fuck.
I got a kudu and a wildebeest,oh yeah the antala, yeah, yeah,
(25:01):
that one was.
That was my first one thatreally stuck out to me, that I
went over and was like I, I wantone of those.
That's what I'm going for.
Yeah, um, and I ended up.
The last full day of hunting iswhen we finally found him and
it worked out for us.
They're gorgeous, absolutelygorgeous.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
How heavy Would they be like, say, like 600 pounds,
almost like a bigger caribou.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So they're like the size of a cow elk um okay, I've
never yeah, yeah, yeah, I'venever seen caribou, so that
one's kind of a hard one to tellyou.
But uh, yeah, it's like a bodywise and like weight wise I'd
say a larger bull coot who'sabout the size of a cow elk.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Oh, okay, yeah, so that's what.
Yeah, she's about the size of acow elk.
Oh, okay, yeah, so that's what.
Yeah, I was just trying tothink of something from North
America to uh to compare themwith, I guess.
Uh, so you would.
Yeah, that's pretty neat, youguys going down, so you would
not recommend a hunting trip inEthiopia that, yeah, that's not
the country I'd want to be stuckin on a layover.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
No, definitely not.
If, if you, in our experience,if you're gonna go over, pay
more for the direct flight?
Um, we have all of our stopswith rifles have, whether it was
willingly or not, ended up inethiopia.
Um, we have a guy that's gonnahunt with the outfitters.
We booked him a hunt um lastyear and he just came up to us
(26:39):
he had won a different hunt andwhen he went he had a lot of
issues in, I think, london umtrying to get rifles over there.
So definitely just pay theextra money to just direct
flight straight over.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, sounds it .
So do the outfitters there haveguns for you to use as well?
You're saying, possibly if youwant to do the hassle of
bringing your own?
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah.
So I've heard people onpodcasts say that they've had
bad experience using outfitters'guns.
I have not had that experienceusing Outfitters guns.
I have not had that experience.
We use their guns and honestlythey ran.
You know, unless you'rebuilding a $10,000 custom rifle,
they ran things very comparableto what we would run over here
(27:30):
Silencers on everything.
It's a lot easier over there toget a silencer, so everything
they had us hunt with hadsilencers on everything.
It's a lot easier over there toget a silencer, so everything
they had us hunt with hadsilencers.
I can't remember what all wehunted with.
I know there was a 270, a 300,maybe a 308.
(27:50):
So, yeah, Dylan shot his KateBuffalo with one of their rifles
.
It was a 375 H&H.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh, a 375 H&H.
So you got a.
You got a Kate Buffalo.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, that was probably two or three years ago.
I ended up killing a KateBuffalo over there.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
So that the 375, I believe, is the lowest caliber
legally allowed to be used andrecommended.
I guess, on um, on the date thebig five dangerous game, is it?
Yeah, it is, and that you foundthat was enough.
Is it shot?
I mean what?
You want to make your firstshot count, cause I guess those
things are like tanks, basicallybuilt like it.
(28:30):
But did you find that wasenough?
Gun or?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Well, I think mine was, uh, maybe a little bit out
of the ordinary.
I actually killed it with oneshot and it ran 40 yards and
died.
So the Ivan he was with me whenit happened he said that was
only the second one he's everseen getting killed with one
(28:56):
shot.
He said it's normally one ortwo, or like eight or nine or 10
.
A lot of times there's noin-between.
It's either pretty quick, whichis not real common, or it takes
a lot of bullets to put themdown.
Yeah, I'll say mine was.
You know, one was enough, but Ithink I got a little lucky on
(29:19):
that.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, that's cool.
Well, I've heard that too.
I mean, I've listened to astory about a guy he's using
like a .458, and he shot and thefirst shot wasn't that great
and he had to shoot I don't know, I think it was, like you said
eight to ten times after thatand it said by the end of it the
guy looked worse than the CapeBuffalo.
He was just beat the hell outof himself shooting a gun that
(29:40):
size that many times.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, I mean we've heard stories and stuff of
people shooting a Buffalo andthe first shot goes through the
heart and they've had to leaveit and go back after it the next
morning and stuff.
And 12 hours later they catchup to it and shoot it a couple
more times and you know, by thetime they actually skin it and
(30:07):
gut it out and everything get tolooking.
And first shot was rightthrough the heart and it's still
alive and kicking, you know,even 12 hours later.
So they are a very, very toughanimal yeah, yeah, that's
unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Uh, black death, so uh, I mean so the outfitter that
you guys go with how many acresthey own?
Do they own the land?
Do they lease it?
Is there such thing as um likepublic land out there?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
it's a private ranch um that they own.
Um, where you stay, it's kindof a relatively smaller area
where the lodge is itself Ithink it's like four to 6,000
acres, but they have multipleconcessions um all around uh,
their property um, anywhere from8,000 to up to 30,000 acres,
(31:01):
wow.
Anywhere from 8,000 to up to30,000 acres, wow.
And then the concession thatthey have in Zimbabwe that's
going to be doing the big gamehunting in it is about 700,000
acres, holy.
So that is a huge, huge area,and it borders the Plangy
National Park as well, and it'san open border, so there's a lot
(31:23):
of area.
Upy National Park as well, andit's an open border, so there's
a lot of area up there to huntas well.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah, that is a massive track of land, so
they've got a lot going on.
I mean, do they have a lot ofguides working for them, and
then they have trackers thatcome along in the hunts as well,
do they?
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yeah, so different outfitters will do it
differently.
Um, where we go it's kind ofsmaller um in the fact that you
know it's.
They try to keep it in thefamily as much as possible.
Um, so either or at leastthey're both professional guides
um, they have a couple, coupletrackers that'll come along and
(32:02):
then if you get a big enoughgroup of people, they'll bring
in PHs.
But the two main ones are thehusband and wife that run it.
They have a son that I'm surethe second he turns old enough
to get his PH license, he'll bedoing it.
They have the one tracker.
(32:23):
His name's E's enias.
He's been with them long beforewe were and he's wonderful.
He's so funny, so nice wow.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So they, uh, they're busy then doing all that, yeah,
with the smaller crew.
Um, so your average.
So for your smaller planes game, I guess from, uh you know, say
up to kudu Buttonpala Warthog,like you're talking about.
I mean, what would you guysfind your experience would be
the recommended rifles to beused?
Speaker 3 (32:54):
We have taken over a 308 and a 300.
And a 300.
And honestly, the first year wewent, my Kudu, my Willoughby,
it was all using that 308 and itwas a clean one shot done and
over with, didn't run very far.
(33:14):
My dad has a 270 short mag thathe absolutely loves and he took
that over and I don't rememberI don't think he shot his fable
with it, but I know that he shotor a friend of ours shot a
zebra with it and I believe thatwas one shot as well.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
It did pretty good the 300, always reliable and
does well over there now justsaying anything around that 30
caliber, your 30 odd set, six308, 300, 270 um, those are all
pretty good rifles.
(33:57):
As far as your plane scene, um,you'd kind of be surprised.
You get into some of yourwildebeest.
They can actually be very, verytough even with good shots.
They'll run and stay alive fora while.
You get into some of yourImpala and Black Buck and stuff.
You don't necessarily need allthat firepower but it's one of
(34:22):
those.
If you're going after an Impalaand a wildebeest steps out and
you're hunting that as well youknow you might as well have, you
know, a little bit more of thefirepower to take it down.
So most people recommend youknow somewhere around that 30
caliber um to hunt with.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
As far as the plains game does, okay, yeah, yeah, so
it's not too bad.
I mean, it sounds like you guysuh have taken a lot of a lot of
game there.
Uh, is there anyone inparticular?
I guess this is for each of youthat was more of a memorable
hunt and your more favoriteanimal to harvest.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
I really like my wildebeest.
I finished the slam.
The only one I haven't gottenis they just came out with the
royal king.
It's all white but I love mywildebeest hunting.
I have a king wildebeest thatit's kind of like black or dark
(35:29):
blue and it has a white face,white mane and tail.
And that one was really coolbecause I saw it, um, and it was
kind of quartered.
I hit it a little too far backand they actually had.
It was a little like jackRuffley mix of some sort that
would hunt with us and thosedogs over there.
They hear the shot and theyjust take off.
They don't know where they'regoing, they just run and get it.
(35:54):
That was the one time that wereally got to watch the dog work
and there was just a small herdof like three or four that this
wildebeest was hanging out withand getting to watch that dog
kind of get it separated and bayit up for me to finish was
really neat to watch.
Especially, you know you thinkof something as big as a
(36:16):
wildebeest.
It's crazy to think that thesedogs will bay it up by
themselves when they weigh 10 or15 pounds.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Wow, yeah, that's nuts.
My mom has a Jack RussellTerrier so I can kind of believe
it.
They're a crazy dog that doesnot realize their size.
But yeah, I didn't know thatthey used that the dogs for that
in Africa.
So that's yeah, that's reallyneat.
What's the slam you were?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
saying so I have gotten your blue wildebeest,
which is the just regular, likewhat you think of.
Um, you know, lion king typewildebeest, um, a golden
wildebeest same thing.
Um, they just have like a redcolor to them.
And then there is a kingwildebeest, which is the one I
(37:00):
just mentioned, and a blackwildebeest.
What's the black wildebeest,which is the one I just
mentioned, and a blackwildebeest?
The black wildebeest they're alot smaller.
Their horns, instead of goingout to the side, kind of swoop
down to the front and they'reall black and they have really
long hair on their nose thatsticks straight out.
So I finished all of those.
(37:23):
Like I said, there's one leftthat is completely white and
it's like a newer colorvariation of the wildebeest, and
I have not gotten that one atthis point.
They're a little bit moreexpensive yeah, that's uh,
that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I knew, I knew there was at least two different types
.
I didn't know, know there'sthat many.
So yeah, that's pretty cool tohave a whole slam for them,
Dylan, of all the game you guyshave taken there which stands
like quite a bit what I guess.
Same question.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Well, it's kind of hard to beat the Cape Buffalo,
so you wouldn't think an animal,you know, 2,000-pound animal
would be as hard to find as whatthey are.
That hunt we were hunting Ithink we hunted four days before
(38:14):
we caught up to him and wasable to get a shot and there was
a herd of like seven or eightthat we were kind of targeting
and I got within 50 yards,probably five, six different
times before I got a shot andnever even knew we were there
(38:35):
and I never knew they were thereand you know, probably put 40
miles, you know, in walkingtrying to track them down.
Wow, and I remember the firsttime we actually went on a stalk
.
We went through a real thickarea.
We were on our hands and knees,calling and stuff, and you know
(38:56):
we were going through there andI was saying, well, if these
things, if we catch up to ithere, it's going to be a 20-yard
shock, because that's all thefarther you can see.
And we kind of got through thethick stuff.
It popped out on the other end.
We saw it and we were standingaround like well, it must have
moved a little bit, you know.
(39:16):
And we're kind of standing thereand all of a sudden they
snorted and flew out of there.
They were 50 yards from us andwe had no idea that we were
there, that they were there.
We couldn't see them, had noidea, and when they took off it
sounded like thunder.
(39:36):
I mean it was.
They don't run around thebushes and the trees, they run
straight through them and youknow as dusty as it is with the
sand and stuff, it's just acloud of dust and you're just
hearing brush and trees and windand stuff breaking as they go.
And I know like when they tookoff, the first thing I did was
(39:58):
pull up the gun waiting for itto come after me.
Yeah, I didn't know where theheck it was going.
They were at what they weredoing.
I was in like fire mode but aslong as you know, they went the
other way.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah well, you hear those stories about how
dangerous they are, so I don'tblame you.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah, I don't know that I was necessarily expecting
them to run.
You know away from us as much,because you do hear the stories
about them coming after you andthey look at you the wrong way
and they want to attack you orwhatever.
So for them to run away likethat, I wasn't necessarily
(40:38):
expecting that, but that was atough hunt.
Eventually, whenever we didcatch up to them, it was kind of
in the evening of the fourthday we knew we were close and
kind of got within 50 or 60yards of them and we knew we
(40:59):
were there and they kind of knewwe were there and they started
moving from like our left to ourright.
We kind of circled around, triedto get in front of them and we
popped out on a little road andI think the front two or three
were actually running down theroad right towards us and I
(41:20):
pulled up on the sixth and thefirst couple kind of veered off,
got off the road and one ofthem just stopped right there
and was looking at me, you knowstraight on at 40 yards and you
know put it right below his nose, right in his chest, and
must've put a decent shot on him.
But he only, he kind offollowed the rest, ran about 40
(41:43):
yards and fell over and diedright there.
That was.
That was definitely a memorablehunt yeah, sounds it.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I, uh, I can definitely tell why that one is
your more memorable and favoriteone.
That's yeah, just to see, toexperience being around, you
know, the cape, cape, buffaloand their element like that and
stuff is you know, it'sincredible.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
It makes you kind of be a little bit more attentive
when you got animals like thatthat you know come after you for
no reason, just because you'rethere, so kind of really keeps
you on your toes at all times.
But you know, that's part of it, makes it fun, makes it
thrilling Well, thrilling well,yeah, absolutely, I mean we
(42:25):
don't.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
I mean sometimes you could run into some trouble with
, say, a rutting bull, moose orelk, but I mean we don't have
anything like a cow like thatout in the woods, that just, you
know you look at it the wrongway, like you said, or something
.
They just they're just going tobe like yeah, I'm going to
knock them over in church.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Oh yeah, yeah.
They go to bed angry and theywake up angry.
Yeah, they look at you like youowe them money.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Okay, yeah.
That's the exact truth of itGuys, I mean even our buffalo
here.
I don't think they're anything.
I've never been around them toomuch, a little bit in alberta,
but uh, they weren't nothinglike you know.
They saw.
Yeah, they chances are theyweren't going to come at you,
necessarily at all nothing,nothing like the cape buffalo.
Uh, I gotta ask all the uhtraveling around you guys have
(43:16):
done out in africa and huntingthe various species?
Uh, did you guys see much forsnakes?
Speaker 3 (43:22):
So not really.
I mean, like he was sayingearlier, you go over in their
winter, so they're kind of allalready brumating.
We've seen a couple.
I think we've seen a puff adder.
We saw a couple baby mambas.
(43:45):
There is the one hunting blind,and before you go into blinds
and stuff like they'll go infirst to make sure there's no
surprises in there.
But the last time we went overwith his mom and her sisters,
who are like, not hunters, well,honestly I think all three of
(44:08):
them one of the first animalsthey ever killed were all over
in Africa.
So they, they did a lot ofhunting out of a blind guess.
They told us, like right beforewe left, that the one blind
they were sitting in had a bigpython that lived in the ceiling
that was above their head whilethey were hunting and they
(44:31):
didn't know it was there.
And you know they're not goingto hurt you.
They like to keep them around,uh, because they will keep the
other snakes away, um, so Idon't know exactly how big that
one was but I think they said itwas like a uh, it was like a 12
foot rock python is what it was.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Oh, and it was there the whole time.
And, uh, yeah, my mom and auntkind of freaked out whenever
they found out that it was therethe whole time, while they were
sitting in the blind and had noidea uh, yeah, wow, I'm, uh,
I'm not a snake fan, that's uh,yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
If I looked up just waiting around for some critter
to come in and saw that thingslithering around and then the
guides tell me, no, no, it's allright, I I don't know if I'd
believe them that it was allright that's probably why I
wouldn't tell you.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Yeah, but yeah, so we .
But really, you know they tellyou to check your shoes before
you put them on in the morningand like under your pillows and
stuff, but we haven't really hada lot of experience with snakes
.
If you go into their main house, they have bullet holes in the
(45:38):
mirror behind their bar becausethere was a mamba that had
gotten up into the cabinet andthey went to pull a glass out
and it struck the glass.
They think it got confused andthey shot it.
So they keep the bullet holesthere because they think it's a
funny story.
And I'm like man, you guys arejust built different because
that's not funny to me.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
I'm pretty sure that's one of the most poisonous
snakes in the world.
I think it's up there.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yeah, they say that if a black mamba bites you, to
just find a comfy tree becausethere's nothing else you're
going to do.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, okay, so I heard right.
Yeah, they're built differentWow.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Yeah, whenever we went over for Dylan's Cape
Buffalo hunt, he had snake bootson, just because he thought
they would be quieter than theother boots that he wore.
And Ivan was kind of getting onhim and he said what are you
wearing those for?
And he said they're snake boots.
And he said, buddy, thosearen't going to protect you here
.
They're going to bite you inthe neck.
If they're going to bite you.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah, here they're going to bite you in the neck.
If they're going to bite you,oh yeah, I'd be looking around
everywhere.
Real different after hearingthat.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah, and like I said , if you're, you know most of
the time they are going toinvestigate things before they
have you go in.
Or if you're walking throughthe woods or the brush, they're
in front of you.
So it's not you, you know theydefinitely have them.
They're definitely there, butit's not a huge concern right at
(47:11):
least at the time of year we'vebeen over yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
So I mean, are you guys mainly what's most of the
hunting?
I guess it depends on the,obviously, but are you in a
blind or are you out, like say,in the back of a vehicle
scouting?
Are you just walking, looking?
How's that?
How's most of the say theplains game hunting work?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
The way you can kind of do it multiple different ways
.
You know if you're bow huntingor maybe not as comfortable
shooting off of sticks, um,you're in a blind over like
watering holes.
Um, you know they do havebenches on the truck, so if
you're driving around and yousee something you can shoot off
(47:53):
of the truck.
Um, we do a lot of spot andstalk, um, so just kind of
driving around until you know ifyou see it, catch a glimpse of
something and then get off and,um, kind of go after it.
That way really just depends onhow you want to do it, what
your comfort level is.
You know, at least theoutfitter we're with if you're,
(48:14):
if you tell them you want to doa Cape Buffalo hunt, they're not
going to have you shoot it froma blind or a truck.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
You're going to get on the floor or get on the
ground and get close to it,because it's part of the
experience.
But, okay, yeah, so they're.
They're really accommodatingfor whatever type of hunting you
you're comfortable doing really.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
oh for sure, like I said, we've taken, you know,
multiple people over that havenever really hunted and they
were incredibly accommodating tothat.
My dad has had a couple hipsurgeries, you know, and doesn't
move through the woods like heused to, and he was able to go
(48:58):
over with us and shot a stableand was able to do that.
It was a spot in stock and theywere good about, you know, kind
of staying with him and keepingat his pace and things like
that.
So they do, they did a reallygood job with that.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Okay, yeah.
So you guys you started sort ofuh working for this outfitter,
like helping, uh, you know,recruit, I guess, for them and
get people on the uh hunt oflifetime.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
Yeah for them and get people on the uh hunt of
lifetime.
Yeah, so we, when we moved outhere um, they don't have anybody
kind of this far west or didn'tyet, um that were doing hunting
shows and stuff with them.
Um, so we kind of, when we gotout here, you know, sat down
with them and said, hey, is thissomething you guys wanted want
us to do?
What would it look like?
Um, so we got started on that.
(49:42):
We do a couple hunting shows ayear, hopefully now that they
have the um new concession withthe big game.
You know we might do more thanwhat we're doing now, um, but
it's been really fun.
Um, it's neat.
Dylan gets to talking to peopleand next thing, you know, he
gets to hear about their sheephunting and things like that.
(50:03):
So he enjoys that yeah,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
It's always great to connect with uh, with any
hunters, and you never know whatstories they're gonna have and
it's great that you guys havebeen there so many times,
obviously, and been on thesedifferent hunts and had such a
great experience, so it's reallyeasy to uh, you know, pitch
people to go yeah, it is, and Imean ivan and merrileaf are
wonderful.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
They have been great to us.
They came out last year, um,and spent my birthday with us,
so it's easy to recommend themto people whenever you know that
they are the people that theyare and they're, you know,
wonderful yeah, well they're, Imean sounds like they're.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Uh, they're friends now more than more than anything
yeah, they definitely are.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
I mean, I don't, I don't know that I could ever go
back to africa and not hunt withthem.
So, and that was you know, evenafter the first time, before we
ever left, we're like, yeah,we're coming back with these
guys, there's no way we could gowith anybody else.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
I mean, that's the experiencethat a lot of people hope for.
I've heard a lot of horrorstories about people going to
certain outfitters in Africa.
So the fact that you guys had,you know, such great experience
each and every time is, you know?
It's great to hear.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
Yeah, we, the first year we went over.
My dad is a skeptic abouteverything and we went over and
he's like you guys are going toput all this money into going
over.
You're not going to shootanything, it's going to be a
scam this, that and the nextthing.
And you know, we get over thereand like we honestly didn't
really have any expectationsgoing in.
Um, I feel like now, talking topeople that are looking to
build a hunt, like book a hunt,they asked so many questions and
(51:52):
I'm like I couldn't tell you.
I, you know, going over there,I didn't even know if they spoke
english.
Um, by the time we got overthere and you know, facetimed
dad and said, like look at thelodging, here's what we killed
today.
Here's what we saw today.
I mean, we had it booked forthem to go back with us the
following year.
So I, we got really lucky.
(52:15):
I mean, I would like to say itwas research and planning and
all of that, but it was justyour luck.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah yeah, when you get drunk in an option just by
the hunt, it's a lot of off, butwe ended up coming out pretty
good on this one well, yeah, I'dsay, uh, like you said, the way
you came about it to get thathunt and go there and it turns
out, you know, into what it has.
Yeah, that's uh, that's good,that's lucky.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Yeah, I'll take luck any day wouldn't have it any
other way that yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Uh, you know I can't thank you two enough for coming
on and talking about this, butif somebody's listening to this
and they're like you know Idon't know about right now, but
eventually I'd like to contactthese people and, uh, and go
down there for a hunt what isthe best way?
And then, do they have like awebsite or a facebook page where
you can see some pictures oftheir facilities and the lodging
and the animals?
Speaker 3 (53:07):
Yeah, so they have a website and a Facebook.
I do most of the stuff for theFacebook, but the website is
namahaticom and then theFacebook is Namahati Safaris,
africa.
How?
Speaker 1 (53:26):
do you spell?
Speaker 3 (53:29):
It is N-A-M-A-H-A-B-I .
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Okay, yep, spelled the way it sounds.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Yep, and I can um shoot you a Facebook message,
sure, or contact him for two.
They can reach out to us, um,you know, we have a guy out in
West Virginia that does a lot ofthe bookings and stuff for them
, um, and then there's anothergentleman out in South Dakota.
So, depending on where you'reat um, there should be people,
(54:05):
at least, hopefully, somewhatclose to you.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
All right, yeah, that's great.
Well, becca Dylan, I can'tthank you guys enough for for
taking some time out of yourevening and coming on here and
talking to me.
I'd like to talk again.
Your Africa stories are.
They're interesting.
And then, not to mention, youknow, the hound hunting and all
that.
So, uh, yeah, thanks, and and Ilook forward to I'm going to
check out that outfitter.
I'm curious.
(54:28):
Now I want to see, see somepictures and maybe book a hunt
in the future.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
Sounds good.
Thanks for having us onAppreciate it, thanks guys.
this is hunts and outfitting podcast.
I'm your host and rookie guide,ken meyer.
I love everything hunting theoutdoors and all things
associated with it, from storiesto howos.
You'll find it here.
Welcome to the podcast.
Hey, I'm glad you guys arelistening in.
We've got another great episodefor you.
(00:33):
If you guys get a chance togive this podcast a rating and
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If you want to reach out to uson Facebook, you can Hunts on
Outfitting or by email,huntsonoutfitting at gmailcom.
All right, so bearhounds, hugemountain lions in Montana plains
(00:57):
, Africa, Cape Buffalo andpoisonous snakes what could all
these things possibly have incommon?
Well, today's guests areconnected to all of that.
We get to hear all about theirstories and adventures dylan
sorry and becca radford.
So becca and dylan um, you guyshave been hunting for a while.
But, becca, were you a hunterbefore you got with dylan, or?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
um, I grew up in pennsylvania and the hound
hunting wasn't as big there.
I think you can do likeraccoons and maybe coyotes, I'm
not even sure about that.
So we deer hunted on and offwith my family, but never
anything remotely as consistentor hard as what he usually hunts
(01:45):
or did hunt.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Right, so then, and then, dylan, you uh, have you
always been a houndsman?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, I pretty well grew up into it.
As long as I can know or I'veknown, you know I've been coon
hunting and bear hunting.
Um, my dad and my uncle,they've been doing it my entire
life.
I think they started around thetime I was born and I kind of
(02:12):
just grew up with it and it'salways been around.
I hunted a lot more when I wasyounger and the older I got, the
more interested in the bearhunting I got into and it's my
favorite.
I mean the more interested inthe bear hunting I got into and
it's my favorite.
I mean I absolutely love it.
And of course I deer hunt,turkey hunt, all hunt, pretty
(02:35):
much any big game.
Yeah, I've been a hunter mywhole life.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Did you grow up in Pennsylvania as well, Dylan?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
No, I'm actually West Virginia.
Okay, yeah, Me and Becca we?
Yeah, yeah, I'm, uh, I'm likeNorth Central West Virginia.
Um, me and Becca grew up.
We're about an hour and 10minutes away from each other.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
We both grew up.
Okay, yeah, and then can you.
In West Virginia, is it true?
Can you guys run bearyear-round?
You can't harvest themyear-round, but you can run dogs
on them year-round.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yes, you can.
A lot of times what we did wewouldn't really start until
after turkey season, which isabout the middle of May.
A lot of times the bear aren'treally out until then, Anyhow,
but yeah, you can run dogs isabout the middle of May A lot of
times.
The bear aren't really outuntil then, anyhow, but yeah,
you can run dogs year-roundevery day of the year, Wow.
(03:34):
And then you know you get theactual kill.
Season is in December, for likethe first Monday of December
until the end of the year, andthen they've kind of played
around with some early seasonsthe past few years.
You know, in September they adda week or two, depending on the
(03:55):
counting and bear populationsand whatnot.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Okay, yeah, do you think I mean here, where I'm at,
that seems late December.
Do you think they wait tillthen so that there's, I don't
know, no one's running, as manybear possibly say during deer
season, is that it?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, I think that's a lot of it.
Our deer season is the last twoweeks in November, normally
runs until like the first weekof December.
There I think a lot of it is.
You know, you got your bowhunting comes in in September
and it runs up until our rifleseason comes in for deer and
then the bear hunting.
(04:32):
You know you get a lot of yoursows that are going to den, that
are going to have cubs, so thatkind of helps the population.
I think that way you don't haveto worry about accidentally
shooting in the south.
A lot of that depends on whatpart of the state you're in.
I'm in northern West Virginia.
(04:53):
I live kind of higher up in themountains.
A lot of our bear they go toden a little bit earlier.
If you go to the southern partof the state they will stay out
a lot later and feed through thewinter and stuff.
So you kind of get a lot.
Some of your bigger bears stayout in the southern part of the
(05:14):
state where it stays a littlewarmer.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense with the sows.
That kind of shows that maybesomebody's working in the office
out there that maybe has a bitof a hunting experience, so
that's a good idea.
Putting the season then,because you know that the sows
are denning up.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, it seems like it.
I don't know Our population.
It's kind of been up and downthe last few years.
It seems like it's been kind oflow.
Of course, we just moved toanathere about a year and a half
ago, so I really didn't hunt inwest virginia at all last year.
(05:52):
But even leading up to that thepopulation kind of went down.
Um, yeah, mange got real bad inour area seems like it kind of
wiped them out.
It just wasn't what it used tobe whenever I first started.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, I mean normally Maine, I don't know.
Sometimes it could be a causeof overpopulation.
Mother Nature just sorting itout.
Yeah, it's too bad.
Hopefully the population doesbounce back a bit for the
helmsman.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I really hope it does .
It's kind of of used to be youcould go out in december and
find a track pretty regularly inour area seems like anymore.
You know, you go out and youfind one a week, you're lucky.
Oh wow, so I don't lose thearea that we hunted it.
It really went downhill pretty,pretty quick um which, like I
(06:45):
said, we kind of live up in themountains, so the winters are a
little worse.
It gets a little bit colder, alittle bit more snow.
So yeah, I don't know if theyjust want to kind of migrate
where it's warmer or uh what.
The main cause?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
there is.
Yeah, they.
I mean mean maybe they do.
They just adapt and learn tomove to a more warmer area.
But, becca, when you messagedme, you were telling me a bit
about you guys, what you've beendoing and stuff, and you were
saying it was kind of like animpulsive spur-of-the-moment
move from West Virginia toMontana.
(07:22):
Was that for work, for huntingopportunities, hunting
opportunities, for adventure orall the above?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Uh, dylan doesn't like to admit that it was mainly
fueled by hunting but, I, thinkit was.
Um, we were actually abouthalfway through building a house
and we had some other stuffgoing on, and he looked at me
one day and said do you justwant to move out west?
And I was like all right, let'sdo it.
So we moved out here.
(07:51):
The first time I had ever beento Montana was the day that we
came out for his job interviewand so yeah it was like yeah,
exactly, I think that, like Isaid, he'll deny that it was for
hunting, but it was for huntingthat's as good a reason as any,
really oh, we loaded up.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
We brought ducks, turkeys, horses, reptiles, cats,
dogs, everything across thecountry and then uh, so then you
know, when in rome kind ofthing, uh, there, there's, it's
cat hunting with hounds, and youwere saying that you guys, just
kind of you know, tried it, anduh, it went, it went well, did
(08:35):
it?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
yeah, we kind of struggled a little bit.
At first we didn't have a lotof snow, um, there wasn't a lot
of tracking, and then when wegot snow, we got a ton of shit
snow and then couldn't getanywhere.
And the one time he went outwithout me they found a cat
track and it was the first timethe dogs had ever been on a cat
(08:56):
and they all made it to the treewow.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So I mean, yeah, tell me about that.
You guys moved to montana.
You see that, oh, there's notjust bear that we can run here
with hands.
There's, there's, you know,mountain lion.
Uh, then you figured, let'sjust try it.
Did you go with somebody that'sdone it before?
Uh, or just just take a shot inthe dark and hope for the best.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Well, I don't know, it's one of those things that,
uh, I don't know.
I kind of always wanted to seewhat my dogs would do on a line
and actually a couple years ago,before we ever even thought
about moving out here, I kind ofreached out to somebody in Utah
about bringing the dogs out andrunning them and that kind of
(09:39):
fell through.
So moving out here, I alreadyknew, knew, I already knew that
you know they had a pretty longseason here and that I wanted to
, you know, was going to throwthe dogs on a line.
Yeah, we kind of just winged it.
We, uh, you know, we got lastspring, we got a couple of
months of bear season to runthem a little bit, and then the
(10:01):
lion season came in there inDecember, them a little bit, and
then the lion season came inthere in december.
And you know we have one buddythat we hunt with and he'd never
he never killed a lion either,ever really been around him too
much.
So, uh, it was all pretty newto all of us.
Um, like I said, like beccasaid, the first couple times we
(10:23):
went out wasn't quite sure whereto go.
Finally started finding a couplefresh tracks and then I went
like two weekends in a row and Ifound some tracks in the area
and I knew that there were linesin this area pretty regularly.
(10:44):
Unfortunately, those trackswere kind of a little bit too
old and you know, we were goingthe next week and I thought you
know what, I'm going back there,we're going to find something
and got lucky enough to justfind the right one and it
actually ended up being a reallynice home that we found across
(11:05):
the road like first thing in themorning.
It was actually a pretty freshtrack.
Unfortunately, where it was, itkind of crossed the road and
went through some products.
We had to walk around and kindof catch up to it.
We walked a couple miles in tofind the track again and kind of
(11:26):
turn a few dogs loose.
We walked them on the track alittle bit and petted them up.
It was the first one theyreally smelled.
They took it and ran it acouple miles and finally just
treated it.
It was a very pleasant surprise.
For the first time I'd everbeen out friend of mine that had
(11:48):
contacted me earlier this yearabout um hunting a cat.
He ended up shooting it out anduh, yeah, it was, it was a lot
bigger than we thought, I thinkthe uh, the skull.
When he measured it turned outto be a Boone and Crockett which
was like 14 and 5 eighths orsomething about what he had, but
(12:12):
I don't know what it is.
Now that it's.
You know.
I don't know how much theyshrink whenever they get dry, so
I'm not really sure where it'sat now, but it's actually a very
nice cat wow, that's so cool.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So you know, you guys ran bare, your dogs had never
been on a cat, seen a cat, youreally hadn't had much
experience with it either.
And then, you know, just wentout, hammered down a track, the
dogs, uh, the dogs got it up atree and and there it was.
That's uh, that's a pretty coolsuccess story super happy with
them.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Like I don't know, I was a little hesitant, you know,
whether they'd really want toor not.
Um, I've tried a couple of mydogs on bobcats before years ago
and they never really wanted tofool with them.
So, um, kind of hesitantwhether they would go or not,
and a lot of you know we, whenwe got to the track where they
(13:08):
could smell it, I'd walk themand let them sniff it and kind
of pet them up and make surethey knew it was okay and just
kind of let them do their thing.
My buddy did have another dogthat has run him before, so his
dog kind of helped out.
He was barking on it.
(13:28):
One of my older dogs went inand kind of got it going.
I think we had four dogs thatended up treeing it.
At the end it turned out realgood.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, that's awesome For the houndsmen listening to
this.
They're probably curious whatkind of hounds are you running?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I kind of run a mixture of everything.
The ones I have now I have six,I have four of them are they
all have the same mom, butthey're kind of mixed up english
red pick and walker, and then Ihave a plot and I have a the
(14:14):
red bone, uh, red bone walker.
Okay, he's a cost as well.
So they're kind of just amixture of a little bit of
everything.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Sounds like they work well, though that's a cool
mixture and they all work welltogether, you find, and
everything.
Are they fairly evenly matched?
Do you see when they're outrunning?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, I mean one thing about, like, I like having
a pack that just runs reallywell together and they all do
that pretty good.
My one dog, my J-dog, she'skind of the older one, the more
experienced one, and she'sdefinitely the leader of the
(14:59):
group and they kind of allfollow her.
But they stick together andnormally, you know, normally we
tree, they're all right theretogether.
I don't really have any thatkind of peel off by themselves
very much.
You know, which is kind of whatI like.
I like it when you turn five,six dogs loose.
(15:19):
You know, by the time you treeit they're all there.
And I'd rather have a reallygood pack that runs well
together than, you know, acouple that kind of veer off and
maybe do their own thing attimes well, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I mean, how old are the dogs that you're running?
From the sounds of it, they'reprobably like what three, four,
um?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
my jade dog.
She's probably six maybe.
And then I've got three littermates that are probably around
three, maybe four, and thenanother one that that's two, and
then I got another one, justjust turned one okay, so you
have a good mixture with theages as well as the breeds.
(16:02):
I try to get one new puppy everyyear or every other year so
that I constantly have new,younger blood coming in.
I have an old dog here thatshe's actually a house dog that
we're retired and she's got asuper, super cold nose One of
(16:24):
the best hounds I've ever huntedor been around and we bred her
three times.
So my four old dogs are all outof her, and then my dad's got
two of them back in WestVirginia still.
So we found a good bloodlineand we kind of stuck with it and
(16:44):
they've done really, reallywell for us.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Okay yeah yeah, I guess if it's not broke, don't
fix it, sort of thing.
You guys found what works.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
She was treated a heck of a lot of bear by herself
.
I've seen her, my old Sophiedog.
I've seen her take tracks thatno other dog would even think
about taking.
Unfortunately, none of herbabies have ended up with the
(17:16):
nose that she has, but they allhave the drive and they do very
well for it.
So yeah, we are kind of we'restarting to get a little bit of
new blood in here.
You know, we moved out here tomontana.
We we got a couple dogs frompeople that hunt out here and,
uh, they seem to do pretty wellso far.
(17:37):
So kind of excited about that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
So you guys are kind of getting into, like the cat
bloodlines.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, I mean, it seems like most people are on
cat and bear.
Okay, you know all these dogsout here, they'll run a little
bit of both.
You get a good many people thatrun Bobcat as well, which I
don't know.
I'm not as big on the BobcatNot that I wouldn't run one but
(18:04):
I'm kind of I like the biggerstuff, I guess.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Is there a lot of similarities between running a
lion and a Bobcat, or becausethey're both cats, or is it
actually different besides thesize, obviously I'd be honest,
I'm probably not the best one toask about that.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Um, I've only ran maybe two bobcats my whole life,
uh, and obviously one lion.
So yeah, I'm not the best onefor that.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I was just curious.
I'm sure it's different.
Maybe the bobcat's a littlefaster at first and stuff, or
they don't have that long tail.
I don't know if that tail dragsand helps with the scent any.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I'm curious about that I really don't know.
Couldn't tell you on that one,yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
But I mean, you know enough to get a lion in the tree
and take that.
So no, it's pretty neat.
Like I said just so, you guys,you know, got out there and
wanted to try it and sure enough, it worked.
So, all the excitement you guysare having with the hounds, you
guys have also had a lot ofexcitement going to Africa, and
(19:16):
your first, if you want to talkabout how you kind of got your,
uh, your first trip booked andhow that went.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, so I guess I'll tell this one um, before Dylan
and I got together, he went to ahunting show with his cousin um
and they got drunk and boughtan auction hunt for sheep and it
got postponed with COVID,bought an auction hunt for cheap
and it got postponed with COVIDand by the time the borders and
stuff opened up, we had gottentogether.
(19:43):
His cousin had a kid andcouldn't go, so I went as an add
on and we went over there.
Just absolutely loved it.
It's crazy to see the amount ofgame that you see in a day, the
amount of game that you see ina day, and the people were
wonderful, got to be really goodfriends with them and when we
went back this year will be thefourth time in five years.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So I guess, what part of Africa did you guys go to?
Is it that you guys go to thesame place every time, or does
that outfitter?
Speaker 3 (20:16):
have more than one location.
So we have kind of stuck aroundthe Limpopo province of South
Africa.
As far as like the hunting goes.
We've done a little bit ofsightseeing with them into like
Kruger National Park.
We've been up into Botswana, wewent to Zimbabwe Victoria Falls
(20:39):
.
Yeah, dylan did some fishingover in Namibia, wow.
So this will be.
They actually just picked up aconcession in Zimbabwe to do
more of the like actual biggames like your elephants, your
leopards, things like that.
So not that those hunts are inour near future, but they said
(21:05):
we can tag along if we sell one.
So hopefully, yeah, we at leastget to experience it oh, just
seeing that would be, uh, wouldbe amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
So the Limpopo area I don't know Africa real well,
but is it a bit wetter therecompared to other parts of the
country?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
It depends on the time of the year, so their
seasons are kind of flip-flops.
Their winter is our summer, sotheir peak season is normally
like may, june, july, august, soit would be their winter.
That's primarily when you do alot, most of your hunting,
(21:44):
because it's actually colder, um, and it is drier.
You don't really typically geta lot of rain during those times
.
A lot of your wetter seasonscome later in the fall, going
into the winter and stuff.
So November, december is whenthey kind of get the rainy
(22:06):
season.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Okay, yeah.
So I'm excited and curious ifyou could try to reminisce and
walk us through it.
I mean, you got a couple peoplefrom Montana.
Becky, you're going with Dylan,he's drunk, got this hunt.
You had to wait through COVID.
You finally get there.
You land at the airport.
Can you walk us through whathappened from there?
Did you guys end up bringingyour own guns?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
If you did, was that an ordeal?
Or did you end up just usingsome there the first two years
that we went?
Um, we took our own and we hada layover in ethiopia and we, um
, we get off on the tarmac.
They don't even like take youup to the hub and we get off the
plane and there's a guy thereholding a sign with dylan's name
(22:53):
on it and dylan's aunt that waswith us was like, oh, look,
it's for you, it's for you.
And he was like I don't thinkthat that's good.
And they took him into thebasement of the airport and
would not let me and his aunt gowith him and kind of harassed
him.
We figured out later that theywere trying to solicit bribes,
(23:14):
but we didn't know they weactually had to hold up the
plane for him to make it.
Um.
So that was fun, um.
But once, once we got to southafrica, we had kind of gotten
off the plane.
You know, as soon as you walkinto the, like, the lobby of the
(23:34):
airport, um, merri, as soon asyou walk into the lobby of the
airport, marilise and Ivan arethe name of the outfitters that
we go over with.
Marilise was there, ran up,gave us a huge hug, like she had
known us for her whole life.
She's like all right, let's gopick up your rifles.
We walked in there with her andshe just kind of took care of
(23:56):
everything from there.
I mean, she is a littlespitfire of a woman.
I believe her that you don'tnobody's gonna get one past her
as far as that kind of stuffgoes.
Um.
But after that it's about afour or five hour drive from the
airport to the actual ranch.
(24:17):
Um, and most of that is likeyour dirt roads.
Um, it's kind of funny.
They're like quote-unquote wildroaming animals.
There are mostly like donkeysand um cows.
So you'll be driving like 60miles an hour and have to slam
on the brakes because there's adonkey in the road.
(24:37):
But after that you know got tothe ranch the first year we went
over did a lot of just likesmall game type stuff A couple
warthogs, a gem fuck.
I got a kudu and a wildebeest,oh yeah the antala, yeah, yeah,
(25:01):
that one was.
That was my first one thatreally stuck out to me, that I
went over and was like I, I wantone of those.
That's what I'm going for.
Yeah, um, and I ended up.
The last full day of hunting iswhen we finally found him and
it worked out for us.
They're gorgeous, absolutelygorgeous.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
How heavy Would they be like, say, like 600 pounds,
almost like a bigger caribou.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So they're like the size of a cow elk um okay, I've
never yeah, yeah, yeah, I'venever seen caribou, so that
one's kind of a hard one to tellyou.
But uh, yeah, it's like a bodywise and like weight wise I'd
say a larger bull coot who'sabout the size of a cow elk.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Oh, okay, yeah, so that's what.
Yeah, she's about the size of acow elk.
Oh, okay, yeah, so that's what.
Yeah, I was just trying tothink of something from North
America to uh to compare themwith, I guess.
Uh, so you would.
Yeah, that's pretty neat, youguys going down, so you would
not recommend a hunting trip inEthiopia that, yeah, that's not
the country I'd want to be stuckin on a layover.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
No, definitely not.
If, if you, in our experience,if you're gonna go over, pay
more for the direct flight?
Um, we have all of our stopswith rifles have, whether it was
willingly or not, ended up inethiopia.
Um, we have a guy that's gonnahunt with the outfitters.
We booked him a hunt um lastyear and he just came up to us
(26:39):
he had won a different hunt andwhen he went he had a lot of
issues in, I think, london umtrying to get rifles over there.
So definitely just pay theextra money to just direct
flight straight over.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, sounds it .
So do the outfitters there haveguns for you to use as well?
You're saying, possibly if youwant to do the hassle of
bringing your own?
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah.
So I've heard people onpodcasts say that they've had
bad experience using outfitters'guns.
I have not had that experienceusing Outfitters guns.
I have not had that experience.
We use their guns and honestlythey ran.
You know, unless you'rebuilding a $10,000 custom rifle,
they ran things very comparableto what we would run over here
(27:30):
Silencers on everything.
It's a lot easier over there toget a silencer, so everything
they had us hunt with hadsilencers on everything.
It's a lot easier over there toget a silencer, so everything
they had us hunt with hadsilencers.
I can't remember what all wehunted with.
I know there was a 270, a 300,maybe a 308.
(27:50):
So, yeah, Dylan shot his KateBuffalo with one of their rifles
.
It was a 375 H&H.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh, a 375 H&H.
So you got a.
You got a Kate Buffalo.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, that was probably two or three years ago.
I ended up killing a KateBuffalo over there.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
So that the 375, I believe, is the lowest caliber
legally allowed to be used andrecommended.
I guess, on um, on the date thebig five dangerous game, is it?
Yeah, it is, and that you foundthat was enough.
Is it shot?
I mean what?
You want to make your firstshot count, cause I guess those
things are like tanks, basicallybuilt like it.
(28:30):
But did you find that wasenough?
Gun or?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Well, I think mine was, uh, maybe a little bit out
of the ordinary.
I actually killed it with oneshot and it ran 40 yards and
died.
So the Ivan he was with me whenit happened he said that was
only the second one he's everseen getting killed with one
(28:56):
shot.
He said it's normally one ortwo, or like eight or nine or 10
.
A lot of times there's noin-between.
It's either pretty quick, whichis not real common, or it takes
a lot of bullets to put themdown.
Yeah, I'll say mine was.
You know, one was enough, but Ithink I got a little lucky on
(29:19):
that.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, that's cool.
Well, I've heard that too.
I mean, I've listened to astory about a guy he's using
like a .458, and he shot and thefirst shot wasn't that great
and he had to shoot I don't know, I think it was, like you said
eight to ten times after thatand it said by the end of it the
guy looked worse than the CapeBuffalo.
He was just beat the hell outof himself shooting a gun that
(29:40):
size that many times.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, I mean we've heard stories and stuff of
people shooting a Buffalo andthe first shot goes through the
heart and they've had to leaveit and go back after it the next
morning and stuff.
And 12 hours later they catchup to it and shoot it a couple
more times and you know, by thetime they actually skin it and
(30:07):
gut it out and everything get tolooking.
And first shot was rightthrough the heart and it's still
alive and kicking, you know,even 12 hours later.
So they are a very, very toughanimal yeah, yeah, that's
unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Uh, black death, so uh, I mean so the outfitter that
you guys go with how many acresthey own?
Do they own the land?
Do they lease it?
Is there such thing as um likepublic land out there?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
it's a private ranch um that they own.
Um, where you stay, it's kindof a relatively smaller area
where the lodge is itself Ithink it's like four to 6,000
acres, but they have multipleconcessions um all around uh,
their property um, anywhere from8,000 to up to 30,000 acres,
(31:01):
wow.
Anywhere from 8,000 to up to30,000 acres, wow.
And then the concession thatthey have in Zimbabwe that's
going to be doing the big gamehunting in it is about 700,000
acres, holy.
So that is a huge, huge area,and it borders the Plangy
National Park as well, and it'san open border, so there's a lot
(31:23):
of area.
Upy National Park as well, andit's an open border, so there's
a lot of area up there to huntas well.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah, that is a massive track of land, so
they've got a lot going on.
I mean, do they have a lot ofguides working for them, and
then they have trackers thatcome along in the hunts as well,
do they?
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yeah, so different outfitters will do it
differently.
Um, where we go it's kind ofsmaller um in the fact that you
know it's.
They try to keep it in thefamily as much as possible.
Um, so either or at leastthey're both professional guides
um, they have a couple, coupletrackers that'll come along and
(32:02):
then if you get a big enoughgroup of people, they'll bring
in PHs.
But the two main ones are thehusband and wife that run it.
They have a son that I'm surethe second he turns old enough
to get his PH license, he'll bedoing it.
They have the one tracker.
(32:23):
His name's E's enias.
He's been with them long beforewe were and he's wonderful.
He's so funny, so nice wow.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So they, uh, they're busy then doing all that, yeah,
with the smaller crew.
Um, so your average.
So for your smaller planes game, I guess from, uh you know, say
up to kudu Buttonpala Warthog,like you're talking about.
I mean, what would you guysfind your experience would be
the recommended rifles to beused?
Speaker 3 (32:54):
We have taken over a 308 and a 300.
And a 300.
And honestly, the first year wewent, my Kudu, my Willoughby,
it was all using that 308 and itwas a clean one shot done and
over with, didn't run very far.
(33:14):
My dad has a 270 short mag thathe absolutely loves and he took
that over and I don't rememberI don't think he shot his fable
with it, but I know that he shotor a friend of ours shot a
zebra with it and I believe thatwas one shot as well.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
It did pretty good the 300, always reliable and
does well over there now justsaying anything around that 30
caliber, your 30 odd set, six308, 300, 270 um, those are all
pretty good rifles.
(33:57):
As far as your plane scene, um,you'd kind of be surprised.
You get into some of yourwildebeest.
They can actually be very, verytough even with good shots.
They'll run and stay alive fora while.
You get into some of yourImpala and Black Buck and stuff.
You don't necessarily need allthat firepower but it's one of
(34:22):
those.
If you're going after an Impalaand a wildebeest steps out and
you're hunting that as well youknow you might as well have, you
know, a little bit more of thefirepower to take it down.
So most people recommend youknow somewhere around that 30
caliber um to hunt with.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
As far as the plains game does, okay, yeah, yeah, so
it's not too bad.
I mean, it sounds like you guysuh have taken a lot of a lot of
game there.
Uh, is there anyone inparticular?
I guess this is for each of youthat was more of a memorable
hunt and your more favoriteanimal to harvest.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
I really like my wildebeest.
I finished the slam.
The only one I haven't gottenis they just came out with the
royal king.
It's all white but I love mywildebeest hunting.
I have a king wildebeest thatit's kind of like black or dark
(35:29):
blue and it has a white face,white mane and tail.
And that one was really coolbecause I saw it, um, and it was
kind of quartered.
I hit it a little too far backand they actually had.
It was a little like jackRuffley mix of some sort that
would hunt with us and thosedogs over there.
They hear the shot and theyjust take off.
They don't know where they'regoing, they just run and get it.
(35:54):
That was the one time that wereally got to watch the dog work
and there was just a small herdof like three or four that this
wildebeest was hanging out withand getting to watch that dog
kind of get it separated and bayit up for me to finish was
really neat to watch.
Especially, you know you thinkof something as big as a
(36:16):
wildebeest.
It's crazy to think that thesedogs will bay it up by
themselves when they weigh 10 or15 pounds.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Wow, yeah, that's nuts.
My mom has a Jack RussellTerrier so I can kind of believe
it.
They're a crazy dog that doesnot realize their size.
But yeah, I didn't know thatthey used that the dogs for that
in Africa.
So that's yeah, that's reallyneat.
What's the slam you were?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
saying so I have gotten your blue wildebeest,
which is the just regular, likewhat you think of.
Um, you know, lion king typewildebeest, um, a golden
wildebeest same thing.
Um, they just have like a redcolor to them.
And then there is a kingwildebeest, which is the one I
(37:00):
just mentioned, and a blackwildebeest.
What's the black wildebeest,which is the one I just
mentioned, and a blackwildebeest?
The black wildebeest they're alot smaller.
Their horns, instead of goingout to the side, kind of swoop
down to the front and they'reall black and they have really
long hair on their nose thatsticks straight out.
So I finished all of those.
(37:23):
Like I said, there's one leftthat is completely white and
it's like a newer colorvariation of the wildebeest, and
I have not gotten that one atthis point.
They're a little bit moreexpensive yeah, that's uh,
that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I knew, I knew there was at least two different types
.
I didn't know, know there'sthat many.
So yeah, that's pretty cool tohave a whole slam for them,
Dylan, of all the game you guyshave taken there which stands
like quite a bit what I guess.
Same question.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Well, it's kind of hard to beat the Cape Buffalo,
so you wouldn't think an animal,you know, 2,000-pound animal
would be as hard to find as whatthey are.
That hunt we were hunting Ithink we hunted four days before
(38:14):
we caught up to him and wasable to get a shot and there was
a herd of like seven or eightthat we were kind of targeting
and I got within 50 yards,probably five, six different
times before I got a shot andnever even knew we were there
(38:35):
and I never knew they were thereand you know, probably put 40
miles, you know, in walkingtrying to track them down.
Wow, and I remember the firsttime we actually went on a stalk
.
We went through a real thickarea.
We were on our hands and knees,calling and stuff, and you know
(38:56):
we were going through there andI was saying, well, if these
things, if we catch up to ithere, it's going to be a 20-yard
shock, because that's all thefarther you can see.
And we kind of got through thethick stuff.
It popped out on the other end.
We saw it and we were standingaround like well, it must have
moved a little bit, you know.
(39:16):
And we're kind of standing thereand all of a sudden they
snorted and flew out of there.
They were 50 yards from us andwe had no idea that we were
there, that they were there.
We couldn't see them, had noidea, and when they took off it
sounded like thunder.
(39:36):
I mean it was.
They don't run around thebushes and the trees, they run
straight through them and youknow as dusty as it is with the
sand and stuff, it's just acloud of dust and you're just
hearing brush and trees and windand stuff breaking as they go.
And I know like when they tookoff, the first thing I did was
(39:58):
pull up the gun waiting for itto come after me.
Yeah, I didn't know where theheck it was going.
They were at what they weredoing.
I was in like fire mode but aslong as you know, they went the
other way.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah well, you hear those stories about how
dangerous they are, so I don'tblame you.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah, I don't know that I was necessarily expecting
them to run.
You know away from us as much,because you do hear the stories
about them coming after you andthey look at you the wrong way
and they want to attack you orwhatever.
So for them to run away likethat, I wasn't necessarily
(40:38):
expecting that, but that was atough hunt.
Eventually, whenever we didcatch up to them, it was kind of
in the evening of the fourthday we knew we were close and
kind of got within 50 or 60yards of them and we knew we
(40:59):
were there and they kind of knewwe were there and they started
moving from like our left to ourright.
We kind of circled around, triedto get in front of them and we
popped out on a little road andI think the front two or three
were actually running down theroad right towards us and I
(41:20):
pulled up on the sixth and thefirst couple kind of veered off,
got off the road and one ofthem just stopped right there
and was looking at me, you knowstraight on at 40 yards and you
know put it right below his nose, right in his chest, and
must've put a decent shot on him.
But he only, he kind offollowed the rest, ran about 40
(41:43):
yards and fell over and diedright there.
That was.
That was definitely a memorablehunt yeah, sounds it.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I, uh, I can definitely tell why that one is
your more memorable and favoriteone.
That's yeah, just to see, toexperience being around, you
know, the cape, cape, buffaloand their element like that and
stuff is you know, it'sincredible.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
It makes you kind of be a little bit more attentive
when you got animals like thatthat you know come after you for
no reason, just because you'rethere, so kind of really keeps
you on your toes at all times.
But you know, that's part of it, makes it fun, makes it
thrilling Well, thrilling well,yeah, absolutely, I mean we
(42:25):
don't.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
I mean sometimes you could run into some trouble with
, say, a rutting bull, moose orelk, but I mean we don't have
anything like a cow like thatout in the woods, that just, you
know you look at it the wrongway, like you said, or something
.
They just they're just going tobe like yeah, I'm going to
knock them over in church.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Oh yeah, yeah.
They go to bed angry and theywake up angry.
Yeah, they look at you like youowe them money.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Okay, yeah.
That's the exact truth of itGuys, I mean even our buffalo
here.
I don't think they're anything.
I've never been around them toomuch, a little bit in alberta,
but uh, they weren't nothinglike you know.
They saw.
Yeah, they chances are theyweren't going to come at you,
necessarily at all nothing,nothing like the cape buffalo.
Uh, I gotta ask all the uhtraveling around you guys have
(43:16):
done out in africa and huntingthe various species?
Uh, did you guys see much forsnakes?
Speaker 3 (43:22):
So not really.
I mean, like he was sayingearlier, you go over in their
winter, so they're kind of allalready brumating.
We've seen a couple.
I think we've seen a puff adder.
We saw a couple baby mambas.
(43:45):
There is the one hunting blind,and before you go into blinds
and stuff like they'll go infirst to make sure there's no
surprises in there.
But the last time we went overwith his mom and her sisters,
who are like, not hunters, well,honestly I think all three of
(44:08):
them one of the first animalsthey ever killed were all over
in Africa.
So they, they did a lot ofhunting out of a blind guess.
They told us, like right beforewe left, that the one blind
they were sitting in had a bigpython that lived in the ceiling
that was above their head whilethey were hunting and they
(44:31):
didn't know it was there.
And you know they're not goingto hurt you.
They like to keep them around,uh, because they will keep the
other snakes away, um, so Idon't know exactly how big that
one was but I think they said itwas like a uh, it was like a 12
foot rock python is what it was.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Oh, and it was there the whole time.
And, uh, yeah, my mom and auntkind of freaked out whenever
they found out that it was therethe whole time, while they were
sitting in the blind and had noidea uh, yeah, wow, I'm, uh,
I'm not a snake fan, that's uh,yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
If I looked up just waiting around for some critter
to come in and saw that thingslithering around and then the
guides tell me, no, no, it's allright, I I don't know if I'd
believe them that it was allright that's probably why I
wouldn't tell you.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Yeah, but yeah, so we .
But really, you know they tellyou to check your shoes before
you put them on in the morningand like under your pillows and
stuff, but we haven't really hada lot of experience with snakes
.
If you go into their main house, they have bullet holes in the
(45:38):
mirror behind their bar becausethere was a mamba that had
gotten up into the cabinet andthey went to pull a glass out
and it struck the glass.
They think it got confused andthey shot it.
So they keep the bullet holesthere because they think it's a
funny story.
And I'm like man, you guys arejust built different because
that's not funny to me.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
I'm pretty sure that's one of the most poisonous
snakes in the world.
I think it's up there.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yeah, they say that if a black mamba bites you, to
just find a comfy tree becausethere's nothing else you're
going to do.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, okay, so I heard right.
Yeah, they're built differentWow.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Yeah, whenever we went over for Dylan's Cape
Buffalo hunt, he had snake bootson, just because he thought
they would be quieter than theother boots that he wore.
And Ivan was kind of getting onhim and he said what are you
wearing those for?
And he said they're snake boots.
And he said, buddy, thosearen't going to protect you here
.
They're going to bite you inthe neck.
If they're going to bite you.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah, here they're going to bite you in the neck.
If they're going to bite you,oh yeah, I'd be looking around
everywhere.
Real different after hearingthat.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah, and like I said , if you're, you know most of
the time they are going toinvestigate things before they
have you go in.
Or if you're walking throughthe woods or the brush, they're
in front of you.
So it's not you, you know theydefinitely have them.
They're definitely there, butit's not a huge concern right at
(47:11):
least at the time of year we'vebeen over yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
So I mean, are you guys mainly what's most of the
hunting?
I guess it depends on the,obviously, but are you in a
blind or are you out, like say,in the back of a vehicle
scouting?
Are you just walking, looking?
How's that?
How's most of the say theplains game hunting work?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
The way you can kind of do it multiple different ways
.
You know if you're bow huntingor maybe not as comfortable
shooting off of sticks, um,you're in a blind over like
watering holes.
Um, you know they do havebenches on the truck, so if
you're driving around and yousee something you can shoot off
(47:53):
of the truck.
Um, we do a lot of spot andstalk, um, so just kind of
driving around until you know ifyou see it, catch a glimpse of
something and then get off and,um, kind of go after it.
That way really just depends onhow you want to do it, what
your comfort level is.
You know, at least theoutfitter we're with if you're,
(48:14):
if you tell them you want to doa Cape Buffalo hunt, they're not
going to have you shoot it froma blind or a truck.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
You're going to get on the floor or get on the
ground and get close to it,because it's part of the
experience.
But, okay, yeah, so they're.
They're really accommodatingfor whatever type of hunting you
you're comfortable doing really.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
oh for sure, like I said, we've taken, you know,
multiple people over that havenever really hunted and they
were incredibly accommodating tothat.
My dad has had a couple hipsurgeries, you know, and doesn't
move through the woods like heused to, and he was able to go
(48:58):
over with us and shot a stableand was able to do that.
It was a spot in stock and theywere good about, you know, kind
of staying with him and keepingat his pace and things like
that.
So they do, they did a reallygood job with that.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Okay, yeah.
So you guys you started sort ofuh working for this outfitter,
like helping, uh, you know,recruit, I guess, for them and
get people on the uh hunt oflifetime.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
Yeah for them and get people on the uh hunt of
lifetime.
Yeah, so we, when we moved outhere um, they don't have anybody
kind of this far west or didn'tyet, um that were doing hunting
shows and stuff with them.
Um, so we kind of, when we gotout here, you know, sat down
with them and said, hey, is thissomething you guys wanted want
us to do?
What would it look like?
Um, so we got started on that.
(49:42):
We do a couple hunting shows ayear, hopefully now that they
have the um new concession withthe big game.
You know we might do more thanwhat we're doing now, um, but
it's been really fun.
Um, it's neat.
Dylan gets to talking to peopleand next thing, you know, he
gets to hear about their sheephunting and things like that.
(50:03):
So he enjoys that yeah,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
It's always great to connect with uh, with any
hunters, and you never know whatstories they're gonna have and
it's great that you guys havebeen there so many times,
obviously, and been on thesedifferent hunts and had such a
great experience, so it's reallyeasy to uh, you know, pitch
people to go yeah, it is, and Imean ivan and merrileaf are
wonderful.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
They have been great to us.
They came out last year, um,and spent my birthday with us,
so it's easy to recommend themto people whenever you know that
they are the people that theyare and they're, you know,
wonderful yeah, well they're, Imean sounds like they're.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Uh, they're friends now more than more than anything
yeah, they definitely are.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
I mean, I don't, I don't know that I could ever go
back to africa and not hunt withthem.
So, and that was you know, evenafter the first time, before we
ever left, we're like, yeah,we're coming back with these
guys, there's no way we could gowith anybody else.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
I mean, that's the experiencethat a lot of people hope for.
I've heard a lot of horrorstories about people going to
certain outfitters in Africa.
So the fact that you guys had,you know, such great experience
each and every time is, you know?
It's great to hear.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
Yeah, we, the first year we went over.
My dad is a skeptic abouteverything and we went over and
he's like you guys are going toput all this money into going
over.
You're not going to shootanything, it's going to be a
scam this, that and the nextthing.
And you know, we get over thereand like we honestly didn't
really have any expectationsgoing in.
Um, I feel like now, talking topeople that are looking to
build a hunt, like book a hunt,they asked so many questions and
(51:52):
I'm like I couldn't tell you.
I, you know, going over there,I didn't even know if they spoke
english.
Um, by the time we got overthere and you know, facetimed
dad and said, like look at thelodging, here's what we killed
today.
Here's what we saw today.
I mean, we had it booked forthem to go back with us the
following year.
So I, we got really lucky.
(52:15):
I mean, I would like to say itwas research and planning and
all of that, but it was justyour luck.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah yeah, when you get drunk in an option just by
the hunt, it's a lot of off, butwe ended up coming out pretty
good on this one well, yeah, I'dsay, uh, like you said, the way
you came about it to get thathunt and go there and it turns
out, you know, into what it has.
Yeah, that's uh, that's good,that's lucky.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Yeah, I'll take luck any day wouldn't have it any
other way that yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Uh, you know I can't thank you two enough for coming
on and talking about this, butif somebody's listening to this
and they're like you know Idon't know about right now, but
eventually I'd like to contactthese people and, uh, and go
down there for a hunt what isthe best way?
And then, do they have like awebsite or a facebook page where
you can see some pictures oftheir facilities and the lodging
and the animals?
Speaker 3 (53:07):
Yeah, so they have a website and a Facebook.
I do most of the stuff for theFacebook, but the website is
namahaticom and then theFacebook is Namahati Safaris,
africa.
How?
Speaker 1 (53:26):
do you spell?
Speaker 3 (53:29):
It is N-A-M-A-H-A-B-I .
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Okay, yep, spelled the way it sounds.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Yep, and I can um shoot you a Facebook message,
sure, or contact him for two.
They can reach out to us, um,you know, we have a guy out in
West Virginia that does a lot ofthe bookings and stuff for them
, um, and then there's anothergentleman out in South Dakota.
So, depending on where you'reat um, there should be people,
(54:05):
at least, hopefully, somewhatclose to you.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
All right, yeah, that's great.
Well, becca Dylan, I can'tthank you guys enough for for
taking some time out of yourevening and coming on here and
talking to me.
I'd like to talk again.
Your Africa stories are.
They're interesting.
And then, not to mention, youknow, the hound hunting and all
that.
So, uh, yeah, thanks, and and Ilook forward to I'm going to
check out that outfitter.
I'm curious.
(54:28):
Now I want to see, see somepictures and maybe book a hunt
in the future.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
Sounds good.
Thanks for having us onAppreciate it, thanks guys.
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