Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Stories! As hunters and outdoors people that seems to be a common thing we all have lots of. Join your amateur guide and host on this channel Ken as he gets tales from guys and gals. Chasing that trophy buck for years to an entertaining morning on the duck pond, comedian ones, to interesting that's what you are going to hear. Also along with some general hunting discussions from time to time but making sure to leave political talks out of it. Don't take this too serious as we sure don't! If you enjoy this at all or find it fun to listen to, we really appreciate if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for. checking us out! We are also on fb as Hunts on outfitting, and instagram. We are on YouTube as Hunts on outfitting podcast.
Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Bear Camp Therapy: No Sirens, Just Silence
In the remote wilderness of New Brunswick, where cell signals disappear and vehicle sounds fade to nothing, a unique mental health initiative for first responders is taking root. This episode introduces us to Thin Line Hunts, a non-profit program created by paramedic and volunteer firefighter Brodie Garnett that offers completely free guided bear hunting experiences to those who serve on the front lines of emergency response.
Far from typical outfitting operations, Thin Line Hunts represents something deeper—a recognition that those who respond to life's most traumatic moments need spaces to decompress and reset. Through candid conversation with Brody and guide Caleb Jones, we discover how this program transports first responders to a pristine wilderness setting where the healing happens organically. No formal therapy sessions, just authentic connections forged over campfires, fishing excursions that yielded hundreds of catches, and the shared anticipation of bears approaching baited sites.
The stories from their inaugural season paint a vivid picture of the experience—from Brody McLaughlin harvesting his first bear within hours of his first hunt, to the humorous "Click Bait" incident when a misfiring rifle led to a memorable nickname for one hunting site. Throughout the challenges of cold, rain, and occasional equipment failures, what emerges is the profound impact of giving these everyday heroes permission to step away from their responsibilities and reconnect with themselves in nature.
Whether you're interested in hunting, mental health initiatives for first responders, or simply appreciate stories of people finding innovative ways to help others, this episode offers a window into how wilderness experiences can transform lives. Follow Thin Line Hunts on Facebook or Instagram to support their mission or apply for future hunts dedicated to those who run toward danger while the rest of us run away.
Check us out on Facebook and instagram Hunts On Outfitting, and also our YouTube page Hunts On Outfitting Podcast. Tell your hunting buddies about the podcast if you like it, Thanks!
this is hunts on outfitting podcast. I'm your host and rookie guide, kanmar. I love everything hunting the outdoors and all things associated with it, from stories to howos. You'll find it here. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, you picked a great podcast episode to listen to.
Speaker 1:As always, we had an awesome talk discussing a new, upcoming and so far successful non-profit program, thin Line Hunts, started by Brody Garnett, a paramedic and volunteer firefighter. Brody takes first responders out for a completely free and fully guided bear hunt, all inclusive, in the middle of nowhere. He talks about what he started and why then we get into the actual hunts. Thin line hunts check them out on facebook and instagram. Um, it's, uh, it's a great cause. We're gonna you guys gonna hear about it. Brody had about five different sponsors lined up to help for this and all never actually came through, except one inukshuk dog food. I kid you not. I'm not just saying that, because they are a proud supporter of this podcast and help to keep my dogs happy and healthy. They gave Brody a package to give away which someone could win by liking and sharing his page. This company gives back and it definitely means a lot. So great product, but also caring and down-to-earth people over there Before we get into it. If you want to connect with me, to be on the podcast, suggest someone for it or just connect, you can, on Facebook Hunts on Outfitting, or by email huntsonoutfitting at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:No matter where you are in the world, this podcast episode is dedicated to all the men and women first responders, whether paid or volunteer. We appreciate you. So you know, brody, I've got Brody and Caleb in with me. Brody, you've started thin line hunts. People need to walk the line to get on the thin line. No, but we're going to get to know you. We're going to get to know Caleb. Caleb, let's get to know you first.
Speaker 2:My name's Caleb Jones. I'm a guide here in New Brunswick. I also do carpentry work and, yeah, I got sucked into this with Brody.
Speaker 1:Okay, so Brody is possibly your soon-to-be brother-in-law. You're dating a sister. Have you proposed yet?
Speaker 2:No, no, I have not.
Speaker 1:This is a great place to do it on air. Yeah, get her to listen. Like hey, did you listen to the podcast recently? Because, because I proposed to you on there.
Speaker 3:Call her up right now. Get her on the line, Ken Get it live.
Speaker 1:You're turning a little red, Caleb, Not too bad, but you know you could be Brody's brother-in-law, but anyways, you helped Brody like a brother-in-law. So you guys did some guiding this year. But before we get into that, Brody, you're a volunteer firefighter.
Speaker 3:You have been for a while yeah, I've been a volunteer uh my local fire department in havelock for 12 years now 12 years yep, and I've been a career paramedic for uh over seven years now. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:You know, brody, you deal with a lot of stuff, a lot of crazy stuff, and I know you laugh about it. That's your way of dealing with it. But I mean, some of the stuff you deal with is crazy. First of all, you deal with caleb who's?
Speaker 3:soon to be possible. That would bother anybody anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you deal with it well. I find you know you're able to sit across the room from him, but no, but you do deal with a lot, brody, in your line of work, and thank you for you know, especially always. You know the volunteer firemen and women. If you guys are listening, you know it's good. You guys are taking time out of your life to go deal with shit. That's not great. No one's ever calling you guys because like hey, we're having a party, there's some extra hot dog, come on out. You know it's bad, right, and you know it's it's really good. You guys going out and doing that and volunteering your time. And then the paramedic stuff.
Speaker 3:That's uh, that's rough yeah, well, it has its moments good times, bad times but it's all in the fun of it, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, and keep people alive, keep people going sometimes yeah, yeah, yeah um so no, it's good, it's a good, it's a good career well, we appreciate you doing that and we appreciate all the first responders uh, doing what you guys do. So you know, brody, how did you get started and what made you start the volunteer fire department?
Speaker 3:uh, my grandfather was on the fire department for 50 years and just kind of followed in the footsteps there and joined up when I could, started when I was 16 and took it from there, Yep.
Speaker 1:So did you plan on being a paramedic before or join the fire department? You're like. You know what. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was still in high school, obviously, when I joined the fire department, you're like, you know what?
Speaker 3:I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was still in high school, obviously, when I joined the fire department and then I kind of thought I wanted to go into nursing a little bit. And then I just mixed both worlds and found out it's neither of them. So it kind of fell into my lap a little bit.
Speaker 1:You get to drive and nurse, sort of. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:It just kind of happened just applied to it and got in and started doing it. Then it kind of manifested. But it's uh, it's not what you think it's going to be. When you get, when you think of what it's going to be well, what did you have in mind?
Speaker 1:well, you think it's going to be lights going crazy all day, every day, and I'm glad it's not that but also sometimes it is it can be, it can have its moments, for sure.
Speaker 1:But yeah, uh, I know I've met you on the job before, uh, to help someone else and that was a we won't get into that, but that's a weird situation, but yet you handled it. You could tell you've done it before you know you, you put on a good uh stern look, and yes, I don't know what the hell to think or do, but you did and that I'm glad you guys came out the whole goal is to fake it till you make it right, and that's if you can fake it, well, you can make it is that what you take into, uh, your carpentry trade, caleb?
Speaker 3:absolutely oh yeah, that bridge is good, you know.
Speaker 1:yeah, one bridge collapses and there's a little bit of water cooler. Talk about maybe Caleb's not completely qualified. Yep, okay, so that's why you got into it. You've been doing the paramedic thing, brody. You've got thin line hunts. People have got to walk the line to get on the thin line. Where'd you come up with the name?
Speaker 3:How'd you come up with the name?
Speaker 2:and and. Well, let's. How'd you come up with the name thin line hunt? Uh, chat gpt really helped me out there. We're gonna have a big show, yeah it was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like uh put in a prompt for names and it gave me about 300 different names I could pick from and I was like you know, it's pretty good. I got scour on the internet to see if anybody had used it. Nobody had, so I picked it up.
Speaker 1:That's honestly how you came up with it. Chat, gpt, holy yeah.
Speaker 3:Honestly, anything you ever see that I post is probably chat GPT. I can't think for myself.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm at work all the time and I just throw it in chat GPT, and it figures it out for me.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 3:No, I'm just not everything but, there's. There's a lot of stuff I do because mother's day cards. Well, I I usually like I'll write something up and I'll throw it in chat GPT and I'll be like make this not so stupid, and then it'll spit out something a little bit smarter. And then you just got to tweak it a bit to make it not look like a robot.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how to use that stuff. Yeah, but you're a techie guy, so that's how you came up with the name.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ChatGPT.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's pretty good.
Speaker 3:It's a good. I think it's a good name.
Speaker 1:I don't know, sounds good yeah.
Speaker 2:Very professional. I like it. Yeah, thin Line Hunts.
Speaker 1:Caleb approved. So what is Thin Line Hunts, and why did so? You're doing this thing, or I'll let you tell you. You're doing this thing for first responders.
Speaker 3:So what it is is Thin Line Hunts. It's a program that I run. It's for first responders and it offers free guided hunts.
Speaker 1:It's a non-profit.
Speaker 3:It's a non-profit Free hunts, first responders, bear hunts, spring, and it's a mental health program. So it's to. It's to promote the outdoors. Uh, promote bear hunting, Camaraderie, Camaraderie, get people out, uh, diffuse a little bit in the woods. Uh, you don't always realize you need it till you're out there. When you've come back you realize that you need it, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Not when you not before you go like no, I'm good, I'm good and it's just a little like you know. Yeah but it's a, it's a big, it's a it's a mental health program is what it is yeah, so it's completely non-profit and I know that at first you didn't have anyone taking the hunts, because they're completely free and everyone's like what's the catch?
Speaker 1:well, I mean, you know when things sound too good to be true, right exactly but this really was because people like you know, because remember you saying when you put the hunts out there, people like so what's, what's the catch? I'm like nothing. You just owe me for a year. You owe me a favor for the yeah, I own you forever, yeah I I just your first board. That's it, that's not there's no catch, not much yeah, but um, but people were wondering because you said that it's completely free.
Speaker 3:Well, if you look at what's offered through the week, I mean it's a three-day hunt, right, so it's not a full week. But if you look at what's offered, you could pay $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 US for that same hunt in New Brunswick. So to offer that to somebody for free just because they work is kind of an odd thing. Right for somebody to do, but it's something that might be needed for somebody right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I mean I even find you know I'm a truck driver and delivering fuel and stuff. When you're in town and all that in the cities, you're all what's around you A bunch of people, a bunch of vehicles, a bunch of concrete. A bunch of people, a bunch of vehicles, a bunch of concrete, a bunch of pavement right, and then where you're set up in the woods, when you're way out there, it's you get, you know, lost in a good way you know, you just get to reconnect and you kind of reset because your, our bodies aren't made to be around so many electronics and people and this and that all the time like that it's nice to get out there and you know, you just gotta quiet your
Speaker 1:mind. Well, yeah, like I've got a farm and you know sometimes it's tiring stopping in I got it, my parents stopping in there, after you know, 14, 16 hour day work, but then it kind of helps reset me because I'm not around all this pavement and concrete and this and that, just out there at the farm with the cows and everything. I'll tell you, I saw my life flash before my eyes though. Today I was trying to tag a new calf. It's a pure Angus. The mom wasn't having it, but you know it still set me to a good place after. I'm like, holy shit, I made it, no, but you know it's nice, it helps. People don't realize.
Speaker 3:That's called adrenaline, Ken. We know about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you guys, you first responders deal with adrenaline do you?
Speaker 3:It has its moments, for sure.
Speaker 1:I almost had to call you first responders because you know those cows. You're like, ah, she's bluffing. She wasn't bluffing, she was going to come at me, but yeah, like just being out there, people like you said they might not realize that they need it until they're out there in the woods and all that and just like refreshing. It's different.
Speaker 3:It's quiet. I mean we couldn't hear a vehicle the whole week. We were back there Like you couldn't hear anything.
Speaker 1:No, so New Brunswick's fairly big, not massive Like you can get into some provinces or states, but you guys were a ways back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it's just over an hour on an ATV and you're already in the middle of nowhere when you get on the atv yeah, so there's not a whole lot going on back there.
Speaker 1:It's cool.
Speaker 3:That's part of the experience it's nature for sure, like it's not the rolling fields that we're used to, or you know, it's just you're back in the woods and you're going through the thickest woods and then you come in and it's opened up to a full lake, and it's just well, yeah, something else you guys can't they're.
Speaker 1:They're quite surprised that there's a lake back in the middle of yeah it's thick woods right, so it's pretty cool I think we're jumping the gun a little bit. I want you to describe the place yeah, yeah but yeah, just about you doing this.
Speaker 1:So what? What made you decide to do it? You're like, you know what? I'm a paramedic and a volunteer firefighter. I see other guys in this line of work. I'd like to be able to offer for them to. You guys deal with a lot of stressful situations. I know you joke about it, brody, you do, but I know you deal with a lot of a lot of bad shit sometimes, right yeah, it has, it has its time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what we call dark grass dark humor is is yes I know you joke about, I know it's's dark humor like kind of throws me off sometimes. But then I'm like, no, it's kind of funny, but it's a little fucked.
Speaker 3:Well, you gotta know your crowd too, right. Like it's not, for it's not a wedding talk, it's not. It has its times.
Speaker 1:But it's so, you thought. So what what you're sitting at? Home with it, you're relaxing right, it's my thing.
Speaker 3:I go out, it gets all the stress off right. Just to go sit in the woods and bear hunting is kind of my thing. I love it, like to get out in the spring winter's over spring's starting. The woods are changing. You can get outside again. It's starting to heat up outside. The bugs get miserable. It's fun, but not a lot of people can do it again. It's starting to heat up outside. The bugs get miserable.
Speaker 1:It's fun, um but not a lot of people can do it. Thermosel it's fun with a thermosel, for sure but not a lot of people can do.
Speaker 3:It takes a lot of commitment and you it. It costs money too, right like the bait is expensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's every day too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, and yeah, like you got to keep the bears fed and it's hard to do, but it's quite simple at the same time. Like you can trick a bear if you feed them, right, yeah, but you got to know what you're doing a little bit.
Speaker 1:It's easy, but it's not like easy. You know you have to. You've got to put in the time. The biggest thing is consistency, right.
Speaker 3:And and it's hard for a lot of you know, especially shift workers, to be able to do that. So to offer something, because a lot, there's a lot, everybody that comes out as a hunter, right. So, um, but not everybody's bear hunted, because it's hard, it's hard to do you know it's hard to find the time and the commitment. You know and and it's kind of frowned upon, right, like people used to think that you don't hunt bears because they're just old dump bears, right, and it's just not the case.
Speaker 1:There's dumps everywhere. There used to be dumps everywhere. Not the case anymore. Right, they're good eating though. Yeah Now, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's just a different ball game now. Yeah, but yeah, that was the main thing. If I could could, if I could take somebody out and and show them that you know this has been good for me and it could do well for somebody else as well. Yeah, that's. The whole point of the program is to is to get somebody out and show them how relaxing it can be and hopefully get somebody hooked on bear hunting and wait, you guys are out there.
Speaker 1:There's no sirens going, there's no one panicking or all that, unless caleb, you know, slips up splitting wood.
Speaker 3:But um no, there was there's nothing we're all paramedics, we got them it's just you and the bears, really yeah, but it's, that's what you wanted.
Speaker 1:You wanted to bring other people that were in that line of work, just the uh, the peace and stuff, and just kind of reset a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's it that's all it is, which is really important.
Speaker 1:people don't think about that enough and, like you said, they don't realize they need it until they go out there and do it. And then they're like I really needed this yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, you get out there and like it's a three-day hunt, right, so you're only there for a short time, but when you leave, the theory is it only took three days for you to go from you know 100 to 50, right, and you can be a lot more functional after three days of being in the woods. And that's the whole point of the program. And we got some really good feedback from the hunters.
Speaker 1:So this is 100%. I mean, not only do you volunteer your time with the fire department, you volunteered your time with this, it's 100% free, it's non-profit.
Speaker 3:No, I actually didn't make a penny off this I lost a few over this.
Speaker 1:A few thousand pennies, a couple, yeah, no, I don't.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't want my wife to listen, but there was, I spent some money. But you know what?
Speaker 1:It's the first year of doing it right, but you're building something If you build it up and show that it's good, and then you know. Hopefully it doesn't cost you that much down the road and I think it's needed as well, you know, and it's really great Well.
Speaker 3:I had uh 25 people apply for it. Like three weeks before it happened I didn't have any applicants for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, put the word out like last minute yeah At first and then yeah. I remember you were a little worried. Like I've got no one, Like no one wants a free hunt, Like no one believes it's a free hunt, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then so I partnered with Veteran Hunters this year so I heard them on the podcast and met up with Sean, new Brunswick rep, here for Sean.
Speaker 1:McRae.
Speaker 3:Sean McRae. We have the same goals Seem like the right thing. They do veterans and first responders, so it seemed like the best program to be in. So there's two guys in New Brunswick already that are doing bear hunts and I said, well, why don't we split it up? They did the veterans, I took the first responders, so all my hunts were offered to the veteran hunters this year. So pretty easy application you go on, you become a member of the veteran hunters. So there is a little bit of a cost. I think it was like 60 bucks to become a member.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:But you get some perks to that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Being part of the veteran hunters, right, and you can apply to all their hunts, yeah, and that's across Canada. So there's a lot of opportunity. And then I offered my hunts through them and any of their applicants, but they didn't get any. I was like kind of getting antsy. I'm like, oh, you know, like I'm wondering who I'm going to take out.
Speaker 3:We're getting close and they're like, oh, we don't have any. I'm like, oh well, I'm going to change that. So I put a post up saying like, hey, I need some people, I need some first responders. And I got a bunch of people messaged me. I had 25, 30 people message me. So I was like, well, I'm just going to go down the list, because we're three weeks out and it's going to be hard to get somebody to actually commit to coming in.
Speaker 3:So I went down the list, started one. I said hey, you were the first to message. I'm like do you want to come? And I just went until I had four guys that said they could come, said all right, fly through the veteran hunters. And the veteran hunters, of course they have insurance and things that I didn't have, that they could offer me as well. So that was another reason that it was beneficial.
Speaker 3:It was beneficial for me to to be with them, because the less I have to worry about, plus the application process of all the paperwork and stuff.
Speaker 1:Also didn't have to worry about that which is nice when you're a week out from a hunt and you got a lot to worry about Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that was good. Um, I didn't hear any complaints of you know. You know, of having to go through the veteran hunters. Everybody thought it was great. They got some good Vortex stuff from them. Good sponsor for the veteran hunters.
Speaker 1:Oh, they did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everybody got a hat and a t-shirt.
Speaker 1:Okay, it was pretty nice stuff. Right, shout out Vortex. Yeah, no, it's good, so yeah that was pretty much how it how it so then. So then you got the applicants and all that. You had the bear baits set up and everything. So tell me about the area you were set up in. And then Caleb comes into the picture. You're possible if he popped the question, brother-in-law? Yeah well, brody, come to me, you have your guide license yeah, I do and Brody.
Speaker 2:He come to me in spring wanting to know how to hunt bears.
Speaker 1:So I was like well, well, I guess you need somebody in bear camp that knows how to hunt bears.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's exactly the conversation. So, kail, looks like I'm gonna call a friend, right, yeah, um, and we also had a good camp cook in there too. We should, uh, give a little shout out logan elliott.
Speaker 1:Yeah, logan logan elliott, thanks for helping us use a blackstone, you know.
Speaker 3:so you use a chainsaw? Yeah, no, he's good.
Speaker 1:I realized when.
Speaker 3:I was getting into this like I didn't want to do it for one person.
Speaker 1:It's not worth it to go through it for one person?
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, so I'm like I'm going to need some help. You can't do everything, so you called on a lot of people. It's hard to find people to take a week off work and I don't blame them.
Speaker 1:But I can appreciate.
Speaker 3:Caleb and Logan for doing it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're cutting away from you. I did plan on coming out. I said I don't know if I can help much, but I planned on popping out just seeing how everything's going and all that.
Speaker 3:Well, you know you're taking out two guys at a time, right? So it do two guys for another three days. So you need another guide, right? So I knew Caleb guided and I knew I could probably talk to him. He was pretty damn good at it too. I would say, yeah, no-transcript. You come into that camp and you got the blackstone going with some deer meat on it.
Speaker 1:It is something else to pull up and get a nice hot plate, and Logan's serious about it too, because I can tell by the pictures he was serious about cooking a damn good meal for everybody.
Speaker 3:He was like double fisting cracking eggs. He was pretty good. I'll give him that. Yeah, the guy can cook.
Speaker 1:I was excited he couldn't make it out tonight. His head would swell up so much we wouldn't be able to get him out of the house.
Speaker 3:I think he's home looking up recipes right now for next year. No, it was good, I knew when he said he was going to come out and cook the week and being camp, I knew we were in for something big help, yep so it was great. Yeah, thanks, logan for coming out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really uh makes the experience, that's for sure and did you help make the experience to caleb with guiding? I think so yeah, okay yeah, did you have any feedback from then, like it was a great experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually uh, but we went in. We went in the day before and we cut out five kilometers of trail to their campsite. Yeah, it was a lot of work. It was pretty brutal.
Speaker 3:Really. Yeah, it was a lot, but I mean that's part of being back there, right.
Speaker 1:Well, all right, so tell me, walk me through, where were you guys staying? Tell me.
Speaker 3:So you drive about as far pavement as you can get. Look at a map of New Brunsunswick. Put a pin in the middle and that's where we were. Yeah, it's pretty inaccessible and that's why it was so fun to get in there and into land that's so inaccessible yeah like people are like, oh, I'd like to go. Like it looked nice where you were.
Speaker 3:I'm like good luck getting there right I'll tell you how to get there, but you ain't gonna get there. Yeah, no, it was good, uh, to be that like rural and in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1:I want to say rural, I say remote, Remote, yeah, I guess remote Rural country. You know there's some roads there. You guys were remote.
Speaker 3:Well, thankfully we have a good company that in this province that cuts a lot of roads for us, so there are roads to get in there.
Speaker 1:Shout out Irving.
Speaker 3:So it's, it's. You know there are roads but they're rough Like when you're that far back. It hasn't been used by log trucks in years and years.
Speaker 1:Right, so they're grown up a bit, to say the least.
Speaker 3:But I mean, once you get back there, it's nice Could you guys get back there with your pickup trucks? No, if you didn't like your pickup truck? You definitely could.
Speaker 1:If you had a little Ford Ranger and you didn't care at all about it the next day, you could get there.
Speaker 2:We lugged some shit back there.
Speaker 1:We did.
Speaker 2:We had a lot of stuff. We had a Jaguar.
Speaker 3:Two full trailers.
Speaker 2:I mean, we had a generator.
Speaker 3:We're back there in the woods and I'll talk about the camp here. Like you know, we're back there in the woods and I'll talk about the camp here. But, like I thought I had a sponsor for like a, like an outfitter, like canvas wall tent with a nice stove. It fell through last minute and you know that's. You know we won't get into too much, but I think something happened on their end and it just is what it is. It didn't work out, so we ran it out of like big 12-man regular tents which was fine.
Speaker 3:I didn't hear much complaints through the week on that.
Speaker 2:They're a bit drafty.
Speaker 3:The weather was terrible, oh there's a complaint it was super windy, it was cold, it was not bear hunting weather. What you'd expect?
Speaker 1:The next week was beautiful, right? That's the thing you guys, I that that week it was. Yeah, like you said, there's a lot of rain, there's a lot of wind.
Speaker 2:It was shit like I saw a lot of outfitters really bad across the province complaining about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know from their lodges I mean that's just.
Speaker 3:There's not much you can do about that. You plan a week a year in advance you say this is a week you're not going to be able to pick the weather right. Yeah, so you just deal with it. But, um, to set up the camp like we weren't roughing it we had cots, we had a generator, we had some stuff back there.
Speaker 1:You were still in. I had a deep freeze back there, did you?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I mean, when you're that far back, you can't just go throw a bear up in a cooler somewhere, right?
Speaker 2:You can't have ice.
Speaker 3:So I was like you got to have something, so I had a deep freeze.
Speaker 1:We, like you, gotta have something. So I had a, I had a deep freeze, we ran it with a generator and it worked great. Like we cut up, we cut up, uh, one of the bears back there, mark's bear, mark bear, yeah, okay, so, um, so you guys are way back in the middle of nowhere, but yeah, it's in canaan.
Speaker 3:Canaan, new brunswick is where it is, yeah so southeastern yeah, brunswick. Yeah, yeah, it's, I don't know, it's kind of everywhere and nowhere. Yeah, southern new brunswick, yeah, yeah, it's kind of, I don't know, it's kind of everywhere and nowhere. Yeah, southern New Brunswick, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you guys had that. So I mean, tell me a bit about so you guys were in the back of the middle of nowhere, so that added to the whole experience. And then tell me about, you know, the people that came Broly shout out Great guy, take him rabbit hunting. He's awesome, he is a full-time firefighter.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank him for his service.
Speaker 3:So John, actually the first two days I had John come in. He came in last second, so John actually couldn't come in until Tuesday, went out and picked him up because I messaged him on the Sunday. I had a guy drop out the week before and I was scrambling to find it because I'm already set up for four guys and I'm not going to start messaging 30 people. I've just started messaging the people who had said they might be able to find some time. I went in, I messaged John. I'm like, hey, you want to come out. He's like, yeah, what do you need help with?
Speaker 1:I'm like, no, you want might come out and help out through the week, and I think he wants to in the future.
Speaker 3:So, it'll be good to have John back there. Everybody loved John, so John came out. He came out for two days.
Speaker 1:He wanted to help, though, and you're like no, no, you qualify for actually going on the free hunt.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm like no, come hunt, come be in camp and hunt, and he did for two days so it was great he was off, so it was good timing. And uh, brody came out as well. Uh, brody mclaughlin, he's a paramedic in monkton. So okay, yeah, it was good to have him out um. He'd never hunted anything bigger than a bird before, so oh really it was pretty cool, like um like you're talking like partridge partridge yep that was pretty well, all he had hunted, I got a pretty big, pretty big trophy male partridge.
Speaker 1:last year he went out, he got his license.
Speaker 3:He was all pumped. He was messaging me every five minutes. It was pretty cool to see somebody, like when you're that amped up about something to see somebody else pick up that passion, he's a perfect guy to bring out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then the next two days. So the way we run it is Monday, tuesday, wednesday, because you can't hunt on Sundays Three days of hunting, and then we swap hunters on Thursday morning and then they do Thursday, friday, saturday, and then we head out on Sunday. So on Thursday we had Lucas come in and Mark come in. Lucas is a firefighter in I'm going to mess this up in Truro, truro.
Speaker 1:Nova Scotia, Canada and.
Speaker 3:Mark is a fire captain in Amherst, Nova Scotia. So we had two in Canada, so two out of province guys, which was new to me. Well, guiding is new to me, I should say, first off, but Especially guiding out of province guys, but not to your brother-in-law, caleb, where you're like he's got this. Well, he's the pro guide here. I couldn't have done anything without him. But no, it was good, unfortunately, I mean I wish we could have changed the weather and had a bit more action.
Speaker 3:It was bad weather, but I mean we got two bears out of it. We had a good week. I didn't hear any complaints from anybody.
Speaker 2:We caught a pile of fish.
Speaker 1:We did catch a pile of fish. Okay, were staying back in the middle of nowhere, but you were on a lake and the fishing, from what I hear, was pretty good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the weather was so bad that we didn't even bother going out on the water at all. We had a canoe with a trolling motor. We could get out there, but the weather wouldn't break right.
Speaker 1:And there was like wakes on the water Wednesday, was it yeah, Wednesday.
Speaker 3:Wednesday the weather kind of broke a bit. The sun was shining for like three minutes.
Speaker 1:That three minutes. That old trolling motor, we hooked it up to the battery and just.
Speaker 3:Caleb and John went out and they we hammered them. They went to the far side of the lake. The wind was cut off on that side. It was just as smooth over there and they got into some fish. The pickerel.
Speaker 1:they were catching Big pickerel.
Speaker 3:Big pickerel they were catching.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like big pickerel. Yeah it was. They were really, really nice fish. You never think that like way out in the middle of nowhere and you've got all these fish. And what you guys are saying logan was saying he caught like what? 80, I think.
Speaker 3:I think over the like we caught probably 200 fish and like and we only had like from when good days of weather yeah, wow, to fish. So if we had a good full week of weather, like I don't know how many, you could get 500?. Yeah, you get bored of it, you get bored.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, yeah. So it's nice to be back there, because we only do evening hunts, right yeah. So you're in camp all day.
Speaker 3:You can hang out and you know you can talk about. We can only talk about so much, but and able to be able to go out and fish as part of the package. Right like, you fish in the mornings, you relax, and then you, you go out for the afternoon and I think that's how a lot of bear hunters try to set up is they try to have?
Speaker 1:a fishing included.
Speaker 2:Because, yeah, like you're right, the mornings are not doing much, which is what we did with the, with the terrible weather we had but, it's all you could do Right and you know what, like it didn't seem like the day drug on either when you just sat in camp. I thought it went by pretty quick.
Speaker 3:We had a, we had some, really good guys come into camp, so you know there's some pretty good.
Speaker 1:You like. It's not so hard to sit around right, so it helps.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know deck of cards, got any fours, go fish. You know that kind of thing right. So, yeah, the lake was really good. Um, I kind of questioned whether or not next year we'd be going back to the same location, just because it is such a struggle to get in there. And then, after talking to the guys, after you know, I wanted a little bit of feedback from what they thought and and they all said that's the way to do it.
Speaker 1:You're so remote, you're so removed from everything else, and that's what helps reset you.
Speaker 3:You don't see any other people once you go back there. It's just the guys you go in with the stuff you bring.
Speaker 1:You don't hear any other people. You don't hear anything.
Speaker 3:You don't hear. There's no roads other than the trail that obviously nobody took, because it took us eight hours to cut out the day before. So yeah, it's really something to be back there and I don't think a lot of people may have think they've been in the middle of nowhere. You know when you're in the middle of nowhere because it's quiet but it's loud.
Speaker 1:You can hear a lot of different things you cannot usually hear. And the sky, though, right Like there's no lights. There's no lights. You can hear a lot of different things you cannot usually hear, and the sky, though, right Like there's no lights. There's no light pollution out there. Yeah, nothing.
Speaker 3:But it was cloudy most of the week.
Speaker 2:We only seen the stars one night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it was a beautiful night when we did. But you can hear the loons all night, like just to be back there and like we saw Some moose were right in camp.
Speaker 1:We saw a ton of bears, there's a lynx. I've never seen a lynx in my life. That was a cool video. Brody has this video of a lynx and it just caught a snowshoe hare. Yeah, it was carrying it out Me and.
Speaker 3:Lucas we were going out one night and we were going out to sit for an evening sit. We're driving up and I'm like, oh, look at that, there's a bobcat up there on the trail. It was probably 200 yards up and it wasn't moving off too fast and got the binoculars out. I'm like, oh, that's a links. Like I've never seen a links before and he had neither. So, uh, it was.
Speaker 3:yeah, I was carrying that rabbit, you're not going to see stuff like that, unless you're that far back because there's just not a huge population.
Speaker 2:I can't remember because I remember looking at the video.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can check that out on the Facebook page, Instagram, anywhere else you want to find that Because I thought I saw, yeah, it's been a little while now, but I thought it was a bobcat at first, but yeah, it was a lynx.
Speaker 3:That's really cool. It was cool.
Speaker 1:I've never seen one before, and Especially, it had a dead rabbit just dangling in its mouth.
Speaker 3:It wasn't a huge cat and it was a huge rabbit, so it was kind of struggling to drag it off. But it wasn't in a rush to get away.
Speaker 1:But I mean yeah, because it's not used to people it would have probably never seen a bike back that far.
Speaker 3:No, anyways, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but that's not what we were there for.
Speaker 1:But it's just part of the package of being that far back. You were there for that, though we were there for the experience. Yes, and that was part of it.
Speaker 3:It's less of let's go shoot a 900-pound black bear, let's get in the record book. And more about let's go out and hunt for a week.
Speaker 1:But let's relax and unwind and reset.
Speaker 3:It's a whole thing, right. It's about being in reset. It's a whole thing, right. It's about being in camp. It's about fishing, it's about the food. It's a whole thing. It's not about going in and shooting a bear and taking a picture, right. Yeah, it's fun to do that, mind you, but that's not what it's all about, right?
Speaker 2:And putting some meat in the freezer for the boys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we can get into that a little bit too later on. I don't know what you want to talk about next. Ken, if you've got a little checklist you want to go down before we get into the stories.
Speaker 1:It's not really a checklist, it's more of a bullet point Okay yeah. But you guys had a great time. You were out in the middle of nowhere and, like you said, just being able to unwind and everything and just reset. And, like you said, people don't realize how much they needed it, especially in your line of work, where it's high stress and more so than they think, and they kind of become disengaged from not disengaged from reality, but they just don't realize.
Speaker 3:You can get a little jaded. Yeah, okay, jaded, and you don't notice, you just don't realize you can get a little jaded, yeah, okay jaded, and you don't notice and you know everybody talks about you got to be careful with your mental health. You got to take it serious.
Speaker 1:And nobody ever does anything about it, right? You just go through the motion of it, like yeah, yeah, I got it. And you just go through the motion of going to work and everything and just doing it you don't realize like ah, maybe I'm losing touch a little bit. You make work your life, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean every first responder out there. Career, I mean volunteer. You don't really get to choose when you go, you just go whenever it happens. But for career suckers, for overtime, like if they could get an ounce of overtime, they're going right. So it's hard to get time off to like do anything like this.
Speaker 1:Well, it's hard to get time off to like do anything like this. So well, yeah, and it's nice that you're able to offer that. And the word I'm not, I'm looking for it's not disengaged, it's um this, this something associated. Yeah, kind of like that. You know, like you just don't, you don't realize, uh, how caught up you are in your work until you actually get a break from it. Yeah, you know. So it's great that you're offering that. So you know, it's the whole package deal. Everyone's out there. Let's talk about the hunting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd love to. So obviously the weather for bear hunting. You like nice weather. If you want to be out in the weather, so do the bears.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And the weak weather that we had.
Speaker 2:I did not want. It was nice for white-tailed deer, like, yeah, if we wrote deer hunting?
Speaker 3:it would have been great. Maybe even moose hunting, yeah, but not for bears, it was cold. Um, it was windy at the lake, but really it wasn't as windy once you got into the thicker woods. But it was cold and wet and, um, not the weather you want for bears. Oh, hold on. Desensitized. Desensitized, that's the word I was looking for. That's a good word, ken.
Speaker 1:You guys deal with all this stuff that people don't realize. All right, thanks, kim, desensitized to some of this stuff that you know. You just need a little bit of reset to it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1:All right, so I just wanted to throw that out there, that I remembered the word Thanks for the clap, caleb. All right, so the weather, the weather was shit.
Speaker 3:The weather was terrible. Okay yeah, there's not much you can do about it, and I, you know, try to warn the guys right Like look, it's not looking good, but we're doing it anyways, so come prepared, yep.
Speaker 1:Dress for the weather.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was a little worried because I had two baits that were hit. I ran four baits for this right Four hunters, four baits. It's kind of a risk because what if you got one that's dead?
Speaker 1:And a week before the hunt I had two baits that hadn't been hit. Yet there's some guides listening to this like man he's nuts.
Speaker 3:I know it is crazy, it's insane and of course you're stressing I run my own, like my bait's, like, oh, like an hour and a half from camp, you got to run the road a little bit. Caleb's like we can run them on my bait. It's two and a half hours away from the camp and we're like we don't want to do this, but we want to get somebody on a bear.
Speaker 1:So we're willing to do it. So you're saying like Caleb's idea was somewhat dumb.
Speaker 3:It was dumb, but not as dumb as sitting on a bait with no bears. So a week or a week and a half before, I had no bear action on two of my cameras. I'm like I don't know what I'm going to do, and you know I'm stressing because I'm trying to make this a good experience for people, right when they come in. You know you go bear hunting and you don't see a bear. What's that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But week before we go in that Sunday, I'm like we'll just go in, we'll check the baits. They had all been hit. Didn't pull the cart on two of the baits, I'm just like it doesn't matter. There's bears here like, yeah, me and caleb actually went in and we saw a bear. It was just sleeping by the bait. We kind of jumped it a little bit, it didn't bother me. It's like mid morning yeah, yeah it was probably 11 o'clock in the morning it was sleeping there it was just snoozing just give her a boot.
Speaker 3:You know, know obviously been fairly comfortable being there, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, you're in some thick woods back there, so it's not like they're too, too nervous. But, um, yeah, so four baits, four hunters, it's, it's a risk for sure. Um, but pretty much every guy that came in, uh, that came in, they got to sit on their own bait. So it was good Brought a first night. Monday night I only had one hunter, because John only came in Tuesday, so Brody had camp to himself. He got to pick his bait. He went and picked his bait and well, I kind of urged him like hey, I think this would be a good bait because you know, I had some good bear action and he hadn't seen a bear before and he was pretty pumped, so really yeah, so never seen one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was pretty cool. I mean, you know, I got a nice bear this year. I think it's a nice bear with my bow yeah, it was yeah thanks, brody. It's nice boar and uh, but you know, I've been sitting out there since waiting for like even another one, because we get two tags yeah, but it is cool just sitting there and like just watching them come in.
Speaker 3:It is neat. It is Just to watch bears is cool.
Speaker 1:It is yeah.
Speaker 3:So I brought Brody out and you know we're sitting. I ran it all in ground blinds. We're sitting in the ground blind and we sat there probably two hours, almost three, and he sees a bear and he's, he's like there, it is it, it is cool and you don't like, you just get amped up right, because you don't hear them at all.
Speaker 3:You'll never hear them, they're ghosts I mean you might hear them, but it's very rare. And uh, it came in and it it walked around the bait to the left of us, behind us, and it just walked off and he's like wondering if it's going to come back. I'm like it'll come back. Like don't worry, it's early, right, it's only six o'clock. We could probably hunt till I don't know nine o'clock at that time of year At least.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it was cloudy overcast hour later bear came right back, went right into the bait. It waited an hour, though it was about an hour, yeah, so I don't know if it went off to get a drink or what happened.
Speaker 1:You guys was like circled around.
Speaker 3:You never know it's a bear it's going to do what they want to do. Um, just let them do it. And you know, in the ground lines, you know I was hoping our scent would be a little more well covered, because we're back there for a week bunch, a bunch of stinky men back there, right? So, there's not much you can do for your scent, but you smell like a campfire or cat piss what?
Speaker 2:A little backstory there. Yeah, it's kind of an inside joke.
Speaker 3:Maybe somebody's feet stank a little bit much in a tent there.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was Caleb.
Speaker 3:It wasn't Caleb, it may have been the cook, I don't know. Throw him under the bus, here he's not wearing a pair of dumb mops? For 90 days straight. So anyways, uh, the bear came into the bait and cookie rape feet barely right down. Special sauce yeah, I don't want any sauce from him did you put onions in here, my eyes are watering.
Speaker 3:No, it just uh ringed up my socks so an hour after brody saw that first bear, it came back in from the left side and it walked into the bait and it laid down eating and we could see its head bobbing up and down and, um, it must have sat there for, I don't know, probably 10 minutes. We were, you know, getting antsy right, you just want to get it done. I don't know what happened. It got a scent, it spooked a little bit, but it stood up and it stood behind the barrel and it had its head up behind the barrel and it stood there for about five minutes with its head just showing and it almost got to the point where you're like you can hit that thing in the head from here but you know you don't want to do that, so maybe some people do.
Speaker 1:but that's not how I enjoy bear hunting anyways.
Speaker 3:But anyways, he had the gun ready to go and that bear took like maybe four steps out and it was kind of quartering away and he took a shot and I've never seen a bear slump like that, just right straight down on the ground.
Speaker 1:That's the video you showed me, right.
Speaker 3:I have a video of the whole thing. So I videoed Brody's whole hunt and I don't have it ready yet, but what kind of gun? It was a 30-06.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that's a, that's a bear whacker, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:And it did its job. I mean it dropped, it took three big deep breaths just dying and then that was it. Brody's shaking like a leaf Fell out of the tree stand. And that's exactly what I wanted for somebody, right yeah, to have that excitement. I was shaking, you'll probably. I'll post the video sometime, but the camera's gonna be a little shaky because, like just his excitement, I was excited right yeah, and if I were to go out and shoot?
Speaker 3:a bear like that like I probably wouldn't shake that much, but seeing him do it like I was pretty pumped for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was pretty.
Speaker 3:He's pretty amped up after the hunt. We, you know, got the bear and the bike and go out, get it in, we got it and everything and he goes. Oh, that was like the longest seven hours of my life, I'm like. That was like three and a half hours like we were. That was not a long bear hunt. That is not how this goes. Yeah, so because usually if you're going to shoot a bear, it'll be in the last hour, last light, right like it's late, the witching out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, yeah and uh, no, he was. I think he was wet and cold. I don't blame him, I was pretty miserable too. But we got the bear back in camp and had a nice hot meal and hung it up for the night. It was nice and cold. Meat was just just as cold as could be in the morning. It was like hanging a deer in your shed in November. It was just great. Oh yeah, yeah he. I bet he got some really nice meat out of that. So anyways, uh, brody didn't want to stay the rest of the rest of the days. He's pretty cold, miserable, so we went out picked john up rain brought john in um.
Speaker 3:What happened the next night? Caleb, did you come out with?
Speaker 2:me and john that next night.
Speaker 3:What happened then?
Speaker 2:That night there we went out to what we call the Beaver Bait. How did?
Speaker 1:you get that name.
Speaker 2:Because it's by Beaver Pond. By Beaver Pond, the bait that Brody shot his at was the North Bait.
Speaker 3:That has now been renamed as the Click Bait, and we'll get into that story in a bit.
Speaker 1:Alright, okay, I'm excited. Alright, guys, good bathroom break. Okay, so Tuesday night, let's kick it off, caleb master guide let's go.
Speaker 2:Yep. Tuesday night we were at the beaver bait, jonathan Brody and I, and Brody was filming supposed to be. Yeah, I was, and I don't know what time. How long were we there? We were probably there for like three hours. We had sat for quite a while. Yeah, we were there quite a while it was getting there, it was probably 8 o'clock when the bears come in. Well, john was the one that spotted them. Brody and I were both sleeping Quite the guides.
Speaker 3:You know you do have to.
Speaker 2:He's like there's a bear coming in. Me and Brody both got up. It was a second year cub coming in, first the other one come in. Mom never showed herself. She worked her way around, tried to circle around, get her wind and we were able to track the cubs, track and mom as she worked her way around to us and she come over and she sniffed our ground blind right beside where Brody was sitting. Brody was yeah, that's pretty good, Painted his pants a little bit.
Speaker 3:You could hear it breathing.
Speaker 1:Like one more step. I'm punching her in the nose.
Speaker 3:It's a piece of fabric between me and this bear. Right, we don't know how big this bear is. It could have been a 100-pound bear. It could have been a 300-pound bear. I have no idea. Probably a 100-pound bear.
Speaker 1:How big of a bear are you willing to wrestle? I guess, like what, give me a weight.
Speaker 3:Like a three-day-old cub.
Speaker 2:I was pushing Brody down.
Speaker 3:I was definitely the first to go.
Speaker 1:It was right by me how big would you be? I'm thinking, I mean, I'm a small guy myself, but I was like you know what? 120?. I'd give him a run for the money 120-pound bear?
Speaker 2:No, I don't think so.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking maybe my max may be like a 70.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's probably 70-pound bear.
Speaker 1:I know I'm getting a little cocky there, You're right. Probably 50, honestly, Actually, I probably think I'd get thrown around by a first-year cub. But 70. Yeah, 70-pound yeah.
Speaker 3:I think I I was running regardless. I had a 100-pound sow. It false charged me at like seven yards and I didn't want to fight that. I'll tell you that. No, no, not a bit yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we had the sow sneak around. She sniffed her blind. She made some sort of woofing noise. She woofed at her.
Speaker 1:Was that scary?
Speaker 2:No, no, not at all. She made like a woof. At her cubs.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah yeah, she was nervous. She knew we were there. She was about 3 centimeters from my leg, so she probably smelled us.
Speaker 1:Was she woofed, though did it scare you?
Speaker 2:It wasn't loud, it wasn't aggressive.
Speaker 3:It was just like a little noise she wanted her cubs to get the hell out of there.
Speaker 2:So that was Tuesday night, that was our hunt.
Speaker 3:That's pretty cool. We didn't see anything else. Black bears aren't aggressive. I've only ever been scared of that one bear that charged me because she was young with cubs, Famous last words right.
Speaker 1:Oh no, they're a very curious natured animal, they're not grizzlies, but people do get killed by them, but they're not normally overly aggressive.
Speaker 2:I think you've got to put yourself in a situation where you shouldn't be kind of the wrong place at the wrong time kind of deal to get yourself into something any suggestions?
Speaker 3:no I mean, when I go out baiting, I don't, I don't bring a weapon, just go out and bait. They let you come in, they feed them and then you leave and they come back.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, they know they're not going to get fed. Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 3:Maybe, well, I mean probably, some bears do know that's the hand that feeds me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't bite it.
Speaker 2:I've been baiting bears before and you walk in and they spook off and they go 80 yards and lay down and watch you bait.
Speaker 3:Yeah well that bear that we went in. She probably hadn't seen us before. Definitely because the bait hadn't been hit and she probably hadn't seen us before definitely because the bait hadn't been hit and she just stood there and watched us. We set the ground blind up and she watched us do it.
Speaker 1:So she wasn't scared.
Speaker 3:She just walked off. Anyways, that was the second night, that was pretty good. That was pretty cool, so John got to see some bears, right, yep. Wednesday yeah what happened Wednesday? Wednesday, that was the fish day. John went out, caught a pile of fish, had a good time. We went out and sat uh, I don't remember what bait we sat at that night.
Speaker 2:I wasn't there. So, yeah, why? Um, I was busy at camp.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was just me and John that went out that night.
Speaker 2:We didn't anything um, but john wasn't too disappointed about it. He only had two days. He was happy to come out. He knows john's a great guy right. So hunting it is hunting, right.
Speaker 3:There's nothing you can do about the weather was subpar, even though that was the best day weather we had. But, um, yeah, that was it for john. John left that next morning brought in two new guys we hadn't really met before, so no, uh, no, I didn't know.
Speaker 1:You kind of knew, just through this, right, I knew john.
Speaker 3:I worked with john and I actually worked with john back when we worked at cabela's together. That's where we first met. So that was a day ago yeah, um, so me and john have been buddies for quite a while, so that worked out good, but so the the other guys had committee.
Speaker 1:You didn't really know them.
Speaker 3:I I knew brody from work Like I worked with him before and he's a good guy, and the only way I knew Lucas and Mark was from messaging them over through the page.
Speaker 1:That was it.
Speaker 3:So I didn't know them from a hole in the wall.
Speaker 1:really. I'm just going to hit record here, no.
Speaker 3:So two great guys, I mean Lucas and Mark, are really great guys. I don't have much to say about them other than you know. You try to get some good people in camp and you hope they're not crazy by the time they get back there. And we lucked out with all the guys.
Speaker 1:Hope the PTSD isn't too strong.
Speaker 3:You know, it's funny that you say that there is a concern about it, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It wasn't meant to necessarily be a joke. No, you know we can laugh and joke about it, right and blow it off, but you know there there can be a concern. Yeah, for that. Um, thankfully, like firefighters typically don't have any like like firearm concerns typically right like so. No, it was good more.
Speaker 1:But like I'll tend to fire, I'll tell you it's kind of big, yeah, kind of big, and I it's you big and I it's you know I talk about it as a mental health program.
Speaker 3:I don't shove it down your throat right, like I don't need to bring you in and sit you down and say we're going to study. You know the effects of PTSD on first responders.
Speaker 1:Because you are in that line of work. So it's relatable for you and they could trust you when you're just like I've been there because you literally have been, but when you are in camp, do you guys? Am I prying too much?
Speaker 3:Do you talk about it? There's nothing formal, right. I don't go in there and be like tell me the worst thing you've ever seen. Like you know, you get talking. I did this.
Speaker 3:Oh, I've done this, and then you know you just roll in a conversation and just having those conversations with people that have been there and experienced that with you. That's where you're going to find your growth and your healing right. I'm not going to bring you in and sit you down with a textbook and be like you know. We're going to learn about PTSD.
Speaker 1:Before we go bear hunting, I want to hear what kind of shit you've been. That's not what it's about right.
Speaker 3:I can bring you back in the woods and we'll go hunting and it'll all pour out and we'll talk about it, and when you leave, you're gonna feel better. That's, that's the goal of it, right? It's a mental health program with no formal mental health anything to it, right?
Speaker 1:do you think that does help a lot, though? Just people just talking about it oh, for sure right getting it out and and, like I said, I mean when they're saying is that you're? Doing it alone. They know you've done it. Yeah, they're not just talking to you. Know me, fireman truck driver, they're talking to you. You, you're a paramedic, you've been a volunteer firefighter for you know the best thing that can happen.
Speaker 3:When you're having a bad day, is somebody come tell you they've had a bad day before too, right you know everybody, everybody deals with the same thing. We're not all doing it alone we don't talk about it, right as much as we should, because you know, as you put up this big guard, that you're the big bad guy. Right?
Speaker 1:nothing phases you right yeah, but everybody deals the same thing. Casually shoot the shit, but yeah, it comes natural and and I don't prod.
Speaker 3:If you don't want to talk about it, we don't talk about it. If you do, we talk and we listen. Right, that's it.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:That's good. Back to the bear hunting.
Speaker 1:Right Back to the good stuff. Well, this is all part of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thursday, thursday. What happened Thursday, caleb? Yeah, so Mark and we went out. We were heading to the cut bait. It's the furthest bait from camp. It's 20K, so it's a good little jaunt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not bad.
Speaker 2:We started the night out on a pretty high note Hold on.
Speaker 1:It's 20 kilometers for American friends listening. How many miles.
Speaker 3:If they go on chat GPT they can convert. That I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I'm terrible at that. I think it's like what 11, 12 miles.
Speaker 3:How many inches is that?
Speaker 2:So, me and Mark, we were going to the cut bait and we started off on a pretty high note. We got 10 kilometers away from camp, realized we forgot chairs to sit in the ground blind, so it wasn't going to be a comfortable night.
Speaker 1:Did you turn around? No, no, no, it's too far we were getting in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was 10 kilometers, but it's a slow 10 kilometers.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:It's a 45-minute drive In New. Brunswick. We judge distance by time. It's a 45-minute drive, yeah.
Speaker 2:So and we were like I don't know, we were kind of late leaving to the first night that they were there, anyways. So, yeah, I was like we're not turning back, we're going to make do with what we got and we're going to do what we have to do.
Speaker 1:So you see this when I have my hand, you know what that's a good guide.
Speaker 3:That's why I brought him back there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you brought him back.
Speaker 3:You've got to make those decisions right? Are we turning around and we're going to get an hour of hunting out of?
Speaker 1:this or are we going to those great decisions? Could have remembered to bring the chairs, that's true.
Speaker 3:But listen to the story.
Speaker 1:You've got to get into it. You've got to hear the rest of the story.
Speaker 2:Maybe, and I don't know, maybe it was just a part of my tactic, or maybe it wasn't.
Speaker 1:I don't know. We'll be the judge of that.
Speaker 2:We get back there and this is the same bait that Brody and I walked in on, that bear sleeping. And we got back there and sure enough, I was like mark, is that? I was looking through my binoculars, is that a bear? Yeah, it's a bear and it's like it's a pine thicket and you could see through the underbrush go to ways. Yeah, and we got in there and we're we're trying to get a shot. But she was facing like straight on and then we were working our way in and then she didn't really give us a shot. So I was like, well, no, we can't really, we don't really have a shot. I don't really like taking frontals or nothing like that. We want to make sure we make a good ethical kill on her. We're gonna shoot her. So she ended up walking like straight away from us and she wasn't spooked or anything like that. And I said, mark, why don't we just? We'll just set up. There's a couple of trees right beside the ground, blind. We had we moved some brush around to give us a little bit more cover. So why don't we just we just lean against a couple trees out here and we'll see what happens?
Speaker 2:We waited probably about an hour and we heard a branch on a tree from like a low-lying branch, that was dead snap. And you know, you know there's a. There's a different sound between just stepping on a stick in the woods and breaking a dry, low-lying branch off a tree. And as we heard that, and we look over and Mark's looking for it and I spot it first and Mark, mark, she's circling downwind of us, she's trying to get downwind and he got she's circling around and he was able to get himself set up in a very awkward position to make this shot and she walks through a shooting lane. He shoots a shot. He was using a 270.
Speaker 1:And I was videoing it. Thank you for that. Telling us the gun, I'm always curious. I don't know the gun, but I know the caliber. Yes, good job.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, he shoots offhanded, I'll give it to him. It was a really awkward shot and the bear ran and we couldn't really tell if it was hurt or not. We watched the video back and I was like, yeah, I don't know. She was walking towards the end. She didn't seem too spooked or too hurt and we looked around for probably an hour and we were looking for blood and we we played the video back and we walked her exact tracks for 100 yards or more, because you could see a long ways through there on the camera and there wasn't a spot of blood no, but you know bears are, they don't bleed much so we got.
Speaker 2:Uh, then after a while we got looking around and we found the tree that she was standing in front of and he, like he shot low, like real low, on the bear. So we figured that bear was fine I don't even know if he grazed it or not and I was like, well, we may as well, we'll go to another bait. I guess, like we still had lots of time. We'd only been, we'd only been I don't know, hunting for two hours. We still had another hour time. We'd only been, we'd only been I don't know, hunting for two hours. We still had another hour and a half left of daylight or whatever. So it's like, well, let's go on to the next spot. So we went back over to the beaver bait, and I don't particularly like guiding people over baits. I know there's like a sow with cubs around, especially on the ground, just because there is a danger factor to it.
Speaker 1:Like you don't want to get between the sow and the cubs, and you're definitely not going to shoot a sow with cubs.
Speaker 3:And the reason he doesn't like guiding is because when you're guiding a non-resident, you're not legally allowed to hunt so legally he can't defend himself against a bear right Because he can't have a gun, so he's relying on Mark, who we already know can't shoot right and Mark's going to like that For those listening, canada you know I've got some great friends in the States where they carry a sidearm on them when they're bear hunting, which makes sense.
Speaker 1:You know that's good. In Canada. Not a chance. Are you allowed to carry anything?
Speaker 3:No, we won't get into that. I guess I have a lot to say, but we won't get into that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we went to the beaver bait and we were only there for don't know, probably, I don't know 30 minutes. We had a bear come in and uh, we were waiting for a good shot and he mark clicked his safety off just to get ready and she made like a hurdle up the tree, like just she was just above the barrel. I was like, well, she's broadside. That's a pretty good shot. If you're comfortable with it, go ahead.
Speaker 1:She was a dry sound. No cubs, right, nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he shot and we could see in the video he smoked her. We give her a few minutes. I don't remember. I don't think we heard a death moan. I don't remember hearing that in the story. I don't remember hearing that in the story.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think we heard a death moan. I'll tell you the death moans. I know what's a good sign. It means, like you nailed it, they're done, but it's a terrible sound.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's terrifying. It's nice when you just drop them at the bait. That was easy.
Speaker 1:It means it's good, like with my bear that I got this year. I hit it right in the aortic valve, cut that off with the bow and it made the death sound. I knew it was dead, I knew it was dying. It went maybe 20 yards but it's not a real wonderful sound. But I mean it's good as a hunter. It's a good sound it's supposed to be, but you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we got boots on the ground and, yeah, we started finding some pretty good blood and, yeah, she probably ran 40 yards and piled up in some alder bushes. She was a beautiful bear.
Speaker 3:So how was it? How nice was it? Great big V? Yeah, it was nice, the white yeah.
Speaker 1:We've got a lot here in the Brentsville. We don't have any color-phased Very, very, very few.
Speaker 3:Brody's bear had it as well.
Speaker 2:We've got the nice white.
Speaker 1:I find that's quite common.
Speaker 2:She had really good meat on her too. It was real clean.
Speaker 3:Really nice bear. How was?
Speaker 1:your hunter.
Speaker 3:Mark was over the top.
Speaker 2:He had shot bears before, but not in New Brunswick.
Speaker 1:In Nova.
Speaker 2:Scotia they don't have a spring season, so it was his first spring bear.
Speaker 3:He was pretty pumped. It was pretty cool for Mark too, because, uh, funny thing, mark uh sells like uh logging equipment. So he was familiar with the area we were in. He had been in those cuts before he had no idea what you say. He's a firefighter he's, he's, he's a firefighter and he sells logging equipment and he sells he's works. For what's he sell? Ponzi, I think okay so he knew.
Speaker 1:He knew that he was familiar with the area. He knew all the area.
Speaker 3:We were, yeah, yeah, cool, so it was pretty cool for him to actually go in there and hunt and play a different role back there right in a different province I'm gonna tell you not a lot of people have been back there so it's pretty cool that he was able.
Speaker 2:That is cool. Yeah, he'll probably be sneaking into the baits next year, so that's all right, he's. He's welcome back so so yeah, we uh, we drug him out to the bike. We gutted him.
Speaker 1:And who mark you drug mark out to the bike? Yeah, and then I had to go back and get the bear.
Speaker 2:No, mark and I drug the bear out to the bike and okay yeah, we got it out there and we threw it on the front of the bike and headed back to camp.
Speaker 2:Nice we actually thought it was pretty good luck that we forgot chairs that night. So because I would say the first bear he shot at, if we had brought chairs we would have been secluded in the ground, blind, and we would have had all the windows up. So that way there was no. No, you know what I mean, there's backdrop or whatever, so that way.
Speaker 2:So we were in the dark and we wouldn't have seen her circling around you kind of seem like you're always in the dark, caleb try to keep him there, yeah, so, yeah, I think if we had brought chairs and we were sitting in the blind, we probably wouldn't have seen that first bear, and I don't know if she would have come into the bait or not.
Speaker 1:It's neat how that happened so yeah, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:And you're kind of lucky, like when you're the first group of hunters that come in. You get to kind of pick what bait you want to go to.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Which is nice because you're first pick, right, and then the second group. Well, nobody else is hunting them after you, so you just get to go to all of them if you want. So for mark to be able to you know, essentially blow to bait for the night, right by shooting and then looking dragon bear nothing, probably not going to see a bear there that night. So for him to be able to go to a different bait and have the opportunity to do that that night, I mean, he would have been pretty bummed if that were the case.
Speaker 3:Right, because you never know what that's going to do to a bait over the next couple days, right, yeah? So yeah, it was pretty good. I was really happy for Greg that he was able to do that. I think Mark's pretty happy too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And yeah, yeah he's pretty stoked. Lucas that night obviously had what bait he could pick right and I had one bait and it had this good-sized bear, like 300-plus pound bear, and it was a little sporadic, it wasn't coming in all the time, it was coming in right at dark.
Speaker 2:What bait were you guys at that night?
Speaker 3:That night we were at the track bait, so that first night. So I gave him the option. I'm like, look, this bear isn't here a lot, but he's a good bear, Like this is going to be like a trophy bear. And he's like you know what, let's, let's go for it, let's try to see first night. He's like we got two more, so in three days isn't a lot of time, right?
Speaker 1:No, it goes by quick.
Speaker 3:It'd be nice to take guys out for a full week, but he just wouldn't be able to take as many guys out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're taking off work and all this time, everything for free yeah. Yeah. So I mean, what you're offering is really good.
Speaker 3:It's pretty good, yeah, and everybody, like I asked, like all the guys after with feedback, I'm like would you like three days, five days, like what would you like? They're like the three days was good yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't have to take to some miserable weather too, yeah because I know you guys it was a terrible week.
Speaker 1:It really was, yeah.
Speaker 3:So the first night we didn't see anything with. Lucas Wrapped it up, came back, mark had his bear. We were like you know, we were throwing Mark in the air, we were cheering for him. It was great, it was his moment.
Speaker 1:Threw him right into, like so happy form.
Speaker 3:Never come back. Next morning, obviously we had a bear in camp, right, so dealt with that a little bit, skinned it out. We went, me and Lucas went out hunting.
Speaker 1:I'm guessing that Logan was a big help with cutting. Yeah he was. Yeah, he's good at that. Yeah, he is.
Speaker 3:And like really clean, like I was looking at Mark's meat. They cut Mark's bear up back there in the woods, just deboned it, and I was looking at the meat Clean, clean Logan is good at that Nice red meat. It was really, really good meat and it was all froze up. I wasn't quite froze by the time Mark left. I don't remember what Mark said he was going to do with it, but he was pretty excited to have a bunch of meat. Oh yeah, especially like bear's good eating right it is.
Speaker 1:It's really good eating.
Speaker 3:So me and Lucas took off that second night for him and they were still cutting the bear up and we got out and we were watching this nice bear come in. It was like probably would have been the biggest bear of the week for sure, probably like 250 pounds give or take, the one that got away, the one that got away. And the bear came in and he saw it first and he could see his head and it was kind of behind the downed tree and it was kind of looking at us and we gave it a bit and it came into the bait. It was really weary, right, it knew something was up, mind you, we went to a different bait, we went to the north bait and that's where Brody shot his bear on Monday.
Speaker 1:We're now— I got a question you guys said something about was it the click bait?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is the story.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right.
Speaker 3:So Lucas has this beautiful .30-30. Lever action Lever action Marlin Gold trigger Marlin 336. It's a nice gun yeah Well this bear finally gives him a shot and the gun just goes click and nothing happened. A lever action's not too quiet when you're cycling it, it's not known for that, not normally. So he's kind of scrambling to eject and get a new bullet in. He's trying to go slow and of course when you go slow it doesn't feed right and it's just Anyways.
Speaker 3:the bear walked off. It didn't spook off, but it walked off. It heard the click of the gun and it walked off. It didn't spook off, but it walked off.
Speaker 1:It heard the click of the gun and it walked off, so it just misfired.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it was like a false primer strike or something. He had a bullet with a strike primer in it that didn't go off. He found it in his pocket after. He's like I don't know if I didn't put one in or if it just was a false strike, but I was videoing the whole thing and my GoPro didn't take a video of it of him. So I'm like I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. We'll say it was a false primer strike. So that's what we're going with. However, in his honor, we renamed the bait the click bait, just for him.
Speaker 1:I like it. Yeah, I made his mark for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know I told him, trying to be a nice guy, don't worry too much, like that bear will be back, and it did. It came back like an hour later but it just got darker and darker and it wouldn't come past. Like where that down tree was, we could see its head. It was like 60 yards away and it was just staring at us. Not much yards away. And it was just staring at us. Not much you could do, just wrapped it up for the night. Next night we went out, um, we didn't see anything that next night either. So that saturday night, saturday night, so last night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a little unfortunate. I was really hoping we could get him a bear, right, especially the guys coming from nova scotia, right? Yeah, it's a lot harder to get them back if they don't get a bear or somebody from New Brunswick. In the fall, I could take them to a cornfield and be like there's a bear, you can get them, but you know, the guys from Nova Scotia.
Speaker 3:It might be a little harder for him to come from Truro to do that Right, and he already came so far out into those woods and you know you really want, but you know it was a little bittersweet. It's the experience. He definitely had a good chance. It just didn't work out for him, for whatever reason. So everything happens for a reason, but he wasn't. He wasn't bitter about it or anything. Lucas is a really good guy. So he was. He was happy to leave, but he he caught a lot of fish too, so he had a really good time fishing and a really good time in camp. So, yep, and a really good time in camp.
Speaker 2:It was great. Four guys and four guys seen bears.
Speaker 3:Everybody saw a bear. That was good. A week before the season. I thought that might be a struggle.
Speaker 1:Well, everyone got a 100% free bear hunt experience.
Speaker 3:That's it. It's hunting, right, and the good thing about the program is you're bringing in guys that already hunt maybe not necessarily bears, but they've hunted before. They know the reality, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yeah, you can do as much as you can, but you're hunting.
Speaker 3:Like there's only so much you can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, guys, that hunt to understand, I mean.
Speaker 3:I run. I ran the baits like a month and a half before as well as I could. I threw everything out of them and they were new baits too. So brand new baits, right. And you know you're in the middle of nowhere. You know the bears, can you. When you're kind of rural, you know where you can set up for bears because you know you set up on the edge of agriculture and woods.
Speaker 3:Well, that's where the bears are going to be when you're back there. They're so far spread. There's a ton of bears back there, but they've got a hundred square kilometers of like travel distance that they can go to you don't know where they're going to be crossing for feed.
Speaker 3:But you know, you strategically pick your places, you're going to set up baits and hope for the best, and I think it worked out. Yeah, we had good bear action, I will say. And it's going to suck for the guys that hunted with us for the week. The week after, beautiful weather, 26 degrees every day, no rain, and the baits were on fire yeah.
Speaker 3:I had so many bears on the baits and they're going to hate to hear that because you know we would have been not saying like, oh, there's the bear. We would have been saying which one are we going to shoot, because there was that many bears on the base.
Speaker 1:Are you thinking about doing it a week later? I mean, no one could predict the weather.
Speaker 3:You can't predict the weather, obviously, like every season's, different. This year was a little bit later for everybody. The bears were up later. I would say it was probably two weeks late. I'd agree with that, yeah it was late, which was like usually like that last week of May, which is what we went out and you're like you're starting to get into the good bear action, into those first couple of days of June, and then, yeah, that's usually when it starts picking up. So I thought, well, why don't we get out that week?
Speaker 3:It seemed like a good week, my schedule wise, so that's the week I picked, but I picked it in August of the year before, so it's not like you can plan what how the winter is going to be and how the bears are going to act Right, so you're just praying it greens up by the time you get out there and there's some leaves, because they got to eat that grass and they got to eat that green stuff.
Speaker 1:Get that plug out yeah.
Speaker 3:And it and it wasn't like two weeks before the season, there was finally some green along the roads back there and, like it, greened up at home in the fields.
Speaker 2:But when you're in the middle of bog.
Speaker 3:There's nothing green but the shoulder of the trail.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it doesn't green up quick yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so it turned out good, though.
Speaker 3:Well, I got to ask. Next year I will be doing it a week later.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was going to ask what. So you're going to do it again next year? Yeah, for sure. You're going to do it a week later, if I can get.
Speaker 3:I might not be able to get the same guys out because I may have ruined them, but if I can find two more guys to be crazy enough to come out for the week, I think Caleb and Logan are committed to next year as well. They had a good time, I think.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 3:It's a week for yourself, Caleb, but you're going to come out next year.
Speaker 2:Yeah it was hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it probably will. You're soon to be brother-in-law. Yeah, he has no choice. Yeah, you're obligated. He's the worst in the family now.
Speaker 3:Exactly we have to have one good guy in the family
Speaker 1:be the first week of june, so so I gotta ask are you doing it? Are americans included? So I am in province, out of province sticking with canadians.
Speaker 3:Okay, I think that's going to be the thing uh easier I just had. I just had so many applicants already like people interested. I'm assuming they'll probably be interested next year, right, yeah and yeah, and it's just like I take out four guys a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just can't.
Speaker 3:I need to know like if it was a week long or two weeks long, I'd take Americans. But to bring a guy in from you know, texas. He's going to travel up to do three days with me and I got to go to the airport and get him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I just I can't be in the woods and picking up guys and arranging that like maybe in the future, if it expands and you know, I don't know what it could grow to, if it grows at all yeah, but for now we'll keep it the way it is and and stick with the canadian the veteran hunters for sure, like it's a, it's a canadian program, right like um, so for them it would have to be.
Speaker 1:Canadians, so people looking to possibly help out or anything, tell us how can they find you, Brody?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you can find me on Facebook. It's the main social platform that I use, so you can look me up. Thinlionhunts. I got a Facebook page. You can message me there. You can follow me there. Keep yourself updated on that page. I'm on Instagram hunts. I got a facebook page. You can message me there. You follow me there. Um, keep yourself updated on that page. I'm on instagram. There's a tiktok just because I wanted to hold the the name.
Speaker 1:If I ever needed a tiktok.
Speaker 3:I posted the links on there. There's a couple little videos and uh, and I've got uh, what else? A youtube. But there's not much on youtube yet. But I am going to post brody's video when I get it all matched together. So I do have a good. I got some really good film of Brody. Well, what I think is good, I'm sure he'll love it, but it's just a memory for him, right.
Speaker 3:It doesn't matter what it looks like, but it'll be something for him to keep and it's pretty cool a little film for Lucas. But if he knew how to load a gun, Shout out. No, he's going to like that. He was really good about it. There's not much he can do about that, right yeah?
Speaker 1:The exact little Brody. We appreciate what you're doing, caleb, we appreciate you helping Brody what he's doing. And Thin Line Hunts. Everybody look him up and if you're looking for any more information that you can't get from there, hit us up. Hunts on Outfitting Podcast. And thanks for coming on, boys.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me, Ken.