Ep 169 / Bears, Bait, and Brotherhood: A Tale of Triumph

Join Squatch and me as we chat with Brian Melvin about his incredible journey hunting a record-breaking black bear. Right off the bat, we dive into the thrilling highs and gut-wrenching lows that come with chasing such a magnificent creature. Brian shares the story of how he tracked this bear, a true giant weighing in at 770 pounds, and the challenges he faced along the way, including some unexpected twists that kept him on his toes. You'll hear about the strategies he used, the lessons learned from past seasons, and even a few laughs about the wild world of bear hunting. Trust me, whether you're a seasoned hunter or just a curious listener, this episode is packed with insights and a few chuckles that you won’t want to miss!

Join us around the electronic campfire as we welcome Brian Melvin, the man behind the recent record-breaking black bear harvest. We dig deep into Brian's journey, which spans over two years of relentless scouting, strategizing, and, of course, a fair share of setbacks. Brian shares the details of how he learned the bear's patterns, what bait worked best, and the mental strategies that kept him focused during the long wait. As we unravel the story of this massive bear, weighing in at 770.5 pounds, we also touch on the broader implications of hunting, including the challenges and the negativity that can sometimes arise from the hunting community. Brian's experience shows that the thrill of the hunt isn't just about the animal; it’s about respect for nature, the thrill of the chase, and the friendships forged along the way. This episode is packed with insights for both seasoned hunters and those just getting started, making it a must-listen for anyone who enjoys the great outdoors.

Takeaways:

• Brian Melvin shares the incredible story of his record-breaking black bear hunt, detailing the meticulous planning and strategizing that led to his success.
• The podcast dives into the ups and downs of hunting, showcasing the emotional rollercoaster hunters experience while pursuing their quarry.
• We discuss the importance of ethical hunting practices and the challenges posed by regulations that may not always align with conservation goals.
• Brian emphasizes the need for camaraderie and support within the hunting community, encouraging hunters to uplift each other rather than tear each other down.

Links referenced in this episode:

• timberlifeoutdoors

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Timber Life Outdoors

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to the WhitetailAdvantage Podcast with your host
Brett Bovin.
Thank you for tuning in andenjoy the show.

(00:22):
What is up guys?
This is Brett Bovin andwelcome to the Electron Campfire.
Now made a deal with you guys.
Some shows we won't do an intro.
Some shows we won't.
We will.
But we've gone a coupleepisodes without doing the intro.
So I feel like we gotta justsay it this one time.
Then we'll go a coupleepisodes without it.
We're not politically correcton this show.
We strongly believe huntingbrotherhood go hand in hand.

(00:42):
So yes, there is hazinginvolved with our show.
We invite you all along tojoin with us too.
This is a brotherhood.
That's what hunting is all about.
However, this is simplerequest though.
Ask everyone out there to helpshare the show.
Put your quarter in the slotmachine, help share show, help grow
the show.
That's all we ask of everybodyout there that's watching the show.
I do also do like to take asecond and say thank you to all the

(01:05):
men and women in the military.
Thank you for your service.
And also thank you to all thepolice officers and the firefighters.
Even the farmers out there as well.
Everyone out there for public service.
Thank you for your service.
Tonight is episode 169.
It's legit 169 was kind ofconfused on the last episode number
but it's episode 169.
We got a great guest on tonight.

(01:25):
We've been talking aboutrecord setting animals and tonight
we're going to be talkingabout record setting bears.
I'm excited to get Brian ontonight and talk about his bear and
dive deeper into that.
So let's bring in Squatch andBrian and I invite you all to grab
a chair and sit up next toelectronic campfire with me.
What is up Brian?
Hey guys.

(01:46):
We also got Squatch on.
So at least there's one personthat I like that comes on the show.
The other two I could give twoshits about.
I. I'll let you let you knowthat Squatch, I do love you.
Well, I love you too Brett.
And you know it's.
It's nice to be had.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
That or two can go themselves.
I don't give a. Ah.
What are you gonna do?
You know?

(02:07):
Can't find Good.
It's hard.
No, it's really hard, Brian.
I work with some great guysbut it's just like.
Come on man.
I'm just kidding.
Brian, can you give us alittle background about yourself,
brother?
Sure.
Live in Jersey.
Do a Lot of hunting in Jersey.
I'm a, your average guy, youknow, father, husband, got a 9 to

(02:30):
5, but carving out as muchtime as I can in the woods here we
got a little, little thingthat we started last year called
Timber Life Outdoors, which isjust a New Jersey based hunting brand
that we're trying to get outthere, put some good content out
and show that people canactually get it done with a full
time job as you guys do as well.
Having some fun with that.
But yeah, man, just the basguy just running around chasing some
critters as much as I can.

(02:52):
You've been doing this sincelast year.
Timber life started exactly 10months ago.
The YouTube stuff started onlyabout five months ago.
But we actually like my firstpost on Instagram was I think exactly
10 months ago.
Wow.
Yeah.
So it's been good.
Let me ask you this.
Since you're a fellow contentcreator for the, the hunting community,

(03:14):
what is it like to balancefamily life?
There's kids, there's a couplethings that go into it.
You got your own personal lifefor your own like quote unquote,
me time.
Then you have the content creation.
You gotta do all that and stayup with all that stuff and then family
time.
Yeah.
How do you manage all three ofthose pieces of the pie together?
I would like to say I'mmanaging well, my wife's not here,

(03:34):
so thank God.
She can't answer.
But I, you know, it's, it'sall of that is a full time job.
Each one of those is like afull time job.
Right.
So content creation, if you'rethinking about getting into it, you
better have some thick skinand definitely be ready to sleep
a lot less.
I think, you know, puttingdown babies at, you know, 9 o' clock
and then, you know, spendingsome time with the wife and then
trying and then getting on thecomputer from 10:30 to 1:00 o', clock

(03:56):
editing videos or putting upreels or whatever you're going to
do.
Right.
Just got to find, you got tocarve it out.
I mean it's there.
You just got to kind of makeit a priority to do it.
But it's, it's a grind, it isa learning curve and a half.
I just scratching the surface.
The video side of things is anart form that I'm just learning.
I dumped a ton of money intocamera gear and went out to some
film school stuff with some ofthe guys in the industry and it was

(04:17):
eye opening.
But yes, it is a real learningcurve, to say the least.
It is, I know for Myself,because we started this back last
year around the end ofJanuary, beginning of February type
area.
And I have two kids.
I have a four year old that'sgonna be five year olds in November
and my son's two years old.

(04:39):
And so it was a lot of like negotiation.
I wouldn't say negotiating,but I was like, hey, this is going
to be my schedule for fromJanuary to December.
Each day of the week and hourby hour.
Like it is like if you lookedat my phone, I'll just pull up just
real quick.
Like this is my calendar.
Like this is my calendar.

(05:01):
Like it's like stacked out forthe second of each day.
Like, because you gotta maketime for all those things and you
can't when slack.
And you said perfectly eachone's a full time job.
Yeah, I get like five hours ofsleep a night, if that.
Yep, it's.
And again, the contentcreation stuff, like I'm again just
learning.
But like on the YouTube sideof things, if you're not consistent,

(05:22):
like if you're like, ah, youknow, I'm not gonna get anything
up this week or not gonna.
Okay, well, the algorithmdoesn't care.
Right?
Like that's a whole notheranimal in itself.
And, and I'm just learning that.
But it's.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting.
Me too.
I got the, the outdoorchannel, you know, outdoors and more
with the Squatch.
I'm busier during the seasonsand stuff, you know, in the, in the

(05:43):
down time.
I mean, I, I didn't get to doa lot of fishing this year.
Usually I'm always outfishing, but, you know, one thing
led to the next.
The weather was bad.
I try to get as much, youknow, content out there to get up
and you know, with thealgorithm and stuff.
But you know what?
People that follow me know me.
If they want to catch a coolhunting video of us doing something,
you know, or whatever, it's on there.

(06:03):
It's not going anywhere.
So at least you gotdocumentation down the road of, you
know, your trials andtribulations and stuff.
And Brian, it's funny, I. Ithink I met you on the boondocks
outdoors with Mike Nitray andFrank Mystica.
You.
You were on with us and Ididn't recognize the name until I
saw Timber Life outdoors.
Because I follow you.
Yes.
So great.

(06:23):
Nice to see you again.
You do.
You too.
Cool, man.
What, what show?
That.
What gay show are you talking about?
The guy sounds kind of stupid.
The guy?
That's a little shady.
That's Mike, he's.
She's shady, you know, andthen you got.
You got my brother Frank on there.
So Frank is.
Oh, okay.
You know, he's.
Oh, the guy that.

(06:44):
The black guy says I'm black, too.
That's right.
That's why I said he's shady.
I was being politically kindof sort of.
You're right.
I can't remember.
I can't.
I can't forget that.
So the guy that runs, he gaveme permission saying that I'm black
so I can say I'm part black.
Oh, man.
Yeah, because apparentlygingers are part black.
So I have heard that.

(07:04):
Dude.
I have heard that.
That is a funny thing.
There's a whole.
There's a whole bunch of reelsabout that recently.
It's funny that you say that.
I'm not even gonna touch that.
But I just have heard that.
I just thought that was hilarious.
I'm like, what the.
You think we'd be the farthest from.
From it?
Because the running joke withgingers is we have no soul.
So he'll probably pop on.

(07:26):
Mike usually jumps on for aminute and says hello.
Yeah, sometimes I do.
Well, Brian, I think webrought you on to talk about your
bear, right?
Yeah, I think so.
Let's.
Let's talk about this.
Let's tell us a story about it first.
How?
Give us the story on it.
Like, just start there.
So let's start at the beginning.
Obviously, harvested it thispast season, but two seasons prior

(07:50):
to.
At the end of the season orthe be right after the December season
of 22, I was scouting an areathat I had gotten some information
about.
Multiple bears in the area,but one specifically that it was
a good bear.
And, you know, guys were afterit for a couple years and didn't
have any luck.
I was like, no, let me seewhat's going on in the area.
Let me get to know the areafor the upcoming season.

(08:12):
Started running some cameras,and pretty much pretty quickly, I
actually got a picture of himin that exact relative area.
He was on state land, and hewas oddly available, and, like, you
know, he's running around,kind of doing his thing now.
Again, it was after theseason, so pressure had been reduced
drastically.
But I was like, wow, okay.

(08:34):
You know, he's here.
He's sticking around.
I talked to a lot of people inthe neighborhood, like, yeah, he's.
He's always here.
We see him all the time.
Like, all right.
So this has got to be hiscore, you know, like, it's the winner.
Like, he's not moving Anywhere.
This is where he hangs out.
Like, this is where I'm goingto start next year.
Fast forward to the end of thesummer, you know, early September,
starting to gear up for bear.
And you know, that Octoberseason is definitely my favorite

(08:55):
with the being able to use the bow.
Predominantly a bow hunter.
I just went, you know, fullbore and went to the same area, started
running cameras again andpretty much got him on camera pretty
quickly.
And I got kind of cocky, I'llbe honest with you, that he showed
up so quickly and I got himdialed in really quick.
I'm like, what?
Like, this is not that hard.
Like, I got this, you know,I've shot some pretty good bucks

(09:18):
chasing pretty good matureanimals over the past, and he's by
far the biggest bear I've ever chased.
Chase some other good ones,and a couple buddies have shot some
really nice ones.
But he did what he did to awhole bunch of other guys.
So he hung around for a littlebit and then just jumped on me.
Just disappeared out of nowhere.
And he went a thousand yardsof 1500 yards to another swamp.
I spent two days trying tofind him again.

(09:39):
Afterwards he just finallysettled in, back again on the baits
and started daylighting again.
I'm like, all right, allright, I got him.
Let me not make the same mistakes.
Let me not, you know, I wasmaybe pushing a little too hard.
Maybe I was baiting wrong,change some of my tactics.
Then about two days before theseason got a little squirrely on
me again.
But he's still kind of showingup, gets an opening morning, and

(10:00):
he is on the bait at 6:30 inthe morning.
He would always sleep on thebait, so I knew I couldn't hunt him
in the mornings.
I knew he'd come back in the afternoon.
He'd leave at like 6:30, 30,7:00 in the morning, come back in
the afternoon at like 4:30,5:00 clock.
I was like, oh, this is perfect.
Like he's, this is.
We're in the chips again.
Made me look like an idiot.
He left at 6:30 in the morningopener of that year two years ago

(10:21):
and never came back to thearea for six months gone.
I spent the entire season justjumping around running almost 25
cameras, 30 cameras trying tofind him.
Couldn't find him.
No one knew where he was.
And that was my season.
I was like, all right, it'seither him or nothing.
Like, I'm just gonna.
I spent thousands of dollarson bait and running around and he
made me look foolish.
So super humbled.
Learned a lot.

(10:41):
Awesome.
Now fast forward to this pastseason, right?
He is.
I heard, I didn't hear ofanyone getting him.
I didn't hear of anything evenremotely his size.
I have thousands of picturesof him and I would have known if
someone would have gotten him.
And he had a really distinctscar down his back leg.
Like, I saw pictures of somegood bears out there.
Always reached out to the guysthat got him, like, hey, did that

(11:02):
be or.
No, there was, there was no scars.
I'm all right.
Great.
So now we're coming up intothe season, starting to run cameras
again.
A little earlier I had acamera out in May which actually
picked him up in the secondspot from the year before again.
But I only got one picturethis time, like, all right, so he's
going to start off being a dick.
Let's, let's see what happens.

(11:23):
Well, I was able to get acouple pictures of him in the general
area and then he jumped on me again.
And then he went again about2,000 yards to a private swamp that
he just holed up in.
There was a 30 acre swamp anda 6 acre swamp and I'm almost a main
road that kind of divided them.
And he would just transitionbetween these two swamps consistently.
And I was able to gain accessto that one big swamp to be able

(11:45):
to put a plan together.
He, again, I knew that hejust, you know, as much as he would
daylight a little bit here andthere and he showed me a little glimmer.
Hope.
I never got my hopes up.
I was like, all right, I gottado everything perfect this time.
I cannot walk on his trails,which I believe I, I think I screwed
that up the year before, eventhe year and a half before.
But he just.
Every time I would walk on atrail that would kind of give me

(12:06):
get into a swamp or a newtrail, that's when he would jump
on me.
So this time I was like, allright, I'm not going to push in.
I'm going to kind of find hisnatural corridors and I'm just going
to see if I can just bait fromthat direction.
Well, that's exactly what happened.
He got really comfortable,transitioned to this swamp.
I picked a spot for the baitthat was going to be about as tight
as I could possibly get itwithout making it completely unhuntable.

(12:28):
Now, again, in Jersey, youcan't hunt over bait, right?
You have to be 100 yards awayfrom your bait when you are bear
hunting.
Why, we could probably have awhole nother podcast on that subject,
which is ridiculous, right?
But that's the rule.
So I had to find a way for him to.
To ambush him between the baitand his bedding.
He was always traveling thesame corridor.

(12:48):
The difference being he wouldonly travel that corridor on certain
winds when he was available.
If he went to song, hecouldn't go on certain wins because
he would expose himself in awide open area.
He wasn't stupid, right?
Big bears don't get that bigby being stupid.
And if anyone's hunted bigbears, I don't care what you say
or anyone that hasn't huntedbears, I'm gonna tell you, they are
way smarter than a big deer.

(13:10):
They're older, they've seen more.
Anyone that's done it willtell you it is humbling.
So again, I went into this andwith a lot of knowledge from a lot
of other guys that are bigbear hunters in the area, telling
me, kind of helping me out,what, what to do, what not to do.
And it was, it was, it wasdefinitely a team effort in that
aspect.
Once I got him dialed into theconcept of he was showing up pretty
regularly on northwest winds,and I knew that he would come in,

(13:33):
you know, 4:30 in the morning,sit on the bait till about 6:30,
7 o', clock, then hetransitioned back.
I get about a 30 minutebetween a 15 to 30 minute window
that he would give me indaylight that I knew that I could
probably be getting killed.
Problem was I had to getbehind him.
He would come out of thissmall swamp across the road, come
into this bigger swamp wheremy bait was, and then he transitioned
back.
So the plan was to wait forhim to show up on the, on the bait

(13:53):
in the big swamp, and thenturn back and keep on his way back.
I would already be in thesmall spot up in a tree waiting for
him.
That was the plan.
The morning of the opener wasgoing to be a southwest win, so there
was no way I was going in.
Couldn't do it.
Every time there was asouthwest wind, he wouldn't show
any.
And it was actually blowinginto his bedding.
I didn't want to blow him out,so I had to wait for Tuesday morning.

(14:14):
Tuesday morning comesmidnight, he's not on the bait yet.
Two o'.
Clock.
He's not on the bait now.
I'm not.
I'm up like a freakingcrackhead on my phone just waiting
for pictures.
Like, ridiculous.
Just, you know, right, so 4 o'clock come or.
Actually, I think it was 3:30.
4 o' clock comes and bam, hehits the bait.
I'm like, all right, Perfect.
He's right on schedule.
I waited about 4:30.
He's comfortable on the big bait.
He's just laying down there.
I knew he's going to be therefor a couple hours.

(14:35):
I immediately got up, got myclimber, and ran into that small
patch of woods.
I had never gone into thatsmall patch of woods because I did
not want to do what I had donein the prior and get on his trail
and bump him out of there.
So I had to literally pick atree and get up in the dark and pick
shooting lanes.
Not the most technicallyadvanced move there is because you
probably want to do things theother way.

(14:56):
But again, for the situation Ihad, this is what I had to do.
Got up, realized when I gotup, normally want to be 18ft or something
like that.
I was like, oh, man, I'm too high.
Like, this swap is too thick.
It's got a.
It's got a canopy that's waytoo low.
You know, I have no shooting lane.
It's got to come back down to 10ft.
He's still on the bait.
He's 180 yards away from me.
I'm watching on the camera.
I'm getting all my gear set up.
It's great.

(15:16):
You know, it's starting to geta little blue light and he's starting
to get antsy.
He would stand up for a littlebit, do a couple circles over a couple
minutes like he normally do.
Everything was perfect.
He was reading the script.
I'm like, dude, this is gonna happen.
Like, this is really going down.
Like, all he has to do is justcome back down the same trail and
it's over.
22 yards.
Like, game over.
Well, I got a picture.
I don't know if I sent it toyou, but he might have seen it online.

(15:37):
The last picture of him comingoff the bait at 6:52 in the morning.
And like two minutes, threeminutes later, I see him standing
there on the side of the road,which is about 80, 70 yards from
me.
And I see him freaking lookinglike a person, like both ways, checking
traffic.
Ridiculous.
And he walks across the road,gets right on his trail.
He's coming in.
He's about 50 yards from meright now.

(15:58):
I'm like this old, like, holy.
He's a Volkswagen walkingright at me.
Gets to about 35 yards, buthe's totally covered in brush.
I'm like, all right, he justgot to come like 10 more yards and
he's clear.
He's going to be perfectly broadside.
He stops on a dime.
35 yards.
Now before I go get anymore,the wind was perfect.
I made sure because I pickedthat day in the wind that the northwest
wind that I needed.

(16:19):
The thermals were perfect.
I had them working beautifullyfor the, for the morning sunrise.
They were not blowing backtowards his direction.
Wind was hitting me on a crossface, like 12 miles an hour.
I mean, everything is perfect.
Never walk down his trail, soI know he did not smell me.
However, he gets to 35 yardsand turns into a statue and just
won't move for a couple minutes.
And I'm like, you've got to bekidding me.

(16:40):
He's looking around, he'schecking the wind.
I'm like, I didn't do anything wrong.
I know I didn't do anythingwrong, but I'm second guessing everything,
right.
He stops or he has alreadystopped and he turns on a 45 or 90
degree angle and startswalking directly away from me.
I'm like, you've got to bekidding me.
There's no way.
So I had to scramble prettyquickly and trying to pick out two
shooting lanes on the paththat he was now taking, which is

(17:02):
again, Yeah, I guess a 40,not, not 90 degrees, 45 degrees away
from me.
And I had two windows, one at60 and one at 45.
Only problem was I had tocrouch down into my climber and lean
against my seat like Cirque duSoleil and try and get this shot
off.
So I got lucky.
He got to 45 and he stoppedhimself for whatever reason, I'll
never know.

(17:22):
But he stopped, settled andlet it fly.
Put a sever right through himat right about 45 yards and it buried,
man.
And he.
What freaked me out was I sawthe fletchings just disappear into
him.
Like, oh, perfect shot, likeslightly quartering away money.
He didn't even flinch, like,didn't even move, like, just didn't
run, didn't, didn't roar, didnothing and just kind of just turned

(17:45):
and walked away.
I'm like, what?
Like I just shot into a black hole.
What happened?
Like.
And so he starts moving.
He goes across the street onthe other side of the property and
I see him go up this rockbluff and just disappear.
I'm like, oh, there's no way, man.
I just smoked that bear.
Text my best friend, like, yougotta come, come get me.
We gotta track this thing.
I know, I smoked him.
We get out, we get right onthe track and the blood trail is

(18:07):
just ridiculous.
Like, you know, Stevie Wondercould follow it, right?
And we're walking across thestreet, the arrows Right there.
It's soaked.
I'm like, oh, man.
This bear is gonna be right upon top of that bluff.
He's like, all right.
He's like, but we, you know,we're kind of going through some
thick cover getting up abovethis rock, but we can't see anything.
He's like, dud, this thing's alive.
Like, we're in a bad spot.
Like, we're just going to comeup over this thing.
Well, let's just be careful.
So we get up there, sure as weget up to the top of it, and he is

(18:30):
sitting at, like 12 yards alive.
Head up right in front of us.
Of course, both of us justpucker, and we're just like, whoa.
I don't have my bow in my hand.
And I should have.
That was a rookie mistake.
I should not have had it.
I was just too jacked up, wentdown, got my bow.
He could not move.
He couldn't go anywhere.
He would have expired right there.
But of course, the ethicalthing we always want to do is, you
know, end suffering in any way possible.

(18:51):
Put a second arrow in himagain, thinking, I know what a bear
is going to do or an Adam'sgonna do.
He stands up, walks another60, 70 yards and expires on top of
this bluff.
And that was the end of the game.
I didn't expect him to get up,but he did.
And then it's all high fivesand everything's great, and let's,
you know, celebrate and it's over.
And it's amazing.
It was an awesome journey.
Yada, yada, yada.
And then the story gets crazyfrom there, which we can get into.

(19:13):
But that was.
That was the hunt.
That's how everything kind ofwent down.
There was, you know, somehighs and lows in the concept, but
it all worked out.
He didn't read the script.
I did have my camera gear withme, but unfortunately, just having
to.
The way he moved, the way hetransitioned self filming and scratching
down, it was.
It was impossible for me toget footage.
I would have loved to get that footage.

(19:33):
Trust me, right, man.
Yeah, it was a good one, man.
I got.
I got a bunch of questionsfrom that.
I wish I wrote them down.
I gotta remember in the.
Now, first, the question is,how did you figure out where he was
going from, like, from yourbait pile to this random.
This other piece you said hewas going to.
This private piece.

(19:54):
Yeah.
X amount of yards away.
How did you figure out wherehe was going and how long he was
going from?
How long did it Take that.
How long did it take you tofigure that out and figure out where
he was going?
One with cameras, I, I, Ibasically ran.
Took about two weeks.
Is once I, he was on a step.
Once he was on a steadypattern, it took about two weeks.
And when I made steadypattern, he was hitting the bait

(20:15):
pretty consistently on certainwinds and certain directions.
I was like, all right, that'swhat I need the key on.
And then it was kind of justrunning cameras in increments, like,
all right, let me back off 25yards from my original camera, see
where he's passing by.
And then once I'd hit that,then I'd go back another, you know,
30, 40 yards and back and back.
And I got to the road, and I'mlike, all right, there's only one,
really one way.
And then once I got overthere, it looked like a, you know,
there's a trail that lookedlike an elephant at the walking down

(20:36):
it.
You know, that wasn't veryhard to determine once I saw that.
And there, the, the spot thathe was betting in was about 50 yards.
60 yards was slightly opentimber, not like open what you like,
fully open timber, like big timber.
But after that, it was almost impenetrable.
Like, you couldn't even walkinto it.
So thick.
So I couldn't get into fartherthan that.

(20:57):
And look.
And I again, I scouted fromthe road.
I did not walk into that pieceuntil the morning that I shot him.
I did everything with abinocular, walking the piece around,
trying to see where I couldsee where his trail, which I was
able to determine how long histrail was, where it curled, where
I was going to try and set uponce I got in that morning.
But, but yeah, the cameraswere a huge help.
I actually ran cameras wayfarther away, too, because there
was a couple days where hedisappeared early on on me for like,

(21:19):
three, four days.
I'm like, oh, my God, here wego again.
He's gone.
And I would have cameras about500 yards out, 3, 4, 500 yards out.
And other satellite baits.
He never hit them.
So I don't know where he went.
A couple times he just stayedin that tight core area, which a
lot of the big bears do.
They get into those swamps andthey just hunker down, man.
If they have food, they havecover and they have water, they got,

(21:40):
they got no reason to leaveoutside of breeding season.
Right.
But it, it was, it was just amatter of kind of dialing in his
pattern.
They get on a pattern, theyare definitely pat More patternable
than a bear.
Sorry, than a big deer.
However, they are way lesstolerant of any intrusion and any
kind of mistakes they are notgoing to put up with.
With, you know, you messingaround like a big deer.

(22:01):
Again, not saying big deeraren't easy to hunt, but big bears
are just different, man.
They're just, they're smart as hell.
They're really smart.
And your tactic of moving themback, I've kind of done that in the
years prior myself because I'dsee deer coming out from this part
of the field.
Yeah.
X amount of times I'm like,all right, what's.
Why are they coming from this direction?

(22:22):
Then I started putting acamera there and I kept moving it
back and back and back andnext thing I know I'm like, oh, this
is where they're betting.
And I'm seeing photos of themjust galore.
Just betting there.
I'm like, I found where you'rebetting at and you're coming right
there.
So bam, perfect.
So it's.
I don't think I'll.
If you haven't tried thattactic out yet on the guys out there,
try doing that.
Because it's worked.
Obviously it worked for Brian.

(22:43):
It definitely works and I'vedone in the past.
So you said you walked on histrail one time the year before.
I, in the wintertime, wouldwait about a good two weeks after
a good snow falling hadhappened and then I'd start seeing
the, the tracks.
I start walking on them andthen I start tracking them on my

(23:04):
phone.
All right, this is wherethey're at.
I see a lot of the deer trackshere and here.
And there's man trails.
Obviously you can get awaywith that.
Apparently you can't do thatwith bear.
And I'm, I'm asking, she's outof general curiosity because I've
never hunted bear, so.
Sounds like.
Don't do that.
None of the big ones, man.
Again, the little ones, youknow, I'm not saying shoot any bear

(23:27):
you want and not, you know,shaming a guy for shooting 100 pound
bear.
150 pound by any means.
But in New Jersey we arepretty spoiled when it comes to bears
like that, right?
They are, they are raccoons.
You could put a bait out onstate land and pretty easily kill
150 pound bear.
You start chasing something inthe 5, 6, 7, 8, 900 pound.

(23:48):
Anything over five to me isgoing to be a.
That's a great bear.
Incredible bear.
And it's been around for aminute, right?
It's at least six Years old, right.
And then goes up from there.
They've learned a lot.
So yeah, I definitely go aboutit slightly different now.
I will take a trail to throughopen timber to a point where I think
it may be going into thebedding area.
And I will not push that in anymore.

(24:09):
I don't.
Because I don't think youlearn too much more information once
you think you know where theirbedding area is.
If you can get back on theback side of it and see if there's
an exit on that side forcertain, certain wins and kind of
play it that way.
But pushing in is like someonecoming into your bedroom.
You're gonna know.
Like, you're gonna know.
Yeah, same again.
You know, bucks have big.
Have bedrooms too.

(24:29):
They have bedding areas on stuff.
Again, I, I just feel like youget away with a lot more with a deer,
a mature deer than you would abig mature bear.
A lot of places in the Unitedstates don't have 10, 15, 20 year
old bears.
That's just not normal.
It's not the common thing.
Buddy of mine had a, a guycome in this year and he shot a 23

(24:50):
year old S in New Jersey.
Like what?
That's nuts.
Like, it's just crazy, but it happens.
Not super common, but it'scommon in the concept that, you know,
teenage bears and 10 plusbears are shot all the time in New
Jersey because again, we haveone really good week and then one
kind of crappy week inDecember to shoot them and you get
one bear.
So.

(25:10):
And most times guys come outand they shoot a good bear, they're
done.
They don't want to deal withit ever again because it's a lot
of work if you're running bait.
I mean, I ran thousands ofpounds of bait.
I took off almost a month of work.
I was running bait every day.
I was, you know, and then yougot to get the damn thing out of
the woods and you need a team.
And there's a whole.
It's a lot.
It's a lot.
That, that was a.

(25:30):
It was a lot.
You know, I, it.
I've had harder times withsmaller bears and I'll tell you why.
And not everybody knows this,but this bear, if it would had died
70 yards earlier in that rockformation that it climbed up.
If it died there, I'd still bethere cutting them up.
Like he would have, would have been.
He would have the quarter himand take him out.

(25:52):
But what happened was he wentup on top of this rock bluff and
died on another piece ofprivate Property that had a.
Almost a manicured green lawnon a slope like this.
And I could pull the truck to25 yards away from the driveway,
and we're able to back it upand slide him right into the freaking
truck.
I wish we videoed that becausenobody believes me, but it.

(26:13):
It genuinely did happen.
And me and one other guy gothim into a sled.
I don't know if you saw thepictures of me laying next to him
in the sled that we got himinto that.
We were able to roll him intothat and slide him down the hill
like a freaking kid in thesnow in a snowstorm.
Like, geez, yeah.
So it was.
And we had to do it whole.
We couldn't gut them there.
The property owner was very gracious.

(26:34):
He was awesome.
But he asked.
He's like, do me a favor,don't leave me a mess.
Don't go to here.
Of course.
No problem, man.
Thanks.
Thanks for letting us come andget him.
Like, in New Jersey, you.
You never know happened, right?
So.
But yeah, no, it was.
The whole experience was incredible.
But yeah, the big guys, man,they are.
They make you work for it, man.
Very, very rarely are theygonna just give it up.
It's just you.
I can't.
If you talk to a lot of bearhunters, you're gonna.

(26:55):
It's gonna be consistent.
Guys gonna be like, ah, youknow, I had this bear and they just.
He just vanished on me.
Like, I can't tell you howmany times people tell me that.
The blind hunter, he commentedthat that a big bear broadside ambush.
Frank, he said big bear, Brian.
Awesome job.
Now listen here, Frank.
There's no cussing on thisshow, okay?

(27:17):
It's PG 13.
Watch your tone.
Yeah, Okay.
I don't want to see any of this.
That crap.
Okay, Wait, wait.
He's my brother.
He can curse.
I don't allow that.
Well, you could.
You can go kiss my ass then.
We could.
I got.
I got Frankie's back no matter what.

(27:39):
The one thing I didn't say wasactually how big the bear was.
So the.
Yeah.
The bear weighed in on thestate scale at 770 and a half pounds.
Gutted so dressed and rough.
Estimates between differentbiologists are somewhere between,
you know, 860 and 880.
Some people said over 900.
It was not over 900.
Let's clear that air right now.
100.
Not over.

(27:59):
No, definitely not.
So.
But don't matter.
It was a big bear.
Yeah, no kidding.
Yeah.
Did you get him mounted?
Brian, he's at the taxidermistright now Charlie Sahanis is doing
the work and I'm hoping, well,I get him back when I get him back.
I'm not going to put Charlieon a schedule online.
He did a full body.
Doing a full body.
Full body.
Oh, I hope my son is good atsports because this is college.

(28:21):
But.
The blind hunter, this is hiscomment, he says, hey, I got virgin
eyes.
So Brian, I've got to saythough, I learned this in college
and I actually forgot aboutuntil you told me this in our meet
and greet.

(28:42):
The record's based off theskull though, not the actual size
of the bear.
Can you please discuss that alittle bit?
Yes, absolutely.
This has been a.
Beaten to death.
I think people forget that.
Yeah.
So bears are skull doesn'tmatter the body weight whatsoever.
You can have a 500, 600 poundbear with a monster bobblehead skull

(29:02):
and that is the record.
So similar to deer.
Right?
So body weight does not matter.
You know, it's, it's all aboutthe antlers.
Well, with a bear it is skull size.
They take the, the length andthe width measurement and that gives
you your skull size.
And actually the, this theworld Pope and Young world record
for the, for black bearsactually out of New Jersey.
That actually, that gentlemanwas actually after this bear.
But there is, there's no book,there's no records.

(29:27):
Official records for weightdoes not exist.
And I again, people are like,you know, people posted that, you
know, I have a world record stuff.
It is a unofficial large bearwith a bow.
There is no book for it.
Boone and Crockett, Pope andYoung, they do not care about weight.
There is no book for weight.
So yes, I got a lot of like,you know, crazy comments.
I'm like, guys, I never saidit was the Pope and Young, you know,

(29:49):
never.
It was, it was an inch over aninch less than the existing Pope
and Young skull record.
So again, that, that one Ithink was 650 maybe.
Don't hold me to that.
I'm not sure the weight ofthat bear, but it was hundreds of
pounds less than my bear andit had a massive head.
It had a, if you see thepictures of it, it is a just a.
It almost doesn't look real.
I'll be honest with you.

(30:09):
The head looks ridiculous.
But that is the record.
So that's the way it shakes out.
Record bear.
See if I can find this thing.
23 and 5, 16 inches.
That's it.
That's the one.
Yeah.
And there's again it's, youknow, some people ask about the Squaring

(30:32):
of a bear.
When this is like the hide andyou know, the weight.
I mean, obviously a lot ofpeople love the weight.
You know that I was chasing abig bear and a very specific bear
and that was my thing.
I wasn't chasing any record stuff.
It is the largest bear in NewJersey by far.
It has been told that it's thelargest with a bow, you know, in
the country.
I've had some people tell methat it's not.
There was one in.
Apparently if you go online,you type it in.

(30:54):
Biggest bear with a bow.
It'll pop up like 7, 8.
Fucking huge.
Which one?
This Jeff Melo Mallow?
Yeah, for good pictures.
Good pictures.
These, believe it or not, it'sactually like £200.
£250 less than mine.
You see what.
Did you see what PSE wrote?

(31:14):
Yep, that's it.
Look at the head on it.
Look at that bear.
Look at the head.
Holy shit.
Yeah, Brett, that bear's got abowling ball head like you.
Holy fuck, that thing.
If you're listening to this onthe audio, but you got to take a
second and look at this, we'reat the 32 minute mark.
Go on YouTube, look at thisvideo and look at the size of this

(31:36):
bear.
Or just type in the.
The.
The Jeff Melee M E L I L LBear Gore.
23516 inches.
Location, Morris County, New Jersey.
Yep.
You're taking 1014 of 28 19.
Monster, Monster Head, Monster head.
Just incredible deer.
I mean yours, yours is an inchbehind that, Brian.

(31:58):
A little, little more than an inch.
So mine was 22 and it's 1 16.
So an inch and 4 16, I thinkless than that.
So it's in the top 32 bears.
A great, you know, awesome bear.
Again, about 300 pounds moreor 250 pounds more.
But again the.
If you see the head on thatthing, it just looks, I mean it's
super wide.
I mean it's crazy.
It really.
That thing's crazy.

(32:20):
It is, it is, it is.
So when you see a full mountbear, I mean it puts in perspective
how big these things get.
I don't know what the hell I'mgonna do with mine.
I mean, it's gonna be waybigger than that one.
I gotta lose a couch.
You know, we're working onbuying a new house.
Like this room's stuffed withstuff already.
But there's some big ones outthere, man.
Jersey's got some.
We're very, very spoiled.
Really?
I didn't even take it in consideration.

(32:40):
I totally forgot about yourbear, like yours, yours is 10 times
that size, right?
Not.
No, no, no, no.
I can't say 10 times, but it's bigger.
It's significantly bigger.
I got so sidetracked.
Like that thing's giant.
Yeah.
Where are you gonna put, likeyou said, where are you gonna put
it?
I, that's, you know, I'llfigure a good problem to have.
I welcome it.
So that's like people go toAlaska and kill a moose.

(33:02):
It's like, where do you putthat in a normal sized home?
Yeah, you know, yeah, exactly.
It's, it's, it is definitelygoing to be a challenge and my wife
has been gracious enough to,you know, accept that.
That there is a, you know,almost 900 pound bear mount that's
going to be coming into thehouse that is literally the size
of a, a good sized couch.
So that's going to take upbasically one fourth of the living

(33:24):
room.
It's gonna, it's gonna be agood one.
We're looking again, we'relooking at houses now and you know,
we haven't even put in bids onother, on houses because there wasn't
access to the basement to getsomething in like that.
It's going to be significant.
But yeah, hopefully it'll be,it'll be done this year and I'll,
I'll definitely be posting it.
I have a bunch of stuff out.
A lot of people wanted to seeit, yada yada, so it'll be cool.

(33:44):
Well, Brian, we've also beentalking about world record deers
like the CJ Alexander buck andthe Rompala buck and just kind of
like you feel bad for the deerin a sense because like these deer
get tagged with these badstoryline headers and stuff like
that.
And we've talked about whatwould you do if you were put in the

(34:05):
situation of, you know what?
I think I just shot this worldclass deer.
What would you do?
We talked about hypotheticalsand stuff like that.
It sounds like you are havingthe same situation.
Situation in the sense of youshot a world record deer.
But I'm.
Damn it, bear.
Always talking about deer onthe show.
Yeah, yeah.
This sounds like all fairytales, but I'm sure.

(34:27):
Let me get your opinion oryour side.
Right.
Has there been backlash onthis because.
Because of this type ofsituation drastic.
Absolutely.
It got abs way more than Iever, you know, dreamt to be honest
with you.
It definitely.
I knew there was going to besome craziness within the hunting
community because you know,anytime anyone shoots a, a significant

(34:47):
animal, there's always goingto be your haters and people that
are supporting you, right?
So while I was chasing thisanimal, I knew that was, you know,
gonna be a possibility.
And I had been in contact withfishing game, making sure that I
was crossing all my T's anddotting my eyes and, you know, that
everything was done the right way.
I did not want to have any,any gray area and nothing that could
ever be, you know,misconstrued that I misunderstood

(35:09):
something or whatever, right?
So I made sure everything was done.
Perfect.
Second to that was once theanimal was harvested, the floodgates
open, man.
And you know, a lot ofnegativity came out of the hunting
community that, you know, Ishot at night.
I did this.
Thank God.
I had, you know, cell phone,cell camera pictures of him coming
off the bait in the morningright before I shot him.
So that got squashed really quickly.

(35:31):
But the crazy part was the nonhunting community, I was public enemy
number one.
Really, man.
New York Post put a wholestory out on me, center page, like
massive display, hunter mass,you know, black bear in New Jersey,
blah, blah, blah.
People, people were.
I was.
The social media.

(35:51):
Ridiculous.
Was ridiculous.
I was getting death threats,my family was getting death threats,
threatened to kill my 2 year old.
Like, what, what, what are wetalking about?
That's a little far, people.
Come on.
A lot of it was, I'm not goingto say maybe misunderstanding because
a lot of people think that youcan't eat bears, so you're just shooting
it.
So I went on to a couple talks.
Not talk shows, so radio shows.
Bill Spadium has a show in NewJersey which is a.

(36:13):
He's a great guy and a lot ofpeople were calling in about it and
they were, you know, upsetabout it.
He was reading all thecomments online.
I mean, when I tell you, likethousands of comments about my death
was ridiculous.
He opened up the forum and waslike, all right, we're gonna have
Brian on in the morning, laterin that week, or it was the week
after.
I forget what it was, but he'slike, you can.

(36:34):
You working on 45 minutes.
You guys can call our 25 minutes.
You guys can call in and youcan railroad him, ask him any questions,
tell him he's a cocksucker,like, whatever you want to do.
Here's your chance, people, right?
And he's not a hunter.
He's just, you know, he's aconservative, but he's just like,
listen, if you have a problemwith this, call in.
The guy's gonna be on the phone.
You can have this conversationlike a.
Like.
Like a real person, like an adult.
Guess what?

(36:55):
The only people that called inwere in support of me.
So nobody.
Nobody called in negatively.
So it was.
And after that, he did it.
I think.
I think he did it for two days.
And he was like, all right,guys, like, you had your shot.
Nobody did it.
Nobody said anything like, allright, shut up.
And I also took the time onthe show to explain that, you know,
we use all the meat.
Nothing was wasted.

(37:15):
We used.
All the fat was donated, andit turned into, like, soap and lotions
and all kinds of stuff like that.
And I got a lot of flack fromthe hunting community because I got
that thing gutted immediately.
Immediately, like, really quick.
So I didn't lose it.
If you hunt big bears, youknow, if you leave them too long
again, October, it was gettingup into the 60s that morning, and
I knew that if we didn't getthem gutted within the next hour

(37:35):
or two, I was gonna lose thewhole bear.
And the three bears that arein can, you know, that were in that
same weight range with a bowfor largest in the country, all were
spoiled.
The guys refused to get to gut them.
So they all lost the bears.
And that sucks, man.
I was told that that was.
That was given to meinformation from some biologists
that are big in North Carolinaarea, which they have a bear museum

(37:55):
down there.
They're pretty neat.
But it came from somebiologists that had known about some
of those larger bears.
And they're like, yeah, mostpeople don't.
Don't gut them because theywant that, you know, exact weight.
I get it to a point.
But if it means you're goingto lose the animal, then.
You lost me on that one, man.
I'm here to.
I'm here to, you know, I'm notgoing to waste an animal just for
my ego.
That's just ridiculous.
So got it.

(38:16):
Got it, you know, gutted.
We got it cooled off, got itcaped out, and we saved every single
piece.
I got a whole freezer full ofridiculous bear meat.
And it's been fantastic.
But, yeah, the negativity.
Once they understood, whichtook a couple weeks, once they understood
that the bear was not wasted,it wasn't just a trophy that, you
know, it will be.
Everyone's going to, you know,enjoy it.
We fed every.
Every possible part of thatbear that was usable has been used.

(38:38):
It did slow down and back offand got a little better.
And even Ted Nugent reachedout and did a whole thing on it with
him.
I might be doing a show with him.
But he, he went freaking nutsand he was like, he was pissed.
He was pissed.
He's a crazy man, but he's awesome.
He, he's just like, peoplejust don't understand, man.
And they really don't.
Again, tried to stay asrespectful as I could to people that

(39:02):
didn't understand thesituation and kind of use education
as a way to bridge the gap.
You can do that as much as youcan and sometimes they're just still
not going to agree and that's okay.
That's okay.
But when you turn around, youthreaten my two year old.
Now you get a different, nowyou get a different version of me.
But it's just, again, it's oneof those things when you're going
to shoot a high class animalor class A animal that is going to

(39:23):
bring a lot of attention.
It is definitely somethingthat you need to be aware of and
be kind of ready for and, and don't.
And I think that I'm going tosay this in the concept that I've
had a lot of conversationswith the industry people that are
kind of behind the scenes anda lot of editors and you, you just
don't, don't react like,don't, don't get negative, don't
get crazy because it will fuelthe fire that much more and we'll

(39:44):
just, and you end up being aloser in the situation.
So yeah, I doubt I'll ever bein that situation again.
But if I, if there's one pieceof advice I'd give somebody, just
don't react like unlesssomeone is at your front door, like
threatening your family.
If it's just words like keepyour cool, shut up, don't do anything
stupid.
It's just, it hurts us as a,as a hunting community if you get

(40:05):
on there and you're, you'rejust screaming at people and you
know, just getting off.
It's just, it, there's nothingpositive that comes out of it.
At that point we basicallyturn into liberals of just like yelling
at each other.
And when it doesn't mean makeany sense, like you're just yelling
at you like are youaccomplishing anything right?
No.
Okay, then you both look abunch of libtards out there just
yelling at each other.
Exactly right.
100%.
It just doesn't make any sense.

(40:27):
And you know, it's, it'swhatever it, that's never going to
go away.
It's part of the thing.
The media is a ridiculousconcept which we all know it's got
its own Agenda.
But yeah, just keep it cooland, and go through it.
Now, obviously there's theflip side of that.
If you are doing somethingwrong, like the C.J.
alexander thing, that's a whole.
Another ball of wax, man.
That's.
I, I have no idea how to, youknow, I will never know how that,

(40:49):
how that works because I'm notgoing to be in that situation.
But that's.
That it's unfortunate.
People go to those lengths,put themselves situation because
they get crazy about an animal.
Obviously it happens.
I'll say this about him.
He's got balls to go on somepodcasts and talk about it when he
did it illegally.
So I was watching these videosand I looked at, I looked at two
ways with it.
One, he's got.

(41:11):
He's not hiding anythingbecause he's going on these shows.
Or two, he's got balls enoughto really carry out this lie and
think that he can get awaywith it.
But he apparently, if youwatch the last one, he, he had already
told DNR that he, that hepoached it, yet he was continuing
with the public that it was a.
That with the lie.
Like, yeah, I don't know, man.

(41:31):
To me, he was trying to see.
If he can get away with itwith the public.
And, and on the DNR side too,I think he was trying to do.
Yeah, like I said, I justthink that, like, okay, man, I don't
know, man.
Yeah, I watched that lastpodcast of him that he just did with
the.
What was it, Dear?
Iq, I think.
And.
Yeah, I think so.
I don't know, man.

(41:51):
I. I don't know the guy.
I'm not going to say anything,but he just.
Some of the comments, dude,like, I don't know.
Arrogant.
Yeah, man.
In a situation where youcannot be like, dude, what?
What?
I don't know.
I give him credit for gettingup and talking about it.
Like, a lot of guys wouldn'tdo that.
And he said he wants to makeit a positive.
That's great.
He wants to even talk to kidsto kind of spin it into a positive

(42:13):
light to tell them whatthey're not to do.
I commend all that.
But I think you should kind oflook back a little bit because some
of the things he said were, Idon't know, not my cup of tea.
But again, it's.
It's a situation that happens,unfortunately, a lot where guys get
crazy on big animals and theydo some unfortunate stuff, so.
And then the animal is wasted.
In my opinion, it pays the price.

(42:35):
And like I said, with the badstorylines, bad taglines, stuff like
that.
And we just talked about thiswith Edgar on, on last week's show
grow and we're talking aboutto deer.
Deer make grown men go crazy.
He says it perfectly.
And the fact that it's weirdhow you can go from a spike to a
200 inch deer and each one ofthem is going to make you just lose

(42:58):
your mind and totally allcontrol and just like it's weird
how like you can be sitting attree stand all perfectly and then
all of a sudden you see asteer and like all sense of like
truth and reality andlegalities and stuff like that basically
just seem to go out the windowin some way and you're like, oh,
that's.
I want that right there.
I don't give a man.
It blows my mind that peoplewill go to length again.

(43:20):
I'm not going to get intodetails with this, what I'm about
to say, but on this bear therewas a select group of people that
were after him as well thatwere going to lengths that you know,
that were not way I would goabout things and not exactly in my
moral compass, but it's whatjust people get wacky on big animals
and what they're willing to doand what they're gonna go do.
It's.
Yep.

(43:41):
It's a shame.
And okay.
PSU motor.
Okay.
To make in click in context ofwhat his comment means.
I'll read his comment first.
Or a doe in Brett's case.
LOL.
I've been hunting now forabout 20 years.
I have yet to shoot a doe.
Okay.
I have not put my tag on adough yet.
I've shot two.

(44:01):
I never found them.
Yes, I am doleless, taglessinto my 20th year hunting.
So I'm hoping this 20th yearcan be the year.
I think it's my 19th official,I think.
Wow.
Yep.
It's.
It's crazy to say that'sfunny, but.
No, and it's just, it's sad to see.
I think people just getaccustomed with, with any creature

(44:24):
out there with white tails andantelope and BlackBerry or grizzly
bears, you see a general like,like a general like.
All right, this is what you'retypically going to see.
Then you see that one outlieranimal, for instance, your bear and
that was that one that's wayout there and then it'll go back
to normal.
You start seeing these bearlike this and like well no, no, no,
no.
It doesn't follow the trendwith all the other ones.

(44:47):
So that's fake.
That's edited in some capacity.
Right.
And that's just sad to seethat people go to those links.
Yep.
But when you and I weretalking before the show, we talk
about all the time how we needto improve the hunting community.
We always ask guests the lastquestion in the rapid fire of how
can we improve the hunt community?
And we basically, a lot ofeveryone says that 97 of the answer

(45:10):
is stop bashing on each otherand help each other out and stuff
like that.
But in your sense, yes, youdid get a lot of heat from shooting
that bear.
You're gonna, I'm assumingeveryone's gonna get heat from any
class A animal that you shoot.
That's just going to happen.
Yeah.
But the amount of support thatyou got, that you told me was eye

(45:32):
openening to me in the senseof that is awesome to hear and I'm
glad to see other hunters outthere supporting hunters.
And we get this narrative outthere that that's all we do is pick
on each other.
And yes, we do.
But I think the majority of usas hunters, we're out there to help
each other and that's whatthey did in your situation 100.
Right.
I never really had to respondto any of the comments or things

(45:54):
where people would jump inand, and kind of shut everything
down for me.
And a lot of, a lot of guysare, were, were really vocal about
that.
Again, like you're saying, youknow, we talk about the negative
concepts because they'reusually the loudest and.
But there is a ton of supportout there.
And yeah, keeping everythingtight within the community and supporting
each other no matter what is huge.
But yes, I did get a ton ofgreat support with the, the hunting

(46:15):
community.
People that knew me, some, Alot of people that didn't know me
maybe just heard me talk onceor whatever and were like, you know,
this guy's not the guy that'sdoing what you guys are saying.
He's not going shooting a bearand letting it rot in the woods.
That's not what happened.
Like, stop saying it is.
But yeah, it was, it was veryrefreshing to see that side of it.
It was, it was nice to see.
That's awesome, man.
Yeah.
Brian, we're getting close tothe end of the show here.

(46:37):
I do, I first want to saythank you for coming on the show,
man.
We greatly appreciate andthank you for telling your story
and just congratulations againon this amazing animal, dude.
Thanks for having me, guys.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
And side note, I was talkingto Mike, I think a year ago about
black bear and when I, he toldme, yeah, we got like world class
deer black bear out here inNew Jersey, he said that.

(46:57):
I was like, all right, that'slike, that's.
It's in New Jersey eithergonna be black bear out New Jersey.
And then he told me that and Istarted seeing these.
I'm like, that's true.
Oh, it's true, bro.
There's some big ones leftthat are still.
We got some good ones we'rechasing this year.
You know, I hope someone beatsmy record.
That'd be awesome.
I hope I'm there.

(47:18):
If they, you know, if they gotmy number, give me a call.
I'll help you drag it out andtake pictures, man.
So like, you know, it's, it's.
There is.
We are super, super lucky inNew Jersey with the black bear quality.
Our genetics are incredible.
People go spend insane amountof money to go up to Canada and shoot
a 250 pound bear.
Awesome.
Not saying it's not cool.
That's great.
Amazing.
So happy.
But we got a two dollar taghere in New Jersey and you got a

(47:39):
good shot of shooting a 500 house.
It's two.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
$2?
Is that a non resident tag?
$2?
It cost me two.
So if I came from Michigan tohunt BlackBerry.
Well, you got to buy a licensewhich I think is a non residence,
like a hundred bucks.
But the tag is $2.
Yeah.
What the.
Right?

(48:00):
Yeah.
Jersey people don't realize it.
People don't.
People come, people that dorealize that this guy's a come in
from Russia, from all otherstuff because they're like, you know,
you can't.
There's nowhere else.
I mean the Carolinas andPennsylvania have great bears too.
Yeah.
Pennsylvania is a littledifferent in the baiting concept
and they have a longer season.
Carolina is similar to us, butthey have a longer season.
But they still have some giantbears down by Carolina.

(48:22):
Yeah, monster, there's 800 something.
880 I think was the record in Carolina.
Yeah, there's some 8 8, 880was with the shotgun.
Yep.
Shotgun.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Monster.
Okay, Brian, I'm coming out toNew Jersey in 2026.
I'm gonna buy all my stuff andbuy the there and you're gonna help
me.
Okay.
No problem.
We got plenty of bears.

(48:42):
I can't promise you an 880pound bear, but we, we can find some
bears.
There's a big bear in Jersey.
There is, yeah.
Still though, that's likeyeah, I want.
To use, I don't want to usethe Term.
But I'm going to jump changefor tags.
$2 crazy.
It is ridiculous.
Where when you look at the.
And I don't want to kill ourtime here, but when you look at the

(49:03):
concept of the politicalnarrative about the bear hunt in
New Jersey and how there's somuch hate about it and the rules
that they change because theydon't want the hunt making 50 tag,
make some money off it and dothings the right way.
Like they stop you being ableto bait hunt over the bait.
When hunting over the baitgives you the most ethical shot because
the bear is calm and collectedand sitting there, you could take
a night, you could take yourtime, put an ethical shot on the

(49:24):
bear and you.
Safer for the.
It's safer for the hunter.
It's.
It's more ethical for the bear.
They don't want to hear that.
Right.
There's.
It just doesn't make any sense.
You got to be 100, 100 yardsfrom the beat, right In Jersey.
Yeah.
Yep.
Wow.
So basically, you know, I'mnot going to say there's not crossbows
that can make that shot.
To me, that's not an ethical shot.
No, but.
No, but you know, again, thatfirst week you have Monday, Tuesday,

(49:47):
Wednesday is bow.
You can use a crossbow or anykind of bow you want.
And then Thursday, Friday,Saturday, you can also use a muzzle
loader.
So it's bow and muzzle loaderfor those other three days.
And then the second season inDecember is only gone.
It's muzzleloader and shotgun.
There's no bow, which I don'tunderstand that why either.
But.
But the two dollar tag is once people.

(50:09):
Everyone has that response.
Brett here, $2.
Like did you.
Did you have a brain fart?
Did you say two?
$2.
You mean 200.
Yeah, $2, man.
What can I ask real quickthough, why you have to be 100 yards
away from the bait pile?
Oh, isn't that the pointthough, to shoot over the bait?
That's what the base there for.
Like I said, man, earlier,there's a whole podcast right there

(50:31):
for you.
Just no reason.
That makes no sense.
I have yet to have anyone.
And even fishing game, theguys that are actually in fishing
game because they'rebiologists and so forth, they're
like, we just had to give it up.
Like we just.
That was the, that was there.
That was the suits in the.
You know, with Murphy andtheir boys that they wanted it.
Like, for what reason?
I don't know.
They thought they were makingit harder for the animals to be harvested.

(50:55):
Because remember, I don't knowif you remember, there was a whole
thing.
He ran his whole campaign oncanceling the bear hunt.
I didn't hear about that.
Yeah.
So then he realized hecouldn't cancel the bear hunt.
He tried to, but the bearnumbers got out of control.
The incidents went up like 273in one year.
Like, it got out of control.
And you realize, all right,like, I gotta do this.
And then they made these rulesas like, oh, look, I, you know, I'm

(51:16):
still doing something basically.
But even though it makes nobiological sense, it does not help
in any way.
It does.
It.
It makes it so that you aretaking a risk and being unethical.
And you can, you can't shootsows that have Cubs under 75 pounds
and you can't shoot cubs.
I'm not looking to shoot acup, but if you're.
So basically what they do isthey turned it into a trophy hunt.
Yeah.

(51:39):
That just seems first offcounterintuitive and just like.
And then the DNR guys, likeyou said.
Perfectly.
It's the guys in the suits.
Yeah.
They don't listen to the hunters.
They don't listen to thepeople actually out there in the
fields.
And they do the same thinghere in Michigan.
Yeah.
It's a shame.
It's the people in, in theoffice with their suits, like you
said.
Perfectly.
They want to feel like they'redoing something to public eye or
whatever you want to use.

(52:00):
Yes.
Shut the up.
I can't tell you.
Just on the deer side here inMichigan, I think we submitted like
a thousand things that we wantto see change, and I think they took
one.
One.
They did one.
Yeah.
It's just a shame to see thatout there.
It's happening everywhere.
But just.
I'm sorry you're going throughthat, but.
No, it's, it's, it's whenyou're hanging.
When they're hanging their haton conservation and they're saying

(52:20):
that you're doing it for theanimals, when what you're actually
doing is not helping the animals.
Like, it's messing up ageclasses within the actual animals.
You're just focusing on boarsand you're taking unethic shots.
What you lost.
All your points are invalid.
Like, what are you talking about?
Bunch of idiots.
I'm just going to say, youknow, a lot of the, the, the bleed
off from Jersey is coming intoNew York.
The bears are here.

(52:41):
When I grew up here, you werelucky to see a bear in the Hudson
Valley.
If you, if you got One or yousaw one?
Yeah, it was a rarity.
They stayed more in the Adirondacks.
But from Pennsylvania andJersey that were so close.
I. I just got a bear on trailcamera the other day over where I
hunt where I grew up.
Yeah.
Over where I work.
It's closer to the mountain.
We got bears up there all thetime and you wouldn't see them 10.

(53:04):
I'd say within the next fiveto 10 years we're going to be like
Jersey status here.
Just because the bears aremigrating, they're coming into this
area.
It's out of control.
I mean.
And you talk to New Jersey biologists.
They can't give you any reason why.
I, I mean I could send youguys pictures after this, but we're
running barrels and I havesows with four and five cubs daily.
Like different ones whereeverywhere else in the country they're

(53:26):
having two and three cubs andone's making it in Jersey.
No, no, no, no.
They're all making it.
All making it y. Yep.
It's crazy.
It is.
Well, Brian, seems.
I think we could have this convers.
I feel like I have to get back on.
Back on the show again andtalk about this stuff.
More depth because I feel likewe can have a three hour conversation.
Let's do it, man.

(53:48):
But the main.
Like I said, the main point ofthis was bring you on, talk about
your bear.
I actually do want to have youcome back on the show though again
and get more into this topic.
Yeah.
But some rapid fire questionshere and then we'll let you go and
just let everybody go.
Sound good?
Sounds good.
What animal is on your bucketlist to hunt?
Mule deer.
Mule deer.
What is the top state you wantto try hunting?

(54:10):
Alaska.
Last couple people have beensaying Alaska lately.
Squatch.
I know.
The last frontier.
Yep, it is.
Yeah.
Yes, I mule deer.
So I get mule deer or moose.
But Alaska moose is probablyat the top of my list.
Now that I think.
If you could pick anybody togo on a hunting trip with or share
a campfire with one time, whowould that person be?

(54:31):
My son.
So perfect.
What do we need to do toimprove the hunting community?
Take the ego and judgment outof your statements or your, your,
your, your, your attention toother people.
Once you take those two thingsout of it, there's just kind of empathy

(54:52):
and, and help along the ways.
Because everybody starts atthe bottom.
Nobody's perfect.
Everybody's learning every day.
So once we start doing that, Ithink we'll, we'll do better.
We are a dying breed.
So we're just shootingourselves in the foot with all the
crazy stuff.
Oh yeah, you said it perfectly.
And at least no, I know herein Michigan our numbers are declining.
You take Covet year becausethat was an outlier because nothing
was supposed to happen.
Don't even give me talkingabout Kobe.

(55:13):
I'm just gonna say that.
Just stupid.
Anyways, Covid year was anoutlier because there's nothing to
do.
So people are in the woodsgoing hunting.
But ever since then, from likeI think it was the 2000s or a little
bit earlier than that, it'sbeen on a slow trajectory down and
down and down.
Right.
And that's a whole podcastepisode right there.
But I agree with you.

(55:34):
100.
Get your ego out the door.
I mean, we're not one biggerthan the other routes.
The main thing is we're outthere to have fun, enjoy life, and
enjoy just being in nature.
That's it.
One ride.
Make it fun.
Exactly.
Well, Brian, thank you somuch, man for coming on the show.
I greatly appreciate it.
First, let me ask Squash.
How can people reach out toyou and follow along your journey

(55:54):
if they feel like doing that,you know?
Well, you can always find mehere on Sundays and Tuesdays.
You can follow me on myInstagram page Outdoors and more
with the squatch and myYouTube channel.
Brian, how can people reachout to you and follow you along?
They can find us on Facebookand Instagram.
On Instagram, it's at TimberUnderscore Life Underscore Outdoors,
which is the same handle forout for YouTube and for Facebook.

(56:17):
It's just Timber Life Outdoors.
We got some great content.
Awesome.
Oh, look, Michael showed up tothe show.
Little 15 year old shitbagfinally wants to show up.
He says he was busy.
What can you be busy with at15 years old?
Besides swelling, you know,other things we.
Squatch, we almost got a fullepisode out.

(56:38):
I know.
Or the little.
He's like a blister, man.
He just shows up aftereverything's done.
Yep.
Anyways, we still love you, Michael.
Brian, no, thanks again, man.
We definitely have to get youback on.
And sounds like we got somemore topics we need to discuss too.
Yeah, it's a rabbit hole and a half.
Oh yeah, it is.
Well, Brian, thank you somuch, man.
Coming on.
We'll talk to you later, brother.

(56:58):
Thanks, guys.
Take care.
See you guys.
Oh, man, Brian's a great guyright there.
Well, that's going to concludean episode of the Whitetail Advantage
podcast.
I want to say thank you toeveryone that's gathered around the
electronic campfire withmyself and everyone here today.
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(57:21):
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(57:47):
Thank you for tuning in toanother episode of the Whitetail
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We hope you enjoyed the showand we will see you next time.