Nothing Beats Bugling Bulls

On this episode of The Western Rookie Podcast, Dan and Brian talk with Tyler Notch about archery elk hunting and love for bugling bulls in September.

Tyler is an avid archery hunter, and to Dan’s surprise, a hunting buddy of Brian’s already. Tyler lives in Minnesota and loves to hunt the west each fall. Hear some of Tyler’s first elk hunts and the lesson’s learned as well the Montana elk hunt Brian and Tyler went on together. The guys also talk about grizzly bears and the group's wild encounters on that Montana hunt!

[00:00:00] All right guys. Welcome to today's show and joining myself and Brian on the show today is Tyler Notch. Now Tyler's a guy, dude, he's right near your neck of the woods, Brian. He's in Central Minnesota. Yeah, I mean that's right where I grew up. I'm sure we had some of the same stomping ground. Yeah. So I'm pumped to chat with him.

So he's got about as much experience out west as I do. Okay. Like he's fairly new. I would consider him still a beginner or a rookie, but six years chasing after elk and mule deer and whitetail out west. And so I'm excited to pick his brain. Oh, sounds like a cool guy. Yeah. What, uh, what's new in your neck of the woods?

Just getting ready. Um, I was in Iowa all last week and then did a little bit of shed hunting and I unfortunately didn't find anything, which I was really bummed about cuz I was walking some really good looking publics and saw a lot of deer sign. Um, it wasn't the kind of walk that you expect to find [00:01:00] 10, but I would've, um, thought I would've found one.

So that was kind of a bummer. Yeah. But other than that, just getting ready to go out west with Steven, I think our listeners are probably getting tired of us talking about it and not doing it yet, but it's coming. It's, we got a date on the books. We're 19 sleeps out. Dude. We, we get on a call tomorrow with him and just get details, figure out exactly what we need to bring out there.

I'm so pumped And he just found his first freshly dropped Elk Shed of the year. Yeah. He's gonna torture us for the next 19 days, I'm sure. What'd you think about that picture of 29 or that message about getting 29 sheds? Dude, that's, I, I just hope I don't want to get so excited that are like, oh, we're gonna find a ton cuz I don't want to jinx it.

I just hope we go out there and like find sheds and just have a great time in camp. I'm thinking I might smoke a pork butt and get some barbecue pulled pork for the trip. Yeah. Dude, I am all about that. I'm gonna be bringing a bunch of venison [00:02:00] sticks. I got all my meat back from Wisconsin, so I've got like pepperoni, garlic sticks.

I've got summer sausage, jalapeno cheddar. I've got, um, man, I don't even know what all I've got. I've got two freezers full right now of nothing but venison. So I'll be bringing some of that out to fuel list while we go and look for sheds. Yeah. You bought two freezers to go down or up to Wisconsin and get your deer, right?

Yeah, dude, I had, I had a deep freeze already. I've got an upright for upright fridge and freezer out in the shop, and then I was like, dude, I need more, I need more space. Like, because I'm not the guy, I don't want like 300 pounds of meat. Yeah. Just piled on top of each other. Like, I like to keep it organized, you know?

Yeah. And so now I've got like all my elk in a freezer along with some of Missouri's whitetail. And then I've got, um, more, actually my second whitetail from [00:03:00] Missouri in a different freezer and my Wisconsin whitetail in another freezer. But it's all like, perfectly, like all the summer sausages, side by side, the burger side by side.

All the steaks are in one place. All the, all the bolognas in one place, all the bacons in one place. So Nice. I like to keep it organized, man. Yeah. So my, I have a, I have a deep freeze, an upright freeze, and then my kitchen freezer. And on the deep freeze, it worked out that, you know what a milk crate is, right?

Like square, A lot of people put their like sunflower heater, propane bottle in them. Well, they make a bigger one that's like a rectangle, and those fit perfectly, like the deep way in my deep freeze, and I can fit two of them on top of each other. So I can put four in my deep freeze before you hit like the freezer unit.

And so I have like, they're color coded, right? So the red one might be all hamburger. And the blue one is all like shanks and Bonin stuff. Yeah. And then I can just lift one whole thing out and get to the one on the bottom. Otherwise you like [00:04:00] pile out your stuff in a deep freeze. You can't get it. The stuff at the bottom.

Exactly. And that's my, that's my biggest issue. And so I'm actually looking online or some type of crate or divider with that, the proper dimension to where I can still pull it out. Yeah. But I can just have everything divided up because I know I'm not, like, there's no way I'm going through all the meat that I currently have before I start putting more stuff in there.

Turkey seasons like, well you a month, you're not gonna put too much in the freezer for Turkey season. No, that's true. But, and sheds, you don't have to freeze. So boom, boom. But like Oklahoma hog is coming up, so like I've got pork coming there. My buddy Brad is like, dude, you wanna do some swapping because he, he is raised and butchered two pigs that I've sold him.

Oh yeah, he's got like three freezers just full of pig. Oh, I mean, pig for pig. Like everything you can think of. Fat like, yeah. All the cuts. And so he's like, you want to, you wanna swap out some venison for bacon and pork? And I [00:05:00] was like, oh my gosh, dude, I could probably do that. I'm like, we got our little like back country barter system going on here.

Me and all my buddies with the different animals we kill. Like, Hey, I'll trade you some of this for some of that. Dude, I used to, I used to go out goose hunting with a crew and they were killers. And I would just say like, Hey, if anyone doesn't want to keep the geese, I'll take 'em. Like, you don't even have to clean 'em.

Yeah. And so you got, I got a ton of geese. I mean, I think one time I came home with like 50 snows. It was whatever the possession limit was for spring season, which I think is unlimited. Yeah. And I turned it all into sticks and jerky with like a bunch of sausage and cheese and it was delicious. And then every time all summer long, we'd go to a bonfire.

We'd play darts in the yard. I'm always bringing a couple packs. Never had to bring any home. Dude. That's amazing. Well, it's gonna be a fun trip. Hopefully we'll have some good snacks. We're definitely gonna have some good meals. But, uh, Tyler just jumped in the waiting room. So what do you say? We hop in.

Awesome. I'm excited to meet him. You're listening to the Western Rookie, [00:06:00] a hunting podcast full of tips, trips, and strategies from season western hunters. There are plenty of opportunities out there. We just need to learn how to take on the challenges. Hunting is completely different up there. That part 26, big game animals.

You can fool their eyes. We can fool their nose, 300 yards spec to the road, turned into three miles back the other way. It's always cool seeing new hunters go and artist and animal. I don't know what to expect. If there's anybody I want in the woods with me, it'll be you.

All right guys. Welcome to today's show, and joining us on the show is Tyler Notch from Central Minnesota. We were just talking about my Packer's hat that I have on the pod for the podcast listeners who can't see. I do have a Packer's hat on and I'm talking to two dudes from Minnesota, so maybe not the best move on my part, but either way, we're excited to have you on Tyler.

Thanks. I [00:07:00] appreciate it. It hurts a little bit to have to look at that Packers hat the whole time, but I'll suck it up. I guess I really should have put my flag up in the, like a, the back wall, maybe like Rogers like running it into the, on the Vikings or something. Not that that happens all the time, right?

Never gonna happen again, but, well, we'll just throw up a, a fat head of, uh, who was it, Harrison Smith or No, not, yeah. Uh, that broke his collarbone. Oh gosh. Yeah. Anthony Bar, I think it was. Oh, bar. Yeah. Yeah. You can tell how much I like football. But I was gonna comment, you can tell Dan doesn't really do much video, cuz at least Tyler and I got the message to wear a hunting hat to a hunting podcast.

Hey dude, I've got a hunting shirt on. Best retrievers, man. This is where scout's at. Oh. Being trained right now. Nice. So yeah, he's got that going for. I'm not repping all my favorite hunting brands right now. I probably should be as a podcast host. Well man, we're excited to have you on. And, uh, [00:08:00] before we started recording we were talking about experience levels.

Yeah. Uh, just between the three of us, we've all had roughly the same amount of experience hunting out west. And so it's gonna be really cool to get your take on things. As someone who's been chasing after elk for over half a decade now, chasing after whitetails and mule deer. Out west. So, uh, before we jump into that part of the conversation, why don't you share with the listeners maybe a little bit about yourself, what you do in the outdoor space and, uh, what your passions are.

Yeah, for sure. Uh, like you said, Dan, I'm from Central Minnesota. Uh, I've been hunting elk for about seven, well, this will be my seventh year this year. Um, as far as the outdoor space goes, I did, uh, just become part owner of the Alexandria shooting Park here in Alexandria, Minnesota, which is a trap range, uh, and soon to be archery range here in, in central Minnesota.

Uh, and outside of that I am involved with, uh, backcountry hunters and anglers here in [00:09:00] Minnesota as well. I'm on the executive board of our Minnesota chapter, so I've been really involved with those guys. I've done stuff with, uh, the Youth Outdoor Activity Day that we have here in Alexandria. To help kids out.

And then also, uh, volunteered my time a lot with, um, various other things like Pheasant Fest and some of those big events that happened in Minnesota as well. So that's been a good experience for me too, to get, um, kind of get used to working with those in the outdoor industry that have been there for a little while.

Uh, and backcountry hunters and anglers is, is a passion of mine from the standpoint that I hunt out west and mostly public land. And I want to do all I can to maintain that public land for the future, uh, specifically my family and specifically even more my kids. Um, so that's been a big passion of mine as well.

So that's a little bit of background on me outside of, of outdoors. Um, my career is actually as an executive director of a senior living facility here in Central Minnesota. So I manage about [00:10:00] 170 staff and 290 ish residents every single day. So that keeps me pretty busy. Um, and then, like I said, I got a wife and three kids.

And besides that, it's just all hunting for me. So wife, kids, career and then hunting. Dang, you've got, you kinda have your hand in a little bit of everything, man. Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely. The shooting park back country hunters and anglers. Your, your day job, which, yeah, every time I hear like I, I had a girl that I knew, she actually volunteered for an organization I worked with and she worked at a senior living community and every time I would go there, like we went there and we tried to put on a volunteer event one time and every time I would go I just kept having like a flashback of Ben Stiller in Happy Gilmore saying like, you will go to sleep or I will put you to sleep.

So now that's gonna, I think I'm gonna Photoshop your face on his body for this, this podcast cover [00:11:00] that. That totally works. And I've made that reference before as well, so I'm glad bring that up. That's pretty funny. Uh, I gotta ask about the Alexandria shooting park. Yeah. Because I have not been there.

Yeah. I used to take that route to go home to or to go to my hometown of Eau Claire. Um, yeah. But now I take a totally different route. What, what made you want to get into that? Um, was the idea to get into it and then also transition it towards more archery? Or did you buy it for your love of trap shooting and then say, oh, I've got another cool idea?

Yeah. Uh, it was a little of both. Um, I think as my passion for elk hunting specifically has grown and archery as well. Cause that's all the, that's all that I mostly do. Um, it's kind of led me to look for things that really align with that passion. And I got three other guys that I'm in on that shooting park with.

Um, two of them are very close friends, and then one of them is becoming a very [00:12:00] close friend. So, It's been good to, to forge those relationships. And two of the three are already in the outdoor industry, so it's been good for me to learn from them as well. But we had a, we had an idea that we started with, which was to, to kind of build our own shooting parks, specifically with retail and some other things in there.

Um, and we always kind of had our eye on, on the shooting part to be that spot. And we thought it was a long shot, but we went and approached the ownership group and they originally told us no. But then, um, they told us yes after thinking about it for a little while. And, you know, just being able to, to combine my passion again for archery and el cunning, um, the focus for me, I'm the only archery guy of the group, so I wanted to be able to bring archery to our community and really help grow it here in central Minnesota.

Um, and I, I use the reference a lot with people here in, in Alexandria that. I want archery to be, uh, what trap was about 10, 15 years ago where it was [00:13:00] just starting to blow up. Um, and I want that, that same kind of path for archery. And I think, I think they're doing some really good things in our community, and I think we can help support that.

And I think with the passion that I have for it too, uh, and the o ownership group we have, we're gonna do some really cool things out there that are gonna make it, make it pretty, um, pretty big. Not just in Alexandria, but I think Central Minnesota as a whole and, and really the Midwest as a whole too, if we can do the things we wanna do.

So, yeah. That's awesome. I mean, you've kind of jumped into it at a peak time for archery. Mm-hmm. Archery just seems like it's blowing up and I don't know the numbers, I don't know industry numbers, like Yep. Sales wise and, and overall interest. But in my mind, I'm like, dude, archery's king right now. Mm-hmm.

Nothing seems to compete with it. Yeah. Obviously you still have those people that go out year after year for the gun season in their, in their state or in their county. But all the media online seems to just be centered around [00:14:00] archery, western hunting, getting off the beaten path, going public, you know?

Yeah. There's some movement of that right now. Yeah, I agree completely. And I've done some, just to put some perspective on it for maybe for you, you guys, and then the listeners too is I, I did some work with the high school here in Alexandria. They invited me to come watch their, um, high school archery program.

Uh, they had, I think 40 kids in the, the varsity kind of club. And then they told me they had about 60 in the middle school. And then the goal was to send all of the middle school kids through that. So about 360 kids will be going through archery here, just in Alexandria. And then, uh, some of our neighboring communities, um, like I know before we jumped on, Brian said he's familiar with the Vegas area.

They just had a, I think a, an archery shoot in their school, I wanna say a couple weeks ago. And then there's a couple other local towns too that have some, some archery programs. So you're looking [00:15:00] at 500, 600 kids, probably just in a 20 mile radius of Alexandria that'll be going through some sort of archery program.

So we're happy to be able to support that. That's incredible. Yeah. And man, Brian, you're gonna have to, uh, be the northern arm of the western rookie representing at any events they do up there. Yeah. I was thinking when I went through middle school, they did an archery segment in gym and we asked if we could bring in our own bows, and she was like, yeah, sure.

Go for it. And so we brought in our own bows for it. There's like three, four of us that bow hunted, and, but when they rolled out those targets, those old, what is it, red, yellow, blue? Yep. The holes were like gone and we're like, I'm not shooting my bow at that thing. It's gonna go like straight through and bounce off the wall on the other side.

So we didn't even use 'em. No. Yeah, that'd be pretty risky, man. Like go through, hit the concrete Waller, the cinder block and come back at you. Well, [00:16:00] one, like one or two segments after us, a kid's bow got stolen out of the gym. Like he had to bring it for like the whole six weeks and leave it locked in the storage room and somebody stole his bow.

So that put an end on all that. Oh geez. Yeah. Yeah. It was a, that sound good? It was a Hoyt. If it was a Matthews, they would've just left it. Oh yeah. No. I mean, they can take the Hoyt if they want, but Unbelievable. Dude, you gotta throw that out there. Just the off chance that Hoyt's listening. Yeah. Oh, you're just, you're just trying to get a sponsor.

That's all you carry. You're just like, I don't actually really like their bows, but Matthew's already turned me down cuz they're too good for me. No, Matthew is is a great bow. I've been shooting 'em a long time. I, but the Hoyt's got the 80 pound in my draw length, so I'm gonna be switching. There you go.

Do you think that will help you kill an animal lately? My problem with killing elk with my bow is that I hunt with my brother and he carries around like [00:17:00] all four of the lucky rabbit's feet. Oh yeah. He, yeah. You gotta just steal a couple of those from his pack at some point. Yeah, we like, I'll have like the unluckiest encounter where I draw back, stop the bowl, range, it dial in perfect.

And I go to squeeze off just a nice graceful like release, and there's a branch like two inches in front of my arrow that I can't see in front of my sight and I just wham hit it. Tree explodes, arrows gone. Elk just stands there and looks back and there's my brother steps out. How far gets it? So that was in Montana.

Hey gosh, that was just a, as it's like that's happened twice to me. Not exactly the same details, but twice. We've like stumbled into a bowl. And for some reason, I have the worst luck and I can't, I'm out of the game completely before it even starts. See now as you, as you get deeper into hosting the Western rookie, those opportunities, like [00:18:00] he's gonna be the one who's missing and you're gonna be smoking him.

Mm-hmm. Well, I started when I was 21. He started when he was like 41. So I got a 20 year head start before I gotta start doing his old Indian tricks of, you know, pulling one outta the quiver and just doing Kentucky. Windage. Legless. Yeah. Oh man. Tyler, what about you? Yeah. How did you get into Western hunting?

Uh, because e I like to hear the stories because everyone's got, some people have the same story, but for the most part it's, it's all different out there, uh, with people's experience and their journey to it. Yeah, it's been, it's been a great experience. My first exposure was, um, I went. Gosh, it's probably almost 13 or 14 years ago now.

Well, maybe more. Um, I went in with my dad out to South Dakota. There was an Indian reservation out there called Lower Bu, um, Indian Reservation, and he had hunted it in the past. They have a lot of mule deer and white sail out there. Um, it's on the, it's pretty close to Chamberlain. I [00:19:00] don't know if you guys are familiar with Chamberlain, but it's right on the other side of the, the Missouri River there.

Um, and we went out there and that was my first kind of exposure to what I would consider a western hunt. And that just, that was all spot in stock. Um, I was able to spot within and this was really like my first time ever really hunting in that type of element. And I hike, I, I, I stock within, I. Probably 10 yards of what I would consider 160, 170 inch whitetail.

That was beded up, uh, on this little drainage. And I had no idea what I was doing. So, um, something behind me like popped out of the bush. I can't remember if my dad was like 600 yards back or what it was, but something popped out, which caught the deer's attention and he stood up and instead of pulling back and shooting, I ducked down into the drainage cause I didn't want him to see me.

Um, and he kind of took off and, and I never got a shot at him. So that was like my first failed [00:20:00] stock, but not really a failed stock when I got that close to that big of a whitetail. Um, so that was my first exposure. And then, uh, I had a little break in between there. Um, we moved back from like Grand Forks, North Dakota.

We moved back to Alexandria and my first, I think it was my first year back, my dad asked me to go out to to Montana with them. And I took him up on it. I had no idea what I was doing. Uh, that was my first trip out there and we went, we were in kind of central Montana. Uh, I didn't do any scouting. I didn't really do any training.

I didn't do do anything really to prepare for it other than shoot my bow once in a while and throw a pack on a week before. Um, and I got my butt kicked. Uh, we saw some elk. We did not see a lot of elk. Uh, I shot a, a mule Dear Dough. Um, but that was all we got. And I think we were out there for, I wanna say 10 days.

And it was a pretty eye-opening experience [00:21:00] for, for me. Um, and to be quite honest, I don't know that I've ever really shared this story with anybody, but I had severe, severe anxiety back then, um, to the point where I would get like almost little panic attacks when I was out in the woods by myself, specifically out in an element like that, that I had never been in before.

And it started to weigh on me mentally, like big time. And it was to the point where I was like, I don't know if I wanna wanna be out here anymore. And I never quit anything in my life, but that was like the first moment I ever had where I was like, I kind of wanna throw in the towel on this one. And I, I kind of did, and it's something that I will never forget, but what it did, um, I just had this like sinking feeling in my stomach for the next year and that whole next year, I was like, never again.

Is that gonna happen? Um, and I started to train year round, started to shoot my bow year [00:22:00] round, started to scout year round. Um, and it really drove me into this like disciplined mind frame to really push myself to be the best that I could, uh, to not have those mental barriers be a factor in the future.

And unfortunately, um, my second and third year out. We were out with, uh, we, we switched up, like who we went with. We, we kind of went through a couple different hunting partners, but, um, a couple of those years, uh, there was a couple situations where it was kind of the same thing where it was like, you could tell it was weighing mentally on the people that were with us, and they maybe just didn't wanna be out there as long as we did.

And at that point, um, I, I didn't really have the gumption to be like, well, suck it up. We're staying out here. So, uh, I learned a couple lessons there. Um, we, we started to get into elk a little bit more, uh, but not consistently. Um, so it was really around 2019, I think when [00:23:00] I went out to to Montana. There was, um, the, there, there was a, a range in kind of south-central Montana that we went to.

Um, and it was full of grizzlies. So that was, that was a, a eye-opening experience and. While we were out there, we actually ran into a group that was from Alexandria. I can't remember what their names were. Um, but it was kind of a small world where we ran into some guys from, from Minnesota out there, and they kind of pointed us in a direction of where, where elk would be.

But we got into some elk and then, um, we actually ran into two or three guys on the road that had gotten malled by grizzlies. So we, uh, we, we kinda of looked at each other and talked about it, and we kinda drove around a little bit more. And we had some other spots in mind that would, uh, we, we knew we could get into some elk, uh, but we drove out there.

Um, [00:24:00] had some good encounters with elk, but ultimately those grizzly bears drove us to a different, uh, different unit. And then, uh, we didn't have as much luck as we would've liked. So yeah, we've. You know, our groups hunted the grizzlies. I don't think Dan's ever hunted in grizzly country, cuz you usually stick to Colorado.

But we've hunted some gnarly grizzly country. And I remember one year we were going out and they shut down like the south half of a mountain and we were hunting the north half, but they shut down the south half because the entire herd of cattle died. They ate the wrong flower and they all died and there were so many bears, they counted like 29 grizzly bears out in this one meadow.

And so we're like, well at least we don't have to worry about bears cuz they're all on the other side of the mountain. And then the day we arrive they're like, all right, all the grizzly bears are gone. They went home, you can come in here again. And now we're like, shit. Now they're all back. And so first night one of our guys shoots an elk, quarters it up, gets it back to camp, and then somebody in our camp like [00:25:00] ran into other people that got mauled.

And then the paper said later on the way back, like, oh, grizzly bear attack, you know, one mile up, you know, snake Creek. And we're like, Ben, didn't you shoot a bowl like one mile up Snake Creek and the only patch of timber that is on Snake Creek? And he's like, yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Exactly. Brian, were you, were you guys staying in a cabin when you were in that mountain range?

Uh, we've done both. It depends on which year. In 2019, we stayed in a, in a cabin. Yeah. That was the, the year I was in Montana and wherever we were at kinda had the same situation. So yeah. Were, were you, were you the guys that we ran into out there? Must have been. You think so? Must have been us. I mean, not too many guys from Alexandria.

What a small world. Yeah. Dang. That's wild man. You guys are, Realize you've already met each other out in the middle of nowhere in Montana. Well, we didn't really meet each [00:26:00] other out in the middle of nowhere in Montana. We kind of went out there as a one group. Oh, Tyler and I have known each other for a couple years.

We've been, have you guys really? Yeah. You guys just been, oh my God. I had Tyler. I'm like, I feel like this is some stupid TikTok prank. My wife is playing on me right now. I'm like, this is everything about, this seems so wild to me. You're like, Tyler, you're talking, Brian, you're talking and I'm thinking like, dude, everything that Tyler's saying, I know that Brian like has done that.

That's where he hunts. This is, this is insane. Yeah. Yeah. Tyler on my podcast, like, I'm just gonna use this podcast right now. You guys can just take it from here. So Tyler's work, the senior living center that he directs is like a mile from my parents' house in the half mile from my brother's house. I was already gonna make a comment like, Brian, you need to go over there and play bingo with those guys just before whitetail hunting access.

Like does anybody have any property? Like I'll come play bingo every week [00:27:00] with you. Yeah, no. Tyler texted me like six weeks ago and he is like, Hey, Are you leading this Western Rookie podcast now? And I'm like, yeah, I'm co-hosting it. Why? And he goes, I just got a confirmation email. I'm gonna be on the podcast later in March.

And I'm like, oh, don't tell Dan. You know me. That guys freaking suck so bad. I was actually kind of nervous telling that story cuz I was kind of trying to figure out how I'd wrap it up to let Brian kind of dive in there. But this whole, this whole time, I'm literally thinking like, this is insane how many similarities these two guys have.

I feel like. So yeah, we had to get you specifically since you have that Packer's hat on, so here I'll just turn it around. I'm not doing that. Yeah. But uh, it was legit though. We went out. Yeah, we had hunted it before and then Tyler and his dad said, Hey, like we've been burned so many times with bad hunting partners.

And we're like, well, where we go is big enough that you can like camp next to us and then we'll just like tell you where some spots are and where you're not to go. Mm-hmm. But there was something in the water that year with grizzlies. Yeah, five [00:28:00] people. Five people got mauled the week we were there. One of 'em was on, very likely on one of our elk carcasses.

Um, my brother goes, Hey Tyler, you and your dad can go hunt this. Like, it's kind of a small strip of timber, but you guys can go hunt it. Um, it's, you know, it's good elk hunting and Tyler walks right into a dinner plate or a dinner. Uh, yeah, there was a, there's a buried elk grizzly kill right there on the edge of the timber.

And like, like two idiots, we decided to walk up to it and luckily nothing, nothing came after us, but it was pretty wild being out there. We saw a ton of elk though, so it's a, it was a really good spot. And I, I told Brian on his podcast, we actually went back there this year. Um, we got one cow out of that same exact.

And then, uh, I called in a giant bowl for my dad to about 60 and he ended up missing it. But it's uh, it's one of the better elk areas if you can deal with the grizzly. When Tyler, the grizzly fear, when Tyler told me that, I'm like, what, [00:29:00] you guys went back there? Like the grizzlies didn't even bother us that much, but you left that week because the grizzlies were like right on top of where you guys were.

Yeah, yeah. Dang. I don't, yeah, I haven't done a whole lot in grizzly country in the lower 48. I've done a couple hunts on Kodiak and we've had close calls there, but I feel like it would be different being with a big group of guys. Not that like that's gonna stop a grizzly bear. Yeah. But the encounters that I've had, it's been like me and my wife and it's a little unnerving when she's armed with two trekking poles and you know, she's just screaming at it and I'm like, Hey, Apparently a trucking pulls all you need if you ask Giannis Patellas.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, dude. Smacking it in the face. Yeah. That's a whole different ballgame, man. Packing that. Packing that deer out. That was unnerving to say the least. Especially because 80% of our hike was through [00:30:00] like salmon berries that were seven feet tall and so Oh, yikes. I mean, it's like clear paths, like people hike this trail all the time, but I'm talking like a wall of salmon berries on both sides, and you can't see five feet and I'm just packing out a bloody like pack bait deer.

Yep. Come and get it. I would say that grizzly country's not scary. Well, the sun's up. I had no issues in grizzly country when the sun's up. No, but we had to pack two bowls out at dark in that unit. And that's where you start. You get a little spring in your step. You, you're surprised how many extra gears you really have down there when you're, you got a quarter of bait on your back and it's dark and you're trying to get back.

Um, or when you wake up at night and the outhouse is like, what was it, Tyler, like 75 yards outside the wire. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys had seen a grizzly, I think like the night before or something, like 300 yards in [00:31:00] that direction. Yeah. So you're waking up in the middle of the night, you gotta go number two.

Right. There's not a lot of good options. So you're like, do I just squat in the middle of camp and like, stay clo? Like there's a little bit of comfort staying night out the trucks and all the walk back man. Or do I walk out to that porta potty out there? Well, you gotta like, you gotta get outta the corral, then you gotta like walk through the woods for like 50 yards and it's like up in this clearing man.

Was that a scary walk sometimes at like two in the morning? No, I, yeah, I, I'm normally really good with animals like, I don't get wigged out by a whole lot, but there have been some times, uh, especially up in Alaska where I'm like, dude, there's nothing I could do right now. Like, if they wanted me, I'd be done.

Yeah. They can just have you at that point, right? Yeah. Yeah. What are you, what are you guys doing for bear protection out there? Are you doing a side, arm and bear spray? Um, the, the group I went out there with this year, there were four of us, including myself. I had bear spray, the other three had pistols.

Um, I wanna say they all three had 10 [00:32:00] millimeters, but I'm not 100% sure on that. So, okay. Yeah, the first year we went to that unit, I had a big old, like six inch, 3 57 revolver. It was terrible. It was so heavy. It, the barrel would always hit me in the leg on every step and I just got so annoying. So I went and bought the Glock 20 in a 10 mil and then we carry, when it's serious grizzly country, me and my brother, I always carry 10 mils and spray.

Um, One of our guys only carries a pistol and then another guy only carries spray and they're kind of, they differ an opinion. One guy, also the guy that only carries a pistol, sprayed himself with bear spray one time. So I don't know if that factors in. Yeah, I'd probably switch to a pistol at this point.

Yeah, we, we had a guy at Elk Camp my first year there. He's giant dude, we call him Herd Bull. And he, he had me pick up his pack one time and the pack was easily a hundred pounds. I'm talking like, he had [00:33:00] the biggest, I think it was a mystery ranch pack, the largest mystery ranch pack that they made, completely stuffed full.

And this guy's like probably six five. He's gotta be three 20, I mean, and he's like, yeah, Dan, check out my new pack. And I like go to put it on, and I mean, it takes everything in me just to get it onto my shoulders. He's like, yeah dude. And I brought my SAR arm, same thing that you're talking about. I think he had like a 44 mag and it was the, it looked like one of those revolvers that you see in the showcase at Shields and it's got like a full rifle scope mounted on top.

I mean, it was that big. It was just huge. And I'm like, what are you doing man? Like, what do you think is out here? We're in Colorado. I mean, I'm sure there is like an occasional grizzly that strays into Colorado, but you don't have to carry something that size. He ended up leaving a lot of his stuff out at Spike Camp and he's like, dude, literally if anybody wants any of that stuff, you can [00:34:00] go out there and get it cuz I am not going back in.

And then by the end of the week he decided, okay, I'll go back for my stuff. Nice. Yeah, I, I'm trying to get more into the lightweight game. I mean, I don't have, mm-hmm. I don't carry a heavy pack most of the time. Um, but I'm trying year after year to refine the gear that I take out and just, Become more minimalistic with my, with my pack.

Yeah. Say that every year. Every year I say that I'm gonna cut some weight, I'm gonna cut some weight, and then I strap on my back. I'm like, this thing still weighs 40 pounds. I don't know what happened. I start like putting it together in my head, I'm like, all right, eight pounds of water, no weight. That's a gallon.

I don't do the gallon. Four pounds of water, a couple pounds of glass. That's like my puffy jacket. Like, is that where like, that's not where the weight's coming from. But then I realized like, oh, I got a camera, I got two spare batteries, a juicer, my cell phone, all this other extra gear, and then it, it adds up fast.

My [00:35:00] buddy that went with me this year, um, it was his first time doing a western hunt. And uh, he was texting me like the whole time right before we were leaving and he texted me like two days before. He is like, how much is your pathway? And I think he said, mine's at like 60. And I said, oh, mine's at 25.

He's like, what? How did you get it to that? It's probably bringing the Blackstone some protein, gotta box it. Cutting of eggs. I gave him a hard time for it. That sounds like my wife, when we go out camping, we'll like hike in three, four miles, uh, and we've got this spot that we always like to go hit. We cross the river like four times to get there.

And when I'm talking about food to take out, she's like, oh, I want to do, I wanna do foil packs. And so I'm like, oh, okay, that sounds fine. So we go to the store, she's buying like whole bell peppers. She's buying cans of cream, corn, cans of cream, of mushroom soup, like potatoes, all this stuff. And I'm [00:36:00] like, who's carrying all that?

And she's like, you are, you've got a bigger pack. And I'm like, we're going out for two days. Like we don't need all this food. We could eat a big meal before we go out there. And then not even eat until we come back. And instead, I've literally got a whole thing of like Reynolds aluminum foil in my backpack.

I just, I don't do it. That's wild. But I can't, I can't say a whole lot cuz if I'm just going out for like a day hunt, I typically have a pretty, like, I pack way too much crap when my pack's empty. Yeah. If that makes sense. If I'm going out just for the day, I'll be like, oh, I got room for this. Sure. I'll throw that in.

I'll throw that in. I, I'm with you completely on that. Yeah. I'll like throw the, the jet boil in for a day and like two mountain house meals and it's like, what the heck are you doing? Why are you putting all that in there? Yeah. I'll throw the jet boil in my pack to go deer hunting in like a tree stand.

And I've cooked jet boils, like turned around, put it on the seat and cooked like full meals. Yeah. In the deer stand. [00:37:00] That's a good idea. For a full day Sid. You know? Yeah. It is a great idea. Yeah, dude. Jet boils are amazing. Mm-hmm. I swear by 'em. I, I bring mine everywhere. I hardly take a pack out without that being in it.

Yeah. Are you guys? Uh, so alright, take a step back for a second. You guys obviously know each other. How long have you been hunting together? Well, we just 2019. Yeah, that was so, yeah. Oh, that was kind of the first time we hunted together. And then I'm really good friends with Brian's brother. Um, and I would say I'm good friends with Brian too.

Uh, but we haven't really, I don't think we've really hunted together since then. But yeah, I definitely share stories with the two. They share stories with me and we kind of bounce ideas off each other once in a while. So, Okay. It's been, been since 2019. I think I met your brother before then maybe, but yeah, probably through youth day.

So the youth day that his, his range now hosts, my brother runs, he started it, now they're up to, what, [00:38:00] 2,500 kids a year? Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. Geez. Yeah. So, and it's all free for the kids. It's a really cool event. Yeah. Doing a really good job. So we've, we've known each other for a minute. I, I lived at the Alex shooting range when I was growing up, but I knew if I told you that, then you'd be like, oh, then you have to know this guy.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I, I just can't believe it took me that long this whole time. I'm like, there are so many coincidences here. Like, these guys are gonna be best friends. And it turns out you guys are already friends. So chokes on me. We had to do it to, we've only been planning this for six weeks. Oh yeah. And you were, yeah.

And Tyler, you were talking about North Dakota and I'm like, what in the, that is so many things that they've got. Yeah. Yeah. Well you, he texted me this morning, he is like, Hey, you doing the podcast today? And I'm like, well, Dan really hasn't mentioned anything. I'll text him like, Hey, you got any Western rookie guests lined up the next couple weeks?

I just wanna know before I schedule anything, knowing that if you like looked at it, you'd be like, oh, this guy is a Western Rookie Podcast, not a Nomadic Outdoorsman [00:39:00] podcast. And then you're like, text me back. Yeah, I got one at seven 30. We could turn into a Western. I was like, all right. Sounds like a good guy to have on.

Dude, you guys suck, man. I hate, I love playing pranks and I feel like when they're played on me, you got me good though. All right. Yeah, we got you. Good. What you guys don't realize is now I'm gonna show up to your elk camp out in Montana. Like, Hey guys, how's, oh, funny. You guys are here. I doubt it. Yeah. Did you hear the whole bit about grizzly bears?

Dude, I'll, I'll go hunt grizzly country, like I, I do look forward to hunting up there. Montana was gorgeous. I went there for the first time this year and I fell in love with it. I was, every sign that we passed where it was a little cabin for sale in the woods, I was like, babe, look that up on Zillow. Look that up.

And we didn't have service any of those places, but I definitely would love to have a spot up there. That place that we were talking about was also like picturesque, like it was mm-hmm. Like valleys and then black timber, and [00:40:00] you'd see elk, you'd glass elk, I mean, One time me and my brother got into a herd of bulls and just a full hurt.

I mean, it was, we're calling and raking and running up this hill and turns out Tyler and his dad were just like, across the valley. They just stopped and laid down and watched the show cuz they could see everything. Mm-hmm. It was, it was insane. We actually had a h uh, satellite bull. I told Brian on his podcast, I don't think he knew it at the time, but we had a satellite bowl that came running from behind those two and got to like, I don't know, 200 yards from me and my dad just bugling his brains out.

So it was pretty cool to see, watch the whole show. That's sweet. And yeah, you guys, I mean, Brian, you've gone out there and had a pretty decent size group multiple times, right? Yeah. I mean that 2019 year, it was a little outta control. Mm-hmm. We had nine hunters and one bear hunter who didn't, he didn't elk hunt, so he just bought a bear tag and walked around with his rifle and then we left him at a couple carcasses.

Throughout the week. And then as we like started getting [00:41:00] reception and we started getting news reports in like, oh, another one got maed open, another one got maed. All of a sudden he didn't really wanna be left alone at a carcass until dark anymore. No, I don't think I'd want to either, man. We, yeah, I, I haven't had a lot of bear encounters.

In fact, I've had zero bear encounters while hunting out west. Yeah. Uh, black bears involved or included. Um, but in Utah this year, Linae and I, we were setting up camp and as I started tying my tarp up, there was this tiny little patch of pine trees. And I was tying it to a branch on one of those pine trees.

And then the wind shifted and I caught a smell. And I was like, what the heck? And there was a, there was a sheep kill that was stashed right in between all those pine trees. And I was like, oh, wow. Oh crap, dude. Like we almost just camped right on top of a carcass. That something stashed in the trees. Yeah.

Yeah. It can be wild. I was charged, I had like a bluff charge of a black [00:42:00] bear. I don't, I say a bluff charge cuz it sounds cooler. I think he was just running in my general direction through the woods. Um, but yeah, that's kind of been the issue our group's had for many years is that we get, we got pretty big and so then it's like, well we don't, there's not a lot of places you can go with 10 guys and like everyone's into good hunting.

Especially I feel like it's even harder with archery as weird as that sounds because you can bugle an entire ridge in one day. Like two guys can cover whole ridge. Whereas if you're rifle hunting you can kind of post up, right? You can put three, four people, three or four groups on that same ridge and just kind of hole up and, and kind of still hunt or you know, scout glass, wait till they come to you.

And so that's been the problem and that's probably the biggest reason why we haven't crossed paths in the west again, is like our group's already so big and then we're having issues on our own getting drawn cuz every state's got a max party size. And so now we had to split up and it's just a disaster.

Dang. Yeah, I I actually, we had a, [00:43:00] another bear encounter, Brian, when we were out on that same trip when we switched to a different, uh, unit and we actually called your buddy that had the bear tag cuz we saw a giant black bear on a kill, um, in the unit we were in. And while we were down there, um, we were watching this bear and then all of a sudden this brown bear comes from like the west, I think, and started working its way towards the, the kill.

And we're like, oh shit, that's a grizzly and this is gonna be a show. And it wasn't a grizzly, it was just a really big cinnamon black bear. But they actually fought for about 20 minutes and we uh, got to sit there the whole time and watch it. So it was pretty cool. But we tried to get your buddy to come out there and shoot it, but he didn't have any interest, so he just wanted to walk around with us in the woods.

Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a wild, that part of Montana's wild. Mm-hmm. That's, it's, we got, we've seen so many bears in that unit. One time we were doing a [00:44:00] calling setup, and this was when all of a sudden I looked through the woods, we're doing this calling setup, everything's quiet, arrow's knocked, and I start seeing something coming through the tree and like, I got a little gap.

And so I'm like, oh, this is, it's gonna happen, right? This is gonna elk's walking right towards me. And so I'm getting ready to draw and I know, I'm like, that's kinda weird. It's like doing like this coming at me and I'm like, elk don't really do that bound like that. Yeah. And all, it's like, it goes up and down, up and down.

All of a sudden it gets to like 40 yards. I realize it's a Blair, a black bear running right at me. And I'm like, oh, shit. And I, I remember dropping my bow and my broadhead went straight into the mud and my bow like bounced once and then tipped over. And I remember like the weirdest things happened in these moments, but I just remember like.

Taking that moment and being like, oh, that was weird. And then I like drew my pistol and my bear spray and about that time the bear stopped and saw me and stood up and then took off. So I don't know if he was coming at me, if you guys were doing a calling setup or if he was just running in my general direction.[00:45:00]

Either way, I need a new underwear, doesn't matter. And then I'm like, all right, this is cool, but I'm ready to be done. I haven't seen anybody in my party in about an hour. So I circle around and try to find them, come up on a dead elk full of cat tracks, right? It looks like a bear track, but no claw. So it's a cat track.

I was like, oh shit. Now I'm by myself and there's a bear and a mountain line in here somewhere. So I bu I just start bugling my head off. Like that's king. Kind of our call sign is like if you just bugle an excessive amount, everyone knows there's something wrong. And so we start bugling our heads off.

Finally they bugle. I come up to 'em and there's the two head. The two head aliens in our group are hunched over a lot going, look at how cool that looks like that's a grizzly track. Cuz there was like a grizzly track. And then the claws were far enough out where you could draw a line in between the paws and the claws.

And that's how you tell it's grizzly versus a black bear. And they're like, oh, that's pretty neat. That's like fresh. And I'm like, I've had it. There's a black bear, a grizzly bear, and a mountain lion in these woods. Let's leave. [00:46:00] You're just waiting for a wolf pack to howl at that point. Yeah. That would've been the trifecta or the what is that now?

Like a quadruple hat trick. Yeah. Dang dude. Yeah. Mon Montana seems like a pretty wild place. I mean, it doesn't, honestly, it's gotta be. One of the top states as far as grizzly attacks and encounters. Mm-hmm. Well, Wyoming, I would say. Yeah. Wyoming's pretty western. Yeah, I was gonna say, say Wyoming and Montana have to be the, well, the, the, the heart of the grizzlies in that part of the state are coming outta Yellowstone.

That's the, the greater Yellowstone ecosystem is where these bears were. And we were kind of where they brought problem bears out of the park and dropped 'em off is where we were hunting. Oh, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other part of the state where we've also hunted is up by glacier. And it was also just far enough away from glacier where no one really lives, where they take the problem bears out of there glacier and drop 'em off in that unit too.

We just didn't have enough elk hunting to go back there. There wasn't enough elk. We didn't have that much luck. So that's why we went to this other one [00:47:00] where there's more bears, put more elk. Mm-hmm. Dang, dude, I, I didn't even think about that. Like coming across wild grizzlies is one thing, but then to have grizzlies that have become a problem because they get so used to human presence.

That they know like, Hey, if I go here, there's food. If I go here, there's, that sucks man. That's like way worse than just a natural grizzly bear out there. One that associates humans with easy food. Yeah. I mean they don't, I don't think they attack that many people. Like not every grizzly bear goes, oh there's a person dinner, but, well no I'm not, I don't think that they think like a person equals like the person being dinner.

But even if they think that like yeah, hey trash. Yeah. Left by people or just like that association, not I'm gonna eat that person, but if I follow them around I'm gonna get food eventually. Well there's gotta be something that year there was something going on cuz [00:48:00] there's four or five people got mauled all up like the same drainage that we were hunting in like a week or two.

And so like there's not that many people hunting this spot. It's, I, I would imagine Tyler, I don't know, like. Yeah, there's maybe, there was 10 parties archery hunting that week and five of them got mauled. So like our group had a 50 50 chance and it was probably even higher cuz we had 10 guys in our group.

Yeah. And we had elk meet around camp too. We had elk meet from day one. Yeah. We had elk meet from day one. Yeah. Yeah. Elk grizzly was within 300 yards of our elk, like hung up in the tree. There was a ton of people out there this year when we were there. Oh yeah. Like a ton. Yeah. All over the place. It was a lot, lot more people than when we were out there the first time.

What sucked about Kodiak is there weren't enough, there weren't any trees big enough to even waste your time putting Oh, your food in the tree. And so we, we basically just put [00:49:00] our packs up on top of this bush, like away from camp and that was it. But it's like we, we didn't have any mature trees because we were up above tree line.

Where we were on Kodiak, and so it was like once we got, once we got a couple miles back in all the brush, everything was down like waist high and then occasionally you might see a big like six foot tall bush. And so we just threw our stuff in that and wow, if, if a bear came in we would be able to see it with a headli, with a headlamp from our tent.

How scary would've been though if you woke up in the morning and your bag wasn't there anymore? Dude, we thought about it. I mean, we weren't, we weren't more than a couple hundred yards from when we had that sa in two cub encounter and we came up over that hill and I told my wife it. There was just something about this spot that we were walking up to.

I was like, [00:50:00] We need to stop and just look for grizzlies. And she's like, okay, cool. And the whole time we're talking super loud, which is also weird to me. Like I'm hunting or I'm in the area that I'm hunting, but we're basically like singing and yelling to each other the whole way up the mountain. And all of a sudden we stop and as soon as we stop, it couldn't have been five seconds.

I see this giant blonde head and I'm like, oh crap. And it's, it's 40 yards away. And I'm like, Hey Bear. She stands up, two cubs stand up next to her. And I'm not talking like two year old cubs. I'm talking like a couple months old cubs and that I'm just, I'm still to this day, super thankful that she decided to take them over the hill the opposite direction.

But yeah, then we continued to hike up, set up a tiny little like backcountry two-man tent. We both barely fit in and spent the night. Nice little human burrito for that bear. [00:51:00] Oh, oh dude, it would've been, yeah, just pour some, pour some salmon berry jam over the top of us and it'd be a treat. Crazy. But luckily that's the only one we saw on that, on that hunt, we did have two, two bears kick us off of our salmon spot, I think two days before that.

That was a crazy trip, man. I don't, I don't know that I've ever told the full story on the Western rookie. Basically, we get out there, we start salmon fishing, we get kicked off of our spot from salmon, uh, from two bears. They just came down into the river and we had to bounce outta there. My wife left me for dead.

I mean, she was gone. Like, I'm like carrying stuff, like have my pistol drawn and I'm like backing up and she's just bush whacking her way back to the truck. Uh, Then we go out, we had whale coming up, like slapping their tail right next to the boat. As we were fishing, we were fishing for ring cod and uh, halibut and rockfish and [00:52:00] salmon.

And then, uh, the third day that we were there, we get a call from my mother-in-law who is watching our kids, our apartment and our vehicles back in Colorado, that someone had stolen our GMC Yukon. And we're like, well, we're in Alaska. There's not really anything we can do about it. And then that night is when we hiked up to our deer hunting spot and had the grizzly encounter.

And then we woke up the next morning, shot a buck, I mean, first thing in the morning and packed it back out. So it's like every day was just wild vehicles getting stolen, grizzly encounters, whale encounters. And to this day, that was the coolest trip I've ever been on. Did you ever get your Yukon back?

Yeah, that's the part of the story. That's the part you can tell Tyler's now a businessman. He's thinking about assets like, so we got our Yukon back, dude, I need to post a picture [00:53:00] of the guy who stole it. We found the mugshot from the arrest, and uh, his name is James Pearson. They ended up finding the vehicle in Nebraska.

He drove it to Nebraska. They busted him at a gas station. We get the vehicle back and they're like, oh, hey, you know, it's back in town. Um, you guys can come and get your belongings out of it. So we, we show up and I'm like, dude, there's no telling what's in this. So we bought like the big like rubber gloves that come up to your elbows, you know, And we get there and there is every type of adult content you could imagine.

In the back of it. There are toys back there, there's flavored loo back there. So like Dirty Mike and the boys straight up had a suit kitchen in the back of our Yukon. Um, there was like, uh, uh, steel backpack, leaf blower, uh, a skateboard, a backpack that had 13 wallets in it. [00:54:00] Um, there were DVDs and magazines and I mean, like, it was a mess.

And after, and, and this is all with our two, like our kids, two car seats in the Oh my God. And I'm just like, what is happening? And so we start like going through stuff to make sure that we don't have any valuables in it. I'm like, I don't know if they had like a, uh, extra house key or something in there.

And so we're like going through stuff a couple minutes into it. I've got a headache, I feel like I'm gonna throw up. Same thing with my wife, and we're like, dude, he did something, some type of drug in here. And so they sent it off to have like advanced drug testing done on it. He had done meth and ecstasy in it, and so then they just totaled the whole thing.

Oh my God. Got us new car seats. Luckily, my, my truck, my motor had blown up on the truck like months earlier and we rolled that truck loan into the Yukon loan, and so when they wiped out or when they totaled the Yukon, it wiped out everything I owed on the truck still. [00:55:00] Oh, oh, great. It was actually kind of a big favor, but Yeah.

Right. I'll have to send you guys a picture of him, man. He's awesome. He's got Sandra tattooed on his neck, so I'd like to meet Sandra at some point also. No regrets across his chest. No regrets. Yikes. I'll, I'll, that's great. Stick to the grizzly bears. That's a wild story. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I mean, I think I'd rather deal with grizzly bears than meth heads.

That's true. Me and my brother are pretty cynical, but. We always joke like he's, he used to be faster than me. It's probably changing a little bit now since he's getting older and I'm still not old. But he always used to joke like, I don't have to be faster than the bear. I just gotta be faster than you Brian.

And then I'd just respond with the sprays for the bear. The pistols to put one through your kneecap. Yeah. Yeah. And then the next year he started bringing pistols too. So yeah. Took your advice both, both of you guys are just gonna slowly get eaten cuz you both shot each other at the same time. Yeah. Oh, kind of weird.

Today [00:56:00] out on the range we found two elk hunters both balled by a bear. But the weird part is their IDs said they had the same last name but they both had bullet holes in their kneecaps. Dude, I saw that. I saw that fake news article and I like kind of bit on it at first. Uh, and it was that same type of deal where it was a guy survives grizzly bear attack with just a 22.

His buddy was shot in the kneecap and was not so lucky. And I'm like, It sucks so bad. Got you. Good. Got me. Apparently. I'm really gullible these days. Yeah, apparently. Yeah. We gotta, well we should get a grizzly bear encounter story on the podcast. We should find someone we need to, I'm all about Cool. I I've got a question for you guys.

Along the line of grizzly bear encounters, if you knew you would survive without any crazy life altering injury, but like you would get attacked, I mean, for sure attacked like claw across the chest or something, but it's [00:57:00] non-lethal. It's not gonna affect the way you navigate your life day to day. Would you do it a hundred percent?

I've, I've said that before. I've said that exact same thing before. So what's funny is like elk cunning keeps me in just good enough shape that I can outrun my brother and not for like grizzly bears. I'm just saying like, when you're out of a big group of people, you don't have to eat the guy in the best shape.

You just can't be in the worst shape. And then you're gonna have be middle of the pack. You have a great hunt. And so I'm like young enough that I don't really have to be in that great of shape and I can still keep up with the rest of the guys. But if I got that bear tack and I had like a big scar across my chest, then I would feel like I have to be in like 24 7, 365 beach body.

So I could just take my shirt off all the time and for sure. And then people, bro, nobody would ever believe you. Well that's soon they got the scar. I know, but they'd never believe what the scar's from. Oh, come on. What do you wanna stand there? Let someone cut me three times with a knife. I think it's pretty obvious when you get a claw scar that it's a claw scar.

I, I guess I've never seen it gri. Most of the grizzly [00:58:00] attacks that I've seen, the guy's missing, like his ear, half his face, his beard's like hanging there by a thread. Uh, it seems like most of the injuries are to the skull when bears attack. Well, if you gave me the power to. That I survive and that I didn't get mortally wounded or like critically injured.

Like why don't I get to control where my cool badass scar is? No, that's cool. Yeah, no, I get that. I, I'm the same way, man. Dude, I'd take one across the face if it meant I wasn't gonna lose an eye or something. I'd do three. Like down the side of your head. Yeah, that'd be pretty badass with your red beard. I might look kind of funny cuz I've got a giant noggin anyways, but like dude with a big old beard and then grizzly claw marks down the skull.

I've always thought they look badass in movies. It'd be, this one would be really hard to like get the scar but not have life altering injuries to have it where it like crosses your eye. But then I, I still want my eye. Yeah, now you're talking. And then if you could get like super lucky to like, defend yourself with some type of hand.[00:59:00]

Not like a pistol, but like, yeah, like a knife. Just like, like he hit me as I like stabbed him in the neck and then there's like a picture to like game and fish took a picture of it and they're like, we have no one at the office is gonna believe this story. Like if we write this report up, you're going to jail.

Cuz they're gonna think you're lying. Yeah. You sever, you just sever the spinal column with your like just one quick knife stab as it goes for your gut. I've thought about it enough to know if, if like a bear was on top of me and then I shoot it or my brother shoots it or something and it just like dies on top of me, I would have my brother take a picture before he got it off.

Oh yeah. I would, I would, I would agree with you. That's, and he'd be, if you've met my brother, he'd be, he is like, I don't care. So you're ain't gonna hurt me any dude. Here's the deal. As much as I think like, dude, it'd be crazy to kill, like if one attack to you and you somehow kill it with a knife. There's no chance, man.

Not a grizzly. Something else maybe, but a grizzly [01:00:00] like the I've, I've heard the stories from my buddies, unsuccessful pig killing stories when they go to slaughter a pig and like having to try to finish it off with a knife and just how horrific it was and how long it took to think like, okay, that's a 250 pound pig, now multiply that by five or four or three or whatever, and now you've got a giant grizzly with much thicker fur.

There's no way you're gonna do it with a knife. Well, if you d I think you could mortally wound one and it would bleed out, but it wouldn't, it wouldn't save you. Like they ain't gonna stop from that. No. Unless they just ran off at that point. But you gotta think, dude, they're fighting other grizzlies man with Yeah, with cloths the size of the knife and I mean, they're getting a hold of each other and tearing into each other and.

Yeah, I would definitely want something other than a knife. I would like to shoot it last second point, blank gets a good slash It doesn't knock the [01:01:00] pistol outta your hand. That's, our wives would dig those scars, wouldn't they? No. My wife would not want me to ever hunt again. Yeah. My wife doesn't really like the fact that I hunt gr the country.

No, I was gonna say, I don't think she'd be fond of it. She, in fact, she told me she wasn't gonna do it again. So huge. Is it because you got your Yukon stolen or because of the brown bear? He's just released Toyota on this Yukon dude. Yukon. No, we gave my mother-in-law a really hard time about that, but it ended up being a huge blessing to us.

So, yeah, I, I keep thinking about writing James Pearson in prison and saying, Hey, thanks, man. Like you, you saved me from like nine grand in debt. Just don't be stupid enough to put your return address on it. No, definitely not all of a sudden. My truck's gone also. No, I think, yeah, grizzly, grizzly country sounds fun.

It's just that extra element, uh, added to the hunt. [01:02:00] Hopefully I'm up there at some point chasing after animals. But, uh, yeah. If yet to hunt Wyoming or Montana, I feel like we ha, we've joked enough about this grizzly. If an, if anyone is like a newbie to western hunting and they're like, oh, it doesn't sound like grizzlies are that big of a deal.

We're definitely being sarcastic on a lot of things. Bring pepper spray the pepper sprays by far your best bet. If you wanna bring a pistol, bring a pistol, but draw the pepper spray first. Yeah, and just mentally prepare yourself for going into grizzly country. Cause it can be pretty intimidating if you don't.

Yeah, look up bear safety practices. Definitely be smart about it guys. Yeah, I don't want someone to write it. I would love to have mail. You can email us anytime and we'll read it live. But I would hate for the first time someone emails in is like, I went and hunted that unit you and Tyler were talking about.

It sounded fun and my brother got mauled. Thanks a lot guys. It's not even gonna be, it's not even gonna be mail. It's gonna be on like Apple Podcast and it's gonna be a one star review of the podcast. Like I took [01:03:00] their advice and got mauled by a grizzly. Yeah, please don't do that. Hey, last thing I, I know we're just over an hour now, but yeah, along those same lines, I did see a documentary about mountain lion attacks in like California, I think it was.

And one of the stories was this guy, he was in his sixties or seventies, ran the same route on the same country road every single day. And he would stop and sit on this rock and like rehydrate partway through his run. And one day he gets there and I hope somebody finds this video or like has seen it also and remembers what show it was on.

He stops, sits down and he can just sense something was watching him. He turns as this mountain lion is like about to attack him, it bites him on the shoulder. He realizes that he has a Swiss army knife in his pocket, pulls it out as he is being attacked by the mountain lion and just starts stabbing like this.

Ends up [01:04:00] taking out the carotid or the jugular or whatever on this mountain line, and it dies within yards of him. He survives. They get a picture of the two different blood spots from him and from the mountain line where it had died. And that was the O. The whole thing was a reenactment except it showed the actual picture.

On scene when the first responders showed up. And so that, I was like, that guy's got the coolest story, especially being in his sixties or seventies. Like you literally took out a mountain line with a Swiss army knife. Did you hear about, that's a story. Did you hear about the teacher that, was it Colorado that killed the mountain line with a rock?

Uh, the one guy kneeled on one or like stepped on its throat until it died. It might have been the same guy. It attacked him. He was a teacher and, um, killed it with a rock and then like hit it with a rock. And then I think he stepped on its throat until it died. Oh yeah. I probably butchering it. Hopefully somebody will, someone listenings probably knows the story.

They'll say, no, dude, that's, that was, that was in the town that we lived in, in Colorado and it was [01:05:00] on Horse Tooth Mountain. Yeah. Which we used to hike up all the time. So like we had hiked on that trail that it happened on. Well then the details came out, right? And it's like, oh, it was this like teacher that's pretty fit.

And then there was like a 40 pound like anorexic male. Mountain lion and everyone's like, ah, well I could take a 40 pound cat. And then my brother who's like, he's so smart and has like the wittiest comebacks, he's like, why don't you go try to give your house cat a bath? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then tell me if you wanna fight a 40 pound mountain lion.

Well, and that was the thing, like Joe Rogan talked about him, the meat eater crew talked about him, and everyone was like, dude, this guy's the craziest. And he, he had, he did an interview and his face was all cut up and like, just, I mean, he had scabs everywhere. And they're like, dude, this guy's insane. Like, he killed a wild animal without even a tool.

Like he, I think they ended up saying that what caused the animal to die was that he stepped on its neck until it [01:06:00] suffocated. And, and everyone's like, dude, this guy's the most badass human being on the planet. And then it was like, oh, it turns out the cat was 80 pounds. And I was like, I didn't think it was that bad.

80 pounds, dude. No joke. It was like 40 pounds. Well, no, it, they kept. Oh, that the story is coming on yet, like 80. It was like a full grown mountain lion. Then it was an 80 pounder, then it was 60, then it was 40, and I think the last, the last, uh, report was that the cat was between 35 and 45 pounds. And I, that same exact thought about the house cat.

I was like, dude, I don't like little five pound house cats. I can't imagine one that's eight times that size. No chance. Like, yeah. I would rather fight any dog than any cat. I agree. Anyways, wow, that was a, that was a fun podcast from you guys. Yeah, it was me to just all, how we all would like to not, [01:07:00] we would all like to be attacked, but not fatally by a grizzly bear.

Somebody's gonna catch us all elk hunting together, like we're gonna finally plot at elk hunting together. And then we're all gonna come home with like the exact same scar. And some of them be like, I think I heard a podcast about this about two years ago. We're all walking around with like raw meat and our cargo.

No, I meant just, we're just each like taking our broadheads on each other like, oh no, gimme, gimme like a little squirrely one. Yeah, we all post it. We all three got slashed by the same grizzly bear. It'd be cool. Brian's like trying to cut it down his eyeball. That'd be great. Yeah. No, I'm not doing any fake scars.

It better be the real deal or nothing. Let, let's plan an elk hunt though. That'd be fun. I'll give you a unit, Dan, if you want to go get that real scar. If you want to. Yeah. Just wait until all the cows die and then go hunt right in the middle of the cow carcasses. Um, there you go. [01:08:00] Well man, guys, thanks for hopping on.

Thanks for chatting. And uh, yeah, I'm gonna have to come up there now since you guys are besties. I'll just come, let's hang out with you guys. We'll do some archery shooting out at the, uh, out at the ground. Yeah. Yeah. Good game. We're gonna try to get, uh, summer get together going when they get up and into the season.

Everything's launched. We'll do another podcast, uh, two Bucks podcast out live, and I'm sure you'll guys will throw some type of a party, Tyler. Yeah, we're gonna do a, uh, kind of a relaunch here at some point, so Yeah, I can let you know when that is. Mm-hmm. And then Dan, you just tell us when you're ready to hunt with the two grizzly guys and we'll, We'll take you wherever.

I don't know if I want that title yet. I don't think I've earned it. I think a lot of people have suffered a lot worse than I have to earn that title. I agree. Yeah. And I'll, I'll wait till you guys actually have Elk success with your bows out in Montana. Hey, now before I come out. Hey, now, hey, we've both packed elk out on our treatments.

Yeah. Hey, listen, it's a team effort. [01:09:00] Yep. I'm sure there's a lot of guys who would be happy to call me up to come pack out elk for them, but, uh, I wanna shoot one, I wanna shoot one with my bow. Well, the problem with bow hunting elk is you almost need a better hunter than you to be the caller. Yeah. Like the, the caller's got more work than the hunter.

Oh, yeah. Nothing. My, my issue, I'm the only one that calls in our group before, so I'm the, I'm the odd man out. I, I always get stuck calling, so, but I like it. But dang, I, yeah, I guess I didn't really think about. Dude, I've never tried to call an elk at all. Uh, I actually, I take that back. I tried to call one just with my voice in Utah because I had one bugling, right, right outside our camp.

Let me, lemme turn down my volume feedback. And why don't you, why don't you let that rip Dan? No way. Dude, my throat has been so sore. Like, I want to hear your, I want to hear your bugle without a read. I do too. Oh, dude. We'll do it. We'll do it in person at some point when we're out in Colorado. When we're out in [01:10:00] Colorado, I'll bring a read and you, you bring your tongue and your tonsils and we'll see who wins.

Dude, I, no joke. There might even be video evidence of this because Lina had her camera with, and I was calling back and forth with this bull. It was the oldest raciest bull I've ever heard in my life and I was calling back and forth with it, just using my voice. And by the end of it I could barely talk because I was trying to go so high pitch and it, my throat, my throat was sore for probably four days after that.

But it actually worked. Not saying that I'd call one in because it sounded like every time he responded, he was getting farther away. But the fact that he responded at all, I was pretty proud of. Oh, hey. There you go. Yeah, that's pretty cool. All right, well that's a good note to end this one on. Yeah, thanks for, uh, thanks for joining us guys.

Thanks guys.[01:11:00]

‍