Ep 146 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Brendan Bramford

Send us a text The line between determination and recklessness blurs in this captivating episode featuring Brendan Bramford, a hunter whose life story spans continents and carries the weight of generations of hunting tradition. Born in Zimbabwe where his father worked as a professional hunter, Brendan's earliest memories include riding in Land Cruisers on safari before his family fled political violence that claimed their home.Brendan's storytelling prowess shines as he recounts his first black bear harvest in Washington—a tale that begins with him answering nature's call behind camp and spotting what he thought was a burnt stump until it started moving. With his pants literally down, he managed to make the shot of a lifetime, creating a hunting memory equal parts successful and embarrassing.The heart of the episode centers on Brendan's remarkable elk hunt where stubborn determination overcame physical limitations. Just three days before a planned five-day backcountry archery hunt, Brendan severely sliced his forearm open, requiring extensive stitches. Against medical advice and common sense, he proceeded with the hunt, hiking eight miles into the wilderness with an 82-pound pack and his arm freshly bandaged. When the moment came to draw on his first bull elk, the searing pain nearly derailed the opportunity—but Brendan persevered through multiple shots and tracking to harvest his first archery elk.The episode closes with sobering stories of Brendan's family history hunting dangerous game in Africa, including his father being run over by a Cape buffalo and a family friend's recent horrific mauling by a leopard. These tales serve as powerful reminders of nature's raw power and the risks some hunters accept in pursuit of their passion.Are you ready to make your own hunting stories? Subscribe now and join the community of storytellers sharing their adventures from the field to the podcast. Brendan's Tiktok Brendan's Instagram The Reason Outdoors Facebook Support the show Hunting Stories InstagramHave a story? Click here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories
podcast.
I'm your host, michael, and wegot another great episode for
you today.
Today, what are the odds?
We have another listener whoreached out saying hey man, I
would love to connect and tellyour listeners some of my
stories.
So today I want to introduceyou to Brendan Bramford.
Brendan has some awesomestories for us today.
I don't want to steal too muchof his thunder, so I'll just say

(00:26):
this real quick If you guys arelistening to this right now, go
ahead and give us a like, giveus a subscribe and follow
whatever it is on, whateverplatform you're on, please.
It helps us out and helps morepeople find us.
Beyond that, guys share us withone person, and now let's let
Brendan go ahead and tell yousome of his stories.
Thank you, person.
And now let's let Brendan goahead and tell you some of his

(00:47):
stories, thank you.
All right, brendan.
Welcome to the Hunting Storiespodcast.
Brother, how are you Good?
How are you?
I am great man.
I'm glad to have you here.
You, sir, are, I believe, alistener and you reached out
saying I have some stories, andthen you sent me a shit ton of
photos and I was like, holy shit, I have to talk to this guy.
So I'm excited to hear whatthose photos are for, because I

(01:09):
don't like to hear the stories.
So you sent that.
We just left it at that.
We scheduled some time and Ithink we're going to have a good
one today, man, so I'm excitedto talk with you.
That being said, why don't youand to the folks, so they know
who they're hearing some storiesfrom today?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Well, my name is Brendan Bramford.
I was born in Zimbabwe, africa,and currently live in Twin
Falls, idaho.
I've been hunting since aboutsix months old.
My dad was a professionalhunter in Zimbabwe oh cool.
So as soon as I could ride withhim and my mom in the Land

(01:43):
Cruiser, I was hunting with themand going on their hunt.
So pretty much from there I'vebeen a hunter ever since that's
awesome man.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
So what age did you move away from Zimbabwe?
I was about four years old,four years old.
Okay, what was the catalyst man?
What made your dad and mom go?
Okay, let's leave Africa, andI've assumed Idaho knows where
they went next.
But what happened?

Speaker 3 (02:12):
So they had a big change in their government where
they were reconfiscating landfrom white farmers, and so they
burnt down our house and ourfarm that we had there in
Zimbabwe.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
And my grandparents actually lived in Washington, so
we moved out there with themfor a few years and I moved from
there to Colorado and then mywife actually was from Twin
Falls, so we moved back hereafter a couple of years and this
is where we've been ever since.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Awesome, man, awesome .
That's crazy that they justburned your shit down.
I've heard of stuff like that.
I've never met anyone that wasactually affected by it and I
also have a buddy that is inSouth Africa and I asked him
about that a while ago and he'slike it's not as bad as you
would think, and so I'm alwayscurious to hear about that

(03:02):
because it's kind of like aninverse of the rest of the world
.
That's not why we're here.
We're not for geopoliticalconversations, screw that man.
We're here to hear some huntingstories.
So, brendan, I know you camewith a few prepared.
Why don't you set the stage forthe first one man?

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Well, I had heard in some of your recent podcasts or
I guess it was probably onesfrom earlier on that you wanted
the story of getting caught withyour pants down and harvesting
an animal.
I had one.
That was pretty good.
It was actually my first blackbear in Washington, oh really.
So, yep, so this was in 2014.

(03:42):
I think I was either asophomore or a junior in high
school and I was hunting with mydad, a buddy of mine from high
school, and his stepdad, and itwas, I think, opening weekend of
deer hunting, which black bearseason coincides with that.
So we always had, you know, abear tag and a mountain lion tag

(04:04):
, just in case you saw something.
Yeah, but we had left thatmorning or I guess I should
start with driving in the nightbefore coming into camp.
We had seen some deer in camp,so we were getting pretty
excited about you know, havingsome early morning action and
woke up the next morning and, ofcourse, you know washington,
it's always pouring rain, so allmorning long it was pouring

(04:29):
down cats and dogs.
So about 11 o'clock we decidedto head back to camp, take a
break, dry off and go up adifferent side of the mountain.
On our way back to camp, it wasraining so hard that we had to
stop because we were justgetting absolutely drenched.
So we stopped under a tree, hada fire, ate some lunch and the

(04:52):
weather cleared up just a littlebit.
So we were only 400 yards downthe road from camp.
So we hustled back into camp,took off our packs, set them
down by the truck and my buddysat in his chair, took a
breather from hiking all morningand I needed to go use the
restroom to call the wild.

(05:13):
So I started walking off behindthe tent and thought to myself
well, we saw some deer thatnight before, so I should
probably grab my rifle.
So I grabbed my rifle and walkedabout 10 yards behind the tent
and relieving myself and Ilooked up and there was this log

(05:34):
that had fallen over a fewyears before and we had been at
this campsite for a number ofyears.
And I looked up and I noticedthe stump at the base was really
black and I don't I was likeman.
I don't remember that stumpever being burnt.
I wonder if someone lit a fireon there or, you know, got
struck by lightning.

(05:54):
Well, now the stump started tomove down the hill and midstream
.
I yell over at my buddy.
Well, not yell quietly, kind ofsay hey.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Connor get over here.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
There's a black bear and he's like no, there's not,
You're just messing with me.
Because we're sitting in camp.
This bear is only 30 yards fromour camp.
40 yards no way I wish I wasever that lucky Just walking
down the hill.
So he starts getting up realslow and grabs his rifle and is

(06:29):
walking over I was ever thatlucky Just walking down the hill
.
So he starts getting up realslow and grabs his rifle and is
walking over.
Well, I wasn't going to waitfor him forever.
So I pick up my rifle Stillusing the restroom because I was
more worried about shooting thebear at this point Loaded
around in, took a shot and hither right behind the shoulder
and she dropped to the ground,did a big 360, and jumped up.

(06:50):
Well, at this point he startsto realize that I'm not joking,
as previously thought.
So he runs over there and bythis time she's made it about
five yards up the hill when hegets there and so he starts
shooting with me.
I missed the second shot and hita tree because there's a lot of
little saplings out there, yeah, and I split one of the

(07:12):
saplings.
I think he shot over it becausehe didn't have his first round
hit.
Okay, we both reload, my thirdround, his second round.
We both hit right behind theshoulder again and she dropped
right there and turned towardsus.
I mean, she's only 40 yards soyou can see her pretty clear and
with all the morning rain andstuff, she let out her death

(07:34):
roar and you could see the mistcome out of her mouth and that's
crazy.
It was a pretty cool experience.
Yeah, of course we're excitedand we go for a high five.
And he said hey, man, beforethe high five you need to, you
need to put some little Jimmyaway and finish up.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
That's too good man, that's too funny.
Oh yeah, I just assume somedayI'll have my pants down and an
animal will walk up.
It's happened when I don't havemy weapon.
I just need to make sure Ialways have my weapon on me.
But that's a a funny story andI'm glad your friend had you put
it away.
I, I.
This is not a hunting story,but it reminds me of another
story.
Um, and I'll tell it because Ithink it's absolutely hilarious.

(08:14):
Um, all right.
So the story I'm going to tell,obviously, your dick being out
and trying to high five yourbuddy reminds me of this story,
which means it's not goinganywhere.
Good, right, so this is incollege I had a buddy.
He was a complete stoner, justout of his mind, stoner all the
time, and we're sitting in thebasement having beers, you know,
hanging out, playing videogames, whatever college kids do,

(08:35):
and we're like hey, order somepizza.
And so he's again high out ofhis mind and he orders there's
three of us.
He orders so much food andwe're like so the pizza arrives.
We don't know what he orders,but he comes downstairs with the
pizza and again the three of us.
He has five pizzas, likechicken wings, cheesy bread like

(08:56):
four liters of soda.
We're like, what the hell, man,there's only three of us.
What are you doing?
He's like I was hungry and ofus, what are you doing?
He's like I was hungry and sowe're sitting there like did you
, did you answer the door?
Like that.
And he's like, yeah, why?
And like his pecker was justhanging out, so like he ordered
all this.
He ordered like five times theamount of food that we needed
and then he went and got thepizza with his pecker hanging
out, and I'm sure the guy didn'tappreciate it.

(09:17):
My buddy is a a big, not he, Imean, he's an ogre of a
gentleman like he.
He's not the kind of person youwant to.
Even if you're into that thing,you don't want to see that guy's
pecker out.
But it was out and he broughtit down and we're like, put that
away and we'll take one of thepizzas.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
That was the farthest away from your Jimmy, so yeah,
that's not the kind of tip youwant to get as a delivery driver
.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
No, no, not at all, man, man, but your story
reminded me of it and I,whatever.
I see that guy.
We make fun of him all the time.
He doesn't think it's veryfunny.
We still do.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Uh, but that's not a hunting story, so okay, back to
you, man, what?

Speaker 3 (09:51):
else?
What else do you?
Got for us?
Um another good one.
Uh was actually my first elkthat I shot last year, yeah, so
I was hunting elk in.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Washington for about 14 years, 13 years.
It's a tough state.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
Especially rifle hunting.
So, never shot an elk there.
And then in Colorado, I wasn'tthere long enough to get my
license.
I had gone out hunting with acouple buddies for, I think, one
season and I got them on threedifferent elk and they never
capitalized on it.
And I got them on threedifferent elk and they never
capitalized on it.
But when I moved out to Idaho Iwas destined and hoping to get

(10:30):
my first elk with a bow.
Yeah.
So last year I went out withsome coworkers of mine One of
them he's been hunting forpretty much most of his life and
then one of the new hireswanted to come out with us and
it was his first hunting trip.
So me and my more experiencedbuddy had, you know, all the

(10:51):
gear pretty much all set aside.
We were ready to go and we hadbeen helping this other guy get
all set up and get all his gearorganized.
So he came over to my house, uh, three days before we were
supposed to leave for our tripand I was getting some wax for
his boots to help waterproof him, yeah.
And so I come into my shed hereand I grab a block of paraffin

(11:16):
wax and go to cutting on it.
Well, for whatever reason, Ichanged the direction that I was
cutting because I didn't wantto cut my finger.
And I changed the directionthat I was cutting because I
didn't want to cut my finger.
Well, when the wax broke and myknife inevitably went for flesh
instead of wax, I stuck it downthe length of my forearm.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Whoo, like you say, down the length of your forearm.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Are you saying the whole damn thing?
You can kind of probably see itin there.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Okay, I can it looks like what three, four, five-inch
scar, About four inches.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yeah, jeez, ow, it went about two inches deep into
my forearm.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
The forearm's only like four inches deep.
In the first place, man, didyou hit bone.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah, I skated off the bone a little bit, so I
grabbed my arm and I head out ofmy shed and he's getting his
bow set up for a little targetpractice.
And I told him, hey, we'regoing to have to probably
schedule this for another day.
And he's like why Is everythingokay?
And I was like, well, we can'tshoot bows, but I can give you a
lesson on blood trailing realquick.

(12:21):
Don't find me.
So I head to the front find me.
So I head to the front porch.
I left the huge blood puddle inmy shop a trail to the front
porch, and I said, hey, can yougo inside and grab my wife and
have her come out and help mereal quick, because he's not
very good with, like, seeingpeople's blood.
Yeah, so he's getting woozy andhe's, you know, freaking out a

(12:44):
little like I don't know what todo.
What do you need me to do?

Speaker 2 (12:46):
I was like well, isn't that the funniest like
thing that humans do?
That like a good portion ofpeople see blood and just like
completely lose the ability tolike be a reasonable person it
doesn't.
It's like fight or flight.
It doesn't fit into that.
It's like just not be helpfulin any way whatsoever, it doesn
doesn't make sense.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Oh, that's weird.
I was laughing, Cause I waslike in three days I'm going to
be stuck eight miles in the backcountry with you.
I need you to toughen up alittle bit, Cause if this
happened back there, I need you.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, you're like uh, it's going to bleed, are you?
You know that?
Yeah, do you know that?

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, is it just human blood?

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, just human blood.
Okay, Okay, still, that's funnyman.
Okay, sorry, I interrupted.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
So my wife comes out and I said, hey, I cut myself
pretty bad.
I'm going to need you to grabstuff to kind of bandage me up.
She's like how bad I was.
Like get our son and put him inthe car.
I think we need to go to thehospital too.
Yeah.
So she grabs uh, we had theseuh absorbent pads for cleaning

(13:51):
and stuff.
She sticks that on my arm,which she gets there.
She has a belt of mine for atourniquet, yeah, Not knowing
how bad it was.
But I opened up my forearm andit burst open.
You could see down through themuscle, the my forearm and it
burst open.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
You could see down through the muscle, the fat
layers yeah, and needless to say, she was sitting there going
nice job, so she's pulling onthe knife that hard, or was the
knife that sharp or both?

Speaker 3 (14:18):
it was very sharp.
That was actually one that Imade for my son when he gets
older.
So okay, I had it.
Razor sharp, it'll shave hairoff your arm, yeah, it'll shave
arm off your arm, jesus okay.
So we get that bandaged up,tourniqueted.
I didn't have any more bleedingat that point so I knew I was
probably going to live and befine.

(14:38):
But we went to go get itstiffed up and the doctor had me
back there looking at at my armand of course they were asking
me all kinds of questions likeare you sure you didn't do this
to yourself on purpose?
And I'm like, no, I have an elktime going on in three days.
And then I want to make itthere.
And he said, oh, are you doingrifle or archery?

(15:00):
I said archery.
He's like I don't think you'regoing to be able to draw a bow.
I was like I'm gonna be ablesaid throw a couple extra
stitches in there, I'll be ableto draw a bow in three days.
So he stitches up my arm and Iasked him I was like what's the
danger level of me getting aninfection with this?
He's like well, we have somereally good stuff to bandage you

(15:22):
up with and we'll send you homewith some.
He said, as long as you're notgetting into lakes and creeks
and bathing and getting it wet,you should be fine.
And he said try and keep asmuch blood and other dirt and
grime out of it as you can.
So in three days I grabbed mypack, my buddies, we hit the
mountain.
How'd?

(15:43):
Your wife feel about that.
She was pretty nervous but thedoctor told her he's like he's
fine to go as long as he'spaying attention and keeps it
clean.
She's like, yeah, I don't thinkI'm going to be able to stop
him.
He's pretty dedicated becausethis is my first like five-day
backpack trip that I had thetime off planned, so this is

(16:03):
going to be my longest timeactually chasing elk at one time
.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
So that was something I wasn't going to miss.
That's crazy, and so I assumeyou went and shot your bow in
the next day or two before youwent out into the woods, like
seeing where that scar is whatdid it?
Am I jumping ahead in the storyhere?
Because I just feel like thatwould be a place like every time
you put your bow out to shoot.
Well, I guess it.

(16:27):
Which hand is it?
Which way do you shoot, I guess?

Speaker 3 (16:29):
but is it somewhere it's?

Speaker 2 (16:30):
like go ahead it's my uh left hand that I hold my bow
with okay, yeah that would be aproblem because you're like you
turn your wrist up to shoot andit would stress that exact spot
you sliced.
Was there issues with that?

Speaker 3 (16:44):
So I didn't find that out because I didn't want to
figure it out until it came tothe moment you didn't want to
find it out until you were eightmiles back is what you're
telling me.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
And on that opening day it was Wednesday for when we
were going to be up there, butopening day didn't open till
Friday.
Okay.
So I had we were doing somepreseason scouting while we were
up there, so I had a few daysto heal, I think five days in
total, before I actually had todraw my bow.
So so we went up our packs.

(17:21):
I think range from 98 poundswas my buddy's pack, my pack was
82 pounds and then our otherfriend's was 72 pounds or 74.
So we all had pretty heavypacks going up there, yeah,
which when you have a heavy packresting on your shoulders it

(17:41):
pushes a lot or keeps a lot ofthat blood in your arms.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
I believe that't doesn't return well.
So on the opening day of elkhunting I changed out my bandage
that morning.
Well, I had my arm was allpurple and tiger striped and had
yellow in it from all thebruising I was like oh man,
that's, and I mean, and I meanit hurt.
I had medication in that tohelp with the pain, but I didn't

(18:08):
take them until that day, causeI didn't want to have any
issues.
I wanted it to work well onthat day when I needed it.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, man, I could see all sorts of reasons why
this was a bad idea you go up inaltitude, your blood, your
blood gets thinner, right Alittle bit, and you're hiking
Like I hike all the time and youknow your fingers swell, so
there's obviously more fluid andblood down in your hands and
like oh my goodness, okay, ohyeah.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Making me nervous.
Good thing you're sitting infront of me.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Otherwise I'd be a lot more nervous.
But okay, keep going.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
So we had scouted around and looked and we hadn't
seen much.
We were up at around 10,000feet, I think is where our camp
was, and there was a lot ofcattle up there, which I was
quite surprised.
So I think the cattle had kindof pushed some of the elk lower
down.
Okay, because as we were hikingin we heard one bugle on the

(19:00):
other side of the canyon.
So opening morning we huntedall around where we would set up
our camp and was doing ourglassing and wasn't seeing much
fresh sign, wasn't hearinganything.
So we decided that night thatwe were going to quickly pack up
camp around two and head downthe mountain where we heard that

(19:20):
bugle.
So we loaded up our camp, wehad hiked in eight miles and we
hiked five miles back out towhere we heard that bugle.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Okay, At least that's a good direction, yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Had a pretty good workout those first few days,
and so we got down into thelower canyon and we set up our
camp next to a river and we hadabout probably half hour, 45
minutes until sunset, soprobably between an hour and an
hour and 20 of light left toactually shoot.

(19:55):
Okay, while we were setting upcamp, our less experienced buddy
was walking around because itwas kind of marshy in that area
and he sunk down to his knees inhis hunting boots and his pants
and got soaking wet.
So all right, he said he wassitting there.

(20:15):
He's like I think I'll justhunt around camp down here where
I don't have to hike, and I'lljust hike in my sandals and hunt
around camp for deer and elkand see what I can't find.
So he told me that that wascool and we were going to head
up the other side and see whatwe couldn't find.
And so we start hiking up andwe had probably only been gone

(20:35):
about 15 minutes.
I would say Okay.
We were probably five or 600yards from our tent that we had
set up and walking real slowthrough this little trail and it
was really heavy timber you canit's probably only about 80 to
a hundred yards of goodvisibility.
Okay, and my buddy let out alocation bugle and there's a lot

(21:00):
of squirrels in there.
So there's a lot of likepopping and tw.
So there's a lot of likepopping and twig snapping sounds
.
So it's kind of hard.
You sit there for a long timethinking it's just a squirrel.
So I was looking back at him.
I was like you think that's asquirrel and he's like I'm not
sure yet.
And I had walked about twosteps up further so that I could

(21:20):
just get a different view andsee, and right as I took those
two steps, he said get down,there's a bull coming.
I said okay.
So I knock an arrow and I'mgetting ready and I'm looking at
my arm real quick and I've gotthis big bulky bandage on there
and the first thing that came tomind was string slapping my arm

(21:41):
with that bow.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
I never even thought about that Good God.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, okay, string slapping my arm with that bow,
oh my god I never even thoughtabout that.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
Good, god, yeah, okay , and I'm thinking of this and I
said, if I think about doingthat, I'm inevitably gonna do it
.
So I just gotta shoot like I'vealways shot.
I don't think I've ever stringslapped myself since I was a
little kid shooting a recurve,yeah.
So I just put it out on my mindand said I got to shoot this
elk.
If it string slaps me, so be it.

(22:07):
And we got a sewing kit in thebag at camp.
We'll bandage it back up ifneed be.
And we've let out one locationbugle on this whole hike.
And this bull came from about100 yards and made a beeline and
we were sitting on two littlefinger ridges that were probably
150 yards apart from each other.

(22:28):
Okay, so I start ranging some ofthe little areas that I think
he might come in and I start tosee this bull and he is hauling
butt down the mountain, yeah,crossing down the hill in front
of us.
He's in in the drainage justbelow us, which is only about 50
feet to the bottom.
So I knew he was going to be ontop of us pretty quick and,

(22:51):
judging by where he came down,there was one trail that I
thought he would come up inabout 20 yards.
So I arranged it.
I got ready and he came up overthat ridge and stopped behind a
little patch of trees andlooked around for a minute and,
right as he started walkingagain, I drew my bow.

(23:13):
And man, the stinging pain todraw that bow was not very fun,
but I eventually, afteradjusting my wrist a little, I
found a spot that it didn'tstrain it as much got the full
draw and he steps out at 20yards, perfectly broadside, and

(23:33):
he stands right behind this onlypine bough in that whole
shooting lane.
that's covering up his vitals,of course.
So I'm sitting there looking athim and my first instinct was,
oh, he's covered up by brush, Ishouldn't shoot.
Well, I had shot through a lotof pine boughs, practicing to
see how they affected anexpandable broadhead and how

(23:56):
they affected my fixed blades,and in that moment I was like
I've shot through way thickerpine boughs and had no issues.
I mean, it was just the tipsthat were really in that spot I
was aiming.
So I'm like I'm going to sendmy arrow.
I feel confident.
Yeah Well, and he's beenstanding there for I'd probably

(24:18):
say about five to ten seconds,but it feels like five minutes.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, especially that pain in your arm.
Yeah, you're right, I gotta putthis down.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
So I'm sitting there, I settle in my pin as soon as I
release on my bow and thatarrow starts moving.
That bull whirled back down themountain and from my view it
looked like I hit him, perfectquartering away.
Yeah, and I look at my buddyand I said I had some pine
boughs in my way.

(24:47):
Where did that arrow actuallyhit?
It looked like I hit him farback, but he was quartering hard
so I should have hit lungs.
And he said no, no, you didn'tnot even a, so just yeah just a
straight no, oh man, I was like.
I know I hit that, so I run upto where he was standing.

(25:07):
As he was working his way upthe other ridge I noticed my
fletchings hanging out the backand they're bright pink, so I
could easily tell Hanging outthe back of the elk or the back
of what?
Out of the back of the elk, okay, okay, so as he's running kind
of quartering away up the hill,I can see my fletchings just

(25:29):
behind his tail.
Okay, so at first I'm thinkingthat I hit him quartering away
and they buried pretty deep.
I was like, well, maybe I gotgood penetration.
But I was like I'll get asecond shot into him just to
make sure.
So he goes to about 72 yardsand I practice at about 80 yards

(25:50):
is my max.
But seeing as I've hit the bull, I wanted to make sure I can
get another arrow.
And he's standing perfectlybroadside and there's a ton of
tree canopy in between me andhim.
But judging by where thosebranches were placed, I figured
my arrow would clear over himand drop right in.
So I ranged him at 72 yards,drew back, sent another arrow

(26:15):
and hit him perfectly behind theshoulder and that'll come to a
different conclusion later butburied the fletchings pretty
deep right behind his shoulder.
Okay, and I was like, perfect.
So I walked back to my buddy andsaid, hey, where did that arrow
hit?
He said, man, if you're notbullseye on his asshole, you're

(26:37):
real close.
So at this moment I felthorrible because I'm like I know
I saw those fletchings backthere, but I didn't know how far
back I had hit them.
He said no, you release thatarrow.
And he said as soon as I heardyour bow go off, I watched him

(26:58):
almost completely whirled away.
He said I saw fletchings buriedright up into the cheeks.
Good God, that's too funny.
He's like how was your secondshot?
And I was like man, I put itright behind his shoulder.
So we waited about 20 minutes.
It was starting to get dark sowe figured we'd track blood a
little ways and see kind of whatkind of blood we had.

(27:20):
Yeah, and we got up to where hewas standing and there was a
big pile of bubbles and blood.
So I knew I had made a prettygood shot.
And the whole way, from where Iinitially hit him in the rear,
he was bleeding really heavy,okay, and that blood continued
for about 80 yards.
And right about that 80 yardmark, uh, we looked up and he

(27:43):
had actually stood up out of hisbed and he was limping real
hard and you could see bloodaround his nose.
So we decided just to back outand come in the morning.
So we start heading back downthe trail to catch up with our
buddy.
Yeah, well, by this time it waswas pitch black out and there

(28:05):
was enough moonlight that youcould kind of see and walk
without headlamps.
So we crossed the creek and Isaid, hey, I'm gonna mess with
jackson.
Jackson's the less experiencedhunter that we were with and
wyatt was the more experiencedhunter, so I'm gonna mess with
jackson a little bit and soundlike a mountain lion, so didn't

(28:28):
think that one through very well.
So I come up on about 10 or 15yards from the tent which this
tent we had struggled withgetting the door to close.
The zipper was pretty rottedout, yeah.
So I make a mountain lion growllike 10 yards from him and I
see him fly up off the log thathe was sitting on about five

(28:51):
feet, jumped through the door ofthe tent and before he hit the
mattress, I swear he had thattent fully zipped up in one fell
swoosh before he hit the ground.
And at this point I'm laughing.
But I didn't remember that wehad given him the 45 that we had
for protection.
Oh shit, okay, but why?

(29:14):
It's like?
That's not smart.
He has the gun.
I said oh crap, hey, jackson,it's us, I'm messing with you.
He's like man, that's not funny.
He's like you're lucky.
I didn't know how to load thisthing, or else I'd want to try
to shoot you.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
That's funny, that he just dove into the tent.
I mean I guess the gun wasthere.
But it's funny how tentssomehow feel safer to have a
tiny piece of nylon between youand whatever creatures out there
.
That's too funny.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
Absolutely.
So we were chatting with himand I set my bow down and he's
like you guys see anything?
I was like check out my bow.
He's looking at my bow and he'slike what?
And I was like, do you noticeanything missing?
He's like, oh, you're missingsome arrows.
I said, yeah, I shot a bull.
He's like hell, yeah, he's like, of course, the time I can't go

(30:00):
up there I miss it.
And he was being our camera guyfor that weekend, so sadly we
didn't get that portion on videoand so we had dinner that night
and woke up early the nextmorning.
So it was wyatt's turn to go uphunting.
So we started working our wayup to where that bull was and we

(30:20):
got into another group out,which probably was the same
group of cows that that bull wasin, and they were just about
100 yards away from us andwouldn't work in.
And we had some mule deer thatwere real close to us, like 20,
30 yards.
That kind of kept keeping theelk away.
So once they all kind of movedoff to the side, we decided to

(30:44):
go up there and try and find mybull.
Um, so we got up and startedfollowing blood, which at this
point it was kind of a harderblood trail, but it was still
consistent.
We were getting, you know,three inch little drips and
speckles everywhere, but stillbleeding pretty good.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Yeah, and so you went to the spot that you've
unbedded him where he stood up,and then you were following it
from there.
Got it.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah, just want to make sure.
At that point where he hadbedded, it was probably about
100 yards from where I last hithim on my second shot.
Mm-hmm.
So we followed for about another80 yards, so he's gone probably
about a total of 200 yards atthis point.
Okay, 250.

(31:28):
And my buddy Wyatt was about 10yards ahead of me At this point
we had kind of lost blood butit was just real speckly and it
looked like he had kind ofwalked around that area, so it
was kind of all over the place.
So he went down a little loweron the ridge to follow so he
could see down into the bottom.
And we were walking the crestof the ridge into the bottom.

(31:54):
And we were walking the crest ofthe ridge and I happened to
look up and the bull is beddedat like 15 yards from us, just
looking at us.
He was still alive.
Wow, okay, that's amazing.
I mean we were 15 yards fromhim.
I said, hey, stop, he's rightthere.
He said where I'm like he's 15yards in front of me.
So I knock another arrow andand my buddy Wyatt knocked an
arrow and I said try and get acouple in them.

(32:16):
Let's, you know, finish it offand get the job done.
My first arrow clips a log andsails off into the forest
because he was bedded rightbehind the downed log, right
behind the downed log and aperfect shot would have been,
you know, pretty much right atthe edge of that log and one of

(32:38):
my blades caught it and skippedthe arrow off.
My buddy Wyatt hit it right inthe shoulder, but he was using a
good fixed blade so thatpenetrated in and buried up to
the fletchings.
And then I shot a second arrowinto him just behind the
shoulder and sat and waited forhim to expire.
And the whole time Jackson.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Four arrows in him at that point.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, four arrows Okay, and three of them pretty
good placement, yeah, and ourbuddy Jackson's behind us
filming and he's trying to findwhere this bull is while he's
sitting in the sunlight, so itlooks like a big sun patch in
the woods and he's like what areyou guys shooting at?
And then, finally, when thebull turned his horns, you could

(33:22):
see him and he's like, whoa,he's a lot closer than I thought
and I was like, yeah, so thebull finally expires and we get
up there and I start trying tofigure out where I hit this bull
on my first two shots.
Well, that first shot was abouttwo inches off a bullseye for a
Texas heart shot, but hadburied up probably about a foot

(33:48):
and a half, two feet ofpenetration.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Okay, but probably all meat at that point, right
Cause probably just the haunchthe, the hind quarter, yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
So it had just slipped behind, um kind of
behind the femur and under theball joint of the pelvis, and
had just cut the liver a littlebit, okay.
So he was slowly bleeding out,but not very quickly, obviously,
with a liver shot.
And then my second arrow hadclipped about a quarter inch of
his front shoulder and, becauseof the angle he was at, it

(34:23):
skated it off into that ridge inthat front scapula and buried
it right into the ridge of thatfront scapula.
When I think about it, I'llsend you some pictures of it,
because I actually had thebroadhead stuck in that front
little groove.
Oh, no way, that's cool.
Was that second shot?

Speaker 2 (34:39):
a kill shot, because I know you said there was some
foamy blood, so did it hit somegood stuff?

Speaker 3 (34:45):
Yeah, so that was a Grim Reaper, expandable, I think
it's the 2, 3⁄ the three inchcut diameter.
Okay, well, that inside bladehad broken through the shoulder
blade and nicked the lung, butagain only like a one inch gas.
So he still had one lung.
So he probably would haveexpired later that day, but, you

(35:07):
know, not as quickly as we hadwanted for sure.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
If you hit him in the liver, that will kill him in a
week but it will kill him.
Hit him in the lung, that willkill him.
So like those are both killshots, even shooting him right
in the ass, you somehow managedto get a kill shot on that first
arrow.
Yeah.
But yeah, no, you definitelygot to keep following up and
then put him out as quick as youcan.
So glad you, Glad you guys didthat.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
All right, I don't know if I'm interrupting.
Is there more to the story?
There seems to be a bunch more.
So we had got them all cleanedup and packed out.
We had about two miles to thetruck at that point and I had
cleaned out my bandage again,which luckily I had kept it
pretty clean.
So no issues.
There Didn't get an infectionfrom anything and it was pretty
swollen and irritated but Ididn't rip any stitches, didn't

(35:55):
have any dirt or grime on it orblood.
Yeah, but got the bull takencare of and packed out and this
whole time it's about 92 degrees, so it was insanely hot.
Yeah, geez, okay.
So it was rough pack out and wedecided to leave a day early

(36:16):
because it was so hot andmiserable and the bulls weren't
really fired up yet.
We were surprised that bullcame in the way he did.
I mean it made no sense foranything elk hunting-wise.
I mean we made one locationbugle and he was just coming all
an ass down the mountain for us.
So but I'd rather be lucky thangood any day hell yeah, I say

(36:40):
the same thing all the time, man.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
That's awesome.
Was he a decent bull, or araghorn, or yes?

Speaker 3 (36:45):
so he was a five by five and he's got one little
kicker that could almost makehim a six point, but I didn't
count it.
It was still too short, but adecent five point bull.
He was a little younger but formy first archery elk I was more
than happy with him.
I would have shot a cow if shewould have stood there long
enough for sure.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, I mean, what is it like, the success?
They say it's like 10.
But if you get rid of, like youknow, rifles and guides and all
this like archery elk, it'slike 10%.
But if you get rid of riflesand guides and all this like
archery elk, it's like a 3%success rate.
So like hell, yeah, man,awesome work, that's impressive
and it's a great story, even thepart where you're just scaring
your friend and he's pointingguns at you.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
I was very happy that we didn't show him how to load
that handgun very well, so hislack of experience could have
saved us another hospital tripfor me.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Oh my goodness, All right, so and how long did it
take to heal that?

Speaker 3 (37:39):
arm wound.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
I can't believe you did that I went out there with
that.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
So I'd say I was on.
After that elk hunting trip.
I was on light duty at work forabout another week and then I
think another week after that,they pulled my stitches.
I was pretty much back tonormal.
The hard part was breaking upall the scar tissue once it
formed, because that was painful.
Trying to lift things at workand do stuff.

(38:07):
It was quite hard to liftcertain amounts of weight in
certain ways.
So it took about a month beforeI was able to kind of get back
to somewhat normal and about twoto three months before it
stopped hurting and having thesearing pain from lifting and
all that scar tissue is brokenup so you, when you cut yourself

(38:28):
, you didn't hit any like veinsor arteries, it was just like
mostly meat, nothing, no vitals.
No, he said if I would havestarted an eighth inch towards
the bottom of my arm I guess onthe underside here, he said, I
would have hit a vein that wouldhave been a little harder to
stop the bleeding and probablymore serious in the long run.

(38:50):
So I was about an eighth of aninch off from there.
But he said other than that.
He said you couldn't have cutit any more.
Perfect to not have seriousdamage.
No nerve damage, fingers allstill worked fine.
So I missed all the good stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
That's awesome.
That's a great elk story fromstart to finish.
Most people would have hung itup before they even got out
there because of that cut.
But I'm impressed that you did.
It Were all the other.
I also actually wanted to saythis earlier.
But when you actually pull backand you remember the searing
pain of the first time youpulled it back, I bet it hurt

(39:25):
way more than you even know.
But you had the adrenaline ofthat bull coming in and you were
like, oh yeah, it hurts, ohyeah.
But if you had just been athome doing it, like I asked if
you did, that would have been sobad, so much worse.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
That's why I didn't even try, because I told myself,
in five days is when I have topull that bow back and I'll be
fine, I can do it.
I said by the time thatadrenaline's flowing because as
he's coming up that ridge youcould hear him panting and
puffing and, man, that wasgetting my heart bound and I was
pretty ready to go.

(39:56):
But I definitely remember thatsearing pain about half draw and
I was like I got to pushthrough it because he's going to
be here in half a second.
I better be ready or he's goingto catch me drawing and booger
out of there and we're going tohave to chase him down again.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
That's awesome man, that's great.
So remind me of I don't know ifyou listen to jim huntsman's
episode, but he, he like didsomething where he like messed
up a testicle in the militaryand he had to have surgery and
then his doctor was like, don'tgo and get it wet, you know same
thing.
But he went out hunting anywaysand then he ended up like
killing a deer in a swamp andthen didn't realize what he was

(40:32):
doing until he was waist deep inswamp water with like a open
yeah, testicles oh my god, jimso, but okay well thanks for
sharing that one man.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
That was a great story, um, and I'm glad you put
a a note down so your buddiesdidn't harvest anything, just
you no, they had gone up up aweek after that and I think they
went out for just a couple dayson a weekend and didn't have
much luck.
And then they were busy withwork.
We all work at the same job.

(41:03):
So we all kind of got busy withwork and they were going to do
the muzzleloader tag, becauseour archery tag turns into a
rifle tag within one mile ofprivate in a certain unit,
because we have three units thatwe can hunt and then it turns
into a muzzleloader tag for allthree of those units, again for

(41:23):
a cow.
So they were going to borrowsome of my muzzleloaders and go
up there but they ended up nothaving the time and we didn't
have as much snow to push theelk down, so they just kind of
wrote it off and we're focusingon deer hunting at that point.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Got it.
Got it.
Cool man.
Well, what else?
I'm pretty sure you sent me aphoto of what looks like an even
worse injury than the one youjust told me about.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Yeah, so that's uh are we ready?

Speaker 2 (41:50):
are we ready for that story?
You got any more you want totell before then that maybe set
that one up I've got two more.
We can go to that one, though,if you'd like whichever one you
want why don't we do the otherone first and then we'll wrap it
with that, with that final one?
How's that sound that?

Speaker 3 (42:04):
sounds good, perfect, all right.
So the other one is my wife'sfirst hunting trip.
So she had gotten her huntinglicense about two years ago and
she had gone out duck huntingwith me a few times and drove
around while we were deerhunting but had never actually
got a tag and went huntingherself.

(42:24):
So she wanted to do an archerypronghorn hunt.
So me and her both.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
That's a good starting point right.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
It never amazes me that she'll pick the hardest
ones.
She would like duck hunting,which I just found to be a
suffer fest for a few featheredcritters.
Yeah, and then she said Ireally want to shoot a pronghorn
with my bow.
I was like okay yeah so godyeah I did that I don't go with
a, with a rifle, pronghornhunting.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
I'm not sure if I'll do it with my bow again, because
it was that tough so but goahead.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
I'm excited to hear where this goes so I wasn't
going to take her out and tryand do spot and stock, because I
knew that was just going to benot as fun yet, her being a new
hunter.
So we have an unlimited archerypronghorn here in Idaho that you
can draw and you can find areasto hunt over waterholes.
So I went out and bought a blindand we had gone out the weekend

(43:22):
before opener and set up ablind and she had been
practicing and getting prettydialed in on her bow to about 30
yards, which we were going tosit 20 yards off of the water,
so she would have been more thanample to shoot something at 20,
yeah, and so got everything setup.
My parents had come into townto watch our son so that we

(43:44):
could go out there and hunt justthe two of us and everyone and
their dog last year decided togo hunt the same area and there
wasn't as much water as thereusually was.
So the only water hole that wecould find that didn't have
blinds on it was this giant pondwhich can be kind of

(44:06):
problematic because if theydon't like something on one side
of the pond, they'll just walkto the other side, yeah, and
it's about 150 yards across thispond so you're not able to get
a shot, but luckily there wasanother hunter's blind on the
other side of the pond.
So we were hoping, um, him beingover there would help push some
pronghorn towards the otherside that we were at.

(44:29):
Yeah, so we had found this,yeah, we had found this little
seep that was coming out fromthe pond where it overflows and
there was a lot of pronghornsign in there.
So we set up our blind andopening morning about eight
o'clock or 7 30, we had a groupof about six does and a pretty

(44:50):
nice buck show up and they satand slowly worked their way in.
They were walking the fenceline right next to us at about
40 yards coming into the littleseat that we were sitting over,
and they got to about 10 to 20yards from the seat, which was
about 40 yards for her.

(45:10):
It was a little far to shootand we're both new to hunting
out of a blind and huntingpronghorn.
So we had our back window open,oh, okay, the window in between
us and the pronghorn, so thatpronghorn could see through our
blind pretty well.
So he caught some kind ofmovement and turned around and

(45:33):
went to the pond and drank offthe other side of the pond.
So we kind of just wrote thatoff of.
Well, if there's one, there'sgoing to be some more.
And about 20 minutes later wehad another small buck come over
the ridge in front of us.
So we zipped up both the sidesand just had a little crack in
the front window and I said whenhe comes in and starts drinking

(45:55):
I'll lower the window becausewe have the windows that slide
so they're real quiet.
Okay.
So he starts coming in and hejust didn't want to hit the seat
, he just stayed about 60 yardsout and went around to the pond.
So no shot opportunity there.
So we were kind of sitting.

(46:15):
It was about, I'd say, 11o'clock or noon and you know,
being my wife's first time, Ididn't want to push her any
longer than she wanted to hunt.
I didn't want to make it, youknow, a miserable time being in
a hot blind all day.
Yeah, so we were kind oftalking.
I said whenever you want tohead out, we can go back home

(46:38):
and maybe come out thisafternoon.
You know we have the next threedays to hunt.
So I said there'll be otheropportunities and she said, yeah
, let's sit for another hour andsee if we're still getting
action.
Let's sit here all day, but ifwe're not getting much, we'll
head out.
So I said, okay, so I sit downand, um, about 10 minutes after

(46:59):
we had that conversation maybefive she goes.
Fuck.
I said where she's like rightout front, coming straight in,
and this really nicepronghornhorn I'd say he's
probably about I'm not very goodat judging pronghorn, but from
what I've read and seen he isprobably between 60 and 70
inches.
Okay, so a pretty good publicland pronghorn for a bow.

(47:24):
And he's making a straightbeeline into that water.
And so I get my camera ready, Ihave it on him as he's coming
in and he was a beautiful buck,really nice hooks, really nice
curls, pretty heavy.
And she's like, is that a goodbuck?
Well, I'm sitting there shaking, my heart's pounding, because

(47:44):
I'm like, yeah, that's a, that'sa really nice buck.
But I wanted to.
I was like, yeah, he's, hepretty good, he'd be a good buck
to take.
She's like, okay, so she getsready, she has her bow all in
position, she's kneeling downand he comes and starts drinking
out of the water.
I dropped the window on thefront of the blind and he

(48:04):
doesn't hear it, see it, flinch,anything.
He's just focused on drinking,drinking.
So I get back on my camera.
She draws her bow back.
I said take your time, settleyour pin in and make a good shot
.
I'm sitting there lookingthrough the camera so I can't.
I'm not watching the pronghornother than this little three

(48:26):
inch little window, so I don'tget to see as much detail.
So I hear her bow go off and ithits the dirt behind it and it
sounds like a pretty good shot.
Like she hit it, just the way ithit the dirt.
It sounded like a good like apass through okay, yeah.
And so I'm like nice, where'dyou hit him?

(48:46):
She's like I just shot over hisback and I said, oh, I'm like
really, she's like yeah, and sowe watch him go off and I'm like
I'm thinking I was like how doyou did you see like your arrow
go over?
She's like I just saw the dirtkick up behind him.
So I'm like you might have gota good pass through.
So we're watching this buck runoff and by the time he hits

(49:09):
about 100 yards and I don't seeany blood on the white of him.
I was like, okay, you probablyshot over him.
And he kind of hung out forabout a half hour just kind of
prancing around, and then he ranoff and I looked back through
the video and I put a pen that'sgoing to be my next question.
Yeah, so I'm looking through thevideo and I put my pen.

(49:31):
I I'm looking through the videoand I put my pen.
I was like where were youaiming?
She's like right here.
I put the pen there and her bowgoes off in the video and I
hold my pen there and he ducksand there's about a millisecond
of time where his back dropsbelow that pen and you see her
arrow just right over his backand so she was aiming.

(49:53):
Yeah, so she was aiming rightwhere you'd want to hit them.
Yeah, which is what I have toldher throughout the time.
But I forgot to tell her abouthow pronghorn stuck the string
and I didn't tell her to aim low.
So learned a good lesson there.
But I mean, it was still agreat experience for us to be
out there and actually get ashot off on this pronghorn, for

(50:15):
sure, man.
So I was super proud of her andshe was a little bummed out,
but I said, hey, that's part ofhunting.
You're gonna miss and the goodnews is is you made a clean miss
and you didn't wound them oranything like.
That is like if you would havewounded them, that would have
been even worse than justmissing him.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah, be a long day, long day, chasing him down yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
So she felt a little better and we sat for about
another hour and a big storm hadkind of rolled in.
So it was a lot cooler and Ithink by this time it was about
2 or 3 o'clock and thetemperature dropped about 15
degrees.
So we decided to head out andcome back the next morning.
Well, the next morning we cameout.

(50:58):
I was thinking you know, hey,I'm going to set you up in this
blind and I'm going to go overto that corner where all these
other pronghorn had beenwatering and I'm going to sit
there for, you know, the firsthalf of the morning.
So if anything, if they come toyour blind, you can have a shot
, and if they go over to there,I can have a shot and hopefully

(51:20):
double our chances.
So I'm sitting there in thislittle brush blind that I had
made.
It was just I went to thecenter of a bush and carved it
out and made a little shootwindow at like 15 yards and
about 730, that smaller buckfrom the day before with his six
does.

(51:41):
He was by himself and hewatered on the other side of the
pond.
That he did the day before.
So he's about 80 yards from me,which I wasn't going to shoot
that far at a pronghorn.
There's a very slim chance thatmy arrow would ever get there
before he found out.
Yeah, so I just enjoyedwatching him water and I noticed

(52:01):
that there was two does thathad come in towards my wife's
blind and this isn't either sextag.
So I was kind of waiting forher to hopefully get a shot off.
Well, they're about 40 to 60yards from the water that she
was sitting over and this buckhad started working his way
around and he stopped at thefence line and looked towards

(52:24):
her blind and saw those two does.
So I'm like, perfect, eitherhe's gonna run over there and
give her a shot or he's gonnarun in front of me and give me a
shot.
Well, that quickly went out ofthe water because he made a
beeline sprint for her blind.
He was only 20 yards in frontof me but he wasn't stopping for
anything.

(52:44):
Yeah, so I watched him run downthe fence line and cut around
the corner right into her infront of her blind.
So I was sitting there waiting,waiting.
About a minute goes by and Ihear babe.
So I get all excited and Istart walking over there and I'm
like, yeah, she probably made agreat shot on that buck because

(53:06):
he was going to be dumb andjust hanging out with those does
and I can see the top of herblind by this time.
And I look out in front of itand there's the two does and
that buck standing at 20 yardsin front of her blind and I sat
and was like why were youyelling at me?
What's going on?
And at this point the pronghornstarted to catch on after they

(53:31):
saw me and they started walkingoff and I see her get out of the
blind.
I said is everything okay?
And she says my bow.
I was like oh no.
So she had seen that buck comein and when she drew her bow her
jacket had fallen into herlower cam, just a little bit,

(53:51):
yeah.
And when she tried to lower herbow to get it, um, her jacket,
out of that lower cam, she hadkind of cycled a little bit and
that jacket derailed her stringoff of her bow.
Oh no and I felt so bad becauseshe started crying and she's,
you know, upset because she'slike I totally made the dumbest

(54:14):
mistake and I said, babe, ithappens to all of us.
And so I said, it's okay, I'llget your bow fixed.
So I sat there and restrung herbow with the, the tent stake
and the string for it so I wasable to make a makeshift bow
press and actually get thestring back on her bow.
And I ended up sitting andhunting with her that afternoon

(54:37):
and you know she felt horrible.
But you know, just, I wastelling her this is all the
stuff that we haven't done.
I've never bow hunted,pronghorn, I've never hunted out
of a blind.
So I said, said it happens.
And so we had one more day tohunt.
We didn't see anything else therest of that afternoon.
It started to get really coldthat week so it dropped down

(55:00):
into like the 60s, which usuallywhen you hunt pronghorn it's
like 80, 90 degrees, so they'rereally dependent on water.
Well, with it being so cold,they were watering every other
day.
When you hunt pronghorn, it'slike 80 90 degrees, so they're
really dependent on water.
Well, with it being so cold,they were watering every other
day.
Yeah, so we weren't seeing thenumbers like we had hoped.
So we come out the next day.
We get out to that blind.
It was our last day that we hadto hunt and that blind that was

(55:23):
on the other side of the pondfrom another hunter.
He had come out to hunt it thatday because I think it was the
that friday, so it was kind ofthe start of some people's
weekends.
We had taken off time duringthe week, okay, and he actually
had parked his buggy rightbehind our blind on the dike,

(55:43):
like 10 feet from our blind.
So I was like, well, well, Igot to go talk to this guy.
So I went over there and saidyou know, hey, how's it going?
He said, oh, hey.
I said, mind, if I ask you afavor, would you mind moving
your buggy?
You kind of parked it right upon behind our blind and this
thing's like a bright whitebuggy.
Okay, yeah.

(56:03):
So he's like, oh, I'm so sorry,I didn't see your blind.
So I was telling him if hemoved it down onto the corner
where these pronghorn had beenkind of skipping our blinds to
water.
I said that probably will helpus because it will push them to
either your side or mine.
He said, yeah, so he was a niceguy and moved his buggy and we
get set up and so we're sittingin the blind it's probably about

(56:31):
10 o'clock, it was still reallycold, not seeing a lot of
action going on and I hear a bowgo off behind us that from that
hunter and I hear a nice solidshot and I'm like, oh, that guy,
I think, just shot one.
So I start looking out of ourblind.
Well, I see this pronghorn runaround the corner and he kind of
looked like he was walking abit funny.
But I didn't see any blood onhim so I didn't know if maybe he

(56:54):
had hit him poorly.
But that buck didn't get achance to water.
So he started coming into ourseat.
So I told my wife to get ready.
I think he's gonna come and hitour water.
So this buck comes in and hestarts getting closer and he
came to about 30 yards, maybe 35, because we had some rocks

(57:16):
ranged out and he was kind of inbetween our 20 and 40.
Okay, and I said, do you thinkyou can shoot that far and feel
comfortable?
And she's like I don't think.
So you know she wasn'tcomfortable with it.
He was a little quartering too.
I said okay, so we can pass onhim.
She's like I want you to tryand shoot him though, because I
want to try and at least getsomething to take home.

(57:38):
So it's too far for me, but Iknow you can shoot that.
So I said all right.
So I put the camera down and Igrabbed my bow.
Well, at this moment that otherhunter had watched his pronghorn
go down and he started walkingthe dike behind our blind to go
grab his buggy.
So I get my bow drawn and Inoticed this pronghorn keeps

(58:03):
looking up and looking over hisshoulder and he would take about
five steps and try to wateragain.
And I'm trying to get him tostop by grunting and whistling
and he just didn't want to haveanything to do with it.
So he finally stopped at about45 yards and gave me just enough
time to get a shot off.
So I released my bow and I'mwatching and about halfway to

(58:26):
him I see the arrow gocompletely broadside and smack
the pronghorn broadside.
What?
And yeah, so I'm sitting thereconfused, like what just
happened with my bow.
Nope, all the fletching's onthere.
So on the window of our blind,I had hit about a quarter inch
of our blind with my broadheadblind.

(58:48):
I had hit about a quarter inchof our blind with my broadhead
and that sent it completelybroadside and slapped, I mean
perfectly exactly where I wasaiming.
Just, instead of it beingstraight, it hit broadside.
Wow, this thing runs off.
And I'm sitting there hangingmy head and I was like I'll see,
even after 20 years of hunting,I I still hit, make mistakes.
We were both kind of bummed andlaughing about it.

(59:12):
And this guy, I mean, 10 secondslater he comes up behind our
blind and he said hey.
And I said, hey, did you getone?
He's like yeah, I actually shotone over here.
And he's like I totally didn'tsee that other pronghorn come
into your water hole.
I'm sorry, I probably messed itup, for you was like no, I did
that pretty fine on my own.
I clipped my blind and, you know, didn't pay attention enough to

(59:33):
where my rest was compared tomy sight.
Yeah, so that's my bad too.
It's no worries, it's publicland that happens sometimes.
But I offered to go help himdrag his buck out.
He said, no, no worries, I'mjust gonna go grab him with the
buggy real quick and get out ofhere so that you guys can hunt.
I said, awesome, well,congratulations, and you have a
good one.

(59:54):
And so he was successful, whichwas cool, you know.
But sadly me and my wife were,oh and three on pronghorn, yeah,
and that afternoon we had acouple more come in, but either
they wanted to sit out at 60yards and I had actually seen a
buck work to the other side ofthe pond where that guy was

(01:00:16):
hunting and there was enoughbrush that I could get within
about 40 yards.
But as soon as I got intoposition and drew my bow, he
caught my draw cycle and bustedout of there and didn't give me
a shot.
So we ended up going.
We ended up eating tag soup onthat one.

(01:00:37):
So yeah, that's a great storyman that's a great story.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
You got lots of lessons to be learned, right?
The best lessons areself-taught you each learned a
couple um, hopefully somebodyheard this and goes hunting in
the future and, you know, putstheir coat behind their back or
watches out for their blindwindows, or whatever.
It may be, man, because that'sjust the nature of it we all
have that story where we didsomething more.
You know, the opportunitypasses, we're like well, that

(01:01:00):
was dumb, that was on me simplemistakes like that make the
difference between capitalizingon a good shot and watching
arrows slap a pronghorn at 40yards it's a very related.
I mean not hitting an animalsideways with an arrow, but the
making mistakes very relatable,oh yeah, I'm sure every hunter

(01:01:22):
out there has a story, just likethat one.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man.
Well cool.
Thanks for sharing that.
Did your wife go back out?
Was that a couple years ago?

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
so that was last year , okay.
So this year she wants to goout again and she didn't want to
do a rifle deer last yearbecause she hadn't had a lot of
experience on a rifle yet.
And all my rifles are I have a300 wind mag and a .30-06 and a
.375 H&H Magnum, so they're allkind of big rifles.

(01:01:54):
So I got her a .243 to shootand she's gotten really
comfortable with that.
So she wants to do deer andpronghorn this year.
But she's currently pregnantand we have our daughter
arriving September 17th, whichis two days after opening day of
pronghorn.
So she said she's going to giveit a try, but we'll see,

(01:02:17):
depending on how that goes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Well, congratulations , man, on the daughter coming.
That's coming up quick brother,but that's exciting, man,
that's exciting.

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
Cool, but that's exciting man, that's exciting.
Cool, that'll be interesting.
Or trying to shoot a pronghornwhile nine months pregnant,
almost so yeah I mean dude I'dlove to hear how it goes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Maybe we'll have her back on the podcast cool man.
Well, let's uh let's, let'smove on to the next one.
Man, I'm I'm still curious.
I don't know what happened inthose photos you sent.
So I got to find out what do wegot?

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
So the picture I sent you was of our family friend
who was a Ph in Africa, inZimbabwe.
Okay, and it was.
You know, in the picture youcould see he had gotten scalped.
Yes, he did.
Yeah, torn up on his biceps andhis thighs.

(01:03:13):
He had gotten mauled by aleopard.
Whew.
So our family has a pretty bighistory of getting mauled,
trampled and maimed by animals.
I mean, when your job is tohunt things in Africa, you know,
at work here we get paper cutsand crushed by things and cut or

(01:03:33):
whatever, but their job overthere you get mauled and crushed
by things.
So my dad got ran over by ablack Cape Buffalo Good.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
God Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
And so his lower back's fused, his neck's fused,
and so his lower back's fused,his neck's fused, and he deals
with chronic migraines now fromthat.
His friend got mauled by a lionand actually tore his ear off.
Okay, so he's missing an earand same kind of scalp issue
that our other friend had.
And that guy that got his eartore off his wife.

(01:04:04):
I can't remember if it was ahippo or an elephant that
crushed her, but she got crushedby one of the two and still
alive, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Yeah, I was going to say like what kind of alive got
pretty messed up from that I'mscared of hippos, hippos are
here Vicious bastards, so uh.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Yeah, no, thanks.
Let me ask you about theleopard, though.
So I think of like mountainlions here in Colorado, because
that's all I really can compareit to, and they're not really
aggressive.
They're around, they see you.
You don't see them, but youreally don't have to worry about
them.
It's like maybe one attackevery five years or something
you might hear about, at leastin Colorado, and it's usually
like a young one that's starvingor something.

(01:04:46):
But leopards, are they likeaggressive or are they more like
a mountain lion where they'rethere and they kind of avoid
people?

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
most of the time they avoid people.
They're pretty nocturnalanimals.
They don't come out a lot.
In zimbabwe they actually havea tendency of daylighting okay.
So it's one of the few placesthat you can daylight hunt
leopards.
But most of the time thatpeople get attacked by him
they've either had some kind ofinjury or they were being hunted

(01:05:16):
and got wounded.
So that's usually when you runinto problems with them.
But most of the time they don'tmess a whole lot with people.
Uh, in mozambique they have alot of man-eaters.
I'm not sure what it is aboutthere.
I don't know if it's the peoplein local villages, but they
tend to have a lot of lions andleopards that turn into

(01:05:36):
man-eaters and hyenas that startattacking humans quite a lot.
Geez man, no, thank you.
So the story on that leopardanother PH and his client had
shot it and wounded it.
They called in my dad's friend.
His name is Guy Whittle, heused to actually be a
professional cricket player for.

(01:05:59):
I think South Africa.
He went back to be a PH to helphis dad on his hunting ranch
there in Zimbabwe.
It's called Hermani.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
They still have it, or?
Did theirs get burned down too.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
No, they still have theirs.
Okay, and so he was working outthere and they called him to
help them locate this leopardbecause he had a poacher dog
that was really good at tracking.
It was bred and trained to huntdown poachers and help with
that issue there.
So he went out tracking thisleopard and his dog was

(01:06:37):
indicating that the leopard wasreally close in the brush in
front of him.
So he had turned around to theuh ph and the other guys behind
him to let him know that theleopard had gone that way.
And he said when he turned backaround that that leopard was
coming out of the brush and ontop of him.
Yeah, so he fired a shot and Ithink he shot in the front

(01:06:59):
shoulder and then out the backof the shoulder but didn't hit
any vitals, got it, and so thenit started attacking and mauling
him and it cut pretty much mostof the top of his skull, down
towards the brow of his eye, andthen it tore up his inner
thighs, because with theleopards they grab onto your
head and they use their backfeet to try and eviscerate you

(01:07:22):
and tear out your stomach.
So, okay, just like a house catwhen you play with a house cat.
We're like screws up yourforearm yeah yep okay yeah, that
sounds awful like an awfulawful way to go okay yeah, big
cats do the same thing.
Liars, leopards, they all grabon and use their back legs to

(01:07:44):
tear you up.
So he said the only reason hemade it through and didn't die
from that is his dog wasgrabbing the back of the leopard
and pulling on his tail, andwhenever he would do that, the
leopard would turn around toscare the dog off and then go
back on to him.
So I think that happened two orthree times where the dog would

(01:08:04):
drag it off of them and finally, on the third time he shot it
again and one of the other ph'scame and shot it and killed it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
What the hell were the other guys doing three?

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
three times got off of him and they didn't do
anything about it so I think Idon't know the whole story
because I haven't gotten achance to talk with him yet,
just from our uncle letting usknow what he was okay, but they
were like 100 yards behind them,kind of fanning out through the
bush to try and track it down,because they don't leave, you

(01:08:36):
know, a whole lot of tracks.
They leave real lights for andin the sand, so you're following
just the light pads that theyleave behind.
So they were still coming tothem when this all happened and
you know, being that far, youdon't want to try and take a
shot and shoot the person beingthat they leave behind.
So they were still coming tothem when this all happened and
you know, being that far, youdon't want to try and take a
shot and shoot the person beingmauled.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
So they wanted to make sure they were close?
Yeah, oh my goodness.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
So when the dog finally pulled them off of him
they could get a clear shot atit and dispatched him and then
he started getting medicalattention and cleaning out the
wounds, because most of the timeyou don't die from the leopard
mauling you.
You die from the infectionafterwards because their claws
are full of tons of nastybacteria.

(01:09:16):
He healed up well.
They were changing his bandagesthree times a day for, I think,
three weeks in the hospital.
He's doing good now.
How old was this like?
Three weeks in the hospital,jeez, but he's doing good now
and healed up.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
How long ago was this ?

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
That was last, I think, August Jeez man, but that
happened not too long ago.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
Oh man, that is terrifying.
Big cats like man.
If you I think I've heard this,it's probably just an urban
legend but, like, if you die inyour house, like your dog won't
eat you, your cat will starteating you within like 12 hours,
and I believe it.
Man, cats are evil.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
I have no doubt.
Yeah, they're like.
Well, if you're not going tofeed me, I'm going to eat you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
Yep, right God, I can't even imagine I guy on the
story a long time ago tell likea secondhand story of a
gentleman in like Peru orsomewhere down there, and like a
panther ate him, just rippedhim apart and like his buddies
were like where'd he go?
And he's like I thought he wasfishing and they just found body
parts.
So just cats are insane, so coolman well, you should connect me

(01:10:25):
with that guy because I'm sureoutside of being attacked by a
leopard he's probably got abunch of great stories.
But thank you so?
Much for coming on, man.
I really appreciate it.
I appreciate you telling yourstories.
They were a lot of fun,absolutely.
I really do like a good storywith lots of details, even if it
doesn't have success, and youare a very good storyteller and

(01:10:45):
you hit all the bullet pointsthat I really like in a good
story.
So thank you, man.
I appreciate it Awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:10:51):
Anytime, I have plenty more, if there's ever a
time you need some more andyou're running low hit me up
again and I'll share some more.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Absolutely, man, absolutely.
Well, I want to hear yourwife's pregnant antelope story
next, before any more of yours.
But once we get that out of theway, you're of course welcome
back.

Speaker 3 (01:11:08):
But let's do this, man.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
Let's share any socials or whatever you want to,
and then we'll send this thingoff.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
Yeah, so I run the Reason Outdoors.
It's a outdoors hunting page.
I try and share people'sstories and their hunting and
just kind of show a better lightof hunting and not necessarily
what you see everywhere else,and try and show people that
even in africa when they'rehunting it's not just shooting
things for a trophy.

(01:11:36):
All the food goes to goodplaces and feeds local villagers
and things like that.
And here in the states when wehunt and kill things, we share
them with our family and friends.
So that's the reason underscoreoutdoors.
I'm on Instagram and TikTokthey're both the same and then

(01:12:00):
those posts usually go on to myFacebook as well, which is just
my first and last name, brendanBramford, but a lot of my posts
just get sent to there as well,so that's where you can find me.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Cool, cool man, I'll put links to everything you got
here in the show notes so peoplecan find you nice and easy Go
ahead.
You were saying you had oneother one.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
Yeah, I have a YouTube channel as well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
There's not a whole lot of videos on there.
I've been working on thatslowly, but there's a few duck
hunting videos from back in theday, so I've been working on
getting that updated and acouple of my fishing trips and
hunting trips in Africa.
The last time I went back thereCool.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
That's awesome, man.
Well, like I said, guys, I willput links to everything in the
show notes.
Give Brendan a follow.
If you got questions for him,throw them at him.
I'm sure he would love to hearfrom you guys.
I've actually just found out,like this week, that there's
like a bunch of guys that havebeen messaging my guests.
So expect something, brendan,we'll see Awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
But cool guys.
I'm happy to hear from them.

Speaker 2 (01:12:59):
Yeah, man, all right.
Well, thank you again, man.
I really do appreciate it.
We'll have you and the wifeback on soon, sounds good,
thanks, brother.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
Cheers.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
All right, guys.
That's it.
Another couple stories in thebooks.
Again, thank you so much forcoming on the podcast, brendan.
I really do appreciate youreaching out.
If you guys have a story,please go to the website, to the
Instagram, wherever there's alittle form you can fill out.
I'd love to have you on,connect with you and hear some
of your hunting stories.
Beyond that, whatever you'relistening on, like, share,

(01:13:34):
subscribe, all that stuff Helpus with whatever algorithms they
have so more people are hearingus and we hear more crazy
stories.
But that's it, guys.
Thank you so much.
I really do appreciate you allfor tuning in.
Brendan, thank you again.
Man Couldn't have done itwithout you and it was a
pleasure hearing your stories.
But, guys, you know what timeit is.
Get out there now and make somestories of your own.
Thank you.