A record is a number; a trophy is a feeling. That line sets the pace as we sit down with Smokey Crews to unpack the mindset, effort, and odd twists of fate behind a lifetime of tags—from a rare, double-shovel caribou taken on the first morning to a hilariously gnarly velvet bull chosen for pure character the next day. We explore how to decide what you’re hunting for, how to hold out when it matters, and when to shoot the one that makes your heart jump.
Smokey breaks down the myths around blacktails, arguing they’re no mystery if you treat them like deer—calls, scrapes, predictable patterns—while being honest about what really limits success: access and effort. We talk timber company gates, paid permits, and the Western shift toward leased ground, plus the unglamorous work of baiting legally, setting cameras, and logging dawn-to-dark sits. Then we dive into moose calling and two unforgettable bulls that died in the road, proving that preparation can turn “luck” into inevitability.
Along the way, Smokey pays tribute to Chuck Adams and Randy Ulmer—mastery forged by practice, not chance—and lays out a practical blueprint: practice three to four times a week to weld form; scout year-round with a map in one hand and edges in your eyes; and build next season from a clear-eyed review of the last. If you’ve ever wondered why some hunters fill tags year after year, you’ll hear the truth: extreme dedication, smart access, and a personal definition of a trophy that keeps the fire alive.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a hunting partner, and leave a review with your definition of a “trophy.” Your take might spark our next conversation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast.
Today, part two with SmokeyCruise.
Okay, so let's talk aboutspecies.
Have you hunted like everythingin North America?
Or what all have you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
I haven't I've hunted most of the stuff in
North America, in uh lower 48.
But my wife and I did go toQuebec and hunt caribou twice,
and about three years apart.
You got the number three alltime, right?
Velvet Archery, Velvet, Quebec,Canada, Quebec, Labrador,
Quebec, Caribou.
(00:36):
Yes.
It was number three in the worldwhen I killed it.
And uh it lasted a year, andthen the guy in Oregon wrote
Blacktail book, Cameron Haynes,he killed one 15 or 20 inches
bigger the next year.
Mine was 354, and I think it was354 even.
(00:57):
And I think his was like 373 orsomething like that, or maybe
378.
But I'm not ashamed of it.
It's a pretty damn nice caribou,I think.
Oh, yeah, it's a gorgeouscaribou.
Yeah.
I shot that.
It was 10 o'clock in themorning, the first day out of a
five-day hunt.
As soon as I seen it, I knew Iwanted to shoot it if I had the
chance.
And it had double shovels.
(01:20):
A lot of the caribou, whenyou're hunting, get three on two
on one side and one on theother, or you get one on each
side.
But double shovels are notreally as often as the other
way.
And so that's very impressive tome as far as the looks of a
trophy.
(01:41):
And then it's also makes a heckof a difference in the score.
And I'm kind of a score meathunter.
I mean, over the years I'veusually shot the first bull,
elk, or deer, or bear that I hada chance to, because I like to
eat them.
And my brain thought is too, I'mgoing to shoot this one because
(02:02):
I may not get admitted anotherchance.
But when we went to Quebec,you're allowed two adult
caribou, and you didn't have todo nothing special except buy
your tags for him.
So when you went out hunting,depending on the person and is
what he was looking for, most ofthem are hunting for a caribou.
(02:25):
Well, I wanted to kill a reallynice caribou, so I was going to
try and hold out and kill one.
But at the same time, uh when Ishot that caribou, I didn't know
how it scored.
I just knew it was a nicecaribou and it was worth
shooting because it was a doubleshovel with seven or six or
seven or eight points on eachside down top, which is what
(02:46):
you're looking for.
And it was decently wide, so itwas a good caribou to shoot.
The next morning I went out andthree or five of them ran right
over to me, and I shot a littleone in there that probably
wouldn't come within 200 pointsof getting in the record book.
(03:07):
But it was in it was a solidvelvet, and it looked like it
had rickets.
The horns are all just crookedas heck, and everything else.
I could have shot four caribouthat ran in and stopped at 20
yards.
But when I seen that one, I saidthe heck with it, I'm going to
shoot that one.
That's the most unique one.
SPEAKER_02 (03:27):
That was the trophy.
SPEAKER_00 (03:29):
Well, I already killed the trophy.
SPEAKER_02 (03:31):
Well, and that's one of the things that like Dave has
talked about a lot is there'sshooting for a record, and then
there's shooting for yourtrophy.
And your trophy is whatever yourtrophy is.
So you got the trophy.
It's it was the uniqueness makesit the trophy.
SPEAKER_00 (03:49):
A way to state that is the first time I ever killed
a black-tailed deer, buck, outof a tree stand, and I'd put up
several tree stands and saltsand things like that and bait,
was a spike buck that come in,and I'd got in a tree stand at
two o'clock, and I shot andkilled him at four o'clock, and
he died right there.
(04:10):
I shot him in the back and hebroke down and died right there.
And I had more fun shooting thatbuck than I've a couple of the
four points I've killed.
SPEAKER_02 (04:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
But because of the way I did it, and it was right
behind my house and the wholesituation, I'm telling you, I
was ready to jump out of thattree stand, clean down to the
ground and yell.
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
No, I I absolutely get that.
It's the accomplishment that youfeel.
SPEAKER_00 (04:36):
Well, everybody, I've been trying this black tail
stuff for 40 years, bake themand salt them and stuff.
And I I've told my wife timeafter time after time that
blacktail are no different thanmule deer or white tail.
They'll come into calls, theymake scrapes.
(04:58):
Some are easier to call in, andsome are more prolific about
making scrapes, but they're allkind of predictable, and they
all got their traits that makesthem harder to succeed in
getting.
So the only reason thatwhitetail are the number one
deer in the United States, in myopinion, and I have killed white
(05:18):
tail, is 48 out of the 50 stateshave whitetail.
Yeah, they are more prolific,but I've been on mule deer hunts
and black tail hunts and whitetail hunts, and and another
thing, people think other inIowa and Illinois and are the
best white tail places.
I said Washington's got one ofthe best population of monster
(05:40):
whitetails in the country.
Not very many people know that,or they don't try and hunt them
over there.
I've done that, went there anddone that.
My wife succeeded better than Idid.
She got 137 inch after thescore's over.
I think it was 142-inch 10-pointover there.
(06:03):
But we got pictures on camerasof 200-inch white tails,
160-inch white tails, lots of 10points and everything.
Out of where we were had ourcameras set up at our stands.
There's you get the right place.
There's a lot of private landthere.
You can't just go out and findthem everywhere.
(06:24):
And most people won't put outthe effort to bait an animal to
where you're going to be able tobe picky about whether you're
hunting a trophy or whatevercomes in.
And that's it don't make adifference where it's blacktail,
mule deer, white tail, whetheryou're hunting bears or hunting
hound dogs or you're looking forantelope.
(06:44):
Most people won't go through theeffort it takes to succeed in
those.
I have I go to all the extremesthat's necessary to succeed in
killing all the game that I huntfor.
I get up an hour or four daynight, two hours or three hours
of I have to travel a long ways.
(07:06):
I got up at 2.30 in the morning,went to Yakima.
I hunted late season mule deerover there and elk, because elk
was on at the same time.
Drove all the way over there,started at 2.30 in the morning,
and hunted all day long, got inmy truck and drove home, turned
(07:27):
around and did the same thingthe next morning, and the only
time I had to hunt was weekends.
So my unfortunate little wifeput up with that.
But that's how I will go toextremes to hunt.
Very few guys will do what I'vedone.
Not that I'm bragging.
Like I said, I'm addicted to it,and I gotta do whatever I can to
if I was hunting fleas on mydog, I would go to the extremes
(07:50):
to put the right kind of poisonon it.
My wife can tell you that I saidyears ago, 40 years ago, that
there will be a time inWashington where you won't be
able to hunt unless you lease aland like they do back east for
Whitetail.
SPEAKER_02 (08:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
And it's almost there.
85 or 90 percent there becauseWarehouser owns everything now.
Yeah.
They finally got the idea ofeight or nine years ago, start
charging us if we wanted to goon their property, partly
because people would go on theirproperty and damage stuff.
And the other thing is becausesomebody funny told Warehouse,
hey, we don't have to do this.
(08:30):
We can make money on lettingguys through our gate and give
them a key.
And that's what's gone on backeast, but it took some time to
get out here.
SPEAKER_02 (08:39):
And eventually everybody else is gonna catch
on, Sierra Pacific or PortBlakely, which everybody's gonna
catch on to baiting Blacktail.
SPEAKER_00 (08:49):
Now our great governor that we got here
stopped Blacktail, which is awhole new series of stories and
feelings and stuff all initself.
But for years, very few peopleeven tried to blacktail, bait
them.
They didn't even want to putsalt out, and they didn't want
to put grain out.
(09:11):
And it just happens that I hadplanted several apple trees in
my one little aco around that Igot, and blacktail comes into my
backyard quite often.
Two or three that come into myplace right now almost every
night, about six, somewherebetween six and seven.
SPEAKER_01 (09:30):
So, Smoke, uh I'm sorry, can you just and as I've
always been curious about this,but can you give a guesstimate
to how many record book animalsyou have?
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
I got three Roosevelts that I can remember
off right hand.
I got seven by eight, a coupleof five points that you were in
the record book.
They were taken out because theyraised a minimum 10 or 20
points.
I got a couple of six, a sevenby eight and a six by six.
(10:01):
I might have a couple of fivepoints, but I can't remember
right offhand.
How many deer?
I got three black tails that areI won two national black tail
contests with them.
One was 116, one was one twelve,and uh the other one I won third
place.
I don't remember what that is.
(10:22):
I got three or four bears thatare in the blacktail book.
I got a twenty and an eight, andI got a couple of nineteens and
an eighteen or something.
Heck, my wife, she's got eight,I think, or four.
She got four record book blackbears.
And I think she's got more thanany woman in the state in the
country, I'm not sure.
(10:43):
She did it one time.
And I got a caribou that wasnumber three in the world.
I got a mountain goat that's inthere.
I drawed six mountain goats andstate tags in the state of
Washington.
I don't know anybody, gun or bowand arrow, that's drawn six goat
tags in the state of Washington.
SPEAKER_02 (10:59):
Now it's just once in a lifetime, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
No, no, you can still one every five years.
It feels like it's once in alifetime.
But when I I drew a goat tag thefirst time they ever had an
archery tag in 1967, uh-huh.
I drew a mountain goat tag, andthe Olympics killed a goat.
And then it was every three tofive years, somewhere in between
that, I drew another mountaingoat tag.
(11:23):
And so I've killed four goats inthe Olympics and three in White
Chuck Mountain in the Darringtonarea.
I blacktailed caribou, cariboumoose.
I drew a once-in-lifetime moosetag, but it's just a 37-inch
moose.
It wasn't a wasn't a record bookmoose to them, but it was to me.
(11:44):
I'll tell you, I wouldn't tellyou that story.
My wife and I put in togetherand she drew a tag at 10 years.
I drew one at 14 years, I thinkit was.
So she got to hunt them first.
So she actually hunted him witha bow and arrow for two weeks,
and then she got mad and wantedto go home.
She shot at several, never gothim.
(12:05):
We came back, and she sat therefor a few days and she said, I'd
shoot one with a gun.
So I said, Well, let's go see myson, or our son.
And we went and seen him.
He gave her a 7M08 with scopeand everything on, thousand-yard
gun.
And we went over there and gotup at 8 o'clock in the morning
and got out of her camp trailer,drove up in the woods at 8
(12:27):
o'clock in the morning.
She shot a bull right in themiddle of the road.
And she had never shot that gunin her life.
She had never shot a rifle witha scope on it in her life.
It ran out in the road and roundthe corner, and I called out the
window.
Cal called out the window and itstopped.
And I said, It's right there,right in front of me, about 80
yards.
She raised up and shot for theshoulder, and then you missed
(12:49):
the shoulder and hit it in thebase of the neck and broke it
neck and killed it right therein the road.
So we never had to pack it out.
When I had my tag a few yearslater, I think I had 14 points
or something like that.
We went over there and huntedfor four or five days.
(13:09):
Glenn Barry was with me fromBarry Game Calls, and he had to
go home because he had atransmission problem in the
little car he was driving whenhe was hunting with us.
And so when he left, my wife andI went out and looked on the
side of this hill with ourbinoculars that night.
And lo and behold, when I put mybinoculars up, there was a moose
(13:30):
in it.
And he was about a thousandyards away.
And I told her, I said, the mostimportant thing to me is when we
get a moose, I want you to beright beside me.
I want you involved in it bybeing there, watching the whole
thing.
And that's important to mebecause this is a
once-in-lifetime thing.
We never may ever get the chanceto hunt a moose again, which I
(13:53):
have, but that's a differentstory.
But uh in Canada, I seen thismoose at a thousand yards.
Wife says, give it a call.
I said, Actually, that's athousand yards.
That moose ain't gonna payattention to me.
And she says, We'll try it.
So I got out of the car and gotup there and give a cow call,
and this bull turns around andlooks like this.
Just on a trot across it.
(14:14):
He was grunting and groaning allthe way across.
And only time we couldn't hearhim grunting was when he stepped
into a gully and came back outof it.
We heard him, but while he's inthat gully, it was about 10
minutes we didn't hear himcoming out.
And then he came trotting acrossaround, stopped at 40 yards or
50 yards, looked at us.
And why she said, shoot him.
I said, Well, I don't want toshoot him.
(14:35):
I'll give him another call.
I gave him a little call and heraised his head and looked at
us, and down the hill he came.
And he stopped at 18 yards fromus on the side of the hill off
the road.
And we had walked about 100yards downhill from my truck on
the road that we'd seen himfrom.
And so he stopped at 18 yards,and I asked my wife, I said, Can
(15:01):
you see him?
She says, Yeah, I'm recordingwith my camera.
I said, Okay.
So I raised up and shot himbehind his shoulder, and he ran
down the hill and died in themiddle of the road that we were
standing on.
So you didn't have to pack thatone out either.
No, all I had to do is get in mytruck and back up, open the
tailgate.
SPEAKER_01 (15:18):
That is so not my luck.
SPEAKER_00 (15:21):
So we've had chance at two different moose and shot
them both on the road.
And that's the way I like to doit.
On the way home with my moose,it was really hot.
It was super hot.
We'd skinned it out and laid theskin on a bit of the truck and
laid the moose meat on a hide.
And we could see Spokane fromthe place we shot it at.
(15:44):
It was down the hill from usabout five or six miles, maybe
more, 10 or 15 milescross-country, but it was up in
the air quite a ways, and wecould see the town.
I said, let's go down and getsome ice and put on that meat.
So we drove down and bought, Ithink about 12 bags of ice.
And the moose was laying on thehide, and I just took the ice
(16:04):
and I opened it up and I spreadthem 12 bags of ice all over
that moose hide so that we coulddrive home and not spoil the
meat.
And so we left there and starteddriving across country and got
about 50 or 60 miles, and Ineeded to get some fuel.
I got out and started puttingdiesel fuel in my pickup.
(16:26):
And I looked back and the waterwas melting out of that ice, and
there was a big pool about thatbig around, look just like blood
on a pavement right where mytruck was setting.
And a lady walked out and waslooked at our truck and stuff.
I didn't know if she seen theblood or no whatever.
But I got done putting the fuelin the truck and I told my wife,
(16:46):
I says, let's get out of here asquick as possible.
I said, That moose is bleedingall over the ground.
So we got in the car and leftthe big blood spot right there
in front of the pump.
It was just funny.
I wasn't trying to be serious.
It's just the way things jerkedout.
I thought it was prettyappropriate.
My wife don't always think it'sas funny as I do, but I don't
(17:07):
know how many trophy animalsI've shot.
I think 11, 12, something likethat, 15.
I got a bunch of certificatesbecause I put them in the Pope
and Young book.
Uh-huh.
And I got quite a few in there.
Sometimes you just don't thinkabout looking in a book anymore.
You know, I haven't done it forfour or five years.
(17:27):
We got these portfolios andstuff you put your things in.
And uh if it makes a book, I putit in it.
One of these days I'll catch aChuck Adams, but I doubt it.
I would like to say I think thatChuck Adams is probably the
world or national champion, inmy opinion, about who's the best
bow hunter.
(17:48):
Chuck Adams has got over 300Pope and Young record book
animals.
Oh wow.
He has more world record animalsthan anybody in the country.
When he went to college, he wason an archery tournament team
shooting recurs.
He still prefers recurs, Ibelieve.
And he says he loves it becauseit's so long and it pulls just
(18:10):
like he could shoot it withfingers versus recurs.
The next best the guy closest tohim, I think, is Randy Ulmer.
And I just got done reading anarticle about Randy Ulmer.
I think he's got 25 really hugemule deer, typical and
non-typical.
And he goes out and spends daysand weeks out in a desert and
(18:34):
high country searching for muledeer.
And that's his thing.
And I don't remember I read alot about the guys that hunt and
stuff a lot and shoottournaments.
I can't remember if he's huntedelk.
But if he hunted an elk, it bledbefore he was done.
(18:54):
That's my feelings about RandyHomer.
He's as close to anybody I thinkand think of that would be
anywhere near Chuck Adams aboutbeing the greatest hunter in the
world.
Now, I could be wrong about it,but I know that nobody's killed
as many record book animals asChuck Adams, and I mean he's
hundreds ahead of everybody.
He also was a tournament shooterin college, and he's proud of
(19:19):
that.
But he was raised in archery andhunted in California and killed
lots of black-tailed record bookanimals, killed several
different kinds of animals, andhe spends days at a time.
He's killed sheep, and I can'tremember how many days he spent
in freezing weather huntingsheep in Canada, killed sheep
(19:39):
and stuff.
It takes a pretty good guy, evenwith a gun, to compare with what
Chuck Adams has done in hislife.
And he writes about 300 articlesa year.
That's a lot.
That is a lot.
A lot of information about aperson that most people don't
know.
And I'm not bragging about whatI know.
I just like reading articlesabout if what I see a Chuck
Adams or a Randy Olmer article,I get on it as fast as I can,
(20:03):
and I try to remember everythingabout it because in fact I was
going to bring a book here.
It's in a bow hunter this year.
It's on the very last page ofBow Hunter this month, just come
last week.
And it's about Randy Olmer andwhy he hunts.
And it's a very sentimental.
It's a very articulated beyondbelief how articulated that guy
(20:27):
is as far as big words andknowing what he's talking about.
He should have been a Zane Graybook writer because he really
can write.
And so that's my opinion aboutbig hunters.
And I used to give some seminarsto people.
(20:47):
I'd go all over pro staffer forQuaker boy for a couple years.
So I gave a bunch of seminarsand I would tell people in my
seminars that people like ChuckAdams, I talked to Chuck Adams
at the Portland Sports Show andasked him how many hunts he had
coming up.
He says, Well, I got 14 two-weekhunts, guided hunts coming up
(21:08):
this year.
And I says, Are you eligible fora seminar?
He said, Yeah, I charge$3,000for a seminar, and they got to
pay my expenses both ways to getthere.
SPEAKER_01 (21:21):
Boy, I got to raise my prices too.
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
And he says, I'm booked.
Well, by far.
And and he says, I've gotthree-year backlog.
Wow.
Yeah.
A three-year backlog.
SPEAKER_01 (21:34):
But you look at him and you look at his career.
I mean, that's a guy that'searned it.
It's not like he's been a flashin the pan.
It's like you say, I mean, he'sbeen around since the conception
of modern archery.
SPEAKER_00 (21:47):
I think he's younger than me, so don't hurt my
feelings.
SPEAKER_01 (21:49):
Well, I mean, you you know what I mean, though,
because archery is always therethe whole compound bow was not a
thing until I remember when theKurt Val and compound bow come
in.
Yeah, about 60 years ago.
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (22:05):
And so before that, it was all recurve or longbows.
And it was when it turned tocompounds, and I'm not putting
down recurve or long, becausethat's fun.
It is an absolute kick in thepants.
And that's how most of us gotstarted.
To go back to that is alwaysfun, you know.
But compound bows have taken itto another level.
(22:26):
For someone to have been in itthat long, like Chuck Adams has,
there's just very few guys thathave.
SPEAKER_00 (22:33):
Very few guys.
That's another thing.
See, most people don't stay inarchery for a lifetime.
I probably should say somethingabout how I kill a lot of
animals that most people don't.
I made fun of myself a whileback, a few hours, hours or so
ago about going through threewives.
(22:55):
But this third wife I've got,I've been married to her for
over 40 years, and she's been ahunter, a fisherman, and she's a
good flycaster and goodfisherman.
Can't get her to quit untilafter dark, and then she doesn't
want to come home.
I have to pull her off the boat.
And she'll go anytime, rain,snow, fleet.
(23:18):
Now that's a kind of a boyfisherman partner a guy wants.
But she's as good as I couldever ask for and has been.
And when it comes to hunting,it's the same way.
She's mountain goat hunted withme.
She's moose hunted with me.
We've gone everywhere from Texasto Alaska hunting together.
(23:42):
She's never complained about theweather or the distance, the
time.
And another thing, we get up attwo o'clock, three o'clock, four
o'clock to get where we want togo hunting.
We're there at daylight.
And we don't leave until it'spitch black dark.
And if there's any way we cantake a camp in there, we'll take
(24:04):
a camper there and hunt the nextday from the camper.
But when we're in that camper,and I got a story about that
too, and Dave's involved, we'lldo that.
I think that a lot of the peoplethat are bow hunters, rifle
hunters, muzzle loaders, theyget up at eight o'clock in the
(24:25):
morning, they go hunting, andthey hunt two or three hours on
a sitting on a hillside orwalking through a patch of
timber, go get in their car andgo home.
SPEAKER_03 (24:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:39):
My wife and I don't, and never have done that.
We don't leave the house fishingor hunting unless we know that
we get there as early as we can.
We don't stay until the latestwe can possibly be.
We got home obligations, dofeeding the cat or the dog or sh
throwing rocks at the neighboror something, but we we try and
(25:02):
spend it every minute we can outthere.
You cannot be successful aslittle as I have been
successful, you can't be assuccessful as I have unless
you've actually pushed yourselfand your family to the point of
(25:23):
hating you.
I'm just being serious.
Yeah.
And I feel this way.
And you can't be as successfulas I have unless you poured a
lot of money into it.
Now, I've not been rich, and andI don't have a sponsor, and I I
don't have a wife that makesmore money than I do.
Why are you staring at me?
(25:44):
And I've given them seminars onthis and told people this
before.
You can't be successful and beable to hunt Canada, Alaska,
Texas, Missouri, Washington,Quebec, like OED and stuff,
unless you poured a lot of moneyinto it.
Now, I've talked to Larry Jonesand Dwight Shua and a lot of
(26:09):
other guys at the sports showand stuff and listen to them.
I usually listen to them guysgetting them seminars and wait
until after everybody's left,and I try to be the last guy to
talk to them.
Because sometimes they'll tellyou something that won't tell
anybody else because there's toomany guys there and they don't
want to reveal it.
SPEAKER_02 (26:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:25):
Or I've made a point of asking a specific question
that they don't want to bringup.
You understand what I'm saying?
And so you got to do specialthings, and I'm not bragging
about myself.
I just happen to be this waywhen I hunt and fish.
I go to extremes, not because Iwant to, because I can't help
(26:47):
myself.
And I'm tickle-pinked that I'mthat way.
Because just before I come here,I talked 15 to 30 minutes before
I come here, I tied two reallysweet-looking leech flies before
I put them away and come to findDave.
And because he had to he had tocome out to the road to tell me
where he lived.
And I've been here three or fourtimes and I could find him.
(27:09):
It's the Bat Cave.
I tell people this in myseminar.
Somebody says, How lucky haveyou been at drawing moose tags?
I said, Well, I don't think Idon't think it's luck.
I don't believe in luck.
Well, how can you not?
You're lucky enough to dry tags.
Well, because I wouldn't havedrawn that tag unless I applied
for it.
That it wasn't luck.
(27:31):
And I grabbed my bow every timeI go outside and I got arrows
and a quiver.
And I walk out that door.
If there's a moose in my frontyard and I got a tag, I kill
him.
It wasn't because I was ready.
And I worked at it.
I learned how to practice allweek or every week, I chance I
get, and I worked at being agood shot or good enough to at
least hit the animal.
(27:53):
And I didn't have anybody toteach it to me.
I fortunately had to learn itmyself.
And I was never really a greatreader until I got out of the
military and got home.
And I got magazines like youcan't believe on Bo Hunter,
Sportsman's Outdoors and stuff.
(28:15):
At one time I had five magazinesthat I ordered every year.
And every time they'd come home,I'd sit down and read that
magazine from one page to theother.
One magazine, it cost me$100 ayear for a prescription.
And it was a great huntingmagazine.
And the guys had great ideas,give you great information about
(28:37):
where to go and stuff.
You have to live it.
When I go down a road, I don'tsee the neighbor's house.
I don't see other elder's house.
I'm looking for deer trails.
I'm looking underneath the appletree to see if the limbs are I I
can't help it.
That's the way I am.
SPEAKER_01 (28:56):
So there's a certain level of dedication that follows
your success.
So if you're not very dedicated,you're probably not going to be
very successful.
But if you are extremelydedicated, you're going to all
this stuff is just going to besecond nature.
You're going to want to do this.
SPEAKER_00 (29:11):
Yeah, I want to do it because I want to see the
deer trails are.
SPEAKER_02 (29:15):
It's interesting when you say that because like I
said, I've only been hunting forabout three years, but net
knowing Dave now for 30 years,Dave and I have known each
other.
Riding with him is just one ofthe scariest things that you can
ever experience because he'slooking nonstop for habitat.
SPEAKER_00 (29:35):
I understand that.
SPEAKER_02 (29:36):
Dear habitat.
Okay.
I didn't understand it.
I just keep your eyes on theroad, freaking out.
But since I started, now I'mdriving down the road and
driving off the road because I'mlooking up into the hills at all
the habitat.
Yeah, me driving church.
Driving to California now, Irisk my life every time I drive
(29:58):
down there because I'm lookingin like Oh, I like that edge.
Oh, oh, there's a good uh Johnfor a patch there.
I wonder, is this public?
Maybe I should look at on X,pull over and look at on Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (30:10):
I'm doing that now, but it's it is addicting though,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (30:12):
Yeah.
You get started.
It's a way you live.
You you can't help it.
I c every time I go over a creekor a river or by a lake, I'm
looking for dimples in the wateror fish jumping, or see how many
guys are parked at the parkinglot, see how high the water is
on a little piece of ground thatsticks up there above the bridge
(30:34):
when I go over the Calyx Riverin another county.
We even drive spatials.
We go up to Blue Creek just tosee how many guys are out there
fishing or if they're catchingfish, because I use that
information to tell me how I cando if I go downriver from them,
you know.
SPEAKER_01 (30:50):
Yeah.
A lot of guys, maybe theirsuccess varies or fill a tag
once every five, seven years.
Those are the guys that aretypically picking up their
weapon two weeks before seasonand saying, okay, it's time to
start thinking about hunting.
But guys that are successfulyear after year after year are
guys that are thinking abouthunting all the time.
SPEAKER_00 (31:15):
Day before hunting season, you start before hunting
season's over, you start huntingfor the next following season.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I don't even wait until the lastday of hunting to start looking.
Not just yeah, and not because Iwant to.
I can't help it.
SPEAKER_02 (31:32):
Well, and it actually we do that with the
guys who go through coaching, isour last session is they create
a PowerPoint.
What did you learn this year,and how's that going to affect
your next year?
And they basically have tocreate a report to build next
season off of last season.
SPEAKER_01 (31:50):
You immediately start prepping for the next
season.
SPEAKER_00 (31:53):
I can I can you can relate this to Archery, but I'm
going to relate the whole littlebit I want to say to coaching.
Because I coach one year myboy's little league.
The first day I was out there,the other people on the practice
range and in the ball games, theother coaches started whining at
me about not hollering out andtelling the players what to do.
(32:16):
Not telling them, don't tellthem not to swing at the ball
unless it's between yourshoulder and your knees.
And I says, I'm coaching thesekids to teach them how to play
baseball.
I'm not telling them how tocheat.
I'm telling them how to win.
If you don't like it, that'stough.
(32:36):
But there you guys will standthere and not say a word to your
students or your ball players orwhatever you want to call them.
And I can see things that thekid is doing out on second base
that he ought to be told.
And I holler my brains out untilhe hears me and starts paying
attention.
Because I'm his coach and my jobis to teach him how to play
(32:58):
ball, not to duck as low as hecan when he's at the bat and box
because it's got to be betweenhis shoulders or the top letters
and the knees.
I tell him to stand up and getready to hit that ball.
And if it comes over that pen,you better be hitting at it.
I said, if you go out becauseyou let the balls run by and you
hadn't struck at a ball that washolding a pen, I'm gonna holler
(33:20):
at you.
And I got mad at the guys on thefield.
I took over a team my son wasplaying on.
The guy went on a vacation for aweek.
I took over a team and they hadnot won a game.
When I took over the team, hecame back a week later and they
never lost for 23 straightgames.
(33:40):
And that's because I did notteach the kids anything but how
to play ball.
I told them to get the ball backas far as their shoulders they
can get and don't let it sit onyour shoulders.
Have it off of your shoulders.
When that ball comes up and ifit's not a strike or you strike
out, I don't care.
I want you to swing at the ballwhen it's right to swing at, and
(34:01):
I want you to swing it.
And if a guy's running for firstto second, I don't want you to
throw it if you're the catcherto the second place because of
pee-wee baseball, yeah, he can'tget the ball down there the
second baseman, then that guycan't catch it.
So hang on to it because the guycan't get best.
If you throw the ball, then hecan go to third and maybe even
home.
I taught him things like thatbecause that's part of the way
(34:23):
you play baseball as an adultand you win games that way.
But if you throw the ball away,or you throw it when you don't
need to, then you lost the gamefor yourselves because you
didn't think up here about wherethat buddy of yours that is on
third base can catch the ball.
(34:44):
So listen to me and I'll helpyou along.
And I don't care what theseother coaches like it or not.
And then when the other guy thatwas a not a second, I was a
second string coach, not hisfirst coach, just his helper.
When he got back on vacation andthe kids won games, and he came
to me and he says, What'd you doto them kids?
(35:04):
I says, I taught him how to playbaseball.
And that's what archery's about.
When I practice archery, Ithought, if I don't get at least
three games practice a days in aweek, I'm not going to be a very
good shot because I don't weldthat form, follow-through, and
technique in my body and mybrain together enough.
And if I didn't practice threeor four times a week, especially
(35:27):
when I was shooting bare bow andfingers, you had to practice
tons to be ready for a shoot ora tournament or a play day.
And that's why I finally learnedthat I didn't really like it as
much.
I won state championships, wonlocal championships, all kinds
of trophies.
I still got them plastered tothe wall in the house when I was
(35:50):
shooting barebo, mostly secondand third place.
But when the guys that startedgoing to releases and stuff that
were beating me all the timewent to back to the releases and
stuff, I started winning firstplace.
And I don't mind telling you,sometimes I won state
championships when two guys in astate that won every time I'd
ever played with them beat me.
(36:11):
But they didn't show up today,and I won state championship.
I was a state champion, but andand I in my own life tried to
tell myself only because DaveEatman or Steve McClellan didn't
show up or you were right or soyou gotta when I'd go to turn
around, I'd try and tell peoplethe truth.
(36:32):
If Chuck Adams has got 14, andI'd say I can remember saying
this in some seminar, ChuckAdams got 14 two-week hunts, and
he's kills a world record elk inMontana, super big antelope in
Wyoming, and a big mule deersomewhere else.
(36:53):
You give me 14 two-week paidguided hunts, and I'll be a
Chuck Adams this year.
I'll even write a couple storiesabout it.
SPEAKER_02 (37:01):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (37:02):
You understand what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02 (37:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (37:05):
It's super hard to be successful all the time, and
you've got to do something extrato get there.
SPEAKER_01 (37:13):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (37:13):
My wife and I, we would drive to Clicket.
If we got up at 10 o'clock inthe morning, we wanted to search
that area, we'd drive to MountAdams and hunt all day until it
got dark at 9 o'clock, and thenwe'd drive home.
And if we didn't find what wewanted, we'd go back the next
day and do the same thing.
Sometimes we'd get up beforedaylight and go do it.
(37:34):
And I'm not telling you that Iam a great hunter.
I'm just telling you that that'swhat I feel that great hunters
are people that give more effortthan everybody else.
SPEAKER_02 (37:47):
If you want what you've never had, you got to do
what you've never done.
Yeah.
As Dave has said.
So thanks for joining us forpart two with Smokey Cruise.
Talk to you all next week.
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast.
Today, part two with SmokeyCruise.
Okay, so let's talk aboutspecies.
Have you hunted like everythingin North America?
Or what all have you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
I haven't I've hunted most of the stuff in
North America, in uh lower 48.
But my wife and I did go toQuebec and hunt caribou twice,
and about three years apart.
You got the number three alltime, right?
Velvet Archery, Velvet, Quebec,Canada, Quebec, Labrador,
Quebec, Caribou.
(00:36):
Yes.
It was number three in the worldwhen I killed it.
And uh it lasted a year, andthen the guy in Oregon wrote
Blacktail book, Cameron Haynes,he killed one 15 or 20 inches
bigger the next year.
Mine was 354, and I think it was354 even.
(00:57):
And I think his was like 373 orsomething like that, or maybe
378.
But I'm not ashamed of it.
It's a pretty damn nice caribou,I think.
Oh, yeah, it's a gorgeouscaribou.
Yeah.
I shot that.
It was 10 o'clock in themorning, the first day out of a
five-day hunt.
As soon as I seen it, I knew Iwanted to shoot it if I had the
chance.
And it had double shovels.
(01:20):
A lot of the caribou, whenyou're hunting, get three on two
on one side and one on theother, or you get one on each
side.
But double shovels are notreally as often as the other
way.
And so that's very impressive tome as far as the looks of a
trophy.
(01:41):
And then it's also makes a heckof a difference in the score.
And I'm kind of a score meathunter.
I mean, over the years I'veusually shot the first bull,
elk, or deer, or bear that I hada chance to, because I like to
eat them.
And my brain thought is too, I'mgoing to shoot this one because
(02:02):
I may not get admitted anotherchance.
But when we went to Quebec,you're allowed two adult
caribou, and you didn't have todo nothing special except buy
your tags for him.
So when you went out hunting,depending on the person and is
what he was looking for, most ofthem are hunting for a caribou.
(02:25):
Well, I wanted to kill a reallynice caribou, so I was going to
try and hold out and kill one.
But at the same time, uh when Ishot that caribou, I didn't know
how it scored.
I just knew it was a nicecaribou and it was worth
shooting because it was a doubleshovel with seven or six or
seven or eight points on eachside down top, which is what
(02:46):
you're looking for.
And it was decently wide, so itwas a good caribou to shoot.
The next morning I went out andthree or five of them ran right
over to me, and I shot a littleone in there that probably
wouldn't come within 200 pointsof getting in the record book.
(03:07):
But it was in it was a solidvelvet, and it looked like it
had rickets.
The horns are all just crookedas heck, and everything else.
I could have shot four caribouthat ran in and stopped at 20
yards.
But when I seen that one, I saidthe heck with it, I'm going to
shoot that one.
That's the most unique one.
SPEAKER_02 (03:27):
That was the trophy.
SPEAKER_00 (03:29):
Well, I already killed the trophy.
SPEAKER_02 (03:31):
Well, and that's one of the things that like Dave has
talked about a lot is there'sshooting for a record, and then
there's shooting for yourtrophy.
And your trophy is whatever yourtrophy is.
So you got the trophy.
It's it was the uniqueness makesit the trophy.
SPEAKER_00 (03:49):
A way to state that is the first time I ever killed
a black-tailed deer, buck, outof a tree stand, and I'd put up
several tree stands and saltsand things like that and bait,
was a spike buck that come in,and I'd got in a tree stand at
two o'clock, and I shot andkilled him at four o'clock, and
he died right there.
(04:10):
I shot him in the back and hebroke down and died right there.
And I had more fun shooting thatbuck than I've a couple of the
four points I've killed.
SPEAKER_02 (04:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
But because of the way I did it, and it was right
behind my house and the wholesituation, I'm telling you, I
was ready to jump out of thattree stand, clean down to the
ground and yell.
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
No, I I absolutely get that.
It's the accomplishment that youfeel.
SPEAKER_00 (04:36):
Well, everybody, I've been trying this black tail
stuff for 40 years, bake themand salt them and stuff.
And I I've told my wife timeafter time after time that
blacktail are no different thanmule deer or white tail.
They'll come into calls, theymake scrapes.
(04:58):
Some are easier to call in, andsome are more prolific about
making scrapes, but they're allkind of predictable, and they
all got their traits that makesthem harder to succeed in
getting.
So the only reason thatwhitetail are the number one
deer in the United States, in myopinion, and I have killed white
(05:18):
tail, is 48 out of the 50 stateshave whitetail.
Yeah, they are more prolific,but I've been on mule deer hunts
and black tail hunts and whitetail hunts, and and another
thing, people think other inIowa and Illinois and are the
best white tail places.
I said Washington's got one ofthe best population of monster
(05:40):
whitetails in the country.
Not very many people know that,or they don't try and hunt them
over there.
I've done that, went there anddone that.
My wife succeeded better than Idid.
She got 137 inch after thescore's over.
I think it was 142-inch 10-pointover there.
(06:03):
But we got pictures on camerasof 200-inch white tails,
160-inch white tails, lots of 10points and everything.
Out of where we were had ourcameras set up at our stands.
There's you get the right place.
There's a lot of private landthere.
You can't just go out and findthem everywhere.
(06:24):
And most people won't put outthe effort to bait an animal to
where you're going to be able tobe picky about whether you're
hunting a trophy or whatevercomes in.
And that's it don't make adifference where it's blacktail,
mule deer, white tail, whetheryou're hunting bears or hunting
hound dogs or you're looking forantelope.
(06:44):
Most people won't go through theeffort it takes to succeed in
those.
I have I go to all the extremesthat's necessary to succeed in
killing all the game that I huntfor.
I get up an hour or four daynight, two hours or three hours
of I have to travel a long ways.
(07:06):
I got up at 2.30 in the morning,went to Yakima.
I hunted late season mule deerover there and elk, because elk
was on at the same time.
Drove all the way over there,started at 2.30 in the morning,
and hunted all day long, got inmy truck and drove home, turned
(07:27):
around and did the same thingthe next morning, and the only
time I had to hunt was weekends.
So my unfortunate little wifeput up with that.
But that's how I will go toextremes to hunt.
Very few guys will do what I'vedone.
Not that I'm bragging.
Like I said, I'm addicted to it,and I gotta do whatever I can to
if I was hunting fleas on mydog, I would go to the extremes
(07:50):
to put the right kind of poisonon it.
My wife can tell you that I saidyears ago, 40 years ago, that
there will be a time inWashington where you won't be
able to hunt unless you lease aland like they do back east for
Whitetail.
SPEAKER_02 (08:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
And it's almost there.
85 or 90 percent there becauseWarehouser owns everything now.
Yeah.
They finally got the idea ofeight or nine years ago, start
charging us if we wanted to goon their property, partly
because people would go on theirproperty and damage stuff.
And the other thing is becausesomebody funny told Warehouse,
hey, we don't have to do this.
(08:30):
We can make money on lettingguys through our gate and give
them a key.
And that's what's gone on backeast, but it took some time to
get out here.
SPEAKER_02 (08:39):
And eventually everybody else is gonna catch
on, Sierra Pacific or PortBlakely, which everybody's gonna
catch on to baiting Blacktail.
SPEAKER_00 (08:49):
Now our great governor that we got here
stopped Blacktail, which is awhole new series of stories and
feelings and stuff all initself.
But for years, very few peopleeven tried to blacktail, bait
them.
They didn't even want to putsalt out, and they didn't want
to put grain out.
(09:11):
And it just happens that I hadplanted several apple trees in
my one little aco around that Igot, and blacktail comes into my
backyard quite often.
Two or three that come into myplace right now almost every
night, about six, somewherebetween six and seven.
SPEAKER_01 (09:30):
So, Smoke, uh I'm sorry, can you just and as I've
always been curious about this,but can you give a guesstimate
to how many record book animalsyou have?
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
I got three Roosevelts that I can remember
off right hand.
I got seven by eight, a coupleof five points that you were in
the record book.
They were taken out because theyraised a minimum 10 or 20
points.
I got a couple of six, a sevenby eight and a six by six.
(10:01):
I might have a couple of fivepoints, but I can't remember
right offhand.
How many deer?
I got three black tails that areI won two national black tail
contests with them.
One was 116, one was one twelve,and uh the other one I won third
place.
I don't remember what that is.
(10:22):
I got three or four bears thatare in the blacktail book.
I got a twenty and an eight, andI got a couple of nineteens and
an eighteen or something.
Heck, my wife, she's got eight,I think, or four.
She got four record book blackbears.
And I think she's got more thanany woman in the state in the
country, I'm not sure.
(10:43):
She did it one time.
And I got a caribou that wasnumber three in the world.
I got a mountain goat that's inthere.
I drawed six mountain goats andstate tags in the state of
Washington.
I don't know anybody, gun or bowand arrow, that's drawn six goat
tags in the state of Washington.
SPEAKER_02 (10:59):
Now it's just once in a lifetime, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
No, no, you can still one every five years.
It feels like it's once in alifetime.
But when I I drew a goat tag thefirst time they ever had an
archery tag in 1967, uh-huh.
I drew a mountain goat tag, andthe Olympics killed a goat.
And then it was every three tofive years, somewhere in between
that, I drew another mountaingoat tag.
(11:23):
And so I've killed four goats inthe Olympics and three in White
Chuck Mountain in the Darringtonarea.
I blacktailed caribou, cariboumoose.
I drew a once-in-lifetime moosetag, but it's just a 37-inch
moose.
It wasn't a wasn't a record bookmoose to them, but it was to me.
(11:44):
I'll tell you, I wouldn't tellyou that story.
My wife and I put in togetherand she drew a tag at 10 years.
I drew one at 14 years, I thinkit was.
So she got to hunt them first.
So she actually hunted him witha bow and arrow for two weeks,
and then she got mad and wantedto go home.
She shot at several, never gothim.
(12:05):
We came back, and she sat therefor a few days and she said, I'd
shoot one with a gun.
So I said, Well, let's go see myson, or our son.
And we went and seen him.
He gave her a 7M08 with scopeand everything on, thousand-yard
gun.
And we went over there and gotup at 8 o'clock in the morning
and got out of her camp trailer,drove up in the woods at 8
(12:27):
o'clock in the morning.
She shot a bull right in themiddle of the road.
And she had never shot that gunin her life.
She had never shot a rifle witha scope on it in her life.
It ran out in the road and roundthe corner, and I called out the
window.
Cal called out the window and itstopped.
And I said, It's right there,right in front of me, about 80
yards.
She raised up and shot for theshoulder, and then you missed
(12:49):
the shoulder and hit it in thebase of the neck and broke it
neck and killed it right therein the road.
So we never had to pack it out.
When I had my tag a few yearslater, I think I had 14 points
or something like that.
We went over there and huntedfor four or five days.
(13:09):
Glenn Barry was with me fromBarry Game Calls, and he had to
go home because he had atransmission problem in the
little car he was driving whenhe was hunting with us.
And so when he left, my wife andI went out and looked on the
side of this hill with ourbinoculars that night.
And lo and behold, when I put mybinoculars up, there was a moose
(13:30):
in it.
And he was about a thousandyards away.
And I told her, I said, the mostimportant thing to me is when we
get a moose, I want you to beright beside me.
I want you involved in it bybeing there, watching the whole
thing.
And that's important to mebecause this is a
once-in-lifetime thing.
We never may ever get the chanceto hunt a moose again, which I
(13:53):
have, but that's a differentstory.
But uh in Canada, I seen thismoose at a thousand yards.
Wife says, give it a call.
I said, Actually, that's athousand yards.
That moose ain't gonna payattention to me.
And she says, We'll try it.
So I got out of the car and gotup there and give a cow call,
and this bull turns around andlooks like this.
Just on a trot across it.
(14:14):
He was grunting and groaning allthe way across.
And only time we couldn't hearhim grunting was when he stepped
into a gully and came back outof it.
We heard him, but while he's inthat gully, it was about 10
minutes we didn't hear himcoming out.
And then he came trotting acrossaround, stopped at 40 yards or
50 yards, looked at us.
And why she said, shoot him.
I said, Well, I don't want toshoot him.
(14:35):
I'll give him another call.
I gave him a little call and heraised his head and looked at
us, and down the hill he came.
And he stopped at 18 yards fromus on the side of the hill off
the road.
And we had walked about 100yards downhill from my truck on
the road that we'd seen himfrom.
And so he stopped at 18 yards,and I asked my wife, I said, Can
(15:01):
you see him?
She says, Yeah, I'm recordingwith my camera.
I said, Okay.
So I raised up and shot himbehind his shoulder, and he ran
down the hill and died in themiddle of the road that we were
standing on.
So you didn't have to pack thatone out either.
No, all I had to do is get in mytruck and back up, open the
tailgate.
SPEAKER_01 (15:18):
That is so not my luck.
SPEAKER_00 (15:21):
So we've had chance at two different moose and shot
them both on the road.
And that's the way I like to doit.
On the way home with my moose,it was really hot.
It was super hot.
We'd skinned it out and laid theskin on a bit of the truck and
laid the moose meat on a hide.
And we could see Spokane fromthe place we shot it at.
(15:44):
It was down the hill from usabout five or six miles, maybe
more, 10 or 15 milescross-country, but it was up in
the air quite a ways, and wecould see the town.
I said, let's go down and getsome ice and put on that meat.
So we drove down and bought, Ithink about 12 bags of ice.
And the moose was laying on thehide, and I just took the ice
(16:04):
and I opened it up and I spreadthem 12 bags of ice all over
that moose hide so that we coulddrive home and not spoil the
meat.
And so we left there and starteddriving across country and got
about 50 or 60 miles, and Ineeded to get some fuel.
I got out and started puttingdiesel fuel in my pickup.
(16:26):
And I looked back and the waterwas melting out of that ice, and
there was a big pool about thatbig around, look just like blood
on a pavement right where mytruck was setting.
And a lady walked out and waslooked at our truck and stuff.
I didn't know if she seen theblood or no whatever.
But I got done putting the fuelin the truck and I told my wife,
(16:46):
I says, let's get out of here asquick as possible.
I said, That moose is bleedingall over the ground.
So we got in the car and leftthe big blood spot right there
in front of the pump.
It was just funny.
I wasn't trying to be serious.
It's just the way things jerkedout.
I thought it was prettyappropriate.
My wife don't always think it'sas funny as I do, but I don't
(17:07):
know how many trophy animalsI've shot.
I think 11, 12, something likethat, 15.
I got a bunch of certificatesbecause I put them in the Pope
and Young book.
Uh-huh.
And I got quite a few in there.
Sometimes you just don't thinkabout looking in a book anymore.
You know, I haven't done it forfour or five years.
(17:27):
We got these portfolios andstuff you put your things in.
And uh if it makes a book, I putit in it.
One of these days I'll catch aChuck Adams, but I doubt it.
I would like to say I think thatChuck Adams is probably the
world or national champion, inmy opinion, about who's the best
bow hunter.
(17:48):
Chuck Adams has got over 300Pope and Young record book
animals.
Oh wow.
He has more world record animalsthan anybody in the country.
When he went to college, he wason an archery tournament team
shooting recurs.
He still prefers recurs, Ibelieve.
And he says he loves it becauseit's so long and it pulls just
(18:10):
like he could shoot it withfingers versus recurs.
The next best the guy closest tohim, I think, is Randy Ulmer.
And I just got done reading anarticle about Randy Ulmer.
I think he's got 25 really hugemule deer, typical and
non-typical.
And he goes out and spends daysand weeks out in a desert and
(18:34):
high country searching for muledeer.
And that's his thing.
And I don't remember I read alot about the guys that hunt and
stuff a lot and shoottournaments.
I can't remember if he's huntedelk.
But if he hunted an elk, it bledbefore he was done.
(18:54):
That's my feelings about RandyHomer.
He's as close to anybody I thinkand think of that would be
anywhere near Chuck Adams aboutbeing the greatest hunter in the
world.
Now, I could be wrong about it,but I know that nobody's killed
as many record book animals asChuck Adams, and I mean he's
hundreds ahead of everybody.
He also was a tournament shooterin college, and he's proud of
(19:19):
that.
But he was raised in archery andhunted in California and killed
lots of black-tailed record bookanimals, killed several
different kinds of animals, andhe spends days at a time.
He's killed sheep, and I can'tremember how many days he spent
in freezing weather huntingsheep in Canada, killed sheep
(19:39):
and stuff.
It takes a pretty good guy, evenwith a gun, to compare with what
Chuck Adams has done in hislife.
And he writes about 300 articlesa year.
That's a lot.
That is a lot.
A lot of information about aperson that most people don't
know.
And I'm not bragging about whatI know.
I just like reading articlesabout if what I see a Chuck
Adams or a Randy Olmer article,I get on it as fast as I can,
(20:03):
and I try to remember everythingabout it because in fact I was
going to bring a book here.
It's in a bow hunter this year.
It's on the very last page ofBow Hunter this month, just come
last week.
And it's about Randy Olmer andwhy he hunts.
And it's a very sentimental.
It's a very articulated beyondbelief how articulated that guy
(20:27):
is as far as big words andknowing what he's talking about.
He should have been a Zane Graybook writer because he really
can write.
And so that's my opinion aboutbig hunters.
And I used to give some seminarsto people.
(20:47):
I'd go all over pro staffer forQuaker boy for a couple years.
So I gave a bunch of seminarsand I would tell people in my
seminars that people like ChuckAdams, I talked to Chuck Adams
at the Portland Sports Show andasked him how many hunts he had
coming up.
He says, Well, I got 14 two-weekhunts, guided hunts coming up
(21:08):
this year.
And I says, Are you eligible fora seminar?
He said, Yeah, I charge$3,000for a seminar, and they got to
pay my expenses both ways to getthere.
SPEAKER_01 (21:21):
Boy, I got to raise my prices too.
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
And he says, I'm booked.
Well, by far.
And and he says, I've gotthree-year backlog.
Wow.
Yeah.
A three-year backlog.
SPEAKER_01 (21:34):
But you look at him and you look at his career.
I mean, that's a guy that'searned it.
It's not like he's been a flashin the pan.
It's like you say, I mean, he'sbeen around since the conception
of modern archery.
SPEAKER_00 (21:47):
I think he's younger than me, so don't hurt my
feelings.
SPEAKER_01 (21:49):
Well, I mean, you you know what I mean, though,
because archery is always therethe whole compound bow was not a
thing until I remember when theKurt Val and compound bow come
in.
Yeah, about 60 years ago.
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (22:05):
And so before that, it was all recurve or longbows.
And it was when it turned tocompounds, and I'm not putting
down recurve or long, becausethat's fun.
It is an absolute kick in thepants.
And that's how most of us gotstarted.
To go back to that is alwaysfun, you know.
But compound bows have taken itto another level.
(22:26):
For someone to have been in itthat long, like Chuck Adams has,
there's just very few guys thathave.
SPEAKER_00 (22:33):
Very few guys.
That's another thing.
See, most people don't stay inarchery for a lifetime.
I probably should say somethingabout how I kill a lot of
animals that most people don't.
I made fun of myself a whileback, a few hours, hours or so
ago about going through threewives.
(22:55):
But this third wife I've got,I've been married to her for
over 40 years, and she's been ahunter, a fisherman, and she's a
good flycaster and goodfisherman.
Can't get her to quit untilafter dark, and then she doesn't
want to come home.
I have to pull her off the boat.
And she'll go anytime, rain,snow, fleet.
(23:18):
Now that's a kind of a boyfisherman partner a guy wants.
But she's as good as I couldever ask for and has been.
And when it comes to hunting,it's the same way.
She's mountain goat hunted withme.
She's moose hunted with me.
We've gone everywhere from Texasto Alaska hunting together.
(23:42):
She's never complained about theweather or the distance, the
time.
And another thing, we get up attwo o'clock, three o'clock, four
o'clock to get where we want togo hunting.
We're there at daylight.
And we don't leave until it'spitch black dark.
And if there's any way we cantake a camp in there, we'll take
(24:04):
a camper there and hunt the nextday from the camper.
But when we're in that camper,and I got a story about that
too, and Dave's involved, we'lldo that.
I think that a lot of the peoplethat are bow hunters, rifle
hunters, muzzle loaders, theyget up at eight o'clock in the
(24:25):
morning, they go hunting, andthey hunt two or three hours on
a sitting on a hillside orwalking through a patch of
timber, go get in their car andgo home.
SPEAKER_03 (24:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:39):
My wife and I don't, and never have done that.
We don't leave the house fishingor hunting unless we know that
we get there as early as we can.
We don't stay until the latestwe can possibly be.
We got home obligations, dofeeding the cat or the dog or sh
throwing rocks at the neighboror something, but we we try and
(25:02):
spend it every minute we can outthere.
You cannot be successful aslittle as I have been
successful, you can't be assuccessful as I have unless
you've actually pushed yourselfand your family to the point of
(25:23):
hating you.
I'm just being serious.
Yeah.
And I feel this way.
And you can't be as successfulas I have unless you poured a
lot of money into it.
Now, I've not been rich, and andI don't have a sponsor, and I I
don't have a wife that makesmore money than I do.
Why are you staring at me?
(25:44):
And I've given them seminars onthis and told people this
before.
You can't be successful and beable to hunt Canada, Alaska,
Texas, Missouri, Washington,Quebec, like OED and stuff,
unless you poured a lot of moneyinto it.
Now, I've talked to Larry Jonesand Dwight Shua and a lot of
(26:09):
other guys at the sports showand stuff and listen to them.
I usually listen to them guysgetting them seminars and wait
until after everybody's left,and I try to be the last guy to
talk to them.
Because sometimes they'll tellyou something that won't tell
anybody else because there's toomany guys there and they don't
want to reveal it.
SPEAKER_02 (26:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:25):
Or I've made a point of asking a specific question
that they don't want to bringup.
You understand what I'm saying?
And so you got to do specialthings, and I'm not bragging
about myself.
I just happen to be this waywhen I hunt and fish.
I go to extremes, not because Iwant to, because I can't help
(26:47):
myself.
And I'm tickle-pinked that I'mthat way.
Because just before I come here,I talked 15 to 30 minutes before
I come here, I tied two reallysweet-looking leech flies before
I put them away and come to findDave.
And because he had to he had tocome out to the road to tell me
where he lived.
And I've been here three or fourtimes and I could find him.
(27:09):
It's the Bat Cave.
I tell people this in myseminar.
Somebody says, How lucky haveyou been at drawing moose tags?
I said, Well, I don't think Idon't think it's luck.
I don't believe in luck.
Well, how can you not?
You're lucky enough to dry tags.
Well, because I wouldn't havedrawn that tag unless I applied
for it.
That it wasn't luck.
(27:31):
And I grabbed my bow every timeI go outside and I got arrows
and a quiver.
And I walk out that door.
If there's a moose in my frontyard and I got a tag, I kill
him.
It wasn't because I was ready.
And I worked at it.
I learned how to practice allweek or every week, I chance I
get, and I worked at being agood shot or good enough to at
least hit the animal.
(27:53):
And I didn't have anybody toteach it to me.
I fortunately had to learn itmyself.
And I was never really a greatreader until I got out of the
military and got home.
And I got magazines like youcan't believe on Bo Hunter,
Sportsman's Outdoors and stuff.
(28:15):
At one time I had five magazinesthat I ordered every year.
And every time they'd come home,I'd sit down and read that
magazine from one page to theother.
One magazine, it cost me$100 ayear for a prescription.
And it was a great huntingmagazine.
And the guys had great ideas,give you great information about
(28:37):
where to go and stuff.
You have to live it.
When I go down a road, I don'tsee the neighbor's house.
I don't see other elder's house.
I'm looking for deer trails.
I'm looking underneath the appletree to see if the limbs are I I
can't help it.
That's the way I am.
SPEAKER_01 (28:56):
So there's a certain level of dedication that follows
your success.
So if you're not very dedicated,you're probably not going to be
very successful.
But if you are extremelydedicated, you're going to all
this stuff is just going to besecond nature.
You're going to want to do this.
SPEAKER_00 (29:11):
Yeah, I want to do it because I want to see the
deer trails are.
SPEAKER_02 (29:15):
It's interesting when you say that because like I
said, I've only been hunting forabout three years, but net
knowing Dave now for 30 years,Dave and I have known each
other.
Riding with him is just one ofthe scariest things that you can
ever experience because he'slooking nonstop for habitat.
SPEAKER_00 (29:35):
I understand that.
SPEAKER_02 (29:36):
Dear habitat.
Okay.
I didn't understand it.
I just keep your eyes on theroad, freaking out.
But since I started, now I'mdriving down the road and
driving off the road because I'mlooking up into the hills at all
the habitat.
Yeah, me driving church.
Driving to California now, Irisk my life every time I drive
(29:58):
down there because I'm lookingin like Oh, I like that edge.
Oh, oh, there's a good uh Johnfor a patch there.
I wonder, is this public?
Maybe I should look at on X,pull over and look at on Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (30:10):
I'm doing that now, but it's it is addicting though,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (30:12):
Yeah.
You get started.
It's a way you live.
You you can't help it.
I c every time I go over a creekor a river or by a lake, I'm
looking for dimples in the wateror fish jumping, or see how many
guys are parked at the parkinglot, see how high the water is
on a little piece of ground thatsticks up there above the bridge
(30:34):
when I go over the Calyx Riverin another county.
We even drive spatials.
We go up to Blue Creek just tosee how many guys are out there
fishing or if they're catchingfish, because I use that
information to tell me how I cando if I go downriver from them,
you know.
SPEAKER_01 (30:50):
Yeah.
A lot of guys, maybe theirsuccess varies or fill a tag
once every five, seven years.
Those are the guys that aretypically picking up their
weapon two weeks before seasonand saying, okay, it's time to
start thinking about hunting.
But guys that are successfulyear after year after year are
guys that are thinking abouthunting all the time.
SPEAKER_00 (31:15):
Day before hunting season, you start before hunting
season's over, you start huntingfor the next following season.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I don't even wait until the lastday of hunting to start looking.
Not just yeah, and not because Iwant to.
I can't help it.
SPEAKER_02 (31:32):
Well, and it actually we do that with the
guys who go through coaching, isour last session is they create
a PowerPoint.
What did you learn this year,and how's that going to affect
your next year?
And they basically have tocreate a report to build next
season off of last season.
SPEAKER_01 (31:50):
You immediately start prepping for the next
season.
SPEAKER_00 (31:53):
I can I can you can relate this to Archery, but I'm
going to relate the whole littlebit I want to say to coaching.
Because I coach one year myboy's little league.
The first day I was out there,the other people on the practice
range and in the ball games, theother coaches started whining at
me about not hollering out andtelling the players what to do.
(32:16):
Not telling them, don't tellthem not to swing at the ball
unless it's between yourshoulder and your knees.
And I says, I'm coaching thesekids to teach them how to play
baseball.
I'm not telling them how tocheat.
I'm telling them how to win.
If you don't like it, that'stough.
(32:36):
But there you guys will standthere and not say a word to your
students or your ball players orwhatever you want to call them.
And I can see things that thekid is doing out on second base
that he ought to be told.
And I holler my brains out untilhe hears me and starts paying
attention.
Because I'm his coach and my jobis to teach him how to play
(32:58):
ball, not to duck as low as hecan when he's at the bat and box
because it's got to be betweenhis shoulders or the top letters
and the knees.
I tell him to stand up and getready to hit that ball.
And if it comes over that pen,you better be hitting at it.
I said, if you go out becauseyou let the balls run by and you
hadn't struck at a ball that washolding a pen, I'm gonna holler
(33:20):
at you.
And I got mad at the guys on thefield.
I took over a team my son wasplaying on.
The guy went on a vacation for aweek.
I took over a team and they hadnot won a game.
When I took over the team, hecame back a week later and they
never lost for 23 straightgames.
(33:40):
And that's because I did notteach the kids anything but how
to play ball.
I told them to get the ball backas far as their shoulders they
can get and don't let it sit onyour shoulders.
Have it off of your shoulders.
When that ball comes up and ifit's not a strike or you strike
out, I don't care.
I want you to swing at the ballwhen it's right to swing at, and
(34:01):
I want you to swing it.
And if a guy's running for firstto second, I don't want you to
throw it if you're the catcherto the second place because of
pee-wee baseball, yeah, he can'tget the ball down there the
second baseman, then that guycan't catch it.
So hang on to it because the guycan't get best.
If you throw the ball, then hecan go to third and maybe even
home.
I taught him things like thatbecause that's part of the way
(34:23):
you play baseball as an adultand you win games that way.
But if you throw the ball away,or you throw it when you don't
need to, then you lost the gamefor yourselves because you
didn't think up here about wherethat buddy of yours that is on
third base can catch the ball.
(34:44):
So listen to me and I'll helpyou along.
And I don't care what theseother coaches like it or not.
And then when the other guy thatwas a not a second, I was a
second string coach, not hisfirst coach, just his helper.
When he got back on vacation andthe kids won games, and he came
to me and he says, What'd you doto them kids?
(35:04):
I says, I taught him how to playbaseball.
And that's what archery's about.
When I practice archery, Ithought, if I don't get at least
three games practice a days in aweek, I'm not going to be a very
good shot because I don't weldthat form, follow-through, and
technique in my body and mybrain together enough.
And if I didn't practice threeor four times a week, especially
(35:27):
when I was shooting bare bow andfingers, you had to practice
tons to be ready for a shoot ora tournament or a play day.
And that's why I finally learnedthat I didn't really like it as
much.
I won state championships, wonlocal championships, all kinds
of trophies.
I still got them plastered tothe wall in the house when I was
(35:50):
shooting barebo, mostly secondand third place.
But when the guys that startedgoing to releases and stuff that
were beating me all the timewent to back to the releases and
stuff, I started winning firstplace.
And I don't mind telling you,sometimes I won state
championships when two guys in astate that won every time I'd
ever played with them beat me.
(36:11):
But they didn't show up today,and I won state championship.
I was a state champion, but andand I in my own life tried to
tell myself only because DaveEatman or Steve McClellan didn't
show up or you were right or soyou gotta when I'd go to turn
around, I'd try and tell peoplethe truth.
(36:32):
If Chuck Adams has got 14, andI'd say I can remember saying
this in some seminar, ChuckAdams got 14 two-week hunts, and
he's kills a world record elk inMontana, super big antelope in
Wyoming, and a big mule deersomewhere else.
(36:53):
You give me 14 two-week paidguided hunts, and I'll be a
Chuck Adams this year.
I'll even write a couple storiesabout it.
SPEAKER_02 (37:01):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (37:02):
You understand what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02 (37:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (37:05):
It's super hard to be successful all the time, and
you've got to do something extrato get there.
SPEAKER_01 (37:13):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (37:13):
My wife and I, we would drive to Clicket.
If we got up at 10 o'clock inthe morning, we wanted to search
that area, we'd drive to MountAdams and hunt all day until it
got dark at 9 o'clock, and thenwe'd drive home.
And if we didn't find what wewanted, we'd go back the next
day and do the same thing.
Sometimes we'd get up beforedaylight and go do it.
(37:34):
And I'm not telling you that Iam a great hunter.
I'm just telling you that that'swhat I feel that great hunters
are people that give more effortthan everybody else.
SPEAKER_02 (37:47):
If you want what you've never had, you got to do
what you've never done.
Yeah.
As Dave has said.
So thanks for joining us forpart two with Smokey Cruise.
Talk to you all next week.
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