October 13, 2025 • 39 mins
Some hunts hinge on perfect gear. Most hinge on better judgment. We sit down with Smokey Crews to unpack the quiet moves that turn a fleeting chance into a clean kill—why he swears by a Chuck Adams side quiver through thick coastal brush, how a “60-yard” caribou needed a lower hold despite a correct range, and what really happens when a big Roosevelt bull makes that straight-line “death run” into huckleberries. It’s part campfire, part masterclass, and full of the hard-earned notes you won’t find on a glossy gear ad.
We follow Smokey through family drives where a forgotten quiver forced patience, bear baits that vanished minutes after being set, and an opening-day elk that proved bugles can switch on in late August. He lays out a timeline most hunters miss: bulls often start talking around the 20th—22nd, and they’re far easier to call before they’ve been educated by road-landing bugles and preseason “practice.” We contrast side quiver versus bow quiver in real terms—brush clearance, balance, and groups at 50—then bridge into the mental game: most people want a shot; disciplined hunters want a hit. The difference shows up in when you draw, how you hold, and whether you listen when the caller says “move now.”
But this isn’t theory. We get locker weights that challenge assumptions (a skinned Roosevelt bull still hanging at 500 pounds), practical blood-trailing through thick understory, and a candid look at access: caribou herds walking by camp, whitetails on bait, private-land mule deer regrets, and creative bartering with guides to make dream hunts real. Smokey’s stories double as checklists—protect wild behavior, avoid educating animals, communicate ranges as they change, and act before the window closes.
If you’re chasing elk, bears, caribou, or deer—and want fewer “almosts” and more clean, ethical kills—this conversation will sharpen your decisions on day one. Press play, subscribe for more field-tested tactics, and share your biggest early-season lesson or calling mistake with us. We read every note and might feature yours next time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:10):
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast.
I'm Aaron.
Before we get started with partthree with Smokey Cruise, I
wanted to remind all of ourwatching and listeners that
feedback for the next threeseasons is open on the
wdfw.wa.gov website.
Please jump online and give yourfeedback for the hunting
regulations of the upcomingthree seasons.
(00:31):
Thanks a lot.
Okay.
So I know lots of Dave'smemorable mistakes and good
stories too.
But I'm sure you've got them.
So what are some of yourstories, whether it was just how
the heck did I do that?
Like to the good or to the bad,of just, you know, get out and
(00:55):
you realize that you forgot somenecessary piece of equipment
like your rifle or let's hearsome of those stories.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
I can't tell you how many times that, but 95% of the
guys that go out in the woodsand hunt are hunting with a bow
quiver.
I quit liking the hunting with abull quiver 40 years ago.
And I've been hunting with theChuck Adams eight arrow side
quiver.
I can get through the brushanywhere I want to go.
(01:25):
I can't say it's easy, buteverybody says, well, you can't
hunt through the woods verygood.
You're too pressured if you'vegot a side quiver.
Well, might be, but I've beendoing all right.
So I can't complain.
Even if it would have beeneasier, I like the side quiver
so much, I don't want to go backto anything else.
(01:46):
And I've tried shooting with aquiver on my bow, and I've tried
shooting in practice in mybackyard with a quiver off my
bow.
And to tell you the truth, it'dbe say I'm shooting 50 yards for
a group.
I got four arrows.
My group down there at 50 yardswould be two in a spot and two
(02:09):
barely out.
With a quiver off, it'd be twoin a spot, two four inches off.
It was close enough that I stillshot the animal I was aiming at.
So it wasn't important for me toworry about whether I had a
(02:31):
quiver on the bull or off thebow.
To me, it was the most importantthing is to be able to hit the
animal where I wanted to hit himwhen I had the opportunity.
And most people want to I'vefound out they want to get a
shot at it.
I want to hit it.
(02:51):
That's the difference.
I can re I can remember my wifeand son, two of my boys, and my
wife and I making drives.
It was my turn to set on thestump.
They made the drive.
I could have shot a fork andhorn, but I was hoping one of my
young boys would be able to getit, and so I never shot at it.
(03:12):
Nice fork and horn blacktail.
When they got that, I had totell them that I'd forgot my
quiver in the truck and it wasover there about 100 yards, and
I didn't want to run back andget it.
So I just sat there and watched.
And I even, my old season, youmean we did that drive for
nothing?
(03:32):
I said, no, I said nothing comeout that I wanted to shoot,
those and fork and horns orspikes.
So it wasn't for nothing.
I wouldn't have had to shoot atanything anyway.
But I've done that three or fourtimes on hunts.
One time my wife let me off of Ican't remember exactly where it
was, but it was about a half anhour drive where she was going
(03:55):
to pick me up.
So she dropped me off and I gotout of the car.
And for a side quiver, you gotto take your belt buckle loose
and put the belt through.
Well, when she was about 15yards away, driving away, I
realized it didn't have myquiver.
So she got way down there andgot parked and got her gear out
(04:18):
and looked, and there were myquiver was.
So she drove all the way backand gave me my quiver, and I
don't want to have to come backand do this again.
You know, and uh so uh that whatis very beautiful memories that
I remember.
Like I told you that black tail.
(04:40):
First time I put up a bait upabove my house, I baited for a
month or so before the seasoncame.
And I set up there, the firstday I sat up there, two hours
after I was there, I shot aspike blacktail.
I was so damn tickled it wasn'tfunny.
I mean, I'm still proud of thatbuck.
Nobody wants nobody baits forblacktail.
(05:02):
Dave does now.
Well, not anymore.
SPEAKER_01 (05:05):
I don't think the state of Washington, they shut
that down for us.
SPEAKER_00 (05:08):
I didn't say you didn't.
I well I wouldn't tell thegovernor.
SPEAKER_01 (05:12):
You may have, you may have just told him.
If I don't publish, then no.
SPEAKER_00 (05:17):
Well that's fine because he's a liberal anyway,
and I don't give a damn what theliberals say.
I killed that caribou, I wastelling you about when I was the
first day I was there at 10o'clock in the morning.
I killed that caribou at 60yards.
I already tell a lot of peoplethis, but I arranged that
caribou with my range burner, itsaid 60 yards.
So I set my pen for 60.
I used a single pin slidingsight and a thumb release now.
(05:41):
I was using a trigger releasethen.
And I had a guide with me rightbehind me, about 15 or 20 yards,
and I shot at that caribou andshot a foot over his back.
And he was standing stillbroadside with the other two
caribou.
And I thought he would run out.
He never, he just kind of lookedaround like that.
And so I loaded up another arrowand I shot again after I had
(06:03):
ranged it a second time.
It still said 60 yards.
So I ranged it a third time andcome up with 60 yards, but the
guide was standing behind me,lower, lower, he was lower.
I said, it said 60 yards, I'mshooting 60 yards.
I hit the caribou and killed himin the third shot, but he was
(06:25):
sitting there, you ain't gonnaget a third in the world record
caribou that often and shootthree times at it, standing
there looking at you.
I mean, you gotta be proud ofyourself.
And uh so I can remember when Ishot my I shot a bear one time.
I'm not I I shot my first bear.
(06:45):
I I baited bear and didn't knowwhat to do about it.
I got a place down in Long BeachPeninsula where I could hunt
legally and on some state landand put the bait out and went
down there, and first day I wasin a stand, I shot a 200-pound
bear.
Well, my son wanted one, so wewent down there and I had built
(07:07):
another stand just about 100yards through the timber, but
there was an old grade to it,made a big circle, come back
over to that stand.
And so when he said he wantedone, he was going to college at
the time, and so I told him I'dset it up and he'd come down and
spend some time in the morningbefore his classes and shut.
So I baited it out and gotready, and so the day he showed
(07:29):
up, he was carrying a beef headin, and that's what we're using.
I carried a beef head in, and heset a beef dead down about 10
yards from where the tree standwas.
And we walked over to the othertree stand and put on another
beef head.
And he was going to sit in thattree stand.
I was gonna go back and sit inthe 100 yards through the
timber.
(07:50):
I got back over, there was nobeef head on the ground.
So I walked back and I askedhim, I said, What kind of a
trick are you trying to pull onme?
He says, What do you mean?
I said, You told me that you puta beef head out there.
There ain't no damn beef head.
He said, That I did.
He said, I carried one in.
You've seen me better.
Baloney.
I said, Mom, let's go look.
So he marches there back.
And when you got looking, youcould see where a bear had come
(08:10):
out of the brush when it wasgoing over to the second street
stand and grabbed that beef calland drug it off because there
was a drug mark with skulldragged on the dirt road.
So I had to eat my tongue alittle bit after that.
But you know, there's no way Ikilled an eight-point bull.
Dick Yapel, a friend of ours,that was in the archery club, 88
(08:32):
years old now.
Super nice guy.
He he worked in Oregon drivingdog truck.
And he said he'd seen elk allthe time out of that dog truck,
and he wanted to know if I wasinterested.
And I said, sure.
She says, Well, I'll take youover there Sunday.
So Sunday we go over there inthe afternoon, take my wife and
(08:52):
everything.
Dove over he'd been sitting out,look out in a clear cut.
There's four bulls out there.
Two rag horns, a decentfive-point in this seven by six.
Eight by six, excuse me.
Eight by seven.
Yeah, it's it's a that score'san eight by seven, according to
book.
So it was eight by seven.
You know, at Roosevelt's crownand all that crap.
(09:13):
Well, one crown was broke off,and the other had three small
points on it besides the thefull crown, you know.
And so I did that for fiveweeks.
The last time I did it was onthe 17th of August.
It opened on the 1st ofSeptember, and every time we
(09:34):
went over there, we'd get therean hour before dark, and every
time there would be five bullsin that clear cut, no cows.
The last time I was over there,just before hunting season, on
the 17th, there was five bulls,three of them had shed their
horns.
A five-point in that eight byseven still had their horns.
(09:55):
The next week we went over therehunting at daylight.
There was no elk in that clearcut.
And so my wife and I didn't knowwhat to do.
I said, let's let's justseparate.
You go one way, I'll go theother, and I'll make a four-leaf
clover around this clear cut.
Just make a clover kind ofcircle and come into it and
come, and then you can do it theopposite way.
So she drove me about a mile anda half up the road and dropped
(10:18):
me off, and she was going to goto this other place.
And I walked in the brush 100yards and looked up, and here
was a five-point bull looking inthe brush at me.
And so I had told my wife Ididn't want to shoot any more
five points, and I wanted toshoot a six-point, I wasn't
going to shoot anything less.
And so when I seen thatfive-point, I didn't know what
to do, so I cow called and heturned his head a couple times,
(10:41):
looking back and forth andstuff.
And a bugle out in front of me,about 40 yards away, squealed.
And I thought, that bullsquealing, and this bull is a
five-point.
I gotta find out what this bullis.
So I kind of ducked.
It was a lot of huckleberriesand stuff, and it was a big tree
by me.
And I looked around this tree,and there the seven by eight was
(11:01):
standing, broadside at 40 yards.
And so I ducked back around it,got an air out and stuck in a
string, and I went to full draw,and my point of aim was 20
yards.
So all I had to do is put thebroadhead on him at twelve of
his back.
So that's what I did.
I held the top of his back whenI found the bull.
(11:22):
The arrow was broadhead wasstill in his heart.
So I'd made a good shot.
And he took off on what I call adeath run.
Now, when you shoot them andkill them, it's what they do.
They make a death run, they knowthey're dead.
They don't think they're deadbecause they're animals.
They don't think like reasonlike we do.
(11:43):
But they know something's reallydesperately wrong, and they go
and they don't turn right orleft.
They go straight to everyhuckleberry, any bush that gets
in front of them, or anythinggets in front of them, they run
over until they drop.
And that's what that bull did.
He ran about 60 yards.
And when I tried trailing him, Ifound that if I lost a trail,
(12:05):
I'd have to walk around theother side of a big huckleberry
bush opposite where I seen thelast bush, and that's where I'd
find the next brush.
Or if I went into the middle ofthe huckleberry bush, it that's
where the blood was.
And so I found that bull, and Icouldn't believe how lucky I
was.
(12:26):
But that bull and had gatheredcows that week, and I shed the
velvet off his horns, gatheredcows, and just moved to a couple
hundred yards to the other sideof the road and in the brush.
The week it went from the timethat I'd last found him to open
(12:49):
a day.
And they weren't bugling untilopening, I don't know, sometime
in that week, that one weekperiod, that's when they wanted
to bugle.
We never could get a bugle,never heard no bugling.
We see scrapes, but neverdreamed that the next week we'd
call an elk in.
And then I learned from that elkthat the bulls start bugling
(13:13):
around somewhere around the 20thof August.
Because they weren't bugling the17th, but they were bugling the
22nd, because I killed that bullon the opening day in the
morning.
So in that one week period, theystarted bugling and had
collected cows.
So most people think they don'treally get going good until
September, sometime later in theseason.
(13:37):
But they don't, they start inAugust, about the last week or
week and a half.
And I'll swear by it, because Iuse that as my reference for
years now, and it's pretty muchfell right in line.
And another thing I found out inmy experience, this is what I
feel, that if you have bulls, ifyou're hunting around the 20th
(14:04):
to the 30th of August, be readyto call the big bulls in.
Because I've had better successcalling bulls in from the first
last wet last week, August tothe first week of September than
I have the 17th and 18th ofSeptember when everybody thinks
elk or the bulls are bugling.
(14:25):
And my theory is that when thefirst day of elk season comes,
the bulls haven't had a lot ofpeople bugling in, so they're
more apt to bugle, except forthe people that road hunt them
and bugle out the windows, whatI've caught and seen lots of
times.
And I've had guys at seminarstell me that they practice
(14:46):
calling in elk before the seasonopens up.
They drive out on every loglanding they can and bugle to
see if the elk will answer.
Well, I mean, you're all you'redoing is, hey, that guy over
there on that landing is aknucklehead.
He's not an elk, and I know whathe sounds like.
(15:07):
So we're not going, we're notjust educating them.
Yeah, that's all they're doingis educating them.
SPEAKER_03 (15:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:12):
And I heard guys for different archery companies get
up and tell they do that.
And I actually got says, whywould you practice out in the
woods and teach the elk thatyou're buggling at them, and
then when the hunt season comes,well, we can't get the damn
things to answer us.
SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:30):
I said that to the guy writing the seminar.
I said, You got to be nuts.
Well, that's the way we do it.
I said, Well, I'm not going tolisten to you no more because I
said, You don't know what in thehell you're talking about.
And I said that right in theseminar.
That was at the Olympic ArcheryClub, right near 100, what do
they call that?
SPEAKER_03 (15:49):
When they have the 100 R100?
Yeah.
Yeah, Reinhardt 100.
Yeah.
And that was the last seminar hegave as a Quaker boy rep.
Yep.
I thought you were going to saywhen you started talking about
that bull and shooting thatbull.
And you said you shot him and hewent on that death run.
I thought the next words out ofyour mouth was going to be, and
he died on the road.
SPEAKER_00 (16:09):
No.
You wouldn't know what that bullweighed hanging with hiding skin
out of it, which weighed exactly500 pounds hanging in the locker
downtown.
SPEAKER_03 (16:20):
Golly.
SPEAKER_00 (16:21):
And it had no legs on it except for from where I
stubbed him off, but I had thehindquarters, the front
quarters, and the bodies off anda head cut off.
Still weighed 500 pounds.
And I took 70 pounds of meat offof him before I took it there.
It was fat, three inches thickall over the body, and he was as
(16:43):
tender as you could ever eat ina hamburger.
But I took that fat and I put itin a big box and weighed it on
the scales, and it weighed 70pounds.
So that bull weighed seven, 570pounds.
My son shot one a year or twolater that weighed 515 pounds
hanging in a locker, a seven bysix.
(17:04):
And those are Roosevelts.
Now you'll hear stories aboutguys say yellow swords aren't
that big.
Well, they're every bit as bigas Roosevelts are, but they got
to have more maturity to getthere.
They got very good food here,lots of water, even in the
summertime, they can find water,and they have good winters here.
(17:26):
Very few of them died ofstarvation or infections from,
unless it was bullet wounds orsomething like that, a poacher.
They grow fast and they grow bigand they can be.
I've killed a three-year-oldbull that was a fork and horned
bull that was 375 poundshanging.
That's a big bull.
(17:46):
I've killed several in 370, 340,you know, I mean 470, 440, stuff
like that.
I've killed several bulls likethat that were rag horn
five-point bulls, you know, butthey were big, heavy-horned
bulls, probably six years old,just and they got big forks on
the top, you know.
But you kill a yellowstone, I'vekilled yellowstones.
(18:08):
That moose I killed over there,it's 37 inches wide, probably a
three or four-year-old bull.
Most likely three.
He weighed 350 pounds hanging ina locker.
That's all.
But they're tall, they got longlegs, and they haven't got
nothing on the body.
Our elk, our Roosevelt elk overhere are bigger than a Shyrus
(18:30):
moose.
And I can verify it by the sizeof the way what they weighed in
a locker, you know?
And so I think my wife's weighedlike it's got a paddle horn,
it's about seven, sixteen,seventeen.
I think it weighed like 250hanging a locker.
Really?
Yeah, great meat, they have nowild flavor, the shirus moose.
(18:53):
But they're not big.
And when they say they're not asbig as a regular conventional
moose, they're telling thetruth.
SPEAKER_01 (19:00):
So what's your what is your favorite species to
hunt?
Like if if not that you have to,and you would, but if you had to
only pick one thing to hunt,what is your how would you
compare a caribou?
SPEAKER_00 (19:15):
The caribou hunts I went on, we'd walk a half a mile
from the airstrip to cabin wherewe stayed for a week.
We'd have to chase caribou offthe airstrip.
And in that week time, one dayI'd see 2,000 caribou, next day
I might see a thousand, next dayI might see 5,000.
(19:36):
And sometimes we'd get up in themorning, there'd be a caribou,
it'd be the biggest record bookcaribou you ever seen, 200 yards
from the cabin where we'reeating breakfast.
And so out of every day, you'dsee a thousand caribou.
Every day, if you paid attentionor did what you thought you
(19:56):
should, you could have chancesof caribou.
My wife was the first woman tokill two caribou in her camp
ever in a five-day period.
They'd killed one, but she'dkilled two.
And so that was saying a lot forher.
But in reality, we could sitthere and look and see across
(20:17):
this lake from where our campwas.
There's 200 caribou come downoff a hillside and jump in the
lake and come out of the wateron the other side, quarter mile
away from camp.
And if you run like hell, youcould be there when they got out
of the water.
You know what I mean?
So sometimes there's a lot oftimes it's not comparison.
(20:37):
I would like to say that we hada great time hunting white
tails.
I mean, I can remember the firstwhite tail bait I ever put out
went back the next day aboutnoon, and there was a 10-point
buck standing on a bait, and wedrove up within 30 or 5 or 40
yards of him, he just looked atus.
But it was the day beforehunting season.
(20:58):
I think I've showed you thepictures, some of the picture
camera we got of the black tailwhite tails.
They're all over the place.
But then I can remember whatclick a tat was liking.
We were hunting black tailsthere before the baiting was
getting popular.
We'd go over there before thevelvet was stripped, that means
(21:19):
like before the first ofSeptember, when the season
normally opened, the deer wouldhave velvet on the horns.
We'd drive over there and theywouldn't go on a timber and out
of sight from the clear cutsuntil about nine or ten o'clock
in the morning because when adeer runs and go into the timber
(21:39):
and they're in Huckleberries, itbreaks the velvet off and they
bleed and it hurts.
So we get over there and we'dsneak into these little places
where we knew there was clearcuts, and we might even walk up
the road and look over the banksand stuff, and we'd see three or
four.
One day we seen 34 point bucksbefore 10 o'clock in the
(22:01):
morning, and they all were invelvet.
And then you go mule deerhunting.
I paid for$1,800 apiece for mywife to go on a mule seven days
completely, all paid license andeverything.
Only thing I had to get downthere and spend a week hunting
on is 20,000 private acreedranch.
(22:23):
It had not been hunted in 20years.
And the first day I could havemade stocks on five bucks going
around their four by fours orfour by threes going around 130,
150.
And I remember the guide said,There's one right there.
And that was 15 minutes after hestarted.
(22:44):
I said, I've already seen fivedeer as big as that one.
I'm not going to walk up thatdamn hill and try to play that.
And I did.
I'm not walking that far up onthat hill when I can shoot one
right here in front of me.
It was a great huntingopportunity.
It's dedication.
Well, I missed two 200-inchbucks that week.
(23:05):
Oh, did you?
Yes.
And so I didn't miss anything bynot going after them deer.
I got to shoot at 200 inchbucks.
My wife killed a four by threebucks, 130, 147.
Well, I don't know, somethinglike that.
But she's got it bound.
You've seen it a desert muledeer.
I would have been glad to shootthe deer.
(23:27):
I was in shock when I got outand started walking.
I walked a half an hour and hadfive good bucks to shoot, you
know, within sight.
And any time I wanted, I couldhave spent a half an hour
looking in a binocular and Iwould have seen a buck like that
at any time during the day inthat ranch.
Wow.
It cost me 1800 bucks and theypaid for the hunting license.
(23:50):
The next year they called me upand asked me if I wanted to come
back.
And I said, I don't think so.
And he says, Well, I'll onlycharge you$1,500 this year.
And I said, Well, I don't know.
He says, I'll buy your licensefor you.
$250.
I didn't go the second time, butI kicked myself in the butt a
lot of time for not going onthat hunt.
(24:11):
But I had other things I thoughtthat hunts that I, you know,
local hunts and stuff.
I was fortunate I had a job from1994 until 2008.
I had a job where I could takeall the time I wanted off
anytime during the year and comeback and go to work anytime I
(24:33):
wanted to.
I made a lot of money.
I made$100,$120 every year.
And I could have made$140,$50 ayear if I wouldn't take three
months a year off to go gallowout around the country.
And my wife would go with me.
She went everywhere with me.
We went to New Mexico on thatmule deer hunt.
She was with me.
(24:53):
We went, we baited bear.
I had hounds for 10 years.
I hunted hounds.
She'd hunt with me when shecould and stuff.
We had kids sometimes.
Unfortunately, I had to leaveher at home sometimes and go
hunting.
And she had to stay there andput the kids to school and meet
them there, unfortunately.
I was so tickled that I was ableto kill that eight by seven
(25:15):
bull.
At the time when I killed him, Ithink it was number eighth in
the world.
It scored around 3-1 or 2 gross.
It was 295 net.
SPEAKER_01 (25:23):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (25:23):
But the world record was only 340 or something like
that.
It wasn't that big a deal.
But I've hunted mountain goatsand had the opportunity to kill
two world records.
And one time another guy walkedin between me and the one goat,
I would have had a good chanceof shooting at that goat.
(25:45):
But I was half a mile from him.
I watched him on the spot, and Iknew that this goat was past
world record size.
And my son and I was on our wayover there to hunt it.
And a guy named Dennis Dunn,which is a world-class hunter,
was already halfway between usand that goat hunting it.
(26:07):
And the next morning we got upand started out from our camp.
And here he was coming up themountain toward where our camp
was.
And he didn't know we had a campthere.
And he didn't know we werethere.
But we came over Ridge and raninto him, and he was so thirsty,
he spent all night aftershooting at that mountain goat
twice and missing it.
(26:27):
And he stayed out on the rockshoping he could find it the next
morning.
And so we gave him our orangejuice so he could get something
to drink and get himself back onhis feet and get the cat.
Another time was another goat,and they called him Charles
Atlas.
The goat was supposed to be, andthey had game department, they'd
taken pictures of him.
(26:48):
They said his horns were 13inches long.
And I think the world recordright now is 11 or something
like that.
Wow.
I can't remember what the worldrecord is now.
And that goat came from Canada.
The guide called the hunter,went up there, chased the goat,
got an arrow in it, and killedit, which is fine.
That's the way it was.
And that's the differencebetween a guy that's got money
(27:10):
and a guy that don't have money.
If you got a guy that's got lotsof money, not always hiring
guide is going to make yousuccessful, but it's going to
knock your odds up there.
Most people that got a lot ofgood animals, they read a lot of
hunting pamphlets.
And the port show in Portland isreally a good place to go if you
(27:31):
want to get information.
You run a lot of hunters.
I at one time was had talked toa guide from Canada to give me a
free guided grizzly bear hut fora free Roosevelt hut because he
wanted to kill Roosevelt, hadnever done it.
There was a big thing to him.
And then he backed out when hefound out one hunt with bow and
(27:52):
arrow on a grizzly bear.
I mean, you think of a guy whodo something like that be smart.
But anyhow, he backed outbecause of that.
And that's fine.
I mean, he had his reason.
He says, I've shot enough grizzybear that was in a willow pat
someplace, and I had to go inand finish it off for guides
that guys that didn't kill him.
He said, I'm not going to do itfor a bow and arrow on her.
(28:13):
That's the reason he backed out.
But you can find things likethat if you try and make deals
and stuff.
You could probably do it forpeople that had not hunted in
the Calyx River or fish in theCalyx River.
SPEAKER_01 (28:27):
Because wheeling and dealing to get more hunts and if
any fishing guides are listeningto this and would like to go
through Dave's classes or to theboot camp, please contact us for
bartering and wheeling anddealing.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (28:45):
A lot of times guys don't think about those things.
You don't?
Yeah.
I can't remember who the guywas, but he was world famous and
he had nine or ten big, huge,non-typical black mule deer.
And he was giving a seminar inPortland.
And there was a lot of peoplethat wanted to listen.
He'd wrote lots of articles foroutdoor life and stuff like
(29:07):
that.
And he's a rifle hunter.
Well-known hunter, worldwell-known.
Can't remember who he was.
And that was one of theminstances where I sat through a
seminar and everybody had abunch of questions, and I waited
till everybody was done, andthis and he said he had to go
and get ready for another showand stuff.
(29:28):
And so everybody was gone.
I walked over and asked him, Isaid, When you remember you
telling me you were sitting onthat rock and you sat there for
about an hour and a half andshot that last big buck you've
had in articles about?
Yeah.
I said, You never said anythingat the time how long you sat on
that rock.
(29:49):
You just said you came out andsat on that rock and finally
seen the buck you wanted and youshot it.
How long did you sit?
Oh, about an hour and a half.
He says, The buck had been inthe area and I didn't say
anything because the guys didn'task me the question, so I don't
really like to say a lot ofthings.
I and unless they pointedlyasked questions then.
And sometimes I don't reallywant to answer them.
(30:11):
And I found out that to be truewith myself.
I I took a couple of guyshunting at bow hunting and
different experiences and stuff.
Well, one of them would he hadthree animals going, he had
North America big big 28 ornine.
And he wouldn't do anything Itold him to do.
Consequently, he could havekilled a really nice Roosevelt
(30:33):
bull, and that's one of thethings he needed to have.
The first day we were huntingtogether, and he hunted five
days with my son and I becausehe'd had all this experience in
Africa and the East and all overCanada and Alaska for all these
different animals.
Super nice, wonderful person.
(30:54):
Had an archer shop in San Diego,and I happened to go down there
to work on a military ship forlongshoremen.
And so I was there.
I went to his archer ship and Igot to talk to him.
And we got talking, he said,asked me to go take him hunting.
I was well, because I had fouranimals in a book.
And he seemed to think he knewme.
And I said, fine, my son and Iwill take you up hunting, but we
(31:15):
can't guarantee anything becauseyou just don't always get an
animal.
But we think we know whethersome animals you want to go out,
and we'll try and take youagain, you know.
So the first day we called inthis six by six bull, about a
280-90 bull.
That's not exceptionally big,but it was a decent bull, and
Dave would like to have it.
SPEAKER_03 (31:34):
I'd have loved to have that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:37):
And I told him to follow my son down this trail
because that bull was coming in,and Ivan was getting as close to
the bull as he could, and he wasgoing to turn around and wave at
him.
And I told him just to followIvan.
And he didn't want to do it.
And he was making a video of it.
And he had his friend of hishunting too and doing the camera
work.
(31:57):
And so the bull came in rightwithin 20 yards of Ivan, across
right in front of him on his oldgrade.
Then when the bull walked acrossthe road, he wasn't ready.
He didn't shoot the bull.
He could have easily shot at thebull.
And he was five times Californiastate bare bow champion.
Broadhead.
Bear bow broadhead champion.
Five times state champion ofCalifornia.
(32:19):
When the bull walked across, Iwas 70 yards, Ivan was about 20
or 30 yards, and he could haveTravis shot at him.
And I said, Why did you stayhere and instead of going up
like I told you to?
He says, Well, he could haveshot the bull from here.
I said, that was 70 yards.
Oh, I said, I don't have noproblem shooting at the 70, bro.
(32:40):
I could easily hit it.
And I says, you know what youhired a guide for?
He said, Yeah, take me outhunting.
I says, No, you you hired him totell you what you needed to do.
I said, and you I don't evencare about taking you out
anymore because if you don'twant to do what I want you to
do, I can't help you.
And that's the truth.
With any guide, semi-like it'sbabysitting.
(33:05):
I've grabbed guys that were bearhunting with me, and turkey, one
fella had killed four bears withme.
I took him turkey hunting overand killed, called a turkey in.
The turkey was 20 yards away, abig old gobbler.
And he turns to me and says, Howfar away is it?
I said, 20 yards.
So he draws up and anchors onthe anchors out.
The turkey started turningaround, walking away from me.
(33:25):
He keeps anchoring and holdinghold.
Finally shot and he landed about40 yards, four yards behind the
deer, the turkey.
And that went on three times.
Each time the bird was 20 yards,30 yards, then 40 yards, then 50
yards.
You missed him three or fouryards each time.
Finally turned around, he says,How come you told me that kind
(33:45):
of yardage?
I said, Because at the time thatI told you, I was ranging it
with my range finder, and that'show far it was.
But you hold so long, you don'tshoot at it soon enough, and you
don't say, hey, it's walked fivemore yards away.
I got to hold higher.
I said, So you miss it becauseyou won't listen.
And you don't execute when youneed to.
(34:07):
Wonderful guy.
We're still really good friends,been years.
And I got him a nice five-pointbowl on one time.
And about two months later hecalled me up and said he had
meet me halfway to his house inVancouver.
I said, What for?
He said, Well, I got somethingfor you.
I said, Well, I don't needanything.
He said, Oh, yeah, yeah.
He said, I got so I go up there.
I don't wear it because it's sobig and so gaudy.
(34:29):
But he put a solid ounce of goldin a ring and had it made.
And it it's bigger than thisring, and it sticks up about
three-quarters of an inchbecause I got him a bull.
And it was just his way ofsaying thanks.
But I mean, I I I haven't wornit.
SPEAKER_03 (34:46):
So if any of the guys that I've taken out deer
hunting.
Currency is allowed.
SPEAKER_00 (34:53):
Gold is very welcome.
Well, I wasn't tooting my hornor nothing.
I mean, it's hard for a guy thatlike when I was running my dogs,
it was harder if I took somebodyout with me to hunt the dog,
hunt to hunt for bear.
If I took them out, I wouldalmost always have to watch them
(35:14):
close or stay beside him.
And I can remember coming upbehind him and grabbing them on
each side of their shirt andpulling them over to the right
or the left or and lining themup so they could get the shot.
Because they wouldn't think fastenough to step right or left or
be ready when it was time.
(35:34):
Right.
I called this one bull in sixtimes for that guy I got four
bear for.
I I called one bull in six timesone day, and he could have shot
the bull every time until thesixth time which he did kill the
bull.
And I was like 80 yards behindhim doing the calling, and a
bull would run in and he hadcows, and he'd turn around and
(35:55):
run back to his cows, and he'drun in about 20 yards from
Lloyd, and about the time he gotready to shoot, he'd turn around
and run back the other way.
And so he could have shot thisbull if he'd had been drawn up
when a bull won't come, just thebull started coming in the side
and be ready.
But he'd wait until it got towhere he wanted to shoot, then
he'd try and draw.
And then when he did shoot it, Iwas about 80 yards behind him
(36:16):
and I heard him shoot.
So I walked up there and said,Did you get him?
And he says, I think so.
And I says, Well, you don'tknow.
And he said, Well, he ran offover this way.
And I just happened to turn myhead about the same time, and I
seen four legs come up near, andthe bull had ran about 20 yards
and flipped upside down anddropped over the bank where he
(36:38):
couldn't see it.
But the angle I was at, I seenthe legs, I seen the legs go
straight up near.
And I knew the bull was dead.
And he says, I said, I think Ihit him right behind his
shoulder.
I said, You did, Lloyd.
I said, he's dead right here.
And I said, Come on, let's goover there and get him.
He said, Well, we've got tofollow blood trail.
I said, No, Lloyd.
(36:59):
I said, You just, he's rightover here.
Well, I'm gonna follow bloodtrail.
I said, Well, go ahead andfollow the blood trail if you
want to, but I'm gonna go overthere and dig a little bit of
bulk.
And so he finally walked overwith me.
He says, How'd you know that?
I said, I told you, I just seenthe legs fly up near.
I said, That's funny.
SPEAKER_01 (37:16):
Okay, so we were told that five o'clock was our
cutoff and we've exceeded that.
So we will call it quits here.
Thank you for uh coming by,giving us your stories.
Smaller.
Definitely appreciated.
SPEAKER_03 (37:27):
Oh, I could sit and listen to you for hours.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate you doing this, andwe love you and uh hope to have
many more outdoor adventureswith you.
SPEAKER_00 (37:37):
You know, I I don't know how to explain everything,
but in my heart, I think I havetried to let anybody know, and a
lot of guys resent it when I tryand help them.
But I don't try to go out thereand tell people things that
aren't right.
I tell them the things I thinkare right.
(37:58):
And you've seen me do that in afew different instances with you
and your families.
But so many people got reallyclosed minds, it's hard to
really communicate in a mannerthat they will accept stuff.
Yeah.
All I've ever wanted to do is totry to shoot good, hunt as much
(38:21):
as I can, be successful, ofcourse.
But I I'm tickle pink to helpanybody I can.
And the prettier they are, thebetter it is.
SPEAKER_03 (38:31):
I had the same philosophy, but my wife doesn't
appreciate that one.
SPEAKER_00 (38:34):
I didn't say, I didn't say what my wife's
philosophy was.
SPEAKER_03 (38:38):
Well, thanks again for coming, Smoke.
SPEAKER_00 (38:39):
All right, sure.
Thanks everyone for listening.
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast.
I'm Aaron.
Before we get started with partthree with Smokey Cruise, I
wanted to remind all of ourwatching and listeners that
feedback for the next threeseasons is open on the
wdfw.wa.gov website.
Please jump online and give yourfeedback for the hunting
regulations of the upcomingthree seasons.
(00:31):
Thanks a lot.
Okay.
So I know lots of Dave'smemorable mistakes and good
stories too.
But I'm sure you've got them.
So what are some of yourstories, whether it was just how
the heck did I do that?
Like to the good or to the bad,of just, you know, get out and
(00:55):
you realize that you forgot somenecessary piece of equipment
like your rifle or let's hearsome of those stories.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
I can't tell you how many times that, but 95% of the
guys that go out in the woodsand hunt are hunting with a bow
quiver.
I quit liking the hunting with abull quiver 40 years ago.
And I've been hunting with theChuck Adams eight arrow side
quiver.
I can get through the brushanywhere I want to go.
(01:25):
I can't say it's easy, buteverybody says, well, you can't
hunt through the woods verygood.
You're too pressured if you'vegot a side quiver.
Well, might be, but I've beendoing all right.
So I can't complain.
Even if it would have beeneasier, I like the side quiver
so much, I don't want to go backto anything else.
(01:46):
And I've tried shooting with aquiver on my bow, and I've tried
shooting in practice in mybackyard with a quiver off my
bow.
And to tell you the truth, it'dbe say I'm shooting 50 yards for
a group.
I got four arrows.
My group down there at 50 yardswould be two in a spot and two
(02:09):
barely out.
With a quiver off, it'd be twoin a spot, two four inches off.
It was close enough that I stillshot the animal I was aiming at.
So it wasn't important for me toworry about whether I had a
(02:31):
quiver on the bull or off thebow.
To me, it was the most importantthing is to be able to hit the
animal where I wanted to hit himwhen I had the opportunity.
And most people want to I'vefound out they want to get a
shot at it.
I want to hit it.
(02:51):
That's the difference.
I can re I can remember my wifeand son, two of my boys, and my
wife and I making drives.
It was my turn to set on thestump.
They made the drive.
I could have shot a fork andhorn, but I was hoping one of my
young boys would be able to getit, and so I never shot at it.
(03:12):
Nice fork and horn blacktail.
When they got that, I had totell them that I'd forgot my
quiver in the truck and it wasover there about 100 yards, and
I didn't want to run back andget it.
So I just sat there and watched.
And I even, my old season, youmean we did that drive for
nothing?
(03:32):
I said, no, I said nothing comeout that I wanted to shoot,
those and fork and horns orspikes.
So it wasn't for nothing.
I wouldn't have had to shoot atanything anyway.
But I've done that three or fourtimes on hunts.
One time my wife let me off of Ican't remember exactly where it
was, but it was about a half anhour drive where she was going
(03:55):
to pick me up.
So she dropped me off and I gotout of the car.
And for a side quiver, you gotto take your belt buckle loose
and put the belt through.
Well, when she was about 15yards away, driving away, I
realized it didn't have myquiver.
So she got way down there andgot parked and got her gear out
(04:18):
and looked, and there were myquiver was.
So she drove all the way backand gave me my quiver, and I
don't want to have to come backand do this again.
You know, and uh so uh that whatis very beautiful memories that
I remember.
Like I told you that black tail.
(04:40):
First time I put up a bait upabove my house, I baited for a
month or so before the seasoncame.
And I set up there, the firstday I sat up there, two hours
after I was there, I shot aspike blacktail.
I was so damn tickled it wasn'tfunny.
I mean, I'm still proud of thatbuck.
Nobody wants nobody baits forblacktail.
(05:02):
Dave does now.
Well, not anymore.
SPEAKER_01 (05:05):
I don't think the state of Washington, they shut
that down for us.
SPEAKER_00 (05:08):
I didn't say you didn't.
I well I wouldn't tell thegovernor.
SPEAKER_01 (05:12):
You may have, you may have just told him.
If I don't publish, then no.
SPEAKER_00 (05:17):
Well that's fine because he's a liberal anyway,
and I don't give a damn what theliberals say.
I killed that caribou, I wastelling you about when I was the
first day I was there at 10o'clock in the morning.
I killed that caribou at 60yards.
I already tell a lot of peoplethis, but I arranged that
caribou with my range burner, itsaid 60 yards.
So I set my pen for 60.
I used a single pin slidingsight and a thumb release now.
(05:41):
I was using a trigger releasethen.
And I had a guide with me rightbehind me, about 15 or 20 yards,
and I shot at that caribou andshot a foot over his back.
And he was standing stillbroadside with the other two
caribou.
And I thought he would run out.
He never, he just kind of lookedaround like that.
And so I loaded up another arrowand I shot again after I had
(06:03):
ranged it a second time.
It still said 60 yards.
So I ranged it a third time andcome up with 60 yards, but the
guide was standing behind me,lower, lower, he was lower.
I said, it said 60 yards, I'mshooting 60 yards.
I hit the caribou and killed himin the third shot, but he was
(06:25):
sitting there, you ain't gonnaget a third in the world record
caribou that often and shootthree times at it, standing
there looking at you.
I mean, you gotta be proud ofyourself.
And uh so I can remember when Ishot my I shot a bear one time.
I'm not I I shot my first bear.
(06:45):
I I baited bear and didn't knowwhat to do about it.
I got a place down in Long BeachPeninsula where I could hunt
legally and on some state landand put the bait out and went
down there, and first day I wasin a stand, I shot a 200-pound
bear.
Well, my son wanted one, so wewent down there and I had built
(07:07):
another stand just about 100yards through the timber, but
there was an old grade to it,made a big circle, come back
over to that stand.
And so when he said he wantedone, he was going to college at
the time, and so I told him I'dset it up and he'd come down and
spend some time in the morningbefore his classes and shut.
So I baited it out and gotready, and so the day he showed
(07:29):
up, he was carrying a beef headin, and that's what we're using.
I carried a beef head in, and heset a beef dead down about 10
yards from where the tree standwas.
And we walked over to the othertree stand and put on another
beef head.
And he was going to sit in thattree stand.
I was gonna go back and sit inthe 100 yards through the
timber.
(07:50):
I got back over, there was nobeef head on the ground.
So I walked back and I askedhim, I said, What kind of a
trick are you trying to pull onme?
He says, What do you mean?
I said, You told me that you puta beef head out there.
There ain't no damn beef head.
He said, That I did.
He said, I carried one in.
You've seen me better.
Baloney.
I said, Mom, let's go look.
So he marches there back.
And when you got looking, youcould see where a bear had come
(08:10):
out of the brush when it wasgoing over to the second street
stand and grabbed that beef calland drug it off because there
was a drug mark with skulldragged on the dirt road.
So I had to eat my tongue alittle bit after that.
But you know, there's no way Ikilled an eight-point bull.
Dick Yapel, a friend of ours,that was in the archery club, 88
(08:32):
years old now.
Super nice guy.
He he worked in Oregon drivingdog truck.
And he said he'd seen elk allthe time out of that dog truck,
and he wanted to know if I wasinterested.
And I said, sure.
She says, Well, I'll take youover there Sunday.
So Sunday we go over there inthe afternoon, take my wife and
(08:52):
everything.
Dove over he'd been sitting out,look out in a clear cut.
There's four bulls out there.
Two rag horns, a decentfive-point in this seven by six.
Eight by six, excuse me.
Eight by seven.
Yeah, it's it's a that score'san eight by seven, according to
book.
So it was eight by seven.
You know, at Roosevelt's crownand all that crap.
(09:13):
Well, one crown was broke off,and the other had three small
points on it besides the thefull crown, you know.
And so I did that for fiveweeks.
The last time I did it was onthe 17th of August.
It opened on the 1st ofSeptember, and every time we
(09:34):
went over there, we'd get therean hour before dark, and every
time there would be five bullsin that clear cut, no cows.
The last time I was over there,just before hunting season, on
the 17th, there was five bulls,three of them had shed their
horns.
A five-point in that eight byseven still had their horns.
(09:55):
The next week we went over therehunting at daylight.
There was no elk in that clearcut.
And so my wife and I didn't knowwhat to do.
I said, let's let's justseparate.
You go one way, I'll go theother, and I'll make a four-leaf
clover around this clear cut.
Just make a clover kind ofcircle and come into it and
come, and then you can do it theopposite way.
So she drove me about a mile anda half up the road and dropped
(10:18):
me off, and she was going to goto this other place.
And I walked in the brush 100yards and looked up, and here
was a five-point bull looking inthe brush at me.
And so I had told my wife Ididn't want to shoot any more
five points, and I wanted toshoot a six-point, I wasn't
going to shoot anything less.
And so when I seen thatfive-point, I didn't know what
to do, so I cow called and heturned his head a couple times,
(10:41):
looking back and forth andstuff.
And a bugle out in front of me,about 40 yards away, squealed.
And I thought, that bullsquealing, and this bull is a
five-point.
I gotta find out what this bullis.
So I kind of ducked.
It was a lot of huckleberriesand stuff, and it was a big tree
by me.
And I looked around this tree,and there the seven by eight was
(11:01):
standing, broadside at 40 yards.
And so I ducked back around it,got an air out and stuck in a
string, and I went to full draw,and my point of aim was 20
yards.
So all I had to do is put thebroadhead on him at twelve of
his back.
So that's what I did.
I held the top of his back whenI found the bull.
(11:22):
The arrow was broadhead wasstill in his heart.
So I'd made a good shot.
And he took off on what I call adeath run.
Now, when you shoot them andkill them, it's what they do.
They make a death run, they knowthey're dead.
They don't think they're deadbecause they're animals.
They don't think like reasonlike we do.
(11:43):
But they know something's reallydesperately wrong, and they go
and they don't turn right orleft.
They go straight to everyhuckleberry, any bush that gets
in front of them, or anythinggets in front of them, they run
over until they drop.
And that's what that bull did.
He ran about 60 yards.
And when I tried trailing him, Ifound that if I lost a trail,
(12:05):
I'd have to walk around theother side of a big huckleberry
bush opposite where I seen thelast bush, and that's where I'd
find the next brush.
Or if I went into the middle ofthe huckleberry bush, it that's
where the blood was.
And so I found that bull, and Icouldn't believe how lucky I
was.
(12:26):
But that bull and had gatheredcows that week, and I shed the
velvet off his horns, gatheredcows, and just moved to a couple
hundred yards to the other sideof the road and in the brush.
The week it went from the timethat I'd last found him to open
(12:49):
a day.
And they weren't bugling untilopening, I don't know, sometime
in that week, that one weekperiod, that's when they wanted
to bugle.
We never could get a bugle,never heard no bugling.
We see scrapes, but neverdreamed that the next week we'd
call an elk in.
And then I learned from that elkthat the bulls start bugling
(13:13):
around somewhere around the 20thof August.
Because they weren't bugling the17th, but they were bugling the
22nd, because I killed that bullon the opening day in the
morning.
So in that one week period, theystarted bugling and had
collected cows.
So most people think they don'treally get going good until
September, sometime later in theseason.
(13:37):
But they don't, they start inAugust, about the last week or
week and a half.
And I'll swear by it, because Iuse that as my reference for
years now, and it's pretty muchfell right in line.
And another thing I found out inmy experience, this is what I
feel, that if you have bulls, ifyou're hunting around the 20th
(14:04):
to the 30th of August, be readyto call the big bulls in.
Because I've had better successcalling bulls in from the first
last wet last week, August tothe first week of September than
I have the 17th and 18th ofSeptember when everybody thinks
elk or the bulls are bugling.
(14:25):
And my theory is that when thefirst day of elk season comes,
the bulls haven't had a lot ofpeople bugling in, so they're
more apt to bugle, except forthe people that road hunt them
and bugle out the windows, whatI've caught and seen lots of
times.
And I've had guys at seminarstell me that they practice
(14:46):
calling in elk before the seasonopens up.
They drive out on every loglanding they can and bugle to
see if the elk will answer.
Well, I mean, you're all you'redoing is, hey, that guy over
there on that landing is aknucklehead.
He's not an elk, and I know whathe sounds like.
(15:07):
So we're not going, we're notjust educating them.
Yeah, that's all they're doingis educating them.
SPEAKER_03 (15:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:12):
And I heard guys for different archery companies get
up and tell they do that.
And I actually got says, whywould you practice out in the
woods and teach the elk thatyou're buggling at them, and
then when the hunt season comes,well, we can't get the damn
things to answer us.
SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:30):
I said that to the guy writing the seminar.
I said, You got to be nuts.
Well, that's the way we do it.
I said, Well, I'm not going tolisten to you no more because I
said, You don't know what in thehell you're talking about.
And I said that right in theseminar.
That was at the Olympic ArcheryClub, right near 100, what do
they call that?
SPEAKER_03 (15:49):
When they have the 100 R100?
Yeah.
Yeah, Reinhardt 100.
Yeah.
And that was the last seminar hegave as a Quaker boy rep.
Yep.
I thought you were going to saywhen you started talking about
that bull and shooting thatbull.
And you said you shot him and hewent on that death run.
I thought the next words out ofyour mouth was going to be, and
he died on the road.
SPEAKER_00 (16:09):
No.
You wouldn't know what that bullweighed hanging with hiding skin
out of it, which weighed exactly500 pounds hanging in the locker
downtown.
SPEAKER_03 (16:20):
Golly.
SPEAKER_00 (16:21):
And it had no legs on it except for from where I
stubbed him off, but I had thehindquarters, the front
quarters, and the bodies off anda head cut off.
Still weighed 500 pounds.
And I took 70 pounds of meat offof him before I took it there.
It was fat, three inches thickall over the body, and he was as
(16:43):
tender as you could ever eat ina hamburger.
But I took that fat and I put itin a big box and weighed it on
the scales, and it weighed 70pounds.
So that bull weighed seven, 570pounds.
My son shot one a year or twolater that weighed 515 pounds
hanging in a locker, a seven bysix.
(17:04):
And those are Roosevelts.
Now you'll hear stories aboutguys say yellow swords aren't
that big.
Well, they're every bit as bigas Roosevelts are, but they got
to have more maturity to getthere.
They got very good food here,lots of water, even in the
summertime, they can find water,and they have good winters here.
(17:26):
Very few of them died ofstarvation or infections from,
unless it was bullet wounds orsomething like that, a poacher.
They grow fast and they grow bigand they can be.
I've killed a three-year-oldbull that was a fork and horned
bull that was 375 poundshanging.
That's a big bull.
(17:46):
I've killed several in 370, 340,you know, I mean 470, 440, stuff
like that.
I've killed several bulls likethat that were rag horn
five-point bulls, you know, butthey were big, heavy-horned
bulls, probably six years old,just and they got big forks on
the top, you know.
But you kill a yellowstone, I'vekilled yellowstones.
(18:08):
That moose I killed over there,it's 37 inches wide, probably a
three or four-year-old bull.
Most likely three.
He weighed 350 pounds hanging ina locker.
That's all.
But they're tall, they got longlegs, and they haven't got
nothing on the body.
Our elk, our Roosevelt elk overhere are bigger than a Shyrus
(18:30):
moose.
And I can verify it by the sizeof the way what they weighed in
a locker, you know?
And so I think my wife's weighedlike it's got a paddle horn,
it's about seven, sixteen,seventeen.
I think it weighed like 250hanging a locker.
Really?
Yeah, great meat, they have nowild flavor, the shirus moose.
(18:53):
But they're not big.
And when they say they're not asbig as a regular conventional
moose, they're telling thetruth.
SPEAKER_01 (19:00):
So what's your what is your favorite species to
hunt?
Like if if not that you have to,and you would, but if you had to
only pick one thing to hunt,what is your how would you
compare a caribou?
SPEAKER_00 (19:15):
The caribou hunts I went on, we'd walk a half a mile
from the airstrip to cabin wherewe stayed for a week.
We'd have to chase caribou offthe airstrip.
And in that week time, one dayI'd see 2,000 caribou, next day
I might see a thousand, next dayI might see 5,000.
(19:36):
And sometimes we'd get up in themorning, there'd be a caribou,
it'd be the biggest record bookcaribou you ever seen, 200 yards
from the cabin where we'reeating breakfast.
And so out of every day, you'dsee a thousand caribou.
Every day, if you paid attentionor did what you thought you
(19:56):
should, you could have chancesof caribou.
My wife was the first woman tokill two caribou in her camp
ever in a five-day period.
They'd killed one, but she'dkilled two.
And so that was saying a lot forher.
But in reality, we could sitthere and look and see across
(20:17):
this lake from where our campwas.
There's 200 caribou come downoff a hillside and jump in the
lake and come out of the wateron the other side, quarter mile
away from camp.
And if you run like hell, youcould be there when they got out
of the water.
You know what I mean?
So sometimes there's a lot oftimes it's not comparison.
(20:37):
I would like to say that we hada great time hunting white
tails.
I mean, I can remember the firstwhite tail bait I ever put out
went back the next day aboutnoon, and there was a 10-point
buck standing on a bait, and wedrove up within 30 or 5 or 40
yards of him, he just looked atus.
But it was the day beforehunting season.
(20:58):
I think I've showed you thepictures, some of the picture
camera we got of the black tailwhite tails.
They're all over the place.
But then I can remember whatclick a tat was liking.
We were hunting black tailsthere before the baiting was
getting popular.
We'd go over there before thevelvet was stripped, that means
(21:19):
like before the first ofSeptember, when the season
normally opened, the deer wouldhave velvet on the horns.
We'd drive over there and theywouldn't go on a timber and out
of sight from the clear cutsuntil about nine or ten o'clock
in the morning because when adeer runs and go into the timber
(21:39):
and they're in Huckleberries, itbreaks the velvet off and they
bleed and it hurts.
So we get over there and we'dsneak into these little places
where we knew there was clearcuts, and we might even walk up
the road and look over the banksand stuff, and we'd see three or
four.
One day we seen 34 point bucksbefore 10 o'clock in the
(22:01):
morning, and they all were invelvet.
And then you go mule deerhunting.
I paid for$1,800 apiece for mywife to go on a mule seven days
completely, all paid license andeverything.
Only thing I had to get downthere and spend a week hunting
on is 20,000 private acreedranch.
(22:23):
It had not been hunted in 20years.
And the first day I could havemade stocks on five bucks going
around their four by fours orfour by threes going around 130,
150.
And I remember the guide said,There's one right there.
And that was 15 minutes after hestarted.
(22:44):
I said, I've already seen fivedeer as big as that one.
I'm not going to walk up thatdamn hill and try to play that.
And I did.
I'm not walking that far up onthat hill when I can shoot one
right here in front of me.
It was a great huntingopportunity.
It's dedication.
Well, I missed two 200-inchbucks that week.
(23:05):
Oh, did you?
Yes.
And so I didn't miss anything bynot going after them deer.
I got to shoot at 200 inchbucks.
My wife killed a four by threebucks, 130, 147.
Well, I don't know, somethinglike that.
But she's got it bound.
You've seen it a desert muledeer.
I would have been glad to shootthe deer.
(23:27):
I was in shock when I got outand started walking.
I walked a half an hour and hadfive good bucks to shoot, you
know, within sight.
And any time I wanted, I couldhave spent a half an hour
looking in a binocular and Iwould have seen a buck like that
at any time during the day inthat ranch.
Wow.
It cost me 1800 bucks and theypaid for the hunting license.
(23:50):
The next year they called me upand asked me if I wanted to come
back.
And I said, I don't think so.
And he says, Well, I'll onlycharge you$1,500 this year.
And I said, Well, I don't know.
He says, I'll buy your licensefor you.
$250.
I didn't go the second time, butI kicked myself in the butt a
lot of time for not going onthat hunt.
(24:11):
But I had other things I thoughtthat hunts that I, you know,
local hunts and stuff.
I was fortunate I had a job from1994 until 2008.
I had a job where I could takeall the time I wanted off
anytime during the year and comeback and go to work anytime I
(24:33):
wanted to.
I made a lot of money.
I made$100,$120 every year.
And I could have made$140,$50 ayear if I wouldn't take three
months a year off to go gallowout around the country.
And my wife would go with me.
She went everywhere with me.
We went to New Mexico on thatmule deer hunt.
She was with me.
(24:53):
We went, we baited bear.
I had hounds for 10 years.
I hunted hounds.
She'd hunt with me when shecould and stuff.
We had kids sometimes.
Unfortunately, I had to leaveher at home sometimes and go
hunting.
And she had to stay there andput the kids to school and meet
them there, unfortunately.
I was so tickled that I was ableto kill that eight by seven
(25:15):
bull.
At the time when I killed him, Ithink it was number eighth in
the world.
It scored around 3-1 or 2 gross.
It was 295 net.
SPEAKER_01 (25:23):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (25:23):
But the world record was only 340 or something like
that.
It wasn't that big a deal.
But I've hunted mountain goatsand had the opportunity to kill
two world records.
And one time another guy walkedin between me and the one goat,
I would have had a good chanceof shooting at that goat.
(25:45):
But I was half a mile from him.
I watched him on the spot, and Iknew that this goat was past
world record size.
And my son and I was on our wayover there to hunt it.
And a guy named Dennis Dunn,which is a world-class hunter,
was already halfway between usand that goat hunting it.
(26:07):
And the next morning we got upand started out from our camp.
And here he was coming up themountain toward where our camp
was.
And he didn't know we had a campthere.
And he didn't know we werethere.
But we came over Ridge and raninto him, and he was so thirsty,
he spent all night aftershooting at that mountain goat
twice and missing it.
(26:27):
And he stayed out on the rockshoping he could find it the next
morning.
And so we gave him our orangejuice so he could get something
to drink and get himself back onhis feet and get the cat.
Another time was another goat,and they called him Charles
Atlas.
The goat was supposed to be, andthey had game department, they'd
taken pictures of him.
(26:48):
They said his horns were 13inches long.
And I think the world recordright now is 11 or something
like that.
Wow.
I can't remember what the worldrecord is now.
And that goat came from Canada.
The guide called the hunter,went up there, chased the goat,
got an arrow in it, and killedit, which is fine.
That's the way it was.
And that's the differencebetween a guy that's got money
(27:10):
and a guy that don't have money.
If you got a guy that's got lotsof money, not always hiring
guide is going to make yousuccessful, but it's going to
knock your odds up there.
Most people that got a lot ofgood animals, they read a lot of
hunting pamphlets.
And the port show in Portland isreally a good place to go if you
(27:31):
want to get information.
You run a lot of hunters.
I at one time was had talked toa guide from Canada to give me a
free guided grizzly bear hut fora free Roosevelt hut because he
wanted to kill Roosevelt, hadnever done it.
There was a big thing to him.
And then he backed out when hefound out one hunt with bow and
(27:52):
arrow on a grizzly bear.
I mean, you think of a guy whodo something like that be smart.
But anyhow, he backed outbecause of that.
And that's fine.
I mean, he had his reason.
He says, I've shot enough grizzybear that was in a willow pat
someplace, and I had to go inand finish it off for guides
that guys that didn't kill him.
He said, I'm not going to do itfor a bow and arrow on her.
(28:13):
That's the reason he backed out.
But you can find things likethat if you try and make deals
and stuff.
You could probably do it forpeople that had not hunted in
the Calyx River or fish in theCalyx River.
SPEAKER_01 (28:27):
Because wheeling and dealing to get more hunts and if
any fishing guides are listeningto this and would like to go
through Dave's classes or to theboot camp, please contact us for
bartering and wheeling anddealing.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (28:45):
A lot of times guys don't think about those things.
You don't?
Yeah.
I can't remember who the guywas, but he was world famous and
he had nine or ten big, huge,non-typical black mule deer.
And he was giving a seminar inPortland.
And there was a lot of peoplethat wanted to listen.
He'd wrote lots of articles foroutdoor life and stuff like
(29:07):
that.
And he's a rifle hunter.
Well-known hunter, worldwell-known.
Can't remember who he was.
And that was one of theminstances where I sat through a
seminar and everybody had abunch of questions, and I waited
till everybody was done, andthis and he said he had to go
and get ready for another showand stuff.
(29:28):
And so everybody was gone.
I walked over and asked him, Isaid, When you remember you
telling me you were sitting onthat rock and you sat there for
about an hour and a half andshot that last big buck you've
had in articles about?
Yeah.
I said, You never said anythingat the time how long you sat on
that rock.
(29:49):
You just said you came out andsat on that rock and finally
seen the buck you wanted and youshot it.
How long did you sit?
Oh, about an hour and a half.
He says, The buck had been inthe area and I didn't say
anything because the guys didn'task me the question, so I don't
really like to say a lot ofthings.
I and unless they pointedlyasked questions then.
And sometimes I don't reallywant to answer them.
(30:11):
And I found out that to be truewith myself.
I I took a couple of guyshunting at bow hunting and
different experiences and stuff.
Well, one of them would he hadthree animals going, he had
North America big big 28 ornine.
And he wouldn't do anything Itold him to do.
Consequently, he could havekilled a really nice Roosevelt
(30:33):
bull, and that's one of thethings he needed to have.
The first day we were huntingtogether, and he hunted five
days with my son and I becausehe'd had all this experience in
Africa and the East and all overCanada and Alaska for all these
different animals.
Super nice, wonderful person.
(30:54):
Had an archer shop in San Diego,and I happened to go down there
to work on a military ship forlongshoremen.
And so I was there.
I went to his archer ship and Igot to talk to him.
And we got talking, he said,asked me to go take him hunting.
I was well, because I had fouranimals in a book.
And he seemed to think he knewme.
And I said, fine, my son and Iwill take you up hunting, but we
(31:15):
can't guarantee anything becauseyou just don't always get an
animal.
But we think we know whethersome animals you want to go out,
and we'll try and take youagain, you know.
So the first day we called inthis six by six bull, about a
280-90 bull.
That's not exceptionally big,but it was a decent bull, and
Dave would like to have it.
SPEAKER_03 (31:34):
I'd have loved to have that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:37):
And I told him to follow my son down this trail
because that bull was coming in,and Ivan was getting as close to
the bull as he could, and he wasgoing to turn around and wave at
him.
And I told him just to followIvan.
And he didn't want to do it.
And he was making a video of it.
And he had his friend of hishunting too and doing the camera
work.
(31:57):
And so the bull came in rightwithin 20 yards of Ivan, across
right in front of him on his oldgrade.
Then when the bull walked acrossthe road, he wasn't ready.
He didn't shoot the bull.
He could have easily shot at thebull.
And he was five times Californiastate bare bow champion.
Broadhead.
Bear bow broadhead champion.
Five times state champion ofCalifornia.
(32:19):
When the bull walked across, Iwas 70 yards, Ivan was about 20
or 30 yards, and he could haveTravis shot at him.
And I said, Why did you stayhere and instead of going up
like I told you to?
He says, Well, he could haveshot the bull from here.
I said, that was 70 yards.
Oh, I said, I don't have noproblem shooting at the 70, bro.
(32:40):
I could easily hit it.
And I says, you know what youhired a guide for?
He said, Yeah, take me outhunting.
I says, No, you you hired him totell you what you needed to do.
I said, and you I don't evencare about taking you out
anymore because if you don'twant to do what I want you to
do, I can't help you.
And that's the truth.
With any guide, semi-like it'sbabysitting.
(33:05):
I've grabbed guys that were bearhunting with me, and turkey, one
fella had killed four bears withme.
I took him turkey hunting overand killed, called a turkey in.
The turkey was 20 yards away, abig old gobbler.
And he turns to me and says, Howfar away is it?
I said, 20 yards.
So he draws up and anchors onthe anchors out.
The turkey started turningaround, walking away from me.
(33:25):
He keeps anchoring and holdinghold.
Finally shot and he landed about40 yards, four yards behind the
deer, the turkey.
And that went on three times.
Each time the bird was 20 yards,30 yards, then 40 yards, then 50
yards.
You missed him three or fouryards each time.
Finally turned around, he says,How come you told me that kind
(33:45):
of yardage?
I said, Because at the time thatI told you, I was ranging it
with my range finder, and that'show far it was.
But you hold so long, you don'tshoot at it soon enough, and you
don't say, hey, it's walked fivemore yards away.
I got to hold higher.
I said, So you miss it becauseyou won't listen.
And you don't execute when youneed to.
(34:07):
Wonderful guy.
We're still really good friends,been years.
And I got him a nice five-pointbowl on one time.
And about two months later hecalled me up and said he had
meet me halfway to his house inVancouver.
I said, What for?
He said, Well, I got somethingfor you.
I said, Well, I don't needanything.
He said, Oh, yeah, yeah.
He said, I got so I go up there.
I don't wear it because it's sobig and so gaudy.
(34:29):
But he put a solid ounce of goldin a ring and had it made.
And it it's bigger than thisring, and it sticks up about
three-quarters of an inchbecause I got him a bull.
And it was just his way ofsaying thanks.
But I mean, I I I haven't wornit.
SPEAKER_03 (34:46):
So if any of the guys that I've taken out deer
hunting.
Currency is allowed.
SPEAKER_00 (34:53):
Gold is very welcome.
Well, I wasn't tooting my hornor nothing.
I mean, it's hard for a guy thatlike when I was running my dogs,
it was harder if I took somebodyout with me to hunt the dog,
hunt to hunt for bear.
If I took them out, I wouldalmost always have to watch them
(35:14):
close or stay beside him.
And I can remember coming upbehind him and grabbing them on
each side of their shirt andpulling them over to the right
or the left or and lining themup so they could get the shot.
Because they wouldn't think fastenough to step right or left or
be ready when it was time.
(35:34):
Right.
I called this one bull in sixtimes for that guy I got four
bear for.
I I called one bull in six timesone day, and he could have shot
the bull every time until thesixth time which he did kill the
bull.
And I was like 80 yards behindhim doing the calling, and a
bull would run in and he hadcows, and he'd turn around and
(35:55):
run back to his cows, and he'drun in about 20 yards from
Lloyd, and about the time he gotready to shoot, he'd turn around
and run back the other way.
And so he could have shot thisbull if he'd had been drawn up
when a bull won't come, just thebull started coming in the side
and be ready.
But he'd wait until it got towhere he wanted to shoot, then
he'd try and draw.
And then when he did shoot it, Iwas about 80 yards behind him
(36:16):
and I heard him shoot.
So I walked up there and said,Did you get him?
And he says, I think so.
And I says, Well, you don'tknow.
And he said, Well, he ran offover this way.
And I just happened to turn myhead about the same time, and I
seen four legs come up near, andthe bull had ran about 20 yards
and flipped upside down anddropped over the bank where he
(36:38):
couldn't see it.
But the angle I was at, I seenthe legs, I seen the legs go
straight up near.
And I knew the bull was dead.
And he says, I said, I think Ihit him right behind his
shoulder.
I said, You did, Lloyd.
I said, he's dead right here.
And I said, Come on, let's goover there and get him.
He said, Well, we've got tofollow blood trail.
I said, No, Lloyd.
(36:59):
I said, You just, he's rightover here.
Well, I'm gonna follow bloodtrail.
I said, Well, go ahead andfollow the blood trail if you
want to, but I'm gonna go overthere and dig a little bit of
bulk.
And so he finally walked overwith me.
He says, How'd you know that?
I said, I told you, I just seenthe legs fly up near.
I said, That's funny.
SPEAKER_01 (37:16):
Okay, so we were told that five o'clock was our
cutoff and we've exceeded that.
So we will call it quits here.
Thank you for uh coming by,giving us your stories.
Smaller.
Definitely appreciated.
SPEAKER_03 (37:27):
Oh, I could sit and listen to you for hours.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate you doing this, andwe love you and uh hope to have
many more outdoor adventureswith you.
SPEAKER_00 (37:37):
You know, I I don't know how to explain everything,
but in my heart, I think I havetried to let anybody know, and a
lot of guys resent it when I tryand help them.
But I don't try to go out thereand tell people things that
aren't right.
I tell them the things I thinkare right.
(37:58):
And you've seen me do that in afew different instances with you
and your families.
But so many people got reallyclosed minds, it's hard to
really communicate in a mannerthat they will accept stuff.
Yeah.
All I've ever wanted to do is totry to shoot good, hunt as much
(38:21):
as I can, be successful, ofcourse.
But I I'm tickle pink to helpanybody I can.
And the prettier they are, thebetter it is.
SPEAKER_03 (38:31):
I had the same philosophy, but my wife doesn't
appreciate that one.
SPEAKER_00 (38:34):
I didn't say, I didn't say what my wife's
philosophy was.
SPEAKER_03 (38:38):
Well, thanks again for coming, Smoke.
SPEAKER_00 (38:39):
All right, sure.
Thanks everyone for listening.
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